A Message to The American People
Dear The American People,
With Thanksgiving at our doorstep, we want you to know that we sympathize with your concerns about inflation, crime, gas prices, zombie caravans from Central America, Haitians eating your pets, the lack of Jesus on Starbucks CHRISTmas cups, the budget deficit, liberal media bias, affirmative action, and drag-queen story hour.
We vow, in these perilous times, to continue doing what you’ve come to expect from us on these pressing issues: namely, letting the Democrats handle them as we snipe and call them names on Twitter from our favorite bars and sex trafficking dens. They get what they want—responsible governance. And we get what we want—the time we need to be lazy, corrupt, incompetent and rude.
So if you have a problem this Thanksgiving week, take it to the Democrats while they’re still in power. They’ll be thankful you asked, and so will you. As for us, we’ll be out in the streets brawling among ourselves, on TV backpedaling on all the things we promise but don’t know how to deliver, and in our man caves watching porn on devices our kids can’t monitor.
God Bless Russia America,
The Republican Party
Fix the potholes, Democrats!
And now, our feature presentation…
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 25, 2024
Note: This morning I cooked up four strips of turkey bacon for breakfast. It would've been six but I pardoned two of them.
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By the Numbers:
4 days!!!
Days 'til winter: 26
Days 'til the Monument Square tree lighting in downtown Portland, Maine: 4
Current estimate of 4th quarter GDP: 2.4%
Number of federal employees: 3 million
Federal employment as a percentage of total U.S. employment in 1960 and today: 4.3% / 1.9%
Number of cities that earned a perfect "100" score on this year’s HRC Municipal Equality Index, the nationwide assessment of LGBTQ+ equality in the areas of municipal policies, laws and services: 130
Portland, Maine's score: 98
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Monday morning. Time to strap in and head out for adventure…
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CHEERS to short workweeks. Only three days for most Americans this week—hopefully you're among them. Then it's Thanksgiving with turkey, gravy, spuds, pumpkin pie, and a whole lotta nothin' else. Except, of course, our usual 14 hours of daily blogging. ("Pass the stuffing, dear. And the screen shammy...")
CHEERS to confronting the bullies among us. Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The United Nations provides a reminder that...
» Violence against women is a human rights violation.
» Violence against women is a consequence of discrimination against women, in law and also in practice, and of persisting inequalities between men and women.
» Violence against women impacts on, and impedes, progress in many areas, including poverty eradication, combating HIV/AIDS, and peace and security.
» Violence against women continues to be a global pandemic.
» Violence against women and girls is not inevitable. Prevention is possible and essential
Just as pink is worn for breast cancer awareness and purple is worn for LGBTQ Spirit Day, this year the U.N. urges everyone to wear and/or display orange between now and December 10 to show support for the fight to prevent violence against women. On this site I don’t think that'll be a problem.
JEERS to Reagan's Katrina Monica Watergate Reagan Moment. On November 25, 1986, the Iran Contra "Affair" busted wide open when #40 appointed the Tower commission to find out what the $#!!#$ was going on. It later resulted in this public admission from Reagan:
"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind."
Eleven people ended up getting nailed, but George H.W. Bush pardoned them all before he left office. Some of the Iran-Contra figures, like Elliott Abrams and John Negroponte, would pop up again in the Bush II administration despite the black stains on their names. Because truly scurrilous help is so hard to find.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to "Old Rough 'n Ready." And Happy birthday (technically yesterday) to "#12" Zachary Taylor, who became president in 1849. Odd fellow:
Taylor was one strange-looking dude. Given his thick trunk, long, spindly arms, and a face like shoe leather, he bore an unsettling resemblance to an orangutan.
General Bedhead
Old Rough and Ready may have been at home in the saddle, but he needed help getting into it—his legs were too short and bow-shaped to do it alone.
His hat of choice was a broad-rimmed, floppy thing woven of palmetto leaves, which—along with a mismatched set of rags that he frequently passed off as clothes—led some people to mistake their president for a farmer.
—From Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O'Brien
He ruled the national roost for a whopping 1 year and 126 days until he became "Old Gastroenteritis" and died from some combination of a) tainted water, b) tainted cherries, or c) tainted iced milk. You know the drill...pay your respects and then move along. Taint nice to stare at dead folks.
CHEERS to order in the courts. Before holiday fever consumes all the judges and they take off for vacation (I can’t wait to hear what opulence Harlan Crow has in store for Clarence Thomas), let's take a quick spin around the Judicialverse and note a few rulings that have tongues a' wagging:
Freedom from forced Jesus Louisiana’s plan to make all of the state’s public school classrooms post the Ten Commandments next year remains on hold under an order by a federal appeals court in New Orleans. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a state request to temporarily stay an earlier order by U.S. District Judge John deGravelles in Baton Rouge while litigation continues. … DeGravelles ruled that the law, passed by the GOP-dominated Legislature, was “overtly religious” and “unconstitutional on its face.”
Busy times for these hammer-like devices.
Reproductive rights in the Equality State A state judge struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy in line with voters in yet more states voicing support for abortion rights. One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect to a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
Judge Judy: The plaintiff was awarded $250 after the defendant botched the installation of a new garage door opener, then ran off with the plaintiff's wife in a car without insurance, got in a fender-bender, but still managed to drive home and trim the neighbor’s overhanging branches way past the property line.
And with that, we're adjourned.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 25, 2014
FAREWELL to Chuck Hagel. The old soldier didn’t die and didn’t fade away—but he did get his ass fired by President Obama. Hagel was the first enlisted man (he fought in Vietnam) to become Defense Secretary. I always respected him as a Republican who had a spark of common sense in him, but if he wasn't getting the job done, out ya go. As for his replacement, Obama could make a little history. But, ugh, I am so sick of seeing the "h-word." They should just change the position back to "Secretary of War" and drop the pretense:
[Michèle] Flournoy is considered hawkish on defense issues, which would play well with a Republican-led Senate confirmation process, and she’s experienced. She was undersecretary of defense for policy from February 2009 to 2012, and she led President Barack Obama’s 2008 Defense Department transition team.
True Fact: after confirmation, all new Secretaries of Defense take the oath of office by raising their right hand and placing their left hand on an intercontinental ballistic missile owner's manual.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the calm before the calm. After going through most of the alphabet with named storms, there are only 5 days 'til the end of this god-forsaken Atlantic hurricane season for the U.S. Let's check in and see if NOAA thinks anyone should be building arks:
Nope—all clear, at last. Let’s just quietly tiptoe along and speak no more of it. And for God’s sake, someone tell everyone in the Caribbean to cancel their spinning classes for a week. That’s how these things start.
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
"We're all thinking about Cheers and Jeers and the kiddie pool that we have at our fingertips, but splashing is something that we have to work at."
—Serena Williams
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