Where? When? Why? Fuck!

I still wake up every morning wondering where all the women voters who wanted Roe codified went on November 5th. And the kids, now of voting age, who spent their entire educational lives suffering school-shooter drills. And the Christians who could plainly see what a hypocritical monster Trump really is. And the MAGA who never saw Trump fulfill one campaign promise. And all Americans who saw the Capitol attacked on January 6th. Where were they?

Mostly, where did the missing seven million of the 81 million Democratic voters in 2020 go? What was it about Trump they all clearly disliked which brought them out in 2020 but not 2024?

I have said for years that Trump claiming rigged elections against him was a logical trap. By refuting his claims the Democratic Party was left with no argument when seven million votes, or more, disappeared into the digital void of those black boxes. And out the other end of those boxes slid Project 2025, like a fait accompli from Hell.

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I heard that Trump had planned to give all members of his new cabinet a gift his signature tie for Xmas but they said they already had all the Russian ties they need.

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Every Monday morning on my Raging Pencils Facebook page I present a compilation of 24 of the best political cartoons, in my humble opinion, of the week. I've been doing this for about the past three tears because my local newspaper, the Dallas Morning News, has a gutless editorial board which allows only the most harmless of the most harmless syndicated editorial cartoons. Editorial cartoons that don't rip the bandage off and reveal the rotten flesh beneath might as well just be offering the adventures of lasagna-eating felines.

One of the best cartoonist's out there, the one who each time puts his heart and soul and impressive draftsmanship into his 'toons, is Michael Ramirez. Yet I very rarely share his comics because he leans so hard right on almost every subject. Heading into the elections he very seldom presented criticism of Trump but drew PLENTY of 'toons about the [GASP] advanced age of President Joe Biden.

Why do I bring Ramirez up? Because since the election he's suddenly discovered, golly, that Trump and his pals just might be a threat to our democracy. He's now drawing comics that he should have created six months ago when they could have made a small difference. Now he's just shamelessly and transparently chasing the Liberal buck.

Pick a lane, Ramirez, you mistalented hack!

On the other hand, I'm never disappointed by the craftsmanship or viewpoint of cartoonist Michael de Adder. Check him out on Google Images.

(Hmmm, there must be something about the name "Michael" that inevitably leads one to a life of political cartooning. <grin>)

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One of the many labors I took upon myself during my Hiatus was upgrading my Mac's OS. In this case from 10.6 to 10.11, which is far as this Mac will go without a few hacks.

I expected software to break and break some did, most notably Photoshop which is the most vital of my creative tools apart from my two talented hands. It took about a week to determine why I couldn't access the Finder and, thus, my folders, but it's finally running now without complaint.

Next to break, though not critically, was my scanner software. I can make it work but it's not happy about it.

And then there's my FTP app, Transmit (3.5.3) which is the snazziest FTP program in the whole wide world. It can currently login to my servers but it crashes when I try to access folders. This irritates me because it's just a file-server program. There's no justifiable reason why my creaky old version 3 shouldn't be able to acess my files.

The app's creators, Panic, says the only work-around is a $50 upgrade to version 5. Ugh. I'm considering trying Filezilla, which is free, but there's concerns about malware being injected by third parties unknown. Currently I'm using my ISP's file-manager which works but it's sloooooooooooow going.

Yeah, I'm just whining. More White, entitled, first world problems. Blah-blah-blah. It'll mean very little to me when I'm hanging by my thumbs in the Trump gulag. Heh.

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Today's Retread-O-Matic comic is from June 7, 2017. Hope your Thanksgiving plans are coming together nicely.

- Lefty