Author: Michael A. Ventrella

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Republicans break the 11th Commandment

The Republican god Ronald Reagan first announced the 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

And politically, that’s good advice for any party. If there’s one thing the opposing party doesn’t need to see, it’s infighting among your own party.

Which is why today is so much fun for we Democrats.

Kevin McCarthy wants to be Speaker of the House. Wants is so desperately that he will say whatever he has to in order to get it. He spoke against Trump after January 6th, only to change his words once he realized it would hurt him politically, so at least he is consistent with his fellow Republicans for not standing for anything except their own power.

But he’s not getting any power today.

As I write this, he lost the first vote for Speaker. They’re currently arguing and making backroom deals. Even if eventually he will get it, he will be a weak leader without the clear support of his party.

The more moderate Republicans are unhappy with McCarthy and blame him for their lack of a “red wave” in the last election, and the right-wing crazy Republicans are just crazy. Trying to figure logic out with these people is an impossible task.

The Speaker of the House is elected by the House every two years, and it basically goes to the leader of whichever party is in the majority. However, that only works if all the members of the party vote in unison.

Republicans have a very slim 10 vote margin (out of 435 House members). All the Democrats voted for their leader, Hakim Jeffries, of course, but the GOP is split. Some even abstained.

What makes this especially interesting is that if enough of them abstain, Jeffries could get elected Speaker even though the Democrats are the minority party! That’s not likely but it also isn’t impossible.

In any event, I’m enjoying watching the party fall apart.

cartoon by David Horsey
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Amateur

Gary Markstein
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Best and worst animated films of 2022

In the 80s, I started a magazine called “Animato!” that later grew quite large and popular. I got to meet and interview great animators like Chuck Jones and Ralph Bakshi but later sold the magazine, and it went on to even bigger successes until the internet killed all magazines.

So I’m still an animation fan, but it’s basically impossible to see all the films and all the animated TV shows these days unless you’re a full-time animator or animation historian, I guess.

These days, with so much CGI, we can debate what an “animated film” even is, but generally the accepted definition is that the main characters must be animated — not just the monsters or effects. (And “motion capture” doesn’t count.)

So here’s my annual end-of-the-year list of best and worst animated films (based on their Rotten Tomatoes score).  I used to only include films that were released to theaters, but thanks to the pandemic, that no longer applies. Ties are broken by number of reviews, and you have to have at least 10 reviews to make my list.

  1. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (97%)
  2. Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe (97%)
  3. Turning Red (95%)
  4. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (95%)
  5. The Sea Beast (94%)
  6. Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (91%)
  7. The Bad Guys (88%)
  8. The Bob’s Burgers Movie (88%)
  9. My Father’s Dragon (88%) 
  10. Wendell and Wild (81%)
  11. Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers (80%)
  12. Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again (77%)
  13. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (77%)
  14. Lightyear (74%)
  15. Strange World (73%)
  16. DA League of Super Pets (73%) 
  17. Lyle Lyle Crocodile (72%)
  18. Minions: The Rise of Gru (70%)
  19. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (69%)
  20. Paws of Fury:  The Legend of Hank (68%)
  21. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (49%)
  22. Luck (47%)
  23. Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (38%)
  24. The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (17%)
  25. Marmaduke (0%)

 

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Burning desires

Clay Bennett
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Senator Sinema remains true to her first love: Senator Sinema

Senator Sinema just announced she would quit the Democrats to become an independent Senator.

She knew Democrats would run someone against her in the next primary. Switching to independent was a smart move politically — it allows her to drain votes from both parties and have a real chance of getting re-elected. She could win with just 34% of the vote. (On the other hand, she’ll now be attacked by both parties.)

This won’t really change much in the Senate, though.

If she caucuses with the Democrats (which she should do if she wants to keep her committee assignments), we’ll have 51 – 49, which allows for more stuff to get passed and moved out of committees at least.

If she caucuses with the Republicans, then we’re still 50 – 50.

If she joins neither, then we have 50 Democrats, 49 Republican, and one Sinema, and that’s just as good as if we had 51.

So it won’t really change things too much.

In the long run, she’ll probably not run for re-election and instead become a lobbyist.

Oh great, now I’m imaging a Sinema singing “Let’s go out to the lobby” at the cinema

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Rude

Pat Bagley
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Trump: “Make me dictator”

Here’s a former President of the United States claiming that there was massive fraud (there wasn’t, and interviews have shown that he knows that) claiming we should terminate “all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” in order to chuck democracy and name him dictator.

Trumpies don’t care about the laws or our Constitution (except the 2nd Amendment, which they constantly misinterpret). They’re perfectly fine with having a dictator in charge, as long as it’s their dictator.

Can you imagine how Republicans would scream if a Democrat suggested suspending the Constitution in order to have them named President after they lost an election?

What a sad state our country has become, where a large percentage of our population claims to be patriotic while supporting the most unpatriotic thoughts imaginable.

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Another tragedy

Dave Whamond
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Tributes to Charles Schulz

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a comic strip writer. I drew my own strips, and got to draw them for the school newspaper and everything. I collected all the comic strip collections I could get (I still have most of them) and especially loved Peanuts.

Peanuts was revolutionary in many ways — most comic strips at the time were adventure strips, with ongoing, complicated plots. Schulz introduced a simpler, gag-a-day approach that became the model for comic strips to come.

Charles M. Schulz would have been 100 years old today, and all his comic strip friends decided to honor him and his great influence. Here are a few of my favorites.

Click here to see all of the tributes!

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Perfect Defense

Pat Byrneshttps://www.cagle.com/author/patbyrnes/