From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
(Early) Happy #92 to #39!
If you don’t count George Washington's fake choppers, Jimmy Carter---who turns 92 tomorrow---owns the most famous set of presidential teeth in history. That Jimmy grin was what the country wanted after the Watergate mess. And although his one term isn't considered a rousing success, he kept us out of war, focused our attention on energy policy, kept us out of war, protected huge amounts of land, was at the helm during the creation of eight million jobs, brokered peace between Israel and Egypt, and kept us out of war.
Oh, and for the record, let's repeat one more time: he didn't say "malaise," and he did get high marks from the public for his "Crisis of Confidence" speech.
Carter's post-presidency is where he really shines (although his pre-presidency race-against-time prevention of the meltdown of the Chalk River nuclear plant while in the Navy was pretty heart-poundingly badass), and he warrants every accolade we can throw Daily Kos member 81380's way. It's astonishing what he's accomplished, from building homes with Habitat for Humanity to advocating for voting rights to shining a damning spotlight on the terrible way women are treated around the world (including inside the pea brain of the 2016 GOP presidential candidate). And this, from last month, is just the coolest thing in Cooldom:
A year ago, when former president Jimmy Carter told the world that he had been diagnosed with cancer, he announced a dying wish: He wanted the last Guinea worm to die before he did. Carter was referring to a parasite that plagued 3.5 million people across 21 African countries as recently as 1986.
Today, Carter’s cancer is in remission, and Guinea worm infections have never been more rare. Last year, there were 22 cases in four countries. This year, so far, there have been only seven human cases. If the global eradication program, led by the Carter Center, succeeds, Guinea worm will be only the second human disease in history to be eradicated, after smallpox.
His motto at the Carter Center says it all: "Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope." Done…done…and done. Happy birthday tomorrow, Jimmy. You're an amazing American, and one of many reasons I’m proud to call myself a card-carrying Democrat.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 30, 2016
Note: Just a quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday, as we'll be joining a posse to round up all the 400-pound hackers and throw them in the pokey. Back Tuesday with a commendation from the mayor for a job well done.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til open enrollment begins for Obamacare health insurance plans: 32
Days 'til the annual Floresville Peanut Festival in Texas: 4
Births per every 1,000 U.S. girls age 15-19 in 1991 and 2015, respectively, according to the CDC: 61.8 / 22.3
Percent chance that better education about, and access to, contraception is the biggest factor in the plunging teen birth rate, according to the Journal of Adolescent Health: 100%
Percent of Mainers who support and don’t support, respectively, Question 3, which would require background checks on all private gun purchases, according to a new Portland Press Herald poll: 61%, 33%
Percent of Americans who start their online shopping searches at Amazon.com, according to FiveThirtyEight: 55%
Percent chance the Boston Red Sox have clinch the American League East Division for the first time since 2013: 100%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Saved!!!
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CHEERS to October. Busy month ahead! Fall kicks into high gear for leaf-peepers and cider-lovers (although unseasonable warmth will shorten the foliage season up here in New England); the presidential campaigns will continue beating each other's brains out (the veep debate is Tuesday, while Hillary and Drumpf meet again on the 9th and the 19th); Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown on Sunday; Barack and Michelle Obama celebrate their 24th anniversary Monday; It's LGBT History Month (the 11th is Coming Out Day), breast cancer awareness month, and pizza month.
On the 10th we re-open the "Columbus was a hero/Columbus was a genocidal maniac" debate; Yom Kippur arrives on the evening of the 11th; full moon is the 16th; Hagfish Day is the 19th (I got mine a "World's Slimiest Hagfish" coffee mug); United Nations Day is the 24th; National Cat Day is the 29th; Daylight Saving Time for European Union countries ends on the 30th; new movies include Deepwater Horizon, a new version of Birth of a Nation, and the mockumentary Mascots (from the "Best in Show”/”Waiting for Guffman” cast); and a high holy Day for gays (and, according to unsubstantiated rumors, small children)---Halloween---looms large. This year I'm dressing up as the scariest person I can think of if Trump gets into the White House: Supreme Court Justice Louie Gohmert. Heads-up, pancreas---here comes another ten-pound bag of candy corn!
CHEERS to a wrecking ball for the people. Michael Capuano is the Democratic congressman representing the 7th District of Massachusetts. He's also on the House Financial Services Committee.
Yesterday---the 8th anniversary of the day the stock market tanked by 777 points and set off the Great Recession of '08---he (and others) took apart Wells Fargo chairman/CEO John Stumpf (rhymes with “Drumpf”) piece by piece over the bankster's identity-theft racket in which customers were charged for fake accounts they never authorized. It's an amazing five minutes that you should watch at Capuano's Facebook page (not embeddable, unfortunately). The highlight was when Capuano wondered why Stumpf shouldn’t be prosecuted like the criminal who had recently been sent to jail for robbing a Wells Fargo branch in Pennsylvania. Said Stumpf: "I think that when you do something unethical or dishonest, which I've tried to exercise my duties as leader…being dishonest and breaking the law is something very different. Our culture is very different from that. We train for that not to happen." Clear? As mud.
JEERS to overrider's remorse. Earlier this week Congress stomped on President Obama's veto of a bill that would weaken our "sovereign immunity" laws by allowing 9/11 families to sue the Saudis for their alleged role in the 2001 attacks. And when I say Congress I mean almost every single member from both parties. Well, guess what? They've sobered up from their little orgy of faux-patriotism, and now they're in "My god, what have we done" mode:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opened the door Thursday to changing legislation that allows families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S. court. […] Across the Capitol, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) agreed that Congress may need to "fix" the legislation, but said he wasn't sure when that would happen. […]
Though the Senate voted on Wednesday to overwhelmingly nix the president's veto in a 97-1 vote, some lawmakers said they had misgivings about the bill. They stressed, however, that any push to find an alternative was largely ignored by the Obama administration.
McConnell echoed that sentiment Thursday, calling the legislation "an example of an issue that we should have talked about much earlier. You know, that was a good example of---it seems to be a failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation was obviously very popular," he said.
So now Congress is playing the role of Lucy from Peanuts pulling away the football just as Charlie Brown is about to kick it...except in the case they’re doing it to 9/11 families. Good luck explaining that. (Or, to paraphrase the immortal words of President Obama: “Please proceed, Congress...”)
CHEERS to portraits in contrast. Forty-nine years ago Sunday, on Oct. 2nd, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the newest member of the Supreme Court---the first African-American elevated to the nation's highest bench. He once said:
"Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish."
Forty-nine years later there's another African-American on the bench named Clarence Thomas. He once said, "How did this pubic hair get on my Coke can?" Potato Puhtato.
CHEERS to the final countdown. September is on the cusp of getting disappeared, and that means the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season is two-thirds over. So far it's been more lambish than lionish (to borrow a phrase from March). Right now there's a beast named Matthew in the Caribbean that's thinking about paying the U.S. a visit. I'm sure you're eager to know exactly where it's going to go. Here's the latest map, plotted out with unerring precision:
Just to be safe, you should probably start nailing down anything that moves. Here, kitty kitty…
CHEERS to great inventions. On September 30, 1846, William Morton---a Boston dentist---used ether as an anesthesia for the first time. It worked really well. But he had even better success the next day when he used it on the patient.
CHEERS to home vegetation. It's gettin' cold out---time to huddle around the warmth of the cathode-ray tube. (If you haven't got a cathode-ray tube, a half a cathode-ray tube will do. If you haven't got half a cathode-ray tube then God bless you.) On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher chats with Peter Hamby (Snapchat news director), Sarah Silverman, Sean Penn, Steve Moore, and Angela Rye (CNN).
New DVD/streaming releases include The Shallows and Central Intelligence. Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad) hosts the premiere of SNL (and Alec Baldwin will make an appearance as Donald Trump). The baseball schedule, starring the American League East champion Boston Red Sox is here and the NFL schedule is here. (The Patriots will herd the Buffalo Bills into the loser’s corral like a bunch of show donkeys Ha Ha Ha!) The Michael Chrichton robots-out-west fantasy series Westworld starring Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris premieres Sunday night on HBO---reviews are really good. And John Oliver ends the week by exposing another nest of rats somewhere in America.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
This Week: Bernie!!! Plus former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke, Foreign Policy Magazine columnist and Politico Magazine contributing writer Julia Ioffe, Human Rights Foundation Chair and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, and House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Oh, and also (rudy911)
Face the Nation: TBA
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus Van Jones, the Center for American Progress’s Neera Tanden. Oh, and also (rudy911)
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO); Bob Woodward.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 30, 2006
JEERS to the delicate sensibilities of Old Europe. Some Belgian travelers on an Air France Flight say they were traumatized and "feared for their safety" when fellow passenger Bonnie Tyler was asked to sing Total Eclipse of the Heart. Of course, what the press failed to mention was that she was on the wing with a hacksaw at the time.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the day John McCain realized he'd made a terrible, awful, horrible, no-good mistake. Who can forget that day eight years ago today when Katie Couric tossed the softest of softballs to vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who whiffed once…twice…and three times she's out:
Katie Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this---to stay informed and to understand the world?
Sarah Palin: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media...
Couric: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years...
Couric: Can you name any of them?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.
The freaky part? Subscriptions to I Have A Vast Variety Of Sources Where We Get Our News Digest tripled overnight.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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