Chip Bok posted:

Sean Spicer says our Tweeter-in-Chief has a “direct line to the American people.”

So, in an effort to tap that wire, The Atlantic opened a Tweet Tracker. Cute, but I would have called it a Tweet Twacker. As you’d expect, its purpose is to track Trump’s Tweets. The Tweet Tracker breaks down each presidential tweet into “The Prompt,” “The Context,” and the “The Response.”

Tweet.

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

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Shangri-Law School posted:

The ACA isn't going to psychically reach out and enact single-payer down the road, but it reset our expectations for what healthcare in America should look like and provides a clear basis for future reform. Reform such as what Hillary Clinton was proposing. Single-payer is not the be-all, end-all of universal healthcare, even though stuff like the ACA Medicaid expansion is an obvious path to it. And Bernie-style, Leeroy Jenkins, end private insurance in one fell swoop single-payer is in fact never, ever going to happen without the wave to end all waves. The insurance companies will oppose it. Employees of the insurance companies who will all lose their jobs will oppose it. The hospitals will oppose it. The doctors will oppose it. Every American who likes their employer-provided plan will oppose it (this is a majority of Americans). Colorado had a single-payer referendum in November. It lost 80-20. As for me, I value imperfect victory more than noble failure. I have nothing to disavow.

mandatory lesbian posted:

catholics have way more hundreds of years of stuff behind them, protestants are like little babies in regards to that

course i think fish might be using the pope as a figurehead for all of christianity rather then just catholicism, for whatever reason

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

1

Duckbag posted:

Ramirez and most of the other vaguely respectable conservatoonists seem to have collectively decided that they had to do a least one toothless "firing Comey was dumb" strip and with that out of the way, they're right back to sucking tiny orange dick and shouting "no you!" Color me surprised.

loquacius posted:

Ramirez liked using this phrase to describe Obama constantly and it was never really clear exactly what it signified that doesn't apply to Trump

Obama never touched a glowing orb

Jurgan posted:

If you think the ACA didn't "actually benefit people," you can gently caress right off. My wife would probably be dead without it. You can acknowledge its weaknesses without ignoring the millions of people who have benefited.

MikeyTsi posted:

If you'd rather this had failed so you can jerk-off to your moral superiority about the purity of your position, you can go gently caress yourself.

Sandpuppy posted:

8

King Possum III posted:

3

CNN posted:

The president's budget assumes that the House bill becomes law. That legislation, which also calls for eliminating enhanced funding for Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, would reduce spending on the program by $839 billion, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis. (An updated score is due Wednesday afternoon.)

loquacius posted:

Alright, this is a clear "no" to the "will you stop being condescending" question, and a reversal on a bunch of stuff you said earlier, containing several false assumptions and at least one non sequitur (no, a single state cannot in fact support a system like this, shock and horror), but I'm really tired of this argument so I'll leave it at that

FronzelNeekburm posted:

I phrased that poorly, but the ACA does not fix the overarching problem with American health care: It is too expensive.

The ACA does not fix that. It throws some money at states to cover the poorest Americans (unless the states sued to not even do that much), and it lifts some of the rules that artificially kept people off of insurance completely. But that is only a temporary fix, and only for a small percent of Americans.

I'm sure your wife deserves the care she gets now. In any other developed nation on Earth, she would get that care much more cheaply, and without the fear of having it yanked away on a politician's whim or from getting fired.



This is the problem. It will not be fixed by having the government throw more money at the health care industry with no attempt to limit prices.

Sandpuppy posted:

9
I wonder what Bono did to suddenly get on Ted's shitlist.

mandatory lesbian posted:

rall is right at least, u2 loving sucks

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

Somfin posted:

I'm increasingly sure that Allie doesn't even draw that thing anymore. I know I've seen all those poses before and they're weirdly incongruous with the dialogue and each other.

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

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Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

Mr. Prokosch posted:

Let’s go on a journey to the Marshall Islands! The Marshall Islands Journal is the only newspaper produced by this small Micronesian nation, but it has political cartoons! There's a lot of cultural context here, so I'll post my interpretation with each one along with a translation.


"Everyone is crazy because they want to improve their islands."

The islands have only been holding elections since the late 80s, and at first they didn’t matter because the same family that ruled in colonial times was elected continually. Since that family was ousted democratically after corruption scandals, politics have become much more contentious. A lot of Marshallese are ambivalent about the political process, since every election cycle ends up being unpleasantly hateful, divisive, and counter to longstanding cultural norms of respectful discourse.



Title: Money is the root of evil
Panel 1:
"Hey mom! Dad is dead!"
"Wow! What luck! We’ll have a ton of money!"
Panel 2:
"It’s mine because we were married!"
"No, it’s mine because I’m the woman he really loved! Didn’t he tell you?"
Bird: "Stupid! The two of you are trying to steal my eggs!"

There’s a lot going on with this one. Many ideas that are old hat in our culture are still new to Marshallese people, including life insurance. Foreign insurance companies offer package deals but it strikes people as ghoulish. Money itself is an evil and relatively new thing. There’s a constant refrain that it is eroding traditional values and ways of life, that it corrupts people and makes them abandon their dignity. It also exaggerates class differences and divides people in new ways. There’s also the relationship aspect. The majority of Marshallese practice serial monogamy without formal marriage and divorce, which means one man might have children with several women over his lifetime and vice-versa. This can confuse issues of inheritance when traditionally a child wouldn’t have anything to inherit from their father and would get access to subsistence land through their mother. The ensuing fights over who deserves what when a wealthy man dies is yet another unpleasant change to Marshallese life. I don’t know what’s up with the bird.


Mother: "Ahh! What kind of crazy game is this?"

The local internet sucks and is a joke?


Old man: "They only have varieties of rice?"
Old woman: "You should check, is there rice from Ebon?"

Rice is the primary staple of the Marshallese diet, but it can’t be grown at all in the islands. While Marshallese have a great demand for rice, to the point that rice fills the shelves of Marshallese stores, here’s a push towards restoring traditional Marshallese cuisine and using local ingredients.


"Teacher, I’m hungry!"

The school lunches are among the most important political issues on the islands. Multiple campaigns have run on providing free lunches to students, including the most recent one, but then they can’t find the budget for it. It’s ultimately a class issue, as wealthy students purchase lunch at nearby stores every day while poor students go hungry. The poor students have food security problems, which are amplified because they are frequently staying with distant relatives in the capital so they can go to school and those relatives may not be concerned that they’re getting enough food. This compounds the gap in school performance, as the wealthy students who already have other advantages like internet access also get to learn with a full stomach.


Kid: "Where are you going grandpa?"
Grandpa holding a bag full of coconuts: "To the food storage"
Kid: "But you’re not a woman!"

This is a little bit about gender roles but mostly about lazy shiftless kids, a Marshallese topic of scorn since the dawn of time. Men are supposed to harvest and transport food, women are supposed to cook. The old man is bringing food home, doing his job, but the kid can’t imagine ever going to the place where food is stored without taking and cooking it.


Title: People First
Man 1: "Superman is here!"
Man 2: "I think he’s on a vehicle."

The RMI government is flying high on a giant budget from the US military using them as a missile testing site. People are hoping this will rescue them, but their spending is dangerous and destructive and comes from an evil source.


"Hey buddy! Where are you going?"
"To buy me some betelnut!"
(he buys it)
"Wow! It’s like I’m drunk!"
(He’s done buying it, but he’s spitting!)

I think the entire point of this comic is that betelnut is super gross, like bird poo poo, and that people who chew it spit it everywhere like making GBS threads birds. Betelnut is a vice imported from nearby islands, and it’s like chewing tobacoo. It stains everything it touches, including the teeth of chewers. More importantly, the young men who favor it tend to just spit anywhere they want, getting nasty brown splotches everywhere.


"Who is doing the real work?"

Majuro and Ebeye, the population centers of the RMI, are filled with litter and pollution. The islands are incredibly beautiful, but it’s marred by a combination of rapid development, foreign trash, and no public clean-up efforts. Litter is a constant problem, and private groups like churches and youth organizations occasionally organize cleaning campaigns. This cartoon is supporting those efforts.

Alhazred posted:

No new Zelda strip today because of celestial bouncing day:

Alhazred posted:

No new Zelda strip today because of celestial bouncing day:

Alhazred posted:

No new Zelda strip today because of celestial bouncing day:

Apple Pie Hubbub posted:

Improbable Lobster posted:

Protestant denominations tend to be tiny fiefdoms instead of part of a larger organization

Shangri-Law School posted:

You're the one who keeps engaging me. You're the one who's resorting to passive-aggressive aspersions against my character because you can't respond to any of my actual points. This is the last time I will ever reply to you.

Kopijeger posted:

Translation note: "My Struggle" is "Min Kamp" in the original, while "My Sponge" is "Min Svamp". So the pun is lost in a too literal translation, something like "My Juggle" would fit better.

Alhazred posted:

Except that she's writing a gently caress epic so "sponge" is a fitting title

Alhazred posted:

No new Zelda strip today because of celestial bouncing day:

Bicyclops posted:

Alhazred, do you translate all of these yourself?