Daily Kos

Cheers and Jeers for Friday, January 27, 2012

Note: Just a quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday as we will be undergoing intensive psychotherapy to wipe Herman Cain's State of the Union rebuttal from our memory.  C&J regrets the inconvenience.  Almost as much as we regret watching that horrifying rebuttal.

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Florida primary: 4
Days 'til the Kumquat Festival in Dade City, Florida (h/t surfdog): 1
Estimated number of jobs created for every $1 billion spent on the military: 11,000
By the same amount devoted to education: 27,000
(Source: Harper's Index)
Favorable rating of, respectively, President Obama, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich: 50%, 31%, 26%
Percent of Americans who were/are optimistic about our 5-year outlook in, respectively, 2010 and today: 37%, 53%
(Source: NBC News/Wall Street Journal)
Number of people who "like" the Portland, Maine Facebook page: 74,321

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Puppy Pic of the Day:  I find that the Puppy Bowl itself gets real dull real fast.  But the concept and build-up to it are brilliant.

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CHEERS to the dynamic duo.  If you missed last weekend's inaugural issue of Kossack Navajo and Meteor Blades' new Sunday series, First Nation News & Views, you can catch up here.  In short:

Each edition will include a short, original feature, a look at some date relevant to American Indian history and some brief news items chosen to show the diversity of modern Indians living both on and off reservations in the United States and Canada. You can follow Native American Netroots to put this series into your stream. Our tag will be "First Nations News."

First Nation News & Views is published every Sunday at 3:30 PT/ 6:30 ET.  Sorry to say you won't get a Ph.D. from reading it.  I'm afraid you'll have to settle for a Masters.

JEERS to the clash of the out-of-touch millionaires.  Before the retina burn set in while watching last night's debate, we witnessed a virtual replay of the scene at the end of Return of the Jedi where Luke Skywalker (Romney) gets so fuckin' pissed that he starts whacking away with his lightsaber until Vader (Gingrich, Romney's real father, we discover, oops, sorry, spoiler alert) loses a hand.  And now, just as it was after the New Hampshire primary, the conventional wisdom says that Newt is toast.  Oh, I hope not.  I just put a downpayment on a lunar time-share.  Third crater from the left---right next to the golf course!

CHEERS to happier times, Part I.  On January 27, 1998, President Clinton told the nation during his State of the Union address that the federal government would have a balanced budget in 1999...the first in 30 years.  Then he callously left George W. Bush the back-breaking task of screwing it all up again.  Slacker!

CHEERS to the happier times, Part 2.  On January 27, 1999, President Clinton proposed a $350 billion tax cut for Americans because the country was in such good financial shape.  After Clinton left office, of course, we charted a new path by enacting tax cuts even though we were at war and had become saddled with huge deficits.  Eh...Potato/Puhtahto.

CHEERS to (possible) future knot-tying.  For the frst time in U.S. history, a gay-marrage referendum is being placed on the ballot by pro-equality advocates.  That's right---while the appeal of California's Prop. 8 decision snail-paces its way to the Supreme Court, fair-minded Mainers are taking matters into their own hands:

Advocates of gay marriage submitted more than 105,000 signatures to the Secretary of State's Office on Thursday… [T]he decision to seek another referendum this year was driven by several factors, including polling done for the advocates in December that showed 54 percent of 800 likely voters favored allowing same-sex marriage… this year's presidential election, which will boost voter turnout; advocates' meetings with voters to gain support; an organized coalition that includes EqualityMaine, the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine and the Maine Women's Lobby; and the belief that proponents of gay marriage will have the money it takes to win at the polls.

I admit I have reservations about letting my neighbors vote on whether or not they understand the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Some of 'em can barely tie their shoelaces in the morning.  But I'll save my quibbles for another day, because right now I've got good reason to be happy: if you click on the Portland Press Herald link above and scroll down, you'll see that the haters are getting their asses thoroughly kicked in the comments.  That's not a good sign.  It's a friggin' miracle.

JEERS to Republicans in Backwardsville.  So what did we learn yesterday, class?  That Ron Paul really did approve the racist newsletters he said he didn’t approve, and Mitt Romney really didn’t approve the Gingrich-is-racist radio ad he said he did approve.  I'm Bill in Portland Maine, and I approve this facepalm.

CHEERS to music's Boy Wonder.  Happy 256th birthday to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  He's most famous for his hit, "Rock Me Amadeus," which hit #1 in 1786 on Casey's Countdown.  But as for your symphonies...eh, can you make 'em sound more like Salieri?  Too many damn notes, kid.  Pay your respects here.  In b-flat.

CHEERS to home vegetation.  Here are a few things on the teevee this weekend, starting with a whopper of a guest on HBO's Real Time.  Remember former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), who resigned because he got caught texting smutty messages to teenage congressional pages?  He'll be on, along with chef Mario Batali, Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), MSNBC's Martin Bashir and radio host Kennedy.  New DVD releases include the glowingly-reviewed but Oscar-snubbed cancer dramedy 50/50, plus the robot wrestling movie Real Steel, and the follow-up to the hit documentary Who Killed the Electric Car, called Revenge of the Electric Car.  Jeremy Irons provides the voice of Moe's bar rag on The Simpsons  On 60 Minutes: big game hunting.

And here's your Sunday morning lineup.  In deference to the revelation that Republicans were booked twice as often as Democrats in 2011, let's crank up the Republican/Democrat Index and see if they've gotten any better.

Meet the Press: This week it's David Gregory's turn to babysit John McCain while Cindy goes shopping; And look who the cat plans to drag in: Fred Thompson, the Ronald Reagan of the '08 campaign!  Plus: Rick Santorum, David Axelrod, and roundtable with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Joe Scarborough and Chuck Todd.  R/D Index: 4/1

This Week: Newt Gingrich live from Moon base Alpha; John Boehner; roundtable with George Will, Donna Brazile, former Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham.  I still wanna know why ABC has Fox anchors on their network---do they think it increases their prestige or something?  R/D Index: 2/0

Face the Nation: DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the RNC chair whose name keeps making my spellchecker cry; Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN); Donald Trump hawks a new book with his name on it that he didn't write; Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Rep. Allen West (R-FL); Dave Barry; roundtable with The Miami Herald's Marc Caputo, Real Clear Politics' Scott Conroy and CBS News' John Dickerson.  R/D Index: 5/1

Washington Week: Dan Balz of The Washington Post and John Dickerson of Slate Magazine on the Florida primary; Jackie Calmes of The New York Times and David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal on Obama's State of the Union.

Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Newt Gingrich live from Moon Base Omega; Paul Ryan; roundtable with Brit Hume, AB Stoddard, Paul Gigot, and Juan Williams.  R/D Index: 2/0

So the final count: 13 Republican politicians, 2 Democratic politicians.  Happy sleeping in!

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Five years ago in C&J: January 27, 2007

JEERS to creepy chicks.  Rep. Michele Bachmann couldn’t let go of President Bush after his Dissaray of the Union speech Tuesday night.  Now we learn that she's hit on him before.  Careful, lady, or Condi will slash your brake cables.

JEERS to man-made mayhem.  In a report that is sure to stoke outrage among the knuckledraggers among us, a U.N. climate report says there's a 90 percent chance that, since 1950, human activity has been the main cause of global warming.  The report also says that, instead of 34-feet, ocean levels will probably rise only 17 feet.  Which is good news for everyone.  Except, perhaps, those who currently live 16 feet, 11 inches above sea level.

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And just one more…

CHEERS to that New Deal guy.  We'll be off Monday, so tonight we wish an early happy 130th birthday to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born January 30, 1882.  In their book Rating the Presidents, where FDR sits at #2, just below Lincoln, William Ridings and Stuart McIver say:

Roosevelt is praised most often for his role in preserving the American capitalist system at a time when many countries were opting for fascism.  Given the dire crises he was forced to confront, perhaps the highest praise from the poll is "the right man in the right place at the right time."  [...]  Others praise him for stopping Hitler---and shudder to think what might have been if a less-effective president had been at the helm in those dangerous days.

During our modern-day "Great Recession," revisionist historians (read: right-wing hacks) engaged in a campaign to brand the New Deal a failure.  They failed miserably---big surprise.  But no flag pin on FDR's lapel?  I say that deserves a mild tut-tut.  Pay your respects, anyway.  And never forget that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.  Specifically, Chester B. Fear on Maple Street who sits on his porch with his fully armed and operational cream pie catapult.

P.S. Monday is also Dick Cheney's birthday.  He'll be 666---again.

Have a super duper pooper scooper weekend.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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