The lesson for those with honor

If you’re honest and sorry and accept blame for what you’ve done, you will do the honorable thing and resign.

If you refuse to admit you’ve been wrong, blame your enemies, and behave in an amoral way, you get to keep your job and may even get elected to prominent positions.

This is the contradictory lesson our leaders are sending us.

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Al Franken resigns for inappropriate touching, almost all of which was in public with witnesses while pictures are being taken, while on the GOP side, people who have committed the kind of creepy crimes that would normally place one on sexual offenders’ lists are promoted by the party.

I’m getting tired of playing by the rules and doing the right thing while political opponents are playing by different rules.

They’re like the bullies laughing at us do-gooders while they destroy us behind the scenes. You can’t win the game if they’re playing hardball while we’re playing softball. I’m just tired of having the sand kicked in our face and replying by turning the other cheek. All it does is make them kick us harder next time.

While I think Franken should have been censured and perhaps removed of a few important committee assignments, I can also understand his dilemma:  Had he stayed on, there would have been an investigation and the Republicans would have milked this for everything they could in order to destroy him and the Democrats (while completely ignoring their own more serious transgressions because, of course, they are all flaming hypocrites).

So perhaps leaving and setting an example was the best thing he could do, because, if nothing else, it allows the Democrats to be the party of morals and “family values” for the 2018 election.

Editorial cartoon: Winter is here

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Nick Anderson

 

Sexual Assaults are about power

These sexual assaults accusations aren’t new. They’ve always been happening. I don’t think there are more of them happening these days. I just think Trump’s election was the point where women finally said “We’re not going to take it any more.”

Do not discount how angry women are that a proud molester is in the White House.

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illustration by Matt Bors

The bottom line though is that this isn’t really about sex — it’s about power.

No woman is impressed when you send her an unsolicited dick pick, or grab her without her consent, or perform a sex act in front of her. That’s not how you start a relationship. That’s how you show your power over her.

In a sense, it’s like rape, which is an act of violence more than an act of sex. It’s when the abuser treats the victim as less than human, less than deserving of respect. Yes, the abuser may be getting his (or her) jollies off, but the fact that some people get excited over abusing another against their will doesn’t make it just about sex.

The other problem is that for many generations, this was just the way things were, and few people questioned it.  TV shows and movies had bosses chasing secretaries around the desk and it was played for laughs. And men grew up thinking that was just the way things worked.

But society has changed. It was never right but now people know that.  And the men who refuse to acknowledge that change are the ones who are getting caught and are surprised.

But that’s no excuse. It’s like when people say, “You have to excuse grandpa’s racism, because he grew up in a separate era.” No, grandpa’s inability to change with society’s norms is inexcusable. Plenty of other people his age were able to adjust just fine.

And many men are surprised at these new revelations, because they have apparently never spoken to a woman before; every woman I know can give examples of where this has happened to them.

“But there’s so many!” they say. “We can’t just fire every man who has abused his power in a sexual manner!”

To which the rest of us reply, “Why not?”

 

 

Editorial cartoon: Moore or less

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Clay Bennett

Freedom from ads!

I’ve been running this blog for five years or so now, using WordPress. In exchange for giving me a free page, they’d run ads everywhere.cache

But they never showed me the ads. I’d just get a message saying, “Some of your readers may see an ad here.”

I recently looked at this page on my phone and then again from a computer where I was not logged into WordPress automatically and was surprised at how often these ads popped up.

So I finally gave in and paid the extra yearly fee so you won’t have to see any ads.

You can thank me by maybe buying one of my books — they make good holiday presents, too.

Wait, was that an ad?

Editorial cartoon: Jackson’s Legacy

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Brian Carroll

Editorial cartoon: Comparisons

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Steve Sack

Editorial cartoon: Election Day 2017

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Jeremy Nguyen

 

They don’t want you to vote

Republicans spend an inordinate amount of time and money trying to take away your most basic right in a democracy: The right to vote.i-vote-sticker

They use illegal voter purges. They make registration extremely difficult if not impossible. They move voting precincts around randomly. They block efforts to allow for early voting or mail-in ballots. They try their best to make people ineligible. And, of course, they use gerrymandering and the electoral college.

And you know why. Because they know there are more of us than there are of them, and when we vote in equal numbers, we win.

So the only way they can keep power is to cheat — to do everything they can to keep us from using the power we have.

Don’t let them.

Vote.

 

Editorial cartoon: The new cross

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Lalo Alcaraz