Late Night Snark: S’November Edition
"The midterms are on, and every ad I've seen in this city is a campaign ad. And the thing that stuck out to me is how most of them are mean as shit. If you only knew Stacy Abrams from attack ads in Georgia, you would think she was Darth Vader combined with Thanos combined with that asshole who cut you off in traffic. Pure evil."
—Trevor Noah, broadcasting from Atlanta
"By a razor-thin margin, Brazilians have elected Lula da Silva. This is a huge comeback for Lula. In the years since his last term ended, he was imprisoned after a sentence for corruption, before Brazil's supreme court annulled his conviction. Holy roller coaster—this guy's getting one hell of a sequel. You can watch it all in the movie Lula Part Two-La: Electric Booga-Lula."
—Stephen Colbert
Continued...
You are now below the fold. Please remember to tip your naked mole rat.
"Today is the 74th anniversary of one of the greatest election upsets ever. In 1948 Harry Truman beat Thomas Dewey. No one expected Truman to get reelected, particularly not the Chicago Tribune, which led to one of the most iconic photos: Truman holding up an early edition of the paper that incorrectly declared Dewey Defeats Truman. That blunder led to an iconic photo the next day: Dewey Says Election Was Rigged, followed by Frankly Dewey Did Win This Election, and Dewey Supporters Raid Capitol, Poop On Floor."
—Jimmy Kimmel
Stephen Colbert: Are you blue-check verified [on Twitter]?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: I just don't care.
—The Late Show
-
"Utah Senator Mitt Romney posted a picture of himself on Twitter dressed as Mario for Halloween. Because the scariest thing he can think of is a foreigner taking our plumbing jobs."
—Seth Meyers
If you want to avoid seeing your family this Thanksgiving, be sure to book a flight on American or Southwest.
—Conan O'Brien
And one year ago:
"The reproductive health of millions of women currently rests in the hands of the Supreme Court. Three-fourths of people seeking abortions are low-income, many of whom are people of color. They will face barriers making it almost impossible to get to another state. Think of it as the Oregon Trail, where all the pioneers are pregnant, and instead of dysentery you die of Amy Coney Barrett."
—Samantha Bee
And now, our feature presentation...
-
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, November 4, 2022
Note: Vote!
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Veterans Day: 7
Days 'til the Burbank Winter Wine Walk & Holiday Street Fair in California: 8
Date on which Lindsey Graham has to testify in Georgia as part of the investigation into election fraud committed by Donald Trump: 11/17/22
Drop in avocado prices from a year ago: 35%
Length of the tunnel—completed in 1905—of the decommissioned Niagara Parks Power Station on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls that is now open to tourists: 2,198 feet
Percent chance that Starbucks once again totally snubbed JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD AND SAVIOR on their 2022 holiday cups: 100%
Letters in "nurdle," the name of the blob of toothpaste that sits on your brush: 6
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
-
CHEERS and JEERS to the tiny parasite-infested boil on the universe's butt. As we head into another crisp autumn weekend, let's take a quick continent-by-continent inventory of where things stand on the pale blue dot known as Planet Earth:
North America: Yuck
South America: Meh
Europe: Ack
Asia: Gack
Africa: Bleh
The Arctic: [Polar bear primal scream]
Antarctica: [Emperor penguin primal scream]
Australia: No worries! Swimming in vegemite and Victoria Bitter, mate...and we finally got our fried-out Kombi fixed!
Conclusion: F*ck Australia for not being a team player. (And your little New Zealand, too.)
CHEERS to getting an extra hour of sleep. Daylight Saving Time ends at 2am Sunday. (Yes, you must stay up 'til 2am to change your clocks or else DST won’t end properly and you'll have to destroy all your clocks and start over, according to the Association of American Clock Sellers.) It's the usual routine: If you're a Democrat, turn your clocks back one hour. If you're a Republican, turn your clocks back 300 years and then go viciously attack a minority in the name of Jesus.
CHEERS to #1. Here's a little election milestone from the archives: it was 98 years ago today, back in 1924, when Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first elected woman governor in U.S. history. She ran in Wyoming in the wake of her husband Gov. William Ross's death from appendicitis, but was careful to avoid any public display of ambition for the job as that wouldn't be ladylike. Her modest agenda soon mushroomed, oddly enough, into one of great ambition:
[R]equiring cities, counties, and school districts to have budgets; stronger state laws regulating banks; exploration of better ways to sell Wyoming’s heavy crude oil; earmarking some state mineral royalties for school districts; obtaining more funds for the university; improving safety for coal miners; protecting women in industrial jobs; and supporting a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would cut back on child labor.
These ideas all came from solid, Progressive thinking. But Nellie was the first governor to back them in Wyoming.
She lost her reelection, but kept plenty busy turning out the women's vote for FDR and spending 20 years as the first woman director of the U.S. Mint. Died at 101, her life spanning presidents Grant through Carter. Currently three of our 11 sitting female governors (including states and territories) are Republican. But Ross was first. And as with so many firsts in politics and civil rights, the letter next to her name was a big ol' D.
-
BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
-
END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
-
CHEERS to having a valid bee in your bonnet. On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony (and several other feisty ladies with equality on their minds) made a beeline for her local polling place and voted for the first time. It was a shining, glorious moment for…well, for a moment, because Anthony was arrested, tried and fined $100. She said up yours, the judge said okay fine whatever, and she was free to go. Forty-eight years later, women finally, officially secured the right to vote.
The winner in 1920: Horrible Harding. It was all smooth sailing from there. I mean...right?
CHEERS to home vegetation. There's one single leaf still hangin' on for dear life in the backyard, and I refuse to start raking until it drops. So until then, it's weekend boob-tubage. As always, MSNBC is the place to go for details of any Friday night news dumps. On HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher talks with nobody who can offer anything new, relevant, or insightful, so run away from it as fast as you can.
The new movies (Weird: The Al Yankovic Story and Morgan Freeman/Anthony Hopkins flick Armageddon Time top the list) and streamers are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. Amy Schumer hosts SNL with musical guest Steve Lacy. Game 3,297 of the World Series is tomorrow night at 8 on Fox. (Houston leads Philly 3 games to 2—3,292 of the games were annulled because of the massive pine tar scandal that gripped the nation last night.) The NFL schedule is here, the NBA schedule is here, and the NHL schedule is here.
Sunday on 60 Minutes: how social media has turned the Republican party into a cesspool of MAGAts, and a look at the morons who build armageddon bunkers and stock up on Jim Bakker’s survival slop buckets. Sorry, no Simpsons or Family Guy because for some reason Fox felt compelled to replace ‘em this week with episodes of the awful Masked Singer. Sunday night at 11 on HBO: John Oliver humbly presents a new episode of his one-man show Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Lots of self-backslapping as the show celebrates 75 years of a downward spiral that culminated in the choice of human cocktail weenie Chuck Todd to destroy the brand completely. Congratulations!
This Week: Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ); Gov. Glenn Youngkin (The Cult-VA); Nate Silver who, lest we forget, sharpened his political chops here at Daily Kos as “poblano.”
CNN's State of the Union: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Mitt Romney’s niece, who was forced to change her last name by Donald Trump to “Pigsnout.”
Face the Nation: White House senior adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms; Gov. Chris Sununu (The Cult-NH); Former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Chris Krebs; Brown University economics professor Emily Oster; Washington Post national education writer Laura Meckler.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: House majority whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC); Gov. Kevin Stitt (MAGA-OK).
Happy viewing!
-
Ten years ago in C&J: November 4, 2012
CHEERS to a new lease on life in a galaxy far far away. By now you've heard that the Star Wars franchise has been sold by George Lucas to Disney for a cool $4 billion in Imperial Credits. If they're smart they'll let the Lucasfilm elves keep doing what they're doing, since they've got this movie/gaming business down pretty pat. Personally, I've been a Star Wars movie geek since I saw the original in a Berlin theatre in 1977 (Darth Vader sounds a lot more menacing in German). So I'm looking forward to… Wait a moment, I've just been handed Page 1 of the script for remake of The Empire Strikes Back. Let's take a look:
I'm your father aaaafter all,
I'm your father aaaafter all,
I'm your father aaaafter all,
I'm your fa fa fa fa-ther!
[Facepalm]
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to dastardly deeds definitively denied. Happy Guy Fawkes Day & Bonfire Night a night early! Via the UK Telegraph, for the uninitiated:
Bonfire Night commemorates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605 by a gang of Roman Catholic activists led by Warwickshire-born Robert Catesby. When Protestant King James I began his reign, English Catholics had hoped that the persecution felt for over 45 years under his predecessor Queen Elizabeth would finally end, but this didn't transpire so the Gunpowder Plot conspirators resolved to assassinate the King and his ministers by blowing up the Palace of Westminster during the state opening of Parliament.
Guy (Guido) Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, having rented out a house close to the Houses of Parliament, managed to smuggle 36 barrels of gunpowder into a cellar of the House of Lords—enough to completely destroy the building. […] Explosive expert Fawkes, who had been left in the cellars to set off the fuse, was subsequently caught when a group of guards checked the cellars at the last moment. The conspirators were all either killed resisting capture or—like Fawkes—tried, convicted, and executed.
Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated in the United Kingdom, and in a number of countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, with fireworks, bonfires and parades.
So, basically, it commemorates the time when an extremist organized a bunch of other extremists to weasel their way into the government and destroy its ability to govern. Or as they call it in MAGA Land: a day ending in "y."
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-