No Excuses Now
Two years ago this week the House, led by a new Democratic majority, passed historic legislation virtually moments after the 116th Congress was sworn in. Maine's largest paper, The Portland Press Herald, took a moment to shine a light on H.R. 1 and what its voting rights and election transparency regulations would mean. Back then I wrote in C&J that "these five sentences are worth framing." And since framed things are meant to be revisited occasionally, this seems like a good time, given that we'll soon control all the levers of lawmaking and can both re-introduce the law and enact it with President Biden’s blessing:
The first bill brought forward by Democrats [is] a question—as in, what kind of government do you want?
Continued...
Do you want a government that is fair, one in which the influence of Americans of modest means can at least hope to contend with the influence of the rich and powerful?
Do you want a government that is open and transparent, one where conflicts of interest are banished or at least disclosed, one where the needs of constituents have a chance against the transactional relationships between elected officials and the money behind them?
Do you want a government that reflects the electorate that it serves, one where the right to vote is universal—and not a function of where you live, how you vote, how much you make or how you look?
With H.R. 1, House Democrats answer “yes” to those questions.
Said soon-to-be-powerless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the time: "It may pass the House, but not the Senate." Uh huh. We'll see about that after next Wednesday.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Note: This just in from Chief Justice Roberts: "Me execute oath give eight days faithfully!"
And this just in from the president-elect: “Somebody tell that dog-faced pony soldier oath-goofer to write it down on a three-by-five card this time, ladies and gentlemen. I mean it, no joke. That’s number one. Number two: see number one.”
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til inauguration day: 8
Days 'til the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino gets imploded in Atlantic City: 17
Percent of Americans polled by PBS NewsHour/Marist who blame Trump for the coup attempt on January 6th: 64%
Percent of Americans who want Trump to be immediately removed from office, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll: 57%
Percent who described the participants in the attempted coup as either “criminals” or “fools": 79%
Amount Quebec citizens will be fined if they violate an 8pm Covid-related curfew that's in effect for a month: $6,000
Number of marijuana stores, cultivation facilities, and licensed product manufacturing facilities, respectively, in Maine now: 15 / 16 / 9
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Puppy Pic of the Day: XVII is coming on 2/7/21
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CHEERS to double dipping for democracy. Anyone not living inside the Fox News bubble who's been paying attention the last four years knows that the list of impeachment charges against the current president could be as long as your arm. Last year we got him on two counts for his "perfect call" with Ukraine (I can't wait 'til President Biden release the entire transcript of that.) But those were nothing compared to the size of the one that got shoved down his throat yesterday by the House, making him the first president to be so wretched he got impeached twice. An embarrassment for the entire Republican party, which is currently behaving like a drunk waking up from a bender with pork rinds stuck to his head and no idea how to extricate themselves from the gutter:
The "incitement of insurrection" article of impeachment was introduced by Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and David Cicilline, D-R.I., along with more than 210 Democratic co-sponsors. […]
"President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United states and its institutions of Government He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transfer of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States," the article says.
The impeachment article also cited Trump's call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where he urged him to "find" enough votes for Trump to win the state [and] the Constitution's 14th Amendment, noting that it "prohibits any person who has 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion against' the United States" from holding office.
The House will likely vote tomorrow. As the members of Congress are casting their votes on behalf of their constituents, the Founding Fathers will be looking down and muttering themselves, "We had to write the 14th to stop that guy???" Yeah. Sorry 'bout that.
CHEERS to Team Biden Super Spooks Action League!!! Now we know who #46 is sending to the basement of [location of undisclosed location deleted] to take on the covert evildoers who have spent the last four years invading and attacking our nation's elections, utilities, and national security infrastructure with impunity. Since the Trump administration is still in charge for 8 more days, C&J was able to waltz into the basement of [location of undisclosed location deleted again, and if you force me to delete it a third time you're all going to Gitmo] and steal these exclusive details from the dossier on CIA Director nominee Dr. William Joseph Burns:
» Born 1956 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina
» B.A. in history from la Salle University in Philadelphia; Marshall Scholar at Oxford, earning a Masters and doctorate in Philosophy
» Spent 33 years in the foreign service, including stints as ambassador to Jordan and Russia, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs.
» Speaks Russian, Arabic and French
» Awards earned: all of them including the coveted EGOT.
» Does he like long walks on the beach at sunset with a daiquiri in one hand and the reins of his pet llama "Porter Goss" in the other? He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you.
» He might kill you, anyway, just for that attitude you seem to be copping about the llama.
» No, he will not "drop it already." You started it!
Before this escalates any further, I suggest we all print out the above, eat it, and never speak of it again. Welcome aboard, sir. I've never heard of you, and you were never here.
JEERS to our hunka hunka burnin' planet. How hot was 2020? Hotter than Donald Trump's brain cell after he got his twitter account taken away forever. Hotter than the seat a Wall Street bankster sits on as Rep. Katie Porter pulls out her white board and says, "My first question to you is…" It was so hot that Franklin Graham began telling his flock that unrepentant sinners would start being re-routed from hell to fry for eternity in Oklahoma. It was hotter than the steam coming out of Greta Thunberg's ears as her pleas for action climate change were ignored for another year. Yeah…that hot:
2020 has officially become the joint-hottest year on record, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has confirmed.
The year, which ties with 2016, rounds off the hottest decade globally ever on record as the impacts of climate change intensify.
In 2016 the extreme heat was partly attributed to the end of an El Niño event, a huge ocean-atmosphere climate interaction which results in warming in sea surface temperatures across swathes of the Pacific Ocean. 2020 had no such event.
2021 is on track to fill the record books with more awful heat. Even worse, more of my awful heat metaphors.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to another waste of Air Force One frequent-flier miles. Seizing on the chance to rehabilitate his legacy after leading the attempted seizure-by-force of the United States government, President Trump travels to Alamo, Texas (not the actual Alamo as originally reported) to deliver the final construction invoice to Mexico through one of the slats in his glorious—and gloriously-scalable—border wall that no one is happy with:
[The wall is] far more than critics wanted, far less than he wanted, and none it funded by Mexico.
At last count, some 452 miles has been built. About 12 miles of that is along segments of the border without any barrier before. The rest replaces shorter and less sturdy barrier.
The project has cost $15 billion so far, just $4.5 billion of that provided by Congress. Trump diverted the rest from the military budget when lawmakers balked at full funding. … By the time he leaves office, it will be about 40% fenced.
During his trip, he'll spend some time seething over the fact that the prestigious 2022 PGA Championship, originally scheduled at one of his golf resorts, is being moved somewhere else that's not owned and operated by a tinpot dictator-wannabe. Smart move. As soon as he leaves office, everyone’s gonna desert his properties and leave him with no revenue and lots of bills, leading to their inevitable—wait for it—“Fore!”...closure. (The dog’s punchline. Not bad for a mutt.)
CHEERS to my li'l inaugural checklist. Since next Wednesday is going to be a nonstop whirling dervish of crazy, I'm writing down the essentials I'll need to adequately participate in the events of January 20, 2021:
» Hope
» Optimism
» Awe
» Relief
» Euphoria
» A gnawing sense of hard-wired cynicism fueled by the creeping yet irrational suspicion that this guy is going to act like a typical politician, over-compromising and under-reaching, ultimately ending up just another in a long string of disappointments and paving the way for President Eric Trump.
And also a giant wheel of cheese embossed with the presidential seal. Low-salt, please.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 12, 2011
CHEERS to Day 4. All of the wounded victims still at Tucson’s University Medical Center continue to improve, according to doctors. As for Congresswoman Giffords, her neurosurgeon says she has a 100 percent chance of survival now. And she continues making progress in performing simple tasks. C&J slipped a spycam into ICU and here's a transcript of this morning's routine:
Doctor: If your name is Gabby, lift your index finger. [Lifts index finger]
Doctor: If the current month is January, lift two fingers. [Lifts two fingers]
Doctor: Can you mop the floor and make me breakfast? [Lifts middle finger]
Excellent.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to America's dispensers-in-white. Today is National Pharmacist Day, when we acknowledge a profession whose members quietly go about their task of filling prescriptions correctly, promptly and safely before ringing them up along with our peanut M&Ms, People magazine, Swiffer pad replacements and dental floss.
They'll celebrate the usual way, by inviting customers to pick a goodie from the giant bowl containing pills they found on the floor over the course of the year.
Usual caveat applies: if you pick the one shaped like a dodecahedron, allow yourself three days to come down.
Have a trippy Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“I just had such a strong reaction to Cheers and Jeers and it caught me off guard. Usually I save my crying for special occasions…like when I’m pregnant!”
—Gal Gadot
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