From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment
When Molly Ivins died 13 years ago this week, the world lost one of its great wits, social commentators, and fighters for civil rights and social justice. The void she left was huge, which is why we’ve been posting our “Molly Ivins Moment” in C&J every Thursday since she passed. I think now more than ever we could use a good dose of Molly, so here's a Texas-size handful of her greatest hits…
» “Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.”
» “How can you not love Texas politics? You pick up the paper in the morning and it's kind of like finding Fidel Castro in the refrigerator.”
» On Pat Buchanan's culture-war speech at the 1992 Republican convention: "It probably sounded better in the original German."
» “We get so scared of something—scared of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens—that we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing freedom. Never works. It's still true: the only thing to fear is fear itself.”
» “My friend Mercedes Pena made me get in touch with my emotions just before I had a breast cut off. Just as I suspected, they were awful. ‘How do you Latinas do this—all the time in touch with your emotions?’ I asked her. ‘That's why we take siestas,’ she replied.”
» “I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”
» “Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
As I like to say, Molly Ivins was (and via her legacy still is) Red Bull for the Democratic soul.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
C&J Annual Fundraiser: Day 3
Sorry to pull out the big persuasion gun, but this morning I feel it's necessary to play the country song card in the hopes that it'll help keep this column afloat for another year. So here goes. I hope this works: "I'm beggin' ya darlin’, please."
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Brexit: One!!!!
Days 'til Biddeford Winter Fest in southern Maine: One!!!!
Estimated number of words Trump has tweeted since he became president: 266,000
Estimated portion of taxpayers who will get a refund this year: 4/5
Percent of Americans with siblings, according to Harper's Index, who think their mother has a favorite child: 33%
Factor by which men are more likely than women to believe they are the favorite: 2x
Percent chance that Nike says it's sold out of all its Kobe Bryant gear: 100%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Puppy Bowl XVI starting lineup…
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JEERS to potent ponderables. Exciting day yesterday in the Senate, as the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump shifted from the opening-argument phase to the Q&A portion. Each senator was allowed to submit a question in writing to presiding judge John Roberts, who read selected ones aloud and gave the prosecution and defense teams an opportunity to respond. Here are some of the queries that made it past the Chief Justice's lips:
"Can I go pee?" (Sen. Inhofe)
"I have to pee, too. Can I go next?" (Sen. Cotton)
"The hall monitor says I need a potty pass. Can I have a potty pass?" (Sen. Inhofe)
"Can I use Jim's potty pass or do I need my own?" (Sen. Cotton)
"I'm back. Do I give Sen. Cotton my potty pass now?" (Sen. Inhofe)
"Actually, can I get a new potty pass, please? I don’t know where Jim's pass has been." (Sen. Cotton)
"Show of hands…who here likes green eggs and ham?" (Sen. Cruz)
"Should I be contorting my facial features to look concerned, troubled, or distressed?" (Sen. Collins)
"Can we speed this up? I've got a 3 o'clock Mar-A-Lago tee time." (Sen. Graham)
"Paper or plastic? Ha ha kidding! You can skip this one, I'm a kidder, ladies and gentlemen." (Sen. Romney)
To his credit, Roberts tossed the frivolous ones.
CHEERS to the brutal, brutal winter of twenty-aught-twenty. The latest numbers from Quinnipiac (a complex name you can easily remember by the anagram "Niacin Quip") are brutal for Republicans trying to sweep the evidence under the Senate rug and pretend like their party boss isn’t a corrupt, national security-compromising son of a bitch. Turns out an overwhelming chunk of the unwashed rabble will have none of it:
Three-quarters of registered voters think witnesses should be allowed to testify in the Senate impeachment trial, which has reached a crucial inflection point, a new national poll from Quinnipiac University finds.
This includes 49% of Republicans who think witnesses should be allowed to testify,75% of independents and 95% of Democrats.
Almost three-in-five (57%) want to hear more details of Trump's explanation for his actions. … More than half of voters (between 52%-54%) say that Trump has abused his power, isn't telling the truth about his actions and has obstructed Congress. Another 52%believe the Trump administration's withholding of US aid to Ukraine was not justified, while 34% say it was.
Quinnipiac also found a large majority—76 percent—responded favorably when asked if "them gol'durn Trump boys deserve a good spankin'." Personally, I would caution against that. I’m told they squirt hair gel when cornered.
CHEERS to "32." Make sure you take a moment today to say Happy Birthday (or, to use his dialect, "Happy buhthday") to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who turns 138 today. He was far from perfect, as all presidents have been: trying to pack the Supreme Court, turning away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, the internment camps, the womanizing (though not with porn stars, as far as we know). But he was a force of nature who didn’t let polio stop him as he charged headlong into fighting the depression and wars on multiple fronts in Europe and Asia, while passing reforms that made life better for ordinary Americans. Says William Ridings and Stuart McIver in their book Rating the Presidents (where FDR sits at #2, just below Lincoln):
Roosevelt is praised most often for his role in preserving the American capitalist system at a time when many countries were opting for fascism.
Given the dire crises he was forced to confront, perhaps the highest praise from the poll is "the right man in the right place at the right time." [...]
Others praise him for stopping Hitler—and shudder to think what might have been if a less-effective president had been at the helm in those dangerous days.
The lunatics on the right try mightily to rewrite history by insisting that the New Deal was a failure. Never mind that laws enacted in the 1930s—chipped away at though they were—helped prevent our 2008 Great Recession from turning into an all-out depression. Pay your respects here. And never let anyone forget the difference between the parties, as defined by Roosevelt himself: Democrats say we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Republicans say we have nothing to fear but everything but fear itself.
P.S. It's also Dick Cheney's birthday today. He turns 666. Again.
JEERS to peace in our bizarro time. Are you sitting down? You really should be sitting down, because when I tell you about Jared Kushner's Israel-Palestine peace plan, you're going to need some sort of reliable anti-gravity tuchus catcher nearby. After millennia of strife and misery in the region, a humble American coastal elitist slumlord has broken through the violence and gridlock to forge a road map for peace and prosperity among the Israelis and the Palestinians. It's a miracle! Here are the highlights of his two-part plan—already endorsed by the impeached American president and the indicted Israeli prime minister—crafted by candlelight out of love, divine inspiration, and sheer force of will:
1. It's 80 pages
2. Fuck the Palestinians
True fact: if Oslo recognizes his breakthrough achievement, it'll be the first time the Nobel Peace Prize weighs more than the recipient.
CHEERS to the great uniter. 92 years ago this week, in in 1928, Scotch tape was marketed for the first time by 3-M. It holds things together like a charm. But to shut up Lindsey Graham only duct tape will do.
JEERS to signing the divorce papers. The deed is done. The die is cast. The curtain has come down. The fat lady has sung. Grandma has been set adrift on an ice floe. The carriage has turned back into a pumpkin. In mere hours, Great Britain will become an orphan on the world stage:
The European Union grudgingly let go of the United Kingdom with a final vote Wednesday at the EU’s parliament that ended the Brexit divorce battle and set the scene for tough trade negotiations in the year ahead.
In an emotion-charged session at the session in Brussels, lawmakers from all 28 EU countries expressed their love and sadness, some, notably from Britain’s Brexit Party, their joy. Some even cried and many held hands during a mournful rendition of the Auld Lang Syne farewell song that contrasted sharply with hard-headed exhortations that Britain won’t find it easy in the talks that will follow the country’s official departure on Friday. […]
Britain will leave the EU after 47 years of membership. It is the first country to leave the EU and [its departure] reduces the number in the bloc to 27.
But the "remainers" in Britain,who know this is a dumb move (among other things, their health system is about to get "American’d"), are getting one final dig in at their xenophobic countrytwits. Topping the pop charts in Britain now by popular demand is Ode to Joy—the anthem of the European Union. Enjoy your last day of normalcy, UK. The zombie apocalypse begins on the morrow.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 30, 2010
CHEERS to justice served. It took a Kansas jury 37 minutes to deliver their decision on Scott Roeder, who admitted he murdered Dr. George Tiller last year: "Don’t let the prison-cell door hit your ass on the way in." Assuming his appeals fail, he'll spend the rest of his life behind bars, smug in the knowledge that he'll be rewarded with a penthouse suite in Heaven as a martyr. And I'll spend the rest of my life smug in the knowledge that he's in for a very rude surprise.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to more Molly. You've all behaved yourselves so well this morning. So for dessert you get a hefty slice of American pie, courtesy of the rhetorical shitkicker who said of herself: "I'm a Texan. I drive a pickup truck. I drink beer. I hunt. I'm a liberal. So what?"
» “Some civilians believe the definition of an honest Texas pol is one who stays bought. But among pols of the old school, the saying was, ‘If you can't take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their women and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in the Legislature.’ Many of our pols have the ethical sensitivity of a walnut.”
» “Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.”
» “The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy.”
» “Yes. He should run. He’s the only Democrat with any 'Elvis' to him.”
—Molly on Barack Obama in 2004
» “Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.”
» "I accidentally became an authority on George W. Bush. Like the guy who climbed Everest, it was there."
» "I don't have any children, so I've decided to claim all the future freedom-fighters and hell-raisers as my kin. I figure freedom and justice beat having your name in marble any day. Besides, if there is another life after this one, think how much we'll get to laugh watching it all. ... We may not be able to take it with us, but we can still fight for freedom after we're gone."
Sadly, gone too soon.
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
Culturally Woke: More Americans Visited Cheers and Jeers Than the Movies—By Far
—Good News Network
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