Cartoons: We the *rich* People...

Senate Republicans have once again asserted their right to be naysayers: "Senate Republicans block Obama bid to hike minimum wage." The debate about raising the minimum wage pushes the point that an increase in the wage will cost jobs.  The North Carolina Policy Watch (NC Policy Watch) has published a comparison of changes in employment levels between states that have increased the minimum wage and those that have not. Generally "...States that raised minimum wage experiencing faster job growth."

These cartoonists have some valuable insights into Republicans, Obama, and the minimum wage controversy.

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Chan Lowe, US News

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Milt Priggee, Cagle

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Milt Priggee, Cagle

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Steve Sack, Cagle

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Crimea and winter

There's a lot of news about Putin annexing Crimea, and sanctions against it, and who-did-what-and-why.  Even Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev, is weighing in--he's writing a series of articles titled "Crimea: Whose land is this?" Note that it's published by Aljazeera (link resolves to the American edition) and that he clearly has a chip on his shoulder for the U.S.:

In Washington DC, the best minds of the Obama administration were feverishly thinking how else to make it more difficult for the recalcitrant citizens of Crimea. They will definitely think of something since they have a lot of experience in doing so. After all, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Libyans and the Lebanese have long stopped celebrating.

Here's what some of the political cartoonists are saying.

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Jimmy Margulies, USA Today

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Walt Handelsman, US News

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Steve Sack, The Week

Meanwhile, on the winter front--

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Bob Englehart, The Week

-- Marge

Cartoons: Obama, Putin...and Lindsay Graham

The cartoons below refer to the unrest in Ukraine.  Here's some background from CNN: "20 questions: What's behind Ukraine's political crisis?. "  BBC News has a page--"As it happened: Pressure on Russia"--that gives a blow-by-blow account in the Reports column (some reports were tweeted).

Meanwhile talented editorial cartoonists give the real scoop on these recent happenings.

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Tom Stiglich, US News

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Steve Breen, US News

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Dana Summers, US News

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Dan Wasserman, US News

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Putin's Press

While looking for an example of how Russian President Putin controls information in his country, I came across this interesting site--Trust.org, sponsored by Thomson Reuters Foundation.  An article found at Trust, "Russian court puts Putin foe under house arrest, bars Internet use," speaks of just one dissident's arrest but gives enough information to see the extent of Putin's control.

Now for the cartoons--

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Michael Ramirez, US News

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Dan Wasserman, US News

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Jack Ohman, US News

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Scott Stantis, US News

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Paul Combs, US News

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-- Marge

Cartoon goulash

The cartoons I'm offering today are a mixture of ones that tickled my funny bone or hit green on my truth meter.

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Marshall Ramsey, "The Christmas Miracle," US News

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Ken Catalino, "Got Milk," US News

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Jack Ohman, "GOP Candidate School," The Week

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Michael Ramirez, US News

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Scott Stantis, 'Bull run," the Week

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Black Thursday

Thanksgiving is the new Black Friday.  See below.

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Paul Combs, US News

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Scott Stantis, US News

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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Chan Lowe, US News

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There's an article by Kevin Roose giving "5 Black Friday Shopping Myths" with the photo below. (Not everyone agrees with him, so take a look at the comments.)

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Daily Intelligencer, Black Thursday/Friday crowd at Macy's

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-- Marge

Humor: Stock market drama

On Monday, the "Dow Jones industrial average topped 16,000 for the first time ever" reported CNN Money. Considering how the stock market affected the world economy in 2008, I'm not impressed, neither is Jack Ohman:

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Jack Ohman, NYSE vs Unemployment, US News

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As Will Rogers said in December, 1929 (more quotes are here) --

I tell 'em that this Country is bigger than Wall Street, and if they don't believe it, I show 'em the map.

Seems to me, Republicans and Wall Street go hand in hand.  For a zany alternate view of Republicanism, take a look a College Humor's video, "The Mad (Republican) Tea Party:"

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In his radio broadcast in 1931, "Bacon and Beans and Limousines," Will Rogers noted,

So here we are in a country with more wheat and more corn and more money in the bank, more cotton, more everything in the world—there’s not a product that you can name that we haven't got more of it than any other country ever had on the face of the earth—and yet we’ve got people starving. We'll hold the distinction of being the only nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile. The potter's fields are lined with granaries full of grain. Now if there ain't something cockeyed in an arrangement like that then this microphone here in front of me is—well, it's a cuspidor, that's all.

In closing, here's one from About.com's Political Humor:

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BTW, there's a handsome book about Will Rogers, titled The Quotable Will Rogers, by Joseph H. Carter at Google Books. You can buy a copy if you like.

-- Marge

Friday cartoons: Tea Party, Me Party

The government shutdown may be over, but I'm still stinging from it.  Seeing the Tea Party members of the US Congress gloat about having shutdown the government was pretty ugly.  Who knew they would interpret their mission of less government as no government?  Thing is, their extreme tactics are taking down the Republicans (who don't need any help alienating us ordinary folk) as well.

Here are some ideas about the Tea Party in the form of cartoons for you to consider.

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Drew Sheneman, "That Was Awesome," USNews

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Drew Sheneman, Boston Tea Party, USNews

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Mike Luckovich, "Bad Fit," theWeek

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Chan Lowe, "Shutdown," USNews

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Mike Keefe's cartoon below addresses what's been on my mind lately...

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Mike Keefe, "Home Grown Terror," theWeek

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-- Marge

Cartoons and more: Government Waste

While we all joke about the snafu (military slang) that is Obamacare signup, it is an excellent example of how the Federal government works at present. This article at TIME Magazine offers an explanation of what was going on behind the scenes, "Traffic Didn’t Crash the Obamacare Site Alone. Bad Coding Did Too."

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Scott Stantis, "How The Glitch Stole Healthcare," USNews

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The site Outside the Beltway has an article titled "Is Government Inefficient?" with the cartoon shown below.  Here is an observation from the article:

While some federal agencies have made good-faith attempts to become more efficient, most still carry the dead weight of unnecessary overhead, outmoded business processes, infrastructure that is no longer aligned to their mission, and underperforming organizational structures.

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David Horsey, "The Federal Bureaucracy," OutsideTheBeltway

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One of the current problems is that the Fed uses a lot of contractors (aka outsourcing) with little coordination and oversight.  The article "Outsourced Government: Have We Gone Too Far?" discusses this.  During the Clinton administration, also that of G.W. Bush, attempts was made to 'reinvent government' (Wikipedia), but they fell by the wayside, as analyzed in this lessons-learned paper.  According to Wikipedia's NPR (National Partnership for Reinventing Government) article: "It was the eleventh federal reform effort in the 20th century."

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Paul Noth, "We Don't Need to Reinvent theWheel...," New Yorker

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In the case of government reform, reinventing the wheel may be needed.  If you feel something should be done, take a look at Citizens Against Government Waste.  The movement addresses more than government spending.

As for the dyfunction of the Obamacare site, some are suggesting that the NSA can help.

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Jack Ohman, Obamacare-NSA, USNews

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Obamacare

I know, I know, it's all you hear about lately.  But the cartoonists are having a field day -- here are 6 of 141 political cartoons on Obamacare, found at the US News website.

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Tom Stiglich, USNews

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Drew Sheneman, USNews

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Drew Sheneman on Obamacare, USNews

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Michael Ramirez, USNews

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Drew Sheneman on Obamacare and small business, USNews

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Walt Handelsman on fixing Obamacare, USNews

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I just tried HealthCare.gov, the site for signing for Obamacare, and it worked just fine (loading the front page, that is). 

-- Marge