Late Night Snark: Pedal to the Crappy Metal Edition
”Tesla is recalling all Cybertrucks thanks to a faulty accelerator pedal, meaning the list of things that can break a Cyberytruck now includes driving it.”
—John Oliver
"The Biden administration recently announced a plan that would require all new cars to come with systems to avoid collisions with pedestrians. Which explains why Elon Musk supports Trump."
—Seth Meyer
"When Trump hasn’t been asleep he's been violating his gag order by posting messages attacking witnesses and prosecutors and jurors. But today Judge Merchan finally issued his ruling on those violations, fining Trump nine-thousand dollars. I know nine-thousand dollars may not seem like a lot to a successful businessman. But what about to Trump?"
—Stephen Colbert
"Can we all acknowledge just how refreshing it is to see a President of the United States at an event that doesn’t begin with a bailiff saying, 'All rise'?"
—Colin Jost at the White House Correspondents Dinner
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"Marjorie Taylor-Greene is furious because her plan to oust yet another Speaker of the House has been foiled. Marge says next week she'll introduce a motion to vacate Speaker Johnson, but she won’t get far because Democrats have promised to vote to save Johnson for the good of the House. This woman is in Congress, by he way. This isn’t one of the random crazy people standing outside the House screaming. This crazy person came from inside the House. She's acting like such a child that Matt Gaetz asked her out on a date."
—Jimmy Kimmel
“A lot of people think what goes on in Congress is political theater. That’s not true. If Congress were a theater, they would‘ve thrown Lauren Boebert out a long time ago.”
—President Biden at the White House Correspondents Dinner
"Some business news: Walmart just announced that they're closing all of their health care clinics. Great—now I'm gonna have to get my prostate exam at T.J. Maxx. I didn’t even know that Walmart had health care clinics. It's like Krispy Kreme announcing they're no longer offering Pilates classes."
—Jimmy Fallon
And now, our feature presentation…
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, May 3, 2024
Note: Today is Garden Meditation Day. Please zen your auras responsibly in here or I’m pulling out the pepper spray. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Mother's Day: 9
Days 'til Gator by the Bay in San Diego: 6
Amount savers made in interest in their deposit accounts in 2022, according to FDIC data: $79 billion
Amount savers made in interest in 2023: $315 billion
Number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in the latest weekly report, the lowest since the pandemic began: 5,615
Number of students of the fraudulent Art Institutes chain of for-profit schools who will be sharing in forgiveness of $6.1 billion in student debt: 317,000
Age of #1 hits The Loco-Motion by Grand Funk Railroad, The Show Must Go On by Three Dog Night, Dancing Machine by The Jackson 5, and The Streak by Ray Stevens as of this month: 50
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Who says good kitchen help is hard to find…?
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CHEERS to companies that aren’t out to ruin everything. I'm not a ride-share user. But if I ever need one, I'll likely opt for Lyft. Because when it comes to voter registration and turnout, they're not just—wait for it—driving in circles. And with voter suppression being a central tenet of the MAGA cult's existence, help is needed now more than ever. This year the young'uns will be the focus as The Community College Commitment works to increase their turnout by hundreds of thousands. Plus…
Lyft has several other initiatives that the company hopes will increase voter turnout. For the election in November, Lyft will be working with several nonprofit organizations to get voters to the polls through the distribution of special ride codes to people in their respective networks who are in need of transportation. One of the nonprofit organizations is the NAACP.
In addition to ride-sharing plans, Lyft will work with partners such as the League of Women Voters, When We All Vote, and VoteRiders to help riders, drivers and Lyft team members register to vote and educate them on voting ID requirements. Additionally, Lyft employees will be able to volunteer to become poll workers.
Meanwhile Republicans will be working with several companies on a special election project called None of That.
CHEERS to the good half. Here in Maine we have two senators. One of them, Susan Collins (R), is a scheming backstabber who regularly votes for MAGA-centric carnage and chaos and then claims to be "concerned" and "disappointed" when the stuff she supported turns into a dumpster fire. But the other is good old Angus King, the "Mustache of Independence" who caucuses with Democrats and is frequently the smartest leader in the room. Last week he voted for the long-delayed military/humanitarian aid package for Ukraine, and had this to say about it in his latest online newsletter:
Murderous dictators and terrorist groups around the world have been betting that Congress couldn’t come together to pass a bipartisan agreement to support our allies. They've been betting that democracy can't work, that we can't make tough decisions and tough commitments and live up to them.
I want to stand on the right side of history in fighting authoritarianism. I want to stand on the side of democracy—and that is why I voted in support of the supplemental national security legislation that passed the Senate last week by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 79-18.
Now, I don’t want to make some audacious claim like, say, Senator King voted the way he did because (this is true) he enjoys reading C&J from time to time and was influenced by our wisdom and iron-clad logic. But I will, anyway. My job, after all, is to make you laugh.
CHEERS to the shining city on a hill. Happy 222nd Birthday to Washington, D.C., incorporated May 3, 1802. (These old maps are cool—I hear you can see Russia from the Capitol dome.)
I was going to send everyone who lives there a gift basket filled with representation to go with your taxation, but Congress—led by Democrat Joe Manchin—says it can’t deliver that item on certain days. Namely Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. So instead I'm sending you a lovely Lincoln Memorial snow globe. (When you shake it, a little plastic Marjorie Taylor-Greene falls down the steps and gets an owie.)
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to itchy trigger fingers. Fifty-four years ago tomorrow, National Guard troops fired on Vietnam War protesters at Ohio’s Kent State University, killing four students and injuring 12 in 13 seconds. (The site is now designated Ohio’s 76th National Historic Site.) The question that may never be answered: what possessed the Guard to use live ammo when they could've pacified the crowd with a plate of hash brownies? A cautionary tale for the stormtroopers battling the protesters on college campuses this week, and a permanent blemish on my home state's history.
CHEERS to home vegetation. If you're looking for a mediocre and half-assed listing of what's appearing on home screens this weekend, you've come to the right mediocre and half-assed place. Things start out the usual Friday way with MSNBC unpacking the day's news dumps, including the trial of Von Shitzinpants. At 8 I’ll be live-tweeting the classic Star Trek episode Is There No Truth in Beauty? (H&I Network) at hashtag #allstartrek. Then at 9 there’s a new edition of Penn & Teller: Fool us!
The new movies and streamers are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes. The MLB schedule is here, the NHL playoff schedule is here, and the NBA playoff schedule is here. The 150th Kentucky Derby is tomorrow (as usual my money’s on the mule wearing the rocket shoes). Coverage of the 3-minute race starts 4½ hours earlier at 2:30 on NBC. Grammy-winning pop star Dua Lipa hosts SNL with musical guest...um...Dua Lipa.
Sunday on 60 Minutes: a profile of future House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and two students who solved a 2,000-year-old math problem. Then: Marge comes upon a surprising windfall but keeps secret it from Homer on The Simpsons. Normally we don’t promote American Idol, but Mainer Julia Gagnon is in the top seven so YOU MUST WATCH SUNDAY NIGHT AT 8 BY LAW!!! And then at 11 John Oliver uses his Last Week Tonight (HBO) platform to dig into the pros and cons of food delivery apps and their effects on restaurants and workers.
Now here's your Sunday morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Terrible Senator Tim Scott (MAGA Cult-SC); Honorable Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ); Cindy McCain.
This Week: Terrible Senator Tom Cotton (MAGA Cult-AR); FTC Chair Lina Khan; NYC Mayor Eric Adams (D); Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.
Face the Nation: Honorable Senator John Fetterman (D-PA); Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA); Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan; puppy murderer Kristi Noem.
CNN's State of the Union: Former terrible senator and current terrible president of the University of Florida Ben Sasse; terrible Gov. Doug Burgum (MAGA Cult-ND).
Fox GOP Talking Points Sunday: Terrible Senator Little Marco Rubio (MAGA Cult-FL); terrible Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares; House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT).
Happy viewing!
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Ten years ago in C&J: May 3, 2014
JEERS to more ankle biting. Here we go again. The House will be holding hearings this month on BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI!!! Answers will be demanded, whistles will be blown, tempers will flare, umbrage will be taken, fingers will be pointed. And pointed. And…[flips page]…pointed some more. By the end of the day, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president after Barack Obama flees town with his Kenyan birth certificate and a steamer trunk full of arugula from the White House garden strapped to the back of a pimped-out Cadillac. Oh, and to you students who will be reading about this event next year in U.S. History class from a textbook approved by the Texas Board of Education: Sorry—I shoulda yelled "Spoiler alert."
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And just one more…
JEERS to Wankerrific Moments in Self-importance. Sometimes an op-ed column is, not unlike an Ed Wood movie, so bad that it achieves a special place in the archive of eye rolling. That’s why May 3rd is officially designated "Richard Cohen Day." On May 3, 2006, Cohen went into a tirade against Stephen Colbert's routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner—now considered a courageous and often gut-busting classic skewering a scowling George W. Bush as the president sat just a few feet away. Cohen defended his ability to gauge what's funny and what's not with perhaps the most wince-worthy opening paragraph of the decade:
First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy.
This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny"—as if the deed could be done on demand.
Even elementary school kids know that if you have to convince us that you're funny by telling us you're funny…you're not funny. Funny how that works.
P.S. Biden at this years WHC dinner: “The 2024 election is in full swing and, yes, age is an issue. ... Age is the only thing we have in common. My vice president actually endorses me.” Now that’s funny.
Have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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