Category: Humor

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 25, 2015

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” – Frederick Nietzsche

It is clear that we have entered what may be the last years when we can delay or avoid entirely, the decline of America as the world’s indispensable nation. What is unclear is what the US electorate thought they were voting for last November. Polls have repeatedly shown that the public favors the Democrats’ policy proposals, but increasingly, votes for Republicans. So polarization has ensued, and DC has already turned its focus to the NEXT election, even though we just had one.

Everything between here and there will be simply BS and time filling. Are we to lose another two years? The rest of the world will not be waiting for us.

The Republicans had many responses to the SOTU:
COW the hand

 

Then there was the official Republican response:
COW Jodi ErnstBTW: Don’t you wear the plastic bags INSIDE your shoes to keep the water out? Shoe condoms? Really?

Yet, there are always a few things we all agree with:

COW SOTA

With the unfathomable House and Senate votes that have already been taken, is there an image problem?

COW Rs Image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week, the pro-life peeps marched in DC, and the R’s in a show of support, tried a vote on abortion:
COW health care decisions

Could this be the way the logjam ends in DC?

Clay Bennett editorial cartoon

 

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 18, 2014

With the media and the political parties now shifting their focus to 2016, once again, the Democrats need to remember how badly they have been shellacked under the Obama presidency. The WaPo reports that Republicans have gained more than 900 state legislature seats since 2010. Here is the sorry record:
Control of State Legislatures

Mr. Obama now holds the record for “worst coattails” by a modern president, eclipsing even Nixon. There are more than 7,000 state legislative seats in the USA, so the Democratic losses between 2010 and 2014 amount to 12% of all state legislative seats nationwide.

Republicans now control more than 4,100 seats, their highest number since 1920. After taking over 11 legislative chambers from Democrats in 2014, Republicans now control 30 state legislatures completely, and have full control of state governments (legislatures and governorship) in 23 states.

Democrats, by contrast, have full control of 11 state legislatures and total control of state government in just seven states. This isn’t just Obama’s fault, Democrats have focused almost exclusively on the winning the Electoral College since Mr. Clinton left office. Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy is long dead. This loss of state legislatures owes much to the spectacular failure of Democrat’s leadership. Democrats should throw out their entire leadership team and start over. Why would any candidate want to brand themselves with the organizations run by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and whoever it was that said Democratic candidates should run content-free campaigns in 2014?

How bad is this? Remember that policy is made first at the state level. With Republicans in control of so many state governments, the policy track record for their side will be vastly superior to what Democrats can do at the state and local levels. Also, State legislatures and governors redraw congressional lines. In most states, how the nation’s 435 House districts will look after the 2020 Census will be determined by governors and state legislators. Republican legislators are more likely to draw lines that are friendly to their side. Unless Democrats can reverse their state House and Senate losses before the 2021 redraw, Republicans will control the House for a very, very long time. Finally, State legislatures are the minor leagues of politics. Most politicians − President Obama included − who go on to great things, hone their craft in the state legislature of their home state. The Republicans’ farm system is now significantly larger than that of Democrats.

So begins the Republican’s discussion about 2016:

COW The Campaign

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mitt’s lessons learned in 2012:

COW Mitt Lessons Learned

GOP opens the 114th Congress with an anti-immigration statement:
COW GOP Immigration

Mr. Obama should have bought a clue:

COW Clueless

 

The GOP has an impossible task ahead in certain states:

COW El Capitan
Tomorrow is MLK Jr. Day. There have been gains and losses since his death, but some things are unchanged:

COW MLK 1

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 11, 2015

This was a week when cartoonists and free speech came under assault. The cartoonists died. Free speech will survive. From cartoonist Tom Toles, whose work appears here often:

The one response I saw to the Paris murders that I didn’t care for is that they were killed for ‘just cartoons.’ The event proves the opposite. Amidst the floodtide of ‘content’ that contemporary communications are generating, it was precisely the cartoons that stood out as having so much power that someone felt they needed to be silenced. They still have that kind of power.

Free speech is the single most important aspect of what makes a “free society” free. As a free society, we can debate what is a wise use of our free speech rights. But, we have just been reminded in the most terrible terms, how important and vulnerable it can be. Cartoonist David Horsey, whose work also appears here often, (including today) said this week:

Not only can freedom not exist without truth tellers, freedom cannot exist without obnoxious expressions of opinion, no matter who is offended.

Ted Rall, a cartoonist who also appears here occasionally, said this on his blog:

There could never be a mass shooting of staff political cartoonists in the United States, because American newspapers and magazines have fired almost all of them.

He estimates that today, there are only 30 or so cartoonists employed full-time by American newspapers and magazines. The declining number of cartoonists has made curating Sunday cartoons for this blog more difficult over the years.

How do we move forward? The Wrongologist does not usually quote any Catholic Pope, but this from Paul VI seems appropriate today:

“If you want peace, work for Justice”

What does that mean in practical terms today?

• Work toward achieving economic equality everywhere
• Include the topics “Understanding Cultures” and “Promoting Cultural Integration” in school curriculums. This could help reduce fear of “The Other”, a common human trait
• Encourage moderate Muslims living in the West to root out the extremists among them
• Ask Muslim countries to do more than to offer condolences to France

On to cartoons. If you stop cartooning, the terrorists win:
COW Cartoonists Win

 

Their real motivator wasn’t Allah:

COW Not Allah

 

In other news, we had a semi-favorable jobs report:
COW Jobs Report

 

Republicans took over the Congress:

COW We're Scary

 

The NYPD continued their soft coup:
COW Officer Baby

NYPD Job Action continued:

COW Officer Baby 2

 

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 4, 2015

RIP Mario Cuomo:

Cuomo Koch

(Columbus Day Parade, October 11, 1982. Mayor Edward Koch, Gov. Mario Cuomo and Westchester County Executive Alfred DelBello march down New York’s Fifth Avenue) Credit: Associated Press

You have to wonder how different the country would be if Mario Cuomo had agreed to become a Supreme Court Justice in 1993 when Bill Clinton offered to nominate him to replace Byron R. White. George Stephanopoulos has written that Clinton came within 15 minutes of nominating Cuomo, until the latter rejected the job in a phone call with Stephanopoulos.

The Wrongologist never drops bold-face names in the blog, but today is an exception. In 1988, he (and Ms. Oh So Right) were backstage speaking with Frank Zappa, who was playing in Boston. Wrongo asked who Zappa would support for president the next time around, since the Dukakis debacle had just happened. He said: “only Mario”.  At the time, the Wrongologist agreed. But Mario would never run, and Zappa died in 1993.

On Christmas, Neil deGrasse Tyson sent this Tweet:

It caused the usual spewing by the “war on Christmas” crowd, who claimed that Tyson was deliberately provoking them. Tyson replied:

Imagine a world in which we are all enlightened by objective truths rather than offended by them.

Speaking of truth, here is the whole objective truth:

COW The Truth2015 will be totally different, except:

COW New Boss

 

We just ceased combat operations in Afghanistan. What did we learn?

COW Lessons Learned

Republican leader Scalise attends Klan meeting. What did the GOP learn?

COW Scalise

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Christmas Eve in America

Now, Christmas Eve doesn’t engender thoughts of Bob Dylan. He’s the last guy you would think about. But today, we have Dylan two ways. First, Dylan singing “It Must Be Santa”. If you listen carefully, Dylan uses the names of several US presidents in with the list of Santa’s reindeer. And his hair is ironed or its a wig:

Next, “My Unhealthy Obsession with Bob Dylan’s Christmas Lights”, by Merrill Markoe. You gotta love LA, where the A & B list stars live nearby. So, Merrill Markoe has spent SEVEN years documenting the puny string of lights that Bob Dylan puts on the hedge in front of his Malibu home.

We close with our go-to Christmas Eve sing along carol here at the Mansion of Wrong. That would be Tom Lehrer’s “A Christmas Carol”. Here is Lehrer’s lead in to the song:

Christmas, with its spirit of giving, offers us all a wonderful opportunity each year to reflect on what we all most sincerely and deeply believe in. I refer of course, to money.

Here’s the song:

From all of us here at the Mansion of Wrong, Merry Christmas, and please work to bring peace to your family and your community.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 21, 2014

A week where Colbert moved on, and all but the anti-Castro diehards moved on.

And Sony? Think of it this way: A Japanese company with offices in California was hacked. Several terabytes of data were copied from its internal networks and some was put on file sharing sites. One of the items copied was The Interview, a film produced in Canada that is a comedy about killing a current (although illegitimate) head of state. Tons of other data were stolen, like social security numbers, payroll data, and internal emails, all of which might have been the real targets of the hackers.

Sony is a wonderful object lesson. A few rogue hackers, possibly affiliated with North Korea if you believe the FBI, have forced the company to cancel the movie. The larger issue is that America is no longer free to watch bad movies. The problem for the US is that cyber warfare is cheap and effective. Unlike our military, it isn’t capital intensive, and it can’t be defeated with aircraft carriers and nukes. Yet, the new Congress will probably vote for more jets and tanks.

The tools used to hack Sony are well known and in the public domain. Sony has lousy internal network security and has been hacked before. It’s time that dysfunctional corporations like Sony, invest in protecting themselves. It isn’t the government’s responsibility.

Hollywood, that bastion of free speech, heads for the exits:

COW Sony

It hurts to give up when you are so close to, what, exactly?
COW Cuba

Mr. Obama’s unilateral action on Cuba shows his callous disregard for his lame-duckitude. It also shows his disrespect for the Constitution, Christianity, and everything Americans hold dear.

Cuban economy is about to change:

COW Costco

Colbert packs up, heads towards Letterman:
cOW Colbert

Another idea we need to put behind us:

COW Thied Bush

The Torture Report was a mixed message:

COW Not Who We are

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 7, 2014

Still thinking about the string of police cases, their very similar nature and outcomes. It isn’t a secret that America has a broad, diverse population and a terrible past trying to deal with our diversity.

Our past isn’t going away. Our diverse population isn’t going away either. It’s who we are. We occasionally celebrate it, boasting that we are a melting pot. But, we might be more accurately described as a smorgasbord, not a one pot dinner. That means you can avoid the pickled herring if you don’t like it.

But it’s always rude to ridicule people who like pickled herring. And many of us have moved way beyond rude to outright hostile, and the whole buffet table could be pulled down right in front of our eyes.

The food fight is already in progress, except it has real casualties. We are many kinds of American, and this is our home. Can we find a way to keep it?

It is all about your perspective:

COW About Race

 

More perspective:

COW Tom Tomorrow

Other perspectives:

COW Body Cams

 

Media explains how to spin the unspinable:

COW Trigger Happy Cops

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some kids’ Xmas lists are out of reach:

COW Xmas list

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – November 30, 2014

Thought for today: “We are what we repeatedly do.” Aristotle

And some things, we repeatedly do over and over. Take Ferguson, possibly becoming a new Selma. Or take our bad economy, or take Afghanistan.

This month, Americans got some news the media spun as good: The US unemployment rate fell to the lowest level since late 2007. The 5.8% unemployment rate has been seen as proof of economic recovery. But, the jobs created were mostly part-time work, often at low pay. Yes, these jobs provided employment, but did little to improve the overall economy.

As a result, an increasing number of Americans – 800,000 more than last year – have taken a second or third job, according to the BLS. This is Americans taking jobs they don’t really want, unable to pay their bills despite work, and relying on food banks and welfare to make up the difference.

And the problem is growing. In October, about 7 million Americans had part-time jobs but wanted to work full-time. Over 2.1 million Americans rely on two part-time jobs to see them through. Another 4 million have one full-time job and one part-time job, a number that increased by 444,000 since last year.

These workers earn minimum or near-minimum wage, bringing home less than $1,000 a month. In 2013, 468,000 retail workers earned minimum wage or lower. According to Pew Research Center, 1.4 million cashiers – the most common part-time job – earn less than $10.10 an hour. Part-time Walmart workers often bring home between $200 to $400 every two weeks. This is a weak contribution to our economy. These workers, despite being employed, end up relying on government assistance in the form of food stamps and housing subsidies. And when the food stamps run out, they turn to their communities and the local food banks. So, there were Black Friday demonstrations atWalmart stores all across America, and some cities had this response:

COW Walmart protection

Part of your taxpayer dollars are paying Wal-Mart employees the money that the Walton’s refuse to pay them. This isn’t complicated. If you have a job at Wal-Mart and you still need Medicaid, food stamps and subsidized housing, then you aren’t just getting shafted by the Walton’s. You’re also being paid your missing wages by the federal government. Another piece of your tax dollars supported military-style protection at Walmart as a partial response to the Black Friday demonstrations.

As Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do. Americans aren’t deadbeats. The Walton’s are the deadbeats.

Black Friday means something radically different to the homeless:

COW Camping

New normal on Thanksgiving:

COW Big Box

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life in the Billionaire’s bubble:

COW Billionaire Bubble

Who gets the benefit of the doubt?
COW Ferguson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No need to attack America:

COW No Need

 

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Post-Thanksgiving Digestif

It is a tradition on Thanksgiving at the Mansion of Wrong to play “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie. It was on November 28, 1965 in Stockbridge, MA that Arlo was convicted of littering:

Sample lyric:

27 8×10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

 

Here are your post-Thanksgiving links:

Buzzfeed asked Brits to fill in a map of the US. Here is good one:
COW The states by a brit

Imagine trying to do that for the map of the UK.

Check out this Silicon Valley job title generator: The Wrongologist got ”Shareability Disruptor”

America can’t take any more bullshit: The Onion captures our current angst.

Milk is the new Coke: Why, yes, we are happy to pay twice as much for milk! If there’s one company you can trust to produce milk that is lower in sugar and higher in good things for you, it’s Coca-Cola.

It’s a doggy dog world:

Dog head-turning shows they do understand what you say. Naturally. How else could they play poker?

Dogs sloppy water bowl action is smart: Dogs extended more of their tongues to whack the water with a much wider surface area, then use their tongues to pull the water upward into a column at high speed, hitting an acceleration of roughly five to eight times that of gravity.

Court says that Michigan doesn’t need to provide quality public education: When education is not valued, society fails. Neither the people nor the country can thrive, much less survive without a good education.

Thought for Friday through Monday:

 

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