CSotD: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
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Rall suggests that perhaps our national priorities are out of whack, though it might be a better world if they were this openly explained. It would also be a better country if someone, anyone spoke this plainly to Dear Leader. However, it would be difficult to explain why funds that Congress approved for medical research and health services were being redirected to the Defense Department.
Though we should consider efficiency: The students of the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School aren’t in any danger of acquiring Alzheimers, so why waste money researching it?
And speaking of efficiency, I mentioned the other day the practical costs of renaming things, so I hope that, when we paid to print up new stationary and forms to put Dear Leader’s name on things, someone stashed the old versions in a vault somewhere, because it would be a shame to have to spend all that money again to un-rename it all in 2028, when the old coot shuffles out of whatever is left of the White House.
If you agree with Zyglis that these are signs of derangement, I won’t argue otherwise, but bear in mind that even — perhaps “especially” — a deranged president has the veto power. November 3 is looking very, very good for the country, but only as a sort of sea anchor to stop us from drifting too much further off course.
It ain’t over until the White House is back in responsible hands.
I like the way Brown’s doctor phrases it: We’re hoping for improvement in November, and, to be frank, we really, really need it. But the cure will have to wait two more years. The priority now is improvement so we’re still around in two years.
My best friend from high school, Bill, died at 60 of congestive heart failure. He couldn’t get on the list for a heart transplant because he couldn’t or wouldn’t quit smoking. We’re at the point where we need to make that kind of difficult, intermediate change in order to even hope for a more permanent cure.
In the words of Phil Ochs, “This country is too young to die.”
On a related note, here’s Dear Leader explaining to Xi Jinping the parts of the Constitution that he either wouldn’t follow, or couldn’t bear to.
His failure is leading the Republicans to a disaster in the midterms, and they know it and are shifting away from him as if he were a drunkard juggling hand grenades. Much as they have sucked up to him in the past, they foresee the impending crash and dearly wish he would stop contributing to it. His predictable, narcissistic response is not to reform but to push back in a series of venomous social media attacks.
Trump wants to be seen as a tough guy, despite his pampered childhood and series of business failures, and so he acts tough and buddies up to tough guys like Vladmir Putin, Victor Orban, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping.
Blitt suggests that the tactic doesn’t work, and that real tough guys don’t have a lot of respect for groupies and hangers-on.
or phony, would-be tough guys in ill-fitting trench coats.
Telnaes had a productive week. Here she mocks an entire family of would-be tough guys, who are about to find out just how tough voters can be when they gather in large groups.
She quotes the part of Trump’s boastful, arrogant speech to the UN in which he bragged about the coup he staged in Venezuela, and declared of their oil, “to the victor belong the spoils.”
He at least had the honesty to say his intention was to seize oil, though he cloaked it in an unconvincing reference to the US’s need to prevent tyranny or some such.
Whether he fooled anyone at the UN this past week, he hadn’t fooled many cartoonists in January, when he sent American troops to arrest Nicolás Maduro for drug trafficking, although a year earlier, he had pardoned Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year sentence on drug trafficking charges.
The Trump administration has explained that Hernández’s jury conviction for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine was a set-up by the Biden administration and that Hernández had been “treated very harshly and unfairly,” though he was not jerked out of his bed in the middle of the night, manacled and, with his wife, spirited away on a helicopter.
Juxtaposition of December, 2025
Both American cartoonists had the same image come to mind, but Luckovich emphasized the American plan to seize production while Bagley dwelt more on the corporations being offered a shot at profiting from the vast oil fields.
Luckovich may have been closer to the bullseye, in that several corporations have backed away from the deal, in part because of the cost of rebuilding Venezuela’s dilapidated oil systems and in part because dealing with a nation in such fraught political status seemed like a good way to spend a lot and wind up with nothing.
Brodner indicated his doubts about Alejandro Betancourt, who emerged as the Pentagon’s go-to guy in the appropriation of Venezuelan oil. Betancourt, it should be noted, has never been convicted of anything and is, apparently, what the Simpson’s would call “a legitimate businessman.”
However, between issues of secrecy and questions of frankness, the entire matter has remained largely unknown, or, at least, it had been until this week, when the Guardian published an in-depth investigation about who’s who and who got what in this convoluted political/profit-driven business.
Meanwhile, over on the funny pages, Danae bemoans the fact that she’s only a billionaire in her dreams, but she should be grateful, because if she were a real-life plutocrat, none of the social media platforms would publish Non Sequitur.
That’s based on the way YouTube, TikTok, X and Meta have refused to accept paid ads for the “Musk” documentary, which will open in a few brave theatres.
I ain’t no billionaire, and I ain’t no billionaire’s son, but I can show you something your billionaire won’t.
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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