From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Justice: American-style
Ordinary people:
An Occupy Wall Street protester who became a cause celebre for activists after she was charged with assaulting a police officer was sentenced Monday to 90 days in jail [and five years probation], with a judge saying a protest is no excuse for an attack. Cecily McMillan apologized for injuring the officer but defiantly proclaimed her innocence as she was sentenced on one of the few felony convictions resulting from the New York protests. She could have been sent to prison for seven years. […]
"a civil society must not allow an assault to be committed under the guise of civil disobedience," Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel said. "Ms. McMillan must take responsibility for her conduct."
Extraordinary people:
Police arrested [Shaun] Goodman, whose blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit in Washington. He pleaded guilty to felony charges of eluding a police officer and driving under the influence, his seventh DUI conviction. And last week, Judge James Dixon handed down his sentence: no jail time and one year in a work release program. […]
According to the court system’s most recent DUI sentencing grid, anyone found with a BAC above .15 (Goodman’s was .16) and with two or three prior offenses (Goodman had six), the mandatory minimum jail time is 120 days. The minimum sentence may not be overturned “unless the court finds that imprisonment of this mandatory minimum sentence would impose a substantial risk to the offender’s physical or mental well-being.” Regard for a defendant’s “mental well-being” is the argument that defense attorneys have used with alarming success in recent months to get their wealthy clients out of jail sentences or any other serious punishment.
I believe the current high bid on eBay for Lady Justice's blindfold is five bucks.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Note: The launch of tomorrow's preemptive strike in the War on Christmas has been postponed until next Thursday as Gladys double-booked her schedule and has chosen to keep her podiatrist appointment instead. Yes, I agree---fake war is hell.
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16 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Father's Day:
26
Days 'til the
Tupelo Elvis Festival in Mississippi:
16
Rank of Qatar, Ghana and Ecuador in a survey of 52 countries measuring citizens' national pride:
#1, #2, #3
Rank of the United States:
#31
(Source:
Vox)
Number of college students who are graduating in the U.S. this year:
1.6 million
Rank of adventure racing, triathalons and mountain biking among fastest-growing individual sports/physical activities between 2012 and 2013:
#1, #2, #3
(Source:
FiveThirtyEight)
Percent chance that Mick Jagger is
now a great-grandfather:
100%
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Self made crisis with them releasing convicts, ignoring border-crossing terrorists and murderous illegals, whether by gun, club, knife, bare hands or automobile, committing mayhem. Chaos, death and destruction are the Lefts allies to be used as justification for them rushing to our "rescue" on their terms.
---Commenter Festus at the Michelle Malkin blog
It is no longer a theory, Festus! You are spot.on!
---Commenter Happyscrap
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Saved!!!
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For Lyndon LaRouche!
CHEERS to Super Tuesday! This is it, gang. The day that Hillary Clinton gathers up enough primary marbles to clinch the nomination and face Ted Cruz in November. So far the polling I've seen shows that… Oops. I'm not in 2016 anymore, Am I? I came back to the present, didn’t I? Okay. Talk amongst yourselves while I return this time machine to Best Buy. And go vote, for heaven's sake. It's
Super Tuesday!
CHEERS to another victory for the jazz hands of justice. Yesterday we were expecting a simple ruling---one simple ruling---by a judge granting full marriage rights to same-sex couples in Oregon. And here's what we ended up with:
The Oregon ruling. After a last-minute wrench was thrown into the works by NOM (which failed miserably), the way was paved for U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane to strike down the state's gay-marriage ban, making Oregon the latest state to embrace Satan's nefarious plan of world domination via love and stability. So here's the updated Wikipedia map:
And Oregon makes #18.
Just my opinion, but I think the west coast looks boffo in blue.
The Maine ruling. After employing stalling tactics that would make a jar of molasses blush, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) finally got stomped by the Maine Ethics Commission for violating elections law when they were throwing bales full of cash into the referendum overturning our 2009 marriage law without proper disclosure. This is a case that NOM has fought tooth and nail to kill, going out of its way to stall as long as possible and proclaim their innocence as loud as possible. Well, they just got nailed.
The Utah ruling. This came out of left field. U.S. District Court judge Dale Kimball says that the 1,300 marriages performed in Utah in December and January (before a stay was issued pending appeal) must be recognized as valid. Unfortunately, he's giving the state 21 days to appeal that motion, so for now it's more of a symbolic victory. But we'll take 'em any way we can get 'em.
For those of you keeping score, that's three victories for Team Gay. Even better, it's three losses for Team Pray Away The Gay.
CHEERS to the Energizer Diva. Hold on to your feather boas, boomers, this may make your bones feel a little creaky: Cher turns 68 today. In fairness, she still looks as young as she did during her fifth farewell tour.
JEERS to faulty predictions. On May 20, 1926, Thomas Edison said Americans would always prefer silent movies over talkies. Great inventor. Terrible psychic.
"If I only had a brain..."
JEERS to prying eyes. This is creepy: some tea party blogger crept (see, I told you it was creepy) into to the nursing home where Senator Thad Cochran's (R-MS) dementia-afflicted wife is living and
photographed her for use in a campaign video on behalf of Cochran's primary opponent. The blogger is now in custody and everybody's creeped out about it. In fact, even fellow tea party bomb-throwing blogger James O'Keefe is upset. He's kicking himself for not thinking of it first.
JEERS to moving day in Dixie. Li'l Civil War nugget: on May 20, 1861, the Confederate Congress agreed to pack its bags and move the capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia. I believe a similar event would take place 51 years later with the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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Five years ago in C&J: May 20, 2009
JEERS to Christian Crusade: Confidential. I actually thought Donald Rumsfeld was going to slip into retirement and never be heard from again, but...no. He's back. GQ reveals that the former Secretary of War---not an overtly religious man himself---plastered Biblical sayings on the covers of his top-secret intel briefings for the purpose of giving President Bush a little (very little, we hear) woody every morning in the days before and after the Iraq war was launched. Said Bill Press yesterday on MSNBC's The Ed Show:
One of Rummy's covers.
"[This was] cherry-picking the Bible to justify a war against a Muslim country. ... And let's talk about Isaiah. Isaiah 2:4---'Beat your swords into ploughshares.' Isaiah 9:6---'He shall be called the Prince of Peace.' They were perverting the Bible, an instrument of peace, and turning it into an instrument of war. Shame on them."
And, hopefully, at some point: shackles on them.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Jimmy Stewart. Happy 106th Birthday to one of the few actors whom I'd watch in absolutely anything. He had more great roles than we can count. (The Hitchcocks, the Capras and the westerns are just the tip of the iceberg), but here are two favorite moments from each end of his life: learning from Jean Arthur how a bill winds its way through the Senate in 1939's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and his 1981 Tonight Show tribute to his dog Beau that always does me in:
And now that we know our waterworks are working...
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open. What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“I don’t like Cheers and Jeers. Can I say this? It sucks!”
---Idaho governor candidate Harley Brown
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