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Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-11
Energize An Ally Tuesday
The moment a voter-suppression law gets passed by some MAGA-led legislature, one guy is always right there to fight back and win. And win. And win. If the name Marc Elias sounds familiar, it's because he's that guy—the election lawyer who seemingly never sleeps as he beats back the forces of evil in court.
Marc's organization is Democracy Docket, and the second the red-hatted cult tries to do pull a fast one, Marc is faster than a Jeopardy! champion’s clicker thumb in announcing “We’ve just filed papers in court to stop this.”
This morning Democracy Docket is in our weekly Energize An Ally spotlight because without strong national voting rights protections it’s up to individuals like him, and groups like his, to save our asses. Plus they just celebrated their 5th birthday...
The last few months have been a turbulent time in the media world. Nearly every day, we see more evidence that corporate media is either unwilling or unable to meet this moment. Legacy outlets that once claimed to stand for democracy have bent the knee. Many billionaire owners have sided with Trump—and against democracy. Happy 5-year anniversary! Democracy Docket, on the other hand, has moved in the opposite direction. We are more committed than ever to being a fearlessly independent, pro-democracy voice in these challenging times. We have no venture capital investors, no corporate overlords and no reliance on platforms like Substack that could someday be bought or one day threaten our independence. Five years after our launch, we now have nearly 400,000 subscribers and over 1 million social media followers across all platforms. To each of you, thank you for giving Democracy Docket your time and attention. The fight for democracy is far from over. There will be ups and downs, good days and bad. Through it all, I promise that Democracy Docket will continue to provide unvarnished opinion, information, and analysis to help you make sense of it all.
Marc will continue spending whatever time it takes to do his part to save our tattered democracy. In addition to court filings, that includes post-election analysis and lessons that can be applied to defang the Republicans and their suppression tactics in the future.
C&J is happy to cough up a donation from our snow shoveling money for Marc, and we encourage you to add to the pot if you’re willing and able. The donation link is here. You can also follow Marc Elias for updates on BlueSky here. Many thanks.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, this year C&J has moved the Ides of March up from the 15th to today. So... [Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!] Thank you for your understanding and have a nice…[Stab! Stab!] …day.
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By the Numbers:
4 days!!!
Days 'til St. Patrick's Day: 6
Days 'til the International Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia: 4
Number of tribal nations and Native American students, respectively, who are suing the government over firings at Bureau of Indian Education schools: 3 / 5
Estimated number of North Korean goons now fighting for Putin in the Kursk region of Ukraine: 12,000
Percent of the "bitcoin reserve" established by the federal government that’s a scam to enrich billionaires: 100%
Percent chance you know the name of the White House "crypto czar": 1%
Career points for Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry as of Saturday night's game against the Pistons: 25,000
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A perfect day at the beach…
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CHEERS to our nice new northern neighbor. I did the math, and it would seem that for nearly half my life there's been a Trudeau at the helm in Canada. Pierre was on duty for 15, and his son Justin—the first prime minister to assemble a cabinet made up equally of men and women—just completed a ten-year stint marked by that country's unique brand of peace and stability. But now there's a new kid at the helm, and it's my job to find out who the hell is now running things in the apartment above the United States of Meth Lab. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Mark Carney…
» Born in 1965 in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. » Graduated from Harvard with a BA in economics, then graduated from Oxford with a Masters degree in Proper Comma Use. » Catholic. Oh, and Prime Minister Carney has no intention of letting our lunatic King roll over him. » Despite working at Goldman Sachs for over a dozen years, he's seems to be a money guy with a conscience. » Served as governor of the Bank of England from 2008 to 2013, and governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. Former United Nations Special Envoy for climate action and finance. » Leader of the center-left Liberal Party. » Big on green energy (though we need to have a talk about those godawful tar sands, sir.) Big on NATO. Open to moving away from the U.S. dollar. Praised Occupy Wall Street in 2011 as "entirely constructive" for highlighting the income equality that persists today, especially in the U.S. » Enjoys sharing platters of poutine with British wife Diane, an economist. Four kids.
His platform: "health care, infrastructure, schools, opportunity, sustainability, and prosperity." Uh oh—he left hockey off the list. Rookie mistake.
CHEERS to today's edition of Stupid Is As Stupid Votes. Courtesy of CNN:
Michael Graugnard said he voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election because he felt Trump was the best candidate to improve the economy. But three months into his new role as an attorney advisor for the US Department of Agriculture, Graugnard was laid off along with thousands of other federal employees. The termination, Graugnard said, came as a surprise given his managers had assured him his job was safe. “I was devastated,” Graugnard told CNN Graugnard is among many federal workers who lost their jobs three months after casting their ballot for Trump.
This has been today's edition of Stupid Is As Stupid Votes.
CHEERS to lending a hand. On March 11, 1941, President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act into law, which allowed American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan months before our official entry into World War II. Not to be picky, Britain, but four pencils and a weather balloon are still unaccounted for. [Uncomfortably long pause.] And we'd like them back.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to too much water and not enough ShamWOWs. This week marks the 14-year anniversary of the—in order of occurrence—8.9 earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan. Over 15,000 people perished. I looked up what I wrote in C&J that day, and it was interesting to see how it took the media awhile to fully grasp the scope of the disaster:
Someone at CNN thought it was a swell idea to double upon their disaster coverage this morning by interviewing 2012 GOP primary candidate Rick Santorum. While horrifying tsunami footage silently played out on the left side of the screen, Santorum appeared on the right side to offer grown-up words of comfort by railing against gay marriage and calling for U.S. planes to blow up Libya.
Here’s a 2021before-and-after photo essay—stunning juxtapositions—by The Guardian showing the scope of the cleanup operation. Conclusion: it's nature's world, we just live in it. Tenuously.
JEERS to the death cult doing that death cult thing it does. Congratulations, United States of America. You just completed your amazing effort to ensure that people all around the world suddenly find themselves sick and starving again. Heckuva job. Well done, everyone:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development, and said he would move the 18% of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department. […] Rubio's social media post Monday said that review was now “officially ending," with some 5,200 of USAID's 6,200 programs eliminated.… The dismantling of USAID that followed Trump's order upended decades of policy that humanitarian and development aid abroad advanced U.S. national security by stabilizing regions and economies, strengthening alliances and building goodwill.
All of the remaining funds will go to…um…those two guys over there speaking broken English who look remarkably like Don Jr. and Eric in sandals and Rastafarian wigs.
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 11, 2015
JEERS to the day the circus came to the U.N. Yesterday's presser about "emailgate" gave us a preview of the 2016 madhouse looming around the corner. After leaning on her diplomatic skills once again to break up an argument between delegates over the last Jello cup in the United Nations cafeteria, Hillary Clinton did a fine job answering the legitimate questions and batting away the stupid ones. What happened was, basically she used her own Secret Service-guarded server for private and government emails, and she turned the government ones over to the government and deleted the private ones about yoga class and Chelsea's wedding. That's pretty much it. So unless we find out that Chelsea is raising a giant army of yoga grandmas to destroy civilization, I think we can all relax. Although an army of cloned yoga grandmas is probably the one thing that would scare the bejeezus out of ISIS.
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And just one more…
The terrorist advisory alert system sure would’ve come in handy on January 6th, 2021.
CHEERS to the fearsome fivesome. 23 years ago today, after a grueling selection process involving thousands of hues, shades, pigments and a $100 billion consultation fee for the Pantone Corporation, five colors were chosen to stand watch over America's shores as official representatives of the federal government's new Homeland Security Advisory System.
During their first two years, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge changed the alert level ten times, mostly due to the dire threat of Democrats winning elections. Then they stood frozen in time until they were disbanded by the Obama administration in April of 2011 in favor of a traditional old-west warning system consisting of loudspeakers installed on the heads of cattle.
Where are they today? Green is now part of a traffic light in Bismarck, North Dakota. Blue took a job as a "Welcome to Connecticut" highway sign. Yellow is a food coloring consultant at the Brach's Candy Corn plant. Red is part of a 4-way stop sign in Reno. And still faring the worst is Orange, which is now sitting in a 200-gallon drum in the White House basement labeled "#47 Tanning Spray—Toxic." The horror.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial From now until April 11, you’ll be re-evaluating your relationship to money, resources, and Cheers and Jeers. The kiddie pool you normally splash in may no longer appeal to you, and now is a good time to reconsider what actually brings you comfort, pleasure, and security in life. —USA Today
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[END]
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