Q Toon: Exceptionalism

The House is expected to vote this week on the Equality Act sponsored by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to extend its protections to LGBTQ citizens. President Biden has vowed that signing it into law is one of the first priorities of his administration.

But first, it has to get through the U.S. Senate.

Requblicans object to the bill, claiming that it discriminates against religious people's belief in discriminating against LGBTQ people. They have also raised fears that men in sports will rush to transition to female in order to put women in sports at a competitive disadvantage, or at least to get into the ladies' locker room. And of course, everybody's bathrooms.

Democrats and Requblicans are evenly split in the Senate, and Vice President Kamala Harris could vote in the case of a tie. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) was a co-sponsor of the Equality Act in 2019, in case you'd still like to get your unrealistic hopes up for her again. But there doesn't appear to be much likelihood of any other Requblicans supporting the bill; Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rob Portman (R-OH) aren't making any promises, and Mitt Romney (R-UT) declared his opposition just last week.

Since, under current rules, any bill needs to have the support of 60 senators in order to get anywhere, Requblicans can filibuster the Equality Act without lifting a finger. Almost literally. We tend to think of a filibuster as involving some senator speaking for hours on end until he/she collapses from exhaustion. Nowadays, all it takes is 40 votes against a motion to close debate. Actual debate need not even follow.

There used to be a saying that the Senate was the saucer in which the overheated soup from the House was allowed to cool. Now the Senate is the arctic vortex that freezes the whole bowl of soup, a plate of lasagna, a bunch of bananas and the rest of the whole damned kitchen into an impenetrable block of ice.

Saturday through the Looking Glass with Alice

Detail from cartoon in Manitou Messenger, St. Olaf College, Northfield MN, Oct. 23, 1980

This week's syndicated cartoon was a parody of an illustration by Sir John Tenniel of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. That is a source I've drawn from quite a few times over the years: Carroll's psychedelic absurdities fit all manner of political shenanigans, and Tenniel's artwork set the standard for Aliciana. (Besides, one doesn't have to contend with Disney Inc.'s lawyers.)

 

"You Are Old, Ronald Reagan" is a parody of Carroll's parody of a poem; the original extolled the benefits of virtuous living for longevity. 

There was considerable talk about Ronald Reagan's age when he ran for president in 1980. Reagan was 69 years old on Inauguration Day 1981, taking the title of Oldest President At Inauguration from the previous record holder, William Henry Harrison (aged 68 and still the record holder for Briefest Presidency). 

Pikers both! Joe Biden is 78, and thus older today than Reagan was on the day he left office. Trump is 74. And of the other candidates we could have elected, four are older than Reagan was when I drew the above cartoon: Bernie Sanders is 79, Elizabeth Warren is 71, and Michael Bloomberg will celebrate his 79th birthday in February.

Unpublished, February, 1987

Here are two excerpts from a Lewis Carroll themed cartoon I started, but never finished, to comment on the Reagan administration in 1987. The Tower Report depicted the president as disengaged from the Iran-Contra scandal; meanwhile, it was supposedly First Lady Nancy Reagan who had insisted upon the firing of Don Regan as her husband's Chief of Staff.

Unpublished, February, 1987

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice encounters Humpty Dumpty, who sermonizes on his idiosyncratic definition of the word "glory." 

in NorthCountry Journal, Poynette WI, April, 1988

It is not one of the better known episodes in Carroll's books, and certainly not as popular as the nursery rhyme about Mr. Dumpty's fall. I have nevertheless used it twice (here and in a cartoon about Mitt Romney) because it comes in especially handy when Republicans give their policies an intentionally misleading name: such as crafting legislation to make polluting easier and calling it "The Clear Skies Act of 2003," for example.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, October, 1997

Elsewhere in Through the Looking Glass, Alice's encounter with Tweedledum and Tweedledee is well-known, if only because editorial cartoonists find it the perfect metaphor for any two entities that are supposed to be separate and distinct, but aren't. Indeed, the danger in using such an obvious metaphor increases the possibility that some other cartoonist might use the same image to express the same point about the same news item.

Q Syndicate, March, 2011

One way to avoid that possibility is to take the reference and stretch it out beyond its original limits.

Finally, I made use of Carroll's "Jabberwocky" a couple of times this year, in the background of a pair of cartoons about the presidential and vice presidential debates.

Concern Noted

Oh, poor Susan Collins, Republican Senator from Maine. She always has such deep concerns for so much of the rank partisanship in the Senate. Whether the issue is health care, Brett Kavanaugh, or having a fair and thorough impeachment trial, she's always concerned.

Then she votes in lockstep with the rest of McConnell's minions anyway.

Ditto Mitt Romney, Republican Senator from MassachUtah.

One wonders why any senators need to be present at the impeachment trial at all. Just let Mitch McConnell cast 53 votes in the record any time a vote is needed.

Frankly...

 “My favorite meat is hot dog, by the way. That is my favorite meat” —Mitt Romney

GOP Conventions Past

Since I've already posted about 1916 this week, for today's installment of Swerveback Saturday, I rummage through the dusty crate of my own cartoons.

The topic this week is cartoons about Republican National Conventions. I didn't draw national issue toons for a newspaper that published during the summer until 1988, so that's where we'll start. My George H.W. Bush caricature didn't quite come together until this second one:

My caricature of Vice President Dan Quayle never really came together at all, so I don't miss him as a national figure.

Skipping an entire generation, all I can find from 1992 to 2000 is this never-published one. It might have worked better in a vertical (portrait) orientation, so that I'd have had room to draw George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's with their arms raised.

As you've seen, these convention cartoons are usually about the candidates; but once in a while, the convention itself comes up for discussion. There was never any contest for the Republican nomination when Dubya ran for reelection in 2004...

...so instead I coupled the GOP keeping its LGBT supporters at arms length with its introduction of a "free protest zone" that year.

The party platform always gets a lot of attention at convention time, even if it becomes wide open to interpretation afterward.

Because...

The Long Road to Overnight Victory: Part III

Part 3: The Republicans Don't

In today's Walkback Wednesday feature, we look at the Republican party's role in doing everything possible to thwart marriage equality, marriage equivalence, marriage parity, marriage approximation, and on and on and on.

Once the federal "Defense of Marriage Act" was passed in 1996, battles over marriage equality were mainly fought on the state and local level. Nationally, it was a big issue for the religious right, but as for congressmen and senators, it was just one more component of an antigay agenda along with keeping gays out of the military and the Boy Scouts, and making sure we couldn't adopt children. Oh, and there was impeaching President Clinton to keep Republicans busy.

There are a few antigay politicians in the above cartoon from January, 1998: Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), Pat Buchanan, Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA), and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) are closest to the foreground. Barr was the author of the DOMA, although he would repudiate it as presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party ten years after this cartoon was drawn.

With the election (by five lawyers) of a president who was a friend of the religious right, Republicans continued their pushback against marriage equality. When he came up for reelection, George W. Bush, with his Brain Karl Rove (and gay quisling Ken Mehlman) needed an issue to fire up his base, and Republicans were ready, willing and eager to run with it:

A more liberal Republican, namely California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who didn't have to worry as much about appealing to Christian conservatives as Republicans who might aspire to the highest office in the land do, dared to warm to the idea of domestic partnerships. But that was about as far as it went.

Schwarzenegger, however, was pretty much an anomaly in the Republican party. He was never going to run for office outside of California, and Republicans were relieved just to have one of their own in charge of a solidly blue state, so he didn't have to toe the GOP's hard-core antigay line. The party's presidential hopefuls last time around, on the other hand, were not at all shy in that regard.

It didn't take much to remind LGBT voters that while it didn't make any difference which Republican ended up getting nominated for president, it makes a world of difference who sits in the Oval Office when the election is over.

Q Toon: GOPFLAG

Last weekend, Ohio Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) publicly reversed his position on the "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA), a bill he co-sponsored when he was a House member in the 1990's. His reasons, as he explained in an op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch, were close and personal:

“As a congressman, and more recently as a senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way.

"Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is. Jane and I were proud of him for his honesty and courage. We were surprised to learn he is gay but knew he was still the same person he’d always been. The only difference was that now we had a more complete picture of the son we love.”

Over the course of two years, the Senator figured out how to resolve his love and hopes for his son with his Christian faith. After all, these things take on a different light when we're talking about one's own children.

Portman also revealed that when the Mitt Romney campaign had been considering him as a possible running mate last year, he had told them about Will. We are told that Will's sexual orientation had nothing with Romney's decision not to pass over Portman Pater, a senator from a crucial swing state with 18 electoral votes, in favor of Paul Ryan, a congressman from a swing state with only 10.

But you have to know that there was someone in the Romney campaign afraid that somewhere between the convention and November, news that Portman's son was gay would break and eclipse whatever message the Republicans were hoping to talk about that week. Worse still, it could be the big media/SNL obsession arising from the Vice Presidential debate.

No, just kidding. The big obsession was going to be Biden's smirking, laughing and finger-wagging, no matter what.

Q Toon: Republican Group Endorses Mitt Romney!

The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed Mitt Romney for President this month after a brief meeting with the candidate. I guess his staunch opposition to marriage equality as a candidate and as Governor of Massachusetts never came up.

Highlights of their endorsement announcement:

"If LGBT issues are a voter's highest or only priority, then Governor Romney may not be that voter's choice. However, Log Cabin Republicans is an organization representing multifaceted individuals with diverse priorities. Having closely reviewed the candidate’s history and observed the campaign, we believe Governor Romney will make cutting spending and job creation his priorities, and, as his record as Governor of Massachusetts suggests, will not waste his precious time in office with legislative attacks on LGBT Americans. ...

"And for those people who point fearfully to potential vacancies on the United States Supreme Court, we offer a reminder: five of the eight federal court rulings against DOMA were written by Republican-appointed judges. Mitt Romney is not Rick Santorum, and Paul Ryan is not Michele Bachmann."

They then go on to argue that Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter, and Joe Biden is Anthony Weiner.

Syria Is Iran's Route to the Sea

"Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea." -- Mitt Romney, in his third debate with President Obama, October 23, 2012

According to the Manchester Guardian, that was the sixth time that Mitt Romney has characterized Syria, which is separated from Iran by northern Iraq, as Iran's route to the sea.

"Maybe one of the few bright spots in the Middle East developments in the last year has been the rising of the people in Syria against Assad. Obviously, as you know, Syria is Iran's only Arab ally in the region. Syria is the route that allows Iran to supply Hezbollah with weapons in Lebanon. Syria is Iran's route to the sea." -- Romney, at the AIPAC conference, March 6, 2012

"Syria is their [Iran's] key ally. It's their only ally in the Arab world. It is also their route to the sea." -- Romney, in a Republican candidates' debate on February 22, 2012

See also an interview on MSNBC on December 21, 2011; an interview with the Washington Post on February 10, 2012; and an interview on Brian Kilmeade's radio program on March 14, 2012.

And here you thought Romney couldn't be consistent.

Q Toon: Paul Ryan Shirtless

It was somewhat annoying that my cartoon schedule last week caused me to miss the biggest story leading up to the Republican Party convention: Missouri Rep. Todd Akin's insight into the workings of the female reproductive system and its miraculous ability to shut completely down during "legitimate rape." Not exactly an LGBT issue per se, but it was dominating the national conversation in a way that Geraldo Rivera's offhand comment about a lesbian cabal taking over the Department of Homeland Security wasn't.

With the party convention underway and a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast this week, media attention has wandered on, so the GOP War on Women is reduced to a pair of planks among several in the platform in this week's cartoon. Mr. Akin may not be welcome at the convention, but his opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, threat to the life of the mother, or even ectopic pregnancy is right there in the platform.

If Mr. Romney had any core convictions of his own, we might be excused for ignoring his party platform. But since the current incarnation of Candidate Romney is turned 180 degrees away from Senatorial Candidate Romney -- to say nothing of Candidate Romney's promise to repeal the national health care reforms that were modeled after the Massachusetts plan Governor Romney was overtly proud to sign into law -- the platform is only clue we have as to what to expect from President Romney.

Well, that was Massachusetts, Mr. Romney's apologists tell us. He had to deal with a liberal electorate and a Democratic legislature. He couldn't very well hold out for the style of government he really, truly believes in.

If the American people who aren't turned away from the polls on November 6 elect Mr. Romney President, it is virtually certain that they will elect a Republican House and Senate as well. I have no confidence whatsoever that Mr. Romney has the disposition to, or capability of, standing up to the radical right-wing zealots who are responsible for the content of the Republican Party platform.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Oh, looky! There's some beefcake on the way!

Meanwhile, I see that Bill Sanders's pen has gotten busy this month. (I've linked to his site generally, rather than to a single post; if you're reading this several months after I wrote it, you will have to scroll down a ways to see the Romney-Ryan cartoons).

So What Have I Drawn About Paul Ryan, Then?

Now that Mitt Romney has settled on Wisconsin First District Congressman Paul Ryan for his running mate, you'd think that a political cartoonist from Wisconsin's First CD would have drawn oodles of cartoons about him.

But you'd be wrong.

My first cartoon about him was drawn after he was first elected to the seat in 1998, beating out Kenosha's Lydia Spottswood in her second try for Congress. Ryan was from Janesville, in the western part of the district, but had spent his career in Washington D.C. ever since graduating college in 1992. He was, briefly, aide to Senator Bob Kasten -- that job being cut short when Kasten lost his reelection bid that November. Ryan moved on to work for Republican senators from other states, making a name for himself in conservative circles as a promising up-and-comer.

This cartoon referenced a news story out of Burlington, Wisconsin, in Racine County in Ryan's district. The Racine Journal Times editors thought this cartoon was unfair to the brand spanking new Congressman, but I've always felt him to be more the Congressman from the Ayn Rand Institute than the Congressman from Wisconsin's 1st CD.

I drew cartoons for the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee until 2006, and the only time I can recall ever being called upon to illustrate one of their editorials having to do with Congressman Ryan had to do with a General Accounting Office report that pointed out that health care costs in southeastern Wisconsin were higher than the national average. The editorial applauded the Congressman and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett for their reaction to the report.

The main thing I remember about this 2004 cartoon was that it was the first one I drew of Mayor Barrett after he shaved off his mustache. The absence of what had been up to then Barrett's most identifiable facial feature meant having to reevaluate his entire face. As far as Ryan was concerned, however, I had nothing to say about him, really.

And finally, I drew this one for the Racine Post after Ryan unveiled his libertarian alternative health insurance proposal in 2009 -- if you can afford health insurance, you get a tax break:

WisToon: Tommy Thompson

First, a little background on this cartoon. Back in 2006, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson had this to say about the "individual mandate," the feature of Romneycare that required all Massachusetts residents to buy health insurance whether they wanted to or not:

“This is a little bit opposed to what Republicans really think, but the truth of the matter is that just like automobile insurance; you gotta have coverage.”

...And in October 2009, Thompson joined former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt in calling the Senate Finance Committee version of the [Obamacare] bill “an important first step” that “moves us down the path of providing affordable high-quality health care for all and expanding coverage for millions.”

Now Thompson is running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. He has a TV commercial out in which he stands next to a STOP sign, a cornfield in the background, and pledges to stop Obamacare and repeal that pesky individual mandate so that he can replace it with ... well, something. You know, deregulation and stuff, like the Republicans did with the banks.

~

Lastly, a few words about the nuts and bolts of the cartoon. I drew this cartoon on a sheet of Mead "Académie" drawing paper. I've had this pad for ages, because in spite of being advertised as "a textured, heavyweight (80#) drawing paper crafted to provide excellent results for pencil, ink, pastel, and color markers," it bleeds like a stuck pig. By "ink," they must mean ball-point pen ink, because india ink bleeds out in all directions (including onto the next page). It also claims to be "durable enough to accept watercolors," which I find hard to believe.

I had to edit the computer scan of this cartoon to put white in the whites of Thompson's eyes where bleeding ink had filled them in. But doing the same around all the lettering would be like redrawing the cartoon from scratch.

Which I might have done if I weren't so sure that Tommy is going to be upset in next month's primary.

QToon: Romney's Gay Ex-Spokesman

You might have missed the resignation of Mitt Romney foreign policy spokesman Ric Grenell last week. Grenell, who had served at the U.N. under John Bolton as the Bush administration's Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy, was named as the Romney campaign's foreign policy spokesman at the end of April. His appointment was greeted with howls of protest from the Religiositous Right because he is openly gay; his partner of nine years is Matthew Lashey, a media and entertainment company executive.

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer attacked Romney for associating with a "sex-obsessed homosexual." Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins chimed in as well, and Matthew Franck mused in the National Review that Grenell's commitment to same-sex marriage would trump his loyalty to the Republican party: “Suppose Barack Obama comes out — as Grenell wishes he would — in favor of same-sex marriage in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. How fast and how publicly will Richard Grenell decamp from Romney to Obama?”

With the Romney campaign cowering in the corner, and telling Grenell to keep quiet, Grenell withdrew on May 1.

Mention has been made in the press of dozens of misogynistic tweets Grenell had made, and quickly scrubbed after the Romney campaign had named him spokesman, but it is generally agreed that they played no role in his resignation. I can only assume they would only have forced his resignation if he were a Democrat.

Q Toon: Mitt's Ten Grand

A lot has been uncovered recently about the race-baiting and divisive tactics of the anti-marriage equality National Organization for Marriage (here personified by Maggie Gallagher). In among the other discoveries has been a $10,000 donation from Mitt Romney three weeks before the California vote on Proposition 8.

Mitt attempted to keep the donation under wraps by channeling it through his Political Action Committee, "Free and Strong America" and, apparently, failing to report it to state authorities. Well, not entirely secret -- the once and future presidential candidate certainly wanted the people devoted to breaking up same-sex households to know where the money came from.

With Romney, it has always been about perception:

"There’s something to be said for having a Republican who supports civil rights in this broader context, including sexual orientation. When Ted Kennedy speaks on gay rights, he’s seen as an extremist. When Mitt Romney speaks on gay rights, he’s seen as a centrist and a moderate." --Mitt Romney, in a 1994 Bay Windows interview

 I'm so relieved to know that he was for us before he was against us.

Bill Clinton: You Know Who Started Individual Mandates? The Founding Fathers

Luke Russert interviewed former President William Jefferson Clinton on the Daily Rundown this morning, and I was struck by this exchange about whether insurance mandates in the 2010 Health Care Reform bill are constitutional. Most defenders of the bill have been desperately pointing out that ten to twenty years ago, Republicans -- such as the likely 2012 nominee -- favored the individual mandate, but Clinton takes it back further:

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"I don't think it was unconstitutional in any way, shape, or form. Even in the 1790's, there were mandates. George Washington mandated that shipping companies insure their employees; he signed a bill mandating that able-bodied citizens have firearms in their homes because they thought the British were coming again. John Adams signed a bill to mandate that individual seamen have hospitalization insurance. You know, to me, it's hard to take the constitutional argument seriously."

And while no government is forcing anybody to purchase broccoli these days, I seem to recall that certain municipalities have seen fit to require people to buy guns.

This Week's Sneak Peek

This week's peek is somewhat sneakier than usual.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin's spring election is tomorrow (the first of three -- the second of four if you count our unseasonably warm February as part of spring this year). Even if you don't intend to vote in the Republican primary, there are important local elections whose campaigns haven't been ringing your phone off the hook all week. Not that they don't call, but certain national candidates make it difficult for anyone else to get through.

Here where I live, two of the candidates competing to be elected village trustee are Gary Johnson and Barry Johnson. I'm so glad I haven't had to listen to attack ads from their superPACs.

My Phone Call With Romney

I sat through 20 minutes or so of a live telephone "town hall" call with Mitt Romney on the other end last night. Wisconsin's primary is coming up on Tuesday, and Romney and his SuperPAC are spending heavily in this state. (I haven't seen any ads by the Santorum campaign, although his "Red White and Blue" superPAC has one ad up on TV.)

While I was on the phone call, there was one questioner who thought high gas prices were caused by oil company profiteering. Mitt told her he disagreed and blamed Obama for not drilling, mining and fissioning enough. Mitt saw great potential in natural gas, but avoided any reference to fracking.

The other questioners lobbed easy pitches like what his first executive order would be, whether he'd consider Paul Ryan as his running mate, whether he agreed that Governor Scott Walker is a national hero, and what he thought of President Obama's "I'll have more flexibility after the election" comment to Russian President Medvedev. For the record, Romney listed five first orders, from stopping "Obamacare" to opening up government contracts to non-union shops. Mitt praised Ryan's budget plan while promising that his own budget plan would balance the budget sooner (and said naming a running mate hadn't occurred to him yet). You'll also be astounded to hear that Mitt applauded Darth Snotwalker and disapproved of that flexibility remark.

If I had answered the call on the phone in the computer room, I could have put it on speaker. I could have live-blogged it and at least not have felt it a complete waste of time. But 20 minutes is about as long as I can stand to hold a phone to my ear and listen to someone else's conversation.

Between questions, a staffer urged us to press "1" if we agreed with Romney and would vote for him. I never heard anything about what to press if I wanted to ask a question. At least when I sit through these "town hall" calls from Paul Ryan, listening to all the questions from birthers who want to press the congressman about what he's going to do about exposing the president as a socialist or to compensate the Notch Babies, they regularly tell you how to ask a question. For Romney's call, I have to assume that even the woman who didn't like oil company profiteering first had to tell the Romney campaign that she liked and would vote for him.

Oh, and the staffer pronounced Mequon "McWahn." (It's "MECK-wahn.")

John Greenleaf Whittier Cartoon

Do they teach John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) in the schools any more? Has he ever made it into the Oprah Book Club?

Political cartoons used to be rife with references to poetry and literature, but those references can sail right by your average 21st Century reader. I might reach more people with a reference to The Hunger Games, if it weren't for the fact that I am quickly becoming an old fuddy-duddy. I had never even heard of the book or the movie until a few days ago.

Heck, I was taken aback when I saw a TV ad for the 3-D re-release of Titanic which started out with the announcer touting the film "from the director of Avatar!"

At any rate, the sad words at the end of Whittier's original couplet, for the benefit of those who aren't familiar with it, are actually "It might have been."

Q Toon: Stocks Make a Comeback

This week's cartoon would have had more oomph if Rick Santorum hadn't managed to fritter away his lead in the Michigan polls with a lousy debate performance and those truly goofy remarks about President Kennedy and the snobbishness of a college education. And then there was his open appeal for Democratic crossover votes; with all the talk in the media about how Romney needed a convincing win in Michigan or it would show how weak his candidacy is, I wonder why I never heard anything about how anything less than an overwhelming Santorum win there would mean that he had only won due to crossover mischief.

You do have to wonder why Santorum thought that criticizing JFK was a good idea. That kind of talk just might sell in the Bible Belt -- maybe -- but a lot of Catholic voters up north still revere the assassinated president. Even if they're rock-ribbed pro-life Republicans today. And saying that college education is for snobs? Even voters who haven't been to college themselves are likely to aspire to sending their children there.

Well, anyway, here's a cartoon about returning America to the 1650's, when everybody lived according to Christian morals whether they liked it or not, and folks didn't send their kids to snobby colleges, and JFK couldn't have been elected president. But I think the guy in the stocks on the right might have a difference of opinion about the 1950's not having been so bad.