From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
News from Netroots Nation
Every year the grand poobahs at the country's #1 progressive grassroots convention---in St. Louis this year from July 14-17---does something new to make the event even grassrootsier. As executive director Raven Brooks explains, this year you'll have a greater say in choosing which breakout sessions and training workshops will be featured at this year's event:
It’s time for you to submit your ideas. But first, I wanted to let you about a change we’ve made to the process to give the community has a more direct voice in what gets chosen to be on the agenda. This year, for the first time, we are opening up voting for panels and trainings to the public. The submissions can be viewed and voted on at our web site. When the voting period closes on March 11, the top 10 panels and top 4 trainings with the most votes will automatically get a spot at Netroots Nation 2016 in St. Louis.
As always, our goal is to highlight the great work being done by activists around the country, from national campaigns to local issue organizing, as well as to shine a light on what’s happening in the St. Louis area. We hope this new public voting feature will give us better feedback on what topics are most important to you. Plus, it allows you as a potential session organizer to see what’s been proposed and what hasn’t yet been submitted. You can submit on any topic, but here are a few things we’re looking to highlight this year:
- Conversations about racial justice and dismantling structural racism
- Panels that promote bridge-building between activists and organizations
- Sessions that integrate cutting-edge tools and techniques
The deadline to submit is Monday, March 11. But please keep in mind, the earlier you submit, the more votes you can rack up! If you have questions, please feel free to email us at panelsNN16 [at] netrootsnation.org.
The magic link for all the panel submission info is here. <--- Whoa, back up you went too far. Convention registration details are at this link and official hotel info is here. And if you're in town the evening before the convention starts, please join us for the Daily Kos/C&J welcome party---you can RSVP at the Connect! Unite! Act! Posts. 154 days and counting. Not that we're counting.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, February 11, 2016
Note: Wow! I just got an email that says "The BMW Uk Company has Award you 2Crore 35Lakh Rupees. To claim send Name, Address, Mobile no, Age only To: bmwukcaimdep@hotmail.com." But, seriously, I have so many Crore Lakh Rupees already that I'll let you email and claim them instead. Just don’t mention my name. I don’t want to get in trouble. ---BiPM
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til all Boston Red Stockings players have to report for spring training: 13
Days 'til the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival at the University of Idaho: 13
Average price of gas nationwide this week, according to GasBuddy, down 46 cents from a year ago: $1.72
Number of signatures that'll be required for a petition to recall Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to proceed: 789,133
Number of towns in New Hampshire where Donald Trump did not get the most votes Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight: 13
Increase in sales at Red Lobster Sunday after Beyonce released a song that mentions the seafood chain's food as a reward for sex: 33%
Boxes of cookies a Girl Scout sold in two hours outside of a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco: 117
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
These are Orwellian days, my friends, as the Bush administration attempts to either shove the history of the second Gulf War down the memory hole or to rewrite it entirely.
Keeping a firm grip on actual historical fact, all of it easily within our imperfect memories, is not that easy amid the swirling storms of misinformation, misremembering and misstatement. But since the war itself stands as a monument to what happens when we let ourselves get stampeded by a chorus of disinformation, let's draw the line right now.
According to the 500-man American team that spent hundreds of millions of dollars looking for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, there aren't any and have not been any since 1991.
---February 2004
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
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CHEERS to Bernie Sanders' excellent wonderful very good day. The New Hampshire primary is now in the books and the democratic-socialist from Vermont is riding high at the moment. First Jewish candidate to win a primary…raked in over $6 million in the first 24 hours after his victory speech…sat down for some vittles and shared perspective with Al Sharpton…drove the audience happy-crazy on The View…gives Scott Pelley a tour of his Brooklyn neighborhood on CBS News…and gets the endorsement of Peace Action (after polling its members, 85% of whom approved it). Fearless prediction: I bet he slept really well last night.
CHEERS to exiting stage right. Chris Christie will always hold a unique place in the history of the 2016 presidential primary season---the guy who pulled back the curtain and revealed on national TV that the Wizard of the Establishment was nothing more than a guy whose capacity was limited to memorizing a 25-second sound bite, and not an especially strong one at that. But that heroic act wasn't rewarded by New Hampshire voters Tuesday, so yesterday Christie called it quits. But his next adventure will be lots of fun: watching the noose tighten around him as his closest advisers fall like dominoes in the still-percolating Bridgegate scandal. Also dropping out yesterday was Carly Fiorina. Her legacy: being the first woman in the Republican party to run for president, and proving she could be just as nasty, dishonest, hyperbolic and out of touch with reality as her male GOP counterparts. For those of you keeping score, that's one corporation and two political campaigns under her management that have crashed and burned. That can mean only one thing: she's due for a promotion!
JEERS to today's edition of Hey City of Cleveland, You're Going to Hell! You should probably have a seat for this:
If you think that the city of Cleveland and its law department couldn't handle the Tamir Rice case any worse than it has, well, we have news for you.
The city filed a creditor's notice against the estate of Tamir Rice looking for a past due amount of $500. What's that $500 for? It's "owing for emergency medical services rendered as the decedent's last dying expense under Ohio Revised Code."
"That the city would submit a bill and call itself a creditor after having had its own police officers slay 12-year-old Tamir displays a new pinnacle of callousness and insensitivity," one of Rice's family attorneys, Subodh Chandra, told Scene this afternoon.
This has been today's edition of Hey City of Cleveland, You're Going to Hell!
JEERS to the Edsel of House committees. As Trey Gowdy's Benghazi investigation sits in a steaming heap of derp in the drawer next to his office liquor cabinet, it's worth reminding the world that two---two!--- years ago today the non-scandal jumped the shark:
In a new report released on Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee concludes that there was no way for the U.S. military to have responded in time to the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya to save the four Americans killed that night. In doing so, the report debunks entirely a right-wing myth that says the White House ordered the military not to intervene.
Meanwhile, the 37-year House Republican committee investigation of Jimmy Carter's alleged 1979 plot to create an army of killer swamp rabbits is close to releasing its final report. They say they decided to fast-track it due to Carter's age.
JEERS to Mrs. Buzzkill. Yesterday Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen ate one of those mushrooms that makes her really huge, jumped to the top of the Capitol dome in a single bound and shouted: "Everything sucks and you're all gonna die!"
Yellen said financial conditions have become “less supportive of growth,” citing higher interest rates for riskier borrowers and the strengthening dollar, which has hurt exports, in addition to the fall in stocks. "These developments, if they prove persistent, could weigh on the outlook for economic activity and the labor market, although declines in longer-term interest rates and oil prices could provide some offset," Yellen said in her semiannual monetary policy report to Congress.
Then she returned to the Fed, locked the door and rolled around in her giant pile of money to get the stench of Congress out of her clothes.
CHEERS to the guy who really was the brightest bulb in the box. Happy 169th Birthday (and many blessings on your tungsten filaments) to fellow Ohio native Thomas Edison. He invented the light bulb, the phonograph, the Snuggie and theShamWOW! (the last two during his slow descent into madness). Pay your respects here. Today is also Sarah Palin's birthday---she turns 52. Or as she likes to put it: another orbit of the sun around the earth.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 11, 2006
JEERS to morning blather. Don Imus had right-wing radio host Jay Severin on his show this morning. Criticizing Coretta Scott King’s funeral---with Imus slobbering in agreement---he claimed the standing ovation for Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery's comment about WMDs was 2 minutes long. We timed it. It was 15 seconds. Maybe tomorrow they'll broadcast something a little more constructive: like dead air.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to hangin' out with a few of your favorite buds. In San Bernardino, California, the marijuana world's equivalent of the Oscars---the 2016 High Times SoCal Medical Cannabis Cup---was held over the weekend. The Best Indica was "Strawberry Banana" by Greenwolf and Loudpack with Moxie Genetics. The Best Hybrid was "CannaSutra" OG by Chronic Capital with Lorax Labs and CannaSutra. Best Sativa concentrate was "Purple Tangie" by Zeinstein Gardens with Loudpack and Moxie Extracts and Best Sativa Flower was "Mega Queso" by Happy Leaf with Nameless Genetics . You can see the full list here. Fair warning: while you probably won't get a contact high through your screen, there’s a very good chance you’ll still get a sudden urge to make an emergency run to White Castle.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Scientists have used radio telescopes to cut through the haze of the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool, revealing hundreds of previously hidden galaxies lurking behind it.
---The Washington Post
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