Brian McFadden

Beware of the Speaker   Recently updated !

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As soon as Republicans squeaked out control of the House last November, I did a bunch of cartoons predicting this debt ceiling mess and ways to avoid it. Instead, the White House was high on their own supply and believed Republicans would magically become rational and not do the thing they campaigned on doing.

The solutions have been out there, being shouted by nobodies like myself, and “serious” people since the first time this happened during the Obama Administration. But arguments for the Trillion Dollar Coin and 14th Amendment hold little sway in a White House still enamored with the opinions of centrist toilet men.

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Box Office Bombs   Recently updated !

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I still haven’t returned to going to the movies. Mostly due to never being a fan of crowded theaters even before COVID. But maybe if the numbers are low and the edibles are just right, I’ll get tickets to see Dune Part II.

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COVID’s Over* Party Supplies

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The public health emergency for the pandemic ended today. The pandemic hasn’t. Testing’s now going to be even more of an expensive pain-in-the-ass, which means no one will do it unless absolutely necessary, including myself!

A thousand people are still dying a week in the US, but the government really gave up after that first omicron surge in late ’21, early ’22. We’ve normalized accepting deaths below those numbers.

Transmission numbers are low, and the weather’s good for ventilation now, but we’re not collecting any more data for individuals to make informed decisions when things get worse. And if the last 3+ years proved anything, it’s that they will.

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Scab Scripts

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The Writers’ Guild of America declared a strike early Tuesday after the executive side of the entertainment business refused to negotiate their modest demands. A lot has changed since the last writers’ strike in 2007, especially how media is consumed and compensated.

Netflix’s red envelopes were the big new thing back then, and now they’re a relic young people think coexisted with BETAMAX. Yet pay, residuals, and benefits are still stuck in that ancient time before we had to manage a dozen or so streaming logins.

All of these studios are making profits, just not enough to satisfy Wall Street’s maw. So they’re screwing writers and nickel-and-diming their subscribers by canceling shows and memory-holing their back catalogs to save a few cents on residuals, all to squeeze out more dividends and stock buybacks.

Joe “Union Guy” Biden broke a rail strike so the economy wouldn’t take a hit. If this writers’ strike goes on long enough to harm the studios’ bottom lines, I’m sure he’ll find a way to intervene.

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Media Perverts

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I’ve been closely following the news and news commentary for a quarter century now and drawing cartoons about it almost as long. Sick freaks from the top down to the lowly cartoonist at bottom.

Quitting Twitter has spared me from catching a lot of the worst takes people rage share, and it’s been a marked improvement on my quality of life. Yet somehow I still see the worst offenders when they cross over to the more earnest folks over on Mastodon.

I drew myself in better shape than my last self-insert and you’ll just have to trust me that it’s accurate.

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Dick Durbin’s Judiciary Committee Arsenal

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As more and more reports of Clarence Thomas’s opulent gifts from weirdo billionaire Harlan Crow come out, calls for Senate Democrats to do something grow louder. Unfortunately, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is Dick Durbin.

Durbin’s one of the up and coming septuagenarians in the Democratic gerontocracy that’s doing as little as possible while Republicans seize the courts despite being being overwhelmingly unpopular. They’d rather protect the feelings of Dianne Feinstein (D-Dementia) than the future of the nation. And why not? The rest of their days are measured in pudding cups rather than on a calendar.

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Spring Book Pile

This entry was posted in comics and tagged billionaires Cop City Donald Trump Elon Musk Harlan Crow Jeff Zients police on by
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Still getting ahead of my schedule, so here’s a mix of vaguely current eventsy gags. If you don’t know that Jeff Zients is the White House Chief of Staff, congrats on having a healthier news diet than mine. I was never a fan of Ron Klain, but he looks like Marx compared to Zients’ policy preferences.

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A.I. for Government and Business

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I know there was an actual Trump indictment and arraignment this week, but I have to get ahead for some real-life stuff and did an evergreen comic.

AI’s always invoked to replace labor, never management or any job that wields actual power. I’m decades away from the last time I wrote a computer program, but I guarantee you it’s easier to automate the work of the guys who turn spreadsheets into human misery than anyone doing anything useful for society.

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