Late Night Snark: Pass the Baton Edition
"President Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. … I believe he has been a great president. He steered this country out of a horrific pandemic. He saved countless lives by encouraging people to get vaccinated. He brought the economy back. He rallied our allies. He reasserted America’s place on the world stage. And most inspiring of all, at no time was he Donald Trump."
—Stephen Colbert
"One of the first polls taken since Biden dropped out of the race shows Vice President Harris leading former president Trump. Yeah, Kamala is a hit and I think I know why: she's way younger than Trump and wears less eyeliner than J.D. Vance. Trump's so panicked he was wiping away sweat with classified documents."
—Jimmy Fallon
"Trump is very worried, because Kamala Harris is a lawyer. I mean, he's only lost to Joe Biden once. He loses to lawyers like twice a week."
—Jimmy Kimmel Live guest host Lamorne Morris
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"The Republican National Convention: the worst thing to happen to Milwaukee since Jeffrey Dahmer. This week saw the usual pageant of prominent politicians on stage to abject weirdos in the audience. From attendees wearing bandages on their ears to match Trump's…to a woman in a BRIDE TO BE sash having the most cursed bachelorette party in existence. It's like she told her bridesmaids she wanted to see a bunch of dicks onstage, and they tragically misunderstood the assignment."
—John Oliver
"Yes! That's the American spirit: unhinged paranoia. I love how gun nuts in this country are like, 'We're responsible gun owners. Here's a Glock I taped under my baby's crib.' "
—The Daily Show guest host Jordan Klepper, reacting to J.D. Vance bragging at the RNC convention that, after his grandmother died, his family found 19 loaded handguns "stashed all over the house" and calling it "the American spirit."
And 16 years ago this week—a reminder that Trump’s GOP predecessor was also an incompetent nutball:
"Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is calling the Bush presidency a total failure. Total failure. I don't know, I think he's done okay if you don't count Iraq, the economy, the environment, Afghanistan, the mortgage crisis, the deficit, gas prices, hurricane Katrina, illegal wire tapping..."
—David Letterman
And even he’s not voting for the nominee from his own party.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, July 26, 2024
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday as we'll be retroactively winning the 2006 superlotto jackpot and telling everybody they can piss off because WE'RE RICH RICH RICH HA HA HAAAAA!!!! Back Tuesday to beg everybody's forgiveness when we realize that we retroactively blew our fortune on cocaine and hookers in 2007. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
5 days!!!
Days 'til Trump's election-interference sentencing: 54
Days 'til California's Ventura County Fair: 5
Expected factor by which renewable energy will increase within seven years, according to the CEO of NextEra Energy: 3x
Number of Maine's 4-person congressional delegation who boycotted Netanyahu's speech Wednesday: 2 (Sen. Angus King and Rep. Chellie Pingree)
Increase in viewership of the 2024 WNBA all-star game versus last year's, the third-largest audience in the league's history: 300%
Box office sales for Inside Out 2, making it the highest-grossing animated movie ever: $1.5 billion
Age of Mick Jagger as of today: 81
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
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CHEERS to the trickle-down slayer. Lame duck or not, Dark Brandon will brook no malarkey! There’s a time for ice cream, and a time for getting the economy back in order, and Joe saw to it that our economy was the envy of the civilized world in the second quarter, with gross domestic product climbing by 2.8 percent despite the forecasters' years-long claims that WE'RE HEADED FOR A RECESSION GUARANTEED EVERYONE FLEE TO YOUR SURVIVAL BUNKER!!!
The increase in real GDP primarily reflected increases in consumer spending, private inventory investment, and nonresidential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased. The increase in consumer spending reflected increases in both services and goods.
How nice of the media to notice.
Within services, the leading contributors were health care, housing and utilities, and recreation services. Within goods, the leading contributors were motor vehicles and parts, recreational goods and vehicles, furnishings and durable household equipment, and gasoline and other energy goods.
The advance Q2 GDP report, with 2.8% annualized increase, was above expectations.
And on the jobs front, weekly unemployment claims came in under the forecasters' expectations. Amazingly, none of the newly-unemployed included incompetent forecasters.
JEERS to Planet Easy-Bake Oven. The earth set a new record for the hottest 24-hour period on record last Monday. It broke the previous record set all the way back in—[flip flip flip flipflipflip]—last Sunday. And to all the idiots out there who prevent solar and wind farms from popping up where they need to pop up because "they're not aesthetically pleasing wah wah wah," two words: f*ck you. Or, if you prefer the Greta Thunberg version (I looked it up): fan dig.
CHEERS to the end of the end. It was all over for Tricky Dick 50 years ago tomorrow, thanks to a 27-11 vote by the House Judiciary Committee to adopt the first of three articles of impeachment against President Nixon who, said ABC News's Tom Jarrell at the time, was "presumably still in his swim trunks" while on vacation in California when he heard the news. Meanwhile, then-VP Gerald Ford just couldn’t help but play a little game of up-is-downism:
Ford: It's interesting that every Democrat on the committee—north and south—voted for the article. ... It tends to make it a partisan issue.
Oh, just GTFO already.
Reporter: Even if one-third of Republicans voted for it?
Ford: Well, the fact that every one of the Democrats voted for it, I think, uh, lends credence that it's a partisan issue, even though some Republicans have deviated.
...said the Republican who later unilaterally exonerated the Republican crook. But, hey, what's a little hypocrisy among friends?
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to climbing aboard this republic’s crazy train. On July 26, 1788, New York's delegation ratified the U.S. Constitution in Poughkeepsie. But not before there was a brief conversation in the cloak room:
Delegate 1: Are you sure that we should not insist upon inclusion of some kind of balanced budget amendment in here? For the sake of our union and in the spirit of shared sacrifice, so that nothing is left on or off the table and we may all partake in the bounty of such a grand bargain?
Delegate 2: What, are you nuts? That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. No one will ever be so stupid as to try and put that insanity into the Constitution! Whoever makes the attempt is dumb. Dumb, I tell you. Dumb, dumbeth and dumber!
Delegate 1: So, uh, would this be a bad time, then, to bring up amendments banning flag-burning and gay marriage?
Delegate 2: Lay off the grog, kid. You're startin' to weird me out.
After ratification they celebrated by overturning a bunch of carriages in Jersey.
CHEERS to home vegetation. It’s still the middle of summer (I checked), and that means the networks remain a weekend banquet of fighting shows, game shows, news shows, dating shows, cop shows, and, if you’re ABC’s 20/20 or CBS’s 48 Hours, grisly murder shows. Whoopie.
Sadly, no cat curling at the summer Olympics.
If you want to dive into something streaming, you can see what looks good at Rotten Tomatoes. Sports: the MLB schedule is here and the WNBA schedule is here. The opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics airs on NBC at 7:30, and they'll be the go-to network for coverage the next two weeks. 60 Minutes features encores of reports on quantum computing and Cape Town’s College of Magic. And Sunday night HBO airs another episode of the stabglorious House of Dragon Poo. And Sunday night John Oliver wraps up the previous seven days with a new episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Olympic coverage.
Mayor Pete is on Fox Sunday morning, and no one is better at getting the Democrats’ message out on that propaganda channel this him.
This Week: Governors Wes Moore (D-MD), JB Pritzker (D-IL), and Chris Sununu (MAGA Cult-NH).
Face the Nation: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
CNN's State of the Union: Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tom Cotton (MAGA Cult-AR).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg; Senator Ron Johnson (Putin-WI).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 26, 2014
JEERS to a bad case of political myopia. Gotta love (read: roll your eyes at) the hawks as they complain about President Obama's cautious, diplomatic approach to ending the Israel-Palestine flare-up, asserting that President Mitt Romney would be going all Rambo-Patton-Jack Bauer in the region with steely-eyed resolve. And it's true! Just ask 2012 Mitt Romney if you don’t believe me:
"So what you do is, you say, you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem…and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it."
I can smell his musk through the pixels.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to red meat that's not the political kind. On Sunday’s date in 1900, reportedly while trying to piss off his vegan neighbor, Louis Lassen invented the humble hamburger in New Haven, Connecticut. Louis' Lunch is still in business and kickin' it old-school:
The beginnings of the hamburger sandwich as we all know it today was really quite simple.
One day in 1900, a gentleman hurriedly walked into Louis' Lunch and told proprietor Louis Lassen he was in a rush and wanted something he could eat on the run. In an instant, Louis placed his own blend of ground steak trimmings between two slices of toast and sent the gentleman on his way. And so, the most recognizable American sandwich was born.
What the original hamburger looked like. (And at Louis’ Lunch, it still does.)
Today, Louis' great grandson, Jeff Lassen, carries on the tradition. The hamburgers have changed little from their historic prototype and remain the specialty of the house. Burgers are made fresh daily; hand-rolled from a proprietary blend of five meat varieties and cooked to order in the original cast-iron grills dating back to 1898. The Lassen family holds firm on their desire not to offer any condiments. The Louis Lunch experience is about the taste and simplicity of a fresh burger grilled to perfection.
Cheese, tomato, and onion are the only acceptable garnish.
So happy birthday to the hamburger, for 124 years the quintessential representation of America's diet until the next Republican gets elected president when it will be replaced with cat food. (And, yes, I would like fries with that.)
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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