From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
A Few Wednesday Words of Wisdom for 2019 Grads
“Our country is not in a good place. We are divided. We’re angry. You can help change that. You can make a difference by bringing back civility, decency, compassion, empathy, class, honesty, respect for others, and truth.”
—Jeff Daniels, Kean University
"I am often asked if I ever imagined as a child being on the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States. ‘No,’ I say, ‘When I was a child, my family was poor. No lawyer or judges lived in my neighborhood. I knew nothing about the Supreme Court … You cannot dream of becoming something you do not know about. You have to learn to dream big. Education exposes you to what the world has to offer, to the possibilities open to you."
—Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Manhattan College
"We—by that I mean you—are going to have to steer our spaceship, take charge of Earth. It’s no longer a matter of just being good stewards. From now on, we humans will have to deliberately control what we do to our atmosphere, the land, and sea, to ensure that we maintain as much biodiversity as possible, while taking care of all of us."
—Bill Nye, Goucher College
“At a certain point you’ll find there is no finish line to cross, no moment where you’re just supposed to be happy. While you wait for those moments, the MCAT score, the perfect job, the engagement ring, your life is happening. Isn’t it enough? Happiness is your own responsibility, so attack it.”
—Jennifer Garner, Denison University
"Don’t use a fake ID to buy wine and then try to pay with a check."
—Katie Holmes, University of Toledo
Now go forth and do stuff.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Note: Today's note is taking a mental health day, so a shopping list is filling in: Milk, butter, eggs, Leggs, Mister Pibb, Mrs. Butterworth, National Enquirer, Chicklets, and 200-gallon vat of Mayo.
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By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the first 2020 Democratic primary debate in Miami: 3
Days 'til the Chicago Blues Festival: 2
Current approval rating of Barack Obama in the UK: 72%
Current approval rating of Donald Trump in the UK: 21%
Percent chance that the Supreme Court denied a request by the Trump administration to quickly decide if it'll take the case in which Trump wants to end DACA: 100%
Number of billionaire hip-hop artists, with the news that J-Z just became a billionaire: 1
Amount left behind in loose change at America's airports during the fiscal year that ended in September, a new record: $960,105
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 180 (including 5 nuclear nations and 1 End Times ender). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: looks like the pooch is the rotten egg…
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CHEERS to The Resistance: UK edition. After using up every drop of jet fuel to haul his bloated carcass across the pond, Air Force One deposited Donald Trump and his crime family onto the tarmac at Buckingham Palace (taxpayer expense, natch), kicking off another leg of his four-year You Hate Me, You Really Hate Me tour. As Daily Kos Radio host David Waldman tweeted yesterday:
Just so we’re all caught up on 2019, the “president” is having tea with the British crown while claiming divine right to unilaterally impose import taxes over the objections of Congress here at home, with the support of the Tea Party. …Imagine people dumping tea in the harbor, and Samuel Adams is there arguing that it’s all good, and China is paying those taxes.
Needless to say, nothing was accomplished except America was thoroughly embarrassed by his loutishness again and the world had a good guffaw again…but nothing was made great again. So the only question remaining is: did Trump get a good look at the return of his namesake blimp—the one wearing a diaper and holding a smart-phone—during the protests? If there's a god, this photo answers in the affirmative:
His next big shit storm will kick up tomorrow when, unless his bone spurs act up, he'll open his mouth hole and say words about the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Spoiler alert: there were very fine people on both sides.
CHEERS to the NRA Slayer. Maine got a visit from a VIP in the world of making the world safer against flying bullets yesterday. Parkland shooting survivor and future congressman and senator David Hogg dropped by our state house in Augusta to help students get some gun-safety rules (universal background checks, a red-flag law) passed in the legislature.) And he took a moment to issue a warning for 2020:
Hogg said elected officials in Maine and elsewhere need to start listening to young people from what he called a “gun violence generation” that is seeing friends and family members killed in schools, churches and their homes. He called on young voters not to vote based on party but to “vote for human beings that care about kids dying, pure and simple, from preventable gun violence.”
“People realize, especially in Maine, that young people can have a significant impact in 2020,” Hogg said.
“That’s the real reason that legislators are going to move on this. Because if they don’t, young people will be coming after them electorally.”
If it's not too much trouble, start with Susan Collins.
JEERS to Little Lord Flunkleroy. Trump son-in-law and "senior adviser" Jared Kushner thought it was safe to stick his freshly-botoxed, porcelain-doll head up and elite-splain some stuff to the American people via an interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios. It was an absolute disaster. Leave it to Chris Cillizza to locate exactly 29 eyebrow-raising lines in it. But here are just two, courtesy of Vox, that should've gotten him struck by lightning on the spot:
1. Kushner won’t say whether birtherism was racist
Swan asked Kushner if he’s “ever seen [Trump] say or do anything that you would describe as racist or bigoted.” Kushner responded by saying “absolutely not”—but Swan had receipts."Was birtherism racist?” Swan asked,referring to the racist conspiracy theories about President Obama that Trump rode to political prominence earlier this decade. “Um, look, I wasn’t really involved in that,” Kushner replied. […] “Look, I know who the president is and I have not seen anything in him that is racist."
2. Kushner might not contact the FBI if Russia offered help again
In another breathtaking exchange, Swan pressed Kushner on why he and other top Trump campaign officials didn’t inform the FBI about Russia’s efforts to help them during the summer of 2016. […] Kushner tried to portray the Trump Tower meeting as no big deal—“Like I said, the email that I got on my iPhone at the time basically said show up at 4. I didn’t scroll down, I never would’ve thought about that email,” he said. Swan fired back: “It had Russia in the subject line.” […] But Kushner claimed he was too busy at the time to notice. "I literally saw ‘show up at 4,’” he said. “I showed up at 4.”
There are two kinds of people who, when told to show up somewhere at a certain time, actually drop everything and do it without asking why: soap opera characters and morons. I guess now we know how to get rid of the Trump administration if they refuse to leave on January 20, 2021: just tell 'em to meet at the pit covered with leaves and twigs at 12 noon.
JEERS to opening up the "Flood" gates. (Trust me, in mere moments you're gonna think that's the greatest pun ever written.) The exodus of White House personnel has been so constant for so long now that no one even bothers to update their "departure tote boards" anymore. But here’s the latest for the time capsule, anyway, if only to show that Trump can't even keep his "interim" flunkies around for very long:
In a tweet Saturday, President Donald Trump announced that Emmet Flood, the special counsel to the President who served as interim White House counsel, will be“leaving service” in mid-June
Flood,a well-connected D.C. lawyer, was first hired as a White House lawyer in mid-2018 to deal with the then-ongoing Mueller probe, picking up where Ty Cobb left off. As interim counsel, Flood replaced Don McGahn in October 2018 and was replaced by Pat Cipollone that December.
And the first thing Flood's going to do, as all Trump departers do: spend a month taking showers.
JEERS to the GOP's very bad horrible no good day. On June 5, 1933, the U.S. went off the gold standard. Then, seventy-one years later, on June 5, 2004, Ronald Reagan died. If you see any Republicans walking toward you today with a black cloud hanging over their head, give 'em a wide berth.
JEERS to little stinkers. Todd Starnes is a Fox News columnist and commentator who leaves the blue-hair grannies and crazy uncles swooning whenever he talks about killing liberals, dismantling public schools, or selling time shares in Jesus Christ's armpits in the hereafter. But this week ol' Todd kinda went overboard while concocting his latest tantrum over the possibility of a House impeachment inquiry:
Leaders of [biker gang] Rolling Thunder say they are ready to roar back into Washington to defend the president---if the Democrats move to impeach.
And if that happens—do not be surprised if the bikers are joined by hundreds of thousands of gun-toting, bible-clinging, smelly, Walmart patriots. The silent majority in this country is mad a shell---and we’re not going to take it any more.
We will not allow the Democrats or the Mainstream Media or the Deep State to weaponize the Constitution and overthrow a duly elected president. They are dragging the nation dangerously close to what could be another civil war. That must not be allowed to happen.
I wonder who's more thrilled to read that: Walmart, for being called out as the nation's retail outhouse, or the conservative Christian peasantry, for learning that their thought leaders instinctively consider them smelly. I suggest we discuss this further in the proper venue: the fragrance counter at Target.
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 5, 2009
CHEERS to vital signs. Senators Kennedy and Baucus are pledging to get their collective act together and jointly thread the health care reform needle this summer:
Mr. Kennedy is chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, where he and several other liberals favor a robust public program. Mr. Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, is trying to write a bill that could win support from all Democrats on the panel and from its senior Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who opposes the creation of a public insurance option. ...
The proposal for a new public plan stirs political passions, in part because it symbolizes differences between Democrats and Republicans over the proper role of government in providing, regulating and subsidizing health care.
Yeah. Democrats want to change the system to give private insurance companies a run for their money. Republicans want to maintain the system so the insurance companies will give them money for their re-election runs. Potato puhtahto.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to fighters for truth, justice and the American way. One of America's great journalists and commentators in the Edward R.Murrow tradition, Bill Moyers, turns a year more seasoned today (39, I think). Besides having an impeccable first name, he also has a sterling reputation as a straight shooter—a passionate advocate for truth and the fundamentals of democracy. Sadly he retired from his Emmy-winning 30-year career a couple years back, although he still makes an appearance from time to time. This snip from a column he wrote a few years back on what it means to be a progressive is still terrific, and should be quoted in every Democratic primary stump speech (except, perhaps, John Delaney's, because Moyers wallops him good in it):
The progressive agenda isn’t “left wing.” (Can anyone using the term even define what “left wing” means anymore?)
The progressive agenda is America’s story---from ending slavery to ending segregation to establishing a woman’s right to vote to Social Security,the right to organize, and the fight for fair pay and against income inequality. Strip those from our history and you might as well contract America out to the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and Karl Rove, Inc.
At their core, the New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society programs were aimed at assuring every child of a decent education, every worker a decent wage, and every senior a decent retirement; if that’s extreme, so are the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution.
But such is the level of what passes for discourse inside the Beltway these days.
Well, in fairness, just the days ending in y.
Have a happy humpday. Oh, and don’t forget there’s a town hall meeting with Elizabeth “I Have A Plan For That” Warren hosted by Chris Hayes tonight at 8 on MSNBC. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“All else aside, a Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool is a shitty gift—and getting it from Bill in Portland Maine is the shittiest way to receive it. It would be like if you got a bouquet of dead fish for your birthday, delivered by Matt Lauer.”
---John Oliver
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