From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
As the Impeachment Trial Rolls Into Day 2
...a reminder from The Daily Show that the defendant—mercifully starting his fourth and last year in office this week—should’ve been 25th Amendmented a long time ago and then encased in rubber walls...
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Can Putin pick ‘em or can Putin pick ‘em?
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Note: Surprise! It's random drug testing day. Choose a random drug and quiz it on the events leading up to Shay’s Rebellion. This will count as one-third of its final grade.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Chinese New Year (of the rat): 3
Days ‘til the annual Low Country Oyster Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, starring 80,000 pounds of shucked oysters: 4
Estimated number of lies Trump has told in his first three years as president, according to official lie tracker Daniel Dale: 16,241
Percent of black Americans who believe Trump is racist, according to a new Ipsos-Washington Post poll: 83%
Percent of Americans in a new CNN poll who believe that Trump abused his power: 58%
Number of billionaires in the world who own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world: 162
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 184 (including 3 gogs and 1 ticket on God's Metropolitan Destruction Tour). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Inspection…
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JEERS to the worst episode of Perry Mason ever. Well, I guess things kinda sorta resembled a trial yesterday in the Senate, inasmuch as there were opening arguments. The Democratic trial managers, of course, were cool, calm, and prepared as they put each puzzle piece in exactly the right place, creating a picture of….. okay okay I admit it I didn’t watch any of it except about a minute when a Trump lawyer told so many lies so fast that I ran out of "fuck yous" and out of concern for my arteries that were threatening to burst like an overtaxed relief valve on a nuclear submarine had to turn the TV off. I'm sorry!!! But in my defense, I did break this across the newswires:
On today’s agenda: more arguments pro and con, a vote to open a window fails, the bailiff gets crushed by an easel, and REM-stage Roberts hopes he has better luck charging up San Juan Hill.
CHEERS to a quiet little verdict that people hardly ever mention anymore. Roe v. Wade turns 47 today. Pro-choice advocates will mark the occasion with events to remind Americans that women should be in control of their own bodies and that health care decisions should be between them and their doctor, not them and their nearest right-wing legislature.
Anti-choice advocates will mark the occasion by reminding Americans that microscopic bits of blastocyst matter are people too, with full rights including voting and marriage (as long as they're not gay). And the five conservative justices on the Supreme Court will, as usual, mark the occasion by licking their chops.
CHEERS to more tick-tock to lock in your doc. A quick heads-up: if you live in California, New York, Massachusetts, or D.C. you still have time to sign up for Affordable Care Act coverage. Charles Gaba (aka brainwrap here at Daily Kos) has the details here at his invaluable ACA Signups site. It's been awhile since we took a peek at the overall 2020 enrollment picture, and I'm happy to see that the nonstop campaign of Republican sabotage hasn't been able to smother the popularity of President Obama's signature achievement:
Approximately 8.3 million people selected or were automatically re-enrolled in plans using the HealthCare.gov platform during the 2020 open enrollment period.
HC.gov ends the 2020 Open Enrollment Period down just 1.5% from last year...and it's actually just 0.5% when you take into account Nevada splitting off onto their own state-based exchange.
It's also worth noting that in the end, renewing enrollees dropped by 2.2% year over year (139,000 people), but new enrollees actually increased by 0.7% (14,000 people).
And keep in mind this is the second year without the mandate to be insured. (A key provision of the ACA that was stupidly struck down by Republicans last year as part of their daylight robbery of the middle class posing as a tax cut.) So once again, the American people, along with a slew of state governments, have proven that access to affordable, non-employer-based health insurance is very important. Meanwhile, we note here that the head of the Trump crime family is due for his annual physical this month. Here's a reminder of how last year's went:
This year's result will likely be similar but with one notable difference: that brain turd is no longer smiling.
P.S. The 159,000-doctor-strong American College of Physicians came out this week and told Washington to get off its ass and guarantee insurance for all Americans via Medicare for All or a strong public option. Said the House: "We'll get right on it!" Said the Senate: "We won't get right on it!" Said the president: "I like cheeseburgers!"
CHEERS to contingency plans. The Abbreviated Pundit Roundups here on the front page have been a bit spotty as of late—a temporary situation, I'm sure. But just in case one didn’t appear this morning, here's a placeholder that will hold off your withdrawal symptoms (nervousness, spotty vision, sweat dripping down the forehead, arms, legs, back, and buttocks into a little catch basin hastily fashioned out of bits of tin and twisty-ties) until tomorrow morning:
Pundit A: This sucks.
Pundit B: Pundit A is overreacting.
Pundit C: Pundit A and Pundit B should stop the partisan bickering and come together to forge a moderate path that will bring us all together.
Pundit D: Pundit C needs to put down the crack pipe.
Pundit E: TRUMP MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN KEEP AMERICA GREAT BUILD THE WALL OWN THE LIBS!!!!!!!
Pundit F: Time to revisit the Laffer Curve? Some say yes. Here’s why they’re wrong...and right!
Pundit G: In the Applebee’s salad bar of life we’re all just croutons under the thumb of Big Bacon Bits.
Happy to be of service. Oh, and your catch basin is leaking.
JEERS to moguls among the moguls. I know what you're saying.You're saying, "Hey Billeh, I read yesterday that the World Economic Forum in Davos was happening. Do you know anything about this consequential world event?" Oh…you mean the confab in swanky Switzerland where the perfectly manicured, pedicured, furriered, botoxed and mansculpted ultra-rich fly in on their private jets and, after finishing their champagne and zipping their flies, get whisked in limos to the Ritz, gorge on gourmet food, drink $500 bottles of wine out of ladies' shoes, shuss the slopes in $10,000 designer skiwear, party the night away with the finest prostitutes money can buy, and make back-slapping backroom deals that bulldoze more money into their off-the-books Caribbean accounts, all while pretending to care about the climate crisis and the poor, but unbeknownst to them jewel thieves wearing black turtlenecks are in their suites right now breaking into their safes? That World Economic Forum in Davos? Sorry. Never heard of it.
JEERS to a stain on America’s soul that we just can’t seem to scrub out. Eleven years ago, newly-minted president Barack Obama signed an order that was intended to close the prison at Guantanamo within a year:
"The orders that I signed today should send an unmistakable signal that our actions in defense of liberty will be just as our cause and that we, the people, will uphold our fundamental values as vigilantly as we protect our security.
Once again, America’s moral example must be the bedrock and the beacon of our global leadership."
A bunch of cowards in Congress and state houses—Republicans and Democrats, to our party’s great shame—got the vapors and said no, America isn't smart enough or strong enough to handle those detainees ON AMERICAN SOIL!!! So, 11 years later, Gitmo is still open for business, and the president can still have American citizens arrested without probable cause and black-helicoptered there, too, if he chooses. Memo to DHS: if I'm on your list, I'd like my steak medium, please. Light on the tater tots, extra broccoli, A1 sauce on the side in a little silver cup...and yes, I would like to see the dessert menu.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 22, 2010
JEERS to John Q. Corporation: Super Citizen!!! Yesterday five activist judges on the Supreme Court delivered their verdict on democracy: "Tear it down. Tear it all down." I will now demonstrate, via a one-act play that I'm this close to opening on Broadway, how government runs now:
[Curtain rises on a Congressman's office. A neatly-dressed corporate lobbyist enters:]
Lobbyist: Good morning, Congressman Lockstep. As a representative of BastardCorp, I'm authorized to give two million dollars to your re-election campaign as long as you promise to cast your vote to abolish the 40-hour workweek, kill Social Security, and let our CEO nibble prawns off your chest on weekends. Deal?
Congressman Lockstep: And if I don't?
Lobbyist: If you don't, we'll give two billion dollars to your opponent and you'll be lucky to get hired as a grocery bagger.
Congressman Lockstep: Have a seat, friend. Coffee?
Lobbyist: Oh, no! That would constitute a gift and violate House ethics rules. Silly boy—you're so cute when you're clueless.
[Curtain down]
I'm thinking Nathan Lane and Frank Langella star, music by Phillip Glass, and blocking by Twyla Tharpe. And if Neil Patrick Harris ends up being the one who hands me my Tony, I'm gonna freak! [1/22/20 Update: Neil Patrick Harris didn’t end up handing me a Tony that year. It was James Earl Jones. For the record, I thanked you all first.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the triumphant return of the giant round swirling ice thingy that’s giving our ducks merry-go-round rides. The scientist-stumper that formed last year in the Presumpscot River over in the Maine community of Westbrook was a national sensation and, we would add, a boon to the local economy. Now everyone’s gone all slack-jawed again, because it appears to have returned. It still looks a little jagged, but it's early:
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According to researchers with clipboards and stopwatches, “temperature changes in the water below a small ice disk could be the source of some of the rotational force. When the water cools to 39.2 degrees, it begins to sink and creates a vortex in the water, producing a small force that spins the ice.” Or, going by Occam’s Hatchet, where the simplest explanation is usually the right one: it’s Satan.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"F*ck You!" Bill in Portland Maine Heckled Live in Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool
—Mediaite
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