Of Graham Bondage

Since last week's Graphical History Tour memorialized a sitting U.S. Senator who claims not to be dead, this week's episode rustles up my cartoons about one of his Republican colleagues whose passing is less, ah, speculative.

April, 2010

Lindsey Graham himself barely appeared in what I believe was my first cartoon about him, sixteen years ago. An anti-immigrant Tea Partisan then from South Carolina, William Gheen, alleged that Senator Lindsey Graham was being blackmailed over his widely rumored homosexual orientation to support Democrats' version of Immigration Reform.

"Sen. Graham, you need to come forward and tell people about your alternative lifestyle and your homosexuality. Come out of that closet, Lindsey. Come out of that Log Cabin closet," Gheen told a Tea Party Klatch. "Look, I'm a tolerant person. I don't care about your private life, Lindsey. But as our U.S. Senator, I need to figure out why you're trying to sell out your own countrymen, and I need to make sure your being gay isn't it."

Whether in response to Gheen or not, Graham announced that he opposed the immigration bills proposed by the Democratic majority in Congress. As for Gheen, he has since migrated across the border to North Carolina, where he is President of an anti-immigration political action committee.

December, 2012

I drew this cartoon in response to Graham advocating against achieving marriage equality by congressional legislation or litigation in the courts.

Graham knew full well how unlikely getting a pro-marriage equality amendment to the U.S. Constitution approved by Congress and ratified by 34 state legislatures would be. For years, Republicans pushed an amendment to do exactly the opposite, not to mention other amendments for all sorts of their pet peeves, without getting anywhere. 

October, 2014

Did you know that Lindsey Graham ran for the Republicans' 2016 presidential nomination? Even people who were paying close attention at the time may not remember it.

Graham was running for a third term in the Senate in 2014, and told Politico that in the (inevitable) event that he won reelection, he was considering looking into a 2016 presidential run. He made his official campaign announcement on June 1, 2015, but failed to qualify for a Republican presidential debate cattle call on CNN two months later.

The highlight of his presidential campaign was calling Donald Trump "a jackass" in successive interviews on CNN and CBS. Trump responded by telling Fox & Fiends viewers Graham's personal cell phone number.

By Christmas, Graham had suspended his campaign; he then endorsed Florida Governor Jeb Bush in January. Republican voters didn't listen.

October, 2018

Neither did the Electoral College.

As Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham played a prominent role in the confirmation of Donald Trump's Supreme Court appointees. Allegations that the second of them, Brett Kavanaugh, was a beer-swilling bro in college suggested the "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" character Brick to me; casting Graham as Maggie followed as a matter of course.

That's Senators Maizie Hirono and Jeff Flake as Mae and Gooper (well, I needed somebody in those roles) and Trump as Big Daddy Pollitt.

March, 2021

Insinuating Lindsey Graham's Kinsey rating couldn't be the point of every cartoon I put him in. Sometimes, he was just a recognizable Senator to populate a cartoon about the Senate Republican Caucus. But as the supposedly closeted gay one, he afforded me the opportunity to draw a cartoon about a non-LGBTQ+ topic for the LGBTQ+ publications that run my cartoons. 

(Openly bi Senator Kyrsten Sinema also figured in this one. A two-fer!)

February, 2021

In the post for this week's cartoon, I included Lindsey Graham's "Count me out" comment on the evening after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, disassociating himself from Donald Trump. I also included Trump's more recent story of Graham then calling him up to apologize.

You certainly can't take Trump's word for anything, but Graham counting himself out on January 6 did not extend to his voting to convict Trump when the Senate voted on his impeachment trial on February 13.

Graham just couldn't stay mad at his latest infatuation.

September, 2022

Republicans who bothered at all to explain their votes against conviction claimed that since Trump was out of office, his attempt to overthrow the government should be a matter for the courts rather than the impeachment process.

As the prosecution of Trump for offenses starting with January 6, tax fraud, and sexual assault crept ever so slowly forward during Joe Biden's presidency, Lindsey Graham and quite a few other Republicans complained that pursuing justice in the courts was a bad idea, too.

In the fall of 2022, Citizen Trump was refusing to return classified papers included among dozens of bankers boxes of files he had spirited off to Mar-a-Lago, directing underlings to hide them away when the FBI showed up to seize them. Graham warned that if Trump were ever brought to trial for those actions, his hordes of MAGA minions would reprise January 6.

To his dying day, Graham was mute about any possibility of Antifa, DEI, or Woke Inc., getting violent over what now passes for the Justice Department's overtly political, Trumped up prosecutions of anyone who has ever crossed Donald Trump.

Q Toon: Ogles Tweets the Silent Part

Congresscritter Andrew Ogles (R-TN) greeted the start of LGBTQ+ Pride Month by tweeting (since it hasn't been "Twitter" for some time now, should we say xitting?), "Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month."

Criticism of Ogles from Democrats was predictably harsh, but Congress members from his own side of the aisle also distanced themselves from Ogle's xitpost. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called the post "untoward." House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) called it "inappropriate." Rep. Mike Lawler  (R-NY) went further, calling it "idiotic" and "fucking stupid." Even Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) averred that "I think the behavior of consenting adults is their business."

Ogles responded by deleting the xitpost and blaming it on “a member of my comms team” who has since "been reprimanded."

Republicans and Democrats both criticized Ogles just three months ago when he (or that naughty comms person) posted a pile of xits over several days that "Muslims don't belong in American society" and "America is for people named Andrew Jackson, NOT Mohamed Mohamed."

Ogles didn't bother to delete those xitposts.

By the way, as for the "Nuclear Family Month" crack, well, that's just Tennessee's (and Indiana's) version of Let's Call It Something Else Month, red states' attempt to cross out LGBTQ+ Pride Month by decreeing that June instead celebrates cisgender heterosexual breeders. 

Governor Spencer Cox declared June "Fidelity Month" in Utah; ditto Governor Sarah Succubus Sanders in Arkansas. It's "Strong Families Month" in Alabama, by which Governor Kay Ivey's declaration specifies "Homes led by stable parents, a father and a mother."

It's not unlike insisting "All Non-Black Lives Matter."

When folks observe Father's Day in a couple weeks from now, these Republicans would like you to know that two-father families have no place in America.

Not that they would actually say so. That's just a little secret between D, E, and I.

This Week's Sneak Peek

In lieu of a snippet from this week's cartoon, here's one from September of 2015, since we were just the other day mentioning Ted Cruz's presidential campaign from that year.

Now he's sporting a scraggly beard, Ambassador Mike Huckabee is hawking sleeping pills on late-night TV, and Kim Davis... well, tune in again later this week.

The Toons of November Remembered

Rummaging through the archives in Bergetoons' state-of-the-art plastic bins, our Graphical History Tour guides have run across my cartoon about funding the federal government forty years ago this month.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Kenosha Wis., Nov. 7, 1985

There's a lot of charcoal in this cartoon of Congress congratulating itself on agreeing on a deadline for resolving the federal deficit, which was almost $212 billion, 4.9% of Gross Domestic Product, in 1985. President Ronald Reagan had promised in 1980 to reduce the deficit, at which time those same figures were $74 billion and 2.6%.

Where are we now? That would be $1.8 trillion in the hole, representing 6.0% of GDP.

in Journal Times, Racine Wis., Nov. 21, 1995

2011 Redistricting in Wisconsin has secured a lopsided Republican advantage in the state legislature and our congressional delegation ever since; that was not the case in 1995. Republicans held a 17-to-16 majority in the State Senate that year.

The Milwaukee Brewers came to Madison asking for help funding the building of what is currently American Family Field. Governor Tommy Thompson was loath to raise taxes on the entire state, so he proposed instead imposing a .1% sales tax on Milwaukee County and the four counties adjacent to it, including Racine County to its south. 

The idea was extremely unpopular in Racine, and wasn't helped by Thompson gleefully telling voters outside the five-county area to "stick it to 'em." State Senator George Petak, Republican from Racine, pledged to vote against the five-county tax, and did so on several procedural votes. The deal appeared destined to fail by one vote, but then, around 4:00 in the morning, Petak switched his vote to Aye.

A supposedly grass-roots group quickly gathered enough signatures for a recall election against Sen. Petak. The Wisconsin Democratic Party denied involvement in the "No More Petax" recall effort, and if you believed them, I've got a Bridge To Nowhere I'd like to have sold you.

In the end, the recall was successful, and Democrats were happy to take over control of the State Senate from 1996 to 1998.

not in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 18, 2005

In a multi-panel cartoon, one can often get away with not drawing any background, and merely drawing one or two characters standing and talking. In a single-panel cartoon, however, it's best to have the characters doing something somewhere (especially now that everything has to be in color).

So when the Business Journal editors told me that the week's editorial was going to chide corporate boards that professed not to be able to find qualified women to serve on them, I figured the characters in my cartoon had to be discussing the issue in some men-only space. They aren't as plentiful as they were, oh, half a century ago, so I drew these corporate guys schvitzing in a sauna.

My editor quickly got back to me that the sauna setting was unacceptable, as was the second product line of Amalgamated Mustache Wax & Urinal LLC.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 18, 2005

I whipped off this version with the Mustache Wax CEO talking by phone to some unseen person, and pasted in the dialogue from the earlier version, minus the "and urinal." (It being Milwaukee, I counted on readers recognizing the Rollie Fingers bobblehead on the corner of the man's desk.)

It was the third time that year that the Business Journal editors asked me to edit or redo a cartoon, which may have had something to do with them deciding at year's end to go forward with no editorial page cartoon at all.

Or maybe it was because I had been away on a planned vacation for the November 11 issue, and readers hadn't missed me.

Moving right along...

for Q Syndicate, Nov. 2015

It seems nearly inconceivable now, but a mere ten years ago, Donald Humbert Trumpbert was just one of a dozen Republican presidential candidates, each of them clawing and biting to stand out from the pack.

At a candidates' cattle call on CNBC in October, Ted Cruz figured that the way to stand out was to attack the debate moderators. He accused them of asking "frivolous" questions (he had been asked about his opposition to the recent budget agreement, but ran out of allotted time before getting around to answering it), and said future GOP debates should have only questions submitted by GOP voters.

And his ploy might have worked, too, except that Marco Rubio and Chris Christie quickly seconded Cruz's complaint; Trump also called the questions "nasty," and it should come as no surprise to you that he was answering a question from the one female moderator on the panel when he said that.

To be fair, the moderators' first question to the group was to identify their biggest weaknesses. It's the sort of question you might be asked in a job interview at a company whose biggest weakness is employee retention; it's not the sort of question its CEO, much less a president of the United States ever has to answer.

The unquestioned loser of that debate was CNBC itself, although they were stuck with the format of trying to get twelve candidates to do something other than regurgitate standard Republican talking points and their own campaign slogans.

As for those candidates, they had already gotten their wish. The next debate was hosted by Fox Noise.

Q Toon: Above All, D'Oh!

While liberals (and not only a few conservatives) were celebrating the defeat of Trumpism at the ballot box last week, right-wingers were able to celebrate the triumph of Trumpism in the courts.

Trump appointee Matthew Kacsmaryk struck down a Biden administration ruling that LGBTQ+ patients were covered under Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) protections against discrimination. The Obama administration had also stipulated these protections for LGBTQ+ patients, only to have them erased by the corrupt Trump administration.

Kacsmaryk's ruling came in a case brought by a pair of doctors — medical professionals, mind you — who think providing professional medical care to transgender patients is icky; and so, backed by a right-wing legal activist group looking for any way to destroy the Affordable Care Act, they went to court.

Now, if you're a transgender person, and you're looking for a doctor, you probably shouldn't go to a doctor who personally objects to treating transgender people. It's highly unlikely that such a doctor has bothered to learn anything about the medical needs peculiar to transgender patients. You might as well ask your ophthalmologist to perform root canal surgery.

But we're talking about Texas here: home to vast, wide open spaces sparsely populated by people who think that Ted Cruz is a marvelous senator. You may not have a lot of choices when looking for a doctor there.

Texas, moreover, is ruled by a Republican Party from Governor Abbott on down who are determined to make health care for transgender persons a crime; so even if you've had a country doctor who is considerate and caring (they call that "woke" in these parts), the best she can do is refer you to someplace out of state. 

If the statehouse hasn't already made that illegal, too. 

Q Toon: Put-Asunders' Ragtime Band

Senator Ted Cruz (R-UnAwayToCancun) joined right-wing Justice Clarence Thomas Saturday in urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that extended marriage equality to same-sex couples.

"Obergefell, like Roe v. Wade, ignored two centuries of our nation's history," the senator argued in the clip from his podcast. "Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states. We saw states before Obergefell—some states were moving to allow gay marriage, other states were moving to allow civil partnerships. There were different standards that the states were adopting."

As heartening as it is to see the House of Representatives pass a bill Tuesday to protect same-sex marriage — with the support of 47 of the 211 Republicans, I don't foresee the measure finding ten Republicans and Joe Manchin who would let it come to a vote in the Senate.

The House bill also would protect interracial marriage, which leaves a glimmer of hope that at least that part of the bill might make it out of committee in the other chamber. Still, you've got Josh Hawley, Rand Paul, and their ilk needing to stay on the good side of the You Will Not Replace Us crowd. 

And as I'm sure Professor Cruz would tell you, Loving v. Virginia ignored a couple centuries of our nation's history, too.

Story Time with Ted Cruz

Revisiting this one from February, 2016:

Q Toon: As I Have Foreseen

Long ago, in a polity far away, having the Senate evenly split between fifty Republicans and fifty Democrats would have forced the two parties to work together to keep the government running. These days, however, we have one party interested in good government, and the other, led by Mitch McConnell (R-Byss), happy to see no government at all.

Barack Obama came into office in 2008 with a filibuster-proof 60-40 Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, and the the U.S. economy four months into the most serious collapse since the Great Depression of the 1930s. McConnell had vowed that thwarting Obama at every turn would be the Number One priority of the Republican Party, over and above national interest, leaving Democrats to rescue the economy on their own.

From there, Obama and Senate Democrats tried a bipartisan approach to crafting the Affordable Care Act, trimming the bill a little here and gutting it a little there in a vain attempt to persuade even one Republican to sign onto it. But the GOP had their orders to stick together in intransigent opposition no matter what. Democrats might just as well have passed a Swedish-style single-payer system instead.

Then Ted Kennedy up and died and was replaced by Republican Scott Brown, handing McConnell effective veto power over all legislation and dozens upon dozens of judicial appointments.

Today, McConnell is still in charge of Senate Republicans, who continue to show remarkable unity when opportunities to do nothing arise. Ten Senate Republicans do not exist who will put the national interest above party politics.

None of the issues that Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats ran on in 2020 can be dealt with as long as Mitch McConnell retains his veto power, so many Democrats are eager to scrap the filibuster— possible now if they have their 50 votes plus that of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But not so fast! Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) like the filibuster! Manchin cited the "Byrd Rule," named for the 1970's-80's leader of Senate Democrats and 1940's Ku Klux Klansman Robert Byrd. Byrd personally filibustered four fourteen hours against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 along with other Dixiecrats.

Sinema, this cartoon's link to being of interest to LGBTQ+ readers, avoided citing the filibuster's history of anti-civil rights, but told Politico, “I want to restore the 60-vote threshold for all elements of the Senate’s work.” (Emphasis mine.) Considering her experience as one of the very few Democratic members of the Arizona legislature, her love for the filibuster may be understandable — but self-defeating.

“I have long said that I oppose eliminating the filibuster for votes on legislation,” Sinema’s office went on to explain. “Retaining the legislative filibuster is not meant to impede the things we want to get done. Rather, it’s meant to protect what the Senate was designed to be. I believe the Senate has a responsibility to put politics aside and fully consider, debate, and reach compromise on legislative issues that will affect all Americans.”

From this explanation, a voter might conclude that the Framers created the Senate to be some sort of debating society that occasionally passes bills, rather than an active and functional legislative chamber.

The Framers of the Constitution actually got rid of a forerunner of the filibuster, a requirement that "important resolutions" be approved by two-thirds of the states — a practice that had hobbled government under the Articles of Confederation. As Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist #22, observed:

To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. ... The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.

It was catchier when Lin Manuel-Miranda rapped it, but perhaps you get the point.

Ides of March Sneak Peek

 Some politicians are fun to draw, even if I would never, ever, want to see them elected to higher office.

Toon: Mayhem Like Him

Here's a list of U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives who still stand by Mr. Trump's scurrilous, fantastical electoral conspiracy "theories" even after the riot of Qultists at the Capitol that he and they actively encouraged:

Senate:

Ted Cruz (TX); Josh Hawley (MO); Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS); Cynthia Lummis (WY); John Kennedy (LA); Roger Marshall (KS); Rick Scott (FL); Tommy Tuberville (AL)

House:

Robert Aderholt (AL); Rick Allen (GA); Jodey Arrington (TX); ; Brian Babin (TX); ; Jim Baird (IN); Jim Banks (IN); Cliff Bentz (OR); Jack Bergman (MI); Stephanie Bice (OK); Andy Biggs (AZ); Dan Bishop (NC); Lauren Boebert (CO); Mike Bost (IL); Mo Brooks (AL); Ted Budd (NC); Tim Burchett (TN); Michael Burgess (TX); Ken Calvert (CA); Kat Cammack (FL); Jerry Carl (AL); Buddy Carter (GA); John Carter (TX); Madison Cawthorn (NC); Steve Chabot (OH); Ben Cline (VA); Michael Cloud (TX); Andrew Clyde (GA); Tom Cole (OK); Rick Crawford (AR); Warren Davidson (OH); Scott DesJarlais (TN); Mario Diaz-Balart (FL); Byron Donalds (FL); Jeff Duncan (SC); Neal Dunn (FL); Ron Estes (KS); Pat Fallon (TX); Michelle Fischbach (MN); Scott Fitzgerald (WI); Chuck Fleischmann (TN); Virginia Foxx (NC); Scott Franklin (FL); Russ Fulcher (ID); Matt Gaetz (FL); Mike Garcia (CA); Bob Gibbs (OH); Carlos Gimenez (FL); Louie Goober Gohmert (TX); Bob Good (VA); Lance Gooden (TX); Paul Gosar (AZ); Garret Graves (LA); Sam Graves (MO); Mark Green (TN); Marjorie Greene (GA); Morgan Griffith (VA); Michael Guest (MS); Jim Hagedorn (MN); Andy Harris (MD); Diana Harshbarger (TN); Vicky Hartzler (MO); Kevin Hern (OK); Yvette Herrell (NM); Jody Hice (GA); Clay Higgins (LA); Richard Hudson (NC); Darrell Issa (CA); Ronny Jackson (TX); Chris Jacobs (NY); Mike Johnson (LA); Bill Johnson (OH); Jim Jordan (OH); John Joyce (PA); Fred Keller (PA); Trent Kelly (MS); Mike Kelly (PA); David Kustoff (TN); Doug LaMalfa (CA); Doug Lamborn (CO); Jacob LaTurner (KS); Debbie Lesko (AZ); Billy Long (MO); Barry Loudermilk (GA); Frank Lucas (OK); Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO); Nicole Malliotakis (NY); Tracey Mann (KS); Brian Mast (FL); Kevin McCarthy (CA); Lisa McClain (MI); Daniel Meuser (PA); Mary Miller (IL); Carol Miller (WV); Alex Mooney (WV); Barry Moore (AL); Markwayne Mullin (OK); Gregory Murphy (NC); Troy Nehls (TX); Ralph Norman (SC); Devin Nunes (CA); Jay Obernolte (CA); Burgess Owens (UT); Steven Palazzo (MS); Gary Palmer (AL); Greg Pence (IN); Scott Perry (PA); August Pfluger (TX); Bill Posey (FL); Guy Reschenthaler (PA); Tom Rice (SC); Mike Rogers (AL); Hal Rogers (KY); John Rose (TN); Matt Rosendale (MT); David Rouzer (NC); John Rutherford (FL); Steve Scalise (LA); David Schweikert (AZ); Pete Sessions (TX); Jason Smith (MO); Adrian Smith (NE); Lloyd Smucker (PA); Elise Stefanik (NY); Greg Steube (FL); Chris Stewart (UT); Glenn Thompson (PA); Tom Tiffany (WI); William Timmons (SC); Jefferson Van Drew (NJ); Beth Van Duyne (TX); Tim Walberg (MI); Jackie Walorski (IN); Randy Weber (TX); Daniel Webster (FL); Roger Williams (TX); Joe Wilson (SC); Rob Wittman (VA); Ron Wright (TX); Lee Zeldin (NY)

 

Silence of the Sams

I had planned to save these cartoons for this summer, but after Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson's stunning performance in front of Congress this week, now seems to be a good time for Scamback Saturday to remember one of his predecessors at the department.

Samuel Pierce was Secretary of HUD from 1981 to 1989.  Pierce had the distinction of being the only African-American in Ronald Reagan's cabinet, and the only cabinet official to serve in the same post for all eight years of Reagan's presidency.

Several HUD Secretaries have been former mayors or otherwise professionally involved in urban renewal. But like Ben Carson, Pierce had no such experience before Reagan named him to the job. Also like Ben Carson, Pierce was African-American, the Republican euphemism for which is "urban," an area the increasingly exurban and rural Republican Party could hardly care less about. If a Republican president has to have one Black person in the cabinet just for appearances sake, he might as well be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, even if his field of expertise is brain surgery and he's totally unfamiliar with real estate jargon.

Unlike Carson, however, Sam Pierce at least had ample subcabinet-level experience, starting out in Eisenhower's Department of Labor and later as general counsel to Nixon's Treasury Department. But the tenure of "Silent Sam" at HUD was so low-key that when he and the president who appointed him attended a U.S. Conference of Mayors luncheon, Reagan thought Pierce was one of the mayors.

I'm not kidding.

Chuck Stone, a black editor at the Philadelphia Daily News and longtime acquaintance of Pierce, says the Secretary “has the three B’s Republicans like—brilliance, blackness and blandness. Republicans don’t like audacious blacks.”

It was only after Pierce was gone that an investigation by the U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel uncovered mismanagement and political favoritism in HUD dating from his first days on the job.

UW-Milwaukee Post, July 25, 1989

Despite a pledge during his Senate confirmation hearings to ''sever'' his ties to his former New York law firm, Samuel R. Pierce Jr. regularly did personal favors for his former colleagues and interceded with subordinates in the Department of Housing and Urban Development on their behalf, documents from his office files show.

While there is no indication that the former Secretary broke any law barring conflicts of interest or directed subordinates to act improperly, Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, said the documents raised ''additional questions about Secretary Pierce's management at H.U.D.''  ...

Ethics lawyers at H.U.D. said Mr. Pierce's agreement to sever ties with the firm did not bar him from all dealings with it. And lawyers at the Office of Government Ethics said that to prove a criminal violation against an official like Mr. Pierce, a prosecutor would have to demonstrate that he personally and substantially took part in a matter affecting his former firm. 

Investigators also uncovered several cases in which outside agents managing the foreclosure of properties on behalf of HUD, instead of subtracting their management fees and turning the rest of the proceeds over to HUD, were pocketing the entire proceeds and never filing the paperwork. Contracts went to politically connected landlords and developers, funneling money to the campaigns of a number of politicians.

Drawn for an edition of the Post that wasn't published

As the scandals came to light, Pierce claimed that HUD was too big for him to follow individual programs, and he threw his chief aide, Deborah Gore Dean under the bus. She and others on Pierce's staff would be convicted on various felony charges, but Pierce himself was never charged with any criminal activity.

UW-Parkside Ranger, September 28, 1989

Now, I have to caution that there was never any connection between the shenanigans at HUD and the Iran-Contra scandal.

But one familiar name from the Corrupt Trump Administration pops up in those 30-year-old reports.

As one particular scam involving conversion of some abandoned World War II era internment facilities for Japanese-Americans into apartment dwellings was reported in Newsweek in 1989:

The moving force in the project was Paul Manafort, a Reagan campaign consultant in 1980 who later diversified into lobbying and power brokering. When a friend told him the ancient housing project was for sale, Manafort sounded out Deborah Gore Dean, Pierce's chief aide, and got informal encouragement that he could get a rehabilitation contract. Through another crony, he persuaded New Jersey officials to apply for a grant; with two associates, he formed CFM Development Corp. and bought the project for $4.4 million. HUD promptly approved the project, providing $5 million in construction funds and guaranteeing rent subsidies totaling $31.1 million over 15 years. CFM hired Manafort's firm, Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly [okay, more than one familiar name there!] to keep the wheels greased at HUD, paying it a consultant's fee of $326,000. The rent subsidies guaranteed an operating profit, but the program offered a second bonanza in the form of $11 million worth of tax credits. ...
Mayor Bruce Peterson of Upper Deerfield Township, N.J., called the project "a horrible waste of the taxpayers' money." It was imposed on the community as a fait accompli, he testified; the housing wasn't needed, the buildings were too old and shabby, the work being done was shoddy and the subsidized rents were way above local standards.

✍

These four cartoons about Samuel Pierce are the most I've ever drawn about any Secretary of HUD. The only other HUD Secretary I've ever cartooned was Jack Kemp, who comes in second place, and only because he's in that second cartoon about Pierce. Which never got published until now, so it shouldn't even count.

UW-Parkside Ranger, November 2, 1989

On the other hand, Kemp did appear in at least one of my cartoons when he was Republican Vice Presidential nominee in 1996. For that matter, I've drawn Carson in at least three cartoons, but as a 2016 presidential candidate.

Since the ratio of verbiage to cartoons in this post is weighted too heavily to the former, here's one of those Carson cartoons.

Q Toon: In the Flesh

This Sunday, Ted Cruz spoke up in support of North Carolina's HB2 and other "Bathroom Bills" on NBC's Face the Nation and Today Show.

It didn't help him in the Indiana primary, in a state which has already gone around the track on LGBT rights issues.

Well, I for one am glad that Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is down the toilet.

In February, I drew a cartoon portraying A Voice From Above holding up Cruz as the only, but worse, alternative to Donald Trump — only to have Cruz fall to third place in New Hampshire behind the Great White Bread Hope, John Kasich. I drew this week's cartoon over the weekend only to have Lucifer in the Flesh drop out of the race before any of my weekly papers could hit the newsstand.

Now he has to go back to the U.S. Senate, where nothing ever happens ... except ... at ... a ... glacial ... pace.

Plenty of time for my next cartoon about him to get from inkwell to recycling bin.

Report from the Polls

Today was Spring Election Day in Wisconsin. Primary election for the presidential race, and general election for many state and local offices.

My habit is to vote on the way to work in the morning; I had an 8:00 appointment this morning, so I showed up at the polls at 7:40 to find two lines (A-L, M-Z) leading from the hallway into the polling booth room. The M-Z line appeared shorter, but that was only because the M-Z table was further from the door.

My wait was only five minutes, but everyone I've spoken with this afternoon reports that their lines have been longer. My husband voted this afternoon, when the line extended back beyond the table where the person telling voters which line to get into was seated. Still, the lines in our village were nowhere near as bad as the lines in urban polling places.

National pundits find it remarkable that Cruz and Sanders are polling so well in this state. Wisconsin media skew conservative (a recent Washington Post blog post calling the Milwaukee J. Sentinel "left-leaning" showed that the writer hadn't read the Sentinel in decades), and talk radio was unanimous preaching their Vote Cruz To Stop Trump line. Whether Governor Snotwalker's endorsement of Cruz convinced anyone to vote for him, or Scotty was just following the prevailing right-wing winds is up for debate -- but I suspect the latter is true.

I think Sanders appeal among Democrats can be traced to the Republicans who came to power here in 2010 and crammed their agenda down our throats -- in marked contrast to the agonizing and futile attempts by President Obama to appease Republicans on health care, fixing Bush's wrecked economy, or scheduling a state visit to Indonesia. Incrementalism doesn't sell well among Wisconsin Democrats who see nobody on the Republican side open to reason.

I just hope that some of these millennials Feeling The Bern have taken some time to check out some of the other races on the ballot, particularly that for our Supreme Court. If JoAnne Kloppenburg can't beat the anti-gay, anti-contraceptive shill for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Rebecca Bradley, liberals might as well stop trying to elect any independent thinker to the court.

Locally, thanks to the Republican micromanaging gerrymanderers in Madison, my local school board went from nine seats at large to nine district representatives this year; and as a result, I had no choice in my district's school board race. The woman running as the sole candidate on my ballot may very well be a nice, intelligent and thoughtful civic-minded individual; but I seriously considered refusing to vote for her as the only way to protest having my voice in school board matters taken away.

Not that Madison Republicans would listen.

Canadian Exports Happen

At least, I fervently hope so.

In case you missed it, I'm riffing here on the good-natured ribbing between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Obama at the White House this week:

"Now, I don't want to gloss over the very real differences between Americans and Canadians. There are some things we will probably never agree on. Whose beer is better? Who's better at hockey?" Obama joked. "Where's the Stanley Cup right now? I'm sorry, is it in my hometown, with the Chicago Blackhawks?"
Trudeau responded by saying, "there's a high demand for Canadian goods down here. A few that come to mind that President Obama just rightly recognized as being extraordinary contributors to the American success story [are] Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith, and Patrick Sharp of the Chicago Blackhawks."

Story Time with Ted

Apparently, Iowans have no problem imagining four years with this guy.

More Fun than a Barrel of 'Em

Ann Telnaes is getting some flak for an animated cartoon she posted on the Washington Post this week -- the still at left pretty much sums it up- -- before the Post unposted both the cartoon and her explanation of it.

She drew it in response to a campaign video from Ted Cruz (R-1953) in which Cruz reads supposed children's stories to his wife and two daughters. As Cruz reads The Grinch Who Lost Her Emails, his 7-year-old pipes up, "I know that what I'll do, she said, I'll use my own server, and noone will be the wiser!"

Shakespeare it ain't. It isn't even remotely Dr. Seuss. It comes close, however, to being emetic.

Clay Bennett sums up the cartoonists' response to the furore, drawing Cruz saying, "Leave my daughters out of this!" while dragging them into the spotlight.

That being said, there really is no up side to lampooning any politician's school-age daughters. Anyone who has ever had a daughter -- or a younger sister, for that matter -- is going to sympathize with the aggrieved politician, no matter how he or she has used his offspring in what commercial, billboard, tweet, or vine.

Teapublicans have occasionally held up Sasha and Malia Obama for scorn (Elizabeth Lauten comes to mind), and they have been rightfully criticized for it. I declined to pile on then teenaged Jenna Bush after her OWI citations, although I had no such qualms about lampooning the daughters of Dick Cheney. They were both adults at the time, and I think that's a good place to draw the line.

So, yeah, I don't think I'd have drawn Ted Cruz's daughters as performing monkeys. But I'm not going to say that Telnaes was out of line.

After all, I compared a guy unfavorably to a skunk this week.

P.S.: The AAEC responds.

Q Toon: Smother of Exiles

The Republicans are standing by the golden door again, making damned sure it stays shut...

I couldn't possibly fit all the candidates still in the presidential race into this cartoon, so I offer my  thoughts and prayers to any of them who feel slighted and left out.

Q Toon: The Debate System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether

I apologize that this week's cartoon touches only tangentially on LGBT issues, but I couldn't possibly ignore the hot mess of last week's CNBC "debate" among ten of the baker's dozen Republican candidates for president. In case you missed it, Ted Cruz responded to a serious question about his signature issue, raising the federal debt ceiling, by attacking the hapless moderators for asking frivolous questions.

As a result, Cruz was declared the winner of the debate between the candidates and the press.

And now, flush with their victory over those raving socialists at CNBC, the Republican candidates are demanding to have only card-carrying Republican partisans ask them questions. As Cruz told Las Vegas AM radio host Heidi Harris:

"I think it's crazy that we have Republican primary debates moderated by people who would never in a million years vote in a Republican primary. It's not helpful, and it is an example of the media's leftwing agenda."

Let's leave out for a moment that most mainstream journalists consider it a violation of journalistic ethics to endorse a candidate publicly by telling everyone how they vote. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't matter if the Republican debates are moderated by Sean Hannity or John Fugelsang: there are too many candidates up on the stage for any debate format to work. I get more insight into these candidates when one of them shows up on Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

The CNBC format, furthermore, only confirms my long-standing observation that having multiple moderators is a huge mistake. The combination of so many candidates and so many moderators makes it that much easier for a candidate to get away with flat-out lying or completely ignoring a question from White House reporter Brock Brockman, because the next moderator isn't going to follow up on Brock Brockman's question, and when it gets around to Brock Brockman's turn to ask another question, he's going to address it to one of the other candidates.

It now appears that the candidates themselves cannot agree on debate conditions, so perhaps we'll see one debate for candidates who want brown M&Ms, the air conditioning set at 67°, and equal time for everybody for three hours; and another debate for candidates who prefer red M&Ms, the A/C set to 70°, and time allotted proportionately to poll numbers for 90 minutes.

And maybe we'll have the moderators walk off the set after 20 minutes of whiny, unfactual non-responses and leave the candidates to fill the remaining air time on their own.

Q Toon: In Chains for Christ

At long last, it's finally time for my Kim Davis cartoon. Now that every other editorial cartoonist in the country has taken all the good cartoon ideas and has moved on to last night's performance of A Chorus Line, I'm getting around to sifting through the ideas that are left.

At the AAEC convention earlier this month, I was asked several times about the Kim Davis story, comments usually running along the vein of "Boy, you must be having a lot of fun with her!" And while three of my cartoons in July and August were on issues related to local clerks and so-called religious liberty, the cartoons I'd sent to my editors before leaving for the convention were on other topics.

So, while I was away from my drawing board, Davis went into and out of prison, greeted by an adoring throng waving their crosses. Just the sort of crowd someone seeking to be America's Evangelist In Chief would want to get in front of, so there was Arkansas Minister-Governor Mike Huckabee, who vowed to go to jail in Davis's place, now that she was being let out anyway.

Huckabee wasn't the only presidential contender there to bask in the adulation of the theocratic masses, but he was the only one getting onto that stage, if his folks had anything to do about it. And they did.

Q Toon: Contempt of Court

In discussing last week's "Ground Hog Day" cartoon, I mentioned that state lawmakers were proposing new anti-marriage laws in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling for marriage equality.

The Texas legislature is considering a bill by Rep. Cecil Bell (R-Waller Co.) to garnish the salary of any government official who issues a marriage license to a same sex couple or in any way respects the rights of such a couple married out of state.

In Oklahoma, well-known homophobe Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) has vomited forth bills that states that “No employee of this state and no employee of any local governmental entity shall officially recognize, grant or enforce a same-sex marriage license and continue to receive a salary, pension or other employee benefit at the expense of taxpayers of this state.”

Kern's bills are on such constitutionally shaky ground that they include a provision demanding that state courts automatically dismiss any legal challenge to them. (Why, if only Obamacare or McCain-Feingold had had such a provision!)

Q Syndicate✒Jan 29, 2015

Kern's fellow representative Todd Russ (R-Cordell) tries another tack around the court with a bill prohibiting government officials from issuing any marriage licenses -- and nobody but "an ordained or authorized preacher or minister of the Gospel, priest or other ecclesiastical dignitary of any denomination" would be allowed to perform marriages and issue "marriage certificates." If you're agnostic or atheist couple, you're shit out of luck (but then, living in sin shouldn't bother you anyway.) You can bet that there's something in the bill's language to disallow certificates of same-sex couples even if signed by clergy.

When I initially proposed this week's cartoon idea to the editors at Q Syndicate, I had the TV host wondering whether there was something unconstitutional about the laws proposed by my fictional state lawmaker, Jim Beautron (R-Menda City). I realized that I needed to take a different tack when I read that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is pushing a constitutional amendment prohibiting American courts from overturning anti-marriage laws.

Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) likes Cruz's idea. On the flip side of the coin, presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee (R-AR) thinks states should just give American courts the finger and ignore any ruling that they don't like. I guess if you think that the Constitution is irrelevant, why bother amending it?

Of course, I know that these elected officials (R-Wherever) don't think the Constitution is irrelevant. They still believe that the Constitution explicitly prohibits whatever President Obama does from the milk he pours on his breakfast cereal to the pajamas he wears to bed. And it will be no different if Hilary Clinton is president.

But these you-can't-challenge-my-law provisions and let's-pretend-courts-don't-matter arguments are pretty clear signs that the Republicans making them know they don't have a legal leg to stand on.