From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Time to play History: Cruel…or Kind?
Round 1
Florida Governor Rick Scott signs a bill into a law that forbids local governments in the state from requiring companies to provide paid sick time for employees.
History will be kind because businesses won't have to worry about shelling out money to employees who are probably just faking it, anyhow. After all, everyone knows no one gets sick enough to put in less than 110 percent at work---it's un-American!
History will be cruel because "AhhhhCHOO!!! 'Scuse me. So, uh, do you want fries with your influenza burger?"
Verdict: History will be CRUEL. Riding roughshod over the little guy by riding roughshod over local governments for no reason other than protecting corporate profits? Between this issue and many others (like his fetish for drug testing anybody in his state with a pulse), the 2014 anti-Scott campaign ads are practically writing themselves.
Round 2
NSA contract employee Edward Snowden spills the beans to the media about the enormity of America's Borg-like domestic surveillance apparatus.
History will be kind because Hero!
History will be cruel because Traitor!
Verdict: History will be KIND. Because when the government tells us not to worry our pretty little peasant heads about what it's doing behind our back, it's time to worry our pretty little peasant heads about what it's doing behind our back.
Round 3
Maine state Senator Ken Fredette (R) stands up on the Senate floor and cites the ancient scroll Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus to prove his point that women shouldn't have a say in whether or not to expand Medicaid in Maine as part of Obamacare because his manly brain is better at figuring this stuff out than the mushy womanly brains of his female colleagues.
History will be kind because Og! Og! Ook ook og!!!
History will be cruel because, to quote Judge Judy: "Fredette, you're a moron! There's something wrong with you! You're not normal!"
Verdict: History will be CRUEL. The only thing Ken Fredette proved last week is that his brain is from a planet with the word anus in it.
Next time: history judges the Massachusetts special election, squid pants, and what Jeb Bush thinks about WASP fertility. Meanwhile, Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Note: What's better than summer in Maine? A summer Kossack meetup in Maine! If you're going to be in the vicinity of the western part of the state on Saturday, July 6, Kossack Mayim invites you to her cabin on the lake. For more info (including an enticing pic) or to RSVP, click here or email her at killearnan@gmail.com. Michael and I will be there with bells water wings on. Hope to see you there!
-
By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the special election in Massachusetts between Democrat Ed Markey and the other guy: 1!!!!!
Days 'til the 48th annual Yarmouth Clam Festival: 31
States in which medical marijuana is legal: 18
Number of moose-vehicle collisions in Maine last year: 426
Percent by which enforcement actions by the Maine Dept. of Environmental protection against large corporate developers and landowners have dropped since Tea Party Republican Paul LePage became governor in 2011: 49%
(Source: The Maine Sunday Telegram)
Amount Americans paid down on their credit card debt between January and March: $32.5 billion
Amount a German bank employee transferred when he fell asleep with his finger on the "2" key: 222,222,222.22 Euros
NBA Finals:
San Antonio Spurs lead the Miami Heat 3 games to 2
(Game 6 is tonight)
Stanley Cup Finals:
Boston Bruins lead the Chicago Blackhawks 2 games to 1
-
Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Suicidal Republicans have supported illegal alien amnesties dating back to the Reagan era. They have paid a steep, lasting price. As bankrupt, multiculti-wracked California goes, so goes the nation. The progs’ plan has always been to exploit the massive population of illegal aliens to redraw the political map and secure a permanent ruling majority.
Now, in the wake of nonstop D.C. corruption eruptions, SchMcGRubio and Company want us to trust them with a thousand new pages of phony triggers, left-wing slush-fund spending and make-believe assimilation gestures.
Trust them? Hell, no.
---Michelle Malkin
All together now: 1…2…3…
Paranoid much???
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: In Britain, kids help guide dogs learn how to guide…
-
"Guilty!!!!!!!"
CHEERS and
JEERS to our robed overlords. The Supreme Court rules our world, and yesterday they issued two rulings, one good, one bad. The Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship as an ID requirement for voters is now
dead as a doornail. But when it comes to dealing with the police, your silence can be used against you as an admission of guilt. Says
Jonathan Turley:
Unfortunately, my prediction that Alito would show an overwhelming bias in favor of police powers has been realized. This ruling will likely open up an entire area of new prosecutorial arguments using silence as evidence of guilt. It is a major blow to the rights of citizens — and a telling addition to the troubling judicial legacy of Alito. […]
In my view, it was one of the most significant rulings of the term. (Of course, given the result it was “significant” in a negative way---the way that the Hindenburg was a “significant” moment for airship travel).
Of course, Republican senators won’t have a problem breaking the silence if they get arrested. They're pros at filibustering.
P.S. No decisions yesterday on the same-sex marriage cases. Saving the best for last, perhaps?
"Austerity?
What austerity?"
-
JEERS to window dressing. Quite a dilemma: your country is in the shitter and reeling from austerity craziness, and yet it's your turn to host a G8 summit of world leaders who don’t want to think about such petty things as mass poverty, homelessness, hunger, and one shuttered business after another. What will you do? What
WILL YOU DO??? If you're Northern Ireland, you simply replace the boarded-up windows with happy, bustling store fronts---
that are totally fake. They're decals that are really big but paper-thin and prone to fading. Come to think of it, they're the perfect metaphor for the results of the G8 summit.
JEERS to close calls. A private jet carrying George W. Bush had to make an emergency landing when the pilot smelled smoke. They eventually discovered the problem: Dubya's neurons started smoldering when he got hold of a newspaper and attempted to solve the Junior Jumble.
I really wish this
had caught on
-.
JEERS to America's dark ages. A reminder that we used to be, in certain ways, as backward as any nation that ever was. On this date in 1873, Susan B. Anthony was fined a hundred bucks for the unpardonable offense of...voting. The dustup led to immediate outrage and reform. Unfortunately, in those days "immediate" meant waiting another 50 years before doing anything about it. By the way, she never paid the fine. Her heirs now owe the fed, with interest---[
clackity clackity clack clack clackity clack]---eight million dollars. But please not the Susan B. Anthony ones---we keep confusing 'em with quarters.
CHEERS to potential for peace. The reaction to the presidential election in Iran is being greeted with cautious optimism. After all, there are stark differences. The old president was beholden to the mullahs who run the country with an iron fist. The new president is beholden to the mullahs who run the country with an iron fist but he doesn’t believe the holocaust was a hoax. Hey…baby steps.
CHEERS to women with wings. Eighty-one years ago today, back in 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, completing a journey from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours. And boy were her arms tired!!! (Ba-boom---nailed it!!!)
-
Five years ago in C&J: June 18, 2008
JEERS to the traveling circus. I think George W. Bush is back in the country (please...try to contain your enthusiasm). Yesterday he took one more opportunity to make a total fool out of himself in Britain:
[The Observer journalist Ned] Temko: "Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq obviously is..."
Bush [jovially]: "Still lookin' for 'em."
Temko: "Still looking for them, exactly." [Laughter]"
Bush: "That was a huge disappointment."
That's right, kids. Even though we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were no WMDs in Iraq, we're
"still lookin' for 'em." I wonder if he's checked Zolton McFantasy's Pony Palace and Unicorn Rehabilitation Center. (I hear they're behind the sofa in Tinkerbell's magic fairy room there.) But the main thing is: it's
funny!
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to the perfect gift for all the gullible secession lovers on your list. All I can figure is that this is a snarky trick being perpetrated by the "collectible" company called the Bradford Exchange, (you see their ads in Parade magazine and newspapers that have cheap ad space to fill), because I can't believe that anyone but a merry prankster would "commemorate" the southern side of the Civil War by offering a cuckoo clock of the Confederacy.
Yes indeed. At the the top of each hour, a door opens to reveal a confederate cannon, which then commits an act of open rebellion by firing on the government of the United States. (I believe it also comes in a version where Jefferson Davis emerges and yells, "States' rights!") To make it run, all you need to do is insert the key and wind away, wind away, wind away, Dixie Land.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Cheers! Let's toast Bill in Portland Maine again and again and again
---Kurt Schlosser
-