Good morning! This being only my second authorized stint as a Cheers and Jeers replacement host, I find it helpful to ease in with some late-night snark because (1) it's something I didn't have to write, and (2) lorem ipsum has blocked me from their site for copyright violations...

"Joint Chiefs of Staff [Chair] Peter Pace is leaving his job. He's the one who announced that all homosexual acts are immoral, and so is adultery. No wonder he left. He attacked all the members of Congress."
--Jay Leno

"Undaunted by the protesters, the leaders focused on finding consensus over global warming. And by 'consensus,' we mean getting Bush to agree with the other seven."
--Jon Stewart, on the G8 Summit

"Paris Hilton is behind bars, but still no word on Osama."
--David Letterman

"Cheney is having an operation on his heart this week. Talk about microsurgery."
--Jay Leno

From the steamy hot wastelands that are Central New York on the brink of summer, this is today's host redlami, answering the eternal and ungrammatical question, what time does Cheers and Jeers start? [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

The new report on DHS Immigration Enforcement by TRAC has gotten extensive coverage by the traditional news media, including CNN, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, Time and US News and World Report. It's also been picked up in the blogosphere, by Bruce Shneier and others.

This morning I got an email from a songwriter whose music I like. I get a lot of these: I sign up on these lists so I find out about new tour dates, new CDs, what's going on in their lives. In folk music circles, you tend to feel personal connections to the artists, and the internet makes that a lot easier.

But the email I got this morning from Ellis Paul wasn't mainly about selling CDs. It was about the concern of a parent in Virginia for the lives of his children in a society where violence is glorified and guns are sometimes ridiculously easy to obtain. And it's not something he's only recently thought about; in the email he offered a song of his for free download and sharing: Autobiography of a Pistol. Here's a bit of the lyrics:

Would you believe I've seen better days?
I starred in westerns and won rave reviews.
Now I sit on a shelf, tagged for judgment day.
I've got to change the jury's point of view.
You see, guns don't kill people,
It's the bullets that do.

Ellis' email message is below the fold:

You've probably heard of Bill in Portland Maine, creator of the DailyKos community known as Cheers and Jeers. And you may have noticed that Cheers and Jeers has been missing from the front page, owing to Bill's unexplained disappearance vacation. But did you know that PoliSigh has assembled a dedicated group of tireless, selfless, occasionally senseless volunteers to staff the kiddie pool in Bill's absence? The trick is that to find the replacement editions (like this one), you have to look in the diary list, because for some reason Bill didn't trust anyone with his password.

Anyway, today I composed this ode in recognition of all who have been supplying the little metaphorical paper umbrellas to accompany the rum and coke of our daily existence. With apologies to Elvis Costello, I present (to the tune of The Imposter)...

This Friday substitute edition Cheers and Jeers is dedicated to our founder, Bill in Portland Maine, who has vacated the premises for Key West (high today 75°, chance of precipitation 10%). For Bill and his entourage I offer this helpful wisdom from the 13th century snarkmaster Rumi:

From the icy wastelands that are Central New York, this is today's host redlami, answering the eternal and ungrammatical question, what time does Cheers and Jeers start? [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

When called on the facts that they're conducting fewer audits of large companies (assets over $250 million), and spending less time when they do, the IRS disagrees that it's giving the big boys a break.

The facts, contained in a new TRAC report and covered in the NY Times and elsewhere, are that the IRS has reduced the time spent on each audit by 21 percent in the last five years, to 958 hours from 1,210 hours. At the same time, the number of actual audits, which had increased in the last two years, has fallen back to the level of 2002.

(Keep in mind that companies of this size, while filing only 0.2% of all corporate returns, control 90% of all corporate assets and receive 87% of all corporate income, according to data from an earlier TRAC report.)

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere on DailyKos. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling that would have made it much easier for the Administration to harass and deport legal immigrants. As reported in the NYT:

The Supreme Court rejected the government's interpretation of immigration law on Tuesday, ruling that a noncitizen is not subject to mandatory deportation for a drug crime that, while a felony in the state where the crime was prosecuted, is only a misdemeanor under federal law.

The 8-to-1 decision restored to one category of immigrants, caught in the nearly impenetrable maze where immigration law and criminal law meet, the ability to avoid automatic deportation and the other dire consequences of being guilty of an "aggravated felony."

I want my, I want my, I want my C-n-J

Jeers to waiting for the kiddie pool to open, and to my poor, sore refresh finger this morning. I actually managed to comment in a few diaries, read all of DarkSyde's Science Friday story and figure out plf515's gerrymander graphs while I was waiting. And the words The 80% Solution are now burned into my retinas. As is John Yarmuth's smile. And...

Oh the heck with it. I'm posting my own Cheers and Jeers here and getting back to work.

Update: This is NOT Cheers and Jeers or a sanctioned substitute. It's just my diary.  Posting here won't get you any special mojo or the attention of the kool kidz.

One thing we've learned in our years of analysis of data wrenched from the government through the FOIA (sometimes with the added assistance of a court order) is that no administration, Democratic or Republican, likes to have the analysis of actual facts interfere with its message.

So while I'm thrilled about Democratic wins, I know that after we get past the hangover and the honeymoon, our job as progressive bloggers will be to keep reminding them why we voted for them and what we expect them to be doing.

Staffing is up...

Particularly intelligence staffing (you know, the people looking for the terrorists)

Below the fold, we'll see what is the FBI doing with all this extra staffing.

However, Zogby stands by his poll, and today released the results. And — big surprise — it shows Maffei has taken a lead, albeit still within the margin of error.

Details on the endorsement and the poll results below the fold.

Voters I enjoyed meeting. And voters I can do without.

Dear Mr. Preznit: There's this thing called the innernets, right? An' it's got these tubes. And sometimes the tubes get kinda clogged with stuff you thought you flushed. An' - an', you flush again an' it kinda starts to overflow an' stink, an' people can smell it, an' they look around to see what's goin' on, an' then there's crap all over the place an' you're looking pretty stupid.

Your lyin' alla time is just like that, except for the smell. You smell like you tried to flush a skunk.

Lyrics and more after the cut...

No, I absolutely believe that there's a life in those embryos and that if we destroy it for whatever reason that's the destruction of a life.

I wonder if Walsh realized what he said. It's not just embryonic stem cell research that should be against the law, but also in vitro fertilization and first trimester abortions, all of which would be murder if a fertilized embryo were to be recognized as a human life.

My explanation is on the flip.

"It's 'The Empire State Strikes Back,' " says Democrat Dan Maffei, a former congressional aide who is running a surprisingly strong race against Rep. Jim Walsh, the Republican incumbent, in a district that stretches from Syracuse to the Rochester area.

Maffei sees the immediate trend toward Democrats powered by frustration with President Bush and the Iraq war. But it is also rooted in long-term factors: the economic troubles of many Upstate communities, the area's "libertarian" leanings on cultural issues and the homelessness felt by many moderate Republicans in the face of a national party increasingly dominated by conservatives.

"Bush Republicanism," Maffei says, "is not for them."