(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Coke FRIDAY! [1] [] Date: 2023-10-27 Late Night Snark: Banality of Evil Edition "Republicans today elected Mike Johnson Speaker of the House. Wow—the speaker race was so embarrassing, they're not even giving their real names anymore. ‘Mike Johnson’ is the name you give when you check into a motel with your mistress." —Seth Meyers "Johnson was just elected this afternoon, getting votes from all 220 Republicans. Finally, a man who appeals to all factions of the Republican party: the MAGA faithful, the social conservatives, the white nationalists, and the horny Beetlejuice goblins." —Stephen Colbert Continued… You are now below the fold. Please remember to tip your naked mole rat. "I'm telling you right now Donald Trump is going to jail. Today alone, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows has immunity in the January 6th case and he will testify that he repeatedly told Trump that the allegations of voting fraud were baseless, which is the opposite of what Trump says…his former lawyer Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty to felony charges of aiding and abetting false statements in the Georgia election-tampering case, and will testify against her former client…and Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen testified against him in the fraud trial in New York. Right now half of Trump's lawyers are trying to keep him out of prison, and the other half are trying to keep themselves out of prison." —Jimmy Kimmel "Yesterday on Truth Social, Trump posted a courtroom sketch of him sitting next to Jesus. Because if there's one guy whose trial ended famously well, it's Jesus." —Colin Jost, SNL "A three-year-old girl from Texas has become the youngest person ever to visit all 63 U.S. national parks—unfortunately, in the talons of an eagle." —Michael Che, SNL "We're one week away from Halloween, but due to a global cocoa shortage, chocolate is going to be way more expensive. Yup, chocolate is more expensive. But if you hand out raisins instead, the damage to your house will cost way more." —Jimmy Fallon And from 10 years ago: "The popularity of Congress is at an all-time low, according to a recent poll that says Americans like head lice more than they like Congress. But, y'know, I think the real story here is that some Americans like head lice." —Conan O'Brien And now, our feature presentation... - Cheers and Jeers for Friday, October 27, 2023 Note: Today was Cranky Co-workers Day. Or as the 50 monkeys with typewriters in my employ call it: Friday. - By the Numbers: 4 days!!! Days 'til the 2023 elections: 11 Days 'til Treat Street in Chico, California: 4 Year-over-year increase in light vehicle sales: 9% New home sales rate in September, well above the 679k forecast: 759,000 Expected spending on Halloween this year: $12 billion Percent of Americans who say they carve a pumpkin for Halloween: 46% Percent chance that Halloween is one of the top three deadliest days for pedestrians: 100% - Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans… - CHEERS to moving in the right direction. With the final push to the 2023 off-year (but still very important) elections underway, the news for Democrats is pretty good. Jobs are plentiful to just about anyone who wants one: great news! Gas prices are stable and/or dropping: great news! Massive investments in infrastructure, including newly-announced regional tech hubs, are underway: great news! Medicaid is bringing down the cost of drugs: great news! Student loans are being forgiven all over the place: great news! And Republicans who tried to steal the 2020 election are being subpoenaed, depositioned, tried, convicted, and jailed: great news! And yesterday we found out that the Bidenomics economy grew at an eye-popping 4.9 percent in the third quarter: The increase in real GDP reflected increases in consumer spending, private inventory investment, exports, state and local government spending, federal government spending, and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by a decrease in nonresidential fixed investment. The increase in consumer spending reflected increases in both services and goods. Within services, the leading contributors were housing and utilities, health care, financial services and insurance, and food services and accommodations. Within goods, the leading contributors to the increase were other nondurable goods (led by prescription drugs) as well as recreational goods and vehicles. Good news, of course, doesn't guarantee good election results. But it doesn't hurt. JEERS to America: land of the guns, home of the gun nuts. What happens in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown Aurora Binghamton Tucson Santa Barbara Charleston Lafayette Roseburg Kalamazoo Orlando Alexandria Las Vegas Parkland Benton Pittsburgh Thousand Oaks Aurora Poway Highlands Ranch Virginia Beach Gilroy El Paso Dayton Midland/Odessa Fresno Milwaukee Atlanta Boulder Colorado Springs Chicago Buffalo Uvalde Tulsa Highland Park Colorado Springs again Monterey Park Nashville Louisville Dallas etcetera etcetera just up the road from me in Lewiston, Maine (18 dead, 13 wounded by a mentally-unstable “trained firearms instructor” who all but had a flashing BAD GUY WITH A GUN sign hanging around his neck) is depressingly predictable: The community will grieve. Gun control advocates will wisely suggest that this might be a good time to review our federal and state firearms policies so that our nation's shameful record of gun violence might be improved upon. The right-wing gun nuts and media machine will claim it’s “just a lone wolf,” then blame Democrats (and their movies and video games and abortion and same-sex marriages and, of course, doors) for the carnage and urge every living soul and their pets to arm themselves to the teeth, and the NRA will insist it's "too soon" to talk about gun control as they continue scaring politicians into looking the other way by informing them that, "We'll be scoring you on your response." Like I said, predictable. Depressingly. Again and again and again. CHEERS to busting "state's rights" in the chops. On October 27, 1787, the first of the Federalist Papers was released under the name "Publius" (later revealed to be Broadway star Alexander Hamilton). The goal: to make the case that "the insufficiency of the present confederation" (i.e. weak federal government and strong “states rights” governments) required a new constitution that would mean "nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world." Hamilton, along with co-authors Madison and John Jay, knew they'd have critics, and this snip shows that they'd be dealing with their own version of the MAGA crowd: [W]e have already sufficient indications that it will happen in this as in all former cases of great national discussion. The essays that put meat on the Declaration of Independence's bones. A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. Scary accurate. But I'll say this for the original MAGA cultists of yore: at least they could wear tri-corn hats without looking like idiots. - BRIEF SANITY BREAK (Via the Sedgwick County Zoo) - - END BRIEF SANITY BREAK - CHEERS to the ol' bull moose. Happy Birthday to Teddy Roosevelt, who turns 165 today. #26 has a few words from the Great Beyond for the wackos who are making a mockery of his party: "I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head." True fact: Teddy Roosevelt also believed he was a little teapot. "If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.” "Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement." - And this, which Democrats agree with completely but Republicans never will: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.” Ouch. Pay your respects here. (But do it softly...I hear he carries a big stick.) CHEERS to home vegetation. If a poltergeist doesn't suck us into the TV first ("Come into the light, Billeh! We haz teh candy corns!"), we might get some decent cathode-ray-tubage in this weekend. Chris Hayes and the MSNBC crew start by haunting us with the day’s news roundup. Or you can live-tweet tonight’s classic Star Trek episode with me at 8 (H&I Network) at hashtag #allstartrek . Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels will be hauled out of mothballs to be the guest on PBS’s Firing Line at 8:30. Oh, and there’s the season premiere of Penn & teller: Fool Us at 8 on the CW, and a Halloween episode of Shark Tank on ABC. Also: due to a clerical error, the entire 2015 World Series will be played over again this weekend. Said baseball commissioner Rob Manfred: “Oops.” New movies and streaming releases include the rave-reviewed Paul Giammatti flick The Holdovers. Game one of the World Series is tonight (Fox), with the Arizona Diamondbacks tied with the Texas Rangerbacks at zero games apiece. (Game 2 is tomorrow night and game 3 is Monday.) The NFL schedule is here, the NBA schedule is here, and the NHL schedule is here. Comedian Nate Bergatze hosts SNL. On 60 Minutes: an interview with VP Kamala Harris, and a look at the state of indoor air quality. At 8, The Simpsons becomes a corporate documentary, and Peter makes a hologram of himself to get out of housework on Family Guy. And HBO sweeps the rest of Sunday night with another chorus of "Welcome, welcome, welcome!" on an all-new edition of John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. Now here's your Sunday morning lineup: Meet the Press: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA); Gov. Ron DeSantis and his 5-inch lifts (The Cult-FL). Mr. Hyde joins the networks Sunday morning to share sexy hair care tips that’ll get you noticed. This Week: national Security Advisor Jake Sullivan; retired general Abe Abrams. Face the Nation: Robert Mardini of the International Red Cross; Senator and man-stitched-together-from-a-hundred-human-assholes J.D. Vance (The Cult-OH); CNN's State of the Union: Senator James Lankford (The Cult-OK). Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Rep. Michael McCaul (The Cult-TX); Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson (The Cult). Happy viewing! - Ten years ago in C&J: October 27, 2013 CHEERS to our new neighbors. Astronomers say they've discovered a galaxy that's more distant than any we've ever seen before. It takes light 13 billion years to get here. It's out there…I mean it's way, waaaaay out there. They're calling it the Ted Nugent galaxy. - And just one more… CHEERS to the fed-up female. On Sunday's date in 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW) held its first conference and adopted its original Statement of Purpose in Washington D.C. That purpose: to help reduce the extent to which men are allowed to act like pigs... We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders. A lot of women have worn down a lot of shoe leather marching for NOW. And they’re just getting started. The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men. We believe the time has come to move beyond the abstract argument, discussion and symposia over the status and special nature of women which has raged in America in recent years; the time has come to confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent women from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of choice which is their right, as individual Americans, and as human beings. Today NOW is “the largest organization of feminist grassroots activists in the United States” with “actions and positions on the issues that are principled, uncompromising and often ahead of their time.” We completely agree. But as usual, ladies, tonight I'm still gonna open the door for ya. Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today? - [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/27/2201650/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Rum-and-Coke-FRIDAY?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_10&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/