Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Coke FRIDAY!

You are now below the fold. Beware of rogue yankee doodles.

“After Roe v. Wade got overturned some pro-lifers have been posting pictures of themselves holding up signs like this, that say ‘Please don’t abort…we will adopt your baby.’ There is some other fine print though. It says offer not valid if baby is black, brown, gay or already out of the womb.”
—Jimmy Kimmel Live guest host Chelsea Handler

“We’re still reeling from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. But we shouldn’t overlook all the other bad decisions, especially the tire iron they’ve taken to the separation of church and state. Last week they ruled that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a public tuition reimbursement program. Okay, that’s not good. Also, what kind of religious schools do they have in Maine? ‘Ayuh, welcome to the Church of Lobstah Day Saints. Put a piece of saltwater taffy in the pastor’s waffle cone and open your fish-fry menus to the Book of Chowdah…’”
—Stephen Colbert

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“The Supreme Court is now the Fox News of justice, in my mind. It is a cynical pursuit in the same way that Fox News would come out with ‘We’re fair and balanced’ under the patina of what would be a high status pursuit to the betterment of society, journalism. They are a cynical political arm.”
—Jon Stewart

“Whenever something happens that Fox News knows is bad for Republicans politically, like overturning an overwhelmingly-popular constitutional right, Fox tries to pivot by convincing your grandparents that antifa is currently outside their house right now threatening to take their flagstones and garden gnomes hostage.”
—Seth Meyers

And now, our feature presentation…

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Cheers and Jeers for Friday, July 1, 2022

Note: Whoever replaced my regular coffee with Folgers Crystals, hear me now and carve these words in granite: I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth and make you pay for your historic blunder.  —Janet in Accounting

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By the Numbers:

Days ’til National Blueberry Day: 7

Days ’til the Parker County Peach Festival in Weatherford, Texas: 8

Percent of Americans polled by The Economist who said last week and this week, respectively, that they “strongly” disapprove of the Supreme Court: 20%, 35%

Current Quinnipiac matchup numbers for the Georgia Senate race between, respectively, Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker: 54% – 44%

Size of Norway‘s “playbook”—two years in the making—on how to successfully deal with a pandemic like Covid-19, which they handled well: 937 pages

Percent chance that the cryptocurrency crash has wiped out a ton of money stolen by North Korean hackers: 100%

Year that Independence Day was made a formal federal holiday: 1941

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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…

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CHEERS to July! Welcome to the month that starts Act II of 2022 after an intermission lasting exactly zero seconds. America turns 246 Monday (thanks to the history of conservatives botching everything, we don’t look a day under 500). And Canada turns 155 today, so put your Molson on Justin’s tab.

July is also National Baked Beans Month and National Ice Cream Month. On the 11th we’ll celebrate something called Feest van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap (Translation: “The takeover of the planet by horny gerbils with grenade launchers”). The full moon—aka a “buck moon”—happens on the 13th. (Speaking of full moons, the second week of July is Nude Recreation Week.) 

The summer movie box office is open, though nothing looks particularly exciting. Besides, we’re saving our popcorn for the real must-see entertainment this month: the continuation of the parade of witnesses in front of the Jan. 6 Committee, each one bringing with them a shiny new nail for Trump’s coffin.

But the only thing we can all truly count on this month, especially thanks to yesterday’s Supreme Court decision: a whole lotta steaming goin’ on and I ain’t talkin’ about cherry pies on window sills although those, too. Which reminds me: what does former Trump chief-of-staff and insurrection enabler Mark Meadows do during a hot July while thinking about the likelihood that he’ll be indicted, convicted, and sent to prison? Shake ‘n bake.

CHEERS to promises kept. A lot of theocratic B.S. came out of the Supreme Court last month, but here’s something good that actually came in: we now have our first a Black woman on the court. So what do we know about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson? Here’s a refresher:

»  Born in Washington, DC and grew up in Miami, Florida

»  Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, then attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

»  During her time at Harvard, Jackson led protests against a student who displayed a Confederate flag from his dorm window.

»  Clerked under outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer

»  Assistant federal public defender in Washington, D.C. (2005-2007) handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

»  Helped lower penalties for drug offenses as vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission (2010-2014)

»  District judge on the United States District Court for D.C. (2013-2021) and D.C. Court of Appeals (2021)

»  Married to surgeon Patrick G. Jackson. Two daughters: Leila and Talia.

And this is interesting: Judge Jackson is a descendant of Continental Congress delegate Jonathan Jackson of Massachusetts, and is related to former SCOTUS justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.  Oh, and she’s also related by marriage to Paul Ryan. Ugh—thoughts and prayers, ma’am.

CHEERS to the turning point.  159 years ago today, on July 1, 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg began, marking the high-water mark of the nasty old slavery advocates.  (For the record, Maine won the war for the Union, although we hate to brag because we’re modest.)  In a show of magnanimity—because, hey, what’s a little tyranny between friends—I bought the South a gift today, on account of I thought it was fitting for the occasion.  It’s an actual “Hour of Glory” Robert E. Lee cuckoo clock:

Instead of a cuckoo, a little toy cannon goes off every hour.  Who knew treason could be so whimsical?

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BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK

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CHEERS to the right man for the right job at the right time.  This week marks the 247th year since George Washington—freshly promoted to general by the Constitutional Mouseketeers—took command of the Continental Army in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1775.  He won some battles, lost some (okay, a lot) and suffered mightily, but had the courage, smarts and fortitude to keep his army together and eventually claim victory by bottling up old Butthead Cornwallis at Yorktown. And he did it all while wearing knee stockings.  Suck it, Patton.

CHEERS to home vegetation. Meh—it’s the middle of summer, so as far as TV goes, everything’s pretty much reruns at the moment.

The MSNBC crew will be competing tonight with the season premieres of PBS’s Washington Week and Firing Line (with tonight’s guest, the very liberal-sounding former Republican NJ governor Christine Todd Whitman.)  Oh, and tonight at 8 me and my online Enterprise crewmates are live-tweeting—via hashtag #allstartrek—the classic episode of Star Trek (H&I network) where the crew catches an alien disease that causes them to age rapidly.

The most popular movies and home videos, new and old, are all reviewed here at Rotten Tomatoes.  Sports schedules: MLB here and WNBA here.  On 60 Minutes: encore reports on the Mars gyrocopter and the Boston Dynamics robots. And the annual A Capitol Fourth (PBS) special and Macy’s 4th of July Spectacular (NBC) both air Monday night at 8. 

Now here’s your stupid-ass Sunday morning lineup:

Meet the Stupid-Ass Press: Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra; Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

This Stupid-Ass Week: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; Jan. 6 Committee co-chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).

CNN’s State of the Stupid-Ass Union: Gov. Kristi Noem (The Cult-SD); Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

Face the Stupid-Ass Nation: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA); German Chancellor Olaf Sholz; Harvard Professor Dr. Henning Tiemeier; 

Fox GOP Stupid-Ass Talking Points Sunday: Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby; Gov. Tate “Ain’t Right In The Head” Reeves (The Cult-MS).

Happy viewing!

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Ten years ago in C&J: July 1, 2012

JEERS to not getting the memo. Extra Extra, read all about it—Republicans are still an embarrassment to themselves and the nation. Dan Froomkin at HuffPost:

The poll, constructed by Dartmouth government professor Benjamin Valentino and conducted by YouGov from April 26 to May 2, found that 63 percent of Republican respondents still believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded in 2003. … The Bush administration’s insistence that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and might give them to terrorists was a key selling point in its campaign to take the country to war. It turned out to be untrue.

Yes, that was very untrue. The weapon of mass destruction only appeared in Iraq after the Bush administration invaded. I believe the technical term for the device was the Bush administration.

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And just one more…

CHEERS to our favorite constitutional monarchy! Happy Birthday, Canada!  As America prepares to celebrate the violent upheaval and protracted war with Britain that led to our own “Brexit,” today our neighbors to the north commemorated the cool, calm, and civilized “union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada [on] July1st.”

Awesome! Whoooo!!!  We luv ya Canada!  (Disclaimer: But not your tar sands or your brainwashed MAGA truckers.) Don’t get too crazy tonight—you could tear a rotator cuff politely waving at your neighbors.

Have a great weekend. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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