Category: Humor

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 4, 2020

As many others have stated, Wrongo doesn’t wish COVID on anyone, and wishes Trump and the other Republicans with the virus the best. That said, there are now three Republican Senators who have just tested positive after being at an event with the president: Ron Johnson (R-WI), Tom Tillis (R-NC) and Mike Lee (R-UT).

The Amy Coney Barrett hearings are due to start on October 12th and conclude by October 22nd. Coney Barrett herself just tested negative for the virus, and barring complications, the sick Republicans probably could be back on the job in time for a vote at the end of the month.

The U.S. economy added 661,000 jobs last month, and the unemployment rate dipped to 7.9% from 8.4% in August. The data show that the rate of economic recovery is slowing down. September was the first jobs report since April that showed net hiring below 1 million new jobs. Here are a few stats:

  • More than half of the jobs lost in March-April have now been recovered, but that means there are still 10.7 million fewer people with jobs than before the pandemic.
  • At the current rate, it would take 16 months to recoup all those jobs. But that’s a poor assumption, since the pace of hiring is slowing down. Some jobs are never coming back.

On to cartoons. Reports from the White House were comforting:

Walter Reed doctors report all is normal:

 

Trump’s debate performance was worse than Nixon’s:

The silence of the Elephants:

Karma isn’t always a bitch. Sometimes it’s a virus:

 

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 27, 2020

Trump has announced that Amy Coney Barrett is his nominee to the Supreme Court. She will make the sixth Catholic member of the court.

This highlights the impact that Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society has had on the makeup of the Court. Leo selects Trump’s judicial nominees. In addition to his role at the Federalist Society, Leo is a board member of Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center. Attorney General Bill Barr and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone have also been board members.

No one should object to Catholics, or even to having a majority of them on the Court. But, the Court, like the Electoral College, have become the last bastions of power for the minority in America. As currently constituted, they will block the rise of a broad coalition of diverse progressives from power for at least another generation. On to cartoons:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 6, 2020

(The Wrongologist is taking a few days off. The next column will appear on Wednesday 9/9)

Wrongo has no idea if The Atlantic article with Trump’s remarks insulting our WWII dead is accurate or not. It has been corroborated by other news organizations, including FOX, and the AP. Despite Trump’s denials, no high-level military officer has said it didn’t or couldn’t have happened. OTOH, the event happened two years ago, and for something this explosive to be unmentioned, only to float to the surface 58 days before the presidential election, has a whiff of disinformation about it.

There’s no confusion about Trump’s announcement that the administration is now prohibiting federal agencies from conducting cultural sensitivity training. According to the report, this kind of training is “divisive, anti-American propaganda.” Trump feels that diversity training that focuses on educating participants about white privilege, critical race theory and the racist origins of the US apparently create “division and resentment” among federal employees. From Forbes:

“What is deeply problematic about this new ban is that the US has a habit of avoiding the country’s dark and racist past. Evading the issue will not make it go away…..In June of 2020, America was finally willing to look in the mirror, acknowledge the past and start the long process to make amends in order to move to a point of racial reconciliation and healing….But with the Trump administration’s…announcement, the racial equity that the country has been striving for will be stalled.”

It’s very difficult to see how this step will help Trump win in November. On to cartoons.

“Hands enlarged to show detail”:

What are the chances a Trump October vaccine announcement is legit?

Trump says killing a black man was justified because cops choked:

Trump’s interview with FOX’s Laura Ingraham included comparing cops shooting Jacob Blake to a golfer missing a short putt: “sometimes you choke”. But, Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back, and he was unarmed.

Can you spot what’s different?

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 30, 2020

WaPo’s Alexandra Petri restates Trump’s re-election strategy:

“Donald Trump has made America great again, and he will make it great again, again, if reelected, but right now, Joe Biden and the Democrats are ruining America and filling it with chaos. So don’t you think it’s time for a change?”

Her piece is pretty funny, you should read it. The internet is also asking: Why is vigilante murder an appropriate response to property damage, but property damage isn’t an appropriate response to vigilante murder?

We can’t let Trump highjack the narrative away from our other major problems: Consider that stocks in the US hit all-time highs this week, but another 1 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. This shows that employers continued to eliminate mind-boggling numbers of jobs, five months into the pandemic. One result is that 12 million people have lost employer-sponsored health insurance since February due to losing their jobs.

Our economy remains far worse than it was in January. The Fed’s weekly economic index suggests that the economy is still more deeply depressed than it was at any point during the 2008 financial crisis. The stock market rise is driven by only a small number of technology giants (Apple, Google, Amazon, and others). And the share prices of these companies have very little to do with their current profits, let alone the state of the economy in general.

Trump has not offered a solution for any of this, because he doesn’t need an answer if you think rioting and looting are more important. On to cartoons.

Why the stock market’s up when everything else is down:

Guess which side thinks Kaepernick is a traitor, but Rittenhouse, the shooter is a patriot?

 

Trump says he’s not going down with the ship:

We left the reality-based world last week:

Some think that professional athletes shouldn’t say anything about BLM:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 23, 2020

In his speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Biden said he’ll be an “ally of the light”. He said, “Make no mistake, united, we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.”

Donald Trump called it the “darkest and gloomiest convention in American history”.

He and the Republicans get their shot starting on Monday. Will the GOP convention be dark and gloomy? Of course! After all, this is the guy who gave us the “American Carnage” inauguration speech.

He’s the guy who said “send them back” about four American Congresswomen who were dark-skinned US citizens. The guy who last week praised QAnon, the conspiracy theory movement that thinks the government is being secretly run by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. He’s the guy who tear-gassed a peaceful crowd so he could walk to a church for a photo-op. This is the guy who sent secret police into cities.

He’s the guy who wants to be re-elected, even if he has to cheat to win. He wants to send law enforcement officers to polling places on election day, something that’s illegal.

Trump, the self-described law-and-order president, will deliver his acceptance speech from the White House, something that is illegal for everyone in any administration except the president and vice president. Melania will deliver her speech from the Rose Garden.

But, the darkest and gloomiest thing is that the most negative, hateful person to have ever entered American politics will be re-nominated by the GOP. His campaign will include a very large dose of us vs. them, lies, hate, and racism. On to cartoons.

Conventions compared:

GOP convention schedule:

How the election’s effort to find common ground will go:

What to expect with mail-in ballots:

Back to school means new tests:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 16, 2020

What have you heard about the storm that tore through Iowa? From the WaPo:

“The scope and breadth of the disaster is still being calculated, but by some estimates, more than 10 million acres, or 43 percent, of the state’s soybean and corn crops have been damaged. A quarter of a million Iowans are still without power.…So far, the only elected leader calling for a presidential disaster declaration is Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D)….Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) and Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley and Jodi Ernst have toured some disaster sites, focusing on crop damage, but have remained silent when it comes to demanding national help.”

It hasn’t gotten much coverage on the east coast, although there wasn’t a lot of coverage for Connecticut’s struggle with TS Isaias. The lack of media attention and a federal response are both troubling.

Wouldn’t it be a good idea for Biden-Harris to call for disaster aid, and arrange a visit this week?

On to cartoons. Trump takes personal control of mail-in voting:

No Post Office for you:

Mailbox bashing is usually done by young punks, not old thugs:

Essential weapon against Fascism:

Senate left town. You just have to hold on, because they have to rest:

MAGA irony:

 

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 26, 2020

Possibly lost in the “Terrorist Antifa Moms” news out of Portland last week was the thought that we continually say things like this:

  • Another new low for Trump.
  • How dare he?
  • Trump flaunts the Constitution.

In the past, other presidents have used governmental authority for political ends, but no other president has used a combination of the FBI/DHS/ATF and private mercenaries to literally beat down our First Amendment rights. Who’s stepping forward to stop him?

Without a principled Congress, nothing will stop him. The Republican Party steadfastly remains unshocked by his behavior. The Democratic Party can hold all the hearings it wants. It will never make a dent in Trump’s behavior. The current national dumpster fire is 100% owned by the GOP.

From Trump’s perspective, he’s doing exactly what he’s certain that he can get away with as President. He’s moved the goalposts, because our system wasn’t designed to hold back a President without principles. On to cartoons.

Protection of your Constitutional rights is now in the hands of Portland’s mothers:

Here’s the true cognitive test for Americans:

Who’s behind these secret police masks?

Do Americans understand how close we are to Trump declaring Martial Law?

Can Trump win on this debate question?

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 19, 2020

RIP Rep. John Lewis. He was Wrongo’s contemporary. On our bookshelves, we have Lewis’s memoir, “Walking with the Wind”, autographed to Ms. Right, with Lewis saying to her, “Keep the faith”. And we’ve tried to do just that.

There was no fight for Black civil rights in which John Lewis was not on the front lines. How it must have pained him to witness the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act by the John Roberts-led Supreme Court.

He was among the first Freedom Riders. A leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He was one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington.

Lewis was drawn to Dr. King’s theme of “redemptive suffering” to describe his willingness to sacrifice life and well-being for the sake of justice, described by MLK as a suffering that “opens us and those around us to a force beyond ourselves, a force that is right and moral, the force of righteous truth that is at the basis of human conscience.”

At the March on Washington, the-then 23 year old Lewis read a speech that had been heavily revised by Dr. King, Jr. and others who thought it too pugnacious. After editing, Lewis said:

“By the force of our demands, our determination and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy. We must say: ‘Wake up, America. Wake up!’ For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient.”

Lewis had his skull fractured at the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma in 1965. That bridge became a touchstone in Lewis’s life. He returned there often during his decades in Congress, bringing lawmakers from both parties to see where “Bloody Sunday” happened. He spent 34 years representing Atlanta and the state of Georgia in the US Congress, and as of now, remains on the ballot in Georgia’s 5th district.

John Lewis is the last of the March on Washington organizers to die, and as Charlie Pierce says:

“…he died at a time when the Voting Rights Act lies in ruins, and when Florida has found a clever way to bring back a poll tax. He died at a time of bad trouble, when the country is desperately in need of the “good trouble” he always recommended to his fellow citizens. He boycotted the inauguration of this president….”

Speaking of good trouble, a phrase that is irrevocably tied to Lewis, he tweeted this recently:

On to cartoons. Let’s hope he causes as much trouble as heaven allows:

Lewis crosses the bridge:

Finally, the school reopening debate continues. 71% of Americans say reopening the schools is risky:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – June 28, 2020

Why should you wear a mask? Wrongo’s FB friend (an MD) explained it well:

 “We don’t wear the mask to keep ourselves safe or even to make other people comfortable. We wear masks so the germs that spill out of the holes in our faces via water droplets and aerosols get caught in the mask and don’t get into other people’s eyes, nose or mouth or land on their wounds, clothes, hands or face….That way transmissions end with us. We stop the spread and can go about life almost like usual. Masks are also a great visual reminder of what’s going on…people stay back a bit. I actually wonder if that visual reminder is what so many people hate about masks. Do they want to pretend this is not happening or not a big deal or that they aren’t utterly failing society in every way?”

From Pew Research: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are about twice as likely as Republicans and Republican leaners to say that masks should be worn always (63% vs. 29%). Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to say that masks should rarely or never be worn (23% vs. 4%).

Republicans also are less likely than Democrats to say they have worn masks in stores or other businesses always or most of the time in the past month.”

Fact Tank says that only 49% of conservative Republicans say they have worn a mask all or most of the time in the past month, compared with 60% of moderate Republicans.

All of this explains where the virus is expanding:

Wearing a mask is more threatening than an attack by terrorists:

Europe thinks we should wear masks:

A tough year gets tougher:

Times like these call for better drinking choices:

The presidential race is shaping up to be a real fight:

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Pandemic Is Getting Worse

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Green County WI – June 2020 photo by Keith D. Leman

Last Tuesday, VP Pence rejected the idea that the country was seeing a second spike in coronavirus cases as the pandemic continued. He wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave’”.  

Maybe he thinks that’s the case.

The US and the EU have comparable populations, but the current state of their respective COVID-19 outbreaks are vastly different. New data released by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that there are around 3,000 new COVID cases in the EU each day.

In America, we’re now recording about 30,000 new cases of the virus each day, ten times higher than Europe. And while some US politicians in the US say the difference is due to discrepancies in testing, the US and the EU are conducting roughly the same number of tests per million people.

And new cases are growing in the US. Here’s a look at the seven-day rolling average of new COVID cases in the EU and the US since March:

It looks like a second US wave is on its way, regardless of what Pence or Trump says. Everything out of the White House on the pandemic has been bullshĂ­t. The pandemic has revealed that we have no leadership, no self-control, and no willingness to sacrifice for the common good.

The federal government’s response to the virus has been misguided. We could have undertaken a national effort to produce N95 masks for every person. With those masks, which reduce the chances of inhaling the virus by 95%, along with proper instructions on how to wear and handle them, the country could have remained open, and people remained safe. Of course, that assumes mask wearing isn’t considered an affront to our freedoms.

Now, the country has opened back up. We are almost as ill-prepared as when the pandemic started. Many of us have gone back to our former ways, pretending the virus is gone. Yes, we can go back to work, but we need the protection of high-quality masks.

Here’s Calvin with some truth:

America is doomed.

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