From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Impeachapalooza Edition!
"If you watch the news like I do, you know the Obama administration is embroiled in so many scandals that trying to pick which one to report on is like trying to pick which of your children to impeach. For the record, it’s the one who ate chips in Daddy's den."
---Stephen Colbert
"And that's how you write 'Darrell
Issa Will Never Be President.'"
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"If they don't fix these crises pretty soon, honest to God, it could bring gridlock to a screeching halt."
---David Letterman
Clip of Peggy Noonan on Meet the Press last week: All three of these scandals makes a cluster that implies some very bad things. This is so broad. This IRS thing is something I've never seen in my lifetime.
Jon Stewart: Never in your lifetime have you seen a scandal this bad? What if a President secretly sold weapons to Iran in return for American hostages, and then used the proceeds to illegally fund a bunch of coked-up right-wing jungle rapists in Nicaragua? Ring a bell? Here's a hint: you worked in his White House as a high-profile speechwriter.
---The Daily Show (watch it in BruinKid's post.)
"Politics aside, should we be surprised that the IRS takes special attention to the tax forms of the Tea Party? Judging from the terrible spelling on their protest signs, attention to detail isn’t really their thing."
---Seth Meyers
According to a new survey, white Americans are more likely to see President Obama as angry than black Americans. After hearing about it, Obama got really angry, according to white Americans.
---Conan O'Brien
They spent the last five years claiming President Obama was weak and ineffective. Suddenly he’s Tony Soprano?
---Jay Leno
And two years ago:
"Y'know, there's a specific group of Americans out there whose name I won’t mention---but it begins with 'T' and ends with 'baggers'---and they have a habit of saying, 'I want my country back.' Well, I want my country forward."
---Bill Maher
Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. It's the last one you're gonna get for a whole
year. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 24, 2013
Notes: 1) C&J will not appear on Monday or Tuesday. Back Wednesday with no recollection of what the hell happened during the previous 96 hours. 2) Because of the holiday, Monday trash pickup in Portland has been moved to tomorrow. Remember that the governor goes in the non recycle bin. 3) I'll be on the road when this C&J gets put up, so no tip jar tonight. Whoever posts first will receive "much luck and fortune for good your family and aquntenaces in happytime for life in bed," according to this fortune cookie I just cracked open. ---Mgt.
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USA! USA!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Winter Olympic Games in
Sochi, Russia:
258
Days 'til the
SWINE festival ("Where cork meets pork!") in Ankeny, Iowa:
8
Gallons of ketchup consumed by the U.S. military in 2012:
214,000
(Source:
Parade)
Drop in the rate of credit card payments at least 90 days overdue in the first quarter of 2013:
19%
(Source: TransUnion)
Rank of Major and Gael among fastest-rising-in-popularity baby boy names in 2012:
#1, #2
Rank of Arya and Perla among fastest-rising-in-popularity baby girl names in 2012:
#1, #2
(Source: Social Security Administration)
Average per-gallon price of gas nationally, down two cents from a year ago:
$3.66
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The way I see it, there's two kinds of people in this world: those who use 3-D printers to make guns that take lives, and those who use 3-D printers to make things other than guns that save lives.
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CHEERS to multitasking. As our endorphins go wild over the prospect that our first warm-weather holiday weekend is upon us (well, your first warm-weather holiday weekend, since we'll be lucky to hit 50 here on the coast of Maine, and snow is forecast for the highest elevations of New England), Amy Goodman reminds us in the Madison Capital Times that…
Memorial Day, while for many not much more than a three-day weekend, will be marked by many solemn ceremonies. At the time of this writing, the most recent U.S. deaths in Afghanistan were two soldiers from the Pacific island of Guam, Sgt. Eugene M. Aguon, 23, and Spc. Dwayne W. Flores, 22, killed by a so-called improvised explosive device on May 16. Unreported by the Pentagon are the hundreds of soldier and veteran suicides, which now account for more deaths than combat. The backlog at Veterans Affairs, as of May 20, was more than 873,000 benefits claims pending, 584,000 of which were pending for more than 125 days.
Thomas Paine wrote in the March 21, 1778, edition of his pamphlet The Crisis, "If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of willful and offensive war ... he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
And while you're at it, take a few extra moments to reflect on Dwight Eisenhower's words: "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." Me, too. Minus the living it part, but I'll take his word for it.
CHEERS to Robert Allen Zimmerman. You know him better as Duluth-born Bob Dylan, and today we wish him a happy 72nd birthday. No one in my conservative family listened to Dylan when I was growing up (it was classical, showtunes, Bread, John Denver and The Carpenters in our house, which is why I think I'm somehow related to Ned Flanders), and I don’t remember anyone playing him when I went to college in the early 80's. So, Dylan never made it on my mix tapes, sorry to say. But I'm smart enough to know a living legend when I see one. And judging by his summer tour schedule (he was here in Maine just last month), he ain't slowin' down any. Here he is in Newport a month before I was born:
His Wikipedia entry is like a museum---you could get lost in it. Many blessings on your camels, Bob. And thanks for Blowin' in the Wind. Best. Fart. Song. Ever.
CHEERS to the original texter. On May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the first telegraph message: "What hath God wrought." The telegraph went on to become an indispensable communications device that wowed the world. On the downside: no camera, no apps, and it took six months to play one screen of Angry Birds.
CHEERS to one step forward on the hiking trail to equality. You could see the writing on the wall---literally---yesterday when the Boy Scouts of America voted on a national policy allowing openly-gay young'uns to join. After all, when the organization formed by Lord Baden Powell chooses to hold their meeting at the Gaylord Texan, you can kinda predict the outcome:
Helloooooo...!!!
Over 61 percent of Scouting's National Council of 1,232 delegates from across the country voted to lift the ban, BSA officials said. … Pascal Tessier, a gay 16-year-old from Kensington, Md., felt hopeful after the vote. He believes he can get his Eagle rank---the Scouts' highest honor---in the fall. "There are a lot of things going through my head," he said. "The initial reaction is ecstatic because I can go home and tell everyone that I'm still a Boy Scout."…
Zach Wahls, an Eagle Scout son of lesbian moms and founder of Scouts for Equality, said it was “hard to overstate” how important it was for the Boy Scouts to even consider weakening the policy. “Even though I think that there will probably still be a few folks who choose to walk away … I think this is the beginning of the rebound of Scouting in America,” he said.
The leadership domino will fall soon enough. But for now we'll just say congratulations, kids. Your first mission: go to the quartermaster's tent and get me a bacon stretcher, a wind shifter, and a sturdy bag to hold in the woods after dark to catch the feathered critters we send in your direction during tonight's snipe hunt. (heh heh...)
CHEERS to true visionaries. Two hundred and twenty six years ago tomorrow, on May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia with George Washington presiding. They came to blows over their first order of business, but after much chair-throwing and cane-beating, they finally agreed: We hereby resolve that Cheesesteak shall not be considered Cheesesteak without Cheez Whiz. It was smooth sailing from there.
I wonder if Michael Douglas will utter
Liberace's immortal response to his
critics: "I'm crying all the way to the bank."
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's the weekend haps on the teevee, starting with the Sunday HBO movie that's getting
faaaabulous reviews and---SPOILER ALERT---will earn Michael Douglas an Emmy:
Liberace: Behind the Candelabra, directed by Steven Soderbergh, co-starring Matt Damon, Dan Aykroyd, Rob Lowe and Debbie Reynolds, and featuring the late Marvin Hamlisch's last score. New DVD releases include Ahhnuld's return to Hollywood in
The Last Stand and dueling hams Pacino and Walken in
Stand Up Guys. Your MLB, NBA and NHL schedules can be found
here,
here and
here. The
Indy 500 is Sunday, and will feature a return of
Jim Nabors---hopefully with his newly-wedded husband, Stan---to sing "Back Home Again In Indiana." On
60 Minutes: a repeat of the firsthand account of the raid on the bin Laden compound from one of the SEALs who was there.
On Bill Moyers & Company, Tim DeChristopher tells why he spent nearly two years in prison in the name of environmental justice, and Gretchen Morgenson discusses how banks are still too big to fail and too big to trust. And here's your Sunday morning zzzzzzzzzzzzzzfest:
The 'Meet the Press' set
will be empty Sunday. But
will anybody even notice?
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Meet the Press: Sweet, sweet words from their website: "Meet the Press will not air on May 26." But John McCain will be dropped off there anyway so the janitor can babysit him while Cindy goes shopping.
This Week: Sen. Rand Paul (R-1950); retired Gen. John Allen takes a victory lap after being cleared in the Petraeus affair scandal that was WAY WORSE THAN WATERGATE!!! Plus two "powerhouse" roundtables featuring pundits of no consequence or gravitas.
Face the Nation: Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY); author Joseph Persico on his new book about FDR during World War II; Climate Central's Heidi Cullen, the American Meteorological Society's Marshall Shepherd and WFOR Chief Meteorologist Dave Bernard on, like, weather 'n stuff; plus some pundits of no consequence or gravitas.
CNN's State of the Union: Who knows? They never update their web site in time. There's a term for that, y'know---it rhymes with "Bazy Basses."
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lindsay Graham (R-Fussbucketville); former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) on the meaning of Memorial Day; roundtable featuring people of no consequence or gravitas, like Brit Hume.
And if none of that floats your boat, there are 15 brand-new episodes of
Arrested Development going up on Netflix Sunday. Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: May 24, 2008
HA HA! to Opposite Man. Chalk up another prediction gone sour for Bill Kristol, the right-wing pundit who is So Serious and So Accurate that he now writes non-serious, inaccurate columns for the New York Times. One year ago he wrote a column in Time magazine on the state of the 2008 presidential races. Let's see how his words are holding up:
Old fools never die. They
just end up at Fox News.
Absent surprises, this looks on the Democratic side like a classic G.O.P. race, in which the Establishment candidate (in this case, Clinton) maintains a lead, is challenged by one or two slightly more exciting competitors and, after a bump or two on the road, ends up prevailing.
Hey, Bill:
Surprise!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the birth of the Great Orange Satan. We won’t be around Sunday, so tonight we wish this site's merry band of muckrakers and misfits an early blast from the confetti cannon for eleven years of blogging goodness. It all started when a dirty fucking hippie named Markos Hemp Flower Rainbow Prius Moonbat Moulitsas emerged from his law-school cocoon and flapped his dove wings on May 26, 2002:
Kos, caught in the act of
destroying America on Tuesday.
(Hovering black helicopter photo)
I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies. I believe government has an obligation to create an even playing field for all of this country's citizens and immigrants alike. I am not a socialist. I do not seek enforced equality. However, there has to be equality of opportunity, and the private sector, left to its own devices, will never achieve this goal.
"The" Daily Kos stewed in its juices for a bit before I discovered it (via the
Dean for America blog) and got addicted to the
cattle calls. The rest, as they say, is, literally, history. Despite the meta wars, sigh-inducing GBCWs, and the sheer crazy volume of information that gets posted every day, it's still a kickass source of netroots-level analysis, opinion, issue-vetting, fundraising, snarking, storytelling and flying furniture, the heart and soul of which is the room full of 837,539 concerned cats (source:
jotter) that only a danged fool would try to herd. So from all of me to all of you---especially you, Kos, our mighty
Keyboard Kingpin---Happy 11th blogiversary from user ID #2574. May your hearts remain progressive...and your hands filled with pies.
Have a safe and fun weekend. Oh, and from now 'til Labor Day, you can wear white white white white white white WHITE!!! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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