Friday, April 29, 2011

The Stonewall Inn



My illustration of The Stonewall Inn in New York City made the cover of Central Massachusetts Pride Magazine. What a nice surprise. Big thank you to editor, Mike Monopoli and art director, Chris Miller. The full article by Alexander Englander can be read on the Central Massachusetts Pride website here.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Birthers Gone Wild


Yesterday The White House released President Obama's long form birth certificate in response to the many claims from "birthers" that he was not born in the United States. Donald Trump proudly took credit for the birth certificate release. Shortly after the release Amanda Terkel, Senior Political Reporter for The Huffington Post tweeted this: "Holding judgement on Obama's birth certificate until Trump takes a look at verifies it for me." I thought that was funny and it inspired me to make this illustration. On a more serious note, probably the most powerful words about this whole birther issue yesterday came from Goldie Taylor, MSNBC contributor and contributing editor of thegrio.com. Her op ed about the racist roots of birtherism can be viewed here via The Rachel Maddow Show. Author of The Rude Pundit, Lee Papa also added his two cents when discussing on The Ed Show what the GOP may focus on in the upcoming weeks to put a negative spin on the Obama presidency he replied "Isn't it a shame that that's what republicanism has become now. Now, in order to appease the base of the Republican Party you've got to be anti-gay, rabidly anti-choice and, in some way, a birther.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

No More King Snyder


This is for a card I made to pass out at some of the rallies that are protesting against Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder. There is currently a major effort underway to recall the Republican governor. Snyder has recently passed legislation that will devastate local governments and school districts throughout the State. In essence, it allows the governor to dissolve cities, villages, townships and school districts without any kind of vote by residents. The legislation also allows local elected officials to be replaced by "for profit" corporations to provide service. In addition, the governor plans to raise taxes in Michigan $1.7 billion on seniors, poor people and anyone making a donation to public universities. He then is giving that money away in the form of $1.8 billion in corporate tax cuts. The net short term effect on the state’s budget will be zero or worse. In a related story, the ultra conservative think tank group, The Mackinac Center recently filed an FOIA request to the Labor Faculty professors at University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, demanding to see any private emails containing the words “Scott Walker”, “Wisconsin”, “Madison” or “Maddow.” The Mackinac center inspired the basis of this far reaching policy in Michigan. The Rachel Maddow Show was the first national news outlet to report in detail on that policy. The Mackinac Center is well funded; however, they don’t disclose the names of their donors. Visit firericksnyder.org for recall info.