From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Friday Mollyblogging
Nine years ago tomorrow America lost Texas journalist/columnist/liberal activist Molly Ivins. She was only 62. Cancer got her, but she was full of fight right to the end. In their must-read biography, Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life, Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith describe Molly as “a latter-day Mark Twain-meets-Will Rogers. She was the wisecracking social commentator who gleefully teed up on anyone whose boot heels clicked across the marble floors in the House of Power. Her column and her books were always anchored by a photo of her wide-open, inviting face---and she always seemed on the verge of a booming laugh.”
Since Iowa is looming large on the political horizon, enjoy a few of Molly's observations from past caucuses via her feisty columns:
1996
Iowa, normally a nice, flat place covered with rich dirt out of which corn and soybeans sprout every spring, is today a mucky, sour swamp of the residue of endless negative campaign ads, rotten supply-side economics and a noxious crop of flat-tax propaganda. … Anyone who tells you that a flat tax will reduce taxes on middle-income Americans is a lying SOB, and that's the flat truth.
2000
You must admit, the Iowa caucuses gave us a trove of delights. First there is the incomprehensible second-place finish of Steve Forbes, a man with the charisma of former guv Dolph Briscoe. [Y]our cynics would argue that Forbes proves that with enough money, you can elect a can of Alpo president of this country.
2004
Love those Iowa results. Nothing better than a huge political scrum where the front-runner stumbles, the guy everyone wrote off for dead six weeks ago comes roaring back, an unknown emerges, an old war-horse drops out---a wonderful scenario. Let's hear it for upset, confusion and the conventional wisdom with egg on its face. A banana cream pie right in the kisser for everyone who pretends they know how a political race will turn out. Happy days. Ain't democracy grand?
And this still-relevant bit of common sense from 2000:
I still think it's a swell political year with much more fun to come. It is a shame, though, that the rest of the country doesn't get the same level of exposure to the candidates or the intensity of media coverage of the candidates that Iowa and New Hampshire do. I have an idea: Let's do something about the nominating system. I know we say this every time, of course. I just thought we might do it for a change.
You can (and should) revisit Molly's columns from 1996-2007 here. She enjoyed reading us, too---Daily Kos was on her short list of favorite blogs. Cheers, Molly. We miss the hell out of you.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, January 29, 2016
Note: There will be no C&J on Monday as we'll be ensuring Martin O'Malley wins the Iowa caucus by stuffing the caucus box. (There is a caucus box, right? I was told there's a caucus box and it doesn’t have a lock on it.) Back Tuesday. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Groundhog Day: 4
Days 'til the Carolina Chocolate Festival in Morehead City NC: 8
Percent chance that 2015 was the strongest year for new home sales since 2007, according to the Commerce Department: 100%
Age of Facebook as of next week: 12
Rank of Toyota, Volkswagen and GM among top-selling carmakers in 2015, according to AP: #1, #2, #3
Amount President Obama is seeking to feed schoolkids from low-income families during the summer over the next decade: $12 billion
Estimated number of dreams you'll have this year, according to some web site: 1,460
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
Pooch reenacts the climactic chase in The Shining...
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CHEERS to the not-so-lame-duck president. There goes Barack Obama again, refusing to plop down on the couch like his predecessor and Xbox his way through the last year of his presidency. Today he using the seventh anniversary of his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to announce…
…a new rule that will require companies to report pay data by gender, race and ethnicity, the White House announced.
The rule, which would apply to companies that have 100 or more employees, will require employers to include salary information on a form already submitted to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that currently includes employees' sex and age.
The administration said the rule would help aid investigations on employers that are "unlawfully shortchanging workers" based on gender, race and ethnicity.
Hooray, more parity, said Gladys in accounting. Ugh, more paperwork, said Gladys in accounting.
JEERS to Death Wish fantasies. Maine governor Paul LePage, owner of the foulest gubernatorial mouth in America, has this neat little rhetorical trick he likes to use. The pattern goes like this: "I'm not suggesting that [insert illegal, racist, gross or violent suggestion here], but [make illegal, racist, gross or violent suggestion anyway]." He did it again this week, and gave anyone planning to vacation here this summer reason to change their plans:
“I tell ya, everybody in Maine, we have constitutional carry,” LePage said in an on-camera interview in Lewiston, referring to the state’s protections for carrying concealed handguns without a special permit.
“Load up and get rid of the drug dealers. Because, folks, they’re killing our kids,” the governor said. The reporter he was speaking with quickly asked if the head of the state government was calling for vigilante justice. LePage denied that he meant to invite vigilantism by saying Mainers can use concealed firearms to “get rid of” drug dealers when they find them.
On the upside, he stopped short of inviting vigilantes to stuff and mount the heads of the suspected drug dealers they shoot above their fireplaces. He may want to turn Maine’s citizens into psychopathic killers, but he doesn’t want us to be ostentatious about it. T’aint proper.
CHEERS to Democrats and their bizarre concept of safety nets. Seventy-six years ago Sunday, the first Social Security chec (#00-000-001) was issued to Ida May Fuller---a Vermonter and childhood classmate of Calvin Coolidge---for $22.54. Or, as the Republican leadership calls it, "$22.54 too much, ya moocher."
JEERS to cantankerous caterwauling in corn country. Last night Grumpy, Dopey, Doc (aka Sleepy), Grumpy #2, Grumpy #3, Dopey #2 and Grumpy #4 shared a stage for the [I've lost count] Republican debate in Iowa. With Donald Trump boycotting the proceedings (a smart move because Fox News was planning to ambush the shit out of him), one thing became clear: the party's "deep bench" has never seemed more shallow. But at least we got this bit of honesty from Senator Ted Cruz, who otherwise blew his chance to make a move:
The surprise winner of the evening was Ohio Governor John Kasich, who saw his numbers among rumpled Iowa curmudgeons increase by six. People, not percent.
JEERS to lying liars. On January 29, 2001, President George W(orst) Bush promised to "act boldly and swiftly" to deal with our challenges concerning energy. His brilliant idea: put Cheney in charge of a secret task force that would make sure nothing happened boldly or swiftly. As a result, the big oil companies were forced to deal with the challenge of where to sock away all their record profits. (I guess that explains why the Exxon-Mobil CEO's mattress grew to be twelve stories high.)
CHEERS to home vegetation. Not much on TV this weekend, but here are a few tidbits. Rachel will likely have more revelations about the Flint water crisis tonight. Then on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Dr. Sam Chachoua, Fmr. Rep. Trey Radel, Kristen Soltis Anderson, liberal radio host of great and powerful awesomeness Thom Hartmann and The Big Short director Adam McKay. The most notable new DVD release is Goosebumps. SNL is a repeat and there’s no football this weekend so the Panthers and the Broncos can soak their tootsies in healing waters as they prepare for Superbowl VVVVVVVVVV. The hockey schedule is here and the NBA schedule is here. (The Celtics will "trick" the Magic, get it get it Ha Ha Ha!!!) And on Sunday (7pm on Fox) another musical gets the "Live Event!" treatment as Thomas Kail (Hamilton) directs Grease. I hope it's electr-a-FYIN'!
And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Bernie!!! Plus nattering nabobs Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
This Week: Bernie!!! Hillary!!! Trump.
Face the Nation: Trump and Rubio.
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus Marco Rubio and former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Ted Cruz; Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 29, 2006
CHEERS to John Kerry and Ted Kennedy. Both are advocating use of the filibuster to derail the nomination of radical right-wing activist judge Samuel "Yes This Sinister Grin IS Permanently Plastered On My Face" Alito. While the rest of the party is ready to cave, JK and TK understand that---as a Kos diarist said yesterday---THIS is what we've been "keeping our powder dry" for. If you need me today, I'll be in the corner banging my head against the wall.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to "32." Make sure you take a moment tomorrow to say Happy Birthday (or, to use his dialect, "Happy buuuthday") to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who turns 134. Says William Ridings and Stuart McIver in their book Rating the Presidents (where FDR sits at #2, just below Lincoln):
Roosevelt is praised most often for his role in preserving the American capitalist system at a time when many countries were opting for fascism.
Given the dire crises he was forced to confront, perhaps the highest praise from the poll is "the right man in the right place at the right time." [...]
Others praise him for stopping Hitler---and shudder to think what might have been if a less-effective president had been at the helm in those dangerous days.
The lunatics on the right try mightily to rewrite history by insisting that the New Deal was a failure...never mind that laws enacted in the 1930s---chipped away at though they were---helped prevent our 2008 Great Recession from turning into an all-out depression. Pay your respects here. And never let anyone forget the difference between the parties, as defined by Roosevelt himself: Democrats say we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Republicans say we have nothing to fear but everything but fear itself.
P.S. It's also Dick Cheney's birthday tomorrow. He turns 666. Again.
Have a great weekend. See ya next month! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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