Estimated number of red-hatted cultists expected for GOP Insurrection II: Insurrect Harder at the Capitol on Saturday: 700
Median household income in the U.S. between 2019 and 2020, a decrease of 2.9% and the first decrease since 2011: $67,500
Percent of new Covid-19 cases in Maine that are among those under 20, versus 1 percent a year ago: 48%
Percent of Mainers between 12 and 19 years of age who have been fully vaccinated: 56%
Distance from the earth to the moon: 238,900 miles
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
What do you mean, you don’t like George W. Bush’s foreign policy?
He’s met twice now with Puddin’ of Russia; he went to the G-8 deal and only one guy got killed; he met with the Popester, a rockin’ guy, and didn’t object that His Holiness was wearin’ some kind of A-rab robe with a Jew-boy hat. Or even that His Holiness kept lookin’ at his shoes while they talked about stemming cell phone research, or something. Karl [Rove] told George W. he needed the Catholic vote, so Bush called the Popester “Sir.” But he didn’t refer to anyone in Italy as a wop. […]
Bush is in way over his head. Foreign policy is where the mule throwed Russell. It’s worse than collectin’ pick-up sticks with your butt cheeks.
CHEERS to “a surprisingly good voting rights bill.” That’s how famed election rights attorney Marc Elias—the guy who beat back nearly a hundred lawsuits filed by the Trump cultists to overturn the 2020 election results—describes the new Freedom to Vote Act unveiled Tuesday, which would impose minimum standards states have to follow regarding federal elections. His opinion matters, in part because he’s equally focused between voting rights during elections, and the way the votes are counted and certified afterward. A snip of his review at Democracy Docket, which is an endorphin rush for those of us who have watched Republicans brazenly rig the game in their favor for next year’s midterms and beyond:
It expands voter registration, requires a minimum number of days and hours for early voting and creates a nationwide right to vote by mail. With respect to voting by mail specifically, the bill rolls back many of the Republicans’ latest disenfranchisement schemes. […] It also imposes a 30-minute limit on wait times for in-person voting.
Marc Elias will go down in history as one of our country’s most dedicated and successful defenders of voting rights.
To prevent voter intimidation, it prevents frivolous challenges to voter qualifications [and] provide[s] increased protections for election workers from harassment and intimidation, while also making it harder to fire them for improper reasons.
To prevent excessive partisanship from dominating the redistricting process, the new bill imposes new standards prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. It also ensures that Republican efforts to rush new gerrymandered maps into place ahead of its passage will fail. […]
Put simply, if the new bill is enacted, more citizens will be able to register to vote, vote in person and by mail, and have their votes counted. And, those of us fighting suppression laws in court will have the tools necessary to achieve fast, consistent victories for voters when states fail to follow the law.
Senate Republicans, armed with the filibuster, are all opposed. Senate Democrats, armed with filibuster-busting capability, are all in favor. So here we are. Do we survive as a democratic republic, or do we not? Stay tuned.
JEERS to the reason for this morning’s fair warning. I’m just telling you right now that Friday’s C&J “Who on the Week” poll—now so legendary and intimidating that no major pollster will even acknowledge its existence—will include a person that could send the entire cosmic order into such a tailspin that the universe shrivels to the size of a pea within seconds after I post it. And you can thank Peril authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa for gutting the cosmos like a fish:
The book [reveals] a previously unreported call between then-Vice President Mike Pence and former Vice President Dan Quayle in late December. Pence was seeking advice about Trump’s demand that he refuse to recognize the election results during the electoral vote count [and violent insurrection] on Jan. 6.
Three decades later, this TIME headline finally comes true.
Quayle thought Trump’s suggestion was “preposterous and dangerous,” according to the book. He told Pence: “You have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away.”
Pence told him, “I’ve been trying to tell Trump,” but “there are other guys there saying I have this power.” “You don’t,” Quayle told him.
Who’da thunk it? Dan Quayle: American heroe.
He really was a shitty president.
JEERS to the worst sheriff in history. Here’s a memento of our sorry past that I always like to isolate and hose down with disinfectant. Twenty years ago this week, President George W. Bush evoked the image of an old west “WANTED” poster, vowing to catch Osama bin Laden “Dead or Alive.”Bush failed to nab “America’s Most Wanted,” either dead or alive. But Seal Team Six under the authority of President Barack Obama sure didn’t, and now 72 virgins are taking turns smacking bin Laden—who turned out to be a garden-variety narcissistic porn-addicted slob—in the face with shoes for the rest of eternity. [Sigh] If you want a job done right, gotta hire the Democrat.
CHEERS to messin’ with Texas. It’s something most people don’t do. But most people aren’t Attorney General of the United States Merrick Garland, who starts each day eating a bowl of rusty nails with turpentine and a dollop of whipped cream past its sell-by date. And now the Texans behind the “vagina vigilante” abortion bill are balled up under their ten-gallon hats like frightened little armadillos:
The Department of Justice asked a federal judge to immediately block Texas’ restrictive ban on abortions past six weeks of pregnancy while the case makes its way through the court system. The Justice Department asked the judge to issue a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, both of which would put the law on hold and prohibit enforcement until the case is resolved.
New Seal of the State of Texas. I’m told Abbott designed it.
“Texas devised an unprecedented scheme that seeks to deny women and providers the ability to challenge S.B. 8 in federal court. This attempt to shield a plainly unconstitutional law from review cannot stand,” the agency said in a brief filed late Tuesday. “This relief is necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas and the sovereign interest of the United States.”
If the judge grants the request to suspend the law, FEMA is standing by to help citizens deal with the flood…of Governor Abbott’s tears! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!
CHEERS to memorable moments in attempted comedy. Fifty-two years ago today, in 1968, Richard Nixon appeared on Laugh-In and uttered the immortal words: “Sock it to me???” Here’s the whole segment for context:
I wish we had gotten the chance to sock it to him after the crook quit in ’74. Thanks a lot, Gerald.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 16, 2011
JEERS to conclusions even Michele Bachmann could figure out. So the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement huddled together and compiled a report about the BP oil disaster. And you’ll never guess who they claim was mostly responsible for the BP oil disaster! Seriously, you wouldn’t be able to deduce in a million years who the main culprit was in the BP oil disaster. Well, if you’re willing to read on beyond this SPOILER ALERT warning, I’ll reveal who was behind the worst oil spill in world history, aka the BP oil disaster. Turns out it was…BP!!! Damn—I bet a bundle that they were gonna pin it on the pelicans. And I’ll never hear the end of it from my bookie.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to tying up one last loose end. For the C&J time capsule, and just in case you were wondering if walking away from the campaign trail to go to Australia and shoot episodes of a new reality TV series is a bright idea when you’re running for governor of California:
