Every American Understands

 

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“…Even in his brief remarks to reporters Tuesday, Trump made clear that his sole concern in terms of the economy is the financial markets. ‘The most important thing by far — including whether our stock market, which, by the way, is at an all-time high — but including whether our stock market goes up or down a little bit, the most important thing by far is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,’ he said, adding, ‘Every American understands’…”

Oh, they understand, alright, ya’ goddamn loser.
They understand that it’s Luigi Time.

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It's Always Sunny At The DNC

If there were a sure sign that the Donkeycrats are pants-shitting panicked at the prospect of traditionally-Leftish/progressivish voters abandoning their worthless asses en masse at the polls over the genocide in Palestine, it’s the fact that the likes of MSNBC and the Washington Post just can’t stop the tubthumping over the economy and the “consumer confidence” polls just out this week.

Never mind the piss-poor public health response to COVID19, or the historic re-enactment of the fall of Saigon in 2021, or the piss-poor disaster response in Maui last year, or the metric fuckton of cash flushed down the shitter for a bunch of Ukrainian Nazi hillbillies, the wide-open support of fascistic ethnic cleansing in Palestine, the continued attempted instigation of world war — nahh, screw that shit; the consumer confidence numbers are in and the economy is rockin’, so let’s turn that frown upside down, ya’ fusty proles.

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2023 and Me

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Hang In There, Baby!

God, I miss Trump already — yeah, I said it, and I'd say it again if I had to. The sonofabitch isn't even out of office yet, and I already miss him. I miss the breathtaking, aggressive stupidity, the comical blustering, and those tweets. Oh god, yeah, those tweets — every one a solid nugget of pure comedy gold.

I really was hoping for another four years of those little classics, but no luck. Instead, we're in for four years of banal, empty, platitudinous bilge — like this little stinkburger, where he takes forever just to tell us that all we'll likely get for coronavirus relief is another measly-ass $1200 check, and that otherwise we can go fuck ourselves. Christ, it looks like something off an old 1970s cat poster.

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Covid Brunch

Here in Washington, DC, we're in Phase II of Pretending It's All Over And Everything's OK — that is, "reopening the economy". Right about now, some restaurants are re-opening for socially-distanced dine-in — meaning, of course, lots of waitstaff and bartenders working for crap wages plus tips, many threatened with firing, desperately trying to avoid infection by getting themselves up like dentists in order to serve maskless, feckless, blissfully ignorant bougie America.

Yet another one inspired by this classic tweet from Benjamin Dixon:

Bruh, if your waiter looks like this, that means you need to take your bourgeoisie ass home and learn to cook until this thing is over pic.twitter.com/rpcpi5inh6

— Benjamin Dixon (@BenjaminPDixon) July 1, 2020

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We're All In This Together

Whoever came up with that smarmy-ass slogan obviously has a poor sense of irony.

The State, the media, the Party, capitalism and the rich'n'famous are all in this together — against the People. And WE'RE all in this together against THEM.

So, let's get to it, gang.

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Hey, Liberals! Ready for Inauguration Day?

Well, there’s another Inauguration Day coming up soon, and that means upwards of a million of you poor, deluded clowns will be infesting my home town for two or three days.

I just hope that the latest deal Obama’s floating to keep us from going over the phony “fiscal cliff” doesn’t throw any cold water on your festivities. You know which deal I’m talking about here: the one that keeps the tax cuts for the rich in place, and cuts Social Security benefits.

Yeah, that’s right, your glorious hero has sold you all out again, but if I know you, you’ll be bound and determined to not let it keep you from enjoying your big moment — though it might be a good idea to start right away acquiring a taste for cat food:

“While some people have tried to foster a myth of the elderly as a high living population, the facts don’t fit this story. The median income of people over age 65 is less than $20,000 a year. Nearly 70 percent of the elderly rely on Social Security benefits for more than half of their income and nearly 40 percent rely on Social Security for more than 90 percent of their income. These benefits average less than $15,000 a year.”
–Dean Baker, “Is Obama About To Cut Social Security?”, Institute for Public Accuracy, December 18, 2012

Still, I know this is an important day coming up for you, Liberal America, so by all means, have yourselves a time. Enjoy my home town. Enjoy the historic monuments. Enjoy the parties and balls. Enjoy celebrating four more years of Hope And Change.™

Choke on it.

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Kicking The Can Down The Road

 A couple of mornings ago, I heard what had to have been the ten millionth utterance of the phrase "kicking the can down the road", emitted by some hack Congressman being interviewed on MSNBC. It's bad enough that the Donkeycrats and Rethuglicans are contriving these phony crises to provide cover for their collusion on the dismantling of Social Security and Medicare, but do they have to add insult to injury by dragging out these tired, hackneyed clichés and beating them to death on TV?

If I ran the revolution, one of my first acts would be to round up every politician and media pundit who said "kicking the can down the road" so much as a single time, and have them publicly hanged. I realize that my more lenient comrades would prefer to simply imprison them, but only the threat of summary execution can truly deter the surviving politicians and pundits from assaulting the public with shopworn clichés such as this.

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Middle Class First

“We do best when the middle class is doing well.”
–Barack Obama, Presidential Debate 10.03.2012

So, I’m seeing a lot of footage of Obama rallies on TV lately showing us lots of raving Dembots waving signs reading “Middle Class First”.

Now, on the surface, this sounds really nice and progressive populist and all, until you stop and think of how Obama bailed out the banks and Wall Street and left the foreclosed and unemployed hanging out to dry, and when you think about how the Presidential candidates of both wings of the Party pandered to the middle class while totally ignoring the working class and the poor. In fact, at my count, at last Wednesday night’s “debate”, I heard the phrase “middle class” spoken at least fifteen times in the first half hour — until I had to stop watching because my eyes were glazing and my brain was dribbling out of my ears.

To be honest, I’m actually becoming really annoyed at the amount of fawning and gushing and pandering directed at the Middle Class™ by politicians at the media, even as they display indifference — or, in some cases, flat-out hostility — towards the working class, the poor, and the formerly middle-class who’ve fallen into poverty owing to extended unemployment or foreclosure.

Let’s also not forget that generally, the Middle Class™ is where all the narrow-mindedness, conformity, materialism and selfishness live.They consume the most resources and complain the most about taxes while demanding the best of everything — roads, schools, public services — while joining in the villification of the poor and identifying with the rich, even as the rich continue to screw them royally.

So, perhaps a more accurate slogan for the Obama campaign might be “Middle Class First, And Throw The Poor A Bone If There’s Any Left”.

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La Cage Aux Chanvre

Yesterday morning at Lafayette Square across from the White House, David Bronner, president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, locked himself into a cage in a civil disobedience protest against US policies on the cultivation of industrial-grade hemp for use in food and fibers. Bronner notes that the US is the biggest market on Earth for industrial hemp products, and yet US farmers are cut out of the market; as a result, his company is forced to buy hemp oil from Canadian outfits to the tune of $100,000 per year.

Bronner also pointed out the hypocrisy of the Obama government in that as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted twice in support of industrial hemp cultivation, but as El Presidente, he has actively interfered in the rights of states to legalize the growing of industrial hemp, including his refusal to to meet with a delegation from North Dakota, whose government -- from the Governor on down -- has signaled its wishes to allow its farmers to cultivate industrial hemp.

From about 8am until the DC Fire Department arrived to cut the locks and bolts holding the cage closed, Bronner harvested some of the half-dozen or so industrial-grade hemp plants he had on hand -- at .06% THC, smoking it would give you nothing but a headache -- sifted the seeds, and used them to demonstrate a hand-cranked seed-oil press.

(Note: Owing to currently-insoluble issues with Vimeo's new uploading system, I'm forced to revert back to YouTube for the foreseeable future... and yeah, it kinda sucks. Apologies.)

DC Is Occupied, At Last!

The "Occupy" Movement: now with 95% more "nyan"!

It was mostly the usual suspects, for sure, but it was still great to see Our Side finally get off its ass and into the streets again. Despite all the talk about Teabaggers beginning to get involved, I only saw the usual smattering of LaRouchies and Paultards, who were largely ignored except by those in need of cheap laffs. Also, much to my delight, I spotted one — count ‘em, one — 9/11 Tr00th freak in the crowd, his sign still demanding that someone “Investigate WTC 7".

#OccupyTheUSA

While scrolling through my Twitter feed this week, I came upon the latest reports of vicious and abusive police behavior at the Occupy Wall Street protest camp in NYC. A crowd of about 80 marchers were surrounded by police and “kettled” with a bunch of dayglow orange plastic netting and kept corralled while being maced and pepper-sprayed prior to their arrest.

About the same time, though, I caught the heartening news that the Occupy Wall Street protests had expanded to Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Dallas (there may have been more since this cartoon was done, but I haven’t heard yet).

So, here’s one in solidarity with the gang at Occupy Wall Street in NYC and elsewhere!

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Follow Occupy Wall Street on Twitter here, and on the Web here.

What Was That – An Earthquake?

OK, kiddies, time for some more of that good old-fashioned old-skool editorial cartooning.

So, early this past Tuesday morning, while poring over the news, I found the report that shows President Sparkle Pony’s approval rating at an all-time low of 38%. The 5.9 tremor hit at around 1pm-ish, and later that evening, a 4.0 aftershock was reported, although we didn’t feel it here in DC. At around 10pm, as our cat finally decided to come out from under our bed, my mind began to wander from the wretched network TV “coverage” of the quake and back to President Carebear’s tanking approval rating, and reports that he received the news of the quake while playing golf near Martha’s Vineyard, where they presumably couldn’t feel it.

Yesterday morning on MSNBC’s horrid Morning Joe shitfest, they were doing the early segment where they read the op-eds to us on the air, and the morning’s featured op-ed was Thomas Friedman’s latest bilge in the New York Times, this one using a golf analogy, including references to Tiger Woods. They followed up with an interview with Democratic Party punching bag Screamin’ Howard Dean, who pilloried Friedman’s spewage six ways from Sunday. While it was true that yesterday’s Friedman column in the NYT was the lamest piece of crap ever, what was even lamer was The Screamin’ One’s excuse-making and apologia for President Hope, containing all the usual clownshit, such as that people expect the President to be able to solve the problem all by himself, and the all-time classic — Obama inherited this mess from George W. Bush. Yeah, that’s right, here we are going on three years into the Hope’n'Change Administration, and Screamin’ Howard is still blaming everything on the GOP.

Consider this cartoon to be the second aftershock.

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Off your ass, America–time to get your Greek on!

Y’know, I really am jealous of the Greeks – not because of the shape their economy’s in, nor because of the corruption of their government and its servility to capital, nor because of the state-imposed “austerity” programs they struggle against. I’m jealous of the Greeks and other Europeans because they haven’t forgotten how to fight in the streets – unlike US activists, for whom “direct action” these days means standing around, waving signs or holding candles in front of the White House in the dark.

In Greece right now, unionists, students and anarchists are taking on the police, kicking ass and taking names in the streets. They aren’t taking “austerity” lying down. They’ve made the country virtually ungovernable. Meanwhile, in the bad old USA, “progressives” are “fighting” the imminent loss of hard-won social safety nets by waving signs, having vegan potluck dinners and teach-ins, and voting Democratic – in spite of the mountain of evidence that the Democratic Party doesn’t give a rat’s ass about them today (as if they ever did).

I was inspired to do this cartoon after seeing a recent article on Al Jazeera, as well as a large piece in the Washington Post, detailing the extent of the Greek uprising currently going on, as well as the extensive involvement of militant anarchist youth.

C’mon, Americans – off your asses and into the streets. It’s time to get your Greek on!

The Washington Post, 05.14.11, “Into The Arms Of Anarchy”, page A1
The Washington Post, 05.14.11, “Into The Arms Of Anarchy”, continues page A5.

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SOTU 2011 Analysis: Ponies!

Really, gang... all you need to know to understand this year's State Of The Union is: ponies.

And, while I’m at it… am I the only one who watched the part of the speech where Obama gets all jazzed up about all the amazingly awesome fantastically innovative technological wonderfulness Americans have been capable of and thought for a moment that I was watching a segment of Oprah’s Favorite Things?

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At For Want Of A Nail: It’s Hard to Watch Your Speech When Our Power Has Been Disconnected, Sir…

Uh Oh, It's Herblock Channeling Time Again

Sorry, gang; can't help it. Sometimes a portrayal of a situation defies all subtlety and poetry, and forces me to "go Herblock" on it.

If you’ve been paying any attention to the news lately, you’ve probably heard all about the big CEO get-together up at Obummer’s Place, with all the attendant worried blather from the boss media chatterers about whether or not El Presidente is being seen as “pro-business” enough. Well, let’s see… there’s the bank bailouts, the health-insurance industry bailout (aka “Healthcare Reform”), the latest round of bailouts of the banking industry (aka “Financial Reform”) and, of course, the latest sellout to the rich in the form of the extension of tax cuts for the rich under the thin disguise of “tax cuts for all”. After all this, how could there be any doubt about how “pro-business” our Glorious Boy Emperor is? Seriously, the guy’s been pro-corporate since day one, and even before. What the hell are all these big shots on CNBC bitching about? He’s pretty much given them everything they want.

What I’ve enjoyed, though, is the defensive, pushed-button reactions of the White House and Democratic Party “leadership” every time any Progressives or Lefties call bullshit and point out how he’s sold out to corporations on every major issue; they go into the pre-programmed “compromise” rap and brand anyone who objects to “compromise” as an unreasonable zealot or “purist”. What Obummer fails to point out, however, is how all of his “historic reforms” are weak, watered-down half-measures at the very best, and how his “spirit of compromise” involves caving in to corporate interests at every opportunity, appeasing right-wing neofascists and wannabe theocrats, and colluding with the very same class of people who are responsible for the trouble this country’s in now. Y’know, if our side actually got something out of all this compromising, it might not be so bad, but we’ve gotten absolute zero.

So, if being appalled at crass opportunism, cowardice and hypocrisy makes me a “purist”, then, hell yeah, I’m a purist. If wanting an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the closure of Guantanamo and Bagram makes me a “purist”, then, hell, yeah. If wanting the control of the healthcare system taken away from corporations makes me a “purist”, then, hell, yeah. If wanting an end to warrantless spying and intimidation and the restoration of the Bill Of Rights makes me a “purist”, then, hell, yeah… just like Frederick Douglass was a “purist”, and Eugene Debs was a “purist”, and Emma Goldman, and Nelson Mandela, and Abbie Hoffman, and Bobby Seale.

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Happy Anniversary, Obamabots!

Well, here we are, a year into this glorious new post-racial, post-partisan Hope'n'Change Era, so let's just pause to take stock of all the momentous Change that President Booker T. Obama has brought us:

The Economy: worse. President Hope has given away absurdly huge buttloads of our tax money to bankers and Wall Street. Bonus? Of course. That's what the bankers have done to us for the past year or so.

Health Care: worse. To paraphrase a recent Keith Olbermann broadcast, it's not health, it's not care, and it sure as hell isn't reform. President Change's idea of health care reform involves shutting single-payer supporters out of the "debate", massive corporate giveaways to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, the threat of fines or jail for people who don't buy corporate health insurance even if they can't afford it -- and if you can afford decent health insurance, President Yes We Can wants to tax the living shit out of your benefits. Still, with any luck, that Coakley woman will lose that special Senate election in Massachusetts, and it'll be Sayonara Charlie to The Bill That Needs Killing.

Civil Liberties: worse. Some doorknob in Detroit tries to blow up a plane with his underwear, and the next thing we know, President Hope wants to institute Jim Crow for Muslims and make us all to pose for digital x-ray porn. Meanwhile, one of President Hope's fellow Harvard punks over at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs wants to assign CIA spooks to troll duty at any blogs that happen to bug him.

Illegal Foreign Wars: worse. President Change -- or, as Code Pink called him during the campaign, the "Peace Candidate" -- makes a big-ass deal out of appearing to seriously ponder the situtation before initiating a 40,000-troop escalation of the war in The Graveyard Of Empires -- or, as it's more commonly called, Afghanistan. The Nobel Prize committee finishes slurping the dregs out of the bottom of the Kool-Aid bowl and awards President Change a Nobel Peace Prize; President Change, on accepting the Prize, gives a pro-war speech. Now, that's class.



So, congratulations to one and all of you Obamabots who allowed yourselves to be motivated by fear and desperation and fall for the first slick-assed huckster who can speak in complete sentences and knows how to pronounce the word "nuclear". I just can't thank you enough.

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T-shirts and Stickers at Mike's Schwag Shop.

2012: They Were Warned

It's the end of the world as they know it...
but they feel fine!

Those of you who've followed my work for any length of time will remember my complaints about the early start of the Presidential "election" cycle (John Edwards announced on Christmas Week, 2006) in the form of the four-part "Jackass Slate for 2008".

So, here it is, at least a year before the "official" start of the 2012 Presidential campaign season, and here I am already doing a '12 Election cartoon. I don't know what else I can say for myself, other than that when the muse visits me, she absolutely refuses to quit pestering me until I've committed a creation to paper. It really was a "perfect storm" of events, recently: we had the epic FAIL of the Obama Administration in the areas of healthcare, the economy, and the war in Afghanistan; the Democrats stumbling in the recent elections in Virginia and elsewhere; the GOP hopefuls for '12 already jockeying for position; Obama's approval rating finally dropping to a level representative of normal objective reality; the ominous spectre of a sound butt-paddling for the Democrats in the 2010 off-year elections -- and a movie just out about the end of the world in 2012, which was pretty much the icing on the conceptual cake.

Now, I'm not into clairvoyance or prophecy or any of that woo-woo, but the events of the past year -- most notably the healthcare "reform" debacle -- had gotten me to thinking that at least in one respect, the Mayans may have been on to something...



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The Spirit of '99

Holy jeez, gang, has it really been ten years already? Phew, now that really makes me feel old. Luckily for me, fiftysomething is the new thirtysomething...or something.

So, when I was asked to design the poster for the Seattle/WTO Tenth Anniversary event here in DC, there was only one thing to do -- another parody of a famous work of art, in this case, a classic of Kitsch Americana, Archibald Willard's iconic Spirit Of '76, the hit of the show at the 1876 Columbian Exposition.



But, aaa-aaaanyway...the big do is on Monday, November 30, at Chief Ike's Mambo Room in Adams-Morgan, 1725 Columbia Road NW, at 7pm; it's a fund raiser for the Washington Peace Center and the Funk The War Alumni Association (for all you ex-college kids who are too old for SDS, but still want to get funky). There'll be the obligatory drinking and party-mix grooves, of course. There'll also be some vintage Seattle/WTO rebellion video running, because we really loves us some anarchy.

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So, hit the copy shop, mix up the paste, grab your rollers, and hit the streets, kids, and I'll see yer butts down at Chief Ike's on N30!

Radio Hate

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Just so we're on the same page, here: community organizing group ACORN registered large numbers of black voters in Chicago for the last big "election". As is common in many registration campaigns, there's a fair number of wise-asses registering dead peoples' names, or fake names. Also, as is required by law by boards of elections in any US city I've been to, any bogus/invalid registrations are reported, to keep the voter rolls cleared of all the dead people, and all those Luke Skywalkers and Donald Ducks.

So, anyway, outfits like the Drudge Report (has anybody informed that bonehead that the '90s are over?) get hold of this and, in their own predictable, inimitable fashion, proceed to blow this up into some kind of bogus "scandal" and throw it to the rightist k00k crowd like so much fresh, raw meat. Still, you've got to love Drudge, if only because he carries on in the finest shrieking tabloid tradition -- never let the facts get in the way of a good story -- along with providing us all with some good cheap laffs.

Now, just to refresh your memories, one more time, here's the video of a small group of black youth selling little plastic flags at the September 12 Teabaggers' rally being threatened and harassed, and accused of being "ACORN People" (as if there were something wrong with that in and of itself)...