Comic Strip of the Day Editorial Cartooning

CSotD: Say what?

Benson’s provokes a double-take, by positing the panic she says that Democrats are in because James Carville said they should stop fighting Voter ID laws. It raises the important question, “Who’s fighting Voter ID laws?”

I’m not crazy about requiring photo ID, because in rural areas, they can be hard to get. You vote in your community, but the nearest motor vehicle department where you can get a driver’s license or non-driving ID may be 40 or 50 miles away with no public transit to get there. But it’s kind of philosophical and I wouldn’t go to the mattresses over it. New Hampshire, one of the 36 states that requires ID at the polls, had record turnout in 2024, and I worked the polls. We didn’t have much idle time.

Laws vary from state to state, but I don’t think it’s a major issue.

Benson’s cartoon was all I’d seen about Carville’s statement, so I looked it up on Ground News and found out why: He said it on his own blog and it was only picked up by Fox and the NY Post, plus a brief pass-along on Mediaite, which skews left but isn’t exactly the DNC’s house organ.

Democrats are against the stringent ID laws of the Save Act, but that’s entirely different. A lot of Republicans are also against that.

We’re going to see a lot of baseless scare tactics between now and November. The actual important question is who is being fooled and who is purposefully lying?

But this is a non-controversy, for whatever reason it’s being promoted.

Juxtaposition of the Day

The Red Scare is a little different, because a good populist campaign could promise all these benefits without using the dreaded S-word. Granted, there are many countries in which “socialism” is understood and not feared, but this isn’t one of them. One of the socialists coasting into office on Mamdani’s coat-tails said some astonishingly stupid things, but I’m not going to say her name because I don’t think very many people more than 30 miles from NYC even knows who she is.

Still, adopting the term is a gift, as once again, we come up against Jonathan Swift’s dictum that “Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.”

Bok feels that only public utilities should be financed by the government, but doesn’t really explain why some things on that list already are or why some others ought not to be. Is it sane to complain about both taxes and potholes? Will the thousands tossed off health insurance or seeing their kids lose both SNAP benefits and school breakfasts be a significant voting factor, or don’t they have photo ID?

Campbell can point out the ways in which the president is not only making profits from trading with gen-you-wine Communists, and could also discuss our Central Government’s acquisition of interest in chip-makers, steel companies and other private industry.

But nobody who frets over the commies under their beds is going to have their opinion changed by reasoning.

And, by the way, Margulies is absolutely right that the computer foul-up in New Jersey is a jaw-dropping present to the obsessive election fraud nonsense being peddled by the Trump administration.

Arguing that none of the races would have been swayed by 400 illegal votes won’t make a difference, because (A) it shouldn’t have happened anyway and (B) math is just another kind of reasoning.

And you can bet that the new governor, Mikie Sherrill, is gonna take the hit despite it having happened on her predecessor’s watch, though the logical question is what other states’ registrations that computer company may have gotten wrong. They say they didn’t screw up at all. And that lettuce company wasn’t at fault either.

Does this mean we should demand women who changed their names at marriage provide both a birth certificate and a marriage license before we let them vote? Funny question to ask in a country where Navajo are being stopped on the street and green card holders are jailed, both accused of being “illegal aliens.”

Logic and documentation are whatever the authorities say they are.

Bok points out that we’re dropping bombs on Iran because they might have been possibly maybe developing nuclear weapons, but we were making a deal with Jared Cushner’s business partners that would allow them to do the same thing, just on the other side of the Persian Gulf.

That is, we were, until Dear Leader felt the blowback and changed terms to make sure his buddy with the bonesaw would back out of the deal, raising the important question, “What deal? I never said there was a deal!”

And then there was the re-imposition of tariffs, which are smashing china worldwide, an accusation coming here from New Zealand, though messing with tariffs will hurt everyone, and certainly American consumers more than others. Hold that thought a moment.

You might remember that the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s earlier Tariff-O-Rama by finding that the Constitution says that’s Congress’s role. However, Dear Leader has discovered a loophole and, as Rowe says, is putting tariffs back on countries through a law that allows him to do that for countries that use forced labor. Sort of. In a manner of speaking.

The thing about tariffs is that, while they will cost exporters some business — which even in justified applications is the point — they have a significant impact on anyone in this country purchasing imported goods. Despite the bafflegab being tossed around, it is the companies importing the products that pay the tariffs, then pass those increased costs on to the American consumer.

As Two Bulls notes, the SCOTUS decision against Trump’s first round of tariffs meant he had to refund $81 billion to the American companies that paid them. But even if they could track down every consumer who purchased a foreign-made clock radio during that period, they don’t seem inclined to pass the refunds along to the people who paid inflated prices.

And if you think the refunds will induce them to lower prices in the name of fairness, please pull the other leg.

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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Comments 9

  1. When was the last time James Carville was relevant at all? Wingnuts are always pulling this crap— dig up a quote from Bill Maher or someone else who isn’t that big a deal and pretend it’s news. It’s like whenever Tucker Carlson would find a quote from a C-list celebrity to be offended by and then have 3 white guys in suits discuss it while he sits there with that stupid, slack-jawed face that he does. It just smacks of desperation. If Fox News quit doing it, it wouldn’t be 80% dead air.

  2. The ones who scream “socialism” and “communism” the loudest are the least likely to know what either actually is, much less knowing they’re not the same thing.

  3. Wisconsin, through a series of unfortunate events, may nominate a Democratic Socialist for governor as the Democratic candidate. She’s a fine young woman, and would make a fine governor, but will carry only Dane County (the Madison area) and perhaps Milwaukee county, giving the governorship back to the right wing and probably firming up the gerrymandered control of the legislature. Sigh.

    1. I see the former WI Democratic Party chair is making the talk show circuit to flog a book about what the guy who beat him for DNC chair and everybody else is doing wrong.
      I’m tending to lean towards the candidate you are criticizing.
      But it’s a confusing five-person race and Hong appears to be the only one getting any enthusiasm.
      Two of the candidates have dropped out and then dropped back in after another candidate dropped out because of some embarrassing campaign finance issues.
      You need voter turnout and that means exciting younger voters in the cities and towns.
      As a resident of semi-rural Wisconsin, I can tell you the rurals would vote for a barnyard rat (if he had Trump’s blessing) instead of the black guys and women the Democrats are considering.
      Tom Tiffany is a rotten creature in many ways. The Republicans will vote unanimously for him.

      1. I’m not criticizing her…I like her. I’m voting for her. I’m just pretty darn sure there is no way in heck she wins a general election.

  4. IMO the so-called voter ID requirements have been put in place for a very long time. It is no longer about ID per se. The real effort is to force proof of citizenship. After 9/11 much of this stuff got into law…including legal name, spelling uniform across all documents etc. I had to go through hell with the SSA making sure my name was correctly spelled since marriage. When I had to appear in person to renew my DL, I had to bring a real birth certificate among other things. Thankfully I still have a passport. I handed that to the clerk first. Nothing else required. This entire thing is bogus and is meant to suppress voter registration and participation. As far as NJ is concerned, seems like tech may not be as great as we’ve been led to believe. It only takes one stupid click or button push and everything can go to hell.

  5. Bafflegab. WBAGNFARB. Tip of the hat to Dave Barry.

  6. “nobody who frets over the commies under their beds is going to have their opinion changed by reasoning.”

    Who would that be? Please join us in the 21st Century.

    1. Please read the news once in a while.

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