Cheers and Jeers is a fully-reclining weekday post from the great state of Maine.
Energize An Ally Tuesday
I feel like flipping a district. You feel like flipping a district? Why wouldn't we flip a district? It's the dead of winter, what else are we gonna do? Let's flip a district!
The Daily Kos Elections Team knows the perfect district in need of a good flip. Pennsylvania's 18th state House district, a northern Philly suburb. It's flippy, this district is. Flippy and Democratic-leaningy. Guy named Harold “Howie” Hayes is up against some flipping GOP candidate—I think she's a member of the Nepotism family over yonder behind the briar patch. But if we do do a flip-a-roony on March 17th, the Pennsylvania House comes significantly closer to flipping itself from red to blue.
Continued on the flip...
As David Nir wrote over the weekend:
[T]his area has a history of supporting Democrats at the top of the ticket: It voted for Hillary Clinton by a 53-44 margin in 2016, and supported Gov. Tom Wolf and Sen. Bob Casey by more than 20 points apiece in 2018.
And here’s the key stat: Thanks to big gains two years ago, Democrats need to flip just nine seats to take control of the 203-member House this fall, despite the GOP’s extreme gerrymander. If we win in March, that figure shrinks to eight.
Howie’s pretty much everything you want in a candidate: union, pro-choice, against the destruction of planet Earth, for tougher gun laws, a fan of expanding the safety net, fair districting and strong voter rights.
So let's help the Keystone Staters in the 18th get some representation that's more closely aligned with their own bread 'n butter issues. Small donations matter, so today we're happy to kick in a couple of Hamiltons via Act Blue. And when Howie flips the 18th on the 17th, we can flip something else in the direction of the Republicans. (Hint: it has wings and chirps.)
Follow Howie Hayes at his campaign site here and on Facebook here.
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Note: Due to a delay in our condiment delivery truck, the C&J cafeteria will be substituting pickles with crawdad spleens from the biology lab next door. Not sure what we're replacing the ketchup with yet, but I’m sure we'll find something over there. Have a great day. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Democratic debate in Las Vegas: 1
Days ‘til the 18th annual Burrowing Owl Festival in Cape Coral, Florida: 11
Percent of women who believe Trump deserves reelection, according to a new NBC News-WSJ poll: 30%
Stop-and-frisk stops during Michael Bloomberg's first year as mayor: 97,000
Stop-and-frisk stops during his 10th year as mayor: 685,000
Percent by which the oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010 was larger than experts previously thought, according to a University of Miami stuffy: 30%
Amount the Pentagon is requesting in "war funds" for Space Force: $77 million
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Welcome home, Space Mom…
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CHEERS to G-men whipping out their mighty G-pen. The bad news is, he's still our attorney general. The good news is, Bill Barr is under blistering fire from every respectable lawman in the country for so gleefully taking on his role as Trump's new Roy Cohn:
More than 1,100 [now more than 2,000 —BiPM] former Justice Department officials who have served both Republican and Democratic administrations have signed onto a statement condemning Attorney General Bill Barr's intervention in the sentencing of President Trump's associate Roger Stone, arguing that his actions "require" him to resign.
Barr is facing widespread condemnation from Democrats for taking a hands-on role in a number of politically sensitive investigations, including the Stone case, a review of the origins of the Russia probe, and most recently the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Normally a corrupt honcho like Barr would be inclined to ignore a statement like this. But these are the feds—they deliver their messages by driving a modified snowplow through the recipient's wall. Thankfully there were no casualties beyond a few cases of confiscated moonshine.
JEERS to mini murderers. You can catch up on the latest numbers regarding the coronavirus outbreak via AP here. Meanwhile, an international team of medical researchers is now using their most advanced electron microscopes to isolate the virus and give them clues how to respond. Here's an image, magnified over 200,000 times, that was released this morning:
In response to the data, the researchers have suggested a new protocol for fighting the virus: a can of Raid strapped to the tip of a nuclear bomb. Disclaimer: they may post a few revisions to that plan once they sober up.
CHEERS to stalling for America's future. 179 years ago today, on February 18, 1841, the first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It lasted until March 11. Before you read about the details below, you might want to whip up a li’l Filibuster cocktail. Good—let us proceed:
Until the late 1830s, the filibuster remained a solely theoretical option, never actually exercised. The first Senate filibuster occurred in 1837.
In 1841, a defining moment came during debate on a bill to charter the Second Bank of the United States. Senator Henry Clay tried to end the debate via majority vote, and Senator William R. King threatened a filibuster, saying that Clay "may make his arrangements at his boarding house for the winter." Other senators sided with King, and Clay backed down. The word “filibuster” was derived from the Dutch word meaning “pirate.”
One thing we'll never have to worry about—a politician running out of words.
JEERS to swapping the one who brung you to the dance for a lunkhead in camo and his death penis. Democrats took over the Virginia legislature for the first time in a generation by running on a platform of, among other things, sensible gun reform. And, being a sensible Democrat, you can already probably guess how this ends: in betrayal…
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s push to ban the sale of assault weapons failed on Monday after some of his fellow Democrats balked at the proposal.
Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates.
Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.
It's not all bad. Getting the rug pulled out from you by a Democratic-controlled state legislature is good practice for getting the rug pulled out from you by the next Democratic-led federal legislature. The secret to survival: good drugs and elbow pads.
CHEERS to great discoveries. On this date in 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered a new "dwarf planet" waaaay out at the outer rim of our solar system. A few summers ago the New Horizons probe flew by and took some Polaroids, and you can keep track of its further adventures here. Here's a wild image from the Griffith Observatory that shows what the sphere (and its adorbs heart-shaped region) would look like if it was just a wee bit closer to earth:
By the way, Tombaugh called it “Pluto.” Republican ideas called it “Home.”
ZOOM ZOOM to girls and boys in their internal-combustion toys. The 62nd Daytona 500 happened yesterday, marred only by some rain caused by some impeached president. The event featured professionals (including winner Denny Hamlin) expending a lot of fuel to go round and round in circles but not actually get anywhere, while occasionally bumping into walls and each other, catching fire and watching their wheels fly off, and if innocent bystanders get scraped up, well, that's just rugged individualism for ya, so no refunds. Daytona 500? They shoulda called it the GOP 2020.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 18, 2010
JEERS to penguin droppings. The Republican pettiness continued last weekend as Dick Cheney went on This Week and said that the Obama administration wasn't giving the Bush administration enough credit for what they did in Iraq. We agree! They must be given full credit, and in fact we're willing to etch it in the closest thing the internet has to granite—a text box:
» We hereby give the administration of George Walker Bush complete credit for starting a war that never should have been started in the first place.
» We also give them complete credit for the over four thousand U.S. lives and countless Iraqi lives lost during that unnecessary war, with hundreds of thousands more wounded.
» We also give them complete credit for the over two-trillion dollars—maybe more—that the war will end up costing.
» We also give them complete credit for taking the unprecedented step of lowering taxes and asking for sacrifice from neither American corporations nor civilians during wartime, a genuine sign of extremely short-sighted leadership.
» We also give them complete credit for taking their eye off the real ball in the fight against terrorists: Afghanistan.
And just to make it official, I went to Cheney's house last night and peed the above into the snow in his front yard. You own it now, pal.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a sure sign of spring. Pardon my French, but fuck the groundhog. (Oops…I think I just made Rick Santorum faint.) I feel warmer already, knowing that full-squad workouts for the Boston Red Sox started over the weekend. And the one player who seems to be on everyone's mind is the one who isn’t there:
With the departure of Mookie Betts, who was traded to the LA Dodgers, many are unsure what the future holds for the team without the beloved franchise-player.
However, according to the players, they still expect to be championship contenders and compete.
“Listen,” pitcher Matt Barnes said on Tuesday. “Mookie and DP (David Price) were phenomenal players and still are phenomenal players, but you look around our team and we’ve got a bunch of All-Stars and a bunch of phenomenal players that we still feel like we’re going to compete for a championship.”
If I understand the rules of baseball correctly, I believe what we're looking for is what's popularly known as stomping the other teams into the dirt on our way to the World Series. To coin a phrase, may Boston fans get bored with all the winning.
Oh, and Happy Birthday to Atrios the Baby Blue Cherub (aka Duncan Black), and many blessings on your "Heh indeedys." Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
At an event on Thursday, Senator Elizabeth Warren called Bill in Portland Maine an "elf on the shelf" for Markos Moulitsas.
—Newsweek
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