From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Barney for the Win
Oh, that crazy August of '09, when town hall meetings got so boisterous---with birther bullshit and teabaggers demanding the government do the exact things that would make the economy even worse---that they dominated the news and security was often forced to step in to protect congress members from deranged loons who were egged on by the conservative media empire.
Compared to the craziness of that Summer of Obama Derangement Syndrome, the spittle-slinging has been non-existent this summer. Since nature abhors a vacuum, here's a reminder that the guy who actually won the town hall war that year wasn't a teabagger, but former Democratic Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank (currently a columnist for the Maine Sunday Telegram), who gave a Nazi-card-playing protester something to cry in her strudel about when she framed the effort to upgrade America's broken health insurance system this way:
Woman holding photo of Obama with a Hitler mustache: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it?
Barney, it's all yours:
"When you ask me that question, I am going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question: on what planet do you spend most of your time?"
Responded Jon Stewart later that night: "Apparently a planet where a mixed-race president and a gay Jew qualify as Nazis."
To commemorate that epic moment, C&J is designating August 19 as Barney Frank Day. Saaaaalute!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Note: Due to a faulty GPS device, your designated NSA snooper Bart accidentally set up shop in your sock drawer. He regrets the error and will be correctly positioned behind your living room lamp within the hour. ---Mgt.
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10 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Stephen Colbert hosts his first
Late Show:
20
Days 'til the
Beer and Bacon Fest in Woodbridge, Virginia:
10
Percent of public U.S. companies that are incorporated in Delaware:
54%
(Source:
The Week)
Percent increase in the cost of college textbooks since 1977:
1,041%
(Source: NBC News)
Length of Jimmy Fallon's new contract with
The Tonight Show:
6 years
GOP primary voter preference for Donald Trump in North Carolina last month and this month, respectively, in PPP polls:
16%, 24%
Percent of all Missourians who support background checks on
all gun purchases, according to PPP:
80%
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 178 (including 4 earthquakes and 1 thumbs-up to the Rapture-inducing Iran nuclear agreement). Soul Protection Factor 16 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: All about Tianjin puppy…
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CHEERS to the state of the race. Here's a quick preview of today's presidential primary activities, according to campaign sources:
Keeping track of all the
candidates is like playing...
Chris Christie will slam Rand Paul, who will scold Donald Trump, who will trash Marco Rubio, who will excoriate Scott Walker, who will blast Jeb Bush, who will criticize Hillary Clinton, who will smash Dr. Ben Carson, who will ignore Lindsey Graham, who will poo-poo Carly Fiorina, who will demolish Bobby Jindal, who will mock Bernie Sanders, who will wag his finger at Ted Cruz, who will eviscerate Lincoln Chafee, who will be modestly critical of Rick Santorum, who will condemn Martin O'Malley, who will lob accusations at George Pataki, who will destroy Rick Perry, who will tear down Mike Huckabee, who will bring the wrath of god down on Jim Gilmore, who will steamroll over John Kasich, who will pummel Christ Christie, while Joe Biden and Al Gore dip their toe in the pool to check the temperature as they adjust the inflation of their water wings.
All in all, a quiet day.
CHEERS to people with the greatest first name on the planet. Happy Birthday…and "many blessings on your camels" to Bill Clinton. #42 turns---oh god, the orcs in righty Blogistan are gonna have a field day with this---69. Some Clintonian fun facts:
And he hung around with
a really good Buddy.
✓ Presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush are the only consecutive presidents who were left handed.
✓ In 1996, President Clinton became the first Democrat to be elected to a second term since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936.
✓ The only president who was a Rhodes Scholar.
✓ Clinton was just 16 years old when he shook hands with President John F. Kennedy in 1963, just four months before Kennedy’s death. Clinton later said he “muscled” his way through the line to meet JFK at the Boys Nation event.
✓ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech so impressed a teenaged Clinton that he memorized the entire speech right after it was given.
In his plus column: brash, charming, scary intelligent, beat Bush (and Dole), humiliated Gingrich, made the economy hum, is a fantastic surrogate for Democrats up and down the ballot, great humanitarian, won the Bosnian campaign, legendary speech at the 2012 Charlotte Democratic convention, convincingly feels your pain, and looks likely to blaze a trail as America's first First Husband. In the negative column: DOMA, DADT, Monica, repeal of Glass-Steagall, NAFTA, and I hear he reed-synched his sax solo on
Arsenio. In honor of his birthday, half of his cake will get eaten, and the other half will get thrown in his face.
JEERS to drilling there, drilling now. It's official: the Obama administration has inexplicably given Shell Oil the green light to drill in the pristine waters of the Arctic, knowing full well the consequences of a man-made disaster:
What could go wrong?
Shell’s Burger Prospect is 70 miles (112 km) off the Alaskan coast. Environmentalists and observers have raised concerns that if a large spill occurs in the fragile Arctic environment, little, if any oil will be recovered. Cold water does not support the micro-organisms that broke oil down after the massive BP Macondo spill in the warmer Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Should oil become trapped under the sea ice that covers the area for the majority of the year, experts believe the possibility it will be cleaned up is remote.
Pat Pourchot, who was the US Department of Interior’s special assistant for Alaska affairs until February this year, told the Guardian last week: “It’s really tough to talk about effective clean up.
For its part, the profits-first oil giant says it's fully prepared to deal with an oil spill. They have an entire floor of people in white lab coats back at Shell headquarters who are prepared to crank out positive press releases at a moment's notice.
JEERS to activist judges. On August 19, 1692, four innocent men and a woman were hanged on Gallows Hill for "practicing witchcraft" in Salem, Massachusetts. To this day Dick Cheney is outraged by what happened back then. He doesn’t think they were waterboarded nearly long enough.
JEERS to the Worst Soul Mate in the World. It's not often that my jaw drops when reading an advice column, but good lord:
Dear Abby: Two years ago, I met a gentleman, and he eventually decided we were “soul mates.” I agreed. I confided that I’d had an abortion at the age of 18, which has haunted me all my adult life. Recently he was reciting a chronology of my life. When he got to the abortion, he said, “And then you became a child murderer.” His comment stunned me. He finds nothing wrong with it. Was this total disrespect, or am I overreacting?
Let's wait until doctors unwire his jaw and we can all sit down and discuss it.
Hey! Who drained the beer cart?!
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CHEERS to the first frequent flyer. Today is
Orville Wright's 144th birthday. He was the one at the controls in 1903 during the first heavier-than-air, machine-powered flight. The trip was uncomfortable, expensive, delayed for hours, and the only free snacks were the ones he brought on board himself. Thanks to advances in technology, today's passengers enjoy air travel that's uncomfortable, expensive, delayed for hours, and the only free snacks we get are the ones we bring ourselves. But at least today we can get up and go pee.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 19, 2005
JEERS to bad manners. Now we learn that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts verbally chastised my senator, Olympia Snowe, for having the audacity to say that women deserve to have pay parity with men. Where would you like the body delivered, Mrs. Roberts?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a picture that's still worth a thousand yeehaws. One year ago today, Texas Governor Rick Perry ambled in to his local police station after being indicted on charges of official skullduggery, and posed for his official (s)mug shot:
His case is still pending (one of the two charges has been dropped), even as he's trying and mostly failing to be the next occupant of the White House. But I'll say this for him: Molly Ivins was right---that is some good hair.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Are you, like me, clueless about where to take a woman on a date? Keep it simple and take her out to Cheers and Jeers. A new study suggests she's more responsive to those romantic signals you're sending when she's splashing in the kiddie pool.
---David Gallagher
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