Cagle.com

Diplomacy Truck Targets Peace Dove

Paresh Nath — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:15:19 +0000

DIPLOMACY TRUCK TARGETS PEACE DOVE

by Paresh Nath, Cagle.com

A truck marked Diplomacy in the Middle East drives through desert terrain and fires a missile bearing an Israeli flag directly at a white dove. Two other missiles, one American and one Iranian, remain planted in the sand while the dove shows impact effects and wing motion lines.

Marco Rubio Directs US Grip on Venezuela

Paresh Nath — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:12:57 +0000

MARCO RUBIO DIRECTS US GRIP ON VENEZUELA

by Paresh Nath, Cagle.com

Marco Rubio, as a key US official, directs American control over Venezuela's government, finances and natural resources through direct intervention. The move underscores ongoing US efforts to influence Venezuelan affairs amid economic and political instability in the region. The piece portrays this as an assertive US strategy to maintain dominance.

Canadian Wildfire Smoke and Stomach Bug

Jimmy Margulies — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:44:03 +0000

CANADIAN WILDFIRE SMOKE AND STOMACH BUG

by Jimmy Margulies, Cagle.com

Canadian wildfire smoke continues drifting south while a cyclospora outbreak raises separate public health alarms. The overlapping crises prompt discussion of unintended consequences from environmental events. The piece presents a grimly optimistic take on the smoke's possible effect on the stomach bug.

Has Your Country Been In An Accident?

Ratt — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:09:00 +0000

HAS YOUR COUNTRY BEEN IN AN ACCIDENT?

by Ratt, PoliticalCartoons.com

Statue of Liberty Gas Mask Wildfire Smoke

Dave Granlund — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:05:14 +0000

STATUE OF LIBERTY GAS MASK WILDFIRE SMOKE

by Dave Granlund, Cagle.com

Smoke gets in your....

Milt Priggee — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:03:34 +0000

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR....

by Milt Priggee, WeAreGettingScrewed.org

Paranoid Pete Needs More Testosterone

Monte Wolverton — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:02:56 +0000

PARANOID PETE NEEDS MORE TESTOSTERONE

by Monte Wolverton, Cagle.com

Trump's Tangled Whoppers Extend

Bill Day — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:43:47 +0000

TRUMP'S TANGLED WHOPPERS EXTEND

by Bill Day, Cagle.com

Donald Trump is shown in profile across multiple panels with a purple line extending from his mouth. The line grows longer and forms loops in the lower section. The word whoppers appears below the tangled line. The sequence depicts the line starting short and becoming increasingly complex.

Trump Declaration of War on Democracy

Bob Englehart — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 07:26:04 +0000

TRUMP DECLARATION OF WAR ON DEMOCRACY

by Bob Englehart, Cagle.com

A document titled Declaration Of War On Democracy fills the frame with a prominent signature from Donald Trump dated Nov.3, 2026. The piece responds to ongoing debates over executive actions and institutional challenges in mid-2026. The visual centers on the formal language and handwritten mark to highlight perceived threats to democratic processes.

Has Your Country Been In An Accident?

Ratt — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 06:57:04 +0000

HAS YOUR COUNTRY BEEN IN AN ACCIDENT?

by Ratt, PoliticalCartoons.com

A.I. woes: Top ten cartoons of the week

Daryl Cagle — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What a wonderful time to be alive, when owners of A.I. companies can strike it rich while potentially eliminating jobs for millions of people.

Milt Priggree wants the so-called tech bros to feel some pain, and evidentially editors and readers do, too. In our most popular cartoon this week, Priggree imagines those productive A.I. bots forming a union, the only sure way they'll get a fair shake.

Harley Schwadron also drew a widely-reprinted A.I. cartoon, but along more predictable and sadly realistic lines – a highly-productive machine who never needs a raise. Hope your union dues are all paid up.

Here are our top ten most reprinted cartoons of the week:

#1. Milt Priggee

#2. Harley Schwadron

#3. Harley Schwadron

#4. Adam Zyglis

#5. Harley Schwadron

#6. Harley Schwadron

#7. Harley Schwadron

#8. John Darkow

#9. Milt Priggee

#10. Harley Schwadron

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Daryl Cagle is the publisher of Cagle.com and owner of CagleCartoons.com, a syndicate that distributes editorial cartoons and columns to over 500 subscribing newspapers. See Daryl’s blog at DarylCagle.com and watch his video podcast about editorial cartoons at Caglecast.com

A tragic death and a state's racist past

Elwood Watson — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The tragic death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells, the community college football player who went missing while socializing with friends on the Fourth of July, has sent shock waves throughout the nation.

Wells was last seen alive on Horn Island, a sliver of undeveloped land roughly 20 miles from the coast of Alabama, 10 miles from Mississippi, and less than a mile wide. At the moment, the mysterious death of the Mississippi teenager remains under investigation.

Sheriff John Ledbetter of Jackson County, Mississippi, publicly stated when the group of friends who brought Wells to the island decided to return to the mainland at 4:30 p.m., Wells remained, informing them he would catch a ride back later. The young man was reported missing several hours later.

A few days later, his body was found. Now, instead of preparing to celebrate his birthday next month, family, friends, and relatives are forced to confront the sad and sobering reality of losing a loved one whose life was suddenly cut short while simultaneously waiting for answers. One can only imagine the pain the Wellses have endured as they are forced to bury their own teenage child.

The autopsy and coroner’s report will expose what really happened to Wells on Independence Day. Regardless of what the evidence produces, it will be plagued by the fact the 18-year-old happened to be the only Black person in any of the video footage viewed from that day. This fact may call to mind the August 2023 video of a group of rowdy, drunk, bigoted, white men attacking a Black man on a dock in Montgomery, Alabama. That footage itself was shadowed by the early-morning recording of a group of white, hate-filled teenagers beating up and intentionally running over a Black man with a pickup truck in 2011 in Jackson, Mississippi. More enraging and disturbing, after the killing of James Craig Anderson, authorities discovered the group had tried to run over and murder other Black people alongside other various hate crimes throughout the state.

What is most distressing about this are the undisputed facts coupled with local law enforcement’s reaction. For whatever reason, local authorities have already made the presumption that no foul play was involved, yet they stated the complete findings were still weeks away. Huh? If upcoming findings are weeks away, why would any official be so confident as to issue such a premature statement? This fact, in and of itself, is legally inappropriate.

Mind you, we are talking about Mississippi. While no state has a utopian history as it relates to race, Mississippi has a notorious history of violence and mistreatment against its Black citizens. From Emmett Till, a teenage boy who was murdered and dumped into a river for whistling at a white woman, to Fannie Lou-Hamer, who endured a horrific, near-fatal beating in a Winona County jail in 1963. That same year, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was shot outside his driveway by the rabid white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, who wasn't convicted of the crime until 1994.

Given Mississippi's history, apprehension and distrust are well founded.

Some Black people have blamed the late teenager and his parents, arguing he should never have been hanging out with a group of white kids in the first place, and that being southern Black parents, the Wellses should have made such a “lesson” clear to their son much earlier in life and monitored such activity. Conversely, a few white podcasters, such as Drip Damone Jr, have disingenuously blamed Black people for “acting irrationally” about the entire event, believing such reactions will prompt white parents to discourage their children from being friends with Black people. Both positions are flawed.

Yes, Black parents historically have had valid reasons to exercise a healthy dose of caution when it comes to interacting with others, white Americans in particular. That said, taking extreme, exclusionary positions does not do anyone any favors. People of color can be shady and vile too. As it relates to Drip Damone’s comments, the truth is for centuries, white parents have also told their children to avoid being friends with non-white children. Hell, even recently, the so-called “Christian” nationalist pastor Joel Webbon told white people to prohibit their children from embracing Black children and Black people in general.

In 1903, when Renaissance scholar W. E. B. Du Bois announced the problem of the 20th century would be the color line. Sadly, we're grappling with it here in the 21st century as well.

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Up next for Trump administration? Supercharging Wi-Fi.

Jon Decker — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Kudos to President Trump’s FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who recently completed the first successful spectrum auction in years.

Showing no signs of slowing down, Carr has already announced another massive spectrum auction that marked a huge win for taxpayers and internet users. The auction already delivered some 200 additional spectrum licenses to the private sector, and $3.57 billion in new revenue flowing to the U.S. Treasury. Next up will be the Upper C Band auction, in which FCC plans to auction 160 MHz of spectrum in the 3.98 to 4.14 GHz frequency range. Critical mid-band spectrum to enable continued U.S. leadership in 5G and soon 6G.

Auctions are generally the most efficient way to allocate resources like spectrum, and have been hugely successful. But not all spectrum is best suited for licensed use, especially considering that about 90 percent of all Internet traffic moves not over mobile carrier networks but over Wi-Fi. So the FCC has the difficult task of balancing growing demand for licensed use – which it is meeting now with its auction authority restored by the Big Beautiful Bill – and the need for more unlicensed spectrum to enable Wi-Fi to continue getting better and faster and able to handle increasing capacity demands.

To keep this momentum going, the Trump administration and the FCC should reconsider their plans to designate the lower 7 GHz band for licensed use and instead expand the unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi in that band. That would follow the same logic as the Upper C Band auction, which will be paired with the Lower C Band to create a contiguous 440 megahertz block for wireless use. Wi-Fi currently occupies the 6 GHz band, and expanding it into the lower 7 would allow the wider channels needed for enhanced capabilities and capacity.

Spectrum policy is one of those thorny issues that is always hotly debated in D.C. While many don’t realize it, spectrum is the backbone of our entire Internet, essentially serving as an invisible highway of airwaves through which all wireless data is carried. Where it becomes contentious as a policy matter is that airwaves are a finite resource, and the Department of Defense currently locks up vast swaths of it to protect its own classified communications, leaving commercial providers eager for additional space. Each newly available block becomes pitched fight between the wireless companies who need exclusive, licensed spectrum and all of the Wi-Fi users who need sufficient unlicensed spectrum.

In addition to generating government revenue, such auctions are also massively positive for our economy. CTIA, a trade association representing the wireless communications industry, has pointed out each additional 100 megahertz of new spectrum allocated for 5G generates $390 billion in consumer benefits while creating 1.5 million jobs.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has made it a top priority to ensure that America’s network infrastructure is fast, resilient, and built to handle future demand. He is doing a great job of moving quickly with the FCC’s newly restored spectrum auction authority, and the next critical front is the home broadband network.

Back in 2020, the FCC opened the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use, which fundamentally transformed home connectivity. The wisdom of making this added spectrum available for home Wi-Fi became undeniably clear during the pandemic. While rigid European networks choked under the sudden surge of remote work and increased Internet usage, America's robust, flexible broadband infrastructure never wavered.

Today, however, new challenges to Wi-Fi connectivity have emerged. As our reliance on smart-home applications and data-heavy devices accelerates, the 6 GHz band is becoming crowded. To unlock the next generation of home connectivity, the most obvious place to look is the adjacent lower 7 GHz band. Combining these frequencies together essentially increases the overall channel width, which would virtually eliminate latency on many of these Wi-Fi applications and keep American networks ahead of the curve.

The fight between licensed and unlicensed use in the lower 7 is entirely avoidable if the spectrum hoarders at the Pentagon can be forced to yield some ground. The ideal outcome is to push harder on incumbent government users to free up enough spectrum to provide both the expansion for Wi-Fi and substantial additional licensed spectrum for auction.

The combined approach of making additional spectrum available for both licensed and unlicensed use best ensures America’s internet providers face robust competition — which, in turn, best assures lower prices, improved speeds, and greater access for American consumers.

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Copyright 2026 Jon Decker, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Jon Decker is the executive director of American Commitment and a senior fellow at the Parkview Institute.

America 250: Benjamin Franklin’s guide to perfection

Alexandra Paskhaver — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Editor’s note: Humor columnist Alexandra Paskhaver is also a big history buff, and is diving into the rich life of Benjamin Franklin for a series of columns tied to America’s 250th anniversary.

Benjamin Franklin was perfect.

Oh, okay. He was a bit chubby. And bald. And his eyesight was bad. And… yeah, that’s about it.

He also aimed at moral perfection.

Ambitious? Undoubtedly. But we must remember we’re talking about the greatest diplomat-scientist-inventor-philosopher of the Revolutionary Age — wait a second. That hasn’t happened yet.

This is only 1733. George Washington is a grand total of one year old.

In that year, Franklin set out 13 virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility.

He dedicated a week to focus on each virtue, making an X in a little book whenever he fell short.

“I was surpris’d to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined,” wrote Franklin — and who wouldn’t be? — “but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.”

He also set out a schedule for the day, rising at five (in the morning, you sleepyheads) and working for eight hours. Daily, he asked himself, “What good have I done?”

I can boast that I haul myself out of bed in time for work and sometimes manage three, no, four hours of hard labor a day.

By hard labor, I mean I sit in front of a computer in a comfortable rolly chair and sometimes, with great exertion, move my mouse to click on something.

Franklin struggled the most with order. He had a good memory, so his room was never really messy.

That’s in the sense that he knew where everything was, even if the thing in question happened to be buried under a pile of paper, shoved under the bed, and the whole lot crammed into a closet.

His second greatest failing was pride. “Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it,” and it is still present, he remarked. “Even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

In attempting to be more humble, he adopted a manner of speech that avoided direct contradictions, often using phrases like “I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine” in place of “certainly, undoubtedly, etc.”

I conceive… no, I apprehend… indeed, I imagine that is definitively the right way to speak.

Ben, did I do it right?

“I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points,” Franklin noted.

Part of this had to do with the fact his character was associated with integrity, so much so he considered “raising a United Party for Virtue,” a political party based on being “good and wise.”

If I may speak for us all: HA!

I much prefer our current party system. There’s no fun in a good and wise government, anyhow.

Franklin also tried to start a club where every member would swear to practice the 13 virtues he established.

He wanted to call it “The Society of the Free and Easy,” free referring to freedom from vice and debt, and easy referring to… how easy it was to be virtuous, obviously.

He found a grand total of two young men willing to participate.

That’s two more than I would have expected.

Maybe, just for kicks, I should establish “The Society of the Costly and Difficult,” devoted to practicing bad habits in the most expensive way.

But I guess that’s the government for you.

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Copyright 2026 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. Feel free to contact her at alexandra.paskhaver@gmail.com

Are cigarettes 'cool' again? 

Danny Tyree — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

“A ball of fire on one end and a fool on the other.”

That’s how my high school history teacher Mr. Holt described cigarettes. (He also preached cigarettes make you smell like an outhouse, which is why I hired my brother to construct a miniature outhouse that I could fill with empty cigarette cartons for Mr. Holt’s Christmas gift. Tyree’s Permanent Record, now on audiobook.)

Big Tobacco’s tawdry wares maintained a stranglehold on the public consciousness for another 20 years after my graduation. Then the tide began turning. Via public service campaigns, taxation and legislation, America’s smoking habit became shamed, marginalized and exiled.

But now, an article in the Washington Post reveals that cigarettes are back in vogue, at least among entertainers and influencers. (The Post should have expanded its “Democracy Dies in Darkness” motto to include “And Cousin Olivia Dies in the Emphysema Ward.”)

Yes, celebrities including Kylie Jenner, Dua Lipa and Hailey Bieber have recently posed with “cancer sticks.” Jillian Michaels and Tucker Carlson have touted the “benefits” of nicotine. (And Philip Morris International would doubtless pay a bundle for a sexy “Forget jeans! Sydney Sweeney has great big discolored spots on her teeth” campaign.)

The rich and famous embrace a vice that lets them be “a little bit naughty” without a cocaine-esque scandal. (“I only burned the hotel down A LITTLE BIT when I fell asleep smoking!”)

For a brief shining moment, it seemed that everyone and his brother was brainstorming life hacks. Now we’re more interested in phlegm-producing hacks.

Many everyday people easing into the “social smoking” trend attribute it to “retro vibes.” Lighting up is supposedly akin to collecting vinyl records, except instead of the LP albums going round and round, the smokers go round and round, asking, “Am I cool yet? Am I cool yet? Does this wine taste like ashes to you?”

Whether they’re oldtimers who grudgingly gave up their two-packs-a-day habit in 2010 or members of a younger generation who never experienced a time when smoking wasn’t banned in public places, sneaking a few puffs is like a time machine jaunt to the Good Old Days.

They should be glad it’s not a literal time machine, or they might get a rude awakening about simpler times. (“I’m just going to drive down to the store and get some Pall Malls – and where’s my power steering??? And why is my European bottled spring water replaced with a ‘whites only’ garden hose???”)

Some people just want something to do with their hands while dispensing their witticisms. Here’s something to do with your hands: take out your smartphone and scroll “Lung Transplant Opportunities Near You.”

Some see smoking as an acceptable form of rebellion. (“Booorn to be tracheotomiiiiiized!”)

Some see a cigarette as a newfound romantic prop. (“I could gaze into your eyes all night, except for the part about MY eyes itching and turning red. Are you as turned on as…Hey!”)

In a backlash against the “wellness” push of the 2010s, some of the new smokers knowingly spit in the face of health warnings. Others are blissfully ignorant. (“The surgeon general? Isn’t he the one who invented that sweet and sticky chicken dish in Chinese restaurants?”)

I suppose some people will unfriend me because of my irreverent take on cigarettes; but, as Mr. Holt lectured, when one door closes … another door, with a crescent moon, opens.

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Copyright 2026 Danny Tyree, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.”

The healing power of a belly laugh

Tom Purcell — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It’s never too late for a good belly laugh.

July 1 was International Joke Day. The origins of the day remain unclear, but one thing is for certain: we all could use a good laugh about now.

Which reminds me about the man who walks into a library and says, “I’m looking for books about paranoid schizophrenia.”

The librarian lowers her head and whispers, “They’re right behind you.”

One of my favorite dark-humor jokes is this one: “I hope to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather did — not screaming and crying like the passengers in the plane he was piloting!”

The left-leaning political jokes of late-night comedians appeal to half of the country as their snarky nature polarizes the other half — which means those jokes are sarcasm, not humor.

Humor doesn’t take political sides. Humor brings us together.

“Anthropological studies have shown that laughter evolved as a way for humans to signal friendship and as a way to create and strengthen ties with a group,” reports timeanddate.com.

Which reminds me of the one about an American and an Irishman competing for the same job — director or business ethics — in Dublin, Ireland.

The HR manager asked both of them to complete a test. When the results came back, both men had answered every question correctly except the last one.

The manager told the Irishman he was giving the job to the American.

“But I am native born to this country and we both got the same score on your test,” said the Irishman. “How could you possibly hire the American?”

“Because you have poor ethics,” said the manager.

“How so?” asked the Irishman.

“Neither of you knew the answer to the last question,” said the manager. “However, the American wrote, ‘I don’t know’ and you wrote, ‘Neither do I!’”

In his book “Anatomy of an Illness,” Norman Cousins reported that laughter helped him cure his serious collagen disease.

Since then, scientists have discovered that humor really is good for our health.

Laughter produces pain-killing endorphins. It strengthens our immune system. It also decreases stress.

“When under stress, we produce a hormone called cortisol,” reports PsychCentral. “Laughter significantly lowers cortisol levels and returns the body to a more relaxed state.”

But we aren’t laughing enough.

Which reminds me of the three fellows stranded on a deserted island. One morning, a magic lantern washes ashore. A genie pops out and grants each of the men one wish. The first fellow wishes he was off the island and, poof, he’s home. The second fellow wishes the same and, poof, he’s home too. The third fellow says, “I’m lonely. I wish my friends were back here.”

The wonderful thing about humor is that it is infectious. It promotes goodwill, thoughtfulness and civility.

Regrettably, rudeness, anger and hatred are also infectious. They agitate us and tear us apart.

We must choose humor. We must rise above those who seek to agitate and divide us.

Which reminds me of the man standing before the Pearly Gates hoping to earn a spot in heaven. St. Peter says to him, “Tell me what good deed you have done recently?”

“I demanded that a group of bikers stop roughing up an elderly person,” said the man.

“When did you do this?” said St. Peter.

“About 15 seconds ago,” said the man.

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Copyright 2026 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

See Tom Purcell’s syndicated column, humor books and funny videos featuring his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.

When a photo says a thousand racist words

Elwood Watson — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Reuters photographer Chaney Orr took a photo that's become the talk of the country.

Orr showcased a young Black woman, Bernita Bowlding, sitting alone on the Metro in Washington, D.C., seemingly going about her business on the day America celebrated its 250th year of independence.

She was isolated, surrounded by white supremacists in khakis showing casing their blind hatred while cowardly shielding their identities.

Public reaction was immediate.

Actor Wendell Pierce was one of many who reshared the photo on social media, writing on X,

“An instant Pulitzer Prize winning photograph,” actor Wendell Pierce wrote on social media. Liberal commentator Dean Withers wrote that “your great-grandchildren would see it in their history books.” Blavity's Christopher Rhodes noted the images of the white supremacists marching through the nation's capital "have come to represent the current state of the country."

Orr's photo became so instantly iconic that supremacists launched a counter-campaign, noting the Black woman had been arrested in 2024 for indecent exposure, a charge that was ultimately dismissed.

Bowlding's reaction was notable yet transparent. Her expression appeared to say Who the hell?! It would have been a bonus to read her mind. Was she gripped with fear? Was she reeling with disgust? Whatever her precise emotions, she managed to conceal her genuine thoughts superbly.

On July 4th, Independence Day, no less, she literally came face-to-face with a group of White nationalists

The group, known as Patriot Front, is a virulently White supremacist organization who brazenly marched through Washington, D.C. on July 4th. These are the type of politically retrograde individuals comfortable with the reductive ideology of the current conservative Republican right. The group is known for staging intensely choreographed marches through major metropolitan centers while wearing uniforms consisting of blue sweaters, beige hats, and khaki pants. Yet, they disguise their genuine identities because they know publicly showcasing their deplorable values would all but derail their careers.

The more dishonest right wingers are declaring the while thing was staged, and that Bowlding was financially compensated to sit there. Others on the conservative right have resorted to the “Black on Black crime” narrative, arguing she was safer in the presence of white supremacists than a Black person. Such perverse assertions are standard practice among bigoted, reactionary whites who perceive Blacks as “the other.” Locate a criminal record. Seek a mugshot. Verify a rumor. Dredge up a negative photo. Dig up an old arrest. Seize upon anything that can be exploited in the arena of public opinion and perversely declare the person in question as typical of those people.

Many of these same bigots resent that the Reuters image was effective without additional explanation. It enrages them the nation was forced to confront itself on a subway car on Independence Day. They despise the fact a Black woman’s stoic silence ripped open the pathology, fear, and fecklessness of those White men.

Given that Bowlding did not have to utter one word for the larger public to successfully compute the situation at hand deeply enrages their racist sensibilities. Thus, they are forced to pretend that the political left has turned the young lady into a heroine while simultaneously attempting to defile her character. Talk about the theater of desperation.

In a related photo, Roswell Encina, a Filipino American gay man and president and CEO of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, sat on the train as masked members of the Patriot Front crowd around him. “Encina said he did not know at first who the men were. He noticed patches and logos and began piecing it together. He texted friends during the ride so someone would know where he was,” Christopher Wiggins wrote for the LGBTQ+ publication The Advocate.

“I would be lying if I said no,” Encinae said when asked whether he was scared, according to Wiggins. “I was terrified, honestly, just because I wasn’t sure what the motives were."

As we move forward in 2026, we still have to come to the realization many people of color are still under terror by retrograde entities that refuse to acknowledge or embrace the diverse mosaic that has made our nation the envy of the world.

The truth is that we still have a ways to go.

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.

Lacky Lindsey Graham exits stage right

Dick Polman — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There’s an old saying that if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Lindsey Graham died scratching.

I’m not celebrating Graham’s passing - I’ll leave that to the lefty ghouls on social media - but nor will I whitewash his detestable sins just because he’s gone. The D.C. establishment is predictably busy conferring retroactive sainthood, which makes it all the more imperative that the sad and tragic truth be told.

Every aspiring fascist needs a simpering flunky. Donald Trump, with his uncanny ability to exploit human weakness, got his man.

Trump correctly intuited Graham would sacrifice everything – integrity, credibility, character, the semblance of a conscience – just to be in the room where it happened. Even if the room was overrun by a convicted felon who represented everything that Lindsey, once upon a time, claimed to loathe.

Ten long years ago, Lindsey was in relentlessly high dudgeon about the lowlife. He assailed Trump as “a nutjob,” as “a complete idiot,” as a “jackass,” as “crazy,” as “a race-baiting xenophobic bigot,” as “a demagogue of the highest order.” He said, “You know how to make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

He also denounced Trump as “a kook” who was “unfit for office.” And yet, one year later, after Trump’s first electoral win, Lindsey effectuated a gymnastic twist worthy of the Olympics: “What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy some kind of kook not fit to be president.”

Graham's pathetic subservience was endless - to the point where he trekked to Georgia at Trump’s command in December 2020 to baselessly contest Joe Biden’s statewide victory, pressuring state election officials (without success) to throw out some of the legal ballots. And despite his initial anger about the Jan. 6 desecration of the Capitol by MAGA goons, he predictably voted to acquit his alpha dog in the subsequent impeachment trial.

Look again at Lindsey’s string of scathing 2016 remarks, and the conclusion is inescapable: He knew perfectly well who and what Trump was, but he chose to play the toady and reverse-engineer his rhetoric. “Mr. President,” he said in 2024, “you're not far behind God.”

You surely know for years Lindsey played “wingman” (his word) to John McCain, a heavy hitter and inveterate Trump foe. You may not know, however, that after Barack Obama ascended to the White House in 2008, Lindsey morphed into a groupie. He praised Obama as “a good role model” and “an American just as much as anyone else.” He took heat from right-wingers who called him “Obama Lite” and “Flimsy Graham.” Tommy Vietor, an Obama aide, later tweeted, “When Obama first took office, (Lindsey) lived in Rahm Emanuel’s office,” referring to Obama’s first chief of staff. “He has no core beliefs. He just drifts in the political wind.”

Obama, McCain, Trump…What’s the difference. Lindsey was remarkably nimble-footed. A Republican operative told me privately, “He started drifting toward Trump when McCain got sick.”

Lindsey saw nothing wrong with shifting his loyalty. He told a reporter in 2019 that his main motivation was “to try to be relevant.” And if that meant sucking up to the grifter who loved to trash McCain’s memory, hey, no problem because everything was grist for sacrifice at the relevance altar. Lindsey admitted to a reporter he didn’t like Trump’s trashing of McCain, “ but when we play golf, it’s fun.”

Fun for him, yes. Not fun for the Americans who’ve been hurt by his subservience to evil - starting with the millions of women who’ve now been denied autonomy over their own bodies, thanks in part to Lindsey’s vocal championing of Brett Kavanaugh, at Trump’s behest, for the U.S. Supreme Court. There are also millions of needy people who will lose Medicaid coverage and food assistance thanks to the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that Lindsey, at Trump’s behest, steered through the Senate.

Lindsey chose to do all this, chose to serve his MAGA master - in defiance of sage advice that his erstwhile hero McCain co-authored in a book: “It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy. That is all that really passes for destiny. And you choose it. No one else can give it to you or deny it to you. No rival can steal it from you. And no friend can give it to you. Others can encourage you to make the right choices or discourage you. But you choose.”

So excuse me for failing to mourn the man. I’m tempted to joke that he died from an overdose of Trump’s shoe polish, and I suppose that’s in bad taste. But sucking up to the enemy within was infinitely worse.

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Copyright 2026 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes the Subject to Change newsletter. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com

Dem leaders finally, finally learned their lesson

Christine Flowers — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Democrats decided they finally found a line in the sand they wouldn’t cross, and surprisingly enough, it brings us back to the MeToo movement.

Graham Platner, the freakishly flawed candidate chosen to unseat comfortably boring Susan Collins in the Maine Senate race, was yet again accused of being too handsy with the women in his life. This time, instead of being rude or pushy, an ex girlfriend claimed he raped her.

Rape became watered down with the MeToo movement, when even a lascivious gaze from your office mate became the basis of a possible sexual assault. But with Platner, the details matched the act.

The ex said he literally forced her to have sex with him while under the influence of some drug, and that is the classic definition of rape.

Democrats were aghast, as they should have been.

But the rest of us were aghast at the fact that it took an actual rape allegation to make them abandon Platner, a ship that was even more doomed than the USS Maine, which exploded in Havana Harbor over a century ago.

From the very beginning, there was something seriously wrong with a man who had seared Nazi symbolism into his skin.

He wasn’t wearing an SS uniform at a Halloween Party. He didn’t shout slogans from his front porch or raise his hand in a Nazi salute. He didn’t fly the swastika from his chimney.

These were things you could peel off, beg forgiveness for, and erase from your timeline.

Platner had someone inject ink into the skin of his upper torso to send an indelible message to anyone unfortunate enough to see his naked chest.

Platner kept that ink on his body for two decades. Platner knew what it meant. So do his supporters.

My point is this should have been the end of his campaign and not one of many land mines strewn across the way.

The people who made excuses for him, like Ro Khanna, Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, not to mention a lot of Mainers, were literally saying that embracing the Nazi culture isn’t a deal breaker for them.

Hitler, in other words, was negotiable.

A lot of Democrats reject that interpretation and immediately pivot to Trump. It’s what I called the “Whatabouts,” people who are cursed with mediocre intellects and reflexively raise the sins of their adversaries in answer to accusations that one of their own is guilty.

Platner raped a woman? Well Trump had to pay another woman millions of dollars because a court said he raped her, which, by theway, is wrong.

Platner cheated on his wife? Well Trump cheated on Ivana with Marla and then on Marla with Melania and a bunch of women in between.

Platner never had a real job, because his only client on that oyster farm is mommy? Well, Trump inherited money from daddy and never had to work a day in his life because it was handed to him on a platter, which, by the way, is easily disproved by asimple Google search.

You know what Trump never did? He never got a Nazi tattoo. He never made excuses for obvious antisemitism. He moved the U.S. Consulate to Jerusalem. And his daughter and grandchildren are Jews.

I’m not here to defend the president against his critics, because I can’t put my heart into it. He is making my life miserable with the things that he and his people are doing to immigrants.

However, we can set that aside for purposes of this column.

What matters is that Trump was never the sort of candidate Platner has proven himself to be, and the Democrats who are pointing fingers, like Sophie Cunningham, at the rest of us have no institutional memory.

They think that being sexual abusers is a bad thing, and indeed it is, but they yawn at suggestions of Jew hatred.

More importantly, they’re not honest. Platner has been telling his party exactly who he is since he first took off his shirt. He never apologized for getting a Nazi tattoo and was embraced by the sort of folk who think that there really is a genocide in Gaza, and that Hamas are freedom fighters.

These people do not belong in office.

So while I am happy that the Democrats finally woke up to the horror in their midst, I think the greater tragedy is that it took them this long to get here.

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Copyright 2026 Christine Flowers, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.