Cartoons Saturday!

Plus for the current ICE age, Bruce and John Prine.

Greg Mitchell has authored more than a dozen books (see most of them here) and directed four recent PBS films, including the current “The Atomic Bowl.” Subscribing to this newsletter is still FREE—so if you want to help fund, maybe purchase one of those books, thanks. Or recommend this Substack to a friend!

Rick Perlstein on Vance and Trump and other MAGAs claiming that yesterday’s new video from Minneapolis killer’s Iphone actually proved their self-defense rants when audio with it found Renee Good smiling at the shooter and wishing him well and the murderer calling her a “fucking bitch” after shooting her in the head:

To read the video as proving Renee Good a “threat” only make sense to those primed to believe, as consumers of right-wing media and Bovino’s cadres are, that they’re facing dangerous terrorists who want to harm them. Akin to the “Black Mirror” episode where the soldiers wear goggles that make innocent people look like snarling monsters, so they can mow them down without remorse.

This is the response to shooting by new director of Trump’s Kennedy Center:

So, happily:

Washington National Opera Is Leaving the Kennedy Center

The opera, which has performed at the arts center since 1971, was concerned about declines in attendance and donations during President Trump’s second term.

A song for the moment, and one of his best, Springsteen live, “American Skin (41 Shots).”

And another, from John Prine, “That’s How Every Empire Falls”:

Padlock the door and board the windows
Put the people in the street
“It’s just my job, “ he says “I’m sorry.”
And draws a check, goes home to eat
But at night he tells his woman
“I know I hide behind the laws.”
She says, “You’re only taking orders.”
That’s how every empire falls

A bitter wind blows through the country
A hard rain falls on the sea
If terror comes without a warning
There must be something we don’t see
What fire begets this fire?
Like torches thrown into straw
If no one asks, then no one answers
That’s how every empire falls

From Tunes to Toons

deAddeer:

Bramhall:

Anderson:

Jesse Duquette:

Bennett:

Barry Blitt:

Matson:

Luckovich:

Photo Finish

From my camera to you, “Flat Iron Building, NYC.”