From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Ferretface Has Left the Building Edition
"Bill O'Reilly has been fired by Fox News. … Fox issued an official statement on O'Reilly's dismissal, saying: 'By ratings standards, Bill O'Reilly is one of the most accomplished TV personalities in the history of cable news.' By rating standards, he is. By moral standards, he was a self-righteous landfill of angry garbage."
---Stephen Colbert
"This week our military dropped the 'mother of all bombs' in Afghanistan. The bomb costs 16 million dollars and reportedly took out 94 members of ISIS, which doesn't sound that efficient. But remember: Fox News spent 13 million just to get rid of five women."
---Colin Jost, SNL
"Today at the White House Easter festivities, Melania Trump kicked things off by blowing a whistle. Then again, most women standing near Donald Trump end up having to blow a whistle."
---Conan O'Brien
"President Trump: two words that give you a sense of impending doom. Like 'sewage enema' or 'United Airlines.'"
---John Oliver
"Yeah, I know they're not really called 'holocaust centers.' Duh! I know that! I'm aware! I clearly meant to say 'concentration clubs.' Okay???"
---Sean Spicer (aka Melissa McCarthy) on SNL
"I feel like it’s important for every American to watch CNN for five minutes a day, because it'll give them a good idea of what it's gonna be like when they have a stroke."
---Lewis Black on The Late Show
Tonight’s column is dedicated to the proud peoples of Hawaii, for bravely enduring all those rabies shots after getting bit on the ankle by Jeff Sessions. Stay strong.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 21, 2017
Note: Hey! Who wants to go to my second session of chemo Monday morning in my place so I can post C&J? You get to enjoy the drip-drip-drip of a cool, refreshing Folfox-fluorouracil, Oxaliplatin, and Leucovorin cocktail (Tabasco sauce optional), received from the comfort of one of Mercy Hospital's finest faux-leather barcaloungers. As a bonus, for lunch you get your choice of tomato bisque, chicken dumpling soup, or the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen, believe me. So…anybody? Anybody at all? [Sigh] Okay, then, here's the schedule: next week will be a Wednesday through Friday thing. As promised, the missing columns will be added on the back end free of charge and, as I mentioned yesterday to the morning C&J peeps, you'll all receive a free coupon good for one epidural to numb the body part of your choice. Thanks for your patience. ---The Patient
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By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the start of the Memorial Day weekend: 5
Days 'til the Oregon Ag Fest in Salem: 8
Percent of Americans who believe marijuana should be legal for any purpose, an all-time "high" according to a CBS News poll: 61%
Percent who believe Jeff Sessions should keep his stinking paws off of state laws that have legalized pot: 71%
Amount by which the global temperature for the first three months of 2017 was above normal, according to NOAA: 1.8F
Age of Min Bahadur Sherchan, the Nepali who plans to become the oldest man to climb Mount Everest as way to spread a message of peace: 85
Minimum number of people who tuned in to the Animal Adventure Park's You Tube livestream for the birth of April the giraffe's baby boy last weekend: 1.2 million
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Ha ha! We can see your pee pee parts!
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CHEERS to fresh Kenyan Colonialist sightings. Well, not so much a sighting as much as a “hearing.” But hallelujah, it’s Barack Obama his own damn self, surfacing to call French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron for a pep talk as he faces down the fascist Trump wannabe Cruella LePen:
Yay, we can say this again: “Thanks, Obama.”
CHEERS to nerds in Nikes. In the words of one lab-coated experimenter: “You know you’re in trouble when scientists take to the streets.” And take to the streets they will tomorrow (Earth Day!) for this weekend's long-planned and eagerly-anticipated March for Science. Expect to see crowds that are at least as big as last weekend's Tax Day events---and there are a ton of them all over the place. You can read the goals of the march here, and find out where the nearest march is near you. It'll be another emphatic grassroots middle finger salute to the Trump administration and its war on measurable facts and reason. Remember: if you plan to march for science this weekend, wear sensible shoes, stay hydrated, and bring your pithy protest signs but please leave the space-time vortex modulators in the car.
CHEERS to the Royal Birthday Gal. Now playing on her iPod:
Happy Birthday to Ye, Happy Birthday to Ye, Happy Birthday, Dear Mum, Ma'am, Your Highness Queen Elizabeth II, Happy Birthday to Ye!
I was a little busy today, so I paid some codger at Piccadilly Circus to go over and spank her 91 times. May he rest in peace.
JEERS to reason #32,907 why the deep south gets a bad rap. America's new Confederattorney General, Jeff Sessions, opened his lipless catfish mouth yesterday and twanged out some premium derp that even has his home state of Alabama facepalming today:
Sessions expressed skepticism that a federal judge who serves in Hawaii had the power to block President Donald Trump’s retooled travel ban, which has been stuck in the courts since last month.
“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” Sessions told “The Mark Levin Show,” a conservative talk show, earlier this week, according to a report by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski.
U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson, a Hawaii native, issued an order March 15 that put a stop to important aspects of Trump’s second travel ban.
Never mind that just a few years ago Sessions voted to confirm Judge Watson. What a dick move to slam both a fine state (and site of the only World War II battle on U.S. soil, where 2,403 Americans died) and the freaking judicial system he's in charge of. But I think I know where the anger comes from. He's just jealous that he's never gotten leid.
JEERS to getting emphysema at 35,000 feet. My mom was a smoker, and I'll never forget traveling with my parents and having to sit at the back of the plane because that was where the smokers sat so they wouldn't "bother" the non-smokers sitting in front of them. What were we thinking??! Thankfully the movement to ban airborne puffery went into effect 29 years ago Sunday. So now all we have to worry about is catching some exotic disease from the passenger two rows back that causes instant diarrhea and gruesome facial disfigurement. But we'll have the pinkest lungs!
CHEERS to"Ten-Cent Jimmy." Happy 226th Birthday Sunday to that old stuffedshirt James Buchanan. In practice, he was a dud aspresident---one of the worst without question. But on paper, his resume was pretty impressive:
•United States Minister to the United Kingdom
•17th United States Secretary of State
•United States Senator from Pennsylvania
•United States Minister to Russia
•Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (PA-04: 4 terms)
•Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (PA-03: 1 term)
•Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
We bought the 15th POTUS our usual gift: an "I Diddled While the Country Teetered on the Brink of Civil War and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" t-shirt.
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 pretty much must-watches these days. Then at 10 on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks politics with journalist Arwa Damon, former British MP David Miliband, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), S.E. Cupp, and NPR's Hanna Rosin.
New home video releases include Michael Keaton as McDonald's founder Ray Kroc in The Founder and the 25th (already?) anniversary edition of Penny Marshall's brilliant A League of Their Own. The baseball schedule is here, the NHL schedule is here, and the NBA schedule is here. SNL is a rerun. On 60 Minutes: a federal judge who believes lethal injection makes capital punishment look deceptively peaceful, and wants to return to either the guillotine or firing squads. (I'm partial to death by tickling, myself.) And with the season premiere of Silicon Valley, HBO resumes it's terrific Sunday night lineup, including Veep and Last Week Tonight. Oh, and if you have Netflix, there are 13 hot-off-the-Bunsen-burner episodes of Bill Nye's new series Bill Nye Saves the World. That may be what finally gets me to sign up for that video-store-industry-killing monstrosity. Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Best Speaker of the House since Tip O’Neill, Nancy Pelosi; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL); White House chief of keeping the Play-Doh cabinet well-stocked, Reince Priebus.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Governor John Kasich (R-OH), Vaterland Security Secretary John Kelly (R), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Sorry, Democrats, but CBS News just couldnlt find any room to squeeze you in. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
CNN's State of the Union: Department of Mutterland Security Secretary John Kelly; in a bold stroke of central casting, the pundit panel includes two people of color (both Democrats) and two people of whiteness (both Republicans).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sen James Lankford (R-OK), of the Appropriations, Homeland Security and Intelligence Committees. Busy boy!
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 21, 2007
JEERS to the fear monger in chief. Oh no! It's mid-April and you know what that means? According to George W. Bush, our troops in Iraq have officially run out of food, clothing and ammo! They're completely naked, hungry and surrounded by evildoers and it's all the Democrats' fault!!! Oh wait, never mind---the Pentagon says the President's dire prediction was bullshit. Phew...for about 3 seconds I felt guilty.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Hannibal’s favorite son. Mark Twain, a man whose bullshit detector went to 11, died 107 years ago today, on April 21, 1910. A year earlier he wrote:
I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'
And so they did, but not before Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens pumped out decades of literary brilliance and observational wit whose edge is still razor-sharp:
"Always respect your superiors; if you have any."
“Reader,suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
“Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals.”
"It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races."
“Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”
He was anti-slavery, pro-women's rights, clear-eyed about religion, and a supporter of labor unions. Occasionally humorous, too. Pay your respects here. But don’t offer him one of his beloved cigars, please. Those things can kill ya.
Have a great weekend, and let’s hope that the French have the good sense to deliver a stinging rebuke to the fascist candidate in their elections on Sunday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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