Sep 30, 2011

Brother, Can You Spare a Tax Cut for the Rich?

Larry Wright, 9/22/11:
Yup, that's how people become unemployed bums: they're really rich, and their taxes go up slightly.

And that means that no one has become an unemployed bum since approximately 1952, since that was the last time income tax rates went up.

Sep 29, 2011

Eye of Fatima

David Fitzsimmons, 9/27/11:
Nice try, soulless harlot! Women in Saudi Arabia are commanded to submit to their husbands in all things, or else they will be beaten (at the very least).

He DOES Have His Eyes Closed, Though

Matt Wuerker, 9/28/11:
"The Thinking Conservative," as we can see, is a museum piece, presumably because he's rare and/or of purely historical interest at this point.

Why the current GOP candidates are hanging out in a museum when they could be watching a 27-year-old without insurance die or presiding over an execution, though, is more difficult to understand.

Are You a Man, Or Are You...

Tim Eagan, 9/27/11:
The left has been looking for their own version of Birtherism for some time now, and maybe they've found it.

It's time to start demanding DNA tests of all Republican challengers -- can they prove that they're biologically human?

Sep 28, 2011

The Mighty Hunter in His Den

Peter Nicholson, 9/26/11:
So when the Recession of 2007 strikes again in 2011, it takes the form of a rug marked "2009"?

What's that all about -- splitting the difference?

Sep 26, 2011

Are There No Workhouses?

Randall Enos, 9/23/11:
Gary Johnson, who has declared that he's running for president on the ever-popular "put your nine-year-olds to work in a blacking factory" ticket.

(Those of you who live in Missouri may be experiencing deja vu, since a local legislator proposed very much the same thing there earlier this year.)

You can't say the GOP field isn't entertaining this time around!

Sep 24, 2011

Tied to the Tracks

Randall Enos, 9/21/11:
Warren Buffett, one of the most reported-on and scrutinized human beings on earth, is actually bound hand and foot by a GOP elephant and only able to scratch out his pitiful message by scuffing his foot.

And, the way Enos draws him, he also appears to be part of that GOP elephant.

Sep 23, 2011

Political Hyperspace

Bob Englehart, 9/20/11:
So Obama has discovered a way to tunnel through poll numbers, which will deliver him to the other side of popularity!

Does any of that make the slightest bit of sense?

Sep 22, 2011

Keep An Eye Out for Rustlers

Roger Harvell, 9/21/11:
Remember, up to this moment in time, the U.S. Postal Service has had absolutely no official connection with the government at all.

Key Party

V.C. Rogers, 9/21/11:
The "reelection" key, in case you're as befuddled as I was for the first five minutes I spent gazing at this cartoon, is meant to depict the fine state in which Rogers plies his craft, North Carolina.

Because we all know that proud and ancient slogan, "As goes North Carolina, so goes the nation"!

Go, Team, Go

Paul Fell, 9/21/11:
So, if the cheerleader is the GOP, then who does the fella in the red helmet with a big "R" on it represent?

Is Nebraska some kind of un-American three party state?

Sep 21, 2011

Goosing an Argument

Bob Gorrell, 9/20/11:
Closing down some loopholes and, maybe, just possibly, returning the tax code to the levels of ten years ago would utterly slaughter all of those sad, helpless rich people.

Don't even think of what going back to the tax policies of Reagan would do!

Sep 20, 2011

Beer & Smokes

Chuck Asay, 9/19/11:
Actually, tax rates have been declining for three decades, and actual effective tax burden -- driven by ever-more-generous middle-class tax breaks, like deductions for mortgage interest and educational expenses -- has dropped even faster.

So, by Asay's logic, the government actually wants people to work harder and longer hours...and still these shmoes waste their lives in that diner.

Sep 19, 2011

Is This Like Taking a Gun to a Knife Fight?

Henry Payne, 9/17/11:
So Romney and Perry are fighter planes, and the rest of the pack are medieval knights?

Wouldn't that imply that Romney and Perry are, at least in some way, the slightest bit forward-looking?

(Payne drew this before the image of airplanes swooping low over a crowded group became somewhat less tasteful.)

Sep 17, 2011

Tantor Speaks

Ed Stein, 9/15/11:
Um, Ed? That's pretty much exactly the actual Republican position -- that taxes are already too high, and that raising them on high-income people will only make them sulk off in a huff and not create any new jobs.

I gather you don't agree with that, but, still, shouldn't you have worked a joke in there somewhere?

No Taxation Without Extensive Focus Groups!

Dick Locher, 9/15/11:
Methinks someone isn't quite clear on what "representation" actually means.

(And I have to admit that it is so hard not to post Dick Locher's cartoons every single day here; he's so amazingly good at missing the point, confusing the issue, and just plain non sequitur-izing his way through life.)

Swatting the Coast

Martin Kozlowski, 9/15/11:
I don't mean to be an idiot, but...are those supposed to be God's hairy forearms clutching the probability cone of a hurricane?

And does that mean he's choosing the amount of monetary damage he's doing to the US? (Is he a Backmannian God, doling out punishment in equal measure to our sinfulness?)

Bouncing Birdies

Don Landgren, Jr., 9/15/11:
That, sir, is the rankest heresy, and I shall not stand for it.

If that is any bird in the Angry Birds stable, it is surely the Mighty Eagle, and we all know full well that the Mighty Eagle destroys all in its path.

My representative will be contacting you forthwith to meet on the field of honor, sir!

Here I Sit, Broken-Hearted

Deb Milbrath, 9/14/11:
I hang my head in shame today, because a reader had to call my attention to this uniquely awful cartoon.

First of all, it's not every day we see naked butt-crack in the daily paper -- that's quite impressive.

And then there's the central issue: that this poor schmoe is completely unaware that other methods than the US mail exist to get the written word -- even words about sports -- into the home.

(And I don't know which is worse: if that schmoe is a self-portrait of Milbrath or a representation of the men in her life.)

Sep 16, 2011

Dr. StrangeBob

Ed Hall, 9/14/11:
It was recently in the news that a scientific study found that young children (but not slightly older children) scored slightly worse on intelligence measure after watching an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

That clearly has something to do with this cartoon -- and the execution imagery may owe something to Texas Governor Rick Perry -- but I'm at a loss to explain exactly what....

Running for Dog-catcher

Dick Locher, 9/14/11:
Today's generic cartoon comes to us courtesy of the Chicago Trib's Dick Locher, who wants us to know that "candidates" have it tough because of the "lousy economy."

What droll, cutting wordplay, Mr. Locher! More, please!

Pop Goes the World

Gary Varvel, 9/14/11:
The very, very worst problem in the whole entire world is "anti-Semitism."

(Even in that region of the world, that's an awfully mild tag for "several of one particular nation's immediate neighbors would like to completely destroy it, if only they could.")

Sep 15, 2011

Two Days Late and Several Dollars Short

Henry Payne, 9/13/11:
Just in case you might have forgotten: ten years ago on the 11th of September a bunch of terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. (It would be easy to have overlooked that, right?)

Oh, and in a surprise twist that editorial cartoonists have milked for all it's worth, the World Trade Center itself looked like the numeral 11! Isn't that interesting?

Throw Another "Job Creator" on The Fire

Dana Summers, 9/14/11:
The top news story of the day: that the US poverty rate has climbed to the highest rate since 1993.

Also of note: our current Gini coefficient puts us in the same range as such countries as Turkmenistan, Burundi, and Iran.

Summers's take: how sad for those maligned fat cats!

Hello, Baby! This Is the Budget Bopper Speaking! Am I What?

Martin Kozlowski, 9/13/11:
The US budgeting process does not involve political in-fighting, or the battle of competing ideologies of governance, or even a bunch of hacks each trying to drag as much loot back to their home districts as possible.

No, the US budget is set by having a symbolic representation of the country pummel an inflatable dummy until something unspecified happens. This may perhaps explain why budgets tend to be so late and so misshapen.

Sep 14, 2011

Note the Unfortunate Juxtaposition of Images

Jeff Darcy, 9/12/11:
Suicidal or blindly negative: those are our only choices.

If I believed that, I'd be moving to another country pretty damn quickly.

Sep 11, 2011

Step Right Up and Take a Swing!

Dick Locher, 9/10/11:
Editorial cartoonists traffic in complicated, odd metaphors, and Dick Locher is one of the long-time masters of the form.

Here we see him attempt one of the very most difficult maneuvers, depicting the "Recession" [1] as simultaneously a pinata and a bum, smiling as a blindfolded President Obama attempts to swat him with a giant dollar sign. Clearly, Locher is implicitly arguing, one cannot destroy an economic calamity with merely economic means, and trying to do so must, inevitably be futile.

What can we do, though? On this point, Locher is silent, as he must be -- he has created a Zen paradox, and the student must reach enlightenment on his own. How to end a recession without using economic levers? Exactly the same way as you clap with one hand!


[1] Note that economists are unanimous in declaring that the "Great Recession" that began in 2007 ended in 2009; this is yet another example of Locher's exciting, maverick breed of thinking.

Oh So Sad, So Very Very Sad, So So Sad It Was

John R. Rose, 9/10/11:
After a week of increasingly more maudlin, silly, and dull 9/11 cartoons, we have finally hit the absolute nadir.

Let us never forget that there once was a sad thing that made us all very sad, and that it's sad to remember how very sad it was.

Sep 10, 2011

Canada, the Top World Target for Terror!

Ingrid Rice, 9/8/11:
It's so cute when a cartoonist thinks that the public can tell the difference between one group of brown-skinned people with odd headgear and another one.

Or thinks that the public cares about the difference.

Weighed Down

Steve Kelley, 9/9/11:
A flag-panted leg is an awfully weird shape to draw billions of dollars in record corporate profits -- but I guess that's why Kelley is the big-bucks editorial cartoonist and I'm a mere blogger.

Clearing the Air

Chuck Asay, 9/9/11:
Something is deeply weird when Asay is complaining that Obama isn't holding to a clear, obvious liberal principle.

Long Shadows

Marshall Ramsey, 9/8/11:
Never forget.

Never move forward.

Never second-guess youself.

Never move one iota from that reflexive, thoughtless position of ten years ago.

Sep 9, 2011

The Random Local Story No One Else Cares About

Steve Artley, 9/8/11:
There's a new Department of Defense installation in Virginia -- I know! don't they have enough big secret government buildings already? -- called BRAC-133, and aparrently some people are concerned that it won't be secure enough.

Because of the hordes of suicide bombers hurling themselves against government buildings -- remember them?

(Jeez! Do we have to yell "9/11" loudly a few more times to get the taxpayer money we want, or what?)

Sep 8, 2011

You Should See Who's in the Closet!

V.C. Rogers, 9/7/11:
We have here an old-fashioned litmus test: are the kids under the bed Democrats, or Republicans, or just kids?

And, more importantly, what's the point of this one?

Sep 7, 2011

The Hippie With the Sash is Jesus, Right?

Bill Mutranowski, 9/5/11:
Somehow, I don't think Mutranowski means to say that the job of "Christian-in-Chief" in the Oval Office is perpetually vacant, but that's what he actually did say.

Perhaps he's suffering some confusion with the phrase "my door is always open"?

Sep 5, 2011

Statuesque

Chuck Asay, 9/4/11:
Actually, the MLK memorial was made entirely locally by Chinese laborers -- and, in the best American tradition of imported labor, they weren't paid by their employer at prevailing wages or until they left the country.

But Asay is probably more annoyed by the fact that the sculptor is Chinese, because he firmly believes in racial set-asides that would require the sculptor of a statue of an African-American to be African-American himself. Right?

Sep 3, 2011

Scheduling Conflicts

Rob Smith, Jr., 9/2/11:
You know, a quick reading of this cartoon would seem to imply that Smith wants the President to have the power to pre-empt all other events for his speeches.

Surely that's not what he means, is it?

Or does he want the President to consult the calendars of all three hundred million Americans, like an office manager planning a staff retreat, to find the one convenient time that no one is otherwise busy?

The Tyranny of the Telephone

Dick Locher, 9/2/11:
It's really horrible when people want to talk to you, isn't it?

Why can't we all just sit quietly in our own separate rooms, and have no personal interaction whatsoever?

Sep 2, 2011

Make the Concussions "Classier"

Dick Locher, 9/1/11:
Suburban white people will find something to be offended by, no matter what you do.

Why Give Money to POOR People?

Chuck Asay, 9/1/11:
Remember, jobs only exist because towering Randian "job creators" decide to make them happen -- it has nothing at all to do with demand for products and services, which could be stimulated by money.

Or, once again: "Are there no workhouses?"