From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Mailbag
Dear Pastor Michael V. Wilson,
I understand that you and God are fed up with how the gays have been allowed to run amok lately, gaying up America in total gayness all the livelong day, and that you're proposing a constitutional amendment that will put a stop to this:
The United States of America is a Christian nation with Judeo-christian ethics, morals, principles and values. The practice of homosexuality in the United States of America and in all its territories and possessions, and in all its states, counties and cities shall be a felony punishable by ten years in prison at hard labor. This amendment shall take effect the first Sunday after ratification.
I have some questions:
1. Since your amendment would result in millions of new felons, far beyond what our current incarceration system can handle, how many new labor camps do you plan to build and who will pay for them?
2. Since the gays are coming out at an earlier and earlier age, where will you imprison the juvenile homosexuals, and how often will parents be able to visit their kids?
3. Since your amendment would go into effect almost immediately, how do you plan to round up and ship all these homosexuals to their designated labor camps?
4. What system will you have in place for rooting out homosexuals who are pretending to be heterosexual to avoid incarceration? (I hear they're very good at faking it. Many even make their living as paid actors. And priests.)
5. How will you deal with the resulting economic calamity of removing millions of able-bodied professionals from the workforce, or will you just leave that to the Ayn Randers to figure out?
6. Once a homosexual has served his or her ten-year sentence as a first-time offender, what would the penalty be for a second offense of unlawful gayness? How about the third...the fourth...the fifth? Would the death penalty kick in eventually?
7. Would you also imprison the parents of homosexuals, since they're the ones who pumped out Satan's spawn in the first place?
8. Does that log in your eye bother you? It looks painful.
If you could answer these questions completely and Judeo-Christianitisciously, Pastor Wilson, I would be happy to lobby my representative and senators on your behalf until I puke. Although, truth be told, the latter activity has already been taken care of.
Sincerely and Pearlygatedly Yours,
Bill in Portland Maine
and Michael, my tooootally platonic roommate of 21 years
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, August 28, 2014
Note: Here's the schedule for next week. C&J will be off Monday and Tuesday so that we can sharpen our snow shovel blades, pre-salt the sidewalks, and practice cooking emergency pots of clam chowder in anticipation of winter. C&J returns Wednesday, assuming we've scraped together bail after getting caught wearing white after Labor Day.
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7 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days of paid vacation Congress has left:
12
Days 'til Maine's
41st annual Seaplane Fly-In on Moosehead Lake:
7
Percent of Americans who eat breakfast alone:
60%
(Source:
The Week)
Number of allegations of voter impersonation out of over 1 billion votes cast since 2000:
31
(Source: Law school professor Justin Levitt's analysis)
Amount in property tax values that will be erased when three casinos close in Atlantic City next month:
$2 billion
(Source: Mayor Don Guardian)
Amount paid for a near-mint edition of the first Superman comic book from 1938:
$3.2 million
Original price of the comic book:
10 cents
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
It was also totally coincidental, of course, that [Rick] Perry collected $1.2 million in campaign contributions from special interests during the 20 days at the end of the session when he had to decide whether to sign or veto bills. Totally coincidentally, Perry then unleashed a blizzard of vetoes on the very same bills those special interests wanted killed. Amazing, isn't it?
---August, 2002
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Linus was right---there really is a great Pumpkin.
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CHEERS to a big win for workers. Yay---it's official. Control of the New England Market Basket chain of supermarkets is out of the hands of the nasty new CEO, and back in the hands of the beloved old CEO. And the celebration is on:
Read statements from various poobahs here. I can't remember the last time employees, managers and customers stood in lockstep to prevent a company from falling into the hands of greed-driven, profits-above-all penny pinchers. Terrific news all around, and a big win for what American capitalism should stand for: fairness.
JEERS to what goes on behind closed doors. Ick, ick, ick. You know that Republicans attending the Koch brothers' annual retreat are going to do a lot of ass kissing and boot licking, but to actually see and hear what they're saying is a futile exercise in gag-reflex restraint. Guess who said this:
"I assure you that in the spending bill we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called placing riders in the bill: No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We’re going to go after them on health care, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board. And we’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage."
If you said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, congratulations! Reward yourself with health insurance, clean water, fresh air, and protection from investment vultures…before it's too late.
51 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr.
hosted a small gathering of friends.
CHEERS to happy coincidences. Fifty-one years ago today, on August 28, 1963, 200,000 people watched as Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech (watch it
here) from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Six years ago tonight Barack Obama echoed the words of King (among them: "The fierce urgency of now") when he spoke to a packed stadium in Denver as the first African-American presidential nominee in the history of the universe. This for me is still King's money quote:
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"I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character."
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Or as modern day Republicans call it (to their infinite shame, hello Ferguson Missouri PD): a nightmare.
He'd be 73 today.
JEERS to the good dying much too young. Speaking of civil rights, today is the 59th anniversary of the abduction and lynching of 14 year-old Emmett Till---a shocking and disgraceful act that helped spark the civil rights movement in 1955. Till's original glass-topped casket (his remains were exhumed and re-buried in 2005) will be restored and go on display at the Smithsonian's
Museum of African American History and Culture starting in 2016. We hope his killers---who confessed after they were acquitted and never showed remorse before they died in 1980 and 1994---are currently in the process of feeling a certain burning sensation for eternity.
CHEERS to Dr. Sunshine. A few health notes we stumbled on this week, and it's all good!
> States where medical marijuana is legal have seen a jaw-dropping 25 percent drop in deaths from prescription painkillers.
> An Inspector General's report concludes that patients did not die as a result of backlogs at the Phoenix VA hospital.
> A 13-year-old girl, Elan Filler, isolated the mysterious fungus that has killed scores of AIDS patients for decades. It comes from trees. Bad trees.
Those darn kids---they'll be the life of us all.
Transcript of the '68 convention
CHEERS to history not repeating itself. On August 28, 1968, police and anti-war demonstrators made a hash of things
in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert Humphrey. In the wake of the fracas all the parties came together and instituted a new rule that has served conventions well ever since: Decaf, Decaf, Decaf.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 28, 2009
JEERS to bloggerbashers. Gosh, it seems like it was only Sunday (because it was only Sunday) that MSNBC's Chris Matthews accused 'our kind' of not fact-checking. But Tuesday it was CNN and MSNBC that failed to catch the nuance of Dick Cheney's statement in response to the Justice Department's freshly-opened torture investigation. Riding to the rescue to correct the broad-shouldered, square-jawed networks: the unserious bloggers. Although, really, when you think about it it's a moot point. When Cheney speaks, there are no facts to check.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to America's very, very cool places. The National Park Service turned 98 this week, and if you want to start your day with some breathtaking (but oil-well-free…sorry Republicans) pics of some of the 401 places that define our geography and historic sites, clicketh here. I like this one from Glacier National Park. Consider this your moment of zen:
The Park Service, by the way, was created by Woodrow Wilson. The letter after his name: D, of course.
Have a nice Thursday. I'll be at the dentist this morning getting metal picks shoved in my mouth while watching Fox News on the ceiling TV. What's not to like? 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 may have faked pregnancy for more food
---CNN
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