Editorial Explanations

Pac-ing Up the Flag

2012-02-24T10:00:00.002-05:00

The USA is being destroyed by our addiction to thirty-five-year-old video games.

If you've got a better explanation, I'd love to hear it....

You Could Be Driving Two Cadillacs At the Same Time

2012-02-24T08:00:00.001-05:00

Jake Fuller, 2/23/12:

As we all know from dozens of previous editorial cartoons, Obama's energy policy consists of forcing Americans -- probably at gunpoint! -- to embrace "green" energy sources, and this is a horrible thing because gas will continue to be plentiful and cheap because we really, really want it to be.

So now I'm confused.

Are we complaining that Obama didn't push hard enough on his green-energy intitatives?

White Folks in Minivans: America's Secret Horror

2012-02-23T12:01:00.003-05:00

Cal Grondahl, 2/22/12:

America: the family-friendly, happy oppressive security regime!

(I hope this is a reference to some specific story in Grondahl's native Utah, because otherwise it's just creepy.)

Uphill Both Ways

2012-02-23T10:00:00.001-05:00

Joel Pett, 2/22/12:

You have no right to complain if anyone, anywhere in the world -- now, or at any time in the past -- has ever had things even slightly worse than you do.

So suck it up, you big babies!

Finally a Jobs Program We Can ALL Recoil In Horror From

2012-02-23T08:00:00.002-05:00

Ted Rall, 2/22/12:

The real problem is that not enough babies have been aborted to bring full employment.

But Rall has a Modest Proposal to solve that!

The More Things Change

2012-02-22T12:01:00.001-05:00

Chuck Asay, 2/17/12:

Yes, the US was founded by a bunch of men with a powerful aversion to paying taxes to cover the cost of a recent war -- the French & Indian Wars, look 'em up -- that protected their homeland.

Nice to know some things never change.

The Rent Is Too Damn High!

2012-02-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

Michael Ramirez, 2/20/12:

...because, with supply stable and demand slightly down, it's probably because those speculators who read papers like Investors Business Daily [1] are bidding up oil futures to make a quick buck off other people's misery.

As usual.

Oh, no, wait: it must be the pipeline that wouldn't be done for ten years. That's got to be it.

[1] For which Ramirez cartoons.

Hose Her Down If She Gets Distressed

2012-02-22T08:00:00.002-05:00

Rob Rogers, 2/21/12:

Now, this is purely misrepresenting Santorum's views on women, and it's really unfair.

Santorum certainly does not think women should be locked into cages on the roofs of cars -- they'd have to be let out of the house to do that!

The Sound of Someone Else NOT Paying Tax

2012-02-21T12:01:00.002-05:00

Mike Lester, 2/18/12:

The only time that's it's legitimate to complain about a corporation paying low taxes is when that corporation has taken government money.

Which is, given how large the government is and how many programs, giveaways, and special tax havens it has, absolutely all of them.

Porky There COULD Stand to Watch His Bacon Intake

2012-02-21T10:00:00.007-05:00

Lisa Benson, 2/17/12:

Yeah! Where does that stupid government get off on telling private insurance companies that they have to pay for cost-effective preventative health measures that most people want!

The point of insurance companies is to take people's money and not provide health care -- we all know that.

And don't get him started on those horrible nutritional information labels! Why, in his day, you ate thousands of bug parts per million and liked it!

It's Fun to Play The Blame Game!

2012-02-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Nick Anderson, 2/17/12:

Coroner's report? We ain't got no coroner's report! We don't need no coroner's report! I don't have to show you any stinking coroner's report!

We're Making Deals!

2012-02-20T15:00:00.000-05:00

Chip Bok, 2/17/12:

My assumption is that Mr. Killowatt there is the customer, walking away from a sale, but this cartoon is so confused that may be incorrect.

But, if so, Bok is claiming that even the embodiment of electricity itself finds electric cars too expensive.

In other news, watch out for an "It's Obama's fault gas is so expensive" cartoon from Bok tomorrow.

Religion by Democracy?

2012-02-20T13:00:00.005-05:00

Terry Wise, 2/18/12:

So few people really understand what it means to be part of an autocratic religion these days -- why, 98% of Catholic women have even used birth control!

It's H-E-double hockey sticks for the lot of you!

Bipartisanship Is Dangerous to Your Health

2012-02-20T11:00:00.002-05:00

Charlie Daniel, 2/17/12:

Mr. Massive Heart Attack there is so opposed to a payroll tax cut that it just killed him.

(Either that, or he's so shocked that the Dems and GOP actually worked together that it put him over the edge.)

Don't Show This Cartoon in Kansas!

2012-02-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

Chuck Asay, 2/16/12:

I'm flabbergasted that Asay even knows how to spell "evolution," let alone is willing to use it in a cartoon.

So it would probably be gauche of me to point out that his conception here is more like Lysenkoism -- the Communist dogma of the erstwhile Soviet Union -- than actual Darwininan evolution as it is currently understood. Ten points for trying, Chuck!

Completely Full of It

2012-02-17T08:00:00.001-05:00

Ann Cleaves, 2/16/12:

Cleaves's cartoons are always so sweet and open that my first thought -- that this cartoon is deeply, wickedly cynical -- must be wrong.

But then it makes absolutely no sense, particularly since she's neglected to label these civic-minded folks driving to wherever (Washington?) with their truck-loads of money.

Biased Media Are Biased

2012-02-16T14:00:00.002-05:00

Chuck Asay, 2/14/12:

The lamestream media hate real Americans and are biased.

That's it -- no joke, no commentary on any actual event, not even any real panel-to-panel continuity of concept, just a bald assertion that the people Asay doesn't like are evil doody-heads.

Baby You Can Push My Car

2012-02-16T12:01:00.004-05:00

Larry Wright, 2/15/12:

When I'm writing run-on sentences anyone can expect to know that sense I'm not making cars running for President good night Mrs. Callabash wherever you are.

A Typical Case of American Blind Justice

2012-02-16T10:00:00.002-05:00

Paul Berge, 2/15/12:

Your guess is as good as mine: there's not even enough to Google from here.

Some woman with an "M" in her name, some place where Berge's cartoons appear, is against something, and the courts have ruled against her, possibly repeatedly.

Way Down Upon the Pawn-ee River

2012-02-16T08:00:00.002-05:00

Terry Wise, 2/15/12:

If you can get enough to pay for tuition from a second-hand medium-sized TV, your kid goes to a really cheap college.

Also, I'm assuming that isn't meant to be a huge hole in the upper right-hand corner of the set, but it certainly looks like one.

Cupid Don't Fail Me

2012-02-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

Now, one has to expect a certain number of Cupid cartoons on Valentine's Day, but one also hopes they will be different Cupid cartoons.
Glenn McCoy:

Robert Ariail:

And then there's Deb Milbrath, who apparently didn't read the memo carefully enough, since this one doesn't quite make sense:

So the GOP Cupid-elephants are trying to make Romney fall in love with...them? Because he's not campaigning hard enough for the Presidential job already?

Why Beholdest Thou the Mote That Is In Thy Brother's Eye?

2012-02-15T14:00:00.002-05:00

Paul Szep, 2/14/12:

People who disagree with me politically are evil by definition.

Freedom's Just Another Word For Something I Don't Want to Have To Do

2012-02-15T12:01:00.001-05:00

Lisa Benson, 2/14/12:

It's true: Americans are now forced to attend a government church.

No? OK, then they're denied the right to choose their religious leaders.

Not that either? All right, they can't pray in public.

Huh? What religious freedom did we lose? The inalienable right to have organizations running hospitals and schools in twenty-two states deny medical coverage to women?

Of COURSE He's Smarter Than YOU!

2012-02-15T08:00:00.001-05:00

Joel Pett, 2/14/12:

There are no other reasons why anyone could possibly dislike President Obama or his policies -- anyone even the slightest bit less than enthusiastic is a racist anti-elitist.

The First Amen-dment

2012-02-14T12:01:00.009-05:00

Eric Allie, 2/13/12:

Don't we all know the clause in the 1st Amendment that reads, "Any organization with the most tenuous connection to a religion shall be allowed to ignore any laws it doesn't like?"

Just wait until the Christian Science Widget Manufacturing Group decides on its health care plan!