From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Thank you, John Oliver
For the perfect We Are the World-style response to the Republicans’ nasty habit of playing songs at their events without permission---and not giving a shit:
I’m sure we’ll be hearing this song at a Trump rally any day now.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Note: CBS News reports that Donald Trump got a post-convention uptick that they described as "very small." And you know what they say about men with small upticks…
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Christmas: 152
Days 'til the Finger Lakes Riesling & Craft Beer Festival in Canandaigua, NY: 11
Average global temperature in June, the 14th straight month of record heat according to NOAA: 61.5F
Expected temperature in Philadelphia today: 95F
Percent of Americans who believe restricting gun ownership violates the Second Amendment, versus 55% who don't according to an AP-GfK poll: 43%
Percent in the poll who favor a ban on assault-style rifles: 57%
Percent chance Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the odds of the Trans-Pacific Partnership getting passed during Obama's remaining time are office is "pretty slim": 100%
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
After the GOP convention, the commenters at Michelle Malkin's blog are united for Donald Trump! Kinda...
"I notice that a lot of Trump supporters are very careful to point out that they supported somebody else in the beginning as well."
"I cannot vote for Donald Trump. He is the most obnoxious tactless nonsensical bully I've seen. His vicious attacks at Rubio, Cruz, Carson, Bush during the Primaries and even some today are beyond reprehensible and downright unconscionable!"
"Donald Trump did very well last night. But right now...he is shooting himself in the foot on TV. He is blasting Ted Cruz and acting like a Junior High school bully. That man is mean and vindictive and doesn't know when to STFU."
"Would it be too gauche to say I wanna have Ivanka's baby?"
All together now: 1…2…3… Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Puppies and Olympians
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CHEERS to Night 1. Once it was clear that a sliver of Bernie supporters were planning to go rogue and would simply have to be dealt with as they popped up, the 2016 Democratic National Convention got underway last night.
Interesting---I tuned in for policy-wonk campaign speeches and ended up watching a bunch of political rock stars shakin' the rafters. Let's see: the DREAMer was great, the gay former congressman was great, the disability-rights advocate was great, the congressmembers were great, the union leaders were great, the Latinos and Latinas were great, Al Franken and Sarah Silverman were hilarious, Senator Elizabeth Warren was great, Bernie Sanders was Superunification Man…and the first African-American First Lady's speech was as poetic as it was historic.
Best of all, the diversity of the crowd resembled the diversity of those on stage. I could actually watch this convention without using the pinhole box I had to fetch from the attic to watch the Republican whiteout without getting retina burn. Unlike the Republican convention, there was no tokenism---we look like this all the time!
All of this happened after it was confirmed that the DNC hacking event was masterminded by Vladimir Putin, who has emerged as a de facto bunkmate with Donald Trump. Color me gobsmacked---it turns out they really do support same-sex marriage!
P.S. The schedule for tonight appears to be under lock and key, but we do know two invitees: representatives of “Mothers of the Movement,” including the moms of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, Dontré Hamilton, Jordan Davis, Hadiya Pendleton and Sandra Bland...and President Bill Clinton, who owes his wife the stem-windiest of stemwinders. And she’ll get it.
JEERS to the things I do to please my fans. People keep insisting that I have to say something about Debbie Wasserman Schultz. So, okay, fine. Let me just say this about Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the head of the DNC but she ain't no more. Can I go back outside and play now?
CHEERS to climbing aboard this crazy train. On July 26, 1788, New York's delegation ratified the U.S. Constitution in Poughkeepsie. But not before there was a brief conversation in the cloak room:
Delegate 1: Are you sure that we should not insist upon inclusion of some kind of balanced budget amendment in here? For the sake of our union and in the spirit of shared sacrifice, so that nothing is left on or off the table and we may all partake in the bounty of such a grand bargain?
Delegate 2: What, are you nuts? That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. No one will ever be so stupid as to try and put that insanity into the Constitution! Whoever makes the attempt is dumb. Dumb, I tell you. Dumb dumb dumb dumb, dumbeth and dumber!
Delegate 1: So, uh, would this be a bad time, then, to bring up amendments banning flag-burning and gay marriage?
Delegate 2: Lay off the grog, kid. You're startin' to weird me out.
After ratification they celebrated by overturning a bunch of carriages in Jersey.
CHEERS to perspective. It's great that the first black president is a Democrat, and it's great that the first woman president will be a Democrat. At the same time---and regardless of what conservatives think---it's just great that these milestones are finally coming to pass, period. Veep nominee Tim Kaine framed it really well Sunday on 60 Minutes. I've edited this a bit for clarity:
Tim Kaine: "If you think about the history of our nation, we stated that all are equal in 1776, but it took 144 years before we said, "And that means women can vote, not just men."
So we said we were going to do one thing, but it took 144 years. And then it took another 100 years---I mean, we're nearly 100 years later…with no woman president.
The next President of the United States will be the president that will celebrate 100 years of women having the right to vote [in 2020]. I mean, I think having a woman president lead that celebration would be one of these instances of history really working out right in a poetic and beautiful way---and part of this journey that we've been on. Because then, we'll tackle the next imperfection we have. But this is something that is really, really exciting."
Unless she wears the wrong pantsuit. Then we have to start the republic all over again.
CHEERS to old stuff that you shouldn’t touch or the museum director will scream at me you and kick me you out. I imagine that famed Great Pyramid grain storage historian Dr. Ben Carson can't wait to pore over the treasure trove of information now at his disposal in Egypt:
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo has put on display the country's oldest papyruses, which date back 4,500 years, detailing the daily life of the pyramid-builders.
The items are from the 4th Dynasty of King Khufu, or Cheops as he was also known, for whom the Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb.
Egypt's Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Anany told reporters on Thursday as the exhibition was unveiled that the papyruses were discovered in 2013 in the port of Wadi el-Jarf. The port is located 119 kilometers, or 74 miles, from the city of Suez.
To put the age of the papyrus in perspective, it's older than the Bible but not quite as old as the average Fox News viewer.
CHEERS to compassionate conservatism. Twenty-four years ago, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. He didn't want anything to stand between his oldest son and the White House.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 26, 2006
CHEERS to fitting into your college-era jeans again. Saddam Hussein is on a hunger strike, and apparently is in the "supermodel" stage of emaciation. Doctors say he's now dependent on a feeding tube supplying him with the nutrients in liquefied Doritos. After viewing a video of the deposed Iraqi dictator, Dr. Bill Frist pronounced him brain-dead. For once we agree.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to good chiselin’. I don’t have a whole lot to say about statues of people. They’re nice for memorializing their accomplishments, and some (Lincoln, Liberty, MLK, Rio’s “concrete Christ”) are downright gobsmacking by virtue of their size. But for me they rarely produce any great emotional response in and of themselves. Once in a while it happens, though, as it did during a visit to the Old Courthouse in St. Louis during Netroots Nation.
The courthouse is where Dred Scott sued for his freedom in 1846...a suit that the Supreme Court would dismiss nine freakin’ years later and which became one of the milestones in the lead-up to the Civil War. The statue was created by master sculptor Harry Weber, dedicated in 2012, and the Scotts---Dred and wife Harriett---are described as “standing close, holding their heads high, their eyes directed not only Arch-ward and across the Mississippi River, but toward a horizon of freedom in which they believed enough to one day finally see.” I took a pic:
The Dred Scott v Sandford decision was one of America’s biggest judicial embarrassments, and today the Chief Justice on duty at the time, Roger Taney, is viewed as the worst one ever to warm the bench. You can exhale now, Roberts.
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:
One of the things you’ll hear over and over about Tim Kaine is that he’s a nice guy. You hear that about Bill in Portland Maine, too--–but the difference is that Kaine is actually a nice guy, while BiPM just plays one in the C&J kiddie pool.
---Melissa McEwan, Blue Nation Review
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