Bors Blog

Karl's Courage

2010-03-09T23:59:00.005-05:00

Karl Rove's memoir was released this week, amazingly titled "Courage and Consequence." In it he humbly fesses up to his biggest blunder: not smearing people who pointed out their lies hard enough. Given that opponents of the war were at one time considered Saddam-fellating Benedict Arnolds by mainstream media commentators, I'm not quite sure what he thinks should have been done.

Fired Up. Ready To Knock.

2010-03-09T14:22:00.007-05:00

Watch out health insurance companies: Obama's rolling up his shirt sleeves and raising his voice in speeches! Whoever said passing laws was about back room deals, bribes and ideological trench warfare apparently has never listened to a rousing speech by our president. He has the solution for passing the bill: get active!

"I'm kind of fired up," Obama said at the beginning of his remarks, a variation on his oft-stated 2008 refrain, "Fired up. Ready to go." And he included an appeal to his audience – many of whom were students – to help in the same ways they might in a campaign. "So I need you to knock on doors. Talk to your neighbors. Pick up the phone," he urged them.

OK. I'm picking up my phone. It's picked - I'm holding it in my hand right now! Should I send a mass text urging everyone in my contacts to support passage of the bill? Should I call my grandma? (It's been too long and I wonder if she's figured out how to pronounce your name yet.)

Should I knock on my neighbor's door and gab her ears off about health care reform? She really loves when I wonk out and demand that she call or write her representative immediately. Makes her want to hang out with me more.

I understand the problem now. It's not Republican obstruction, Democratic weakness, the undemocratic Senate or the fact that corporate interests control both parties. It's me. I haven't been knocking on enough doors this past year.

But I'll do it for health care. Because after all, I still don't have any. I'll even write a joke to help persuade the nation. Print it out and leaflet your neighborhood. DO IT.

------

Knock, Knock.
Who's there?
Health care reform.
Health care reform wh-- hold on, my phone is ringing. Hello? Yes, health care reform, I know. Some asshole is at my door right now telling me about it. I've got people knocking, neighbors coming by, motherfuckers blowing up my phone. I joined a Facebook group about health care reform getting more fans than Nickleback. Guess what? I already support health care reform. Yup, I'm all aboard. Even that shitty thing Obama calls reform will do at this point. So stop bothering me and pass the damn thing so Rush Limbaugh will move out of the fucking country, which is where I might be going to get some health care if you keep this up.

Asay: Students should have M-16s

2010-03-08T12:29:00.001-05:00

Great analogy, Chuck. That's exactly what college is like.

(click here to view)

Chuck Asay
Creators Syndicate Inc.
Mar 8, 2010

EditorialCartoonists.com

Shot

2010-03-08T03:25:00.004-05:00

Starbucks is now allowing customers to pack heat while they wait for their foamed poopalotta. It's not something I get worked up over one way or the other, but open-carry advocates are really into the idea of letting everyone in every possible location know they have a gun. Probably due to micropenis.

Wednesday: Rove's Mea Culpa

Illustration Friday

2010-03-05T02:00:00.002-05:00

A guy really likes talking about his personal relationship with God.

Unreal

2010-03-04T22:50:00.002-05:00

The earth completed another rotation on its axis, so that means Obama must have sissified, scaled back, or completely shit on another campaign pledge. Sure enough, a big dump is in the works:

President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

Burtonomics

2010-03-03T10:33:00.003-05:00

I've been waiting a long time to draw this one.

D) None Of The Above

2010-03-02T04:00:00.003-05:00

An e-mail arrived Monday morning about a reprint. Could a college group organizing a debate about the existence of god use this cartoon on their flyer? No big deal and no money involved for a handful of flyers so I granted permission, pointing out that the work was not to be altered or appear out of context. Good luck convincing everyone to be rational, fellow traveler!

They replied, appreciating my prompt response, but wanted to run a slight alteration by me. Could they use it this way?

Oh hey, yeah! Turn my explicitly atheist comic into second-rate Jack Chick tract for a Jesus meeting – no biggie!

Permission not granted.

To You I Present The Following Sentence

2010-03-02T02:24:00.001-05:00

Rolling Stone: "Lady Gaga arrives with a rhinestone encrusted crustacean on her face..."

Yay for bipartisanship!

2010-03-01T16:49:00.004-05:00

Who says Washington is in gridlock? Today Obama went back on yet another campaign pledge by extending The Patriot Act for a year, a bill he said gave the government "powers it didn't need to invade our privacy without cause or suspicion" back in 2005. The House voted 315 to 97 in favor of the extension. No summit needed!

Sure, during campaign years Democrats will make noises about these police state excesses of the Bush era, but in reality everyone is pretty much on board. After all, a guy did melt his genitals with an underwear bomb recently. What's Dick Cheney keep giving himself heart attacks over?

I expect a lot of rationalizations from Obama's beleaguered fan base (hands tied, takes time, yadda yadda) that you wouldn't hear if that dumb ass dry drunk decider from Texas did the same thing.

Aerial Activism

2010-02-28T23:47:00.007-05:00

I'm a little late with a Joe Stack cartoon – my schedule sometimes does that to me – but I wanted to point out that white privilege apparently extends to domestic terrorism. Glenn Greenwald wrote well about the media's inability to drop the T-word on a non-Muslim.

Just imagine the discussion if: Joe Stack was a radical Muslim. Joe Stack was a black militant Marxist opposed to capitalism. Joe Stack as he was, but with a larger plane that killed, say, one hundred people instead on one. Tinkering with one small factor such as race or religion is the deciding factor in whether conservatives will set up a Facebook shrine for the attacker or for the imposition of martial law. They are unprincipled maniacs.

I'm sure we'll see more attacks soon.

Wednesday: More Tim Burton Remakes

It Had To Happen

2010-02-27T17:57:00.000-05:00

Behold: an editorial cartoonist labels his cartoon an "editorial cartoon."

(click here to view)

Douglas MacGregor
The News-Press
Feb 27, 2010

EditorialCartoonists.com

Illustration Friday

2010-02-26T02:00:00.000-05:00

A woman puts on makeup in her car while tossing trash out the window.

Social Networking

2010-02-23T15:57:00.002-05:00

It's easy to forget that sites like Facebook don't exist simply for the sublime pleasure of reuniting you with high school classmates you vaguely remember, but actually seek to make a ton of money collecting personal data to sell targeted advertising and map consumer habits. If a corporation, government agency or religious institution presented us with that plan on paper, we'd be repulsed... so someone made it fun!

Won't you be my Facebook friend?

Sketches

2010-02-23T15:47:00.002-05:00

From last night's New Oregon Interview Series on urban planning. Below is Portland Monthly editor Randy Gragg and architect Brad Cloepfil. The sketch of mayor Sam Adams is not included since it turned out looking like poo.

I got lucky at the after party – by which I mean I won an oversized Coors shirt in a bar raffle. Finally I can dress to impress.

Developmentally Designed?

2010-02-23T15:39:00.003-05:00

It has always puzzled me that the people who ascribe the most insanely vindictive qualities to their god do so approvingly.

Oh No Yoo Didn't

2010-02-22T17:19:00.002-05:00

Not only does John Yoo inexplicably live outside of a prison - he teaches law. See TPM's latest on his fun legal theories for killing and torturing people.

Mailbag Douchebag

2010-02-22T05:44:00.002-05:00

William writes:

Do your research and you will discover that GEORGE is as statist as BARACK Wake up and smell the coffee BOY. The good news is that Arkansas may elect the first openly republican black female to the congress ever.

I am going TEABAG at your tea party if you can figure that one out you RACIST SOB

I cannot figure that one out.

Nuclear Family

2010-02-22T05:21:00.003-05:00

This might be amusing or might be dumb. More on Wednesday.

Celebrity Rehab

2010-02-21T13:15:00.002-05:00

This is running today in The Oregonian.

clicky for biggie

Aaron Campbell, an unarmed black man, was shot dead by Portland cops recently. The citizenry here is rightfully outraged and Jesse Jackson touched down a few days ago as city leaders rushed to contain the damage. (I think Sharpton lands this coming week.) There's too many local references to explain here, but here are some Oregonian articles if you'd like to read more about the shooting.

Illustration Friday

2010-02-19T13:38:00.003-05:00

Someone leaves their dog's huge turds for others to clean up.

And an illustration for the ACLU. They've filed a lawsuit on behalf of a college student who was detained and interrogated at an airport for being armed with Arabic flashcards. Who knows what can happen if you learn Arabic.

Filibustered

2010-02-17T02:00:00.003-05:00

You may have noticed that our government has ground to a halt due to Republican obstruction. At this point I think they would block funds to build a 300-foot statue of Ronald Reagan on the White House lawn – even if it peed on poor people. This is the party that, during the Bush years, whined about not getting "up or down" votes on every fascist Bush wanted on the bench. Not that Democrats keep consistent views on the filibuster when they are out of power.

At bare minimum, old white men who want to filibuster should be forced to physically do it and shut the government down. Let them talk endlessly for days and weeks to block health care reform while liberal groups wheel out dying grandmas with red tape over their mouths for the cameras and see who wins that PR war.

What I find most amazing in all this is that Republicans are not doing anything the rules of the Senate don't allow them to do. It starts out as a ridiculously undemocratic institution, then makes up rules for itself so that some hick in a flyover state can shaft the entire country out of spite.

Pundits like to point out that our founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, designed the Senate to move at a glacial pace to prevent rushing headlong down some dangerous path. And hooray for that. Whether it's freeing slaves, letting women vote or being the last industrialized country to provide health care to all its citizens, Senators know it's best to sit on things for a few centuries and mull it over. Well, unless there is a country that needs bombed.

Yup

2010-02-16T23:18:00.000-05:00

What August says.

Meet The Press...And Finally The Cartoonist!

2010-02-16T15:05:00.003-05:00

Editor and Publisher reports David Gregory has caved to the non-stop vigilance of Bors Blog :

"Meet The Press" said Tuesday that the failure of host David Gregory to credit the cartoonist for cartoons aired on the show was "a completely unintentional oversight" - and that they will be recognized in all future shows.

They actually credit Rob Tornoe's blog post on Monday with getting the ball rolling. I happen to know that Tornoe is but one opinion-maker in my vast and faithful readership, which includes the President, The Black Eyed Peas and Wolf Blitzer, a dear friend.

I'm content to be the wizard behind the curtain as long as I get what I want.

All Dogs Go To Atheists

2010-02-16T13:47:00.002-05:00

Afraid your pet will starve when you Rapture to Jesus Land? Arrange to leave it with an atheist--for a fee.

Promoted on the Web as "the next best thing to pet salvation in a Post Rapture World," the service has attracted more than 100 clients, who pay $110 for a 10-year contract ($15 for each additional pet.) If the Rapture happens in that time, the pets left behind will have homes—with atheists. Centre has set up a national network of godless humans to carry out the mission. "If you love your pets, I can't understand how you could not consider this," he says.