Snarky Snippets Must Be Shared!

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Election 2022, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

A buildup of snark, rather like a buildup of cholestrol, stomach acid, or any other substance, can prove to be very uncomfortable if not taken care of.  And the snark has been building for a few days now, so just in case you guys don’t have any snark of your own, allow me to share my excess with you!

The two faces of Mitch McConnell

It’s difficult to say which of the GOP candidates on the docket this November are the worst of the lot, for the entire lot seems to be infused with incompetence, venom, and an uncanny propensity to lie.  But, there can be no doubt that Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker, both running for senate seats from Pennsylvania and Georgia respectively, are in the list of the 10 very worst choices.  Fortunately, neither is on a fast track to a win, if the polls can be believed.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to tone down the GOP’s hopes for gaining a majority in the Senate, saying that ‘candidate quality’ was important, and while he didn’t come out and say as much, the implication was that the Republican candidates for Senate this time ‘round aren’t of the highest quality.  So, can anybody explain why on earth McConnell is co-hosting a fund-raiser with Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker, as well as current Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina who is running for a seat in the Senate?

Walker and Oz are two of the absolute least qualified … one is a former football player, the other a former snake oil salesman with a medical degree.  Neither have government experience, neither have a Civics education, neither have ever taken a course in Constitutional Law … and both are polling below their Democratic opponents, thankfully!  I guess ol’ Mitchie has lowered his standards since he spoke of ‘candidate quality’ earlier this month, eh?

And speaking of really bad candidates …

Blake Masters, who nobody ever heard of until this year, is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate from Arizona.  He’s hoping to beat incumbent Mark Kelly, who filled the seat vacated by Senator John McCain at his death.  Masters has a bigotry problem:  he is one.

Back in June, he blamed Blacks for gun violence in the U.S. …

“We do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence. It’s gangs, it’s people in Chicago, in St. Louis, shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly.”

And then last week, the Associated Press put out the following on Twitter:

“Leadership at the Federal Reserve has become its most diverse ever. There are more female, Black and gay officials contributing to the central bank’s interest-rate decisions than at any time in its 109-year history.”

To which Blake Masters sardonically replied …

“Finally a compelling explanation for why our economy is doing so well.”

The list of incidences where Masters put down Blacks, women, and/or LGBTQ people is endless. Fortunately, Masters is also polling behind Senator Kelly.  He is a blatant example of what McConnell meant by his concern over the quality of current GOP candidates … I’m surprised Masters wasn’t invited to join the little fundraiser McConnell, Oz, and Walker are holding!

A threat or a call to action?

Lindsey Graham … back-stabber, two-faced, split-persona Lindsey … made the following statement a couple of days ago …

“If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, there literally will be riots in the street. I worry about our country.”

Just for a bit of reference here, Lindsey went from being a hater of the former guy to his present-day status of one of the former guy’s chief bootlickers.  There was a time when Lindsey Graham actually believed in democracy, that no person was above the law, but today … he has drunk too much of the Kool-Aid being offered by those who would gladly destroy this nation and its people.

Lindsey’s comment could be taken merely as an observation, or more darkly, as a threat, as a notice to the same groups that attempted to overturn the government at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, to “stand by”.  In this day of radically divisive political views, a time when the entire nation feels like a tinderbox just waiting for the right spark, such talk is simply unconscionable coming from a member of the United States Congress.  Unconscionable.

Unfortunately, Lindsey Graham is not up for re-election until 2026, so we cannot simply vote his fat patootie out of office.  Too bad.

A couple of ‘toons to help you find your smile again …

21 thoughts on “Snarky Snippets Must Be Shared!”

  2. Sure. We all want to keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them–like ex-felons. Politicians make new gun laws to make themselves look good, but most of these laws have had little or no impact. How long has it been since the Brady Bill? How long since the assault weapons ban? The debate will never end and will never be resolved because it is in our political leaders interest for it not to end.

    A free people not only ought to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain the status of any who might attempt to abuse them, which might include their own government – George Washington.

    Laws that forbid the carrying of arms … disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes … Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve to encourage rather than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. – Thomas Jefferson

    Free man does not ask permission to bear arms – Thomas Jefferson

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  3. As a conservative I have little good to say about McConnell or Graham. They are a big part of the problem with the Republican party.

    Oz was not my choice. I think Kathy Barnette would have been much better, but you guys would have probably trashed her too given her stance on abortion. Walker is a football player with no political experience who has suddenly been found to have parented numerous illegitimate children. He was not the best choice either. The problem is that the number one factor in being elected is name recognition. We vote for people we know, not the best people for the job. That’s why we get Oz and Walker. But the Democrat alternatives, Warnock and Fetterman, are abysmal too. This is the problem with elections, you get a couple choices you don’t like and have to vote for one of them (and then people fuss at you for supporting a candidate you really didn’t like but had no choice but to vote for).

    I don’t know much about Masters, but yes the problem with guns is one in the big cities. Everyone focuses on rifles as a problem, but the fact is that every year more people are killed by hammers and blunt objects than rifles. Handgun murders in large urban areas are the overwhelming problem with gun violence. He didn’t seem to make the point articulately, but that is the real problem. Folks want to ignore urban crime and talk about an assault rifle ban and raising the legal age, neither of which gets at the real problem. One of the real problems is not even about guns; it is about the lack of fathers and illegitimacy. The breakdown of the family has led to this and many other problems.

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    • Also, with regard to the Federal Reserve. I couldn’t care less about the diversity there. I care about the competency of the people running the show. Jerome Powell has been a disaster in my opinion. He changes his mind constantly and has been wrong about so many things. I have little confidence with him at the helm. If we are hiring people simply based on their ethnic or sexual characteristics, then I do not get a warm and fuzzy feeling about the rest of them either. I think the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. You may be happy that a diverse group is leading us off this cliff, but that provides no comfort to me.

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    • Ah, so we agree on some, like McConnell, Graham, and Oz. As for Walker, my problem with him isn’t only that he sired a number of children who he failed to support, but also that he is way under-educated in things that should matter, plus he is a liar, having claimed to have been in the FBI and other lies. I disagree with you about Warnock, because during the two years he has served, I think he’s been an asset. Fetterman, I don’t know enough about to make a statement, but I’m pleased to see him beating Oz, for I think Oz would be a terrible choice … not only does he have zero qualifications, but apart from his reputation for selling pills that weren’t approved and could have been dangerous, I just don’t see sincerity from him. I don’t see any attempt to convince people that he actually has a conscience or that he cares one whit about anybody other than himself. You’re right, though … quite often we end up voting for whomever we view as the ‘lesser of two evils’. This is where I think it would be beneficial to have a third viable political party in the U.S.

      I don’t have the time nor energy to engage in the gun debate with you tonight, but one day soon, okay?

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  7. Thanks Jill. The Senate Minority leader will not go to the bathroom without weighing the politics of that decision. He is like the two-faced mayor in “Nightmare before Christmas” whose face swiveled around depending on his mood.

    We deserve the best candidates a party can offer. It is sad to see when the choice is poor. Dr. Oz was called up in front of Congress for his marketing of miracle cures on his TV shows, which was dangerous as some were contra-emptive to other medications and very few were tested. His marketing clout put people in jeopardy. He deserved any criticism he got.

    As for Lindsey Graham, he is part of the inspiration for my letter to three senators I posted on my blog today in yet another plea for leadership. I did call Graham and leave him a message asking him to be the senator we need, stop inflaming people and get into court to testify because of the subpoena. I told him he is a citizen of the US and he needed to honor subpoenas.

    Keith

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    • I LOVE your analogy of Mitch McConnell to the two-faced mayor! Perfect!

      In my a.m. post today I posted a piece about Al Gore that includes his concession speech after losing the Supreme Court decision in 2000 … wow, what a class act he was, especially as compared to Trump & Co. Yes, that’s why I call Oz a snake-oil salesman … he may have a medical degree, but to me he’s a quack.

      And Lindsey … Lindsey will always stick in my mind for the way he treated his “best friend” John McCain. I haven’t seen your post from today yet, but will head over there in a few minutes (as usual, I’m behind). I don’t think Lindsey or any of the rest of the Republicans in Congress are capable of being the leaders we need. I was pleased tonight to hear that Sarah Palin lost her bid for a seat in the House, but she’ll be back on the ballot in November, so still holding my breath.

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      • Jill, thanks on the McConnell image. Glad to see Palin lose as well. Mary Peltola looks to be a very qualified and dutybound candidate. If Palin’s presidential running mate were still alive, he would not be letting Lindsey Graham be such a sycophant with the last former president. As you note, he has fully flipped on his support calling the former president an “ahole” for releasing Graham’s phone number to a crowd to agreeing that Trump reneged on a deal for DACA for his wall calling some countries “shhole countries.” Now, he genuflects with the worst of Trump’s sycophants. Keith

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        • I think Ms. Peltola will be a great fit. I notice tonight that some Republicans are decrying the ranked choice voting system in Alaska (Maine also uses ranked choice, as do a number of cities) as being the reason for Palin’s loss. Personally, I’ve always liked the idea of the ranked choice system, but how much you want to bet the Republicans will be trying to do away with it in the two states where it is used? It couldn’t possibly be that Palin is a sub-standard candidate, so there must be some other excuse, eh?

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  8. as the election time nears, we will all start seeing the dirt on the candidates come out onto the surfaces, and the purpose of these dirt that got dug up, are only a sort of a final attempt to deter the voters from who they already set their minds up in supporting, and, chances are, our opinions of who we vote for, who’s the best person for that specific job won’t change, as our minds are, already, made up from long ago. It’s just, that we are in for all the backstabbing, the trash-talking of the candidates on the ballots, and, who knows, maybe, there will be one or two, scandals that surface too, like watching that soap opera that’s run for…too long already!

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    • Oh yes … I read yesterday that the GOP has set aside a ton of money for “attack ads” the last two months before the election. I remember the day when political ads were about telling the public what the candidate himself would do, not about attacking his opponents. I guess negativity sells better than positivity? Yep, my friend, it has run far far too long already.

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