Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for October 09, 2011

This way Ray doesn’t have to make an appointment to see Elias.

Vet centers like this will lose funding if the budget commission is still deadlocked six weeks from now. That’s because Cantor and the House Republicans refuse to raise taxes to pay for government commitments, They want to pay for some essential services by cutting other essential services

Ray is so far down, he thinks he is up.

Good point, Drome.

been there and done TOO much of that – chatting with a ‘Ray’ would’ve been a God Send.

Baby steps. Got to start somewhere and forward is the way to go!

my best friend never truly came “home” from Viet Nam, but I’m grateful for what little of him is still “here”. He has no use for this so-called Reality. I found out love doesn’t trump war. or at least it hasn’t yet. the god of war is a strict exacting and terrible mofo.

Great!!! LOL Comic

Sometimes it’s hard to talk to anyone

Everyone this week is calling 10 years in Afghanistan our “longest war”, ignoring that we’ve been in Iraq since ‘91, gee that’s 20 years, how ‘bout that. Our veterans, and military have been paying for those engagements, and Teapublicans and folks like Cantor, Ryan, and Boehner say: "no more! We will tax to pay for their pain no more! We will let America see what we’re really doing to them no more! We will “duck and cover” in our mansions, and worry about people out on the street, no more!"

Not all the victims of the chickenhawks are military veterans. But the chickenhawks will occasionally wave the flag, brew tea, and pretend to be “victims” of “the people”.

Drome: Vet services are “essential service” and should not be a political pawn. However, not all “essential” services are really essential. The military and the protection of our country are actually Constitutiona,l as opposed to myriads of programs with purely political foundations and, too often, unavailable to guys like Ray. Many of them should be eliminated and the funds directed to the military and veterans in need.

OKAY !!!! Enough politics!!!

Am I the only one who thinks that today’s strip is not drawn by GT? It is probably written by him … but the art looks different to me.

You misstate Obama’s purpose, Tigger. If he had vetoed the bill passed by the lame-duck Democrats last November, taxes on everyone would have gone up automatically in 2011. To prevent that, Obama had to buy time and extend the Bush tax cuts through 2012.Now the pressure is on Congress to cope with the deficit that Bush caused by cutting taxes while increasing spending. Cantor and the Teapublicans insist that the deficit must be closed by cutting spending instead of raising taxes.As a matter of fact, we could shrink the deficit by cutting the least necessary of Bush’s reckless expenditures: tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations.Cantor et alii sneer that this is just another way to “raise taxes on the job creators.” Not at all. We’d be taking back some of the handouts that the favored individuals and corporations have used, not to expand and hire, but to buy Treasury notes.

Since the “job creators” have all their ducks lined up, i.e. insignificant taxes, gutless financial regulation, cheap illegal labor, genuflective political/judicial cover and still haven’t been able to create any jobs, wouldn’t it be nice if someone paraphrased the first Republican president and said, “Sir, if you’re not going to use your capital to create jobs then let me use it for unemployment benefits.”

And wouldn’t be nice if there was a candidate in the Republican debates who was willing to take on the “Robber Barons”, while remaining environmentally progressive. We’re talking about a political party that peaked early on ideas, after Lincoln and TR the Republicans have had nothing. You’ve got to wonder how far Lincoln and TR would go in their currently devolved party. Today Lincoln wold be viewed as promoting “class warfare” of the worst sort, and beyond the war mongering, TR would be viewed as all bully.

Despite the overwhelming evidence it’s hard to believe people are still arguing over reverse evolution and ignorant design.

@Frisco Lou – Lincoln and TR would be seen as socialists by today’s Republicans. For all practical purposes, Nixon and even Reagan (who thought shutting down the government over raising the debt limit in the 80s was insane) would be as well.:But it’s not just the Rs, the Ds as well have been taken over by what Lincoln called “the money power”.

APoI, troodough only does the phag columns, it brings out his feminine side……

The hair of the characters had bluish tinge lately. I don’t know if that is the decision of GT or hired illustrator.

Tigger, when the Democrats, led by Obama, tried to repeal the Bush tax cuts on $250,000+ incomes the GOP threatened to cut of unemployment benefits for those who have lost their jobs sice the economic crash.

In plain English, they held the poor hostage, on behalf of the rich.

Night Guard, between Iraq I and Iraq II we had a constant “no-fly zone” in place, enforced by U.S. warplanes.

Our presence WAS continuous and effectly makes Iraq one 2o year war.

This pales, however, to Korea. The Korean war continues as an armed truce and we still have soldiers patrolling (and sometimes dying) in the Korean DMZ.

The comments above (and some of those made re Monday’s strip) prompt me to weigh in. As the Duty Officer of the Doonesbury web site and a close associate of GBT’s for over 30 years, I can assure you that he continues to draw every strip himself, as he has since day one. Don Carlton has been his inker almost from the beginning, and for the past decade or so, the Sundays have been colored by George Corsillo. For an in-depth look at the creative process behind the strip, I would refer you to Brian Walker’s book “Doonesbury and the Art of G.B. Trudeau,” published in 2010 by Yale University Press.