From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Here They Come Again
Three years ago, the Catholic and Mormon churches got together with the conservative evangelicals and successfully waged a campaign to scare enough Maine voters into overturning a new law that would've allowed same-sex couples to get a marriage license from that Satanic secular institution known as "City Hall." (The Mormons---quite probably Mitt and Ann Romney among them unless they can prove otherwise---conveniently kept their identities secret by funneling their money through the bigot-laundering operation known as the National Organization for Marriage, aka NOM.)
This year the pro-equality side gathered more than enough signatures to put a fresh question on the ballot, one that simply asks: "Do you want to allow the state of Maine to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples?"
For the last couple of months, Mainers United for Marriage and its allies have aired positive TV spots featuring Norman Rockwellesque Maine families sharing their stories and expressing how important they feel marriage rights are for their gay and lesbian loved ones. One features a World War II vet who says, "This isn’t about politics---it's about family and how we as people treat one another."
Yesterday the other side fired back as expected. And it reminded me to revisit what the zealot leading the slime-bucket brigade in 2009 said while being filmed for a documentary about the campaign. His comments became public last year and were greeted with widespread disgust:
"We use a lot of hyperbole and I think that's always dangerous," says [Marc] Mutty during a [campaign] strategy session, at the time on leave from his job as public affairs director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maine. "You know, we say things like 'Teachers will be forced to (teach same-sex marriage in schools)!' … Well, that's not a completely accurate statement and we all know it isn't, you know? … And I think we use hyperbole to the point where, you know, it's like 'Geez!'"
And just in case that's not quite clear enough:
"[W]e need to do what we have to do---not only slam people over the head with a two-by-four, but a two-by-four with nails sticking out of it. … [U]nfortunately, I think it's a lousy approach. But it's the only thing we've got---it's the only way."
Besides, that's what Jesus would do. It's right there in the New Testament. The Book of Walker: Texas Ranger, if I'm not mistaken.
Mutty's out of the picture this year, but a guy named Frank Schubert (who has a gay sister) has stepped up his role as chief sleaze peddler. He produced the ads that ran here last time, some of which were carbon copies of the 2008 ads he cooked up to get Prop. 8 passed in California. Yeah…that Frank Schubert.
So off we go. Out comes the hyperbole. Out come the two-by-fours with nails in them. Out comes the slamming of the heads. By their own admission, "it's the only way." So that's what Maine's gonna get on the airwaves and in our mailboxes from now 'til November 6th. On the plus side, 2012 isn't an off-off election year like 2009 was, so their scare tactics may get a little lost in the shuffle this time around.
But if a majority of our "live and let live" citizenry gets fooled twice, shame shame shame on us.
On the web: Mainers United for Marriage
Official site for the film "Question One"
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Note: Please reduce speed to 50mph as work crews try to figure out why they laid out fifteen miles of orange construction cones last night after closing down the bar. Safety first!
---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the 2012 general election: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4!!!
Days 'til the 11th Lighthouse Beer Festival in Wilmington, NC: 11
Rank of Japan, Britain and the U.S. among the world's top climate-change deniers: #1, #2, #3
Portion of everyone polled around the world who believe that "the climate has changed significantly over the last 20 years": 9-in-10
(Source: Ipsos poll)
Elizabeth Warren's lead over Scott Brown in the two latest polls: 5pts. / 6pts.
(Source: The Boston Globe)
Pounds of cranberries that are expected to be harvested from Maine's 210 acres of bogs this year: 2.5 million
(Source: Cooperative Extension at UMaine Orono)
Percent chance that the likelihood of James Bond having chlamydia is "extremely high": 100%
(Source: Dr. Sarah Jarvis via BBC News)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
When all you fuckers are out of work, oh sorry work do not really appeal to you, we'll talk again. MSNBC is a bunch of stupid, biased wankers in any case. Using Jesus in the way this arsehole does is the typical level of low life mentality these people have. They don't even try to hide their hatred foe anything moral, clean and consevarive any longer. Hope you shits suffer of famine after you screwed up the election, by once again voting for a socialist and then suffer like everyone in the USSR.
---Commenter TJ Ferra on You Tube
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Sorry, Fido, but…it's time to saddle up.
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CHEERS to bright medals for bright minds. Yay!!! It's Nobel Prize Giving Away Time!!! It's my favorite time of year for realizing that I am one dumb fucker with a brain that probably resembles avocado dip past its sell-by date. The latest winners received their award for, literally, their body of work:
A Nobel Prize. Batteries not included.
The 2012 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded Monday to Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for work that revolutionized the understanding of how cells and organisms develop. … Gurdon, 79, of Dippenhall, England, and Yamanaka, 50, of Osaka, Japan, share the prize jointly for their discovery that "mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body."
The most effective way of turning a mature cell into an immature one? Teach it fart jokes.
CHEERS to raising a righteous ruckus. Speaking of Nobel Prize winners, Paul Krugman did his darndest Sunday morning on ABC's This Week to debunk both the "Welchers" and the Romneybots who suddenly find Mitt's incomprehensible economic plan the greatest thing since he had one good debate that gave them the tinglies "down there." Then he went ballistic---or as ballistic as he can get---in his must-read column yesterday:
Pay no attention to the smartest guy in the
room who can save the country. He's a libtard.
The furor over Friday’s report revealed a political movement that is rooting for American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news for the nation’s long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind rage. It also revealed a movement that lives in an intellectual bubble, dealing with uncomfortable reality---whether that reality involves polls or economic data---not just by denying the facts, but by spinning wild conspiracy theories. It is, quite simply, frightening to think that a movement this deranged wields so much political power.
One of my projects this month is to go back to C&Js from the days following President Obama's first inauguration and piece together the right-wingers' unfolding derangement. I suspect it'll be more bizarre than I remember. Call that the easiest prediction in the history of predictions.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. DougJ at Balloon Juice asks: I come from a family of softies, so I don’t think I can count on any of them for this…but can one of you agree to euthanize me if I ever start to sound like Jack Welch?
Sure.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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JEERS to Field Marshal Flipster McFloppy. Mitt Romney gave a foreign policy address yesterday, ticking it off his campaign to-do list with all the passion of…um, Mitt Romney. In a nutshell: it's similar to Obama's except with more epaulets, maniacal laughter and random button-pushing.
Anatomically correct,
by George!
CHEERS to landmark landmarks. 124 years ago today, on October. 9, 1888, the public was first allowed inside the
Washington Monument:
At the time of its completion, it was the tallest building [at 555 feet, 5 inches] in the world, and it remains the tallest stone structure in the world. It is the tallest building in Washington, D.C.. This monument is vastly taller than the obelisks around the capitals of Europe and in Egypt and Ethiopia, but ordinary antique obelisks were quarried as a monolithic block of stone, and were therefore seldom taller than approximately 100 feet.
Visitors to the monument that day were thrilled at the sight. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm quickly turned to disappointment when they realized there was no launch button.
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Five years ago in C&J: October 9, 2007
JEERS to dumbing it down in Dearborn. Looking for all the world like a police lineup of corporate hacks, the Republican presidential candidates debated in Michigan. It was the first chance for Americans to see Fred Thompson on stage. A poll taken immediately after the event showed that most conservative voters found him to be not as white as Romney or McCain, but definitely whiter than Giuliani and Huckabee. Meanwhile, Chris Matthews publicly declared that Thompson was a spittin' image of Gary Cooper, upon which the Oscar-winning actor rose from the grave and punched Matthews in the mouth.
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And just one more…
The rover 'Curiosity' sent back this image
from the Martian surface on Sunday.
JEERS to mangling a meme. There's a well-worn saying on the subject of achievement that goes something like this: "Always reach for the heavens. You might not get there, but at least you won't end up with a handful of dirt." So after sending the rover
Curiosity into space and landing it on the heavenly body known as Mars, what happens? It
ends up with a handful of dirt. If you listen carefully, tonight when you go outside you'll hear its gears plotting revenge.
Have a great Tuesday, earthlings. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Research continues into how Bill in Portland Maine could help reduce the stink bug population. BiPM, who remains under quarantine in research labs here in the USA, only attacks stink bug eggs.
---Doyle Rice
10/8/12
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