From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Four Weeks
That's what we got, kids. Four weeks 'til the shining knights of Team Dem clash with the smelly orcs of Team Koch on the field of electoral battle.
Oh, yes, there will be blood---specifically, mine, since I can never seem to make it out of the voting booth without getting all worked up about some issue on the ballot and stabbing myself with my pen. No biggie---I just wipe the blood on the curtain and cover the wound with a dozen happy-face "I Voted" stickers. Sometimes Gladys the 90-year-old poll worker will kiss it and make it better. Seriously, you can watch the wound close up in seconds---I swear she has holy grail saliva.
Believe.
Daily Kos has endorsed a terrific slate of candidates over the past several months. They include the next senator from, and governor of, Michigan…the next Kansas Secretary of State (replacing the nation's worst SoS Kobach p'too!)…real Democrats for the New York state senate instead of those fake Republicans-in-Dem's-clothing…the first woman governor of Texas since Ann Richards…America's first openly-gay governor from the great state of Maine…a quartet of state senate candidates in Wisconsin…congress members from California to New Hampshire…
And tell me it's not important to put a Democrat in the Secretary of State's office in Ohio. I dare ya.
It's a diverse and talented slate of candidates, and today I'm going to invest five dollars in each of them. Right down the line, all 26. Because someone's dollar is going to be the dollar that puts this amazing crew over the top, and why not mine? Unless, of course, you'd like that honor, in which case click here, peruse the DKos-endorsed list of mighty Democrats, and toss in a few bucks. As they put the final pieces and plans of their campaigns into action, this is when they need our help the most.
As a thank-you, I'll give you a joke on the house: Maine Governor Paul LePage climbs up on top of a house.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Note: Mrs. McGillicutty is having trouble getting her pooch to stop yanking on the leash. Please send her your heeling thoughts. ---Mgt.
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections:
28
Days 'til the
Mountain State Apple Harvest Festival in West Virginia:
9
Year-over-year rise in the hourly wage for non-management employees:
2.3%
(Source: AP)
Number of GM recalls this year, affecting 30 million vehicles:
71
Number of Nobel Prizes awarded so far:
878
Number of them won by women:
46
(Source:
Parade)
Percent of Mainers who are "extremely" or "very" interested in the midterm elections:
74%
(Source:
Portland Press Herald poll)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
Sorry, I am without speech today, I am absolutely enervated. The daily tsunami of corruption and caterwauling has 'drained my essence', Friday will have to be a languorous day of rest and replenishment. A six-pack of Grape Nehi and Bugles with bacon flavored 'Easy Cheese' will be a minimum requirement for sure.
---Commenter Rogue at the Michelle Malkin blog
All together now: 1…2…3…
Yum!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Good catch
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CHEERS to the power of deafening silence. Yesterday the Supreme Court decided that, nah, they don't wanna decide any gay-marriage cases now. But the fallout from that inaction was swift: five states (WI, UT, OK, IN and VA) where appeals courts had ruled in favor of gay couples getting hitched were free to begin issuing marriage licenses. So now the Wikipedia map looks like this, with marriage-equality states in blue:
Because the district court decisions involve other states, too, you can expect to see same-sex marriage soon in both Carolinas, West Virginia, Colorado, Wyoming and freakin' Kansas. From what I'm told, if you put your ear to the ground, you'll hear the cries of the bigots in the new marriage states: "I'm
not baking a cake for those people!" Some work remains.
CHEERS to bright medals for bright minds. Yay!!! It's Nobel Prize Giving Away Week---my favorite time of year when I can confirm that, relatively speaking, I'm one dumb-as-rocks sumbitch with a brain that resembles avocado dip past its sell-by date. The latest brilliant winners make me want to climb a tall medical facility and shout "USA!!! (britainfinland) USA!!! (britainfinland)":
Whoever built the "Fantastic Voyage"
ship deserves a freakin' Nobel Prize.
New York-born American-British scientist John O'Keefe and Norwegian husband and wife Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain. The Nobel Assembly at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said that their discoveries have helped explain how the brain creates "a map of the space surrounding us and how we can navigate our way through a complex environment."
The three are now working on a new project: a map of the space surrounding tea partiers and how they navigate their way through an imaginary environment. (Free advice: before you go chasing after the ebola ISIS Benghazi terrorist-fist-jabbing death-panel gun-seizing unicorns, make sure you rent a detachment of Reagan clone commandos.)
JEERS to the end of the road. Three years ago Sarah Palin made it official, publicly announcing that she was choosing the life of a hand-note huckster over one of public service---so there would be no mama grizzly moving into the White House in 2013 (much to the relief of the janitorial staff). Palin said she turned to the Lord to help guide her decision, but bowed out when His machine kept picking up. I guess she forgot about that little footnote in Genesis: "And on the 8th day, God installed Caller ID."
The ebola virus.
(I think.)
JEERS to my thoughts on ebola. I don’t know what to say about this thing, but I gotta write
something so I'll look back and have some record of it (I'm nothing if not the universe's most important historian). So…it's a terrible disease that's very hard to catch from someone else except a lot of someone elses seem to be catching it and then dropping like flies, but a lot of that is probably just media hype because if it bleeds it leads and with ebola they get plenty of bleeding and all kinds of other horrible leakage. Now we have a case of it in America, and apparently an ER doctor's in deep shit for not reading the patient's records well enough to see that "EBOLA!!!!!!" was screaming off his chart. So now all the teabaggers have turned the CDC into the latest Benghazi and Latest Reason for Obama's Impeachment. Obama, by the way, brought ebola to America on purpose to enslave white people and snatch a third term…except the beltway media say Obama can't wait for his second term to end, so why would he be so slap-happy for a third? And did you see that "latte salute"? What the hell was
that? So that's where we are with ebola. As always, it's good to maintain a sense of focus and reality.
CHEERS to staying out of the picture. George W. Bush, taking a moment out of his hectic life of being an ex-president currently residing near the bottom of the "Best Presidents" list, emerged briefly last week to say he's not going to second-guess President Obama's decisions on Iraq and pursuit of ISIS. "Damn right you're not," said Fox News. "That's our job."
JEERS to Groundhog Day: Gridiron Edition. On October 7, 1916, Georgia Tech Engineers scored a touchdown against the Cumberland University (Tennessee) Bulldogs. Then they scored another. And another. And another. And another. By the time they were done the scoreboard read 222-0---the most lopsided game in college football history. When asked by their coach why they didn't execute any of the plays they'd spent three months practicing, the Cumberland players responded: "You didn't say please." It's always the little things.
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Five years ago in C&J: October 7, 2009
CHEERS to the new broad on the bench. Yesterday was Justice Sonia Sotomayor's
first day hearing oral arguments as the Supreme Court's new term got underway. After spending a few minutes flummoxing an attorney with several rounds of, "I know you are, but what am I?" and "A sphincter says
what?" she turned to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and whispered, "I get paid to do this? Unbelievable." Today: the Nerf-rocket pistol---aka the Sotomayor Special---makes its debut. (I hope she remembers to aim low---it's got a kick to it.)
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And just one more…
CHEERS to living saints. Let's hear it for Bishop Desmond Tutu! The Nobel Peace Prize winner and, these days, climate activist, turns 83 today. A few reasons why we love him:
"I say somewhat facetiously, 'I’m so glad I’m not God.' Can you imagine being God and looking at Syria and saying: 'These are my children. Look at what they’re doing to each other.'”
What a sourpuss.
"I've been married for 56 years and Leah has been very good at keeping my head the right size. Once I was driving and when I looked at her she looked slightly more complacent and self-satisfied than usual. When I wondered why, she showed me this bumper sticker that said: Any woman who wants to be equal to a man has no ambition."
"Be nice to the whites. They need you to rediscover their humanity."
"Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are."
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
"I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, `Now is that political or social?' He said, `I feed you.'"
Or, as translated by America's right-wing religious grifter class: "Blah blah blah..."
Have a Tutu Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Congratulations Meet the Press, You’re Now Cheers and Jeers
---Mediaite
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