From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
54 Years Ago Today...
Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama
6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4
---Honolulu Advertiser, 1961
Remember during the '08 campaign when the traditional media tried spinning the line that Obama was too young and wet-behind-the-huge-ears to be president? I laughed, knowing that his accomplished POTUSmates in the 40-something club
include Teddy Roosevelt, James K. Polk, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. (Pay no attention to the inept drunk Franklin Pierce behind the curtain.) Besides, a quick check of the highlights of his birth year, 1961, is enough to make your bones feel a bit creaky:
✓ None of the James Bond movies had been released; West Side Story won the Oscar for Best Picture
✓ John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president---Obama is #44
✓ The Dow Jones Industrials reached a high of...734!!!
The distant and aloof birthday POTUS
practices his distance and aloofness.
✓ The Grammy for best Rock & Roll recording: Chubby Checker's Let's Twist Again.
✓ Median price of a new home: $17,200
✓ Harper Lee won a Pulitzer for To Kill A Mockingbird
✓ East Germany replaces its barbed wire barricades with a permanent wall dividing Berlin
✓ The Boston Marathon was won by a Finn. A Finn!
✓ The Emmy for outstanding news program went to The Huntley-Brinkley Report
✓ Roger Maris hit 61 home runs, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record
✓ The price of a gallon of gas was 31 cents.
Certain policy and strategy differences aside, I really like the ever-optimistic Obama---especially now that he's operating in
Zero F*cks Left to Give territory regarding the do-nothing Republicans---and I'm ready to be adopted as soon as the First Family submits the paperwork. (What is
taking so long???) So Happy 54th Birthday, Mr. President…and many blessings on your Marxist socialist Muslim Jade Helm Benghazi camels named Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.
P.S. For the record, Obama is no Ronald Reagan. Nope---he's at least five times better.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Note: BREAKING! While complaining about their representatives' inability to repeal Obamacare "root and branch," wingnut summer town hall meeting attendees swamp local ERs with finger-wagging injuries that are now fully covered by Obamacare. Film at 11.
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10 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the
2016 Summer Pollution Games in Rio:
367
Days 'til the 22nd annual
Long Beach Crawfish Festival:
10
Amount by which gas prices in the first half of 2015 are lower than the first half of 2014:
30%
Percent chance that conservatives who demonized the president for high gas prices are now praising him for low gas prices:
0%
Shelf life of those little fast-food ketchup packets:
6 months
(Source: McDonald's via Newsweek)
Percent chance that putting more guns in the hands of more citizens is the answer to the gun homicide problem:
0%
(Source:
St. Mary's University study)
Number of pay phones in Detroit in 1985 and today, respectively:
60,000 / 1,400
(Source: AP)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
The commenters at Michelle Malkin's Twitchy blog say farewell to Jon Stewart…
Nutjobs flock to Malkin's
site like flies to horse dung.
I never watched but surmised that his was a very generic form of stupid. In interviews he didn't come off as very bright.
---Equilbrate
What will we do without Jon Leibowitz, King Of Kiss Ups To Power and Traitor to Israel?
---marvgioux
Bye-bye Oy Vey Leibowitz! Congratulations you made a few dollars on typical Hollyweirdness full of discrimination, bitter sarcasm and hate. Of course something a mensch Jewish boy would never do. Now please, PLEASE go away, far away.
---Miamihurricane
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Happy International Assistance Dog Week…
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CHEERS to speaking in green. Yesterday president Obama unveiled his new energy policy, and as usual you can tell it's a good thing because Republicans are all hating it on behalf of their fossil fuel company overlords. Here are some of the particulars on ditching the particulates:
> The CPP adds carbon pollution to a list of emissions targeted for reduction, which already includes harmful pollutants like arsenic, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and soot. 870 million metric tons of carbon pollution will be cut by the Clean Power Plan.
> $8.4 billion Estimated cost of the Clean Power Plan
> $54 billion Estimated worth of the public health and climate benefits of the Clean Power Plan
> 30% Increase in renewable energy generation by 2030
> 28% Energy capacity from renewable sources by 2030
> Plus a boatload of health benefits that will come about as a result of the plan, which will reduce the strain on our health care system.
If you click on the link above, you can find out how the plan will impact your state. I'm excited by what Obama has in store for Maine to rid us of toxic emissions. But I'd hate to be the lackey who draws the short straw and ends up being the one who has to stick the cork in our governor.
CHEERS to boarding the peace train. The jockeying over the Iran nuclear agreement continues. While Republicans reflexively shout "No!" from their summer cottages inside Benjamin Netanyahu's butt, Democrats are being a bit more thoughtful about it. California Congressman Adam Schiff---one of the more influential voices on this issue as ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee---has looked it over, kicked the tires centrifuges and, according to Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, given it thumbs-up:
"I have searched for a better,
credible alternative and
concluded there is none."
---Rep. Adam Schiff
At the time, he told me he was “uncommitted” and that he would “remain uncommitted” until he had time to review a final deal, should a final deal materialize.
Well, the final deal has materialized, and Schiff, in a telephone call over the weekend, told me that, based on an “extensive review,” he has decided to come out in favor of the deal. His decision should carry some weight with national security-minded Democrats, and with still-undecided members of the House Jewish caucus. […]
“At the end of the day, I could not find an alternative that would turn out in a better way than the deal,” he said. “Rejection of the deal would not lead to something credible. And I think that there are enough ways to mitigate the risks associated with the deal that it makes sense to me to move forward.”
See his official
press release here. Naturally, the military-industrial complex is very upset with Schiff. When they heard of his decision, they immediately un-invited him from carrying the American flag at the Bunker Buster Olympics.
JEERS to having to waste time fighting fools. The assault by the so-called "Center for Medical Progress" on Planned Parenthood for "selling aborted body parts for profit" inexplicably entered the U.S. Senate yesterday, as Republicans joined the fact-free smear campaign by trying (and failing) to defund PP. If you're looking for a handy and succinct rebuttal to this sudden flare-up in the war on women (Caution: it's got a cuss word in it, or maybe two), check out this beautiful defense from skepchick.org's Rebecca Watson via Leslie Salzillo's diary:
If you just want the Cliffs Notes summary, it goes like this: "Planned Parenthood is not fucking selling baby parts, you idiots." And that's putting it nicely.
CHEERS to remembering that time when the Republicans were awesome!!! Yup---one year ago this week, the House Intelligence Committee released the findings of their Benghazi investigation. And given that Trey Gowdy's "select committee" sideshow is still operational, it's worth remembering what they found:
Who the hell buys a "Remember
Benghazi" onesie for their BABY?
there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee. The panel voted Thursday to declassify the report, the result of two years of investigation by the committee. U.S. intelligence agencies will have to approve making the report public. Thompson said the report "confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given."
As Joan McCarter
noted one year ago, Gowdy swore on a stack of Brylcreem that his committee's investigation---quoting here---"would be an objective search for facts, not a partisan attempt to smear Democrats ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections and the 2016 presidential race." And since his lips were moving at the time,
naturally he was lying. This calls for a select committee investigation into the select committee's investigation. We'll conduct it at an appropriate venue: a circus tent.
Their session over, the
do-nothings hit the beach.
CHEERS and
JEERS to that empty-chamber feeling. The House is now officially adjourned until next month. The good news: we don’t have to endure the leadership's posturing and finger-pointing in the service of pretending like it actually wants to get things done. The bad news: knowing that, apart from a town hall or two, our elected representatives will be enjoying surf and sand and yachting adventures in between rounds of dialing-for-dollars, after which they'll return to Washington next month to complain about strapping young bucks and welfare queens sinking into chronic laziness because of their unlimited access to vaults full of taxpayer money that keep them living high off the hog with their fancy "refrigerators" and "microwave ovens." This is technically called their "August vacation." But we prefer the more accurate "thirty-second-month extension of their January 2013 vacation."
JEERS to failing the audition. One of the unfortunate souls who has virtually zero chance of making it on the debate stage this Thursday is Rick Santorum, whom Fox News has deemed too poll-limp (he's hovering around 2 percent). Because we feel sorry for him (he was, let's not forget, one of the biggest threats to the Romney campaign in 2012), here's some free publicity for the former Pennsylvania senator from ten years ago this week on the news program called, um…This Week:
"Steinem, Steinem, Steinem and,
well, ALL the Steinems are radicals!"
George Stephanopoulos: Let's get specific here. Name one or two of these "radical feminists" who are on this crusade.
Rick Santorum: Well, I mean, you know, you have...you go back to...what's her name…well, Gloria Steinem…but I'm trying to remember...I can't remember the woman's name. It's terrible. Anyway...
Stephanopoulos: But it's kind of an important point. Because you paint this broad brush: radical feminists, village elders. Name one.
Rick Santorum: There's lots of...no, there's lot's of...well, Gloria Steinem. There's one.
Sadly, we won't have his steel-trap mind and laser-like focus from which to draw our strength and exceptionalism. But we'll never forget what Santorum means to America---in fact, it'll always be just a Google search away.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 4, 2005
CHEERS to the sweetest sound in the English language. "Blog" (pronounced buh-LOG) is now the most popular search word in the online version of the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary. Awww... [Blush] ...shucks. [8/4/15 Update: Now the most popular search word is "Trump," signifying, I believe, humanity's slow devolution back to the primordial ooze.]
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And just one more…
JEERS to GOP Clown Theatre. On this date one year ago, as Rep. Steve King (R-IA) did his best Archie Bunker-minus-the-charm impression to a pair of DREAMers, Senator and apparent barbershop quartet reject Rand Paul (R-KY) choked on his hamburger before drawing on the survival skills he learned at the Aqua Buddha Academy and wriggling away to the safety of the Exxon-Mobil tiki hut. Literally, he was gone in five seconds:
As if celebrating the anniversary of that embarrassing moment, he performed a reenactment last month, wriggling away from another Iowan who wanted to know whether or not he agreed with Donald Trump's assertion that most undocumented immigrants from Mexico are murderers and rapists. Watch it here. Since he's proven that the move is both effective and repeatable, I'm adding it to the C&J political glossary of terms as the Rand Paul Getaway Ballet. You can try it, too, but remember to use proper form: no eye contact and stay on your tippy toes.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
“My job was to enter the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool and to take a spoon and clean out the insides. Best preparation for being in Washington that you can possibly imagine. It was yucky-looking.”
---Hillary Clinton
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