My latest at the Washington Post (click image for link)
Category: free speech
Garry Trudeau’s dangerous logic about Charlie Hebdo
(click on image for full column)
Looking back at the GW Bush presidency
I just returned from participating on a cartoonists panel looking back at the George W Bush presidency at Hofstra University in Long Island, NY. Our moderator was Roslyn Mazer, a great supporter of cartoonists’ free speech rights who represented the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in an amicus brief for the famous Hustler v Falwell case in 1987. The other cartoonists on the panel were Mike Peters from the Dayton Daily News, Steve Breen from the San Diego Times Union-Tribune, and Mike Luckovich from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It’s always fun to get together with my colleagues and this particular group had me laughing most of the time. Especially Mike Peters. The evening before our panel Roslyn herded us to a local Italian restaurant (think The Sopranos) and watching Mike interact with our waiter was priceless.
The next day while we waited in the hospitality room before our panel I mentioned to Mike that the former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden was sitting over at the next table. Without missing a beat Mike rushed over to his table, introduced himself, and proceeded to ask the creator of the NSA warrantless surveillance program to “just forget” hearing that obscene phone call he had with his wife.
A sketch from another panel at the Hofstra presidential conference, “The Constitution, Executive Power and National Security Post-9/11. If you put everything Michael Hayden said during the discussion into one sentence it would be: The Obama administration is doing the same bad stuff we did. 
The King of Saudi Arabia dies
King Abdullah has died at age 90.
A cartoon from the archives
Statements in support of Charlie Hebdo
The two major U.S. cartooning groups and a cartoonists rights organization issued statements immediately after the massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (click on each for full statement).
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC):
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS):
Cartoonists Rights Network International:
The Charlie Hebdo massacre
Four cartoonists Five cartoonists were among the 12 murdered at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7th. My colleagues have banded together and continue to offer their support in the way they know best- through cartoons.
I’ll add more links later but meanwhile here’s the cartoon I drew in support of Charlie Hebdo right after hearing the horrible news:
My opinion piece “The killing of cartoonists” at the Washington Post
Cartoonists and Turkish President Erdogan
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. The New York Times has a story about how the Turkish president is trying to limit how he is depicted in drawings by arresting cartoonists and charging them with libel and insulting government officials (which is apparently against the law in Turkey). The Cartoonists Rights Network International also writes about it here.
My Washington Post cartoon about President Erdogan arresting a 16-year-old because the teenager criticized him received quite a bit of traffic on twitter among Turkish readers. It also ended up on the front page of Cumhuriyet, the oldest Turkish daily newspaper.
Happy New Year- 2015
My Washington Post editor, Karen Attiah, put together a great year-end review of several animations, sketches and gifs. Check it out here.
Former VP Dick Cheney was interviewed on Fox News last night and said President Bush was “fully informed” about the CIA interrogation methods, contradicting the Senate report’s finding that Bush was first briefed in 2006.
click image for animated gif
Rectal feedings, waterboarding, and more
The Washington Post has some excellent coverage and graphics about the Senate torture report:
Hayden’s testimony vs. the Senate report
The 10 most harrowing excerpts from the CIA interrogation report
Pay special attention to #2. According to the report, President Bush wasn’t briefed about the enhanced interrogation program until 2006. Doesn’t mention Cheney, though.
Understanding Separation of Church & State
It never ceases to amaze me how short-sighted Americans are when talking about religious freedom. A county in Florida is revisiting a policy of allowing bibles to be distributed at schools after a group exerted its religious rights by wanting to distribute coloring books featuring cartoon characters performing satanic rituals and drawing pentagrams.
Separation of Church and State protects your religious freedoms, people.
From the archives
Veterans Day, 2014
