From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
BREAKING: You're Being Deputized As A Netroots Nation Elf
Yup---it's that holly jolly most wonderful time of the year again: the gathering of the donations for the annual Netroots Nation Holiday Bazaar. It's an online auction to raise money for Netroots Nation to help fund its programs and keep costs low for its annual convention (San Jose this year---June 20-23). Linda Lee, Joan McCarter and Beth Becker are co-chairs again, and they'd love it if you could hoist a goodie or two onto the auction block for the November 30-December 4 event:
A Keith Olbermann talking
bobblehead is the best...
present...in the WORLD!!!
The creativity of our community never ceases to amaze us---past Bazaar items have included:
• Quilted pillows and throws
• Hand-dipped candles
• Embossed note cards
• Custom made jewelry
• Gingerbread cookies, truffles and fudge
Donating items to our auction catalog is a great way to support our fundraising effort. We appreciate any items you donate as well as any items you round up and submit on behalf of other donors. To submit an item donation to this auction, you will be asked to provide some information about the item you would like to donate, along with a pic. We'll contact you via e-mail after the item has been reviewed.
So be a part of this event by making a donation to the Bazaar today. And don't forget to bid on your favorite items starting on Friday, November 30th!
Oh, and to answer the most frequently-asked question: YES---Nolan Treadway's mom
is offering up another
custom-made Afghan this year. Plus we hear several people will be donating gifts that Obama sent them to win his re-election. No word yet if Mitt Romney will toss in a crate of his sour grapes.
To upload info about your donation, go to the auction web site. If you have any questions, e-mail Linda Lee at exhibits [at] netrootsnation.org.
Many thanks and Ho Ho Ho.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 19, 2012
Note: This morning I cooked up four strips of turkey bacon for breakfast. It would've been five but I pardoned one of them.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til marriage licenses start getting issued to same-sex couples in Washington state: 17
Days `til Hanukah/Festivus/Christmas/Kwanzaa: 20/34/36/37
President Obama's current approval rating: 58%
Americans' approval rating for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively: 51%, 43
(Source: USA Today/Gallup poll via TPM)
Rank of Alabama, Washington D.C. and West Virginia among states where people get the most birthday wishes on their Facebook page: #1, #2, #3
(Source: Facebook via USA Today)
Rank of Minnesota, North Carolina and Arkansas in turkey farming: #1, #2, #3
Number of places named Cranberry or some variation thereof: 9
(Source: Phillyburbs.com)
Totally Random NFL score:
New England Patriots 59 Indianapolis Colts 24
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NEW! "The President is Distant and Aloof and I Can PROVE it!"
I tell you the President is distant and aloof---here's proof!!!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Good advice
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CHEERS to a good way to start off a Monday. Molly Ball, writing in The Atlantic, looks at the new composition of Congress and sees a resurgence of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party:
45 days until she starts kicking ass in the Senate
The Democrats' gains in the House and Senate in last week's election were modest: Just five seats in the former and two in the latter, at last count. ([three] House races remain too close to call). And yet the left is jubilant. Why? Because they see a changed Congress in terms of quality, not quantity. The Blue Dogs, the caucus of self-styled moderate House Democrats, had 54 members two years ago. When the new Congress convenes in January, there will be 14 of them.
"We replaced Joe Lieberman with a real progressive," [PCCC head Adam] Green says, referring to Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy. Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson is out; Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, is in. … "Elizabeth Warren is the capstone. She's a game changer," Green said. "She will not be a typical freshman. With her track record and her megaphone, we predict a major Elizabeth Warren bandwagon effect."
Shorter Molly Ball: Good morning! And what a fine morning it is.
CHEERS to short workweeks. Only three days for most Americans this week---hopefully that includes you, too. Then it's turkey, gravy, stuffing and a whole lotta nothin' else. Except, of course, our usual 14 hours of daily blogging. ("Pass the yams, dear. And the screen shammy...")
JEERS to not knowing when you're licked. Very-soon-to-be-former Congressman Allen West lost even more ground---242 votes, to be relatively precise---after another recount over the weekend. The victor in the FL-18 race, Patrick Murphy, continues going through his freshman orientation swag bag. But I think West should stick to his pearl-handled guns and keep demanding new recounts and hearings. It's within his rights. It's no threat to the outcome. But most of all, it's a gas watching the jerkwad lose over and over and over.
CHEERS to spending face time with them gol'durn ferriners. President Obama strapped on Jetpack One and rocketed over to Asia Saturday. His first stop---Thailand:
Leaning forward...or BOWING??!!
Quick! Turn on Drudge's blinky light!
The President visited a Buddhist temple at the Wat Pho monastery, met with Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, held a joint press conference with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and enjoyed a dinner hosted by the prime minister at the Government House in Bangkok.
Before the dinner, President Obama toasted the character and strength of the Thai people.
"Everything that I’ve felt---your dignity, your resilience, your friendship, your warmth---that is the foundation of our alliance," he said. "It’s why you were the first Asian nation to reach out to America after we won our independence. It’s why in Asia, to this day, we can say Thailand is our oldest friend.
After Thailand he traveled to Myanmar, which I can tell you unequivocally is located between MySpace and MyYahoo. Thank you, online geography course---best five grand I ever spent.
JEERS to stupid human tricks. I have never and will never really give a rat's p'tootey about the Israel-Palestine conflict, except the part where I read about children and other civilians getting blown up, in which case whoever's responsible for doing that can go fuck themselves and I don’t care what side they're on. (See also: Obama, Barack--Drone Strike Fetish. Sad but true.) I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Mitt Romney was fairly lucid on this issue:
"[S]o what you do is, you say, you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem…and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it."
'Scuse me while I go soak in a vat of Purell for agreeing with that slimeball. Sight-impaired squirrel…meet nut.
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Four years ago in C&J---November 19, 2008:
CHEERS to a small gathering of friends in an intimate setting. Barack Obama's inauguration is expected to draw 4,000,000 (yes, that's billion with an m) people. The Park Service assured organizers that they'd be ready for the unprecedented crush of people by setting up at least ten Port-O-Potties.
CHEERS to the new super cop on the beat. Barack Obama has made his choice for Attorney General, and I'm perusing his qualifications now:
>> Not named Ashcroft? Check.
>> Not named Gonzales? Check.
>> Not named Mukasey? Check.
>> Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi can't stand him? Check.
Okay, then. He's perfect.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the good old days, when Republicans made some sense. On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the Pennsylvania battlefield. I read these words every year and their simple elegance makes me appreciate them a little more each time:
Only confirmed photo of Lincoln
at Gettysburg on 11/19/1863. Had he
lived and gone into acting, he could've
played Daniel Day-Lewis in a movie.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Click here and you can read it
the way Abe wrote it. If only today's politicians could be that brilliantly brief. But if you don’t have time to read it all, here's the
Power Point Presentation of the speech. Dilbert would be proud.
Have a nice Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“Absolutely, astronauts can live in Cheers and Jeers' environment.”
---Don Hassler
Radiation Assessment Detector
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