baggage – mackaycartoons

Saturday October 15, 2016

October 14, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 15, 2016

Donald Trump’s problem isn’t a conspiracy. It’s him.

This has been a bad week for Donald J. Trump. But what shouldn’t be lost is that it’s been a bad week because of Donald J. Trump.

That’s not how Trump sees it, of course. In his wild, conspiratorial speech yesterday, he blamed a “concerted, coordinated, and vicious attack” by the media and the Clinton campaign. He explained that his campaign represented an “existential threat” to “those who control the levers of power in Washington” and “the global special interests,” and it was their counterattack that was behind his current troubles. If he loses, he said, it will be because the system is “rigged.”

[slideshow_deploy id=’8949’]

The only person who doesn’t know what’s gone wrong for Trump’s campaign, it seems, is Donald Trump.

None of Trump’s errors were forced. None of his problems were out of his control. He wasn’t buffeted by bad economic news, or a staffer who said something dumb on television, or a change in geopolitics that undercut his campaign.

Instead, the last week has been driven by three characteristics that are purely Trump’s: his absence of impulse control, his overwhelming desire to be and to seem dominant, and his tendency to lash out counterproductively and personally when attacked. (Continued: Vox)

Ontario Election Throw-Back: Monday September 10, 2007

May 30, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday September 10, 2007

Ontario’s election campaign now underway

They’ve been running all summer. Now comes the 30-day sprint to the finish.

The campaign for the Oct. 10 Ontario election gets underway Monday when Premier Dalton McGuinty visits the lieutenant-governor to formally drop the writ and dissolve the Ontario legislature.

The vote is expected to be a referendum of sorts on McGuinty and the Liberals, with their healthy majority – won in 2003 atop cresting public dissatisfaction with Conservative spending cuts – hanging in the balance.

Chipping away at an apparent Liberal lead are the reborn Progressive Conservatives, who are embracing the “progressive” part of their moniker in an effort to distance themselves from the slash-and-burn days of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.

The issues and tone expected to shape the campaign were in full evidence Sunday, as Conservative Leader John Tory trashed what he called McGuinty’s record of broken promises and the Liberal leader took aim at a Tory proposal to fund faith-based schools.

The Conservative and Liberal platforms are similar in many ways, with both promising more money for health care and education.

The New Democrats have yet to unveil their platform, but Leader Howard Hampton has made several campaign pledges of his own in recent weeks.

More: Two decades of Ontario Elections

Tuesday October 2, 2012

October 2, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 2, 2012

The U.S. dumps a problem on Ottawa, with Omar Khadr’s return

For the Conservatives, Omar Khadr was an opportunity. Now he’s just a problem.

Mr. Khadr has finally returned to Canada, to serve out the remainder of his sentence for crimes committed against the United States in Afghanistan. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government had done everything in its legal power, short of a diplomatic breach with the U.S. government, to keep him interned at Guantanamo Bay, America’s problem.

But those efforts ran out, and now Mr. Khadr is coming home, where he will earn more than his share of unwelcome attention.

When Mr. Khadr was first apprehended on an Afghanistan battlefield by American forces and sent to Guantanamo, the Liberal government of the day treated him like the embarrassment he was. Foreign and Justice ministers spoke about him only when pressed, and then only in the most guarded of sentences. Ottawa was happy to let the Americans prosecute his crimes.

The Conservatives were less circumspect. Mr. Khadr was a wedge, one they were happy to exploit.

Human rights advocates saw Mr. Khadr not as a criminal or terrorist, but as a victim. At worst, he was a young offender, duped by his family into joining a war he was too immature to comprehend.

He was, in their eyes, a child soldier, no more complicit than the children impressed into the armies of African warlords. And his detention at Guantanamo was part and parcel of the Bush government’s abusive war against terrorists.

Conservatives have no truck with such talk; nor, they believe, do most Canadians, especially those Canadians inclined to vote Conservative. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Wednesday June 6, 2012

June 6, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday June 6, 2012

Opposition to stall budget bill

The federal NDP is warning it’s prepared to force potentially hundreds of confidence votes – taking dozens of hours – on amendments to the Conservatives’ sweeping budget bill that will keep the Tories on their toes in the House of Commons.

The NDP, Liberals and Green party leader Elizabeth May are informally teaming up to delay passage of bill C-38 and highlight to Canadians what they say is undemocratic tactics by the government to stuff so many “reckless changes” into one piece of legislation that will overhaul environmental protection and the country’s social programs.

While the government views the opposition’s tactics as procedural stunts, the proposed reforms in the 425-page budget implementation bill would have profound impacts on Canadians of all ages for decades to come. Bill C-38 proposes major reforms to Canadian environmental and fisheries laws, natural resource project approvals, employment insurance benefits, Old Age Security eligibility and food safety, among the hundreds of measures included in the legislation.

To combat the looming changes, opposition parties have been introducing dozens of substantial amendments at the Tory-dominated House of Commons finance committee, which is reviewing the bill, and a subcommittee that already examined the proposed reforms to environmental protection and resource development.

The finance committee is expected to send the legislation back to the Commons as early as today, where the Green party leader (who doesn’t have a seat on the committee) plans on introducing somewhere between 100 and 200 major amendments of her own. (Source: Saskatoon Star Phoenix)

January 6, 2008

January 6, 2008 by Graeme MacKay

It’s my first drawing of Barack Obama. Up to the point previous to the results of last week’s Iowa primary, I observed the 2008 U.S. Presidential election campaign with only luke warm interest. Despite the fact that the White House administration will be an entirely new one in just over 12 months, I simply couldn’t invest much time paying attention to the rather lengthy slate of candidates for each of the 2 political parties without yawning.

All of a sudden, out of the blue, just as the holiday decorations are packed away, we’re into Primary season, with the promise of a bunch of pretty exciting duels over the course of the next 8 weeks. A lot of attention has been paid to the come-from-no-where win by Mike Huckabee in the Iowa Republican race. But I doubt his momentum will last and I expect a hodgepodge of wins among John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani between now and several Primaries from now that’ll only turn glazing eyes towards a far more interesting race among the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination. As my cartoon suggests the race so far for Democrats has evolved for the time being as a race between the experience of Hillary Clinton to the promise of change with Barack Obama. It’s a choice between dynastic rule by families in the U.S., or change. Change means just one thing, whereas Hillary’s experience qualifier has a big negative connotation with reminders of Bubba running the country with pizza boxes strewn about the oval office. This goes beyond the tired old question of whether or not America is ready for a woman President, or even an African American one. If Democrats and voters can get over those outdated hang-ups they’ll at least save themselves from electing some boring guy like John Edwards as President.

At this point I see 4 candidates going anywhere once the Primary process is over – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democrats, and Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani for the Republicans. If I was a betting man, I’d wager a final race between Obama and Romney. (Why? Hillary is yesterday’s man, Edwards is dull, McCain is too old, Guiliani is too liberal, Huckabee is too religious — Romney is the bridge between evangelical Christians and moderates, and Obama is simply not Jesse Jackson.)

FEEDBACK

Hopefully this outstanding cartoon will appear in the Star and other Canadian papers as well. It should be in the leading US papers; certainly in New Hampshire ones.
It will be intriguing to see if a happier Hilbill duo emerges next week. While change is desperately needed ,one can only hope it is possible in that corporate/special interest controlled culture that the US seems to be.
Early days.Almost a year to go !!

– Richard Ring
January 7, 2008