Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Hot Monday Morning Brain Biscuits
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people---their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties---someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal.
---John F. Kennedy
“I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.”
---Paul Krugman
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
---Stephen Colbert
“Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.”
---Barry Goldwater
"Everybody knows God is nonpartisan, but I swear Jesus was a liberal---the best, the biggest, the original bleeding heart---the one who embraced the outcasts, the model for us all. Just read the stuff in the New Testament written in red."
---Molly Ivins
We now return you to our Republican-scheduled run-up to nuclear war, $1.5 trillion deficit-hiking tax cut for the rich, and religious hypocrisy already in progress.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, October 23, 2017
Note: I've started wearing an actual 3-by-5-foot American flag on my lapel. So I guess that means I win and you lose, silly pin people.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til election day 2017: 15
Days 'til the Detroit Fall Beer Festival: 4
Number of 2017 weather/climate disasters so far that have caused at least $1 billion damage each: 16
Percent of Americans who owned an iPhone, Android or similar device in 2016, up from 75% in 2014: 81%
Surge in traffic fatalities over the last 2 years, due in large part to people texting and driving: 14.4%
Number of marijuana farms destroyed in the California wildfires: 34
Percent chance it’s “highly inappropriate” to fact-check a four-star general, as the White House says it is: 0%
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World Series Game 1 Preview
The L.A. Dodgers and Houston Astros are tied at 0 games apiece.
Totally Random NFL Score
New England Patriots 23 Atlanta Falcons 7
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Don’t look into their eyes---it’s a trap!
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JEERS to taking credit where credit is not due. There was some good news out of the fight against ISIS last week. Namely, their home base of Raqqa in Syria was yanked out from under them, leaving their so-called “caliphate” in tatters. Naturally, Lord Dampnut muscled his way to the front of the military-strategist pack and took credit for it. But former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said not so fast---if it’s a day ending in ‘y’ then Trump must be full of shit:
The plan to capture the terrorist group's de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, was put in place two years ago, Carter told CNN.
"The plan ... was laid out two years ago, and has been executed pretty much in the manner and the schedule that was foreseen then," Carter told Jake Tapper on "The Lead." […] Carter, who served as defense secretary under former President Barack Obama at the end of his second term, gave credit for the defeat of ISIS in Raqqa "first and foremost" to the military. He also said that he and Joseph Dunford, a former Marine Corps commandant who is now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, actively tried to accelerate the plan to defeat ISIS under Obama, and they always got approval from the president.
So now we know what incompetent Trump’s “big, beautiful strategy for defeating ISIS that will work very quickly, believe me” was: claim credit for coming up with his competent predecessor’s plan. Take note, historians.
JEERS to Alabama’s “finest.” The state that secretly stored locks of Jefferson Davis’s hair in the hopes that one day cloning technology could---and did!---produce the likes of Jefferson Sessions (although a glitch on DNA strand 87-b prevented him from hitting puberty, so he’s sadly unable to grow Davis’s goatee), may be about to elevate yet another clone (hampered by the same glitch) to higher office. Roy Moore---who got booted from his Supreme Court perch twice (once as chief justice)---has already gotten busted for lying about income from his non-profit, claimed that the Constitution should be replaced with the Bible (Old testament only, because the smiting instructions are more comprehensive), and now has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he considers ignorance a feature, not a bug:
Roy Moore, the bombastic Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Alabama, claims NFL protesters who kneel during the national anthem are violating federal law. […]
"It's against the law, you know that?" Moore told the magazine. "It was a act of Congress that everyman stand and put their hand over their heart. That's the law."
Catherine Ross, a law professor at The George Washington University Law School who specializes in constitutional law, had a simple answer when asked if there's any valid interpretation that it's illegal to kneel for the national anthem: "None at all," Ross told CBS News.
Which, in a sane world, would be Alabamans’ unanimous answer to the question, “Any good reason to vote for Roy Moore?”
P.S. There are infinite reasons to vote for Democrat Doug Jones on December 12th. Help him keep his operation going strong. Because won’t it be an ironic hoot to see Twitchy McRedneck brought to his own knees.
CHEERS to bending the moral arc of the universe. Eight years ago this week President Obama signed the bill that officially expanded the 1968 hate crimes law to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. Said PFLAG at the time about the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act:
The historic passage of this bill marks the first time that sexual orientation and gender identity have been included as protected categories in federal law.
"PFLAG is proud of the members of the Senate who supported this important bill," said PFLAG National Executive Director Jody Huckaby. "As we know, crimes against LGBT people have long been among the most violent and most numerous, and our loved ones have gone too long without protections afforded to other citizens."
Naturally, the conserva-religious Chicken Littles are still predicting that, because of this law (and, of course, the marriage rulings) they'll be forced to install disco balls in church and make their flock wear assless chaps and ride each other around like show donkeys on Sunday. To which I can only say: Damn right. Saddle up, preacherman! Hi'yaaaaa...!!!
CHEERS to the tweet of the day. I thought the world should know:
And nineteen days. But who’s counting?
CHEERS to catnip for conspiracy theorists. President trump has apparently authorized the release of thousands of documents pertaining to the Kennedy assassination:
In releasing the never-before-seen files, Trump will be complying with a law passed by Congress in 1992 that orders the National Archives to release the documents within 25 years. That deadline falls on Oct. 26 of this year.
And in other news, Ted Cruz’s dad just fled the country.
CHEERS to the greatest game ever played on plastic mats besides Twister. On October 23, 1930, the last round of the first miniature golf tournament was played in Chattanooga. The winner was J.K. Scott. But only because his rival, Samuel Cloutier lost his head on the windmill hole. The following year the blades were changed so they would twirl vertically instead of horizontally. But the 1-stroke penalty still stands.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 23, 2007
CHEERS to fighting fire with fire...or water or helicopter loads of cocaine or whatever else ya got that'll snuff out these #!%^$# blazes. Thanks to Santa Ana winds and Glenn Beck's big mouth, over a dozen fires have broken out across southern California. To help out, we're running our garden hose from Portland to San Diego. We're currently in Kennebunk. Please be patient---we're unspooling as fast as we can!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to climbing back on the wagon. Every year at this time I challenge myself to give up my worst addiction: candy corn. I love the stuff---in stews, soups, casseroles, salads, and sometimes even straight out of the bag. My brain thinks that candy corn is a gift from God for which we are just barely worthy. But my pancreas is thinking, "Have you no decency, sir? At long last have you left no sense of dietary decency?" So I owe it to myself to give it the old college try, cold-turkey style. I've got my stopwatch with me, and I'm hoping to beat my old record of…[opens tattered 48-year-old record book]…2.5 seconds without eating candy corn. So let's do this! Ready, set, GO...
Tick tock, tick...
[Nom nom nom nom nom nom NomNom NOMNOMNOM!!!]
…tock.
1.9 seconds. Better than last year but still disappointing. Oh well---maybe we'll try again during Lent.
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:
Bill in Portland Maine may be a big fan of Britain’s former Prime Minister Winston Churchill. But the wartime leader’s grandson, Nicholas Soames, certainly doesn’t feel the same way about the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool splasher---who he’s called a “daft twerp.”
---Huffington Post
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