"The true father of our national literature."
That's how H.L. Mencken described the force of nature that was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain. If ever there was a person whose bullshit detector went to 11, it was him. Also in his corner: anti-slavery, pro-women's rights, clear-eyed about religion, and a supporter of labor unions. Damn funny, too. His zingers are endless—here's a few to start his birthday week:
“Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.”
“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”
“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”
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”If we would learn what the human race is at bottom, we need only observe it at election times.”
“Man was made at the end of a week’s work when God was tired.”
“The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.”
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”
“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”
“Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.”
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
Twain would’ve turned 190 this week. Pay your respects here. And then donate a few copies of Huck Finn to your local library…just to piss off the book ban-happy MAGA cult.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, December 1, 2025
Note: We hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. If, instead, you had a terrible one, you'll be pleased to know that the C&J Memory Eraser 5000 is back in service. Just insert $5,000 in quarters and push the red button. We’d tell you what happens next, but our legal team says that’s proprietary information. (But you will want to wear a blast helmet and disable your smoke detectors for a moment.) —Mgr.
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By the Numbers:
3 days!!!
Days 'til winter: 20
Days 'til the Festival of Trees and Traditions in Hartford, Connecticut: 3
Number of times members of the United States military are required to follow orders that are unlawful: 0
National mortgage delinquency rate in October, down 7 basis points (bps) from September and down 11 bps from October of 2024: 3.34%
Days it took Wicked: For Good to reach a quarter-billion dollars in worldwide ticket sales: 6
Weight of the tumor removed from the side of 170-pound loggerhead turtle Molly's head in Key West before she was released back into the ocean last week: 10 lbs
Rank of the whole-milk ricotta cheese produced by Skowhegan, Maine's Crooked Face Creamery among all the Super Gold medal contenders at the World Cheese Awards in Switzerland: #1
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Monday morning wake-up fail…
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CHEERS to December. The year's glorious, sparkling, musical, snow-bedecked, bell-ringing, Norman Rockwellesque grand finale. Bring on the swans a' swimming, spin your dreidels (the start of Hanukkah is on the 14th) and air your Festivus grievances (the 23rd).
“Sir, there’s no smoking in here. Sir? Sir? Sir!!!”
Bring on the full "cold moon" (the 4th). Bring on the winter solstice. Bring on C&J’s 22nd(!!!) anniversary. Bring on the last-minute, year-end flurry of madness in Congress! Bring on the latest Covid booster (if RFK gives us permission to live)! Bring on the latest sequels—if we must—to Avatar, SpongeBob, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid! Also: check the expiration date on the eggnog that's been sitting in the back of your fridge since 1999 before you take a swig. And settle your differences with 2025 because in 31 days it’s out the door and ain't comin' back. I believe I speak on behalf of everybody here when I say: "Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya."
JEERS to December. The year's stress-filled, bone chilling, dark-by-3, be-cheerful-or-else, and oh-here comes a-giant-blizzard grand finale. The Harry Simeone choir will make curmudgeons' ears bleed with enough pa-rum-pum-pum-pums to choke a horse, and you just know there are several beloved mega-celebrities who will inconvenience us by dying this month.
Fox News will continue hating on Christmas for another season by using this Satanic “greeting.”
There’s the Pearl Harbor anniversary to remind us how few of our WW II heroes remain above ground. Our 20-year-old cat will take up her favorite December tradition of batting glass ornaments off the tree for us to step on in the middle of the night. With the MAGA cult still hellbent on abolishing democracy and establishing a Fourth Reich in America, the wise among us will forgo candy canes and instead hang holiday-themed Prozac dispensers. Plus: I just guzzled a bunch of eggnog before checking the expiration date, so nice knowin’ ya. I believe I speak on behalf of everybody here when I say: "Bah humbug."
JEERS to shooting yourself in your freedom. Secretary of Pew Pew Pew!!! Pete Hegseth, having been hired to lead the Pentagon based on his impeccable service as a third-rate Fox News weekend cable TV host, can double down, triple down, and even quadruple down on his defense of the mafia-like hit jobs he’s ordered in the Caribbean. But odds-makers are already taking bets not on if he ends up in prison, but for how long:
Reacting to a Washington Post report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth instructed military officials to “kill them all,” in an attack on what the Donald Trump administration has labeled “narco-terrorists,” attorney George Conway claimed the former Fox personality faces a wide array of criminal charges that may be beyond the president’s reach.
Even his hair is trying to flee.
According to the report, there were two survivors of initial attack who were then blown up in the water with a second launch, which has only increased the outrage over the unlawful attacks. […]
“No matter how you look at this, you can apply civilian law, military law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, international law, foreign law, domestic law, federallaw, state law. No matter what legal regime you apply to, the second strike, it's murder. Period,” he added. “It's not even an argument—that's how outrageous this is.”
Publicly, Hegseth says what he did was perfectly fine ("We have only just begun to kill"). Privately, however, we're told he spends most of his day yelling at the tiny liquor bottles in his mini fridge, demanding to know why they keep giving him such shitty advice.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to parking your kiester for equality. 70 years ago today, in 1955, Black seamstress Rosa Parks, who was also secretary of the local branch of the NAACP and trained in nonviolent civil disobedience long before John Lewis labeled it "good trouble," refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama public bus. The bus driver, James Blake, said he was just doing his job when he ratted her out. But history reveals his job apparently also included being a jerk:
Once, after she had paid her fare at the front, he had ordered her to board the bus at the rear and then, before she could do so, driven off.
The bus.
On other occasions he had ostentatiously driven past the stop at which she was waiting.
As for Parks, she wasn't the first black American to challenge the discriminatory rules of public transportation. But in this case, her arrest and the ensuing boycott of the bus system—led by budding activist Martin Luther King, Jr.—became a signature event of the civil rights protest movement. The Republicans have their own “Rosa Parks Moment”: the day Bubba had to sit at the back of his Sea Ray Fuck Your Feelings to keep it from sinking during a Trump boat parade. (Happily, it sank anyway.)
JEERS to blocking the light. Russia's authoritarian regime, apparently having nothing better to do, has decided to outlaw the organization known as Human Rights Watch:
Founded in 1978, Human Rights Watch monitors and researches human rights violations in countries across the world. It has been outspoken in its opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and recently published an investigation into Russian forces using drones to deliberately chase, injure and kill civilians living in Ukraine’s Kherson region.
When asked why they were outlawing Human Rights Watch, the official Russian Secretary of Reading Things Verbatim Off Official Press Statements to Avoid Getting Pushed Out of a Window said it's mainly because there are no more human rights in Russia left to watch.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 1, 2015
JEERS to the creep in Colorado Springs. The domestic terrorist who got caught up in the right-wing hysteria about a non-existent "baby parts" video by shooting up a Planned Parenthood clinic stepped into a courtroom yesterday. Whatsizname "stared woodenly ahead" and mumbled a few words including "no questions" and, if my lip-reading skills are accurate, "Carly 2016." Meanwhile, California Senator Barbara Boxer reached out to House Speaker Paul Ryan, asking that he call off his mad dogs:
I call on you to immediately disband the new so-called "Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives," which serves only to continue the witch hunt against Planned Parenthood, its staff and its patients. … [W]e should not and cannot continue this politically-motivated committee targeting Planned Parenthood, which is already costing taxpayers and helping to create a dangerous climate for legal health care in America. Since 1977, there have been 11 murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings and 186 arsons against abortion clinics and providers.
It's the reasonable, rational and compassionate thing to do in the wake of the Colorado Springs terrorism. So naturally Ryan has no intention of listening.
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And just one more…
CHEERS (because it's important) and JEERS (because it's still necessary) to World AIDS Day. This year marks 44 years since the first published scientific account of the virus that would decimate the gay community and spread to the straight community with equal viciousness. Today more than 40 million people around the world live with HIV or full-blown AIDS. A minimum of 44 million have died from it. And although the Trump administration is closing its evil eyes to the day for the first time, UNAIDS says the 37th anniversary of World AIDS Day will go on without us:
Abrupt reductions in international HIV assistance in 2025 have deepened existing funding shortfalls. The OECD estimates that external health assistance is projected to drop by 30–40% in 2025 compared with 2023, causing immediate and even more severe disruption to health services in low- and middle-income countries.
Lest we forget, this asshole took years to even acknowledge that HIV/AIDS existed. Rot in hell, Gipper.
“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “Behind every data point in this report are people—babies and children missed for HIV screening or early HIV diagnosis, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them.”
The funding crisis has unfolded against a deteriorating global human rights environment, with particularly severe consequences for marginalized populations. In 2025, the number of countries criminalizing same-sex sexual activity and gender expression rose for the first time since UNAIDS began monitoring punitive laws in 2008.
Despite these challenges...Innovation is gaining momentum. HIV prevention technologies—including twice yearly injections to prevent HIV—have the potential to prevent tens of thousands of new infections in high-burden settings.
By the way, the last time the 54-ton AIDS quilt could be displayed in its entirety was 1996, and if laid out today it would cover more than 1,293,300 square feet. Not coincidentally, this is also Give A Virus The Finger Day. Knock yerself out.
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
Officials within the Danish government have set up a special “kiddie pool watch” within its foreign ministry purely dedicated to monitoring Bill in Portland Maine outside of working hours.
—Mediaite
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