From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Just Another Week on Planet Dampnut
“President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen---known for paying hush money to his clients---revealed that he has another client: Sean Hannity. Today Hannity said, ‘I know you’re all stunned.’ Then everyone was like, ‘Not really.’”
---Jimmy Fallon
Clip of James Comey delivering what the media called a “bombshell” during his ABC interview: I don’t think [Trump] is medically unfit to be president. I think he’s morally unfit to be president.
Samantha Bee: “Morally unfit to be president?” That’s not a bombshell. That’s how they answer the phone at the White House now.
---Full Frontal
“President Trump responded to the claims in Comey’s new memoir, calling him ‘a leaker and a liar.’ Which coincidentally is also the name of the video the Russians have.”
---Colin Jost, SNL
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“Today is tax day. Some great news for Donald Trump: between the constant firings in the White House, the porn star scandal, and the Russia investigation, he was able to write off the entire year as a total loss.”
---James Corden
“My mother used to say she ‘grew up in World War II with a father named Adolf, and lived through the 70s with a husband named Nixon.’ So I am aware of the dubious nature of my last name. But if I was given the choice, I’d rather be the good Nixon than the bad Cuomo."
---Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Andrew Cuomo in the New York governor’s race, on The Late Show
And a quick reminder that the world is ending Monday, so be sure to take some time this weekend to finish up the leftovers in your fridge. You’re welcome.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 20, 2018
Note: In honor of Earth Day (Sunday), today's C&J is written with 100% recycled pixels. Please don’t ask what they're recycled from or I’ll get in trouble. Also we recommend you read tonight’s C&J while wearing a lead-lined body suit. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the special election in Arizona’s 8th District: 4
Days 'til the Oregon Ag Fest in Salem: 8
Number of state anti-LGBT laws that have been passed this year, knock on wood: 0
Percent rise in apartment construction in March: 16%
Number of countries from which 250 priests have come to attend the Vatican’s annual exorcism classes: 50
Percent chance that Slide Fire, the largest producer of bump-stocks that turn ordinary guns into machine guns, says it will cease production and shut down its web site next month: 100%
Number of books about contemporary politics that have reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list this year, according to FiveThirtyEight, representing 100% of the 2018 books that have reached the top so far this year: 4
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Nothing but trouble…
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JEERS to gun nuts going gun-nutty. The Columbine High School massacre took place on this date nineteen years ago as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold---who, yes, went bowling that morning---killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others. (If you feel so inclined, you can donate to the upkeep of the Columbine Memorial here.)
If this was any other year between 1999 and 2017, I’d express my usual pessimism about anything getting done to stop American human bodies from being used so frequently as convenient ammo receptacles. But those darn Parkland kids grabbed the NRA and its supporters by their blood-soaked lapels this year and yelled, “No more!” And, by god, this November there could be direct consequences for any politician---R or D---who fails to take their demands seriously. Among their biggest supporters is President Barack HUSSEIN Obama, who wrote an essay in tribute to Those Darn Kids in Time magazine’s “Influential People” issue, out yesterday:
[B]y bearing witness to carnage, by asking tough questions and demanding real answers, the Parkland students are shaking us out of our complacency.
The NRA’s favored candidates are starting to fear they might lose. Law-abiding gun owners are starting to speak out. As these young leaders make common cause with African Americans and Latinos---the disproportionate victims of gun violence---and reach voting age, the possibilities of meaningful change will steadily grow.
Our history is defined by the youthful push to make America more just, more compassionate, more equal under the law. This generation—of Parkland, of Dreamers, of Black Lives Matter---embraces that duty. If they make their elders uncomfortable, that’s how it should be. Our kids now show us what we’ve told them America is all about, even if we haven’t always believed it ourselves: that our future isn’t written for us, but by us.
The NRA marked today’s anniversary the usual way. By cowering in their basement.
P.S.
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CHEERS to being ready for your close-up. A little---by which I mean wee and adorable---Senate history was made yesterday when Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) brought her new daughter Maile to the floor so she could cast a vote, thanks to a new rule that permits it. Here’s the happy moment (pay no attention to Kansas fossil Pat Roberts fuming in the corner):
It reminds me of when I’d get wheeled around the supermarket strapped into a shopping cart booster seat, my tiny fingers futilely reaching out to haul in candy and snacks from the shelves, screaming and fussing when I was told I couldn’t have them. But enough about last Tuesday. The point is: progress!
CHEERS to a steady hand at the wheel. One of the easiest calls we’ve ever made regarding our Friday “who won the week” poll is on our list tonight. Tammie Jo Shults, one of the first women to fly fighter planes for the U.S. Navy, was shuttling a giant tin can full of humans from New York City to Dallas Tuesday when one of the engines decided to blow apart at nearly 32,000 feet. She regained control of the plane and diverted it safely to Philadelphia to much applause and accolades. In true hero fashion she said, “We were just doing our jobs.” That’s not how the passengers see it, though:
"The pilot was a veteran of the Navy," [passenger Kathy] Farnan told CNN. "She was very good."
When it was all over, the pilot came out of the cabin and hugged everyone, telling them, "You all did a great job. You did a very good job," passenger Amy Serafini said. […]
Passenger Alfred Tumlinson told WPVI: "She has nerves of steel. That lady, I applaud her. I'm going to send her a Christmas card, I'm going to tell you that, with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome."
The most astonishing thing about that amazingly heroic act that captured the nation’s attention: Donald Trump didn’t try to take credit for it.
CHEERS to the rapidly-decaying third planet from one of the millions of suns in the universe. Sunday is Earth Day, an event we celebrate every year to remind ourselves that we do not, in fact, have to be the biggest parasites on the third rock from the sun, we choose to be. Unlike the other parasites, we know what we're doing to this planet…and how…and why…and the kinds of things we must do to stop turning it into a ball of uninhabitable human-made garbage. As an inhabitant of this spectacular planet, I'll continue to try and treat it with the respect it deserves, mainly by following the Four Rs: "Reject, Replace, and Reduce Republicans."
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CHEERS to the Energizer Justice. Happy birthday (and many blessings on your camels) to former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who just keeps going and going and going---he's 98 today. The Ford-appointed justice’s career on the bench is dotted with so many common-sense opinions (not the least of which was his scathing dissent in 2000's Bush v. The Actual Winner), and we cannot thank him enough for staying on duty during Dubya's two terms, preventing him from appointing a third right-wing extremist following Alito and Roberts. Then there's his response to the Citizens United case:
"Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
And as recently as last month he was still making news by suggesting---calmly and rationally, if futilely---that perhaps it was time we swept the 2nd Amendment into the dustbin of history:
"A concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment. Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century."
For his birthday we sent him a very special case to review. I labeled it Dewar’s v. Liver.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here's our weekly (and hardly complete) slate of stuff that's on the tube this weekend, starting tonight with Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, who are Friday must-watches these days. Then at 10 on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti, Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA), columnist Frank Bruni, and authors Alex Wagner and Jordan Peterson.
New home video releases include---finally---Steven Spielberg’s The Post, which could only be a better newspaper-business movie if newsprint vapors wafted through your speakers in Smell-O-Vision. The baseball schedule is here (I don’t know what they’re feeding the Red Sox, but I’d like to sign up for weekly delivery, please), the basketball playoff schedule is here and the hockey playoff schedule is here. SNL is a rerun this week, so Gladys Higginbotham will take up the slack by tap dancing with sparklers on a Pilates ball whole singing the Andrews Sisters’ greatest hits on public access channel 3 from 11:30 until whenever she drops. On 60 Minutes: a 10-year video diary documenting how Alzheimer’s disease affects a woman and her husband, and a report from inside MIT’s “ideas factory.” And the big event on Sunday is the second-season premiere of HBO’s Westworld, where the old west park is being replaced with a Shogun-themed playground. And this time---[in super deep voice]---it’s personal.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
Face the Nation: ”Sensible centrist” Michael Bloomberg will blame Republicans and Democrats equally for not leading on gun control legislation, even though the sole problem is Republican obstruction. Because of course he will. Plus Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Tom Cotton (New Putin Party-AR); Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif.
This Week: TBA
CNN's State of the Union: Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Emmanuel Macron ahead of his state visit to the U.S.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 20, 2008
JEERS to quaking and waking. This morning at 4:35 the Midwest got roughed up a bit by a magnitude-5.2 earthquake (some even felt it in Florida). Also at 4:35am, little Tommy Tinkermeyer of Evansville, Indiana made a silent promise to God that he would never try masturbation a second time.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the mellowest national holiday ever. Today is 4/20 Day, and that means it’s also Ben Masel Day! Ben was a beloved Kossack (User ID 3982, joining one day before the debut of C&J), perennial attendee at our Netroots Nation conventions, and a good-trouble causer on behalf of legal pot, free speech and privacy rights whom the folks in Madison, Wisconsin will never forget. Read John Nichols’ 2012 tribute to him here. He was the template for the dogged activist, and he’d be loving the rise of the Resistance, from the Freeway Bloggers to the sit-ins in Congress during the Trumpcare votes, to the historic marches, and especially the now-rapid acceptance and legalization of the demon weed.
In his honor, we plan to twist up a fattie as we watch The Wizard of Oz with the sound turned down and replaced with Dark Side of the Moon. And miss ol’ Ben. A lot.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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