From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, a timely FU to Whatsizface...
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And one other tidbit you may not have learned in school: Columbus’s ships had lousy buffets.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, October 14, 2019
Note: As a special courtesy to our readers, today we’re waiving our usual $9.95 shipping fee for delivering the words and images on this page to your eyeballs. Cheers and Jeers: “More Value, More Savings!”
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By the Numbers:
5 days!!!
Days 'til Election Day in Canada: 7
Days 'til the Krewe of Boo Parade in New Orleans: 5
Current number of women who have accused the sitting President of the United States with inappropriate sexual behavior or outright assault: 67
Percent of American workers required to go through sexual harassment training in 2017 and this year, respectively, with the rise attributed to wider state regulations: 1%, 20%
Increase in Social Security benefits next year: 1.6%
Percent of Americans who say their finances are no better off than they were after the George W. Bush Economic Collapse of 2008: 50%
Current price of a pair of "Jesus Shoes" filled with “holy water” from the River Jordan: $4,000
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Handy bed…
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CHEERS to meetings of the progressive minds. We're still working on the venue, but we have an official date for our annual pre-holiday New England Daily Kos-C&J Meetup: Saturday, November 2nd.
Coming Nov. 2 to a New England near you.
Location will likely be close to the Maine/New Hampshire border so we can conduct the prisoner swap at the bridge with a minimum of walking. Details will be announced here as soon as lead scout nhox42 captures the most convenient BBQ establishment and seizes its pulled pork and slaw. (Note to military historians: watch and learn.)
CHEERS to a busy week ahead. The Trump administration, which has been raked with broadsides from the legislative and judicial branches since the impeachment inquiry was formalized 20 days ago (Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's testimony, the arrest of the two Ukrainian goons now being called the "modern-day Watergate plumbers" as they tried to flee the country, and orders to release Trumps tax returns were the biggest bullseye hits), is in for more point-blank cannon fire this week. Several rats are set to flee the ship, and courtesy of CNN’s excellent impeachment feed, here's the schedule of this week's testimony before the impeachment inquiry:
Something else we might see: Rudy Giuliani in handcuffs. If you want to make a quick buck this week, throw all your money into champagne and fireworks futures.
Thanks for your service, whoever you were.
JEERS to the revolving door of doom. Working for the worst human being in the United States paid its usual dividends on Friday as the Secretary of Homeland Security—nobody had time to learn his actual name—packed his briefcase with mints from the break room and left forever so he could spend more time with his shredded dignity:
President Donald Trump tweeted out McAleenan’s departure on Friday evening, commending the DHS official for bringing US-Mexico border crossings “way down,” before attributing his departure to the classic political excuse that he “wants to spend more time with his family.”
Despite taking on the role of acting secretary in early April, McAleenan was never nominated by Trump to permanently assume the position.
On the bright side, with Whatshisface's departure, Gladys Higginbotham of Bismarck, North Dakota wins the latest round of Trump Vanishing Cabinet Member Bingo. Enjoy that juicer, ma’am!
CHEERS to that guy America really, really liked. Happy 129th birthday to Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower, bringer-downer of the Third Reich (yes, with help from the Kurds) and our 34th president. According to author Cormac O'Brien (Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents), Eisenhower loved golf, playing at least 150 rounds a year during his presidency, a right he earned because he worked hard and smart and responsibly. And while the deplorables went apeshit over Hillary Clinton's brief bout of pneumonia in 2016, they say nothing about Ike’s heart attacks, his intestinal affliction known as ileitis (a cousin of Crohn's disease), and his 1957 cerebral occlusion during which he terrified wife Mamie by "stuttering a bunch of incoherent words" and then "pounding his fists in frustration at not being able to enunciate his own thoughts." Then there's this:
His domestic agenda bore a striking resemblance to those of his Democratic predecessors.
Ike was a notable grill master, too.
He expanded Social Security and spent lavishly on public works projects such as the interstate highway system. Though mostly silent on issues of race, he intervened forcefully to support the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas [and signed into law the first civil rights bill in 82 years].
He was also just as disgusted as Harry Truman had been by Senator Joe McCarthy's rabid anticommunism rabble-rousing.
Plus he famously had a few harsh words for our out-of-control military-industrial complex. Pay your respects here. And, for old time's sake: Siegheil! [Thpppttt!] Heil! [Thpppttt!] right in der Fuhrer's face.
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We interrupt this program...
...to bring you a guy scaling a replica of Trump's wall at the Muir Valley Nature Preserve and rock-climbing park in Kentucky, after President Trump claimed that “twenty of the most skilled mountain climbers" had tried and failed to scale the exact same wall at the Mexican border. Oh, and he's juggling…
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Cost to taxpayers: $0. Now back to Cheers and Jeers…
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JEERS to the tick tick tick of doom…with crumpets! Blimey, how time flies when you're waiting for Great Britain to implode because a minority of the country hates immigrants. Seventeen days and counting until Brexit kicks in and the island is set adrift from the European Union. So how are things going? Depends on who you ask. Either…
A potential breakthrough in talks between the U.K. and the European Union has raised hopes the two sides might be able to agree to a Brexit divorce deal ahead of a critical summit next week. The European Commission said in a statement Friday that negotiators "have agreed to intensify discussions over the coming days." An agreement, which looked unlikely just days ago, could break the deadlock that has paralysed British politics since the country voted to leave the bloc in a June 2016 referendum.
Or...
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office told British journalists Tuesday that reaching a Brexit deal with the European Union ahead of the upcoming October 31 deadline was "essentially impossible." Johnson's government was reacting to a call between the him and German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier in the day, during which Merkel reportedly said it was "overwhelmingly unlikely" any deal could be reached based on proposals Johnson sent to the EU last week.
How this ends is anybody's guess. But here's a clue we should all watch for: if Team UK wins a medal at next year's Tokyo Olympics and instead of God Save the Queen they play the theme from The Benny Hill Show, you'll know they went full "no-deal."
JEERS to Democratic brain farts we'd like to forget. 114 years ago today, in 1905, former president Grover Cleveland wrote an article for Ladies Home Journal, opposing women's voting rights. His words:
"We all know how much further women go than men in their social rivalries and jealousies...sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."
I believe the relative position of his wife's rolling pin that night was right between his eyes.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 14, 2009
JEERS to the call of the loons. So, to recap: the neocons—hellbent on war at any cost—once parked their butts at a military-industrial front group called PNAC. But they were so thoroughly disgraced (tainted, stained, discredited...pick your verb) by their Iraq adventure that they quietly abandoned it. (The latest update on their web site's What's New page is three years old.) [10/14/19 Update: now the site’s completely dead.] So now PNAC founder Bill Kristol has recruited the unemployable Liz Cheney (and, of course, her dad Dick, who will sit in a dark room and bark orders at the plastic army soldiers on his desk) to form a shiny new neocon group. It's called Keep America Safe. [10/14/19 Update: this organization is dead, too.] Sorry to break it to 'em, but they're just a tad late: 67 million Americans already did that with their votes last November.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to women in charge. Today is Indigenous Peoples Day, during which we celebrate the original inhabitants of North America, who were so rudely and tragically marginalized and murdered by the white man (including, notably, Donald Trump's #1 hero Andrew Jackson). It's pretty much a given that, if we have any hope of saving our planet, we need a lot more sheroes at the helm. After all, they have a decent track record of running a tight and fair ship when it comes to civilization. Recently The Huffington Post spoke with German philosopher and researcher Heide Goettner-Abendroth, author of Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe and founder of the International Academy HAGIA for Modern Matriarchal Studies, which "focuses on matriarchal societies, mythology, medicine and spirituality." Her mission in life: shine a light on women-dominated cultures and dare to suggest that female-centric leadership structures on Planet Earth would serve us better:
In these societies, do women abuse their power at men’s expense?
No. They do not consider it power as such, but responsibilities they are obligated to assume. They do often have control of the purse strings, not to keep the money for themselves, but to distribute it fairly and to ensure that the clan will never lack the things it needs.
January, 2019: all smiles as the first Native American women elected to Congress—Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) and Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), left—pose with Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and kiddos on the House floor.
Their societies are organized in such a way that the idea of domination simply doesn’t exist. These societies are largely peaceful, but they do know how to use weapons to defend themselves—for example, in the indigenous communities in the Amazon and North America. It’s not that they are better than us, but the way their societies are structured facilitates a state of peace. […]
[W]e need to push ourselves out of the current era, which I call the “super patriarchy.” It is a mix of neoliberalism, militarism and commercial exploitation of nature. It’s a path bound for self-destruction. Since the “super patriarchy” is incapable of putting a stop to itself, it’s up to us to turn toward alternatives, led by radical feminists, indigenous peoples and supporters of the sharing economy. There are so many of us who no longer want this world we’ve created, so if we band together to form a community, we can try to create a different experience.
Maybe one day we’ll even manage to install our own matriarchal system.
Sounds like a good idea. Polls open in 386 days. Don’t be late.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Arrested Giuliani Ukraine Associates Operated Companies Called ‘Fraud Guarantee’ and ‘Cheers and Jeers Kiddie Pool’
—Newsweek
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