Nov 30, 2012

In What Accent Are Those Homophones?

Charlie Daniel, 11/29/12:
Your average Tennessean male is so sex-starved that even mention of a corpse leads him to libidinous thoughts.

Nov 29, 2012

Mega Madness

Christopher Weyant, 11/28/12:
With massively ballooning deficits and a looming "fiscal cliff" of recovery-strangling austerity, the one question on all Americans' minds is: will I get another tax cut this year?

Masada Syndrome

Chuck Asay, 11/28/12:
The fact that one missile-defense system -- against small, slow conventional payloads coming from a tiny area -- is about 90% successful in 2012 means that another never-actually-created system from thirty years before -- which would have needed to defend an entire continent from thousands of nuclear ICBMs coming from all over the world at 99+% accuracy to be worthwhile -- would have totally ruled!

The Circle of Life?

Steve Benson, 11/28/12:
A small handful of Republicans -- almost entirely Senators with safe seats -- have expressed the tentative position that, just maybe, they might possibly be amenable to a deal on the budget that includes closing loopholes and raising more revenue. They're not calling for higher tax rates on anyone.

This means that Grover Norquist is suddenly utterly powerless, and that no one will ever listen to him ever again.

(Also see: nearly every other cartoon this week.)

Nov 28, 2012

Oh, There's Some Bull, All Right

Pat Oliphant, 11/27/12:
The following inflamatory, strongly-worded statement -- made a few days after the attack on the Benghazi mission -- shows just how much of a loose cannon and rough character Susan Rice is:
[O]ur current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated.

We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to — or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in — in the wake of the revolution in Libya are — are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.
We’ll wait to see exactly what the investigation finally confirms, but that’s the best information we have at present.
"Best information we have at present"? "Our current best assessment"? "We believe"? "We'll wait to see"?

Watch out, we've got a badass here.

You're a Mean One

Paul Fell, 11/27/12:
No American ever spends money they actually have; every single purchase pushes us further into the hole.

(Anyone else think Fell is channeling Stan Kelly today?)

Nov 27, 2012

Is He Hollering at the SIGN?

Ken Catalino, 11/26/12:
So...would those be the voters who returned a sitting Democratic President by a comfortable but not commanding margin? Or the voters who kept an ultra-partisan Republican-dominated House in place?

'Cause I'm not at all sure "the voters" have anything like a single voice that any of us could "listen to."

Nov 26, 2012

You Know Why

Paul Szep, 11/25/12:
YES! Exactly! Whoo boy, Szep really knows how to stick it to 'em, doesn't he?

This is easily the most pointed and devastating political cartoon I've seen this year. This decade, even!

Tour de Hartford

Matt Davies, 11/25/12:
OK, so "Connecticut Education Funding" is a tandem bicycle on which the first rider, "Property Taxes," does all of the work, while his diminutive friend, "State School Aid," sits quietly, because he can't reach the pedals anyway.

So, clearly, we should get some of those Lance Armstrong-endorsed super-steroids for the little state dude, so he can grow big and strong and then take his fair share of the pedaling, right?

I can almost see what that would mean in the real world, but I suspect Davies has not thought through the fact that Connecticut taxpayers are going to be the ones really spinning the wheels either way, no matter which middlemen are in the cartoon, and so the difference isn't terribly compelling.

Pillow Talk of the Lumpy and Depressive

Ed Gamble, 11/25/12:
Trusting in government -- or any outside agent beyond your own strong right arm and the AR-15 it contains -- is for fools and losers; the world is inevitably going to rack and ruin, so be ready to grab for everything you want.

Also, y'know, the whole Kenyan socialist Marxist sleeper agent thing.

Nov 23, 2012

As God Is My Witness....

R.J. Matson, 11/20/12:
So the budget deal -- there's a budget deal? how come no one else in the media is reporting that? -- will fly off the fiscal cliff, and either fall and crush the City of Economy, or soar into the Skies of...um, Something Else, I guess.

Skies of Prosperity and Bi-partisanship? Skies of Unlikelyhood? Skies of Steampunk Turkey?

Norman Rockwell's Royalty Office Called

...with a question about payments for all of these "Freedom from Want" rip-offs.

Some have political concerns:

Mike Luckovich, 11/21/12:



Clay Bennett, 11/21/12:


Robert Ariail, 11/22/12:


And some just want to continue the perennial complaint that people go shopping for Christmas much earlier than some unspecified time in the past:

Adam Zyglis, 11/22/12:


Nick Anderson, 11/22/12:

And all of them are taking advantage of a long holiday weekend to do a little lazy cartooning and get off to their own Thanksgiving tables a little earlier. Let's salute their work ethic!

Somebody's a Turkey Here

Mike Lester, 11/22/12:
Let me quote one Hostess worker, a member of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union:
In 2005, before concessions I made $48,000, last year I made $34,000. ... I would make $25,000 in five years if I took their offer. It will be hard to replace the job I had, but it will be easy to replace the job they were trying to give me.
And on the management side? On Tuesday, CEO Greg Rayburn "asked a bankruptcy judge permission to pay executives $1.75 million in bonuses to oversee the dissolution of the company (and 18,000-plus union jobs). And that’s after a round of executive pay raises earlier this year."


Yup, that's right: it's all the union's fault. They were criminally unwilling to accept yet more givebacks to fund higher management salaries, so they're clearly socialist parasites.

A More Perfect Union

Terry Wise, 11/23/12:
Wal-Mart's management and ownership is made up of entire average, working-class Americans in blue vests, not the ultra-wealthy and secretive Walton clan and their corporate hired guns.

Also, workers asking not to have their salaries and benefits cut yet again to benefit hedge funds and their lap-dog management partners is a shocking imposition on capitalism.

Note the Lack of Thankfulness or Giving

Lisa Benson, 11/22/12:
Social programs are driven entirely by greedy moochers grabbing things from the government; left to its own devices, Uncle Sam would just buy groceries (weapons systems) for itself and not share anything with individual citizens.

Also, the whole cliched "Christmas sales begin too early" thing.

Nov 22, 2012

Leaving Mega City One

Bob Englehart, 11/21/12:
Anyone who wants to secede from the USA will be slaughtered in the FEMA death camps.

Alternatively, life everywhere but the US is a hellish wasteland inhabited only by corpses.

Asking for It

Rob Smith, Jr., 11/21/12:
Retailers, with their scandalously skimpy Black Friday prices and their hedonistic advertising come-ons, are seducing red-blooded Americas, who of course cannot control their impulses.

Therefore, we need a national retail policy with real teeth, enforced on the federal level, right?

Majestic Mt. Molehill

Joe Heller, 10/21/12:
So the "fiscal cliff" -- an entirely artificial crisis, created simply by Congressional bills and as easy to eliminate by another vote of Congress -- is going to rip the head of Uncle Sam off of our little-known second monument in the black hills, Mt. Rushless? But the GOP, the Dems, and what I am assuming is the single worst caricature of Obama I've seen in two years doing this blog will all be safe from any cliff-related mishaps?

Do I have that right?

(I keep trying to read this as a comment on Rush Limbaugh -- the Dems won the election, so we're Rush-less, get it? -- but I don't think that's what Heller meant. I will admit that I'm hampered by being utterly confused about what Heller did mean, though.)

Nov 21, 2012

Repent Now!

Bob Gorrell, 11/20/12:
It's not the amount of money the government spends that's the problem -- it's not even the defict between what it spends and what it takes in.

No, it's the fact that government spending can be measured and divided into various areas is what will bring about doomsday.

Is Gorrell trying to say that doomsday is coming because we have a government?

A Candle in the Wind

Kate Palmer, 10/20/12:
The industry claims that they're efficiently burning all the available fuel, so that it will be gone soon?

But the reality is that we stopped burning fossil fuels some time ago, without noticing it, and there's still a decent chunk left?

Really?

Nov 20, 2012

Got to Be Cruel to Be Kind

A.F. Branco, 11/19/12:
Poor, hungry people should be dropped naked into national parks and left to forage for themselves.

Nov 19, 2012

What Do You Call a CEO Who Can't Make a Profit on $2B in Annual Sales?

Eric Allie, 11/17/12:
Hostess is going out of business entirely because one of its unions balked at yet another round of givebacks, not because its hedge-fund ownership realized they could make more money selling off the parts of the company and forgetting the grubby work of actually running a business.

Nope. It's all the union's fault. If only they'd been willing to work for even less money, Hostess would be around to demand more concession next year!

For Everything Else, We Have Emergency Rooms!

Lisa Benson, 11/16/12:
The only unmet healthcare need in the US is the need for free contraceptives, which are both entirely condoms and hugely expensive.

No, I don't understand how conservatives can believe so many contradictory things at once, but I assume years of long practice enter into it.

Nice Country You Got There. Shame If Anything HAPPENED To It.

Bob Gorrell, 11/17/12:
And by "join," Gorrell means "vote for my guy."

He wouldn't dream of asking the rich white male conservatives to join everybody else....

Acting! Brilliant!

Joel Pett, 11/18/12:
Yes, Judd is being mentioned as a possible opponent for ol' turkey-neck himself, Mitch McConnell, in the next Senate race in Kentucky. So far, "mentioned" seems to mean "other people think it would be great if she ran," so take that with as many grains of salt as you deem necessary.

Pett is also unsubtly noting that a certain former actor had a quite successful political career himself.

Nov 16, 2012

999 Happy Haunts

Chuck Asay, 11/15/12:
I suppose we have to assume that Asay means all of the tombstones to be bad things -- the alternative is to admit that his cartoons make no sense, which would be cruel -- and so we must admit that he believes that "jobs" and "spending" (not even "government spending," just "spending" period) are things we don't want at home.

Not to mention "Supreme Court choices!" We wouldn't want any choices anywhere near our ideologically pure Court, now would we!

Down on the Banks of the Ol' Confusing River

Ann Cleaves, 10/15/12:
OK, my best guess here -- and I stress that it is entirely a guess -- is that the fellow on the bank is the single worst caricature of Obama I've seen in four years.

If not...then I have no idea what's going on, which is distressingly common with Cleaves's cartoons.

Nov 15, 2012

I Got Yer Voting Fraud RIGHT HERE!

Michael Ramirez, 11/14/12:
Yes, it's true: the US has no mechanism for people who are not at home on Election Day to vote, and thus every single soldier has always been disenfranchised. There are no voting drives on military bases, and soldiers simply cannot vote.

Unless...could he be talking about dead soldiers? Those don't usually get to vote -- unless they originally came from Chicago.

Nov 13, 2012

I Love a Parade

Ingrid Rice, 11/8/12:
Canada needs to have another big war, so that its parades get back up to snuff.

Remember When Veterans' Day Was About VETERANS?

Ken Catalino, 11/12/12:
Because we don't have freedom of speech, assembly, to bear arms, or to keep soldiers from being quartered in our houses during times our soldiers aren't occupying foreign countries filled with brown people.

Remember: if you cut defense spending by one penny, those Commies will conquer the world and take away our freedoms. In some sectors of the American public, it will forever be 1952.

Where's Hermey When You Need Him?

Terry Wise, 11/12/12:
Nudge nudge wink wink -- hey, anybody notice what skin color those elves have? And how they all appear to be male?

Gosh, I wonder what point Wise is trying to make today! I do wish he would blow that dog-whistle just a bit louder!

Nov 12, 2012

He Also Doesn't Know What "Keynesian" Means

Chuck Asay, 11/8/12:
Asay has no idea at all of how tax brackets work, or of how high marginal tax rates currently are.

The Chicago Way

Chip Bok, 11/9/12:
Obama won simply because he was more heavily armed than Romney, which apparently offends the pro-NRA Bok.

Also, the gun doesn't seem to be a metaphor for a strong ground organization, or clear messaging, or appeal to particular constituencies, or any of the other real-world things that might lead one politician to beat another, which tends to eliminate any possibility of humor here.

Zat You, Santy Claus?

Mike Lester, 11/9/12:
Only weakling "takers" are willing to accept stuff from the government -- like roads, military defense, clean water, and safe food.

Also, Lester thinks most Americans are too dumb to know where the government's money comes from to begin with.

Make It Rain


Signe Wilkinson, 11/10/12:
Super PACs gave their money entirely to losing candidiates -- none of that money went to Obama, or Congressional Republicans, or any other winners.

Nov 8, 2012

Hey! Look Over There!

Michael Ramirez, 11/7/12:
I've said it before: when the news is overwhelmingly against your side -- and you see your role as an editorial cartoonist to defend your side, rather than to do anything more noble than that -- what you need to do is bash the media.

By, for example, trying to say that a speech containing the phrase "act of terror" criminally failed to use the word "terror."

Yo! Washington Raps

Mike Lester, 11/7/12:
Black people are ipso facto disqualified to be President, with their rap music and their dangling chains and whatnot.

Also, Lester is desperately in denial, so nobody tell him the real election results for a while yet.

Nov 7, 2012

Vote Early, Vote Often

Bruce Plante, 11/6/12:
It is every America's duty to vote, because...other people are already dead?

Wouldn't it just be easier -- as is already done in some jurisdictions -- to simply let the dead vote directly?

When There's No More Room in Hell For Bad Cartoon Ideas

Ted Rall, 11/6/12:
John McCain would totally have closed up Guantanamo Bay immediately after winning election, would never have killed a single person with a drone, and would have had a magical rapport with the mostly-Republican bankers to completely cushion the American public from the financial crash.

This Just In...

Steve Kelley, 11/6/12:
Either Kelley is saying that the mainstream media is systemically biased in favor of Republicans, or he's blind with rage that the guy he doesn't like looks to get another four years in the White House.

Either way, it certainly ain't funny.

The Wizard Flees

Lisa Benson, 11/6/12:
Yes, Obama is entirely devoid of hot air, and must appeal to the great American electorate to do his puffery for him.

Is that what Benson meant? Possibly not. Is that what she drew? Indubidably.

Nov 6, 2012

Code Name: SANDY

Terry Wise, 11/5/12:
The federal government kept it a secret, to avoid panic, but the recent devastation in New York and New Jersey was not caused by a hurricane, as the lamestream media have told you.

No, "Sandy" was a hideous mutated monster spawned from the depths of the ocean, which clawed its way up the shoreline until it was finally slaughtered in lower Manhattan. By then, though, the damage was in the billions of dollars.

Wise knows the secret, so he poses Obama with the recovered skull of "Sandy" as his j'accuse! towards the horribly complacent state officials who let their giant-monster defenses get so tragically out of date and rusty.

Nov 5, 2012

I Got Mine, Jack

Terry Wise, 11/4/12:
Oh boy! So many assumptions!

1) All of Obama's supporters -- roughly half of the nation -- receive all of their income from the government.

2) Those same people spend their money on things that old white men like Wise consider frivolous.

3) If you're not actively dying in a ditch naked at this very moment, you're not actually poor.

Whatever the Market Will Bear

Steve Kelley, 11/3/12:
Exactly! In the wake of one of the nation's most devastating hurricanes, Romney wants to empower local entrepreneurs to provide vital services -- like food, clean water, shelter, and the return of electrical power -- at whatever prices they can charge, while Obama wants to just give those things to people.

A Man of Constant Sorrow

Henry Payne, 11/4/12:
Global warming -- which doesn't exsist, by the way, and if it did exist, hasn't been caused by human action -- could have been easily stopped by Obama over the past four years, but he was too busy golfing, or reading a Teleprompter, or just being an Kenyan Marxist sleeper agent.

So any bad stuff is totally the black guy's fault.

At The Trough

Paul Szep, 11/4/12:
The roughly half of the US voting population voting for Romney this coming Tuesday is entirely made up of pigs who will personally benefit from his expected lessening of regulations.

No exceptions.