Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Items Sought for Netroots Nation Fall Auction
After putting on a rave-reviewed convention in Atlanta this year, the Netroots Nation organizers are kicking off the countdown to #NN18 in New Orleans (August 2-4) with their now-legendary Netroots Nation Fall Online Auction. It starts Thursday, November 9th and proceeds support the cost of putting on the convention and other events that pop up throughout the year. So this is your little nudge of encouragement to root through your treasures and rustle up an item or two for the auction block.
Think political memorabilia, CDs, books (signed or not), clothing, pet toys, trips, crafts, t-shirts or keepsakes from your region of the world, prints, services, games, electronics, etc. Food is also good, particularly if it's of the sweet and baked variety. Extra points for chocolate.
C&J is donating some cool must-haves we finagled from the Jimmy Carter Library and the King Center in Atlanta last August, plus sold-out collectibles from the U.S. Mint, official Elizabeth Warren “Nevertheless, She Persisted” shirts, and the cabinet post of your choice in my future administration.
The usual restrictions apply: no mail-order spouses, surplus military ordnance or varmints the cat dragged home. Also no pro-Trump-related items, as we don’t want to be associated with crooks, slumlords, white supremacists, malignant narcissists, animal murderers, sweatshops, sexual abusers, grifters, Russian sympathizers or, generally speaking, fucking morons.
The auction site went live last night, so you can upload your descriptions and photos here. (The “donate items” button is on the left.) If you have any questions, e-mail Karen Kolber at Karen [at] netrootsnation.org. Thanks for helping out!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 12, 2017
Note: I'm thinking of a number between one and ten. Now I'm thinking of butternut squash. And now…nothing but static.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til election day 2017: 26
Days 'til the Philadelphia Cheesesteak Festival: 11
Estimated amount AIG plans to pay out in claims from hurricane and Mexican earthquake disaster: $3 billion
Drop in pre-owned private jet sales compared to last August because corporations and rich people don’t expect the big “Trump bump” in tax breaks they were expecting, according to Bloomberg: 16%
Percent of Americans who listen to at least one podcast per month, up from 9 percent in 2008, according to Parade: 25%
Weight of Washingtonian Joel Holland’s winning pumpkin at the Half Moon Bay, CA pumpkin weigh-off, a new record: 2,363 lbs.
Percent chance that Ivana trump is the real First Lady, according to Ivana Trump: 100%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Unable to restrain himself, [Speaker Newt] Gingrich also took several cheap shots at Clinton for having gone off to play golf after announcing that he wouldn't sign a continuing budget resolution draped with extraneous matter, including a Medicare premium increase.
The idea of Clinton golfing (!) at such a time almost rendered the speaker apoplectic; the implication was that this president (a word that Gingrich manages to invest with contempt) is a lazy do-nothing.
Now, there are many things for which Clinton can be criticized, but not working hard enough is not one of them. His famous 15-hour days are a matter of both record and legend.
---November 1995
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Introducing the ACME 2000 Tongue Vac…
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CHEERS to turtle soup. Just a day after revered political analyst Charlie Cook told Lawrence O’Donnell that, even with the cards stacked against us, a Democratic takeover of the Senate was “definitely possible,” Republicans showed up to demonstrate why: the party has become a circular firing squad…
A constellation of conservative activists who have long clashed with congressional Republican leaders issued a joint call Wednesday for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his top deputies to step down, marking the latest round of criticism the Kentucky Republican has received from members of his party. […]
“If Mitch McConnell does not step down, we foresee a scorched earth disaster from a furious Republican base that will take it out on elected officials in 2018 and again in 2020,” said Brent Bozell, the president of Media Research Center. “It will begin simply by staying home---and rightfully so.”
This morning Bozell’s office is flooded with fruit and flower baskets. From Chuck Schumer.
JEERS to life in hell. As if our killer hurricanes weren’t bad enough, Mother Nature decided to go out to the tool shed, gas up the flame thrower, and direct it at northern California, parts of which look like Hiroshima:
Flames from a series of historic fires in the Wine Country and beyond gobbled up new territory on multiple fronts Wednesday, threatening communities untouched by the previous onslaught and prompting the evacuation of thousands more people. […]
State fire officials said at least 22 wildfires were burning Wednesday across the state and had blackened 170,000 acres while destroying up to 3,000 homes and businesses, a huge number of them on the north edge of Santa Rosa.
The 21 people confirmed dead were from Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Yuba counties. But the chaotic situation has made it difficult for investigators to take full stock of the devastation wrought since Sunday night when high winds pushed flames that turned neighborhoods, restaurants, hotels and wineries into ash.
I gotta go with Frankenstein on this one. Fire. Bad.
JEERS to the backsliders among us. All the haters conservatives love most will gather for the annual Values Voters Summit tomorrow in the American heartland known as Washington, D.C. (I guess Kansas, Oklahoma, the Dakotas and Dixie were all booked up.) It's an event where conservative sheeple-herders (list of spittle flickers is here, including Lord Dampnut) get together and lay out a clear agenda for taking America forward to the 1890s, thus proving that they not only suck at math but chronology as well. Here's a little reminder of the intellectual brainpower on display at 2014’s convention (via The Colbert Report) that we can expect to be repeated this year:
Sarah Palin at the 2014 Values Voters Summit: Don’t retreat! You reload with truth! Which I know is an endangered species at, uh, 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue, anyway, truth.
Stephen Colbert: Yes---the truth is in short supply at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue. Because everyone at 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue keeps insisting it's "a plaza in front of the Willard Hotel."
As usual, the anti-abortion fetishists will be there handing out their little plastic fetuses, almost all of which will end up in the trash. Thus confirming that there are two ways to spell irony, one of which is G-O-P.
CHEERS to today’s edition of So Long, Asshole! Courtesy of ABCNews…
This has been today’s edition of So Long, Asshole!
JEERS to secession fevuh. Let’s strap on our jetpacks and zip over to Spain, where the four provinces that make up Catalonia are threatening to secede from the country because reasons. We take you to the desk of the Catalonian president, Carles Puigdemont, who is clarifying his position in the wake of last week’s referendum, in which 90 percent of the less than 50 percent of the population who voted, voted “Si”…
“Yes! We are definitely seceding.”
“No! We are definitely not seceding.”
“Well…maybe we’re seceding.”
“Then again…maybe not! Ha! I’m keeping you off balance!”
[Plucking flower petals] “We secede. We secede not. We secede. We secede not. The suspense is killing you, isn’t it?”
Oh fer god’s sake, just shell a fort already and get it over with.
JEERS to kids without a conscience. Nineteen years ago today, 21 year-old student Matt Shepard died after being severely beaten and tied to a fence outside of Laramie, Wyoming 5 days earlier by two aimless thugs with shit for brains who will languish in prison for the rest of their lives. Matt, who would’ve turned 40 this year, was politically aware and we have no doubt he would have been all over social media. Last month his mom gave an interview with Lavender magazine to answer the age-old question:
What words of advice do you have for handling hate? Do you have any resources you’d recommend for people whether in schools, churches, the workplace, or in their own families
Meet people where they are. Figure out why they have a preconceived notion of whatever is causing them to be hateful. More often than not, it’s a misconception and that authenticity can help them see that we are all equal. In this political climate, it has become much more difficult, but you have to be an optimist in order to believe that our work is effective.
Meanwhile,the knuckledragger wing of Republican party issued its annual helpful reminder today: "Please don't kill the gays---you can’t deny civil rights to a headstone." Message: they care.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 12, 2007
CHEERS to weird science. A new study shows that salmonella germs that were sent into space aboard the shuttle Atlantis came back three times meaner and stronger. Memo to congressional Democrats: report to Cape Canaveral at 0700...you're going on a little trip.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to songs in the key of gofuckyourself. Continuing his stint as the resistance movement’s one-man ace parody warbler (who produces his videos “from my little studio apartment in Astoria, Queens, and I stand in front of a camera on a tripod while my cat watches me, making faces at me"), Randy Rainbow releases fresh hell on Donald Trump, aka “Desperate Cheeto”…
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I feel bad for the actual company that makes Cheetos. They’ll be lucky if their brand makes it to 2020 with a pulse.
Oh, and an asteroid is going to destroy all life as we know it this afternoon, so go ahead and have that three-martini lunch. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
There is so much magnificence in Cheers and Jeers, including, apparently, untapped kinetic energy. It turns out that wind turbines in the kiddie pool could generate three times as much power---that's right: three times as much---as placing them on land.
---Newsweek
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