From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Giant Cheeto Head in a Vise Edition
"House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff discussed the speed with which the impeachment inquiry of President Trump is moving, saying 'We're not fooling around.' Which is also what Melania wrote in Donald's last birthday card."
—Seth Meyers
“Basically, [Trump] is accused of withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine and then using it as leverage to get dirt on Joe Biden. It is very, very dumb. And, you might remember, we called his Russia scandal Stupid Watergate, which unfortunately means that we now have to work out what this sequel should be called. We've settled on Stupid Watergate II: The Stupidest Watergate. And that'll work fine until the next one comes along.”
—John Oliver
"In order to find out that Trump called Ukraine, all we had to do was ask Trump. Did you call Ukraine? He said, 'Yes! Here's the evidence.' So there wasn't even like a whodunit, how can we prove this? There are contextual things I could do long segments about. But in terms of whodunit? He did it, he admits it, and now he's gonna be impeached for it."
—Rachel Maddow on The Late Show
"He wasn't kidding—Trump even told his staff to find out how much building the snake and alligator moat would cost. That about sums up working for Trump: one day you're meeting in the Oval Office, the next you're googling 'How much does an alligator moat cost?'"
—Jimmy Fallon
"Just because he’s saying it on TV doesn’t mean we should rush into judgment. Let’s wait for the transcript!"
—Samantha Bee on Trump asking China to meddle in the 2020 election in front of reporters at the White House
And a final warning:
"All you guys in the Trump administration who think you're controlling the damage by being there? You're not. The damage is out of control. You might as well try to stop a volcano with your thumb at this point. Stop thinking you’re the adults in the room. The room is on fire. Run for your lives."
---Jimmy Kimmel
Actually, I kinda look forward to the day when a bucket of Kentucky Fried Stephen Miller gets hurled out of a White House window.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, October 4, 2019
Note: Earlier today C&J adopted the Humane Treatment Pledge: our kiddie pool is only stocked with rescue alligators and snakes adopted from shelters, and we will never buy any from an alligator or snake mill. (By the way, our new 40-foot python’s name is Fluffy and she loves being skritched on her belly...yes she does, yes she does. Who’s a good python? Fluffy’s a good python, yessss….) —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Election Day 2019: 32
Days 'til the Trailing of the Sheep Festival in Idaho: 5
Rank of Massachusetts,California and Rhode Island among most energy-efficient states, according to the State Energy Efficiency Scorecard: #1, #2, #3
Rank of West Virginia, North Dakota, and Wyoming: #48, #49, #50
Percent of Americans who believe Trump has or might have committed crimes while president, according to a new Quinnipiac poll: 60%
Percent of independents who believe Trump is dishonest: 60%
Percent chance that TripAdvisor has stopped selling tickets to parks with captive whales and dolphins: 100%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
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CHEERS to very loud flies on the wall. I've got good news and bad news for the president of the United States. First the bad news, summarized here—a "perfect" summary, believe me, believe me—from a Business Insider profile of the mood inside the White House as the impeachment steamroller lumbers ever closer to the front door:
» One aide described conditions in the White House as "a category-5 storm." Why, I didn’t even know Cat-5 storms existed. Who knew???
» Said one official on Trump's agreement—against the wishes of his horrified senior advisers—to release the damning summary transcript describing the arms-for-political-favors phone conversation between him and the leader of Ukraine: "It was the stupidest fucking thing I'd heard in months."
» Rudy Giuliani's TV interviews are destroying every defense the White House is trying to cobble together. As long as he's in the mix, everyone else on the inside is "paralyzed."
» Trump's defense currently looks like "it was put together by a bunch of pissed-off preschoolers."
» Things are getting so bad that even Ivanka is answering reporters' questions with, "Daddy? Daddy? Hmm. Never heard of him."
So that's the bad news. The good news is, there is no good news.
P.S. As for Vice President Mike Pence’s role in all this:
Too early for Nancy to start measuring the Oval Office drapes?
CHEERS to great moments in "oooh!" and"aaah!" NASA finally got the prints from its latest roll of film back from Fotomat. (Reminder: Two-For-One 3x5 reprints offer ends Monday. See coupon in today's paper for details.) In addition to several not-safe-for-work shots of the Labor Day weekend Orpglorb toga party on Ceres, the Juno probe also took a striking photo of Jupiter sporting a prominent black spot 2,200 miles wide:
This can mean one of only two things: either that's a shadow of one of the planet’s moons…or Jupiter is destined to get stoned by the descendants of Tessie Hutchinson in the village square next June.
CHEERS to Great Moments Republican gaffery (and this was a biggun'). With the Democratic debate season in full swing (next one is the 15th in Ohio), it’s worth noting that on Sunday’s date in 1976, President Gerald Ford claimed during a debate with Jimmy Carter—who just turned 95 and will be off building more Habitat for Humanity houses next week—that there was "no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe." The GOP let 72 hours pass before correcting themselves, giving Carter time to drop the hammer. Today, of course, Republicans don’t even bother to own up to anything. They just get Fox News to stick a "(D)" next to the offender's name and send in the clowns from Breitbart to concoct a new story blaming Democrats. Corrections...how quaint.
CHEERS to Quayle hunting. Speaking of great debate moments, it was thirty-one years ago today, in 1988, when Democrat Lloyd Bentsen—Michael Dukakis's running mate—opened a can of whupass on Dan Quayle during their debate, and naturally the Republican whined like a little snowflake:
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It was one of the great zingers in campaign lore, and today it's a staple of debate-highlight montages. Four years later, of course, came the famous potato"e" gaffe, thus proving Quayle wasn't a very smart vice president. But ya gotta admit, he was a terrific warm-up act for George W. Bush. (And, in fairness, he's an Einstein compared to Trump.)
JEERS to Monty Python's Flying Fire Hose. A protest group in Britain called Extinction Rebellion hatched a plan to focus attention on the Boris Johnson regime's hypocrisy on climate change (i.e. funding fossil fuel exploration while claiming to be environmental stewards in shining armor) by calling on the services of an aging fire truck to spray a treasury building with nearly two-thousand gallons of fake blood. Unfortunately, the fire truck had other plans…
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On the bright side, at least they weren't spraying fake haggis.
CHEERS to life the way they say it never was. On this date in 1957, Leave It to Beaver premiered on ABC. June Cleaver did housework in pearls, frilly dresses, and high heels. Or as I like to call it: me on gutter cleaning day.
CHEERS to home vegetation. It's gettin' cold out—time to huddle around the warmth of the cathode-ray tube. (If you haven't got a cathode-ray tube, a half a cathode-ray tube will do. If you haven't got half a cathode-ray tube then God bless you.) Chris Hayes (now doing his Friday show in front of a live audience), Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell will kick things off as usual by unpacking the Friday news dumps tonight.
Then at 11 the season premiere of The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC America, tonight with RuPaul and Helen Mirren. (Bill Maher is off, but after yet another rant last week against liberals trying to make America a place where everyone is treated equally, it's no big loss.) New home video releases include the mega-hit Spiderman: Far From Home, and the 15-film set House of Hitchcock. The baseball post-season schedule is here (the Red Sox remain the World Series champions for yet another week) and the NFL schedule is here. Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Emmy winner for the British series Fleabag) hosts SNL with musical guest Taylor Swift. On 60 Minutes: more details on the impeachment inquiry, solving the murder of dozens of women in Texas, and a profile of Land O’ Lakes CEO Beth Ford. Homer gets demoted and has to supervise the interns at the nuke plant on The Simpsons. Finally, the dulcet tones of John Oliver tie the previous seven days in a festive bow on HBO's Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup. I hope they can do just a smidge better than last weekend, when 17 of the 18 solo-guest slots on the five shows below were occupied by men:
Meet the Press: TBA
CNN's State of the Union: Republican 2020 presidential candidates Joe Walsh and Mark Sanford.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY); Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT); Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO); Bob Woodward talks about the impeachment inquiry compared to Watergate’s.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: House Intelligence Committee members Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) and Chris Stewart (R-UT).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: October 4, 2009
CHEERS to sharing the same sandbox. Boy, talk about indoctrination. For the past 30 years we've been beat over the head with the notion that sitting down at a table with Iranian officials and talking about stuff—like, say, why we're so pissed at each other—would cause civilization to collapse!!! It was so fucking stupid. So what happened when we finally sat down with them this week? Both parties got right down to business, trying to find common ground, that's what. And they succeeded! Everyone agreed that any public servant who pronounces nuclear "nukular" is an idiot. I like where this is heading.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to brewing a cauldron of hilarity. Can't let today go by without noting that this is the nine-year anniversary of the day Republican tea party know-nothing Christine O'Donnell released an ad for her U.S. Senate run in Delaware with the most bizarre opening line of the 2010 election (or maybe any other, for that matter): "I'm not a witch." I still cringe…
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And yet, in an election year that saw a tidal wave of tea partiers swept into power, she managed to lose to a liberal Democrat (Chris Coons, doing a fine job and handily re-elected in 2014 with 56% of the vote) in a blowout of epic proportions. She may not have been a witch, but that flame-out was still quite a trick.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are youcheering and jeering about today?
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