From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Week Ahead:
Monday Palpable excitement in D.C. today as House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) delivers the first-ever State of Homeland Security Address to "outline America’s role in winning the war against Islamist terror." Later in the day, every defense industry CEO calls their doctor to report an erection lasting longer than four hours.
Good news: the "Jeb Can Fix It" campaign finally lives up to its name by fixing something. Bad news: it's just an intern WD-40’ing a squeaky door hinge.
Tuesday Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders meets with African-American civic and religious leaders in Baltimore. Republican candidates…don't.
Controversy erupts at the Paris climate talks as a reporter discovers that the swag bags given out to delegates include a coupon good for 20 percent off the purchase of an escape pod.
Wednesday Today is International Anti-Corruption Day. Or, if you pay us enough under the table, it's not.
Donald Trump runs through the streets naked calling everyone he sees an illegal ISIS-supporting terror rapist, stopping briefly to pee on a mosque and hump an open-carrier’s AR15. His approval rating among Republican primary voters goes up ten points.
Thursday Today is International Human Rights Day. As usual, plenty of humans, not enough rights.
Unless Congress takes decisive action, today's the day America runs out of money. In other words, today's the day America runs out of money.
Friday Today is International Today Is International Nothing Day.
The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index shows a healthy bump from "nonchalant" to "holly jolly."
Plus the usual daily acts of gun violence involving multiple victims, which will be dealt with swiftly by Republicans with a barrage of thoughts-and-prayers tweets.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 7, 2015
Note: Arson charges pending after Jeanette and Isabella admit to bringing torch to a duplex on Riverside Drive during drinking binge. Film at 11.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Festivus, Christmas and Kwanzaa: 16, 18, 19
Days 'til the Sandstone Ice Festival in Minnesota: 11
Amount that's been invested in large-scale "clean coal" technology, with almost nothing to show for it, according to the International Energy Agency: $12 billion
Estimated amount of territory in Iraq that ISIS has lost, according to The Washington Post: 30%
Rank of NH, MA, NJ, VT and CT among states with the lowest birth rate among teenagers between 2010 and 2014 according to the Census Bureau: #1-5
Number of military jobs opened up to women after Ash Carter OK'd equal opportunity hiring in every position regardless of gender: 220,000
Current percent of new officers who are women: 23%
Size of the new five-year transportation bill, which should've been larger: $305 billion
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
Hot dates
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CHEERS to America the Resilient. Today marks the 74th anniversary of the “day that will live in infamy”---the surprise Japanese air attack on the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor that killed 2,403. As a nation, we snapped out of it in the blink of an eye and it was all downhill for Yamamoto and Tojo after that. The number of veterans who were there on Dec. 7, 1941 is fast dwindling, but they're still telling their stories. Like 99-year-old Tennessean James Seals:
Seals was a Marine Corps private then who had arrived in Hawaii a week earlier. The native of tiny Pikeville, Tenn., in the Cumberland Plateau said he was on his way to have breakfast aboard the USS Pennsylvania, in dry dock in the Navy Yard next to sister destroyers, the USS Cassin and USS Downes.
He was some 200 feet away, he says, when the unimaginable happened. Chaos erupted. Warplanes swooped down, dropping bombs and firing machine guns. Seals said he dove for cover in a nearby roadside ditch. […] After the hours-long attack ended, Seals said he went back to the USS George F. Elliott, the transport carrier where was he was stationed, “and got my thoughts together.” Over the next two days, Seals said he was assigned a grisly task: retrieving the two sets of dogtags off those killed on the Cassin and the Downes.
Seals says he doesn’t know of another veteran of Pearl Harbor in the region. Estimates a year ago put the number of remaining survivors at between 2,000 and 2,500.
They would appreciate it if we young'uns would kindly never forget that day or those who were there. Happy to oblige.
CHEERS to Superman and Hercules wrapped in one humble nonagenarian peanut-farmer package. "Fuck cancer"---it's what we say when someone we respect, admire and love gets the dreaded disease. Well, this time cancer fucked with the wrong guy and got fucked:
Former President Jimmy Carter said Sunday that an MRI scan earlier in the week showed his cancer is gone.
Carter, 91, announced the good news to attendees of a Sunday school class he teaches weekly at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. "Went for an MRI this past week and they (doctors) didn't find any cancer at all in the brain," Carter said. Carter revealed in August that he would undergo radiation treatment for several melanoma spots on his brain and liver after he learned a mass removed from his liver was melanoma.
Later today Jimmy will issue a formal statement about his condition while bench-pressing a Buick.
JEERS to a sudden change in priorities. Conservatives are getting all whipped into a frenzy about ISIS coming to destroy us, thanks in no part to the scare tactics of their presidential candidates. They've been led to believe that "Obama ain't sayin' nuthin' 'bout what he plans to do to fight terrorism! It's my #1 issue, and he ain't doin' jack-squat!" So let's see how they reacted last night at 8pm when the president appeared on TV to address what he's doing to fight terrorism:
"Hey! What the hell is Obama doin' on my TV talkin' about terrorism and what he's doing about it?! He's preempting my football game! This is bullshit! Blah blah terrorism blah blah terrorism blah blah blah SHUT UP! Don’t tread on my airwaves, Obummer! Put the fuckin' game on, goddam liberal media!"
You can set your watch by ‘em
CHEERS and JEERS to starting your morning off with a little "Ch'ching” check. Some economy/business-related headlines we plucked out over the weekend to give you a quick snapshot of how the mighty gears of commerce are turning hither and yon:
• Economy adds 211,000 jobs in November, unemployment rate remains at 5%
• 12 million jobs added since the recession
• Fed chair suggests rate hike imminent
• Fossil fuels industry struggles
• Divided OPEC fails to reach oil output decision
• Big banks still lend less to small businesses than a decade ago
• Finland plans to pay everyone in the country $876 a month
• Only single-digit growth for smartphones in 2015
• Household spending rises
And this: a 24-hour all-gun home shopping network is launching in January. Can't wait to hear those call-ins.
CHEERS to the Pine Tree State's mealy-mouthed "moderate." Maine Senator Susan Collins---that rare Republican who actually has the ability to look forward once in a rare while (like voting against funding cuts for Planned Parenthood)---turns 63 today. We give her props for supporting stem cell research and co-sponsoring the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell." But she voted to go to war with Iraq, there's no worthless "Gang of [insert number here]" she won’t join, and she says she's pro-choice but then votes for Supreme Court justices who are champing at the bit to overturn Roe v. Wade. Shame on her for also jumping on the Benghazi bandwagon. Oh, and she also, of course, rends her garments over the incivility in the Senate, but fails to recognize that her party is wholly responsible. For her birthday I got her a spa treatment inside a cone of silence. Not sure who will appreciate that more…her or us.
CHEERS to great inventions. The microwave oven, invented by Dr. Percy LeBaron Spencer (from the great state of Maine, no less), was patented on this date in 1945. We were going to use this as an opportunity to give a lecture on proper microwave usage and safety, but here in C&J danger is our middle name, so…click now and have fun!
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 7, 2005
JEERS to shooting your mouth off. There he goes...saying we won't be able to win on the front lines in the war on terrorism. I think it hurts America when this loose cannon says things on the airwaves like, "I don't think we can win it." The Republicans have good reason to be furious today...at the Republican President of the United States. A party in utter disarray.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to your Monday morning caffeine alternative. I don’t mind commercials as long as they're entertaining and aren't accompanied by a 30-second list of gruesome side effects. Which is to say I’m lovin’ this pulse-pounding Star Wars (11 days and counting!) TIE fighter vs. X-wing battle scene that's selling, um, something. Added bonus: a terrific punchline…
Now go out and buy whatever it is they're selling.
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:
Bill in Portland Maine is a Sith Lord
---USA Today
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