From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Final Appeal: 10 Reasons to Throw Money at Cheers and Jeers
2. 100% of the proceeds go toward vital food, medicine and sagebrush clearing.
7. You’re investing in a priceless autographed collectible human with an edition size of one. (I should really be housed in that museum where they keep all the Hummels.)
3. I have never taken money from Super PACs, and if they ever offer me any I would certainly turn them down. [Uncrosses fingers]
9. You people started it! Yes you did, by hiring me in the first place back in 2007, Jeez, I mean come on, this is your doing!
4. Sorry about #9. My valerian, kava kava, and lemon balm happy-time supplements haven't kicked in yet, so i’m running on nothing but Dewar’s and horny goat weed at the moment.
10. I'm "small enough to know you, large enough to serve you"
6. Giving me money would be socialism, which would drive the other side bonkers. So it's a unique opportunity to "own the cons." Do it! Do it!
1. Sure, I've been called a "flagrant commie traitor nose picker" by right wing media. But PolitiFact totally exonerated me by deeming the claim only "Partly True."
5. I forget this one. I think it's something something something your own seat on the Supreme Court or $5 off your next oil change.
8. Most important: C&J is a pie fight-free zone.
If you're in the mood to keep us going for another year, here are the PayPal options:
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And now I’ll leave you alone for another year. Thanks again for supporting America’s longest-running kiddie pool-based blog post. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Mueller Report insanity.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 18, 2019
Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, the Easter Bunny will be on a junket in Abu Dhabi this weekend. In its place will be Good King Wenceslas in a bunny costume. (He needs the off-season work. Uber just isn’t cutting it.) ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Kentucky Derby: 16
Days ’til the 35th annual Petaluma Butter and Egg Days Parade in California: 9
Number of individual donors who gave to indicted congressman Chris Collins (R-NY) in the first quarter: 0
Number of outages caused by squirrels in the U.S. last year, according to The Portland Press Herald: 244,137
Current favorable/unfavorable rating for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, according to a Siena College poll in her New York district: 52% / 33%
Percent chance that The Hunchback of Notre-Dame became the #1-selling book on Amazon.com during the cathedral fire: 100%
Age of Monty Python as of this year: 50
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Never let it never be said our president does not provide laughs, even as we wobble on the rim of war in the Middle East.
Look what a good time Vladimir Putin had with him. Bush, responding to questions from the international press corps on his conversation with Putin the previous evening, said, "I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq, where there is a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country, you know, would hope that Russia would do the same thing."
Putin, with a fairly straight face, replied, "We certainly would not like to have the same kind of democracy they have in Iraq, I'll tell you that quite honestly." Don't you hate it when the international press corps laughs at what a stoop Bush is? Bush, who fancies himself something of a fast-reply artist, said, "Just wait." Heh, heh.
---July, 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: 135 miles off the coast of Thailand---SAVED!!!
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CHEERS to Mueller Time!!! For the first time since he put a magnifying glass to the 2016 Trump campaign's game of Footsies with Russia, as well as Russia's successful campaign to help get Trump elected, and Trump's attempt to obstruct the investigation, this morning the world will finally get a look—albeit a redacted one—at the special counsel's report. While the dotard-in-chief will be presented with a special version made out of crayon drawings, I'll have to slog through the tens of thousands of words to extract the juicy bits and disseminate them. By which I of course mean NBC News legal analyst Pete Williams will have to slog through the tens of thousands of words to extract the juicy bits and disseminate them, after which I'll pretend I did all the work and everyone will say, "Wow, that BiPM sure is fast and thorough. And here we thought blogging was just a fad populated by lazy cut-and-pasters." What can I say? It's a gift.
JEERS to today’s boring correction. One week ago today, the United States Senate affirmed to the nation, through rigorous confirmation hearings, that former fossil fuel lobbyist David Bernhardt would be an excellent choice to be our nation's new Secretary of the Interior, free of the taint and scandal that stunk up the office of his predecessor Ryan Zinke. In fact, just four days later…
...Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote the senators to announce she had opened an investigation based on “a wide assortment of complainants” alleging “conflicts of interest and other violations.” She added that their complaint was one of seven she had received regarding Bernhardt’s conduct.
The concerns relating to Bernhardt’s reluctance to leave his lobbying work behind after he started working for the government were spurred by a series of New York Times investigations.
This concludes today’s boring correction. Unless you’d like to hear the other 632 corrections for Trump administration errors since 6am this morning. No. I didn’t think so. Pass the bourbon.
JEERS to the coin-tosser-in-chief. Thirteen years ago, George W. Bush, in yet another moment of detachment from reality, proclaimed after 5½ years of utter incompetence: "I'm the decider and I decide what's best." If I may weigh in on that, sir? You sucked at deciding.
OINK OINK to the latest development in pig-headedness. Shouts of "It's ALIVE!!!" echoed through the halls and secret star chambers of Yale University as a team of Igors successfully made a breakthrough in nightmare science:
Researchers from Yale have developed a system capable of restoring some functionality to the brains of decapitated pigs for at least 10 hours after death. The achievement has tremendous scientific potential, but it raises some serious ethical and philosophical concerns.
Developed by neuroscientist Nenad Sestan and his colleagues from Yale University, the system was shown to restore circulation and some cellular functionality to intact pig brains removed from the skull. … The system pumped synthetic blood and other compounds into the disembodied organ,restoring partial functionality for a period of six hours. This research was published today in Nature.
The system responsible for bringing Babe's noggin back to life is called---this is true---BrainEx. I believe their official marketing slogan is: "When It Absolutely Positively Has To Be Really Creepy Overnight."
JEERS to disrespecting the one whut brung ya to the dance. Just a quick reminder that Rupert Murdoch’s flagship propaganda outlet has been crazy for a long time. Four years ago this week, Fox News openly wondered if we should bring back literacy tests during elections so that we don’t have a bunch of dense, ignorant, fact-averse truthiness trolls voting on the critical issues and candidates of the day. Which brings up a serious question: why does Fox want to prevent its viewers from voting?
CHEERS to Saddle Sores for Freedom. On this date in 1775, Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott hopped on their hoverboards and trundled from Boston to Concord, Mass., warning the citizens of the approaching British army (Prescott was the only one with enough juice to make it all the way). Their focus group-tested talking point: "The British Are Coming." Tomorrow: The thrilling conclusion…
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 18, 2009
JEERS to burying the evidence. I always thought that a basic tenet of journalism was, "If it bleeds, it leads." There was all kinds of bleeding going on as we were torturing alleged terrorists (tell me how many have been convicted so far?), as revealed in the four shocking Bush administration ”torture memos” released by the Obama administration. A bigger bombshell could not have been dropped, and yet in today's USA Today the story appears on page A6, and in the Portland Press Herald it shows up on page A9. You'd be rather hard-pressed to find a link at the major news sites (as usual, it was the alt-media that covered it well). And most people have greeted the story (if they've read about it at all) with a yawn. Mommy, what's wrong with us?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Deeeeeep Thoughts…with Congresswoman AOC. While we're waiting for the Mueller Report to drop, check out this impressive (and now viral) video---described as "a flat-out rejection of the idea that a dystopian future is a forgone conclusion" and also a celebration of activist art---produced by The Intercept. Accompanied by Molly Crabapple's watercolors, Alexandria answers the question, "What would the future look like if we actually pulled off the Green New Deal?" Bonus points for pointing out that Exxon-Mobil is flat-out evil:
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And to make it a reality all we have to do is launch the entire Republican party into space. Oops, sorry. I think I just spoiled the plot of the sequel.
Have a Muellerrific Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
These Robo Bill In Portland Maines Are Even Scarier When They Start Working In A Pack
---Gizmodo
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