The Amateur Hour

Actually, it's The Amateur Four Years..

For those of you who don’t have fond memories of Black and White TVs, rabbit ear antennas with aluminum foil on the tips, your dad risking life and limb up on your roof trying to adjust that antenna while yelling, “How does it look now?,” The Ted Mack Amateur Hour was just what it sounds like; a TV program featuring show biz amateurs trying to make an impression on America with card tricks and dance routines and playing Lady of Spain on the accordion and if you’re not on Social Security and are currently thinking “Sounds really lame” kiss my ass and go watch another episode of America’s Got Talent…or The Voice…or American Idol.

Same crap, new time slot.

In any case, recent events made me think about the amateurs we currently have running things and the mistakes they’re making and now would be a good time to mention a New York Times News Service story about Elon Musk and the Social Security Administration.

The Times started their story with Elon at some politically rally and doing what he does best – pulling numbers directly out of his ass – he claims scammers are making 40% of all the calls to the agency’s customer service line.

The people who actually worked at the SSA knew that wasn’t true, so they decide to correct the record before someone took Elon’s made-up claim seriously.

Next Leland Dudek – who was moved up from some mid-level job to run Social Security because he was willing to knuckle under to Elon and DOGE – gets a call from Katie Miller (another Musk stooge) and she tells Leland: “The number is 40%.”

She wants the agency to quit trying to correct Elon’s made-up number and Katie tells Leland Trump believes Musk’s fictitious number and adds: “Do not contradict the president.”

Short version: our guy made up a number, but the president believes that number and if you try to correct our guy’s bullshit you’re contradicting the president and you probably know how well that’s going to work out for you.

According to the NYT article, Musk and his DOGE cronies spread lies (OK, the NYT actually said “false narratives,” but let’s face it…they mean “lies”) about widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration to justify gaining access to the personal information of millions of Americans, but then Musk left in a huff, took his ball and Katie Miller with him and now the people who remain at the SSA (DOGE got rid of thousands of employees) are trying to figure out just how much damage Musk and his Band of Amateurs have left in their wake.

And because Musk erroneously claimed 40% of the calls to the SSA were made by scammers, Dudek approved a policy that said the public would no longer be able to file for benefits or change their bank account information over the phone; they’d have to do it online or in person. So SSA offices were swamped and because the DOGE idiots had driven a bunch of their employees into retirement or other lines of work like setting Teslas on fire, the SSA didn’t have enough workers to handle all the Social Security recipients who showed up to get their shit straightened out.

So now cats are marrying dogs and black is white and up is down and people are running around with their hair on fire and people who get Social Security checks are freaked out and calling the agency or showing up to ask WTF? in person and more people are claiming Social Security benefits earlier than before because who knows, with these morons “fixing things” maybe it won’t be here in five years.

Despite the fact that the Trump Administration is now taking the same line as Kevin Bacon in Animal House—“All is well!”—Dudek got placed on administrative leave and a Wall Street executive named Frank Bisignano is now running Social Security and while he rejects the idea that DOGE is to blame for all the SSA chaos, Bisignano was willing to admit that Trump’s figure of 40% was incorrect.

But then, in what appears to have been a CYA insurance policy, Bisignano issued a statement that: “The work that DOGE did was 100% accurate.”

And all this was caused because Musk got worked up about Social Security after inexperienced members of his DOGE team misread government spending data which led me to draw a cartoon that said if we really want to punish the Iranians, we should drop Elon Musk on them.

I have never planned a war unless you count family vacations, but I’m guessing the people who start wars don’t sit around with their desk calendars trying to figure out what’s most convenient for everybody: “Bob, is Tuesday good for you?” or “We can’t do it on Thursday, my kids have soccer,” but even though wars probably aren’t planned for our convenience, when the shit hit the fan between Israel and Iran my first thought was, “Jesus/Jehovah/and/or Allah, don’t we have enough going on already?”

Apparently not.

According to CNN, our somewhat theoretical dog in this fight is the possibility that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, but according to Director of National Intelligence and Cruella de Vil impersonator Tulsi Gabbard, the US intelligence community –which is somewhat surprisingly based in Washington, D.C. – has concluded the Iranians are not building a nuclear weapon.

(More on that before we’re through.)

Going with the same gut feelings that told him a guy who has blown up four rockets in a row should be put in charge of government efficiency, President Trump said: “Well then, my intelligence community is wrong.”

Right about here it might be a good idea to ask if Trump is not listening to his intelligence community, where he’s getting his information.

Meanwhile, Trump took a break from thinking about World War 3 to come out of the White House and supervise the installation of two giant-ass flagpoles on the South Lawn and told reporters: “These are the best poles anywhere in the country, the world actually. They’re tapered. They have the nice top.”

And then added: “It’s a very exciting project to me.”

Having dealt with the dangerous shortage of flagpoles in our Nation’s Capital, Trump went back into the White House without announcing exactly when the South Lawn roller coaster and slip ‘n’ slide will be installed.

Y’know for a guy who probably thinks he’s incredibly sophisticated, Trump’s got the same decorating impulses as Elvis Presley (the Fat Elvis) and thinks crushed velvet, gold lame and chandeliers are the epitome of style and here’s his Mar-a-Lago office which appears to contain Liberace’s piano.

Later in the day Trump decided not to decide what to do about Israel v. Iran and announced he was going to wait two weeks to see how things go, which is kind of like waiting until halfway through the fourth quarter to place your bet on the Super Bowl.

Lindsey Graham – who is either a Senator or a former member of Fleetwood Mac – is apparently super-excited about dropping bombs on Iran and said:

“I feel like when he says no nukes for Iran, he means it. He gave them a chance for diplomacy. I think they made a miscalculation when it comes to President Trump.”

Didn’t we all?

If you want to read more about this, here’s an article, but I’m going to warn you CNN does not place a high priority on providing jokes unless you count the one at the end of the article when Trump was asked what he wanted his legacy to be and said:

“Always a peacemaker.”

And I’m sure he’d be willing to urge his supporters to fight like hell to make that happen.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/21/politics/iran-trump-conflict-decision

Everything you just read was written before Mr. Decisive changed his mind and decided not to wait two weeks to make a decision and went ahead and bombed Iran.

After reading a CNN analysis of the situation, the guy that made the most sense to me was Brett McGurk—who sounds like a Simpsons character, but is actually a US official who has worked on the Middle East for both Democratic and Republican Administrations—and McGurk said anyone who tells us they know where all this is going…whether it’s a pessimistic assessment or a positive one…has no idea what they’re talking about.

After bombing Iran, Trump warned them not to retaliate, but that part of the world does not seem to be over-populated with people willing to let bygones be bygones or turn the other cheek or bury the hatchet unless it’s in some enemy’s head, so who knows what’s going to happen next.

Welcome to the World’s Largest Gambling Casino, everybody.

Touching Up the X-Rays

So I’m looking for a picture of Tulsi Gabbard and come across a BBC story that says even though Tulsi testified in front of Congress and said Iran was not building nuclear weapons, after Trump said she was wrong Tulsi not only changed her tune, she changed instruments, bands and concert halls and now says Iran could produce nuclear weapons “within weeks.”

Tulsi now says her March testimony has been taken out of context by the “dishonest media.”

If I’m reading the story correctly (bear in mind, I’m dishonest) Tulsi testified before Congress three months ago and apparently didn’t object to the media’s coverage or how they depicted her testimony at that time, but then Donald Trump said she was wrong so now she’s scrambling to get back on his good side assuming he’s got one and I’ve looked at a lot of Donald Trump photos over the past eight years and haven’t spotted it yet.

Tulsi’s flexibility when it comes to “facts” reminds me of the old joke about a doctor informing a patient he needs an expensive operation and the patient saying he can’t afford the operation and the doctor saying for $20 he can touch up the X-Rays.

This administration is filled with Yes-Weasels (calling them Yes-Men and/or Women is giving them way too much credit) who want to please the boss and reach any conclusion he wants them to reach which means “reality” is 100% negotiable which is the point I was making in this cartoon I drew last December:

(Y’know, some of these cartoons could be run every year and still be current.)

Today’s Lesson

So Musks says 40% of the calls to the Social Security Administration are made by scammers and Trump says the Iranians are building nuclear weapons and the people in the Trump Administration don’t believe in anything except keeping their jobs by kissing ass, so “facts” don’t matter and they’ll change their positions at the drop of a MAGA hat and all things considered I’d rather watch someone play Lady of Spain on the accordion.

http://kingfeatures.com/comics/editorial-cartoons-a-z/