CSotD: Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better
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‘If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said,
‘That they could get it clear?’
‘I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
As noted here the other day, there has been a prodigious amount of black ink spilled on cartoons since the non-release of the Epstein files, but I particularly like the teamwork in Kamensky’s vision, as Trump rolls out the documents in keeping with the law and Bondi immediately hides them in keeping with the rules.
The main rule being “To hell with the law.”
There is a move by Democratic legislators to try to hold Bondi in contempt for failing to fulfill the demands of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed by near-unanimous votes in Congress and signed into law by Donald Trump.
Whether because of careful laundering or wholesale blacking-out, it’s clear that the Justice Department has not released the files as the law demands.
It is interesting, Joe Heller points out, that Dear Leader is eager to have his name plastered all over the country except on those specific documents.
However, we’re assured that the files will be released eventually, but not right now, because they still need some more handwashing and application of black ink in order to protect the victims. Part of the controversy is that it’s not clear whether that means the victims of rape and sexual trafficking or the victims of getting caught in the act.
Maybe we’ll see the rest in two weeks, along with the GOP health plan and Trump’s tax forms and all the other things that will be released in two weeks.
And maybe that’s when we’ll see the 60 Minutes segment on prisoners sent to the CECOT prison, which had to be delayed at the last minute because the Trump administration declined to comment and brand-new boss Bari Weiss said the story couldn’t air without their on-the-record input.
Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent on the story, put out a memo to 60 Minutes staff pointing out that “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.”
Weiss told the press: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”
I don’t know that I want to see what’s left of Alfonsi’s work “when it’s ready,” but that’s assuming it will eventually air, which perhaps it will when we see the rest of the Epstein files, the GOP health plan and Trump’s taxes.
Juxtaposition of the Day
We may not have to wait much longer for things to boil over in the Caribbean, where the US is reportedly in the process of seizing another cargo ship and continuing to bomb small craft.
Kal isn’t the only observer to note that the great peace-prize winner is heading off to war, but he focuses on the lack of honesty and consistency, while Kearney reminds us of other futile attempts at gunboat diplomacy.
How bizarre has our reality become? Dr. Jack and Curtis drew this cartoon five years ago. That was well before Dear Leader announced his plans to build an actual Arc de Trompe, but they could already see the direction we were headed and who was swelling the ranks of that parade.
Of course, they’re in Africa. You can see things from a distance that we can’t see close up. Or something.
Prickly City resuscitates an oldie-but-goodie, just in time to blunt the joy of the season and distract from Venezuelan war crimes. Various rightwing sources have mentioned and celebrated the fact that you can say “Merry Christmas” because we’re deporting people who say “Feliz Navidad” and your employer has no right to tell you how to treat customers. Or so the conservatives insist.
This is today’s strip, so it’s running on the last day of Hannukah, which is one of those Happy Holidays no good American is ever supposed to publicly acknowledge. As Winslow says, it’s that time of year when we work to keep the country divided.
Of course we are a Christian nation, going back to the founding of our country at Plymouth Rock, which had nothing to do with those Catholics in Florida and the Southwest or the Anglicans in Virginia, but means the good religious Puritans of Massachusetts, who made it illegal to think that Christmas was merry or that it was a holiday at all, happy or not.
And who came to America seeking religious freedom, specifically the freedom to drive out people like Roger Williams and Ann Hutchinson who believed the wrong religious things.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Dear Leader has designated illicit fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” because, he says, “Two to three hundred thousand people die every year, that we know of,” from the drug. So if you’ve been wondering why the streets seem increasingly empty, it’s because roughly one percent of the US population dies of fentanyl every 12 months.
Okay, Dear Leader may have invented that number. But, still, it’s a number, and numbers matter.
Numbers are how we set policy. F’rinstance, gunshot deaths in 2024 were below 45,000, while deaths from fentanyl were 48,000 (real numbers, not Trump numbers). So if you want some action about the proliferation of guns in our society, you need to go shoot 3,000 more people. Then guns will also be weapons of WMD and we’ll do something about them.
Maybe bomb some duck hunters or something.
Meanwhile, however, there are other issues to be considered, and while Dear Leader has ordered marijuana reduced to a Schedule C parking ticket level, Ramirez reminds us that Reefer Madness is a very real killer of young people.
Despite the DEA stating “No deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported.”
It’s not for lack of effort.
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