Q Toon: When They Go Low

Some weeks, there seems to be a dearth of topics for LGBTQ+ cartoons.

This was not one of those weeks.

Some anonymous caller to Michigan Child Protective Services made a false complaint against Pete Buttigieg. An openly gay candidate for Nancy Pelosi's congressional seat was forcibly shooed away from a transgender pride event in San Francisco by pro-Palestinian activists making wildly unfair accusations against him because he's Jewish. Also in San Francisco, four pitchers on the local baseball team thought the Giants' LGBTQ Pride Game would be a good idea to tell LGBTQ fans just what they thought of them. And it would have been a good time to draw anything about the U.S. semiquincentennial.

I went with the first story, in part because Michigan's Between the Lines is one of my client papers, but also because the story is truly outrageous.

Buttigieg described in his Substack the attack on his family, likening it to "SWATting":

Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team. Hadn’t thought of that? Me neither, until a few days ago when a police officer and a CPS worker showed up at our home and politely asked to speak with me.

I showed them in, invited them on the deck so that we could hear each other over the barking dog, and asked what was going on. They explained that there had been an allegation against me, that it concerned our four-year-old twins, and that a forensic interview had been arranged for the children the following day. I could not be present at the children’s interview, nor could any family member sit in. Afterwards, they would come back and interview me. And only then would they tell me anything about the nature of the allegation.

I was bewildered and troubled, but tried to stay calm. I’m used to any number of falsehoods, attacks, and serious problems being thrown my way. What I didn’t understand was what could have led to this kind of visit. Then, the CPS worker told me something that made my stomach turn: I was not to be alone around the children, at least until the interview took place the next day. They asked if I had relatives nearby or could perhaps stay at a hotel for the night. [...]

An anonymous caller had contacted CPS. The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes, and the caller believed my children were still at risk.

That was all. The officer had a couple of obvious questions. He asked if I had been to the town where the woman claimed she had met me. I have not. Then the officer made clear that he believed this was politically motivated, and said it would not be referred to a prosecutor. Nothing in the forensic interview with the children, which was conducted by trained personnel, had led to concerns.

Buttigieg holds open the possibility that he and his husband will pursue civil damages against the anonymous allegator. Michigan could also file criminal charges against the man for false reporting. That presumes that the person's cloak of anonymity can be drawn back in the first place. Unmasking the Mystery Woman from Alabama may well be impossible, if she exists at all.

There isn't much else that can be done about this sort of attack by false police report. Child Protective Services must take such allegations seriously, even against public figures. Sometimes the allegations turn out to be true — often when the public figure is some stridently antigay Republican preacher type.

If this kind of attack becomes more common — and make no mistake: LGBTQ parents are not the only people susceptible to this — somebody is going to have to give it a name.

But for now, Bearing False Witness will have to do.

Q Toon: Besmirching Her Good Name

Watching Homeland Security Secretary Cosplay Kristi Noem's press announcement defending her ICE agent killing a woman in Minneapolis as she attempted to drive away from him — and her and Border Czar Tom Homan's appearances on the Sunday morning news programs — I couldn't get over the cognitive dissonance between their talking point that people need to cool their "overheated rhetoric," and all the overheated rhetoric making up the rest of their talking points.

We've all seen the videos of what really happened, but Noem, Homan, and the rest of the Lawless Trump Regime continue to push a fantasy narrative in which the shooting victim, Renee Macklin Good, was a radical left-wing domestic terrorist who charged her minivan directly at ICE agent Jonathan Ross with intent to kill.

Vice President J.D. Vance has argued that Ross shot Good because he had been struck once before by a vehicle driven by a suspect. But that only demonstrates that Ross uses the foolhardy but common border patrol tactic of getting in front of a moving vehicle in order to justify shooting at its driver.

You may wonder why I have drawn for the LGBTQ+ press a cartoon about this story, or why I inserted "with her lesbian co-conspirator" in the first panel.

Initial reporting stated that the youngest of Renee Macklin Good's children, a six-year-old boy, has been left without parents (his father having died in 2023). Most media and other editorial cartoonists have accepted that as fact, but Advocate and other LGBTQ+ publications, followed by local newsmedia and NPR, have reported that the woman with Renee Good when she was shot was her wife, Becca Good.

I certainly feel terrible for the boy, but at least he still has a step-mother. I hope that she and the boy's grandparents (who, I gather, are not Minnesotans) can remain on amicable terms while working out custody and visitation rights, so as not to make his tragedy even worse than it already is.

Out-of-state politicians and the mainstream media had been glossing over Renee and Becca's relationship, even though Becca was right there when Ross murdered her wife. Trump called Becca Good her wife’s “friend"; even John Stewart called Renee “a single woman” on Monday night’s Daily Show.

On the other hand, the Lawless Trump Regime's ironically-called Department of Justice has reportedly launched a criminal investigation of Renee Good's widow, which has prompted six federal prosecutors in Minnesota to resign in protest. (They include the lead prosecutor in that Minnesota day care fraud case Republicans would much rather talk about.)

Matt Sepic, Minnesota Public Radio: "In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche says, quote, 'There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.' The DOJ says ICE has its own internal investigation underway that runs parallel to, quote, 'any FBI investigation.' But the same source we mentioned earlier, who's not authorized to speak on the record, tells me that this is untrue and that there is no internal ICE investigation of the shooting."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey posted on social media that, "The people pushing to prosecute Renee's widow are monsters"; Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) added, "The family and loved ones of Renee Good deserve justice, not political attacks."

Sadly, justice is not a priority of the Lawless Trump Regime, and political attacks are.

This Week's Sneak Peek

The more I think about it, I wish I had used "You're fired" as the punch line for last week's cartoon.

The "indefinite suspension" of Jimmy Kimmel after direct and explicit demands from Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr that ABC cancel Kimmel's late night television show – and after Reichsfuhrer Donald Berzelius Trump promised after Colbert's cancelation that Kimmel would be next – was the real story of the week, not social media's wild speculation as to the motives of Charlie Kirk's assassin.

Somebody must get Carr to answer what exactly, was Kimmel's offense. Did he quote the nasty things Kirk has said over the years after George Floyd was killed, or Paul Pelosi was attacked? Did he mock him for saying that school shootings and the other thousands of gun deaths every year were worth it to keep Second Amendment rights? Did he say that Kirk deserved what he got?

No, no, and no.

You don't have to judge Kimmel by the no-context chyrons on the evening news, or the ten-second clip shared by Colbert, Fallon, Meyers, Oliver, et al. Here is how Kimmel's final monologue actually went:

"We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

"In between the finger pointing there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level you can see how hard the President is taking this."

The late-night host then played a clip of President Trump being asked how he has been holding up since the killing, to which Trump responds: "I think very good" and begins to talk about plans for the new White House ballroom.

The show then cuts back to Kimmel, who continues: "Yes, he's at the fourth stage of grief; construction.

"Demolition..construction...

"This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend, this is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish, ok. And it didn't just happen once".

The host then played another clip of the President on Fox News revealing the moment he was told Kirk had been shot while he was with the architects for the new White House ballroom.

The show cuts back to Kimmel, who says: "And then we installed the most beautiful chandelier...[inaudible] you wouldn't believe.

"There's something wrong with him — there really is. I mean, who thinks like that and why are we building a $200million ballroom in the White..., Is it possible that he is doing it intentionally, so we can be mad about that instead of the Epstein list?

"By the time he's out of office, the White House will have slot machines and a water slide.

"Trump is in major change the subject mode, on Friday he stopped by the always friendly morning crew at Fox. Whenever Trump goes on Fox & Friends it's funny because the hosts are so eager for him to be reasonable, they spell it all out for him. They desperately want to avoid having to nod along with anything crazy or contradict him so they give him the question, and their preferred answer too.

Kimmel then plays a clip from the Fox & Friends interview where the hosts asked the President: "Is the message too, to the right, the people who are going to go 'I want revenge', not to have revenge, Charlie Kirk would not want revenge?" To which the President responds "he would want revenge at the voter [ballot] box"

The show cuts back to Kimmel, who says: "Good answer right, take it to the ballot box. That's reasonable, that's almost presidential but that's the thing, he can never just stop right there."

The late-night host then plays another clip from the Fox & Friends interview where the President remarks that California "doesn't have ballot boxes."

The show cuts back to Kimmel, who says: "Oh well, in that case begin the purge."

"For the record, we live in California we do have ballot boxes, we've got mail boxes, we have lunch boxes, we have all kinds of boxes, you should come see them sometime, we'll give you a toolbox, you can live in it.

"And then we have this head of the FBI, this character Kash Patel who so far has handled this investigation into the murder of Charlie Kirk like a kid who didn't read the book BS-ing his way through an oral report."

The show cuts to the FBI director on Fox, defending a social media post he made about the arrest of a "subject" in the hours after Kirk was shot, who was later released, telling the show: "I was telling the world what the FBI was doing as we were doing."

The show cut backs to Kimmel, who says: "...which was claiming we caught the killer when we had not.

"Kash Patel always looks like he just got hit by a Volkswagen."

He continues: "The Governor of Utah, Governor Spencer Cox, has been a rare voice of sanity after what happened in his state, he urged Americans to choose humanity, connection and love and even encouraged us to listen to people we disagree with, which is not the plan according to Marjorie Taylor Greene.

"Klan Mom wrote today, 'There's nothing left to talk about with the left, they hate us. They assassinated our nice guy who actually talked to them, peacefully debating ideas. Then millions on the left celebrated and made clear they want all of us dead. To be honest I want a peaceful, national divorce,' the same thing her husband said about two and half years ago.

"But a peaceful national divorce, how would that work? You get Florida, we get Vermont? We share custody of Disney World every other weekend? She's right. The right it feels like we are all stuck in a marriage to Marjorie Taylor Greene right now."

Q Toon: P.S., You're Fired

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk, media from his side of the aisle leapt to the conclusion that his killer must be some leftist transgender anti-gun immigrant tree hugger from Berkeley. And, fess up, you thought so, too.

He turned out to be an ammosexual son of a local sheriff, raised Mormon, who etched right-wing mottos on the bullets he shot. 

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he's got a transgender roommate and got converted to socialism during his one semester at college before dropping out to attend trade school instead. But the transgender roommate has been helpful to police — although I wouldn't be surprised these days if the transgender roommate turns out to be as real as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

The way the media bubbles of the left and the right have become so self-contained, Schrödinger's Assassin can be whoever you preconceive him to be. He's a disciple of Nick Fuentes. He's a card-carrying liberal thanks to a single semester at Utah State. He's Death Wish and Robocop. He's Crying Game and Brokeback Mountain.

He's a floor wax and a dessert topping!

What he has become, without a doubt, is a convenient excuse for the present authoritarian regime to crack down on and criminalize free speech that does not conform to officially permissible thought.

From Absolutely Corrupt Premier Donald Berzelius Trump on down, this gilded White House and its congressional majority lackeys are now demanding the firing of anyone who dares question Charlie Kirk's sainthood, fails to demonstrate adequate grief, or appears in public without sackcloth and ashes. "They're already under major investigation," Trump told reporters, adding that he means "A lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left."

Vice President Shady Vance took time off from his vice presidential duties to guest host Kirk's podcast, telling his audience, "When you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer."

Reichkulturkammer Stephen Miller threatened disloyal subjects, "The power of law enforcement under President Trump's leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended an Army colonel for a social media post critical of Kirk. Attorney General Pam Bondi went on Fox Noise to admonish private business, "And employers, you have to have an obligation to get rid of people... They shouldn't be working with you."

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who is running for governor, called on social media for the firings of an assistant dean at Middle Tennessee State University and professors at Austin Peay State University and Cumberland University. All three lost their jobs for comments deemed inappropriate for expressing a lack of sympathy, or even for expressing pleasure, in the shooting of Kirk. One said Kirk “spoke his fate into existence.” (PBS News)

MSNBC fired Matthew Dowd — a George W. Bush administration strategist — for opining that "Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions." Washington Post global opinions editor Karen Attiah got fired for quoting on her own social media account Kirk's statements demeaning Black women's "brain processing power." Not for celebrating Kirk's death, but for quoting him. Accurately.

PHNX Sports, an online sports news site focused on Arizona, announced the firing of reporter Gerald Bourguet after he said on social media on Wednesday, in a since-deleted post, that "Refusing to mourn a life devoted to that cause is not the same thing as celebrating gun violence." (CBS News)

And just yesterday, ABC pulled the plug on Jimmy Kimmel over Monday night's monologue.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said. He also poked fun at President Trump’s response to a question from the press about how he was mourning Kirk’s death after Trump pivoted to a discussion of the construction of a new White House ballroom.

First Colbert and now Kimmel? Oh, well. I've been staying up too late at night, anyway.

Outside of government, the press, jocks, educators, and comedians, the people fired for reacting to Kirk's death the way the Fornicate Your Feelings mob has responded to the deaths of George Floyd and the assault on Nancy Pelosi's husband have included fire fighters, restaurant managers, airline pilots, Nasdaq employees, and who knows how many more by the time the Ministry of Truth Social declares another thoughtcrime wave?

This Week's Sneak Peek

I intentionally did not add any commentary below the cartoon I posted on Friday evening. I wanted the cartoon to stand alone, and not have its impact diluted by my fretting that I had drawn the hand too large, or discussing how my first thought had been to put Charlie Kirk's own statement that "I think it's worth [it] to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment" (April 5, 2023 at Talking Points USA Faith event, Awaken Church, Salt Lake City UT).

Having thought better of making the cartoon about that quotation, rather than join the crowd posting it all over the internets, I decided to address the cliché that follows so many major gun incidents (right after "thoughts and prayers") that "This Is Not Who We Are."

Clearly, it is who we have become.

Just the same, out of respect to Mr. Kirk, I am refraining from empathy for him, for his family, for his fans, and for his admirers.

He would have wanted it that way.

Toon: Can't Argue With That

 

Crime and Klanishment

Last month, our Graphical History Tour dealt with jay-walking and reckless driving in the summer of 1925. Today we focus on more serious criminal behavior of the time.

"The Life of the Tree Depends on Its Roots" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. August 4, 1925

Dorman Smith may have had the previous year's case of the Bobbed-haired Bandit in mind when he gave "maudlin sympathy for crooks" such prominent placement among the roots of crime. Sensational newspaper coverage of murder, robbery, and kidnapping led to a certain romanticizing of some criminals; we still remember Bonnie & Clyde, Dillinger, or Pretty Boy Floyd — or at least the movie versions of them.

Not to be overlooked are the other roots beneath Smith's tree, including "easy purchasing of arms," "crooked politics," "loose morals," and "weak judges."

"The Alienist" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1925

Also coming for popular blame was the psychiatric profession — “alienists” — expert witnesses testifying for the defense. In a case grabbing nationwide attention, a Chicago jury found Russell Scott guilty of the murder of drug store clerk Joseph Maurer, only to have Superior Court Judge Joseph B. David rule that Scott was insane. Scott was then committed to a mental asylum.

"The Big Brother of Herrin, Illinois" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. July 5, 1925

When you hear Chicago and the 1920's, what comes to mind? I'll bet that gangland violence is high up on your list.

The Graphical History Tour has made several stops in Herrin, Illinois over the past few years. The southern Illinois mining town was notorious for its bloodshed over striking union miners and overzealous Prohibition agents in league with the Ku Klux Klan.

"Chicago As the Rest of the World Must Imagine It" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1925

Chicagoan John McCutcheon's cartoon defended against the caricature of his city by Billy Ireland and others. The perception that Chicago was a hotbed of violence and illegal booze was however serious enough that the federal government was pressuring Chicago to crack down on crime. The Justice Department was particularly focused on quashing rum running, an especially lucrative organized crime business.

"Now They Are Drinking Furniture Polish and Shooting Each Other" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 10, 1925

Daniel Fitzpatrick pairs gangland violence and turf wars with injury and worse from amateur distillers. Bathtub booze, homemade hooch from wood grain alcohol or other legal substances not meant for human consumption, was the cause of increased blindness and death.

"Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in Collier's, August 15, 1925

Disregard for Prohibition, now in its seventh year, crossed social classes.

The Feds showed less interest in another serious crime issue:

"How America Makes Criminals" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, August 22, 1925

Drawing for the Black press, Leslie Rogers cited lynch mobs getting away with murder, arson, and plunder when the victims were Black as inspiration for his cartoon criminal "believing that all criminals are protected."

The column running alongside Leslie Rogers's cartoon in the Chicago Defender further explained:

A comparison of the number of crime stories on the front pages of American and European newspapers is a terrible indictment of the United States. Statistics show that the city of Chicago alone has annually more holdups and murders than England and Wales put together.

From this there can be drawn but one conclusion: the present appalling prevalence of mob rule and lynching has bred wholesale disrespect for law and order. The fact that America is the home of lynching and mob psychology has much to do with her first place position in the crime line-up.

When a mob has lynched a black man, those who took part in this lawlessness are seldom, if ever, brought to justice. And should public indignation be aroused to the extent that an "investigation" seemed advisable, the result is always a verdict of "hanged by persons unknown."

That last quotation comes straight from the ruling that shut down investigation of a lynching in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. 

"Cant See for Looking" by Fred Watson in Baltimore Afro-American, August 22, 1925

The Afro-American had run a photograph of the lynching, attended by nearly 200 people, on its August 15 front page. An editorial accompanying Fred Watson's cartoon in its next edition provided details missing from the initial reporting:

Walter B. Mitchell was lynched by a mob in Excelsior Springs, Mo., last week on the charge of halting an automobile, beating up a white man and attempting assault upon his female companion.

Investigation afterwards proved that the white man attacked was in the cattle stealing business with Mitchell, and owed the later [sic] money. Mitchell stopped Utt's car and demanded his pay. They quarreled and fought. Utt was licked. His companion interfered. Mitchell threw her in the back seat and went home. Angered by the incident, Utt spread the talk about criminal assault and the mob got in its Ku Klux law enforcement.

"Better Watch Both Holes, Kitty" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, August 29, 1925

The Chicago Defender drew a straight line from Volstead Act enforcement to a lack of protection of Black American's rights to life and liberty:

Today we find the eye of law enforcement intently fixed upon the latest addition to the Constitution — the 18th or prohibition amendment. So concentrated are the efforts of the federal government upon apprehending the violators of this amendment that others more important, as far as national welfare are concerned, go unnoticed. 

The amendments receiving less attention of any are the 13th, 14th, and 15th. These three happen to deal with the citizenship and rights of 12,000,000 black people. Hence the enforcement of them is deemed unimportant!

"A Great Day" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, Aug. 9, 1925

Meanwhile, the Klan marched 35,000 strong in the nation's capital on August 8, 1925. Klansmen and women paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Washington Monument. Festivities were interrupted by heavy rain. 

Edmund Duffy's cartoon, above, ran on the Baltimore Sun's front page instead of its usual place on the editorial page.

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.

Q Toon: Graveside Manners

Shortly after I pitched this idea to my editors and sat down at my drawing board Sunday, I saw the news that yet another attempt to assassinate Mr. Trump by some deranged idiot equipped with weapons of mass casualty had been thwarted. I seriously considered hunting for some other topic for this week's cartoon; perhaps if some comment by Pete Buttigieg on Meet the Press had tickled my fancy, I would have found one.

Since I didn't, here's this one.

Trump's repeated insistence that somewhere in this glorious country, parents are sending their children off to school only to have the little tykes come home having been subjected to spontaneous gender reassignment surgery in the principal's office apparently falls under JD BH Vance's theory that it's okay "to create stories so that the American media actually [pay] attention."

The ReQublican Qandidates are remarkably less concerned with the very real instances of children going to school only to come home with mortal coil reassignment surgery performed by another one of those deranged idiots equipped with weapons of mass casualty. There have been two attempted assassinations of presidential candidates this year; as of September 6, there have been 46 mass shootings at schools in the United States in 2024.

And zero gender reassignment surgeries at any school anywhere in the country.

Right-wingers have been quick to accept Dear Leader's fairy tales, however, and to discount reality. They dismiss grieving parents as "crisis actors," so it's hardly surprising that some on the other side immediately spread wild conjecture on line that the Mar-a-Lagoon golf course wannabe sniper is also some sort of crisis actor, hired to distract the electorate from Trump's ridiculous debate performance, or Project 2025, or reports that inflation is down and employment is up.

And the Fox Noise Machine just as quickly answered that the guy was inspired by Democratic campaign warnings that Trump is a racist, a fascist, and danger to the Republic, just because Trump says racist, fascist things and promises to be a dictator on Day One.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan's admonishment that "You are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts" is so passé these days. Pick and choose whatever facts you fancy, tune out the rest, and believe whatever you want. The gunman is a Republican! He's a Democrat! He's a Ramaswamian! He's a Bernie Bro! He's a floor wax! He's a dessert topping! He's Schrödinger's assassin!

How long, O Lord, how long have we been coming here?

Q Toon: Our Tone

There were a handful of celebrity deaths over the weekend, and I tried to come up with a cartoon about Richard Simmons's passing. But everything that came to mind was either trite or in poor taste — as most memorial cartoons are — and given that the assassination attempt against Donald Trump was dominating news coverage to the exclusion of almost everything else, I couldn't bring myself to ink Simmons doing calisthenics at the Pearly Gates.

Or whatever I might have had Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Shannon Daugherty, James Sikking, Shelley Duvall, or Jacoby Jones doing.

Because a bullied young white man with a gun climbed onto a roof and took shots at Mr. Trump, there have been calls to "tone down the rhetoric," especially regarding criticism of the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

Republicans do not like Democrats calling their presidential nominee an American Hitler and a reprehensible, cynical asshole (whoops, those were from J.D. Vance) just because he wants to create a police state to round up all the Latinos, weaponize the Department of Justice and FBI, set up boncentration bamps, and persecute all his political enemies, and he never met a right-wing dictator he didn't like. I get it. Imagine being called a Communist for wanting affordable health care, or a Nazi for supporting women’s rights, or demonspawn for urging people not to gather in crowds during a global pandemic of a novel virus that was killing millions.

Toning down the rhetoric is not something we political cartoonists are particularly good at, but you will notice that I didn't draw Mr. Trump with a pig's snout, and I have (so far) refrained from giving him a middle name from dystopian fiction.

For my cartoon, I selected five examples of Republicans loose talk about guns and killing. The first (a paraphrase) dates back to 2016; the fifth (a direct quote) was earlier this month. I could have included many more — especially Republicans' virulent rash of gun fetish Christmas cards. 

(I didn't leave myself room to identify the fourth politician, and it occurs to me that readers may not know whether she is Lauren Boebert, Sarah Palin, or Kristi Noem. Is there any one of them that you think could not have said she was bringing a gun to settle political differences?)

Trump's responses to, not just hypothetical or rhetorical, but actual violence against Democrats is unforgettable:

When a madman hammered nearly to death the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump jeered and mocked. One of Trump’s sons and other close Trump supporters avidly promoted false claims that Paul Pelosi had somehow brought the onslaught upon himself through a sexual misadventure.

After authorities apprehended a right-wing-extremist plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump belittled the threat at a rally. He disparaged Whitmer as a political enemy. His supporters chanted “Lock her up.” Trump laughed and replied, “Lock them all up.”

We're also told that he found the violent attempt to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, 2021, thoroughly entertaining. Most of the rest of us did not.

So forgive me if I'm not ready to sing For He's a Jolly Good Fellow with his MAGA mobsters.

✍

By the way, it was Rep. Lauren Boebert.

Hairstyles of the Rich and Infamous

Every editorial cartoonist was expected to crank out cartoons about the solar eclipse and the passing of Orenthal James Simpson this week, most of which were slight variations on the same couple of themes. If you saw one, you'd seen the rest.

Other "Yahtzees," as we call them, often happen after truly major news stories that cannot be ignored.

And then there's...

"The Great National Question" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 9, 1924

For some reason, 100 Aprils ago, editorial cartoonists across the country took to their drawing boards to address the burning issue of women's bobbed haircuts.

"If They Had Worn Bobbed Hair" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 5, 1924

The bobbed hairstyle was that short women's haircut forever associated with 1920's flappers and starlets (e.g. Betty Boop, Josephine Baker, Mary Pickford). It was a marked departure from earlier generations, when the feminine ideal required lots and lots of luscious tresses piled on top of a woman's head or draped over her shoulders.

Why do you bob your hair, girls? It is an awful shame
To rob the head God gave you and bear the flapper's name.
You're taking off your cov'ring. It is an awful sin.
Don't never bob your hair, girls. Short hair belongs to men.
 —"Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Girls" by Blind Alfred Reed, 1927

"You're Just the Person I Want to See" by Ralph Barton in Judge, April 19, 1924

Creation of the bobbed hairstyle is generally credited to a popular actress, dancer, and social influencer of her day who went by the stage name Irene Castle. Hospitalized for appendicitis in 1914, she decided that to facilitate washing and combing her hair during her recuperation, she would simply have it cut short.

When she then went out for dinner with friends without covering her ’do, her picture wound up in all the papers. In a time when women's rights advocates were fighting for the right to vote, suffragette sympathizers applauded Castle's rebellion against tradition and impractical hairstyles for women.

"And So She Had Hers Bobbed" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1924

It wasn't only the length of the hair that was disturbing to the Bert Dears of the 1920's. The new bobbed style shockingly exposed women's ... ears. Uncovered ears were as associated with masculinity as was wearing pants. Even in these cartoons about minimist hairdos, only a couple of them expose the female ear.

Liberation of the female ear did open up new opportunities for the jewelry trade. Nor was the market for combs and hairbrushes at all diminished.

"Our Next Circus Attraction" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Daily Star, April 9, 1924

In any event, in the ten years after Irene Castle's abdominal surgery, the bobbed hairstyle took U.S. womanhood by storm. It was convenient, requiring less muss and fuss, and easier to keep styled over the course of a day.

I'm sure that our cartoonists found it easier and quicker to draw as well.

"Fancy Trade First" by Albert T. Reid for Bell Syndicate, April 1, 1924

I did find one cartoon that tied the bobbed haircut theme — more or less — to bona fide news stories of the day. Albert Reid uses the bobbing craze to complain that Congress was spending too much time investigating all those scandals left over from the Harding administration, at the expense of popular legislation languishing in committee (in this case, President Coolidge's tax cut proposal).

A likely motivation for at least some of this flurry of bobbed-hair cartoons is the case of the Bobbed-Haired Bandit.

Excerpt from "I See by the Papers" by T.E. Powers for Star Company, ca. April 1, 1924

Celia and Ed Cooney, a young couple married the previous May, started robbing Brooklyn area grocers and drug stores in January of 1924. Newspapers eager to outsell their crosstown rivals seized on crime stories to make banner headlines in those days, and the Cooneys' string of audacious armed robberies immediately attracted the hungry attention of editors from New York to Los Angeles. The New York Telegram and Evening Mail dubbed Celia, 19, "The Bobbed Haired Bandit," and the moniker stuck.

Celia reveled in her notoriety, and as the string of robberies continued, the newspapers held Brooklyn Police Commissioner Richard Enright up for ridicule.

On January 14, Commissioner Enright announced the arrest of one Helen Quigley on suspicion of being the Bobbed Haired Bandit. Celia then left a message at a Brooklyn drugstore, boasting, "You dirty fish-peddling bums, leave this innocent girl alone and get the right ones, which is nobody else but us, and we are going to give Mr. Hogan, the manager of Roulston’s, another visit, as we got two checks we couldn’t cash, and also ask Bohack’s manager did I ruin his cash register. Also I will visit him again, as I broke a perfectly good automatic on it. We defy you fellows to catch us."

"Bobbed-Haired Bandits at Home" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. April 19, 1924

And their crime spree continued into February and March.

On April 1, the pair botched an attempted robbery of the National Biscuit Company's payroll office. Cashier Nathan Mazo made a grab for Celia, who fell over a chair. Ed shot and wounded Mazo, and the couple fled without the money. They hopped a steamer to Florida, where Celia gave birth to a daughter who died after two days.

On April 15, Commissioner Enright correctly announced the identity of the elusive pair, who were arrested by New York detectives in Jacksonville in the wee hours of April 21. Hundreds thronged to Penn Station to catch a glimpse of the two. 

New York Daily News front page April 23, 1924. Celia Cooney is identified by name, Ed merely as "her husband."

After their arrest, Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist Nunnally Johnson rhapsodized:

"What Celia Cooney deserves is a ballad, a glorious painting, or a statue, preferably in Prospect Park. ...

"Celia Cooney in a few years will be a legendary figure, a part of Brooklyn folklore, a glamorous myth in a world of girls striving to reach the present height of feminine endeavor..."

Instead, the Cooneys pleaded guilty to their crimes and were sentenced to 20 years in prison, but were  released on parole after seven. Ed died in 1936; Celia remarried in 1943. Only after her death in 1992 did her sons Patrick and Edward Jr. learn of their parents' criminal past.

Q Toon: A Death in Oklahoma

Note: This cartoon and commentary have been edited to correct the name of the deceased.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Woods's statement reportedly met with applause.

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

The Trevor Project

Oklahoma can and ought to do better by these kids.

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

Happy Threesgiving!

For this week's Graphical History Tour, I rummaged through my own stuff through the decades, and dug up a few that I still like for one reason or another.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., Nov. 3, 1983

I kicked off last month's panoply of my old cartoons with one about the deadly bombing of the U.S. Marines' barracks in Beirut in 1983, so I'll start today's with Ronald Reagan's military incursion of the small Caribbean island of Grenada weeks later.

Grenada's Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, a communist who took power in a 1979 coup, was resisting pressure to share power with his Deputy Prime Minister, resulting in protests in the streets by followers of one and the other. Bishop was put under house arrest, escaped, and ended up executed by a firing squad; his body has never been found.

Citing danger to 600 U.S. citizens attending medical school on the island, Reagan sent a force of 7,600 Army Rangers, Marines, and Navy SEALs. The U.S. students were whisked away to safety, the new government was overthrown, and several political prisoners were freed. The invasion was condemned by several foreign governments, but its anniversary remains a national holiday on Grenada.

But does anyone in this country ever pause to honor the veterans of Operation Urgent Fury? Nosiree, mon!

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee Wis., Nov. 18, 1993

Now, let's face it. Nobody likes some outsider coming in to their workplace telling them how to do their job.

Especially cops.

I had to scour the internets to refresh my memory of the news story behind this cartoon. Milwaukee's Police Chief Phillip Arreola had just reinstated a police officer to the force. The officer had been suspended after a Sept. 29 incident in which he was videotaped kicking the groin of a 17-year-old suspect who was pinned to the ground by other officers.

Now that you have that image in your head, I am not going to tell you the race of the officer or the suspect, save to bet that many of you have some part of it wrong.

in Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee, Nov. 28, 2003

I don't remember what the editorial this cartoon accompanied was about, and I'm sure I've rerun it before; but a Thanksgiving cartoon is de rigueur this week, so here mine from 2003.

Besides, like the Ed's Donut Hole cartoon, I like the characters I created for the cartoon. 

The Business Journal editorials were almost exclusively about state and local issues, so I suppose this one had something to do with a disagreement over where a Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, or Winnebago casino should be built or expanded. That's just a guess, but I'm sticking with it for now.

for Q Syndicate, November, 2013

Well, it's already too late to draw any Thanksgiving cartoon for syndication this year, so I'll sign off with this 2013 cartoon, and wish you any happy holidays of your choice.

The Walton Impeachment's Klimactic KlonKlusion

"Around and Around" by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, Oct. 17, 1923

Today's Graphical History Tour makes one last stop at the impeachment of Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton in 1923.

"That Creepy Feeling" by W.K. Patrick in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oct. 31, 1923

As you of course recall, progressive Democrat Walton was elected Oklahoma's fifth Governor by a plurality in 1922, a year and a half after the Tulsa massacre, and soon began working to wrest local government and law enforcement from the clutches of the Ku Klux Klan. In September of 1923, he declared martial law in Tulsa and Okmulgee Counties, censoring the press, suspending habeas corpus, and authorizing a military tribunal to investigate and prosecute assaults and intimidation of citizens the Klan deemed less than "100% American."

This upset members of the Oklahoma legislature, some of whom were themselves members of the Klan; and on October 23, the Oklahoma House voted to impeach the Governor.

"When Night-hood Was in Flower" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oklahoma City, Oct. 19, 1923

As I have noted before, it's a shame that Oklahoma's newspapers had no local editorial cartoonists in their regular employ, relying instead on syndicated cartoons from out-of-state. Some of those cartoonists supported Walton at first, but by the time he was impeached, nearly all agreed that he had overreached his authority. Several national editorial cartoonists ignored Oklahoma politics entirely, which probably suited Walton's censors just fine.

So one ends up with trifles such as Butler's "When Night-hood Was in Flower" series in the leftist Oklahoma Leader— a series which disappeared from that weekly newspaper after the issue carrying the above cartoon.

Ad in Jack Walton's Paper, Oklahoma City, Nov. 1, 1923

Responding to his impeachment, Walton and his allies published a newspaper of their own: a four-page broadsheet filled with bold, lurid headlines over accounts of Klan atrocities. This advertisement for a book appeared in some editions of the short-lived Jack Walton's Paper.

The cartoon Klansmen on Walton's book cover (assuming that this is an accurate depiction of it) certainly appears to have been inspired by a "Ding" Darling cartoon.

"Making the Citizens of Oklahoma Over Into 100% Americans" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Sept. 18, 1923

The beaten woman in the ad also reminds me of another cartoon, but I have not been able to place it. Louis Raemaekers, perhaps?

Back at the impeachment proceedings, Gov. Walton demanded that his accusers in the legislature confess whether they were Klan members or not; but he was ruled out of order. Walton eventually stormed out of the Senate chambers, complaining that the trial was unfair.

"Well, Walton Is Out" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 26, 1923

On November 19, 1923, Walton was convicted on eleven of the House's 22 charges against him, and removed from office. Lieutenant Governor Martin Trapp, a conservative Democrat serving in that office under Walton and two previous governors, succeeded Walton as Governor for the remainder of his term. (State law limiting governors to a single term prohibited Trapp from running for a term of his own.)

Daniel Fitzpatrick may well have been the last editorial cartoonist paying any attention to Oklahoma politics. His cartoon notes the ouster of Governor Walton without approval or condemnation; but with a great deal of contempt for Oklahomans in general. Right down to their dogs.

There were plenty of issues with the Klan elsewhere, of course.

"The Sinister Hand" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Nov. 8, 1923

On the same Memphis Commercial Appeal front page with this Alley cartoon about the Atlanta Grand Wizard's potential for influence in Memphis government were two unrelated reports about Klansmen on trial — in Houston, Texas, and Balstrup, Louisiana — and two more about warrants issued against Klan officials in Birmingham, Alabama, and the case in Atlanta of a Klan spokesman arrested for the murder of an attorney working for deposed Klan Wizard William Simmons.

"Is the Ku Klux Question Solving Itself" by Wm. C. Morris for Geo. Matthew Adams Service, ca. Nov. 19, 1923

Alley's cartoon appeared on the Commercial Appeal's front page on the date of municipal elections in Memphis. The Commercial Appeal supported the reelection of the incumbent mayor, Rowlett Payne, over two rivals, one of whom was allied with the Klan. As an Commercial Appeal editorial put it, challenger Joe Wood's ticket "runs on an issue imported from Atlanta, the leaders thereof now being engaged in a bloody feud among themselves."

"Poison" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Oct. 18, 1923

Payne would win reelection, with Wood coming in second.

I checked, and found that the doings of the Klan never piqued the interest of Atlanta Journal editorial cartoonist A.W. Brewerton at any point that November. Here's his cartoon on the same day (a Thursday) as Alley's "Halt, Memphis" cartoon above.

"Here and There in the News" by Alfred W. Brewerton in Atlanta Journal, Nov. 8, 1923

At the same time that the intra-Klan murder in Atlanta gave some like William Morris hope that the Klan was in deKline, the Texas State Fair devoted an entire day to the hate group. Imperial Wizard Hiram W. Evans gave a keynote speech to a crowd numbering upward of 75,000 Dragons, Klaybees and Cyclopses, decked out in their finest gold, purple, and scarlet robes and "100% American" buttons at the fair.

Evans charged that Black Americans were infested with tuberculosis and venereal disease, that Jews were an "unblendable" element in American society, and that "Do you realize, my friends, that the illiteracy of Europe is practically confined to Catholic countries?"

"The Hooded Cobra" by Al Frueh in New York World, ca. Nov. 16, 1923

I wonder if Frueh didn't mean "Klobra."