January 26, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Fact against you? Just deny them!

Carly Fiorino and the other GOP candidates have railed about for months over a faked video that claimed that Planned Parenthood was harvesting baby parts. It’s been discredited by everyone, and the guy who made it admitted it was fake, but that hasn’t stopped them from repeating the lie.

cartoon by Rob Tornoe

They even managed to get a Grand Jury to investigate this supposed terrible crime. Yesterday, the Grand Jury came back and exonerated Planned Parenthood and instead indicted the guys who made the fake video.

So all the Republicans finally admitted they were wrong.

Ha ha! Just kidding! They instead doubled down on the falsehood, insisting that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they were still right.

Is anyone at all surprised by this? This is the party that regularly denies facts that are inconvenient to their ideology. They refuse to accept climate change and evolution. They insist that trickle down economics work. They claim Obamacare has killed jobs, that gun control doesn’t reduce gun deaths, that “voter fraud” is a major problem, that Obama has raised the deficit, that a majority of Americans are against gay marriage, and that some sort of conspiracy happened in Benghazi (I still haven’t quite figured out exactly what they are talking about there).

And they are easily proven wrong every single time.

While this mindset is not limited to Republicans, one does not see it at the top levels of the Democratic party in the same way you see Republican leaders spout out untruths like that.

I can kind of understand the people at the top repeating these lies as a way to give them more power. Evil leaders have done that forever. But are there no honest people any more in the Republican party? No one who will say, “Hey, that’s not true. We shouldn’t be saying that.”

Apparently not.

January 21, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Editorial cartoon: Lady and the Trump

Glenn McCoy

January 21, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Cancer Cure Conspiracy Nonsense

I’ve never quite understood how my liberal friends can laugh at those who claim there is a vast conspiracy of scientists who are lying about climate change while at the same time embracing their own conspiracy theories about vaccines or cancer cures.

What if I told you this was bullshit?

Seriously? I mean, I don’t trust the pharmaceutical industry either, but to hold that they are all conspiring to prevent a cure for cancer because it’s more profitable to treat patients than cure them? You honestly and sincerely believe that?

Let’s look at why such a belief is nonsense:

This is a very American way of looking at it, as if no other country was researching a cure. Health care may be profit-generating here in this country, but we are the only advanced country where that is the case — where your health depends on your income. Other countries are not that way, and in fact, if they could find a cure, it would greatly reduce the costs for their national health care policy. In the rest of the world, finding a cure is the way to have more money.
A lot of research happens in colleges where profit-making is not the goal, or with non-profit groups like the American Cancer Society. It’s not all about making money even here.
The medical providers may make more money treating someone than curing them, but who pays that money? Most of the time, it’s the insurance companies. Insurance companies in America really run things, and there’s nothing they’d love more than finding a cure that will save them all that money.
The person or organization that cures cancer will be heroes. They will win Nobel prizes and be praised everywhere. The incentive for finding a cure vastly outweighs whatever benefits may be given to individuals for not finding the cure.
Researchers have family and friends too. They’ve watched loved ones die from cancer. You really think they don’t care? You really think they’re all mustachioed Snidley Whiplash types going “Nyah ha ha! I am on the brink of saving my wife from cancer but I will keep that secret so I can keep making lots of money”? Further, let’s not forget that even CEOs of pharmaceutical groups (and their family members) have died from cancer — you think they weren’t trying to find a cure?
Cures have been found. Great strides have been made against cancer. There are lots of different kinds of cancer as well, so there’s not going to be one cure that solves them all anyway. If this conspiracy theory were true, none of these cures would have been found, right?
There are lots of companies making various treatments for cancer, and they’re all in competition. The one that finds the cure will have a monopoly on that cure, and will make much more money selling that cure at that point.

While it is important to be a skeptic, you need to be a skeptic about everything or else you’re being hypocritical. Treat your own personal beliefs with the same skepticism you give other beliefs and you may be surprised at how many of your own beliefs will also fall.

January 19, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Editorial cartoon: Is this thing on?

Darrin Bell

January 18, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Thoughts on last night’s Democratic debate

It’s clear that the Democratic establishment is for Hillary, since they keep scheduling the debates on weekends when the audience will be the smallest. When you’re ahead in the polls, you want less debates — that’s just normal. Why risk anything?

Overall, the debates always help the challengers and hurt the front-runner. I think Bernie and O’Malley did well and probably improved their chances. (Ha ha! I implied that O’Malley had a chance!)

Bernie was a bit too much like a politician in that he had his talking points he wanted to get out and he was going to work them in whenever possible. He also demanded to respond to comments made by Hillary a few times but instead of responding, he made new points. Not impressive there.

Hillary was quite good in some places and really dishonest in others, such as implying that Bernie was against Obamacare when he was one of the Senators writing the damn thing. “He wants to get rid of Obamacare!” she said. No, Hillary, Bernie wants to replace Obamacare with Medicare for All, a much better plan.

Hillary also argued that we need to be brave and fight for what is right while at the same time saying that we can’t fight for Medicare for All because it just wouldn’t pass. “Vote for me and together, we can accomplish mediocre things!”

So much politics is about personality. If Sanders were 20 years younger and looked and talked like George Clooney, he’d be way ahead in the polls.

When asked how they would bring the country together, Hillary’s answer wasn’t too convincing. “The Republicans have hated me since the 90s but they’ll work with me once I am President. Honest.”

“Democrats: We actually believe in science!” – Martin O’Malley. Now there’s a good campaign slogan.

This is a major difference between the Democratic debate and the Republican debate: None of the Democrats think a good foreign policy is “bomb them all until they glow.”

Overall, it was a much more boring debate than the Republican ones, partially because these guys basically like each other and agree 90% of the time. No matter who gets the nominations, the others will support him or her. Plus they are sane.

January 18, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Editorial cartoon: Wrong

telnaes

Ann Telnaes

January 17, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Let’s send Bill O’Reilly to Ireland!

Fox News loudmouth Bill O’Reilly recently said that if Bernie Sanders gets elected, he’s moving to Ireland.

I think Bernie should start using that as a campaign slogan.

This is not new, of course. People threaten to leave when they don’t get their way all the time. Remember when Rush Limbaugh said he’d move to Costa Rica if Obamacare was passed? We’re still waiting, Rush. Or — now this may be difficult to accept — were you lying?

Here’s the funniest part about the whole thing: Costa Rica, like every other industrialized nation on the planet, has for years had a national health care plan much more expansive than Obamacare.

And Ireland? Where they have universal health care, gay marriage, free education through college, high taxes on the rich, no death penalty, and many other liberal social programs? Yeah, that’s a good idea, Bill. Perfect place for you.

Mind you, liberals also say things like “If Trump is elected, I am moving to Canada!” but the difference is this: Liberals want to move to someplace more like the kind of country they want.

Perhaps the conservatives should instead say they are moving to someplace like, I dunno, Saudi Arabia. There, the taxes are low, women have very few rights, religious law rules the land, gay marriage is illegal (as is homosexuality), and the death penalty is handed out frequently and usually through beheading in public. Ah! A conservative’s paradise!

January 16, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

Editorial cartoon: Closer than appears

Matt Wuerker

January 15, 2016 by Michael A. Ventrella

The most corrupt President ever

It’s the most corrupt White House in the history of America — literally over a hundred administration officials indicted and/or convicted. No other president comes close, not even Nixon.

I’m referring to the Reagan years, of course. Selling weapons to our enemy in Iran was just the tip of the iceberg.

What, did you think I meant Obama?

“The most corrupt President ever” is a refrain we hear from the right, but usually when you pin them down, it’s all stuff like “He ignores the Constitution by passing Executive Orders!” (but less than any President since Grover Cleveland) or “He was the cause of Benghazi!” (which was a tragedy but not a conspiracy) or some other variation of “He does things I don’t like.”

But just look at practical, comparable data with other Presidents for things like how many members of his administration were indicted and/or convicted? Obama’s administration has been the cleanest since Jimmy Carter’s. Sure, some people have resigned for political and administrative reasons (such as from the IRS “scandal”) but that’s not the same thing as being indicted or convicted of a crime.

(Before someone finds some example of someone Obama’s never even met working in the lower levels of some bureaucracy who was found guilty of something and who could have been hired during the Bush administration: We’re talking about and comparing high-level people personally hired or appointed by the President or his direct staff whose term most likely expires when the President’s term expires.)

EDIT: Obviously, this was written before Trump