Month: March 2018

W. C. Fields

I found this excellent essay on Fields by Roger Ebert.   Fields is so mean-spirited that he’s a perfect fit for our current toxic environment.   As Ebert notes “in “The Bank Dick” Fields plays an alcoholic misanthrope who lies, cheats and steals and is rewarded with wealth and fame.”  (Except for the alcohol, that sounds like Trump except Fields is a lot more entertaining.)

The movies that I have seen don’t usually work as a coherent story line.  This is especially true of his last starring film Never Give A Sucker An Even Break.  It doesn’t matter.  The individual scenes are hilarious and Fields is always amusing.  It’s amazing how mean-spirited he can be.

I would start with The Bank Dick.  One of my favorite Fields scenes is in Never Give A Sucker An Even Break.  Fields is in a malt shop and looks right at the movie audience and says “This scene’s supposed to be in a saloon but the censors cut it out.”

The entire film is here.  The censor line is at 58:46.

This YouTube video has famous Fields quotes.

John Landis on Trailers from Hell for Never Give A Sucker An Even Break

The Republican House Intelligence report ignored most Trump campaign-Russia contacts

This article states:

“According to the Center for American Progress’s Moscow Project, the House committee charged with investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 election obtained either no or incomplete information about 81 percent of the known contacts between Trump officials and Russians, or groups and individuals with strong Russia ties like Wikileaks.”

Sad!

Wisconsin doesn’t want to obey the law

Two seats in the Wisconsin legislature became vacant on December 29, 2017 when Republican governor Walker appointed the officeholders to posts in his government.  Walker did not want to hold special elections for the positions.

The law states, according to this article, “Walker should have called for a special election to fill “any vacancy in the office of state senator or representative to the Assembly occurring before the 2nd Tuesday in May in the year in which a regular election is held to fill that seat shall be filled as promptly as possible by special election.””

A lawsuit, led by former US Attorney General Holder, was filed and a judge appointed by Walker ruled that the special elections must be held.

Now, the Republicans want to change the law instead of follow it.  Do you think Republicans are going to accept the results if they lose midterm elections if they are willing to do stuff like this? Sad!