From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
As Mitt re-re-re-sails into the sunset, enjoy one final reprise of his revised 2012 America the Beautiful lyrics---a reminder of the presidency that will never be, as he takes his car elevator ever-so-slowly down, down, down…
O beautiful for Cayman Isles
For dividends from Bain
And Swiss accounts sealed good and tight
And carried interest gains
"Oh, he's frozen in carbonite! He should be well
protected...if he survived the freezing process."
America! America!
God shed His wealth on me
And fed my soul with tax loopholes
For me and my trustee.
O immigrants! Get off my lawn!
I'm running, for Pete's sake.
I'll wager you ten thousand bucks
Then let you all eat cake!
America! America!
Where companies are "folks"
And fire you is what I'll do
Then feed you to the Kochs.
Bye, again! And thanks for all the chocolate goodies.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Note: Full moon tonight. By law you must go out in the yard, look up, and wink at Neil Armstrong. The NSA will be watching for compliance. Violators will spend a week driving across Siberia in an unheated VAZ-2101 with a drunk, Katy Perry-obsessed cosmonaut. And his un-tuned balalaika.
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11 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Days 'til the first full workout by the Red Sox during spring training:
22
Days 'til the
Boston Wine Expo:
11
Percent of Americans making over $150k who voted in the 2012 election:
80.2%
Percent of Americans making less than $10k who voted in the 2012 election:
47%
(Source: Politico)
Number of Super Bowls won by the New England Patriots after losing the coin toss:
4
Average lifespan of the bowhead whale:
200 years
Percent chance that new bacon-scented scratch cards have
become the #1-selling lottery tickets in New Hampshire:
100%
(Source: AP)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Triple Play of menfolk from Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller:
We do need a program to educate men about the dangers of associating with progressive women. These women despise men and enjoy inflicting pain on them and humiliating them. If you have to, date women who have never gone to college where they learned that men, especially White men, are their enemies.
Notice how the feral left wing progressive's mirror the hardline Wahhabists more each day? That's right shove women back into the kitchen progressives but I will note most progressive women are so ugly rape is the least of their worries.
It's the goal of Liberals to make all men like Liberal men: effeminate, limp-wristed sissies.
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A YES vote from you would be lovely…
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The reason for the season.
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CHEERS to February! For the shortest month, it sure packs a lot of goodies in it. Highlights: Black History Month, Great American Pie Month, more daylight, Waitangi Day in New Zealand, Heritage Day in Canada, Valentine's Day (Tom Brady already got me as Lombardi Trophy!), George & Abe's Great Presidents' Day Mattress Sale-A-Bration, Charles Dickens Day, MARDI GRAS!!!!!, Flag Day in Mexico, gay marriages start in Alabama on the 9th, the Chinese New Year (of the goat) rings in on the 19th, and tomorrow is Create A Vacuum Day (chaired this year by Mike Huckabee because he's #1 at suckage). Memo to March: you better start figuring out how to come in like a lamb this year or it's gonna get ugly.
JEERS to sleeping through the biggest news story of the day. I can't believe there wasn't more champagne-cork popping over this yesterday. The chairman of the FCC, who so so so so SO wanted to destroy net neutrality, got so flooded with pushback from We The People that he threw up his hands and surrendered to reason. This is huge…
Woo hoo!
On Thursday, [Tom] Wheeler is expected to present to the commission a set of rules that would treat broadband providers like utilities, effectively denying them the right to charge companies a premium for faster access to consumers and holding them accountable for any attempt to secretly impede the flow of data. When the commission finally approves them---a vote is scheduled for late February---it will mark the most significant rewrite of the rules of the road for the Internet in more than a dozen years and affect the competitive playing field for generations to come. […]
[I]nterviews with FCC officials, industry executives and representatives of public interest groups reveal the origins of his dramatic pivot on this issue: an intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people---him and President Barack Obama.
Perhaps some people didn’t want to jump into the Happymobile until it's officially announced because there could still be a last-minute screwup. Relax…it's Tom Wheeler, not Pete Carroll! [
B'dump-bump Psssh!] Hey, throw whatever you want at me…I'm blogging behind plexiglass today.
CHEERS to furry fortunetellers. Yesterday was Groundhog Day. Let's take a spin and find out what the rodents predicted this year:
Staten Island Chuck: early spring!
Balzac Billy (Alberta): early spring!
Wiarton Willie (Ontario): early spring!
Buckeye Chuck (Marion, OH): early spring!
General Beauregard Lee (Lilburn, GA): early spring!
Jimmy the Groundhog (Sun Prairie, Wisconsin): early spring!
Punxsutawney Phil (Gobblers Knob, PA): six more weeks of winter
Final verdict: Punxsutawney Phil is not a team player.
P.S. Also yesterday, Punxsutawney Paranoid traveled to D.C., saw President Obama's shadow, and declared two more years of tyranny.
Enough blizzards and you start to see things.
CHEERS to takin' a big fat flaky dump. Speaking of winter, I always say that if that's what season it is, ya might as well have snow on the ground. I should probably say that a little more quietly, though, because Mother Nature granted my request yesterday with our
third major winter storm in a week, including a fluffy foot of snow here in Portland. Thank god our emergency vittles (Bacardi, Oreos) held out and the power stayed on. So we've gotten four feet in the last week, and there's more on the way for Thursday. To put that in perspective, that's almost as deep as the pile Rand Paul and Chris Christie stepped in regarding vaccinations yesterday. Except it wasn't snow.
CHEERS and JEERS to one of the two things in life that are certain. On February 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment, establishing the beloved income tax, was ratified and became part of the U.S. Constitution. Here is our annual posting of the full text---in italics so it looks old and wrinkled and historic:
Tyranny!!!
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Congress shall also have the power to conspire with giant corporations to use tax dollars to build a war machine that can destroy every planet in the solar system many times over. We want guns. BIG guns! Tanks, planes, nukes, bunker busters, aircraft carriers and a few thousand bullets for every man, woman and child. Anything that proves to the rest of the world that we've got the biggest penis on the planet must be arsenalized. We are woefully short on laser cannons---let's fix that.
At various times, taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts may be necessary. These bailouts will be prioritized in the following order: white collar idiots, white collar dolts, white collar crooks, white collar morons, white collar charlatans, and white collar bloodsuckers.
Finally, Congress shall impose the strictest penalties on citizen scofflaws who fail to pay their income taxes on time and in full without exception. And by 'without exception' we mean except if you're rich and can afford really savvy CPAs and lawyers who can get you out of paying them. Or if you're really rich and you "forget" to pay them, in which case: tut tut.
Okay, that's our amendment. You may now begin stuffing hundred-dollar bills down our pants.
It's worked perfectly ever since. Go us!
And everyone gets a free koala bear!
CHEERS to the dollars and sense. President Obama, once again lapping Republicans in the leadership department, burns the midnight oil to come up with
a budget for people who don’t have an "-illionaire" designation in
Forbes magazine:
President Obama released a $4 trillion budget proposal Monday that would provide tax breaks for the middle class, raise some of the taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations, and end the budget sequester. It would slightly decrease the deficit and keep the debt at what the White House is calling sustainable levels.
One thing the budget
doesn't do is take a machete to Social Security (no, not even that sneaky "chained CPI" thing), and Obama is challenging the GOP to follow suit. Republicans say they only want to remove a piece of Social Security. I believe it's the part they call security.
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Ten years ago in C&J: Bush's 2005 State of the Union:
JEERS to red meat for the Bible-thumpers. Bush: "Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage." Keep goin'...your tongue hasn't quite made it all the way up James Dobson's hiney yet.
CHEERS to the 55 crowd. Bush says he won't gut Social Security for anyone who's that age or older. Mad as hornets this morning: all the 54 year-olds.
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And just one more…
Cedwyn at Yearly
Kos '07 in Chicago
CHEERS to a very smart dirty fucking hippie. Kossack
Cedwyn had a standard greeting for me whenever we crossed paths at a Netroots Nation convention. It went like this:
"Billeh! Billeh Billeh Billeh Billeh Billeh!!! Hello, dahling Billeh, you look FABulous!" When she was hankerin' for a drink, she'd add:
"Where's Michael? It's time to fill our sippy cups." As fun-loving as that "wild woman with the nose ring" was at those events, she was equally serious and thoughtful. Her most popular post, an essay on effectively wielding the power of the Great Orange Satan she loved as a decade-long member (with the low user ID number 27,823), generated
over two-thousand comments. And she was always a welcome sight when she cannonballed into the C&J kiddie pool. Cedwyn died from cancer at way-too-young 45 over the weekend, and you can read and add to
the tributes here. I spent some time Sunday clicking through several of the 50,483 comments Cedwyn posted here at her virtual home, and I found
two of
them from visits to C&J that, combined, seem to sum up her attitude towards life:
Cedwyn's Dkos
profile pic.
okay, maybe i didn't do things "by the book," as it were, but yah...doing all the stuff you're "supposed to" and still having to deal with ugh after argh after aaauuuuuuugh is so very annoying.
but i suppose i shouldn't complain, because the bits where i didn't quite go by the book were awesome. LOL
can't wait to see you again! sippy cups rule!
I have it on good authority that she's saving us all a seat. In the
FABulous section.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Seattle's last play was Bill in Portland Maine's fault, not Pete Carroll's
---USA Today
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