Trump’s War
No, not with Syria or North Korea. Much worse---Kushner v. Bannon, as seen through the pixels of the Taiwanese Animators...
A hint as to who might win this epic showdown: Kushner is currently running the country, while Bannon is in the White House basement with orders to dye 5,000 Easter eggs by Monday.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 13, 2017
Note: Today is Thursday the 13th. No, it's not as unlucky as Friday the 13th. But they're still kin so don’t be givin' it no stinkeye. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Tax Day: 5
Days 'til the Sweetwater 420 Fest in Atlanta: 8
Number of dog attacks on postal carriers last year, an increase of 3% according to AP: 6,755
Percent chance Trump is headed back to Mar-A-Lago this weekend: 100%
Percent of the $730 million annual cost to pay for the care of gun-violence victims that was paid by U.S. taxpayers, according to the American Journal of Public Health: 41%
Percent of gunshot victims who were from the south, where the proportion of the uninsured is highest: 43%
Size of the strip of land in San Diego near the Mexican border where the 4-to-10 prototypes of the Great Trump Wall will be built by their bidders: ¼ mile
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Just to make Tax Day even more exciting than it usually is, we have been treated to a series of recent reports that the Internal Revenue Service is busy cracking down on poor folks, while letting an estimated 1 million rich folks and corporations move to Bermuda to avoid taxes.
I used to consider taxes among the most boring subjects on earth. My attitude was, "Just tell me how much I owe; please don't make me listen to the details."
But taxes are kind of fascinating, in a slow car-wreck way, because you get to see how much the rich and especially big corporations have gamed the system in their favor.
---April, 2002
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Get a husky, they said…
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JEERS to where things stand. This sums up where the world’s at pretty well, I think:
Update:
Sean Spicer: At least I’m not…
Warning: don’t open this issue. The Trump centerfold chosen by the editors may cause shock blindness.
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CHEERS to voting time. The grand poobahs who put on the Netroots Nation convention---in Atlanta this year from August 10-13, and it's gonna be crawling with motivated lefties---want you to know that the deadline is rapidly approaching to vote for your favorite panels and training workshops. This is the second year they've allowed direct voting, giving everyone a greater say in choosing which topics you want covered at this year's event.
Howto git 'er done: Click on the voting page here. Then create a user account (or log in if you voted last year) to get started. You can vote for as many sessions as you like, but they tell me you only get one vote per session per day. You have two days left---voting ends tomorrow night. Please note that my training session called How to Stuff Jeff Sessions Into An Escape-Proof Penguin Suit And Smuggle Him Across the Mexican Border On His Way to Antarctica has been removed. Apparently there’s laws about doing that. Killjoys.
JEERS to overstaying your welcome. You can't say Susan Collins is the worst senator ever to park her hiney in the upper chamber. But you can say that she's a conniving Republican who toes the party line---often venturing far into teabagger territory---while tossing a few center-left crumbs to the media to make them believe she's a "moderate." You can also say she promised to only serve two terms in the Senate before disappearing from sight, yet she's now in her fourth. And now you can say that she's interested in becoming Maine's next governor in 21 months. On the one hand, no freaking way. On the other hand, if anyone should have the job of grabbing a circus-elephant poop shovel and cleaning up the mess Paul LePage has made of his office, it should be another Republican. But mostly the one hand.
CHEERS to #3. Happy 274th birthday to founding father and President Thomas Jefferson. Cormac O'Brien's book Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents sums up the "Sage of Monticello" rather well (although we're quick to do a facepalm over his ownership and treatment of slaves which was, shall we say,deplorable):
Thomas Jefferson was the walking, talking embodiment of the Enlightenment, a polymath whose list of achievements is as long as it is incredibly varied.
As if penning the Declaration of Independence, sitting as governor of Virginia during the Revolution, and serving as Secretary of State in George Washington's first term weren't enough, he went on to do much more---architecture, linguistics, agriculture, philosophy, music, prose, you name it. While others dabbled, Jefferson mastered.
He left behind a vast collection of essays and correspondence, which reveal a mind of stunning complexity and apparent contradictions. Jefferson was an avowed abolitionist whose fortune relied on a large population of slaves, a forward-thinking humanist whose opinions on minorities such as Native Americans could be truly alarming; a man whose awkwardness around women stood in stark contrast to his legendary romances.
Pay your respects here. Jefferson, by the way, was also "fond of greeting ambassadors in his pajamas---a practice that most of them found appalling." If you ring our doorbell tonight, I'll treat ya to a free reenactment.
CHEERS to cool science (hat tip to AKALib). In my day, we wuz taught that all the water in the universe was right here on earth, and everything else "out there" was dry as a bone. Then again, I did a lot of napping in science class, so…¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But today I promise to make up for my slacker youth by tuning in to NASA's mysterious 2pm announcement to learn something:
NASA will discuss new results about ocean worlds in our solar system from the agency’s Cassini spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope during a news briefing 2 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 13.
The event, to be held at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington, will include remote participation from experts across the country.
The briefing will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
These new discoveries will help inform future ocean world exploration---including NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission planned for launch in the 2020s---and the broader search for life beyond Earth.
So whaddya think they got? Here's AKALib's two cents from yesterday: "Since the briefing team has many members from the Cassini mission, my bet is on some new discovery on one of Saturn’s moon, maybe Titan?" That may be too obvious. I bet they've got something much more significant than some fishin' pond on a moon. I think they've got the holy grail: Hubble Polaroids of hookers peeing on Donald Trump in Moscow.
CHEERS to happy endings. Speaking of science, 47 years ago today, en route to the moon, Apollo 13 commander Tom Hanks Jim Lovell announced,"Houston, we've got a problem" after an oxygen tank exploded. Through sheer brilliance on the part of NASA's team and the crew, they returned safely four days later. A "successful failure" is what they called that mission. Or as it's also known: "a typical day at Fox News."
P.S. Only 1,400 monthly payments to go and Jim Lovell will have paid for the damage. (They begged him to buy State Farm exploding-oxygen-tank insurance, but did he listen? Noooo...)
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 13, 2007
CHEERS to Democrats in the driver's seat. Reason #45 why it's good to have Mitt Romney out of office in Massachusetts: Governor Deval Patrick says he wants to abolish a silly state law that prevents out-of-state same-sex couples from getting hitched in the Bay State. Says one anti-gay-marriage muckety muck: "The whole reason that the gay lobby wants this overturned is so they can disrupt the whole situation regarding marriage in other states and cause as much trouble as they can across the country." HehHehHeh... Yeah. That's us.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to U.S. Minty freshness. The new America the Beautiful state quarter is here! The new America the Beautiful state quarter is here!!! The latest in the series, which celebrates our national historic sites, was released last week. This one represents the great District of Columbia and one of its most celebrated long-time residents:
The Frederick Douglass National Historic Site quarter is the second in 2017, and the 37th overall in the America the Beautiful Quarters Program. The Frederick Douglass National Historic Site celebrates the life of the self-educated runaway slave, abolitionist, civil rights advocate, author, and statesman.
The reverse (tails) design depicts Frederick Douglass seated at a writing desk, with his home in Washington, DC, in the background.
"Even at a young age, Frederick Douglass realized the value of literacy and the power of knowledge," said David Motl, Acting Principal Deputy Director at the Mint. "This new coin honors one of the most influential African-American leaders of the 19th century, whose brilliant words will continue to inspire us for generations to come. My favorite among the many great quotes of Frederick Douglass is ‘man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.'"
Donald Trump sent his regrets for not being able to attend the unveiling, but promised to have lunch with Mr. Douglass soon to discuss all the great things he's doing.
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 nationwide Cheers and Jeers ban is a win for the millions of people at risk for kiddie pool splasher’s disease."
---Dr. Eric Brandt, Yale University School of Medicine
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