Cheers and Jeers: Monday

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Since March 2020 you had one job. ONE JOB. Get people to stay safe until a vaccine was ready to distribute. You failed miserably. 375,000 people are dead because you couldn’t convince your army of morons to wear a mask… which is odd considering how easily they wear a hood. […]

You lost. It happens every four years to someone. Get over it. Leave the White House and take those god-awful children and that sourpuss wife with you. If possible take Cruz and Hawley too.

Stay out of politics. Go back to building shitty hotels or bankrupting casinos. Spend the rest of your life writing a book or two that no one will ever read. You are now simply a page in history… a page most of us will rip out and use as toilet paper.

So please. Just leave. If we never have another orange President again, it will be too soon. I mean it. Really.

Read the whole glorious piece here. I think they should get to read that at Joe’s inauguration.

And now, our feature presentation…

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Cheers and Jeers for Monday, January 18, 2021

Note: Important message for Joe Biden: if, during the oath of office, Chief Justice Roberts adds “So help me god…now whisper your ATM PIN number in my ear,” don’t do it. It’s a trap!  —A. Ackbar, C&J Office of Skullduggery Detection

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By the Numbers:

Days ’til inauguration day: 2!!!

Trump’s approval rating in Pew’s final poll of America‘s first Traitor-in-Chief: 29%

Percent in the same poll who rate Trump’s and Biden’s “conduct since the election” as good or excellent: 23%, 64%

Current average approval of U.S. leadership among 60 countries surveyed by Gallup during the last year of Trump’s presidency: 22%

Year when an LGBTQ organization (PFLAG) was featured in a Presidential Inaugural Parade for the first time: 2013

First year that the president’s inauguration (McKinley’s) was filmed: 1897

Year that Dwight Eisenhower became the only president to be lassoed (by Monte Montana) during an inaugural parade: 1953

D.C. Inauguration Day Forecast

Sunny with 42% humidity and a light, patriotic breeze.

High: 43.  Low: the Republican party’s approval rating.

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Smart dogs who are under indictment let their lawyers speak for them…

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CHEERS to the changing of the gatekeepers. With control of the Senate wrested away from both the Republican party and the violent insurrectionists (pardon the redundancy), Democrats now get to control everything from the temperature in the cloak room (72F) to the size of the spit wads that can be thwooped at Josh Hawley’s head (no less than 3 inches in diameter). That includes the coveted committee chairmanships, which entitle the gavel-wielder immense power to set agendas, launch investigations, approve bills, and give the green light to presidential nominees. These aren’t in stone yet, but here’s who will likely be getting “Chairman” added to their official name plaques when Team D takes over this week:

Agriculture/Nutrition/Forestry—Debbie Stabenow (MI)

Appropriations—Patrick Leahy (VT)

Armed Services—Jack Reed (RI)

Banking—Sherrod Brown (OH)

Budget—Bernie Sanders (VT)

Energy/Natural Resources—Joe Manchin (WV)

Finance—Ron Wyden (OR)

Foreign Relations—Bob Menendez (NJ)

Health & Education—Patty Murray (WA)

Homeland Security—Gary Peters (MI)

Intelligence—Mark Warner (VA)

Judiciary—Dick Durbin (IL)

Rules/Administration—Amy Klobuchar (MN)

Veterans’ Affairs—Jon Tester (MT)

First thought: all white and not nearly enough women.  Second thought: but at least they’re Democrats.  Third thought: When Dick Durbin becomes chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he’ll have the power to tell Lindsey Graham to sit down and shut up. Fourth thought: Dick, you lucky duck.

JEERS to one sorry-ass presidency. It’ll be equal parts apathy, stupidity, and incompetence that define the Trump administration’s legacy, and Exhibit A will be his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Worldwide there are now over 95 million cases—a quarter of them in the U.S.  Here are this week’s numbers for the C&J historical record—the final check before Joe Biden grabs the crisis by the reins and lets science and common sense take over—courtesy of the most depressing tote board in the world, as our death toll now exceeds the population of America’s 47th-largest city Tulsa, Oklahoma:

6 months ago: 3.8 million confirmed cases. 143,000 deaths.

3 months ago: 8.3 million confirmed cases. 224,000 deaths

1 month ago: 18 million confirmed cases. 325,000 deaths

This morning: 25 million confirmed cases. 407,000 deaths

And in other news, I read that the pandemic has singlehandedly lopped 13 months off the average American’s lifespan.  If we have a choice which ones, I’d like my thirteen to be Trump’s first month in office and then all of 2020. Thx.

JEERS to turning a deaf ear. On this date 60 years ago, during his farewell address in 1961, President Eisenhower warned us all against the rise of the “military-industrial complex.”  (Although we’re quick to point out that Ike himself helped contribute to it, so his hands aren’t exactly clean. But, hey, c’mon—he did D-Day.)  Every year, as his warning appears ever more prescient, this speech ranks right up there with Lincoln‘s Gettysburg Address or FDR’s Four Freedoms speech:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Let’s see how that’s working out: We did let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties and democratic processes. We did take it for granted. And we the ignorant and apathetic citizenry did not compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty are now fighting like rabid dogs. Other than that…Thumbs-up!

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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JEERS to a shitty way to treat your protectors. As if they needed anything else to tarnish their reputations as monsters, the president’s son-in-law Jared and not-so-secret crush Ivanka are getting scowls for the way they treated their Secret Service detail, apparently denying them use of any of their six bathrooms at their DC mansion in the Kalorama neighborhood, near where the Obamas live. The agency finally rented a little $3k-a-month rat hole for their outpost, but here’s how convoluted it got before that:

[O]ne law enforcement official familiar with the situation telling the Post, “It’s the first time I ever heard of a Secret Service detail having to go to these extremes to find a bathroom.”

The agency spent months trying to secure facilities, including a porta-potty that was removed after neighbors complained, according to the Post.

Then…agents began to use the bathrooms in a garage-turned-command post at Obama’s house used by his security detail. That option came to an end when the Obama detail banned the Trump/Kushner detail after a Secret Service supervisor from the latter “left an unpleasant mess” in that bathroom at a date prior to fall 2017, the paper reported, citing a person briefed on the event.

Agents then began to drive to Vice President Mike Pence’s house at the Naval Observatory about a mile away to use a bathroom there, or used facilities at local restaurants, the law enforcement officials told the Post.

We hear Melania is so upset she’s started a new public service hashtag: #PeeBest

CHEERS to Synonym Fever!  Happy 242nd Birthday to Peter Roget, who published the first Thesaurus in 1852 (a decades-long endeavor undertaken in part to help him deal with bouts of depression).  Curious if there was a synonym for thesaurus, I went to—where else?—Thesaurus.com to find out.  Their list is BOGUS, and let me tell you for the umpteenth time why:

A thesaurus is a glossary, but a glossary isn’t necessarily a thesaurus.

A thesaurus is a language reference book, but a language reference book isn’t necessarily a thesaurus.

A thesaurus is a storehouse of words and a treasury of words and even a word list, but neither a storehouse of words nor a treasury of words nor a word list is necessarily a thesaurus.

A thesaurus is an onomasticon, but an onomasticon is not necessarily a thesaurus.

Now you know why the one thing my parents made sure never to run out of was earplugs.

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Ten years ago in C&J: January 18, 2011

CHEERS to blessed silence.  If you’ve gotten used to tuning in faithfully every day at noon to hear the latest from the Super Docs on the condition of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and the other shooting victims still hospitalized, today your routine will be disrupted.  Everyone is doing so well and progressing so quickly that the press gaggles are no longer necessary.  Doctors at University Medical Center will re-emerge when Giffords is discharged, which they say could be days, not weeks.  Boy, when people say they move to Arizona because the dry heat is therapeutic, they ain’t kiddin’.

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And just one more…

CHEERS to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Once again we’re thankful, and rather awestruck, by what he accomplished for black America—and, consequently, all of America—in his way-too-short life. He was flawed, as all humans are. But he had that stubborn ‘ol dream. And come hell or high water (or fire hoses or guns or nightsticks or jail time or whatever else the bigots could throw at the movement) he refused to shut up and sit down, or match violence with violence. Take note, all you insurrectionist nitwits:

“When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love. Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring a real order of justice.”

“Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”

As fate would have it, King and I coexisted on this tiny blue speck in the middle of nowhere, if only for three-and-a-half years. The older I get the cooler that fact gets. So I’m retroactively putting it on my bucket list. Sue me.

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

Don’t know if I ever posted anything saying so, but as some point (around its inception) I definitely thought Cheers and Jeers was a dumb idea. WRONG.

—Atrios

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