“A handful of idiots were out this weekend protesting against social distancing. For instance [a] man carrying a sign, ‘Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Covid-19.’ Buddy, you’re in a large crowd, you’re not wearing a mask, and you’re not six feet away from people. You might not have to choose.” —Stephen Colbert
“Trump says he’ll stop all funding [of the World Health Organization] until a review has been conducted. Stopping funding to an organization that handles pandemics in the middle of a pandemic is like slashing your own tires because you’re mad you woke up late for work.” —Jimmy Kimmel
Continued…
CAUTION: You have just descended below the fold. No lifeguard on duty.
“President Trump has decided that he’s going to add his signature to all of the stimulus checks. So a 90 percent chance those checks will bounce.” —Conan O’Brien
“A brewery in Georgia is offering a new beer named after infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci called Fauci Spring. They were gonna make one for President Trump, but turns out no one likes a bitter stout.” —Seth Meyers
—Via The Late Show, a glimpse of how hairdressers are adapting in now-reopened Georgia
“We’re in this horrible situation now because our leaders failed to do the hard work necessary to prevent it. And now that our efforts are starting to undo a tiny bit of the damage, [Republicans] want to throw away that progress and risk more lives so they can get a quick boost by election day. I know Americans love quick and easy fixes, from weight loss scams to gas station boner pills. The only way out of this mess it to finish the hard work we’ve begun. The process to return to normal will be long, hard, and sometimes painful. Which, coincidentally, is the slogan for those boner pills.” —Samantha Bee
And Joe Biden says what our current president is too malignantly narcissistic to, via The Late Late Show:
“I’m so proud of what the American people are doing. … A lot of heroes out there, going through a helluva lot more than I’ve gone through. They just get up every single solitary morning, and put one foot in front of the other. I just…I marvel at the soul of this nation.”
Damn right.
And now, our feature presentation…
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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, April 24, 2020
Note: A reminder that if you see any flying boats of the Iranian Navy overhead, please contact your local village constable or dial 1-800-SPACE FORCE. Yes, even if they offer you candy. Especially if they offer you candy. Remember: vigilance is patriotism. —Viceroy Pence
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By the Numbers:
4 days ‘til Workers’ Memorial Day.
Days ’til Workers’ Memorial Day: 4
Percent of Americans who are concerned they might catch COVID-19, according to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll: 57%
Percent of Floridians surveyed by Quinnipiac who approve of Trump’s job performance:46%
Floridians in the same poll who plan to vote for Joe Biden and Donald Trump, respectively:46%-42%
Increase in viewing via streaming devices since the coronavirus hit, according to Nielsen analytics: 20%
Current number of viewers for the Netflix series Tiger King: 64 million
Percent of Americans who believe in literal ghosts and demons, according to Newsweek:45%
CHEERS to those darn kids. Earlier this week Markos wrote a pieceon how the numbers show Joe Biden will need to turn on the charm and “crack the code” with the young’un vote if he wants to win by a comfortable margin in November. Not two days later, NPR came out with this articlesuggesting the code has already been cracked for him, and by a gigantic idiot no less:
More than a quarter of the country’s 18- to 29-year-olds say that their lives are worse because of President Trump, according to a new poll, the latest to show the motivating impact the president could have on the youngest subset of voters this election year. […]
Top reasons young people say they don’t vote: too busy or just not interested. But that could change this year now that they know Trump is neither too busy nor too uninterested in fucking them over for the rest of their lives.
The poll also found that young Americans, mobilized in part by strong disapproval of President Trump, are slightly more likely to vote in November’s general election than they were ahead of the 2016 general election. … It also found former Vice President Joe Biden with a wide lead over Trump among 18- to 29-year-olds most likely to vote: 60% to 30%. […] According to the survey, 61% of young people and 75% of likely young voters say that the outcome of the 2020 general election will make a difference in their lives.
How ironic. The kids are gonna turn out six months from now singularly focused on one goal: make America great again. And to celebrate we’ll burn all the red “Make America Great Again” hats. It’s going to be wonderfully weird.
JEERS to Michael Brown’ing the gubment. Remember when the last Republican president put the former legal advisor for the Arabian Horse Association in charge of FEMA? Remember how well that went in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Well, here we are 15 years later with a new Republican president and history repeating itself. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the guy—a buddy old buddy old pal of HHS Secretary Alex Azar—running the day-to-day response to the COVID-19 crisis:
The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years.
Throwing a ball for a labradoodle is an essential skill for managing the response to a global pandemic.
Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.” […]
Before joining the Trump Administration in January 2018, Harrison’s official HHS biography says, he “ran a small business in Texas.”
The biography does not disclose the name or nature of that business, but his personal financial disclosure forms show that from 2012 until 2018 he ran a company called Dallas Labradoodles.
Apparently Harrison has become one of Trump’s favorite employees. He’s obedient, all bark and no bite, and doesn’t mind being kept on a tight leash. But he’ll never set foot in the Oval Office. Sheds too much.
CHEERS to the apple of CBS’s eye. Happy 112th birthday tomorrow to CBS News legend Edward R. “Good Night, and Good Luck” Murrow. He had more journalistic integrity in his pinky than many of today’s journalistic misfits (too many of whom call CBS News home) have on their entire resumes. He was a fighter for journalistic independence free of the entertainment side of television, and his clipped and unemotional delivery only added to his gravitas. From his New York Times obituary:
One former staff member recalled the instruction Mr. Murrow gave to his newsmen.
President Truman hangs out with Murrow. Oh, to be a fly on one of those lawn chairs.
The reporter must never sound excited even if bombs are falling outside, Mr. Morrow said.
Rather, the reporter should imagine that he has just returned to his hometown and that the local editor has asked him to dinner with, for example, a banker and a professor.
“After dinner,” Mr. Murrow counseled, “your host asks you ‘Well, what was it like?’ As you talk, the maid is passing the coffee and her boyfriend, a truck driver, is waiting for her in the kitchen and listening. You are supposed to describe things in terms that make sense to the truck driver without insulting the intelligence of the professor.”
Unfortunately chain-smoking (sometimes blowing through three packs a day) snuffed out his life prematurely at 57—lung cancer. Hear excerpts of his W.W. II and McCarthy hearing reports here. And, hey, don’t smoke.
CHEERS to Charles Richter. Sunday is the 120th birthday of the late seismologist who invented a scale to measure the strength of earthquakes (I forget what it’s called). Go here and pay your respects…if you feel so moved. But please don’t blame him for causing all the recent tremors—they’re not his faults.
CHEERS to home vegetation. The last weekend of April is here already??? Cheesumcrow, this year is flying by. The boob-tube viewage starts tonight with Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow documenting the daily atrocities (like passing 50,000 Covid deaths). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi headlines the guest roster (along with Jay Leno & Dr. David Katz) on HBO’s Real Time at Home with Bill Maher at 10. Later, at 11, there’s a new Graham Norton Show on BBC America with guests Ricky Gervais, Thandie Newton (Westworld), and Patrick Stewart.
Pelosi continues shredding Trump tonight on HBO’s “Real Time.”
New home video releases include the acclaimed courtroom drama Just Mercy and all the seasons of 30 Rock. Sesame Street is partnering with CNN to hold a special town-hall event for kids tomorrow morning at 9 that’ll focus on “coronavirus-related issues including screen time, anxiety, and school.” Oh my god! Oh my god! There’s actually some live SPORTS on this weekend! Sorta. Round 2 and 3 of the NFL draft are tonight (it’s on now and runs ‘til 11:30) and tomorrow at noon on ABC and ESPN. (But don’t tell Ted Nugent—he always shits his pants when he hears the word “draft.”) CBS airs a Grammy salute to Prince commemorating four years since his death tomorrow night at 8. SNL returns for its second “At Home” edition. Sunday on 60 Minutes: mapping the coronavirus with artificial intelligence, and how the military is dealing with Covid-19. A new preacher comes to town and raises the suspicions of Reverend Lovejoy on a new The Simpsons, and Peter has a car accident on Family Guy.
Now here’s your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ); Stacey Abrams; Center for Infectious Disease Research at the University of Minnesota director Michael Osterholm.
This Week: Govs. Larry Hogan (R-MD) and Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI); Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
Sunday on CNN and NBC: Stacey!!!
Face the Nation: Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD); San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D); former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb; Barry Diller; bankster Brian Moynihan.
CNN’s State of the Union: Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Stacey Abrams; Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO); White House medical fluffer Deborah Birx provides an update on the healing properties of Clorox and tanning beds. Sarcastically, of course.
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Genius Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) on how his state is re-opening just in time for the virus to sweep across rural America; Steve Mnuchin reminds us why his is still the most punchable face in America; Dr. Tom Inglesby from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Happy viewing.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 24, 2010
CHEERS to Barack Obama…LIVE from the Comedy Connection! Yesterday POTUS traveled to New York to ask Wall Street to think beyond themselves and do what’s right for their country. The response was muted: “Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!!!” We understand the veal was tasty and the servers were well-tipped. Next stop: the Borscht Belt?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to our big eye in the sky. Thirty years ago today, the Hubble space telescope was placed into orbit by the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery(now on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum annex in Virginia). And 30 years later, thanks to the brilliance of the men and women, it’s still crankin’ out the Polaroids. Why is it such a BFD? Over to you, Neil…
When the early Hubble photos were revealed to we Earthlings, Democrats saw the wonder of an evolving universe and the hope of discovering intelligent life one day and harnessing our collective strengths for the good of the cosmos. Republicans saw potential fracking fields and the hope of discovering millions of new suckers on which to foist reverse-mortgages, trickle-down economics, and hydroxychloroquine. Eh. Potato, Puhtahto, right?
Have a great weekend. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
