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Tidbits- Aug. 7 -Readers Comments: Not Just Texas-Voting Rights, Democracy Under Assault; ICE; GOP Cover-Up-Ultra Rich Power Grab and Child Sex Trafficking; Gaza Is Time To Remember Hiroshima – War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things;

https://portside.org/2025-08-07/tidbits-aug-7-readers-comments-not-just-texas-voting-rights-democracy-under-assault-ice
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Keep Smiling or Else  --  Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

 

Mike Luckovich
August 7, 2025
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Re: The GOP’s New Civil War Against America Isn’t With Bullets — It’s With Ballots
 

Reminds me of Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech from 1964.

Michael Klonsky
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

a good article, yet... an important one..
Texas Dem representatives made a a tactical retreat...
to deny Texas RP the ability to further disenfranchise black & brown & ..in Texas..!!
"flee" suggested some avoidance....i.e. not accurate

Tom Edminster
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Mamdani’s Winning Formula: Fuse the Message and the Media
 

Don't forget the third leg of the stool. 40,000 volunteers going door to door

Gar Lipow
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Crisis Actors  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers

 

 

War criminal Bibi Netanyahu is claiming that all of the images of starving Palestinians in Gaza are just Hamas-generated propaganda. Hmm. What about the IDF soldiers who shoot and kill those same starving people as they line up for food assistance? Are they propaganda too?
 

Rob Rogers
August 1, 2025
TinyView

 

Re: Zionist McCarthyism Comes for CUNY
 

I hope the ones who were fired sue to get their positions back. These Universities have to stop capitulating. Labeling support of Palestinians as anti-Semitic is bogus.

Judyth Hollub
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Cowards! Losers! Thugs!  ICE Recruiting Poster  --  Meme and Commentary by Lalo Alcaraz

 

My latest for CALÓ News! The Department of Homeland Security is heavily recruiting more ICE agents, but are not having as much success as they hoped. I think an honest recruitment poster, just like ol’ Uncle Sam used to put up around the country to attract young men and women to save in the Armed Forces might just be the final solution to their problem.
 

Lalo Alcaraz
July 30, 2025
CALÓ News!

 

ICE Block  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Lalo Alcaraz

 

9th Circuit Judges uphold the block on ICE's racial profiling sweeps against our Latino immigrant communities and anyone in Los Angeles. Somehow I haven't heard of any sweeps in Beverly Hills, unless you count the rumor that nannies were being hounded, which seemed to be fake. We hope that our residents can stop feeling terrorized by our own government and its goons.
 

Lalo Alcaraz
August 5, 2025
CALÓ News

 

Re: Read the Brazilian President’s Comments on His Feud With Trump
 

Thank you for this interview.  Right On, President Lula.  I wish our American institutions, such as our universities, that have folded under Trump's threats, were as strong as you are. Your stand is absolutely correct and appropriate for one sovereign nation to another in international communications.

Velva Spriggs

 

Re: Britain’s New Left-Wing Party May Be Devastating for Labour
 

wonderful to have a real Left party in UK! congrats Jeremy and others! God speed in your work!

Ted Pierce
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: What It Will Take To Get U.S. Citizens To Work the Farm — According to Dolores Huerta

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

Absolutely wonderful.  Huerta is a miracle.

Nora Lapin

 

Funhouse Mirror  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson
 

 

In a turn of events that would make Orwell blush and your high school math teacher weep, President Trump has fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Erika McEntarfer, because the latest jobs report didn’t flatter him enough. According to Trump, the report—which showed weaker-than-expected job growth—was not simply bad news, but part of a deep-state conspiracy “CONCOCTED” to tarnish what he called “a great Republican success.”

Nick Anderson
August 5, 2025
Pen Strokes

 

Re: In a Time of Peace

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

Thank you for introducing me to this poet who, I'm embarrassed to admit, I did not know.

nhj

Then and Now  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Jesse Duquette


 

There’s nothing quite making a central element of your political existence the pursuit of pedophiles, and one pedophile in particular, only to end up doing your level-best to treat those closest to them with kid gloves and obfuscation. We all know the most likely outcome of this whole Ghislaine mess is that she will lie and exonerate Trump in exchange for a pardon, because…well, why wouldn’t she? Anyone expecting Maxwell to be this year’s Mueller is in for rough surprise.

Jesse Duquette
Week of July 28 - August 4, 2025
Weekly Cartoon Round-up #20

 

Gerrymandered Balls  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Clay Jones

Republicans are cheating again

 

 

What do Republicans cheat at more, golf or elections? It’s a tough call. But cheating at one of those things means that they’ll cheat at the other.

Republicans in Texas are trying to reshape their congressional districts, even though it’s not the time redistricting is normally done. Usually, that’s shortly after the results of the census are published (which is once a decade), and states redistrict according to the new population size, and to fit with possible changes, such as new districts or losing them.

During the last census, Texas picked up two congressional seats because its population grew during the 2010s. Since the Texas legislature is controlled by Republicans, they were able to draw up the district maps. Naturally, they redraw them to favor Republicans. It’s not like they would do it honestly. They’re Republicans.

This is called gerrymandering, and Texas is one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation. Wisconsin is number one.

Texas now has 38 congressional districts, with 25 of them going to Republicans, 12 going to Democrats, and one is currently vacant. But even after winning a huge majority after gerrymandering, 25 congressional seats are not enough for Texas Republicans, so they want to redraw the lines again in their favor.

Texas will be blue someday, or at least a swing state. The best way to keep people from sending Democrats to Congress is to take away Democratic candidates. After gerrymandering, voters are not choosing the candidate. The candidates are choosing the voters. It’s horrible, rotten, unfair, and neither party should do it. But Republicans don’t care if they cheat.

After Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020 in what experts say was the most secure election in American history, Republicans cried foul and set out to change election laws in every state. In Georgia, for example, where Biden won in 2020, and Blue areas are growing, Republicans changed voting laws, and Trump won over Kamala Harris in 2024 by just 2.20 percent. In Texas, they focused on changing the laws, not for every district, just the districts that had a majority of Black voters. They tried to make it as hard as hell to vote in Houston.

Republicans said all these changes were for election “integrity.” But how much integrity do you have when you make it illegal to give an old lady a bottle of water while she’s waiting in line for nine hours in the Georgia heat? It’s a fact that when fewer people vote, Republicans win.

The 2024 election, which Trump “won,” had fewer voters than in 2020, when Biden won.

Republicans are afraid they’ll lose the House next year because they only have a two-seat majority at this time, and Donald Trump is the worst president in history, which will be a drag on the party. Currently, Trump’s approval is below 40 percent. I know. That high? In 2018, just two years into Trump’s first term, the Blue Wave hit and Republicans lost 40 House seats. Republicans know that it can happen again.

Now, Republicans are trying to fix the game. They don’t care how they win, just so long as they win. They don’t care if their elections are as fixed as a golf tournament in MAGA-Lardo.

Texas Democratic legislators don’t have the votes to defeat the GOP’s evil plan, so they’ve fled the state so the legislature won’t have a quorum. Without a quorum, the legislature can’t vote for it. I’m shocked they haven’t changed that law yet.

This is a delay tactic by the Democrats, but they may be able to push it off until the next session, as the current session is a special one called by Governor Greg Abbott. This session was called to address the recent floods that killed at least 135 people, but Abbott and Republicans are using it to cheat at elections. That’s despicable, using Texans’ deaths to play sleazy politics. Republicans are the worst.

So where did the Democrats go? Most went to blue states where they have support, like New York and Illinois. MAGA cartoonist Dana Summers finds it ironic that the Democrats would flee to Illinois, because he thinks that’s the most gerrymandered state in the nation. Dana is a moron. He doesn’t even fact-check unless he fact-checked his ass, because that’s where he pulled the “data” from. When it comes to the most gerrymandered states, Illinois isn’t even on the list. Go Cubs!

Another lie, like the one being used by the racist cartooning dunderheads, Margolis & Cox, is that Democrats gerrymander more. But when you look at the states that gerrymander the most, they’re all Republican states except for Maryland. The map shows the tops for gerrymandering are Wisconsin, Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and, of course, Texas. The only blue state on the list is Maryland.

I hate liars. I don’t bash the MAGA cartoonists for being bad cartoonists, and they are. I hit them for being liars, and in MargoCox’s case, also for being racists.

Abbott wants the Democrats arrested and brought back to Texas, as though they all fled the state to get abortions. But Abbott can’t order the New York or Illinois state police to arrest anyone. Donald Trump, who is a huge supporter of Texas’s cheating, is talking about using the FBI to go after the fled Democrats.

Senator John Cornyn, the governor, and corrupt Texas attorney general Ken Paxton are accusing Democrats of breaking the law. Calling in the FBI, headed by Kash Patel, will be using the department politically. Paxton is talking about throwing all the Democrats out of office.

While some blue states like California are pondering the idea of doing their own redistricting to cancel out Texas’ steal attempt, other Republican states like Missouri are talking about doing the same thing.

With these cheats, Congress will be less credible than the Supreme Court.

Clay Jones
August 5, 2025
Claytoonz

 

War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things

 


 

Source URL: https://portside.org/2025-08-07/tidbits-aug-7-readers-comments-not-just-texas-voting-rights-democracy-under-assault-ice