Welcome to the Home Stretch
Happy Monday. Let’s get this party started.
In 23 days he’ll be lucky to find a job as assistant manager at the Muncie Ace Hardware.
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 28, 2020
Note: If you didn’t get what you wanted for Hanukkah or Christmas, here's good news: today is the official observation of Boxing Day. That means you can take the crappy stuff you got on Friday up to Canada and exchange it for a mystery box that might contain something better. Of course, you'll first have to engage in with border officials to shoot your way into the country. But c'mon—you might end up swapping out that ugly sweater for the actual CN Tower or even Rick Moranis. Give it a whirl, eh. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2021: 4
Percent of Americans polled by USA Today who already believe Trump is a failed president: 50%
Percent who said the same thing about Barack Obama at the end of his presidency: 23%
Percent of Americans polled by Vox/Data For Progress who support President-elect Joe Biden's 100-day mask mandate: 69%
Minimum number of Georgians who have already voted in the runoff election (voting ends January 5th): 2 million
Percent of Russians who say they trust the Sputnik V (yes, that’s its real name) coronavirus vaccine enough to take it, according to NPR: 38%
Andrew Yang's current position atop PPP's New York City mayoral election poll: #1
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Christmas morning WIN…
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CHEERS to blessed silence. They've turned off the Christmas carols. It's safe to come out now. We hope you were as fortunate as we were by making it through another season without hearing the Kenny G version of Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer or FIFA’s rendition of The Little Vuvuzela Boy. But we’re not entirely out of the woods yet. Nothing but non-stop Auld Lang Syne for the next four days, and Grandpa’s still only on page 16 of his Festivus grievances. (This CHEER is sponsored by ACME earplugs. Remember: If you haven’t heard a thing about ACME Earplugs, you must already be using ACME earplugs.)
JEERS to keeping track of America’s fugliest numbers. The mighty Covid-19 Wurlitzer plays on with 81 million cases worldwide—over 20 percent of them in the U.S. Our weekly tradition of maintaining a benchmark of the still-escalating awfulness for the C&J historical record continues, so let’s check the most depressing tote board in the world as our death toll now roughly equals the population of America’s 56th-largest city Honolulu, Hawaii:
6 months ago: 2.6 million confirmed cases. 128,000 deaths.
3 months ago: 7.3 million confirmed cases. 209,000 deaths
1 month ago: 13.6 million confirmed cases. 273,000 deaths
This morning: 20 million confirmed cases. 340,000 deaths
As for vaccine distribution: it's happening, but it's going slower than expected. Distributors at Pfizer and Moderna say they figured something was up when the White House changed the name of its emergency vaccine effort from Operation Warp Speed to Project Palm Beach Tee Time.
CHEERS to America's new Principal Skinner. While Betsy DeVos was busy fighting off grizzly bears and telling employees at the Department of Education to mutiny against the next president, our next president Joe Biden was announcing her replacement. Dr. Miguel Cardona is the superintendent of Connecticut's school system, and unlike DeVos, Dr. Cardona is—oh, what's the word—competent. Some of his particulars:
» Born in Connecticut to Puerto Rican parents during the ruthless Gerald Ford dictatorship. His first language: Spanish.
» Got his B.A. from Central Connecticut State and his MS and EdD from the University of Connecticut.
» Started out as a fourth-grade public school teacher, then became the youngest principal in the state and, later, an assistant superintendent of schools in his hometown of Meriden, Connecticut.
» Appointed Connecticut's Commissioner of Education by Gov. Ned Lamont last year, the first Latino in the state to hold the position.
» Married with two kids.
His #1 job: getting a majority of students safely back in schools within President Biden's first 100 days. Right after he requisitions the Army Corps of Engineers to bulldoze the pile of DeVos's Amway shit out of his office.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to rude holiday surprises. Shock and outrage last week as some idiot with obvious brain damage and a short fuse decided to drop a bomb right in the middle of the holiday season. It was a scene of chaos and carnage, leaving several outraged victims to wonder what the hell happened. And as the evildoers scampered away, laughing, back to their Christmas parties, the justice system was left having to deal with the fallout and trying to make sense of it . But enough about Trump's pardons. Did you hear about the RV explosion in Tennessee?
CHEERS to keeping things in focus. Happy 449th birthday, technically yesterday, to Johannes Kepler, the "founder of modern optics." Among many other accomplishments, he designed the first lenses to help farsightedness and nearsightedness. Sadly for our current political class, there was nothing in his bag of tricks to help shortsightedness.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 28, 2010
CHEERS to news from the world of medicine. Here's the latest from the land of lab coats and clipboards: Echinacea doesn’t seem to help if you have a cold. But taking sugar pills from a bottle marked "Placebo"—as wild as that sounds—seems to help if you have irritable bowel syndrome. Thanks for visiting Dr. Billeh for all your health needs. That'll be three chickens, please.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the do-gooders who walk among us. As we trudge, brain-numb and frozen-toed, toward the finish line of this sorry-ass year, C&J is filling our "Just one more…" feature this week with a reminder that there were heroes and sheroes aplenty in 2020. Every Friday our poll asks, "Who won the week?" and we offer up several candidates who remind us that all is not lost just yet on planet Earth. Powered by your smarts and good sense, a winner is singled out for induction in the Kiddie Pool Hall of Fame. Here are the winners from the first quarter of the year, during which the impeachment hearings were in full swing, Joe Biden's campaign was still on the rocks, and the coronavirus didn’t start seeping into our consciousness until late. (But when it did, it was here for the duration, as we'll see in future installments.) The envelopes, please:
January 3 Anybody who's glad to see 2019 in the rear-view mirror
January 10 The Australian and international firefighters battling the historic bushfires, and the army of professionals and volunteers helping rescue people and animals from the blazes
January 17 Rachel Maddow and former Giuliani "fixer" Lev Parnas, for riveting interviews during which a cascade of new revelations brought the Trump Ukraine scandal into horrifying new perspective
January 24 The Democratic impeachment managers: Jeffries, Demings, Garcia, Nadler, Crow, Lofgren, and especially Adam Schiff, for winning raves as they made their case against Trump
January 31 The House impeachment managers, led by Adam Schiff, for fighting mightily during Trump's trial to protect and defend the Constitution as Trump's lawyers were busy shredding it
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February 7 Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who tore up her copy of the SOTU when Captain Adderall was finally done gaslighting America...and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for a fine Democratic rebuttal
February 14 Michael Marando, Aaron Zelinsky, Jonathan Kravis, and Adam Jed, the federal prosecutors on the Roger Stone case who resigned after AG Bill Barr interfered for political reasons
February 21 Senator Elizabeth Warren, who treated eye-rolling billionaire Michael Bloomberg to a rhetorical knuckle sandwich at Wednesday's debate in Las Vegas (the highest rated Dem debate in history)
February 28 The war against "very fine people," as confederate symbols are banned from Marine Corps bases, and the FBI nabs 5 American Nazi terrorists for targeting government leaders, churches, and journalists
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March 6 Joe Biden, whose endorsement by Rep. Jim Clyburn in South Carolina resulted in a groundswell of support that propelled him to 11 primary wins in four days and a substantial lead in delegates
March 13 “All of the above”—related to heroes of the coronavirus outbreak)
March 20 ”All of the above”—related to heroes of the coronavirus outbreak)
March 27 ”All of the above”—related to heroes of the coronavirus outbreak)
Tomorrow: the winners of the second quarter. Based on the last three weeks above, you can probably guess where this is headed.
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
What is “Cheers and Jeers”? Is it that feeling you get when you tap into the flow between emotion and expression, the spiritual and the physical? Is it something personal percolating within you, waiting to be unleashed? Is it the essence of humanity in a nutshell? Defining the concept is like aiming at a constantly skittering target. You sense it when you sense it.
—David Fear, Rolling Stone
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