Lagging Indicator

"Democrats have always believed that a basic civil right of all Americans is that their right to earn their own way. The party of the people must always be the party of full employment."

That was Ted Kennedy during his famous 1980 speech at the DNC convention. Times have changed. Politicians no longer pretend full employment is possible or even desirable in the age of globalization. Alan Greenspan once noted that it is needed to keep a downward pressure on our wages.

There's is a level of unemployment and homelessness which we have all agreed is socially acceptable for America, the richest country to exist since the Big Bang. We're working hard to get back to it so we can start ignoring it again.

Wed: Ted's legacy

More Good News

The Journal News recently laid off their 2004 Herblock and Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Matt Davies. They have now reversed that decision and will keep Matt on board. The Daily Cartoonist has more.

Illustration Friday

These are for the OC Weekly.

A guy spots a carefree Muslim girl in a hijab cruising around a supermarket on those roller shoe things and has a nice you-are-the-future-of-the-country moment.



Some obnoxious guy was chain smoking at a golf course.

Advice

Democrats.

What Makes The Grass Grow?

There have already been two shootings by right-wing lunatics since Obama's election and it will only be a matter of time until another, perhaps more devastating, attack will occur from a racist hillbilly christian nationalist with PTSD and a copy of The Turner Diaries. How could it not? Conservative commentators and members of congress openly promote the idea that Obama is an illegitimate Kenyan turning the country into a socialist state. The climate of paranoia and hostility on the right has reached a fever pitch. Obama still talks of working with them.

Many black men in America can't "open carry" their wallet near police without being shot 50 times. Anti-government extremists, meanwhile, brandish assault rifles outside of a presidential rally--implicitly threatening violence--and it's their sacred right. An armed society is a polite society, they say, so there should be no better way to calm the raucous town halls than for all the attendees to have loaded assault rifles.

I recommend Frank Rich's column on the subject and a great cartoon by Kevin Moore on the "Tree of Liberty" quote.

One Term?

Robert Gibbs today:

I have heard the president say that, if making tough decisions in getting important things done that Washington has failed to deal with for decades means he only lives in this house and makes these decisions for four years, he's quite comfortable with that.

So when will we see him act in a manner according to that statement?

Illustration Friday

This appears in the current issue of Portland Review, a literary journal that publishes poetry and fiction. The editor wanted to sprinkle self-portraits from local artists throughout.



I chose this direction since I have been seeing a lot of myself in Photo Booth lately, having posed for hundreds of reference photos for War Is Boring over the last 8 months.

A small flash of hope

There seems to be no bottom to the continued layoffs that have decimated the ranks of editorial cartooning for the past few years, so when a bit of good news comes along it's worth mentioning.

After nine years of searching for a replacement for the late Jeff MacNelly, The Chicago Tribune announced earlier this week that it would hire Scott Stantis, who currently works for The Birmingham News. Stantis makes sense as a replacement: he's a conservative with an independent streak that works in a traditional style. He and the Trib seem excited to get local cartoons in the mix, an attitude I hope more newspapers adopt in the coming years.

In addition, The Birmingham News announced they will hire another staff cartoonist to replace Stantis. Let's hope it doesn't take nine years.

Long Form Gender Certificate

Birthers of the gender variety:

BERLIN (AP)—Facing questions about her gender, South African teenager Caster Semenya easily won the 800-meter gold medal Wednesday at the world championships.

Her dominating run came on the same day track and field’s ruling body said she was undergoing a gender test because of concerns she does not meet requirements to compete as a woman.

...

The process requires a physical medical evaluation and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, internal medicine specialist and gender expert.

I'm not sure what I would enjoy more: Semenya being born female and proving the haters wrong, or being transgendered and foisting uncomfortable questions on the sports community, which operates under strict separation of the sexes.

Either way, I'm sure Caster Semenya isn't enjoying any of it. No teenager wants their genitals scrutinized by the entire world.

Crying Turd Alert

Who thought I'd be back at this so soon? I feel like Tom Ridge, constantly announcing major threats to your safety to keep you on edge. Subscribers to The Hartford Cuorant must have woke up to the strong smell of poo and thought someone left a flaming bag of crap on the doorstep. Close--it was a newspaper with a major turd tucked inside. Remember what is happening here: a professional staff cartoonist submitted this to his editor and they printed it.

War Is Boring

The Guide To Literary Agents Blog recently posted the War Is Boring pitch David Axe sent out as part of their "Successful Queries" series. May be of interest, I don't know.

The book cover shown was only for our pitch to publishers. The final product will feature a different cover--one that I'm drawing up today, in fact. The book will be out next year.

Them darn kids and their gangtser rap!

(click here to view)

Glenn Foden BusinessandMedia.Org Aug 19, 2009 EditorialCartoonists.com

C'mon now.

Irredeemable

Tom Delay, of bug extermination/political corruption/Dancing With the Stars fame, has come out as a Birther Gifter and demanded to see Obama's "gift certificate" today on HardBall.

I did a cartoon on this important controversy a few months ago. I try to top these people, I really do.

Update: Here's the video.

Hospice Chutes!

Laura Ingraham made up the silliest claim about health care reform and Sarah Palin stole her glory with "death panels." Ingraham started talk of "Hospice Chutes" last month, but since I didn't hear anyone pick up on it and couldn't resist the imagery it conjured up, I worked it into a comic.

And how about the Dems flubbing this opportunity? Obama hasn't even drawn a line in the sand on the public option. I guess he's waiting for some more assault rifle rallies to scare moderates away from the bill. More on all this in next week's cartoons as the Summer O' Health Care speeds along like grandma on a hospic chute.

Uncanny

From The Beast:

Crying Turd Alert

I'm busting out the Drudge Siren...because sometimes a regular Turd Award isn't enough. This is THREAT LEVEL BROWN. Whenever inanimate objects shed tears, I will put the world on emergency stink alert! Grab the duct tape and plastic sheeting--seal off any place where the putrid poo-roma could seep into your home!

Mein Health

Medicare, Social Security and any number of popular government programs were decried as socialist takeovers in their day and are now seen as essential by the majority of Americans. Universal Health Care is politically untouchable in most western countries--even by many conservative politicians. Are they all HitlerMuslimFascists?

Sadly, it appears Dems will flush the public option down the crapper. Obama has squandered an incredible amount of political capital here. To have a 60 vote majority and not come away with a public option on this is an embarrassment and indictment of our legislative process. The removal of the end of life consultations from the bill can be directly traced to Sarah Palin posting a lie about it on Facebook. This can only be described as completely fucking insane.

I've got more health care cartoons coming this week. Probably some more after that, as well. I'll stop if Democrats ever pass something that resembles real reform.

Lions and Baboons and Fish Eagles--oh my!

Thomas Friedman's column today contains a particularly annoying passage that sounds as if it were crafted by a sixth grader in creative writing class:

Yes, Dorothy, somewhere over the rainbow, there is still a “Land of No Service” — where the only “webs” are made by spiders, where the only “net” is the one wrapped around your bed to keep out mosquitoes, where the only “ring tones” at dawn are the scream of African fish eagles and the bark of baboons, where the only GPS belongs to the lioness instinctively measuring the distance between herself and the antelope she hopes will be her next meal, and where “connectivity” refers only to the intricate food chain linking predators and prey that sustains this remarkable ecosystem.

...and where "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" is a term for the sweltering jungle basin, not my shitty book! An editor really should have stopped him at "African fish eagles."

What kind of money is the Times dropping every year to supply us with such fascinating writing? Friedman seems to file each of his columns from a different continent. Yet we never really gain much insight from having his loafers on the ground in various regions of strife and eco-capitolismo. (That last phrase is mine Friedman--don't steal it!)

I'd love to fire him and his mustache and use that budget to hire a rotating pool of cartoonists, a few reporters and a shiny new fact checker for the paper. There would still be millions of dollars left, which would be distributed to Times readers as reparations for this ongoing Op-Ed atrocity.

Lame

No editorial cartoons, but the Times does hire people to draw water fountains.

I Saw It

Last week was the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was reminded of a comic that was handed off to me recently. "I Saw It" by Keiji Nakazawa is an autobiographical account of surviving Hiroshima as a young boy. Intense stuff.

Wait Times

Whoever thought town halls on healthcare was a good idea must have been under the mistaken impression that the American people are susceptible to reasoned debate. Democracy In Action is a great theory, but in the Truman Show world we live in every political act takes place not for the moment, but for the cable news drama porn circuit. It's a circus.

Seniors are worried "death panels" are going to turn them into Soylent Tomato Basil Wheat Thins (I can eat a whole box of those in one sitting) and lunatics are protesting "socialism" by brandishing the guns their squeezed working class asses can barely afford to buy bullets for.

The Future Of News

Another news item on the Huffington Post asking for you to help them make news.

I'm sorry--I'm working right now. Perhaps you could have an unpaid intern read through them?

Mailbag Douchebag

With links as rebuttals.

You know Bors, you seem to be disappointingly sympathetic to the Obama Administration, when they have proven themselves to be nothing more than an extension of the Bush Regime. Are you just another propagandist shilling out the Propaganda of Change? Give us a break Bors. Your liberal bullshit is passe.

-Strugglin' in America

The Conspiracy Deepens II

Associated Press on the "Russian Obama"

SREDNYAYA AKHTUBA, Russia — An African-born farmer is making an improbable run for office in Russia, inspired by President Barack Obama and undaunted by racial attitudes that have changed little in decades.

Clearly African-born pawns are beginning a global takeover of all major governments to set the stage for the New World Order. When the Chinese Obama runs for office, their crazies will claim he is a secret Falun Gong practitioner.

The Conspiracy Deepens

The Founding Fathers never intended for people born in hospitals to become president. They said so very clearly in the Constitution.

I didn't want to touch on the birther issue again, but I was on the road last week and, frankly, needed a relatively easy cartoon to draw.

Illustration Friday

A crazy old man was screaming racist nonsense on a bus...and the guy next to him wouldn't say a word.

Lee and Ling

Isn't it crazy when countries hold journalists on bogus charges?

Blue Dogs

Why do self-described fiscal conservatives get in a tizzy over the cost of programs that help their constituents live, but not over the cost of bombing foreigners?

...looks like I didn't update the comic right last night. All should be well now.

Anytime on the "change" thing

There are far too many news articles that begin this way:

After early pledges by President Obama that he would moderate the Bush administration’s tough policy on immigration enforcement, his administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal-immigration crackdown that relies significantly on programs started by his predecessor.

Post Beer Summit Analysis

The joint White House/Media production known as the "Beer Summit" has come and gone. It didn't signal the beginning of post-racial America, but Wolf Blitzer did get to announce the "news" that men were drinking beer at a table! Of course, the entire event was created so people like Wolf Blitzer could breathlessly announce its existence and air a 30-second video of men drinking beer at a table, but I think that part went over his head.

One problem I do have is the president setting back this country's sad history of beer relations with his choice of Bud Light. I thought he was bringing change to the White House and instead he ops to suck down corporate pee pee water with a po po. (Perhaps it's a good metaphor for the Democratic Party.) America produces the best beer on earth--hands down--but we always get a bad rap because of Bud, Michelob, Coors, et al. Progressive beer enthusiasts (and conservatives who discriminate only with their palette) should stand up to this president and DEMAND he drink a tasty micro brew that is from a (hint hint) small business trying to (ahem) create jobs.

They usually cost more than swill so the Blue Dog Coalition may oppose it.

Maybe someday Obama could invite some liberal economists over for beer. I hear they have been right about some things lately.

Job A Week Program

Appearing today in The Oregonian:

Democrats in Oregon are boasting of creating a whopping 3,236 jobs. Sounds great until you find out the average "job" lasts 35 hours.