America's Worst Painting

No, America's worst painting is not from "The Painter of Light™," but from Sean Hannity's favorite painter, Jon McNaughton.



It's turning out to be right-wing art history week. A few days ago we heard commentary on statues from the Tweeter-in-Chief. Today Fox News' Dumbest Anchor® tweeted the video above with the comment "Amazing video and Art! Love this." As an investor and collector of McNaughton's work, he's only coincidentally trying to increase the value of his own collection, but as an art expert I'd also like to ask Sean if the black snake being crushed under Donald Trump's heel represents who we think it represents (Hint: not Satan). If there's any doubt that the black snake is Barack Obama, all one has to do is to look at the artist's earlier "Forgotten Man" masterpiece in which President Obama is standing in the same spot with the Constitution under his foot while getting dirty looks from all the earlier white presidents as the forgotten man hangs his head sitting on his bench. Now, in the glorious Trump years, the forgotten one is off his bench and planting a tree of hope, and Barack Obama is being trampled underfoot.

Heavy-handed symbolism in representative art is always ugly, but heavy-handed racist symbolism gives this waste of canvas the prize for America's Worst Painting.

The 2015 True Blue Liberal Blue Ribbon Award : First Call for Nominations

Also available for 49 other states.

If Oscar Sunday tells us anything, it tells us that nothing -- absolutely nothing -- is more important in our compulsively competitive culture than winning awards. So, finally, after more than a decade of preparation, we are ready to finally use our blogging expertise to award one blog the very first True Blue Liberal Blue Ribbon Award in 2015. In addition to the honor of being chosen and a blue ribbon graphic to place prominently (or secretly, or not at all) on one's blog, the winner will also win a pair of mugs, one honoring their home (or favorite) state, and one featuring our entire liberal blue nation.

One of the actual physical prizes.

The process of choosing this year's winner will last until December, with a chance for readers to comment and vote on long and short lists of candidates, but this is the very first call for blog nominations. Add a comment with a URL here on this blog post at TrueBlueLiberal.org or tweet a suggested blog address (your own or someone else's) to @TrueBlueLiberal on Twitter.

There is no need for any information about a blogger's real name or address until a the grand-prize winner wants to claim her or his prizes. I'm going into this process without preconceptions and looking forward to being surprised by a number of bloggers who are presenting unique valuable thoughts in a variety of new ways.