Trapezium Dave posted:

Pope:

Left to right: Sussan Ley (environment minister), Barnaby Joyce (deputy PM, Nationals leader), Scott Morrison (PM), Angus Taylor (energy, emissions reductions minister), Tony Abbott.

Ted Rall posted:

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia is one of two right-wing Democrats who hold liberal priorities hostage. The Democratic Party likes to blame him for their inability to get major accomplishments done, but he also serves a useful purpose as an excuse for inaction.

RoboRodent posted:

okay but



That is an extremely sexy stormtrooper. In black and white, it's hard to tell if there's a bare midriff in there, but I wouldn't be surprised. In this imaginary matriarchy, women have all the power but still exist primarily as sexual objects. It's just illegal to treat them as sexual objects, and this is bad for some reason. In addition, signs that borrow on sleazy "girls girls girls" and "live sex show" tropes are replaced with "all-night spa" and "pampering," because women don't actually like sex. They are for sex, but they don't want it (and thus it is implied that you must make a woman have sex with you). Ishida can't conceive of women being powerful in ways that are not related to their sexuality, and he can't create a world where men are sexual objects for the pleasure of women. His horrifying matriarchy is "women exist for me to have sex with but I'm not allowed to have sex with them."

And yeah, I can't tell how serious he was being here either.

Angepain posted:

with the topic going into us overthinking ishida's view on women's clothes, i'd like to join in by posting this stip i found yesterday, when i went too deep into looking up sinfest on tv tropes to find when the feminism arc begun. this is, as far as I can tell, the first appearance of the girl on the tricycle:



we are, (again, as far as I can tell from the later few strips), supposed to agree with her that this is a reasonable thing to shout at random people on the street who are dressed in a way.

Also fun is what the advert on the website was when I looked that comic up. Not sure Ishida has much of a say in which adverts get run (NSFW).

Kaza42 posted:

But it's literally his (and Sinema's) fault that they can't act? If it were just an excuse, that means that there's something else they could be doing. What, exactly, could the Democratic party be doing to achieve their legislative agenda that they aren't already doing?

Kaza42 posted:

But it's literally his (and Sinema's) fault that they can't act? If it were just an excuse, that means that there's something else they could be doing. What, exactly, could the Democratic party be doing to achieve their legislative agenda that they aren't already doing?

kartikeya posted:

I don't know how it's possible to read that recent series of Sinfest strips as anything but anvil dropping obvious parody, and yet I'm certain he's somehow either trying to make this look like the plucky, unlikely heroes that will fight the good fight, or the plucky, unlikely heroes that want to fight the good fight, but are distracted and ineffective because blah blah blah blah woke blah zombies blah TERF bullshit look at the sad state of men in this, my absurdist persecution complex fever dream in which my enemies chant woke and cause car accidents with sparkly confetti joy.

Like that first one, divorced from all context, would be genuinely funny, just not for any of the reasons he intends.

Trapezium Dave posted:

Angepain posted:

we are, (again, as far as I can tell from the later few strips), supposed to agree with her that this is a reasonable thing to shout at random people on the street who are dressed in a way.

Indiana_Krom posted:

They could be doing exactly what Sinema and Manchin want, which is major infrastructure done as half-assed as possible while doing absolutely nothing at all to curb the fossil fuel industry and not raising taxes on corporations or the wealthy to pay for any of it.

quote:

If compliance is the measure, then the vaccination mandates imposed on state and city workers have been a success. More than 90% of people employed by Washington state government or by the city of Seattle are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus with many more in the process of complying with that requirement.

Still, 1,887 state workers, from a janitor in the Capitol building to the Washington State University football coach, quit or were fired because they refused to comply with the mandate. That willingness to give up a good job rather than get a life-protecting shot in the arm is mystifying and fascinating.

How many of those now-unemployed people were influenced by the anti-vaccine political machinations of various Republican leaders and the paranoid rantings of conservative TV commentators? How many were scared into non-compliance by the misleading pseudoscience spouted by activists with deep suspicions of Big Pharma? How many were staunch libertarians who simply do not want any government telling them what to do, even if it is good for them and for their communities?

Delusional? Principled? Stubborn? Independent? Brave? A danger to themselves and others? What characterization best fits these folks? One description is clearly accurate: a small minority.

The overwhelming majority of state and municipal workers did the right thing; they got vaccinated. A big share of them did it because it was the rational thing to do. They did not want to fall ill or cause others to suffer. However, plenty of the compliant ones did it grudgingly and only because they did not want to lose their jobs.

That is why a mandate was needed, even if it drove a few resistors into the unemployment line.

quote:

Political pundits are excoriating President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats for failing to push through their $3.5 trillion plan to combat climate change, provide child care, pay for community college, permanently lift millions of children out of poverty, make very wealthy people pay their fair share of taxes and address other social ills that have long been allowed to fester.

Activists on the left say it will be a betrayal if Democrats fail to deliver. Washington journalists flap on about the Democrats’ disarray. Voters who cast their ballots for Biden grow disillusioned.

But hold on a minute. Here’s a question for all those who are so quick to declare Biden and his compatriots a bunch of failures: Democrats do not have a majority in the United States Senate, so what did you expect?

Yes, with the Senate split 50-50, the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris has given Democrats technical control of the upper chamber of Congress, but, because of the filibuster, it takes 60 votes to get anything done, and the 50 Republican senators, in almost all situations that count, refuse to give up a single vote, let alone 10.

Add to that the hard reality that two of the Democrats’ 50 caucus members – Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin – are balking at most of the big stuff the president wants to get done, and that Democratic “majority” becomes even more illusory.

In the House of Representatives, the progressive caucus led by Seattle’s U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal has exerted a lot of muscle to defend the Biden plan. But, from the way Jayapal has been speaking in recent days about the need to seriously lower expectations, it is clear reality is dawning for her, as well.

A majority of American citizens support all or most of the things Biden wants to achieve. An overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress want to make it happen. But, because every state gets two senators – even in places where there might be more cows than people – Senate power is sharply skewed to red states. The Republicans have that built-in advantage, and the filibuster gives them veto power.

If Biden gets even half of what he wants, it will not be a failure, it will be a miracle.

quote:

There is a huge herd of RINOS among the endangered elephants these days, but they are not the “Republicans In Name Only” that the right wingers think they are.

They are not, for instance, U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler from southwest Washington or Wyoming’s U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, two of only nine members of the House GOP caucus to vote with Democrats to hold Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for flouting a subpoena to testify about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. With their votes, Beutler, Cheney and their compatriots upheld the highest principles of the traditional Republican Party – respect for the rule of law, allegiance to the Constitution, ethical leadership. They are the last of a Republican breed.

It is the power-drunk cynics like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the moral cowards who do his bidding in obsequious deference to Trump who have betrayed the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. They are, indeed, Republicans in name only.

Beutler and Cheney will be targeted in the 2022 election by Trump and the reactionary extremists who have taken control of the GOP, including here in this state. Ironically, the targeted ones are the real conservatives and true patriots and, for the sake of their party and our country, these brave few need to grow in numbers, not be snuffed out.

VitalSigns posted:

Are you sure we're supposed to agree with the girl on the trike?

I mean she's written kind of absurd, shouting an unwanted message at some girl and then congratulating herself on her feminist accomplishments?

Raised By Birds posted:

Steve Kelley

VitalSigns posted:

Are you sure we're supposed to agree with the girl on the trike?

I mean she's written kind of absurd, shouting an unwanted message at some girl and then congratulating herself on her feminist accomplishments?

But I honestly can't tell, take this week's new strips: the characters seem to be expressing Ishida's opinions that vaccine mandates etc have taken away all our rights, yet the characters are comically ineffectual, clearly outmatched and not even realizing it, and basically manchildren who are being humored by the lady packing a lunch for them.

So maybe he just purposely writes his heroes as dumb and worthless as gently caress? I guess you have to if you want to portray them taking on all the evils of the world, because they can't be allowed to win or you won't be able to comment on or struggle against the evils of the world anymore

quote:

Nurse Ratchet
Misinformation Secretary Jen Psaki is the head nurse Ratchet at the Cuckoo’s Nest on Penn. Ave.

Raised By Birds posted:

Tony Branco

Raised By Birds posted:

Michael Ramirez

Raised By Birds posted:

Michael Ramirez

RoboRodent posted:

okay but



That is an extremely sexy stormtrooper. In black and white, it's hard to tell if there's a bare midriff in there, but I wouldn't be surprised. In this imaginary matriarchy, women have all the power but still exist primarily as sexual objects. It's just illegal to treat them as sexual objects, and this is bad for some reason. In addition, signs that borrow on sleazy "girls girls girls" and "live sex show" tropes are replaced with "all-night spa" and "pampering," because women don't actually like sex. They are for sex, but they don't want it (and thus it is implied that you must make a woman have sex with you). Ishida can't conceive of women being powerful in ways that are not related to their sexuality, and he can't create a world where men are sexual objects for the pleasure of women. His horrifying matriarchy is "women exist for me to have sex with but I'm not allowed to have sex with them."

And yeah, I can't tell how serious he was being here either.

Raised By Birds posted:

the_steve posted:

drat, this might be the least hateful and grotesque caricature Branco has ever done.

Raised By Birds posted:

Tony Branco

Kaza42 posted:

But it's literally his (and Sinema's) fault that they can't act? If it were just an excuse, that means that there's something else they could be doing. What, exactly, could the Democratic party be doing to achieve their legislative agenda that they aren't already doing?

Raised By Birds posted:

Michael Ramirez

the_steve posted:

drat, this might be the least hateful and grotesque caricature Branco has ever done.

RoboRodent posted:

okay but



That is an extremely sexy stormtrooper. In black and white, it's hard to tell if there's a bare midriff in there, but I wouldn't be surprised.

NDP posted:

Perhaps getting rid of the filibuster is a start. However, the Democrats' margin is so narrow in the Senate, I don't know if that would make much of a difference.

FFT posted:

"midriff" lfmao

here's what it would look like colorized (in part because like hell i'm gonna do more work about it):

Cloud Potato posted:

Times:

Sewage vote outcry prompts Tory MPs to defend decision on social media

Skios posted:

I can vaguely remember the fanbase being really confused when the Trike girls first started showing up in the Sinfest comics. A lot of people basically went from "Well, that's kind of hamfisted even for his standards..." to "...oh, we're meant to root for these girls now?"

Vagabong posted:

Is Spooner incredibly stupid or incredibly dishonest? That has to the dumbest cartoon conceptually that I've ever seen.