From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
…going twice…SOLD!
After a week of intense bidding competition, tonight the Netroots Nation online auction comes to an end. This morning I am a seething biological mass of rage and cutthroat iciness and I'll be blasting you with neener-neener rays until tonight at 10 O'clock ET to make sure I nab the one-of-a-kind doodle by Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ). That's the hill I'm defending over there. What are you bidding on?
Karen Kolber reminds us why she and the Netroots crew do this every year:
Netroots Nation has always received remarkable community support. In addition to the many folks who volunteer each year for our conference, hundreds of people donate services, collectibles and other unique items for our annual community auction.
It's a unique way that the community helps support our programs financially.
Fundraisers like this one help keep registration costs down for the annual convention---the next one is in Atlanta August 10-13---and give activists around the country opportunities to network with progressive leaders, learn new techniques to advance progressive values and collaborate on common causes.
Since the opening of the auction last Tuesday, a baker's dozen or two of new items have been added. Go take a look and plant your flag on what should rightfully be yours. But top my bids and I'll towel-snap you back to the stone age, bub.
P.S. see nerdette's post from yesterday on the five oddest oddball items sold at previous auctions. (#5 will SHOCK you!)
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Note: Anyone caught re-buckling their knickerbockers below the knee in C&J will be sent to a maximum-security detention facility for lewd and disgraceful acts of slovenliness. An exception will be made if you have an authorized permission slip, which is available in the C&J gift shop for $500.
---The Warden
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2017: 96
Days 'til the Virginia Tech Science Festival: 11
Estimated number of deaths caused by addiction to opioid prescription painkillers, according to the Center for Public Integrity: 165,000
Amount that drug companies spent on lobbying between 2006 and 2015 to stop laws designed to prevent opioid drug abuse: $880 million
Number of lobbyists they employ: 1,350
Age of Ruth Bonner, the direct descendant of a slave, who rang the bell from the Baptist Church of Williamstown to signal the opening of the African American Museum of History and Culture Saturday: 99
Amount Americans spent on pumpkin-related items between 2014 and 2015, according to Parade: $361 million
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Let's check in and see how Ted Cruz's followers on Facebook are reacting to his sudden endorsement of Donald Trump:
"You have to be kidding me. What a sellout. I am ashamed to have supported you. By endorsing him you are endorsing everything he has said about you and so many others."
"Trump is a fraud. He is not even a conservative. And he is one of the most disgusting human beings I have ever seen. His vile speech makes me sick. Because of all the Republican sell outs backing such a honestly the only word that works is disgusting man, Trump....I am going to change my party from Republican to Independent. Character should matter."
"Well, you are officially dead to me. I thought you had principles, but you clearly do not. I'll never support you again. I hope you're defeated in your next election and if you run again in 2020 I will shout from the rooftops that you're a Party-line holding sellout."
"Congratulations. You succeeded in doing what I thought nobody could do. Make me stop supporting you. Such a disgrace. I'm officially done."
All together now: 1…2…3… That went well.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In the land of the sheep herders, the one-eyed man is king…
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CHEERS to a fine clash of titans (or at least one titan and one small-handed fraud). Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump butted heads and ideas last night at Hofstra University in the first presidential candidates debate. A few thoughts for the time capsule:
>> Hillary was poised, pithy and prepared. The consensus---even among Republicans---when it was all over is that she crushed it.
>> My partner Michael's mom is visiting from Michigan. She's a conservative Christian, and her reaction to Trump was: "What a rude debater."
>> Trump never mentioned the wall. Not once. His #1 campaign promise never made it out of the box.
>> Mea culpa: I thought Lester Holt was going to lose control of the debate, but he came back with questions and follow-ups on taxes, nukes and the birther movement that Trump tried to run with before tripping over his own shoelaces.
>> Trump said our new enemy is the 400-pound hacker sitting on the bed, completely giving a free pass to the 300-pound hacker sitting in the beanbag chair.
>> Hillary: “When he can sit in front of a congressional panel for 11 hours, then he can talk to me about stamina.”
>> The only square not filled in on my Trump debate Bingo card tonight was "I'd like to use a lifeline."
Hillary was so strong last night that this morning Republicans are undergoing an orderly transition to swap places with formerly-poll-spooked Democrats on building ledges across America. My words of advice to them: don’t look up---the pigeons have been saving up a little gravity-defying surprise for ya.
P.S. Al Gore sighed, George H.W. Bush looked at his watch, and this will be Trump's debate legacy:
Pneumonia? Sad!
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CHEERS to a gathering of unwashed hippie rabble with big appetites. If you're gonna be in the southern Maine area on Saturday, October 22nd, please join the DKos crowd for another legendary New England Kossack Fall Meetup starting at noon. We're going back to the great place we went last January---The Farm Bar And Grille at 57 State Street in Kittery (as south as you can go in Maine before you bump into New Hampshire). To RSVP or get more info, email Kossack nhox42 at nhox42 [at] gmail.com. In addition to eating and drinking, we'll do our usual plotting galactic domination around a giant map of the universe, so be sure to practice your "Bwoo ha ha's."
JEERS to the worst binder keeper in the world. Last January, racist Maine Governor Paul LePage claimed that Maine's drug problem was due to “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty [who] come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home [and] half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave." He later got more specific by claiming that he kept a binder full of drug dealers and that "90-plus percent of those pictures in my book, and it’s a three-ringed binder, are black and Hispanic people.” Yesterday his office released the contents of LePage's binder, and, well…
It’s not even close. […] Of the 93 news [clippings] and booking photos in the binder featuring people, 37 of them appear to be people who are either black or Hispanic, or about 40 percent of the photos in the binder, while 56, or about 60 percent, appear to be people who are white.
[A]fter reviewing the binder on Monday, ACLU of Maine Executive Director Alison Beyea said it appeared LePage had “greatly” exaggerated the information in his own binder when he used the 90 percent figure.
“Whether or not his assertions were deliberately misleading, they were dangerous and racist. … It is outrageous that he would rely on an incomplete collection of newspaper clippings and emails to make false, inaccurate accusations about people of color. It’s time for the governor to stop using people of color as a scapegoat for Maine’s drug problem, and to start proposing real solutions based on actual facts.”
But in fairness, LePage did get one thing right. He was able to count 1…2…3 rings in his binder. For a teabagger, that's advanced level math.
CHEERS to H2Omigod!!! All last week NASA teased a BIG announcement relating to Jupiter's moon Europa. They were very clear it was not going to be a discovery of alien life, so naturally I figured it was going to be the discovery of alien life. Astonishingly, I was wrong…but it's still cool nonetheless. Cool and pure and refreshing:
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.
This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapor plumes. The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa’s ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.
“Europa’s ocean is considered to be one of the most promising places that could potentially harbor life in the solar system,” said Geoff Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These plumes, if they do indeed exist, may provide another way to sample Europa’s subsurface.”
Scientists greeted the news by yelling "Wow!" The presidents of the major bottled water companies greeted the news by yelling "Dibs!"
CHEERS to the Founding Rabble Rouser. Happy birthday to scrappy Samuel Adams---second cousin to fellow hothead John---born 294 years ago today. His message in a nutshell: "Tyranny bad! Freedom good!"
Adams’s contributions to the independence movement were many and varied. During the 1760s and 1770s he frequently wrote polemical articles for the Boston newspapers, and he recruited talented younger men–Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren, and his second cousin John Adams, among others–into the Patriot cause.
It was Samuel Adams who conceived of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and took a leading role in its formation and operations from 1772 through 1774. He was among those who planned and coordinated Boston’s resistance to the Tea Act, which climaxed in the famous Tea Party, and he later worked for the creation of the Continental Congress, helping propel it into supporting Massachusetts in the crisis.
And also this: “Beer and chocolate are two pleasures that should be enjoyed and savored." Pay your respects here. Then toast him with...I dunno, how about an ice-cold Sam Adams? (Or, as he calls it, "a Mini Me.")
JEERS to today's boring correction. The story told by Jackson, Georgia police officer Sherry Hall that she was shot in her body armor by a scaaary black man who ran off and left her for dead was in error. The correct story is…
[S]he made the whole thing up, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
On Friday, Hall was charged with four felonies, including evidence tampering and giving false statements to investigators. After her account began to unravel over the past two weeks, investigators were left with little to conclude other than she shot herself, but officials stopped short of saying so Friday.
“Cops are humans and they make mistakes, but this is not a mistake,” Butts County Sheriff Gary Long said at a news conference. “This is criminal.”
Please make a note of it.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 27, 2006
CHEERS to Monday night under the lights. Did you see that the Louisiana Superdome is back open for business?
New Orleans saxophonist Branford Marsalis didn't even check his ticket to see where he'd be sitting for Monday's New Orleans Saints-Atlanta Falcons game at the Louisiana Superdome. "I could be in the nosebleeds. It doesn't matter," he said just a few hours before kickoff. Marsalis was one of a number of celebrities and musicians with a ticket for the first true regular season home game for the Saints since the 2004 season — the grand reopening of the dome after Hurricane Katrina.
For the first time in over a year, a good time was had by all. Nice.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to borderline sanity. You may have heard about this---it was filmed near Tecate, Mexico and aired last night during the debate on Fox, Telemundo and Univision. Kudos to Tecate Beer and admaker Saatchi & Saatchi New York for coming to their senses and realizing that, yes, we must build the wall---specifically, this wall---to bring us together:
Disclaimer: But Mexico still ain’t payin’ for it. This means...urp!...war. ‘Scuse me.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Director Morgan Spurlock has made documentaries about McDonalds, Comic-Con, One Direction and Osama Bin Laden. That’s a wide variety of work and yet you’d never expect him to make a true genre film. His new documentary, Cheers and Jeers, is exactly that. It was made with one singular thought: to gross you out using nothing but a kiddie pool.
---Germain Lussier
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