CSotD: Frogs, Toadies, and Other Curses
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We’ve got some grim news today, so let’s start with something lightweight, a good description of Dear Leader’s newest vacuous blonde, which is not only a description of the new Press Secretary but her only apparent qualification. Katie Zacharia may have been nervous when she fluffed her debut, but may have also been nervous when, according to the Wall Street Journal, she took and flunked the California bar exam.
A lot of people flunk their first bar exam; it’s no big deal. But holding yourself out to be a lawyer without having eventually passed the bar, though only a misdemeanor, is the sort of thing that could disqualify you from ever becoming a for-real attorney.
I guess we’re going to see how it plays out for Katie, but she’s already the victim of an act of backhanded kindness from Clay Jones, who, in the essay accompanying his cartoon, explains
“Former English Prime Minister Liz Truss was challenged to outlast a head of lettuce. Here, I’m being a bit more generous, and I’m challenging Katie Zachariah to outlast a head of cabbage, which lasts longer than lettuce and is probably at least a little bit smarter.”
Truss only lasted 49 days as Prime Minister, but that’s more than four times longer than Anthony Scaramucci lasted as Trump’s press secretary, and even Scaramucci is cracking wise at Katie’s expense.
It would be a lot funnier if Dear Leader didn’t seem to have filled his cabinet along the same lines.
Take Scott Bessent. Please.
Bessent’s job as Treasury Secretary is to blandly deny the obvious and join his master in declaring the economy to be in excellent shape, despite horrific job reports and climbing inflation.
It takes some verbal gymnastics. For instance, he explained that jobs report to CNBC by saying “”After the deportations that we’ve seen and the closing of the border, we don’t need to produce as many jobs.”
Well, you’re doing a helluva job of that, pal.
But a friend was telling me of a young family she knows in which the mother, a teacher, is home alone all week with four kids, because the only job her husband could find was so far away that, given gas prices, they can’t afford for him to commute. Instead, he shares a one-bedroom apartment with three similarly situated guys who take turns sleeping on the bed, a cot, a couch and the floor. That’s four families who probably don’t agree with Scott’s sunny view of the job market.
As for inflation, a report I read said nobody would welcome the news, but I did, because October’s inflation is what sets the cost-of-living change for Social Security, and so I’ll get a raise of about $72.
Yeah, yeah, it’s not a raise because it just keeps up with inflation, but my current check hasn’t done that, and, besides, the raise comes in January, by which time I expect we’ll have a Congress in which lickspittles and toadies no longer hold majorities.
Speaking of spittle-licking toadies, Dear Leader has taken off the mask and embraced his Russian bestie, and America slowed down Ukraine’s Starshield access so that they could no longer get warnings of incoming Russian missiles in time to sound sirens and are unable to guide the drones that they have used to halt Russia’s bloody invasion of their territory.
Word this morning is that access has been restored, but I wouldn’t relax yet. How often has the war in Iran been settled, so far?
Meanwhile, the quarrel is whether helping Putin kills Ukrainian civilians is the work of Trump or of Elon Musk, who owns the Starlink/Starshield system. Morland suggests that Putin is having trouble deciding which of them is his most loyal ally, but the joke is that he owns them both.
Konopacki marked the anniversary of a Frederick Douglass speech about the Fugitive Slave Act, an outrageous law that had an effect its sponsors hadn’t anticipated, because it sparked a more active pushback against slavery and hastened our final confrontation with the peculiar institution.
Coincidentally, last night Joyce Vance cited the metaphor of frogs sitting in slowly boiling water until it kills them, saying
“It’s exhausting to watch the attacks on democracy unfold every day, especially if you spend much time around people who behave like nothing horrible is happening. I hope you know it’s not just you. It’s all of us.”
The combination reminded me of one of my heroes, John Jones, the fugitive slave who ran the Underground Railroad in Elmira, NY. He was an extraordinary man, but what surprised me in researching him was to discover that everybody in Elmira knew what he was up to and supported him, not just covertly but publicly.
I found another clipping at the Chemung County History Museum that told how, when a group of slave-catchers came to town, someone ran out to a field where fugitives were working while they waited for Jones to put them on the train to Canada, and warned them to keep a low profile until the villains were gone.
Everybody knew those fugitive slaves were around. They even knew where to find them in a hurry. And while nobody bothered to tell the slave-catchers, it was clearly no secret in the streets of Elmira.
John Jones was a hero, but he didn’t act in secret and he didn’t have to act alone. Elmira was a town full of heroes who apparently were well aware that he saved hundreds of fugitives, which was, let us not forget, a federal offense.
“Thus saith the Lord: Let My people go, that they may serve Me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs. And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants and upon thy people, and into thine ovens and into thy kneading troughs. And the frogs shall come up both on thee and upon thy people and upon all thy servants.”
We are plagued with too many frogs and toadies. Make the choice to be, instead, a hero.
Keep the faith.
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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