From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Are We Having Fun Yet? Edition
"In last night's Democratic primaries in Oregon and Kentucky, Bernie won Oregon. No surprise there---if you look at it on a map, Oregon is pretty much as far left as you can get. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, Hillary Clinton declared victory after winning by less than 1 percent. So there's another 1 percent for Bernie to be mad at."
---Stephen Colbert
"So Clinton won Kentucky and Sanders won Oregon, and now this will be settled by whose supporters can be most annoying on Facebook. Good luck, everybody."
---Jimmy Kimmel
”Donald Trump had a big meeting with Paul Ryan in Washington. They discussed Republican principles. It was a short meeting.”
---Bill Maher
"In California a white supremacist has resigned from being a Donald Trump delegate. When asked why, the white supremacist said, 'Because that guy's crazy.'"
---Conan O'Brien
"Conservatives around the country have been introducing 'bathroom bills' which they say will prevent people from posing as transgender and sneaking into bathrooms to attack kids. So I guess their point is: if you're a pedophile and you were born a man, you're not allowed to sneak into the women's room and attack girls. You've got to stay in the men's room and attack boys."
---Colin Jost, SNL
And two years ago this week:
"A British ice cream maker has created a new flavor of ice cream that mixes champagne and Viagra. Perfect for anyone who wants to eat something that tastes like Donald Trump's burps."
---SNL's Cecily Strong
Quick note on our poll: because we weren't here to post one last Friday, a couple significant choices from the previous week are included. This decision has been approved by the Justice League, so if you don’t like it, take it up with Aquaman.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 20, 2016
Note: Today's commencement address, Honesty and Integrity: Your Road Map to Success, has been cancelled on account of the scheduled speaker started serving a ten-year prison sentence this morning for perjury and embezzlement. In his place will be a monkey playing the accordion.
---The Dean
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Memorial Day: 10
Days 'til the 58th annual Garden Grove Strawberry Festival in California: 7
April increase in factory output, the first rise in three months: 0.7%
Number of candidates Mitt Romney successfully recruited to run an independent campaign against Donald Trump before giving up: 0
Percent chance that Aetna is entering the Obamacare marketplace in Maine starting in November: 100%
Amount paid for the "Unique Pink" 15.38-carat South African diamond at auction: $28 million
Per-person amount by which Americans would need to increase their consumption of cheese this year to eat away our current cheese surplus, according to FiveThirtyEight: 3 pounds
-
Puppy Pic of the Day:
-
CHEERS to the junior senator from Minnesota. Happy Birthday to Al Franken, who turns 65 tomorrow. Is anyone surprised that he's a hard-working, smart-as-a-whip, solidly progressive United States Senator? Yeah, me neither---and, oh, how that still makes Bill O'Reilly seethe. As Al succinctly wrote in his classic bestseller, LIES and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them…
Yes, I am a liberal, and I'm proud of it.
It's a term we need to reclaim. Because I believe that most Americans are liberals just like me. Most Americans believe in helping people. And most Americans believe that the government has a role to play---to create opportunity, to protect the environment, to provide for the common good. ...
While it might not seem like I'm changing the tone when I accuse my friends on the right of being liars, my hope is that, if we keep calling them on their calculated dishonesty, their dishonesty will lose its effectiveness. Then O'Reilly and company will have to resort to Plan B: name-calling. Which, I think, will expose them for what they are. Stupid bastards.
Franken, the only sitting senator who can draw a map of the USA from memory (Republicans are still trying to get the shape of the earth right), didn't try to seize the national spotlight during his first term. That's changed a bit now that his landslide reelection is well behind him (I think the job's his now for as long as he wants it). Issues-wise, you can see his commitment to shoring up veterans benefits, supporting Obama's overtime rule, improving rail safety, opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the odious “bathroom bills” popping up like weeds across the country, and feasting on a buffet of liberal issues at his Senate office and Facebook pages. Happy birthday, Al. Many blessings on your camels and hugs to Frannie.
JEERS to disappearing acts not involving trained magicians. Today is Endangered Species Day, which is billed as "an opportunity for people of all ages to learn about the importance of protecting endangered species." Here are 15 of them from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Here’s one of them, the spectacled eider:
I'm proud to say I did my part to mark Endangered Species Day. I spent the afternoon giving sympathy hugs to Republicans.
JEERS to a gathering of trigger-happy goons. If you live in the vicinity of Louisville, keep your head down this weekend. Your city is being overrun with the nuttiest of the gun nuts during this weekend's NRA annual meeting. How ironic that, despite being around tens of thousands of "good guys with guns," the organization is scared shitless about, well, being around tens of thousands of "good guys with guns”...
[R]epresentatives from the NRA say security is always a top priority.
“We have our own security team in place and they've been working local, federal and state law enforcement agencies to make sure this is one of the safest events there is,” said Andrew Arulanandam, Managing Director of Public Affairs for the NRA.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is set to speak at the event on Friday. On top of the NRA's security team, Secret Service agents will be at the Kentucky Exposition Center handling Trump's security detail.
NRA meeting attendees can carry a weapon but must have the proper license.
And what a lineup! Wayne LaPierre (of course), Sen. Mitch McConnell, Brian "Pigman" Quaca, Team Smith & Wesson, Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Trey Gowdy, Gov. Mike Pence, Eddie the Eagle, Sen. Marco Rubio, Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. Jeff Sessions, and every Billy Bob and Corabelle who still believes Obama is a secret Muslim coming for their blued-metal death penises. This year they're having a special contest: whoever correctly guesses how many guns people accidentally leave in the bathroom wins---wait for it---a free gun!!!
JEERS to faulty predictions. On May 20, 1926, Thomas Edison said Americans would always prefer silent movies over talkies. Great inventor. Terrible psychic.
CHEERS to getting caught in the middle. If you want to take your mind off all the crazy bullshit going on down here, just go outside on a clear night and look up---the universe puts on a helluva show. Earlier this week, for example, a freaking meteor was seen streaking across Portland, Maine (and was later ticketed for indecent exposure ha ha), and this weekend you'll get a closer-up peek at the homeland of our Martian overlords:
Opposition "marks the planet's closest approach to Earth, so that Mars appears bigger and brighter in the sky than usual," European Space Agency officials wrote.
"This event allows astronomers using telescopes in space and on the ground to see more details on the Martian surface." The dates of closest approach and opposition don't mesh exactly. The closest approach will actually come on May 30, when Earth and Mars are separated by 46.8 million miles (75.3 million km).
The average time between Mars oppositions is about 780 days; the last time Earth, the Red Planet and the sun all lined up was in April 2014.
The new Hubble photo, which the telescope took with its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, shows a natural-color view of Mars in which mountains, plains, canyons, craters and many other geological features are visible.
Two things you can count on as the opposition event occurs: skywatchers with telescopes will be very excited, and End Times wackos with Armageddon predictions will be very disappointed.
JEERS to moving day in Dixie. Li'l Civil War nugget: on May 20, 1861, the Confederate Congress agreed to pack its bags and move the capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia. I believe a similar event would take place 51 years later with the deck chairs on the Titanic.
CHEERS to home vegetation. The big TV event this weekend is Bryan Cranston's amazing turn as Lyndon Johnson in All the Way, which airs tomorrow night on HBO. The critics love it, and you can read the reviews over at Metacritic. New DVD releases include the most bizarre entry we've seen in eons: Kindergarten Cop 2 starring Dolph Lundgren. Fred Armisen hosts the season finale of SNL. In sports, conservative no-taxes weirdo Grover Norquist goes for his second leg of the Triple Crown by running The Preakness tomorrow. (Update: I've been informed that it's actually a horse named Nyquist. But I'd pay to see Grover Norquist running around a dirt track with a saddle on his back and a bit in his mouth.) The hockey playoff schedule is here, the NBA playoff schedule is here, and the baseball lineup is here. Sunday on the season finale of The Simpsons, Marge goes to prison. Your Game of Thrones spoiler alert: “Aieeeeee!!! Godzilla!!!” And John Oliver puts the previous seven days to bed Sunday at 11 on HBO’s Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
This Week: Bernie!!! Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) on all this cockadoody terroristy stuff goin’ on.
Face the Nation: Bernie!!! Plus “Miracle on the Hudson” Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, former National Transportation Safety Board head Mark Rosenker and former Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend on the downed EgyptAir plane; fresh battleground poll numbers. On the roundtable: Molly Ball and Ezra Klein.
Meet the Press: Hillary!!!
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus Rep. Peter King (R-NY) gives Jake Tapper a ride over Manhattan on his magic jowls.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Homeland Security director Jeh Johnson; House Homeland Security Committee chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) conjures up some fresh fearmongering; then Donald Trump appears with his adopted Senate grandpappy Jeff Sessions.
Happy viewing!
-
Ten years ago in C&J: May 20, 2006
CHEERS to freeing Willy. After decades of long, hard searching, scientists finally found King Tut's penis. Wendy's immediately apologized and offered the Antiquities director a fresh bowl of chili.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to Jimmy Stewart. Happy 108th Birthday to one of the few actors whom I'd watch in absolutely anything. He had more great roles than we can count. (The Hitchcocks, the Capras and the westerns are just the tip of the iceberg (and don’t get me started on the genius that is Flight of the Phoenix), but here are two favorite moments from each end of his life: learning from Jean Arthur how a bill winds its way through the Senate in 1939's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and his 1981 Tonight Show tribute to his dog Beau that always does me in. And since I hate to be done in alone, I'm taking you with me:
And now that we know our waterworks are working...
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-