From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
I’m Not Just Polling Your Leg
With the exception of that one mad scientist in Hoboken whose time travel experiment succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, the first quarter of 2017 is behind us. And that means it's C&J number-crunching time. Every few months we revisit the results of some past C&J polls to give you a retro-snapshot of just what the hell "you people" were thinking between January through March. The total number of votes each poll received is in parentheses so you'll know it's not just me and the cat voting, but rather me and thousands of cats:
• 95 percent of you favor Democrats in the Senate invoking a non-existent "McConnell Rule" to justify blocking Trump Supreme Court nominees the way Republicans invoked a non-existent "Biden Rule" to block Merrick Garland. (4,462)
• For the final grade of his presidency, 68 percent gave Barack Obama an A and 27 percent gave him a B. (7,981)
• 84 percent rated Michelle Obama a “Great” First Lady. (6,324)
• After his first weekend in office, 6 percent of you gave the new Trump administration an F+, while 9 percent gave him an F and 85 percent gave him an F-. (5,522)
• 84 percent agreed with President Obama's commutation of Pvt. Chelsea manning's 35-year prison sentence. Eight percent disagreed. (4,780)
• 97 percent thought it was crazy of Trump to approve that disastrous Yemen military raid by consulting with his son-in-law and a former Breitbart blogger about it over drinks and dinner at Mar-A-Lago. (3,569)
• 54 percent of Daily Kos readers subscribe to at least one daily newspaper. (3,458)
• "Unpresidented" is Lord Dampnut’s most embarrassing spelling gaffe so far (52%), followed by "tapp" (14%) and "hearby/hear by" (11%). (2,907)
• 98 percent believe Rep. Devin Nunes should be removed as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for his collusion with the White House over the Russiagate scandal. (4,715)
• Only 37 percent said you envisioned a time when top Republican leaders of our government would put the interests of Russian gangsters and oligarchs over the security of the United States. 63 percent said no, you never imagined they'd be so turncoaty. (3,604)
As always, we bow to your superior wisdom.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 6, 2017
Note: Today is C&J's annual Random Religious Objection Day! You each get to draw one random religious objection from the God Jar and adhere to it all day long. It’s fun! I'll go first. [Draws from God Jar] It says your carbon dioxide exhalation goes against my sincerely-held religious beliefs. See you in court, breathers!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Easter: 10
Days 'til the Welcome the Whales Festival in Langley, Washington: 2
Number of combat amputations over the last calendar year among US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, versus an average of 22 a month in 2011, according to FiveThirtyEight: 0
Mainers who died from drug overdoses, car crashes and homicides in 2016, respectively, according to The Portland Press Herald: 378 / 157 / 16
Percent of voters according to a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research poll who see transgender people in a positive light, versus 19% who have a negative opinion: 47%
Percent of French adults who have a strongly-negative opinion of Trump, according to The Washington Post: 80%
Consecutive free-throw-line basketball shots made by Dr. Tom Amberry, who died last week at 94, over 12 hours on Nov. 15, 1993, a world record: 2,750
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
As more and more rich people cheat on their taxes, the IRS is increasingly unable to go after them because it is so poorly funded.
For all this, we can thank the Republican Party.
Every year at this time, conservatives moan and groan and tell us how terribly, terribly overburdened we are by taxes. We wouldn't be overburdened if the tax code hadn't been rewritten by Republicans, and if Republicans hadn't weakened the IRS so much it can barely function. Damn right, this is a partisan effort. And damn right, I'm bitter about it. We don't need to raise taxes in this country, we need to collect them. We need tax cuts that don't favor the obscenely rich. You are getting screwed.
---April 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Saved!
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CHEERS to sticking a global finger in Lord Dampnut's eye. Our so-called "president" thinks he's going to bully the rest of the world into joining his attempt at rolling back progress to create a worldwide resurgence in dirty energy. But the rest of the world seems to have other plans:
Governments have created "worldwide momentum" to slow climate change despite threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions, the U.N.'s climate chief said on Friday.
"The Paris Agreement remains a remarkable achievement, universally supported by all countries when it was adopted," Patricia Espinosa, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, wrote in a letter to staff. … Espinosa listed signs of "worldwide momentum" including that "solar power capacity globally grew 50 percent in 2016 led by the United States and China" and that ever more governments were passing laws to curb global warming.
"This governmental momentum continues to be underpinned by companies, investors, cities, regions and territories including now many oil majors whose CEOs have in recent weeks publicly spoken out in support of the Paris Agreement," she said.
Trump says he plans to issue a sternly-worded response just as soon as he hears what it is on Fox News.
JEERS to weasel words. Well, they went and did it---Republicans passed a law allowing anybody to buy anything related to your online activities…even your browsing history…without your knowledge, let alone permission. Now the big telcos, clearly hurt that we would dare think ill of them, are responding. And there's some familiar wordplay being bandied about that gives me no comfort:
Verizon and Comcast vowed to protect client privacy and avoid enhancing their own profits by monitoring the internet habits of clients and selling the data to advertisers.
“Let’s set the record straight. Verizon does not sell the personal web browsing history of our customers. We don’t do it, and that’s the bottom line,” Verizon’s chief privacy officer, Karen Zacharia, said in a company blog posting.
A Comcast statement echoed the Verizon position. “We do not sell our broadband customers’ individual web browsing history. We did not do it before the FCC’s rules were adopted, and we have no plans to do so,” Gerard Lewis, chief general counsel and privacy officer, wrote on Comcast’s corporate website.
I'll feel better when they start saying "We will never sell," "we won’t ever do it," and "we will never make plans to do so." Until then, I'll just assume that whenever it rains outside it's telco drool falling from the sky.
CHEERS to great moments in synthetics. On April 6, 1869, the first form of plastic---celluloid---was patented. 148 years later, the talking heads at Fox News swear by it for their almost-lifelike appearance. Memo to Sean Hannity: order another case---you'res sagging again.
CHEERS to being granted a seat at the table with the original white landowners. Great news from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which makes rulings covering the peasantry in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Apparently, if one is to believe those silly robed gooses, taxpaying citizens who happen to be LGB or T have just as much right to be treated as equally under the law as everyone else who already is:
"We conclude today that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination," Judge Diane Wood wrote for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The ruling is a victory for Kimberly Hively, who sued Ivy Tech Community College, arguing that the school violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it denied her employment.
"Any discomfort, disapproval, or job decision based on the fact that the complainant---woman or man---dresses differently, speaks differently, or dates or marries a same-sex partner, is a reaction purely and simply based on sex," Wood wrote. "That means that it falls within Title VII's prohibition against sex discrimination, if it affects employment in one of the specified ways," Wood added.
The money quote from the ruling, which will likely go to the Supreme Court next: "It would require considerable calisthenics to remove the 'sex' from 'sexual orientation.'" I guess that explains why Roberts, Alito and Thomas have recently been seen arriving at the office with zumba balls under their arms.
CHEERS to order in a different kind of court. After South Carolina beat Mississippi 67-55 in the superior women's NCAA final, the men got their silly little Nerf basketball tournament out of the way Monday night. And the champs are North Carolina, in a 71-65 win over Gorgonzola. And now that this year's March Madness is all over (in April, yes, thank you, we're aware of that), it's time to take the final step: you must now printout your brackets and eat them. [MunchMunchMunch…gulp] And we'll speak no more of it.
CHEERS to little reminders. Thirty-seven years ago today, Post-It Notes were introduced by 3M. The road to market was a textbook case of serendipity. Little-known fact: A Post-It Note plays a central role in archiving our 43rd president’s accomplishments at the George W. Bush Preznidential Libary:
Took Oath. Broke Stuff.
Took Oath Again. Broke More Stuff.
Meanwhile 79 years ago, in 1938, Roy Plunkett invented Teflon. It has saved many a meal...and many a presidency.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 6, 2007
JEERS to the man behind the rhododendron. Looking like the kid nobody wanted to pick for the 3rd grade kickball team, Dick Cheney spent his time lurking in the White House weeds during Bush's Tuesday press conference. When told about his odd behavior, Laura Bush said, "Well, at least he's not doing it in our bedroom anymore."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a little help from your friends. Courtesy if Stephen Colbert and The Late Show, Press Secretary Sean “Evil Spice” Spicer teams up with a couple Muppets and the result is literally phenomenal...
The bad news: their stint in the White House press room will be short-lived. The good news: meet the two new permanent members on the National Security Council.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Once it has fulfilled its mission, Cassini will plunge into the heart of the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool, ending 13 years of unprecedented scientific discoveries. “We are going in and we are not coming out,” Cassini project manager Earl Maize of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said at a briefing Tuesday. “It’s a one-way trip, a spectacular ending, going out in a blaze of molten candy corn.”
---USA Today
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