From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Election 2016 Wankers edition
"It’s come out that Donald Trump once rented an office to an Iranian bank that was later accused of terrorism. Today Trump said: 'How was I supposed to know that something wasn’t right with Jihadi Joe’s Savings and Loan?'"
---Conan O'Brien
"Eric Trump today defended his father’s recent 3 a.m. Twitter rant about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, telling reporters: 'At least my father is up at 3 o’clock in the morning.' Why do you think that’s a good thing? You know who’s up that early? People who are wondering where they went wrong with their son."
---Seth Meyers
"[During the VP debate Mike] Pence lied all night, but he did it in such a soothing, FM-radio voice. ... Of course, caring about the vice president's calm temperament when an erratic ‘rage quasar’ is at the top of the ticket is kind of like asking a car salesman about the airbags on a car that is currently on fire---a little bit reassuring but kind of beside the point."
---Samantha Bee
“Mike Pence says he’s ‘Rush Limbaugh on decaf.’ I didn’t realize caffeine was the active ingredient in Oxycontin."
---Stephen Colbert
"Over the weekend, Donald Trump's private tax documents were leaked to The New York Times, showing that in 1995 he posted a loss of 916-million dollars. Right now, Gary Busey is like, 'Wait, didn't you fire me on Celebrity Apprentice for losing the Snapple challenge?'"
---James Corden
We’re holding our breath for our Kossack friends down south. Blue-faced selfie coming soon. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, October 7, 2016
Note: Cheers and Jeers will not appear here on Monday as we will be at a combination Amway/twerking convention. Back Tuesday, possibly in a back brace. (Also: no tip jar this evening, so whoever posts first [Frist???] wins a free upgrade on my Ponzi scheme ladder as soon as your check clears. Congrats!)
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til we turn our clocks back: 30
Days 'til California's Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival: 8
President Obama's approval rating in Gallup's three-day rolling average poll: 54%
Percent of Ohioans who believe Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, respectively, have the right temperament for the job of President of the U.S. according to a new Monmouth University poll: 33%, 59%
Weekly jobless claims, 8,000 below predictions and the best sub-300k streak since 1970: 249,000
Number of people who died on U.S. roads in the first half of 2016, up over 10% from a year ago, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: 18,000
Extra miles Americans drove between Jan. and June 2016 vs. the same period in 2015: 50.5 billion
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Life with a pack of pooches and their giant pet snausage….
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CHEERS to Round Two. The weekend has barely started but we already know what everyone will be talking about on Monday: the second drubbing of Donald Trump by Hillary Clinton in a presidential debate. A brief reminder of Round One:
Sunday night's town hall event airs live from Washington University in St. Louis starting at 9, and the question isn’t whether Hillary will get under the thinnest skin in America, but how. And, boy, does she have a lot to work with: his business debacles, his tax-dodging, his woman-shaming, his mispronunciation of "Nevada," his call for more nukes, his shady dealings with Iran, Russia and pre-détente Cuba, his snub of the U.S. steel industry...the list is endless and Donald will take the bait every time. As always, the mighty Daily Kos front-page staff will live-blog the debate blow-by-blow, and then we'll all go to bed very late but very happy and wake up to find Trump's 3am sour-grapes twitter rant sitting there like a shiny new present on Christmas morning. Who says politics isn’t a gas?
P.S. The debate will be showing on the big screen at Regal Cinemas (free admission, but they make their bucks at the concession counter) in case you want to go and throw popcorn at the screen. I’ll pass---I prefer hurling shoes at the TV.
JEERS to Mother Nature when she's pissed. Hurricane Matthew struck (and is still striking) Florida as a Cat-4 monster. But if I know one thing about our southern-dwelling human beings of the American persuasion, it's this: however bad it gets, you'll make it through. I know this because of this twitter pic that has resilience written all over it:
Governor Rick Scott says he's on the case and will be doing everything within his abilities to help people get through it. But don't let that scare you---Obama's kick-ass FEMA director Craig Fugate will also be down there doing everything within his abilities to help people through it, so it'll be okay.
JEERS to Groundhog Day: Gridiron Edition. One hundred years ago, on October 7, 1916, Georgia Tech Engineers scored a touchdown against the Cumberland University (Tennessee) Bulldogs. Then they scored another. And another. And another. And another. And another. By the time they were done the scoreboard read 222-0---the most lopsided game in college football history. When asked by their coach why they didn't execute any of the plays they'd spent three months practicing, the Cumberland players responded: "You didn't say please." It's always the little things.
JEERS to scary white Christian terrorists who are going to kill us all. The trial of Ammon Bundy and his fellow soldiers-for-Christ who staged that armed takeover of the federal Malheur Wildlife Sanctuary---which your and my tax dollars help pay for, but not Donald Trump's because he doesn't pay any taxes---continued this week. On Wednesday we finally got an answer to the question of why, exactly, the freedom fighters had to file their grievance with the government at gunpoint. Now we know, and it's just as fucked up as you'd expect:
The leader of a 41-day standoff at a national wildlife refuge in Oregon testified that he orchestrated the takeover to take "a hard stand" against the federal government's control of public lands and said the occupiers would not be successful unless they carried guns.
He said he wasn't armed on the refuge but acknowledged telling others to carry guns. Otherwise, the occupation had no chance of success, he said.
"Without the guns, they would have come out in a paddy wagon and put us in zip-tie handcuffs," Bundy said of authorities. "We would never have been able to tell people why we were there."
As opposed to what happened with the guns, which is they came out in a paddy wagon and put them in zip-tie handcuffs, and if found guilty the federal government will be in complete control of their sorry asses for years. Success!
CHEERS to civility. The "Complete Book of Etiquette" was first published 64 years ago, on October 8, 1952. Lesson #1: Be nice to everyone. Lesson #2: If you don’t feel like following Rule #1, aim for the shins.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here are a few tidbits on the TV schedule for the weekend. On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with Sen. Al Franken, Mark Cuban, musician Pitbull, James Carville, and author Johann Hari. New DVD/streaming releases include X-Men: Apocalypse and the very strange Swiss Army Man. The post-season baseball schedule is here---go Red Sox and/or Cubs! Tom Brady returns to the gridiron Sunday, which means the New England Patriots are gonna make the Cleveland Browns poop their pants 996 to 0 you just wait and see!!! (The full NFL schedule is here.) Lin Manuel-Miranda (“Hamilton”) hosts SNL, and if they have half a brain they'll bring back spot-on Alec Baldwin to do more Trump. The aforementioned presidential debate starts at 9 on…oh, pick a network, any network. And normally this is where we post the Sunday show lineups, but we had to put today's column to bed early so it's all question marks at this point. But I can tell you that the guest on Fox News Sunday is Bill O'Reilly, who is hawking a new book. I believe it's about his unwavering support for his old boss, serial sexual predator Roger Ailes, and it's called Killing My Credibility.
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 7, 2006
JEERS to More evidence that you can't trust Republicans to take care of our kids: under the Bush administration, funding for schools to prevent violence has been slashed by a third. On the bright side, ketchup remains a vegetable.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to living saints. Let's hear it for Archbishop Desmond Tutu! The Nobel Peace Prize winner and all-around amazing human being turns 85 today. (If you feel so moved, you can make a donation to the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation) A few reasons why we love him:
"I say somewhat facetiously, 'I’m so glad I’m not God.' Can you imagine being God and looking at Syria and saying: 'These are my children. Look at what they’re doing to each other.'”
"If you want to make peace, you speak to your enemy. You don’t shoot him or her. You don’t raise your voice; improve your argument, my father would have quite correctly advised."
“I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place.”
"I've been married for 56 years and Leah has been very good at keeping my head the right size. Once I was driving and when I looked at her she looked slightly more complacent and self-satisfied than usual. When I wondered why, she showed me this bumper sticker that said: Any woman who wants to be equal to a man has no ambition."
"As a young priest I travelled to the United States to meet leaders of the civil rights movement, and rejoiced in their victories over prejudice and discrimination. Today, I battle to reconcile that joy with the disproportionate number of African Americans in prison and being shot in the streets."
"Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are."
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
"I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, `Now is that political or social?' He said, ‘I feed you.'"
Or, as translated by America's right-wing religious grifter class: "Blah blah blah..."
Oh, and twenty years ago today Fox News blessed the world by coming into existence. Oh, you shouldn’t have. No, really, seriously...you shouldn’t have. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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