From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Bravo
The Family Research Council hate group has a new video out that issues a warning. The gays, you see, are on the cusp of destroying everything: cakes, flowers, cameras, society and, most alarming, the ability of the Family Research Council to grift their way into their gullible followers' bank accounts. Matt Baume---"Writer, explainer, nerd, video man, relatively small mammal"---has fun dissecting their bullpucky point by point, with an eyebrow-raising quote from St. Ronald Reagan at the end that would give Rand Paul the tinglies:
Maybe if the FRC's bullshit gets exposed often enough, the TV networks will finally stop giving Tony Perkins credibility by inviting him on their news shows. Yeah…that was a joke.
(Hat tip to Joe.My.God)
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 23, 2015
Note: Whew, what an Earth Day! I'm still drunk on earthiness.
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2 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Cinco de Mayo:
12
Days 'til the 34th annual
Petaluma Butter and Egg Days Parade in California:
2
The president's current approval rating:
48%
Congress's approval rating:
28%
(Source:
CNN/ORC poll)
Revenue state governments took in during 2014, up 2.2% from the previous year, and the fourth consecutive year of growth:
$866 billion
(Source:
The Washington Post)
Number of children included in a study that found no relationship between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination and the development of autism spectrum disorders:
95,727
(Source: FiveThirtyEight)
Estimated spending this year in the U.S. on pet products and services:
$60 billion
(Source: American Pet Products Association)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
My favorite running story these days is the Year 2000 Problem. This is the wonderful news that come midnight Dec. 31, 1999, all computers will tick over a notch and announce that it is Jan. 1, 1900.
If you believe the most dire analyses of the consequences of this slight misunderstanding, planes will then fall from the sky, ballistic missiles will run amok, global financial markets will crash, hospital life-support systems will shut down, your microwave won't work, your Pontiac won't start, and in general,
a fine time will be had by all.
---April, 1997
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Puppy Pic of the Day: And the Most Beautiful Bulldog is….
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CHEERS to the #1 news story of the day. Hillary Clinton flew on a commercial jet Tuesday. Said one fellow passenger: "Hey, nice pant suit!" Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!! (I still can't believe they gave Letterman's gig to Colbert instead of me.)
Lesson: After you accidentally
kill someone, go on vacation.
JEERS to today's worst tourism plug ever:
Hey, Tulsa reserve deputy Bob Gates! You just shot a man to death with a gun you thought was a taser and got charged with manslaughter. What are you going to do now?
I'm going on vacation the Bahamas!
And the worst part? He'll have a lot of fun and sleep like a baby.
CHEERS to following by example. I'm not a religious person, really. Lapsed Episcopalian is the best I can do. But I remember from my Sunday school days---okay, okay, more like the Google search I did two minutes ago---that a certain St. Matthew once said that "If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." Yesterday a photo was released of the Boston Marathon bomber giving a middle-finger salute from his jail cell. So, following Matthew's example, I responded by giving him two.
Buchanan is the only
president to champion
the fauxhawk.
CHEERS to "Ten-Cent Jimmy." Happy 223rd Birthday to that old stuffed shirt
James Buchanan. In practice, he was a dud as president. But on paper, his resume was pretty impressive:
• United States Minister to the United Kingdom
• 17th United States Secretary of State
• United States Senator from Pennsylvania
• United States Minister to Russia
• Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (PA-04: 4 terms)
• Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (PA-03: 1 term)
• Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
We're getting the 15th POTUS our usual gift: an "I Diddled While the Country Teetered on the Brink of Civil War and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" t-shirt.
JEERS to the bully in the sandbox. Maine's meathead Republican governor, Paul LePage, is at it again. This time he's wallowing in the deep end of the mud pit by using age warfare to kick the poors:
Gov. Paul LePage told an audience Tuesday morning his reason for submitting a bill to prohibit municipal minimum wage increases in places like Portland and Bangor, which are considering such proposals, is because higher mandated minimum wages anywhere in Maine would harm older residents.
“The reason for that is that raising the minimum wage is going to have a devastating impact on our elderly, on people with fixed incomes,” LePage said during an event sponsored by the Portland Regional Chamber. “It’s going to be horrible. If there’s one thing I get constant emails on, it’s from elderly people saying, ‘Don’t increase the minimum wage, one of the few luxuries I have is to go get coffee with my friends or lunch with my friends.'"
Old people aren’t emailing him about the minimum wage. If anything, they're emailing him to ask why he makes a spectator sport out of jeopardizing their quality of life by cutting senior benefits out of the budget. And what a hypocrite to complain about federal overreach while trying to snuff out town laws he disagrees with. Hold onto that candy in your mouths, babies---we hear he's coming for that next.
A bygone era. Thank god.
JEERS to getting emphysema at 35,000 feet. My mom was a smoker, and I'll never forget traveling with my parents and having to sit at the back of the plane because that was where the smokers sat so they wouldn't "bother" the non-smokers sitting in front of them. What were we
thinking??! Thankfully the movement to ban airborne puffery went into effect
27 years ago today. So now all we have to worry about is catching an exotic disease from the passenger two rows back that causes instant diarrhea and gruesome facial disfigurement. But we'll have the
pinkest lungs!
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 23, 2005
JEERS to looking left. The Department of Imperial Fatherland Security has a watch list of groups they say might try some funny business here. It includes radical left-wing animal rights and environmental activists, but strangely no white supremacists, violent militiamen, anti-abortion bombers or any right-wing fringe nutballs at all. Because they're just silly kids playing make-believe with cap guns.
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And just one more…
"Billy, don't touch that bu..."
CHEERS to toting the tykes. Today is the 21st
Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. It's a time to show the kiddies how Mom and Dad's productivity gets cranked up to the max, while their paychecks do not. What fun! I believe I speak on behalf of the entire nation when I say to children of the military personnel who control our nukes: please don’t push any blinking red buttons or turn any keys. Well, unless the code's been authenticated, of course, duh.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Pope Francis will visit Cheers and Jeers in the last week of September, the Vatican said Wednesday. CBS Radio News correspondent Anna Matranga said, even if Francis breezes through C&J in a day, it's possible he'd give a public mass in the kiddie pool.
---CBS News
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