CSotD: Monday Wrap-up

Peter Schrank notes the almost-too-late move by the Americans to resupply Ukraine, and it’s good to get an outside view, because our internal reasons for the delay don’t much matter to people facing conquest.

That more pragmatic point of view makes “Better late than never” a dubious expression, which Schrank emphasizes by showing Ukraine on the brink of collapsing into the bear’s claws.

There are, of course, domestic issues around the rescue, as Kal Kallaugher illustrates.

One of the odd sources of insights I’ve stumbled across is the Substack of Jeff Jackson (D-NC), who has been gerrymandered out of the House and so is running for Attorney General in North Carolina. His status leaves him nothing to lose and so he provides an insider look at things, and his analysis of Mike Johnson’s actions and prospects feels right.

Johnson is in trouble for following his conscience instead of his orders, and Jackson lays out the peril, but adds an upbeat, if not exactly encouraging, observation at the end:

He also remarks that, while he admires Johnson’s willingness to put his career on the line in order to serve a more important principle, he doesn’t expect to agree with him on a lot of things in the future, and I feel the same way.

The majority of House Republicans continued to vote in Putin’s best interests and they may well go ahead and trash Johnson’s career. I don’t much care about Johnson’s future one way or the other, but I’d like to see a few more legislators start serving the country instead of serving the Freedom Caucus.

Juxtaposition of the Dogs

Clay Jones

Daniel Boris

I suppose a few Cruellas were inevitable as commentary on Krusty the Gnome’s cheerful description of having shot a puppy she hadn’t bothered to train.

Cruella de Vil — the real one, not the ersatz live version — was one of the best movie villains because, unlike the Wicked Witch of the West or Snow White’s stepmother, she wasn’t being cruel to hold onto power but simply because she was a horrible, vain, self-centered person.

Which you can say about a former beauty queen who honestly thinks living on a farm gives her permission to be brutal, stupid and irresponsible. I was pleased to see the social media posts from hunters, farmers and other rural types who called out her nonsensical view of how animals should be treated.

The reveal in all this being that she justifies her cruelty by explaining that this is just how life is on the farm, but then says, “I hated that dog.”

That is not an agrarian attitude.

Deb Milbrath offers this commentary, which is largely sarcasm, because, while Trump may believe in killing his opponents, Noem has made herself toxic.

I’ve been wrong before, and people will, for example, vote for someone who brags of sexual assault, but I suspect that if Trump had bragged, instead, about shooting a dog, we’d currently be experiencing the end of Hillary Clinton’s second term.

And at least Donald Trump didn’t mean to broadcast his barbaric view of how to treat women. He didn’t write about it in a book intending to boost his career. Cruelty aside, Noem revealed herself to be an idiot.

To the rest of us, that is. The governor had already been barred from a couple of Lakota reserves.

And the Unfortunate Timing Award goes to the Dogs of C-Kennel (Creators) for Sunday’s strip. I understand Will’s gag, that the dogs are looking for “forever homes,” but most adoption agencies, as well as the good breeders, are not just willing but eager to take back a dog whose placement isn’t working out.

If Kristi Noem weren’t such a horrible person, she would have admitted she couldn’t train the dog and re-homed it to someone with more patience and decency.

Yes, the Whole World is Indeed Watching

Global reaction to our re-supplying of Ukraine has been a lot more positive than the reaction to our re-supplying of Israel, and Peter Brookes points out the inconsistency of trying to feed people while enabling them to be bombed.

I’m sympathetic to Biden’s situation, because international relations can rarely turn on a dime, but, on the other hand, there comes a moment when, like Mike Johnson, you have to risk your career and do what’s right. I’m sure there is a lot going on behind the scenes, but whatever it is does not appear to be working.

Good thing for Biden he’s running against an insane megalomaniac who plans to open concentration camps and whose party is working on a national ban on abortion and several types of birth control.

I hope the kids who oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza are able to see the overall difference between Biden and Trump, but bear in mind that we elected Nixon largely because Humphrey was seen as an extension of LBJ’s Vietnam policies.

I should say “they” elected Nixon, since I was 18 and “old enough to kill, but not for voting” as Barry McGuire put it.

Our treatment of protesters has not gone unremarked around the world, as Cartoon Movement reports:

Rucke Souza — Brazil

Osama Hajjaj — Jordan

Antonio Rodriguez — Mexico

There’s plenty more here, and not many that think beating up kids and arresting them is good policy.

As for cutting through the coverage, the NYTimes sent a reporter to do more than just drive by the Columbia campus, and her multi-day observations echo what the student press has been saying, that while there are always a few show-offs and loudmouths in every crowd, the vast majority of demonstrators are peaceful.

Meanwhile, Tom Tomorrow points out the hypocrisy of demanding free speech for rightwingers while demanding that leftwing protests be shut down.

The argument in favor of true free speech is well-voiced by Robert Reich, who has been a university professor for decades and has, he notes, lived through campus demonstrations against “bigots like George Wallace when he ran for president, at the horrors of the Vietnam war, at university investments in South Africa and at efforts to prevent free speech.”

Debating our differences is an essential mission of universities and learning how is a critical part of growing up, even for those who never go to college.

It should be a lifelong skill.