CSotD: 24 Hours of Unexpected News

(Clay Bennett – CTFP)

 

(Michael Ramirez – Creators)

 

(Gary Varvel – Creators)

Clay Bennett best sums up yesterday’s unexpected resignation of Andrew Cuomo, though I got a chuckle out of Michael Ramirez’s take.

Political cartoons aren’t required to be funny, but it’s a nice bonus if you can slip in a laugh without distracting from your point, which is why I favor his cartoon over Varvel’s, in which the point is muddled, suggesting that Cuomo was forced to resign not for what he did but because his party turned on him with the aid of the MSM.

Which, of course, may be Varvel’s opinion, but Ramirez is no fan of liberal politics, either, and the pair make up an example of “Show me, don’t tell me.”

The King Kong reference is somewhat obvious, given that Cuomo was (well, and still is for 13 days) governor of the Empire State and that most people seem to think Manhattan is the entire state anyway. The Empire State Building does come to mind.

But what Bennett and Ramirez have in common is crucial: Cuomo had no options, and, while Ramirez suggests he held on (heh) as long as he could, Bennett does, in my mind, an even better job by sticking a pin into the stuffed shirt that (as Varvel notes) continues to proclaim his innocence even as he struts — not slinks — off into history.

I would add that Cuomo standing up to his chest in a garbage can would not be nearly as telling as having those executive shoes and socks jutting out over the edge. One of the drawbacks to always looking like you stepped out of a bandbox is how ridiculous you look when that dignity falls to pieces.

On a personal note, I was hoping he’d drag it out longer, because a few more weeks of nightly updates on his continued clinging to office might help explain to younger people why, after constant, unchanging nightly reports on Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s failing health, Chevy Chase’s running joke was so funny.

Oh well. I guess if Poor Persecuted Andrew was tired of being a distraction, we shouldn’t blame him for ringing down the curtain on this farce.

 

Juxtaposition of the Day #2

(Bill Bramhall)

 

(Clay Jones)

Asked by Bramhall, answered by Jones.

Bill Bramhall is a relatively cynical fellow — which is good in his profession — and so he can’t possibly have been serious in suggesting that a challenge has been laid on the table. Jones is much more straightforward in his dogs’ observation that rules of appropriate behavior are only applied on one side of the aisle.

Cuomo, after all, is from the same state as Sen Kirsten Gillibrand, who engineered the expulsion of a fellow Democrat from the Senate for simply joking, at a time when he was making a living as a professional comedian, about pretending to grope someone who was in a flak jacket.

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to shelter Matt Gaetz despite not only evidence of his patronizing underage prostitutes but his showing of porn on the Senate floor during breaks.

I suspect Gaetz could patronize underage prostitutes on the Senate floor during breaks and his party would simply gaze at the ceiling while sweetly praising the tourists from whom they hid a few months earlier.

After all, even math, never mind science, doesn’t stir them to behave honorably. Ann Telnaes marks the heartless party-line loyalties of a Senator who stands by his team, even as Covid infections rage throughout his home state.

A state, she reminds us, that he abandoned for the sunny shores of Mexico when a freeze cut electricity to him and his neighbors, at least 151 of whom died while he luxuriated in Cancun (other sources put the number closer to 700).

Nice change of the rollerbag to a tombstone, BTW.

Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues to forbid mask mandates in schools and fundraises with anti-Fauci, anti-mask paraphernalia, while his state petitions the feds for 300 ventilators and a church ran a vaccination clinic after losing six members to Covid in 10 days.

Oh, and he’s selling that stuff at WinRed, the Republican counterpart to ActBlue. WinRed is being accused of fundraising irregularities that could trigger an investigation.

If anybody gave a damn.

 

Jack Ohman (WPWG) isn’t the first to point out the bald hypocrisy of Republican opposition to vaccination cards, but, while others note things like drivers’ licenses, Ohman focuses on the dubious need for IDs to vote, which is less about proving you are you than it is about showing who you are, the GOP in various states accepting hunting licenses and so forth, but not student IDs.

Fraud may have been virtually nonexistent in the 2020 election, but the GOP seems determined to corrupt the 2022 elections by limiting who can vote.

And, y’know, by actual malfeasance.

 

“How many deaths will it take, ’til he knows
that too many people have died?”

Steve Brodner continues to document the horrors. You might think that, while they could ignore this or that random death in their state, the Texas GOP would snap to attention when an official with their own party succumbed.

You might think that, but you would be wrong.

“GOP Leader” might be pushing it — Apley was on the Dickinson City Council and is described as “an official” with the state party.

 

He was 45. His son, Reid, seen here, is now five months old. Reid and his mother have also been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the statements of sympathy from local and state GOP organizations failed to mention his cause of death.

And so it goes.

 

All is not lost. It’s just been misplaced.

The Senate has managed to pass a slightly truncated infrastructure bill, and Pat Bagley nails it with a cartoon that ties into the concept of infrastructure with a reference to a classic photo, while noting that Republican cooperation seems to have been reluctant.

The Democrats then capped things with an all-nighter, passing their budget at four this morning, and, when I say “their” budget, it was a 50-49 victory and you can pretty well guess who voted how.

Well, the GOP may not want to celebrate, but who’s askin’ them?