From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
And now a word from our sponsor…
Hello, friends! This holiday season, it's important to remember all the wonderful people in your life who have been good to you in 2013.
But it's also important to remember those bastards and jerks who've lied, cheated, swindled, insulted, extorted and otherwise tried to crap all over you in 2013. And Big Coal will be there to help you express your true feelings...
One for each GOP governor.
…for the CEO who cancels employee bonuses except for the senior executive staff.
…for the politicians who shut down the government and threaten to blow up the economy by taking the debt ceiling hostage.
…for the governors and legislatures who accept bribes from billionaires in exchange for dismantling unions and environmental laws; stomp on voters' rights; treat women like dirt; and refuse to expand the social safety net so that more people can get health insurance.
...for the neighbor who backed over your posies last summer and then denied it, even though the tire marks in your garden matched his Hummer's.
...for your sister-in-law who still sends you birther emails and sees communist infiltrators behind every tree.
…for Bible-thumping haters who export their anti-gay agenda to other countries in the name of "Christianity" when they feel their influence slipping away here.
...for conservative media hacks who spend December responding to their own fake "evidence" of a non-existent "war on Christmas."
But the worst of the worst of the
worst get Ted's coloring book.
For everyone on your list who tried to make life miserable this year, there's only one holiday gift you can rely on to adequately say, "Suck on this, ya big jerk." So call now and order a heapin' helpin' of 100 PERCENT PURE COAL.
One glance at that lump of bituminous blackness in their stocking and they'll get your message loud and clear.
Available in lignite, flame coal, gas coal, anthracite, coke and---for those really nasty peckerheads---coal ash slurry! Order today and get FREE shipping!
Coal: when you're pissed-off enough to send the very worst.
This message brought to you by the Holiday Coal Consortium, conveniently located next to that mountain over yonder with the top blown off. Wishing you and yours a holiday filled with tidings of mercury and joy.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, December 20, 2013
Note: Here's the schedule for the next week…
Tonight: No C&J unless it happens via immaculate conception. (Update: It's a MIRACLE!)
Monday morning: The usual crap.
Tuesday evening: Join us for A Very Special C&J Christmas Eve Bean Supper and Nudeblogging, plus the Sharing of the Conspiracy Theories
Wednesday and Thursday: A Very Special Two Days Off
Friday: Part 1 of A Very Special Look Back at 2013
Please join us. C&J will be a winter wonderland of frosted window panes, icicles, snowmen and chilled beverages. Mainly because we failed to take "Final Notice" seriously on our heating bill.
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15 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til 2014:
12
Days 'til the start of the
Skagit Eagle Festival in Concrete, Rockport and Marblemount, Washington:
15
Percent of Republicans who are unhappy with their party’s choices for president and Congress:
41%
Percent of Democrats who are unhappy with their party’s choices for president and Congress:
14%
(Source: Bloomberg National poll)
Percent of Americans who sent holiday greeting cards this year:
65%
Portion of Americans who put up a tree for the holidays:
4-in-5
(Source: Pew poll)
Percent of smart-phone owners in New York City who admit to buying something over the internet during a funeral:
6%
(Source: Harper's Index)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Cecil gets to keep Orlando.
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CHEERS to a crucial seal of disapproval. Disappointment today as the confirmation vote on Fed Chair nominee Janet Yellen is delayed until mid-January. But since every yin has a yang (source: Yinyangipedia), any doubts we may have had about Yellen are now swept away, thanks to this crucial revelation:
The Keynsian Force
is strong with this one.
House Republicans are not too excited over the prospect of Janet Yellen taking over the Federal Reserve in February, judging by comments from one of the most influential members of the Republican caucus, Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee. […]
“She’s clearly in the dove category. She’s a Keynesian,” Ryan said.
Translation: she's perfect.
Done!
CHEERS to #17. Yesterday the New Mexico Supreme Court pulled out their magic judicial wands and---[
Zzzzing!]---granted same-sex couples the
same legal right to marriage that straight couples have. So that means that, adding their 2 million residents to the pot, same-sex marriage is now legal in states representing 39 percent of the U.S. population. Last night Pastor Dan asked me what happens when we reach 51 percent. I told him RuPaul becomes president with Neil Patrick Harris as Veep. I have yet to hear an objection.
P.S. And now Utah??? Does...not...compute...brain...shutting...down...
CHEERS to territorial irony. On this date 210 years ago, the Louisiana Purchase was completed (though the formal transfer happened 10 days later) in a New Orleans ceremony with representatives of Napoleon's administration. The land mass encompasses parts of Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Wyoming, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Nebraska. Imagine that---almost all "red" states who owe their existence to the kindness of…France. Sacre bleu, pard'ner!
JEERS to denying us our space fixes. With the International Space Station running on half-power, the crew is doing final prep work for their tricky repair operation, which gets underway tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, there are consequences to us earthlings:
Less tweeting? Dagnabit. Very inconvenient, but we hope their mission is successful nonetheless. And here's more discouraging news: the Hubble telescope found geysers of water on Jupiter's moon Europa. We were so hoping it was gonna be booze or chocolate.
JEERS to bad spelling. On December 21, 1989, Vice President Dan Quayle sent out 30,000 Christmas cards that said: "May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world." Really:
People laughed at him. On the other hand, his popularity with birds soared.
"I Love Lucy" wouldn't be
worth a damn without Fred.
CHEERS to home vegetation. So, yeah, this is the kind of weekend tailor-made for being a couch potatoe (I use the official Quayle dictionary spelling). You won’t be able to swing a cat without hitting some kind of holiday programming, for starters, including tonight's
Christmas in Washington on TNT and the
I Love Lucy "lost" Christmas special at 8 on CBS. Jimmy Fallon hosts the holiday edition of SNL with an assist from Justin Timberlake. New DVD releases include
Elysium, The Lone Ranger (the 2013 version which they should pay
us to watch), the Hugh Jackman-Jake Gyllenhaal sleeper hit
Prisoners, and the Indiana Jones flicks on Blu-Ray. The schedule for the tax-exempt, non-profit NFL is
here (The Patriots will…oh, who the hell knows
what the Patriots will do?) and the NHL schedule
is here. On
Bill Moyers & Company, civil rights lawyer and legal scholar Michelle Alexander talks about why we need to end our system of mass incarceration and the failed war on drugs. Sunday at 7: the annual showing of the original
The Sound of Music (Spoiler Alert: doe is a deer…a female deer.)
And here's your Sunday morning lineup. Let's see if they've gotten better at their male-female ratio, shall we?
Meet the Press: Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), James Inhofe (R-OK) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) kick hippies; Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Peter King (R-NY) on the NSA turmoil; IMF chief Christine LaGarde; roundtable with Robert Gibbs, E.J. Dionne, David Brooks and Ana Navarro. Male-Female Ratio: 8-2
This Week: Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) officially surpasses John McCain as the most-booked Republican of 2013 (no Democrat, of course, comes close); Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO); roundtable with Donna Brazile, Matt Dowd, Bill Kristol and Greta Van Susteren;
Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen discuss their stage shows and then try and guess which corner of the Shire Hobbit George Stephanopoulos comes from. Male-Female Ratio: 6-2
Sunday on...of course...Fox.
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Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: A double dose of ignorant right-wing Christianity, doled out by two of the griftiest grifters around: Mike Huckabee and Joel Osteen; roundtable with George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Juan Williams and Kirsten Powers. Male-Female Ratio: 5-1
Face the Nation: Former acting director of the CIA Michael Morell reveals the agency's favorite Christmas cookie recipes, then kills Bob Schieffer in cold blood because now he knows too much about our nation's secret baking operation; roundtable of book hawkers---Rick Atkinson, Michael Connelly, Terry McMillan, and George Saunders; political roundtable with Margaret Brennan, Nancy Cordes, Major Garrett and David Martin discusses why they're so much smarter than the authors' roundtable so nyah! Male-Female Ratio: 7-2
CNN's State of the Union: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV); Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Aaron Schock (R-IL); roundtable of book-hawkers---Dan Balz, Mark Lebovich, Mark Halperin and Newt Gingrich. Male-Female Ratio: 6-1
Final tally: 33 menfolk, 8 womenfolk. Disgusting. Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: December 20, 2008
FAREWELL to a nasty nemesis. Heritage Foundation founder and conservative hero Paul Weyrich is dead at 66. His contribution to civil discourse:
Weyrich delivers a speech
to the Heritage Foundation.
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More than any person, perhaps excluding President Ronald Reagan, whom he attacked as insufficiently conservative, Weyrich stitched the religious, social-issue voters into the secular fabric of the Republican Party. He co-founded the Washington-based Heritage Foundation in 1973 as a counterbalance to the liberal Brookings Institution and launched what became an influential network of conservative think tanks and talk radio shows that contributed to the culture wars of the past three decades.
I hate to speak ill of the departed, so let me see if I can say something nice. Um... Ah! He was a big fan of trains. Oh wait...he tried to abolish Amtrak. Damn, this is hard.
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And just one more…
CHEERS and JEERS to wearing white way after Labor Day. Autumn ends tomorrow 'round lunchtime (12:11pm ET), and will be replaced with the season popularly known as "#!@*%!! winter!" It's coming in more lionish (thunderstorms and tornadoes in the south, and a pain-in-the-ass storm in the midwest and east) than lambish. It's also the shortest and darkest day of the year, so at least we can look forward to teeny tiny slivers of extra light from now through late June. And now, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, here it is: your Moment of Stonehenge:
Don't look directly at the light or you'll melt. Probably should've said that earlier, huh.
Have a festive weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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