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Cheers and Jeers: Thursday [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-03
You’re Getting Polled in All Directions
With the exception of that one kid in science class whose time travel experiment went terribly wrong, the first quarter of 2025 is behind us. (And, thank god, the first two months of the last term of Very Bad Man is behind us, too.) That means it's C&J number-crunching time. Every few months we revisit the results of some recent C&J polls to give you a retro-snapshot of just what the hell "you people" were thinking back in the days from January through March, which went real slow until they were over, and now it seems like they went by real fast:
❧ When asked for your verdict on the presidency of Joe Biden, 64 percent of you gave him a grade of A, while 32 percent gave him a B. ❧ Should Canada make the U.S. its 11th province? 62 percent say yes. 31 percent say no. ❧ Do you support the Surgeon General's recommendation to add a label to alcoholic beverages that warn of their cancer risk? 65 percent say yes, 16 percent say no. The rest say "Hic!" ❧ Since the Trump administration will be a security risk to democratic nations, 98 percent agree that our allies should carefully limit how much sensitive intelligence they share with us. (We asked this in early January, and Signalgate certainly confirmed the wisdom of your opinion.) All of our results are kept and guarded in this 100% DOGE-proof receptacle. ❧ Do you think you could handle the pressure and constant media attention of being the “World's Oldest Person?” 54 percent said no. 29 percent said sure. ❧ 77 percent of you rated Deb Haaland’s job as Secretary of the Interior under Joe Biden as “Excellent,” while 17 percent said it was “good.” (And 91 percent of you are thrilled that she’s running for governor of New Mexico.) Meanwhile, 47 percent gave Secretary of State Antony Blinken an “Excellent” rating, with 38 percent saying he did a “good” job. ❧ How do you see your spending habits changing this year in light of the Republican plan to tank the economy and steal all the money? 66 percent plan to spend less, only 12 percent plan to spend more. ❧ 99 percent of you are not surprised that a bunch of MAGA insurrectionists, pardoned and freed by their cult leader, have been getting re-arrested and locked up for committing new heinous crimes. ❧ 12 percent of C&J poll respondents identify as LGBT or Q. ❧ 32 percent of you call spring your favorite season. 4 percent say it’s your least-favorite. ❧ And it almost goes without saying that 99 percent of you believe SecDef Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz should resign immediately over Signalgate.
As always, we bow to your superior wisdom. But not too low, because we hear that's tyranny. And now, our feature presentation…
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 3, 2025
Note: Today is C&J's annual Random Religious Objection Day. How it works is, you each get to draw one random religious objection from the God Jar and then sue everyone over it. It’s fun! I'll go first. [Draws from God Jar] It says your incessant biological need to breathe air goes against my sincerely-held religious beliefs. See you in court, gaspers.
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By the Numbers:
8 days!!!
Days 'til Earth Day: 19
Days 'til The Joy of Sake in New York City: 8
Job openings in February, relatively unchanged from January: 7.6 million
Estimated amount that the Trump administration has spent to Jail 400 migrants At Gitmo: $40 Million
Number of red states in which the Canadian government has purchased billboards reading: "Tariffs are a tax on your grocery bill": 12
Estimated number of globular clusters of ancient stars hovering above and below the Milky Way's disc: 150
Estimated age of the M3 globular cluster, which will be visible for viewing this month: 11-13 billion years
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
As more and more rich people cheat on their taxes, the IRS is increasingly unable to go after them because it is so poorly funded. For all this, we can thank the Republican Party. Every year at this time, conservatives moan and groan and tell us how terribly, terribly overburdened we are by taxes. We wouldn't be overburdened if the tax code hadn't been rewritten by Republicans, and if Republicans hadn't weakened the IRS so much it can barely function. Damn right, this is a partisan effort. And damn right, I'm bitter about it. We don't need to raise taxes in this country, we need to collect them. We need tax cuts that don't favor the obscenely rich. You are getting screwed. —April 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A most interesting hybrid…
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CHEERS to the election night scorecard. A huge sigh of relief!!! Wisconsin did itself proud again as insurrection supporter Elon Musk—via hollow human husk Brad Schimel—got trounced by Susan Crawford in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, officially extending the demise of the era of Republican carnage and chaos ushered in by former manbearpig governor Scott Walker.
Crawford's victory over Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel will be viewed as a rebuke of President Donald Trump and his top adviser, tech mogul Elon Musk, whose support was both a core part of Schimel's campaign and the focus of Crawford's attacks on her opponent. This cheddar is not aging well. Amidst erupting cheers, Crawford nodded to Musk's involvement in the race. "As a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world," she said. [...] Justices on the state’s highest court are elected to 10-year terms.
After the $100 million race (!!!) was called, I suggested to everyone that they celebrate by drinking melted cheddar cheese from a champagne flute. Needless to say, I got no love from the National Atherosclerosis Awareness Association.
CHEERS to standing up for something. He did it. By god, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) stood for over 25 hours to break the record for longest speech on the senate floor. Before he began his impassioned plea for all Americans to stand up to the Trump-Putin-Musk fascism juggernaut, he did some prep work:
“My strategy was to stop eating. I think I stopped eating on Friday, and then to stop drinking the night before I started on Monday. And that had its benefits and it had its really downsides," he said. Senator Booker has had enough of this tyranny shit. "The biggest thing I was fighting was that different muscles were starting to really cramp up, and every once a while, spasm or something.” […] Booker said he tried to make himself as light as possible, and took everything out of his pockets except for a notecard with a handwritten Bible verse on it: Isaiah 40:31. "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint," Booker read.
One minor caveat, though: Ted Cruz still holds the record for the Senate speech that seemed the longest in history.
CHEERS to deliverin' the goods. On April 3, 1948, Harry Truman signed The Marshall Plan, which gave $5 billion (and, later, another $7 billion) in aid to sixteen European countries so they could rebuild in the wake of World War II. The result:
Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability. "Okay, boys, the ink's dry. Now let's go save Europe so Republicans will have something to try and destroy in 70 years." The communist influence on Western Europe was greatly reduced, and throughout the region communist parties faded in popularity in the years after the Marshall Plan.
Lest we forget, the U.S. government under the current president, with Russian backing, wants to weaken Europe by increasing discontent and fomenting political instability. And Great Britain continues embracing austerity measures, thanks to its disastrous attempt, with Russian backing, to weaken Europe by "Brexiting" from the EU. That's what I find most fascinating about history: the not learning from it part.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to Java Jim. During this week in 1829, James Carrington of Connecticut created the first coffee mill, a towering structure where an army of starving orphans was forced to grind the beans by beating them with rocks 16 hours a day while chained to chairs in hot, cramped, windowless rooms. No, wait, sorry, that was Newt Gingrich's original idea. Carrington patented a wooden box with a crank on top and a little drawer at the bottom. Or, as Gingrich still calls it: "No fun at all."
CHEERS to opening our eyes on the universe. As our planet continues its rapid descent into becoming a bubbling cauldron of noxious acidic mush, the nerds at NASA have been busy monitoring their shiny new SPHEREx space observatory. According to the folks in charge of it, "the SPHEREx observatory detects infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. To make these first images, science team members assigned a visible color to every infrared wavelength captured by the observatory." The two-year mission of the Kodak-in-space is to map the entire celestial sky four times. C&J has been given permission to be the first to publish the images, which encompass a rectangular area about 20 times wider than the full Moon:
The planet in the top middle image actually looks habitable. I call dibs.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 3, 2015
CHEERS to achieving the impossible. The Iranian nuclear negotiations were supposed to have gone down in flames, the victim of intransigence, mistrust and outright hostility. Things were supposed to have gone back to the way they were—Bibi's cartoon bombs, Republican calls for war, and everybody (led by Fox News) piling on President Obama as a total foreign-policy failure. So I have just one question for Secretary of State John Kerry: how could you fuck up that narrative so badly by succeeding? I mean, the president might as well be smoking weed with John and Yoko at their '69 Bed-in while trading love beads and putting flowers in everyone's hair with talk like this:
Today, the United States—together with our allies and partners—has reached a historic understanding with Iran, which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final, comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies, and our world safer. Because of our diplomatic efforts, the world stood with us and we were joined at the negotiating table by the world’s major powers—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China, as well as the European Union. […] To the Iranian people, I want to reaffirm what I’ve said since the beginning of my presidency: we are willing to engage you on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect.
Everybody stand back: I think Charles Krauthammer's gonna blow.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the return of America’s favorite pastime. Finally, our ice-encrusted nostrils can detect the smell of Aqua Velva, fresh-cut grass and well-oiled leather. The waves and seventh inning stretches are nigh. The peanuts, the popcorn, the Cracker Jack! The hours spent prying bits of peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jack out of our teeth! As of last week, shouts of “Play ball!” have returned across the land as the 2025 major league baseball season started, giving us a blessed oasis from the omnipresent political shit storms. Trump, you may recall, never touched a baseball at any point during his first term, and sure as hell won’t be this time around. For which the baseballs are eternally grateful.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial “Well, I just told everybody to read Cheers and Jeers." —Speaker Mike Johnson
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[END]
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