From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: John Roberts and the Supremes Edition
"In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled President Obama's healthcare mandate is constitutional. This is a major victory for President Obama, who spent three years promoting it, and a major setback for Mitt Romney, who spent three years creating it."
---Jay Leno
-
"For several minutes after the ruling, CNN was mistakenly reporting that the Supreme Court struck down President Obama’s healthcare law. In response CNN was like, 'Thank god no one watches us.'"
---Jimmy Fallon
-
"This activist ruling opens the floodgates, folks! If Obama can force you to get health insurance just by calling it a tax, then there is nothing to stop him from making you gay marry an illegal immigrant wearing a condom in a hydroponic pot farm powered by solar energy! And you know his buddy Roberts will make it all good by calling it a 'homomexual marijuana love-glove sun tax!'"
---Stephen Colbert
-
"In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said he's just gonna refuse to implement Obamacare. So if you need an operation in Louisiana you'll have to pay for it the old-fashioned way: stand on a balcony, flash your tits and hope someone throws you money."
---Bill Maher
-
"Mitt Romney wants to prove he's regular guy, so he went someplace and he ordered a bucket of pheasant McNuggets."
---David Letterman
And from November, 2010 on HBO's
Real Time:
"Bush and I were published on the same day. My book was called I Remember Nothing, and his could be, too."
---Nora Ephron
Weird week. Felt like Monday, Friday, Sunday, Monday, Friday. Only in America.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, July 6, 2012
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday, as we'll be taking part in a ceremony at City Hall to present the Higgs Boson particle with a key to the city, followed by a frantic search and rescue operation after the Higgs Boson particle gets snatched by a barn owl. Back Tuesday. With a lot of beak marks.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Comic-Con in San Diego: 6
Days 'til the Robot Film Festival in New York City: 8
Rank of the current U.S. teen pregnancy rate among the lowest years on record: #1
(Source: Harper's Index)
Percent of Americans who are aware of the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare: 59%
Percent of Americans who want to see the law's opponents stop trying to repeal it: 56%
(Source: Kaiser Foundation poll)
Dollar value of U.S. flags imported last year: $3.6 million
Value of the U.S. flags that came from China alone: $3.3 million
(Source: U.S. News)
-
Friday Joe Lieberman Wanker Walk Countdown:
Joe Lieberman will end his Senate reign of error in 193 days.
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: You'll fall for Timber.
-
CHEERS to head-on collisions. Well, knock me down and call me Einstein. 83 year-old physicist Peter Higgs was right---his boson particle really exists.
Speaking at Geneva's CERN research center on Wednesday after experimental physicists announced the discovery of a new particle, a boson much as Higgs imagined half a century ago, he confessed to Reuters he felt "rather dazed but very pleased." ... For nearly three decades, physicists at CERN and at the Fermilab research center in Illinois had tried to find what became known as the "Higgs boson" in particle colliders creating mini- explosions duplicating the big bang of 13.7 billion years ago.
To put the size of the Higgs-boson in perspective, think of it this way: it's less visible than an atom, but more visible than a SuperPAC donor.
JEERS to today's boring correction. Yesterday I was privileged to be the official stenographer for the opening speech of President Obama's barnstorming tour across Ohio. After receiving feedback from several helpful sources, we wish to post the following revised transcript:
"Hello, Mommy Maumee! I love you, Mommy Maumee! I believe in you, Mommy Maumee! I saved the auto industry for you, Mommy Maumee! Help me win in November, Mommy Maumee!"
We regret the error. But it was
a fine speech. Mom would've been proud.
CHEERS to greenbacks. On July 6, 1785, Congress officially agreed that the unit of U.S. currency would be called the "dollar." Or, as we call it today, judging by our bank accounts and 401(k)s: the "endangered species."
JEERS to dissing the troops. Temper-prone GOP Congressman Joe Walsh is running for reelection against Tammy Duckworth in Illinois' 8th District. Helping wounded veterans is a front-and-center issue for Tammy, seeing as she served in Iraq and lost both legs when her Blackhawk helicopter was shot down and all. But poor old Congressman Walsh, whose only combat experience has been fighting a judge to keep from having to pay child support, thinks she needs to shut up about it because all he hears is war war war and veterans veterans veterans and service service service. So, okay. Let's settle this by consulting a wounded W.W. II vet who's also the former head of Walsh's own party:
Former Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole dedicated his biography One Soldier's Story in part to Duckworth: "And to Major Tammy Duckworth ... a brave woman wounded in Iraq, who represents all of those with their own battles ahead of them, and their own stories to tell.
In other words: Joe Walsh, shut the frack up and make yourself useful. By, say, planning for your next career move when voters give you the heave-ho. (Repeat after me: "Would you like fries with that?")
JEERS to party crashers. On July 6, 1854 the Republican Party held its first convention in Jackson, Michigan. Back then, they really did have a good idea:
We believe that slavery is a violation of the rights of man---as a man---we vow at whatever expense, and publicly proclaim our determination, to oppose by all the powerful and honorable means in our power, now and henceforth, all attempts, direct and indirect, to extend slavery in this country, or to permit it to extend into any region or locality in which it does not now exist by positive low, or to admit new slave states into the Union.
Today the Republicans' de facto leader is Rush Limbaugh, who got fired from a TV gig for making racist comments, and whose listeners get the giggles when he plays their favorite song,
Barack the Magic Negro. Meanwhile the GOP base still thinks the awesomest gift for any occasion is
the Obama monkey doll. And official Romney surrogate Ted Nugent believes our country would've been better off if
the south won the Civil War. Memo to Abe Lincoln: there's a word for old-school Republicans like you in modern-day America: dirty fucking hippies. Here…have a bong hit. You look like you could use one. Besides, it's gotta be
Four score and
twenty somewhere.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Mostly sports (or, as Romney calls it, "sport") on the teevee this weekend, including the final rounds of the U.S. Women's Open golf tourney, the Tour de France, and Wimbledon. But fuck that shit---[Juicy Chaw Spit!]---I'm an American and I watch baseball. New DVDs include Blu-Rays of Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy and Born on the Fourth of July. (Warning: if you're gonna try and watch those back to back as a double feature, smoke somethin' good!) TV Land has a double Andy Griffith Show marathon tomorrow and Sunday from 11am to 8pm. On 60 Minutes: repeats of Jack Abramoff and "The Mozart of Chess."
This weekend on Up! With Chris Hayes, co-authors Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein will talk about how Republicans are killing the country, and the panel breaks open the LIBOR scandal. Followed, as always, by the excellent Melissa Harris-Perry. And here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Tour de France coverage takes David Gregory off the air. I LOVE YOU FRANCE!!! [Muah! Muah!] Merci!!!
This Week: Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) vs. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R); roundtable with George Will, E.J. Dionne, Gwen Ifill and former Counselor to the Treasury Secretary and Lead Auto Adviser Steven Rattner.
Face the Nation: This weekend it's Bob Schieffer's turn to babysit John McCain while Cindy goes shopping; Haley Barbour drawls Sen. Dick Durbin to a draw; roundtable with John Dickerson, Jan Crawford and Norah O'Donnell.
Bill Moyers & Company (link): Stephen Lerner (SEIU) and Bill Fletcher, Jr. (AFL-CIO) help answer the question: can American labor rebound and once again act strongly in the interest of ordinary workers? (SPOILER ALERT: Mebbe.)
Washington Week: A second week of discussion about the Supreme Court’s health care decision and the state of the race for the White House, with Dan Balz (WaPo), Jan Crawford (CBS), Charles Babington (AP) and Amy Walter (ABC).
CNN's State of the Union: Sen. Mitch McConnell explains all the ways he haz a sad; Bill Bradley hawks a book; Robert Gibbs...is Robert Gibbs; Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Mark Zandi, Chief Economist for Moody's Analytics talk about belly button lint. Or something.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: RNC chair Rience "I Drive A" Priebus vs. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, debate the ACA; roundtable with Bill Kristol, AB Stoddard, Juan Williams, and Chip Saltzman
Happy viewing!
-
Five years ago in C&J: July 6, 2007
JEERS to justice not served. Well, Scooter Libby's pals have paid the $250,000 fine that the former aide to President Bush and chief-of-staff to Dick Cheney owes for being convicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. It's a huge amount of money. So huge, in fact, that it could fund the Iraq war...for nearly two minutes. But I'm sure the little feller's learned his lesson. The same way Dick Cheney learned his ethics.
JEERS to big fat losers. Let's see, they lost the war in Iraq, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on poverty, the war on corruption, and now---to the tune of a billion dollars---the Republicans have lost the war on obesity. Thank god they at least won the war on competence or they'd be a total washout.
-
And just one more…
microscopic, lower-case cheers to The Decider. C&J has a rule that says we can never jeer someone on their birthday, no matter how vile or despicable they are. But there is nothing in our bylaws that says we can't alter certain song lyrics. Ahem...
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, George W. Bush, you scum-suckin', torture-luvin', incompetent-crony-hirin', PDB ignorin', oil company bootlickin', Constitution-shreddin', The Pet Goat readin', bogus-war-startin', economy-killin' disaster,
Happy birthday to you.
He's 66 today and barely looks younger than his 88 year-old dad. Enjoy that Social Security, sir. Thanks to our efforts to kill your privatization efforts, it's still there for ya.
Have a great weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-