Category Archives: internet
My Charlie Kirk Obit Cartoon
My agenda as a cartoonist is basically free speech. That made Charlie Kirk my kind of guy. He took on leftwing cancel culture by engaging college students where they were. His method was simple and brilliant, he promoted free speech using the Socratic method on college campuses. He would answer any question and then the student questioner had to respond. And so it went,
By the age of 31 Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, had 900 college and 1,200 high school chapters.
Sadly, Charlie Kirk became a free speech martyr when he was shot dead while taking the first question last week during a Utah Valley University engagement themed “Prove Me Wrong.”
Already since that dark day, Andrew Kolvet, the Charley Kirk Show producer says he has received 37,000 inquires seeking new chapters. Sounds to me like a possible turning point for the USA’s rotten politics.
Unfortunately some of the rotten politicians didn’t see it that way. U.S. Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) demanded an apology from Newsday and my termination (first they’d have to hire me.) Jesse Garcia, chairman of the Suffolk County Republican Party, criticized Newsday. He said the paper “crossed a line” and that the cartoon mocked tragedy, caused division, and encouraged political violence. He called it a “reckless, partisan attack” and said it silenced free speech.
Here’s my apology: I’m sorry Charlie Kirk isn’t around to give these guys a free speech lesson.
Musk Tweaks Twitter over Free Speech Abuse
The world’s leading billionaire, Elon Musk, thinks Twitter is a cess pool. So he made a bid to buy the company. He says his motive isn’t about money, it’s about restoring free speech.
Twitter cancelled a lesser billionaire, Donald Trump’s, free speech while he was president of the United States. Trump thinks twitter’s a cess pool too. But his response was to develop his own social media platform called Truth Social. So far his startup is off to a rocky start.
Don’t Shout Fire in a Crowded Theater Book Burning
Until recently restrictions on free speech seemed pretty straight forward – don’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater. But times have changed. Now you must not offend anyone in the theater either.
Dr. Marty Markay of Johns Hopkins wrote an op-ed in the WSJ explaining why we might reach herd immunity in April. Facebook apparently knows better and flagged the article as “misleading.”
Last summer the NYT booted its opinion page editor for publishing an op-ed by U.S. Senator Tom Cotton. Cotton wanted troops to put down rioting brought on by George Floyd’s death in police custody last summer. Since then armed troops and razor wire have become the preferred approach around our nation’s capitol.
Then there’s the Times treatment of Don McNeil, Amazon’s censorship of Ryan T. Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally, Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head, Pepe Le Pew and you know the rest.
There’s not much that’s written or drawn that someone won’t find offensive, so we’re burning it all. But don’t shout “fire.”
Big Voice on the Right, Rush Limbaugh 1951 – 2021, RIP
Rush Limbaugh was “The Big Voice on the Right.” He earned his self-proclaimed title when Ronald Reagan dismantled the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. That allowed radio stations to broadcast Limbaugh’s raucous conservative opinions without giving equal time to offended liberals. It was a winning formula, and in the process he saved AM radio.
And he continued to dominate conservative talk until he died yesterday of lung cancer.
Big Voice on the Right
He was an entertainer who knew and respected his audience. But he also had an uncanny knack for stringing together news items and ideas to make a witty point. Almost always mocking the left. The left is lucky he didn’t draw.
Rush claimed to know liberals like “every square inch of his glorious naked body.” And, thanks to “talent on loan from God,” he claimed he could beat them with “half his brain tied behind his back.”
So that’s why I figured I had an original cartoon idea – yesterday. Rest in peace, Rush…
More great minds….
I, for one, say thank you to Rush for airing those views all these many years with his “talent on loan from G-d,” with the hope that it remains “on loan” for many more years to come.
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky, Jewish World Review
Oy.
Big Tech Lends a Tentacle to Progressives
Big Tech is putting the squeeze on free speech. And it’s being embraced by progressives, as long as someone else’s speech gets the squeeze. Early progressive’s battled trust octopi. But no more.
Big Tech
In the 19th century, “progressives” sought to curb the power of monopolies and trusts on the logic that the proverbial people had only the railroads or telegraphs to travel or communicate, and should be freed from their octopus “tentacles.” The railroad argument, “Ride a horse if you don’t like us,” never washed.
Now progressives enlist social media monopolies to ensure that they alone can control, censor, and cancel incorrect communications over the publicly owned airspace. “Just email or use your cell phone, if you don’t like us” won’t wash either. Progressives are no longer the watchdogs breaking up trusts. They are the trusts breaking up watchdogs.
Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness Jan 10,2021
