(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Cheers and Jeers: Monday [1] ['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags'] Date: 2023-01-16 "When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love. Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring a real order of justice." With LBJ at the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals." And despite the successes we had in the Senate during President Biden’s first two years, let us make it an annual rite of MLK Day to watch this clip and glare holes into the souls of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema: x “I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.“ - MLK 59 years later, we are facing the same tragedy. pic.twitter.com/xEgLTTgVTC — Charles Booker (@Booker4KY) January 13, 2022 As fate would have it, King and I coexisted on this tiny blue speck in the middle of nowhere, if only for three-and-a-half years. The older I get the cooler that fact gets. Of course, it’s not as cool as George Santos being legally adopted by the Kings and going on to singlehandedly found The King Center. But still cool. And now, our feature presentation... - Cheers and Jeers for Monday, January 16, 2023 Note: Stupid thermostat—I turn it up to 99 and the temperature in the apartment can barely reach 92. Landlord's gonna get an earful. - By the Numbers: 6 days!!! Days 'til Joe Biden’s State of the Union address: 22 Days 'til the 61st National Sweetpotato Convention in Wilmington, North Carolina: 6 Number of basic types of sweet potatoes there are: 5 Date on which the U.S. will start defaulting on its debts, according to the Treasury Department: 1/19/23 Number of Americans seeking jobless benefits last week, continuing its streak of being at the lowest level since 1970: 205,000 Percent chance this has been a fairly typical flu season so far, albeit one that started a little earlier than normal, according to CDC: 100% Age of Jeff Beck and Lisa Marie Presley when they died last week: 78, 54 - Puppy Pic of the Day: In Alaska, all aboard the puppy bus… - CHEERS to the BFD getting even BFD'er. The 2023 enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act—the national health care bill passed into law a dozen years ago that the skeptics swore would've collapsed and died by now—is over. Let's check in with our intrepid Department of Health and Human Services and see what kind of life support it's on: [A]bout 15.9 million people have selected an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace health plan nationwide since the start of the 2023 Marketplace Open Enrollment Period (OEP) on November 1. […] It’s a winner! (Yet again.) Total plan selections include 3.1 million people (20% of total) who are new to the Marketplaces for 2023, and 12.8 million people (80% of total) who had active 2022 coverage and made a plan selection for 2023 coverage or were automatically re-enrolled. About 1.8 million more people have signed up for health insurance, or a 13% increase from this time last year. [...] The Biden-Harris Administration has made expanding access to health insurance and lowering health care costs for America’s families a top priority, and under their leadership, the national uninsured rate reached an all-time low earlier this year. Wow. It looks like the skeptics are suffering from a chronic case of wrongotheleoma. I have the perfect remedy for them: take two aspirin and shut the f*ck up. CHEERS to swinging for the fiscal fences. Is it state budget-making season in your neck of the woods like it is here in Maine? With Democrats having been given a resounding thumbs-up by voters to continue their excellent demonstration of fiscal responsibility, re-elected Governor Janet Mills is going big—like, a record $10.3 billion big, with "significant increases in funding for education, health care, childcare, housing, and transportation." Such as… » Free breakfast and lunch for all Pre-K through 12th grade public school students, regardless of need The relief Maine felt last November when Governor Janet beat MAGA cultist Paul LePage in a landslide was palpable. » Two years of free tuition at one of the state’s seven community colleges for Maine high school graduates » Expansion of Pre-K programs and childcare services » $400 million for roads and bridges, matched by $1 billion from Secretary Pete Buttigieg's Transportation Department wall safe » $94 million for mental health and substance abuse disorder services "in every community and in every school across this state." » $78 million for services for older Mainers » $30 million to expand affordable rental housing options Left untouched: our record-high $902 million Rainy Day Fund. We'll need that next summer for the giant beachside clambake. (Comes with salad or slaw, baked potato or fries. Please: no substitutions.) P.S. A Mainer just won a lottery jackpot equal to ten percent of our entire state budget. Looks like our clambake just added champagne. JEERS to messing with The Precious. On January 16, 1919, the tenacious temperance twits in Wyoming became the last ones necessary to ratify Prohibition, which went into effect on January 16, 1920...in the name, of course, of Jeeeeeezus. As a lapsed Episcopalian, I’d like to apologize for this on behalf of all my brethren and sistren: Many Prohibition groups, called “dries”, were church-based, mainly Protestant denominations. “Yeah. We’ll get right on that.” The anti-Prohibition groups, or “wets”, tended to be mostly Roman Catholic, Episcopalian and Lutherans from Germany. Both major political parties had wet and dry factions. [W]hen Congress convened in January, 1917, the mandate was clear: regardless of party, dries outnumbered wets in Congress by 2-to-1. The result: a huge spike in organized crime. The stock market crash of 1929 led to the eventual repeal of the 18th amendment on the premise that reviving a legit liquor industry would create jobs. So you might say that in a weird way the banksters toppled the gangsters. (Although, like today, it took authorities awhile to figure out who was who.) - BRIEF SANITY BREAK - x The bagworm moth caterpillar collects and saws little sticks to construct elaborate spiral log cabins to live in. [read more: https://t.co/jUeATNbijT] [📹 salih.v.p: https://t.co/6zW6kh4P1q]pic.twitter.com/4CK47iVN27 — Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) January 13, 2023 - END BRIEF SANITY BREAK - CHEERS to the war hawks’ terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Seven years ago—Saturday, January 16, 2016—one of the (many) significant events in Barack Obama’s presidency was etched onto the wall of history. It started when the White House announced that five American detainees, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, had been freed from Iranian prisons in exchange for a handful of Iranians we were detaining at the Hoboken Club Med (for violating the two-beach-towels-per-person-per-day rule). But that was just the warm-up act for this: On January 16, 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency verified that Iran has completed the necessary steps under the Iran deal that will ensure Iran's nuclear program is and remains exclusively peaceful. Obama announces the nuclear deal with Iran. Before this agreement, Iran's breakout time---or the time it would have taken for Iran to gather enough fissile material to build a weapon---was only two to three months. Today, because of the Iran deal, it would take Iran 12 months or more. And with the unprecedented monitoring and access this deal puts in place, if Iran tries, we will know and sanctions will snap back into place. I remember it well: the American people were happy, the Iranian people were happy (they even lowered their catchphrase from "Death to America" to "slightly swollen ankles to the upper Midwest"), and all the other nations involved in the pact—China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, and the rest of the 28 EU states—were happy. But not Donald Trump. Drawing on his fine command of absolutely nothing related to foreign policy, he just had to pull out because diplomacy bad, bombs good. To be fair, though, it's what the coal miners wanted. CHEERS to strange new old worlds. The fully armed and operational battle station known as the James Webb space telescope continues dazzling we wee parasites here on this insignificant plastic-encrusted ball of magma. The latest discovery, an exoplanet ("any planet that is outside of our solar system") has me already packin' my asbestos-lined bags: The planet, called LHS 475b, is nearly the same size as Earth, having 99% of our planet's diameter, scientists said. However, it is several hundred degrees hotter than Earth and completes its orbit around its star in two days. LHS 475 b is in the constellation Octans and is 41 light-years away, which is relatively nearby. The detail coming back from the Webb telescope’s pics is amazing. Scientists are still trying to determine if the planet has an atmosphere. It's possible LHS 475 b has no atmosphere or one made completely out of carbon dioxide, but one option can be totally eliminated. If you'd like to join me and my merry band of Nigerian finance ministers in our daring flying saucer escape to this galactic Shangri-La, deposit $5,000,000 in my bank account and wait for the glowing green tractor beam to hover over your house. With our cruise control set at the maximum allowable 65mph, the trip to LHS 475 will take us about a billion years, so bring some snacks and a personal cryogenic tank. Add $50 for each carry-on. - Ten years ago in C&J: January 16, 2013 JEERS to the tick tock tick tock of fiscal doom. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has informed Congress that we have, at most, six weeks to raise the debt ceiling. Or as Congress calls it: five weeks, 6 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes to fart around. - And just one more… Due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, today's "Just One More" feature is closed. If we catch you climbing over the velvet rope, you are so grounded, bub. Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today? - Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial You follow Bill in Portland Maine for style and beauty advice, fitness tips and simply to make you smile. He is your workout partner, stylist and friend. BiPM has been around for more than a decade, but now we often follow his advice ahead of celebrities. His relatability and kiddie pool draw us closer to him. —USA Today - [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/16/2147116/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Monday Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/