Cheers and Jeers: Thursday

Before We Move On…

Tying up a loose end from the dearly-departed year 2023, here’s a recap of some of our C&J poll results from the fourth quarter. It gives the world a moment to pause and collectively marvel at the sound judgment and brainpower on display here at the Great Orange Satan:

✔  On October 2nd, 40 percent of you thought Kevin McCarthy would last at least through the month as House speaker, while 41 percent of you didn’t. (McCarthy was ousted the following day.)

✔   93 percent believe the economy under President Biden will continue chugging along at a brisk pace through 2024.

✔  98 percent are not surprised that members of Trump’s inner circle of psychos abandon him when the likelihood of jail time becomes too real.

Continued…

✔  Among the issues that you thought the corporate news media were ignoring most, Trump’s “rapidly-deteriorating mental state” came out on top with 54 percent, followed by the Republican party’s not-so-secret alliance with Russia (19%) and Republican party-incited domestic terrorism (12%).

✔  83 percent rated Gov. Gavin Newsom’s choice of Laphonza Butler to temporarily fill the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat as excellent or good.

✔  33 percent of you saw at least one movie in a theater in 2023.

✔  In the 2023 World Series, 15 percent of you rooted for the Arizona Diamondbacks, 9 percent for the Texas rangers, and 76 percent for the stadium hot dog vendors.

✔  32 percent voted by mail in the 2023 elections.

✔  Regarding the Supreme Court’s watered-down “code of ethics” that they handed down from on high, 98 percent of you think it stinks.

✔  84 percent believe that the recent contract victories in the auto, rail, and entertainment industries will lead to a wider renaissance of union power in the U.S.

✔  By an overwhelming margin (69%), you thought “Trump’s prosecutors” were most deserving of being Time’s Person of the Year. (16 percent chose actual winner Taylor Swift.)

Thank you for voting in our polls. And please continue. Scientific proof confirms it’s an excellent way to keep your distal phalanges from rusting.

And now, our feature presentation…

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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 4, 2024

Note: Out of an abundance of caution I’m indicting you on all the charges there are. We’ll sort it out later.

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By the Numbers:

Days ’til the Chinese New Year (of the dragon): 37

Days ’til the start of Restaurant Week in South Carolina: 7

Increase in construction spending in November: 0.4%

Expected unemployment rate by the end of this year, revised down from 4.8% a year ago: 4.2%

Minimum amount the MAGA presidential candidates have spent on ads in Iowa: $100 million

Percent chance that Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been hit with more corruption charges, including making positive statements about Qatar in exchange for luxury wristwatches: 100%

Rank of Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, and Sam Cooke on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest singers of all time: #1, #2, #3

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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:

Boy, you really can’t take your eyes off this bunch for a minute, can you? If they’re not screwing up one thing, then they’re screwing up another — busy little beavers. And then there are the administrative nightmares they have created all by themselves: The new Medicare prescription-drug benefit is such a disaster area, four states took it over in less than a week just to make sure poor people received their drugs.

Some of the press are starting to get the drill. Give us something like the West Virginia coal mine disaster, and instead of standing around emoting like Geraldo Rivera, a few reporters have enough sense to ask the obvious question: What is this mine’s safety record? And when it turns out to be abysmal, a few more reporters have enough sense to ask: Who’s in charge of doing something after a mine gets 205 safety violations in one year? Where’s the Mine Safety and Health Administration? Who runs it? What’s their background — are they professionals or mining industry stooges? Who’s the Michael “Heckuvajob” Brown in this outfit? Why are so many jobs at MSHA just left completely unfilled? How much has MSHA’s budget been cut since 2001 to pay for tax cuts for the rich?

The great irony is that this was supposed to be the CEO administration. Bush was supposed to put people in charge of government who had track records in private industry, who did in fact know how to run a railroad. For just sheer incompetence, this administration sets new records daily. All those years the right wing sat around yammering about government incompetence, and it took this administration to make it true.

—January 2006

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Puppy Pic of the Day: New mutt for the Melvins…

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CHEERS to fearless predictions. Remember when I said I would only mention Donald Trump if the news came from an English psychic? I’ve been true to my word. And this morning I’m breaking my embargo for this:

A psychic gave Donald Trump a troubling prophecy about his 2024 chances during an appearance on Fox News. Fox News’ host Jesse Watters interviewed Paula Roberts—“the English psychic”—on Tuesday’s installment of his show, where she relayed her prediction that many GOP voters will not like to hear.

Mr. Watters began by admitting he had “always feared fortune tellers.” Ms. Roberts then relayed her predictions using a deck of tarot cards, which she claimed revealed a “sense of loss” for the Republican frontrunner.

Okay then. We’re done here. See you at the Biden victory party on November 5^th.

CHEERS to waving hello. It’s not often that you hear about a state changing the design of its official flag, so this is a momentous occasion for the new year. Sounds like Minnesota had a good reason for doing it, too:

[T]he flag design adopted in December includes a dark blue shape resembling Minnesota on the left, with a white, eight-pointed North Star on it. On the right is a light blue field that to those involved in the selection process symbolizes the abundant waters that help define the Land of 10,000Lakes.

The new state seal features a loon amid wild rice, to replace the image of a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plows his field with a rifle at the ready. The seal was a key feature of the old flag, hence the pressure for changing both.

The right-wingers are swarming as you’d expect. According to the ABC News article: “[C]riticism circulated by conservatives has been inaccurate. The flag does not resemble that of Somalia nor of its Puntland region.”  Silly gooses, of course not. It resembles the colors of Hillary Clinton’s jogging pantsuit. Boom! Owned the MAGAs!

CHEERS to 84,904 square miles of madcap fun. Speaking of states and such, happy 128^th Birthday to Utah—aka the “Beehive Hairdo State“—which entered the union on January 4th, 1896. The state animal is the Rocky Mountain Elk. The state gem is topaz. The state bird is, oddly, the California Sea Gull. And the state fossil remains, of course, the Mitt Romney.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

(NSFW)

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to quick follow-ups. At C&J, we let nothing slip through the cracks except our phone, our glasses, our Frisbee, and the occasional unruly toddler. And that fact makes people like the recently-smited Pat Robertson very nervous. Even though he’s no longer walking the earth (thank you, Jesus), I bet he’d still rather we not bring up that time 13 years ago when he informed the world that God told him to start spreading this news: 

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson says God told him that the U.S. is bankrupt and heading into economic turmoil, but there won’t be a global nuclear holocaust.

Robertson said God told him that America‘s lenders will demand repayment—not this year, but in 2012—and the U.S. won’t be able to pay, resulting in currency collapse, rampant unemployment and riots.

Nothing about lifting up the poor. Nothing about healing the sick. Nothing about feeding the hungry. Nothing about improving the lot of the less-fortunate and the oppressed. Nope. God’s mindset was all about misery, hardship and senseless death due to the impending collapse of civilization. So it goes without saying that none of that came to pass in 2012. So remember: whenever the Lord goes all Old Testament on a random late-night call, it’s a safe bet He’s drunk.

JEERS to the Great Civil War of Aught Twenty Four. Citizen against citizen. Brother against brother. Family against family. Unwashed barbarian horde against civilized society. Ya hate to see it. But here we are, forced to deal with it. And by we I mean Italy and by it I mean pineapple on pizza:

Tasty or not, pineapple on pizza is anathema to most Italians, and [“Pizza maestro” Gino Sorbilla’s] pizza—which he launched on social media this week—hasn’t gone down well with many. It has, Sorbillo said, started “uproar” with insults on social media, and his pizza even being discussed on national TV. […]

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[Photo of pineapple on pizza removed due 

to lack of proper trigger warning. —Mgt.]

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Italy is split in half about it. And not just Italy. There’s a load of arguments that have opened up about it. I think people in general are not curious. They are mistrustful of anything different.”

 One slice of advice for whoever wins: don’t let the losers put up hundreds of statues to themselves 50 years later. We tried that over here. It ends poorly.

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Ten years ago in C&J: January 4, 2014

CHEERS to a Sheriff of One.  Since Congress spent the last year botching and then dropping from their agenda the sensible tweaking of responsible gun-ownership laws, President Obama is left to do what he can in the Executive branch.  The latest:

President Obama announced two new executive actions on Friday that nudge his gun control agenda forward by making it easier for states to provide information about people with mental illness to the federal background check system. …

“While the vast majority of Americans who experience a mental illness are not violent, in some cases when persons with a mental illness do not receive the treatment they need the result can be tragedies such as homicide or suicide.”

Or, in the case of NRA head Wayne LaPierre: becoming head of the NRA.

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And just one more…

CHEERS and JEERS to the speech spankers.  Right on schedule, Lake Superior State University’s annual “banished words list” popped up on the scene to give the cable news anchors a “kicker” story over which to hone their phony-chuckling skills. Sure, we’re happy to see terms like “cringeworthy,” “wait for it” and especially “at the end of the day” on the list. But C&J—thin-skinned as we are—will never shake the bitterness that infused our lives on that dark day in 2005 when they went off the linguistic deep end:

BLOG – and its variations, including blogger, blogged, blogging, blogosphere.  Many who nominated it were unsure of the meaning.  Sounds like something your mother would slap you for saying.

“Sounds like a Viking’s drink that’s better than grog, or a technique to kill a frog.” Teri Vaughn, Anaheim, Calif.

“Maybe it’s something that would be stuck in my toilet.” – Adrian Whittaker, Dundalk, Ontario.

“I think the words ‘journal’ and ‘diary’ need to come back.” – T. J. Allen, Shreveport, La.

So, for the 19th year in a row (and until they apologize for being such meanies), C&J humbly keeps these four words on our own banished list: Lake Superior State University.

Have a nice Thursday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial

“Some of the healthiest ingredients to put in a smoothie include a mix of fruits, vegetables and Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool water.”

—Shelley Rael, MS, RDN

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