Cheers and Jeers: Monday

Wednesday Under the threat of being fined millions of dollars by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Republicans in the Florida legislature pass a bill dissolving the Florida legislature.

The Mortgage Bankers Association releases the results of its latest mortgage purchase applications index. Experts predict the report will generate lots of “interest.” Ha Ha Ha Ha good one !!!

Thursday The House Jan. 6 Subcommittee hearings air on live prime time TV. Americans are exposed a horrifying glimpse of just how close their country came to becoming a dictatorship under Donald Trump before clicking over to see which former member of Trump’s inner circle is in the bald eagle costume on The Masked Singer.

Friday The University of Michigan‘s May consumer sentiment report comes out. Economists express optimism as the mood climbs from “flamboyantly indifferent” to “outlandishly nonplussed.”

For yet another week, the only one to make good on a promise of delivering change is the climate.

Have a great week — I dare you. And now, our feature presentation…

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Cheers and Jeers for Monday, June 6, 2022

Note: Our sincerest apologies for not warning the Daily Kos community in advance that we were changing from jeans to shorts over the weekend. Those of you who suffered retina burn as a result of viewing our blindingly-white bird legs without proper protection can submit a claim to C & J’s legal department. –Mgt.

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By the Numbers:

Days’ til the public House Jan. 6 Subcommittee hearings start: 3

Days’ til the Pork Rind Heritage Festival in Harrod, Ohio: 4

The last year that analysts say was as good for the teen job summer market as 2022 is expected to be: 2007

Duration of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as of last Friday: 100 days

Number of Americans who have applied to sponsor Ukrainian refugees: 45,000

Number of complaints against Tesla because their cars keep braking for no reason: 750

Number of Howard Johnson’s restaurants still open after the one in Lake George, New York closed last week: 0

NBA Finals:
Boston is tied with Golden State 1 game to 1

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Monday morning be like…

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CHEERS and JEERS to news from the workin ‘stiff desk. Good data on the May employment front, as announced Friday: 390,000 new jobs were created. More good news: the official unemployment rate remains at a low 3.6%. More good news: that was better than the experts not-very-expertly expected. So what to make of it all? More from Bill McBride at Calculated Risk:

Excluding leisure and hospitality, the economy has more than added back all the jobs lost at the beginning of the pandemic. Leisure and hospitality gained 84 thousand jobs in May…[s]o, leisure and hospitality has now added back about 84% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020.

Construction employment increased 36 thousand and is now 40 thousand above the pre-pandemic level.

In May, the year-over-year employment change was 6.5 million jobs. … Overall, this was another strong report.

The status of Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, remains the same from last month: hardly working.

CHEERS to seeing the rainbow at the end of the tunnel. Happy Pride Month! 30 days of parades, festivals, tacky (but appreciated) corporate tie-ins, and, of course, LGBTQ-related polling. One of the longer-running polls, by Gallup, measures support for same-sex marriage. Sorry, haters in Hater Landbut they’ve got some bad news for you oddballs:

Seventy-one percent of Americans say they support legal same-sex marriagewhich exceeds the previous high of 70% recorded in 2021 by one percentage point.

When Gallup first polled about same-sex marriage in 1996, barely a quarter of the public (27%) supported legalizing such unions. It would take another 15 years, until 2011, for support to reach the majority level. Then in 2015, just one month before the US Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, public support for legalizing gay marriage cracked the 60% level, and last year it reached the 70% mark for the first time.

The slowpokes to the acceptance table? Of course — the conservative God Squad, for whom “love thy neighbor” and “do unto others as you would have them do to you” are inviolable rules from God’s lips to their ears… right up until the moment they develop a convenient case of hearing loss. They really should pray harder for one ‘o them new Beltones.

CHEERS to D-Day. The largest amphibious landing in history, during which American Antifa forces invaded Europe to restore representative democracy, happened 78 years ago today. Eight years ago, President Obama flew over to France and delivered a moving tribute to the rapidly-dwindling number of veterans who waded ashore on that horrific yet awe-inspiring day:

Lengthy applause rang out as the US President said he was humbled by the presence of some of those veterans at the ceremony.

“Here, we do not just commemorate victory, as proud of that victory as we are; we do not just honor sacrifice, as grateful as the world is; we come to remember why America and our allies gave so much for the survival of liberty at this moment of maximum peril, “Obama said. Their story should remain “seared into the memory of a future world,” he said, describing Omaha as “democracy’s beachhead.”

He said, “It was here, on these shores, that the tide was turned in that common struggle for freedom. What more powerful manifestation of America“‘s commitment to human freedom than the sight of wave after wave of young men boarding those boats to liberate people they’d never met?”

The Atlantic has an interactive feature that shows you various scenes from D-Day and, with a click of your mouse or a touch of your finger, what they look like now. It’s pretty mind-blowing. True fact: to this day, George W. Bush is still a little confused as to why we went through all the trouble — after all, the intelligence was accurate, the threat was real, and there was no oil there. Crazy.

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to draining the dictionary. What? There was a National Spelling Bee this year? Strange — my Chippendales strippergram delivery guy told me nothing of this. Oh well. Congratulations to 14-year-old Harini Logan of San Antonio, who was the last contestant standing at the 2022 Bee in Orlando. It was a bit different this year:

Harini went head-to-head with Vikram Raju, 12, in the spell-off, a format that tested the contestants on how many words they could correctly spell within 90 seconds. Harini spelled 21 out of 26 words correctly, while Vikram got 15 out of 19 words right.

“I think honestly so surreal, it’s my fourth time at the Bee,” Harini said on stage holding the trophy. “This is such a dream, this is my fourth bee and I’m just so overwhelmed.”

Her winning word was “moorhen.” When asked what the word means, the judges responded: “Fifty thousand bucks, kid, if you spell it right.”

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Today our computers are so advanced that ignorant conservatives can receive Republican and Russian propaganda on their touch screens from websites that scramble their brains and convince them to actively work to knock the legs out from under our democratic system of government. But that’s nothing compared to the bar graphs you can make to get your ideas noticed in the workplace. (Ha ha — take that, Gary in accounting with your silly protractor.)

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Fifteen years ago in C&J: June 6, 2007

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And just one more…

CHEERS to self-critics from the great beyond. These words of Theodore Roosevelt’s were trotted out a lot by the left during the previous administration, and for good reason. The dude occupying the office was a narcissistic crybaby who made it dictatorishly-clear he would brook no criticism. Now we have a fact-based, thoughtful, well-read, experienced, and compassionate president at the helm. And Roosevelt’s 104-year-old words apply to our guy just as much. As a public service, C&J publishes our annual reminder …

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.

He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

—Theodore Roosevelt
The Kansas City Star7 May 1918

And so we shall.

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

There is no gas in Cheers and Jeers’ tank; there is no water in the kiddie pool. Here’s the thing: That’s okay! ”

—Linda Holmes, NPR

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