From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
What Made Trump Look Like A Fool This Month:
Cats
Words
The FBI
Merkel
Susan B. Anthony
House Republicans
His Attorney General
CA Governor Jerry Brown
April Ryan & Rep. Maxine Waters
The grassroots resistance movement
Phantom wiretapper Barack Obama
The art supply industry
British Intelligence
Fareed Zakaria
Meals on Wheels
Sesame Street
Federal judges
Public opinion
If you squint, it’s supposed to look like Lady Liberty’s torch---a reminder that she’s still happily making him look like a fool, too.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, March 30, 2017
Note: Just a heads up that I'm turning a significant chunk of next week over to my benevolent oncologist overlords (including some minor surgery that’ll put me nighty-night), so C&J postings will be spotty: Tuesday and Friday scheduled, with a possible edition on Wednesday. As always, I'll make up for the missing days on the back end. Thanks for your patience. ---The Patient
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the full Senate vote on---or filibuster of---Neil Gorsuch's SCOTUS confirmation: 8
Days 'til the 11th annual Lewisburg Chocolate Festival in West Virginia: 9
Number of citizens from five states who filed a complaint to 3 Justice Department divisions against AG Jeff Sessions for committing perjury during his confirmation hearings: 23
Expected GDP this year, far below Trump's promise to grow the economy at 4 percent, according to the National Association for Business Economics: 2.3%
Maine hospitality industry sales in 2016, a record: $3.6 billion
Number of foreign workers Maine stands to be short of this summer because of Trump's visa restrictions, according to the Maine Restaurant Association: 2,000
Gallons of blood that 87-year-old Kansan Harold Facklam, Jr. has donated to the Red Cross over the last 60 years: 32
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Some joker from a Canadian radio comedy show told [Governor George W.] Bush he had been endorsed by "Prime Minister Poutine of Canada." Where upon Bush thanked the prime minister for his support and said how important our neighbors to the north are to us all.
Unfortunately, Poutine is a form of Canadian junk food made with potatoes, cheese and brown gravy (sounds awful).
Granted, you can't find a quorum of Texans who know who the prime minister of Canada is, so this sounds at first like another one of those stupid "gotcha" quizzes. But any Texan who's ever been involved in national politics does know that no foreign head of state would ever make an endorsement in either a primary or a general election.
---March, 2000
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Now on sale---photographer Greg Murray's Peanut Butter Dogs
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CHEERS to popping ol' ferretface in the kisser. I can't imagine that Bill O'Reilly will be remembered for much beyond being a fact-challenged bigmouth who mastered the skill of closing his mind with all the speed of a Maine clam closing its shell as its about to get pecked by a seagull. He's just wasting our planet's food and oxygen at this point. But I'll say this---it's at least still entertaining to see him get knocked to the pavement by the target of his bullying:
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly disparaged a senior African American congresswoman because of the lawmaker's appearance---comparing her hair on Tuesday morning to a “James Brown wig.”
On Tuesday night, [Congresswoman Maxine Waters] dismissed O'Reilly's remarks. “Let me just say this: I'm a strong black woman and I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be undermined. I cannot be thought to be afraid of Bill O'Reilly or anybody,” Waters said on MSNBC's “All In with Chris Hayes.”
“And I'd like to say to women out there everywhere: Don't allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people, to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are. Do what you do. Andlet us get on with discussing the real issues of this country.”
Ferretface fauxpologized with a smirk and a titter. Dishonorable to the end---but now in a higher voice thanks to Water's legendary chop-socky judo groin kick.
CHEERS to today's public service announcement. This is your Republican-led house on drugs stupid…
Any questions? Stupid makes you stupid. Don’t be stupid. A message from this blog and the Ad Council.
JEERS to Trump's little helper. Apparently the so-called "president" feels so overwhelmed and frightened by the duties of his job that he's gone running to his baby-faced Century 21 real-estate broker son-in-law to clutch his ankles and beg him to execute the office for him. Details via Wonkette:
Wunderkind Jared Kushner has a brand new gig fixing the federal bureaucracy. In his free time when he’s not skiing or staring down China on trade, Jared will head up the Mansplainers Task Force. Hosanna, The Republic is saved!
While Kushner has no actual experience governing at either the state or federal level, HE HAS AN MBA! His father paid$2.5 million to get that Harvard admit, so it must be good! As Fox News viewers know well, the peasant serfs who have years of actual government service are lazy morons who never held a real job. But the Mansplainer Shock Troops will swoop in and slay all the waste, fraud and abuse. […] Awesome! What could possibly go wrong here? Can’t wait to see all those market solutions for the opioid crisis.
When we hear a giant burp come from the D.C. newbie-eating swamp, we'll send our thoughts and prayers to Jared's loved ones. [Picks up slime-covered wingtip] Wow. I see the swamp is wasting no time..
JEERS to taking your non-existent relationship too far.
Thirty-six years ago today, on March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan, along with Press Secretary James Brady, police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, got shot by some whackjob who wanted to present a dead-president-skin rug to Jodie Foster as a wedding gift. At first they didn’t think Reagan's wound was serious, but something about losing half his blood prompted a diversion to George Washington Medical Center. The rest ("Honey, I forgot to duck," "I hope you're all Republicans") is history. By the way, anyone care to take a guess as to what group the president from the now-union-hating party was lavishing praise on at the Washington Hilton that day? The AFL-CIO. Don’t that just boggle the mind.
JEERS to scaring the crap out of every Mainer with a functioning brain. The dumbest governor in America---aka the Mini Me to Trump's Dr. Evil---now wants to take his shot at reforming health care. God help us all:
Gov. Paul LePage said Tuesday that he may try to create a state health insurance system to replace the Affordable Care Act after the failure of Republican leaders to repeal and replace the federal program that they say is collapsing.
“We are just going to withdraw the state and just go do our own thing,” LePage said. “The federal government obviously is broken so they are not going to stand in the way. They can’t get anything done.” […]
Although states cannot entirely withdraw from the federal program, some of them have sought and received waivers that allow them to modify the program and customize their insurance markets.
We'll need a name for LePage’s brilliant new plan. Something pithy and accurate. Let's see…we have Obamacare, and we have Trumpcare, so…aha, got it! We'll call it Moroncare.
CHEERS to...huhhuhhhuh...rubbers. On March 30, 1858, the pencil-with-attached-eraser was patented by Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia. Then things got a bit ugly:
In 1862 Lipman sold his patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for $100,000, who went [on]to sue the pencil manufacturer Faber for infringement.
In 1875 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Reckendorfer declaring the patent invalid because his invention was actually a combination of two already known things with no new use.
Rumor has it the Trump administration is fond of using both sides of their Lipman pencils. One end to make up their own history, and the other end to erase the real history.
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 30, 2007
JEERS to Grandpa Dumbstick. Senator John McCain makes the outrageous claim (a five year-old could debunk it) that neighborhoods in Baghdad are so safe that even a 4-star general can drive around in an unarmored Humvee, collecting sweets and flowers from the grateful citizens lining his path. Six thousand miles away, CNN's Michael Ware---a fixture in Iraq for years---gets fed up and calls bullshit:
"Honestly, Wolf, you'll barely last twenty minutes out there. I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad."
Hint: it's the part of Neverland you never want to venture into without a licensed psychiatrist.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to playing with fire. I think somebody just made it onto Trump's enemies list. Not sure who it is, but what he/she/they created is like catnip to The Resistance…
If you're taking requests for your next project, merry prankster, any chance you could do the same thing with a bazooka?
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:
A new study suggests that Cheers and Jeers is more important to cats than previously suspected (though, arguably, Bill in Portland Maine knew that all along).
---Live Science
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