Late Night Snark: Friday the 13th Edition
"In an unprecedented move that could cause lasting damage to the Supreme Court, a draft opinion was leaked that indicates they intend to overturn Roe v. Wade. … The opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito, and he bases his arguments on laws from the 1600s. So it's an outdated opinion from an angry 70-year-old? This shouldn't be a Supreme Court decision, it should just be a Facebook post."
—Colin Jost, SNL
“It's messed up that protesters showed up at Brett Kavanaugh's house on a Sunday morning. Do they not realize how hungover he must have been?”
—Trevor Noah
"If Kavanaugh doesn't like the way people in his state are gathering outside his house, maybe he can just take off work and drive hundreds of miles to a different state."
—Samantha Bee
Continued...
You are now below the fold. Where the wild things are.
"The Senate took a vote on whether women should have the right to choose to have an abortion. It did not pass. It needed 60 votes to pass, it only got 49 even though a strong majority of Americans want those rights protected. It almost feels like we shouldn't have let the host of Celebrity Apprentice pick three Supreme Court justices."
—Jimmy Kimmel
"Just do the nine [months] and plop. Do your nine, leave it on the sidewalk, wrap it up like a little Moses, put it in a little basket and send it down the crick. … Just give it to a stork, and the stork will give it to a lesbian. I would think the lesbians would be happy because now there's more babies to adopt—'til we ban that, too. Come on, ladies, it's just nine. It's not even ten, so just do your nine and dump."
—Justice Amy Coney-Barrett, channeled by Kate McKinnon on SNL
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"There's a baby formula shortage, due in large part to monopolistic control of the market. And yet, shockingly, several senators told Huffington Post that they were unaware of the crisis. I think all these guys are unaware of the baby formula shortage because they're like 90 years old. I guarantee if there was a Werther's Original shortage, Chuck Grassley would be on the floor of the Senate every day calling on Biden to declare a national emergency. They'd immediately pass a bill 100-0 requiring Boeing and Raytheon to switch from making planes and missiles to making hard candy."
—Seth Meyers
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 13, 2022
Note: Today is Friday the 13th. If you suddenly get the sense this evening that your life is in danger, just press the cloaking device on your Apple Watch, which will be available for download next Wednesday. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Harvey Milk Day: 9
Days 'til the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee in California: 6
Minimum number of Russian military vehicles that have been destroyed by Ukraine so far: 2,000
Number of House Republicans who voted against financial aid for Ukraine because they want Russia to win: 57
Percent of Americans polled by Politico-Morning Consult who believe it is “very important” or “somewhat important” to vote for a candidate in the midterm elections who supports legal access to abortion: 58%
Percent chance that the previous Republican President of the United States and current leader of the GOP believes China uses hurricane cannons to influence our weather: 100%
Year during which tulip bulbs were a form of currency in Holland: 1634
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
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CHEERS and JEERS to the week in review. Just a quick moment to take inventory of our universe as we prepare to pause for 48 hours of R&R. (Or, if you're Congressman Madison Cawthorn, male cousin-on-male cousin S&M.) Let's make this as quick and painful as possible:
» Ukraine is still kicking Russia's ass as Finland joins NATO with Sweden soon to follow.
» Republicans are still kicking truth and decency's ass.
» Democrat Joe Manchin is still kicking the Democratic party's ass.
» This Cessna passenger with no flying experience kicked death's ass.
» President Biden kicked Senate Ghoulitarian Rick Scott’s ass.
» Ugliness is still kicking Donald Trump's assface.
» Chalk art kicked Senator Susan Collins’ ass.
» Cryptocurrency is kicking the speculator nerds' asses.
» Covid is still kicking the anti-vaxxers' asses.
» Crest is still kicking the toothpaste market's ass. (Whatever happened to Pearl Drops and Gleem?)
» Human-caused catastrophic climate change is kicking life on Earth's ass.
» This black hole is kicking the Milky Way's ass.
I believe I speak for everyone within a 20-billion light year radius when I say: black hole, please kick harder. You keep missing us.
CHEERS to weekend highlights. A couple of noteworthy things happening this weekend, which I will now put inside this custom-made text box I spent all day working on and which you may now take to your local Prints Plus to get matted and framed:
The National Association of Letter Carriers is resuming its famous Stamp Out Hunger campaign—the country's largest one-day food drive—this year. Leave your donation of non-perishable food items next to your mailbox before the delivery of the mail tomorrow (May 14). Letter carriers will collect them during their rounds, and distribute them to local food banks, pantries, shelters and churches.
Also tomorrow: Bans Off Our Bodies rallies will be held across the country to protest the actions of the Supreme Inquisition Court that will legally deem women little more than—oh, what's the term, Inquisitor Alito?—"Foetus factories" to maintain our "domestic supply of infants." Click here to find a march near you.
And looking ahead to next weekend: we're marking Daily Kos's 20th blogiversary next Friday at 6pm EDT with an online get-together on Zoom. It'll last until shortly before I post the Friday C&J around 7:30.To get under the virtual velvet rope, you need to RSVP to Chris Reeves via kosmail. Drop him a line here and he'll put you on the list. Shortly before the event, he'll send you the info for logging in to the Zoom account. But please take note: if anyone tries any of that cousin-on-cousin face humping nonsense, you'll be asked to leave. Mainly because we're not doing that kind of Zoom meetup until the following weekend.
CHEERS to getting outside in the fresh air—back when we had fresh air. 218 years ago tomorrow, Lewis and Clark set off from their camp in Illinois to go explore just what the hell kind of territory we'd acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Their first words when they got back: "Somebody needs to invent GPS, and somebody needs to invent GPS now!" Added the welcome committee: "And deodorant."
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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HEERS to the Holy Grail of philately. On May 13, 1918, the first 24-cent stamps featuring the Curtiss Jenny biplane—the aircraft chosen to inaugurate the U.S.'s new air mail service—reached post offices. Collectors heard that some of the stamps—100 by current estimates—could be rare "inverts," so they fanned out to find them. Some were successful in locating one of these:
Today the stamps are worth approximately one bazillion dollars. Or, put another way, approximately one bazillion dollars more than the current value of Bitcoin.
CHEERS to home vegetation. I've thought long and hard about it, and I've narrowed my weekend activities down to two things: clean up six months worth of winter dog poop in the yard…or watch a bunch of TV. Probably the latter.
The viewing starts tonight with Chris and Rachel on MSNBC unpacking the latest Friday night news dumps. The new movies and streamers are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. (FWIW, the first episode of the new Star Trek series Strange New Worlds is back-to-basics fun, and you can currently watch it free on You Tube.) The MLB schedule is here, the NHL schedule is here, and the NBA semifinals schedule is here. Selena Gomez hosts SNL.
On 60 Minutes: the online sleuths compiling a record of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, and a family that bought a house in southern Virginia, only to find that their own ancestors were once kept as slaves there. Sunday at 8 you can catch the Billboard Music Awards, or find out how Grampa gets himself out of a pickle on The Simpsons. At 9:30, Mayor West holds a competition at his dude ranch. And because you were all so well-behaved this week, John Oliver will swing by HBO at 11 Sunday night for a new edition of Last Week Tonight. But then it’s straight to bed, buster.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: TBA
This Week: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna;
Face the Nation: Secretary of Transportation Mayor Pete; former Secretary of Defense and current grifter Mark Esper hawks his stupid book; Goldman Sachs honcho and guy who paid no consequences for helping crash the economy in 2008 Lloyd “Let Them Eat Credit Default Swaps” Blankfein; former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
CNN's State of the Union: Speaker Pelosi; Gov. Pete Ricketts (The Cult-NE);
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sen. Kevin Stitt (The Cult-OK); Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 13, 2012
JEERS to the "merry" "prankster." Mitt Romney doesn’t remember the time he committed a crime—assault—on a fellow prep school classmate whose existence he found offensive. But he clearly remembers that the reason he committed that crime—assault—was definitely not because of his Mormon-endorsed hatred of gay people. Got that? In fairness, 50 years ago is a long time. But, unlike Romney, his classmates have no trouble remembering it:
"[W]hen you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. … This was bullying supreme.”
In a week this'll all blow over, no doubt. The media is giving Romney plenty of retro-wiggle-room by labeling his crime a "prank" and "hijinx" and an "escapade." And Mitt has retro-apologized for the act he doesn’t remember, but the motive he does remember. And here's my point: Mitt Romney's most recent book is called No Apology. Man, that is one busy Etch A Sketch.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a moment of George de vivre. Raise a glass of whatever ya got handy and wish a Happy Birthday to the late George Carlin, who would've turned 85 this week. He spent many a glorious decade dissecting language, culture, politics and human nature, wielding a comedic scalpel and jackhammer with equal dexterity. All the reason we need to take a moment to revisit a smidgen of the Carlin moments that made Carlin Carlin:
”I choose toilet paper through a process of elimination.”
“Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.”
"If you look around carefully the next time you go out, you'll notice that there are some really fucked up-looking people walking around."
”After every horror, we’re told, ‘Now the healing can begin.’ No. There is no healing. Just a short pause before the next horror.”
“No comment” is a comment.
“Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?”
And from his “Rules to Live By” in Brain Droppings, that could be
today’s MAGA cult playbook:
10. Never give up on an idea simply because it is bad and doesn’t work. Cling to it even when it is hopeless. Anyone can cut and run, but it takes a very special person to stay with something that doesn’t work.
14. Beware of the dangerous trap of looking ahead; it will only get you into trouble. Instead, try to drift along from day to day in a meandering fashion. Don’t get sidetracked by some foolish “plan.”
15. Finally, enjoy yourself all the time, and do whatever you want. Don’t be seduced by that mindless chatter going around about “responsibility.” That’s exactly the sort of thing that can ruin your life.
Here endeth the lesson. Happy birthday, George.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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