Satirist Will Durst weighs in on the ramifications of Congress not compromising on a debt ceiling increase:

Give Congress the benefit of the doubt and say they do work out a compromise on the debt ceiling extension. This country could still slip into default, leading to the worst possible scenario imaginable — we have to move back in with England. Who’s going to be happy then? Nobody. You think it’s embarrassing slinking home after graduating college, try waiting 235 years.

Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com, politicalcartoons.com

Already dreading the dressing down we’ll be forced to patiently endure should we make it through the front door. “Well, well, well, look who’s back. Seems someone couldn’t hack it out on our own, could they, Mister I’m Ready for Independence? How’s it feel to be labeled a fading superpower? Not much bloody fun being mocked by the neighbors, is it boyo?

“Notice you didn’t rush right over to your good friend China’s house. What’s the matter, did you have a fight with your new BFF? Or are they wanting their loans back? What about Egypt? Don’t they owe you a bit of something? Or did you squander it away like your post 9/11 goodwill? Typical.

“So. Here you are. I suppose you’ll be wanting your old room back. Well, you can forget it. Pakistan has been renting that room for almost three decades. Very tidy people. And quiet. Too quiet, if you ask me. But they cook. Nice break for your mother. Stinks up the kitchen a bit with all those spices, but quite tasty, really.

“What in Hades is wrong with you? Why couldn’t you manage your money better, like your younger brother Canada? Yes, they’re a bit boring, but solid as Gibraltar. You never see Canada in the foyer with their bags around their feet like a homeless person. Nose to the grindstone, that’s Canada in a nutshell. Still respect their Royals. Nothing like you or that drunken lout Australia, but don’t get me started.

“Okay. Now, this is totally against my better judgment but your mother says you can crash on the basement couch. Just for a couple of weeks, mind you. But this isn’t the Ritz. While you live in this house, you will live by our rules, mister. That means the TV shuts off at 10 p.m. Sharp. And yes, there are only four channels. Stop whining.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner, PoliticalCartoons.com

“No more making fun of the Queen. You hear me? And not a single, smirking word about Rupert Murdoch. Can’t say your hands are altogether clean on that one, now can we? Look at me when I’m talking to you. And get this through your thick skull, health care is free. For everybody. The stitches may be a mite larger than you’re accustomed from your fancy Beverly Hills surgeons, but I dare say you’ll get used to it.

“One last thing, no more wars. If I hear of one more scrape you’ve gotten yourself into, you’ll be back on the street so fast it’ll make David Cameron’s head spin. Faster. Nobody wants you mucking about with your sticky little fingers in their business anymore. Do we understand each other? Good.

“Now get yourself downstairs. Unpack and wash up. Put on a tie. Supper’s at 5:00. By the looks of you, I’d wager you haven’t missed many meals. And straighten up while you’re down there. Make sure there’s a clean spot under the stairwell; we’re setting up a cot. Ireland just called. They’re on their way over.”

Will Durst is a political comedian and columnist for Cagle Cartoons Inc. Read more of Durst's columns here.

Satirist Will Durst weighs in on the debt ceiling negations and the end of the world!

Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com, PoliticalCartoons.com

Run for the hills, everybody! Armageddon is imminent! The sky is beyond falling; it's anvil-plummeting! Onto our heads so fast the clouds are whistling the love theme from the movie "2012." The U.S. economy is about to melt down like a Popsicle left on a Palm Springs picnic table, and it's only a matter of time before this country liquefies into Greece's financial twin without the pleasant distraction of all that melodious zither music.

Seniors and sick people and soldiers are destined to be tossed into the streets to battle mutant rats for food. The three branches of the government will inevitably be deemed too expensive and we'll be forced to let one go. All hell is about to break loose. Don't you get it? We're doomed! Doomed!! Then again, maybe not.

What is clear is, well, nothing. We kind of, almost, pretty much, but might not really know for sure: Unless Congress agrees to raise the debt ceiling by August 2, America's authority to borrow money will expire and the government may or may not shut down. What that means, nobody knows. Could be not so good or it could be really, really bad or it could be stick your head between your knees and kiss your butt goodbye bad.

And yes, I can hear you whispering, "Hey, schmucko, shutting down the government doesn't sound half-bad to me. About time we kicked those freakin' freeloaders off of the dole." Point well taken. But understand -- the responsibility for those big, red "Freeloader" stickers you're so anxious to plaster on parasitic foreheads will not be given to you. It will be handed from one government bureaucrat to another government bureaucrat, which means your forehead could easily end up sporting a big, red sticker. Got to remember -- one man's pork is another man's hickory-smoked bacon bits.

Both parties are now striding histrionically across the stage pronouncing in loud mellifluous tones how determined and proud they are to stick to their core principles while demanding that the other side be the first to compromise. The theory being the other side is more likely to abandon their core principles because, let's be honest, they aren't really core principles at all, so much as they are re-election talking points. And you know what, they're right. Who? Yes.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner, PoliticalCartoons.com

The Republicans are demanding cuts in entitlement programs, which the president said he'd consider. The Democrats have, in a their own inimitable roundabout way, brought up the possibility of maybe raising taxes on a few rich people, which Eric Cantor, the Under Speaker of the House, says he won't consider.

And that, my friends, is pretty much where we stand right now. Although the word "stand" might be affording the participants a wee bit too much credit. Squirm. Slink. Skulk. Dodge. Creep. Crouch. Lurk. Loiter. Weasel. Cower. Any of these might be more apropos.

Unfortunately, this is, was, and forever shall be, the way of things in Congress. Much hollow bluster and empty fury in a noisy gamble to appease the base until it becomes crystal clear whom the general populace (Independents) blames for the gridlock, then everyone quickly signs something nobody likes and both parties walk off declaring victory. Think of it as the New Vietnamization of Congressional negotiation. No peace at all, and very little honor.

Will Durst is a political comedian and columnist for Cagle Cartoons Inc. Read more of Durst's columns here.

Yaakov Kirschen / PoliticalCartoons.com

My buddy, Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen, has written this column about a controversial November ballot measure in San Francisco that would ban circumcision for males under 18.

A bill to ban circumcision of all males under the age of 18 will be on the ballot in San Francisco this November. This is alarming because circumcision of all males is the single most basic ritual of Judaism. Banning circumcision is a direct attack on the practice of Judaism, even if it is presented as having other motives. In fact, history shows us that viral anti-Semitism always comes to town in disguise, usually portraying its motives as a need to protect innocent victims from demonic Jews.

In the past, violent lynch mob pogrom attacks on Jews and Judaism were launched to protect the peasants and townsfolk from Jews who had “poisoned the wells.” The Nazis were just trying to protect racial purity. More recently, Jew-hatred has been packaged as an attempt to protect the “Palestinian” natives from the evil colonialist Jewish State, and now, in 21st century California, the attack on Judaism is being promoted as protecting Jewish babies from their demonic Jewish parents.

Foreskinman features a blond-haired, Aryan-looking superhero that "rescues" a baby from a fiendish Rabbi named Monster Mohel.

A second characteristic of the behavioral virus we call anti-Semitism is its compulsive use of cartoons in spreading its libels. Anti-Semitic movements from Nazism to Fascism to Stalinism to contemporary Islamism all share a surprisingly intensive use of anti-Semitic cartoons in their campaigns. And so it is with the framers of the anti-circumcision bill.

The bill was written by a private non-profit organization based in San Diego, California with chapters in sixteen states. It is led by someone named Matthew Hess. Their goal is a nation-wide ban on the practice of circumcision and, sure enough, Matthew just could not resist the compulsion to draw

those standard Nazi blood-libel caricatures of fiendish Rabbis sacrificing innocent babies. Hess, to push his campaign for the anti-circumcision bill, wrote and edited a propagandizing comic book called “Foreskinman.” The work is incredibly rich in Nazi ideology and filled with vile anti-Semitic imagery. The shockingly blatant anti-Semitism of the piece was so obvious that, in response, the woman who had been a proponent of putting the same bill onto the ballot in Santa Monica has now withdrawn the measure from consideration.

The comic book stars a blond, Aryan-looking superhero that interrupts a circumcision ceremony, beats up the fiendish, grinning Rabbi (named Monster Mohel), thrashes the Rabbi’s machine gun-toting Jewish accomplices, and takes the Jewish baby from his Jewish father. The child’s father shouts “Give me back my son” but our Nordic hero flies the terrified baby off to safety.

The baby, now rescued from the Jews, is taken on a two-day trip to a group of beach-dwelling pagans… and given to them. As the pagan woman who has been given the stolen Jewish baby announces at the end of this touching saga, she is now free to “raise him as one of our own.”

The history of the attempts to destroy Judaism is punctuated with anti-circumcision laws. In 167 BC the Syrian Greek occupiers of the Land of Israel banned circumcision. A few hundred years after that the Romans occupiers of the Land of Israel banned circumcision in their attempt to destroy Judaism. The Nazis banned circumcision, as did the Stalinists. Banning circumcision is simply a synonym for banning Judaism.

And while we’re at it, here’s a question for you. Why does the Christian calendar start on Jan. 1? Shouldn’t the Christian calendar start on Dec. 25? … the day of Jesus’ birth? What made Jan.1 so important? It’s simple. Jan. 1 (when baby Jesus was 8 days old) was the day of his circumcision.

Yaakov Kirschen is a political cartoonist and columnist for Cagle Cartoons Inc. Read more of Kirschen’s columns here, and check out his cartoons here.

Satirist Will Durst thinks the rich might actually deserve our sympathy.

llow me to offer up a few words in defense of one of the most maligned groups in America today. Citizens, who through a simple twist of fate, are routinely subjected to some of the most scathing condemnation and slanderous stereotyping in the annals of recorded history. Of course I’m talking about those unsung heroes of capitalism, the highly lubed pistons in the engine of our economy: the rich. 

Mike Keefe / Denver Post, PoliticalCartoons.com

Isn’t it time we stopped demonizing the wealthy simply because they have a couple more bucks? You’ve heard all the scurrilous charges: Greedy. Selfish. Thieving. Insatiable. Rapacious. Grasping. Hog-like. Power-mad. Heartless. Wear a lot of pink. And what’s the deal with the no socks thing? Like they can’t afford them?

People, settle down. The rich are just like the rest of us, only with access to a better class of orthodontists. They put their Egyptian silk trousers on one leg at a time, same as you and me. Besides, wasn’t it God, in the Bible, who said money can’t buy happiness? Although admittedly, it can be used as barter for a lot of stuff that might make you happy, like prescription drugs and bus fare and rent and ramen.

Being rich isn’t all a bed of roses, you know. It’s not easy having green. You can’t trust anybody. That includes but is not limited to — perfect strangers, casual acquaintances, prospective suitors, family members, non-profit organizations, banks, shysters, crooks and lawyers, but I repeat myself, not to mention the most dangerous threat of all, other rich people. Do the names Bernie Madoff, Warren Buffett and the Kardashians have any meaning here?

Off-shore accounts can be sooooooo confusing. The cost of private jet fuel is legalized extortion. And good housekeeping help is impossible to find. Scoundrels constantly plot to make your money, their money. Hence, rich people are forced to cower in a continual state of paranoia. But like buttery soft vicuna sport coats, it comes with the territory. Nobody robs poor people. Well, actually, rich people rob poor people, but that’s different. That’s business.

The main problem with being rich is never having enough money. And while liberals gripe and snipe that the rich and their corporations are sitting on trillions (no, really, trillions) of dollars waiting for the “correct political climate” to rehire workers, the fact that they employ thousands and thousands of lawyers to ferret out loopholes to keep from paying taxes goes criminally unreported. It’s all about jobs.

Bob Englehart / Hartford Courant, PoliticalCartoons.com

I know what you’re saying, “How can you defend these avaricious squeezebags? These scabrous zits on the forehead of egalitarianism? These predatory pus wads with the principles of diseased weasels in heat?” Well, self-preservation mostly; because someday, like everybody else in this great land of ours, I intend to be rich. A major reason why Democrats find it impossible to wage a class war.

The difference is… I’d be a really good rich person. Would cheerfully pay my fair share of taxes and regularly engage little people in sparkling small talk and never stiff waiters or prostitutes no matter how lousy the service received. How rich? Filthy rich. Rich enough not to stuff the Kleenex box in my suitcase when I check out of hotel rooms. I’d leave it right there on the bathroom sink for the next guy. Hey, it’s a goal.

Will Durst is a political comedian and columnist for Cagle Cartoons Inc. Read more of Durst's columns here.