The Sorensen Monologues
Comic for ACLU: Stealth Attack – The New Abortion Laws
Finally I get to share this very cool project I’ve been working on. The ACLU commissioned a long-form comic from me about the rash of new abortion restrictions around the country. Click through for the full story.
The comic also appears on Medium with a slightly different ending.
Health Care-mudgeons
The title of Ross Douthat’s NYT column,”Obamacare, failing ahead of schedule,” was the icing on the crap cake of criticism. Look, I wanted a simpler single-payer plan myself, but these idiots have no idea how convoluted the process already is for those of us on the individual insurance market. I’ll take a few computer glitches over the excruciating, week-long process of putting my medical history on endless pages of forms, which could later be used to drop me coverage when I most need it. Nothing could be worse than that.
New Iraq War death toll estimate
Via Science Daily:
“Researchers from four universities, including the University of Washington, estimate that nearly a half-million people died from causes attributable to the war in Iraq from 2003 through 2011… The researchers found that for every three people killed by violence during the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011, two more died as a result of the collapse of the infrastructure that supports health care, clean water, nutrition and transportation.”
Remember when the Dems shut down the government to try to stop this from happening? Me neither. Would have been a more justifiable goal than denying people health insurance.
Template for lazy journalists writing about Wendy Davis candidacy
My friend Andrea Grimes has a funny satirical piece on RH Reality Check about attempts by non-Texans to wax knowledgeable about Wendy Davis’s candidacy for governor.
“Nevertheless, setting of the scene with cowboys, football, and cowboys playing football in demonstration of deep historico-political understanding of the Lone Star State, which it must be noted, is the insider nickname for Texas, because mavericks. Comparison of Wendy Davis to a maverick. A maverick who abortions.”
I may be a carpetbagger myself, but my driver’s license says Texas, which gives me a license to laugh at y’all.
Thomas Friedman, Please Stop Trying to Help Young People
You know when a Thomas Friedman column is titled “Sorry, Kids. We Ate It All” that it’s going to be bad. This one does not disappoint in its more-centrist-than-thou fearmongering about government spending (way to lend credibility to GOP extortion tactics, dude!). “What are the chances of [young people] getting out of Facebook and into their parents’ faces?” he cleverly ponders, not invoking cliches at all. Among the solutions to mild Social Security shortfalls projected in the distant future he touts:
“…phasing in higher age qualifications for entitlements and cutting corporate taxes to zero, so the people who actually create jobs will have more resources to do so.”
Maybe young people realize deficit spending is not the problem — unemployment is. And health insurance too, which is being remedied by the Affordable Care Act. Maybe some of us even understand that corporations are already barely paying taxes, sitting on enormous piles of cash, and not hiring people. And maybe we don’t want our benefits cut in the name of not cutting our future benefits. Because that’s absurd.
Why Can’t They Compromise?
The bit about the End Times refers to Michele Bachmann’s remarkable statement last week that Obama’s arming of Syrian rebels was a sign that the Rapture is coming. Actual quote:
“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand,” Bachmann continued. “When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”
Well, who WOULD worry about the U.S. defaulting on its debt in that case? A global financial meltdown doesn’t seem so bad if you think you’re going to be Hoovered out of it by a celestial vacuum cleaner.
Previous installment of the flaming conservative here.
Janet Yellen: Triumph of the Female Wonk
Regular readers will note that I’ve had fairly strong opinions about the Fed chair debate. (See this cartoon and blog post about Janet Yellen and Larry Summers.) Naturally, I’m happy to see Obama nominate her.
If she is confirmed, this will be a victory for the quietly-competent wonkwoman. Nerds of various stripes have enjoyed a veritable Rennaissance over the past decade or so — tech developers and data gurus like Nate Silver have enjoyed immense fame and adulation. Yet the wonky lady has been somewhat elusive as a cultural archetype. Many exist, to be sure, but they are all too often rendered invisible. Wired Magazine was roundly flamed a few weeks ago for failing to name a single woman to its list of Government and Security experts you should be reading.
Of course, it took Larry Summers stepping out of the way to (hopefully) get the first female Fed Chair in U.S. history. One thing I found especially galling about that debate was that Yellen’s thorough preparation for meetings reportedly worked against her; Administration officials were said to prefer the freewheeling, off-the-cuff style of Timothy Geithner, or the chummy relationship that was cultivated with “stand-up dude” Larry Summers during the financial crisis. Lost in much of this discussion of personal style is who has been right.
Here’s hoping this glass-ceiling breaks big-time.
Sneak Preview
Is that Wendy Davis on my drawing table? Why, yes it is. This is from a long-form comic I’m working on for a nonprofit, to be published next week.
How to Save the Republican Brand
The New York Times ran an article the other day about the advance planning on the right that went into the government shutdown. I got a kick out of this line:
A defunding “tool kit” created in early September included talking points for the question, “What happens when you shut down the government and you are blamed for it?”
So the pamphlet in the cartoon is not much of an exaggeration.
New Facebook Page
I’ve started a new Facebook page where I’m going to be posting my comics and other things. This will be replacing the old Slowpoke Comics page, if you’ve been following me there. I hate to lose the large number of followers on the old page, but Facebook is somewhat inflexible when it comes to updating professional Pages. Please help me rebuild — go forth and Like!
The Conservative Health Exchange is Open
Those Koch-funded ads to convince young people to opt out of Obamacare were so weird, I have trouble believing they’d be terribly effective. Nonetheless, it pains me to watch billionaire fossils long-detached from the realities of America give bad advice to an economically-hosed generation.
