From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Today's Boring Correction
Yesterday Ellen DeGeneres took on a critic, Larry Tomczak at the Christian Post, who accused her of promoting the "gay agenda" by---his words---"celebrating her lesbianism and 'marriage' in between appearances of guests like Taylor Swift to attract young girls." Jen posted the video yesterday and you can watch it here.
Some of the other shows that Tomczak says are possessed by the demon gays include:
We hear it took Tomczak three
seasons before he figured out
this is a show about gay guys.
• Super hyped "Empire" series starts with Oscar nominee Terrence Howard having a homosexual son--and he's a hunk.
• Home and remodeling reality shows regularly feature lesbians and gays in partnerships exploring homes.
• "Dancing with the Stars" hosts a gay judge and gay couples.
• "Biggest Loser" had lesbian Jillian Michaels as a role model coach.
• "The Good Wife" now has a lesbian/bisexual investigator.
• "Grey's Anatomy" highlights a lesbian couple with their child.
• "Survivor" and other reality shows regularly parade homosexuals as contestants.
• Anderson Cooper boasts openly on TV he'd rather "have sex" with a man plus co-hosts New Year's Eve festivities nationwide.
And Lord knows that the Times Square ball-drop apparatus is just a giant phallic symbol designed to recruit Baby New Year to the gay agenda starting at the stroke of midnight.
Which brings us to today's boring correction. Mr. Tomczak recommends watching "wholesome" TV shows free of the influence of gayness. He might be interested to know that one of them, Little House on the Prairie, is a den of homo sympathizers: actor Steve Tracy (Percival Dalton) was gay, Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson) is an LGBT supporter and activist, and Melissa "Laura Ingalls" Gilbert is, ugh, totally supportive of her lesbian sister, actress Sara Gilbert.
Little House on the Prairie? More like Sodom and Gomorrah in the Corn Field.
So strike that show off your list, Mr. Tomczak. Unless you tried to slip it in there because you are secretly part of the gay agenda, too. Verrrry sneaky.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 15, 2015
Note: I admit it. I have a major alcohol problem. I can't pry the #!!@&! cap off the ripple this morning.
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8 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Groundhog Day:
18
Days 'til the
2015 Del Rio UFO Festival in Texas:
8
Number of political prisoners released by Cuba last week:
53
Percent increase in job openings in November, the highest since 2001:
2.9%
(Source: Labor Dept.)
Percent drop in Maine tobacco tax revenue between 2013 and 2014:
8.8%
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Amount a 1793 U.S. "chain cent" sold for at auction:
$2.35 million
Percent chance the penny is so rare because of the
circular chain on the back that critics said evoked slavery:
100%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Alas, the Good Old Days came to an end as cries of "too much government regulation" echoed through the land and we de-regged everything from airlines to energy to communications to (most memorably) savings and loans. The unions went south, new technology shook up the old arrangements, and corporations began catering to the global market. According to Cook and Frank, the final villain in the piece was "out-sourcing," which is the kind of word you get when you let economists name villains. Under increased competitive pressure, corporations figured out that they could save money by going to outside suppliers for everything from raw materials to cafeteria services. When a secretary with a good salary and medical benefits is replaced by a series of temps with neither, the secretary's job has been "out-sourced." Meanwhile, the executives have seen their pay shoot heavenward.
In one field after another---computers, professional sports, publishing, law, Wall Street---we end up with a winner-take-all economy. A few people get ungodly rich, and the rest of us fall behind.
---January 1996
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "To the park…and step on it."
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CHEERS to knowing a con job when we see one. Sorry, Mitch, but America knows you're just a lying loudmouth:
Hot down there, Mitch?
Last week, newly-minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to spin recent improvements in the U.S. economy as the product of an incoming Republican-controlled Congress. According to a CBS News Poll out today, the American public isn’t buying it. [A] plurality of Americans, 43 percent, believe that the president’s economic policies have helped the economy, while 34 percent believe they have hurt.
The president’s overall approval rating is also on the rise. [T]he president’s approval numbers have jumped from 39 in October to 46 percent today.
That's just five points shy of where Saint Ronnie was at the start of his seventh year, but 18 points higher than Bush Jr.. Meanwhile, the approval of McConnell's branch of government remains stuck in the
teens. Point: Obama.
CHEERS to helpful notices. If you have health insurance through the federal exchange, here's something we got yesterday in our inbox, courtesy of the Ministry of Death Panels:
"Mr. Smythe, I'm afraid you have
an 'It's A Small World' earworm."
Keep an eye on your mail in the coming weeks! If you or anyone in your household enrolled in a health plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace in 2014, you’ll get Form 1095-A—Health Insurance Marketplace Statement.
You'll get this important tax form in the mail by early February. The 1095-A provides information you’ll need to complete your 2014 Federal income tax returns. Keep it with your important tax records, like the W-2 you get from your employer. And later this month, you can also get a copy of your 1095-A by logging into your Marketplace account on HealthCare.gov.
They also say you can go to
healthcare.gov/taxes for more info. And one other tidbit of ACA news: if you want coverage that starts February 1, you need to
sign up by midnight tonight. As an incentive, they'll include a coupon you can redeem to throw one grandma off a cliff without a copay.
JEERS to the growing business sector known as Big Whiner. MetLife is a massively huge company that could, if it collapsed, send shock waves through the U.S. economy. As such, it's been designated under the Dodd-Frank law as "systemically important," aka "too big to fail," and thus susceptible to addition federal scrutiny. Naturally, they're not happy about that, so they're suing the government to leave us alooooone!
Plus: the MetLife blimp
has a laser cannon!
MetLife was the fourth nonbank financial firm to be given the label. The other three are [AIG], General Electric Capital Corp.---the finance arm of General Electric Co.---and Prudential Financial Inc.
Treasury spokeswoman Suzanne Elio said Tuesday that the [Financial Stability Oversight Council] has been notified of MetLife's legal action. "The council's decision to designate a nonbank financial company is reached only after a thorough analysis and extensive engagement with the company, both of which occurred in this case. We are confident in the council's work," Elio said.
Responded MetLife: "If you don’t stop saying that we can single-handedly crash the economy, we'll make you pay by single-handedly crashing the economy! I mean…er…um, we'll get back to you." Paging MetLife's P.R. department: cleanup in aisle six.
CHEERS to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today is the civil rights titan's 86th birthday. Some words of advice for President Obama, who made a bit of a leap in fulfilling King's dream and who starts his seventh year in office next Tuesday:
Happy birthday, MLK.
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"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
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"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character---that is the goal of true education."
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"A man can't ride your back unless it's bent."
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"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."
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"The time is always right to do what's right."
And my annual advice to Obama, slightly adapted from King's: "Judge me on the content of my character, not the underwear on my head." I'm guessing he'll spend another year not finding that one particularly helpful.
CHEERS turning Lemon into lemon roadkill. Moments after human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar unequivocally condemned radical Islam during an interview with CNN weirdo host Don Lemon, Lemon took leave of his dwindling senses and fired back, "Do you support ISIS?" In response to that bizarre moment, this week Iftikhar wrote an open letter that settled the matter with an open hand instead of a clenched fist:
The guy on the left is
the Lemon harangue guy.
After nearly 15 years of journalism and thousands of media interviews, I can honestly say that I have never become more “famous” than after this latest Don Lemon gaffe. It is a sincere honor to be added to the litany of famous “Malaysian-black-hole-penis-biting” Don Lemon media gaffes which can be added to his audition tape for his next job at FOX News Channel.
So from the bottom of my heart, I want to publicly thank Don Lemon for making me famous with his patently offensive racist dumb-ass question.
That should be their new slogan. CNN: Our Fools Will Make You Famous.
CHEERS to the 'Miracle on the Hudson.' A hundred and fifty five airline passengers got a shock six years ago today when al Qaeda-trained birds, each having been promised 72 virgin chicks in Paradise, flew themselves into the engines of Flight 1549 as it took off from LaGuardia, leaving it crippled with no way to keep it aloft. Thankfully they had Captain Chesley Sullenberger at the controls to safely land the plane in the Hudson River. A few months ago, Air Force Academy graduate (class of '73) Sullenberger visited his alma mater to talk about veterans issues:
Six years ago already?
Sullenberger was an F-4 Phantom pilot for five years and a US Airways commercial pilot for 30. He was able to remain calm amid the horror on Flight 1549, and attributes his composure to learning how to control stress throughout his experiences.
"It's still a shock," he told cadets. "There is no training for something like that. I think my life experiences helped me prepare as well as one can for something so unanticipated. The fact that I was able to maintain a professional calmness and had the discipline to focus clearly on the task at hand is what was important."
In other words, sometimes in life you just gotta be prepared to wing it.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 15, 2005
JEERS to blind eye for the queer guys. The Supreme Court, by refusing to hear an appeal (without comment, of course) of a Florida court ruling, tacitly endorses a law that prevents qualified gay couples from adopting otherwise homeless, rejected and at-risk children. Many of these unwanted kids will now lead lives of poverty, drug abuse and depression. And the Family Values crowd couldn't be happier. [1/15/15 Update: Not only can gay couples now adopt in Florida, they can also get married. The arc of the moral universe has bent nicely.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to naked men dipped in gold. The
Oscar nominations will be announced in about ten minutes. (We'll update this space momentarily with the major categories.) Before I make my prediction for the best picture nominees, here's a news flash: Birdman, who had Big Eyes and spent his Boyhood in Selma at the Grand Budapest Hotel studying The Theory of Everything and playing The Imitation Game so he could become a Foxcatcher, once tried to eat a Nightcrawler and spit it out so fast he gave himself a bad case of Whiplash. Now, as for the best picture nominees…I have no freaking clue.
Update: Here are the major category nominees (I was pretty close on the Best Picture ones, so I deserve an Oscar. Or at least a swag bag.):
Best Picture
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Best Actor
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J. K. Simmons, Whiplash
Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Biologists are buzzing about a dramatic new photo showing what's being called "the first record of a thresher shark giving birth." It shows the body of a baby shark just as it starts to emerge from its mother's body--and the photo was almost discarded before anyone knew what it showed. "That picture ended up in my trash folder because it appeared to have a 'blob' on it which I thought was Bill in Portland Maine."
---Huffington Post
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