Behold the Party of Fiscal Responsibility
The Republican party wants everyone to believe that they’re the team to trust with your money. The Republican party is currently entrusted with ensuring you don’t get ripped off by unscrupulous fiscal foxes in the henhouse by running, with airtight efficiency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Two paragraphs illustrate how they’re doing:
Last week, the agency dropped a case against the three big banks that operate Zelle, accusing them of mishandling fraud complaints that led to users of the payment app losing more than $870 million.
“If they’re not looking out for you and making sure that your credit cards and credit report and bank account are safe, then you’re really going to need to do that yourself,” said Lauren Saunders, managing attorney at the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center.
They are not. So we are.
Here endeth the lesson. Thanks a lot, party of fiscal responsibility.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, March 13, 2025
Note: Due to a foreseen accident involving a meat truck, an army of ferrets in orange jumpsuits and a giant ray gun, there will be no C&J on Monday. Back Tuesday to defer all questions about the incident to my lawyer. —Mgr.
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7 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Common Courtesy Day: 8
Days 'til the National Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C.: 7
Number of U.S. job openings in January, relatively unchanged from December: 7.7 million
Year-over-year drop in job openings as of January: 9.9%
Years during which Southwest Airlines had a "free checked bags" policy, which it is now ending because money: 54
Years as of this week since WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic: 5
Number of lunar eclipses this century, one of which is tomorrow night: 85
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
At the December rate of 1,000 new jobs a month, it would take 166 years just to replace the two million jobs lost since Bush became President, and that, of course, would be 166 years of not creating enough jobs for new workers. Or as John Kerry puts it, that leaves us only 249,000 jobs a month short of where we need to be and where, incidentally, the President promised we would be by now.
But then Bush also promised to cut the deficit in half. Instead, it grew by 100 percent from his prediction of last year. The guy is not exactly on target. And didn't you love the weasel-wording of "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities"?
I also liked Bush urging Congress to make his tax cuts permanent "for the sake of job growth." Excuse me, but hasn't Bush just spent three years conclusively demonstrating that giving tax cuts to the rich doesn't do a thing for job creation? Three times now Bush has given huge, lopsided tax cuts, and all that happened is that jobs keep disappearing.
—March 2004
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Practicing for Easter…
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JEERS to screaming into the void. I'm not sure if Democrats in the Senate have heard who won the 2024 election, but so far they—many of them, anyway, with walking disappointment John Fetterman apparently having assumed the role of MAGA-lite Joe Manchin—acting like it's all business as usual. Now they're staring at the Republicans' "continuing resolution" the House just passed, which would keep the government funded until September but also give King Donald and Queen Elon even more power than they've already seized. Every Democrat (and the two independents) should vote no for many reasons, which I shall now cause your brain to absorb with effortless ease now:
1. The "clean" continuing resolution is not clean. It’s got MAGA shit in it. Especially odious: Congress will specifically relinquish oversight of Trump's pointless, economy-killing tariffs to...Trump.
2. Republicans and their media empire will vilify and lie about Dems no matter what they do. They will get nothing in return for their "yes" votes except more knives in their back.
Frequently more effective empty than full.
3. Republicans and their media empire insist that they and they alone can fix all the problems, while simultaneously praying to god that Democrats will be there to bail them out time and time again. Every Democratic vote for this CR is a bailout for Republicans.
4. All but one House Democrat voted "No." Read the room.
5. As if it needs to be said, Trump is not a reliable negotiating partner. He will continue flipping the bird at Congress and calling Democrats enemies of the people while doing whatever he feels like with our money.
6. Last but not least, Republicans always take the hit for government shutdowns, because they historically seem so eager to cause them. Few citizens in our former republic knows how the Senate works—all they know is Republicans are responsible for what happens. So let 'em twist in the wind until a truly clean CR comes down the pike.
Final opinion: if Democrats in the Senate won’t challenge their out-of-control, dishonest, sadistic, fascism-obsessed opponents—if they won’t put up resistance even when all the stars are lined up in their favor—then why should we? If they think it's all lollipops and roses around here, then I'll just put on a happy face, quit resisting, and go tiptoe through the tulips.
Update: I've just been informed that Queen Elon has fired all the tulips. Also: all the lollipops, roses, and happy faces. But he says we can still put on a frowny face and go barefoot among the cacti. Message: he cares.
CHEERS to cool science. As our planet continues its rapid descent into becoming a bubbling cauldron of noxious acidic mush, the nerds at NASA have launched a new R2D2 into space with an ambitious goal:
The SPHEREx mission (short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is designed to map the entire celestial sky, studying hundreds of millions of galaxies and piecing together how the universe formed and evolved. […]
I hope the MAGA cult doesn’t find out that space contains the colors of the rainbow. They may shut it down after labeling it a DEI hire.
The $488million SPHEREx observatory will survey the whole sky four times over its two-year mission. Its instruments will observe the cosmos in 102 different colors, or wavelengths, which NASA has said is more than any previous mission.
Colors in the infrared range are essentially invisible to humans because infrared light has longer wavelengths than what the eye can see. In space, however, infrared light from stars, galaxies and other celestial objects carries key information about their composition, density, temperature and chemical makeup.
I believe there's a major flaw in the mission, however. The actual acronym for "Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer" is actually SPFTHOTUEORAIE. To learn how to properly pronounce it, just find the nearest balcony above a Tesla and hock a few loogies.
CHEERS to socialism, American-style. Through the collective approval and funding by We The People, the Wildlife Refuge System celebrates its 122nd birthday this week. (Assuming Very Bad Man and his Queen haven’t killed it yet.) Ever wonder how it got started? If you answered ‘no,’ tough. You’re gonna find out anyway. From the Department of the Interior, which may or may not still exist as of this morning:
In the late 1800s, the whims of fashion dictated that women’s hats would be decorated by bird feathers. To meet this need, poachers hunted many species of birds to the brink of extinction. Concerned citizens, scientists and conservation groups found a champion in President Theodore Roosevelt.
Their concern about the rookery at Pelican Island on the Atlantic Coast of Florida inspired Roosevelt to use his presidential powers to protect pelicans, egrets, ibises and other birds. With the establishment of the first national wildlife refuge on Pelican Island on March 14, 1903, Roosevelt created the National Wildlife Refuge System. [...]
“For the last time: three. THREE licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Okay???”
Building on that foundation, the National Wildlife Refuge System today spans 150 million acres, including 566 national wildlife refuges and 38 wetlands management districts.
If you’re thinking of visiting a wildlife refuge, make sure you take a map, a canteen, and trail mix. But, uh, you best leave the feathered hat at home. Too soon.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to great inventions. On this most important date in 1877, Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine got his patent for a new device called "earmufflers". Normal people wear them to keep out the cold. Conservatives wear them to keep out the truth.
JEERS to today's edition of We Warned The Everlivin' F*ck Out Of You, Silly Person. Courtesy of MSNBC:
“I was a Trump supporter,” Machado told the local affiliate. “I voted for Trump last election, but, because I thought it was going to be the things, you know, like … just go against criminals, not every Hispanic looking, like, that they will assume that we are all illegals.” He added, “That’s what they’re doing, now. They’re just following Hispanic people.”
This has been today's edition of We Warned The Everlivin' F*ck Out Of You, Silly Person.
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Ten years ago in C&J: March 13, 2015
CHEERS to the proof in the pudding. Yesterday the F.C.C. released its net neutrality rules. As far as I'm concerned, this is the money quote:
“Because the record overwhelmingly supports adopting rules and demonstrates that three specific practices invariably harm the open Internet—blocking, throttling and Paid Prioritization—this order bans each of these, applying the same rules to both fixed and mobile broadband Internet access service."
Corporate America has been allowed to kick, gouge, and stomp We The People into the mud for so long that this kind of unequivocal protection for something so essential in our lives almost doesn't feel real. But there it is. This time Lucy held the football and we actually got to kick the fucking thing. Right through the goal posts. We should do this more often. [3/13/25 Update: Ten years later, the referee on duty has moved the net neutrality goalposts. To Pluto.]
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And just one more…
HOLY MOLEY to an eventful first 144 months. Pope Francis, who I believe is the first pontiff (out of 266) with only one lung to get the white-smoke treatment, and is definitely the first Jesuit pope and first non-European pope of the modern era, began his reign 11 years ago this week.
Francis never smiled when he was with Joe’s predecessor/successor, who reeks of sulfur, many people are saying.
He's quite a mixed bag, ain't he? I love the way he tut-tuts conservatives on climate-change and trickle-down economics. I like how he’s firing the most extreme bishops. But his stance on LGBTers and women remains firmly rooted in reality-denial territory, and his call for Ukraine to pick up the “white flag” and negotiate with Russia indicates what we hope is just a brief moment of ignorance.
Then again, at least he's not the lump of German sourdough he replaced.
Francis is currently spending his 28th day in the hospital as he battles Satanic affliction known as pneumonia. In keeping with his reputation as a humble and casual Pontiff, today he'll sleep in 'til noon in his hospital bed, pull on a pair of sweatpants and a "Party Like It's 1499" t-shirt, down a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, ride his skateboard down the halls to visit patients, give everybody high fives and invite busloads of poor people in for a fish fry and games of beanie Frisbee. But he’ll stop short of taking take a hit off the incense bong. Maybe tomorrow.
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 wanna make America great again? End this Cheers and Jeers madness forever, Mr. President. I dare you!”
—Jimmy Kimmel
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