Ways Of Shutting That Down

We hope that over the last week and a half, while we were enjoying some vacation, and attempting to get on top of other projects, you stayed informed with other news sources and had a few days off yourself.

Quite a lot has gone on over the last two weeks. After a nearly criminal ruling on the Voting Rights Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled in surprisingly just and fair ways on both DOMA and Prop 8, while President Obama announced a series of major actions he'll be enacting toward cleaner energy. Unfortunately, a major oil spill and explosion just over the border in Canada killed five (as of publication time) and destroyed an entire town in Quebec. There was also a major plane crash in San Francisco with fatalities, major deadly fires out West, and major political shifts in the Middle East, specifically in Egypt.

There wasn't was much action on Capitol Hill, where Congress' inaction not only allowed the interest rates on student loans to double but effectively cancelled the Independence Day holiday for some of our service members and their families, thanks to the sequester cuts that Congress STILL hasn't dealt with. In fact, House Republicans are already rattling their swords, preparing to come back to Washington and demand even more federal budget cuts - meaning once again, Republicans at the national level appear ready to hold the nation's economy hostage.

We suppose that's better than what Republicans at the state level have been doing these last two weeks. In states from North Carolina to Ohio, and from Wisconsin to Texas, the GOP declared war on women once again - and this time, not even the celebrations of our nation's birthday were enough to stop the roving horde of misogynists and women haters that seemingly makes up the tattered remnants of the Grand Old Party these days.

In case you missed it, Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and the Republicans in the state legislature there jammed a series of anti-choice and anti-women legislation into a last-minute budget bill. Kasich then signed what is effectively a declaration of war on Ohio's women, flanked by only male members of the Ohio Legislature.

Not to be outdone, Wisconsin's GOP Gov. Scott Walker signed his own bill attacking doctors who perform abortions - though Walker was immediately sued by hospitals, women's centers, and abortion clinics for doing so.

Despite being blasted by North Carolina's own Republican Governor, and by Senate Democrats, North Carolina's extremist GOP jammed through even more anti-abortion laws in their state Senate. That rash act could set up a serious Republican civil war in the state that began the first American Civil War.

Last but not least, you likely heard about the eleven-plus hour filibuster by Texas Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis. Her efforts stopped Republican Gov. Rick 'I can't count to three' Perry and the Texas GOP from cramming through yet another anti-choice, anti-woman law in a special session of the Texas Legislature. Perry has since called for yet another special session of the Texas Leg, and has even bragged they'll jam the anti-woman bills through this time in under two weeks, claiming that Texans like him "want to protect life" - even as Perry signed the death warrant for Texas' 500th execution.

At this point, it almost has to be asked if some Republicans are actively trying to split their political party in two with these brainless attacks on half the population. Even if they are, for now it appears that the extremists in charge of the GOP plan on continuing to aim their misogynist policy guns at women, even after losing the war on women so badly at the polls in 2012.

To paraphrase one particular Republican loser from that election cycle, Republicans should have learned then - women have a way of shutting that whole misogyny thing down.

Apologies And Realities

There are times in life when we all fall down - and we admit, we fell down yesterday. As you may have noticed, we have a relatively small staff who also have other day jobs - and those other duties caused us not to publish our expanded daily e-mail edition yesterday. Thankfully, our commentary and cartoons for Tuesday were published through our other channels, so you can view them on the cartoon pages and at our blog site.

Sadly, we weren't the only ones to fall down yesterday. America itself also fell down, or more specifically, the Supreme Court of the United States fell down by failing to uphold justice.

In case you missed it, the highly activist, majority right-wing Supreme Court declared open warfare on minority voters across the nation on Tuesday, by cravenly striking down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In short, the Court invalidated the ability of the DOJ to use the Voting Rights Act to stop or prevent abuses of voting laws, designed to minimize the participation of young people, poor people, and people of color - all of whom tend to vote heavily Democratic.

Today, the Court is scheduled to release their opinions on both DOMA and the Prop 8 case from California - though frankly, we have strong doubts about the current Court's ability to justly decide anything anymore.

As we've noted previously, it truthfully shouldn't matter who someone makes a legal contract with, so long as both parties in the two-party contract are eligible and amenable to the contract's conditions. Indeed, in a civil marriage contract, eligibility and acquiescence are the only things that matter.

The fact is, if more gay people do get married, it will drive up demand for wedding planners, florists, DJs, bands, and caterers, all of whom we're sure will appreciate the new business.

Regardless of how the Court decides today, the fact remains that the Roberts' Court has done grievous and harmful damage to our collective faith in the American governmental system, with the poor decisions they've already made this term. If the Court is going to simply ignore the massive amount of fact findings in any case, and decide according to whatever the whims of it's members are, then Americans must truly begin to ask how much longer our system of government can last.

Congress - specifically the House - has proven they can no longer pass basic laws.

The Supreme Court has now displayed that it can no longer be trusted to dispense justice fairly.

President Obama is still doing almost everything he can, as he proved with his major policy announcement of actions his administration is taking to fight climate change immediately, without Congress - including the effective temporary denial of the Keystone pipeline. Still, the Executive's chair in the Oval Office only seats one person - and no matter who that individual is, they cannot be expected to handle all of the responsibilities the other two branches of our government cannot seem to handle.

**Service Note** Due to emergency personal and professional issues, we will be taking our annual holiday vacation a bit early, starting tomorrow, June 27, 2013. Throughout our break, fresh cartoons will still be added at PaulFellCartoons.com. Our normal publishing schedule will resume July 8, 2013.

Pulling Back From The Edge

As we promised to start the week, Monday already proved the news is not playing around this week. Yesterday alone included the "Where's Waldo"-like drama of the Edward Snowden story - including the news that Snowden appears to have targeted the NSA, the knock-knock joke opening from the defense attorney in the George Zimmerman murder trial, and the major news from the IRS that "progressive" groups - like other groups including conservatives - had also been among their targets for "special attention".

At the Supreme Court, six decisions came down Monday, including a substantive anti-worker decision, along with a major punt from the Court on the issue of Affirmative Action that sidestepped virtually all the difficult questions. In the U.S. Senate, for once, a difficult task was successfully tackled head-on, as immigration reform passed a key test vote in the U.S. Senate, 67-27.

Today is shaping up to be another major news day with more important decisions from the Supreme Court likely, the major announcement from President Obama of his sweeping actions on climate change, the Senate race in Massachusetts, and a major battle over women's rights and abortion in Texas.

Oh - and HealthCare.gov is now officially active as well.

If you're thinking there are a few things we haven't mentioned yet, you'd be right. Peering at the surging volume of news below us, Americans of all kinds are straining just to hang on, like a dog owner getting dragged to edge of a very nasty cliff.

At least one version of that cliff includes a monster at the bottom that is the Syrian civil war - and it should surprise no one that the gutless curs of the corporate military industry are chomping at the bit to drag the rest of us over that edge.

Before America does get involved any further than a pledge to give weapons to rebels - which is already a far worse idea than most will admit - we should definitely take half a moment in this maelstrom to look seriously at what the Syrian conflict is.

Not only is the Syrian conflict hopelessly confusing, politically, but there are no real heroes on any side. Even the military experts at the Pentagon have made it clear that serious intervention in Syria would be logistically untenable, politically impossible, and fiscally suicidal. Even legitimate analysis from overseas notes that Syrian jihadis are already dividing against themselves, in what is already becoming a wider regional conflict.

We're not going to say what's happening in Syria is acceptable, on a humanitarian level. It's not. However, Syria is also a political and military conflict that has no one who truly sides with the best interests of America, or really much of the rest of the world.

To let those drooling for America get our nation involved in yet another war, and pull the rest of us over the edge into the mess that is Syria, is simply not an option at this time. Thanks to chickenhawk conservatives and weak liberals, America has already wasted nearly a dozen years, in multiple wars overseas.

We've simply got too much going on at home right now, as a nation, to go fight monsters for somebody else.