From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Their Yaps Runneth Amok
I love the end of the year. For some reason we can't help but collectively start wrapping up the previous twelve months in neat little boxes: Best, Worst, Top, Bottom, The Departed, The Elected, The Meaning of it All and, of course, "The Quotes." I'm a big fan of 'em, and I've come to look forward to the top ten assembled each year by Yale associate librarian Fred Shapiro. This year's gaggle is more significant than most, because they contain several that helped facilitate some candidates' downfalls or victories. The top two encapsulate the Mitt Romney legacy. Yes, you may point and laugh:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what ... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. ... These are people who pay no income tax. ... and so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
---Romney's "moocher" video
"We took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet (in Massachusetts). I went to a number of women’s groups and said, 'Can you help us find folks?' and they brought us whole binders full of women."
---Romney's second debate howler
You can see the full list at the link above. For shits and giggles, here are a few of my own picks:
"[Republicans] want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan. And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years. Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning."
---President Obama
“I can’t do that to myself!”
---Clint Eastwood to "President Obama" during his empty-chair stunt at the GOP convention
"People ask me all the time how we got four surplus budgets in a row. What new ideas did we bring to Washington? I always give a one-word answer: Arithmetic.”
---Bill Clinton's convention speech
“We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life!”
---Ann Romney
"Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska; Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV."
---Senator John Kerry
“With so much at stake in this election, both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan should go rogue!"
---Sarah Palin
“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!”
---Rick Santorum
"What's missing from the Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare is Medicare."
---HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius
“Back in my day they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.”
---Billionaire Foster Friess
“Each and every day that I’ve been a United States senator, I’ve been…in secret meetings with kings and queens."
---Senator Scott Brown
I hear ya, Skeeter. Myself, I like to play poker with invisible viceroys.
I don’t know exactly what 2013 will bring, but I'll take a wild guess and say it'll be loud and obnoxious. This is, after all, America. Our colors may not run, but our mouths sure do.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Note: Today is 12/12/12. At 12:12:12 it'll be 121212121212. Just a hunch, but I'm guessing the ranks of the 12/12/12 12:12:12 movement will start thinning out after today. But, man, what a GREAT second. I love you guys. Let's keep in touch!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til inauguration day: 40
Days 'til the state electors meet to cast their votes for President and Vice President: 5
Age of Craig Loughrey when his dad's gun accidentally discharged as he was getting into his truck in a parking lot in front of a gun store: 7
Percent chance Loughrey's dad told investigators he didn't remember having a bullet in the chamber of the 9mm handgun that killed his kid: 100%
(Source: The Portland Press Herald)
Minimum number of December tornadoes that ripped through the south Monday: 6
Percent of Americans who say they'll go to 3 or more holiday parties this season: 44%
Percent who say they avoid holiday parties altogether: 15%
(Source: P&G Survey via USA Today)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 186 (including 4 Beast Governments and 1 crazy ex-senator doing the apocalypse tango). 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: Diabetes service dogs: "They are hunting blood sugars instead of ducks."
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CHEERS to do-overs. If you or someone you know is thinking of going to Netroots Nation but you haven't registered yet, Mary Rickles has some good news:
Starts in just 190 days!
Is there another political activist in your family? A friend who maybe got more involved in the political dialogue during this election cycle? Why not gift them (or yourself) with a ticket to the largest progressive gathering of the year?
For three days only, we’re offering a special holiday rollback rate to attend our 2013 convention in San Jose, June 20-23.
If you’ve been to Netroots Nation before, you know what a rich experience it is—from the hands-on trainings to the 70-plus panels to the chance to meet and reconnect with friends and allies from across the world. This limited price is valid until Thursday, December 13 at midnight Pacific time.
The discount price---$245---saves you $50, which you can use to ply me with liquor in San Jose. Such a deal!!!
Click here for info. It's their small way of getting in the holiday spirit. So from everyone at Netroots Nation: "Happy President's Day two months early!" Feliz Millard Fillmore!
The citizens made a righteous
racket. And this fight ain't over.
JEERS to a dark day at the Wolverine State Reichstag. So what happened yesterday in Michigan was this: the Mystery Corporate Overlords of the One Percent (ALEC), having purchased the souls of the Republican governor and all but a handful of the House and Senate's Republican lawmakers for a bargain-basement price, took delivery on their prize: a
drive-by hit job on public- and private-sector unions. Or, if you want to look at it from a historical perspective: Republicans tossed the legacy of beloved Michigan icon George Romney into the crapper and flushed it down the drain without so much as a toodle-oo. Not much to do now but regroup and figure out how to get it repealed. Oh, and also: "Sieg heil!...
Thppt!...Heil!...
Thppt!...right in Herr Snyder's face."
JEERS to the most activist activist judges ever. On December 12, 2000---in between rounds of Texas Hold 'Em---the Supreme Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court ruling that said, Hey, maybe we should, like, count all the votes or something:
Pay attention, Scalia.
In a brazen act of deceit, the five-justice majority issuing the Court's per curiam decision knowingly misrepresented December 12 as Florida's chosen deadline for completing the vote count. They held that Florida law allowed no time to count the remaining 175,000 votes: [...] This overt misrepresentation of Florida election law flabbergasted members of the legal profession from coast to coast. These same justices who on so many prior occasions had championed the rights of states had now casually and willfully nullified Florida law.
But at least President Bush fulfilled his promise to restore dignity and competence back to the government. Chocolate gavels for everyone!
P.S. Whaddya want to bet that our first Chief Justice, John Jay, is spinning in his grave, knowing that the above abuse of judicial power was exercised on his birthday? Pay your respects, and sympathies, here.
CHEERS to the top making it to the bottom on its way to the top. This is pretty cool: the pointy spire that will grace the new World Trade Center skyscraper arrived in Lower Manhattan yesterday. When installed, the needle-like projection will make the building the tallest in the western hemisphere. Greeting the spire upon its arrival was a group of dignitaries, construction workers, and a little old lady with a Buick LeSabre, a scowl and a bill for a new tire.
We hear it runs on Cialis.
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JEERS to crazies with anti-gravity devices. Here's another one of those caught-with-our-pants-down-around-our-ankles moments. It came as a surprise when news broke that North Korea launched an ominous, mysterious, they're-up-to-no-good long-range rocket yesterday morning. No one's sure what it was for, exactly, but if it's North Korea it must have something to do with their nuke program. And unlike in April when their previous rocket test resulted in a fireball of FAIL, this one stayed airborne. The Japanese government confirmed that the rocket passed over their island of Okinawa, "
though no action was taken to shoot it down." To which Okinawa replied: "Yeah, we need to have a little chat about that, Slow Draw McGraw."
CHEERS to the biggest star on the U.S. map. On December 12, 1800, Washington, D.C. was established as the capital of the United States. During those early days, everyone---the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court---was packed into the north wing of the Capitol building like sardines. They later moved into their own spaces because, well, the place was starting to smell like sardines.
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Five years ago in C&J: December 12, 2007
CHEERS to flushing your reputation away in the toilet stall of life. Senator Larry Craig's guilty plea is now stuck to him like toiletpaper on a shoe after a judge refused to overturn it. Shortly after the decision was rendered, Senator Craig issued a brief statement: "Tap Tap...Tappity tap tap tap." Our fearless prediction: we're lookin' at 2009's Mr. Crotchless Chaps.
CHEERS to the hole in the 'hood. I have this hunch that one day we're going to find out that our galaxy is nothing more than a freckle on the tush of the creator's Aunt Fannie. But for now, it's amazing how we continue to get a clearer picture of what's out there...like the black hole in our back yard:
After 16 years of research, teams of American and European scientists have compiled the most complete portrait of the gigantic black hole at the center of the Milky Way, plotting its gravity-bending mass as being equivalent to a staggering 4 million suns.
[I]t is the most conclusive proof to date that our galaxy of billions of stars is indeed centered on an object of such tremendous power that it gobbles all light and matter that dares to venture into its neighborhood.
Interesting coincidence: Dick Cheney has the same effect at cocktail parties.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to going where no one has gone before…for the twelfth time. Look what's coming next year:
In the staid, dispassionate words of Mr. Spock: "Squeeeeeeee!!!!!!"
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:
"If you have an ounce of compassion this Christmas season, save it for Bill in Portland Maine and Cheers and Jeers."
---Brit Hume
12/10/12
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