From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Treason is the Reason for the Season
“President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. Trump was pretty nervous, which makes sense, because most people are nervous when meeting their boss.”
---Jimmy Fallon
“The president of the United States today publicly sided with Russia over our own FBI on the subject of cyberattacks on our election campaign. … If you’re wondering whether Vladimir Putin has an incriminating video of Donald Trump, we now know beyond a treasonable doubt that he does.”
---Jimmy Kimmel
“I guess we’ll never know who to believe: Trump’s own intelligence agencies and his Department of Justice, or the guy who smiles like he can only orgasm when a journalist dies. What a mystery!”
---Samantha Bee
"Tickets to this year's Comic-Con sold out in about an hour. Last time something sold out that fast it was Trump in Helsinki."
---Conan O'Brien
“Former first lady Michelle Obama attended a Beyoncé and Jay-Z concert yesterday, where she danced in the front row with Beyoncé’s mother. This, according to a white woman on the phone with police.”
---Seth Meyers
One-and-a-half years of Trump down the drain as of today. Bored with all the winning yet?
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, July 20, 2018
Note: Anyone know if the religious right is still boycotting Target stores over their transgender-inclusive bathroom policies? Asking for a friend who could use a good laugh.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next full moon and lunar eclipse: 7
Days 'til the 19th annual Long Beach Crawfish Festival: 7
Favorability of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Cavanaugh, according to a new Gallup poll: 41%
Historical average approval of SCOTUS nominees going back to 1987: 49%
Amount Trump promised the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem would cost taxpayers, and what it will actually cost, respectively, according to ABCNews: $250,000 / $21 million
Number of new Girl Scout merit badges being offered, including Cybersecurity, Mechanical Engineering, and Environmental Stewardship: 30
Number of vehicles Ford is recalling due to demonic possession (or it might be a transmission issue, they’re not sure yet): 550,000
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Puppy Pic of the Day: C&J’s lab-mix Haley, snapped last week by Kossack Vacationland. Her pose gives me an idea: all Confederate Civil War statues should be replaced with statues of dogs. Since Haley is from Georgia, she would replace the traitors on Stone Mountain:
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CHEERS to a lot of dirty water under the bridge. As we wait for special counsel Robert Mueller's biggest hammers to drop on the Trump crime family, it’s worth taking a moment to look back at a significant moment that happened one year ago today. He crossed Trump’s mythical “red line” and started following the money:
The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses as well as those of his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe. …
FBI investigators and others are looking at Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings, Trump’s involvement in a controversial SoHo development with Russian associates, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008, the person said. […]
Agents are also interested in dealings with the Bank of Cyprus, where Wilbur Ross served as vice chairman before he became commerce secretary, as well as the efforts of Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and White House aide, to secure financing for some of his family’s real estate properties.
Can you even imagine the mountain of evidence they’re sitting on one year later? There’s gotta be enough sleaze under the rocks they’ve overturned to choke an army of dotards. And while that investigation continues to percolate, the trial of Trump campaign manager Paul “He’s In Huge Trouble” Manafort starts next week. Eat your Wheaties, kids. Shit’s about to start poppin’.
CHEERS to a victory for the nerds. Based strictly on his appearance, you might think that Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap is meek and harmless. And you would be wrong. He can be a force of freakin’ nature when he wants to. For example, he single-handedly took on the chairman of Trump’s “voter integrity commission” (a barely-disguised voter suppression operation that made the mistake of recruiting Dunlap as a token Democratic member because he looked so benign) and thrashed him in court. Thanks to Dunlap, you and I will soon get a glimpse at just how toxic the commission was, because he just received documents that had been withheld from him and other members:
Kristen Schulze Muszynski, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said Dunlap was notified by email from the U.S. Department of Justice that it was complying with the judge’s order. The materials were sent Wednesday, which was the deadline set by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. […]
“We will have a web-based platform on which we plan to make the materials available to the public and will issue a press release when we are ready to do so.” Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican and longtime advocate of stricter voting laws, led the commission, and both made clear that the commission would focus almost entirely on voter fraud, a problem that numerous studies and probes by administrations of both parties have shown is extremely rare.
But Republican voter panel fraud fraud? Rampant.
CHEERS to the giant leap for mankind that I got to witness with my own 5-year-old eyes. Forty-nine years ago today, at 10:56 pm eastern time, John Kennedy's vision to put a man on the Moon by decade's end was realized when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on a heavenly body not named Earth. (It almost turned tragic when they nearly landed inside a boulder-strewn crater, but quick-thinking Armstrong switched the controls to manual and guided the module to a flatter surface. Whew!)
See amazing high-res pics here. The entire world was united in awe that day---the kind of awe that our next phase of human space exploration has to match, now that the shiny shuttles have been long mothballed. My verdict so far: the SpaceX rockets look promising and are generating a real "gee whiz" factor, and we hope they (and other private companies working on their own projects) and NASA keep it up. For your enjoyment of the anniversary, this evening the C&J cafeteria is servin' up as much Tang as your tummy can hold:
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True fact: in space, nobody can hear you belch.
JEERS to Captain Oblivious. This should bring no comfort to our weary nation: yesterday Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said---out loud, mind you, in front of actual human life forms---“I haven’t seen any evidence” that Russia tried to help Trump get elected. Let’s check in via the hidden microphone we planted in her office ficus plant and see if we can find out how she could possibly say she’s seen no evidence Russia interfered in the 2016 election:
“Secretary Nielsen, would you like to see evidence that Russian election interference favored Trump?”
“Nah. I'm good.”
“Would you like to hear evidence that Russian election interference favored Trump?
“No, thanks.”
“Would you like to touch some evidence that Russian election interference favored Trump?”
“Golly, I’d love to, but I have a thing.”
“We have a scratch-and-sniff version of the evidence, ma’am.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t. I’m all duffed up, I gan’t mell a ding.”
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not sure we should’ve put someone in charge of alerting us to threats against the country whose primary skill seems to be sensory deprivation. When Bush formed the DHS he said, “oceans cannot protect us.” I think he forgot two crucial words: “from ourselves.”
CHEERS to comeuppance. File this under “May history repeat itself soon.” Forty-four years ago tomorrow, on July 21, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against Richard "Okay, I Guess I'm A Crook After All" Nixon. That same day, he was giving a speech at a private home in Bel Air, California. Let's see... He talked about the host's fine tent. He talked about the struggle between Greece and Turkey. He talked about his trip to Egypt. He talked about some old administration officials. And then he toasted his audience with a fine whine:
"You wonder sometimes, and I am often asked, you know, how do you really take the burden of the Presidency, particularly when at times it seems to be under very, very grievous assault.
Let me say, it isn't new for it to be under assault, because since the time we came into office for 5 years, we have had problems.”
“There have been people marching around the White House when we were trying to bring the war to an end, and we have withstood that, and we will withstand the problems of the future."
Dick forgot to add four crucial words: "...for 19 more days." Silly goose.
CHEERS to home vegetation. A quick roundup of some of the eyestuff that may end up on your TV this weekend. Not much tonight,although Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell will be all over the Friday news dumps, so they’re worth a looksie.
New home video releases include Dwayne Johnson’s hit Rampage (based on the video game I plunked way too many quarters into), and Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty.The baseball schedule is here. (The Red Sox will start the second half of the season by informing Detroit over the loudspeakers that “Tigers” isn’t just a river in Iraq that’s spelled almost the same! Ha Ha Ha that’ll teach ‘em!!!) On 60 Minutes: the Hubble Telescope repairman and saving rhinos. And at 10 on Showtime, Sacha Baron Cohen dupes more exalted members of the Republican elite into doing more crazy shit…which, now that I think about it is a little anti-climactic because that’s all they do anyway.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
This Week: Discussion of Trump’s Treason Tour with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and ABC News correspondent Tom Bossert.
Face the Nation: Alexandria!!! Plus former Secretary of State John Kerry; Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Parasols "Я" Us) and Little Marco Rubio (R-FL).
A.M. Joy:
CNN's State of the Union: Sen. Little Marco Rubio (R-FL).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ); Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), still reeking of baby powder after he got his butt spanked raw during the Peter Strzok hearings Ha Ha Ha.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 20, 2008
JEERS to udder insanity. Along with the Terri Schiavo saga, the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl will go down as one of the silliest "controversies" of the Bush II years. So it warms my Wheaties to see that a U.S. Court of Appeals has nixed the $550,000 fine levied against CBS and told the Republican-dominated FCC to go pound sand. So congratulations, boob, on your victory over the boobs, and thanks for the mammaries.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the best three minutes and twelve seconds of the week. It’s been another helluva ride, hasn’t it? Five days that felt like one great big awful Monday. But the republic still stands, a lot more Americans now know beyond all doubt that their president is unfit for office, and you can bet that’ll trickle down into the voting booth on November 6th. Here to put a big fat bow of mockery on the week we wish we could forget is Randy Rainbow with one of his best parodies. Half a million views so far...
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Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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