From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Monday Morning Shot of Rhetorical Red Bull
The 2004 Democratic National Convention was held in Boston eleven(!!!) years ago this week. Howard Dean, who ignited the lefty blogosphere (he's the reason I stumbled on to Daily Kos), wasn't our nominee. But when he walked onstage Tuesday night, July 27, he lit up the place:
"America's greatness rests on far more than the power of our arms. Our greatness is also measured by our goodness. It is in the capacity of our minds, the size of our hearts, and the strength of our democracy.
As I've traveled America, I've seen that strength. I've seen it in the people I've met and their desire to take our country back for the American people. I saw it in a college student in Pennsylvania who sold her bicycle and sent us a check for $100 with a note that said, "I sold my bicycle for democracy." I saw it in a woman from Iowa who handed me $50---all in quarters. She saved it from her monthly disability check, because she wanted to make America well again. And I saw it in the 19-year-old from Alabama who had never been involved in politics before he got in his car and drove up to Vermont, because he didn't feel like he was being heard in Washington.
He was just one of so many. They learned that politics was too important to be left to the politicians. […] We're not going to be afraid to stand up for what we believe. We're not going to let those who disagree with us shout us down under a banner of false patriotism. And we're not going to give up a single voter, or a single state. We're going to be proud to call ourselves Democrats, not just here in Boston. We're going to be proud to call ourselves Democrats in Mississippi, proud to call ourselves Democrats in Utah and Idaho. And we're going to be proud to call ourselves Democrats in Texas.
Never again will we be ashamed to call ourselves Democrats. Never. Never. Never."
You can
watch it here, including the nearly three-minute roaring standing ovation he got.
Oh, and some obscure feller with a funny name made a bit of a splash there, too. Whatever happened to him?
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, July 27, 2015
Note: In the event that a garden party suddenly springs up around you, Cheers and Jeers can be printed out and stitched together to form an attention-grabbing pair of striped unisex leisure slacks. Hugs, Heloise
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2 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til
The Donald Trump Comedy Hour and GOP debate:
10
Days 'til the
Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland:
2
Percent of "overnight tourists" to Maine who say they come specifically for the lobster or other seafood:
58%
(Source: Maine Office of Tourism)
Percent chance that Amazon.com's market value is now larger than Walmart's:
100%
(Source:
Los Angeles Times)
Democratic party and Republican party favorability, respectively, in the new Pew Research poll:
48%, 32%
Percent of Democrats and Republicans who have a favorable
opinion of their respective parties, according to Pew:
86%, 68%
Number of countries President Obama will have visited after his return
from Kenya and Ethiopia:
51
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Puppy Pic of the Day: As long as this beast is around, this New Hampshire house will never be robbed…
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CHEERS to home away from home. President Obama is in Ethiopia today, after concluding his successful and emotional visit to Kenya, which included breaking bread with his paternal relatives in Nairobi (including 93-year-old "Granny" Sarah) and cutting the ribbon to open the Jade Helm Tyranny Tunnel from Nairobi to Texas. (Best laugh line: “I suspect that some of my critics back home are suggesting that I’m back here to look for my birth certificate.”) And check out this pic from his Friday arrival:
Now he's bowing to foreign
children? Sean Hannity is gonna to be catatonic for a week. (Lucky us.)
Add Lafayette to the ugly pile.
JEERS to terrorism at the flickers. What happens in the wake of the massacre in
Newtown Aurora Binghamton Tucson Santa Barbara Charleston Lafayette, Louisiana (2 killed at a movie theatre by a mentally-ill racist homophobe Hitler lover) is depressingly predictable: gun control advocates will wisely suggest that this might be a good time to review our federal and state firearms policies so that our nation's shameful record of gun violence might be improved upon. The NRA will respond by scaring politicians into looking the other way by informing them that, "We'll be scoring you on your response." Meanwhile right-wing bloggers and numbskull pundits will insist that if only the moviegoers and employees had been packing Glocks, they would've been able to return fire Rambo-style and no one but the gunman would've been harmed. Or, in the words of Jon Stewart just last month:
"I honestly have nothing other than sadness that once again we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other. … I’m confident, though, that by acknowledging it---by staring into it---we still won’t do jack shit. That’s us."
Actually, this time Wayne LaPierre released a statement about the shooting rather quickly, saying: "You can't blame the NRA for this one. The R in our name stands for 'Rifle' and that guy used a pistol." I'll give him points for resisting the urge to add "Jus' sayin'."
JEERS to freedom for thee but not for thou. Last month Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was all about First Amendment protections for religious freedom as he spoke in opposition to the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges marriage decision:
Whiff!
"The government should not force those who have sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage to participate in these ceremonies.
That would be a clear violation of America’s long held commitment to religious liberty as protected in the First Amendment."
(That, of course, is beside the point because civil marriage licenses have no religious component or connotation to them, but I digress.) Then this past weekend, Jindal decided to
blow up his own argument by insisting that a religious group doesn’t have the freedom to exercise its First Amendment rights:
Whiff again!
Jindal picked a fight [with] the Westboro Baptist Church, which has threatened to picket the funerals of the victims of the Lafayette theater shooting.
“If they come here to Louisiana, if they try to disrupt this funeral, we’re gonna lock them up,” Jindal said. “We won’t abide by that here.”
Apparently unbeknownst to Jindal, the Supreme Court recently ruled on Westboro's right to protest at funerals,
giving them the green light on First Amendment grounds. There are many lessons to be gleaned from the governor's double-whiff, but I think the biggest one I learned is: I really hate Bobby Jindal for making me defend the Westboro Baptist Church.
"Hey, kid. Can ya catch me a break?"
CHEERS to the end of the end. It was all over for Tricky Dick on July 27, 1974, thanks to a 27-11 vote by the House Judiciary Committee to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Nixon who, said ABC News's Tom Jarrell at the time, was
"presumably still in his swim trunks" while on vacation in California when he heard the news. Meanwhile, then-VP Gerald Ford just couldn’t help but play a little game of up-is-downism:
Ford: It's interesting that every Democrat on the committee---north and south---voted for the article. ... It tends to make it a partisan issue.
Reporter: Even if one-third of Republicans voted for it?
Ford: Well, the fact that every one of the Democrats voted for it, I think, uh, lends credence that it's a partisan issue, even though some Republicans have deviated.
...said the Republican who later unilaterally exonerated the Republican crook. But, hey, what's a little hypocrisy among friends?
CHEERS and JEERS to dollars and cents except spelled "sense" because it's a play on words, see? Some financial headlines to start the week. As usual, they're good, bad, and whiplashy:
Speaking of money, the
new John F. Kennedy dollar
coin is in circulation.
> Index of economic health has another solid month
> Unemployment applications at lowest level in
42 years
> Iran throws doors open to European Union companies
> Mitsubishi Motors plans to end production in
the U.S.
> Earnings reports fall short, disappointing investors
> Southwest Airlines posts highest quarterly
profit ever
> Modest rise in ACA premiums likely for Maine
> AT&T now nation's biggest provider of traditional TV
> Cost of mortgages heads back down
Oh, and this: Maine's tea party governor Paul LePage, who loves to run around claiming that our state can't afford anything because we're "flat-broke," has approved giving the cronies in his cabinet---but no other state employees---
big ol' fancy pay raises. It's good to be close enough to kiss the king's ass.
Jonah Hill (l) will reportedly play
hero Jewell in an upcoming movie.
JEERS to hounding the wrong guy. Nineteen years ago today, in 1996, domestic right-wing terrorist nut Eric Rudolph
detonated a pipe bomb at the Summer Olympic games in Atlanta. The blast killed one person and injured over a hundred more, but it could've been worse if security guard Richard Jewell (who will apparently be the played by Jonah Hill in an upcoming
movie directed by Clint eastwood) hadn’t found the bomb and tried to move people out of harm's way. The hero was later
pilloried in the press and by the late-night gaggle (Leno called him the "Una-doofus") when it became known that the FBI considered him a suspect. Then, when his name was officially cleared, they moved on and dumped his reputation by the side of the road like a rodent carcass. Wikipedia reminds us of what the media should've learned:
Jewell's case became an example of the damage that can be done by reporting based on unreliable or incomplete information...
Mr. Lesson From The Past, meet Mr. ADD.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 27, 2005
JEERS to gabbers on wheels. In the first definitive study of its kind, Australian researchers say they have proof that talking on the phone while driving increases your chance of getting busted up in a crash. They compared cell phone records of 456 drivers against the time of their crashes and found that using a hand-held phone increases your risk of crashing by 4.9 times, while using a hands-free phone makes your risk 3.8 times greater. Strangely, talking on the phone while eating, applying lipstick, reading the paper and putting on pantyhose has caused zero crashes. At least that's been my experience.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Netroots memories. As the healthy and illuminating conversation that sprang from the #BlackLivesMatter disruption at the 2015 Netroots Nation convention continues to reverberate across the Democratic party, I was reminded of a similar moment from the 2010 convention in Las Vegas. Five years ago this past weekend Lt. Dan Choi, having been booted from the military for being gay, gave guest speaker Sen. Harry Reid his West Point ring to protest the snail's pace at which repealing "Don’t Ask, Don't Tell" was going. Old pro Reid's response---I'll keep it until DADT is repealed and then I'll give it back to you---was perfect for the situation. Here's how that all turned out:
It's wishful thinking to presume that the worst of our nation's police officers and/or entire departments will change their ways because of a protest at a liberal convention. But given how #BlackLivesMatter amped up the sense of urgency with which police brutality and murder need to be fought---to the point where our side's presidential contenders are making it a centerpiece of their stump speeches---it at least points the party in the right direction and lights a fire or two under some recalcitrant butts. In other words, every convention should be so successful.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
New Pluto photos reveal biohazard warning signs, safety inspection failure notices similar to Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool
---CTV News
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