From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
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What the Democratic-controlled House under Speaker Nancy Pelosi is responsible for:
- Health insurance reform: Initial bill had public option, before Senate stripped it out; Kids can stay on parents' insurance 'til age 26; Closes Medicare "Doughnut Hole"; Eliminates pre-existing conditions; Expands coverage to tens of millions
- Repeal of Don't Ask, Don’t Tell
- Ethics reform
- Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
- American Clean Energy and Security Act
- Extension of Childrens Health Insurance Program
- Raising the minimum wage
- Food Safety Enhancement Act
- Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act
- Small Business Jobs Act
- The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
- Injecting resources into the economy to prevent the Bush recession from sliding into a second Great Depression, saving/creating millions of jobs in the process
- Dodd-Frank financial regulation reform
- James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act
- Helping America maintain a sterling AAA credit rating
- Working long hours for long stretches doing the people's business during a very difficult time
What the Republican-controlled House under Speaker John Boehner is responsible for so far:
- Voting to repeal the "Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." (The repeal would have little, if any, effect on jobs but would add to the deficit, says the CBO.)
- Attempting to dismantle Medicare by voting to pass a budget that turns it into a coupon program
- Voting for unnecessary anti-abortion bills and...more unnecessary anti-abortion bills!
- Panicking world financial markets by holding the debt ceiling hostage; causing S&P to downgrade the U.S. credit rating by convincing them that the "party of fiscal discipline" wouldn't think twice about defaulting on our debts
- Naming some Post Offices
- Holding the FAA---and tens of thousands of jobs---hostage for the sake of weakening unions
- Refusing to consider an extension of the payroll tax cut
- A breezy, leisurely work pace with lots and lots of days off during a very difficult time
- A promise to create "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" during election season, but ignoring job creation completely once elected
So, uh, this is what it means to "take our country back," huh? Awesome.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Note: If you're 60 years old, you have no business swimming the English Channel. It's an impossible feat, trust me! You'll fail every time!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the waiting period for formally ending the military's 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy is up: 27
Days `til the Riverside Food Truck Festival in California: 10
Number of consecutive days of above-100 temperatures in central Texas this year (a record): 44
Previous record: 42 consecutive days in 1980
(Source: Time)
Amount of federal money that went to NPR in 2010: $2.7 million
To Jerry Falwell's Liberty University: $446 million
(Source: Harper's Index)
Age of Mainer Pat Gallant-Charette when she swam the English Channel Monday: 60
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 183 (including 5 Date Settings and 1 paleontology exhibit gone horribly wrong). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "I have figured out that two puppies can get into three times as much trouble as one."
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CHEERS to crashing the gate. No, that's not a metaphor. Yesterday an army of Libyan rebels, stuffed comically into golf carts like a circus act except with more firepower than you'd typically see at a Ringling Bros. performance, blew up Muammar Gadaffi's (Ha Ha---my spellchecker wanted to change that to "Gandalf's") front door, and helped themselves to the leftover meatloaf in his fridge. Sadly, the big guy wasn't there, but he did manage to air a message from his undisclosed location, in which he vowed to light a "burning volcano and a fire under the feet of the invaders." See, that's how you know when you've really pissed off a dictator: when he promises not just a fire under your feet, but an actual, live, geothermalically-functional, lava-spewing volcano. Ya gotta hand it to the megalomaniacs: they're masters of proportion.
JEERS to shakin' 'n bakin'. Yesterday was just another hot crappy day in Washington, D.C….until the area was hit by an earthquake…sorry, I mean an EARTHQUAAAAAKE!!! It registered 5.8 on the Andy Richter Scale. (He pays me a nickel every time I write that.) But, why now, Spock? Why…now? I can only come to one conclusion: it wasn't really an earthquake, it was God ploppin' down in front of the White House, joining the Stop-The-Tar-Sands-Pipeline sit-in. Go ahead, cops…let's see you slap the cuffs on her!
JEERS to really shitty ways to ruin an otherwise lovely summer evening. On this date in 1814, British forces attacked Washington, DC during the War of...um...1812. The president and members of Congress fled while the First Lady, armed with nothing but a butcher knife and her patriotism, rescued artwork and leftover mutton before the redcoats torched the White House. The 8/24 Commission Report later said President Madison should have heeded the PDB titled: "King George III Determined to Strike In US." Curse you, 20-20 hindsight.
CHEERS to forgiveness. Hurricane Irene is grinding its way towards the east coast, currently a CAT-2 behemoth that is likely to slam into North Carolina. On behalf of all Americans, I wish to point out that the following had nothing to do with this hurricane:
Irene Cara, Princess Irene of the Netherlands, Irene Lentz, Irene Papas, Irene Ryan, Irene Dunn, Irene: wife of Byzantine Emperor Constantine V, Irene, Texas and Irene, South Dakota
As well as any other Irenes not currently engaged in the promotion of cataclysmic meteorological mayhem. (And shame on those of you who are!)
P.S. Quick question for folks in the storm's projected path: Prepared?
JEERS to a child's worst enemy: gravity. A researcher at Nationwide Children's Hospital was sitting in his office one day, looking out an open window and wondering, "Gee, I wonder how many kids fall out of those." Turns out, lots! Five thousand kids fall from windows every year. To put that in perspective, that's the annual number of politicians and preachers who fall from grace.
P.S. If you ever find yourself in Children's Hospital for a bypass, ask for Dr. Jimmy Hassenblintz. Best four-year-old chest cutter in the business.
CHEERS to the Spud Stud. On August 24, 1853, chef George Crum made the first potato chips---originally called Saratoga Chips---after a fussy customer (Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt) complained that his potatoes weren't sliced thin enough. So the chef sliced 'em thinner-than-thin out of frustration and the rest, as they say, is BBQ, Salt & Vinegar, Ruffled, Kettle-cooked, sometimes-even-packed-in-tennis-ball-canisters history. Here in the BiPM household, I'm not sure we've ever actually thrown out an old bag of chips. When one gets down to about an inch of crumbs, we just go buy a new bag and leave the old one in the cupboard, making a "mental note" to "finish off that old bag before starting in on the new one." Never happens. And now we have chip bags dating back to the Nixon years gathering dust and lord-knows-what else. The potato DNA is probably congealing into a super potato brain that will fashion a crude body out of the potato bags and begin a rampage that flattens several cities before it's finally brought down by a giant glop of French onion dip dropped from a helicopter. And when that day comes, I reckon George Crum's Wikipedia page will be updated accordingly.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 24, 2006
CHEERS to seeing red. German researchers have concluded that red-headed women are hornier than their blonde and brunette counterparts...and have nookie more often. I believe I speak for gay men everywhere when I say...we'll take your word for it.
JEERS to involuntary servitude. Oh, you kids are gonna love this. ABC News is reporting that the military may soon have to bring back the draft so we can continue turning corners in Iraq. For all the young Republican "hawks" out there who watch our troops get blown up from the comfort of their dens, that can only mean one thing: there's gonna be a major run on Patriot Pampies. Oops, too late...shelves are already bare.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to what-mighta-been. It's almost too painful to think about, but The Onion goes there:
Days after their candidate’s sudden withdrawal from the presidential race, dejected supporters of Republican Tim Pawlenty said Wednesday they could now only dream of what things might have been like if the former Minnesota governor had been able to drop out a couple months later. "Just imagine if he’d actually gotten the chance to be kicked around by pundits until October before collapsing under the weight of continually falling poll numbers and all but nonexistent support from donors," said Natalie Van Druff, a volunteer who told reporters she was struggling to accept the fact that she wouldn’t be seeing Pawlenty end his campaign after a distant fourth-place finish in New Hampshire. "We put in so much work, and now we’ll never get to watch him limp along for another few months as a total also-ran. It’s just not fair." Van Druff added that with Pawlenty out of the race, she would reluctantly support former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who she said had the best chance of meekly bowing out by Thanksgiving.
And if that doesn’t work out, there's always Gingrich. Always. Seriously. He's not going anywhere. Marshmallow cyborgs never do.
No joke: if you caress your Wednesday, it will purr. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
It is revealing that Bill in Portland Maine is fighting as hard as he can to win the stupidest man alive contest.
---Atrios
8/22/11
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