From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
>>> 2 <<< Weeks ‘til Netroots Nation 2018
Fourteen days and counting. Lots to post, so let’s get to it:
► Just added to the VIP list:
Netroots favorite Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will join us again, along with San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, and future New York congresswoman representing the great melting pots of Queens and the Bronx Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
► Already-announced 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.
► You can access the complete Netroots Nation agenda by clicking here. There are 90 panels and 70 training sessions on the judicial system, 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.
► The Daily Kos Caucus will gather on Thursday, August 2nd at 2:30 in Room 207. This is the gathering for the coolest kids, where the maintenance staff has to add special filters to the room’s electrical grid so our combined brainpower doesn’t short out the entire city, like what happened in Austin and Pittsburgh. We’ll put names with faces, talk about the future of Daily Kos, answer questions, and this year, sadly, pay special tribute to Kossack BruinKid, who passed way last spring.
► Chris Savage of Eclectablog (which celebrated its 10th blogiversary last week) and blogosphere-certified diva Vicki Roush invite you to join ‘em for the legendary Fake News Dump at 8:15 Friday and Saturday in the town hall area. It’s the best way to get your political bearings first thing in the morning.
► This year's workshop on stealth opposition research has been moved. To find the new location, just look for the room where everyone’s hiding behind potted plants.
► If you can’t attend this year, you can still catch huge chunks of the action via the miracle of video on the evil Facebook, where you can also watch panels and keynoters from yesteryear.
► To achieve instant coolness, be a Netroots Nation volunteer. Slots are still open for set-up, swag-bag stuffing, name-tag assembly, staffing the Netroots Nation booth and other tasks that will earn you the rank of Moonbat First Class. And pitching in during the convention can net you a nice registration discount. Click here for details.
► Info on getting around via New Orleans’ public transit system is here.
► Registration info is here and official hotel room info is here. (Rooms set aside for the NN18 discount are getting scarce.)
Follow Netroots Nation via Twitter here (and via hashtag #NN18) and the evil-but-not-as-evil-as-Adam-B’s-pub-quiz-questions Facebook here.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, July 19, 2018
Note: Today is Daiquiri Day. Daiquiris are the brainchild of Jennings Stockton Cox, who invented the drink in the Cuban mining town of---are you sitting down?---Daiquiri. Today in the C&J cantina we’ve got beer. Sorry, no daiquiris. We drank ‘em all last night. Bad planning. Oops. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections: 110
Days 'til the Newport Jazz Festival: 15
Acres that have already been burned by wildfires to date in 2018, 4 percent more than the 10-year average for this time of year, according to FiveThirtyEight: 3,362,431
Decline in the actual number of fires than the 10-year average to date: 6.7%
Estimated weight of the diamonds that may lie buried more than 100 miles below the Earth’s surface, according to MIT: 1 quadrillion
The last time that a Democrat was on the ballot in every Texas Congressional district, as we are this year: 1966
Number of “malicious or suspicious” twitter accounts that were frozen during the last three months of 2017: 58 million
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
What ho, sports fans? Has this been a dandy spell for mind-boggling government, or what? Still no weapons of mass destruction, and every neocon in America is creating elaborate rationales for why it makes no difference whatever if we were lied to about this war.
Meanwhile, in a truly creative demonstration of their problem-solving abilities, White House staffers fixed the entire global warming problem by editing it out of a report on the environment.
Way to go, team! Why pay attention to scientists when you can insert a study paid for by the American Petroleum Institute instead? That Karl Rove, just brilliant. As President Bush said on June 4, "I'm the master of low expectations." And he continues to prove it.
---August 2003
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Pro soccer player in training…
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CHEERS to the idea for my next horror novel. A giant iceberg with demonic powers terrorizes the north Atlantic, and it’s up to the resourceful residents of a tiny village in Greenland to save the world from its path of destruction. Where’d I get that crazy idea from? Great question...
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Spoiler alert: they succeed. Their secret weapon: a blowtorch.
CHEERS to terrorizing Ted. Down Texas-way, the junior U.S. senator who waltzed into his job in 2012 on a combination of low turnout and tea party rage appears to be in trouble. Contrary to “the way things is supposed to work in this here lone-star republic,” Ted Cruz is in a dead-heat with Democrat Beto O’Rourke. Working against Cruz: O’Rourke is traveling across the entire state (and it’s a biggun!), Trump’s support is softening, minorities are more energized, Cruz is one of the easiest humans on the planet to despise, and also this kind of story might be contributing to a bit of a backlash: landowners are getting letters from the gub’mint informing them that the next time they go in their back yard to enjoy their morning coffee, their view may be obstructed by---to use the carefully-chosen words of former Mexican president Vicente Fox---“that f*cking wall”:
KENS-TV reported that residents in the town of Escobares, including Mayor Noel Escobar, received letters from the Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection a few weeks ago to get their consent to survey their land. “I walk out the back door, and what I’m going to see is a 30-foot fence,” Escobar said.
The [Rio Grande City School District] school board last month approved a request from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to come onto district property for survey and site assessment. The land is not currently being used by the district. Garcia said had he known it was meant for the border wall, he would have voted against the request.
Messing with people’s private property. Not the kind of stories that make people think fondly of pro-wall zealots like Cruz when they hear ‘em down at the diner. This alone won’t bring him down, of course. But defeat by a thousand cuts is just as sweet.
JEERS to the Trump Doctrine. There are two rules involved in said doctrine. Rule #1: Trump tells it like it’s not. And Rule #2: see Rule #1. The latest from Mr. Bait-and-Switch: that little embassy move to the holy city of Jerusalem is costing us a holy crapload:
“We’re going to have it built very quickly and very inexpensively,” President Trump said of the embassy back in March, while sitting beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office. … “We’re actually doing it for about $250,000,” the president said. … “We are going to spend much less than a half a million.” […]
[But the] State Department awarded the Maryland-based company Desbuild Limak D&K a contract for $21.2 million to design and build an “addition and compound security upgrades” at the embassy.
These updates will be made to the former consular building in Jerusalem---the embassy’s temporary location.
Which brings us to Trump Doctrine Rule #3: Trump always stiffs his contractors. Fearless C&J prediction: ain’t gonna be no open bar or bonuses this year at Desbuild Limak D&K’s holiday party.
CHEERS to one of South Dakota's biggest moral compasses. Disproving the theory that only the good die young, World War II hero (35 combat missions as a B-24 pilot), former Senator and Democratic presidential contender George McGovern---whose gravestone lists his first accomplishment as humanitarian---would’ve been 96 today.
If he'd been elected in '72, the Vietnam War would've ended sooner, progressive values would've sunk their roots deeper into the American consciousness, and the integrity of the office of the President would've held fast. Instead we re-elected a corrupt, paranoid, scheming Republican loon who ended up resigning in disgrace and tarnishing the office of the presidency. Can we pick 'em or can we pick 'em?
CHEERS to keeping the rats in their cage. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when this decision was made. I can only presume that someone at Sinclair Broadcasting offended Trump by---I dunno---eating one of his scoops of ice cream or failing to pay their Mar-A-Lago dues on time or something. But thanks to whatever the f*ck they did wrong, America’s TV airwaves are going to remain less propagandized by Sinclair’s right-wing content machine:
Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, run by Trump’s hand-picked FCC chairman, killed a mega-merger pro-Trump Sinclair Broadcasting had proposed with Tribune Media.
Sinclair was hoping to build up a Republican propaganda empire that would do to local news what Fox News did cable television, but their propaganda dreams were suddenly dashed. “Sinclair’s deal is headed toward an almost-certain defeat, with that same FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, sending the merger on Monday into an administrative proceeding that is tantamount to a death sentence,” Politico reports. […]
Sinclair’s FCC defeat is a victory for democracy
Film at 11 everywhere but on Sinclair stations.
CHEERS to swingers' clubs. Even if you don't give a caddie's p'tootey about golf, chances are you'll take the occasional cursory look at the 147th British Open leader board over the next four days. The event started today at the Par-72 Carnoustie Golf Links in Scotland, which has been around for awhile…
Golf is recorded as having been played at Carnoustie in the early 16th century. In 1890, the 14th Earl of Dalhousie, who owned the land, sold the links to the local authority. The original course was of ten holes, crossing and recrossing the Barry Burn (aka the “snaking ribbon of water”); it was designed by Allan Robertson, assisted by Old Tom Morris, and opened in 1842.
The opening of the coastal railway from Dundee to Arbroath in 1838 brought an influx of golfers from as far afield as Edinburgh, anxious to tackle the ancient links. This led to a complete restructuring of the course, extended in 1867 by Old Tom Morris to the 18 holes which had meanwhile become standardized. Carnoustie first played host to The Open Championship in 1931.
C&J had ambitions of turning pro once until we hit one little snag. If I remember correctly, the technical term is sucking at golf.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 19, 2008
CHEERS to travelin' man. After sneaking away from his media posse to single-handedly capture a nest of Taliban evildoers with nothing more than a revolver made of licorice, Barack Obama flew to Kuwait where he thanked the troops and sank a three-pointer from 50 feet. Then it was off to Iraq, where the government gleefully expressed support for his withdrawal timeline. Going through Barack's mind yesterday (a la Will Smith): "I make this look good.” Going through McCain's head yesterday: "I'm f*cked."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to our first edition of Hey! That’s Vladimir Putin Riding The Wall Street Bull With A Bunch of Dildos Stuck To It:
This has been our first edition of Hey! That’s Vladimir Putin Riding The Wall Street Bull With A Bunch of Dildos Stuck To It. But hopefully not our last.
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:
“Bill in Portland Maine is a sad, embarrassing wreck of a man.”
---George Will
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