From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Little Gay Billy Twinkletoes' BIG LGBT Roundup
That's my name, don’t wear it out. Here's some stuff:
• You want equality? Okay, fine, as long as you understand that it's gonna be harder now to get excused from jury duty. All I can say is: please please PLEASE, God, grant me a seat in the box when our tea party governor goes on trial for whatever he ends up going on trial for.
ENDA Update: It's still
languishing in the House.
• As the Republican party continues its exclusive pandering to bigots, Bible thumpers and billionaires, a steady stream of horrified members are jumping ship. In addition to GOProud co-founder
Jimmy LaSalvia, gay Indiana state House candidate
Andrew Markle says the GOP's obsessive pursuit of a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality is the last straw. Echoing a phrase many other defectors have used, he writes: "I am not leaving the Republican Party; the Republican Party has left me."
• As of this month, the Boy Scouts of America no longer bars gay youth from joining, although the ban on gay leaders is still in place. Naturally, conservative critics of the new policy predicted that there would be a MASS EXODUS of proper, god-fearing members from the organization. Since they're wrong about most things, it practically goes without saying that the new policy went into effect with nary a peep.
• Coca Cola is sponsoring some security goons at the Sochi Olympics, who proudly wear the corporation's logo on their uniforms. It's a perfect fit with their age-old slogan: "Have a Coke and a smile…but hurry up because you're about to get punched in the face and hauled off to the gulag."
• Here are the states in which marriage-equality and/or recognition of existing marriages performed out of state are being pursued through the courts in the wake of the Supreme Court's DOMA decision last year: Virginia, Utah, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, Michigan and Ohio. (Wow---look at all those red states.) Plus 2014 ballot initiative is in the works in Oregon. And now there's a challenge in Florida. This is gonna be a good year.
• Regarding today's C&J poll down yonder: Winning Prop. 8 trial attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies made their five-year 50-state marriage prediction at the Sundance Film Festival, where they attended the premiere of The Case Against 8, which airs in June on HBO.
• Keep up on news and opinion from your fellow Kossacks via---among others---the LGBT Rights Are Human Rights, TransAction and Remembering LGBT History groups, and the LGBT tag.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 23, 2014
Note: I love the smell of a shrinking conservative base in the morning.
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8 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til
Mardi Gras:
40
Days 'til the
Fish Creek Winter Festival in Wisconsin:
8
Amount of the world's wealth owned by the top 1 percent:
50%
Amount that wealthy people and companies are hiding in tax havens around the world:
$21 trillion
(Source:
Think Progress)
Year by which Bill Gates
predicts there will be "almost no poor countries" in the world:
2035
Percent chance that Chrysler is wholly owned by Fiat as of two days ago:
100%
Maine's rank nationally in terms of its availability and…[Buffering Buffering Buffering]…quality of its internet access:
#49
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
The Reagan administration is genuinely funny, honest it is. From the time we whipped Grenada in a fair fight to the day the old boy dropped off the wreath at Bitburg, this administration has been nothing but laughs. James Watt! Killer trees! Ketchup as a vegetable! Reagan cures the deficit! This is great stuff. You can't make up stuff this good.
---March, 1986
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The softer side of Russia
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"The indictments against me are
about...yeah, about this thick."
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CHEERS to schadenfreude: the gift that keeps on giving. Moments after his exit from office, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell---a member of the fine, upstanding conservative God Squad and he's got the degree from "Christian Broadcasting Network University" to prove it---and his wife got slapped with
a 14-count indictment this week. The no-no he said "Yes! Yes!" to: quid pro quo, baby---a lifestyle of the rich and famous (yachts, jets, villas, Ferraris, um…chicken dinners) in exchange for political favors. The irony abounds: the creepy guy nicknamed "Governor Ultrasound" now finds himself on the receiving end of a probe that he has no choice but to lie back and endure because it's the law. That sound you hear is karma popping a champagne cork.
CHEERS to having a little faith in your job. Since all wars are fought over one religious ideology (including earthly ones like "oil") or another, it makes sense that the military would loosen the rules a bit:
"Morning, General."
The Pentagon on Wednesday is expected to announce widespread changes to rules governing religious items and religion-based physical attributes that service members can maintain while in uniform---including beards, some religious tattoos, and turbans.
NBC News obtained an early draft of the new Department of Defense instruction which states that the military will make every effort to accommodate “individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs” (conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs) of service members.
Turbans?
Turbans??!!! Another Marxist plot by "Barry Obummer" to turn the military into Muslim Military Muslim Military! (I can hear the wingers over at World Net Daily fainting in their rapture bunkers now.) Fearless prediction: they'll tighten things back up the first time a Pastafarian reports for duty wearing a colander.
CHEERS to Great Moments In Stark-Raving Obvious Conclusions:
Guns in home increase suicide, homicide risk
This has been Great Moments In Stark-Raving Obvious Conclusions.
JEERS to not going out of business. Five years ago, newly-minted President Barack Obama signed an order that was intended to close the prison at Guantanamo within a year:
Still open for nasty business.
"The orders that I signed today should send an unmistakable signal that our actions in defense of liberty will be just as our cause and that we, the people, will uphold our fundamental values as vigilantly as we protect our security. Once again, America’s moral example must be the bedrock and the beacon of our global leadership."
A bunch of cowards in Congress and state houses---Republicans
and Democrats, of course---got the vapors and said no, America isn't smart enough or strong enough to handle those detainees
ON AMERICAN SOIL!!! So, five years later, Gitmo is still open for business, and now the president can have American citizens arrested without probable cause and black-helicoptered there, too, if he chooses. Memo to DHS: if I'm on your list, I'd like my steak medium, please. Light on the tater tots, extra broccoli.
JEERS to Zuckerberg's iceberg. A new Princeton study says that Facebook will---not "may," but will---lose 80 percent of its core users in the next three years. Also in the next three years: Monsanto will try to sue 80 percent of the crop tenders in Farmville. Sharpen those pitchforks.
CHEERS to timely retro-advice. Eighteen years ago today---oh, this is so cute---Bill Clinton delivered a State of the Union speech in which he told Republicans that they had to pinky-swear…
Clinton saved Republicans
from themselves.
"...never, ever shut the federal government down again. On behalf of all Americans, especially those who need their Social Security payments at the beginning of March, I also challenge the Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States---to honor the obligations of this great nation as we have for 220 years; to rise above partisanship and pass a straightforward extension of the debt limit and show people America keeps its word."
Read that out loud to a tea party Republican. They'll stand there all day waiting for the rimshot.
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Five years ago in C&J: January 23, 2009
CHEERS to Hillary. Yesterday our new Secretary of State was greeted as a liberator during her first day on the job. John at Americablog says:
Greeted as a liberator.
"You have to watch this video. It's like the allies landing in occupied Europe. These are US diplomats. Not the most exuberant of people. One might even call them nerdy. Today, they're simply out of control. (I'm half expecting Hillary to join the crowd in toppling a statue of Condi.)
Her first task after the warm reception: blowing four years of dust off the How to Be A Competent Secretary of State Handbook. And then calling maintenance to get Condi's #@!#$% piano out of her office.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to flying filling. Today is a high holy day at Daily Kos. Yes, it's…National Pie Day. Let the fun begin:
If it's lemon meringue it must be Thursday.
"Love Obama!" [Splot!]
"Hate Obama!" [Splot!]
"Site administrator moderation!" [Splot!]
"Self-policing!" [Splot!]
"Ginger!" [Splot!]
"Mary Ann!" [Splot!]
"Ideological purity!" [Splot!]
"Practical centrism!" [Splot!]
"Woozles!" [Splot!]
"Pooties!" [Splot!]
"Three point one four one five!" [Splot!]
"That's pi, not pie, you idiot!" [Splot!]
"Hi, I'm just here to use the restroom." [Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot!]
That was fun. Same time next year?
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“Oh, Cheers and Jeers? We kind of know that’s---I mean you and I agree that that’s B.S. now, right?”
---Mark Ruffalo
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