Oh! More Things I Know…
» It's another day ending in y, and that means it's another day that the federal government-hating states’ rights states down south will greedily and ungratefully accept a disproportionately large share of federal tax dollars.
» I hope Attorney General Merrick Garland is thinking about prosecuting Donald Trump more than I’m thinking Attorney General Merrick Garland isn’t thinking about prosecuting Donald Trump.
» People always give me funny looks when I assert my religious freedom by stoning an adulterer.
Continued...
» I know we're all really excited about the potential of windmills to generate power, but let's not lose sight of why we're installing them in the first place: to grind our grain.
» One difference between liberals and conservatives is, liberals fix their mistakes to keep up with reality while conservatives fix their reality to keep up with their mistakes.
» If we're looking for a way to carry out the death penalty without getting all gross about it, we should give either boredom or chocolate a try.
» The media has gone from breathlessly reporting on every tweet by President Trump to non-breathlessly not reporting on any tweet by President Biden.
» When the moon starts waxing, I always sing my favorite song: I Made It Through the Wane.
» If walking into a dark kitchen at 3am and stepping in cat vomit is a sign of being God's chosen one, then it looks like I'm your guy.
» No sentence will ever begin with, "As the great Lauren Boebert once said…"
» The best-tasting water in the world will always come from squirt guns.
» And one for our visiting Q-Anon trolls: "Palmolive implants microchips while you do dishes. You're soaking in it now."
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, July 14, 2022
Note: The C&J laundry service has been discontinued on account of we got lazy. You can grab your duds out in the garage. They’re under the cat.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til National Ice Cream Day: 3
Days 'til the Delaware State Fair: 7
Current price of oil, per CNBC: $96.11
Percent of Republican womenfolk polled by The New York Times who say they'll support Trump if he runs again, versus 52% of cultist menfolk: 45%
Number of new foods being unveiled at the Minnesota State Fair: 38
Current number of subscribers to the You Tube TV live cable streaming bundle: 5 million
Length toenails usually grow per month: 1 millimeter
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment (an all-time classic, this one):
[I]mmigrant-bashing is such an old American tradition.
Back at the time of the Revolution, many Anglo-Americans worried about the terrible number of Germans engulfing the country. Since then, we've managed to work up a snit over the Irish, the Jews, the Polish, the Swedes, Bolivians, Bavarians, Bosnians, Russians, Italians, Sicilians, a great variety of Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Maltese (sorry you missed that one—the Maltese once overran New York City deli counters), Cubans, Puerto Ricans and so forth.
If you haven't been here long enough to get upset about at least one other group moving in, you must still owe the coyote (as immigrant-smugglers are called). Think of the rich verbal history of ethnic insults—Bohunks, Krauts, Polacks, Micks. […]
Bush was planning to take a stab at resolving the problem, [b]ut the House Republicans had a hissy fit, claimed it was an "amnesty program" and demanded harsher measures, militarization of the border, a big fence. Not gonna work, y'all. Build a 50-foot fence, and they'll build a 51-foot ladder. Hire Halliburton with a no-bid contract to build the fence, and it will hire illegal workers to do it.
—July 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: True…
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CHEERS to the travelin' man travelin' down life's crazy highways and byways. While you and I were sleeping Tuesday night, President Biden snarfed down his usual 4am breakfast of rusty nails with a turpentine smoothie, strapped on Jetpack One, and whooshed over to the Middle East to do some meet-'n-greetin', grip-'n-grinnin' and hob-'n-nobbin:
President Biden will be in the Middle East this week, where he'll meet with 11 regional leaders. It's the first trip of his presidency to the region—prompted in part by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rising oil prices it's caused.
No major strategic deals appear to be in the works but the White House says the president hopes to build on connections between the countries and support what it says is a more stable region than it was a couple of years ago.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Monday that the region is more stable now than when Biden took office. He said the U.S. seeks "a region with more stability and with fewer wars that could draw the United States in."
Biden is meeting with the Israelis, the Palestinian Authority, the Egyptians, the Omanians, the UAEers, the Bahrainians, the Qatarians, the Poopaloopans, the Iraqis and the Jordanians. Oh, and also the evil Saudis who, for reasons starting and ending with "oil," rule our planet. Fearless prediction: Biden will not be touching their giant glowing orb. That ceremony is reserved only for sociopathic maniacs.
CHEERS to cataract surgery. That's what the first photos from the James Webb Telescope remind me of. Up 'til now, our photos of the farthest reaches of the universe were very cool but also, we now know, very fuzzy. But put the right NASA nerds in the right room with the right tools and the right know-how, and you got yourself a telescope that can bring it all into super-crisp focus, right down to seeing the Orpglorpian Ambassador's weiner in the shower 150-kamillionjallion miles away. NBC has a helpful slider thingy-do that lets you compare the old Hubble pics to the new Webb ones. Kinda like this, only interactive:
Huh huh huhhuhhuh. I just remembered I said weiner.
JEERS to scaredy cats. Here's a bit of proof demonstrating that American politicians have been prone to delicate fee-fees ever since our humble beginnings. On July 14, 1798, Congress passed the Sedition Act, which made it illegal to say bad stuff about the government. From Joseph Cummins' book, Anything for a Vote:
People weren't even safe in the neighborhood bar—A New Jersey tavern patron was arrested and fined for drunkenly noting that the president had, to put it indelicately, a big ass.
The penalty for sedition was "...a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years." If that were the case today, most of us around here would be broke and sharing a prison cell. But just to be sure the law was indeed rescinded in 1802, I'll now conduct my annual test. [Climbs on roof with bullhorn.] "THE PRESIDENT HAS A FAT ASS!" And now...time to pour a tall cold one and wait for the black helicopter.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to pleasant foreign-relations surprises. 51 years ago this week, in 1971, President Nixon caused a stir when he announced he was leavin' on a jet plane to visit China wearing nothing but argyle socks and a cape. His mission: "To find the crystal dragon’s golden bedpan of the Yangtze and use its ‘lasers’ to smite my enemies." Fortunately Pat was there to postpone the trip until he sobered up.
JEERS to this week's International Roundup. The latest:
Britain? Don't ask.
Ukraine? Don't ask.
Russia? Don't ask.
Sri Lanka? Don't ask.
Afghanistan? Don't ask.
Japan? Don't ask.
India? Don’t ask.
South Africa? Don't ask.
Any questions?
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 14, 2012
CHEERS to at least showing up. Eh, I'll give Mitt Romney credit for enduring a few slings and arrows when he read a speech off a teleprompter(!) to an audience at the NAACP yesterday. He praised the introductory organ music as if he'd never heard it before. He deliberately incited boos for his base's amusement by pledging to repeal Obamacare. He said he understands the concerns of the African-American community better than Barack Obama. And…um…I forget the rest. Just like everybody else has by now.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to getting mad as hell and not taking it anymore. Sacre Bleu! Today is Bastille Day, commemorating the important lesson the French learned 233 years ago, but which we Americans still haven't quite: it is better for the government to fear the people than it is for the people to fear the government.
Thus the French get a couple months of vacation, shorter work hours, universal health care, paid sick time, and a fresh beret every three months, and we get to work ourselves to the bone for zero vacation days, zero sick time, and the honor of having to defend meager and perpetually "on the table for cuts" social programs that barely keep us out of poverty—please, please try to contain your enthusiasm.
But anyway. This morning we woke up at the crack of dawn, propped a ladder up on our neighbor's bedroom window sill, stormed in without a word, grabbed a pair of their underwear and sent it up the flagpole. Because this is America, dammit, and we refuse to break our daily routine just because it's Bastille Day in France.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are youcheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“A drag queen knows a fake when we see one, like Bill in Portland Maine.”
—American Focus PAC
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