From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark---Syriously
"Only 29 percent of Americans want the U.S. to attack Syria. Which, on the plus side, means that 29 percent of Americans know there's a place called Syria."
---Stephen Colbert
"Dictator and high school
freshman trying to grow a
mustache Bashar al-Assad"
---S. Colbert
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"President Obama is pretty clever. Did you see what he's doing to get Congress to approve the attack? He told them Syrian President Assad supports Obamacare."
---Jay Leno
"Hey, man, is this possible global conflagration interrupting your video poker time? … Y'know what, Senator? Go! There's a Rascal scooter and a bucket of quarters with your name on it over at the Golden Nugget. You can play all the video poker you want. Instead of playing pretend poker in the actual Senate, go to an actual casino and pretend you know what the government should do."
---Jon Stewart, after John McCain got caught playing poker on his phone in a Senate committee hearing on Syria
"Happy Rosh Hashanah. In honor of the Jewish new year, Mayor Bloomberg has banned the 16-ounce brisket."
---David Letterman
"They're now making the first smartphone that's not made overseas. It's made in Texas. It's also the first smartphone that doubles as a handgun."
---Conan O'Brien
And from two years ago:
"Dick 'Kaboom' Cheney has written a book, and he says he wouldn't change anything. He feels strongly about this. He'd still invade the wrong country."
---David Letterman
And people still seek his advice on foreign policy. Very stupid people.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 6, 2013
Note: Tonight's C&J is going to be a rudderless mishmash of unsupervised anarchy. As you read this, I'm out of internet range for the weekend and speeding toward an undisclosed location where the deer and the antelope play (specifically, tuba and castanets). Back Monday, assuming the proper authorities cut me down from the Tree of Woe in time. Til then...bottom's up!
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This weekend!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til fall:
16
Days 'til the
Austin LGBT Pride Parade:
1
Number of Syrians fleeing their country every day:
5,000
Total number who have left so far:
2 million
(Source:
The Washington Post)
Number of the 18 regions surveyed in which Obamacare's "silver plan" premiums are lower than expected:
15
(Source:
TPM)
Rank of Delaware among states with the most cases of Lyme disease:
#1
(Source:
WBOC News)
Number of circulation-coin designs that have featured a buffalo on them:
5
(Source: Postal Commemorative Society)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Game day siesta
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Happy 5th TRMSiversary!
CHEERS to the new kid's first half-decade. Rachel Maddow, who, like Bill Clinton, is a Rhodes Scholar, has been hosting her own show on MSNBC for five years
as of this week. She's brilliant, witty and everybody loves her except those Republicans who fear her. ("Scary fact-wielding lesbian truth-teller! Run for your lives!") She's also an
entertaining mixologist who whips up a mean Friday night libation. Money quote: "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform." Score one for the hippies.
CHEERS to Driving Mr. Daisy. Congressman Bill Shuster (R-PA), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, took an interesting ride to the airport this week. He rode in a computer-operated car with no hands on the wheel. Republicans love the vehicle because it helps fulfill their goal of doing anything to get out of doing anything. Democrats love the vehicle because it helps fulfill their goal of curbing the Republican tendency of destroying anything they get their hands on.
JEERS to our bumbling corporate overlords. Hey, you'll never guess what! It turns out that a lot of CEOS get richer despite poor performance:
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Nearly 40 percent of the men who appeared on lists ranking America's 25 highest-paid corporate leaders between 1993 and 2012 have led companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, been fired for poor performance or led companies charged with fraud-related activities. "This report should put an end to any remaining sense that we have 'pay for performance' in corporate America," said Sarah Anderson, co-author of all 20 of the institute's annual executive compensation reports.
The pay gap between large-company CEOs and average American employees has vaulted from 195 to 1 in 1993 to 354 to 1 in 2012, according to data published by BusinessWeek and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On the other hand, regular workers are getting poorer
despite good performance. Or as CEOs call it: a balanced business environment.
CHEERS to going ape for art. A big C&J congratulations to "Brent," who won $10,000 (that's 30,000 bananas) in a recent chimpanzee art contest. The runner-up chimp was George W. Bush. Ha Ha Ha! Never gets old.
P.S. Nine years ago today, President Bush uttered the immortal words: "We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
And people think Anthony Weiner's a perv?
Gerald Ford showing Americans how to
pick their jaw up off the floor after hearing
about his pardon of Richard Nixon
JEERS to undeserved free passes. Thirty-nine years ago this Sunday, President Ford committed the unpardonable sin of
granting an unconditional pardon to Richard "I am not a crook except Monday through Sunday from 6am 'til 5:59am" Nixon. He said it was absolutely necessary to help "heal" the country. To this day I still have no idea what that means. I don't remember anyone flipping out over the Watergate hearings, do you? Everyone I knew laughed their asses off. Final verdict on the pardon:
bad call. The American people were robbed of the opportunity to see that, when the president does what Tricky Dick did, it
IS illegal. Bless the late David Frost for coaxing that jaw-dropping nugget out of that creepy crook.
It's football season yaaaay!!!
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CHEERS to home vegetation. Now that September is here and Maine is snowed in until next June (35 inches last night alone!), the TV is in complete control of our lives. The big news this weekend is that we can start adding
the NFL schedule to our Friday C&J lineup again. (The already Super Bowl-bound Patriots will stamp "Return to Sender" on the Bills Sunday Ha Ha Ha!) The baseball season is still in "full swing" too (Ha Ha Ha!), and all the games are
right here. New DVD releases include the 30th anniversary edition of
The Fugitive. On
60 Minutes: all the earthly possessions that Michael Jackson couldn't take with him, and how robots are poised to rule the universe (the good news: the sex robots are a-
maaaazing). And the tommy guns will be a' blazin' again Sunday when the new season of
Boardwalk Empire kicks off with a…bang. (Ha Ha Ha!)
Oh, and a special mention here about this weekend's edition of Bill Moyers & Company, which will be guest-hosted by Phil Donahue and focus intelligently on Syria. And here's your Sunday morning lineup for what can only be described as Syriapalooza. See if you can guess who President Obama is dispatching to sell the boom-booms of retribution:
Meet the Press: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough sells the boom-booms of retribution to David Gregory. The roundtable of boring fools discusses why Meet the Press's ratings are in the terlet.
Obama's chief of staff sells
miracle bombs on Sunday.
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This Week: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough sells the boom-booms of retribution and a box of Girl Scout cookies to George Stephanopoulos; Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) counters that we should be firing Cruz missiles (Get it? Get it?) at the commies in Congress. The roundtable of misfits agrees that both sides have a point.
Face the Nation: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough sells the boom-booms of retribution and a new vacuum cleaner to Bob Schieffer. One Democratic congressman (Elijah Cummings of MD) takes on two Republican congressmen (Jerk #1 and Jerk #2 from Gerrymanderville), just to keep it intellectually balanced.
CNN's State of the Union: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough sells the boom-booms of retribution and a Garden Weasel to Candy Crowley.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough sells the boom-booms of retribution and a Thomas Kincaid limited-edition lighthouse painting to Chris Wallace; Senator and budding Sunday morning face-time hog Rand Paul (R-KY) explains for the umpteenth time that, yes, these curls are natural; roundtable of dunces with Brit Hume, Karl Rove and Howard Kurtz.
Happy McViewing!
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Five years ago in C&J: September 6, 2008
CHEERS to titillating transpositions. If you're calling to order the latest migratory waterfowl stamp, you're in for a good time:
Seems the Fish and Wildlife [Service], which administers the duck stamp program, printed about 3.5 million stamps attached to cards with the wrong number. Instead of the correct number---1-800-782-6724---the misprint directs callers to 1-800-872-6724. The first spells out 1-800-STAMP24. The second? 1-800-TRAMP24.
Yeah. It's a $1.99-per-minute sex line. But if you tell me your Daily Kos user name when you call, I'll drop it to a buck fifty. Just ask for "Sugar Lips."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Space...the final frontier. Forty-seven years ago today, the first episode of Star Trek---"Wagon Train to the Stars" as Gene Roddenberry called it---aired on NBC. It was regularly beaten in its time slot, and placed 52nd among all series in 1966-1967, its best season. Today its message resonates louder than ever:
1976: The original cast with Gene
Roddenberry at the dedication
of the Space Shuttle "Enterprise."
[I]t had a crew that said discrimination was a thing of past; it had a future that said we were not all annihilated by nuclear holocaust; it had an economy that was driven by progress and achievement, not simple wealth accumulation; it had science as a guiding force, not mysticism or superstition; it had technology as a means to explore, not just make life easier; and, perhaps most importantly, it had a peaceful mission at its core, not one of conquest.
The show screamed peace in a time of war.
The original cast is like a who's who of role models: George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, DeForrest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy and, yeah, even Shatner. And by the way, Portland Maine has its own unique connection to
Star Trek: the starship
U.S.S. Enterprise is named after a 19th century U.S. warship that
engaged and destroyed a British vessel 200 years ago yesterday off our coast. The captains---both killed during the battle---are buried side-by-side in Portland. Ironically, neither lived long and prospered. They both forgot to set their cannons on 'stun.'
Have a great weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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