From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
The New LGBT Manifesto
Jeremy Hooper from the Good As You blog gets a C&J shoutout for a post he wrote yesterday about how the professional right-wing God Squad performs a well-choreographed freakout every time the LGBT community scores a win for their civil rights. Right Wing Watch documents their crap pretty well. A smelly sample:
> ENDA will force people to be gay
> God will stop blessing military because of gay rights
> We need a class Action Lawsuit against homosexuality
> LGBT community the 'oppressors' of straight people
> Homosexuality is worse than trans-fats
And blah blah blah. Anything to get attention and a quick cash infusion from their fearful flock. Well, Jeremy has written what I think is a great description of the LGBT movement's current attitude towards God's Grifters. This is a snip:
We...don't...give a crap.
-
Every time a marriage bill passes, I hear social conservative after social conservative utter some version of my headline. "They can make it legal but they can't make me accept it," is the basic gist.
What these social conservatives don't understand is that we just don't give a crap. We, as a movement, have no more craps to give. Unless these anti-LGBT social conservatives are personally in our lives, we don't frankly care whether or not they "accept" us. They don't own our peace of mind. […]
I am 100% in support of every American holding onto every personal opinion he or she holds dear. This goes for anti-LGBT social conservatives. … But you will, at the very least,
tolerate our deserved rights and protections. We are done debating that.
Read it all. It's short and to the point. On a personal level, I admit it's been more gratifying than I imagined to see the transformation in this country---the last five years especially---whereby society views the evangelical AM radio/YouTube/megachurch doomsayers as the fringe oddballs, and the LGBTers as people you wouldn’t at all mind having as your neighbors or co-workers or family members. We're on the down-slope of the tipping point. And it's wonderful.
Oh, looky…it's Friday. Olly Olly Oxenfree. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, November 8, 2013
Note: A reminder that there's no metro bus service in Portland, Maine on Monday, which is Veterans Day. However, if you need a ride, a veteran will be happy to pick you up in a tank and drop you off at your destination. For five dollars extra they'll let you drive over a parked car. ---Mgt.
-
Starts tomorrow!!!
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Festivus and Christmas:
45, 47
Days 'til the
Spokane Cork & Keg Festival:
1
Rate at which the economy expanded in the 3rd quarter, beating economists' predictions by half a point:
2.8%
(Source: Commerce Dept.)
Rank of Cleveland, Garfield Heights (OH) and Flint (MI) on Coldwell Bankers'
new list of most affordable paces to buy a home in America:
#1, #2, #3
Thickness of the new iPod Air, 20% less than the previous version:
7.5mm
Percent of 18-34 year-olds who say they believe in ghosts:
33%
Percent of those over 50 who do:
18%
(Source: University of Texas at Austin poll)
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Crank up the volume. The cat sounds like Yoda on a bender…
-
CHEERS to today's list of apologies. Here we go…
-
60 Minutes: Sorry about that bullshit Benghazi story.
President Obama: Sorry if you got kicked off your insurance plan because of the Affordable Care Act.
Israel: We did not assassinate Yasser Arafat with poison! (But if we did? Sorry.)
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: Sorry I'm a crack-smoking asshole who wants to murder my enemies.
God: I'm sorry I sneezed and caused the most violent weather event in world history.
Brenda Lee: I'm sorry that I was such a fool.
Fine. Don't do it again. Now go to your room.
JEERS to America's former favorite pal. Thirty-three years ago, in 1980, Saddam Hussein declared war against Iran. Naturally we couldn't start selling weapons of mass destruction to him fast enough. (The link is a video of Don Rumsfeld bowing to The Evil One in '83.) The lesson learned from that whole episode---The enemy of my enemy is my friend until he tries to shoot my daddy in which case we'll gin up bogus intelligence and lie our way into a war that starts conventionally but ends up in a quagmire of urban street fighting and sectarian feuds---is today enshrined on a wall in the Capitol building. I believe you'll find it in the third bathroom stall from the right.
CHEERS to fewer idle hands. John Boehner likes to ask, "Mr. President, where are the jobs?" Well, Mr. Speaker who hasn't created a single job since taking the gavel, here's your answer: In big surprise, government reports economy added 204,000 jobs in October. Plus the jobs numbers for August and September were adjusted upward. So there ya go, Boehner. Now you can go back to doing your job, which mostly consists of not doing your job. Heckuva job.
CHEERS to giving Hoover the boot. Eighty-one years ago today, on November 8, 1932, New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt was elected president. A few verbal goodies from FDR...
FDR---a 1 percenter who
fought for the 99 percent.
-
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward."
-
"The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government."
-
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little."
-
"Fool me once…shame on…shame on you. Fool me can't get fooled again!."
[
Memo to self: check source on that last one. Might be Fillmore?]
JEERS to throwing the gasoline of truth on the fire of denial. Wow---even Fox News is covering the botched 60 Minutes hit piece on Benghazi. And you know what that means, don’t you? That's right---Fox News web site readers posting comments! Let's wade into the hilarity:
Why did the 0's loose their licences to practice law?
NO PHAT TERRRRRORIZT! ALL THE PHATTIES ARE IN DA USA AND MEHICO
Hillary's history of Lies & Unethical behavior goes back father and deeper than anyone realizes!
Your life is a hallucination dude...
You are an I D I O T !
Call him gonzo Sen. John Cornyn Rhino from Texas!!!!!
Go light a candle on your Obama alter.
I WISH JESUS AND MUHAMMAD WOULD GET IN A FIGHT
If they ever learn how to turn door knobs and leave the house, we're in trouble.
Which one will Rand Paul
steal from next, I wonder.
CHEERS good readin'. On this date in 1731, Benjamin Franklin opened the first lending library---officially called "The Library Company of Philadelphia," an idea that sprang from his weekly meetings with tradesmen designed to expand their depth of knowledge. (For our Republican readers: a library is a place where people go to learn facts and logic and wisdom from things called books and computers!) The dedication ceremony was cut short, however, thanks to strict enforcement of the colonies' first ever
"3 shushes and you're out" rule.
A classic turns 30.
-
CHEERS to home vegetation. You really should go outside and get some fresh air this weekend. Mostly because that way I'll get the couch and the TV to myself. Tonight on HBO's
Real Time, Bill Maher shoots the shit with former NSA guy Bill Binney, former Congressman with former credibility Anthony Weiner, GOPAC liar David Avella, Telemundo's Victoria DeFrancesco Soto and "Game Change" co-author John Heilemann. New
DVD releases include the well-received JFK assassination movie
Parkland with Paul Giamatti as Zapruder, and the 30th anniversary(!!!) edition of
The Right Stuff. The schedule for the tax-exempt, non-profit NFL is
here and the NHL schedule
is here. (The Bruins will rake up the Maple Leafs in a pile and bag them Ha Ha Ha!) On
60 Minutes: photographer Henry Grossman and quite possibly a
huge Benghazi mea culpa.
On Bill Moyers & Company, John Nichols and Robert McChesney on how "Dollarocracy" is destroying America. And here's your Sunday morning lineup. Looks like the beltway media have anointed The Chosen One:
Meet the Press: Chris "Thor" Christie victory lap #1; roundtable with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Joe Scarborough, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) and Mark Halperin.
Pull it, media! Pull it!
-
This Week: Chris "Zeus" Christie victory lap #2; John Heilemann plugs his book.
Face the Nation: Chris "Hercules" Christie victory lap #3; Leon Panetta; roundtable with Amy Walter (Cook Political report), Democratic Strategist Stephanie Cutter, Republican Strategist Phil Musser and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Chris "Captain America" Christie victory lap #4; roundtable with Brit Hume Mara Liasson, George Will and Juan Williams playing his theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
CNN's State of the Union: In response to the 60 Minutes report on Benghazi that turned out to be totally bogus, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-Fussbucket) apologizes profusely for holding up Obama nominations…right, Lindsay? Plus: Bob Dole on why the Republican party of 2013 needs a massive infusion of Viagra. Sorry, no Chris Christie victory lap for CNN, probably because Candy Crowley was mean to him once.
No sign of Virginia Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe---a Democrat---who pulled off a much more difficult victory. Funny, that. Happy viewing, anyway.
-
Five years ago in C&J: November 8, 2008
CHEERS to a timely exit. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) is voluntarily giving up his chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee (the first chairman, I believe, was Santa Claus). Yeah...once you get the skateboarding bug, everything else kinda feels like a distraction.
-
And just one more...
CHEERS to knockin' that sucker down. Twenty-four years ago tomorrow, the world witnessed a surreal scene: Berliners hacking away with pickaxes and hammers at that damned wall that had divided their city for decades---a mind-blowing moment that briefly galvanized the planet in celebration. And what sparked it wasn't the pope or the U.N. or even ex-president Saint Ronald Reagan---it was this awkwardly-delivered comment by Politburo member Guenter Schabowski a day earlier:
November 9, 1989 is the
date the wall fell and the
Germans yelled "Voo Hoo!"
"Therefore...um...we have decided today...um...to implement a regulation that allows every citizen of the German Democratic Republic...um...to...um...leave East Germany through any of the border crossings," said Schabowski.
He appeared scarcely to believe his own words and we were all dumbfounded. What did he just say? Schabowski was asked when the new rule would take effect. "That comes into effect...according to my information.... immediately, without delay," Schabowski stammered, shuffling through the papers spread in front of him as he sought in vain for more information.
(Gosh, he sounds like East Germany's version of Rick Perry.) I still link to this must-see
Boston Globe photo diary, which
documents the jubilation and its aftermath. I had the chance to visit Berlin a couple times in the 70s when I was kid. I had a middle-school knowledge of the post-war history of Berlin, but nothing could prepare me for the contrast I saw in person: vibrant and colorful on the western side…oppressive, gray, boarded-up and barbed-wired on the eastern side. In some ways it reminds me of what this country has become: reality-based, education-oriented and live-and-let-live on the left…authoritarian, trigger-happy, reality-averse and loyalty-oath-centric on the other. It'd be nice if the teabaggers could tear down their wall. Unfortunately it only exists in their heads, and I don't think there's a pickax or a hammer that can get through skulls that thick. But my point is: Happy Happy Happy reunification anniversary, Germany---let's all drink beer!
Have a nice weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-