Cartoons Wednesday!

Plus Bad Bunny at the tiny desk, and Stewart, Colbert and Kimmel.

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!

“Fascism is being afraid. Fascism is fear bossing you. Fascism is worse than all of these things, and fascism is more closer to you than I can make you see. I’m trying to wake you up to tell you that you’re sleeping with something ten times more dangerous than a poison-fang snake in your bed.” – Woody Guthrie

Jon Stewart especially strong on Epstein files this week (and why he is in there):

Stephen and Jimmy:

Don’t miss commentary by Anne Appelbaum in the Atlantic:

The shift against these historically bipartisan institutions, against the belief that Americans should defend and promote democracy around the world, and against the democratic faith itself is part of something broader. We have a president who regularly attacks judges and journalists, who bullies CEOs into handing over stock in their companies and university presidents into paying meritless fines, who sends military forces into American cities, who is building a new form of interior police, and who raucously encourages the deepening divide between red and blue America. Abroad, Donald Trump appears much happier with dictators than with democratic allies. His random, punitive tariffs sent Lesotho, a small African country, into economic decline. His demands to occupy Greenland created a political crisis in Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally.

All of these changes are part of a larger shift, a revolutionary transformation in the way Americans present themselves to the world, and the way they are therefore perceived by others. The most ubiquitous form of American culture nowadays is not jazz programming going out on shortwave radio across Eurasia, but the social-media platforms that pump conspiracy theories, extremism, advertising, pornography, and spam into every corner of the globe….America was always associated with capitalism, business, and markets, but nowadays there’s no pretense that anyone else will be invited to share the wealth. USAID is gone; American humanitarian aid is depleted; America’s international medical infrastructure was dismantled so quickly that people died in the process. The image of the ugly American always competed with the image of the generous American. Now that the latter has disappeared, the only Americans anyone can see are the ones trying to rip you off.

Meanwhile, NY Times today: Polls show that more Ukrainians are considering the once unthinkable: surrendering land in exchange for peace. And: “Two new polls show that most Republicans still support President Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.”

Before he hits world’s biggest stage….Bad Bunny at NPR’s small desk recently:

From Tunes to Toons for Today

Chris Britt:

Breen:

Bramhall:

Bennett:

Anderson:

Goris:

Photo Finish

From my camera to you, one of the artistic wonders of nature, “The Shell of a Nautilus”