Sunday "Accounting Crisis" Funnies

Also a media crisis.

Two parties, two frontrunners, one a president, the other one a former president. Both at the same exact place in primary polls. Both face challengers. But only one gets taken seriously. Could the reason be media spin?

'Remember' Funnies

Lest we forget ...

The definition of insanity and all that.  Nothing changes until we do, and too many of our decrepit overlords are unwilling to rethink any of their moldy tropes.

Vote how we tell you to or be blamed for the death of democracy is a strange perspective. https://t.co/gdrbxUpvk6

— Ty Reynolds (@MMAtylander) May 27, 2023

K-Pax can now block me on social media since he is no longer a public official (temporarily, I believe). The Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives lanced a boil yesterday, but I'm still doubting that their MAGA fever has broken.

This was one of those weeks when so much happened that our collective memory has trouble keeping up (or maybe just mine).

Media considers white-collar crime -- no matter how consequential -- boring and unreportable. Meanwhile crimes like shoplifting and fare-jumping are endlessly fascinating to reporters and editors. 

The result of this is a pattern in which crimes typically committed by rich people are barely acknowledged, no matter how many millions of dollars are involved, while crimes typically committed by poor people are put in the spotlight. The media paints a very deceptive picture and unfortunately many Americans are fooled.

Judd Legum in The Guardian (from 2021) has a tale of two such crimes.

Hope Is Action* Funnies

A week (or so) remaining in the Texas legislative session and after a really abominable performance to date, the worst may still be to come.

Republicans in Congress are once more threatening to compel the nation to perform financial seppuku, and Joe Biden is once again folding like a rusty lawn chair to their austerity demands.

I don't care for Biden and won't be voting for him, but I don't hold animosity for the man in the way that Mike Fluggenock does.

It is with anxiety, chagrin and dread that I present this, my first cartoon of the 2024 Presidential “election” slog ...

…and despite the massive disappointment and lack of enthusiasm of huge swaths of Democratic voters, Gropin’ Joe announced his re-election campaign kickoff with a promise to “finish the job”… at which point yours truly, like millions of others, is cringing and asking themselves: what job would THAT be — immiserating the poor and the working class? Terrorizing immigrants and bullying our next-door neighbors? Fattening up the war profiteers and Wall Street? Beating down anti-war dissent in public media? Dragging us into World War III?

Lotta big jobs to finish there, Joester; guess you’re going to need four more years to thoroughly fuck shit up, huh?

IMHO there are bigger problems in the world that Biden simply has no interest or even the capacity to resolve.  He was wrong for the job four years ago and now has the abysmal track record to prove it.  Joe Biden is nothing more than the product of a dysfunctional system (OTOH, a system that's working perfectly if you're wealthy).  That's why the choices will be presented as 'democracy' or MAGA 2.0.  Fascism or plutocracy/oligarchy.  I will choose neither.

*Madam Secretary needs to work on her gaslighting.