From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Kasichmentum! Edition
"Ohio Governor John Kasich...announced that he is running for president. During his speech he referred to Jesus Christ, which is ironic because so did Americans when they heard another Republican was running for president."
---Jimmy Fallon
Earth, meet your new cousin Kepler-452b. Play nice.
"Kasich is the sixteenth Republican running for president. Even the Duggars are like, 'Seriously, another one???'"
---Larry Wilmore
"At a campaign event today, Donald Trump read Senator Lindsey Graham's cellphone number aloud on live TV. It’s the craziest thing Trump has done since whatever he did right before that."
---Seth Meyers
Clip of Lindsey Graham: This is a bad [Iran] deal, the worst possible outcome, you've created a nuclear arms race in the mideast…
CNN anchor: We don’t know all the specifics. You yourself haven't read it.
Graham: That's true.
John Oliver: Lindsey Graham is discussing the Iran deal the way a four-year-old talks about broccoli: 'It's disgusting! It's the worst food in the world!' Have you ever tried broccoli? 'No, I have not, but I know I hate it!'
---Last Week Tonight
Clip of Benjamin Netanyahu: [Iran will acquire] Nuclear warheads within 10 or 15 years.
Jon Stewart: With the way the world's going, a nuclear Iran is going to be the least of our problems in ten or fifteen years. Iranian nukes will be a break from swimming through our climate-change-flooded cities fighting ebola zombies with our teeth because we can't hold guns thanks to our iPhone-shaped hand tumors.
---The Daily Show
President Obama hugs half-sister
Auma Obama on his Kenya arrival.
And since he made history in Kenya today, here's President Obama at the 2014 White House Correspondents' Dinner:
"An American won the Boston Marathon for the first time in thirty years, which was inspiring. And only fair, since a Kenyan has been president for the last six."
I hope he remembers to get me a snow globe from the Nairobi Airport gift shop. You shake it and it snows frivolous Orly Taitz lawsuits.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, July 24, 2015
Note: This is a final call if you'd like to add a message to my partner Common Sense Mainer's community quilt now being (gorgeously) assembled by Sara R. Click here for details. Thank you to everyone who has contributed messages and/or donations. He'll be driving around the country in a rented Yugo to thank you all personally. Just as soon as we find a rented Yugo that still runs.
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7 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the
Iowa State Fair:
20
Days 'til
Boston Comic-Con:
7
Percent by which Social Security disability benefits will be cut next year if Congress doesn't act, averaging $193 less per month:
19%
Time it took three astronauts to reach orbit in their Russian Soyuz spacecraft, after which they joined the current occupants at the Space Station:
15 minutes
Factor by which airline travelers are expected to increase in the next two decades, to 7.3 billion per year:
2x
Amount United Airlines is investing in a company that turns household and agricultural waste into jet fuel:
$30 million
(Source: AP)
Pope Francis's approval rating in the U.S., down from 76% in February 2014:
59%
(Source: Gallup)
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Amazing Rolling Woofini Triplets:
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CHEERS to going home to your home away from home. The President of the United States returned to visit his family members in Africa today. Some background:
Obama dines with step-"Granny" Sarah
(she's 93) and half-sister Auma Obama.
This week’s visit to Kenya, followed by a stop in Ethiopia, will be his fourth trip to sub-Saharan Africa as president, more than any of his predecessors made. He will be the first sitting president to visit either Kenya or Ethiopia, and he hopes to reinforce efforts to bring electricity, security and democracy to Africa. […]
He never really knew his father, whom he met only once, when he was 10, but he felt a connection that eventually took him to Kenya in 1987. He spent several weeks sleeping on the living room sofa of his half sister, Auma, who taught at the University of Nairobi, and meeting the many relatives of the various wings of the family. He traveled to his father’s home village---“there was a goat in my lap,” he recalled---and met his grandfather’s last wife, known as Mama Sarah, whom he called Granny even though there was no blood tie. In the book, he wrote that for the first time, he enjoyed “the comfort, the firmness of identity.”
[…]
Given security and logistical concerns, Mr. Obama will not be able to visit his father’s village. Instead, his relatives, including Mama Sarah, will be brought to him in Nairobi.
I have to admit: never did I think I'd ever write "The President of the United States returned to visit his family members in Africa today." Life is full of surprises.
Actually, Ralphie, you're
too smart to be a militia.
JEERS to weekend warriors. File this as a classic case of "No one could've predicted…" In Lancaster, Ohio, some yahoo with Cheeto-stained fingers and a fully-loaded AR 15---one of the ragtag self-appointed "militia" members self-tasked with "guarding" Army recruitment centers in the wake of the shootings in Chattanooga---failed to observe proper gun safety and negligently
fired off a round. In response, other "militia" groups have responded by fanning out to guard the recruitment centers from the "militia" groups who are guarding the recruitment centers from the terrorists. These new guys are different: their fingers are Dorito-stained.
P.S. Last night at 7:30, some guy opened fire in a crowded theater in Louisiana, killing two and wounding nine before turning the gun on himself. He was a liberal-bashing tea party member, filled with hate and right-wing paranoia. Or, as the NRA would've called him right up until 7:29 and 59 seconds last night: a good guy with a gun.
"Potato!" "Puhtato!" "Tomato!" "Tomahto!"
"Oh, let's settle this with nukes."
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CHEERS to great moments in standing around fake display kitchens. Fifty-six years ago today, on July 24, 1959, Richard Nixon---then Ike's veep---engaged in a verbal fisticuffs with Nikita Khrushchev on the merits of capitalism versus communism, an event that became known as the
"Kitchen Debate." It was a civilized discussion (said the Russki: "Don't you have a machine that puts food into the mouth and pushes it down? Many things you've shown us are interesting but they are not needed in life.") until the Soviet leader got pissed and gave one of Nixon's aide's a nipplectomy with a cheese grater. (Khrushchev later paid to have them replaced, after which the aide sent him a brief note: "Thanks for the mammaries.")
JEERS to Governor Goodhair McOutraged Hey, let's check in with truly-awful former Texas Governor Rick Perry and see how his hypocritical anti-Trump soliloquy is going:
Oh look! Perry's mug shot,
taken less than a year ago.
"…He is a pustule on the pustule on a pustule's buttock region, a carnival spore at a mold circus hawking Hitler rhetoric that will lead to toejam zombies pursuing every man, woman and child in this great nation. Trump is like a bungee jumper who turns out to be Satan, spewing atherosclerotic bile as he bobs up and down after his leap, consuming the oxygen of freedom and replacing it with the noxious exhalations of Mao. He is a type-2 diabetes train conductor who will derail decency as he destroys our pancreas of liberty. He is the dermatitis of mean, the saddle sores of hate, the hoof-and-mouth disease of acrimony, the…."
Okay then. We'll check back on Monday.
CHEERS to tearful reunions. On July 24, 1866, Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the War of Southern Traitor Aggression ended. Fred Thompson and Bob Corker aside, so far it seems to be working out. But don’t get cocky, Volunteer State...you're still on probation.
CHEERS to home vegetation. A quick roundup of some of the eyestuff that may end up on your TV. I'll be starting with
Whose Line? at 8, followed by Rachel (way to school Rick Santorum this week, ma'am, on how government works). We'll be following Obama's trip to Africa in between bouts of weed pulling (see below). New
DVD releases include Robert Duvall's
Wild Horses and the vampire mockumentary
What We Do in the Shadows. The baseball schedule, starring the butt-dragging Red Sox,
is here. Sunday night at 8 on E! is the first episode of "I Am Cait," and later at 11 John Oliver tosses the whole week into a garbage bag and puts it by the curb on
Last Week Tonight.
And here's your Sunday morning lineup, for shits and giggles:
Sunday on 'This Week':
AG Loretta Lynch.
Meet the Press: Bernie!!! GOP presidential candidate #16, John Kasich; the great John Nichols of The Nation; Pat Buchanan, the right-wing extremist who thought Hitler was just a misunderstood gentle giant.
This Week: Attorney general Loretta Lynch; GOP presidential candidate #9 Lindsey Graham; Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).
CNN's State of the Union: GOP presidential candidate #10 Rick Perry continues his Donald Trump Makes Me Cwazy! garment-rending tour.
Face the Nation: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV); Rick Perry;
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Rand Paul takes a chainsaw to Chris Wallace's desk and then sends it through the woodchipper before setting it on fire. Why? Nobody knows.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 24, 2005
CHEERS to the Amazing Bushkin! Ladies and gentlemen, in his continuing quest to cement his legacy as the Worst President Ever, George W. Bush will now attempt to dive from this platform into a shot glass at the 64% disapproval-on-Iraq mark: "HehHehHeh...Wheeeee!!" He did it!! Next performance is at 5:15---tell your friends!
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And just one more…
Definitely a weed.
CHEERS to primary pruning. Some people say exercise is the best thing to clear your head. Some say yoga, others say pot, while a handful find peace by short-sheeting the beds at nursing homes. It's actually spending a lazy weekend hour or two in the garden pulling weeds. Here's how to do it in the most satisfying way: 1) Grab the base of the little bastard. 2) Give it a gentle yet persistent tug and wait for that little"
Rrrrrrip!" sound that lets you know you've eliminated the menace by the roots. 3) Hold it up and say, "You're
gone, Jeb. As for you, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Ben Carson, Rand Paul, John Kasich and the rest...
you're next." 4) Laugh maniacally. 5) Acknowledge the spontaneous applause coming from the neighbors' yards. 6) If you have more than 16 weeds, move on to idiot congressmembers, governors and Fox News hosts. Have fun!
Have a great weekend! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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