From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Back Open Edition
“All I want to know is, since the government shut down do we still have to pay taxes for the whole year? Do we get pro-rated or something? When my cable shut down Comcast gave me free HBO for a month. I feel like the government owes us, like, an eagle or an apple pie or something.”
---Michael Che
“Why is shutting down our entire government even an option? America’s been around for 240 years---maybe it’s time we just buy our government instead of leasing it month to month. Even production on House of Cards didn’t shut down after the main guy was accused of being a predator---if a fake government can keep going, so can we. Also, in that fake government they got rid of the sexual predator president and got a female president instead. So, just something to think about.”
---Colin Jost
“Following reports that President Trump carried on an affair with a porn star shortly after the birth of his youngest son, the head of the conservative Family Research Council said in a new interview that Trump deserves a ‘do-over.’ OK, but I doubt she’d still be into it.”
---Seth Meyers
“Donald pulled out all the stops to make sure their date was romantic. When she arrived he was in sweatpants and they ended up eating in his hotel room. Sweatpants? Eating in the bedroom? Even back then he was preparing for the presidency.”
---Stephen Colbert
“Saturday was the second annual Women’s March, and thousands of women held signs protesting the president. But Trump was like, ‘Joke’s on you---I can’t read.’”
---Jimmy Fallon
“Sleepy Eyed Mussolini…Human ‘left swipe’…The little alien that laughed at all of Jabba the Hutt’s jokes…Human You Tube comment…Richard III as told by reddit…Inspiration for the invention of panic rooms...”
---Euphemisms for White House senior Nazi adviser Stephen Miller by the staff at Full Frontal (See full list here)
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, January 26, 2018
Note: Sunday is Data Privacy Day. Or as hackers call it: "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!” Day.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Winter Olympics in South Korea: 14
Days 'til the Brewbies Festival in Oceanside, California: 15
Cost to America because of the drop in tourism here since Trump took office: $4.6 billion
Percent of voters who want the Democratic party and Republican party, respectively, to win control of the House in November, according to a new Quinnipiac poll: 51-38
Percent who say they want Ds and Rs, respectively, to win control of the Senate: 53-39
Percent of Americans polled by NBC News and Survey Monkey who believe Trump showed leadership during the government shutdown: 37%
Tons of corn that spilled into a road in New Carlisle, Ohio when a silo at the Miami Valley Feed & Grain Company collapsed: 10,000
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Puppy Pic of the Day: With bonus mom…
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CHEERS to tightening the screws, turning up the heat, and ratcheting up the pressure. Every news network had to jettison their pre-planned segments last night and go into “wing it” mode when news broke that the most clueless human being ever to work inside the federal government---yes, our dear president---tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller last June,which is a really big no-no and essentially an admission of guilt. His effort failed, and Mueller’s investigation has been moving forward at a snail’s pace in the seven months since. Oops, did I say snail’s pace? I meant at the speed of runaway freight train:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is moving at a far faster pace than previously known and appears to be wrapping up at least one key part of his investigation---whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Mueller has quietly moved closer to those around Trump by interviewing Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former FBI Director James Comey in recent weeks, officials said. […]
Next,Mueller is expected to schedule an interview with Trump in coming weeks to discuss those events, according to a person familiar with the matter. “I’m looking forward to it,” Trump said of a meeting with Mueller, which he suggested may happen in about two to three weeks.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers are preparing for his interview with Mueller by assembling relevant documents, buttoning down timelines, briefing their client, and sharpening their harakiri swords.
P.S.
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JEERS to Germany's great shame. Tomorrow is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, coinciding with the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz and Birkenau Nazi death camps. With memories of World War II rapidly fading, it’s good to see that the most infamous scene of the crime is educating and warning more people than ever:
Some 2.1 million people [including 183,000 Americans] visited the site of the former Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz in southern Poland in 2017. This is almost 50,000 more than in 2016, the first year when the number of visitors broke two million.
According to a spokesman for the Auschwitz Museum, more than 80 percent of visitors took advantage of the assistance of the museum’s 300 guides and educators who speak almost 20 twenty languages. The internet played an increasingly important role in the activities of the Auschwitz Museum. The site www.auschwitz.org had over 33 million hits last year.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as non-Jewish Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities, perished at Auschwitz during World War Two.
We'll mark the occasion as we always do---by not joking about it.
CHEERS to the good times. On January 27, 1998, Democratic President Bill Clinton told the nation during his State of the Union address that the federal government would have a balanced budget in 1999...the first in 30 years. And then he callously left his Republican successor the back-breaking task of screwing it all up. And then his Democratic successor cleaned it all up. And now his Republican successor is screwing it all up. I'm sensing a pattern here.
CHEERS to saying “Ahhhh, fuck it.” I don’t know if he was on a bender or he simply snapped, but kudos to this member of the God Squad over in the land of the shirtless Satan for preaching truth to power:
A Russian Orthodox bishop has said that he wouldn't vote for President Vladimir Putin in March's election---an unprecedented show of dissent by a high-ranking clergyman in the church whose hierarchs have maintained warm ties with the Kremlin.
Bishop Yevtikhiy of Ishim in Siberia said on social networks site VKontakte that he wouldn't "vote for darkness" himself and wouldn't advise others to do so.
When asked if he was worried that Putin might retaliate, Yevtikhiy responded: “You did see the part where I already live in Siberia, right?”
JEERS to today’s edition of What a Shitbag:
The first glimpse of the first lady [over the long MLK, Jr. holiday weekend] came when she boarded Air Force One to return to Washington from Florida on Monday, January 15, walking up the stairs to the aircraft in blustery wind and rain, behind her husband, who carried an umbrella, but did not offer it to his wife.
This has been today’s edition of What A Shitbag.
CHEERS to the first ringy-dingy. On Sunday’s date in 1878, the commercial telephone switchboard made its national debut in New Haven, Connecticut. The first callers demanded to speak with Amanda Hugginkiss, I.P. Freely and Seymour Butz. We hear the first operator lasted a whole five minutes.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Yay, TV time! I expect the prime time lineup at MSNBC---Hayes, Maddow & O’Donnell---will be must-see tonight as the Trump-Mueller bombshell continues to unfold. At 10 on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Roger McNamee, Zooey Deschanel, Michelle Goldberg, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), & Never-Trumper Rick Wilson.
New home video releases include the disaster flick Geostorm and the latest chapter in the sadistic Jigsaw saga. The basketball schedule is here and the hockey schedule is here. (No more NFL games this season, with only the Super Bowl left. But that’s fine with me because that means only 28 days ‘til baseball spring training!!!) This weekend’s must-see event airs tomorrow night at 10 on TBS: in response to Trump’s “shithole” comment, Conan O’Brien travels to Haiti and lets its citizens let loose on Lord Dampnut. Then, at 11:30, cowbell will fill the air as Will Ferrell hosts SNL. On 60 Minutes: The leaning tower of San Francisco. And Sunday night on CBS, the Grammy Awards will just load all the statuettes into a Ryder truck and deliver them all to John Williams’ house.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV); former defense secretary Bob Gates; Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D-CA).
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Bernie! Plus: Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL); White House Legislative Director Marc Short; Reps. Will Hurd (R-TX) and Pete Aguilar (D-CA) talk about immigration.
CNN's State of the Union: Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Disgraced Rep. Trey Gowdy’s fauxhawk wears a bag on its head to avoid being seen with him.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 26, 2008
CHEERS to brilliant deduction. Experts have finished their investigation into what caused the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis to collapse last August. Their conclusion: there was something wrong with it. It's like they have a sixth sense for these things.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the land down under. Hit it...
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Happy Australia Day 2018. But if you come near me with anything resembling vegemite, I'm calling in Seal Team 6.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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