From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
What Made Trump Look Like An Even Bigger Jackass in November
This month's contribution to Bullshit Mountain:
Rain
Elvis
Diwali
"FU45"
Rihanna
Barbed wire
Seal Team Six
The Blue Wave
Aircraft carriers
Michelle Obama
The French Army
"Pleasure," California
His backstabbing wife
The French Army again
His cocoon of bitterness
Chief Justice John Roberts
Speakerphone technology
Finland's forest non-rakers
His Trump Foundation scam
CBS News reporter Paula Reid
His idiot & AWOL HUD Secretary
Tear-gassed women and children
His post-election temper tantrum
His familiarity with Matt Whitaker
His gut versus anybody else's brain
French President Emmanuel Macron
His response to the California wildfires
His suck-up to Saudi Arabian murderers
The doctored Jim Acosta "karate chop" video
His knowledge of the Balkans and the Baltics
Idiot daughter Ivanka, who should be locked up
His war against the tribe that welcomed the pilgrims
His idiot followers grifting themselves in a "dinar scam"
I wonder if he’s bored with all the winning yet.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 29, 2018
Note: Only 16 days left to sign up for ACA health insurance at Healthcare.gov. Pass it on.
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By the Numbers:
10 days!!!
Days 'til Democrats officially take over the House majority: 35
Days 'til the Bing Crosby Holiday Film Festival at the Crosby Theater in Spokane, Washington: 10
Number of states more rural than Mississippi: 3 (West Virginia, Maine, Vermont)
Public approval of Obamacare, an all-time high according to the latest Kaiser Foundation poll: 53%
Percent of Americans who believe Trump has failed to "drain the swamp," according to a Monmouth University poll: 66%
Percent in the same poll who believe Trump has fulfilled his promise to unify the country: 11%
Years since the last Democratic candidate for governor (Jerry Brown) carried Orange County, as Gavin Newsom did this year: 40
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
What a campaign! Jesse Ventura took offense at someone else's manners? Mr. Etiquette, the Sensitive Male. Poor Charlton Heston, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, no shame to him, was trotted around the country and held up by both arms while he urged us to get more guns.
Both candidates for governor in California were capable of causing tooth decay in anyone forced to listen to them. In Texas, our governor merely accused his opponent of being a drug dealer and murderer. Slime and negativity from coast to coast.
In Texas, we have elected wall-to-wall dipsticks who have to figure out how to close what could be a $40 billion budget gap. They've all sworn to eat worms and die before raising taxes, so this should be entertaining. […]
The plague of negative ads will disappear only when they no longer work. Time to think creatively: Public campaign financing, public campaign financing, public campaign financing.
---2002 post-midterm column
LATE BREAKING MAJOR KICK-ASS MOLLY NEWS!!! Fresh from my inbox via director Janice Engel: "For Y’all who have supported us, and been so patient-- the wait is over. RAISE HELL: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins will be celebrating its WORLD PREMIERE, in January at the Sundance Film Festival!" More details next week.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: C&J’s rescue lab-mix Haley’s glamour shot in her Randy Rainbow glasses has over 1,300 likes on twitter (not that we're counting)…
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CHEERS to previews of coming attractions. House Democrats gathered yesterday in a smoke-filled backroom (you really should give up those smelly stogies, Congresswoman Pingree) to take preliminary votes on who, exactly, will be leading our party when we steamroll into the majority on January 3 and start reassembling our busted democracy. And the winners are…
[Opens envelope]
[Opens envelope inside envelope]
[Opens envelope inside envelope inside envelope]
[Blows into envelope, gets face full of glitter]
Oh fer God's sake, is nothing easy these days? Jeez…
Speaker of the House: Nancy Pelosi (CA)
A well-deserved smile.
Majority Leader: Steny Hoyer (MD)
Majority Whip: Jim Clyburn (SC)
Democratic Caucus Chair: Hakeem Jeffries (NY)
Keeper of the Moral Compass: John Lewis (GA)
Keeper of the Cloak Room Cheese Basket: Mark Pocan (WI)
Oh, almost forgot: congrats and a hearty back slap to DINO Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, who becomes the first-ever Designated Kisser of Paul Ryan When the Gavel is Passed So Nancy Pelosi Doesn’t Have to Get His Putrid Slobber All Over Her. Well deserved.
JEERS to big babies in Billeh's back yard. Up here in Maine, Republicans are sitting around scratching their heads and wondering how, after losing the governorship and control of the entire legislature, their party could've taken such a blue wave pounding in the midterms. Let's take a look at their top elected officials’ recent activities and see if we can suss out any clues:
Governor Paul LePage: Voters overwhelmingly approved Medicaid expansion. He refused to implement it. The courts ordered him to implement it. He refused. The courts ordered him to implement it again. He refused again. All while Mr. Fiscal Responsibility racked up nearly a quarter-million dollars in legal fees to defend the indefensible.
The blue wave hits the Maine GOP.
Rep. Bruce Poliquin: One of the slimiest Wall Street millionaire Republicans in the House, 2nd District congressman Poliquin lost to Democrat Jared Golden by 3,000 votes in the nation's first ranked-choice voting election. Instead of conceding gracefully, he cried foul, falsely accusing Maine's hard-working poll workers of sowing "chaos and confusion," demanded a recount, filed a lawsuit to have the ranked-choice process declared unconstitutional, and now he's throwing all his sour grapes at the wall by calling for a new election. Yeah…nothing says "I'm a winner" like a sore loser.
Nope. Sorry. I'm drawin' a blank. I just don’t understand how Republicans up here have become as popular as the black flies at a Moosehead Lake nudist colony picnic. Maybe it’s their cologne?
CHEERS to a place of their own. On this date in 1947---despite strong Arab opposition---the U.N. General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state. Aside from the decades of bombs and violence and starvation and human rights abuses and terrorism and suspicion and hatred, it's going rather well, don't you think?
CHEERS and JEERS to Ma Nature's 2018/2019 playbook. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center says that yes, Virginia, there will be a winter this year. Their latest forecast, based on a months-long analyses of moss on trees, fuzz on wooly worms, and sweaters on local TV morning show meteorologists, is shaping up to be a mild one, with a likely visit from Saint El Nino:
Wetter-than-normal conditions: Southern tier of the U.S., and up into the Mid-Atlantic.
Drier-than-normal conditions: Northern Rockies and Northern Plains, as well as in the Great Lakes and northern Ohio Valley.
Winter temp forecast. My brain believes global warming is a bad thing. My fingers and toes disagree.
Above average temperatures: Northern and western U.S., with the greatest likelihood in Alaska and from the Pacific Northwest to the Northern Plains.
Below average temperatures: No part of the U.S. is favored to have below-average temperatures.
The rest of the country falls into the “equal chance” category.
As usual, some predictions are harder to make than others. For example, there's a zero-percent chance of knowing actual snowfall amounts this far out, but there's a 100 percent chance of knowing that climate-change deniers will scream "Global cooling!" every time a flake sticks to the pavement. C&J recommends you start assembling your winter management kit now: shovel, ice-melting pellets, blankets, candles, and earplugs.
JEERS to Thursday morning buzzkill. You sitting down? No, seriously…is your butt plastered to a cushion supported by a sturdy frame? Good. Because, well, I hate to break it to ya, but….
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Tuesday ruled out a potential bid for the presidency in 2020, saying that he has a "full plate" in his current role.
“I am ruling it out."
Today's special in the C&J cafeteria: bitter-dipped gloomy pie stuffed with smashed hopes and sprinkled with crushed dreams. Help yourself to seconds.
CHEERS to famous firsts. On November 29, 1929 Commander Richard Byrd became the first non-bird to fly over the South Pole. A friend of mine did that, too. Then the weed wore off and he realized he was still in his mom's basement.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 29, 2008
JEERS to disappointing moves. Look, we know Obama doesn’t make decisions without gathering the facts and weighing his options carefully. So there must be a good reason for him to be keeping Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense. Our guess: Mrs. Gates bakes a mean batch of peanut butter cookies.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to our annual peek into the phenomenon of "Kossack Time." Yesterday's C&J poll asked, "At what speed does it seem 2018 has gone for you?" It's a question we've asked every year since 2012, and the results are interesting. Here's the year-by-year breakout for comparison:
Fast
79%, 82%, 78%, 80%, 56%, 66%, and 73% this year
Normal Speed
11%, 11%, 13%, 15%, 13%, 10%, and 10% this year
Slow
7%, 5%, 6%, 6%, 32%, 25%, and 19% this year
Life sure seemed to fly by for us Kossacks during Obama's fourth-through-seventh years. Then 2016 hit and things slowed way the f*ck down as the age of Trump kicked in and more of us started feeling every…excruciating…second. But it looks like midterm fever and the crashing of the Blue Wave put a bit more spring in our internal cuckoo clocks, and here we are licking our chops over what will assuredly be an exciting 2019 that will see primary candidates emerging for our side, and dozens of corrupt footsies held to the fire on the other side. Then again, it's a Star Wars year and Episode IX won’t be released until next Christmas. [Sigh] C&J's prediction: Tempus molasses.
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
"The founding fathers were pretty good at confronting their fears and the fears of Cheers and Jeers. And it’s the old cliché where geniuses built the kiddie pool so an idiot could run it. We are completely testing that theory at this very moment. I do believe we’ll survive Bill in Portland Maine."
---Bruce Springsteen
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