From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Thursday Margaret and Helen Blogging
Bloggerdom's feistiest octogenarians ("best friends for 60 years and counting") emerge from a four-month hiatus to weigh in on the Kavanaugh hearings…
Every one of those GOP Senators expected an overly emotional, erratic and maybe even hysterical witness… and let me tell you Brett Kavanaugh did not disappoint. […]
[I]t’s not search and destroy like Kavanaugh and Trump want us to believe. It’s about making sure the truth comes out. After all, if there is nothing to find, then it doesn’t matter how hard you search. When a woman finds the courage to speak about sexual assault, she deserves to be heard. And hearing her means taking the time to fully investigate in hopes of uncovering the truth. And if that means men need to be a little scared, so be it. We women have been living scared all our lives. If you are worried for your sons, I have one piece of advice for you. Teach them to respect women. Problem solved.
The late Governor Ann Richards liked to say, “Life isn’t one thing after another. It’s the same damn thing over and over again.” Well, I am tired of fighting this fight over and over again. This November we have more women than ever running for elected office, and I for one plan to vote for them early and often. I mean it.
Read the whole thing here. America's assignment in 33 days, in the immortal words of Mrs. Conan the Barbarian: "Destroy your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the conservative men." Warning: you’ll need earplugs.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 4, 2018
Note: Fearless prediction---Trump starts urging white NFL players to take a knee at football games to protest their oppression by Senate Democrats. Buy you a blimp if I’m wrong.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Daylight Saving Time ends: 31
Days 'til the Ohio Sauerkraut Festival in Waynesville: 9
Percent of Democrats who say they'd be much less likely to support a candidate who's a Brett Kavanaugh supporter, according to a Morning Consult-Politico poll: 57%
Percent of Republicans who say they'd be much more likely to back a candidate who's a Kavanaugh supporter: 42%
Points by which Jon Tester (MT) and Bill Nelson (FL) are leading their GOP challengers in the latest PPP senate race polling: 4
Amount Airbnb has lost on its "Experiences" project: $100 million
Number of golf-related injuries, on average, that require hospital treatment every year in Great Britain: 12,400
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
What do you mean, you don't like George W. Bush's foreign policy?
He's met twice now with Puddin' of Russia; he went to the G-8 deal and only one guy got killed; he met with the Popester, a rockin' guy, and didn't object that His Holiness was wearin' some kind of A-rab robe with a Jew-boy hat. Or even that His Holiness kept lookin' at his shoes while they talked about stemming cell phone research, or something. Karl told George W. he needed the Catholic vote, so Bush called the Popester "Sir." But he didn't refer to anyone in Italy as a wop.
So what if Puddin' liked the sport-fucker? Bush is in way over his head. Foreign policy is where the mule throwed Russell. It's worse than collectin' pick-up sticks with your butt cheeks.
---Sept 2001
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Five-year forecast…
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CHEERS to truth and consequences. As in, because Fred Trump and his corrupt family buried the truth about their financial dealings (in classic mob-like fashion), the scumbags may be looking at fines that make the $25 million Trump University settlement look like chump change:
[E]xperts say he could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in civil fines if state and federal authorities substantiate a New York Times report that found he and his family cheated the IRS for decades.
The statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges has long run out, but civil cases have no such limits, and the financial penalties could be staggering. Civil fraud charges for intentionally underpaying taxes, as the Times alleged the Trump family did, could include a penalty of up to 75 percent of the unpaid federal taxes and double the unpaid state amount, experts said.
The New York tax department said it is studying the Times’ 15,000-word report and “vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation.” New York City also said it would investigate. […]
[CREW chairman Norm] Eisen said that if Democrats in the House in November, they will have the investigative muscle and subpoena power to scour Trump’s latter-day tax records and see whether the tax schemes alleged by the Times have continued.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
OMG!!! to reaching out and tickling America’s panic bone. Yesterday the government sent a message from its National Emergency Alert System. In addition to the usual radio and TV messages, the "Presidential Alert" went out for the first time to people's phones. I got mine around 2 o'clock, and for historical purposes I captured the moment using the latest Daguerreotype technology and transcribed the message I received below:
It was a harrowing ordeal but I (barely) lived to tell about it. Publishers: please send your book deal contracts to the usual address. Six- or seven-digit offers only, please.
CHEERS to cool science. The Nobel Prize-a-palooza continued yesterday with the chemistry medallions (which are a bit tougher than veal medallions, but still tasty). As usual, they went to…wait for it…NERDS!!
This year's winners used a technique called directed evolution to create new proteins. These have been used in areas as diverse as the manufacture of new drugs and green fuels.
Frances Arnold, from Caltech in Pasadena, was first to use a method mimicking natural selection in order to develop enzymes that would perform specific tasks.
George P Smith and Sir Gregory Winter developed a technique called phage display to evolve new proteins. …
The first antibody based on this method, adalimumab, was approved in 2002 and is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases.
Frances Arnold is the fifth woman to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Naturally, as soon as Republicans heard that the trio won for work involving evolution and green energy while putting a woman on an equal footing with the men, they immediately yelled "Fake Nobel!" and called for a do-over. As for the rest of the week, the coveted Peace Prize gets awarded tomorrow (there are 331 nominees), but not before today's medal for Outstanding Blogger with Star Wars Fixation is announced. I'm really excited about my prospects. I totally aced the swimsuit portion.
CHEERS and JEERS to the first week in October. The Supreme Court justices---all eight of'em---are back in black and ready to rumble. On their plate: rulings centered around lethal injections, war monuments, sex offender registries, the Endangered Species Act and age discrimination. In one favorable act, they let a lower court ruling stand that preserves public access to a beach near San Francisco that was snarfed up by an evil billionaire, so hooray for that. Oh, and congratulations to Samuel Alito for winning the annual Flies That Accumulated on the Window Sill Over the Summer Eating Contest. Twelfth year in a row. Hey, his nickname isn’t Igor for nothin’.
CHEERS to cool science. A new simulation from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center dares to create two hot, sweaty, and supermassive black holes, millions or even billions of times larger than our sun, dancing giddily as one, whirling like love-struck Dervishes in the most erotic of tangos, arms intertwined in a passionate, sultry embrace, lovers lost in each other's eye, fueled by an aphrodisiac of galactic lust dust, each knowing that, even if this should be the last moment of their lives, they will have experienced true intimacy culminating in a fiery, fangasmic climax among the cosmos!!!
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Memo to self: time to start hitting the mute button when Bruno Tonioli is rating the couples on Dancing with the Stars.
CHEERS to life the way it never was. On this date in 1957, Leave It to Beaver premiered on ABC. June Cleaver did housework in pearls, frilly dresses, and high heels. Or as I like to call it: Saturday morning at the BiPM household.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 4, 2008
CHEERS to early voting. Apparently mailing an absentee ballot or going to the polls before Election Day (if your state allows it) can be good for your heart:
After crunching traffic fatality numbers, researchers discovered that Americans were about 18 percent more likely to die in accidents during polling hours on presidential election days than on other Tuesdays. The increased risk is greater than it is on New Year's Eve or Super Bowl Sunday, the Canadian researchers added.
So if you must vote on November 4th, be safe: take your blimp.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to brewing a cauldron of hilarity. Can't let today go by without noting that this is the eight-year anniversary of the day Republican tea party candidate Christine O'Donnell released an ad for her U.S. Senate run in Delaware with the most bizarre opening line of the 2010 election (or maybe any other, for that matter): "I'm not a witch!" I still cringe…
And yet, in an election year that saw a tidal wave of tea partiers swept into power, she managed to lose to a liberal Democrat (Chris Coons, doing a fine job and handily re-elected in 2014 with 56% of the vote) in a blowout of epic proportions. She may not have been a witch, but that was still quite a trick.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“If Bill in Portland Maine is so damn smart, why’s he so dumb?”
---Stephen Colbert
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