“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” – Abraham Lincoln Issue #350
June, 2021
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Editor’s Letter
Faux News
In a sad display of the lasting power of institutional racism, the last remaining “Dixiecrat” in the Senate, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, is all that stands between saving our democracy and watching it slide into oblivion. I wouldn’t call Mr Manchin a racist, per se, however, like those old Dixiecrats, he defends the filibuster, itself a Jim Crow relic “compromise” with the Confederate states. In the 1950s ad '60s, segregationist Democrats such as James Eastland, Robert Byrd (Manchin’s mentor) and George Wallace were the Dixiecrats, committed to racial segregation and white supremacy. Dixiecrats filibustered the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act for years, until they final passed in 1964 and 1965 under the pressure of a massive civil rights movement. Now, democracy itself hangs in the balance, because the Republican Party’s reaction to losing the last election is not to improve themselves and try harder to appeal to a majority in order to compete in future elections, but rather, to stifle the vote in an effort to keep those who would vote against them from getting to the polls. Through voter suppression and gerrymandering, they attempt to choose their voters, rather than letting voters choose them. They have been doing these things for years, of course, but since the last election, spurred on by their loser leader (who could not get withing 7 million votes of a majority), they have put their suppression efforts on steroids. This, despite the fact that his claim was widely rejected by numerous courts, many of which were run by Republican-appointed judges, and state election officials – again, many Republican – and officials in Trump's own administration. This is why the Democrat’s “For the People Act,” featuring sorely-needed national reform of voting laws, is so vital. Without it, Democrats may never again get majorities in either house, despite the fact that they regularly get a majority of votes for both houses, if you add up the national voting tallies for the House and Senate. A major fault lies with the system set up by the founders in the first place, namely allowing two Senators for every state, regardless of population, and by acquiescing, yet again, to southern states with the Electoral College. The House, on the other hand, is rigged by the practice of gerrymandering, wherein state houses draw district boundaries with the sole intent of minimizing the number of seats winnable by the other party. These states are able to “steal” seats in the House, even while losing the popular vote for all their seats combined. Historically, both parties have done this, however, more Democrat-controlled states have passed laws creating non-partisan methods of redistricting, while Republican-controlled states have generally gone the other way, using sophisticated computer programs to gerrymander to their advantage. The For the People Act would enforce non-partisan methods, and would do many other good things to ensure voting rights for all. This reform is sorely needed, or we will rarely again, if ever, attain government representation that reflects the popular will (democracy). Somebody, somehow, has to get to Joe Manchin. (Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will likely follow his lead.) – James Israel, Editor Meanwhile, as always, we remind you that we need your support. As a small publication in a bad economy, we face a perpetual battle to survive. Please consider giving subscriptions, donating and/or becoming an ongoing patron at www.patreon.com/humortimes. Thank you! NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS: First of all, thank you so much for subscribing to the Humor Times! You keep us going. Secondly, if you subscribed through an online magazine agent, please do us a favor and subscribe directly with us at https://subs.humortimes.com! For example, if you subscribed through an agency like magazines.com, we have to share your subscription fee with them, while our mailing and printing costs remain the same. So it would help us a lot if instead you renewed directly with us. To check your account type, look at the address label on the back cover. After your name, you will see two numbers: one beginning with “S” and one with “D”. “S” is your account number, and it has a dash and another letter after the number. That denotes Direct (“D”) or Agent (“A”). If it’s “A”, you subscribed through an agent. Please get in touch with the company you used, and tell them you do not wish to auto-renew. (You will still get all the issues you paid for.) Then, be sure to contact us (see below) to let us know, as we’ll need to send you direct renewal reminders when it’s time. The price is the same if you choose to auto-renew with us (as you likely are with them). By the way, the other number on the label, starting with “D”, is the issue Due number – the issue with which your subscription comes due.The current issue number is on the front cover, upper left. Thanks again!
Fox “News” has a captive audience...
and they love scaring the bejesus out of them.
Tucker Carlson is not known for logical thinking...
The Humor Times® (ISSN 1937 299X), Vol. 30, Issue 350, is published monthly by the Humor Times, 7271 Lindale Dr, Sacramento, CA 95828. (Not our mailing address, see “postmaster.”) Periodicals Postage Paid at Sacramento, CA and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Humor Times, P.O. Box 162429, Sacramento, CA 95816-2429. Subscriptions: http://subs.humortimes.com. Website: www.humortimes.com. Editor: James Israel. Publisher: Jim LeDoux. Email: info@humortimes.com. Phone: 916-758-8255. Printed by: Herburger Publications, Galt, CA 95632. Contributors: Ruben Bolling, Bill Bramhall, Chris Britt, Jon Carter, Ken Catalino, Diane de Anda, John Deering, Michael Egan, Roger Freed, Walt Handelsman, Phil Hands, Joe Heller, Jim Hightower, David Horsey, Paul Lander, Chan Lowe, Mike Luckovich, Andy Marlette, David Martin, Joel Pett, Dan Piraro, Rob Rogers, Harley Schwadron, Drew Sheneman, Scott Stantis, Dana Summers, Dan Wasserman & others. Contributions: Send artwork/submissions to address or email above. The Humor Times (formerly the Comic Press News) is printed on recycled paper, using at least 60% post-consumer fiber. All contents ©2021. No part may be reproduced without permission.
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June, 2021
HUMOR TIMES
3
Excommunicated from the Cult Liz Cheney told the truth...
To Trump loyalists, it was sacrilege...
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and for that, she had to pay.
and “un-American”… if by that you mean “unTrumpian.”
But Cheney could not not tell a lie...
and so, the party did its hypocritical “duty.”
Now they’re free...
to devour themselves. (continued)
HUMOR TIMES
June, 2021
To old guard Republicans, the party is unrecognizable...
and a bit too simplistic.
They just can’t quit their Dear Leader...
and remain faithful disciples, no matter what.
They’ve made things much simpler for themselves...
no longer having a need for critical thinking.
They like to call it a “big tent” party...
yet they allow only one point of view.
June, 2021
HUMOR TIMES
5
The Jerry Duncan Show Interviews Congressional Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy By Dean Kaner Wherein our intrepid talk radio show host interviews Democratic Majority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. ANNOUNCER: Live from under a rock in your backyard, it’s The Jerry Duncan Show. JERRY DUNCAN: Good morning listeners nationwide. Is it a good morning? We’ll soon find out. Today on the show my guests are Democratic Majority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. KEVIN MCCARTHY: Let me make it perfectly clear. President Trump did bear some responsibility for the January 6 assault on our U.S. Capitol. JERRY: (game show voice) Kevin McCarthy. For a future in the Republican Party, Is that your final answer? MCCARTHY: No, no, no. Trump did not incite the riot. Forgive me, Orange Crush. NANCY PELOSI: There you go again, not telling the truth. Duncan, McCarthy is so cruel that he hates a character on Sesame Street. MCCARTHY: Big deal. One character. JERRY: Who? PELOSI: The Count. JERRY: What a coincidence. Trump dropped by Sesame Street because he wanted to stop the Count. JERRY: For the record, you’re both lunatics. PELOSI: Don’t mess with me, Duncan. I know Snooki from Jersey Shore. MCCARTHY: And I know Rudy Giuliani. JERRY: Fools. They both act like the Mob. Remember, any mobster that likes getting kicked in the balls is a Soprano. JERRY: I need to move on. Pelosi, you were in Congress when George W. Bush and Donald Trump were President. PELOSI: Yes. I begged W to stop reading My Pet Goat when the planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11. He couldn’t put the book down. With Trump I didn’t worry, because he couldn’t read a book. JERRY: McCarthy. You were elected to Congress when W was still in office. MCCARTHY: He was brilliant. How many leaders would have the guts to start a war with Iraq when our economy was in the crapper and with no evidence? JERRY: You were also in Congress when Obama was President. MCCARTHY: Yeah. We had a border crisis out of control. Obama used to call illegal aliens undocumented Democrats. There were other problems like his tax proposal. You know, we Republicans are against raising taxes on the wealthy. Better to stick it to the middle class and poor.
JERRY: How do you get the rich to pay their fair share of taxes? PELOSI: I’ll answer that one. I told President Obama if you really want to get those rich people to pay their fair share, then put them all in your administration. JERRY: Then there’s Trump. He loved our enemies and hated our allies. That’s un-American. PELOSI: Impeached twice for obstruction and collusion with a foreign power interfering in our elections. When Trump sleeps, he lies on one side then lies on the other. MCCARTHY: It’s not a lie if you believe it. Kevin McCarthy, caricature by DonkeyHotey, flickr.com. JERRY: McCarthy. Is Joe Biden the legitimate President of the United States? Yes or no. MCCARTHY: Eeeny, meeny, miney, moe. I don’t think the President is Joe. JERRY: C’mon, idiot. Biden won in an electoral landslide and had 7 million more votes than Trump. Ballots were counted and recounted in the swing states. The Trumpster came up empty. MCCARTHY: I base my conclusion on one thing, Duncan. JERRY: What? MCCARTHY: Biden said Americans can only have one hamburger a month. What’s next? No more wieners? PELOSI: Well, in your case and Matt Gaetz that would be a good thing. Chop, chop. JERRY: You’re an amazing woman for your age, Pelosi. The size of Chris Christie’s arm. Hands no bigger than a Barbie doll. One or two face lifts. PELOSI: Did you say I had a face lift? JERRY: Just a guess. PELOSI: (angry) Do I have a turkey neck? No! Does my nose look chiseled like a Picasso? No! Do I dye my hair? (Slight pause.) PELOSI: Two out of three ain’t bad. My idol is Mary Todd Lincoln. A brave woman who overcame adversity after her husband was assassinated. JERRY: She ended up in a mental institution. PELOSI: That’s because she was a Republican. I get it. JERRY: Final question to you McCarthy. Why are you trying to oust Congresswoman Liz Cheney from House leadership? MCCARTHY: We need to make room for Caitlyn Jenner. A rising star in the Republican Party. JERRY: Yes. But she comes with a warning label. “May contain traces of nuts.” See you tomorrow. Follow A Bit of Biden on Instagram @abitofbiden The Jerry Duncan Show, (c) Dean B. Kaner Voter Suppression Fight Voter suppression is one of the few unifying ideas left in a Republican Party hol l owed out and pi l l aged by Trumpism. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has as much chance at persuading them to undermine their own electoral fortunes as he does at convincing Elizabeth Warren to pass a tax cut for Big Tech. Manchin made media hay of a joint statement calling for the reauthorization of the Vot ing Rights Act that he authored with GOP Sen a tor Lisa Murkowski, but... Senate Republicans have abandoned Murkowski for her insufficient loyalty to Donald Trump. “Inaction is not an option,” Manchin and Murkowski wrote. “Congress must come together—just as we have done time and again—to reaffirm our longstanding bipartisan commitment to free, accessible, and secure elections for all.” Left unsaid in that soaring rhetoric is the fact that the Senate that voted 77-19 to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was not in thrall to a far right as dominant as today’s MAGA movement... Every day of inaction to protect voting rights is another day for Republican operatives in Congress and in the states to purge voter lists or enact tough new voter ID requirements while closing DMVs. Voters can’t afford to wait while Manchin talks up his role as the Great Compromiser—without ever striking a compromise in Democrats’ favor. The activist base of the Democratic Party has reached its boiling point with Sinema and Manchin’s empty promises that bipartisan victories are just around the corner... If they fail, Schumer and Biden must be prepared to take all steps necessary to ensure the right to vote is protected from un prec e dented Trumpist at tacks. At least Sinema and Manchin can say they tried. – Max Burns, The Daily Beast, 18 May 2021
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HUMOR TIMES
June, 2021
Democracy in the Balance Nothing less than democracy hangs in the balance...
a concept that is only possible if all sides accept reality.
But if your loyalty is not to country...
that way grave peril lurks.
Dems want to pass a bill to outlaw destroying democracy...
Meanwhile, Republicans say there are no worries...
June, 2021
but one of them wants the outlaws’ permission.
and that they only seek a “final” solution.
HUMOR TIMES
7
Unmasked Lifting the mask mandate caused some confusion...
but may increase vaccination participation to 100%!
Variants remain problematic...
as does obstinance.
Anti-vaxxers are a real drag...
Their information sources are suspect...
8
and could derail herd immunity.
but let them feel justified in their ignorance. (continued)
HUMOR TIMES
June, 2021
It’s not surprising when you think about it...
since people trust their “leaders.”
But it can still be quite jarring...
to see where people are coming from.
In the end, the pandemic may have made us stronger...
but now we need to help less fortunate countries.
We may have gotten too used to staying home...
June, 2021
but we should still follow the rules.
HUMOR TIMES
9
Cartertoons • www.cartertoons.com
•
by Jon Carter
Cartertoons • www.cartertoons.com
•
by Jon Carter
‘We Report, You Decry!’
Headline News Section Aspiring to the High Standards Set by Cable News
Trumpless White House Causes Downfall of Major News Outlets Dispatches from SNN (Slobovian News Network) – By Ted Holland According to SNN Washington Crappe reporter Ghitchee Ghoomee, when Donald Trump was in the White House, major news outlets — both print and television — worked 24/7 covering Trump’s every word and thought. Now, with the news largely Trumpless, most of the major news vendors have fallen on hard times. Basically, no Trump means no ad revenue. Many are laying off reporters and front office staff and are groping for ways to stay in business. SNN poverty correspondent Stanckebytche Yohmhama stated that the following changes have been made at major news outlets: CBS News has been sold to the Disney Cor-
Rudy Giuliani Caught Entering Capitol on Video Disguised as a Woman By Fannin Fabriano, TheSpoof.com WASHINGTON, D.C. – Baltimore’s Eye-Spectator Channel 69 is reporting that security cameras caught an ugly-as-hell woman carrying a paint gun and a bag of thumb tacks working her way into the Senate chamber on January 6th. Upon close inspection, the dreadfullooking woman turned out to be none other than Trump’s all-time ass-kisser Rudy Giuliani, aka The Swamp Creature. Giuliani denies that it was him, and remarked that at the time that Trump’s Army of Anarchists was invading the USA, he was having dinner at a Brooklyn Burger Bandit Restaurant, with Laura Ingraham of Fox News.
“America’s Insurrectionist,” Rudy Giuliani, gets dressed up for the gig.
But a security camera expert, swears that it’s definitely Giuliani in the video, because of his huge ping pong ball-sized eyes, his missing upper lip, and the freaky way that all of a sudden when he starts to lie, his ping-pong ball-sized eyes turn into tennis ball-sized eyes. A United States attorney says that fruity Rudy is in a world of trouble, as he could be disbarred, fined $275,000, and be sentenced to Sing Sing Federal Prison for up to 28 years. Meanwhile, President Trump has told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Rudy was with him at the time of the home-grown terrorist invasion, and both were hiding like two little pussies in the White House bunker.
Surgeon General’s Warning: ‘Humor Times’ Habit-Forming Biden’s new Sur geon Gen eral, Su san Orsega, warned citizens about a national political humor magazine called the Humor Times today, saying it was “habit forming” and could lead to serious bouts of belly-laughter – potentially upsetting the habitually pessimistic. If the laughs continue, the magazine may have to be quarantined, she warned. “It wouldn’t be so funny if you had to read it through a hazmat suit, now would it?” she asked. “Sure, we all like to laugh, but at what price? Sudden guffaws can spread COVID. Tears of laughter can blur your vision. And smiling can tire your facial muscles,” she added. (Ed. note: A subscription form can be found on page 3 – use at your own risk!)
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“Miss me yet?” Trump asked. Photo: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons.
poration and will air “Mickey Mouse News” daily.
NBC News will air reruns of Huntley and Brinkley Fox News will only have a five minute news segment on Friday Night Smackdown Fox News has been purchased by Donald Trump and renamed “Trump News.” USA Today will become USA Yesterday and re-run stories from the 1980’s MSNBC has been bought by the SNHHA (The Slobovian Horse Hockey Association) and will air live Horse Hockey 24 hours a day The new New York Times Post and Daily News will combine into one publication and only cover murders in The Bronx and Newark N.J. Thanks to Covid stimulus checks, SNN is financially stable.
Makers of ‘The Purge’ Movies Sue Republican Party for Copyright Infringement By Chris O’Leary The producers of The Purge film and television franchise have filed suit in D.C. Circuit Court against the Republican party for multiple copyright violations ending with the recent purge of Liz Cheney from her leadership position as third-ranking House Republican.
‘Tough Guy’ Alien Sent to Warn Humanity of Impending Ass-Kicking By Earthvessel, TheSpoof.com years and have developed a healthy disdain for A bizarre looking 8-foot tall, 400 lbs creature humanity. appeared at City Hall in Chicago yesterday, to Pti reports they are quite close to having the meet with “the leaders of the United States”. ability to travel en mass to our planet and After a brief panic, things settled down and, to they’re prom is ing earth lings a thor ough the relief of all ass-kicking on the scene, the when they get creature behaved here. quite civilly. When asked It was learned why, Pt told offithat his name is cials there broad Pti , f r o m t h e consensus on his planet Bogl, 23 planet is that hulight years from mans are repulEarth. Allegedly sive, selfish Og had mistaken c r e a t u r e s. H e Chi cago as the added that if you US capital. con sider what Experts soon humans think of Artist rendering of “tough guy” alien Pti. rec og nized that rats you’ll have a Pti was a somewhat intelligent creature with a good idea of what these aliens think of humans. message for us, but he has no vocal cords. They There is also good news however. These initially offered him paper & pencil but there aliens do believe we are redeemable and so plan was a problem there too. Og’s body is con- on launching a sincere effort to change human stantly exuding several types of fluids, reflect- behavior. The only catch is that their plan being his thoughts and emotions, or so we’re told. gins with a serious beating for every one of us. By the time he’d write his message, the paper Pti had been provided with living quarters at would be destroyed and the message illegible. a luxury hotel but the inadvertent damages Eventually officials secured a waterproof caused by excessive fluids were more than the tablet which turned out to be the perfect solu- hotel was willing to deal with. Plans are in the tion. However Pti’s message caused some works to place a tent somewhere on the outalarm. Apologetically, Pti told officials that skirts of the city. Boglians have been watching us for over 200
Ripping the Headlines Today Making fun of the headlines today, so you don’t have to By Paul Lander. All you need to do is follow one simple rule: barely pay attention and jump to conclusions. So, here are some headlines today and my first thoughts: Disneyland Snow White ride faces backlash over Prince Charming kiss If you think Snow White and Prince Charming are problem atic, just be glad Al Franken wasn’t around fake touching her boobs and saying, “Honk, Honk.” Romney warns removing Cheney from House leadership will cost GOP election votes … especially if her dad takes them hunting. Bob Baffert blamed “cancel culture” after his horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby, failed its post-race drug test On the upside, Cancel Culture is great name for a horse. Melinda Gates is now a billionaire So, the GoFundMe is off? Devin Nunes’s Attorney sanctioned, ordered to pay CNN $21,000 for filing ‘frivolous’ defamation lawsuit A lesson to all, see what happens when you have a cow over a cow? Members are quitting Mar-a-Lago because it has become a ‘sad’ and ‘dispirited’ place since Trump moved in, author says The way things are going, soon Trump will be a man without a country… club.
Tomi Lahren: This weekend people threw eggs at me and called me ‘Nazi Barbie’ Guess she won’t be going to anymore family reunions for a while. 8 NY Yankees came down with Covid-19 Y’know, it wasn’t the Minnesota Twins; they can’t even catch a cold. Mississippi discontinuing the extra 300-dollar federal unemployment supplement … mostly in fear a couple of people might pool together and buy the state. Facebook insists a kid’s version of Instagram will be safe … while I worry about anything with the words Insta and Gram. Feds probing Roger Stone, Alex Jones over roles in Capitol riot I’d prefer it was extraterrestrials, but this will have to do. Marjorie Taylor Greene challenges Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to debate over Green New Deal So, it’d be ‘Green New Deal’ vs. ‘Greene Thinks She’s a Big Deal.’ Google is saving over $1 billion a year with employees working from home True, I Googled it…
Read more columns by Paul Lander at humortimes.com.
HUMOR TIMES
“Come on, the Republicans have been stealing our ideas for years, but this Liz Cheney purge — and every news report worldwide used that term, purge — is actionable,” said James DeMonaco, creator of the dystopian action horror series. “At first it was kind of flattering, I mean, I came up with a future America where a major political party rose to authoritarian power through a fascist populist platform with the aid of foreign interference and a brutal attack on the democratic system. And in 2015 when Trump came down that golden escalator like a spray -tanned Mus so lini with a comb-over, it was clear he was a big fan.” DeMonaco has made a number of films in the series, starting with The Purge in 2013, followed by Purge 2: Electric Boogaloo, Purge III: Season of the Witch, Purge 4: The Legend of Curly’s Gold, Purge 5: The Purge Strikes Back, Purge 6: Jason Purges Manhattan, Purge 7: Purge Vs. the Smog Monster, Purge 8: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Purge and another 30 sequels of declining originality. “Look, I may not have a lot of ideas, but The Purge is mine, and with the next sequel coming out in July 2021 Purge 39: Too Fast, Too Purgious, the Republican party is weakening our brand.” “And it’s not just the Liz Cheney purge. The entire premise of The Purge is that the government allows one day a year when any citizen can commit any crime they want. People who are law-abiding citizens all year take one day to break laws and commit violence with the okay of the White House. And Trump and the Republican party actually set a date, January 6, and that Purge took place at the U.S. Capitol! We received no writing credit, no royalties or licensing agreement, and that’s a clear copyright violation right there.” “Look, I’m not suing the Republicans for myself, I’m doing it for all the writers of young adult dystopian fiction. If we allow the Republicans to get away with this, what’s next? Will Ivanka Trump pick up a bow and arrow and run for office as Katniss Everdeen? Hmm… That could work. Let me get her on the phone.”
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Opening Back Up After time off, workers want more to come back...
and who can blame them?
We had a surprise brush with destruction...
but are managing quite well on our own, thank you.
The housing market is heating up at all levels...
and many are high on a green economy.
If only we can hang on...
June, 2021
maybe someday, we could make things right.
HUMOR TIMES
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Dems Biden has a lot up in the air...
14
but luckily for him, the bar was very low.
Foreign affairs are a big challenge...
yet he’s flying high on domestic issues.
Intra-party squabbles continue...
but the party has big dreams.
A huge test is looming for Dems...
and their Supreme Court problem persists.
HUMOR TIMES
June, 2021
Repubs Cicadas have returned to find a strange world...
where Republicans pretend to fight corporations...
and continue to assault minority issues...
all while opting out of helping the country.
McConnell only knows one way to operate...
and McCarthy has only one response.
They not only have a Biden problem...
June, 2021
but they’re having a hard time adapting.
HUMOR TIMES
15
The Hightower Lowdown
Gassed
Shameless Monopolies and Makers Gasoline supply is directly connected to our fear lobes...
causing irrational thought...
and behavior.
For the past several years, price fixing by two shameless monopolies — multibillion-dollar milk processing behemoths DFA (an outfit deceptively named Dairy Farmers of America) and Dean Foods — has squeezed thousands of dairy farms out of business, paying farmers less for a gallon of milk than it costs them to produce it. The Big Two controlled some two-thirds of all raw milk processed nationwide, essentially forcing farmers to sell on the processors’ terms. Last year, then-President Trump’s Justice Department (“justice”) allowed the $14 billion DFA empire to devour the $8 billion Dean conglomerate, leaving individual farm families at the mercy of one domineering colossus. DFA now controls 70% of our nation’s entire raw milk supply. This is just one example of the sweeping lockdown of the “free market” resulting from about five decades of intentional actions and inactions by both Republican and Democratic regimes that have reck lessly dis missed the founders’ fear of what Thomas Jefferson decried as the “aristocracy of our monied corporations.” Piece by piece, politicians, lobbyists and lawyers have steadily dismantled our nation’s commitment to trust busting. Antitrust is a profound component of America’s democratic vision, linking us from the Boston Tea Party to the Bill of Rights, the rise of the populist movement, the Pullman Strike of 1894, the writings of Ida Tarbell and W.E.B. Du Bois, Louis Brandeis’ concept of The New Freedom, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign, Occupy Wall Street, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rev. William Barber’s Moral Mondays — and now you and me. The po lit i cal and me dia es tab lish ment bought into the corporate dogma that monopolies produce economic “efficiencies,” so why not turn ’em loose? Thus, trusts are us! Monopolistic corporations today have chokeholds on nearly every market, setting prices, wages and terms of business. Worse, their power is systemic, dominating elections, health access, education opportunities, communications … our society! That’s why I don’t favor the term “antitrust.” It’s too soft — I mean, who’s against trust? Anti-theft is more blunt, easily understood and true. The reason our people have fought corporate dominance so hard for centuries is because a monopoly is nothing but organized theft; it steals America’s fundamental principles of fairness and opportunity for all. By controlling the marketplace, workplace and public space, the few take away everyone else’s freedom of choice and their possibilities of maximizing their intellect, skills, labor and other abilities to achieve their dreams. That’s the theft of the very idea of America. Indeed, monopoly power quickly goes to the head of monopolists, turning executive-suite ty-
JIM HIGHTOWER coons into little tyrants who feel entitled to impose institutionalized inequality over America’s democratic ideals. To rationalize their plutocratic behavior, the privileged ones try to foster a culture that accepts one’s net worth as the measure of one’s worthiness. Remember just a couple of years back when an exclusive club of America’s uberrich CEOs and Wall Street speculators went on a PR blitz glorifying themselves as “The Makers”? “We are essential wealth creators,” they thundered! But — oops! — nothing like a pandemic to deflate even the most bloated of egos. Hello to all you nurses, farm workers, grocery clerks, truck drivers, utility crews and other low-paid “nobodies” who turn out to be the actual essential ones holding the system together. While those haughty “makers” fled to isolated vacation spots to escape the coronavirus, millions of frontline workers faced deadly virus exposure to keep America functioning. A genuinely grateful public has literally applauded those on the job, hailing them as national and personal heroes. The appreciation was so widespread that several major corporations joined last spring in a show of solidarity, running national ad campaigns touting “hero” pay hikes for those enduring such a grave hazard. But while the employees and the virus endured, the corporate generosity vanished as soon as its PR value faded. Supermarket giant Kroger, for example, had ballyhooed a pay increase of $2 an hour last April for its heroes, loudly declaring, “We will continue to support you, and your families during this difficult time.” Just six weeks later, even as the pandemic spread, pffffft: The $2 “hero pay” was unceremoniously terminated. Mingier yet, early this year, when city officials in Seattle and Long Beach, California, mandated pandemic pay for frontline grocery workers, bosses at Kroger’s national headquarters abruptly shut down stores in those areas. Kroger reaped $2.8 billion in profits in 2020! Where did that bonanza go? The top executives spent a billion dollars on a stock buyback program — a corporate manipulation scheme that artificially jacks up stock prices, thus enriching the big investors and executives who own most of the stock. How rich are they? One example: Last year, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen was reportedly paid $21,129,648. One man, one year. And unlike the typical Kroger worker, who draws an es ti mated $27,000 a year, McMullen is not on the front line putting his life at risk. That’s why working families spell “boss” backward: double SOB.
Meanwhile, it’s a brave new world.
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June, 2021
Shady Characters
Environment Earth Day comes and goes each year...
Matt Gaetz may be headed for hell...
but fundamentalist “Christians” love him anyway.
while the rich and powerful treat nature like a bargaining chip.
The economics of oil is changing none-too-soon...
Meanwhile, Trump is running things from Mar-a-Lago...
but environmental policy debate leaves some flat. and leaving his faithful lawyer to sleep with the fishes.
June, 2021
HUMOR TIMES
17
Miscellaneous Mischief
18
HUMOR TIMES
June, 2021
June, 2021
HUMOR TIMES
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The adventures of Steven Harris in the afterlife are now compiled in one edition, collecting the entire run of the hilarious alternativenewspaper comic strip.
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Landscape by Sue Torngren Next up: artist Sue Torngren (artist, painter, succulents, landscapes, abstracts) with live music by singer/songwriter James Israel. All current COVID regulations will be followed for all events.
In the R25 Arts Complex, 25th & R St, Midtown • Free parking Reservations & Info: CalStage.org