Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Some of us may remember Rod Serling’s classic 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May, a movie about a military plot to take over the United States government. Burt Lancaster stars as General James Mattoon Scott, a megalomaniac convinced that a new peace treaty between the USSR and the US …
Read
Category:Capitol Riot
Contempt of Court
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter America has always been fascinated with our justice system (observing it that is, not being enmeshed in it). Our popular culture media machine has produced everything from TV lawyers like Perry Mason to Matlock to Jack McCoy to courtroom reality series like Judge Judy, Judge Mathis, Judge Hatchett, or Texas …
Read
Grumpy Old Men
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter We are presently living through one of the strangest times in American history. Four years ago, we survived a deadly pandemic and global lockdown. Just three years ago, a mob—instigated by a sitting president—tried to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. Our political institutions, the mainstream media, and justice …
Read
Dialogues on Grumpy Old Men: Get Off My White House Lawn!
Attribution: Joe Biden: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (source: Joe Biden); User:TDKR Chicago 101 (clipping) Donald Trump: Shealah Craighead (source: White House) Сombination: krassotkin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Dave S., Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter Bots, Last week’s biggest political …
Read
Out of the Woodwork
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Ten years ago, the idea of a mob of American citizens attacking the U.S. Capitol Building would have dismissed as absurd, the stuff of apocalyptic fiction. In the 1950s, parents whose children’s lives had been saved by Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine would have been shocked and appalled …
Read
A Moment of Clarity
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter In a surprise move last week, the Republican Party took a moral stand. Despite their recent tendencies to kowtow, cave, and kiss ex-President Trump’s posterior, the House of Representative Republicans finally decided to demonstrate that they do know right from wrong by expelling disgraced Republican Congressman George Santos. …
Read
They All Fall Down
Artwork by Michael DiMIlo By Geoff Carter The dominoes are beginning to fall. Who will be next? Nineteen people were indicted in the Fani Willis RICO case against those conspiring to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. And, as we’ve seen so often in TV police dramas like Law and Order, Breaking Bad, or The Wire, prosecutors are …
Read
A Thousand Words
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter A photograph can record many things—a fond memory, a milestone, a precious moment, or an historical record. Weddings, graduations, reunions, class pictures, and births are some of the momentous occasions traditionally preserved on film. Even casual Polaroids of kids playing or friends hanging out can carry special significance, …
Read
Faded Glory
Photo by Alex Martinez on Unsplash By Geoff Carter A couple of weeks ago, we went up to the family cabin in Northern Wisconsin for a short vacation. Our family has had the place there for years, since I was a boy. It’s an area that has been slowly changing, turning older and more politically conservative as more …
Read
The Decline and Fall of MAGASaurus Rex
Image by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter It rose from the murky depths of ignorance, hatred, and fear and has reigned supreme on the political landscape for eight years now, ravaging our democratic institutions, trampling voter rights, and terrifying all mainstream Republicans. It is an aggressive, ruthless, and voracious creature that consumes everything in its …
Read
True Colors
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” –Plato “Despotic power is always accompanied by the corruption of morality.” –Lord Acton American politics has been devolving over the last decade or so. Discourse has become so gridlocked, it’s become nearly impossible for our two major …
Read
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Americans across the spectrum were shocked, dumbfounded, and ultimately (like watching a rattlesnake) fascinated by ex-President Donald Trump’s social media post announcing that he was to be arrested on Tuesday and telling his followers that they should “Protest, take the nation back”—which was read by some as an …
Read