From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Wednesday Wandy Wainbow
I swear, when historians write the epitaph of the disastrous Trump years, Randy Rainbow’s musical slam-dunks need to be among the sources they rely on for their research. At their core, they’re near-real-time musical bon mots that document the atrocities and, as a bonus, leave a joyful earworm ricocheting around your tympanic cavity. With Bill Barr’s testimony (or, we predict, more like a scorching) on deck for today in the Senate, the timing of his latest couldn’t be better...
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And if I may say, whoever coordinated the leaking of the Mueller letter the night before the morning of Barr’s Senate hearing: Bravo.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Note: Ask your doctor if whacking yourself with an official Billy Club Sleepytime Wooden Mallet until you sustain a level of unconsciousness that carries you through to January 20, 2021 is right for you. A message from Billy Club Non-pharmaceutical Home Remedies, LLC.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til World Donkey Day: 7
Days 'til the Rochester Lilac Festival in New York: 9
Anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. in 2015 and 2017, respectively, according to NBC News: 941 / 1,986
Percent of Wisconsin voters who say, according to a new PPP poll, that the Republican attempt to kill Obamacare will, by itself, make them more likely to vote for Democrats in 2020: 50%
Number of Marvel movies, including Avengers: Endgame, that have topped $1 billion in ticket sales: 9
Year the Mount Washington Cog Railway began service (it just opened for its 150th season): 1869
Height of the summit, which the train travels three miles to get to: 6,288 feet
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 178 (including 5 Debt & Trades and 1 demon seer doin' backstrokes for God). Soul Protection Factor 16 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Dogs steal Conan's thunder…
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CHEERS to May! The month of flowers, Mom’s Day, Teachers Day (the 7th), Armed Forces Day, Victoria Day, National Pet Week, the start of Ramadan (the 5th), “End of the Middle Ages” Day (May 29---for Republicans a day of mourning), the Kentucky Derby, and Cinco de Mayo aka Watch The President Embarrass Himself With A Taco Bowl Again Day. Speaking of which: subpoenas will fly like confetti this month, and House oversight hearings will reveal even more---[Dun Dun Dunnnnn]---Trump crime family skulduggery!
It’s National Hamburger Month for carnivores and National Salad Month for vegans. The Webby Awards (and their famous 5-word acceptance speeches) are awarded on the 13th. Memorial Day weekend kicks off summer in 23 days, but not before we celebrate Star Wars Day (i.e. “May the Fourth Be With You”). Full moon arrives on the 18th, so make a note to look up, think of Neil Armstrong, and give it a wink. As for movies: Knock Down the House opens today, followed by biopics about J.R.R. Tolkien and Elton John, and an all-new GODZILLA AIEEEEEE!!!!!!
As usual, today’s May Day highlight will be the Daily Kos contributing editors dressed in their frilly best dancing around the Maypole. Also as usual, they’ll end up with a bent pole, a huge granny knot, and a great big pile of phone-cams with their memories erased.
CHEERS to the little revolution that could. Donald Trump promised that, under his leadership, the coal industry would come roaring back. Smokestacks belching black smoke! Miners back underground! Mountaintops blown off for freedom! Oh, it would be big and beautiful and glorious and would happen so quickly. And he woulda got away with it, too, if it wasn't for those darn tree huggers:
The renewable energy sector is projected to generate more electricity than coal during the month of April, according to a recent report published by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. That's never happened before. [...]
Even a decade ago, America's renewable energy had little presence other than hydro power. But a wave of investment—first into wind, and then solar—has made these new technologies far cheaper.
At the same time, increased awareness about climate change has led many American businesses, households and state legislatures to demand cleaner energy.
But don’t worry, Big Coal. You'll always have two things you can count on to generate business for years to come: Santa Claus and millions of very naughty Republicans.
CHEERS to moving in the wrong direction. The most bait-and-switchy senator currently holding office (hint: she’s from Maine) is quietly panicking behind the giant oak doors in her Washington office that protect her from the rabble. Especially if she just read this (via email) from the Morning Consult-Politico polling elves:
Susan Collins steady decline continues: Maine Senator Susan Collins,who is one of the most vulnerable senators up for 2020, has seen her net approval drop or remain unchanged in each quarter since the beginning of 2017, except one.
Overall, her net approval has fallen by 27 points over the last two years.
Also: Only 15 Mainers---not a typo: fifteen---donated to her during the last quarter. Golly jeepers. Who knew that making insincere frowny faces over pending bills and nominees that'd obviously be terrible for your constituents, only to turn around and vote for those bills and nominees, would piss people off? It's finally happening—Mainers are doing the one thing that has haunted Susan Collins dreams more than anything else: they're paying attention.
CHEERS to order in the court. As most of America's legal eagles focus their attention on the vise tightening around Trump's cojones, let's take a moment to check in and see how the judge overseeing the lawsuit brought against comedian Sasha Baron Cohen by failed Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, failed U.S. Senate candidate, and accused pedophile Roy Moore is going. This is from the official court transcript:
JUDGE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
I'd print the other 14,397 ha-ha’s, but the internet only has so many pixels.
CHEERS to a memorable growth spurt. On May 1, 1931, the Empire State Building was dedicated. It was the tallest building in the pleasant village of New York until 1972, when the World Trade Center rose above it. It regained its "tallest" status in the worst possible way 28 years later. But today it plays third fiddle to the new One World Trade Center tower and the luxury apartments of 432 Park Avenue. There, there, Empire State—if it's any consolation, King Kong always liked you best.
CHEERS to jolly good shows. These days awards season never ends. Yesterday it was Broadway's turn, announcing its nominations for the Tony Awards. You can see the whole list—in dazzling COLOR!---here. The musicals Hadestown (14) and Ain't too Proud—The Life and Times of the Temptations (12) earned the most nods overall. Among the actors who'll be clawing each other's eyes out in pursuit of the coveted "T" in EGOT: Jeff Daniels (To Kill A Mockingbird), Laurie Metcalf (Hillary and Clinton), Bryan Cranston (Network), Elaine May (The Waverly Gallery), and Annette Bening (Arthur Miller's All My Sons). The Tony's, which will be handed out June 9th, honor people for the dedication they put into carefully creating alternate realities on a stage, with performers shouting carefully-crafted and memorized lines that fool the audience into believing what they're seeing and hearing is true when it's all just an illusion created as an opportunity to take their money. It's like a conservative political convention except with jazz hands.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 1, 2009
CHEERS to the Receiver Society. Of all the "100 Days" analyses out there, I kinda like Jonathan Alter's succinct summary in Newsweek best:
Because no one ever marches for stimulus or a budget, maybe it's easier to assess Obama's achievements by thinking of the people on the receiving end.
If you're a woman seeking pay equity, a child in need of health insurance, a nurse trying to avoid a layoff, a $25,000-a-year worker hoping for a tax credit, a passenger who would rather take the train, a group of parents trying to start a charter school, a homeowner facing foreclosure, a cancer researcher strapped for funding, a hiker looking for more wilderness, a small business tired of exorbitant federal loan fees, a historian trying to see some long-secret documents, a young person eager to take part in national service, a prisoner praying to avoid torture, then you got something tangible out of the president's debut.
And if you're a far-right conservative looking for a strawman villain---you hit the mother lode.
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And just one more…
JEERS to the other date which will live in infamy. Putting this little bit of history down here in the cellar where it belongs. Sixteen years ago today---wow, an entire generation ago---our steely-eyed chief warrior, Commander Codpiece, who’d lied his pantaloons off to get our country to approve going to war with another country that hadn’t done a thing to us, dressed up in a flight suit and pretended to fly a plane out to an aircraft carrier, where he made a victory speech under a banner that said MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. And oh how the pundit class swooned. Let these clips (and this is just a tiny sample) forever be anvils around their necks…
"Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day. That was the first thing that came to mind for me."
—Joe Klein
“Speaking as a woman, and listening to the women who called into my radio show, seeing President Bush get out of that plane, carrying his helmet, he is a real man.”
—Laura Ingraham
”…a one-time fighter dog.”
—Wolf Blitzer describing Bush
“Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man. And here comes George Bush. You know, he's in his flight suit, he's striding across the deck, and he's wearing his parachute harness, you know, and I've worn those because I parachute, and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. … You know, all those women who say size doesn't count -- they're all liars. Check that out.”
—G. Gordon Liddy
In fact, winning the war was so much fun that Commander Codpiece went on winning it for another eight years until his successor decided that enough winning had been won. When it was all over, hundreds of thousands of people had lost their lives, limbs and minds and Commander Codpiece’s taxpayers were on the hook for trillions of victory dollars. Oh, and filling the vacuum Commander Codpiece created was a nightmare army of ISIS orcs whose favorite things in the world are raping women and burning people to death in cages. But the important thing is, Commander Codpiece and the very serious pundit class are living happily ever after to this day. The End.
Oh, and Hillary Clinton sits down with Rachel Maddow tonight on MSNBC. I hope she reads some more from the Mueller Report’s naughty bits. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"I've personally prosecuted Bill in Portland Maine on far, far less evidence than this."
---Sally Yates
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