From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Monday Margaret and Helen Midterm Blogging
Bloggerdom's feistiest octogenarians ("best friends for 60 years and counting") always get a place of honor in C&J on the rare occasions when they roll the presses. Here's a snip of their take on the midterms:
Margaret, if you want to know just how deplorable Trumpsters are, this week they elected two indicted criminals, a Nazi and a dead brothel owner. And the fact that most people reading this are asking themselves “which Nazi?” is just bat shit crazy. [...]
A dead brothel owner. I’m sorry. I just had to say that again. The party of family values elected a dead pimp. Bless their hearts but Republicans are nuttier than squirrel shit. […] Here are a few of my favorite casualties:
Karen Handel. Remember her? This homophobic, she-devil in wolf’s clothing managed to destroy the otherwise stellar reputation of the Susan G Komen Foundation when she picked a fight with Planned Parenthood. Komen recovered somewhat but it never returned to its former glory. Well, now a Democrat in Georgia named Lucy McBath is my new favorite person and Georgia’s 6th Congressional District’s newest Representative. Kiss my ass Karen. The only organization I liked more than Komen was Planned Parenthood and you damaged one in order to attack the other. Don’t mess with Planned Parenthood. Ever. By the way, McBath ran on more gun control…in Georgia.
Kim Davis. This walking hairball in need of a hairstyle became famous in Kentucky for refusing to give marriage licenses to same sex couples, claiming Jesus told her to hate people. She then crashed a party pretending to be the Pope’s BFF and became the white trash darling for white trash religious nutjobs everywhere when she traveled to Romania to fight gay marriage there. Wait. What? Listen, folks. The cheese slid off this gal’s cracker years ago. Thank goodness that Kentucky Democrats dropped a house on Kim. […]
Barbara Comstock. When Florida Parkland Students came to talk to her about gun violence, she refused to meet with them. Barbara lost to Democrat Jennifer Wexton. Bye, bye Barbara. Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you. […]
Maybe the Blue Wave wasn’t as big in some parts of the country as others. As it swept from east to west across the country like an invading army of immigrants… no wait. As it swept from east to west, it hit patches of gerrymandering and mountains of voter suppression. But it indeed swept across the country no matter how large or small it seemed at times. One thing we know for sure, if left unchecked, Trump could bring out the worst in all of us. And sadly, he’s proud of that. But then again, he’s an idiot.
Read the whole thing here. And then donate to my Margaret-Helen 2020 exploratory committee. I have a good feeling about them.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 12, 2018
Note: Due to the Veterans Day holiday, there is no bus service today. However, volunteers from the American Legion will be available to fire you out of a cannon to within a hundred yards of your destination for a $5 donation. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Hanukkah: 20
Days 'til the start of the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco: 5
Percent increase in Democratic and Republican voter registration in Maine between 2014 and 2018: 9%, 5%
Number of women who will serve in the Maine House and Senate next session, equaling 39 percent, a record: 72
Percent of LGBTQ midterm voters who voted for Democrats and Republicans, respectively, according to NBC News: 82%, 17%
Percent chance that crude oil is currently in its longest losing streak (dropping below $60/barrel Friday) since 1984: 100%
Expected holiday sales this year, according to eMarketer: $1 trillion
Totally Random NFL Score
LA Rams 36 Seattle Seahawks 31
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Monday mopping…
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CHEERS to our men and women in uniform. Today is Veterans'Day, and a more poignant one than most given that this year is the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. (Air Force One hauled the bloated carcass of our current so-called "commander in chief" to Europe, where he embarrassed the f*ck out of our country...again.) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention Syria, where our meddling continues) have certainly burned into this generation's brain the fact that military service is a grueling, unpredictable and uncompromising challenge that often means paying a heavy and unexpected price in the pursuit of politician-selected goals that are not always noble or necessary. The military is where we go to become trained killers-of-bad-people and destroyer-of-bad-things in defense of our country, while at the same timeserving as de facto U.S. ambassadors when we're on foreign turf. And while we could go on and on about how our armed forces have been kicking ass for over 240 years---and, again, how jaw-droppingly frightening it is that a celebrity TV star who’s afraid of a few raindrops is commanding our Armed Forces---we'll leave it, as always, at a simple…
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CHEERS to unfinished business. The midterms already seem like they happened a lifetime ago, but there are still several races where neither candidate has the coveted check-mark next to their name. Here's a quick update:
Florida: TBA.
Georgia: Difficult to see.
Arizona: Always in motion is the future.
Maine: I'll get back to ya on that, Charley.
Elsewhere: [Buffering]
NBC News might be a bit more helpful. But one thing we do know: the asshole Republican state representative who took aim at Native American voting rights in North Dakota and authored the bill that practically took their ability to cast a ballot away out of nothing but partisan spite and blatant racism got destroyed Tuesday night…by Native American Ruth Buffalo. Or as she's now known by her newly-acquired Indian name: "Dances with Karma."
CHEERS to visions of elections of the future. Now that the midterms are, for the most part, behind us, one thing has become abundantly clear from the sheer number of absentee ballots sent in this year: Americans want convenience in voting, and the U.S. Postal Service is in the perfect position to, um, deliver. Commenters here in C&J and elsewhere have pointed out that no system is perfect, but this NBC News report on how Oregon is thriving with its all-mail voting system is a must-watch, if only to see the former Democratic and current Republican Secretary of State so jazzed about it:
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Cheaper, more secure, promotes higher turnout. What's not to like? As far as I’m concerned, nothing except the alternatives.
CHEERS to bringing a scalpel to a gunfight. David Waldman reminded the world on twitter over the weekend that, between the Pittsburgh and Thousand Oaks massacres, "the flags were at full staff for less than a week between lowerings for mass shootings." So it goes in the NRA's America. But in the wake of the blue wave, plan on seeing a lot more pushback against the trigger-happy orcs, both from legislative chambers and advocacy groups. Exhibit A: the medical community, which is officially tired of being told by the likes of Dana Loesch to shut up and sit down:
Doctors and medical officials have increasingly taken on gun violence as a public health issue. Last month, the American College of Physicians issued new guidelines for doctors to follow in helping protect patients from firearms dangers, and published several reports on gun violence in its flagship publication, the Annals of Internal Medicine. […]
On Wednesday, the NRA took issue with the ACP, which represents more than 150,000 internal medicine specialists. “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane,” the group tweeted. […]
Doctors across Twitter piled back on. “We are not anti-gun; we are anti-bullet holes in our patients,” retorted emergency medicine specialist Dr. Esther Choo of Oregon Health & Science University in a tweet Thursday morning. […] Doctors started a hashtag group #ThisisOurLane to argue for action to reduce gun violence. It quickly filled up with comments from medical professionals and supporters pointing out the effects gun violence has on them and their patients.
Seriously. They've had enough:
Adding to the NRA's problems: earlier this year they admitted they're hemorrhaging money and "may be unable to exist" in the future. (Golly, I hope they don’t notice the "Do Not Resuscitate" sign we super-glued to their back.)
CHEERS to today's edition of ”The More You Know…“ About that little dust-up between reporter Jim Acosta and a “White House intern”:
This has been today's edition of ”The More You Know…”
CHEERS to famous firsts. On November 12, 1964, Ohio-born Paula Murphy set a female land speed record while behind the wheel of the 10,000 horsepower "Avenger." Her top speed as she tore across a Utah salt flat (with a pillow behind her so she could reach the pedals): 243.44 mph.
And to answer your question: yes, she got the parking space.
AYEEEEEEE!!! to the giant "skull of death comet" that plowed into earth last night, destroying our entire planet and creating a rift in the time-space continuum that hurled humanity headlong-yet-unsuspectingly into a perfect twin planet Earth that's indistinguishable from our own with the exception of the Al Roker-squid hybrids that roam the sewers. No, seriously. I took this with my Polaroid OneStep last night:
Which brings us to Billy's Super Tip of the Day: from here on out, avoid the sewers.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 12, 2008
CHEERS to pulling the gearshift out of reverse. One of the first things President-elect Obama plans to do when he settles into the Oval Office is reverse a bunch of toxic executive orders "on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues" enacted by his predecessor:
A team of four dozen advisers, working for months in virtual solitude, set out to identify regulatory and policy changes Obama could implement soon after his inauguration. The team is now consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the most onerous or ideologically offensive, said a top transition official who was not permitted to speak on the record about the inner workings of the transition. […]
"The kind of regulations they are looking at" are those imposed by Bush for "overtly political" reasons, in pursuit of what Democrats say was a partisan Republican agenda, said Dan Mendelson, a former associate administrator for health in the Clinton administration's Office of Management and Budget.
In other words, all of the orders should be rescinded. Well, with the exception of the one that requires feeding Dick Cheney "six pounds of uncooked meat per day." Mainly because no one wants to take a chance on what might happen if he goes through raw-flesh withdrawal.
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And just one more…
JEERS to mostly sunny skies with a chance of blubber squalls. Ever wonder why no one blows up dead whales anymore? Great question! On November 12,1970, the Oregon Highway Division, which apparently controls what goes on down at the shoreline too, thought they could get rid of a rotting beached whale by "vaporizing it" with dynamite and turning it into bite-size snacks for the local wildlife to feast on. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. Behold our annual play-by-play of the "exploding whale incident," which features some of the most hilarious news copy I’ve ever heard outside of a TV sitcom, delivered to perfection by reporter Paul Linnman:
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Join us next week when we'll explain why they don’t do turkey drops anymore, either. Ain't learnin' a kick.
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
Cheers and Jeers isn’t a travesty, but it is completely and totally unnecessary
---Matthew DeKinder
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