Please rise...or not, your choice...for National Anthem ver. 2.0
I understand a lot of people are saying we need a new one, so I went ahead and made the decision myself on behalf of all 319 million of us. Can’t wait to hear this played at the next Olympics when they send Old Glory up the flagpole:
It’s not official just yet---I have a call in to President Obama to do one of those presidential decree thingies. If he’s pressed for time he could have Trump’s doctor write it up---that guy’s fast.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 1, 2016
Note: Here's the schedule for the Labor Day weekend. C&J will be not be posting on Monday. Back Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Then on Saturday we start working on our Paul LePage unhinged governor costume for Halloween. (I hope I don’t run out of sequins.)
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til election day: 68
Days 'til Maine's Eastport Pirate Festival: 8
Reduction in taxes Mylan, the maker of the EpiPen, enjoyed after it merged with another company and moved its headquarters from Pennsylvania to the Netherlands, according to The Washington Post: 16% to 7%
Amount the company gave its leaders in "executive compensation" before the merger, and additional amount it gave them to pay taxes on it, respectively: $32.5 million / $20.5 million
Spike in the price of the EpiPen 2-pack between 2004 to now: $94 to $609
Expected average gas price over the Labor Day weekend: $2.19 a gallon
Donald Trump approval among blacks, according to the latest PPP survey: 0%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment: Molly on H. Ross Perot circa 1992:
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Elijah gets a high-chair
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CHEERS to September! Congress straggles back to work after five weeks off. (The #1 item on the Republican agenda after turning the lights on: turning the lights off as soon as possible so they can go back to campaigning---election day is a mere two months away.)
The iPhone7 debuts on---oh, how cute---the 7th. The kids are back in school. 9/11 turns fifteen and the evildoers have long been brought to justice except for the old #2 guy but the best he can do these days is fry-vat changer at the Kabul McDonald's. Shoppers jam stores looking for the perfect Autumnal Equinox and Mexican Independence Day gifts. ("A pair of socks? You shouldn’t have.") New England gets insanely beautiful as summer turns to fall. Hurricanes will become petty and vindictive this month, but Donald Trump says he's prepared to build a beautiful wall around them (disclaimer: if we promise to elect him president, otherwise you can all drown).
The Emmys are the 18th, but not before season #20 of South Park starts on the 14th. Hillary debates Drumpf on the 26th at Hofstra University. Tom Hanks delivers another Oscar-worthy performance as "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot Chesley Sullenberger, Tim Burton returns with Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and now we can officially say only three more months ‘til the next Star Wars movie!!!!! And I feel confident enough in my awesome psychic powers to make the following prediction: the conservative Values Voter Summit on the 25th will be…a total nutball fest!!! What can I say? It’s a gift.
CHEERS to our next Commander-in-Chief. While Donald Trump was embarrassing himself yesterday in Mexico and then peeing all over the Statue of Liberty by going the full Mussolini in his we-hate-all-immigrants-except-the-smart-white-ones speech (the KKK gave it 10 sheets-with-eye-holes out of ten), Hillary Clinton delivered a strong military-policy speech in front of an impressed American Legion audience. As Mark Sumner (actual birth certificate name: Devilstower) sums it up:
It provided no eye-popping reversals of policy stretching back decades. It threatened no allies, and was singularly lacking in heavily partisan content. It was completely free from the strutting, screaming, and self-congratulation that marks a Donald Trump tirade. […]
Thoughout the speech Clinton maintained a posture that was itself humble. She constantly spoke of her previous service as a “privilege,” pointed up her awareness of the sacrifices made by members of the armed services and their families, and frequently referred to the presidency as an open question, as in “whoever is elected” and “if I am given the great honor of serving.”
It wasn’t Hillary Clinton’s most beautiful speech. It had lists of policy points mingled with broader statements that kept it from soaring. But there’s no speech she’s given that provides greater contrast with Donald Trump.
In short: she’s someone more than deserving of our trust with the nuclear football handcuffed to her wrist. I wouldn't trust the other guy with a whiffleball.
CHEERS to the Justice League of SCOTUS Superfriends. Notorious RBG judo chop Hai!!! Karate Master Kagan Super Kick Oof!!! Super Sotomayor Wise Latina lightning bolts ker-POWIE!!! Beastmaster Breyer kitten stampede Mew Mew Mew!!! Yes, the fabulous foursome combined their awesome powers yesterday to stop the four horsemen of the Robertspocalypse from reversing an appeals court ruling that would've kept North Carolina's voter-suppression laws intact. So now there won't be a voter ID requirement, there won't be cutbacks to early voting, and there won't be barriers to pre-registration for some under-18 voters. This is going to make Governor Squinty McCrory's re-election even less likely now---and he's down by 9 points already. (He had no comment yesterday, presumably because he was in an undisclosed location getting his frustrations out by chewing through some drywall.) Punch line courtesy of Joan McCarter: "What a difference a dead Scalia makes."
JEERS to the War to End All Wars to End All Wars That Didn’t End All Wars. Seventy-seven years ago today, on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and started World War II. The U.S. wouldn’t officially enter the fray for another two years, but when we did we kicked Fuhrer butt. Today we salute all our veterans who fought the real Axis of Evil...and also a special Luftwaffe vet who unwittingly helped shorten the war by months:
Let's not do it again, shall we?
JEERS to flying blind. Well, phooey. First Baby Jesus took away our Jerry Lewis Telethon, and now the little shit is taking away another cherished Labor Day weekend tradition: the travel predictions by Triple-A. How many people will be traveling by plane? By car? By train? By jetpack? By pterodactyl? I'll be goddamned if I'm going to let them cut costs by depriving us of that info. So guess what, Triple-A? I'm gonna recycle your Memorial Day forecast. Try and stop me:
AAA projects more than 38 million Americans will travel this Memorial Labor Day weekend. That is the second-highest Memorial Labor Day travel volume on record and the most since 2005.
Spurred by the lowest gas prices in more than a decade, about 700,000 more people will travel compared to last year. The Memorial Labor Day holiday travel period is defined as Thursday, May 26 September 1 to Monday, May 30 September 5.
“Americans are eagerly glumly awaiting the start end of summer and are ready to travel in numbers not seen in more than a decade,” said Marshall Doney, AAA President and CEO. “The great American road trip is officially back thanks to low gas prices, and millions of people from coast to coast are ready to kick off say goodbye to summer with a Memorial Labor Day getaway.”
If you're planning an end-of-summer excursion to the beach or the mountains or the in-laws (lucky you), please drive with care and flip people off responsibly.
CHEERS to historic ringy-dingies. Happy Emma Nutt Day! On this date in 1878, the first female telephone operator in the U.S.---the aforementioned Mrs. Nutt---started working for the Telephone Dispatch Company of Boston. She was brought in after the existing operators---a bunch of male telegraph tappers who turned into snotty unhelpful little twits when they started talking to actual people---were fired. And on tomorrow's date in 1878 they used those skills to form the first Time Warner Cable customer service call center.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 1, 2006
JEERS to people Jesus would go postal over. Unscrupulous loan sharks are skittering around military bases like cockroaches, preying on soldiers and their families:
The report says "payday loan" stores (so named because their loans are often due on a borrower's next payday) have sprung up by the thousands around military bases and elsewhere in the past decade.
Lenders typically charge $15 to $25 per $100 loan for two weeks, and most loans are extended for several weeks. The report says the average loan is $350 and has an annual interest rate of 390% to 780%. The average borrower, it says, pays back $834 for a $339 loan.
May your tallywackers get caught in your coin-rolling machines.
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And just one more…
JEERS to bad intel. Last year the teabaggers insisted with unerring certainty that President Obama was going to invade Texas to take their guns and bibles. They had lines of defenses set up outside every Applebee's and every Wal-Mart and even Granny Higgenbotham had herself set up with a lawn chair and a shotgun in front of the Alamo. America was counting on them to protect the homeland from the president and they promised to deliver. Turns out they all got duped: one year ago today Obama actually showed up in Alaska to take their cinnamon rolls:
And that's why, when the story of #44 is told centuries from now, they won’t refer to him as Barack Obama. They'll simply call him…The Phantom.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Supergirl and Superman will beat the crap out of Bill in Portland Maine in Season II
---Gizmodo
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