From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Like Sands Through the Hourglass…
With less than 72 hours to go before the chopped-in-half-by-sabotage-mad-Republicans ACA signup deadline passes, the last President of the United States to not head up a mafia-style crime syndicate is here with a reminder: you have until Sunday to get your ass covered...
As the pillar of truth, decency, and real American values says above, many people can get covered for only $10 a month, and that ain't bad. So if you need coverage, get coverage. If ya got coverage, help yourself…
It’s okay. Obamacare also covers type-2 diabetes.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, December 12, 2019
Note: From the Eyewitness News desk: future of popular Christmas carol thrown into turmoil as cellphone records indicate the four calling birds were in contact with Lev Parnas, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Pence from Ukraine. Film at 11.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Democratic debate in L.A.: 7
Days 'til the Snow Day Bar Crawl in Philadelphia: 4
Months the Hong Kong protesters have been protesting in the streets: 6
Time it would take a regular jury to convict Trump on the impeachment charges announced this week, according to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler: 3 minutes
Percent of Middle east citizens who reject their religion being used to advance a political agenda, according to a new Arab News/You Gov poll: 58%
Percent who believe religious extremism is the main cause of conflict in the Arab world: 15%
Trump's current approval rating among independents, according to a new Harris poll, down 5 points in the last month: 39%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
A personal note: I have contracted an outstanding case of breast cancer, from which I fully intend to recover. I don't need get-well cards, but I would like the beloved women readers to do something for me: Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done.
My friend Marlyn Schwartz says: "If you have ever wondered what it would feel like to sit in a doctor's office with a lump in your breast trying to remember when you last had a mammogram, I can tell you. You feel like a fool."
I'd say "a damn fool."
My friend Myra MacPherson says that if you want to prepare a girl for her first mammogram, you should tell her to go lie down on a cold cement slab in the garage and run a tire back and forth across her chest.
True, but it sure beats a serious cancer. Please, go get the damn mammogram done. That would be the best Christmas present that anyone could give me.
—December 1999
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Proud parents…
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CHEERS and JEERS to good news and bad news. This week has been chock-full of stuff going on, and if I posted them all individually they'd chew up all the pixels in the internet. So put on a sturdy pair of rocket shoes—it's time for a C&J Good vs. Bad lightning round!
» Articles of impeachment filed against President Trump on two narrow-but-expandable charges (abuse of power & obstruction of Congress) = GOOD
» Secret Pentagon-Papers-style report confirms we were lied to about the never-ending clusterfuck with no achievable goals known as the Afghanistan War = BAD
» Federal judge rules Trump can't divert billions in Pentagon funds to build his stupid border wall Mexico was supposed to pay for = GOOD
» Trump attacks an autistic child = BAD
» Inspector General's report disproves Trump claims that Obama spied on his political campaign and Russia probe wasn’t warranted = GOOD
» Inspector General indicates flaws in FISA court system were exploited and abused = BAD
» House Democrats and AFL-CIO punks Trump by recrafting NAFTA II in their image instead of his = GOOD
» Supreme Court lets stand a Kentucky law passed by Republicans that requires women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound done = BAD
» Supreme Court appears skeptical of GOP attempt to withhold Obamacare funds to states as mandated by ACA law = GOOD
» 70+ measles deaths in Samoa from anti-vaxxer hysteria = BAD
» New York judge slaps anti-vaxxers down by ruling school vaccination law is constitutional = GOOD
And this just in: Biden leads the pack in the latest Monmouth poll. I'll let you decide if that's good or bad. I’m still cleaning the pie off my face from 2016.
JEERS to voting yourself in the foot. If things go as expected, Britain's elections will hand a victory to hated Boris Johnson over despised Jeremy Corbyn today, paving the way for the UK to make a sloppy "no deal" exit from the European Union (and quite possibly Scottish secession). But things don’t always go as expected (exhibit A: Prime Minister Johnson ducking into a refrigerator to avoid speaking to cockroach Piers Morgan), so who knows? Today's vote is both a referendum on Brexit and two major parties in a state of evolution:
Johnson, often unkempt and unscripted, has pushed his side towards a conservative populism embodied in his full-throated support for Brexit. […]
Meanwhile Corbyn, chosen to be his party's leader in 2015, represents a decisive shift to the left for the Labour Party of recent decades. If there is an American parallel here, his rise is the equivalent of a Bernie Sanders-style figure taking control of the Democratic Party. Labour is a very different party now than the last time it held No 10 Downing Street, during the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown years of the early 2000s.
Many UK voters, regardless of political affiliation, may also look at the events of the past decade and wonder if this is a very different United Kingdom, as well. On Thursday exactly what kind of country it is will begin to take shape.
Put the kettle on and stay tuned.
CHEERS to taking climate matters into your own hands. The Paris Climate Accord was/is never going to solve the climate crisis all on its own. But it's at least a formal worldwide recognition that we're rapidly destroying our home planet and need to do something about it. So when Republicans in the federal government chose to tell future generations to go to hell by pulling out of the accord and throwing their support behind greenhouse gases and acidic oceans, America's towns called bullshit and continued the mission:
A new report released Monday by America’s Pledge, a climate-focused research initiative launched in 2017, found that the actions of cities, states and businesses can add up. […]
The report found that the We Are Still In coalition, a group of 3,800 mayors, county executives, tribal leaders and businesses that account for more than half of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, could reduce emissions 25 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 with climate policies that are already in place. […] The budding coalition represents a grassroots approach to climate policy that experts say could be crucial to keeping the country’s Paris accord pledges within reach. And it has some bipartisan support. […]
The America’s Pledge report also noted that in the event that the 2020 election results in an administration that supports ambitious climate action, that number could jump to a 49 percent reduction below 2005 levels by 2030.
Here in Maine, our towns have been very good at looking for ways to embrace green energy, and our new Democratic governor is all-in on a wide variety of initiatives, including solar, wind, weatherproofing and, most effectively, keeping our old Republican governor Paul LePage preoccupied in Florida as long as possible.
JEERS to the most activist activist judges ever. On December 12, 2000—in between rounds of strip poker—the Supreme Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court ruling that said, Hey, maybe we should, like, count all the votes or something:
In a brazen act of deceit, the five-justice majority issuing the Court's per curiam decision knowingly misrepresented December 12 as Florida's chosen deadline for completing the vote count. They held that Florida law allowed no time to count the remaining 175,000 votes: [...]
This overt misrepresentation of Florida election law flabbergasted members of the legal profession from coast to coast. These same justices who on so many prior occasions had championed the rights of states had now casually and willfully nullified Florida law.
But at least President George W. Bush fulfilled his promise to restore dignity and competence back to the government. Yay. Squeaky Playskool gavels for everyone.
P.S. Whaddya bet that our first Chief Justice, John Jay, is spinning in his grave, knowing that the above abuse of judicial power was exercised on his birthday? Pay your respects, and sympathies, here.
CHEERS to shaming the children. When news broke that the President of the United States and his kids were found guilty of using their scam charity as a way to scam scam scam scam and scam, the "Big 3" networks gave it a whopping two minutes of coverage (20 seconds each on NBC and CBS and 1:20 on ABC, to be precise). It's just one example of the free pass the Trump family has gotten despite being the crookiest of crooks. But the New York AG's office isn’t about to let 'em off scot-free. In addition to major financial penalties, the chitlins gotta go to sensitivity class to learn how to not be crooked scammers no more:
President Donald Trump’s three eldest children have agreed to undergo a mandatory training seminar to ensure they don’t fraudulently misuse charity funds in the future.
The New York Times reports that, as part of a settlement the New York State Attorney General’s Office, three of Trump’s children “were ordered to undergo mandatory training to ensure they do not engage in similar misconduct” at future charities.
Fearless prediction: Don Jr. spends the time huffing magic marker fumes, Ivanka makes notes for plagiarizing the moderator's shoes, and Eric gets his tongue caught in his three-ring binder.
CHEERS to the biggest star on the U.S. map. On December 12, 1800, Washington, D.C. was established as the capital of the United States. During those early days, everyone—the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court—was packed into the north wing of the Capitol building like sardines. They later moved into their own spaces. Mostly, historians say, because the place was starting to smell like sardines.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 12, 2009
JEERS to bad omens. One of the justifications for escalating the fight in Afghanistan is it gives the government there a chance to clean up its act. This isn’t a good start: the mayor of Kabul was sentenced this week to four years in prison for "corruption, embezzlement and misuse of power," but he's decided to stay on the job anyway. He says he wants the court to offer more solid proof that he's a corrupt Afghan public official. I can do that in one sentence: Dude, you're an Afghan public official!!! (Damn....I shoulda been Perry Mason.)
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And just one more…
CHEERS to nature's fabulous light show. If you're up late tonight or tomorrow night and you have a desire to feel small and insignificant, here's something you'll love: the Geminid meteor shower is putting on a show…
The Geminid meteor shower—always a highlight of the meteor year—will peak around the mornings of December 13 and 14, 2019, though under the light of a bright waning gibbous moon.
The Geminids are a very reliable shower if you watch at the peak time of night (centered on about 2 a.m. for all parts of the globe) and if you watch in a dark sky. The meteors tend to be bold, white and quick. This shower favors Earth’s Northern Hemisphere, but it’s visible from the Southern Hemisphere, too. […]
On a dark night, near the peak, you can often catch 50 or more meteors per hour. The bright moonlight is sure to diminish the numbers this year, but some Geminids should be bright enough to overcome the moonlit glare.
They say you'll need twenty minutes or so of staring into total darkness before your eyes get properly adjusted. Or, to speed up the process, you can just spend 30 seconds staring into Bill Barr’s soul.
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
Bill in Portland Maine “is much stranger than any diagnostic category”: Psychology professor says he is not “like other kiddie pool splashers”
—Raw Story
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