From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Week Ahead
Monday Vladimir Putin announces more White House administration officials via his official U.S. spokesperson Donald Trump. Bob (6'5"), Ann (6'), Thornton (5'5"), Lawrence (5') and Sheila (4'5") make history as America's first Nesting Doll Czars.
The U.S. Treasury releases its monthly account of the federal deficit. Or, as it will be known after 12 noon on January 20th: that thing Republicans no longer give a crap about for at least the next four years.
Tuesday President Obama signs the 21st Century Cures Act. Included in the bill is money for Joe Biden's cancer initiative, along with funding for NIH, opioid abuse prevention, and horrible brain diseases such as Alex Jonesism.
Full moon tonight. As you're doing your monthly duty of looking up and thinking of Neil Armstrong as you give it a wink, add a nod for John Glenn.
Wednesday Today is Monkey Day. Though presumably not this kind:
Thursday New numbers are released showing that the expectations of future numbers will be higher than originally forecast, lower than subsequently revised, but surprisingly accurate in predicting the migratory patterns of the red-tailed bisondoodle.
Today is National Re-gifting Day. President-elect Trump hopes you enjoy the hand-made bow on top of the United States, Russia.
Friday President Obama, Michelle and the kids depart the White House for their last vacation in Hawaii as the First Family, giving Cokie Roberts a final feel-good moment to criticize them for traveling to such a foreign and exotic land instead of Myrtle Beach.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens nationwide despite a boycott by pro-Trump Nazis who object to the film's diverse cast and depiction of good triumphing over evil. Moviegoers end up flocking to theaters in greater numbers than expected because of a boycott by pro-Trump Nazis who object to the film's diverse cast and depiction of good triumphing over evil.
We shail into hishtory. (Or, at minimum, a giant vat of eggnog.) Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 12, 2016
Note: This note is on break. If this is an emergency, go talk to the Post-It in the pundit roundup.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the electors cast their ballots: 7
Days left to catch ZooLights at the Oregon Zoo in Portland: 20
Percent of 30-year-olds in 1940 who made more than their parents did at that age, according to Stanford researcher Raj Chetty via AP: 92%
Percent of 30-year-olds in 2014 who made more than their parents did at that age: 30%
Date on which Washington became the first U.S. state to sue Monsanto over pervasive pollution by PCBs: 12/8/16
Percent chance that John Glenn wanted religious parents to embrace evolution in their kids' education because "Science records that we change with evolution and time, and that's a fact": 100%
Copies of “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” sold: 11 million
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: And you thought the NSA was bad…
-
JEERS to the United States of Suck-it. On Friday the Senate finished up its work by passing a short-term budget that's filled with unappealing sausage. Democrats, needing to rehabilitate their image with white working class voters, flipped white working class voters---in this case miners---the bird by ensuring they only have health-care benefits for another four months instead of at least twelve. Great goin' guys! But, hey, at least they paved the way for a general named "Mad Dog" to become Secretary of Defense while being in civilian life for less than the required seven years, so Republicans win all the marbles. On the bright side, Congress is adjourned for the year and all their flights took off on time and they waved to us from 30,000 feet and golly they'll all have a swell Christmas, gainfully employed with a six-figure salary and benefits out the wazoo. So…a wash.
CHEERS to fewer idle hands. We only get one unemployment report each month, but we get the weekly unemployment claims---sit down, this might shock you---weekly. And last week's report was good…again:
Claims for jobless aid slid by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 258,000. The less-volatile four-week average rose by 1,000 to 252,500. […]
Claims have come in below 300,000 for 92 straight weeks, longest such streak since 1970 when the population and labor force were much smaller. The applications are a proxy for layoffs, and the low numbers suggest that employers are hanging onto their workers and that most Americans enjoy job security. "Firms know how hard it is to find qualified staff, so they are reluctant to let people go unless they have no choice," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
As much as I loathe Democrats for caving on the budget, I'll give President Obama credit for being on duty during an impressive stretch of consistent employment growth and unemployment non-growth. So…yeehaw. (I know that sounded like a weak yeehaw, but trust me: I was tap dancing with sparklers when I said it.)
JEERS to Russian to judgment. It's looking more and more like a "beautiful friendship" is blossoming between president-elect Trump and Russian President Putin, designed to soften up the world for a new gilded age of environmental rape and resource pillaging. Who knows, maybe it's a harbinger of a more (if temporarily) peaceful planet because so many of the major players will be greasing each other's palms and they won’t want to fuck that up with annoying wars and sanctions. Two developments over the weekend bring this in focus:
>> Trump's choice for Secretary of State is not vulture capitalist Mitt Romney or two-bit grifter Rudy Giuliani or state-secrets-spilling general David Petraeus. No, it's an oil baron---an Exxon Mobil oil baron who's a good buddy of…[Ding!]…Vladimir Putin.
>> The CIA says Russia took an active role in facilitating Trump's electoral college victory by hacking political party databases and feeding anti-Hillary documents to Wikileaks. I don’t think Putin did this because he thought he was destroying America. He did it because there's a shit-ton of money that can come his country's way if Trump is in office. Goodbye sanctions!
Since we're going to be like family to Russia (in fairness, its first name is "Mother") for at least four years, we should probably learn some helpful Russian phrases. Here's a special one for Trump: У тебя́ о́чень ма́ленький хуй! And for Putin: Иди́/Пошёл в жо́пу! With love.
JEERS to the most activist activist judges ever. On December 12, 2000---in between rounds of Texas Hold 'Em---the Supreme Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court ruling that said, Hey, maybe we should, like, count all the votes or something:
In a brazen act of deceit, the five-justice majority issuing the Court's per curiam decision knowingly misrepresented December 12 as Florida's chosen deadline for completing the vote count. They held that Florida law allowed no time to count the remaining 175,000 votes: [...]
This overt misrepresentation of Florida election law flabbergasted members of the legal profession from coast to coast. These same justices who on so many prior occasions had championed the rights of states had now casually and willfully nullified Florida law.
But at least President George W. Bush fulfilled his promise to restore dignity and competence back to the government. Yay. Squeaky Playskool gavels for everyone!
P.S. Whaddya bet that our first Chief Justice, John Jay, is spinning in his grave, knowing that the above abuse of judicial power was exercised on his birthday? Pay your respects, and sympathies, here.
JEERS to the big con. Bloomberg reports that the Trump campaign now says no, no, no, there's not going to be an actual wall across Mexico because, c'mon, that would be sooooo stupid. What Trump really meant when he said he promised a million times to build a big, beautiful, actual, physical, thousand-mile-long wall that "just got ten feet higher" every time someone offended him, was: a "virtual" wall made up of the exact same security and surveillance forces and policies that Obama had in place for most or all of his eight years. Now that we know that, let's turn it over to Jeb Bush circa last July:
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush predicted Monday that Donald Trump's supporters will feel "betrayed" when his campaign promises fail to become reality.
"I think people are really going to feel betrayed," Bush told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace of his former 2016 rival.
"There isn't going to be a wall built. And Mexico's not going to pay for it. And there's not going to be a ban on Muslims."
Which gives me an excuse now to say, in front of the whole world: I'm really sorry for mocking you, Jeb. You would've been a frustrating, right-wing president who made a lot of decisions I disagreed with, but you would've been a million times better than Darth Psycho and his cabinet of Lex Luthors. So…sorry.
CHEERS to the biggest star on the U.S. map. On December 12, 1800, Washington, D.C. was established as the capital of the United States. During those early days, everyone---the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court---was packed into the north wing of the Capitol building like sardines. They later moved into their own spaces because, well, the place was starting to smell like sardines.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: December 12, 2006
CHEERS to saying no. Conservatives in Canada's parliament couldn’t muster the votes necessary to re-open debate on (read: try and dismantle) the country’s same-sex marriage law, so Prime Minister Stephen Harper---himself a conservative---declared the issue closed for good. Are you sure there’s nothing in NAFTA about importing gay marriage across the border?
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to signs of The Resistance. We are everywhere…
And, trust me...hand dryers are just the beginning.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“We developed our first candles from childhood memories of the places we were familiar with. We looked for, and continue to look for, scents of plants, foods, environments, and even the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool that are relatable and universally enjoyable."
---Nate Schmiedehaus, Homesick Candles
-