From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Little Gay Billy's BIG Gay Newsapalooza!
I'm here, I'm queer, and I brung ya some beer. And some updates from LGBT Land:
• November is Transgender Awareness Month and Kossack rserven is publishing excellent posts on trans stories happening here in the U.S. and in other countries. Watch this rap by Alex and restore a little of your faith in humanity:
Details here. Hard to believe I'll be 80 when he becomes president.
• LGBT Americans who served in the military will be participating in Boston's Veterans Day parade for the first time. The group OutVets expects up to thirty people to march behind their banner today. It's worth reminding the country that "Don't ask, don't tell" has been repealed for three years, and not one dire consequence predicted by the conservative bigots has come to pass.
• Some bright spots from the midterms: Maura Healey became the first openly-gay Attorney General (representing Massachusetts) in American history. Plus all six gay Congresscritters won re-election. And with the election of John McCrostie in the Idaho House of Representatives, every state has at least one openly-gay elected official. I think that's all Team LGBT needs to release the kraken.
• It should a big day for Kansas, which should officially become the 33rd state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. (Leave it to the gays to teach Republican Governor Sam Brownback how to bring some money into the state's coffers.) The U.S. marriage-equality map looks like this now:
If all goes according to plan and the Supreme Court
lifts the provisional stay it imposed last night, Kansas will turn dark blue at 5 O'clock. If you're a Kansas fainting-couch rental salesman, this should be your lucky day!
• Speaking of SCOTUS, litigants from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee are each headed there to appeal the 6th Circuit Court's decision---on the flimsiest grounds---upholding marriage bans in those states. Can't kick it back downstairs this time, oh robed ones. Bring on the Scalia argle bargle!
• Perennial reminder that, with all the gains we're making, people can still be fired for being gay in 29 states and for being transgender in 32. Speaker of the House John Boehner, on whose desk a Senate-passed employment non-discrimination bill sits, is perfectly happy about that.
• Pope Francis to America's most powerful Cardinal, Raymond "Gays Are Evil 4 Evuh" Burke: "You are so grounded.". Here's a toothbrush, Ray…there's the Vatican loo…now go get humble.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Note: Due to the Veterans Day holiday, there is no bus service in Portland, Maine. However, volunteers from the American Legion will be available to fire you out of a cannon to within a hundred yards of your destination. ---Mgt.
-
4 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Festivus:
42
Days 'til the
Austin Home Brew Festival:
4
Number of people in Texas still being monitored for Ebola:
0
Percent of Americans who said they were satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives in 2006:
91%
Percent who are satisfied in the same way today:
79%
(Source: Harper's Index)
The last time the federal government employed as few people as it does today:
1966
(Source:
The Wall Street Journal)
Number of Stephen King books sold since 1974:
350 million
(Source:
Maine Sunday Telegram)
-
Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
John Roberts ruined healthcare for 10s of millions of Americans. He should die a slow, grueling and demeaning death and be forever remembered in history as traitorous scum to his oath of office and as a defiler of the human condition.
---Commenter "Thone" at RedState
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Americans come to the rescue of…Isis???
-
CHEERS to our men and women in uniform. Today is Veterans' Day. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have certainly burned into this generation's brain the fact that military service is a grueling, unpredictable and uncompromising challenge that often means paying a heavy and unexpected price in the pursuit of politician-selected goals that are not always noble or necessary. The military is where we go to become a trained killer-of-bad-people and destroyer-of-bad-things in defense of our country, while at the same time serving as de facto U.S. ambassadors when we're on foreign soil. And while we could go on and on about how our armed forces have been kicking ass for 238 years, we'll leave it, as always, at a simple...
CHEERS to the travelin' man. President Obama strapped on
Jetpack One Sunday and
blasted off for Asia. Today he's in the
country from which America's teabaggers get their flags, clothing and
Heroes of the Confederacy cuckoo clocks:
As always, distant and aloof.
President Obama arrived [in China] on Monday morning for a three-day visit that a three-day visit that will capture the complexities of the United States-China relationship: the tensions of a rising power confronting an established one, as well as the promise that the world’s two largest economies could find common cause on issues like climate change.
Touching down under skies that were a government-mandated blue — the authorities idled factories and kept vehicles off the roads to clear the air — Mr. Obama plunged into a hectic schedule that mixed the solemn rituals of a state visit with the deal-making of an economic summit meeting.
If I was president, I'd go to their most famous landmark, walk a few steps, and then suddenly stop and shout:
"Mr. Xi! Tear DOWN this wall!" But would I be joking? Heh...that'll be for them to figure out.
Amazing as it seems, these
are not the same person.
JEERS to burnt-out fuses in the teabagger brain. Some
idiot reporter freedom scribe for Breitbart.com slapped together a BOMBSHELL article in which he revealed that President Obama's attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch, was---gasp!---one of the Clinton Whitewater attorneys. Release the Fox hounds, activate the Drudge Report blinky light and Let the smearing begin! Just one problem with the article:
that's a different Loretta Lynch (among the differences: Lynch is white, while Lynch is black). The author of that article, which was
so shockingly wrong that Breitbart.com had to pull it (you can see it
here), is Warner Todd Huston. Or, pronounced phonetically: Child Left Behind.
CHEERS to Democrats from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Happy 74th birthday to Senator Barbara Boxer of California…..
"I think Democrats are right. We fight for the American dream, for the environment, for privacy rights, a woman's right to choose, a good public education system."
"And a' one, and a' two:
Happy birthday to meee..."
"I was a stock broker once. I think there is an absolute place for market investments. But they should never be the basis of one's retirement. They should be an additional piece on top of a basic, secure, guaranteed retirement benefit."
"Medical professionals, not insurance company bureaucrats, should be making health care decisions."
"We know no document is perfect, but when we amend the Constitution, it would be to expand rights, not to take away rights from decent, loyal Americans. This great Constitution of ours should never be used to make a group of Americans permanent second-class citizens".
…..and many blessings on your camels.
JEERS to Rush Limbaugh: professional victim. Poor baby…the DNC is bein' unfair to Mr. Ratingstanker:
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday threatened to sue the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for using comments Limbaugh made about rape on college campuses in fundraising emails, according to the Washington Post. […] In the segment quoted by the DSCC, Limbaugh asked listeners, "how many of you guys, in your own experience with women, have learned that no means yes if you know how to spot it?"
Kinda like saying "I'm suing you for mentioning me in a fundraising email" really means, "I'm ginning up a bogus controversy to goose my terrible ratings." If ya know how to spot it. Like if Rush's mouth is moving.
-
Five years ago in C&J: November 11, 2009
CHEERS to stimulus at the point of a virtual gun. Gamers are about to shell out half a billion dollars this week to buy the new must-have-or-my-friends-will-laugh-at-me release---out today---called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. To put that in perspective, that's like an entire hour of out-of-pocket healthcare expenses in America...or one hour's worth of Wall Street bonuses...or the amount it would take to get a psychotherapist to go within fifty feet of Glenn Beck.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to previews of coming attractions. There seems to be some robust pre-Oscar buzz for the movie Selma, which Rotten Tomatoes describes as "the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition; the epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement." If the trailer is any indication, I'd say there's a good chance the buzz is right:
More on the movie here. Looks intense. By the way, I have a dream that one day we'll judge movie theatres not by the color of their lobby, but by the content of their nacho cheese.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Woman ‘spontaneously’ revives after 45 minutes without Cheers and Jeers
---The Washington Post
-