There is an annular solar eclipse happening as I write this, but while Samson’s Dark Side of the Horse (AMS) is aptly named this morning, by the time most Americans see the strip, the reminder will be too late.
I thought about pausing to take a look, but we’ve got partly cloudy and I’d have to drive to a view of the eastern horizon so never mind.
But I see on the Internets that Helsinki is sunny and it’s 12:54 pm there, so his hometown readers are likely out doing whatever you have to do to look at an annular eclipse without frying your retinas.
A different take on the saying that timing is everything in comedy.
Samson isn’t the only one making astronomy-based jokes. Ed Wexler takes a moment to salute Louie Gohmert-Pyle (R-Tx) who, honest to God, asked US Forest Service Associate Deputy Chief Jennifer Eberlien:
I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they have found that the moon’s orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth’s orbit around the sun. We know there’s been significant solar flare activity. And so, is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM (Bureau of Land Management) can do to change the course of the moon’s orbit or the Earth’s orbit around the sun? Obviously, that would have profound effects on our climate.
She replied that she’d have to get back to him on that. She’d forgotten to bring a butterfly net to the committee hearing.
But the timing issue extends to more than just eclipses, and Andy Marlette (Creators) illustrates the point I made yesterday that Kamala Harris is going to catch hell from both sides.
It’s understandable that the Outer Leftganistan branch of the Democratic Party would attack her, since (A) they felt she was asking people to stay in places where their lives would be at risk and
(B) Democrats employ a careful crabs-in-a-bucket policy to make sure they don’t overstay their welcome in either the executive or legislative branches.
The cartoons from Rightsburg are much more fun to parse:
Lisa Benson (WPWG), for example, attacks Harris for having reversed the GOP/Trump policy of open borders, and destroying four years of welcoming refugees and immigrants without question.
America has always been at war with Eastasia and has always welcomed Central American refugees.
While Dana Summers (Tribune) explains that the refugee crisis is a result of 140 long days of the Biden Presidency.
We need a chart of what those 140 days have caused and what they haven’t had a chance to affect.
We never had a refugee crisis during the war with Oceana but it’s deep-rooted now, while, on the other hand, the Covid crisis was actually solved during the Trump administration by a careful, long-term process of denial that is only now bearing fruit.
Summers’ take makes a good Juxtaposition with RJ Matson’s cartoon suggesting there are indeed some deep and tangled roots, and that simply pulling up the dandelions isn’t likely to stop new ones from sprouting.
Which brings us to a contemplation of the rich folks, and we’ll open with Joy of Tech’s take on the announcement by Jeff Bezos that he’d like to go into space and can afford to do so.
There have been several political cartoons of Bezos in a space suit, but this one is different in that they make an actual point beyond Bezos in a space suit.
Fancy that.
Rich folks are in the news for more than their conspicuous consumption, as John Darkow points out, and I like his approach because he ties in both the vandalism issue of dishonest tax avoidance as well as the intentions of the Founders, who are held sacred by the people who, out of the other sides of their mouths, explain why lower tax rates for the wealthy create jobs.
And, y’know, trips into space.
But as the Pro Publica reports indicate, them sunsabitches aren’t even paying the lower rates we gave them, and I expect this revelation to continue to roil the nation until Kim Kardashian finally decides to divorce Kanya.
What? She did?
Okay, let’s drop this story and get on to one that matters.
The issue will continue to be debated over in Leftganistan, but I suspect the bulk of the nation sees it in the terms Matt Davies (AMS) suggests, that the plutocrats have always found clever ways to exploit the tax code.
It’s hardly the only way in which money buys privilege: Anyone who can afford a lawyer can plea-bargain a speeding ticket into failing to observe a sign, which is not a moving violation and so won’t endanger your license.
And, besides, if you can shell out $750 for a lawyer to spend 10 minutes on a letter to the judge, you can peel off $250 to pay a fine that would devastate one of the common people.
Which is why I prefer Joe Heller’s take: It’s in keeping with yesterday’s discussion of simple persuasion. People already know that rich people take advantage of the system. That’s not news and it’s not persuasive.
Instead, persuade them that the rich folks are ripping them off and keeping them from getting their chins above water.
Biden said something in the State of the Union about increasing IRS funding specifically in order to track down rich tax cheats, though nobody seemed to pick up on it.
This might be a good time to do that.
Finally, Jimmy Margulies (KFS) is hardly the only cartoonist to play upon the difficulty of hiring stock boys and burger flippers, though he doesn’t put the blame on the $300 unemployment benefits that none of these low-wage, entry-level people qualify for.
Marketplace had an interesting report on the phenomenon that put some real numbers behind all those anecdotes.
There’s more and it’s definitely worth a read.
As to those never-employed, we used to walk to our minimum wage jobs barefoot in the snow uphill both ways, and shame on them for thinking money doesn’t go as far as it used to.
(I need to update these figures)
Goombert needs to get out and rake some forests.