From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Two Things In Life Are Certain. This is One of Them:
On February 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment, establishing the beloved income tax, was ratified and became part of the U.S. Constitution. Here is our annual posting of the full text---in italics so it looks old and wrinkled and historic:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Congress shall also have the power to conspire with giant corporations to use tax dollars to build a war machine that can destroy every planet in the solar system many times over. We want guns. BIG guns! Tanks, planes, nukes, bunker busters, aircraft carriers. Anything that proves to the rest of the world that we've got the biggest penis on the planet must be arsenalized. We are woefully short on laser cannons---let's fix that.
At various times, taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts may be necessary. These bailouts will be prioritized in the following order: white collar idiots, white collar dolts, white collar crooks, white collar morons, white collar charlatans, and white collar bloodsuckers.
Finally, Congress shall impose the strictest penalties on citizen scofflaws who fail to pay their income taxes on time and in full without exception. And by 'without exception' we mean except if you're rich and can afford savvy CPAs and lawyers who can get you out of paying them by, say, stashing them offshore...or except if you're rich and you "forget" to pay them, in which case: tut tut.
And even though we really shouldn’t weigh in like this, everyone in the room agrees that Democrats will almost always treat your tax dollars more responsibly than Republicans, so we’re just putting it out there as grist for the mill.
Okay, that's our amendment. You may now begin stuffing hundred-dollar bills down our pants.
It's worked perfectly ever since. Go us!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Note: Wake us up like that again, humans---as you did yesterday by grabbing us with work gloves and hoisting us over your heads in front of a rabid mob---and we'll gnaw your fucking legs off and see you in court. Thank you for your attention in this matter. ---American Groundhog Legal Defense Fund
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Mardi Gras: 6
Days 'til the Boston Wine Expo: 10
Number of years since 2010 when the number of journalists killed worldwide has been under 100, according to the International Federation of Journalists: 0
Percent of Americans who favor recreational marijuana legalization, according to Gallup: 58%
Percent of Mainers who favor recreational marijuana legalization, which will be a referendum on our ballot in November, according to a Critical Insights poll: 65%
Number of injuries resulting in missed time during the 2015 NFL season: 1,672
Estimated worth of the late David Bowie's estate: $100 million
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Mid-week Rapture Index:
181 (including 4 plagues and 1 new planet in our galaxy that is going to kill us all). Soul Protection Factor 9 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
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CHEERS to that new Democrat smell. Introducing the (very shy) 2016 Castro:
Welcome to the world, kid. Now get out there and fix global warming. We're all counting on you.
CHEERS and JEERS to flopsweat under the klieg lights. The first congressional hearings since the Flint, Michigan lead-poisoning scandal blew up are happening this morning---that's the good news. And since I break out in hives when I'm delivering bad news, I'll let Chris Savage at Eclectablog do it:
The list of those invited to give testimony before the House U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this coming Wednesday has been released and one name is glaringly missing: Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.
Those who WILL give testimony are the current Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality chief Keith Creagh, former Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley (he’s refusing to testify despite a subpoena. --BiPM), acting deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Water at the EPA Joel Beauvais, EPA Midwest Region 5 Water Division water expert Miguel Del Toral, and Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards.
According to reporting by the Detroit Free Press, this committee hearing isn’t about figuring out who was responsible for the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water, it’s about making sure the blame gets pinned exclusively on the EPA.
That may be the intent of Republicans, and they'll certainly get their digs in. But if ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings (D-MD) is true to form, there will be plenty of squirming going on from the witnesses. Especially when they see the color of the water waiting for them at their table.
P.S. Word yesterday that Cummings isn't going to run for Barbara Mikulski's soon-to-be-vacant (sob!) senate seat this year, opting instead to stay in the House. That's good news for Donna Edwards. And great news for the House Oversight Committee.
CHEERS to them darn Hollywood types and their darn Hollywood talking mouth holes. Speaking of Flint, there was a cool moment at the Screen Actors Guild Awards over the weekend. The movie Spotlight, which tells the story of how a group of intrepid Boston Globe reporters informed the world just how widespread the pedophile-priests scandal was, won the top award. During the acceptance speech, co-star Michael Keaton said this:
"This is for every Flint, Michigan in the world. This is for the powerless. It comes down to two things. There's fair and unfair. And I'm always going to vote for fair. I'm always going to vote for the good guys."
Bravo.
CHEERS to spreading the word on a spreading disease. After getting criticism for being too pokey (to use the technical medical term---we looked it up in the Merck Manual) during the Ebola scare, the World Health Organization has declared a global emergency over the Zika virus outbreak.
The Zika virus could spread to Africa, Asia and southern Europe, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, as major French drugmaker Sanofi SA and others joined the race to create a vaccine.
A day after Geneva-based WHO declared an international public health emergency due to Zika's association with the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil, the United Nations agency said it had launched a global response unit to fight the mosquito-borne virus that is spreading rapidly in Latin America. Babies born with microcephaly have abnormally small heads and improperly developed brains.
The White House has a comprehensive fact sheet online that you can read here, and federal health officials say they can't think of any reasons to panic or stoke people's irrational fears over it. Said Republicans running for re-election: leave that to us.
CHEERS to musical diplomacy. It seems like only yesterday that the Village People hoofed it up the charts with YMCA. The single peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top 40 chart on February 3, 1979...
It's a national anthem for gays, but even the most rabid right-wing Christians can't resist gyrating to it at wedding receptions. Wow---who knew that when we finally found common ground it would be disco??
CHEERS to meeting the enemy. Yesterday President Obama met in the morning with Senate Mitch McConnell, spending the better part of an hour listening to the majority-leader-for-only-eleven-more-months grind his teeth to the nub for having to sit in the same office with a leader who actually leads. Then the president welcomed House Speaker Paul Ryan for lunch. C&J slipped a hidden microphone into the salad bowl, and we caught this snippet:
Paul Ryan: How's it feel to be a lame duck president? Ha ha!
President Obama: That's for me to know and you to never find out. Ha ha.
It got real quiet after that.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 3, 2006
JEERS to Liar Liar Pants on Fire. President Bush on Iraq in his State of the Union address: "We are continuing reconstruction efforts." So I guess this headline I read this morning---"Iraq reconstruction money running out, U.S. has no plans to extend funding"---is just a misprint. We'll keep an eye out for the editor's correction.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the final word on Iowa. Courtesy of the Taiwanese Animators:
By the way, Maine Governor Paul LePage flew to Iowa Monday morning to stump for his ideological and big-mouthed soulmate Chris Christie. Christie's final score Monday night: 1.76% and zero delegates. With friends like these…
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cruz campaign promise: "When Heidi's first lady, french fries are coming back in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool."
---Dave Weigel
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