From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Maine: Open for Business Bamboozling
The Cliff's Notes version: Louisiana free-market capitalists push a Trojan horse into Maine in the form of a new law that "provides tax credits to investors who back businesses in low-income communities." The Trojan horse is greeted in the Maine legislature to thunderous applause. A struggling paper mill is targeted for "backing." In the dead of night, the free-market capitalists leap out of the Trojan horse, push the paper mill into bankruptcy, strand 200 now-unemployed employees in the low-income town of East Millinocket, and then feast on the spoils:
Sometime this year, the state of Maine will cut two checks worth a total of $2.8 million and mail them to out-of-state investors. Next year, it will send two more checks, worth $3.2 million, to the same recipients. It will repeat that process for the next three years until roughly $16 million of taxpayer money has been withdrawn from Maine’s General Fund.
…and given on a silver platter to the Louisiana carpetbaggers, who, of course, have no comment.
The Portland Press Herald, which deserves big credit for throwing a spotlight on this legal scam, even made a video showing just how effed up this deal was:
Meanwhile, our Republican Governor Paul LePage, who was guarding the hen house when all this happened, took a bold step to improve Maine's business climate recently by stripping South Portland---a hotbed of business friendliness---of its "Business-friendly" status because of an ordinance the town passed that bans tar sands oil being pumped down to its shore from Canada and loaded onto tankers. Or spilled.
Councilor Tom Blake said the certification didn’t mean much anyway. “It was kind of a joke just to get it,” he said. “And if the governor can just squash it with no review or investigation, that’s ludicrous. … [B]ut I’m not surprised. This is indicative of how the governor does business."
LePage had no comment, mainly because he's too busy keeping an eagle-eye on the poors. They might be using taxpayer money improperly!
So that's the state of Maine on Monday, 4/20. And we're not even stoned yet.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, April 20, 2015
Note: Today is 4/20. Commence giggling.
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5 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til earth Day:
2
Days 'til the
Oregon Ag Fest in Salem:
5
Wisconsin voters' approval of Gov. Scott Walker in October and today, respectively:
49%, 41%
(Source:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Number of states that, as of Friday, approve the use of nitrogen gas as a death-penalty method:
1 (Oklahoma)
Number of hens in Iowa, which provide 1-in-5 eggs consumed in America:
50 million
(Source: AP)
Percent chance that "this is the only planet we've got":
100%
(Source:
President Obama)
Cost to build your own fully armed and operational Death Star:
$852,000,000,000,000,000
(Source:
Jonathan Turley)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Hot dudes with dogs? Who could possibly be interested in hot dudes with dogs?
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Happy Patriot's Day. Hut hut!
CHEERS to being patriotismier than thou. Today is Patriot's Day (yes, that's where the apostrophe
goes up here), a commemoration of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord that sparked our War of Independence 240 years ago. Only three states are flagpinny enough to make it an official holiday: Maine, Wisconsin and Massachusetts. The big event today is the 119th
Boston Marathon. As usual, I'll go out on a limb and predict that the winners will be the Obama-trained Kenyans. Unless the nerd from MIT perfects his rocket shoes in time...and someone can achieve the impossible by waking him up before noon.
JEERS to gun nuts going gun-nutty. The Columbine High School massacre took place on this date in 1999 as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (who, yes, went bowling that morning) killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others. If you feel so inclined, you can donate to the upkeep of the Columbine Memorial, and it might not be a bad idea to give Michael Moore's Oscar-winner another look, either:
There have been many school shootings since Columbine, and there'll be more. Warped minds and loaded guns will, sadly, never be parted. Thank you very much, NRA.
CHEERS to knocking off with the nun shaming. Three years ago this week, Pope Benedict---now a former pope who just turned 88---began a bewildering crackdown on American nuns. Ratzinger's bizarre charge: the womenfolk have a habit (heh) of acting like "radical feminists." Well, last week his successor, Pope Francis, called off the hounds:
Sister Simone Campbell of "Nuns on
the Bus" fame (here visiting the White
House in 2013) says she's elated
Anticipating a visit by Francis to the United States in the fall, the Vatican and the American bishops were eager to resolve an episode that was seen by many Catholics as a vexing and unjust inquisition of the sisters who ran the church’s schools, hospitals and charities. [...]
Francis has shown in his two-year papacy that he is less interested in having the church police doctrinal boundaries than in demonstrating mercy and love for the poor and vulnerable---the very work that most of the women’s religious orders under investigation have long been engaged in.
Here's Sister Simone Campbell's
take on it (Hint: she's happy as h-e-double-toothpicks.) I guess Francis remembered the reality of the situation: priests control the wine and the incense, but nuns control the rulers.
CHEERS to Barack Obama: Putin slayer. Well, that was a pleasant little economic blockade. Russia's petty tyrant is already hitting the reset button:
Putin in full retreat?
Russia has key interests in common with the United States and needs to work with it on a common agenda, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday in a television interview. In his comments to the state-run Rossiya channel, Putin appeared to soften his anti-American rhetoric after being highly critical. Relations between Moscow and Washington and other Western powers have soured over the conflict in Russia's neighbor Ukraine, sinking to an all-time low.
After hearing of the capitulation, the RNC immediately un-invited Putin from all the 2016 GOP debates and removed the "I'm Ready for Vladimir!" bumper stickers from their online store.
JEERS to pandemonium across the pond. Elections in Britain are just 17 days away, and although the polls show the Labour and Conservative parties running neck and neck, I'm prepared to make my prediction: the austerity-mad Conservatives are going to win again because Labour is acting like their baby sibling:
One thing we know: conservatives
have got the twit vote sewn up.
Its promise to cut the deficit every year commits it indefinitely to the Conservative programme, with differences of degree rather than direction. This means cuts. Balancing the books, the manifesto says "will need common sense spending reductions”. There’s another Tory frame; the “common sense” that has seen benefit claimants driven to suicide. Whose common sense insists on eradicating the deficit, rather than sustaining public services?
In a country crying out for transformation, for something better and bigger and more engaging than just efficient book-keeping, [Labour] could both win power and regain its soul. It appears determined to do neither.
What's the old saying about nothing being in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. I'm happy to be wrong, but I'm guessing a guy named Ed Miliband will be joining them. But there's one thing we'll always love about your elections, Britain, regardless of party: your blissfully short campaign season. (Only 567 days to go, Yanks!)
JEERS to a different kind of stock crash. Over on the west coast they've canceled the sardine season:
"What, your mother didn't
teach you to knock first?"
At a meeting Wednesday in Santa Rosa, the Pacific Fishery Management Council asked the National Marine Fisheries Service to close the current season for Pacific sardines as soon as possible, citing drastic declines in the fish's numbers. That came two days after the Council voted to close the upcoming sardine season, which begins July 1. … The closures affect all commercial sardine fishing boats operating off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington.
Opinions differ on the reason for the plummeting numbers. But not everyone is unhappy with the news. Namely, sardines.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 20, 2005
CHEERS to the new old Pope. In a remarkably brief election process, 78 year-old German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was selected to lead the Catholic faithful. His new name: Benedict "Benny" XVI. As cuddly as a board with a nail through it, but anyone missing a stern grandfather figure in their life is in luck. The new greeting: kneel...kiss the ring...pull the finger.
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And just one more…
CHEERS and JEERS to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The latest inductees were officially given their secret decoder rings in front of a sold-out crowd on Saturday:
True Fact: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
was built in 1993 by the ancient Egyptians.
Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist on Saturday - the last of the four bandmates to earn the honor in a ceremony in Cleveland celebrating some of the biggest stars of rock music.
Among the 2015 honorees joining Starr, inducted by onetime band mate Paul McCartney, were singer Bill Withers, punk-pop band Green Day and Lou Reed, the primary force behind the Velvet Underground, who was among the most influential rock musicians in history. … Also inducted was Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, by pop star Miley Cyrus, who recounted smoking marijuana in a hotel bathroom with Jett upon meeting her for the first time. Blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in 1990, was honored by guitarist and singer John Mayer.
Congrats to
them all. But, once again, C&J must object---as we have every year since inductions began in 1986---to the continued snub of musical supernova Shaun Cassidy, who made the world
safe for slightly-askew painter's caps. It's becoming increasingly difficult to tamp down the bitterness. In fact, I feel a petition coming on.
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:
“I don’t want to be the guy who takes over for Bill in Portland Maine."
---Stephen Colbert
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