Meme Dump

The Funny Papers

Michael de Adder, Marc Murphy, Pedro X Molina, Jack Ohman, Nick Anderson, Rick McKee, Jeff Stahler, Randy Bish, Marshall Ramsey, Chris Britt, 

Jimmy Carter Said ...

… in his inaugural address as Governor of Georgia:

"I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over. The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few, but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend upon it."

… in a New York Times op-ed in January 2022:

"Our great nation now teeters on the brink of a widening abyss. Without immediate action, we are at genuine risk of civil conflict and losing our precious democracy. Americans must set aside differences and work together before it is too late."

… after the January 6 insurrection:

“This is a national tragedy and is not who we are as a nation. Having observed elections in troubled democracies worldwide, I know that we the people can unite to walk back from this precipice to peacefully uphold the laws of our nation, and we must. We join our fellow citizens in praying for a peaceful resolution so our nation can heal and complete the transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.”

… about his wife, Rosalynn:

"I’ve never won an argument with her; and the only times I thought I had I found out the argument wasn’t over yet."

… what he and Rosalynn said to each other every day of their 77-year marriage:

"I love you the goodest."

… on Jesus and gay people:

“I'm a worshipper of Jesus Christ, who never mentioned homosexuals in any way — certainly not in a deleterious fashion. And when it has been mentioned in the New Testament, it's been combined with things like selfishness or something like that. So I've never looked upon it as any sort of reason to condemn a person. I think it's an inherent characteristic just like other things that we do with our lives. I believe Jesus would approve gay marriage, but that’s just my own personal belief. I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else.”

… in his Presidential Farewell Address, January 1981:

“But we know that democracy is always an unfinished creation. Each generation must renew its foundations. Each generation must rediscover the meaning of this hallowed vision in the light of its own modern challenges. For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival; liberty is human rights; the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.”

… about then-Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy for president:

“ I think that this breakthrough by Barack Obama has been remarkable. When he made his speech (on race) a few months ago in Philadelphia, I wept. I sat in front of the television and cried, because I saw that as the most enlightening and transforming analysis of racism and a potential end of it that I ever saw in my life.”

… on how he wants to be remembered:

“I’d like to be remembered as a champion of peace and human rights. Those are the two things I’ve found as a kind of guide for my life. I’ve done the best I could with those, not always successful, of course. I would hope the American people would see that I tried to do what was best for our country every day I was in office.”

… on his life:

“I’ve had a wonderful life, I’ve had thousands of friends, and I’ve had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence.”

RIP Mr President

There are but a few people I consider heroes but, alongside Rosa Parks and Harvey Milk there has long been a space for Jimmy Carter, who passed away at the age of 100.

I have always said that, while he accomplished some great things while president—promoting human rights for all at a time when many in this country were marginalized, adding to the national park and preserve system, reestablishing governmental credibility after the Watergate Crisis, and with  the Camp David Accords, forging a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel—it was his post-presidential life and work and message that proved him to be the greatest ex-President who ever lived.

In 1946, Jimmy Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and then joined the Navy submarine branch, working his way into “Rickover’s boys,” the unit of America’s nuclear submarine fleet championed by Admiral Hyman Rickover. Carter was on his way up until a death at home changed his destiny …

His father Earl, a farmer and businessman, passed from cancer in 1958 so Jimmy and Rosalynn, and their children, returned to Georgia to take over the family farming business. It was there he first ran for school board, then state senator. He was elected governor in 1970, serving one successful term before launching an improbable bid to become president, winning the Democratic nomination and then defeating Republican President Gerald Ford in November 1976.

 I remember seeing footage of inauguration day when Jimmy, Rosalynn, with their daughter Amy, chose to walk from the capitol back to the White House. He was an everyman; he was any man.

In November 1979, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took hostages. Carter tied negotiations, then launched a rescue mission that never reached its target because of helicopter failure. Carter’s Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher completed negotiations under Algerian auspices to free the American hostages, who were released after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president so he often gets the credit, but it was Jimmy Carter who brokered the release.

Jimmy Carter returned to Plains and he could have lived a quiet life, but instead he chose to step up and live his last, best act. He and Rosalynn began volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, building houses for the poor; then the couple founded the Carter Center, which focused on making peace and spreading health and democracy around the world.

As leader of the Carter Center, he won the Nobel Prize, the United National Human Rights Prize and many other notable awards from countries, organizations and world leaders, and both Jimmy and Rosalynn were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton, who said:

”Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have done more good things for more people in more places than any other couple on the face of the Earth.”

Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley wrote in his book “The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter”:

“People will be celebrating Jimmy Carter for hundreds of years. His reputation is only going to grow."

Rosalynn died a little more than a year ago; the couple is survived by their children Amy, Chip, Jack and Jeff; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.

RIP Jimmy

And thank you for showing all of us the way.

Meme Dump: Cast A Goddamned Vote!

The Funny Papers

Tim Campbell, Scott Stantis, Gary Huck, Walt Handelsman, Adam Zyglis, Lalo Alcaraz, Jack Ohman, Nick Anderson, Michael de Adder, Ann Telnaes, Dennis Goris, Bill Bramhall, Max Espinoza, Mike Luckovich