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Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-09
Tuesday Morning Vonnegut Blogging Indiana-born Kurt Vonnegut, who balanced his time between this universe and the alternate ones of his creation, died 18 years ago this week. So it goes. Wrote Dinitia Smith in her New York Times obituary: Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well? […] Not all Mr. Vonnegut’s themes were metaphysical. With a blend of vernacular writing, science fiction, jokes and philosophy, he also wrote about the banalities of consumer culture, for example, or the destruction of the environment. A good time to remind ourselves why he was…well…Kurt Vonnegut: “The big trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart.” “Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.” Kurt made the world safe for bed heads everywhere. “I apologize to all of you who are the same age as my grandchildren. And many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our baby Boomer corporations and government.” “It’s perfectly ordinary to be a socialist. It’s perfectly normal to be in favor of fire departments.” “Librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out the titles.” “Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.” "Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting. They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they could be right. It isn’t the gold standard that they want to put us back on. They want something more basic. They want us back on the snake-oil standard." And my favorite, which remains my personal motto for the 60th consecutive year: How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different. And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Note: Due to a clerical error in Trump’s tariff equation, the United States now belongs to the government of Finland. We regret the inconvenience, but at least now we’ll get some decent stuff done. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
3 days!!!
Days 'til our idiot King-President's 100th day in office: 21
Days 'til the Sacramento Grilled Cheese Festival: 3
Number of 'likes' Cory Booker's livestream of his record-breaking floor speech got on Tik-Tok: 350 million
Amount the Trump administration has been "covertly" withholding from Hawaii for wildfire aid because it's a blue state, according to a federal judge: $6 million
Amount covertly being withheld for disaster prevention in Oregon: $129 million
Percent of likely Democratic voters polled by Data for Progress who said they'd vote for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chuck Schumer, respectively, in a head-to-head Senate primary matchup: 55% - 36%
Percent by which immigrants from Latin America accounted for new business creation in 2023, twice the rate of the U.S. population as a whole: 36%
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 184 (including 6 financial calamities and 1 heavenly sigh of relief). Soul Protection Factor 8 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Absolute chaos….
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CHEERS and JEERS to circling the wagons. Now that every law firm in America knows that the corrupt thugs in the Trump administration will try to intimidate and harass them into refusing to accept lawsuits that might hurt Very Bad Man's (VBM's) feelings, two camps are emerging. In the first camp, the lawyers with backbones:
More than 500 law firms moved to file an amicus brief on Friday in support of Perkins Coie's lawsuit against the Trump administration's executive order that targeted the firm over its representation of Hillary Clinton's 2016campaign. "The Executive Order at issue in this case, and the others like it, take direct aim at several of the Nation's leading law firms and seek to cow every other firm, large and small, into submission," the amicus brief says.
And in the other camp: shit-stain ambulance chasers in three-piece suits who are perfectly willing to help crush the democracy that allowed them to thrive:
Kirkland and Ellis, the largest U.S. law firm by revenue, is not on the list, though the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday it is in talks with the White House to avoid being targeted. Neither is Latham and Watkins, the second largest firm by revenue, or any of the other top 10 firms by revenue rankings.
So, to recap: fuck Kirkland Ellis and fuck Latham & Watkins and all the cowards following them. May they choke on their cocktail napkins at their next D.C. seersucker garden party.
CHEERS to states leading the charge against tyranny. Meanwhile, the GREAT STATE OF MAINE, led by our tough-as-nails governor Janet "I’ll See You In Court" Mills, is taking on Trump's brownshirts, who think nothing of letting kids starve for the sake of total bullshit:
Maine officials sued the administration of President Donald Trump on Monday to try to stop the government from freezing federal money in the wake of a dispute over transgender athletes in sports. “Starve, ya little blue state bastards. Starve!”
—Excerpt from the Republican party platform Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey filed a complaint in federal court on Monday that described the pause as “illegally withholding grant funds that go to keeping children fed.” The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order preventing the USDA from withholding money until a court is able to hear the case. Ina statement, Frey said, the president and his Cabinet “secretaries do not make the law and they are not above the law, and this action is necessary to remind the president that Maine will not be bullied into violating the law.” The child nutrition program of the Maine Department of Education is unable to access several sources of funding at the moment because of the funding pause, Frey said. The money is used to feed children in schools, childcare centers and after-school programs and is also used to benefit disabled adults in congregate settings, he said.
What's the difference between Trumpies and Mainers? Our side views hunger as a serious issue. Their side views it as hilarious entertainment.
CHEERS to a civil end to a most uncivil war. Big anniversary today—in fact, it oughtta be a federal holiday. On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee called it quits and surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the southern traitors’ War for the Preservation of Owning Humans for Forced Labor.
Give the racist a purple nurple, Ulysses.
Several years ago a demographic historian concluded that the death toll of the war was much higher than originally thought—750,000 versus the original 620,000. Sadly, another number has also been extended far beyond its original estimate: the number of years it's taking too many white people in the South to admit they lost and put away that damn confederate battle flag. As Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) reminded them a few years back, even slave owner and avowed racist treason-monger Lee had at least enough self-awareness to concern himself with post-war optics:
"When Robert E. Lee surrendered he asked all of his followers to furl this flag. Stow it away, he said. Put it in your attics," Clyburn continued. "He refused to be buried in his Confederate uniform. His family refused to allow anyone dressed in the confederate uniform to attend his funeral. "Why? Because Robert E. Lee said he considered this emblem to be a symbol of treason.”
He also didn’t want any statues of him put up, a request that fell on deaf ears as groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy erected hundreds of them (of Lee and other CSA icons, including a fresh batch in the 1960s to remind the civil rights movement to remember “their place”) as a way of living in denial of their treason. I’ll give the hangers-on credit for one thing: they sure picked the right theme song. "Look away, Dixie Land." Mission accomplished.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to the topple seen 'round the world. Remember all the hullabaloo when that Baghdad statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down shortly after we shocked 'n awed Iraq? Believe it or not, that was 22 years ago today. I remember wincing when a U.S. soldier, unfamiliar with the concept of "How Things Look from the Liberated Folks' Perspective," tried to tie an American flag around Saddam's head. I also remember drumming my fingers on my desk as the Iraqis took for freakin' ever to try and yank the statue down by hand. They finally decided to let our troops attach a rope from Saddam's finger to a tank, which pulled it down in mere seconds as the crowd made crude fart noises (proving that, no matter what country you're from, that gag never gets old). Then they beat it with shoes as it was dragged around the square like a cat toy.
But, as with so many aspects of that war (like the reason for starting it), things weren't exactly as they seemed. The press made it look like the entire city was there celebrating. In reality, it looked more like the size of House Freedom Caucus representation at a MENSA meeting:
No sweets, no flowers, and hardly no peoples.
If you're hyperventilating from the shock of being misled by the media, breathe into a paper sack for a few minutes. It'll pass.
CHEERS to today's edition of Thank God We Sorted That Out, Now Everything Can Finally Get Back To Normal. Courtesy of the European Space Agency:
An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have made new measurements of Uranus' interior rotation rate with a novel technique, achieving a level of accuracy 1000 times greater than previous estimates. By analysing more than a decade of Hubble observations of Uranus' aurorae, researchers have refined the planet’s rotation period and established a crucial new reference point for future planetary research.
This has been today's edition of Thank God We Sorted That Out, Now Everything Can Finally Get Back To Normal.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 9, 2015
JEERS to southern hospitality, Republican style. It's rather amazing that the "Religious Freedom to Discriminate" law debacles in Indiana and Arkansas haven't stopped the God-Hates-Fags crowd in state legislatures from daring corporate America (including Big tech, Big retail, Big Sport and Big Entertainment) to exert a world of hurt on 'em financially. The latest nose-thumbery comes from the Land of Jindal:
The Louisiana bill, introduced by state Rep. Mike Johnson, lets businesses refuse to serve same sex couples, just like the one in Indiana. But the Louisiana proposal also goes a step further and allows a private company to not offer benefits to same-sex married couples if there are religious objections, according to the New Orleans Times Picayune. Notably, the legislation also blocks the Louisiana government from taking away state contracts and tax benefits from business owners because of the owners' views on same-sex marriage.
We'll see how far this gets, but for now all I'll say is that it's rather fitting that this bill is the brainchild of a guy whose last name is defined in the slang dictionary as "a dick." [4/9/25 Update: Today Mike Johnson is Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He remains a gigantic Johnson.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to Kodak moments. If Donald Trump’s presidential photographer—who he of course stiffed because that’s his prime directive on Planet Earth—had ever gotten a shot like this, it would be framed and hanging on every Republican's living room wall as a totally-real example of his divine awesomeness. Instead, a different president's photographer (the great Pete Souza) snapped it ten years ago this month, and Republicans lost their collective shit. In the hopes that it might make them chew through a few more inches of sheet metal in their survival bunkers, here’s a replay for nostalgia’s sake:
And, by contrast, here’s Obama’s twice-impeached convicted felon successor:
Mother Nature. Definitely a Democrat.
Have a happy humpday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial "I mean, come on, whatever. Listen, the people that are splashing in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool are serious, intentional, patriotic." —Brooke Rollins
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