From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Caution: Filling May Be Hot
Today is the high holy day at Daily Kos. Yes…it's National Pie Day. Let us begin:
“Caucuses!” [Splot!] “Primaries!” [Splot!]
"Bernie rocks!" [Splot!] "Bernie sucks!" [Splot!]
"Ideological purity!" [Splot!] "Practical centrism!" [Splot!]
"We must reach out to white working Americans!" [Splot!] "White working Americans must reach out to us!" [Splot!]
”Your polls are weighted wrong!” [Splot!] “No, your polls are weighted wrong! [Splot!]
"Ginger!" [Splot!] "Mary Ann!" [Splot!]
"Kamala!" [Splot!] "Elizabeth!" [Splot!] "Beto!" [Splot!]
"Tulsi!" [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!]
“The Republican party is nuts!” [Brief cease fire as everyone nods in agreement]
"Woozles!" [Splot!] "Pooties!" [Splot!]
"Love the Civiqs ticker!" [Splot!] "Hate the Civiqs ticker! [Splot!]
"Three point one four one five!" [Splot!] "That's pi, not pie, you idiot!" [Splot!]
"Hi, I'm here to promote Jill Stein for 2020 and..." [Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot!]
Well done. Until next January 23rd...go in peace.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Splot!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Note: Surprise! It's random drug testing day. Choose a random drug and quiz it on the events leading up to the War of 1812. This will count as one-third of its final grade.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the 2020 general election: 649
Days 'til the Frost Fest Outdoor Beer Festival in Fayetteville, Arkansas: 10
Current absentee rate of TSA employees because of the government shutdown: 10%
Minimum number of false or misleading statements President Trump made in his first two years, according to The Washington Post: 8,158
Percent of Republicans and Democrats, respectively, who believe undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than American citizens, according to a new Quinnipiac poll: 60%, 5%
Percent of Mainers who believe the government should stay shut ‘til Trump gets funding for his border wall, according to PPP: 33%
Percent chance that racist Rep. Steve King (R-IA) "honored" Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by tweeting a fake quote: 100%
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 179 (including 4 global turmoils and God only knows how many Antichrist-unleashing household gadgets). Soul Protection Factor 666 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: What cat?
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CHEERS…MAYBE? to seeing a light at the end of the unnecessary cruelty. Keep your eye on the Senate tomorrow. Apparently there will be two votes on the government shutdown---one with White House Director of Nazi Affairs Stephen Miller's boner list, and one submitted by minority leader Chuck Schumer that simply opens the government through February 8th and gives Republicans the 'out' they need to plop the rotting fish on Trump's desk and let him be the one guy in the entire nation to shut everything down again with his veto pen and deny millions of federal employees and contractors their paychecks. But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. I mean, my god, the vote is still a day away and you'd die, silly.
CHEERS to must-see TV. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez sat down for a late-night chat with Stephen Colbert on Monday. Here's the now-viral clip where she reveals just how many f*cks she gives about her knuckledragging critics. Damn, she's a natural…
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The rest of the interview is here. Meanwhile, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow scored a coup by snagging the first interview with Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) since she announced her bid for the presidency. But I have no clip of that, because she hasn’t done it yet, it's tonight at 9. Fearless prediction: damn, she's a natural.
P.S. Speaking of amazing women, my representative helped make history recently:
And they’re just getting warmed up.
JEERS to the hard bigotry of soft-headed bigots. The good news, temporary as it may be, is that Trump's ban on transgender servicemembers is not going into effect as a result of yesterday's Supreme Court order---the five conservatives overruling the four liberals, of course---suspending lower court rulings that struck down the ban. Says the ACLU via twitter: "There are multiple lawsuits challenging the president's trans military ban. Three of them won injunctions (a court order blocking the ban) in lower courts. SCOTUS did lift the ban on the two cases it was asked to review—It did NOT lift the nationwide block secured in our case, Stone v. Trump, which is before a court in Maryland." Still, it sucks to get confirmation that the majority of the justices are still stuck in the dark ages, nearly a decade after "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" was lifted to the detriment of nobody. They should've listened to this guy while he was still alive:
"The Department of Defense has already decided to allow currently-serving transgender individuals to stay in the military, and many are serving honorably today.
Any American who meets current medical and readiness standards should be allowed to continue serving. There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military---regardless of their gender identity.
We should all be guided by the principle that any American who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so---and should be treated as the patriots they are."
---Sen. John McCain, July 2017
Here's what will happen, I suspect: this will drag on (and on), the next Democratic president will be sworn in on January 20, 2021, and any talk of a trans ban will disappear faster than Trump's bone spurs at the end of the Vietnam War. Well, nearly as fast. His is one speed record that will never be broken.
CHEERS to today's edition of Then vs. Now: Martin Luther King Day in Maine Edition. My, what a difference a change in leadership makes:
Then (2011) Gov. Paul LePage’s comment Friday that the NAACP can “kiss my butt” outraged leaders of state and national civil rights groups, who called his remarks “astonishing” and “troubling.” After meeting with business leaders in Sanford, LePage told WCSH-TV that he will not attend Martin Luther King Jr. Day events in Portland and Orono because he considers the group a special interest.
vs.
Now (2019) Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is renewing a tradition abandoned by her predecessor of celebrating the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with the NAACP in Maine’s largest city. Mills, the state’s first female governor, is due to participate in a private dialogue Monday with students of color hosted by the Portland chapter of the NAACP at the Holiday Inn by the Bay. Democratic state Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross, the longtime president of the NAACP’s Portland branch, said the group is“excited” to have the governor take part after a long hiatus by former Republican Gov. Paul LePage … When LePage took office in January 2011, Portland’s NAACP chapter raised concern over LePage declining several invitations for its events.
This has been today's edition of Then vs. Now: Martin Luther King Day in Maine Edition.
CHEERS to timely retro-advice. Twenty-three years ago today---oh, this is so cute---Bill Clinton delivered a State of the union speech in which he told Republicans that they had to pinky-swear…
"...never, ever shut the federal government down again.
On behalf of all Americans, especially those who need their Social Security payments at the beginning of March, I also challenge the Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States---to honor the obligations of this great nation as we have for 220 years; to rise above partisanship and pass a straightforward extension of the debt limit and show people America keeps its word."
Read that out loud to a Republican on the hill. They'll stand there all day waiting for the rimshot.
JEERS to eyeroll-worthy "oopsies." File this under"today's boring correction." FoxNews showed this graphic on-screen the other day:
We're happy to report that Justice Ginsburg is alive and well. It turns out Fox News made a big mistake. Namely, going on the air in 1996.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 23, 2009
CHEERS to must-inhale TV. Every day people die from booze, smoking and prescription drugs. But it's hard to find anyone who's keeled over as a direct result of smoking pot. And yet it's pot that's still illegal. Tonight CNBC explores the lucrative weed industry in a new special called Marijuana, Inc.:
While it may not be traded on Wall Street any time soon, marijuana has become a booming cash crop. CNBC's Trish Regan goes behind the scenes to explore the inner workings of this secretive industry, focusing on Northern California's "Emerald Triangle," now the marijuana capital of the U.S. In this scenic pocket of America, the pot business, much of it legal under state law, now makes up as much as two-thirds of the local economy.
If we're serious about doing everything we can to goose the economy, legalizing marijuana has to be put on the table. It's a cannabis cash cow, a big bad bud busting with Benjamins, a dynamic doobie dryrolled with dollars, a joint jammed with Jacksons, a... Oh, you get the point? Fine then.
[1/23/19 Update: Wow---everyone listened to me, and now the highly-lucrative marijuana movement is so powerful it even managed to grind arch-nemesis Jeff Sessions and all his (now-former) resources at the Justice Department into the dust. You’re welcome, America. You’re welcome.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the talk of Tinseltown. But enough about politics. The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday.
Even though some superior flicks (like Sequel: The Sequel and The Transformers’ Purim Hoedown) were snubbed in favor of overrated affairs like Bohemian Rhapsody (spoiler alert: the Bohemian rhapsodizes), most of the nominations are defensible, I guess. And what a kick to see a first-time nod for Sam Elliott (A Star is Born), and best actress nominees Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me) and Glenn Close (who will win her first Oscar for The Wife). Also kudos to the Academy for recognizing some compelling documentaries, of which the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic RBG is a lock (and it also got a Best Song nomination for Diane Warren). C&J's entry, Clogging Toward Gomorrah III: The Cloggening, failed to make the cut. I bet they didn’t even watch all twelve hours.
Oh, and congrats to Chelsea Clinton and husband Marc Mezvinski on the news that they’re gonna be parents for the third time. Due date is this summer and I hope the doctors remember to wheel in the machine that goes “Ping!” Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
It must be misery to awaken to another day of being Bill in Portland Maine. He seems to have as many friends as his pluperfect self-centeredness allows, and as he has earned in an entirely transactional life.
---George Will
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