From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
A Rare Whiff from Jon Stewart
But we still love ya.
Earlier this month, Mr. Stewart tried mightily to
play the "both sides do it" card after those 47 GOP senators sent their little Obama-snubbing letter to Iran's Ayatollah. Citing an April, 2007 trip by Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats to Syria (on the heels of a similar trip by a Republican delegation), Stewart said, "Democrats did the same thing" and called it "Pelosi's interference in foreign policy." Wow---pretty strong words there from the Most Trusted News Guy in America. That would seem to de-fang the outrage at the Republicans, who published their "ignore our president's diplomacy so we can bomb you instead" letter without any advance notice or consultation with, say, the State Department or anybody else.
My recollection of Pelosi's trip had faded a bit, so I ran to my Most Trusted Blog Post in America, Cheers and Jeers, to find out what the hell happened in April, 2007. I found a couple interesting things that pretty much told me all I needed to know:
1) Donna Brazile on This Week:
"Somehow or other in this whole dispute we've forgotten the fact that Speaker [Newt] Gingrich went to the Middle East and blasted the Clinton administration when he had that position, and Speaker [Dennis] Hastert told the Columbian military that they could deal directly with the Republican-controlled congress and bypass the Clinton administration. Look, they may dislike the messenger---in this case Nancy Pelosi---but she went over there and she articulated the president's message to Assad to close the border, stop undermining Lebanon, and start talking to Israel."
2) Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV) on C-Span:
"The Speaker had met with President Bush in the halls of the U.S. Capitol just the day before we left and mentioned to him that we were going to Syria. No response at all from the President. The State Department was certainly aware of our traveling to Syria and our full itinerary. And there were State Department officials in every meeting that we had on this [congressional delegation]. So that is all hogwash as far as I’m concerned."
And the Minority Leader's site has a ton of evidence along those lines to contradict the claims in Stewart's monologue. So, as a two-bit blogger of zero repute, I demand a retraction. Because, Jon, you should know after 16 years behind that desk that the only party with a mutiny fetish is the one that starts with an R.
P.S. You know what conservatives really freaked out about when Pelosi went to Syria in 2007? Her headscarf. Because of course they did.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Note: Please press and hold your thumb [---> here <---] until we can think of a reason why you should stop. Together we can build a brighter tomorrow. ---Mgt.
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11 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til tax day:
22
Days 'til the
Texas VegFest in Austin:
11
Percent of Americans who say we're not spending enough on education:
70%
(Source: General Social Survey)
Percent chance that the death penalty can be justified:
0%
(Source: Pope Francis)
Number of elephants the Hwange, Zimbabwe national park can healthily sustain:
15,000
Estimated number of elephants there now, prompting the park to export some to other countries for $40k-$60k each:
43,000
(Source: Tribune News Service)
Number of months the government has to decide whether or not to appeal a federal judge's ruling ordering the release of photos showing abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan detention centers on George W. Bush's watch:
2
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere
Choice reaction to Ted Cruz's presidential candidacy announcement at Michelle Malkin's Hot Air site:
He’s sexy. I will vote for him.
---Mrs. Voorhees
Wingnut reaction was mixed.
When we had a chance to clear up the NATURAL BORN CITIZEN issue during this past administration and didn’t, we’re headed straight into disaster if Cruz is put on the ballot and this goes to the Supreme Court.
---Danzo
Well, McCain said he would endorse him, so it didn’t even get started before being knocked off the rails.
---Logan6
Cruz will probably peel away a lot of the left-wing’s base if he is the nominee. I know how meaningful it was for them to prove you weren’t racist by voting for the first black president and am sure it will be just as important to them to vote for the first Hispanic president.
---crrr
All together now: 1…2…3…
Good luck!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A Fitbit for Fido
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CHEERS and JEERS to making cents (and also losing them). Being a world-renowned fauxconomist, I know that my opinion can have an overly-influential, um, influence on the fiduciary proceedings of the global markets and pork belly futures. So I'll stay neutral and just toss off the latest economic headlines for the time capsule:
> US stocks rise on rebound in oil, strong company results
> Feds give $200 million to help people on food stamps get jobs
> Thousands gather for anti-austerity rally in Spain
On Wall Street, this happened.
> Fed hints rate hikes could come, but not in April
> AIG investors' $970.5 million settlement wins US court approval
> After Target wage hike ($9/hr.), labor groups turn to drugstore chains
> Millennials are getting more college degrees, but not as many jobs as their Gen X counterparts.
> Dollar slips further, crude oil prices rebound
> FEMA will deny funds to states that don't plan for climate change/deny it.
> Long-term mortgage rates slip for the week
And this just in: Janet Yellen can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never let you forget you're a man. Film at 11.
JEERS to our stupid governor. This really takes the cake. Our Teapublican Governor Paul LePage taped a radio address last week promoting his #1 goal of abolishing the state income tax while raising other taxes with the net benefit of rewarding---Ding!---the rich. In that address he called out our insanely-popular home state author Stephen King for fleeing to Florida to escape paying Maine income taxes. Bad move. King still maintains a house in Bangor and paid over $1 million in state income tax last year. So King publicly corrected the record by calling LePage "full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green," while suggesting that apologizing would be the grownup thing to do. LePage had to slink back to his microphone and re-record a corrected radio address. As for the being so-so-so-sorry part, King posted this update Sunday:
Maybe the rabid St. Bernard he'll find drooling on top of his guvmobile this morning will be a bit more persuasive.
JEERS to the modern-day black plague. Twenty-six years ago, at 12:04am on March 24, 1989, Captain Joseph Hazelwood was dreaming happy dreams when his tanker, the Exxon Valdez, was running aground and spilling 11.3 million gallons of crude all over Prince William Sound. After two and a half decades of false promises to "put things right" and endless legal wrangling on the part of the oil giant to minimize its liability, a simple lifting of most any shoreline rock reveals that the damage is still readily apparent. Meanwhile, the White House has given its blessing to oil exploration a mere fifty miles off the mid-Atlantic coast, and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiassen laments lessons not learned:
Nothing to see here. Please move along.
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Already the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe of 2010 is a fading memory, except for the families of the 11 workers who died and the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents whose lives were upended. We’re told that the BP disaster was a jarring wake-up for the energy industry. Today the drilling technology is much better, the companies boast, and so are the safety measures.
Trust us, they say. Something that terrible can’t happen again. Which is what they said after the tanker Exxon Valdez dumped its load in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, polluting a thousand miles of shoreline. Twenty-six years later, there’s still crusted oil on the beaches.
In fact, time has pretty much elevated a theory into a law as immutable as anything Newton ever came up with: the
only thing you can trust an oil company to do is something terrible.
CHEERS to the enemy of my enemy. S'cuse me for a moment while I wind up Donald Trump and let him go…
I put up 100 of these across America.
Answer the question, tyrant TED!!!
Real estate tycoon Donald Trump cast doubt Monday on whether Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) can run for president because he was born in Canada. "It’s a hurdle, somebody could certainly look at it very seriously," Trump said during a phone interview Monday on My Fox New York.
"He was born in Canada, if you know and when we all studied our history lessons, you are supposed to be born in this country, so I just don't know how the courts will rule on this."
[
Clapclapclapclapclapclap!!!] How exciting that our side gets to be the birthers this time around. Here, lemme try: "Ted Cruz's birth certificate is a laughable forgery and I'm sending a team to Calgary to get to the bottom of this fraud!" Squee! What fun!
CHEERS to those meddling maple leafers. Speaking of Canada, on today's date in 1837---78 years before our Supreme Court finally cleared a theoretically-unobstructed path to the voting booth---the ever-sensible Canadians gave blacks the right to vote. During the next century they would beat us by two years in letting the womenfolk cast ballots. But when it comes to putting idiots on the ballot, we clean their clock. Stick that in a can 'o Molson and sit on it, eh.
CHEERS to the Geek-in-Chief. President Obama lorded over the fifth annual White House science fair yesterday (I forget where), during which a swarm of young’uns showed that they'll be perfectly capable of saving the planet from us oldster parasites:
The distant and aloof president with the
Supergirls and their Lego page turner.
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Obama welcomed over 100 students from more than 30 states for a showcase of their truly remarkable achievements in science, technology, engineering, and math. As part of the Science Fair, approximately 35 student teams exhibited innovative projects--including discoveries and insights in key areas such as disease diagnostics, clean energy, and information security--as well as inventions ranging from the “why didn't I think of that?” (automatic page-turner for people with arthritis) to the “who’d have ever thought that possible?” (a hiccup-curing lollipop!)
The President personally viewed some of these projects, marveling at the incredible ingenuity on display from student innovators across the country including some as young as six years old.
The grand prize winner was 14 year-old Peggy Schumacher, who invented the XR-7 Anti-Jeb-Becoming-President Freedom Space Cannon. How it works is, you stuff Jeb Bush into a cannon and launch him into space. And the best part is, there's just enough room to squeeze in his big brother. Good thinkin', kid.
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 24, 2005
JEERS to meeting expectations. Right on cue, Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum accuses federal judge James Whittemore---who refused to have Terri Schiavo reattached to her feeding tube---of "judicial tyranny." This morning we find that a U.S. court upheld tyrant Whittemore's decision. So what card will the Senator from Pennsylvania play today: "Poopypants" or "Big Butthead?" Stay tuned...
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Tuesday morning fun! Let's play a game I created five years ago this week…you'll love it! I call it "President...or Hand Towel?" The rules are simple: just watch the clip below and then, at around :35, decide whether Bill Clinton is a president…or a hand towel:
If you guessed president and hand towel, you win an extra helping of disgust at George W. Bush. Lucky you.
Have a highly-absorbent Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Bill in Portland Maine has the spine of a worm, the ethics of whores, and the integrity of pirates. (My apologies to worms, whores and pirates.)"
---Glenn Beck
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