Monday Morning Press Briefing
Trump’s still rage-tweeting from his bedroom about the—[checks notes]—“Noble Prize for journalism,” so today there’s a substitute at the lectern:
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I like him better.
You are now below the fold. This is where it gets dicey.
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Cheers and Jeers for Monday, April 27, 2020
Note: For those of you who knew regular C&J splasher “escapee” (aka Lynn Loper), we have some sad news. We’re sorry to report that she passed away over the weekend, “In her home, in her little office that she dearly loved,” writes husband Tom, of liver failure. We send our condolences to Tom and all those who loved Lynn and cheered her on (with, among other things, one of Sara R’s legendary community quilts) as she dealt with a series of frustrating health issues over the years. She will always be remembered as a C&J family member (and card-carrying Daily Kos community member since 2005), and with any luck I hope we’ll meet one day in a kiddie pool in the the hereafter. Lynn was 64.
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By the Numbers:
13 days ‘til Momma’s Day.
Days 'til Mother's Day: 13
Points by which the Democratic governors in PA, NC, WI, MI and NM, respectively, are doing better than Trump on the coronavirus response, according to PPP polling: 38, 43, 19, 27, 51
Percent of Americans polled by NBC News who say they've never heard of Dr. Anthony Fauci: 28%
Percent of Florida voters polled by Fox News who believe Trump waited too long to respond to the virus: 55%
Number of legal challenges to have books removed from libraries and schools last year, according to the American Library Association: 377
Number of the top ten challenged books that were objected to because of LGBT content: 8
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "If you wish to make a call, please hang up and try your number again…"
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JEERS to keeping count. The Covid pandemic rolls merrily along, and our macabre Monday tradition, now one month old, of maintaining a benchmark of the pandemic awfulness for the C&J historical record continues. Let’s check the worst tote board in the world with all due reluctance:
4 Weeks Ago: 288,000 confirmed cases. 7,000 deaths.
3 Weeks Ago: 337,000 confirmed cases. 9,600 deaths.
2 Weeks Ago: 560,000 confirmed cases. 22,000 deaths
1 Week Ago: 764,000 confirmed cases. 40,500 deaths.
In Georgia, the bowling alleys are open again. RIP.
This Morning: 987,000 confirmed cases. 55,000 deaths.
By the time Friday arrives, we’ll have lost in five weeks the same number of Americans who died in the 17-year Vietnam War. We’ll file this in the “Not Very Helpful, Billy” file.
JEERS to today's scientific musing…from Dr. Dotard. As the coronavirus death toll tops 55,000, the president presses his fingers to his temple and reveals the cure that has eluded us up until now:
"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds, it sounds interesting to me."
The first sitting president to suggest that conquering a killer virus is as easy as cranking our tanning beds to "11" and injecting bleach directly into our veins. Brilliant. Or at least it was until this guy showed up and ruined everything:
Killjoy.
CHEERS to Coretta Scott King. Today is the 93rd birthday of the late Mrs. MLK, Jr.:
Her remarkable partnership with Dr. King resulted not only in four children, who became dedicated to carrying forward their parent’s work, but also in a life devoted to the highest values of human dignity in service to social change.
Coretta Scott King speaks during Martin Luther King Jr.’s 75th birthday commemoration at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on January 19, 2004.
Mrs. King traveled throughout the world speaking out on behalf of racial and economic justice, women’s and children’s rights, gay and lesbian dignity, religious freedom, the needs of the poor and homeless, full-employment, health care, educational opportunities, nuclear disarmament and environmental justice. She lent her support to pro-democracy movements world-wide and consulted with many world leaders, including Corazon Aquino, Kenneth Kaunda, and Nelson Mandela.
Said Mrs. King: "Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated." I guess that explains why I see so many Trump cultists walking around on crutches these days.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to the cigar-chomper who saved the Union. Happy 198th birthday to “#18” Ulysses S.Grant, the larger-than-life general who helped win the Civil War and then spent 8 shaky years as a crony-loving president. But at least he had this going for him, which I love quoting every chance I get (from the book Rating the Presidents):
[H]e kept his own religious values and practice to himself. In the larger view for the country, he believed in a strict separation of church and state, stating in his seventh annual message to Congress: "Declare church and state forever separate and distinct; but each free within their proper spheres."
Pay your respects here. He's buried in someone's tomb…I forget whose.
[SHRUG EMOJI] to Kim Jong Un. The leader of North Korea might be dead. Or he might not. Or he might. Or not. We don't know. It could be either. Dead. Not dead. Can I go play now?
CHEERS to job flexibility. We'll forgive you if you missed taking your daughters and/or sons to work last Thursday—we're all a bit distracted at the moment, if not outright unemployed. But fear not, the organizers behind Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day say people can take the kiddies to work at your next available convenience to show them how Mom and Dad's productivity gets cranked up to the max, while their paychecks do not. What fun! As always, we speak on behalf of the entire nation when we say to children of the military personnel who control our nukes: please don’t push any blinking red buttons or turn any keys. Unless the launch code's been authenticated by NORAD, of course.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 27, 2010
CHEERS to justice served...again. A couple weeks ago I wrote an item in C&J congratulating Oregonian Kerry Lewis for winning his sex-abuse case against the Boy Scouts. Being an Eagle Scout, I was glad to see the national leadership forced to contend with the behavior of suspected abusers it's kept in secret "perversion files" since the '20s. (Lewis's case exposed the existence of those files.) I got some lovely right-wing email in response:
You fucking faggot I'd like to kick your faggot ass.
Michael (r) and me in our BSA duds at Portland pride 2013
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As an Eagle Scout as well as a member of the Order of the Arrow I find it hard to believe your claim as an Eagle Scout. I know many and while some are very liberal—all are well adjusted and responsible members of society—unlike yourself.
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I simply cannot believe that you earned the rank of Eagle. As a real Eagle Scout, I could not believe that anyone, let alone an Eagle Scout, would bash the Boy Scouts—one of the most venerable and respected institutions in America. If, in fact, you are an Eagle Scout, you must have come from one of those Eagle factories that just hands the award out to highly undeserving individuals.
For the record: Troop 339, Mount Vernon, Ohio, 1982. I challenge you courageous right-wing e-mailers to accuse them of being an "Eagle factory." You might find yourselves being used as tent poles at the next jamboree.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to swearing in class. Can't let today go by without noting one of the most awesome exchanges in senate committee hearing history. On April 27, 2010, during a grilling of Goldman Sachs executives, now-former Senator Carl Levin enshrined a new catchphrase into our national lexicon while quoting an internal email: "Boy, that was one shitty deal!" Relive the squirming of this bankster worm:
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Goldman Sachs made billions out of that scheme, by the way. And, if memory serves, all we commoners got out of it was a new catchphrase that’s fun to say but worth about as much as a condo next to Chernobyl reactor #4. Now that’s a shitty deal.
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
Daily Kos explores ways to get a 'flatulent' Bill in Portland Maine out of the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool
—NBC News
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