Seeing What You Want To See

 

South Carolina has given the nation Lindsay Graham, Fort Sumter, the first shots of the Civil War and Congressman Ralph Norman, who appeared on the PBS Newshour to answer questions about the Big Beautiful (for Billionaires) Bill which President Trump wants to sign on July 4th.

Asked about cuts to Medicaid which will shutter many rural clinics, including those in South Carolina, the man who has had briefings at the White House and who has, unlike Mad Dog, presumably read the 940 page bill, said that Medicaid will not, in fact, be cut, except for denying Medicaid payments to illegal aliens who don't deserve to get Medicaid anyway.

When Jeff Bennett, the PBS anchor said that illegal aliens have never been eligible for Medicaid, Congressmen Norman informed the viewing public that they may not have been eligible for Medicaid but they got it any way, and that's what's been bankrupting the program and Mad Dog caught a scent of a long ago stench which found some part of his doggy brain.

Oh, right! The Welfare Queen, that lady Ronald Reagan told us about so long ago, who managed to manipulate the welfare system so expertly that she drove around the ghetto in her Cadillac, wearing a mink coat. No need to say what color she might have been, although there was speculation about whether the Cadillac may have been pink.

And Congressman Norman then swung from talking about the BBBB to a panegyric about how President Trump had stopped illegals from crossing the Mexican border. 

Lisa Murkowski, from Alaska, had held out against the bill until Trump did the art of the deal to exempt Alaska from the Medicaid cuts, so she voted for it, in a patriotic act which could be described as "I got mine, to hell with the rest of the country," or simply this is what pork barrel politics is all about, and besides Iowa gets its way when it comes to adding corn alcohol to gas, which has by now become counterproductive as an environmental move, so it's every state for itself, no matter what we call the UNITED States.

Oh, that swamp done been drained. 

Behind the Congressmen, rushing across the halls, one could see kids and their parents in shorts touring the Capitol on their vacations, just normal tourists, like those fresh faced legions who toured the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Works in Progress

 

The president of the Hampton Dems, who is nothing if not innovative, challenged the group of 20 or so souls who rallied for the July meeting to try to capture in a phrase and an image what Democrats should be saying to the world.

Give Me My Big Beautiful Billionaire's Bill

Some found this easier than others, and Mad Dog was astonished when some of the quieter, retiring types, who rarely say anything during these meetings, offered up some dazzling thoughts. 

Mad Dog has often despaired of the frumpy, silent, nearly catatonic types who show up for these meetings. 

His compatriot, Olivia, who shows up every time, has always laughed at Mad Dog's grumblings, telling him he simply did not know these folks.

As each offered his or her thoughts, and Mad Dog was left with his jaw on his chest, Olivia shot looks in his direction with a very satisfied, "I told you so!" look on her face.

Sitting among us were likely past winners of the New Yorker caption contest. Mad Dog has long contended that Harvard should not select its class by grades and SAT scores, which tell you how compliant and diligent on the one hand (grades) and on the other hand, who possesses a certain narrow band of competence (SAT's), but they should sit down their 50,000 applicants in exam rooms across the country and present them with a dozen New Yorker cartoon contest problems and that would make the process way easier and would select a much more talented class. For one thing, it would probably eliminate at least half the applicants, who after sitting for an hour or two trying to think of a caption would simply give up and go home and withdraw their applications. 

(The other option would be simply to put all the names in a hat and draw out 2,000 names and be done with it.)

But, Mad Dog digresses. All he is saying is there are all sorts of intelligence, and present in our Dems meeting were at least a dozen folks who possess one very important type.

Don Draper (of Mad Men fame, about Madison Avenue advertising agencies) once said, "Every one thinks what we do is so easy. But, the fact is, very few people can do it."

He was talking about creating an ad campaign.

So Mad Dog limped home with his tail dragging between his legs and tried to do a simple exercise, which is presented above. 

It's a start. Or maybe an end.

But maybe, some talents can be trained and developed.

Baseball pitchers get coached. But they need to have a certain hand/eye coordination, shoulder anatomy, baseline talent.

Hitting a fast ball is certainly something you can learn to do. For that it's not clear you need anything but persistence. Mad Dog has spent years at batting cages. At first he could not hit much of anything. Now, its just a pleasure. 

Cartooning may be somewhere in between.