CSotD: Monday Morning Coming Down
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Today is a sort of cartoonists’ holiday. Nobody takes Groundhog Day seriously, except the Chamber of Commerce in Punxsutawney, obviously, but there it is and gag cartoonists can pop out something and enjoy a short day.
Editorial cartoonists can get their compensation sometime later in the year by showing Bill Murray waking up to another round of whatever’s in the news that week, while in newsrooms everywhere, rookie feature writers will be assigned to tell us yet again that the tradition comes from Germany and so on and so forth.
Dave Whamond and Aislin are both Canadian, so the idea that you might ever have less than six more weeks of winter is, well, a foreign concept to them. I got married in Denver March 20, 1971, with daffodils in bloom and people only wore jackets because it was a wedding. My brother got married that May 1 back in our Adirondack hometown, just south of Ontario, and there were still six-foot snowbanks.
One more Groundhog Day cartoon, but mostly because I wish someone would come up with a way to identify both AI and bots, since they’re way too frequent in the mix on social media, and they poison the dialogue. Yes, Brewster, I’d as soon trust a rodent.
Speaking of our Neighbor to the North, we’re found a new way to antagonize them, and I didn’t think we needed one. Alice observed that, when you haven’t had any, you can’t have more, but we’ve already done plenty and so we’re back, buddying up to a clique of Alberta separatists. ‘Cause that’s what friends are for.
Kearney cartoons both for New Englanders — who’ve seen Canadian tourism dollars cut by about a third and their electric supply endangered by crossborder issues we’ve created — and farmers who have to contend with tariffs and pipeline issues that needn’t be as thorny as they’ve become.
So he has standing to criticize the situation.
Canadian cartoonist MacKay has plenty of reason to be annoyed, given that these Alberta separatists have had meetings with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant and other Trump officials, who apparently have encouraged them to break free, give us some of that nice Alberta oil and maybe audition for the role of 51st State.
I was reporting on Canadian business during the Meech Lake Crisis in the late 80s when Quebec was considering independence. La Belle Province had substantial historic and cultural incentives to think about breaking free, but it was still agonizing. Encouraging Albertans to put Canada through it again for far less reason is not the action of a friend.
Another Canadian cartoonist notes the hypocrisy of Dear Leaders’s ongoing hissy fit over Canada seeking a trade deal with China. Trump’s apparently still not aware that Canada’s a different country and, like Greenland, not his to direct. Oh, and he also doesn’t want the UK to trade with China.
His opinions are having an effect: It seems Canada is lowering its tariff on Chinese electric cars, which caught the attention of Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, who expressed the understandable fear that cheap auto imports will greatly damage automakers on both sides of the US/Canadian border.
As Auchter — based in Michigan — points out, it’s no secret what brought about this interest in making deals with China.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, the Melania film is drawing a fair number of patrons, likely the same crew who keep Xitter vibrant and who buy red ball caps and golden sneakers. It was shot in less than three weeks, a slapdash effort that nobody expected to produce a quality film, but, then again, Trump’s fanbase is large enough to make for a $7 million opening weekend.
Leaving only $68 million to go for the movie to break even, but Telnaes offers a reprise of her earlier piece to suggest that Jeff Bezos wasn’t expecting to profit from ticket sales. Which isn’t to say he isn’t still expecting to profit from bankrolling the movie.
Petrenko suggests that the film provides a welcome distraction, maybe, sort of. This reminds me of the animated cartoons in which stranded, starving sailors in lifeboats begin to see their comrades as pork chops, though I suspect the people who are distracted by the movie are the same ones who agree that Trump’s name only appears in the Epstein files because it was placed there by his political opponents.
And from his perspective in New Zealand, Body points out that, while the Andrew formerly known as Prince is being cast to the wolves for another round of recriminations, there’s a fellow safely crouched down in the sleigh, protected by wealth and power.
But never mind. We’re done with all that, the administration explains.
And, my goodness, don’t point out that, while the Melania film clocked in at #3 this past weekend, the Boss’s new tune topped the worldwide charts.
This revoltin’ development is probably more unwelcome at the White House than news of a special election in Texas where a district that had been Republican for 35 years fell to a Democrat.
The Trump administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities — not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information. — WH Spokesperson Abigail Jackson
They’d better focus on working with Democrats: The GOP’s majority in the House is getting kinda shaky.
As Noth points out, we’re beginning to be distracted by so much internal warfare that we’re in danger of losing track of the rest of the world, though the rest of the world isn’t losing track of us, as demonstrated by this
Juxtaposition of the Day
From Turkey, a grim look at how the symbol of Liberty has become a shadow of her former self, while Ratt pictures her as a bloody-but-unbowed icon of popular resistance, and Australian cartoonist Broelman paints us as our own worst enemy.
They can’t all be right, but, then again, they can’t all be wrong, either.
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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