Monday, March 18, 2024

This Week's Sneak Peek

Last week's cartoon about radical right-winger Mark Robinson winning the Republican primary for governor in North Carolina overlooked the tandem victory of radical right-winger Michelle Morrow, who unseated incumbent Superintendent of Schools Catherine Truitt in the Tarheel State's Republican primary.

Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.

In other comments on social media between 2019 and 2021 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Morrow made disturbing suggestions about executing prominent Democrats for treason, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and other prominent people such as Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.

“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to a user sharing a conspiracy theory who suggested sending Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

In another post in May 2020, she responded to a fake Time Magazine cover that featured art of Obama in an electric chair asking if he should be executed.

“Death to ALL traitors!!” Morrow responded.

In yet another comment, Morrow suggested in December 2020 killing Biden, who at that time was president-elect, and has said he would ask Americans to wear a mask for 100 days.

“Never. We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!! #JusticeforAmerica,” she wrote.

CNN reached out to Morrow and her campaign multiple times but did not receive a response. Following publication of this story, Morrow defended her previous tweets, claiming Obama committed treason. 

When cartoonists who, like me, are alarmed by seeing the completely unhinged kooks who have taken over the Republican party, are asked why we don't draw more cartoons attacking Democrats, this is why. 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Remember Somewhere Our Union's Sewing

In the interest of observing Women's History Month, today's Graphical History Tour returns to 1924 and the Chicago Garment Workers Strike.

Today's cartoons are all by Fred Ellis, cartoonist for the Daily Worker and the monthly Labor Herald, both published in Chicago by the communist Trade Union Educational League (TUEL). The Daily Worker accused the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily News, and Hearst newspapers (the American and the Herald Examiner) of ignoring the issues of the garment workers strike; I can only confirm that neither Carey Orr or John McCutcheon addressed the strike in their cartoons.

"The Strike Is On" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, Feb. 29, 1924

The Chicago chapter of the International Ladies Garment Workers union went on strike on February 27, unable to negotiate a satisfactory agreement with management over a 10% increase in pay; a 40-hour, five-day work week; and establishment of an unemployment fund for workers.

Under the headline "Riots, Slugging Mark Strike of Dress Workers," the Tribune did report the next day on page 3 that

South Market street, between Van Buren and Adams streets, the center of Chicago's dressmaking industry, became a riot zone yesterday. Sluggings, a stabbing, and window smashing followed immediately after the calling of a strike of union garment workers and their attempts to force nonunion workers to join in the walkout.

The reported stabbing victim was the owner of Bloom and Templar, who told police that strikers had attacked him and a colleague in his office with knives and clubs.

"Jailed" by Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 10, 1924

The legal crackdown by state authorities came swiftly. Cook County States Attorney Robert E. Crowe (better remembered for prosecuting the Leopold and Loeb murder case) filed for an injunction against the strikers picketing or molesting nonunion workers, which was granted by Judge Denis E. Sullivan on March 4. Women on the picket line were arrested and hauled off to Cook County Jail, often after having been roughed up by the employers' goon squad and/or the police themselves.

"Know-Nothing Dever" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 11, 1924

Chicago Mayor William E. Dever was a reformist Democrat who served a single term bracketed by those of the flashier "Big Bill" Thompson, Republican. He doesn't seem to have played a major role in the CGLU strike. He has been called "Chicago's forgotten mayor," and, by Studs Terkel, "Chicago's Calvin Coolidge."

"So far as I know, there has been nothing wrong with the handling of the strike by the city police," Dever told the Daily Worker over the phone from his home. "I have no information to the contrary. I have asked for a report."

"Remember Sophie Altschuler" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 18, 1924

"Sophie Altschuler, one of the left-wingers and and active militant, was beaten up by policeman #3181 so badly as to be confined in bed for some time. Dozens of other girls have felt the policeman's fists and clubs and bear their marks. Nine of them have been convicted of violating the Sullivan injunction, and one of them, Florence Corn, has already been sentenced to thirty days in the county jail." — I.L. Davidson in Labor Herald, Chicago, April 1924
"The Girls Want to Know" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 20, 1924

The strike came at a time when leaders in the labor movement, particularly American Federation of Labor President Samuel Gompers, were actively purging member unions of the communists in their midst. That purge had included several TUEL members of the Chicago Ladies Garment Workers the previous August and would continue at the IGLW's national convention in May. Both factions were nevertheless active in the Chicago Garment Workers strike, yet the AFL and TUEL both thought the other was damaging to the cause.

Ellis's cartoon suggests that other unions were reluctant to support the CLGU strikers. They were, however, joined on the picket lines by carpenters, printers, and members of the Amalgamated Clothing Union ... but not by Oscar Nelson, vice president of the Chicago Federation of Labor and an alderman on the Chicago City Council. He was also a member of the CFL's "Committee of 15" and the ILGU's lawyer. He offered the Daily Worker his excuse that he needed to avoid giving offense to the court.

"Crowe—State's Attorney" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 21

With the dress manufacturers backed by all the power of law enforcement and refusing arbitration offered from Washington D.C., the strikers were at a distinct disadvantage.

"Students Show 'Committee of 15'" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, March 24, 1924

The strikers did receive some support from a group of University of Chicago students who defied Judge Sullivan's injunction to join the picketers. University Liberal Club President Ida Terbush organized the student picket squad. The Daily Worker didn't report how many students showed up, but did report that two, Eugene and David Siskind, were arrested.

"The So-Called Majesty of the Law" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, April 1, 1924

The strike lasted through April and at least into May. I haven't yet come across any reporting on a settlement; what press coverage there was after that focused on the trials of strikers for violating Judge Sullivan's injunction. One such account in the May 9, 1924 Daily Worker quoted one of the manufacturers' lawyers, Charles Hyde, telling Judge Charles Foell, "Unless this picketing is stopped, the injunction might better never have been issued."

So, until I find the outcome of this strike, I'll leave you with this exchange between Prosecutor Coleman and defendant Mrs. Caroline Heim, as reported in Daily Worker of May 10, 1924, and let a woman have the last word:

Coleman: "You admit your were walking up and down May 2. Why did you walk back and forth?"
Heim: "Because the police told us to keep moving."

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Q Toon: The Roidsemblance Is Striking

This is Mark Robinson's second appearance in my cartoons.

The Republican Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina has a long track record of hatred toward LGBTQ+ citizens, women, and civil rights. He has announced that homosexuals are "filth," "maggots," and "what the cows leave behind." He called transgender people are "demonic," and threatened trans women with arrest or "whatever we go to do to you" if they dare to use a women's rest room. Houses of worship that display the LGBTQ+ Pride flag "make me sick every time."

And echoing Trump's spurious birtherism and secret Muslim accusations against Barack Obama, Robinson claims that Michele Obama, despite having given birth to two children, is somehow transgender.

This has clearly endeared him to the Tangerine Scream, who pointed him out at a Trump kundgebung in North Carolina last week:

"This is Martin Luther King on steroids. Now, I told that to Mark, I said, I think you're better than Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King times two. And he looked at me, and I wasn't sure, was he angry because that's a terrible thing to say? Or was he complimented? I have never figured it out. But I'm telling you, he's one of — right? — when I said that to you, you looked like, I don't know if I like that comment! You should like it."

Given that Robinson has defended his own Facebook posts dismissing Rev. Dr. King as an "ersatz pastor" and "communist," it's no wonder he appeared put off by Donald Trump comparing him to the only Black person he could think of by name whom he didn't suspect of being a rapist and murderer.

Trump's low opinion of Blacks, whether American or from "shit-hole countries," appears to be shared by Mr. Robinson. Seven years ago, Robinson posted on Facebook the following screed:

Someone asked me if I considered myself part of the "African-American" community.
I told them NO!
They asked me why and I said;
"Why would I want to be part of a "community" that devalues it's fathers, overburdens it's mothers, and murders its children by the millions? Why would I want to be part of a "community" that sucks from the putrid tit of the government and then complains about getting sour milk? Why would I want to be part of a "community" that allowed itself in the 1960s to walk right back to the very plantations it was freed from in the 1860s? And why would I want to be part of a "community" that celebrates the very lawlessness and violence that is killing it's future right in front of them?
Why would I want to be part that?
WHY?
If you think Robinson was just having an off day or two, don't be so sure.

In 2014, Robinson quoted Hitler on Facebook, and in 2018 he compared protesters tearing down a Confederate statue to Kristallnacht, a night of Nazi destruction that proceeded the Holocaust. That same year he also speculated Marvel's Black Panther was created by an "agnostic Jew" to profit off of Black people (he actually used a Yiddish slur instead of Black people).

But wait, there's more!

There was the time he called school shooting survivors “media prosti-tots” for advocating for gun-control policies. The meme mocking a Harvey Weinstein accuser, and the other meme mocking actresses for wearing “whore dresses to protest sexual harassment.” ...

Robinson asserted on a 2018 podcast that the political left is going after “the Harvey Weinsteins and the Bill Cosbys” to replicate Soviet-era intimidation.

[Commercials by a GOP primary rival highlighted] Robinson’s 2022 suggestion at a church that men, not women, are meant to be leaders. Acknowledging that he was “getting ready to get in trouble,” Robinson exclaimed to the congregation: “Called to be led by men!”

When “it was time to face down Goliath,” he added, God “sent David, not Davita.”

Lately, Robinson's campaign has tried to place more emphasis on traditional bread-and-butter issues while castigating the media for reminding voters of the peppery red-meat language that endeared him to Trump's MAGA minions in the first place. Make no mistake, however: Robinson is in no way apologizing for or disavowing any of his past. (Except for that one time he paid for a girlfriend's abortion.)

Will North Carolinians be fooled by the new toned-down Mark Robinson?

Trump's comparing Robinson to Rev. Dr. King might very well have been a cleverly disguised insult Trump can refer back to if Robinson loses the election in November. 

Monday, March 11, 2024

This Week's Sneak Peek

He's ba-a-ack!


For the record, the last cartoon I drew with Trump in it was back in October.

By the way, I was honored to have Daily Cartoonist lead off Sunday morning's post with Saturday's Graphical History Tour. So here's a reciprocal link with my thanks.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Pursuit of the Naked Truth

If you've been following these Graphical History Tours of mine since the centennial of World War I, you know that most of my posts are about whatever was in the news 100 years earlier. But every once in a while, I like to come forward a bit to discuss some of the major news events from fifty years ago that I can actually remember: the Vietnam War... the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy... Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and Apollo 13 making it back to Earth... the Watergate break-in... the Six-Day War...

So let's take a look at this monumental, life-changing news story from March, 1974:

"The Nudity Crisis" by Cyrus Hungerford in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 9, 1974

Streaking.

Spring was just around the corner, so college students naturally shed their winter parkas and started running around au naturel, as one is wont to do. 

And news media loved it. Catching snapshots of studly students and comely co-eds dashing through the quad in their birthday suits was a welcome break from reporting the news of rising oil prices, a looming recession, and the criminal indictment of seven of President Nixon's closest aides.

"They Say Streaking Is a Phenomenon Directly Related to the Pressures and Frustrations of Our Society. Was That Who I Thought It Was?" by Don Wright in Miami News, March 5, 1974

I remember the Chicago Tribune, Time, and Newsweek devoting entire pages to streaker photos. (I recall a large photo in the Tribune spread of a guy with one leg in a cast streaking on crutches!) Television had to be a bit more careful about what got caught on camera, but bare all they did. Which begat more streaking, which begat more photo spreads, which begat more streaking... The fad was seemingly everywhere … even on stage at the Oscars!

"The Object of 'Streaking'..." by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, March 8, 1974

Certainly the nation's editorial cartoonists were eager to join in the fun.

"Again Eluding the Congress and the Courts..." by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, March 6, 1974

We editorial cartoonists fancy ourselves to be serious journalists, speaking truth to power. Distilling important news down to its bare essence! Exposing hypocrisy and corruption! But deep down, we are also the kid in the back of the class drawing pictures of the school principal saying "Poop!" in our notebooks.

(Ask Clay Jones to show you his.)

"Streaking" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, March 6, 1974

Even the great Herblock in the capital's newspaper of record couldn't resist dashing off a cartoon of the President in the altogether.

"Good Grief..." by Jeff MacNelly in Richmond Times-Leader, ca. March 11, 1974

Likewise Jeff MacNelly, then early in his newspaper career. What he got right in this cartoon was that many collegiate streakers protected what was left of their modesty by pulling a balaclava over their face.

Had enough of Nixon in the nude? Yeah, me too.

"Senior Streaker" by Lou Grant for Los Angeles Time Syndicate, ca. March 14, 1974

We can now be grateful to Lou Grant for putting Richard Nixon in a streaking cartoon yet mercifully leaving him fully dressed.

"Streaking through 1974" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, March 7, 1974

With the Watergate scandal and economic hardship dominating the news, Republicans were taking a beating in local elections. That included losing the House seat of newly-minted Vice President Gerald Ford.

"We've Been 'Streaking' for Years" by D. Edward Holland in Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1974

For cartoonists (or their editors) who were leery of depicting the President of the United States in the nude, a safer alternative — especially for the dwindling number of Nixon defenders such as Ed Holland — was to draw John Q. Public stripped bare by the Internal Revenue Service.

"Streaking" by Gene Basset for Scripps Howard Newspapers, ca. March 14, 1974

Or one could draw Jane Q. Consumer losing everything to Inflation Bar Sinister.

"Streaker" by Don Hesse in St. Louis Democrat, ca. March 16, 1974

Or heck, why not draw about inflation and taxes? There's no limit to the kinds of major expenses that you could draw stealing the shirt off your back and the pants off your tush.

But you can leave your hat on.

"Like Father Like Son" by Jim Lange in Daily Oklahoman, March 7, 1974

Returning whence the fad began, I'm not sure whether Jim Lange was commenting on the economy in general or college tuition in particular. But I do know that the tuition grant I was awarded a couple years later, a significant amount at the time, would barely cover the cost of one semester's textbooks today.

The average college tuition in 1974 was $1,650/year for a public college, $3,420/year for a private college. Today, adjusted for inflation, that would be $12,155 and  $21,395, respectively. With the proliferation of fees since the '70's, looking at the actual cost of college today is like comparing apples and fruit salad; but the average cost for a four-year public college last year was $21,878, and for a private college, it was $47,961.

"Vulgar Indeed, Miss Finch..." by Clyde Peterson "C.P. Houston" in Houston Chronicle, ca. March 9, 1974

That's enough math and calculus. I'll bring today's NSFW romp to a close with a couple of cartoons that expressed relief that college and university students were blowing off steam in harmless, frivolous ways, in contrast to students of only a few years prior. 

(Side note: I've seen the C.P. Houston cartoon with the word "mirthfully" instead of "joyously"; I do not know which word appeared in the Houston Chronicle. And the Doug Marlette cartoon below must have been drawn for national syndication in place of the local-issue cartoon of his with a streaking theme that appeared in the Charlotte Observer.)

"Once a Campus Revolutionary..." by Doug Marlette for Charlotte Oberver, ca. March 13, 1974

P.S.: If you caught a Joe Cocker earworm a couple paragraphs back and would rather get rid of it, try this one.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Q Toon: A Death in Oklahoma

You were expecting some reference to the flower moon, perhaps?

No, I am finally offering my say on the death of Dex Benedict, a 16-year-old student in Owasso, Oklahoma who identified as non-binary and died on February 8, a day after being beaten by other students in the girls' bathroom at their school.

Authorities are being somewhat cagey in addressing the cause of Dex's death; they had been released from the hospital after being taken there after the attack. Final autopsy and toxicology reports remain pending as of this writing. The Office for Civil Rights division of the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation this month into the Oklahoma school district following a complaint filed by the Human Rights Campaign.

Dex's family says that Dex had been bullied at school for a over a year. When they reported this assault to the police, the officer asked why they had not reported the bullying to the school, and Nex replied "I didn't really see the point in it."

My cartoon this week leads off with Oklahoma's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, who expressed his empty sympathy for Dex's family, but who, along with the state's other elected leaders, shares responsibility for the conditions that led up to this tragedy.

"Oklahoma lawmakers have put restrictions on gender-affirming care and barred transgender students from using school bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Walters recently hired a rabidly anti-trans out-of-state social media figure to serve on the state’s Library Media Advisory Committee, a grotesque political stunt and a blaring insult to every LGBTQ+ person in the state."

That out-of-state social media figure is Chaya Raichik, a hate-monger in charge of the rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ "Libs of TikTok." Last year, a post by Raichik compelled an Owasso High School teacher whom Dex "greatly admired" to resign.

No wonder Dex saw "no point" in reporting bullying to the remaining staff at the school.

At a legislators' forum with the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce on February 22, State Senator Tom Woods, Republican, said that while "his heart goes out" regarding the teen's death, "We are a conservative state —  supermajority — in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma."

Woods's statement reportedly met with applause.

The Trevor Project conducted a national survey of LGBTQ+ youth in 2022 regarding their mental health, breaking down the results by state. Here are some of the responses from Oklahoma:


The Trevor Project

Oklahoma can and ought to do better by these kids.

But naah. They're "a conservative state." So they won't.


Monday, March 4, 2024

This Week's Sneak Peek


All the late-night talk shows displayed a tribute card in memory of Richard Lewis at the beginning or end of programs last week; so did The Simpsons last night.

If there was one at any point during last night's Curb Your Enthusiasm, an episode in which he had a scene with Larry David at an AA meeting, I missed it. Of course, on Sunday nights, I tend to have my head down looking at what I'm drawing, and only occasionally at the television. But HBO did play the episode twice.