From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Wednesday + Haiku + Blender = Wheadinesdakuy!
Standing room only
Banksters snarl from far away
Bernie rolls up sleeves
Jon Stewart moves on
Fox News breathes sigh of relief
The curse is lifted
Lame duck Barack quacks:
"Hey Congress! Try and keep up!"
This bird eats Wheaties
Where are those emails?!
Gone. Wiped clean. But it's okay.
They're Colin Powell's
Machine gun bacon
Blow shit up and knock shit down
Repub campaign ads
Trump for president
I can't finish this haiku
I'm laughing too hard
Haiku Hall of Fame, here I come. (To stand outside and sadly reflect on the endless and totally-justifiable reasons why I'll never get in.)
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Note: In a few moments I'll be topping Ted Cruz's "machine gun bacon" stunt by making my own authentic "bazooka quiche." Please stay behind the barricades and wear your blast goggles.
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8 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til
Star Wars Episode 7 toys arrive in stores:
30
Days 'til the
Missouri State Fair in Sedalia:
8
GDP in the second quarter of 2015 vs. 0.6% in the first quarter:
2.3%
Current world population and expected world population by 2030, respectively:
7.3 billion, 8.5 billion
Year when India's population is expected to pass China's:
2022
(Source: U.N. Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs)
Average age of U.S. cars on the road, a new high:
11.5 yrs
(Source: HIS Automotive via AP)
Percent of Republican voters who say, yeah, they could possibly see themselves voting for Donald Trump:
70%
(Source: Quinnipiac poll)
Cost of a 30-second ad in next year's Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the losing team:
$4.7 million
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 179 (including 5 Moral Standards and 1 letter to the editor warning of an apocalyptic epidemic of gay wedding cakes). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: 100,000 Instagram followers
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CHEERS to kicking ass and naming names. After a full-on PR campaign to try and convince Americans that their war on women was just a fabrication by those dastardly Democrats, the Republican party has launched an all-out and inescapably-obvious assault on women's health services by targeting Planned Parenthood for extinction. It's a coordinated campaign launched via a series of false and misleading videos by a GOP front group, amplified by the right-wing media machine and used to justify direct legislative action in state houses and the U.S. Congress. It took our side a while to push back, but now it's getting fairly pushybacky. Here's Hillary's video that calls out GOP candidates by name and gives Jeb W. Bush the sadz…
Jeb's brilliant response: "I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues." Yeah…I'm mean, seriously. That could buy one-tenth of an aircraft carrier.
CHEERS to sunlight: the best disinfectant (eventually). In 2009, there was an ugly, ugly referendum campaign to overturn the same-sex marriage law that was passed by our legislature and signed by (sane Democratic) Governor John Baldacci. The odious National Organization for Marriage raised a ton of money by promising donors that they'd keep their names a super-duper-secret. Except they fucked up and, long story short, we're about to find out who the bigots in our midst were:
All of NOM's donors to the 2009 Maine
marriage referendum have now been
betrayed by Brian Brown's incompetence.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday refused NOM’s request for a stay, which would enable the organization to delay complying with a state ethics board ruling that it must file a report identifying the sources of the $2 million it gave to the referendum drive.
NOM has mounted a relentless legal battle to conceal the names of its donors, saying that they could be subjected to harassment or economic reprisals by supporters of gay marriage, and that the organization’s fund-raising efforts would suffer.
Yes. When religious bigots call for "economic reprisals" on LGBT supporters, it's freedom of speech and a fight for traditional family values. But when LGBT supporters call for an economic boycott of the bigots, it's---say it with me---"an assault on our precious religious freedom." I sure hope Heaven has a large chiropractic unit, because the wingers sure do spend a big chunk of their lives doing awful twisty backflips.
JEERS to stupid white men. On August 5, 1994, Kenneth Starr, solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush, was named as independent prosecutor investigating Whitewater. His final report said virtually nothing about that non-scandal. But it did mention the word...
...over 500 times. Even Larry Flynt was like, "Whoa. Kenny, dude, get some help."
Five minutes after Carter's surgery.
CHEERS to the comeback kids. It has not been a good few weeks for our oldest ex-presidents. George H.W. Bush, 91, is recovering at his Kennebunkport compound after falling and breaking a bone in his neck. And now we get news that Jimmy Carter, 90, is on the mend after
undergoing surgery on his liver. Doctors say Carter's prognosis is excellent after the successful extraction of a small fatty growth and three cans of Billy Beer.
CHEERS to smart war management. 154 years ago, in 1861, President Lincoln signed into law the first federal income tax. He felt it was fiscally responsible because we were waging a civil war. Today tea party Republicans would tar Lincoln as a tax-and-spend liberal and hold the surrender ceremony at Appomattox hostage until he backed down and repealed it. And after Abe got done with them there'd be a lot of teabaggers who wouldn't be able to sit down for a week.
JEERS to the soon-to-be-departed. The Gods at Fox News have spoken and the following Republican presidential candidates have been told to take a long walk off a short pier: Lindsey Graham, Carly Fiorina, George Pataki, Jim Gilmore, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum. They have been deemed by the peddler of advertising and lies as
the official second-stringers of the 2016 campaign. The good news: they'll get their own "kids' table" debate before the rest of the field shows up. The bad news: to keep the ratings from tanking, Fox will moderate the debate from the bin full of plastic balls at Chuck E. Cheese.
CHEERS to the thrill of victory. On August 5, 1923, Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim across the English Channel. The feat occurred moments after someone put a plate of haggis in front of him.
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 5, 2005
JEERS to big brother. The Washington Post reveals new abuses by interrogators in Iraq, including stuffing an Iraqi General into a sleeping bag, wrapping him in electrical cord and beating him senseless until he was dead. The rationale for the torture? It was "...the idea of a soldier who remembered how his older brother used to force him into one, and how scared and vulnerable it made him feel." Besides, Mom always liked him best! (Paging Dr. Phil...)
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And just one more…
Birthplace of Bill in Portland Maine: Mercy
Hospital & Fine Liquor Store, Mt. Vernon, OH.
CHEERS to my August 5 birthday posse. Neil Armstrong. Lizz Winstead. Director John Huston. Loni Anderson. Maureen "Marcia Marcia Marcia!" McCormick. Patrick Ewing. The Elephant Man. Kossacks "Simple," "dmb0857," "stlsophos" and "LeoDaLion." After we swarm Denny's for our birthday discount (51% for me, so gimme a Bacon Slam, a Sausage Slam, a Slam Slam combining all the Slams, and a Lipitor sundae), we intend to spend the day stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. And since then the poor will be rich, we'll do it all over again in reverse. But only up until our 10am tee time.
P.S. Also on this date Marilyn Monroe, Carmen Miranda, Alec Guinness and Richard Burton died. On second thought, maybe we'll all just go back to bed.
Have a nice Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"If God exists, then why did he make Bill in Portland Maine?"
---Derek Zoolander
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