From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment
Normally this is a below-the-fold feature every week in C&J. But after reading her blow-by-blow account of the 1995 government shutdown, I'm putting her up top for a little reminder of the last time Republicans pissed down our backs and tried to call it rain. You might notice a similarity or two to our current clusterfrig:
Whee! Spin City. Who's responsible for shutting down the federal government and quite possibly sending the financial markets into a hopeless tizzy?
"You hit me first."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Did not."
"Did so."
We live in a great nation. Amen.
Actually, taking the popular, fail-safe, appearin'-as-wise-as-a-treeful-of-owls, plague-on-both-their-houses position here is as gutless as it is easy. The who-to-blame conundrum is just not that tough a nut to crack, although it appears to have sent the Washington press corps back into the most timid form of objectivity: "We only report what other people say; we do not find the facts." […]
Unable to restrain himself, [Speaker Newt] Gingrich also took several cheap shots at Clinton for having gone off to play golf after announcing that he wouldn't sign a continuing budget resolution draped with extraneous matter, including a Medicare premium increase. The idea of Clinton golfing (!) at such a time almost rendered the speaker apoplectic; the implication was that this president (a word that Gingrich manages to invest with contempt) is a lazy do-nothing.
Now, there are many things for which Clinton can be criticized, but not working hard enough is not one of them. His famous 15-hour days are a matter of both record and legend. […]
Favorite moment in the Great Budget Impasse (so far): according to USA Today, at Monday's late-night budget meeting, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Texas' own, took offense when President Clinton pointed his finger at him. That sort of thing isn't done in Texas, Armey said.
In Arkansas, President Clinton replied icily, politicians don't attack another politician's wife.
It's a little unclear which insult to his wife Clinton had in mind. In 1993, Armey told a convention of real-estate agents in Plano, Texas, that "Hillary Clinton bothers me a lot. I realized the other day her thoughts sound a lot like Marx. She hangs around a lot of Marxists. All her friends are Marxists."
Republicans. Insufferable then. Insufferable now. Insufferable forever.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
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Poll Correction: It has been pointed out that Rep. Braley is, in fact, a Democrat. We regret the error, even though his actual assertion sounds soooooo Republican. --BiPM
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 10, 2013
Note: Somebody keep an eye on Gettysburg. I hear the teabaggers are on the outskirts scrounging for shoes. ---HQ
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9 days!!!
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By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the U.S. hits the debt ceiling:
1
Days 'til the
Outer Banks Seafood Festival in Nags Head, North Carolina:
9
Percent chance that Republicans are getting hammered the most via public opinion (and liquor) over the govt. shutdown they caused:
100%
(Source:
AP-GfK poll)
Number of House Democrats who
were arrested Tuesday while protesting for Congress to pass an immigration bill:
8
Cases of invasive breast cancer that will be diagnosed this year in men:
2,240
(Source:
Details)
Percent chance that Maine's credit unions are kicking ass in 2013:
100%
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Number of presidents who never had kids:
3 (Madison, Polk, Buchanan)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Boogie across the finish line…
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CHEERS to the quills of the rabble. Looks like the letters sounding off about the Republican tantrum are starting to pour in to Maine largest paper, The Portland Press Herald. Here 's a snip of how southern Mainers are reacting (Spoiler Alert: they seem to get it) via letters to the editor…
Dear Editor: I LOVE Obamacare!
Sincerely, Obama
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I once engaged in a negotiation of this kind with two teenagers on a New York City street. One teenager held the point of a knife at my throat. The negotiation ended with my handing over all my money and the teenager not slitting my throat. In that case, the value of my intact throat exceeded the value of the small amount of money I carried. In the present case, the value of the integrity of our American institutions exceeds all other considerations. We must not reward extortion.
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Sadly, the Republicans refuse to accept that they lost on Obamacare. It’s a law of the land, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, reinforced by the president’s re-election. Yet the Republicans are willing to drive us over the twin cliffs of government shutdown and default in their attempt to get rid of Obamacare. … How can any rational journalist report this as a rational conversation?
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30 self-appointed guardians of their own perverse view of the United States should not be allowed to hold up a duly passed law by shutting down the entire government. We must not submit to extortion and bullying.
Of course, not everyone's thinking along those lines. Some slob on the Metro bus yesterday was talking loudly with a buddy about how Obama needs to be "taken out"
now. He was wearing a brown shirt. His brain and symbolism were occupying the same space...and the twain would never meet.
JEERS to messing with our foamy heads. I think this might be good for another 2-3 point drop in the Republican party's popularity. The Boehner-Cruz shutdown is now affecting the craft beer industry:
The tea party is comin'
for your beer, America.
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[T]he shutdown has closed an obscure agency that quietly approves new breweries, recipes and labels, which could create huge delays throughout the rapidly growing craft industry, whose customers expect a constant supply of inventive and seasonal beers.
Mike Brenner is trying to open a craft brewery in Milwaukee by December. […] He expects to lose about $8,000 for every month his opening is delayed. […] "I've been working so hard, and I find all these great investors. And now I can't get started because people are fighting over this or that in Washington. ... This is something people don't mess around with. Even in a bad economy, people drink beer."
And they vote. Though preferably not at the same time.
CHEERS to drama on the mound. 45 years ago today, game seven of the 1968 World Series pitted two ace pitchers---Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers and Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals---against each other. The Tigers won, and Lolich was named MVP. Both teams are still in the mix this year (The Cardinals won their division last night, while Detroit goes for it tonight when they play Oakland.). They'll make tasty appetizers for the Red Sox.
CHEERS to cool science. The Nobel Prize-a-palooza continued yesterday with the chemistry medallions (which are a bit tougher than veal medallions, but still tasty). As usual, they went to…wait for it…NERDS!!!
True Fact: Nobel Prize winners
may trade their medallion for one of
Mrs. Nobel's chocolate chip cookies.
(And, man, is it worth it!)
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Three U.S.-based scientists won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for developing powerful computer models that others can use to understand complex chemical interactions and create new drugs.
Research in the 1970s by Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as the purification of exhaust fumes or photosynthesis in green leaves, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. That kind of knowledge makes it possible to optimize catalysts for cars or design drugs and solar cells.
I was a poor chemistry student. In fact, I believe some of my hair is still stuck to the ceiling in Dr. Ernst's classroom. (But, in my defense, I
did successfully replicate flubber!)
JEERS to the original nattering nabob of negativism. On October 10, 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace. His exit was in stark contrast to the first veep to leave while in office:
John C. Calhoun, the Seventh Vice President of the United States, did so toward the end of his second term, after the election of 1832, when his successor -- Martin Van Buren -- had already been selected. Calhoun was one of the great statesmen of his day, and quit the vice presidency after the South Carolina legislature voted to send him to the US Senate.
Actual size of
Agnew's legacy.
Agnew, by contrast, quit the vice presidency after pleading no contest to a tax evasion charge. It turned out he'd been taking bribes since the early days of his career in Maryland, and continued to do so after becoming vice president.
Poor guy was ahead of his time. Forty years later tax evasion is the biggest plank in the Republican party platform.
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Five years ago in C&J: October 10, 2008
JEERS to the Queen of Gibberish. Sarah Palin has not only jumped the shark, she's grabbed it by the tail and wrestled it to the ocean floor. Speaking to reporters Tuesday (always a risky move), she let loose with a string of talking points that look like they came from a book of Mad Libs:
The leadership style
of President Palin.
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"It's relevant to connect that association he has with Ayers, not so much he as a person Ayers, but the whole situation and the truthfulness and the judgment there that you must question if again he's not being forthright in all of his answers. It makes you wonder about the forthrightness, the truthfulness of the plans he's telling Americans with regards to the economic recovery. I’m not saying that he’s dishonest, but in terms of judgment, in terms of being able to answer a question forthrightly, it has two different parts to this. The judgment and the truthfulness and just being able to answer very candidly a simple question about when did you know him, how did you know him, is there still---has there been an association continued since ’02 or ’05, I know I’ve read a couple different stories. I think it’s relevant."
In politics that's called a "dog whistle" moment. Liberals like us hear "blah, blah, blah," but to the finely-tuned conservative ear it means something very specific: "We are so screwed."
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And just one more…
JEERS to a milestone in the history of human insanity. Eleven years ago, on October 10, 2002, the House took leave of its senses and said "Okely Dokely" by a 296-133 margin to let President Bush go to war against Iraq without actually, y'know, declaring war. I can hit the highlights of the ensuing debacle from memory without going anywhere near the Google:
His swagger was as
fake as his turkey.
Smoking gun/mushroom cloud, yellowcake from Niger (not!), MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF WMDs!!!, Shock and Awe, Saddam spokesman "Baghdad Bob" declares victory over USA, Saddam statue pulled down and beaten with shoes, war will be over "in weeks," it'll cost only $1.7 billion, looting is OK because "free people are free to do what they want," Viceroy Bremer disbands Iraqi military, U.N. building blown up, Saddam sons Uday & Qusay lose gunfight, body and vehicle armor inadequate, disheveled Saddam found in spider hole, Sunni vs. Shia vs. Kurds vs. Christians, WMDs WILL BE FOUND in "Tikrit and Baghdad and areas north, east, west and south somewhat," Saddam snacks on Doritos in captivity, suicide bombs explode morning noon and night, Abu Ghraib, Saddam's hanging caught on phone-cams, WHERE ARE THE WMDs???, al Qaeda recruitment skyrockets, "You go to war with the army you have not the army you wish to have," stunning incompetence among U.S. civilian leadership, insurgency "is in its last throes" (not!), casualty rate among troops and civilians appallingly high, "THOSE WMDS HAVE GOT TO BE HERE SOMEWHERE!", no-bid contracts to Bush-Cheney cronies, spotty electricity and raw sewage, no sweets and flowers, the surge, Iraqi parliament models itself on our Congress by not doing anything and spending half its time on vacation, faulty wiring electrocutes troops in showers, 26 additional reasons given by neocons for starting the war when NO WMDs ARE FOUND, Bush barely dodges shoes thrown at his head, Obama supervises orderly pullout as $1 trillion+ gets plunked on America's credit card and blows hole in deficit. Tea Party deficit hawks shrug.
The biggest cheerleaders of the eight-year(!!!!!) war still say they'd love to do it all over again if they could. With one small difference. They'd replace the Q with an N.
Have a nice Thursday. Try not to start any wars, 'k? Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
ESO's Very Large Telescope has captured a remarkably detailed image of the Bill in Portland Maine Nebula, a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a giant bottle of Bacardi.
---Phys.org
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