Political Memes, Comics, and other Shenanigans, Part 36

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"I Got A Rock"

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So, you may have heard of this supply chain crisis. You may have noticed it yourself while out shopping for a Jason Voorhees Halloween mask and not finding one. You may have noticed shelves in stores bare of any Halloween candy other than candy corn. You may have seen footage on the news of cargo ships backed up in harbors and shipping ports. You may have heard someone on Fox News or a meme-making moron blame President Joe Biden even though it’s a global issue. So, what’s happening and why is it happening?

First off, it is a global thing. It’s not just happening here in the United States. Also, it’s not new. Sure, it’s the first you think you’re hearing of it but just because you’re just now hearing about it (think of that as first-world privilege) doesn’t mean it hasn’t been happening.

But you have heard about it. Do you remember way back so long ago in early 2020? Do you remember when you couldn’t find toilet paper and you had to wipe with paper towels until you ran out of paper towels? You couldn’t find hand sanitizer or face masks either. That was a supply-chain issue. Do you remember who was president then? You do? Good. So, why is this supply-chain issue now President Biden’s fault but the supply-chain issue of 2020 wasn’t President (sic) Trump’s fault?

A lot of the goods are being made. They exist. They’re out there. They’re out there in the ocean on boats with each waiting its turn to dock and be unloaded. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (I’ve been there to picked up a Hyundai I shipped from Honolulu, and the crew left garbage in it and the interior smelled like hobo sex) processes 40 percent of all imported goods. In case you’re a Republican, “import” means it’s coming in. “Export” means it’s going out. Right now, the flow of imports has overloaded the ports’ capacity to unload it.

This all began with the pandemics with factories and shipping shut down and cut off in China, Vietnam, and other places where children work for a nickel a day. China’s shutdown of one major port led to others being shut down. Now, there’s even a shortage of shipping containers. You may have heard some smartass say that American-made products don’t get stuck in a harbor…well, the shipping container thing has complicated issues for U.S. agriculture too. Remember when I explained that import-export thing? Yeah, well we export produce, genius.

And (this part may freak you out), there’s a semiconductor shortage which means a lot of computer parts aren’t going out. This affects everything from cars to computer to smart TVs to your smart phone. Apple is cutting back iPhone 13 production by ten million. Maybe Christmas is screwed, if you’ve only been mouthing the Jesus part of it when all along it’s always been about getting stuff. This supply-chain crisis going to make great fodder for the War-on-Christmas mouthbreathers.

Simply put, the entire thing began when you could not go out during the pandemic. Remember how you couldn’t go out to a nice restaurant for a fine meal? Remember when you couldn’t go to the movies and buy $12.00 popcorn? Remember when you couldn’t go on a vacation and contract some tropical disease or hurl over the side of a cruise ship? Remember when you couldn’t go to a nasty bar and pick up some strange? Remember when you stayed home sitting on your ass at your computer and kept ordering shit from Amazon? That’s why you can’t get nothing now.

The supply-chain crisis is because we buy a lot of shit. We bought more stuff during the pandemic. Those stimulus checks helped. Who got through the pandemic without buying an air fryer? Well, I did but only because those things are huge and I live in a studio apartment. But I did buy a blender I’ve only used twice, a cast-iron skillet, another frying pan, a toaster, a cutting board, some nice knives, quite a few mixing bowls, one of those things you put an egg in and nuke to make your own McMuffin, and a wok…but no air fryer (in my defense, I also had just moved here and didn’t have any kitchen stuff other than a few plates, bowls, and silverware). I also gained about 30 pounds. I’m blaming that on the pandemic too.

The economy has been growing but this shortage will hurt it. A business can’t stay in business if it doesn’t have anything to sell. But we will get through this. I have a prediction: After Christmas, no one’s going to be talking about it anymore. In six months, you won’t remember it. MAGAts have already forgotten it started in 2020.

Note: When I was about 12 or so, I was a bit of a prankster. I know. Shocking. During this time of my adolescence, I wrapped a few small rocks in tinfoil and mixed them in with our Halloween candy and didn’t tell my mother. She unknowingly handed out a lot of rocks to trick-r-treaters and then wondered the next day why our house and car were egged and TP’ed. A few days later while going through the leftover candy, she discovered a tinfoil rock and put two-and-two together…long story short, I got in trouble. Kids hate getting rocks on Halloween almost as much as they hate getting candy corn.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"Ignore Trump"

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"Colin Powell"

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Colin Powell is an American hero. He’s a patriot who served his country honorably…mostly. He was the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first black national security adviser, and the first black secretary of state. He should be remembered for his service and accomplishments, including speaking out against Donald Trump and leaving his party to support the campaign of our nation’s first black president. Colin Powell may be the only person in my lifetime who could have been president and turned it down.

America trusted and believed Colin Powell.

Everyone makes mistakes and it would take a huge one to smear the record of General Colin Powell. Unfortunately, there is a big one. Colin Powell took a lie and used it before the United Nations to advocate for an invasion.

In 2003, Colin Powell sat before the United Nation’s Security Council and laid out evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which justified an invasion. He told them, “My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”

Yeah, not so much.

Powell played a recording of an intercepted conversation between Iraq army officers about a UN weapons inspection, but the description was embellished. There were UN weapons inspections, but no weapons. Powell laid out graphs, photos, and maps of where the weapons were stored, but they were about as accurate as a Ben Garrison cartoon. He showed photos of trucks, vans, and trailers as if that was proof there weapons of mass destruction. There are WMDs in there, but you’re gonna have to take our word for it.

Colin Powell’s performance did not clear the way for the United States to invade Iraq. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld had already made that decision by noon, September 11, 2001. But what Powell did was give the bullshit invasion support from a voice Americans trusted.

Powell believed the speech he gave was prepared by the National Security Council led by Condoleezza Rice. Unfortunately, it was created by Dick Cheney’s office. Remember, Dick Cheney is the guy who shoots his friends in their faces. While Powell was snookered by this and exploited by the Bush/Cheney administration, it was he himself who chose to believe the CIA over the state department’s own office of intelligence and research (INR), which submitted two intelligence reports before the speech questioning the solidity of the evidence.

The CIA had about as much evidence of WMDs in Iraq as Donald Trump’s investigation had proving President Obama was born in Kenya.

Diplomats from around the world still use the Powell speech to point out that the United States can’t be trusted…and that was before Donald Trump spoke before the United Nations talking about “Little Rocket Man.”

What Powell did was give his credibility to an illegal war based on lies on the world stage. If anything, you can say Colin Powell, with Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, created ISIS. During Powell’s speech, he referred to a Jordanian-born jihadist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 21 times in an effort to prove a link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Not only was Powell wrong (there was no link), but he made the future founder of ISIS famous and helped build his profile and following.

Depending on which source you reference, the war killed 150,000 to over 600,000 Iraqis. Additionally, at least 4,300 Americans died in Iraq.

Two years after his speech, and after he left the Bush administration, Powell called it a “blot” on his record and said, “I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now.”

While there are plenty of people writing obituaries and praising Powell’s record, you can’t dismiss this part of it as it may be the most important. He helped start a war…an illegal war based on lies.

It will always be a part of his record.

 

[smittykins]

17 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Sufficient to support a family. Which I notice they also don't seem to be in favour of raising minimum wage which would allow that either.

They figure that if they need extra income, Mom can sell Avon/Tupperware/*insert MLM here*.

Edited October 19, 2021 by smittykins

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

I don't know how I missed this in the past:

 

[thoughtful]

23 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I don't know how I missed this in the past:

 

Seems it's a long-standing tradition:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/watch-all-times-sesame-street-made-fun-donald-trump-987704/

In the first one, from 1988, Oscar agrees to "get his can outta here," to let him build Grump Tower, a can-dominium.

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

Another great series from Ann Telnaes:

 

More under spoiler:

Spoiler

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[Ozlsn]

5 hours ago, smittykins said:

They figure that if they need extra income, Mom can sell Avon/Tupperware/*insert MLM here*.

Which is still bizarre to me, the separation of this from other paid work - and to be successful at it is work. It's basically an assumption that everyone could get a job with an income high enough to support a family "if they really wanted to" and that just isn't the case.

[smittykins]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

But-but she didn’t say “Impeach Biden.”  She said “IMEACH BIDEN.” Totes different. 😛

Edited October 19, 2021 by smittykins

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[ADoyle90815]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

"Burning For Youngkin"

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I just told a friend who commented on this that the cartoon started without mentioning Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin. I thought it would have more appeal to all my clients if it could encompass their area. I mean, I don’t have any clients in Virginia which I think is kinda messed up. But then I thought how important it is to call out Glenn Youngkin and make sure this lying vile Trumper is defeated in my state. It’s important to save Virginia.

As anti-vaxxing, anti-mandates, and racist parents demand school boards across the nation stop teaching what they’re not teaching, Critical Race Theory, and threatening teachers and school board members, Republicans are accusing the Biden administration of attacking parents.

It’s funny that when a Republican gets shouted at, or denied service at a restaurant, or someone follows Kyrsten Sinema into a public bathroom to tell her how disappointed with what she’s doing (no, not if she washes her hands after, but obstructing Biden’s agenda without any reason), and it’s an attack. But a conservative parent tells a school board member “I know where you live” and “you better not leave your home alone,” and it’s free speech.

Glenn Youngkin, while presenting himself as a moderate Republican who doesn’t buy into the election lie but loves Trump’s endorsement, has now fully embraced the Republican habit of spreading bullshit.

During an interview with Fox News Radio on October 6, Young claimed his opponent, former governor Terry McAuliffe, had called President Biden to sic the FBI on parents who attend schoolboard meetings. Youngkin lied and said, “Now that parents have stood up and said ‘Terry, we’re rejecting this whole philosophy,’ he goes and gets his friend Joe Biden to dispatch the Department of Justice and the FBI to try to silence parents in Virginia who are standing up for their children.”

This is bullshit. That has never happened. Youngkin is making it up.

Youngkin went on to set his pants on fire with, “If you don’t agree with his big government policy to put government and politicians and bureaucrats between you and your children, if you don’t agree, he’s going to get his friends to sic the F.B.I. on you.”

He also did it the day before on a radio station in Lynchburg when he said, “Now we see Joe Biden and Terry McAuliffe attempting to silence parents completely by intimidating them by force.”

Now he has a commercial claiming Terry McAuliffe is sending the FBI after parents for sticking up for their children.

As Sarah Marshall said in the marvelous film, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.”

Youngkin isn’t just lying. He’s fear-mongering. Next, he’s going to say Terry McAuliffe will come to your house, kick your dog, teach black history to your children (what’s wrong with that?), eat all your Halloween candy except the candy corn, and clog your toilet. I could have had a career writing for Republicans.

Parents are not bad people. Most of us are parents. But parents screaming about Critical Race Theory are bad people and racist. Parents screaming at school board members against vaccine and face-mask mandates are bad people and bad parents. Parents threatening school board members are all of the above.

And allowing parents to dictate the curriculum, where they ban certain courses, is the same as book burning. Do you want your children educated by the demands of an angry mob? That’s what Glenn Youngkin is promising.

These parents Youngkin and Republicans are defending are less responsible and caring for their children and their education and more like the White Citizens Council from 1960s Mississippi. Youngkin wants to take money from public schools and give it to private schools, which is bringing back segregation. Fun fact: Most private schools were created in the 1960s so white parents could pull their kids out of public schools saving them from sitting next to a black kid.

Here’s a fun exercise: Go on the internet (where you are now) and look up your local private school and see the date it was established. I’m sure it being in the 60s is just a big honking coincidence.

Youngkin doesn’t want to talk about facts, like how he’s going to fire educators and ban abortion, and is more interested in lies, like the FBI is going to arrest you for giving your kid extra dessert. You can’t have any pudding unless you eat your meat!

The real threat here is Glenn Youngkin to Virginia. This lying gaslighting abortion-banning segregationist Trump goon wants to destroy our state by giving it to his fellow millionaires to rape and pillage. How’s that for fear-mongering? Except my fears about Youngkin can come true if he’s elected.

And if Youngkin is elected, it can be a bellwether for the rest of the nation during the 2022 midterms. We need to stop the GOP invasion cold in Virginia before it spreads to the rest of the nation. Draw the line in Virginia by defeating Youngkin.

Let’s give Youngkin an education by teaching him his hate, fearmongering and lies won’t work in Virginia.