"He's #1! He's #1!"
George Washington may have been first in the hearts of his countrymen, but Donald Trump has accomplished a lot more firsts during his presidency, believe me...
First to enter office believing that America isn’t a great country
First to never come close to majority approval in polling averages of the American people
First to lie to the American people at a rate of over 6,000 times a year
First to exchange love letters with the Butcher of North Korea
First to take Russia's side over America's on virtually everything, including tacit approval of secret Russian bounties on the heads of U.S. troops overseas
First to spend most of his presidency watching TV and golfing
Continued...
First to be elected for his business acumen, despite having lost more money than virtually any other person in American history
First to recommend bleach injections to stop a killer virus pandemic
First to do special favors for countries and corporations who spend money at his golf and sex resorts
First to have over twenty credible allegations of sexual assault or outright rape against him
First to edit (inaccurately) an official hurricane prediction map with a Sharpie
First to publicly defend Nazis as "very fine people" and approve of Americans shouting “White power! White power!”
First to snort crushed-up Adderall to (futilely) keep from mentally falling apart
First to break more commandments than any other president while refusing to ask forgiveness but being forgiven anyway by his religious base who believes he was literally chosen by God
First to base his policies on what three dimwit cable TV morning show hosts say
First to blow off his daily security briefings
First to paint his face orange and his lips and eye sockets pink
First to claim he "hires only the best people" while having the highest turnover rate of any president by a mile
First to walk around in public with toilet paper stuck to his shoe
Swell legacy. Suck on that, George.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Monday, June 29, 2020
Note: Here's the posting schedule for the week: Regular old crap through Thursday. Then on Friday evening, around the same time Trump's fireworks are setting the forests around Mount Rushmore on fire, we'll step into our wayback machine for the annual reading of some really old crap: the very first C&J from July 4, 1776. Then we'll be off the following Monday. Please adjust your space-time continuum accordingly.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Independence Day: 5
Biden-Trump head-to-head numbers in Florida per Fox News polling: 49% - 40%
Biden-Trump head-to-head numbers in Florida among Hispanics: 52% - 35%
Public approval, per New York Times-Siena College polling, of the way Trump is handling race relations in the wake of the George Floyd murder at the hands of killer cops: 33%
Rank of the mid-Atlantic States (NY, NJ, PA), New England states, and Pacific states among those with the highest rate of mask compliance, according to Axios-Ipsos polling: #1, #2, #3
Percent chance that the south central region KY, TN, AL and MS are the area with the worst mask compliance: 100%
Rise in consumer spending in May: 8.2%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend hangovers…
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JEERS to keeping count. The Covid-19 world tour marches on (10 million cases around the globe now, with 25% of them in the U.S.), and our macabre Monday tradition of maintaining a benchmark of the awfulness for the C&J historical record continues. Let’s check the most depressing tote board in the world with all due reluctance as cases spiral out of control in Republican-governed states like Florida and Texas because, true to form, they put money over lives:
10 weeks ago: 764,000 confirmed cases. 40,500 deaths.
5 weeks ago: 1.7 million confirmed cases, 99,807 deaths
Last week: 2.4 million confirmed cases, 123,000 deaths
This morning: 2.6 million confirmed cases, 128,000 deaths
Late last week Fortress Trump held its first Covid briefing in two months. Said beleaguered infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci to the unmasked masses who believe mask-wearing is a Soros-funded mad dog plot to fill your lungs with chemtrails:
"You have an individual responsibility to yourself, but you have a societal responsibility. We have to realize that we are part of the process. We can be either part of the solution or part of the problem."
"Yeah, that’s great we’ll get right on it," said the Trump cultists as they briefly looked up from their pamphlet Being Part of the Problem for Dummies.
JEERS to looking ahead…poorly. President Trump really, really wants a second term in office. And, by god, he knows exactly what he wants to accomplish to cement his legacy as our greatest president in history. Behold the future vision of the world's most futuristic vision guy, as revealed to the American public late last week on Fox News:
"Well, one of the things that will be really great, the word experience is still good, I always say talent is more important than experience I've always said that, but the word experience is a very important word a very important meaning. I never did this before, I never slept over in Washington I was in Washington I think 17 times all of a sudden I'm president of the United States you know the story I'm riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our First Lady and I say 'This is great' but I didn’t know very many people in Washington it wasn't my thing I was from Manhattan, from New York, now I know everybody and I have great people in the administration.
You make some mistakes like you know an idiot like Bolton, all he wanted to do was drop bombs on everybody, you don't have to drop bombs on everybody you don't have to kill people."
And that reminds me: the National Association of Suicidal Grammarians will be gathering this evening to diagram that paragraph. Doors open at 7. Tonight's special: buy one cyanide capsule, get one free.
CHEERS to Ol' Shortypants. James Madison, who at 5'4" holds the distinction of being the U.S. president with the lowest center of gravity, died in Montpelier, Virginia 184 years ago yesterday.
He was the chief architect of the United States Constitution, and today he's rolling in his grave over the GOP's manhandling of it. The book Rating the Presidents (a survey of 700 historians and political analysts) sums up his legacy as one of "courageous leadership as president, guided by the principles of the Constitution, which he played so large a part in framing. All Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude." Pay your respects here. But don't tell him that Republicans are now using his sacred founding document as toilet paper. He’s got enough problems as head of the Dead Presidents Condo Association. (“Dammit, Polk. For the last time, get your stuff out of Calvin’s storage unit. and quit using LBJ’s parking space.”)
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to cool science. You think Earth is a bit turbulent these days? Get a load 'o this:
A whopping 7.5 billion light-years from Earth, two black holes, each about the size of Long Island, rapidly spun around each other several times per second before smashing together in a cataclysmic explosion that sent shockwaves through the Universe.
Normally, violent unions like this are dark events, but astronomers think they saw a flare of light emerge from this celestial dance—potentially the first time light has ever been seen from black holes merging.
According to the researchers, the black holes are currently exchanging insurance information and have already been booked to settle their case on Judge Judy.
CHEERS to hittin' the road. Sixty-four years ago today, radical socialist (and probably Kenya-born) President Dwight Eisenhower signed the controversial Federal Highway Act, which authorized the construction of 42,500 miles of freeway from coast to coast. It wasn't an easy thing to accomplish:
Between 1954 and 1956, there were several failed attempts to pass a national highway bill through the Congress.
The main controversy over the highway construction was the apportionment of the funding between the Federal Government and the states. Undaunted, the President renewed his call for a "modern, interstate highway system" in his 1956 State of the Union Address.
Within a few months, after considerable debate and amendment in the Congress, The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 emerged from the House-Senate conference committee. ... During his recovery from a minor illness, Eisenhower signed the bill into law at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on the 29th of June.
Soon after completion, parents got their first earful of "Are we there yet?? Are we there yet?? Are we there yet??" God bless America.
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 29, 2010
CHEERS to a fine reception. Wow, I was very impressed with yesterday's proceedings. It was civil, cordial, friendly, and when it was all over there was much back-slapping by both liberals and conservatives alike. I almost couldn’t believe it. I'm speaking, of course, of John Paul Stevens' final day at the Supreme Court:
The 90-year-old Stevens had the last word, telling the packed courtroom, "It has been an honor and a privilege to share custodial responsibility for a great institution with the eight of you and with ten of your predecessors."
Farewell, sir. Thanks for hangin' stickin’ around through the dark days of Bush-Cheney until the cavalry arrived. Now go on...your tennis court is waiting.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to achieving the impossible. John Bolton’s book is 500 (or whatever) pages of opportunistic Trump shaming that should’ve been presented at the impeachment hearings, but is instead stuffed between two covers so the former mad bomber can pad his bank account. But i gotta say, Stephen Colbert thought of a valid way to make it palatable: two Boltons for the price of one...
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Also available on long-play cassette.
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
Pence urges Americans four times to ‘pray’—but not once to read Cheers and Jeers
—Raw Story
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