Important Netroots Nation Update
We pretty much knew this was coming, but now it's official: due to the coronavirus pandemic, the in-person convention scheduled for Denver won't be happening. But the good news is, we'll still be meeting virtually August 13-15 through the wonder of Tim Berners-Lee's mysteriously magical invention called the world wide web. Here's Senator and perennial Netroots attendee Elizabeth Warren with the official announcement:
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More details below the fold...
Here’s an FAQ page on Virtual NN20. Grand Poopah Eric Thut adds:
“In addition to our breakout sessions and keynotes, we’ll host opportunities for you to collaborate and socialize via virtual coffee meetups, happy hours, morning yoga sessions and more.
To participate virtually, you’ll use our mobile or desktop app and our website (we’ll send you instructions to log in as we get closer to the event).
You’ll be able to view the agenda, star sessions you want to attend, and then watch them live or recorded. Attendees will also receive a care package and T-shirt in the mail.”
Click here to get your ticket to join us virtually in August.
No question about it. I'll see you there from here.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, June 11, 2020
Note: Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. A public service message from the National Association of Note Writers Who Say Everything Three Times.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the House votes on the Justice in Policing Act: 14
Percent of registered voters polled by CNN who say Trump's response to the BLM protests is making things worse: 67%
Percent of Americans polled by CNN who believe the protests against police brutality are justified: 84%
Popularity rank of Black Lives Matter, at 53%, among all national political organizations or individuals polled by Civiqs: #1
Number of Covid-19 deaths in Maine as of Yesterday: 100
Estimated number of the poor and elderly still waiting for their stimulus checks: 35 million
Time that the last voter walked out of a polling place in Union City, Georgia during Tuesday's massively botched-by-Republicans-by-design primary elections: 12:37am
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
George W. Bush deserves a salute for lying to Tony Blair in Northern Ireland, promising the United Nations would have a major role in rebuilding Iraq and then waiting two whole days before making it clear the U.N. would have no role. Bush didn't just stab Blair in the back, he gutted and filleted him.
So much for the Bush Administration and loyalty. A sure way to make all our friends anxious to stand up with us next time.
(Also, special mention to the dipsticks in the Administration who prepared the briefing books for the Northern Ireland trip, which were clearly labeled, "Belfast, Ireland," thus adding to Bush's well-established reputation as someone who can't tell one country from another.)
Worst Idea of the Month: Fundamentalist Christian missionaries are now salivating over the prospect of going to Iraq to convert the hapless heathen. This is guaranteed to make America as popular as the clap.
—June 2003
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Now playing in a back yard near you…
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CHEERS to crashing the gate. With his burial only two days ago, it's still too early to know what the long-term effects of George Floyd's martyrdom will be in a society that prefers to tuck unpleasantness in its back pocket and go leaping after the media’s next shiny object. But Politico suggests that, for now at least, this is one dog that ain't gonna let go of the car:
Public opinion on race relations and police misconduct has shifted dramatically since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, with Americans significantly more likely to say they believe in systemic racism and side with the wave of protesters who have stormed the streets to demonstrate against police brutality.
Six in 10 white Americans now say racism is “a big problem” in society, an enormous increase from polls taken when Barack Obama was president.
More than 2-in-3 say Floyd’s killing reflects broader problems within law enforcement in the United States. […]
“When it comes to such a dramatic, almost on-the-spot change, I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything of this level,”said Scott Finnie, executive director of Eastern Washington University’s race and cultural studies program.“After the Eric Garners, the Trayvon Martins, that have left kind of an impression—this thing left a seismic quake and a crack, not just an impression.”
Time will tell. Meanwhile, word came down this week that the White House's most racist senior adviser Stephen Miller is huddling with America's most clueless racist-enabling senior adviser Jared Kushner to prepare a speech on how to reach out to the black community for delivery by their boss, the viciously-racist president who says the KKK is comprised of "very fine people." Wild guess: he'll deliver it while sitting between two tiki torches.
CHEERS to trouble in Cult Land. Every morning the first thing I say to myself when I wake up is, "Gee, I wonder if Trump's base is fraying." And for three-and-a-half years, the answer has been: "Nope." But earlier this week the dark clouds finally parted long enough for a headline from my daily New York Times email briefing to pop like a cork from a champagne bottle:
TRUMP'S BASE IS FRAYING
Polls have been shifting on Trump in recent weeks and show him to have fallen about 10 percentage points behind Biden. Why?Partly because some white working-class voters have soured—at least for now—on the president, according to Nate Cohn, a Times polling expert.
Trump’s lead among white voters is down to around five percentage points, compared with his 13-point margin among whites in 2016.
His conservative followers are particularly angry that he used the Bible as a cheap prop like a two-bit grifter for a theatrical stunt intended to whip the gullible faithful into a frenzy. And if it's one thing you don't do, it's step on Franklin Graham's toes.
CHEERS to a good start. On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress formed a committee in Philadelphia to draft a Declaration of Independence. Here are three of those members—Adams, Franklin and Jefferson—hashing out the particulars in the HBO miniseries John Adams:
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The Declaration itself was nice, but what really floors me is: a committee actually did something useful.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS and JEERS to dollars and sense. As the week slouches on toward its inevitable conclusion (i.e. another weekend that doesn’t feel like a weekend), let’s check in with some recent economic headlines we plucked off the money tree to find out if we should start moving our cash from the hole in our back yard to the hole in our mattress:
» Hard hit retailers expected to close as many as 25,000 stores
» Fed to keep providing aid---no rate hike until 2021
» IBM quits facial recognition, joins call for police reforms
» Airbnb sites seeing surge in summer rentals
» Harper's Bazaar names its first black editor-in-chief
» Some food producers selling their products direct to consumers to weather coronavirus outbreak.
» Minority-owned businesses struggle to secure loans
» Women have been hit hardest by coronavirus layoffs
» Latinos still have the highest unemployment rate
» Prices keep falling even as economy starts to reopen
» Budget beer and spiked seltzer dominate during the pandemic
Oops, almost forgot this tiny little development: economists say that back in February the United States birthed a baby recession, and its name is…Trump! Bored with all the winning yet?
CHEERS to the C&J punch line express lane—for people on the go who need a terrible joke delivered fast. Up in the northeast corner of Ohio, Cuyahoga County is formally delaying enforcement of a new law that bans plastic bags. So if you get a hankering to visit Cleveland, Melania, you're clear for takeoff.
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 11, 2010
JEERS to freedom. Or, at least, freedom for this guy: Jack Abramoff was released from prison, and taken to a comfy halfway house, where he'll serve out the rest of his sentence (6 months). And then? My guess is we'll be hearing a familiar set of footsteps on K Street, instead of what we should be hearing, which is the sound of his toothbrush cleaning toilets on the Marianas Islands, where he enabled the abuse of sweatshop workers. Happy to be wrong. And here's something fun to ponder: if he'd gotten busted for selling pot instead of selling access to the highest echelons of the United States government for personal profit, he'd be serving, oh, twenty-to-life. Priorities.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to spontaneous spontaneity. On Tuesday, up the street about a hundred yards from us, a city tree-removal crew took down the remnants of a sizable maple that got knocked down during a big wind storm a few months ago. (No squirrels were harmed.) It’s all gone now. Or mostly all gone. While walking our dawg Haley yesterday we noticed that part of it remained and had been thoughtfully and lovingly enhanced:
The stones bear the names of people of color killed by the police:
Who created this brilliantly-improvised shrine? No one’s sure. We’re stumped.
Have a damn fine Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“So, graduates, I hope that Cheers and Jeers can be your wakeup call. That it pushes you not just to think about what kind of kiddie pool you want to build, but what kind of blogger do you want to be.”
—Michelle Obama
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