From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Coming Attractions
Before Star Wars Episode IX: The Walrus Is Paul blasts its way into theaters on the 20th, there are some flicks based on true-life people and events that are getting positive reviews and awards buzz.
Just Mercy (Dec. 25) is based on the book by Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson, and focuses on the rampant racism in the criminal justice system. Stevenson is played by Michael B. Jordan, who defends Walter McMillan (Jamie Foxx), a man falsely accused of murder. Also stars Brie Larson.
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Also: Dark Waters opens this weekend, with Mark Ruffalo as attorney Robert Bilott taking on environmental wrecking ball DuPont. Joining it in the “uncovering skullduggery” category is The Report (Dec. 20), with Adam Driver as FBI agent Daniel Jones trying to get to the bottom of the Bush II administration’s secret torture program (backed up by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, played by Annette Bening). Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce chew the scenery as Benedict and Francis in The Two Popes (Dec. 20), and the sex cult that is Fox News gets pilloried in Adam McKay’s Bombshell (Dec. 13), starring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, John Lithgow (as talking human fungus Roger Ailes), and Margot Robbie.
Between these and the impeachment hearings, I predict a major popcorn shortage.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Note: If you have a gun, leave a gun. If you need a gun, please go away.
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By the Numbers:
Days'til the Army-Navy game: 10
Days 'til Christmas by the Sea in Camden, Maine: 2
Percent of American voters who believe Donald Trump is a divider, according to a new CNN poll: 65%
Drop in the number of U.S. farms over the last 20 years: 175,000
Factor by which black BART public transit riders are warned by officials more often than whites for eating and drinking on platforms and trains: 3x
Inches of snow that gently wafted into the hearts of residents in Duluth, Minnesota over the weekend: 22"
Date on which Kate Snyder became the first duly-elected female mayor in Portland, Maine's history: 12/2/19
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 182 (including 3 famines and 1 Republican actually pleading guilty to something). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Just add frosting…
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CHEERS Impeachment Day! Seat belts fastened and tray tables in the upright and locked positions, bitches, cuz here we go. Yesterday Adam Schiff passed the baton from his Intelligence Committee to Jerry Nadler's Judiciary Committee, and today things kick off with a quartet of, if I remember correctly, Jeopardy! champions who will "explore the framework put in place to respond to serious allegations of impeachable misconduct like those against President Trump." For his part, Trump isn’t planning to mount a defense, relying instead on the Republican committee members (Jim Jordan, Doug Collins, Matt Gaetz, etc.) to do his dirty work for him by pounding the table with their gigantic foreheads and yelling "Point of order!" every five seconds. But Fox News's own legal expert Andrew Napolitano says that's pretty damn dumb:
“The rules about which the president are complaining were written by a Republican House of Representatives in 2015. The president would be very unwise not to send lawyers there. …
It is a valid vote by the House of Representatives that authorized this. He also loses the argument that it’s unfair if he doesn’t take the opportunity to participate himself.
In my view, it is clearly impeachable because it involves two potential crimes. The crime of bribery…which is defined as the failure to do an official act, release the $391 million, until a favor comes your way. … The other crime is asking for campaign aid from a foreign national. That’s a crime in and of itself, just asking.”
Not sure if this preliminary round will be televised, but you can watch the livestream here at the Judiciary Committee website. During breaks they'll cut to the Capitol rotunda to get feedback from Democratic legislators, and for Republicans’ opinions they’ll switch to a live feed inside the nudie bar across the street.
CHEERS to the real leader of the free world. There's a worldwide climate conference going on in Spain this week, and since Republicans are too busy fretting over what to buy Vladimir Putin for Christmas (Spoiler alert: unbeknownst to each other they're all sending him Don Jr.'s book because they got it for free and have no intention of even reading the cover) it's up to the responsible Democratic leadership to send a responsible message in person:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to assure nations at the U.N. conference in Madrid [Monday] that the U.S. would join its efforts to fight climate change despite President Donald Trump's move to pull the U.S. out the Paris agreement. "By coming here we want to say to everyone, we’re still in," Pelosi said at a press conference in Madrid. "The United States is still in." […]
Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic U.S. lawmakers that included House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), House Science Chairman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Climate Crisis Committee Chair Kathy Castor (D-FL), Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and nine other members of Congress.
Re-entering the climate accord with a new Democratic president at the helm 14 months from now adds just one more thing to the pile of necessary "undos," and underscores the importance of throwing the bums out ("draining the swamp," if you will) next year. Oh, and because they know we're all wondering, the congressional delegation, now back from Spain, has confirmed that, yes, Francisco Franco is still dead.
CHEERS to Cheers and Jeers Theater. We call this one-act nailbiter "Duck Season, Wabbit Season." Torn from the pages of true life:
[Curtain up]
Scene: a conference room at the NATO Summit
U.S. PRESIDENT TRUMP and FRENCH PRESIDENT MACRON sit
across from each other at a table
Trump: NATO is bad and we're giving it no more money and that's final!!
Macron: No, NATO is good!
Trump: NATO is bad!
Macron: NATO is good!
Trump: NATO is bad!
Macron: NATO is bad!
Trump: NATO is good!
Macron: NATO is bad!
Trump: NATO is good and we're giving it more money and that's final!
Macron: Monsieur, you drive a hard bargain. I am defeated. This is My Waterloo.
Trump: I win. I always win. I'm a winner. That's what I do. I Win. Here, take your NATO money, loser.
All the other NATO representatives, hiding in the wings: Tee hee.
[Curtain down]
Just toss my new Tony on the pile out back behind the tool shed.
CHEERS to new discoveries. On this date in 1996—ah, those golden Clinton years—during its Pathfinder mission NASA sent a six-wheeled rover called Sojourner to roam the surface of another planet and gather rocks. Moments after landing, the space agency got a call from Newt Gingrich asking them to please come get it off his head.
CHEERS to yawning chasms. They said it couldn’t exist. Couldn’t exist, they said. Not here, they said. Not now, they said. You must be mistaken, they said. Nevertheless, a black hole so huge that scientific theory can't explain it sits there like a galactic bump on a log, mocking our brightest minds, and threatening to swallow us whole:
A Chinese-led team discovered a stellar-mass black hole that appears to be 68 times heftier than Earth's sun—nearly three times bigger than the heaviest such objects should be, according to current thinking. […] What's more, the huge black hole is also relatively close to Earth in cosmic terms. It sits at 13,800 light-years from our planet—a small fraction of the Milky Way's estimated diameter of 200,000 light-years.
"Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution," lead author Jifeng Liu said in a statement.
And yet there sits the space between Louie Gohmert's ears all the same.
CHEERS to going in circles. On December 4th, 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in Menlo Park, New Jersey. I love downloading music, but I do miss vinyl. It had character. (Said the sad, bitter old Maine blogger to whomever he'd just drunk-dialed on his rotary phone.)
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 4, 2009
CHEERS to the Really Important Meeting! As the great Bush recession rolls on, the Obama White House is holding its jobs summit today. The purpose is to figure out how to increase employment in America. I can save them all a lot of time. It works like this: Step 1) The government puts people to work in huge numbers on infrastructure, energy and other projects, thus injecting capital and momentum into the economy and giving it the shot in the arm that only the federal government can provide at the moment. Step 2) See step 1. I'll take my consulting fee in rum balls, please.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to fresh space opera!!! The movies we mentioned above the fold look like well-told tales. But with only two weeks 'til the first showings of Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker, the "sith-spense" is “palpa-tine-ble.” You've probably seen the domestic trailers already, but here at C&J we comb the galaxy for the elusive international ones. You never saw this, and I was never here…
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15 days and counting. Assuming somebody can keep Lord Dampnut’s fingers on his Big Macs instead of the nuke button for that long.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Supreme Court appears unlikely to hand victory to Bill in Portland Maine backers in Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool case
—NBC News
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