From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Week Ahead: As Seen Through the Eyes of the GOP
Monday In order to give President Obama time to cover up more details about Benghazi, the Treasury Department just happens to stick to its original schedule for releasing the budget report for April. Headlines touting a budget surplus only reinforce the truth behind the Treasury's underhanded insistence on posting the report as planned.
President Obama hosts President Jose Mujica Cordano of Uruguay. It quickly becomes clear that Cordano is the victim of White House strong-arm tactics when he conspicuously fails to mention the Benghazi cover-up even once during his visit.
All week: Nearly 10% of people who
think Benghazi is the biggest scandal
ever will continue to believe it's in Cuba.
Tuesday To distract attention away from Benghazi, President Obama awards the Medal of Honor for going above and beyond in Afghanistan to Sgt. Kyle White---the seventh living Iraq or Afghanistan servicemember to receive the award.
Wednesday The Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for April. And, oh, what a coincidence: they just happen to leave out the price we're all paying for Benghazi.
The White House orchestrates a full moon so bright that it burns everyone's retinas, preventing us from reading any more damning Benghazi documents. In response to this shameless act of lunar skullduggery, the House impeaches every person in line for the presidency until they stop at Rand Paul because, hey…ophthalmologist.
Thursday Strikes by fast-food workers go global, with walkouts staged all over the world in pursuit of better pay and an end to the practice of wage theft. House select committee chairman Trey Gowdy, sharp cookie that he is, notes that the strikes are happening on the same day that the prize in every happy meal was going to be a shocking Benghazi document.
The President speaks at the dedication of the National September 11th Memorial and Museum. Darrell Issa openly wonders if the memory of the September 11 attacks on New York City are being used as a distraction from the memory of the September 11 attacks on Benghazi. Even Michele Bachmann is like, whoa, dial it back dude.
Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen addresses the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and guess what she conveniently ain't talkin' about?
Friday Barbara Walters retires after appearing on The View for the last time, but not before taking a moment to ridicule the sham kangaroo court that is the select committee on Benghazi. So clearly Hillary got to her, too.
Well, won't that be fun. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, May 12, 2014
Note: Fiddleheads are neither fiddles nor heads. Discuss.
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11 days!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia:
1
Days 'til the (sold-out)
Sasquatch Festival in Quincy, Washington:
11
Minimum amount the Koch brothers plan to spend on behalf of radical-right candidates in the 2014 elections:
$125 million
(Source: MSNBC)
Number of years since 1997 that motorcycle fatalities have declined:
1 (2013, down 7 percent)
(Source:
The Washington Post)
Percent of Latinos describing themselves as Catholic in 2010 and 2014, respectively:
67%, 55%
Latinos describing themselves as non-religious in 2010 and 2014, respectively:
10%, 18%
(Source: Pew Research Center poll)
Number of mint-green port-a-potties now circling Earth, assuming the rocket booster I attached to it was strong enough to propel it into orbit yesterday:
1
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NEW! Your Monday Michigan Moment
Brought to you by the 2014 Netroots Nation Convention in Detroit, July 17-20. Today we've got 10 Facts You Need to Know About Detroit from the Amp Your Strat blog:
First city with a concrete road…home of the ice cream soda…supplied 75% of the liquor during prohibition…first radio news broadcast…only floating post office in the country…largest island park within a city…only U.S. city where you can look south to Canada…birthplace of techno…great salt mines underneath it…sports capital of the Midwest.
And also the only city hosting Netroots Nation this year. Ha ha ha, sucks to be you, every other city.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The dog that gained 400 pounds in one gulp…
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CHEERS to hitting the LGBT trifecta. A triple win for the devil's libertines (or, as Louie Gohmert called us Friday, Nazis) whatever the hyper-pundits are calling us these days:
Kristin Seaton & Jennifer Rambo,
the first same-sex couple to be
married in Arkansas Saturday.
The first Gay marriages happened in Arkansas, aka Dixie, aka a notch in the Bible Belt, after a judge ruled the state's ban on same-sex nuptials unconstitutional.
Michael Sam gets drafted by the St. Louis Rams.
Gender-bending singer Conchita Wurst---aka Thomas Neuwirth---won the 59th Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen.
Probably a good idea to wear a helmet today. The wingnut heads are going to be popping off their bodies all day, and god only knows where they'll land.
JEERS to weasel words. Apparently the FCC chairman claims he's taking a Bold New Stance to protect net neutrality even as he's taking steps to create conditions that could kill it. Don't believe it---Tom Wheeler still thinks you're dumb as rocks:
The nation's top telecommunications regulator defended his latest proposal to protect an open Internet, warning cable companies that manipulating data traffic on their networks for profit would not be tolerated.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler told The Cable Show on Wednesday that the so-called net neutrality rules he's proposed won't allow Internet service providers to push most users onto a "slow lane" so others who pay for priority access can have superior service. … "As chairman of the FCC, I do not intend to allow innovation to be strangled by the manipulation of the most important network of our time, the Internet," he said.
Yeah. That's what scares me. Because I believe the road paved with good intentions leads to a hot little place called Hell. In other words, there's a Grand Canyon-size chasm between "I do not intend to allow" and "I
will not allow." So until I hear something along the lines of "over my dead body" or "from my cold, dead hands" or "You shall not
pass!" or "Nee!" or "Witness the awesome power of this fully armed and operational ISP-neutering battle station!", it's all just so much buffering…buffering…buffering…
CHEERS to Yogi Berra. And happy 89th birthday to the baseball legend:
Happy Birthday, Yogi.
Yogi went on to become a Fifteen-time All Star, winning the AL MVP three times, in 1951, 54 and 55. He played in 14 World Series and holds numerous World Series records including most games by a catcher (63), hits (71), and times on a winning team (10), first in at bats, first in doubles, second in RBI's, third in home runs and BOB's. Yogi also hit the first pinch hit home run in World Series history in 1947. … Yogi was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
There are too many Yogi-isms to count, but one stands out as an apt statement on the Republican base: "There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em." Feast on
a few more here. And remember, when you come to that fork in the road, take it.
JEERS to today's boring correction. The headline in Saturday's dead-tree edition of The Portland Press Herald, which read…
Crowds cheer Putin on triumphant visit to Crimea
…forgot to include the two important words: "or else." We're sure they regret the error. Or else.
CHEERS to the "Mad" Father of Broadcasting. 104 years ago today, Wireless Broadcasting was patented (#887,357) by Kentucky melon farmer Nathan B Stubblefield. It looked something like this. They called the early years of radio "golden" for a reason. Limbaugh hadn't signed on yet.
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Five years ago in C&J: May 12, 2009
JEERS to foot-in-mouth disease. Memo from former RNC chair and former Bush advisor Ed Gillespie to the women of America: You're unskilled, unschooled, temperamental amateurs. Memo from Gillespie's wife to Gillespie: "You're an idiot and you're sleeping in the garage."
CHEERS to erections that will last WAY longer than 4 hours. It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's the new World Trade Center finally poking its nose out of the ground! They say it would've gone up a lot faster if the assistant foreman hadn’t dropped the Phillips-head screwdriver down a storm grate. Clumsy.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Monday Carlin. Happy Birthday to the late George Carlin, who would've turned 77 today. He spent many a glorious decade dissecting language, culture, politics and human nature, wielding a comedic scalpel and jackhammer with equal dexterity. All the reason we need to take a moment to revisit a mere smidgeon of his comedic Esprit de George…
Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?
You know how you speed up baseball? Everybody gets one swing. That's it. One swing, fuck you, you're out, sit down.
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If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
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Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"?
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Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn---they will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.
…and, of course, the (
not safe for work, natch) seven dirty words:
Oh, my delicate feefees.
Have tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Bill in Portland Maine's a good example of someone you meet, who you think you're going to hate, and then you get to hate him as much as you thought."
---Seth Rogan
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