From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Take Two
Megyn Kelly: Governor Bush, thanks for joining us again on Fox News to clear up something we asked you about on Monday. You said you "misheard" my question about the war in Iraq, and it caused a nationwide uproar.
Bush: Well, I appreciate the chance to come back on and clear this up. As they say in Tennessee…I think it's Tennessee, I know it's in Texas…fool me once, shame on…can't get fooled again!
Kelly: Actually, your brother George said that when he was president.
Bush: Oh. Well, that's just a coincidence. As you know, Megyn, I'm not my brother. I'm my own man, and when I'm president I'll let wings take dream and let my hand-picked cabinet know that they're doin' a heckuva job.
Kelly: Actually, he said that, too.
Bush: HehHehHeh. Just a fluke. HehHehHeh.
Kelly: Ooookay. How about if I just repeat the question you say you misheard Monday: knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion of Iraq?
Bush: Hell yeah! The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are resourceful and so are we. They never stop thinkin' about ways to harm our nation and…um, neither do we. Because the smoking gun will come in the form of a mushroom cloud and oceans can't protect us from those significant quantities of uranium from Africa! You're either with us or against us! It'll be easy! Six months tops and we'll be greeted with sweets and flowers. I know those WMDs gotta be around here somewhere! Maybe they're in that cabinet over there. HehHehHeh! HehHehHeh!
Kelly: This all sounds strangely familiar. My god, are you…are you George W. Bush wearing a Jeb Bush mask? Take that thing off!
Bush: Aw, shucks. Cheney made me do it! Honest! He threatened to take away mah paint brushes! You have no idea how mean he is. He'll do anything to sneak us in for a third term! It was Cheney!
Kelly: So, if you're impersonating your brother to try and get back in the White House…where's Jeb?
[Meanwhile, in a storage shed on the grounds of one of Dick Cheney's undisclosed locations…]
Jeb: Lemme out! Please, Mr. Cheney sir! I'll start a war, I promise! Iran! Syria! Central America! Anywhere you want! Just lemme outta here…your guard badgers are biting really hard and we're running out of oxygen! [Bam Bam Bam!] Help! Somebody!!!
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Note: Today is Wednesday the 13th. Some people have said that it's not an unlucky day like Friday the 13th. May they rest in peace.
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3 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til David Letterman's last
Late Show:
1
Days 'til the
Brattleboro Brewers Festival:
3
Percent chance that WHO declared Liberia ebola-free:
100%
Percent chance that WHO also cautions that it will be easy for infected people in other countries to cross into Liberia:
100%
Percent chance that forecasters appear to be wrong for the sixth year in a row about their prediction that
this will be the year the U.S. economy soars:
100%
(Source: current economic data)
Latest death toll from GM ignition switch malfunctions:
100
Age of dancer/choreographer
Eileen Kramer, who is still working today and learned to do the twist from Louis Armstrong:
100
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 180 (including 4 Tribulation Temples and 1 pleasant morning ritual ruined). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Yeah, right. It's the dog that's crazy, not the owner….
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CHEERS to an early victory. Yesterday President Barack William Hussein Jefferson Clintobama suffered a setback in the Senate on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. An early cloture vote failed to get enough votes:
Gaah! Gladys, get the flyswatter!
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The vote marked a victory for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, an outspoken opponent of fast-track, after weeks of speculation that the toughest fight would be in the House of Representatives and not the Senate...
The TPP would create a free trade zone covering 40 percent of the world economy - making it the biggest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement liberalized trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico. More than two decades later, that pact is blamed by many on the left for factory closures and job losses and has soured sentiment toward the TPP.
It's a big victory for the groups who are always right about everything and know a stinker when they smell one. In other words, a very rare day.
JEERS to God's recruiting skills. Says here that the number of religiously-unaffiliated Americans is rising, and fast. According to Pew Research, 23 percent of us don't belong to any organized religion (not to be confused with Democrats who, according to Will Rogers, don't belong to any organized political party). That's up seven points from 2007. The group includes atheists, agnostics and "nothing in particular." I'd put myself in the latter category, which explains the prayer I say every night:
Now I lay me down to sleep
Time to count up all my sheep.
If I should die before I wake,
Oh…surprise me!
An open bar would be a plus.
CHEERS to Republican Presidents with a conscience. 106 years ago today, Teddy Roosevelt spoke at the Governor's Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources: "The natural resources of our country are in danger of exhaustion if we permit the old wasteful methods of exploiting them longer to continue." The Koch brothers issued a brief statement this morning to mark the occasion: "Teddy who?"
JEERS to the creepiest 20 seconds of the week. Hey, everybody! Rand Paul wants to be your president and he's hired a team of organizers dedicated to putting a professional, mature face on the campaign. Like, for instance, David Chesley, Senator Paul's New Hampshire political director, seen here welcoming a Democratic "tracker" to an event in Londonderry:
In addition to being a senior staffer for a major political campaign, Chesley also holds the world's record for having the highest number of first dates that never lead to a second.
CHEERS to the Holy Grail of philately. On May 13, 1918, the first 24-cent stamps featuring the Curtiss Jenny biplane---the aircraft chosen to inaugurate the U.S.'s new air mail service---reached post offices. Collectors heard that some of the stamps could be rare "inverts," so they fanned out to find them. Some were successful in locating one of these:
Today you can buy
a commemorative version for the low, low price of whatever the hell a stamp costs these days. (I use email exclusively, which only costs me 50 cents each and goes directly to a Nigerian finance minister's widow via my savings account. I should probably check my balance one of these days.) But the
real inverted Jenny stamps are worth approximately one bazillion dollars. Or, put another way, slightly less than the cost of the 2016 presidential campaign season.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 13, 2005
CHEERS to getting the hook. Dennis Miller's CNBC disaster tapes its final show today. The half-hour show was cancelled because his ratings tanked. His viewer had a stroke.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the best ex-fake-conservative in all of Ex Fake Conservative Land. Happy 51st birthday to Stephen Tyrone Colbert. I'm proud to say he and I were born in the same year, although he beat me into the world by three months. I went through C&J's mighty late-night snark archives and rounded up some bits that remind us he'll have a big job not only filling Letterman's shoes…but his own conservative doppelganger's:
"Christie is a true conservative! He's committed to proving the core conservative value that government is the problem, even if he has to create those problems himself."
"Sixty eight percent of Republicans don't believe in evolution. On the other hand, only five percent of monkeys believe in Republicans."
Colbert purged his soul of faux conservatism
by spending time as a faux fur trapper in the
wild. He became known as "Grizzly Stephen,"
and made many friends in the forest.
"Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has taken a new job at a Wall Street investment bank. Now he can finally have some influence in Congress."
"Whatever Republican is going to replace Obama is going to need three things: vision, leadership, and enough cash to make up for not having vision or leadership."
"Sure, you could view yet another non-indictment of a white police officer for the death of an unarmed black man as part of a larger troubling trend. Or you could be Fox News."
Clip of Anderson Cooper on CNN: Tonight...connecting with one of Michael Jackson's old friends and perhaps one of his oddest: Bubbles the chimp.
Colbert: He got the chimpsclusive!! I'm so mad I could throw my own feces!
"[GOP] campaigns soliciting money know exactly what buttons to push. They send urgent emails with emotional triggers that make you feel part of something bigger. Like Bachmann's 'Join the Fight,' Pawlenty's 'I can't do it alone' and Herman Cain's 'Give me five dollars and I'll punch a Muslim.'"
"So far the Republican field looks like a bunch of guys responding to a Craigslist ad for a free couch."
"The South Carolina GOP primary campaign is in full swing. Candidates are shaking hands, kissing babies and strategically ignoring Confederate flags."
No word yet on when Colbert's first
Late Show show will air (I'm guessing this fall whenever sweeps week starts), but in the meantime he's keeping busy by, among other things,
helping flash-fund a thousand school projects in his native South Carolina. Happy birthday, Stephen, andf many blessings on your…
BEARS!!!
Have a truthy Wednesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"I'm actually wondering about putting in a kiddie pool---like a functional Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool at the factory in Fremont. It would probably be really expensive, but I like the idea of it."
---Elon Musk
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