Be My Guest
An article about NATO, lousy memories and mattress sales...
As you might already be aware, Kansas City residents had a big week last week; winning the Super Bowl and then shooting 23 people who showed up to celebrate has kept us pretty busy. The result being I got behind in my cartoon posting and today I’ll try to make up for that.
And away we go…
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was formed after WW2 in an attempt to stop Soviet expansion into Europe so if one member country got attacked the other member countries would help defend them.
Because leaving countries that don’t have huge armies all on their own to defend themselves was how Hitler and His Future Republicans knocked off Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, Hungary and the Missouri legislature.
So being a member of NATO is kind of like being an NFL offensive lineman; if someone on the other team roughs up your quarterback – who you probably consider a wimp that needs to be packed in bubble wrap on road trips – the other team has to fight everybody.
A simple concept that Donald Trump doesn’t get or chooses to ignore.
Recently, Trump said if a NATO member didn’t pay its bills he would not come to their rescue and would in fact encourage Vladimir Putin and Russia to do whatever the hell they wanted to with those “delinquent” countries.
But according to the Associated Press, NATO members don’t pay to belong; they make contributions to an administrative fund and are encouraged (not required) to spend at least 2% of their GDP on national defense, but there is no target date for that to happen and it’s totally voluntary so in reality there are no “bills” and nobody is “delinquent.”
But as anybody who tried to inject bleach to kill the COVID virus can tell you, reality is not Donald Trump’s best subject.
Trump has tried to appeal to the MAGA-America-First crowd (that doesn’t seem to do a shitload of fact-checking) by saying Americans are “the schmucks that are paying for their whole thing” which isn’t true, but doesn’t stop Trump from saying it.
So to go back to our NFL metaphor: Donald Trump has just invited Vladimir Putin to put a late hit on Patrick Mahomes.
Local TV news has a saying: “If it bleeds it leads.”
Meaning crime stories go to the top of their newscast because they’re dramatic and easy to cover. So when I read about a survey that said people who regularly watch a local TV news broadcast thought their communities were more dangerous than they actually were, it made sense to me.
If every night someone is telling you about crime in your community you might begin to think you should stock up on canned goods, never go outside, barricade your house and set up a machine gun nest in your breakfast nook.
Listening to that crap every night can warp your outlook.
So when I read about the EPA saying 25% of Americans are exposed to “unhealthy air quality” that made me think of social media and how anyone who spends much time looking at it is constantly being exposed to crackpot theories, fake news and people at their absolute worst. (When you can say shitty things anonymously, you might be more inclined to say lots of shitty things.)
According to a story in the Kansas City Star, the costs of childcare has skyrocketed and according to a different story on the CNN website, the Justice Department has spent nearly $24 million investigating and prosecuting Donald Trump and his minions which – depending on your political beliefs – is either a travesty or money well-spent and as for me I think $24 million would be a bargain if it made Trump go away and spend the rest of his life doing his three favorite things:
1. Talking about himself.
2. Explaining how everybody who doesn’t kiss his ass is being unfair.
3. Cheating at golf.
The costs of having Donald Trump in politics are enormous and I’m guessing that $24 million didn’t include the cost of all the fact-checking articles, emergency room visits for people who believed COVID was a hoax or fixing that window in the U.S. Capitol.
On more than one occasion I’ve been asked what I do when I don’t have a good cartoon idea and the honest answer is “a mediocre cartoon” and the one you just looked at might qualify.
Here’s the deal: when you’re a political cartoonist you have to draw every day whether you feel like it or not and if you don’t have a great idea you have to settle for something less and I got this idea after reading the Carnival Season was ending in New Orleans.
When you don’t have a great point – and in this case I feel pretty confident I didn’t – you need to at least try to make the drawing interesting and I hope I pulled that off.
Big League ballplayers will tell you, when you’re having a bad day at the plate you hope for anything that will limit the damage – a walk, a hit-by-pitch, a catcher’s interference – and in the above cartoon’s case I think I bunted.
Donald Trump got in trouble for taking home government documents he wasn’t supposed to have and storing them using the same system you use to deal with all the crap in your basement and don’t want to think about. (In my case it’s baseball equipment I plan to break out once they start a Men’s Amateur 90-And-Over League.) But then the Republicans who constantly make excuses for Trump started whining that the Justice Department had been “weaponized.”
(Apparently “weaponized” means enforcing the laws that are supposed to apply to everyone, even former Reality TV hosts.)
So being attacked for enforcing the rules against a Republican, the Justice Department covered its ass by going after other people who might have the wrong documents in their possession. Turns out a lot of people had government documents they weren’t supposed to have, although unlike Trump they didn’t lie about it or try to stop the government from getting them back and one of those people was Joe Biden.
So the Justice Department issued a report and said while Biden had documents he wasn’t supposed to have, they weren’t going to prosecute him and one of the reasons was Biden being elderly and having a poor memory.
A condition I totally relate to.
My memory is incredibly selective (George Brett’s Lifetime Batting Average is .305 and I didn’t have to look that up) and my main memory-related symptom is repeating stories I’ve told before.
My memory is incredibly selective (George Brett’s Lifetime Batting Average is .305 and I didn’t have to look that up) and my main memory-related symptom is repeating stories I’ve told before.
My memory is incredibly selective (George Brett’s Lifetime Batting Average is .305 and I didn’t have to look that up) and my main memory-related symptom is repeating stories I’ve told before.
See?
I’ve also used that joke before, but it’s a good one and the same goes for all those stories I repeat. I’m totally aware that I’m repeating them, but they’re good enough to earn an encore and in my defense would you go see the Eagles and be upset when they played Desperado?
According to an article appearing in the Kansas City Star, when Trump had to give a deposition for a lawsuit over Trump University, he answered “I don’t remember” 35 times, including when he was asked if he had told NBC News’ Katy Tur that he had the “world’s greatest memory.”
Answering “I don’t remember” to that question sounds like an Abbott and Costello comedy bit.
And those 35 “I don’t remember” responses beat Trump’s previous Personal Best 27 “did not remember” and “could not recall” answers to questions asked by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
People started questioning Biden’s memory, which probably does suck, but is Trump’s any better because he seems to have forgotten he lost the last election.
That’s it for now so Happy President’s Day which as near as I can tell was created to celebrate the purchase of mattresses and according to the internet you can buy a Full Saatva Rx Mattress for the low, low price of $2,345 and for that kind of money I’d expect it to come with my choice of Hollywood starlets and whatever is left of the Eagles to set up bedside and lull me to sleep with an acoustic version of Best of My Love.
Talk to you soon, I’ve got mattresses to buy.
You know you’ve told a story too much when your 10 yr old granddaughter chimes in, “Oh I love this one….”
My work here is done.
Don't remember you telling same stories, but do remember me being 25 & my first semester at KU. There YOU WERE! Intro to Political Science. THAT CLASS I REMEMBER, because of YOU! Oh, Thank You! For all that you DO, DO. Is that a pun?