Cheers and Jeers: Monday

“My favorite line belongs to an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston. Flo Kennedy and I were in the backseat talking about Flo’s book, Abortion Rap, and the driver turned around and said, ‘Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.’ I wish I’d gotten her name so we could attribute it to her.”
—Gloria Steinem

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
—Albert Einstein

“Nixon is the kind of guy who, if you were drowning twenty feet from shore, would throw you a fifteen-foot rope.”
—Eugene McCarthy [Also applies to every Republican in 2022]

“When I was 40 and looking at 60, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But 62 feels like a week and a half away from 80. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off.”
—Harry Belafonte, now 95

“When I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court], and I say, ‘When there are nine,’ people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“We’re at the tipping point, we haven’t got time to wait 30 years and argue about a few billion dollars. Burying your head in the sand another instant about global warming and the destruction of the planet is suicide for all of us.”
—William Shatner, 90, following his Blue Origin space flight last October

“If Attila the Hun were alive today, he’d be a drama critic.”
—Edward Albee

“Who hasn’t had a weight issue? If not the body, certainly the big head.”
—Aretha Franklin

If you celebrated or have yet to celebrate a birthday in March, we wish you many blessings on your camels. And now, let’s get the week started…

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Cheers and Jeers for Monday, March 28, 2022

Note: I call dibs on the next Supreme Court vacancy. Ha Ha—beat ya to it.

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By the Numbers:

Days ’til Easter: 20

Days ’til the 50th Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival in Louisiana: 11

Percent chance that sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is compromised on the bench by having a treasonous wife who participated in the Republican coup attempt on January 6, 2021: 100%

Number of nations in the NATO alliance: 30

Estimated failure rate of Russian missiles being shot at Ukraine: 60%

Percent of Americans who support capping insulin prices at $35 a month, according to polling from Date for Progress: 85%

Number of Maine counties, out of 16, that have seen population growth as covid-rattled city slickers move here for peace and tranquility punctuated by my daily bagpipe practice on the roof: 14

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Puppy Pic of the Day: A lesson in boundaries

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JEERS to the week ahead. Let’s all orient ourselves as we wipe the weekend sleepies from our eyes, shall we? As of Monday morning, the war still rages. Mini-Me lunatics, bristling with guns and working for the main lunatic, continue their advance across the region in their fanatical attempt to overthrow the duly-elected government.

But the resistance is still holding up, and there are even pockets where the unwashed pro-Putin horde are being thrown back and forced to regroup. Still, help is still badly needed, and it looks like the United States federal government simply doesn’t have the will or the support to knock down the invaders and secure peace and democracy in the beleaguered and battered land that has now seen 1 million deaths from the red menace thanks to their callous disregard for human life. But enough about Republicans ignoring the Covid pandemic and moving at lightspeed to turn America into a right-wing fascist dictatorship. Anyone hear anything about what’s happening in Ukraine?

JEERS to a supreme mess. Ladies and gentlemen, please note in your cerebral databanks that as of this moment, the United States Supreme Court has officially jumped the shark—and although there are options for un-jumping it, none of those options will be exercised because gosh, it’s the Supreme Court a HALLOWED INSTITUTION, PEOPLE!  But anyway…

As Ginni Thomas, a prominent conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, made the case to overturn the election to a top adviser to former President Donald Trump in the days after the 2020 election, she cited several conspiracy theories popular with the president’s most deluded supporters.

In her messages, published Thursday by CBS News and the Washington Post, Thomas urged then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to look into the claims of Steve Pieczenik, a little-known conspiracy theorist whose ideas are often too crazy for even Alex Jones. […]  Among other claims, Pieczenik insists he once arrested Pope Francis.

But in her defense, I’d like to set the record straight on one important issue: I can tell you that the squid-JFK Jr. hybrid is not only totally real and running for president in 2024, but he also hogs all the shrimp at our Thursday star chamber meetings in Michael Jackson’s basement. And lemme tell ya, with the supply chain issues and inflation, shrimp ain’t cheap. But does JFK Jr.-Squidboy kick in for it? Nooooooo. Course not. All the Kennedy squid people are notoriously stingy.

CHEERS to cool science. In the biggest surprise of my lifetime, over the weekend I was informed that Earth is what’s called a “planet,” and there are many such “planets” that make up “solar systems” and “galaxies” and “universes” “out there” in what’s called “space.” I even did a séance with my dead relatives over the weekend to confirm this and they said a) “Yes, that’s true” and b) “Oops, sorry, guess we should’ve told you that before we died.” So knowing what I know now, after previously not knowing what I didn’t know I didn’t know, this blows my FREAKING MIND:

Officials with the Hubble Space Telescope program have some new science to share on Wednesday (March 30).

A NASA statement promises “one for the record books” and an “exciting new observation” from the nearly32-year-old telescope. It’s tricky to guess what that discovery might be, given that the Hubble Space Telescope‘s work stretches from exoplanets to galaxies to measuring the expansion of the universe.(That last bit garnered the multiobservatory team a Nobel Prize.)

NASA has offered little other information beyond promising that the “Hubble result not only extends our understanding of the universe, but creates an exciting area of research for Hubble’s future work with NASA’s newly-launched James Webb Space Telescope.”

Tonight I’m doing another séance to find out what a “telescope” is. After, of course, they finally stop with all the “Oops, maybe we should’ve told you this stuff earlier” nonsense. You’re making me miss Star Trek on my talking mystery picture box, you dumb yammering family spirits.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to the Ikey we likey.  We’re surprised that Dwight Eisenhower hasn’t been branded a traitor yet by the right-wingers because he had the audacity to expand Social Security and raise the minimum wage. Plus, on the eve of his exit from the White House he warned America of the dangers of expanding the “military-industrial complex” that loose cannons in charge could exploit. In short, his crap crapped bigger ones than the current crop of GOPretenders. But his heart, which attacked him several times throughout his life, finally gave out and he died on this date in 1969. Among Ike’s famous quotes chiseled into stone at his grave site is this hippie libturd pabulum:

Pay your respects here. And extra credit for winning the last U.S. war that actually deserved to be fought.

CHEERS to big balls, little balls, balls balls balls! After a wild weekend of ups and downs and smiles and frowns, your 2022 NCAA Fabulous Four Men’s matchups are: Duke vs. North Carolina and Villanova vs. Kansas. The womenfolk’s final four will be determined tonight. Not many people know this, but I tried to play basketball in school. Didn’t work out. The ball kept destroying my badminton rackets.

P.S. Speaking of friendly competitions, the Oscars were last night. The biggest winners were Dune and Coda. The biggest loser was Chris Rock’s jaw. Thanks and good night!

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Ten years ago in C&J: March 28, 2012

CHEERS to showdown at the John Roberts Corral. The Supreme Court justices heard 90 minutes of arguments about Obamacare yesterday before knocking off early to hit the racquetball “court” (Ha!), the weight “bench” (Ha Ha!) and the mimosa “bar” (Ha thrice!). They talked mostly about whether or not the Court should kick the can down the road and wait until people are required to buy health insurance before they rule. They nixed that idea. But they did make one firm decision about a mandate yesterday: if Americans refuse see The Hunger Games, as required by the American pop culturati, they can be penalized by being forced to watch Atlas Shrugged. It was 9-0 decision. Cruel and unusual, I say.

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And just one more…

CHEERS to a picture saying a thousand words. From Joe’s Poland swing…

Okay. That’s worth three-thousand words. Keep the change.

Have a tolerable Monday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial

“We should recognize that the jackassery we often see in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool is partly because of people mugging for Bill in Portland Maine.”

—Sen. Ben Sasse

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