From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Official White House Statement
August 17, 2017
For Immediate Release
During his inspiring and very prestigious press engagement Tuesday at Trump Tower, The President made the following statement about the weekend events that transpired in Charlottesville:
"I watched much more closely than you people watched it, and you had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say that right now. You had a group on one side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent.”
In response to media inquiries, the president is providing the following examples of permit-less "alt-left" behavior that he himself witnessed with his own infallible 20-20 eyesight:
- A leftist mother showing her baby how to load and fire a bazooka
- Mexican rapists and murderers bused in from sanctuary cities that pillaged and plundered the entire town
- Crooked Hillary loading her email server into a catapult and launching it at the Robert E. Lee statue
- Saul Alinsky driving a bulldozer over a copy of the U.S. Constitution
- Land-based, laser-armed sharks on leashes
- Ken Frazier of Merck running around raising drug prices
- Reporters from the failing New York Times stabbing wildly with their fake news writing pencils
- Barack Hussein Obama wadding up his Kenyan birth certificate, lighting it on fire, and hurling it at the very fine and silent permit-holding protesters
- Deep state leakers blabbing secrets that will severely damage our country but are all false anyway
- Thousands upon thousands of Muslims cheering the carnage
- George Soros paying each of the permit-less counter-protesters millions of dollars per person to be there.
As the President stated: "When I make a statement, I like to be correct. I want the facts. Before I make a statement, I need the facts." Having just presented the above incontrovertible facts about the Charlottesville counter-protesters, we hope the fake media will now agree that both sides are to blame.
P.S. When visiting Charlottesville, be sure to stop by the President's fabulous winery. It is the largest and greatest in America by a huge and massive margin and every grape is perfect, believe us.
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Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, August 17, 2017
Note: A reminder that Sunday is World Mosquito Day. I got mine three tiny pairs of Garfield-eating-lasagna socks. So cute!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Women's Equality Day: 9
Days 'til the Blackberry Arts Festival in Coos Bay, Oregon: 9
Percent chance that the President of the United States is a Nazi sympathizer: 100%
Percent of the earth's land mass that was in severe drought last year, much higher than normal according to NOAA: 1/8
Rise in global sea levels last year: ¼"
Portion of U.S. voters who want the federal government to make Obamacare work as intended, not repeal it, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation: 8-in-10
Average number of words a dog can learn: 165
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
A recent Ku Klux Klan rally in Austin produced an eccentric counter- demonstration.
When the fifty Klansmen appeared (they were bused in from Waco) in front of the state capitol, they were greeted by five thousand locals who had turned out for a “Moon the Klan” rally. Citizens dropped trou both singly and in groups, occasionally producing a splendid wave effect. It was a swell do.
---June, 1993
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Puppy Pic of the Day: More, more, more….
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CHEERS to picking up the torch and passing it on. It's been said a gazillion times: no parent should have to bury their child. But that was the duty Susan Bro had to carry out yesterday, as she and a packed house at Charlottesville’s Paramount Theater memorialized her daughter Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old who was killed by a neo-Nazi during Saturday's protests. I don’t know how she found the strength to do it, but she delivered her eulogy with rock-steady resolve and a commitment to keeping Heather's ideals and values flourishing. The sentence that resonated most was aimed squarely at the white supremacists: "They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what? You just magnified her." You can watch her full remarks here, but that amazing clip is here:
They pissed off the wrong mom. And I dare say there's a gajillion Americans standing ready to stand with her and, paraphrasing Thoreau, "magnify, magnify, magnify."
JEERS to the quitter-in-chief. Lord Dampnut is the greatest businessman and deal-maker in the world. (Just ask him.) But apparently the rest of the business world isn’t so hip to dealing with a Nazi sympathizer, and that just caused one…no, make that TWO…of his most prized initiatives to go down in flames:
President Trump’s relationship with the American business community suffered a major setback on Wednesday as the president was forced to shut down his major business advisory councils after corporate leaders repudiated his comments on the violence in Charlottesville this weekend.
Trump announced the disbanding of the two councils---the Strategy & Policy Forum and the Manufacturing Council, which hosted many of the top corporate leaders in America---amid a growing uproar by chief executives furious over Trump's decision to equate the actions of white supremacists and protesters in remarks he made at Tuesday at Trump Tower. […]
The dissolution of the councils…marks a rapid descent for a president who has alternatively praised and attacked the decisions of corporate leaders, sometimes making unverified or false claims, and whose policy choices on issues such as immigration and climate change have been criticized as anti-business.
Said one executive: “Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country.” True---we should definitely address those divisions. Step one: fire Trump. Step two: see step one.
CHEERS to a double-barrel dose of failure. Excellent news coming out of Texas yesterday from both the legislative and judicial branches. Big progressive wins, in fact:
Win #1: Texas measures criticized as being discriminatory for limiting transgender people’s access to bathrooms in schools and public buildings died on Tuesday, as the House adjourned and ended its special legislative session. Business leaders and civil rights groups had battled to defeat the bills, saying they advanced bigotry, would tarnish the state’s image and damage its economy. The measures were blocked by moderate House Republicans. Adoption by Texas, the most populous Republican-dominated state, could have fed momentum in other socially conservative states on the issue, a flashpoint in the U.S. culture wars.
Win #2: [H]ours after President Donald Trump refused to blame white nationalists for the violence in Charlottesville, a federal court ruled that congressional districts drawn by Texas Republicans after the 2010 election were enacted with “racially discriminatory intent” against Latino and African American voters. This is the seventh time since 2011 that a federal court has found that Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters, through its redistricting plans and strict voter ID law.
There was also something coming out of Texas from the executive branch: namely, a flying chair out of Governor Greg Abbott's office window.
CHEERS to things that go clank…or is it clunk? On this date in 1835, Solyman Merrick of Springfield, Massachusetts got a patent for improvements to his invention called the screw wrench. Humanity has been throwing them into the works ever since.
CHEERS to busy little bees. No, that's not a metaphor. I mean it literally---bees are making an actual comeback:
The number of U.S.honeybees, a critical component to agricultural production, rose in 2017 from a year earlier, and deaths of the insects attributed to a mysterious malady that’s affected hives in North America and Europe declined, according a U.S. Department of Agriculture honeybee health survey released Tuesday.
The number of commercial U.S. honeybee colonies rose 3 percent to 2.89 million as of April 1, 2017 compared with a year earlier, the Agriculture Department reported.
The number of hives lost to Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon of disappearing bees that has raised concerns among farmers and scientists for a decade, was 84,430 in this year’s first quarter, down 27 percent from a year earlier. Year-over-year losses declined by the same percentage in April through June, the most recent data in the survey.
It's good news, but also worth noting that bees are still far from getting back to their happy heyday. The biggest threat to their survival: vicious parasites. Yeah, little buzzers, we know the feeling.
CHEERS to going for a little spin. On August 17, 1982 the first commercially produced compact discs were cranked out at a plant in Hanover, Germany, causing vinyl record sales to plummet. (Bragging rights go to ABBA, whose “The Visitors” was lucky pressing #1.) Today CD sales have plummeted as digital music takes over. But sales of vinyl records have taken off again because of their richer sound and retro snaps, crackles and pops. I still remember the first LP I owned---a record for kids of symphony works that came sealed with a long red "baton." I spent a lot of hours conducting my invisible orchestra in the living room. And nearly poking my family's eyes out.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 17, 2007
CHEERS to overdue departures. Dennis "The Refrigerator" Hastert won’t be running for re-election next year. The former Speaker says it's time for a change of pace. Instead of sitting around the House doing nothing, he plans to sit around the house doing nothing. [8/17/17 Update: Nine years later, Hastert found himself in prison over payments of hush money to cover up his sexual abuse of male students during his high school coaching days. Gotta love them Republican family values.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to apt analogies from across the pond. Alex Cairns is the goalkeeperfor the Fleetwood Town soccer team in England, and on Saturday he performed a rare "triple save" as his opponent---Boo! Hiss! Bugger off, ya sots!!!---Northampton Town tried like crazy to get the ball across the line. In political terms, think of Cairn as, oh, let's say voters who want to preserve the Affordable Care Act. And think of the other team as, oh, let's say Senate Republicans desperately trying to kill it. Blimey, what could possibly go right?
Cairns and Fleetwood Town won the game. If I recall correctly, so did we. Hooray. Let's drink.
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:
Aliens could conquer Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool by following 'dangerous' maps NASA 'foolishly' sent into space
---The Sun
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