Cartoon Saturday

There are 962 days until the presidential election. Give me strength.

Der Furor loyalist Joe Kent, head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, became the first major administration official to resign, saying he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran;” Secretary of Defense (NOT War) Pete Hegseth will ask Congress for an additional $200 billion for the war in Iran, on top of the huge plus-up to the Defense budget in last year's "Big, Beautiful Bill;" famed union leader and champion of farmworker rights Cesar Chavez has been accused of sexually abusing Dolores Huerta, with whom he co-founded the United Farm Workers, as well as two young girls in the 1970s; Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government said more than 400 people were killed and hundreds were wounded after a Pakistani attack on a major drug rehabilitation facility in Kabul; and in Texas, a woman faces federal drug charge after troopers conducting a routine traffic stop found 480 pounds of meth and 40 pounds of heroin in her car.

This week, in honor of having a government that's for the birds, a collection of cartoons about birds.

I think this one's a classic ...

Yeah, I don't think they'll be eating tonight ...

Ouch!! ...

If Der Furor has a bird he relies on for advice, it's probably a dodo ...

I wouldn't, either ...

There are a lot of heads buried in a lot of sand, lately ...

Uh, oh ...

When the ducks get wise to the trick ...

VR for geese? ...

Nowadays, that's just about a certainty ...

A little birdie told me you'd like this week's collection ... I hope he wasn't robin me of a better idea.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Musical Sunday considers what will happen after the war.

Bilbo

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2026

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, it's finally happened - for the first time in a long time, I have had absolutely no trouble selecting this week's award winner. Without the least shadow of a doubt, and with the greatest of sorrow for what might have been in better times, I announce presentation of the tinfoil and toilet paper crown for 

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2026

to

Secretary of Defense (NOT War)

Pete Hegseth*

Pete Hegseth, Fox and Friends weekend anchor turned Secretary of Defense (not War) is beyond any doubt the most utterly unqualified and dangerous person ever appointed to the position. In a cabinet filled with useless ciphers whose only qualification is slavish devotion to Der Furor, Mr Hegseth stands out by virtue of the vast level of damage his incompetence has enabled his boss to unleash.

Because he has only the crudest kill-people-and-break-things idea of his position, he lacks the maturity and intelligence to advise the president (who, of all people, needs mature and intelligent guidance on most things). He fails to realize that raw military power is only one aspect of national power, and that it must be judiciously employed. 

Mr Hegseth has complained bitterly about complained about CNN's reporting that Der Furor and his advisors had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic by closing the Strait of Hormuz, calling the report "patently ridiculous" ... even as Iran has, in fact, closed the strategic strait and sent oil prices skyrocketing. And indicating that his willingness to make war extends to those who dare to use their First Amendment rights, he grandly announced that “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

Mr Hegseth utterly failed to ensure that the war his boss insisted on launching had a strategic goal that would allow him to determine when those goals had been achieved. "Just bomb them back to the Stone Age" is not an especially useful strategic aim.

Having already received a huge increase in the Defense budget in last year's "Big Beautiful Bill," Mr Hegseth has announced he will ask Congress for another $200 billion to fund Der Furor's war of choice in Iran.

Mr Hegseth also displays a shocking lack of understanding of the laws and responsibilities of war. In a recent press briefing, he said the U.S. military “will keep pressing, we will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” in the operation against Iran. The phrase “no quarter” actually means killing enemy combatants instead of accepting their surrender ... which is a war crime. 

Pete Hegseth is a dangerously cartoonish figure who, when combined with the current president, represents a terrible danger to the United States military, the United States government, and our moral standing in a dangerous world. He deserves complete and total condemnation, and I regret that I can do no more than present him with this award.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, your Left-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2026, is Secretary of Defense (NOT War) Pete Hegseth - truly one of the most dangerous men in the world today.

Have a good day and remember this abominable creature when you vote in this year's midterm elections and the 2028 Presidential election. The nation and the world deserve better ... assuming we survive the next two and a half years of this administration.

Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday - more thoughts then.

Bilbo 

* This is Mr. Hegseth's fourth award, entitling him to the third Poison Ivy Cluster on his original tinfoil and toilet paper crown. His previous awards were: the April, 2025 Right-Cheek; September, 2026 Special Award (shared with Der Furor); and March, 2026 Right-Cheek (shared with the other six members of the Seven Deadly Horse's Asses of the Political Apocalypse).

Poetry Sunday

I think we could all use this prayer every day, and twice on Fridays ...

Prayer for Uninteresting Times

by Brian Bilson

Send me a slow news day, 

a quiet, subdued day,

in which nothing much happens of note, 

save for the passing of time, 

the consumption of wine,

and a re-run of Murder, She Wrote.

Grant me a no news day, 

a spare-me-your-views day,

in which nothing much happens at all, 

except a few hours together 

some regional weather, 

a day we can barely recall.

I'm soooooo ready ... maybe we can have a Brownsville kind of day for once -

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

So, who are we at war with this week? ...

The volume of state bar reviews of alleged ethics violations by Department of Justice attorneys has led the administration to propose a new rule limiting such state-level reviews; Secretary of Defense (not War) Pete Hegseth is pressuring DoD civilian employees to volunteer for temporary assignments to assist the Department of Homeland Security with immigration enforcement; Der Furor continued his tradition of appointing only the best people to his administration by appointing conservative activist Erika Kirk to the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors; officials at the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement are trying to figure out what to do with $2.25 million worth of brand new pickup trucks and SUVs emblazoned with ICE markings ... which are unusable because ICE does not try to draw attention to itself and allows its agents to wear masks to avoid identification and public shame; six Air Force members were killed over Iraq when their KC-135 tanker aircraft crashed after apparently colliding with another tanker, which recovered safely; and FBI Director Kash Patel announced as a "historic opportunity" a two-day training program for FBI agents hosted by mixed martial arts fighters from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), correcting deficiencies in FBI agents' ability to deliver eye gouges and body slams while arresting fugitives.

This week, a collection of cartoons on a musical theme ... 

Well, when you don't specify which country ...

I'm don't think she's impressed ...

The conversation on the mound ...

I'm not sure I remember it this way, but then, I don't remember a lot of stuff any more ...

Too bad ... it could be the key to affordable health care ...

Well, that's terrifying ...

I've always wondered what the conductor uses for sheet music ...

Speaking of sheet music, here's how it works for the accordion ...

I don't think he really needed the threat, do you? ...

Well, that one was obvious ...

And there you have it - a sort-of musical salute to the weekend ... I hope you enjoyed it.

Have a good day and as good a weekend as you can, given the news lately. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns with a plaintive wish.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

Welcome to our first collection for the month of March! You know you need something to take your mind off everything else ...

If prices keep going up, this could look like a good deal ...

Didn't you wonder what happens to the losers? ...

I wonder if they charge extra for the different color ...

Thanks to Mike for this one ... I think ...

Why didn't I think of that? ...

Half price? ...

Part of me wants to know the rest of the story, and part of me just wants to walk slowly away ...

Somebody needs to have a talk with this headline writer ...

Such a deal! ...

It gives new meaning to the term "busted" ...

Your lesson for today: if you're going to shoplift a frozen chicken, be careful where you hide it.

Have a good day and come back tomorrow for a music-themed Cartoon Saturday - more thoughts then.

Bilbo

Musical Sunday

One of my favorite musical artists, going back many years, is English singer/songwriter Charlie Dore, perhaps best remembered for her 1979 hit "Pilot of the Airwaves," which I used as my theme song back when I was doing my radio show shortly after Marconi invented the medium. 

I've always loved her lyrics, and her voice has mellowed beautifully over the years. Today, I offer one of her newer tracks from her wonderful CD "Like Animals." It's appropriate for this moment in our history, when we all feel ... damaged.

And here are the lyrics, by Charlie Dore and Julian Littman - 

There was a man who didn’t care, he didn’t care

as long as there were rules to defy

And so, unfettered by self doubt

with confidence with confidence he rose high

And he could sense the deference in leaden-footed duffers

when they realised

he feared no-one

And he remembered drinking games

in college days, in college days

they wish he’d forgotten

But when a man can hold his drink

while others duck

he doesn’t blink

at men gone rotten

And when the climate is of fear

it’s fun to be the puppeteer

behind the curtain

just pulling the strings

No matter how strong

They always fall

He flicks off the dust

They’re just collateral

He loved to make the dials spin

Adrenaline, adrenaline

from the beginning

He had a wife, he had a child

but nothing made his pulse go wild

like winning

And when the herd is slow and thick

It’s fun to be the maverick

and watch them turning

Just cracking the whip

No matter how strong

They always fall

He flicks off the dust

They’re just collateral

Oh my children, wait for me

I’m only breaking the glass

so you can see

He wrote his book on strategy

Now just a curiosity

A mark of his time

His words, once so inspiring

now have a kind of hollow ring

But one thing still chimes

As sure as bankers hide their wealth

A younger version of yourself

Will soon be waiting

‘Cause you’re collateral

Just collateral.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Try not to become anyone's collateral damage.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

January sucked. February sucked. March is trying very hard to suck more.

Der Furor's war of choice and distraction with Iran was off to a flying start as three United States fighter aircraft were shot down ... by Kuwaiti air defenses; the Justice Department wants to intervene in state bar associations’ disciplinary proceedings against its lawyers, afraid that attorneys who follow questionable orders of  administration officials could be punished by legal ethics organizations and lose their ability to practice law; Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was fired by Der Furor and eased into a previously nonexistent job as "Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas," whatever that is; the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi over her role in releasing files related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his associates; and in a meeting at what's left of the White House on Wednesday, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and several artificial intelligence companies signed a pledge to bear the cost of new electricity generation to power their data centers ... in a related development, pigs flew.

Because it would take a magician to sort out the wreckage Der Furor and his cronies have made of the government and the nation (not to mention the world), I thought a collection of cartoons about magicians would be in order. And better yet, a collection of cartoons about magicians who specialize in sawing people in half, without necessarily planning for how to put them back together ...

At least it's a job unlikely to be replaced by AI any time soon ...

Stat!! ...

&%#$! paywalls ...

Solomon would approve ...

What gave it away? ...

I can relate ...

Uh, oh ...

This is going to complicate the therapy ...

Abracadabra, YAAAAHHHH! ...

Perhaps she should have suggested it sooner ...

Wouldn't it be nice if there were some magical incantation that would restore competence to our government ... or, at least, if there were magicians who fix failed tricks?

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when one of my favorite singers offers a timely tune about collateral damage. See you then.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2026

It grieves me to say, friends, that I am near to giving up on the Augean stable-level task of separating the chaff from the chaff to select these Ass Clown Awards. The sheer number of eligible recipients, coupled with the staggering level of ass clownery they represent and the damage they do every day, makes both my brain and my heart hurt.

At the moment, it strikes me that many of the most eligible ass clowns in the upper levels of our government combine the worst features of two classic measures of misanthropy and ill will: the Seven Deadly Sins and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and so I have decided to combine the two for purposes of this award.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, I have decided to designate as 

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2026

The Seven Deadly Horse's Asses*

of the Political Apocalypse

I have written several times on the topic of the Seven Deadly Sins (one example here) and how they manifest themselves in today's political class, and I've also riffed on the fascinating topic of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (here). But I thought it would be interesting to combine them as a larger posse that encompasses more of the ugliness that has come to characterize our sad excuse for a government ...

Der Furor, the most proudly and ostentatiously corrupt president in my lifetime (if not our entire history), clearly is The Horse's Ass of Greed.

Hysterically bellicose, angrily chest-thumping Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is clearly The Horse's Ass of War.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security and new "Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas" (I am not making that up) Kristi Noem, famous for shooting her dog and for the brutal and unconstitutional treatment of illegal aliens (and anyone else who got in the way), is a shoo-in for The Horse's Ass of Cruelty.

Attorney General Pam Bondi's embarrassingly disrespectful and vituperative treatment of Members of Congress** at her most recent hearing puts her clearly in the saddle as The Horse's Ass of Wrath.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who has done more to undermine public health than anyone since Typhoid Mary, gallops in as The Horse's Ass of Pestilence.

Although a strong case could be made for his boss, the Attorney General, to fill this slot, I believe that morally and ethically pliable FBI Director Kash Patel has earned the title of The Horse's Ass of Injustice.

And finally, rounding out our expanded Deadly Posse,

Proudly racist White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, relentless implementer of Project 2025's assault on immigration, both legal and illegal, is the runaway choice for The Horse's Ass of Intolerance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, we have finally done it to ourselves by electing and enabling an administration of Biblical-level incompetence and casual evil, embodied by today's award-winning Seven Deadly Horse's Asses of the Political Apocalypse.

It's time to divert the electoral rivers to clean out a stable that would embarrass even Augeas.

Have a good day and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we'll look at the trials and tribulations of bisected magicians' assistants. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a "horse's ass" as "a stupid or incompetent person." If the shoe fits ...

** Who, granted, have worked hard to earn a great deal of contempt on their own.

The True Foundation of the American Economy

It occurs to me, as we view the smoldering wreckage of what was once a thriving economy, that it's not only Der Furor who has no clue of the actual granite foundation of the American economy. It is not manufacturing, which was long ago offshored* in an attempt to increase profitability by reducing labor costs. It is not small businesses, which are routinely driven out of business by giant competitors. It is not trade, which is being strangled by Der Furor's fever dream of prosperity through tariffs. It is not agriculture, which is no longer profitable for individual farms.

The true foundation of the American economy is lawsuits. 

Consider just the number of lawsuits filed against Der Furor's administration. At the time of this writing, the Litigation Tracker of the online law and policy journal Just Security is following 673 (!) lawsuits opposing various actions taken by the GOP-led government**. In the words of opinion writer Jill Lawrence, writing in The Bulwark,

These lawsuits and legal complaints are a sinkhole of time and money that we’ll never get back. But they are essential, as are the countless lawyers, watchdog groups and others flooding the courts to defend—even save—American rights, freedoms, laws, values, science, and modernity itself.

According to a January, 2026 article in Reuters, the average hourly rate for attorneys arguing complex cases in federal courts can range from $400 to over $1,000 for experienced partners, while rates charged by top attorneys for high-stakes federal litigation can quickly exceed $3,000 per hour***. 

I don't think anyone is trying to - or even could - calculate the full cost to you and I (as taxpayers^† and as  consumers^††) of this towering mountain of litigation, but it must run to the tens of millions of dollars, with no end in sight. How much better could this staggering amount of money have been spent? How many schools and hospitals might have been funded? How many items of crumbling infrastructure could be repaired? How many new immigration judges could be hired to help adjudicate asylum cases?

Lawsuits. They're the true foundation of the economy, but you have to be a lawyer to really benefit from them.

Have a good day, and try to avoid being sued, as difficult as that is nowadays.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* An awful term, indeed.

** A similar compilation and tracking done by the New York Times follows 650 lawsuits ... 20 fewer than the Just Security number, but still "respectable."

*** These are, of course, "billable hours," each of which can be a lot shorter than the traditional 60 minutes, depending on how the individual attorney calculates them. 

† You do realize that we're paying the tab for the government to respond to all these lawsuits, don't you?

†† Of course, you pay twice for the lawsuits - in your taxes that pay for the government's lawyers, and in higher consumer prices that pay for the lawyers on the other side.

Poetry Sunday

Every morning when I get up and see the image that glares back at me from the bathroom mirror, I wonder what it was that my wife saw in me. Unshaven, foul of breath, tousled of hair, and considerably bulkier than the manly stud I was 44 years ago, I thank the powers that installed the compensating filters in my beloved's eyes.

This poem by Ada Limón says it all ...

Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance

by Ada Limón

Sometimes, I think you get the worst

of me. The much-loved loose forest green 

sweat pants, the long bra-less days, hair 

knotted and uncivilized, a shadowed brow 

where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed 

dance on the brain. I'd like to say this means 

I love you, the stained white cotton t-shirt, 

the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange 

peels on my desk, but it's different than that.

I move in this house with you, the way I move 

in my mind, unencumbered by beauty's cage.

I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me 

than much else. I'm wrong, it is that I love you, 

but it's more that when you say it back, lights 

out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe 

the first time in my life, I believe it.

Happily, I think that devilish thoughts do their hoofed dance on her brain as well.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo