From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
One Month After Bob Woodward's Book Comes Out:
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT
President's Meeting with His Cabinet
October 11, 2018 1:15pm
THE PRESIDENT: If you in the fake media---I call you fake media because you're fake media and everybody knows it---could settle down, we can get this cabinet meeting started.
I'm sure you're familiar with my cabinet, by the way, but there have been a few recent changes, so I'd like to introduce them: this is Secretary of State Stephen Miller, Secretary of Education Stephen Miller, HUD director Stephen Miller and Secretary of the Treasury Stephen Miller, who is also Secretary of Commerce, Defense, Agriculture, Housing, HHS, Labor, Homeland Security, Interior and Transportation.
Of course, Vice President Pence is here…great guy, great guy. All the people are saying he’s so great. Great, great man, Mike Pence. Maybe the greatest. It’d be very close to decide who the real greatest is, Mike Pence or Mohammad Ali. I’m not saying Ali being black would tip it in favor of Mike Pence, maybe a little bit, but many people are saying Ali would come in a very close second to Mike Pence in terms of who’s the greatest. It is what it is, you can’t change it.
Also here is Attorney General Jeff Sessions, you backwater, h’yuck h’yuck-drawlin' dumb traitor southerner yokel who couldn’t be a one-man country lawyer down there in Pawpatch County or wherever the hell you non-Harvard-educated hillbillies come from. You’re a disgrace, you’re a disgrace. I should've fired you by now. Total disgrace. November 7th you’re gone.
IVANKA TRUMP: Daddy, how did you get out of your bedroom? Daddy needs to tell adviser Ivanka first before daddy wanders, remember?
THE PRESIDENT: You’re hot. You’re very, very hot. Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade totally agree on the hotness. They’re doing such a fine job at CIA.
IVANKA TRUMP: This meeting's over. Everyone out. Out! Jared, you get his hands, I'll get his feet. Lift!
JARED KUSHNER: But Schnookie, you know I have an unpredictable oscillating rotator cuff. Why can’t the help do it?
IVANKA: They all quit! Now lift Daddy’s carcass or you're gonna have a lot more to worry about than your rotator STEPHEN SHUT THE DOOR!
Doors closed
End of meeting
All normal. All perfectly normal.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Note: Just a quick heads-up that tomorrow morning I'll be posting and dashing so I can hit a trifecta of sorts down at Mercy Hospital. (Yeah---here we go again.) Last week we underwent a couple of CT scans, and it turns out there's not only a cancer in the Oval Office, but also some in my stomach. Apparently last year's colon cancer jumped the tracks, so I'll be huddling up with my oncologist and my surgeon to chart the course ahead, followed by another iron infusion on account of vandals keep sneaking in at night and ransacking me of the precious metal so they can melt it down and sell it on the black market. So we'll give you an update on Friday and hopefully the ordeal won’t be too disruptive to C&J posting this fall. Thanks for your patience. ---The Patient
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Fighting Bob Fest (“the largest outdoor gathering of progressives in the country”)---named after The Progressive founder “Fighting Bob” La Follette---in Madison, Wisconsin: 10
Days 'til the New Jersey Taco Festival at the Sussex County Fairgrounds: 3
Percent of women in a CNN poll who believe Judge Brett Kavanaugh should and should not, respectively, be confirmed: 28%, 46%
Percent of U.S.funds that will be cut by Trump for a U.N. aid program for Palestinian refugees: 100%
Size of the lead Democrats have in generic midterm match-ups against Republicans in FiveThirtyEight's aggregate of polls: 10.5 points
Cost of the American flag purchased at Sears that was planted on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: $5.50
Percent chance that experts believe extreme temperatures, ultraviolet radiation and micrometeorites have probably disintegrated the flag entirely: 100%
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 181 (including 3 occults and 1 surfboarding-injury spell cast by Hillary Clinton). Soul Protection Factor 18 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Whoa!!!
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CHEERS to starting off with a bang. The midterm elections are---[checks watch]---62 days away. If conventional wisdom holds true (I doubt it does in this era of one-hour news cycles), people are now finally paying attention because Labor Day has come and gone. And if they're paying attention, this is what they woke up to on the first morning of attention paying time:
A strong majority of voters favor a Democrat over a Republican in their district races, a potentially damaging sign for President Donald Trump and the GOP ahead of the fall’s critical midterm elections, according to the results of a new poll released Tuesday.
Fifty-two percent of registered voters said they would pick a Democrat over a Republican, with only 38 percent selecting the GOP, the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll showed. […]
Democrats improved their standing with the general public by four points, based on the same poll’s results in April.
Even worse for the Trump Party: independents break for Democrats by a potentially GOP-destroying 18 points. It's almost like those independents are sending a message. Like they're making a…a declaration of sorts. A declaration of…oh what's the word?
CHEERS to a gathering of unwashed hippie rabble with appetites. Ah-oo-gah! Meetup Alert! A pair of special Kossack guests---ColoTim and Mrs. ColoTim---are traveling all the way from, oh take a guess, to visit New England, and that's all the excuse we need to gather for a meetup on Sunday, October 14th at 2pm. This one's happening right down on the Portland waterfront at the legendary DiMillo's Floating Restaurant. (Yes, it's a converted ferry and it’s very cool.) To RSVP or get more info, email Kossack nhox42 at nhox42[at]gmail.com. In addition to eating and drinking and toasting our visitors from the Wild Wild West, we'll do our usual plotting galactic domination around a giant map of the universe, so be sure to practice your "Bwoo ha ha's."
JEERS to dog and phony shows. The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh got underway yesterday in the Republican-led Let's Steamroll This Through Our Committee Committee. Here’s the Cliffs Notes summary:
Democrats fussed and fumed (rightly so), Republicans fired back, protesters protested, a Trump staffer sitting behind Kavanaugh kept flashing the white power sign, Republican viewers at home said the outcome of the eventual vote would affect their vote on November 6th, but a lot more Democratic viewers at home said the outcome of the eventual vote would affect their vote on November 6th, and several bystanders were treated for minor contusions after getting beaned by Ted Cruz's flying tonsil cheese. Meanwhile, when he wasn’t turning his back on the father of a Stoneman Douglas massacre victim, the nominee sat there, sipping water, scribbling irrelevant notes, and measuring the drapes in his head. It'll be interesting to see the look on Republicans' faces when Democrats unexpectedly take back the Senate next January, Clarence Thomas suffers a fatal heart attack while watching porn in early 2020, Trump's nominee gets bottled up until January 20, 2021, when Team D nominates and confirms the first black transgender atheist environmental activist woman to the bench. Just call me Time Travel Billeh.
P.S. Business as usual...
CHEERS to the bestest convention evuh! On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress assembled at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia:
It was held because the colonists were very upset about the Intolerable Acts and the taxes. The Intolerable Acts were punishments that King George III put on the colonies. He put them on so the colonists would feel sorry about dumping tea into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party.
Of course, the opposite happened. We got royally pissed, revolted, formed our own country, and then thrived and prospered until we started coming apart at the seams thanks to the efforts of...the Tea Party. George, you sneaky bastard.
JEERS to a cold war in cold space. Wow---what a great piece of Tom Clancy fiction: a tiny hole is found in the wall of a Russian shuttle pod docked at the International Space Station, and at first is deemed the result a microscopic "meteorite." But wait! Turns out it's not a "meteorite" at all, but a human-created "drill hole." And that could mean that someone on the space station is a saboteur and must be found immediately before he can vaporize the earth with his secret "ray gun." Except this ain't fiction:
"There were several attempts at drilling," [Russian Space agency chief Dmitry] Rogozin said late Monday in televised comments. He added that the drill appeared to have been held by a "wavering hand." […]
A commission will seek to identify the culprit by name, Rogozin said, calling this a "matter of honour" for Russia's Energiya space manufacturing company that made the Soyuz. […]
"If a cosmonaut pulled this strange stunt---and that can't ruled out---it's really bad," said [Maxim Surayev of President Vladimir Putin's ruling party], who spent two stints on the ISS. "I wish to God that this is a production defect, although that's very sad, too---there's been nothing like this in the history of Soyuz ships."
I never thought I'd say this, but…what is taking Space Force so long??!!!
CHEERS to winning a war on terrorism. On September 5, 1996, Muslim extremist Ramzi Yousef and two other thugs who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (and planned to blow up some U.S. airliners), were sent to tiny, windowless cells for the rest of eternity. But...but...how could that be? I mean, using law-enforcement to crack the case and arrest the evildoers instead of using bunker busters and declaring World War III and opening a gulag at Gitmo for enemy combatants? I gotta lie down...this is blowing my tiny chickenhawk mind.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 5, 2008
CHEERS to the brawl in St. Paul! The Republicans did what they needed to do this week at their convention: gather one last time for a few days of lying, denying, and fearifying before they get clobbered in two months. The spectacle ended last night with John McCain mumbling, and then SHOUTING, from the lawn of...um...a middle school. Sadly, I guess that means Obama can write off the support of that crucial voting bloc of 12-14 year olds.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to C&J Theater. Here's my latest play…in one act. Based on a true story:
Curtain Up
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Setting: a conference room at The New Yorker. Editor Ravid Demnick is addressing organizers on the status of the upcoming New Yorker Festival
DEMNICK
Ladies and germs, I am SO excited to tell you about the latest guest we've booked for the festival. I can't tell you how hard we worked to get this guy to sit down for an interview. We worked on it for months! Day after grueling day, coordinating schedules and topics and accommodations and…oh my god it was such a tough slog, but we did it! And that's why I'm proud to announce that our keynote interview at this year's New Yorker Festival will be…
ENTIRE STAFF
Leans in the direction of DEMNICK, wide eyed
DEMNICK
Father of the modern goosestep movement Steve Bannon!
ENTIRE STAFF
Audibly gasps in unison
DEMNICK
In fact, moments ago I informed the world via Twitter, and looking at the response I can definitely tell you that…
DEMNICK
[Looks down at smartphone, scrolls for a few moments]
DEMNICK
Steve Bannon will not be attending the New Yorker Festival this year. Or any year.
EDITOR #1
Looks like you really stepped in it, boss.
EDITOR #2
More like you really "goosestepped" in it!
ENTIRE STAFF
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!
DEMNICK
[Throws hands up in the air]
Oy!
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Curtain Down as laughter continues
Usual drill: just leave my Tony Award on the back stoop next to the milk bottles.
Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS to Ayanna Presley, who won her congressional primary last night in Massachusetts’ 7th District. Another woman of color is on her way to Congress in January. Awesome. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Brach's Candy Corn has chosen Bill in Portland Maine to be the face of their “Just Eat It” campaign for the slogan’s 30th anniversary.
---Mediaite
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