The Funny Papers

Drew Litton, Adam Zyglis, Jeffrey Koterba, Mike Luckovich, Matt Wuerker, Gary Huck, Michael de Adder, RJ Matson, Steve Breen, JD Crowe, Bill Bramhall, Clay Bennett, Jack Ohman,

Vote Blue. Here's Another Slew of Reasons Why

Here we are again, with a wee taste of the lunacy, racism, criminality, and bigotry and hate inside the GOP …

GOP Senator, and Confederate statue, Mitch McConnell has admitted that Republicans will not help solve the border crisis with President Biden because it would make Biden look good and maybe help him win in November.

It’s not a surprise really, because the GOP rails about the border during election years and then says nothing, and does  nothing, at other times.

It’s not about solving the problem it’s about the GOP hoping to stay in power so maybe this time, maybe, we should vote them all out of office since they don’t want to work for the country that hired them.

Down in Mississippi, the Republicans are trying to make it impossible for the people of the state from voting on abortion rights.

House Concurrent Resolution 11 which, to be fair, is still several legislative steps from becoming law, would give citizens the ability to gather signatures to propose new state laws or change existing laws, but it bans the people of Mississippi from placing an issue on a statewide ballot about abortion.

I know it won’t happen any time soon, but the people of Mississippi need to clean House, and the Senate, in their state.

This week former GOP House chair Liz Cheney accused her successor Elise Stefanik of deleting a press release from 2021 condemning protesters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. In Stefanik’s 2021 press release, she condemned the “violence and destruction” on that day and called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted. And now she’s changed her tune and deleted the press release.

Elise Stefanik is trying to rewrite history because she hopes to be the Pussy Groper’s Veep.

In other Insurrection news, South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace was so angry at Hair Furor during the attack on the Capitol that she discussed with aides the prospect of confronting the rioters so she could get punched and become the face of anti-Thing 45 Republicans.

Seriously. Mace also declared to her staff during the riot that she was a “never-Trumper” while she was hiding with staff in her office on that day.

Then she said she supported him, and then she said she didn't.

The Oklahoma Republican Party approved a resolution condemning and censuring GOP Senator James Lankford because he was working with Democrats and President Biden to pass a bipartisan border deal.

The Oklahoma GOP is punishing a man for doing the work for which he was hired because he was working with Democrats while his own party sits on their hands and does nothing but complain.

But that's the GOP way.

Iowa Republican lawmakers have again proposed removing protections against discrimination for transgender people from the Iowa Civil Rights Act and this time a key committee chair, GOP Representative Steven Holt, is open to the conversation.

Think on that … they want to legalize discrimination; sure they’re starting with transgender Americans, but soon it will be the gay Americans, and then any other group that doesn’t fit the GOP straight white male agenda.

Also in Iowa, a new bill in the House of Representatives would make it a legal requirement for public school students and teachers in grades 1-12 to sing the national anthem every day. Physically able students would need to “stand at attention” and “remove any headdress that is not being worn for religious purposes.”

VOTE THEM OUT.

Florida GOP Representative, and sexual predator, Matt Gaetz was adamant that his move to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was rooted in policy disagreements and not a personal vendetta related to the congressional ethics investigation against him.

But in private, Gaetz told a different story, that his effort to undercut, isolate, and ultimately remove McCarthy was payback for the ethics probe.

Matt Gaetz is still under investigation for being a sexual predator.

Last week Alabama Death Row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first prisoner to die using a new untested method of execution in the United States—suffocation by nitrogen gas.

Word has it that the new method takes several minutes to run its course and the prisoner is writhing and screaming the entire time.

Alabama GOP Governor, and racist, Kay Ivey stated:

“I pray that Elizabeth Sennett’s family can receive closure after all these years dealing with that great loss.”

Why not just use a guillotine, Kay; or firing squad; or tar and feather him.

Republican South Dakota Governor, who once fired a state employee from her job and then gave that job to her own daughter, Kristi Noem says she will personally deliver razor wire to Republican Texas Governor, and human trafficker, Greg Abbott if federal agents interfere with his plans for the U.S.-Mexico border.

Kristi Noem; a faux Christian who condones murdering immigrants rather than work toward a border solution.

GOOD NEWS

Meanwhile, back at the border dispute discussions between Democrats and Republicans … tempers flared as Republicans battled among themselves over whether to accept or reject a deal for tougher immigration laws, with some pushing back on colleagues who want to bow to Hair Furor’s wishes to kill the deal.

But one sane member of the GOP, for at least this particular day, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis urged his Republican colleagues not to make it all about politics at the behest of another candidate:

“I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy. It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for [Hair Furor] to win.”

Tillia best be careful, or he’ll be censured like James Lankford because, again, the GOP doesn’t want to solve the immigration crisis; not when they can use it as a campaign tool every election cycle.

And on the Democrat side, here are some FACTS about the economy under President Biden …

And that’s just a small taste of GOP lunacy ... pardoning traitors for political points; gibberish speakers; anti-military criminals; lunatics and Big Liars; Christian Nationalist Nazi sympathizers; party over country fools; unfit for political office; liars and flip-floppers; and Texas.

So what do we do? We ...

The Funny Papers

Mike Luckovich, Clay Bennett, Walt Handelsman, RJ Matson, Adam Zyglis, Steve Sack, Nick Anderson, JD Crowe, Gary Huck, Michael de Adder, Dave Granlund, Matt Wuerker, Marc Murphy, Jack Ohman, Ed Hall,

Kay Ivey and Kristi Noem Can FOAD ... h/t Anne Marie

Alabama was one of the hardest hit states during the first go-round of the pandemic, and even harder hit during this latest outbreak, so what does GOP  Governor Kay Ivey do with the COVID-19 relief funds her state received from the federal government?

She signed a new law using those coronavirus virus funds to build new prisons in the state.

No, not for more room in hospitals, which are overflowing with COVID patients as well as others; not for relief for people who may lose their home due to unemployment during the pandemic; not for vaccines, vaccine education, equipment for those on the front lines.

Prisons; because prisons make money for Alabama

Kay Ivey cares more about for-profit prisons that people in her own state getting sick and dying of COVID because she’s a Republican who puts coins before people.

 

Early in 2020, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s daughter, Kassidy Peters, had applied with the state for an appraiser’s license and was denied. In July 2020, Noem summoned to her office the state employee who ran the agency, the woman’s direct supervisor and the state labor secretary.

Oh, and for some inexplicable reason, Kassidy Peters was also there.

And four months later Kassidy Peters obtained her certification. The following week, the labor secretary called the agency head, Sherry Bren, who initially denied Kassidy Peter’s application, and demanded her retirement, according to an age discrimination complaint Bren filed against the department.

No one knows what transpired at that July 2020 meeting in the governor’s office. Kristi Noem has only said she was trying to make the process more equitable, and added:

“I never once asked for special treatment for Kassidy. She is my daughter and I’m proud of her. I raised her to accomplish things on her own.”

Funny, though, that her desire for equality in that department only happened after her daughter was denied a licenses. Also funny, is that her daughter didn’t get the license until after mama stepped in and the department head was pushed out.

Bobservations

A couple of programming notes … my father has postponed his New Ankle™ surgery for the time being so I won’t be heading out West for an extended stay. He may reschedule; he may not.

On the Carlos front, he’d been a bit worried about his mother since his father passed away; she’s staying with family in Querétaro, outside Mexico City, and they’re keeping her busy and taking good care of her. But the other day, Carlos was speaking to her on the phone and after he’d finished, he hung up and said to me:

“I can’t believe it.”

“What?”

I was telling my mother something, and I made a little joke and she laughed.”

“I can’t believe that anyone would laugh at one of your jokes.”

“No, seriously, this was the first time I’d heard her laugh in I don’t know how long.”

“Well, if you think about all she’s gone through, in the last month that we know about, not even considering that last few years, she probably hasn’t had the chance to laugh much.”

But that was all it took to ease Carlos mind about his mother; a little laugh during a phone call. I am so glad he got to hear that.

Sidenote: I told him that I was kinda happy not to have to go to Oregon for five weeks; and he said:

"Awwww, you'd miss me?"

"You? I'd talk to you five times a day, but Tuxedo doesn't have a phone! What would I do?"

What can I say, what Tuxedo and I have is real, and it's fabulous.

Plus, you know, being away from Carlos would make me crazy.

Shortly after Talabama Governor Kay Ivey signed that extreme anti-abortion bill into law,  she attended the  execution of Michael Brandon Samra, who took part in the quadruple murder of the family of a friend.

Keep that in mind when she says she’s all about the sanctity of life because she attended an execution. In fact, since Ivey assumed office two years ago, Talabama has executed six other men, including convicted serial bomber Walter Moody who, at 83, was the oldest person executed in the nation’s history; and don’t forget Ivey’s attendance at the execution of  Domineque Ray after the Supreme Court refused to issue a stay when Ivey’s government denied the condemned Muslim inmate access to an imam in the death chamber, although it does provide a Christian chaplain.

Keep in mind that California has the nation’s largest death row with 735 condemned inmates, Alabama has the highest per capita rate of death sentences.

So much for Ivey’s notion that the new abortion ban “stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious & that every life is a sacred gift from God.”

Every life is precious?

Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, bigot and homophobe spoke out in opposition last week after the House of Representatives passed the historic Equality Act, which expands existing civil rights laws to protect LGBTQ people.

Lee said the legislation, which heads to the Senate but has little chance of being brought to the floor for a vote, is unnecessary because:

“LGBT people don't need protection because Americans are becoming more "tolerant."

Funny, cuz all that tolerance was nowhere on display last December when GOP bigot and homophobe Mike Lee blocked the renomination of a lesbian to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission because he said her views on marriage were "radical."

LGBTQ Americans need protection from asshats like GOP bigot and homophobe Mike Lee.

Last week Robert F. Smith, the billionaire investor who founded Vista Equity Partners and became the richest black man in America, gave the commencement speech at Morehouse College and kind of went off on a tangent when he …

… told all 396 graduates that he and his family would pay off the entire graduating class’s student debt so they could start their lives without student debt hanging over them.

That’s right. In this last years, full-time tuition at Morehouse was $25,368, with other expenses such as room and board, books and fees, pushing the total to over $48,000.

And :::poof::: it’s gone, thanks to Mr. Smith.

Guess which judge will be hearing _____’s appeal on turning over his taxes to the House?

Wait for it.

Wait for it

Wait for it

Wait for it

Wait for it.

Merrick Garland.

Kris Kobach, the GOP asshat and former Kansas secretary of state, has given the White House a list of requirements that he needs if he is to become the administration’s “immigration czar,” a job _____ has been looking to create to coordinate immigration policy across government agencies.

Here’s what  Kobach needs:

Seriously? What a little bitch. Money, private planes, weekends off. Who does he think he is? Ivanka?

This week Beto O’Rourke “rebooted” his campaign because, after starting off big, he’s really gotten nowhere, so it’s like a do-over.

How about a stop? Full stop.

I like Beto, but if after a few months of campaigning you’re getting nowhere and think you need a reset, you really need to take a seat.

He’s at it again … totally-not-gay-at-all former Republican Congressman, noted homophobe  Aaron Schock was snapped poolside at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood by a gay tourist visiting from New York.

The closet case was accompanied by an attractive speedo-clad young man lounging at the pool, until he got into the water and tried “chatting up” another young man.

Aaron? Come out already you big queer. And then go away, because after all the years and effort you spent denying the LGBTQ community representation and equal rights, we don’t want you or your turquoise belt.

Come out. Go away.

The oh-so-dreamy Adam Senn was born in Paris, France, but grew up in Sugar Land, Texas, outside of Houston. He studied theater as a child and throughout high school, but then moved to New York City where he began smoldering up my internet searches and modeling for Dolce & Gabbana, among others,

‘In 2016 he began acting, most notably playing a bisexual basketball player in VH1's Hit the Floor for two seasons; why it gotta be ‘bi’?

Anyway, it all boils down to Adam is hot and sexy and cool and just what I needed today …

Just sayin’.