Late Night Snark: Over Here and Over There Edition
"President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, making Juneteenth a federal holiday. But 14 members of the House voted against it. They look like the white paint sample section at Home Depot. Whaddya think, honey—should we paint the bathroom Mike Rogers or Thomas Massie?"
—Jimmy Fallon
"Joe Biden spent the day in Geneva for a much anticipated summit with Vladimir Putin. When asked if he could trust Putin, Biden said: 'Let's see what happens. As that old expression goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.' Y'know, there's another expression that goes: If Vladimir Putin gives you pudding, don't eat it, it's probably filled with plutonium."
—Jimmy Kimmel
Continued…
You have ventured below the fold. Please: do feed the kraken.
"The current conservative handwringing about critical race theory started in 2019, when the NY Times published the 1619 Project, which aimed to reframe our history by placing the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans at the center of our national narrative. Unfortunately, that Pulitzer-winning journalism failed to take into account the feelings of one truly oppressed group: racist dildos."
—Samantha Bee
"Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene called a press conference to say that the Holocaust was bad. Is this gonna happen every time she learns something new? 'It has come to my attention that putting metal in a microwave makes the microwave go boom-boom. I think it's important to acknowledge that.'"
—Trevor Noah
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"Today the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare again. The court decided Texas didn’t have standing to sue because nobody was forced to pay a penalty for not getting insurance. Why? Back in 2017 the GOP-controlled Congress passed a bill cutting the individual mandate penalty to zero. The Republicans' previous attempt to kill Obamacare killed this attempt to kill Obamacare. Turns out the GOP is its own worst enemy. Also: everybody else's."
—Stephen Colbert
Being a grownup is great, but sometimes I miss crying until someone feeds me.
—Conan O'Brien
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, June 18, 2021
Note: Today is International Sushi Day. By all means celebrate it to your belly’s content. I’m afraid I can’t. The memory of last year’s Sushi Day is still too raw.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til National Coconut Day: 8
Average approval rating for Obama, Trump, and Biden, respectively, after five months in office, according to FiveThirtyEight's poll tracker: 58%, 38%, 53%
Number of federal judges nominated by President Biden, a record pace for a new president: 24
Percent of the U.S. Navy that's vaccinated for Covid-19, versus 50% for the low-energy Marine Corps: 75%
Percent drop in the price of lumber from the all-time high it reached in early May: -40%
Number of the 21 Trump cultists in the House who voted against honoring the first responders who protected the Capitol on January 6th who are from southern states: 16
Number of people killed every year by coconuts, more than 10 times as many people killed by sharks and yet for some reason Steven Spielberg never thought to make a horror film called Coconuts: 150
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
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CHEERS to great moments in freedom. For the first time since 1983, the United States bestowed upon itself a new federal holiday. It commemorates the milestone from June 19, 1865—aka "Juneteenth"—when slavery was fully outlawed as Union General Gordon Granger enacted General Order 3 in Galveston. (See a handwritten order discovered last year at the National Archives here.) The human force behind the Juneteenth movement, now a spry 94, was on hand yesterday to receive well-deserved accolades:
For such a groundbreaking event, the language of Order 3 was pretty straightforward:
The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."
The good news: that was a long time ago. The bad news: not long enough.
P.S. Good reminder…
So noted.
CHEERS to saving my bacon. Four years ago, after stumbling into the ER with excruciating pain, a talented surgical team at Mercy Hospital scrubbed up at 1am, gutted me like a fish, took out a bunch of cancer ("in the nick of time" they said), sewed me back up, sent me to oncology for a few months of chemo, and cured me. It's no exaggeration to say that without the Affordable Care Act in place—flaws and all—I would be dead, broke, or both. So it seemed a bit of sweet karma yesterday that, during the same hour the Supreme Court was upholding the ACA from another Republican attack, I was being told by my oncologist at Mercy Hospital that I remain cancer-free and a magnificent specimen of human biology. Oh, about that ruling…
By a 7-2 vote, the court said the challengers did not have legal standing to sue because they did not make a strong enough showing that the law harmed them. But the decision also suggested it would be difficult for any challengers to try again on the same legal theory. […]
President Joe Biden called the court's decision "a major victory for all Americans benefiting from this groundbreaking and life-changing law," including the millions of people with preexisting conditions and those in danger of losing their health insurance amid the pandemic. […]
President Barack Obama celebrated the ruling, saying in a statement, "This ruling reaffirms what we have long known to be true: the Affordable Care Act is here to stay."
Oh, I expect Republicans will make another run at it. Their next likely argument: "Without rampant sickness and disease across the land, Jesus can't come back down and cure us—it's an affront to religious freedom." [Sigh] Same time next year?
JEERS to tales from America's dark ages. Another reminder that we used to be, in certain ways, as backward as any nation that ever was. On this date in 1873—ah, those wacky Grant years—Susan B. Anthony was fined a hundred dollars for the unpardonable offense of voting (in Rochester, New York).
On the day of her sentencing, Anthony was asked by Hunt whether she had anything to say.
“Yes, your honor, I have many things to say; for in your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled underfoot every vital principle of our government,” Anthony said. “My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually, but all of my sex, are, by your honor’s verdict, doomed to political subjection under this, so-called, form of government.”
The dust-up led to immediate reforms. Unfortunately, back in those days "immediate reform" meant waiting another fifty years before doing anything about it. By the way, Ms. Anthony never paid the fine. As of last year her heirs owed the Fed, with interest—[clackity clackity clack DING!]—eight million dollars. But with the way women blocked a second term for the grotesque orange man who lived in the White House, we were happy to accidentally trip and drop the bill in the paper shredder. Clumsy us.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to Ride's ride. Thirty-eight years ago today, strapped inside the Space Shuttle Challenger, Sally Ride became the first American woman (and, we later found out, first lesbian) in space. (The first woman in space from any country was Russia's Valentina Tereshkova in 1963—boy, did we get scooped on that.)
The flight was momentarily delayed when she made the men on the crew pick up their old pad thai take-out boxes and dirty underwear. Even worse, she hid the TV remote and flushed the porn. Now, that's just cruel.
CHEERS to home vegetation. A quick roundup of stuff that might show up on the tube this weekend, starting with Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow doing their Friday night doings they do on MSNBC. At 9 on ABC you can catch Barack Obama and an all-star lineup in Juneteenth: Together We Triumph, and later on HBO’s Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Paul Begala, Nikki Glaser and The New York Times' Jane Coaston.
The most popular movies and home videos, new and old, are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. Sports schedules: MLB here, the NHL here, WNBA here, and the NBA here. If you’re a fan of the spoon and the mashie, the U.S. Open golf tourney is on NBC, while the European Soccer Championship match between Spain and Poland airs tomorrow afternoon on ABC.
60 Minutes airs encore segments on the Derek Chauvin prosecutors, the Oath Keepers, and “Japan’s Babe Ruth.” Then Sunday at 9, CNN airs Assault on Democracy, a two-hour look into the latest evidence and footage of the January 6th GOP insurrection against the United States And John Oliver lets loose another Emmy-worthy edition of HBO’s Last Week Tonight to wrap up the weekend Sunday night at 11.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rob Portman (CULT-OH); former NSA official Fiona Hill.
This Week: White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan; ABC News’s Rachel Scott, who shrank Putin’s ego to the size of the tiniest nesting doll when she asked “What are you so afraid of?”
Face the Nation: House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA); former NSA official Fiona Hill; Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie G. Bunch III; "When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing" author Daniel Pink.
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: TBA
Happy viewing!
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Fifteen years ago in C&J: June 18, 2006
JEERS to the depths of wingnuttery. Yes, they're at it again. This time it's Concerned Women for America—they want a federal law that would prevent the phrase "Under God" from ever being taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance. They claim that the Founding Fathers "intentionally included the phrase" as "a symbol of loyalty and patriotism to our great country." Gee, I didn't know any of `em were alive when the pledge was written in 1892. And to think they were still breathing when “Under God” was added in 1954. Forget the South Beach Diet—oh waiter, I’ll have what they’re having.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the thawing season. Summer arrives Sunday night at 11:31 ET. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Two months (here, anyway—unlike our summer, yours may include September) of peace, tranquility, and boring news cycles. Right? Right? If only. But for Maine it does bring 60 glorious days of heat after months of shutting ourselves inside, closing all the windows and cranking the furnace up to 11. First item on our agenda as summer gets its solstice on: shutting ourselves inside, closing all the windows, and cranking the AC up to 11.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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