Good Morning
As we begin another week, Nick Offerman reestablishes the baseline for humanity, via The Daily Show:
Let us proceed...
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, October 25, 2021
Note: Doctors say squirt of WD-40 cures Mitt Romney of mysterious ankle squeak. Film at 11.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Halloween: 6
Days 'til the Urbanna Oyster Festival in Virginia: 10
First-time jobless claims last week, a new pandemic-era low and 10,000 under forecasters' expectations: 290,000
Average monthly job growth under Democratic presidents since 1933, according to the Center for American Progress: 167,200
Average monthly job growth under Republican presidents: 66,700
Percent drop since 2010 in the portion of Americans who identify as exclusively white, according to Harper's Index: -9%
Portion of Republican-leaning Americans who say the declining share of white people is bad for society, according to Pew research, although the way the right-wingers lie about this stuff to avoid looking like the racist assholes they are, it's probably much closer to 3-in-3: 1-in-3
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: How every Monday morning should start...
-
JEERS to Sausage Making 101. As I said on Twitter last week, it's now just a fact of life: Republican administrations destroy the country, and the Democratic presidents who follow them have to glue a million pieces back together (without much help from Congress and always, always hounded by a hostile media dripping with double standards), while trying to enact their own Big Agenda. Carter follows Nixon/Ford…Clinton follows Reagan/Bush I…Obama follows Bush II…Biden follows That Thing...on and on the mighty break-and-fix Wurlitzer plays.
And with every succession, it gets harder and harder to dig ourselves out of the latest GOP hole, the current one of which is filled with reanimated ideological slime from the Third Reich. So here we are.
As Joe's approval rating sinks like a stone, his Build Back Better bill is fast becoming Build Meh Smaller. It's a "compromise," you see, which of course means it's been gutted by conservadems who just can't bear the thought of the United States regaining its status as a first-world nation. You can read up on the theoretical list of good stuff that Democrats will get no credit for in the midterms here. And while we're waiting to see if Team D will hit their October 31 deadline for finally slinging this hash, Republicans continue to destroy the country by rigging every future election they possibly can, up to and including death threats against election workers. So happy Monday, everyone. For the moment, our banana republic endures. Try not to choke on all the confetti.
CHEERS to bringin' in the big guns. The polls might be close, but I seriously doubt Virginia is suddenly going to do an about face and choose a whackadoo for governor who was hand-picked by Donald Trump. But that's not to say there should be any laurel resting on the part of Democrat—and former Virginia governor, and a darn good one, to the surprise of many—Terry McAuliffe. So over the weekend he enlisted the services of former Kenyan colonialist Barack HUSSEIN Obama to help put him in the winner's circle when the votes are counted on November 2nd. But while #44 took the high road, McAuliffe got off the best shot:
"Glenn Youngkin is not a reasonable Republican," McAuliffe told the crowd. "I call him Donald Trump in khakis. Do we want a lapdog to Donald Trump to be our governor here in the commonwealth? No we don’t."
For his part, Youngkin thanked Trump for his endorsement by telling him "Don’t call me, I'll call you." That call will come on November 3rd when he gets thumped by McAuliffe and begs for a job in the Mar-A-Lago laundry room.
JEERS to the teabaggers of yesteryear. Ninety-eight years ago this week, a Senate committee began investigating the Teapot Dome scandal. This political cartoon was popular back then:
Fourth-worst-president-ever (moving down a notch since Dampnut took the oath, and only slightly better than Buchanan and Bush II) Warren Harding's cronies were allowing private companies to lease government oil reserves from public land in Wyoming. As a result of the investigation, Interior Secretary Albert Fall became the first cabinet member to go to jail. He was a Republican. Shocking.
-
BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
-
END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
CHEERS to nukin' your dinner. On October 25, 1955, the microwave oven was introduced by Tappan in Mansfield, Ohio (just a stone's throw from my hometown, Mt.Vernon). Cost of the appliance: $1,200. Protection against gremlins: Priceless.
CHEERS and JEERS to Ma Nature's 2021/2022 playbook. We've heard from the Farmer's Almanac, the Old Farmer's Almanac, the New Farmer's Almanac, and the Almanac of Farmers Stuck In A Mid-Life Crisis Which Explains The Porsches in Their Driveways. Now it's time for the NOAA to guess what winter will bring to the US-of-A this season. Their Climate Prediction Center's latest forecast, based on a months-long analyses of moss on trees, fuzz on wooly worms, and sweaters on local TV morning show meteorologists, is shaping up to be a mild one:
Wetter-than-average conditions: The Pacific Northwest, northern Rockies, Great Lakes and parts of the Ohio Valley and western Alaska.
Drier-than-average conditions: South-central Alaska, southern California, the Southwest, and the Southeast.
Above-average temperatures: Across the Southern tier of the U.S. and much of the Eastern U.S. with the greatest likelihood of above-average temperatures in the Southeast.
Below-average temperatures: Southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest eastward to the northern Plains.
As usual, some predictions are harder to make than others. For example, there's a zero-percent chance of knowing actual snowfall amounts this far out, but there's a 100 percent chance of knowing that climate-change deniers will scream "Global cooling!" every time a flake sticks to the pavement. C&J recommends you start assembling your winter management kit now: shovel, ice-melt pellets, blankets, candles, and earplugs.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: October 25, 2011
CHEERS to Independence Day. What a long time coming: 42 years. Yesterday Libyans were out in the street celebrating Liberation Day by chanting, singing, dancing, and shooting their guns into the air. I know this because a) I saw it on TV and b) this morning our roof is full of Libyan-bullet holes. Oh well—they deserve to party. Let's just hope they quickly learn how to get along:
Cheering crowds packed a central square in Benghazi Sunday afternoon for a ceremony that leaders said formally marked victory after eight months of fighting. "We are now united. We have become brothers in love," said Mustafa Jalil, the council's chairman.
He called on Libyans to have "honesty, patience and tolerance" as the nation moves toward reconciliation.
His chief rival suggested that "patience, tolerance and harmony" would work better, while another tribal faction insisted on nothing less than "tolerance, patience and honesty" before storming out and vowing vengeance. Baby steps. Baby steps.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to what I did during summer vacation. It's happening a couple weeks late, but the first frost of the season has finally and ever-so-gently swaddled Maine in…well, in frost, of course, what did you expect? So, as we begin our slow descent into toe-numbing, darkness-shrouded madness for the next six months, it's time to take one more look back at the summer of 2021 via my grandest outdoor project yet. Twenty years ago, the city of Portland replaced our ugly cement sidewalks with glorious new brick ones, which endure to this day as a work of art here on Pitt Street. But two decades of neglect turned them into a weed, dirt, and litter-encrusted mess—a real embarrassment in our corner of the universe. So, armed with nothing more than a single-blade Swiss Army floral knife, a whisk broom, permission slips from all our neighbors, and my Super Billy tights, cape, and mask, I set about making things right again. Come…walk with me and I'll show you:
-
Not shown: I also did the sidewalk on the other side of the street. And all the neighbors nominated me for the Nobel Prize. And that's what I did during my summer vacation. Love, Billy.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Chris Wallace calls Cheers and Jeers “One of the best kiddie pools ever,” says Bill in Portland Maine is “the Sam Donaldson of Daily Kos.”
—Mediaite
-