From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
An Open Letter to President Trump
Dear President Trump,
Yesterday I signed up for my 2018 health insurance through your Healthcare.gov site, and I wanted to let you and all Americans know how it went.
For starters, all my friends kept telling me that you were eliminating the Affordable Care Act, but Jimmy Kimmel told me on TV that it wasn’t true. In fact, he said I would find some really cool benefits in my Trump plan, and he was right! For instance: I won’t be penalized because of my pre-existing condition (the cancer I was diagnosed with last March---I kicked its butt, but I’ll always be at-risk for its return). I won’t have to worry about lifetime caps. Preventive, aka “essential” services like checkups and colonoscopies are free. Parents can keep their kids on their plans up to age 26. And the premium support helps make it affordable.
Signing up was easy---basically just log in and then click click click click click, followed by the message I could almost hear in your booming voice: “Congratulations, you successfully selected a new health plan for coverage this year.” Thanks to your stewardship of Healthcare.gov, I’m all set for another year, as are a whole bunch of my friends and, I hear, about a million American patriots (so far) including many of your biggest supporters.
I’m posting a reminder below by my friend Charles Gaba so that others who haven’t signed up yet will know to do so by the December 15th deadline:
A little over eight months ago, on the very day I was admitted for late-night emergency surgery, you tweeted: ”Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!” Well, sir, I plan to get that tweet framed and hang it on my wall as a reminder of your commitment in writing to keep and improve the coverage that Americans---like all those salt-of-the-earth folks who attend your rallies and who would be really mad if you took away their benefits---can get at your Healthcare.gov site.
I encourage you to work with both parties in Congress to keep Healthcare.gov 100% funded and even expand coverage. Imagine how “big-league” your legacy will be if, by the time you leave office, all Americans are able to rely on universal, comprehensive and affordable Trump health insurance. Now that would help “Make America Great Again.”
Sincerely, Bill in Portland Maine
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Note: Here’s what you can expect C&J-wise for the rest of the week: regular C&J tomorrow, special Thanksgiving edition Thursday morning, no C&J Friday, back Monday, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, and Grandma’s sour-apple marshmallow jello which you will eat because she worked on it over two consecutive weekends. Thank you. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the start of Hanukkah: 21
Days 'til the Beignet Fest in New Orleans: 11
Percent of voters who identified as a GOPer in January and October, respectively, according to Gallup: 31%, 24%
Distance the new Tesla electric semi truck can go on a charge: 500 miles
Percent of Americans who have passed off a store-bought pie as homemade, according to Parade: 7%
Amount of turkey the average American will eat this year: 13 pounds
Number of turkeys who will slay their captors this week and escape on motorcycles: 2
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Gettin’ comfy...
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CHEERS to one big happy world family. The climate talks in Bonn, Germany, which were designed to put meat on the bones of the Paris Climate Accord, have ended. Apparently, it was pretty successful. Even more surprising, our country didn’t act like a total dick:
In the end, most agreed that U.S. diplomats had engaged constructively, while delegations from several American states, cities and businesses were praised for committing themselves to the goals of the Paris agreement.
“There has been positive momentum all around us,” said Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who presided over the meeting. “We leave Bonn having notched up some notable achievements,” Bainimarama said, citing agreements on agriculture, ocean protection, indigenous people’s rights and the launch of a new system to help people in poor countries get insurance against the effects of climate change.
I really like Bainimarama. Cruel Summer is a classic.
CHEERS to gettin' outta Dodge. Thanksgiving is looming like a 20-pound platter of mashed potatoes, and Triple-A predicts that 51 million travelers will scream, curse and smell kinda gamey between now and next Tuesday---the highest level since 2005. (A residual effect of the Obama economic recovery, of course.) So if you're going by plane, prepare for lots of seat-back kicking. Meanwhile Triple-A also says more of us will be on the roads compared to last year, with a little over 45 million expected to venture at least 50 miles from home:
“A strong economy and labor market are generating rising incomes and higher consumer confidence, fueling a strong year for the travel industry, which will continue into the holiday season,” said Bill Sutherland, AAA senior vice president, Travel and Publishing.
While AAA expects most U.S. drivers will pay the highest Thanksgiving gas prices since 2014, the vast majority of holiday travelers are still planning to hit the road. Automobile travel will grow by 3.2 percent this Thanksgiving. … This November’s national average price is $2.54, which is 37 cents more than last November.
According to AAA’s Leisure Travel Index, travelers taking to the skies will pay the lowest average in five years for a round-trip flight for the top 40 domestic routes. At $157, on average, that is a 23 percent fare drop year-over-year.
If you'll be among the road-trippers, please be safe and practice proper driving etiquette: the right hand is for texting and the left hand is for flipping the bird.
CHEERS to cooler heads prevailing (we hope). You know you’ve got areal psycho in the Oval Office when the generals have to come out of the woodwork to reassure us that they are rational beings who know that following orders also means staying within the law. Recent example: General John Hyten,the head honcho at U.S. Strategic Command, says he’s prepared to push back if Lord Dampnut decides to get an itchy nuclear trigger finger:
“If it’s illegal, guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to say, ‘Mr President, that’s illegal.’
And guess what he’s going to do? He’s going to say, ‘What would be legal?’” Hyten said.
“And we’ll come up with options with a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that’s the way it works.”
“I think some people think we’re stupid. We’renot stupid people. We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility how do you not think about it?” he said.
He said he would not obey an illegal order.
Good to hear! Although it might have been a bit more comforting if he hadn’t delivered the remarks at the annual Preservation and Protection of Precious Bodily Fluids convention.
CHEERS to reaching dry land. On November 21, 1620, after being denied boarding passes at Heathrow because they were on the no-fly list, a bunch of renegade "pilgrims" from England with a bad case of B.O. and no sense of humor landed in New England after 66 days at sea and promptly got all quill-crazy, signing the Mayflower Compact “to enact, constitute, and frame just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices,from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." By the way, the ship was destined for the northern edge of the Virginia Colony, but they ended up dropping anchor in a totally different place: Provincetown, Massachusetts. After spending several years reviewing all the available evidence, I've come to an inescapable conclusion: GPS sucked back then.
JEERS to walking into a Turkey Day debate trap. Yesterday’s C&J poll (which, as usual, got thousands of votes because we’re just so gosh-darned popular in several universes) was a snarky swipe at the so-called “private jet tax cut” tucked in the Republican daylight heist of the middle class masquerading as a tax cut for regular folks. It turns out that it’s not quite the sop to the rich that we all think it is, says HuffPo:
[T]he plane break won’t actually cost anything. The industry and their backers in the Senate, including the super liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), explain that the provision merely brings clarity to a long-standing tax dispute, kicked off five years ago by a memo from the Internal Revenue Service. [...]
“This provision in no way cuts taxes for private jet owners,” said [Brown] spokesperson Jennifer Donohue. “It simply clarifies what the law already says---that service companies made up of mechanics and service workers don’t pay ticket taxes, because they don’t sell tickets.”
So when you’re arguing with your Fox-watching relatives around the table Thursday, don’t trot out the “jet tax cut” line or, like Aunt Gladys’s scalloped potatoes, you might get burned. And seriously: is there anything worse than sitting across from a gloating teabagger?
CHEERS to spinning in circles. On this date in 1877, Thomas Edison announced to the world that he had invented the phonograph machine. In fact, he broke the news via a phonograph recording, which sounded like this:
"Hello, is this thing on? Testes...testes one two three.
We begin bombing the Russians in 30 minutes. Ha ha! That always cracks 'em up at the Elks Lodge! But seriously, folks. Mary had a little lamb---her parents were mortified. I just can't help myself... You folks fly in from out of town? I bet your arms are tired! I slay me... Oh, by the way, the walrus will be Paul and Luke will be Vader's kid. Oops…'Spoiler alert!' I'm bored. Can I go home and invent the light bulb now?"
Only known cure for Restless Inventor Syndrome, according to doctors: take out two patent applications and call me in the morning.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 21, 2007
JEERS to what the GOP hath wrought. Headlines from page 4A in Tuesday's USA Today: "Millions feeling pinched during a time of plenty." "Wages aren't keeping up." "Debt rises and the personal savings rate falls to just 1.9%." "Unemployment lasts longer." "Energy prices take a big bite." "Pensions lost or in doubt." But it's not all bad: Congress just gave itself a $3,100 pay raise. Let the good times roll.
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And just one more…
JEERS to historic cellar dwellers. We’re sticking this down here at the very bottom of C&J, where it belongs. Cult leader and convicted murderer Charles Manson, whose main goal in life was to ignite a race war and even carved a swastika into his forehead, is dead at 83. But (click the pic)….
Won’t those two make fine bunk mates in hell.
Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
For Mark Hamill, Returning to the Cheers and Jeers Kiddie Pool Was an Emotional Experience
---Gizmodo
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