Yeah, About That Tone
Thank you, The Daily Show, for the follow-up:
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Heckuva job, Very Serious People. You gullible ninnies.
Continued...
And while we’re peeking through the wayback machine, here’s a prediction that’s aging like a fine wine, if by wine you mean scum dredged from the bottom of a dumpster:
He should lose his little check-mark thingy.
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 23, 2020
Note: LIBERATE ICE CREAM FROM CARTON! —President Billeh
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til International Workers' Day: 8
Biden-Trump matchup average in the top 11 battleground states, according to NBC News polling: 49%-43%
Percent of voters polled by NBC News who support the federal government's intervention in the U.S. economy: 63%
Percent in the same poll who are satisfied with the amount of COVID-19 testing being done by the federal government: 34%
Percent of U.S. voters surveyed by NBC News who strongly support vote-by-mail: 67%
Small businesses in Maine that have received federal emergency loans (out of 1.7 million nationally): 17,000
Number of brains in a leech: 32
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
My term in N.Y. City is also passing, to my glee. I have just been named the Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief of the New York Times. Reason I am chief is on account there ain't nobody else at the bureau. There will be NO fucking morale problems in MY bureau. I get to cover New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and both Dakotas. I keep wandering around the city room with the tactless grin pasted on my kisser, saying, "I'm leaving. Bye."
This here move is considered very big on the Times's part because it has become known that I have a Bad Attitude. I believe [my former headmaster at St. John's School in Houston] Mr. Chidsey was the first to note the fact. Much passes, little changes. I am specifically charged with A) walking around the city room in my bare feet B) laughing too loud C) not dressing right D) making fun of editors E) showing insufficient enthusiasm for the Times and all its wonders and F) just generally coming on too strong. What can I tell you? As Gary Trudeau once wrote: Guilty, guilty, guilty.
—September, 1977 letter to a friend in Austin, excerpted from Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith. Molly's rocky tenure with the Times lasted from '76 to '80.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Slacker…
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JEERS to snappy answers to stupid questioners. During his campaign rallies disguised as White House coronavirus briefings, the sitting president of the United States couldn’t shut his pie hole about a malaria/lupus drug called hydroxychloroquine, claiming it was a COVID miracle cure. He urged everyone to take it, ending his sales pitch with: "What do you have to lose?" Well, we have our answer, which explains why Trump has completely stopped talking about it:
A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported. … About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. […]
Many doctors have been leery of the drug. “I think we’re all rather underwhelmed” at what’s been seen among the few patients there who’ve tried it, said Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection control and prevention [at the University of Wisconsin, Madison].
Stay tuned for today's press briefing, when Trump switches gears to recommend new ghastly remedies, including shoe polish suppositories, Diet Coke infusions, and memberships to Trump resorts.
CHEERS to C&J Theater. EXCLUSIVE preview of my new play in one act:
Curtain Up
A bull sits in front of a vanity mirror in a Pamplona,
Spain stable sharpening his horns with a file
BULL #1
La la la la la. Gonna gore me some humans. Gonna gore me some humans…
BULL #2
Enters stage right
Hey Frank! No need to sharpen your horns. They called it off.
BULL #1
What do you mean, called it off?
BULL #2
They called it off. We're not running. Coronavirus.
BULL #1
Dammit. The one day a year we're free to chase humans, gore their asses, and laugh as we toss ‘em into the crowd and they cancel? I mean, what's the point of living if we can't have our one day a year of ass goring? I plan my entire schedule around it. The calves go to daycare, the wife goes to the hoof salon…
BULL #2
I know, I know. You don’t think we're not all pissed off about this, Frank?
BULL #1
I was really looking forward to ass goring.
BULL #2
Next year, Frank. Next year.
GARRETT MORRIS WITH MONKEY IN FEZ ON A LEASH
Enters stage left
This just in! Francisco Franco is still dead!
Curtain down
Just leave my Tony Award in the usual spot. Out back with the milk bottles.
JEERS to getting emphysema at 35,000 feet. My mom was a smoker, and I'll never forget flying with my parents and having to sit at the back of the plane because that was where the smokers sat so they wouldn't "bother" the non-smokers sitting in front of them. What were we thinking??! Thankfully the ban on airborne puffery went into effect 32 years ago today. So now all we have to worry about is engines blowing apart, increases in climate-change-related turbulence, catching a lung-incapacitating virus, Trump ranters, seat kickers and baby screamers. In othjer words: God bless Amtrak.
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SANITY BREAK
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END SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to Great Moments in on-air oopsies. Eleven years ago this week, news broke that the Bush-Cheney administration tortured people willy-nilly as a way to gin up evidence that Saddam Hussein was linked to al Qaeda and the attacks of 9/11. While Republicans tried their best to justify the damning revelations by suggesting that torturing detainees was necessary to obtain critical information, Fox News's Shep Smith coined a memorable catchphrase that deserves to be resurrected in light of the fact that the current president thinks we should bring back those torture tactics…"and a helluva lot worse." Caution: NSFW…
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I love his little "Oops" a few seconds after dropping the F-bomb. Late last year, shortly after signing a multi-year contract with State TV, Shep up and left. Likely reason: his boss, Donald Trump, couldn’t handle the truth.
CHEERS to "Ten-Cent Jimmy." Happy 229th Birthday to that old stuffed shirt James Buchanan. In practice, he was a stuck-up, hanky-sniffing, slavery-enabling disaster as president. But on paper, his resume was pretty impressive:
• United States Minister to the United Kingdom
• 17th United States Secretary of State
• United States Senator from Pennsylvania
• U.S. Minister to Russia
• Member of the House of Representatives (PA-04: 4 terms, PA-03: 1 term)
• Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
This year we got the 15th POTUS an extra special gift: an elevation in rank on the presidential ratings list, moving up to #44, just above #45 Donald Trump. Plus, of course, the usual "I Diddled While the Country Teetered on the Brink of Civil War and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" t-shirt.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 23, 2010
JEERS to not passing the straight-face test. President Obama said yesterday that his Supreme Court nominee won't have to pass a litmus test over abortion. He was then immediately whisked to a hospital where he was treated for a severe case of "wink-wink."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to 30 days of tummy growlies. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan starts tonight, and we’d like to give a C&J shoutout to all of our Muslim readers around the world. According to the mighty Wikipedia, “This annual observance is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The month lasts 29–30 days based on the visual sightings of the crescent moon, according to numerous biographical accounts compiled in the hadiths.” It’s also a month of dawn-to-dusk fasting. Here’s a glimpse into what that looks like for American Muslims, courtesy of Buzzfeed…
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Meanwhile, the President of the United States will celebrate Ramadan in his usual way: by not celebrating Ramadan in any way. Won’t he be surprised when he finds out his afterlife consists of 72 virgins beating him with bottles of spray-on tan for eternity.
Have a tolerable Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
MSNBC’s Katy Tur deleted a Twitter post Monday evening that claimed Bill in Portland Maine had become “brain dead” after slipping “in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool” following a bender.
—Mediaite
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