Tag Archives: political cartoons 2013
Guns and Abortion
The Roe v Wade decision of 1973 established a woman’s constitutional right not to bear children. The constitutional right to bear arms was ratified by 3/4 of the states in 1791.
As the president would say, the public’s views have “evolved” on social issues. People are becoming more tolerant of homosexuality in general and same sex marriage in particular. Ten states plus the District of Columbia now recognize same sex marriage.
Abortion is trickier. According to a Quinnipiac poll 63% still support the Roe v Wade decision. Yet in a USA Today Poll only 28% believe it should always be legal, 52% say sometimes legal, and 18% never legal. Eighty percent feel it should never be legal in the last trimester of pregnancy – Dr. Gossnell’s sweet spot.
Unfortunately, that last trimester is also the sweet spot for politicians like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. While scolding the gun lobby’s “willfull lies”, the president blindly supports an abortion lobby that leads to barbaric practices like Dr. Gossnell’s.
(Journalists have been shamed into providing more coverage of the case.)
Margaret Thatcher Funeral
The vice president of the United States decides tie votes in the senate and goes to funerals. President Obama had nice things to say about Margaret Thatcher but chose not to attend her funeral. Nor did he elect to send Joe Biden.
Some Brits took this as another snub by Obama; most probably considered it a blessing.
It’s Complicated
HHS Secretary Sebelius admitted that ObamaCare is complicated. Senator Jay Rockefeller calls it “the most complex piece of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress”. And he helped design it.
Meanwhile the ACLU says IRS is reading your email.
Obamascare
Health insurance rates are taking off under Obamacare, especially if you now carry a high deductible plan. Kathleen Sebelius agrees.
“Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don’t pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus,” she said. “They’re really mortgage protection, not health insurance.”
Megan McCardle at the Daily Beast thinks Sebelius is confused about what insurance is.
Sebelius’ response is apparently that catastrophic insurance isn’t really insurance at all–which is exactly backwards. Catastrophic coverage is “true insurance”. Coverage of routine, predictable services is not insurance at all; it’s a spectacularly inefficient prepayment plan.
“This is not insurance anymore. This is regulation, this is government dictated rates, like the electrical company…”
North Korean Diplomacy
The new Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, wasn’t mollified by Dennis Rodman’s recent mission to his country. The young -un says the time has come to “settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists”. Settlement terms include hitting targets in Hawaii, Guam, and the US homeland.
The threats may be more to impress Lil’ Kim’s own low information constituents.
Cartoonish efforts by world leaders please me. I haven’t been so pleased since Bibi’s Iran nuclear graph.
