Today's Tomorrow Cartoon

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(Tom Tomorrow, via Daily Kos)

Tweet Of The Day (And For Unknown Days Hereafter)

A tweet you can pin for the entirety of the nightmare we're living through.

The President of the United States has no ethics, has the worst possible worldview, and is probably compromised by a foreign adversary. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s an idiot.

— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) April 22, 2018

("Other than that, did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?")

Across The Universe, Cont. - Lagoon Nebula

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From NASA/ ESA, April 19, 2018: To celebrate its 28th anniversary in space the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colourful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, about four light-years across.

This stunning nebula was first catalogued in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna, who sought to record nebulous objects in the night sky so they would not be mistaken for comets. Since Hodierna’s observations, the Lagoon Nebula has been photographed and analysed by many telescopes and astronomers all over the world.

The observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 between 12 February and 18 February 2018.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI

BONUS:  Let's take a ride through the nebula --

Tweet Of The Day: Witches!

19 witches indicted
5 witch guilty pleas https://t.co/wenBXDXdQ7

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) April 22, 2018

Trump's Dangerous Ignorance On North Korea

The prospect of ignorant, narcissistic sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump "negotiating" with a clever, focused and well-prepared adversary in Kim Jong-Un should be of deepest concern to our nation. Rump's reckless, impulsive acceptance of a meeting with Kim was clearly his attempt to create a diversion from the deepening legal problems that are poised to take down his presidency. Kim reaped a propaganda bonanza with Rump over-eager to meet him, like a schoolboy with a crush. The legitimacy Rump gave Kim was Kim's first win.

Rump's tweet this morning about North Korea shows his ignorance about just where we stand vis-a-vis North Korea's nuclear program:

Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing. Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2018

"(T)hey have agreed to denuclearization..."?  Wrong, President Pee Brain, they've stopped their nuclear weapons testing program and intend to shut their troubled test site. "Denuclearization" would mean they've agreed to give up their nuclear weapons, and they're not about to do that since that's their insurance policy for survival.

Going into "negotiations" as ill-equiped and ignorant as Rump is would be bad enough. The fact that he always thinks he's the smartest man in the room and won't take advice (legal or otherwise) makes any upcoming meeting with North Korea frightening. He'll let Kim take his shirt if he can get a thumbs up photo-op that he can spin to his cult followers as a "win."

Earth Day 2018 Reflection

"Do we really have to destroy tomorrow in order to live today?"  --  the late Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), who was one of the founders of the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.

This year, Earth Day is focused on "mobilizing the world to End Plastic Pollution, including creating support for a global effort to eliminate single-use plastics along with global regulation for the disposal of plastics."  Here's where you can find out how to help -- Earth Day, and every day.

BONUS:  Here's David Attenborough describing an aspect of the problem (found via Hullabaloo)--

Smiles At A Funeral: Tweets Of The Day

Melania looks happier at a funeral than she has in ages. Wouldn’t you too if you went from being with Donald every day to sitting next to Barack?
#barbarabushfuneral pic.twitter.com/JrnLY0MJyX

— Great Scott! 🇺🇸 (@ScottFrazier19) April 21, 2018

This is Melania and Obama sitting together today at former First Lady Barbara Bush's funeral. Have you ever, ever, EVER seen Melania smile like this, and look this relaxed, beside her own husband? Ever? pic.twitter.com/9qYLT2glIH

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) April 21, 2018

 

“Don’t worry it will soon all be over, and you will finally be free!”#HowObamaMadeMelaniaSmile pic.twitter.com/OBgUWImmsG

— Ed Krassenstein 💎 (@EdKrassen) April 22, 2018

 

Today's Cartoon Twofer

Let's do two from the great Mike Luckovich.

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(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)


(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

QOTD: Let's Make A Deal

“He can close the deal out in two weeks — sure — if he’s negotiating a plea bargain.” -- Republican strategist Rick Tyler, commenting this morning on MSNBC on neo-fascist ranter Rudy "Noun Verb 9-11" Giuliani's absurd assertion that he could negotiate an end to the Mueller investigation in two or three weeks.

BONUS:

I fairness, how could they not be? pic.twitter.com/Dwa1UU2WHR

— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 22, 2018

(photo: Finally seeing himself in a mirror)

The Turtle's Now The Hare

During the last six years of the Obama Administration, there was no greater and more cynically amoral obstructionist than human-turtle hybrid and Kentucky's stain, Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell. Starting with his repeated efforts to kill the Affordable Care Act and other Dem legislation, to his sabotage of Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, McConnell made it his goal to destroy the Presidency of America's first African-American President. Indeed, he said his first priority was to make Obama a one-term President. Then, there was McConnell two months before the 2016 election, refusing to sign off on a bipartisan condemnation of Russian meddling in the elections.

Now, with political winds shifting against the Rethuglicans in 2018, McConnell is trying to rush through right-wing, lifetime appointments to the Federal bench, to try to ensure an army of right-wing judges far into the future in the event the Rethugs lose the Senate:

"Since becoming majority leader in 2015, the Kentucky Republican stymied Obama’s nominees for two years, including blocking a Supreme Court hopeful. And now he’s going into overdrive with Trump as president.

Trump has already nominated 69 judges, but there are 149 total vacancies. GOP leaders say McConnell is intent on filling as many as he can this year, in part out of concern that Democrats take back the Senate and exact retribution on McConnell and Trump for changing the face of the courts."

The master obstructionist has become the grease on the rails of Rethuglican court-packing. If this isn't one additional, major reason to flip the Senate, we don't know what is.

(photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP. A face begging to be punched.)

"Mortal Danger:" The Great Barrier Reef

Somehow, we hoped this day would never come, but knew that it would:

... The Great Barrier Reef—which, at 1,400 miles long, is the longest and largest coral reef in the world—was blanketed by dangerously hot water in the summer of 2016. This heat strangled and starved the corals, causing what has been called “an unprecedented bleaching event.” [snip]

... A new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature [pdf], serves as a kind of autopsy report for the debacle. 

After inspecting every one of its reefs, and surveying them on an almost species-by-species basis, the paper reports that vast swaths of the Great Barrier Reef were permanently transformed in the summer of 2016. The reef’s northern third, previously its most pristine section, lost more than half of its corals. Two of its most recognizable creatures—the amber-colored staghorn corals, and the flat, fanlike tabular corals—suffered the worst casualties. [snip] 

Yet it was not the end of troubles for the Great Barrier Reef. In the summer months of 2017, warm waters again struck the reef and triggered another bleaching event. This time, the heat hit the reef’s middle third. Hughes and his team have not published a peer-reviewed paper on that event, but he shared early survey results with me. 

Combined, he said, the back-to-back bleaching events killed one in every two corals in the Great Barrier Reef. It is a fact almost beyond comprehension: In the summer of 2015, more than 2 billion corals lived in the Great Barrier Reef. Half of them are now dead. 

What caused the devastation? Hughes was clear: human-caused global warming. The accumulation of heat-trapping pollution in the atmosphere has raised the world’s average temperature, making the oceans hotter and less hospitable to fragile tropical corals.

A not unrelated footnote:

The Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), a former Navy pilot with no scientific credentials and who doesn’t believe humans are primarily to blame for the global climate crisis, to lead NASA. (our emphasis)

Sic transit gloria, America Earth.

Weekend So Long Music

Los Angeles based rock band A Perfect Circle just released their fourth studio album, "Eat the Elephant," from which this single, "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish" is taken. (For those of you who are "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" fans, yes, the title comes from the fourth book in the Douglas Adams series.)  Over time, the band has included veterans of Queens of the Stone Age, Primus and Devo, and now is fronted by former Tool and The Smashing Pumpkins musicians.



Sadly, DJ/ musician/ producer Avicii (Tim Bergling) passed away today in Oman.  The Swedish world superstar was 28.  This is his "Wake Me Up," which we're re- posting from 2013.

"He's Not 5 Minutes Loyal"

Stephen Colbert's opening monologue last night covered the impending talks between Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un and unfit incompetent Donald "Rump" Trump ("let's get ready to bumble!"), and speculation over Rump fixer Michael "Clown Roy Cohn" Cohen ("man who's definitely seen the Trump sex tape") flipping on his boss pretty quickly. Classic Colbert.

Trump's Panic Move With Giuliani

When demagogue and fraudster Donald "Rump" Trump was trying to assemble a Cabinet, one of the names floated and quickly dismissed was that of raging ghoul and fame whore Rudi "Noun Verb 9-11" Giuliani. His off-the-rails warmups for Rump at campaign appearances, his spittle-flecked denunciation of Hillary Clinton at the Rethuglican National Convention, and more, mark him as the loosest of loose cannons. Even an unhinged incompetent like Rump didn't want him in the Cabinet.

The news that Giuliani is joining what remains of the Rump legal team demonstrates the panic within Trumpworld over Rump's serious legal jeopardy particularly in the Mueller investigation, not to mention with the Cohen case. As someone who hasn't practiced criminal law in over 30 years, and who has his own problems with leaks during the campaign, Giuliani's a "Hail Mary," except if you believe (as Rump may) that he has some pull with his former colleague Robert Mueller to "negotiate" an end to his investigation within "two or three weeks." That won't happen, and Giuliani knows it, but he can't resist a place in the spotlight for long.

Expect Giuliani to hang around for a couple of months at best, as he finds every microphone he can until people tire of his schtick. Robert Mueller won't be rushed or boxed in by the likes of Rudy 9-11.

BONUS:

Can’t wait for this to end with Mueller adding a Rudy indictment to the pile. https://t.co/MoMIYWhaJY

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) April 19, 2018

 (photo: Brooks Kraft/Politico. Giuliani finds his own Palazzo Venezia balcony at the Rethuglican National Convention.)

The Boomerang Boys

Trump cultists in the House of Representatives thought it would be smart to demand that the Justice Department hand over the contemporaneous notes / memos / e-mails of former FBI Director James Comey regarding his interactions with corrupt demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump. Perhaps they thought that the notes would prove that Comey misled the Senate Intelligence Committee when he testified last year. So how did the Rethuglicans' strategery go? Not so well, apparently:

"If House Republicans thought they were helping President Donald Trump by forcing the release of James Comey's memos, they might want to think again. [snip] It's possible that the House committee chairmen wanted the memos released to undercut Comey's current book tour and to weaken the Mueller probe. If that was the case it has backfired."

Not only did the released documents corroborate Comey's statements, they also contained some previously unreleased information on President Spanky himself, including his obsession with the Steele dossier. The documents include one conversation between Russian thug Putin and his U.S. agent Rump about hookers that's being chewed over this morning on cable and the networks:

"'The President said 'the hookers thing' is nonsense,' Trump said at the time, according to Comey, 'but that Putin had told him 'we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world.'

Comey qualified his account and said that Trump 'did not say where Putin had told him this ...'

During the conversation, Trump fretted over the notion that his wife, Melania, would be upset by the notion that he could have spent time with prostitutes in Moscow, and reiterated his claim that 'he hadn't stayed overnight in Russia,' to which Priebus tried to interject by asking 'why it was even in there,' Comey wrote."

There, House Rethuglicans, wasn't that worthwhile? You've given the Comey book tour added fuel by helping to validate his accounts of his interactions with your corrupt leader, and made yourselves look like the hapless hacks and stooges that you are. Congratulations, and more of this please!

BONUS:  Republican strategist Rick Wilson --

So...is it just me or does the release of these memos not seem to be having the outcome that Team MAGA expected? pic.twitter.com/RHr4EXuhJn

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) April 20, 2018

More Twitter reaction here.