Political Memes, Comics, and other Shenanigans, Part 38

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[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

 

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I laughed myself silly while watching this. Kate does her normal masterful version of Laura and Cecily nails Kimberly.

 

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"Blame Putin"

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This entire war is Vladimir Putin’s fault. It’s not the fault of Ukraine. It’s not the fault of NATO. It’s not the fault of Bananarama. And it’s not the fault of President Joe Biden. Yet, conservatives keep trying to latch on to a way to blame President Biden, and they keep coming up empty.

The first reason they have that it’s Biden’s fault is that Biden is president. I mean, it’s nice they’re acknowledging he’s the legitimate president, but that’s not a reason to blame him. You hear the goons say this never happened while Trump was president, which is true. But what would have happened if Trump had won reelection would have been the destruction of NATO, a North Korean invasion of South Korea, and Putin going on a larger land grab in Europe than just in Ukraine. For god’s sake, Trump was lobbying to get Putin back into the G7, which Obama had him removed from. The reason Putin didn’t invade Ukraine while Trump was president is that he didn’t have to.

They also say this happened because Biden is weak and Putin only respects strength. But how exactly is Biden weak? It’s Biden’s leadership that’s organized 99 percent of the world to unify and sanction Putin, his cronies, and Russia. Biden has crippled Russia’s economy.

If Biden’s weak on Putin, then what the hell was Trump to Putin? Biden has been tough and has issued criticism on him repeatedly. Trump has NEVER said a bad word about Putin. In fact, when other people say bad things about Putin, Trump defends him. Trump defended Putin when Bill O’Reilly called him a “murderer.” Trump defended Putin when our government says he meddled in our election. While standing next to Putin, Trump took his side over American intelligence’s accusation that Putin tampered with our election. Right before this war began, Trump called Putin a “genius.” Trump has yet to say one bad thing about Putin since this war began nearly two weeks ago. Donald Trump even tried to give Vladimir Putin a free penthouse back in 2016.
The goons may be right in that Putin doesn’t respect weakness as he never respected Trump.

Some Republicans say Biden hasn’t done enough for Ukraine, yet Biden has increased military weaponry to that nation without ever holding it up in a quid-pro-quo for political dirt on an opponent. Unlike Donald Trump, President Biden has not extorted President Volodymyr Zelensky.

My question to the president’s critics is: What would you have done better? What would Trump have done better? What wrong move has Biden taken? You can’t point out anything that would improve this situation. Oh, you would ban Russian oil from being imported into the United States? Sure, and right after that, you’d blame President Biden for increased gas prices, which is actually an international problem.

When you claim Vladimir Putin would have behaved differently if Trump was in office at this time, how do you know? When did you become experts on Vladimir Putin? There are diplomats and foreign policy experts who’ve been studying Putin for decades who can’t tell you what he’s going to do next. Putin can’t tell you what Putin is going to do next. But I know what Trump would have done. Trump would give Putin everything he’s ever asked for.

Vladimir Putin is a liar. He’s not a man of his word. He doesn’t have any clue what he’s doing. He’s not even sure what his objective is. And after years of being accused of being savvy, smart, manipulative, and a genius, we’ve discovered over the span of less than two weeks that Vladimir Putin is a worse military strategist than Saddam Hussein.

Vladimir Putin is also a murderer and a war criminal. This is an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation. This war has killed thousands of innocent civilians, including children. He’s targetting civilians intentionally. He’s destroying Ukraine for his ego and to save face. And you want to blame someone else?

The blame here lies entirely on Vladimir Putin. Don’t you dare take that away from him.

 

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[smittykins]

 

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"Fake News Genius"

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A lot of Russian propaganda outlets are being shut down in the west by western governments and private corporations. Russia state-owned outlets that have been operating freely in Europe and the United States, RT and Sputnik, have taken a huge hit and are being blocked.

While the west is blocking Russia’s fake news outlets, much of it as part of sanctions, Russia has created a new “fake news” law while also blocking western news in Russia.

Russia is already cracking down on protests against its illegal invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s war crimes and is now blocking independent news outlets that would inform its citizenry of events in the war the state doesn’t want them to know.

Last Thursday, the Duma (Russia’s legislative body) made it a crime to publish “fake news” or misinformation about Russia’s war in Ukraine. It will be Russian government authorities who determine what’s fake. Vladimir Putin signed it into law on Friday. Immediately, Russian and international news organizations either withdrew their reporters from the country, changed how they did their work or shut down completely.

Bloomberg announced it was suspending its work in the country. Editor-in-chief John Micklethwait said the law “seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association” and “makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country.”

The public service broadcasters of Canada, Germany, and Italy each suspended their operations inside Russia.

The BBC announced it was suspending its work in Russia but that “BBC News in Russian will still be produced from outside the country.” The director-general of the BBC said, “The safety of our staff is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs.”

Radio Free Europe is also suspending its operations inside Russia while also initiating bankruptcy proceedings against its Russian unit because of millions of dollars in unpaid “fines” against the broadcaster for refusing to obey a Russian law that would “cripple its editorial content.”

ABC News and CBS News are both ceasing their broadcast from inside Russia. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both declined to say how they will proceed in the fascist state. The Washington Post, however, plans to keep reporting from inside Russia and is taking the unusual step of removing bylines and datelines from its stories in order to protect its journalists.

Independent Russian outlets are faring worse.  Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper that survived the murder of six of its journalists, and whose editor recently won a Nobel Peace Prize, said it will no longer report on Russia’s military actions but will continue to report on sanctions and persecutions of dissidents.

More than 150 Russian journalists have fled the nation in recent days. The Kremlin has blocked Facebook, Twitter, and a host of international news sites. This blog will probably be blocked in Russia as well. In fact, this site hasn’t received a click from Russia in over a month.

Here in the United States, In addition to Donald Trump villainizing journalists, the greatest threat to journalists are the corporations that employ journalists. The caretakers of a free press have become the morticians.

Conservatives have chosen to back Ukraine against Russia, but they’ve also been opponents of a free press here in the United States. While calling Putin a fascist, they ignore that getting rid of a free press is how you get fascism.

Even the term “fake news” is dangerous to a free press as we’re getting to the point that people can’t tell the difference between news and propaganda. News that you don’t like is not “fake news.” There are no alternative facts. There are just facts. There is no “fake news” as any news that’s fake is NOT news. People are getting their “information” from memes and don’t think twice or research a claim before resharing. People share memes, not because they’re true, but because they want the meme’s claims to be true.

And then you have News Max, One American News Network, Fox News, and all the Tuckers, Hannitys, Gutfelds, Ingrahams, and shit there are too many to list.

Newspapers are now a dying industry being gobbled up by corporations that gut the papers in their chains, liquidate all its assets, lay off most of its staff, sell the paper again where the new owner repeats the actions of the last owner. All Gatehouse/Gannett newspapers run the exact same editorial page along with other content. It’s now common for a daily newspaper’s A section to only contain six pages. Lee Enterprises, Gatehouse/Gannett, McClatchy (in bankruptcy proceedings where I’m listed as someone they owe money to but who will never receive it), and Berkshire Hathaway all care more about the stock market than they care about journalism. They don’t care about local journalism or serving a community. And they don’t care about the people who gather the news. Since I was laid off from The Free Lance-Star in 2012, the paper has had four owners. FOUR!

In Russia, the government is the greatest danger to a free press. Here, we destroy it on our own.

I can go on and on about how I’ve been affected personally and in business, but I’m gonna save that for another day. But I’ll just say, it’s extremely frustrating when editors and news outlets just decide they’re not going to pay you anymore.

I feel like I got thrown off a building when COVID started and I’m still falling.

 

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[SassyPants]

23 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I filled up yesterday at $6.19/gal for mid level gas. $101 for a full tank. When I mentioned it to my husband he reminded me of the above…Putin sucks-

[fraurosena]

[thoughtful]

Made this one myself!