And On The Lighter Side...

The most important and incomprehensible story in today's news is the release of the Republicans' plans to kinda sorta replace Obamacare with something which seems just about as complicated and convoluted, but will save billions in tax dollars for the evil rich by declaring "mass graves for the poor" to be a legitimate medical option.

At least, that's how the ever-rabid mainstream media is reporting it. Seriously, the Holocaust got more favorable press coverage. We're guessing the actual plan is significantly less draconian than it's being portrayed and, at least possibly, better than the current system which is crumbling before our eyes (as it was meant to do by the Democrats).

With nothing else to say on the topic just yet, we've decided to look at "the lighter side" of the news - by which we mean the stories which we'd like to take a lighter to, if not an actual flamethrower. Starting with...

Contrary to a number of bone-headed tweets, Donald Trump has now admitted that he has no secret tapes of his conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey.  Despite this, we don't believe Trump was lying. We believe, as we always have, that the guy is at least sporadically nuts.

We also wonder, under the GOP health care plan, what a double thumbectomy would cost - because we know a certain Twitter addict who could really, really use one.

And speaking of Oval Office residents, we found this story interesting...

LA would be renaming a 3 mile stretch of Rodeo Road, which makes us hope passionately that the rodeo clown who infamously wore an Obama mask while dodging bulls will do the ribbon-cutting.

By the way, let us be quick to distance ourselves from the racially insensitive joke told above by our ersatz Nick and Nora Charles. We can only guess that they were under the evil influence of coffee at the time...

According to a scientific study which was, in a glaring bit of oversight, not funded by our tax dollars, researchers determined that psychopaths are more likely to prefer their coffee black.

Which is really only logical; if you dawdle around in Starbucks waiting endlessly for your barista to make a Veni-Vini-Vici-sized half-foam hazelnut creme arabica cappuccino with sprinkles and a dusting ("Only a dusting!") of nutmeg, it gives the cops way too much time to catch up with you.

Which isn't why we prefer our coffee black. We just like something that matches our mood in the morning.

Deep Sea Jiving

As you've already surmised, we're taking a "Bah, humbug!" approach to the day's news. Seriously, the guy in the diving helmet might have the right idea when it comes to blocking out the media crapfest.

And because we have so little to say, we're going to fill some additional space with yet another cartoon drawn by our Dad some decades ago.

Oddly, we like making our brand new "Earwigs" cartoons look old and yellowed, but the original cartoons by our father really are old and yellowed - so we put considerable effort into making them look new again.

It seems enough like a circular system designed by government bureaucrats that we're amazed we're not receiving an NEA grant.

BONUS: A GLASS HALF FULL

And in this case, we're referring to our 4th glass of scotch, which is prompting us to write a little something political today even though we said we wouldn't.

Specifically, we're talking about the tragic case of Otto Warmbier and the costly but valuable lesson that his miserable death might teach the radical "antifa" Leftists and other noisemakers.

Warmbier made the fatal mistake of believing that North Korea was, at some level, like the United States - and a little innocent mischief didn't present much personal risk. He was dead wrong.

Meanwhile, the Leftist loons on college campuses (happily smashing windows and setting things on fire) seem to believe that under Donald Trump, the United States is the true totalitarian regime, stripping people of their rights and freedoms (concepts that aren't even dreamed of in North Korea) and threatening their very existence.

These pampered, self-absorbed dilettantes would do well to spend a little time thinking about their plush and privileged lives in comparison to the hell on Earth that Warmbier surely experienced for the slightest of political infractions.

This is called "perspective," and unless the young Leftists develop some, Warmbier's horrifying death will have been in vain.

Father's Day 2017

Sure, it's not exactly topical - but we couldn't let Father's Day go by without poking a little fun at the wild and woolly Clinton family, and restate our suspicion that (unlike certain blue dresses we could name) Chelsea has no trace of Bill's DNA.

And speaking of the Clintons, what ever happened to the investigations that were supposed to be happening to look into the ugly relationship between "contributions" to the demonstrably bogus Clinton Foundation and "favors" granted to high-rollers by Hillary's State Department? As long as we've got Special Counsels galloping around Washington with their hair on fire, why not put one on her tail?

But we digress. We're writing this on Father's Day, so are unsurprisingly thinking fondly of our Dad who doodled lots of cartoons like this one:

...and who wrote stories for innocent, trusting children like this one:

He's been gone for 11 years, but his influence remains strong. Not just on our somewhat unusual sense of humor, but also in our day-to-day pursuit of morality, responsibility, and decency.

You are much missed, Pa.