From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Trump was here in Maine Saturday, goin’ after that one electoral vote in our second congressional district to ensure he loses by only 99 EVs instead of a hundred. The best parts of his visit:
Heads-up, Green Bay, Wisconsin: he’s in your neighborhood today. Be sure to close your windows until he’s gone or you’ll never get the stink out of your upholstery. Trust us on that.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, October 17, 2016
Note: All computers and smart phones will be receiving the latest download of the C&J app today. This will take several hours and require you to surround your device with sandbags in a non-inhabited area as you stand back 500 yards wearing a blast helmet and safety goggles. Also, please don’t forget to click "I accept" when you get the pop-up box with the 249 pages of revised terms and conditions. And now that we think of it, 600 yards would probably be better. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til election day: 22
Days 'til the Bay Area Science Festival in San Francisco: 10
Increase in retail sales for September: 0.6%
Most common age of a young child to be involved in a shooting accident, according to an AP-USA Today analysis: 3
Percent chance that southern states have the highest per-capita rate of accidental shootings: 100%
Year during which the use of planet-warming HFCs will start to be capped: 2019
Year by which the end of HFC use will create an estimated half-degree Celcius decline in global temperatures: 2100
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MLB Championship Playoffs
Chicago Cubs tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers 1 game to 1
Cleveland Indians lead the Toronto Blue Jays 2 games to 0
Totally Random NFL Score
New England Patriots 34 Cincinnati Bengals 17
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In the wake of hurricane Matthew, a rescue…
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CHEERS to a tidal wave of positive ink. If newspaper endorsements were the deciders of this election, Hillary Clinton would win in a 50-state blowout. Sadly they don’t, but it's still pretty eye-popping to see that only two papers have endorsed Donald Trump so far (one, the Santa Barbara News Press, wrote zero words justifying their decision), while Hillary has notched 147 with dozens more on the way this week. These are some of the 33 endorsements that came in over the weekend alone. See if you can guess what they have in common:
The Orlando Sentinel
The New Orleans Times Picayune
The Des Moines Register
The Billings Gazette
The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette-Mail
The Reporter Herald (Loveland, Colorado)
The Peoria Journal Star
The Longmont (Colorado) Times-Call
The (Bend, Oregon) Bulletin
Fosters Daily Democrat (Dover, New Hampshire)
The Wisconsin State Journal
The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington)
If you said they all endorsed the Republican candidate in 2012, give yourself a pat on the back. Then consider subscribing to a paper you respect either in dead-tree form or online. Good behavior deserves a reward.
JEERS to the Dumbass Enforcement Agency. As mentioned above the fold, Donald Trump was in New England Saturday, and besides claiming that the election is---[Yawn]---rigged, he made a suggestion that prompted yesterday's New York Daily News cover:
Trump's actual quote: "We should take a drug test prior to the debate because I don't know what's going on with her." I do. I believe it's called "winning."
P.S.:
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CHEERS to book learnin'. On October 17, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating the Department of Education. It's one of the departments that the tea partiers want to abolish because of its communist-socialist-libtard mission to turn every school into a monolithic institution of brainwashing. Except, well, not so much….
The Department of Education does not establish schools or colleges …
Unlike the systems of most other countries, education in the United States is highly decentralized, and the federal government and Department of Education are not heavily involved in determining curricula or educational standards (with the recent exception of the No Child Left Behind Act). This has been left to state and local school districts. The quality of educational institutions and their degrees is maintained through an informal private process known as accreditation, over which the Department of Education has no direct public jurisdictional control.
Did ya catch that? George W. Bush, the mighty titan of the party of "states' rights," swaddled our children’s learnin’ in a snuggly blanket of federal authoritah. Heh. Anyway, happy birthday, ED. Let's all give 'em a polite eraser clap.
JEERS to things we learn from our idiot governor. Maine tea party Governor Paul LePage has been on fire lately, by which I mean he's been working overtime burning our state's reputation down with his unique brand of stupid. This is how he's framing a ballot question that asks Mainers if they'd like to see the minimum wage raised to 12 bucks an hour:
“To me when you go out and kill somebody, you go to jail. Well, this is attempted murder in my mind because it is pushing people to the brink of survival,” LePage said of the proposed minimum wage increase.
And, of course, he wants two of the leading advocates of the referendum to be thrown in jail. (Presumably with Hillary in Trump's planned stockade for political enemies.) Thankfully there's also a ballot question to legalize weed. God knows we need it up here.
CHEERS to ch-ch-ch-ch changes. (There's your earworm for the day---you're welcome.) The big bad evil federal government is at it again. Initiatives in two important areas of valuing-human-life are being unveiled by the Obama administration:
Law Enforcement:
The FBI plans to begin a pilot program early next year that would gather more complete use-of-force data, including information on cases that don't result in death. The earliest participants would be the largest law enforcement agencies, as well as major federal agencies such as the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The program would then be expanded to include additional agencies across the country, which would be expected to regularly disclose whether a use-of-force instance resulted in death, injury or a firearm discharge at or in the direction of a person, according to a notice placed in the Federal Register.
Health Care:
Medicare on Friday unveiled a far-reaching overhaul of how it compensates doctors and other clinicians. The goal is to reward quality, cost-effective care instead of just paying piecemeal for services. […] It's meant to carry out bipartisan legislation that was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last year. “Transforming something of this size is something we have focused on with great care,” said Andy Slavitt, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Officials said they considered more than 4,000 formal comments and held meetings around the country attended by more than 100,000 people before issuing the final rule, which gives clinicians more time to comply.
But fair warning, haters: although the above measures are based on common sense, bipartisan support and the public good, Obama still plans to come after your guns in between rounds of golf, and then throw your ass off a cliff after you get the thumbs-down from a death panel headed by Cecile Richards. We suggest you hide in your bunkers until at least November 9th. Don’t forget your Spam.
CHEERS to chasing a dream. On this date in 532, Boniface II ended his reign as Catholic Pope, stepping down to pursue a career as a John Deere salesman. No, wait, he died. Thanks a lot, Wikipedia.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 17, 2006
JEERS to vermin on the Hill. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the very model of a modern major, um, prick:
A six-month examination of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's career by the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, based on thousands of documents and scores of interviews, "shows the nexus between his actions and his donors' agendas," the paper concludes in a major report today. "He pushes the government to help cigarette makers, Las Vegas casinos, the pharmaceutical industry, credit card lenders, coal mine owners and others.
Because, of course, a cigarette- and gambling-addicted, price-gouged, debt-ridden citizenry that works in unsafe conditions is a happy citizenry.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Today's Omigod Moment. Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod Omigod YOU GUYS!!! The new trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story---the sequel to the prequels and the prequel to the originalthreequels---came out late last week and it is so chock full of old-school awesomeness it makes me want to do a happy cantina dance. You can watch it here if you haven't already, but what's really important is what Vader's grandson Kylo Ren thinks of it:
By the way, if you're taking Christmas requests, I want a life-size, fully-functional Imperial Walker. I plan to pay our governor a little visit.
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:
Bill in Portland Maine should be locked up. I think we can all agree.
---Atrios
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