Toon: Snidely Skullduggery in Madison

Leaders in Wisconsin's Republican-run legislature want to use the coronacrisis to extort additional powers from Governor Tony Evers.

Recognizing the high costs of fighting the coronavirus, the Federal government made additional Medicaid funding available to states. In Wisconsin, the 2018 lame duck law [so called because it was rushed through the Republican lame duck legislature and signed by lame duck Republican Governor Scott Walker after Wisconsin elected Democrat Tony Evers over Walker] blocks Governor Evers from taking steps to accept this aid money without getting approval from the state legislature.
Also, the Federal government is newly offering to pay 100% of the cost of the first week of unemployment benefits for state residents. Currently, Wisconsin does not allow people to get benefits for the first week of unemployment, so both the Governor and the Legislature would have to sign off on the change to get the additional funding.
Governor Evers released an economic package that would gather both the additional Federal Medicaid dollars and the extra unemployment benefits. Republican legislative leaders ignored his proposal and released their own plan.
The alternative proposal included capturing both those sources of extra dollars, but also included a provision that would give the legislature’s budget committee – controlled by Republicans through a decade of gerrymandering election maps – unilateral power to make budget cuts during this crisis, without the approval of other legislators or the Governor.

If the Republicans pass their version of the bill, Governor Evers will be faced with the choice of signing this power grab into law or vetoing acceptance of the Medicaid and unemployment benefit funding. He can't use his line-item veto because this is not a budget bill.

If this power grab is ever signed into law, don't expect the budget process to return to normal after the coronacrisis is over. The Budget Committee's Absolute, Non-Overturnable Line Item Veto will become a permanent part of Wisconsin politics, enabling a select group of legislators to starve urban public schools, destroy public health care, scrap unemployment benefits, and any of a myriad of antisocial Republican pet projects at will.

Meanwhile, I am happy to report that enough of the Wisconsin electorate braved the risk of coronavirus to defeat the Republicans' candidate for the state Supreme Court last Tuesday. Results were tabulated yesterday, and Jill Karofsky overcame the Republican smear campaign to unseat Daniel Kelly, 55% to 45%.

There will still be a 4-to-3 right-wing, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce lobby majority on the court, so don't expect the Supreme Court to be a check on legislative overreach any time soon. Barring creation of a vacancy, the next Supreme Court election will be in 2023.

The race to succeed Chris Abele as Milwaukee County Executive resulted in a near tie. Having only five polling places in a city of 600,000 had to have made a big difference there, and a recount is certain. The new county exec's term is set to begin April 25.

The school funding referendum in my local school district passed by a margin of only five votes out of 33,491 cast. This really highlights how important it is to keep aware of local issues and to get out and vote.

In the presidential primary, Joe Biden won over Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. But, really, who cares about that right now?

Toon: One Masterpiece After Another

Trump has tapped son-in-law Jared Kushner to be in charge of whatever part of the federal COVID-19 response Vice President Mike Pence is not supposed to be in charge of.

Throughout the coronacrisis, Jared has demonstrated his complete and utter incompetence dealing with it. Back in January, he advised his father-in-law that the media were exaggerating the danger of the virus. When the danger became undeniable to all but the most ignorant right-wingers, he helped write his father-in-law's widely criticized March 11 address to the nation that falsely stated that the U.S. was cutting off all travel and imports from Europe.

Two days later, he was behind his father-in-law's Rose Garden promise that Google was on the verge of launching a website where anyone could test themselves for coronavirus, which was news to Google. By some extraordinary coincidence, a company Jared's brother founded was working on such a website, but that project has since been abandoned.

Last week, Jared showed his face at one of the daily White House coronabriefings, and responded testily to a question about data showing states' need for masks, ventilators and other emergency equipment, "The notion of the federal stockpile is that it's supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be states' stockpiles that they then use." Instead, he called on states and localities to rely on states' medical stockpiles.

By the end of the day, somebody from Trump's Ministry of Truth altered the Strategic National Stockpile page on the Public Health Emergency website so that it would no longer contradict what Jared had just said.

But the website read on April 2: “When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency.”
Shortly after Kushner’s remarks, however, the text of this website was changed.
On April 3, the website read instead: “The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available.”

Jared's latest duty adds to a long and scattershot list of things his father-in-law has assigned to the 39-year-old real estate heir. He had some success in getting a package of prison reforms through Congress; it's no wonder this would be a priority for an administration which has seen 14 prominent advisers, donors and aides indicted or convicted of criminal activity (as of January).

But the rest of Jared's portfolio is bullish on ambition and bearish on results. He started negotiations for peace between Israel and Palestine by taking off the table everything Palestinians have ever wanted. He was then shocked and offended that no Palestinian official was willing to agree to the terms of surrender Jared and Bibi Netanyahu demanded of them.

All we have to show for Jared's mastery of immigration reform are children in cages and a ugly, easily breached wall tearing through nature preserves and private property. Ironically enough, the coronacrisis has forced the government to designate migrant farm laborers as officially "essential workers."

That ugly wall may be the only thing Jared has to show for the Infrastructure Weeks announced by his Office of American Innovation from time to time. As for management of trade talks with China, most of that has been kept Top Secret. But his wife got China to grant her five trademark deals, so that's at least one thing Jared has accomplished there.

There are, thankfully, some cases where Jared has been able to get COVID-19 supplies where they are desperately needed. But Jared and his father-in-law's modus operandi is that it matters less what you need and more on who you know — and what you can do for la loro cosa.

Gonna Party Like It's 1929

Spoilsportback Saturday is stuck in 1920 again, basking in a post-war wave of prosperity that surely must have been an election-year annoyance to the editorial cartoonists of the staunchly Republican Chicago Tribune.

"Suppose the Tide Should Go Out?" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, April 12, 1920

Every silver lining has its cloud, however, and cartoonists found their cloud in "extravagance." The Committee on Public Information and its Office of Cartoons had been disbanded by presidential order in 1919; but if it had been still active, it could hardly have been more effective in promoting exhortations against extravagance among editorial cartoonists after the war.

"The Man Who Hitched Himself Up with the Calf" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, February, 1920

Once armistice was declared, hardly a week went by without at least one cartoonist somewhere moralizing against the Evils of Extravagance. No matter if the cartoonist was one of the luminaries of the era or toiling in obscurity; a Republican or Democrat; stridently political or a bemused observer of the passing scene: sooner or later, he sat down at his drawing board and decided that folks were just getting too dang extravagant for their own good.

"Shooting at the High Cost of Living" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, February, 1920

It's hardly surprising, then, that extravagance would be what the decade to come is chiefly remembered for. How quickly extravagance took hold can be explained by the fact that U.S. manufacturing was diverted to military production for a relatively short time. Production remained high but returned to domestic goods as our doughboys and pilots quickly returned to the workforce.

"Very Appropriate Platform..." by Harry J. Westerman in Ohio State Journal, April, 1920

Consumption also rebounded once wartime rationing was no longer necessary. After more than a full year of anti-extravagance moralizing, at least one cartoonist began to find those lectures tiresome.

Ted Nelson for Cartoons Magazine, Chicago, May, 1920

In case you need a refresher course in what extravagance of the 1920's looked like, this beaut of a motorcar put to shame even the swanky automobile Harry Westerman gave Uncle Sam up there.

"An Evolution" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., April, 1920

If the cars were getting bigger, women's fashions were heading in the opposite direction.

"A Social Setback" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. April 19, 1920

Still, not everyone had the sort of figure to rock Mlle. Thrift's shift, as we see in Bob Satterfield's cartoon. Since much of it is barely legible, I'll read it for you: Mrs. "Extravagance" is shocked by Mr. "Common Sense," clad in his overalls and wooden shoes. Satterfield's little bear says "Class, eh wot?" I can't make out what the bear's label says, but I note that he, too, is wearing overalls.

"The Standard of Revolt" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 18, 1920

Overall Clubs became a thing in April of 1920, formed to protest the high cost of clothing by making a fashion statement out of men's overalls. The first such club was founded in Jacksonville, Florida in late March; the Birmingham, Alabama club, founded on April 9 and claiming 2,000 charter members, declared itself the national headquarters. The clubs very quickly spread throughout the South and thence across the rest of the country; men from students and laborers to professionals and public figures marched in parades and posed for group photos to show off how thrifty they were. The newly elected mayor of Emporia, Kansas, was inaugurated in a denim suit, and some fellow even wore overalls to the New York Metropolitan Opera. No wonder Mrs. Extravagance was shocked.

"Signs of the Times" by Bob Satterfield for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. April 28, 1920

But, as the editors of the Pine Plains (NY) Ledger pointed out, "[I]t might be useful for every man to own a pair and and do some good hard work with the hands to justify such ownership, but it doesn't follow that they are appropriate for all places and for all occasions. ... Better... to wear your old clothes, patch them, and make them last a year or two longer." Besides, heightened demand for overalls could raise the price out of reach "for men who really have to have them." (April 29, 1920)

"In 1921" by William Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger, April 19, 1920

In some markets, the price of overalls reportedly tripled overnight.

If Sykes was making economic predictions in his cartoon, his crystal ball was running eight years too fast. But he wasn't the only one alert to the signs of trouble ahead.

"Chasing Wild Cats" by William Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, March, 1920

William Donahey might be one of the first cartoonists to warn against the perils of market speculation after "fake stocks." Wall Street's game was being played fast and loose, and for the time being, everyone wanted in on the action.

G.B. Inwood for Cartoons magazine, May, 1920

Toon: Oh, Come On, Wisconsin

Considering that the presidential candidates are nowhere to be found this year, this is turning into a hotly contested election here in Wisconsin today.

Among the highlighted items on the ballot are a state Supreme Court Justice, a ballot measure to enshrine crime victim's rights in the state constitution, and mayoral and county executive positions around the state.

Over the weekend, Democratic Governor Tony Evers summoned the Republican-run legislature into emergency session, calling them to extend Tuesday's election. With over 1,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in Milwaukee County alone and rapidly rising numbers elsewhere around the state, especially in all urban counties, everyone concerned feared for the health and safety of voters and poll workers.

Everyone concerned, that is, except for the Republican majority in the state legislature.

They gavelled Saturday's emergency session to order and adjourned it in one second flat — a repeat of their emergency session last year on gun control measures. Another emergency session on Monday was just as abruptly cut off, adjourned until the day after the election.

So Monday afternoon, Evers issued an executive order postponing the election until June 9, and extending the terms of incumbent local politicians until after that election would have taken place. It was a move he had previously said he was powerless to make.

Within hours, the state Supreme Court — whose seven members are nominally non-partisan, but five of whom are bought and paid-for shills for the state Republican party — told Evers he was right: he is powerless to make that move. (They met virtually, by the way. I'll bet that's not in the constitution!) The U.S. Supreme Court was even speedier in quashing Evers' order to extend the date by which absentee ballots are due.

Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald, leaders of the Assembly and Senate respectively, are following Mitch McConnell's playbook from the Obama administration: block anything and everything; deny Evers even the most necessary legislation. No matter who gets hurt.

Many people will either put themselves at great risk or be disenfranchised by the Republicans' power play. Campaigns have been exhorting people for weeks to vote absentee or by mail. Our household has, but that leaves out voters who can't just up and get down to city hall whenever they want.

Demand for mail-in ballots quickly exceeded supply, and there are thousands of reports that ballots that were mailed to voters in mid-March never got delivered. Those ballots must be witnessed, but who is there to witness the ballots of older voters (exactly the ones most at risk of exposure to the virus) who live alone?

Others may have believed the President's promises that the crisis would have blown over around now. Voters who waited to cast their ballots in person may find their regular polling place closed because there aren't nearly enough poll workers, even with the National Guard called in. Milwaukee, with a population of over 600,000, will have a total of five polling locations open.

FIVE.

How many voters will be able to find their alternate poll location in time? Since many polling sites are limiting the number of persons allowed inside the building at a time, how many will bother to wait outside? (Stormy weather is predicted.)

I foresaw Republican mischief in this spring's election. I vastly underestimated how deadly serious it would be.

Toon: Traffic Report

After that first week of seeing the anchors of local news programs sitting at opposite ends of their Plexiglas desk, we're now getting used to seeing at least one of them Skyping it in from home. The weathercaster's large-screen TV is devoted to a graphic of next week's high temperatures, and we get to see all the trophies the sports guy keeps behind the bar in his man cave.

Since our Domingo Mercilus couldn't manage to keep six feet from his helicopter pilot without hanging from the landing skids, he's left to stare out the front window of his home on Collier Bluff Avenue. Fortunately for anyone in Brandon and Shondra's audience who still has to get out in the world, traffic on the freeways has been substantially reduced by the local stay-at-home ordinance.

Offer void in Nebraska, Iowa, and the Dakotas.

Der Kapp-Putsch Kaputt Ist

I'm trying to catch up on this Spaceback Saturday stuff, and finding that staying safe at home somehow isn't producing the spare time that I thought it would. So anyway, this week's installment shares cartoons about the Kapp Putsch that attempted to overthrow the Weimar Republic on March 13, 1920.

"Trying to Get Rid of the Cat?" by Dennis McCarthy in New Orleans Times-Picayune, March, 1920

Not surprisingly, the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles were not popular in Germany. The country lost territory, was required to pay reparations to the victor nations, and was forced to admit culpability for World War I. Military and pro-royalist circles grumbled against the messy process of democratic government, moreover; and on March 13, paramilitary Freikorps units under General Walther von Lüttwitz led a coup to establish an autocracy with Prussian nationalist Wolfgang Kapp as its Reichskanzler.

"Am 13 März" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, March 28, 1920

The surname Kapp provided a convenient pun for German and English-speaking cartoonists.

"The Hornet's Nest" by Bob Satterfield, for Newspaper Enterprise Assn. before March 26, 1920

Kapp, a functionary in the Prussian agriculture ministry and co-founder of  the reactionary Deutsche Vaterlandspartei, was a proponent of the theory that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by its Jews and socialists. He nevertheless proclaimed that "We will not govern according to any theory."

"The New Rockers" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, March, 1920

The government of President Friedrich Ebert fled to Stuttgart and called for a general strike. Government bureaucrats refused to accept the putschists' legitimacy. Socialist and communist labor unions walked off their jobs; and without gas, electricity and train service, Berlin ground to a halt. Germany's military elite failed to come to the aid of Kapp and von Lüttwitz, and the putsch collapsed by March 18.

"Die Starken Männer vom 13 März" by Karl Arnold in Simplicissimus, Munich, April 7, 1920

That's Wolfgang Kapp on the right. The fellow on the left might perhaps be Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern (although his father, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was still a pretender to the German throne, and the royal family played no role in the putsch); the banner bearer doesn't resemble any of the putschists whose photographs I have seen.

"Putschvorstellung für die Entente-Kommission" by Eduard Thöny in Simplicissimus, Munich, April 7, 1920

The government returned to Berlin, and the putschists scattered: Kapp to Sweden, Lüttwitz to Hungary. As far as the cartoonists at the leftist satirical weekly Simplicissimus were concerned, the whole episode was just one more humiliation of their country among many.

"Konjunktur" by Erich Shilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, April 14, 1920

Toon: Essentially

Wisconsin's own Ron Johnson wrote an op-ed for USA Today this week in which he lamented the steps taken here and elsewhere to control the spread of the coronavirus. Worrying that we're blowing the global pandemic out of proportion, Johnson thinks too much of the economy has been shut down. "Every premature death is a tragedy," the sage from Oshkosh wrote, "but death is an unavoidable part of life."

And further, while social distancing is helpful, "much of our economy must stay open to provide life’s basic necessities. Rather than announcing general shutdowns and drawing up lists of 'essential' business that can remain open, let’s draw up lists of 'nonessential' businesses that pose a risk for coronavirus spread."

Johnson, chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, announced an investigation in March into the threat Joe Biden's son Hunter poses to national security. That investigation does appear to be on hold during the coronacrisis.

But I'm sure it will kick into high gear sometime between Labor Day and Election Day.

✍

As long as this social distancing thing remains the norm, we cartoonists are going to have to come up with creative ways of keeping the characters in our cartoons six feet apart without screwing up the artistic balance of the 'toon.