Happy 21st blogiversary to the persnicketiest band of muckrakers and misfits in Blogger Land. It all started when a dirty effing hippie named Markos Hemp Flower Rainbow Moonbat Moulitsas emerged from his deep-state law school cocoon, flapped his tie-dye wings on May 26, 2002, and proclaimed: “I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies.” It's been all high-quality blah blah blah ever since.
"The" Daily Kos percolated for several months before I discovered it (via the Dean for America blog) and got addicted to the weekly 2004 primary “cattle calls” (which were revived for 2020, delighting audiences around the globe). After that, all hell broke loose and it's been a sprint for world domination ever since.
Continued...
Today Daily Kos has an amazing Elections Team, affiliation with Civiqs polling, dulcet-toned David Waldman and Justice Putnam on the radio, an activism and community-building arm, talented front-page and diary contributors (of note lately: Kos’s and Mark Sumner's Ukraine updates and Joan McCarter's laser-focus on the doings in the House and Senate), and groups within the community that focus on everything from environmental issues and labor to pooties and the day's top comments.
Just a fad……..since 2002.
We also continue to raise a ton of money and generate grassroots support for campaigns at the local, state, and federal level, not to mention over $3 million for relief agencies in Ukraine. Among our registered members: Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, John Fetterman, Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, and Stephen Colbert.
We even caught the eye of late luminaries like Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid (may they rest in a hereafter with no fucking filibuster headaches). Tonight we pour out a splash of drinkey in their honor, and all the beloved DK community members—too many, dammit—who have left us.
Despite the meta wars, sigh-inducing GBCWs, and the sheer crazy volume of information that gets posted every day, The 'The' "The" Daily Kos is still a vital national source of netroots-level analysis, opinion, issue-vetting, fundraising, snarking, storytelling and flying furniture. Only a fool would try to herd our breed of cats. So from all of me to all of you—especially you, Kos, our mighty Keyboard Kingpin and your “squadrons of rabid lambs”—Happy #21 from user ID #2574. May your hearts remain progressive, and your hands always be filled with pies.
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 26, 2023
Note: We wish you a safe, healthy, and hammock-filled holiday weekend. C&J will return on Tuesday, May 30. Probably with an errant lawn dart or two stuck in our foot, thigh, chest, head or buttock region. Because we hate to break with tradition. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
6 days!!!
Weeks 'til the start of the July 4th holiday weekend: 5
Prison sentence for Richard "Bigo" Barnett, the Jan. 6 traitor who sat in Speaker Pelosi's chair and propped his feet up on her desk: 4.5 years
Number of songs Tina Turner had on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including her #1 hit What's Love Got to Do with It?: 17
Rank of Delta among best airlines rated by The Points Guys based on "factors such as reliability, affordability, loyalty programs and customer experience": #1
Year in which Congress officially declared Waterloo, New York as the birthplace of the Memorial Day holiday: 1966
CHEERS and JEERS to the week in review. Just a quick moment to take lightning-round inventory of our universe as we prepare to pause for an extended holiday weekend of picnics, memorials, flight delays, and lots of unexplained rashes:
» Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues huffing turpentine vapors.
Also, as is obvious, the Earth remains a flat disc.
» Republicans continued their love affair with carnage and chaos.
» Every Republican-inspired mass-murder prevention measure, up to and including funding the police, failed to prevent mass murders.
» The Florida Man who wants to be the 47th president of the United States bumbled his rollout so badly that he’ll probably succeed.
» Daily Kos turned 21 and marked the occasion with several hours of botox injections.
» Gas prices are down. Inflation is down. Egg prices are down. Unemployment is down. Infrastructure construction is up. Optimism is up. But Biden is old so I question his competence.
» A ruthless and scary space alien trapped the Enterprise in a tractor beam and threatened to blow it up unless its demands were met, but it turns out it was just baby Clint Howard who was easily fooled by Captain Kirk's fake "Corbomite Maneuver."
Oh, and NOAA released its forecastfor the 2023 hurricane season, which starts next Thursday. Consensus: the gays, feminists, and pagans are still angry. Can’t say I blame ‘em.
CHEERS to multitasking. As our endorphins go wild over the prospect that our first warm-weather holiday weekend (and the unofficial start of summer) is upon us, Michael Embrich of the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs’ Advisory Committee on the Readjustment of Veteransoffers up a few wordsfor the occasion:
Originally known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day was first observed in 1868, after the Civil War, when Major Gen. John A. Logan declared that May 30th should be a day to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers. It became an official federal holiday in 1971 and is now observed on the last Monday in May.
It is important to remember that Memorial Day is not just another three-day weekend or an excuse to head down to the Shore and have a barbeque. It is a day to honor the sacrifice of those who have died for our freedom, and to reflect on the true meaning of patriotism.
And, as always, we pause to reflect on Dwight Eisenhower's famous words: "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." Me, too. Minus the living it part, but I'll take his word for it.
CHEERS to the other star-spangled banner. Here’s a notable event to muse on this Memorial Day. On May 29, 1916, the official flag of the President of the United States was adopted by executive order. This is interesting, via the late historian David McCullough:
One morning, standing at his desk, [President Truman] presented to the press a new presidential flag … “This new flag faces the eagle toward the staff,” Truman explained, “which is looking to the front all the time when you are on the march, and also has him looking at the olive branch for peace, instead of the arrows for war …”
To me it looks like the eagle flew into a window.
Both the flag and presidential seal had been redesigned for the first time since the Wilson years, and Truman meant the shift in the eagle’s gaze to be seen as symbolic of a nation both on the march and dedicated to peace.
CHEERS to the end of the end. It was all over for Tricky Dick 49 years ago tomorrow, thanks to a 27-11 vote by the House Judiciary Committee to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Nixon who, said ABC News's Tom Jarrell at the time, was "presumably still in his swim trunks" while on vacation in California when he heard the news. Meanwhile, then-VP Gerald Ford just couldn’t help but play a little game of up-is-downism:
Ford: It's interesting that every Democrat on the committee—north and south—voted for the article. ... It tends to make it a partisan issue.
Oh knock it off and get the f*ck outta here, crook.
Reporter: Even if one-third of Republicans voted for it?
Ford: Well, the fact that every one of the Democrats voted for it, I think, uh, lends credence that it's a partisan issue, even though some Republicans have deviated.
...said the Republican who later unilaterally exonerated the Republican crook. But, hey, what's a little hypocrisy among friends?
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's some of the haps on TV this weekend, starting tonight with a pre-Memorial Day MSNBC reality check by the prime time hosts, or you can join me at 8 on the H&I Network for live-tweeting (at #allstartrek) of the classic Trek episode What Are Little Girls Made Of? with guest Ted “Lurch” Cassidy as a very tall robot in a very puffy robot suit.
Oops. I accidentally posted the logo of this weekend’s winning NBA team. Sorry ‘bout that.
The new movies and streamers (led by Rob Marshall’s live-action update of The Little Mermaid) are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. The MLB schedule is here, the NHL Stanley Cup finals schedule is here, the WNBA schedule is here, and the NBA east finals schedule is here (Go Boston woo woo woo). Or you can catch the Indy 500 Sunday starting at 12:30 on NBC, followed by the final round of the Senior Open golf tournament (Go ghost of Ben Hogan woo woo woo). Saturday night at 10 Sarah Silverman debuts her new standup special Someone You Love on HBO.
Sunday on 60 Minutes: an encore of the profile they did on Tina Turner. The National Memorial Day Concert airs Sunday at 8 on PBS. And beyond that you should just go outside and tiptoe through the tulips.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Roy Blunt (The Cult-MO).
Also: Debt Ceiling Cat will explain the latest negotiations by chasing the red dot from a laser pointer around the studio.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Microsoft President Brad Smith; Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee.
CNN's State of the Union: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA); Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison; Gov. Chris Sununu (The Cult-NH).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Speaker Kevin McCarthy (The Cult-CA); Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT); Sen. Lindsey Graham (The Cult-SC).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 26, 2013
CHEERS to the Master of the World. Belated C&J congrats to Sathwik Karnik, the Massachusetts seventh-grader who won the 2013 National Geographic Bee and gave King Philip Middle School good reason to cheer:
The victory was the Karnik family’s dream come true, [coach Dave] Quinn said. This is the third year a Karnik has appeared in the bee’s final round. … Sathwik is a veritable triple threat. He has previously competed and placed in science and math competitions, including one at MIT, and is looking forward to competing more.
The 12 year-old Karnik won the event in the final round when he was the only contestant who was able to go to his room and locate a clean pair of socks.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to today’s pop quiz. No peeking or Googling—if you try to cheat, I’ve inserted malware that will make your computer or smartphone start playing a never-ending loop of It’s A Small World After All, so fair warning. Here’s the question: who was the first senior Trump official—aka rat on the sinking ship—to flee the White House six years ago this week? Here’s a pleasant musical interlude while you’re thinking it over…
If you said Communications Director Michael Dubke, you win! Since that fateful day a mere 3 months after the stable genius who “only hires the best people” took the oath, the revolving door spun so fast that even Rachel Maddow gave up adding new names to her giant Departures Board. By the end of his massive fail in office, the only people left were the ones resigned to hosing him down with spray-on tan, fetching his cheeseburgers, and shoving UV lights up his tuchus. I wonder if they’re sitting at home bored with all the winning yet. On second thought, no, I really don’t.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
Monday House Democrats continue their two-week "district work period." House Republicans continue their two-week "sleep ‘til noon then take a nap" period.
Losing Wisconsin state Supreme Court candidate Dan Kelly prepares to spend the week in his mancave sobbing into his MyPillow because he got landslided by a girl.
Tuesday The 45thpresident of the United States remains indicted on 34 counts of financial fraud, and today those indictments will sue to get moved to a different defendant because being attached to Donald Trump is hurting their credibility.
The white board that chews up and spits out corporate shills in House committee hearings appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, along with its trusty assistant Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).
Continued...
Wednesday Kevin McCarthy suffers a brief pang of conscience. It quickly passes and his office staff cancels the 911 call.
All week: Ukrainian farmers continue to harvest their spring bumper crop.
After a bombshell report concludes that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose lavish trips to posh resorts via yachts and private jets he received from a Hitler-infatuated Republican billionaire, the MAGA cult begs the Hitler-infatuated Republican billionaire to be Trump’s vice führ...er, vice president, I think. [Re-checks notes] Nope, my bad. It’s vice führer.
Thursday Oh poo. Another day, another day JFK Jr. doesn’t show up anywhere disguised as anybody.
America's Republican governors issue a joint statement of apology to their base voters and Fox News after they realize they've gone a full day without signing a piece of anti-woman, anti-Black, or anti-LGBTQ legislation into law.
Friday The University of Michigan announces the consumer sentiment index for April. Analysts are puzzled as America’s mood swings from rebarbative to effulgent.
The spring fiddlehead forecast is released and, once again, experts are torn between "boiled" and "pickled."
Saddle up and let’s get this foolishness over with by suppertime.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Monday, April 10, 2023
Note: Two roads diverged in the wood. I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. My road had waffles at the end of it.
Number of times Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reported the ultra-luxury vacations and private jet travel provided to him by Republican billionaire mega-donor Harlan Crow over decades: 0
Number of times Tesla has cut prices since January: 5
Rank of the Louvre, British Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art among the world's most-visited art museums: #1, #2, #3
Percent chance that Kanye West's private Christian Donda Academy had "doors locked from the outside, lunches were always sushi, no forks or other utensils were allowed, no cleaning services or school nurses were employed, and medications on campus either were unsecured or had expired," according to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against him: 100%
Number of seconds after which this message will self-destruct: 5
CHEERS to jobs, jobs, jobs! (Or as Fox News describes it, since it's good news: "Nothing, nothing, nothing to see here!") If nothing else (and there's plenty else), President Biden has lorded over one hell of an employment comeback since taking office 27 months ago. The latest jobs report was so good (+236,000) that it was released by the Labor Department via confetti cannon on Friday. Bill McBride at Calculated Risk remains my go-to blog for number crunching, and he writes:
Overall, this was a solid employment report.
The headline jobs number in the March employment report was close to expectations, however employment for the previous two months was revised down by 17,000, combined. The participation rate and employment population ratio increased, and the unemployment rate decreased to 3.5%. […]
Damn. Whoever that Trump guy is, he really sucked.
[L]eisure and hospitality has now added back about 96% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020. Construction employment decreased 9 thousand and is now 280 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing lost 1 thousand jobs and is now 198 thousand above the pre-pandemic level.
One guy who won’t be getting his dream job: Wisconsin state Supreme Court candidate Dan Kelly. He got beat by a girl, and now he’ll be mooching and taking from you and me when he marches down to the unemployment office and demands his free money. Pffft. Republicans are so predictable.
CHEERS to the return of the Jedi. Obi-Wan Kenobi said it plain to Darth Vader a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away: "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine," a sentiment Princess Leia echoed when she told Grand Moff Tarkin, "The tighter you squeeze, the more the rebellion will slip through your fingers." So leave it to Tennessee Republicans to ignore their warnings and expel two young Black representatives (one of whom, Justin Jones, went to Bowdoin College here in Maine) from the state House for the crime of raising their voices in the chamber to call for action against school shootings. Not only are the pair becoming household names across the country for showing up the MAGA cult as the fascist hive of scum and villainy it is, their political careers appear to be only momentarily derailed:
At least 29 members of Nashville’s 40-seat Metro Council said they plan to reappoint expelled former Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and send him back to the Tennessee House of Representatives. That would give him more than the simple majority he would need to reclaim his seat. […]
“I spoke to Reps Jones, Pearson, and Johnson to thank them for their leadership and courage in the face of a blatant disregard of our nation’s democratic values. Our country needs to take action on gun violence—to do that we need more voices like theirs speaking out.”
—President Biden, Friday
"Most of us said, 'See you when you get reappointed,'" House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, said of his conversations with Jones and Pearson after the vote. In Shelby County, at least one of 13 county commissioners has vowed to reappoint Justin Pearson to his house seat.
Here's hoping they return to the House floor with force powers. The world would love to see their GOP colleagues get collectively pantsed.
CHEERS to a civil end to a most uncivil war. Big anniversary yesterday—in fact, it oughtta be a federal holiday. On April 9, 1865, following his final late-night cocaine orgy, Robert E. Lee called it quits and surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the southern traitors’ War for the Preservation of Owning Humans for Forced Labor.
Give the racist a purple nurple, Ulysses.
Several years ago a demographic historian concluded that the death toll of the war was much higher than originally thought—750,000 versus the original 620,000. Sadly, another number has also been extended far beyond its original estimate: the number of years it's taking too many white people in the South to admit they lost and put away that damn confederate battle flag. Hell, even slave owner and avowed racist treason-monger Lee had at least enough self-awareness to concern himself with post-war optics:
"When Robert E. Lee surrendered he asked all of his followers to furl this flag. Stow it away, he said. Put it in your attics," Clyburn continued. "He refused to be buried in his Confederate uniform. His family refused to allow anyone dressed in the confederate uniform to attend his funeral. "Why? Because Robert E. Lee said he considered this emblem to be a symbol of treason.”
He also didn’t want any statues of him put up, a request that fell on deaf ears as groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy erected hundreds of them (of Lee and other CSA icons, including a fresh batch in the 1960s to remind the civil rights movement to remember “their place”) as a way of living in denial of their treason. I’ll give the ‘em credit for one thing: they sure picked the right theme song. "Look away, DixieLand." Mission accomplished.
JEERS to non-refundable tickets. On April 10, 1912, the unsinkable RMS Titanic set off for New York from Southampton, England. That cruise, of course, turned out to be a disaster. The caviar was much too salty.
CHEERS to an accurate assessment. Funny thing about having a presidential administration that's staffed up and down the chain with smart, competent, sober-eyed professionals: when they issue a report on something, you can count on it to be truthful and accurate. Exhibit A: its report on our military withdrawal from Afghanistan, something that should've happened a lot earlier than it did. The place was always a quagmire rife with corruption, "victory" could never be defined (let alone achieved), and we knew darn well from Russia's catastrophic withdrawal that it was never going to end well for us either. And so it didn't. Bush II and Obama—and even Biden, a bit—deserve to take some lumps, but #45 is rightfully getting the Adderall-sniffing lion's share of the blame for setting the withdrawal in motion:
Since the U.S. withdrawal, Biden has blamed the February 2020 agreement Trump reached with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, saying it boxed the U.S. into leaving the country. The agreement has been blamed by analysts for undercutting the U.S.-backed government, which collapsed the following year.
Pete Buttigieg serving in Afghanistan.
Under the U.S.-Taliban Doha agreement, roughly 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released as a condition for what were supposed to be separate future peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban. [John] Kirby noted that release and other examples of what he said was a “general sense of degradation and neglect” inherited by Biden. […]
The U.S. was to remove all forces by May 1, 2021. Biden pushed a full withdrawal to September but declined to delay further, saying it would prolong a war that had long needed to end.
And now, $2 trillion and over 200,000 dead people later, everything in Afghanistan is back to the way it was on September 10, 2001. The End.
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), one of the last remaining Democratic holdouts to oppose same-sex marriage, announced Monday that he now supports gay nuptials. "After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation," Johnson said in a statement.
"This position doesn't require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom."
By my count, that's 54 senators in favor of gay marriage, with Democrats Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Pryor (AR) and Mary Landrieu (LA) still acting like they don’t support it when of course they do. Pretty soon the closet's gonna be filled with nobody but straight people in denial. And I promise to support their right to get married.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the wind beneath the New Deal's wings. She was born on April 10, 1880 in Boston, but her ancestral roots were in Maine, where she spent much of her downtime and was laid to rest (in Newcastle) in 1965. Her strict parents wanted her to be a teacher and live at home, but Frances Perkins had other plans. Bearing witness to how badly the employed and unemployed were treated, she made it her life's mission to do something about it. Her smarts and tenacity led her to the position where, with the full backing of her boss, she stitched together the American social safety net we have today:
When, in February, 1933, President-elect Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of Labor, she outlined for him a set of policy priorities she would pursue: a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; unemployment compensation; worker’s compensation; abolition of child labor; direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief; Social Security; a revitalized federal employment service; and universal health insurance.
FDR signs Social Security into law, with Frances Perkins looking on behind him.
She made it clear to Roosevelt that his agreement with these priorities was a condition of her joining his cabinet. Roosevelt said he endorsed them all, and Frances Perkins became the first woman in the nation to serve in a Presidential cabinet. […]
Within a month of Roosevelt’s inauguration, Congress enacted legislation establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps, which Roosevelt asked Perkins to implement. … Before Roosevelt presented his final One Hundred Days legislation to the Congress, the National Industrial Recovery Act, Perkins convinced him to allocate $3.3 billion for public works from the moneys appropriated. Serving as a member of the Special Board for Public Works, Perkins helped to ensure that money was spent on socially useful projects: schools, roads, highway, housing projects and post offices. Public works construction employed a many as 1.5 – 2 million people in 1934.
FDR's dynamic duo: Frances Perkins and Eleanor.
In1934, Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins to head a Committee on Economic Security, where she forged the blueprint of legislation finally enacted as the Social Security Act. Signed into law by the President on August 14, 1935, the Act included a system of old age pensions, unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation and aid to the needy and disabled. … In 1938, Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act, also crafted with the support of Perkins, establishing a minimum wage and maximum work hours and banning child labor. [...]
In1944, a piece portraying Frances Perkins in Collier’s magazine described her accomplishments over the previous twelve years as “not so much the Roosevelt New Deal, as … the Perkins New Deal.”
Today the Labor Department HQ in Washington is called the Frances Perkins Building. And in a sign of just how popular and durable her Social Security idea has become, President Joe Biden got safety net-hating Republicans to pledge, openly and publicly on national TV during his 2023 State of the Union address, not to touch it during budget negotiations. So this morning we say Happy Birthday #143 to Frances Perkins, the champion of workers' rights and retirees whose policies gave body to the Democratic party's soul. And many blessings on your camels.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are youcheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of algae in the kiddie pool is shocking—almost cartoonish. Bill in Portland Maine must be impeached."
Late Night Snark: What A Pleasant 2023 We’re Having Edition
"The House approved a set of rules that will weaken Speaker Kevin McCarthy's powers. Really? How could they possibly make him any weaker? They're already treating him like a substitute teacher on the last day of school. Are they gonna make him wear the KICK ME sign on the front? "
—Seth Meyers
"There's a huge story out of Brazil. They just had a presidential election and the loser was far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro claimed he lost because of voter fraud. And if that sounds familiar, this will too: Yesterday Bolsonaro supporters rioted, storming Brazil's Congress and presidential office. No! I cannot watch this movie again. I know how it ends: with all of a sudden liking Brazilian Liz Cheney."
—Stephen Colbert
Continued...
You are now below the fold. You fool. You poor, poor fool.
"On Monday we learned that lawyers for Joe Biden happened upon a handful of classified documents that were found in a private office he used at the University of Pennsylvania. Of course, anytime top-secret documents are mishandled it needs to be taken seriously. That's something Republicans and Democrats believe, although Republicans have only believed it since Monday."
—Jimmy Kimmel
New York Republicans called on Congressman George Santos to resign. Santos says he's not a quitter, and he proved it at the '92 Olympics by winning five gold medals."
—Jimmy Fallon
"Russian president Vladimir Putin has announced that he has demoted the top military commander in Ukraine and brought in a replacement. But you know what they say: When God closes a door, Putin opens a fourth-story window."
—Seth Meyers
"The world's first robot lawyer will soon defend a client against a speeding ticket in its first-ever court case. The artificial intelligence software will run on a smartphone, listen to the proceedings, and then instruct the defendant on what to say via an earpiece. Which is a long way of saying the defendant s going to jail."
—James Cordon
And two years ago this week:
"Trump got impeached in December 2019 and January 2021, and botched COVID in between. Dude basically made a pandemic sandwich with impeachment bread."
—Jimmy Fallon
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, January 13, 2023
Note: How do you know when Friday the 13th has brought you bad luck? When you find yourself reading Cheers and Jeers on a Friday night. Here endeth the lesson.
President Biden's approval rating among registered voters in the latest YouGov/Economist poll: 50%
Amount that'll be invested in Georgia's economy, thanks in part to the Inflation Reduction Act, when Hanwha Q Cell builds the largest solar panel company in the U.S.: $2.5 billion
Number of jobs that'll be created, many of which will not require a college degree: 2,500
Amount of $$$ generated Tuesday during the first seven hours of Connecticut's first day of legal marijuana sales: $250,000
Number of actors besides Sylvester Stallone to have starred in a #1 box-office movie in six consecutive decades: 0
CHEERS to taming the beast. Inflation is un-inflating, according to the latest report from the Federal Bureau of People Who Keep Track of These Things. Let's take a spin around the headlines we found on The World Wide Web and see how our media overlords are framing it:
Inflation Slowed Further in December for the Sixth Month in a Row (Washington Post)
Inflation cooled in December, bolstering hopes US can avert recession (ABC News)
U.S. inflation Cools Again, Putting Fed on Track to Downshift (Bloomberg)
Dow Climbs Over 200 Points After CPI Date Shows Cooling Inflation (CNBC)
In other news, this cursor is drunk again.
U.S. Inflation Rate Fell Last Month Amid Cheaper Fuel and Airfares (New York Times)
Biden Stuffs Classified Documents Down Pants as Democrats Continue Eating Babies and Illegals Pour Into Country To Rape and Pillage YOUR FAMILY (Fox News)
Prices fell in December as inflation continued to moderate (CNN)
As Inflation Eases, US Economy Looks Less Bleak (CBS News)
Nanobots Believed Responsible for Fake Inflation Numbers—Eggs now $1,000 Each (Breitbart)
Inflation cooled in December to 6.5%, but the Fed is likely to keep interest rates high (NBC News)
Okay, who blabbed about the nanobots?
JEERS to placenta behind the wheel. Oh, hey, Virginia, here's another outstanding use of your tax dollars—paying the salaries of the MAGA nimrods behind this:
A Virginia bill would deem a pregnant person's fetus a passenger in a car, thereby allowing the vehicle to use the car pool lane on highways.
“Honk HONK!!! Outta the way, you effing idiot!”
—Hot-headed Blastocyst Carpooler
HB 1894, which a Republican legislator pre-filed in the General Assembly on Tuesday, "provides that a pregnant woman shall be considered two people for the purposes of determining occupancy" in high occupancy vehicle and high occupancy toll lanes on expressways in the state.
But they stopped short of allowing HOV lane access for vehicles with a "God is My Co-Pilot" sticker on their bumper. Because, c'mon, that would just be silly.
CHEERS to stopping with all the shooting and the banging and the bayoneting and whatnot. 239 years ago tomorrow, on January 14, 1784, Congress ratifiedthe Treaty of Paris, officially ending our War of Independence:
After the British defeat at Yorktown, peace talks in Paris began in April 1782 between Richard Oswarld representing Great Britain and the American Peace Commissioners Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams.
Can you IMAGINE what this would fetch on eBay today?
The American negotiators were joined by Henry Laurens two days before the preliminary articles of peace were signed on November 30, 1782. The Treaty of Paris, formally ending the war, was not signed until September 3, 1783. The Continental Congress, which was temporarily situated in Annapolis, Maryland, at the time, ratified the Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784.
Among the other provisions we secured from Britain: recognition of our borders, repairs to all the airports they damaged, and royalty-free Benny Hill reruns.
CHEERS to one of the good guys. On this date 45 years ago, Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota—aka Mayor of Minneapolis, LBJ's vice president, 1968 presidential candidate (great platform except for supporting the Vietnam War) and fierce advocate in the war on poverty—died much too young at 66. He was wise:
"Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism."
Humphrey in his prime.
"Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law."
“We seek an America able to preserve and nurture all the basic rights of free expression, yet able to reach across the divisions that too often separate race from race, region from region, young from old, worker from scholar, rich from poor. We seek an America able to do this in the higher knowledge that our goals and ideals are worthy of conciliation and personal sacrifice.”
"Liberalism, above all, means emancipation—emancipation from one's fears, his inadequacies, from prejudice, from discrimination, from poverty."
And a special shout-out from Humphrey to the MAGA cult: "The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." Amen.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's some of the haps on the squawk box this weekend, starting with Chris Hayes and the MSNBC crew processing the Friday news dumps. Or you can catch a new edition of Penn & Teller: Fool Us at 8 on the CW, followed by an hour of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
This movie is bonkers. And I know bonkers.
The new movies and home videos are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. (Remember: you must see Avatar 2 at least five times or James Cameron will come to your house and shout his Titanic acceptance speech at you.) The NBA schedule is here, theNFL wild card schedule is here, the NHL schedule is here. Amy Schumer hosts an encore edition SNL. Sunday on 60 Minutes: A peek inside the fusion-making wizards at the Lawrence Livermore Lab’s National Ignition Facility, and a report on the investigators of Russia’s smarmy oligarchs. The Critics Choice Awards air on The CW Sunday at 7. And when that’s over it’s off to bed because you have a busy week ahead.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
Big media weekend for Viceroy TBA.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: TBA
CNN's State of the Union: rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD); Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA); Rep. James Comer (The Cult-KY).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Rep. Tony Gonzales (The Cult-TX); Governor Sarah H’yuckabee Sanders (The Cult-AR).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 13, 2013
JEERS to the return of the dolts. The 113th "Do Nothingest" Congress convenes today. On the one hand, they'll ignore jobs, climate change, immigration, infrastructure improvements, gun violence and civil rights. On the other hand, they'll hack away at women's rights, voter rights, Obamacare and Sandy disaster relief. On the other other hand, they'll name some post offices, hold the debt ceiling hostage, and take a record amount of time off while getting paid $174,000 with full benefits. I say this in the finest George W. Bush tradition: heckuva job.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to proving the dummy wrong. Thirteen years ago this week I got an URGENT email from some conservative hack who wanted me to know something very important. It's—as most of these conspiratorial screeds are—very long, but here's the Crazy Cliffs Notes version. Being a fan of alliteration, the first sentence gave me goosebumps:
The discredited, democrat funded 'DailyKos' web site continues with it's daily doctored, dishonest, democrat funded pro-Obama polling numbers. Today's doctored poll shows Obama's approval numbers a full EIGHT points higher than the average of all the respected, neutral, trusted polls and a full TEN points higher than the respected CBS News poll released earlier today.
Let's be clear, Kos is taking money from democrats to doctor opinion polls and the boot-lickers and sycophants that support Kos are afraid to challenge Kos. Remember, dissenting opinion, debate and argument are not allowed on the Kos web site. If you disagree with Kos you are not allowed to post articles on the democrat funded Kos web site so none of the information regarding doctored Kos polls and other Kos lies will ever appear on his web site. Much like the low rated Olbermann program, dissent on the 'DailyKos' is forbidden!
The evidence and history of the phony doctored polls on the democrat funded DailyKos irrefutable and striking, unfortunately the anonymous so-called writers that post stories on Kos are not allowed to criticize him or they'll be banned for life.
And this is where yours truly takes the "democrat funded" risk of a lifetime—as I do every year at this time—by stepping off the ledge and testing the emailer's grand theory. As a Daily Kos "bootlicker" this is difficult, but here goes: Markos, you are a butthead. The rest is in God's hands. Please pray for my soul.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
A portrait in contrast to the ideology Republicans tried to force on our country two years ago tomorrow: it was on January 6, 1941 when Franklin Roosevelt delivered his famous "Four Freedoms" State of the Union speech. (You can read it and hear it here). While the oft-cited quartet—of speech, of religion, from want and from fear—is timeless, so too is this part of his address, which basically is both the Democratic playbook and the American dream. Here's what the dirty effing Hyde Park hippie bleated:
"The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:
• Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
• Jobs for those who can work.
Continued...
• Security for those who need it.
• The ending of special privilege for the few.
• The preservation of civil liberties for all.
• The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
January 6, 1941
These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.
Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples: We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care. We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it."
He was right—simple and basic things based on decency, compassion and common sense to ensure domestic tranquility and promote the public good. What a perfect contrast to the “ideals” of anarchy and dictatorship that’ll be celebrated tomorrow by Republicans on their new high holy day. I’ll take FDR’s vision, thanks. I just never quite got the hang of knuckle dragging.
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 5, 2023
Note: Today is National Bird Day. Please flip it responsibly.
Percent chance that George Santos spent most of yesterday in the House cloakroom so people would stop pointing in his direction and laughing: 100%
Number of women besides Patty Murray (D-WA) who have become Senate President pro tempore: 0
Years since Pennsylvania had two elected Democratic senators: 78
Dept. of Justice conviction rate against the Jan. 6 MAGA insurrectionists: 99.8%
Amount the Avatar sequel has made so far: $1.5 billion
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Oh boy! Starting the year off briskly, lending it such tone already, such cachet, such je ne sais quoi—those Republicans are so special, aren't they? Their first move, first rat out of the trap, top priority: lower ethics standards. Yessiree, this 2005 is going to be quite a year.
Let's put that to a vote. Many problems before us—Iraq, a Social Security "crisis," a real health care crisis, world terrorism, our international reputation possibly at its lowest ever ... who is in favor of lowering ethics standards first? Who thinks ethics standards in Washington are too high? […]
Now, I'm not going to conclude that Fascism Is Upon Us just because we have an administration that not only can't find the Constitution but apparently doesn't know there is one. Too early in the year for that. Long way to go. Got to save your indignation. But it is unpleasantly reminiscent of Watergate, isn't it? That's what we're looking at here, folks—not just constitutional deafness, but moral turp as well. All we need is one bag job and an alert night security man.
CHEERS to fixing up our fixer-uppers. In the most amazing bending of the time-space continuum ever, Joe Biden's Infrastructure Week is nearing the14 month mark. After signing the bill into law in November 2021, he just keeps building and repairing and, to coin a phrase, sciencing the shit out of the stuff America needs to run on. (Contrary to what they claim, it's not "Dunkin'.") Yesterday our modern-day FDR-LBJ hybrid (minus the wars) visited the midwest, where thousands of illegal Kentuckians have been wading across the Ohio River into Cincinnati in search of a better life. But thanks to the infrastructure law, they'll soon be able to just drive across on—[Cue music from The Price Is Right]—A BRAND NEW BRIDGE!!!
President Joe Biden came to Greater Cincinnati Wednesday to tout a long-awaited Brent Spence Bridge project that he said proves Americans can still get things done if they work together.
Biden bridges the divide.
Speaking in Covington, not far from the 60-year-old bridge that had for years been a symbol of partisan gridlock, Biden praised Republicans and Democrats in Ohio, Kentucky and Washington for setting aside their differences to fix one of the nation’s most important pieces of infrastructure.
"I believe it sends a message, an important message, to the entire country," Biden said of the new law that made the bridge project possible. "We can work together. We can get things done. We can move the nation forward."
Biden was joined by Mitch McConnell, who caused a brief delay when he instinctively stood up and tried to filibuster the ceremony, which continued without incident after two cloture votes and one mega-injection of ketamine.
CHEERS to Republicans in array. It was inspiring, really. And, yes, I realize that I'm saying that as a card-carrying Demonrat, but I thought it demonstrated the best of our democracy that the GOP came together, put their differences aside, compromised, and chose a Speaker of the House yesterday who embodies the values of the entire spectrum of the modern conservative movement. His name is Burt:
He graduated from Harvard, is a Pisces, and likes long midnight strolls on the kitchen floor. He will take no questions at this time.
P.S. Sadly, Burt was intentionally stepped on this morning by Lauren Boebert. Thoughts and prayers. The saga continues.
CHEERS to Democratic bulldogs. Speaking of speakers, former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill—who coined the phrase "All politics is local"—died 29 years ago today at 81. His 1994 New York Times obituary is an excellent read on retail politics and how Team D can differentiate itself from Team R:
He was a large, joyous, generous-spirited man with a bulbous nose, yellowed white hair that flopped over his forehead and an ever-present cigar. […]
You never saw him and Lt. Frank Drebin in the same room together.
Mr. O'Neill was an old-style politician and proud of it, a House Speaker comfortable with power, who clung to his brand of liberalism long after it ceased to be fashionable, even among his fellow Democrats.
An early opponent of the Vietnam War, Mr. O'Neill took strong positions on many controversial issues. He was the Congressional leader who pushed hardest for the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon and later, as Speaker, put his prestige on the line for Congressional reform. […] To Mr. O'Neill, who spoke of the Democratic Party with near-religious fervor, the party was the one of the cities, the working people, the poor, the needy, the unemployed, the sick and the disinherited. "And no way are we ever going to let them down," he would insist.
When a female is ready to lay her eggs, she seeks out a tarantula and injects it with paralyzing venom.
Welcome to New Mexico!
She drags the tarantula to a burrow and stuffs it down the hole, then lays her eggs on top of the paralyzed spider. Several days later the eggs hatch and the larvae feed on the still living tarantula.
Also: not many people know that the state maintains an army of giant tarantula hawk wasps in an underground bunker in Roswell. And also not many people know that therein lies the reason for the state's official motto: "What New Mexico Wants, New Mexico Gets."
The Russian military has blamed its soldiers' use of cellphones for a Ukrainian missile attack that killed dozens and fueled a new round of domestic criticism at how the war is being fought. […]
“It is already obvious that the main reason for what happened was the switching on and massive use—contrary to the prohibition—by personnel of mobile phones in a reach zone of enemy weapons,” Gen. Lt. Sergei Sevryukov said in a statement posted on Telegram.
This has been today's edition of Yup, That'll Do It.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 5, 2013
CHEERS and JEERS to the Mustache of Independence. Three days after being sworn in as Maine's new Senator, Angus King classed up the roundtable on Meet the Press yesterday. Much of what he said made sense, like this:
"It's important to talk about what the debt ceiling really is. The debt ceiling has nothing to do with the future. It has to do with the past. The debt ceiling is allowing us to borrow money to pay money that we've already borrowed. It's as if we spend money on our credit card [and] at the end of the month say, "Well, I'm not going to pay it." And that wrecks your credit."
And he occasionally made me urp my breakfast into my lap:
"Simpson and Bowles are right."
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he means ideologically. But I'm still sending him the bill to get my jammies dry-cleaned.
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And just one more…
CHEERS and JEERS to the speech spankers. Right on schedule, Lake Superior State University's annual "banished word list" popped up on the scene to give the cable news anchors a "kicker" story over which to hone their phony-chuckling skills. Sure, we're happy to see terms like "GOAT," "absolutely" and especially "It is what it is" on the list. But C&J—thin-skinned as we are—will never shake the bitterness that infused our lives on that dark day in 2005 when they went off the linguistic deep end:
BLOG – and its variations, including blogger, blogged, blogging, blogosphere. Many who nominated it were unsure of the meaning. Sounds like something your mother would slap you for saying.
Killing frogs for over 20 years?
"Sounds like a Viking’s drink that’s better than grog, or a technique to kill a frog." Teri Vaughn, Anaheim, Calif.
"Maybe it’s something that would be stuck in my toilet." – Adrian Whittaker, Dundalk, Ontario.
"I think the words ‘journal’ and ‘diary’ need to come back." – T. J. Allen, Shreveport, La.
So, for the eighteenth year in a row (and until they apologize for being such meanies), C&J humbly keeps these four words on our own banished list: Lake Superior State University.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"Leaving aside the particulars of the current situation, I do find it odd that many people think that Bill in Portland Maine is actually supposed to die in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool."
"In major legal news, The Trump Organization has been found guilty of 17 counts of tax fraud and other financial crimes. We know how this works, right? All the successes of the Trump Organization are due to the genius of Donald Trump. All the crimes? He had no idea. 'That's right, folks. I have zero control over the things I run!' "
—Trevor Noah
"Why this took so long is beyond me. I mean, convicting the Trump organization of fraud is like convicting Wetzel's of pretzels—it's what they do."
—Jimmy Kimmel
Continued...
You are now below the fold.
CAUTION: The sugar plum fairies down here carry nunchucks.
"Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock is projected to defeat Republican Herschel Walker in the Georgia senate runoff race. And if you think you're relieved, just think how relieved Herschel Walker is. He just narrowly avoided a six-year pop quiz he did not study for."
—Seth Meyers
“Herschel was like a plane crash into a train wreck that rolled into a dumpster fire. And an orphanage. Than an animal shelter. You kind of had to watch it squinting through one eye between your fingers."
—Dan McLagan, who ran against Herschel Walker in the 2022 Georgia MAGA senate primary
“With this loss Walker is expected to return to his previous job: lying about having previous jobs.”
—Stephen Colbert
"The White House chief of staff says that he expects President Biden to announce that he's running for reelection after the holidays. That makes sense—most Americans announce that they’re going to start running after the holidays."
—Jimmy Fallon
"You're not gonna believe this, but Alex Jones and Kanye West got together and it didn't go well. Kanye West made anti-Semitic jokes and said 'I like Hitler,' which is also the password he used to get into Mar-a-Lago."
—Colin Jost, SNL
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, December 9, 2022
Note: Arson charges pending after Jeanette and Isabella admit to bringing a torch to a duplex on Maple Drive during a drinking binge. Film at 11.
CHEERS to what Georgia hath wrought. As the Mar-a-Lago elves continue their cleanup of ketchup hurled in rage at various walls, and as Herschel Walker continues asking random strangers for directions back to his Texas mansion, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gently pats a baseball bat in the palm of his hand, now that Rev. Raphael Warnock's landslide victory in the Georgia runoff election has given him an outright majority. (Arizona weirdo Kyrysytyeyn Synyeymyay went independent last night but will still caucus with Democrats, so the majority holds.) That means obstructionist troublemakers like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham all the MAGA clowns are now powerless to stop the normal function of the Senate. AP highlights the bigg'uns…
In January, for starters, Democrats will have an easier time using their 51-49 majority for simple tasks of governing, including votes on Biden’s nominees to judicial and executive positions, which Republicans have wielded as weapons.
“Sit yer ass down, Mitch, your co-sheriff badge is revoked. We gave it to Herschel as a souvenir.”
The same goes for committee action. The Democrats will now have full power to send legislation to the Senate floor, overcoming Republican objections that can drag out the process. They also will have subpoena power, which they plan to use for investigating corporate America.
As for Senator Warnock? He gets to trade in his ergonomically-nightmarish standard Senate seat for a comfy barcalounger with built-in massager and cup holder. I just decided that. Anybody second the motion?
CHEERS (we hope) to the future of fair elections. Not that gerrymandering isn’t already a huge problem that sticks a finger in the eye of every voter who lives in a congressional district that's been shaped like an anorexic seahorse. But what the star chamber-funded MAGAts are trying to do now is give state legislatures absolute power over how elections are not only run, but decided. That scenario is what was argued before the Hardly-Supreme Court this week, and no one knows how the judges will rule on Moore v. Harper next June. But Marc Elias at Democracy Docket, who has argued and won a shitload of election-related cases (he had a field day doing it in 2020), offers his opinion, which is worth more than most, based on his experience:
Today’s argument will likely assuage many, but not all, of the concerns raised by supporters of voting rights and fair redistricting. There seems little chance that the Court will deny state courts their traditional role of interpreting and applying their state constitutions to state laws governing elections. For voting rights advocates, the devil will be in the details of any opinion, but it feels like we dodged a bullet.
That bulldog should’ve recused himself. He had a bone to pick with the defense.
Proponents of the ISL [Independent State Legislature] theory will likely be disappointed by today’s argument. The Court greeted the arguments from the Moore lawyer coldly from the start and the Court seemed to coalesce around a middle ground approach petitioners rejected at the beginning of the day.
His lips to God's ears. And in other news, God asks people to stop it with the lips-to-ears thing because it's slimy, unhygienic, and feels too much like a wet willy.
CHEERS to the #1 cause of hairy palms and sudden blindness. On this date in 1994 Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders—who, at 89, is still professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences—got triangulated out of her job by President Bill Clinton. Her offense: having the gall to suggest that legalizing marijuana might be a good idea, and teaching kids about masturbation might help prevent the spread of AIDS.
Firing her was not one of Bill Clinton’s finest moments.
"Education, education, education," she said. "The only way we are going to get around this disease is with education. We have no vaccine, we have no magic drug. All we've got is education." Clinton should've let her stay. He might've learned that playing with yourself prevents something else: impeachment.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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This mini-tug was built by Chuck’s Boat and Drive out of Longview Washington and used by the U.S. Navy to move ships and submarines. It's the smallest active-duty vessel of the United States Navy [source, read more: https://t.co/UdJ1icOdOb] pic.twitter.com/ccABeQh8do
CHEERS to the Crossroads of America. Happy birthday Sunday to the home of 6.7 million clean-cut, "basketball ring"-dunking patriots in the heartland.
Also in Indiana’s “plus” column: the first openly-gay presidential candidate from a major party to win a primary or caucus (Iowa), and current Secretary of Transportation, is a Hoosier.
On December 11, 1816, Indiana (or as we say in Maine: "Indianer") became our nation's 19th state. I grew up next door in Ohio, so naturally I'm legally obliged to look down my designer reading glasses at you "Hoosier types" because I’ve been indoctrinated to believe that your corn is inferior and you stole our state bird, the cardinal. (I still say the Buckeye State should build a big, beautiful border wall and make Kentucky pay for it.) But I'll give you this: any state that produces David Letterman (Indianapolis), Eugene V. Debs (Terre Haute), Kurt Vonnegut (also Indy), Larry Bird (West Baden Springs), Florence Henderson (Dale), and all these other VIPs can't be all bad. But we do have three somber words for the folks in Columbus, where Mike Pence cultivated his lifelong obsession with Puritanism as a lad: “Thoughts and prayers.”
CHEERS to home vegetation. Sure, the world's crumbling around us…but at least we've got the magic talking picture box to make things better, so cheer up, Bucky. The evening starts out the usual way, with Chris Hayes and the MSNBC crew unwrapping the latest presents from the Bidenville and MAGA Town. Or at 8:30 on PBS’s Firing Line you can hear from Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa on how disinformation on social media threatens democracy. And there’s a new episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? at 9 on the CW.
Tomorrow night is Christmas night, with Rudolph and Frosty on CBS, and a grisly murder-for-hire sting operation on Dateline NBC, which isn’t technically a Christmas show, but they’ll have Christmas-themed commercials during it so it counts. Then we’ll prop our eyelids open with toothpicks as we stay up to watch Steve Martin and Martin Short host SNL.
Sunday’s highlight is the lighting of the National War-on-Christmas Tree (8pm, CBS). On 60 Minutes: a profile of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the effects of legal challenges on social media, and the College of Magic in Capetown. Coach Moe hires brawlers to teach Nelson how to play hockey on The Simpsons, and Stewie and Doug compete in the race to become class snack captain.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens.
Also: the Rockefeller Center tree weighs in on farm subsidies and tort reform.
Face the Nation: Rep. Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee (D-CA); Former National Security Council senior director for European and Russian affairs Fiona Hill; former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs; J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
Meet the Press: Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT); former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who led the prosecution of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
This Week: NASA'S Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa E. Wyche; House Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Former Secretary of State and lifelong asshole Mike Pompeo (MAGA).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 9, 2012
CHEERS to going nuclear. Senate Republicans have abused the filibuster more gleefully than a podiatric dominatrix on Dick Morris's toes. So Harry Reid and his allies (led by Jeff Merkley) have promised to make some minor but significant tweaks to the procedural rules. This week they re-upped their commitment to the task:
“There are discussions going on now, but I want to tell everybody here: I’m happy, I’ve had a number of Republicans come to me and a few Democrats,” the Democratic majority leader told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “We’re going to change the rules. We cannot continue in this way. So I hope we can get something Republicans will work with us on.
But it won’t be a handshake,” Reid added. “We tried that last time; it didn’t work.”
Damn right. Harry got Lucy-footballed by McConnell, and this is why neither party can have nice things in the Senate anymore. The rules need to be changed. That way minority Republicans will be forced to show America just how deeply they care about stopping the tyrannical legislation of the majority for the good of the Union by using airtight logic and appealing to our collective sense of justice, equality and fair play. You can laugh now…that was the punchline. [12/9/22 Update: Ten years later, still waiting.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to 19 laps around the blog track. December 10, 2003. A Wednesday. 7:33pm. Shrouded in the New England darkness, with only the constellation Orion to guide him, a newbie blogger, looking almost freakishly younger than his 39 years, clasps his mouse with trembling fingers and clicks the "Post" button. Suddenly the heavens erupt in a frenzy of partly cloudy skies with a slight chance of flurries and a light breeze as the Daily Kos blog accepts his diary:
This is followed by two comments: Nevsky42 at 7:38 and Bob Johnson at 7:50. From that moment on, social media will never be the same. Later, in 2007, the Daily Kos community elects to put me on your collective—and full-time—payroll. You fools! But if the holiday spirit moves you, you can still support C&J with a generous one-time or monthly contribution by clicking here for the various donation options and also a snail mail address.
EXCLUSIVE behind-the-scenes photo: a typical day at the C&J office.
Although it's been said many times, many ways: thank you for reading and supporting my little pixelfied rag for nineteen years. It's an odd little bag of flaming poo. But, by god, it's our odd little bag of flaming poo.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
Last Friday was author, lecturer, and humanist Kurt Vonnegut’s 100th birthday. Wrote Dinitia Smith in her New York Timesobituary:
Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well? […]
Not all Mr. Vonnegut’s themes were metaphysical. With a blend of vernacular writing, science fiction, jokes and philosophy, he also wrote about the banalities of consumer culture, for example, or the destruction of the environment.
In his memory, some bits of rhetorical Vonnegoodness (of which he left us a bountiful harvest) below the fold:
Vonnegut (Cont’d)
✌ Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’
✌ When things go well for days on end, it is a hilarious accident.
✌ “If you keep up with current events in the supermarket tabloids, you know that a team of Martian anthropologists has been studying our culture for the past ten years, since our culture is the only one worth a nickel on the whole damn planet. You can forget Brazil and Argentina. Anyway: They went back home last week, because they knew how terrible global warming was about to be. Their space vehicle wasn’t a flying saucer. It was more like a flying soup tureen. And they’re little all right, only six inches high. But they aren’t green. They’re mauve.”
Happy 100th, Kurt, wherever ye be.
✌ "I love science. All Humanists do. I’m particularly fond of the Big Bang Theory. It goes like this: There was once all this nothing, and it was so much nothing that there wasn’t even such a thing as nothing. And then all of a sudden there was this great big BANG, and that’s where all this crap came from. Forget the Bible. Any questions? You know what they should put over the entrance to the Physics Department? Just that one word: BANG!”
✌ Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
✌ “A show of hands, please: How many of you have had a teacher at any stage of your education, from the first grade until this day in May, who made you happier to be alive, prouder to be alive, than you had previously believed possible? Good! Now say the name of that teacher to someone sitting or standing near you. All done? If this isn’t nice, what is?”
✌ “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”
✌ "There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia."
And, of course, my personal adopted motto:
✌ I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.
Happy Birthday, Kurt. And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 17, 2022
Note: For those of you cooking Thanksgiving turkeys weighing over 250 pounds, today's the day to pop 'em in the oven. And also the day to realize you're going to need a bigger oven.
Date on which the 8 billionth current inhabitant of Planet Earth was born: 11/15/22
Years it took for the world's population to grow from 7 to 8 billion (versus the 15 it'll take to hit 9 billion): 12
Percent chance that the Murdoch media empire, including Fox News, will support a Trump candidacy in 2024, according to what Murdoch says he told Trump in person: 0%
Amount Herschel Walker's campaign gets for every $10 donated via the latest fundraising effort by the National Republican Senatorial Committee: 10 cents
Percent in a YouGov poll who believe it’s acceptable to start listening to holiday music before Thanksgiving: 18%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
The sheer pleasure of getting lessons in etiquette from Karl Rove and the right-wing media passeth all understanding.
Ever since 1994, the Republican Party has gone after Democrats with the frenzy of a foaming mad dog. There was the impeachment of Bill Clinton, not to mention the trashing of both Clinton and his wife—accused of everything from selling drugs to murder—all orchestrated by that paragon of manners, Tom DeLay. [...]
These people are not only dishonest—they're not even smart. Not that I recommend nailing them at every turn, but I wouldn't be surprised if they try to do it to Democrats. If what Republicans have been practicing is bipartisanship, West Texas just flooded.
—November, 2006, following historic Dem wins in the House and Senate
CHEERS to the forgotten senator-elect. If you believed the pundits and predictors before November 8th, the Senate race in Vermont was going to be one of the very few bright spots in an otherwise nightmarish hellscape for the pathetic Demonrat Party. But as it turns out, things went so well for the mighty Democratic Party juggernaut at every level of government across the country that Vermont got lost in the hubbub. So belated C&J congratulations are in order for Patrick Leahy's successor, who won in a landslide so huge (68% - 28%) that other landslides are going, "Now THAT'S a landslide"…
Vermont’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Welch is set to become U.S. Sen. Peter Welch. After nearly 16 years as Vermont’s lone member of the U.S. House, Welch will move to the upper chamber come January…
You can now call him Senator-elect Welch.
Welch’s victory speech was celebratory, but had a grim undercurrent: He harkened back to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, during which supporters of former President Donald Trump attempted to interrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s election, and said his Senate victory “is in the shadow of what happened on January 6. I was there when the Capitol was attacked and the shot was fired and the doors were broken down and everyone was dismayed,” he said. “This election, unlike any other elections, has democracy right front and center on the ballot.” […]
Throughout his campaign, Welch has said he is willing to change the Senate’s filibuster rules in order to accomplish major Democratic priorities, such as passing a law to protect to abortion access nationwide in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Welch, an elder statesman at 75, joins Pennsylvania whippersnapper John Fetterman (53) as the Big-D Newbie Class of '22. Two bits of advice from the experienced senators: 1) keep your wallet in your front pants pocket so your "esteemed Republican colleagues" won’t steal it, and 2) towel-snapping Ted Cruz anytime, anywhere is not only acceptable but your patriotic duty.
CHEERS to palace intrigue. The fight is on for which fascism-loving white male gets to be in charge of the party that, against all odds, lost control of the Senate last week. Whoever wins will be in charge of whining, complaining, and taking really long lunches. Here's the current state of their epic battle:
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Tuesday announced a challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for GOP leader after their party’s disastrous performance in the midterm elections and its failure to retake the Senate.
If nothing else, ya gotta appreciate that Sen. Scott files his fangs down before public appearances.
McConnell’s position as leader isn’t seriously in doubt. On Tuesday, he struck a defiant tone and and said he has the votes to become leader again—whether the GOP leadership election takes place this week or not.
Despite McConnell's defiant tone, don’t count Scott out. I've seen pythons eat alligators, so a turtle is like an appetizer.
JEERS to the hunchback of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Speaking of Republican shits, forty-nine years ago today, in 1973, floundering President Richard Nixon uttered his immortal words: "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."
And to prove he wasn't a crook, Gerald Ford shielded him with a "full and unconditional pardon" after Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment for crooky things like high crimes and misdemeanors. Trust me: the less you think about it, the more it makes sense.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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It was four years ago today that music legend Roy Clark passed away - Here's part of his masterful guitar performance of "Malaguena" from an all-time classic episode of "The Odd Couple"! #RIPRoy 🎶 pic.twitter.com/fXEyMwE4Q4
CHEERS to a fine use of nib and ink. Seven score and nineteen years ago, on November 17, 1863, our forefather President Lincoln brought forth on this continent a first draft of his Gettysburg Address, conceived in wanting to make a broad statement about the strength of our democracy in dark times, and dedicated to the proposition that future generations of Americans will have no clue what a score is. Tomorrow: the thrilling conclusion.
CHEERS to cleansing your cosmic soul. Cast your eyes heavenward this week and you might see some wowee-zowee fireworks in the sky. The Leonid Brezhnev meteor shower—which happens every time Earth plays footsies with Comet Tempel-Tuttle and its debris field—is entering its most Leonidinicious period tonight and tomorrow night:
The Leonids are a modest shower producing up to approximately 15 meteors per hour.
Thunder is God bowling. Meteor showers are God playing Atari’s ‘Missile Command.’
The Leonids are considered some of the fastest meteors, zipping through the sky at 44 miles per second, according to NASA. They can also result in impressive fireballs producing long, bright and colorful meteor streaks.
You don't need any telescopes or binoculars as the secret to a good meteor viewing experience is to take in as much sky as possible. Make sure to allow about 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark.
As I like to say, everyone loves meteor showers because they’re beautiful, unite Americans in a common activity, and make lots of people happy and curious about the universe and the wonders of science. Which explains why House Republicans plan to introduce a constitutional amendment banning all future meteor showers.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 17, 2012
CHEERS to fitting in. Senator-elect Angus King, who is replacing Olympia Snowe, has decided who he's going to caucus with. I'll give you a hint: it ain't the Republicans. And this is interesting:
Before settling on the Democratic caucus, King said he spoke with more than a dozen senators from both parties. Those conversations included one with Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. Blunt and King met for about 45 minutes to discuss the possibility of King joining the Senate Republican caucus, Canney said. “It was a good conversation.”
Yeah, other than being horrified by the GOP's stance on women's rights, education, clean energy, foreign policy, LGBT rights, science, health care, immigration, climate change, and gun control, it was…y'know…it was good.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to that people-powered dude. Since I know you appreciate being made to feel old, here's a fun fact: when Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign—the catalyst for bringing so many of us here to Daily Kos—was shifting into high gear, he was but a lad of 56. Today he finds 74 candles on his birthday cake.
Irrational exuberance on your birthday? I’ll allow it.
The former Vermont governor (first in the nation to sign same-sex civil unions into law—a quaint milestone, but groundbreaking at the time) became the loudest 2004 candidate to rail against the warmongering Bush II regime at a time when too many Democratic leaders were still searching for their spines. (His 2003 speech in Sacramento remains one of the most influential barn burners in modern political history.)
Of course, we all know Governor Dean met his Waterloo after he uttered "Yeah" in Iowa at a higher volume than is allowed in polite political society. He then went on to become the chairman of the DNC, unleashing a radical strategy that would give the Democratic party a robust presence in all 50 states, and remains forever a proud card-carrying Kossack. So when you're pouring your first drinky this morning (may we recommend a cocktail made with pure Vermont maple syrup?), hoist it and send a happy birthday toast to ol’ Doc Dean. And you should also get together and bake him a cake. After all, YOU have the flour and YOU have the flour and YOU have the flour...!!!
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
The kiddie pool where Bill in Portland Maine created Cheers and Jeers is a historical site, and now the flippers he wore while splashing amid the algae have been sold for nearly $220,000, according to an auction house.
Avast me hearties and suchlike. It's me, Captain Billybeard, fear-instiller of the deep blue kiddie pool. For thems who don't knows, today is the blow-me-downest day of the year: International Talk Like A Pirate Day. And arrrway we go…
President Biden: "By 2035 we’ll all be drivin’ electric carrrs!"
Democratic strategist: "That Fetterman lad is a rising starrr."
Winston Churchill: "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest arrr!'"
Continued...
American worker: "Thanks to those greedy bastards on Wall Street, I may never get to retarrr!"
Daily Kos blogger: ”My favorite front-pager is the Morrill lass named Barrrrb.”
And please: it’s “Arrr,” not “Arrrgh.”
Daily Kos blogger with opposing view: “My favorite front-pager is the Joan they call McCarrrter.”
Judge, sometime in 2023: "I sentence ye, Donald J. Trump, to twenty years behind barrrrs."
Buzz Aldrin: "To Marrrs!"
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland: "Come one, come all, to visit our national parrrks."
Red-hatted End Times fanatic: "Prepare ye for Arrrrmageddon."
Theatre Critic: "Don’t miss the revival of Streetcarrr Named Desarrr!"
Postal abbreviation of Bill Clinton's home state: AR
Trump's legal team: "Ready! Farrr! Aim!"
Thanks for reading. You've been a swarrrthy arrdience. And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 15, 2022
Note: Always get anything agreed to on a Monday in writing. Can't trust that day. —Judge Judy
Number of the last two months during which inflation has dropped in the U.S.: 2
Number of subpoenas the Justice Department issued last week to Trump administration goons related to MAGA's January 6 insurrection: 40
Square miles of land Ukrainian troops have retaken over the last two weeks: 3,400
Percent chance that Twitter shareholders approved the takeover of the platform by unstable genius Elon Musk: 100%
Percent by which middle-aged Americans are less likely to die of any cause if they walk 7,000 steps a day, compared with those who walk less, according to research in the Journal of the American Medical Association: 50%
JEERS to our top story of the day by law. Here's an update on The Queen's funeral, which has been in progress for two hours with 52 to go:
♔ Elizabeth II's cellphone continues playing her royal ringtone, God Save the Queen, from her permanently-sealed coffin. The good news: the Royal Viceroy in charge of Telecommunications says it should stop within three days. The bad news: nobody in the British Empire may be seated until it does.
♔ During the service, King Charles III has been seen mumbling "Bloody thing" about his fountain pen, his watch, his squeaky shoes, the elusive strand that the Royal Earl of Nose Hair Trimming missed, and the heffalump that continues to haunt his dreams.
♔ The vicar's pants have finally been located.
♔ Instead of saying "Amen" after prayers and invocations, President Biden is using the alternate wording: "God love ya, man. No joke."
♔ Following the service, teenagers Oliver and Balthazar will shuttle the guests from Westminster Abbey to the Sudsbury-on-the-Glen banquet hall for tea cakes, tea kippers, tea pie, tea brisket, tea shanks, and tea. Please be patient as they can only fit two at a time, including one in the boot.
♔ You can follow the solemnity and unifying grandeur of the funeral via the top-trending hashtags on Twitter: #LeaveHarryAndMeghanAlone, #TheMediaHateHarryAndMeghan, #HarryShouldBeKingNotWankerCharles, and #LizLovedHarryMost.
Join us for our next legally-mandated update in 39 seconds. And throw that gum away—it's disrespectful.
JEERS to today's edition of How Can You Tell When It's Election Season? Courtesy of Susanne Ramírez de Arellano at NBC News:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unexpectedly sent two planes carrying mostly Venezuelan immigrants, including children, to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. It’s the most sadistic iteration of a scheme preferred by governors of Republican states: dumping migrants on northern progressive cities as a political stunt against President Joe Biden’s immigration policy.
Republican governors have been doing this as a way to protest what they claim are insufficient federal efforts to ensure security on the southern border. It is cynical point-scoring against whom they see as woke liberals being soft on immigration—a “gotcha” moment.
This has been today's edition of How Can You Tell When It's Election Season?
CHEERS to seeing the forest for the pearly gates. The more enlightened Americans become, the more it dawns on us that the existence of God will never be anything other than a hope in our imaginations. We can memorize every religious text in every language on every continent and we can scour every corner of the universe, but the fact remains: until He or She or It actually shows up, we’re all agnostics down here on earth. But one thing is for certain: religious grifters, almost always of the conservative persuasion, use the fear of god to shake down their gullible flocks to pad their lavish lifestyles as they actively support politicians for whom punching down is a feature, not a bug. So this is welcome news as far as I—a lapsed Episcopalian—am concerned:
If current trends continue, Christians could make up less than half of the population—and as little as a third—in 50 years.
Meanwhile, the so-called nones—or the religiously unaffiliated — could make up close to half of the population.
Those are among the major findings of a new report from the Pew Research Center regarding America’s religious future—a future where Christianity, though diminished, persists while non-Christian faiths grow amid rising secularization. […]
One reason for the decline among Christians and the growth among the nones in the models is age. While Christians have more children than nones, they are also older. Pew estimates the average Christian in the United States is 43, which is 10 years older than the average none.
But one number remains consistent, according to the Billy Institute of Religious Vittles: 100% of everybody in America agrees that Episcopalian pancake suppers are the best. If I’m lyin’, may God strike me down in a hail of sausage links. Or patties, I’m not picky.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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Ukrainian grandma meets her hero grandson. This is impossible to watch without crying pic.twitter.com/erSz3lC1o5
CHEERS to Field Marshal Billeh's Rule of Thumb. It goes like this: when two countries are at war, the side whose leader is hunkered down in a bunker is not the winning side. So here's a clue as to who is kicking who:
His hand on his heart, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watched as his country’s flag was hoisted above the recently recaptured city of Izium, a rare foray outside the capital that highlighted Moscow’s embarrassing retreat in the face of a lightning Ukrainian counteroffensive.
As Putin cowers, Zelenskyy leads. And wins.
Russian forces left the war-scarred city last week as Kyiv's soldiers pressed a stunning advance that has reclaimed large swaths of territory in the country’s northeastern Kharkiv region.
As Zelenskyy looked on and sang the national anthem, the Ukrainian flag was raised in front of the burned-out city hall building in the largely devastated town, where apartment buildings are blackened by fire and pockmarked by artillery strikes.
Russia's Vladimir Putin hasn't traveled to the front, citing concerns to his safety. He's afraid he could easily be killed. By his own fleeing troops.
JEERS to deep-sixing #20. On September 19, 1881, President James Garfield died, 80 days after some disgruntled jerk whipped out a couple guns and shot him in the back. One bullet grazed his arm, the other hit his backbone but not the spinal cord or any internal organs. Had the radical notion of sterile hands and instruments (already embraced for 30 years by much of Europe) been in use at the time, and had they not basically starved him, the president would’ve lived. True story: Alexander Graham Bell tried to locate the bullet using his new invention, the metal detector…
As the doctors struggled to understand the extent of Garfield's wounds, Bell, inventor of the telephone, used this machine to try to locate the bullet. When found, the machine was to send a sound to the attached telephone receiver.
“Hello, operator? Please connect me to the president’s bullet. No, I haven’t been drinking. And I also need Amanda Hugginkiss.”
Despite attempts on July 26 and August 1, 1881, Bell could not situate the bullet.
Turns out the steel springs in Garfield's bed likely rendered it useless. Someday we'll be able to joke about it. But not today—after only 141 years, it’s just too soon.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 19, 2012
JEERS to a bad start. September 9: Shell starts drilling in the Arctic, using the latest safety equipment that will guarantee everything goes smoothly. September 17: Shell stops drilling in the Arctic for the season when their safety equipment breaks. On the bright side, the company assures us it's nothing that a little super glue and a multi-million-dollar PR TV blitz won’t fix. Cue the actors in lab coats with beakers and shit-eating grins…
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And just one more…
JEERS to wasting seven-plus decades of perfectly good oxygen. To the heartbreak of no one but family and a few deplorables, shitbag Texan Ken Starr finally kicked the bucket at 76, but not before spending most of his life as a very sick Republican who used his intellect for evil. The ever-succinct Wonkette has the definitive obituary:
[A]fter he was all done with trying to bring down Bill Clinton, Starr went on to be the president of Baylor University, where he was shitcanned in 2016 for his part in covering up—or failing to "take appropriate action to respond to"—a massive sexual assault scandal involving the football team, and then he helped defend the indefensible Donald Trump in his first impeachment, fuck him, he's dead, the end.
I'd bet money his trip to the afterlife will involve taking the 'Down' elevator. But darn it, I have this dumb rule about saying something nice about the recently departed. So here goes: he generally did a good job centering the knot in his necktie. Ah…the banality of evil.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"The only people who take Bill in Portland Maine seriously are those who splash in his kiddie pool. And no one splashes in his kiddie pool."
Note: Today is Take Your Houseplants For A Walk Day. For maximum enjoyment, we recommend you celebrate Smoke Your Special Homegrown Houseplant That Sits Under The Purple Grow Light Day before you leave the house. And don’t forget to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
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By the Numbers:
7 days!!!
Days 'til the official end of the "dog days of summer": 15
Percent chance that President Biden continued the drone-strike campaign started and continued by Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump: 0%
Estimated number of viewers, according to Nielsen Research, who watched last week's House Jan. 6 Committee hearing, the second-highest of all 8 hearings: 17.7 million
Percent of the viewers who were 55 and older, aka likely voters: 77%
Speed at which Sen. Josh Hawley ran for his life out of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, the fastest known scaredy-cat sprint on record: 397mph
Age of beloved character actors Paul Sorvino ("Goodfellas," "Law & Order") and David Warner ("Time Bandits," "Star Trek V & VI") when they died this week: 83, 80
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Mid-weekRapture Index: 188 (including 4 volcanoes and 1God's Little Insurrectionist play set). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
CHEERS to workin' your way up the rotten-food chain. They're proceeding so quietly that I'd forgotten a federal grand jury is hearing evidence related to the Republican 2021 insurrection. And unlike the House's investigation, the temptation to blow off a subpoena from the Justice Department isn't really an option. And it turns out that the subpoenas are bagging some big game. Like for instance Marc Short, who was Mike Pence's chief of staff, and saw some things. Very bad things…
Short was a key witness to the chaotic final days of the Trump administration as Donald Trump attempted to remain in power, pressuring those around him to find ways to overturn the results of the 2020presidential election.
No word on whether Mr. Short traveled to face the grand jury from his secret mountaintop lair or his secret undersea lair.
Short was in the Oval Office on Jan. 4, 2021, when Trump had lawyer John Eastman attempt to convince Pence to delay the certification of the Electoral College vote. That plan involved the vice president making false assertions that there were issues with electoral votes that had been certified for Joe Biden, who won the 2020 race. (Pence declined to go along with the plan.)
Short was also in the Capitol with Pence on Jan. 6as the vice president was forced to flee from pro-Trump rioters who stormed the building, some of whom were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Dare we raise our hopes that Merrick Garland is about to fire up his modified snowplow and crash through the gates of Mar-A-Lago while shouting, "Your crimey days are over, old man!" I hope not. Mainly because I think Trump's in New Jersey at the moment.
Just a simple tourist shitting on Nancy Pelosi’s walls.
CHEERS to getting to the bottom of all this insurrection whatchamahootchie. While we’re counting down the days ‘til September’s Jan. 6 Committee “bonus hearings,” it’s worth mentioning that one year ago today they held their first one to get to the bottom of what happened the day the MAGAts went all "Reichstag Fire" on their country by storming the Capitol to hang Trump's vice president, smear feces on the walls, ransack the place, attack the Capitol Police, plant a Confederate flag under the Rotunda, and stop the certification of Joe Biden's election victory. Or, as the cult likes to say: the day they dressed up in their fancy best to hug and kiss the Capitol Police as they politely took a tour of our seat of government out of intellectual curiosity. So, y'know…potato puhtahto. If I recall correctly, co-chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson's opening question was a doozy:
"Congressman Jim Jordan, would you like to say a few opening words? Oh, wait, that's right, he got booted off the committee Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! Any objection to Congressman Jordan going first? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! Or do you just want to sit there and look the other way, cuz I hear you were really good doing that at OSU. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!”
Thus explaining why one year ago today was also the first time anyone ever saw Liz Cheney crack a smile.
JEERS to hounding the wrong guy. Here’s a reminder that assholes can, and do, sometimes pee in the pool during the fun. Twenty-six years ago today, domestic right-wing terrorist nut Eric Rudolph detonated a pipe bomb at the Summer Olympic games in Atlanta.
Sculpture in Centennial (Olympic) Park with an indentation of a nail from the July 27, 1996 bombing.
The blast killed one person and injured over a hundred more, but it could've been worse if security guard Richard Jewell hadn’t found the bomb and tried to move people out of harm's way. The hero was later pilloried in the press and by the late-night gaggle (Leno called him the "Una-doofus") when it became known that the FBI considered him a suspect. Then, when his name was officially cleared, they moved on and dumped his reputation by the side of the road like a rodent carcass. Wikipedia reminds us of what the media should've learned:
Jewell's case became an example of the damage that can be done by reporting based on unreliable or incomplete information...
JEERS to hollow words. Oh look—the Catholic Church is apologizing again for a top-down act of unspeakable horror on the very people it claims to love and cherish and blah blah blah. And once again, it's offering its words of remorse waaaaaaaaay later than it should:
"I am sorry," the pope said, speaking in Maskwacis, Alberta, at the lands of four Cree nations. "I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples," Francis said near the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, where ground-penetrating radar has been used to try to locate unmarked graves of students who died while attending the school.
I’ll believe it when God puts it in writing.
The residential schools forcibly separated Indigenous children from their parents as part of an effort to convert them to Christianity and assimilate them into the wider Canadian culture.
In total, 150,000 children from Canada's First Nations tribes were placed in 139 schools run under government contract—most by the Catholic Church—over a 150-year period.
So that's one more long-overdue apology down, and probably thousands more to go in countries all around the world for shit they did over many centuries. What happened in Canada is just one more reason why the Catholic Church should come with a warning: Keep Out Of Reach Of Children.
CHEERS to the end of the end. It was all over for Tricky Dick 48 years ago today, thanks to a 27-11 vote by the House Judiciary Committee to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Nixon who, said ABC News's Tom Jarrell at the time, was "presumably still in his swim trunks" while on vacation in California when he heard the news. Meanwhile, then-VP Gerald Ford just couldn’t help but play a little game of up-is-downism:
Ford: It's interesting that every Democrat on the committee—north and south—voted for the article. ... It tends to make it a partisan issue.
Oh, just GTFO already.
Reporter: Even if one-third of Republicans voted for it?
Ford: Well, the fact that every one of the Democrats voted for it, I think, uh, lends credence that it's a partisan issue, even though some Republicans have deviated.
...said the Republican who later unilaterally exonerated the Republican crook. But, hey, what's a little hypocrisy among friends?
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 27, 2012
CHEERS to finding true (state-mandated-under-penalty-of-forced-labor) love. Aww, don’t ya just love it when ruthless dictators get twitterpated? That's the big story coming out of North Korea, where Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un married Ri Sol-Ju after realizing that his biological clock was ticking ticking ticking. Her present to him: pearl cufflinks and a Netflix account. His present to her: the launch of a test rocket that'll explode seconds after liftoff. [Sniff] Pass the tissues.
“Whether saving humanity, masterminding a heist, or captaining a ship in dangerous seas, actor George Clooney’s unique brand of earnest charisma and his complete embodiment of a character has led us to root for him every time.
I have met one of them. She was very nice.
Multi-platinum singer-songwriter Amy Grant became the first artist to bring contemporary Christian music to the forefront of American culture, then equally thrived after crossing over into mainstream pop with hit after hit, and today is revered as the “Queen of Christian Pop.”
In her 55-year music career, legendary singer and America’s beloved “Empress of Soul” Gladys Knight went from the Pips of Georgia to Grammy royalty, showcasing a boundless vocal range and soulfulness that has stood the test of time.
A brave, young Cuban refugee turned Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and music ambassador, Tania León has blessed America for more than five decades with her astoundingly original compositions and continues to be a major influence on classical music.
And one of most influential rock bands of the modern rock era, U2, won over America and the world long ago with their iconic anthems, potent lyrics, and powerful messages of social justice and global citizenship—earning a musical legacy that crosses generations, inspires, and unites.”
The sitting President of the United States will attend the induction festivities at the Kennedy Center sitting in a balcony seat with the honorees during the festivities on December 4th. The last president snubbed them on orders from his doctor. Apparently he suffers from a severe allergy to the toxic mix of happiness and culture.
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—the answer to the question, what if a garbage can full of cocaine and squirrel-raising pamphlets wished to be a real boy? "
Climbing into my home-built starship (thanks again for the blueprints, Popular Mechanics) and using the sun as a slingshot to achieve speeds that allowed me to merge with a wormhole, yesterday I made my annual trip back in time to fetch this bit of insight-with-no-expiration-date from Paul Waldman circa July, 2006. Consider it a timely warning to our current spate of GOP toxicity:
Conservatism is the ideology of the past—a past we don't want to return to.
Continued...
Waldman continued...
Liberals need to embrace the culture war, because we're winning. The story of American history is that of conservative ideas and prejudices falling away as our society grows more progressive and thus more true to our nation's founding ideals.
Conservatives supported slavery, conservatives opposed women's suffrage, conservatives supported Jim Crow, conservatives opposed the 40-hour work week and the abolishment of child labor, and conservatives supported McCarthyism. In short, all the major advancements of freedom and justice in our history were pushed by liberals and opposed by conservatives, no matter the party they inhabited at the time.
Conservatism is Bill Bennett lecturing you about self-denial, then rushing off to feed his slot habit at the casino. It's James Dobson telling you that children need regular beatings to stay in line. It's a superannuated nun rapping you on the knuckles so you won't think about your dirty parts. It's Jerry Falwell watching "Teletubbies" frame by frame to see if Tinky Winky is trying to turn him gay. Conservatism is everyone you never wanted to grow up to be.
Let’s just hope our country gets that through its thick skull in time. At the moment it’s looking iffy.
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday as we'll be retroactively winning the 2006 superlotto jackpot and telling everybody they can piss off because WE'RE RICH RICH RICH HA HA HAAAAA!!!! Back Tuesday to beg everybody's forgiveness when we realize that we retroactively blew our fortune on cocaine and hookers in 2007.
Percent of Americans polled by Fox News who favor 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices: 66%
Percent in the same Fox poll who favor determining the winner of presidential elections with the popular vote instead of the electoral college: 55%
Size of the energy deal the EU made with Algiers, Azerbaijan, and the UAE to help wean it off of Russian energy: $4 billion
Number of fake Georgia electors who have been informed that they're targets in a criminal probe: 16
Drop in Netflix subscribers during the 2nd quarter, versus -433k during the 2nd quarter of 2021: 1 million
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page (the People Who Don't Read Their Own Paper) tried to describe the Federalist Society as an anodyne debating society.
No, it is not—it is a radical right organization, which explains why the White House made calls to national media to deny that [John] Roberts was a member.
Jerome Shestack, president of the American Bar Association in 1998, said, "So much of the society's leadership consists of active politicians and others whose slouching toward extremism is self-proclaimed."
The society is funded by millions of dollars from right-wing and libertarian foundations. It attempts to influence legal education and works with right-wing legal advocacy and litigation organizations.
CHEERS to Night 2. Yes, yes, yes, I know it's actually the eighth televised hearing of the House Jan. 6 Committee, but it's only the second one to air in primetime. Tonight's event, which starts at 8, is the grand finale—and whether he's ready or not, the guest of dishonor is gonna get his closeup:
It is expected to focus on what former President Donald Trump was doing during the187 minutes after rioters descended on the Capitol and before he issued he a public response.
Tonight we get a minute-by-minute account of what the traitor-in-chief was doing when he unleashed his mob.
Two former Trump White House officials who resigned as a result of the Jan. 6 attack will testify: Former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger—who announced his departure that day — and Trump deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews. […]
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who will be one of the committee members leading Thursday's hearing, told "Face the Nation" Sunday that the hearing will "open people's eyes in a big way" about Trump's behavior.
Daily Kos's finest will liveblog the hearing, so join us for some quality OMG and WTF time. And here's tonight's drinking game: if it's after 8, drink.
JEERS to our hunka hunka burnin' planet. How hot is it here on Planet Fireball? Hotter than a January 6th insurrectionist's dendrites when they're trying to remember how to tie their shoes. Hotter than Marjorie Taylor Greene's hair being set on fire by a Jewish space laser. Hotter than the steam coming out of Donald Trump's ears as he watches the Jan. 6 hearings. Hotter than the seat a Wall Street bankster sits on as Rep. Katie Porter says, "My first question to you is…" It was so hot that Franklin Graham began telling his flock that unrepentant sinners would start being re-routed to fry for eternity in Oklahoma. Yeah...that hot:
A sprawling heat dome is bringing temperatures of up to 110°F, or possibly higher, to a broad swath of the U.S. on Wednesday, with more than 100 million people under heat warnings and advisories.
The National Weather Service is calling the heat "dangerous," as heat is on average the number one weather-related killer annually in the U.S. The elderly and those without access to air conditioning are especially vulnerable to heat-related illnesses.
At the same time as the Plains roasts under relentless, withering heat that is worsening drought in that region, the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast are also experiencing torrid heat as temperatures climb toward the century mark in Richmond and Washington, D.C., this weekend, with the heat extending northeastward to Boston.
The summer of 2022 is certain to fill the record books with more awful heat. (91 here yesterday.) Even worse: more awful heat metaphors.
CHEERS to making radio waves. Moving up five notches on Casey's Top 40 Countdown is an act that hails from a galaxy far, far away. Here's the breakout beach hit of the summer of 2022: "Hello Out There" by ET and the Neutron Stars…
Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have picked up repetitiveradio signals from a galaxy billions of light-years from Earth. Scientists have not been able to pinpoint the exact location of the radio waves yet, but suspect the source could be neutron stars, which are made from collapsed cores of giant stars. […]
“Shooby-doo-be-doo...”
"Not only was it very long, lasting about three seconds, but there were periodic peaks that were remarkably precise, emitting every fraction of a second—boom, boom, boom—like a heartbeat," said Daniele Michilli, a postdoctoral researcher in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
"This is the first time the signal itself is periodic."
It's catchy enough, I admit. But I dunno—I think they're tentacle synching.
CHEERS to comeuppance. 48 years ago today, on July 21, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against Richard "Okay, I Guess I Am A Crook After All" Nixon. That same day, he was giving a speech at a private home in Bel Air, California. Let's see... He talked about the host's fine tent. He talked about the struggle between Greece and Turkey. He talked about his trip to Egypt. He talked about some former administration officials. And then he toasted his audience with a fine whine:
"You wonder sometimes, and I am often asked, you know, how do you really take the burden of the Presidency, particularly when at times it seems to be under very, very grievous assault.
Let me say, it isn't new for it to be under assault, because since the time we came into office for 5 years, we have had problems.
Buh bye.
There have been people marching around the White House when we were trying to bring the war to an end, and we have withstood that, and we will withstand the problems of the future."
He forgot to add four crucial words: "...for 19 more days."
CHEERS murder in broad daylight. To paraphrase a really stupid saying: the only way to stop a dumb guy with old data is a smart guy with current data. This week’s exhibit: a MAGA cultist congressman tried to roll over our illustrious Transportation Secretary on vehicle prices, and here’s how Rep. Scott Perry was the one who ended up flat as a pancake...
CHEERS to the new kid on the aircraft carrier. Big doings today at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City. The Space Shuttle Enterprise—the first of the shuttles and only used for test purposes—will officially take its place in the new "Space Shuttle Pavilion." Hard to believe that the craft was first assembled 36 years ago, back when Gerald Ford ruled the galaxy. By day the Enterprise will sit silent and stoic as visitors admire it with awe and wonder. By night it'll take part in poker games with the F-16, Sea Cobra and other aircraft on board the vessel, and occasionally do bong hits with the attack choppers on the poop deck. Oh, and of course it'll get free universal shuttlecare for the rest of its life. Lucky duck.
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And just one more…
And than strangle the little sucker until it flops over and turns blue.
CHEERS to happy pruning. Some people say exercise is the best thing to clear your head. Some say yoga, others say a wee toke of the wacky tobacky, while a handful find peace by short-sheeting the beds at nursing homes. I say it's actually spending a lazy hour or two in the garden pulling weeds. Here's how to do it in the most satisfying way: 1) Grab the base of the little bastard. 2) Give it a gentle yet persistent tug and wait for that satisfying "Rrrrrrip!" sound that lets you know you've eliminated the menace by the roots. 3) Hold it up and say, "You're gone, McCarthy. As for you, Jordan, Gohmert, Boebert, Gaetz and the rest...you're next." 4) Laugh maniacally. 5) Acknowledge the spontaneous applause coming from the neighbors' yards. 6) If you have more weeds than there are idiot House morons, move on to idiot senators, governors and Fox News hosts. Have fun!
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
The reality of contemporary living requires our attention and efforts be divided between demanding jobs, essential familial caregiving, replenishing social gatherings, and fulfilling political and community engagements—not to mention splashing in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool.
Note: A quick heads-up that, in our quest to be utterly horrible, there will be no C&J on Monday. We’ll return on Tuesday demanding that you take back what you said about us being utterly horrible or else we’ll take another day off. It’s up to you, people. It’s all up to you. —Mgt. Team & $500/hr. Motivational Consultants
Number of consecutive months home sales have been down: 4
Chronological rank of Bears Ears becoming a national monument to be jointly managed by the U.S. government and Native American tribes, as announced Monday: #1
Number of federal wildland firefighters being given "a hefty raise" by President Biden: 16,000
Percent of this year's wildfires that were caused by human activity: 96%
Percent caused by errant laser fire from an Orpglorpian cruiser in a dogfight with a Hfffhrrrrian destroyer in the Andromeda Galaxy: 1%
Stanley Cup Final Update
Colorado leads Tampa Bay 3games to 1
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I know we all like to figure out whom to blame when something awful happens, but it is not a particularly useful exercise. What we are trying to figure out is how to keep this from happening again.
Whether the teen killers in Colorado were driven berserk by being taught evolutionary theory or were just Bad Seed, I submit to you, as a simple and self-evident proposition, that they could not have injured and killed so many people if they had not had guns. If they had come into Columbine High School, pointed their index fingers at the kids they didn't like and said, "Bang, bang, you're dead!" not much would have happened as a consequence.
To address a tedious point, it is quite true that no law can assure that guns will not get into the hands of criminals and lunatics. But laws can make it much less likely that they will. The Brady law alone has kept tens of thousands of people with criminal or mental records from buying guns in just a few years.
CHEERS and JEERS to locking and loading. The Senate Judiciary Committee released the text of their gun-control bill, which they hope to fast-track even if the Trump cult throws a fit over it. How fast? This fast…
The vote to advance the bill was 64-35. Fourteen Republicans joined Democrats in support of the measure, and senators now expect its final passage later this week.
The bill includes funding to bolster mental health, enhanced background checks for people under 21, incentives for states to adopt “red flag” laws, and school security measures.
This time IS different. Organizing works. Really excited to see the Senate introduce the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act led by Senator Murphy. It's not enough, but it's lifesaving and it's just the start. Let's get the bill passed.
It would close the “boyfriend loophole,” a last-minute hang-up in the negotiations, by prohibiting romantic partners convicted of domestic violence who are not married to their victim from getting firearms. And it includes the first comprehensive federal criminal statute banning gun trafficking and straw purchasing.
This is historic. This is big. This leaves me slack-jawed, amazed, and astonished. The Senate actually let a bill go to the floor to be talked about and voted on? Looks like I picked the wrong day to sell my fainting couch on eBay.
CHEERS to Day 5. The House Jan. 6 Subcommittee hearings continue today, although a bit later than usual. The gavel will drop at 3pm ET, with today's action focusing on how Donald Trump personally tried to pressure the Justice Department to help steal the 2020 election. And since the hearings are proving to be both more damning and more watched than anyone expected, there might be a sequel or two on the horizon:
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, said Wednesday that significant new streams of evidence have necessitated a change to the panel’s hearing schedule, including the potential for additional hearings. […]
Thompson(D-Miss.) cited newly received footage from documentarian Alex Holder, who had access to Trump and his family before and after Jan. 6; new documents from the National Archives; and a flood of new tips received during the committee’s first four public hearings.
Although panel leaders have only teased the possibility of two public hearings beyond Thursday’s, Thompson said they may add one or more hearings, depending on the evidence it collects in the coming weeks.
Like I've been saying all along: we're gonna need a bigger tub of popcorn.
CHEERS to 1-900-CLARENCETHOMAS. Who's up for some SCOTUS hilarity? On this date in 1989, the Supreme Court refused to shut down the dial-a-porn industry, saying that indecent speech isn’t the same thing as obscenity, and is therefore protected. Interestingly, all the justices in the majority had one cauliflower ear. Coincidence, I'm sure.
P.S. Clarence Thomas turns 74 today. I hope he enjoyed the little, um, "present" we left on his Coke can this morning. We all chipped in, sir.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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It's Summer Solstice in the north! Earth's 23.4° axial tilt and position in orbit mean the northern hemisphere gets the most daylight hours under the most intense sunlight of the year. The south gets the least of both. Earth is now on the right of this animation below pic.twitter.com/oOKPX9jpVw
CHEERS to Things That Go Clackety-Clack for $200, Alex. On June 23, 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his "Type-writer," the first to have the famous QWERTY sequence on its upper keys. Today bloggers who can't think of anything for their subject line typically go south for the edgier and more mysterious "asdf." And the day someone decides to drop down to "zxcv"? Well, don’t tell anybody, but I believe that's the day the nukes leave the silos.
CHEERS to today's edition of Oh, So That's What Impeachment and Conviction Looks Like. Let's see…a sitting U.S. president trying to blackmail a foreign country to help him steal his re-election isn’t enough to get a conviction. The same sitting U.S. president orchestrating a deadly coup attempt to steal his re-election isn’t enough to get a conviction. Golly, Beav', what is worth impeachment and removal from office? Apparently something far, far less worse…
South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg has been convicted in impeachment charges and removed from office over the aftermath following a fatal car crash in 2020 he was involved in. Ravnsborg,46, faced the state's first impeachment trial for his conduct surrounding the traffic accident, in which he struck and killed a pedestrian with his 2011 Ford Taurus.
But you can now just call him “the disgraced Mr. Ravsnbooger.”
Ravnsborg initially thought he hit a deer but discovered Boever's body when he returned to the scene the next day, he told authorities.
This has been today's edition of Oh, So That's What Impeachment and Conviction Looks Like.
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 23, 2012
JEERS to muzzling progress. And now, here to say a few words about the improving Florida economy is Governor Rick Scott:
