“The only one to fix the infrastructure of our country is me—roads, airports, bridges. I know how to build. Pols only know how to talk!” —Trump, May 2015
“We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.” —Trump, November 2016
“President Trump is a builder. Throughout his career, he made his name constructing big things. He applies that builder’s mindset to all aspects of the presidency, but especially to his bold vision for rebuilding infrastructure in America.” —Dept. of Transportation, 2017
Continued (I think you know where this is headed)…
“Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land.” —Trump, 2017 Speech to joint session of Congress
“We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land. And we will do it with American heart, and American hands, and American grit.” —Trump, 2018 State of the Union
“That was a Gary [Cohn] bill. That bill was so stupid. … I’ll lead on this.” —Trump, 2019, on his 2018 bill
We must also rebuild America’s infrastructure. I ask you to pass Senator John Barrasso’s highway bill to invest in new roads, bridges, and tunnels all across our land. —Trump, 2020 State of the Union
President Donald Trump has been promising a $1 trillion infrastructure plan since his 2016 campaign —ABC News, Feb. 2020
As Trump enters the final months of his term, we’ve seen no action on this promise, so we rate it Promise Broken. —PolitiFact, July 2020
– The End –
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Note: Our sincere thoughts and prayers to the family of Marge Johnson, who died over the weekend after a tragic War on Christmas fruitcake catapult-cleaning accident. At least we think she died. No, wait. She’s still breathing and…oh, she was just sleeping and also we’re being told there was no catapult-cleaning accident. Our bad. —Mgt.
Percent of Americans who say the federal government should regulate the release of greenhouse gases from sources such as power plants, cars, and factories in an effort to reduce global warming, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll: 70%
Percent in the same poll who believe it’s important to teach students about the history of racism in schools: 70%
Support in the same poll for Joe Biden’s BBB bill: 58%
Amount for which an Apple-1 (only 200 of which were produced, in kit form) sold at auction: $400,000
Percent in a YouGov poll who believe it’s acceptable to start listening to holiday music before Thanksgiving: 18%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Annual fall leaf-raking day portrait of Haley, C&J’s rescue lab mix, who turns nine in a few weeks…
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CHEERS to Infrastructure Week. I don’t know what to wear or what to do. I don’t know the customs and traditions, nor the words and music to the Infrastructure Week carols. (“Silent Prius”? “I’m Dreaming of A Reliable Rural Broadband Connection”? “Grandma Got Run Over By A Solar Powered Metro Bus?”) The store shelves are bare of Infrastructure Week greeting cards. I can’t find an Infrastructure Week recipe book. Oh, it’s just a big jumbled-up flibbedy floo! But we’ll figure it out. We have to. We have no choice now. Because as of today, thanks to Democratic President Joe Biden.…
…it’s Infrastructure Week! Please: if you plan to celebrate by marauding in the streets, overturn internal combustion-powered vehicles responsibly. (Lift with your legs, not your back.)
CHEERS to bucking the trend. There are many reasons for the supply-chain trouble the world’s most powerful nation (that’s us!) is having. But a lot of attention is focused on our ports, especially the ones out west where ships are stacked up like planes on the tarmac at O’Hare during a thunderstorm. But here in New England, the greatest port on Earth is wondering what all the fuss is about:
Maine’s only container port is busier than ever and running smoothly despite last year’s economic downturn and supply chain disruptions that have caused backups in harbors nationwide.
At least 36,700 shipping containers are expected to cross the docks at the International Marine Terminal in Portland this year. That’s five times the number of containers that came through the port in 2013, when the Icelandic shipping company Eimskip opened its headquarters in Portland. […]
Portland Harbor. The container action is located up there by the bridge. The bodies of my enemies are located…whoops, almost let it slip.
“(There) has been incredible growth and support,” said Andrew Haines, executive vice president of Eimskip’s North America division. In his decades in the shipping industry, Haines cannot recall the renovation and subsequent growth of any other U.S. port in the way it has happened in Portland.
Consequently, the children in the northeast are going to have a very merry Christmas this year. Thanks to our uninterrupted Icelandic trade, they’re all getting a stocking full of rock gunnels and a shiny new blob of aluminum slag under the tree. Bless us one and all.
CHEERS to home where the buffalo roam. Happy Birthday, Oklahoma! The “Hey, that state looks like a skillet!” state—home of Mauree Turner, elected last year as the first Muslim legislator from Oklahoma and the first nonbinary legislator in America—officially nabbed the 46th star on the flag 114 years ago today. Fun facts: the state animal is the buffalo, the state insect is the honey bee, and the state flower is the Oklahoma rose, which is quite lovely:
Also: the state rock is “rose barite,” which you’ll find in the greatest abundance, as usual, between state dinosaur Jim Inhofe’s ears. (Hey, you go for the easy layups where you can get ‘em.)
CHEERS to bowing out before God has you bowed out. Well, at least Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy—who’s been in office since Jaws came out—knows when it’s time to find a comfy rockin’ chair and get down to some serious front-porch whittling. The dependable Democrat announced yesterday that he’s retiring at the end of his term:
“It is time to pass the torch to the next Vermonter who will carry on this work for our great state. It’s time to come home,” Leahy said. Leahy, 81, is the longest-serving current senator, having served since 1975. […]
“Psst. Dianne. Come away with me. We could be happy…”
Notably, Leahy presided over former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. “When I preside over the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, I will not waver from my constitutional and sworn obligations to administer the trial with fairness, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws,” he said in a statement at the time.
The seat should be safe for Democrats … President Joe Biden won Vermont by 35 percentage points in 2020.
I’m told that his likely successor, should he decide to run, would be Congressman Peter Welch, who at a spry 75 would inject some much-needed white male youth into the Senate. (Fair warning: Chuck Grassley never gets tired of the old “pull my finger, Sonny” routine.)
CHEERS to TIME. On this date 23 years ago, in 1998, the magazine provided lengthy coverage of the spectacular implosion and resignation of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Margaret Carlson sums up that blissful week:
Friday was the day he died a Washington death, stripping himself of power and becoming in that instant just a guy in a suburban tract house in Marietta, Ga., carrying out the trash.
We all should have seen his resignation coming when, on Tuesday night, he came out swinging at the media, blaming them for his party’s shellacking. With Nixonian petulance, he rejected suggestions that his party tanked because he had put all its eggs in Monica’s basket. Well, the media charge is laughably bogus. Yet what else is there to do but grasp at scapegoats when, in the blink of an eye, the discussion moves from “Can Clinton Survive?” to whether you can?
And today isn’t a federal holiday because…???
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 16, 2011
JEERS to following the herd. Last week Mainers rejected a ban on same-day voter registration by a margin of 61-39, a double-kabubble-landslide of epic proportions. So how are Republicans up here reacting to the people’s unequivocal demand to keep their mitts off our excellent voting system? Of course…they’re following the lead of GOP legislatures across the country by going after stricter Voter ID requirements:
State Rep. Ben Chipman, an independent from Portland, said that he views the proposal to require IDs as he viewed the rejected law eliminating same-day registration—a solution in search of a problem. “I’m strongly opposed to any type of measures that make it harder for people to vote,” said Chipman, who serves on the Veterans and Legal Affairs committee that will take up the bill again in January. “We don’t have a problem.”
That should be their new motto: Republicans: We don’t fix problems. We “fix” “problems.”
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And just one more…
JEERS to eye candy denied. Well, poo. I waited all day for Steve Bannon’s mug shot to be published, but apparently whatever namby-pamby channel of the justice system is processing him, it doesn’t do mug shots.
I should back up: Bannon surrendered like a lily-livered coward to federal authorities yesterday to be processed in anticipation of his trial on contempt-of-Congress charges. Naturally, I thought that there would be a mug shot, and I was going to post it down here so we could all have a big laugh about it. But I’m just a simple caveman, and I don’t understand your—[waggles fingers wildly]—strange American legal system. There is no mugshot, apparently. So, in a fit of panic, we’re posting this one as a replacement:
See that? It matches the color of his soul. We’re nothing if not thoughtful.
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
“If we are going to have one nation under Bill in Portland Maine—which we must—we have to have one Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool.”
