Cheers and Jeers is an ignoble weekday post from the great state of Maine.
Late Night Snark: Odds 'n Ends Edition
"Today I bashed people on Twitter, ate junk food and went to a strip club. How did you celebrate 'President’s Day'?"
—Conan O'Brien
“This is really insane. Parts of the border wall are being knocked down by wind? Trump shouldn’t tolerate this. He needs to go down to the border and teach these walls how to handle the wind. Because if there's one thing Trump knows, it's how to dodge a draft."
—Trevor Noah
Continued under the invisible saffron bush…
Look! More!
Clip of Susan Collins on CBS News: The president has been impeached. That's a pretty big lesson. I believe he will be more cautious in the future.
John Oliver: What are you talking about, Susan? Of course he hasn’t learned his lesson. Trump never learns his lesson. This is a man whose first child was Donald Trump, Jr. and he kept having children!
—Last Week Tonight
"Mike Pence looks like he visits Westworld for the architecture."
—Samantha Bee
"Researchers say they've developed a new way to stitch wounds together using a type of yarn made from human skin. They also say where they got the yarn made from human skin isn’t important."
—Colin Jost, SNL
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, February 21, 2020
Note: Would whoever left several teeth with the initials "MB" on the stage floor at the Paris Theater in Las Vegas Wednesday night please come pick them up? They're in a baggie at the front desk along with as much blood as we could soak up with a roll of paper towel. Thank you. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til autumn begins in the southern hemisphere: 9
Days 'til the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering: 15
Percent of women who approve of Trump, according to the latest NPR/PBS-Marist poll: 33%
Number of the 2000+ people who have died from the coronavirus who did so outside of mainland China: 7
Number of the top ten strongest state economies that are blue states: 9
Number of the bottom ten that are red states: 9
Year the Tesla in space and its driver “Starman” will have their next close encounter with Earth: 2091
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In Mount Olive, North Carolina…SAVED!!!
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CHEERS to weekend warriors. It's on! Tomorrow in the great state of Nevada (which you must pronounce correctly, especially the second syllable, or they'll get really mad: it's "East CAL-ifornia."), everyone will leave the comfort of their casinos and brothels for hard gymnasium bleachers to attend their local presidential caucus. Will it be Amy or Bernie? Pete or Elizabeth? Joe or the Welcome To Las Vegas sign? Hell, given the glitches we saw at the last caucus, who knows? We could end up with President Siegfried and Roy.
But what I do know is, the Daily Kos Election Team will tap whoever draws the short straw to provide gavel-to-gavel coverage here on Channel Orange. I hate to put my thumb on the scale like this, but if Elizabeth Warren doesn't win, God tells me and my bottle of Bacardi 151 that She'll take us out with a meteor disguised as a disco ball. I trust you'll do the right thing.
CHEERS to the future. Just as the head of the Trump crime syndicate is forever "impeached," so too will perpetual thug, goon, stooge, liar and crook Roger Stone have to live with the words "tried, convicted, and sentenced" etched on his soul:
Roger Stone, a friend of President Donald Trump and longtime Republican campaign adviser, was sentenced to three years, four months in federal prison Thursday for obstructing a congressional investigation of Russia's 2016 presidential election meddling.
“He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president,” Federal District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said before she handed down her sentence of 40 months, a $20,000 fine, two years of probation and 250 hours of community service. Trump has called Stone's prosecution a "disgrace,"but Jackson disagreed. “There was nothing unfair, phony, or disgraceful about the investigation or the prosecution," she said.
More than the jail part, I'm excited about the 250 hours of community service he has to fulfill as part of his sentence. Mainly because I'll no longer have to say, "I'd pay good money just to see that asshole reduced to cleaning rest stop toilets and hosing bird shit off the police cars at City Hall." Now we can all do it for free!
CHEERS to Massachusetts liberals. Ted Kennedy was born 88 years ago tomorrow and it goes without saying that we on the left still miss him with vigah. Here’s some vintage Ted from a dozen years ago speaking on a hate crimes amendment Bush II was (of course) threatening to veto. Man, he had a set of pipes…
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Pay your respects here. Tonight in the Daily Kos after-hours cafe: Boston cream pies and keep ‘em comin’.
CHEERS to fashioning the liberal agenda out of fire and steel (or, if you prefer, just plain old pixels). Just a quick reminder that there's a big Netroots Nation convention deadline coming up next Friday. If you have an idea for a panel or workshop that you want to propose and coordinate for this year's convention (August 13-15---Denver), just click here for the guidelines and submission form. Grand poobah Mary Rickles says the goal is to highlight hot topics in the progressive community by bringing activists, analysts, political leaders and audiences together for 90 minutes of discussion and Q&A. If you'd like some live assistance, there's a webinar next Tuesday, for which you can register at this link. Here’s a cool reminder graphic you can clip out with an Exacto-knife and post on your fridge:
Deadline is 7 days from today. Oh, and if you're planning to go, remember you'll be a mile in the air. Bring really long pants.
CHEERS to letting your fingers do the walking. 142 years ago today, the first telephone book was issued by the District Telephone Co. of New Haven, Connecticut, consisting of 50 names and a hundred pizza coupons. Today so many people use the internet to find numbers that there are efforts floating around to make delivery of the phone book an "opt-in" thing. Still, it does have its uses. For one thing it gives Mike Bloomberg something to stand on during debates—Ha Ha Ha I kid I'm a kidder keep those checks coming, Mike! For another thing, a handful of years ago a survey showed the phone book may be just what we need to save our republic:
Members of Congress may not always be popular, but now Americans say nearly anyone could take their place.
A full 43% of voters nationwide think a group of people randomly selected from a telephone book would do a better job than current legislators, a new Rasmussen Reports poll found.
Here, let me try. I'll close my eyes, pick up a random phone book, put my finger on a random page, and—[Thrmp!!!]—Nugent, Ted. Oh dear god, abolish the damn things already.
CHEERS to home vegetation. Chris, Rachel and Lawrence kick off our weekend TV viewing tonight on MSNBC. New home video releases out this week include the Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit and Tom Hanks' nominated turn in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Tomorrow night at 8 BET airs the NAACP Image Awards, during which Congressman and civil rights titan John Lewis—Happy 80th Birthday!—will be honored with the prestigious Chairman's Award. The NBA schedule is here and the NHL schedule is here. The PGA golf tournament that got yanked from a Trump resort a few years back heads again to—how perfect—Mexico City and airs on NBC. Professor Frink develops a cryptocurrency and becomes richer than Mr. Burns on The Simpsons, and Peter goes credit card crazy on Family Guy. And, hooray, the universe is back in balance Sunday night at 11:10 as John Oliver airs a fresh episode of HBO's Last Week Tonight.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Bernie Sanders; Nevada caucus coverage.
This Week: As usual, TBA
Face the Nation: Joe Biden; National Security Advisor...oh, does it really matter what his name is?
CNN's State of the Union: TBA
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Tom Steyer
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: February 21, 2010
CHEERS to getting a leg up on life. This is pretty cool. No, actually, it’s amazingly cool—in fact, it could put Evangelical faith healers out of business! A new device that helps the wheelchair-bound walk again:
Called ReWalk, it resembles a bulky set of leg braces. In addition to wearing the braces, users must carry an 8- to 10-pound backpack containing a computer and a battery. Motors at the hip and knee joints of the braces provide power. A wallet-size wireless keypad worn on the wrist allows the wearer to command the braces to perform six kinds of motion: standing up, walking, ascending stairs, descending stairs, standing still, and sitting down.
"Every time a patient who has not stood or walked in years is able to rise from a wheelchair with ReWalk, I am thrilled all over again," Dr. [Alberto] Esquenazi says.
When asked if it would help bloggers get up off couch, Esquenazi said, "Hey, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker."
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And just one more…
CHEERS to evening calisthenics. This happened seven 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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Following Michelle’s lead, the day the current First Lady took up residence in the White House she unveiled her own initiative to her husband: “I’m Moving Into the Lincoln Bedroom.”
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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