From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Happy Update
Last week we told you about how the fundy windbags at the Maine Christian Civic League were crowing that their prayers had prevented Maine Family Planning from reaching their $10,000 "Pledge-A-Picketer" fundraising goal. The story was picked up by Mike Tipping at the Bangor Daily News, which was picked up Dan Savage, Think Progress, Wonkette, Raw Story and others including Daily Kos.
I thought you might like to know how all the donations from around the country added up. Here's MFP's update from last Thursday:
...says "thanks, DKos."
Since the CCL’s claim of righteous victory, we’ve received almost $24,000 from over 720 new donors in six countries and 45 states (pushing our total over $29,000). Many of you stepped up and donated, despite not knowing Maine Family Planning or the work we do. … Despite the fact that many of you don’t know us, you’ve made it clear that you trust family planning clinics to provide reproductive care, and that you trust women, men, teens, and trans people to make the decisions that are right for themselves and their families.
Yesterday I called Carol Goetz, VP of Development at Maine Family Planning for an update. She sounded very happy as she told me that
the current fundraising total stands at $40,130. The number of new donors: 984. Wow!
Thanks to everyone who chipped in and made this one of the great wins of the year in Maine. And thanks, too, to the ever-bumbling Christian Civic League, for proving that God does indeed answer prayers. Just not theirs.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Note: Please (remember]; Only you can help preven't punctuation, abuse?
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11 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Portland, Maine's ban on polystyrene cups and take-out containers goes into effect:
1
Days 'til the
Bacon and Beer Classic in New York City:
11
Percent of Americans prone to dangerous bursts of anger who have EZ access to a firearm:
9%
Percent chance that the 310 million privately-owned firearms are disproportionately owned by the above 9 percent:
100%
(Source:
Behavioral Sciences and the Law)
Years ahead of projections that electric car
batteries
hit a key price point that achieves cost-parity with conventional cars:
5
Amount Australians could
lose out on if they don't get their kids vaccinated:
$15,000
Year through which Under Armour
signed an endorsement deal with Masters champ Jordan Spieth last January:
2025
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Readers at breitbart.com react to Marco Rubio:
I hope Rubio runs for president because he'll have to give up his senate seat in the process. That means there could be one fewer open borders globalist in the senate come 2017. But Rubio doesn't have to worry about being unemployed. I'm sure Jeb could find Rubio a job as a cabana boy at one of his properties.
---MarkRDW
Little Ricky's natural ceiling is selling Sham-wow's in an infomercial from a Miami hotel room.
---Take Back Our Media
He wants to be el presidente del tijuana norte. Drop dead, Rubio.
---rancher
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Pooch prints a paw
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CHEERS to a fresh infusion. With unions getting hammered and right-wing billionaires (led the Kochs and their nearly-too-big-too-fail status) flinging open their vaults for Republicans in races big and small, it's clear that Team D needs one thing more than any other at the moment: cash and lots of it. So this is good to hear:
Yes! Liberals finally get
their own star chamber!
A cadre of wealthy liberal donors aims to pour tens of millions of dollars into rebuilding the left’s political might in the states, racing to catch up with a decades-old conservative effort that has reshaped statehouses across the country.
The plan embraced by the Democracy Alliance, an organization that advises some of the Democrats’ top contributors, puts an urgent new focus on financing groups that can help the party regain influence in time for the next congressional redistricting process, after the 2020 elections. The blueprint approved by the alliance board calls on donors to help expand state-level organizing and lobbying for measures addressing climate change, voting rights and economic inequality. […]
“People have gotten a wake-up call,” Gara LaMarche, the alliance’s president, said in an interview. “The right is focused on the state level, and even down-ballot, and has made enormous gains. We can’t have the kind of long-term progressive future we want if we don’t take power in the states.”
Just like the Kochs have their private soirees, this week the liberal mega-donors are having a super-secret meeting in California to hash out their strategy and write big fat checks. I'd love to be there, but the only ones I seem to be able to write these days are the short skinny kind.
CHEERS to a whole lotta years in the slammer. During the Iraq war, the rent-a-mercenary outfit called Blackwater seemed to go out of its way to cast itself as self-righteous bullies who were above the law. Well, it's taken a long time, but now the world knows that they weren't:
Lawless goons. No
wonder Cheney hired 'em.
One former Blackwater security contractor received a life sentence on Monday and three others received 30-year sentences for killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007. The shooting left 17 people dead and was a gruesome nadir in the war in Iraq. It transformed Blackwater Worldwide from America’s wealthiest and most politically powerful security contractor into a symbol of unchecked and privatized military power.
“What happened on Sept. 16, 2007, was nothing short of an atrocity. There’s just no other way to describe it,” T.Patrick Martin, a federal prosecutor, said Monday before sentencing. He said that “the United States has shown that regardless of the nationality of the victims, it values justice for all.”
Now if we could just value justice with Bush and Cheney in the dock.
There it sits, broken hearted. Paid its
dime but the storm clouds never parted.
JEERS to storm clouds on the horizon. Yesterday afternoon I parked my butt in a lawn chair on the roof with a pair of opera glasses so I could
watch the launch of that SpaceX rocket down in Florida. It's notable because Elon Musk and NASA are going to try and land the stage-1 rocket booster on a platform in the Atlantic so it can be re-used. But…with six minutes to go they scrubbed the launch due to "anvil clouds" in the vicinity. So they'll give it another go today around 4:10pm ET. You can watch the launch (assuming it goes---they're layin' 50-50 odds) on
NASA TV. By the way, this is the cargo shipment that includes an
Italian espresso maker. But are such extravagances turning our astronauts into a bunch of coddled socialist moochers? Find out tonight at 9 on
Hannity. (Spoiler alert: yes!)
JEERS to wacko thespians. A hundred and fifty years ago today, John Wilkes Booth shot a derringer ball into Abe Lincoln's head, snuffing out the life of a great (the greatest?) president. Here's a pic that White House historian Michael Beschloss tweeted last night of John Kennedy at Lincoln's tomb. There aren't enough words in the world that are worth what's packed in this image...
Tuck in your shirt and
pay your own respects here. They say that as an actor John Wilkes Booth was considered "the George Clooney of his day" when he killed Lincoln. As a human being? Not so much.
CHEERS to getting real. While the Republican presidential candidates are busy shouting their lungs out about death and gloom and destruction, Hillary Clinton quietly rolled out her campaign with a video that more than a few people said moved them to tears. And unlike the stock-footage-happy Republicans, Team Hillary populated the ad with real people, including what I believe is the first gay couple in a campaign-launch and definitely the first gay couple planning marriage in a campaign ad:
The happy couple.
The video features the couple among other Clinton supporters in a segment in which they are shown holding hands as they walk down a street. Overheard is [Jared] Milrad’s voice, who says, “I’m getting married this summer to someone I really care about.” [Nathan] Johnson and Milrad plan to marry on July 19 in Chicago in a park adjacent to Lake Michigan, then hold a reception at Center of Halstead, an LGBT community center in the city.
Not to be outdone, Ted Cruz is working on a video featuring his own base of supporters. Unfortunately it's taking longer than expected because their natural inclination is to skitter away from sunlight.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 14, 2005
CHEERS to good reasons to get the ax. In Germany, a TV show (The Chancellor's Office) that tried to mimic `The West Wing' has been cancelled because it was too boring. Says one former German cabinet member: "The seat of government is really a very quiet place. You don't see people running around wildly, rushing from one office to another." Only in America, kids...only in America.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to taking the wheel. A rite of passage for President and First Lady Obama, as oldest daughter Malia has taken her first official driving lessons:
[Beep Beep!] "Dad! Need a ride?"
"The Secret Service [taught her], actually, because they wouldn't let me in the car with her," Michelle Obama told television host Rachael Ray in an interview [that aired] Thursday. …
Allowing Malia to drive, Obama told Ray, is part of her parents' effort to give their kids as normal a life as possible, despite their unusual upbringing. "Driving for Malia, I think, gives her a sense of normalcy, like the rest of her friends are doing. And my kids have got to learn how to live in the world like normal kids," she said.
So far the Secret Service says Malia is doing well on checking her mirrors, parking, merging into traffic and keeping her hands in the ten-and-two position. They say all she needs to master now is bumping into White House barricades and she'll be good to go. [
Sigh] They grow up so fast.
Have a grind-it-til-ya-find-it Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
David Letterman's final weeks are upon us. Though the roster does not include rival Bill in Portland Maine, it does feature Oprah Winfrey along with Letterman pals Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin, Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker.
The Hollywood reporter
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