Prelude to the Apocalypse

[BryanM]

If you're tired of blasé circus antics, you can always peep into the world of libertarian candidates.

Oh no, not even two days pass and this guy flip-flopped on goat sacrifice

[Rob]

Invictus also supports eugenics to weed out “the weakest, the least intelligent, and the most diseased” Americans through sterilization, forced abortion or euthanasia.

There's a throwback to greater times. Makes me want to exterminate bison and chisel white faces into mountains.

[Ed Oscuro]

Ahh, it's not the Trump show anymore.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pl ... ly-broken/

How long until these guys realize that voters are the way forward?

Even righties agree!

[BryanM]

While it would moderately cheer me up to see them elect the perfect Speaker of the House for the GOP: Nancy Pelosi, it's not going to happen and it isn't going to change anything.

We desperately need to flush the religion of supply side economics down the toilet if the madness is to ever end. And then, acknowledge that the class war never ends, and if you're not inside the class war fighting, you're losing the class war.

Even righties agree!

This Jennifer Rubin fellow sounds like an idiot. The government could shut down for forever, and that'd be exactly what these guys and their voters want to see happen.

These guys seriously think all of their problems stem from the government. All of them.

I'm scared shitless of full blown fascism. That's what accelerationism means.

[brokenhalo]

Ahh, it's not the Trump show anymore.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pl ... ly-broken/

How long until these guys realize that voters are the way forward?

Even righties agree!

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/ ... ete-chaos/

Pretty interesting article about the latest republican meltdown. I love that the "Freedom Caucus" has a list of demands they are circulating, to secure their votes. Amazing how 40 nutjobs have managed to totally halt any work in congress. The republicans might have to work with the democrats to get a new speaker elected. I like to imagine that this might be some turning point where the republicans wake up from their delusional dreams and get back to work, but obviously there's no way in hell that will happen.

[Ed Oscuro]

Even righties agree!

This Jennifer Rubin fellow sounds like an idiot. The government could shut down for forever, and that'd be exactly what these guys and their voters want to see happen.

Check the last two paragraphs tho. She called out Football Club Freedom for being anarchists, which is what they seem to be.

Agreed about the supply side thing...it's funny how much right-wingers hate on unions who actually had real things to fight over, instead of fighting to save the tooth fairy of economics that they think leaves those big checks under their pillows after a sacrifice.

[antares]

This is funny

[Xyga]

Oh yeah, his menswear line also has stuff made in Mexico.

[BulletMagnet]

Please, he's also imported foreign labor for his casinos (oh, and the fortune he inherited from his father was founded on public money). If anyone thinks he's any less of a scorched-earth corporate mercenary than any of his kin they haven't bothered to learn the first thing about him.

[Ed Oscuro]

He also sold his own cut-rate vodka brand, even though he's a teetotaler.

Quite pleased that somebody (Clinton?) used my favorite Trump-describing phrase last night, "that carnival barker."

[BryanM]

That was Martin.

I know: it's hard to remember there was more than two people up there. I kind of glazed out when he was talking, too.

[BryanM]

Now I really feel like having some damn donuts.

Thanks, Ed....

[BryanM]

A depressing paragraph in this run of the mill Trumpy rumination.

"Most of the electorate would not pass a test on what anybody's positions are on anything," he said. "Nobody cares." Conservative voters, for instance, seem not to mind Trump's favorable comments on national health insurance and eminent domain.

What can win over voters is what Pfeffer called "narcissism."

Oh god it's true we're a bunch of stupid animals, naught more than raw meat.

Personally I've been flipping between the extremes of delusional Ron Paul style ItsHappening.gif koolaid to soul crushing "people aren't as intelligent as you think they might be" pessimism when it comes to the possibility that we may, finally, for the first time in 500 and six years, nominate a democrat who is not identical to Ronald Reagan.

But then I watch a debate where a lady from a royal family says some wishy washy lot of nothing and gets enormous cheers for no reason.

Hey man, she already said the Iraq war vote was a mistake. What you wan' her to do? Let it go man.

Hey man, you think the Vietnam war was a mistake. How can we possibly trust a wimp hippy like you?

Argh. Tell me I'm not crazy and all the bad bad people will go away.

Promise me we're not going to have cult leader Ben Carson as president. I don't want to go into concentration camps. Where he'll preform brain surgery to "correct" us.

... he wouldn't even need armed thugs to round people up. He'd just say "It's time for everyone to go to happy camp now." And everyone would obey.

That hypnotic voice.

So calm.

Makes everything sound so reasonable.

[Mischief Maker]

Spoiler

[Ed Oscuro]

Spoiler

Why can't we get good stuff like this? Even in the three-panel format where all the herblock wannabes go to die, that'd be pretty good.

Instead we get H. Payne with a practically unintelligible series of cartoons mostly against Dem frontrunners:


and today's head-scratcher:

...I was happier when that one was just black and white.

Indeed. Don't quit your day jobs, syndicated cartoonists.

[Mischief Maker]

Why can't we get good stuff like this?

Well "Tom the Dancing Bug" is probably the #1 greatest political cartoon of this generation, so it's probably not fair to hold everyone to his standards:

Spoiler

Greatest of the greatest generation? Perhaps Dr. Seuss:

Spoiler

[Illyrian]

You can't stump the Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiRf0E44LYk

[BryanM]

God, how much easier I would sleep at night if Hillary's position really was to filet the rich. I want to live in that guy's alternative universe where democrats don't suck monkey butts.

Glenn McCoy is probably the most openly racist of racist political cartoonists; for an entire industry terrified of black people and mexicans, it's pretty impressive to distinguish yourself.

A reminder that Bors (and Martin too, I guess...) is a gem.



We're not all crazy. Maybe.

[BryanM]

A reminder that Bors (and Martin too, I guess...) is a gem.

I'm so not kidding about this. He's like literally being a cartoon super villian - normally your class enemy is an invisible guy living in Houston that you'll never meet. Which makes it so easy to scapegoat poors and minorities. And yet he's more than happy to show up on tv all the time to give people a rich vulture to hate - he's either trying to reform our country or the world's biggest narcissist.

His tweets make me think he really, really wants Bernie Sanders to win. Nothing but "I hate Sanders" and "Hillary takes a lot of money from pharmaceutical companies."

It's like how Osama Bin Laden denounced George Bush, knowing that we would want to vote for the guy Captain Evil hates, and therefore elect the guy Osama endorses.

[BryanM]

If Trump wasn't in the race, we wouldn't have been able to figure out if George Bush was president when 9-11 happened or not.

[BulletMagnet]

In case anyone still thought that the Dems couldn't possibly paint themselves into a corner against such ludicrous opposition, allow Matt Yglesias to take a dump on that notion for you.

[Ed Oscuro]

This is why Bernie's more centrist (well, supposedly) position on guns was interesting to people.

Democracy isn't about getting everything you want automatically. Democrats might win by default, in the long run, with young people being overwhelmingly in support of liberal issues...if the Republicans don't kill us all off first.

[BryanM]

Democrats might win by default, in the long run, with young people being overwhelmingly in support of liberal issues

The country already is.

Too bad they never get a chance to vote on these issues. Wall St. vs Oil, choose your capitalist master.

[Ed Oscuro]

Even so, I think Yglesias is wrong to cast the "far left" position of Bernie on taxes as being outside the mainstream. Of course, none of the Republican candidates are (it sounds like Trump is going down the well-worn "low taxes for all!" route after all).

[BulletMagnet]

Even so, I think Yglesias is wrong to cast the "far left" position of Bernie on taxes as being outside the mainstream.

Conservatives have, for decades, without a moment's rest, been pushing both the "government is always the problem" and "trickle down" narratives while liberals have yet to pull their thumbs out of their asses; ask most people what they think of taxing the rich at ANY higher rate (or hell, even failing to continually keep lowering it) and their answer will almost invariably be something along the lines of "they'll take our jobs away" or "but the cuts pay for themselves" or "the government just needs to stop all the profligate spending" or "at least the rich work, unlike all those freeloaders on welfare". Almost nobody knows how much lower the top tax rate is now than it was a few decades ago, or how much Reaganomics added to the debt counter, or how much less the rest of the civilized world spends on universal health care, because all they've heard from the liberal establishment for years on end is what a bunch of dumbass, inbred, Bible-thumping hicks they are...and then the left wonders why it keeps losing elections.

Red-staters are hurting just as bad as blue-staters and the facts are on our side, but we've simply never bothered to ensure that this state of affairs actually matters. Until we do, we're totally at the mercy of Trump and his petty, pathetic ilk, and it's entirely our own fault.

[BryanM]

because all they've heard from the liberal establishment for years on end is what a bunch of dumbass, inbred, Bible-thumping hicks they are...and then the left wonders why it keeps losing elections.

Let's make sure we nominate Hilldigitty to ensure that continues. That other guy man. He wants to end the madness? What a freak.

This is America bub.

[BryanM]

[Ed Oscuro]

H. Payne could take a cue from that strip! For example, it has something called "a punchline."

I was somewhat saddened to discover that the H. isn't the same H. in Jesus H. Christ, nor is he Howard Payne, the talented bad guy (and decent choice for President) Howard Payne from Speed. Turns out he's just another shmuck who scribbles weirdly in order to scratch an itch - or something else.

Speaking of Paynes and Bush-es, here's a fun old story.

[quash]

Quite pleased that somebody (Clinton?) used my favorite Trump-describing phrase last night, "that carnival barker."

That would be rich coming from Clinton, since there's more than a few nasty things you could call her. I think sticking to the tried and true "celebrity" will do, though.

Nothing makes me more giddy than hearing Clinton supporters unironically try to debunk Trump on the basis of him being a celebrity. What do you call someone who only managed to get where they are based on their spouses' position?

[quash]

Please, he's also imported foreign labor for his casinos (oh, and the fortune he inherited from his father was founded on public money). If anyone thinks he's any less of a scorched-earth corporate mercenary than any of his kin they haven't bothered to learn the first thing about him.

I do think his success story is slightly embellished by many, who seem to think that he came from nothing. He started off rich and became richer, that's it. He's a good businessman but he has made many mistakes along the way.

Still, I wouldn't hold that against him. Making mistakes is how you learn. Making big mistakes is how you learn a lot. Trump may be a lot of things, but he's no idiot.