Category Archives: cartoons
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
The Very Bad Year in Cartoons: Best of Bok 2020
Snatching Power of the Purse with Executive Orders
Six years ago President Obama went around Congress and snatched its power of the purse. He announced “We’re not just going to be waiting for legislation, I have a pen and a phone… and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions.”
So I drew this Obama cartoon:
Snatching Power
And now President Trump is messing with the same purse. He used an executive order to go around Congress and cut off stimulus talks.
So, a foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of a small mind, I drew the Trump cartoon above.
What do You get for not Playing Your Music
I got this “what do you get for not playing?” idea from a WSJ piece by Gregg Opelka, a musical-theater composer-lyricist.
We’re all Marxists now. Not Karl, Groucho. There’s a famous sketch in “Animal Crackers” (1930) in which Groucho (as Captain Spaulding) quizzes Chico (Signor Emanuel Ravelli) on how much money the band gets paid. “What do you fellas get an hour?” Groucho asks. “For playing we get $10 an hour,” Chico replies.
Groucho presses: “I see. What do you get for not playing?” “For not playing we get $12 an hour. . . . Now for rehearsing, we make special rate. That’s $15 an hour.” Groucho: “That’s for rehearsing? And what do you get for not rehearsing?” Chico: “You couldn’t afford it. You see, if we don’t rehearse, we don’t play. And if we don’t play, that runs into money.”
Then he goes on about his real life friend.
I have a musician friend, Jim. He plays the bass. Jim is a talented man, and his gigging takes many forms—studio recording as well as live performance. As has happened to so many, his entire livelihood dried up overnight in mid-March. After filing for unemployment relief, he was grateful to receive the bulk of his lost weekly income but equally surprised by the unexpected $600-a-week bonus.
Without auditioning for it, Jim has become an unofficial member of Signor Ravelli’s Animal Crackers orchestra. He recently complained, only half ironically, that he doesn’t know how he’ll make ends meet once he can work again.
Gregg Opelka, Wall Street Journal
