From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
It's time once again to play History: Cruel...or Kind?
Round 1:
Forty-seven Republican senators go rogue and publish a letter to Iran's Ayatollah, asking him to join forces with the Republican party to derail an agreement with France, Britain, Germany, China, Russia and the United States that would prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.
History will be kind because... The letter is the first evidence we've seen that the tea party has finally discovered the spellcheck function. That's progress.
History will be cruel because... Taking such bold and provocative action violates the Republican Senate majority's prime directive to sit on their ass and do nothing. Not only did their meddling risk scuttling the negotiations, but they also risked breaking a nail.
Verdict: History will be CRUEL. If they were trying to sway public opinion, those 47 GOP turncoats failed miserably.
Round 2:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds up Attorney General-nominee Loretta Lynch's confirmation vote because Democrats won't green-light a human trafficking bill that contains additional restrictions on women's reproductive rights.
History will be kind because... If we allow super-qualified candidates to just waltz in and start fixing things, it'll just reinforce the narrative that the government is the solution, not the problem. Besides, Democrats refused to allow a vote on Lynch last fall after the midterm elections while they still had the chance, so nyah!
History will be cruel because... Republicans holding up a vote on the first African-American woman nominee for Attorney General looks really bad, especially when the only reason seems to be Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Verdict: History will be CRUEL. If they don’t move on it soon, this could send the Senate's approval rating spiraling down from five percent to as low as three.
Round 3:
Hours after I publish a scathing expose on jet-setting Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), he resigns in disgrace.
History will be kind because... I have used my power to rid Congress of an unethical jerk who thought his shit didn’t stink. And even though he's leaving, lord knows how many more Manolo Blahniks in his closet there are to drop.
History will be cruel because... Former Congressman Schock now has to update the employment status line on his Grindr account. Such a pain. Sorry about that, RotundaStud33.
Verdict: History will be KIND. Schock got out before his Downton Abbey-themed walls completely fell on him, and now we can move on to more important things. Like, for instance, who would you like me to take down next???
Next week: history judges Obamacare's outrageous success, the NCAA's outrageous wankery and, just for the hell of it, gummi worms. Meanwhile Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Note: Tonight on Eyewitness News, Senator Ted Cruz terrifes another child by informing the four-year-old that her kitty cat is going to steal her breath in the middle of the night. Film at 11. Parental discretion is advised.
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12 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the season premiere of
Game of Thrones:
25
Days 'til the
Oakdale Testicle Festival in California:
12
Percent of Americans polled who say they'd be proud to have Hillary Clinton as president:
57%
Percent who believe she says what she thinks, not what voters want to hear:
58%
(CNN/ORC poll)
Amount of snow that fell on Boston this winter, a new record:
108.6 inches
Rank of "boiled/steamed," Surf & Turf and Seafood bisque among America's favorite ways to eat lobster:
#1, #2, #3
(Source: Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative)
Year the term "March Madness" was coined by Henry Porter to describe an Illinois high school basketball tourney:
1939
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 180 (including 4 famines and 1 year until Obama destroys America). Soul Protection Factor 4 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day (via Thinking Fella): Playtime for Mitch
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CHEERS to a very quiet ride. The solar-powered plane Solar Impulse 2---whose wingspan is longer than a 747's---took off on its third leg of a round-the-world journey and today is…
So cool.
…traveling from Ahmedabad (Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, AMD/VAAH) in the Republic of India, to Varanasi (Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport, VNS/VIBN) also in the Republic of India.
André Borschberg will fly the zero-fuel airplane for about 1071 km (578NM, 665 miles) and an estimated time of 15 hours. Yoga originated in India over 5,000 years ago, and is used today by André Borschberg while flying Si2.
If all goes well, their plane will end up in Abu Dhabi in August. Their luggage will end up in Wichita in November.
Ugh. Here we go again.
OY VEY to cartoon bomb man. Well, kids, it looks like we're going to have that racist necon Bibi Netanyahu to kick around
for the foreseeable future. Israeli voters decided to peg the needle to the far right and give him some more time as prime minister. Here in the U.S., Republicans have a mixed reaction to the news. On the one hand, they can claim that Bibi's speech to a joint session of Congress worked like a charm. On the other hand, they're bummed that now he can't be their 2016 nominee for president. (There there…Putin may still be interested.)
Cleveland having a grand time.
CHEERS to "Uncle Jumbo." Happy Birthday to #22 and #24,
Grover Cleveland, born March 18, 1837. According to Cormac O'Brien's book
Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents, as sheriff of Erie County, New York in the 1870s, Cleveland "personally threw the noose around the necks of two convicted criminals," making him the only American president who personally hanged someone. That is, if you don't count presidents Hoover, Nixon and George W. Bush, who did a pretty good job of hanging themselves.
JEERS to rules for she but not for thee. This is not to excuse any impropriety that might be found regarding Hillary's email account, but I just have to say: Oh, Congress, you're so cute when you're huffing and puffing about rules you have no intention of following yourself:
Look! A sperm is escaping
from that computer!!!
Members of Congress who are demanding Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails are largely exempt from such scrutiny themselves. […] There’s…no requirement for members of Congress to use official email accounts, or to retain, archive or store their emails, while in office or after. That’s in contrast to the White House and the rest of the executive branch.
But if the rules at federal agencies are unclear, at least there are rules. On Capitol Hill, there are almost none. That means that the same House Republicans who are subpoenaing Clinton’s emails as part of their inquiry into the Benghazi, Libya, attacks are not required to retain emails of their own for future inspection by anyone.
I'm kinda okay with that, actually. I think if I ever got wind of just how many times our elected representatives fall for the Nigerian foreign minister's widow email scam, I'd hop in the bathtub and toss in a radio.
CHEERS to layin' down the law. The unnecessary tussle over gay marriage in Alabama continues, and this time it's a sweet little victory for Team Equality. The federal judge that issued the original order allowing same-sex couples to get marriage licenses essentially flipped Chief Justice Roy Moore and his all-Republican state supreme court the bird:
A federal judge just knocked this
bumpkin into the middle of next week.
The battle over gay marriage in Alabama heightened on Monday when a federal judge refused to stay her order to a county judge that he start issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. … Alabama's all-Republican Supreme Court had contravened that ruling earlier this month. It ordered probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, arguing that the ban was constitutional.
To paraphrase Mr. T (yes, I'm old…shut up): "I pity the clerk." Meanwhile, Chief Justice Moore, aka "Mr. Christian Family Values," just became the poster child for failed parenting. His
spoiled-brat and former executive director of the "Foundation for Moral Law" son just got busted for
succumbing to the devil's mind-altering evil herb. It's the little turd's third drug arrest, but Caleb Moore swears it's all a simple misunderstanding: he was just taking his biblical punishment for the first two crimes by getting stoned.
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 18, 2005
JEERS to traumatic bedtime stories. Once upon a time, a U.N. monitoring board wanted to investigate Halliburton's reconstruction contracts in Iraq. So the White House gave the U.N. monitoring board heavily blacked-out audits. But the blacked-out stuff showed that Halliburton bilked the military out of $100 million and basically ran the place like a bunch of chimps. So who blacked out the report? Why, Halliburton itself, because the White House gave them the report and let them self-edit it. And they all lived happily ever after splashing in Olympic-size swimming pools filled with money.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to inspiring words to live by. Forty-six years ago, Astronaut and national treasure Buzz Aldrin was mere feet away from Neil Armstrong when he eloquently informed earth that he'd taken his "giant leap for mankind." Aldrin, who followed Armstrong down the lunar lander steps shortly after, visited Stonehenge over the weekend and conveyed a follow-up message of his own:
"Get Your Ass to Mars."
He'd like said ass to get there within twenty years. I say it would be rude to disappoint him.
Oh, and today is "Supreme Sacrifice Day." If it's up to me, I say we throw Roberts in the volcano---vive le Chief Justice Ginsburg!!! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
The yeti, a legendary shaggy, bipedal beast from the Himalayas, made headlines last year when a geneticist said he had solved the mystery of its origins. But now, scientists have found the hair samples used in that study didn't come from a mysterious animal, but rather from Bill in Portland Maine.
---Christian Science Monitor
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