When I first saw Nick Anderson (Tribune)‘s latest, I thought it was another slightly-late Thanksgiving piece, since it seemed half the cartoons yesterday depicted people gathered around a spread board, and half the cartoons today seem like Thanksgiving gags that should have run yesterday.
However, he offers a solid hit on Trump’s War Against Fairness, in which he declares that qualified women and minorities shall not have an advantage over unqualified white men and Friends of the Boss, and he’s proving his sincerity by truly seeking out people with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever and, in several cases, a stunning inability to fulfill the basic requirements of their positions.
He has, to be fair, appointed a couple of women, including an educational secretary who lied about having a degree in education and a director of security who has been hailed by Russia as a true friend of their regime. But I’m hearing complaints on social media that he promised to appoint a Libertarian and the best he’s come up with is Brainworm Bobby, who doesn’t qualify. In any possible way.
A good piece by Anderson and nothing to do with Thanksgiving, including no possible reason for us to be thankful, except that he has pointed out what Charlie Sykes keeps saying:
You’re not the crazy ones.
And I’m a little reluctant to comment on Lisa Benson (Counterpoint)‘s Thanksgiving commentary because pointing out her inability to do any homework seems repetitive. There are a couple of cartoonists at each edge of the fringe whose work I ignore because it doesn’t even raise a reasonable point with which to disagree.
But this will get some use because complaining about the National Debt is a popular and worthwhile theme, and it will likely be picked up by editors who may not be aware that the economic proposals about to be enacted are going to make this punkin pie look like one of those little ones you used to be able to buy for a dime and eat like a candy bar.
Only now they cost a buck because doesn’t everything?
Anyway, it’s one thing to be wrong and it’s quite another to assist in disinforming the nation and potentially worsening the problem you are addressing. Political cartoonists should be journalists and journalists should do their homework.
One should, however, give cartoonists the benefit of the doubt, so I’m assuming that the child in Mike Lester (AMS)‘s cartoon got cut from the biology club, not because the club has a roster limit — of course it wouldn’t — but because her grasp of sexuality and biology is so wrong-headed that she simply couldn’t qualify.
Same thing used to happen back in the early 60s with white kids who had been taught at home that Negroes didn’t belong in their schools. Several newspapers have since apologized for their roles in propagating the ignorance and prejudice of the time.
Some folks say, “We didn’t have those people until a few years ago,” but the obvious answer is that, a few years ago, those people were afraid to speak up, or they didn’t realize why their lives were so miserable.
But come on: Renee Richards underwent reassignment surgery and began to fight for her rights as a woman in 1975, nearly 50 years ago, and she got plenty of media notice at the time.
It was certainly no secret, and it’s only a mystery today if you make a genuine effort not to understand it.
But, as I’ve noted before, if Lyndon Johnson had put the Civil Rights Act up for a referendum in 1964, it would likely have failed.
Fortunately, as Kal Kallaugher points out, the effect of Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on our trade partners is going to be a great deal harder to misunderstand.
Not only will it greatly expand that pie in Lisa Benson’s cartoon, but we’ll see more expensive costs for nearly everything, including the groceries whose prices were such a sore point in this year’s elections.
And as has been pointed out before, not only will imported products like tomatoes, automobiles and cell phones be more expensive, but the predictable retaliation by our trade partners will choke off our own export businesses.
It may not matter how much things cost if you have been laid off.
The good news being that this is such a phenomenally foolish action that at least some of the impact is likely to be felt before the midterms.
And speaking of phenomenal economic foolishness, I note that Tommy Tuberville, who has been hailed as the stupidest member of the US Senate, is on his high horse objecting to the $211 billion we’ve spend on the war in Ukraine.
Problem being that the dimwit cited what Russia has spent, not what we’ve spent. The other problem being that he doesn’t realize that what we really have spent on the war was spent here, not there, and that a very large portion of the military supplies we’ve committed were made in his home state of Alabama.
So he’s rallying to cut well-paying jobs among his own constituents. Smooth move, coach.
Juxtaposition of the Microeconomic
These strips made me wonder if any stores still hold those Black Friday sales starting in the wee hours after Thanksgiving?
I remember them, certainly, but what with the difficulty stores are having in hiring workers, I think they’ve abandoned ruining holidays and prompting people to quit. In fact, I’ve seen more stores closed on the holiday itself, which I consider a positive return to old values.
What I’ve mostly seen is businesses having “Black Friday” sales for a week or so leading up to Thanksgiving, which likely provides the same profits without nearly so much overtime.
The Black Friday Plague has spread to Britain without bringing a Thursday holiday along with it, but as Guy Venables suggests, the promise of savings is more important than actual savings.
I’ll admit to having benefited by finishing my Christmas shopping with Black Friday sales over the past week, but I’ll also admit that the savings, while real, weren’t all that remarkable.
Now, to end on a positive note, here’s some cheerful news from First Dog on the Moon not about the economy but, rather, about our debt to the universe:
