From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The cartoonist is Rob Rogers
And he deserves a Pulitzer:
And you know who else put up a warning sign about Hair Fuhrer’s immigration plans? Yup...two years ago, no less:
Thank god elections don’t have consequences, huh! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, June 18, 2018
Note: Today is International Sushi Day. By all means celebrate it to your belly’s content. I’m afraid I can’t. The memory of last year’s Sushi Day is still too raw.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til summer: 3
Days 'til the Malad Valley Welsh Festival in Malad City, Idaho: 11
Trump’s peak approval in FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate of polls, achieved on January 25, 2017, versus his overall current approval rating of 42%: 48%
Percent of Americans who say they’re interested in space tourism, according to Pew Research: 42%
Number of countries with with a GDP of over $30,000 per capita where more than half of the adult population reports praying daily, according to Pew: 1 (The United States)
Percent of Americans who say they know what the letters in “LGBT” stand for, according to a YouGov poll: 80%
Percent chance that “spoiler alert” was just added to the Oxford English Dictionary: 100%
World Cup Soccer Sampler
Argentina 1 Iceland 1
Mexico 1 Germany 0
Brazil 1 Switzerland 1
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Puppy Pic of the Day: New toy…
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CHEERS to a fresh start. The sun rises over gently-swaying fields of wheat. The aroma of fresh coffee and warm blueberry muffins waft over the neighborhood. Birds sing sweetly from their perches in trees of oak and maple. Mom and Dad peruse the morning paper as the kids belly up to the breakfast table to dig into their Apple Jacks and coordinate the day’s plans with their friends via text. Fido keeps a sharp eye out for any scraps that make it to the kitchen floor. In a jail not too far away, Paul Manafort---the first former presidential campaign manager to be incarcerated since Nixon’s John Mitchell---is cleaning toilets with a toothbrush.
It’s morning in America. And for a brief shining moment, all is right in the world.
JEERS to getting hit in the face with reality. Sorry, but a brief shining moment is all we get. Now the coffee is stale. The muffins are burnt. The birds are pooping all over the car. The morning paper is late. The kids are fighting. The dog barfed on the one tiny patch of carpet that isn’t Scotch-guarded. White House Nazi Stephen Miller turned out to be the shit-for-brains behind the Republicans’ immigrant child-abduction program, which continues unabated. Net neutrality is still dead. The billionaires are still looting the Treasury. The GOP wants to eliminate protections against pre-existing conditions. Trump is still president, Scott Pruitt is still head of the EPA, and America is still the laughingstock of the world.
It’s morning in America. And we’re gonna need a bigger barf bucket.
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JEERS to tales from America's dark ages. A reminder that we used to be, in certain ways, as backward as any nation that ever was. On this date in 1873, Susan B. Anthony was fined a hundred bucks for the unpardonable offense of...voting. The dustup led to immediate outrage and reform. Unfortunately, in those days "immediate" meant waiting another 50 years before doing anything about it. By the way, she never paid the fine. Her heirs now owe the Fed, with interest---[clackity clackity clack clack clackity clack]---eight million dollars. But please not the Susan B. Anthony ones---to this day we still confuse 'em with quarters.
CHEERS to swishing toward Gomorrah. The 40-somethingth annual Southern Maine LGBT Pride Parade wound its way through the streets of Portland Saturday. The route was packed as a record 160+ groups passed by the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. Michael and I marched with the 22 PFLAG members who showed up:
You can check out The Portland Press Herald’s coverage of the parade with more pics here. But not everything was perfect. The weather was sunny and 80 with a light breeze. We specifically requested 75. Clearly God hates us.
CHEERS to Ride's ride. Thirty-five years ago today, strapped inside the Space Shuttle Challenger, Sally Ride became the first American woman (and, we later found out, first lesbian) in space. (The first woman in space from any country was Russia's Valentina Tereshkova in 1963---boy, did we get scooped on that.)
The flight was momentarily delayed when she made the men on the crew pick up their old Chinese take-out boxes and dirty underwear. Even worse, she hid the remote and flushed the porn. Now, that's just cruel.
JEERS to boiling your Republican base in hot water and serving it up with hot butter and a baked potato on the side. For reasons that defy all logic, Lying Idiot Criminal Donald Trump has declared a trade war with China. It’s going to affect millions of Americans, both in the workplace and in the marketplace, because China is retaliating swiftly and harshly. Up here in Maine the anger is red-hot, because Trump is f*cking with the industry we’re best known for:
A set of retaliatory tariffs announced by China on Friday includes a plan to tax imports of American lobster, potentially jeopardizing one of the biggest markets for Maine’s signature seafood.
Chinese officials announced the planned lobster tariff along with hundreds of others amid the country’s escalating trade fight with the United States. China said it wants to place new duties on items such as farm products, autos and seafood starting July 6. […]
“This is a blow to the hardworking men and women in the Maine lobster industry, and the broader U.S. seafood industry in general,” Annie Tselikis, executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association, said in a statement.
The tariffs for which Trump is responsible mean two things: 1) it’s just one more close-to-home strike against the Republican party that worships at his feet as lobster fishermen and women end up catching and selling a lot fewer of the crustaceans for the foreseeable future, and 2) His support among lobsters just shot up to 100 percent.
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 18, 2008
CHEERS to nothing at all. Leave it to them foreigner car companies to lead the way on clean emissions. Japan's Honda is delivering a couple hundred brand new hydrogen cars that handle like a dream, have plenty 'o giddyup, and emit nothing more than water vapor. Not to be outdone, Detroit says it's working on a car fueled by a mixture of arrogance and short-sightedness, and all it leaves behind is a trail of pink slips. And it's got a rumble seat!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to previews of coming attractions??? I’m just a simple caveman. I don’t know about your complicated “legal system” with its “plaintiffs” and “defendants” and “you’re out of order, this whole court’s out of orders.” But I do know this: I hope this turns out to be true...
President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen has indicated to family and friends he is willing to cooperate with federal investigators to alleviate the pressure on himself and his family, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Cohen has expressed anger with the treatment he has gotten from the President, who has minimized his relationship with Cohen, and comments from the President's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the source said. The treatment has left him feeling isolated and more open to cooperating, the source said. […]
Cohen is under criminal investigation by the US attorney's office in Manhattan for his personal financial dealings, including the payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels on Trump's behalf before the election. [T]he President's longtime "fixer" has worked inside the Trump Organization for a decade and was involved with, among other things, discussions to brand a Trump Tower in Moscow.
As someone once said (last week I think): mobsters always say they’ll take a bullet for the boss, right up until the moment they have to take a bullet for the boss. Stay tuned.
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:
The parents of Bill in Portland Maine have been hit with a $132,000 bill after their son knocked over a sculpture. The insurance letter stated: “You’re responsible for the supervision of a child. Your failure to monitor could be considered negligent.”
---Newsweek
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