❧ Now that the “shaman” traitor has been sentenced to over three years in prison, I’m dying to see video of the desk sergeant trying to fit his horns into one of those little plastic personal-belongings baggies.
❧ Thanks to President Biden, Americans are finally allowed to very strongly and beautifully say “Happy Holidays” again.
Continued…
❧ When Republicans defeat Democrats in an election, the media lecture Democrats to compromise with Republicans because “they have a mandate.” When Democrats defeat Republicans in an election, the media lecture Democrats to compromise with Republicans because “they’re hurting and need to be reached out to.”
❧ The main reason I enjoy the cold, dark time of year is it keeps the swarms of Airbnbers down.
❧ If you get your health insurance through healthcare.gov, you have 27 days left to enroll for coverage starting January 1.
❧ If you want to punish Congressman Paul Gosar for his actions in a way that really stings, take away his jackboots.
❧ Banning books only makes them more popular.
❧ To increase his reelection chances, Senator Mark Kelly should start delivering floor speeches in his astronaut suit.
❧ “Q” is just a self-perpetuating scavenger hunt of the insane. “Go find the child sacrifice room in the pizza parlor.” “Go find zombie JFK Jr.” “Go find the CIA director duct-taped to a chair in Germany.” “Go find critical race theory in a public school.” “Go find bamboo fibers in a ballot.” No one ever wins.
❧ And finally, sadly: Ben Carson never found his luggage.
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 18, 2021
Note: For those of you cooking Thanksgiving turkeys weighing over 250 pounds, today’s the day to pop ’em in the oven. And also the day to realize you’re going to need a bigger oven.
Decline in the number of containers sitting on docks at the port of Los Angeles over the last month: 29%
Value of the global cold and flu-related supplement market in 2019: $14 billion
Age of the Egg McMuffin as of this year: 50
Age of LSD, which makes Egg McMuffins come alive, as of last Tuesday: 83
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
[W]ouldn’t it be really fun to make every pundit and pollster in America look like a complete idiot? I must confess, that’s my idea of a good time. Wouldn’t it be great to see every one of them whomper-jawed on Nov. 4? Sam, George, Cokie, Dan, Tom and Peter – all of them speechless. What joy! (I don’t actually know these people; I’m just adopting their habit of referring to people they’ve never met, such as “Monica,” as though they were close personal friends.)
Of course, in order to achieve these happy results, you [unlikely voters] would have to vote mostly Democratic, and let me warn you right now that voting for any obvious idiots you find on that side of the ballot is not a solution. This is a point I try to make every election, no matter what your party preference: Please don’t vote for drivel-heads, even if you do favor one party over the other. On the other hand, if the Democrats have managed to nominate someone who seems fairly rational and is concerned about the global economy, education and Social Security, don’t miss this chance to Send Them A Message, Avoid More Months of Monica and make every commentator in America look like a perfect fool. […]
Now is the time for all good unlikelies to come to the aid of their country. We really are in something of a dire pickle here. Setting aside this tawdry soap opera into which Clinton and Kenneth Starr have dragged us, both democracy and capitalism are at stake here.
—October 1998
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Puppy Pic of the Day: in Grand Ridge Florida—Saved!!!
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CHEERS to rollin’ up the ol’ sleeves and takin’ one for the team. To recap: getting vaccinated protects you and those around you. If you don’t get covid, you can’t spread covid. And what we know about the covid vaccine at this point is that its effectiveness can wane, so you need a booster shot. And today that advice may become official:
If you’re really good and eat all your vegetables, you can get your booster shot in this booster seat.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 booster shot for all adults within days, according to a person familiar with the plans.
The FDA’s action could come as early as Thursday. The news was first reported by The New York Times. […]
Pfizer requested emergency use authorization for the booster last week, citing results from a Phase 3 clinical trial with more than 10,000 participants, which found that the third dose was safe and effective.
But the most important functions of the booster shot are to a) install a fresh AAAAAAAA battery in your government tracking chip from the first shot and b) update the socialist propaganda talking points in your cerebrum from the second shot. (Oh, science…is there nothing you can’t do?)
CHEERS to herding America’s worst cow into the pokey. A chapter of the Republican insurrection against the U.S. government came to an end yesterday as the most mocked figure during the treasonous event was handed his punishment. This oughtta shut him up for awhile:
Jacob Chansley, the self-described “QAnon Shaman” who infamously marched through the U.S. Capitol with a spear and horned helmet during the Jan. 6 riot, was sentenced Wednesday to 41 months in prison for his role in the attack.
One of the benefits that this asshole enjoys by living in the country whose system of government he tried to destroy: In other countries, he would’ve been hanged.
It matches the longest sentence handed down to any Jan. 6 participant, following the 41-month sentence handed down last week to Scott Fairlam, a former mixed martial arts fighter who pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer during the riot.
“What you did here was horrific,” Judge Royce Lamberth said during the sentencing hearing. “It is the type of conduct that is so serious that I cannot justify downward departure [from sentencing recommendations].”
According to the ABC News account above, Captain Cattle Breath expressed contrition by citing—[checks notes]—Clarence Thomas. For that they shoulda put him away for 41 years.
CHEERS to headin’ down the home stretch. A sure sign of the impending and blessed demise of 2021. This week we noticed that the constellation Orion is hovering low on the horizon after dark:
Orion, which is located on the celestial equator, is one of the most prominent and recognizable constellations in the sky and can be seen throughout the world. […]
Alnilam, Mintaka and Alnitak, which form Orion’s belt, are the most prominent stars in the Orion constellation. Betelgeuse, the second brightest star in Orion, establishes the right shoulder of the hunter. Bellatrix serves as Orion’s left shoulder. […]
A rather mind-blowing graphic, courtesy of NASA.
With one exception, all of the main stars in Orion are bright young blue giants or super giants, ranging in distance from Bellatrix (243 light-years) to Alnilam (1,359 light-years). The Orion Nebula is farther away than any of the naked eye stars at a distance of about 1,600 light-years. One light-year is the distance light travels in a single year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).
For the rest of the fall and winter it will be our nightly companion when we take the dog out to go pee. If tradition holds—and it does or else it wouldn’t be a tradition—from here on out the rest of the year will be a blur and then…[Blink!]…welcome to 2022. Keep some aloe on hand for the windburn.
In the most recent four months with revisions, June through September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported it underestimated job growth by a cumulative 626,000 jobs—that’s the largest underestimate of any other comparable period, going back to 1979.
If those revisions were themselves a jobs report, they’d be an absolute blockbuster.
This has been today’s edition of Oops.
JEERS to drinking the Kool-Aid (as in, really drinking the Kool-Aid, except perhaps not, which I’ll explain in a moment). There’s a paragraph in the late Randy Shilts’s brilliant book, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, that reveals the Rev. Jim Jones’ influence in San Francisco politics (Mayor Moscone actually made him chairman of the city Housing Authority, if you can believe that) during the mid-70s, before he moved his sheeple to Guyana:
“Make sure you’re always nice to the Peoples Temple,” [Milk] admonished [campaign volunteer Tory Hartmann].
“Weird and dangerous.”
“If they ask you to do something, do it, and then send them a note thanking them for asking you to do it. They’re weird and they’re dangerous, and you never want to be on their bad side.”
No shit. Today is the 43rd anniversary of the infamous Jonestown massacre. At least 900 followers drank grape Flavor Aid (not Kool-Aid) laced with cyanide. Time’s cover said it all: Cult of Death. By the way, what’s the difference between the Jones cult and the Republican party? What Republicans want to force down our throat will kill all of us.
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 18, 2011
CHEERS to simple explanations of complicated issues. If you find yourself scratching your head over just what the hell is going on with the European economy, here’s good news! I’ve hired a crack team of economic experts to summarize the situation in plain language, so you can manage your international investment portfolio with confidence. Here’s what happened this week:
Relief, Panic, Relief, Panic, Double-panic, Panic, Relief, Relief, Panic, Panic…[Lunch from 12-3pm: Merkel eats a sausage, Sarkozy eats a baguette, Italy makes passionate love, followed by nappytime]…Tentative relief, Panic, Relief, Whoops no that was really panic, Panic, Relief, and Panic.
Join us next week for another update, which our C&J experts are now busily preparing for by picking fleas out of each other’s fur.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to letters from the C&J mailbag. Sent via Three-Toed-Sloth Mail to ensure it gets to the recipient faster than Louis DeJoy’s U.S. Postal Service:
Dear Santa,
Hi. How are you. I am fine. If the ice at the North Pole hasn’t completed swamped your workshop by the time you receive this, I would like the following for Christmas:
It is only 800 dollars.
I have been a good boy this year. Except that one time that you probably read about. But it was an accident, and besides the rebuilding is ahead of schedule.
Regards to the missus.
Billy
I’m listing you all as character references. Don’t disappoint me. I have videos.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
