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And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 18, 2025
Note: There will be no C&J on Monday, which is all the reason the lamestream media needs to accuse me of slacking, mooching, taking, and lollygagging. Back Tuesday with an official yet perfunctory statement of regret that history will soon forget. —Mgr.
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By the Numbers:
4 days!!!
Days 'til we turn our clocks back: 45
Days 'til Mayberry Days in Mt. Airy, North Carolina : 4
Percent of French citizens who "have a positive opinion of solar energy": 87%
Percent who say they have a positive opinion of wind energy and nuclear energy, respectively: 67%, 59%
Percent chance Tim Walz is running for a third term as governor of Minnesota: 100%
Current median time it takes for someone out of work to find a job: 10 weeks
Odds of having a heart attack if you're age 50-64: 3.5-in-100
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
To oversimplify, those who are getting their information from the Internet and/or a broad range of publications are having conversations with one another that are radically different from those heard on many radio talk shows.
This is more than the simplistic jingoism that is a constant in American life; this is simplistic jingoism with a dangerously short attention span. The "let's nuke 'em" crowd is still looking for a short, simple solution, and there just isn't one. ...
While some of us are talking about how to build a civil society, achieve energy independence and settle long-standing international disputes, others are reacting like the waitress in an Austin drinking establishment, who refused to serve the East Indian guest of a regular patron, repeatedly calling him a terrorist and insisting that he leave. That's the reaction gap that concerns me.
—October, 2001
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In Prichard, Alabama…SAVED!!
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CHEERS to this morning's test of the National First Amendment System. This is only a test:
Hey, Pam Bondi: On the advice of counsel, I invoke my First Amendment right to say "I hate you."
Come and get me. I'll beat your ass so bad in court you'll need to buy your hydroxychloroquine-based butt balm by the barrel.
This concludes this test of the National First Amendment System. If this had been the real thing, I would've said the same thing, and Pam Bondi would still be a contemptible human being who's so bad at her law job that even the ambulance chasers roll their eyes. We now return you to our Cheers and Jeers already in progress. Unless they come and arrest me, in which case we'll adjourn early and y'all can help yourself to the Chips Ahoy! in the cupboard.
CHEERS to the Cut Heard 'Round the World. Jerome Powell, you glorious bastard, you did it!!! Yesterday at the stroke of a freckle past a hair, the Federal Reserve Chairman announced that our long months-long nightmare over interest rate hikes is finally less nightmarish. It's the move that everyone has been obsessing over: car dealers, credit card companies (and holders), financial planners, CNBC pundits, grandmas and grandpas who give savings bonds for gifts, alligators in the sewers, penguins in the Antarctic, the good, the bad, the ugly, the pope, the king, the dowager…and all because a butterfly flapped its wings in the Philippines in the year 426. Take it away, Jerry…
"In light of the progress on inflation and the balance of risks, the Committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point. In considering additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the…oh blah blah blah blah my point is woo-hoo!!! We're all rich, RICH I tell you! Buy! Buy!! Buy!!!
[Rips off clothes]
Last one in the Reflecting Pool's a rotten egg! Wheeeee!!!
Another cut (maybe two) is planned before the year is out. Interesting!
CHEERS to learning something new every day. On September 18, 1851, The New York Times—currently being sued for 150 gazillion dollars by Donald Trump over a game of Wordle he didn’t like—came out with its first issue, published by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones who said: "We intend to issue it every morning (Sundays excepted) for an indefinite number of years to come." And while doing a little research I discovered that: Times Square is named after the paper, the Times got its first telephone number in 1886 and it was "John 470," and the first New Year's Eve ball drops were done from their 42nd Street headquarters starting in 1907. (Really Truly!!!) Now I'm scared, because whenever something trivial enters my brain it means something important gets kicked out. Which probably explains why I just got a sudden urge to gnaw the lead paint off my toys and stick a fork in a light socket. This is why I keep my neurologist on speed-dial.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to famous firsts. Seventy-seven years ago, on September 18, 1948, Margaret Chase Smith from the GREAT STATE OF MAINE became the first woman elected to the United States Senate—without completing a term started by another senator—when she beat Democrat Adrian Scolten. Her campaign slogan makes me wonder if it wasn’t the inspiration for Eisenhower’s “I Like Ike” four years later: "My Sentiments Are With Margaret Chase Smith."
It also made her the first woman to be both a U.S. representative and senator, and in 1964 she became the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for president. She came in second. Or as the menfolk in the modern GOP like to say: "As it should be."
JEERS to the poorest richest nation on Earth. The Census Bureau released its annual poverty report last week, and 12.9 percent of us are at or below the poverty line, including 14.3 percent of our nation's kids. Democrats are concerned by the numbers and want to take strong steps to reduce poverty in America, like increasing the minimum wage, preserving the food stamp program, extending unemployment insurance, and reinstating the pandemic-era tax credit that dramatically cut child poverty. Republicans, on the other hand, say they've got their own foolproof plan for shrinking the numbers to zero: eliminate the Census Bureau's annual poverty report.
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Ten years ago in C&J: September 18, 2015
JEERS to spoilsports. A group of "robot ethicists" says that humans should not have sex with robots. "Oh, gee, thanks...now ya tell me," said Ann Romney.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the swashbucklin’ 19th. Avast me hearties and suchlike. It's me, Captain Billybeard, fear-instiller on the waters of the deep blue kiddie pool with a warnin’ for all ye scurvy knaves that tomorrow is the blow-me-downest day of the year: International Talk Like A Pirate Day. We won’t be showin’ our faces here again ‘til tomorrow night, so parrrrrrrdon us while we get our Blackbeard on a bit early this year...
Automotive optimist: "By 2035 we’ll all be drivin’ electric carrrs!"
Democratic strategist: "That Mamdani lad is a rising starrr!"
Winston Churchill: "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest arrr!'"
Texas legend Jim Hightower: ”There ain’t nothin’ in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead arrrmadillos!”
American worker: "Thanks to those greedy bastards on Wall Street, I may never get to retarrr!"
And please remember: it’s “Arrr,” not “Arrrgh.”
Paul Revere’s midnight ride: ”To arrrrms!”
Ants: ”Keep a lookout for them scurvy aarrrrdvarks!”
Brazilian Supreme Court: "I sentence ye, Jair Bolsonaro, to twenty-seven years behind barrrrs."
Buzz Aldrin: "To Marrrs!"
Ranger: "Come one, come all, to visit our national parrrks."
Red-hatted End Times fanatic: "Prepare ye for Arrrrmageddon."
Theatre Critic: "Don’t miss the revival of A Streetcarrr Named Desarrr!"
Postal abbreviation of Bill Clinton's home state: AR
FBI Director Kash Patel: "Ready! Farrr! Aim!"
Thanks for reading. You've been a swarrrthy arrrdience.
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're in the kiddie pool posting Cheers and Jeers, a riveting performance. You're the center of attention. So how does Bill in Portland Maine react? Oh, he's asleep again."
—Dr. John Gartner
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