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Cheers and Jeers: Thursday [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-10
The Wind Beneath the New Deal's Wings She was born on April 10, 1880 in Boston, but her ancestral roots were in Maine, where she spent much of her downtime and was laid to rest (in Newcastle) in 1965. Her strict parents wanted her to be a teacher and live at home, but Frances Perkins had other plans. Bearing witness to how badly the employed and unemployed alike were treated, she made it her life's mission to do something about it. Her smarts and tenacity led her to the position where, with the full backing of her boss, she stitched together the American social safety net we have today: When, in February, 1933, President-elect Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of Labor, she outlined for him a set of policy priorities she would pursue: a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; unemployment compensation; worker’s compensation; abolition of child labor; direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief; Social Security; a revitalized federal employment service; and universal health insurance. FDR signs Social Security into law, with Frances Perkins looking on behind him. She made it clear to Roosevelt that his agreement with these priorities was a condition of her joining his cabinet. Roosevelt said he endorsed them all, and Frances Perkins became the first woman in the nation to serve in a Presidential cabinet. […] Within a month of Roosevelt’s inauguration, Congress enacted legislation establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps, which Roosevelt asked Perkins to implement. ... Before Roosevelt presented his final One Hundred Days legislation to the Congress, the National Industrial Recovery Act, Perkins convinced him to allocate $3.3 billion for public works from the moneys appropriated. Serving as a member of the Special Board for Public Works, Perkins helped to ensure that money was spent on socially useful projects: schools, roads, highway, housing projects and post offices. Public works construction employed a many as 1.5 – 2 million people in 1934. FDR's dynamic duo: Frances Perkins and Eleanor. In 1934, Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins to head a Committee on Economic Security, where she forged the blueprint of legislation finally enacted as the Social Security Act. Signed into law by the President on August 14, 1935, the Act included a system of old age pensions, unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation and aid to the needy and disabled. … In 1938, Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act, also crafted with the support of Perkins, establishing a minimum wage and maximum work hours and banning child labor. [...] In 1944, a piece portraying Frances Perkins in Collier’s magazine described her accomplishments over the previous twelve years as “not so much the Roosevelt New Deal, as … the Perkins New Deal.” Today the Labor Department HQ in Washington—assuming Elon Musk hasn’t stolen it yet—is called the Frances Perkins Building. And in a sign of just how popular and durable her Social Security idea has become, President Joe Biden got safety net-hating Republicans to pledge, openly and publicly on national TV during his 2023 and 2024 State of the Union address, not to touch it during budget negotiations. (Moments they now assuredly regret, given how badly they want to ruin it.) So this morning we say Happy Birthday #145 to Frances Perkins, the champion of workers' rights and retirees whose policies gave body to the Democratic party's soul. And many blessings on your camels. And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, April 10, 2025
Note: Out of an abundance of caution I’m indicting you on all the charges there are in the criminal code. We’ll sort it out later.
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By the Numbers:
8 days!!!
Days 'til Easter: 10
Days 'til the Austin Reggae Fest: 8
Current tariff percent on China after trump's latest tantrum: 125%
Current U.S. unemployment rate: 4.2%
Cases of measles in Texas now, up from one: 505
Worldwide box office for the first week release of A Minecraft Movie, the highest for a video game adaptation flick: $315 million
Percent of Americans polled in 1964 who thought that the civil rights movement was “pushing too fast,” according to ElectionStudies.org: 63%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Ann Richards says one of her frustrations with the Texas legislature is that boys are taught from early on to win—and when someone wins, someone else loses. Richards thinks girls are socialized to find win/win solutions. My favorite example is what any smart mom does when there are two kids and one cookie. The first kid gets to divide the cookie, and the second kid gets first pick of the halves. You can generally count on the moms of the world to find solutions where nobody loses. To my mind, while [Bill] Clinton is not batting a thousand (he’s barely batting .500), he deserves bonus points for taking on the toughest problems. We’re looking at twelve years’ worth of domestic problems that have been allowed to fester without action, and he’s the spoon that’s stirring the pot in Washington. He apparently just never counted on whatever is in that pot in Washington becoming more like cement than soup. —August, 1993
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The best bed….
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CHEERS to the C&J Headline News Desk. We win all the journalisisism awards because we keep you up to date on the most important stories of the day, all day, every day, except the days that are holidays or weekends or days we don’t feel like it, and by the way we're NOT AFRAID TO USE ALL CAPSWHEN NECESSARY. And since tariffs are #1 on everyone's minds, here's the latest transcript of how the delicate negotiations are going between the countries of our planetary unit:
"Were slapping you with a 50 percent tariff!" "Oh yeah? Well, we're slapping you with a 60 percent tariff!" "How dare you! Such insolence just bought you a one hundred and ninety seven percent tariff on your stinky ass!" "I don’t have a stinky ass. We use bidets over here." "Well I'm sending ICE over there to kidnap all your bidets and send them to prisons in El Salvador." "What? No you're not." "Yes I am." "No you're not." "Yes I am." "Yes you are." "No I'm not! No more tariffs and that's final!" “Except China.” “Right. Except China!”
Hang in there, folks. Only 5 billion years 'til we get consumed by the sun. (I’m told that the applause from all the other galaxies will be deafening.)
CHEERS to going back in time. And speaking of the sun… Unlike the MAGA wet dream of going back to the gilded age for all the worst reasons, this retro-development is actually a good thing for everyone:
The world used clean power sources to meet more than 40% of its electricity demand last year for the first time since the 1940s, figures show. Solar has also sparked a renaissance in ladder sales. A report by the energy think tank Ember said the milestone was powered by a boom in solar power capacity, which has doubled in the last three years. The report found that solar farms had been the world’s fastest-growing source of energy for the last 20 consecutive years. The continuing growth of solar means clean power—including nuclear and bioenergy—is on track to expand faster than the world’s overall electricity demand, according to Ember. This should mean fossil fuels beginning to be squeezed out of the global power system.
Great thing about solar energy: unlike fossil fuels, cleaning up after a spill just means pulling out the hose and washing off the bird shit.
CHEERS to landmark legislation. One week after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Johnson signed a companion bill into law 57 years ago this week called the Civil Rights Act of 1968, aka the Fair Housing Act. The following housing issues became no-no's:
Johnson signs the 1968 Civil Rights Act. 1) Refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of his race, color, religion or national origin. 2) Discrimination against a person in the terms, conditions or privilege of the sale or rental of a dwelling. 3) Advertising the sale or rental of a dwelling indicating preference of discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.
The law was expanded in 1988 to include disability and family status, and again in 1993 to prohibit the throwing of lawn darts at the Re/Max blimp.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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x Restoring my faith in humanity 🥺😭💗 📽️ESPN|MDMotivator (Zachery Dereniowski) — Jessi 💫 (@jessigrace.bsky.social) 2025-04-06T19:22:49.667Z
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to today's edition of Not Now, Lady, We're Kinda Busy. Courtesy of ABC News:
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday mocked Washington and its Asian allies for what she called their “daydream” of denuclearizing the North, insisting that the country will never give up its nuclear weapons program. “Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, gab gab gab gab blah blah, blah blah, yackety yack yack,” she said in comments released by state media, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
This has been today's edition of Not Now, Lady, We're Kinda Busy.
JEERS to non-refundable tickets. On April 10, 1912, the unsinkable RMS Titanic set off for New York from Southampton, England. That cruise, of course, turned out to be a disaster. If I recall correctly, the caviar was much too salty.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 10, 2015
JEERS to not recognizing the next American idol. I asked around, and here's the local reaction to yesterday's announcement that Rand Paul wants to be our next President:
"Who?" "Who?" Still the best Rand Paul meme. "I thought his first name was Ron." "I thought his last name was McNally" "Who?" "President of what?" "I'm voting for Hillary." "I think RuPaul would do a fine job. Wait…who?" "You mean that guy who plagiarizes his speeches?" "Move your shopping cart, you're blocking me."
Definitely some work to do. But that last guy sounds like an undecided. I'm sensing momentum.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to horse power. You know what officially turns 61 this month? The original pony car, the “car that dreams are made of”—the Ford Mustang:
Making its debut at the New York World’s Fair, the first Ford Mustang proved to be one of the industry’s biggest hits ever, quickly requiring the automaker to fire up three assembly plants—two more than planned—to meet soaring demand. Interest was so intense, then-Ford President Lee Iacocca and Mustang landed on the covers of both Time and Newsweek, a unique coup. x YouTube Video - Yet, the Mustang almost didn’t happen. The car was rushed to market only after another major Ford product program collapsed. … Ford’s designers and engineers worked feverishly to pull the project together in barely two years, about half the time it normally took to develop a new car from the ground up. But the first production models were already in dealer showrooms in time for the World’s Fair debut April 17, 1964.
Happy anniversary, Mustang fans. But don’t get cocky and challenge my Metro bus to a game of chicken. The driver mounts the losers’ hubcaps on the wall as trophies.
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 "Bill in Portland Maine is dumber than a sack of bricks.” —Elon Musk
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