But first...
Give to Joe Sestak's campaign. Because if Pat Toomey wins, the first thing he'll do is [Redacted by management because a) they don't make winches that big, and b) barn animals are not allowed on the Senate floor] and then god help us all.
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
["Expletive Deleted!"]
Gosh, we're so lucky here in Maine. We're getting an up-close and personal look at a teabagger candidate in action. Paul LePage is his name and LOSING HIS TEMPER IS HIS GAME!!! (He loses it a lot.)
LePage is the Teapublican candidate running for governor up here. Voice like a belt sander, political philosophy as nuanced as a bag of rocks. Not a real warm guy. More like the thick-necked hothead who catches you gazing at your watch, yells "GET BACK TO WORK, YA LAZY SUNUVABITCH!" and fails to note that he's standing in watch-repair shop.
LePage is one of those candidates who would ordinarily lose by 20-30 points because of his extremist views and unpredictable outbursts. (He has a HUGE temper.) But this isn’t an ordinary election year. This is one of those "I'm mad as hell and I'm...how does that go again?" years. Everyone's mad. Mad mad mad mad mad. And when people get mad they look for the candidate who best exemplifies the phrase, "I feel your madness." Problem is, with Paul LePage we're not only getting madness as in, "You kids get off my lawn," we're also getting madness as in, "Offshore oil drilling? I never say never!" Here are a few of his greatest hits (hat tip to Gerald at Dirigo Blue for documenting many of the, um, oddities):
> Seriously, he's not saying no to drilling for oil off the coast of Maine.
> He brought up the sale of bull semen as a campaign issue (and got his facts wrong about it), but I can't remember if that was before or after he yelled "Bullshit!" at a reporter. Point is, he owns the bull caucus.
> He was for gay marriage before he was against it.
> He claims he never solicited the support of the tea party, but attended several of their rallies and said, "More than ever, I need your help."
> His wife was a Mainer before she was a Floridian before she was a Mainer again but only after she abused the Homestead Tax Exemption Act to weasel out of paying out-of-state tuition for their daughters at Florida universities.
> Teach creationism in schools? Yes! No! Well...maybe.
> In typical Republican fashion, he flees from reporters when they veer from his script.
> An ethics complaint has been filed against him for using company property for campaign purposes and not reporting it.
> Sick and can't afford health insurance? Tough. LePage says healthcare is a privilege, not a right.
And this:
"As your governor, you're gonna be seein' a lot of me on the front page saying, 'Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell.'"
Lovely.
After holding a sizable lead through the summer, LePage's numbers have dropped and he's now tied with Democrat Libby Mitchell. Mitchell isn’t a hothead, but rather a tough, sensible progressive. Let's hope she's able to take a victory lap in 19 days. If not...this beautiful state is screwed.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 14, 2010
Note: Just a heads-up that there will be no C&J this Monday as we will be stuck in a tree. (And I suspect it will be a very long story.)
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections: 19
Days `til the 10th annual Pumpkin Harvest Festival in Saco, Maine: 2
Current average interest rate on credit cards: 14.7%
(Source: The Wall Street Journal via The Week)
Percent of Americans who practice yoga: 7%
Percent of Americans who are southern Baptists: 6.7%
(Source: Yoga Journal via AP)
Width of the sewer pipe in Raymore, Missouri that a 27 year-old contract worker got sucked into on Tuesday: 27 inches
Distance he traveled through the pipe before he was found and rescued 90 minutes later: 1 mile
(Source: Kansas City Star)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
[W]e've bounced back from this same mistake before---the mistake of thinking that we can make ourselves safer if we just make ourselves less free. We get so scared of something---scared of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens---that we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing freedom. Never works. It's still true: the only thing to fear is fear itself.
---From Who Let the Dogs In?
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Drinkin' buddies
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CHEERS to 33 trips up memory lane. Every now and then---far too infrequently for my taste, thank you---we get a glimpse of just how amazing humans can be if they've a mind to. Now that all the miners in Chile are above ground, safe and sound, we can now give everyone their due---from the families who kept their loved ones' spirits up, to the teamwork and ingenuity of the international rescue operation that completed its life-or-death assignment months ahead of schedule and encountered no major problems, to the miners themselves (especially foreman Luis Alberto Urzua, the last to emerge) who survived in every shaded nuance of that word you can think of. It's times like these when I see hope for a brighter future. And in other news: asteroid headed straight for earth. Film at 11.
JEERS to throwing the base out with the bigot water. The White House is considering a "fast appeal" of the federal judge's recent ruling that expulsions under 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell' must stop immediately and permanently. That means a couple of things, which I'd like to note. First, it means they think they can survive the midterm elections without the help of the GLBT community. Second, the stonewalling by the Pentagon---which says all hell will break loose if the ruling is enforced now---is basically saying they need more time to coddle and counsel the bigots in the ranks, even though they all took an oath to lay down their very lives for the tenets of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection for things like military service. Meanwhile Secretary of Defense Gates has developed a sudden case of the phantom vapors:
Allowing gays to serve openly "is an action that requires careful preparation and a lot of training," Gates said. "It has enormous consequences for our troops."
What does that even mean? They need to install lavender monkey bars? WTF??? And what "enormous consequences?" The only people inconvenienced will be the bigots, and if they have a problem with the repeal they can just fucking quit (or be court-martialed for insubordination) and be replaced. Replaced by gays. Until the entire military is gay. And then we unleash our secret plan to... Oh dear I think I've said too much.
JEERS to Democratic brain farts we'd like to forget. A hundred and five years ago today, in 1905, former president Grover Cleveland wrote an article for Ladies Home Journal, opposing women's voting rights. His words:
"We all know how much further women go than men in their social rivalries and jealousies...sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."
I believe the relative position of his wife's rolling pin that night was right between the eyes.
CHEERS to the Chamber of horrors. How nice that the esteemed killer of the middle class, the United States Chamber of Commerce (Motto: "We Buy Rock-Headed Republicans At Rock-Bottom Prices!") is squirming like worms, thanks to an ever-widening investigation by Think Progress, which has "identified at least 84 other foreign companies that actively donate to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6). ... Again, all of these annual dues are collected in the same 501(c)(6) the Chamber is using to run partisan attack ads." Monday on Hardball, Chris Matthews appeared stunningly lucid as he explained why this matters:
"A lot of working people in this country are suspicious that the big corporations spend all their time cutting jobs. They do it for globalization purposes. They engage in outsourcing. They send jobs overseas. They outsource their supply lines overseas. They do everything they can to screw the working person and make more money. ... The U.S. Chamber of Commerce gets money from those very sources and uses it to elect people in Congress who will support that enterprise of shifting jobs overseas...eliminating the American workforce, basically. [Regular people] have a grudge here which is pretty American, which is: You are screwing me. I‘d like to know who‘s paying for this."
Every Democrat running for anything from senator to dogcatcher should print that on a three-by-five card and read it at every rally, speech and debate. It's a winning issue, a golden ticket, and a sure-fire argument. I know this because Karl Rove and Fox News are pissed, and the beltway media says it's not a winning issue, golden ticket, or sure-fire argument. (I have a sixth sense for these things...)
CHEERS to sweet victory! The Cubs win the World Series! The Cubs win the World Series! The Cubs win the World Series! Mark it down in the history books---October 14. 1908. Man, that musta been great.
CHEERS to healthy predictions. Senator Tom Coburn is a bastard. He's one of the guys who gets his jollies putting anonymous holds on Obama nominees and otherwise ensuring that the people's business in that chamber doesn't get done. But Tuesday he made a surprise announcement: "You're gonna get single-payer health care and you're gonna get single-payer health care and you're gonna get single-payer health care and you're gonna get single-payer health care and you're gonna get single-payer health care and you're gonna get single-payer health care and you're gonna get single-payer health care!!!!" Holy shit---the man's so far to the right that he went full-circle and ended up on Obama's left. (Either that or he's auditioning to replace Oprah. Then again...aren’t we all, deep down inside?)
CHEERS to swift veterans. On this date in 1947, U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager rode The X-1 into history by being the first person to break the sound barrier. His wife's first words after he landed: "How come you're never that quick to mow the lawn?"
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Five years ago in C&J: October 14, 2005
CHEERS to the new anchor on the block. Stephen Colbert's new show, The Colbert Report, debuts Monday night on Comedy Central. From the Washington Post:
Colbert says he will draw from the "dazzling hubris" of Bill O'Reilly, along with Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough, plus "the folksiness of Aaron Brown, the way he mulls the news and loves to chew the words. And the sexiness of Anderson Cooper. Certainly they sell him as attractive." Watching O'Reilly and company inundate viewers with opinions, he says, is like witnessing a spectacle "as natural as a gorilla beating his chest."
(We would add: or flingin' their feces.) Good luck, Mr. Colbert---we'll be watching you veeeery carefully.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to li'l disclaimers: The Concerned United National American Center Institute Chamber Foundation Commission Gaggle Office Consortium Coalition Fund Organization Citizens for the Protection Defense and Advancement of Sensible Freedom Liberty Values Growth Hope Progress Opportunity Responsibility Commerce Change Protection Children Families Puppies Patriots, Babies, Baby Wipes, and Blue Skies But Against Fraud Waste Abuse Deficits Taxation Without Representation Treading On Me and Tyranny is responsible for the content of this blog post. To contact us, talk to the dog guarding our P.O. box.
Have a fresh, not canned, Thursday. And, above all, stay classy. 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 been ordered to pay $873 million in fines after sending four million spam messages to Facebook promoting marijuana and sexual-enhancement drugs.
---Jonathan Turley
10/12/10
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