Let’s Check the Tote Board
I don’t know if Ukraine’s counteroffensive has begun, and I wouldn’t say if I did because lord knows we don’t need some blogger in Maine ruining the surprise half a world away. But I do know it’s been a couple weeks since we checked in on the Daily Kos relief fund for the Ukrainian civilians besieged by Putin’s sadistic invasion. As of this morning, we’re rapidly nearing the three-and-a-half-million mark...
$3,349,868.75
Since the start of the war, four groups have been the recipients of your generosity—the World Central Kitchen, AmeriCares, Razom for Ukraine, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. They remain active and in need of funding to carry out their humanitarian missions. If you feel included, click here and ActBlue will help you take care of the rest. Many thanks.
Oh, and when the counteroffensive does start, you’ll know it. Just listen for what sounds like little babies crying for their binkies in Russian while stampeding back to Moscow.
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, June 6, 2023
Note: Whoever replaced my entrenched narrative with fresh perspective has 24 hours to switch it back or I'm calling the proper authorities.
-
By the Numbers:
4 days!!!
Days 'til Juneteenth: 13
Days 'til the National Asparagus Festival in Oceana County, Michigan: 4
Percent of Americans who smoked cigarettes regularly in 1969 and today, respectively, according to Gallup polling: 40%, 11%
Percent chance that the current percent of smokers is the lowest since Gallup began collecting data on the subject in 1944: 100%
Estimated number of postal employees who were attacked by dogs last year: 5,300
Percent of Maine tourism-related businesses who say they expect to be understaffed this summer: 70%
Number of pieces Federal Express delivered on its first day 50 years ago: 189
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Drunk at 8am again…
-
CHEERS to getting back on track. Now that President Biden is done laying waste to the concept of Republican unity by slicing the party in half during his debt ceiling victory, it's time to grease the skids for the road ahead. While a gaggle of lackluster MAGA nitwits try and topple 2024 favorite Donald Trump from his perch without upsetting his base so much that they show up at their homes with pitchforks and torches (they're very delicate creatures), Joe plans to keep on doing that thing Joe does so well:
The early phase of Biden’s 2024 campaign aims to showcase him as a drama-free leader who has defied expectations in working across the aisle. On Friday, Biden and first lady Jill Biden will travel to North Carolina to discuss worker training programs in his “Investing in America” agenda, the White House says.
I dunno. He’s too pessimistic for me.
It’s part of Biden’s “return to his previously scheduled programming,” a senior Biden adviser put it. His plan is to pivot from a month that was consumed by the debt standoff in Washington back to talking directly with Americans about his economic agenda, particularly legislation he has signed to fund infrastructure projects and revive domestic manufacturing, as well as outline how he envisions building on those efforts, aides said. […]
A talking points memo Biden’s campaign distributed to key surrogates Friday argued that he was providing “strong and steady leadership after four years of chaos and dysfunction” and that his “wisdom and experience are why he was able to negotiate a deal that protects his administration’s key priorities and historic accomplishments.”
In other words: go home, No Labels. Your services are no longer needed.
CHEERS to seeing the rainbow at the end of the tunnel. Happy Pride Month! 30 days of parades, festivals, tacky (but appreciated) corporate tie-ins, MAGA freakouts and, of course, LGBTQ-related polling. One of the longer-running polls, by Gallup, measures support for same-sex marriage. Sorry, haters in Hater Land, but they've got some bad news for you oddballs:
Seventy-one percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, matching the high Gallup recorded in 2022. Public support for legally recognizing gay marriages has been consistently above 50% since the early 2010s.
The power of coming out, in one graph.
When Gallup first polled about same-sex marriage in 1996, barely a quarter of the public (27%) supported legalizing such unions. It would take another 15 years, until 2011, for support to reach the majority level. Then in 2015, just one month before the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision, public support for legalizing gay marriage cracked the 60% level.
In 2021, it reached the 70% mark for the first time and has been there each of the past three years.
The slowpokes to the acceptance table? Of course—the conservative God Squad, for whom "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" are inviolable rules from God's lips to their ears…right up until the moment they develop a convenient case of hearing loss. They really should pray harder for one 'o them new Beltones.
CHEERS to D-Day. The largest amphibious landing in history, during which American Antifa forces invaded Europe to restore representative democracy, happened 79 years ago today. Nine years ago, President Obama flew to France and delivered a moving tribute to the rapidly-dwindling number of veterans who waded ashore on that horrific yet awe-inspiring day:
Lengthy applause rang out as the U.S. President said he was humbled by the presence of some of those veterans at the ceremony.
"Here, we don't just commemorate victory, as proud of that victory as we are; we don't just honor sacrifice, as grateful as the world is; we come to remember why America and our allies gave so much for the survival of liberty at this moment of maximum peril," Obama said. Their story should remain "seared into the memory of a future world," he said, describing Omaha as "democracy's beachhead."
President Obama and WWII veteran Kenneth (“Rock”) Merritt talk on Marine One after departing the 70th French-American Commemoration D-Day Ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, June 6, 2014.
He said, "It was here, on these shores, that the tide was turned in that common struggle for freedom. What more powerful manifestation of America's commitment to human freedom than the sight of wave after wave of young men boarding those boats to liberate people they'd never met?"
The Atlantic has an interactive feature that shows you various scenes from D-Day and, with a click of your mouse or a touch of your finger, what they look like now. It's pretty mind-blowing. True fact: to this day, George W. Bush is still a little confused as to why we went through all the trouble—after all, the intelligence was accurate, the threat was real, and there wasn't any oil there. Crazy.
-
BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
-
END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
JEERS to chores we hate no matter how easy they are. 112 years ago, the first washer/dryer combo went on sale. Followed by the first husbands to totally ignore it.
JEERS to getting it so wrong, so often. Economists. Every one of them except Paul Krugman and myself are so bad at what they do that it's a wonder they're not all fry vat tenders at Burger King by now. Oh sure, some economists will pretend they know what's going on and how things are going to pan out, but no…only Krugman and I are ever correct-o-mundo all the time without question. And that goes for all the boogeyman talk about a looming recession, which was supposed to swamp our country the day Joe Biden became president. No way, I said! No way, Paul said! And here we are, the two of us, watching as the "experts" continue eating crow. And now even the mighty CNN agrees:
The thinking was that the US economy would grind to a halt because the Federal Reserve was effectively slamming the brakes to squash inflation. Businesses would lay off workers and inflation-weary Americans would slash spending.
But the case for a 2023 US recession is crumbling for a simple reason: America’s jobs market is way too strong. […]
The granddaddy of memes.
“This economy is incredibly resilient, despite all the slings and arrows—despite the banking crisis, rate hikes, the debt ceiling,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNN in a phone interview on Friday.… “For this year, given these jobs numbers, it’s hard to see a recession. Increasingly, the odds of a recession this year are fading.”
Now, if you ask me about the looming effects on the nation from Chick-fil-A going woke? Ohhhh, we're screwed. Screwed, I tell you.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: June 6, 2013
WRIGGLE WRIGGLE to Governor Wormy McSquirmy. New Jersey's deficit-hawk-in-charge is going to wave his magic wand and—Ta-Daaaa!!!—come up with $24 million for a special election this October to fill the late Frank Lautenberg's senate seat. Governor Christie’s decision conveniently eliminates any, um, "distractions" between him and his re-election just 19 days later in November. But he still has to appoint a placeholder to serve for the next four months, and the tea party will be watching him closely (with googly eyes) to make sure he or she is appropriately anti-everything. As for the rest of us, get ready for the imminent arrival of a man-made disaster: late-night Snooki-for-Senate jokes. [6/6/23 Update: Christie is announcing that he’s running for president this week. Whee???]
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to self-critics from the great beyond. These words of Theodore Roosevelt’s were trotted out a lot by the left during the previous administration, and for good reason. The dude occupying the office was a narcissistic crybaby who made it dictatoriously-clear he would brook no criticism. Now we have a fact-based, thoughtful, well-read, experienced, and compassionate president at the helm. And Roosevelt’s 105-year-old words apply to our guy just as much. As a public service, C&J publishes our annual reminder...
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.
True fact: Roosevelt once took a bullet to the chest and only sought medical treatment after he’d finished delivering his scheduled campaign speech.
He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
—Theodore Roosevelt
And so we shall.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“When I think about hogwash, it just makes me think about Cheers and Jeers.”
—Sen. Tim Scott (The Cult-SC)
-
