From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"This Late Night Snark is A Ponzi Scheme!"
"Rick Perry becomes the Republican front-runner. Of course they're letting him run in front. He's the one with the gun."
---Stephen Colbert
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"The Justice Dept is trying to block the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. It's only fair because AT&T keeps blocking the mergers between me and the people I try to call."
---Jimmy Fallon
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"Dick 'Kaboom' Cheney has written a book, and he says he wouldn't change anything. He feels strongly about this. He'd still invade the wrong country."
---David Letterman
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"President Obama’s new slogan is: 'I Thought We Could, But It Turns Out the Other Guys Are Assholes.'"
--–Jon Stewart
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"Joe Lieberman has written a memoir in which he reveals why having sex with his wife on the Sabbath is so important to him. It’s in the chapter called 'You Might Want to Skip This.'"
---Conan O'Brien
And five years ago:
"Another terrorism speech by the president is sort of like reruns of Seinfeld. It's on every night and we've memorized most of the lines."
---Craig Crawford on Countdown
Y'know, I warned you during the Memorial Day weekend not to blink because if you blinked it would be Labor Day weekend. And what did you do? Blinked! And here we are. I hhhhhhhope you're happy.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 2, 2011
Note: Here's the C&J schedule for next week. There will be no C&J at all next week, you suckers!
["Raaahhrrr!!!"]
[Giant pitchfork soars through the air, landing in BiPM's lawn with a window-rattling "Thunk!"]
Okay, I see you're a bit upset with that schedule. Let's compromise: I'll give you a C&J on Wednesday and Thursday, I'll toss in one on Friday at no extra charge and move the Republican debate to Saturday at 3am.
["Purrrr..."]
Good. We have a deal. Thank you for calming the fuck down. See you Wednesday. Behave.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Rosh Hashanah: 27 (Late this year?)
Days `til the 22nd annual Mayberry Days in Mt. Airy, North Carolina: 20
Rank of the Cadillac Escalade among cars stolen most between 2008-2010, according to insurance claims: #1
Factor by which the $63,000 (starting price) vehicle is more likely to be stolen than an average car: 6:1
(Source: Highway Loss Data Institute)
Number of U.S. breweries at their peak before Prohibition: 1,751
Number of U.S. breweries in, respectively, 1980 and today: 50 / 1,759
(Source: Mother Jones via The Week)
Size of the boulder a Quebec mayor put in his ex-wife's driveway on her birthday because she always said she wanted "a big rock": 20 tons
(Source, with pic: Global Montreal)
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Puppy Pic of the Day---Twofer!
A unique set of blind dogs
And in Britain, a happy ending
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CHEERS to popping in for a chat. Tomorrow is Saturday, and that means David Waldman (Kagro X) and Armando will don their fedoras for another broadcast of Daily Kos Radio from 10-1 ET on Sirius/XM. Check out this kickass lineup:
- American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingartner to talk labor issues for Labor Day weekend
- DKos Featured Writer Denise Oliver-Velez (deoliver47)
- Aziz Poonwalla of Muslim Kos
- Faiz Shakir from Think Progress
- DKos Contributing Editor and elections guru Steve Singiser
Plus your calls at 1-866-99-SIRIUS (1-866-997-4748), and your tweets to @DailyKosRadio. (If you're not a subscriber, click here for a free 30-day trial.) Sponsored this week by Ramen Noodles. Ramen: "Don’t Leave Home For College Without 'Em!"
P.S. Also don’t forget to root around your root cellar this weekend for items you can put up for bid in the Netroots Nation Fall Online Auction. (Proceeds go toward helping offset the costs of the 2012 Netroots Nation convention in Providence next June 7-10.) Write up a brief description of your item(s), with photos if possible, and click here to send it along. Auction starts the 13th. I'm still trying to decide if I can part with my beloved Jingle Chaps. If not it'll be something just as awesome!
CHEERS and JEERS to Point/Counterpoint: August edition. Point:
A stream of data released Thursday bolstered the case for an economy that's healthier than it seemed just weeks ago. … "Today's releases add to the evidence that underlying economic conditions aren't half as bad as feared a few weeks ago," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.
Counterpoint:
Employment growth ground to a halt in August as sagging consumer confidence discouraged already skittish U.S. businesses from hiring, keeping pressure on the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary stimulus to aid the economy. … "August was a pretty rough month for the economy," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
We trust this clears up any confusion.
CHEERS to happy endings. When I was a kid I used to think that this joke I thought up was hilarious:
Q: How long did World War II last?
A: One day. It started on September 1 and ended on September 2.
[Pees pants from laughing so hard]
Anyway...sixty six years ago today, President Harry Truman proclaimed September 2, 1945 as Victory Over Japan Day, ending World War Two. But Truman refused to fly onto the deck of an aircraft carrier and deliver the news under a "Mission Accomplished" banner. His exact words, I believe, were: "Only an idiot would do that."
AIIYYYYYHH!!! to that fighting spirit. I haven't written much about the revolution in Libya lately, so here's an update: the Libyan rebels are vowing that they will never retreat, never surrender, and will make life miserable for the people in charge! Their exact words: "Prepare yourselves for a gang and guerrilla war, for urban warfare and popular resistance in every town to defeat the enemy everywhere." Oh, and I should probably mention that the rebels now consist of Muammar Ghaddafi and his ragtag band of retreating and surrendering anything-but-freedom fighters. Not meaning to be premature, but you probably won’t go wrong if you change his address on your Christmas card list to "The Hague."
CHEERS to Republicans. No, wait...I mean the good kind, i.e. the kind that roamed the earth 110 years ago. On September 2, 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt spoke the immortal words, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." A sentiment so simple, so powerful, so indelible on the wall of history, so ingrained in the national consciousness...that, of course, only Glenn Beck could screw it up 110 years later:
BECK: We speak without fear, while basing it all in fact. Walk softly and carry a big stick. That ain‘t a gun, man. That is the facts.
Of course, the modern GOP would revise it a bit themselves: "Speak softly, or loudly, or however you want to speak as long as you're beating the crap out of anything that moves with a giant stick, preferably one with a nail sticking through it." Yeah...that reads better.
JEERS to faulty synonym syndrome. Politico columnist Roger Simon said something on Hardball this afternoon that almost made me spill my flute of Dom Perignon onto my puppyskin rug:
"His Democratic base would like to see a tougher Barack Obama. Now, that may not be in him. He didn’t run a very mean campaign in 2008. He ran a good campaign but it wasn't mean. Maybe he's gonna have to get meaner if he wants to win in 2012."
Tougher, yes. But meaner? No, Roger---you're confusing our party for the Republicans, who are mad-dog mean down to their DNA. Democrats on Capitol Hill are too nice and pragmatic to be nasty. Alan Grayson and Anthony Weiner came close sometimes, and Maxine Waters recently told the tea party to go to hell, but that's nothing like the goon squad on the right that has no problem questioning the very legitimacy of the Obama administration. To his credit, guest Ron Reagan clarified:
"He needs to be stronger. … He needs to be much more direct about what he wants to do, and be very clear about what [the Republican] agenda is, which is not good for America. These are people who are actively trying to stop him from helping the economy at this point, and he needs to make that clear in the speech before the joint session."
In short, he needs to test the Republicans' willingness to stand up again and yell, "You lie!" (or whatever they've pre-decided is the slur du jour), and deliver a comeback line that'll knock 'em into the middle of next week. That would be change I can believe in. But I'm not holding my breath---when I turn blue it scares the children.
CHEERS to the happiest ending...evuh! On tomorrow's date in 1783, our War of Independence ended when a treaty was signed by Great Britain and the United States. Afterward, the founding fathers got together in a circle, held hands and, according to Sarah Palin who pinky-swears this is true, recited the Pledge of Allegiance. And then Jesus rode in on a dinosaur with news he had just finished digging the Grand Canyon. The things you learn on Conservapedia...
CHEERS to home vegetation. It's the last long weekend of summer and we urge you to make the most of it by staring at the teevee for the next 72 hours---what fun! The most notable new DVD release this week is the documentary Forks Over Knives. (Spoiler Alert: the forks win.) The Red Sox continue to steamroll their way to World Series glory (the Phillies collapse is imminent!!!), and the U.S. Open tennis tourney continues on CBS. Sunday on Discovery: Dinosaur Revolution [Insert tea-partiers-in-lawn-chairs joke here]. Oh, and take a look at how the Jerry Lewis-less Jerry Lewis Telethon people are spinning their demotion from 21 hours to six on Sunday evening---the end of an era. Meanwhile, on Monday a rare treat: Michael lets me watch the daytime court shows! I don't know who's dreamier, Judge Alex or…Judge Alex!
And here's your Sunday morning lineup, now with C&J's EXCLUSIVE Michele Bachmann Awesome History Tidbits:
Meet the Press: Tom Friedman is hawking a new book and David Gregory will help him hawk it harder. The book is about…oh, 400 pages too long. Michele Bachmann Awesome History Tidbit: Tom chose the last name Freed Man thanks to the tireless work of the Founding fathers to free him.
This Week: Christiane Amanpour apparently still hasn't gotten the memo that the tea party is nothing more than the same old angry hard-line Christian Republican base whipped into a frenzy by Big Business, so she'll be talking with Sen. Jim DeMint as if he's leading some kind of FRESH! And IMPORTANT! new movement. Pathetic. Also: political roundtable with George Will, Jonathan Karl, Clarence Page and Dana Loesch, and economic roundtable with Paul Krugman, Will, Jared Bernstein and The Wall Street Journal's Carol Lee. 9/11 remembrance with Christine Ferer. Michele Bachmann History Tidbit: George Will lost his lips during the invasion of Grenada, and received the Purple Heart from President Alexander Haig.
Face the Nation: Michelle Bachmann makes her second appearance as FTN's leadoff guest in two weeks (aww---Schieffer's smitten). And Jon Huntsman gets 30 seconds of "Face" time during a commercial break. Michele Bachmann History Tidbit: Bob Schieffer died on Elvis's birthday and walks the earth feasting on brains, which is why I'm so comfortable sitting across from him.
Washington Week: A look back at the attacks of 9/11. Michele Bachmann History Tidbit: Ronald Reagan caught bin Laden and used his enormous lung power to blow a hurricane back out to sea...on the same day!
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: The Dick Cheney. Roundtable with Bill Kristol, Mara Liasson, Ed Gillespie and Kirsten Powers. Michele Bachmann History Tidbit: Dick Cheney invented the rainbow.
Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: September 2, 2006
CHEERS to old-fashioned book learnin'. Big surprise: traditional public schools do a better job than charter schools (schools run by private entities and not subject to the same oversight as regular schools). That news according to the Department of Education, no doubt through gritted teeth as smoke poured out of their ears. 4th graders at traditional schools scored 5.2 points higher in reading and 5.8 points higher in math. But the charter school kids scored 50 points higher in begging their parents to let them go back to their old schools.
JEERS to the guy who will never step behind the desk in the Oval Office. Yeah...Bill Frist. Turns out he's not a real doctor after all...he just plays one on the Senate floor to diagnose brain-dead patients as "fine and dandy." Today there are a few hundred of his former surgery patients walking around. Very, very scared.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to an embarrassing trip in the wayback machine. You'll notice that on our list of winners in the C&J poll is Sam Sparks, a federal judge in the "Boot Scoot Boogie State" of Texas. He's the one who called bullshit on the state law that forced women to get a sonogram before having an abortion. (Is it me, or are a lot of these legislative vagina hijackings getting thwarted by the judiciary?) So he gets a big gold star for that alone. But he also gets one for not putting up with lawyers who come before him and waste his time:
Sparks…was upset that lawyers for two men and Brigham Oil & Natural Gas, L.P. were asking the court to quash subpoenas issued to them on behalf of James L. Woods. The lawyers maintained that the subpoenas were not properly served, were overly broad and unduly burdensome, and sought privileged information.
In response, Sparks invited them to a "kindergarten party" originally scheduled for today at 10 a.m., but subsequently cancelled, where they would have learned how to "telephone and communicate with a lawyer," "enter into reasonable agreements about deposition dates," "limit depositions to reasonable subject matter" and why "it is neither cute nor clever to attempt to quash a subpoena for technical failures of service when notice is reasonably given."
You can read how Sparks snarks here. Although the class was cancelled (and, oh, what a great photo-op---lawyers napping on their subpoena blankies---that would've made), the offending attorneys were ordered to bed without supper or their usual hour of Nancy Grace on HNN. Three words: Sparks for President.
Have a safe Labor Day weekend. And for all you moms who give birth on that day, the answer is three---three days until you'll feel like strangling anyone who repeats the same damn "Labor Day, get it? Get it? You had a baby on Laaaaabor Day! Ha Ha!" line. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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