Our Modern Media at Work

Chris Cillizza of CNN thinks it is awesome that Donald Trump won the dirt vote.

Someone needs to tell Cillizza, and the demented graphic designer who put all the effort into making a constellation of 50 irrelevant pie charts, that dirt doesn’t vote. Also that pie charts suck.

I would like to see Cillizza try and articulate why he thought that noise was awesome, though.

Life is too easy for comic artists

They don’t even have to write their own jokes any more!

Doonesbury: Well, I want to just start by saying hopefully they’re going to have to fear nothing, ultimately. Right now there is a fear and there are problems, certainly problems, but ultimately I hope there won’t be a fear and won’t be problems and the world can get along. That would be the ideal situation. It’s crazy what’s going on, whether it’s the Middle East or you look at no matter where, the Ukraine, you look at — whatever you look at, it’s got problems. So many problems. And ultimately, I believe that we are going to get rid of most of those problems and there won’t be fear of anybody. That’s the way it should be.

Those word balloons contain obvious bullshit from a bullshit artist — they sound exactly how a kid who hasn’t done their homework sounds when called on in class. It’s ridiculous. It’s meaningless noise. It’s not even good or entertaining bullshit.

But there’s that little note in the third panel: “verbatim from press conf., 4/12/17”. I know, it’s Trump, so of course it’s possible that such crap dribbled out of his mouth, but I had to check. Here’s a partial transcript of his answer, and if that’s not good enough, there’s video of the press conference — skip ahead to about 25:50 to hear the reporter’s question and his ludicrously stupid reply.

I think Garry Trudeau would agree that his ease and comfort in generating text for his cartoons is not adequate compensation for having to live with that boob in charge of the government.

The Trump voter

And here we have the perfect apotheosis of the Trump voter, a small resentful man finding satisfaction by berating a Muslim family and thinking himself bigger because of his religion and his president.

In the viral video, Downing is seen with a clear plastic cup while shouting Donald Trump is my president! and You can try to act like you’re innocent. You can try to fuck with me, but guess what? You will never, ever, ever stop me. My Christianity will rise above your Sharia law. Your Sharia law … don’t mean shit to me!

And here is the next stage in the development of the Trump voter: crying in jail.

You know, since Jeff Sessions wants to keep those for-profit prisons full, maybe he should start jailing more Republicans.

It is not pragmatic for a university to suck up to their enemies

I’ve been called tactless, among other things, and it’s a fair cop — I’m not very diplomatic. But I am definitely much more judicious than anyone in the Trump administration, I guess. Trump himself is a blundering nitwit, handling this whole Comey affair like a short-tempered, impulsive twit, and Sean Spicer, who is supposed to be good at public relations, was hiding from the press in the bushes.

And now, it’s Betsy DeVos. Poor Betsy. She gave the commencement address at a historically black college, Bethune-Cookman University. Not only is she the person in charge of dismantling the educational system in this country, but the Trump administration has consistently supported racist policies — Attorney General Jeff Sessions, have I said enough? She should have known what she’d get: students and parents booed her throughout the speech, turned their back on her, and some walked out. It was nuts that she was even there. It was amazingly clueless of her to agree to do it, and even more shocking is that she was invited to give that speech. What was going through the mind of Edison Jackson, president of the university? Not much, it seems. He has given three reasons.

But Jackson has staunchly defended his decision, telling reporters Wednesday, God is on our side, and when he’s for you, what does it matter who’s against you?

WTF? That’s a load of god-bothering fatalism right there. Why bother going to college? In’shallah, God will take care of his own.

He called DeVos’s visit an opportunity to engage and educate the secretary, and said she had met earlier with 12 Bethune-Cookman students who had offered her concrete policy suggestions.

That’s a slightly better reason, but it’s still somewhat delusional. DeVos has a long track record of desiring to happily gut schools, and I don’t think a meeting over lunch is going to change her.

Ah, but here comes the real reason.

But he also presented the decision as pragmatic. We are always about the business of making new friends, Jackson said. Her department controls 80% of the revenue that comes into our school. Why wouldn’t we want to do that?

You don’t want to do that, because her department controls 80% of your revenue. Fight back. Resist. It is inappropriate that these people should have so much power over public education, and it’s administrators who constantly concede greater and greater control who are part of the problem.

The students of Bethune-Cookman University who were vocal in their opposition to this anti-education Education Secretary have more integrity than the president of Bethune-Cookman University.

Look at these students!

Ha ha, charade you are

So perfect. An artist is going to float 4 helium-filled pigs over the Trump logo in Chicago. Thank you, Pink Floyd. Roger Waters must be prescient — they released the Animals album 30 years ago. I guess they saw Trump coming.

If you don’t remember the lyrics…

Big man, pig man
Ha, ha, charade you are
You well heeled big wheel
Ha, ha, charade you are
And when your hand is on your heart
You’re nearly a good laugh
Almost a joker
With your head down in the pig bin
Saying ‘Keep on digging’
Pig stain on your fat chin
What do you hope to find
Down in the pig mine?
You’re nearly a laugh
You’re nearly a laugh
But you’re really a cry