From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize an Ally Tuesday: Let’s Flip Another Seat!
Democrats have flipped 36 seats from red to blue in various federal and state elections since Russia installed Cadet Bone Spurs in the White House. Here’s a chance to make it 37.
Last fall, GOP Congressman Tim Murphy had to give up his House seat in southwest Pennsylvania because he got tangled up in a sex scandal during which he tossed all his family values (not to mention his abstinence-only education) out the window and devolved into a frightened, garden-variety scumbag adulterer who demanded his mistress get an abortion. So he’s gone bye-bye.
The March 13 special election to replace Murphy is three weeks away. The Republican candidate is Rick Saccone, aka “I was Trump before Trump was Trump.” Facing Saccone is 33-year-old clean-cut all-American Democratic former prosecutor and Marine Captain Conor Lamb. And he’s making the GOP really nervous. Trump won the district by nearly 20 points, but recent polling shows Lamb with the momentum. A Monmouth poll has the race tied within the margin of error, and Gravis polls in January and February show Lamb slashing a twelve-point Saccone lead down to six.
From what I’ve seen, he’s running a strong ground game and producing good ads:
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If you agree and you want to add a few bucks to Conor Lamb’s coffers (C&J tosses in $25 to everyone we shine our Energize An Ally spotlight on), his donation page is here.
Follow Conor on Facebook here and on twitter here. And if all the stars align, March will come in like a lion and go out like a Lamb, followed quickly by April showers of Republican flopsweat.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Note: A reminder that today is National Handcuff Day. And, not coincidentally, it's also Remind Your Partner of Your Safe Word Day. Have fun!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til spring: 28
Days 'til the 2015 San Diego Bird Festival: 1
Amount given by the NRA to Republican members of Congress in 2016: $5,900,000
Amount given to Democrats in 2016: 106,000
Uber’s financial loss in 2017, after a $2.8 billion loss in 2016: $4.5 billion
Number of identities of immigrants the chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Seattle stole over four years so he could rack up charges on credit cards and loans in their names: 7
Percent of male Trump voters who believe domestic abuse is a serious problem, according to a HuffPost-YouGov poll: 26%
Current U.S. Olympic Medal Count
Gold: 5 Silver: 3 Bronze: 4
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Yeah. Because Kris Kobach is scared he’d win…
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CHEERS to fire and fury: pissed-off teens edition. Trump made a token weekend appearance at a hospital to visit wounded survivors of last week’s white-supremacist terrorist attack in Parkland, Florida (he was down there anyway for a disco party at Mar-A-Lago and his 98th round of golf; message: he cares), but students from Stoneman Douglas High School were having none of it. They delivered blistering, gut-punch messages to Republicans for sucking up to the gun lobby instead of looking out for their safety. And none provided a bigger punch than Emma Gonzales, who coined the definitive anti-NRA catchphrase: “We call B.S.!”
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There are some rallies (and a CNN town hall event Wednesday at 9pm---Trump’s been invited but don’t hold your breath) scheduled for the next couple months, where students across the country will crank the students-against-gun-violence volume up to 11. The Women’s March organizers are holding an Enough! rally on March 14th. Then there’s the March For Our Lives event on the 24th. And on April 20th, the Network for Public Education holds a National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools. Best thing we oldsters can do: shut up and let ‘em speak.
CHEERS to replanting the crops of liberalism in the Garden State. Whenever a Democrat replaces a Republican in a seat of power, the first job is always---always---cleaning up the predecessor’s mess. In this case, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has the unenviable task of cleaning up after Chris Christie, who fucked up so bad that he left with something like a 15 percent approval rating. But cleaning up he is, including…
<> Signing an equal-pay executive order
<> Restoring funding to Planned Parenthood, which Christie had vetoed for eight years.
<> Establishing net neutrality rules for ISPs doing business with the state
<> Rescinding Christie’s rule making it easier for residents to acquire carry permits for handguns, and working on further gun-safety measures.
<> Giving medical marijuana patients “the compassion they deserve” by expanding services, including “home delivery, purchases beyond the 2-ounce limit and expanding the number of licensed dispensaries to improve patient access.
And we’ve just received word that Governor Murphy is just a bottle of bleach and a few more coats of paint away from removing all traces of dried Christie tantrum spittle off the walls. For that I hope he’s getting hazard pay.
"CHEERS!" to fixing the worst domestic mistake in American history. On February 20, 1933, Congress proposed the 21st Amendment, which would repeal the 18th (also known as "that no-good stinkin' prohibition"). Once it was adopted, the booze again flowed free and unfettered. C&J will be performing a historical reenactment of that moment in our living room around 9 this morning. Same as we do the other 364 days of the year.
CHEERS to Reefer Opposite-Of-Madness. File this under “On the other hand...” Here’s more evidence that the comfort you get from a bottle is actually more harmful than the kind that comes from a bong:
[A] new study from researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder found that alcohol is much more damaging to your brain than marijuana. In fact, the study---which was published in the journal Addiction---suggests that weed use doesn’t seem to alter the structure of a person’s brain at all. […]
It was found that among those who drank alcohol, adults---and to a lesser extent, teens---had a reduction in gray matter volume. … But among marijuana users (defined as those who had smoked in the past 30 days), there was no relationship between getting high and the structure of a person’s brain.
That led Hutchinson to make a bold proclamation. “While marijuana may also have some negative consequences,” he told Medical News Today, “it definitely is nowhere near the negative consequences of alcohol.”
We’ve all been betrayed by bad information. I hate to resort to this, but… [Heaves 200-pound statue of Nancy Reagan wearing “Just Say No” button out of rumpus room window.] [Apologizes to owner of Hyundai in the alley below.] And her little astrologer, too!
CHEERS to a pleasant commute. I couldn't possibly let today go by without giving a shout-out to my home state hero who sadly passed away in “The Great Legend Purge of 2016.” Fifty-six years ago today, on February 20, 1962, Ohio native (and future senator) John Glenn took a little trip into space, which The Atlantic recreates here:
Five minutes and four seconds into the flight of the Friendship 7, as John Glenn prepared to become the first American to orbit Earth, he radioed to NASA, his capsule turned and brought the Earth into sight.
"Oh, that view is tremendous," he said. […] Shortly after reaching orbit, his gave his first description of an earthly phenomenon from orbit.
"This is Friendship Seven," he said, "Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight."
Glenn orbited the world three times aboard Friendship 7 in just under five hours. Or as we now call it: a Trump workday.
CHEERS to legislating away the pray. One of the more significant advancements for the LGBT community has been bopping along on its merry way just barely above the radar. Namely, the number of cities and states that have enacted, or plan to enact, laws that ban the practice of reparative therapy---aka “praying away the gay.” Imagine being threatened with hell and damnation, or outright torture, by Bible thumpers trying to change the kinds of people that your hard-wired biology tells you you’re physically attracted to. How fucking presumptuous for some anonymous Jesus freaks to invade someone’s identity like that---to say, “no, you can’t be you. You must be like us.” Well, up here in Maine we’re talking about shutting down the Puritan psycho-grifters:
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, saw dozens of supporters and opponents testify Wednesday before the Legislature’s Labor Commerce Research and Economic Development Committee.
Fecteau said he was sponsoring the legislation because he was pushed toward conversion therapy himself by a university administrator he respected and trusted while in college. He said the notion that there was somehow something wrong with him triggered suicidal thoughts. “This openly gay young man who was finding his way in life…could not shake the self-hatred, unworthiness and haunting message that he was broken after a trusted university administrator told him, in essence seek ‘reparative therapy’---to be ‘beyond gay’,” Fecteau said. … “LGBT youth do not have a defect or disorder. They do not need to be repaired.”
The bill, L.D. 912, would prohibit a counselor from trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation with conversion therapy techniques, including those that encourage a patient to shun members of their own family.
When asked if they could also pass a bill that could change Republicans’ moral orientation from nuts to normal, Fecteau replied, “Dammit, man, I’m a legislator, not a miracle worker!”
CHEERS to Bucky's bane. On this date in 1872, Silas Noble and J.P. Cooley patented the toothpick-making machine, thus putting the country's entire beaver workforce out of action while President Grant looked the other way. The bitterness still lingers.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 20, 2008
JEERS to the Coalition of the Running Away. In Sunday's "Q&A On The News" section of the paper, a reader asked how many nations were still helping us bring Jeffersonian democracy to Iraq. The answer: Don’t ask!
According to a recent report, 16 nations have 100 or fewer troops in Iraq, and five have fewer than 10. Latvia has three soldiers deployed in Iraq, Slovakia two, and Singapore one.
Including Britain and Australia, the total percentage of international troops equals a whopping seven percent. Thank god Japan recently agreed to loan us Ultra Man. Now if we could just get the insurgents to run around in rubber lizard suits.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to great discoveries. It was 88 years ago this week, in 1930, that astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered a new "dwarf planet" waaaay out at the outer rim of our solar system. We wanted to know more about it, so 76 years later we sent the New Horizons probe to fly by and snap Polaroids, which it did in 2015. But the probe didn’t stop there. After alerting the Empire to the rebel base on Hoth, it sent back these pics (published earlier this month by NASA), making it the farthest functional camera from earth. These are Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), taken by New Horizons when it was over 3.8 billion miles from earth.
By the way, Tombaugh called his dwarf planet Pluto. A few decades later, Republicans started calling it Home.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Regular dips in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool can have as much of an impact on health as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, according to a new study.
---Newsweek
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