From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
A Few Words from Some of March’s Birthday Kids
"My favorite line belongs to an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston. Flo Kennedy and I were in the backseat talking about Flo’s book, Abortion Rap, and the driver turned around and said, 'Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.' I wish I’d gotten her name so we could attribute it to her.”
---Gloria Steinem
"When I was 40 and looking at 60, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But 62 feels like a week and a half away from 80. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off."
---Harry Belafonte, now 92
"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."
---Albert Einstein
"When I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court], and I say, ‘When there are nine,’ people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that."
---Ruth Bader Ginsburg
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
---James Madison
"If Attila the Hun were alive today, he'd be a drama critic."
---Edward Albee
“Like the other immigrant groups, the day will come when we win the economic and political rewards which are in keeping with our numbers in society. The day will come when the politicians do the right thing by our people out of political necessity and not out of charity or idealism.”
---Cesar Chavez
"Nixon is the kind of guy who, if you were drowning twenty feet from shore, would throw you a fifteen-foot rope."
---Eugene McCarthy [Also applies to Trump]
“Who hasn’t had a weight issue? If not the body, certainly the big head.”
---Aretha Franklin
...and many blessings on your camels.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Note: My spycam indicates there's something moving in the back of your fridge. It's either Zool or the cottage cheese. You should check on it. Probably with a croquet mallet in your hand. ---Security
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the start of the Memorial Day weekend: 58
Days 'til the Texas VegFest in Austin: 11
Percent of Americans who believe climate change is caused by human activity, according to a new Gallup poll: 66%
Rank of New York (15), Illinois (5), and Tennessee (4) among states with the most Democratic presidential nominees in the party”s history, according to FiveThirtyEight: #1, #2, #3
Jump in incidents of auto theft in Alaska last year, mainly because of the Palin crime family, many people are saying, you betcha: 40%
Rank of the Nissan Ultima as the most stolen new car in America: #1
Odds of being killed by falling out of bed, according to the internet, which I'm fond of reading: 1-in-2,000,000
-
Mid-week Rapture Index: 179 (including 5 nuclear nations and 1 Rapture-ready Secretary of State). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Attempted breakout…
-
JEERS to whiplash. What a day. Monday morning I got word from my oncologist that, after two years, two major surgeries, and eighteen chemo treatments I was cancer-free. Then Monday afternoon I got word from my government that the affordable health insurance that contributed to that outcome was unconstitutional and would be taken away from me and replaced with nothing. Gee, thanks! As if to f*ck with my head even more, it was, of all people, that wascally weasel Chris Cillizza who convinced me this won’t end well…for Dr. Drumpf:
Just 24 hours removed from arguably his best day as President, Donald Trump picked a political fight he cannot win. […]
Switching the spotlight of the national debate from Russia to health care so quickly would be risky under any circumstances but is particularly problematic given that a) the past five elections have shown that people care deeply about and vote on the issue of health care and b) getting rid of Obamacare is not a broadly popular view with the American public. […]
More than 4 in 10 voters in 2018 said that health care was their top priority in the election, according to exit polling. Democrats won those health care voters by 52 points. 52! That massive edge for Democrats reflects just how much the political landscape has tilted on the issue over the past decade.
We know how this ends. Americans will choose health care over no health care. Congratulations, President [Insert winning Democrat here]. But god help your gag reflex when you see the condition of your White House Living quarters. They’ll be fumigating for weeks.
JEERS to the battle of the buffoons. Last week Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), sensing an opportunity to knock senator Mike Lee (R-UT) off his perch as the Dumbest Sitting Senator Alive, took to twitter to complain about the bursting of the "German Dam" in Venezuela, even though "German Dam" was actually the name of the reporter who wrote the story, not the dam. After hearing about this assault on his cave atop Mount Moron, Lee took to the Senate floor to prove that he and he alone was the true Dean of Dumb:
Congresswoman and Green New Deal co-creator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noticed and delivered her official AOC Seal Of You So Stupid, saying: “If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything!” My sources tell me Little Marco may make another run at him later today by sticking a fork in a wall socket while humming God Bless America. That’s the spirit.
CHEERS to famous firsts in the land of Ringy Dingies. On March 27, 1884, the first telephone line connecting Boston and New York went live. It was soon followed by the first introduction of telephone "poles" connecting Boston and New York, mainly because people's horses kept tripping over the damn thing.
CHEERS to the wonders of gravity-defiance. Four years ago today, in a picture-perfect liftoff, astronaut Scott Kelly was launched into space, accompanied by a six-pack of Bud Lite, a bag of Doritos, and a hugely-ambitious mission: to spend a year in space and then compare the results with his identical (and earthbound) twin brother, Mark, upon his return. The results of the experiment are still coming in, and the latest shows that if you're planning a long-term space trip, bring plenty of vitamin C:
Nearly a year in space put astronaut Scott Kelly's immune system on high alert and changed the activity of some of his genes compared to his Earth-bound identical twin, researchers said Friday. […]
"It's as if the body is reacting to this alien environment sort of like you would a mysterious organism being inside you," said geneticist Christopher Mason of New York's Weill Cornell Medicine, who helped lead the study. He said doctors are now looking for that in other astronauts. […]
The good news: Most everything returned to normal shortly after Kelly got back on Earth in March 2016. … "On the whole it's encouraging," said Craig Kundrot, who heads space life and science research for NASA. "There are no major new warning signs. We are seeing changes that we didn't necessarily anticipate" but don't know if those changes matter.
Meanwhile It appears that one of the side effects for the earthbound brother is a strong itch to travel all the way from Arizona to the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. I hope his immune system is strong. I hear that place is crawling with parasites.
CHEERS to grand openings. On March 27, 1860, human civilization took a tipsy leap forward when the wine-bottle corkscrew was patented by M. L. Byrn of New York City. So no mail today seeing as it's a national holiday. Or damn well oughtta be.
JEERS to humility for thee but not for me. Powerless Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy is demanding that Democrats apologize for insinuating that Donald Trump may have accepted favors from Russia during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. McCarthy’s exact words: “I think he is owed an apology from every individual who stood there and said they had proof.” I agree. And I also agree that Kevin McCarthy needs to apologize for insinuating that Donald Trump may have accepted favors from Russia during and after the 2016 presidential campaign:
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy: There’s two people I think Putin pays: [Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher and Trump. Swear to God.
Speaker Paul Ryan: This is an off the record...No leaks! All right? This is how we know we’re a real family here.
House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise: That’s how you know that we’re tight.
Ryan: What’s said in the family stays in the family.
—June, 2016
-
And speaking of apologies, in Chicago yesterday actor Jussie Smollett was cleared of all charges. So I only have one word for this guy…
Go ahead, say it with me: APOLOGIZE!!!
-
Ten years ago in C&J: March 27, 2009
CHEERS to suiting up for ACTION! Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress this week that they want more superpowers. Geithner wants the ability to "regulate and even take over financial goliaths whose collapse could imperil the entire economy." Bernanke just wants X-ray vision and spidey sense.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to good spellin'. Over the weekend seventh-grader Sebastian Shields of Saco won the Maine State Spelling Bee in the 48th round. (Last year’s only went 30.) The winning word: "Colloid."
“I’ve seen that word before,” Shields said, “and I immediately recognized it.”
Shields turned to the three-judge panel and belted out the correct seven letters, with nary a thought to remaining “stoic” (his Round 7 word). […]
His victory ended a five-year run of eighth-grade winners that began with Lucy Tumavicus of Portland in 2014. […]
Twenty minutes after the bee ended, Shields still hadn’t lost his grin.
He still seemed stunned. “I didn’t even win my school bee last year,” he said.
“It’s just … I never thought I could get this far. I never expected it.”
Sebastian will now start cramming for the National Spelling Bee in D.C. that'll take place in late May. And for those of you wondering, the definition of "Colloid" is: how someone from Brooklyn describes what two cars do when one runs into the other. Look it up!
Have a happy humpday. (Humpday…H-U-M-P-D-A-Y…Humpday.) Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
In New Hampshire, South Carolina and other states, voters at half a dozen campaign rallies rarely asked about the Mueller investigation or the report, opting instead to ask the candidates about health care, guns, climate change and Cheers and Jeers.
---NBC News
-