Humor – Page 6 – The Wrongologist

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – March 12, 2023

Let’s talk about Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). The tech industry’s go-to lender just became the second-largest bank failure in US history. The bank’s customers withdrew $42 billion from their accounts on Thursday. That’s $4.2 billion an hour, or more than $1 million per second for ten hours straight.

We ancient, moss-covered former bankers call this a bank run. That occurs when a large number of customers of a bank withdraw their deposits simultaneously over concerns about the bank’s solvency.

Nearly half of all venture-backed US companies were SVB customers. We’re unsure why the run started, but on Thursday, several Venture Capital firms started telling their client companies that pulling cash from SVB was prudent, and the run began.

While bank deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) up to $250,000, few of SVB’s deposits, by value, were FDIC insured, since its customers were overwhelmingly corporations with much more than $250,000 in the bank. By Friday, there was no cash left in SVB’s coffers. In fact, the cash on hand was negative, to the tune of $958 million.

Do you remember when Trump and Republicans rolled back some of the regulations Dodd-Frank placed on regional banks?:

“Some banking experts on Friday pointed out that a bank as large as Silicon Valley Bank might have managed its interest rate risks better had parts of the Dodd-Frank financial-regulatory package, put in place after the 2008 crisis, not been rolled back under President Trump.”

Trump signed the bill despite a report from Democrats on Congress’s joint economic committee warning that under the new law, SVB and other banks of its size:

“…would no longer be subject to nearly any enhanced regulations”.

This also affects ordinary people. Wrongo has a California friend who banks with SVB. Here’s a quote from her:

“While I’ve been waiting to sign the purchase contract on a condo, I woke to the news that my lender Silicon Valley Bank has been closed and taken over by regulators. That concludes literally 8 months of working on this….and the end of my effort to buy a home.”

So don’t listen to the pleas for another bank bailout. Wrongo would be okay with bailouts if they were accompanied by personal accountability by management. Like, we’ll rescue your institution, but none of the bank senior management can ever work in finance again. On to cartoons.

Tucker’s mendacity:

It takes two teams to play:

Walmart’s OK with pills for boners, but not for pregnancy:

GOP wants to regulate Trans not Trains:

GOP loves doormats:

Most appropriately named movie of this or any year:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – March 5, 2023

Not sure who buys their drugs at Walgreen’s but this seems like a bad management decision:

“The nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain confirmed Thursday that it will not dispense abortion pills in several states where they remain legal — acting out of an abundance of caution amid a shifting policy landscape, threats from state officials and pressure from anti-abortion activists.”

It seems that Republican state attorneys general in about 24 states wrote to Walgreens in February, threatening legal action if the company continued distributing the drugs in their states.

These abortion pills are the nation’s most frequently used method for ending a pregnancy.

The company subsequently told the states that it will not dispense abortion pills either by mail or at their brick-and-mortar locations in those states.

This is where America is at: Large corporations are doing more to obstruct access to abortion than the law requires. On to cartoons.

Women’s history month at the Supreme Court:

Wrongo and Ms. Right watched the Oscar-nominated movie “Women Talking” last night. It’s message is that women should no longer accept things they cannot change; that it’s time to change the things they can’t accept. Like the Dobbs decision.

Tennessee outlaws drag. And they’re so pro-life that they want to execute any woman who gets an abortion.:

Make facts your weapon:

Disney today:

Dilbert exits:

Jimmy’s with us for a little while longer:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 26, 2023

From Gallup: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Nearly one year into the war between Russia and Ukraine, Americans’ support for Ukraine holds steady. A stable 65% of US adults prefer that the United States support Ukraine in reclaiming its territory, even if that results in a prolonged conflict. Meanwhile, 31% continue to say they would rather see the US work to end the war quickly, even if this allows Russia to keep its [Ukraine’s] territory.”

Here’s Gallup’s chart:

Shortly after the poll was conducted, Biden announced that the US would send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

There are significant partisan differences in how the war is viewed. Democrats are far more supportive than Republicans and independents, even though majorities of all three Party groups favor Ukraine’s continuing to fight to reclaim its former territory:

The Bulwark’s Will Saletan writes about the current disarray in the GOP over Ukraine. He’s saying that war fatigue and unease in the Republican base are being channeled and fueled by FOX, whose primetime anchors are working to undermine America’s support for Ukraine. He also mentions a few GOP officials who are fighting back by supporting Ukraine when they go on the FOX network.

This isn’t shocking, since back in the 1990s the warmonger right were literally saying “give peace a chance” over NATOs involvement in the Balkans. Mostly because the commander in chief at the time was a Democrat. This is what they do.

Wrongo thinks that, just like in the 90s, there are enough Republicans tied to the military and national security to ensure that the US won’t abandon Ukraine.

But from here to the 2024 election we’ll see a large contingent of Republican hypocrites who will turn themselves inside out trying to be peaceniks, complaining that the money spent in Ukraine should be going to Real Americans. It’s just a game to them. And It has been for a very long time. On to cartoons.

The Tucker effect:

The DeSantis labels won’t stick:

The GOP’s Information Ministry at work:

Same ‘ol from Trump:

McCarthy’s strategy:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 19, 2023

(Wrongo and Ms. Right are sending healing thoughts to friend and blog reader Gloria R.)

There was a small article in the NYT saying that European gas prices had dropped to pre-Ukraine war levels:

“On Friday, the European benchmark price of gas fell below 50 euros ($53) per megawatt-hour for the first time since late 2021. Prices spiked above €300 per megawatt-hour in mid-2022, as Russia curtailed gas exports to Europe after its invasion of Ukraine.”

This isn’t what economists forecasted as the mid-winter energy situation in Europe, which all of a sudden has too much natural gas. It seems Russian gas isn’t indispensable to Europe. Natural gas is, but not necessarily Russian gas. Of course, the mild European winter was a big factor. And regional natural-gas inventories, which are at about 65% capacity, on average, are at their highest levels in years, according to a Bloomberg analysis.

Russia and its gas company Gazprom spent decades building the European (and specifically) the German market. The cost was the building of massive infrastructure to move their gas to Europe. Then Russia pissed it all away last February.

At great cost, they’ll eventually build new infrastructure to move all that gas to Asia and elsewhere. On to cartoons.

America has been reduced to this:

Or is it this?

Nikki says we need younger politicians:

Why the balloon story doesn’t go away:

More about America’s sickness:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 5, 2023

Everybody was talking about the Chinese balloon: It’s spying on us, and if Biden had balls he’d shoot it down. Well, on Saturday, Biden did just that. The Airforce shot it down in the Atlantic off of the Carolina coast. Wrongo is sure that our military will recover the important parts of the balloon. Once we take a look at the technology that the Chinese are using, we’ll know why the balloon was sent over the US, and confirm whether it is a device for spying or not.

We need to view the balloon saga in the larger context of our relationship with China. John Dean has a good observation:

“I’m starting to see China as an enemy. I type those words, of course, on my Chinese-made HP laptop. I watched news reports of the balloon on my Chinese-made TV. The chair I’m sitting in may even be Chinese. The only thing I’ve bought recently that isn’t Chinese, I’m sad to say, is the Chinese food I had for dinner last night, but I could be wrong.”

Our current relationship with China is complicated by our dependence on them for much of our manufacturing. They also are a huge export market for US commodities. As China has flexed its muscles, they have become an economic and geopolitical competitor with the US. Our relationship with them will become much more difficult in the coming years as we wrestle to contain them geopolitically in Asia, while blunting their advances in the rest of the world.

Dean points out that our trade with China has provided them with the resources it is using to build its military force. We need to wake up and wean ourselves off of Chinese goods. Otherwise, we’re paying for two militaries, ours, and theirs. On to cartoons.

One plan for the Chinese balloon:

The new DeSantis school library:

Revised College Board AP course seems fine:

Economy’s too good for GOP:

Sad truth:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 29, 2023

By now, everyone has heard about the killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five former Memphis police officers. Some of you may have also viewed the video of Nichols’s beating by those officers. We won’t be linking to it on this blog, ever.

Wrongo will have more to say about this during the week. But for now let’s understand that this is due in large part to the US failing to get police reform. There was a comprehensive package of legal reforms, called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that passed the House in 2021 but could not break the Senate filibuster. On to cartoons.

Never forget that there are two Americas:

Congress is useless:

What we should mean when we say “Everything everywhere”:

What threatens school kids more?

Soon it will be on milk cartons:

Making good news into Fox News:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 22, 2023

There’s a difference between America’s national debt and our debt limit. Without question, our national debt must be reduced. That can happen only two ways, or by a combination of the two. We can increase taxes, or reduce future spending, or do both.

The debt limit is how much in total the US government can borrow. It uses borrowing (issuing treasury notes and bonds) to meet obligations for previously contracted goods and services. This is what must be increased as soon as possible by both Houses of Congress.

But Republicans say they won’t agree to increase the debt limit without action to reduce the national debt. The national debt is the accumulation of all the annual deficits (and any surplus – thanks, Bill Clinton!) that various administrations have racked up. It currently sits at $31.4 trillion.

The four Republican presidents from Reagan to Trump are responsible for more than half of that debt; they added $17.46 trillion to it by running whopping deficits each year. Trump was responsible for nearly half of that, $8.2 trillion, in just four years. About $3.9 trillion was pandemic relief and $2 trillion was the big tax cut he gave to the wealthy.

Republicans can’t explain why they voted to increase the debt ceiling every year of Trump’s administration. Even as he was racking up trillions of dollars of debt by increasing the annual budget deficit from the $665 billion he inherited from Obama, to a whopping $2.1 trillion deficit in just four years ̶ the highest in US history.

But in the past two years, Biden has cut that $2.1 trillion deficit by 33%, to $1.4 trillion. That isn’t stopping the GOP from screaming that spending has to be curbed because there’s a Democrat in the White House. On to cartoons.

A high-stakes game of chicken:

Their plan is to never have a plan:

Alec Baldwin’s on line one Mr. Speaker:

Truth is always in the eye of the beholder:

Floods in California have people looking for new places to stay:

David Crosby would be spinning in his grave:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 15, 2023

With all of the false equivalency about secret documents that mysteriously travel outside their protected locations, you can be forgiven for not hearing about the antics in Missouri’s state legislature. From the WaPo:

“The Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives used its session’s opening day Wednesday to tighten the dress code for female legislators, while leaving the men’s dress code alone.”

The state’s House-approved bill requires women’s arms to be concealed. Missouri wouldn’t force its citizens to wear masks during Covid – even with lives at risk. But Missouri is forcing women to wear long sleeves instead of going sleeveless, something that endangers no one.

Imagine if Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was instead a member of the Missouri House. He would finally have to roll his sleeves down and put on a jacket.

Republican legislators need to become enraged to go to work — not perturbed, not irritated, not annoyed, but furious — and it’s always a made-up crisis and always someone else’s fault, most likely a Democrat’s. Take your pick: Drag queen story hour. Pedophiles in pizza parlors. Genderless potato head toys. Migrant caravans. M&M’s in a lesbian relationship. Trans takeover of sports and bathrooms. Critical Race Theory. Antifa mobs dressing up like MAGAs and attacking the Capitol. Jewish space lasers starting forest fires. Dems are coming for your gas stoves. And so, so many more. On to cartoons.

Joe’s garage finds a problem:

MAGAs want more:

Didn’t we seen this before?

And Trump’s crowds were bigger:

Santos, if that’s really your name, we have a job for you:

Spare:

It takes courage to speak about things that we’re traumatized into not speaking about. What surprises Wrongo most about this is the lack of empathy or understanding he sees by Americans toward Harry as a young boy who, as a 12 year-old had to perform as an adult at his mother’s funeral.

Now he is an adult, a husband and father. So many people in the US have scorn for him. Why does he have to dump all of this on us? Why doesn’t he simply get on with his life rather than telling this story over and over on Oprah, 60 Minutes, and in his book?

Wrongo has watched the Netflix documentary. He will not read the book. But it’s evident that Harry’s rage, and his grief, remain. He’s still trying to make sense of what happened to him after his mother died. While his Royal family may have moved on, he hasn’t.

Worse yet, he’s a male. Western society isn’t tolerant of males who show vulnerability or confusion as an adult. Worse, his own family’s expectations are to simply soldier on.

America likes big stories of family dysfunction, and we sure have a good one in the long-lived soap opera called the British Royals.

Harry deserves closure and happiness. He stood up for his wife and kids. His birth “family” treated him horribly. He’s written his book, and he may make a ton of money off it. Why should any of that make Americans angry?

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 8, 2023

On the fifteenth ballot of the new year, the House finally selected Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), as its new Speaker. What ended the impasse? In addition to the list of “concessions” that we know about, what other promises did McCarthy make to Freedom Caucus?

When selecting a new Speaker, the House operates more like a parliamentary system than America is used to or expects. When the Party in power has a slim majority, and if there is contention within that Party, coalitions must be built, promises are made, and concessions are extracted.

It seems that McCarthy relinquished all the power and authority of the office in order to win the title of Speaker. But a weak Speaker leading a fractured caucus is actually dangerous. The Republican House can frustrate Biden’s legislative agenda. It can conduct endless oversight hearings and investigations. It can restrict government spending.

When you look at the demands of the 20 anti-McCarthy holdouts and consider what he conceded to them, the next two years will be fractious. Over the past four days, they made demands in four areas. First, they object to funding Ukraine. They also object to the size of the omnibus spending bill that passed at the end of the last Congress. Third, they don’t want the US debt ceiling extended. Lastly, they want to hold investigations. Many investigations.

Since the bill funding Ukraine and the omnibus spending bill passed with bi-partisan support in both Houses, any action they try to take on those two are likely to fail. But they have the right to investigate anything and everything, so we need to be prepared for that.

The debt ceiling is a problem. There will be bi-partisan support in both Houses for increasing it, but McCarthy will control whether a clean debt ceiling increase ever gets to the House floor for a vote. There will be a bi-partisan group of House members to support that bill, but if McCarthy goes to Democrats for the needed votes to pass a debt ceiling increase, the anti-McCarthy faction will attempt to remove him from the Speaker position.

It’s very possible that McCarthy will be successfully deposed if Democrats aren’t inclined to save him. It was this kind of behavior that convinced John Boehner to retire.

McCarthy almost certainly made concessions about Ukraine and the debt ceiling and government spending in order to win the job. He will either break these promises, or he’ll lead the country to financial ruin. Or the moderates in the House GOP will try to kick him out. The Republicans have a majority but it’s not a functional one. On to cartoons.

McCarthy’s headaches are just beginning:

He’s a weak GOP Speaker, not a Pope:

It’s way past time for the GOP to hit the target:

Last week was deja vu of Jan 6 two years ago:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 11, 2022

Wrongo subscribes to John Dick’s, CEO of Civic Science, weekly newsletter. Last week Civic Science was first up with an opinion poll on the Brittney Griner prisoner swap. Turns out America wasn’t happy with it:

“Fifty-two percent of Americans disagreed with the decision, compared to just 37% who agreed (11% had no opinion, somehow)…..Political affiliation was highly correlated, with strong Rs opposing the move at 82% and strong Dems supporting it at 72%. Folks in the middle were anything but balanced, however, where 53% of moderates rejected the swap, while just 33% celebrated it.”

They sampled 1,876 American adults:

It’s a conundrum to Wrongo why 52% of Americans think it’s a bad decision. Would people rather we walked away from any deal just to keep Viktor Bout in jail and leave Brittney Griner in a Russian penal colony? Not wanting to let Bout go before his sentence was completed is understandable. What’s not understandable is whatever happened to American compassion and empathy? On to cartoons, although there isn’t much to laugh at here.

Why so hypocritical?