To the best of its ability, Cheers & Jeers posts weekdays from the great state of Maine.
Presidents' Day Happy Fun Quiz
They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky. They're altogether ooky, the POTUS Family. And we've got a superior quiz this year. Just guess which president talked smack about one or more of his fellow chief executives (or, in some cases, himself). No cheating—you'll be monitored for compliance from space. Good luck.
1. "[Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft are] Tweedledum and Tweedledee."
a) Cleveland b) Coolidge c) Hayes d) Wilson
2. "General [Zachary] Taylor is, I have no doubt, a well-meaning old man. He is, however, uneducated, exceedingly ignorant of public affairs, and, I should judge, of very ordinary capacity."
a) J.Q. Adams b) Fillmore c) Polkd) W.H. Harrison
Continued on page 42...
Presidents’ Day quiz continued...
3. "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here."
a) W.H. Harrison b) Harding c) Pierce d) Hoover
4. "That [George Washington] was not a scholar is certain. That he was too illiterate, unread, unlearned from his station and reputation is equally past dispute."
a) Madison b) J. Adamsc) Reagan d) Hayes
5. "[James Polk] is a bewildered, confounded and miserably perplexed man."
a) Lincolnb) Monroe c) Taylor d) A. Johnson
6. "[William Howard Taft is] a fathead with the brains of a guinea pig."
a) F. Roosevelt b) McKinley c) T. Rooseveltd) Nixon
7. "[Lincoln] is, to the extent of his limited ability and narrow intelligence, [the abolitionists'] willing instrument for all the woe which [has] thus far been brought upon the country and for all the degradation, all the atrocity, all the desolation and ruin."
a) Buchanan b) Pierce c) Tyler d) Grant
8. "If you vote for Nixon, you might go to hell."
a) Truman b) Kennedy c) Hoover d) Reagan
9. "[John Tyler possesses] talents not above mediocrity, and a spirit incapable of expansion to the dimensions of the station upon which he has been cast by the hand of Providence."
a) Jefferson b) Jackson c) Grantd) J.Q. Adams
10. "I always figured the American public wanted a solemn ass for president, so I went along with them."
a) Monroe b) Ford c) B. Harrison d) Coolidge
ANSWERS: 1) d 2) c 3) b 4) b 5) a 6) c 7) b 8) a 9) d 10) d
Percent of Democrats and Republicans, respectively, who believe environmental protection should be a priority for the president and Congress, according to Pew Research: 85%, 39%
Percent of women and men, respectively, who believe Trump deserves reelection, according to a Monmouth poll: 36%, 50%
Increase in average gas prices from a year ago at this time: 13%
Number of presidents born before the U.S. became a country: 8
Number of presidents who fought in the Civil War, all for the Union: 7
CHEERS to red-faced whiny baby tantrums. Our impeached president spent the weekend pounding his tiny hands on Stephen Miller's freakishly-large melon and spewing chunks of cheeseburger all over his Mar-A-Lago guests as two of his biggest enemies were vindicated Friday. Decorated Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, who earned Trump's contempt by telling the truth at the House impeachment hearings, was informed he would not be investigated by the military, but rather lauded and applauded as the fine, upstanding American hero he is. Also in the clear: former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, whom Trump vilified so loudly that even Satan was like, "Dude, inside voice." And on top of all that, CREW came upon comments by a federal judge who, by god, has had enough:
“I don’t think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted. I just think it’s a banana republic when we go down that road and we have those type of statements being made that are conceivably...influencing the ultimate decision,” [U.S. District Judge Reggie] Walton said.
McCabe wins. Trump loses.
“I think there are a lot of people on the outside who perceive that there is undue, inappropriate pressure being brought to bear.”
Trump was reportedly furious when he found out charges were not going to filed. McCabe called the decision a tremendous“relief” in an interview on CNN, but slammed the DOJ for taking two years to reach an “obvious conclusion.”
Today trump will spend the day the usual way: rage-tweeting, screaming at the staff, and adding to his enemies list. His arteries will also spend the day the usual way: praying for a quick, blessed end.
CHEERS to peace, perhaps, in our time. Things are so dire in this country that this nugget of news from "over there" got buried last week. It would seem that the United States and the Taliban are close to kissing and making up:
A senior U.S. official said Friday the United States and the Taliban have reached a truce agreement that will take effect “very soon” and could lead to withdrawals of American troops from Afghanistan.
If both sides can be good for 10 days, they’ll have permission from the U.N. to dig into this lovely cake.
The official said the agreement for a seven-day “reduction in violence” to be followed by the start of all-Afghan peace talks within 10 days is “very specific” and covers the entire country, including Afghan government forces. […] The official said the Taliban had committed to a halt in roadside and suicide bombings as well as rocket attacks. The official said the U.S. would monitor the truce and determine if there were any violations.
Yes. The Taliban must stop their bombing attacks. Shame on them. And in other news, eight innocent Afghan civilians were blown up in a U.S. bombing attack. But, in fairness, they had a very good reason. They…uh…um…were showing the Taliban what not to do. Yeah, that's it. Don’t do that, Taliban. Very bad.
CHEERS to longevity. The world has a new oldest man alive, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Chitetsu Watanabe of Japan, born in 1907, is 112 and just a couple weeks shy of hitting the big one-one-three. The year he was born…
» Einstein was hard at work on his theory of relativity
» The Ford Model R was first produced
A life longely lived
» The panic of 1907 sendt the stock market down to 53
» The average U.S. worker made around $300 a year
» A Hershey Bar cost 2 cents
» Oklahoma became a state
» President Teddy Roosevelt shook 8,513 hands in a single day
» The Cubs won the World Series
Watanabe still exercises, makes origami, and keeps sharp with calligraphy and math exercises. He replaces Masazo Nonaka, also of Japan, who on January 20th died from an acute case of being 112 years and 266 days old.
JEERS to the preparing for The Apostrolypse. To help solve the mystery of how, exactly, one punctuates today's holiday, over the weekend I performed my annual ritual of consulting the blizzard of ads appearing in The Portland (Maine) Press Herald and online to get some clarity. This year's batch:
Bed, Bath & Beyond: Presidents' Day
LaZBoy: Presidents Day
Hannaford Supermarkets: Presidents' Day
8Sleep.com: Presidents Day
Staples: Presidents' Day
The official Betsy DeVos spelling.
Pierce Furniture: President's Day
Tempur-pedic: Presidents Day
Walmart: Presidents' Day
Barnes & Noble: President's Day
Target: Presidents Day
Appliances Connection: President's Day
Dell: Presidents' Day
Press Herald Auto Section: Presidents Day
Macy's: Presidents' Day
MattressFirm: Presidents Day
Hub Furniture: Presidents Day and President's Day
We trust this clears up any confusion for at least another year.
CHEERS to legal libations. On this date in 1933, the U.S. Senate passed the Blaine Act, which effectively ended prohibition. Who says Christmas comes in December?
JEERS to sudden deletions. I had a thing all written up about the Daytona 500, but Trump was there so naturally he brought torrential rains and the thing had to be postponed until today. So here’s a suitable placeholder we chose out of millions of options…
SHRUG to sudden departures. Senator Evan Bayh—a classic Democrat-in-Name-Only—announced yesterday that he's not running for re-election because he says the partisanship has gotten to be just too much for him. Fair enough. For the rest of his life he'll receive gold-plated government health insurance and a little pension that will keep him and the family (whom, we would note, must be rather pissed that he didn’t quit to spend more time with them) comfy cozy. Oh, and he can go out into the private sector now and spin his Senate credentials into any job he wants for millions of dollars. A real man of the people.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to swatting down a gilded, gassy gadfly. A little retro-hilarity here, for which we can thank the massive six-block-long C&J archives. Back on February 17, 2008, when Barack Obama was still just a candidate on the stump, New York Times columnist and elitist penthouse dweller David Brooks offered this bit of snide advice on the now-thankfully-defunct syndicated Chris Matthews Show:
Responding to Chris Matthews' question, "[W]ill Barack Obama's oratorical ability on the lectern in front of big rooms continue to be his winning edge?" The New York Times' David Brooks said: "Yes, but he's got to get away from colleges. Go visit a factory for once."
And here we are, twelve years later. Barack and Michelle Obama are now among the most successful two-term president-first lady duos in our history. And among other ventures, they've created a production company called Higher Ground, dedicated to creating documentaries and other non-fiction programming for Netflix. Their first production won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. And you'll never guess what it's called...
Cheers and Jeers is a weekday blessing upon ye from the great state of Maine.
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Justice Edition
"Lt. Colonel Vindman, who testified during President Trump's impeachment, was escorted from the White House and fired. Now, you might recall that Vindman received the Purple Heart due to a wound in combat, while Trump has a Purple Heart because his blood type is hamburger grease."
—Michael Che, SNL
"In addition to firing two key impeachment witnesses, Trump also fired Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman's twin brother, an ethics lawyer who wasn't even involved in the trial. It's the kind of thing dictators do, although it’s hard to tell how much of Trump is dictator and how much is just a dick."
—Samantha Bee
Continued...
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"They told me I have 45 seconds up here, which is more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week. Maybe Quentin will make a movie about it and in the end the adults will do the right thing."
—Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood’s Brad Pitt at the Oscars
“According to a new report, Senator Bernie Sanders has had more fundraising success with Latinos than any other candidate. But once they hear Mike Bloomberg speak Spanish...that won’t change.”
—Seth Meyers
—via The Late Show
"Two candidates dropped out of the race last night: Andrew Yang and Michael Bennett. Andrew Yang told his supporters, 'Thank you for this amazing ride,' while Michael Bennett told his supporters, 'Come on, son, let's go home.'"
—Conan O'Brien
"The media is eager to crown a winner and dump on the losers, but the truth is it takes like 2,000 delegates to win the nomination. Iowa and New Hampshire combined have 65, and neither state is demographically representative of anything other than a Jimmy Buffet concert. So declaring a front-runner at this point is like picking a plastic surgeon based on two Yelp reviews."
—Jimmy Kimmel
"The virusssssssss. They're working hard. Looks like, by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away."
—Trump explaining his detailed plan for dealing with the coronavirus at his New Hampshire cult rally
"It would be fun to have Susan Collins as a teacher because she’d just give everyone A’s in the hopes they’ll one day learn something."
—Stephen Colbert
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, February 14, 2020
Note: Wanna play a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors? Great! You pick scissors and I'll pick rock. I win! Rematch?
Number of major (1,000 employees or more) labor strikes in 2019, versus an average of 15 per year between 2010 and 2018: 25
Percent of Democratic voters surveyed by Monmouth who say they want to maintain the existing nominating system where Iowa votes first: 7%
Percent of folks who voted in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night who were LGBTQ, even though only 4.7% of the state's population identifies as LGBTQ: 7%
Estimated amount spent on "unwanted" Valentine's Day gifts last year, according to WalletHub: $9.5 billion
Percent of annual flowers sales that happen on Valentine's Day: 30%
CHEERS to a bit of per-speck-tive. Today seems like a good day to step back and ponder our place in the universe. And when I say step back I mean waaaaaay back—like 3.7 billion miles back. Today is the 30th anniversary of the famous "pale blue dot" photo snapped by the Voyager probe in 1990 as it took one last look back at our sorry asses. Now, thanks to advances in imaging technology, NASA has unveiled a new, clearer image that we recommend you and a mixed drink or toke of wacky tobbacky spend some time with in quiet contemplation, as Carl Sagan so eloquently did, this weekend:
As we can all plainly see, it's a reminder—simultaneously placid, eerie, and awe-inspiring—that no matter how insurmountable our problems may seem or how big the assholes are who rule us, we're just an annoying itch on the universe's butt, and one day, whether humanity is still here or not, we're going to get scratched. Also as we can also plainly see, would it kill ya to pick your underwear up off the floor? The universe hates a slob.
CHEERS to getting the chef's kiss of endorsements. Only eight days until the Nevada (correctly pronounced "nay-VAY-day" or they'll come down on you like a ton of Bunny Ranchers) caucuses, and the tension is palpable as the all-powerful Culinary Workers Union prepares to take its fresh-baked endorsement out of the oven. The dynamics at play are substantial and complicated, which is why the C&J elections team is here to lay out the odds:
If Biden gets it, it's bad news for Buttigieg but good news for Klobuchar.
If Klobuchar gets it, it's good news for Sanders but bad news for Warren.
True fact: the winner of the Nevada caucuses not only wins the most delegates, but also these lovely veggie trays.
If Warren gets it, it's bad news for Sanders but good news for Steyer.
If Steyer gets it, it's good news for Buttigieg but bad news for Biden.
If Sanders gets it, it's bad news for Warren but good news for Buttigieg.
If Buttigieg gets it, it's bad news for Klobuchar but good news for Biden.
If Gabbard gets it, she'll be sent to jail for bribing a union to rig a caucus.
And the Culinary Workers Union endorsement goes to—[Opens envelope]—oh my god it's an eight-way tie for nobody.I bet that's gonna be hard to swallow and tough to digest. It'll probably leave a bad taste in their mouths. And the union's certainly gonna get grilled by the stewing candidates simmering over that half-baked non-committal committal. I just hope it's not enough to stir up a recipe for disaster. We'll just have to keep our eyes peeled. Pass the yams.
CHEERS to women on the move. 100 years ago this week, the group that Republicans today call "that damned nuisance"—The League of Women Voters—was founded in Chicago under the direction of president Maud Wood Park. It still amazes me how hard women had to fight for basic equality in the land of "Liberty and justice for all." I guess we're just slow learners when it comes to complicated, high-falutin’ words like “all.” And while we’re on the subject, happy 200th birthday tomorrow to Susan B. Anthony:
"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less."
”There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.”
"I distrust those who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."
“Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.”
I have a great gift idea for her 200th birthday: a woman president.
CHEERS to ideas that will change the world (and selected outlying star systems). There’s a big deadline coming up on the Netroots Nation convention calendar: if you have an idea for a panel or workshop that you want to propose and coordinate for this year’s convention (August 13-15 in Denver), just click here for the guidelines and submission form. Entries will be accepted through midnight on February 28th, just 15 days from now. Here’s a closer look at what they’re looking for this year:
» Strategic conversations about how we'll work together as a movement to win in 2020, from local races to the White House
August 13-15
» Sessions about how to govern and enact progressive policies after we've won
» Panels focusing on the intersections of racism and electoral justice, environmental justice/climate change and disability justice
» Trainings that help new activists grow into successful organizers and candidates, and advanced trainings that focus on cutting-edge tools and techniques
The link for all the panel submission info is here. If you have a panel in mind but you want some live assistance, there’s a webinar on the 25th, which you can register for at this link.To avoid the embarrassment of duplication, please note that I’ve already prepared a proposal for a panel called “How to Avoid the Embarrassment of Duplication.” To avoid the embarrassment of it getting lost, I sent it in twice.
JEERS to incivility. On tomorrow’s date in 1798, the House of Representatives was the site of the first congressional brawl, when much knocking of noggins occurred after a hurling of insults followed by Rep. Matthew Lyon (Democratic-Republican-VT) spitting in the face of Roger Griswold (Federalist-CT). Among the weapons that were wielded: fireplace tongs. Based on his expression, the guy recording the minutes just got tonged in the crotch and kinda liked it...
And if you look in the lower left corner, you’ll see a dog is present in the chamber. That would be Thaddeus T. Woofington from the great state of New York. He only lasted one term. Once he got tax cuts for the Wilson company passed, he spent the rest of his life in a cushy job at a pro-tennis ball think tank.
CHEERS to the last useful thing the Vatican ever did. On Sunday's date in 600, Pope Gregory the Great decreed that "God Bless You" would become the religiously correct response to a sneeze. Mostly because the old response—"Dude, that sounds bubonic"—was scaring off the faithful.
CHEERS to home vegetation. The big TV news of the weekend is John Oliver's triumphant return for another season (his seventh…already???) of Last Week Tonight on HBO Sunday night at 11. God only knows where he’ll plant his shovel first. But things get started tonight with Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and then HBO's Real Time, where Bill Maher talks with New Hampshire bronze medal winner Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Katie Couric, Van Jones, and Bret Stephens. Then at 11 Mark Ruffalo talks about his latest movie Dark Waters on The Graham Norton Show (BBC America).
Now on home video. (Spoiler alert: against all odds, my grandmother’s 1981 Ford Escort wins.)
New home video releases include Ford v. Ferrari and an interesting documentary called 16 Bars about a unique prison in Virginia. The NBA schedule is here and the NHL schedule is here. The PGA Tour moves out west for the Los Angeles Open, which first teed off back in 1926. Down Florida-way it’s the 62nd Daytona 500 Sunday at 2:30 (Fox). On 60 Minutes: the way video is "transforming the stage" of the latest Broadway revival of West Side Story. The sea captain finds the treasure he's been looking for all his life on The Simpsons, while Brian becomes an accidental hero on Family Guy. Season 3,219 of American Idol premieres Sunday at 8 on ABC. (True Fact: the first champion was Betsy Ross.) MSNBC premieres a new series on immigrants' contribution to our food supply called What's Eating America? At 9. And one has to wonder what part of the new episode of Curb Your EnthusiasmTrump will take out of context and tweet to the world, demonstrating once again he's dumb as rocks.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: 2020 candidates Joe Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
CNN's State of the Union: Amy Klobuchar; House majority whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC); Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA) and Andrew Gillum are on the pundit panel; Pence chief of staff Marc Short (R-Moscow).
Amy’s making the Sunday morning rounds this weekend.
Face the Nation: Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH Dr. Anthony Fauci; 2020 candidates Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer; Sen. John Kennedy (R-Moscow).
This Week: TBA, but taking a wild guess here: Amy Klobuchar.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Mayor Pete! Plus: Kellyanne Conartist.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 14, 2010
CHEERS to bigots dropping like flies. Taking inventory of who no longer supports the military's 'Don’t Ask, Don't Tell' policy is getting to be a full-time job: Colin Powell, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Security Advisor Jim Jones, Federalist Society attorney Ted Olsen, 75 percent of the public, the Reserve Officers Association, even the craziest critters of the far right and their ringleader Dick Cheney. Wow—Dick Cheney and I are in total synch. Pardon me while I go dunk my soul into a barrel of Purell.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to li'l sweet nothings. Happy Valentine's Day! I tossed some horny goat weed in my evening cocktail and now I'm madly in love with all of you and half the furniture in the house. Did you know that eight billion of those addictive Sweethearts candies (thankfully picked up by the Spangler Candy Company after the original maker, the New England Confectionery Company, went belly-up) are produced every year? It's TRUE!!! In a tradition we started a few years back, we present this year’s list of candy heart sayings for Trump-era Republicans:
BACKWARD TOGETHER
LIGHT MY TIKI TORCH
READY FIRE AIM
WHISPER SWEET NOTHINGS (IN ENGLISH ONLY!)
“Happy Valentine’s Day, my little lotus blossom. I got you a box of you Type-2 diabetes.”
STROKE MY GUN. I’M PRETTY SURE IT’S NOT LOADE
MY WALL OR YOURS?
BE MY GRIFTER
#1 DOTARD
FETCH MY SUPPER, WOMAN
YES, VLAD
CHICKS DIG NUKE STRIKES
RICH SINNERS GET MULLIGANS
U R THE CREAM IN MY COVFEFE
BEST THIRD WIFE EVUH
CAGE KIDS 4 JESUS
What can we say? That's amore.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
Cheers and Jeers is a mom-approved weekday post from the great state of Maine.
Energize An Ally Tuesday
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch said, “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” All along, my conscience has been my guide. But voting my conscience does not require courage—it simply requires doing what I know is right. Growing up in Alabama I learned right from wrong. What the President did was more than wrong. Someone has to stand up and say so. I will fulfill my oath and vote in favor of both articles of impeachment. […] Ultimately, we will be judged to be on the right side of history.
—Senator Doug Jones (D-AL)
Choosing to put Senator Jones (follow him on Twitter here and Facebook here) in our Tuesday spotlight is a no-brainer. He could've left his spine in the cloakroom and wimped out for political expedience. But he's a leader, not a cultist. So today we make a donation to his reelection campaign and we invite you to follow suit here, if you’re so inclined. He’s a good guy, works hard, and has earned our support. Plus: the last thing we need is Jeff Sessions back in the Senate. Gack.
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Note: This is a friendly reminder that February is officially designated Bird Feeding Month. Please remember to fill your bird feeders all the way to the top every day with a fine assortment of nuts and seeds. Especially cashews and almonds. In fact, you can skip the seeds, actually. Nuts would be perfect. Thank you for your attention in this matter. In fact, you should go fill it right now. Go, bird feeders hooray! —The Squirrels
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By the Numbers:
13 days!!!
Days 'til the Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary, respectively: 11, 18
Percent of American adults surveyed by Gallup who say they want Democrats in Congress to determine the nation’s direction, versus 43% for Trump: 49%
Number of health care jobs added in January: 35,000
Job growth in the mining sector in January: 0%
Recorded temperature in Antarctica last Thursday: 64.9F
Year Skee-Ball was invented and patented by Joseph Fourestier Simpson: 1908
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Puppy Pic of the Day: If the Bassett Hound comes out in a Sherlock Holmes hat and pipe tonight, this show is over…
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CHEERS to the joyful noise coming from next door. We're very happy that the New Hampshire primary will be over in a dozen hours, mainly because it'll mean an end to all the political TV and radio ads that have bled over into Maine for the last several weeks. As for the outcome, this tidbit we plucked from The Colbert Report circa 2012 sums up just what kind of barometer the proceedings are today:
Clip of Jon Huntsman TV interview: They pick corn in Iowa. They actually pick presidents here in New Hampshire.
Stephen Colbert: Yes, New Hampshire picks presidents. Just ask Presidents Pat Buchanan, Paul Tsongas and Estes Kefauver.
Also: Presidents Hart, Lodge, Romney, and Muskie. So keep that in mind. The person who you think is going to win might not win. This is, after all, New Hampshire, so don’t take anything for granite. Ha Ha Ha!!! That goes out to my peeps in the igneous rock community. We’re close.
P.S. Earlier this morning, at the stroke of midnight, the five voters in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire cast their ballots. The biggest winner, as usual: the guy at the door selling coffee to the bleary-eyed media for ten bucks a pop.
CHEERS to fresh paneling. A timely reminder that time is ticking down to the February 28 deadline for panel, workshop and screening submissions for the Netroots Nation convention—co-sponsored by Daily Kos—in Denver August 13-15. Mary Rickles says the goal is to highlight hot topics in the progressive community by bringing activists, analysts, political leaders and audiences together for 90 minutes of exhilarating discussion and illumination. Here’s a closer look at what they’re looking for this year:
» Strategic conversations about how we'll work together as a movement to win in 2020, from local races to the White House
» Sessions about how to govern and enact progressive policies after we've won
» Panels focusing on the intersections of racism and electoral justice, environmental justice/climate change and disability justice
» Trainings that help new activists grow into successful organizers and candidates, and advanced trainings that focus on cutting-edge tools and techniques
Submissions are judged by internal panels and then by the public. The link for all the panel submission info is here. If you have a panel in mind but you want some live assistance, there are two webinars: one today at 3pm ET and one on the 25th, for which you can register at this link.Deadline is 17 days from today. Last year I attended a terrific panel called How to Promote Netroots Nation Panel Submissions in Cheers and Jeers Without Really Trying. Aced it.
CHEERS to joining the resistance. Friday night the head of the Trump crime syndicate decided to take out his wrath on a few of the folks who testified during the House impeachment inquiry. One of them, EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, I could care less about—a Republican stooge who paid a million bucks to knowingly work for a narcissistic lunatic in a position whose job description he dumbed down to: "Live in European mansion. Do rich guy stuff." Fuck him.
The real outrage lies in the double-removal from the National Security Council of the decorated Vindman twins: Lt. Colonel Alexander, who testified, and Lt. Colonel Yevgeny, who didn't. It was a petty, vindictive (Vindmandictive?) move that sparked a massive backlash, and Alexander is not going quietly:
[T]he Purple Heart recipient fought back on Saturday in a statement from his lawyer, basically calling Trump a petty liar who is trying to intimidate anybody who stands up to him.
There’s a promotion and probably another medal in it for this guy. Eventually.
“The President this morning made a series of obviously false statements concerning Lieutenant Colonel Vindman,” the statement read. “While the most powerful man in the world continues his campaign of intimidation … Lieutenant Colonel Vindman continues his service to our country as a decorated, active duty member of our military.”
The next time a Democrat steps behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, I expect "Reinstate the Vindmans" will be at the top of the agenda. Right after "Sandblast orange face paint stains out of Resolute Desk and restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office." So probably sometime in 2022.
CHEERS to the guy who really was the brightest bulb in the box. Happy 173rd Birthday—and many blessings on your tungsten filaments—to fellow Ohio native Thomas Edison. He invented the light bulb, the phonograph, the Snuggie and the ShamWOW! (the last two during his slow descent into madness). Pay your respects here. Today is also Sarah Palin's birthday—she turns 56. Or as she likes to put it: just another orbit of the sun around the earth.
JEERS to current events. Tuesday morning and the rotation of the earth is in no danger of stopping. But that's not necessarily the case with Atlantic ocean currents, which—stop me of you've heard this before—may be on the cusp of slowing down. Says NASA:
A major ocean current in the Arctic is faster and more turbulent as a result of rapid sea ice melt, a new study from NASA shows. The current is part of a delicate Arctic environment that is now flooded with fresh water, an effect of human-caused climate change.
Uh oh.
Using 12 years of satellite data, scientists have measured how this circular current, called the Beaufort Gyre, has precariously balanced an influx of unprecedented amounts of cold, fresh water—a change that could alter the currents in the Atlantic Ocean and cool the climate of Western Europe.
"If the Beaufort Gyre were to release the excess fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean, it could potentially slow down its circulation. And that would have hemisphere-wide implications for the climate, especially in Western Europe," said Tom Armitage, lead author of the study and polar scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The White House, horrified at the news, promised to deal with the situation promptly and decisively by firing all the scientists.
CHEERS to caffeine in the clear. On January 11, 1992, a study said that drinking three cups of coffee a day does not raise the risk of heart disease. But it does raise your risk of peeing like a racehorse every five minutes.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 11, 2010
JEERS to making it to the top. Tense moments on the observation deck of the newly-grand-opened world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. This gives me the willies just thinking about it:
Visitors who were on the viewing floor at the time of Saturday's incident told The Associated Press they heard a loud noise, then saw what looked like smoke but turned out to be dust seeping out of the crack in one of the elevator doors. …
Even worse: 45 minutes of non-stop Muzak.
About 45 minutes later, rescue crews arrived and pried open the elevator door, Timms said. The faulty elevator was caught between floors,so rescuers hoisted a ladder into the shaft to help those trapped inside get out.
Folks were eventually evacuated via a freight elevator. Several people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries sustained after getting their lips stuck to the hot pavement while kissing the ground.
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And just one more…
JEERS to the Edsel of House committees. True fact: if you're in Washington and you visit the dumpster next to the House parking lot, you'll still see smoke wafting up from the remnants of Trey Gowdy's Benghazi investigation. I think it's worth reminding the world that six years ago today, the non-scandal that Republicans and Fox News branded "worse than Watergate" jumped the shark:
In a new report released on Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee concludes that there was no way for the U.S. military to have responded in time to the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya to save the four Americans killed that night.
Her other hand is tied behind her back to make it a fair fight.
In doing so, the report debunks entirely a right-wing myth that says the White House ordered the military not to intervene. […]
Fox News cited reports of a stand-down orderno fewer than 85 times during prime-time segments as of June 2013. As the new report—which the Republican majority of the committee authored—makes very clear in its findings, however, no such order ever existed.
Today the only reports Gowdy writes are the employee reviews down at the Pawpatch City Burger King. ("Gary still struggling with fry vat. Will scream harder at him to improve performance.")
That’s all I got. Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Daily Kos readers blast Bill in Portland Maine after Markos Moulitsas escorted out of Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool: "The smallest man alive"
Cheers and Jeers is a keto-friendly weekday post from the great state of Maine.
Late Night Snark: Let ‘er Rrrrrrrrrip Edition
"After President Trump gave his State of the Union address, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore it in half. Then Melania said, 'Great—now do my prenup.'"
—Conan O'Brien
"[Fox News is right], my friends. When Nancy Pelosi tore up a copy of Trump's speech, she wasn't just ripping up a speech. She was ripping up the memory of the people in that speech. Those people are gone now. That's how paper works. Like one time I was at dinner and the waiter ripped up my receipt, and then I was hungry again."
—Trevor Noah
There’s more down in the enchanted grotto.
"Minority leader Chuck Schumer said that from here on, Trump's presidency will always have an asterisk next to it. And Lindsey Graham will be there to kiss that asterisk at all times."
—Jimmy Kimmel
"[Senator Susan Collins] now says she probably shouldn't have said she 'believes' President Trump has learned his lessons from the fallout from his dealings with Ukraine and impeachment. She now says a better word would've been 'hopes.' Yes, and a better word than 'Senator' Susan Collins would be 'Former' Senator Susan Collins."
—Stephen Colbert
Even Scientologists are watching this like, "Damn, this is a cult"
—The Daily Show
"In a new book, John Bolton claims that last August President Trump told him directly that he was holding up aid to Ukraine until they investigate the Bidens. Hey, guys, what's up with the books? When there's an emergency, just tell us right away. If your friend's about to get murdered, you don't go off and write a novel called The Killer Behind You."
—Colin Jost, SNL
"The Palestinian president has rejected Trump's Middle East peace plan, saying 'a thousand noes’ to the deal. Incidentally, a thousand noes is what Trump calls consent."
—Michael Che, SNL
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, February 7, 2020
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday as I'll be recovering from the trauma of knowing that the Betelgeuse star exploded, killing us all (and the squirrels). See you Tuesday in the afterlife, which unfortunately is a perfectly-synchronized carbon copy of this one.
CHEERS to Manchester melee!!! Can you say bladder buster? That's right, kids, tonight there’s another Democratic primary debate, this time in the great state of New Hampshire. In honor of the late Kirk Douglas, Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Yang, Klobuchar, and Steyer will dress in animal skins (sorry, PETA) and be given their choice of a sword, a trident, or a net with which to take down their opponents in a circular arena with no exits at St. Anselm College. According to the press materials, four moderators will ask the candidates "questions on the minds of the voters." We got a sneak peek at a few of them in advance:
» Do you know who won Iowa yet?
» Is it fair that those lying, cheating bastards up in Dixville Notch---[P'tooey!]---should get to vote next Tuesday at midnight before'n the rest of us? Hiram still ain't returned my lawnmower and he took it in '78.
The lawnmower Hiram refuses to return. (You thought I was joking? I don’t joke about lawnmower disputes.)
» Did you know Franklin Pierce is buried up the road apiece? Cuz he is. They don’t call me Trivia Bob for nothin', ya know.
» Could one of you moderators ask the candidates a question about the climate crisis that's turning our planet into a giant polluted fireball of doom? No? Oh, okay. I'll sit down and quietly seethe, then.
» Yes, my question is for Deez Nuts. Mr. Nuts, I would like to know….. What do you mean he didn’t qualify? Rigged!
» In the 30 seconds allotted to you, can you please explain your health care plan line by line, including costs, revenue adjustments, offsets, restrictions, add-ons, buy-ins, fiduciaries, economic impacts, and all the other minutia Republicans never, ever have to reveal?
» Can you stop talking for a few minutes? I need to go grab some more cheesy fries and I don’t want to miss anything.
» What…the…actual…f*ck…is going on?
Yeah. I’d definitely like an answer to that last one. My cheesy fries just disappeared.
JEERS to pissing down our back and calling it God's plan. By way of the Joe.My.God. blog comes this gem from Trump cultist Christopher Harris, director of some uninformed grifter outfit called Unhyphenated America. Seems ol' Chris is thrilled with the outcome of Trump's sham impeachment trial. How thrilled? Tingle up the leg thrilled:
"It’s a great day. Listen, I would argue that it’s probably three of the greatest years since maybe Jesus walked the Earth with his ministry."
So, to recap: the Trump presidency has taken us back to a time when humans walked the earth on roads made of equal parts mud, piss and shit, among disease-ridden ignoramuses wearing filthy rags who lived in leaky, rodent-infested huts to the ripe old age of 30 under the thumb of gluttonous dictatorial tyrants who worked them like dogs and grossly underpaid them, if they paid them at all. Yup. That sounds about right.
CHEERS to Tippeca...ca...cachoo! Happy 247th birthday Sunday to "#9" William Henry "Tippecanoe" Harrison. During his nearly two-hour inaugural address (sans overcoat), he pledged not to run for a second term and, in one of the fastest fulfillments of a campaign promise ever, caught pneumonia and died 32 days later, but not before being plied with enough ipecac, opium, castor oil, calomel, camphor and brandy to kill a small army. But he did have a lasting effect on our electoral process. From Secret Lives of theU.S.Presidents by Cormac O'Brien:
[I]f Harrison was no dream candidate, his campaign for president was one of the most important in American history.
Gesundheit.
Before 1840, active campaigning for office was considered about as crass as writing a blurb for your own book.
Candidates were supposed to maintain an air of ambivalence while others did their stumping for them.
Harrison changed all that by personally jumping into the fray with earnest, smiling enthusiasm, and his Whig party cohorts turned the campaign into a circus.
They dismissed opponent Martin Van Buren as a snob and a dandy, claiming their boy Harrison was the real man of the people. There were parties, bands, garish banners. It worked.
The Whigs only fielded two winning candidates (Zachary Taylor was the other), and neither could finish their first term without a visit from the grim reaper. But, hey—they did throw great parties.
CHEERS and farewell to Kirk Douglas. You can't say he didn’t live a full and long life, but the world still seems a little less hospitable today without the cinema legend, whose films are responsible for the disappearance of approximately—[clickety clackety clack]—149.3 pounds of popcorn into my belly. The star of too many classics to name, and rock-ribbed Democrat, was 103 when he died Wednesday. Along with his film career, he stuck his neck out against the Trumpian orcs of his day:
Douglas was responsible for helping to break Hollywood's infamous blacklist at the height of Cold War paranoia when he was instrumental in hiring and crediting the legendary screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the so-called Hollywood Ten, for his work on "Spartacus."
With Douglas gone, we are all Spartacus now.
He was also a committed philanthropist.
"I've known Kirk Douglas personally and appreciate his friendship," President Jimmy Carter said as he awarded Douglas the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1981. "But more than that, I have known how dedicated he is to using his talent as an actor and a director and the esteem with which he's held by his own people in spreading the good news about this country and explaining our purposes, our ideals, our commitments and our achievements, our hopes and our dreams to people around the world."
Following a small private funeral, he was buried in his chin dimple.
CHEERS to construer constriction. On February 7, 1795 the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. It says:
"The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state."
Sadly, they failed to include "or by aliens from another planet," leading to the unexpected annexation of Texas by the Emperor Glarb of the Xxxxorpp Nebula. Whoops! (But I have to admit Louie Gohmert looks downright regal in his viceroy sash.)
CHEERS to home vegetation. If it's Friday, the boob tube must be singing its siren song. As we mentioned above, a septet of fine and civil Democratic candidates will smash each other over the head with their flaming debate lecterns tonight in Manchester (8ET, ABC), Or you can catch up on the latest news dumps with Chris, Rachel, and Lawrence Maddow on MSNBC.
Promotional graphic!
Tonight on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Ezra Klein, Mayor Andrew Gillum, Fareed Zakaria, human barnacle Steve Bannon, and Sarah Isgur. New home video releases include Dr. Sleep (Stephen King's sequel to The Shining, with Ewan McGregor) and the dream pairing of Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen in The Good Liar. The NBA schedule is hereand the NHL schedule is here. SNL is must-see this weekend with dream host RuPaul and musical guest Justin Bieber, who will no doubt put his legit comedy chops to good use.
And Sunday night on ABC the least-suspenseful Oscars in history will air, hostless again (which actually worked out pretty well last year). I'll spare you the suspense. Best Picture and Director: 1917. Best Actor: the Joker guy. Best Actress: the uncanny Judy Garland clone. Best Supporting Actor: the Once Upon A Time in Hollywood stunt double. Best Supporting Actress: the Marriage Story divorce lawyer. Buy ya Sony Pictures if I’m wrong.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Mayor Pete. Bernie.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Bernie. Mayor Pete. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-The Cult); Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai.
CNN's State of the Union: TBA
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Mayor Pete.
Happy viewing.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 7, 2010
CHEERS to mess management. U.S. General "Flat" Stanley McChrystal says things are looking a bit better in Afghanistan, although he admits he's "not prepared to say we've turned a corner." When asked if he was prepared to say that we've rounded the bend, seen light at the end of the tunnel, crossed a bridge, reached a plateau, shifted into high gear, achieved liftoff, blazed a trail, opened a door, forged a path, laid down tracks, left the dock, or skipped to our Lou, he gave us a Three Stooges eye poke. Impressive reach.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the Energizer Maestro. Woo-hoo! It's time for our annual "Happy Birthday" salute to 25-time Grammy winner, 5-time Oscar winner, 3-time Emmy winner, Kennedy Center honoree, Lifetime Contribution to Hollywood Award winner and rock-ribbed dirty fucking hippie union-loving Democrat John Williams. He is hands-down my favorite composer, and he's widely considered America's greatest living composer period. Over a span of 60 years he's given us:
» One iconic theme for NBC Nightly News and another for Meet the Press
» One Kirk Douglas movie (The Fury)
» One score for an Oscar-winning animated short based on the late NBA star Kobe Bryant's poem Dear Basketball
» Two Jaws scores
» Two JurassicPark scores.
And he’s just getting warmed up...
» Two themes and one episode score for Land of the Giants
» Three Oliver Stone films (Born on the 4th of July, JFK,Nixon)
» Three iconic disaster flicks (Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake,Towering Inferno)
» Three Harry Potter scores
» Four Indiana Jones scores
» Five themes for various Olympic Games
» Nine Star Wars scores—a 42-year magnum opus d'cinema thatwill never be equaled
» 20 scores for episodes of Gilligan's Island
» 28 scores for Steven Spielberg movies
» And, yes, a disco version of his theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind that he regrets recording but it was a Top 40 hit and it’s actually pretty catchy.
He's also composed music involving a gaggle of American presidents: John F. Kennedy (JFK), John Quincy Adams/Martin Van Buren (Amistad), Tricky Dick (Nixon, The Post), Lincoln (Lincoln), and Obama (a piece for the first inauguration, in which he expressed "in a very simple and not ostentatious way the solemnity and beauty of the moment and the promise of the moment"). Also: Queen Elizabeth II (in The BFG).
Now the million-dollar question: can you imagine Star Wars without Williams’ iconic music? The Auralnauts did, and it’s just not quite the same…
After capturing Vienna's heart last month by conducting two sold-out concerts there (with two more scheduled in Chicago and Pittsburgh—sold out within seconds, of course), he's currently pondering his next project, with no intention of retiring. Happy 88th birthday, John. Only 12 more years and we'll let you retire.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
This is a mediocre weekday post from the great state of Maine.
Now Playing
The Sundance Film Festival just wrapped up for another year, and I took my usual toodle over to their web site to check out the documentaries that are hoping to pick up nationwide distributors. As usual, it's an embarrassment of celluloid riches. Here are a handful that embrace issues we talk about here at Daily Kos all the time:
Us KidsAfter a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School claims 17 lives, a number of students rally themselves around the tragedy as an opportunity to speak out against the national gun-violence epidemic. Director Kim A. Snyder (Newtown) carefully chronicles 18 pivotal months in the development of the March For Our Lives movement through a deeply personal lens. With extended access to the young activists not only on stage but in their homes and among their friends, Us Kids allows us to see them through one another’s eyes—as “normal-ass kids” bravely dealing with the weight of their traumas.
Continued...
The FightSeven days after President Trump’s inauguration, the country’s airports and courthouses were clogged with protesters fighting to protect immigrants facing deportation due to the administration’s “Muslim ban” policy. It was to be the opening salvo of a relentless attack on civil liberties—and a tsunami of lawsuits waged against the Trump administration. What must it be like to be an ACLU lawyer in this day and age? Directors Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and Eli Despres capture the rollercoaster ride of the thrill and defeat in these deeply human battles. The Fight celebrates the unsung heroes who fiercely work to protect our freedoms. Winner of the Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking.
The DissidentWashington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was critical of his beloved Saudi Arabia and of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies. On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul and never came out. With exclusive access to the Turkish government’s evidence; to Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz; and to Khashoggi’s close friend and fellow Saudi insurgent, Omar Abdulaziz, Academy Award–winning filmmaker Bryan Fogelunearths hidden secrets in this real-life international thriller that will continue to rock the world long after the headlines have faded away. The Dissident is an intimate portrait of a man who sacrificed everything for freedom of speech.
Programming Note: Good morning and welcome to the ALL-NEW Cheers and Jeers format. You may have noticed that, over the last couple of weeks, the poobahs in the Daily Kos management cubicle have been reducing the quantity of above-the-fold verbiage. So starting today, you’ll notice that our traditional C&J “opener” continues down here in the underground portion of our humble, Pulitzer-snubbed abode. All the mediocrity you’ve come to expect will still be spat out in a factually-dubious, typo-riddin, deadline-induced panic for your personal edu-tainment. We’re just taking a little off the top. Or as my barber calls it: “the usual.” —Bill in Portland Maine, Blogging Elder
Percent of high school students who identify as transgender, according to CDC data: 2%
Number of South Korean films that have been Oscar-nominated for Best Picture:1 (Parasite, in 2020)
Number of minutes the cold virus lasts on skin: 5
Percent of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire who support Sanders, Biden, and Warren in the new Suffolk U.-Boston Globe-WBZ poll: 24%, 18%, 13%
Percent chance that the Nike Vaporfly shoe has been approved for use at the 2020 Olympics, finally ending our national nightmare of uncertainty: 100%
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Mid-weekRapture Index: 184 (including 5 plagues and 1 good old-fashioned looming asteroid apocalypse). Soul Protection Factor 4 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
CHEERS to calamity in corn country. Now that the technical bugs have been worked out, and the fisticuffs have been broken up in the parking lot, we finally have results from the Hawkeye State. If you're searching in vain for the appropriate words to express your reaction, this may help, courtesy of C&J's fully-staffed This May Help Department:
[Hooray!] [Dammit!] [Meh.] My candidate [won] [lost] the Iowa caucuses Monday night, and I am so [thrilled] [pissed] [zen] about it I could [kiss a wookie] [chew through drywall] [go back to bed].
Even though the deciding factor was [turnout] [turnout] [turnout], you can’t ignore the impact of [visiting all 99 counties] [appearing to enjoy wolfing down greasy diner food five times a day] [promising to award the Iowa State Fair butter cow a Medal of Freedom from the Oval office] in the final tally.
All quiet again.
As usual, the media was of [big help] [little help] [no help] in the run-up to the caucus, and the [most] [least] insightful lesson I learned from their [polling] [Sunday morning network TV pundit panel] [chicken-innards reading] was ["Whoever’s ahead will be in the lead"] ["The candidates are playing to win"] ["This is still excellent news for John McCain"].
But one thing we can all agree on: that caucus app [sucks] [blows].
Next stop: the New Hampshire primary. I [can’t wait] [can wait] [need another drink].
For what it’s worth, that was my reaction, too.
JEERS to much ado about nothing. His pants didn’t fall around his ankles and he maintained a pulse during it, but otherwise President Trump’s third State of the Union speech was basically a great big…um…well, let me call out some of our best friends to sum up how the dotard’s ramblefest resonated in our household last night:
I was impressed, though, that he made it through the whole thing without tossing any rolls of paper towel, throwing any kids in cages, or pausing to send a derogatory tweet. I figure he must’ve been chewing that special gum that reduces one’s cravings to act like a mean, narcissistic jerk in public: Dickorette.
P.S. After all his theatrics, Pelosi gets the grand finale...
JEERS to the sham heard 'round the world. With a final bang of his gavel, today Chief Justice John Roberts will bring the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump to a close after Senate Republicans confirm with their votes-to-acquit that the phrase "It's OK If You're A Republican" might as well be enshrined into the Constitution. Trump got caught, red-handed, coercing a foreign government to help him win the 2020 election, literally contributing to the deaths of an untold number of Ukrainian soldiers as he held up military aid until President Zelensky agreed to do his dirty deeds—deeds which never transpired because Trump got caught, thanks to a courageous whistleblower whom Republicans are now trying to get assassinated. History will remember the trial as a sham—no witnesses, no documents, and open admissions by the likes of Sen. Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski that of course Trump's guilty, but so what? And now—of course—Trump is planning something something something TBA against his "enemies list":
Republicans briefed on Trump’s thinking believe that the president is out for revenge against his adversaries.
One of these men is sizing up his prey. (Hint: it ain’t the Adderall snorter.)
“It’s payback time,” a prominent Republican told me last week. “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day,” another source said. Names that came up in my conversations with Republicans included Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mitt Romney, and John Bolton. “Trump’s playbook is simple: go after people who crossed him during impeachment.”
One tiny detail: he's barely gonna have time to summon Ivanka to put his socks on before another scandal drops on his head…and another…and another. Bolton…Parnas…SDNY…his rape trial…his taxes...god knows what else will pop up. Oh, he’s met the enemy alright. And it’s him.
CHEERS to the Illinois governor who took on the Kansas general. Happy 120th birthday to Adlai Stevenson II. He lost to Dwight Eisenhower in both 1952 and 1956. (Then again, I think God herself would have, too.) But as U.N. Ambassador he pleasantly surprised the Kennedy administration by giving the Russians hell during the Cuban missile crisis. And he sure understood Republicans:
"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation. "
"I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."
And I love this:
“We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft.
We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man, half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all.”
In other words: nice knowin' ya.
CHEERS to blowing this popsicle stand. Speaking of being passengers on a little space ship: every time you go outside on a clear night you’re doing yourself a grave disservice if you don’t look up and nearly choke on your cough drop as you realize that the universe up there is pretty damn spectacular. The elves at NASA are also aware of this, so they always let us in on the big celestial events for the month. Here’s a look at February’s skywatching tips, including Mars and the moon gettin’ it on with some raw, uncensored occultation:
During a discussion with a caller to “The Rush Limbaugh Show” back in April 2015, Limbaugh denied second-hand smoke was a danger and said it takes 50 years for smokers to get cancer. … “That is a myth. That has been disproven at the World Health Organization and the report was suppressed,” Limbaugh claimed. “There is no fatality whatsoever. There’s no even major sickness component associated with secondhand smoke. It may irritate you, and you may not like it, but it will not make you sick, and it will not kill you.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 2,500,000 nonsmokers have died from health problems caused by exposure to secondhand smoke since 1964.
Honest to god I wouldn’t wish cancer on anyone. So I’m bummed. For 30 years I was hoping that Limbaugh would eventually get killed by his ratings.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 5, 2010
JEERS to Obama's budget. Not necessarily because of the numbers in it or the size and scope (it's beeeeeg), but because now Republicans will spend the next ten months waving it around, banging it on lecterns, wheeling it around on carts, stacking it up in piles, bitching about the number of pages ("If it can't be wrote on a cocktail napkin, it can't be wrote at all," they'll say), screaming about socialism, and making other obnoxious obstructionist noises they never made when Bush released his massive budgets. But at least they're consistent. They flip-flop on everything.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a profession full of highs and lows. Happy Weatherpersons' Day! After shoveling four feet of snow off the Wikipedia page, I see that it "recognizes individuals in the fields of meteorology, weather forecasting and broadcast meteorology, as well as volunteer storm spotters and observers. It is observed on the birthday of John Jeffries, one of the United States' first weather observers who took daily measurements starting in 1774." Yes, it took our best scientific minds over 200 years to build our modern forecasting tools, and You Tube mere minutes to assemble the outtakes. Enjoy…
Forecasters predict National Weatherpersons' Day will blow over within the next 16 hours, followed by an 80 percent chance of lingering National Weatherpersons' Day hangovers. Mostly among weatherpersons.
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
“Does Bill in Portland Maine have a lot of trouble answering questions generally in life or just when he comes into the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool?”
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Note: Karl Rove says the 49ers could still pull an upset once the rest of the points from Ohio are counted. Peggy Noonan agrees, adding that "all the vibrations are right." Film at 11.
Increase in the suicide rate in the United States, per new CDC data, between 2017 and 2018: 1.4%
The last time farm bankruptcies were as high as they are now: 2011
Loss in Facebook's market value last Thursday after they reported a 51% rise in expenses related to privacy and security improvements: $50 billion
Number of passengers who took the Amtrak Downeaster from Portland to Boston (or vice versa) in 2019, up nearly 8 percent and a new record high: 574,404
Year of the first State of the Union speech to be broadcast on radio, TV, and streamed on the internet, respectively: 1923, 1947, 2002
CHEERS to America’s annual report card. Are you going to be watching the big nationally-televised speech tonight? I sure as hell am. Tonight the nation will be riveted by great oration, delivering an honest, sober assessment—the good, the bad, and everything in between—of the state of our union. What's going right? What needs improvement? Who are we as a nation? How can we become even greater again? I'm flat-out telling you without hesitation that it will be inspiring, galvanizing, and mesmerizing. When those gravitas-heavy-yet-filled-with-hope eyes focus on yours and mine and the nation's, we'll feel united in a… (Continued after the bunting)
...common purpose. And when those now-immortal closing words "May God bless the United States of America" echo across the coasts and the plains and the purple mountains majesty and the great lakes, we'll face the rest of 2020 with pride and patriotism and, yes, maybe even a tear or two, having just been shaken to our core by the possibilities still available to us as we yearn to become a More Perfect Union. And the applause will be thunderous and rafter-shaking. But enough about Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Ayanna Pressley. I also hear that the impeached head of the Trump crime syndicate is delivering his State of the Union address. Gosh, I sure wish I could watch him, but it conflicts with the hour I spend every year applying my heel-softening cream. Bummer.
JEERS to the bitter end. After Republicans voted Friday to refuse the introduction of new witnesses and documents at the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump, closing arguments began yesterday in anticipation of tomorrow’s final vote to exonerate or convict. I can save you a lot of time, because it's really pretty simple:
Democratic Closing Argument: A mountain of evidence proves the president is guilty of abusing his power by using taxpayer money to secretly coerce a major world nation into helping him rig the 2020 election. Further, the White House obstructed Congress by illegally withholding witnesses and documents.
Republican Closing Argument: Yes. A mountain of evidence proves the president is guilty of abusing his power by using taxpayer money to secretly coerce a major world nation into helping him rig the 2020 election. Further, the White House obstructed Congress by illegally withholding witnesses and documents. So?
If you need to speak to lady Justice about anything this morning, she's out in the parking lot beating the dumpster with a crowbar.
CHEERS to compassionate liberalism. Twenty-seven years ago today, Congress approved the Family and Medical Leave Act, giving employees unpaid leave in the event of a birth or a medical emergency in their family. President Clinton signed it into law after doing something the D.C. establishment considers radical: he read it.
JEERS to balding ball-busting billionaires. Proving once again that his intellect and self-control never made it past third grade, the head of the Trump crime syndicate took a shot at Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg on Sunday—specifically, his height:
x
Mini Mike is now negotiating both to get on the Democrat Primary debate stage, and to have the right to stand on boxes, or a lift, during the debates. This is sometimes done, but really not fair!
In a rare show of campaign comity, the two camps worked out a compromise: if Trump doesn’t make fun of Bloomberg's height, Bloomberg won’t make fun of Trump's width.
P.S. Oof….
x
The father of the Constitution President James Madison was 5’ 4†https://t.co/4XELAgFpt4
CHEERS to #1. On February 4, 1789, George Washington—who was always “the tallest man in the room”—clinched the presidency with 69 electoral votes. Upon hearing the news, he said his feelings were "not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution." His first official act: providing all Americans equal access to quality mattresses at low, low discount prices, a fine February tradition that lives on to this day.
JEERS to unwelcome blasts from the past. When last we wrote about this criminal jerk in Cheers and Jeers, it was 2005 and we had a lot less grey hair:
CHEERS to justice served. Corrupt WorldCom ex-CEO and all-around asswipe Bernard Ebbers—the so-called "Telecom Cowboy"—got sentenced to 25 years in prison at age 63. Which pretty much means his life is over even though he's still breathing.
The 11 billion bucks stopped here.
News reports say “his face turned deep red” when the verdict was announced. Not from embarrassment, but from being directly related to Satan.
Ebbers and his merry band of banksters were responsible for the biggest accounting fraud scandal—$11 billion—in U.S. history, upending the lives of countless employees and ordinary Americans who lost a shit-ton of money. Well, Ebbers is dead now. His ticker gave out at 78, a little over a month after he'd been sprung from prison for health reasons. Here at C&J, we have a silly policy of bidding farewell to even the villains who walked the earth by saying something nice about them before the elevator takes 'em downstairs. So here goes: Bernard Ebbers was born in Canada which, in many respects, is a lovely country. Ick. I think I need a shower now.
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 4, 2010
JEERS to return engagements. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for a golden oldie coming out of exile: the Friedman Unit. To cover his butt "just in case," CIA director Leon Panetta is out with a warning that must've made Tom Friedman's mustache twirl like a propeller:
Al-Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress.
I want to be scared. Really, I do. But I can't get the heebie-jeebies until I know that the terror threat level has gone up to orange. So I checked the DHS site, and it's still yellow for the 2,886th day in a row. And you know what that means: keep shopping with caution.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to the gift that just kept on giving. Happy birthday to former Vice President Dan Quayle, who turns 73 today, and of whom Molly Ivins once said, "If you put that man's brain in a bumblebee, it would fly backwards." He certainly wasn't an evil vice president like Dick Cheney, but I still want to see him tried in the International Criminal Court for torturing the English language:
“If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure.”
Yes, the lamestream media was alive and well decades ago.
“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is 'to be prepared.'”
“What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”
"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."
"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
You’re still no Jack Kennedy, Dan. But you're also not your un-self-aware son who said in this campaign ad that Barack Obama was “the worst president in history” and then got booted after one sorry-ass term in Congress. So for today only—in honor of the occasion and for all the laughter ya brung us—we'll let potato have an e.
Oh, and today is also "Create A Vacuum Day." Or, as the Republican party’s soul calls it: Tuesday. Floor's open… What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Taylor Swift calls Bill in Portland Maine “Trump in a kiddie pool” in new documentary
There’s more, naturally. We put the even-more-rancid bottom half downstairs. It keeps the health inspector off our backs.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, February 3, 2020
Note: Wake us up like that again, humans—as you did yesterday by grabbing us with work gloves and hoisting us over your heads in front of a rabid mob—and we'll gnaw your legs off and see you in court. Thank you for your attention in this matter.
U.S. GDP in 2019, far below the 5-6% Trump promised to the American people: 2.3%
Growth of Maine's total real and personal property valuation during the first year of our new Democratic governor's term, the highest since 2008: 5.5%
Months John Delaney campaigned for president before admitting last Friday that God didn’t want him to stay in the Democratic race: 30
Percent chance that any U.S. representative other than your own gives a damn what you think when you call or write them, according to the Indivisible Guide: 0%
Number of National Park Service properties that celebrate the visual arts: 2 (Weir Farm in CT and Saint-Gaudens in NH)
CHEERS to February! Hooray—we finally made it to the third and last month of meteorological winter in the northern hemisphere! For the shortest month, it sure packs a lot of goodies in it. Some of the highlights:
Hooray, they’re back for Valentine’s Day.
Black History Month, more daylight, Waitangi Day in New Zealand, Heritage Day in Canada, Dia de la Bandera in Mexico, Cordova Ice Worm Day in Alaska, Valentine's Day (rejoice in the bosom of the Lord—the candy hearts are back), Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Ayanna Pressley deliver Democratic responses to the State of the Union tomorrow, George & Abe's awesome storewide mattress sales, Charles Dickens Day, the Oscars (the 9th, same night as the full moon), Create A Vacuum Day (chaired this year by Lindsey Graham because he's #1 at suckage), and National Pancake Day. Movies include the troubled Sonic the Hedgehog, a movie version of Fantasy Island (we needed one?), and Harrison Ford in grizzly wilderness dude mode in Call of the Wild. And, lest we forget, Senate Republicans will wrap up their sham impeachment trial with a steaming pile of unexamined, incriminating witnesses and documents staring them in the face as they give the dumbest and most mentally-unstable president in American history a pass for trying to blackmail a foreign country into helping him rig the 2020 election. I'll say this: we may live in a crumbling republic on a planet beset by fire and parasites…but at least it's never dull.
Damn, Iowa. Do something about those vericose veins.
CHEERS to Lord of the Flies among the cornfields. All eyes are on Iowa today for the quadrennial running of the bulls presidential primary caucuses. It's an exciting ritual whereby several sides representing competing candidates shout "We got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit HOW 'BOUT YOU" until all but one side drops dead from dehydration. It was preceded for months by a combination of staged media events, wild-eyed speculation, polls of questionable accuracy, the framing of a perfectly lovely state as a bunch of backwoods yokels sitting in greasy diners watching their beards grow, and results based on a whopping 16 percent of the state's voters bestowing bragging rights on a Democrat they hope can beat Trump in November. And as dawn breaks tomorrow, Iowa's media outlets will be neck-deep in campaign-ad revenue, the circus will be gone, and things will start getting back to normal. Last member of the lamestream media to leave, please turn out the klieg lights.
P.S. The final caucus poll by the “gold standard of pollsters,” the Des Moines Register, had to be scrapped because Gary in the tabulation center spilled coffee all over the crosstabs. So please enjoy this placeholder where the poll results would’ve gone:
Space Force, huzzah!
We’re sure the error is regretted.
CHEERS to furry fortunetellers. If yesterday felt like the day before, Surprise! It was Groundhog Day. Let's take a spin and find out how the rodents did over the weekend:
Shubenacadie Sam (Nova Scotia): Six more weeks of winter
General Beauregard Lee (Lilburn, GA): Six more weeks of winter
Staten Island Chuck: Early spring
Wiarton Willie (Ontario): Early spring
Dunkirk Dave (Dunkirk, NY): Early spring
Punxsutawney Phil: At Gobblers Knob, PA, the "official" groundhog predicts an early spring
Buckeye Chuck (Marion, OH): Early spring
“Jimmy” (Sun Prairie, Wisconsin): Six more weeks of winter
Fred la Marmotte (Quebec): Early spring
Final verdict: the majority says early spring! (Disclaimer: only if Trump doesn’t cause an early nuclear winter first.)
CHEERS and JEERS to one of the two things in life that are certain. On February 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment, establishing the income tax, was ratified and became part of the U.S. Constitution. Here is our annual posting of the full text—in italics so it looks old and wrinkled and historic:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Congress shall also have the power to conspire with giant corporations to use tax dollars to build a war machine that can destroy every planet in the solar system many times over. We want guns. BIG guns! Tanks, planes, nukes,drones, bunker busters, aircraft carriers. Anything that proves to the rest of the world that we've got the biggest penis on the planet must be arsenalized. We are woefully short on laser cannons—let's fix that with a glorious Space Force sometime within the next, say, 107 years.
Sadly, language stating that “tax monies devoted to the purchase of pizza and beer will not contribute to the deficit” was removed.
—16th Amendment
At various times, taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts may be necessary. These bailouts will be prioritized in the following order: white collar idiots, white collar dolts, white collar crooks, white collar morons, white collar charlatans, and white collar bloodsuckers.
Finally,Congress shall impose the strictest penalties on citizen scofflaws who fail to pay their income taxes on time and in full without exception. And by'without exception' we mean except if you're rich and can afford savvy CPAs and lawyers who can get you out of paying them by, say, stashing them offshore...or except if you're rich and you "forget" to pay them, in which case: tut tut.
Under NO circumstances are taxpayer monies allowed to be used by the executive branch to make secret back-channel deals with another country to swing an election under penalty of both impeachment in the House and a stern shrug from the senior senator from Tennessee under the loving gaze of the Chief Justice.
It's worked perfectly ever since. Go us!
CHEERS to today's edition of Next Democratic President Damn Well Better Un-Retire Her. Courtesy of NPR:
The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who accused the Trump administration of a "smear" campaign against her, has retired from the foreign service, NPR has learned.
Thanks for your service.
The career diplomat was abruptly forced out of her post in Ukraine amid accusations of disloyalty in a scheme allegedly involving President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and two of Giuliani's associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were arrested and charged with campaign finance violations in October. In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry in November, Yovanovitch accused Giuliani of leading an "irregular channel" of diplomacy between the U.S. and Ukraine that was driven by the business interests of private individuals.
This has been today's edition of Next Democratic President Damn Well Better Un-Retire Her.
CHEERS to pigskin fever! Wow—that Super Bowl was awesome! Did you see how [quarterback] executed that awesome [pass play] [running play] in the [First] [second] [Third] [Fourth] quarter??? Holy cow! And when [player] took the ball and [ran] [threw] [kicked] for that [touchdown] [field goal] [extra point], that was...well, it was just [amazing] [unbelievable] [bullshit]. At least [half-time entertainer] did a reasonably good job of [singing] [dancing] [eating fire] [exposing his/her/their titties]. And the commercial with the talking [baby] [dog] [horse] [monkey] [drag queen] was clearly the [best] [worst]. I'll never [forget] [remember] it!!!
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 3, 2010
CHEERS to getting on with it. For the first time in nearly two decades, and with patience hanging by a thread in the LGBT community, Congress will hold hearings today on the military's "Don’t Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Drop the Soap" policy. Last week the New York Times wrote a strong editorial calling for the policy—which was bullshit and based on fabricated "evidence" and unapologetic bigotry from the start—to die quickly:
The 1993 law was always pointless and cruel, but today, when numerous polls show that a solid majority of Americans oppose it, "don’t ask, don’t tell" feels ever more like the relic of a bygone era. ... "Don’t ask, don’t tell" is not just a technicality on the books. It is actively being used to drive gay men and lesbians out of the military—more than 13,000 since the law was adopted, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
What's particularly infuriating is that DADT was the result of Bill Clinton's attempt to overturn the ban on gays in the military. But former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn (a Democrat, no less) just had to go and turn something that was black and white into a big blob of gray that favored erring on the side of kicking valuable servicemembers out. So let's get today's hearings over quickly...and put this disgraceful policy behind us. Please don’t make me write a letter.
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And just one more…
JEERS to more of Mr. Maniac’s maniacal manure. As promised, here’s the bottom half of this month’s record-breaking list of people and things that made Trump look like an even bigger jackass in January:
Tomorrow night’s State of the Union will add several feet to the pile. That’s a conservative estimate, of course.
Oh, and if you’re a fan of Paul Krugman, he’s on with Late Night with Seth Meyers tonight (12:30, NBC). Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“As you well know, I told Bill in Portland Maine to go to hell months and months ago, because of his disloyalty to Markos. He turns out to be a petty snarling Lilliputian, and I really am astonished by it.”
Late Night Snark: Trial of the Century Edition...with Free Tote
"Democrats spent three days laying out in great detail how they believe President Trump has been the most egregious abuser of power in American history. And then Republicans laid out their defense: the shrug emoji."
—Colin Jost, SNL
"Trump is all worked up about Bolton's book, in which he says the president personally told him he was holding up aid for Ukraine in exchange for dirt on the Biden family. The White House doesn’t want anyone to read this. They sent a threatening letter telling him he's not allowed to publish the book because it appears to contain significant amounts of classified information. Which is funny coming from the guy who'll give the nuclear codes to anyone standing in line at the Mar-A-Lago omelet bar."
—Jimmy Kimmel
“NPR is introducing new tote bags...”
—The Late Show
"According to sources, former national security adviser John Bolton told conservative donors he thinks President Trump is mentally unstable. But I'm sure he'll clear up that misconception with a hundred and fifty tweets at 3am."
—Seth Meyers
"It's clearly obvious. Fox is now done with Bolton because he went against Donald Trump. And at Fox News, you can do a lot of things, but there's two things you can never do: criticize Trump…or have a regular size neck."
—Trevor Noah
"This impeachment is like a bad episode of Maury. There's all this evidence that Trump clearly cheated, and Republicans are still like, 'But Maury, he loooooves me.’"
—Michael Che, SNL
And this just in from the Eyewitness News desk: f*ck you, Mitch.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
C&J Annual Fundraiser: Day 4
A few brief points as we wrap our 2020 plea for cash and jewels and/or fine artwork: 1) 100% of your donations go toward vital food, medicine and sagebrush clearing. 2) I have never taken money from Super PACs, and if they ever offer me any I would certainly turn them down. [Uncrosses fingers] And 3) Spreading your wealth around to someone like me would be socialism, which I guarantee you will drive the Republican snowflakes bonkers. So it's a unique opportunity to "own the cons." Do it! Do it! The more you give, the angrier they’ll get. Here are your payment options...
To send a donation via snail mail, the address is:
Bill Harnsberger, 16 Pitt Street, Portland, ME, 04103.
If you're already a C&J monthly subscriber through PayPal
You don’t have to do anything but make sure your card is still active
and then feel good about your excellent investment.
Thanks again for supporting America’s longest-running kiddie pool-based blog post. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled stuff you were doing before reading this.
Percent of registered voters who believe, via Quinnipiac polling, that the impeachment charges against President Trump are more serious and less serious, respectively, as the charges made against President Clinton: 51%, 29%
Degrees above average Portland, Maine was during the month of January: 7.7 F
Amount GM plans to invest in its first all-electric vehicle plant: $2.2 billion
Surge in pizza sales on Super Bowl Sunday, according to USA Today: 35%
JEERS to border insecurity. Under the watchful spray-on-tan raccoon eyes of fearless impeached leader Donald Trump, the border between the U.S. and Mexico is now tight as a drum. If, that is, you don’t include the thousands of foreigners who overstay their visas. And the hundreds of undocumented immigrants discovered working at Trump resorts. And the section of wall that fell over in a mild breeze. And the gates that have to be left open to avoid knocking it down. And the caravans of refugees adopting Romulan cloaking technology to pass through undetected. And this:
U.S. authorities on Wednesday announced the discovery of the longest smuggling tunnel ever found on the Southwest border, stretching more than three-quarters of a mile from an industrial site in Tijuana, Mexico, to the San Diego area.
The first clue that this tunnel was illegal: the real Daphne’s van NEVER drives in the center lane.
The tunnel featured an extensive rail cart system, forced air ventilation, high voltage electrical cables and panels, an elevator at the tunnel entrance and a drainage system. … [T]he length—more than 14 football fields—stunned authorities. “This one blows past (the second-longest),” said Lance LeNoir, a Border Patrol operations supervisor.
Other than that, the border is sealed shut, nothing to see here, please move along, have a pleasant evening, and Mexico says the check is in the mail.
CHEERS to safety nets. 80 years ago today, the first Social Security check (#00-000-001) was issued to Ida May Fuller—a Vermonter and childhood classmate of Calvin Coolidge—for $22.54. Or, as Republican leaders calls it: "$22.54 too much." Despite all the despicable fearmongering coming from the right that Social Security is "flat broke," Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) reminds us via email….
Here’s the truth: Social Security is fully solvent, and will be through 2038. So why all the bluster? It’s a giveaway to Wall Street, plain and simple.
Starting with Ida May Fuller in 1940, our nation has a proud history of rewarding a lifetime of hard work with the promise of financial security in one’s golden years. It’s been the most effective anti-poverty program in the history of the world.
As always...much obliged, FDR.
Britain is back to being Britain again.
CHEERS to the first day of the rest of their lives. As of a few hours ago, Brexit is now the law of the land across the pond. The United Kingdom has struck out on its own, tethered no longer to the European Union with its fancy schmancy pro-worker laws, trade equality, and human rights protections. From now on, Britain is an island of rugged individualism, where the commoners pull themselves up by their bootstraps without the heel of the government on their necks. Where cash for health care will soon be raised solely by holding bake sales. Where those f*cking immigrants can bugger off and stop stealin' our jerbs! Where the treasury will be robbed by the upper class twits and pension guarantees for the rest will be hacked to bits. Where the will of the majority will be crushed by the corruption of the minority. Where the undisputed leader for the foreseeable future is a porcine, philandering lunatic with wild hair who speaks gibberish. So exactly like the conservatives’ vision for America...except with afternoon tea.
CHEERS to Maine's matchless movie maker. Happy 126th Birthday tomorrow to director and Portland native (and son of immigrants) John Ford. He launched John Wayne's career and defined the classic American western with Stagecoach, The Searchers, the cavalry trilogy and gobs more. And then there's The Grapes of Wrath, which is in a class all by its amazing self:
Ford proclaimed in 1967: "I am a liberal Democrat and a rebel." Well, of course he was. He had intelligence and talent.
CHEERS to bold leadership. Seventy-two years ago Sunday, in 1948, President Harry Truman made baby Donald Trump cry by urging Congress to adopt recommendations by a presidential commission on civil rights. It's almost breathtaking in scope. He ended his message to Congress with this, a statement that resonates just as loudly today:
[W]e must protect our civil rights so that by providing all our people with the maximum enjoyment of personal freedom and personal opportunity we shall be a stronger nation—stronger in our leadership, stronger in our moral position, stronger in the deeper satisfactions of a united citizenry.
President Truman hangin’ out with Edward R. Murrow.
We know that our democracy is not perfect. But we do know that it offers freer, happier life to our people than any totalitarian nation has ever offered.
If we wish to inspire the peoples of the world whose freedom is in jeopardy, if we wish to restore hope to those who have already lost their civil liberties, if we wish to fulfill the promise that is ours, we must correct the remaining imperfections in our practice of democracy. We know the way. We only need the will.
Oh...did I mention he was a Democrat?
Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!!!
CHEERS to home vegetation. In addition to the Concussion Bowl (more on that below), here's some stuff on TV this weekend: First, Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow throw the impeachment trial in the blender and create a delicious conviction smoothie on MSNBC. On HBO's Real Time at 10, Bill Maher talks with Mitch Landrieu, Rick Wilson, Michael Eric Dyson, and Rep. Miki Sherrill (D-NJ). New home video releases include Cynthia Erivo's Oscar-nominated turn in Harriet, and the critically-acclaimed Parasite. The NBA schedule is here, and the NHL schedule is here. Houston Texan J.J. Watt hosts SNL. But the big sporting event will be, of course, the clash of titans Sunday at 3 during Puppy Bowl XVI on Animal Planet. Be prepared to shield the kids’ eyes from any canine or feline wardrobe malfunctions.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Live from Iowa. Mayor Pete! Plus Senator Lamar Fucking Alexander (R-Fuck Him).
But we recommend you watch this Sunday instead.
Face the Nation: House impeachment manager and Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-CA); Mayor Pete! Plus RNC chair Mitt Romney’s Niece (R-Moscow); new CBS News election polling.
CNN's State of the Union: Mayor Pete! Plus Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Moscow).
This Week: TBA (But guessing the lineup will include...wait for it...Mayor Pete!
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Monarchy advocate Alan Dershowitz (R-Moscow).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 31, 2010
JEERS to convenient excuses. Barack Obama recently got called for jury duty, but wriggled out of it by claiming he's President of the United States and, like, busy. I should try that next time. My usual excuse—I'm the judge's boy toy—is starting to lose its mojo.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Roman numeral abuse, Version XVIIIIIIVIXIIIIIIIVIIIII. Not many people know this, but I've predicted every single Super Bowl winner since I was knee-high to Howard Cosell. Last year, for example, I picked the Providence Steam Rollers over the other team by 13, and although I haven't checked the box scores yet, my gut tells me I was 100% correct. Over the decades people have asked, re-asked, begged, pleaded and prayed that I would reveal the secret to my success. And seeing as my heart grew three sizes today (memo to self: schedule appointment with cardiologist), I'm prepared to give you my annual peak behind the ol’ faux-pigskin prognostication curtain. Here's how I do it. Step 1: Plug it in. Step 2: Let ‘er rip...
As you can plainly see, my 2020 prediction is ridiculously easy: the Providence Steam Rollers by 13. Oh, and in order to make life easier for the nation's water-management teams, everybody please remember to flush at exactly 7:29:59. Thanks for your cooperation and bwoo-ha-ha.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
When Molly Ivins died 13 years ago this week, the world lost one of its great wits, social commentators, and fighters for civil rights and social justice. The void she left was huge, which is why we’ve been posting our “Molly Ivins Moment” in C&J every Thursday since she passed. I think now more than ever we could use a good dose of Molly, so here's a Texas-size handful of her greatest hits…
» “Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.”
» “How can you not love Texas politics? You pick up the paper in the morning and it's kind of like finding Fidel Castro in the refrigerator.”
» On Pat Buchanan's culture-war speech at the 1992 Republican convention: "It probably sounded better in the original German."
» “We get so scared of something—scared of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens—that we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing freedom. Never works. It's still true: the only thing to fear is fear itself.”
» “My friend Mercedes Pena made me get in touch with my emotions just before I had a breast cut off. Just as I suspected, they were awful. ‘How do you Latinas do this—all the time in touch with your emotions?’ I asked her. ‘That's why we take siestas,’ she replied.”
» “I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”
» “Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
As I like to say, Molly Ivins was (and via her legacy still is) Red Bull for the Democratic soul.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
C&J Annual Fundraiser: Day 3
Sorry to pull out the big persuasion gun, but this morning I feel it's necessary to play the country song card in the hopes that it'll help keep this column afloat for another year. So here goes. I hope this works: "I'm beggin' ya darlin’, please."
To send a donation via snail mail, the address is:
Bill Harnsberger, 16 Pitt Street, Portland, ME, 04103.
If you're already a C&J monthly subscriber through PayPal
You don’t have to do anything but make sure your card is still active
and then feel good about your excellent investment.
JEERS to potent ponderables. Exciting day yesterday in the Senate, as the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump shifted from the opening-argument phase to the Q&A portion. Each senator was allowed to submit a question in writing to presiding judge John Roberts, who read selected ones aloud and gave the prosecution and defense teams an opportunity to respond. Here are some of the queries that made it past the Chief Justice's lips:
"Can I go pee?" (Sen. Inhofe)
"I have to pee, too. Can I go next?" (Sen. Cotton)
"The hall monitor says I need a potty pass. Can I have a potty pass?" (Sen. Inhofe)
Flummoxed by a question, Ken Starr tries to phone a friend, until he realizes he doesn’t have any.
"Can I use Jim's potty pass or do I need my own?" (Sen. Cotton)
"I'm back. Do I give Sen. Cotton my potty pass now?" (Sen. Inhofe)
"Actually, can I get a new potty pass, please? I don’t know where Jim's pass has been." (Sen. Cotton)
"Show of hands…who here likes green eggs and ham?" (Sen. Cruz)
"Should I be contorting my facial features to look concerned, troubled, or distressed?" (Sen. Collins)
"Can we speed this up? I've got a 3 o'clock Mar-A-Lago tee time." (Sen. Graham)
"Paper or plastic? Ha ha kidding! You can skip this one, I'm a kidder, ladies and gentlemen." (Sen. Romney)
To his credit, Roberts tossed the frivolous ones.
CHEERS to the brutal, brutal winter of twenty-aught-twenty. The latest numbers from Quinnipiac (a complex name you can easily remember by the anagram "Niacin Quip") are brutal for Republicans trying to sweep the evidence under the Senate rug and pretend like their party boss isn’t a corrupt, national security-compromising son of a bitch. Turns out an overwhelming chunk of the unwashed rabble will have none of it:
Three-quarters of registered voters think witnesses should be allowed to testify in the Senate impeachment trial, which has reached a crucial inflection point, a new national poll from Quinnipiac University finds.
This includes 49% of Republicans who think witnesses should be allowed to testify,75% of independents and 95% of Democrats.
Almost three-in-five (57%) want to hear more details of Trump's explanation for his actions. … More than half of voters (between 52%-54%) say that Trump has abused his power, isn't telling the truth about his actions and has obstructed Congress. Another 52%believe the Trump administration's withholding of US aid to Ukraine was not justified, while 34% say it was.
Quinnipiac also found a large majority—76 percent—responded favorably when asked if "them gol'durn Trump boys deserve a good spankin'." Personally, I would caution against that. I’m told they squirt hair gel when cornered.
CHEERS to "32." Make sure you take a moment today to say Happy Birthday (or, to use his dialect, "Happy buhthday") to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who turns 138 today. He was far from perfect, as all presidents have been: trying to pack the Supreme Court, turning away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, the internment camps, the womanizing (though not with porn stars, as far as we know). But he was a force of nature who didn’t let polio stop him as he charged headlong into fighting the depression and wars on multiple fronts in Europe and Asia, while passing reforms that made life better for ordinary Americans. Says William Ridings and Stuart McIver in their book Rating the Presidents (where FDR sits at #2, just below Lincoln):
Roosevelt is praised most often for his role in preserving the American capitalist system at a time when many countries were opting for fascism.
Given the dire crises he was forced to confront, perhaps the highest praise from the poll is "the right man in the right place at the right time." [...]
Others praise him for stopping Hitler—and shudder to think what might have been if a less-effective president had been at the helm in those dangerous days.
The lunatics on the right try mightily to rewrite history by insisting that the New Deal was a failure. Never mind that laws enacted in the 1930s—chipped away at though they were—helped prevent our 2008 Great Recession from turning into an all-out depression. Pay your respects here. And never let anyone forget the difference between the parties, as defined by Roosevelt himself: Democrats say we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Republicans say we have nothing to fear but everything but fear itself.
P.S. It's also Dick Cheney's birthday today. He turns 666. Again.
JEERS to peace in our bizarro time. Are you sitting down? You really should be sitting down, because when I tell you about Jared Kushner's Israel-Palestine peace plan, you're going to need some sort of reliable anti-gravity tuchus catcher nearby. After millennia of strife and misery in the region, a humble American coastal elitist slumlord has broken through the violence and gridlock to forge a road map for peace and prosperity among the Israelis and the Palestinians. It's a miracle! Here are the highlights of his two-part plan—already endorsed by the impeached American president and the indicted Israeli prime minister—crafted by candlelight out of love, divine inspiration, and sheer force of will:
1. It's 80 pages
2. Fuck the Palestinians
True fact: if Oslo recognizes his breakthrough achievement, it'll be the first time the Nobel Peace Prize weighs more than the recipient.
CHEERS to the great uniter. 92 years ago this week, in in 1928, Scotch tape was marketed for the first time by 3-M. It holds things together like a charm. But to shut up Lindsey Graham only duct tape will do.
JEERS to signing the divorce papers. The deed is done. The die is cast. The curtain has come down. The fat lady has sung. Grandma has been set adrift on an ice floe. The carriage has turned back into a pumpkin. In mere hours, Great Britain will become an orphan on the world stage:
The European Union grudgingly let go of the United Kingdom with a final vote Wednesday at the EU’s parliament that ended the Brexit divorce battle and set the scene for tough trade negotiations in the year ahead.
On the bright side: tea will still be served at 4pm.
In an emotion-charged session at the session in Brussels, lawmakers from all 28 EU countries expressed their love and sadness, some, notably from Britain’s Brexit Party, their joy. Some even cried and many held hands during a mournful rendition of the Auld Lang Syne farewell song that contrasted sharply with hard-headed exhortations that Britain won’t find it easy in the talks that will follow the country’s official departure on Friday. […]
Britain will leave the EU after 47 years of membership. It is the first country to leave the EU and [its departure] reduces the number in the bloc to 27.
But the "remainers" in Britain,who know this is a dumb move (among other things, their health system is about to get "American’d"), are getting one final dig in at their xenophobic countrytwits. Topping the pop charts in Britain now by popular demand is Ode to Joy—the anthem of the European Union. Enjoy your last day of normalcy, UK. The zombie apocalypse begins on the morrow.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 30, 2010
CHEERS to justice served. It took a Kansas jury 37 minutes to deliver their decision on Scott Roeder, who admitted he murdered Dr. George Tiller last year: "Don’t let the prison-cell door hit your ass on the way in." Assuming his appeals fail, he'll spend the rest of his life behind bars, smug in the knowledge that he'll be rewarded with a penthouse suite in Heaven as a martyr. And I'll spend the rest of my life smug in the knowledge that he's in for a very rude surprise.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to more Molly. You've all behaved yourselves so well this morning. So for dessert you get a hefty slice of American pie, courtesy of the rhetorical shitkicker who said of herself: "I'm a Texan. I drive a pickup truck. I drink beer. I hunt. I'm a liberal. So what?"
» “Some civilians believe the definition of an honest Texas pol is one who stays bought. But among pols of the old school, the saying was, ‘If you can't take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their women and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in the Legislature.’ Many of our pols have the ethical sensitivity of a walnut.”
» “Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.”
» “The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy.”
» “Yes. He should run. He’s the only Democrat with any 'Elvis' to him.”
—Molly on Barack Obama in 2004
» “Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.”
» "I accidentally became an authority on George W. Bush. Like the guy who climbed Everest, it was there."
» "I don't have any children, so I've decided to claim all the future freedom-fighters and hell-raisers as my kin. I figure freedom and justice beat having your name in marble any day. Besides, if there is another life after this one, think how much we'll get to laugh watching it all. ... We may not be able to take it with us, but we can still fight for freedom after we're gone."
Sadly, gone too soon.
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
Culturally Woke: More Americans Visited Cheers and Jeers Than the Movies—By Far
Welcome to mid-winter. The snow is flying, the skiers are schussing, the snowmen are plotting world domination, and your grip on my soul is slipping faster than the folks walking on our neighbor's sidewalk that they never bother to shovel or de-ice. (The proper authorities have been notified.)
Having fun yet?
So it's money-asking time once again. Totally win-win: you get C&J for another year and I get to relinquish my soul for another year, which frees up valuable storage space in my chest cavity for candy corn. And also, secondarily, it helps pay the rent.
If you're in the mood to keep C&J going for another year on this amazing Goldilocks planet of ours, I'd be honored to slip a fresh diaper on my head and fresh ribbons in my 50 chain-smoking monkeys' typewriters. A hundred years ago Kos set up PayPal accounts for both one-time donations and recurring monthly donations. The monthly subscriptions are hugely helpful for minimizing the total needed during this annual pledge week:
To send a donation via snail mail, the address is:
Bill Harnsberger, 16 Pitt Street, Portland, ME, 04103.
If you're already a C&J monthly subscriber through PayPal
You don’t have to do anything but make sure your card is still active
and then feel good about your excellent investment.
Overall, my employment record with "you people" is fairly decent. I did take some sick days last year, I admit, but in return you got a six-month endorphin rush watching me destroy cancer with the ruthless efficiency of Patton's Third Army. Plus we helped raise money for progressive candidates and causes, served as a welcome cabana for new Daily Kos readers getting their bloggerfeet wet, provided sanctuary from the pie fights, and continued working on my secret project in the basement that in 2003 we said we'd never publicly discuss again until it was fully tested and operational. We plan to continue all of the above in 2020, with the added bonus of knocking Republicans out of every elected office in the land in 278 days.
As always, thanks for keeping the C&J kiddie pool inflated for America and freedom. But not for Jay SUCKulow, because he’s a doofbutt.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Note: You'll have to forgive me if I get emotional in C&J today. [Long pause] [Lip quivers] [A single tear falls] National Puzzle Day always makes me fall to pieces.
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By the Numbers:
10 days!!!
Days 'til Super Tuesday, with primary contests in AL, AR, CA, CO, ME, MA, MN, NC, OK, TN, TX, UT, VT and VA: 34
Trump's approval with women in the latest ABC News-WaPost poll: 33%
Percent of Americans, according to a Quinnipiac poll, who say they're paying "a lot" of attention to the impeachment trial: 57%
Date on which Goldman Sachs will implement its new rule that states it won't help take any company public unless it has at least one woman or non-white board member: 7/1/20
Percent increase in food & beverage companies between 2007 and 2017, according to federal data, versus a 2% decline in all businesses: 35%
Estimated number of dreams you'll have this year, according to some web site: 1,460
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 185 (including 6 earthquakes and 1 possible Pittsburgh Apocalypse around dinnertime). Soul Protection Factor 12 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
CHEERS to history of the historic kind. What should've been the top story of Monday was instead relegated to the back burner because every day is a What Did He Do Now? day in the Age of Trump. So, if you missed it, here's Virginia's legislative leadership signing the freaking Equal Rights Amendment, officially becoming the 38th state to do so:
x
Signing the Equal Rights Amendment with President Pro Tempore @SenLouiseLucas, Madam Clerk Suzette Denslow of the House and Madam Clerk Susan Clarke Schar of the Senate. Now the ERA is off to Washington and into the Constitution! pic.twitter.com/yk6nSOdAgP
Now all that needs to happen is for the 1982 ratification deadline to be retroactively extended with a vote in….oh, fer god's sake…the United States Senate. That leaves us with two choices: either some brave soul gives Mitch McConnell a lap dance in exchange for his green light, or we wait 'til 2021 and nobody loses their soul. [Counts the votes] Yeah, okay, it’s unanimous. Option #2 it is. Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. (Virginia Slims, of course.)
CHEERS to ink, ink, everywhere. I don’t know how this whole John Bolton things ends, but he sure is riding the now-petrified Republicans like a show donkey. I'm under no illusions that he'll be anything but a hostile witness if Democrats get him on the impeachment trial stand, but he'll still manage to do quite a bit of damage. In the meantime, the headlines swirling around revelations from his new book are reaching F-5 levels. Here are just some of the headlines I clipped out of the papers with my special rounded-edge scissors yesterday (before lining my birdcage with them, ha ha ha, that one never gets old):
John Bolton just vindicated Nancy Pelosi
Bolton book roils Washington as onetime allies turn on Trump's former national security adviser
Republicans take a deep breath after Bolton scare
John Bolton crashes the impeachment trial
Bolton relaxes at Sandals after turning in his manuscript.
Mitch McConnell is angry at White House over John Bolton manuscript
John Kelly: "I believe John Bolton"
Schumer says Senate must vote to call Bolton as witness
Trump team dismisses Bolton book storm
How John Bolton became Trump's worst enemy
Trump's lawyers suffer from Bolton-induced amnesia
Republican senators fear a 'domino effect' on witnesses following Bolton's allegation
White House accuses Bolton of 'selling out'
Bolton bombshell could shake up Wall Street, investors say
John Bolton was regularly appalled by Trump and didn’t know if he was acting in America's interests
CHEERS to #25. Happy birthday to William "The Idol of Ohio" McKinley, the last president who was a Civil War veteran, born on January 29, 1843 in Niles, Ohio. Talk about cruising to victory—in 1896, while Democrat William Jennings Bryan was dashing around the country on a measly $50,000, McKinley campaigned from his back porch, carnation in lapel, and sipping iced tea as his fat-cat supporters raised $3 million for him. Once in office, he was goaded into war with Spain, resulting in our acquisition of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, followed by intervention in the Boxer rebellion in China. In their book Rating the Presidents, William Ridings and Stuart McIver reveal the verdict rendered by over 700 historians and political scientists on McKinley's presidency:
[He was] a better-than-average president, [with] highest marks for the "Accomplishments and Crisis Management" category, rating him fifteenth.
If his first-term VP hadn’t died in office, we would’ve had...um...President Garrett Hobart.
They are, however, sparing in their praise. "A pious expansionist," writes one, while another comments, "events lifted him above mediocrity."
Unfortunately his belly got in the way of a couple bullets fired by an anarchist five years later, and that's how we got the guy the GOP chairman called "that damned cowboy," Teddy Roosevelt, in office. Pay your respects at his humble resting place. (If you ever plan to visit in person, be sure to take along a Sherpa. And don't look down.)
CHEERS to Bibi's terrible, horrible, no-good day. The hits just kept on comin' for Israel's conservative wrecking ball prime minister yesterday. First he had to spend a bunch of time sucking up to useful idiot Donald Trump at the White House, feigning interest and chuckling at every shitty punching-down "joke" the impeached president tried to tell. Then he found out, via the modern-day convenience called the “telegraph,” that the long arm of the law had finally caught up with his corrupt ass:
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Tuesday filed the indictment against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust with the Jerusalem District Court. “The indictment was filed a short time ago… as is required by law,” Mandelblit’s office said.
Boom, buddy.
The move marks the first time in Israel’s history that a serving prime minister will face criminal charges, casting a heavy shadow over Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, his legacy and his ongoing attempts to remain in power.
So the race is on. Who will see the inside of a jail cell first, the Quisling from Queens or the Tyrant from Tel-Aviv? Place your bets. And good luck.
JEERS to lying liars. On January 29, 2001, President George W. Bush promised to "act boldly and swiftly" to deal with our challenges concerning energy. His brilliant idea: put Cheney in charge of a secret task force that would make sure nothing happened boldly or swiftly. As a result, the big oil companies were forced to deal with the challenge of where to sock away all their record profits. (I guess that explains why the Exxon-Mobil CEO's mattress ended up twelve stories high.)
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 29, 2010
CHEERS to butting in. Score another victory for the Obama FDA. Cigarette companies will in the near-future be required to disclose the ingredients in their death sticks. I don’t quite understand what the holdup is. I mean, how long does it take to submit a piece of paper that says: "Shit, Shit Byproducts, and Menthol" on it?
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And just one more…
MEGA-WORSHIPFUL CHEERS to the Great and Powerful "O". Pardon me, I have a song to sing:
Happy birthday to you…
Ow Ow Ow Ow!!!
Happy birthday to you…
Ow Ow Ow!!!
Happy 66th…
Ow Ow ow!!!
...er, 39th birthday, dear Oprah,
Again, I say, and I can’t stress this enough: Ow!!!
Happy birthday to you.
There, I sang it. Now please, ma'am...remove your heel from my neck.
Have a nice Wednesday. Oh, and happy 56th anniversary, Dr. Strangelove. Today in the C&J cafeteria: 50 percent off all precious bodily fluids. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Chris Wallace scolds Bill in Portland Maine during heated exchange in Cheers and Jeers: "Get your kiddie pool skimmed!"
