Political Memes, Comics, and other Shenanigans, Part 45

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[ADoyle90815]

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[Black Aliss]

On 1/11/2023 at 10:29 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Pot. Kettle. Black

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[47of74]

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On 1/12/2023 at 11:57 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

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So true:

 

[47of74]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

So true:

 

And birth control would be a sacrament of the roman church.

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[47of74]

[47of74]

Put it on pay per view and make a lot of money.

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"Smoking In The Goons Room"

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It seems like the point of most Republican initiatives is to be an asshole. But then again, racists are assholes. Republicans believe stuff like dropping immigrants off without advance notice in sanctuary states is hilarious, and “owning the libs.” But using human refugees as pawns for a political stunt is a dick move. And if you really wanna be an asshole, a surefire way to do that is to blow smoke in someone’s face. Republicans always do that figuratively but now in the House of Representatives, they’ll be doing it literally.

I hate smoking. Yes, I’m a former smoker and I know that if I smoked even one today that it would make me hack and become physically nauseous…and I’d probably finish the cigarette then go to 7/11 and buy a carton of Camel Blues. Although I hate smoking and the smell of it, tasting it would probably feel like discovering the sweet nectar that’s been missing from that one empty spot deep within my soul. Oh, mama. This is why I have not even taken a drag since I quit in November 2019.

But I do think they stink. And since I’m a former smoker, they stink more to me than they do to people who never smoked. Former smokers are the worst. What really grinds my gears is that each time I smell cigarettes on someone, I know that’s how others used to smell me. Ya see, smokers don’t smell the smoke on their bodies and clothing. Oddly enough, even though I hate the smell, I can hang out with friends in a smoking bar (we still have a few here that found loopholes in the smoking-ban law) and it really doesn’t bother me until I get home and smell it on my clothes. I don’t have urges to pick it up again.

I can smell a burning cigarette from 50 feet or so. When I caught Covid-19 in 2020, what made me realize I needed to be tested was when I walked within 50 feet of some smokers and couldn’t smell it.

And now if you walk into the halls of the House side of Congress, you may come out smelling like an old man bar. Those are the worst. Old man bars are worst because old fucks tend to smoke generic cigarettes and trust me, there’s a difference in the funk from a name-brand cigarette. Smokers will back me up on this.

When Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House in 2007, she banned smoking in the Capitol though it was still allowed in representatives’ offices (most of those are in office buildings, not the Capitol building itself). John Boehner was such a heavy smoker, that when Paul Ryan replaced him, the walls of the Speaker’s had to be repainted and the carpet and curtains replaced because of the stink. Nobody wants to smell like John Boehner.

Smoking is banned indoors in Washington, D.C. In fact, when I quit smoking, I planned for it to coincide with a week I was to attend a conference in the district. It can be difficult to smoke in Washington. But the ban doesn’t extend to the Capitol, which makes its own laws.

In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton banned smoking in all federal buildings that fell under the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch, which doesn’t affect the Legislative or Judicial branches. And now half of Congress will be smoke-filled again.

For comparison, the Senate side of the Capitol building banned smoking way back in 1914. House Speaker James Blaine of Maine banned smoking on the House floor and galleries, only while in session, 150 years ago. James Blaine of Maine had to be a pain and told smokers to refrain from exhuming the toxins that remain which they probably also did on trains. Sorry.

Kevin McCarthy’s House of Representatives has now banned the smoking ban. This is a move to “own the libs” because it’s something Pelosi instituted and a lot of Republicans look at smoking bans as an attack on their freedom to give nonsmokers second-hand lung cancer. Also, it’s another way to be an asshole. Fun, fun, fun, whee.

Ursula Perano, a reporter who covers Congress for The Daily Beast tweeted, “There has indeed been some cigar hotboxing happening in a certain Rules Committee chairman’s office, which is nearby the House press gallery. And the smell is…… strong.” She was backed up by Reuters’ Patricia Zengerle.

Ugh, cigars. If you really wanna go the extra mile and prove you’re an inconsiderate asshole, smoke a cigar in public. Even when I was a smoker, I would leave an establishment because of cigar stench. Ew. Just the thought of it now and….hold on. BLEAAAAAAAGH!!!!

Pipes can be different. The smell from a pipe is typically kinda sweet and even some nonsmokers can find it somewhat pleasant. My first editor was a pipe smoker and his office was next to mine, yet the smell never bothered me. I kinda liked it. It didn’t make me want to smoke a pipe (could you see me with a pipe?), but it was OK.

But the one true reason for the House repealing the smoking ban is to show just how regressive they plan to be. This is an indicator. Also, it defies science which Republicans hate. But even with the smoking ban, there was still smoke coming from Republicans. Liar liar, pants on fire… everything they do is based on a lie. I told someone yesterday that I haven’t heard an argument from a Republican since 2015 that didn’t contain a lie.

What’s stinkier in Congress? A Republican cigar or George Santo’s lying pants?

 

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"Ethical Bang Bang"

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I don’t think enough people care about ethics. Most of the time when someone acts like ethics is something important to him, what’s really important is catching the other guy for violating them. Yeah, we’re talking about Republicans.

Republicans pretend to care about right over wrong, but they really only care about the politics of it. Currently, they’re attacking President Biden over an issue that they didn’t care about when Donald Trump did it worse. Oh, so much worse. Yesterday, one of my readers tweeted that at least with a Special Counsel, House Republicans won’t create any bullshit committees to investigate Biden’s misplacement of classified documents. I had to laugh. They’ve already created two.

One of the Republicans who’ll be chairing a bullshit select committee with subpoena power is a guy who defied congressional subpoenas over his part in an insurrection. He also ignored sexual assaults he was aware of.

In case you are a Republican, ethics are the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior. Do I also need to tell you what “morals” and “principles” are? It explains why the Republican majority’s very first vote was to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. Hell, they tried to eliminate it altogether in 2017 but it didn’t take.

Without ethics, the GOP is perfectly fine with a serial liar among their ranks, George Santos. Speaker (gag) Kevin McCarthy (15th time’s the charm) stands by Santos, who also voted for his speakership, by the way. McCarthy says the voters sent Santos to Congress, but they didn’t know who they were sending to Congress when they voted for that guy. They voted for Art Vandelay and got George Costanza.

There’s an active bipartisan bill in Congress right now that would ban members and their families from trading individual stocks, but even the Republicans who support that don’t have an issue with a Republican president engaging in business with foreign nations.

Republicans are really interested in discovering if President Biden ever engaged in foreign business through his son, Hunter, and I would be too if there was some there there, but Republicans didn’t care about Trump’s hotels and resorts collecting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars from foreign nationals. They don’t care about Jared Kuchner collecting $2 billion from murderer Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. They’re not going to form a select committee to investigate the NRA collecting Russian money. They closed their eyes to the millions of dollars Javanka made while working in the White House, but want to investigate Hunter using his dad’s name to make business deals.

Republicans have literally created a select committee to investigate political weaponization that they’ll use to attack their political opponents on a strictly partisan basis. They plan to investigate investigations and protect criminals. For Republicans, it’s a crime to go after Republican criminals.

Ethics are important and it’s something journalism has always taken seriously because politicians don’t. Chris Cuomo doesn’t have a job right now because he violated journalism ethics. Goons at Fox News who did the same exact same thing as Cuomo still have their talk shows, which shows that Murdoch outlets don’t much care for ethics…like Republicans.

The Society of Professional Journalists and the Poynter Institute both have programs about ethics. My own organization, The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) does not. Why don’t cartoonists want to talk about ethics? Political cartoonists are journalists and most of us who’ve worked for newspapers have had to sign ethics policies in the past, though now there are more and more cartoonists who’ve never seen one of those. Ethicalhoobitywhatty now?

Cartoonists don’t want to talk about ethics because quite frankly, ethics can be hard. Isn’t it easier to ignore them? Republicans would agree. Also, it gets you in trouble to talk about them and makes enemies. We don’t want to go to war with each other over something as minuscule as accountability, right?

I don’t want to go to war with any colleagues either and it’s probably not good for my career, but I’ve done it. I know I’m no more qualified to talk about ethics than any of my colleagues who’ve ever worked for a newspaper (well, most), but at this point, I’m the only one willing to talk about it. Although, a few of my colleagues love when I talk about ethics and piss people off because, hey, get the popcorn. To be fair, I may also be the only one dumb enough.

My concern isn’t to target a specific individual or to have a dispute with someone I dislike. Heck, some violators are really nice guys. I actually like most of my colleagues. I’m afraid if cartoonists do away with ethics then at some point, we won’t be considered journalists anymore. At what point do we get replaced with memes and AI art? Some editors have actually proposed that.

When the Pulitzer Prizes combined our division with graphic artists, the AAEC sent a letter signed by numerous Pulitzer winners and finalists. I do respect the herding-cats part of it, but while arguing that we should have our own category for a journalism award, we included the signature of the guy who now works for Sputnik, a Russian state-owned propaganda outlet, NOT a journalism outlet. he was also fired by the Los Angeles Times for making shit up in his column., which is probably how you go from the L.A. Times to Sputnik.

A syndicate that sells cartoons to news outlets has started distributing an anonymous political cartoonist. We’re not talking about a pen name like Tom Tomorrow (This Modern World) or Ruben Bolling (Tom the Dancing Bug). Their names are public and they’re not hiding. I’m talking about a cartoonist whose syndicate bills him as a “she or he” who “works anonymously”. The syndicate is selling him as an “anonymous” cartoonist. The Daily Cartoonist picked this up, which I believe I instigated because I’m a pain in the ass. This is a violation of every credible news outlet’s ethics policy. Yet, cartoons by “Rivers” have run in Politico, The Week, and even The Washington Post (I’ve yelled at each of them for this. Told I’m a pain). There is no debate that this is unethical. The owner of the syndicate, who makes his living selling content to newspapers, told me that he has no problem syndicating an anonymous cartoonist. The most frustrating thing here is that a syndicate, that’s actually operated by a political cartoonist, is telling every publisher and editor in the country that we’re not journalists, just to make a buck.

Because of journalism ethics, I can’t out the “anonymous” cartoonist here because I’m only 99 percent sure of his identity.

And then, there’s the issue of cartoonists who base their opinions on outright lies, conspiracy theories, and bullshit. Spin is justifiable to an extent as long as you’re not telling lies. Creative license is a tool in satire, but we’re not discussing talking elephants and donkeys here. I’m talking about spreading untruths about voter fraud, immigrants voting, and what’s on Hunter’s laptop (it’s all dicks) just to push your right-wing talking points. There are syndicates selling this stuff to newspapers without any accountability, and they’re being published. Lazy racist lies are NOT a counterpoint.

What’s not for certain, but has been discussed occasionally is tracing. Several years ago, a cartoonist was busted tracing characters from another cartoonist’s work (and it was his second time), and everyone pretty much agreed that was wrong. In fact, the tracer was fired twice. But what about tracing photos? There are several cartoonists who are tracing photos that don’t belong to them. I’m not talking about looking at a photo for reference, which we all do. I’m talking about placing a sheet of paper (or a layer for those drawing digitally) over a photo and tracing it instead of drawing a proper caricature. I didn’t realize until recently that this is pretty common in the business. But is it unethical?

I talked to an ethics expert and he believes what’s more concerning is the legality of it. Is the tracer plagiarizing from a photographer? Other cartoonists, who don’t trace, don’t believe there’s anything wrong with it while others think it’s a violation. So, it’s not really settled, but I think the tracers have answered it for us. Is it ethical to trace from photos? If it is, why hide it?

None of the cartoonists who trace admits it that I’m aware of. Hell, some even go to great lengths to hide it. They’ll post photos of their hand holding a pen over the drawing as if saying, “See? I really drew it.” Others will post videos of them crosshatching after the outline of the face is done. Some will try to hide it by enlarging and reducing the photo while they trace, so if anyone does a layer on top of another layer in Photoshop to compare, they won’t get a perfect match. Tricky.

I know of a few cartoonists who’ve made hobbies of doing the Photoshop comparison of suspected traced cartoons. There’s a club.

What I found really ironic was that a few days ago, a cartoonist shared his latest work, which was traced from an Associated Press photo, and added the hashtags “liar” and “ethics.” What really made this ironic is that the cartoon was on George Santos. I’m sure Tracey was oblivious to the irony.

I’ve heard some readers defend the tracers saying it’s just a method to the end result. Who can argue if it looks good? And some of the stuff really does look great. But, if that’s the case, and it is legitimate, then be transparent. Admit you trace and it’s part of your “process.” What are you afraid of? Honestly, I don’t think any journalism outlet will care at this point. Maybe the tracers are afraid readers will believe they can’t draw. I used to believe the George Santos hypocrite was a phenomenal artist and envied his skill but after looking at his tracings for the past few years, I realize he really can’t draw.

If tracing isn’t an ethical violation, is hiding it one? Is it ethical to sell it to outlets without informing the editor it was traced? Is it ethical when people compliment you on your amazing art skills not to tell them you didn’t actually draw it? is it ethical to sell the original without telling the buyer you traced it? I don’t think any of it’s ethical. Hiding it is dishonest and tells me the tracers agree with me that it’s unethical.

My main point is that all journalists have to be transparent because we can’t trust politicians to be. I believe my association should at least have a discussion about this because we are journalists…or at least we used to be. If we’re not willing to talk about ethics in journalism or have a policy on it, then are we still journalists? Adhering to ethics will maintain our status as journalists. And the AAEC did talk about creating an ethics policy in 2011 when the last big plagiarism scandal hit…and then it quietly went away.

All journalists, unlike Republicans, are required to subscribe to ethics. That includes political cartoonists.

 

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