From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
"Watch what he does, not what he says…"
I understand that. I do. I mean, yeah, I still pay attention to what Lord Dampnut says, mostly because it's still entertaining to watch a grown man rhetorically kick himself in the nuts (and, simultaneously, his grotesquely-overlength ties) every day. It's also a good idea to keep track of his astonishing lie count (currently 4.9 a day). Still gotta rebut 'em, folks. No matter how repetitive and obnoxious and insulting and flip-floppy they are, we still gotta rebut the lies. And the mangled history. Oh my god, the mangled history.
But it's much more useful and necessary, I agree, to pay attention to what Trump does. And so far it seems like this is a president who hasn't done…much. His executive orders seem to be pretty toothless, if not outright unconstitutional. He can’t get anything through Congress, partially because it involves effort on his end (who knew thinking could be such hard work?) and partially because Republicans in Congress are too busy eating each other. He "looks into" a lot of things, but either passes them off to Jared (who dumps ‘em in the “round file” right before he goes skiing) or forgets about them after falling asleep on the tanning bed with Fox News droning in the background. And he golfs a lot.
So I'll keep on keeping my eyeballs peeled for what aging, bitter Trump is doing, in case he decides to actually do something. In the meantime, see our C&J poll below and check out what Democrats did this week. We gave that calcified Nazi a knuckle sandwich with extra catsup. But no cake. Too bad for him, because it was the most beautiful cake you’ve ever seen.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Note: Today is Garden Meditation Day. Please: zen responsibly or I’m calling the cops.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til International Tuba Day: 2
Days 'til the Charlotte Dragon Boat Festival: 10
Amount ExxonMobil was fined for sending 10 million pounds of pollutants into the air from a refining complex near Houston between 2005 and 2013: $20 million
Gross Domestic Product in the first quarter of 2017, down from 2.1% in the 4th quarter of 2016: 0.7%
Vote tally in the Maine state House on a measure to switch our state to Atlantic Time (and no more switching clocks back and forth twice a year) if New Hampshire and Massachusetts agree to do the same: 85 yea-59 nay
Percent chance that an appeals court upheld a lower court's block of an Anthem-Cigna merger because it will reduce plan choices and increase premiums: 100%
Percent of smartphone users who say they "vastly underestimate" the cost of using it when they're abroad, according to USA Today: 80%
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Mid-week Rapture Index:
181 (including 3 Date Settings and 1 pathetic sobbing GOP congressman). Soul Protection Factor 12 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The real baby of the house wants to maintain the pecking order…
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CHEERS to the tweet of the week. Donald Trump writes a history paper:
Now go back and read it again, realizing that those are his actual words. But it’s definitely not his penmanship. Too neat.
CHEERS to a great two-for-one deal. The 44th president will be making a public appearance today in Chicago, and guess who his date is? Only the coolest First Lady evuh!!!! Via email:
President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama will join community leaders for a community event on the Obama Presidential Center at the South Shore Cultural Center.
More than a building or a museum, the Obama Presidential Center will be a working center for civic engagement and a place to inspire people and communities to create change.
President Obama will host a roundtable discussion to update the community on the progress of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park and hear directly from members of the community on their ideas for the Center.
If I was designing the Obama library, it would be in the shape of an extended middle finger aimed with geographical precision at Congress. So, yeah…good thing I'm not.
JEERS to local know-nothings. It's all the rage these days---media outlets "reaching out" to try and understand Trump supporters. So I guess it was just a matter of time before the Maine Sunday Telegram (the Sunday version of Maine's largest daily The Portland Press Herald) got in on the action, picking the headbones of five of these poor lost souls. Based on their comments, let's play a few rounds of Point/Counterpoint:
Tracie Lammers point: “Lammers says she thinks Trump and the Republican Party will eventually pass health care and tax reforms. She is also glad that he has begun to tone down his rhetoric and brashness.”
Billeh counterpoint: Yes---health care that eliminates the care part and tax reforms that leave middle-classers like her in the dust. And if she thinks he's toned down the rhetoric and the brashness, she's not paying attention and needs to put down the crack pipe.
Matt McDonald point: When Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton, changing his political allegiance to Donald Trump wasn’t a stretch, either. “There was enough commonality between Bernie’s platform and Trump’s platform for me to make that easy switch,” he says.
Billeh counterpoint: Yeah. Donald and Bernie are cut from the same cloth. From cavorting with dictators to advocating for universal health insurance to pussy grabbing, heck, they’re practically twins. Put down the crack pipe, Matt.
Ralph "Rass" Caldwell point: Caldwell favors the idea of building a border wall to inhibit illegal immigration. “We have to get a handle on who’s coming to our country,” he says. “They have to come in the front door, not the back door.”
Billeh counterpoint: Leaving aside your erotic euphemism, "Rass," we currently have no front door or back door problem. More Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than coming here. But thanks for wanting to waste $50 billion of our money to build that worthless thing. Now put down the crack pipe.
Thomas White point: A junior at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, he was drawn to Donald Trump early in the Republican primaries for his “America first” talk.“He wasn’t afraid to be an American,” White says.
Billeh counterpoint: "America First" comes from the slogan that American Nazi sympathizers and white supremacists have used at least since the 1930s. And what the fuck does "not afraid to be an American" mean unless you're locked in a dungeon room with a bunch of ISIS goons? Jesus, man, put down the crack pipe.
Conclusion: Trump voters clearly have a serious crack problem.
CHEERS to "Things That Stick" for $400, Alex. 106 years ago today, after being declared unconstitutional in four states, Governor Francis McGovern signed the first workers' compensation law to withstand judicial scrutiny. Guess which state he governed. Yup, good guess---Wisconsin:
In its 1911 report on worker’s compensation, the Wisconsin Industrial Insurance Committee appointed by the 1909 legislature stated that the objectives of the Wisconsin Worker’s Compensation Act were to:
1) Furnish certain, prompt and reasonable compensation to the injured employee.
2) Utilize for injured employees a large portion of the great amount of money wasted under the present (liability) system.
3) Provide a tribunal where disputes between employer and employee in regard to compensation may be settled promptly, cheaply and summarily.
4) Provide means of minimizing the number of accidents in industrial pursuits.
To mark the milestone, labor leaders will honor the day by doing everything they can to prevent Governor Scott Walker from getting wind of it and ramming its repeal through the legislature. (He'll be lured to Chuck E. Cheese to play in the plastic ball tent---never fails.)
CHEERS to putting on a good creepshow. I'm going to force myself---right here, right now, on the spot, just to see if it's possible---to come up with 5 positives about the just-concluded NRA convention in Atlanta:
1) No one shot themselves while cleaning their gun.
2) No one left their gun in the bathroom.
3) No one dropped their gun on stage.
4) No one said "of course it's not loaded" and then shot somebody.
5) No bra-holster related injuries were reported.
Everything else about it? Nutsville.
CHEERS to a very tidy planet. America’s space agency announced this week that they've learned something important from their space probe Cassini's deep dive through the gap between Saturn and its rings. Namely, "the region between the rings and Saturn is 'the big empty,' apparently." Almost no detectable dust or debris at all, which came as a surprise to the NERDS! At NASA. Here’s something very cool: listen as their radio and plasma wave thingamajig (pardon the techspeak) gives you the sound of outer space, Saturn-style:
Meanwhile, Cassini made its second dive into Saturn's rings yesterday. The judges gave it 9.6, 9.5, 10, 10, 9.6, 9.8 and 2. Take a wild guess which one was the Russian.
CHEERS to the shining city on a hill. Happy 215th Birthday to Washington, D.C., incorporated May 3, 1802. (These old maps are cool---I hear you can see Russia from the Capitol dome!) I was going to send everyone who lives there a gift basket filled with representation to go with your taxation, but Congress says it can’t deliver that item on certain days---namely Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. So instead I'm sending you a lovely Lincoln Memorial snow globe. (When you shake it, the little plastic Trump figure falls down the steps and gets an owie.)
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 3, 2007
UH OH to bunker fever. President Bush met with some of his loyal money men from Texas and the visitors left very frightened:
The story goes that they got out exactly one question, and the rest of the meeting consisted of The President in an extended whine---a rant, actually---about no one understands him, the critics are all messed up, if only people would see what he’s doing things would be OK...etc., etc. This is called a "bunker mentality"and it’s not attractive when a friend does it. When the friend is the President of the United States, it can be downright dangerous. Apparently the Texas friends were suitably appalled, hence the story now in circulation.
Tell me again...what button does he have his finger on? [5/3/17 Update: Proof that Bush may not have been as crazy as Trump, but he came damn close.]
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And just one more…
JEERS to HELLO URGENT MESSAGE KIND MADAM 7 PLEASE RLPY V&i*GR#A HOT SEXY LOVER NEED ASSISTANCE!! We can't let May go by without acknowledging the 39th anniversary of spam. It had a fascinating beginning. Via Geekosystem, here's how it started back in 1978:
Gary Thuerk, a marketer for the Digital Equipment Corporation, blasted out his message to 400 of the 2600 people on ARPAnet, the DARPA-funded so-called “first Internet.” Naturally: He was selling something. (Computers, or more specifically, information about open houses where people could check out the computers.) He annoyed a lot of people. And he also had some success, with a few recipients interested in what he was pushing. And thus, spam was born.
Aren't we lucky. Now if you'll excuse me, I just got an email I have to attend to from "Íâó¾Àí/½ø³ö¿Ú¾Àí " with the subject line"|Íâó½Óµ¥Ó뺣Í⩵ ¥»ñÈ¡²ßÂÔ|" It might be news from my favorite Nigerian finance minister. Or his widow.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“When I talk to Bill in Portland Maine, I try to talk to him about serious issues and he just changes the subject.”
---Sen. Chuck Schumer
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