This is just an assortment of recent political cartoons. I started with my absolute favorite, mostly because it's such a clear picture of what's wrong with today's Republican Party.
Today's increasingly crazy GOP is all a result of the party's 'Southern strategy' of deliberately wooing white racists, after the Democrats started pushing for civil rights for black people. Back then, the South was solidly Democratic - and had been for more than a century.
But when Northern Democrats (mostly - let's not forget Harry Truman or Lyndon B. Johnson) took a brave stand against state-supported segregation, those old racist Dixiecrats were furious. Republican leaders saw an opportunity and started deliberately wooing white racists.
It worked like a charm, too. The South went from being solidly Democratic to solidly Republican. But, joining with northern racists, religious fundamentalists, and other crazies already in the GOP, they turned the Republican Party into the Dixiecrat Party.
Those 'RINOs'? They're the real Republicans, the sane conservatives and the few remaining moderates who haven't yet jumped ship.
The next few cartoons refer to that 60 Minutes fiasco, where a supposed 'news' show didn't bother to check the claims of a mercenary, huckster, and eager book-seller taking advantage of their gullibility (with gleeful Republicans pushing his lies as hard as they could, of course).
I suppose this resonates with me partly because I majored in Journalism all those years ago in college. Since then, Fox 'News' has been really hard to stomach, but it's the supposedly mainstream journalists which have really had me tearing my hair out.
Then there's the 'Obamacare' rollout. That was certainly frustrating (although I was able to get insurance myself without any real problem). But I've also been frustrated by Obama's 'lie' - especially in how it's been spun.
After all, it was true enough when he first started saying it. It was quite true, when Obamacare was signed into law, that existing health care policies were grandfathered in. But that was three years ago, and new policies aren't covered under that.
Given that insurance companies canceled or changed policies all the time before Obamacare (note that they could - and would - cancel your insurance if you got cancer or some other expensive disease), few of us still have the same insurance we had then (unless you get your insurance through your job, which isn't affected by Obamacare at all).
But fine, Obama apologized for lying. When are all those Republicans going to apologize for their lies they've been spouting the past few years? Not just the lies about Obamacare, either, although they've been abundant. What about their lies about "You didn't build that"?
Heck, what about their lies to get us to invade an innocent country? That cost hundreds of millions of lives, while Obama's 'lie' might result in, what,... health insurance?
Of course, there are always other things going on, but I can't bear to say much about horrible tragedies like the recent typhoon in the Philippines. These are not 'acts of God,' and although storms are natural, what we're doing to our planet is making them worse.
But as long as it doesn't happen here, right? (Unfortunately, we need to be smart enough to address the problem before it starts causing huge problems everywhere, because by the time it does, it will be too late.)
Oh, well, let me close with a 'politics as usual' (in this post-Citizens United land) cartoon:
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