From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Senator Susan Collins Speaks Out On…
Abortion: "Abortion remains a very contentious issue in the country, and people have heartfelt views on both sides of the issue. I’m not sure exactly why we're seeing this happen, but most of the laws are not as extreme as Alabama’s. Alabama seems to have gone further than any other state.”
Gravity: "I just don’t understand why this rock won’t stay suspended in midair when I let go of it. It keeps falling to the ground for no discernible reason. I find this an unfortunate and troubling development."
Cooking: "In my view, placing a pot roast in my oven, setting it to one thousand degrees, and then taking a short nap should not result in a charred pot roast. There must be something that can be done, but I question the value of an investigation in this toxic political climate."
Driving: "It is most disturbing to discover that my fuel tank was allowed to become empty despite having driven past several gas stations, none of whom informed me that I was running low on go go juice. I remain perplexed and concerned over this situation."
Sports: "I am shocked and saddened to learn that Lucy has pulled the football away for the 947th time in a row, despite several promises to the contrary. I hope we can come together in a bipartisan fashion to ensure that this does not happen a 948th time."
Food & Drink: "I was told on multiple occasions that nobody would ever shake up a can of soda and then present it to me as if they had not shaken it. Despite those assurances, I now have 8 ounces of Tab all over my face, hands and dress, and I can only at this point take a moment to express my puzzlement at the unfortunate direction in which we appear to be heading as a nation."
Foreign Relations: "It is with great regret that I have come to the conclusion that the widow of the former Nigerian foreign minister is, in fact, not going to be wiring me the one million dollars into my savings account, despite my having sent her the $10,000 in cash per our online agreement. This is an unexpected and troubling erosion of the trust that once united us. My befuddlement can only be described as palpable."
Maine’s gift to the nation. You’re welcome, America.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Note: Happy Birthday to Daily Kos Director of Community Building Neeta Lind (aka Navajo) and Contributing Editor Greg Dworkin (aka DemFromCT of Abbreviated Pundit Roundup fame), who turn hffrfrrrfhrr years old today. And—say it with me—many blessings on your camels. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Memorial Day: 5
Days 'til the Tupelo Elvis Festival in Mississippi: 14
Average percentage win rate for a presidential administration in court cases involving the adoption of new regulations, according to Harper's Index: 69%
Percentage win rate for the Trump Administration, through March: 5.6%
Estimated amount of college debt being paid by billionaire Robert F. Smith on behalf of the Morehouse College class of 2019, thus eliminating all their debt: $40 million
Estimated age of the universe according to new data published in Astrophysical Journal, making it around a billion years younger than first thought: 12.5-to-13 billion years
Value of the bottle of 2001 Château Le Pin, a Bordeaux from the Pomerol region, that was accidentally served to a couple in a British restaurant instead of the $330 2001 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, from the Pauillac region, that they'd ordered: $5,700
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 180 (including 5 plagues and some garden-variety lizard demons). Soul Protection Factor 16 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Amazon's new puppy delivery system…
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CHEERS to telling a tantrum-prone baby "No!" This isn't exactly hot off the press anymore, thanks to our blink-and-you'll-miss-it news cycle. But it's worth putting in the C&J time capsule under the category, "Bless the judges." Federal Judge Amit Mehta took one look at the White House's argument for why House investigators shouldn't have access to Trump's financial records and said, "This is a joke, right? Am I on Candid Camera? You guys, always clowning around. But seriously, you can tell your boss to go pound sand."
In the case before Mehta, Trump and his business organization sued to block the subpoena issued in April to Mazars USA, an accountant for the president and Trump Organization. Trump’s lawyers accused Democrats of harassing Trump and said the subpoena “has no legitimate legislative purpose.”
Trump’s lawyers, in suing in both Washington and New York in attempt to beat back congressional subpoenas, said congressional investigations are legitimate only if there is legislation that might result from them. […] Even before the ruling, scholars had said Trump’s legal argument had little merit and that Congress has broad powers to investigate.
Trump is now appealing the ruling, and one of the judges who might end up giving the thumbs-down sign from the bench is Merrick Garland. Yeah, that Merrick Garland. While he's at it, he should attach a rider banishing Mitch McConnell to an ice floe next to a hungry polar bear. I hope the court remembers to include an order for a bottle of A-1 sauce. We hear ancient turtles are gamey.
CHEERS to good grilling. First-term Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) looked into the sleepy, clueless eyes of HUD Secretary Ben Carson—one of Trump's "I hire only the best people, believe me" people—and shamed him six ways to Sunday:
Golly, for a HUD secretary he sure makes a great brain surgeon.
CHEERS to toying around with the climate crisis. Guess who just became the latest corporation to run exclusively on renewable energy, leaving the fossil fuel industry in its dustbin of history? None other than the LEGO company. They're now powered 100 percent by green energy. Better yet, they hit their milestone three years ahead of schedule:
The company achieved its ambitious goal due to the completion of a 258-megawatt offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea, building a giant wind turbine made entirely of LEGO to celebrate.
“We work to leave a positive impact on the planet and I am truly excited about the inauguration of the Burbo Bank Extension wind farm,” said Bali Padda, CEO of the LEGO Group.
You might say that, at LEGO, achieving energy independence was…a snap! Thank you, I'll be here all week.
CHEERS to Abraham "That's Using the Old Bean"-coln. On May 22, 1849, Honest Abe received patent #6469 for his design of a floating dry dock—in fact, he was the first president to receive a patent. Sadly, he never found the time to complete his follow-up invention: the floating wet bar. Our nation's loss.
CHEERS to shameless promotion. Rachel Maddow's 2012 bestseller Drift, which was so compelling I read it in one bathtub sitting, was supposed to be her one and only book. But as she said Monday night, the corruption in the fossil fuel industrial complex compelled her to make an exception. So Christmas is coming in October this year, when Blow Out hits book stores across the country and sends her second opus gushing up the charts. A preview:
With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe—from Oklahoma City to Siberia to Equatorial Guinea—exposing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas.
She shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the United States, and the West’s most important alliances.
Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, but ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson emerge as two of the past century’s most consequential corporate villains.
This book is a clarion call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest industry on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of predatory oil executives and their enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, “Democracy either wins this one or disappears.”
Looks like I'm gonna have to order a fresh case of Mr. Bubble.
CHEERS to jump-starting the jalopy. 119 years ago this week, the first auto repair shop opened in Boston. Followed soon after by the first auto repair bill-induced cardiac arrhythmia.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 22, 2009
JEERS to going North Koreaaaazy! Here's the latest: Kim Jon Il detonated an underground nuclear device that Russian monitors say was roughly the strength of the A-bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United Nations took bold, decisive action by hemming, then hawing, then threatening to hold their breath until they turned blue. So what will President Obama do in the face of this crisis? I don’t know, but as the neocons scream for us to invade, let's remember how their buddies Bush and Cheney reacted back in 2006 [from an ABC News link no longer active]:
The Bush administration may have called last week's North Korean missile launch "provocative," but six days later all those launches have provoked are administration calls for patience and diplomacy.
We've had very extensive and intensive diplomacy over this weekend," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, expressing optimism today in a Chinese mission to North Korea.
"I'm a patient person," said U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, while explaining today why he didn't have a problem with the U.N. Security Council delaying a vote to sanction North Korea.
To put that in perspective: John Bolton preaching patience is like the Pope preaching proper condom use.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the Mayor of Castro Street. Today marks the 89th birthday of the late San Francisco District Supervisor and gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.
“It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.”
“All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.”
He was a talented politician—smart, witty, eloquent, tireless, eager to learn from his early mistakes, but not without his flaws and personal demons. He understood well the power of grassroots campaigning and consensus-building, which is an itty bit critical as we find ourselves in the middle of primary season. One of my favorite things Harvey wrote is his 10 rules on how to win a local election (from Randy Shilts' brilliant book The Mayor of Castro Street):
1. Interviews with all major papers. ['All' was underlined three times.]
2. Knock on all doors.
3. Ride buses
4. Visit non-gay bars during the daytime and any singles bars at nite.
5. Coffee shops and restaurants. Stop off early in morning and late at night.
6. Shake hands.
7. Shake hands.
8. As few meetings as possible—just meet the people.
9. Door to door of registered Demo's is very best thing you can do outside of media coverage.
10. Don't stop.
If he hadn’t been assassinated in 1978 at 48, he would've no doubt been a guiding force and leading fighter for full state and federal equality of LGBT citizens, and the steadily-rising poll numbers for marriage equality (61% now) would've made him cheer as much as the Trump administration’s rollback of LGBT-friendly federal policies would’ve made him bristle. His now-famous core message of hope predated Obama's by 30 years, but is just as relevant today:
"It’s about the us’s out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you…you gotta give em’ hope.”
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
Bill in Portland Maine won’t admit his name is damaging Cheers and Jeers—but his hired rep disclosed it's killing him: Journalist
---Raw Story
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