From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"Bye Bye!"
"The door's that way, Eric. Bye Bye!"
"Or you can use the door over there. Bye Bye!"
"I'll keep the knives you stuck in my
back along with this gavel you woulda
crawled over broken glass to get
your hands on, ya big turd. Bye Bye!"
"The resolution is unanimously adopted to
let the door hit Congressman Cantor in the
ass right after we all yell BYE BYE!"
Yup. Today is his last day. So bye bye, Eric Cantor. I believe I speak for all of America---left, right, center, and whatever the hell libertarians think they are---when i say
thanks for nothin'. Have fun fleecing the gullible on K Street. Or Wall Street. Like there's a difference.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, August 18, 2014
Note: Hey! We got ourselves a good old-fashioned New England Kossack Meetup a' comin' on Saturday, September 6th at brillig and mik's home in the north-of-Boston area. For details, check out nhox42's post here. (Warning: contains graphic photo of what you'll wake up screaming in the middle of the night to if you click on it but, hey, knock yerself out.) If you want more info, email him at nhox42 [at] gmail.com. Hope you can make it!
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5 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til primary elections in Wyoming and Alaska:
1
Days 'til the
River City Roots Festival in Missoula, MT:
5
Number of black people killed every week in the U.S. by a white police officer between 2006 to 2012:
2
(Source: FBI via
Melissa Harris Perry)
Amount Kentucky State University president Ray Burse cut from his $350k salary so he could give his minimum-wage workers a $3 raise:
$90,000
Amount Americans took out in car loans during the second quarter, a six-year high:
$101 billion
Amount mortgage debt fell in the second quarter:
$69 billion
(Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
Rank of Maine among states whose Millennials spend the most on caffeine:
#1
(Source:
USA Today)
Average number of words a dog can learn:
165
(Source:
Parade)
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NEW! Your Monday Robin Williams Moment
When he died, I realized that I'd forgotten a ton of his jokes. That happens when you take a genius for granted and assume he or she is going to live forever. So for the next many Mondays, we'll harvest the hilarity:
“The other people that came out against gay marriage were the Mormons . . . They used to practice polygamy. A Mormon giving marital advice is like the Octomom running a Planned Parenthood clinic.”
“Beer commercials usually show big men, manly men, doing manly things: ‘You’ve just killed a small animal. It’s time for a light beer.’ Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, ‘It’s 5 o’clock in the morning. You’ve just pissed on a dumpster. It’s Miller time!’”
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Puppy Pic of the Day: 3-D printer + wheels = TurboRoo
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CHEERS to the biggest non-story of the day. Finishing up a brief trip to Washington today (something about Biden locking himself out of the house again), President Obama will soon be back on vacation with his family. He'll also be, as every president is, monitoring foreign and domestic hot spots and on call 24/7 for emergencies. So that means the chambers of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches in Washington, D.C. will once again be empty. In response, all the credit agencies will once again upgrade their rating from AA to Hallefrickinlujah.
Um...wrong Ferguson.
JEERS to another day of bad behavior. Expect more ridiculousness out of Ferguson, Missouri today, and I'm not talking about the protesters. No, instead we'll likely get a bunch of new song-and-dance bullcrap from officials representing various rungs on the law enforcement and political ladders. But, as always, we'll view today's developments through the lens of what started it all: a still-unjailed police officer (the
guy seen here in February getting an award for being extra-awesome) shot an unarmed kid
six times for walking while black, then left him in the middle of the street without so much as checking the kid's pulse. So stay tuned for another deluge of news, opinion, and
outright bullshit. On the bright side: at least the NRA is keeping its yap shut.
CHEERS to doing the celestial tango. If you were outside before dawn this morning, you may have seen Venus and Jupiter sucking face in the eastern sky. It's the closest they'll get this time around, but fear not:
Watching Jupiter and Venus. Hand-
holding optional but recommended.
This entire week is an exceptional time for predawn skywatchers to see the stunning sight of Venus and Jupiter together in the sky. The best time to see the two planets about 45 minutes before sunrise, when they will be visible low on the east-northeast horizon. … On Saturday, Aug. 23, the gap between Venus and Jupiter will have widened to 5 degrees (roughly the separation between the two pointer stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper). On that night a narrow crescent moon will join the two planets, making for a striking triangle configuration in the morning twilight.
Astronomers will point to this as one more amazing sign of the wonders of the cosmos. World Net Daily will point to this as one more cataclysmic sign of the evilness of anti-Christ Obama's plan to engulf the planet in fire and pestilence. Eh…some say corn, some say maize.
JEERS to the Best Little Drama Queen in Texas. If you're wondering what all the whoopin' and hollerin' was about late Friday, it was in response to the news that Texas Governor Rick Perry got indicted by a grand jury on two counts of---[reads off of official indictment document]---being a jerk of extraordinary magnitude. Here's a little historical perspective to give you an idea of what a bombshell this is:
Or so we hope.
The indictment is the first against a sitting governor since 1917, when Gov. James “Pa” Ferguson was indicted in a political firestorm after he vetoed state funding to the University of Texas. He was impeached and resigned before being convicted; his wife, Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, went on to serve two inconsecutive two-year terms as governor in the 1920s and 1930s.
For his part, Perry thumped his lectern and shouted, "It is outrageous that some would use partisan political theatrics to rip away at the very fabric of our state's constitution!" Personally, I don’t see any convictions in his future (although given the above I might expect to see a Tony nomination). But there's one thing that I'm looking forward to this week that I never thought I'd get to do: cross "post Rick Perry mug shot" off my bucket list.
CHEERS to the Lady from Plains. Happy birthday to former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who gets an 87 percent discount at Denny's today. I hear she plans to celebrate the usual way by stealing a Harley and going on a bank-robbing spree with Jimmy in the sidecar and Lord help anyone who gets in their way. Kids these days...
P.S. Dirty Fucking Hippie Robert Redford turns 78 today. He's had my vote since 1972. I just wish he'd run.
JEERS to the polka shoes being on the other foot. And now it's America's turn to claim that we're shocked…shocked!!!…to find out that unauthorized schnooping has been going on:
"Ha ha, Herr Kerry iz
going tinkle tinkle now."
Germany's foreign intelligence agency eavesdropped on calls made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton, German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday. … If true, the revelations would be embarrassing for the German government, which has spent months complaining to Washington about alleged American spy activity in Germany. Last year German media reports based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden prompted a sharp rebuke from Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was allegedly among the U.S. intelligence agency's targets.
This troubling…
troubling!!!…news officially cancels out Germany's outrage over the times we bugged them. The slate is clean. Beer and schnitzels all around. Put it on Merkel's tab.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 18, 2009
JEERS to today's words of wisdom. Okay, kids, pay attention. Your Uncle Antonin Scalia has an important lesson on what it means to live in America:
This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is "actually" innocent.
And next week he'll explain why the Founding Fathers want you to drown kittens! Ain't learnin' a kick?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to getting Burn'd. 94 years ago, on August 18, 1920---a whopping 144 years after the founders wrote that "All Men Are Created Equal"---the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote, was assured passage when Tennessee's legislature became the 36th in the nation to approve it. It's a great story, and one that would have cable-news gums a' flappin' for days if they'd been around back then. The pro-suffragists wore yellow roses on their lapels, the anti-suffragists wore red ones, and it looked like the reds were going to win. Until.......
Harry T. Burn
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...the legislators squared off for the third roll call. A blatant red rose on his breast, Harry Burn---[at 25] the youngest member of the legislature---suddenly broke the deadlock. Despite his red rose, he voted in favor of the bill and the house erupted into pandemonium. With his "yea," Burn had delivered universal suffrage to all American women. The outraged opponents to the bill began chasing Representative Burn around the room. In order to escape the angry mob, Burn climbed out one of the third-floor windows of the Capitol. Making his way along a ledge, he was able to save himself by hiding in the Capitol attic.
The sore losers were, naturally, the forebears of modern-day Republicans. And what prompted Burn to vote for progress? A
letter:
Thanks, Mom.
Dear Son: Hurrah and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt! I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter.
I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the "rat" in ratification.
Your mother
She always did know best.
May we all experience equality in our tolerance of another 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 screeching brings deer out of the woods
---George Smith
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