From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
They're Off to See the Wizard!
Wheeee!!! Maine's finest Republicans are fixin' to go skippin' through the blueberry fields, arm in arm, in search of that which they lack.
The Governor needs a heart:
Last week our tea party Republican governor, Paul LePage claimed that middle managers in our state government are "about as corrupt as you can be." The blowback was swift from just about everyone, including Republicans in the statehouse and Maine's largest newspaper, The Portland Press Herald:
The busy governor---who has already demonized poor people, claiming (without evidence) that welfare fraud was behind program cost overruns; blamed (without evidence) political appointees from the previous administration for hiding computer problems at DHHS; and regularly blames legislators and others for all the problems he was elected to tackle -- rarely follows through with the facts. … Forget about politics, this is just bad management, and our sympathies go out to the good people the governor has abused. … His anti-government clap-trap may play well in some circles, but it doesn't educate children or provide health care to the people who need it.
The Maine Republican Party needs courage:
A couple years ago at the Maine GOP state convention, the tea party staged a surprise attack against the establishment types. When the smoke cleared, the party platform suddenly contained such twitch-inducing kookiness as preventing a "one world order," promoting "Austrian economics," and shedding light on "collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth." This year, the party leadership is going to try a little "scrub scrub here, scrub scrub there, and a couple of tra la las." The platform, if approved, will still contain some paranoia and cruelty for the tinfoil-hat gang---things like "protecting the American legal system from Sharia (Islamic) Law," defunding Family Planning of Maine and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, and enacting a photo ID law to address the non-existent problem of voter fraud. Can the country clubbers summon the moxie to yank some control back from the tea party? Sure...if ya click your heels together hard enough, anything's possible.
The Sodomy Slayer needs a brain:
Last but not least, there's this nut. Michael Heath of No Special Rights PAC---a real "manly man"---is taking a leading role in opposing the gay marriage referendum that'll be on the Maine ballot in November. And while the opposing message during 2009's failed referendum was standard "think of the children" stuff, Heath is kicking it up a notch by going the Full Anita Bryant:
The truth about the vote this November is that it isn't a battle between nice people who happen to disagree. It is not important that we respect the devil. It is important that we condemn him, and those who wish to use the sexual instinct in humanity for their own ends. Politicians are using this issue to get re-elected. … I want to bury this evil, and never have to talk about it again. I want to see innocence and virtue put back in sex. I want men to protect women, and women to love men.
And that is why I want to see men rise up all over Maine and discover the virtue, courage and goodness that God put in their hearts. This is a dirty, nasty fight. Women must be loved by men enough to be protected from the sordid essence of what is being sought here.
Dude. It's a civil marriage license---a piece of paper you get from your freakin' town clerk---not rivers running red with the blood of innocents. With Heath at the helm, I like our chances.
So, anyway. They're off to see the wizard. Just as soon as they figure out how to zip up their flying-monkey suits.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 4, 2012
Note: Due to a shortage of tiny cocktail umbrellas, all drinks served in the C&J Lounge today will contain real ones.
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By the Numbers:
Months 'til the general election as of this Sunday: 6
Days 'til the 13th annual UFO Festival in McMinnville, Oregon: 14
Worldwide cashflow generated by crime, making it one of the top 20 industries in the world: $2.1 trillion
(Source: Time)
Miles Hillary Clinton has traveled as Secretary of State: 759,325
Annual fee to hire a "concierge doctor," who gives you his/her cellphone number and lets you make same-day appointments: $1,500 - $25,000
(Source: The Atlantic)
Number of times since 1968 that The New York Times stopped its presses for breaking news: 3 (LBJ announcing he wasn't running for re-election, the 2000 election confusion, bin Laden's capture)
Age that ABBA's Dancing Queen---who was "only 17" when the song came out in 1976---would be today: 53
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NEW! Friday Joe Lieberman Wanker Walk Countdown: Joe Lieberman will end his Senate reign of error in 246 days.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Occupy foot stool! Fight yogurt inequality!!!
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CHEERS to the Psychic Billy Network. Now that Newt Gingrich is officially out of the race, let's revisit what we wrote in C&J one year ago and see if his arc of Newtonian fate matched our fearless prediction:
Yay! We've officially got Newt Gingrich to kick around again! Yesterday he flung his spittle in the ring, thus adding a whole new level of embarrassment to the GOP primary race. As David Corn said yesterday on Hardball: "Newt Gingrich is Glenn Beck with better syntax." One thing is certain: he will exit this race battered, bruised and bitter. In other words, the same as when he entered.
Didn’t see the penguin attack comin', though---that was a pleasant surprise. So, uh, who's gonna pay my $5 million Psychic Billy Network fee? (You were, after all, on the phone with me for an entire
year…)
BARELY CHEERS to barely fewer idle hands. The jobs numbers for April gave Americans barely good news this morning: 115,000 jobs were created last month. As usual, our barely-constrained imagination wonders how much better those numbers would look if Republicans weren't busy setting fire to the public sector rolls. On the brighter side: unemployment claims for last week were at a twelve-month low. So…yay. Barely.
CHEERS to today's awesome game show! I call it "Wait a minute! I Seem To Remember back in 2003..." Today's contestant is poor old Colin Powell, one of the few Bush-era bigwigs to actually display a modicum of remorse over the run-up to the Iraq war. He wants you to know that he feels bad that he missed the clues:
Colin Powell says his erroneous address to the United Nations about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction provides a lesson to business leaders on the importance of staying skeptical and following their intuition. […] “I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me.” Powell, 75, laments that no intelligence officials had the “courage” to warn that he was given false information that Iraq had such weapons during preparations for his February 2003 speech before the U.S. invasion the following month.
[
Bzzzt!!!] Wait a minute!
I seem to remember back in 2003…
Fresh evidence emerged last night that Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was so disturbed about questionable American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he assembled a secret team to review the information he was given before he made a crucial speech to the UN security council on February 5. […] At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine.
[
Ding Ding Ding!!!] Correct! Colin Powell did indeed "smell the problem," which makes him, like the rest of the Bushies, a revisionist historian. Thanks for playing--- everybody wins free Samsonite luggage! [
Applause!] Join us next week for another edition of "Wait a minute! I Seem To Remember back in 2003…" A Mark Goodson-Bill Toddman production.
JEERS to itchy trigger fingers. Forty two years ago today, National Guard troops fired on Vietnam War protestors at Ohio's Kent State University, killing four students and injuring 12 in 13 seconds. The question that may never be answered: what possessed the Guard to use live ammo when they could've pacified the crowd with a plate of hash brownies? A permanent blemish on my home state's record.
P.S. Imagine if all the students had been walking around with concealed (or even open-carry) weapons, a concept that makes Republicans salivate every time they think about it. That would've worked out swell that day, huh. Real swell.
JEERS to "severely conservative" cowards. Just in:
Bong Bong Bong!!! Ah-oooooGAH!!!
The National Waffler Service has cancelled the Mitt Romney Base Abandonment Warning in the area of: Gay Rights. Due to high pressure from the right-wing American Family Association, the Romney campaign muzzled their openly-gay foreign policy spokesman and essentially kicked him off the team.
A Mitt Romney Base Abandonment Warning cancellation means that sunny skies have returned to the far-right fringe's delicate sensibilities. Stay tuned to the NWS for future developments.
Whew. That was close.
CHEERS to mirth panels. Here's something you'll "Marvel" over: tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day at participating comic book shops around the country. The annual event honors "an original American art form, created in the early days of the twentieth century." You can choose from action fare like The Avengers and The New 52, classics like Peanuts and Star Wars, or pure childish fantasy silliness like Yo Gabba Gabba and the The Republican Ryan Budget.
CHEERS to connecting the docs. The American Medical Association was formed 166 years ago tomorrow. Medical professionals from 22 states and 28 medical schools attended the first gathering to get up to speed on such topics as, "How to Properly Smoke a Stogie Over an Open Wound", "Why Drugs Will Never Replace A Good Hot Poultice", and Ether: Your After-hours Friend. On their first day they unanimously approved the association's motto which is still in place today: "Yikes! I'm sending you to a specialist."
CHEERS to home vegetation. If you hear the teevee calling your name this weekend, you'll have no choice but to pop open a cold one and obey. On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Bobcat Goldthwaite, Ed Schultz, Susan del Percio, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) and Arsenio Hall. Andy at Film Score Monthly has this week's DVD releases. The 138th Kentucky Derby is tomorrow at Churchill Downs---the biggest winners will, again, be the booze distributors. Your MLB, NBA and NHL schedules are here, here and here. Eli Manning hosts SNL (Ooooo…kay). On 60 Minutes: journalists at risk in Kentucky and military whistleblowers ring them warnin' bells over the F-22 "Raptor." Jon Stewart hosts the 2nd annual Comedy Awards on Comedy Central, featuring Robin Williams, Don Rickles, Maya Rudolph and more.
Tomorrow morning on Up! With Chris Hayes: P.J. Crowley, Esther Armah, Michelle Goldberg, Jonathan Haidt, John McWhorter, Chris Mooney and Rev. jasmine Beach-Ferrara. And don’t forget Melissa Harris-Perry at 10---good show.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Biden!!! Roundtable with Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Mesirow Financial's Diane Swonk, Chuck Todd and Tom Brokaw.
This Week: It's George Stephanopoulos's turn to babysit John McCain while Cindy goes shopping; David Axelrod; roundtable with George Will, Austan Goolsbee, Bay Buchanan and Tavis Smiley.
CNN's State of the Union: Newt Gingrich blames everybody but himself for not electing him president; Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D-OH) and former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) on battleground-state fever; foreign policy debate with Sen, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI); economic nuts and bolts with Major Garrett, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Alice Rivlin.
Face the Nation: Newt Gingrich (R-ZOO); Michele Bachmann (R-MN); Howard Dean; Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY); Zbignew Brzezinski talks about the Chen Guangcheng situation; roundtable with Peggy Noonan, Michael Gerson and John Dickerson.
Bill Moyers & Company (link): Author Luis Alberto Urrea on the border culture between Mexico and the United States.
Washington Week: ABC News's Martha Radditz on the Chen Guangcheng story; Peter Baker of The New York Times on Obama's Afghanistan trip and speech; David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal on the tepid jobs numbers released today; Charles Babington of AP on the presidential race.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Squeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! It's dreamy, creamy, supremey MARCO RUBIO!!! Roundtable with not dreamy, not creamy, hardly supremey Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Juan Williams and A.B. Stoddard.
Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: May 4, 2007
JEERS to wingnuttery as usual. At last night's Republican debate Mitt Romney said the will of the people is irrelevant on Iraq and that perjury isn’t a crime. Tommy Thompson said that it's okay to fire someone because they're gay. Sam Brownback says his hero is Joe Lieberman. John McCain says the occupation of Iraq is going just dandy. Three of the 10 candidates say evolution is bullshit. Nine out of ten say they'd mow down a thousand people with their SUVs to save one embryo. And Rudy Giuliani claims we have the best health care system in the world, which is true if by "best" you mean 37th place. Gee...how can they lose? [5/4/12 Update: How, indeed.]
CHEERS to wings and a prayer. Knock on wood: the Portland Press Herald reports that Maine's bee population has decided to stick around and pollinate this year, bucking a trend in other states where hive after hive has turned up empty. The reason, according to our apiarists: free dental.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Cinco de Mayo. Tomorrow is the one day a year when we can re-enact the Battle of Puebla using loaded paintball muskets without getting arrested. At Casa de C&J we'll observe our usual custom of planting a Mexican flag in our neighbor's yard and taking them prisoner. Then, after beating our Archduke Maximilian piñata, we'll dig in to some authentic Irish nachos. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year??? Hardly, amigo. Hardly.
Have a great weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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