(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday [1] ['Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags', 'Showtags Popular_Tags'] Date: 2022-11-16 Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, November 16, 2022 Note: It’s Random Drug Test Wednesday! Pick a random drug from the bowl next to the kiddie pool and give it a shot. First one to smell sounds and taste colors wins a six-pack of pumpkin spice ivermectin. Good luck and have a nice flight. —Mgt. - By the Numbers: 9 days!!! Days 'til the Warnock-Walker Senate runoff election in Georgia: 20 Days 'til the start of the 9th Annual Belleville Christkindlmarkt in Belleville, Illinois: 9 Rank of San Francisco, Boston, and D.C. on Lawnstarter's latest list of Best Cities to Live Without a Car, based on criteria including walkability, transit ridership, climate, and pedestrian safety: #1, #2, #3 Amount the Tennessee Valley Authority is suggesting be invested in a 300-acre solar farm project on top of the inactive Shawnee Fossil Plant coal ash storage pit in Paducah, Kentucky: $216 million Number of residents in six states for which the TVA provides electricity: 10 million Number of days the unmanned solar-powered Boeing X37-B spent aloft (its 6th mission) while conducting experiments for, among others, the Naval Research Laboratory: 908 Expected number of calls to the Butterball Turkey hotline in November and December: 100,000 - Mid-week Rapture Index: 186 (including 4 volcanoes and1 Christian Universal Ministry basketball team back in the day). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today. - Puppy Pic of the Day: But she refuses to do work on anything called a “catwalk”... - CHEERS and JEERS to mega-milestones. Let me the first OF EIGHT BILLION to deliver the news: The world’s population [reached] 8 billion people on Tuesday, representing a “milestone in human development” before birth rates start to slow, according to a projection from the United Nations. Yes. Eight beeeeeeeellion... In a statement, the UN said the figure meant 1 billion people had been added to the global population in just 12 years. “This unprecedented growth is due to the gradual increase in human lifespan owing to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine. It is also the result of high and persistent levels of fertility in some countries,” the UN statement read. The UN projects the global population will peak at around10.4 billion people in the 2080s and remain at that level until 2100. The 8 billionth person will receive a lovely assortment of Samsonite luggage, a gift certificate to the Cheesecake Factory, and a visit from the cops if they don’t keep the noise down. CHEERS to the big fizzle. From inside their Fox News/Mar-a-Lago bubble, the geniuses at MAGA HQ thought they had a winning strategy for shellacking Democrats during the midterm elections: fear 'n smear. Immigrants are the devil—fear them! Teachers dedicated to accurate historical and racial perspective in schools are the devil—fear them! “Demonrat” lawmakers who are (but really aren't) soft on crime are the devil—fear them! American Jews (but not our Jewish friends in Israel who we plan to wipe out to facilitate the Christian Rapture) are the devil—fear them! And, of course, LGBTQ people are the devil's groomers and perverts—fear them! Happy to say their scare tactics backfired spectacularly, including that last target of their hate, according to Media Matters: [T]he “red tsunami” failed to materialize, as did any meaningful backlash against LGBTQ candidates and allies. Voters listed access to abortion and preserving democracy among their top issues, along with inflation. … The Daily Wire’s own Ben Shapiro called it “a garbage evening for Republicans.” The vast majority of American voters agree. For LGBTQ political candidates, it was an evening of firsts. Massachusetts and Oregon simultaneously elected the first openly lesbian governors in the U.S.in Maura Healey and Tina Kotek, respectively. In New Hampshire…James Roesener became the first out trans man to win an election to a state legislature in U.S. history. In Montana… Zooey Zephyr became the first out trans woman elected to the legislature instate history. In Oklahoma…Mauree Turner won reelection to the state legislature as the first nonbinary lawmaker in the country. Leigh Finke became the first openly trans person elected to the Minnesota state legislature, pledging to protect reproductive freedom, push for climate action, and address Minnesota's housing shortage. Nor was it a garbage evening for [elected] LGBTQ allies. It was a nationwide rebuke of bullshit attacks on our family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, and an affirmation of a time-honored adage: When they go low, we go, girl! CHEERS to TIME. On this date 24 years ago, in 1998, the magazine provided lengthy coverage of the spectacular implosion and resignation of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Margaret Carlson sums up that blissful week: Friday was the day he died a Washington death, stripping himself of power and becoming in that instant just a guy in a suburban tract house in Marietta, Ga., carrying out the trash. We all should have seen his resignation coming when, on Tuesday night, he came out swinging at the media, blaming them for his party's shellacking. With Nixonian petulance, he rejected suggestions that his party tanked because he had put all its eggs in Monica's basket. Well, the media charge is laughably bogus. Yet what else is there to do but grasp at scapegoats when, in the blink of an eye, the discussion moves from "Can Clinton Survive?" to whether you can? And today isn't a federal holiday because...??? - BRIEF SANITY BREAK - x Parents who work from home. pic.twitter.com/aOrrUr7CaM — Tech Burrito (@TechAmazing) November 13, 2022 - END BRIEF SANITY BREAK - CHEERS to home where the buffalo roam. Happy Birthday, Oklahoma! The "Hey, that state looks like a skillet!" state—home of just-reelected congresswoman Mauree Turner, the first Muslim legislator from Oklahoma and the first nonbinary legislator in America—officially nabbed the 46th star on the flag 115 years ago today. Fun facts: the state animal is the buffalo, the state insect is the honey bee, and the state flower is the Oklahoma rose, which is quite lovely: Also: the state rock is "rose barite," which you'll find in the greatest abundance, as usual, between state dinosaur Jim Inhofe's ears. (Hey, you go for the easy layups where you can get ‘em.) CHEERS to subaquatic emissions. A reminder that if Earth wants to cancel us from this planet, it has several weapons of mass extinction at its disposal, including some we can't even see: A volcano is probably erupting deep beneath the Pacific Ocean in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, but scientists don’t know for sure because it’s so inaccessible. All indications are that the Ahyi Seamount began erupting in mid-October, the U.S. Geological Survey said Monday. The Northern Marianas are about 3,800 miles west of Honolulu. Geophysicists say they first became aware of the possible eruption when several bubbles floated to the surface followed by a muffled "Huhuhuh huhhuh huh huhuhuh…." - Ten years ago in C&J: November 16, 2012 CHEERS to Liberal Land, USA. Pop quiz: what does the number 6 have in common with the number 5? WRONG! The correct answer is: there are 6 states in New England, and that's one more than the number of New England counties that went for Mitt Romney last week. In fact, the drubbing the GOP got up here was more of a shellacking on top of a thumpin': Sen. Scott Brown, who electrified Republicans with his upset victory in a special election in January 2010 to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, was cast aside by Massachusetts voters in favor of Democrat Elizabeth Warren. Elsewhere in New England, Republicans lost every major election for Congress and governor. The six-state region will not have a single Republican U.S. House member, and only two Republican senators will serve in the next session. Only one of the six governors will be Republican. "It's a nightmare," said former Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut, a day after the election. And now for an opposing view: "It's a dream," said me. [11/16/22 Update: Ten years later, New England Republicans ended up in the gutter again. They should look into rehab—this is getting to be a bad habit.] - And just one more… CHEERS to a helluva year. You may have noticed radio stations running 24-hour marathons of carols like “Silent Prius,” “I’m Dreaming of A Reliable Rural Broadband Connection,” and "Grandma Got Run Over By A Solar Powered Metro Bus." You may have noticed that store shelves are bare of greeting cards with messages like "I'm really digging you," "Charge me up, baby," and "Is that a newly-replaced lead pipe in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" And good luck finding a dilapidated bridge to sell to some poor tourist sap. It's just a big jumbled-up flibbedy floo! But there's a good reason: this week marks the first-year anniversary of a pledge fulfilled by Democratic President and rusty-nail chomper Joe Biden: x I signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to ensure America was positioned to win the competition for the 21st century. Now, there are nearly 7,000 infrastructure projects in the works in every state across our nation. And we’re just getting started. pic.twitter.com/0YlS6ZlkeR — President Biden (@POTUS) November 15, 2022 - And thanks to all the port repair going on in New England over the last 52 Infrastructure Weeks, the children in the northeast are going to have a very merry Christmas this year. Thanks to our uninterrupted Icelandic trade, they're all getting a stocking full of rock gunnels and a shiny new blob of aluminum slag under the tree. Bless us one and all. Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today? - Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial Bill in Portland Maine has a bit of a reputation for saying what he thinks, and what needs to be said. —Wonkette - [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/11/16/2136153/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Wednesday 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/