Click here for the women’s march location finder
-
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Open Your Ego and Say “Ahh” Edition
“[Donald Trump] took a physical last Friday, and today we got the results from his doctor, Ronny Jackson. Right off the bat, the doctor broke big news: ‘The heart exam was normal.’ So, despite all evidence, Donald Trump does have a heart.”
---Stephen Colbert
Clips of several news hosts looking at the camera perplexed and all asking the same question: “Is Donald Trump a racist?”
Samantha Bee: It’s like Maya Angelou once said, “When someone tells you who they are, ignore it, elect them president, and then spend 24 hours a day asking each other if you believe what they told you about themselves.”
---Full Frontal
“President Trump broke with tradition and spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day playing golf instead of performing a community service. However, many people say that any time Donald Trump’s not in the White House he’s performing a community service.”
---Conan O’Brien
“After he was accused of making racist remarks in a meeting last week, Trump tweeted that his approval rating among black voters has doubled. That story again: two times zero is still zero.”
---Jimmy Fallon
“According to a new report, President Trump’s alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels lasted 11 months. Wow---only Trump would date a porn star and then dump her right before he had to buy her an anniversary present.”
---Seth Meyers
One year of the Trump administration is over. I want a refund.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, January 19, 2018
Note: Okay everyone, due to an unforeseen strategic move on the part of our adversaries, we're switching to Plan B. Three...two...one… Quick! Muskrats on heads! I’ll explain later! Just do it!
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Groundhog Day: 14
Days 'til the 8th annual ION Autonomous Snowplow Competition in St. Paul, Minnesota: 6
Current Trump approval rating in Missouri, according to PPP (he won the state by 19 points): 48%
Percent chance it was announced that the North and South Korean women’s hockey players will team up to form one unified team at the winter Olympics: 100%
Estimated days left before Cape Town, South Africa has to shut down its municipal water supply due to severe drought: 90
Size of the area that gets cleaned (15% reduction in fine particulates) when China’s massive new “smog tower” air purifier is in use: 4 sq. miles
Number of presidents who have affirmed rather than sworn their oath of office (Pierce and Hoover): 2
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Michael took this pic of C&J’s lab-mix Haley.
-
CHEERS to the poster board, magic marker, and pink yarn industries. Millions of Americans---and millions of ferriners around the world, too---have been busy making thousands of signs and knitting fresh pussyhats for tomorrow’s women’s marches. The last count I saw was something north of 250 marches, and that means a ton of both national and local news coverage. Here’s an official searchable database to find a march near you, and If you’re looking to join others at Daily Kos to march together, you can find information in the Connect, Unite, Act posts. But while last year’s “flagship” march was in D.C., this year’s is happening on the other side of the country---Las vegas---and it’s the only one to happen on Sunday. And while last year’s marches were a nationwide primal scream against the government takeover by the most disgusting elements of society, this year’s is squarely focused on booting as many of them as possible on November 6th:
The organizers say they not only plan to express righteous outrage against individuals accused of sexual assault and harassment---from Trump himself to Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein---but also hope to channel that anger into a unified and sustainable political movement aimed at combating the abuse of power and promoting workplace equality. […]
The slogan, “First we marched, now we run,” alludes to the new focus on voter registration, voter mobilization and getting more women to throw their hats into the ring. […]
A record number of women are running for office in 2018, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers and Emily’s List, a political action committee that promotes the candidacies of pro-choice Democrats. In the two-year cycle before the 2016 election, about 920 women contacted Emily’s List about running for office or getting politically involved in other ways. Since then, the PAC says, the number has exploded to more than 26,000.
I thought of a good chant to yell out along the route: Shit shit! Hole hole! That’s what you’ll find in Trump’s soul! Feel free to use it---I’ll waive my usual ASCAP fee.
JEERS to flushing Year One down the toilet. Whew!!! Hey, everybody, we did it! Unless Lord Dampnut decides to push the nuclear button before 12 noon tomorrow, we survived the first 25 percent of the Trump administration.
I think it’s fair to say that the resistance matched him blow-for-blow. I mean, holy cow, did you think we’d narrow the GOP’s senate majority by 50%? Did you think he’d only get one piece of legislation passed (and only because Republicans ignored the rules and rammed it through)? Did you foresee the courts blowing up his executive orders? Did you think the Affordable Care Act would not only survive but reach new heights in popularity? Did you ever imagine that a dogged investigator named Robert Mueller would be so close to blowing the lid off the Trump family’s mafia-style money-laundering partnership with Russia? And could anyone have guessed that his poll numbers would start circling the drain on day one? Well, yeah, I guess maybe that wasn’t such a stretch…
President Trump is wrapping up his first year in office with the lowest approval rating of any first-year president in decades, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
The survey pegged Trump's approval rating at 39 percent, lower than his three immediate predecessors at the same point in their presidencies. Fifty-seven percent of respondents disapprove of the job Trump is doing in office.
That gives Trump the lowest first-year approval rating out of any modern president in the history of the NBC/WSJ poll.
And what does our crystal ball portend for year two? A government shutdown blamed squarely on him and the Republican-led congress. A midterm Democratic sweep of the House. A very-possible Dem Senate takeover. More Mueller indictments. More infuriating (to him) court rulings. Poll numbers baked in the 30s. Cabinet members and senior officials continuing to flee in droves. More bombshells from investigative journalists. No fucking wall. And if we’re really lucky, the Han Solo movie will actually be good. (Hey, a nation can dream.)
CHEERS to Act I, Scene I. This week we saw two governors take the oath of office in Virginia and New Jersey.We all know what Republicans do when they take office: they start dismantling programs that benefit the poor, the sick, the unemployed, minorities, students and the elderly…and/or they enact programs that hurt those groups. But these two are Democratic governors, and they do things a little differently. Here’s a quick look at how they spent their first few days in office:
Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ)
• First executive order tightens rules on gift and personal relationship disclosures.
• Signed an equal pay executive order.
• Assembled perhaps the most diverse cabinet in NJ history. For example, when confirmed, Gurbir Grewal will be the first Sikh state attorney general in the country, Shereef Elnaha will be the state’s first-ever Muslim cabinet official, and Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver is a black woman.
• Made Central Jersey residents happy by acknowledging that it exists.
• From his inauguration speech (before which he took the oath on JFK’s bible): "We must reject the President's dark belief of America in decline and carnage. Let there be no doubt, ours is an imperfect, but great nation. … We will resist every move from President Trump and the misguided congressional leadership."
• Urged legislature to work on stronger gun laws and a $15 minimum wage.
-
Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA)
• First executive order protects state employees from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, political affiliation, disability or---for the first time---gender identity or expression.
• Laying groundwork for expansion of Medicaid without a stupid work requirement.
• Got tentative buy-in from Republicans (who still control both legislative chambers, but only by the slimmest margin possible) to expand funding for community colleges and public school personnel.
• Pushed for membership in the regional greenhouse gas-reducing initiative, and signaled to corrupt Secretary of the Interior Zinke that offshore drilling will happen over Virginia’s dead body.
• Half of his cabinet is female.
I thank you for making a fine start, governors. More important, my blood pressure thanks you.
CHEERS to thanksgiving---the state of mind, not the holiday. As in, thank goodness it was a Democrat---FDR---taking the oath of office for an unprecedented fourth time on tomorrow’s date in 1945. He was eight years younger than Trump is now. But, boy, does he look wrung-out:
-
We're sorry he had to be the one to find out that three terms is enough to kill a man. But thanks for winning a war worth fighting. And Social Security. Meanwhile, 57 years ago tomorrow, JFK gave his one and only inaugural address, during which he said: "Ask not what your country can do for you---ask what you can do for your country." I plan to heed his mandate this weekend by baking 323.1 million cupcakes.
CHEERS to good spelling. On this date in 1955, three years after Macy's made it a household name in America, Scrabble made its debut in Australia and the UK. If what I read is correct, the highest scoring word if you hit all the right bonus squares is still "sesquioxidizing." Meanwhile my highest-scoring word while sober is still "cow.”
CHEERS to home vegetation. Hooray---there's actually some new ha-ha stuff on TV this weekend, starting with HBO's Real Time, where Bill Maher talks with Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff, Larry Wilmore, Andrew Sullivan, and Saru Jayaraman.
Also today the fourth season of Netflix’s Lily Tomlin-Jane Fonda comedy Grace and Frankie debuts with new cast member Lisa Kudrow. New home video releases include the Blade Runner sequel and “the world’s first oil-painted feature film” Loving Vincent, in which each frame is hand-painted in the style of Van Gogh. The basketball schedule is here (the Celtics are crushing it this year), the hockey schedule is here and the NFL schedule (determining the Super Bowl contenders) is here. Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game) hosts SNL with special musical guest Guy I’ve Never heard Of. The Screen Actors Guild Awards (hosted by Kristen Bell---check out the nominees here) will be handed out Sunday night at 8 on TNT/TBS. Fearless prediction: Star Wars: The Last Jedi sweeps every category thanks to an unprecedented write-in campaign. Buy ya a star destroyer if I’m wrong.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D- CA); OMB/CFPB head Mick Mulvaney demonstrates the correct way to push an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs.
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus OMB/CFPB pustule Mick Mulvaney and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: OMB/CFPB director Mick Mulvaney who, contrary to what everyone thinks, is not the same Nazi who scalded his hand on that medallion in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Happy viewing!
-
Ten years ago in C&J: January 19, 2008
JEERS to an inconvenient re-entry. The Department of Homeland Security---where "Hey, don’t stick that in your ear" is heard more often than in any other federal agency---will be imposing stricter ID standards for border crossing from Canada or Mexico into the U.S. Starting January 31, you'll need stronger proof that you're an American. Like a passport. Or a drivers license and birth certificate. Or not being able to locate Canada or Mexico on a map.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to the most beautiful spread of land in the universe. Happy 89th Birthday---aka Acadia Name Day---to Maine's Acadia National Park! Miles and miles of unspoiled and federally protected nature that invites travelers to rest their weary bones and let the soul-replenishing eye candy revive their hopes for a better tomorrow. But not today! Nope, Republicans have decided to shut down the federal government for no reason other than chaos and incompetence, and that means national parks like Acadia will be closed. So here…have one more look:
We’ll let you know when our parks open back up. If we don’t die of old age first.
Oh, and Sunday is Squirrel Appreciation Day. This site recommends that you dress up your dog like a squirrel. I would add: only if you have a death wish. Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-