Cartoons Sunday!

More ICE brakers. And tribute to the late Bobby Weir.

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!

Protests continuing today. Numerous angles to cover and too little time. Found analysis by Asha Rangappa, former FBI agent and now lecturer at Yale, at her Freedom Academy substack interesting, closing with this:

Crucial moment #7. Ross never drops his camera or stops filming, even as he is firing his weapon. This, to me, is unbelievable and especially damning. Again, I know Rambo goes around double fisting in the movies, but that is not how you are trained. At the FBI Academy we were trained to shoot with one hand in the event that our other hand was injured. In fact, in such a case you should keep the free hand close to the chest to avoid shooting your own hand….And it should go without saying that holding a camera while discharging a firearm is distracting and at the very least demonstrates a reckless disregard for human life, IMO. But to me, it really shows that Ross was not particularly startled or reacting to a perceived threat, because if he really believed he was in a life and death situation I think he’d obviously have dropped the damn phone and focused on his own weapon and where it was pointing.

Heather Cox Richardson referenced another murder where the perps went free until they posted a video of the crime thinking foolishly that it made it look justified:

In the case of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, the murderers and their protectors were clearly so isolated in their own racist bubble they could not see how regular Americans would react to the video of them hunting down and shooting a jogger.

In the case of the murder of Renee Good, the shooter and his protectors are clearly so isolated in their own authoritarian bubble they cannot see how regular Americans would react to the video of a woman smiling at a masked agent and saying: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you,” only to have him shoot her in the face and then spit out “F*cking bitch” after he killed her.

The thread that runs through both is the assumption that an American exercising their constitutional rights must submit, without question, to a white man holding a gun.

This is the larger meaning of federal agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol in U.S. cities. While they are attacking primarily people of color, the message they carry is directed at all Americans: you must do what the Trump administration and its loyalists demand.

Another recording from the past few days shows a federal agent walking toward a woman recording him. She tells him: “Shame on you.” He answers: “Listen. Have you all not learned from the past couple of days? Have you not learned?” She responds: “Learned what? What’s our lesson here? What do you want us to learn?” He begins: “Following federal agents….” and he knocks the phone out of her hand. Hours after Good’s death, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem appeared in Manhattan behind a podium emblazoned with the words: “ONE OF OURS, ALL OF YOURS.”

Wall Street Journal has identified 13 instances of agents firing at or into civilian vehicles since July, leaving eight people shot with two confirmed dead. Only one civilian was armed—with a concealed weapon that was never drawn—and at least five of those shot were U.S. citizens.

David Letterman, former CBS mainstay: “What about those idiots at CBS? The CBS News is a wreck, it’s just gone. The integrity of CBS News has been trampled on, pissed on, and eviscerated by these idiots that have taken it over.”

Then there’s this:

Smithsonian Removes Label Noting Trump Impeachments

Never a big Grateful Dead fan, but youngest original, singer/guitarist/songwriter Bobby Weir, who died yesterday at age 78, seems to have been a good guy and beloved by other musicians and singers. Back at Crawdaddy in 1972 we put him on the cover when he came out with his first solo album, and “Playing in the Band” became a fixture in Dead and Weir shows for decades.

Another early classic, “Sugar Magnolia.”

From Tunes to Toons

Nick Anderson:

Campbell:

Wuerker:

Kuper:

KAL:

Love the poor innocent doggie:

Photo Finish

From my camera to you, “Hudson River and Bridge (Homage to Hirohige).”