From the COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS...
I'm honored to carry the torch for the kiddie pool denizens while Bill and Michael take a well-deserved break from the wilds of Portland, ME. I'll do my best to entertain you all, but I'm not as skilled as Bill, whose mastery of snark just can't be duplicated. Any resemblance to the real Cheers and Jeers is purely intentional, and you are all encouraged to recommend this diary so the C&J junkies can get their daily fix.
And today we have prizes! As you may or may not know, I'm forming a PAC: PeanutButterPAC.org is an unconnected PAC, meaning anyone can join and donate money. And it's not just me - several Kossacks have joined up with me and we've been meeting by conference call these last few weeks: Spedwybabs, MinistryofTruth, PistolSO, and SomethingTheDogSaid are all founding members of the PAC, in addition to myself. Join me over the fold for the rest of today's cheering and jeering, and an explanation of the prizes...
I see the PAC as a way to harness the power of the small dollar donation and the power of the DailyKos community into a fundraising machine. Members get to choose who and what we support, and votes are taken weekly to determine the monetary awards. We have three levels of weekly donations: $2.00 Tuesdays, $3.00 Thursdays and $5.00 Fridays, so the most you could donate would be $10 a week. The way it's structured, if we get just 1,200 members, we will raise over $200,000 a year - 12,000 members would yield over $2,000,000 annually!
It's a simple and elegant concept, a small d-democratically controlled community of progressives making a big difference with small amounts of money. We ask that members make a small sacrifice in their daily lives and donate the saving to the PAC - for example, pack a peanut butter sandwich one day a week and send us your lunch money, hence the name. There are literally dozens of ways one could free up the cash - skip buying a coffee on the way to work one day a week, carpool or take public transportation one day a week, cut down on cigarette purchases by one pack a week, etc, etc...
We're open for business and ready to process memberships - please click through and sign up, let's make a big difference with small dollars! The PAC is sponsoring a poetry slam in the comments to this diary - give us your best limerick, or haiku, or any other form of poetry in the comments and you could win a $20.10 donation to the candidate of your choice. Vote for the ones you like by recommending them, and the comment with the most recs will win.
On with cheering and jeering...
Cheers to the new sheriff in town! The Obama administration seems to finally be taking the fight to the Taliban, and they've rounded up quite a herd of the bad guys in the last few weeks, something the prior administration was never able to do while they were "keeping us safe". Funny that during all that time they had in office, the terror alert system never - NEVER - dipped into the comfortable blue or green zones. Makes my limerick from the 2006 cycle truer than ever:
In two thousand, Bush stole into office
The Supremes gave it to him, through artifice
Now it's six years later
And his ratings have cratered
Seems he governs with his head up his orifice!
Jeers to methane releases - and I don't mean pulling Bill in Portland Maine's finger after the church's bean supper! A warming world causes the permafrost to lose the perma- part of its moniker, and as the permafrost melts, it releases trapped methane into the air. Methane is 20-25 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 - see shpilk's recommended diary for more info.
Cheers to speaking truth to GOPers, even if the words got "taken down". Congressman Anthony Weiner rose to address the house three times yesterday, announcing
"The Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry."
The GOPers, of course, can't handle the truth, so they protested Weiner's utterance - of course, without challenging the truth of it! See more in Congessman Weiner's rec list diary. Oh, and Mr. Weiner, you and Alan Grayson should team up - please check your calendar, will you be busy from 2016 to 2024?
Jeers to selling out our best interests, Washington style. From all indications, we're going to "compromise" on the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and while they say they'll do something with real teeth, I'm expecting wooden dentures like the first George W. used to wear. Color me cynical...
Cheers to Keith Olbermann for the most heartfelt special comment I've seen yet, and folks, I've seen all of them. As his father reaches the end of his life, KO decided to open a window onto this most trying time for his family to make a point to the folks attending today's health care summit: it's not death panels, it's life panels, you morons! Have the conversation with your loved ones, folks - my Dad is gone, but my mom is still kicking at the tender age of 88, and we've had this conversation with her. Heck, her funeral is already paid for, and her name and birthdate is already carved into the headstone next to my dad's name! It's a conversation worth having, and I've discussed my end with my daughter, who will likely be the one caring for me as I grow even more decrepit than I am today...
Cheers to C&J subs while Bill and Michael bask in the warmth of the Florida Keys! Friday's C&J Mudslide edition will be hosted by SpedwyBabs around 7 PM, please stop by and give it a rec.
Updated to add another cheer: Cheers to my new Senator, Scott Brown! I never thought I'd be writing this, but his vote for cloture on the jobs bill was great! At my Drinking Liberally meeting last night, our token Republican started in with me about the special election, and I was able to shoot him down in flames with "Scott Brown votes with Democrats!" Fun, fun, fun...
What are you cheering and jeering today? Give us your best poetry in the comments, and win a $20.10 donation to the candidate of your choice!
Today's shameless PeanutButterPAC testimonial:
The National Weather Service said PeanutButterPAC would be "significant and long-lasting."