From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
One Poll to Rule Them All
Our first "Who won the week" poll was posted eight (gah!) years ago this week. Like C&J itself, I can't really remember what inspired me to create the first one, but today it's a feel-good feature that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with such time-honored American traditions as baseball and sticking marshmallow peeps in the microwave. As you contemplate tonight's candidates, enjoy a recap of some notable past winners chosen by you that were particularly important, snarky or otherwise memorable:
6/27/08 The folks in San Francisco who tried to get a sewage treatment plant named after George W. Bush.
10/31/08 Texan Amanda Jones, the daughter of a slave, who cast her vote for Barack Obama at age 109.
3/20/09 Daily Kos, for placing #3 on Bill O'Reilly's "Media Enemies List."
8/23/09 Barney Frank, for his response to an idiot at a town hall meeting who compared Obama to Hitler: "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"
3/26/10 Everyone associated with passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
5/21/10 Rachel Maddow, for grilling Rand Paul and getting him to admit he wouldn't have voted for part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
5/6/11 President Obama, along with the intelligence and special-ops team that killed Osama bin Laden.
9/30, 10/4, 10/14, 10/28, 11/4 and 11/18/11 The Occupy protesters.
4/20/12 The penguin that bit Newt Gingrich.
9/21/12 David Corn and James Carter IV for releasing the secret Mitt Romney "47% of Americans are moochers" video.
5/31/13 Former Republican Senator and '96 presidential candidate Bob Dole, for saying his party has no ideas and should shut its doors.
11/29/13 Pope Francis, for issuing a papal manifesto that calls for an end to trickle-down economics and the 'new tyranny' of income inequality.
4/11/14 Attorney General Eric Holder, for his committee-hearing parting shot to Rep. Louie Gohmert: "Good luck with your asparagus."
8/15 and 8/22/14 The Ferguson, Missouri protesters.
2/27/15 FCC Commissioners Tom Wheeler, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, for voting to regulate the internet as a utility, thus ensuring net neutrality.
7/3/15 Bree Newsome of Charlotte NC, who climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina state house and took down the Confederate flag.
9/4/15 U.S. District Judge David Bunning, for throwing Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis in jail for contempt.
By the way, "Senator" Barack Obama won our first poll. And the next. And the next. And the next. In fact, he's won 78 of the 388 WWTW polls voted on by the Daily Kos community, making him undisputedly FIRST (frist?) in the hearts of his countrymen. (Sorry, George Washington, but we're just not into your "uniformity in weights and measures" shtick anymore.)
Go vote, then c'mon down and splash in the kiddie pool. We filled it with warm Cadbury egg goo. Leaves your skin as soft and smooth as Marco Rubio’s bottom---I’m told. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, March 25, 2016
Note: Due to Billy's new religious objection to working on Monday, there will be no C&J on Monday. But because he believes in redemption, he will rise again to post on Tuesday. Your lights may flicker for a few seconds. This is normal. ---God, via Skype
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the 138th annual White House Easter Egg Roll: 3
Days 'til Coachella in Indio, California: 21
Weekly unemployment claims, the 54th week under 300k and indicative of a labor market "much stronger than previously thought": 265,000
Number of W.W. II "Rosie the Riveters" from Michigan who were honored this week in Washington D.C.: 31
Estimated number of jelly beans and marshmallow peeps, respectively produced for Easter, according to the National Confectioners Association: 16 billion / 1.5 billion
Percent of Americans who believe the correct way to eat a chocolate bunny is to bite the ears off first: 89%
Percent of remaining delegates Ted Cruz needs to win to secure the Republican nomination for president, according to AP: 83%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A tisket a tasket...
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CHEERS to "Nearly All-Non-Contiguous-United-States Saturday." The handy New York Times primary calendar tells me that the action continues tomorrow for Democrats in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington---caucuses in all three. (Republicans aren't voting anywhere tomorrow because slackers!) At stake: 172 bouncing baby delegates. I haven't seen any polling, so I'll put all my chips on Caucus King Bernie Sanders to score a clean sweep. The Daily Kos Elections Team will stay up all night posting the results as they come in from their faithful flock of courier pigeons. If you're a west-coaster and you happen to live along their flight routes, don't look up until you hear the all-clear siren.
JEERS to today's edition of Ooh Ick Ick Ick! Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's days are numbered, thanks to a recording his (now-ex) wife made of the family-values champion making sexytime over the phone with a political advisor. And roll the tape:
“You know what, when I stand behind you, and I put my arms around you, and I put my arms on your breasts, and I put my head…and pull you real close. … Baby, let me tell you what we’re gonna have to do tonight: start locking the door. If we’re gonna do what we did the other day, we’re gonna have to start locking the door.”
This has been today's edition of Ooh Ick Ick Ick!
P.S. Et tu, Ted Cruz? Ick ick ick ick ick Ick...ad infinitum!!!
CHEERS to walkin' the walk. On March 25, 1965---a few weeks after "Bloody Sunday" during which police set upon peaceful civil rights marchers with fire hoses, clubs and dogs---Martin Luther King, Jr. led thousands of marchers to the State Capitol in Montgomery for a rally. Looked something like this (that's Congressman John Lewis second from the left):
The marchers got three things out of it: Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a permanent place in civil rights history and, much less publicized, aching bunions.
JEERS to tall walls. Because what happens, Donald Trump, is they lead to deep tunnels:
Federal agents busted a massive 415-yard tunnel stretching between Mexicali, Mexico, and Calexico, Calif., after a 16-month investigation, seizing almost 3,000 pounds in marijuana. …
The underground network, which spanned the length of more than four football fields, had entrances at a restaurant in Mexico and a newly built house in California.
The sophisticated tunnel was 32 feet below ground, with lighting, electricity and a rail system that lead to a 3 foot-wide opening at the front of the California home, ABC reported.
Responded Donald Trump to the criminals who just made him look incredibly stupid for basing his campaign on a useless 35-foot wall? "The wall just got ten feet taller." Yeah---that'll teach 'em.
CHEERS to a holiday fevuh! 2016 years ago today (or thereabouts), a bunch of Roman thugs nailed a rabbi to a cross while a filthy rabble with six teeth among them and a combined IQ of 12 watched the poor sap suffer and moan and dehydrate and bleed to death in the baking sun. I'll never understand why Christians call it “Good Friday.” Sounds more like “Any Given Monday” to me.
Then, this Sunday is Easter, marking the day the aforementioned Christ the Savior rose from the dead. It’s also notable as the day Lenny the tomb attendant checked into rehab.
C&J reminds you: please gorge on Easter candy 'til you explode responsibly.
JEERS to the dark ages of labor exploitation. Today is the 105th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that, in 18 minutes, killed 146 garment workers in New York City. The workers in that shithole had gone on strike a couple years earlier for better pay and safety improvements, but management decided that, no, we'd rather be dicks. And as so often happens, it took a catastrophe to finally wake people up. In her centennial anniversary column five years ago, Laura Clawson wrote:
We don't…have fire alarms and sprinklers and adequate exits and other workplace protections because big employers want us to have them.
We don't have them solely because of tragedy. We have them because workers have joined together and fought for them. In 1911, workers' struggle was the context that made the Triangle fire something other than a meaningless accident, that showed a way to prevent similar tragedies. […]
"Government regulations" and "workplace safety laws" sound like dry terms, but this is what they're about: nothing less than people's lives. And that is something to remember when you hear the likes of Scott Walker and John Kasich arguing that employers oughtn't be bound by those pesky government regulations.
See also too: Rick Snyder, Flint lead-poisoning crisis.
CHEERS to home vegetation. The elephant in the room on TV this weekend is the annual Easter-weekend airing of Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments tomorrow night---for nearly FIVE…freaking…hours---on ABC, featuring the mom from The Munsters as Moses' wife and music by the guy who also scored Airplane! and Ghostbusters. (Spoiler Alert: Ramses chooses poorly.) For best results, watch with the sound turned down and create your own dialogue. Meanwhile tonight on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher's guests include Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Michigan's last competent governor, Democrat Jennifer Granholm. Among the notable new DVD releases is the last installment of the Hunger Games movies. NCAA hoops action (womens and mens) will have more frustrated fans tossing their busted brackets into the garbage can. The hockey schedule is here (the Bruins will "rake" the Toronto Maple Leafs to the curb ha ha ha ha!!!) and the NBA schedule is here. SNL's a repeat and John Oliver's taking the weekend off. Well, poo.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: No idea. Chuck Todd is still a’ colorin’ his eggs.
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus former White House press secretary Mike McCurry.
This Week: Bernie!!! Plus Donald Drumpf.
Face the Nation: Secretary of State John Kerry urges everyone to not be terrorized by terrorists, while House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) gives us all five minutes to live unless we turn the sands of Syria to glass; NYPD Deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism John Miller.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Ted “Not With My Wife, You Don’t!” Cruz; Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) will shout "Boo!" and caused the Fox viewership to crap its pants.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 25, 2006
JEERS to buying the myth. Katie Couric says Wal-Mart is as American as mom and apple pie. Yes...a mom who locks you in your room, reneges on your allowance and lavishes her attention on your adopted brother from China. As for apple pie...Yum!!
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And just one more…
FAREWELL to Garry Shandling. You just say the name and you laugh. Because he was funny. Befuddled funny, deadpan funny, world-weary funny. Damn funny. The Larry Sanders Show especially deserved every accolade it got, in part because it showed just how much being professionally funny is a hard, messy, unpredictable and ego-infested cat-herding business:
Shandling died yesterday at 66 from a heart attack. And the Grim Reaper tears off another page of what is looking more and more like his 2016 Knock-Off-A-Legend-A-Day calendar. Asshole.
Have a nice weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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