Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Grass-stained Knees Edition
“Trump announced he will visit Puerto Rico next Tuesday and survey the storm damage. However, Trump may have to cancel depending on what happens on Monday Night Football.”
---Conan O’Brien
“Wow. What a conversation we’re having. Talking about black people and their owners and how they should be grateful for the privilege of working on a field. Who says Trump is taking us backward?”
---Samantha Bee
”Even NFL commissioner Roger Goodell denounced the president’s comments. And when you’ve lost the moral high ground to Roger Fucking Goodell, something is horribly wrong.”
---John Oliver
It’s wrong to do it in the streets; it’s wrong to do it in the tweets.
You cannot do it on the field; you cannot do it if you’ve kneeled.
And don’t do it if you’re rich, you ungrateful son of a bitch.
Because there’s one thing that’s a fact; you cannot protest while you’re black
---Trevor Noah
“Senate Republicans announced they will not hold a vote on the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal and replace Obamacare after they were unable to secure enough support. Republicans plan to come back with a new plan where they just slash the tires on all the ambulances.”
---Seth Meyers
“As this point, the folks at the CBO must be so tired of analyzing healthcare bills that they're just freeballing it. ‘What? A new bill? Yeah, let me run the numbers. Yeah, yeah---everybody dies.’"
---Stephen Colbert
“One of the two key Republican holdouts, Susan Collins, senator from Maine, said she would not support Graham-Cassidy. … Thank you, Senator Collins. Maine needs affordable health care more than almost any state because the sewers are filled with child-eating clowns.”
---Jimmy Kimmel
So...Jetsetgate expands to five cabinet members, one of whom (Tom Price) just quit in disgrace. NFL backlash is swift and brutal. Private email scandal widens. Bungled Puerto Rico hurricane relief effort continues to be bungled. Trumpcare dies a third death. Approval rating stuck in the mid-30s. And Tax plan rolls out with a thud. Bored with all the winning yet?
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 29, 2017
Note: The weekend forecast calls for Trump-fueled tweet tantrums with a zero percent chance of sanity. Low: 52. High: why yes, these days you'd be crazy not to be.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til CHRISTmas: 87
Days 'til the Morro Bay Harbor Festival in California: 8
Estimated decline in traffic to new/information web sites that fire writers and “pivot” toward video, according to Columbia Journalism Review: 60%
Percent of registered voters who support the Iran nuclear agreement, according to a new Politico-Morning Consult poll: 54%
Percent chance that Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions are the two least popular members of the Trump cabinet in the same poll: 100%
Minimum number of calls opposing Trumpcare made since March by Daily Kossacks to Republican members of Congress: 250,000
Amount the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona diamond finally sold for: $53 million
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Puppy Pic of the Day: 10 seconds of happiness...
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CHEERS to #39. If you don’t count George Washington's fake choppers, Jimmy Carter---who turns 93 Sunday---owns the most famous set of presidential teeth in history. That Jimmy grin was what the country wanted after the Watergate mess. And although his one term isn't considered a rousing success, he kept us out of war, focused our attention on energy policy, kept us out of war, protected huge amounts of land, was at the helm during the creation of eight million jobs, brokered peace between Israel and Egypt, and kept us out of war.
Carter's post-presidency is where he really shines and he warrants every accolade we can throw DailyKos member 81380's way. His motto at the Carter Center says it all: "Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope." Done…done…and done. (He could also add: kicking brain cancer’s ass.) And he’s still keepin’ on keepin’ on…
“We’re having to cut back on his activities a bit, or he’d still insist on doing everything,” Simmons said of Carter, who’d just spent an hour signing 492 books for [last week’s Plains Peanut Festival] festivalgoers, then rather nimbly hopped into a gray pickup truck driven by a Secret Service agent. “He was ready, I think. We’ve already decided to cut down on the number of books people can get signed next year.”
Yep, next year. Carter’s already got a week of building Habitat for Humanity houses in Indiana on his schedule for next August, too, and he’s writing a new book (his 30th) on faith, he said at the Carter Center this month. It seems there’s always something to do, even at 93.
Happy birthday, Jimmy. You're an amazing American and one of many reasons I’m proud to call myself a card-carrying Democrat.
CHEERS to tripping out of the starting gate. Lord Dampnut took time out from the grueling work of ignoring the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico to announce the tax overhaul that he put zero work into. Faithfully droning the words he saw on his teleprompter, Trump promised that money would rain from the skies onto the middle class, and future tax forms would be so simple they’d fit on the top of a piece of the best chocolate cake ever, believe me. But then he sent his top surrogate out to flog the plan, and, well…
President Donald Trump's top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, said today that he can't guarantee that taxes won't go up for some middle-class families under the administration's sweeping tax overhaul. … "I can't guarantee anything," said Cohn, the director of the White House Economic Council.
Wow. He just did the voiceover for the opposition ads. Thanks, Gary!
CHEERS to G-d's Amazing 25-Hour Miracle Diet. The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur starts at sundown (which in Maine is, like, 6 O'clock now) and continues through tomorrow. According to C&J's go-to guide, Torah Tots…
Yom Kippur is a Shabbat...no work can be performed on Yom Kippur.
It is well-known that you are supposed to refrain from eating and drinking (even water) on Yom Kippur. It is a complete, 25+ hour fast beginning before sunset on the evening before Yom Kippur and ending after nightfall on the day of Yom Kippur. The Talmud also specifies additional restrictions: washing and bathing, anointing one's body (with cosmetics, perfumes, etc.), marital relations and wearing leather shoes.
The holiday is a somber one during which Jews confess their sins and seek forgiveness over the course of a day. That's why I'm not Jewish---I'd barely get started before the closing buzzer went off.
JEERS to Black Monday. As horrible as things are now in the Trump era, let's not forget how scary things got nine years ago under the previous Republican hack. From the C&J time machine, this was our reaction to the panic-inducing Wall Street Crash of 2008:
HOLY SHIT! to September 29, 2008. I always thought when something stopped at "777" it meant we won something.
Yesterday it meant America lost 777 points on Wall Street and $1.1 trillion in market value in seven hours. So what to do? For me, it's baby steps. Really, really easy stuff I can do without thinking: 1) Feed cat. 2) Put on socks. 3) Remove cat food from feet. 4) Remove sock from cat's head. Okay, so maybe I'll just sit quietly and grind my teeth for awhile.
I remember feeling actual terror that day and several days after. Al Qaeda had nothing to do with it. This time it was Goldman Sachs, AIG, Moody's, Standard & Poor’s etc., their toxic assets of mass destruction, and a government that deliberately looked the other way. I continue to fear them a thousand times more than I will ever fear ISIS, because George W. Bush was right about one thing: oceans can't protect us---from our own greedy-ass selves.
JEERS to Captain Objectification. Let’s get this out of the way right now: Hugh Hefner was a creepy sexist pig. He treated women horribly, skulking around his sex palace that reeked of bleach like he was God’s gift to womankind, which he certainly was not. At the same time, like creepy pig Larry Flynt, he had his moments in the civil liberties arena---quite a few of them, in fact, even on women’s rights---and since he’s now gone, I’ll point out one factoid I just ran across that was historic in a good way: the assistance he gave to Dick Gregory after three civil rights workers--- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner---were killed by the KKK during the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi:
The comedian wasn’t able to get the full $100,000 but he was able to get $25,000 thanks to a phone call to Hugh Hefner.
“Hefner understood what those rednecks didn’t: that things had changed,” he told British GQ in 2011. That you could no longer argue that you’d ‘killed three Jews.’ Or ‘killed three blacks.’ What you’d done was, you’d killed three fellow human beings.”
Gregory drove to Meridian and announced a $25,000 reward for any information on the location of Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner. The next day, the FBI put out their own $30,000 reward. However it was Gregory who would receive a tip. “I received a letter quite some time ago that practically pinpointed the spot where the bodies were found,” he continued to tell Mississippi Eyewitness shortly after the bodies were found.
The outrage following their discovery helped usher along the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So, yeah, gold star to him for that. Hefner was 91 when he died this week. Following his funeral he’ll receive a proper burial under a guilty husband’s mattress.
P.S. While we’re on the subject of death, we’re glad to hear that Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana sent the grim reaper packing after making a mostly-full recovery (thanks, Obamacare!) from a gunshot wound sustained last June during his congressional team’s baseball practice. Yesterday he returned to work at the Capitol to wild applause. And now that we’ve breathed that sigh of relief, we can get back to our normal routine: calling him out for kissing the asses of his corporate overlords and never letting him forget that he’s “David Duke without the baggage.” So welcome back. Asshole.
CHEERS to home vegetation. To show solidarity with all the NFL players and staff who will be protesting racial injustice during the national anthem this weekend (the schedule is here), I wrote this entire C&J on one knee. (“Oh, Jeeves! Fetch the forklift! I wish to get back up now!”)
As for other stuff on TV this weekend: tonight on HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher kibitzes with Paul Hawken, Tom Morello, April Ryan, John Heilemann and Kurt Andersen. SNL’s 43rd season kicks off tomorrow night with host Ryan Gosling and musical guest Jay I’m Asleep (aka Jay Z---Get it? Get it?) New home video releases include the action sleeper hit Baby Driver and the perfectly entertaining Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The baseball schedule is here (the Red Sox will send the Cubs “back into hibernation” Ha Ha Ha!!!). On 60 Minutes: Republican congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA) gets a tongue bath a week after Republican Sen. John McCain got a tongue bath (I’m sensing a pattern), plus a fresh peek into the Hubble telescope. Sunday night The Simpsons return for their 29th season, and curmudgeons everywhere rejoice as Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) airs its first new episode in six years. And John Oliver wraps the week up in a bigly bow on the freshly-Emmy’d Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Ta-Nehisi Coates; outgoing Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN); Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin who, after seeing the reason Tom Price got fired, suddenly regrets chartering a private jet to fly to the MTP studio in Washington D.C. from his home in Washington D.C.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).
CNN's State of the Union: Bernie!!! Plus Gov. John Kasich (R-OH); Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL); White House budget director Mick Mulvaney talks about Trump’s rich-people tax cuts while waterboarding the director of Head Start.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: White House budget director Mick Mulvaney talks about Trump’s rich-people tax cuts while punching a Meals On Wheels volunteer in the face.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 29, 2007
CHEERS to fresh Bushism. It's been awhile since the “C- president” spouted one of his trademark fluffs. Yesterday he proved that it was worth the wait, saying: "As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured." Attaboy.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the day John McCain realized he'd made a terrible, awful, horrible, no-good mistake. Who can forget that day nine years ago tomorrow when Katie Couric tossed the softest of softballs to vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who whiffed once…twice…and three times she's out:
Katie Couric: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious,what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this---to stay informed and to understand the world?
Sarah Palin: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media...
Couric: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.
Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years...
Couric: Can you name any of them?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.
The freaky part? Subscriptions to I Have A Vast Variety Of Sources Where We Get Our News Digest tripled overnight.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are youcheering and jeering about today?
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