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Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down opened in theatres last Friday and gets a rare “100% Fresh” rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West, who received an Oscar nod for RBG:
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Official site here. Look up resilience in the dictionary…
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, July 20, 2022
Note: The National Emergency Ant Preservation Service has issued an Evil Children Walking Around With Magnifying Glasses Warning. Federal and local authorities urge you to stay in your hill until the threat passes—sometime around September, we guess. Please keep your antennae tuned to the NEAPS for further updates and a variety of light conga classics. Thank you. —Atom
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Christmas: 158
Days 'til the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines: 8
Number of police officers—aka "good guys with guns"—who were at Uvalde Elementary School with their thumbs up their asses while the massacre of students took place: 376
Percent chance that the UK's Royal Air Force had to halt flights this week because the runways are melting in the heat: 100%
Increase in worker productivity—higher than expected—between 2020 and 2022, when working from home was at its peak because of the pandemic: 3.3%
Portion of Americans in a new CNN poll who say President Biden hasn’t been paying attention to the country’s most pressing issues: 7-in-10
Portion of Americans who are fucking morons who just want to bitch about shit: 7-in-10
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 187 (including 4 false prophets and 1 Arkansas trucker who is absolutely going to Hell). Soul Protection Factor 30 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Wednesday morning traffic report: a brief collision on the beltway is now being cleaned up…
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CHEERS to boning up on your organizational skills. Oh dear…Americans who are sick and tired of shitty working environments, inadequate pay, and bosses from Hell are going all crazy commiesocialistmarxist. If this is allowed to fester, then life in this shithole country might actually improve. Horrors…
A growing number of workers are showing an interest in joining labor unions and asking to hold union elections at their workplaces, according to new data from the National Labor Relations Board.
The agency said Friday that election petitions had jumped 58% during the first nine months of fiscal year 2022 when compared to the same period the previous year…suggesting a significant spike in workplace organizing.
The data appears to confirm what we’ve seen anecdotally in recent months: that despite a decades-long drop in union membership, many workers are trying to improve their jobs through collective bargaining amid a tight labor market. Since late 2021, Amazon, Starbucks, REI and Apple have all seen a share of their workers unionize for the first time, with workers winning a number of breakthrough elections.
But the NLRB says it doesn’t have nearly enough staff to handle all the requests, and their lead counsel says that “We need Congress to help us.” That story again: NLRB counsel apparently moonlighting as stand-up comedian. Film at 11.
CHEERS to previews of coming attractions. The fact that the popcorn shelves are empty at your local supermarket this week has nothing to do with supply chain issues. No, it's because tomorrow night (8pm) is the last prime-time hearing scheduled by the House Jan. 6 Committee. Using my finely-honed journalistic skills—aka pounding on co-chair Bennie Thompson's door at 3am—I have decided to let NBC News have the honor of spilling the beans, seeing as all Thompson gave me was a dirty look and a threat to call the cops:
Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, a member of the National Security Council during the Trump administration, are expected to testify at the Jan. 6 committee’s high-profile hearing on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the plans. Both Matthews and Pottinger were among a wave of Trump officials who resigned in the wake of the attack on the Capitol.
Members of the House committee investigating the insurrection have said the prime-time hearing will focus on the three-hour gap between when the attack on the Capitol began and when then-President Donald Trump urged his supporters to leave the building.
With no Jim Jordans or Matt Gaetzes to muck things up (much to the MAGA cult's belated chagrin), the search for truth via a no-nonsense, showboat-less investigation has been a hallmark of the committee's work, reminding us of how government oversight is supposed to work. The public has responded by tuning in by the millions. And the Justice Department has responded by [TBA].
CHEERS to giant leaps for humankind. Speaking of momentous occasions, 53 years ago today, at 10:56 pm eastern time, John Kennedy's vision to put a man on the Moon by decade's end was realized when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on a heavenly body not named Earth—the landmarkiest of landmark human events that I (along with a microscopically-small percentage of all humans who have or will ever inhabit this planet, which makes us pretty damn lucky) got to witness with my own 5-year-old eyes. It almost turned tragic when they nearly landed inside a boulder-strewn crater, but quick-thinking Armstrong switched the controls to manual and guided the module to a flatter surface. And then...magic:
See amazing high-res pics here. For your enjoyment of the anniversary, this morning the C&J cafeteria is servin' up as much Tang as your tummy can hold. (True fact: in space, nobody can hear you belch.)
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to purty rhymin' wurds. During this week back in 1893, Katherine Lee Bates—a college-educated, latte-slurping Cape Cod liberal elitist—wrote the poem America the Beautiful after visiting an inspiring spot:
One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired.
But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse.
It was later set to the hymn "Materna" by Samuel Ward. But only because Snoop Dogg wanted ten million bucks for the rights to "We Just Wanna Party with You."
JEERS to swelter skelter. The planet is cooking, and you know what that means? Of course: IT'S ALL JOE BIDEN'S FAULT! Ha ha, just kidding. We all know that the gays control the bad weather, so it's gotta be that Buttigieg fella's doing. And what's ol' Pete's secret weapon for making us so miserable? Apparently he's teamed up with a caravan of woe with a funny sounding illegal-immigrant name that’s now streaming across our borders:
The National Weather Service finds that the oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon, La Niña, is driving warmer and drier conditions north, creating a drought and prompting more hot temperatures. "It's driving all sorts of weather from, you know, tropical cyclones or just more extreme heat," said [forecaster Sarah] Barnes.
So remember: send your complaints about the weather to the Department of Transportation. And I would suggest adding a P.S. that's just a frowny face. A message must be sent.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 20, 2012
JEERS to credit-card conservatives. More proof that you should never trust Republicans with either war or money. The loss of life and limb during the Iraq debacle—which, let's not forget, had nothing to do with our nation's security—was bad enough. But the amount of borrowed money Congress threw at the damn thing without accountability is unforgivable:
In what it called its final audit report, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds on Friday spelled out a range of accounting weaknesses that put "billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk of waste and misappropriation" in the largest reconstruction project of its kind in U.S. history. "The precise amount lost to fraud and waste can never be known," the report said.
Meanwhile, war profiteer "Five Deferrments Dick" Cheney slithered up to Capitol Hill yesterday to lecture lawmakers about responsible government spending. His new heart waited outside on a park bench wearing sunglasses, a straw hat and a very embarrassed look on its face.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the master of suspense. Two years ago I vowed to keep you regularly updated on the progress on one of former President Donald J. Trump's signature promises. On July 16th, 2020, he vowed that he was going to ride through all the towns in all of the Unites States of Americas and give presents to all the good little peasants. Reported AP writer Jill Colvin at the time:
Trump says he'll be announcing "many exciting things" over the next 8 weeks, "things that nobody has even contemplated, thought about, thought possible," with "levels of detail and levels of thought that a lot of people believed very strongly we didn't have in this country."
Yes, yes, yes, we realize that it's been a lot more than eight weeks. But, to be fair, it takes a long time to plan an exciting thing, let alone "many" of them. So while we continue to wait for the ex-president to unveil his un-contemplatable things of great detail, C&J will continue opening each morning's little door on our Many Exciting Things Advent Calendar to see what un-contemplatable goodie he's left inside for us. I plucked out the morsel for Day 734, and all I can say is, don’t eat it. It's not chocolate.
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
“Bill in Portland Maine's a man baby.”
—Joe Rogan
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