The Week Ahead
Monday Controversy erupts on cable news as Trump string-puller Stephen Miller admits to injuring himself after jumping up too fast to ‘sieg-heil’ while watching Nuremberg rally footage on the History Channel and hitting his head on a stalactite hanging from the ceiling of his ghoulcave.
Vladimir Putin adds "Give me FIFA Peace Prize also" to his list of demands in any deal with Ukraine.
Tuesday Controversy erupts on cable news in the wake of the COP 30 climate talks, as a reporter discovers that the swag bags given out to delegates include a coupon good for 20 percent off the purchase of a seat on an escape pod.
Today is International Anti-Corruption Day. Or, if you pay us enough under the table, it's not.
All week: RFK Jr. goes into hiding after suddenly contracting every vaccine-preventable disease in existence.
Wednesday Controversy erupts on cable news when a former Trump aide releases an excerpt from his new tell-all book that reveals the president buried a nuclear bomb under the Capitol on December 8, 2024 and set it to detonate exactly one year later with such force that it splits the planet in half. The book’s title: Perhaps I Should Have Mentioned This Earlier.
Today is International Human Rights Day. As usual, plenty of humans, not enough rights.
Thursday Controversy erupts on cable news when border czar Tom Homan is spotted at 2am waddling through the streets naked calling everyone he sees an illegal drug-cartel supporting terror rapist, stopping briefly to pee on a mosque and hump an open-carrier’s AR-15. MAGA podcasters immediately beg him to run for president in 2028.
In what CNBC calls “The deal of the century,” every entertainment company and news network in America suddenly gets purchased and consolidated into one giant media conglomerate by chief engineer Chet of Ottumwa, Iowa cable access channel 3.
Friday Controversy erupts on cable news when Jesus, Mohammed and Moses announce that they've returned from the Great Beyond with a six-point plan that will solve all of the world's problems within a week, and are promptly laughed out of the room for being unrealistic. They spend the rest of their reincarnation working at Starbucks.
And happy International Today Is International Nothing Day to all who don’t celebrate.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 8, 2025
Note: To the gentleman passenger on the bus last week who loudly gave out his credit card information over the phone: Thanks—I love my new Hammacher Schlemmer blimp.
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By the Numbers:
5 days!!!
Days 'til the Winter Olympics in Italy: 60
Days 'til the Hudson Valley Pizza Festival in Poughkeepsie: 5
Year-over-year inflation rate as of September, according to the PCE Index: 2.8%
Amount the European Union fined Elon Musk's "X" for violating hate speech and misinformation laws: $140 million
Amount for which Netflix is buying Warner Bros.: $83 billion
Number of years during which Gail Csoboth has designed the costumes for the Maine State Ballet's annual production of The Nutcracker: 35
Age of renowned architect Frank Gehry when he died last week: 96
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Happy birthday #13 (80'ish in human years, we’re told) to C&J's rescue lab-mix and cancer/parvo survivor Haley. One of the happiest and smartest dogs we've ever had the privilege of being owned by, SBDs and all. Everyone: please enjoy the free birthday kibble in the C&J cafeteria today (we’re putting out extra ketchup) in honor of our goofy ol' dawg from Macon, Georgia:
Happy birthday, old lady.
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JEERS to push-me, pull-you politics. Nearly a year into the second term of America's first decaying-corpse president, it's becoming a wee bit apparent that the party to which King Rottinghand belongs is coming face-to-face with the fact that—spoiler alert—right-wing propaganda is a poor way to lower prices on behalf of the peasantry:
Congressional Republicans are starting to publicly and privately sound the alarm about their party’s disjointed strategy to address Americans’ affordability concerns… “People aren’t dumb,” [MAGA Senator Josh] Hawley said. “They know when they go to the grocery store what it costs and what it doesn’t. They know what their rent costs. They know what their prescription drugs cost. And all of that stuff is too high. And they can’t afford it. And they know that. So we’ve got to deliver.”
Their two-step plan to lower prices is, dare I say it, brilliant in its audacity. Step 2 is the easy one: focus like a laser on the very real problem of affordability. It's Step 1 that will prove to be tricky: locking their leader, King Greyskin, in a closet until the 2026 midterms are over…
President Donald Trump has promised not only that America will be “great again” but also that it will be “healthy again,” “wealthy again,” “beautiful again,” and—crucially—“affordable again.” Now, as the country faces persistent inflation, a housing crisis, and rising prices on consumer goods, he claims that affordability is nothing more than a “con job,” an opportunistic buzzword leveraged by a rival party. “The word affordability is a Democrat scam,” he said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Failing that, presumably they'll just move on to their default Step 3: blow up more boats.
CHEERS to happy shiny toys. Last week FIFA—the organization that organizes friendly soccer matches among nations purely for love of the game—bestowed its first-ever Peace Prize to our glorious president. The award was received with such awe and reverence around the globe that it immediately put an end to all our conflicts and hostilities, ushering in a new age of tranquility and, dare I say it, peace throughout the many lands. In fact, the move was so popular that FIFA has already announced the future winners of their now-coveted Peace Prize:
Vladimir Putin
Prince Bone Saw
Kim Jong Un
President Xi
The award shows hands desperately reaching for a floaty orb after their boat got blown up.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele
Benjamin Netanyahu
Hitler's ghost
Hitler's ghost's ghost
To make the award ceremony extra-special, the Peace Prize recipients will have an opportunity to point and laugh as players on the losingest FIFA team are buried up to their necks and covered with fire ants. Sports: the great uniter.
CHEERS to NAFTA. On December 8, 1993 the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed into law by President Clinton. It eliminated virtually all tariffs and trade restrictions between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. To celebrate, officials will commemorate its 32nd anniversary by visiting U.S. manufacturing plants all across the country. And that country, of course, would be Mexico.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to the #1 cause of hairy palms and sudden blindness. On this date in 1994 Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders—who, at 91, is still professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences—got triangulated out of her job by President Bill Clinton. Her offense: having the gall to suggest that legalizing marijuana might be a good idea, and teaching kids about masturbation might help prevent the spread of AIDS.
Firing her was not one of Bill Clinton’s finest moments.
"Education, education, education," she said. "The only way we are going to get around this disease is with education. We have no vaccine, we have no magic drug. All we've got is education." Clinton should've let her stay. He might've learned that playing with yourself prevents something else: impeachment.
JEERS to the perpetual shroud of darkness. Like literal clockwork, here in Maine it gets ominously, dare I say ferociously, dark now by 3:45 in the afternoon. Which means that, for the next three months, we're trusting you to let us know if Armageddon breaks out for real. (I’ve got my Hello Kitty luggage full of underwear and emergency rations I ordered from Jim Bakker’s Slop Bucket Emporium waiting by the door.) But please: no practical-joke false alarms. My home is armed with the most destructive device to humans ever invented: a Tesla with autopilot.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 8, 2015
CHEERS to Superman and Hercules wrapped in one humble nonagenarian peanut-farmer package. "Fuck cancer"—it's what we say when someone we respect, admire and love gets the dreaded disease. Well, this time cancer fucked with the wrong guy and got fucked:
Former President Jimmy Carter said Sunday that an MRI scan earlier in the week showed his cancer is gone.
Carter, 91, announced the good news to attendees of a Sunday school class he teaches weekly at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. "Went for an MRI this past week and they (doctors) didn't find any cancer at all in the brain," Carter said.
Later today Jimmy will issue a formal statement about his condition while bench-pressing a Buick.
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And just one more
CHEERS to A Timely and Necessary Musical Interlude. 45 years ago today, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon was gunned down by some idiot. I was 16 and getting ready for school when I heard the news that day (oh boy), and it's hard to fathom that I'm now nearly twenty years older than he was—40—when he was killed. Lennon believed that all you need is love, give peace a chance and war is over if you want it. And this, too…
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Today there will be commemorations of John Lennon's life and peace activism. The imagining continues...with mixed results.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"Ummm—[SUPPRESSED CHUCKLE]—what just happened was that Daily Kos President Markos Moulitsas gave Bill in Portland Maine the inaugural Cheers and Jeers Peace Prize."
—Dana Bash
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