Today in prosecutorial no tag backs...

According to the Wall Street Journal, Mike Flynn, in a not at all suspicious move, is offering to testify in exchange for immunity. Now if you clicked the link, and I know you didn't, you noticed that it takes you to an NBC News story about the Wall Street Journal story. That's because the WSJ wants you to pay them to read the whole article which is adorable, but not going to happen. Do they not know how the internet works?

Above: Print media. It combines the immediacy of yesterday with 

the convenience of having to go to the store to buy it.

I'm pretty sure any contact
with this guy is inappropriate.

Anyway, Flynn, you'll probably remember, was Trump's former National Security Adviser for an historically and hilariously short 24 day term before becoming embroiled in scandal and then quitting after it came out that he was having inappropriate contact with Russian officials and then lying about it. Flynn was having conversations with the Russian ambassador after the election but before the inauguration and was allegedly telling him to go ahead and ignore the sanctions President Obama was levying against Russia in retaliation for interfering in our election, because Trump would just overturn them after being sworn in. Which, I don't know, sounds not just shady but, what's the word? Treason-y?

For those keeping track, that's three groups
currently investigating the President for
colluding with Russians to win the election.

Flynn, who at the time had no legal authority to conduct foreign policy, was conducting foreign policy on behalf of the guy who wasn't President yet and undermining the guy that was. And now he wants to give testimony so long as he's immune from prosecution. While no one has as yet taken him up on it, he's made the offer to the FBI, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, which means either he's got something or he just really misses all the attention he was getting.

Don't get me wrong, I totally accept the mathematical possibility that Flynn is just a huge media whore and that there was nothing untoward going on between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence and that it was all just a happy coincidence that their interference happened to damage Clinton's campaign and propel the least qualified President in U.S. history into office, but where there's smoke, right?

"Um...promise you won't get mad?"

-Mike Flynn

So I guess we're banking on the Rapture?

Wait, the environment? Don't we live in and breathe that? In another awesome move from the guy most of us didn't vote for, the President is going to Executive Order away a bunch of environmental protections tomorrow because, as we all know, climate change is a hoax and who cares about the environment anyway? The rapture could happen like any second...

"Well Susan, I don't want to say I told you so, but all
that recycling seems pretty pointless now doesn't it?"

Either you're for the Energy Independence
Executive Order, or you love ISIS.

The order, in traditionally Republican bullshit nomenclature, is called the Energy Independence Executive Order so anyone who isn't on board with it is basically a traitor to everything America stands for. What? Don't you like independence? Go back to Russia! Shit, did I say Russia? Why did I say Russia? I mean, what possible connection could the current administration have with-nevermind, back to the Energy Freedom Patriot Order thing. It rolls back a bunch of President Obama's protections that were designed to stave off the already pretty dire situation the environment is in.

Above: a walking, climate change
denying example of irony.

How come? Jobs. Which I think we can all agree are a good thing. But according to the climate change denier Donald Trump hilariously put in charge of the EPA:

"We can be both pro-jobs and pro-environment. The executive order will address the past administration's effort to kill jobs through the country through the Clean Power Plan."

-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt,
on how Obama hates America

Thanks to Obama's Clean Power Plan
this 7-year old Victorian-era orphan
can't even find a chimney sweep job.

First of all, fuck that guy. Like for real.  '[T]he past administration's effort to kill jobs'? Is he seriously suggesting that President Obama got up one morning, kicked a puppy and then started issuing Executive Orders about climate change for the sole purpose of taking jobs away from hard working Americans? Yes. Scott Pruitt is seriously suggesting that. Because he's an asshole. The Clean Power Act is designed to reduce emissions from (among other things) coal-burning power plants which, I agree is a bummer if you work in a coal plant, but since burning coal is, you know, slowly killing us, I'm not sure that's an unreasonable trade off. Yeah, and I get that it's easy for me to say since I don't work in a coal plant, but again: slowly killing us. 

"Oh...jobs and a clean environment.
Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

And the line Pruitt and the administration keeps repeating? Pro-jobs and pro-environment? Do they think they're the first to think of this and that everyone else before them was, you know, stupid? It's like the President seems to approach his job with an 'any idiot can do this' attitude. He just strolls in with no knowledge or experience and minimal effort only to be hit with the grim realization that being President is really, really hard. And it's all somebody else's fault. Remember last week's healthcare thing? Yeah. That.

Anyway, with this move Trump will be fulfilling his campaign promise to put the American economy first. Ahead of everything. Everything including the planet's ability to sustain life. But then I suppose that's a somewhat less pressing issue if you're in your seventies.

Sorry kids. But while you're fighting over recycled urine in the barren,
sun-blasted wasteland of the future, just remember that with the Environmental
Independence Executive Order, America can be both pro-job and pro-environment. 

Let's hear it for rage-quitting!

Is anyone else confused by the President's reaction to the way no Democrats got behind his ill-conceived plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act? Like, most of us, a majority of Americans, would prefer not to die on the emergency room floor because they can't afford premiums. Right?

"Look, we're just trying to make the people's lives more difficult by forcing
 an unpopular bill down everyones throat that will make health insurance
unaffordable for millions of Americans. I mean, what's everyone's problem?"

-Speaker Paul Ryan, summing 

up the Republican dilemma

"Um, it's a terrible bill and we hate you?"

-House Democrats responding to 

the President's bewilderment

The President gave a press conference from Hillary Clinton's desk in the Oval Office saying:

"It was very very close, it was a tight margin, we had no Democrat support, we had no votes from the Democrats. They weren't going to give us a single vote, so it's a very difficult thing to do."

-President Go Big or Stay Home,

opting to stay home on this one 

It's a flying spiky blue turtle shell
 that completely will ruin your day. 

So first of all, a tight margin implies a close vote, but they didn't even bring the bill up for one. It's what those of us who play video games call a rage-quit. Since you probably have a life, allow me to nerd'splain. Say you're playing an online game like Mario Kart or something. You're in first place, but you can see the blue turtle shell coming up behind you. You know you're doomed, but rather than lose gracefully, you quit out of the game or shut the console off. Rage-quitting is taking the coward's way out and the GOP just rage-quit on healthcare. 

Above: Some idiot, in for some
serious petard hoisting...

So we should all be celebrating, right? I mean, for once this pouty, hate-filled goon of a man who won the United States Presidential election despite being grossly under-qualified, inarticulate, unlikeable and pulling in 3 million fewer votes than his opponent, got beat. He lost and who doesn't love to see people like him get their comeuppance? Their just deserts? To see them hoisted by their own petard? Normally no one, but we're also talking about President Trump, so I feel like we're in for some petulance and petty revenge. 

Pictured: Obamacare, apparently.

"I've been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do, politically speaking, is let Obamacare explode, it is exploding right now, it's uh, many states have big problems, almost all states have big problems...so Obamacare is exploding with no Democrat support...

-Donald Trump, taking a big

prophetic schadenfreude 

all over the Oval Office

Oh shit, what if it was going
to be ice cream? We blew it...

Sigh. So I'm not sure people who understand these things all agree that Obamacare is exploding, but Trump seems to think it is and his response to the more reasonable elements of Congress not agreeing with him on how to fix it is to let the world burn. And then he went on to tell us about how really great the bill was going to be if we all got behind 'phase one.' Sort of like how people tell their kids that they were going to get a surprise, but because they're weren't good, they're not going to get it now, but it was going to be awesome.

Trump's bill is now up there with The
Owls of Ga'hoole 2 on the list of things
we'll never get to see. I hope you're happy.

"A lot of people don't realize how good our bill was because they were viewing phase one, but when you add phase two, which is mostly designings [sic] of Secretary Price...and when you add phase three which I think we would have gotten, it became a great bill."

-President Trump sternly
predicting that our shortsightedness
will be our undoing, which, duh...

So like, if phase three was so great, why didn't they just lead with that? Unless...hey, you don't suppose the bill was all terrible and that he's just making shit up now so we'll feel bad that it's not going to pass, do you?

"In phase four, everyone was going to get injected with nano-bots that will repair your
cells so you can live forever. It was going to be really, really, uh good. A good bill. But now,
Obamacare is exploding and everyone's going to die someday. Because of Democrats." 

-The President, laying it on thick

Tanks for nothing!

So remember the Inauguration? You know, the greatest and most attended event in the history of all forever? Well, get this: if the Pentagon wasn't so lame it would have been even greater-er. Yeah, they asked for tanks and the Pentagon said no.

"C'mon, just a couple? Or how 'bout some Humvees
with gun turrets? Pfft...you guys used to be cool."

-The Inauguration Commitee

Unfortunately, cutbacks meant meant key
assets like the Mobile Command Center
have been mothballed. Thanks Obama... 

Apparently back in December, the campaign, presumably high on their electoral victory and let's say, cocaine,* shot an email over to the Pentagon asking to borrow military vehicles for that little parade/motorcade thing Presidents do after the inauguration. According to an incredulous official, the request was basically:

"Can you send us some pictures of military vehicles we could add to the parade...I explained that such support would be out of guidelines..."

-An actual Pentagon official having to explain  

to Trump's staff that military vehicles are not toys

I'm kidding, Inauguration Day was very well
attended. Look at this photo of-oh, wait, that's the
Women's March. Huh, way more came to that...

Pictures. Of military vehicles. For their parade. I think 'out of guidelines' must be army-speak for 'no way in hell you ridiculous spray-tanned goon.' Holy shit. I mean, holy shit. Military equipment is for national defense and occasionally pretending to look for WMD's in countries with oil. It's not for show and it's certainly make the former host of The Apprentice look tough in front of the two or three thousand gun nuts and white supremacists who showed up on The Mall to watch him smirk his way through the oath of office.

And another thing, Trump is a real-estate developer, it's not like he has any connection to the military other than he thinks it would be neat to start a war or two. If anything, he should have paraded a phalanx of lawyers down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Besides, marching alongside hundreds of lawyers, Trump might
have come off almost likable. That's right, lawyer jokes. I'm edgy.

"Dah, and...?"

-The only person who actually

likes the electoral college

Speaking of, lawyers, did you say Russia? Because remember a couple days ago when FBI director Comey just sort of casually mentioned that they're looking into ties between Trump's associates and Russian intelligence during the campaign? Well now Adam Schiff, a congressperson on the House Intelligence Committee, is saying that he's seen more than circumstantial evidence of collusion. Um, isn't 'more than circumstantial evidence,' just, you know, evidence? Evidence that goddamn Vladimir Putin basically picked our President for us?

And if there is evidence, like actual proof that the campaign coordinated with Russian intelligence to get Trump elected, shouldn't we all be freaking out about this right now? Freaking out and putting a hold on things like, Supreme Court nominations and dismantling the health care law? Because I'm kind of freaking out right now. It's a mix of despair, schadenfreude and the unshakeable feeling that no matter how guilty this guys is, he's going to hang in there 'till the bitter end.

I really don't want to jinx anything, but should we putting
the Nixon escape 'copter on standby? You know, just in case?

*I'm sorry, was I making wild and baseless claims without providing a shred of evidence? How 'bout that...

Today in inarguably oblique spheroids...

Hey, did you know that Shaquille O'Neal, star of classic Super NES fighting game Shaq-Fu and I don't know, basketball or something, believes that we're living on a flat slab hurtling through the void? You didn't? Well, he does and I think it's important that we point out how not flat the Earth really is:

Pictured: The oblique spheroid upon which we live.
Not Pictured: any room for argument. Like, at all.

Because they're also round? Look,
I don't know where I was going with
that either, but the Earth is round, ok?

I guess now that Trump is President, Earth-roundess denying is kind of like the new 'where's the birth certificate?' because for real, where else are you going to go from there? And Shaq is, of course, not the first person to put forth this theory, in fact he's not even the first basketball player in the last month to do so, which is weird, because you know, basketballs? But since O'Neal is more famous (well, 90's famous) than the other guy, Kyrie Irving, we're talking about him. O'Neal was apparently defending Irving's crazy-town claims on his own podcast when he outed himself as a fan of flat-earth:

"I'm just saying, I drive from Florida to California all the time and it seems flat to me."

Um...ok, so he's a skeptic. There's nothing wrong with that. I've never personally seen the alien Reptoids that secretly walk among us but that doesn't mean they're not everywhere, manipulating world events and preparing us for the Great Culling. 

Speaking of, they come thousands of light years to conquer us in secret and the
best they could do is a mask from Spirit Halloween Store? C'mon guys, get it together.

Tales of murder, disease and genocide,
but nothing about falling off the Earth.

But you're probably wondering how someone could cling to the flat Earth idea when humans have known that the world's a spheroid since like Aristotle. I mean, it's not like there isn't evidence of its roundness. There's the shadow cast on the surface of the moon during an eclipse, there's the curvature observed out the window on a plane if you're high enough (as in altitude...grow up) and contrary to the myths about panicky sailors worrying about sailing over the edge, explorers have been circumnavigating the globe and lived to tell the tale. So how could an otherwise intelligent person believe something so...you know, batshit?

Above: an unrelated picture
of Sean Spicer. For no reason.

Don't know and doesn't matter. The truth is Shaq's inexplicable refusal to accept the Earth's slightly-squashed at the polls, yet inarguably roundish shape will have exactly zero impact on your day, but falsehoods, no matter how preposterous, can not be allowed to stand unchallenged. Now, more than ever, we need to call people out when they repeat things that are demonstrably lies. We don't have to be jerks about it, and there's a line between calling bullshit on bullshit and attacking someone for having beliefs, but it's got to be done. 

Look, I don't mean to pick on Shaq, but if we're going to make it through these particularly insane times where anyone's crazy-town conspiracy theories can be accepted as just as valid as real science as long as they've got a podcast or a YouTube video about it, there can't be any wiggle room when it comes to objective fact. Oh and if you need further evidence of why you shouldn't necessarily listen to people because they're famous, check out the poster from 1996's Kazaam:

The yellow text is kind of hard to read, so allow me to reiterate what it says:
He's A Rappin' Genie-With-An-Attitude...And He's Ready For Slam-Dunk Fun!
That should be reason enough to believe the opposite of everything Shaq believes.

Happy Saint Pedantic's Day!

Above: Saint Patrick not wearing
green-wait, you can't see me right?

Yes I know it's Saint Patrick's Day and yes, I know I'm wearing blue. Huh? Oh, right, you can't actually see me. Well it is and I am and you know what? I don't care. I realize that on Saint Patrick's Day we're all supposed to be a little Irish, and a lot drunk but that's like super offensive. As an Irish-American, I take great offense at-Yes, I know I've already said that I'm half Canadian, I'm also half Irish. Half on both sides, so two halves-wait, two quarters. Yes, I'm two quarters Irish and one of those quarters is also Canadian. So really I'm Iri-nadian American and not so great at math with is a negative stereotype about Iri-nadian Americans and while it fits in my case, I am nevertheless very disappointed that you would bring it up. Shame!

Pictured: that time the Irish rebels mis-
judged their chances against the British.

While it's true that my choice of wardrobe today had nothing to do with celebrating Saint Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland (which is, incidentally, bullshit), it is technically the correct color for today. And who doesn't like being technically correct? Jerks, that's who. Anyway, ever hear of Saint Patrick's blue? It's an actual shade of blue named after Saint Patrick of snake murder fame and was associated with him and by extension Ireland until the 1798 Irish Rebellion when the Irish looked around at all those pasty, powdered wig wearing Brits and said, 'hey, I think we can take's.' Which, turned out they couldn't.

The rebels used-wait, what? How dare I? It's ok, I'm English too. I'm allowed to call us pasty. Really I'm whatever is most convenient at the time. Like I was saying, the rebels adopted the clover as their symbol. Clovers, like Ireland, are green so that's why everyone wears green on Saint Patrick's Day. Unless of course you forgot, grabbed a blue shirt and then dug up some pedantic, internet-research to justify it.

Another non-booze related Saint Patrick's day tradition is the shamrock shake.
It's green and tastes like a combination of mint and centuries of oppression. 

Go back to Ma-N'hat-tan!

"Whoa, the President isn't a fascist.
Ok? Right-wing, authoritarian and
nationalistic, sure, but not a fascist."

-The Press Secretary

And did you see the thing about Sean Spicer? Because oh...just oh...here, check it out. Not going to click? It's ok, this one is on me. Spicer was shopping at the Apple store, presumably for a new iPhone because I'm sure his press secretary gig comes with health insurance, when he was confronted by a woman called Shree Chauhan. Chauhan, seeing an opportunity to confront America's favorite spokesdouche, instantly laid in to him asking him what it's like working for a fascist and if he was in on the whole Russia thing.

America: Where anyone, regardless of
race, creed or color can pay way too
much for wireless iPhone earbuds.

Rude? Maybe, but then so is arguing with the press, lying to all of us on day one about the inauguration thing, and now today's bullshit about wiretaps and air quotes (did you see?). Those were all rude to, so even Steven? Anyway, Spicer responded with and I shit you not:

"Such a great country that allows you to be here."

-Sean Spicer, outdoing even himself

"You know, she should be thanking me
that I didn't have her sent back to...where'd
she say she was from? Ma-N'hat-tan?"

I think the phrase you're searching for is 'how dare he?' While I'm sure he'll later try and frame the comment as a reference to how great America is that anyone can confront a public figure at an Apple Store and not the condescending and racist suggestion that it's only by the grace of white American men that she's allowed to shop just like regular people. For her part, Chauhan, a New Yorker whose family is originally from India, took it as not only racist but also a threat. Which I'm not sure is entirely unreasonable. After all, he was clearly making the assumption that she's an immigrant and not a U.S. born citizen so it's not out of the question that Spicer was imagining an Ally McBeal-esque cut-away wherein he's waving to Chauhan as the ICE agents haul her away.

Again, an angry and stammering explanation is certainly forthcoming, and I'm sure we're the jerks for assuming his innocent threat was a racist innocent threat. And while the incident is on video, it's not like photographic evidence has ever stopped him before.

Above: Trump's inauguration, the single most attended
event in all of human history. Yes it was. Shut up.

A desparate shortage of Germans!

Well, now I'm just insulted. By what? you might ask. By this. Iowa Representative Steve King, a, wait for it...Republican, responded to criticism today over his recent super racist tweet. Which racist tweet?

Why this racist tweet of course!

Pictured: Geert Wilders and his hair.
Seriously, what's up with the hair?

Oh shit. If you're wondering what he means by 'our civilization' and you're kind of leaning towards him meaning 'white people' but wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, don't. That's exactly what he's saying. And is it me, but is it particularly unnerving when racists start throwing around words like 'destiny?' Anyway, King was Tweeting his admiration for Geert Wilders as 'Dutch Trump,' the super-right wing racist white nationalist from the Netherlands (yup, they have racists in Europe too), and his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim platform.

That's right, he like's the cut of Geert's Jib. And in what can only be described as a white supremacist reach around-ok, fine, in what I'm choosing to describe as a white supremacist reach around, King's tweet in turn was given full-throated support from former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. Oh, and to be clear, he's the racist kind of wizard, not like an actual wizard although I suppose he could be both...

"And don't get me started on the Orcs. If it wasn't for that wall around
Mordor they'd be all over Middle Earth, taking all our jobs..."

-Gandalf, in a deleted scene

I say we put everyone's babies to
 work building our civilization. It's about
time they contributed. Pfft...lazy babies...

Yeah, that bit about 'our civilization' and 'somebody else's babies' can be read as culturally chauvinist at best and straight-up rabid-foam racist at worst. It's the kind of shit you find on a poorly Xerox'ed flyer someone from the Klan shoved under your wiper blade. But given recent GOP indifference towards how terrifyingly white nationalist their party is becoming, it's not super surprising that this horseshit fell out of King's mouth...or tweet-hole I guess. What is surprising and no less offensive is how not sorry he is about it. Like at all. King went on CNN to explain that he meant what he said. No stammering explanation, not tap-dancing just straight up "Well of course I meant exactly what I said...and to exprand on that a little further-" yeah, he said 'exprand.' But he went on to add:

I'm not like an expert or anything,
but maybe if they stopped dressing
like this they'd have more sex?

"I've spoken on this issue...to the German people and to any population of people that is a declining population that doesn't-isn't wiling to have enough babies to reproduce themselves and I've said to them: you can't rebuild your civilization with other people's babies, you've got to keep your birth rate up and that you need to teach your children your values and in doing so, then you can grow your population and you can strengthen your culture, you can strengthen your way of life..."

-Rep. Steve King of Iowa, an actual member of

the U.S. Congress in 2017, can you believe it?

Ok, so he wasn't being a xenophobic shithead, he was just addressing the problem of not enough Germans by offering some friendly, neighborly advice, right?

"Well, my problem isn't that there aren't enough people in Germany so much as it is there
aren't enough white people in Germany. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one."

-Steve King, apparently comfortable in his racism

Pictured: an awkward metaphor he
probably should have backed off from.

You know, it used to be that someone would say something galling and then at least do the rest of us the courtesy of grudgingly apologizing to us about it. Remember after hurricane Katrina when Mayor Ray Nagin called New Orleans a 'chocolate city?' White people, suddenly on the receiving end of the kind of cultural insensitivity everyone else in America encounters every day, got all upset so he backtracked and pointed out that milk chocolate is made with milk so, uh...mumble...mumble...

Did we believe him? Of course not. But at least he acknowledged that it was a weird thing to say and even said 'hey sorry 'bout that.' Not so with Steve King whose tactic is to just lean into it and see how racist he can be before either  the voters or the GOP leadership calls him on it.

"The racist vote is pretty important to us, so...I'm going to see how this plays out."

-Paul Ryan the Speaker of the House

sitting this one out I guess...*

*Naw, I'm just kidding. He actually hasn't commented on this. Like at all.

Let's swallow our own tail!

So like most good news lately, this comes with a couple caveats. Caveats like, 'ok that's 3 down, 432 more to go' and 'give it five minutes and a higher court will just overturn it.' But for the next few days, let's just enjoy the fact that some Federal Judges in San Antonio, Texas just ruled that the GOP-controlled Texas State Legislature re-drew districts to favor Republican candidates. Yup, they smacked down some gerrymandering.

Fun fact: before the ruling, the Texas 27th district consisted
solely of Republican Governor Greg Abbot's house.

Think of it like a Pokémon whose
power is to undermine democracy.

Gerrymandering? What's that? I'm glad I pretended you asked. Here, allow me to wiki-splain. Named after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry who, in 1812 signed a bill to re-kajigger some voting districts so his party, the Democratic-Republicans would hold on to power in the legislature. Some political cartoonist thought that the new district represented a salamander and blamo, Gerry-mander was born. Despite being aggressively anti-democratic and anathema to everything we, as a people, are supposed to stand for, Gerry's dick move worked and the party retained power (although he himself was defeated in the next election). The weird thing is that instead of everyone in the then new nation calling bullshit, we just sort of adopted this as a totally legit way to cheat.

Unless of course you think he won
on merit? Or maybe personality? Ok...

And that's how Donald Trump is President. Did I skip a few steps there? Sure, but where would the internet be without gross generalizations? According to David Daley's book, Ratf***ked* the GOP, still reeling from the victory of a black guy over a white war hero, decided that something must be done. That something was REDMAP, a blatant effort to redraw voting districts to make sure the GOP keeps control over the House. If that sounds like some Karl Rove horseshit, that's because it is. It totally is.

And the fucked up part, sorry, the f***ked up part is that it's been public knowledge for years. So to be clear, the GOP's strategy isn't to win elections by being good at their jobs, it's to win by moving their district lines so that Republican voters' votes are more effective.

"Yeah, and...? I don't see what you're getting upset about, I mean,
we're white men with money, we're supposed to be in charge."

-GOP leadership

"I got your Obamacare right here!"

-Republican voters, 

watching it burn

Anyway, so now that the Federal Judges in Texas have ruled the Republicans' redistricting was a naked power grab designed to prop up a rapidly aging and out-of-touch constituency at the expense of America's very soul, problem solved, right? Yeah, no. Like I mentioned before, the ruling is about three districts in Texas and there's still a shit-load of crazy gerrymandering out there carried out by both parties, although most recently and most effectively on the part of the GOP. Also, this ruling will very likely be challenged and could go all the way to the Supreme Court where the deciding vote could be cast by whomever fills Scalia's vacancy.

Oh, you remember, the vacancy that opened up during the Obama administration? The one the GOP used its House and Senate majority to screw us out of? The majority they maintain thanks to the gerrymandering we're talking about? The one we can't break unless the DNC starts winning back seats? Which they can't because of the GOP majority? Holy shit it's hard to remain optimistic sometimes...

Not to be a totally bummer, but I'm thinking that the oruborus, rather
than the gerrymander, might be a more apt symbol for what's wrong with us.

*I should explain. The book is called Ratfucked, but the asterisks make sure our delicate consumer sensibilities are unperturbed by the words we use all the time, but pretend we don't.