From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Faxes, Phones & Crazytown Edition
"Look, kids! It's an incoming
message from Hepcat Reince!"
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"A new report says if Republicans want to win over young voters they need to get up to date with technology. Well, the GOP is listening because today they told young people everywhere to 'Be prepared to receive a very exciting fax from us.'"
---Conan O'Brien
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"The lights are a little dimmer in Crazytown tonight. In the struggle between reality and Michele Bachmann, reality has won. Flags are being flown at half mast at the Laugh Factory. Michele Bachmann is out. Still no word on her husband Marcus."
---Bill Maher
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"I may run for another public office. That could happen."
---Michele Bachmann, to Sean Hannity
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"Verizon's business services division was ordered by the FBI to deliver millions of customers' "telephony metadata." That's a lot of jargon so let me break it down for you: Metadata means information about a call's length, location and participants. Telephony is what a two-year-old calls a telephone."
---Stephen Colbert
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"A man in California received eleven pounds of marijuana in the mail by mistake. At least he did the right thing---he called the police and told them someone accidentally mailed him five pounds of marijuana."
---Craig Ferguson
And five years ago on
The Daily Show, shortly after Obama won enough primary delegates to put him over the top:
Clip of Joe Scarborough from December, 2006: "[Hillary Clinton] will crush Obama. Barack, just sit it out. It's going to be ugly, I promise you. You heard it here first."
Jon Stewart: News pundits. They're like the Doppler-less weathermen of our time.
C&J welcomes all of our readers at the NSA. Please...help yourself to some paste 'n crackers.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, June 7, 2013
Note: Yikes---I just saw one of the ten lords a' leaping face-down in the gutter with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand. The off-season can be brutal sometimes.
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Help yourself.
By the Numbers:
Days 'til summer:
13
Days 'til the
Huichica Music Festival in Sonoma, California:
8
The last time employment among Americans over 16 was as low as it is today:
1983
Percent chance that Republicans in the House or Senate want do anything about it:
0%
Average cost to win or hold a U.S. Senate seat in 2012:
$10.46 million
(Source: Rachel Maddow)
Percent of the U.S. beer market made up of canned beer, versus 48% in 2006:
53%
(Source: The Beer Institute)
Highest price
ever paid for a racing pigeon:
$400,000
(Source: Time)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The warm-weather version of making a snow angel
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CHEERS to progress via the Democratic Party. Remember in 2010 when John Boehner released this video asking why President Obama hadn't yet snapped his fingers and made all the jobs that Republicans flushed down the toilet in 2008 magically reappear? ("14 months of 9.5+ Percent Unemployment!!!" screams a graphic.) And remember when John Boehner promised "jobs jobs jobs" when he became Speaker of the House and then abandoned his pledge so his out-of-control tea party minions could instead declare war on women, voter rights, the poor, the elderly, our veterans, students and---37 times---Obamacare? Well, despite the GOP's best efforts to put as many Americans as possible out of a job (including Obama), things are holding steady:
Summary: Bush's legacy is on
the left, Obama's is on the right.
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Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 175,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 7.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in professional and business services, food services and drinking places, and retail trade.
And because of Democrats' singlehanded stewardship of the economy, consumer confidence is
at a six-year high and the stock market is soaring. My point: if you need to reach John Boehner this weekend, you'll find him crying in his scotch at the 19th hole as he contemplates the prospect of turning the gavel back over to Nancy Pelosi in 19 months.
JEERS to what your government spies with their little eyes. Blogger Glenn Greenwald has shaken the nation with his revelation that the attacks of 9/11 prompted members of Congress to leap into action, flex the withered remnants of their aged biceps, and allow a giant hose to be connected from your communications devices to the Borg-like entity known as the NSA which, in turn, sucks on your data like Dick Morris sucking on a hooker's tootsies. This development is absolutely shocking, folks. I have rarely seen anything like this. The nation is actually listening to a blogger!
CHEERS to pissing on the King. On today's date in 1775, "United States" was chosen to replace "United Colonies" as our official name (beating "Bubbaland" by one vote---Pinckney's, of course, that bastard). By the way, if you need some parchment at bargain basement prices, there's still ten thousand boxes of "United Colonies" stationery in the Independence Hall supply closet. Thanks for the heads-up, management. :-(
CHEERS to a gathering of overlords. Everybody be on your best behavior this weekend---we got company:
Maybe Xi can tell Obama how
to get some 'o these built here.
Trade deals, cybercrime and North Korea will likely be at the top of the agenda when President Barack Obama spends two days with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a 200-acre California estate popular among international leaders looking for a quiet place to hash out the future of the world in private.
Yes. Because if the future of the 4.5 billion-year-old world is going to be hashed out, it should definitely be hashed out in private by two adversaries inside a walled compound surrounded by an army of security guards whose job is to keep the world out. Hey, Gingrich! How's that moon colony coming along?
Convicted Felon.
CHEERS to proud moments in American history. One day, years from now---or maybe even this Sunday---you'll be bouncing your grandchild on your knee. And that sweet little tot will turn to you and say, "Why is June 9th such a special day?" And you'll look down into those sweet innocent eyes and say, "That was the day in 2006 when Tom DeLay went to work in Congress
for the very last time. And then you'll go into the kitchen for Oreos and milk. Because that's the kind of awesome grandparent you are.
Win that Tony!
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CHEERS to home vegetation. The big TV event this weekend is the season finale of
Game of Thrones, and here's a SPOILER ALERT: everybody dies except a goat and a dragon who fall in love at a bar and raise a happy family of goat-dragons and a wacky maid named Alice. You read it here first. What else? Well, on HBO's
Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Kevin Williamson, Ana Navarro, George Packer, Dana Gould and Tom Shadyac. New DVD releases include the Melissa McCarthy comedy
Identity Thief and the re-boot of the
Die Hard franchise that attracted a stampede of approximately three pairs of boots to theatres. Your MLB, NBA and NHL schedules can be found
here,
here and
here. (The #1 Red Sox will "bedevil" the Angels Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!) On
60 Minutes: Justice Sonia Sotomayor! And the
Tony Awards are Sunday, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris---gonna be a big night for Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper ("Kinky Boots"), and I'd love to see Holland Taylor win for her one-woman show as Texas Governor Ann Richards.
On Bill Moyers & Company, I hope economist Richard Wolff remembers to wish Bill a happy birthday (#79). And here's your Sunday morning lineup, now with C&J's EXCLUSIVE Lefty-Righty (L-R) Index. Let's see if it's even more lopsided than usual:
Meet the Press: Oh my god! It's perfect parity this week!!! Mostly because Meet the Press isn’t airing this week. Thank you, cheeser-eating surrender monkey tennis tournament!!! L-R Index: 0-0
Sunday morning it's CNN's
turn to babysit McCain.
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This Week: Intelligence Committee chairs Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Mike Rogers (R-MI); Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on how she lost her war against the Obama administration in a rout so spectacular that quitting her 2014 re-election race was her only viable option; roundtable with Paul Krugman, George Will, Matt Dowd, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Fox News' Greta van Susteren. L-R Index: 3-5
Face the Nation: Discussion of sexual assaults in the military with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA); Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD); Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) on being the longest-serving congressman ever. L-R Index: 4-2
CNN's State of the Union: This week it's Candy Crowley's turn to babysit John McCain while Cindy goes shopping. Plus: Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), and former Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Tom Davis (R-VA). L-R Index: 3-2
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY); roundtable woth Bill kristol, Peter Baker, Mary Matalin and Mara Liasson. L-R Index: 0-3
Lefty-Righty total for the week:
10-12…about as close to parity as they'll ever get Happy sleeping in!
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Five years ago in C&J: June 7, 2008
Decisions, decisions...
JEERS to a new subsidiary of Bullshit, Inc. If you liked Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, you'll LOVE
Parents for Truth! It's the latest fantasy from the National Abstinence Education Association which appears to be dedicated to doing everything in its power to increase unsafe sex in America by making abstinence really, really uncool:
There is very little that is truthful about this "Parents for Truth" campaign. Not only is it pushing misleading, discredited claims about abstinence-only education, but the entire effort appears to be run by unethical individuals with strong ties in the anti-gay movement.
Although maybe they're onto something. Horny kids can resist their urge to go zipper diving by going to the group's
website (which, by the way, includes
one "success story"). Their libidos will be numb before they reach second base.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to unsolved mysteries…SOLVED!!! If you ever want to start a knock-down, drag-out brawl, just refer to a sweetened carbonated beverage by the wrong name in the wrong region. I don’t know why, but referring to soda in a pop region, or pop in a soda region, or pop or soda in a coke region, brings out the barbarian-with-spiked-club in us. So, in the interest of promoting peace among the krazy straw crowd, a North Carolina State graduate student has mapped out the regions so you'll know what to call it when you belly up to the counter:
Of course, pancreases across the country are 100 percent unified in what they call it: punishment.
Have a sweet fizzy weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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