From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Hosts Hit the Snark Ceiling
"The government is one week away from running out of money to pay its bills. So basically, our nation has become Nicholas Cage."
---Conan O'Brien
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"The NFL lockout is over. All the parties agreed and we have a compromise. It’s too bad the national debt isn’t as important as football."
---David Letterman
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"Right now the two sides are very far apart. The Democrats want to cut $2.7 trillion and raise the debt limit through the end of 2012. Republicans want to deport all Mexicans and replace Social Security with scratch-off lotto cards."
---Jimmy Kimmel
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"The Republican presidential field is an embarrassment of riches. In fact, the first two words that come to mind are 'embarrassment' and 'rich.'"
---Stephen Colbert
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"Sarah Palin's documentary, 'The Undefeated,' will be available on Pay-Per-View and On Demand by Sept. 1. The movie will be shown in English with English subtitles."
---Jimmy Fallon
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"The heat last Friday drove me to the theatre to see the new Captain America movie. Terrific, inspiring movie about a 98-pound weakling, Steve Rogers, who, through sheer determination, courage and a serum that renders him basically invincible, takes on and defeats a sunburned James Carville."
---Jon Stewart
And we just can't resist revisting this, from July, 2008:
"There is not---and I’m including the Nazis and the Klan in here---there is not a more hateful group in the country than these Daily Kos people."
---Bill O'Reilly
Three years later, I think he's finally warming up to us. He only compares us to cockroaches and toejam now.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Note: ^^ (Mad cat scientist's invisibility serum works…mostly.)
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Shark Week: 2
Days `til the Ola Belle Reed Music Festival in Lansing, North Carolina: 14
Jobless claims for this week, its lowest level in 4 months: 398,000
Average age at which women and men, respectively, consider themselves "old," according to a survey conducted by a British funeral company: 29, 58
(Source: Harper's Index)
Earnings from the Harry Potter movies, combined: $6.37 billion
Minimum number of countries whose GDPs this amount exceeds: 50
(Source: The Atlantic via The Week)
Time it took 54 year-old Arvid Loewen to cycle across Canada (3,762 miles), breaking the old record by three hours: 13d, 6h, 13m
(Source: CTV News)
Year the popsicle was invented (by accident): 1905
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Well, now I've seen everything… even in the dark.
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CHEERS to---apologies to Robert Frost---"miles to go before I fill 'er up." The Obama administration announced a deal with the auto industry to lock in new fuel-efficiency standards. Nutshell: they have to reach 54½ miles per gallon or "163 grams per mile of carbon dioxide equivalent" between 2017 and 2025. That will result, they say, in a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 40 percent drop in fuel consumption. Also between 2017 and 2025: a 50 percent increase in Republican whining about excessive regulation and, when the new rules prove to be a rousing Democratic success, a 40 percent increase in crow consumption.
JEERS to the continuing distraction from job creation. This is Day 8 of our ongoing updates on the debt crisis. With four days until D-Day, here's the latest: [Checks paper] [Turns on cable news] [Consults top blogs] [Looks out window] We are still ruled by idiots. Next update: Monday.
JEERS to the politics of fear, Part 3,239. 55 years ago tomorrow---on July 30, 1956---to ward off evil Communist spirits, the phrase "In God We Trust" became our country's national motto. Because "In Freedom We Trust" didn't quite have that do-as-we-say-or-you'll-go-to-hell ring to it.
CHEERS to the first conviction. Lost in all the debt-ceiling and Norway-terrorist-attack news has been the News Corp & Fiends scandal. So I went to check up on it and I'm happy to report that there's been a significant development: the verdict is in! The asshole is Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Yes, it's a truly historic day for Britain now that the parliament pie thrower has been brought to justice. Y'know, I think this is the same thing that happened right before they brought down Nixon. Eerie.
CHEERS to Christie airways. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was sent to the hospital yesterday after he had trouble breathing. Doctors say he's fine and that he'll be back to bellowing insults at his constituents again by Monday morning.
CHEERS to the birthday girl. Former...repeat, former---North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole gets 75 candles on her cake today. C&J has a rule that we never jeer someone on their birthday. But there's nothing that says we can't revisit her Waterloo, namely the famous 2008 "Promise" TV ad that ends with the immortal words, "There is no God!!!" Actually, there probably is, Liddy. Exhibit A: you lost.
JEERS to really bad William Tell imitations. We'll file this under, "Whoops!":
An archer apologized Wednesday after an errant arrow sailed through the window of a house, striking a woman in the face as she ate a doughnut.
Robert Joiner was hauled off to jail, then released on bail after being charge with second-degree assault. When he got home, there was a message on his answering machine: "Bob. Dick Cheney. Welcome to the club."
CHEERS to the first ringy dingy. On July 29, 1914, transcontinental telephone service began when someone in New York called someone in San Francisco and promptly sold a couple hundred bucks worth of term life insurance, a Thighmaster and a dozen ShamWOW!s. Smooth operator.
CHEERS to home vegetation. If you find yourself on the couch this weekend looking for some brain candy, here are some small-screen Skittles for your dish: On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with financial fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, Herbert's great-granddaughter Margaret Hoover, actor Bryan Cranston, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe and Eliot Spitzer. The major new DVD releases include the sci-fi actioner Source Code and Blu-ray releases of Animal House and The Blues Brothers. The Red Sox continue to HULKSMASH the American League. (Hey, I just report the facts.) On the Discovery Channel Sunday: Dum dum dum dum dum dum…. ("We're gonna need a bigger boat.")
And here's your Sunday morning lineup, with C&J's EXCLUSIVE Conservative Congressman or Senator/Liberal Congressman or Senator (CCS/LCS) Index. Let's see that liberal media bias in action, shall we?
Meet the Press: White House spinmeister David Plouffe; debt ceiling blue-ribbon panel with former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Tom Brokaw, Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), and Jim Cramer. (Yup---that was the very best NBC could do.) And don’t forget to ignore David Gregory's "web analysis" afterward. CCS/LCS Index: 1-0
This Week: White House spinmeister David Plouffe (I guess he drew the short straw this week); Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC); roundtable with George Will, ABC News political director Amy Walter, Paul Krugman, and fucking idiot Grover Norquist, President of Fuck America Now. CCS/LCS Index: 1-0
Face the Nation: Their web site doesn’t list any guests this week, so I assume it'll be Bob Schieffer sharing a stage with several dozen plates spinning on poles. CCS/LCS Index: NA
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling; Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ); roundtable with Bill Kristol, Stephen Hayes, Juan Williams and Charles Lane. CCS/LCS Index: 2-1
Final CCS/LCS tally: 4 conservatives, 1 liberal. (And that one liberal better behave or they'll cut his mic.) Happy viewing.
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Flashback: 2004 Democratic Convention Flashback---July 29
Speakers include:
Madeleine Albright
Sen. Joe Biden
Gen. Wesley Clark
Former Sen. Max Cleland
and John Kerry
CHEERS to John Kerry. Oh, so THAT'S who he is. Guess what, kids? His rousing speech means we're still in the game. Last one in the voting booth's a rotten egg.
JEERS to Balloongate. Convention producer Don Mischer, not realizing his voice was going over the air, yelled: "Jesus! We need more balloons. I want all balloons to go, goddammit. I want more balloons. What's happening to the balloons? We need more balloons. What the fuck are you guys doing up there??!!" Send your `Get Well Soon From Your Heart Attack' cards to FCC chairman Michael Powell, c/o Bethesda Naval Hospital.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to signature events. Tomorrow marks the 46th anniversary of a milestone that every Democrat should celebrate with off-the-charts pride. Americans love this government program so much that even the teabaggers warn the government to keep their hands off it. (I know, I know...makes no sense, but we're talking teabaggers here.) You know it, you love it, millions can't live without it! Ladies and gentlemen, I take you back to the bouncing baby birth of Medicare!
The legislative logjam finally broke with the election of 1964, which swept LBJ into the White House behind large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. Shortly after that election, a breakthrough occurred when House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.), who had previously blocked Medicare proposals, said, "I can support a payroll tax for financing health benefits just as I have supported a payroll tax for cash benefits."
When the long-stalled Medicare effort came before the 89th Congress in January 1965, congressional leaders designated the bills as H.R. 1 and S. 1. Despite determined resistance by organized medicine and some of its congressional allies, the Medicare bill moved forward. A Mills rewrite cleared the House on April 8 by 313-115. The Senate approved its version on July 9 by 68-21. A conference committee labored for more than a week in mid-July to reconcile 513 differences between the two chambers.
At the [July 30] White House bill-signing ceremony, Johnson enrolled [Harry] Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the nation’s first Medicare card.
46 years later, Medicare is proving to be not only universally loved, but more efficient and trusted than anything the private sector offers to average Americans. Naturally, Republicans want to stomp it into the dirt, and this year both the House and the Senate foolishly---FOOLISHLY!---voted to turn the program into a coupon-based medical discount club. Democrats chased 'em back into the woods and nothing came of it. And as long as we don't let our more "moderate" Democrats try to whittle away at it, I think, forty six years from now, in 2057 (when C&J is marking its 53rd year---yay!), I have no doubt I'll be writing yet another late-July birthday love letter to Medicare. And to demonstrate how my writing will have matured by then, I'll give you the punch line in advance: "Goiter? I hardly know her!"
Last weekend in July. Make it count! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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