From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Latest Things Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) Is being Called Out For
The list is getting so long it's hard to keep track of it all. Today's eyebrow-raisers:
Buying a blimp so his campaign photographer could get aerial photos of him wrestling alligators in Lake Okeechobee.
Flying his staff (and his photographer) to the North Pole to toast marshmallows over a flaming pile of Ben Franklins.
"Hello, constituents! Sucks to be youuuu!"
Creating a shadow corporation to shield an astroturf operation by claiming it's not a secret star chamber posing as fake "coaching staff" in those front-row seats at that Lakers game.
Listing a purchase of 80 pounds of horny goat weed with a street value of $25,000 as "office supplies."
Redecorating the interior of his official staff car in the style of Marie Antoinette's carriage, complete with custom-made cake holders.
Installing kiss-cams in all his mirrors (and his photographer's).
Jetting to Zermatt and paying random Swiss people to lash themselves together into a human toboggan so he can careen down the Matterhorn at speeds of up to 110mph. (His photographer opted to sit this one out.)
Mingling PAC account money and ordinary campaign donations to pay off Beelzebub, since his soul was no longer available as collateral.
Schock defended his activities as being conducted "completely in the service of my constituents" before heading off to a private taxpayer-funded Beyonce concert in a solid-gold chariot (with his photographer). This item will be on tomorrow's list.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Note: Today we are all Irish. Also today: employees who process the naturalization paperwork at the U.S. Department of Immigration are all having a nervous breakdown.
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The sap flows in 5 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Easter:
19
Days 'til
Maine Maple Sunday throughout the state:
5
U.S. towns with "Shamrock" in their name:
5
Total population of those towns:
5,605
(Source: Census Bureau)
Percent drop in the price of oil last week:
10%
Size of Rio's Guanabara Bay, where Dutch engineers are trying to figure out how to control all
the garbage in it so 2016 Olympic sailboats won't hit it:
146 square miles
Percentage of countries worldwide in which girls outperform boys in academic achievement:
70%
(Source: Harper's Index)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
World Net Daily Triple-play!!!
Colin Powell, the GOP's own Al Shariaarpton.
---Commenter Chief Jack
Powell is absolutely the most ungrateful piece of racist trash to ever uncork his mouth.
---Commenter Sbaker
He's eaten the cotton, but it hasn't shut his mouf.
---Commenter Dawg
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: World's worst pipe cleaner
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I admit it. I'll miss his cartoon bombs.
CHEERS to Election Day: Israel-style! Today we'll find out what a speech before a joint session of Congress in direct defiance of President Barack Obama will get ya. Either Bibi Netanyahu (over there) and House Republicans (over here…I know, it's weird) will become heroes to schoolyard bullies everywhere, or they'll be applying aloe to their hineys for the foreseeable future after falling to Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni. You can get a glimpse into
Juan Cole's crystal-ball here. The election will be watched closely here in the States, and Republicans already have their talking points down: if Bibi wins, it's a blow against tyranny won fair and square. If he loses, those liberal cheaters from ACORN signed up a million people named "Mickey Mouse" and the Black Panthers intimidated people at the polls. At the end of the day it all comes down to the usual thing: who Karl Rove calls Ohio for.
CHEERS to cheep dates. In three days the groundhog claps his hands and---Poof!!!---winter will turn to spring. In a sign that all is on schedule, the first buzzards were officially spotted in Hinckley, Ohio over the weekend:
These buzzards feast on the gullible.
"It is a lot better than last year," says official buzzard spotter Sharon Hosko. The manager of the Cleveland Metroparks Brecksville Nature Center says it was 18 degrees last year, and bird spotting was scarce. "Last week this field was completely covered in feet of snow," she said, watching two buzzards soar overhead. "We've had a good melt week. The birds had a rough winter. They had to go as far south as North Carolina for food. […]
Hosko heads to the buzzard scoreboard to change the numbers. Thirteen birds have now been spotted, with the largest group being six together. … "Even though spring is still five days away, this is it," Vickers says. This is our traditional beginning of the season."
Here in Maine we're marking the start of our own post-winter season. We call it the return of the mud and, like Hinckley, you can set your watch by it.
JEERS to a horrible countdown. Unless there's a miracle (Anyone upstairs? Hello?), California's reservoirs are going to run out of water in a year. California's brightest minds agree that the only way to address the problem is through strict rationing, increased desalienation, and those stillsuits from Dune.
CHEERS to a fascinating couple. Today is the wedding anniversary of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. They were married on March 17, 1905 in New York:
Two months after getting hitched.
The 20-year-old bride was escorted down the aisle by her uncle, then President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.
The ceremony took place at the New York City home of Eleanor’s great uncle and aunt, Edward and Margaret Livingston Ludlow. The reception took place next door at the home of her cousin, Susan Parish. Though no photographs of the day are known to exist, several artifacts from the wedding are in the FDR Library’s museum collection.
So, uh…what do you get a couple on their 110th anniversary? If they're still actually walking the earth after all that time I'd have to say,
"Braaaaains..."
CHEERS to amazing discoveries. Hey, everybody! Surf's…down:
I wonder if anyone from Amway has made
a claim on Galymede yet. If not..."Dibs!!!"
NASA says the biggest moon in our solar system has a salty ocean below its surface. Researchers had suspected since the 1970s that a moon of Jupiter called Ganymede had an ocean. Now they've confirmed it, scientists announced in a teleconference held by the space agency.
Ganymede was discovered by Galileo in 1610, and it's huge---bigger than our own moon, and even bigger than the smallest planet, Mercury. Ganymede has a magnetic field that creates northern and southern lights around its poles.
The ocean is reported to be ten times deeper than ours, but you have to get through 95 miles of ice to reach the water. To put that in perspective, that's the same amount of ice we in Maine had to get through this winter to reach the pavement.
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 17, 2005
JEERS to fixing what don't need fixed. President Bush said this at his press conference yesterday re: privatizing Social Security:
"You get to decide whether you want to set some of your money aside in an account that will earn a better rate of return than that which will be earned in the Social Security system."
C&J's question: If there's a way to earn a higher rate of return,
why aren't we doing that with Social Security now? (We'd ask him ourselves but, dang, that press pass they promised to send me seems to be perpetually lost in the mail.)
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And just one more…
Irish tradition says you must eat
10 bowls of this by sundown. Go!
CHEERS to the Irish. As you've no doubt discerned from all the drunken renditions of
Danny Boy outside your window, today is St. Patrick's Day. And this year we're happy to say that a new tradition was started down yonder in Boston, where a couple of LGBT groups (OutVets and Boston Pride)
marched in the city's annual parade. Because the organizers finally saw the light (pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, as it were), the mayor's office lifted its 20-year boycott and Hizzoner Marty Walsh joined the festivities. And everyone lived happily ever after except the few curmudgeonly Catholic muckety mucks who are now the ones boycotting it. As for me, I'm Swiss and totally neutral about St. Patrick's Day. But Federal law requires us to post the following:
Have you heard about the Irish boomerang? It doesn't come back, it just sings songs about how much it wants to.
Why do leprechauns giggle when they play soccer? Because the grass tickles their balls.
I went out drinking on St Patricks Day, so I took a bus home...That may not be a big deal to you, but I've never driven a bus before.
Sadly, federal law also prohibits us from apologizing for the above. Shillelagh. Gesundheit.
Floor's o'pen...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Cheers and Jeers is nothing more than Bill in Portland Maine's mid-life crisis vanity project, and it isn't worth the price of admission."
---David James, We Got This Covered
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