Famed Arab cartoonist Ali Ferzat is recovering in the hospital after he was beaten by pro-Assad thugs in Damascus late last week, as part of a brutal crackdown of the Syrian Uprising that has killed over 2,200 people since anti-government protests began five months ago.

A recent Ferzat cartoon, drawn lest week prior to being assaulted, shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attempting to hitch a ride with Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

According to reports, Ferzat was forced out of his car and beaten in Damascus by four masked men. The regime’s thugs focused their attention on Ferzat’s hands, beating them furiously and breaking two fingers on his left hand – a clear message that he should stop drawing. Farzat’s assailants also broke his right arm and bruised his left eye before dumping him on the side of the road. The American Embassy in Damascus called it “a government-sponsored, targeted, brutal attack.”

“They are afraid of giving symbols to the Syrian uprising,” said Murhaf Jouejati, the Professor of Middle East Studies at George Washington University. “This is reflective of their fear of losing power, which is why they want to take out anybody who can carry large audiences.”

Ferzat’s cartoons have been deeply critical of the harsh suppression of the five-month uprising in Syria. Just last week, he published a cartoon on his website showing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hitch-hiking a ride out of town with a fleeing Muammar Gaddafi. Many of his cartoons directly criticize President al-Assad, even though caricatures of the president are forbidden in Syria.

While making empty promises about having a dialogue with the Syrian people, the Assad regime continues to carry out brutal attacks against protesters. According to Sebastian Usher, the BBC’s Arab affair’s analyst, Ferzat’s beating is a sign that the Syrian authorities “tolerance for dissent is touching zero.” Just a month ago, Ibrahim al-Qashoush, the composer of a popular anti-regime song, was found dead with his vocal chords removed.

Here’s a video from Al-Jazeera English where you can see pictures of Ferzat, as well as some of his cartoons:

Cartoonists from across the world are coming to the aid of Ferzat, drawing their own cartoons in response to the brutal crackdown. I’ll post them here as we receive them.

Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com, PoliticalCartoons.com

Bill Day / PoliticalCartoons.com

Olle Johansson / PoliticalCartoons.com

Jiho / PoliticalCartoons.com

Gilmar / Gilmar Online, Brazil

Sherif Arafa / Alittihad Newspaper

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner, PoliticalCartoons.com

Satirist Will Durst goes after the so-called "Super Congress" in his latest column:

Oh sure, they made a big show of signing the debt-ceiling agreement, with official photo- ops and fancy commemorative pens all accompanied by great racking sighs of relief. But now both Congress and the president are having second thoughts; treating the deal like a dead horsefly floating in their cut-glass tumbler of 25-year-old Scotch. You'd find more enthusiasm from the contestants of a beach volleyball tournament surveying a sand court littered with scorpions scurrying under a sea of broken beer bottles.

Bill Day / PoliticalCartoons.com

Speaking of scorpions, included in the agreement was a provision forming a committee responsible for future deficit reduction. Twelve members appointed by party leaders from both the House and Senate. Whose mission, should they accept it, is to find $1.5 trillion over a ten-year period by digging past the bare bones, down into the marrow.

Charged to construct a plan by Thanksgiving Eve or risk triggering automatic cuts. Doomsday cuts. Cuts designed to frighten politicians from the most stable of districts. That's right: cuts to the military.

A majority of the committee, equally split between Republicans and Democrats, must agree on the proposal to send it to the whole of Congress, who will vote either up or down with no amendments or filibusters allowed: meaning one member has to cross party lines, which is about as likely as pimento-flavored Velveeta taking first place in the 2012 World Championship Artisan Cheese Contest.

Even though the American public and pretty much every economist on the face of the planet agrees we need a balance between entitlement cuts and revenue enhancement, the Democrats already snapped that entitlement cuts are off the table and the Republicans are shouting no new revenue will be accepted, so really what they did was not so much kick the can down the road, but throw it onto the back of a passing flatbed truck where it disappeared over the asphalt horizon.

Adam Zyglis / Buffalo News, PoliticalCartoons.com

Now, this group has been called many things. Useless. The Supercommittee. Business as Usual. The Twerpy Twelve. A Dozen Punters. The Craven Caucus. Esteemed Assembly of the Ill-Advisable. League of the Unexceptionally Pontificating Pool of Party Hacks. But most commonly, it is referred to as: "Super Congress."

"Slower than a slug on Thorazine; less powerful than a soggy Kleenex; unable to compromise in a million years. Look! Up in that swiveling leather club seat of that private jet. It's a ruse, it's a sham, it's... Super Congress.

"Yes, Super Congress. Strange hybrid from another reality, comes to Capitol Hill with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal members.

"Super Congress. Who can change the course of appropriations, bend ethics regulations in the wink of an eye and who, disguised as... the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, mild mannered functionary of the Hall of Invertebrates, fights the never-ending battle against Truth, Justice and the American Way."

And when their capes are discarded and utility belts back in storage, we can move onto the next level of logical suspension and form the Super Duper Congress. Then... Son of Super Duper Congress. And call in Batman or maybe the Justice League or reconvene the Watchmen or that little guy who talks backwards and doesn't make any sense. Mr. Mxyztplk. You may know him as: Ron Paul. More scorpions, please.

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

A disturbing old brochure, promoting the World Trade Center.

Ten years ago I was president of the National Cartoonists Society and I brought our annual convention to the World Trade Center, shortly before its demise. I was looking through some of my old files this morning and I found a disturbing brochure (right) promoting the World Trade Center. Oh dear.

With the ten year anniversary of 9/11 coming soon, I collaborated on a French book project with Le Monde’s front page cartoonist, Plantu. We had a 32 page “conversation” about the ten years since 9/11 in comic book format for an anthology called 12 Septembre published by the big Belgian graphic novel publisher, Casterman (they do the Tin Tin books). The cover (left) of the book was interesting, disturbing, perhaps offensive, and a surprise to me.  With victims and planes casually falling, or floating without emotion, and a cute, red lipped chick, big in the foreground. I don’t get it – maybe it’s a French thing. I know that cute chicks on book covers sell books … still …

The collaboration with Plantu was great fun.  Plantu is a big star in France, with his cartoons gracing the front pages of the national newspaper, Le Monde, for over twenty years. I’ve never heard of editorial cartoonists having a graphic conversation like this before.  We decided to bounce back and forth between two page spreads, working forward through the ten years. This was a pretty big project, and explains why I didn’t draw very many editorial cartoons back in January and February.

Le Monde is publishing excerpts from the book in their weekly magazine; a copy of a spread from my conversation with Plantu is below, and further below are a couple of my spreads in English, at a readable size.

One of the spreads from last Sunday's Le Monde, showing my graphic "conversation" with Plantu.

I syndicate columnist Tina Dupuy, who wrote this interesting column about Rick Perry and Mitt Romney:

The Iowa Straw Poll last weekend is to election season what Labor Day is to Fall; it’s official now – the season has begun!

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner, PoliticalCartoons.com

I don’t care about the “viability” of candidates. I am not a prognosticator. Well, if I were, I’d be a very bad one. I said former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was most likely to get the nomination because his name is the easiest to make puns with (i.e. Pawlenty of Votes!) and he was the first one to drop out of the race. Plus, I’ve yet to see anyone (besides me) make ANY puns with his name. Pawlenty of wrong guesses!

But I’m also not interested in “who could go all the way.” I’m interested in this moment in time. And if you look at the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney – he’s perfect for the current Republican Party.

The first reason is he has five gorgeous able-bodied adult sons who’ve never spent a day in the military. Actually, none of the as-yet announced Republican candidates have children serving in the military. We’ve been in two wars now for nearly a decade each and yet the all-volunteer force is entirely made up of Americans not spawned from GOP candidates. For the last 30 years at least, the Republicans have been relentlessly, uniformly hawkish – but mostly with other peoples’ children. This disconnect was made evident in the ’08 election when soldiers donated money to candidate Barack Obama 6-1 over Senator John McCain.

Adam Zyglis / Buffalo News, PoliticalCartoons.com

The second is Romney’s hard turn (read: total flip-flop) on women’s reproductive freedoms. When Romney ran against Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, unprompted he offered, “Many, many years ago, I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that.” Of course, he wavered on that. His “family relative” was Ann Keenan, who died from an infection due to her illegal abortion in 1963 when Romney was 16. Now at 64, Romney toes the party line on abortion: He’s against it. He’s now against the law that could have saved his relative’s life.

But this is consistent with the Republican Party of today. The man known as “Mr. Conservative” himself – 1964’s Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater was not pro-life. His wife Margaret Goldwater helped found the first Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930s. If ever there was an issue (or an area) for government to get out of – it’s a uterus. But as much as current Republicans like to bark that government is getting too intrusive – Romney and his ilk want the government to tell women what to do.

Speaking of the government telling us what to do – the health care reform “individual mandate” that Republicans are so rabidly against? That was a Republican idea (first introduced in 1993) Romney implemented in his state in 2005. Now? It’s a job-killing communist plot that will destroy America! Romney and his parallel Republicans were for this job-killing communist plot that will destroy America – before they were against it.

The third thing that makes Romney the ideal representation for his party is his time in the private sector. Yes, Romney calls himself (un-ironically) a job creator. And well, he did create jobs, but mainly in other countries. He cut thousands here at home. But he touts this accomplishment anyway. The GOP has become an anti-worker movement. They use the language of the common man, railing against “the elites.” But when it comes to policy – the GOP worships the privileged. They love the gilded class and don’t want them to have to pay taxes or hear a cross word about themselves. They’ve convinced non-elites that the top one percent are all-American magical job makers and that if we just make this tiny fraction of our country happy – our economy will once again flourish. There’s no evidence of this ever being the case. It’s pure fantasy. But Republicans treat lies like incantations – they just have to say something enough and it will manifest.

So regardless of whoever gets in the race or drops out – Romney is the ideal symbol of his party. He is the GOP. His story is the story of the Republican Party.

He’s perfect.

To read more of Tina Dupuy's columns, click here.

Now that Rick Perry has inserted himself into the 2012 presidential race, all eyes are on the Texas governor to see if he can overtake front-runners Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney and win the party’s nomination. He’s already turned up the notch in terms of rhetoric, saying that military personnel don’t respect Barack Obama and criticizing the Federal Reserve as being almost “treasonous.”

Hartford Courant cartoonist Bob Englehart thinks Perry looks and sounds like the GOP’s nominee…

For those that miss the days of George W. Bush, Dave Granlund thinks Perry might be right up your alley…

Although as Monte Wolverton points out, Perry might want to remodel the U.S. Capitol a bit…

But what does Jesus think of Perry’s candidacy? Denver Post cartoonist Mike Keefe imagines for us…

Taylor Jones thinks Rick Perry’s real religious devotion comes down to one simple phrase…