The Late Nighters On Yet Another Effed-Up Week…
“Full disclosure: I did not watch much of the convention tonight. And fullest disclosure: I didn’t watch any of it. Because right now in America, we’re facing a global pandemic that has killed 180,000 Americans, heavily-armed Rambo wannabes are murdering people in our streets, the strongest hurricane in the history of the Gulf Coast is making landfall as I speak, and the RNC’s message is Who’s Up For Four More Years? Why should we watch their reality show if it doesn’t reflect our reality?”
—Stephen Colbert
Clip of Kimberly Guilfoyle at GOP convention: THE BEST! IS YET! TO COME!
Samantha Bee: I know Kimberly’s already gone far in her life, but that speech guarantees she’ll go fuhrer and fuhrer.
—Full Frontal
Continued…
“With Donald Trump in the White House for four more years, we will make America great again again.”
—Actual, scripted line from Mike Pence’s cult rally speech
Also this happened.
“I didn’t see any of his speech tonight, but I’ve still prepared a formal response to Donald Trump: No, thank you.”
—James Corden
“Nobody drives into a city with guns because they love someone else’s business that much. That’s some bullshit. No one has ever thought, ‘Oh, it’s my solemn duty to pick up a rifle and protect that T.J. Maxx.’ They do it because they’re hoping to shoot someone. That’s the only reason people join these gangs in the first place, and yes I said gangs. Enough with this ‘militia’ bullshit. This isn’t the battle of Yorktown—it’s a bunch of dudes threatening people with guns.
How come Jacob Blake was seen as a deadly threat for a ‘theoretical’ gun that he ‘might’ have and ‘might’ try to commit a crime with, but this gunman who was armed and had already shot people—who had shown that he was a threat—was arrested the next day, given full due process of the law and generally treated like a human being whose life matters? … The answer is that the gun doesn’t matter as much as who is holding the gun. Because to some people, Black skin is the most threatening weapon of all.”
—Trevor Noah
“Can we agree? Anyone who’s ironed his clothes in the last four months is a psychopath.”
—Conan O’Brien
And a bonus pearl of prescience from the late Carl Sagan, who eerily envisioned how a Trump administration could come into being…
“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us—and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.”
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, August 28, 2020
Note: One potato, two potato, three potato….er…um… [Frantic 20-minute Google search later] …four.
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By the Numbers:
10 days!!!
Days ’til Salami Day: 10
Date the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument—featuring Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton—was unveiled in New York’s Central Park, the first monument in the park since 1965: 8/26/20
Current matchup numbers via Suffolk University polling for Massachusetts incumbent Sen. Ed Markey and Joe Kennedy III in the Democratic primary, which takes place Tuesday: 51%-41%
Current matchup numbers via PPP for John Hickenlooper (D) and Cory Gardner (R-inc.) in the Colorado U.S. Senate race: 51%-42%
Percent of Milwaukee voters polled by PPP who wish Biden could’ve given his convention speech there: 58%
Percent of Charlotte voters who wish Trump could’ve given his convention speech there: 27%
Number of Texans officially on record in August as having been treated after they poisoned themselves by drinking bleach to prevent Covid-19: 46
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
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JEERS to chaos and carnage. The good news: the four-day Trump cult rally is over. The bad news: the ghost of the guy who choreographed the Nuremberg rallies gave it an F for lack of spectacle, oompah bands, armbands, and stiff-armed salutes…but A for effort. Even though I chose to watch reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Tapestry,” “Deja Q,” “Darmok” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise”) instead, the consensus among the political gods is that this will be the enduring moment from Trump’s last stand:
Challenge met! #Guilfoylechallenge pic.twitter.com/XQJbuoDCZB— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) August 25, 2020
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Now we get a brief respite before Labor Day, when the sprint to election day kicks into high gear, and all hands are on deck to prevent Republicans from stealing it.The three most important words between now and November 3rd: Plan.Your. Vote. Almost as important: Stock. Liquor. Cabinet.
CHEERS to happy coincidences. Sadly, with John Lewis’s passing there are no speakers from this milestone in American history still living. So it’s bittersweet to note that 57 years ago today, on August 28, 1963, an intimate gathering of 200,000 people watched as Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech (watch it here) from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:
Trump will never attract a crowd this size…
And twelve years ago tonight Barack Obama echoed the words of King (among them: “The fierce urgency of now”) when he spoke to a packed stadium in Denver as the first African-American presidential nominee in the history of the universe:
…or this size.
This for me is still King’s money quote, the distilled essence of what it means to pursue a “more perfect union”:
“I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.”
Or as modern-day Trump cultists, formerly known as Republicans, call it: a nightmare.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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The Mets and Marlins took the field, had a 42-second moment of silence, and then walked off. The only thing left on the field: a Black Lives Matter shirt.pic.twitter.com/JyckWkGQai— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) August 27, 2020
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to water, water everywhere. Holy mackerel, Louisitexasana, what did you DO to piss off the gays, feminists and pagans like that? Hurricane Laura just dropped a big wet anvil on y’all. And into the record books you go…
Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana near the Texas border early Thursday as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.
Laura taken from the Space Station by astronaut and Mainer Chris Cassidy.
That made Laura the most intense hurricane to make landfall in Louisiana in 164 years, since what was called the Last Island Storm in 1856. It is also tied for the strongest hurricane on record to ever hit the state.
The bad news: lots of damage, some deaths, complications dealing with the rescue and recovery effort because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the fact that we have an uncaring moron at the helm of the federal government. The good news: [TBA].
JEERS to Republican leadership inaction. Speaking of hurricanes, fifteen years ago today, as George Bush displayed a lovely birthday cake he’d baked for late fellow warmonger John McCain, a swirling category-3 fetus was terrorizing abortion clinics in New Orleans. FEMA head Michael Brown, drawing on his vast experience in disaster management as former head of the Arabian Horse Association’s legal department, responded swiftly and maturely:
The day of the storm, Brown exchanged e-mails about his attire with [FEMA’s deputy director of public affairs Cindy] Taylor, [Rep. Charlie] Melancon said. She told him, “You look fabulous,” and Brown replied, “I got it at Nordstroms. … Are you proud of me?”
Bush praising his Nordstroms “fashion god.”
An hour later, Brown added: “If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you’ll really vomit. I am a fashion god.”
Say it with me, for old time’s sake: “Heckuva job, Brownie.”
CHEERS to home vegetation. Here are some of the TV highlights for the weekend, starting tonight on MSNBC as Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell get back to normal programming following this week’s White House hootenanny of hate.
The mindless time warp our nation needs opens today
Tonight at 9, ABC’s 20/20 presents a two-hour retrospective on the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom, while at 10 on NBC, Lester Holt reports on his experience being locked up for two nights at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary. And if you can still stomach Bill Maher’s schtick, his guests on HBO’s Real Time include Rick Wilson of The Lincoln Project and Wynton Marsalis. (Warning: it also includes Trey Gowdy.) There’s plenty choose from on the home video front, including the positively-reviewed new Bill & Ted movie, and you can poke around Rotten Tomatoes for ideas. If the NBA is back in action, you can see their schedule here and the WNBA schedule here, while the NHL games are here and the baseball lineup is here. On 60 Minutes: Colorado residents react to the passing of a red flag law, and using artificial intelligence to preserve the stories of holocaust victims. The CW airs the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday at 8. And John Oliver returns with a fresh episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight Sunday night at 11.
Now here’s your Sunday morning lineup:
CNN’s State of the Union: WNBA Players Association president Nneka Ogwumik; Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA); Did you know we have a FEMA director? It’s allegedly true! “Pete Gaynor” shows up to say stuff.
The pundit discussion is going to be intense Sunday morning on Face the Kittens.
Face the Nation: Jacob Blake family attorney Benjamin Crump; Rep. Val Demings (D-FL); Kentucky AG Dan Cameron; former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb; some guy named Chad Something Something, who falsely claims to be acting DHS secretary, which he absolutely is not.
This Week: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); DHS Fraud Chad Whatsizface.
Meet the Press: TBA
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield; Lara Trump.
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: August 28, 2010
CHEERS to unexpected company. Let’s say you’re a couple of 18 year-olds and you’re about to get stoned at a public park in, say, Falmouth, Maine. Before you light up your, um, hollowed-out carrot pipe, you prepare for the inevitable onset of cottonmouth by—what else?—breaking into a parked van and stealing a bottle of water. Perfect. Except for one niggling little detail: the unmarked van belongs to the police, who are on a stakeout and hiding in the back behind a curtain and one-way glass. Oops:
According to [Falmouth Police Lt. John] Kilbride…”We literally just set it up and I got the call, ‘You’re not going to believe this.'” Brian Beasley, 18, was arrested and charged with burglary of a motor vehicle, theft and possession of marijuana. Thomas Caswell, 18, was given a civil summons for possession of marijuana.
Oh, about that carrot pipe: apparently the teens were using it so that if they saw the cops comin’ they could just eat the evidence and avoid getting arrested. Which they didn’t. So they didn’t. And they did. You may commence pointing and laughing at will.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to cleaning house. This week marked the first and hopefully last party convention to be staged at the White House—a shattering of rules and norms that could only have happened on the watch of a soulless criminal like Donald Trump and his false idol-worshiping cult. That the People’s House, now ringed with a concrete barrier to protect the coward who lives there, was used to host a sickening, un-American propaganda orgy starring peddlers of fear, hate, denial, and cruelty is repulsive, and the fact that it looked like amateur hour adds insult to injury. So, as we end another week at a new low, here’s a reminder of how the previous president used the White House grounds: as a space of joy and kindness to be shared with the public, free of ideology and egomania:
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama participate in a campfire songs session with fourth-grade Girl Scouts during the first-ever White House Campout June 30, 2015 on the South Lawn.
President Obama greets the Tennessee State University Marching Band on the South Portico of the White House following a reception for the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2016.
President Obama congratulates a participant during the White House Easter Egg Roll with first lady Michelle Obama on the South Lawn of the White House April 6, 2015.
[Sigh.]
Have a nice weekend. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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