CSotD: “What is Truth?” becomes “Who cares?”
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David Rowe, who, incidentally, was recently named Australia's cartoonist of the year, gets right to the point of Dear Leader's latest astonishingly sociopathic incitement of his brown shirt crew.
Rowe specializes in making politicians look ugly, but this is a particularly ugly moment. It's not just that Trump was tweeting out messages of hate from a group that has been condemned as bigots, but the garbage he shared wasn't even true.
Or even close to true.
Sandra Huckleberry Sanders — Who Does Not Look In The Least Like Anyone's Nice Suburban MotherTM – explains that the President probably didn't know the videos were lies from a hate group, but that it doesn't matter because the point is that it's a real problem.
Y'damn right it's a real problem: We've got a lunatic in the White House and he's surrounded by enablers. (And Rowe gets extra credit for picking up on Tillerson's impending demise.)
Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, Sandra! Explaining that the President is too incompetent to know what he's tweeting begins as already the worst possible justification. You don't need to gild the lily by explaining that, even though they are hateful, contemptible, bigoted lies, they are true because Dear Leader believes them.
Although, granted, who can deny that it is indeed a bad thing when black men rape our white women, or when Jews conspire to run the world economy or, for that matter, when Mexican immigrants turn out to be drug dealers, criminals and rapists?
Not our Sandra.
Nick Anderson manages to coax a grim chuckle out of this astonishing prelude to Kristallnacht, and I did laff, but it occurs to me that editorial cartoonists who rely on humor are in a tough bind these days, because this shit just isn't funny.
Except in skilled hands, and then only because the alternative is crying, and that's no help, either.
And leave us not forget that this really isn't the time to be criticizing our Dear Leader, because, as Ann Telnaes reminds us, it is the Christmas season when we should all join in the fellowship of humanity, along with our president.
Deck the halls, paint the lifeboats and rearrange the deck chairs, fa la la.
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
My early morning routine calls for an equally early evening bedtime, but I'll admit to waking up and checking the news last night to see if the sudden stall in cramming the budget down our throats had taken hold.
Apparently Kal isn't the only observer who has some doubts about this whole thing, though I am pessimistic enough to believe that he's in no danger of his cartoon becoming obsolete, except in the sense of passing from a dire warning to a bit of history.
Shove over, David Horsey. Kal's take on GOP economics will fit nicely with your bit of history from 2000.
Once I was awake, I decided to stare at the ceiling and wonder what was going to happen to freelancers like me when the GOP gets its cunning plan in place.
The best news I found was that, even if they get it all passed in 2017, it won't actually hit my retirement fund until April, 2019. The taxes we pay next April will be based on current law.
However, I was still awake.
There's a lot of confusion about freelancers and pass-through income, and the first bit of rumor to stamp out is that freelancers will no longer be able to deduct business expenses.
Of course they will. It's employees who won't.
And the first screwee I thought of on that was reporters and photographers, since they are employees (that is, they get a W-2 and not a 1099 at the end of the year), but they drive their own cars around doing the work of their employers.
Used to be that, if you kept track of your mileage, and, if you did a lot of spot news coverage, taking the difference between the IRS mileage rate and the reimbursement your employer paid for mileage as a deduction for unreimbursed business expenses would make a significant difference in your tax bill.
But you don't have to figure it out anymore, because you won't get a tax deduction for the money you spend on the job that isn't reimbursed by your employer.
Which means, for photogs, that I hope the company furnishes your camera and lenses, because you won't be able to write them off, either. (My advice? Do enough weddings on the side that you can write your equipment off there.)
They've also changed how they figure the taxes on pass-through income, which is what "independant contractors" make — that is, all those people who get 1099's and no benefits and have to pay all their own payroll taxes.
(Quick lesson: Employees split the payroll tax — FICA stuff — with their employer. Freelancers don't. We then pay about twice as much back to the gummint off the top of our earnings, so that a $20,000 a year "contractor" costs the company quite a bit less than a $20,000 a year employee. And takes home less.)
Anyway, I think I'll probably be okay whether they pass their tax bill or not, but that's not how decent folks judge these things, is it?
Is it?
I finally decided that my analysis of the impact of the tax reform, no matter how the House and Senate eventually divvy up the carcass, is probably best expressed in this classic cartoon.
At which point I rolled over and went back to sleep, albeit fitfully enough to retain some self-respect.
And, hey, Tim Eagan is right.
It's not like these guys don't have experience. They know what they're doing.
And, more important, they know who they're doing it for, and who they're doing it to.
As Sarah says, it doesn't matter if it's lies, because it's true.
And what's good for M&M Enterprises is good for the country!
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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