Energize An Ally Tuesday
For the foreseeable future, virtually all of my political donations will be going to one type of advocacy group: those devoted to voting rights. Thanks to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—who apparently believe that the object of being a Democrat is to make Republicans as comfortable as possible—these community groups now have to shoulder the burden of fighting rampant voter suppression in states where Trump cultists control the levers of power.
In short, they’re now the levees protecting us from full-on fascism. Thank you soooo much, Joe and Kyrsten, for foisting this on them. You shouldn’t have. Really.
Continued...
I was happy to see over the weekend that Daily Kos is supporting a determined bunch of scrappy state-level progressive groups…
PLAN Action
Pennsylvania Stands Up
LUCHA
We The People MI
One Arizona
Poder In Action
Coalition for the Peoples Agenda
CASA in Action
West Virginia Citizen Action Group
...that are fighting voter suppression in their communities, and today I'm making a donation to help each of them.
Over the coming weeks and months, our Tuesday "Energize An Ally" opener will focus on these heroes of democracy and the work they're doing to stop the party for whom slipping on a white hood and curling up with a hot mug of ivermectin and a copy of Mein Kampf on a cold winter's day is their idea of bliss. If you're willing and able to the folks above, they'll greatly appreciate it. Because thanks to the abandonment of voters and election security by the federal government, we’re on our own.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, January 25, 2022
Note: Can't get the cap off the maple syrup bottle? Try this: set your house on fire and then twist gently. The heat will warm the sticky syrup caught between the aluminum cap and the glass grooves and allow it to be gently loosened with your fingertips. Or try pliers or other wrench-like implement. —Hugs, Heloise
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til World, National, Regional, State, County, and Municipal Carrot Cake Day: 9:
Days 'til the Holtville Carrot Festival in California: 10
Increase in Covid-19 cases among Maine students and teachers over the last two weeks: 75%
Increase in the U.S. home prices in 2021: 16%
Increase in Iowa farmland prices in 2021: 29%
Minimum number of songs Dolly Parton has composed: 3,000
Age of Louie Anderson and Meat Loaf when they died Friday: 68 / 74
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Happy retirement, buddy…
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JEERS to living up to your name. The original Ninjas—the ones who roamed Japan in the 15th century—were known for being brilliantly-trained experts in asymmetrical warfare who did their dirty work really fast, with maximum efficiency, and then disappeared into the night. The modern-day "Cyber Ninjas" election auditors in Arizona worked exactly like them…minus the training, fast work, and efficiency. But they had the disappearing part down cold, which now describes their trail. And guess who's left with bamboo fibers all over their faces? Yup—the idiots who hired them:
Arizona’s Republican State Senate, which hired the discredited Cyber Ninjas company to carry out a vote audit of Maricopa County, is now desperately seeking the company’s hidden public records to comply with a court order.
Senate Republicans recently discovered the Ninjas leased a mysterious “data center,” and have sent a two-sentence letter to the company and others involved in the botched audit, asking if public records are stored there, The Arizona Republic reported. […]
The Cyber Ninjas shut down and fired all personnel early this month. The company was facing $50,000 daily fines beginning Jan. 6 until it turned over public records it collected as part of the audit. The records have yet to be provided.
The audit effort was a fiasco from the start.
If their current search doesn't pan out, the Republicans plan to take drastic action by hiring the Cyber Samurai to find the Cyber Ninjas. And if that doesn’t work, they'll recruit the Cyber Ashigaru, the Cyber Wokou, the Cyber Sohei, and the Cyber Yamabushi. And if that doesn’t work? Basically they’re cyber f*cked.
CHEERS to an unambiguous gesture. Speaking of Arizona fiascos: Kyrsten Sinema. After refusing to save our republic by helping pass voting rights legislation, the Democratic senator with the 8 percent approval rating among Democrats was gently ushered to the curb by the state party and summarily taken out with the rest of the trash:
The Arizona Democratic Party's executive board announced Saturday it formally censured Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for voting to maintain the Senate's filibuster rules, effectively blocking Democrats' voting legislation, a key priority for the party. […]
"While we take no pleasure in this announcement, the ADP Executive Board has decided to formally censure Senator Sinema as a result of her failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy," Arizona Democratic Party Chair Raquel Terán said in a statement, following a meeting of the executive board Saturday morning.
According to the rules, as a censured public official, Sinema loses the support of the official party apparatus and, even worse, half of the fake rhinestones on her jean vest.
JEERS to little misunderstandings. On January 25, 1995, the Norwegians fired a scientific rocket called a Black Brant XII into the air, and the Russians thought it might actually be an American Trident missile launched from a sub. What happened next was so hilarious…
As a result, fearing a high altitude nuclear attack that could blind Russian radar, Russian nuclear forces were put on high alert, and the nuclear weapons command suitcase was brought to Russian president Boris Yeltsin.
[He] then had to decide whether or not to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States.
The Norwegian rocket incident was the first and only incident where any nuclear weapons state had its nuclear briefcase activated and prepared for launching an attack.
How lucky was the world that day? Let me put it this way: the incident happened on the one day of his presidency when Boris Yeltsin wasn't drunk. That lucky.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to moguls among the moguls. I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Hey Billeh, I heard that the World Economic Forum in Davos happened last week. Do you know anything about this consequential world event?"
Oh…you mean the confab in swanky Switzerland where the perfectly manicured, pedicured, furriered, botoxed and mansculpted ultra-rich fly in on their private jets and, after finishing their champagne and zipping their flies, get whisked in limos to the Ritz, gorge on gourmet food, drink $500 bottles of wine out of ladies' shoes, shuss the slopes in $10,000 designer skiwear, party the night away with the finest prostitutes money can buy, and make back-slapping backroom deals that bulldoze more money into their off-the-books Caribbean accounts, all while pretending to care about the climate crisis and the poor, but all that's on hold again this year because it's online and don’t think for a second that doesn’t make Tom Friedman cry because now he won’t have any folksy firsthand stories to write about the unexpected geopolitical insights of Swiss taxi drivers in his beloved New York Times? That World Economic Forum in Davos? Sorry. Never heard of it.
CHEERS to meeting the press. Sixty-one years ago today, in 1961, President Kennedy gave the first press conference that was broadcast live on both TV and radio. Not having done it before, the early moments were a bit awkward:
"I want to assure you that I will, with great vigah, endeavuh to ahnsuh your questions thoroughly and completely. Just not in the bahthroom while I am taking my, uh, showuh."
Things went better when they moved it to the press room.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 25, 2012
CHEERS to what I learned yesterday on Fox News. It's all so clear now. Thanks to Charles Krauthammer and Steve Hayes last night on Special Report, I now know that when President Obama refuses to give Republicans everything they want, he's "being a stubborn obstructionist." But when tea party freshmen refuse to give President Obama anything he wants, they're "valiantly sticking by the principles that got them elected." Today in the C&J health clinic: 50 percent off whiplash therapy.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the wisdom of jbou. The Kossack—one of several who departed us in 2016—is gone but not forgotten. C&J promised to revisit his sharp George-Carlin-meets-Stephen-Wright zingers from time to time because they will never fail to crack me up. And whaddya know, today is one of those days. Here's what was on his mind ten years ago this month…
» As a kid, I'd get attention by saying inappropriate things and making fart noises. As an adult, I'm taller.
» The sad thing about Baby New Year is knowing he dies on his first birthday.
» Love is like the Force: it surrounds us, binds us, and people can use it to cut off your arms and legs and toss you into lava.
» Next we should demand that Romney release his Donny Osmond records.
» I ordered a plunger and a snare drum on Amazon so next time you order one and it recommends the other, that's me.
» This "judge people by the content of their character" thing is not working to my advantage.
» Autocorrect makes me feel like I'm friends with a nosy, incompetent know-it-all.
» Time heals all wounds. Unless you suffered a horrible disfigurement working in a clock factory. Then it's just a grim reminder.
» Watching all of these GOP debates is like taking a massive dump and then waiting around to see which pieces of shit get flushed down first.
Hope you're not still eating breakfast.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Basic questions like "who is this for?" appear not to have been asked at any stage of the game, while panicked "tweaking" rendered the rest incomprehensible. It's a vast understatement to say that readers of Bill in Portland Maine's Cheers and Jeers deserved way better treatment than this.
—Sheila O’Malley
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