Oh! More Things I Know:
❧ There are 54 days ‘til the 2024 elections.
❧ Tulsi Gabbard’s future is not in debate coaching.
❧ Democrats feel your pain. Republicans inflict pain. Independents wonder why we can’t strike a happy balance between feeling it and inflicting it.
❧ One of the more unexplainable things about the new KP.3.1.1 variant of the Covid virus when you look at it through a microscope is it’s wearing overalls.
❧ Now that Kamala Harris has informed the nation that bored MAGA cultists leave their leader’s rallies in droves while he’s still speaking, the MAGA cultists will now feel obligated to prove her wrong by staying all the way ‘til the very end. This is the #1 thing that pissed them off most during the debate.
Also what I know: Republicans will be the #1 violators of their own billboards at voting time.
❧ I can now confess: I slept my way to the top of the lower 20th percentile.
❧ Shortly after Tim Walz moves in, the vice president’s residence is going to have the cleanest gutters you ever saw.
❧ Other than the thousand-year killer floods and thousand-year killer droughts and thousand-year killer heat waves, it’s been a delightfully pleasant summer.
❧ I wish I knew how to get in touch with all the “Proud Boys” terrorists sitting in jail so I could tell them that crying yourself to sleep every night isn’t very MAGA-like.
❧ My biggest fear about having to fight in a second Civil War is saddle sores. The second biggest is sucking in a bunch of campfire smoke and choking while playing my plaintive harmonica at dusk.
❧ The bad news: we’re all food for worms. The good news: they tell me that with a little ketchup we ain’t half bad.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 12, 2024
Note: Sick of drug ads with people flamboyantly singing about their ailments? Ask your doctor if the mute button is right for you.
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5 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til Talk Like A Pirate Day: 1
Days 'til the Purple Foot Festival in Fairport, New York: 3
Amount that Americans lost in 2023 to crypto scams: $5.6 billion
Number of state attorneys general who have called on Congress to require Surgeon General warnings on social media apps to help reduce addiction and mental health crises among young adults: 42
Hours of daily online use it takes to double a teenager's risk of depression, according to a study published in JAMA: 3
Percent chance that the late actor James Earl Jones, like President Biden, struggled with a childhood stutter: 100%
Date on which my evil twin came out of the shadows and wrote a GBCW diary: 9/12/13
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
To oversimplify, those who are getting their information from the Internet and/or a broad range of publications are having conversations with one another that are radically different from those heard on many radio talk shows.
This is more than the simplistic jingoism that is a constant in American life; this is simplistic jingoism with a dangerously short attention span. The "let's nuke 'em" crowd is still looking for a short, simple solution, and there just isn't one. ...
While some of us are talking about how to build a civil society, achieve energy independence and settle long-standing international disputes, others are reacting like the waitress in an Austin drinking establishment, who refused to serve the East Indian guest of a regular patron, repeatedly calling him a terrorist and insisting that he leave. That's the reaction gap that concerns me.
—October, 2001
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Farewell, Clark G, the bacon-loving internet sensation...
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CHEERS to basking in the afterglow. It's been a little over 30 hours since the Harris-Weirdo debate ended after Trump coaches Stephen Miller and Tulsi Gabbard were forced to throw a towel on the floor of the Constitution Center and call in paramedics to escort the battered and rapidly-deteriorating former president off the stage on a stretcher. And you know what that means? Our intrepid C&J research team gets to wear down a little more shoe leather tracking the number of “takeaways” the media managed to jot down on their cocktail napkins. So here we go…
CNN: 7 takeaways
NPR: 5 takeaways
Associated Press: 8 takeaways
Al Jazeera: 5 takeaways
The New York Times: 6 takeaways
USA Today: 7 takeaways
Debate host ABC News: 5 takeaways
Care to tackle this one, PolitiFact?
Reuters: 10 takeaways
U.S. News & World Report: 6 takeaways
The Hill: 5 takeaways
The Washington Post: 4 takeaways
NBC News: 6 takeaways
The Guardian: 7 takeaways
The Los Angeles Times: 5 takeaways
After reading all the takeaways, I’ve distilled them into one: Calgon, take me away.
CHEERS to Pilot Joe. Having already guided an economy wrecked by the previous administration to a soft landing, President Biden decided to take off in his beloved No Malarkey 1, do a few barrel rolls, and prove once again he's a true ace:
Inflation in August declined to its lowest level since February 2021, according to a Labor Department report Wednesday that sets the stage for an expected quarter percentage point rate cut from the Federal Reserve in a week.
[T]he 12-month inflation rate [is now] 2.5%, down 0.4 percentage point from the July level, slightly below the estimate for 2.6% and at its lowest level in 3½ years.
Food prices rose just 0.1%, while energy costs slid 0.8%. Elsewhere in the report, used vehicle prices decreased 1%, medical care services declined 0.1% and apparel prices increased 0.3%.
Real earnings also increased for the month.
Wall Street reacted to the news by selling off everything including their grandmas. Because they're weird.
JEERS to the human snot rag. Lest we forget, a 14 years ago this week Newton Leroy Gingrich put on a display of the class and charm that makes him one of America's most admired leaders since, oh, the First of Never. See if you can detect the subtle undertones in his pronouncement...
"What if [President Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" Gingrich asks.
Newt Gingrich: giant asshole since 1943.
"This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president," Gingrich tells us.
I'm still shocked that Trump didn’t make Newt his Secretary of Racism. Such a natural. Then again, I understand why he didn’t—he would’ve made Stephen Miller jealous.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to notable promotions. 1,689 years ago this week, in the year 335, Dalmatius was raised to the rank of Caesar by his uncle Constantine I. Historians believe Constantine had a bad case of the flu at the time. When asked out of concern what his temperature was, he responded: "A hundred and one, Dalmatius."
CHEERS to the new inmate in the asylum. The giant corrupt mess known as Bob Menendez is gone from the Senate so he can deal with his crimey business, and this week his replacement was sworn in. Please give a warm C&J welcome to Governor Phil Murphy's former chief of staff George Helmy:
Helmy is the only Arab American senator in the current Congress.
Hey. This is the Senate. Togas only.
Sen. Cory Booker, now the state’s senior senator, walked Helmy to the dais and stood at his side while he took the oath.
After Helmy was sworn in, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York voiced his congratulations and called Helmy a “great addition” to the Senate, noting he is the first senator to be a member of the Coptic Orthodox Church. […]
He is a Jersey City native and lives with his family in Morris County. He has a bachelor's degree from Rutgers and a master's from Harvard.
But blink and you'll miss him—he's only a placeholder until the winner of November's election is decided. Just enough time for him to register a few "ayes" and "nays," join in some Ted Cruz wedgie fun and, most important, get out just in time before filibuster rules drive him stark-raving mad.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 12, 2014
CHEERS and JEERS to two sides of the same chamber. Yesterday a vote was taken in the Senate to end debate over a constitutional amendment voiding the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. All the Democrats voted in favor of throttling back on the obscene amount of money that now gets thrown into political campaign coffers, and Republicans voted in lockstep to ensure that billionaires own a much larger chunk of a politician's soul than the rest of us. Afterwards, Democrats left the chamber to speak with reporters. Republicans left the chamber to get a cookie and a pat on the head from the Koch brothers.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a peek behind the campaign curtain. You get them. I get them. We all get them. Hundreds of times a day. I'm talking about campaign emails with headlines and body text designed to wring every last drop of blood from you, the human turnip, by pushing all your emotional buttons. Via The Daily Show, here’s a look at just who is behind those damn things, as demonstrated by the great Desi Lydic...
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To all the intrepid campaign email writers out there: Bless yer heart.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"Anyone who claims that they do, I think you should bust out a grain of salt and ask yourself about their agenda if they claim to think that they understand everything about Cheers and Jeers."
—Don Lemon
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