Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

My New Year’s Resolutions (since everyone keeps asking):

» I won’t be suckered into believing any bogus conspiracy theories anybody tells me anymore. I will only be suckered into believing the ones told to me by the nanobots in my booster shots.

» While traveling, I shall help make the job of TSA screeners easier by wearing nothing but my patriotism.

» I shall try to see the world from the MAGA point of view by spending some quality time acting like a soulless, thick-as-a-brick demon child.

Continued…

» I shall peacefully resolve Daily Kos pie fights with my superior negotiating and arbitration skills, just as soon as we resolve our 20-year pie fight over the shape of the negotiating table.

» I shall think more about world peace, economic justice and environmental health…or my insatiable need for cheap consumer goods that’ll be thrown out the moment they get a scratch on them or the batteries need changing, whichever comes first.

» I shall reduce the number of distractions in my life by

As always, I shall continue firming and toning my person using only the finest in cutting-edge fitness accoutrements.

» I shall continue my 59-year streak of not putting a hole in someone with a firearm. Sorry, but I can’t make the same pledge about lawn darts.

» I shall do more good deeds. Starting with deprogramming the old lady across the street from drooling whenever I ring her doorbell.

» I shall remember what is best in life: “Destroy the Republicans, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of the Speaker of the House.”

» I shall make myself available as a strongman in any nation with plunderable resources.

» I shall achieve consequential goals, much like the way George Santos cured cancer, defeated ISIS, and was the NBA’s MVP six years in a row.

» Last but not least, I vow to continue getting my motherf*cking boosters as needed and wearing my motherf*cking mask in public indoor spaces, just as I hope you’ll vow to continue pardoning my French.

Wish me luck. And now, our feature presentation…

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Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Note: Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, eyes and ears and mouth and nose, heads, shoulders, knees and toes knees and toes…plus Allison with sports and Dave’s complete forecast, tonight on NewsCenter at 6 and 11.

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By the Numbers:

Days ‘til the MAGA cult’s Iowa caucus: 12

Days ‘til the Yuma Medjool Date Festival in Arizona: 3

Number of states in which the minimum wage is going up this week: 22

New minimum wage in Portland, Maine: $15/hr

Drop in the purchase price value of Twitter since Elon Musk bought it, according to Mutual fund company Fidelity: –71%

Rank of Tokyo and Seoul as trending international hot spots next year among American travelers: #1, #2

Age of actor Tom Wilkinson and standup comedian Shecky Greene when they died over the weekend: 75, 97

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Mid-week Rapture Index: 188 (including 4 earthquakes and 1 preacher’s prediction that was a tad off). 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: Beta carotene break…

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CHEERS to the longer arm of the law. Low-wage earners up here in Maine had good reason to celebrate the new year: the minimum wage went up to $14.15 statewide, and here in Portland it’s 15 smackaroonies an hour. That’s just one of the new laws that hit the books nationwide Monday morning. Some others, via NBC News:

» Illinois becomes the first state to outlaw book bans.

» New York state will ban pet stores from selling dogs, cats and rabbits to protect them from poor treatment and conditions in some commercial breeding operations.

Also: in Florida, the fine for wrecking public property while speeding in your tank has been doubled to $100.

» Gun laws take effect in Michigan: red flag laws, stricter background checks, safe gun storage requirements, and a ban on those convicted of domestic violence from buying, owning or transporting firearms for eight years.

» Four more states now require financial literacy courses in high schools in 2024—Georgia, Indiana, Minnesota and West Virginia.

» States are also expanding access to prescription hormonal birth control by allowing pharmacists to prescribe such contraceptives, rather than doctors. New laws in Montana and Nevada, meanwhile, allow people to access an extended supply of contraceptives.

There were also new laws enacted in a handful of states regarding the cultivation, sales, and regulation of the demon herb marijuana, vilified since the 1930s because of its evil propensity to—[Checks notes]—relax you and brighten your mood. For the love of god, please pray that the nation survives.

CHEERS to C&J Theater. I’m so excited to share with you my first dramatic outing of 2024. I worked on it all last year and polished it over the weekend. Enjoy…

[Curtain Up]

January 2024, 9am. Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU sits across from members of the ISRAELI SUPREME COURT (center stage)

NETANYAHU Hey, court people! I want you to grant me powers to pass laws that you can’t

overturn, making me dictator for life bwoo ha haaaaaaa!!!

SUPREME COURT JUSTICES No.

NETANYAHU

(Flies into unintelligible rage babble.)

JUSTICES Bwoo Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!

[Lights Out, Curtain Down]

The Tony Awards will be handed out in June. I’ll be sure to thank you from the stage.

CHEERS to the original landlord of Middle Earth. Happy Birthday to J.R.R.Tolkien. The genius behind the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit turns 132 years old today. Or, to put it another way, that’s just one year longer than the total running time of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. Minus the bathroom breaks.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to the Last Frontier. On January 3rd, 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a proclamation making Alaska (or, as we say in Maine: “Alasker”)—all 656,425 square miles of it—our 49th state. The word is Aleutian for “Great Land.” The state flower is the forget-me-not, the state fish is the king salmon, and the state mammal is the bowhead whale. Here’s Ike unveiling the 49-star flag, which was used for only eight months before Hawaii added #50. I have to think that if you own one o’ these babies, you’re sittin’ on an Antiques Roadshow goldmine:

President Dwight Eisenhower unveils the 49-star flag after Alaska became a state on january 3, 1959.

Meanwhile the Alaska state flag has eight stars. One for each Palin family brawl involving the cops.

CHEERS to a cool d…d…dip. They do it every year to raise money for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, and this year hundreds of masochists with big hearts participated in southern Maine‘s annual Polar Bear Dip and Dash—which includes a headlong plunge into the 44-degree Atlantic Ocean that gets played out in a hundred similar ways by various groups up and down the east coast. Afterward the Ladies Auxiliary used marimba mallets to play the classics on the men’s cojones. The Flight of the Bumble Bee was particularly festive.

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Ten years ago in C&J: January 3, 2014

CHEERS to a sight for sore eyes. If you click on the web site for the New York City Mayor’s office you’ll find definitive proof that the Bloomberg era is over. Bill de Blasio was sworn in this week (twice, like Obama in 2009, although admittedly not because of a screw-up by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court in front of 5 billion worldwide viewers). De Blasio seems to be handling—”weathering,” as it were—his first major snowstorm okay. Also on his early agenda is outlawing horse-drawn carriages in the city. So now we know one thing about him: he’s in the pocket of the mouse-drawn pumpkin lobby.

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And just one more…

JEERS to the Long, Cold, Dark Road Ahead. Our annual reminder that the next warm-weather holiday when most Americans actually get a long weekend off is Memorial Day—145 days away. But there’s one place where the weekend never ends: outer space. So put on your beer goggles and your chill-out face as Preston Dyches at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reveals the January night-sky party forecast, including Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury vying for the moon’s affection…

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Bonus good news: Three days into the new year and our planet’s still here. (Our sanity? Still an open question.)

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

“Bill in Portland Maine is brilliant, wonderful, hardworking and as far as I know is doing nothing to continue wars and kill people and it doesn’t seem he wants to be a dictator and destroy our democracy. Those are all pluses for me.”

—Penn Jillette

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» I shall peacefully resolve Daily Kos pie fights with my superior negotiating and arbitration skills, just as soon as we resolve our 20-year pie fight over the shape of the negotiating table.

» I shall think more about world peace, economic justice and environmental health…or my insatiable need for cheap consumer goods that’ll be thrown out the moment they get a scratch on them or the batteries need changing, whichever comes first.

» I shall reduce the number of distractions in my life by

As always, I shall continue firming and toning my person using only the finest in cutting-edge fitness accoutrements.

» I shall continue my 59-year streak of not putting a hole in someone with a firearm. Sorry, but I can’t make the same pledge about lawn darts.

» I shall do more good deeds. Starting with deprogramming the old lady across the street from drooling whenever I ring her doorbell.

» I shall remember what is best in life: “Destroy the Republicans, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of the Speaker of the House.”

» I shall make myself available as a strongman in any nation with plunderable resources.

» I shall achieve consequential goals, much like the way George Santos cured cancer, defeated ISIS, and was the NBA’s MVP six years in a row.

» Last but not least, I vow to continue getting my motherf*cking boosters as needed and wearing my motherf*cking mask in public indoor spaces, just as I hope you’ll vow to continue pardoning my French.