The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2022

It's an ... interesting ... time in American political life, as voters have opted once again for divided government, but have rejected many of the worst extremists who were running for office (yes, Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano, I'm talking to you in particular). I'm not sure what the overall message is, other than that at least some thoughtful people are tuning out the worst of the worst, denying Republicans their cherished and expected "red wave" and opting for responsible, fact-based government that works for the people rather than for big business and the wealthy.

The last few months have produced a veritable landslide of blathering ass clowns in state and federal races that cost the nation an estimated $16.7 billion - $8.9 billion at the federal level, and $7.8 billion on state races. This is an absolutely disgraceful sum to spend on political blather when schools are underfunded, children go hungry, infrastructure is crumbling, and quality medical care is unaffordable.

But I digress.

Looking back at the run-up to the election, it's clear that a group award is once again called for, and so I have selected as

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2022

Dan Bongino, Dinesh D'Souza,

Tomi Lahren and Brigitte Gabriel

This group of four constitutes some of the loudest, yet most incoherent hyperconservative commentators on American airwaves and the Internet today. Each is ignorant and annoying in different ways.

For the last few months, Dan Bongino has posted a daily tweet which says simply, "Today is (date) and Joe Biden is the WORST president in US history." Well, that's his opinion and he's welcome to it, but it needs to be said that he supports a former president who was impeached twice, debased the presidency, upended the alliances that have kept the peace for decades, and ruined the image of the United States on the world stage. Despite Mr Bongino's (and other conservative commentators') assertions that Der Furor kept every promise he ever made, his legislative and leadership record is actually vanishingly thin, especially when compared to that of Mr Biden. Mr Bongino is, to put the most charitable spin on it, an uninformed fool.

Dinesh D'Souza is a prominent figure in far-right circles, famous in particular for his discredited book and movie "2000 Mules," a "documentary" which tried to show that widespread, coordinated voter fraud in the 2020 election resulted in the presidency being "stolen" from Der Furor. He is a near-constant presence on Twitter and on conservative news and opinion broadcasts, where he continues to sow doubt on the integrity of American elections and hawk a variety of conspiracy theories and denunciations of Democratic elected officials.

Tomi Lahren is a self-described "constitutional conservative," although her demonstrated understanding of what the Constitution actually says appears to be quite limited. She is a popular commentator on conservative networks Fox News and OANN, and a frequent presence on Twitter, where she routinely criticizes liberal or Democratic politicians, usually in dismissive and sometimes crude terms.

Brigitte Gabriel is the screen name of Lebanese-American conservative activist Hanan Qahwaji, a stidently anti-Islamic figure who strongly supports Der Furor and far-right causes. A typical tweet published on November 15th after Der Furor's announcement of his 2024 presidential campaign, reads "DRAIN THE SWAMP! ELECT [DER FUROR]!" Considering that Der Furor ran the presidency as a money-making operation, with his unprecedented ignorance, grift, and illegality not only in full view, but actually admitted, Ms Gabriel seems to have confused draining the swamp with making it ... well ... swampier.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Left Cheek Ass Clown award for this month is presented jointly to four of the noisiest and least attention-worthy voices of the extreme right: Dan Bongino, Dinesh D'Souza, Tomi Lahren, and Brigitte Gabriel. Life is too short to waste your time listening to any of them ... you will get more useful information from listening to random drunks shouting on street corners. You've been warned.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday returns ... see you then!

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

When you get to a certain age it's common to look back and think about how your life that might have been different had events taken a different turn - not necessarily better or worse, just different ...

Half-Light

by Frank Bidart

When I tell you that all the years we were

undergraduates I was madly in love with you

you say you 

knew. I say I knew you 

knew. You say 

There was no place in nature we could meet.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend living the life nature has dealt you. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

The election is over ... you can exhale now, if slowly.

Predictions of a huge "red wave" that would sweep Republicans into full control of government at all levels proved to be false as the voting revealed an electorate unhappy with the Biden administration, but not convinced the GOP would do any better and turned off by the extremism of many Republican candidates; Russia appears to have evacuated its forces from the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson; noisy conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered to pay an additional $73 million in damages for his baseless claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax; a large piece of wreckage from the destroyed space shuttle Challenger was found in the Atlantic Ocean by historians looking for the wreckage of aircraft from World War II; and a police officer fired from the Vallejo, California, police department after two shooting incidents was hired as a police officer in the town of Broadmoor, a mere 40 miles away.

This week, as the dust from the $8 billion midterm election still petulantly refuses to settle, I dug deep into the collection for some cartoons inspired by electoral politics, election funding, and the coming of the GOP Congressional Revenge Tour ...

If you're part of the 1% and still have money left over after bankrolling the party of your choice, you won't want to give up whatever remains ...

Wouldn't it be nice if the Federal Election Commission* would recall all the tainted money that funded the election? ...

It's a tossup ...

Tee, hee, hee ... regulations ...

The actual election fraud lies in how the campaigns are financed, how Congressional districts are drawn, and how election law is enforced, rather than in actual malfeasance by the voters themselves ...

The current Supreme Court is the modern-day equivalent of the Old West "hanging jury" ...

We're certainly paying members of Congress more than most of them are worth ...

Remember the description of the federal budget as a "satan sandwich?" This is an old cartoon made new again ...

More truth here than you probably are willing to admit ...

I think this is the actual birth of the "religious" right ...

And that's it for today's collection of cartoons - I hope I've managed to lift your spirits after the last few weeks of electoral madness.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts coming tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns.

Bilbo

* If you actually visit the FEC website, try not to laugh hysterically at the top banner that says "Protecting the integrity of the campaign finance process."

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

Ah, yes ... it's another oddity Friday ...

I've never seen that game played in a bar ...

 

It's a good way to make some extra scratch ...

You'd think he'd choose a better bet ...

It seems like an odd thing for a church to sponsor, but we live in times when the precepts of Christianity seem to have been rethought ...

Yes, I suppose that would work ...

Does a large print audio book just play louder? ...

He probably didn't know that most hotel rooms now have small safes in each room ...

Seems like a pretty positive ID ...

This sounds like a personal ad from somewhere in Florida ...

Uh ... where is suite 242? ...

And there you go for today, November 11th. The oddities go on, as ever.

Have a good day, and don't make any stupid bets. And come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Words to Bring Back

A recent meme circulating on Facebook offered a list of archaic words that should be brought back into general use. I thought most of them were cute, but not especially useful, although I heartily endorse these:

Bedward (adv) - heading toward bed. Any more, it describes my favorite time of day. 

Brabble (v) - to argue loudly. I don't know the original derivation, but it seems to be a combination of bray (like a donkey) and babble. It seems like a very good word to describe current political arguments.

Gorgonize (v) - have a paralyzing effect on someone. It comes, of course, from the mythical gorgon, who was so hideous that anyone looking at her would turn to stone. In current use, it refers (for me, anyhow) to the mental paralysis caused by listening to some of the asinine political discourse that passes nowadays for rational thought.

Jargoyle (v) - to confuse. Apparently a portmanteau resulting from the combination of jargon and gargoyle. I prefer to think of it as a noun rather than a verb, describing a grotesque figure spouting nonsense. Examples can be found throughout the Trump family and in a large number of Republicans running for Congress or already members thereof.

Malagrugrous (adj) - dismal, depressing, dreary, or gloomy. A particularly useful word for describing American politics.

Osculable (adj) - able or worthy to be kissed. A related word is osculation, a fancy term for kissing. I love the expression posterior osculation, a fancy way of saying "ass kissing."

And finally,

Snool (n) - a servile toady who tamely submits to abuse. See, "Mike Pence."

Do you have any other old or obsolete words you think should be brought back? Or new words that ought to be in the dictionary, but aren't (also known as sniglets)? Leave a comment.

Have a good day. Don't be a malagrugrous jargoyle.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Crime and Punishment in America

As we sit and wait in dread for the results of tomorrow's election to be - hopefully - agreed upon, it's worth looking back and thinking about the character of the campaigning that led up to this point.

Republicans are running largely on three basic themes, none of which they offer any concrete proposals to address:

(1) Inflation is killing us all, and President Biden and the Democrats are responsible.

(2) American cities, particularly those with Democrats in power, are lawless, crime-ridden hellholes where fearful ("white Christian") citizens cower in fear for their lives while angry mobs of Antifa thugs rampage unchecked through the streets, burning and looting all in their path and exposing decent, law-abiding ("white Christian") citizens to the horrors of Critical Race Theory and economic fairness, all encouraged by President Biden and the Democrats.

And ...

(3) An enormous, unstoppable wave of destitute, disease-ridden, wild-eyed criminals, each carrying hundreds of pounds of fentanyl, bales of phony ballots, or both, is pouring over a border left wide open by President Biden and the Democrats.

All of these are idiotic arguments, untainted by evidence and targeted at people who respond only to visceral bumper-sticker messages. It's much easier to cuddle into the warm and comforting embrace of far-right scare media than to do any critical thinking or demand any actual evidence that these things are real.

I would call your attention to two wonderful things I wish every screaming GOP supporter would listen to:

First is a brilliant dissection of the responsibility for inflation, presented by the Politics Girl. I couldn't do a better job of pointing out that the Republican Emperor has no economic clothes.

Second is a very interesting look at actual crime statistics presented in an NPR broadcast report. You can listen to the report (it takes about seven minutes) or read a transcript here. One of the most interesting parts of the analysis is that what is reported as "crime" is based on a decision made nearly 100 years ago on what types of crimes would be reported and tracked by police. Today, however, much - perhaps most - of the most lucrative and socially damaging crime is being committed by criminals who will probably never be prosecuted or spend so much as a day in jail. Why? Because they are white, rich, can afford expensive lawyers, and are able to manipulate laws and government policies to make their crimes hard to prosecute. Plus, their "victimless" crimes (embezzlement, graft, theft of public property, blackmail, etc) fall outside the "Index One" crimes (murder, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, larceny, burglary, auto theft, and sometimes arson) that police and lawmakers formally track.

Of course, those are all crimes that are terrible and worthy of punishment, but they ignore a vast landscape of crime that is seldom seen, even more seldom charged, and still yet more seldom punished. The worst criminals, the ones who cause all of us the most economic and social damage, are laughing at the ones who deflect attention away from their crimes ...

And finally, no one doubts that there is an immigration crisis in this country. What is never actually admitted is that neither party has a particular interest in solving it. For Republicans, it's useful for whipping up their supporters' fear of the replacement of privileged, white, Christian Americans by terrible brown hordes. For Democrats, it's an opportunity to posture themselves as caring and righteous (not to mention that many of those immigrants tend to vote for Democrats). Neither side is willing to address the fundamental problem, which is that our immigration system is totally broken and out of sync with the actual economic and social needs of the country. Republicans refuse to consider any new immigration legislation that doesn't begin with sealing the borders and deporting the millions of illegal immigrants already here. Democrats refuse to consider any new legislation which doesn't address the problem of dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants already here by providing some pathway to eventual citizenship. And so nothing gets done. Nobody has a reasonable plan to address the problem. Except me, of course, but my proposal has been stored in the "Send Him an Earnest Letter, Then Ignore" file of every one of my elected officials.

And so the ass clownery goes on.

Tens of millions of us will go to the polls tomorrow and cast our votes on the basis of our fears, rather than our hopes. A Republican victory that seizes control of one or both houses of Congress will result in a government that does nothing except exact political revenge for perceived slights, the party having published no plans to address the problems they rail about. To the extent a Republican-dominated legislature does anything, it will benefit the GOP's wealthy and big-business supporters, not you and I.

Author Octavia E. Butler expressed it well in her novel "Parable of the Talents":

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and foresight.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears;
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool;
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen;
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies;
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”

Wisdom and foresight are what we need. Exercise them carefully when you vote tomorrow.

Have a good day. Choose wisely. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Musical Sunday

It's been a long time since we've been able really to travel, what with Covid, inflation, and political turmoil. We're hoping to go back to Europe for a while next Spring (assuming Putin's war has not spread further west), and perhaps eventually we may even get to our yet-unexplored lands of Asia. Who knows? ... perhaps we might be able to spend a night in Bangkok ...

And yes - I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine!

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

New month, new insanity ...

Republicans, masters of division and deflection, accused President Biden of dividing and deflecting the nation in a fiery Wednesday speech on threats to democracy in America; tonight's Powerball prize will be $1.5 billion, the third-largest jackpot in history and nearly enough to buy control of the House or Senate; afraid of being lost in the bad news noise, North Korea launched a barrage of missiles, including an ICBM capable of striking the United States; the sport of professional cornhole has been rocked by a scandal involving the use of illegal beanbags (dubbed, of course, "BagGate"); and in Florida (where else?) a man convicted of embezzling millions of dollars from a medical services firm defended his action by claiming his crime benefited other people ... including a webcam performer who provided "sexual gratification and companionship."

Speaking of "sexual gratification and companionship," and because we need something out of the ordinary to take our minds off the coming midterm elections, how about a selection of cartoons about sex?

Praying mantises are tailor-made for cartoons about dangerous sexual liaisons ...

Like I said ...

It's a new twist on the classic question ...

Hot dog sex ... or is it, "Hot Dog!! Sex!!" ...

Yes, John, do ...

It's less fun when you need help ...

What else would you do when stranded on a desert island? ...

I think she should have held out for the allspice ...

Thinking ahead during the reading of the will ...

And there you have it - our first Cartoon Saturday collection for November, rated somewhere between PG-13 and R. And I didn't have to pay $8 per month for a blue check mark on it. Yet.

Have a good day, a great weekend, and get ready to do your civic duty on Tuesday. Remember that democracy, decency, and good government are on the ballot, and vote accordingly.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2022

Yes, Dear Readers, a new month has dawned, and new paragons of idiocy, shameless hypocrisy, and utter stupidity are clamoring for recognition in the swirling cesspool of ass clownery that is modern America. As hard as it is to single out a single award recipient on a good day, it's even harder during an election year when the screaming lunacy is at its height. Nevertheless, I have girded my mental loins and made one of the toughest - yet, perversely, easiest - calls ever. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the tinfoil and toilet paper crown of

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2022

is placed on the swelled and empty head of

Donald Trump, Junior

If ever there was proof of the old adage that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," it's provided by the noisy and hateful older son of Der Furor. From his often incoherent, hate-filled rants on Instagram to his gleeful reposting of a tasteless "Paul Pelosi Halloween Costume", the younger Trump echoes the violent, fact-free, and angry rants of his father. Like his father, Donald Junior has no morals, no empathy, no class, and no plans to address all the problems he howls endlessly about. He is a despicable human being who has no business being part of government or public policy decision-making, and deserves the contempt and disgust of all decent people.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2022, is Donald Trump, Junior. 'Nuff said.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday returns for a new month. See you then.

Bilbo

 

Recurring Annoyances

There are a lot of things that fall under my general heading of "recurring annoyances." One of them is Girl Scout Cookies ... you never realize how many young women sell Girl Scout Cookies until - generally between January and April - you are besieged by wave after wave of earnest young ladies (and their parents, grandparents, and boosters) beseeching you to buy Thin Mints*, Samoas, or whatever.

Another recurring annoyance is the tsunami of televised advertisements for extended auto warranties, which accompany the unending, year-round barrage of robocalls hawking the same thing. Probably the most annoying thing about the robocalls is that each one claims to have made multiple attempts to reach me (true) and that this is my final opportunity to sign up (false). The number of TV ads seems to have declined slightly of late, probably to allow upgrades to the technology of annoyance, but the well-staffed call centers in India and Pakistan are still standing by.

The current recurring annoyance is the proliferation of advertisements for Medicare Part C ("Medicare Advantage") plans that explodes each year between October and December. These are health care plans for senior citizens that cover all the things basic Medicare (Parts A and B) doesn't** ... they run a minimum of six times an hour all day long, often back-to-back, and urge you to call to receive "everything you deserve." Of course, "everything you deserve" is what is covered in Parts A and B ... Parts C and D are "everything you're willing to pay extra for." If you choose one of these plans, be sure it covers eye exams and glasses, because you'll need them to read all the fine print in the ads.

Oh, and lest we forget ... the never-ending landslide of ads targeting anyone who was ever within 500 miles of Camp Lejune between 25 BCE and a future date to be determined later. While many people stationed at this North Carolina Marine Corps base have legitimate reasons to seek compensation for health problems caused by contaminated water, lawyers have flocked from as far away as Outer Mongolia to cash in on the lawsuit bonanza, running numbers of TV ads matched only by those hawking legal remedies for mesothelioma***. And although those ads tell you that "you may be eligible for compensation," so are the lawyers ... and they get paid first****.

I'm not even going to mention the endless annoyance of having to listen to the whiny, grating sound of Der Furor's voice.

What are the things that annoy you? Leave a comment, and let's get annoyed together.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* I have to admit that I like Thin Mints, although my waistline does not.

** Well, not all the things ... you need to read the squintingly fine print to sort of know.

*** How about that earnest, grandmotherly lady who pleads with you to "order the free book, and receive so much more," while her serious-looking husband looks on gravely?

**** How else are they going to pay for all that expensive air time? And yachts? And big houses?