The Funny Papers

Darrin Bell, Drew Sheneman, Pedro X. Molina, Clay Bennett, Chris Britt, Jim Morin, Nick Anderson, Ed Hall, Adam Zyglis, David Fitzsimmons, Mike Luckovich

Random Musings

Okay, so there are certain phrases that people use that I loathe and I’m’a gonna add to that list, which includes ... It is what it is ... and LOL ... and people who actually say OMG rather than Oh My God.

So, the new phrase I would like erased from our culture is ... 

Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Stop it. And, I will ask that women, especially stop saying it, and not because I’m sexist or misogynistic, but because women are smarter than men and don’t need to spout dumb shiz like this.

Carry on.

Tuxedo is an escape artist. He, like the other cats, is not allowed outside because we live in a rural area and there are lots of things cats can catch that are dangerous. But ... and there’s always a but ... Tuxedo is the Best Cat Ever™ and so several morning a week, I take him outside and let him walk along the deck railing so he can smell the outside; don’t worry, he’s always chaperoned.

Still, if he’s in that mood, and someone opens a door, and he’s there, and there’s an opening, he’s been known to fly out the door and escape into the yard where a chase ensues, and treats are used to goad him back inside. 

One morning, Carlos left a door open when he was going into the yard and I couldn’t find Tuxedo. I called all over the house and he wasn’t there ... but I could hear him meow ... over and over again. It was coming near the sunroom, where the door had been left open ... I heard his plaintive meows and called him and then looked down ...

I guess he was playing Hide-and-Seek and I was ‘It.’

So ... will the 2017 NBA Champions Golden State Warriors meet President _____ in the White House, as is custom for winning teams? Maybe; maybe not. 

After the Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers and won the championship, Tweets suggested that Golden State Warriors had decided ... as a team ... to boycott a trip to the White House, but then the organization released a statement saying no decision had been made. Yet there is a thought that the team or some on the team, don’t wish to meet _____; some like Stephen Curry, who took issue with his sponsor Under Armor over CEO Kevin Plank's description of _____ as a “real asset” by saying:

“I agree with that description, if you remove the 'et' from asset.”

And Warrior coach Steve Kerr has called _____ "blowhard" who couldn't be "more ill-suited to be President."

And, another player, David West, said this in January:

“All the tactics that he used to get elected are the very things that someone like me, who works with youth on a consistent basis, are the things that we try to talk our young folks out of being.”

Stay home, Golden State, because he’ll just use your visit as a photo op to shore up his fragile ego and failing presidency and do World Champions really wanna stoop that low?

Last weekend, Carlos was working in the garden and when he took a break, he came in to tell me that the, ahem, "understructure" was in place and next he would work on the infrastructure.

I'm terrified he’s building an overpass in the backyard.

The Ninth Circuit Court clapped back at _____ and ruled against his “revised” Travel Ban:

“We conclude that the President, in issuing the Executive Order, exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress.”

Plus, it’s racist, you know.

Last weekend was the Tony Awards which I watched because, well, gay, and as a gay man I love all things Broadway and all things Hot Men and especially all things Broadway and Hot men.

As in Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton creator, who presented at last week’s show. I mean, he’s adorable, talented, Latino, and, well, I loves all those things naturally ... since I’m married to an adorable, talented Latino man.

And there was also one Lucas Steele, of The Great Comet, who looks a little like a sexy vampire and I am all about the sexy vampires and Broadway because, again, gay.

Just sayin’.

We all know that Fox News is just a branch of the GOP and will defend and credit the Republicans for every little thing ... whether it’s true or not ... case in point, Fox News reported this:

“First New Coal Mine of _____ Era Opens in Pennsylvania”

Except, like most Fox News stories there was nary a thread of truth to it ... because the permit for this mine was issued back in 2013, when _____ was nothing but an hysterical Birther tool.

Another Fox Lie as they goose-step alongside crazy.

So, this is Pride Month, and even Facebook has gotten into it with one of their emojis; you have the Thumbs Up, the Heart, the Smile, the Wow, the Tear, the Frown, and now you have the Pride Flag.

Cool, right? Well, not for a Facebook page called “Warriors for Christ” who posted this:

And then added:

So, as happens, people began going full-on Rainbow on the “Warriors for Christ” page:

And the Warriors were not happy about all that Rainbow Goodness ...

Too bad, so sad.

Last week, we got the bill for Carlos’ hospital stay ... twenty-eight hours in the hospital equals $20,000.

Yup, and this 20K is just for the bed; he was hooked up to no machines, no monitors, no nothing; he had a bed and a couple of meals and a few times he had his vitals checked by a nurse.

I told him that the next time he needs to be hospitalized, we’ll check him into the Presidential Suite at the Hyatt and hire a nurse for a day; it’d be cheaper.

On the upside ... thank god for insurance... because our out-of-pocket was just $800 and after a call from Carlos to Billing, it fell to just $700.

So, yeah, there’s that.

This week, while testifying before the Senate about Russia, Attorney General, and Keebler Elf, Jefferson Beauregard Beverly Leslie Sessions said 'I don't recall' a lot.

The best part was he said he ‘didn’t recall’ meeting with a Russian spy, but he did recall that if he had met with the man, they didn’t talk about anything like Russia hacking the election.

Huh? I don’t remember meeting the man but I remember that if I met him we didn’t discuss that.

Asshat lying little troll.

More good news? Okay ... Oprah Winfrey says she’s not running for President.

As if anyone seriously thought she would ... I mean, she’s too busy shilling Weight Watcher s and her love affair with bread.

Siddown Oprah, please.

So when President-For-Now _____ announced he was planning another get-together with bigwigs in the tech field, one man, Dick Costolo, the ex-CEO of Twitter, who attended the last go-round, had some advice for those who may want to go, but can’t ...

Twitter is fun ... especially when its ex-CEO uses it to clap back at the Twit-In-Chief!

The Funny Papers

Jim Morin, Clay Bennett, Bill Day, Adam Zyglis, David Horsey, Nick Anderson, Darrin Bell, Kevin Siers

In The Age of _____ Your Name, Your Faith, Your Birthplace Can Get You Detained

America in the Age of _____ ...

The son of boxing legend Muhammad Ali—Muhammad Ali, Jr.—was detained for hours by immigration officials at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport because of ... his “Arabic sounding” name.

Ali Jr. was traveling home from a speaking at a Black History Month event in Jamaica with his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali—Ali’s second wife—when they were pulled aside while going through customs.

You know, those Arabic sounding names always mean trouble, but, get this, Khalilah Camacho-Ali was allowed to leave the airport, to enter this country because she showed officials a photograph of herself with her ex-husband. Her passport wasn’t good enough to get through customs, but a photo with a boxer did the trick.

Sadly, for Muhammad Ali Jr. he had no such photographic evidence so officials held him and questioned him for nearly two hours, repeatedly asking him, "Where did you get your name from?" and "Are you Muslim?"

When Ali Jr. responded that he is Muslim, the officers began questioning him about his religion and where he was born.

Muhammad Ali Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1972 and holds a U.S. passport. But, again, that darned Arabic-sounding name .... A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] played it off like this:

"Due to the restrictions of the Privacy Act, U.S. Customs and Border Protection cannot discuss individual travelers; however, all international travelers arriving in the U.S. are subject to CBP inspection."

Even the guy with the famous name and an American passport.

What this is, in the Age of _____, is racial, and religious, profiling, where you are stopped and questioned and detained for hours because of your name and your faith.

In America .... and yet it isn’t just those with “Arabic-sounding names” or those who are Muslim. Henry Rousso, a French historian was detained at a Houston airport for 10 hours by US immigration officials and then threatened with deportation.

It all began when border agents in Houston began to question Rousso’s visa, saying he’d been selected for a “random check”, which the Egyptian-born ... oops, Egyptian ... perhaps that explains everything ... academic claims was not some "mere coincidence".

When the immigration officer discovered Rousso was to be paid for speaking at Texas A&M University, he ordered Rousso to be deported, claiming he should have a working visa rather than a tourist visa. 

“I told him I don’t need one, that the university took care of the formalities, as always, and especially, that I have been doing this for more than 30 years without any problem.”

Yes, for thirty years he’s been coming to this country without incident and yet a month in Hair Furor’s regime and he is stopped, detained, questioned, fingerprinted and searched and then threatened with deportation.

Rousso was given a phone call, and spoke with Richard Golsan, a Texas A&M professor; he told Golsan “he was waiting for customs officials to send him back to Paris as an illegal alien.”

A slew of university officials, a law professor and the director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic, swept in and succeeded in securing Rousso's release. 

Rousso says he has no idea why he was detained, but did say that his situation was “nothing compared to some of the people I saw who couldn’t be defended as I was".

“That is the situation today. It is now necessary to deal with the utmost arbitrariness and incompetence on the other side of the Atlantic. I do not know what is the worst. What I know, having loved this country forever, is that the United States is no longer quite the United States." — Henry Rousso

And I think Rousso is right. We are headed in the wrong direction when the son of an athletic legend, bearing the exact same name, is detained, because his name sounds odd and because he’s Muslim, and when a visiting professor, traveling as he’s traveling for years, is detained because ... well, no one really knows why Rousso was detained  ...

In the Age of _____.

Independent

Courier Journal

Score Another One For Our Side: _____'s Muslim Ban Raises Money For Syrian Refugees

Every once in a while something good come out of something hateful ....

Kal Penn, an actor best known for roles in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and TV’s Designated Survivor, as well as the former Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement under President Barack Obama, recently received a particularly hate-filled Tweet after Hair Furor’s Muslim Ban went into effect.

Kal Penn thought of responding, then thought better of it, and instead Tweeted out that he had set up a crowdfunding site for Syrian refugees, hoping to raise a few thousand dollars:

“To the dude who said I don't belong in America, I started a fundraising page for Syrian Refugees in your name. Donating To Syrian Refugees In The Name Of The Dude Who Said I Don't Belong In America"

He reached his goal of a few thousand dollars in just twenty minutes and as of this morning he had raised over ... wait for it ... $850,000!

He said he was surprised but then perhaps he shouldn’t have been because he knows that most people ... most people ... understand that banning people from our country who have had considerably more serious “vetting” done to them than any single one of the people in Trump’s staff or cabinet posts, is un-American.

And as the cash poured in—with people making donations under names like “Chief Strategist Steve Bannon,” “#Saynotobigotry,” “Tiny Trump Hands,” “Paul Ryan’s Lost Testicles,” “Mike Pence,” and “Donald ClownfaceVonf---stick Trump” — Penn gave updates on Twitter as he also continued to raise the goal.

Stop over and give a little if you like because it just proves that, while _____ and his band of white nationalists thinks they’re on the right side, the truth is that they are not.

So score another one for the Resistance.

Daily Kos

The Funny Papers

Bill Day, RJ Matson, Adam Zyglis, Clay Bennett, Nick Anderson, Mike Smith, Darrin Bell, Rick McKee, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey