Quote of the day: And then all of this happened

It turns out that what has held together American government is less the elaborate rules hammered out by the guys in the wigs in 1789 than a series of social norms that have begun to disintegrate. Senate filibusters were supposed to be rare, until they became routine. They weren’t supposed to be applied to judicial nominations, then they were. The Senate majority would never dream of changing the rules to limit the filibuster; the minority party would never plan to withhold all support from the president even before he took office; it would never threaten to default on the debt to extort concessions from the president. And then all of this happened.

- Jonathan Chait, taking time out from his many other responsibilities to personally depress the living daylights out of me.

Chait's New Yorker piece from which this is excerpted is going on the p3 Reading List, at right.

Sunday morning toons: It's all a racket run by a big eastern syndicate

Was it really only last week that simply everyone was talking about Rubio the Robot?

Nino's death yesterday morning just kicked every bit of conventional wisdom about the 2016 campaign, and the final months of the Obama administration, and the remainder of this session of the Supreme Court, right into a cocked hat. In fact, there are a couple of toons this week that I included today precisely because they became obsolete within a matter of hours, through no fault of the artists' own. So we'll see what we get on all that next week.

I'm not a big fan of Pearly Gates tributes following the deaths of famous people (although I do have my moments of weakness there), but I admit that I like to imagine Scalia being turned away by St. Peter, at which point the latter advises him: Get over it. So, you know, if anyone out there in political cartoon land wants to take a shot at it, you'll have my blessing – and the incalculably career-boosting chance of being next week's p3 Best in Show.

Meanwhile, it's unclear whether the Bernie believers and the Hillary loyalists will do more damage to one another than all the GOP candidates will do to one another in the proudly and traditionally nasty South Carolina primary. In the latter case, it's about rooting for injuries, I suppose.

But that's also part of the reason that there aren't many Valentine's Day-themed toons featured today. When social media-stoked gender arguments start defining the presidential race, for both Democrats and Republicans in their own way, a pseudo-holiday existing only to fuel the chocolate, greeting card, and industrial-grade diamond vendors doesn't give us much to work with. (Compare CsotD's take with the Comics Curmudgeon's, below.) Enough of politically-themed Cupids firing heart-shaped arrows at people. Lucy van Pelt had the right idea: It's all a big commercial racket run by an eastern syndicate.

And, closer to home, Portland has its own environmental safety problems, but let's hope they handle it better than California has. Props to Monte Wolverton.

Also close to home: Happy birthday to my adopted home state.

Today's toons were selected by a room full of mysterious superdelegates from the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of cartoon goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Lalo Alcaraz, Eric Allie, Steve Breen, and Matt Wuerker.

p3 Best of Show: Tom Toles.

p3 Legion of Merit: Jeff Danziger.

p3 Legion of Extreme Merit: Pat Bagley.

p3 Could Have Been Different Tomorrow Medal: Signe Wilkinson.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Steve Benson.

Ann Telnaes sketches last night's GOP primary debates.

Mark Fiore reminds us that Hillary has a dreadful track record of campaign surrogates.

Tom Tomorrow gives us a look at an ongoing series of primary questions – watch for the cameo appearance by Chuckles the Sensible Woodchuck!

Keith Knight puts the spotlight of parenthood on that town we've temporarily lost track of.

Reuben Bolling celebrates what can be accomplised without even the most cursory investigation beforehand.

Red Meat's Milkman Dan teaches Karen the fine line between social dominance and letting someone off easy.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon takes a different slant on the whole Valentine's Day diamond thing.

Comic Strip of the Day writes about the world of vitriol and nitwits. Can't say I much disagree. Although, sometimes I think I'm the only one who recalls the brief 1988 presidential candidacy of (Portland's Own) Pat Schroeder taking a lethal pre-Howard Dean-ish hit from her political opponents and the media for going to tears in public.

That's what this country needed all the time – a woming presidenk! "Olive Oyl for President" combines two themes that are charting this week: Politics criss-crossing with gender, and Cupid. Directed in 1948 by Izzy Sparber, it lets Popeye get off with an early-on line that's perilously close to what Gloria Steinem came out with in support of Hillary last week – which ought to make everyone pause and consider. And come to think of it, "two heads for the price of one" is pretty close to the promise that Bill and Hillary offered in 1992. Make of all that what you will. Uncredited voice work by Jack Mercer (Popeye), Jackson Beck (the fat candidate), and Mae Questel (The Slender One).

The Almost Nothing to Do with Valentine's Day Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman captures a moment so perfectly it'll be a miracle if anyone under 40 even gets it.

Most Likely Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen finds the moment that Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters can rally around.

Matt Bors takes some pro-Hillary claims to their approximately logical extension.

Jesse Springer wonders if Oregon missed its political-tourism cash-cow moment, a la Iowa and New Hampshire.

Test your toon captioning prowess at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.

The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along: Pearls Before Swine, Doonesbury, Rhymes with Orange, Zits, Adam @ Home, Mutts, Over the Hedge, Get Fuzzy, Prince Valiant, Blondie, Bizarro, Mother Goose & Grimm, Rose is Rose, Luann, Hagar the Horrible, Pickles, Rubes, Grand Avenue, Freshly Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, and Jumble.

Sunday evening toons: Marriage! Health care! Heritage! And Angry Antonin too!

When big and complex news stories break mid-week, expect us to be handing out p3 Certificates of Harmonic Toon Convergence like candy.

Today's toons were selected from the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of toony goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Clay Jones, Michael Ramirez, Pat Bagley, Matt Wuerker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Jeff Danziger.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Walt Handlesman and Mike Luckovich.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 1): Matt Davies and Nick Anderson.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 2): Mike Luckovich and Matt Davies (h/t to Comic Strip of the Day, below).

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 3): Darrin Bell, Mike Keefe, Alex Falco, and Jim Morin.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence (Part 4): Clay Bennett and Jimmy Margulies.

p3 World Toon Review: Michael Kountouris (Greece) and Ingrid Rice (Canada).

Ann Telnaes observes something new in the way of wedding traditions. Guess that leaves "something old, something borrowed, and something blue" for the GOP.

Mark Fiore has a musical take on America's apparent inability to keep its eye on the ball.

Keith Knight isn't impressed by the young would-be hero of the Rebellion.

Reuben Bolling proudly presents the return of Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time-Traveller from 1909.

Red Meat's Ted Johnson had exactly the same high school experience – exactly! – that I had.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon uncovers something probably more revealing about the comics creative process than anyone involved really intended. Excelsior!

Comic Strip of the Day reflects on the difference in difficulty between getting angry voters to the polls and happy ones.

The Yankees are in Chatanooga! The roughly thirty seconds of slouching-banjo-playing-cringing-"darkey" imagery at about the 2:40 mark (consider yourself warned) in "Southern Fried Rabbit" is generally considered what got the uncut version pulled from television distribution years ago. But the short is shot through with other bits and pieces of the old Confederacy's "special heritage" that didn't seem to bother anyone, for example: Bugs sings "Old Black Joe" as he happily attempts to cross the Mason-Dixon line, the unpleasantness of less than a century earlier is referred to by its "Lost Cause" euphemism "The War Between the States," Yosemite Sam chivalrously protects Bugs (who is not only the fair-haired woman named Scarlett! but also a stand-in for the Yankees, carpet baggers, and slaves Sam's defending her against) – and of course the central premise of the story is that, ninety years later, the side that lost the Civil War was still fighting, it against all logic. (Yosemite Sam's request for a song from the minstrel Bugs very nearly steps on this classic Mel Brooks moment from some twenty years in the future.) Directed in 1953 by Friz Freleng from a story by Warren Foster, with voice work by Portland's Own Mel Blanc and musical director Carl Stalling of the p3 pantheon of gods. Watch "Southern Fried Rabbit" on DailyMotion.

The Big, And Getting Bigger Since We Welcomed Back The Departed, Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman spies something hanging from the front of the building at 1 First Street NE.

Quite Possibly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen reminds us to consider their point of view.

Matt Bors says: It's not that hard a word to say, folks.

Jesse Springer imagines a post-legalization Oregon (tomorrow) in which tweeners would rather play checkers than smoke pot. We'll have what he's having.

Test your toon captioning prowess at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.

Not perish

Was it really only 151 years ago today that Abraham Lincoln spoke at the dedication of that cemetary, honoring the fallen soldiers who died in a war to keep in the Union a collection of states whose leaders committed treason in the name of states' rights as a political ideal and human slavery as an economic model? Time does fly.

Traditionally, we mark this day at p3 by noting that Lincoln used those 267 words to redefine a nation "conceived in liberty" (and the fetishization of states' rights) as instead one that's also "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" (and not just the white, propertied, and connected ones). Of course, it took another 50 years to work out that "men" included "women," and by that time slavery had been replaced by the American apartheid of Jim Crow (old times there are not forgotten – did you know that?), which took another 50 years to correct.

And now, in the age of the Roberts Court, Citizens United, and Mitt Romney (tanned, rested, and ready for 2016), that famous final line seems more often honored in the breach: The Congress that will be sworn in next January seems more aptly described as a government of Exxon, by Comcast, for JPMorgan Chase. And that's the same Roberts Court, by the way, that decided that the Voting Rights Act no longer needs an enforcement mechanism because racism is over and Republican-controlled states would never spend the next two years finding ways to legally suppress black (and brown, and senior, and student) votes.

Well, if nothing else, it is a beautifully crafted little piece, hearkening back to a day when when the rhetorical models were Homer and the King James Bible, rather than the bumper sticker.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Nine years ago in p3: The Hobby Lobby cards were already on the table

Everything you needed to know about last week's Supreme Court decision on health care, corporations, and contraception was right there in 2005.

There are actually two sharks swimming in the waters of the commonwealth -- the Theocratic Right, yes, but also the Corporate Right (whose issues are deregulation, lowering what's left of corporate taxes, and curbing consumer rights--especially our rights to bring corporations to court).

A quantum of umbrage: A synoptic history of the separation of church and state (second revision for 2014)

James Madison, 1791: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Thomas Jefferson, 1802: The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment guarantees Americans a wall of separation between church and state.

John F. Kennedy, 1960: The separation of church and state is absolute. My church will not dictate my policy decisions.

Mitt Romney, 2008: The separation of church and state is relative. My church will dictate my policy decisions, but only to the extent that I will discriminate against the same people Christian conservatives would already be discriminating against anyway.

Bart Stupack, 2009: The separation of church and state is a fairy tale. My church will show up at the Capitol steps in a limo to dictate policy.

Rick Santorum, 2012: The separation of church and state is an abomination. "Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech [by JFK to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960], and I almost threw up."

Sally Quinn, 2012: The separation of church and state is impossible. “This is a religious country. Part of claiming your citizenship is claiming a belief in God, even if you are not Christian.” Agnostics, atheists, and other nonbelievers need not apply.

The Roberts Court, May 2014: The separation of church and state is unconstitutional. Public meetings may now begin with explicitly Christian prayer, and those who don't like it are advised by Justice Kennedy to "ignore" it.

The Roberts Court, June 2014: The separation of church and state only applies to those non-conservative non-christian denominations not represented on the Supreme Court; persons (carbon-based or contract-based) of a favored religious denomination can opt out of laws that go against their sincerely-held religious beliefs. 

"The hosts will have only a few months of discomfort and inconvenience, though of course their careers must be set aside for a time."

As a salute to the five men on the Supreme Court who decided this week that corporations (which are persons) could make unilateral decisions to interfere with their female employees' access to insurance-covered contraception, at least partly on the mistaken grounds that all contraceptives work by aborting the tiny little blastocysts (which are also persons) inside those female employees (who, as it turns out, are apparently not really persons themselves), p3 proudly reminds our readers of this excerpt from Sheri Tepper's great science fiction adventure satire The Fresco.

Have fun.

Quote of the day: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Well, close enough:

The most effective form of voter suppression is to convince people that the franchise is out of their reach.

- Charlie Pierce, on the long game behind current vote suppression laws.

A quantum of umbrage: A synoptic history of the separation of church and state (revised for 2014)

(Last revised October 2012)

James Madison, 1791: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Thomas Jefferson, 1802: The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment guarantees Americans a wall of separation between church and state.

John F. Kennedy, 1960: The separation of church and state is absolute. My church will not dictate my policy decisions.

Mitt Romney, 2008: The separation of church and state is relative. My church will dictate my policy decisions, but only to the extent that I will discriminate against the same people Christian conservatives would already be discriminating against anyway.

Bart Stupack, 2009: The separation of church and state is a fairy tale. My church will show up at the Capitol steps in a limo to dictate policy.

Rick Santorum, 2012: The separation of church and state is an abomination. "Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech [by JFK to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960], and I almost threw up."

Sally Quinn, 2012: The separation of church and state is impossible. “This is a religious country. Part of claiming your citizenship is claiming a belief in God, even if you are not Christian.” Agnostics, atheists, and other nonbelievers need not apply.

The Roberts Court, 2014: The separation of church and state is unconstitutional. Public meetings may now begin with explicitly Christian prayer, and those who don't like it are advised by Justice Kennedy to "ignore" it.

Quote of the day: Therefore, Exceptional

[W]hat we are seeing, over and over again, is what happens when you combine the inebriate effect of American Exceptionalism in the philosophy of the law. Race does not exist as an issue in our country anymore because we have overcome it, because we are America and, therefore, Exceptional. Our elections are clean and honest, no matter how much money is sluicing through them, because we are America and, therefore, Exceptional. And if the people of a state wish to vote through a policy that deliberately harms racial minorities, they cannot be acting out of racial bigotry, because we are America, and race does not exist as an issue in our country any more because we are Execptional. And if the success of this policy at the polls is guaranteed because of the money that powers its passage, then the money cannot have been a factor because our elections are clean and honest because we are America and, therefore, Exceptional.

- Charlie Pierce, leading a tour of the various amusement rides at the theme park inside Justice Anthony Kennedy's head.

Quote of the day: "The Sheldon Primary"

That's the term of art now for the fashion show in which Republican presidential wannabes do the swimsuit and formal gown strut on the catwalk for the billionaire dark-money providers – a process that is now more lucrative, and probably more predictable from the point of view of campaign strategy than those old-style land-based primaries like New Hampshire or South Carolina. (And as a health plus for the candidates, they probably don't have to eat deep-fried anything or stand in the snow as much.)

In 2012, Sheldon Adelson himself pissed away what you and I might naively consider a fortune to get Newt Gingrich into the lead for . . . about a week or two before Mitt "Mister Inevitable" Romney ran him out of the race, along with the Randians, snake handlers, and pizza magnates and the rest of the field, one by one. Seeing his colors fade in the backstretch, Adelson let it be known that when they put Gingrich down he'd be looking for another horse, probably Romney. And that was just two candidates and one sugar-daddy. Now, thanks to the miracle of Citizens United and Shelby County decisions, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has allowed any billionaire to have his own candidate and bring him up with far less regard for, or deference to, what the RNC might want, with its silly ideas about actually winning elections at the national level.

It's hard to feel too sympathetic about this, since the bear that is biting them on the ass is one they raised and nurtured since it was a cub.

But Robert Reich draws the larger moral:

Charles and David Koch should not be blamed for having more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans put together. Nor should they be condemned for their petrochemical empire. As far as I know, they’ve played by the rules and obeyed the laws.

They’re also entitled to their own right-wing political views. It’s a free country.

But in using their vast wealth to change those rules and laws in order to fit their political views, the Koch brothers are undermining our democracy. That’s a betrayal of the most precious thing Americans share.

The Kochs exemplify a new reality that strikes at the heart of America. The vast wealth that has accumulated at the top of the American economy is not itself the problem. The problem is that political power tends to rise to where the money is. And this combination of great wealth with political power leads to greater and greater accumulations and concentrations of both — tilting the playing field in favor of the Kochs and their ilk, and against the rest of us.

America is not yet an oligarchy, but that’s where the Koch’s and a few other billionaires are taking us. […]

At this very moment, Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (worth an estimated $37.9 billion) is busy interviewing potential Republican candidates whom he might fund, in what’s being called the “Sheldon Primary.”

“Certainly the ‘Sheldon Primary’ is an important primary for any Republican running for president,” says Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. “It goes without saying that anybody running for the Republican nomination would want to have Sheldon at his side.”

The new billionaire political bosses aren’t limited to Republicans. Democratic-leaning billionaires Tom Steyer, a former hedge-fund manager, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have also created their own political groups. But even if the two sides were equal, billionaires squaring off against each other isn’t remotely a democracy.

Heaven help us.

A quantum of umbrage: Our sick sad country

The free market in action:

NRA member Timothy Campbell of Dallas, Texas, says he has called Boston and MIT police departments over a dozen times since the murder of an MIT police officer last Thursday, but neither department has been willing to release the exact brands and models of guns used. While many cite fears that guns like the ones used in acts of terrorism or mass murder will be targeted for stricter regulation or even banning by the government, Campbell, an avid gun collector, says he recognizes that the odds that access to such weapons would be restricted are "essentially zero," he still is eager to purchase the guns as soon as the Tsarnaev weapons are identified. "I don't really know why I want to own them so bad," he said during an interview conducted this morning. "I guess it's probably a penis thing."

Gee, Tim. You think?

And here's the reason that the arms industry doesn't want to prevent mass shootings: they're good for business.

An executive with a prominent gun manufacturer said that having one of a company's guns used in an incident of mass murder or terrorism can represent a substantial boon to profits.

Oh, yeah -- and all those munitions-manufacturing corporations that are profiting off the carnage -- that are in fact building the carnage into their business model? A majority of the Supreme Court says they're people.

Reading: Pierce on life after Citizens United

I look at his argument about where the Iowa caucus results are inexorably pointing us from every direction, and I wish I could find some reason to disagree, but I can't.

It moves forward now. A staggered frontrunner who has shown himself to be the best one of them at fighting on this new terrain, and an outright Papist nutter who thinks the states can and should ban birth control, and who loves all human life, except those lived happily by his fellow citizens who are gay, who he believes need to remain second-class citizens. Both of them confronting each other in a system that has become so sodden with anonymous corporate money that it would make liars out of the most sincere politicians who ever lived, which these two guys certainly are not. There is nothing to stop it. There are no sensible politicians who willingly would disarm themselves first. The election of the next president does not belong to the country any more. But we will pretend that it does. We are very good at that.

(Emphasis added.)

Even this tiny pinpoint of light, important as it is, is unlikely to offer much help.

Pierce's utterly depressing piece is going onto the long-neglected p3 Readings list on the sidebar.

Quote of the day: Quid pro quo

Here's Robert Reich on Clarence Thomas selling out (the early years):

Back in 1991 when Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court, Citizens United spent $100,000 to support his nomination. The in-kind contribution presumably should have been disclosed by Thomas.

The exquisite pain of the First Amendment

Scott Lemieux reminds us of a long-standing p3 maxim: If defending free speech doesn't hurt, at least a little bit, you're probably not doing it right:

To its substantial credit, in an 8-1 ruling today the Court held that the civil suit against Fred Phelps violated the First Amendment. It’s hard to celebrate any victory for Phelps and his band of bigots, but that’s the point — you don’t need the First Amendment to defend popular speakers.

Thus is actual free speech in America distinguished from what Sarah Palin thinks it should be, which is speech that is free from ever being subjected to criticism. I'm as astonished as anyone that the same court that declared contract-based corporations to have the same free-speech rights as carbon-based citizens actually got this one right, but there's no denying they did.

(Bonus quote from Lemieux:

You’d think that ["Strip Search Sammy" Alito's lone dissent in] this case would kill of his wholly unearned reputation for moderation, but it seems as durable as Newt Gingrich’s wholly unearned reputation as an intellectual.

Heh.)

After corporate citizenship, will this be the GOP's final frontier?

Just one day after Republican leaders pushed through the House a measure to repeal the entire health law, a measure unlikely to even be considered by the Senate, they were back before the cameras, introducing legislation that would permanently bar any taxpayer subsidies for abortion.

"A ban on taxpayer funding of abortion is the will of the people, and it ought to be the will of the land," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said.

(Emphasis added.) This news of Boehner's discovery that real estate is capable of forming intention was forwarded to me by longtime p3 correspondent Doctor Beyond, who added, "Is Boehner hoping for a Supreme Court decision giving land the vote? Or just the right to contribute to political campaigns?"

Quote of the day: Unleashing the genius of corporate America

Regarding the consequences for the American election system of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, it turns out the genius of corporate America just needs the proper motivation:

The billionaire corporation officers couldn't come up with serious reductions in automotive fuel consumption for 40 years. Corporate bigwigs have yet to figure out how to make banks profitable without creating periodic worldwide economic disasters, and have failed over almost 40 years to make any progress whatever in preventing and/or cleaning up major oil spills. People who pay themselves well upward of a million dollars a year say they simply can't find a way to seriously reduce their pollution of our environment.

But it took only about four months to design and set up an efficient system for taking over the American electoral system at all levels, from municipal to national.

Read the whole thing, but don't expect to feel very happy when you're finished.

The unforgiving minute

America can sleep safer tonight, knowing that defenseless corporations have had their rights to free speech restored to them via the Citizens United ruling.

Why look--here comes some corporate free speech right now, in the Senate Anti-Trust subcommittee hearings on the Comcast merger with NBC-Universal:

You know what I'll bet Specter thinks is the most brilliant thing Comcast's executives have done? They've donated a whopping $108,580 to his 2010 re-election campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org. That only makes Comcast the second largest source of campaign cash for Specter, however. The biggest is the Philadelphia-based legal and lobbying powerhouse Blank Rome. You know who one of Blank Rome's lobbying clients is? Comcast Corp.

As the Roberts Court would say: Money talks.

Of course, this story would sting more if Specter had had any integrity to begin with.

Minute's up.

Sunday morning toons: Special "Forgot to Subtitle It" edition

[Update: Missing Betty Boop is back!]

Is it a new rule that Obama gets heckled every time he speaks to Congress? Are Americans starting to notice congressional GOP intransigence? Is there anything left that corporations don't own? Will Sarah Palin end up giving her $100K speech to an empty auditorium where the national Tea Party convention was originally scheduled?

And what's the one development here in America this week that seems to be shaking the world?

The answers are here, starting with this week's Daryl Cagle's toon round-up.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Nate Beeler, R. J. Matson, R. J. Matson, Larry Wright, Milt Priggee, Pat Bagley, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: John Trevor.

p3 "Exporting Democracy" Award: Jimmy Margulies.

p3 "Money Changes Everything" Award: Steve Sack.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Adam Zyglis.

Meanwhile, see if you can detect the subtle pattern in this week's p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Paresh Nath (India), Martyn Turner, (Ireland) and Cam Cardow (Canada).


Ann Telnaes suspects that some soapboxes are more equal than others.


Mark Fiore describes the State of the Union Address he'd like to see. I particularly like the idea of National Irony Day.


Can Supreme Court Justices still utter the phrase "framers' intent" without giggling? The answer, says Chan Lowe, could blow you away.


Ever find yourself wondering why "The Family Circus" just isn't very interesting? The Comics Curmudgeon has a thought: You could be reading it out of sequence.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman notes that what you learned in your high school civics book may be void where prohibited.

Laughs: It comes somewhere between Giggles and Hysterics: "Ha! Ha! Ha!" is a 1934 Betty Boop toon directed by Dave Fleischer that paired her with another popular Fleischer Studios character, Koko the Clown (whose popularity didn't endure like our Betty's). There are several claims online that the film was at some point banned--the plot involves a trip to the dentist where everyone's overcome by laughing gas--although it's hard to picture that as a ban-worthy offense, then or now, and I haven't been able to document anything of the sort. (Given that a Popeye cartoon from 1946, "Rodeo Romeo," showing Popeye and Bluto bombed out of their gourds on "locoweed," got regular TV play up into the 1960s, laughing gas seems like it deserves a ticket at most, not the death penalty. And of course there the whole Betty and cocaine thing.) The fumes soon spread over the city, resulting in a hallucinatory mix of animation and live-action footage--the typewriter and mailboxes seem like they're straight out of David Cronenberg.

p3 Bonus Toon: Following the pulling-away victories of Measures 66 and 67 this week, Jesse Springer sends along this message of appreciation, "from the 97% of us who won't be affected by the tax increase to the other 3%:"




Remember to bookmark:

Slate's political cartoon for the day.

And Time's cartoons of the week.

The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered by Carl, Christine, and Paul, on the KPOJ 620AM's Carl + Christine show, are posted at LO.

Once again, despite precision accounting, there was one limerick too many, and you get to reap the puzzle-solving benefit. Fill in the blank with the word or phrase from this week's Oregon news:

Portland's streetcars cause no traffic jams;
Others point with some pride to its tram,
But the cycling-obsessed
Know why Portland's the best . . .
Well, except for one place: ________________.

(The answer can be found in the Comments below, or in this week's Spanning the State at Loaded Orygun.)

Bonus limericks: We proudly present for your politico-aesthetic contemplation Ode to Weak-Kneed Democrats and Ode to Odious Corporate Personhood, two political limericks from p3's newest blogroll buddy, Mad Kane.