From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
A Votin' We Will Go…
Sure, it's an off-off-year election day, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some---nay, a lot of---important issues and candidates on the various ballots around the country.
Here in Maine we've got some interesting decisions to make. Three state ballot initiatives are aiming to fund affordable housing for low-income seniors, transportation projects (roads, bridges, commuter hovercraft lanes) and---gasp!---clean elections.
As true as ever.
Closer to home, Portland is having its first
mayoral re-election election. Four years ago Democrat Michael Brennan became the first voted-in and paid mayor since 1923, 88 years after the position was reduced to a mere symbolic one as decided by the city council. Brennan's main competition is from fellow Democrat Ethan Strimling. Not to dive too far into the local weeds, but I hope Strimling loses. Someone's gonna need to pick up the gubernatorial pieces after that tea party lunatic Paul LePage---who is currently waging war as intensely
against Republicans as he is against Democrats---leaves office. Strimling would be a terrific governor.
Portland also has a referendum to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr over the next four years. Some businesses are squawking, but if this doesn't pass I'll eat a couple boiled lobsters with melted butter, baked potato and coleslaw from my hat, which coincidentally is shaped like a large ceramic dinner plate.
A lot of people with less visibility than those who run during mid-term and presidential years have been busting their humps to get their message out. So go do your civic duty and pull the lever---or fill in the oval or punch the card or however your district does it---in favor of the Democrats and worthwhile ballot initiatives on your dance card. As Kos is fond of saying, when Democrats show up, we win.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Note: Vote!
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11 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the summer Olympic Games in Rio:
276
Days 'til the
Three Rivers Art Festival in Covington, Louisiana:
11
Number of the Cossack and Bandidos motorcycle gang members involved in the May 17 mass shooting that killed 9 and injured 20 who are still in jail:
0
(Source:
Albuquerque Journal)
Years British citizen Shaker Aamer spent at the U.S. gulag at Guantanamo Bay before he was released Friday:
14
Number of crimes he was charged with:
0
(Source: AP)
Years the Space Station has been continuously staffed with astronauts as of yesterday:
15
Estimated number of PCs now using Windows 10:
132 million
(Source: Computerorld)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
The fine folks at WorldNetDaily respond to news that Chick-fil-A franchises are sponsoring the Level Ground Film Festival, which is "the world’s first film festival connecting lesbian, gay and transgender sexuality with faith and evangelical Christianity.”
They seem nice.
Maybe they will do a transvestite sponsorship then a sponsor Mormons when they can begin polygamy again.
---JSparks
This is a political move by the Sodomite Groups. There is no such thing as a Sodomite "Christian" or a True Church of the Lord that supports or condones the sodomite lifestyle, they are void of a Moral compass. and are haters of God and Christ because He has condemned them to the lake of Fire for their unbelief and conduct that doesn't match those the Lord has made for Man and Woman.
---MDKTT20
What Happens to Chicken if you leave it in the Oven too Long? I wonder if the same thing happens to sinners.
---Kyl4318
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Woozle v. Pootie
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CHEERS to poll dancing. Maine's elections won’t be the only ones I'll be watching this evening. I'm sure I won’t be alone in keeping tabs on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance referendum that will either affirm the city's existing protections for its LGBT citizens, or yank them Away. As the
Houston Chronicle notes, the opposition---the very worst and most dishonest of the right-wing Jesus freaks---has focused their campaign on the place they themselves live:
in the toilet. Plus there's a not-since-the-1700s election for
three state Supreme Court justices in Pennsylvania. And in Kentucky, let's hope Democrat Jack Conway
ekes out a win over the teabagger nutcase who wants to slash everyone's Medicaid and destroy the most successful state Obamacare exchange in the country. Be sure to log on to the Great Orange Satan and strap yourself in for results this evening from Jeff, David and company. Oh, and here's your drinking game: anytime you get the feeling someone in the country has cast a ballot, take a swig. I shall see you under the table at approximately 25 minutes ago.
JEERS to forgetting you wrote the playbook. Sunday morning on the five major "public affairs" TV shows, there were 22 Republicans booked and only 5 Democrats. (But who's counting?) New House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared on all five shows, and complained that the Republican party is viewed so negatively because---his words---“We don’t have a vision. We’ve been too timid on policy; we’ve been too timid on vision---we have none.” Golly, if only someone---say, Paul Ryan circa 2010---had taken the opportunity to lay out a grand vision for his party. Oh, wait…he (and co-authers Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor) did. Gee, how did that go?
Ryan admits his own
book has no vision!
The GOP's "Young Guns" are long on platitudes and personality but short on policy details in a new book scheduled for publication just weeks before midterm elections that could propel them into power. Reps. Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy, who fancy themselves the vanguard of a modern Republican Party dedicated to renewing the ideals of the Grand Old Party, deliver a reader-friendly paean to limited government and an attack on liberalism.
It's an easy read, and that's no doubt how it's intended. But for anyone seeking a fresh idea for the next Republican Party platform, skip it.
So now we know one thing from Paul Ryan: Paul Ryan should not depend on Paul Ryan to provide Paul Ryan with a vision for Paul Ryan's party. He kinda sucks at it.
CHEERS to a very bad day for the GOP. Seventy-nine years ago today, on November 3rd, 1936, FDR was re-elected in a landslide over Alf Landon by---get this---523 electoral votes to 8:
Twenty eight years later Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater 486-52. And 28 years after that Bill Clinton dispatched George H.W. Bush by a less-substantial but still impressive 370-168 margin. Grand total: 1379 to 128. Takeaway message: revenge is a dish best served lopsided.
CHEERS to the Energizer ex-president. Usually when someone north of 90 announces they've got cancer in their brain, that's the last you hear of them. But Jimmy Carter, 91, is the owner of one hell of an immune system and a bottomless well of grit, so he ain't slowin' down for nothin'. I was impressed that he kept up his Sunday school teaching, but this is unreal:
Still at it...
Jimmy Carter resumed his role as Habitat for Humanity's most prominent booster on Monday, donning a white hard hat and a worn leather belt stocked with his own tools to hammer and saw with other volunteers building a home in Memphis, Tennessee. "We haven't cut back on my schedule yet," Carter said, seeming invigorated during an Associated Press interview. "I know it's going to come, particularly if my cancer progresses, but we don't yet know what the result will be from the treatments."
Arriving ahead of schedule, Carter installed a hammer, measuring tape and thick pencil on his tool belt. Then he helped place pre-framed walls, hammered nails into place and sawed boards into smaller pieces, occasionally shouting questions or suggestions at the rest of the crew. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, 88, hammered brackets to secure the walls, pulling the nails from her own leather tool belt. "Hard work," she said with a soft laugh.
Meanwhile, this morning I tore my rotator cuff lifting a spoonful of Lucky Charms to my mouth. I knew I shoulda stretched first.
JEERS to lame campaign slogans. Jeb Bush unveiled his new theme yesterday: "Jeb Can Fit It!" And in an instant lost 100 percent of America's domestic dog and cat vote.
CHEERS to stopping the room from spinning. It's a bad day for the U.S. neocons and their ideological twins in Iran who want to see the multi-nation nuclear disarmament agreement collapse under the weight of mistrust and non-compliance. As of now, things seem to be on track, says Sir Meteor Blades:
Now Iran can only use
its old-style centrifuges.
That dismantling [of Iranian centrifuges] has now begun and could be completed before the end of the month. Under the deal announced July 14, in exchange for the removal of U.N. and U.S. economic sanctions, Iran agreed to make its nuclear program more transparent, reduce the number of centrifuges it is spinning, get rid of 98 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium, and fill with concrete the vessel for containing its research reactor at Arak (which would have been capable of producing plutonium that could be used for a nuclear bomb). In addition to cutting back on the number of centrifuges, Iran has promised use only old technology-centrifuges instead of new devices that generate enriched uranium 20 times faster.
There was a brief moment of panic when an Iranian scientist accidentally pulled the wrong plug and caused a blackout at supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei's palace during his morning game of
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. They all had a good laugh over it as the honey was applied to the scientist before he was lowered into the ant pit.
JEERS to little green footballs. On November 3, 1952, Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas. We hate 'em---they're stinky, pungent and squishy---and anyone who thinks otherwise must be a socialist Marxist commie. But we'll say this: if you're packin' a spoon, they make awesome catapult ammo at the Thanksgiving dinner table. (Especially if you're sitting across from Uncle Teabagger the chronic conspiracy-theory emailer.)
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 3, 2005
JEERS to the worst jobs in science. Number 3 on the Popular Science list is Kansas biology teacher:
"The evolution debate is consuming almost everything we do," says Brad Williamson, a 30-year science veteran at suburban Olathe East High School and a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers. "It's politicized the classroom. Parents will say their child can't be in class during any discussion of evolution, and students will say things like 'My grandfather wasn't a monkey!'"
Alas, for Kansas's educational reputation, the damage may be done. "We've heard anecdotally that our students are getting much more scrutiny at places like medical schools. I get calls from teachers in other states who say things like 'You rubes!'" Williamson says.
Plus...being surrounded by all that fundy polyester. Very dangerous
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And just one more…
CHEERS to beans, babies, bugs, bags and birthdays. The next gathering of Democratic candidates is this Friday in South Carolina, where Rachel Maddow hosts a "first in the south" town hall forum. From here on out, no matter how intense things get between Bernie and Hillary and Marty, nothing will compare with the joie de vivre of that first debate---complete with CNN's extra lectern in case Biden dropped in---in Vegas. Here are some highlights you might have missed, as lovingly compiled by the folks at Bad Lip Reading:
Have a nice Thursday destroying the mysteries and fighting Chewbacca! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Unless you also want a tremendous side of ego and hearty helping of yelling, Cheers and Jeers may be a dish to skip.
---Sandy Cohen, AP
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