Late Night Snark: Fun With Crimey Numbers Edition
"New York Attorney General Letitia James has been investigating the former president's family business for tax and/or bank fraud, and as a result of her probe the former president's accounting firm dropped his company as a client. If there's any karma in this world, they dropped him for a younger, hotter client."
—Stephen Colbert
“The firm also said it could no longer stand behind a decade of financial statements, calling them ‘unreliable.’ Good for them—standing up and doing the right thing ten years too late.”
—James Corden
Continued...
You are now below the fold. This area monitored by the Gazpacho Police.
"Banning books isn’t about books. It's about keeping the culture war going for political benefit. You don't just have dozens of Republican states around the country suddenly realizing all at the same time that there are books they want banned in their libraries. It's happening because they think it's a winning issue. Or at least more of a winning issue than 'Trump is still the president.’ “
—Trevor Noah
“If conservative parents think the swearing in a book about the Holocaust is bad, wait until they hear about the Holocaust.”
—Samantha Bee
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"A judge and jury rejected Sarah Palin's lawsuit against The New York Times. They said there wasn't enough evidence to prove the Times defamed her in an editorial they published in 2017. I have to say, between the elections and the lawsuits and The Masked Singer, Sarah Palin is one of the most versatile losers in history."
—Jimmy Kimmel
I’m positive Prince Charles is innocent of selling knighthoods, or my name isn’t Dame Conan O’Brien.
—Conan, on Twitter
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, February 18, 2022
Note: You take this steel spindle, see, and what you do is you stack a bunch of albums on it and then flick a switch and the spindle drops the first record onto this spinning “platter.” And when the record's done playing the needle moves back to its original position, the next record drops and plays, and so on until all the records have played without you ever lifting a finger! But, really, I don’t think this country's ready for something as mind-blowing as that yet. Let's revisit it in the second quarter. Thx. —Dan, VP of Strategic Operations
cc: Marketing, R&D, Accounting, Ergonomics, and HR (because Gary always has to be cc'd on everything)
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Cherry Pie Day: 2
Days 'til the Wintergrass Music Festival in Bellevue, Washington: 6
Number of states in which Covid cases and hospitalizations are dropping, according to The New York Times: 50
Number of "out" athletes on the gold medal-winning Canadian women's hockey team, the most of any team at the Olympics: 7
Increase in retail sales in January, blowing away forecasters' expectations: 3.8%
Percent of legal-aged U.S. adults who skipped alcohol for the entire month of "Dry January" in 2019, according to a survey by research firm CGA: 21%
Percent who skipped alcohol during January of 2022: 35%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Doggie deep state star chamber meeting interrupted…
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CHEERS to infrastructure week in the Buckeye State. President Biden strapped on Jetpack One and zoomed over to the state of my glorious birth yesterday. He was there to promote the bipartisan FFF (Fix ‘Frastructure Finally) bill that will benefit Ohio greatly. Among other things, over a thousand bridges will be repaired, and I'd like to offer a few suggestions for one I'm particularly familiar with: the bridge in Mount Vernon on Vine Street that crosses the Center Run crick a couple hundred yards from the house where I spent my childhood circa 1964 to 1976…
» Ditch the guard rails. It took me 7 years before I was able to climb over them, lose my grip, and heroically plunge to my death clumsily land in a bush. I believe children of any age should experience a few seconds of weightlessness as I did.
» Be careful not to disturb the crawdads and garter snakes along the crick banks. They still pay me for protection and I take that obligation seriously, even from afar.
» Okay, let's fix this once and for all: the bully brothers with the mean dog who live next to the bridge in the piece of shit house surrounded by bald tires need to get wedgies. They'll know why.
» Actually, give them each two wedgies and a purple nurple. Don’t give 'em a wet Willie because that's too good for 'em.
» I don’t care what materials you use to fix the bridge—I figure you know that stuff and I'm just a writer. But the important thing is to reinforce the need to get back at those bully brothers for…well, as I said, they'll know why.
And, of course, don’t forget to add a large plaque indicating that "Billy from Daily Kos used to cross this bridge every day on his way to and from East Elementary School." If you're under-budget, reinforce it with black onyx and some mother of pearl. And in case I haven't said it: Thanks, Joe!
CHEERS to C&J Theater. Our second production of 2022 is a bit less flashy than our usual lavish musical productions. Sometimes you can drill down to the emotional core and thematic subtext with a minimalist approach, so that's what I've chosen here. Enjoy:
The Auction: A Play in One Act
[Curtain Up]
MELANIA sits in front of her vanity mirror at Mar-A-Lago.
MELANIA
I'm so excited to start the bidding now on my latest Non-fungible token!
MELANIA IN MIRROR
Me, too!
MELANIA
Let's start the bidding at 185-thousand dollars.
MELANIA IN MIRROR
Ooh! Ooh! I'll bid 185-thousand dollars!
MELANIA, sighing in exasperation
If you vish to make bid, you must raise your non-fungible auction paddle.
MELANIA IN MIRROR
Oh. [Raises invisible auction paddle] I bid 185-thousand dollars!
MELANIA
SOLD to the greatest First Lady since Mary Todd
Lincoln—even with the hat—for 185-thousand dollars!
MELANIA IN MIRROR
I feel giddy as a schoolgirl!
[Curtain Down]
And then we toss in a 45-minute Bollywood number because I couldn't resist. What can I say, I'm a showman.
CHEERS to stalling for America's future. 181 years ago today, on February 18, 1841, the first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It lasted until March 11. Before you read about the details below, you might want to whip up a li’l Filibuster cocktail. Good—let us proceed:
Until the late 1830s, the filibuster remained a solely theoretical option, never actually exercised. The first Senate filibuster occurred in 1837.
In 1841, a defining moment came during debate on a bill to charter the Second Bank of the United States. Senator Henry Clay tried to end the debate via majority vote, and Senator William R. King threatened a filibuster, saying that Clay "may make his arrangements at his boarding house for the winter." Other senators sided with King, and Clay backed down. The word “filibuster” was derived from the Dutch word meaning “pirate.”
In modern parlance, of course, the word filibuster is derived from the conservative Democrats’ words meaning “stab your own party in the back.”
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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"CHEERS!" to fixing the worst domestic mistake in American history. On Sunday’s date in 1933, Congress proposed the 21st Amendment, which would repeal the 18th (also known as "that no-good stinkin' prohibition"). Once it was adopted, the booze again flowed free and unfettered. C&J will be performing a historical reenactment of that moment in our living room around 9 tomorrow morning. Same as we do the other 364 days of the year.
CHEERS to home vegetation. The big TV news of the weekend is John Oliver's triumphant return for another season (his 9th already?) of Last Week Tonight on HBO. God only knows where he’ll plant his shovel first. But first, things get started tonight with Chris Hayes and Rachel's capable fill-in host Alex Wagner on MSNBC. Then at 10, HBO's Real Time features Katrina vanden Heuvel, former San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, and CNN anchor John Avlon.
The new movies and streaming options are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. The Jeopardy! National College Championship continues tonight and tomorrow night at 9 on ABC. The NBA schedule is here, NHL schedule is here, and the Olympics will be running all weekend on NBC with the closing ceremony Sunday night at 8. (My verdict on the last two weeks in Beijing: meh. Not as charming as Vancouver, not as pleasantly normal as PyeongChang, but a hell of a lot less broken-toilety than Sochi.) Sunday on 60 Minutes: Havana syndrome comes to the grounds of the White House. On The Simpsons: Marge and Mr. Burns fight over a brash young football prodigy, and Stewie and Doug compete to retrieve a Frisbee from the top of the jungle gym on Family Guy.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
CNN's State of the Union: Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Finnish President Sauli Niinisto; Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO).
This Week: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin;
Face the Nation: Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC); NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg; CBS News cybersecurity expert and analyst Chris Krebs.
Fox MAGA Sunday: No main guests announced yet, but Karl Rove and Harold Ford, Jr. are on the pundit panel. You’ve been warned.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 18, 2012
JEERS to the Man Show. If Congressman Darrel Issa was trying to lock up the Keep-'Em-Barefoot-And-Pregnant vote, he succeeded yesterday by holding his Appropriations Committee hearings on women's birth control coverage with a panel of dudes. Even in conservative households, that's gonna fly like a lead balloon. (It didn’t help that, at the same time, Rick Santorum's pet billionaire Foster Friess was explaining to a flummoxed Andrea Mitchell that in the old days "gals" practiced contraception by putting Bayer aspirin between their knees. It's more evidence that Republicans are so sour on their field of 2012 candidates that they're now actively trying to get Obama re-elected. Meanwhile, Issa has scheduled more hearings. Topics include Mexican immigration with a panel of French people, the future of NASA with a panel of lobbyists from the buggy whip industry, and the basics of diplomacy with star witness Foster Friess.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to evening calisthenics. This happened nine years ago this weekend, as First Lady Michelle Obama was promoting her “Let’s Move” initiative to get We The People (especially kids) off our asses. This sketch with Jimmy Fallon—The Evolution of Mom Dancing—racked up over 27 million views. It’s too great to let it fall into the cracks of history, so enjoy this encore…
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Good luck toppin’ that, Jill.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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