Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 17, 2013

Another champagne moment, courtesy of the Republican Foot in Mouth Committee !Ironically, Speaker Suntan speaks the truth. That is the plan for 2016.

Yeah, that redistricting stuff is about as fair and impartial as Faux News

I hope this strip gets re-run in the Fall of 2016 to remind voters that the Republican platform is not about representing the people or good governance.

The RNC hired Michael Steele so they can win the House in 2010, so the GOP could Gerrymander. Once successful, they fired him.

delusional! each district had the same number of people in it! you dont design districts based on voter turn out! close races had a higher turnout and a lot of gop races just were not close!

Take a look at the California district stats before, and after, the decennial redistricting (following each census) of 2010, using the new ’Citizen’s Redistricting Commission’ rather than the same old Legislature pols (and the court fights that follow). The salamander (Gerrymander) in many of them is now shorter and fatter, at least. Yeah, not everybody was happy, but there’s lots less ‘safe turf’ in the Leg. now.

Often wondered why redistricting isn’t being done by Computer. Define the criteria, feed in the Census information, . . .Whallah! Objective, non-biased, and none of this “snake-with-a broken-back” stuff!

(of course THEN the fight would be over the ‘criteria’ but it might be a bit more obvious that they’re ‘stacking the deck’ and thus earn voter’s wrath.)

What a bunch of idiots

I think this strip has a pretty wide following and has more influence than one might imagine. In Massachusetts,some gave Trudeau a lot of the credit for the Warren win.

Soon, someone from the wait staff will take his iPhone recording file and contact someone from Mother Jones, or other magazine,who will contact someone else…

of course there is gerrymandering but that is not why democrats got a million more votes than republicans. each district has the same number of people in it. each distict chose one person to represent them. it is meaningles to suggest that because democrats had a higher turnout in their districts that that means anything. in 2010 the republicans got more total votes and they will again in 2014. all it means is in 2012, democrats were more energized.

Republicans will whatever it takes to win. Winning is the only thing tht matters. like the recent comment to gerrymander the electoral vote.

it’s not how you play the game, so much as long as you win.Republicans do “whatever it takes” their eyes are on the PRIZE! and so, the money is with the Republicans, just like the Mafia.

DT stated the other day that he is taking a break, not sure how long.

Guess which political party gerrymandered Illinois so Latinos only got one congressional district instead of the two their population would merit.

Florida, the laughingstock, actually did a really good job of redistricting, and was considered by both sides as being fair.However we still have old people living in trailer parks voting for tax cuts for billionaires.

‘(a former house whip went to jail for his involvement in gerrymandering).’Actually, Tom DeLay was convicted of money laundering, not gerrymandering, and has sadly not yet set foot in jail..What he did was to force through redistricting in the middle of a census cycle, which had never been done before. When the Democratic legislators fled to OK to prevent a quorum, he fraudulently tried to use Homeland Security to track their plane and force them to return.

By the way, how come nobody’s talking about ALGERIA-GATE and why Obama hasn’t released the hostages and called it an act of terror yet and covered it up????

I think our cartoonist is fantasizing of getting another one of those 47% gaffes.

“We’re not going let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,” Neil Newhouse

Remember this is the same COMIC STRIP that has talking marijuana plants and a succesful liberal talk show host. It’s fantasy, my friends. Fantasy.

The reason that the House of “Representatives” isn’t very representative goes deeper than intentional gerrymandering, and even deeper than demographics. The basic system of single-member, winner-take-all districts by its nature assures that up to half the members of each district will not be represented (hypothetical example: a state with five districts, each of which favors the same party by a two percent margin, will send five representatives from the same party… leaving 48 percent of its citizens effectively without representation).

Once Upon A Time, the state of Ill-Annoy (which rarely does things right) did something right: our state house had three-member districts, and each voter had three votes for state representative, which they could cast one each for three candidates, or as a three-vote “bullet” for a single candidate. Most districts ended up with two representatives from the majority party and one from the minority. It worked pretty well at assuring a representative legislature, so naturally it was scrapped in favor of single-member, winner-take-all districts in the new state constitution of 1968.

The South Africans had a word for it – apartheid. Allowed the minority to rule the majority. Here it is known as the Hastert Rule – allows a minority of the majority to block anything remotely related to progress.

Boehner strikes me as a hobbit. (Bilbo Boehner!) Chosen for a job that is beyond what he anticipated, with great pressures all around him. He will come out of this either a diamond or an oil slick.

Just to add to the list of absurdities, in Georgia, with one Blue Dog exception, you are either republican or African-American, to judge by our “representation”.

After Romney’s “47%” gaffe, any conservative with half a brain will make sure “the help” are banned from the room before they start speaking candidly.I also expect they will make the caterers all sign non-disclosure forms & threaten to sue the pants off anyone who leaks to the press. There’s your party of “openness”!

Part of the reason that there will never be meaningful compromise in the House of Representatives is gerrymandered “safe” districts where " like minded ’ citizens will continue to reelect the individual that espouses their political beliefs. Moderates don’t fear their opponents on the other side of the aisle, they fear a primary challenge from their own party.

Funny given that all I had to do to vote was register and request my absentee ballot, whereas to get my weapon I had to submit two fingerprint cards to the FBI, have a statement of good character from local law enforcement, and undergo a 6 month background check (longer than for my SECRET clearance).

Of course I bought a REAL assault weapon (selectable fire, suppressed, advanced optics) and not a regular semi-auto dressed up in black clothes.

The commenters or the politicians?

Both sides Gerrymander, it is a tried and true method, like giving Unions and Welfare Queens checks and tax breaks prior to a Presidential Election to get your base out to vote for you! Detroit’s city council is wanting their pay for Presidential Support right now!

Faux news is the only one you can trust. Shades of the Dosadi experiment, where to be found innocent was to be torn apart by the general public, but the guilty were always pardoned.

I didn’t know GT was ill.

I think Howard Stern is fairly successful and I don’t really see him as a right winger. At the same time he didn’t endorse Obama, like some others, he just saw Romney as a far worse choice. There are liberal talkers who have done well. I am not sure I would want to base who I would listen to solely on how much $ they earn anyway… Personally, I never tune into Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh although they both have loads of $.

Comic strip writers are allowed to be either fantastic or realistic and can still make serious points either way.

I thought the guy in today’s strip was Boner too, though you would think he would be much more orange looking than as shown here.

“….. Speaker Suntan speaks the truth. That is the plan for 2016.”#Why wait so long? Midterm elections are coming in 2014! Time to ramp up NOW! If only Roberts can strike down that pesky voting rights act, the GOP will be home free!!

Regarding gerrymandering: I can only speak for my home state of Maryland, where redistricting narrowed the 6th district, represented by one of the state’s two Republican representatives (Roscoe Bartlett), until it touched the edge of DC. Come November, Maryland had one Republican representative. (Incidentally, the state voters also had the opportunity to approve or disapprove the redistricting… it was loudly approved.)

No one can deny that the most effective strategy the GOP can use is to prevent minorities from voting. And they are trying to master that strategy.

I’d be happy to provide Trudeau with a list of Democrats who wouldn’t be in Congress except for gerrymandering.

Interesting that this info is not from a hidden microphone but from an GOP internal document.

Been too busy this week to catch the comics daily, so I figured I’d take some time to read up on them, however, from the first panel alone I can see this is another no-brainer to try reading, so, moving on to better things.

Part of the problem is that the GOP does not realize that they received over a million less votes than the Dems….

That’s right, the Democrats gerrymandered in2001.That’s why Bush had to deal with a liberal Congress throughout his first term…. not.

I heard an interesting discussion about Trolls, last night. Trolls say outrageous things that are inflammatory so that they can gain attention – especially, if it’s negative reaction to what they say. They may not even believe what rubbish they are spewing but repeat and repeat and repeat in order to garner that negative feedback. That way, they can say : " See, I must be right, look at how many of those right/left wing ( your choice ) a$$holes are against me ! "ITT is the mantra, around here. ITT = IGNORE THE TROLLS !