Late Night Snark: White After Labor Day Edition
"While the ex-president feels the walls closing in, Joe Biden has been riding high. He passed a climate change bill, gas prices are dropping, and last weekend he found a quarter behind his grandson's ear. … With all Joe's momentum, he's hitting the trail now with the fall campaign message. He kicked it off with a fundraiser in Maryland when he said 'It's not the ex-president, it's the entire philosophy [that's] like semi-fascism.' Now, some people think that's the wrong thing to say, and I agree. Semi??? It's not like they tried to overthrow the election just a little bit."
—Stephen Colbert
"President Biden traveled to Pittsburgh yesterday, which was his third trip to Pennsylvania in less than a week. Not to be outdone, Dr. Oz also made his third trip to Pennsylvania."
—Seth Meyers
Continued...
"Maine Senator Susan Collins said in a new interview that she believes Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer will get a vote on same-sex marriage protections this month, but added that she hopes he will 'resist the urge to play politics with the bill.' It's the Senate—it's all politics! That's like saying you hope the Jets resist the urge to play football. Okay, bad example, but you get the point."
—Seth Meyers
"Michelle was the best thing about living in the White House. And let me tell ya, the pastry chefs here deliver pies upon request, so that's saying something."
—President Obama at the unveiling of his and Michelle's White House portraits
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"Once again, the planet is experiencing record temperatures, wildfires, and droughts. And I know it can't be climate change because Fox News says that's not real, so it's probably pronouns?"
—Trevor Noah
Just experienced my first rolling blackout not caused by alcohol.
—Conan O'Brien on Twitter
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, September 9, 2022
Note: Full moon tomorrow night. Get yer butt out in the back yard, look up, think of Neil Armstrong and all the NASA pioneers who have gone to the great beyond, and give it a wink. It’s the law.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the midterm elections: 60
Days 'til the Lodi Grape Festival in California: 6
Current U.S. unemployment rate: 3.7%
Percent turnover in the last 17 months among the secretaries, administrators and directors that form the official Biden Cabinet: 0%
Most common price of gas now: $3.39
Portion of gas stations that are under $3.04 a gallon: 1-in-10
Inches of rain that fell over Cranston, Rhode Island at the start of the week: 11"
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
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CHEERS to the home of 55 Awesome Electoral Votes. Our first cheer of the evening goes out to our lefty-coaster friends: on September 9, 1850, California became the 31st state in the union and began its amazing journey to becoming the fifth-largest economy in the world. I have nothing but a “we’re not worthy” mantra to offer as you use your legislative and judicial guns to stymie the GOP fascists in D.C. at every opportunity when they have power. And you make pretty good movies sometimes, too, not to mention great vino. And being home to the Freeway Blogger is icing on the cake...
For showing us how to be a beacon of democracy and looking so good doing it (have you had work done?), C&J salutes the Golden State. And if there's anything, anything at all that the rest of us can do to make you more comfortable—like, say, dousing your wildfires, ending your drought, or moving Kirk Cameron to Texas—just ask. We love you, California. We love you, we love you, we love you. Especially every four years in November.
JEERS to America's worst people. Yeah…MAGA Republicans. As we launch ourselves into the post-Labor Day weekend, let's quickly review just how badly they behaved this week:
» MAGA architect and senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon turned himself in to face charges of defrauding his gullible MAGAts of $25 million over a bogus "Build the Wall" grift.
» The Anti-Defamation League revealed via leaked documents that hundreds of active police, military, and political figures are members of the terrorist cell known as the Oath Keepers, which led the attack on the Capitol last year.
» A judge ruled that the trial for the leader of the Oath Keepers terrorist cell will proceed as scheduled.
» The MAGA Republican 45thPresident of the United States remains a gnat's whisker away from being indicted for stealing top-secret files, including some involving nukes.
» A federal judge appointed by Trump after the 2020 election ruled that the theft of top-secret documents, many of which are still missing, was no big deal and we can easily wait to resolve this trivial matter sometime in the next century.
» A MAGA Republican election official in Georgia was caught on security-camera footage giving voting machine access to some MAGA operatives in secret…the same day the voting system there was breached.
» A judge booted a MAGA Republican commissioner in New Mexico from his job after being convicted for taking part in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
» Federal prosecutors issued a subpoena to a senior Trump aide because he knows stuff about MAGA Republican crime business at the highest levels.
» In Michigan, MAGA Republican leaders got caught teaching their hand-picked election workers how to get away with breaking the rules so their candidates will win.
As President Biden said in his landmark "soul of the nation" speech last week, not all Republicans are horrible, terrible, corrupt, anti-democracy nitwits. No, it just seems like it.
CHEERS to today's boring clarification. The mediasphere has been peeing its pants with breathless urgency lately over a new catchphrase fashioned by "industry watchers and workforce experts" to tar workers with the lazy brush. We'll pluck a typical example here from the NBC News tree:
At least half of all U.S. workers now do the bare minimum of what's required from them at their jobs, according to a new survey from Gallup. Industry watchers and workforce experts have adopted the term "quiet quitting" to describe such workers.
So, to boringly clarify: despite working for shitty bosses and/or companies, American workers continue fulfilling their employment obligations as agreed upon when they were hired. Looks like I picked the wrong week to let my yawn insurance lapse.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to a very bad bench warmer. 30 years ago today, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. He was, of course, the first porn addict with a teabagger-traitor wife to be elevated to the nation's highest bench. And now we also have the first beer-chugging alleged rapist (Kavanaugh), the first guy to rule that a semi truck driver stranded in frigid cold should freeze to death rather than unhook his disabled trailer and drive to get help (Gorsuch), the first 21st-century Puritan to invoke 13th-century witch hunters to make women second-class citizens, and the first lady to be officially designated by her People of Praise cult as a "handmaid" (Coney Barrett). Y'know, that's what I love about this country—our commitment to diversity.
CHEERS to home vegetation. 9/11 commemorations, retrospectives, ceremonies, and "lessons learned" documentaries will dominate TV this weekend, as is appropriate if overwhelming. But the 9/11 coverage will no doubt jostle for screen time this year with tributes to Queen Elizabeth II. Other than that, not a whole lot on the tube this weekend.
The most popular movies and streamers, new and old, are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. The big sporting event this weekend is the return of NFL season. You can also check out the WNBA finals schedule here, while the baseball lineup is here. (If you’re wondering when NHL and NBA seasons start: October 7th and October 19th.) Tonight at 9, PBS airs a concert by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra—made up of Ukrainian refugees—at The Kennedy Center.
Sunday evening on 60 Minutes: lookbacks at the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. And according to my TV program guide—which has never been wrong in over 130 years—John Oliver is airing a new edition of last week Tonight at 11 on HBO.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Vice President Kamala Harris.
This Week: TBA
Face the Nation: Senator Mark Warner (D-VA); British Ambassador to the U.S. Karen Pierce; Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova; Jackson, Mississippi Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba (D); Former commander of United States Central Command General Frank McKenzie (Ret.).
CNN's State of the Union: TBA
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Sens. Jon tester (D-MT) and Tim Scott (The Cult-SC); former baseball player Andy Pettitte.
Happy viewing.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 9, 2012
JEERS to idle hands and lots of 'em. The latest employment report is out, and a pathetic 96,000 jobs were created in August. Conclusions: 1) The uber-rich "job creators" really suck at job creating, 2) Had President Obama's jobs bill been passed by Congress, things would be a helluva lot better, and 3) Republicans may not be committing treason through violence or conspiring with our enemies, but by deliberately choking off the creation of public-sector jobs, you have to wonder if the word applies from an economic point of view. I hate to do it, but they're officially off my Christmas card list. (And the Airing of Grievances during Festivus is gonna get ugly.)
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CHEERS to a bright spot on an otherwise lousy day. Be sure to take a moment Sunday—September 11th—to face Berkeley, California and shout (as required by law), ”Happy Birthday!”
Yes indeed, our malevolent benevolent kingpin, troll slayer, gate crasher, MSNBC guest, and blogging pioneer Markos Moulitsas Zuniga completes another revolution around the sun, and we wish him many blessings on his camels. On behalf of the C&J community, I got him the usual gifts: a new star pin for his Che beret (they tarnish so fast—drives me nuts), a new pair of "I brake for AOC" mud flaps, and a renewal of his subscription to Popular Hispanic Hippie Commie Pinko Socialist Libturd Moonbat Vegetarian Election Stealing Cyclists Monthly. It's the least we could do. So that's what we did.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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