From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Oh! More Things I Know:
When Chris Christie said, "I sought a second term to finish the job, now watch me do it," it would've been more comforting if he wasn't unloading boxes of dynamite at the time.
In the 24 hours after the polls closed Tuesday, I received 2,397 emails from various campaigns informing me that our work isn’t finished, by which they apparently meant the work involving me giving them money.
Now I know this, too.
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Tuesday's Democratic winners will be careful to enact policies that don't overreach. Tuesday's Republican winners will be careful to enact policies that do nothing but overreach.
Rand Paul is a serial plagiarizer who should be, at minimum, publicly reprimanded in the Senate.
Protein is very important for a healthy body, which is why I eat five servings of hair and fingernails every day.
If the goal of the Republican party's 2013 "re-branding" campaign is to insult blacks, Latinos, seniors, LGBT'ers and women even more, then it's working.
The happiest people in the wake of Portland Maine voters' approval of recreational pot were pizza joints and 24-hour convenience stores.
I'm working on my 2014 resolutions. So far I have "Take world hostage with moon laser" listed right after "Build moon laser." I've rented a workbench for the job up at the Gingrich colony.
I love that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker seems to be laying the groundwork for a shot at the presidency. It's like watching a three-year-old run around the house in Daddy's wingtips.
The only possible explanation I can come up with for why the sun is setting an hour earlier today than it did a week ago is sorcery.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, November 7, 2013
Note: I regret to inform all of you in the Cheers and Jeers community that I put the entire $4.5 million we'd accumulated in the C&J Swear Jar over the last 10 years on green. The ball landed on red, so now we gotta start over. I'll go first: Fuck.
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43 days!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Thanksgiving and the first full day of Hanukkah:
21
Days 'til
Anchorman II:
43
Amount by which homelessness has increased in Portland, Maine since the Bush recession:
70%
(Source: Maine State Housing Authority)
Bill deBlasio's margin of victory over the Republican in the NYC mayor's race:
49
Percent of U.S. adults who are on Twitter:
16%
(Source:
CBS News)
Amount a 1998 Beanie Baby handbook predicted that a $5 "Stripes the Tiger" would be
worth in 2008:
$1,000
Actual worth today:
$25
(Source: AARP magazine)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Having watched election coverage nonstop all week, I sometimes wake screaming, "Bipartisanship!" and scare myself. Of all the viral members of the media who have been suggesting that the Dems cooperate with their political opponents, the one who rendered me almost unconscious with surprise was Newt Gingrich.
Newt Gingrich, the Boy Scout. Newt Gingrich, the man who sat there and watched Congress impeach and try Bill Clinton for lying about having an extramarital affair while he, Newt Gingrich, was lying about having an extramarital affair.
---November, 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: They're really looking forward to drinking green water from their bowl next St. Patrick's Day.
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CHEERS to putting a spoiled brat in his place. What started as a few sparks of questionable "word borrowing" have now turned into a five-alarm fire that's melting the plastic veneer of Senator Rand Paul's faux-tegrity. Not only are examples of outright plagiarism becoming a dime a dozen, but now a journalism professor at Paul's alma mater says the senator's violations are flunk-worthy and then some:
"Having now read both the provided texts of the speeches and columns of Sen. Paul in question, as well as the original materials, I believe that Sen. Paul's comment 'if I were [my media critics'] journalism teacher in college, I would fail them' is inappropriate and misguided," Robert Darden, associate professor at Baylor University's Journalism, Public Relations and New Media school in Texas, told TPM. […]
"It appears that the Senator from Kentucky is choosing to attack the messenger rather than specifically address what appears to be an unambiguous case of plagiarism," he said in an email. "Had one of my Journalism students made the same mistakes, I would fail them for each individual assignment and refer the case to the appropriate university office that deals with honor code violations."
Ha Ha! Aqua Buddha got aqua
busted! If I were in charge I'd make him write the entire script for
Gattaca 100 times on the chalkboard. I'm the lenient type.
CHEERS to saying Aloha---by which I mean the "Hellooooo!!!" definition of Aloha---to same-sex marriage. Good news from Hawaii: the House passed its second reading of a gay-marriage bill yesterday, despite a rowdy crowd of naysayers who apparently believe equality is "for me, not for thee." What's left to do: pass a perfunctory third reading, give it back to the Senate for a perfunctory final vote, and then give it on to Governor Neil Abercrombie for his hardly-perfunctory signature. And then everybody gets lei'd Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! (Disclaimer: My contract stipulates I get one cheap "get lei'd" joke per year. This is it. –Mgt.)
For 17 days, he was president
and she was a U.S. senator.
CHEERS to beefing up your resume. Thirteen years ago, on November 7, 2000, Hillary Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate, filling the seat opened up by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Low points: voting for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act. High points: voting against Bush's tax cuts for the rich, John Roberts and Sam Alito, and helping New York City recover from the terrorist attacks of 2001. Oh, and also moving on to be an excellent and tireless Secretary of State, thus paving the way for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. For that alone I'd give her a statue on the mall.
CHEERS to…um…I forget. Naw, just kidding! Hard to forget when your hometown makes a little history:
Reefer non-madness is spreading like a, um....
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By a landslide, Portland became the first east coast city to legalize marijuana Tuesday, in a measure that removes all penalties for small-quantity, adult marijuana possession, but does not decriminalize production or sale of pot.
And three Michigan cities passed measures to remove criminal punishment for marijuana possession, bringing the number of Michigan localities that have decriminalized marijuana to 14. … These initiatives are therefore viewed by many as primarily symbolic---building momentum for a state legalization movement.
The Portland measure is deliciously---er, let's make that
aromatically---ironic because our neck of the woods is considered the
birthplace of prohibition. Now wafting through the air: if I'm not mistaken, a special blend we like to call "Sweet 'n Sticky Karma."
JEERS to the end of an era. Progress keeps on keepin' on, I guess. Blockbuster is throwing in the towel-size pack of Twizzlers at the counter and closing the last of its brick-and-mortar stores. There's a lesson here, people. This is what happens when you're not kind and don't rewind.
JEERS to promises unkept. Fifty-one years ago today, back in 1962, Richard Nixon announced that he was leaving politics with the immortal words, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Relive the smarm…
We did, in fact, have him to kick around some more. Then Ford un-kicked him. That was mean.
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Five years ago in C&J: November 7, 2008
Blech. Just...blech.
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JEERS to whackjob "winners." First the good news: Virginia's vile congressman Virgil Goode may be a goner, and Colorado's hopped-up homophobe
Marilyn Musgrave got the boot Tuesday. But we'll still have to contend with some Republican jerks, like Don Young. (Are they oxygen-starved up there in Alaska???) But on the bright side, Minnesotan Michelle Bachman's victory means she can now begin her investigation of Congress to determine which members are pro-American and which are anti-American. I'd start with Rep. Yankee Doodle Dandy---he looks shifty.
CHEERS to moseying across the finish line. Oh, you tarheels really know how to ratchet up the suspense. A day and a half after the polls closed, North Carolina quietly went Democratic for the first time in 32 years, adding 15 electoral votes to Obama's landslide numbers for a total of 364. That leaves one state still undecided: Missouri. To them I say, "Hey! Show me, State!" (Motto jokes---pure gold.)
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And just one more…
JEERS to sleeping at the editing desk. I snipped this out of last weekend's dead-tree copy of the Maine Sunday Telegram. See if you can spot something…oh, let's just say not quite right:
Exactly. They misspelled "headline" all eight times. Tsk Tsk---spellcheck is your friend.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Yes, I have read Cheers and Jeers. But am I an addict? No. Have I read it? Probably in one of my drunken stupors.”
---Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
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