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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Energize An Ally Tuesday
Over the weekend the Nobel Peace Prize was officially awarded in one ‘o them Scandinavian countries where life is good and Trump is an ocean away. The recipient this year is iCan---the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Interesting beginnings…
Our campaign’s founders were inspired by the tremendous success of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which a decade earlier had played an instrumental role in the negotiation of the anti-personnel mine ban convention, or Ottawa treaty.
Since our founding, we have worked to build a powerful global groundswell of public support for the abolition of nuclear weapons. By engaging a diverse range of groups and working alongside the Red Cross and like-minded governments, we have helped reshape the debate on nuclear weapons and generate momentum towards elimination.
Bonus points to Ican executive director Beatrice Fihn’s well-placed swipe at our president, who has the emotional stability of a two-year-old and never met a nuke he didn’t like: “The deaths of millions may be one tiny tantrum away.” So nobody make any sudden moves, and for the sake of humanity just say Merry Freaking Christmas.
If you’d like to support them with a few bucks, their donation link is here. Congratulations, iCan, on being placed in the same company as former recipients Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jimmy Carter, Elie Wiesel and Nelson Mandela. You keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll keep doing what we’re doing---namely, our best to throw the dotard-in-chief out of office ASAP. (Tick tock, Mueller. Tick tock.)
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Note: Naughty boys and girls get coal. Really naughty boys and girls get a visit from the Judo Chop Fairy. Hai!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Saturnalia: 5
Days 'til the end of the Greenwich Reindeer Festival in Connecticut: 11
Trump approval rating among women in a new Pew poll, the lowest for any president in at least 64 years: 25%
Percent of voters in a Politico-Morning Consult poll who believe Trump is a full-blown racist, versus 41% who did in August: 47%
Percent in that same poll who want Congress to fully fund the CHIP program: 69%
Number of states suing the EPA over its deliberate failure to enforce smog standards: 14
Portion of children and young adults (15 million) who have a mental illness or learning disorder, according to the CDC: 1-in-5
Portion of them whose conditions are undiagnosed or going untreated: 2-in-3
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Serious home security…
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CHEERS to yelling “Stop! Enough! No Moore!” Big day in Alabama, where voters will go to the polls and decide whether they want to put a) a decent, tough, smart, tough-on-crime family man or b) a child-molesting, constitution violating, misogynist, twice-kicked-off-the-bench Christian supremacist to be the state’s next senator. Tough choice!
Basically what it boils down to is whether Doug Jones’ liberal-to-moderate supporters get motivated enough to turn out in greater numbers than Roy Moore’s turpentine huffers. The Very Serious People inside the bubble on Planet Pundit have all basically given up and called the race for Moore. But they could very well look like fools tonight, according to the latest Fox News poll, which does indeed find Democrats more enthusiastic, and independents favoring Jones by a margin of 50 percent to 12. Polls close at 7pm. Send your positive vibes to Team Jones and then hang on…it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Mainly because roads in Alabama are atrocious.
CHEERS to Menorahpalooza. Following tradition, this afternoon at sundown (which is, like, 3:30 around these parts), I shall become what my neighbors fear most: a lapsed Episcopalian with questionable eyesight and one-star cooking skills brandishing a dreidel and a platter of my homemade latkes. If past portends present, I'll take out several windows, some lampposts and a hedge with the former, and the old lady across the street will have to use her supplemental dental insurance because of the latter. We trust things will be a little more peaceful where you are. Oh, and this…
My mother once gave me two sweaters for Hanukkah. The next time we visited, I made sure to wear one. As we entered her home, instead of the expected smile, she said, "What's the matter? You didn't like the other one?"
Happy Channuka, Channukah, Chanuka,Chanukah, Chanuko, Hannuka, Hannukah, Hanuka, Hanukah, Hanukkah, Kanukkah,Khannuka, Khannukah, Khanuka, Khanukah, Khanukkah, and Xanuka!!! Butdon’t say all that too fast or your uvula might end up in the ER.
JEERS to the most activist activist judges ever. On December 12, 2000---in between rounds of Texas Hold 'Em---the Supreme Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court ruling that said, Hey, maybe we should, like, count all the votes or something:
In a brazen act of deceit, the five-justice majority issuing the Court's per curiam decision knowingly misrepresented December 12 as Florida's chosen deadline for completing the vote count. They held that Florida law allowed no time to count the remaining 175,000 votes: [...]
This overt misrepresentation of Florida election law flabbergasted members of the legal profession from coast to coast. These same justices who on so many prior occasions had championed the rights of states had now casually and willfully nullified Florida law.
But at least President George W. Bush fulfilled his promise to restore dignity and competence back to the government. Yay. Squeaky Playskool gavels for everyone!
P.S. Whaddya bet that our first Chief Justice, John Jay, is spinning in his grave, knowing that the above abuse of judicial power was exercised on his birthday? Pay your respects, and sympathies, here.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Some asshole on twitter blames the California wildfires on God’s wrath. Dan Savage responds: Bad thing happens to me? A loving God is testing me. Bad thing happens to you? A vengeful God is punishing you. See how that works?
Yes.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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JEERS to Klutzy McKlutz. Yesterday a 27-year-old man who’d moved to Brooklyn from Bangladesh six years ago decided to make an exciting career move into the world of suicide bombing. After consulting the Islamic State’s instruction manual, he strapped a baggie full of popsicle sticks and a firecracker to his chest and, at exactly the right moment…he fucked it up. Wow, the caliphate-happy terrorists just got booted from Iraq and now this? If they’re not careful, ISIS is gonna get a bad name!
CHEERS to the biggest star on the U.S. map. On December 12, 1800, Washington, D.C. was established as the capital of the United States. During those early days, everyone---the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court---was packed into the north wing of the Capitol building like sardines. They later moved into their own spaces because, well, the place was starting to smell like sardines.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 12, 2007
JEERS to the usual gang of idiots. Matt Bai, the New York Times political reporter (and moderator of the presidential debate at Yearly Kos this year) writes about the rise of the netroots in political campaigns, and how we're pissing off the dinosaurs in D.C.:
Perhaps only in Washington, where so few people have dominated so much for so long, is this trend viewed as inherently negative. That’s because, for decades, presidential campaigns have been the exclusive province of a small bevy of ad makers and strategists who profited from the illusion that they, and only they, could foresee the electorate’s every reaction to everything.
The results of that period are now in: a marked decline in voter participation, an uptick in cynicism toward public service and a heap of critical policy challenges that have gone unaddressed. So why should we fear a new day when ordinary voters, through their own creativity and passion, can suddenly influence the direction of a campaign with a Web site or a video? These are, after all, our campaigns, for too long dominated by the professionals who made of them a gray and tepid industry.
And made ours a gray and tepid party. Blog on. Loudly.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to nature's fabulous light show. If you're up late this weekend and you have a desire to feel small and insignificant, here's something you'll love: the Geminid meteor shower is putting on a show…
The Geminid meteor shower---always a highlight of the meteor year---will peak in 2017 around the mornings of December 13 and 14. Geminid meteors tend to be few and far between at early evening, but intensify in number as evening deepens into late night. Observing around 2 a.m. is best.
This shower favors Earth’s Northern Hemisphere, but it’s visible from the Southern Hemisphere, too. The Geminids’ parent body---a curious rock comet called 3200 Phaethon---is exceedingly nearby this year, due to make a close sweep past Earth on December 16.
Be aware that meteors often come in spurts, interspersed with lulls.
They say you'll need twenty minutes or so of staring into total darkness before your eyes get properly adjusted. Or, to speed up the process, you can just spend 30 seconds staring into Paul Ryan’s soul.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
NASA is set to make an important announcement about a new discovery made by the Kepler space telescope, which has been searching for alien Cheers and Jeers kiddie pools since 2009.
---TechTimes
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