From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snarksters vs. The Groper
"Donald Trump tweeted earlier today, 'It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me and I can now fight for America the way I want to.' What shackles are you talking about? The only thing that ever shackled you was the 140-character limit on Twitter. And now you’re going to fight for America? Hey buddy, you’re not Rosa Parks. You know how I know? People liked what Rosa Parks said on the bus."
---Seth Meyers
"Take a Tic-Tac and grab 'em by the pussy is the closest thing to a plan Donald Trump has described this entire election."
---Samantha Bee
"I honestly thought Donald Trump had peaked on the whack-a-doo meter. Turns out he's got another gear. How is that possible? You started your campaign accusing Mexicans of being rapists. Now you're on tape explaining how you sexually assault women. The only way it could be more hypocritical is if you said it in Spanish."
---Michael Che, SNL
“After that Access Hollywood tape came out, a number of prominent Republicans called for Trump to drop out. But now, because of the pressure from the “Trump-ublican” base, some of those who denounced him say they’re still planning to vote for him. They essentially un-un-endorsed him so as not to anger those who might vote for them. This is putting a lot of Republicans running for re-election in a tough spot. If they support him, they lose a lot of moderates, but if they don’t, they lose the rest. It’s like they found themselves in a Saw movie just before Halloween.”
---Jimmy Kimmel
Golly, we should run in and save them, said nobody. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, October 14, 2016
Note: A gaggle of Kossacks with a love of good food and a penchant for politics will be holding another legendary New England Fall Meetup next Saturday, October 22. We're gathering at The Farm Bar And Grille, located at at 57 State Street in Kittery on the ME/NH border. We'd love to see you there. To RSVP or get more info: email Kossack nhox42 at nhox42 [at] gmail.com. As a special courtesy to attendees, our idiot governor will be kept a hundred miles away to prevent you from losing your appetite.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Inauguration Day: 98
Days 'til the Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival in San Antonio: 8
Weekly unemployment claims, 8,000 under estimates and the 84th consecutive week under 300k: 246,000
Percent of white and black Americans, respectively, who approve of protests during the playing of the national anthem at sporting events, according to a Quinnipiac University poll: 30%, 74%
Percent tax the World Health Organization wants nations to put on sugary drinks to reduce consumption help deal with the epidemic of obesity and type-2 diabetes: 20-50%
Drop in Saudi Arabia's crude oil revenue this year, according to FiveThirtyEight: 68%
Ocean temperature off the coast of Portland Maine: 58°
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Archie the dog whisperer…
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CHEERS to your weekend homework. With the Trump campaign---and probably the Senate's Republican majority and maybe even the House's---swirling the drain, Democratic surrogates are fanning out across the country to promote Team D in all its reality-based, policy-rich glory. The A-listers: President Obama, who went to North Carolina and Ohio to blast the Republican leadership for aiding and abetting the takeover of the GOP by the bunker-dwelling white-supremacist paranoids…and Michelle Obama, who validated Hillary's "basket of deplorables" charge with a personal and pointed speech aimed squarely at Donald Trump and his misogynist orcs. If you haven't seen it yet, carve out 24 minutes this weekend and watch (or read) this lesson in empowerment for women and girls that contains not a single wasted word:
“This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable. And it doesn’t matter what party you belong to---Democrat, Republican, independent---no woman deserves to be treated this way. None of us deserves this kind of abuse.”
Too bad Michelle couldn’t switch places with Hillary for Wednesday night's debate. (Or…could she? That'd be a hell of an October surprise.)
CHEERS to blasting off for new frontiers. I gotta say, when President Obama announced that our space program would no longer be the sole property of government-run NASA, I was skeptical. But having seen the symbiosis between the agency and the private sector, I'm pretty comfortable with it now. And the president is getting high marks:
[I]n the past few years, the industry has begun to blossom, reinvigorating interest in space with dramatic landings of rockets on ships with other, unprecedented feats.
“Just five years ago, U.S. companies were shut out of the global commercial launch market,” Obama wrote.
“Today, thanks to groundwork laid by the men and women of NASA, they own more than a third of it. More than 1,000 companies across nearly all 50 states are working on private space initiatives.” […]
“It will become one of the great ironies in the history of exploration into space that someone many politicians called a socialist was a champion for the possibilities of capitalism in space,” said James Muncy, a space policy analyst at PoliSpace, a consulting firm. Obama “stepped in and said we're going to try public private partnerships, and it is working.”
And what have conservatives contributed to the scientific world during the Obama years? A creationism museum in Kentucky with a life-size ark (complete with the exact same kind of air conditioning unit Noah used) and free dinosaur rides with Jesus. Great time to be alive, id'nit?
CHEERS to that guy America really, really liked. Happy 126th birthday to Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower, bringer-downer of the Third Reich and our 34th president. For a Republican, he sure has a lot in common with our current and future Democratic presidents. According to author Cormac O'Brien (Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents), Eisenhower loved golf as much as Barack Obama, playing at least 150 rounds a year during his presidency. No one complained. And while the deplorables went apeshit over Hillary Clinton's brief bout of pneumonia, they say nothing about Ike’s heart attacks, his intestinal affliction known as ileitis (a cousin of Crohn's disease), and his 1957 cerebral occlusion during which he terrified wife Mamie by "stuttering a bunch of incoherent words" and then "pounding his fists in frustration at not being able to enunciate his own thoughts." Then there's this:
His domestic agenda bore a striking resemblance to those of his Democratic predecessors.
He expanded Social Security and spent lavishly on public works projects such as the interstate highway system. Though mostly silent on issues of race, he intervened forcefully to support the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas [and signed into law the first civil rights bill in 82 years].
He was also just as disgusted as Harry Truman had been by Senator Joe McCarthy's rabid anticommunism rabble-rousing.
He also had harsh words for our out-of-control military-industrial complex. Pay your respects here. And, for old time's sake: Sieg heil! [Thpppttt!] Heil! [Thpppttt!] right in der Fuhrer's face.
JEERS to our idiot governor. After hating everybody and their mother in a spittle-flinging press event Wednesday, Maine Governor and Trump cheerleader Paul LePage was asked to name one policy of Trump's that he liked. Just one.
It could be a big one or a small one, a simple one or a complex one, but in any case just name one Trump policy that he likes. The response:
When pressed about which Trump policies he liked best, LePage responded, “I don’t know enough about them."
That's right, America. Vote for Trump. The mystery meat candidate. Yum yum.
JEERS to America's #1 pubic-hair-on-Coke-cans expert. Twenty-five years ago tomorrow, in 1991, Clarence Thomas was confirmed by the Senate 52 to 48, making him the Supreme Court's first justice with a neatly-catalogued porn collection (#1 on his list: The Adventures of Bad Mama Jama). Today he sits on his fat ass all day, an aging, bitter, overweight pervert who hollers at the world the way Grampa Simpson hollers at clouds. Oh my god---that makes him my soulmate.
CHEERS to Great Moments in Vacating. Speaking of rubes in robes, Alabama's former state Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore suffered one final indignity two weeks after getting booted by a disciplinary panel for defying his superiors on the federal bench over the Obergefell same-sex marriage ruling: he was told to clean out his office, turn in his keys, and get the hell out. Then they removed his name from the court's official letterhead. Unless he decides to run for governor, Moore will spend his days in his underwear watching reruns of The 700 Club at full volume while chugging cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and having imaginary conversations with Jesus. Oh, you bet your ass he's running for governor, said Mrs. Moore.
CHEERS to home vegetation. A quick rundown of what might be viewed on the C&J tube this weekend. After Chris Hayes at 8 and Rachel Maddow at 9, HBO's Real Time features former Sen. Bob Kerrey, Rebecca Traister, Andrew Sullivan, Ann Coulter and Bernie!!! New DVD/streaming releases include the Ghostbusters reboot and Bryan Cranston in The Infiltrator. Emily Blunt hosts SNL with musical guest Bruno Mars. The baseball schedule is here (count me all-in for the Cubs, who won the World Series 108 years ago today, now that the Red Sox have flamed out), the NHL schedule is here, and the football schedule is here. Sunday night brings with it the 600th episode of The Simpsons, which also happens to be their 27th annual Treehouse of Horror Halloween special. Then, as seems to be a Sunday ritual now, HBO gets my eyeballs, thanks to the intriguing new series Westworld and John Oliver's always-dependable Last Week Tonight.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sitting VIce President Uncle Joe Biden! On the roundtable: Joy Reid.
This Week: The next Vice President Tim Kaine; Mike Pence denies he ever said he was Mike Pence.
Face the Nation: Mike Pence’s interview goes off the rails when he answers a five-year-old’s question about his favorite candy with “Terrorists are coming to kill us all and there’s nothing we can do about it, not any of us.” Antonio Salvato has battleground poll numbers. Maureen Dowd is on a panel discussion so skip this show.
CNN's State of the Union: Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) plays coy when Jake Tapper asks why she has a gavel in her purse: “Oops! How did that get in there?” On the roundtable panel: Paul Begala.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: In an epic act of naval gazing, substitute host Bret Baier talks with regular host Chris Wallace. (Okay, okay, it’s about his hosting duties on Wednesday’s debate #3, but still...); Mike Pence defends Donald Trump...then doesn’t...then does...then doesn’t...then rushes out when he realizes he double-parked his panzer in a red zone.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 14, 2006
JEERS to overstaying our welcome. News yesterday that 120,000 of our troops will be in Iraq until at least 2010. Because, y'know, why pull up the stakes when you're just getting comfy?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to good advice. Possibly the cutest story in American politics. A hundred and fifty-six years ago, on October 15, 1860, an eleven year-old girl named Grace Bedell put quill to parchment and suggested to candidate Abraham Lincoln that he might win the election more easily if he dropped the innocent boy-next-door look and whiskered up:
I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can.
As they say, the rest is history. By the way, during his presidency---you can look it up---Lincoln went through exactly four score and seven beard combs. Eerie.
P.S. Bedell's letter reminds me that not a single woman was legally able to cast a vote for Lincoln, or any candidate, until Harding in 1920. America: land of the free, home of the pokey.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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