From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Rhetorical Candles on the Birthday Cake
Pearls of wisdom from various political types born in July:
"Twenty-six years ago, I became the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right. I was the first, but I made sure I wasn't the only."
---Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
"I just happen to have one of those skill sets that allows me to work in my underwear."
---Garry Trudeau
"I think it was my study of history that convinced me that the Democratic Party was more on the side of the average American."
---Sen. George McGovern (D-SD)
"Education is the great engine of personal
development. It is through education that the
daughter of a peasant can become a doctor,
that a son of a mineworker can become the
head of the mine, that a child of farm workers
can become the president of a great nation."
---Nelson Mandela
"I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party."
---Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN)
“Reagan wouldn’t have made it [in today's Republican party]. Certainly Nixon wouldn’t have made it, because he had ideas. … They ought to put a sign on the National Committee doors that says Closed For Repairs.”
---Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) in 2013
"Make sure you never, never argue at night. You just lose a good night's sleep, and you can't settle anything until morning anyway."
---Rose Kennedy
Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good.
---Calvin Coolidge
"What can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?"
---John Quincy Adams
"On September 14, 2001, I placed the lone vote against the 'Authorization for Use of Military Force'---an authorization that I knew would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, at any time, and for any length."
---Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)
"'Crazy' is a term of art; 'Insane' is a term of law. Remember that, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble."
---Hunter Thompson
And li'l Sparky:
"And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq."
---George W. Bush
And now his brother wants to be president. Oy.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, July 17, 2015
Note: The National Emergency Ant Preservation Service has issued an Evil Children Walking Around With Magnifying Glasses Warning. Federal and local authorities urge you to stay in your hill until the threat passes. Sometime around September, we guess. Please keep your antennae tuned to the NEAPS for further updates and a variety of light conga classics. Thank you.
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7 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til NH, SC and IA do an end-run around Fox News and the RNC by holding their own GOP forum with
all the GOP candidates, not just the top ten:
17
Days 'til the
Gilroy Garlic Festival in California:
7
Percent of regions in the U.S. that reported economic expansion in the late spring:
100%
(Source: Federal Reserve)
Percent of U.S. households that spend more than half of their income on housing:
16.6%
(Source: Harvard study via
The Portland Press Herald)
Percent by which Twitter's stock jumped this week before a story about a $31 billion buyout offer turned out to be a hoax:
8.5%
Expected number of visitors this weekend to see
the Tall Ships in Portland Maine, whose metro area has a population of 66,000:
100,000
Length of the day and year, respectively, on Pluto:
6.4 earth days and 248 earth years
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Teddy dog
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CHEERS to a Nation of Netroots. The big liberal convention (it's like CPAC with more brains and sex appeal but minus the evil) is underway in Phoenix and getting its usual five-star reviews. (Read the Arizona Republic's first bit of coverage here.) Here are some links you might find handy, whether you're there in person or watching from afar: this year the program guide has been posted online here. Kossack Vicki's world-famous event schedule is here, and you can watch panels and keynotes from home here via the Netroots Nation site. The big news last night---besides the sobering opening-night education on immigrant abuse that you can catch up on here---was the announcement of next year's location. And the winner is…..
In 2015 we went to Phoenix, where we learned that border militarization, deportation that destroys families, racial criminalization that blights futures and persistent economic inequality impacts all Americans. We are all allies in understanding that the struggles of one community are shared with those working for progressive values everywhere. We’ve seen that electric energy bubble over into mainstream consciousness in places like Ferguson and Baltimore thanks to the work of the brave organizers behind the Black Lives Matter movement and the dozens of organizations that have been fighting for justice in these communities for decades.
We’re going to one of the epicenters of this struggle so we can get to know these activists and organizers, learn more about the issues they’re working on and amplify them. With you joining hand-in-hand with us, we can help make vital connections to strengthen the progressive movement for justice and equality around our country.
Michael and I are already packing and jonesing over the return of the Wednesday night Daily Kos/C&J dinner. And one of the side trips we're thinking about (since we'll be so close) is the 90-minute trek north to Springfield for a tour of Lincoln's stomping grounds and final resting place. In the meantime, we'll be following the rest of the events in Phoenix online, after which we wish everyone safe travels back home on Sunday...and some much-needed R&R for Nolan, Raven, Linda, Karen, Eric and all the organizers.
P.S. On the other side of the political spectrum, the KKK is still going ahead with their rally in Charleston, South Carolina to defend the confederate flag and the slavery for which it stands. Be prepared to be amazed at the size. Of their dickishness, I mean.
CHEERS to POTUS in the pokey. If you're wondering what all the cheering on the conservative side of America was all about yesterday, it probably had something to do with the headlines that said "President Obama Goes to Prison." For those who read below the fold, however, disappointment came quickly when they realized Obama was actually making history:
"And they kept Nixon where?
Oh yeah...Ford took care of that."
Barack Obama is putting an exclamation point on his recent call for criminal justice reform by becoming the first sitting President to visit a federal prison Thursday.
Obama arrived at the El Reno Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, on Thursday morning to meet with inmates and law enforcement. Oklahomans sitting on parked cars watched as the motorcade whizzed by and arrived at the light brown brick prison, surrounded by barbed wire.
"I think we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted or think it's normal that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system. It's not normal. It's not what happens in other countries. What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things," Obama said after touring the facility and visiting with the six inmates. … The President has made overhauling the nation's criminal justice system one of his top domestic priorities as his time in office wanes.
When his tour was over, he sentenced himself to a year and a half of breaking big prison sentences for minor crimes into smaller ones.
JEERS to the noble opposition. It's become almost impossible to keep track of all the Republican nominees for president. So here's a quick pocket summary (with a little help from USA Today) you can print out and keep handy, especially when you're talking politics with your teabagger friends and family:
Jeb Bush is the one Hillary beats
by 4 points.
Marco Rubio is the one Hillary beats by 6 points.
Mike Huckabee is the one Hillary beats by 9 points.
Scott Walker is the one Hillary beats by 11 points.
Ben Carson is the one Hillary beats by 13 points.
Rand Paul is the one Hillary beats
by 10 points.
Donald Trump is the one Hillary beats by 17 points.
Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal and Lindsey Graham are the ones Hillary beats by 40 points.
George Pataki is the one Hillary beats by 120 billion points.
There. Easy peasy.
One of Ohio's finest.
CHEERS to Democrats with the right stuff. Happy 94th Birthday tomorrow to John Glenn, one of the most durable human beings who ever lived. Not only was he the first astronaut to orbit the planet, he later became the oldest person in space when he blasted off in the Shuttle
Discovery at the
age of 77. (And yet, as he admits, “There is still no cure for the common birthday.”) I don’t plan to have a whole lot etched on my Billystone after I die, but one thing you'll definitely read on it will be, "John Glenn Was My Freakin' Senator." Probably with an exclamation point---or more if I can get a volume discount.
P.S. {{{{{Annie}}}}}
CHEERS to merry meetings. Speaking of adventures in space---for some reason it's been on my mind this week---forty years ago today, on July 17, 1975 (12:08pm ET to be exact), an Apollo crew docked with the Soyuz 19 spacecraft in orbit. (Because, if memory serves, Denny's was too crowded.) It was the first time the world's foremost cold warriors hooked up in space for procreative purposes. A floppy-haired Peter Jennings anchored the event on ABC News:
Yes, those are model spaceships hanging on strings behind him. Ed Wood shoulda sued the network for stealing his idea.
Lansbury & Jones in
"Driving Miss Daisy."
CHEERS to home vegetation. As far as weekend TV goes in the C&J household, tonight we'll watch Rachel while taping the must-savor Great Performances airing of
Driving Miss Daisy (9pm on PBS) with legends Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones. The
British Open will get a few minutes of our attention. New
DVD releases include the sci-fi flick
Ex Machina plus the
Exotic Marigold Hotel sequel and the well-received horror thriller
It Follows. The
baseball schedule is here. Sunday night Emmy-nominated (congrats!) John Oliver puts the weekend to bed with another edition of
Last Week Tonight on HBO. And as a look-ahead to Monday: Jon Stewart returns for his final three-week sprint to the finish line.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup. Look carefully and you might see a pattern::
Kerry and Moniz take a deserved
victory lap on the Sunday shows.
Face the Nation: Heroes of the Iran nuclear agreement, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz; Israeli madman Benjamin Netanyahu explains why the Iran agreement is so icky it makes him want to puke all over his nuclear launch panel; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); WaPost's international expert David Ignatius on why the Iran agreement is better than he expected.
Meet the Press: John Kerry and Ernest Moniz; former Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM).
CNN's State of the Union: John Kerry and Ernest Moniz; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL); Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX).
This Week: John Kerry and Ernest Moniz; former president Jimmy Carter; former Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Chris Wallace is usually first out of the gate with his guest roster, but this week he appears to be slacking. Tut tut.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 17, 2005
CHEERS to sunny delight. A scientist at the California Institute of Technology claims he's discovered a new planet 149 light years from Earth with three suns. He'll try and locate it again tonight...this time without the flask of scotch in his pocket.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the building eggscitement. Tomorrow is National Caviar Day. I'm sure you're itching, as I am, to send the butler to the walk-in refrigerator to dip into your resplendent reservoir of roe. But before you do, make sure he's not gonna fuck it up:
Choose wisely. You
know the saying:
"Caviar Emptor."
Fine caviar should never be served with or stored in metal because of oxidation which can impart a metal flavour to the berries (yes, that what each little egg is properly called). Serve caviar very cold and nestled inside another bowl or container that holds ice to keep it fresh and cool.
Choose servers made of glass, bone, wood or plastic. If you want to go by tradition, try mother-of-pearl or gold.
While it’s tempting to overdo it, try not to as eating more than two ounces or two spoons of caviar is considered a social faux pas.
And no matter what, fellow Kossacks, never,
ever spill any on your Manolo Blanhiks. They kick people out of the country club for less.
Have a great weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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