From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
Our Regular Blogging Will Continue After This Message…
[Patriotic music up and under. Spokesman walks out of house and onto crisply-manicured lawn]
Hello, wealthy friend. This is Fred Thompson with exciting news from the United National Foundation for Americans Inconvenienced and Rich.
With massive federal budget cuts about to kick in on March first, you may be asking yourself: how can I defend myself from the effects of sequestration? Well, friend, you've come to the right place. If you're rich, you can protect yourself with UNFAIR's new deluxe reverse-sequestration protection package. Here's how it works:
"Sequestration may be unfair to
everyone, but that don't mean it
has to be unfair to you!"
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For just five million dollars in reverse-sequestration insurance---paid in advance---I'll see to it that the lifestyle to which you and your family have grown accustomed won’t be affected. I'll do this myself. Me. Fred Thompson.
For example, when TSA agents get furloughed, I'll stand in line for you at the airport, and use my senior status to get to the front faster so you can be on your way. Or, for a small upgrade fee, you can skip the lines altogether and just take my private jet.
Cuts to public safety employees? No problem. I'll sit on your front porch with my twelve-gauge shotgun, a garden hose, and my Life Alert necklace set to Defcon 1. Trust me, you'll be covered 24/7 from any rat bastard who tries to come on your property and cause trouble during sequestration. I guarantee it.
And don’t worry about they way they're gonna thin the herd of meat inspectors. I got me some Grade-A prime beef, pork and chicken in my freezer, and lemme tell ya that's some good chow right there.
In fact, UNFAIR insurance is so comprehensive that I'll actually move into one of your guest bungalows so I can give you the round-the-clock reverse-sequestration protection you deserve. If at any time a sequester-related calamity threatens your lifestyle, I'll be there to fix it. I got lotsa contacts and they owe me lotsa chits.
So take it from me, wealthy Americans: just because sequestration is unfair to everyone don’t mean it has to be unfair to you. Reach out to UNFAIR now. There's a friendly, knowledgeable operator standing by to take your call. Namely, me.
Please have your platinum no-limit credit card or cash in a duffel bag handy. Call now.
Now back to your regularly-scheduled blogging.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Note colon In preparation for Friday apostrophe s sequestration deadline comma C ampersand J is conserving on punctuation starting with our daily Note period This may spread to other sections of C ampersand J as the week progresses comma but we hope that it won apostrophe t come to that period We apostrophe re not happy about this comma of course comma and we regret the inconvenience period
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til International Women's Day: 10
Days 'til the Albany Wing Festival in Georgia: 18
Firearms made in the U.S. in 2010: 5,459,240
Firearms imported into the U.S. in 2010: 3,252,404
(Source: TIME)
Estimated amount Americans spent on their pets last year: $53 billion
Amount that was spent on alternative vet care (i.e. acupuncture): $12.5 billion
(Source: American Pet Products Association via AP)
Number of White House columns that double as a Pez dispenser: 1
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
I’ve made my decision. Two or three quick to the body mass with my .9mm, a quick hit to one or both knees so he can’t run with my .38, and maybe one in the butt with my .22 (just to be sure). THEN, I’ll vomit on him, urinate on him, scream, blow the whistle and throw a feminine napkin on the corpse. Do I sound angry?
---Commenter FstSkirt at the Michelle Malkin blog
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Roger Ebert deconstructs "A boy, his dog, and a puddle."
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CHEERS to election day! Former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.'s downfall was a sad thing to watch, and I hope he's got brighter days ahead of him. Meanwhile, today voters from both parties in Illinois' 2nd district will choose their respective candidate to face off in a special election next month. The favorite here at Daily Kos is former state representative Robin Kelly, who checked in with our community yesterday:
Fly, Robin, fly.
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[N]o one would have imaged even 6 weeks ago that we would be where we are today. I want to personally thank the Daily Kos community for all that you have done for my campaign (yes, it is me at my laptop not just a staffer!). It's not just the grassroots donations that have helped us get on the air and get our message directly to voters. We've had Daily Kos volunteers walk into our offices and knock on doors. Other netroots groups have joined in as well (Moveon, CREDO SuperPac, DFA). This is, above all, a grassroots campaign built from the bottom up, and it's why I'm here today to say thank you.
If you want more info,
here's her web site. As for today's primary election: may the best Robin Kelly win.
JEERS to the human popgun puppet. NRA mouthpiece Wayne LaPierre spouted more nonsense over the weekend. He wants us to get really really mad at him for saying outrageous things like Obama wants to take away all our guns! But after seeing a segment of The Rachel Maddow Show last week, I'm now totally Zen when that goofball tries to piss on me and call it freedom. Because he's just a walking red herring:
Wayne LaPierre
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“Ever wonder why everything he says seems increasingly inflammatory? It’s not that he’s dumb. It’s not that he doesn’t know what is going to upset you when you listen to a speech or a sound bite from him.”
“The National Rifle Association exists to bug you. The National Rifle Association exists to make you think of him, to make you pay attention to him, and to the NRA instead of to the industry that pays the NRA to be their heat shield.“
Two words: not anymore.
CHEERS to smooth SecDef sailing. Chuck Hagel's Senate confirmation is on the calendar this week, and it's looking pretty green-lighty. I'm not thrilled that Obama picked a Republican for the job, but I could think of much worse candidates. (Sam Nunn, you are NOT forgiven for DADT.) But these days I pretty much have a one-question confirmation test: Is your name Donald Rumsfeld? No? You're hired!
JEERS to the first try. On today's date in 1993, a bomb went off inside a parking garage under the World Trade Center in New York. Six people died and over a thousand were injured. It was a real test for newly-minted President Bill Clinton who, as I recall, caught the evildoers and threw 'em in jail. And we all lived happily ever after. Right? (I've been kinda busy the last 20 years...)
FAREWELL to C. Everett Koop. The esteemed Surgeon General sure as hell took his own advice on healthy living because he lived to be 96:
And, oh, did Koop look
snappy in that uniform!
Koop wielded the previously low-profile post of surgeon general as a bully pulpit for seven years during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
An evangelical Christian, he shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS.
He carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States---his goal had been to do so by 2000. A former pipe smoker, he said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine.
Koop is another appointee of Saint Ronald the Reagan. He's also one in a long list of Reagan appointees whom the modern Republican party would demonize as a dirty fucking hippie for his opinions on abortion, condoms and that commie fairy tale known as
science. In his honor, all chin beards will be lowered to half-wattle.
JEERS to Sunday morning mush. Gee, I can't imagine why the Sunday morning shows draw so many groans week after week. Just because it's a non-stop "He said/She said" and "Both sides do it" orgy of pre-approved talking points by mostly-irrelevant pundits doesn’t mean it sucks to watch, does it? Well, with hosts like David Gregory the answer is categorically "Yup." Catch this revelatory moment from last Sunday as he was discussing a serious issue with his roundtable:
"We’re going down a road of substance here, which I want to pull us back from because I want to make sure that we spend a couple of minutes on the Oscars."
I don’t know what's more wince-inducing: him cutting off a substantive discussion to talk about the Oscars, or him thinking he was actually having a substantive discussion. At any rate, I'd like my hour back, please.
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Five years ago in C&J: February 26, 2008
CHEERS to turning over a new old leaf. Hooray! Over the weekend the leadership of Cuba changed for the first time in 49 years. Instead of an 81 year-old Castro at the helm, now there's a 77 year-old Castro at the helm. I hope the people can adjust.
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And just one more…
Stinky Jubbs drove the Daytona 500
backwards and ended up in 1940.
ZOOM ZOOM to girls and boys in their internal-combustion toys. After a tense pre-race crash the day before, the
Daytona 500 happened Sunday. The event featured professionals (including winner Jimmie Johnson and Danica Patrick, who finished in the top ten) expending a lot of fuel to go 'round and 'round in circles but not actually get anywhere, while occasionally bumping into walls, catching fire and watching their wheels fly off, and if innocent bystanders get scraped up, well, that's rugged individualism, so no refunds. They shoulda called it the GOP 2013.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"I'm definitely out of character at this moment. If I slip back into Bill in Portland Maine by mistake, you can do an intervention of some kind, Heimlich maneuver or whatever, if I get stuck in character. No, I'm definitely out of character now."
---Daniel Day-Lewis
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