We have to admit, some of our staff is a bit tired this morning, since the regular work they do forced them to stay up late last night, watching the sad, repetitive coverage of the political horse race known as the Iowa Caucuses.
While we highly value fair and legitimate voting, and we are generally in favor of the concept of caucusing, we also make no bones about how tainted by money the current political system is in America - even when the outcome is nearly certain. As we've stated multiple times, and as many others have also repeated, when it comes to federal offices - including that of President - 94% of the time, the candidate who wins is the one with more money.
Nowhere have the facts and figures on how money can affect campaigning been displayed more clearly than in the Iowa Caucuses, which concluded last night.
Even though the importance of winning a caucus, like that in Iowa, is disputed by many on all sides in the political realm, primary contests are generally looked at as potentially solid predictors of an eventual winner. In the poll of polls, run by FiveThirtyEight.com, Mitt Romney looks to be a 93% or better favorite to win the New Hampshire primary.
As we already said this year, the GOP's eventual nominee WILL be Romney.
Still, knowing how far ahead former Gov. Romney is in New Hampshire didn't stop the campaigns from spending more money than any of us has ever seen spent in politics in Iowa.
According to a report by NBC News, in the 2012 Presidential campaign so far, the slew of campaigns, political action committees, and SuperPACs spent more than $16 million in political advertising in Iowa this past year. That includes both Republican and Democratically aligned groups - and it's just the tip of the money iceberg.
Even if you "take the under" - the lower amount of $12.5 million in campaign spending, quoted by the New York Times - the amount of money flowing through the American political system, at the beginning of the 2012 campaigns is mind-boggling.
Thanks to online tools like OpenSecrets.org, we're highly aware of how much each campaign, at multiple levels of government, is costing these days. We're also aware that in the Presidential race, President Obama has a significant fundraising advantage over any and all Republican challengers.
Much as we noted in our first commentary for 2012, it's not just the amount of money these candidates have to spend that worries us - it's where the money comes from.
For Mr. Romney, an astounding ten percent or more of his campaign contributions have come from the richest of the rich - not just multi-millionaires, but billionaires and multi-billionares in his quest for the presidency.
Most American politicians haven't even begun their campaigns for Congress yet - campaigns that are certain to mirror the numbers that were spent in Iowa.
In a post-Citizens United world, where there are few real restrictions on campaign spending, it's more obvious than ever who the two groups are in modern American society.
There are those who are leading our politicians around, like a horse with a carrot on a stick.
Then there are the rest of us, who have become little more than political janitors, cleaning up after them.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
More To Life
In case you or your significant other has been pretty much embedded into your television sets watching college and pro football the last few days, we are indeed already past New Year's Day and officially into 2012. While no one on our staff makes individual New Year's resolutions, collectively, we are resolving to continue giving you all the great cartoons, commentary and news links that we have in the past, as we begin our fourth year.
We're also resolving to take a serious look at priorities, both ours and those of other people and organizations, as we enter a new year - including political, media, and even entertainment priorities.
Of course, that last category may have something to do with our attempt to understand Monday's embarrassing and appalling actions at the college football bowl game involving the Nebraska Cornhuskers. We're not talking about the horrendously bad officiating, or even the on-field fight, apparently started by South Carolina's Alshon Jeffery, that ended with the ejections from the game of both Jeffery and Nebraska's Alfonse Dennard.
The thing that was hardest for us to understand was that after getting booted for starting a fight, with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, not only was South Carolina's player allowed back on the field, and handed the trophy - he was made the game's MVP.
This is NOT the way to begin 2012, regardless of who won. Contrary to the old saying, it is not simply who wins or loses - it is equally important how one plays the game that matters.
As members of the media, we've been appalled for much of the last two weeks at how so-called news - especially about politics - has been handled by those in our profession who didn't take the time off. To say the coverage of politics and news has been treated like a bad reality show would be giving more credit to horrible TV programming than the reality TV genre has ever earned. To state that the GOP presidential contest has been treated like a horse race would insult the vary nature of both horses and racing.
In short, the priorities of Americans are out of whack, in a way that the hyper-typical media meme about blue vs red, Democrats vs. Republicans, liberals vs conservatives just doesn't cover.
We are, to say the least, appalled and disgusted, with everything we've described so far today. So we're making some changes, behind the scenes, to start off 2012 - changes we've been moving towards for some time.
To start with, we likely won't cover the horserace of politics as much this year, even though it's an election year. There are whole lists of things many of our colleagues will be talking about in politics this year - and many of the topics they'll be beating into mush aren't that important at all.
For example, the GOP nominee - barring a massive fight at the Republican national convention - will be Mitt Romney. Period.
We're also going to be looking at how sports and entertainment mesh with politics, much as we did with the Penn State incident. We're not going as far as award-winning sports reporter Dave Zirin, and ignoring college football altogether. But we are taking the recent words of author John Woods seriously, especially as it pertains to Husker sports.
There is more to life, more to politics, more to news, more to entertainment, than what many of our colleagues provide - and far more than what many Americans take in, as part of their daily media diet.
We resolve this year, more than ever, to be the example of what our colleagues in the news & media business SHOULD be, and should strive for.
There is more to life than just more.
We're also resolving to take a serious look at priorities, both ours and those of other people and organizations, as we enter a new year - including political, media, and even entertainment priorities.
Of course, that last category may have something to do with our attempt to understand Monday's embarrassing and appalling actions at the college football bowl game involving the Nebraska Cornhuskers. We're not talking about the horrendously bad officiating, or even the on-field fight, apparently started by South Carolina's Alshon Jeffery, that ended with the ejections from the game of both Jeffery and Nebraska's Alfonse Dennard.
The thing that was hardest for us to understand was that after getting booted for starting a fight, with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, not only was South Carolina's player allowed back on the field, and handed the trophy - he was made the game's MVP.
This is NOT the way to begin 2012, regardless of who won. Contrary to the old saying, it is not simply who wins or loses - it is equally important how one plays the game that matters.
As members of the media, we've been appalled for much of the last two weeks at how so-called news - especially about politics - has been handled by those in our profession who didn't take the time off. To say the coverage of politics and news has been treated like a bad reality show would be giving more credit to horrible TV programming than the reality TV genre has ever earned. To state that the GOP presidential contest has been treated like a horse race would insult the vary nature of both horses and racing.
In short, the priorities of Americans are out of whack, in a way that the hyper-typical media meme about blue vs red, Democrats vs. Republicans, liberals vs conservatives just doesn't cover.
We are, to say the least, appalled and disgusted, with everything we've described so far today. So we're making some changes, behind the scenes, to start off 2012 - changes we've been moving towards for some time.
To start with, we likely won't cover the horserace of politics as much this year, even though it's an election year. There are whole lists of things many of our colleagues will be talking about in politics this year - and many of the topics they'll be beating into mush aren't that important at all.
For example, the GOP nominee - barring a massive fight at the Republican national convention - will be Mitt Romney. Period.
We're also going to be looking at how sports and entertainment mesh with politics, much as we did with the Penn State incident. We're not going as far as award-winning sports reporter Dave Zirin, and ignoring college football altogether. But we are taking the recent words of author John Woods seriously, especially as it pertains to Husker sports.
There is more to life, more to politics, more to news, more to entertainment, than what many of our colleagues provide - and far more than what many Americans take in, as part of their daily media diet.
We resolve this year, more than ever, to be the example of what our colleagues in the news & media business SHOULD be, and should strive for.
There is more to life than just more.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
2011: A Year Full Of 'New's
About this time every year, since we began publishing 'The Daily Felltoon' four years ago next month, we do a simple year end wrap up, as we head to our own holiday break. As usual, there will be brand new Paul Fell Cartoons published over the next two weeks, including new Cap News, Oklahoma Gazette Toons, a Paul Fell Prediction cartoon before the Husker game, and of course, the annual Paul Fell Christmas cartoon. So feel free to check PaulFellCartoons.com throughout the holiday season.
Before we continue, we need to thank you, our readers, both old and new, around the world. Whether you view our work in your e-mail box, from Twitter or Facebook, or through an RSS reader; on your computer, your tablet, or on your smartphone; we're glad you keep coming back - and we're even more happy that you keep telling others about us. For the thousands of people we reach each year, we are most grateful.
2011 has been a year filled with changes and many new challenges for all of our staff.
We've gained new contacts, new clients, and new readers - some of whom work in some very important places. We're very glad that our work graces the screens of more high offices in Washington, DC and Nebraska – as well as the screens of great comedians and cartoonists – than it did at this time last year.
We added a new office in West Palm Beach this past year, and at least one of our staff members moved - three times - in 2011, to new homes and apartments. We can't even count the trips we've made this year, including some overseas travel, to new places. Suffice it to say, our frequent flyer miles have come in handy, and our mechanics have kept our vehicles roadworthy.
While we've read new books - and even helped work on at least one - we still logged about 16,000 news, opinion, and commentary stories that we read this past year. We also published about 250 new editions of the Daily Felltoon this year, on top of our other regular jobs.
We were glad to see Daily Kos, one of the most prominent online publications for liberals, add a whole new section for cartoonists this year - a section where they pay their major contributing cartoonists, which we firmly believe in.
There were some new wrinkles in politics this past year too. Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska unexpectedly stood up in opposition to the Keystone pipeline, while Republicans in Congress - specifically in the House of Representatives - finally found a tax cut they couldn't vote for. Not surprisingly, it was a tax cut that benefitted those who actually work for a living.
There was also the new political force known as the Occupy movement, which we think still has some new ways to influence politics that we'll likely see next year.
There are plenty of new leaders around the world too, thanks to the revolutions of the "Arab Spring." North Korea also has a new leader, as does Al Qaeda, though the latter is due to some highly trained U.S. Navy Seals.
There were also some incredibly sad losses this year, including the much revered Steve Jobs.
The United States will enter 2011 doing something new, as a nation, after ending the Iraq War. We'll only be fighting one major foreign war, in Afghanistan – something that hasn't happened in nine years.
No matter what new things make headlines in 2012, we pledge to remain a publication that makes a difference in your lives, with new cartoons and commentaries to keep you laughing, thinking, and talking - with us, and with each other.
May your new year be the best one yet.
Happy holidays.
We'll return to regular publication January 3, 2012
Before we continue, we need to thank you, our readers, both old and new, around the world. Whether you view our work in your e-mail box, from Twitter or Facebook, or through an RSS reader; on your computer, your tablet, or on your smartphone; we're glad you keep coming back - and we're even more happy that you keep telling others about us. For the thousands of people we reach each year, we are most grateful.
2011 has been a year filled with changes and many new challenges for all of our staff.
We've gained new contacts, new clients, and new readers - some of whom work in some very important places. We're very glad that our work graces the screens of more high offices in Washington, DC and Nebraska – as well as the screens of great comedians and cartoonists – than it did at this time last year.
We added a new office in West Palm Beach this past year, and at least one of our staff members moved - three times - in 2011, to new homes and apartments. We can't even count the trips we've made this year, including some overseas travel, to new places. Suffice it to say, our frequent flyer miles have come in handy, and our mechanics have kept our vehicles roadworthy.
While we've read new books - and even helped work on at least one - we still logged about 16,000 news, opinion, and commentary stories that we read this past year. We also published about 250 new editions of the Daily Felltoon this year, on top of our other regular jobs.
We were glad to see Daily Kos, one of the most prominent online publications for liberals, add a whole new section for cartoonists this year - a section where they pay their major contributing cartoonists, which we firmly believe in.
There were some new wrinkles in politics this past year too. Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska unexpectedly stood up in opposition to the Keystone pipeline, while Republicans in Congress - specifically in the House of Representatives - finally found a tax cut they couldn't vote for. Not surprisingly, it was a tax cut that benefitted those who actually work for a living.
There was also the new political force known as the Occupy movement, which we think still has some new ways to influence politics that we'll likely see next year.
There are plenty of new leaders around the world too, thanks to the revolutions of the "Arab Spring." North Korea also has a new leader, as does Al Qaeda, though the latter is due to some highly trained U.S. Navy Seals.
There were also some incredibly sad losses this year, including the much revered Steve Jobs.
The United States will enter 2011 doing something new, as a nation, after ending the Iraq War. We'll only be fighting one major foreign war, in Afghanistan – something that hasn't happened in nine years.
No matter what new things make headlines in 2012, we pledge to remain a publication that makes a difference in your lives, with new cartoons and commentaries to keep you laughing, thinking, and talking - with us, and with each other.
May your new year be the best one yet.
Happy holidays.
We'll return to regular publication January 3, 2012
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