From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The Big “Con”
Climbing into my starship and using the sun as a slingshot to achieve speeds that allowed me to merge with a wormhole, I traveled back in time to fetch this bit of insight-with-no-expiration-date from Paul Waldman circa July, 2006. Consider it an antidote to last night's GOP toxicity:
Conservatism is the ideology of the past--a past we don't want to return to.
Liberals need to embrace the culture war, because we're winning. The story of American history is that of conservative ideas and prejudices falling away as our society grows more progressive and thus more true to our nation's founding ideals. Conservatives supported slavery, conservatives opposed women's suffrage, conservatives supported Jim Crow, conservatives opposed the 40-hour work week and the abolishment of child labor, and conservatives supported McCarthyism. In short, all the major advancements of freedom and justice in our history were pushed by liberals and opposed by conservatives, no matter the party they inhabited at the time.
Conservatism is Bill Bennett lecturing you about self-denial, then rushing off to feed his slot habit at the casino. It's James Dobson telling you that children need regular beatings to stay in line. It's a superannuated nun rapping you on the knuckles so you won't think about your dirty parts. It's Jerry Falwell watching "Teletubbies" frame by frame to see if Tinky Winky is trying to turn him gay. Conservatism is everyone you never wanted to grow up to be.
So to all the shocked conservatives running around with their hair on fire wondering why they’re house is on the verge of collapsing, just remember: you built that.
P.S. Follow Paul on twitter here.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Note: In the immortal words of Melania Trump: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Call me Ishmael. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Mighty Casey has struck out."
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Star Trek: Beyond, which already has a 93% "Fresh" rating at RottenTomatoes.com, opens: 2
Days 'til the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland: 14
Favorability of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, respectively, among 18-30 year olds, according to a GenForward survey: 39%, 19%
Number of governors who signed a pledge to work together to fight the opium crisis in their states: 43 (among the non-signers: Maine Gov. Paul LePage)
Number of additional U.S. troops being sent to Iraq to help secure an airbase taken from ISIS: 560
Predicted high temp today in Death Valley: 115
Age at which Mick Jagger is becoming a dad for the 8th time: 72
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Mid-week Rapture Index:
188 (including 4 Global Turmoils and 1 Pokemon game with demonic powers unleashed by Satan). Soul Protection Factor 36 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The fox and the hound
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JEERS to the Great American Shit Show, Day III. The GOP plunges America into the abyss of fear and loathing again tonight from under the Cleveland Wankerdome. Tonight's theme is Make America First Again---"First," of course, being dog-whistle code for "white, male and hung like a horse." Boy, what an exciting lineup. Please hold your applause until…well, just hold your applause:
Radio host (Laura Ingraham) who wants to treat gay people like second-class citizens, including her gay brother…generic casino/greyhound racing/fossil fuel baron…gay-hating Florida Attorney General who pretended to care about the Orlando massacre victims for five minutes…
Pyramid-scheme grifter who sells miracle pills claiming to cure cancer…black pastor who doesn't mind that Trump's a racist…oil & gas guy who wants a ban on all research into earthquakes caused by fracking…
Wisconsin governor who was definitely going to be the 2016 presidential nominee until he became the first to drop out of the race…a Trump executive who's black!'
Little Marco…Lucifer in the Flesh…Either Uday or Qusay Trump (I always get 'em mixed up)…serial adulterer Newt Gingrich and his third "other woman"…and Mike Pence, the first vice presidential candidate whose neck is as wide as his head.
And a friendly reminder: if you plan to watch tonight's prime time festivities, you should start drinking five minutes ago.
P.S. If you’re wondering how things went last night, this is the BillyNotes version: lawyer Chris Christie showed his mastery of the American judicial system by putting Hillary Clinton “on trial” and letting the assembled mob determine her guilt or innocence. And then there was this:
The theme of the night was ‘jobs and the economy’ which, in Republican World, apparently means ‘say nothing about jobs or the economy.’
CHEERS to a pretty darn effective guilt trip. Since the networks covering the convention won't (but should) put a parental discretion icon in the corner of the screen, the Clinton campaign offered their version of one, reminding moms and dads across the country that Republicans are nightmare-inducing creatures:
Thankfully, the GOP will have a nightmare of their own in November. The one where they fall off a cliff.
CHEERS to the giant leap for mankind that I got to witness with my own 5-year-old eyes. Forty-seven years ago today, at 10:56 pm eastern time, John Kennedy's vision to put a man on the Moon by decade's end was realized when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on a heavenly body not named Earth. (It almost turned tragic when they nearly landed inside a boulder-strewn crater, but quick-thinking Armstrong switched the controls to manual and guided the module to a flatter surface. Whew!) The entire world was united in awe that day---the kind of awe that our next phase of human space exploration has to match, now that the shiny shuttles have been mothballed. My verdict so far: the SpaceX rockets look promising and are actually starting to generate a real "gee whiz" factor, and we hope Elon Musk and NASA keep it up (so to speak). For your enjoyment of the anniversary, today the C&J cafeteria is servin' up authentic Apollo 11 chicken stew:
And, of course, all the Tang you can drink.
TALLY HO! to the changing of the wanker guard. It's a sign of how crazy things have been lately that the fact that post-Brexit-vote Britain has a new female prime minister has largely gone under the radar. So who is booted PM David Cameron's replacement Theresa May? Over to you, The Telegraph:
> Vicar's daughter Mrs May was born on October 1, 1956, in Eastbourne, Sussex.
> 1999-2010: Holds a variety of shadow cabinet posts
> 2002: Becomes the first female chairman of the Conservatives and says it is seen as the “nasty party” - while wearing a pair of now-famous leopard print kitten heels
> 2010-2012: Minister for Women & Equalities 2010: Appointed Home Secretary, and makes it her mission to reform the police service and control immigration
> Type I diabetic
> [A] practising member of the Anglican church, but said it was "right that we don't flaunt these things here in British politics".
And she's a big fan of government surveillance. Among her first actions after getting the royal blessing of the Queen: making crazy Trump clone Boris Johnson her foreign secretary and dusting off Britain's nuclear arsenal. Memo to the Falkland Islands: behave.
CHEERS to today's edition of Hey, I Have An Idea! Let's Stop Doing That! Courtesy of The Week:
U.S. Navy sonar breaks marine laws by using sound waves that are significantly stronger than those produced even by the loudest rock bands, a U.S. appeals court ruled.
Sonar pulses can harm animals that rely on underwater sound to navigate, such as whales, dolphins, and walruses, BBC reports.
Some scientists claim that whales have even been observed fleeing from sonar by swimming hundreds of miles or beaching themselves. […] Navy sonar can create sound waves of 235 decibels; about 150 decibels is the threshold for eardrum rupture in humans.
This has been today's edition of today's edition of Hey, I Have An Idea! Let's Stop Doing That!
JEERS to more senseless gunplay. President Obama had to respond to yet another mass shooting last week, this time several three police officers (3 died) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. After spending several days sifting through all the evidence, authorities have concluded that the killer was definitely a member of the group known as Dickheads.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 20, 2006
JEERS to wasting your first bullet. President Bush vetoed his first bill yesterday, thus making the world safe for patriotic, flag-wavin', tax-payin', mall-shoppin', country music-lovin', good old-fashioned American microscopic bits of goo. Let's just hope Congress and all Americans who live outside a petri dish have learned their lesson over this: He's the decider!
P.S. Smooth move, Prez, banning the press from attending and then surrounding yourself with human shields children. How very dictator-in-his-last-throes-ish.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to FLOTUS. Just a little haiku in honor of her triumphant spirit-presence in Cleveland Monday night as channeled through Melania Trump:
Michelle's words echo
Through GOP convention
Racists stand and...cheer???
And a little preview of what’s coming up tonight on CBS (click the pic):
High above the clouds, Dolley and Eleanor are all like, "Damn! She's good."
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:
"Bill in Portland Maine has no self-discipline, no self-control, no sense of history, no understanding of the limits of the chlorine that any blogger should impose upon his kiddie pool."
---Hillary Clinton
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