Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for August 24, 2014

Stephan Pastis is the master of sarcastic humor.

Stephan Pastis is a former lawyer. Sarcastic humor comes with the job.

love your strip but stay out of politics

LOVE the accurate political quips… Just wish more people could understand how this works.

Love it!

One of the better political commentaries I have seen in recent memory.

You can take the Cartoon-Boy out of the bar, but you can’t take the bar out of Cartoon-Boy. I want some gumdrops! Or a unicorn! If I don’t get them, I may sue you for fraud, Cartoon-Boy!

Look closely at panels 3 and 5 – our two faced congressional rat is showing his true nature. If you cover up his left half, you sort of see a profile on the right. Nicely done, Stephan!

If I listen long enough to you I’d find the way to believe that it’s all true Knowing that you lied straight face while I cried

Seems like for once Pastis took the other non-conservative side with his political statements.

Too bad that this wasn’t available to show the goofballs on the SCOTUS before the 5 idiots make their stupid decision on Citizens United.

A word on the comic itself, Money influences me to get up and go to work every business day, it influences lawyers to be lawyers, and then some of those lawyers to run for political office. For a politician to say money doesn’t influence people by someone who was influenced by money to hold political office is the height of hypocrisy.

Best. Pearls Before Swine. Ever

Rat for Congress!

the rats are already there, gerrymandered to stay there, no matter what

Yeah, freedom of speech is SO overrated, government really need to restrict it more. After all, they’re the government and they’re here to help us!

This is totally wrong. Gumdrops come from bushes, not trees.

and there are no cats in America!

The only thing that is going to save the Middle Class is the Middle Class. We are the 99%—- that means we have the votes to elect people who will actually represent middle class workers and provide a safety net for those who are trying to get into the middle class.We all need to know who is supporting the candidates. That is who they will be working for. They have no choice if they want to stay in office. You have to do the bidding of whoever is paying your way, just the same as we all do in our jobs. So, before going to vote, look it up on the internet. Open Secrets is a good site, but there are plenty.If the candidate is getting their money from small donors or from unions, they are going to be working for middle class working people. If their donations are from corporations or from 1%ers, that’s who their votes are going to be working for. They are not going to go against them and do anything to help the middle class.It would be political suicide.

Brilliant. Period.

Bring back the crocs

The strip should be posted on every single politicians’ office wall.

IF a corporation is a person, then it must necessarily have multiple personality disorder!

I wish they’d call a spade a spade and just rename ‘campaign contributions’, bribes.

Rat the Politician. There’s a marriage made in heaven.

I knew Candyland was real!

Today’s comic should be put in every elected officials office. This strip speaks volumes about the influence money has on what drives legislation. Regardless of party affiliation all politicians are beholden to those who donate to their campaigns.

sigh!

McCutheon v. FEC wasnt about per-candidate spending limits, which HAVE been upheld but the limits on spending across candidates nationwide.you’re still restricted on how much you can give but not how many you can give to

It’s not often that I laugh at the first panel of a strip.

Good one Steve, you nailed it!

The main expense of political campaigns is television advertising. Commercially-supported television seems to be declining, so there’s hope. If commercial television declines to a low enough levels, politicians won’t be able to accept large “campaign contributions” with a straight face, but I may not live long enough to see that day. Local news seems to be doing okay, so it may take a while.One time when I was forced to watch local news at work, I saw a pro-candidate X ad, followed by an anti-candidate X ad followed by a pro-candidate X’s opponent ad. I was getting whiplash from all these messages. It’s no surprise that political ads contribute so much to local television and radio stations, but it’s not a sustainable model.

Pastis shoulfd credit TBogg:Your Mumia Sweatshirt Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore

Unfortunately, I don’t think It’s simplified enough for most people to understand.

While I agree with the idea that money is corrupting, it’s worth giving the additional context of the Supreme Court’s ruling. There is a reason for what they said:

“The line between quid pro quo corruption and general influence must be respected in order to safeguard basic First Amendment rights, and the Court must err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it.”

So the point isn’t that the Supreme Court believes money doesn’t influence politicians, it’s that the Supreme Court gives a lot of weight to not suppressing the freedom of speech of the people.

Follow the money.

Spot on & well done, SP!

You can see by the thread that Pastis has stirred up trouble! ;-)

No different than the squeaky wheel getting the grease. It’s all a form of speech. The rich guy, or group of people incorporate, have as much right to attempt to influence their elected representatives as anyone else.

Leftists believe the first amendment allows congress to constrict freedom of speech – reading difficulty I suppose. There is an intelligent alternative – vote against people who support stupid intrusions on your freedom.

this strip is like going to a impressionistic modern day art gallery. everybody sees what they want to see and interprets it the way they wish. so this makes an excellent strip for people to ‘discuss’. however my winged unicorn is calling and i’ve had too many gumdrops so i am off to purchase a law that i can call my own and make everybody else bow down and obey that law – because it is all about the power – not the law – UP UP and AWAY! just keep electing them and others will keep buying them and we will all be flying unicorns and eating gumdrops in a far off land of Utopia!!!

Money and politics go hand in hand. The campaign laws limiting money also limit speech. The Supremes have decided that unions and corporations have equal rights to speech, and thus contributions, to any cause their shareholders or union members support. Does this buy influence? You bet. Just look at the rulings from the leftists who control the NLRB and NMB appointed by Obama after they contributed billions to elect him. I’m glad Pastis has shown this to be the truth in this strip, although it should be noticed that he talks about “billionaires” which would include the unions who have spent billions to elect their candidates.

Union leadership is elected, and union positions are also put to a vote of the membership—as is whether or not to donate to candidates, vs focusing on public education, issues activism, etc. Thus it’s hard to argue that union contributions are exactly equivalent to the donation of a single multimillionaire (even if the size of the donations may be comparable).

Thereby proving once again that inside every leftist is a totalitarian screaming to get out.

Rat as a Congressman proves that, if PRO is the opposite of CON, the opposite of PROgress just has to be…

I suspect the reason there are no bankers in jail is that they give far more money to the Dems than the Pubs. Can’t get any money from your sponsor when he’s in the clink. But money buys votes, even if the money comes from unions whose members may be forced to join to keep a job, or a leftist billionaire who made his money polluting the climate like Steyer. http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-boys-of-summer-july-s-biggest-super-pac-donors-20140822

Obviously, the SCOTUS decision flies in the face of that great principle of American jurisprudence “guilty until proven innocent”.

Due to the obvious baleful influence of cartoonists over politics much greater than the “Joe Nobodys” of this great nation, Cartoon Syndicates are limited to spending $250 per week in total to produce a single comic strip title. After all, “money is not speech”.

too long dint read. um, too many comments to read neither.

Let them eat cake.

Specifically, corporations are representative of people.So are Unions, Advocacy Groups, Special interests of all stripes, and the stray Citizens Grass Roots Collective. But why do people hate collectives so much if they feel that we need one Collective to Rule Them All?If that is the Imp of the Perverse, does that make Joe Carroll from The Following a caricature of Joe Biden?

This is the second political strip this month.

However, once I get this, this will probably be the best strip of the month.

Rat used to be a congressman? I guess he has more political experience than the current real-world president.