Writer, cartoonist, humorist, beauty contest champion and part time Emperor of the United States of America. Merry Christmas.

gloryaart:
“ Merry Christmas everybody!!! I hope you all have a wonderful day. This little santa dwarf it’s my gift to you all
”

gloryaart:

Merry Christmas everybody!!! I hope you all have a wonderful day. This little santa dwarf it’s my gift to you all

arthurabland:
“Merry Christmas, everyone. Santa’s got your back.
”

arthurabland:

Merry Christmas, everyone. Santa’s got your back.

schweizercomics:

I decided that I REALLY wanted to draw up a bunch of Santas this year, but with December looming I didn’t feel like I had time to do the research necessary to undertake the project the way that I’d like.  Lucky for me, I’m pals with renowned Christmas expert Benito Cereno, who, like me, lives in ol’ Kentucky.  I told him what I wanted to do, and he gave me a list of Santa variants and reference imagery to get me started, and answered all of my questions as I set to work putting my own spin on them.  He was also kind enough to write the copy on the bordered stands.

I made these as a simple, decorative papercraft set.  You can see the standing figures and the gift band in which they come here, where, coincidentally, you can also buy them.  The original color art for these is available as well.

We’re in full Christmas swing here at the Schweizer house, with garland and lights and nog and the whole to-do, and working on these while we watched this or that adaptation of A Christmas Carol certainly put me in the Christmas spirit; I hope that reading them teaches you a little something (it did me!), and helps you get into it, too.

thisdayinwwi:
“Saturday Evening Post Dec 9 1916
Santa Sale
Norman Rockwell https://t.co/o1loUwXRCL http://twitter.com/ThisDayInWWI/status/806997852740153344
”

thisdayinwwi:

Saturday Evening Post Dec 9 1916
Santa Sale
Norman Rockwell https://t.co/o1loUwXRCL http://twitter.com/ThisDayInWWI/status/806997852740153344

Anonymous asked:

I know, I know, you're a tv/movie guy (and a good one!) and you just know about politics because you don't wear a blindfold and jump into a swamp, but can you explain what's going on with the CIA Russia thing? Is it actually a big deal, or is my bias and friend group misleading me?

twiststreet:

As conspiracy theories go, I’m way more into the one where this country’s pizza places are all secret pedophile sex rings, or the one where John Podesta eats cum.  Democrats are going to need to really close the gap in the quality of our Conspiracy Fiction over the next four years.  Also: I hope we wrest control over anime back from the Nazi Party, but that’s not really what you’re asking.

All this CIA-Russia stuff is the latest round of stuff that’s been going on all year– accusations that were never really proven and to some extent seem to me kinda unprovable.  This round involves a Washington Post article that relies entirely on anonymous sources. Annnnnd that’s not real journalism– or at least it’s indistinguishable from fiction. Especially this year where people have been breathlessly repeating all sorts of anonymously sourced nonsense– liberals included and/or especially.  Heck, I saw more from liberals because that’s who I go read more– I don’t read Breitbart.  People don’t want to wait for facts.  I don’t see how that’s not dangerous.  Here’s the Intercept with that point, if you want to read people who aren’t under-educated weirdos ( “The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret”).

Take any of these articles and read about four paragraphs in and there’ll always be a line “we don’t actually know anything BUT Putin is bad so sounds good to us. “ The Washington Post article that set this round off:  

The CIA presentation to senators about Russia’s intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.  For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said.

That’s like paragraph 12 though– the part where even the anonymous experts are disagreeing over this shit.  (Let’s also note the Washington Post has been ridiculed within the last 2 weeks because of their under-investigating wild claims about Russia– I don’t know why I’m supposed to forget about that). (See also, re: the Post’s credibility issues).

But let’s set all that aside (including the “they got the Iraq War wrong too” part which I think is a pretty decent point, but people seem irritated by) because look, it’s very much possible that the Russians did something here.  Why is it possible?  Because the US interferes with elections.  The US does that and has for decades as even the Washington Post itself has acknowledged. “We know they did it cause we do it all the time” – the CIA – that’s hard to get quite as upset about. If it’s all part of the game, the real game empires are engaged in… well, then acting like we should be shocked and outraged about it becomes a little fuzzier, no?  Because your whole “i’m standing for democracy” stance becomes a little more weird, no…?  I mean, at some point, let’s be humble and go “well we don’t really know how the world really works and maybe no one anywhere does.” Right?  Not to turn into an Adam Curtis doc but…

But okay, let’s even set that aside– because worrying over hypocrisy is kind of a dodge in believing in anything.  Sure.  I think believing shit is good.  So okay, so let’s say that the “Russians did it” (because it is certainly plausible) and that it’s worse they did it to us than the fucking craaaazy shit we did to Latin America.  What’d Russia supposedly do– what is “it”?  The Post:  “Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials.

To believe that turned the election though you have to subscribe to set of a beliefs that I don’t have.  One, that it’s bad for the electorate to know things about the people they’re electing for President.  That seems extremely odd to me as being a big stance people want to take.  But two, more importantly, that Hillary Clinton didn’t eat shit as a candidate, and that but-for this particular scandal (and not any of the other scandals, e.g. the private server), she had it all locked.  

I don’t personally believe that.  Hillary Clinton ate shit. Her supporters were deluded all year– all they had was to yell that anyone who didn’t like her was a bro.  And just as people warned, she was the worst Presidential candidate in modern US history (which I know based on the simple fact she lost to Donald Trump – who only gave himself a 10 percent chance of winning!!!).  She was on vacation in August.  She didn’t show up places.  They didn’t spend money sensibly in battleground states.  They didn’t have a message. They put a broken computer program in charge. Etc.  Plenty went wrong there that is plain as day that had nothing to do with Russia– and that people don’t want to talk about because they just spent a year telling themselves some “She was the greatest woman of all time everyone loves her because she is light itself” fucking nonsense.  This Russia thing lets them bury their head in the sand a little longer that they got it wrong, so for me, I get upset hearing about it because true or untrue, there’s just so many bigger fish to fry…

But setting aside I obviously don’t like her much (and I think with good reason, but I guess a person could argue the popular vote, which I don’t care about at all but)(or they could argue I have issues with women, which yeah– okay, I’m a creepy old weirdo so fair enough): Democrats lost other shit which had nothing to do with those e-mails. What did the Russians have to do with the Senate???  Listen to this line: “Even before election night, the Democrats had given up on hopes of recapturing the House of Representatives.”  What does Russia stealing some emails have to do with the party being a fucking shambles?  Here’s the only chart I really think you need:

image

Where in that chart do we get to start blaming Russia for everything??   

It’s entirely possible I’m wrong on them being involved– at the moment, I just don’t know enough to make a point of believing it, and worrying over it.  (I regard all this talk suspiciously because if you watch your Adam Curtis, the real harm with Putin and his crew is when people start believing whatever because they don’t know what’s true anymore).  But okay, sure, it could all be Putin.  So.  Then what?  What conclusions do you draw from it?  What’s the conclusion here?  “WE HAVE TO GO TO WAR WITH RUSSIA.”  Fuck off, you know??  You go, asshole– I’m staying home!  “We should do things differently in Syria.”  The fuck does anyone pretend to know about Syria??!  I don’t know dick about Syria– I went to public school. Clinton said at the debates she wanted to murder a whole fuckload of Syrians and I don’t know– is that something I’m supposed to be rooting for…???  Sounded messy.  Or what– we have to get the electoral college to ignore how people voted…?  Dumb dumb dumb fucking dumb.  What’s the next step??  

And if the answer is there is none and people on twitter just want shit to yell at other people on twitter… Who gives a fucking shit?  If that’s all it is, who cares?  That’s not worth thinking about.  Then it’s arguments about mandates and legitimacy that to me don’t really fucking matter because he’s got the Presidency and he’s got his people and he’s got enough time to do whatever the fuck he wants. (If the argument is Paul Ryan gets persuaded to do x y or z, well good fucking luck with that). So.  I don’t know.  I just don’t regard it with much affection, this whole topic.  But maybe I’m wrong on all this though… i’m just some random dude!!  You know?  This is a big topic…

So I went insane after the election and named myself (sort of) Emperor Unelect of America. I’ve got a kickstarter for my coronation. These are one of the related things I’ve been working on; new money for the Imperial United States. Partially, I plan on offering them as an alternative to regular boring American currency (not that it’ll be worth much for very long under President in Exile Trump).

So yeah. America.