From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Current Mood with 21 Months to Go
Via Colbert:
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God, I admire any country that limits their campaign seasons. We should give it a whirl.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
By the Numbers:
Days 'til spring: 27
Days 'til the Naperville Winter Ale Fest in Illinois: 2
Minimum number of priests, deacons and religious brothers who have been "credibly accused" of sexually abusing minors in the Catholic Diocese of Oakland, California: 45
Number of individuals and organizations, respectively, nominated this year for the Nobel Peace Prize: 219 / 85
Percent chance that the French Fencing Federation has approved lightsaber dueling as a competitive sport: 100%
Distance the Tesla and its driver “Starman” were from Earth at the one-year-in-space mark on February 6: 226 million miles
Number of times the Tesla has exceeded its 36,000 mile warranty so far: 13,579
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
With so many delights on our political plate, it's hard to know where to begin.
Take that knee-slapping joke by Education Secretary Rod Paige: He called our largest teachers' union "a terrorist organization." In fun, of course. Gosh darn, HEE-HAW! All over the nation, teachers are just chuckling away. […]
My personal favorite among Bush's recent moves is the proposal in his economic report to Congress to reclassify fast-food restaurants, moving them from the service sector to "manufacturing." THIS is a concept. In case you're puzzled over why your burger-flippers should now be classified with autoworkers, it's so when the administration has to report the statistics on how many manufacturing jobs we've lost, they won't look so bad. While in college, I had a job at an Aunt Jemima's Pancake House sticking toothpicks with curlicue-cellophane through butter balls---that's my background in manufacturing.
---February 2004
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Dad 'n the kids…
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CHEERS to flop sweat in the courtroom. Donald Trump's closest political confidant Roger Stone, who was plucked from his Florida home by FBI agents in an early morning raid a few weeks back and charged by Robert Mueller with perjury, obstruction, and witness-tampering, is in even deeper shit as I write this. Not only did he make the brilliant decision to go after the judge overseeing the case by posting her photo with crosshairs next to her, he then accused her of being part of the non-existent "deep state." That made the judge mad. And you don’t want to make the judge mad:
Judge Amy Berman Jackson—the DC federal judge overseeing Stone’s case and the subject of the Instagram post—has ordered Stone to return to court for a hearing on Thursday about the social media post and whether it affects the terms of his release or his ability to talk about the case. […]
Jackson is also the same judge who remanded Manafort to jail in June after she found that he had attempted to tamper with witnesses ahead of his trial, in violation of the terms of his release. Now Jackson will decide whether Stone’s photo violated her orders in his criminal case—and what comes next for Stone.
Keep your eye on the headlines this afternoon. Stone and his Nixon tattoo get dragged in front of Judge Jackson at 2:30. Until then, think positive thoughts. Specifically: "Lock him up! Lock him up!"
JEERS to corrupt Republicans and yes I realize that's redundant. Just as we Mainers were beginning to get over our PTSD fueled by eight-years of the worst governor in our state's history, Paul LePage leapt back into the spotlight when it was revealed he'd spent taxpayer money lavishly and frequently at the giant smoke-filled backroom known as the Trump Hotel in D.C. Not only that, but his administration ignored freedom-of-information requests for his receipts so he wouldn’t get nailed to the wall while he was still in office. The editorial board at The Portland Press Herald, whose reporters did great work sticking to this story like glue over the years, weighs in:
The information is deeply embarrassing for a chief executive who styled himself as the one true defender of public money---and who spent much of his eight years in office trying to dictate with great precision which foods poor Mainers should be able to buy with public assistance.
It also places LePage squarely in the center of a controversy over the intersection of Donald Trump’s presidency and his wide-ranging, not-fully-understood business dealings. … As such, LePage’s travel receipts will be part of a lawsuit filed by Washington, D.C., and the state of Maryland, which contends that the president, through his hotel, is illegally profiting from his position.
We should remember how LePage said, “Nothing to see here” while freely spending taxpayer money, a lot of it [at] the president’s private business. We should remember that when a person in power tries to hide something, that usually means they have something to hide.
I admire their restraint. Sixteen paragraphs and they didn’t use the word butthead once.
JEERS to a blockquote full of woe. You can click on the links if you want (I wouldn't), or you can just read my Cliff's Notes summaries of some of the uglier splotches on our planet:
Britain: Bad
Venezuela: Terrible
Russia: Nasty
Syria: Awful
Brazil: Worse
North Korea: Worser
Belarus: Yikes
Madagascar: Ugh
Antarctica: Holey Moley
The Arctic: Boggy
And in Finland, where taxes are high, banks aren't vultures, social issues peg the progressive side of the meter, crime is low, corruption and religious extremism are virtually nonexistent, welfare isn't a four-letter word, the government operates with competence and integrity, and universal health care is the law of the land, the citizens there continue to be the happiest on earth. F*cking showoffs.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Turning to sports, today major league baseball fans will hear the first cry of "Play Ball!" of the 2019 season, when Seattle and Oakland go at each other in spring training action. Looking ahead, Neil Paine at FiveThirtyEight asks: Everything Went Right For The 2018 Red Sox. Are The Champs Destined To Regress?
No.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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JEERS to whiny-ass whiners and their whiny-ass whines. Never-Emmy-nominated reality TV host and two-bit criminal Donald Trump took to his Twitter machine and labeled The New York Times---in all caps---”THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” It was childish. It was immature. It was completely antithetical to the explicit wording of the First Amendment. And if he was referring to their Saturday crossword puzzles, it was 100% spot-on.
CHEERS to letting your fingers do the walking. 141 years ago today, the first telephone book was issued by the District Telephone Co. of New Haven, Connecticut, consisting of 50 names and a hundred pizza coupons. Today so many people use the internet to find numbers that there are efforts floating around to make delivery of the phone book an "opt-in" thing. Still, it does have its uses. For one thing it gives the height-challenged something to sit on besides a plastic booster seat that screams, "Ignore me, I'm a child." For another thing, half a dozen years ago a survey showed the phone book may be just what we need to save our republic:
Members of Congress may not always be popular, but now Americans say nearly anyone could take their place. A full 43% of voters nationwide think a group of people randomly selected from a telephone book would do a better job than current legislators, a new Rasmussen Reports poll found.
Here, let me try. I'll close my eyes, pick up a random phone book, put my finger on a random page, and---[Thrmp!!!]---Nugent, Ted. Oh dear god, abolish the damn things already.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 21, 2009
CHEERS to fixing America's leaky roof. President Obama unveiled his new housing rescue package this week. Yes, it will help nine million Americans renegotiate their mortgages. Yes, it will help stabilize housing prices. Yes, it will help revitalize neighborhoods. Hell, even Charles Krauthammer likes it, fer crying out loud. But it's not all rosy. What they won’t tell you is that there's absolutely nothing in it for hut owners. Ginger, Mary Ann and the Professor are not pleased.
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And just one more…
JEERS to not-so-great moments in backing up. The apartment across the alley from us has a dumpster that gets emptied every Tuesday around two in the morning. I always hear the garbage truck when it arrives because of the annoying Beep…Beep…Beep it makes as it backs up 50 feet or so to the dumpster. This week something seemed a bit…off. The beeping stopped momentarily before resuming. No biggie, we thought, as we rolled over and went back to sleep. In the morning, as we rise-and-shined (rose and shone?) to greet the day with our usual open-window serenade for our neighbors of a few choruses of Edelweiss, we looked down and saw why the garbage truck had to make a slight course correction:
Thanks to that poor sacrificial guard pole (it’s filled with cement and sunk about four feet into the now-frozen ground to give you an idea of the force of the truck’s impact), we were spared a wee-hours emergency evacuation due to a nocturnal gas emission outside our bedroom. Sadly, there's no pole on earth big enough to prevent our wee-hours emergency evacuations due to the dog's nocturnal gas emissions inside our bedroom. But in her defense: at least she doesn’t beep.
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
Meghan McCain stuns Bill in Portland Maine on 'The View,' asks if he's the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool leaker
---Fox News
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