From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
News from Netroots Nation
Just a quick reminder that the doors to the Netroots Nation convention open in 161 days. This year---hallelujah---we're headin' to the deep south August 10-13 to plan, regroup, network and party in Atlanta. In fact, an independent estimate by the Independent Estimate Institute confirms that 90 percent of the nation's problems will be solved by the crazy lefty attendees. Nate Silver pegs it at 89.9 percent but WTF does he know?
In the meantime, the only thing standing in the path of liberal world domination is an agenda, and that's where you come in. NN17 is now soliciting ideas for panels, speakers, training sessions and film screenings. The goddess Mary Rickles has the details...
As always, our goal is to highlight the great work being done by activists and organizations around the country, from national campaigns to local grassroots organizing, as well as to shine a light on what’s happening locally in Atlanta and the surrounding areas.
You can submit on any topic, but here are a few things we’re looking to emphasize this year:
- Panels highlighting resistance efforts both nationally and locally
- Discussions that challenge us to think long-term about the movement and building grassroots power
- Trainings that help new activists grow into successful organizers
- Advanced trainings that focus on cutting-edge tools and techniques
We ask you to consider inclusivity as well as how your panel will empower others to take what they've heard and use it in their own work. Intersectionality is key. By submitting a proposal, you're taking responsibility as the organizer of the session. We’ll help you along the way, but ultimately it’ll be your baby.
Submissions first go through selection committees, which include peers from around the movement. Once the submission period is closed, we all get to vote on the sessions we like best.
Deadline for submissions is March 31. Here's how to get started in one easy step: Click here for the guidelines and submission form.
And to answer your next question, YES! There will be a Daily Kos kickoff party on Wednesday, August 9th. Navajo is still workin' on the details, but if you want to be added to the attendee list, send her a kosmail at this link.
Meanwhile, Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, March 2, 2017
Note: Not in MY back yard!!! (Use the front yard. It's got more room and less dog poop.)
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next full moon: 10
Days `til the Durango Bach Festival in Colorado: 10
Number of the 549 administration positions requiring Senate confirmation that Trump hasn't nominated anyone for yet, according to The Wall Street Journal: 516
Percent of new U.S. businesses that were started in rural areas in 1977 and today, respectively, according to the Kauffman Foundation: 20%, 12%
Percent of teens who believe the country is headed in the right direction, according to an AP-NORC poll: 37%
Percent of Subway's chicken that's actually chicken (the rest is soy fillers): 50%
Age of Yellowstone Park as of yesterday: 145
-
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
If you do not pretend to believe everything Bush says, then you are unpatriotic, against Our Troops and probably in support of gay marriage. Those Europeans understand nothing.
Speaking of unsatisfactory allies, Canada has had the nerve (!) to announce it does not want to be under our nuclear shield, if we ever get it built. Gee, how could it not want to buy into (and help pay for) our Star Wars defense system? Just because it doesn't work and costs the earth? Well, they're partly French, you know.
---March, 2005
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Skritchin' the sweet spot…
-
JEERS to stupid questions to crappy answers. First let's get the answers out of the way (via AP, WaPost, PolitiFact and DKos). During Trump's Tuesday night speech, he lied or misled about…
>> Contributions immigrants make to government coffers
>> Price reductions in the F-35military jet
>> His tax plan
>> The number of unemployed in the U.S.
>> The trade deficit
>> The solvency of the AffordableCare Act
>> The citizenship of ISIS sympathizers in America
>> Pipeline jobs in the Dakotas
>> Corporate tax rates in the U.S.
>> Justice Department data
>> Jobs he's brought back to America'
>> The impact of illegal immigration on crime
>> The overall crime rate
>> The economic recovery from the Bush Crash of '08
>> U.S. spending in Middle East countries
>> NATO spending
>> Environmental regulations
And now the question, courtesy of Washington Post hack Chris Cillizza, one of many pundits (et tu, Van Jones???) and reporters who fell allover themselves to praise the speech:
If you need to ask, you need to quit. Full stop.
JEERS to Democrats denied. On March 2, 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was handed the 1876 presidential win over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though the latter won the popular vote by 250,000 votes. Here's how it went down (via Anything for A Vote by Joseph Cummins):
The struggle over the twenty remaining electoral votes lasted from November 8, 1876 to March 2, 1877.
Republican-controlled "returning boards" (groups in each state who tallied electoral votes) simply threw out enough Democratic votes to swing Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina to Hayes.
Democrats cried foul, officials of both parties flocked to the south, and President Grant sent federal troops, just in case. In the end, an Election Commission was established, consisting of five U.S. senators, five congressmen, and five Supreme Court Justices, all of whom split along party lines.
With the commission tied at 7-7, the Supreme Court justice who had the deciding vote resigned---and a Republican justice took his place. Hayes was voted into office with 185 electoral votes to Tilden's 184.
And Ralph Nader was like, "Hey…don't looka me! I'm not even born yet!"
CHEERS to our mighty Judicial Branch. Speaking of SCOTUS, big ruling from the big bench yesterday:
On Wednesday, the United States Supreme Court ruled for plaintiffs who had argued that 12 of Virginia’s Republican-drawn state House of Delegates districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The high court overturned a previous district court ruling that had found Virginia did not impermissibly use race. They remanded the case back to the district court for reconsideration using a different legal standard that makes it much more likely that many of these challenged districts could ultimately be invalidated.
Republican legislators admitted to using a hard population threshold of 55 percent African American when they redrew state House districts that already had a black majority. This was done without consideration as to whether that proportion was actually necessary to elect black voters’ representatives of choice under the Voting Rights Act.[…]
[I]f the court strikes down the districts in question and orders legislators to draw new ones, black voters and consequently Democrats could gain significantly.
News flash: over the next four years the courts are going to save our republic’s bacon.
CHEERS to today’s edition of Sneak Previews of Coming Rude Awakenings:
The horror.
CHEERS to bustin' outta this taco stand. On today's date in 1836, the Republic of Texas---bless their ten-gallon hearts---formally declared its independence from Mexico. Then on March 2, 1861, Texas joined the Confederacy after declaring independence from the Union. Today, Texas's current governor and his tea party orcs talk openly about re-declaring independence from the United States. Because you know what they say: If at first you do secede, try try again. Why they say that I have no idea.
JEERS to lying liars. Oh, you'll never guess: a Republican politician stretched his bona fides a teensy little bit. Shocking, I know, but my mission here at Cheers and Jeers is to present you with the hard truths that slam your face down on the pavement of reality. (Reminder: always wear lots of protective headgear in C&J.) Trust me, I do it out of love:
An Iowa lawmaker who is pushing a controversial bill that caps the number of Democrats that state universities can hire as professors claimed on a government web site that he got a "business degree" from the "Forbco Management school."
But State Sen. Mark Chelgren's alleged alma mater is actually a company that operated a Sizzler steak house franchise in southern California and he doesn't have a "degree," Ed Failor, a spokesman for the Iowa State Republicans, told NBC News.
And cue the cover-up:
Shortly after speaking with a reporter, the reference to Forbco Management "business degree" was removed from Chelgren's biography on the Iowa State Republicans web site.
Chelgren told NBC News on Wednesday he was not trying to inflate his education credentials. "This was not an attempt to inflate anything," he said, adding he was not aware of the error on the web site until a reporter asked about it. "I didn't concern myself about this, honestly."
They just busted a fool. I just busted a gut.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: March 2, 2007
JEERS to Republican leaders: total jerks! Ladies and gentleman, I give you the comments by GOP dictator Rush Limbaugh on the women's contraception issue, during which he chooses to retaliate against Georgetown student Sandra Fluke for expressing her opinion. This is after he called her a "slut" and a "prostitute," but before the entire Republican apparatus refused to rebuke him:
“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you post the videos online so we can all watch.”
Given their silence, we can only conclude that the above is what's considered in GOP circles as a "mainstream opinion."
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to dropping the hammer. Finally. Finally! Every single day we hear more stories about how the Trump administration is doing this or that in violation of the Constitution or laws passed by Congress (like Jeff Sessions committing perjury---let’s hope that scandal’s got legs). Every day we hear about corporate malfeasance---consumer stripped of their money or their dignity because of vulture scammers who have no conscience. Every day we hear about environmental injustices, racial injustices, law enforcement injustices, animal welfare injustices, health insurance injustices, workplace injustices, state and local government injustices, etcetera, etcetera. We're gettin’ screwed left and right, folks. We're gettin' screwed. But once in awhile, by god, we win one. So feel free to exhale and do a little happy dance because this injustice is not going unpunished…
The two PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants involved with the Best Picture mix-up at the Oscars will not work the awards show again.
The republic is saved.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"I think you can assume that if people are using the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool, they're peeing in it."
---Ernest Blatchley III, Purdue University
-