Welcome to mid-winter. The snow is flying, the skiers are schussing, the snowmen are plotting world domination, and your grip on my soul is slipping faster than the folks walking on our neighbor's sidewalk that they never bother to shovel or de-ice. (The proper authorities have been notified.)
Having fun yet?
So it's money-asking time once again. Totally win-win: you get C&J for another year and I get to relinquish my soul for another year, which frees up valuable storage space in my chest cavity for candy corn. And also, secondarily, it helps pay the rent.
If you're in the mood to keep C&J going for another year on this amazing Goldilocks planet of ours, I'd be honored to slip a fresh diaper on my head and fresh ribbons in my 50 chain-smoking monkeys' typewriters. A hundred years ago Kos set up PayPal accounts for both one-time donations and recurring monthly donations. The monthly subscriptions are hugely helpful for minimizing the total needed during this annual pledge week:
To send a donation via snail mail, the address is:
Bill Harnsberger, 16 Pitt Street, Portland, ME, 04103.
If you're already a C&J monthly subscriber through PayPal
You don’t have to do anything but make sure your card is still active
and then feel good about your excellent investment.
Overall, my employment record with "you people" is fairly decent. I did take some sick days last year, I admit, but in return you got a six-month endorphin rush watching me destroy cancer with the ruthless efficiency of Patton's Third Army. Plus we helped raise money for progressive candidates and causes, served as a welcome cabana for new Daily Kos readers getting their bloggerfeet wet, provided sanctuary from the pie fights, and continued working on my secret project in the basement that in 2003 we said we'd never publicly discuss again until it was fully tested and operational. We plan to continue all of the above in 2020, with the added bonus of knocking Republicans out of every elected office in the land in 278 days.
As always, thanks for keeping the C&J kiddie pool inflated for America and freedom. But not for Jay SUCKulow, because he’s a doofbutt.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Note: You'll have to forgive me if I get emotional in C&J today. [Long pause] [Lip quivers] [A single tear falls] National Puzzle Day always makes me fall to pieces.
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By the Numbers:
10 days!!!
Days 'til Super Tuesday, with primary contests in AL, AR, CA, CO, ME, MA, MN, NC, OK, TN, TX, UT, VT and VA: 34
Trump's approval with women in the latest ABC News-WaPost poll: 33%
Percent of Americans, according to a Quinnipiac poll, who say they're paying "a lot" of attention to the impeachment trial: 57%
Date on which Goldman Sachs will implement its new rule that states it won't help take any company public unless it has at least one woman or non-white board member: 7/1/20
Percent increase in food & beverage companies between 2007 and 2017, according to federal data, versus a 2% decline in all businesses: 35%
Estimated number of dreams you'll have this year, according to some web site: 1,460
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 185 (including 6 earthquakes and 1 possible Pittsburgh Apocalypse around dinnertime). Soul Protection Factor 12 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
CHEERS to history of the historic kind. What should've been the top story of Monday was instead relegated to the back burner because every day is a What Did He Do Now? day in the Age of Trump. So, if you missed it, here's Virginia's legislative leadership signing the freaking Equal Rights Amendment, officially becoming the 38th state to do so:
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Signing the Equal Rights Amendment with President Pro Tempore @SenLouiseLucas, Madam Clerk Suzette Denslow of the House and Madam Clerk Susan Clarke Schar of the Senate. Now the ERA is off to Washington and into the Constitution! pic.twitter.com/yk6nSOdAgP
Now all that needs to happen is for the 1982 ratification deadline to be retroactively extended with a vote in….oh, fer god's sake…the United States Senate. That leaves us with two choices: either some brave soul gives Mitch McConnell a lap dance in exchange for his green light, or we wait 'til 2021 and nobody loses their soul. [Counts the votes] Yeah, okay, it’s unanimous. Option #2 it is. Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. (Virginia Slims, of course.)
CHEERS to ink, ink, everywhere. I don’t know how this whole John Bolton things ends, but he sure is riding the now-petrified Republicans like a show donkey. I'm under no illusions that he'll be anything but a hostile witness if Democrats get him on the impeachment trial stand, but he'll still manage to do quite a bit of damage. In the meantime, the headlines swirling around revelations from his new book are reaching F-5 levels. Here are just some of the headlines I clipped out of the papers with my special rounded-edge scissors yesterday (before lining my birdcage with them, ha ha ha, that one never gets old):
John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi
Bolton book roils Washington as onetime allies turn on Trump's former national security adviser
Republicans take a deep breath after Bolton scare
John Bolton crashes the impeachment trial
Bolton relaxes at Sandals after turning in his manuscript.
Mitch McConnell is angry at White House over John Bolton manuscript
John Kelly: "I believe John Bolton"
Schumer says Senate must vote to call Bolton as witness
Trump team dismisses Bolton book storm
How John Bolton became Trump's worst enemy
Trump's lawyers suffer from Bolton-induced amnesia
Republican senators fear a 'domino effect' on witnesses following Bolton's allegation
White House accuses Bolton of 'selling out'
Bolton bombshell could shake up Wall Street, investors say
John Bolton was regularly appalled by Trump and didn’t know if he was acting in America's interests
CHEERS to #25. Happy birthday to William "The Idol of Ohio" McKinley, the last president who was a Civil War veteran, born on January 29, 1843 in Niles, Ohio. Talk about cruising to victory—in 1896, while Democrat William Jennings Bryan was dashing around the country on a measly $50,000, McKinley campaigned from his back porch, carnation in lapel, and sipping iced tea as his fat-cat supporters raised $3 million for him. Once in office, he was goaded into war with Spain, resulting in our acquisition of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, followed by intervention in the Boxer rebellion in China. In their book Rating the Presidents, William Ridings and Stuart McIver reveal the verdict rendered by over 700 historians and political scientists on McKinley's presidency:
[He was] a better-than-average president, [with] highest marks for the "Accomplishments and Crisis Management" category, rating him fifteenth.
If his first-term VP hadn’t died in office, we would’ve had...um...President Garrett Hobart.
They are, however, sparing in their praise. "A pious expansionist," writes one, while another comments, "events lifted him above mediocrity."
Unfortunately his belly got in the way of a couple bullets fired by an anarchist five years later, and that's how we got the guy the GOP chairman called "that damned cowboy," Teddy Roosevelt, in office. Pay your respects at his humble resting place. (If you ever plan to visit in person, be sure to take along a Sherpa. And don't look down.)
CHEERS to Bibi's terrible, horrible, no-good day. The hits just kept on comin' for Israel's conservative wrecking ball prime minister yesterday. First he had to spend a bunch of time sucking up to useful idiot Donald Trump at the White House, feigning interest and chuckling at every shitty punching-down "joke" the impeached president tried to tell. Then he found out, via the modern-day convenience called the “telegraph,” that the long arm of the law had finally caught up with his corrupt ass:
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Tuesday filed the indictment against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust with the Jerusalem District Court. “The indictment was filed a short time ago… as is required by law,” Mandelblit’s office said.
Boom, buddy.
The move marks the first time in Israel’s history that a serving prime minister will face criminal charges, casting a heavy shadow over Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, his legacy and his ongoing attempts to remain in power.
So the race is on. Who will see the inside of a jail cell first, the Quisling from Queens or the Tyrant from Tel-Aviv? Place your bets. And good luck.
JEERS to lying liars. On January 29, 2001, President George W. Bush promised to "act boldly and swiftly" to deal with our challenges concerning energy. His brilliant idea: put Cheney in charge of a secret task force that would make sure nothing happened boldly or swiftly. As a result, the big oil companies were forced to deal with the challenge of where to sock away all their record profits. (I guess that explains why the Exxon-Mobil CEO's mattress ended up twelve stories high.)
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 29, 2010
CHEERS to butting in. Score another victory for the Obama FDA. Cigarette companies will in the near-future be required to disclose the ingredients in their death sticks. I don’t quite understand what the holdup is. I mean, how long does it take to submit a piece of paper that says: "Shit, Shit Byproducts, and Menthol" on it?
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And just one more…
MEGA-WORSHIPFUL CHEERS to the Great and Powerful "O". Pardon me, I have a song to sing:
Happy birthday to you…
Ow Ow Ow Ow!!!
Happy birthday to you…
Ow Ow Ow!!!
Happy 66th…
Ow Ow ow!!!
...er, 39th birthday, dear Oprah,
Again, I say, and I can’t stress this enough: Ow!!!
Happy birthday to you.
There, I sang it. Now please, ma'am...remove your heel from my neck.
Have a nice Wednesday. Oh, and happy 56th anniversary, Dr. Strangelove. Today in the C&J cafeteria: 50 percent off all precious bodily fluids. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Chris Wallace scolds Bill in Portland Maine during heated exchange in Cheers and Jeers: "Get your kiddie pool skimmed!"
Donald Trump has raged at his ex-national security adviser John Bolton, saying the Ukraine claims made in his forthcoming new memoir are “nonsense” and declaring he would have started “World War Six” if he had not been removed from office last September as the Republican effort to discredit him continues.A new poll by Quinnipiac University has meanwhile found that 75 per cent of Americans want to hear from Mr Bolton at the president’s Senate impeachment trial as GOP majority leader Mitch McConnell is forced to admit he does not currently have the votes to stop Democrats calling new witnesses to speak out.
We know Mitch McConnell doesn’t want witnesses. We know he controls everything about this trial. But what the voters want is something else. So, see you in November, Mr Current Majority Leader.
Perhaps the main thing to come out of impeachment is that whereas before we strongly suspected the Congressional GOP were lying knaves in it for power, we now know for certain Congressional GOP are lying knaves in it for power.
Even if the Senate does not remove Donald Trump, this impeachment is far from a mistake
The judgment of the court of public opinion will matter more to history and the 2020 elections than the verdict in the Senate impeachment trial.
I would most emphatically suggest that undertaking the impeachment investigation was far from a mistake. Even with the deck stacked against a just outcome by a GOP leadership that has lost sight of the most basic ideals associated with public service, much good has come out of this process and might come out of it even in the event of an acquittal.
First, the mere pursuit of the facts by the House has both underscored the importance of accountability, and it has, in a very systematic and public way, revealed the facts of this case. Trump, McConnell and the army of parrots spouting White House talking points may repeatedly say otherwise, but the president’s wrongdoing has been made crystal clear, and many of those detailing or corroborating it have been witnesses who are above reproach, objective and distinguished. Many of them are Trump appointees or apolitical career public servants. Today, poll after poll reveals that a substantial majority of Americans believe that the president is guilty of wrongdoing, and about half believe he should be removed from office.
When facts are bad:
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Senate Majority Whip John Thune told us the Senate shouldn’t hear from Bolton, arguing it could create an “endless cycle†when “facts are all out there.â€Â“I don’t think that anything that he’s going to say changes the fact..I think people kind of know what the fact pattern is.â€Â
And that about sums it up. So keep calling your Senators.
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4/ Hunter on the stand is also a great opportunity for the house managers to start talking about Jared, Nepotism Barbie, Don Junior, and Eric the Slow. unintended consequences. How do they work?
Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly tells Sarasota crowd ‘I believe John Bolton’
President Donald Trump is denying that he told former National Security Advisor John Bolton he wanted to withhold military aid from Ukraine until the country launched investigations into Joe Biden and his son, allegations that Bolton levies in his new book, according to news reports.
But one of Trump’s former top aides told a Sarasota audience Monday evening that if the reporting on what Bolton wrote is accurate, he believes Bolton.
“If John Bolton says that in the book, I believe John Bolton,” said retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 18 months.
Maybe that will get McMaster and Mattis off the fence.
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Woke up a bit ago to some angry texts from Rudy Giuliani. He's pissed Dems aren't considering calling him as a witness and says "they are afraid of my physical presence." "Why do they want Bolton if not me," he says. "Again I really should stop wasting my time." #impeachment
Trump waived executive privilege when he called Bolton a liar
If the Senate decides to summon the former national security adviser, the president won’t have much recourse left.
President Trump refers to himself as a counterpuncher. This time, he might have punched too hard.
In a series of tweets just after midnight Monday, Trump responded to weekend reporting about a forthcoming book by his former national security adviser John Bolton. The book reportedly reveals that Trump tied military aid for Ukraine to his demands for investigations into his political rivals. Trump’s tweets directly dispute the truth of these claims. He may have been hoping to push wavering Senate Republicans away from agreeing to call Bolton to testify in the impeachment trial. But in the process, Trump probably waived any executive privilege that he could have claimed to keep Bolton quiet if that gambit fails.
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It's stunning that some folks are treating the idea that Senate Republicans were "blindsided" by the Bolton bombshell as a real argument. It's self-incriminating. What really "blindsided" them is that their cover-up for Trump has been upended. New piece: https://t.co/PzWeTgIYQS
Republicans Are Trying to Interfere in the 2020 Democratic Primary
Here’s the quote:
Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening and I’m really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters. Those Democratic caucus goers — will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point? Not as certain about that.
In other words, the smear campaign against Joe Biden is an attempt by Republicans to interfere in the Democratic primary to knock him out of contention.
Democratic voters are free to make of this what they will. But the one thing they can’t do is to allow this kind of disinformation campaign based on conspiracy theories to be effective. Lying about opponents is now the modus operandi of Republicans because they are steeped in having to defend the most corrupt president in this country’s history. Disinformation is all they’ve got and they will use it mercilessly—especially against an opponent they fear.
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"Pretty subtle, huh?" Biden says after reading Ernst's comments. "You Iowa caucus-goers have a chance for a two-fer. You can ruin Donald Trump's night by caucusing for me. And you can ruin Joni Ernst's night."
Not to mention the Democratic presidential race. It can be done, if you put your mind to it.
Gail: I have to admit the Bolton revelation — which, as you point out, is a big moment but not exactly a big surprise — perked me up. But one of the many downsides of the Senate trial is the amount of time people are having to spend contemplating the heart and mind of Susan Collins.
The Coronavirus Questions that Scientists are Racing to Answer
Although scientists have learned a lot so far, there is still much they do not know about the novel virus spreading in China and other countries
HOW DANGEROUS IS THIS INFECTION?
The reports emerging suggest a pretty significant portion of cases are seriously ill. For instance, in a report China’s national health authorities posted Monday, about 17% of total cases were severely ill. And about 3% of confirmed cases had died.
Those are frightening numbers. But if the confirmed cases represent only a fraction of the total cases — and they likely do — that could really change the math. Until we have a better handle on the total number of cases it’s premature to draw conclusions.
Is China ready for this major global health challenge?
Beijing invested heavily in public health around the world — but left troubling gaps at home
Is China protecting its global image — or its citizens?
Chinese officials have been working hard since SARS to build up the country’s reputation as a global health leader. Indeed, China’s investments in global health help make up for funding shortfalls, including recent reductions in global health commitment from countries such as the United States.
But the stigma of the SARS coverups at home in 2003 may overpower the impact of these global assistance efforts. China is receiving big hits to its domestic and international reputation because of its lack of preparedness to fight yet another outbreak of a strange pneumonia-like virus within its borders.
This kind of pressure speaks to Chinese leaders, who don’t want to be “forever nailed to history’s pillar of shame,” as one Communist Party statement explained last week. Ultimately, it is this type of pressure that might help China figure out how to balance its commitment to global health with that of domestic preparedness.
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"Electability" has become a watchword of this year's Democratic primary, but the polling on what that actually means to voters is really complicated. I tried to break it down a bit: https://t.co/Jz8KWPWfgq
President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani is notably absent from the legal team defending him in the Senate impeachment trial. Catherine Herridge sits down with him to talk about his ongoing war of words with John Bolton and explains why he can't defend Mr. Trump at the trial.
A senior administration official deeply involved in the White House impeachment strategy has told CBS News they are on "DEFCON 2" after Mr. Trump's lawyers wrapped his defense Tuesday. Mitch McConnell told colleagues he does not have the votes to block witness testimony as pressure on John Bolton to testify skyrockets. Nancy Cordes is on Capitol Hill with the next steps in the president's historic trial.
The Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump continues Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET, kicking off the question and answer portion that will last up to a total of 16 hours over the next two days.
The impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump is nearing a pivotal vote on whether to hear from witnesses requested by Senate Democrats arguing for his removal from office.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, was caught drinking chocolate milk out of a bottle on the Senate floor on Tuesday afternoon — a breach of the Senate impeachment trial rules.
So this is it. Today, we find out WTF comes next in the Trump impeachment trial. Could be witnesses. Could be nothing. Greg Dworkin joins us in trying to guess. But the problem is, the players we’re trying to guess about are all dipshit fascist puppets.
So, that’s a show!
Listen right here at 9:00 AM ET! Even more ways to listen, live or by podcast, below the fold.
