Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Monday Morning Myths
The Affordable Care Act was rammed through Congress in a frantic rush without any input from Republicans. (Except it wasn’t.)
Americans pay more in taxes than any country in the world, the rich won’t benefit most from the Republican tax plan, and those tax cuts will pay for themselves. (No, No, and No.)
Trump is coming to the rescue of Puerto Rico with the same compassion and commitment as he did Texas and Florida. (Disastrously wrong.)
There’s no credible evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the 2016 election in his favor. (Nyet.)
The NFL players taking a knee are un-patriotically protesting the flag and the national anthem. (Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early bullshit?)
Network news operations have FCC broadcasting licenses that can be revoked. (This just in: NO!)
Some Nazis are “very fine people.” (Do I really need a link to refute this?)
The Affordable Care Act is a "job killer." (Wrong again.)
Free birth control has no effect on lowering the abortion rate. (Except it does---bigly.)
Donald Trump is fit to be president. (Not according to nearly 60% of Americans.)
Trump is "the most faith-centric president in our lifetime." (God, no!!!)
But nice try, gaslighters.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, October 16, 2017
Note: Important deadline today, Virginia Kossacks:
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Virginia governor’s election: 22
Days 'til the Pumpkin Carving Festival in Honolulu: 5
Number of days Trump has spent at one his golf resorts as of the weekend: 72
Annual salary senate candidate Roy Moore (R-AL) arranged to get from his “Foundation for Moral Law” despite claiming he wasn’t taking a regular salary because his organization was too poor: $180,000
Bump in Social Security benefits next year (about $25 extra per month): 2%
Portion of American women who will develop breast cancer in their lifetime: 1-in-8
The last time a hurricane season produced 10 hurricanes, as the 2017 season has (Ophelia is #10---brace yourself, Ireland): 1893
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MLB Championship Playoffs
Dodgers lead the Cubs 2 games to 0
Astros lead the Yankees 2 games to 0
Totally Random NFL Score
New England Patriots 24 New York Jets 17
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Puppy Pic of the Day: C&J’s rescue lab-mix Haley displaying her Monday morning face:
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CHEERS to Advantage: Dems. Senator and kindly schoolmarm who always smells like Ben-Gay Susan Collins (R-ME) terminated the suspense Friday when she announced she would not ditch her senate seat in order to run for governor. I think the reasons were pretty obvious:
1) Instant $104,000 per-year pay cut. Maine’s governor is the lowest paying ($70k) in the country.
2) A real chance that she’d lose the primary because the right has turned so rabid and detached from reality up here that they consider her an “America-Laster”---code for Marxist hippie Hillary Clinton liberal.
3) She believes that, as the only “moderate” Republican left in the upper chamber, she has newfound power to make demands in exchange for her vote. Not really. Republicans mostly roll their eyes when she walks by, and these days they pretty much assume she’s going to side with Democrats. The real pressure points are on Lisa Murkowsi and John McCain. Collins is in no danger of having her colleagues join her at the Senate lunch table.
With Collins out, Democrats have an excellent shot at taking back the executive branch after eight embarrassing and dysfunction years with Paul LePage at the helm. Job #1 for the new governor when they move into the Blaine House: Lysol and lots of it.
CHEERS to the Republican civil war. The Values Voters Summit---a rogues gallery of haters so goofy and extreme that the media can’t help but take to it like a moth to a tiki torch---ended yesterday with the fundamentalist Christians’ traditional leaving of the miserly tips on their hooker’s bedstands. The biggest headline maker was Trump’s former senior strategist, who declared war on the GOP “establishment,” fully aware that pulling the cord on his suicide vest increases the odds that they’ll get clobbered at the midterm ballot box next year:
“It’s not my war; this is our war,” Bannon declared, pacing across the stage during the Values Voter Summit in Washington on Saturday. “And y’all didn’t start it, the establishment started it.” […]
In a speech at the annual gathering of social conservative activists, the now-informal adviser to President Trump mocked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), alluding to Shakespeare to suggest that he is eagerly awaiting the day McConnell’s leadership is publicly undermined by a fellow Republican. “Up on Capitol Hill, it’s the Ides of March,” Bannon declared, referring to the group of senators who, in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” assassinated the Roman leader by stabbing him in the back.
Shortly after his speech concluded, Chuck Schumer ducked into the men’s room, removed his latex Mission: Impossible-style Steve Bannon mask and artificial vocal chords, and slipped out through the heating duct, barely stifling an evil chuckle.
CHEERS to takesie backsies. Remember the outrage we all felt when we found out that the IRS had awarded Equifax---a company that was so careless and callous with Americans’ personal data that it deserves to be shut down outright---a $7.25 million no-bid contract? Well, there’s good news for our blood pressure: the contract’s been suspended and will likely be terminated altogether...
“Given that Equifax failed to secure their own systems and provide timely notifications of a massive security breach, they should have never been an option for hire by the IRS,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said: “Suspending the IRS contract is only the first step. We cannot know taxpayers are protected until Equifax is banned from all federal contracts.”
It took a lot of pressure to force the suspension. And now that the IRS management has finally seen the light, we’ll give them their puppies back.
CHEERS to a beautiful batch of broads. I missed this when it happened a few weeks ago, darn it. (I’m slipping.) Dr. Temple Grandin, Alice Waters, and the late Clare Boothe Luce were among the ten worthy women inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame September 16th:
In 1969, the women and men of Seneca Falls created the National Women’s Hall of Fame, believing that the contributions of American women deserved a permanent home in the small village where the fight for women’s rights began. The Hall is currently housed in the Helen Mosher Barben Building, in the heart of the downtown Historic District.
The National Women’s Hall of Fame is the nation’s oldest membership organization dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the achievements of great American women.
This esteemed group grows with each Induction Ceremony and as women continue to influence and shape the arts, athletics, business, education, government, humanities, philanthropy and science.
You can see the full 2017 roster here. As usual, the inductees will receive 78 percent of what the new inductees in the Men's Hall of Fame are getting.
JEERS to our fossil fuel world. Yet another reminder why we need to get the hell off of oil and gas as our main fuel sources: this keeps happening…
A broken pipe line resulted is more than 9,000 barrels of oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced Friday (Oct. 13) night. The pipe belongs to the Covington-based LLOG Exploration Offshore LLC.
The leaking oil was released from a subsea infrastructure of pipes connecting wells at the company's Mississippi Canyon Block 209 oilfield.The company reported to BSEE that production from the field has been shut in and the release of oil has ceased.
And in other news, a worst-case-scenario mishap occurred at a major solar array over the weekend. But the maintenance guy hosed off the bird doo and now it’s fine.
CHEERS to girls with grenades. Twenty years ago today, the dedication of the Women In Military Service Memorial began with a candlelight march starting at the Lincoln Memorial and moving across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to Arlington National Cemetery. It was well-received when it officially opened a few days later…
The vast majority of critics highly lauded the Women in Military Service for America Memorial.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said it "breaks new conceptual ground in paying tribute to U.S. military personnel, much like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial did in 1982". Gail Russell Chaddock, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, said it was nothing like any other memorial or monument in the city, and singled out the computerized database of women veterans as its greatest strength.
Benjamin Forgey of The Washington Post called it a"resounding success" that "enhances an already splendid setting in a number of ways". Its greatest strength, he said, was the way in which it was "insistently respectful" of the [existing 1932] Hemicycle and Arlington National Cemetery. He also singled out the "serious", "uncomplicated and unostentatious" interiors. His lengthy review concluded that the memorial was "a brilliant, sensitive design" and "a memorable public place".
The memorial is dedicated to women who serve in the Armed Forces in times of war. But also in times of peace, if on the off chance we’re lucky enough to ever have any more of those.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 16, 2007
CHEERS to slaying the free radical. Hooray! Medical science is successfully destroying cancer cells in the human body. Overall cancer rates fell 1.1 percent between 1993 and 2001...and by over 2 percent since then. More from CNN:
The big change was a two-pronged gain against colorectal cancer. While it remains the nation's No. 2 cancer killer, deaths are dropping faster for colorectal cancer than for any other malignancy -- by almost 5 percent a year among men and 4.5 percent among women.
But not all the news is rosy. The cancer on the presidency has swollen to the size of a Winnebago.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to battling to a back beat. Can't let today go by without looking back five years to the night Mitt Romney got pummeled by both President Obama and his own clumsy self. Who can forget "binders full of women," "Please proceed, Governor" and "Can you say that a little louder, Candy?" Enjoy what even George Will called"immeasurably the best debate in 50 years"…songified:
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That was the moment when Republicans got up from their chairs, opened their windows, and quietly switched places with Democrats on building ledges across America. Somewhere overhead, a pigeon's bowels rumbled.
Oh, and today is Dictionary Day. Word. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Why is it that the national anthem is sung only at sporting events? Why not sing it at Daily Kos? Bill in Portland Maine could lead kiddie pool splashers in a rousing rendition of it at the start of Cheers and Jeers.
---HarleyMarshall
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