Recommended Reading
from Bruce
GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI: DNC waged stealth organizing campaign for Jones (Politico)
With the spotlight squarely on Roy Moore in the closing weeks of Alabama's Senate special election, a constellation of Democratic groups embarked on an under-the-radar effort to organize voters for candidate Doug Jones. Despite publicly remaining mum on the race, the Democratic National Committee spent nearly $1 million on the contest while dispatching and funding 30 aides here, a party official told POLITICO. That push came just as Jones sought to distance himself from the national party and win over conservatives.
Paul Krugman: "Scam I Am: Why is the G.O.P. Rushing This Tax Abomination?" (NY Times Blog)
Or you could say, "Well, I guess I'll be looking for a lobbying job/ think tank position/commentator role on Fox News in 2019" - in which case your mission in what remains of your Congressional career is to keep donors and the party machine happy, never mind the voters.
Paul Waldman: On their tax bill, Republicans are making a risky, desperate gamble (Washington Post)
This morning, Democrats held a press conference to demand that the Republicans put off final votes on the GOP tax bill until Doug Jones can take his seat in the Senate. "It would be wrong for Senate Republicans to jam through this tax bill without giving the duly elected senator from Alabama a chance to cast his vote," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. You will be shocked [sarcasm] to learn that Mitch McConnell and other Republicans are unpersuaded.
Andrew Tobias: What The DNC Did In Alabama; The Tax Scam
… Trump is massively lying about the personal sacrifice he and his family and fellow Cabinet gazillonaires would be making if it passed.
Lucy Mangan's essential guide to surviving Christmas (Stylist)
Years of empirical experimenting - there's no substitute for hands-on research - have proved that I can drink eight glasses of prosecco on a night out before things get messy. Three sips of red wine, however, and I'm clinging to strangers and showing them photos of my late cat before sliding bonelessly to the floor. So. I stick to prosecco. The years of narrowing the field were fun, though.
Michele Hanson: 'Tis the season for falling over in the snow - and I am scared witless (The Guardian)
A third of over-65s fall over at least once a year, with falls the age group's most common cause of death from injury. Help!
Hadley Freeman: Writhing in linguine is fine, Emily Ratajkowski, if that's your thing - but it's not feminist (The Guardian)
The model took part in a fashion video where she danced around while rubbing pasta on her oiled body, drawing criticism from some quarters. Our style expert, in her weekly column, says not everything needs to have an ideological underpinning.
Anna Leszkiewicz: "Abortion debates, Oscar buzz and fierce backlash: 10 years of Juno" (New Statesman)
In 2007, Juno divided fans and critics.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Team Coco
CONAN
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Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Ted Cruz is still the most hated
Any opportunity to mock Ted Cruz is a good one:
Roy Moore's Defeat Means Ted Cruz Retains Status as Most Despised Person in Senate
by Andy Borowitz December 14, 2017
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)-Roy Moore's defeat in Alabama's special election means that the Texas senator Ted Cruz will easily retain his status as the most despised person in the United States Senate, congressional insiders confirmed on Wednesday.
According to those insiders, Cruz had been secretly hoping that Moore's election would displace him from his unenviable position as the most vilified pariah in the upper chamber.
from Marc Perkel
Marc's Guide to Curing Cancer
So far so good on beating cancer for now. I'm doing fine. At the end of the month I'll be 16 months into an 8 month mean lifespan. And yesterday I went on a 7 mile hike and managed to keep up with the hiking group I was with. So, doing something right.
Still waiting for future test results and should see things headed in the right direction. I can say that it's not likely that anything dire happens in the short term so that means that I should have time to make several more attempts at this. So even if it doesn't work the first time there are a lot of variations to try. So if there's bad news it will help me pick the next radiation target.
I have written a "how to" guide for oncologists to perform the treatment that I got. I'm convinced that I'm definitely onto something and whether it works for me or not isn't the definitive test. I know if other people tried this that it would work for some of them, and if they improve it that it will work for a lot of them.
The guide is quite detailed and any doctor reading this can understand the procedure at every level. I also go into detail as to how it works, how I figured it out, and variations and improvements that could be tried to enhance it. I also introduce new ways to look at the problem. There is a lot of room for improvement and I think that doctors reading it will see what I'm talking about and want to build on it. And it's written so that if you're not a doctor you can still follow it. It also has a personal story revealing that I'm the class clown of cancer support group. I give great interviews and I look pretty hot in a lab coat.
So, feel free to read this and see what I'm talking about. But if any of you want to help then pass this around to both doctors and cancer patients. I need some media coverage. I'm looking for as many eyeballs as possible to read these ideas. Even if this isn't the solution, it's definitely on the right track. After all, I did hike 7 miles yesterday. And this hiking group wasn't moving slow. So if this isn't working then, why am I still here?
I also see curing cancer as more of an engineering problem that a medical problem. So if you are good at solving problems and most of what you know about medicine was watching the Dr. House MD TV show, then you're at the level I was at when I started. So anyone can jump in and be part of the solution.
Here is a link to my guide: Oncologists Guide to Curing Cancer using Abscopal Effect
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE TRUMP DUMP.
FROM WALLACE TO TRUMP AND BACK AGAIN.
"…THE WET GETS WETTER,THE DRY GETS DRYER,THE RICH GET RICHER..."
"THE FEMPIRE STRIKES BACK."
A SAD DAY FOR AMERICA.
THE GRIFTER.
ROCK ON!
"MISPLACED SCALE."
YEP.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Buying Much Of Fox
Di$ney
Disney is buying a large part of Fox, including its movie and television studios, for about $52.4 billion, as the home of Mickey Mouse tries to meet competition from technology companies in the entertainment business.
Disney's all-stock deal for the Murdoch family's 21st Century Fox gives it the studios that produce the Avatar movies, "The Simpsons" and "Modern Family." Murdoch will form a new company to keep the U.S. television networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and Fox Broadcasting. "The Simpsons" will continue to air on Murdoch's Fox stations.
The deal also brings Marvel characters such as X-Men and The Avengers under one roof - Disney's.
In owning these properties, Disney will be in a better position to compete with the likes of Netflix when it launches ESPN- and Disney-branded streaming services in the coming years.
That Rupert Murdoch (R-Evil Incarnate) and his sons were willing to sell off much of the business that has been built up over decades came as a shock to the entertainment industry.
Di$ney
Create Spoof Website
Native American Activists
For a few hours on Wednesday morning, a small group of Native American activists convinced the internet that Washington's professional football franchise had finally decided to change its racist "Redskins" team name.
A six-person team from the Rising Hearts coalition, a D.C.-based nonprofit, launched an elaborate website that was nearly identical to the team's page. And the site's front page announced the good "news" that the franchise had decided to rebrand as the Redhawks.
"Native Leaders Celebrate a Victory as Washington Football Changes Mascot to the Redhawks," a headline blared, in the style of The Washington Post. It and three other spoofed stories - on sites that looked like those of ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Bleacher Report - circulated across Twitter and other social media platforms to applause from those who have spent years calling on the team to change its name. Even the URLs mimicked the real thing, with only minor changes (the ersatz Post story, for instance, was on washpostsports.com, while the paper's real sports page is at washingtonpost.com/sports).
It didn't take long for the internet to realize the whole thing was a fake, and that the team and owner Dan Snyder, who has pledged to "NEVER" abandon the name, had not done so.
But that was precisely the point, said Sebastian Medina-Tayac, a Rising Hearts activist, Washington, D.C., native and member of the Piscataway tribe.
Native American Activists
Predicted Disney Would Buy Fox
'The Simpsons'
"The Simpsons" has always had a bizarre knack for fortune telling.
So, when news broke on Thursday that Disney is buying film, TV and international assets from 21st Century Fox (oddly enough, including "The Simpsons"), people on Twitter were quick to point out that the show predicted this would happen almost 20 years ago.
In 1998, "The Simpsons" aired a Hollywood-themed episode titled "When You Dish Upon a Star," which featured a 20th Century Fox logo with the words "A division of Walt Disney Co" underneath it.
Over the beloved animated series' 28-year run, "The Simpsons" has accurately prophesied Facetime, Lady Gaga's halftime performance at the Super Bowl, and - most famously -Donald Trump's (R-Pendejo) presidency.
The president-predicting episode, which aired in 2000, shows Lisa Simpson as the future U.S. president and successor to President Trump.
'The Simpsons'
Sued For Defamation
Jeanine Pirro
A civil rights activist is suing Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, claiming she defamed him while discussing a lawsuit against the Black Lives Matter movement that was later dismissed.
The lawsuit states that DeRay McKesson was falsely arrested in 2016 while attending a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in which a police officer was struck in the face with a rock and seriously injured.
The officer sued the Black Lives Matter movement and McKesson for his injuries.
After the officer's lawsuit was dismissed, Pirro "made a series of outrageously false and defamatory statements about Mr. McKesson, including that he directed someone to hit the police officer in the face with a rock," McKesson's lawsuit said.
Pirro's statements, which were made during an appearance on the Fox News show "Fox & Friends," were extremely dangerous and continue to endanger McKesson, the lawsuit said.
Jeanine Pirro
Believe The Women
Half Of American Voters
Fifty percent of voters believe that the sexual misconduct allegations against President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Crooked) are "credible," according to a new survey from Politico and Morning Consult.
Trump has been accused of some form of sexual misconduct - ranging from harassment to assault and rape - by 21 women. Still, 29 percent of the voters surveyed said they don't believe those accusations are credible and 21 percent remain undecided.
There is a clear partisan divide on the issue: 62 percent of Democrats and 38 percent of Republicans said they believe the allegations against Trump are credible. Twenty-five percent of Democrats and 38 percent of Republicans do not.
The even split among Republicans extends to self-identified Trump voters, 39 percent of whom believe the accusations are credible and 37 percent of whom do not.
The survey polled 1,955 registered voters between Dec. 8 and Dec. 11. Most of the interviews were completed before four of the president's accusers held a press conference on Monday calling for a congressional investigation into these allegations.
Half Of American Voters
The 'New Normal'
Warming Arctic
A rapidly warming Arctic, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the planet, is the "new normal," and the melting ice is triggering environmental changes that will affect the whole world, warned a global scientific report Tuesday.
The Arctic is going through "an unprecedented transition in human history," that will accelerate sea level rise and boost the frequency of extreme weather events, said the Arctic Report Card, released annually by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The region around the north pole "shows no sign of returning to the reliably frozen region it was decades ago," it said.
Last year, winter sea ice fell to the smallest extent on record, and air temperatures reached the second warmest in modern times, said the peer-reviewed report compiled by 85 scientists from 12 nations.
The consequences of this continued warming are dire, according to co-author Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA's Arctic Research Program.
Warming Arctic
Linked to Negative Health Effects
Fracking
Babies born to mothers who lived near fracking wells during pregnancy are more likely to experience negative health effects than babies born elsewhere, according to new research.
Researchers behind the study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that living within 1 km (0.6 miles) of a fracking well during pregnancy increased odds of low birth weight by 25%. Low birth rates are associated with a slew of different health effects later in life, including various illnesses and developmental problems. The effect was lower but still significant in babies whose mother lived between 1 and 3 km (1.9 miles) from a well during pregnancy, according to the study. Researchers found little effect beyond 3 km.
Fracking, which is short for hydraulic fracturing, has transformed the U.S. energy system in recent years by opening vast reserves of oil and natural gas once thought to be unreachable or too costly to exploit. That change has helped keep energy prices low and pushed coal, which is among the dirtiest fuels, out of top slot for energy in the U.S.
But lingering concerns about the health risks posed by fracking, as well as worries about natural gas's contributions to climate change, have prompted widespread opposition from lawmakers and activists alike. New York, Maryland and Vermont have all banned the extraction process.
The authors of the new study relied on data from more than 1.1 million births between 2004 and 2013 in Pennsylvania, where fracking wells pepper the state. When applied to the entire country, the findings suggest that annually some 29,000 newborns could be affected.
Fracking
Rising At An Alarming Rate
Legionnaires' Disease
Health officials are increasingly concerned about the continuous uptick of Legionnaires' disease cases, which have risen steadily since 2000.
While the waterborne bacterial disease is relatively rare ? with 6,238 cases nationwide so far this year ? there has been a 13.6 percent increase in cases since this time last year. That's nearly double the increase of 7.8 percent from 2015 to 2016 in the same time period.
The disease is not contagious. It's contracted when people breathe in water droplets contaminated with Legionella pneumophilia bacteria.
For most people, Legionnaires' disease is treatable with antibiotics, but it can cause severe respiratory illnesses or pneumonia and is fatal for about 1 out of every 10 people who contract it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Edens also pointed to the rise in temperatures nationwide - with longer summers meaning more usage of cooling towers - as another potential factor in the increase.
Legionnaires' Disease
Controversial Judicial Nominee Withdraws Nomination
Brett Talley
President-for-now Donald Trump (R-Corrupt) is giving up on trying to confirm one of his most controversial judicial nominees, Brett Talley, a White House spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday to HuffPost.
"Talley has offered to withdraw his nomination, thus it will not be moving forward," said the White House spokeswoman.
It's an embarrassing setback for Trump, and marks his first real loss in judicial nominations. But Talley's nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama has been riddled with problems from the beginning.
Talley, who is a 36-year-old deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, has only practiced law for three years and has never tried a case. He failed to disclose to the Senate that his wife is chief of staff to White House counsel Don McGahn, who oversees the judicial nominations. He's tweeted about Hillary Clinton being "rotten," and said his solution to the Sandy Hook shooting massacre "would be to stop being a society of pansies and man up."
Talley, who also writes horror novels and was a paranormal activity investigator, earned the rare distinction of being rated unanimously "not qualified" by the American Bar Association.
Brett Talley
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