From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
>>> 3 weeks <<< ‘til Netroots Nation 2018
Three weeks from today, an army of Kossacks and other lefties from a who's who of progressive organizations will descend on New Orleans for the 13th annual activism-a-ganza that is the Netroots Nation convention. The grapevine tells me that the official hotel is near full up and Louisiana Democrats are ready to welcome one and all with open arms and flying beads. The latest info:
► Speakers include: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), former HUD Secretary Julián Castro, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, candidates Deb Haaland (New Mexico) and Kevin de Leon (California). See more special guest info here.
► Last call to RSVP for the Daily Kos/CUA/Cheers & Jeers Eat-'n-Greet at Drago’s Seafood Restaurant on Wednesday, August 1st. To RSVP, you need to drop a kosmail note to Navajo. True fact: Drago’s was founded in 1969 by Drago and Klara Cvitanovich. It’s America’s home of the original charbroiled oyster---brushed with a sauce of garlic, butter and herbs, dusted with a blend of Parmesan and Romano cheese, and cooked in their shell on the grill. It’s not unusual for them to churn out 900 a day.
► The legendary screening series is back. Lots of good flickers on the agenda, including Undercover in the Alt-right, Nuns on the Bus, and the timely A World Without Roe. Check ‘em out here.
► You can access the complete Netroots Nation agenda by clicking here. There are 90 panels and 70 training sessions this year that will serve lively discussion on the courts, immigration, running for office, gerrymandering, the midterm outlook (including a panel by the encyclopedic brainiacs on the Daily Kos Elections team), and a ton more.
► Fresh ink: The New Orleans weekly Gambit breaks the news to the city: company’s comin’ to the Big Easy.
► On August 4 at 1pm, EMILY's List is hosting a half-day training seminar for pro-choice Democratic women thinking about running for office. You'll learn from seasoned campaign experts about the steps you can take now to get ready, grow your network, and raise the money you need to win. If you’re interested, Fill out this form to apply for a spot.
► Volunteers are always appreciated. And pitching in during the convention can net you a hefty registration discount. Click here for details.
► Yes! New Orleans has its very own Waffle House! Right on Canal Street next to University Medical Center---the streetcar’ll take you right to it. Open 24 hours! "Madam, we must all have waffles forthwith!"
► Speaking of trolleys, info on getting around via New Orleans’ public transit system is here.
► Ladies, please note: Your official Netroots Nation dress code, established in 2014 by Forbes, is still in effect. (Please leave the “I Don’t Really Care, Do U?” jackets at home, as that’s a little…oh, let’s just say it’s not very #BeBest.) Men, as usual, are encouraged to wear tactical shorts and saddle shoes,but please leave the sword cane at home.
► Registration info is here and official hotel room info is here. (As mentioned above, rooms set aside for the NN18 discount are getting scarce.)
Follow Netroots Nation via Twitter here and the evil-but-not-as-evil-as-Adam-B’s-pub-quiz-questions Facebook here. Another update next week. Now I’m off to powder my wigs. Cheersand Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, July 12, 2018
Note: yyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYyyyy (web wave in progress)
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Mango Day: 10
Days 'til the 62nd Robin Hood Festival in Sherwood, Oregon: 8
Rank of San Francisco, Hamilton (Bermuda), and Manhattan among highest-rent cities in the world, according to Walletwyse: #1, #2, #3
Rank of Springfield, MO among cities with the lowest rents in the U.S.: #1
Rank of Syria among the world’s most dangerous countries (for the third year in a row), according to the Global Peace Index: #1
Rank of Iceland among the most peaceful countries: #1
Votes in the Maine state House and Senate, respectively, to override Gov. LePage’s veto of a major medical marijuana reform bill Monday: 119-23 and 25-8
World Cup Soccuh
Croatia 2 England 1
Croatia faces France in the final match.
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I am uneasily reminded of the last time this press corps failed to understand a president (for kindness' sake we will draw a veil over the performance of this press corps during the Reagan years).
Jimmy Carter was a president the press just never cottoned to. Like the senators during the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, they just didn’t get it.
Actually it was pretty simple. Jimmy Carter has been out of office for thirteen years now. And every day for thirteen years, that man has gone out and behaved like a good Christian---for no money. Because that's who he is, and that's what he always was. But that was too simple for Power Town.
---July, 1994
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Fare thee well, Zsa Zsa…...
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JEERS to dotard’s big day out. Let’s check in and see how our part-time president is faring at the NATO summit as the photographer shouts, “Okay, everybody, look to your left...”
In fairness, the situation was beyond his control. Like a compass always points true north, his penis always points true Moscow.
CHEERS to Captain Sanchez and his Technicolor Dream Cabinet. A recent leadership change in Spain (which has the fourth-largest Eurozone economy) has gone under the radar here in the States, but it’s already making history. In fact, it’s shattered a record:
For the first time in Spain's history, 11 women have taken up key posts in the 17-strong cabinet alongside new Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. [Sanchez] assumed leadership...after toppling scandal-hit [conservative] Mariano Rajoy in a no-confidence vote.
Just five women served in the last Cabinet under Rajoy.
"This new government is unequivocally committed to equality. You have heard me say it many times: Spain changed on March 8. There was a before and an after in our country with the feminist mobilizations and the new government is a faithful reflection of that movement," Sanchez said Wednesday. On March 8, millions of Spanish women took part in a 24-hour strike aimed at sexual discrimination and gender inequality.
Spoiler alert: He’s a liberal.
CHEERS to a man who knew his way around a one-room cabin in the woods. Happy birthday to Henry David Thoreau, born 201 years ago on July 12, 1817. He told the world to "Simplify! Simplify!" And his writings on civil disobedience influenced many, including Martin Luther King,Jr., who wrote in his autobiography:
I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau.
As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before.
Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice.
By the way, if you're looking to buy the perfect housewarming gift for a Walden lover, we still say you can't go wrong with a Thoreau rug.
CHEERS to a good grilling. Wow, did you hear about this? The leader of the country actually got questioned by police yesterday, and there was nothing the narcissistic tyrant could do about it---hell, not even Brett Kavanaugh could swoop in and call the interrogation off with his gavel. In fact, no judicial muckety-muck in this country could prevent the authorities from the interrogation he got over his alleged corruption. He just had to sit there, squirm, and take it…question after agonizing question. Sadly, it wasn’t our leader of the country:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces three investigations over alleged corruption, was questioned again by police over a case involving Israel’s largest telecoms firm on Tuesday.
The authorities allege Netanyahu awarded regulatory favors to Bezeq Telecom Israel in return for favorable coverage of him and his wife on a news website owned by the company. … [P]olitical pressure could mount on Netanyahu to step down if he is charged.
Well, it was a fun thought experiment while it lasted.
CHEERS to an out-of-this-world practice run. Down in Chile (home of the baby back baby back baby back ribs, I’m told), the folks working the Very Large Telescope upgraded it with a new doo-dad. They just got a test-image back from Fotomat (where you can get double prints for just 99 cents extra!), and it’s a doozy:
That’s a star cluster known as RCW 38. To give you an idea of how powerful the telescope is that took that pic, half a dozen planets we never knew about just lowered their blinds.
JEERS to "Second Amendment remedies." 214 years ago, Treasury Secretary, Founding Father and Boy Wonder Alexander Hamilton died after dueling in Weehawken, New Jersey, directly across from Manhattan. I bring this date up not to harp on the silliness of duels, but as a perfectly valid excuse to play this advertising-hall-of-fame commercial with the killer setup one more time:
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Bwahvo.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 12, 2008
JEERS to the White House DELETE key. A little leftover bit from July 4th that we'd like to seal in the memory vault: President Bush was giving a speech at Monticello ("The place where Monty makes the cellos, hehhehheh...") and, because Jefferson's writings on religion don’t quite square with the administration's "bamboozle thy neighbor" viewpoint, they slashed ol' Tom's words to make 'em fit better. That's something George Bush will never have to worry about: being quoted out of context by a future president. Mainly because no future president could possibly be dumb enough to quote him on anything.
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And just one more…
HA HA!!! to revisiting the prediction of the century. With the 13th annual Netroots Nation convention three weeks away, it's worth remembering that it all started as "Yearly Kos." (Kudos to Pastor Dan Schultz, Gina Cooper and the team that put in the work to make that first experiment in Vegas such a chocolate fountainy success). But storm clouds gathered that same year when highly-influential right-wing journalist Noel Sheppard insisted that the Great Orange Satan was on the cusp of tumbling into the ash heap of history:
IS THE DAILY KOS ABOUT TO IMPLODE?
It appears that the post-Yearly Kos month from hell is continuing for Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the proprietor of the Internet's premier liberal blog Daily Kos. After receiving some extremely negative press from major publications such as The New York Times, The New Republic and Newsweek immediately following his seemingly successful bloggers' convention in Las Vegas, Kos is now faced with an even greater challenge: dissension within his ranks.
Such internal squabbling comes at the same time that many prominent Democrats seem to be privately expressing concern about the direction the "netroots"---the self-described Internet grassroots movement of liberal bloggers and their loyal followers---are taking the Party. This seemingly inconvenient planetary alignment is not only threatening the long-term viability of this crusade, but also is putting Kos in an uncomfortable position just as his notoriety is skyrocketing.
Thirteen years, twelve bigger-and-better Netroots Nation conventions (last year’s in Atlanta was phenomenal), and a historic midterm blowout on our doorstep, "The" Daily Kos continues to not implode. We're on great terms with a large number of Democratic lawmakers (Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris), and scores of exciting 2018 candidates, unions, grassroots organizers, and dedicated crusaders inside the liberal universe. (Hell, yesterday we got our first visit from the indispensable Malcom Nance.) Sure, our occasional pie fights are the stuff of legend. But imploding? Nah. That’s Trump’s gig. [Tick tock, Mueller. Tick tock.]
Have an implosion-free Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cheers and Jeers suggests what would happen if you took The Towering Inferno and Die Hard and stripped them of the qualities that made both work.
---Entertainment Weekly
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