From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Rand, Why Did You Flee?
Oh Rand, why did you flee?
Was it something someone said? A giant bumble bee?
Please help us understand so we can see
Why you, O Mighty Senator, why you chose to flee
From your burger you took one juicy bite
Then your beady eyes caught the terrifying sight
Of doe-eyed DREAMers seeking your insight
Why, you nearly choked, they gave you such fright
The cameras caught your wan face turning red
So scared were you, and filled with dread
As if you'd found a horse head in your bed
You jumped up, grabbed your booze and fled
DREAMers have lived here since they were small
They're not asking for an order too tall
A chance to live in the land of "Yo" and "Y'all"
As responsible citizens for the long haul
They wanted to hear what you, Rand, would say
About the DREAM Act and why you'd vote yay or nay
But your waffling position meant you couldn't stay
Because weasels cut and run just like you did that day
Maybe next time you'll think before you repeat
Your clumsy spit-take and hasty retreat
Debating views may not always be neat
But it sure beats the hell out of choking on meat.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, August 14, 2014
Note: I'm issuing a stay on this note pending appeal. This doesn't apply to any other notes. Just this one. ---Judge Neener
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Halloween:
78
Days 'til the 10th annual
Bat Fest in Austin:
9
Year by which there will no longer be a racial majority in the U.S.:
2043
(Source: Dana Milbank, Washington Post)
Age of Beth Hiller, who was turned away from her Kansas polling place last week because she didn’t have a photo ID:
97
(Source:
Think Progress)
Amount that will be spent by Americans on pet care this year:
$15 billion
(Source: Slate)
Value of the 1870s Boston Red Stockings autographs and playing cards brought by a woman to
Antiques
Roadshow for appraisal:
$1 million
Offer the woman received for the collection from a prospective buyer before she brought it to the
Roadshow folks:
$5,000
(Source: AP)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I personally have been sleeping more soundly at night knowing that Michael Chertoff is secretary of homeland security.
Ever since Chertoff's agency brought us the stunning news that there are more terrorist targets in Indiana than in New York or Washington, I've realized this guy could find a terrorist plot anywhere. Watch out for the Amish — they'll run right over you with those buggies, and they all have pitchforks, too. I hear they're
connected to al-Qaida through Saddam Hussein.
---August, 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Congratulations, Duke…er…I mean Mr. Mayor.
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CHEERS to President Barack Obama. If he's gonna get brickbats when things go south, then by god he's gonna get credit when things pick up. So let us check the rays of sunshine:
• Gas prices are down, which is unusual during the summer.
• June job openings are the highest in 13 years.
• Weekly unemployment claims are at an eight-year low
• 2014 will be a record year for soybean and corn crops.
• Wall Street is up.
On the other hand, the company that makes
Candy Crush is
getting stomped by sour investors. Thanks a
lot, Barry O'Bummer.
CHEERS to Great Moments in Suspense. The clock is ticking. The fuse is lit. The sand is slipping through the hourglass. The Final Jeopardy theme is playing. And unless the Supreme Court steps in and says otherwise, gay Virginians will start getting married in their home state in roughly six days and 17 hours:
[T]he United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit denied a motion from defendant Michele McQuigg to grant a stay in the mandate of their marriage ruling from late last month.
The ruling, which simply says, "Upon consideration of submissions relative to the motion to stay mandate, the court denies the motion," means that unless there is further action from the United States Supreme Court, a mandate will be issued in the ruling on Wednesday, August 20 and same-sex couples will have the freedom to marry and have their marriages respected in VA.
Another loss for the bigots and another win for civil rights. Symbolically it carries a little more weight, I'd say, given that it's where bans on interracial marriage were declared unconstitutional and also where so many of the conservative evangelical knuckledraggers and their media empires fester. I hope they left extra room inside Falwell's crypt. We hear he needs lots of elbow room when he's spinning.
CHEERS to America's favorite safety net. On today's date in 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt gave us one less thing to fear by signing the Social Security Act into law, saying:
It's just crazy enough to
become the most beloved
program in U.S. history.
"We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.
This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness."
Today a frighteningly high number of Republicans regard Social Security as the brainchild of a dirty effing commie socialist hippie. But just you wait. When they start getting their checks in the mail their sudden silence will be deafening. And then they'll start complaining that their commie socialist hippie checks aren't big enough. And then they'll actively work to prevent the commie socialist hippie program from being privatized by the evil Republicans. Run that by your local annoying wingnut next time he says evolution doesn't exist.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Andy Campbell at The Huffinpuffinblowyourhousedown Post asks: Did NASA Capture An Alien And Its Shadow On The Moon?
Yes.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to this morning's prayer from the International Church of Billeh. Please rise:
Dear Lord: Yesterday you dropped six inches of rain on Portland, four of them within three hours last night. It was so intense that the streets on the waterfront were swamped with 20 inches of water, and the duck pond at Deering Oaks overflowed into State Street, something we haven't seen here since ever. That was some scary shit. But thanks for not flooding our basement. Amen. And Amen.
Please join me after C&J for mimosas and German chocolate cake in the rectory. But we'll have to take the bus since after last night the rectory is now located a mile down the street.
JEERS to America's #1 Defeatocrat. Seven years ago this brilliant comment reared its head and caused a bit of a hoo-hah. It's worth revisiting. Guess who said it:
What happened to the
carefree, swinging Dick?
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Once you got to Iraq and took it over---took down Saddam Hussein's government---then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west. Part of it---eastern Iraq---the Iranians would like to claim; they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire
if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
Barack Obama? Howard Dean? General Wes Clark? Nope. It was
Dick Cheney…in 1994. Dick should've listened to Dick. Bad Dick.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 14, 2004
JEERS to lousy excuses. On Larry King Live last night, Bush says he stayed in the classroom on 9/11 after being told "America is under attack" because "I was collecting my thoughts and I was sitting with a bunch of young kids, and I made the decision there that we would let this part of the program finish." Bill Maher offers the president a lesson in leadership here. The money quote: "This was a moment a President should have imagined a thousand times. There is no time in the nuclear age for a President to sit like Forrest Gump 'gathering thoughts' after an attack has begun." Plus...it would take him a lot longer than 7 minutes to gather one, anyway
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the whitest guy ever to be "born a poor black child." Happy birthday to Steve Martin, who was a spry 30 when I first heard his stand-up act (via long-play LP, no less) at 12 and laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe, and who today is an elder statesman of comedy at 69. Besides being a banjo player, having a hit single (King Tut), hosting the Oscars and SNL, starring in a boatload of popular movies, and writing best-selling books, an Oscar-nominated screenplay (Roxanne), and sketches for the legendary Smothers Brothers, what has he contributed to society? While we're trying to think of something, watch this…
Sorry, Steve, but I'm still drawin' a blank. Happy birthday, anyway.
Have a wild and crazy Thursday. (Hey, somebody had to say it.) Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“I believe Bill in Portland Maine and Secretary Clinton have had many hugs over the past few years. I suspect many of them have been caught on camera.”
---White House Dep. Press Secretary Eric Schultz
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