From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"Say what?"
Once again it's end-of-the-year list season. It's an addiction---we can't help but collectively start wrapping up the previous twelve months in neat little boxes: Best, Worst, Top, Bottom, Winners, Losers The Departed, The Elected, The Meaning of it All and, of course, "The Quotes." I'm a big fan of 'em, and I've come to look forward to the annual top ten list (“famous or revealing of the spirit of the times, and not necessarily eloquent or admirable”) that Yale librarian Fred Shapiro assembles each year. Chosen as #1 is a line demonstrating the kind of class and decorum we can expect from our next President of the United States:
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters."
---Donald Trump at a campaign rally
Others:
"You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables.'"
---Hillary Clinton, a statement derided but proven statistically true
"And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside."
---Lin-Manuel Miranda, from his Tony Awards acceptance-speech on the day of the Orlando Pulse massacre
"Have you even read the United States Constitution? ... You have sacrificed nothing and no one."
---Khizr Khan, addressing Donald Trump at Democratic National Convention
"I'm not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I'm the first Simone Biles."
---Olympic gymnast Simone Biles at the Rio Olympics
You can see the full list at the link above, and The Onion's almost-believable list here. I don’t know exactly what 2017 will bring, but I'll take a wild guess and say it'll be loud and obnoxious. This is, after all, America. Our colors may not run, but our mouths sure do.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 19, 2016
Note: FCC levies $5 million fine against the ABC for allowing Frosty the Snowman to run around naked during prime time. Blurred film at 11.
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By the Numbers:
Days `til the Chinese New Year (Year of the Rooster): 40
Days 'til the Wings Over Willcox Birding and Nature Festival in Arizona: 23
Time it took Trump and his team to correct the word "unpresidented" in a Saturday morning tweet about China's hijacking of a U.S. undersea drone: 87 minutes
Amount that for-profit DeVry University has to pay back to students because it made fraudulent claims, such as 90% of students land a job in the field of their major within six months of graduation: $100 million
Year the 400 millionth American is expected to be born or naturalized, according to Time: 2043
Expected U.S. GDP next year, according to the National Association for Business Economics: 2.2%
Weekend haul for Rogue One---A Star Wars Story: $155 million
Totally Random NFL Score
New England Patriots 16 Denver Broncos 3
New England wins 8th straight AFC East title, tying the record.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The Christmas cards of Peter Thorpe…
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CHEERS to the gift of time. The deadline to sign up for Obamacare on the federal exchange was supposed to end last Thursday night. But since Barack HUSSEIN Obama just wants to hand out free stuff to the moochers, he's given you the free gift of four additional days to git 'er done:
The December 15 deadline has been extended through TONIGHT (December 19) at 11:59 p.m. PST (2:59 a.m. EST) due to extraordinary consumer demand.
That means you have additional time to come back to HealthCare.gov and get coverage starting January 1.
You could save money by switching to a new plan. People who switch plans within the same coverage level for 2017 could save an estimated $28 per month on average compared to their 2016 premium.
As we mentioned in Friday's C&J, in some states you have even more time, so check Charles Gaba's (brainwrap's) list here. Please note that the bronze plan now includes one free tube insertion of your choice, the silver plan requires your primary-care physician to have at least a driver's license, and the gold plan entitles you to pothole-free ambulance runs.
JEERS to the installation of a man unfit for his office. The electors are casting their votes for president today. The winner will be Donald J. Trump. Oops, sorry…shoulda said "non-spoiler alert." This item has been sponsored by the word “suck.”
CHEERS to home sweet teeth-chattering home. On this date in 1777, George Washington parked his 11,000 troops at Valley Forge for the winter. The General knew how to rally his men:
"Look, all we need to do, guys, is invent central heating after creating a regional power grid and it'll be just like Club Med! Plus I know a great caterer and he'll be along just as soon as we invent the smartphone app."
Needless to say, it was a very long winter.
CHEERS to fairy tale endings. Once upon a time there were two countries, and they got along pretty well as long as they respected each other's sovereignty and established diplomatic protocols. But then a future leader of one of the countries decided to be a dick and insult the other country, so the other country sent a message to the other country by taking something of value from the other country (a Navy drone, if you must know, now hush and let me finish my story), upon which the other country's current leader said, hey, I didn’t insult you, it was the future leader, so let's ratchet this back, whaddya say, and you can do whatever you want when the future leader takes over, how 'bout it? And what happened next was nothing short of magical:
China has agreed to return the US underwater drone that it seized in international waters earlier this week, the Pentagon said Saturday.
"We have registered our objection to China's unlawful seizure of a US unmanned underwater vehicle operating in international waters in the South China Sea. Through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the UUV to the United States," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.
Details were not immediately available on when or how the drone may be returned.
And they all lived happily ever after, as long as you consider the time between now and January 20th "ever after." The End.
CHEERS to raising the white flag at the stroke of 4:20. Two days after Massachusetts became the first state on the east coast to legally let adults light up a joint for the purpose of lowering stress levels and mellowing out on the third shithole planet from the giant ball of molten gas that will swallow us up eventually, opponents of a pro-pot referendum that passed here in Maine by a razor-thin margin dropped their recount effort. So now…
…once the results are certified by the secretary of state, which could happen next week, the measure should become legal 30 days after the governor affirms the result.
“Hopefully sometime in January,” said Boyer.
Under the measure, the Legislature has nine months to establish rules to deal with such issues as child-proof packaging, restricting advertising to minors, and licensing. Boyer said based on the experience of Colorado, the first state to legalize marijuana, stores will be operating about a year after the rule-making is complete.
Oh, I can't wait to hear the news that Governor Paul LePage has stamped his hoofprint on the results of a referendum that he knows will do the one thing he hates with the intensity of a thousand dumpster fires: make liberals happy.
CHEERS to Springsteen's turf. Happy anniversary, New Jersey, where the official dinosaur is the Hadrosaurus Foulkii, the official shell is the knobbed whelk, and the official color is spray-on orange. You became our third state 229 years ago this week. I looked it up, and the traditional gift for years one through 228 is "bling," but the 229th year is "indictment of your bridge-lane-closing governor with the 19 percent approval rating." But that might take a little while longer to deliver, so in the meantime please enjoy the gift of giving New York the finger. We'd hate to mess up your daily routine.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 19, 2006
CHEERS to the Best Blog in the World. We beat back the polyester-clad nosepickers at Little Green Footballs to win the grand prize at the 2006 Weblog Awards. I've volunteered to give the acceptance speech:
"On behalf of Markos and everyone at DailyKos, I'd like to thank the Academy for this award.
We like nonfiction, yet we live in fictitious times. We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape, or the fiction of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush! Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you! And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up! Thank you very much!"
I didn’t ramble, did I?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to saving our celluloid. Twenty-five movies from yesteryear have been inducted into the National Film Registry. Some of them---The Breakfast Club, The Birds, Thelma & Louise, The Princess Bride---are mainstream hits. Others are less known but just as important, such as…
Life of an American Fireman (1903) Edwin S. Porter was an influential pioneer in the development of early American cinema and “Life of an American Fireman” provides a superb snapshot of how advanced U.S. filmmaking had become. Porter followed up several months later with “The Great Train Robbery.”
Paris Is Burning (1990) In a 2015 article in The Guardian, Ashley Clark noted, “Few documentaries can claim to have sparked as much discussion and controversy as Jennie Livingston’s debut ‘Paris is Burning,’ the vibrant time capsule of New York’s ballroom subculture in the ‘80s.” The film explores the complex subculture of fashion shows and vogue dance competitions among black and Hispanic gay men, drag queens and transgender women in Manhattan. It shifts among ballroom contests and shows and interviews with contestants, who belong to different “houses” that are like families to them, sharing their views on wealth, notions of beauty, racism and gender orientation.
Solomon Sir Jones films (1924-28) Solomon Sir Jones was a Baptist minister and businessman who also had an important career as an accomplished amateur filmmaker. Jones was born in Tennessee to former slaves and grew up in the South before moving to Oklahoma in 1889. As described on its website, Yale University’s collection of Solomon Sir Jones films consists of 29 silent black-and-white films documenting African-American communities in Oklahoma from 1924 to 1928. The films document a rich tapestry of everyday life: funerals, sporting events, schools, parades, businesses, Masonic meetings, river baptisms, families at home, African-American oil barons and their wells, black colleges, Juneteenth celebrations and a transcontinental footrace.
As ever, I remain hopeful that the all-time greatest movie ever---Cats and Dogs---will one day find itself nestled among the NFR's pantheon of greatness for its message of universal truth in a world gone mad: "Dogs drool, cats rule."
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:
Ben Affleck Is Just Like The Rest Of Us: He Too Hates ‘Cheers and Jeers’
---Konbini
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