From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Midterm Election Reminder for America
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people--their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties--someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal.
---John F. Kennedy
74 years ago today, liberals
gave America the 40-hour
work week.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
---Stephen Colbert
"Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind… I’m total, total, total liberal and proud of it."
---Lauren Bacall
"Everybody knows God is nonpartisan, but I swear Jesus was a liberal---the best, the biggest, the original bleeding heart---the one who embraced the outcasts, the model for us all. Just read the stuff in the New Testament written in red."
---Molly Ivins
“Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.”
---Barry Goldwater
Any questions?
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, October 24, 2014
Note: To accommodate the rise in pre-election traffic, Daily Kos has added six gerbils to the treadmill. And to answer your next question: of course they're union.
-
8 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Daylight Saving Time ends:
9
Days 'til the
National Weather Festival in Norman, Oklahoma:
8
Inflation rate over the last 12 months, lower than the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target:
1.7%
Number of Social Security recipients who will find an extra 20 bucks in their checks starting in January:
60 million
Average number of drinks the top 10 percent of America's drinkers has per day:
10
Amount of annual alcohol sales that 10 percent accounts for:
50%
(Source:
The Washington Post)
Number of packages FedEx and UPS expect to ship between Thanksgiving and Christmas, up 8.8 percent from last year:
290 million
-
Friday Michele Bachmann Departure Countdown
Michele Bachmann and her googly eyes leave Congress in 71 days. Ah, memories:
"Lenscrafters is upset with Tea Partier Michele Bachmann because she called Planned Parenthood 'the Lenscrafters of abortion.' Lenscrafters released a statement today calling her 'the Costco of crazy.'" ---Conan O'Brien
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Hey, Nepal…ur doin' it right.
-
CHEERS to European exceptionalism. They have great castles, they have amazing transportation and health care systems, they have the Eurovision Song Contest, and now they're on the cusp of having a helluva plan to save the planet:
[O]n Friday morning, the European Union showed America up, striking an initial deal to legally require its member countries to cut their GHG emissions 40 percent below their 1990 levels by 2030. It’s the first substantive offer from any member of the international community ahead of the United Nations climate talks that will be held in Paris in 2015. The plan is for the 40 percent target to eventually be divvied up into individual and legally binding requirements for each E.U. member country, based on how much effort their economy can shoulder.
Once final approval happens, things should move quickly. Britain says it'll take the lead by instituting a new program of carb offsets to reduce its haggis footprint.
JEERS to the school that makes the University of Phoenix look like Oxford. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got busted this week for allowing over 3,000 students to take a class in which they didn’t have to think, learn or separate fact from fiction…and for their final reports they got A's and B's from the adults in charge for just making shit up. Education officials around the country call it a travesty. Fox News calls it their new talent pool.
The U.N. flag shows a cyborg's
claw crushing the planet.
CHEERS to World Peace...or something like it. Happy United Nations Day! On October 24, 1945, the
U.N. charter took effect. Their mission:
To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war; to reaffirm faith in human rights; to promote social progress and better standards of life; to practice tolerance and live together in peace and unite their strength to maintain international peace and security.
Which, when translated for the tea party, means: "To enact Agenda 21 when America least expects it and turn all our golf courses into gay Muslim indoctrination camps that replace our precious bodily fluids with zombie juice." And they say liberals are the stoners?
CHEERS to Great Moments in Saying Stuff. On October 24, 1861, the first coast-to-coast telegram was sent from Chief Justice Stephen Field in California to President Lincoln in Washington, D.C. Field's Message: "Could you find the whereabouts of Amanda Hugginkiss?" Lincoln's reply: "Nice try."
JEERS to more air for the housing bubble. I reserve the right to be wrong, but this doesn't sound good to me. No, it does not:
Those who forget the past...
With the financial crisis and subprime mortgage bust receding further into history, the government is loosening some financial rules, hoping to inject more life into the country’s still-recovering housing market.
Both banks and borrowers stand to benefit from the new rules unveiled Tuesday by six federal agencies. While banks will see relaxed guidelines for packaging and selling mortgage securities, fewer borrowers likely will need to make hefty down payments.
You know what would be better than loosening the rules to inflate the housing bubble by expanding the risky-buyer pool? How about making it easier to get jobs that pay decent incomes and giving existing workers stronger pay raises so they can afford to get a mortgage and have the means to pay it off? Isn't that what trickle-down economics is all about? Don’t answer…that wasn't a question, it was a punchline.
Hubba hubba!
CHEERS to gauzy gams. On this date in 1939,
nylon stockings went on sale for the first time, in Wilmington, Delaware:
Here is how a newspaper article described the frenzy:
Customers were lined three deep at the counters most of the day. Many of them were men and many were from out-of-town, although the sale was limited to three pairs per customer and supposedly to Delaware residents.
Four thousand pair were sold the first day. Three thousand to women and one thousand to bank robbers.
We'll miss ya, Nucky.
-
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's C&Js hackneyed and incomplete weekend TV report for your general disapproval. Tonight at 9 PBS presents crooning odd couple
Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga on
Great Performances. On HBO's
Real Time, Bill Maher's lineup includes investigative reporter James Risen, Cornel West, John Avlon and disgusting serial liar Mary Matalin. New
DVD releases include the humanity-on-a-train actioner
Snowpiercer, the Vincent Price Collection, and
See No Evil 2. (Spoiler Alert: you will, in fact, see evil.) The
World Series continues to be a slugfest between San Francisco and Kansas City---game 3 is tonight. The schedule for the tax-exempt, non-profit beer distributor known as the NFL is
here. (The Patriots will de-grizzlyfy the Bears Ha Ha Ha!!!)
On Bill Moyers & Company, Ari Berman of The Nation and Sherrilyn Ifillis of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund talk voter suppression. And don't bother calling me Sunday night between 9 and 10---Boardwalk Empire ends its run with a finale I'm not sure everyone is going to survive. Now here's your Sunday morning lineup, larded up with fear, false equivalence, strawmen, and an endless supply of obvious-but-unasked followup questions:
Meet the Press: No idea. They haven't released their roster yet, but plan on a heady mix of ebola experts, ISIS-related handwringers, dubious midterm fortunetellers, and Chuck Todd pulls a pot of mums out of his goatee.
Diversity!
CNN's State of the Union: Awesome, CNN…the expert you choose to talk about ebola is Darrell freakin' Issa??? Plus: Sen. Dianne Feinstein with the Top Ten Reasons to be Petrified; Sleep-inducing banter with Reince Priebus and Debbie Wasserman Schultz; roundtable with Newt Gingrich, Stephanie Cutter, A.B. Stoddard and political predictor Sam Wang.
This Week: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on E-you-know-what-ola; House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), and Former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen use Canada as a springboard to stoke terrorism fears; Bush young'un George P. Bush gets tongue-bathed by ABC during his run for Texas Land Commissioner; roundtable with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Gov. Bill Richardson, Kristen Soltis Anderson (Daily Beast), and LZ Granderson (ESPN).
Face the Nation: This weekend it's Bob Schieffer's turn to babysit Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) while wife Kristi goes shopping; Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook on Ebola; ISIS speculation with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), former CIA guy Mike Morell, David Ignatius (WaPost) and Clarissa Ward (CBS News); politics with Anthony Salvanto (CBS), Nancy Cordes (CBS), John Dickerson (CBS), David Leonhardt (NYT) and Amy Walter (Cook Political Report).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Chris Wallace leaps at the chance to fluff Chris Christie's butt pillow; Dr. Anthony Fauci explains why the biggest health threat to America is Rand Paul spouting off about Ebola; pollsters Bill McInturff and Mark Mellman; roundtable with Brit Hume, Nina Easton, Evan Bayh and George Will.
Happy viewing.
-
Five years ago in C&J: October 24, 2009
HA HA!! to the natural progression of the post-presidential twit. What's the worst U.S. president in history to do, really, when he leaves office and goes for months knowing that the highlight of his day will be pickin' up dog poop in the yard? Why, join the motivational speaker circuit, of course. Let's see if I can pass along some bamboozle basics to Mr. Bush:
Griftin' with the grifters.
1) Make sure you tell the eager beavers in the audience to avoid "stinkin' thinkin'" and a "hardening of the attitudes."
2) Remember your ABC: "Always Be Closing!"
3) Remind them not to beach themselves on "Someday Isle" and that "You can't look at a fireplace and say, 'Gimme heat first and then I'll give you wood.' Um, actually that's a disturbing visual so you might want to skip that part.
And no matter what city you're in, always shout: "It's GREAT to be here---I LOVE this town!!!" Good luck, sir, and don’t forget to upsell your 10-CD home learnin' program in the back of the room when you're done.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to the essence of this little rag. Seven years ago today, mere days after the DKos community swarmed to make writing this column my full-time gig via voluntary donations and monthly subscriptions (our 2014 fundraiser will happen after the midterm elections), the Portland Press Herald published an article about Cheers and Jeers. (It's no longer online, but that's okay because the photo they used made me look like beached whale.) The stuff about me didn’t mean diddly compared to the stuff about you, and it's always humbling to repost reporter Dieter Bradbury's take on the kiddie pool:
What? Mine isn't the
only C&J? I'm shocked!
Cheers and Jeers resonates with its readers, who live from coast to coast and fiercely compete to be the first to post a comment in response to Harnsberger’s blogs. Most say they gravitate to Cheers and Jeers because it’s a welcoming place, free of the sniping and personal attacks that characterize many political blogs.
"It is a real community," says Mercedes McCarter [aka mcmom], who has been reading and commenting on Cheers and Jeers for two years. "People celebrate the good in others’ lives, and are there to provide support, emotional and practical, for those who are having tragedy or illness in their lives."
And we also have a thing or two to say about politics. C&J is fast approaching its 11th blogiversary in December, and I'm just as proud as ever that it remains the equivalent of the FREE SPACE on a bingo card: a place where you can slip in and take a few deep breaths before you head back out into the craziness. We can't say it enough:
thank you for splashing, whether daily or occasionally. By keeping me off the streets you've made Portland's law enforcement officials
very happy.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-