Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Week Ahead
Monday With a Friday deadline looming in most states, Americans flock to healthcare.gov to enroll in a health insurance plan. In addition to no penalties for pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps, and many bronze plans available for zero dollars, anyone who signs up gets an especially-satisfying new benefit: knowing they’re pissing Trump off.
Republicans in the House and Senate continue hammering out details on their tax plan, which they say will mainly help the middle class and guarantee a booming economy for decades to come. Then again, they lie about everything.
Tuesday Alabama voters go to the polls to decide if they want paranoid, twice-disbarred Republican pedophile judge Roy Moore or brilliant Democratic civil rights prosecutor Doug Jones to be the state’s next senator. Fearless prediction: if Moore wins, his victory party won’t be at the mall.
Hanukkah begins at sundown. “Perfect,” said the Jewish vampire.
Wednesday Janet Yellen holds a press conference for the last time as head of the Federal Reserve. It will also be the last time she gets to go into the Fed’s secret basement chamber to roll around in a giant pile of money while shouting, “Wheeee!!!”
Jesus returns to wish everyone "Happy Holidays," and is promptly demonized as a pagan commie by Fox News.
Thursday Today is Monkey Day, when the world celebrates “all things simian.” Also a day to revisit this 12/10/16 tweet:
Friday Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi opens nationwide. It’s about an ethnically-diverse resistance movement fighting for democracy against a tyrannical regime of narcissistic maniacs hellbent on destroying it. So, y’know, total fiction.
We shail into hishtory. (Or, at minimum, a giant vat of eggnog.) Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 11, 2017
Note: Dreidles in the southern hemisphere spin counterclockwise. Film at 11.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Festivus: 12
Days `til the New Year's Eve Ghost Tour of Philadelphia: 20
Trump approval rating among blacks, according to a PRRI survey: 9%
Percent of Republicans who believe discrimination against whites is as big a problem as it is against minorities: 70%
Percent of voters in 25 Republican-held swing districts who say they’d vote for the Democrat and the Republican candidate, respectively, if the election was held today, according to PPP: 50% / 41%
Percent of those swing state voters who support the DREAM Act: 68%
Percent by which War On Christmas trees will be more expensive this year: 5-10%
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Totally Random Football Score
Army 14 Navy 13
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Get ready for a trump tweet claiming they’re all working for the Deep State…
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CHEERS to your weekly to-do list. In between your job, household chores, and other obligations, don’t forget to carve out time for these action items:
» Sign up for ACA health insurance coverage if you haven’t already. Deadline is this Friday.
» Call your representatives and senators---especially if they’re Republicans---and give ‘em a brief but emphatic earful about what you think of their daylight robbery of the middle class posing as a tax-reform bill.
» Contact the FCC and tell ‘em to leave their grubby mitts off net neutrality.
» If you live in Alabama and you haven’t early-voted, get to the polls early tomorrow and vote against the pedophile. If you don’t live in Alabama, hold your breath for the next 36 hours.
» Bring peace to the Middle East.
» DON’T LET TRENT FRANKS IMPREGNATE YOU FOR 5 MILLION DOLLARS OR ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY UNLESS YOU WANT AN ACID-DRIPPING ALIEN TO BURST OUT OF YOUR CHEST 24 HOURS LATER!
» [Paid Sponsor Suggestion from the American Society of Hungry Squirrels] Feed the squirrels.
» Launch giant water balloons from the catapult in your back yard onto the California wildfire of your choice.
» Say “Happy holidays” to all the Fox News watchers in your life.
» Stay sane.
And don’t forget to take your two 15-minute breaks and 30-minute lunch. Let’s DO this!
CHEERS to a peace-full moment. Yesterday the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.” Nice swipe at Lord Dampnut:
Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday, Ican's executive director Beatrice Fihn said "the deaths of millions may be one tiny tantrum away. We have a choice, the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us," she added.
Speaking at the ceremony in Oslo, Ms Fihn said "a moment of panic" could lead to the "destruction of cities and the deaths of millions of civilians" from nuclear weapons. The risk of such weapons being used, she added, was "greater today than during the Cold War". […]
Prior to presenting the prize on Sunday, Nobel committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen offered a similar warning, saying that "irresponsible leaders can come to power in any nuclear state". […] Ms Reiss-Andersen also acknowledged the contributions of Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and now an Ican campaigner.
Ican received their Nobel Prize on International Human Rights Day. As usual, the day passed with plenty of humans, not enough rights.
CHEERS to the crossroads of America. On December 11, 1816, Indiana (or as we say in Maine: "Indianer") became America's 19th state. I grew up next door in Ohio, so naturally I look down my designer reading glasses at you "Hoosier types." But any state that produces David Letterman, Kurt Vonnegut and Florence Henderson---and knows when to recoil in horror at a Republican Senate candidate like Richard Mourdock and when to push back against anti-LGBT bigots like former Governor Mike Pence---can't be all bad. Permission to celebrate granted---but be in bed by 8.
CHEERS to kicking out the bad guys. This is going to be a big morale booster in Iraq. ISIS---once on Baghdad’s doorstep after occupying a third of the country---has been given the heave-ho and along with it its dreams of a thousand-year caliphate:
The campaign to eradicate the Islamic State took more than three years and about 25,000 coalition airstrikes. Iraqi forces have increasingly been pushing ISIS out of the country over the past few months. Troops last month retook the town of Rawa, one of ISIS's last footholds in the country. At that point, only pockets of ISIS resistance remained.
[Prime Minister Haider] Al-Abadi later in a televised speech lauded the victory. "Dear Iraqis, your land has been completely liberated, and your towns and villages have been returned to the homeland," he said. "The dream of liberation became a reality." […]
The humanitarian aid group Mercy Corps said it was moving into areas retaken from ISIS to provide support and evaluate long-term needs. "As humanitarians, we are looking at a different kind of fight, a good fight," said Deepmala Mahla, Mercy Corps' country director for Iraq. "The battle for a better future for Iraqis is happening now."
Mark it down in the history books: for the first time in fourteen years, sweets and flowers can be thrown at the liberators in Iraq un-ironically.
CHEERS to great moments in feeling good. On December 11, 1844, laughing gas was used by a dentist for the first time. They don’t use it as much these days. They achieved better results by putting TVs on the ceiling tuned to Fox News.
CHEERS to a giant exhale in a galaxy far, far away. It was all glitz, glamour, storm troopers, and lightsabers in Hollywood Saturday night for the world premiere of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. If it sucked, fans would turn on the new team like the Emperor on Count Dooku. (He lost his head.) After the final credits got done rolling, the verdict was announced in a hail of (spoiler-free) tweets:
One of the most story rich, complicated, exciting adventures we have ever seen!
That’s a damn good Star Wars movie.
Holy wow, Rian Johnson went big.
Holy hell is it a masterpiece in a lot of insane ways.
An adventure as epic & sweeping as all the other films combined.
A great chapter of a blockbuster franchise, spectacular and unpredictable.
I’m in geek heaven!
I’ll give you one plot point, and if you don’t want to know about it, STOP READING NOW! Here it is: a porg is Chewbacca’s father. Thus making this, if nothing else, the Star Wars movie with the most awkward paternity test scene in the franchise.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 11, 2007
CHEERS to Al Gore. Yesterday's Nobel Prize acceptance speech was one for the books:
"It is time to make peace with the planet.
We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge. ...
Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: 'What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?' Or they will ask instead: 'How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?'”
My fear is the answer will be: "Shut up and do the dishes, your father and I are trying to beat these fifth graders on the teevee. Hey, what's the capital of South America?" That's my fear.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to The Shutterbug Artist. I noticed on the late-night TV schedule that President Obama’s White House photographer Pete Souza is on The Daily Show tonight. All the incentive we need to post some of his best moments, which are in his new book Obama: An Intimate Portrait…
I don’t believe the current occupant of the White House has an official photographer. To save money, he’s just letting the spycams the Russian ambassador planted last May do the job.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Trent Franks, Far-Right Congressman Who Called Bill in Portland Maine ‘Enemy Of Humanity,’ Resigning
---Right Wing Watch
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