A Brief Follow-up...
Jon Stewart distills everything we protested for Saturday in 60 seconds to an audience member asking how young people can pursue happiness while America plays footsies with fascism...
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And nachos. We also find great happiness in nachos.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Note: A reminder that today is Eat Your Vegetables Day. Santa Claus has been monitoring you for compliance via a fichus plant spycam and putting your name on the appropriate list for future reference. If you really want to see that Hammacher Schlemmer hovercraft under the tree in six months, we suggest you get chompin’. Especially on the kohlrabi. You’re way behind on your kohlrabi. —Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
4 days!!!
Days 'til summer: 3
Days 'til the Berry Dairy Days Festival in Burlington, Washington: 3
Trump approval rating via AP-NORC polling just before he sent the troops to L.A.: 39%
Approval in the same poll of Trump's handling of the economy: 38%
Seat number of the sole survivor of the Air India Flight AI171 crash: 11A
Number of senators asking the U.S. Department of Labor to immediately reverse a decision to halt operations at Job Corps sites across the country: 40
Percent chance that the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a retrial for Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case (during which he was legally deemed a rapist): 0%
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Pup Pic of the Day: Last pup in the pool is a rotten egg…
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CHEERS to finding the fiend. It was supposed to be weekend of joyful protest in Minnesota. The state ended up in a very different place Saturday, though, namely mourning the political assassination of state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband John, and raging at the attempted-but-failed political assassination of state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. After conducting "without a doubt the biggest manhunt in the state's history," they caught the guy who did it. We won’t post the assassin's name, but here's a photo of the convicted criminal responsible for what happened Saturday:
Police say they caught the terrorist suspect "crawling in a field in a sparsely populated stretch of Minnesota." Not because he was trying to elude the authorities. That’s just the way cockroaches normally move.
JEERS to the difference between then and now. 92 years ago this week, Congress passed the bulk of FDR's ambitious "New Deal" program. When faced with his own economic calamity 75 years later (no thanks to his asleep-at-the-switch predecessor), our first Black president was met with a wall of GOP resistance in the pursuit of one goal: making him fail. But it was a bit different back in 1933:
Raymond Moley, a member of FDR’s "brain trust," said many lawmakers "had forgotten to be Republicans or Democrats" as they dealt with the burgeoning crisis.
FDR had to clean up a Republican’s mess. Obama had to clean up a Republican’s mess. Biden had to clean up a Republican’s mess. I’m sensing a pattern.
Sen. Hiram Johnson (R-Calif.) said: "The admirable trait in Roosevelt is that he has the guts to try. ... He does it all with the rarest good nature. … We have exchanged for a frown in the White House a smile. Where there were hesitation and vacillation, weighing always the personal political consequences, feebleness, timidity and duplicity, there are now courage and boldness and real action."
The Democrats' New Deal was necessary, visionary, humane, functional, morale-boosting, and focused on the downtrodden. Exactly what Republicans like to propose, minus the vision, humanity, functionality, morale boost, or focus on the downtrodden. (But which billionaires always give a big Thumbs-Dipped-in-Gold Up.)
JEERS to 1-in-5 Americans. Because, according to a new NBC News poll, 1-in-5 Americans are thrilled to have a king running the government, to the exclusion of the judicial branch:
The poll, conducted along with SurveyMonkey, found that 81% of adults believe that if a federal court rules that a Trump administration action is illegal, the administration has to stop its action. Only 19% of Americans think the administration can ignore the ruling.
Also believed by 1-in-5 Americans: that up is down, black is white, gravity is a hoax, and the only dentists they'll visit are the 1-in-5 who recommend sugared gum to their patients who chew gum.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to the beginning of the end. 53 years ago today, five burglars were arrested inside DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex:
They possessed burglary tools, cameras, film and pen-size tear gas guns.
Ah, the old bug in the nickel trick. Diabolical.
In rooms the men had rented at a motel across Virginia Avenue from the burglary scene, police found electronic bugging equipment.
Three of those arrested were Cuban exiles and one was a Cuban-American. Their leader was James McCord, a former CIA agent and a security coordinator for President Richard Nixon’s Committee for the Reelection of the President.
Prosecutors also charged E. Howard Hunt Jr., a former White House aide, and G. Gordon Liddy, a CREEP finance counsel, as accomplices.
It was the start of a chain of events that led to Nixon's resignation, punctuated by the now-shocking notion that prominent members of Nixon's own party would help drag the scandal into the sunlight instead of burying it in the backyard under a smokescreen of spin and faux-outrage at Democrats. When the crisis had passed, Republicans paused a moment to reflect on the fact that they'd done something right and honorable...and vowed to never make that mistake again.
JEERS to failing to look in the mirror. We interrupt our previously-scheduled Israeli targeting of civilians in Gaza to bring you this important announcement from Israel via CBS News:
Israel said Iranian missiles had killed a total of 24 people and wounded some 500 others by Monday morning, and the Israel Defense Forces accused Tehran of deliberately targeting civilians with its strikes.
"We are hitting military targets and capabilities designed to destroy the State of Israel, and they are firing at population centers with the aim of hitting civilians," an IDF spokesperson said Monday morning.
Oh noes! Stop doing that, Iran! Bad, Iran, bad! No targeting of civilians! We now return you to our regularly-scheduled Israeli targeting of civilians in Gaza already in progress for several months.
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 16, 2015
JEERS to perpetuating a failed legacy. Yesterday a third Bush decided to run for president of the United States. I forget his first name, but his last name is definitely Bush! Jim Newell at Salon offers as good a preview as any for how this one plans to win the nomination. Feel the altruism:
Jeb Bush is locked into a situation where he’s anathema to conservatives, moderates don’t seem all that fired up about George W. Bush’s brother, and leading figures in the party are concerned about his “rusty” performance. What does he do? He dumps a lot of money on everyone. […]
Memories...
Bush’s campaign relies on plodding along until later in the year, when his super PAC can dump avalanches of cash on any opponent who appears to be gaining steam, and doing this over and over until, if necessary, nominating contests in all 50 states plus territories are held. It’s how Romney won [the nomination] in 2012, and that wasn’t an easy process. Jeb Bush can only pray that his path is as easy as Mitt Romney’s.
According to the wall clock, Bush was late by an hour. According to the karma clock, he was late by 15 years.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to remembering the infamous terrorist attack of 6/17. On June 17, 2009, President Barack Hussein Obama—after less than five months in office—single-handedly stopped an invasion on American soil. In fact, he stopped an attack on the very heart of our government. Remember? The culprit was an intruder who flew in under the cover of darkness while the Secret Service was off drinking and whoring—a grotesque, hairy, devious, foul-mouthed creature intent on sucking the life out of our homeland’s inhabitants. But Obama was onto the plan, and slapped it down with ruthless speed and efficiency. In fact, it was caught on tape…
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Thanks to his patriotism and quick thinking, the republic endures.
Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"How weak do you have to be to commandeer a kiddie pool in a vulgar display of weakness? That’s Cheers and Jeers."
—Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA)
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