In response to the deadly shooting that has left 12 dead in an Aurora, Colorado theater, cartoonist Milt Priggee weighed in with this tough cartoon laying blame on the NRA: 

As you can expect, readers were polorized by the cartoon. Here are some comments from my Facebook page: 

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JW Dalton: Is there no tragedy that some liberals won't exploit? Please hold off on politicizing the Colorado incident for at least a day or two.

Karen Woodward: Seeking to end injustice is not exploitation

Nadja Rider: Foul! Guns don't kill people - the person pulling the trigger is the one doing the killing.

Jim Keller: I'm a gun owner, ex-NRA member, and Republican and yes, the NRA does indeed deserve some of the blame. They have gotten progressively more insane since the Clinton era.

Mary H. Ruth: If it's okay to point a gun, it's okay to point a finger. I'm sick of gun lovers making us all victims of their evil obsession.

Here are some cartoons about the tragic shooting that took place inside an Aurora, Colorado movie theater following a screening of the new Batman film, "The Dark Knight Rises." So senseless and tragic...

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Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.

So just relax and catch up on a week’s worth of news with our Best Cartoons of the Week slideshow.

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This cartoon by Nate Beeler inspired me to draw the same thing, with the "camera" pulled back to show a giant freeway interchange and cars lined up for lemonade. ... but, that's hard to draw, and I'm too lazy.

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By Rob Tornoe - Cagle Post

Political cartoonists have a love/hate relationships with obituary cartoons – the cartoons you see in your newspaper or popping up on your Facebook feed after a famous person has died.

Cartoonists tire quickly of the conventions of obituary cartoons – heaven, St. Peter, the pearly gates – while readers can’t seem to get enough of them.

I enjoy drawing obituary cartoons about famous people, as long as I have something to say or the person was important in my life. When Whitney Houston died, I drew her singing while trapped inside of a prescription pill bottle. When Maurice Sendak passed away, I drew a middle-aged working man rummaging through a box of his childhood dreams.

And when Joe Paterno died, I tapped into the massive amount of sympathy and heartache throughout the region and drew the nice cartoon below for the Philadelphia Inquirer (where I draw sports cartoons) of Paterno sharing space in heaven with legendary Alabama head football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.

The cartoon was enormously popular, and spread across Facebook like a wildfire. My inbox was stuffed with thank you notes and warm wishes from Penn State alums across the country. Someone even printed it out and put it on display next to Paterno’s statue as a tribute. And you know something – I was wrong.

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With the release of the Freeh report, it’s clear to anyone but his kids that Paterno, along with other top Penn State officials, covered up the child sex abuse allegations against assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky out of fear of bad publicity.

Covered up child rape. For more than a decade. So it wouldn’t harm the football team. I’m not a religious person, but this man doesn’t belong in heaven.

So I have the opportunity not too many cartoonists are afforded – to redress my mistake, to call myself out for taking part in a pity party for someone who decided that a child’s well being was only valuable if they were wearing his team’s football uniform.

So like Mitt Romney and Bain, I’ve retroactively updated my obituary cartoon and redrawn it to expel Paterno from paradise and send him plummeting downward. Like Sandusky in prison, Paterno is now in a place that knows how to deal with people who allow children to be raped.

If Penn State had any decency, they would immediately tear down Paterno’s famous statue outside of Beaver Stadium, along with the three words that accompany it: Educator, coach and humanitarian. Even Nike finally removed Paterno’s name from their child development center in Oregon.

But judging by their previous decision making, it seems like the folks running things in Happy Valley still have a lot to learn. I’ve made my mistake in cartoon form, and addressed it. It’s time for them to do the same.

Rob Tornoe draw sports cartoons for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Follow him on Twitter @RobTornoe

El Rushbo is at it again. The popular conservative radio host told listeners that "The Dark Knight Rises" is more Hollywood liberal propaganda that goes after Mitt Romney because the main villain's name is "Bane." Considering the character was created back in the early 1990s, this has to be one of the dumbest conspiracy theories Limbaugh has ever spewed. 

Limbaugh is comic gold as far as cartoonists are concerned. Here are some funny Limbaugh cartoons for you to digest:

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"Bain" sounds like "Bane" to Rush Limbaugh, temperatures continue to rise across the country and we have Tea Party-inspired outfits for the Olympics. Here is our afternoon round-up of cartoons about what's happening in the news...

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It's difficult to watch cable news at times. What do new anchors hope to get from Romney's surrogates that over any insight or analysis on the campaign:

Obama also has his own army of well-trained surrogates to keep pushing the campaign's narriative: 

Lately, Obama has been on the attack about Romney's time at Bain Capital and his refusal to release additional years of his tax returns: 

Despite the attacks, the candidates have been able to make the choice in the upcoming election clear: 

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Have you noticed that it's been really hot the past couple of weeks? Well, for the midwest and just about 80 percent of the country, the drought they are experiencing is the most widespread since 1956, resulting in massive wildfires and decimating crops like corn and soybeans. 

Here a five cartoons about this dangerous drought...

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Cartoonists like visual metaphors, and there’s no bigger representation of everything that’s wrong at Penn State than the bronze statue of Joe Paterno that stands outside of Beaver Stadium.

Critics are calling for the statue to be town down in lieu of a report that clearly shows Paterno helped cover up the actions of his former assistant coach, convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky.

Here are some cartoons about the statue by a handful of our cartoonists. Think it should be torn down? Comment below or drop us a note on our Facebook page.

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The situation in Syria continues to spiral downward. Fighting continues today in Damascus between the opposition and Bashar al-Assad's government forces, and the International Committee for the Red Cross has officially declared the conflict a civil war.

I'm a big fan of foreign political cartoonists and their ability to create poignant, wordless cartoons that get to the heart of any situation (here are my cartoons about Assad). Check out their take on the continued violence in Syria...

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The Libor scandal heats up, unemployment continues to be a problem for President Obama and Romney attempts to ski around his financial past. Here is our morning round-up of cartoons about what's happening in the news...

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Every Friday, we collect the best political cartoons of the week and stuff them into one big, glorious slideshow.

So just relax and catch up on a week’s worth of news with our Best Cartoons of the Week slideshow.

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Yesterday, the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania announced that due to ongoing budget problems and the threat of bankruptcy, all of Scranton’s 398 city workers — including cops and firefighters — will be paid minimum wage effective immediately.

I asked John Cole, the staff cartoonist for the Scranton Times-Tribune (whom I syndicate though Cagle Cartoons), what his thoughts were on the news:

Ask 10 Scrantonians who and/or what is to blame for their city’s seemingly inexorable slide into insolvency and you’ll likely get 10 different answers. OK, maybe seven. Or even five. Whatever the number, they’ll all be right to one degree or another. Scranton’s cash crunch has been years in the making and — in my opinion, at least — is the product of four forces: An eroded and aging tax base; Pennsylvania’s system of tiny, autonomous municipalities; expensive public-safety union contracts, and a fractious and parochial political culture.

The first three ingredients in that recipe would be manageable if the fourth weren’t so completely dysfunctional. The current mess is largely due to a power struggle between Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty and a veto-proof “super-majority” on the city council that’s led by Council President Janet Evans. Doherty has been trying without success for years to rein in union labor costs through a state-backed recovery plan; the unions in turn have fought back furiously with the help of local pols like Evans. The result has been a back-and-forth stalemate of sorts, with the courts occasionally stepping in to make matters worse.

Here are seven cartoons drawn by Cole dating back to November 2010, tracing the arc of Scranton’s decline:

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 Slideshow:

 

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