From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: A Pleasant Week in Detroit
"After two days and six hours, this round of debates is finally done. It was actually a nice change of pace. Usually when people watch six hours of CNN it means their flight was cancelled."
—Jimmy Fallon
"It's hard to sum up what happened tonight, but most of it was a bunch of guys with no chance to win the Democratic nomination yelling Republican talking points at the people who can. It was like watching the seven dwarfs offering Snow White a poison apple."
—Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s debate
—Late Night
"There's too many damn people on that f*cking stage. The last time I saw that many people on one stage was when Moonlight and La La Land were fighting over an Oscar."
—The Daily Show's Roy Wood, Jr.
"Running for president is about shooting for the moon, right? When Trump ran for president he didn't run with incremental ideas. He was like, 'Build a wall! Another country will pay for it!' Obama was like, '[Yes] we can!' He wasn't like, 'Well, uh, we'll see.' But some of these candidates tonight were like, 'Let's see if we can make America 8.5 percent better than it was yesterday.' And that really was the biggest split in the debate: Democrats who want major systemic change, and those who want to fiddle in the margins. And I'll be honest—there's only one side that's going to win this. And it's gonna be… Sorry, Jake Tapper says I've run out of time."
—Trevor Noah
Pay close attention to tonight’s poll options. I left a little surprise for you (and this time it’s not a flaming bag of dog poo).
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, August 2, 2019
Note: Whoever broke into my brain and replaced my entrenched narrative with fresh perspective has 24 hours to switch it back or I'm calling the proper authorities. —Mgr.
-
By the Numbers:
8 days!!!
Days 'til the start of the Labor Day weekend: 29
Days 'til the 6th annual Sacramento Banana Festival: 8
Previous world record for a single-day tree-planting, held by India, set in 2016: 50 million
Number of seedlings 800,000 Ethiopian volunteers planted recently in a 12 hour period, destroying the old record: 350 million
Amount a pristine copy of the 1987 Nintendo game Kid Icarus fetched at auction: $9,000
Number of hidden teeth removed from the mouth of a 7-year-old boy in Chennai, India: 526
Number of fights in the 1,271 regular-season games of the 2018-19 NHL season, down from 280 the previous season: 224
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: "Does Sir have plans for the weekend?"
-
His tricycle was blue. How prescient.
CHEERS to #44 at #58. On Sunday's date two score and 18 years ago:
Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama 6085 Kalanianaole Hwy., son, Aug. 4
---Honolulu Advertiser, 1961
Remember during the '08 campaign when the traditional media tried spinning the line that Obama was too young and wet-behind-the-huge-ears to be president? I laughed, knowing that his accomplished POTUSmates in the 40-something club include Teddy Roosevelt, James K. Polk, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. Besides, a quick check of the highlights of his birth year, 1961, is enough to make your bones feel a bit creaky:
✓ None of the James Bond movies had been released; West Side Story won the Oscar for Best Picture
✓ John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president—Obama is #44
✓ The Grammy for best Rock & Roll recording: Chubby Checker, "Let's Twist Again"; Best R&B recording: Ray Charles, "Hit the Road Jack"
Another trip around the sun for the Energizer POTUS.
✓ The Dow Jones Industrials reached a high of...734.
✓ Median price of a new home: $17,200
✓ Harper Lee won a Pulitzer for To Kill A Mockingbird
✓ East Germany replaced its barbed wire barricades with a permanent wall dividing Berlin
✓ The Emmy for outstanding news program went to The Huntley-Brinkley Report
✓ Roger Maris hit 61 home runs, breaking Babe Ruth's single-season record
✓ The price of a gallon of gas: 31 cents.
Certain policy and strategy differences aside, I consider Obama one of the greatest embodiments of what the U.S. presidency should be, and I'm ready to be adopted as soon as he and Michelle submit the paperwork. (What is taking so long???) So an early Happy 58th Birthday, Mr. President…and many blessings on your Marxist socialist Muslim Jade Helm Benghazi tan-suit-wearing gum-chewing camels named Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.
P.S.
JEERS to dial-a-fool. Continuing his 73-year string of unfettered lies, Donald Trump made two more claims this week combining two of his favorite things: racism and bullshit. First he claimed that "I am the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” Then, after trashing the city of Baltimore and its residents, he insisted that “The African-American people have been calling the White House, they have never been so happy as what a president has done. I’ve received more phone calls than I think on any other subject of people from Baltimore and other cities.” He, of course, never got any such calls and even his supporters rolled their eyes at his bullshit claim. Besides, have you seen his current phone?
The family went with this model because it only took them six hours to teach him how to use it.
CHEERS to great inventions. On August 2, 1887, Chester A. Hodge of Beloit, Wisconsin received a patent for barbed wire. Or as Stephen Miller calls it: gift wrap.
Bend over, Junior.
CHEERS to bagging a big bad butthead. International men of mystery targeted and took out Osama bin Laden's son, Gary Winthorpe Bartholomew bin Laden…the one to whom dear old Dad wanted to turn over the family business. He was reportedly on the cusp of launching al Qaeda into a new glorious era of skullduggery, but instead his plan was apparently cut short by secret agents launching him into the next county on the business end of a missile. I wish I could see the look on his face when he finds out he's spending eternity in the afterlife getting beaten with shoes by 72 virgins. Hey, buddy: Surpriiiiiise!!!
P.S. There’s ample evidence that Trump had nothing to do with the mission to nab bin Laden, Jr. Top of the list: it succeeded.
CHEERS to reality-based pioneers. Today is John T. Scopes's 119th birthday. He's the Tennessee high school teacher who was taken to court (the famous Scopes Monkey trial) for teaching evolution in class. His Kentucky gravestone labels him "A Man of Courage"—the understatement of the century given what a circus he went through. Pay your respects here. It'll drive the fundamentalist wackos so crazy they'll be flinging poo at each other all day.
JEERS to a first-class slacker. On August 2, 1923, Warren Harding's heart went kerflooey and he died with his boots on in a San Francisco hotel at the ripe young age of 58. Although he won his 1920 election in a landslide and was very popular while in office, his legacy quickly tarnished. In their book Rating the Presidents, William Ridings Jr. and Stuart McIver (along with 719 historians) rank Harding dead last. But once the current occupant of the White House finally leaves and bumps Harding up to #44 on the list, they won’t have to tweak their conclusions much to fit Lord Dampnut:
Participants in the Ridings-McIver Presidential poll agree overwhelmingly that Harding deserves low marks for his poor performance in every category.
“I am not fit for the office and should never have been here.”
—Warren Harding
His best rating, for the Political Skill category, apparently for his impressive election margin, was only thirty-eighth. He was ranked our worst president in the Leadership and Appointments category and next to last in the Accomplishments and Crisis Management and the Character and Integrity categories. Descriptive comments include such remarks as "out of his depth" and “over his head."
The presidency demands a person versed in and interested in the great domestic and foreign issues of the time. Alas, Harding was interested mainly in poker, bootleg bourbon, and willing women. He was, sadly, just a small-town politician, an average man in a job that demanded far more than an average man could deliver, or as poll participants describe him, "an amiable fool, incompetent, inept, corrupt, immoral."
On the upside, he had normal-size hands, wasn’t a slumlord, and didn’t abuse his twitter account.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Doesn’t look like there's a whole helluva lot on the teevee box this weekend, which makes sense since it's the middle of frickin' summer. Usual Friday viewing: Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, whoever's subbing for Lawrence. It's an off-week for new home video releases, because I haven't heard of many of these. The baseball schedule is here. Country music fans can boot-scoot-boogey during CMA Fest on Sunday night (ABC). On 60 Minutes: encores of segments on how they found Whitey Bulger, and gold mines in South Africa. And the weekend wraps up at 11 with a new edition of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight on HBO. Like I said, not a whole helluva lot.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
Sunday on CNN and Fox: the smartest guy in the room.
CNN's State of the Union: Mayor Pete!!! Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ); Fox News stooge-turned-White House stooge Larry Kudlow; former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings and former Virginia Governor terry McAuliffe are on the pundit roundtable.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Michael Bennet (D-CO); Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), the only black Republican in the House, gives his first interview since he announced that he’s not running for reelection. Plus: Bernie!!!
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Mayor Pete!!! Plus White House trade adviser Pete Navarro.
Happy viewing!
-
Ten years ago in C&J: August 2, 2009
CHEERS to the legacy of Cory Aquino. But jeers to me for asking myself, upon hearing of her death at 76, "She's not the one with all the shoes, is she?" No, but she left behind some big ones to fill:
In the face of doubts about her ability to govern she swiftly set about dismantling the worst excesses of the Marcos regime. She released political prisoners, reinstated habeas corpus and forced a number of pro-Marcos judges and generals to resign.
Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 (she lost to Elie Wiesel) she subsequently received a number of awards and citations for championing democracy and human rights.
She gets a penthouse suite upstairs for this gem: "I concede that I cannot match Mr. Marcos when it comes to experience. I admit that I have no experience in cheating, stealing, lying or assassinating political opponents." Which explains why Karl Rove never invited her over for tea.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to the birth of a meta legend. And here we are in August, 2019. Climate crisis? Clusterfuck. North Korea? Clusterfuck. Republican-led executive branch? Clusterfuck. Immigration reform, infrastructure, equal pay for women? Still a cluster-you-know-what. Well, I have something to snap us out of them clusterfuck blues. Thanks to wayback-machine technology, we take you to tomorrow's date in 2006, when life was simple, cherub-faced children played stickball in the streets, and Daddy came home to find his slippers, pipe, newspaper and supper waiting for him as the aroma of jasmine wafted on the warm summer breeze. Oh, and this ErrinF classic was at the top of the DKos charts:
I want out of this farce of a website. …
Like some sort of cult, I was welcomed in freely but am now being barred from leaving.
Since I can't delete my account myself, my only recourse is to be as abrasive and disruptive as I can be UNTIL MY ACCOUNT GETS DELETED.
As long as my account remains here, I do not feel comfortable leaving. Is it really such a tough request to delete my account so I can go? Just what kind of website lets you join up but won't let you leave? One that regards people as little more than statistics, that's what. How like the Democratic Party for Kos to view his site's members as little more than statistics.
DELETE MY FUCKING ACCOUNT, KOS.
And for a brief moment unicorns romp once again in the Fields of the Great Orange Satan. And I swear I'm catching another whiff of jasmine in the breeze.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-