The Baboon Problem

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday March 20, 2018 · 2:18 PM PDT

2018/03/20 · 14:18

Last year we were discussing the book “Hillbilly Elegy,” by J.D. Vance. The book is a kind of indictment of the culture he grew up with in white Appalachia. I doubt that the book was intended as a “fair-minded, balanced” view of these Americans. Vance stresses that he loves them, they’re patriotic, etc. But his account reads more like an “expose” than an “elegy.”

His characterization of his extended family and neighbors is pretty depressing. Tales of drunken dysfunction, hypocrisy, poor ethics, threats of violence, regularly blaming outsiders for personal failures: basically the Trump White House set in Kentucky.

Part of Vance’s agenda is assigning personal responsibility and blame to these white Appalachians: for accepting, maintaining, and even honoring a culture that produces so much unhappiness and failure over generations.

So in light of Vance’s view and the anecdotes in the book, our discussion soon turned to the question of whether it was fair to dismiss the particular people Vance writes about as “a bunch of gorillas.”

I said “No; that’s not kind or fair or helpful.” For one thing, identifying any subculture that way is dehumanizing. The word that Vance uses to describe them—“hillbilly”—is also dehumanizing; derogatory. (I cringe when I read comment threads to news stories and see people accusing others of being “rednecks” and “hillbillies.” I like to think the people who do that are just Russian trolls seeking to encourage division over here. But I know better.)

“Hillbilly Elegy” is deceptive because (as Vance knows) the self-centeredness and behaviors that disgust him aren’t peculiar to white Appalachian people. It’s easy to find people all over the cultural, political, and class spectrums practicing the same narcissism and deplorable behaviors Vance singles out in his book. We got some of ‘em here in Minnesota, I knew them back in Jersey and New York, you can see some of them in the bars at country clubs.

Finally, referring to people who practice those,behaviors as “gorillas” is unfair to real gorillas. Gorillas are comparatively altruistic. (continued)

Bill Prendergast

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday August 19, 2017 · 10:42 AM PDT

2017/08/19 · 10:42

Script: Bill Prendergast Art: Will Dinski

Amazing, but true. It’s murder and violence, but at Fox they truly believe that ‘spin conquers all.'

Here is the link that inspired the strip:

www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Cartoon: Who Leaked The Australian and Mexican Leader Phone Conversations?

Bill Prendergast

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday August 11, 2017 · 10:57 AM PDT

2017/08/11 · 10:57

Script: Bill Prendergast Art: Dan Murphy

I mean: come on, he’s *still* puffing Putin as this 'great guy.’ And he starts doing it *again*, right after kneeling down before Congress to sign a sanctions bill he says he’s *against.* And with the FBI and the US intel agencies and the press and a GOP Congress, for chrissakes, breathing down his neck about *proven* Russian penetration of US national security.

All that, non-stop: and kissing Putin’s ass is still boilerplate in this man’s day planner? Any other president would have made a point of throwing Putin under the bus, publicly and regularly, if only for the purpose of political survival.

But not Trump. He’s scared to death of Putin, and rightly so. If there’s one person in the world who can eject him from the Oval Office at will, it’s not some pissed-off WH leaker or some US intel chief or Mueller: it’s Vlad, the guy who penetrated the Trump operation before Trump was even elected.

Any time the President of the US does something that even annoys the Russian oligarchy: Putin’s got any number of knives he can twist, just to remind Trump who’s boss. Putin and his intel people have already got more knives than the Swiss Army, more than they’ll ever need to use to control this president’s week...

...and his foreign policy. We just better pray that Putin won’t ever come to the conclusion that a nuclear exchange with North Korea ‘would be a *good* thing.'

Cartoon: OMG, It's Melania!

Bill Prendergast

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday June 02, 2017 · 5:20 PM PDT

2017/06/02 · 17:20

Ya see? Ya see? They all said I was crazy back at the maximum security relaxation farm. But who’s the crazy one NOW—eh?

Here’s the story I pulled that first panel “news quote” from. The quote PROVING my theory, is down at the bottom, in the CORRECTION part of the story—where nobody ever reads all the way down to, except me and the little man in the little hat who sits on my shoulder and whispers in my ear 'what to do next.'

www.nbcnews.com/...

Cartoon: Class Warfare -- Republican Style!

Bill Prendergast

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday May 28, 2017 · 10:52 AM PDT

2017/05/28 · 10:52

They never caught on; and the pinheads will never catch on no matter how many times it’s explained to them: federal deficit spending to create jobs and prosperity in their districts…

...is that “government redistribution of wealth,” “a liberal ‘big government program’ to keep them afloat” they say they despise, because they are so hard-working. It’s them, “picking other taxpayer’s pockets,” to help them.

...and it’s not the cutting of taxes that can create prosperity in their districts. It’s the infusion of government spending that can create that prosperity: "the big government in our lives," that conservatives and tea party and pointy headed libertarians in those districts say they despise.

I drive cross country sometimes, heading west. In some western states it’s hundreds of miles before between hospitals or a grocery store selling fresh vegetables. And I know from reading that their next generation is leaving the farms and small towns.

But these families and individuals keep voting Republican, they have since the 90’s. They don’t associate their downfall with the party that’s been representing them in Congress since the Gingrich era, and they don’t want to know that they only way out for them and their kids depends on the liberals they want to despise.

They continue to take their news and their understanding of politics from conservative and evangelical talk radio. That continues to fail them, decade after decade, costing them and their kids a lifetime of opportunities.

They see the failure of that worldview in their own communities, every day. And they finall turned on the sociopathic establishment GOP that sold them that propaganda. But rather than concede to the reality of their dependence on liberal governance: they now choose something even worse.

Cartoon: How To Obstruct Justice

Bill Prendergast

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday May 22, 2017 · 7:37 PM PDT

2017/05/22 · 19:37

Script: Bill Prendergast Art: Caitlin Skaalrud

Yep, that’s how you obstruct justice.

A public official, impeding an ongoing investigation of his office...offering up statements that indicate a "corrupt” intention…

...plus the “action” in furtherance of the criminal intention (as reflected in the suspect’s statements.)

There was a lot of media focus on “the statements themselves” (the “I hope you can drop this,” then the statement in the Holt interview.) And of course you have his other statement, about Comey himself -- calling him a “nutjob.” That’s also evidence of a corrupt mindset in firing Comey: continuing to try to discredit the investigator and his investigation, after the fact of the firing.

But I believe that it’s the “act of firing Comey” itself (in light of the Trump statements) that constitute O of J.

Why is that distinction important, if you want a conviction? Because it’s so effing easy to prove that he took that particular action. Proving “the action of firing Comey” is a slam-dunk, and it’s a no-brainer that “firing Comey" "impeded Comey’s ongoing investigation." The only thing missing for a conviction is proof that Trump’s motive for the action was “corrupt”...

...and Trump himself has handed that missing element to us, with his two statements revealing his motive.

Of course, we can’t assume that the two Trump statements referenced in the script … are *all* the statements Trump ever made regarding his motive for firing Comey. The way to bet is: Trump discussed his reasons for wanting Comey stopped with any number of White House staffers and confidants. So the chances of other Trump "corrupt motive” statements being revealed, rises…

...as the Special Counsel’s investigation gathers material, interviews personnel about their conversations with the President--and subpoenas their contemporary records and correspondence.

But I think that right now — even before any other Trump motive statements come to light — we already have a prima facie case of obstruction of justice, in the firing of Comey and Trump’s public and private statements about his motive. And I think that lawyers already know this. That’s why so many elected leaders in D.C. were talking about “O of J” last week: a lot of those guys are lawyers, ya know. Even the ones eager to defend Trump were probably scurrying around to find the relevant statutes.

If I were the President’s lawyer right now, I’d already be “lawyering up, myself.” Ditto Pence and Sessions… Trump’s conversations with them regarding Comey, pre- and post-firing, should be very interesting.

Cartoon: Use Visual Aids

Bill Prendergast

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday May 03, 2017 · 4:09 PM PDT

2017/05/03 · 16:09

Pictures: with him, it's all about the pictures …

If you’re the last one he sees before he goes to the media with the decision,and you get in there with some charts or pictures, or better yet a video with him in it (looking strong and thinner), and your presentation is less than thirty seconds…

...you get what you came in for.

See the gray box describing visual aid that saved NAFTA, at this link:

www.vanityfair.com/...

Cartoon: Bumping Uglies, Again.

Bill Prendergast

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday April 25, 2017 · 6:25 PM PDT

2017/04/25 · 18:25

He’s right; it would go viral.

But they still can’t get Bannon off that plane:

People who have spoken with Bannon say he has given explicit orders to allies who may have been taking swipes at Kushner in the press to knock it off.

But the persistent internal warring and fears over what stories might appear in tomorrow’s newspapers have driven some administration officials to exhaustion.

It has sometimes felt like top officials have been in an arms race to plant or kill stories in the press. Those who decline to participate in the sniping feel at risk of being thrown under the bus by their colleagues or described by the media as having diminished influence, according to officials interviewed by The Hill.

That kill-or-be-killed mentality has trickled down to junior staffers, who have increasingly joined the melee themselves.