(10 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

There is an old joke truism:

A survey was taken in the U.S. that asked “What is the greatest problem in the country today, ignorance or apathy?”

Fifty percent of respondents said “I don’t know”

Fifty percent of respondents said “I don’t care”

hat tip to Snafubar

“Punting the Pundits“ is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

I am hardly Mayor Michael Bloomerg’s biggest fan but on this I am right there with him.

Michael R Bloomberg: Defending Religious Tolerance: Remarks on the Mosque Near Ground Zero

The following are New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s remarks as delivered on Governors Island.

We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We’ve come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that, more than 250 years later, would greet millions of immigrants in the harbor, and we come here to state as strongly as ever – this is the freest City in the world. That’s what makes New York special and different and strong.

Our doors are open to everyone – everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it is sustained by immigrants – by people from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than two hundred different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here, or you came yesterday, you are a New Yorker.

We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life and it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.

On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn’t want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives.

More

Thomas L. Friedman: Broadway and the Mosque

I greatly respect the feelings of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 – which was perpetrated in the name of Islam – and who oppose this project. Personally, if I had $100 million to build a mosque that promotes interfaith tolerance, I would not build it in Manhattan. I’d build it in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. That is where 9/11 came from, and those are the countries that espouse the most puritanical version of Sunni Islam – a version that shows little tolerance not only for other religions but for other strands of Islam, particularly Shiite, Sufi and Ahmadiyya Islam. You can study Islam at virtually any American university, but you can’t even build a one-room church in Saudi Arabia.

That resistance to diversity, though, is not something we want to emulate, which is why I’m glad the mosque was approved on Tuesday. Countries that choke themselves off from exposure to different cultures, faiths and ideas will never invent the next Google or a cancer cure, let alone export a musical or body of literature that would bring enjoyment to children everywhere.

When we tell the world, “Yes, we are a country that will even tolerate a mosque near the site of 9/11,” we send such a powerful message of inclusion and openness. It is shocking to other nations. But you never know who out there is hearing that message and saying: “What a remarkable country! I want to live in that melting pot, even if I have to build a boat from milk cartons to get there.” As long as that happens, Silicon Valley will be Silicon Valley, Hollywood will be Hollywood, Broadway will be Broadway, and America, if we ever get our politics and schools fixed, will be O.K.

Richard G. Lugar: The Senate’s Important Lunch Date

WITH federal child nutrition programs due to expire Sept. 30, the Senate should approve reauthorization legislation this week, before the monthlong Congressional recess.

The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee in March, and it has no significant opposition. It has simply been a victim of the crowded calendar of the Senate. But if we don’t pass the bill immediately, we will imperil programs that have proved vital to our youth, families and schools for decades, and that are especially important during this time of economic stress.

Since the recession began in late 2007, the use of federal free and reduced-price school lunches has increased by 13.7 percent. Twenty-one million children – roughly two-thirds of the students eating school lunches – benefit from the program.

For many of these children, school lunches represent the bulk of the nutrition they receive during the day, and it is imperative that there are no gaps in providing these meals. The bill would also cut out a lot of red tape in the filing process, ensuring that more families and schools can participate. And it would increase the scope of the afterschool meal program that currently operates in only 13 states.

Anthony Weiner: Why I Was Angry

LAST week I got angry on the floor of the House. In this age of cable and YouTube, millions of people evidently saw the one-minute-plus clip. But there has been relatively little focus on why the substantive debate that sparked it matters.

More broadly, while I appreciate the concern over the future of civility in politics, I believe a little raw anger right now is justified. Democrats make a mistake by pretending there is a bipartisan spirit in Congress these days, and would be better served by calling out Republican shams.

The specifics of the debate last week should be an example of an issue beyond partisan dispute. The bill in question was created to help the thousands of citizens who went to ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks. These are Americans who wanted to help, and who scientific studies now show are falling ill and dying in troubling numbers.

Michael Gerson: Obama’s cool is leaving more people cold

“The trouble with you is,” she continued steadily, “you think people should stay in their own sealed packages. You don’t believe in opening up. You don’t believe in trading back and forth.”

“I certainly don’t,” Macon said, buttoning his shirt front.

— Anne Tyler,

“The Accidental Tourist”

If politics were literature, Bill Clinton would be Tom Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby,” casually smashing lives around him while remaining untouched by the chaos he creates. Barack Obama is more like Macon Leary in “The Accidental Tourist,” the author of tour guides who hates travel. “He was happiest with a regular scheme of things” — a cautious driver and committed flosser, systematic and steady, suspicious of unpredictable yearnings, displaying an “appalling calm” in times of crisis. “If you let yourself get angry you’ll be . . . consumed,” Macon says. “You’ll burn up. It’s not productive.” Only order and method are productive. He is attracted to the “virtuous delights of organizing a disorganized country.”

Macon uses structure and rationality to avoid facing personal loss. Obama’s emotional distance seems rooted in self-sufficiency — a stout fortress of self-confidence. But the effect is much the same. Obama leads a country without reflecting its passions — at least any he is willing to share. Events leave him apparently untouched. He doesn’t need the crowd. Americans have always loved Obama more than he seems to care for us.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: A pain in the pocketbook

Insecurity in America is on the rise — and was even before the Great Recession.

The Rockefeller Foundation just released a study of economic insecurity in America, which was developed by Yale professor Jacob Hacker and measures harsh changes in circumstance: For example, it reveals how many Americans have been subjected to a staggering decline of 25 percent of “available household income,” either from loss of income or sudden, unanticipated out-0f-pocket medical costs, and how many were without the savings to buffer the damage. Brutal losses such as these take six to eight years to recover from, the report said.

Ruth Marcus: Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters and the House culture of entitlement

My favorite part of the ethics report on Charlie Rangel  involves his efforts to “close” a $10 million gift “to create AIG Hall” as part of the Rangel Center at the City College of New York.

At a meeting in April 2008, the New York Democrat, then chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, “asked AIG, at least twice, what was necessary to get this done,” according to the report. The insurance giant wasn’t so sure about writing the check, citing the “potential headline risk.”

When AIG — the company that paid out hundreds of millions in bonuses after being rescued by a government bailout — recognizes an appearance issue, you know you’ve got a problem.

Harold Meyerson: Jobs in the cards?

All things considered, American big business is doing just fine, thank you. Profits, productivity and exports are up. New hires, rehires and wage increases, as I have written, are nowhere to be seen. They’re no longer part of the U.S. corporate business plan, in which higher profits are premised on having fewer employees. Sell abroad, cut costs at home — the global marketplace that American business has created is paying off big-time.

Not so for American small business, which inhabits those less rarefied realms of the economy in which depressed domestic demand and bottled-up credit remain a mortal threat. The great private-sector trickle-down machine has largely stopped working for small businesses. A May report from the Congressional Oversight Panel on the TARP (chaired by consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren) found that bank lending to small businesses has plummeted, particularly among the big banks that taxpayers helped bail out. The Wall Street banks’ lending portfolio declined 4 percent between 2008 and 2009, the report concludes, but their lending to small business declined 9 percent. Smaller banks — “strained by their exposure to commercial real estate and other liabilities” — have similarly reduced their lending.

Juliet Lapidos: A Ballsy Explainer

When did testicles become courageous?

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer “has the cojones that our president does not have,” Sarah Palin rabble-roused on Sunday. Anatomically, the one-time vice-presidential candidate has it all wrong: The president has cojones, the Spanish word for balls, while the female Brewer does not. Of course, cojones  also means bravery, and she was surely relying on this figurative sense to imply that Obama lacks courage. How did a Spanish slang word sneak into the American vernacular?

Ernest Hemingway. The first English-language text to contain the word cojones as a metaphor for bravery is Hemingway’s 1932 book on bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon. “It takes more cojones,” he wrote, “to be a sportsman where death is a closer party to the game.” Subsequent examples cataloged in the Oxford English Dictionary use cojones more literally, as in this colorful line from Noel Behn’s 1966 novel The Kremlin Letter: ” ‘Hit that big cow in the crotch! … in the cojones,’ he roared at her, pointing to his own.” Naturally, books can only affect a language so much. Widespread familiarity with both senses of cojones  is probably the result of contact with Spanish-speaking immigrants and was probably current in cities with large Hispanic populations (such as San Antonio, Los Angeles, and El Paso) before the rest of the country.

The conservative talk show host and author, Laura Ingraham, has penned a new book, The Obama Diaries, based on on President Obama’s fictional private thoughts. Steven Colbert exposed the racial stereotyping calling the book “hideous, “hackneyed” and ‘terrible writing”.

On this day in 1964, the remains of three civil rights workers whose disappearance on June 21 garnered national attention are found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi in 1964 to help organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The third man, James Chaney, was a local African American man who had joined CORE in 1963. The disappearance of the three young men led to a massive FBI investigation that was code-named MIBURN, for “Mississippi Burning.”

On Junr 20, Schwerner returned from a civil rights training session in Ohio with 21-year-old James Chaney and 20-year-old Andrew Goodman, a new recruit to CORE. The next day–June 21–the three went to investigate the burning of the church in Neshoba. While attempting to drive back to Meridian, they were stopped by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price just inside the city limits of Philadelphia, the county seat. Price, a member of the KKK who had been looking out for Schwerner or other civil rights workers, threw them in the Neshoba County jail, allegedly under suspicion for church arson.

After seven hours in jail, during which the men were not allowed to make a phone call, Price released them on bail. After escorting them out of town, the deputy returned to Philadelphia to drop off an accompanying Philadelphia police officer. As soon as he was alone, he raced down the highway in pursuit of the three civil rights workers. He caught the men just inside county limits and loaded them into his car. Two other cars pulled up filled with Klansmen who had been alerted by Price of the capture of the CORE workers, and the three cars drove down an unmarked dirt road called Rock Cut Road. Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney were shot to death and their bodies buried in an earthen dam a few miles from the Mt. Zion Methodist Church.

 70 – The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.

367 – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-August by his father and associated to the throne aged eight

1265 – Second Barons’ War: Battle of Evesham – the army of Prince Edward (the future Edward I of England) defeats the forces of rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, killing de Montfort and many of his allies.

1532 – the Duchy of Brittany was annexed to the Kingdom of France.

1578 – Battle of Al Kasr al Kebir – the Moroccans defeat the Portuguese. King Sebastian of Portugal is defeated and killed in North Africa, leaving his elderly uncle, Cardinal Henry, as his heir. This initiates a succession crisis in Portugal.

1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon’s invention of Champagne.

1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: Gibraltar is captured by an English and Dutch fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir George Rooke and allied with Archduke Charles.

1789 – In France members of the National Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.

1790 – A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard).

1791 – The Treaty of Sistova is signed, ending the Ottoman-Habsburg wars.

1821 – Atkinson & Alexander publish the Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper.

1824 – Battle of Kos is fought between Turks and Greeks.

1854 – The Hinomaru is established as the official flag to be flown from Japanese ships.

1863 – Matica slovenska, Slovakia’s public-law cultural and scientific institution focusing on topics around the Slovak nation, was established in Martin.

1873 – Indian Wars: whilst protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, clashes for the first time with the Sioux (near the Tongue River; only one man on each side is killed).

1892 – The family of Lizzie Borden is found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.

1902 – The Greenwich foot tunnel under the River Thames opens.

1906 – Central Railway Station, Sydney opens.

1914 – World War I: Germany invades Belgium. In response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.

1916 – World War I: Liberia declares war on Germany.

1924 – Diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Soviet Union are established.

1936 – Prime Minister of Greece Ioannis Metaxas suspends parliament and the Constitution and establishes the 4th of August Regime.

1944 – The Holocaust: a tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family.

1947 – The Supreme Court of Japan is established.

1954 – The Government of Pakistan approves Qaumi Tarana, written by Hafeez Jullundhry and composed by Ahmed G. Chagla, as the national anthem.

1958 – The Billboard Hot 100 is founded

1964 – American civil rights movement: civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.

1964 – Gulf of Tonkin Incident: United States destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy report coming under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.

1965 – The Constitution of Cook Islands came into force, giving the Cook Islands self-governing status within New Zealand.

1969 – Vietnam War: at the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail.

1974 – A bomb explodes in the Italicus Express train at San Benedetto Val di Sambro, Italy, killing 12 people and wounding 22.

1975 – The Japanese Red Army takes more than 50 hostages at the AIA Building housing several embassies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The hostages include the U.S. consul and the Swedish chargé d’affaires. The gunmen win the release of five imprisoned comrades and fly with them to Libya.

1977 – US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.

1984 – The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso.

1987 – The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues “fairly”.

1991 – The Greek cruise ship MTS Oceanos sinks off the Wild Coast of South Africa.

1993 – A federal judge sentences LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King’s civil rights.

1995 – Operation Storm begins in Croatia.

2005 – Prime Minister Paul Martin announces that Michaëlle Jean will be Canada’s 27th – and first black – Governor General.

2006 – 2006 Trincomalee massacre of NGO workers, is carried out by Sri Lankan government forces, killing 17 employees of the French INGO Action Against Hunger (known internationally as Action Contre la Faim, or ACF).

2007 – NASA’s Phoenix spaceship is launched.

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

Note:

Due to the unusually high number of editorial cartoons published over the past week or so (I literally have another 300+ cartoons saved), I’m going to try and post another edition of this diary by Friday, August 6th.  It something I’ve never done before.

PLEASE READ THIS: There are another 20 or so editorial cartoons in the comments section of this diary that I posted at Daily Kos.

Take a look at them.

:: ::

INTRODUCTION

The stalemate in Afghanistan, documents leaked by wikileaks.org, and the Shirley Sherrod Affair may have dominated the news of late.  Another issue — and one which may not register very high among urgent public policy concerns — did not escape attention by several editorial cartoonists.  It could be the Mother of All Issues: Climate Change.  The cartoonists excoriated congressional legislators for abdicating their responsibility to the country, the planet, and for kicking the can down the road.  Don’t we, as citizens of this country and members of the human race, have to confront this problem sooner or later?  The sooner, the better.

:: ::

FOX News Reports The Real Story by RJ Matson, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Buy this cartoon

Editorial cartoonist Mike Thomoson of the Detroit Free Press wrote recently about rampant racism evident in hateful rhetoric spewed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.  He could have as easily have been describing the likes of Andrew Breitbart and his enablers over at Fox News.  While many cartoonists were not hesitant in criticizing the Obama Administration for its ineptitude and rush to judgment in the Shirley Sherrod Affair (see the last section just above the diary poll of the previous edition of this weekly diary for my comments), in recent days much of the fire has been directed where it rightly belongs: towards those on the political Right who have played these race-baiting games for decades now in our politics.

One way to neutralize these despicable people is to politically defeat them.  And in decisive fashion.  If we mobilize our team for the next couple of elections, we can eliminate more Republicans from elected political office just like we did in the 2006 and 2008 elections.  Will that ensure a reduction in racism in this country?  Probably not but there surely will be fewer Republicans to carry the poisonous message encouraged daily by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Breitbart

Rush Limbaugh and Race

The game that radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh plays isn’t new.  History is full of individuals who’ve sought to forge a coalition by rallying people against “the other.”

What makes Limbaugh different is the lack of consequence and public outcry over his repeated racist remarks.  Just this past weekend, Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams was punted from the National Tea Party Federation for racist garbage about the NAACP that he posted on his blog.  As disgusting as Williams’ comments were, what Williams wrote was no worse than what Limbaugh says on a regular basis.

So why does Rush continually get a pass?  Why does Limbaugh repeatedly get away with saying things that would get any anyone else fired?  Money.

Because Limbaugh’s show is successful and incredibly profitable, he gets to play by a different set of rules.  Ironic, since Rush’s main beef with affirmative action is that such policies, in his view, create a special set of rules.  Rush continually belittles African Americans, implying that they seek special treatment, when he himself is the biggest beneficiary of special treatment when it comes to the issue of race.

:: ::

The Advisory System by Clay Bennett, Comics.com, see reader comments in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

The federal judge who blocked implemention of Arizona’s ugly immigration law from going into effect last week received hundreds of death threats within the first few hours, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.  Political debate in this explosive issue has the potential to get very ugly before it is settled any time soon.  If at all!

:: ::

Rob Rogers, Comics.com (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

What has been the effect of sensitive information about the War in Afghanistan being leaked by Wikileaks?  Not as damaging as, for example, the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellesberg in 1971.  As Rogers writes on his blog, the Vietnam War disaster was in a league of its own

Somebody leaked 91, 000 secret US military documents on the Afghanistan war. WikiLeaks, the web site that posted the documents, isn’t naming names.  Some have compared this to the Pentagon Papers.  I don’t think so.  The Pentagon Papers revealed a government cover-up and deception surrounding the Vietnam War.  The WikiLeaks documents only tell us what we already knew.  The war is not going well.

:: ::

Pick the Carny by David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Star, Buy this cartoon

Can the Tea Party create more trouble for the Republican Party than some (supposedly) unmotivated Democrats can for the Democratic Party in the November Elections?  A front page post earlier today suggested that could very well be the case.  As Kos wrote in another post, Democratic prospects are improving at least in U.S. Senate races.  We may be in for a surprise in November, provided we all work hard to minimize our losses and, perhaps, break even.  In historical terms, that would be a victory.  

:: ::

Intolerance by Clay Bennett, Comics.com, see the large number of reader comments in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

Normally, Clay Bennett averages about 30-40 comments for each of his brilliant editorial cartoons in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.  This one, with 5-6 times as many comments, touched a nerve in many of his readers who argued vehemently amongst themselves about the meaning of the cartoon and the cartoonist’s motives.  As the below comment indicates, the level of intolerance — prevalent within the so-called “fundamentalist Christian” community — was brilliantly captured by one of Bennett’s readers

Before anyone gets too up in arms about this cartoon, try to dissect its meaning.  Here we have the symbol for Christianity, the ubiquitous fish I see on almost every car I find myself behind in Chattanooga.  You have this fairly benign symbol, one that represents the goodness of Christianity changed into something more menacing by the intolerance of its believers.

Sounds like a reasonable assessment of a situation that arises more often than I’d like.

You need look no further than the inflammatory rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement, the hateful prejudice of gay rights opponents, or the ignorant denial of the science of evolution to see this dynamic in practice.

Ask a gay man who’s been denied a promotion or one who’s been the target of ridicule or physical abuse if he’s seen the fin of this shark.  Ask the Muslims in Murfreesboro who saw their plans to build a community center and mosque become the target of hate and condemnation if they understand the point of this cartoon.  Ask the teacher in New York state who was recently fired from her job in Queens because she was single and pregnant about how tolerant some Christians are.  I’ll bet this cartoon would resonate with all of them, as it would with the countless gays and lesbians who are currently being denied the right marry because of laws rooted in religiously-based prejudice.

We often equate religious intolerance with the likes of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.  And although our own brand of religious intolerance might not be as blatant as that practiced under Sharia law, sometimes the only difference between us and them is measured in degree.

Username: toonfan | On: July 18, 2010 at 6:16 a.m.

As I mentioned at the top of the diary, Part II of this diary will be posted by Friday, August 5th.  Once I post 15-20 more cartoons in the comments section, there should be about 125-130 editorial cartoons in this diary.  Thanks and hope you enjoy this week’s offering.

:: ::

1. Cartoons of the Week

Don Wright, Comics.com (Tribune Media Services)

Lloyd Dangle, Troubletown, Buy this cartoon

Vic Harville, Stephens Media Group (Little Rock, AR), Buy this cartoon

Not Another Nam by Matt Bors, Comics.com (Idiot Box)

The cynic in me has to admit there are a few differences.

— Bors explaining the cartoon after Wikileaks.org leaked massive amounts of previously declassified documents detailing the enormous odds faced by U.S./N.A.T.O troops in bringing stability to war-torn Afghanistan

Don Wright, Comics.com (Tribune Media Services)

Clay Jones, Freelance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA), Buy this cartoon

Steve Benson, Comics.com (Arizona Republic)

Henry Payne, Comics.com (Detroit News)

Stay out! Come to work! by Chris Britt, Comics.com, see reader comments in the State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

Bruce Beattie, Daytona Beach News-Journal, Buy this cartoon

Deficit Hawks by John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Buy this cartoon

Intel Jobs by Mike Keefe, Denver Post, Buy this cartoon

Toxic Leak by Rob Rogers, Comics.com (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

After standing by and watching up to 184 million barrels of oil gush into the ocean, BP has finally made a cap that fits over its humongous toxic leak.  Now … if only they can find one that fits over Mel Gibson’s head.

— Rogers wonders if BP should consider capping another, equally-toxic leak

Drew Sheneman, Comics.com (Newark Star-Ledger)

:: ::

2. What’s Next for the People of the Gulf Coast Region?

Steve Benson, Comics.com (Arizona Republic)

Pat Oliphant, Yahoo Comics – Universal Press Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Kevin Siers, Charlotte Observer, Buy this cartoon

Joel Pett, McClatchy Cartoon – Lexington Herald-Leader

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Steve Sack, Comics.com (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Don Wright, Comics.com (Tribune Media Services)

Marshall Ramsey, Comics.com (Clarion Ledger, Jackson, MS)

:: ::

3. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Tony Hayward

Little Lord Hayward by John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Buy this cartoon

Jeff Koterba, Omaha World Herald, Buy this cartoon

Marshall Ramsey, Comics. com (Clarion Ledger, Jackson, MS)

:: ::

4. The Shirley Sherrod Smear: Brought to You By Racists, Inc.

Clay Jones, Freelance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA), Buy this cartoon

Tom Toles, Slate – Washington Post

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Bill Day, Comics.com (Memphis Commercial-Appeal)

David Cohen, Asheville Citizen-Times

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News

Matt Wuerker, Politico

(click link to enlarge cartoon

in Wuerker’s July archives)

The Reliable Source of Information by Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News, Buy this cartoon

Jim Morin, Miami Herald

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Racial Victim by Dan Wasserman, Comics.com, see reader comments in the Boston Globe

:: ::

5. Arizona and the Difficult Immigration Issue

Immigration Flaw by Nick Anderson, Comics.co, see reader comments in the Houston Chronicle

Matt Wuerker, Politico

(click link to enlarge

cartoon in Wuerker’s archive)

Don Wright, Comics.com (Tribune Media Services)

Immigration Reform by RJ Matson, Roll Call, Buy this cartoon

Bruce Beattie, Comics.com (Daytona Beach News-Journal)

:: ::

6. Wikileaks: War Without End?

Wikileaks and National Security by Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon  

Afghan War Leaks and Obama by Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com, Buy this cartoon

ISAF, Taliban and Blowout Preventer by Arend van Dam, Freelance Cartoonist (The Netherlands), Buy this cartoon

:: ::

7. Tea Party: Secretly Working for the Democratic Party?

Stuart Carlson, Washington Post – Universal Press Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Tea Party Express and NAACP by Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon

David Horsey, see reader comments in the Seattle

Post-Intelligencer

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

RJ Matson, Roll Call, Buy this cartoon

Tom Toles, Slate – Washington Post

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Steve Benson, Comics.com (Arizona Republic)

Tony Auth, Yahoo Comics – Philadelphia Inquirer

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Steve Sack, Comics.com (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

:: ::

8. The Party of No: The Not-So-Loyal Opposition

Lowe offers a solution for finding money to help the unemployed: make serious cuts in corporate welfare

Unemployment Benefits Extension

Conservatives in Congress really feel that extending unemployment benefits will break the bank, why is it so incredibly difficult to find the means to pay for it?

Here’s an idea right off the the top of my head, and they don’t even have to give me credit: Why don’t we eliminate government subsidies for oil companies to drill in this country and off our shores?  Does an oil company that makes a profit of several billion dollars per quarter really need an incentive from the U.S. taxpayer to keep drilling?…

Wow!  That was so easy, it clearly can’t be a lack of resources… it’s more like a lack of human decency.

Mike Luckovich, Comics.com (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

The RNC by Clay Bennett, Comics.com, see reader comments in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

Jeff Danziger, New York Times Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

GOP and Steele by Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner, Buy this cartoon

Ben Sargent, Washington Post – Universal Press Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Robert Ariail, Comics,com (formerly of The State, SC)

Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Steve Sack, Comics.com (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Jeff Danziger, Yahoo Comics – New York Times Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Mel Gibson by David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Star, Buy this cartoon

:: ::

9. “No Comment” From Bo Obama

:: ::

10. The Economy: Treading Water or Sinking?

Stuart Carlson, Washington Post – Universal Press Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Unemployment Makes You Lazy by Tim Eagan, Deep Cover, Buy this cartoon

Tom Toles, Slate – Washington Post

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Shovel Ready Jobs Program by RJ Matson, Roll Call, Buy this cartoon

Jeff Danziger, New York Times Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

How Supply Side Tax Cuts Work by Jim Day, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Buy this cartoon

David Horsey, see reader comments in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Jeff Stahler, Comics.com (Columbus Diapatch)

:: ::

11. The Growth of the National Security/Intelligence Behemoth

Stein exposes the hypocrisy of the Teabaggers.  Do these people ever make any sense?

Mission Impossible

Question for you Tea Party devotees: If you hate government so much, where were you when the Bush administration was building the massive, secret, overreaching, unwieldy national security apparatus after 9/11?

Today, more than 1,200 government agencies and 1,900 private companies at more than 10,000 sites, employing a mind-boggling 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, who produce 50,000 pages of intelligence annually, are tripping all over themselves and each other to gather intelligence and supposedly keep Americans safe.  And if you think all these good folks are spending all their time ferreting out threats from al Qaeda and not spying on ordinary Americans, I have a poppy farm in Afghanistan to sell you.  Besides being inherently unworkable, this vast decentralized system has no chance of communicating within its own bureaucracy effectively, let alone responding quickly and accurately to genuine threats.  Oh, for those simpler times when the just the CIA and the FBI couldn’t connect the dots.

Tom Toles, Yahoo Comics – Washington Post

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Spy Agencies Out of Control by Patrick Chappatte, International Herald Tribune, Buy this cartoon

Matt Wuerker, Politico

(click link to enlarge cartoon in Wuerker’s archive)

Secret America by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, Buy this cartoon

Jeff Danziger, Yahoo Comics – New York Times Syndicate

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

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12. Financial Reform: Will it Work?

Wall Street Leak Stopped by Bruce Plante, see reader comments in Tulsa World, Buy this cartoon

David Horsey, see reader comments in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

(click link to enlarge cartoon)

Whole Lotta Bull by Drew Sheneman, Comics.com (Newark Star-Ledger)

Matt Wuerker, Politico

(click link to enlarge cartoon

in Wuerker’s July archives)

Finance Reform by David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Star, Buy this cartoon

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13. Sports Talk

Pelican Disgust by Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner, Buy this cartoon

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13. RIP Daniel Schorr (1916-2010)

Daniel Schorr died recently.  Covering international news for over 60 years for CBS News and National Public Radio, he was one hell of a journalist.  They simply don’t make them like Mr. Schorr anymore.

The Village Voice remembered this remarkable man

Legendary, veteran political journalist Daniel Schorr — who won Emmys, Peabodys, and inclusion in Richard Nixon’s “Enemies List,” which he considered to be among his greatest achievements — passed away (recently)…

(He) was a fearless, brilliant reporter, and we’re proud to have played a part, however small, in his monumental legacy: that of someone who brought truth to light, wherever he could find it, without any hesitation.

Daniel Schorr was everything that is unequivocally righteous about the fourth estate;  NPR’s obituary on the man is, again, a must-read for anyone interested in what journalism should aspire to be.

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There are more tributes on the NPR web site from many of his colleagues as well as several videos in which Mr. Schorr reflects upon some of the major events that he covered.

John Sherffius, Comics.com (Boulder Daily Camera)

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14. Final Thoughts

Finally, are you ready for some football more war?  It could be the cure-all for our economic ills.  Think about it, as altie cartoonist Jen Sorensen convincingly explains it to us

World War III – In It For the Money

It’s remarkable how little the self-proclaimed deficit hawks seem to talk about trimming our pork-encrusted military expenditures.  I see on CostofWar.com that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have surpassed a trillion dollars.  I’m not sure I feel a trillion dollars safer.  For a trillion dollars, I expect the nation to be covered in a climate-controlled biodome that vaporizes terrorists upon entry.  Given that we can’t even get Star Wars right, and it took us nearly three months to plug a hole in the ground, I’m guessing a biodome is not in the cards.

Despite all that outlay of lucre, the economy still sucks, so it’s time for full-scale mobilization!  And I mean mobilization, right down to the last able-bodied American.  I want to see toddlers plugging rivets into tanks!  Dogs hauling bags of bullets! That, my friends, is how to get things moving again.  And it’s a hell of a lot more acceptable to the pundit class than, I don’t know, stimulus spending that helps people keep their jobs.  Or letting the Bush tax cuts for six-figure earners expire as scheduled.  Or helping the unemployed.  No, in the immortal words of The Exploited, LET’S START A WAR!  But no nukes, please.  That would kind of defeat the purpose.

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A Note About the Diary Poll

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Guys, you just have to face it.  Your ‘Y’ Chromosome is a damaged ‘X’ and you’re a deformed cripple in the genetic scheme of things.

Look at Ants or Honeybees.

Or around you.  The every day misogyny of our society is appalling.  My brother’s girlfriend (who is much younger than I, but I’m 120 years old) was watching a Doris Day movie and said “Wow!”

Indeed.

My experience with women as friends is that they are in almost every respect superior to my male friends.  Brighter, more sympathetic, more loyal, more tolerant.

And yet as a society we inculturate them from birth to be submissive.

Men are intimidated by women (as they should be) and motivated by vagina envy and desire seek to suppress and control them, especially their sexuality.

Thus the slut penalty.  If you’re a woman and you like sex (and I have no idea, but speaking as a man it’s pretty good for me) you’re supposed to face the 9 months and 18 years of child bearing or at least the tut-tutting of your neighbors shaking their shame fingers at you.

Well fuck that.

When I look at women I look them in the eyes and not their breasts (to the extent I can, I am a guy), and I never ever delude myself that they’re not smarter than me.

Update: Amanda Marcotte  

I own it as a badge of honor.  Freemasonry celebrates the Enlightenment ideal that the Universe is knowable and it’s our duty to understand it the best we can.

You can learn every ‘secret’ of Masonry on the internet, including the silly walks, but that does not in itself enable you to work and act as a Mason.

As master of my lodge I wore a dead man’s hat and a single rap from my gavel commanded the attention of all, but at the end of every meeting I descended from my dias and took off my hat because-

• We Meet on the Level
• Act on the Plumb
• And Part upon the Square

I haven’t been to my lodge in years but I expect at my funeral to be buried with my apron and a sprig of evergreen (most likely cut from the shrubs outside at the last minute) as is customary.

That’s the sort of thing we do.

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

As Atrios pointed out, there was not one word about foreclosures or housing in Geithner’s Op-Ed in today’s NYT..

What’s Missing

What’s missing from Timmeh’s NYT op-ed?

The words “foreclosure” or “housing.”

Obviously HAMP isn’t in there either.

Pending housing sales for June dropped another 2.6%.

The number of contracts to purchase previously owned houses unexpectedly fell in June, indicating demand kept unraveling after the expiration of a homebuyer tax credit.

The index of pending home resales dropped 2.6 percent from the prior month, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. Economists projected a 4 percent gain, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. The expiration of a government tax credit on April 30 caused the gauge to slump 30 percent in May, the most since data began in 2001.

To add to the economic quagmire Bloomberg reports to day that Consumer spending and Income is expected to “stagnate” for June, as well.

Consumer spending and personal incomes in the U.S. unexpectedly stagnated in June, showing a lack of jobs is hurting the biggest part of the economy.

Purchases were unchanged after a 0.1 percent gain the prior month that was smaller than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Incomes didn’t increase for the first time since September and the savings rate increased to the highest level in a year.

At least it isn’t dropping. Perhaps that’s the reason for Geithner’s optimism. Just clap louder. I can’t my hands are bleeding

Keith.  Rachel may not be back from her taping with Dave.  The Boys.

Shark Week mostly reminds me of Gary Condit and Hair on Fire Presidential Daily Briefings after which I started to get all radicalized and unfit for polite company.

• Turner Classic– The Magnificent Seven.

Back in Junior High School my English teacher was obsessed by this film, thought it was the best movie ever made and we spent about 3 weeks analyzing the script in independent study groups where I had the good fortune to be in the same one as my bespectacled and brilliant object of desire.

Needless to say I don’t remember much about it but as I recall we hardly talked about Kurosawa at all.

• ESPN– World Series of Poker x 2!
• SciFi– Warehouse 13 (last week’s and premier).  This week’s premier is a Eureka crossover episode.
• Toon– Unnatural History (last week’s and premier)
• Disney– Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp)
• Turner Classic– Bullitt, perhaps the greatest car chase ever filmed.

Later-

Dave has Michael Cera, Rachel Maddow, and Herbie Hancock.  Jon has Will Ferrell, Stephen Laura Ingraham.  Alton does punch.  Viva Los Muertos!

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 BP begins crucial well ‘kill’ in Gulf of Mexico

by Matt Davis, AFP

25 mins ago

2 BP gears up for well ‘kill’

by Matt Davis, AFP

Mon Aug 2, 5:58 pm ET

3 Crunch-time as BP readies well kill mission

by Matt Davis, AFP

1 hr 14 mins ago

4 42 killed in Iraq attacks as Qaeda plants flag

by Ali al-Alaak, AFP

2 hrs 36 mins ago

5 Toyota, Honda’s US sales drop as Big Three post gains

by Mira Oberman, AFP

31 mins ago

6 RIM unleashes BlackBerry Torch to take on iPhone

AFP

9 mins ago

7 Census shines light on biodiversity of the seas

by Virginie Montet, AFP

Tue Aug 3, 3:17 am ET

8 Fearful Americans save more as recovery slows

by Andrew Beatty, AFP

2 hrs 25 mins ago

9 Parched Russia warns on harvest as wheat prices surge

by Stuart Williams, AFP

Tue Aug 3, 1:07 pm ET

10 BP begins "static kill" operation on blown-out well

By Kristen Hays, Reuters

41 mins ago

11 NY mosque near September 11 site wins approval

By Karina Ioffee, Reuters

2 hrs 7 mins ago

12 Harry Reid holds narrow edge in Nevada: Reuters-Ipsos poll

By Steve Holland, Reuters

1 hr 51 mins ago

13 RIM unveils new BlackBerry to counter Apple iPhone

By Sinead Carew and Matthew Lynley, Reuters

33 mins ago

14 Pakistan’s Karachi shut after 45 killed in clashes

By Faisal Aziz and Sahar Ahmed, Reuters

Tue Aug 3, 8:37 am ET

15 Lawsuit claims Toyota ignored safety issues

By Steve Gorman, Reuters

Mon Aug 2, 8:06 pm ET

16 Special Report: China bets future on inland cities

By Chris Buckley and Simon Rabinovitch, Reuters

Tue Aug 3, 7:34 am ET

17 Crews begin effort to plug leaking Gulf oil well

By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer

8 mins ago

18 9 killed in shooting at Conn. beer distributorship

By STEPHEN SINGER, Associated Press Writer

10 mins ago

19 Departing US troops pack millions of items in Iraq

REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 3, 2:03 pm ET

20 K-9 PTSD? Some vets say dogs stressed by war, too

By DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer

51 mins ago

21 Panel’s landmark denial frees NYC mosque site

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 4 mins ago

22 Economic recovery falls to thrifty consumers

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

29 mins ago

23 Economic recovery falls to thrifty consumers

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

31 mins ago

24 Political killing stokes tensions in Pakistan city

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 3, 1:09 pm ET

25 Democrats, GOP push dueling conclusions on Kagan

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

16 mins ago

26 Afghanistan’s ranks of civil servants under siege

By DEB RIECHMANN and AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writers

1 hr 30 mins ago

27 Iraq: Car bomb kills 15 south of Baghdad

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 3, 2:07 pm ET

28 Obama salutes promised end of US combat in Iraq

By JULIE PACE and JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writers

Mon Aug 2, 11:36 pm ET

29 Democrats declare swamp of corruption drained

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 3, 3:07 am ET

30 Poll: Identity, blending in important to Hispanics

By JULIANA BARBASSA and JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writers

Tue Aug 3, 12:11 pm ET

31 AP IMPACT: New ID theft targets kids’ SS numbers

By BILL DRAPER, Associated Press Writer

Mon Aug 2, 10:35 pm ET

32 Breitbart: Enemy of the left with a laptop

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, AP Political Writer

1 hr 50 mins ago

33 States slash pre-K programs as budgets bleed

By DORIE TURNER, Associated Press Writer

2 hrs 16 mins ago

34 Lawsuit settled over Ill. deputy’s use of stun gun

By JIM SUHR, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 3, 12:52 pm ET

35 CAPITAL CULTURE: Justices are chummy even in death

By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer

Tue Aug 3, 12:01 am ET