A Breezy Bequest

For this week's Graphical History Tour, let's settle into the gallery at the Scopes "Monkey" Trial in Dayton, Tennessee — starring Clarence Darrow as Spencer Tracy, Fredric March as William Jennings Bryan, and John T. Scopes as OG Darren Stephens.

"Closed Book in Tennessee" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, June 19, 1925

The story thus far: Tennessee State Representative John W. Butler, head of the World Christian Fundamentals Association, pushed eponymous legislation through to Governor Austin Peay signing it into law, banning the teaching of evolutionary science in Tennessee public schools. A Dayton coal  and iron company executive, George Rappleyea, thought it would be good publicity for his town to challenge the Butler Act in court. 

Rappleyea found support from Dayton Superintendent of Schools Walter White (as Bryan Cranston) and attorney Sue K. Hicks (as Johnny Cash), and the three men recruited 24-year-old schoolteacher John Scopes to be the face of the case.

Making a Monkey of Itself" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. June 14, 1925

Billy Ireland crammed a lot of text into the bulletins posted in this cartoon; since it may be difficult to read on your device, here is some of it:

During the trial of Professor Scopes of Dayton, accused of teaching the science of evolution in the public schools of Tennessee, electrical loud speakers will be placed in the courthouse windows for the benefit of the vast crowds.

It is proposed that the trial be transferred from the courthouse to a large ampitheater within the race track at the fair grounds.

Dayton resents the efforts of Chattanooga to move the trial to that city — Datyon wants all the ADVERTISING for itself. ...

Bids for hot dog privileges now open. Merry-go-round rights for a reasonable figure. Bids for street fair rights now in order.

"Would They Destroy Each Other" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 6, 1925

The original prosecuting and defense attorneys, District Attorney Tom Stewart and law school professor John Neal respectively, were overshadowed by the celebrities brought in by both sides to argue the case: three-time Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan for the State, and criminal defense lawyer Clarence Darrow for Scopes. 

"The Descent of Man" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 5, 1915

Bryan had been outspoken against evolutionary theory as far back as 1909, lecturing, publishing Christian-themed books, and preaching on his nationally syndicated radio program. Intellectuals espousing evolutionary theory, he charged, sought to invalidate "every moral standard that the Bible gives us." Tennessee was one of five states, all in the South, that responded to his call to ban teaching of evolution in public schools.

"Odd Shadows" by Pedro Llanuza in Chicago Herald & Examiner (?) ca. June 26, 1925

Bryan took a lot of ribbing from cartoonists of all stripes.

"All He Can See In It" by Winsor McCay, ca. June 19, 1925

Every Winsor McCay cartoon is a tour de force; here he has drawn in a single cartoon enough monkeys that, given typewriters, they might very well have been able to produce the collected works of Shakespeare.

"I See By the Jungle Press" by Thomas E. Powers for International News Service, before June 19, 1925

The signature is missing from this cartoon, but my money is on it being the work of T.E. Powers. The editors of the newspaper in which I found the cartoon may have omitted a bottom panel of tangentially related material; Powers often provided multiple gags per cartoon.

I've tried looking for the context of "He's not with me," but the phrase is proving too commonplace. It may have been something William Jennings Bryan had said in arguing that he didn't think teachers should be jailed, fined, or fired for teaching evolution; it's not entirely clear what he thought the penalty should be. Or perhaps he was simply forswearing the company of our prehistoric ancestors.

"A Leadership Too Unattractive to Be Dangerous" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 28, 1925

In fairness to Mr. Bryan, I have to include the one June, 1925 cartoon I've come across critical of Clarence Darrow. Tennessean J.P. Alley here depicted a scowling, "agnostic" Darrow disappointed by "youth" not following him and his black banner of "despair" down into the dark abyss of whatever that was the dark abyss of.

Scopes publicly identified himself as agnostic, but I am not aware that Clarence Darrow had publicly done so before the trial.

"Somabodee Geeva Da Monk a Hot Cent" by Homer Stinson in Dayton Daily News, June 28, 1925

Homer Stinson's cartoon must refer to a cruel trick people apparently played on organ grinders' monkeys. While the organ grinder (stereotypically an Italian immigrant, as depicted in the cartoon's caption) played the music, his pet monkey would accept coins from the audience. How giving the monkey a red-hot penny was accomplished I do not know, and I hope for the sake of any organ grinder monkeys employed these days that the process has been lost to history. 

"Getting Reverse English" by Jesse Cargill for King Features Syndicate, ca. June 30, 1925

The grand jury heard arguments in June; the trial date was set for July 10. In the meantime, Americans were free to debate the merits of faith and science among themselves.

"Disbelievers in the Evolution Theory" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, June 20, 1925

Some cartoonists used the Scopes Trial to comment on other serious issues of the time. Leslie Rogers, cartooning for Chicago's Black newspaper, turned on its head the Biblical literalists' revulsion at the idea of being descended from apes: his monkeys are horrified by the prospect of having American lynch mobs among their relatives.

"No Wonder the Monkeys Are Worried" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. June 27, 1925

White cartoonist Dorman H. Smith overlooked lynch mobs to draw his monkeys worried by a myriad of other human crimes, from animal cruelty to child labor to domestic violence to reckless driving — even, strangely, the length of women's skirts and the volume of balloon pants.

"Has Evolution Succeeded" by Douglas Rodger in San Francisco Bulletin, June 19, 1925

Leaving fashion crimes aside, Douglas Rodger's monkeys were more amused than alarmed by their human descendants. The French tricoleur and cannon must be a reference to France's military coming to Spain's aid in fighting a rebellion in Morocco. (We'll return to that topic on a later date.)

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Sidebar: It has little to do with the Scopes Monkey Trial, but since I brought it up, the connection between lawyer Sue Kerr Hicks and Johnny Cash is no coincidence. 

Hicks was named for his mother, who died in childbirth. Years after the events of today's post, Hicks, by then a Tennessee state circuit court judge, explained how he came by his unusual name at a conference that happened to be attended by song writer Shel Silverstein.

Silverstein took considerable liberties with Sue K. Hicks's life story in writing the song made famous by Johnny Cash. Hicks's father didn't name him as a joke, leave his family, or cut off a chunk of his son's ear in a barroom fight.

Ya gotta admit, though: it was only right and salutary that a boy named Sue should eventually pursue a career in law.

Q Toon: Consider This Your Trigger Warning

The 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline of the U.S. Health & Human Services Department is set to stop providing tailored support options for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults on July 17.

The general 988 Lifeline offers free mental health support via call, text, or chat. It is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a subsidiary of the US Health and Human Services Agency (HHS). 

Currently, LGBTQ young people can select option 3 from a call menu in order to connect with counsellors. After the changes, the remaining 988 Lifeline services would "focus on serving all help seekers", including those who previously chose to access LGBTQ youth services, SAMHSA said.

But the hotline would "no longer silo LGB+ youth services," SAMHSA wrote in a statement, omitting the "T" and "Q" that refers to transgender and queer people in the LGBTQ acronym.

Given the Trump-DOGE regime's emphasis not on devotion to the mission of one's agency, on expertise, and on competence — but rather on fealty to Generalissimo Trump and a fierce commitment to banishing "wokeness" in all its forms — LGB+ youth cannot expect a sympathetic ear or helpful advice from whatever de-silofied government employees remain at the other end of the phone.

I have to suspect that T and Q youth are guaranteed not to.

If you don't believe me, believe Rachel Cauley, a spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget, who described the present LGBTQ+ lifeline to NBC News as "a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by 'counselors' without consent or knowledge of their parents."

I don't have any scientific studies to back this up, but I'll bet there is a significant subset of LGBTQ+ youth considering suicide for whom one or both parents are at least as LGBTQ-hostile as Ms. Cauley is.

Here are ways to reach privately funded LGBTQ youth suicide prevention hotlines:

• Trevor Project LGBTQ Crisis Hotline: 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678-678
• Trans Lifeline (run for and by trans people): 1-877-565-8860 Monday-Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm Central Time

Please note that reports of Canada making its hotline available to U.S. citizens are false.

This Week's Sneak Peek

While surfing the web for reporting on the Southern Baptists' convention in Dallas last week, I discovered that Dallas Voice has resumed posting my cartoons on the front page of their website. So welcome back, Dallas Voice! Glad to see you again.

The folks at Dallas Voice were colorizing my cartoons before I was. Some cartoonists object to that sort of thing, but I wasn't at all offended. It did prod me to start colorizing my cartoons regularly, especially after they gave an older woman in one of my cartoons dark magenta hair, which wasn't quite how I had pictured her.

At some point, however, they stopped printing my cartoons in the physical paper, continuing to post my cartoons on their website only. Curiously, they later continued posting my cartoons to a dedicated page of their website, but without any link to that page from any other page. 

Eventually, they dropped my cartoons altogether; I assumed it was because I keep criticizing Republicans without offering a lot of But On The Other Hand material. Or it might have been a budgeting decision, since they didn't replace my cartoons with another editorial cartoon feature. With the disappearance of personal ads in the age of Craigslist, Grindr, and Scruff, followed by COVID-19's kneecapping the alternative press, many of my clients drastically scaled back their syndicated features in the past decade.

Dallas Voice must have resumed posting my cartoons late last year; I haven't seen that they have printed my cartoons on paper, though. At least not yet.

Fighting Bob, TKO

Graphical History Tour remembers Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette on the centennial of his death, June 18, 1925.

"The Sword Is Sheathed" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 20, 1925

The Progressive Republican from Wisconsin had made his third party run for the presidency just the year before. Had he somehow managed to overcome the odds and get elected, his death would have been the second interrupted presidency in less than two years.

"Another Called" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, June 20, 1925

Ed LeCocq, taking "Ding" Darling's place on the front page of the Des Moines Register, drew a cartoon eulogizing Senator LaFollette with higher praise than I imagine Darling himself would. As an admirer of Teddy Roosevelt, Darling had issues in common with LaFollette, but was very much against the Wisconsin Senator bolting the Republican Party to run for President on the Progressive Party ticket, as well as his campaign promise of government ownership of railroads and electric utilities.

I haven't been able to check the New York Tribune, but I haven't found any newspaper printing Darling's cartoons the week of LaFollette's death, so I'm guessing that he was on vacation at the time.*

"The Fallen Chieftain" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Star, June 19, 1925

"The Chief Mourner," unsigned (O. Chopin?) in San Francisco Examiner, June 20, 1925

Tom Foley's and the unsigned cartoon look like typical boilerplate for a memorial cartoons of the era — simply insert motto, name and dates as needed. I'll credit the latter to Oscar Chopin based on style and penmanship, although he didn't have much to say about LaFollette during his lifetime, whereas Foley and the Minneapolis Star were strong supporters of the Progressive movement.

"The Oak Is Gone" by Jesse Cargill for King Features Syndicate (?) ca. June 24, 1925

Jesse Cargill's assessment of LaFollette's legacy rings true. In most of the country, conservative, Wall Street Republicanism dominated the latter half of the 1920's. That would change with the coming of the Great Depression.

The roots of progressivism would thrive in the Democratic Party of FDR, but continued sprouting in the Republican soil of the upper Midwest. The Wisconsin Progressive Party was the dominant political party in LaFollette's home state into the 1930's. 

"The Wisconsin Wild Waves" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, August 19, 1925

Elsewhere, Progressive Republicans lost big in the 1924 elections, but their banner was carried forward by the likes of Senators Hiram Johnson in California and George Norris of Nebraska.

"The Unpopular Victor" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, June 19, 1925

Providing the headline for today's post, Roy James's cartoon may strike one as a bit too macabre. He was, of course, trying to draw something relevant to LaFollette's nickname — it was actually "Fighting Bob," although "Battling Bob" admittedly has alliteration going for it.

"There Never'll Be Another Just Like Him" by Wm. A. Ceperley in Davenport Democrat, June 19, 1925

Wrapping up this week's encomia, I suppose one can't argue with "Cep" Ceperley's tribute, insofar as every person is unique in his, her, or their own way. LaFollette's sons and heirs, however, have carried his legacy on to this day.

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Next week: A Breezy Bequest!

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* Update/Correction: Jay Norwood Darling was sidelined by a major illness for several months in 1925, during which Ed LeCocq filled in for him at the Des Moines Register.

Q Toon: That Old-Time Religion

Southern Baptists held their annual national conference in Dallas earlier this month, passing resolutions thoroughly in keeping with the denomination’s commitment to being in the forefront of the retreat from charity and good will.

Authoritarian Republicans have been working hard to demonize transgender persons in popular discourse, but marriage equality is a settled issue for most Americans. That didn't deter the Southern Baptists from passing a four-page resolution "call[ing] for the overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family."

Further provisions in the resolution deny the existence of transgender persons, demand "complete and permanent" defunding of Planned Parenthood, and decry what its authors call "willful childlessness."

Southern Baptists, the largest protestant sect in the U.S., have a history of opposition to racial and gender equality, workers' collective rights, welfare, and science, while mounting biblical advocacy of segregation and slavery. 

About the only social reform movement that they have supported was Prohibition. The record is clear on how that worked out.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I hope that you've all had a great Fathers' Day, No Kings Protest, Army Semiquincentennial, Bloomsday, and Bourbon Day (where permitted by law).

And now on to Juneteenth and the Solstice!

An Oliphant Gallery

If you happen to be in Washington D.C. looking for something worthwhile to do, "A Savage Art" The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant" premieres today at the DC/DOX'25 film festival. Bill Banowsky's documentary examines Oliphant's career through interviews with the cartoonist himself, his family, and colleagues. We are told that the documentary also features several of his cartoons.

Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, ca., Feb. 12, 1966

I can't be there (and if the AAEC convention organizers get permission to screen it at our convention in Baltimore in September, I'm afraid it appears unlikely that I'll be able to be there, either), so instead, today's Graphical History Tour highlights some of Oliphant's amazing work. 

A collection of my favorite Oliphant cartoons would require a sequel post or seven, so I have limited my choices to cartoons that do not include caricatures of actual persons. I would like to focus on the artistry that inspired so many cartoonists of my generation to mimic his style.

by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, March 3, 1970

Compare his 1966 depiction of Vietnam, atop this post, with this one four years later. The sarcasm is the same, but the tone is entirely different.

Not only is the setting much darker, the clean-shaven kids in the first cartoon have been replaced by grizzled, war-weary adults, even thought the soldiers would be about the same age in either cartoon. (The best and brightest guys in the white shirts and skinny ties are gone entirely in the 1970 cartoon.)

by Pat Oliphant  in Denver Post, April 18, 1972

Here Oliphant demonstrates an adeptness in portraying the ravages of age on his cartoon character as a parallel with the ravages of war on her country. The forty years between France reclaiming Indochina from its (brief) Japanese occupation after World War II to North Vietnam's conquest of the South three years after Oliphant drew this cartoon wear heavily on her, successive liberators notwithstanding.

By Pat Oliphant in Washington Star, Nov. 6, 1980

Here’s a theme Oliphant revisited more than once, but this is his most impressive depiction of the American Electoral Machine as something massive, complex, and somewhat antiquated. Its engines, gears, fly wheels, pistons, and furnace occupy almost every square millimeter of the frame, save for the exhausted Uncle Sam dwarfed by it in the lower right corner. You can almost feel the heat and smell the coal, soot, and metal in the air.

By Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, March 22, 1982

Ronald Reagan, complaining about TV news reporting of the recession early in his presidency, griped, "Is it news that some fellow out in South Succotash who has just been laid off should be interviewed nationwide?" Pat Oliphant took that dismissive, elitist remark and created this excellent cartoon. 

Neatly divided by the railroad, we have dirty, downtrodden, and darkly satanic South Succotash on the wrong side of the tracks. Layoffs and welfare frauds (a longtime Republican byword) combine to outnumber the population. You wouldn't want to live there.

The White House sits perched high on the hills of North Succotash, home to a pleasant golf course, and lovely trees. Its 500 residents pull down millions yet somehow pay no taxes.

And it all fits in one 3-by-5 panel. No animated panorama. Not even color.

By Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, Feb. 24, 1983

Upwind of South Succotash, Oliphant’s Burfordville, named for one of Ronald Reagan’s Environmental Protection Agency administrators (incidentally also the mother of a current Supreme Court Justice), cannot possibly exist in the real world. But Oliphant has rendered it in such rich detail that you would swear that it must be real. 

By Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, June 6, 1983

A horse cannot roll around on the ground convulsed with laughter, but if it could, this is exactly what it would look like.

Credit the portion of Oliphant's career living out West perhaps. He is a master at drawing — and sculpting — horses, and you can tell how much more loving care he puts into drawing horses than, say, cats. For years, I struggled to depict horses that appeared to be capable of motion; I credit Pat Oliphant as a reference point for every horse I have drawn successfully.

Now, I would have liked to include some more recent cartoons in this discussion, but I had a problem finding examples of superior draftsmanship that didn't include caricatures. So compare this cartoon from 2001...

by Pat Oliphant for Universal Press Syndicate, Feb. 6, 2001

...with a similarly themed cartoon from 1980:

by Pat Oliphant in Washington Star, Oct. 30, 1980

Both cartoons convey the wind and chill, dampness and dreariness outside their respective pawn shops. The earlier one, however, is meticulously rendered, whereas the later one appears rushed and cursory. The elevated perspective of "Lee Iacocca Sent Us" is visually arresting in a way that the Presidential Seal cartoon isn't.

Of course, there's no point in drawing the same cartoon twice, right?

Oliphant's eyesight has betrayed him these days, and there could be some of that showing up by 2001. His having rejected the use of duoshade since 1980 also makes a difference; yet I would point out that the South Succotash, Burfordville, and Western character cartoons are all drawn without it.

With that, I leave you to draw your own conclusions. 

On the Parade Reviewing Stand

 Crappy birthday, too.

Q Toon: What's In a Name

After three weeks of cartoons with little or no text, it was inevitable that this week's cartoon would be laden with logorrhea.

The shock and outrage over last week's leak from the Defense Department that Secretary Pete Hegseth planned to change the name of the USNS Harvey Milk has certainly been overshadowed by the shock and outrage over Usurper Trump sending the National Guard, Marines, Gestapo, and Jem'Hadar to Los Angeles this week.

But my bailiwick is LGBTQ+ issues, so this is where I'm venting my shock and outrage today.

In spite of all the text in today's cartoon, I couldn't even squeeze in all the U.S. Navy's ships to be renamed pursuant to Trump policy erasing LGBTQ, women, and melanin-forward people from U.S. history. I had to leave out the USNS Dolores Huerta, USNS Harriet Tubman, and USNS Lucy Stone.

Hegseth will no doubt prescribe gender reassignment for each of them.

Meanwhile, the Trump regime's commitment to Straight White Male Supremacy has reversed the Biden administration name changes of U.S. Army bases that had been named for Confederate Army Generals. You know, guys that fought against the United States of America, Like General Braxton Bragg, known for his short temper, shooting his own soldiers, and for losing the Battle of Chattanooga.

We are told that the rechristened Fort Bragg, where Usurper Trump held another of his Reichsparteitage in front of carefully selected MAGA troops this week, is not named for Braxton Bragg, the General who wrested defeat from the jaws of victory at Chickamunga and Perryville, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. No, the Fort is named for Braxton Bragg, the current pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, lifetime ERA of 2.81, 1.1 WHIP.

And the Soviet-style military parade in the nation's capital this Saturday has nothing to do with it being Generalissimo Donald "Old Blood and Bone Spurs" Trump's birthday that day, either.

So, to the servicemen (just men, thankyou) who will soon be assigned to duty aboard the USNS Col. William Simmons, USNS Hiram Evans, USNS S. Glenn Young, USNS David Herold, USNS George Atzerodt, and USNS John Wilkes Booth, just tell your loved ones not to Google those names. Your ships are probably named someone other than the first names that show up.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I decided not to draw a cartoon about Jonathan Joss's murder this week — well, at least not just yet, anyway.

The accused murderer's friends are putting their version of events out now. Not surprisingly, when Joss and his husband discovered the skull and harness of their dog put on display at their burned-down home and "began yelling and crying in response to the pain" of it, whatever they were yelling was not likely to have been kindly to the people responsible for it.

It will be up to a jury to decide how credible — and relevant — the defendant's counterclaims are that Joss exhibited disruptive behavior prior to his home burning down. 

If the neighbors had filed complaints against Mr. Joss with the San Antonio Police Department, it is incumbent upon the SAPD to bring them forward to explain why they don't believe Joss's murder was a hate crime.

June Toons, Goons, and Honeymoons

Today's Graphical History Tour whisks us through four decades worth of my editorial cartoons in Junes.

Bergetoons.com Exclusive! June, 1985

Since I was drawing exclusively for the UW-Parkside Ranger in 1985, and they didn't publish during the summer, it appears that this is the the one and only cartoon I committed to bristol board in the first month of their summer vacation.

I had taken a second-shift job to pay the bills, but it didn't pay enough for me to afford a vacation myself. For that matter, it wasn't great at paying the bills, either.

At any rate, for the benefit of any editor and publisher types who have difficulty understanding editorial cartoons, I was commenting on the impotence of the U.S. nuclear arsenal when faced with a terrorist action — in this case, the hijacking of TWA flight 847.

On June 14, Shi'ite terrorists hijacked the Cairo-to-San Diego flight during its Athens-to-Rome leg, forcing it to land in Beirut. They held passengers and crew hostage for 17 days, while forcing the plane to fly back and forth from there to Algiers. The hijackers separated hostages with Jewish-sounding names and sent them to a Shia-controlled prison in Beirut. They also executed U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, throwing his body onto the tarmac and shooting his corpse some more.

The ordeal was immensely frustrating for the Ronald Reagan administration, which had come to office largely thanks to portraying Jimmy Carter's response to the Iran hostage crisis as ineffective. The crisis ended only after Israel agreed to release some Lebanese prisoners.

One of the hijackers, Mohammed ali Hammadi, was arrested in West Germany two years later, tried, and sentenced to life in prison, but released on parole in 2005. He was fatally shot outside his home in the Beqaa Valley by unknown gunmen this past January. The remaining hijackers have been at large for the past four decades.

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Jumping ahead to June of 1995, I feel like the local newscaster tasked with segueing from a tragic news story of death and destruction to a feel-good feature item about cute puppies delighting residents of an assisted living home. 

But it is Pride Month, after all.

"Consider the Source" in Lavender Lifestyles, Minneapolis, June 27, 1995

My very dear friend from college days, Jeff, asked me to draw this illustration in June of 1995. His friend Julie Daffyd wrote a regular gossip/dish/advice/humor column, "Consider the Source," in one of the Twin Cities' LGBTQ+ publications; if I recall correctly, she wanted a caricature of herself on the publication's Pride float surrounded by a bevy of pulchritudinous hunks.

Commissioning for a caricature of yourself is a risky move, especially for publication. She must not have been terribly upset at how I drew her, however, as she had Jeff ask me for one more later on. But only once more.

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Setting the WABAC machine for June of  2005:

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, June 17, 2005

Here's one I have always been pleased with, mostly on account of how the light and shade worked out.

The Northridge Mall was a failed shopping center on Milwaukee's far north side; and what is astonishing here is that, in spite of becoming a target for graffiti, drug use, and arson, it has taken twenty more years after I drew this cartoon to get Northridge Mall torn down. It closed for good in 2003; a home goods store and a grocery store opened on the property for a while, but proposals to revitalize the mall itself went nowhere.

The mall was bought in 2014 by an investment company in China, U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group, which then spent years fighting the City of Milwaukee's efforts to condemn the building (and has refused to pay for Milwaukee Fire Department responses to arson fires there). In 2023, Governor Tony Evers authorized a $15 million grant to the city for Northridge's demolition, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

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Last but not least, our Tour makes one of  our most popular stops, June of 2015.

for Q Syndicate and on Fusion.net, June/July, 2015

On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of marriage equality in the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges. Each of the four dissenting justices, pictured in my cartoon, published his own dissenting opinion, a rather unusual move. While it is not uncommon for a justice to issue a concurring or a separate dissenting opinion, seldom have we ever seen four dissenting opinions on the same case.

Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito basically agreed in their contention that the Court majority was overstepping jurisprudence because the U.S. Constitution does not specifically mention a right to marry one's sweetheart. Scalia, citing the precedent of Jiggery v. Pokery, and Alito protested that defining marriage is the purview of state legislatures, not the federal government. Thomas wrote that marriage equality for same-sex couples violated homophobes' First Amendment right of religious freedom.

This serves as a reminder that there is a right-wing Republican supermajority on the Court now, and this is the month to expect a flurry of rulings on everything from health care for transgender youth, to religious liberties, to voting rights, to gun control, to environmental protection. The three Justices elevated by the Blatantly Corrupt Trump Maladministration since I drew this cartoon have moved the Court so far to the right that Amy Comey Barrett passes for the Court's "swing vote."

Under cover of the daily Trumpster fire these days, who knows what draconian, puritan mischief the current Supreme Court will be able to get away with?

Q Toon: Texas Senate Bill 12

Florida notwithstanding...

There's a lot to be upset about this LGBTQ+ Pride Month, and a Texas-sized amount of shame is coming from the Lone Star State:

Senate Bill 12, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, won final legislative passage Saturday after lawmakers in both chambers adopted the conference committee reports that specifically clarified that schools will be banned from authorizing or sponsoring student clubs based on sexual orientation or gender identity. ...

Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, emphasized that these clubs exist because of a long history of oppression against the LGBTQ+ community. He warned against demonizing students and teachers for discussing gender and sexuality.

“The real monsters are not kids trying to figure out who they are,” Wu said during the House discussion. “The monsters are not the teachers who love them and encourage them and support them. They are not the books that provide them with some amount of comfort and information. The real monsters are here.”

Lawmakers shared personal stories about LGBTQ+ youth. Rep. Rafael Anchía said his daughter was a vice president of a pride club at her school. He stressed that these clubs “are no more about sex than 4-H or ROTC or the basketball team.” ...

Anchía also told the Texas Tribune he “didn’t sign up for five anti-LGBT bills this session.”

Those bills include one denying transgender Texans the right to have accurate, up-to-date identification in state documents. HB 229 has passed both houses of the Texas legislature and is certain to be signed into law by transphobic Governor Greg Abbott.

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If I had read more than the initially cursory reporting Sunday of the fatal shooting death of actor Jonathan Joss in San Antonio, that might very well have been the topic of my cartoon this week instead of SB 12. It hasn't received quite the media attention the attacks in Boulder and Washington D.C. have, but it should.

Joss, 59, was the voice of King of the Hill character John Redcorn, and portrayed Wamapoke Chief Ken Hotate on Parks and Recreation. The Native American was openly gay, and had married his husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzalez, on Valentines Day this year.

The two have been subjected to years of homophobic and transphobic threats (Tristan is a transman),  duly reported to San Antonio law enforcement, but to no avail. Those included threats to burn down their house, a threat which someone appears to have carried out on January 23, resulting in the deaths of their three dogs.

On Sunday, June 1, the Joss-Kerns returned to their destroyed home to pick up any mail, and found the skull and harness of one of the dogs prominently displayed there. From de Gonzalez's statement on Redcorn's Facebook page:

"This caused both of us severe emotional distress. We began yelling and crying in response to the pain of what we saw.

"While we were doing this a man approached us. He started yelling violent homophobic slurs at us. He then raised a gun from his lap and fired.

"Jonathan and I had no weapons. We were not threatening anyone. We were grieving. We were standing side by side. When the man fired Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life."

A neighbor, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez, 56, has been arrested and charged with Joss's murder. Astonishingly, however, the San Antonio Police Department has since announced that in spite of the history of harassment complaints, the likely arson, the cruel display of the dog's remains, and the unprovoked attack, they don't believe that this obvious hate crime is a hate crime.

“Our investigation has found no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the Mr. Joss’s murder was related to his sexual orientation. We take such allegations very seriously and have thoroughly reviewed all available information. Should any new evidence come to light, we will charge the suspect accordingly.”

Given that the alleged murderer is named Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez and not Buford T. Redneck IV, one assumes that the Texas justice system will result in a conviction and prison sentence — if not deportation to a concentration camp in El Salvador or Libya — even without a hate crime penalty attached.

Unless, of course, the case ends in a mistrial because Joss's widower identifies himself under oath as Tristan Kern de Gonzalez rather than his deadname.

This Week's Sneak Peek

The view from my drawing board last night.