30 June 2017

Today's theme is men in power behaving badly. Ha! I'm kidding; that's the theme pretty much every day around here. Be it a priest or a judge or the fool currently squatting in the White House, there is an abundance of bad behavior on display these days. So, uh, take that with you into your Independence Day weekend.

29 June 2017

It's getting late, so I'm just going to leave my apologies to John Cho and Ruth Negga and, hell, to the brand spanking new Wilshire Grand Building for the dashed-off portraits and call it a night.

28 June 2017

The defining activity of my 27th year was moving across the country for a bit of adventure, so I'm always impressed to see people of that age with their shit together and a plan to do some real good in the world. Amanda Litman (who does not in fact have an eagle claw for a foot) put together Run for Something, and organization that helps other democratic young folk (under the age of 35) acquire the know-how needed to run for public office. Hey, if you're a young person and you're reading this, you really should be doing something much cooler. But since you're here, maybe you should hit up Run for Something and, you know, run for something.

27 June 2017

Can anyone explain to me what the difference is between a baker refusing to serve a gay couple expressly because they are gay and a restaurant owner who refuses to serve an African-American couple expressly because they are African-American? Are both acts not the very definition of discrimination? And of course my follow up question is, do we have any faith that the Supreme Court will see it that way, or will they decide push this country one step further towards becoming a nation of bias, privilege, and hate?

26 June 2017

These days it seems like there's a hiring boom going on everywhere but at the White House. Trump seems content to let his feebleminded son-in-law handle little matters like the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Countries like Denmark literally have no idea who they should be speaking to about anything, because the State Department offices are, five months into the new administration's tenure, emptier than an illegal roadside fireworks merchant on July 5th. Hey, maybe deep down Trump knows that he's not going to hold this office for much longer, so why bother? We can only hope.

25 June 2017

Can we all just agree that the senate GOP healthcare overhaul is a shitty fucking deal for the many, many Americans who aren't nearly as rich as the people who lavish campaign contributions on those same GOP senators who wrote it?And while we're at it, can we just stop referring to it as the senate's healthcare bill, since it is in fact not really any different form the cruel abomination that is the GOP House's healthcare bill? And that in fact the GOP is utterly incapable of crafting a reasonable, compassionate healthcare bill? And can we all not forget this when the 2018 midterms roll around?

24 June 2017

Well, whadda you know, it's been relatively quiet day on the news front. Nothing but music festivals, and shiny new skyscrapers, and the Russia inquiry. Oh, wait, that last thing...

23 June 2017

Well, if anyone was wondering how I feel about the Senate's ACA replacement,  now you know.

22 June 2017

21 June 2017

Happy first day of summer! That exuberant, fleshy visage belongs to newly minted congresswoman Karen Handel, the Republican who just barely beat John Ossoff in a special election runoff to see who would win Tom Price's seat. A disappointment, for sure, but this is not the big prize.  That, as I'm sure we're all aware, is the 2018 midterms. So, you know, learn from your mistakes, Democrats. Hell, I should add, "learn from your mistakes, Republicans," as well, but I know they don't and/or won't. How's that Healthcare legislation coming along?

20 June 2017

Despite the half-naked skiers slaloming above the fold, the front page positively reeked of death today, both the literal kind---Carrie Fisher, the unfortunate soul at the mosque in London, Otto Warmbier (remember him? He was the kid who stole a poster from a North Korean hotel room while on vacation there and was sentenced to 15 years in prison for it. Last week North Korea sent him back here in a coma and he died shortly after.)---and the metaphorical variety, i.e., the death of democracy via gerrymandering. And of course the skiers represent the death of proper seasonal attire. And that last sentence might just be the death of humor, but hey, you'll live.

19 June 2017

Happy Juneteenth, everybody! Today's A1 seemed to be mostly focused on disenfranchisement, be it in the form of the thousands of children kidnapped by Boko Haram, Homeless Korean immigrants here in our fair city, or factory workers in Grand Rapids, Michigan trying to keep a family afloat on a low-wage job. Still, I don't feel discouraged. There's ways to fix these things (or prevent them from happening in the first place), but it's not gonna happen when we're doing things like letting GOP Senators write sweeping healthcare legislation in secret. We can all agree that that's a shitty idea, right? How much longer is it until the 2018 midterms?

18 June 2017

Seriously, LA Times? On father's day you put Bill Cosby on the front page? I mean, I know that news is news and you have to report on whatever is going on at the time, but damn. Clearly I decided not to include him in today's drawing, but now I'm remembering all kinds of stuff from his show, like that Cliff Huxtable was a gynecologist, and that look he would give Claire when he was feeling a little randy, and the whole thing is starting to feel like a network-funded personal freak show. Alright, I think we're done here. Tomorrow I imagine our focus will shift back to London.

17 June 2017

Sometimes the bar graph for one thing can perfectly describe an entirely different set of things. For instance, the graph on today's front page that began life as a description of the stock valuations of various grocery store chains after the announcement that Amazon was buying Whole Foods works perfectly well as a visual indicator of Trump's level of enthusiasm for things that he's encountering in a typical day. And if you're unsure about what any of these things are on this revised graph, or why they're at the level they're at---man, you should go read a newspaper or something.

16 June 2017

Whatever else you might think about this police cruiser planted firmly in the wall of a mini mart somewhere in South Los Angeles, at least it's not parked in the red. This tableau of unintentional hilarity is brought to you courtesy of a teen enrolled in the LAPD cadet program who stole this particular cruiser, then led actual police officers on a chase, and then crashed it. The kid gets points for pure chutzpah, but in every other sense they're pretty much screwed.

15 June 2017

Well, I think this is the first mass shooting that's elicited a response from our country's NRA-funded politicians that's more than just offering an absent-minded "thoughts and prayers" between meetings. I mean the shooting that happened on the baseball field, clearly, and not the shooting that resulted in four fatalities at a UPS facility in San Francisco, which also happened on Wednesday. I imagine they haven't thought about that one at all.

14 June 2017

It's getting pretty late, so let's sum this up quickly. That scary matryoshka doll is composed entirely of the dead-eyed gaze of alt-right lawn jockey Jeff Sessions, who testified before Congress yesterday, had his fragile little feelings hurt, refused to answer many questions because, well, we don't really know why, he didn't offer any rational explanation for the refusal, and then he acted shocked---shocked!---that anybody would find it even the least bit suspicious that he had all sorts of secret meetings with Russian government officials that he then didn't tell the Senate about during his confirmation hearings. Oh, and this morally bankrupt nitwit also thinks that marijuana is a tool of the devil. So, you know, classy guy all around.

13 June 2017

Apparently a couple of hack right wing news sites got their tighty-whiteys in a bunch over a production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" because the guy playing Caesar was made up to resemble Trump. I know, it's terrible. The right wing media already has so much to deal with---transgender bathroom usage, the war on christmas, statues of slave owners being dismantled in the South---and collectively they have the emotional control of a three-year-old, and now we're asking them not to freak out over this nonissue. It's our fault, really. We all should've known better.

12 June 2017

That orb in the center started out as a soccer ball before it morphed into some sort of portly easter egg. These things happen. #ResistMarch was on full display above the fold today, and we'll honor that here, because it's nice to honor nice things.

11 June 2017

I don't know if it's a sign that summer has officially begun or we've just hit upon a natural ebb in this year's relentless, churning news cycle, but today's front page offered something like a breather from the near-constant state of high anxiety that has existed, it seems, since January 20. Mostly we were given the science (still respected in some quarters!) of snow pack measurements and an architecture piece on Frank Lloyd Wright's pre-Columbian LA houses. I mean, there was terrorism and "Trump is an idiot" stuff, but it was kind of off to the side, as if the front page was like, "You know what? It's Sunday morning. Grab a cup of coffee, maybe a second danish, and read some shit that'll make you feel, for at least a little while, like you don't live in secular humanist End Times." And, you know, if that's not your bag, then you probably went to #ResistMarch today. Either way, I hope you had that second danish. #priorities

10 June 2017

The front page was a hot mess of hot messes today. I mean, it doesn't get much more gross than the mention of both Trump and Roman Polanski on the same page. All I could think was, "If only there was a weird, musical, multisyllabic word that could sum up all these shitty news items. And maybe give them a veneer of fun while we're at it." And so we have what you're looking at. Not quite a spoonful of sugar, but it'll get us through the night.

9 June 2017

I know we all have Comey fever right now, but we also need to acknowledge the elephant in the room. A shitty, backstabbing elephant no less, in the form of the House Republicans passing a bill on Thursday that would repeal vital parts of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Remember that bill? That's the one that was passed after the great financial clusterfuck of 2008, in order to prevent banks from behaving like reckless, profit-driven idiots. It also set up a consumer protection bureau, which has been responsible for recouping billions of dollars in refunds for consumers who were screwed by shady bank practices. So, you know, totally not doing anybody any good.

8 June 2017

How about that Comey testimony (or, as I like to call it, "testicomey")? It's like that gold coin nailed to the mast in "Moby Dick": there seem to be as many interpretations of it as there are political affiliations.  Still, we all want to know one thing: does it help move us closer to impeachment? Lordy, I hope it does.

7 June 2017

For all you courtroom watching types out there, today was an embarrassment of riches. You had your choice of the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on the "Russia Thing," as certain parties are calling it, or the newest episode of the Cosby trial, wherein Theo learns a very special lesson about not drugging and sexually assaulting women. These are two very different inquiries, although they are both examples of people in positions of authority abusing their power, an activity which is fast replacing baseball as our national pastime.

6 June 2017

Because the Middle East just hasn't been destabilized enough, a bunch of Arab states decided to cut diplomatic ties with and form a blockade against Qatar (which a little google bird told me can be pronounced either "kuh-TAR" or "cutter," although the latter is much more in vogue these days. The more you know!), who are more politically allied with Iran then the Saudi contingent. Apparently this move is thought to have been spurred on by Trump's call for the Arab States to be more proactive in fighting terrorism. Diplomacy!

5 June 2017

I think we can all agree that the vaquita porpoise is pretty damn adorable. Unfortunately, we can't all agree on whether it should be allowed to exist. I mean, given that we're a species that seems to not give much thought to our own long-term survival, we are at least consistent in our outlook.

4 June 2017

The Sunday Edition cleared out a corner in the top right for the London terror attacks (and considering how late that story broke, it's amazing it made it on there at all). The rest of A1 was the Cosby trial (not as heartwarming as The Cosby Show), migrant workers, Venezuela, and an ode to the movie theater (i.e., company town boosterism). That's all I got. We're done here. Go enjoy your evening. Just be careful where you point those bananas, kid.

3 June 2017

Before we all turn our attention away from Trump's cowardly retreat from the Paris accord and onto London, where some terrible shit went down tonight (and which we will no doubt be addressing tomorrow), I would like to talk about today's front page as if it weren't already yesterday's news. In particular, two shout outs need to be, well, shouted out: first, to the many cities and states (four of which are pictured above---house points will be awarded if you can identify any or all of the states) who are basically telling Trump, "no matter what you do or say, we're going to continue to work on fixing climate change, and you can go skullfuck yourself with a lump of flaming coal." To them I say "bravo." Also, "nicely worded!" Second, to the Los Angeles Times front page itself, who paired the headline, "Trump begins resizing U.S. role on world stage" with a photo of Trump using the distance between his thumb and forefinger to describe a very small distance. It's hilarious. Congrats to all involved in putting that beauty together.

2 June 2017

The above quote was said by Donna Parker, who, at the age of 15, became the organist at Dodger's stadium for the summer of 1972. By all accounts, Donna performed her duties at the stadium quite well, despite her young age. Which should be unsurprising, because it's not like she had never played the organ before being hired for such a big gig. I mean, that would be crazy, right? Hiring someone with no skill or practice or experience to do a job that requires at least two out of three of those things? But hey, who the hell would ever do such an idiotic thing?

1 June 2017

Oh, Kathy Griffin. There's already so much comedic material to mine when dealing with Trump---the idiotic tweeting, the fanatical devotion to lying about everything, the cronies, the shitty business deals, the lechery, i mean the list literally never ends, and there are fresh humiliations being added to it every day (hello, covfefe!)---that there's no need to resort to violence. We don't want to kill him; we want him, through the combination of his incompetence and criminal proclivities, to get fired. And then maybe thrown in jail. So don't distract, and don't give him reason to create distractions from the task at hand. We'll all have a good laugh when it's over.