CSotD: St. Helena Handbasket
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If we can't run our own country competently, we can at least provide amusement for the rest of the planet, and Zapiro provides a handy guide for his fellow Africans to their new neighbor, Nambia.
And, by the way, if you want to go visit beautiful Nambia, you can refuel your plane in Puerto Rico, because we now know that Puerto Rico is in the middle of the ocean, perhaps just north of Tristan de Coño Carajo.
St. Helena is out there, too, halfway between Nambia and Brazil, and Theresa May might agree to re-use it for its most historically significant purpose. Not only is the original residence still there — and, believe me, it's a fabulous building, not like that dump in DC — but the last emperor who stayed there even left an empty tomb when he moved back home.
And we could build Dear Leader a golf course where the British had their POW camp during the Boer War.
Though he'd probably want to rebuild that camp itself and use it for people who post disloyal things on Facebook.
Make St. Helena Great Again!
Meanwhile, back on the mainland
Kal comments on the Emperor's New Tax Plan, which only makes sense to very intelligent people who are fit to run national economies.
Or, as he suggests, those who view it through special glasses. Either way, to outsiders, it appears to favor the One Percent and to create a massive deficit, which we know is an illusion because Republicans are against deficits.
At least, they're against them when the topic is feeding poor children or giving people health care.
The needs of rich children being a different matter, as Tom Toles points out.
Dear Leader says eliminating the estate tax will benefit farmers and small businesses, which is an admirable goal although it's a gigantic load of horse manure intended to hide a grab by the One Percent.
But who cares?
And, as Scott Stantis points out, it makes a great deal of sense if you consider the track record of the business genius who is proposing it.
Let's see how the GOP deals with this flaming mess.
Perhaps, having more than enough failures on their record, they'll look at tax reform the way a team with no wins views the last game of the season: A chance to go all out and at least get that humiliating goose egg off the stat sheet.
A timely analogy, because former Denver Broncos Coach Red Miller died the other day, as Drew Litton noted.
Miller got his job after the players held a meeting at which they agreed that their current coach, John Ralston, couldn't get them where they wanted to be and publicly called for his ouster.
Miller came in and led them to their first Super Bowl.
Maybe the GOP needs to have a meeting and decide if they want to be loyal to the coach or want to start winning games.
Though, to batter the analogy completely into the ground, one of their problems is that the loud-mouthed geniuses who once shouted ridiculous suggestions from the stands have been named to the team, and both Houses are now riddled with Tea Partiers who think every play should be an 80-yard Hail Mary.
For the benefit of non-sports fans, we'll drop the analogy.
But it's unrealistic to think of Trump as some oddball who appeared in the White House on his own. He was elected by people who also filled the halls of Congress with equally unqualified, unhinged partisans.
He's not an exception to history but rather the result of several decades of GOP pandering to knuckleheads.
When Nixon nominated G. Harold Carswell to the Supreme Court, the criticism came that he was mediocre, to which Sen. Roman Hruska offered a memorable defense:
Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?
That was in 1970 and Hruska's contention drew laughter. Carswell was defeated in a bipartisan vote.
It is no longer 1970 and nobody's laughing. Or voting across party lines.
And the current Reign of Error, as Mike Luckovich ably illustrates, is powered by an utter indifference to facts and even to logic that, if not based on sports, mirrors a former sports star, OJ Simpson, who got off on a double murder by simply insisting that he hadn't done it to a jury that didn't care if he had.
Similarly, Trump's blatant misrepresentation of the kneeling protest is playing well because he says that's what it is and so that's what it is.
Another history lesson: In a debate with Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford said "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe."
He meant to salute the indomitable spirit of the people of those Iron Curtain countries, but it doesn't matter what he meant. His opponents and the press latched onto that statement and used it as a club.
If it didn't cost him the presidency, it certainly didn't hurt Carter's chances.
Russia was the enemy in 1976.
This is not 1976.
Trump's fanbase is willing to overlook his relationship with Putin in the face not only of emerging evidence but of his own previous statements. Conservatives used to scream "Go back to Russia" at protesters. Now they are ignoring the presence of Russia here.
They don't believe the evidence and they don't care anyway.
So why wouldn't they believe his jingoistic, nonsensical interpretation of the NFL protests?
As the man said, he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and his supporters would not desert him.
That may be the only thing he has said in the last two years that turned out to be true.
You know, looking at the globe, you might conclude that, if he and Kim start lobbing more than insults at each other, St. Helena could be a cool place to be.
And even if they don't.
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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