CSotD: Sharpie ripostes
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The Sharpie explosion has largely proven that the first gag that comes to you is likely going to be drawn by several other people as well. That makes it an irresistible prompt but a daunting challenge.
The first cartoon I saw of using the Sharpie to raise approval rates or otherwise monkey with charts was Bill Bramhall‘s, but the little stepladder and the little man on it puts it above the others regardless of the order in which they appeared.
Drawing him as a small, ridiculous man is a nonverbal argument about how someone could be so petty as to never be able to say, “Alabama, Georgia, whatever. I misspoke.”
Scrambling the entire Executive Branch to carry out this inability to admit he made a mistake shows an appalling set of priorities, and maybe Nancy Pelosi is right to sit on the sidelines and watch him impeach himself.
Clay Jones turns it up a few notches and has him Sharpieing every one of his fears and fantasies, which is funny until you click on this link and realized that even Clay can’t keep ahead of the mental breakdown in progress.
Which should make everyone feel better about Edith Wilson signing a few things for Woodrow after the stroke.
Trump’s even got the National Weather Service roped into covering up his stubborn lunacy.
(NWS management, that is. The actual scientists aren’t collaborating.)
Rob Rogers takes the safest route in all this: Package the ideas, because, while each one might not be the winner, the composite cartoon does a nice job of presenting the composite president.
On the other hand, Pia Guerra isn’t laughing and, while Bramhall made us giggle at the funny little manchild, her detailed style depicts him as, indeed, a child sprawled on the floor, but seriously focused on altering the Constitution to fit his own malignant, narcissistic vision.
In case you thought any of this was actually funny.
Sometimes we forget that, although we elected a Reality Show Clown, he’s in charge of our actual government and nation.
(If you prefer to face that horrifying fact with gallows humor, the Daily 202 will fill in whatever I’ve missed.)
Bulbsnatchers Delight
Signe Wilkinson highlights another bizarre twist in the malignant clown’s readjustment of things: He’s put the brakes on our national shift to more efficient lightbulbs.
I’d nearly forgotten how the rightwing had exploded when George W. Bush initiated the shift to longer-lasting, more efficient lightbulbs.
They didn’t go nearly as nuts back when we took the lead out of gasoline, though they complained about that, too, back in the days when such conversations took place at the local bar instead of all over the Internets.
My goo’ness gracious, this is digging up a problem nobody even remembered, just because it’s a chance to rally the Deplorables, who can easily be fooled into thinking that an expensive bulb that lasts longer and uses less energy couldn’t possibly even out, much less save you money.
If nothing else, we — well, those of us who didn’t hunt the back shelves for ancient incandescent bulbs — have gotten completely out of the habit of replacing lightbulbs on a regular basis.
Here’s another idea: He could offer to take the tariffs off Chinese-made Christmas tree lights if they go back to making the ones where, if one bulb burns out, the whole string goes dead.
Hell, save all the bulbs: Bring back those TVs the size of dressers, the kind that take two minutes to warm up.
Make Executive Time Great Again!
How The Other 80% Lives
Meanwhile, on the Avenue of Broken Dreams, Jeff Danziger points out the way the One-Percenters who set policy are not only ignoring the needs of the peasants but lying and reneging on promises made.
Betsy De Vos — the vastly wealthy, even vastlier incompetent Secretary of Education — has scaled back the ability of people to get out of their student debt if they were defrauded by for-profit colleges.
Meanwhile, for those who took on debt in exchange for public service, well, yeah, we’re breaking that promise because we can.
We’ve got to save money somewhere, and how can we cut taxes for Betsy and her brother if we don’t find ways for the little people to make it up?
And education doesn’t matter. It’s not as important as building a wall that Mexico is going to pay for except it’s not and so you are, and, when I say “you,” I mean military families who thought the government would at least watch their kids while they were out getting shot at.
Yes, even in Mitch McConnell’s district.
Someone asked the other day how the Deplorables could let Trump rip them off over and over again without raising an objection.
Well, here’s where Joel Osteen lives, and if you think he’s the only preacher/cult leader who lives high on the hog, here’s a roundup of others who believes the God helps those who help themselves.
Cult members don’t mind living in the mire while their leaders live in luxury. They never have.
I heard a coal miner interviewed, one of those who is blocking a railroad track until they get paid back wages, including the paychecks that bounced.
The interviewer asked him how he felt about coal these days and he observed that coal is one of those things where sometimes the market is up and sometimes it’s down.
And having grown up in the steel industry, I know he’s sort of right. Prices and markets fluctuate. You have layoffs, then you get hired back.
But coal is over, and if the miners in Ohio and Kentucky rejected Hillary Clinton for having the nerve to say so, they should at least — whether they think Trump lied or was simply mistaken — recognize that it’s not coming back.
However, I forgot.
Trump is never mistaken. Not — Jimmy Margulies points out — so long as he’s got his Sharpie.
And his henchmen. And his enablers.
And the suckers they exploit.
Once again, Trump didn’t invent this. He simply benefits from it:
(2012)
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