From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: April Showers Edition
"What did you have for dinner tonight? The president had a green salad, steak, sautéed vegetables and twelve Republicans."
---Lawrence O'Donnell
"Just drag a coffee table over it."
"It's week two of the pipeline spill. Or as Exxon calls it: The Great Arkansas Oil Giveaway. … Exxon is employing a time-honored cleanup technique pioneered by drunk guys: you just throw some paper towels down on whatever you spill and just get outta there. Of course there are other drunk guy options, like hiding the spill with a strategically-placed coffee table or, better yet, just flip Arkansas over like a couch cushion."
---Stephen Colbert
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"New Rule: Libertarians have to stop ruining libertarianism…or at least do a better job of explaining the difference between today's libertarian and just being a selfish prick."
---Bill Maher
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"California police arrested a man who drove his car into a Walmart then began beating customers. Man, if there's one thing you don't expect to happen when you're shopping at a Walmart, it's for things to get worse."
---Seth Meyers
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"Quentin Tarantino has had to alter Django Unchained so it can be shown in China. It will be Django Escapes the iPad Factory.”
---Conan O'Brien
And one year ago:
Clip of Rick Santorum dropping out of the '12 GOP primary race: Miracle after miracle, this race was as improbable as any race that you will ever see for president.
Jon Stewart: Really? Any race ever? Like, I dunno, were you alive in 2008 when a black guy name Barack Hussein Obama beat a 48-term war-hero senator and his flag pin of a running mate?
---The Daily Show
Hey, west-coasters! It's 4:20 and I got a bag of Cheetos with your name on it. Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold… [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 12, 2013
Note: It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose. [Plop.] No, not the Jergens, you idiot. The Aveeno! The Aveeno!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the start of the Memorial Day weekend: 45
Days 'til the Kelseyville Olive Festival in northern California: 9
Percent of Mainers who want the state to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour: 68%
(Source: Portland Press Herald online poll)
Rank of Virgin America among the 14 largest U.S. airlines for customer satisfaction: #1
Rank of United Airlines: #14
(Source: AP)
Year by which Taco Bell pledges to make 20 percent of its menu options conform with federal daily dietary recommendations: 2020
Number of the top 20 officials in the Republican National Committee who are not white: 0
(Source: NBC News)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Maybe it's just me, but I think his eyes look like Jack Nicholson's after he goes cuckoo bananas in The Shining…
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CHEERS to Warrin' Warren. I knew this would happen. Dammit, I knew that if Senator Scott Brown got defeated, Elizabeth Warren would start asking questions of entrenched muckety mucks and upsetting the status quo's apple cart in Washington. And that's exactly what she's doing:
So now I'll tell you something else I know: I'm smiling.
JEERS to the conservative sense of "humor." If you've ever wondered what it takes to get something yanked from Fox News's odious and vitriol-riddled "Fox Nation" web site, here's your answer:
Damn you, Coulter, for making
me side with this guy.
Fox Nation has taken down a post it previously highlighted in which Ann Coulter joked about the death of Meghan McCain, the daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). … In the post, Coulter wrote, "MSNBC's Martin Bashir suggested that Republican senators need to have a member of their families killed for them to support the Democrats' gun proposals. (Let's start with Meghan McCain!)"
Yes---it literally takes Ann Coulter calling for the shooting of a senator's daughter to make them act. In fairness, though, Coulter later changed her column to be more acceptable to the Fox crowd. Now she just wants McCain to die from lack of health insurance.
CHEERS to #3. Happy 270th birthday tomorrow to founding father and President Thomas Jefferson. Cormac O'Brien's book Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents sums up the "Sage of Monticello" rather well (although we're quick to do a facepalm over his ownership and treatment of slaves):
Thomas Jefferson was the walking, talking embodiment of the Enlightenment, a polymath whose list of achievements is as long as it is incredibly varied. As if penning the Declaration of Independence, sitting as governor of Virginia during the Revolution, and serving as Secretary of State in George Washington's first term weren't enough, he went on to do much more---architecture, linguistics, agriculture, philosophy, music, prose, you name it. While others dabbled, Jefferson mastered.
Pay your respects
here. Jefferson, by the way, was also "fond of greeting ambassadors in his pajamas." If you ring our doorbell tonight, I'll treat ya to a free reenactment.
CHEERS to letters from the desk of C&J. Sent via Maniac Mail:
Dear Kim Jong Un,
How are you? I am fine with the exception of the neighbor who keeps stealing stuff from my tool shed. Could you send a nuclear missile into his house? Ha Ha Ha. Just kidding.
Speaking of missiles, we understand you're arming yours to maybe blow up your neighbors or even us. You might want to re-think this, and here's why: Dennis Rodman was actually a secret agent working in broad daylight. While you two were shaking hands, he secretly implanted a GPS Monitor one one-thousandth the size of a grain of sand somewhere on you. It is impossible to remove it. We now know where you are 24/7 and have a nuclear missile ("Long Jong Silver" we call it, Ha Ha Ha) aimed at you at all times. More specifically, at your nuts.
I know what you're thinking: "That's crazy." While I respect your unparalelled expertise in that area, you should ask yourself: is it crazy, really? Or is it just crazy enough to work?
Would you still like to declare war on us?
Regards,
Billy
P.S. And your little dog, too. Ha Ha. Just kidding. Or…are we?
I missed my calling. Shoulda been a diplomat.
Can you imagine what Fox
News would say if Obama
wore a cape like Roosevelt's?
JEERS to cerebral hemorrhages. They suck. Franklin Roosevelt died from one 68 years ago today down in Warm Springs, Georgia. His private Secretary Grace Tully recounts what happened
here. A snip:
My reaction of the moment was one of complete lack of emotion. It was as if my whole mind and sense of feeling had been swept away. The shock was unexpected and the actuality of the event was outside belief. Without a word or a glance toward the others present, I walked into the bedroom, leaned over and kissed the President lightly on the forehead. Then I walked out on the porch and stood wordless and tearless. In my heart were prayers and, finally, in my mind came thoughts, a flood of them drawn from seventeen years of acquaintance, close association and reverent admiration. Through them, one recurred constantly - that the Boss had always shunned emotionalism and that I must, for the immediate present at least, behave in his pattern. I did, for a matter of hours.
While FDR's generation got a rendezvous with destiny, ours got a rendevous with a fuckup named Dubya, and we'll be paying for it the rest of our lives---thanks a lot, fate. Now comb your hair and go
pay your respects. And, as always, our regards to Eleanor.
OLLY OLLY OXENFREE to the master practitioner of "me time." Some loner who was arrested here in Maine this week is getting international attention. Christopher Knight---aka the "North Pond Hermit"---spent over two decades in the wilderness, confounding the nearby camp cottage owners from whom he stole food, batteries and other essentials over 1,000 times. When they heard about his amazing success at stealthily robbing people, Republicans immediately made him an honorary congressman.
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Five years ago in C&J: April 12, 2008
JEERS to Maine's most pesky insect (besides the black fly). Oy, here we go again. Our state's giver-of-a-bad-name-to-religion, Michael Heath of the Christian Civic League, was always happy with the results of his anti-gay citizen referendums as long as they swung his way. Then a couple years ago he lost one---to remove sexual orientation from our Human Rights Act---decisively. Now Mr. Pissypants is back with a "kitchen sink referendum" that would turn gays into zero-class citizens (via the Portland Press Herald):
PROPOSED REFERENDUM OFFICIAL WORDING: "Do you want to protect traditional marriage and eliminate special rights in Maine?"
SUMMARY: The initiative would limit marriage to one man and one woman. It would forbid the establishment of civil unions and change adoption law so that only one person, or a married couple, may adopt. The measure would remove the designation "sexual orientation" from the Maine Human Rights Act and eliminate state funding for the Attorney General's civil rights teams.
The worst part of it: gay people could once again be fired for, as former Governor Angus King described it, "having a little comma on their DNA." As opposed to Heath and his munchkins, who have little colons on theirs (if ya know what I mean).
[4/12/13 Update: Five years later, Angus King is a United States Senator who replaced Republican Olympia Snowe and caucuses with Democrats, Maine became the first state to pass marriage equality by a vote of the people, and Michael Heath spends his days looking for stray quarters under parking meters. I'm starting to think God has a liberal bias.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to home vegetation. If you've never OD'd on TV, this may be the weekend when it'll happen. The slow death spiral starts tonight with HBO's Real Time, where Bill Maher talks with Bob Costas, Stephanie Cutter, financial fearmonger David Stockman and gun-control advocate Colin Goddard. New DVD releases include Bill Murray as FDR---yes, seriously, Bill Murray wielding #32's cigarette holder---in Hyde Park on Hudson, and a bunch more.
Season 2 of "Veep"
premieres Sunday.
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The baseball schedule
is here, and the Masters scoreboard is
here. (Yeah, it's mostly a bunch of narrow-minded Republicans---pardon the redundancy---but Augusta's a beautiful golf course.) Vince Vaughn hosts SNL. On
60 Minutes: Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey of the Blue Jays shows off his knuckleball. And
PRAISE THE LAWD the Louis Twins return to HBO with
Louis C.K.: Oh My God Saturday at 10, and season 2 of
Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus premieres Sunday at 10.
On Bill Moyers & Company, Billy explores "Living Outside Tribal Lines" with writer Sherman Alexie, a Native American who explains the challenges of living in two different cultures. This is the weekend that Steve Kornacki takes over the reins at Up!, and no doubt there will be some choice words for Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck by Melissa Harris-Perry.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup. In deference to the latest Media Matters gender/ethnicity analysis, let's see what percent of the five beltway show guests are white men:
Meet the Press: Creamy McDreamy Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL); Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Mike Lee (R-UT) on gun legislation; Ken Burns, Rachel Robinson and Harrison Ford on the legacy of Jackie Robinson and the movie "42"; worthless roundtable with Chuck Todd, Katty Kay and David Brooks. White men percentage: 55%
Still a white man's world.
(Except on MSNBC.)
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This Week: Cooly McDrooly Marco Rubio; Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Jeff Sessions (R-Dixie); Jackie Robinson's legacy with Yankees Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano; roundtable with George Will, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Ruth Marcus (WaPost) and, since ABC News is so insecure that that always need to have a chaperone on from Fox News, Fox News contributor Kimberley Strassel. White men percentage: 40%
Face the Nation: Jigglehips McFirelips Marco Rubio; gun control's dynamic duo Sens. Manchin (D-WV) and Toomey (R-PA); Mark Kelly on improving our gun laws; roundtable with David Ignatius (WaPost), David Sanger (NYT), Amy Walter (Cook Political Report) and John Dickerson (CBS News). White men percentage: 75%
CNN's State of the Union: This week it's Candy Crowley's turn to babysit John McCain while Cindy goes shopping; Salsadance McHotpants Marco Rubio; Sens. Pat Toomey and John Manchin; roundtable with Donna Brazile, Ana Navarro and Gerald Seib. White men percentage: 57%
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Cutie P'tootie Marco Rubio; Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Dick Durbin (D-IL); roundtable with Scott Brown, Marjorie Clifton, Karl Rove and Evan Bayh. White men percentage: 71%
Overall average: 60% white men. And also 100% Marco Rubio, so it all works out. Happy viewing!
Have a super weekend. Floor's Bar's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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