From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
10 9 8 7 6 5 Weeks 'til Netroots Nation 2018
If you’re chewing through the drywall after yesterday’s Supreme Court madness, this is a reminder that there’s a liberal convention happening August 2-4 in New Orleans where you can vent, learn a ton from all-star panels, vent, master the ABCs of organizing, vent, network with the netroots from every corner of the country, vent, interact with legislators and candidates, vent, drink, and then drunk-vent. There’s something for everyone. Here are a few odds and ends as the 13th NN convention approacheth:
► Over 80 Kossacks are already signed up for the Daily Kos/Connect-Unite-Act/C&J Eat-'n-Greet at Drago’s Seafood Restaurant on Wednesday, August 1st. To RSVP, you must drop a kosmail note to Navajo. Space is limited, so git ‘er done soon.
► You can check out the complete Netroots Nation agenda by clicking here. There are 90 panels this year that will serve up piping hot discussion on the courts, immigration, running for office, gerrymandering, the midterm outlook (including a panel by the Daily Kos Elections Team), and a ton more. Plus 70 training sessions worth their weight in gold.
► The Pub Quiz and karaoke party are back. The conference opens Thursday with karaoke sponsored by Planned Parenthood. The Pub Quiz, hosted by Adam B and sponsored by NextGen America, is Friday. I fired off a tweet at Adam yesterday to pry information from him on your behalf:
I figure that could either mean “ambush, snare, or trap,” or it could be an anagram informing us that two of the answers are “Senate pug” and “Unseat Peg.” I’ll keep pestering him ‘til he cracks.
► On August 4 at 1pm, EMILY's List is hosting a half-day training seminar for pro-choice Democratic women thinking about running for office. You'll learn from seasoned campaign experts about the steps you can take now to get ready, grow your network, and raise the money you need to win. If you’re interested, Fill out this form to apply for a spot.
Netroots Nation loves its volunteers.
► Volunteering is a blast. There's an infectious energy among the volunteer staff that transcends the rest of the convention activities, and pitching in during the convention can net you a hefty registration discount. Click here for details.
► Thrillist’s list of things not to do when in New Orleans. Good to know.
► Registration info is here and official hotel room info is here. (Rooms set aside for the NN discount are getting scarce, so if you haven’t booked yet, you might want to do it sooner than later.)
Follow Netroots Nation via Twitter here and evil Facebook here. That’s it for now. Stay tuned for the announcement of keynoters and other fun stuff in future updates.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, June 28, 2018
Note: After an emergency meeting with the United Nations General Assembly, I have agreed to accept a vacation day this coming Monday in exchange for canceling my plans to vaporize the planet's gravitational field. May this serve as a template for future peace negotiations throughout the world and, indeed, the universe. Back Tuesday with a shiny new Nobel Peace Prize duct-taped to my beer hat.
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By the Numbers:
15 days!!!
Days 'til Canada Day: 3
Days 'til the Moxie Festival in Lisbon, Maine: 15
Estimated number of Dept. of Education investigations into civil rights violations started during the Obama administration that have been ended under Trump, according to Pro Publica: 1,200
Number of confederate symbols that have been removed since the 2015 mass murder in Charleston SC, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center: 110
Number remaining: 1,728
Age of Egyptian World Cup soccer player Essam El-Hadary, the oldest in its history: 45
Rudy Giuliani favorability rating, according to Gallup---a record low: 32%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
[I]mmigrant-bashing is such an old American tradition.
Back at the time of the Revolution, many Anglo-Americans worried about the terrible number of Germans engulfing the country. Since then, we've managed to work up a snit over the Irish, the Jews, the Polish, the Swedes, Bolivians, Bavarians, Bosnians, Russians, Italians, Sicilians, a great variety of Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Maltese (sorry you missed that one---the Maltese once overran New York City deli counters), Cubans, Puerto Ricans and so forth.
If you haven't been here long enough to get upset about at least one other group moving in, you must still owe the coyote (as immigrant-smugglers are called). Think of the rich verbal history of ethnic insults---Bohunks, Krauts, Polacks, Micks. […]
Bush was planning to take a stab at resolving the problem, [b]ut the House Republicans had a hissy fit, claimed it was an "amnesty program" and demanded harsher measures, militarization of the border, a big fence. Not gonna work, y'all. Build a 50-foot fence, and they'll build a 51-foot ladder. Hire Halliburton with a no-bid contract to build the fence, and it will hire illegal workers to do it.
---July 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: I always suspected Michael and I were Haley’s mamas...
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CHEERS to the Upset Kid. Nobody saw it comin’, but in hindsight there’s nothing surprising about it: an old fat cat “party boss” in New York’s 14th congressional district got so complacent and preoccupied with the entrenched D.C. Democratic machine that he never saw the young (28!) upstart throwing a wrench in his gears, and by the time he noticed he was heading for the ditch it was too late. I can’t even remember his name anymore. But I’ve got the winner of that primary flashing in neon lights in my head: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If you missed her campaign video, take a look:
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Her positions on the issues are a progressive dream slate, forged not by big-money backers, but by her own experience as a working-class New Yorker watching the ruling class too often put money over people. If this is a sneak preview of the caliber of candidates on track to be part of the blue wave in November, I like where this is headed. Anyone mind if I put on my Speedo a few months early? (Oh, damn, no, never mind, I forgot: indecency laws.)
CHEERS to the other American revolution. On June 28, 1969, a ragtag gaggle of customers at a seedy Greenwich Village gay bar---the Stonewall Inn, now a bona fide National Monument---decided they'd had enough police harassment for one lifetime. So they got mad as hell, tipped over a police car, hurled some rocks and gave new life to the gay rights movement. As the deputy police inspector said: "For those of us in [the] public morals [division], things were completely changed ... Suddenly they were not submissive anymore."
If you’re gonna have a revolution, you could do worse than have it at a place where drinks are served.
What a difference 49 years makes. A huge majority of Americans now embrace their LGBT family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. LGBTers can serve openly in the military. The vast majority of businesses support LGBT employees and many sponsor LGBT advocacy groups (and annual pride festivals around the country). When right-wingers pass anti-LGBT laws, there's almost always a severe backlash now. Non-discrimination laws are in effect in tons of states and cities (although a federal law is still elusive because Republicans are allergic to equality). And now those aging protesters in New York who got mad as hell that hot June night and refused to take it anymore have the legal right---in every state, guaranteed by the Supreme Court---to take their fights where straight Americans have waged them since 1776: the institution of marriage.
P.S. Positive news from Gallup: only 31 percent of Americans don’t support marriage equality for gays and lesbians. And, amazingly, nearly half of Republicans support it, meaning the party no longer has leverage to use LGBT issues as successful campaign wedges. Though god knows they'll keep trying.
JEERS to men who wear black robes to match their black hearts. Well, that was a fun Supreme Court session that just concluded, wasn’t it? Let’s see:
Kennedy’s out. Fox News will nominate his replacement.
The five conservatives cracked down on labor unions, gave Trump a green light to discriminate against people who practice the “wrong” religion, allowed anti-abortion wackos to lie to women about their reproductive health options, gave Texas the right to gerrymander districts to minimize the power of minorities, and said okeley-dokeley to Arkansas’ new law banning medication-based abortions. And then Anthony Kennedy turned in his resignation, paving the way for Supreme Court Justice Jeanine Pirro. To celebrate their stunning victories, Alito, Gorsuch, Roberts and Thomas gathered in the Federalist Society’s underground star chamber and toasted their fine work by clinking human skulls filled with champagne.
CHEERS to gumming up the works. I was convinced yesterday that Republicans had juuust enough of an advantage to ram through whatever orc they have lined up to replace Reagan’s boy Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. But now I’m not so sure, thanks to this fiendish plan suggested by Gregory Koger at Vox: Just Say No---to roll call votes:
Other than quitting for the day or calling for others to come to the chamber, the Senate can do nothing without a majority of its members---51 senators---participating in a vote. No bill can pass, no amendment can be decided on, no nominations can get approved. […]
This provides Senate Democrats with real leverage. If they refuse to participate in roll call votes, the Senate will come to a halt for lack of a quorum.
“Senator Buehler? ... Senator Buehler? ... Buehler? ...
This tactic would put pressure on every Republican to be near the chamber whenever the Senate is in session and Democrats are able to force a vote on any procedural question. If Republicans are busy in the morning raising money and holding committee meetings, Democrats can force them into the Senate chamber and keep them there. The same is true during peak fundraising time in the early evening, or if the Senate is in session on Friday, or during the month of August. Meanwhile, vulnerable Senate Democrats will be doing their part by staying out of the Senate chamber and using their time more productively.
I don’t know if the discipline gods have enough buckets of good-trouble fairy dust to sprinkle on our team of genteel sages. But it’s worth a shot, boy howdy!
CHEERS to sky yummies. Full moon tonight, and this one goes great with whipped cream:
Stargazers are in for a treat since this full moon, known as the Strawberry Moon, also happens to arrive during Saturn opposition, meaning Saturn will be at its closest and brightest this year.
June’s full moon gets its name because it was believed to kick off the strawberry-picking season on the east coast of the United States. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, Algonquin tribes first began calling it the Strawberry Moon to commemorate but also keep track of the changes in the landscape during the summer season. June’s full moon still peaks around the time wild strawberries are ripe for picking on the country’s east coast.
The usual full-moon ritual applies: get your butt out in the back yard, look up, think of Neil Armstrong, and give it a wink. It’s the law.
P.S. In other celestial news, skygazers have noticed that there’s a big blue stain on Mars. After taking several measurements and satellite photos, observers at NASA have concluded: Curiosity is on another wild curaçao bender.
CHEERS to Ol' Shortypants. James Madison, who at 5'4" holds the distinction of being the U.S. president with the lowest center of gravity, died in Montpelier, Virginia 182 years ago today.
Dude also had smokin’ hot missus.
He was the chief architect of the United States Constitution, and he's rolling in his grave over the GOP's manhandling of it. The book Rating the Presidents (a survey of 700 historians and political analysts) sums up his legacy as one of "courageous leadership as president, guided by the principles of the Constitution, which he played so large a part in framing. All Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude." Pay your respects here. But don't tell him Trump and the Republicans are using his sacred founding document as toilet paper these days. He’s got enough problems as head of the Dead Presidents’ Condo Association. (“Goddammit, Polk! For the last time, get your stuff out of President Arthur’s storage unit!”)
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 28, 2008
CHEERS to full disclosure. North Korea is turning over all its nuclear secrets today (my first impression: their launching pads used a lot more rubber bands than I expected), effectively de-fanging one, um, spoke(?) of the idiotically-named "Axis of Evil." And you'll never guess what the White House has to say about it with a totally straight face:
"Multilateral diplomacy is the best way to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.
But Axis of Evil members who don't have nukes, like Iraq and Iran? Bunker busters, baby! Right down the gullet! [6/28/18 Update: Posted as a reminder that we’ve been duped before. And it’s happening again.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to equal time. Pearls of wisdom as we rapidly head into the last weekend of LGBT Pride Month 2018:
"To all those lawmakers out there who are so obsessed with who’s using what bathroom and what plumbing they got downtown: Newsflash---you’re the weirdos.”
---Stephen Colbert
"I am a gay veteran of front-line combat in Europe in World War II. I did not fight that war to return to second-class citizenship ... We seek not 'special rights and privileges' as you term them, but precise equality of rights and privileges in what is our America...as much as it is your America as non-gay Americans."
---Late LGBT civil rights pioneer Frank Kameny
"I was traveling in Tennessee and I saw a bumper sticker that I'll never forget. It said: HOMOSEXUAL: Every Good Southern Family Has One."
---Bishop V. Gene Robinson
Hope I live long enough to see this again.
"Today, we can say in no uncertain terms that we’ve made our union a little more perfect. That’s the consequence of a decision from the Supreme Court, but, more importantly, it is a consequence of the countless small acts of courage of millions of people across decades who stood up, who came out, who talked to parents---parents who loved their children no matter what. Folks who were willing to endure bullying and taunts, and stayed strong, and came to believe in themselves and who they were, and slowly made an entire country realize that love is love. What an extraordinary achievement."
---President Obama, June 26, 2015
"One should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness."
---Towards a Quaker View of Sex, 1964
“I was born of heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. Television ads and newspaper ads [were] fiercely heterosexual. A society that puts down homosexuality. And why am I a homosexual if I’m affected by role models? I should have been a heterosexual. And no offense meant, but if teachers are going to affect you as role models, there’d be a lot of nuns running around the streets today.”
---Harvey Milk
"My mom blames California for me being a lesbian. 'Everything was fine until you moved out there.' That's right, Mom, we have mandatory lesbianism in West Hollywood. The Gay Patrol busted me, and I was given seven business days to add a significant amount of flannel to my wardrobe."
---Writer/Director Coley Sohn
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:
Bill in Portland Maine is alone in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool and will never meet other intelligent life forms, according to a cosmically depressing new study.
---New York Post
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