Cheers and Jeers: Thursday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

What our troops deserve for serving their country:

Fistfuls of money
Free trips to Disney World
Early bird discounts 24 hours a day
Gas discounts and free lifetime public transportation passes
Solid gold commodes
Efficient, no-questions-asked health care in adequately-staffed facilities that don't have mold growing on the walls
Free cable and high-speed internet access
Country club memberships

What else?

Oh yeah...how 'bout a new G.I. Bill that pays for their college education after they've put their lives on the line for our freedom and democracy and 99-cent value meals? The Military Officers Association---"the nation's largest and most influential association of military officers"---strongly supports the bill and adds:

We believe the new "greatest generation" deserves an education benefit more consistent with that the government provided the World War II generation.

We understand the concerns of those who would prefer to see enhanced GI Bill benefits tied to extended military service. However, the GI Bill has always been a veterans’ benefit, not a military retention benefit. ...

MOAA is, indeed, concerned about the serious potential for a retention downturn among today’s forces, but believes strongly that any such downturn will be due to too-frequent extended combat tours and family separations that have been imposed on a too-small force. If the military cannot grow fast enough to ease this unfair burden, the nation must find other ways to reciprocate the level of commitment that today’s service members have already demonstrated to their country at such a great personal cost. One way to do that is to provide a GI Bill benefit that fully covers the cost of attending college

For the life of me, I can't grasp why the mighty Republisupportthetroopsican John McCain was (and is) such a dick about this by withholding his support for the bill. Neither can columnist Dan Thomasson:

[W]hy McCain would take that position is almost unfathomable. Not only is he a product of a long line of military service, his position for a continuing, long-term engagement in Iraq is bound to be a thorny issue for him in November without adding an appearance of insensitivity to the plight and needs of his former colleagues in the armed forces. What can he be thinking?

Probably, "Mom!  Can you c'mere and help me with The Google again?  It's stuck!"

And Bush?

George W. Bush will end his White House years with a legacy of unnecessary death and destruction and political disruption that could plague us for decades to come. Now he would compound that bad judgment by slighting the very men and women he called on to carry out his wrongheaded policies.

Bush and McCain. Peas in a pod.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, June 12, 2008

Note: I mean, really!

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Independence Day: 22
Days 'til the Democratic National Convention: 74
Increase in the cost of Northwest Airlines' Detroit-Providence route from a year ago: 365% (now $595)
Increase in the cost of United Airlines' D.C.-New Orleans route: 275% ($742)
(Source: Bestfares.com via USA Today)
Time it took the Phoenix spacecraft to reach Mars (minus potty breaks): 10 months
Distance it traveled: 422,000,000 miles
(Source: The Week)
Number of home runs Cincinnati Red Ken Griffey, Jr. has swatted: 600
(Source: Kossack Scioto, who threatened to vote for John McCain if I didn’t mention this)

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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:

Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom you can decide you don’t much care for.  Is the person who prescribes your eyeglasses qualified to do so?  How deep will you be buried when you die?  What textbooks are your children learning from at school?  What will happen if you become seriously ill?  Is the meat you're eating tainted?  Will you be able to afford to go to college or to send your kids?  Would you like a vacation?  Expect to retire before you die?  Can you find a job?  Drive a car?  Afford insurance?  Is your credit card company or your banker or your broker ripping you off?  It's all politics, Bubba.  You don’t get to opt out for lack of interest.

---October, 2002

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Kiss me, Kate

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CHEERS to the Fantastic Four.  Coming in 36 days to Netroots Nation: Rick Perlstein (!)...Paul Krugman (!!)...Digby (!!!)...and Atrios (Eh, he's okay I guess):

Perlstein, author of Nixonland, and New York Times columnist Krugman will team up with Duncan "Atrios" Black for a panel on media accountability on Friday, July 18.  Heather "Digby" Parton will moderate.

In "How the Media Learned to Bend Over Backward to Please the Right," Perlstein will date the origins of three habits of the mainstream media to the late '60s: bending over backward to placate the right even at the expense of facts and good judgment, the pundits' obsession with boosting "post-partisan" and a tendency to "balance" reports of Republican misdeeds by inflating supposed Democratic misdeeds.  Krugman will relate his own experiences as a columnist who refuses to abide by these unwritten rules.

This, by the way, will be followed by the first-ever blogger mosh pit.  Remember: lift with your legs, not your back---we only have one ambulance.

CHEERS to ramping up (via Kos).  The Obama campaign is in full general-election mode, and one of the many smart things they're doing is hiring staff to take baseball bats to all the email sliming that's been going on:

Brooks Jackson, director of the Washington-based FactCheck.org, an independent academic organisation set up in 2003 to monitor the factual accuracy of statements made in elections, said yesterday there had been false rumours on the internet about George Bush and John Kerry in the 2004 election.

"With Obama, it is particularly vicious," Jackson said. He added that one of the most persistent is that Obama, a Christian, is "some kind of Muslim Manchurian candidate, planted by Islamic fundamentalists to betray the country and it is very widespread."

Perhaps they can start by pointing out that the Manchurian candidate was a white veteran who was brainwashed in a POW camp.  And then they can state the truth: if elected, John McCain's mother will show him the Queen of Hearts, upon which he'll turn into a gay Lindsay Graham-marrying abortion doctor who wants to outlaw guns, slash the military, ban creationism in science class, grow hemp and mandate comprehensive sex education.  Cruel, I know...but they need to hear it before it's too late!

JEERS to mistaken identity.  Oops.  American fighter pilots are being blamed for the deaths of 11 Pakistani soldiers and 10 others yesterday during a firefight with militants that obviously went a bit awry.  After poring over satellite images and debriefing reports, the Pentagon issued a statement intended to smooth over relations with our ally in The War Against Islamic Extremist Poopyknockers: "Bygones?"  Yeah, that should do the trick.

JEERS to iHype.  The marketing geniuses at Apple hatch a great plan:

"Hey, let's add a few improvements to the iPhone and make it 200 bucks cheaper!"
"Great!  But...but...how can we do such a thing?"
"Easy! We'll make up the difference with higher monthly service charges!"
"It'll look like savings, but it won't be savings."
"Love it!"
"Brilliant!  People are gonna eat this up!"

Later...

"Uh, guys?  Jobs just unveiled it.  Our stock dropped two percent."
"Ingrates."

iYowee.

JEERS to a warm bed...to hide under!!!  As columnists go, the Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts, Jr. is one of the best around.  Sunday he revisited the Republican-fueled post-9/11 fearmongering campaign---including silliness like Rachael Ray's paisley "terror scarf" in a Dunkin Donuts ad---that continues to work its magic on conservative dimwits:

It's like we have awakened into the 1950s.  The paranoia is there, the gratuitous ruination of people's lives is there, the abiding and unrelenting fear is there. The only thing missing is Joe McCarthy asking, "Are you now or have you ever been . . .?"

Apparently, Colin Powell was wrong.  "We're Americans," he said after the Sept. 11 attacks, "we don't walk around terrified."

But we do.  And because we do, we injure ourselves as surely as a cartoon cat panicked by a cartoon dog.  So that here we sit, banged up something fierce: the rule of law, broken, moral authority, blackened, freedoms, fractured, seriousness of purpose on life support.
All in pursuit of a chimera called security we have yet to capture and never will.  So we might as well go back to being America.  I mean, when the Zeitgeist is indistinguishable from a Warner Bros. cartoon, something is wrong.

Which reminds me: big sale this morning on ACME Batman suits.  Present your RNC card for a 10 percent discount.

CHEERS to the Lavender Cavalry...to the rescue!  Cheer up, California.  You may have a gazillion-dollar deficit, but in five days you'll be swimming in money.  Specifically, gay marriage money.

Gay couples are projected to spend $684 million on flowers, cakes, hotels, photographers and other wedding services over the next three years – so long as voters don't put a halt to the same-sex marriage spree, according to a study by the Williams Institute at University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.... The study estimates that over the next three years, gay weddings will generate $64 million in additional tax revenue for the state, and another $9 million in marriage license fees for counties.

But I don’t have the heart to tell the locust-control experts that buying yachts and mansions might've been a tad premature.  (I hear God's thinking of making it rain frogs instead.)

CHEERS to a whole buncha Loving luvin'.  Man, we've lost a lot of great people in the first half of 2008: Bo Diddley, Sydney Pollack, Jim McKay, Arthur C. Clark, Edmund Hillary.  Last month civil rights pioneer Mildred Loving died at 68.  Today we remember her on this, the 41st anniversary of a civil rights milestone.  On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled on a case called Loving vs. Virginia, striking down state miscegenation laws (Virginia's had been around since the mid-1600s, hence its nickname, "The Pokey State").  And in light of the impending same-sex nuptials in California (see above), it's worth noting that "Mrs. Loving stopped giving interviews, but last year issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of the announcement of the Supreme Court ruling, urging that gay men and lesbians be allowed to marry."  And so they shall.

JEERS to Old McSpoilsport.  Dang it!  Looks like Dick Cheney won’t be joining John McCain on the campaign trail.  Apparently the media discovered the hard way that their combined paleness fries camera lenses.

P.S. Reason #2,318 why John McCain is no different from George W. Bush: bringing our troops home is "not too important."  Especially not during this delightful time of year, when the raw sewage in Baghdad is in full algae bloom.  Can we pre-impeach him now, Kucinich?

CHEERS to men with balls.  The U.S. Open golf tournament starts today at Torrey Pines Golf Club in San Diego.  Tiger Woods will spot the rest of the field 50 strokes each and then win it by 10.  (Sounds impressive, but I hear he cheats by cutting slits into his blindfold.)

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One Year Ago in C&J: June 12, 2007...

JEERS to the Worst Fortuneteller in the Universe.  Nineteen months ago straight-talker John McCain said: "Overall, I think a year from now we will have a fair amount of progress in Iraq if we stay the course."  Seven months ago, after a year of disastrous course-staying, he admitted that his prediction was wrong but that the final final final verdict on Iraq would be rendered around...um...noon yesterday.  If anyone needs a ride to the ticker tape parade down Broadway this weekend, drop him an email at [e-mail].

P.S. C&J just trademarked the ".ass" TLD.  We expect its usage to surpass .com within 48 hours.

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And just one more...

JEERS to the simple(ton) life (via Kossack jnhobbs).  A year or two ago I coined the saying, "The difference between Republicans and Democrats is: Republicans tell you what to think while Democrats tell you what to think about."  Being a Democrat is more challenging than being a Republican because our wiring is more complex.  We think more independently.  Our standards of fairness and accuracy are higher.  Their idea of humor is bully taunts, ours is wit and satire.  So I salute you, fellow Dems, for taking the more challenging route on your path to political enlightenment.  Because, frankly, the alternative is just too darn easy.  And creepy.

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Oh, and happy 84th birthday to former president George H.W. Bush (seen here performing a terrorist fist-jab).  With all due respect, sir, one of your boys needs to be taken behind the woodshed for a serious switchin'.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

"Bill is not a journalist, he's a pugilist."
---Bill Moyers
6/7/08

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