Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday

Cheers and Jeers is a weekday Daily Kos post from the great state of Maine.

Tuesday Schedule: Justice Samuel Alito

6am – 8:30am   Wake up; breakfast served hot and punctual by the wife; praise the Christian Lord; log in with pseudonym to own libs on twitter with memes; kick cat

8:30am – 9:00am   Ride to work hoisted atop Roman shield carried by scantily-clad “foetus incubators”

9:00am – 10am   Work on draft ruling canceling all gay marriages

10:00am – 10:30am   Evil cackle practice

10:30am – 11:45am   Call Taliban to congratulate them on new head-to-toe burkha rule, then work on draft canceling U.S. women's freedom to dress themselves

11:45am – 2:15pm   Lunch with the corporate boys. Today's excuse for stiffing servers: "I don’t tip your kind."

2:15pm   Call the wife to remind it of early arrival home, so have my pipe, slippers and dinner ready by 5:49

2:16pm – 4pm   Preside over secret witch trial and, if she floats, impose death penalty

4pm – 5pm   Notice that oxygen and water are not mentioned in the Constitution; write first-draft of ruling turning all breathing and drinking allowances to corporations, with small exception carved out for straight white Christians.

5pm   Ride home in gilded carriage pulled by the blacks while working on draft ruling canceling interracial marriage

5:30pm – 6:30pm   Pipe, slippers, whiskey sours, supper; family fawning over Daddy time; kick cat

7pm – 11pm   Federalist Society poker night (Star Chamber 4, as blood is still being cleaned off walls in Chamber 3)

Midnight   Thank Angry God for creating white Christian nation; dream happy dreams of minority voter suppression

Schedule subject to change if unexpected opportunities for cruelty pop up. God Bless America.

And now, our feature presentation...

Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Note: Lint screens will fly at half staff today for National Lost Sock Memorial Day. They left us too early, darn them.

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By the Numbers:

• Days 'til the next full moon: 6

• Days 'til Hawaii's Big Island Chocolate Festival: 3

• Increase in hourly wages from a year ago, according to the Labor Dept.: 5.5%

• Amount Intuit has to pay back to TurboTax users because of deceptive advertising: $141 million

• Amount unscrupulous Republican political campaigns have to pay back to donors because of deceptive advertising: $0

• Amount a Texas woman paid at a Goodwill store for "a stunning statue" that turned out to be an ancient Roman bust that was over 2,000 years old: $35

• Total number of errors made in the 1886 World Series when the St. Louis Browns beat the Chicago White Stockings 4 games to 2: 63

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CHEERS to jobs, jobs, jobs! (Or as Fox News describes it, since it's good news: "Nothing, nothing, nothing to see here.")  If nothing else (and there's plenty else), President Biden has lorded over one hell of an employment comeback since taking office 16 months ago. The latest jobs report (+428,000) was released by the Labor Department via confetti cannon on Friday. Bill McBride at Calculated Risk says we reached a milestone last month:

This was another solid report. Excluding leisure and hospitality, the economy has added back all the jobs lost at the beginning of the pandemic. Leisure and hospitality gained 78 thousand jobs in April. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April of 2020, leisure and hospitality lost 8.20 million jobs, and are now down 1.44 million jobs since February 2020. So, leisure and hospitality has now added back about 83% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020.

Construction employment increased 2 thousand and is now 4 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. […] The headline unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%.

And once again we find ourselves asking: what about the Republicans in Congress who keep claiming that the Covid relief checks we got would just create a generation of moochers and takers and slackers? Oh, right…the masters of projection were just talking about themselves. The one thing at which they excel.

JEERS to maddening, morbid milestones. Remember when the previous president — a Republican whose followers still insist was chosen by God — assured us when Covid-19 broke out that “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero”? And then remember when we hit 50,000 deaths in April of 2020, and the previous president (plus all the Republican governors not located in the northeast) said relax, everything’s under control as long as we all just shove some UV light up our butts, inject some bleach into our veins, burn our masks, and swallow some livestock de-worming paste? And for reasons no one can explain, remember how it all spiraled out of control? A refresher...

May 2020: 100,000 deaths

September 2020: 200,000 deaths

December 2020: 300,000 deaths

January 2021: 400,000 deaths

February 2021: 500,000 deaths

June 2021: 600,000 deaths

November 2021: 700,000 deaths

December 2021: 800,000 deaths

February 2022: 900,000 deaths

And now, two years and change later, here we are: as of last Wednesday there have officially been at least 1 million deaths from Covid-19 in the United States, roughly the equivalent of the population of our 10^th-largest city (San Jose), and mostly taking dimwit Republicans who chose the least-effective vaccine known as “Jesus.”  Which, not coincidentally, is the word I'll be muttering to myself also for the millionth time today.

JEERS to that nagging itch of futility. 21 years ago this week, John Paul II became the first pope to enter a mosque.  He called for greater harmony between Christians and Muslims. Gee, that's going swell, don’t you think?

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to great moments in history. 227 years ago, the self-flushing toilet was patented. To quickly drain a bunch of turds from your building, you just pulled a chain. We’ve come a long way with plumbing since then, of course. But if you want to witness the same effect to commemorate the anniversary, just go to Fox News headquarters and pull the fire alarm.

CHEERS to joining the coolest club in Clubland.  I must say, this whole Rock and Roll Hall of Fame fad seems to have some staying power.  The 37th annual inductees were announced last week, and this year’s batch is heavy on pop with a little bit ‘o country:

Congrats to all the inductees, who will formally get their scepters and sashes in November.  But, once again, C&J must object — as we have every year since inductions began in 1986 — to the continued snub of musical supernova Shaun Cassidy, who made the world safe for slightly-askew painter's caps.  It's becoming increasingly difficult to tamp down the bitterness. Help us, President Biden ... you’re our only hope.

And just one more…

CHEERS to Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars!!!!

Sorry. Reflex. Happens whenever a new official trailer comes out. This is the new one for the Obi Wan Kenobi  series coming to the evil Disney Plus, with Hayden Christensen returning as Darth Vader, new evil imperial baddies (Hisssss!!!), some kid as Luke Skywalker, and John Williams writing the main theme YES I SAID JOHN WILLIAMS OMG OMG OMG!!!

May the Force be with it in — [checks watch] — 17 days.

Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial

”Some people will dismiss Cheers and Jeers as nonsense, and they could have a point.”

—Nicholas Barber

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Written by Bill in Portland Maine. Cross-posted (a day late) from Daily Kos.