From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize an Ally Tuesday
We all know that Hillary Clinton would've treated America's Latino communities with compassion, respect and sensible policies…from offering undocumented immigrants paths to citizenship to expanding health care to raising the minimum wage and that's just for starters. But it was not to be. Despite---and I will hammer this for as long as I have breath in my tiny Billy lungs---winning over 2 million more votes than the Republican, we're all stuck with walking, talking, hate-tweeting nightmare Donald Trump and his cabinet of apocalypse fetishists.
Lord only knows what kind of systematic oppression is coming down the pike for Latinos. And that's why we're picking the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund as today's C&J Energize An Ally organization. Says MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz:
MALDEF hopes and expects that the President-elect will adopt different rhetoric and pursue different policies, particularly in critical areas like immigration, than he espoused in his campaign. …
Latinos have always been a central contributor to American progress, and the Latino community---today representing one in four of all public school students nationwide---will play an even bigger role in making the United States continue to thrive in the future. Latinos are thus an essential part of the nation that President-elect Trump will govern, and we hope and expect that he will support the Latino community in its critical role. Throughout the remainder of the current Administration and the Trump Administration, MALDEF will continue to play its critical role in protecting and defending the Constitution and the rights of all Latinos living in the United States against undue excesses and discriminatory practices by any level of government or by private actors.”
MALDEF was founded in 1968 and is the largest Latino legal rights organization, promoting "advocacy, communications, community education, and litigation in the areas of education, employment, immigrant rights, and political access." If you're able and willing, here’s MALDEF’s donation page. They're gonna have a lot on their plate when Old Man Taco Bowl takes over.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Note: President-elect Trump cries fraud as dead cat bounces higher than his approval rating. Film at 11.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til winter: 22
Days 'til Chanukah: 25
Portion of the U.S. workforce that will be 55+ by 2024, up from 1-in-10 in 1994, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: 1-in-4
Estimated number of people killed and wounded, respectively, by guns on Thanksgiving, according to #GunFail record keeper David Waldman: 18, 76
Estimated number of middle-class American families, including most single-parent households, who will have to pay higher taxes under the Trump plan, according to the Tax Policy Center: 8 million
Expected tax cut overall for the middle class and the richest 1 percent, respectively: 2%, 13.5%
Percent chance that Britain's Food Standards Agency is among those that can access any and all Brits' browser histories without a warrant under the new "Investigatory Powers" law: 100%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Getting settled in…
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CHEERS to breaking-leftward news. Just saw this late last night. Looks like North Carolina governor Pat McCrory (R) is about to spend 2017 and beyond shuffling around the house in his jammies whining about how he was a rare Republican loser in a sea of GOP winners:
His poor wife.
JEERS to putting together the team. Here's the latest rundown on President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominees in an easy-to-digest "cheat sheet" format:
Vice President End Times fanatic and LGBT hater who spends several hours a day figuring out how to get rid of Trump.
Commerce Secretary 80-year-old billionaire who was on duty during the Sago mine disaster that killed a dozen miners.
Secretary of Defense 4-star general who boasts that “it’s a helluva lot of fun to shoot some people” and whose core life principle is, "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." Famous for massacring over 40 members of a wedding party in 2004.
National Security Adviser: Muslim-hating former 3-star general and conspiracy-theorist who has licked Putin's boots and broken multiple Defense Department rules.
Treasury Secretary Billionaire Goldman Sachs guy dubbed "The Foreclosure King."
Education Secretary Billionaire LGBT hater, public schools dismantler, pro-child-labor advocate, pyramid scheme grifter.
Health & Human Services Georgia congressman who will be in charge of moving health care from an insurance-based system to a bake sale-based system.
Transportation Secretary A billionaire crash-test dummy.
HUD Secretary "Sleepy."
CIA Director: Kansas congressman who believes torture is patriotism, Muslims are scum, and every move you make should be monitored by The State.
U.N. Ambassador A woman of color whose parents---Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa---have funny names and weren't even born here. This must be an error.
Attorney General Racist fuck and redneck sheriff wannabe.
Secretary of State Either a xenophobic, philandering, walking conflict-of-interest…
…or a philandering former 4-star general who shared top-secret war documents with his girlfriend
…or a guy who spent months blasting Trump as a "phony, a fraud" and said "If Trump had said 4 years ago the things he says today about the KKK, Muslims, Mexicans, and the disabled, I would NOT have accepted his endorsement."
Chief Adviser #1 cheerleader and propaganda spreader for the American Nazi movement.
Chief of Staff Former RNC chair whose primary job will be to submit to daily wedgies by the roving gang of west-wing billionaires.
Print this out and keep it handy when you're mingling around the water cooler with co-workers or at a holiday gathering with friends and loved ones. They'll be impressed with your knowledge of current events!
JEERS to turning your fire extinguisher over to an arsonist. Down yonder in Texas a member of the electoral college says he's resigning because he can't in good conscience cast a vote for Donald Trump, but also can't vote for Hillary because, well...because. His statement pulls no punches, though, and even tosses in a little snark, but holy mother of god look at the last sentence:
"I do not see how Donald Trump is biblically qualified to serve in the office of the Presidency.
Of the hundreds of angry messages that I have received, not one has made a convincing case from scripture otherwise," he wrote on his blog "The Blessed Path." "If Trump is not qualified and my role, both morally and historically, as an elected official is to vote my conscience, then I can not and will not vote for Donald Trump for President. I believe voting for Trump would bring dishonor to God.
The people will get their vote. They will get their Skittles for dinner. I will sleep well at night knowing I neither gave in to their demands nor caved to my convictions. I will also mourn the loss of our republic."
So to sum up Art Sisneros: I could help save the republic that we all love so much, but instead I am doing something to help kill it, and I shall sleep well over it. Perhaps someone should remind him of what Edmund Burke said: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Exhibit A: this guy. [Insert primal scream here.]
CHEERS to a place of their own. On this date in 1947---despite strong Arab opposition---the U.N. General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state. Aside from the decades of bombs and violence and starvation and human rights abuses and terrorism and suspicion and hatred, it's going rather well, don't you think?
WHOA to sweating the small stuff. You've heard about the growing amount of space garbage orbiting the earth (at over 15,000 mph) and how much damage it can do to satellites and the International Space Station, right? That's why the brilliant nerds at NASA spend a lot of time figuring out how to shield their babies better, and apparently they've "struck" (ha ha) on a promising idea:
The International Space Station, located in low-Earth orbit, shares its small bit of space with approximately 2,700 tons of space junk.
Even small particle impacts can cause significant damage, so current tests that began late October can help verify new shield designs and improve the associated technology. For example, earlier testing and analysis demonstrated that multi-layered shields perform better than single-layer shields of the same areal mass. This latest series of investigations were conducted on multi-layered shields, but the materials were arranged in a configuration not previously tried before. The tested shield (or a similar design) will be built, launched and installed on one of station’s Passive Mating Adapters (PMAs) early next year. The PMA acts as one of the docking ports that allow visiting vehicles to dock to the space station. The shield will protect an area at the forward-base area of the adaptor, which recent risk analyses has shown to have higher than acceptable risk.
Here's what the test looks like when a tiny aluminum ball is shot into a shield with a .50-caliber gun. Says NASA: "The impact generates what appears to be fire, but the assessment was conducted in a space-like vacuum, so there is no air or fuel. The brilliant, yellow flash is due to the momentary increase in material temperatures and associated glow."
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And here's the cavern that tiny ball made in the shield:
My point? I don’t really have one. I just wanted to take your mind off politics for 30 seconds.
CHEERS to famous firsts. On November 29, 1929 Commander Richard Byrd became the first non-bird to fly over the South Pole. A friend of mine did that, too, until the weed wore off and he realized he was still in his mom's basement.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 29, 2006
CHEERS to Lego-style legislation. This oughtta be fun: Democrats in the House plan to build their ethics reform package "piece by piece" on the floor, thus allowing each issue to merit its own time for debate. For you Republicans who need a refresher course on what that word means, you’ll find it in the dictionary between two you’re more familiar with: "debase” and “debauch."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to getting-alongness. Amazon.com didn’t have to show two religious leaders being pleasant to each other to make their point, but given how religion is the #1 source of strife and conflict in the world, it's probably the most effective symbolism they could’ve used. For anyone with a heart, this is true-north for how the world should be. Nicely done, Amazon…
But if the sequel doesn’t add a minister and a rabbi and take place in a bar, I’ll be sorely disappointed.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Honest to god, Bill in Portland Maine ---shut the fuck up!"
---Keith Olbermann
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