The Rest of the Week Ahead
Tuesday The Republican-led House and Senate gavel in to tackle a full slate of pressing issues, including the economy, immigration, Ukraine, Israel, China, and oh who am I kidding they’re busy breaking so many laws and ethics rules that Pro Publica will have to pass their reporting off to their grandkids.
In an astonishing development that shocks the nation, a Republican gets a parking ticket and then decides not to appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Wednesday The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its latest "Labor Turnover Survey." Conclusion: most of the labor force would rather turn over and sleep for another hour.
Eight days into 2025, Baby New Year checks into rehab.
Thursday The Small Business Optimism Index is released. Forecasters expect it to climb by two rah-rahs and a hoo-ray.
Covid-19 and all its variants, sub-variants, and sub-sub-variants suddenly disappear and things get back to normal. Moments later, my alarm clock goes off.
Friday Unemployment numbers for December are released. Since a Democrat is in the White House, if the numbers are bad they'll be front-page news in all the papers and the top story on the evening newscasts, and if they're good they'll be buried in all the papers and mumbled about for five seconds during a commercial break on the evening newscasts.
Throngs of citizens wait by their news tickers for the results of my haircut.
Plus lots of the usual blah blah blah 'cause we never run out of that.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Note: For friction-free handwringing, dip your hands—palms-down—in flour and then shake off the excess. Now you’re ready to dread like a pro! —Hugs, Heloise
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By the Numbers:
4 days!!!
Days 'til Trump's sentencing for his 34 fraud convictions: 3
Days 'til the Colorado Fiddle Championships in Denver: 4
Estimated U.S. vehicle sales in 2024, the highest since 2019: 16 million
Percent of Americans polled in 1939 and 2024, respectively, who say they drink alcoholic beverages: 63%, 58%
Maine's rank nationally among states with the highest alcohol consumption (New Hampshire is #1): #11
Expected amount by which the non-alcoholic beverage industry will grow by 2028: $4 billion
Cases of Guinea worm—which Jimmy Carter fought to eradicate over decades—in 1986 and 2024, respectively: 3.6 million / 11
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Puppy Pic of the Day: There's a new dawg down on the farm…
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CHEERS to Dark Brandon: Merry Prankster. I sure hope this is part of a coordinated "Throw A Wrench In MAGA's Works Every Day Until January 20th" plan for Joe Biden. Because if it is, you can count on a lot of new ketchup stains on the walls at Mar-a-Lago:
President Joe Biden is taking action to protect 625 million acres of offshore areas from future oil and gas drilling, the White House announced Monday, in a move which could frustrate plans of the incoming Donald Trump administration.
Shoo. Begone.
Biden is invoking the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act(OCSLA) to prevent new fossil fuel developments off the East and West coasts of the U.S. as well as in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s North Bering Sea.
The law gives presidents the power to permanently withdraw parts of the Outer Continental Shelf from future oil and gas leasing—but doesn’t include a provision for how another president could revoke such an order. Trump would therefore likely have to get Congress to change the law before he could undo Biden’s action.
Today he should invoke the non-existent “Culpepper-Floogerman Act if 1826” that requires a windmill-powered taco truck on every corner. Good luck undoing that one, Viceroy Elon.
JEERS to the 119th Congress. Day two has come and gone. Let's see...how can I put this so you'll get a sense of what Republicans are doing with their newfound powers? Try this: think of everything in your life that you hold dear, and then picture someone throwing it all in the path of a steamroller. Like that. But with tax cuts for billionaires.
CHEERS to the Republic's Big Moment. On January 7, 1789, the first U.S. Presidential election was held, but there was no popular vote. Instead, each state's appointees to the now-long-obsolete Electoral College got to vote twice. The top two vote-getters would become president and veep. They picked the stoic hero George Washington and the cranky but brilliant curmudgeon John Adams. Their first conversation:
"What do we do now?"
Only known color photo of Washington and Adams.
"I dunno, I thought you knew."
"Well, I thought you knew."
"Hey...wanna get drunk and barf in Jefferson's desk?"
"Does the Constitution say we can?"
"It doesn't say we can't."
"You pour."
The rest, as they say, is history.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to one wacky Whig. Happy 224th Birthday to #13 Millard Fillmore, whose beginnings could scarcely be more humble:
He was born in upstate New York in Cayuga County the second of eight children to such an impoverished family that they could not even afford to feed him.
Fillmore’s high collar was worn to prevent sudden vampire bites, a frequent problem in the 1800s.
His father apprenticed (indentured servant) him to a cloth maker at age fifteen, so brutal it stopped just short of slavery. Millard Fillmore taught himself to read by stealing books. He finally managed to accumulate thirty dollars to pay the obligation to his master and was free.
During his accidental presidency (thanks to Zachary Taylor becoming the first president to choke to death on Pop Rocks and Diet Coke), he sent Commodore Perry to open trade with Japan. He also postponed a civil war by signing the Compromise of 1850, which added California as a free state but also strengthened the fugitive slave law. To his credit, he was the rare pre-Civil War president who never owned slaves himself, but his defense of keeping that “institution” was weak, weak sauce. On top of all that, Queen Victoria once told him he was the most handsome man she'd ever laid eyes on. Moments later, Fillmore unofficially became the first person to swim the English Channel in under a minute.
CHEERS to human endurance. Tomiko Itooka of Japan has passed on, but not before setting a helluva record:
She became the oldest person last year following the death of 117-year-old Maria Branyas, according to the Gerontology Research Group. When she was told she was at the top of the World Supercentenarian Rankings List, she simply replied, “Thank you.”
Bornin Osaka, Itooka was a volleyball player in high school, and long had a reputation for a sprightly spirit, Nagata said. She climbed the 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake twice.
Doctors say she was done in by an acute case of being born in 1908.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 7, 2015
JEERS to the all-new adventures of Turtle Man and Captain Weepy. The United States Congress convenes today to begin the 114th session. Lord only knows what Republicans have in mind, but two things we do know: Democrats are now free to wield their filibuster power in the Senate using the precedent set by Republicans over the last six years, and the House of Representatives now has as its #3 guy Steve Scalise, aka the congressman who once described himself as “david Duke without the baggage.” So to recap: the guy affiliated with the guy affiliated with the KKK is going to be elevated to a position in the Republican-led House that requires him to "whip" people. Paging RNC chair Reince Priebus: re-branding cleanup in aisle six.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to U.S. Minty freshness. Here’s something coming out of Washington that won’t make us either dive for our fallout shelters or throw a brick at the TV: a preview of the five "American Women" state quarters that'll be released this year. The collection, which celebrates women from "a wide range of accomplishments and fields, including suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts," will start showing up next month. Here's a sneak peak at this year’s lineup, whose designs were recently finalized. I think you'll agree they're quarterrrrrific:
Ida B. Wells
Juliette Gordon Low
Dr. Vera Rubin
Stacey Park Milbern
Althea Gibson
C&J will keep you posted on their imminent arrival. It'll give normal people time to learn more about these trailblazing women, and misogynists time to take their heart medication.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
As international conflicts go, none did so little to disrupt the global order as the “kiddie pool wars” that pitted Cheers and Jeers against Denmark for four decades.
—The Economist
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