March For Our Lives Find-A-March Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Jared and the Gun Makers’ Bad Week Edition
“Jared Kushner was denied his security clearance and has lost access to top-secret intelligence. How will he fix the Middle East now? He was so close to starting!”
---Stephen Colbert
“Over the weekend, a lot of major companies announced they will be cutting ties with the NRA, including Delta, Hertz, and MetLife. And here’s one that shocked me: today the NRA got dropped by ISIS.”
---Conan O’Brien
“President Trump today criticized officers who failed to confront a shooter at a Florida high school and said, quote, “I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon.” I gotta say, I find it hard to believe Trump would voluntarily run inside a place of education.”
---Seth Meyers
“After this week, if we’ve learned one thing about Donald Trump, it’s that you could be sitting right in front of him, and he could even tell you that “he hears you,” but that does not mean he’s listening to a fucking word you’re saying.”
---John Oliver
“According to a New York Times survey of political scientists across both parties, Donald Trump has been rated America’s worst president ever. It’s pretty incredible because it’s the first time Trump has won a popular vote.”
---James Corden
And this just in: our current sitting president is all the bad adjectives.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, March 2, 2018
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday, but we'll be back bright and early on Tuesday. Also a quick heads-up that in 50 billion years the universe will explode in a giant fireball that will morph into a massive black hole that eats itself. So don’t forget to stock up on soup and other non-perishables before the stores run out. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Easter: 30
Days ‘til the Durango Bach Festival in Colorado: 9
Estimated net worth of the 115th Congress, 20 percent richer than the 114th, according to Tribune News Service: $2.43 billion
Median minimum net worth of a representative or senator: $511,000
Number of voters the DNC plans to contact ahead of the midterm elections this year as part of its “I Will Vote” program: 50 million
Years since Ore-Ida created Tater Tots as a way to use potato remnants that otherwise would’ve gotten tossed: 65
Number of Academy voters who will determine who wins an Oscar Sunday: 7,258
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Plumber’s apprentice final test…
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CHEERS to happy daises. The grand poobahs at Netroots Nation are now accepting submissions for panel discussions and workshops at this year's convention in New Orleans (August 2-4). If you’ve got an issue or cause you think is worth exploring with a blue-ribbon panel of your choosing, they’d love to hear from you. But time is getting a bit short---the deadline for submissions is midnight on March 14. Just click here for the guidelines and submission form. If you have a panel in mind but you want some live assistance putting your proposal together, there’s a webinar on Tuesday, March 6 at 3:45ET, for which you can register at this link.
Submissions are judged by topic-specific panels and then by the public. Oh, and to avoid unnecessary duplication, you should know that I already sent in my panel idea for this year’s convention in the Big Easy: Gumbo Has a Liberal Bias.
CHEERS to exposing a very big parasite under a very big rock. When I heard Wednesday night via The New York Times that Jared Kushner’s family got massive loans from multiple banks after they (the banks) had been feted and back-scratched inside the White House, I honestly didn’t know what to think. Part of me said “what else is new,” while part of me said, “WTF.” As I do so often these days, I turned to Charlie Pierce at Esquire to see how he’s handling the news. Keep in mind this is a veteran of Boston politics talking:
I have a healthy inbred respect for the many and varied forms of political grift, graft, brigandage, and chicanery. My gob is not easily smacked. My flabber is not easily gasted. That said, this latest news out of Camp Runamuck, as brought to us by The New York Times, is both beyond my comprehension and completely off the damn hook. […]
[Jared’s] at the center of a steaming pile of corruption so blatant that it would have embarrassed Ferdinand Marcos. If he’s at all smart, he’s spending hours in front of a mirror, repeating the phrase, “To the best of my recollection,” over and over until he can appear sincere.
[I]t’s pretty plain that a spit is being prepared for [Jared] at Bob Mueller’s House of BBQ, right next to the one on which Paul Manafort is currently revolving.
I’ll stick with chicken, thanks. Charred rump of Republican always gives me a bad case of schadenfreudeburn.
CHEERS to instant karma. Mike Huckabee thought he could gain some instant respectability by hoisting himself up on the prestigious Country Music Association Foundation’s board. After all, he’s from Arkansas and plays bass guitar and talks with a twang, so what’s not to like? Abso-fricking-everything, apparently, because the Huckster got rode out on a rail less than a day later:
The announcement follows pointed criticism from members of the country music industry, as well as fans---much of it stemming from Huckabee's stance on LGBT issues.
Jason Owen, co-president of Monument Records and owner at Sandbox Entertainment, called the appointment a "grossly offensive decision" in an email to the association's CEO Sarah Trahern and CMA Foundation executive Tiffany Kerns. … Owen and his husband Sam are fathers to a young son and are expecting twins. Owen said that Huckabee’s stance on the LGBT community“ made it clear my family is not welcome in his America.”
There, there, Mike. Don’t feel bad. You’ll always have Ted Nugent.
CHEERS to fun things a president can do as his country disintegrates from a Great Depression. On March 3, 1931, President Herbert Heebert Hoobert signed a measure making "The Star-Spangled Banner" our official national anthem. Hey, let's all sing the third stanza! And a-one and a-two...
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
On second thought, let's just stick with the first.
JEERS to today’s boring correction. In the wake of the incident where a Dalton (Georgia) High School teacher went berzerk and fired a gun in a classroom, we tweeted this to the world:
We regret to report that our tweet was both premature and way off the mark. Alex Jones didn’t claim any such thing. It was this guy:
C&J regrets the error. But in fairness, all tinfoil-hatters look the same to us.
CHEERS to the land of milk and hippies. Happy birthday to our hippie commune-dwelling New England sibling Vermont!!! You became our 14th state on Sunday’s date in 1791. Besides Ben and Jerry, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy and a nuclear power plant that makes me nervous, Vermont is home to Howard Dean, who became the first governor to pass civil unions for same-sex couples and exclaimed, "YOU have the power!" It's also the birthplace of the 21st president Chester Arthur and the 30th president Calvin Coolidge, who slept ten hours a day and once murmured, "When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results." Wow...no wonder Republicans are always thought of as being smarter on the economy.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Everybody’s on deck for C&J’s weekend boob tubage, and it all starts tonight with Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow sifting through the smoldering carcass of whatever Friday news dump landed in our laps. (Or, if you’re wrung-out on politics, there’s a new Master Chef Jr. on Fox.) Then at 10, the guests on HBO's Real Time include Parkland shooting survivors-turned-activists David Hogg (an expert Alex Jones troller) and Cameron Casky (who dared Marco Rubio to stop taking money from the NRA to his face), plus Jon Meacham, Amy Chua and Eric Holder.
New home video releases include Gary Oldman’s uncanny performance as Mamie Eisenhower in Darkest Hour, and Al Pacino goes after a serial killer in Hangman. The basketball schedule is here and the hockey schedule is here. Charles Barkley hosts SNL. The Oscars start at 8ET on ABC (more on that below), and following them, ABC airs a sample episode of their new talk show Sundays with Alec Baldwin. (Or as Lord Dampnut calls him: “Alex”.) And John Oliver sends us off to bed Sunday night after another episode of HBO's Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
This Week: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT); Campbell's Soup hawker and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross;0 Chris Christie (Why?); Reince Priebus. (WHY???!!!)
Meet the Press: Angus!!! Plus: former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough and Wilbur Ross.
Face the Nation: TBA
CNN's State of the Union: Director of the White House National Trade Council Peter Navarro (D); Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) the new darling of Sunday morning. (Why???)
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Dolly Parton on her books-for-kids initiative; Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) desperately tries to salvage his senatorial hopes by supporting the barest-minimum of gun-control measures that won’t upset the NRA; Business Roundtable CEO Josh Bolten.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 2, 2008
CHEERS to the power of the pootie. You can poke holes in this University of Minnesota study 'til the cows come home, but there seems to be something to it:
Owning a cat could reduce your risk of a heart attack by nearly one third, researchers told delegates of the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in New Orleans last week.
The finding was the main result of a 10 year study of more than 4,000 Americans by researchers at the University of Minnesota's Stroke Institute in Minneapolis.
Executive director of the Institute, Dr Adnan Qureshi, who is also senior author of the study, was reported by US News &World Report to have said: "For years we have known that psychological stress and anxiety are related to cardiovascular events, particularly heart attacks." Qureshi said having pets probably helped to relieve stress.
Not here. Our kitty plays the bagpipes six hours a day. Poorly.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to naked men dipped in gold. The Oscars will be handed out Sunday night, with Jimmy Kimmel moving things along briskly for about ten minutes before it all congeals into a molasses-like behemoth that moves at the speed of Eric Trump’s brain cells. Maybe they should add more edge-of-your-seat drama by handing wrong envelopes to more randomly-chosen presenters. It sure perked everyone up last year! (Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty---aka Bonnie & Clyde---will return to try it again.) For what it’s worth, here are my predictions for what was---and I don’t get to say this often---a really good year for movies. (Although I’m still seething over the fact that Beverly Hills Chihuahua VIII: The Last Squeaky Toy was denied a Best Picture nod.) The envelopes please...
Picture: Finding Nemo in a Government Research Lab.
Actor: Winston Churchill, who spent four hours in the makeup chair every morning to complete his amazing transformation into Gary Oldman playing Winston Churchill.
Actress: Frances McDormand for Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri because…Frances McDormand!!!
Supporting Actor: Willem Dafoe for The Florida Project, because I met him once.
Supporting Actress: Allison Janney will skate away with an award for I, Tonya.
Director: Benicio del Toro for Charlie Tuna Gets Hooked by the Cleaning Lady, which will make Guillermo del Toro really mad because he’s the one who actually directed it. (Another Price Waterhouse Coopers envelope stuffer will get fired for this gaffe.)
Song: Mighty River from Mudbound by Mary J. Blige
Short Film (Animated): Dear Basketball by Kobe Bryant, Glen Keane, and music by John Williams. Hey! When I say John Williams you fucking stand up!!!
Everything Else: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Meanwhile the Golden Razzies, for worst films and performances, will be handed out tomorrow, and you can check out that list here. I can already tell you who will win Worst Actor: Donald Trump as an empathetic President of the United States in the box office bomb I Hear You.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are youcheering and jeering about today?
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