From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Confused About All This Russia Business?
The animators at TomoNews break it down. Youuuuuu...might want to wear raingear:
By the way, I watched Trump’s presser yesterday morning with the sound turned off because Kellyanne Conway told me to focus not on his words but what's in his heart. And guess what? Even on mute he’s still an asshole.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 12, 2017
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Star Wars Episode VIII: 337
Days 'til the Syracuse "Wine About Winter" festival: 2
Start time of the January 21 Women's March on Washington: 10am
Current average cost of raising a child from birth to age 17, according to the latest Dept. of Agriculture estimate: $233,000
Minimum age of California's walk-through "Pioneer Cabin" sequoia tree that fell in a storm last week: 1,000 years
Number of Americans who quit their jobs in November, up 1.4% and a sign that workers are confident enough to leave one job for another, according to the Labor Dept.: 3.3 million
Percent chance that the rusty patched bumble bee is the first bumble bee to be placed on the list of endangered species, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service: 100%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Contrary to the paranoid fantasists on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, populists are not motivated by some burning resentment of the rich---we don't spend our lives in an envious funk that someone else is better off than we are. "No skin off my nose" is the general attitude, with others coming in at "Lucky them" or "Good for them."
The problem is that the rich are screwing up our democracy. Less than 0.1 percent of the U.S. population gave 83 percent of all itemized campaign contributions for the 2002 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. According to the Houston Chronicle, just 48 wealthy Texas families provided more than half the campaign funds for the major Republican state candidates this fall.
How dumb do you have to be not to be able to connect the dots here? Law, policy and regulation are consistently shaped to favor the rich over the rest of us, and that, dammit, is not fair, it is not right, it is not the country we want and for which we are asked to sacrifice.
---January, 2003
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
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CHEERS to speaking truth to racist. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama was back for another round of confirmation hearings yesterday, and this time the Judiciary Committee heard from Congressman John Lewis, the civil rights icon who got his skull cracked by thug cops in Selma all those eons ago, and who knows what a living, breathing human step backward looks like when he sees it. Powerful stuff:
Also testifying against Sessions' nomination was chamber colleague Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Charlie Pierce of Esquire made this observation as Lewis spoke:
Booker looked at him with something that wasn't quite awe and wasn't quite affection. It was something, I suspect, closer to the way that young soldiers look at older and wiser noncoms who have seen things that they hope they'll never have to see. … There's a reason why they call it "bearing" witness. It's a burden you volunteer to carry.
Sessions will win confirmation and go on to be a horrible AG that history looks upon with the same pained expression as it does to the likes of Alberto Gonzales and John Ashcroft, and not just for dereliction of duty in the area of civil rights. Moral of the story: there oughtta be a law against failing upward.
P.S. Also testifying yesterday was Rex Tillerson, the ExxonMobil baron vying to be Trump's Secretary of State (and who was recently awarded Russia's highest civilian medal, the Meritorious Order of the Coveted Toilet Paper Roll). Turns out he doesn’t know anything about anything, can't comment on that, would have to study it more, has not been privy to that information, wouldn’t want to speculate on that at this early juncture, and DRILL HERE DRILL NOW DRILL DRILL DRILL!!! That last part just kinda slipped out.
JEERS to the liar-in-chief-elect. I think I know why Melania stays out of sight all the time. She's busy keeping her fingers in Barron's ears so the poor little rich kid won’t have to hear all the awfulness that his father is guilty of. Yesterday Donald Trump held his eagerly-awaited press conference and revealed a few things:
>> He admits that Russia may have been behind the election hacks, and he wants Putin to cut it out. So thank god that problem’s solved.
>> Even though his son, Donald Jr., is on record saying less than ten years ago that "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets, we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia, “ Trump claimed he had nothing whatsoever to do with the country or its leader. If you believe that he magically washed his hands of those assets, I've got a Russian golf resort full of bedbugs and spycams to sell you.
>> He assured Americans that there will be no conflicts of interest, since he's turning over everything to his kids and hired a law firm to print out large stacks of paper and pile them on tables in front of the cameras. The law firm he's using to take care of [wink wink] his substantial conflicts of interest, aka emoluments, is 2016's "Russia Law Firm of the Year." Because of course it was.
>> When asked about his tax returns, Trump says he won’t be releasing them and that only the media "care about them at all." Which is absolutely true if you consider 60 percent of Americans "the media."
>> Trump will present his replacement for the Affordable Care Act "as soon as" his HHS secretary is approved, and it will be "terrific" and "better" and "less expensive." But then again, he lied about almost everything else, too.
Afterward, every former White House ethics director, administrator, lawyer, czar and poobah on every news channel said the same thing: on January 20th, Trump's conflicts will instantly make him a criminal and a swarm of litigation will be in hot pursuit. Ohhhhhhh goody.
CHEERS to the master of humungo signatures. John Hancock turns 280 today. His is the largest signature on the Declaration of Independence, apparently because he really wanted to rub it in King George's nose. Pay your respects here. But please don’t ask him for his John Hancock---he's really sick of hearing that one.
P.S. Rush Limbaugh, the once-mighty radio titan who today is lucky if he can scrounge up enough sponsors to pay the light bill each month, turns 66 today. Funny, he doesn’t look a day under 666.
CHEERS to nerd insurance. Weighing on a lot of people's minds as the next administration looms on our nation's doorstep is the protection of people and groups who pose the biggest inconvenience to the Republican brand: I’m speaking of course about people who know stuff. That includes the scientific community, and yesterday steps were taken to help build, ironically, a wall...between their work and those would mess with it:
Days ahead of the Trump Administration taking power, the US Department of Energy released long-demanded rules on Wednesday to protect its scientists from political harassment. The change was announced today by outgoing energy secretary Ernest Moniz, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington DC. “DOE officials should not and will not ask scientists to tailor their work to any particular conclusion,” Moniz said.
Until now, the $30 billion Energy Department---which is the biggest US government funder of research in the physical sciences---has lagged in implementing President Barack Obama’s 2009 pledge to ensure that political appointees “should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions.” […] In a post on Medium, Moniz said the new policy should “enshrine the independence of the scientific process for decades to come.”
Rule #1: guard the secret formula for flubber with your life.
CHEERS to America's dispensers-in-white. Today is National Pharmacist Day, when we acknowledge a profession whose members quietly go about their task of filling prescriptions correctly, promptly and safely before ringing them up along with our peanut M&Ms, People magazine, Swiffer pad replacements and dental floss. They'll celebrate the usual way, by inviting customers to pick a goodie from the giant bowl full of pills they find on the floor over the course of the year. (Note: if you pick the one shaped like a dodecahedron, allow yourself three days to come down.)
JEERS to that time the bizarro freak circus rolled into town. Twenty-two years ago today, the O.J. Simpson trial got pre-started with pre-trial hearings. My view of it has completely changed since 1995. Back then I was like, "He got zero years? I am so pissed." But today I'm like, "He got zero years twenty-two years ago? I am so old."
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 12, 2007
CHEERS to pinker lungs in Congress. Saying "the days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capital are over," Speaker Pelosi has banned cigarettes in the Speaker's lobby near the House floor. Republicans opposed the move, saying that they'd successfully been cleaning the air for years by blowing their smoke up the American people's asses.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to good advice. My local newspaper The Portland Press Herald carries two advice columnists: Dear Abby (required by decree of the 28th Amendment) and Carolyn Hax of The Washington Post. Her writing tends to be more unvarnished and "toughloveish," and her answer to this writer asking how to deal with friends' bigotry (i.e. whether or not to walk away from the friendships) is as timely as it is challenging:
[L]et’s get this out of the way upfront: Tolerance is about accepting as valid views that differ from yours. Bigotry is not valid. We do not have the moral luxury of practicing it, defending it, condoning it, normalizing it or treating it as the aw-gee-bummer downside of a friend who is otherwise! so! great!
That has always been true; some of us merely got busted recently for our complacency in thinking this was a near-universal value, so thank you for bringing your issue up now. And because I’m seeing your letter today as opposed to, say, a year ago, here is my answer: Still torn? Then engage. […]
“That’s a stereotype, and unfair.”
“I find that offensive.”
“These are human beings you’re talking about.”
“Would you say that to a [demographic adjective here] person’s face?”
“You just put hundreds/thousands/millions of people in one box.”
“We’re all individuals, not spokespeople for our color/gender/faith/place of birth/ancestry/politics/education level.”
“Isn’t putting people down just a way of praising ourselves?”
“How would you feel if someone said that about you?”
Have your resistance ready and do not flinch---or flare---when it’s time to use it. If you find you just don’t like these friends anymore then, okay, be done. But as long as you’re torn enough to sustain some interest in remaining friends, then let them---again, kindly, gently, lovingly---be the ones to choose to stop seeing you because you won’t confirm their biases.
And then, late at night when you’re alone, whip out your obnoxious-friend voodoo doll.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Only 37% Of Americans Would Pee On Bill in Portland Maine If He Were On Fire
---Wonkette
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