Netroots Nation 2020 Update
If you haven't heard yet, this year's big Netroots convention has been moved from Denver to your house. It's a three-day "at-home-aganza" (thank you, pandemic) that starts August 13th—just three weeks from today. Register here.
Virtually everything that makes the convention one of the wonders of the modern world is still scheduled, including blue-ribbon panels, practical training sessions, A-list keynoters (the first batch announced yesterday) and, yes, even Adam B's legendary Pub Quiz. Below the fold we've got an endorphin-tickling list of what we know so far.
Continued...
See? I told you. Here it is...
Netroots Nation 2020: What We Know So Far
★ Over 60 panels and trainings are set to go, on issues like the upcoming elections, criminal justice reform, tackling white supremacy, and innovative solutions to get Eric Trump's head unstuck from the White House dumbwaiter before Joe Biden moves in.
★ 70 percent of this year's speakers are people of color, 70 percent are women, and 30 percent identify as LGBTQ.
★ Some of the keynoters were announced yesterday, and they include Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Stacey Abrams, Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Katie Porter, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Deb Haaland, Rep. Joe Neguse, Rep. Debbie Dingell, and Rep. Ro Khanna.
★ There will be opportunities to collaborate and socialize, including virtual coffee meetups, happy hours, and morning yoga sessions led by MoveOn's Reggie Hubbard. For what it's worth, here in our house the mantra we use most often during yoga is, "Ommmmmmygod what did Trump do now?"
★ We’re working on a pre-convention C&J meetup via Zoom on Wednesday evening, August 12th. Details soon.
★ Yes! There will be daily livestreams of Lizz Winstead's popular Morning News Dump.
★ Adam B's annual Pub Quiz is happening Friday, August 14, at 7pm ET. You can form your own team or join an existing one.
★ Each day, they'll have a Virtual Hallway open, where you can pop in and start video conversations with friends old and new.
★ Everyone who registers will receive a swag box and official NN20 T-shirt.
★ To participate virtually: you’ll use their mobile or desktop app and website (they’ll send you login instructions closer to the event).
★ You can check out the full list of panels here, and also the FAQ page on Virtual NN20 here.
★ To secure your online access to the event just click here and register.
★ You can also follow Netroots Nation on Twitter here and on the evil Facebook here.
★ ← This……..is a star, baby, a star!!!
More updates soon. And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, July 23, 2020
Note: Due to a pre-arranged torrid tryst with the maintenance man in the tool shed that she can't get out of, Karen will be late for her tantrum over masks at the Piggly Wiggly. She regrets the inconvenience and says the other Karens should start without her and she'll catch up. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the SpaceX Dragon crew returns to Earth: 10
Percent chance that total primary turnout among Democratic voters has surpassed 2016 levels despite the pandemic, according to The New York Times: 100%
Percent of Kentucky voters polled by PPP who favor the Democratic plan to allocate $1 trillion to state and local governments to help cover budget shortfalls, versus 21% who favor Mitch McConnell's plan to let them go bankrupt: 65%
Kentuckians' approval/disapproval of McConnell in the same poll: 40% / 48%
Portion of the $30 million the Senate GOP's super PAC raised in June that came from casino grifters Miriam and Sheldon Adelson: $25 million
Minimum number of newsroom jobs that have been lost in the first 6 months of the year, according to Axios: 11,000
Years 'til Comet Neosporin appears again: 6,800
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Comrade Trump's dandy idea—"Soak the rich!" saith the Donald, that l'il lefty—has raised The Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name. To wit, the obscene maldistribution of wealth in this country, also known as the Income Gap.
While Comrade Trump proposes a one-time 14 percent tax on everybody with more than $10 million to his name—thus raising more than enough to pay off the entire national debt in one foul sweep—Brother Bush is marching militantly in the wrong direction. Gov. Dubya wants more tax breaks for the rich. Sigh. Does not get it. […]
Being new to Marxist thought, the Donald has not fully grasped the finer points and wants to eliminate the estate tax himself. The bottom line for Comrade Trump is that his one-shot 14 percent wealth tax on those with more than $10 mil would cost him personally somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 million, but abolishing the estate tax would save him twice that. He may be a tyro leftie, but he's not stupid.
—December 1999
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Breakfast sausages...
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JEERS to President Put-It-Off. By my count, the Trump crime family's impeached patriarch currently occupying the Oval Office has three major self-imposed deadlines looming. Let's take them one by one so we can all adjust the inner calendar in our heads:
Deadline One: Saturday This is Trump's self-imposed deadline for rescheduling the rally in New Hampshire that he canceled because the weather was going to be too beautiful. (It's hard to rile up the cultists with carnage and chaos when skies are blue, the sun is out, and the flowers are blooming.)
Deadline Two: August 2 The deadline by which Trump has promised to sign a “full and complete healthcare plan” into law.
Deadline Three: September 10 We're now one week into the 8-week period during which Trump promised "many exciting things, things that nobody has even contemplated, thought about, thought possible [with] levels of thought that a lot of people believed very strongly we didn't have in this country." So far we have 1) Unleash unidentified Gestapo goons on moms and their children with batons and tear gas in major American cities, 2) Blow kisses at an accused sex trafficker awaiting trial in prison, and 2) Push the American Ambassador to the UK to convince Britain to move the British Open golf tourney to a Trump course.
Those are some tough deadlines. But they don’t call him the hardest working president for nothing. Mainly because they don’t call him the hardest working president at all.
CHEERS to allies in unexpected places. At the moment, Trump's base seems to be holding more or less firm, but there's an unmistakable faction of Republicans who are horrified at how he scooped up all of the party's racist, sexist, anti-democratic dog whistles and traded them in for bullhorns. And now,realizing how awful they look to 75 percent of the country, they've gone into self-preservation mode, taking aim at the red-hatted cult with guns blazing. Along with The Lincoln Project, Republican Voters Against Trump is leading the charge, and in this excellent ad they're siccing God on ‘em:
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The only thing I wish they’d added at the end: “I’m Jesus Christ, and I approved this message.”
CHEERS to defying expectations. Thirty years ago this week, President George Bush—the relatively normal George Bush—announced that David Souter was his pick to replace liberal-leaning justice William Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court:
Bush, who appeared nervous at the outset of the press conference, insisted he had not applied a "litmus test" of how Souter ruled in previous cases.
The president noted that Souter had been considered for a previous Supreme Court opening late in the Reagan administration and added, "I have selected a person who will interpret the Constitution and, in my view, not legislate from the bench."
Souter's progressive leanings took conservatives—and liberals, frankly—by surprise. (I believe their exact words were, "What the F....??!!") But he did exactly what his appointer said he would: rule fairly and un-legislatively. We hope the 80-year-old is enjoying his long and happy retirement in New Hampshire cracking walnuts with his gavel. If anyone's earned it, he has.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to hardly-breaking news. We know this. We know this. We know this. Even the idiots who don't do this know this. But once more, from the top:
If people washed their hands regularly, wore masks, and kept their social distance from each other, these three simple behaviors could stop most all of the Covid-19 pandemic, even without a vaccine or additional treatments, according to a new study. […]
The authors argue that governments should educate the public about how the virus spreads and raise awareness about the crucial roles of self-distancing, handwashing and also mask use in controlling an ongoing epidemic.
It does not differentiate between mandating some of these behaviors or encouraging them.
You know what also might be effective against a viral pandemic? I know this sounds crazy but…maybe politicians putting the safety of the citizens they swore to protect above their reelection ambitions. Stay tuned for rigorous testing of this theory to begin on January 20, 2021.
CHEERS to a good man to have on Lincoln's team. On July 23, 1885, Ulysses S. Grant, the larger-than-life general who helped beat back the Trump crowd's traitorous ancestors by winning the Civil War (even though he fainted at the sight of blood—really) and then went on to spend a rocky, cronies-run-amok eight years in the White House, died in Mount McGregor, N.Y. at 63. Today we appreciate him for this nugget from the book Rating the Presidents:
He kept his own religious values and practice to himself.
In the larger view for the country, he believed in a strict separation of church and state, stating in his seventh annual message to Congress:
"As this will be the last annual message which I shall have the honor of transmitting to Congress before my successor is chosen, I will repeat or recapitulate the questions which I deem of vital importance which may be legislated upon and settled at this session. [...]
Declare church and state forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres; and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation."
Go pay your respects here. But don’t leave him any cigars—they’re what killed him. Perhaps toss up a nice salad.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 23, 2010
CHEERS to inkin' the deal. [Yawn] Another day of the Obama administration, another piece of landmark legislation signed into law. Yesterday the president green-lighted the historic Dodd-Frank bill yesterday, giving the government a little more muscle to deal with Wall Street shenanigans. There was a bit of tension, out of microphone range, just before the signing, however. C&J is really good at lip-reading, though, and we publish this EXCLUSIVE transcript of what went down:
"Hey Chris, I thought we agreed to call it the Frank-Dodd bill."
"No, Barney, we agreed on Dodd-Frank."
"You may have agreed on Dodd-Frank, but I distinctly remember hearing no objections to Frank-Dodd on the floor of the House."
"That's because I work in the Senate, Barney!"
"Frank-Dodd!"
"Dodd-Frank!"
"Frank-Dodd!"
"Frank-Dodd!"
"Dodd-Frank and that's FINAL! Um...wait. What did you just do there?"
But they both got a free pen from the president so everybody's happy. Even Wall Street. That's what scares me.
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And just one more…
CHEERS (via OwossoHarpist) to the dynamic duo…back in action. Keep your eyes open and your ears peeled for word on when this is happening today. Sometime soon our 44th and 46th presidents are having a little socially-distant chit-chat about this and that. And while Trump and Pence look like hapless bank robbers in the masks the hardly ever use, Biden and Obama bring on the badass hero vibe…
You’re supposed to text TOGETHER to 30330 to get notified when the conversation between 44 and 46 goes live. I suggest you do it. It will get you into practice for the moment we all text F*CK YOU TO 45 AT 11pm on November 3rd.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"My faith has been restored. Whatever the situation, we can still count on Bill in Portland Maine to do exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Hallelujah!"
—Atrios
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