Conflagration Prize

Progressives are happily dancing atop the graves of our Benghazi dead following the final House Select Committee 800-page report on what went wrong and who is to blame.

In a nutshell, it seems that everything went wrong, and the entire incident was the almost unavoidable outcome of policy failures, bureaucratic mismanagement and miscommunication, dismal understanding of the situation in Libya, gross underestimation of necessary security to protect Americans, and general fumbduckery. Meaning that no one - especially Hillary in the Left's estimation - is to blame because the entire system failed at every level.

For Progressives, this means that Hillary is now cleared and qualified to become president of the United States, an office from which she can give every citizen the same level of protection she provided for the fallen in Benghazi.

Interestingly, the report makes clear that pretty much everyone in the Obama administration, including Hillary, lied their pants (or pantsuits) off about what actually happened - choosing to promote their entirely bogus "Youtube demonstration" story in order to not distract Americans in an election year with the troublesome truth that the war on terror hadn't really ended with Bin Laden's death. Hillary Clinton knowingly lied to the victims' families when she told them that the videomaker would be brought to justice, and subsequently lied when she accused those still-grieving family members of being liars themselves for failing to cover her polyestered rear end.

Democrats on the investigative panel issued their own version of the report, declaring that the whole Republican-led investigation was a political sham intended only to sully a presidential candidate's reputation, which is an unacceptably sleazy and partisan thing to do. The Democrat report then somehow inserts 23 negative references to Donald Trump, which is apparently an acceptably sleazy and partisan way to sully a candidate's reputation.

While it would seem that the fat lady has sung, or in this case cackled, on the sad subject of Benghazi, Hillary was in no way exonerated. The full report notes that the record of Hillary's actions or inactions will never be complete owing to her use of the infamous, secret private server and deletion of tens of thousands of emails.

Which, unlike the fatal miscalculations made about embassy security, shows impressive foresight on her part.

FLASHBACK: PROPHET AND LOSS STATEMENT (9/26/2012) - Obama uses Benghazi deaths to defend Islam and attack the 1st Amendment at the United Nations.

The Price of Weeking Off

Well that was silly.  Hope n' Change tried to take a restful but productive week off, but instead we ended up posting as many cartoons as usual (just check out the "Staycation" post below) while the world enthusiastically went foam-drooling, "bibbidy-bibbidy-bibbidy" lip-diddling, howling at the moon crazy.

And on the personal front, 98% of the things we'd intended to do last week didn't get done. It seems we stink at time management as badly as we stink at taking time off.

Regarding the stories du jour, we don't have a lot to say about Brexit because A) we don't know much about all the details and B) it's our understanding that not much of a change will actually take place for a couple of years, other than C) our retirement savings getting kicked where it hurts (without benefit of an athletic cup) last Friday.

Donald Trump gave a major speech about how much Hillary Clinton stinks as a candidate and as a human being, which we enthusiastically agree with, and kicked off LyingCrookedHillary.com, making us wish we'd had the foresight to buy the domain name first. We do, however, own the domain name for DoucheNozzles.com - which we might convert into a Hillary site in the coming days.

There's not much need for us to discuss Hillary's email situation other than to say that scads of newly incriminating evidence seem to arise every day, but DOJ doyenne Loretta Lynch is so busy with her "Show ISIS Some Love" campaign there's no chance she'll file charges against the woman who gave our nation's enemies about 1000 times more secret information than Benedict Arnold did.  (For those of you too young to have learned about Benedict Arnold, he gave away our secret of topping poached eggs with hollandaise sauce. )

The Supreme Court did a good thing by ruling that Obama absolutely exceeded his legal authority (ie, broke the freakin' law) by stuffing our country with potentially disease-ridden illegal immigrants who are doing the important missionary work of bringing Shariah Law and sporadic bursts of terror to our shores. Of course, we'd be more impressed by the ruling if it forced Obama to do anything differently - but the SOB knows that Republicans aren't going to seriously challenge him on immigration during this election year. Or any of the other seven years he's been getting away with this lunacy.

The Supreme Court also declared that if there's no other way on God's green earth to legitimately get a black kid into a college, it's okay to discriminate against (and perhaps viciously beat with an ax handle) anyone who has white or yellow skin, as well as those potential students with brown skin if they're Indian or Pakistani instead of an illegal Latino.  Apparently, the Supreme Court's definition of "diversity" is "a rich mix of those who have earned their position, and those who are absolutely clueless but are useful stereotypes." Which is, now that we think of it, a pretty accurate description of the Supreme Court itself.

And with that being said, Hope n' Change court is officially back in session.

Staycation

Caution: visitors must wear helmets. Falling bottle zone.

Hope n' Change is taking a much-needed break this week - a "Summer staycation" in which we're not actually going anywhere but enjoying family time, playing "whiskey bottle fetch" with Penny (the official dog of Hope n' Change), and taking the opportunity to catch up on a growing pile of personal and professional projects.

The comments section will remain open (as always, just click on the page's title - "Staycation" in this case - to go to comments) and we'll be dropping in regularly to chat and help bemoan the state of the world.

Of course, if more feces hit the fan than usual we'll snap back into action. For that matter, if we just get a random cartoon idea we'll tag it onto this page - no promises, but the odds are pretty good that we'll get at least a minor creative itch before 7 days have passed.

We'll return to our usual Monday, Wednesday, Friday publishing schedule as of Monday, June 27. Here's hoping the world can hold together till then!

-Stilton Jarlsberg

PS: In the interim, you can avoid withdrawal symptoms (and enjoy news, humor, and pithy commentary) over at The Daily Gouge.

TUESDAY UPDATE: BY POPULAR REQUEST...

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY ALLAHU AKBAR


“To the LGBT community — we stand with you,” President Obama’s utterly useless attorney general said. “The good in this world far outweighs the evil. Our common humanity transcends our differences, and our most effective response to terror is compassion, it’s unity and it’s love.”


Which confuses us here at HnC. Aren't gay bars like the Pulse filled with people exercising their compassion, unity, and love? Let's make "group hugs" Plan B, and "shooting the shit out of terrorist monsters" Plan A.


THURSDAY UPDATE: RUG RATS

FRIDAY UPDATE: A SAD ANNIVERSARY


While we hate to wrap up the week on a grim note, some things are worth noting. June 24th marks 43 years since 32 men were burned alive, almost certainly deliberately, in a gay club in New Orleans - an event which sadly has special resonance in the wake of the Orlando massacre. The case was never solved because it seemed that so few cared about men who were considered social outcasts.

Happily, that degree of blind hatred and prejudice is rarer now, although there are still shocking throwbacks from some people so vile they could make the Westboro Baptists blush with shame.  Hope n' Change sincerely hopes that the ongoing politicization of the nightmare in Orlando never obscures the fact that the victims were first and foremost human beings with families, friends, and futures which will now go unrealized.

FRIDAY UPDATE TWO: I DID NOT HAVE BREXIT WITH THAT WOMAN