From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
First Late Night Snark Edition of SUMMER!!!
"Sarah Palin has been hired back by Fox News, and she only left five months ago. She has now effectively quit quitting. She can't even commit to being uncommitted."
---John Oliver
"Senator Jackson claims to be for the
people, but he's the first one to
give it to the people without
providing Vaseline."
---
Maine Gov. Paul LePage,
to be known henceforth as
"Governor Vaseline."
"Syrian President Assad crossed a red line. He used chemical weapons. Using harmful chemicals to hurt your own people? Who does he think he is, Monsanto?"
---Bill Maher
"Due to the government spy scandal, sales of the classic George Orwell book 1984 have skyrocketed. So the fallout is worse than we thought: it's making Americans read."
---Conan O'Brien
"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the guy who made Death to America a popular slogan. Now his successor, a moderate guy named Rohani, doesn't believe in death to America. He believes in lingering illness to America."
---David Letterman
"NASA is challenging Americans to help them figure out a better way to find threatening asteroids. Americans said: what do we get if you pick our idea? And NASA said: to live."
---Jimmy Fallon
And now it's time to do a coast-to-coast wave. I'll start here in Portland, Maine and it'll end at Netroots Nation in San Jose. Everybody ready in the heartland? Okay: One... Two... Three...
[Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!]
Wow. 3.2 seconds. I hope the Guinness Book spells all our names correctly.
It's 4:20 in the Pacific time zone. I have no idea what that means but it appears to be a very happy moment for you people out there. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, June 21, 2013
Note: I know the perfect way to get conservatives to turn against bigotry, austerity and hating on women. Just tell 'em that bigotry, austerity and hating on women are good for the environment.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til America turns 237: 13
Days 'til the Roswell UFO Festival: 14
Rank of General Motors on the new J.D. Powers & Associates Initial Quality Survey, "the most influential measure of vehicle quality during the first months off the showroom lot": #1
Ed Markey's lead over Gabriel Gomez in the new UMass Lowell-Boston Herald poll: 20 points
Percent of 18-29 year-olds and those older than 65, respectively, who support the NSA data leaks by Edward Snowden: 60%, 39%
(Source: USA Today-Pew Research poll)
Number of the four "scandals" ginned up by Republicans to tear down President Obama that have actually gone all the way "to the top": 1 (NSA program)
(Source: NBC News)
Date on which I created my very first blockquote in C&J: 6/21/05
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Finally, the rampaging thugs were apprehended and punished with scritchies and kibble. Film at 11.
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SUMMER!!!!
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CHEERS to the thawing season. It's HERE! It's HERE!
The turnpike's aliiiiive...with the sound of Massholes!!! Forgive the irrational exuberance, but
summer finally arrived last night and we get a little excited about it up here in the otherwise toe-freezing tundra. For Maine it means 60 glorious days of sun and heat heat HEAT! First item on our agenda: get inside, shut all the windows, and turn the AC up to 11.
P.S. Today is the longest day of the year…tomorrow isn't. Mother Nature: master of the headfake.
CHEERS to a Nation of Netroots. Well, I guess people do know the way to San Jose, because the big convention is underway there now and getting its usual five-star reviews. Given that this is the largest progressive conference of the year, the media coverage is mighty thin compared to the conservative conventions like CPAC and the "Faith and Family" conference. I guess smart-and-sane doesn’t sell as many papers or attract as many viewers as vicious-and-crazy. Meanwhile, in a major change from previous years, the location of next year's event was announced on Night 1 instead of Night 3. And the winner, announced by Kossack Eclectablog (Chris Savage), is…..
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The Motor City!
July 17-20, 2014
We’ll be in Detroit's newly renovated Cobo Center, located along the waterfront in an area that’s the hub of much of the renovation taking place in the city. And there’s a lot of that happening! While the auto industry continues its resurgence, the city is in the midst of a reinvention, attracting a creative class of newcomers and engaging longtime residents in solutions for growth and recovery. We’re proud to be a part of supporting that recovery.
Republicans own the state's government at the moment, and they're systematically turning the place into a playground for rich people and a hellhole for everyone else. So it'll be great to use the convention to help wind up the catapults in preparations for taking back the state house in November. Personally, between now and then I plan to teach y'all how to properly pronounce our host city's name. Ready?
"day-TWAH." And don’t forget to extend that pinky.
CHEERS to that magical moment when the egg hits the face. This is a song I wrote last night that'll be performed this summer at Lollapalooza:
I admit, I didn't expect this
to be where John Boehner
would meet his Waterloo.
Old MacBoehner had a bill
E-I-E-I-O
And on this bill he got some nays
E-I-E-I-O
With a nay nay here
And a nay nay there
Here a nay, there a nay, everywhere a nay nay
Old MacBoehner just cried "Fuck!!!"
E-I-E-I-O
Second verse same as the first, except with more crying and chain-smoking.
CHEERS to supporting the troops. Sixty-nine years ago tomorrow, President Roosevelt---he of the super-awesome Democratic Party---signed the G.I. Bill. It rewarded servicemen for their sacrifices with low-cost loans, educational subsidies and other benefits. Kind of like what George W. Bush wanted to do for servicemembers during his presidency...minus the low-cost loans, educational subsidies and other benefits. (But double the deployments!)
Happy Birthday (tomorrow)!
CHEERS to being born! Early "Happy Birthday and many blessings on your camels" to Massachusetts's Elizabeth Warren, who turns [
age redacted] tomorrow! Y'know, every now and then I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not hallucinating over the notion that Elizabeth Warren is now a freakin' United States senator. Holy cow, y'know? People like her---a humble, soft-spoken, sharp-as-a-tack schoolmarm---aren't supposed to win elections. Where's the slick? Where's the posturing? The spinning? The vitriol? So I figure her birthday is a good excuse to say it again as if for the first time:
Elizabeth Warren is a freakin' United States Senator. How ridiculously cool is that. I hope she enjoys the Scott Brown
"bqhatevwr" mug we got her.
CHEERS to Great moments in agriculture! On this date in 1834, Cyrus McCormick got his patent approved for the first reaping machine. The initial public reaction: "Eh, sow what?"
Oops! How on earth did this
random graphic get here?
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CHEERS to home vegetation. If you're not watching the livestreams from Netroots Nation this weekend, here's some other stuff that might appear on your screen. On HBO's
Real Time, Bill Maher jibbers his jabber with Bob Herbert, Joshua Green, Michael Pollan, Julia Reed and Haifaa Al Mansour. New DVD releases include Dustin Hoffman's small-budget directorial debut,
Quartet, and the big-budget
Jack the Giant Slayer. (Spoiler Alert: the giant gets offed.) The baseball schedule
is here (the Red Sox will "defang" the Tigers Ha Ha Ha) and Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals
is tomorrow night, and the winner will then face the Miami Heat for the Goaliehoopsie Trophy. On
60 Minutes: DNA testing and Pussy Riot, together at last.
Bill Moyers & Company has a 2013 follow-up to the brilliant segment called "The United States of ALEC." And here's your Sunday morning lineup (reader discretion advised):
Meet the Press: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) get into a big fight with Sen. Tom Coburn and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) over masturbating fetuses. To everyone's relief, the melee renders the roundtable panelists mute.
True fact: fetuses stash their
porn under Mommy's liver.
This Week: National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander assures George Stephanopoulos that the NSA takes threats from masturbating fetuses very seriously, but that his agents do not listen in for the sound of palm-related hair growth. This renders the roundtable panelists mute.
Face the Nation: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Bob Corker (R-TN) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) use the fetal-masturbation euphemism "wee willy wanking" and render both Bob Schieffer and the roundtable panelists mute.
CNN's State of the Union: Not sure, since they wait forever to post their schedule. Suffice it to say it the main guests will render the roundtable panelists mute.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Republican candidate in the special Massachusetts senatorial election, Gabriel Gomez, appears on the "fair and balanced" network and gets 20 minutes to lob shells at Democrat Ed Markey, who is invited to reply by writing his rebuttal on a Post-It Note tied around a carrier pigeon's leg; Brit Hume renders the rest of his fellow roundtable panelists mute when he suggests that RNC chair Reince Priebus should "reach out to masturbating fetuses via Twitter and other social media."
Isn't it odd that
the #1 newsmaker of the week, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), isn't on any of the Sunday shows? Hmmmm.... Happy viewing, anyway! (But no diddly-doo.)
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Five years ago in C&J: June 21, 2008
CHEERS to Condi's legacy. Our secretary of State not only had a Chevron oil tanker named after her, but now her name has taken on immortality in Israel. According to Tim McGirk at TIME: "Israeli TV announcers coined her name as a verb, meaning to go endlessly around in circles, accomplishing nothing." Study up, kids---we expect to see that word in next year's spelling bee.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a lifetime of teh funny. Hard to believe it was five years ago when we got the news that George Carlin had died at 71. Seems appropriate to remember him with some of his zingers, of which this is, oh, maybe one-zillionth-of-one-percent of 'em:
I don’t believe in road rage; I prefer the gentle rebuke. If I don’t like the way someone is driving, I pull up alongside the other car and say, "I hope your children turn out poorly."
You know what would have been a smart thing to do in these developing countries that need electricity? To have tried large-scale experiments with alternative energy sources: solar, wind, geothermal, etc. We could have tested and tried to perfect these technologies on a large scale in places that need it. That would have been smart. That's why we didn’t do it.
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People who see life as anything other than pure entertainment are missing the point.
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When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not an agnostic. I'm an acrostic. I'm puzzled by the whole thing.
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There's a message window that comes up on my computer screen whenever I type a command the computer doesn’t like. It says, "Fuck you, I don’t do that."
Oh, and it never hurts to revisit his decidedly un-work-friendly thoughts
about those 7 famous words Like a vuvuzela blast into the ear of a Puritan.
Have a nice weekend. Get plenty of sleep...we've got one WILD Monday from the Supreme Court a' comin'. Floor's open. What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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