Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment
When Molly Ivins died 18 years ago today at 62, the world lost one of its great wits, social commentators, and fighters for civil rights and social justice. The void she left was vast, which is why we’ve been posting our “Molly Ivins Moment” in C&J every Thursday since she passed. I think now more than ever we could use a good dose of Molly, so here's a Texas-size handful of her greatest hits…
» When last we left that merry band of Republican brothers in Congress, they were deregulating shit on beef.
» “Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.”
The iconic photo that accompanied most of her columns.
» Being Canadian is like living next door to the Simpsons. Here are all these patient, sensible, kind people (I swear, their real national motto is, "Now, let's not get excited") living right next to "the States," where some hideously noisy psychodrama is always going on. ... My question is this: Is there any way we could put Canadianism in pill form so Americans could take it regularly?
» On Pat Buchanan's culture-war speech at the 1992 Republican convention: "It probably sounded better in the original German."
» [I]mmigrant-bashing is such an old American tradition. Back at the time of the Revolution, many Anglo-Americans worried about the terrible number of Germans engulfing the country. Since then, we’ve managed to work up a snit over the Irish, the Jews, the Polish, the Swedes, Bolivians, Bavarians, Bosnians, Russians, Italians, Sicilians, a great variety of Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Maltese (sorry you missed that one---the Maltese once overran New York City deli counters), Cubans, Puerto Ricans and so forth. [...]
I don't see why we should stop blaming newcomers for our troubles just because they're not in charge of anything. You gotta admit, prejudice is as American as apple pie. I hear tell these Mexicans keep crossing the border so they can get on welfare and get health care and all these goodies. Funny, we don't have goodies in Texas, but they keep moving here to work anyway.
» “We get so scared of something—scared of communism or crime or drugs or illegal aliens—that we think we can make ourselves safer by sacrificing freedom. Never works. It's still true: the only thing to fear is fear itself.”
» The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
As I like to say, Molly Ivins was (and via her legacy still is) Red Bull for the Democratic soul.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 30, 2025
Note: Just a heads-up that there will be no C&J on Monday because the Marauding Grannies are robbing banks that day and I'm their ride. Back Tuesday. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Starts tomorrow!!!
Days 'til Thank Your Postal Carrier Day: 5
Days 'til the U.S. National Toboggan Championships in Camden, Maine: 1
Number of items that are now cheaper since Very Bad Man took office: 0
Amount Boeing lost in sales during the 4th quarter: $3.8 billion
Percent chance that New Jersey MAGA Rep. Jeff Van Drew claimed last year that those mysterious drones flying over his state were Iranian spy drones: 100%
Percent of those mysterious drones flying over New Jersey that were American and authorized to do so by the FAA, according to federal authorities yesterday: 100%
Percent chance that Melania Trump is looking forward to her job later this year DEALING VIS ALL ZEES FUCKING VITE HOUSE CHREESTMAS DECORATIONS ZAT I HAVE TO PUT UP GOD I HATE CHREESTMAS I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT SO DECK YOUR OWN FUCKING HALLS!!!: 0%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Made it, Ma…top of the world!"
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JEERS to shitty priorities. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now break out into spontaneous applause as the new administration—now run by a strapping young South African Nazi—tackles the issues that affect real Americans:
The U.S. Education Department said Tuesday it was investigating Denver Public Schools for alleged discrimination after the district converted a girl’s restroom on the second floor of a high school into an all-gender restroom while leaving another bathroom exclusive to boys. […]
The Republicans’ #1 obsession. Not the economy. This.
“They are arguing that an all-gender restroom isn’t comparable to a single-gender restroom,” [Association of Title IX Administrators president Brett] Sokolow said.
“You’d have to establish that somehow you have a right to a single-sex bathroom, and while the Trump administration may believe that, I don’t know if that will be upheld by the courts.”
And that, kids—[Flush!]—is how America became great again.
CHEERS to clarity in a world of fog and chaos. If you're finding it near impossible to make sense out of what's happening in the ongoing shootout between Russia and Ukraine, I can sympathize. And when I feel overwhelmed by an issue, I get busy studying it from every angle—the players, the motives, the territories, the ideologies, the deals. All of it. In depth. The good, the bad, and the ugly. As of today, here's what I've come up with to illustrate what we're witnessing:
I know that’s a lot to take in. Tomorrow I'll publish my footnotes. If you think you can imagine what they'll look like, you are correct.
CHEERS to "32." Make sure you take a moment today to say Happy Birthday (or, to use his dialect, "Happy buuhthday") to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who turns 143 today. He was far from perfect, as all presidents have been: trying to pack the Supreme Court, turning away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, the internment camps, the womanizing (though not with porn stars, as far as we know). But he was a force of nature who didn’t let polio stop him as he charged headlong into fighting the depression and wars on multiple fronts in Europe and Asia, while passing reforms that made life better for ordinary Americans. Says William Ridings and Stuart McIver in their book Rating the Presidents (where FDR sits at #2, just below Lincoln):
Roosevelt is praised most often for his role in preserving the American capitalist system at a time when many countries were opting for fascism.
Happy birthday, FDR. I’ll need to see your license and registration, please.
Given the dire crises he was forced to confront, perhaps the highest praise from the poll is "the right man in the right place at the right time." [...]
Others praise him for stopping Hitler—and shudder to think what might have been if a less-effective president had been at the helm in those dangerous days.
The lunatics on the right try mightily to rewrite history by insisting that the New Deal was a failure. Never mind that laws enacted in the 1930s—chipped away at though they were—helped prevent our 2008 Great Recession from turning into an all-out depression. Pay your respects here. And never let anyone forget the difference between the parties, as defined by Roosevelt himself: Democrats say we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Republicans say we have nothing to fear but everything but fear itself.
P.S. It's also Dick Cheney's birthday today. He turns 666. Again.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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JEERS to the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time in the wrong place at the wrong nexus of time and space for all the wrong reasons. Here's a partial transcript of yesterday's confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as he angles for the job of Health and Human Services director:
[Gavel bangs hearing into session]
[Incessant clicking of camera shutters]
"This hearing will now come to order! Opening statement, please."
[Sound of throat clearing]
"Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal! Send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fire…!!!"
"I meant your statement, Mr. Kennedy. Not the worm's."
If you anticipate any medical needs over the next four years, folks, we suggest you tend to 'em now.
CHEERS to resistance from unexpected places. As a newbie to your strange planet, I'm not up on all the outrages you humans have to put up with down here. But I did hear about that new bill in Tennessee proposed by Governor Bill Lee (MAGA) that would make it a prison-worthy crime for a public official to vote for pro-immigrant policies, including non-binding resolutions. Yikes! The bill is so bad that even Todd Gardenhire, the MAGA chairman of the state Senate's Judiciary Committee, is sounding alarm bells:
“We are a Republic, and a Republic is one that we elect people to vote the way they feel like is best for the district, the city, county or the state,” he said.
Methinks this Tennessee flag has termites.
“If we set the precedent of penalizing any elected official for voting their conscience, whether it’s good or bad, then we set a dangerous precedent for the future,” he said.
In response, Governor Lee thought very carefully about Gardenhire's words, searched his conscience, shed a tear, and then proposed a new law outlawing all future chairmen of the state Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 30, 2015
CHEERS to fun in the USA. As a United States delegation (including the president) slobbers over the new awful Saudi king, children in New England are playing in two feet of glorious fresh snow and thanking their lucky stars they don’t live over there:
A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious ruling forbidding the building of snowmen, describing them as anti-Islamic. Asked on a religious website whether it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheik Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied, “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”
Oh yeah? Well, my five-foot-tall middle finger snow statue says you're wrong.
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And just one more…
JEERS to theological whiplash. Just in case you're wondering, here's the latest from the Catholic church on being a gay human being:
✞ You're a sinner and you're going to hell.
✞ But are you a sinner, really? Who are we to judge?
✞ We are to judge, that’s who. We can't accept you or your silly same-sex marriages.
✞ Well…maybe civil unions might not be so bad.
✞ No, same-sex acts are sinful and you're going to hell.
✞ Well, okay, same-sex "tendencies" are fine, maybe.
✞ However, if those tendencies turn into acts, then it's the flames of hell for you, Bub.
✞ However—and this is really good news—it's not a crime.
✞ But it’s still a sin.
✞ But only an itty bitty sin. And only if you have sex outside of your same-sex marriage.
✞ Oh, almost forgot: the Catholic Church still forbids same-sex marriage.
✞ But same-sex couples can be blessed by priests now.
✞ Disclaimer: Blessings and compassion not applicable in Africa.
✞ But if you're Italian, you can now be a gay priest!
We trust this clears up any confusion. May the head-scratching be with you. (And also with you.)
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
"You want to promote splashing in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool but say Bill in Portland Maine is not 'splashy enough'… I mean, this is insane shit."
—Bill Gates
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