From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Here, right-wing trolls. Have some yummy pre-Halloween candy…
"Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind… I’m total, total, total liberal and proud of it."
---Lauren Bacall
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
---Stephen Colbert
"Everybody knows God is nonpartisan, but I swear Jesus was a liberal---the best, the biggest, the original bleeding heart---the one who embraced the outcasts, the model for us all. Just read the stuff in the New Testament written in red."
---Molly Ivins
“Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.”
---Barry Goldwater
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people--their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties--someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal.
---John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
Now go brush your teeth with liberalpaste ha ha ha.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, 25, 2013
Note: I've added your name to my little black book. When it's released to the press upon my death, you can expect to be indicted on 16 counts of...well, that's our little secret for now, isn’t it?
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8 days!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Cory Booker gets sworn in as a senator by Joe Biden:
6
Days 'til
Franklin County Cider Days in Massachusetts:
8
Number of jobs added in September:
148,000
(Source: Labor Dept.)
Consumers who will participate in Halloween activities this year, down from 170 million last year:
158 million
Amount expected to be spent on pet costumes:
$330 million
(Source: Forbes)
Increase in saturated fat consumption by people the day after their city's NFL team loses:
16%
Decrease in saturated fat consumption by people the day after their city's NFL team wins:
9%
(Source:
Details)
World Series
Boston and St. Louis are tied 1 game to 1.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Cats who steal dog beds
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JEERS to people with a 19th century mentality lecturing us on 21st century technology. After watching House Republicans hold their whiner committee's "monkey court" yesterday, you'd think the Obama administration had done something on par with, say, declaring war on another country based on fake intelligence or ignoring a major American city as it drowned from a hurricane. This morning in his pundit roundup, Greg Dworkin linked to a Sally Kohn op-ed piece that reflects reality:
You know what's relatively easy? Fixing a website. You know what's really hard? Ensuring access to affordable, quality health insurance for every single American and improving our broken health care system in the process. […]
A few geeks locked in a room with a case of Mountain Dew will fix the Obamacare websites. But all the computer programmers and pundits and conservative nay-sayers in the land couldn't fix the fact that, three years ago, our health care costs were skyrocketing, tens of millions of Americans lacked health insurance and 14,000 more were losing their coverage every day. We needed a law to fix that. Thankfully, we now have one. And whatever the ups and downs of the websites, the Affordable Care Act is working.
We survived Windows. We'll survive this.
JEERS to justice in Putin Land. The crew of that Greenpeace ship that was seized last month by the Russian coast guard got some kinda-sorta good news this week: the charges against them are being reduced from piracy to "hooliganism." Russian authorities say that if the crew continues to behave themselves and cooperate, they may reduce the charges to "dorkism" by next week and "poopyheadism" by Christmas. But no matter what, before they get released they still have to eat their body weight in borscht. I call that "barbarism."
JEERS to the teabaggers of yesteryear. Ninety years ago today, a Senate committee began investigating the Teapot Dome scandal. Second-worst-president-ever Warren Harding's cronies were allowing private companies to lease government oil reserves from public land in Wyoming. As a result of the investigation, Interior Secretary Albert Fall became the first cabinet member to go to jail:
What Teapot Rock in Wyoming
looks like, assuming those Scout
leaders haven't knocked it over.
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As a member of President Harding's corruption-ridden cabinet in the early 1920s, Hall accepted a $100,000 interest-free "loan" from Edward Doheny of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company, who wanted Fall to grant his firm a valuable oil lease in the Elk Hills naval oil reserve in California. The site, along with the Teapot Dome naval oil reserve in Wyoming, had been previously transferred to the Department of the Interior on the urging of Fall, who evidently realized the personal gains he could achieve by leasing the land to private corporations.
He was a Republican. That would be your cue to look…[
yawn]…shocked, shocked.
CHEERS to our new neighbors. Astronomers say they've discovered a galaxy that's more distant than any we've ever seen before. It takes light 13 billion years to get here. It's out there…I mean it's way, waaaaay out there. They're calling it the Ted Nugent galaxy.
A teen reacts to the rotary
washer's anniversary.
CHEERS to spring-fresh pantaloons. On tomorrow's date in 1858, Hamilton Smith patented the
rotary washing machine, which worked by...
...cycling reheated water; reciprocating plunger acts on clothes in a tub by placing two horizontal diaphragms in the tub which moved vertically with the action of the plunge; motion pumped water into the tub from a circuit of pipe that included coils in a heating tank and drained cooler water from the top of the tub.
Today's washing machines are more energy-efficient, water-conserving and reliable. (But, man, they make some weird sounds. We had to get a new one last spring and it spends most of its time going, "Snrrk! Snrrk! Snrrk!") But some things haven’t changed: like, if you forget to check your pockets for anything that melts when exposed to hot water and massive centrifugal force before you push START, you're still screwed. (Damn you, candy corn---that was my favorite
Lance Link: Secret Chimp tuxedo shirt.)
P.S. On October 25, 1955, the microwave oven was introduced by Tappan in Mansfield, Ohio. Cost of the appliance: $1,200. Protection against gremlins: Priceless.
Hey! Who hacked into my
account and posted this??
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's C&Js hackneyed and incomplete weekend TV report for your disappointment. Tonight at 10, HBO's
Real Time with Bill Maher stacks the deck with Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, Valerie Plame, Richard Dawkins and "My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism" author Maajid Nawaz, while Alec Baldwin slings hash with Chris Matthews on
Up Late. New DVD releases include the coming-of-age flick
The Way, Way Back and a documentary with apparently mind-blowing camera work called
Leviathan, about the perils of being a New England fisherman. The World Series continues to its inevitable conclusion (hint: 2004, 2007) and the schedule for the tax-exempt, non-profit NFL is
here. (The Patriots will "fin"-ish off the Dolphins Ha Ha Ha!!!) Edward Norton hosts SNL. On
60 Minutes: opera and
BENGHAZI!!!
On Bill Moyers & Company, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Gretchen Morgenson and historian Peter Dreier explore why "the current political crisis is fraught with possibility for progressives in America." And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Governors John Kasich (R-OH) and Steve Beshear (D-KY) on how great Obamacare is going to be in their state; Rep. Peter King (R-NY); roundtable with Google Santorum, Jennifer Granholm, GOP strategist (the GOP has a strategy? Really? Since when???) Alex Castellanos and Center for American Progress director Neera Tanden.
Howard has the power
Sunday on "This Week."
This Week: The vice president who lives up to his first name and then some, Dick Cheney; Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV); roundtable with Donna Brazile, S.E. Cupp, Howard Dean (Whoooo!!! I'm Howard Empowered!!!), Bill Kristol, and Univision's Jorge Ramos.
Face the Nation: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has to resort to Sunday morning TV to air his unique brand of trash talk, this time over OBAMACAREGATE (it's worse than BENGHAZIGATE, you know); Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH); and Bob Schieffer gets an early jump on the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination with Peggy Noonan, former LBJ Press Secretary Tom Johnson, Bob Woodward and author Phil Shenon.
CNN's State of the Union: Republican House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) gets drowned out by laughter before Candy Crowley can finish saying "Republican House Intelligence." Plus: former Obama Health Policy Adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and Rep. John Fleming (R-LA); roundtable with Ross Douthat, Cornell Belcher and A.B. Stoddard.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Xavier Becerra (D-CA); roundtable with Brit Hume, Peter Baker, George Will and Juan Williams (who, we presume, will play his theme from Star Wars).
Not that we were counting or anything, but among the guests we counted 18 conservatives and 12 liberals. Happy balanced viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: 25, 2008
YIKES to endorsements from Hell. Looks like al Qaeda has made up its mind. It seems they would very much like to see John McCain in the White House. They support his stand on the second amendment. They praised his tax plan as being the right medicine for the right illness. And they know that Barack Obama will re-engage America's brain after eight years of President Game Boy and completely fuck up their network, cave by cave. That, plus they love that Joe the plumber guy. [10/25/13 Update: Barack Obama dashed al Qaeda's wishes, and now Osama bin Laden swims with the fishes.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to fun and games with the birthday kids! Hillary Clinton gets a 66 percent discount at Denny's tomorrow, and Teddy Roosevelt will actually get money back, seeing as he turns 155 on Sunday. Pop quiz: guess who said it…
"Schultz! What is this Rough
Rider doing in heeeere???"
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"All of us have to recognize that we owe our children more than we have been giving them."
"Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe."
"I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head."
"Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you."
"Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement."
"In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I'm keeping a chart."
"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”
"I'm undaunted in my quest to amuse myself by constantly changing my hair."
Answers: Hillary, Teddy, Teddy, Hillary, Teddy, Hillary, Teddy and, believe it or not, Hillary
and Teddy.
Have a great weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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