Tuesday Morning Carlin Blogging
Raise a glass of whatever ya got handy and wish a Happy Birthday to the late George Carlin, who would've been 83 today. He spent many a glorious decade dissecting language, culture, politics and human nature, wielding a comedic scalpel and jackhammer with equal dexterity. All the reason we need to take a moment to revisit a smidgen of the Carlin moments that made him Carlin, starting with this, which the pandemic seems to be verifying in spades:
“Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn—they will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.”
Continued...
Carlin Continued…
"If you look around carefully the next time you go out, you'll notice that there are some really fucked-up-looking people walking around."
”After every horror, we’re told, ‘Now the healing can begin.’ No. There is no healing. Just a short pause before the next horror.”
”I choose toilet paper through a process of elimination.”
“No comment” is a comment.
“Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?”
And from his “Rules to Live By” in Brain Droppings, that must’ve
been memorized by Donald Trump 23 years ago:
7. Don’t buy into the sentimental notion that everyone has shortcomings; it’s the surest way of undermining yourself. Remember, the really best people have no defects. If you’re not perfect, something is wrong.
10. Never give up on an idea simply because it is bad and doesn’t work. Cling to it even when it is hopeless. Anyone can cut and run, but it takes a very special person to stay with something that doesn’t work.
14. Beware of the dangerous trap of looking ahead; it will only get you into trouble. Instead, try to drift along from day to day in a meandering fashion. Don’t get sidetracked by some foolish “plan.”
15. Finally, enjoy yourself all the time, and do whatever you want. Don’t be seduced by that mindless chatter going around about “responsibility.” That’s exactly the sort of thing that can ruin your life.
Here endeth the lesson. Happy birthday, George. And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Note: Now that we're all publicly gathered here, I'd like to start with our customary prayer: "O Lord, please give us the strength and wisdom to abolish opening prayers at public gatherings on account of they're really obnoxious. Amen." And Amen.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Memorial Day: 13
Payment level of rent for May 2020 compared to May 2019, according to NMHC analysts: 98.1%
Secret Service employees who have been infected with coronavirus, according to the Department of Homeland Security: 34
Percent of U.S. adults who believe global warming is caused mostly by human activity, versus 24% who believe it's caused by natural patterns, according to a CBS News poll: 60%
Number of states that ban marriage under 18, with Pennsylvania becoming the latest along with Delaware and New Jersey: 3
Number of Little Richard songs ("Tutti Frutti", "Lucille" and "Long Tall Sally") inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame: 3
Year he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the first group inducted: 1986
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Spotty wins…or else.
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JEERS to justice at the speed of molasses. After months (and months) of dithering and delay, Trump's tax returns finally go before the Supreme Court today. At issue: can Congress force the president—or in this case the president's banks and accounting firms—to turn over documents as part of its oversight duties? Trump's defenders say he's immune from everything (although the coronavirus might eventually disagree) so shut up shut up shut up! Thus far, that's not how the legal system has seen it, writes FiveThirtyEight:
[T]hree trial court judges and three federal appeals court panels have all rejected those arguments, ruling that the banks and Trump’s accounting firm do in fact have to comply with the subpoenas. In the [Stormy Daniels/Karen McDougal hush money] case involving the New York City prosecutors, a district court judge wrote that the idea that a president couldn’t be touched by a criminal investigation was “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.”
Two appeals courts, meanwhile, ruled that the subpoenas did fall squarely under Congress’s oversight authority.
Conservative constitutional lawyer Mr. Kellyanne Conway, meanwhile, penned an opinion piece in The Washington Post in which he insists that "the subpoenaed documents have nothing to do with Trump’s presidential duties—zip. That alone does it." and "the Constitution is concerned with protecting the presidency, not the person who happens to be the president. That’s because no one in this country is above the law." So how will we know if things are going one way or the other during today's tele-conference arguments? Just guessing here, but if you hear a telltale flush it may mean Trump's in deep doo-doo.
CHEERS to the dumb bastards who walk among us. I love this analogy. The German version of The Daily Show demonstrates the effect of the dummkopf brigade of right-wing protesters who believe Grandma should die of Covid-19 so that her bratty descendants can get their hair done. Top pic: “Elaborate coronavirus measures, weeks 1-8.” Bottom pic: “Demonstrators gathering by the thousands”:
I kinda wish we spoke German over here. The cuss words sound better.
CHEERS to Moscow Mitch's worst nightmare. The Senate Majority Leader and his wrecking crew will not be pleased to read that democracy may return to the upper chamber in January:
The 2020 election is less than six months away, and in recent weeks the battle for the Senate seems to have tilted in the Democrats' favor, according to polls and campaign analysts. […]
The movement has been fairly clear, and it could be significant in the fight for control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-to-47 edge.
Back on Feb. 5, when there wasn't yet a single reported case of COVID-19 in the United States, the Cook Political Report listed three Republican Senate seats as"tossups" and three more as "lean Republican." By the end of April, that had shifted to four Republicans in "tossup" races and four more in "lean Republican" races. (The Democratic seat ratings didn't move in that time.) … [T]he number of endangered Senate Republicans [has moved] from six to eight in a body where a three-seat swing could mean the loss of a majority, depending on what happens with the White House.
I think we all know what happens with the White House next year. Fumigating. Lots and lots of fumigating.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to today's edition of Preemptive Thoughts and Prayers. If you believe the papers, Trump's reelection hinges on a shiny happy economy. So I don't want to be in the room when he throws whatever he can find at Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin for this unforgivable act of opening mouth and saying something honest while Republican:
The Labor Department reported this week that the unemployment rate has hit a record 14.7%, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that the actual rate could be closer to 25%. The latter figure would match the joblessness rate during the Great Depression, which is estimated to have peaked at 24.9% in 1933.
“Aren’t we talking close to 25% at this point, which is Great Depression neighborhood?” Wallace asked.
“Chris, we could be,” Mnuchin said.
According to court documents, once the president has Mnuchin murdered, the secretary’s estate will go to his wife, Mrs. Mnuchin, including all the gold he stole from Fort Knox. Funeral services won't be held because nobody liked him.
CHEERS to the "Mad" Father of Broadcasting. 112 years ago today, Wireless Broadcasting was patented (#887,357) by Kentucky farmer Nathan B. Stubblefield. It looked something like this. They called the early years of radio "golden" for a reason. Limbaugh hadn't signed on yet.
CHEERS to the crack of the bats. It's all tentative at this point, but with the unofficial start of summer just 10 days away, the nation's greatest minds are piecing together what a 2020 major league baseball season—besides taking place in empty stadiums—might look like:
It'll take some time—there will be proposals and counter-proposals and counter-counter-proposals, and maybe some animosity as well—but the process will begin soon. … Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported several general parameters on Saturday. Here are the nuts and bolts:
» A truncated season of 80 or so games beginning in early July. Teams would only face division rivals and the same geographic division in the other league to keep games regional.
» Teams would open the season in as many home parks as possible. That will cut down on travel and allow players and personnel to easily isolate at home with their families.
» An expanded postseason format would send seven teams to the playoffs per league.
And this just in: there will be "no spitting of sunflower seeds or chewing tobacco permitted." I dunno. That sounds like a deal-breaker to me.
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 12, 2010
CHEERS to everything you need to know about corporate America...in one itty bitty sentence:
An effort in Congress to spend tens of billions of dollars to fix the nation’s aging water systems is facing stiff opposition from soda and bottled water companies, which are major beneficiaries of publicly owned supplies but are fighting a proposal to tax them to pay for the upgrades.
That's goin' up on the fridge.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to merry meetups. I'm grateful for many things in life. The top 5, in order: my partner Michael, ice cream, municipal drainage systems, the fez, and this week in 1969. That's when John Cleese and Graham Chapman (RIP) met Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones (RIP), and Michael Palin, and began plotting their collective assault on British stiff-upper lippyness, which debuted a few months later as Monty Python's Flying Circus. For your viewing pleasure:
Ministry of Silly Walks
The Dead Parrot Sketch
Upper Class Twit of the Year
And…Spam!
(Coincidentally, trademarked by Hormel on this date in 1937.)
Later, in The Meaning of Life, they were positively prescient about the way the financial collapse of ‘08 would play out. P.S. "Ni!"
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"Cheers and Jeers offers a refuge of idealism and intellectuality in an age that's actively hostile to both of those qualities."
—Chuck Bowen, Slant magazine
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