From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Meanwhile, as the Republicans Spew Their Hate…
Pushing back against efforts to bar Syrian refugees from resettling in the U.S., President Barack Obama vowed Saturday that his country will be a welcoming place for millions fleeing violence around the world "as long as I'm president." Obama commented Saturday at a learning center in the Malaysian capital that serves the poor, including some refugees. … Obama said the youngsters "represent the opposite of terror, the opposite of the type of despicable violence we saw in Mali and Paris."
Tons of great pics here. Here's a video snip:
Obama meets with French President Hollande at the White House tomorrow to discuss solutions to impossibly-complex problems surrounding terrorism and the refugee crisis that require vision, skill and resolve. Republicans, on the other hand…
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 23, 2015
Note: If you need an angry drunk relative for Thanksgiving, take an angry drunk relative for Thanksgiving. If you have an angry drunk relative for Thanksgiving, leave an angry drunk relative for Thanksgiving.
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the start of Hanukkah: 13
Days 'til the Valley Forge Beer Festival: 12
Minimum number of pages from a 1944 Nazi census in Hungary that a couple found stashed behind the walls of their Budapest apartment: 6,300
Estimated per-household cost of Thanksgiving dinner this year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation: $50.11
Dow Industrials close on Friday: 17,823
Percent increase in Portland Oregon, Manchester New Hampshire & San Francisco apartment rents, respectively, over the past year, according to the latest Zillow data: 15%, 14.7%, 14%
Estimated current pre-release ticket sales for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force
Awakens: $54 million
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
A recent shot of C&J's rescue lab-mix Haley, a refugee from Macon, Georgia...
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CHEERS to short workweeks. Only three days for most Americans this week---hopefully you're among them. Then it's turkey, gravy, spuds and a whole lotta nothin' else. Except, of course, our usual 14 hours of daily blogging. ("Pass the stuffing, dear. And the screen shammy...")
CHEERS to the demolition derby in Dixie. If you were in a self-imposed media blackout over the weekend, here's the big story from Saturday night's special election in Louisiana: Democrat John Bel Edwards swatted down Republican David Vitter like a pesky gnat wearing a diaper and will become the state's first governor with a "D" after his name in a dozen years. Don’t get your hopes up that there's a liberal revolution about to take hold there---Edwards is made of blue-dog stuff, but at least he has enough common sense to expand health insurance in the state via Medicaid. As for Vitter, whose prostitution scandal finally caught up with him: he says he won't run for re-election in the Senate so he can spend more time with his family. Now begging him to reconsider: his family.
CHEERS to "Young Hickory of the Granite Hills. Now placing just a notch or two above George W. Bush on the competence scale: New Hampshire's Franklin "#14" Pierce, whose life was a slow downward spiral, from the childhood deaths of his three children (including Benjamin, killed in a train derailment at age 11 after Pierce won the election) and his despondent and unstable wife, to his unsuccessful battle against the bottle. During his lethargic one term in office (1853-1857) he managed to piss just about everybody off, and he failed to get the nomination for a second term. Adding insult to injury, he became so invisible that he didn’t attend successor James Buchanan's inauguration because they forgot to send a carriage to get him. And while that journalist missed Bush with his shoes in Iraq some years back, an assailant did manage to nail Pierce in D.C. with a hard-boiled egg. You know the drill...go wish him a happy 211th birthday. Lord knows he could use some cheering up.
CHEERS to the calm before the calm. Only 7 days 'til the end of a very quiet Atlantic hurricane season for the U.S. Let's check in and see if NOAA thinks anyone should be building arks:
Nope---all quiet. But that's far from the case in the Midwest, where arctic cold and foots of snow are wreaking havoc on the citizenry. Looking at this weather pattern I think we can make one solid conclusion: the gays, feminists and pagans need to get their GPS fixed.
JEERS to the ol' double-standard shuffle. Criticizing the president during times of war is unpatriotic and un-American. But don’t take it from me, take it from these patriots:
“You don’t criticize the Commander-in-Chief in the middle of a firefight. That could be construed as putting U.S. forces in jeopardy and undermining morale.” ---Bill O’Reilly
“I have had it with members of your party undermining our troops, undermining a Commander-in-Chief while we are at war…” ---Sean Hannity
“And furthermore, one of the fundamental principles we have in America is that the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and attempts to undermine the Commander-in-Chief during time of war amounts to treason.” ---Pat Robertson
And you'll find several more examples here. So remember that: no criticizing the president in times of conflict lest we undermine the morale of our troops. Unless you're a Republican, in which case you're saving them from the tyranny of a ruthless Democratic madman.
JEERS to...hic!...#29. On November 23, 1921, President Warren Harding lost my vote by signing the Willis Campell Act, which forbade doctors from prescribing beer or liquor for medicinal purposes. That's why today C&J does all of its own diagnosing. A couple weeks back we went through an entire "prescription pad" while suffering from an acute case of Republican debate.
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Five years ago in C&J: November 23, 2010
CHEERS to new rules. Starting January 1, health insurance companies have to spend at least 80 cents of every dollar on actual health care coverage. Not advertising. Not lobbying. Not junkets or bonuses. Health care coverage. Of course, the industry must be screaming about The Unfairness Of It All(!!!), right? As usual...not so much, now that the fight is over:
[I]ndustry watchers said the final regulations wound up being more manageable than investors initially feared. Analyst Les Funtleyder, who covers the industry for Miller Tabak, noted that HHS has wide latitude to adjust the rules to prevent market disruptions. "From an expectations point of view, these are rules that managed care can live with in 2011," he said.
Not that it'll stop Republicans in Congress from pissing and moaning. Which, I might add, constitutes at least 80 percent of what they spend their money on.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to anniversaries worth mentioning. Lest it disappear down the rabbit hole, C&J reminds the world that it was one year ago that this little inconvenience dropped in the Benghazi conspiracy-theorists' laps:
A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.
Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
Of course, the Benghazi investigation was always about going after Hillary Clinton, so despite the report exonerating her, they had to create a "select" committee that ended up getting thoroughly drubbed by her during the recent 11-hour marathon. So what's a select committee do for a double-encore? Why, take a fun-filled taxpayer-funded European “fact-finding” junket, of course! Because, as everybody knows, Hillary hid all the damning evidence in the steam room of an Italian villa.
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:
Turns out Bill in Portland Maine shares DNA with a lot of unexpected critters---and bananas.
---Chris D'Angelo, HuffPost
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