From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Headlines You Won’t Read Today:
> Occupy movement calls it quits
> Huntsman surges
> Bill O'Reilly agrees to correct all 1,300 inaccuracies in Lincoln book
> European Union learns lesson
> Boehner introduces bill to create jobs
> Brain found in Oakland black bloc "anarchist's" head
> Middle class prospers
> Elizabeth Warren has a brain fart
> World weather forecast for 2012: calm, pleasant
> U.S. Senate leaps into action!
> Deaths from medical marijuana outnumber those from prescription painkillers
> Nutritious food now less expensive than junk food
> Jerry Sandusky "I'm no pedophile" claim ends scandal
> Tent manufacturers oppose Occupy Wall Street movement
> PolitiFact rates Limbaugh claim "TRUE"
> Rep. Joe Walsh pays back child support
And one you will read today:
BREAKING NEWS – Judge Orders Protesters Be Allowed Back in [Zuccotti] Park With Their Belongings
Never a dull moment.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Note: Now, if they decide to turn the Keystone XL pipeline into a 2,000-mile-long water slide? Mark me down as a YES.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Netroots Nation convention in Providence, RI June 7-10: 205
Days `til the Candlelight Tango Festival in Charlotte North Carolina: 24
Number of working days scheduled in January, August and October of 2012 for the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives: 6, 3, 5
Total number of weekdays the House will be in session next year: 109
(Source: CBS News.com via The Week)
Expected number of students, journalists and religious-group members who are planning to travel to Cuba this year, now that President Obama has relaxed travel restrictions: 400,000
(Source: Time)
Percent chance that Herman Cain was told directly by God to run for president: 100%
(Source: Herman Cain)
Percent chance that God was joking---a bit too subtly, she now admits: 100%
(Source: God)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Lets all REBELL about the Christmas Tree Tax! Lets start a Christmas Tree Party! We can all dress up like Muslim Terrorists, I mean Freedom Fighters, and Chop the National Christmas Tree into little toothpicks to float down the Potomac River, along with the ornaments of Chairman Mao and Joseph Stalin.
Commenter "epdr" at The Gateway Pundit
All together now: 1…2…3… Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: An adoption in the nick of time…
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CHEERS to health care vs. health scare. The Supreme Court is going to hear arguments on the constitutionality of the mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamneycare). A whopping 5½ hours have been reserved for oral arguments. Clarence Thomas was so excited he immediately started compiling a list of all the questions he won’t bother to ask.
JEERS to (alleged) pervs in high places. Over the weekend a "beloved" and "indispensable" pastor in Bangor, Maine---a real "pillar of the community" and "a friend to all," pauper and politician alike---was found dead in a river. Whispers of suicide traveled quickly, as did the outpouring of grief and accolades for Rev. Robert Carlson. I'd never heard of him, but the way the press built him up, he sounded like a saint. But, amid all the tears and tributes, something just didn’t add up. And this morning the other shoe dropped:
A Bowdoin woman said Monday that she and several other family members were contacted Friday and Saturday by a state police detective and interviewed about a child sex-abuse case from the 1970s involving Carlson and the woman's brother, who was 11 years old at the time. Also Monday, Boy Scout leaders at the Katahdin Area Council said they turned over to state police detectives a letter concerning Carlson that includes allegations of child sex abuse. …
Another relative from Alton, who asked not to be identified, said she was interviewed by Pelletier on Saturday and that she was angry about local media coverage of Carlson's death. "It was disgusting to see 'Beloved' on the front page of the [Bangor Daily News]," the woman said.
[Sigh] Here we go again.
CHEERS to the fighter. Scott Olsen, the Iraq War Marine veteran who got shot last month by Oakland cops dressed like they were prepping for an invasion of Fallujah, posted a pic and wants everyone to know he's on the mend:
I'm feeling a lot better, with a long road in front of me. After my freedom of speech was quite literally taken from me, my speech is coming back but I've got a lot of work to do with rehab. Thank you for all your support, it has meant the world to me. You'll be hearing more from me in the near future and soon enough we'll see you in our streets!
Meanwhile Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's troubles continued as two trusted members of her administration---a legal advisor and the deputy mayor---resigned as an army of cops (Darth Vader uniforms? Check!) cleared out the Occupy protesters again. And y'know what? The protesters will be back again today. Call it the game of "Whack-A-Movement." And like it's arcade-game cousin, we'll just keep on popping up.
P.S. Zuccotti Park was raided and cleared overnight, but a judge says the protesters can move back in wiith their belongings. I believe a YouTube of Mayor Bloomberg's coffee spit-take at the Waldorf-Astoria will be posted shortly.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. USA Today reader Ray Gadd laments the size of departing CEOs' golden parachutes and asks: Why does anyone even need that much money? After the first million, what else is left to buy?
Congress.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS and JEERS to getting' the hell outta dodge. The good news: a Russian Soyuz rocket successful launched two cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut towards the International Space Station. The bad news: a Russian Mars probe is still hanging over the earth's head this morning, full of 12 tons of toxic rocket fuel, and they're having no success communicating with it. But not everyone's upset about it. When Michele Bachmann heard there was all that fuel in space, she immediately tweeted: Drill There, Drill Now!
JEERS to the rise of the machines. Honda has violated Rule #1 of human survival: Never create a robot that can outrun you. Why? Because if a robot can outrun you, it can catch you. And siince that day has apparently come, meet your future robot overlord: "ASIMO." They say he can even "hop on one or both legs." At least until you stop wriggling. ("Sarah Connor, please pick up the red courtesy phone...")
CHEERS to #1. Seen Elizabeth Warren's first Senate campaign ad yet? It's a classy, by-the-book biographical sketch. Nothing groundbreaking, but solid and credible. She says she wants to get her story out there "before you hear a bunch of ridiculous attack ads." (Oops---too late.) Click here to watch it. Y'know, I'm getting bored with the endless Republican presidential debates. But Warren vs. Scott Brown? Load 'em up!
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Five years ago in C&J: November 15, 2006
CHEERS to the dynamic duo. Democrats in the Senate chose their party leaders yesterday. As expected, Harry Reid and Dick Durbin will lead the charge. As for committee chairs, feast your eyes:
Agriculture: Chambliss Harkin
Appropriations: Cochran Byrd
Armed Services: Warner Levin
Banking: Shelby Dodd
Commerce: "Tubes!" Stevens Inouye
Energy: Domenici Bingaman
Environment/Public Works: Inhofe Boxer
Finance: Grassley Baucus
Foreign Relations: Lugar Biden
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions: Enzi Kennedy
Homeland and Government Affairs: Collins Lieberman
Judiciary: Specter Leahy
Intelligence: Roberts Rockefeller
Budget: Gregg Conrad
Aging: Smith Kohl
Veterans: Craig Akaka
Small Business: Snowe Kerry
Rules: Lott Feinstein
Joint Economic: Bennett Schumer
Indian Affairs: McCain Dorgan
Merry Christmas (minus lump of coal Lieberman)---40 days early! [11/15/11 Update: A stark reminder of what we stand to lose if we lose the Senate. The horror…the horror…]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the comeback kid. His name is Minhaj Gedi Farah. He's the baby whose ghastly skin-and-bones appearance made him the poster child for the famine in Somalia. It's at once an indictment of worldwide neglect of a major human tragedy, and a testament to the resilience of the human body. But there's hopeful news for both sides of that coin: the "worthless" (to conservatives, anyway) United Nations is expanding its ability to distribute food and medicine there, and Minhaj now has some meat on them thar bones:
After three life-saving blood transfusions and intensive feeding with Plumpy’nut, a vitamin-enriched peanut paste, Minhaj reached 4.1kgs (9.03 pounds) and was released from the hospital and treated for tuberculosis in an IRC outpatient program. Today, three months after he was released, Minhaj is unrecognizable.
'His mother never thought he would recover. Every member of his family is happy,' said Sirat Amin, a nurse-nutritionist with the International Rescue Committee who has been monitoring Minhaj's progress. 'He can sit without being supported, he can have Plumpy'nut on his own. He's crawling.'
And this just in: doctors say they he'll be pulling his dad's finger again by the end of the week.
Have a nice Tuesday. And Jimmy? At 87, you own the studly. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“If you know the voice of Bill in Portland Maine, it's a virtuoso performance, from the awkward attempts at humor to the moments of self-pity.”
---Stanley Kutler, historian
University of Wisconsin
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