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Cheers and Jeers: Thursday [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-17
Oh. Here it is…
The intrepid detectives at The Late Show wear down some shoe leather tracking a missing minute of the Epstein prison video:
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Good job. That’s one down, two to go.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, July 17, 2025
Note: For best results, do everything perfectly the first time every time. Hugs, Heloise.
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By the Numbers:
5 days!!!
Days 'til Ice Cream Day: 3
Days 'til the 76th Plainfield Farmers' Fair in Wisconsin: 5
Rise in the Consumer Price Index last month: 2.7%
Public approval as of last week for the "take from the poor, give to the rich" bill passed by the Republican Congress, according to an Economist/YouGov poll: 35%
Support for the bill in April: 45%
Prison sentence for Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers, who chopped down Britain's famous Sycamore Gap Tree and caused damage to Hadrian's Wall: 4 years, 3 months
Year that the Sycamore Gap Tree was voted Tree of the Year in England: 2016
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Comrade Trump's dandy idea—"Soak the rich!" saith the Donald, that l'il lefty—has raised The Issue That Dare Not Speak Its Name. To wit, the obscene maldistribution of wealth in this country, also known as the Income Gap. While Comrade Trump proposes a one-time 14 percent tax on everybody with more than $10 million to his name—thus raising more than enough to pay off the entire national debt in one foul sweep—Brother Bush is marching militantly in the wrong direction. Gov. Dubya wants more tax breaks for the rich. Sigh. Does not get it. […] Being new to Marxist thought, the Donald has not fully grasped the finer points and wants to eliminate the estate tax himself. The bottom line for Comrade Trump is that his one-shot 14 percent wealth tax on those with more than $10 mil would cost him personally somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 million, but abolishing the estate tax would save him twice that. He may be a tyro leftie, but he's not stupid.
—December 1999
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Puppy Pic of the Day: A real gentleman's morning routine…
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CHEERS to good trouble. We'll file this under "My, how time flies when your country is devolving into a Mad Max movie." Today marks the five-year anniversary of the passing of Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis. And in honor of him and his lifetime of service in the defense of democracy, American patriots across the country are taking to the streets:
The protests, "Good Trouble Lives On," are expected to take place in in dozens of cities and towns on July 17, five years to the day since Lewis' death. The 17-term congressman, who led some of the most seminal demonstrations during the Civil Rights movement, popularized the phrase "good trouble" when speaking of nonviolent protests and acts of civil disobedience as a way to challenge infringements on civil rights. Organizers are calling the July 17 "Good Trouble" protests a response to "the most brazen rollback of civil rights in generations" from the Trump administration. The coalition of organizations behind protests were also behind the nationwide "No Kings" demonstrations on June 14, which drew millions of participants across 2,100 locations, according to the group's estimates. Overall, there have been monthly nationwide protests against the administration and its policies since April, and the "Good Trouble" protests mark the fourth major day of action since Trump took office in January.
More info on finding the protest nearest you here at the official site. Usual rules apply: wear comfortable shoes, proof-read your signs, know your rights, and—say it with me—hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
CHEERS to Billeh's Thursday Tariffs and Epstein Files Update. I'm a bit pressed for time, so I have to combine my two updates into one. But the good news for you is that it also saves you time. So here we go with the latest on Mad King TACO’s latest tariff pronouncements and the MAGA cult’s current stance on the Epstein files...
☹ A new 17 percent tariff has been imposed on fresh tomatoes from Mexico. ☠ Release the Epstein files!!! ☹ The tariff on goods from Canada may be raised to 35 percent. ☠ Release the Epstein files!!! ☹ We are now 15 days from the August 1 deadline for new tariffs on all countries. ☠ Release the Epstein files!!! ☹ Russia has been warned that a 100 percent tariff may be slapped on the country if they don’t reach a peace deal with Ukraine. ☠ Release the Epstein files!!! ☹ And this just in: Trump has just announced a 10,000,000,000,000 percent tariff on anything purchased by anyone demanding the release of the Epstein files. ☠ Release th…. wait, wut?
Nope. I didn’t see that comin’, either.
CHEERS to merry meetings. 50 years ago today, on July 17, 1975 (12:08pm ET to be exact), an Apollo crew docked with the Soyuz 19 spacecraft in orbit. (Because, if memory serves, Denny's was too crowded.) It was the first time the world's foremost cold warriors hooked up in space for, according to my Texas School Board-approved history textbook, praying to Baby Jesus from on high to smite all the drag queens and wipe out the scourge of Black history:
x YouTube Video
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Sadly, we’re now in a proxy war with Russia [P’tooey!] because their tinpot dictator decided his legacy wasn’t yet littered with enough war crimes. I still hold out hope that one day soon some Russian astronauts will be able to send him on a one way trip into space by luring him into a capsule after leaving a trail of the most irresistible bait: shirtless photos of himself.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to the current chain of command. Seventy-eight years ago this week, in 1947, President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which clearly establishes who takes over if the president dies or is otherwise incapacitated. Here's the current lineup, which is pretty much catastrophic from top to bottom:
Vice President J.D. Vance (Heads-up, Oval Office couches—he’s comin’ for ya with lust in his heart.) Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (A fact that I refuse to let sink in.) And when climate change kills off humanity, Clarissa here becomes dictator for life. President pro tempore of the Senate Chuck Grassley (“Corn syrup in every pot and a combine in every garage!”) Sec. of State Marco Rubio (Eye roll) Sec. of the Treasury Scott Bessent (Has anyone checked to see if the gold at Fort Knox is still there?) Gary the House Janitor (In fairness, if he can clean up vomit in the school cafeteria, he can probably clean up Washington.) Dopey (This would not be good because he'd be dwarfed by world events.)
After that they just start drawing random names out of Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's girdle.
CHEERS to home sweet home. CNBC released its latest list of the Top States for Quality of Life. The list is dominated, of course, by blue states like Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota, New Jersey…and a humble northeastern coastal state with the nation's most luxurious kiddie pool checking in at #2:
No state is safer than The Pine Tree State. With just 1,458 violent offenses in a state of 1.4 million people, Mainers enjoy America’s lowest crime rate. Home sweet home. Maine is also a welcoming state. It earned a near-perfect score from the Movement Advancement Project, a non-profit think tank that studies state policies affecting the LGBTQ+ population. But it also earned the ire of the Trump administration, which unsuccessfully tried to block school lunch funding over the state’s refusal to bar transgender girls from girls’ sports. 2025 Quality of Life Score: 207 out of 265 Points (Top States Grade: A) Strengths: Low Crime Rate, Inclusiveness, Air Quality
Sounds right to me. Then again, I’ve only lived here for 32 blissful years. More study is needed.
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Ten years ago in C&J: July 17, 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. 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:
After many months of principled diplomacy, the P5+1—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany—along with the European Union, have achieved a long-term comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran that will verifiably prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and ensure that Iran's nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful going forward. Now, with this deal in place, the U.S., our allies, and the international community can know that tough, new requirements will keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Everybody stand back: I think Lindsey Graham's gonna blow.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to cool science. You think Earth is a bit turbulent these days? Get a load ‘o this:
Scientists have detected the most massive merger of black holes ever. This titanic collision, "heard" in ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves, involves black holes so massive that it could challenge current models of the universe. [...] Are we sure that’s not just a giant space piggy? These two were so massive that when they merged, they created a "daughter" black hole 225 times the mass of our sun, with the missing mass converted to energy, propelling gravitational waves that rippled out from the violent event. "This is the most massive black hole binary we've observed through gravitational waves, and it presents a real challenge to our understanding of black hole formation," LVK collaboration and Cardiff University researcher Mark Hannam said in a statement. "Black holes this massive are forbidden through standard stellar evolution models.
According to the researchers, the black holes are currently exchanging insurance information and have already been booked to settle their case on Judge Judy.
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 "Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate. It needs an acid like lemon juice, yogurt or Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool algae to activate it and make baked goods rise." —Caroline Thomason, R.D.
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