The Other Salt Lake Comic Con

If any non-fictional character has the power to push the Earth off its axis, it had to be some of the talented artists at the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists' convention in Salt Lake City this week.
I had a chance to visit with Daryl Cagle, Bill Day, Howard Tayler, Steve Benson, and of course Pat Bagley. I was lucky enough to get a photo with a couple of the celebs; Daryl Cagle on the left and Pat Bagley in the photo on the right (on my left).

Daryl Cagle is the mastermind behind caglecartoons.com a clearinghouse for editorial cartoons worldwide. Pat Bagley doodled his first political cartoon while in a finance class at Brigham Young University. The school paper published it and shortly afterwards it ran in Time Magazine. I guess that's a pretty good way to start off. He works primarily for the Salt Lake Tribune currently.

Independents and the Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court didn't exactly gut the Voting Rights Act today, rather, they ruled that the antiquated tabulation metrics are unconstitutional. So Congress must act or the Voting Rights Act sits like a beached whale. But will they? Approval for congress is at historic lows, something has got to give. Among other things the VRA needs to address apparent discrimination based on partisan loyalty that has supplanted racial discrimination in elections.

In the video on the right, this Wall Street Journal reporter can't hide her giddiness. The Fox News guest makes some good points and some that don't get to the real issues of how election prejudice has evolved away from racial prejudice to ideological prejudice. The video on the left is titled "Court guts voting rights act" and also brings up some good points but still does not get to the meat of the matter.

Bipartisanship Fails Again

Bipartisanship is not a de facto virtue. Ever. Partisanship leads to a reality where public policies and institutions are manipulated to benefit the priveleged or powerful few at the expense of We The People.

Headline photo courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune

Republicans doubling down?

Well, it appears so. "There are not enough 50-year-old white guys who are mad (at the world) to win elections.” Yet that’s the audience House Republicans are playing to in the way they craft legislation
Read more at The Moderate Voice

And locally the Democrats appear to be doubling down on a similar bet. The Tribune is reporting that at the Democratic Party State convention, delegates rejected a measure to support a switch to an open primary [full story]