From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Gone Once… Going Twice… And…
In approximately [Looks at sundial] 14 hours, a gigantic squeaky gavel will drop with a thud of noble gravitas, signaling a cessation of hostilities in the 2017 Netroots Nation online auction. Karen Kolber reminds us why she and the Netroots crew do this every year:
Part of what I love most about Netroots Nation is the participation and support we get from our community. In addition to the hundreds who volunteer at our conference, many others donate services, collectibles and other unique items for our annual community auction.
Due in great part to contributions from friends like you, Netroots Nation is able to provide high quality programming both at our annual Convention and across the country throughout the year. And don't forget, it's never too early to register for Netroots Nation '18 in New Orleans by clicking here.
Some of the goods currently on the auction block:
• Congressman John Lewis’s award-winning trilogy of “March” graphic novels
• A heapin’ helping of Netroots Nation culinary consultant Teddy Dulchinos’ bacon toffee…and other edibles
• A front-row table at the NN18 pub quiz…with beer!
• Year subscriptions to The Nation and The American Prospect
• A Full Frontal with Samantha Bee gift basket
• Star Wars collectibles
• Tickets to a Washington Nationals baseball game
• Netroots Nation '18 backstage passes and photo-ops so you can hobnob with the VIPs
• The White House Historical Association’s official 2017 ornament commemorating FDR
• A Deaniac nostalgia pack with the highly-coveted, super-rare wood "You Have the Power!" bat
And lots more. Bidding ends tonight at 10 ET. Go take a look and plant your flag on that which Valhalla has deemed rightfully yours. (And then you might want to call a service tech---sounds like you’ve got a nasty tear in your netherworld portal.)
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Note: OMG! Last night a network evening newscast actually showed Doug Jones's face and said his name! What's next---flying pigs???
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Thanksgiving: 8
Days 'til the Great Brews Beer Festival in Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania: 3
Estimated dead and wounded, respectively, from the Iran-Iraq earthquake: 450 / 7,400
Approximate value of Hasbro and Mattel, respectively: $11 billion, $5 billion
Percent of their losses that Bernie Madoff’s victims will probably recoup: 75%
Age of Casablanca as of this month: 75
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 184 (including 5 gogs and 1 opening salvo in the War on the War on Christmas). Soul Protection Factor 12 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Reunited after three years, and the nose remembers…
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CHEERS to wedding bells in Brisbane. Nice that we can start things off with a reminder that not every country in the world has lost its mind. In Australia, the citizen survey results on a gay marriage question were revealed yesterday evening (our time), and it was a freaking blowout. Despite all of the right-wingers’ fearmongering (with no small help from America’s worst homophobes as “consultants”), 62 percent said same-sex couples SHOULD have full marriage rights, while a paltry 38 said otherwise. If you believe the politicians there (and they’re certainly more believable than ours), ceremonies will start as early as next month. While most Aussies cheered the news, others were curled up in a ball under the bed, hiding from demons of their own making. Like tennis legend Margaret Court, who is now like the land down under’s Anita Bryant:
“They want marriage because they want to destroy it.” Mrs Court, a Christian minister based in Osborne Park, said the consequences of a Yes vote would be severe.
“It’s not about marriage. It will affect Christian schools, it will affect freedom of speech,” she said. “There will be no Mother’s Day, there will be no Father’s Day, there will be no Easter, there will be no Christmas.”
Oh, no, I’m accidentally writing for the whole world to see that Margaret Court actually lost to Bobby Riggs, and it took lesbian Billy Jean King to vanquish him. Oops. That was so clumsy of me!
P.S. The participation rate in this survey? Over 75 percent. It was conducted by mail. Hint, hint, America.
JEERS to the death party---back in action. To get you up to speed on the #1 story this morning, the Republican steal-money-from-the-commoners tax plan has now become something else: a steal-health-insurance-from-the-commoners plan. Yes, of course, they’ve decided that since they’re throwing in everything their billionaire overlords want, they might as well toss in a repeal of the ACA mandate, which is what keeps health insurance affordable, and give the equivalent of that money to the rich. To think they call themselves Christians:
In the hallways of the Senate on Tuesday, Republican lawmakers told TPM that the estimated $300 billion in savings the mandate’s repeal would generate has become too enticing a prospect to pass up---savings created because an estimated 13 million people would lose their health insurance and no longer get government subsidies.
You know the drill: start calling your senators (and your representative for good measure) and give ‘em a polite-but-pointed earful. And to keep your head from exploding, think of another prospect “too enticing to pass up”: booting these assholes out in less than 12 months.
P.S. Watch CEOs themselves destroy the “trickle-down” argument in less than 20 seconds:
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JEERS to moving the goalposts. Yesterday we had our three-month checkup at the oncologist’s office. (Long story short: diagnosed with colon cancer in March…surgery and three months of chemo kicked its ass.) Everything checked out fine, including our blood pressure, which at 130/80 is right in the healthy zone. Or at least it was right up until it wasn’t. Not five minutes after we got home the internet hit us in the face with this:
New guidelines lower the threshold for high blood pressure, adding 30 million Americans to those who have the condition, which now plagues nearly half of U.S. adults.
High pressure, which for decades has been a top reading of at least 140 or a bottom one of 90, drops to 130 over 80 in advice announced Monday by a dozen medical groups.
The upper threshold for high blood pressure has been 140 since 1993, but a major study two years ago found heart risks were much lower in people who aimed for 120. ... The change means an additional 14 percent of U.S. adults have the problem, but only an additional 2 percent will need medication right away; the rest should try healthier lifestyles, which get much stronger emphasis in the new advice.
[Sigh] Greeeat. [Puts steak back in freezer] [Puts ice cream back in freezer] [Puts Mac ‘n cheese back in pantry] [Tosses platter of McMuffins onto roof for squirrels] [Cancels extra-large stuffed-crust pepperoni pizza delivery] [Pumps stomach of candy corn] So much for breakfast.
CHEERS to cleansing your cosmic soul. Hey, cast your eyes heavenward over the next few days and you might see some wowee-zowee fireworks in the sky. The Leonid Brezhnev meteor shower---which happens every time Earth crosses paths with Comet Tempel-Tuttle and its debris field---is entering its most Leonidiousy period through the weekend:
This annual meteor shower is responsible for some of the most intense meteor storms in history. Sometimes, meteors fall at rates as high as 50,000 per hour.
These storms only happen rarely; viewers this year will still be treated to an hourly rate of 10 to 20 meteors, according to Sky and Telescope, on the peak date of Nov. 17. […]
[V]isibility will be excellent because the new moon will take place on Nov. 18, providing a perfect view of the meteors, which will not be washed out by any lunar light. […] The Leonid meteor shower gets its name from the constellation Leo, where its meteors appear to originate. But you can look in just about any direction to enjoy the show, said NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke. If you directly face Leo, you may miss the meteors with longer tails.
As I like to say, everyone loves meteor showers because they’re beautiful, unite Americans in a common activity, and make lots of people happy and curious about the universe and the wonders of science. Which explains why Republicans in Congress plan to introduce a constitutional amendment banning all future meteor showers.
CHEERS to progressive grandpas. Cleveland columnist Connie Schultz tweeted this out over the weekend. She and her husband, Senator and former bedhead model Sherrod Brown (D-OH), are proud parents of proud parents:
While she was still in the hospital, Ela led a successful filibuster against a motion in the maternity ward to make all the new arrivals wear MAGA booties. Attagirl.
CHEERS to Mary Had A Little Lamb. Back in the day, you could play that tune with the buttons on your touch-tone phone, which was invented on this date in 1963. It was almost as awesome as being able to spell out BOOBIES with your calculator by punching in 5318008 and turning it upside down. Man, we were wild back then. You kids have no idea.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 15, 2007
JEERS to the sounds of torture. The CIA says it has recordings of the interrogations of al Qaeda prisonewrs. C&J has obtained an exclusive transcript of Zacarias Moussaoui's interrogation session:
"Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly, and welcome to my audiobook version of Culture Warrior. Chapter One. It was a cold, gray day in Levittown..."
My god. It's worse than I imagined.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the playthings of our lives. Lost in all the hubbub over the elections last week and other assorted headline stealers is the biggest story of the month. I'm speaking, of course, about the trio of 2017 inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame. The first one I played with for hours at a time, the second one I played with for minutes at a time, and the third one I played, like, three times:
Wiffle Ball: A retired semi-pro baseball player in 1950s suburban Connecticut noticed that his son and friend could not play a game of baseball in the cramped space of their backyard. He began cutting holes in spherical plastic containers and gave them to his son for testing, eventually developing a ball with eight oblong slots that allowed the ball to grab air, thus diverting its trajectory. The Wiffle Ball slowed the game, shrunk the playing field, and made it conducive to post World War II-suburbia.
Paper airplane: Artist and inventor Leonardo DaVinci sketched and designed flying creations using parchment in the 15th century. Later, in the early 19th century, Sir George Cayley identified four primary forces---lift, drag, weight, and thrust---which eventually helped the Wright Brothers first take flight in 1903. These defining moments helped lead to the purported invention of the paper airplane in 1909---but its exact origin is unclear. Experts can agree that the principles that make an airplane fly are the same that govern paper versions.
Clue: A British couple designed Clue during World War II and based it on the murder-mystery dinner parties popular around that time. The game---in which players must deduce with available evidence the murderer of the luckless Mr. Boddy---became a quick success. It remains one of the top 10 best-selling games of all time.
Republicans hate that game. It requires fact-finding, no modern conservative would be caught dead in a house with a study or a library, and no matter how hard they try they’ll---oh, say it with me---never get a clue.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cheers and Jeers SHOCK CLAIM: UFO and alien base found in kiddie pool
---The Express
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