Oh! More Things I Know: 

❧ There are 61 days ‘til the midterm elections.

❧ Democrats feel your pain. Republicans inflict it.

❧  You can tell when you’re in the presence of a “special master” by the sequins on their skin-tight black leather unitards.

❧ One of the more unexplainable things about the BA.5 variant of the Covid virus when you look through a microscope is it wears corduroys.

❧ Never in my 58 years have I seen such an absolute failure to take the parenting of our children seriously. I'm speaking, of course, of the parents of the children who grew up to be the gullible, violent, soulless, red hat-wearing, right-wing dipshit MAGA cultists.

❧ Scranton lunch-bucket schlub Joe Biden’s approval rating is higher than both Donald Trump’s and Ronald Reagan’s were at this point in their presidencies...and they were saints chosen by God!

❧ Other than the thousand-year killer floods and thousand-year killer droughts and thousand-year killer heat waves, it’s been a delightfully pleasant summer.

❧ Right now, as I write this, Rosalynn Carter is spotting for Jimmy Carter in Plains while he bench-presses a Buick.

❧ Six months after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Mikhail Gorbachev died from a combination of chronic illness and acute embarrassment.

❧ The worst part for me about fighting in our second Civil War is saddle sores. The second worst part is sucking in a bunch of campfire smoke while playing my plaintive harmonica at dusk.

❧ The bad news: we’re all food for worms. The good news: they tell me that with a little ketchup we ain’t half bad.

And now, our feature presentation…

Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 8, 2022

Note: NFL season starts today as the Los Angeles Rams host the Buffalo Bills.  I believe that's your cue to start tap dancing with sparklers. Or something.

Weeks 'til the start of fall: 2

Days 'til the Steam-O-Rama in Republic, Missouri : 7

Number of passengers U.S. officials screened over the four-day Labor Day weekend, the first time holiday weekend volume exceeded pre-pandemic levels: 8.76 million

Amount for which CVS is buying Signify Health, which offers at-home health care visits: $8 billion

Number of doctors/clinicians and patients, respectively, currently in Signify Health's system: 10,000 / 2.5 million

Number of LGBTQ-themed titles that debuted at this year's Venice Film Festival: 30

Age of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan as of this year: 40

Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:

Oh dear. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. In Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, of planning to “cut and run” on Iraq.

Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. “I just could not believe he would say that to me,” said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?

The legislative equivalent of that remark is the detainee bill now being passed by Congress. Beloveds, this is so much worse than even that pathetic deal reached last Thursday between the White House and Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The White House has since reinserted a number of “technical fixes” that were the point of the putative “compromise.” It leaves the president with the power to decide who is an enemy combatant.

This bill is not a national security issue—this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies.

Puppy Pic of the Day: Tis the season…

CHEERS to primary fevuh!  Here's a riddle for ya. Q: There was a primary election Tuesday, but not in a state or a territory—HOW CAN THIS BE???  A: It took place in a commonwealth. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! That always slays 'em down at the Comedy Connection. But seriously, folks. A tiny sliver of Massachusetts voters drove like f*cking maniacs to the polls Tuesday to vote on various races, the marquee one of which was the governor's race. (Moderate two-term Republican Charlie Baker decided to cut bait.) And now the November matchup has been decided:

Geoff Diehl, a former state representative [and 2020 election-result denier] endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has won the Republican nomination for Massachusetts governor over businessman Chris Doughty, who was considered the more moderate candidate in the race.

The victory for Diehl sets up a general election contest against Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, who would be the first openly gay person and the first woman elected governor if she wins in November.

Healey has said she would work to expand job training programs, make child care more affordable and modernize schools. Healey has also said she would protect “access to safe and legal abortion in Massachusetts ” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.  [Note: Diehl doesn’t mention abortion on his web site. —BiPM]

A MAGAt humping an endorsement by a guy who steals (and loses) classified intelligence…versus a traditional Democrat in a state (sorry...commonwealth) Biden won by over 30 points. I'll rate this race as soon as my Magic 8-Ball stops rolling its eyes.

CHEERS   to the new talkie machine on the block. For just $799—plus tax, title, licensing fee, twenty-year wireless contract, first-born child, and $50 extra for rust-proofing and mud flaps—you can have an iPhone 14  of your very own. The latest model got unveiled yesterday by executives in turtlenecks taking turns walking around on-stage muttering, "Hmm, that's weird—it worked fine in rehearsal" to wild distorted cheers and applause from their millions of Zoom watchers. Here are some exciting new features in the new model:

» 34xT569yu to replace the 34xT569yt

» 18 cameras with free six-count starter pack of flash bulbs

» Fully dockable with the International Space Station

» Bionic arm that can whip a peach pit with 100% accuracy from 80 yards

» Optional 23iTT59097 pack to enhance the 34xT569yu  (But don’t use it to enhance your 5675jg77 or the room's gonna get real smoky real fast.)

» Manufactured with new and improved Chinese child labor

» Tim Cook will have a drone come to your house and deliver a pot pie he made himself with his own two hands and lots of love

Sadly, no room in it for a phone.

HUZZAH  to the secession squisher.  Happy 194th birthday to  General Joshua Chamberlain  from the Great State of Maine. In 1863 he held Little Round Top against overwhelming odds during the battle of  Gettysburg , saving the north from being ruled by Lee and the forebears of our own brain-damaged January 6 insurrection. Amazingly it took  thirty years for Congress to approve his Medal of Honor:

The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 2 July 1863, while serving with 20th Maine Infantry, in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for daring heroism and great tenacity in holding his position on the Little Round Top against repeated assaults, and carrying the advance position on the Great Round Top

Then, suffering from a host of war-related ailments and injuries, he came back home to be  Maine 's governor for four years (winning his third one-year term in 1868 with 72 percent of the vote). Today we consider him our state's #1 hero. Well, if you don’t count the guy from  Farmington who invented earmuffs.

A whale shark gliding through bioluminescent algae appears to be swimming in space. Credit: Mike Nultypic.twitter.com/JZSz9TJEWy

JEERS   to undeserved free passes.  Forty-eight years ago today, President Ford committed the unpardonable sin of  granting an unconditional pardon   to Richard "I am not a crook except when I am" Nixon.  He said it was absolutely necessary to help "heal" the country.  To this day I still have no idea what that means.  I don't remember anyone losing their shit over the Watergate hearings, do you? Everyone I knew pretty much laughed their asses off as he fled with his tail between his legs and an approval rating in the mid-20s.

Final verdict on the pardon:  bad  call.  The American people were robbed of the opportunity to see that, when the president does what Tricky Dick did, it  IS illegal .  Bless the late David Frost for coaxing that jaw-dropping nugget out of that dirty crook.

CHEERS to today's edition of Yeah…You Do That. Courtesy of Jim Jordan, the creepiest MAGA congressman in Ohio (and that's saying something):

“What’s your what your messaging advice to Republicans messaging abortion [after the repeal of Roe v. Wade],” followed up Brian Kilmeade.

“Lean into it. … I don’t think we should shy away from it. ”

This has been today's edition of Yeah…You Do That.

Ten years ago in C&J: September 8, 2012

CHEERS to putting your ink where your mouth is. For the first time in the history of the United States of America, this is officially in a major party platform, and no I'm not gonna tell you which one because I suspect you can guess:

Freedom to Marry. We support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference.

I don’t know what surprises me more: that gay marriage made it into the document so easily this year, or that the response from the other side has been mostly a big shrug. The only conservatives you'll hear complaining about it are the religious zealots who people look at more as flim-flam weasels out to scare their dwindling flock into coughing up donations to keep the Lavender Horde at bay (read: help Reverend Huckster make another mortgage payment on his beach house). Now, um…would it be too early to talk about adding a "free gay ATM" plank in 2016? Pretty please?

CHEERS  to an enduring enterprise.  One way I kept my sanity during The Plague was a mandatory viewing of an episode of the ahead-of-its-time outer space saga that is the original  Star Trek  TV series, that does for our brain what a warm pair of slippers does for our feet.  Today is the 56th anniversary of the premiere of what creator Gene Roddenberry called "Wagon Train to the Stars." The issues  Trek  took on—war, peace, technology (for good and evil), racism, gender, greed, and others, all handled so deftly by the writers and cast that Martin Luther King Jr. became a fan—still resonate and make the series eminently watchable today. (We still catch it every night at 8ET on the H&I network and live-tweet it for yucks at #allstartrek.)   Here's how William Shatner describes it in his autobiography,  Up Till Now:

The general consensus among respected philosophers is that  Star Trek  was successful and has endured because our stories focused on universal themes—which of necessity took place elsewhere in the universe because they were about subjects that couldn’t be easily tackled by conventional programming.  Gene Roddenberry once said that the real mission of the  Enterprise   was to search for intelligent life on the other side of the television set.

While the grand theme of our five-year mission was always good versus evil, we also did stories about racism, sexism, authoritarianism, class warfare, imperialism, human and parahuman and alien rights, and the insanity of war.  Nichelle Nichols and I shared the first interracial kiss on American television—which several southern stations refused to broadcast—although we were compelled to kiss by space aliens controlling our minds.

Today, then, is a good day to  review the basics:

All I Need to Know About Life I learned from Star Trek

• Seek out new life and civilizations.

• Non-interference is the Prime Directive.

• Keep your phaser set on stun.

• There's no such thing as a Vulcan death grip.

• Having is not so pleasing as wanting; it is not logical but it is often true.

• Infinite diversity in infinite combinations (IDIC).

• Tribbles hate Klingons (and Klingons hate Tribbles).

• Enemies are often invisible—like Romulans, they can be cloaked.

• Don't put all your ranking officers in one shuttlecraft.

• When your logic fails, trust a hunch.

• Insufficient data does not compute.

• If it can't be fixed, just ask Scotty.

• Even in our own world, sometimes we are aliens.

• When going out into the Universe, remember:

"Boldly go where no one has gone before!"

Also: don’t screw around with the transporter—it's  not  a #!!&$! toy. I realize that now. (Sorry, Grandma, wherever you are.)

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

Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial

Now that I’ve experienced the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool, I wish I could go back in time and live in a world where I didn’t.