Preview of Coming Attractions
Well, this is cool. Netflix announced that it's premiering a new documentary about First Lady Michelle Obama's 2019 "Becoming" book tour next week:
“Those months I spent traveling—meeting and connecting with people in cities across the globe—drove home the idea that what we share in common is deep and real and can’t be messed with,” Obama wrote on Instagram. “I treasure the memories and that sense of connection now more than ever, as we struggle together to weather this pandemic, as we care for our loved ones, tend to our communities, and try to keep up with work and school while coping with huge amounts of loss, confusion, and uncertainty.”
Obama’s 2018 memoir, which details her life from childhood to her time in the White House, was the best-selling book of the year. Within six months, it became one of the best-selling memoirs of all time, with more than 10 million copies sold.
See a preview below the fold:
[Lights dim]
[I start kicking the back of your seat]
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Arrives May 6th.
P.S. Don’t tell Trump that Becoming outsold The Art of the Deal by a factor of something like fifteen-to-one in, like, 1/30th the time. That might hurt his feelings.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Note: Here, drink this. What do you have to lose?
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Naked Gardening Day: 3
Date on which the U.S. hit 1,000,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases: 4/27/20
Percent of Americans polled by the Kaiser Family Foundation who believe strict shelter-in-place measures are worth it: 80%
Percent of Brits in a poll for the Observer who think the U.S. is handling the coronavirus pandemic better than Britain: 14%
Percent who believe Germany is handling the pandemic better than Britain: 52%
Average price for a gallon of gas: $1.93
Percent chance that Microsoft Word will start flagging two spaces after a period as an error: 100%
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 186 (including 3 leadership vacuums and 1 Easter pound cake spared by the Lord Our God Jesus H.Christ). 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: Workin' the magic…
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CHEERS to mailing it in. New polling out from AP-NORC reveals the unsurprising fact that, at the height of a killer pandemic that's claimed the same number of American lives in one month as the Vietnam War did in 15 years, Democrats want everyone to be safe on election day while Republicans remain a death cult:
As health officials warn about the risk of spreading the coronavirus at polling places, some in the Republican Party have tried to limit the expansion of mail voting, with Trump and others openly fretting that it may enable too many people to cast their ballots for the GOP to win in November. […]
The poll finds that 39% of Americans favor conducting all-mail elections, up from 19% in 2018. … The poll also shows 60% of Americans support allowing people to vote via absentee ballot without requiring them to give a reason if the outbreak is still happening. That includes 73% percent of Democrats and 46% of Republicans.
And in other news, the GOP just revealed its new bumper sticker slogan this morning: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays our party from the swift completion of our appointed destruction of the United States Postal Service.” Message: they care.
JEERS to losing our dollars and senses. As another pandemic week rolls on towards its inevitable conclusion, let’s check in with some recent economic headlines we plucked off the money tree to find out if we should start moving our moolah from the secret hole in our back yard to the secret hole in our attic:
» Some taxpayers get shut out of stimulus, prompting challenge to federal law
» 'Extremely disappointing' and 'entirely predictable'—slowdowns and lockouts plague second round of PPP
» Small business loans above $2 million will get full audit to make sure they’re valid, Mnuchin says
» Coronavirus package falls short for lenders to Latino, minority businesses
» The US will need to spend trillions more as economy takes until 2022 to fully recover: CNBC survey
» The Fed's low rates will punish people who save
» Coronavirus will forever change airlines and the way we fly
» Southwest posts first loss in 11 years
» World's biggest car factory reopens
» Oil falls back into the red
» Warren, Ocasio-Cortez call for halt to big mergers
» Want a mask contract? A White House connection helps
And this: "Virus is expected to reduce meat selection and raise prices." So get ready to adapt to the unique taste of goat spleens—now on sale for just $499 a pound at Kroger.
CHEERS to exactly the right word. 168 years ago, Roget's Thesaurus was first published. And for that I am truly—[flip flip flip]—grateful; thankful; affording pleasure or comfort; fulfilled; appreciative; obliged; down with that; sweet on it; fist bump-ready; engorged with the sweet nectar of gratification in a small cabin in Saskatchewan where the only sound is the bugling of the elk. Roget was lonely.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to stupid VP tricks. Yesterday Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the task force that teaches Americans—all 328 million of us—how to properly behave around each other, y'know, hygienic-like, during a pandemic, showed up inside the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and started jawboning about this 'n that in front of patients without wearing a mask, spewing his potentially-toxic spittle into the air, where microscopic molecules from his massive maw shot across the room, wafted up air-circulation intake vents, glommed onto sensitive medical equipment, and drifted up the nostrils of those in his immediate vicinity, and if you're wondering why I seem to be having trouble finishing this item, it's because I'm afraid that when the time eventually comes that I have to put a period at the end of this sentence I'll use the brief pause to unplug my laptop and throw it against the wall in a rage because Jesus Christ at what point are Republicans finally going to reach rock-bottom when it comes to rubbing the two brain cells together that they purportedly have in their heads, I mean the best I can hope for now is to type an elipses and pray to god my blood pressure goes down as I toss in this blockquote…
When Vice President Mike Pence walked into the Mayo Clinic on Tuesday, he wasn't wearing a face mask. Everyone else in the building was, according to reporters who were traveling with him. After all, it has been the policy at the renowned Rochester, Minnesota, facility since April 13. They even say they'll provide one.
Pence was told of the new rules before he visited, the clinic said on Twitter, a post that was subsequently deleted. "Mayo Clinic had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today," they had written.
To be fair, Pence had a reasonable excuse. He accidentally left his mask in his other panzer.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Daily Kos's own Aldous J Pennyfarthing asks: "Shouldn’t the media say something when POTUS shows up with pupils the size of pie tins?"
Yes.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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JEERS to Nazi Nuptials. With Russian artillery booming in the background, Adolf and Eva got hitched in der Fuhrerbunker 75 years ago today. Instead of a ring, Hitler presented his bride with an Iron Cross, and it pretty much went downhill after that. By the way, the 75th anniversary present for a dead Nazi is 75 more centuries in the deepest circle of Hell. And no fresh lemon wedges to squeeze over their schnitzel.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 29, 2010
JEERS to itty bitty corrections. The "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" commemorative oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is no longer spewing 42,000 gallons of crude a day. What it is spewing is actually closer to 210,000 gallons of oil a day. Meanwhile, back in the Coast Guard commandant's dining room...
"And how was your day, dear?"
"I set the Gulf of Mexico on fire."
"That's nice. More mashed potatoes?"
But at least it can't get any worse, right? (Just nod your head. There's a strange, soothing comfort in denial.)
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And just one more…
CHEERS to little green men in their flying machines. Tongues are a'wagging and eyeballs are a' poppin' this week, and amazingly they're not newly-discovered symptoms of the coronavirus. No, it turns out that pilots in the U.S. Navy (motto: "Well, hello, sailor.") shot some footage of unidentified flying objects belonging to the Orpglorbians of the Centauri-12 galaxy who visited our planet to establish relations and form an intergalactic alliance built on intelligence, trust and common decency. Not joking, this is real. Here’s the footage:
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According to the Defense department, the aliens visited twice: once in 2004 and again in 2015. Unfortunately, during the first visit they were told George W. Bush had just been re-elected president, and during the second visit they were told that Donald Trump could be the next one. And just like that, we never heard from them again and we never will, thus proving one important thing we now know about our benevolent visitors: the Orpglorbians are imbued with a shit-ton of common sense.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“I can’t believe he kept it up this long. I mean, Bill in Portland Maine, it shocks me every day the amount of energy and stamina he has. I don’t think any of the rest of us can keep up with him, and I have no idea how he does it.”
—Melissa Francis
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