Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(John Buss, @repeat1968)

(Bart van Leeuwen, Oedipoes.com)

(Tim Campbell, Counterpoint)

(Joe Collignon, caglecartoons.com)

(Jack Ohman, Tribune Content Agency)

(Jeff Koterba, caglecartoons.com)

(Gary Markstein, Creators.com)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Jimmy Margulies, jimmymargulies.com)

(Michael de Adder, Washington Post)

(Ellis Rosen, @EllisRosen)


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Tweets / Xeets Of The Day

 

Jack Smith thanks you, please continue! --

 

 

Timely reminders --

 

 


A message to white supremacists, Nazis and the otherwise aggrieved (context here) --

 


Pass it on --

 

 


Republican't campaigns begin circling the drain --

 

 


1) Shoot self in foot;  2) be shocked that you're bleeding --

 


Russians don't abandon their own, until they do --

 


R.I.P. Tom Smothers --

 


Before we say goodbye to the holiday season ... --

 


Ladies and gentlemen, The Great Flydini! --


 

 

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Mid-Week Song: Portrait

 

Austin, Texas - based indie duo Hovvdy (Charlie Martin and Will Taylor) have released a catchy, easy tempo song, "Portrait." Enjoy its country pop feel.



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Former Senior Trump Official: Trump's A "Traitor"




In his book "Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party," ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl quotes a senior official who worked in the Malignant Loser's administration describing him: 

"He lacks any shred of human decency, humility or caring He is morally bankrupt, breathtakingly dishonest, lethally incompetent, and stunningly ignorant of virtually anything related to governing, history, geography, human events or world affairs. He is a traitor and a malignancy in our nation and represents a clear and present danger to our democracy and the rule of law."

We've heard much of that description from others who worked for him before, but calling him a traitor is new. It begs the question of whether the official has evidence of the Malignant Loser committing an act of treason while in office.

According to Karl, who spoke to MSNBC's Joy Reid about his book, the official "is a very senior official who spent day in and day out with Donald Trump for over a year in the West Wing." Karl continued:

"I will tell you this is somebody who is more senior and spent a lot more time around Donald Trump who said those words about him, because he saw first-hand how he had operated and was conveying this to me, didn't want to go public."

Until this official goes public and speaks out, he's not covering himself in glory. But he is echoing what many who served the Malignant Loser and regretted it have said: he is morally, intellectually and mentally unfit to serve as President, and is a clear and present danger to our nation.

 

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Economy "Will Roar Into The New Year," Feels Like Or Not

 

Okay, this is very good hard data (but the feels, what about the feeeeels?) :

They bought books and coats, fancy dinners and plane tickets. And as 2023 comes to a close, holiday shoppers offered yet another sign that the U.S. economy will roar into the new year.

On Tuesday, fresh retail sales data from Mastercard showed that consumers spent big on gifts, meals and apparel in November and December despite inflation’s lingering bite. Add on strong consumer confidence, and the S&P 500’s approaching an all-time high, and it’s clear that the U.S. economy is in a far better place than just about anyone expected, zapping any hints of a recession and bolstering hope that people will keep opening their wallets in 2024.

“Given the significant uplifts in holiday sales over the past couple of years, and the current pressures on consumer finances, this level of growth can be chalked up as something of a win for consumers,” said Neil Saunders, managing director for retail at GlobalData.

U.S. retail sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 were up 3.1 percent compared with the same period a year before, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures sales in-store and online across various forms of payment. Online shopping accounted for a large share of the increase, rising 6.3 percent, compared with a 2.2 percent jump for in-person shopping. Apparel sales rose 2.4 percent. Plus, strong demand for in-person dining powered a 7.8 percent jump in restaurant spending.  [snip]

The cheery holiday report was expected, building on a strong summer and third quarter, when the economy grew like gangbusters. Sales on Black Friday set a record of $9.8 billion, up 7.5 percent from the year before. Cyber Monday came in even higher at $12.4 billion, according to Adobe Analytics...(our emphasis)

This can't go unchallenged!  We need to know about the feels (same paper, one day apart)! 

We strongly suspect that the negative "feels" or "vibes" can be accounted for largely by extreme (Republican) partisanship and the effect of onslaughts of media/ social media focus on "bad news" anomalies.  (The inability of Republicans to recognize a good economy under a Democrat needs no further explanation.  And a corollary of the "if it bleeds, it leads" media mentality is "if it shows pain, we gain.")

We're not so foolish as to believe everything everywhere is going swimmingly.  There are still lagging wages in some parts of the economy, inflation is down but not out, and some people's expectations for improving their personal finances over time may be butting up against the reality of a global economy. But, what's happened and is happening over the past three years is pretty remarkable, especially when measured against the predictions of "the experts" and the performance of every other industrialized nation in the world.  That's a story worth telling, and telling, and telling.


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Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(James MacLeod, @MacLtoons)

(Peter Brookes, The Times, London)

(Ed Wexler, caglecartoons.com)

(Dave Brown, The Independent, London)

(Guy Parsons, politicalcartoons.com)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Pedro Molina, Counterpoint)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Tim Campbell, Counterpoint)

(Bart van Leeuwen, Oedipoes.com)

(Paul Noth, @PaulNoth)


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QOTD -- More Dangerous Than Authoritarianism

 

"... [T]he forces of Christian nationalism—those who seek to demolish the wall between Church and state, asserting far-right religious dominion over the government as well as the country’s core institutions—are now ascendant both inside the Church and inside the Republican Party. It is no coincidence that, just recently, Donald Trump began suggesting that he would ban any migrant from entering the United States unless they are Christian. Those who don’t share 'our religion,' the famously impious ex-president pronounced, won’t be welcome here if he’s elected again. Many of the people poised to hold high-ranking posts in a second Trump administration don’t view today’s societal disputes through the lens of Republican versus Democrat or of conservative versus progressive, but rather of good versus evil.

"Perhaps the only thing more dangerous than authoritarianism is authoritarianism infused with religious justification. It hardly matters whether the would-be tyrant is personally devout; Vladimir Putin’s lack of theology didn’t stop him from partnering with the Russian Orthodox Church to frame the bloody invasion of Ukraine as God’s ordained conquest of a satanic stronghold. To believe that it couldn’t happen here—mass conflict rooted in identitarian conviction and driven by religious zeal—is to ignore both 20th-century precedent and the escalating holy-war rhetoric inside the evangelical Church..." --  Tim Alberta, writing in The Atlantic.  Alberta, who was raised an evangelical Christian and still self- identifies as a follower of Jesus Christ, is the author of "The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory - American Evangelicals In An Age Of Extremism."  More than many observers of the dangers of Christian nationalism, the evangelical movement, the Christofascist Republican Party and their cult leader Malignant Loser, he speaks with the authority of one who has been inside the belly of the beast, and has seen the transformation of the evangelical church into the Manichean, paranoid threat to American democracy that it's become.


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Tweets / Xeets Of The Day

 

The contrast could not be more glaring and disturbing. -- 



 

Here's what the Malignant Loser may have planned on Day One of his dictatorship. -- 



Something to keep in mind when the Malignant Loser demands immunity. -- 



His team doesn't want him getting struck by lightning. --  


 

It's all Joe Biden's fault. -- 



Clarence Thomas' former clerk network trying to raise funds for insurrectionist. --



Russian things that go "boom" part infinity --  


 


But he nailed the dismount! --  



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Putin's "Trojan Horse" Doing Damage To EU

 

The Washington Post's Lee Hockstader, writing today about the damage Hungary's Putin puppet Viktor Orban is doing within the Western alliance and the European Union (EU):

"It matters little that Orban has driven Hungary’s economy into a ditch, or that its economic output and population of 10 million are tiny fractions of the E.U.’s total. What counts is that Hungary, Putin’s Trojan horse in the heart of Europe, has weaponized the E.U.’s rules on Moscow’s behalf.

Orban, a darling of U.S. Republicans, has gutted Hungary’s democracy and made a sham of baseline E.U. expectations of its members: judicial independence, media freedom, minority rights, fair elections and tolerance.

That tragedy, for Hungarians and for Europe, will become farce next summer when Hungary takes over the rotating E.U. presidency, a role that grants Orban agenda-setting powers for a six-month term.

That bully pulpit will afford him the chance to embarrass the E.U. by showcasing his obstructionism, especially on Ukraine. But the broader threat he represents inside the alliance is real owing to the E.U.’s antiquated voting rules, including the requirement of unanimity of all member states on security and finance questions." (our emphasis)

Hockstader proposes that the EU drop its delusions about "unity" and see the Trojan Horse threat that Orban represents to it, and act on it:

"The Hungarian strongman, having already wreaked economic havoc in his country, is unbothered by even worse living standards and growth rates. As Daniel Hegedüs of the German Marshall Fund of the United States explained to me, 'his main strategic priority is regime stability; he wants his regime to survive.'

The E.U. has no mechanism to expel a member state. So if changing the rules to contain the damage Orban can do is what it takes to marginalize him, then it’s time for the E.U. to change them. Let 2024 be the year the West removes the scales from its eyes." (or emphasis)

It's absurd that provision wasn't made for the expulsion of a rogue member, considering Europe's long history of shifting alliances and nationalism. As a NATO member, Hungary presents the same problem it does to the EU: does it pretend the problem doesn't exist, or does it find ways to remove or at least mitigate the internal security threat? 

 

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Trump's Ominous Christmas "Messages"




Not departing from his typical lie-filled delusional bile, the Malignant Loser gave a preview of what's in store for the coming year -- and beyond -- in his social media Christmas rants, and it's as ugly as you can imagine it would be. CNN's Stephen Collinson has a reaction:

"The ex-president unleashed an online torrent of fury and bitterness, largely over his legal plights, spanning Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, previewing the discord and personal obsessions he will inflict on the nation in a pivotal election year in 2024.

Trump raged at President Joe Biden and special counsel Jack Smith, making expansive and false claims that his attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election represented a vital defense of American democracy and were thus perfectly legal. In a tide of invective in block capitals on his Truth Social network, Trump escalated extreme rhetoric on immigration that has drawn comparisons to Nazi demagoguery in the 1940s and reprised his view of unlimited presidential power that has critics fearing autocracy if he wins the next election. 

Just three weeks before voting starts in the Republican nominating race, the front-runner also underscored the extraordinary extent to which false claims about electoral fraud three years ago are still the anchor of his political project. And his tirades, at a time when Americans who celebrate Christmas gathered with loved ones and sought a moment of peace, hint at a furious state of mind and extreme denialism. These are likely to raise new concerns about his temperament and suitability to serve again as commander-in-chief and are a dark omen as to what another Trump term could bring."  (our emphasis)

Everything about his rants screams me me me, and revenge for getting called on the felonies he's been committing in public and private office. Whether his election denialism is the result of a mental pathology or his refusal to admit he's a loser -- or both -- is almost irrelevant now, with a large chunk of the public reveling in his lies and rage in the same way citizens of Germany did in the 1930s with the Fuehrer. How there could be any sentient person who's unaware of his menace to democracy and freedom is hard to imagine, but they're out there in the millions. 


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The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

Scientists have managed to repeatedly produce nuclear fusion ignition for the first time, marking a major milestone towards achieving near-limitless clean energy at scale.

A team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the US achieved fusion ignition last December, producing a net energy gain from a fusion reaction for the first ever time.

The feat was hailed as a “moment of history” by physicists, which LLNL scientists have now repeated a further three times.

The lab used the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to fire 192 laser beams at a frozen pellet of isotopes held within a diamond capsule suspended in a gold cylinder.

The resulting reaction replicated the same natural processes found within the Sun and resulted in a record energy increase of 89 per cent. This was only enough energy to boil a kettle, however scaling up this proof-of-concept could herald a “new era” of energy, according to the scientific journal Nature.  [snip]

Nuclear fusion was on the agenda at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) earlier this month, with governments agreeing to speed up efforts to develop the technology.

“We are edging ever-closer to a fusion-powered reality. And at the same time, yes, significant scientific and engineering challenges exist,” US Climate Envoy John Kerry said at the summit in Dubai.

“Careful thought and thoughtful policy is going to be critical to navigate this.”

China, Japan, Russia and the European Union are also investing heavily in nuclear fusion research, with more than $6 billion invested to date, according to the Fusion Industry Association...

Limitless clean energy.  What a game changer that would be, especially if it could evolve quickly and as a public utility, not as a profit- making opportunity for energy companies.  We're fast approaching the climate change tipping point after which it might not matter what clean technology comes along.  For now, we have to keep going with conservation and renewable energy and not depend on a silver bullet to save us from ourselves.

The bad:

At least 68 people were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Sunday night, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

The strike hit the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, east of Deir al-Balah. At least 12 women and seven children were among the dead, according to The Associated Press, which cited early hospital figures.

When asked for comment, the Israel Defense Forces told ABC News on Monday: "The IDF received reports of an incident in the Maghazi camp and is reviewing the incident. Despite the challenges posed by Hamas terrorists operating within civilian areas in Gaza, the IDF is committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimize harm to civilians."

Stories like this are proliferating more every day.  By now, it's become blindingly obvious that the object of Netanyahu's offensive is to apply maximum blunt force to turn Gaza into a pile of uninhabitable rubble, without regard to civilian death and suffering or to the fate of the Hamas- held hostages (families of those hostages getting ever more vocal in opposing Netanyahu's "war to the end" policies).  What began as a righteous campaign to eliminate the vile terrorist Hamas organization has become, through the far- right Netanyahu government's callous disregard for civilian Palestinian lives, a nightmare that's changed the paradigm from what was sympathetic and supportive world opinion into increasing hostility toward Israel and, collaterally, toward Jewish populations around the world.  That's almost as bad as it gets.

The ugly: 

Iowa will not participate this summer in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs while school is out, state officials have announced.

The state has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children — or Summer EBT — program, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education said in a Friday news release.

Iowa will not participate this summer in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs while school is out, state officials have announced.  [snip]

States that participate in the federal program are required to cover half of the administrative costs, which would cost an estimated $2.2 million in Iowa, the news release says.  

Some state lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Izaah Knox of Des Moines, quickly voiced their opposition to the decision.

“It’s extremely disappointing that the Reynolds administration is planning to reject federal money that could put food on the table for hungry Iowa kids,” Knox said in a statement. “This cruel and short-sighted decision will have real impacts on children and families in my district and communities all across Iowa.”

Officials in nearby Nebraska also announced this week that the state will not participate in Summer EBT, which would cost Nebraska about $300,000 annually in administrative costs, the Lincoln Journal Star reported.

“In the end, I fundamentally believe that we solve the problem, and I don’t believe in welfare,” Nebraska Republican Gov. Jim Pillen told the Journal Star on Friday...

Republicans have perfected the art of punching down on the most vulnerable, in the name of fiscal responsibility, or States rights, or (more accurately) "they're not us."   Our turn to punch back is at the ballot box.


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Sunday, December 24, 2023

To The Hackwhackers "Family"


It was 1944, and the world was still at war. Christmas for many in that year was an anxious and watchful time. "Meet Me In St. Louis" was a Currier and Ives cinematic tribute to an America of the early 20th century as only Hollywood could imagine it. It was one of the most successful musicals of the 1940s, and a temporary release from the pains of war. 

One of the key moments is the incomparable Judy Garland introducing a song that would be part of the Christmas season for generations to come: "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas." In this melancholy scene, Garland is singing to little Margaret O'Brien as they contemplate an unwanted move by their family from St. Louis to New York. Of course, the story has a happy Hollywood ending.

From us to you on this Christmas eve.

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Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Ward Sutton, The Boston Globe)

(Matt Wuerker, Politico)

(Ted Littleford, @tedlittleford)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(John Deering, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

(Pat Byrnes, politicalcartoons.com)

(Ed Hall, Artizans.com)


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QOTD: Trump's Danger To The Military





Gregory D. Foster, West Point graduate and decorated veteran, writing today in Salon.com about the danger presented by the Malignant Loser to the institutions of our nation, specifically the U.S. military:

"The prospective return of Donald Trump to office as president and commander in chief may — and in fact should — prompt a fundamental rethinking of civil-military relations in this country. Rather than a call to action, I offer here an appeal for preventive reflection by the military establishment on a matter of utmost domestic and international, strategic and ethical consequence.

Think of civil-military relations as a tacit but binding social contract of mutual rights, obligations and expectations among the three parties to this ideally harmonious but inevitably sometimes discordant relationship: the uniformed military, the military’s civilian overseers in Congress and the executive branch, and the general public. In the ideal version of this tripartite relationship, all parties have recognized institutional roles they are expected to fulfill for the common good. But if and when any of the parties fails to perform their roles correctly, the contract is broken and democracy is jeopardized, at least in some measure.

When we consider Trump’s past dealings with the military; his disdain for particular generals (and others of lesser rank, dead and alive), even as he embraces unprofessional malefactors in uniform accused of war crimes and other serious misconduct; his selection of bottom-feeding loyalists to run the Pentagon in the waning days of his administration; his self-indulgent obsession with personal loyalty at the expense of all else; and his openly stated plans for autocratic rule, score-settling and the undermining of democratic institutions if he returns to office, we must conclude that traditional precepts of civil-military relations seem demonstrably outmoded and ill-equipped to counter any such enemy from within."(our emphasis)

Foster's article is an excellent read and should be at the forefront of the military's thinking as the possibility of a mentally unstable, vengeful, anti-democratic and lawless Malignant Loser winding up back in the Oval Office is real. He tried to use the military to maintain himself in power, and the military refused. If there's a next time, he'll try again.

(photo: The Malignant Loser meeting at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Jan. 18, 2018. DoD photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)

 

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Iran Threatens To "Close" Mediterranean




Since the October 7 attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli settlements and Israel's strong attack on Gaza, Iran and its proxies have stepped up attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. New reports indicate that an Israeli-affiliated merchant ship was hit by an aerial device in the Indian Ocean and set on fire. The Houthis, Iran's proxies in Yemen, have been active in targeting U.S. warships and commercial vessels in the Red Sea, something that U.S. says couldn't happen without Iran's technical assistance and intelligence.

Iran's latest ominous threat was from Iran's Revolutionary Guards' coordinating commander, who threatened to close the Mediterranean Sea if attacks on Hamas continue:

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said the Mediterranean Sea could be closed if the United States and its allies continued to commit "crimes" in Gaza, Iranian media reported on Saturday, without explaining how that would happen. [snip]

'They shall soon await the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, (the Strait of) Gibraltar and other waterways,' Tasnim quoted Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, coordinating commander of the Guards, as saying."

Such an action, no matter how farcical on its face, would bring nations in addition to the U.S. who rely on open seas in the Mediterranean into armed conflict with Iran. It may be more of a sign that Hamas is nearing defeat, and that Iran and its proxies are getting desperate to forestall it.

(photo: Houthi attack on a vessel in the Red Sea, November 20)

 

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