Energize An Ally Tuesday
Call me crazy, but I've never been a fan of the day-after-Thanksgiving shopping event known as Trample Your Neighbors At The Mall Friday. Now that I'm finally out of the coveted 25-54 demo, I can kick back at home and let the young 'uns do the trampling instead. (I’m told it wasn’t as bad as last year, but still...no thanks.)
I much prefer Giving Tuesday, started in 2011 as "an international day of charitable giving at the beginning of the Christmas and holiday season." It's a good time to stop and appreciate the many fearless, well-run organizations that go out every day and defend the country from the internal orc army known as the MAGA cult. Plus there tends to be less trampling.
Here are some groups on which we've cast our Tuesday Energize An Ally spotlight over the years. If you feel like tossing a few bucks their way, they'd appreciate it. And if you have a group that you'd like folks to know about, let us know in the comments.
The ACLU The civil liberties titan preventing the GOP from treating the Constitution as a glorified snot rag
League of Conservation Voters Working to make life hell for the polluters and the fossil fuel addicts (but I repeat myself).
Democracy Docket Marc Elias runs the leading progressive source for information, analysis and opinion about voting rights, elections and democracy, and he spends a lot of time in courtrooms around the country winning cases against the election deniers.
Run for Something Extremely effective at recruiting and training thousands of young progressives to run for office since the day Trump took office the first time...and a lot of ‘em have been winning.
Indivisible Former Obama staffers who literally wrote the how-to manual on "cultivating a grassroots movement of thousands of local groups to elect progressive leaders, realize bold progressive policies, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the MAGA agenda"
Leaders We Deserve Founded by David Hogg and Kevin Lata, this is a newly-hatched grassroots organization dedicated to electing young progressives to Congress and State Legislatures across the country to help defeat the far-right agenda and advance a progressive vision for the future.
To all the organizations fighting the good fight, and the dedicated advocates who staff them, Thank You for doing what you do. It is most excellent.
And now, our feature presentation...
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Note: Here’s today’s helpful hint from Miss Manners: Don’t do war crimes. War crimes are a bad look, especially in polite society and at formal dinners. So don’t do them. Hugs!
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By the Numbers:
9 days!!!
Days 'til 2026: 30
Days 'til the 18th annual Currier and Ives Cookie Tour in New Hampshire's Monadnock region: 9
Percent chance that the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee are opening investigations into Trump's illegal boat strikes and related murders in violation of U.S. and international law: 100%
Latinos polled by Global Strategy Group who say Republicans are treating inflation as a top priority: 14%
Drop in new vehicle sales during November: 4.8%
Drop in the value of stock for Trump Media & Technology Group DJT (including the "Truth Social" platform) since Trump’s inauguration: 75%
Drop in the value of digital “meme coins” named for Trump and his illegal-immigrant wife "Melanie" since inauguration day, respectively: 86%, 99%
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Puppy Pic of the Day: In Oregon, boosting the spirits of seriously-ill kids with a pile of puppies…
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CHEERS to throwing the book at the world's worst legal team. This is what happens when a president hires his lawyers based on their lady parts:
In a loss for the Trump administration, an appeals court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling disqualifying Alina Habba from her position as acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.
In a 32-page ruling, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals found that Habba's appointment violates the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. […]
The appeals court's decision comes just days after a federal judge dismissed criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after finding that acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who was prosecuting the cases, was unlawfully appointed.
But it wasn't a total rebuke. The judges admitted in a separate brief that Habba's hair is "constitutionally lustrous."
JEERS to moving the goalposts. The 2025 elections that were held last month were an absolute rout for Republicans, and an absolute romp for Democrats. Not only did Team D fare better in every single demographic, but virtually every county in America that voted saw a swing to the left. It was incredible, and the surest sign we'd ever need that the MAGA cult is in for a thorough midterm whompin' in 11 months. But, of course, that train of thought is sooooo last month. Now we have to cast our eyes on the 7th district in Tenne-freakin'-ssee—a single seat in a red state where a special election is now the new "test of the blue wave":
The special election to fill the seat of retired Republican Rep. Mark Green, set for Tuesday, Dec. 2, was hardly on the national radar a month ago.
Will she Tennessee Waltz to a House seat? Stay tuned!
Now, the race between Democrat Aftyn Behn, a 36-year-oldliberal state representative, and Republican Matt Van Epps, a combat veteran, has Democrats dreaming of an unexpected House pickup. Meanwhile, top Republicans ‒ including President Donald Trump ‒ are circling the wagons and pumping in millions to try to stop a disaster. […]
In her congressional race Behn has leaned into a similar affordability theme that carried Democrats in the off-year elections, highlighting her support to end the state's grocery tax and campaigning on lowering health cost. She has embraced a pragmatic slogan: "feed kids, fix roads, and fund hospitals."
Great slogan. May the best Aftyn win.
CHEERS to America's cleaning service. 53 years ago today, the Environmental Protection Agency was born during the reign of that shameless Marxist commie Richard Nixon. Under his orders, government "life panels" were created to ration environmental care by putting competent bureaucrats between you and your polluter under the guise of collectively "protecting human health and the environment." It was just one more way the Republicans tried to take power away from the individual and use it to advance their radical socialist agenda. Today, thoroughly embarrassed by their un-American blunder, Republicans are doing their best to shrink the EPA and erase any connection between themselves and promotion of America's general welfare. Because, as their current bumper sticker slogan, no doubt dreamed up by RFK Jr., says: "Clean Air Promotes Lazy Lungs."
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to crossing the finish line (with just a few gobs of seaweed up our nose). Southerners and East Coasters rejoice! After barely making it through half of the alphabetic roster of names, as of 5pm last Sunday your 2025 Atlantic hurricane season officially ended. Here's the National Weather Service's 2025 "spaghetti map" charting what turned out to be a relatively mild season. You’ll notice that my supreme powers as one of “the gays” kept the calamities far, far away from Maine:
Meanwhile, the NOAA 2026 hurricane season forecast comes out next May. So other than blizzards (6-9 inches forecast for southern Maine today as our snow season ramps up early), ice storms, tornadoes, nor'easters, mudslides, droughts and the behavior of our current leadership, we're in the clear.
JEERS to one big blur. Here's the latest on the so-called "peace talks" to end Russia's illegal invasion of the independent, sovereign nation of Ukraine. The Russia-Ukraine talks, which came before the Russia-U.S. talks but not before the U.S.-Ukraine talks that spawned the U.S.-Russia talks that led to the Ukraine-U.S. talks that preceded the Ukraine-Russia talks that spiraled out of control and led to more Russia-U.S. talks before reverting back to U.S.-Ukraine talks are now the U.S.-Russia talks again. And if everything continues on track and on schedule, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will soon be holding talks between the U.S. and an invisible rabbit named Harvey.
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Ten years ago in C&J: December 2, 2015
CHEERS to great adventures in getting bit in the ass. A delicious pair of examples of how our crackpot opposition is so set on ideological auto-pilot that they rarely notice when they're headed for a ditch. Exhibit A: after One Million (Right-wing) Moms called for a boycott of Mattel because it had the temerity to show a pair of gay dads with their foster children, donations to the couples charity for foster kids (Comfort Cases) tripled. Exhibit B: after failing to prove any wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, the state of Alabama has to pay over $50,000 in legal fees to PP's attorneys. It's nothing personal, you understand. Just karma.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to running another ring around the sun. Happy Birthday (and many blessings on your camels, along with a giant slice of key lime and/or pumpkin and/or blueberry pie) to my Michael (aka "Common Sense Mainer" here at Daily Kos), my sweetie of 32 years, who turns [Redacted] today. Wow, [redacted] years. I won’t divulge exactly how spring-chickeny or ancient he is, but here are a few clues from the history archives circa nineteen hundred and [redacted]…
> Kennedy was president and dealing with the Cuban missile crisis
Michael after his promotion to Lt. Colonel in the Boy Scouts
> Tuition to Harvard cost $1,250
> The first Beatles single was released
> Gas was 28 cents per gallon
> To Kill A Mockingbird and Lawrence of Arabia were released
> John Glenn orbited the earth
> The Berlin wall was fresh and new
> Johnny Carson began his reign as king of late night TV
> The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington was completed in time for the World's Fair
> Marvel’s Spider-Man made his debut in the Amazing Fantasy #15 comic book
He shares his birthday today with Britney Spears (43), Lucy Liu (57), and Stone Phillips (70). And if they're true to form, tomorrow I'll get a call from the cops around 2am, and shortly thereafter I'll give my sweetie his traditional present: bail.
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
Is it possible to splash comfortably in the Cheers and Jeers kiddie pool alone? Yes and no.
—USA Today
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