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Hard to believe that 14 years ago this week America lost Molly Ivins (who considered Daily Kos one of her favorite blogs) at 62. Cancer got her, but she was full of fight right to the end.
In their must-read (or, if you already own a copy, must-re-read) biography, Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life, Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith describe her as "a latter-day Mark Twain-meets-Will Rogers...the wisecracking social commentator who gleefully teed up on anyone whose boot heels clicked across the marble floors in the House of Power."
Continued...
Every week I take an exhilarating swan-dive into the Ivins archive pool to retrieve a relevant snippet for our "Thursday Molly Ivins Moment," and I'm always amazed how little her writing has aged. Her progressive take on health care, civil liberties, war & peace, the environment, and Republican jerkitude remain fresh and relevant to this day. A few snips to tickle your dendrites…
» “Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.”
» “How can you not love Texas politics? You pick up the paper in the morning and it's kind of like finding Fidel Castro in the refrigerator.”
»Molly’s assessment of Pat Buchanan's ‘culture war’ speech at the 1992 Republican convention: "It probably sounded better in the original German."
» “We get so scared of something—scared of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens—that we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing freedom. Never works. It's still true: the only thing to fear is fear itself.”
» “My friend Mercedes Pena made me get in touch with my emotions just before I had a breast cut off. Just as I suspected, they were awful. ‘How do you Latinas do this—all the time in touch with your emotions?’ I asked her. ‘That's why we take siestas,’ she replied.”
» “I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”
» “Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
Cheers, Molly, wherever you are, and thank you for providing us with such an enduring moral compass.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers forThursday, February 4, 2021
Note: Now that President Biden has things well under control, we can finally let go of the reins for a brief battery-recharging day. So no C&J Monday, but we’ll return Tuesday. And if everything goes according to plan, we’ll be ready to unveil our new secret weapon: the Episcopalian Space Laser. Um...bwoo-ha-ha? —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
10 days!!!
Days 'til Valentine's Day: 10
Percent of Americans surveyed by Pew who believe Blacks, women, and LGBT Americans, respectively, will gain influence in Washington with Joe Biden as president: 65%, 63%, 60%
Percent who believe corporations and evangelical Christians, respectively, will gain influence: 30%, 9%
Number of bills now working their way through 28 state legislatures with the express purpose of stomping on minority voting rights, according to the Brennan Center for Justice: 106
Percent of Americans polled by Marist who believe Joe Biden's predecessor should be convicted of incitement of insurrection in the Senate, versus 41% who say no: 50%
Percent of Maine's 618 Covid-19 deaths that have occurred since Thanksgiving: 65%
Percent chance that Jen Ellis is teaming up with the Vermont Teddy Bear Company to produce mass quantities of her mittens that Bernie Sanders wore to the inauguration, with some proceeds going to Make A Wish Vermont: 100%
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced an agreement Wednesday with Republicans to organize the evenly split chamber, ending a weekslong standoff that prevented the new Democratic majority from setting up some operations and soured relations at the start of the congressional session.
These belong to the Democrats now.
Schumer, D-N.Y., said that he and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had agreed on committee ratios and other details in the 50-50 chamber, where Democrats have the slim edge because Vice President Kamala Harris is a tie-breaking vote.
Senators can now promptly “get to work, with Democrats holding the gavels,” Schumer said.
Among other things, Lindsey Graham is no longer in charge of the Judiciary Committee. Hallelujah, y'all.
JEERS to stupid human tricks. Just when you think Americans are slowly getting the hang of this whole "prevent the spread of coronavirus so we can get back to normal life faster" thing, along comes another excuse to unlearn it all. Via David Leonhardt's New York Times morning email update:
Coronavirus cases in the U.S. have surged after almost every major holiday of the past year, including Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. This weekend brings another major holiday, even if it’s not an official one: Super Bowl Sunday. And there is reason to worry that it will turn into Superspreader Sunday.
Another dumb event to die for.
Two separate surveys —one by Seton Hall University and one by the National Retail Federation—found that nearly 30 percent of adults said they would attend a gathering at someone’s home or watch the game at a restaurant or a bar.
If anything, this weekend may be more dangerous than most holidays. Super Bowl parties are usually indoors and can involve more households than a holiday meal. This year’s game is also happening when contagious new variants of the virus have begun to spread.
You may commence banging your head on the nearest table at will, Gridley.
CHEERS to #1. On February 4, 1789, George Washington—who was always “the tallest man in the room”—clinched the presidency with 69 electoral votes. Upon hearing the news, he said his feelings were "not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution." His first official act: providing all Americans equal access to quality mattresses at low, low discount prices, a fine February tradition that lives on to this day.
CHEERS to pest removal. If Republicans are too dumb to do the deed, Democrats will—again—do it for them:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Wednesday that the House of Representatives would vote Thursday on whether to strip embattled Rep.Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., of her committee assignments after Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy failed to take action against her. […]
Mask goes over your treason holes, dummy.
A group of House Democrats introduced are solution this week to remove Greene from her two committee assignments after more of her inflammatory and false statements from before she was elected came to light. Those statements included social media activity in which Greene liked posts calling for violence against prominent Democrats and a speech in which said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was "guilty of treason" and that treason is "a crime punishable by death."
Hmm. What goes best with watching a Confederate sympathizer get booted from her assignments on C-Span: I’m thinking a Georgia Peach with a twist. (The twist is, after you drink it you throw the glass into the nearest dumpster.)
CHEERS to the gift that just kept on giving. Happy birthday to former Vice President Dan Quayle, who turns 74 today, and of whom Molly Ivins once said, "If you put that man's brain in a bumblebee, it would fly backwards." He certainly wasn't an evil vice president like Dick Cheney or Mike Pence, but I still want to see him tried in the International Criminal Court for torturing the English language:
“If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure.”
Yes, the lamestream media was alive and well decades ago.
“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is 'to be prepared.'”
“What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”
"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."
"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
You’re still no Jack Kennedy, Dan. But you're also not your un-self-aware son who said in this campaign ad that Barack Obama was “the worst president in history” and then got booted after one sorry-ass term in Congress. So for today only—in honor of the occasion and for all the laughter ya brung us—we'll let potato have an e.
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Ten years ago in C&J:February 4, 2011
CHEERS to the days of their lives. In Egypt, protesters designated today a ”Day of Departure.” This follows the Day of Rage, Day of Outrage, Day of Rage Against the Machine, Day of Stepping in $#!!% Camel Poo, Day of You Wanna Say That To My Face?, Day of "Gladys, It Looks Like We Picked the Wrong Day to Tour Cairo," and Day of “Whaddya Mean the Port-O-Potties Are Full, We've Only Been Protesting for Six Hours.” In a rare show of unity, all sides will take a break tomorrow for a Day of Boogie.
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And just one more...
Ike meets Hal as Mark.
CHEERS to the man who was Mark Twain longer than Mark Twain was Mark Twain. We end today's C&J the same way we started it: by remembering a great American. Sad to hear Tuesday thatactor Hal Holbrook died at 94, just four years after he'd stopped performing his one-man show Mark Twain Tonight!, during which he picked and chose from 14 hours of Twain monologue material he'd memorized and for which he won a Tony Award in 1966. (he also made a movie or two, and won a bunch of Emmys for his TV work.) He died on January 23rd, making it only three days into the presidency of Joe Biden. But given what he said a few years ago about Biden's predecessor, at least he got the pleasure of seeing #45 take his swan dive into an empty swimming pool:
"We have [Trump] who has been elected president now who is upending and destroying a great many of our American values...he's trying to distort the American dream, which he's doing every hour of the day."
Hal and my grandmother—25 years his senior and a big fan of Twain's while the old man was still alive—developed a friendship in the 1950s when he reached out to her for research as he fine-tuned Mark Twain Tonight! Grams was a Twain historian and wrote several reference books about him as well as the official biography of Twain’s daughter Clara. Hal said in a letter (below) to me several years ago:
Without Mark Twain At Your Fingertips [published in 1948] I would never have been able to put my show together. It opened the whole vista of Twain's work and led me onto paths where the gold nuggets lay waiting.
Being her favorite grandson (I have that in writing), we spoke often and she enjoyed letting me know what Hal was up to via a recent letter or phone conversation. She could be a scold, like when she told me she criticized him for sitting in the guest chair on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson with his legs too far apart. In the same letter, he confirmed it:
I should probably get this framed.
One of the thrills of my life was getting to attend Mark Twain Tonight! in Columbus, Ohio, when I was in college and Grams, then 86, was living out her final years at an assisted-living facility there.
After the show, Hal came out into the audience section (not backstage as he references above) to greet the folks who stuck around to meet him. Grams was moving slow with the aid of a cane, and as soon as Hal saw her walking with me down the aisle from her seat, he excused himself and walked right over to us, gave her a kiss and a long hug, and then they basked in each other’s presence as he spent the next few minutes telling everyone in that booming voice of his who this tiny scrappy lady with the blue hair was and what she meant to him and his career. It was a wonderful moment of appreciation and generosity, and for Grams an unexpected swan song of sorts.
Hal was a great man, on and off the stage and screen. He'll be missed.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
President Joe Biden told a group of 10 Republican senators their roughly $600 billion counteroffer on a new Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool was "way too small," top Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday following a virtual meeting with Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
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