Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for April 13, 2024

Should thank Goat for doing his part to shut down conspiracies.

Is there a thin crust state?

Good answer. Only the MAGots are deep in the chip (bok).

How about the Shallow State?

Good for you Pig! I wish more people didn’t believe in it.

I’m in the state of confusion.

Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, Inyo County, California, noted as the lowest point in North America and the United States, with a depth of 282 ft (86 m) below sea level. Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States, is only 84.6 miles (136 km) to the northwest.

The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of “bad water” next to the road in a sink; the accumulated salts of the surrounding basin make it undrinkable, thus giving it the name. The pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects, and the Badwater snail.

Adjacent to the pool, where water is not always present at the surface, repeated freeze–thaw and evaporation cycles gradually push the thin salt crust into hexagonal honeycomb shapes.

The pool is not the lowest point of the basin: the lowest point (which is only slightly lower) is several miles to the west and varies in position, depending on rainfall and evaporation patterns. The salt flats are hazardous to traverse (in many cases being only a thin white crust over mud), and so the sign marking the low point is at the pool instead. The basin was considered the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere until the discovery of Laguna del Carbón in Argentina at −344 ft (−105 m).

Your average Democrat right there.

Oh suuuure there ain’t.

Too bad the lunatics aren’t so logical. They’ll probably pick the “relatively” deepest state. Or maybe just every state with a lower average elevation than Colorado will be called a “deep state”?

Isn’t Louisiana below sea level in parts?! (actually 49%)!

Below Rat’s see level!

I guess it all depends on how you define Deep State. If it means the folks who exercise power in government though they are in no way formally connected to the government, then look no further than the corporate and billionaire class (lots of overlap there). They purchase congress members and Supreme Court justices and tell them what to do. So, to that extent, the Deep State does exist.

When Pig appeared in the fourth panel did he go through the Pizza Gate

“Deep State’….are you kidding me. The more things change the more we become like Russia. No ‘’Deep State’’ there either.

So the Netherlands are the “Deep State” then?

He’s in a New York State in of mind.

Trump has managed to demonize Civil Servants.

The deep state is only the level of bureaucratic power that is not subject to the whims of the electorate. Unelected officials and their minions, who are loyal to a party and a party ideology, and serve in their capacity to uphold and defend those. It doesn’t require organization, or a vast conspiracy. The structure is held together by individual rivets, each placed to maintain a small part of the whole, to do their job as they know is best. Ideally, they would defend and uphold the fundamental laws of their republic. But certainly, there must be some flexibility allowed where personal preferences would overshadow the ossified carcasses of long-dead people.

The deep state decides which military contractors will fight in which war.

Trump wants to go back to the spoils system: The President fires the whole Government and replaces them with “his people” – i.e. cronies and toadies. Chester A. Arthur created the Civil Service to end that, and the partisan hacks hated him for it.

We now have a Government where hiring and advancement is based on qualifications and a test, and they AREN’T beholden to the politicians. Yes, Donnie, we want accountants who know math, not idiots whose only qualification is that they flatter you. Lawyers who will adhere to the law instead of telling a billionaire criminal what he wants to hear.

And it’s ALWAYS projection with these people. He claims that civil servants are all political when what he wants to do is replace them with people who actually ARE all political.

You’re losing it, Steven Pastis. That is so sad.

Well, there are more than a few states that are in deep…

I never even heard the term until Trump and Steve Bannon came on the scene. More conspiracy crock of crap to rile up the MAGA minions

The Deep State is a hoax, confirmed.

Not what they mean by ‘Deep state’, Pig. Even though I had to look up the term.

You can find them in the deep Dark Web … with some Herculean effort and deep thoughts.

Nobody does, but it could come yet

If I’m not mistaken Louisiana is below sea level

But the one good thing about climate change is that Florida soon will be entirely below sea level……

Louisiana is close, but just the far south is below sea level. Smart place to build a city….again, and again, and again. Your tax dollars at work. Brilliant, isn’t it? They think they have it figured out now……..just wait. You don’t mess with Mother Nature.

I always thought the “deep state” was the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia.

The complete lack of evidence proves that the conspiracy is working.

Seems I always have to remind myself where the title of this comic comes from and what it means, before I try to educate the Dumocrats…

It must be great to have a government job you can never be fired from

The Deep State is actually the billionaire oligarchy whose propaganda deflects towards a government that they themselves actually own. Think about it. Since the beginning of the country, it has been government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy. The laws reflect that. By constantly playing on the emotions of the people who are losing out due to their policies, they have convinced people to blame others and by doing so, influence them to vote against their own interests. If only people understood the actual history of our country. Instead of listening to constant angry sound-bites, try reading The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn to understand this better as well as The Big Myth by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway.

When the entire government is doing the things normally attributed to a Deep State, then I guess it’s not a Deep State anymore. It’s like having roaches that no longer run from the light.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. The Deep State is not a conspiracy, it is a bureaucracy that is heavily left wing that, instead of implementing the policy of the administration, implements its own, instead. It does this by leaking information, by dragging its feet on carrying out policies it disagrees with and a thousand other ways. Leftists deny its existence since its doing their business.

How about the National Security State, D.O.B. July 26, 1947

That’s not deep. It’s just thick.

FYI: Legally the territory of a state or country extends to the center of the earth.

Deep state or no, we would appear to be sinking fast.

Some states like Florida and Lousiana do have area below sea level. As for the ‘deep state’, Goat should have asked follow up questions to help Pig.

I don’t believe in the other one either…

people who believe in conspiracies & the “deep state” have a much higher opinion of government competency than i do. if our government was a child, it wouldn’t know how to tie its shoes.

With Global Warming and the Sea Level Rise a good chunk of Florida and parts of all coastal states will be deep under water, so technically there could be a “deep state” or at least part of one. How deep? depends how much the sea advances and the topography.