From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Rebranding
Courtesy of Ellen, here’s the new post-January 20th promo video for Trump’s private resort in Florida:
And just added to the activities program: every Saturday morning you can join Trump on a phone call to yell obscenities at a random world leader before hanging up. Dues are only $200,000 a year. Such a steal...er, deal.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, February 23, 2017
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday, but we'll be back bright and early on Tuesday. Also a quick heads-up that in 50 billion years the universe will explode in a giant fireball that will morph into a massive black hole that eats itself and then lets out a giant cosmic belch. Make sure your smartphone is charged because it's a moment you won't want to miss.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the March for Science in D.C. (and around the country): 58
Days 'til the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering: 9
Percent of Americans who have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, according to a new NBC News-Survey Monkey poll: 52%
Trump's approve/disapprove rating in the same poll: 43% / 54%
Number of full-time employees Lowes is firing because the Trump economy just isn’t cutting it: 500
Number of reported incidents of drug loss or theft at federal hospitals in 2015, up from 272 in 2009 according to FiveThirtyEight: 2,926
Percent chance that business leaders in Maine are "clamoring for immigrant workers," according to The Portland Press Herald: 100%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Bush's Social Security privatization plan is so bad (not to mention that it doesn't fix Social Security, as even he now admits), it is unclear if even a massive public relations campaign can save it.
But be prepared to watch them try. Coming soon to a television station near you, ad after ad assuring you that Social Security is going broke right now and only private accounts can save it. The sponsors of these ads (and Republican money can buy some mighty high-priced ad agencies) will all have lovely names, like "Committee to Save America" and "Society to Save Old Folks." But it's pure political propaganda, and will fool you if you buy into it.
---February, 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: King of the selfies hangin' with his woozles...
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CHEERS to knocking a few teeth out of the NRA's mouth. Well, looky here---turns out the 2nd Amendment doesn’t give you a free pass to build your own Pentagon-style arsenal after all:
Maryland's ban on 45 kinds of assault weapons and its 10-round limit on gun magazines were upheld Tuesday by a federal appeals court […]
In a 10-4 ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the guns banned under Maryland's law aren't protected by the Second Amendment. "Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protections to weapons of war," Judge Robert King wrote for the court, adding that the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller explicitly excluded such coverage.
Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, who led the push for the law in 2013 as a state senator, said it's "unthinkable that these weapons of war, weapons that caused the carnage in Newtown and in other communities across the country, would be protected by the Second Amendment. … It's a very strong opinion, and it has national significance, both because it's en-banc and for the strength of its decision."
If it takes more than ten rounds to bring down either your supper or an intruder, you don’t need bigger boom-booms or more bullets. You need a fucking appointment with an optometrist.
CHEERS to "good trouble." I think the coiner of that phrase, John Lewis, would consider banner-hanging an acceptable tactic, and that's what a group of people (not affiliated with any particular group) did this week. And with the possible exception of Ellis Island itself, they couldn’t have chosen a more worthy subject to broadcast their message:
In the interest of equal time, today a pro-Trump group will hang a banner from Lady Liberty that says Lock Her Up.
CHEERS to Bill in Portland Maine: Uncommonly Sensible Advice Columnist. Today's letter from the mailbag comes from one of my senators:
Dear Uncommonly Sensible Advice Columnist,
I'm troubled by the volume of calls coming in to my offices in Maine and Washington D.C. Before the election, everything was fine. But since the election, the phones haven't stopped ringing. It's difficult for my staff to keep up with the thousands of calls they get per day. I've tried yelling"Stop calling so much!" through a bullhorn from the roof of the Capitol building. I've personally handled three calls all by myself. I've even stomped around my office making frowny faces, all to no avail. I'm literally out of ideas. What should I do, Billeh?
---Sen. Susan Collins aka "Going Crazy From All the Ringing in My Ears"
Dear Going Crazy: Hire more staff. Hugs, Billeh.
JEERS to really crappy odds. On today's date in 1836, three thousand Mexicans attacked 182 Texans at The Alamo. A firsthand account:
It was intense.
Brandishing his assault rifle, General Ronald Reagan and his second-in-command, Colonel Rick Perry, took turns picking off the attackers as Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz loaded and fired the two functional cannons.
After Democrats fled in panic, Louie Gohmert and members of the Tea Party Patriots arrived in the nick of time to save the day. The surrender ceremony was conducted on a battleship, followed by a ticker tape parade. That's why today San Antonio is the capitol of the United States and God hates libtard moonbats.
Um, Texas school board textbook committee? I think we need to have a little chat.
CHEERS to the power of the people. Maine's cruel, racist, none-too-bright Governor Paul LePage is one of those GOP sumbitches who hates even the thought of patient protection or affordable health care. Despite having ample opportunity to expand Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he's made it clear he prefers dead poor people to healthy ones. That's not sitting too well around here, so We The Mainers are taking matters into our own hands:
Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap confirmed Tuesday that a campaign asking voters to approve an expansion of the state’s Medicaid system under the federal Affordable Care Act has submitted enough valid signatures to place the question on the November ballot. […]
If the MaineCare referendum is approved by voters, the Maine law would change the requirement for the state to provide federally approved Medicaid services through MaineCare to eligible individuals under age 65. The ballot question would set an income eligibility level for individuals with income equal to or less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that would mean an income of $32,252 or less.
LePage has been on the losing end of a bunch of referendums, from a minimum wage hike to keeping same-day voter registration to recreational pot to taxing Maine's rich motherfuckers to help pay for our awesome PUBLIC schools. So now he wants to change the requirements for getting a question on the ballot. Should he succeed, We The Mainers will just throw a referendum question on the ballot and repeal it. I gotta say, if governor taunting was a sport, we'd be winning golds at the Olympics.
CHEERS to Sir Inksalot. On this date in 1455, Johannes "Steve" Gutenberg printed the first book: the Bible. While proofing it, he noticed that the page numbers went 360, 361, 362, 364...and then spent the next six days pounding his head on the table.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 23, 2007
JEERS to dancin' with the one that dissed ya. So I hear that Fox News---well, “News”---is hosting a Democratic presidential debate in August. Jesus' General ("An 11 on the manly scale of absolute gender") previews the questions:
"Sen. Hussein-Osama, how do we know that you won't set off a homicide bomb at your own inauguration?"
"Gov. Richardson, isn't it true that you refer to your state by using the name of a foreign country?"
"Sen. Clinton, now that you're a lesbian, can the American people be assured that you won't murder any more boyfriends?"
"Sen. Biden, if I told you that Gov. Richardson is actually a Mexican, would you have the guts to render him to Syria?"
"Sen. Dodd, who among your competitors should be hung for treason along with Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha?" [...]
Will Hume and company call them the "Democrat candidates" like they did the last time they hosted a debate, or will they refer to them as the "traitorous Democrat candidates," or better yet, the "Demislamunistofascist candidates?"
But at least Fox made one concession this time: they promised to take away John Gibson's paintball gun. Spoilsports. [2/23/17 update: The Fox debate was canceled because it was a stupid idea, but Democrats used the occasion to pin the blame on Roger Ailes. As for what happened to alternative-fact dispenser John Gibson, no one’s quite sure. Most think crocodiles got him.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to moments that can't be erased. As Donald Trump marks Black History Month by praising Frederick Douglass as a real up-and-comer and making a perfunctory stop at the Museum of African-American History with Ben Carson serving as a human shield, let us relive one of the many, many, many events President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted back when the executive mansion was treated as the people's house instead of the crypt for broken dreams it currently resembles. One year ago, we danced…
We will again, I’m sure. But, damn, the waiting part sucks.
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:
“If you want to know what it was like in the good old days when boys were boys and men were men, look at Bill in Portland Maine."
---Jesse Lee Peterson
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