From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: "Mr. Obama, Tear Down This Embargo!"
"President Obama announced that he's going to reopen diplomatic relations with Cuba. He wants to act before Seth Rogen makes a movie about Castro."
---Conan O'Brien
Via Democratic Underground
"Obama is not going to get away with this [Cuba deal] just because I'm going off the air! The minute my show ends, I am on a plane to Havana to personally investigate this travesty. I will go to every pristine beach. I will scout every rum distillery. And I don’t care how many 1957 Chevys I have to buy for 200 dollars! Until the job is done I will not rest…except in a hammock."
---Stephen Colbert
"Guess who's running for president? Jeb Bush. … I feel like Bush presidencies are like Godfather films. You should stop at two."
---David Letterman
"The Senate [Intelligence Committee] report shows that the CIA paid two psychologists 80 million dollars to design the torture program. Eighty million dollars? Were they waterboarding with Pellegrino? Also, you don’t have to use torture to get people to admit stuff. Just get 'em really drunk and log them into Facebook."
---Michael Che, SNL
"Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. Hanukkah lasts for eight nights...unlike Christmas, which lasts for two and a half months."
---Seth Meyers
What a week, huh. But now it's 4:20 on the west coast. Please
gurgle gurgle responsibly. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, December 19, 2014
Note: Tonight's C&J is brought to you by the makers of Good King Wences Slaw. Pick some up in your local grocer's deli section today!
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26 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til David Letterman's last show:
152
Days 'til the
Wings Over Willcox Birding and Nature Festival in Arizona:
26
Winning bid by Navajo Nation to reclaim seven sacred masks from a Paris auction house:
$9,120
Percent of 12th-graders who say they tried an e-cigarette in the last month:
17%
Portion of of 12th-graders who admitted to binge-drinking, down from 1-in-4 in 2009:
1-in-5
(Source: AP)
Record number of lights on a residential Christmas tree (
in Australia):
502,164
Percent chance that if you haven't got a penny a ha'penny will do:
93% (Up from 92% last year. And
god bless you!)
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Friday Michele Bachmann Departure Countdown
Michele Bachmann and her googly eyes leave Congress in 15 days. In her final interaction with the White House, the congresswoman who spent the last six years calling the president a tyrant, a fake American, a communist, a secret Muslim and every other derogatory name in the book got upset by Obama's "condescending smile" when she insisted he excuse himself from his White House Christmas party to go bomb the fuck out of Iran. Memo to freshman teabaggers of the 114th Congress: you've got some big shoes-with-a-retractable-spike-in-the-toe to fill.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Prepping for Boxing Day
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CHEERS and JEERS to dashing through the airspace corridors in a 10 20 35 45-dollars-per-bag sardine can. Good news: holiday traffic is expected to be up this year, meaning more of us are in a traveling mood. Bad news: if you're out in it, it's gonna suck tailpipe:
"Stay in your lane!" "Bite me!"
"Make Me!" "I will!"
AAA projects 98.6 million Americans will journey 50 miles or more from home during the year-end holiday season, an increase of four percent from the 94.8 million people who traveled last year. This upward trend marks the highest forecast growth rate for the year-end holiday season since 2009 and the highest travel volume for the holiday period on record. … Air travel is forecast to grow one percent from 2013, with 5.7 million travelers taking to the skies.
Low gas prices continue to help boost disposable income this holiday season, with today’s national average price of gas at $2.55 per gallon, 69 cents less than a year ago.
AAA also predicts that the number of people not traveling this year will equal the number of people being silently loathed by the number of people who are.
JEERS to crying "Un"cle. After a maniacal North Korean villain dictator steals and/or erases every file in a movie studio's servers including top-secret film scripts (spoiler alert: the next maniacal James Bond villain is a dictator who steals and/or erases every file in a movie studio's servers and threatens to blow up theatres if a movie about his murder isn’t pulled) and then threatens to blow up theatres if a movie about his murder isn’t pulled, the movie studio obeys:
Coming soon from David
Lynch: "Movieraserhead"
Cinemas in the US cancelled screenings of the film [The Interview], about a plot to kill North Korea's leader, prompting Sony to shelve it altogether. But there has been dismay in Hollywood, with Ben Stiller calling the move "a threat to freedom of expression." Hackers had issued a warning to cinema-goers who planned to watch the movie. President Obama recommended that "people go to the movies", but stressed that the hack was "very serious".
And in other news, a sweat-soaked Bill O'Reilly called his ghost writer today and ordered him to destroy all drafts of his latest book,
Killing Kim Jong Un.
CHEERS and JEERS to wearing white way after Labor Day. Autumn ends Sunday at 6:03pm ET, and will be replaced with the season popularly known as "Is it !#&%!! spring yet?" It's coming in mostly lambish than liony, although the northwest is due for more rain. It's also the shortest and darkest day of the year, so at least we can look forward to teeny tiny slivers of extra light through late June. And now, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, here it is: your Moment of Stonehenge:
Bonus winter tip: during ice storms, there's no need to salt your sidewalk. A public service message from the Society of Unscrupulous Chiropractors.
How Washington lured his
troops to Valley Forge.
CHEERS to home sweet teeth-chattering home. On this date in 1777, George Washington parked his 11,000 troops at Valley Forge for the winter. The General knew how to rally his men:
"All we need to do, guys, is invent space heaters and create a regional power grid and it'll be just like Club Med! Plus I know a great caterer and he'll be along just as soon as we invent the telephone."
Needless to say, it was a very long winter.
CHEERS to special deliveries. Despite calls by the wing of the Republican party that lives under a bridge to prevent the president from giving his annual State of the Union Speech, John Boehner extended his formal invitation today. Or, as World Net Daily put it: "BETRAYAL! Hypnotized By Blood Moon, GOP Speaker Invites Anti-Christ To Bring Death Panels To Congress." (Admit it---you're gonna Google that to see if it's real, aint'cha.)
CHEERS to ice-cold rinks. Ninety-seven years ago today, in 1917, the first NHL games were played (all five teams were Canadian). Here's a fun factoid about the Stanley Cup:
The Ottawa Hamburglers.
One of the great traditions of the NHL is that everyone who has his name on the cup gets to take the cup home with him for a day. What happens from there is where the stories come from. It has found many uses while in the care of the NHL's players, coaches and managers. The cup has been used as everything from a flower pot to a baptismal. It has been a cooler, a champagne bowl, a urinal and a lawn ornament.
You can see the fabled nStanley Cup at the
Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. They keep it right next to the fabled jar of teeth.
Tonight on the CW.
CHEERS to home vegetation. So, yeah, this is the kind of weekend tailor-made for being a couch potatoe (I use the official Dan Quayle dictionary spelling). You won’t be able to swing a cat without hitting some kind of holiday programming, for starters, including the first made-for-TV animated special, 1962's
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (CW) and
The Sound of Music (ABC) Sunday. New
DVD releases include Woody Allen's
Magic in the Moonlight and
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (yeah---they brought that creaky old franchise back). Your
NFL schedule is here (The Patriots will "ground" the Jets ha ha ha!!!), NBA action
is here and the NHL schedule
is here. Amy Adams hosts SNL. And on
Bill Moyers & Company, historian Steve Fraser talks about America in the era of the new Gilded Age.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup, now with C&J's EXCLUSIVE Mistletoe Pucker-up Equivalence Index:
Meet the Press: They haven't published their guest list yet, so we'll guess a few Republicans who won't be challenged by Chuck Todd and a couple Democrats who will be but won't respond without sounding like mealy-mouthed moderates. Mistletoe Pucker-up Equivalence Index: Like kissing your garlic-loving aunt
The president, seen here being distant
and aloof with the First Lady, will be on
CNN's State of the Union Sunday.
CNN's State of the Union: The man we just can't stay mad at: President Barack…Hussein…Obama!!! Mistletoe Pucker-up Equivalence Index: Like kissing your spouse during makeup sex.
Face the Nation: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) fans Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to keep him from swooning over the thought of all those fine Cuban gentlemen streaming into this country looking for some honorable American hospitality; Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) rolls his eyes; Jeffrey Goldberg (The Atlantic) on Cuba; roundtable with Nancy Cordes, David Martin, John Dickerson, Margaret Brennan, Major Garrett and Jan Crawford. Mistletoe Pucker-up Equivalence Index: Like kissing the inside of a dumpster.
This Week: Marco Rubio again, with no Democrat to refute his hypocritical stance on Cuba. Plus roundtable with Howard Dean, Bill Kristol, Ana Navarro and Cokie Roberts. Mistletoe Pucker-up Equivalence Index: Like kissing the carpet at Denny's.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: This week it's Chris Wallace's turn to babysit Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) one last time while wife Kristi goes shopping; Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Ben Cardin (D-MD); roundtable with Lynn Cheney, Judy Woodruff, Juan Williams George Will. Mistletoe Pucker-up Equivalence Index: Like kissing Reagan on the mouth. Michael Reagan.
Happy smooching.
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Five years ago in C&J: December 19, 2009
"Oh flibbity floo!"
JEERS to the worst disguise ever. Sarah Palin was spotted vacationing in the liberal socialist Kenyan territory of Hawaii this week. What gave her presence away was the throng of people crowding around her on the beach, trying to find out what she had blacked-out on her visor with a magic marker. Turns out it was the word "McCain." Palin said she did it because she was trying to
go incognito. Which goes to show just how poor her judgment is. Sarah, m'rednecklady, if you really wanted to be left alone, you should've left the McCain logo in plain sight. People woulda fled for the hills.
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And just one more…
JEERS to bad spelling. On Sunday's date in 1989, Vice President Dan Quayle sent out 30,000 Christmas cards that said: "May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world." Really:
People laughed at him. On the other hand, his popularity with birds soared.
Have a wassail-worthy weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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