_donkeys/elephants/other Party Animals | Politix Cartoons | Conservative Political Cartoons and Commentary by Benjamin Hummel

Sequestered

Feb

Here are a few facts.

Congress has not passed a budget in close to four years.
Congress has never denied raising the debt ceiling limit when asked.
When the Republicans proposed raising the ceiling to a level lower than the Democrats, they are said to be making cuts.
Every time we approach a new deadline, what should be done is not and Republicans and Democrats, under a spirit of beautiful and wonderful bipartisanship, pass bandaid measures that kicks the problem down the road a few more months, ensuring only that the problem will continue to grow.

ENOUGH ALREADY! STOP SPENDING!

Neither side wants to be the side to rob grandma of her means of living through entitlement cuts. This is the untrue accusation that crops up every election cycle. So neither side seems to have the political courage or moral fiber to do the right thing.

One observation I have made through all of these impending deadlines we have encountered over the past four years, from fiscal cliffs to debt ceilings, is that the Democrats seem scared to death to have the deadlines pass without another “bandaid” fix. It’s as if the Democrats don’t want the sequestering to occur and the closer to the deadline we get, the more irate they become. I find it fascinating. Why could this be? Could it be a clue for the Republicans?

The Republicans must believe that if we go into sequestering that somehow they will get the political sword for it. Certainly polls indicate that this will be the case and we’ve got a media that is more than ready to write that story and broadcast it 24/7. But if this truly was the case, then I would believe that the Democrats would be a lot more casual about these approaching deadlines. I don’t think we’d see Obama come out shaking his finger at Republicans accusing them of not being willing to come together for the good of the country. Perhaps the Democrats do have something to lose.

Here is what I suspect. This new deadline includes several mandatory cuts. What do we know about government spending? Once it starts, it’s nearly impossible to stop. It becomes an unchecked cash flow from that point forward. This sequestering will automatically stop a lot of that spending. The biggest issue I believe is not that these programs will loose money. That’s not what the Democrats are worried about. No, it’s that when the cuts do go into place, we will discover that all of that spending wasn’t necessary in the first place! Those in charge, Republicans and Democrats alike, are not allowing these deadlines to lapse. Wishful thinking, maybe, but should the cuts occur, I think it becomes much harder to sell additional spending to the general public. This could potentially pay huge dividends in the upcoming midterms.

I am sick of party allegiance. Seriously folks, I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican, don’t you care about out of control spending?

Categories : _congress, _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _fiscal conservatism

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Your Bias is Showing

Jan

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Categories : _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _The Media

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Political Balance

Aug

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Extremism exists on both sides of the political spectrum. I’m not really a fan of either, but then again, my world view just happens to be exact center.

I say this in jest, knowing that there are many liberals who actually believe this to be true. They cannot conceive of a world in which their worldview just might be left of center, perhaps even far left. To them, they are the center and everything to the right must be extreme.

In reality, I don’t think the center actually exists. Every issue has a right and left side to it and to be in the center is to say that you simply don’t care. The moment you care is the moment you leave the center.

The danger in thinking you are the center is that you’ll eventually fail to see how far to a certain direction you end up being. This is especially true of the media. Instead of being watchdogs of our country, they are complicit in ushering in the left wing trend that is bringing us dangerously close to socialism. And I’m sorry, but to me, socialism is leftism to the extreme. I want no part of it in this country.

Having the two parties usually provides a good balance in order to keep the country more or less center. However, if any one party becomes successful in tipping us over that edge, it will be next to impossible to ever get back to that balance. I fear that’s where we are right now in this country. This coming election could be the deciding election on whether we finally topple over to the left in a collective heap, or whether we are able to bring about some right-wing balance.

Categories : _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _election campaigns, _The Media

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The War on Women

Jul

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This cartoon so brilliantly conveys the point I’m trying to make regarding liberal hypocrisy, that I really shouldn’t write anything more.

I really shouldn’t.

But at the risk of being redundant and weakening the strength of the cartoon, I can’t help myself, I must interject a few words.

I debated on whether or not to portray it as the typical Democrat donkey, since Republicans can be just as guilty of nannyism as Democrats. However, it is the Democrats running around screaming we are somehow waging a war on women, so in the end, the donkey stayed.

I find it fascinating that the same people who say that a woman should be free to do whatever the heck she wants with her body are the first to initiate all these bans on foods. It completely does not make logical sense. So a woman is allowed (for the sake of argument, I’ll call it how they call it) to undergo the ‘surgical’ procedure called abortion, without question, no regulations, and a minor doesn’t even need parental permission. Yet they are not allowed to drink more than 16 oz of soda? Or even eat at a fast food restaurant in some places (yes, some cities have banned fast food restaurants within their limits). Shouldn’t that same woman be free to eat whatever the heck she wanted without government interference? That is, after all, what they claim they want with abortion.

I’ve never seen anybody die from drinking 20 oz of pop. Yet over 50% of people die in every abortion procedure. (Yes, I’m including the unborn in this figure, however, there are still a small number of woman who also die due to complications of abortion. Actual statistics are hard to come by, the abortion industry is very hush, hush about it, but I can say this, if it were any other discipline of medicine, there would be malpractice lawsuits left and right.) Logically, it seems that if you are for no regulations for a procedure as dangerous as abortion, shouldn’t you also be for no regulations for something as innocuous as soda pop? Obviously, logic and reasoning have nothing to do with the issue.

Unrelated to this cartoon, but worth mentioning for the sake of argument: liberals LOVE to distort our side of the abortion argument, to make it sound like we are for something we are not, thus it makes it easier for them to provide their counter-argument. They’ll run around telling everybody what our point of view is, and be completely wrong about it. Nothing is more evident to this than the abortion issue. The big talking point is that Romney and conservatives hate women and don’t want them to have any freedoms. (First off, Romney’s anti-abortion stance is weak at best, so to try and lump him in with the rest of us right wing wackos is a bit unfair.) It is a war against women, the mantra goes. But they are completely missing our argument. It has nothing to do with women and what they want to do with their bodies. Heck, a woman can body-pierce herself into a straightjacket for all I care, whatever, not my life.

However, what a woman does to the life inside her, I do care about. Every human should be guaranteed the rights provided to us by the Declaration of Indepedence, and this includes life. The ONLY argument that we need to be discussing in the abortion issue is whether or not the unborn fetus is a human life, and at what point it becomes human life. During the sixties, the answer to this question was a lot more vague, but with new technologies, we can clearly see that even at a early stage, the developing child is unique and individual. Conservatives see no difference between a baby in the womb and a baby out of the womb. Both deserve protection from harm. Despite all of the liberal accusations and distortions, this is the only argument worth talking about.

A woman is free to do whatever she wants to her own body, and this includes eating salty foods. But the baby insider her is not her own body. She is a steward of that life. It is her divine privilege to be delivering the new life into this world.

Categories : _current events, _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _social conservatism

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Look, A Recovery!

May

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I know that in addition to fabulous cartoons, you, my fans, await anxiously for whatever contrived commentary I will give to compliment the cartoon. So here it goes… Drumroll, please… “This is one of my first cartoons that I’ve painted digitally. It’s quite a different technique than my normal, Adobe Illustrator, renderings. I think I kind of like it.” So there you have it.

Seriously, I cannot watch Barack Obama much anymore without nearly blowing my top. The things that come out of his mouth are almost venom. I know politics are dirty, just ask Aaron Burr, but for crying out loud, to say that capitalism has NEVER worked, and that the Republican’s way of doing things have failed us? Is he for real? How on earth did America become the most prosperous country in the world, if not for capitalism? The numbers don’t even add up. Higher unemployment, gas prices and discouragement now than when he first took office. The only thing lower are home values, which have tanked! If capitalism doesn’t work, then how does he explain the late 1800s, when capitalistic tycoons like Carnegie, and Mellan, and Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller ruled the roost, even then, American prosperity and ingenuity flourished? How does he explain that the greatest advances in science, medicine, cinema, sports and art have all come from a country built on free markets?

Then he goes on and says if it weren’t for those dern Republicans who won’t pass all his jobs bills. Huh, what? What jobs bills? Like the pipeline he shut down? That wasn’t the Republicans! Like all the rhetoric about forcing the rich to pay more? How does that create jobs? (I’ve never been hired by a poor person, just FYI) Like all the stimulus bills? Where the average, so-called, job created cost the taxpayers approximately $200,000? (according to figures put out by the Weekly Standard). Are there more job bills just like these that those evil obstructionist Republicans are refusing the pass that I’m unaware of? If so, thank God for the Republicans!

Everybody points to George Bush and blame him for all the troubles we face now. Only problem is, when you trace the start of the downturn, it just so happens to coincide with Democrats taking control of the House and Senate in 2006. Since then, they’ve been in the driver seat. That’s six years they’ve had and they celebrate at 8% unemployment! What about the 4% we enjoyed in 2006? And while they can claim we are in recovery, the results speak for themselves. As an sales person, I have seen a dramatic drop in sales since 2006 and it has not ever come back.

So what is capitalism and what is it that Obama really opposes? Another word is “free markets”. To be opposed to free markets is to be opposed to freedom. If Obama had at least said something like, “While capitalism has its positives…” I could have respected him a little more. Instead, he cannot concede even the tiniest bit, for doing so will reveal how destructive his redistribution policies are. To say the stuff that he does, I have to conclude that either he is an idiot who does not have a clue about history, or he is diabolical and doesn’t care, because it’s all about the agenda.

Listen, I’m not rich. It’s easy to envy them, and they certainly have their excesses. But I like living in a society that rewards hard work with the possibility of achieving greatness and wealth. I do not want to be punished for achievement. Success should not be immoral, but the way our president spins it, he makes it sound like it is.

Final thoughts. The Democrat Party can sit on their little mound of rocks and call it a recovery all day long, but I think the American people remember what it was like to walk along the edge of the canyon and until we get back to that point, there’s going to be a lot of turnover in Washington.

Categories : _color, _congress, _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _election campaigns

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Blame a Republican

Mar

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When I listen to the Media, Occupy Wallstreeters, and hard-core Liberals, all I hear is that the Republicans are to blame for everything! Can’t get a job, must be the Republicans’ fault. Don’t like the weather? Must be the Republicans’ fault. Sick of paying high gas prices? That’s definitely a Republicans’ fault, because they want to mine for domestic oil! Have an ingrown toe nail? Somehow that’s the Republicans’ fault as well.

What’s really frustrating is that we have a “blame-Republicans” president. With a Democrat congress, he’s had practically carte blanch for all his ideas for his first two years, yet every time he gets up to speak, he never talks about the issues, it’s always the Republicans fault. Remember, your misery is to be tied to the Republican party and nothing else. If you sit on your bum, smoke pot and can’t afford to buy a trip to Europe, remember class, who we are to blame?

Categories : _congress, _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _election campaigns

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Crossing the Aisle

Feb

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I originally created this cartoon three years ago. It never made it to my blog for some reason, but considering all the craziness in Washington right now, today seemed as good as any to put it in.

Categories : _congress, _donkeys/elephants/other party animals

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Redistricting

Dec

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Gotta love it. So the Democrats win this time in Colorado and they win big. With no pretense, the create a map that will replace key Republican seats with Democrat seats, by oozing in Democrat strongholds into other districts and lumping together Republican districts. The whole process they took was disgusting, and of course, it was upheld by our liberal supreme court.

Not that gerrymandering is anything new. Republicans do the same thing when it’s their turn, but this takes it to a whole new level. That’s why party does matter. You may like a particular candidate that doesn’t necessarily share all of your world view. But if he/she is in office when redistricting comes around, the state changes its makeup for the next ten years.

Goodbye lovely purple-ly red Colorado. Hello blue Colorado. Has nobody learned anything from Michigan?

Categories : _Colorado Issues, _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _election campaigns

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Jul

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As our economy spins out of control, the persistent argument I hear from Obama lovers is “Obama saved us from going into Depression! Can you imagine how bad it would be if he HADN’T done the things he did?” As a rational person, I’m really trying to make sense of this statement. Not being an Obama fan, I truly wonder if these people actually believe what they are saying.

Obama takes office at 7% unemployment. It’s now close to 10%. The housing market has tanked since the passage of the stimulus bills. Commodity prices have soared. And Tim Geitner tells David Gregory that if Obama hadn’t stepped in, unemployment would easily be 15%, as if he has some sort of magic powers to know these kinds of things.

In my mind I started thinking about the logic. Suppose I had a skin rash. A doctor prescribes a cream. When I start using it, the rash worsens. As a rational person, what would I assume? That the cream is working, and that if I hadn’t used it I might be far worse? No, we would immediately get rid of that cream and find something else. So the question is, why doesn’t the same logic apply to Obama and the economy?

Thus is the thinking behind this cartoon.

Categories : _current events, _donkeys/elephants/other party animals, _fiscal conservatism

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Right Wing Extremist

Jun

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I suppose if loving freedom, believing in limited government, less regulation, lower taxes and the incandescent lightbulb makes me an extremist, then I guess I am one.