From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Worth repeating
Attorney David Boies came to rumble with the right on CBS News' Face the Nation (pdf) yesterday over Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case he and Ted Olson argued which resulted in California's Prop. 8 being declared unconstitutional.
His opponent was Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. (Motto: "The Crappiest Research in the Business for All Your Crappy Research Needs!") This was his brilliant main argument---a personal attack on Judge Vaughn Walker:
"[A]ccording to the San Francisco Chronicle...he is openly homosexual, one of two federal judges. And I think, you know, had this guy been a, say, an evangelical preacher in his past, there would have been cries for him to step down from this case. So, I do think it has a bearing on the case."
Classy! (And craptacularly stupid.) Then, after claiming Judge Walker "ignored a lot of the social science in his opinion," Boies got to the heart of why the religious right views going to court the way vampires view walking into sunlight:
"It's easy to sit around and debate and throw around opinions [that] appeal to people's fear and prejudice, cite studies that either don't exist or don't say what you say they do. In a court of law you've got to come in and you've got to support those opinions. You've got to stand up under oath and cross-examination. And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens the right to vote, to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature or in debates where they can't be cross-examined. ...
There weren't any empirical studies. That's just made up. That's junk science. And it's easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court, you can't do that. And that's what we proved. We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.
More Boies, plus video of Attorney Ted Olson's deft Chris Wallace-taming appearance on Fox News Sunday in Vyan's diary. Textbook stuff if you ever find yourself battling a bigot.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, August 9, 2010
Note: There's a new moon tonight. It's made out of more durable polymers and continuously plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I think that's gonna get real old real fast.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections: 85
Days `til the Missouri State Fair (and pie contest): 3
Portion of oil industry lobbyists who used to work for the federal government: 3-in-4
(Source: The Washington Post via The Week)
Amount Hewlitt Packard CEO Mark Hurd will get in cash and stock after getting fired for skullduggery related to an affair he had with a contractor: $28 million
(Source: AP via MSNBC)
Percent of Fox News viewers who are black: 1.38%
Percent of them who are watching because they're stuck waiting in Jiffy Lube: 45%
(Source: Stephen Colbert)
Height of the world's largest pistachio nut, in Alamogordo, NM: 30 feet
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NEW! Your Monday Mark Twain Moment
In anticipation of the release of his autobiography this November, we're devotin' a swath of Mondays to the old man:
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
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The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
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What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Oh, and here's an excerpt in Newsweek from his memoirs. Sweet.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Puppy Theatre presents a one-act play titled: Monday
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CHEERS to the new kid on the bench. It's official: on Saturday, John Roberts swore in Elena Kagan as the Supreme Court's newest associate justice. (He used a cheat sheet to prevent another memory lapse like the disastrous one he had on inauguration day a year and a half ago with Whatsizname.) The high court is now one-third women, and lord is that milestone long overdue. Kagan pledged she would "administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich." If you ever get stuck on how to do that, ma'am, here's John Paul Stevens' Wikipedia page. Oh, and a word of advice: if Thomas offers you a Coke, take a pass.
JEERS to stuff you just can't make up. The intertubes were buzzing all weekend because CNN host Fareed Zakaria returned an award he got from the Anti-Defamation League because they got a bee in their bonnet over the new community center being planned near the World Trade Center site. He says he's "stunned" by the ADL's actions, and the ADL responded by saying it was "stunned" that Zakaria was "stunned." Oh, plus conservative Christians, egged on by Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, have called Muslims every epithet in the book. Meanwhile, in the "You Can't Make This Up" department, you can't make this up:
The group behind the recently opened "Museum of Tolerance" museum in Manhattan has come out against a planned Islamic community center, which includes a mosque, near Ground Zero.
So remember kids: stay away from atheists. They're craaaaaaazy!
CHEERS and JEERS to the "Fat Man." 65 years ago, on August 9, 1945, three days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, we did the same thing to Nagasaki. The bad news: it vaporized 74,000 people and caused unspeakable damage that lingers to this day. The good news: a third one wasn't necessary.
CHEERS to meeting expectations. I knew it! As soon as I saw the cover of Time last week showing that photo of the 18 year-old Afghani woman who got her nose, um, "involuntarily removed" by members of the Taliban, I knew that America would spring into action, fly her over here, and fix her right up. As for the assholes who did it to her? They'll each get 71 virgins in the afterlife. Each one brandishing a nutcracker.
JEERS to hot thug-on-thug action. You may have read this last week in Spud1's diary, and the surprise, I suppose, is that what happened isn’t a surprise: 10 Maine teabaggers who weren't happy with the way another Maine teabagger was running a Maine teabagger web site surrounded her and threatened her personal safety if she didn’t turn over her secret passwords to the site. What I really find bizarre is this bit reported in The Portland Daily Sun:
Without directly taking credit for the events of Tuesday night, another tea party activist, Jeff Cucci, posted an entry titled "Amy Hale: the other side" on the Maine Refounders site. Apparently writing about the parking lot confrontation, he posted that "Last night there were more who wanted to come and more that would have if asked, but a mob was not the goal."
So now we know that 10 people accosting 1 person in a parking lot at night is not considered a mob but, presumably, anything 11 or over is. Glad they cleared that up.
CHEERS to the sanctity of marriage. A group of Americans with an immutable characteristic---their sexual orientation---is being granted the constitutional right to get hitched, and to that we say, Right on!!! After all, if you're a heterosexual couple, and one of you gets busted for being a crack dealer, the judge who presides at your hearing should be willing to perform a marriage ceremony for you and your girlfriend before you trudge back to the slammer in chains. That's how fundamental the right marriage is in America. But to hell with the gays and their evil America-killing agenda. This message brought to you by America's conservatives: pigging out at the trough of hypocrisy since long before anyone can remember.
CHEERS to happy endings. On August 9, 1842, the U.S. and Canada peaceably resolved their border dispute with the signing the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. The entire text was written by the Americans: "Don’t even think about fucking with us or we'll go Second Amendment on your ass." Sounds harsh until you notice that we dotted the i's with little hearts.
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Four years ago in C&J: August 9, 2006---Lamont Beats Lieberman:
JEERS to Sore Loserman. The New York Times summed up Joe Lieberman's loss well yesterday:
When Mr. Lieberman told The Washington Post, "I haven't changed. Events around me have changed," he actually put his finger on his political problem. His constituents felt that when the White House led the country into a disastrous international crisis and started subverting the nation's basic traditions, Joe Lieberman should have changed enough to take a lead in fighting back.
He's taking a lead in fighting back, alright...against them that brung him to the dance in the first place. Is it too late to take back my vote from 2000?
CHEERS to defying expectations. Joe Lieberman justified preparing for an independent run last month by saying, "No one really knows how many Democrats will come out to vote on what may be a hot day in August." Translation: "I know no one's going to turn out in August so I can make up this bogus excuse for a do-over." Surprise!! A record number of Democrats turned out to boot his ass. Now he's simply running because he thinks his former constituents are back-stabbing traitors. Dr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to Keith and BiPM: the Dynamic Duo. Ah, memories. Three years ago I asked Keith Olbermann, via his producer, for an autographed photo to be auctioned off during a YearlyKos (now Netroots Nation) fundraiser. Little did we know that Fox News pest John Gibson would catch wind of it and whine about this brazen breach of journalistic ethics. Three years ago yesterday, Keith fired back:
"[Gibson is] whining because I donated an autographed photo to the YearlyKos convention. Says it's against journalistic policy. Quoting him: "When I was at NBC that got you fired!"
Firstly: John, when you were at NBC you were fired!
Number two: John, you work for Roger Ailes. Roger Ailes, who is the head political consultant for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign right now!
Autographed picture [on one hand], simultaneously running a presidential campaign and a pretend news network [on the other].
John, there are people who watch NBC who will still acknowledge NBC is a news organization. There's no one outside of Fox viewers who have ever thought for a second that Fox is a news organization. Nobody! You're part of an national embarrassment, and you're bitching about an autographed photo!
John Gibson of Fixed News...today's Worst Person In The World!!
Gibson's not on the Fox News Channel anymore. He apparently wasn't nutzoid enough so they replaced him with Glenn Beck. In the world of the right-wingers, that's gotta sting.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"It takes a lot of creative energy to sit on your ass and cheer and jeer."
---John Goodman
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