C&J 2024 Fundraiser Update
Many thanks from me and our monthly household bills to everyone who contributed to keep Cheers & Jeers alive and kickin' yesterday. The cajole-a-thon is off to a fine start.
When I first started writing this column in 2003, it was a meager attempt to participate in this exciting new phenomenon called “blogging.” I had shit to get off my chest about the Iraq War (Bad!), Howard Dean (Good!), and the Bush II administration (Hopeless!), and when it started gaining readership after a few months I knew this was my chance to become a powerful oligarch, possibly one with my own navy.
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Twenty years of polling consistently shows that C&J delivers the best bad snark on the internet, along with regular features like Energize An Ally Tuesday, invaluable Wednesday updates on how close we are to the Rapture, Thursday Molly Ivins Moments, the Friday Who Won the Week poll, and free playful hair tousling. Plus a merry band of commenters who make the place feel like the best kind of neighborhood bar: the kind that opens at 7:50 in the morning. Thanks for supporting it.
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Note: In case you missed the news, the Amish now control all three branches of government and 49 out of 50 state legislature. Man, when they say they can do anything in a day, they ain't kiddin’.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til May Day: 15
Days 'til the Freeland Walleye Festival in Michigan: 10
Amount that the Biden campaign and its political committees held at the end of March, more than double Trump's/RNC's $93 million: $192 million
Additional amount that is being pledged for Biden's reelection by independent groups: $1 billion
Current U.S. unemployment rate: 3.8%
Number of cherry trees promised to Washington D.C. by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to replace ones being removed to make way for higher sea walls around the Jefferson Memorial: 250
Age of O.J. Simpson when he died of cancer last week: 76
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In Wake County, North Carolina, Rainbow pops out some new colors…
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CHEERS to the squeaky wheels of justice. The air was sultry, the anticipation was palpable, and the popcorn was hot and buttery yesterday as the criminal trial of sleepy Donald J. Trump got underway in New York. Here's a transcript of the opening remarks:
"I'm out of order! You're out of order! This whole courtroom's out of order! You can't handle the truth! The bailiff stole the strawberries! The butler murdered the colonel in the library with the pipe! Who the HELL picked out this wallpaper? I demand a delay, a mistrial, and contempt citations for everyone in this room! And another thing: Atticus Finch huffed ether!"
Once the drunk stenographer was removed and replaced with a new one, things settled down and jury selection began. The trick is filling the jury box seats with those with whom Trump has no familiarity. So far they've chosen the head of a legitimate charity, a doctor who isn’t a drug dealer, and the inside of a Bible. Tomorrow they’ll screen his family.
CHEERS to fixing a problem the way a problem oughtta be fixed. As homelessness vexes communities far and wide for various reasons (budget shortfalls, NIMBYism, etc.), CBS News reports that the tiny southeastern Texas village known as Houston has figured out how to make a dent in getting a roof over the less fortunates' heads: namely, first get a roof over the less fortunates' heads:
"We were one of the worst in the nation to begin with, in 2011, 2012," [Coalition for the Homeless’s Kelly] Young said. "And now, we're considered one of the best." What happened? In 2012, the city went all-in on a concept called "Housing First." Since then, homelessness is down 63% in the greater Houston area, and more than 30,000 people have been housed.
Housing First means spend money on getting the unhoused into their own apartments, subsidize their rent, then provide the services needed to stabilize their lives—not fix the person first; not just add more shelter beds. […]
Houston's message is this: What's really essential to success is committing to homes, not just managing homelessness.
And to achieve it, Houston was able to herd 40 community organizations and form them into a single unit devoted to the proliferation of single units. Very impressive, said cat herders.
JEERS to the coin-tosser-in-chief. Eighteen years ago this week, George W. Bush, in yet another moment of detachment from reality, proclaimed after 5½ years of utter incompetence: "I'm the decider and I decide what's best." If history may weigh in on that, sir? You sucked at deciding.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to disrespecting the one who brung ya to the dance. Just a quick reminder that Rupert Murdoch’s flagship joint has been crazy for a long time. Nine years ago today, Fox News openly wondered if we should bring back literacy tests during elections so that we don’t have a bunch of dense, ignorant, fact-averse truthiness trolls voting on the critical issues and candidates of the day. Which brings up a serious question: why does Fox want to prevent its viewers from voting?
CHEERS and JEERS to tax day. For most of the country, yesterday was the day that your pound of flesh had to be postmarked and on its way to the IRS OR YOU WILL FACE THE HARSHEST OF PENALTIES UP TO AND INCLUDING A NON-HEALTH-INSPECTED DINNER AT MAR-A-LAGO BECAUSE WE’RE IN THAT KIND OF MOOD SO DON’T TEST US. We lucky ducks in Maine and Massachusetts did get an extra couple 'o days—or in some counties an extra couple of months due to the winter storms—to send ‘em in. But that doesn’t make us superior to anybody. Well, maybe a little.
Taxes are good because they pay for things like roads and Baltimore bridges and the social safety net and missiles with which to sink Russian ships and shoot down Iranian drones. Taxes are bad because rich people don’t pay nearly enough of them and a lot of the money goes into giant sinkholes like unnecessary gifts to the oil companies. But, hey, at least it's exponentially easier to fill out our forms, thanks to the “geniuses with money” known as Republicans oh wait, no, that was all bullshit, they suck…
It was a selling point for the Republican tax overhaul in late 2017: A promise that the new law would simplify the nation's confusing tax code to the point people would be able to file their returns on "a postcard," saving people time and making it easier for Americans to fill out tax forms.
President Donald Trump once boasted in the White House that families would "be able to file their taxes on a beautiful, little sheet of paper." … But after a single, messy year of use, the tax "postcard" is dead.
The Internal Revenue Service abandoned the smaller 1040 form after…receiving complaints from tax professionals and interest groups that it was more complicated than it needed to be, Bloomberg Tax first reported.
That's right, ladies and germs: the Republicans couldn't even do a postcard right. This morning in the C&J rumpus room: fainting couch rentals—30 minutes for five bucks. Plus tax.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 16, 2014
CHEERS to cosmic disappearing acts. Last night there was a total lunar eclipse between 2 and 5:30 ET. It's an occurrence that happens occasionally when Donald Trump stands up to go pee in the middle of the night and his ego gets between the sun and the moon. Unfortunately I missed it on account of my vision was obstructed in our bedroom by my closed eyelids.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to boogieing down in your Buster Browns. In Beantown yesterday, the iconic Boston Marathon filled the streets. This year went mostly according to plan. Kenyan colonialist and central planner of the Deep State Barack Obama’s mind-control powers paid off in the women’s division, moving us one step closer to total socialist domination:
Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma won his first Boston Marathon title on Monday, finishing with a time of 2:06:17 in the men’s race, while Hellen Obiri of Kenya retained her 2023 title in the women’s race. […]
The top performing men’s runner from the US was CJ Albertson who finished in seventh with an unofficial time of 2:09:53.
The top performing US women’s runner was Emma Bates who finished with an unofficial time of 2:27:14.
Earlier in the day, Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper secured her first major marathon victory with a time of 1:35:11, finishing 90 seconds ahead of Switzerland’s Manuela Schär to win the women’s wheelchair event.
In doing so, the 22-year-old became the first British woman to ever win the Boston Marathon’s wheelchair race and also the first British winner of any of the event’s elite races since Geoff Smith won the elite men’s race in 1985.
Switzerland’s Marcel Hug won the men’s wheelchair race, the seventh time he’s done so, with a time of 1:15:33 despite crashing midway through the race.
As usual, the winner of the Rocket Shoes division, clocking in at a record 2.54 seconds—was Geeky McNerd from MIT, who is expected to make a full recovery from a nasty case of windburn.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
A consequence of the cultural obsession with Cheers and Jeers is the hyperfixation on Bill in Portland Maine.
—Vox
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