From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Sticks and Stones
Just for shits and giggles, and as an assist to future historians studying Obama Derangement Syndrome, I've been making occasional forays into righty blogistan's scummiest back alleys (World Net Daily, Fox Nation, Breitbart---places where no mundane daily event occurs without getting woven into an End Times prophecy) to find and pluck some of the thoughtful nicknames that the conservative base has come up with for President Barack Obama. This third batch will probably be the last. Their troll hearts just don’t seem to be in it a hundred percent anymore. In no particular order:
Barry (of course)…Barry Schmuck…Barak (who Google tells me is a mighty Hebrew warrior who defied great odds to serve God)…Obammy...Obola...Obommunist...Obooboo...Obaboon...EMPEROROBAMA…Obummer (and its cousin "Obumma")…DICtator…Commie-in-Chief…Obamarama…Oblaba.
Okay, Oblaba's not bad, but so far this is a sorry list. Step it up, guys...
Bozo (and its cousin Obozo)…Oblowhard…OSoros…OneBigAssMistakeAmerica (See what they did there? Clever!)…Obamao…Mohammed Obama…Obamadinejad...O'bottom (and its cousin Obuttma)…oblamer...Obongo…okie doke.
And, of course: BIG EARS!
But mostly they just call him Obama or "The president" these days. He wore 'em down and tuckered 'em out. They’re very low-energy now, the Obama bashers are.
Sad!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Note: Due to circumstances beyond our control, the C&J gift shop will no longer stock Baby's First Sawblade bouncing crib toy. Legally that's all we're allowed to say at this time. Have a nice day. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til fall: 15
Days 'til the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Atlanta: 3
Percent of Americans who support and oppose, respectively, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, according to Pew Research: 37% / 39%
Average June-through-August temperature in Portland, Maine, a new all-time record high: 68.9F
Number of tickets issued for texting-while-driving in New York in 2011 and 2015, respectively, according to AP: 9,000 / 85,000
Number of states with no-texting-while-driving laws: 46
Number of clothing stores that were shut down in Iran for offenses ranging from selling apparel with English words on it to selling "unhygienic" second-hand clothes: 800
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Mid-week Rapture Index:
188 (including 4 Kings of the East and 1 wanted polygamist who done up and raptured himself before the rest of us was ready, dangblast it). Soul Protection Factor 12 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In South Africa, the first confirmed case of puppy identical twins...
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CHEERS to supporting the troops. Hillary Clinton and Donald trump square off tonight on veteran's issues and national security, although they won’t be sharing the stage together. The "Commander-in-Chief" town hall forum Town hall starts at 8ET on MSNBC, and it's sponsored by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America:
“IAVA is proud to lead this historic event for our veterans community and all Americans,” said Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of IAVA.
“On the cusp of the 15th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, New York is a fitting stage to give voice to American veterans and service members that are all too often shut out of our political debate.
IAVA members world-wide, 93% of whom say they’ll be voting in November, and many deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, are ready to hear from the candidates and hold them accountable.
On the Democratic side: a former senator and Secretary of state who has extensive knowledge and experience with national security issues and policies affecting veterans, but who voted to give President Cuckoo Bananas permission to send many future IAVA members to Iraq (a decision she now admits was totally fucked up because Bush turned out to be as trustworthy as Lucy holding the football). On the Republican side: this idiot (no, not the gentleman below in the Navy hat---I mean the idiot speaking in this tough Clinton ad)...
Hillary will be judged by the standards of a Ph.D.-level exam. Trump will be judged by the standards of how well he conceals the bobby pins in his hair.
JEERS to private-sector Fail. Republicans want America to be run like a profit-driven business. But it never seems to work out so well, whether it's hellhole prisons or lazy-ass IRS contractors. Here's the latest example, and as you read this remember that private-sector humper Donald Trump will be claiming to be the champion of veterans tonight:
ITT aggressively recruited veterans such as Pecoraro, in part to stay compliant with a rule that requires at least 10 percent of a for-profit college's tuition money to come from sources other than federal loans.
Now, as ITT is collapsing under the weight of federal sanctions, thousands of veterans fear that their hard-earned education benefits will have been wasted.
Pecoraro, 32, of Round Rock, Texas, is relatively lucky. He graduated in 2014, two years before the Obama administration dropped the hammer on ITT. Veterans who are still enrolled in classes have the most to lose if Carmel-based ITT Educational Services Inc. goes out of business in the coming weeks or months, as virtually all analysts predict.
And why is ITT facing such harsh penalties by the feds? Because the top management is a den of gravy-sopping predators and they finally got busted for fraud. And because the suddenly classroom-less students will have their ITT debts forgiven, that means you and I pick up the tab---a cool half a billion dollars that could've made a helluva difference in the non-profit public education system. Oh well. Live and learn. Just not at ITT.
JEERS to an unequal settlement. Roger Ailes spends years sexually harassing female personnel at Fox News (and many other women, according to their lawsuits, apparently going back as far as freaking 1968) and gets to walk away with $40 million. Gretchen Carlson, one of the targets of Ailes' wandering tallywacker, gets $20 million in a settlement:
The settlement includes an apology to former Fox host Gretchen Carlson, whose sexual harassment suit against Ailes prompted an internal inquiry by the network’s parent company, which quickly resulted in Ailes’ resignation under pressure as other female Fox personnel made allegations of harassment.
A news release today from the parent company, 21st Century Fox, did not disclose the terms. But Vanity Fair quoted three people familiar with the settlement as saying that Carlson would receive $20 million under the settlement.
Forty mil for the harasser, twenty mil for the harassee. A ratio of 2:1. That's worse than the going non-harassment workplace rate of 78 she-cents for every he-dollar. Ailes, by the way, is now working as an official, guilt-free debate coach on the campaign of the Republican nominee for president. There's a term for that: IOKIYAR on steroids.
CHEERS to artisans doing that artisanry they do. Maine Governor Paul LePage may not have poisoned an entire city like Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan, or destroyed a state's economy like Sam Brownback of Kansas, or openly gone to war with the LGBT community like Pat McCrory in North Carolina. But he's without question the biggest racist homophobe moron governor in the country. And a very artistically-inclined someone here in Portland decided to make that very plain on a free-speech-protected graffiti wall:
More on the story here. Personally, I like this artist. He spraypaints it like it is!
JEERS to times I wish I wasn’t a member of polite society. I was always taught that you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead at least until they’re planted in the ground and the worms have signed leases with the landlord and moved in. So I will think of something nice to say about Phyllis Schlafly, who died at 90-something after choking on a mixture of Diet Coke and Pop Rocks over the weekend. Um…okay I thought of something: that brooch she wore that one time was kinda sparkly. Ha---didn’t think I could do it, didja? (Full disclosure: I did throw up a little.)
CHEERS to Republican rhetoriticians. Speaking of obnoxious Republicans: I can't stand former speechwriter Peggy Noonan's concern-troll smugness on the Sunday shows, but I never jeer someone on their birthday (her 66th). She wrote some of Reagan's most famous (non-Hollywood) lines, and was both an asset to George H.W. Bush ("A kinder, gentler nation"), and a liability ("Read my lips---no new taxes"). But she really shit the bed in 2012 when she exclaimed that Romney was a lock to defeat President Obama because “all the vibrations are right." HaHaHaHa!!! And her advice on editing is a bit flawed...
Remember the waterfront shack with the sign FRESH FISH SOLD HERE. Of course it's fresh, we're on the ocean. Of course it's for sale, we're not giving it away. Of course it's here, otherwise the sign would be someplace else. The final sign: FISH.
Of course, what Peggy seems to overlook is that fish is also a verb, so the "FISH" sign might cause people to go fishing instead of visiting the shack with the fresh fish sold here, thus causing it to file for bankruptcy. And all this time I thought the righties were pro-business.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 7, 2006
CHEERS to the gift that just keeps on giving. Add Condi Rice to the list of administrationistas diving into the wading pool of wankery:
"I'm sure there are people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold," Rice said in the new issue of Essence magazine.
"I know there were people who said, 'Why don't we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves?'" Rice said.
Later today, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings will explain how we suffered irreparable harm when we failed to nuke Grenada. The tragic lessons of history...
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And just one more…
CHEERS to breaking the silence. Here's a question our ancestors never got to answer in the affirmative: "Hey, have you heard Jupiter yet?" But thanks to the whiz kids tending to the care and feeding of NASA's Juno spacecraft, you can---with a mere click of your mouse---"hear" Jupiter's auroras. This sounds so 50's Ed Wood Plan 9 From Outer Space that I half expect to see pie tins come floating down on strings. But how cool to get this from 483,000,000 miles away…
Of course, if I lived on Jupiter and heard that I'd be calling the cops, because goddammit I'm tryin' to sleep here!
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Bill Clinton Was ‘Really Dumbfounded’ by Trump’s Cheers and Jeers Visit: It ‘Damaged the Kiddie Pool’
---Mediaite
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