From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
A Message to College Grads
Dear Graduating Class of Aught Nineteen or Thereabouts,
As I gaze out across this sea of shining, idealistic, impatient faces looking down at your watches every thirty seconds because you don’t want to miss your reservations at Applebee's, I see America's future. Specifically, I see America's future praying that the skies open up and rain gold bullion on you so you can pay off your student loans sometime before retirement. I can't promise that'll happen today, but here's what I can promise: as you're sitting there tweeting, texting and meme'ing, I'm going to impart the most important life lesson of all: how to cover your ass when you screw up—and you will screw up. Lots. Perhaps daily. Even, if you apply yourself like me, hourly.
These lessons are not mine. They come from the federal government—specifically the executive branch:
- The moment you realize you screwed up, assess the situation. Is it something that can be fixed with the 'Delete' key? Is there a paper trail you can stuff down your pants on the way down the hall to the shredder? Can the evidence be discreetly weighted down with rocks and tossed off a pier? How likely is it that the prostitute will keep quiet if you donate to their "hush fund"?
- If your infraction is based on something you said, remember: your words were taken out of context, and you're disappointed at the smear campaign that is clearly being launched against you.
- If you happen to get caught, never apologize. Instead, you should "express regret" that the person or persons affected by your malevolence or incompetence experienced "a sense of inconvenience" due to a "misunderstanding." To show your sincerity, fire one of your aides.
- Keep a gaggle of robotically-loyal allies with mad cow who will defend you no matter what—even if Google Earth has a second-by-second record of you cheating at golf, throwing kids in cages, scamming major banks, and/or obstructing justice over a dozen times. Good names to start with: Limbaugh, Hannity, Carlson, Bolton, Ingraham, Levin, Pirro.
- Blame the innocent of things you yourself are guilty of.
- You'll like this one! Obeying subpoenas is optional.
- Most important: always have a valid passport, a packed suitcase, an offshore bank account, and a private jet gassed up and ready to blow this popsicle stand.
Okay, kiddos, that should get you through the rough spots. Have fun at Applebee's. Carpe Diem. Be nice. Be skeptical, but don’t let your skepticism turn to cynicism until 25 at the earliest. Oh, and in lieu of diplomas you're all getting a case of Trump Water. It's the least we could do. Seriously. Like, the very least.
Thank you.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Note: Congrats to Steve Singiser, who has been a contributing editor at Daily Kos for 10 years as of today. They grow up so fast.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til summer: 38
Days 'til the Birding Festival in Maine’s Acadia National Park: 16
Number of school shootings in the U.S. so far this year in which someone was hurt or killed: 15
Percent of voters in a new Gallup poll who say they'd have no problem if their party nominated a "well-qualfied" person for president who was a Muslim or an atheist, respectively: 66%, 60%
Percent of voters in 1978 and 2019, respectively, saying via Gallup polling that they'd vote for a well-qualified nominated candidate from their party if he or she was gay or lesbian: 26%, 76%
Drop in the Dow Industrials yesterday because of Trump’s trade war with China: 617 points
Number of U.S. presidents who appeared in a softcore porn movie: 1 (Trump)
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NEW Tuesday feature! "Packin' for Philadelphia!"
Brought to you by the 2019 Netroots Nation Convention in Philadelphia, July 11-13. If you're gonna get sick or hit by a bus, Philadelphia is a great place to do it. If there's such a thing as the medical heart of the country, Philly's #1. Here are some notable dates in the city's extraordinary medical timeline, courtesy of The Philadelphia Inquirer:
1751 American statesman Benjamin Franklin helps open Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first, setting in motion Philadelphia's role in medical innovation.
1765 The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine becomes the first medical school in the 13 American colonies.
1832 Wills Eye becomes the country's first eye hospital.
1855 Children's Hospital of Philadelphia becomes the nation's first medical center for children.
1948 Charles Bailey of Hahnemann University Hospital performs the world's first successful heart surgery, cutting open the chest to repair a mitral valve.
1969 Stanley Plotkin, working at Wistar, develops the rubella (German measles) vaccine after a large U.S. outbreak.
2008 Emmanuel Skordalakes is the first to decode the structure of telomerase, the enzyme that conserves the telomeres at the ends of our chromosomes and has broad implications in both cancer (where the enzyme is overacting) and aging (where the enzyme tends to be far less effective).
In fact, one-out-of-six doctors is trained in Philly. Gee, I bet they have a lot of golf courses there! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! That joke killed in the Catskills.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Farewell, Doris Day...
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CHEERS to sunny delight. News flash: Trump over-promised and under-delivered on bringing back the coal industry. (Sorry, miners. Nothing personal, he's just a pandering idiot who has no clue what he's doing.) But the industry nurtured by Democrats that derives clean energy from the big yellow ball in the sky continues to burn holes in the record books:
There are now over 2 million solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in the U.S., according to new figures. The 2 million mark comes three years after installations hit 1 million, a figure it took the industry 40 years to reach. […]
California was responsible for 51 percent of the first million installations and 43 percent of the second million, the SEIA said. It explained that this reduction was “in large part” down to a residential sector that was both growing and “rapidly diversifying across state markets.”
Other states including Texas, Rhode Island, Florida, Utah and Maryland had helped to drive growth, the SEIA added. Wood Mackenzie is forecasting that installations will reach 3 million in 2021 and 4 million in 2023.
The worst fossil-fuel disasters involve mass casualties and millions in property damage from explosions and contaminated air and water, requiring huge clean-up operations that can last for years. The worst solar disasters involve a bird pooping on a panel, requiring a brief spritz with a garden hose. Or as Energy Secretary Rick Perry calls it: "No fun at all."
JEERS to destruction by a dotard in a China shop. Let’s check in and see how Cadet Bone Spurs’ tariffs are going as the sun rises in Trump country. Remember: he only enacts the greatest policies, which work very, very quickly, and beautifully, and you’re going to love it so much, believe me, oh you’re gonna be bored with all the winning:
The prices of the things we buy, from floor lamps to canoes and bicycles, are slated to go up, literally overnight, as the Trump administration makes good on a promise to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of imported Chinese products.
With trade talks between the U.S. and China yielding no deal, consumers and the businesses that serve them say they're bracing for bigger ripple effects. […]
[T]he previous rounds of tariffs are already making life more expensive. They've increased consumer costs by $1.4 billion a month, according to experts from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Princeton and Columbia University. […] This latest round of tariffs will add another $500 a year in costs for the average American household, says Katheryn Russ, an economics professor at the University of California at Davis. And that could grow.
I think the conclusion is obvious: this is all Hillary’s fault.
Pew Pew Pew! to gunfight at the Wanker Corral. The standoff between the NRA's top gunslinger/profligate spender Wayne LaPierre and crazy colonel and recently-fired NRA president Oliver North, who siphoned off millions of dollars through the organization's longtime ad agency, is getting even more intense as both sides dig in reload:
Anonymous documents posted online show that the NRA has accrued massive legal bills over the past year, while the organization’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, spent lavishly on clothing and travel, billing the organization’s ad agency for his expenses.NRA officials disputed the documents’ claims, but their authenticity was confirmed.
The documents, which The Daily Beast writes appear to be written by North, estimate that the NRA has reportedly, on average, been paying close to $100,000 per day in legal bills.
Despite this, LaPierre billed the NRA's ad agency, Ackerman McQueen, $542,000 for travel and other expenses, including $39,000 for one day of shopping in Beverly Hills, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The NRA sued Ackerman McQueen in April, accusing the agency of failing to justify its billing. The lawsuit was a catalyst for the battle between North and LaPierre.
Adding to the confusion as the lawsuits play out: every time LaPierre or North vows to stand their ground, everyone dives under the table.
CHEERS to getting outside in the fresh air (back before Scott Pruitt took away all our fresh air). 215 years ago today, Lewis and Clark set off from their camp in Illinois to go explore just what the hell kind of territory we'd acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Their first words when they got back: "Somebody needs to invent GPS, and somebody needs to invent GPS now!" Added the welcoming committee: "And deodorant."
JEERS to watched pots not boiling. Time to check in and see where we are with all the Trump-related scandals swirling around us like a swarm of mosquitoes high on Red Bull:
Federal income tax subpoena: Still waiting
State income tax investigation: Still waiting
Inauguration fund investigation: Still waiting
Michael Flynn sentencing: Still waiting
Un-redacted Mueller Report subpoena: Still waiting
Mueller testimony before Congress: Still waiting
Don McGahn testimony before Congress: Still waiting
Emoluments investigation: Still waiting
Wilbur Ross conflict-of-interest investigation: Still waiting
Deutsche Bank docs: Still waiting
Porn star hush money investigation: Still waiting
Donald Trump Jr. Senate testimony: Still waiting
Summer Zervos defamation suit: Still waiting
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop saying, "Looks like I picked the wrong week…"
JEERS to Mother Nature head-fakes. Aaaiiiiighhhhhrrrrghhhh!!!! It may be the middle of spring, but someone forgot to tell that to the winter storm in the process of whackin' us in our flannel butt-flaps. Here’s a pic I took just moments ago:
I tell ya it’s falling so thick and fast you can’t see your hand in front of your face up here. But enough about the blizzard of right-wing drivel about global cooling. The snow’s pretty obnoxious, too.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 14, 2009
JEERS to the death penalty. Because—say it with me, for the thousandth time—it's NOT FOOLPROOF:
A former death row inmate in Tennessee has been cleared of murder, three years after the Supreme Court raised repeated questions about his conviction. ... [Paul] House's appeal was championed by the Innocence Project, affiliated with the Cardozo School of Law in New York. "In the three years since the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into this case and sent it back to the trial court, substantial additional DNA testing and further investigation have shown that he is innocent," said Peter Neufeld, the group's co-director.
The guy had been in prison for 22 years. The state issued a brief note to Mr. House: "We extend our sincerest 'Oopsie.'" Tossing in a few Denny's coupons was a nice touch.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the original Jedi Master. George Lucas turns 75 today—I believe that's 452 in Yoda years. Yes, I wish he hadn't messed around with the first three movies years later. And, yes, I wish the second trilogy had been better. But, good lord, he also gave us Indiana Jones, American Graffiti, and the creepy classic "dystopian future" thriller THX 1138. Plus he recently poked his NIMBY zillionaire neighbors in the eye by financing a 224-unit affordable housing complex. Besides all that, the Imperial Walkers in the Battle of Hoth are still the coolest things I've seen in any movie ever, and they still top my wish list for Santa so I can finally help the rebel alliance win the War on Christmas:
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My gift to George: about half of my lifetime earnings in movie tickets, action figures, trading cards, DVDs and comic books since 1977. His gift to us: turning directing duties for the new Star Wars movies over to a new crew, the latest of which is J.J. Abrams, who intends to stick the landing of the Skywalker saga December 20th in Star Wars IX. Here’s a fun bit of early reaction from the 87-year-old genius composer who is scoring it:
[John] Williams beams when he talks about watching an early cut of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which will bring the nine-film space saga to an end this Christmas. He likes what he has seen “very much” and has so far written about 25 minutes of score in about a month.
The Force will be with The Rise of Skywalker. Or I’m writing the mother of all sternly-worded letters.
Oh, and, dammit, get well soon, Jimmy Carter. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Mayor Pete Says “I Had To Google That” After Trump Calls Him “Daily Kos Blogger Bill in Portland Maine”
---JoeMyGod
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