From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
53 Candles on the Tyranny Cake
Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama
6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4
---Honolulu Advertiser, 1961
"I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the planet Earth."
---Barack Obama, 2008
Cue Andy Williams:
A clever forgery by Bill Ayers!!!
It's the most wankerful time of the year!
'Stead of warm birthday greetings,
the birthers are bleating that "He's not from here!"
It's the most wankerful time of the year
It's the most paranoid season of all!
With his terror fist jabbing and mad power grabbing
(And secret cabal!)
It's the most paranoid season of all
Oh the email I sent ya
Proves he is from Kenya
And trained as an Islamic spy!
Oh they claim he's Hawaiian
But we're just not buyin'
'Cause forwarded emails don’t lie!
Terrorist fist jab? Idiots
report, idiots decide.
It's the most wankerful time of the year!
Donald Trump will save all of us, driving his crazy bus
gassed up with fear!
It's the most wankerful time
It's the most paranoid time
It's the most wankerful time...of the yeeeeeear!
[Ding Dongs! Ding Dongs!]
Happy birthday, Mr. President.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, August 4, 2014
Note: Today's C&J is a complete forgery. The original is hidden behind a painting at Monticello of dogs playing poker.
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3 days!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til primaries in Michigan, Kansas, Missouri and Washington:
1
Days 'til the
Lake Champlain Maritime Festival in Vermont:
3
Number of water main breaks in America each year:
240,000
Feet of pipe that have delivered water to L.A. for at least 100 years:
1 million
(Source: Nat'l Assoc. of Water Companies)
The last time the U.S. experienced six straight months of 200,000+ job growth:
2006
Average number of jobs added per month between Feb. and July of this year:
244,000
(Source: The White House)
The last time the average price of gas in the U.S. ($3.51) was this low in August:
2010
(Source: AP)
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NEW! Your Monday George Carlin Brain Droppings
Recent polls show that some people have never been polled. Until recently.
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One of the best expressions in the English language is, "Who says so?" I guarantee, if you keep saying, "Who says so?" long enough, sooner or later someone will take you into custody."
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Puppy Pic of the Day: I imagine that dogs who get rescued by a Wrigley heir will will never lack for chew toys…
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Blessed silence.
CHEERS and
JEERS to that empty-chamber feeling. Congress is now officially adjourned until next month. The good news: we don’t have to endure all the House leadership's posturing and finger-pointing in the service of pretending like it actually wants to get things done. The bad news: knowing that, apart from a town hall or two, our elected representatives will be enjoying surf and sand and yachting adventures in between rounds of dialing-for-dollars, after which they'll return to Washington next month to complain about strapping young bucks and welfare queens sinking into chronic laziness because of their unlimited access to vaults full of taxpayer money that keep them living high off the hog with their fancy "refrigerators" and "microwave ovens." This is technically called their "August vacation." But we prefer the more accurate "twentieth-month extension of their January 2013 vacation."
JEERS to the latest inductees in the Back Flip Hall of Shame. This week's erroneous quartet:
John Boehner: Sure, I have the votes for the emergency border bill! To not have the votes after I say I have the votes would be crazy! I have votes! Trust me! --- [Back Flip!] --- Of course I don’t have the votes! I never said I had the votes! Talk to Ted Cruz---he's got the votes, not me!
They make it look so easy.
CIA Director John Brennan: Of course we didn't hack Senate computers! To say we didn’t hack into their computers if we did hack into their computers would be crazy! There was no hacking! Trust me! --- [Back Flip!] --- Sure we hacked into the Senate's computers! I never said we didn't hack into the Senate's computers!
Financial experts: No way is the GDP going to be four percent! It's gonna be much lower than that, of course. Don’t be silly about all this four percent talk by the hippies. We're experts and we know what we're doing! --- [Back Flip!] --- Of course it was four percent! We knew it was gonna be four percent! Duh!
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo: I didn’t meddle in my own anti-corruption commission investigations because they were getting too close to my cronies! That's crazy talk! Never happened! Trust me! --- [Back Flip!] --- Oh, wait… Maybe I… Quick---look over there! [ker-SLAM!]
They'll each receive a tut-tut from PolitiFact and our official trophy: The Rubber Spine.
Warning: pot candy
corn actually talks.
CHEERS to managing the buzz. Here's one more real-world example of why marijuana should be legalized everywhere: because then officials can responsibly
regulate it. In Colorado, where recreational marijuana use is legal, they found that edible versions of it are often too strong for people, and labeling is confusing. So, faster than you can whip up a plate of brownies, regulators are working on
making labels more detailed. In addition to adding serving sizes, the labels will also suggest what's safe to watch while high.
Wizard of Oz and
Star Trek = OK.
2001: A Space Odyssey and Judge Judy = Don't Be A Fool!
CHEERS to down-home politicking. The annual rite of Kentucky politics known as the Fancy Farm Picnic stump-off happened Saturday, featuring raucous crowds and gloves-off campaign speeches by Mitch McConnell and his senate challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes. For her part, Grimes got credit for landing some punches:
You simply MUST try the slaw.
"What a huge crowd for Senator McConnell's retirement party."
"It's not easy being Mitch McConnell. He's been in Washington DC so long he thinks Duke's is in Kentucky and Cloverlick's not. But I've got good news for the folks in Cloverlick: if Mitch McConnell doesn’t know where your town is, it just makes it harder for him to ship your jobs overseas."
"You know the senator is worried about the results in November when you see his campaign manager wearing a 'Mitch for Governor 2015' button."
McConnell got credit for making it to the lectern without falling asleep.
CHEERS to the summer of love. My, how time doesn’t fly when you're sitting around waiting for the wheels of justice to turn. Four years ago today Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8---the citizen-passed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage---was itself unconstitutional. He carefully weighed the evidence for Prop. 8 (weak stuff) and against Prop 8 (strong stuff), then set out to make his decision as clear and decisive as possible to ensure his ruling wouldn't get overturned on appeal. Walker's own words are now a gem in the tiara of gay civil rights history:
Judge Walker made
sure his Prop. 8
ruling was airtight.
Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.
Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.
The next day
The New York Times wrote in its lead editorial, "Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail." With marriage fans falling like dominoes from the northwest to the deep south, I'm adding that as a candidate for
Understatement of the Decade.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 4, 2009
CHEERS to going all-in. Ever since he "lost" the presidential election in Iran, Mir Hussein Mousavi has remained steadfast in his loyalty to the millions of supporters who continue to stick their necks out for him. That continued Sunday when he...
...accused the authorities on Sunday of using "medieval torture" to extract confessions from protesters on trial over the wave of post-election unrest. ... "The scenes that we saw were a clumsy preparation for the launch of the 10th government," Mousavi said on his website of Saturday's trial, held just days before Ahmadinejad is to be sworn in on Wednesday.
A representative for the Iranian Supremely High Council Thingymabob issued a brief statement: "Ridiculous! We did not use medieval torture. We used modern-day American torture." So there.
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And just one more…
Google Fail
JEERS to the Big Scuttle. For the last several months, there's been a four-story "mystery barge" made out of dozens of shipping containers parked on the Portland waterfront (a twin was also tied up in San Francisco) getting "finishing touches" put to it. There was all kinds of speculation of what it was---an offshore site for interrogating terrorist suspects, condos destined for international waters, an evil Transformer sent from space to turn into a giant metal raptor and kill us all (that was my guess, and I begged the mayor to roll out the two city Sherman tanks that are kept in the secret garage with the faux-facade marked "Rosie's Bakery"). Turned out it was the brainchild of The Google, and was going to be a hip and edgy "floating showroom" for Google products. Once the Google News broke, Portlanders were smitten with "Google Wow!" But now our beta test with Google Fame has expired. The company is turning Google Barge into a new product called
Google Scrapheap, leaving our tiny fishing village with Google Sadz that are causing our Google Tears to Short out our Google Glass. Pardon our French, but...Googledammit.
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:
The Entire History Of Cheers and Jeers... In 5 Minutes
---Huffington Post
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