Political Cartoons by Jerry Breen Editorial Cartoons
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If
"gun control"is the answer to gun violence, then Chicago, like New
York, should have a record low homicide rate. Chicago has
the same strict gun laws that New York has. But its homicide rate is at
record high levels. While Mrs. Obama was attending the funeral of one
teenage girl who was gunned down after attending President
Obama's inauguration, the teenage daughter of a woman sitting directly
behind Mrs. Obama was gunned down on the streets of Chicago. What's the
difference?For
the last 20 years, New York has been using computers to track patterns
of violent crime and concentrating their police presence in high crime
areas. Then, they stop and frisk people randomly in those
neighborhoods. They check their ID on laptops in the patrol cars.
They've been able to grab the parole violators and those with arrest
warrants and put them away. Meanwhile, Chicago seems powerless to do
anything about the uncontrolled gang violence that everyone agrees is
the cause of their problem. Because they haven't even tried. And they
don't have the guts to try. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Chicago's
police are unwilling to confront gang violence. When have they ever
done so? Did Al Capone ever lose any sleep worrying about the Chicago
police? The Chicago police are a joke. Not a funny joke. Just a sick
joke.
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Isn't it funny
.
. . that Manti Te'o now says that he found out that his imaginary
girlfriend wasn't really dead and wasn't really real on December
6th, 2012, but he continued to give tearful interviews about his tragic
"loss" of the "love of his life" until after the voting for the Heisman
trophy was over? Isn't it funny that he didn't tell Notre Dame the
truth until December 26th? Isn't it funny that neither he nor Notre
Dame admitted the hoax publicly until they were "outed" by
deadspin.com? (The choice of words is deliberate.) Isn't it funny that
he was in California, within a few miles of where his "critically
injured" girlfriend was supposedly hospitalized but he couldn't find
the time to visit her? Isn't it funny that the biggest stud in college
football can't seem to find an actual girlfriend to hold hands with, to
go on dates with, to do all those other things a healthy young
"All-American" male would want to do with an actual girl? On the other
hand, a "virtual" girlfriend sure is a convenient way to avoid all
those annoying questions about why he doesn't have a girlfriend, isn't
it? Not that there's anything wrong with that! Sure is funny, though.
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  (Above left)
Obama seems oblivious to the fact that requiring churches and
church-affiliated institutions to include sexual aids or services like
contraception in their employees' health plans is a clear
violation of the religious freedoms protected by the
Constitution. So he offered a "compromise": the churches don't have to
pay for contraception, but it still must be included in the health
plans paid for by the churches. (???) This is a logic that only Bill
Clinton would understand. (Like "I smoked reefer, but I didn't inhale,
so it's okay". Or "I never had sex with that woman. I only had oral
sex. And that isn't sex".) Yeah, right. (Above, right) Have you ever
seen as many vacant storefronts in your life as there are now? My son
has been telling me we're in a Depression, not a Recession and I've
been telling him he was wrong. It turns out he is right. Someone found
out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (or the Bureau of Lying
Statistics) has been fudging the unemployment figures for a long time,
by subtracting the long-term unemployed and the semi-employed
(part-time workers who used to work full-time) from the statistics.
It's not a Democratic or Republican thing, just bureaucratic
obfuscation. It turns out that the real unemployment rate for the last
3 years has been ranging between 14 percent and 17 percent. That's not
a Recession. That's a Depression. The work-force-participation rate
(the mirror image of the unemployment rate) is the lowest since the
1930's. The percentage of families below the federal government's
poverty line is the most since the early 1960's. Families using food
stamps are at record levels. This is a Depression, not a Recession!
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 (Above left) How do
the Libertarian Right and the Religious Right co-exist in the same wing
of the same Party? It's one of those "strange bedfellows" situations
that often happens in politics. In the early 20th Century, the Southern
Segregationists and Northern Liberals coexisted in the Democratic
Party. (Which is why Will Rogers said, "I don't belong to any organized
political party. i'm a Democrat.") Anyway, the core of political
Conservatism is that the Federal Government restrict itself to those
powers specifically given it in the U.S. Constitution and basically
keep its nose out of people's private affairs. So why do these "Social
Conservatives" want to extend the Federal Government's authority into
the area of marriage laws? Well, obviously because they're hypocrites
and theocratic zealots, like the Islamists of Iran. Same tyranny,
different religion. As the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
said, "The Government has no business in the bedrooms of the
nation." (Above right) Sure, Newt Gingrich is bright and
articulate and full of ideas, but he's also a Grade A hypocrite.
Remember his witch hunt against Bill Clinton's adultery while he
himself was doing the same thing? Or how about his attacks on Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac for squandering our tax money, while almost 2
million of it went right into his own pocket as a "historical
consultant" for Freddie Mac? (I had no idea historians were so well
paid!) Early in his Presidential campaign, Newt was contradicting
himself so much that his campaign criticized the news media for quoting
him. Not misquoting him, but for quoting him. I kid you not!
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 (Above left, from September 2011) Silly me! I always thought that a recession was a period of high unemployment. But what do I know? According to the government, a recession is a period of decline in the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) regardless of unemployment. So, according to the government, in Obama Magic Land, the Great Recession ended over 2 years ago, in June 2009! Unfortunately, the rest of us have to live in the real world, where the unemployment rate went UP after June 2009. (Above right, from September 2010) We were halfway through the "Recovery" at that point. What, you didn't notice? |
  
I've done numerous cartoons of Jimmy Carter over the years from the candidate of 1976 (left), who was all smiles and vague platitudes but no clear policy positions, to the President who, it turned out, had no clear policies. The center cartoon, while specifically referring to the Skylab space junk scare, seems to capture the befuddled President of the notorious "National Malaise" speech. (That most embarrassing of all presidential speeches was written by Chris Matthews of MSNBC, who later made the famous embarrassing remark that he got a "thrill running up his leg" from the sound of Obama's voice.) Right: In 1984, Carter's VP Fritz Mondale was hampered in his own Presidential campaign by his connection to Carter's Presidency. |
 Stop Sitting on Them! Have You Seen Polythene Prez? (Above, left:) Barack Obama tells us about every 6 months that he's "all about jobs" or he's "pivoting to jobs". Then he forgets about it for another 6 months. When G.W. Bush left office, his administration had just negotiated new free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, which would boost American exports and create tens of thousands of jobs. Occasionally, Obama has urged Congress to pass the treaties. But they can't pass the treaties until Obama submits them to Congress. Both Republicans and Democrats have urged him to send them the treaties, but he keeps . . . forgetting, I guess. Is this guy incompetent, or what? (Above, right:) It seems like people keep giving Obama awards just for . . well, who knows why? Remember when he got the Nobel Peace Prize for continuing 2 wars? (Later he started a 3rd war.) Recently, Obama received the "Transparency in Government" Award, despite having one of the most secretive administrations ever (and being the most mysterious man to ever occupy the Presidency). True to his secretive ways, Obama insisted on accepting the award in an unannounced, closed-door ceremony (no cameras allowed). Seriously! |
Harry Reid's Deficit Dinghy Usama Bin Laden's "Rights"? Hah! (Above, Left: ) The
Republican majority in the House of Representatives has proposed their
"Paul Ryan" budget to try to stem the ballooning U.S. budget deficit;
the Democrats have, understandably, attacked it. So what do the
Democrats offer as an alternative? Well . . . nothing, actually! Their
"leader" in the Senate, Harry Reid, seems to think "It's not my job,
man!" Some leader! No wonder we're in the mess we're in! (Above,
right:) Sure, Hitler and Bin Laden are apples-&-oranges in some
respects. My 2 main points: First, terrorists, like spies and
saboteurs, have NO rights under international law. Only uniformed
soldiers and diplomats do. Second, mass murderers who operate through a
chain of command, whether they're a dictator, a gangster or a terrorist
leader, are usually impossible to convict by the rules of evidence in a
criminal trial. Everone knows Hitler killed 6 million Jews. But you'll
never find a written order or even a conversation in which he expressly
approved it. Everyone knows Al Capone ordered the St. Valentine's Day
massacre, but the U.S. government was only able to convict Capone of
income tax evasion. The same rules apply to Usama Bin Laden. Anyone who
believes he should have been tried in a U.S court is naively
unrealistic. - Jerry Breen
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A couple of my earliest Obama cartoons, from 2007 (left) and early 2008 (right). The Obama face on the left is my most popular. It was reprinted (with permission) on the cover of the book "Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle" by Mathew Honan. Honan started a daily blog with one-liners satirizing the way people projected their own expectations, realistic or not, onto Obama. The blog became so popular that it turned into a book. Obama, the "Hope & Change" candidate adeptly played on people's expectations, all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Meanwhile, much about Obama's background, including his place of birth, and even his legal name, were shrouded in mystery and speculation. |
Congratulations to
everyone from President Obama to the U.S. intelligence agencies to the
Navy Seals and
other commandos in the Pakistan raid for a job well done. It will
go down in history as one of the most perfectly conceived and executed
military operations in modern warfare. With the unexpected intelligence
bonanza recovered by the raiders, it will prove to be the major turning
point in our long World War against Islamic terrorism, like the Battle
of Midway against the Japanese or the Battle of Stalingrad against the
Nazis in World War II. As Phillip Van Damm (James Mason) said in
Hitchcock's "North by Northwest", "This matter is best disposed of from
a great height . . . over water." Usama Bin Laden's end was perfectly
appropriate, in my view. The outburst of concern for Bin Laden's
"rights" voiced by contrarians of the left and right including Michael
Moore and Judge Napolitano was, I thought, maddeningly stupid.
(Notably, the ACLU conspicuously voiced no such opinion.) There's a
common misconception, like the myth that ship captains have the
authority to marry people, that the Geneva Convention guarantees basic
human rights for all combatants in all conflicts. Actually, it only
safeguards uniformed military personnel and diplomats of the signatory
nations. Spies, saboteurs and terrorists have NO rights under
international law. Nor should they! - Jerry Breen
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(Above, Left:) My
favorite all-time political cartoon, which I drew at the height of the
Watergate Scandal, circa 1974, which ended with the resignation of
President Richard Nixon. It refers to an earlier scandal in Nixon's
career, the "Nixon Fund" scandal, which climaxed with his celebrated
"Checkers Speech". In 1952, Nixon was running for Vice-President
on Dwight D. ("Ike") Eisenhower's ticket, when some journalists alleged
that he had a secret "slush" fund. Nixon gave a live address on network
TV in which he convincingly argued that the money from the fund was
used strictly for legitimate campaign and business expenses and never
for personal use. He made all of his personal financial records
public (a first in American politics). He famously said that his wife
Pat wore a "respectable Republican cloth coat" (referring to a scandal
in which a Truman administration official resigned after accepting a
gift of a
fur coat). In a bit of uncharacteristic humor for Nixon, he did
admit receiving a gift on the campaign trail - a black-&-white
Cocker Spaniel named "Checkers" - which his daughters loved and he
refused to return. Nixon's speech saved his career, set a record
for campaign donations and helped put Eisenhower in the White House.
Nixon was actually very attached to Checkers, and they were often seen
-
and photographed - spending time together in New York's Central Park in
the 1960's. By the time of the Watergate scandal, Checkers was dead and
Nixon failed to come up with a new "Checkers Speech" to bail himself
out. (Above, right:) Another very early cartoon, from 1969. LBJ
made a guest appearance in my comic strip "Jasperman", which appeared
in the Jasper Journal at Manhattan College, in the Bronx, N.Y., for
several years in the late '60's. LBJ played the role of a beleaguered
college dean beset by a campus revolt, somewhat akin to the
situation in the last years of his Presidency.
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