From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"A lot of people blame Big Pharma. But only because it's their fault."
Gold star to Stephen Colbert for throwing the spotlight on the evil Sackler family (of which no member is less than 397 years old), owner of Purdue Pharma, which "unleashed OxyContin on the world and now looks poised to make even more profit off those who have become addicted." Even worse, now they're taking their act overseas...
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Swell bunch. For profit-mad, soul-crushing vultures, anyway.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 20, 2018
Note: "Eat! Eat!!!" A friendly message from the American Society of Post-Yom Kippur Bubbes
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Thanksgiving: 63
Days 'til the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta: 16
Amount of dead marine life hauled away in Pinellas County, Florida since September 7 as a result of Governor Rick Scott's red tide debacle: 324 tons
Decline in Emmy Awards viewership from last year: 11%
Average lifetime cost of a dog, according to The Washington Post: $23,410
Maximum number of refugees the Trump administration will accept next year, the lowest ever: 30,000
Percent chance the modern Republican party is a stinking pile of garbage and raw sewage drenched in a million gallons of kerosene: 100%
Number of words in “Hey buddy, can I borrow your lighter?”: 7
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Exactly what do we want to strike out of the United States Constitution that we think would prevent terrorist attacks?
Let's see, if civil liberties had been suspended before September 11, would law enforcement have noticed Mohammed Atta? Would the FBI have opened an investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, as Minneapolis agents wanted to do? The CIA had several of the 9/11 actors on their lists of suspected terrorists. Exactly what civil liberty prevented them from doing anything about it?
In the case of a suspected terrorist, the government already had the right to search, wiretap, intercept, detain, examine computer and financial records, and do anything else it needed to do. There's a special court they go to for subpoenas and warrants. As it happens, they didn’t do that.
November, 2001
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Just do it. Or not. Whatevs.
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CHEERS to disabling the Klingons' cloaking device. Olly olly oxenfree, all you dark-money cowards. It's time to show yourselves. And thanks to, of all things, the Citizens United-deciding Supreme Court, that's what those donors gotta start doing whether they like it or not:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a lower-court ruling forcing politically active nonprofit groups to disclose the identity of any donor giving more than $200 when those groups advertise for or against political candidates. […]
“This is a real victory for transparency,” said Ellen Weintraub, the vice chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission. “As a result, the American people will be better informed about who’s paying for the ads they’re seeing this election season.” […]
Today’s decision is six years in the making. It stems from a complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) … “We’re about to know a lot more about who is funding our elections,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. A representative for Crossroads GPS could not immediately be reached for comment.
Actually, I know just what their comment is: "Oops, we just crapped our pants."
CHEERS and JEERS to moolah matters. I admit I don’t know a portfolio thingamabob or a fiduciary whirligig from a hole in the ground, so I rely on headlines to keep me just informed enough on how things are going economically to keep me from panicking and fleeing to my secret underground safe room. (Pay no attention to that hatch in our basement floor labeled SAFE ROOM---it leads to nowhere, I tell you!) Here’s some good, bad and ugly to start the week:
> Billionaire whose father created National Debt Clock: time to tax the rich more
> Tilray Stock Skyrockets 70% As CEO Sees $100 Billion Marijuana Market
> Delta raises fees for checked bags
> American companies return some profits held overseas after Trump tax cuts, but most $3 trillion moneypot remains offshore
> China strikes back by going after American energy companies
> Alibaba's Jack Ma backs down from promise to Trump to bring 1 million jobs to the U.S.
> McDonald's employees nationwide strike protests sexual harassment
> Investors now worrying about U.S. economy
> 3 men charged in $364 million Ponzi scheme blew investor money on cars, diamonds, casinos, feds say
> Half of all 2019 phone calls will be from telescammers
> Disneyland hotel workers get raise, push for $18 an hour
And one of our own creation: Pumpkin Spice Krispy Kremes Are Back. Subhead: Our long national nightmare is over.
CHEERS to today's edition of You Sure About That, Sparky? Courtesy of USA Today:
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is facing criticism for a joke he made about his high school in 2015, amid an allegation that he sexually assaulted a girl when he was a high school student.
"What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep," Kavanaugh joked during a speech at the Catholic University's Columbus School of Law in Washington.
This has been today's edition of You Sure About That, Sparky?
JEERS to the nexus of fear and politics. On today's date in 2001, Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania was named by President Bush to head the new Department of Homeland Security, a behemoth agency combining a bunch of other behemoth agencies (the Immigration and Naturalization Service, for example, creating ICE in the process) working behemothly to fulfill the Republican’s prime directive of making behemoth agencies less behemoth. Or...something.
During Ridge’s tenure the color-coded terror alert system was created and, depending on which Tom Ridge you believe, the system was either manipulated by the Bush administration to influence the outcome of the 2004 election or not manipulated by the Bush administration to influence the outcome of the 2004 election. Hint: The second Tom Ridge tied up the first Tom Ridge and locked him away in the attic with a rubber ball in his mouth and he was never seen again.
JEERS to the awful aftermath. I don’t have much to say about Hurricane Florence, which entered the Carolinas a monster and finally farted itself back out of the country here in New England a couple days ago. I mean, what can you say but "Here we went again"? Bigger, badder, wetter, climate-changier, and guess what, folks? These events are just gonna keep on getting worse. Now, as the waters recede and people start picking through the damage, they're going to have a lot of nastiness to deal with: snakes, parasites, looters, slime, and severe threats that could force them from their homes permanently. But enough about the insurance companies, I also hear the mold and structural damage is pretty bad, too.
CHEERS to #21. On this date in 1881, Chester Alan Arthur of the gilded and foppish Republican party was sworn in as our new president of the United States, following the unexpected meeting of an assassin's bullet and James Garfield's spine. The Chicago Tribune wrote of Arthur what it could easily be writing today about our current president: "It requires a great deal for him to get to his desk and begin the dispatch of business. Great questions of public policy bore him. No President was ever so much given to procrastination as he is." In Arthur’s defense, he suffered from an energy-robbing condition called Bright’s Disease, and he died of it shortly after leaving the White House. Trump, on the other hand, suffers from an even worse condition. It’s called Being Donald Trump.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 20, 2008
CHEERS to the League of Super Duper Friends. Great news! The morons and misfits who slept while the underpinnings of our economy were being pulled out from under us in a giant game of Jenga: Greed Edition have spoken! Reid, Pelosi, Boehner, Bernanke, Paulson and the rest all agree: "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah BE CALM!!!" Bad news: the government will be stopping by this weekend to confiscate your coffee cans full of pennies and whatever ya got between your sofa cushions so they can give it to the banks. Good news: after this week, you're not constipated anymore, are ya?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to previews of coming attractions. When it comes to slapstick, I was always a Three Stoogers guy. That’s where I plant my flag and I make no n’yuck n’yucks about it. But Laurel and Hardy, who spent a magical quarter of a century (touching four decades from the 20s to the 50s) together, are up there on my list, as are biopics about old Hollywood. So I’m really looking forward to the release of Stan and Ollie, which gets its premiere next month and “aims to get into, warts and all, one of the most enduring legacies in entertainment history.” It focuses on their 1950s farewell stage show tour in Britain, when health issues and long-simmering resentments took their toll. The casting of Steve Coogan as Laurel and the always-sublime John C. Reilly as Hardy looks about as perfect as can be. Take a look:
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With any luck, it’ll turn out be another nice mess they’ve gotten us into.
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
Adult film star Stormy Daniels described Cheers and Jeers as "the least impressive blog post I’d ever read" in a new book.
---NBC News
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