CSotD: Miscellaneous Monday
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Not sure what motivated Bennett on this one, but I know why it resonated with me. For some half a century, I imposed journalistic ethics on myself and did not register with a political party. Granted, I was generally in sympathy with one over the other, but I never voted a straight ticket and some of my votes might surprise you.
Then a few years ago I realized that I was retired and it didn’t make sense to pretend to be neutral anymore, so I went ahead and signed up to be absolutely inundated with junk mail every day for the rest of my life.
Between my college alumni association and my chosen political party, there is no reason to fear for the future of the timber and paper industry or for the continued success of the USPS.
And here I thought we were headed for a paper-free society.
Wish I’d had these yesterday:
Adrian Raeside elaborates on my rant about the “unique” nature of snowflakes.
While Ben Jennings offers another view of TIME magazine’s proposed salute to the techbros.
If you missed yesterday’s collection of rants, go back and imagine these amongst them.
Broelman is not the only commentator to suspect that the entire Venezuela caper is a distraction, but Thursday might be a good time for everyone in Caracus to keep their heads down, since Friday is the deadline for releasing the Epstein files.
Meanwhile, the fringe’s pushback defending Trump’s apparent murders or war crimes is to resurrect the Iraq and Afghan wars and various overlapping incidents in the Middle East. There were, indeed, voices raised against Obama’s actions, though many came from the people currently defending Trump and Hegseth.
For my part, I’m gonna step aside and let the Cato Institute fight over Congressional oversight with the American Enterprise Institute.
It’s worth pointing out that the AEI explanation was written by John Yoo, more famous for having written the Torture Memos that justified treating prisoners in ways John McCain warned us were cruel and inefficient.
But whatever you may conclude from their discussion, I’d point out that, if Jesse James got away with robbing a bank, that didn’t mean you couldn’t arrest Pretty Boy Floyd and Clyde Barrow for trying the same thing later on.
You always have to read Molina’s cartoons knowing that he was forced to flee Nicaragua over his cartooning. The factor comes to the forefront in this depiction of Maduro, whose aide says “It’s no use, chief: It doesn’t fit.”
Maduro having clearly defrauded his electorate, and having imposed harsh laws on dissenters, is no angel and, as Molina puts it, not much of a “victim.”
Sometimes you need a scorecard to know whether we’re assailing a villain or propping one up, but it evens out in the end: We’ve also come to the defense of some good people.
De Gaulle, perhaps, or Jose Marti. Forrest Gregg. Jerry Kramer. To name a few.
Meanwhile, I’m so old that I can remember when there used to be a major power operating on the far side of the globe and it took up a fair amount of our diplomatic energy. Something about table tennis and Canadian wheat, I seem to recall.
Now we don’t hear a lot about Xi, except when Dear Leader mentions how much he likes him and how they’re working out trade deals and how he has decided to allow China access to some highly advanced chips that should allow them to greatly upgrade their technical capabilities.
Ramirez suggests a missile, but I’m expecting less a bang than a whimper.
Mellor offers a not-so-helpful suggestion. The worst part is that it’s not that hard to believe something like this could take place, though perhaps not quite so directly. Or perhaps just like this.
Actually, the best/worst part of Mellor’s cartoon is how readily he captured Kash Patel’s googly eyes, which brings up the disquieting question of whether those are an ethnic element or he’s just funny looking. OTOH, like LBJ’s hound-dog ears, you can’t ignore them, either.
Wexler does a commendable caricature, accurate without being insulting, with the FBI label for the truly thick-headed who won’t recognize the man. However, anyone who doesn’t recognize Patel would also be unaware of how he is commandeering private planes and deputizing his security detail for personal errands.
At the moment, the challenge is to get those foxes out of the chicken coop. Between Patel and Noem, we seem to have a petty theft issue amongst the staff.
Yeah, I know: It’s like one big family.
Juxtaposition of What’s In Your Wallet?
The Aussies are taking offense at Dear Leader’s cunning plan to keep doubleplusbadthought out of the United States by canceling all tourism.
I’ve been in a couple of conversations in the past 48 hours and heard that the entire world thinks we’re dangerous jackasses and they don’t want to visit us anyway, mostly because they’re scared of being arrested and jailed for having said about Trump the same things Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and JD Vance were saying about him five years ago.
It’s surely working: Canadian tourism is down, costing US companies billions in lost revenues, and others have shrugged off the upcoming World Cup because they’re reluctant to test our system.
Australian cartoonists have a different challenge to deal with at the moment, but I haven’t seen much reaction to the Bondi Beach murders yet. Perhaps they’re trying to come up with something more than “Isn’t it sad?”
However, Christopher Downes makes the important point that somebody did step in to save lives and, he’s casting it not as a salute to this particular person but as a reflection of the positive spark within each of us.
Being less generous myself, I’m interested in the fact that the man is a Syrian immigrant. I’m sure the ethnicity of the assailants won’t be ignored, but I wonder if his will?
That is, if one Afghan who shoots a National Guardsman means all Afghans are guilty, what does it mean when one Syrian steps up as a hero?
Well, I can dream.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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