Hispanic Federation Fund for Puerto Rico Relief Link
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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Late Night Snark: Rolling in the Indictments Edition
“President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was charged with conspiracy against the United States. Apparently, his conspiracy against the United States was suggesting to Donald Trump that he run for president.”
---Conan O’Brien
“It’s so much fun! Just picture it: our snake pit of a White House is slithering around, giving each other the side-eye, wondering who’s wearing a wire. Oh, they’re such bad people and they’re all so scared!!! [Sigh] It’s the little things.”
---Samantha Bee
“The charges were actually filed on Friday, but they gave Manafort until today to turn himself in. Wow, we white people really do get arrested differently. They might as well have sent him a formal invitation: ‘Robert Mueller requests the pleasure of your company in federal court. Please check one: Chicken, fish, [or] squeal on Donald Trump.’”
---Stephen Colbert
“After Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos was arrested in connection with the Russia investigation, the White House is distancing themselves from him, with one Trump ally saying Papadopoulos was nothing more than a, "coffee boy." Honestly, I think that might be a typo. I think they meant covfefe boy.”
---James Corden
“Ivanka Trump had a surprise birthday party this weekend. Because if there’s one thing you want to do when everyone’s facing indictments, it’s jump out and yell ‘SURPRISE!!!’”
---Jimmy Fallon
“White House chief of staff John Kelly said the Civil War was caused by a lack of ability to compromise. Even weirder, he said that Pearl Harbor was an air traffic control issue.”
---Seth Meyers
I admit it: I can’t say that guilty-pleading guy’s name without laughing. All I hear is “Papa Dopoulous” and it makes me think of a Greek Smurf. Thus explaining why I am not a paid professional in the American legal system.
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, November 3, 2017
Note: A quick heads-up that there will be no C&J Monday as I need some me-time. And to those of you who say that because I live in Maine it's all "ME”-time, I say to you: you're the reason I need some me-time. Back Tuesday with a veto-proof 3-point plan to eliminate all 3-point plans. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til election day 2017: 4
Days 'til the Spokane Fall Folk Festival: 8
Property damage claims so far from California’s wildfires: $3.3 billion
Number of babies named Lucifer in the U.S. last year: 13
Rise in consumer spending in September, the biggest in 8 years and mostly due to replacing items (like cars) lost in the hurricanes: 1%
Percent chance that the new $1,000 iPhone X lacks a home button: 100%
Percent chance that the White House was giving off a pro-slavery vibe that was so strong the press secretary had to officially announce that the administration does not support slavery: 100%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Miracle in the Caribbean…
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CHEERS to ripping the world’s most evil elf a new one. Senator Al Franken has had it up to *here* with Attorney General Jeff Sessions after catching him in a lie not once but twice while under oath. Now, with all the new revelations coming out in this week’s indictments, Al’s ready to say Sessions is not good enough, he’s not smart enough, and doggone it that f***er’s a lying liar. Yesterday he fired off a sternly-worded letter---like, the really serious kind of sternly-worded letter---asking for more answers and basically calling him a past-its-shelf-life-Twinkie-faced perjurer. TPM explains why:
Franken included his questions in a scathing letter to Sessions after court documents unsealed Monday revealed that President Donald Trump’s former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in March 2016 floated the idea of setting up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to several reports, Sessions was present at the meeting when Papadopoulos made the suggestion,though Sessions previously denied being aware of any communications between members of Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. […]
“Once again, developments in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election have brought to light evidence that you failed to tell the truth about your interactions with Russian operatives during the campaign, as well as your awareness of Russian contacts by other members of the Trump campaign team,” Franken wrote. …“I am deeply troubled that this newest revelation strongly suggests that the Senate---and the American public---cannot trust your word.”
Sessions has a week to respond. If he makes it that long.
JEERS to trickle-down on steroids. After spending an extra day completing their Big Glorious Tax Overhaul by shoving round turds into square holes and dressing it all up in glitter, Republicans finally raised the curtain on the monstrosity yesterday, and it’s as bad you can imagine. A giant sop to the tippy-toppiest rich people and corporations, crumbs and pain for everyone else? Check. Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid? Check. Bigger burden for students? Check. More debt for home buyers? Of course. Hypocritical indifference to the trillions this will add to the deficit? Naturally! Oh, and it also repeals the Johnson Amendment, finally ending our national nightmare of not being able to use churches as dark-money sinkholes for political candidates. Needless to say, all of Trump’s promises about this being the greatest tax cut for the middle class ever in the history of history believe me believe me turned out to a great big double-cross. This albatross is a one-percenter’s swampy wet dream and nothing else. For what it’s worth (one vote out of 435), my congresswoman, Chellie Pingree (ME-01), could only tweet her reaction after clamping a clothespin on her nose:
Even under the most bipartisan of circumstances, sweeping tax overhauls are incredibly hard to pass. This unwieldy mess is like Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. The only question is how many special-interest knives (small businesses and home builders are already against it) will end up in its back. While we’re waiting to find out, someone peel me a grape.
CHEERS to a very bad day for the GOP. Eighty-one years ago today, on November 3rd, 1936, FDR was re-elected in a landslide over Alf Landon by---get this---523 electoral votes to 8:
On this date twenty-eight years later Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater 486-52. And 28 years after that Bill Clinton dispatched George H.W. Bush by a less-substantial but still impressive 370-168 margin. Grand total: 1379 to 128. Takeaway message: revenge is a dish best served lopsided.
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 American Clock Sellers Association.) 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 120 years.
JEERS to Bigmouth and the Russians. Long before Trump threw his hairpiece in the ring, America looked to Maine Governor Paul LePage for their daily dose of jaw-droppingly stupid and/or racist comments. Like telling the NAACP to “kiss my butt” on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And calling Hispanics and black people “the enemy.” And calling on citizens to shoot people they even suspect of being drug dealers. And equating the removal of confederate memorials with the attacks of 9/11. Well, guess who got the brilliant idea to sharpen his words into weapons and use them to meddle in the 2016 election? Of course…
A series of controversial and racially charged statements that Maine Gov. Paul LePage uttered in 2016 and 2017 became fodder for Russian operatives who posted on fake Facebook accounts in attempts to sow discord with U.S. voters.
The posts on separate accounts appeared to both attack LePage and praise him for comments the Republican made about black and Hispanic drug dealers, and in support of President Trump’s position that “both sides” were to blame in a violent clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters last summer.
The posts, one of which included video clips of LePage and appeared on a Facebook page that has since been discontinued by the social media giant, were referenced Wednesday during a hearing before the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence.
Moral: This is what happens when we put trash-talking morons in positions of leadership instead of confining them to the Jerry Springer show.
JEERS to little green footballs. On November 3, 1952, Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas. We hate 'em---they're stinky, pungent and squishy, and anyone who thinks otherwise must be a socialist Marxist Agenda 21-promoting commie. Fake veggies! Sad! But we'll say this: if you're packin' a spoon, they make awesome catapult ammo at the Thanksgiving dinner table, especially if you're sitting across from Uncle Teabagger the conspiracy theorist. (Knock his MAGA hat off and you’ll get extra pie!)
CHEERS to home vegetation. After that grueling schedule of watching the Houston Astros win the World Series on TV, I need to chill out and relax with some good old-fashioned...television!
Tonight after Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow unpack the latest Friday news dump(s), Bill Maher talks with Rob Reiner, Jeffrey Lord, Christina Bellantoni, and Colonel Jack Jacobs on HBO’s Real Time. New home video releases include the Stephen King bomb Dark Tower (He made up for it later this year with mega-smash It) and the Halle Berry thriller Kidnap. The basketball schedule is here, the hockey schedule is here and the concussion production schedule is here. (Sorry, no baseball schedule for the next 146 days---stay strong.) Bernie Sanders…er, I mean Larry David hosts SNL. On 60 Minutes: an update on Puerto Rico after Trump fucked up the recovery effort, and the sinking Millennium Tower in San Francisco. And John Oliver weighs in on Indictment Fevuh Sunday night at 11:15 on HBO’s Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: A celebration of the show’s 70th anniversary. Peggy Noonan says “the vibrations feel right” for another 70, Thomas Friedman says the next six months will be the most crucial six months for the show, and the ghost of Tim Russert drops by to pick up his whiteboard and encourage Chuck Todd to grow his hair into a dorkbun.
This Week: George Stephanopoulos interviews his old ABC roundtable pundit BFF Donna Brazile about her new book whose topic is a big swipe at George Stephanopoulos’s old BFF Hillary Clinton. Aaaaawkward.
Face the Nation: Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) of the Senate Intelligence Committee; House majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); author Michael Lewis on how Trump is taking apart the federal government; Barack Obama’s White House photographer Pete Souza on his new book of classic pics circa 2009-2017.
CNN's State of the Union: Next Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Lyin’ Paul Ryan.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: November 3, 2007
"B'BYE"to the latest rat to flee the sinking ship. Karen Hughes---a denizen of Bush's stable of all-purpose cronies---is going back to Texas (this is the second time she's quit). Her latest position in the State department was to bring sweets and flowers to the Middle East, ushering in a new "era of good feelings"toward the U.S. She succeeded. If by "success" you mean making Muslim children cry. Heckuva job!
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And just one more…
CHEERS to dastardly deeds definitively denied. For our chums across the pond, we wish you an early Happy Guy Fawkes Day & Bonfire Night! 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 closed 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 [on November 5th], 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 we call it over here: a day ending in "y" in the Republican Freedom Caucus.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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