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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
This Late Night Snark Got Rejected by Harvard:
"The good news is, President Obama was born in America. The bad news is, so was Donald Trump."
---Jay Leno
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"If this [birth certificate] really is from 1961, why is there not a single mention of Ed Sullivan? He was huge! And where is the stain from the delivering doctor's martini???"
---Stephen Colbert
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"A new study found that Americans spend $1.2 trillion every year on stuff they don’t need. Or as Republicans call it: health care."
---Jimmy Fallon
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"We haven’t changed since time began. That's why it's the same stories in the Old Testament and the New York Post. Scientifically we've advanced a lot, but human nature is exactly the same. That's why nanotechnology can isolate a single strand of DNA and stop a global plague, but we still need guards at the zoo so nobody tries to jump over the fence and kick the polar bear in the balls just to be a You Tube sensation."
---Colin Quinn, from Long Story Short
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"I think these storms are God’s way of sending us a message. I think that message is that when warm humid air masses surge northward from the Gulf of Mexico and combine with a strong jet stream, it can result in severe weather conditions."
---Jimmy Kimmel
One year ago, lest we forget that blockheads walk among us:
"Rush Limbaugh said today that the oil rig could've been deliberately sabotaged by environmentalists to make oil companies look bad. That's right...a team of hippie frogmen snuck onboard an oil rig on the Gulf of Mexico and blew it up to frame the oil companies. Rush, how many pills is your maid giving you?"
---Bill Maher
And the winner for Best Unintentional Humor of the Month:
Bill Maher: The tea party is not all Republican?
Former RNC Wrecker Michael Steele: No, it's not! I don’t know the exact percentage, but it is not all Republicans.
---Real Time
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 29, 2011
Note: Three words for Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin: Emmy, Baby, Emmy!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the final Space Shuttle launch (Atlantis): 61
Days 'til the Maui Onion Festival: 8
Pounds of chocolate in the wedding cake Prince William requested: 37
Number of speaking parts in the top 100 films of 2008: 4,370
Percent of them that were, respectively, male and female roles: 67%, 33%
(Source: Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC)
Number of cabinet members in the Paul LePage administration who have resigned under a dark cloud since the Maine GOP Governor took office in January: 2 (plus his press secretary)
Rank of Scrooge McDuck on the Forbes list of wealthiest imaginary characters: #1
Rank of Jed Clampett on the list: #5
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Puppy Pic of the Day: I hope they at least gave ol' Lefty a squeaky gold watch toy.
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CHEERS to a lifelong mystery solved. Yeah, yeah, yeah…I caught the tail-end of the Royal Wedding this morning. If it's one thing the Brits know how to do, it’s shine up their armor, fluff their bearskin caps and put on a spectacular pageant. (Plus I wanted to make sure they got our wedding present: a blender with special settings for English food: "Chop," "Mince," "Puree" and "Make Edible.") And now I finally know the answer to the question, "What does the Queen sing while everyone else is singing God Save the Queen? Answer: I Have A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts. Finally...my Ph.D. in Lip Reading paid off.
JEERS to a mighty wind. When I was a kid growing up in Mount Vernon, Ohio, a tornado touched down while I was playing a little-league baseball game at Phillips Park. To this day I have dreams about that fucker comin' towards me and I can barely outrun it. Even so, I can't even imagine how thoroughly the recent spate of twisters has rattled folks down south. And I got to thinking: wouldn’t it be nice if governors and other politicians talked and acted all the time like they do during natural disasters? To paraphrase what I've been hearing the last few days:
"You've been kicked in the teeth and we're going to take care of you. We're going to pool our collective resources and do what it takes to see that you get food and water and medical care and shelter and clothing and the essentials to help you get back on your feet. We can only accomplish this through teamwork, government resources and a strong social safety net. And I promise you that, together, through redistribution of assets, we will rebuild our infrastructure so it is better than ever."
Compassionate socialism. What a concept.
CHEERS to fire and brimstone…denied. Let's check in and see how badly the training of U.S. Marines on how to serve with openly-gay members of their units is going, keeping in mind that all the right-wingers predicted---with 100 percent certainty---that there would be a "mass exodus" from our armed forces if the 'Don't ask, don’t tell' policy was lifted. I bet it's a disaster:
When he appeared this month before the House Armed Services Committee, [Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos] said he had been looking for problems that might arise under the new policy and hadn't found any "recalcitrant pushback."
"There has not been the anxiety over it from the forces in the field," he said.
No drama over the queens, eh? Golly, who could've predicted that our men and women in uniform could capably follow an order and adjust to a new policy? And what does it say about the doomsayer brass, politicians and nitwit pundits (I'm lookin' at you, ex-Marine Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council) who continually placed zero faith in them to do so? I think it says we need to adopt a new policy just for them: "Sit down, shut up."
CHEERS to exactly the right word. 159 years ago, Roget's Thesaurus was first published. And for that I am truly grateful. See also: 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. I think Roget was lonely.
JEERS to being the real victim. Just one more thought on the birth certificate hullabaloo, whose oxygen the media sucked in the way I suck helium from a balloon. I just wanna say: poor Kenya. They just found out that they're not the first country besides the United States to give birth to a President of the United States. I feel like I should send 'em flowers or something. Cheer up, Kenya---we still love ya! And the birthers will always have a totally clueless place for you in their heart. Be strong.
CHEERS to the resilience of a proud nation. Congratulations, America! You made it through your first full week without having the color-coded terror alert system in place. That's right---we're now flying this bad-boy republic without a rainbow parachute. Why was it scrapped? Because, as one former U.S. security advisor said: "Any alert system is only as good as the intelligence that goes into it." The color-coded system was dreamed up the Bush administration. I rest my case.
CHEERS to Numero Uno. 222 years ago tomorrow, on April 30, 1789, George "Honest Abe" Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States. (I love this scene re-enacting the event in the miniseries John Adams.) If the Father of Our Country was in office today, Rush Limbaugh would tear him to pieces:
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a toothless man who talks conservation but rides an oat-guzzling steed! A flip-flopper who led a war but is now opposed to war! An elitist who is adored by the 'drive-by media'! A celebrity! A profligate spender who literally throws money into the Rappahannock River! This man is a phony and I hope he fails!"
Oh, put a cork in it, bubble breeches.
CHEERS to home vegetation. My teevee has a sad tonight---with a beautiful weekend forecast for Maine, it knows we won’t be spending much cuddle time together. But here are some of the high and lowlights, anyway: Tonight on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Laura Flanders, director John Waters, "No Labels" guy Mark McKinnon, and right-wing hack Andrew Breitbart (whom Maher will give a free pass by not bringing up Shirley Sherrod, his little buddy James O'Keefe, or any of Breitbart's other scumminess---way to keep it "real," Bill). The White House Stenographers' Association Dinner, emceed by SNL's Seth Meyers, airs tomorrow night on MSNBC and C-Span. NHL and NBA playoffs continue (and continue and continue), along with major-league base-uh-ball. On 60 Minutes: Lara Logan on her assault in Egypt, and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Selma marries Fat Tony on The Simpsons. And here's your Sunday morning lineup, if you have the stomach for it:
Meet the Press: David Axelrod, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Dreamyland…er, FL), New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, VA Gov. Bob McDonnell.
This Week: Not sure yet because they wait 'til the last dog is hung before they update their web site. I hereby accuse Christiane Amanpour of slacking!
Face the Nation: Okay, Bob Schieffer, now you're just fucking with the dirty hippies. What else could explain YET ANOTHER appearance by JOHN FUCKING McCAIN??!!! Plus Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley on, presumably, tornado damage.
Washington Week: Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times on the musical chairs in the Pentagon and CIA (aka "Fuzzy Bottom"). Tom Gjelten of NPR on the Gitmo cluster-you-know-what. CNBC's John Harwood on Ben Bernanke's latest words of comfort and/or doom. And Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post on what the birth certificate issue means. (SPOILER ALERT: It means the Republican party is infested with racists who lead lives of noisy desperation.)
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Michele Bachmann. No word yet on whether or not this'll be simulcast on Comedy Central.
Happy viewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: April 29, 2006
JEERS to dropping in unannounced. Condi and Rummy snuck into Iraq for another stop on their endless Sweets and Flowers Victory Tour (only Cher's Farewell tour has lasted longer). As usual, they found the Green Zone to be so full of shopping and cultural attractions that they just lost track of time and missed the chance to venture into greater Baghdad. Maybe next time, eh, kids?
CHEERS to the new kid on the block. President Bush announced his new press secretary yesterday: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. Nah, just kidding...Tony Snow from Fox News. Just wanted to see you swoon.
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And just one more…
JEERS to Commander Codpiece. May 1 used to be such a happy date, until…until you-know-what happened: that pathetic aircraft carrier stunt, eight years ago this Sunday, by George W. Bush. One aspect of the Iraq war I never want people to forget is how the media treated the Commander-in-Chief on that day. It was surreal. Our reason for invading Iraq---namely, WMDs, aka "smoking guns" that could "come in the form of mushroom clouds"---was proving to be a total bust. Everyone marveled at our quick military victory, but the unease was palpable as the curtain slowly rose on the charade. But the pundits? They had hero worship on the brain. Looking at a handful of their comments through the prism of nearly a decade of history is like reading pulp fiction:
"Americans love having a guy as president...a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy ... Women like a guy who's president. Check it out! The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits. We don't want an indoor prime minister type, or the Danes or the Dutch or the Italians, or a Putin. Can you imagine Putin getting elected here? We want a guy as president. ...Look at this guy! ... Here's a president who's really nonverbal. He's like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform."
---Chris Matthews
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"Speaking as a woman, and listening to the women who called into my radio show, seeing President Bush get out of that plane, carrying his helmet, he is a real man. He stands by his word. That was a very powerful moment."
---Laura Ingraham
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"You know, he's in his flight suit, he's striding across the deck, and he's wearing his parachute harness, you know---and I've worn those because I parachute and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. He has just won every woman's vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn't count---they're all liars."
---G. Gordon Liddy
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"It's stunning. It's amazing. I think it's huge!"
---Ann Coulter
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Bob Schieffer: As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time. And if you're a political consultant, you can just see campaign commercial written all over the pictures of George Bush.
Joe Klein: Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day.
----Face the Nation
Yup. Sunday is "Mission Accomplished Day." And everyone above is still very employed, very rich, very famous, and Very Serious.
Have a great weekend. See ya next month! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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