Category Archives: cartoons
Yellen Takes Off Training Wheels
Janet Yellen took the training wheels off the economy on Wednesday. After seven years of near zero percent interest rates, the Fed hiked rates a quarter percent.
Meanwhile, Congress passed a 2,000 page, 1.2 trillion dollar budget. That tacked another 157 billion onto the 18.5 trillion dollar national debt.
Yellen
On Friday the Dow dropped 370 points.
David Stockman says, “sell the bonds, sell the stocks, sell the house”. IBD wonders if the markets know something the Fed doesn’t.
ISIS Nuisance
John Kerry thinks terrorists might have had cause for murdering cartoonists but the attack on Paris is beyond the pale. He backpedalled his statement but here it is. At least he didn’t croon “You’ve got a friend”.
He based his presidential campaign in 2004 on the idea that Islamic jihad is just a nuisance. President Obama feels the same. He wants to close Gitmo and prosecute Islamic jihadists though the US court system.
President Holland feels differently. Freedom fries anyone?
Update:
This analysis by John Lloyd of Reuters says it’s not only an act of war, ISIS is an “existential threat”.
USO Camp Trip
Welcome to Team Kuwait. I spent the dying days of August with the guys above drawing service men and women in Kuwait, Djibouti, and Incerlik Air Base in Turkey. The trip was sponsored by USO. The picture above was provided by our fearless leader Bruce Higdon. Bruce is a great punster, cartoonist, and former army colonel. Not that we would follow him into battle.
USO
Left to right: Illustrator and Disney animator Chad Frye, Eddie Pittman of Phinneas and Ferb fame, Paul Combs a fire fighting editorial cartoonist (he’s a real fireman), Sam Viviano art director of Mad Magazine and caretaker of Alfred E. Nueman and Spy vs. Spy, the guy in the middle is Col. Bruce, Rick Kirkman draws the comic strip Baby Blues and came up with the name Wanda for the lead character because he thought it was funny – that’s my mother’s name, Ed Steckley a Mad contributor and Mad Men advertising artist in New York City, Michael Ramirez a fire breathing 2 time Pulitzer winning IBD editorial cartoonist, in full battle dress for some reason, dork at the end – me.
The two happy guys at the top own all the oil.
The trip was a hit with the troops and their families and rewarding for us.
They shouldn’t have let us into the Chief Petty Officers Club. We drew on the walls (note Alfred E. Neuman’s head peering over the guy on the far right).
We like gallows humor but this is a real gallows outside the base in Djibouti.
Trump/Sanders Dream Ticket
A 72 year old Vermont socialist from Brooklyn draws huge crowds for speeches. The Donald insults Megyn and Mexicans and still leads a strong Republican field in the polls.
Glenn Reynolds, in USA TODAY says the voters are fed up with the ruling class in both parties:
The rise — and, for that matter, the fall, if fall it is — of Trump is an indictment of the GOP establishment and, for that matter, of the American political establishment in general.
On many issues, ranging from immigration reform, which many critics view as tantamount to open borders, to bailouts for bankers, the Republican and Democratic establishments agree, while a large number (quite possibly a majority) of Americans across the political spectrum feel otherwise.
Dream Ticket
Is Trump/Sanders a third party dream ticket for frustrated voters?
They both say the government’s unemployment numbers are a “crock“. The official 5.3% rate doesn’t take into account the 90 million who have given up looking for work. Sanders says the real unemployment number is north of 10%. Trump places it at 20%. Nick Gillespie, in a Daily Beast piece titled “The Pissed Off Primary”, notes they both hate Immigration and China, but in the end they’re more demagogues than candidates.