From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize An Ally Tuesday
I admit it. I was only marginally aware of the runoff election in Emm Eye Ess Ess Eye Ess Ess Eye Pee Pee Eye that's happening two weeks from today on November 27th. But then I suddenly found myself picking my jaw up off the floor after reading what recently slithered out of Republican candidate Helga the Horrible's racist facehole:
"If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."
…and suddenly I find myself quite aware of the runoff election in Emm Eye Ess Ess Eye Ess Ess Eye Pee Pee Eye that's happening two weeks from today on November 27th.
So this week's "Energize An Ally" spotlight is focused squarely on the candidate who will actually bring honor and pride to the Magnolia State: Democrat Mike Espy…
My grandfather’s legacy serves as the foundation of this campaign. Born as the son of slaves, Thomas Jefferson Huddleston rose to relative affluence amidst the failed promise of federal Reconstruction. Except for the period of slavery, he lived in perhaps the most dangerous time to be an African-American in Mississippi. Yet he defied the odds and led his community with courage and resolve. Under the organizing theme of “group economics” he built a health insurance company; thirty-six funeral homes; a newspaper that boasted a circulation of 100,000 subscribers, and a hospital, in which my twin sister and I were born.
He didn’t foster guilt, or let hate overcome him. And he refused to let his emotions and the conditions of his time destroy the goals he envisioned for his community. He simply had too much work to do. Similarly, the selfless example of my father, Henry Espy Sr., still serves useful purpose for me.
I stand firmly for civil rights, voting rights and women’s rights because I know that these precious rights were not attained without generational struggle. So many in Mississippi and throughout the nation were killed, bloodied, maimed, and jailed for the simple right to cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice- a right far too many take for granted today. I stand for our Constitutional guarantees- all of them.
Is it an uphill battle? Yeah. So was that little contest next door in Alabama last year. Who defied all odds to beat another dyed-in-the-confederate-uniform-wool there? You can just call him Senator Doug Jones (D-AL).
So let's give Mike Espy the Daily Kos bump and help prevent another Roy Moore-style loon from fouling up the Senate. Toss a few bucks (we're in for $25) into his campaign coffers via Act Blue by clicking here. Also, Barb Morrill noted yesterday that you can Sign up for the Mike Espy runoff call team here, or the Mike Espy Hustle runoff text team here.
Follow Mike's campaign on twitter here and on Facebook here. The swearing in of a Democratic senator from Mississippi. That would be worth being in the front row for.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Note: Today is Tuesday the 13th. Stay alert---it might be a Friday in disguise.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Festivus: 40
Days 'til the Wild Arts Festival in Portland, Oregon: 4
Percent of House Democrats made up of white men before and after the 2018 election, respectively, according to Cook Political Report: 41%, 38%
Percent of House Republicans made up of white men before and after the 2018 election, respectively: 86%, 90%
Republican Ted Cruz's 2012 margin of victory in Tarrant County, Texas (Fort Worth): +16
Democrat Beto O'Rourke's margin of victory in Tarrant County in 2018: +1
Percent turnout in Falmouth, Maine last Tuesday, giving it bragging rights for highest turnout among all Maine towns: 83%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Thanks, kiddo!
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CHEERS to the latest blue wave victor. Ladies and germs, please give a warm C&J welcome to your new red-to-blue flipping DEMOCRATIC SENATOR FROM THE GREAT PURPLE STATE OF ARIZONA!!!
Kyrsten in brief: pro-choice, favors tax hikes over safety-net cuts, first openly-bisexual senator and early proponent of marriage equality, pro-diplomacy but favors military action to stop genocide, favors universal background checks and license requirements for gun owners, pro-DREAM Act, wants to improve and expand the ACA, is a triathlete, and---praise the vast nothingness beyond mortality!---we finally have a non-religious senator in the chamber. Congratulations to Team Sinema for a victory well-eked-out. The first Democratic senator from Arizona in 30 years. Today in the C&J cafeteria: all-you-can-slurp cactus soup and Four Peaks Sunbru on tap to wash it down. Yum yum!
CHEERS to good omens. The ranked-choice voting tabulation in Maine's uber-rural 2nd congressional district---a real red-to-blue pickup opportunity that isn’t being talked about a whole lot nationally---continues this week. With 22,000 votes for the two left-leaning independent candidates in the race being scrutinized for their voters' second-choice preference, it's looking like Democrat Jared Golden is about to kick slimy Republican Bruce Poliquin to the curb. (The two are only 2,000 votes apart, so you do the math.) Of course the Republicans are freaking out and trying to gin up fears of voter fraud. But this is Maine, not Florida. We don’t freak out here. And, frankly, our Secretary of State is politely asking Poliquin to stick a sock in his yap and let him do his damn job:
“I feel like I should reach out to the campaign and say, ‘Let us do our work before you assume there is something nefarious happening.’ It could get people thinking there is something wrong,” Dunlap said.
Meanwhile, the Poliquin campaign and the Maine Republican Party both released photos purporting to show unlocked ballot boxes sent to Augusta. […]
[Dunlap] said Saturday night that the state has a “very rigorous” chain of custody for ballots, “from the printing press to when they’re sealed in a ballot box and beyond.” He also said the boxes that arrived in Augusta without locks contained material irrelevant to the ranked-choice tabulation, such as voter lists.
“Rest assured, all ballot boxes containing actual ballots are not only locked but also have a serialized seal that cannot be reconnected,” the Secretary of State’s Office tweeted Saturday night. “The chain of custody for Mainers’ ballots is very strict, and anyone involved in the transport process must sign off on it.”
We should know who won by tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. As a precaution, the National Weather Service has issued a GOP salty tears flood watch. Keep those waders handy.
P.S. Good...
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CHEERS to America's modern-day Minutemen. One of the most despicable human beings on the planet, Jefferson Davis Beauregard Lee Stonewall Jackson Dixie White On Rice Sessions, has finally been tossed into the dustbin of history, fired last week by John Kelly because Trump, of course, can't do the deed himself. (Bone spurs, we hear.) His tiny little elf sandals were immediately filled by a Bible-thumping Marbury vs. Madison hater named Huckster Sleazebag Whitaker---who John Oliver described Sunday night as "a Kenmore refrigerator that somehow escaped from a Sears"---which immediately put the Mueller investigation at risk. Within minutes, word went out to the millions of Americans---including an army of Daily Kos members----who had signed up months earlier to take to the streets when Sessions eventually got the axe. And Thursday night over 900 cities and towns in America saw protests that sent a signal to Washington that we are f*cking paying attention. I was too fresh off of chemo to make it, but my partner Michael ("Common Sense Mainer") and Kossack "Simple" did go to the 300+ Portland rally to raise hell and snap some pics:
In a sign they might be listening, Whitaker is apparently now saying he won’t mess with the funding of the Mueller investigation. That's cold comfort. But as the Lawfare blog's Benjamin Wittes noted on Meet the Press, Trump waited too long, and now he can't "fire his way out of this." But the most important thing I really want to say here is: Jeff Sessions is now and forever out of America's political bloodstream. If you need him for anything this week, he’ll be getting some much-needed R&R in Georgia spooning with Stone Mountain.
CHEERS to The Big "Duh!" I know this sounds totally whackadoo, but hear me out. What if the nations of the world, recognizing a looming and potentially-catastrophic global problem, got together and, collaborating with top fact-based experts bound together by a shared sense of purpose, mapped out short-, medium-, and long-range plans to deal with that problem---plans that were then adopted and rigorously implemented, but also tweaked when necessary to keep the mission on track? Why, you'll never guess what happens next:
Over the northern half of the world, the [ozone] layer should be completely repaired by the 2030s, the report said. The good news is due to decades of worldwide cooperation to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.
“If ozone-depleting substances had continued to increase, we would have seen huge effects. We stopped that,” Newman said. If nothing had been done to stop the thinning, the world would have destroyed two-thirds of its ozone layer by 2065, he said. […]
Scientists first discovered the dramatic thinning in Earth's protective ozone layer in the 1970s and determined the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used in refrigerators and aerosol sprays, caused the problem. In the late 1980s, 196 countries signed the Montreal Protocol, a treaty that limited production of CFCs around the world.Businesses soon came up with safer alternatives for spray cans and refrigerators.
Scientists say the way humanity tackled the ozone problem also provides a template for how we can counteract human-caused global warming.
When asked if there was anything they could do to shut the planet-threatening hole in Donald Trump's face, the U.N. responded: "Dammit, man, they're scientists, not miracle workers."
JEERS to stupid damn wars. On this date in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial---a vee shape which points at the State Department---was dedicated. Our suggestion for the shape of the future Iraq War Memorial: a "W" on a spindle that points accusingly in the direction of wherever George W. Bush is at any given moment.
CHEERS to those wascally wily Fwench. Blowing through God knows how many taxpayer dollars, our alleged president's bloated carcass was hauled by a groaning Air Force One to France over the weekend for nothing more than an opportunity to play fanboy to his pin-up idol Vladimir Putin during the Armistice Day commemorations. In what will be considered one of the biggest gaffes of his one term, Trump put his follicle-challenged skull above his duty as commander-in-chief by skipping a visit to a W.W. I cemetery because the mist would've made his ‘do go all kablooey. As America piled on stateside, the French Army seized on the moment in the drollest way they could find. This was followed by French President Macron schooling Les Dotard on the evils of nationalism, but not before this moment was sealed into the amber of handshake history:
No question. I’m getting that framed.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 13, 2008
CHEERS to a good turn at bat. Howard Dean is stepping down in January after transforming the DNC into a lean, mean, 50-state fighting machine (and personal hero to progressives across the country):
"The 50-state-strategy was successful in laying the groundwork for 2006 and 2008," said strategist and DNC member Donna Brazile. "Clearly, the strategy has reaped a harvest of new voters for Democrats and the next Chair will no doubt build upon this foundation for 2010 and beyond. Remember, we have some interesting statewide and mayoral elections next year before the all out organizing for redistricting."
Now the question is, where does he go from here? Obama's cabinet? Retirement? Denny's? His wife's medical practice? A maple syrup farm? A mountaintop from which he will dispense the secrets of the universe? Or perhaps a Burlington park bench from which he will feed pigeons and shout at cars? Our guess: all of the above. He's a multi-tasker, that one.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the Gandalf the Grey of Bloggerland. Happy anniversary to one of the longest-running blogs on the internet: Josh Marshall's Polk Award-winning Talking Points Memo, which turns 18 today. You can re-live the birth of this progressive supernova in his early posts during the Florida 2000 recount, although it might cause your blood pressure to spike, especially given how Republicans are trying to steal more elections down there as I write this. Josh provided the blueprint for how to do political blogging. His now-supersized crew and expanded site continue providing no-frills original reporting with just enough analysis (essential perspective in the age of Trump) and snark to help us make sense of politics, and nothing the righty blogs offer comes close to TPM's objectivity, accuracy and speed. During election seasons TPM is a daily must-click destination, and it's been great seeing the site buck the “blogging is just a fad” naysayers for 18 trips around the sun. Of course, they're no Great Orange Satan...then again, no one's perfect.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“Deploying troops to the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool for no national security reason is one of the biggest scandals of this Presidency."
---Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI)
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