Cagle.com

Protester With Globe Backpack

Emad Hajjaj — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 04:55:41 +0000

PROTESTER WITH GLOBE BACKPACK

by Emad Hajjaj, Alaraby Aljadeed newspaper , London

Environmental protests continue worldwide as activists highlight the accelerating impacts of climate change and pollution on the planet. Demonstrations often feature symbolic representations of the earth to underscore the global stakes involved. The cartoon captures this ongoing dynamic by depicting a lone protester carrying the world on their back amid swirling emissions. It argues that individual and collective action remains essential to confront the crisis before irreversible damage occurs.

France Riots Challenge Core Values

Tom Janssen — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 03:45:50 +0000

FRANCE RIOTS CHALLENGE CORE VALUES

by Tom Janssen, The Netherlands

Riots have broken out across French cities, with vehicles set ablaze and confrontations between demonstrators and police. The unrest directly challenges the foundational republican motto of liberty, equality and fraternity that has defined modern France. The violence raises questions about social cohesion and the effectiveness of current security measures. The cartoon frames the disorder as an assault on those core national principles.

France Autumn Protests

Vladimir Kazanevsky — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 03:32:21 +0000

FRANCE AUTUMN PROTESTS

by Vladimir Kazanevsky, Ukraine, PoliticalCartoons.com

France enters another round of autumn protests driven by labor disputes and public discontent with government policies. The demonstrations echo recurring seasonal unrest that disrupts daily life and challenges the Macron administration. The cartoon frames the protests as a self-inflicted wound on the French republic, with the national colors literally aflame. It suggests the demonstrations risk damaging the very identity they claim to defend.

APEC Leaders Address Ukraine Conflict

Marian Kamensky — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 03:29:54 +0000

APEC LEADERS ADDRESS UKRAINE CONFLICT

by Marian Kamensky, Austria

At the 2026 APEC summit in Shenzhen, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin address the Ukraine conflict. Xi projects strength while Trump engages and Putin appears weakened. The meeting underscores persistent tensions in the war without resolution. The cartoon critiques the power dynamics among the leaders and the continued suffering in Ukraine.

Trump Zombie Chases Russian Oil Barrel

Plop and KanKr — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 03:02:22 +0000

TRUMP ZOMBIE CHASES RUSSIAN OIL BARREL

by Plop and KanKr, Cagle.com

The cartoon shows a zombified Donald Trump stumbling after a personified Russian oil barrel marked with the national flag. The scene unfolds in a barren landscape under a large sun with a distant city skyline. It comments on the persistent draw of Russian energy resources for the United States despite geopolitical frictions. The visual metaphor underscores how economic interests continue to drive policy even when relations remain strained.

Wife's Reckless Flying Prompts Lawsuit

Gary McCoy — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 22:31:50 +0000

WIFE'S RECKLESS FLYING PROMPTS LAWSUIT

by Gary McCoy, Cagle.com

A man reading about Elon Musk's new electric car expresses interest in buying one. At the same moment a lawyer arrives at the door with a bandaged goose client seeking damages for injuries allegedly caused by the man's wife's reckless flying. The cartoon uses the absurd lawsuit to comment on the surge of personal injury claims and the intersection of high-profile tech announcements with everyday legal absurdities. It highlights how public fascination with new vehicles can be overshadowed by opportunistic litigation.

Eiffel Tower Engulfed by Flames

Arcadio Esquivel — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 19:24:25 +0000

EIFFEL TOWER ENGULFED BY FLAMES

by Arcadio Esquivel, Costa Rica

France continues to grapple with political divisions and social tensions that have simmered for months. Protests and policy disputes have eroded public confidence in leadership. The cartoon frames the Eiffel Tower fire as a metaphor for these strains, suggesting the country risks self-inflicted damage if divisions persist unchecked.

America the trigger-happy

Paul Duginski — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:50:07 +0000

AMERICA THE TRIGGER-HAPPY

by Paul Duginski, CagleCartoons.com

Gun violence remains a persistent feature of American life with frequent school shootings, street gunplay, and reports of aggressive law enforcement actions. The cartoon responds to this ongoing pattern by presenting a satirical welcome that lists these incidents as defining national characteristics. It takes the position that such violence has become normalized to the point of being advertised as a core part of the American experience.

Democrats Allow Convicted Felon Into White House

Jimmy Margulies — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:41:56 +0000

DEMOCRATS ALLOW CONVICTED FELON INTO WHITE HOUSE

by Jimmy Margulies, Cagle.com

Donald Trump returned to the White House after his 2024 victory despite felony convictions. Democrats who opposed him now face the reality of his presence in office. The development underscores the limits of prior legal and political efforts to block his path. The cartoon argues that Democrats effectively enabled the outcome they warned against.

CHANGING THE TIME: Stephen Miller sets the clock back to 1939 Germany

Jimmy Margulies — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:35:33 +0000

CHANGING THE TIME: STEPHEN MILLER SETS THE CLOCK BACK TO 1939 GERMANY

by Jimmy Margulies, Cagle.com

Stephen Miller, a senior Trump administration official known for strict immigration enforcement, faces renewed criticism for policies viewed as regressive. The cartoon uses the metaphor of turning back the clock to 1939 Germany to argue that such measures echo dangerous historical precedents. The editorial position condemns the approach as a dangerous retreat from democratic norms.

Pumpkin spice and Black Death: Top ten cartoons of the week

Daryl Cagle — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Merry Hallowgivingyearkah!

That's what Bob Englehart decided to call the busy slate of holidays between now and the end of the year.

Dave Whamond got into the season by drawing our most-reprinted cartoon of the week, featuring a woman picking up her pumpkin spice-flavored medication. He also reminded us of a scary story out of Russia, where a researcher died from a mysterious infection that might've been the plague.

Trick or treat, indeed.

Here are our top ten most reprinted cartoons of the week:

#1. Dave Whamond

#2. Dave Granlund

#3. Harley Schwadron

#4. Bob Englehart

#5. John Darkow

#6. Pat Bagley

#7. Gary McCoy

#8. Dave Whamond

#9. Dave Whamond

#10. Dave Granlund

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Daryl Cagle is the publisher of Cagle.com and owner of CagleCartoons.com, a syndicate that distributes editorial cartoons and columns to over 500 subscribing newspapers. See Daryl’s blog at DarylCagle.com and watch his video podcast about editorial cartoons at Caglecast.com

Candid about Candide

Alexandra Paskhaver — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A French fellow named Voltaire wrote a book called “Candide” that more or less answered the question, “Is this the best of all possible worlds?”

To which the answer is definitively, clearly, and absolutely: “Who cares?”

Actually, it’s more of a “no,” but Voltaire says it with a metaphor about rats on a ship.

We meet the book’s protagonist, a young man named Candide, in a castle. He has everything: good food, an education, and most importantly, a girl.

She’s named Cunégonde, which is a heck of a name to go through life with, but I suppose it’s no worse than Sean Bean.

He survives—Candide, not Sean Bean. Sean Bean never survives anything—a war, the Great Lisbon earthquake, and a trek across the globe.

His friends get disemboweled, drowned, or impaled. He raises a fortune and loses it.

He also kills a few people, but mostly by accident.

His teacher, Dr. Pangloss, an eminent metaphysico-theologico-cosmolonigologist, insists that everything happening to them is the best of all possible things that could have happened.

This is probably because Candide supports his old tutor. If you give people money for saying nonsense, they’ll say more nonsense.

I write nonsense for free. Darn. I knew I should’ve gotten that doctorate in metaphysico-theologico-cosmolonigology.

On the other hand, not everything is about comfort and money.

There are more important things in life. I’ll set them down here as soon as I think of what they are.

Anyhow, Voltaire explains that sometimes, despite your efforts, you get dissected, disemboweled, or run through with a sword.

Maybe not so often in the modern world. Here, we must endure workplace harassment training. But the effect is the same.

Although, as Voltaire notes, people survive such things.

Except for the admirables. Off the coast of England, Candide witnesses an admiral go down by a firing squad.

The locals remark, “il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.”

According to the eminent historian and writer David Wootton, of the University of York, this translates to “it is thought a good idea to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.”

In less scholarly language, “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”

So the beatings do continue, for Candide, Cunégonde, Dr. Pangloss, and the friends they’ve made along the way, until they wash up on a small farm outside Constantinople (now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople).

Their neighbors are a great dervish, who is renowned for delivering the rat metaphor, and a simple Turk.

Despite being a simple farmer, the man serves Candide and his group sorbet, Turkish delight, oranges, lemons, limes, pineapples, and good Mocha coffee.

Gotta appreciate a good dinner when you get it.

And if you toil away at the things that matter, maybe you can have another such dinner. Maybe you can even avoid depravity, boredom, and poverty.

Though I’m less convinced about the poverty bit, having spent approximately $645 to grow enough tomatoes to make a salad.

The book ends with the famous line, “il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

There’s a scholarly translation, but I prefer my brother’s margin note: “Shut up and work your way through it.”

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Copyright 2026 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. Feel free to contact her at alexandra.paskhaver@gmail.com

Changing Congress won’t change the Iran War

Peter Roff — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Democrats want voters to believe they'll stop Trump's war of choice in Iran if they're given control of the House and Senate in the November election.

It’s a bad bet. In the American system, changing congressional majorities may rearrange power on Capitol Hill, but it does not alter the military chain of command.

Since Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, Congress has taken up an Iran war-powers measure at least nineteen times. The House has passed measures directing an end to hostilities multiple times, most recently on September 15. But the Senate buried it, meaning the White House never had to act.

If the Democrats capture the Senate in November, things still are unlikely to change. A 51- or 52- or 53-seat majority isn’t enough to move legislation subject to a filibuster. The 1973 War Powers Act. on which the Democrats rely. invites political theater, not policymaking. It lets members of Congress bluster, bellow, and vote against war at no risk to presidential powers or troops in the field.

War opponents can claim Congress is on record officially rebuking U.S. policy, but so what? The secretary of war and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff don’t make policy based on congressional rebukes. They follow the instructions of the president, who would undoubtedly veto any measure that tied his hands. And since an override would need two-thirds of both houses — 290 House members and 67 senators — it’s highly unlikely it would happen, even if the election turns out to be a blue tsunami.

War opponents point to congressional “power of the purse” as the ultimate step, but it’s a power Congress almost never exercises. An appropriations rider barring funds for offensive strikes can be drafted in a day, but it still must pass the House and Senate to be effective.

And that’s not a sure bet either. The money that funds overseas military operations and weapons procurement is linked to soldiers’ and sailors’ pay, munitions already under contract, and the protection of troops around the world. No one wants to be blamed for holding that up, stranding people in harm’s way.

At least 21 American servicemen and women have died. More have been wounded. A new Democratic majority that campaigned against the war won’t vote to cut off the coordination that keeps the rest of them alive. Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman is already voting with the Republicans. He won’t be the only one if a vote to defund the war against Iran becomes synonymous with endangering the troops.

Ongoing military operations don’t end because a new Congress begins. The administration sent a message to Capitol Hill announcing hostilities were “terminated” by the April cease-fire. The theory that restarts the clock on the War Powers Act is contestable, but it is the theory under which ships now sail. Courts have for decades deferred to the chief executive when hostilities are ongoing. They will not block the commander in chief from acting just to give the Democrats a favorable headline in The New York Times.

The current Congress would also sit through a lame-duck session following the election. Trump has already told audiences a settlement may not come before the election, until which there will be no unprovoked military strikes on Iran. An institution that held nineteen votes that didn’t change the conduct of the war doesn’t get new power because the majority leader’s office changed hands.

When the war ends, it will be because the president has decided that Iran’s capacity for violence and intimidation has been sufficiently reined in. Or because Tehran has lost the will to fight. A Democratic House speaker and Senate majority leader can call as many votes as they like, but without a bipartisan, veto-proof coalition behind them, they’re just ringmasters presiding over a political circus.

Congress doesn’t get to demote the commander because a generic-ballot poll says he’s unpopular. Anyone who wants the war to end — especially on terms more favorable to Iran than to the United States — needs to keep an eye on the White House, not the Capitol.

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Copyright 2026 Peter Roff distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Peter Roff is former U.S. News and World Report contributing editor and UPI senior political writer now affiliated with several DC-based public policy organizations. He writes for numerous publications and appears regularly on international television talking about U.S. politics. You can reach him at RoffColumns@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @TheRoffDraft.

Happy hunting

Jase Graves — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Now that temperatures in East Texas have dipped below the mid-hundreds and there's a slight crispness in the air – and not just in the earthworms seared to my driveway– the thoughts of outdoor enthusiasts all over the region have turned to deer hunting.

During this time of year, I always feel left out of manly-type conversations about important hunting-related subjects like deer corn inflation, how to make yourself smell more like dirt, and safe methods for going "number 2" in the woods during rutting season.

It's not that I have anything against hunting. In fact, some of my best friends and close family members are masters of the wildlife-execution arts.

But hunting just isn't for me, and there are some important reasons why.

First and foremost, woodland animals have determined that if they stay active only until around 10:00 in the morning, they have nothing to fear from the likes of me. Even on good days, if I have to get out of bed before eleven, I feel like I'm undergoing intense rehab after a serious freight train accident. So, my chances of getting up before dawn by choice, and going to a location without proper restroom facilities, are pretty slim.

Next is the expense. A hobby that requires hunting leases with all the trimmings, camo drip (that's clothes for those of you allergic to teenagers), pickup trucks the size of Air Force One, and elaborate weaponry would significantly cut into my Mexican food budget. In case you were wondering, I do own a gun, and I even think I know where it is.

Believe it or not, I have been deer hunting before – once. In the days when I was dating my wife-and would do pretty much anything to convince her that I wasn't a complete doofus-my kind and patient future father-in-law invited me to go with him to his hunting lease, complete with a one-room cabin and an outdoor toilet that featured actual toilet paper-and a shovel. Looking back, I think he already had me figured out and just didn’t want to hurt my feelings by excluding me. He even provided me with one of those aluminum and vinyl lawn chairs for the 45 seconds of sleep I got.

On the so-called “morning” of our hunt, he drove me out to an indeterminate location amid the pitch-blackness of the woods, had me climb up and sit on a couple of 2x4s nailed between tree branches about 8 feet off the ground, handed me a hunting rifle, told me, “Whatever you do, don’t leave this spot,” and left me for dead.

I have to admit that watching and listening to the woods “wake up” on a misty fall morning was pretty cool, just not cool enough for me to get up that early to do it ever again. I even spotted a couple of young deer grazing in the leaves-which made me wish I had a Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit.

And my father-in-law did come back for me several hours later-even though he probably had to think long and hard about it.

So, to all the hunters out there, I offer my best wishes for happy hunting and ample amounts of toilet paper. When you’re out watching the woods wake up, I’ll be hunting for the cool side of the pillow.

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Copyright 2026 Jase Graves distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Graves is an award-winning humor columnist from East Texas. His columns have been featured in Texas Escapes magazine, The Shreveport Times, The Longview News Journal, and The Kilgore News Herald. Contact Graves at susanjase@sbcglobal.net.

Medicare’s bad incentives are costing taxpayers billions

Charles Sauer — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Costco, the multi-billion-dollar retailer, just partnered with health insurer SCAN Group to offer Medicare Advantage plans in select states.

This new offering of the popular alternative to Medicare, which lets beneficiaries choose among competing private plans, shows how mainstream these plans have become. They are incredibly popular: over 10 million Medicare-eligible patients have signed up for these plans since 2020, and over half of all eligible Americans are on Medicare Advantage plans in 2026.

But Medicare Advantage has flawed incentives that put the program at financial risk. Part of the program’s funding is set to run dry by 2033, and some of this funding shortfall is due to the program’s incentives to “over-diagnose” patients.

Under Medicare Advantage, contracted insurers get reimbursed more for sicker patients, encouraging insurers to fabricate patient diagnoses to reap larger government reimbursements. Last year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimated that it paid nearly $24 billion in improper payments to its contracted Medicare Advantage insurers.

Without reform, these incentives will continue to drive unnecessary Medicare spending, raising costs for taxpayers and beneficiaries while rewarding insurers for coding more diagnoses rather than delivering better care. Lawmakers have the opportunity to fix these incentives through bipartisan reforms like the No UPCODE Act.

The key issues with Medicare Advantage stem from the program’s insurer reimbursement rates, which are calculated using patient risk scores. Risk scores estimate a beneficiary’s expected healthcare costs based on factors including age and documented health conditions. The higher the risk score, the more Medicare reimburses insurers. This reimbursement structure creates a financial incentive for insurers to identify and document additional diagnoses that inflate patient risk scores.

Medicare Advantage insurers can conduct health risk assessments, including in-home visits by contracted health professionals, to identify and document beneficiaries’ health conditions. During these assessments, insurance representatives often add diagnoses without the testing or treatment history needed to verify them. In 2023, roughly $7.5 billion in excess payments can be directly attributed to patient diagnoses given during these health risk assessments, according to an Inspector General’s report.

Many insurers are also accused of “upcoding,” or increasing the severity of existing diagnoses without patients receiving corresponding care. Recently, the Department of Justice reached a settlement against one home health company for alleged Medicare Advantage upcoding. The company allegedly submitted fraudulent patient diagnoses for ailments like malnutrition and substance use disorder that were either clinically inaccurate or “did not require or affect patient care.”

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission estimates coding differences alone will increase payments to Medicare Advantage plans by roughly $22 billion in 2026. Overall excess payments to Medicare Advantage plans are expected to increase Medicare Part B premiums by about $11 billion this year.

The payment system also rewards insurers most aggressive about documenting diagnoses, allowing plans to collect more taxpayer dollars without necessarily providing better care. That creates an uneven playing field in which financial success can depend as much on coding practices as on keeping patients healthy.

Medicare Advantage’s incentives don’t just fail patients – they also pass costs onto taxpayers. When introduced in the 1990s, Medicare Advantage was promised as a lower-cost alternative for Americans paying a large share of their tax dollars toward traditional Medicare. Now, partly because of high coding intensity and potential fraud, experts expect that Medicare Advantage to cost 14% more per enrollee than its traditional counterpart.

It’s why bills like the No UPCODE Act are so necessary. Introduced by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Or.), the bill would rework Medicare Advantage’s payment incentives to reduce the financial rewards for aggressive coding. It would limit the use of diagnoses gathered through health risk assessments, revise the risk-score formula to be less sensitive to upcoded diagnoses, and require two years of diagnostic data for risk-adjusted claims instead of just one year – directly addressing the problems plaguing Medicare Advantage.

These reforms are necessary to put Medicare Advantage back on course. By reworking the program’s reimbursement incentives, Medicare can reward insurers for quality care and value rather than coding intensity, and policymakers can restore trust in a program that serves over 35 million people.

Medicare Advantage is attractive to patients for a reason, and beneficiaries should be free to choose these plans without paying the price for government inefficiency. Lawmakers sold Medicare Advantage as the best of both worlds: private-plan choice and high-quality Medicare coverage at a fair cost to taxpayers. It’s time Congress made sure patients and taxpayers actually get what they were promised.

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Copyright 2026 Charles Sauer, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Charles Sauer is the president of the Market Institute and the author of “Profit Motive” Sauer can be reached at charles@marketinstitute.org.

Could you write a 'tell all' memoir? 

Danny Tyree — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

“I’m a b-a-a-a-a-d boy!” - Lou Costello

You’ve probably seen the recent tidal wave of “tell all” memoirs by celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone, Alice Cooper, Christopher Lloyd and Michael Douglas (with Willie Nelson’s “The Last Leaf” due in November).

I aspire to write my own biography someday, but don’t expect it to be as juicy and riveting as the reminiscences of the aforementioned A-listers . I mean, Cooper’s life story is titled “Devil on My Shoulder” and Douglas’s is titled “One Helluva Ride.” Mine would probably be “Ear Hair on My Shoulder” or “How Do You Get This Thing Out of Second Gear?”

Still, the glitterati haven’t cornered the market on attention-grabbing exploits. I suppose many of y’all can regale listeners with tales of championship trophies, illicit love affairs, vicious exes, drunken brawls and high-speed chases; but my life has been more low-key. My best anecdotes are “borrowed” from other people.

My fuddy-duddy nature started with my parents. They had their quirks but they never traumatized me the way the parents of famous singers and actors seem contractually obligated to.

For instance, “Show and Tell Day” meant sharing one of my father’s Army souvenirs or one of my mother’s antiques, not shouting, “Please! No detention hall! I didn’t realize Mom’s pimp was going to shoot Ralphie’s pet hamster!”

And Thanksgiving meant drawing “hand turkeys,” not drawing cocaine-infused hand turkeys.

My “turbulent” teen years revolved around family, school, church, after-school job and comic books – leaving no time for broken curfews, fake IDs and steamy car windows. Ironically, many a Thursday night was spent watching Michael Douglas and Karl Malden patrol “The Streets of San Francisco.” (I now suspect Malden’s “Don’t leave home without them” commercials for Travelers’ Cheques served the double purpose of reminding Douglas about certain essential products.)

My adult life has been rich and rewarding, especially the 35 years of marriage. (35 years and counting – counting the number of complaints about my snoring, counting the number of times we have to visit just one more shoe store, counting the …but I digress.) But it has not been a period marked by lottery jackpots, rehab, public meltdowns, flings, burned bridges, brunches with royalty, trendy eating disorders (other than grinding my teeth at the bathroom scales) or whatever else The Other Half does.

I’m certainly never pursued by the paparazzi. Even Flock cameras declare, “I see nothing! I know nothing!” when I drive by.

I guess the celebrities releasing memoirs this year are getting their stories told “while the gettin’ is good,” because the plummeting number of Americans who read for pleasure will straitjacket future autobiographers.

Not everyone can handle condensing 37 orgies, five Truman Capote slap-fights, six offspring born to stalkers and 11 requests to “get your Mercedes off the top of the Eiffel Tower, mon ami” into a single Bazooka Joe bubblegum strip.

How will you spend your free time in the coming weeks? Curled up with a confessional by your favorite Hollywood luminary? Checking off another wild and crazy bucket list goal? (“Finally remembered to buy another mop bucket. Break out the faux champagne!”) Tentatively jotting down some memorable experiences that can’t be made public until five years after your great-grandchildren are deceased?

Me? I’ll muddle through with my favorite anecdotes.

Because, if my father, Kirk Douglas, told me once, he told me a million times…

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Copyright 2026 Danny Tyree, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Danny Tyree welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.”

Are you ready for some... more injuries?

Peter Funt — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For many of us among the roughly 40 million Americans hooked on fantasy football, this season is off to a particularly unpleasant start.

Matthew Berry, arguably the nation’s most prominent fantasy football expert, said, “I feel like through four weeks it has been a worse injury year than ever before. Just too many big-name stars going down early.”

Berry acknowledged that “every year there are brutal injuries,” but he said this season has been especially tough.

As one who abhors violence, I’ve always been conflicted about football. The only way I manage to rationalize hours of research on my fantasy lineups, followed by obsessive multi-screen viewing of each week’s games, is to imagine that players, covered as they are from head to toe, are characters in a video game rather than real guys who are being bashed, twisted and concussed.

As part of my research for a book about football in the 1960s, I recently visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Posted on the wall is this statement:

“Player protection is the top priority of the NFL. Since its earliest days, the NFL has continuously taken steps to ensure that the game is played as fairly as possible without unnecessary risk to its participants.”

For a multibillion-dollar business, that makes about as much sense as Donald Trump insisting that owners of AI companies can effectively police themselves.

The NFL has modified some rules and urged manufacturers to improve protective gear, but as Matthew Berry noted, there are still “brutal injuries” every year. The game is so dangerous that the best (read: highest paid) players skip preseason games entirely for fear of injury. The annual all-star game, the Pro Bowl, has been played in recent years without tackling, flag-football style, and this season will be scrapped altogether.

I asked Jake Ciely, fantasy football expert at The Athletic, what’s going on.

“I believe we're in an age where the athletes are freakier than ever due to science,” he said. “Players run blazing fast despite being 6-2 and 240 pounds. You see everyone cutting and moving more explosively than we've ever seen. It's the same in baseball, with pitchers' arms blowing up more frequently. The human body is still fragile, and we're seeing the fallout of peak athleticism slamming into other peak athletes, unfortunately.”

Ciely says NFL injuries are “up a tick” this season, but the situation seems even worse because so many marquee players, especially quarterbacks, have fallen. Week 1, it was the Vikings’ Kyler Murray and the Seahawks’ Sam Darnold; Week 2, the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels, the Bears’ Caleb Williams, and the Giants’ Jaxson Dart; wWeek 3, the Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield, and Week 4, the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson.

Receivers such as the Bengals’ Chase; tight ends including the Raiders’ Brock Bowers, and running backs such as the Eagles’ Saquon Barkley, have also been knocked out of games.

Running backs are pivotal when it comes to injuries because of what fantasy managers call handcuffs. A handcuff is the next man up — the player who would step in if the starter is hurt. All positions have backups, of course, but the most coveted handcuffs in fantasy are the running backs, whose replacements can instantly become valuable for fantasy purposes.

Increasingly, my rooting interest — whether I like it or not — is all about injuries. When my guy has the ball, I hold my breath, hoping he won’t get hurt. When my fantasy opponent’s player has the ball, I’m — well, let’s just say I’m semi-rooting for a painless, non-career-threatening injury that’s just serious enough to send him into the blue medical tent, then the locker room, then the X-ray room, and then onto the Injured Reserve list, where he must miss at least four weeks.

Barkley hurt his hamstring on the second play of the Oct. 4 game. His replacement was Tank Bigsby, whom I’d been stashing on my fantasy bench for just this situation. Two quarters later, Bigsby got hurt and was placed on the IR. The following week Bigsby’s replacement, Will Shipley, injured his foot and was knocked out of the game.

This, to use a sports term, sucks.

Many of us remain sold on the undeniable pleasure of football at its injury-free best. But unless the NFL finds a way to meaningfully reduce the physical toll, the current game is not something I’m keen on being handcuffed to.

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Copyright 2026 Peter Funt distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Funt’s book, “Inside Fantasy Football: America’s Favorite Non-Contact Sport,” is available through Amazon.

Republican senator reveals how the right-wing sausage is made

Elwood Watson — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I will concede Republicans this much. They are usually masterful at transforming an issue into a scandal, even when such supposed evidence is absent from reality.

They deftly comprehend the fundamentals of a mainstream media that salutes and handsomely acknowledges searing political drama. The conservative apparatus routinely functions in unison to construct a high pitch, gut wrenching televised confrontation cultivated to politically enthrall the party base.

It begins with a Republican levying a dramatic, if not scurrilous allegation. Afterwards, right-wing personalities, pundits and media outlets fiercely ignite the charge, prompting the allegation to evolve into an intense “gotcha” moment. Party politicians and assorted lackeys secure airtime on various podcasts and Fox News to rehash the accusations. By the time the truth is revealed, the original allegation has become catnip for conservatives to devour.

That was clearly the agenda of Senator Eric Schmitt’s (R-Mo.) histrionic and botched performance last month during a hearing with former special counsel Jack Smith. Republicans tried and failed to recast Smith, the prosecutor who indicted Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and alleged mishandling of classified documents, as the bad guy of a biased and partisan Justice Department. Smith, for his part, fervently stood behind his case, passionately declaring “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation.”

Republican senators made the premeditated calculation to relitigate Jan. 6th by rummaging through Smith’s records in a frantic effort to locate any potential smoking gun. Rather, what they exposed was misinformation and rank confusion over the name of a basketball team – Smith went to see the Iowa Hawkeyes in Maryland, not the Atlanta Hawks down in Georgia.

Schmitt’s entire conspiracy theory about Smith being in Atlanta to coordinate anti-Trump efforts was built on basic untruths, rank incompetence and falsehoods. The performance – he called Smith a "dirtbag" – was clearly designed to increase Schmitt’s national profile just as a garish, televised lambasting of one of MAGA’s most reviled foes was ready to transpire. What resulted instead was one of the most spectacular political waterloos of any recent Senate hearing.

There is something deeply bizarre about a United States senator arriving at a televised hearing thoroughly convinced he has caught a former special counsel in perjury, only to come to the blatant realization the primary factor in his supposed conspiracy theory was a bird mascot shared by both teams.

We eventually learned that a band of right-wing influencers had their talking points ready to unleash upon social media the minute Schmitt’s supposed gotcha dropped. Fox News’ Sean Hannity initially praised Schmitt before eventually deleting his post on X. Raging white supremacist Benny Johnson declared Schmitt caught Smith perjuring himself. Other conservative commentators circulated the clip as proof that Smith had been caught in a lie — and then quietly abandoned the claim and privately wiped the egg off their stained faces.

Rather than conceding he made a mistake, Schmitt doubled down. Appearing afterward on “The Charlie Kirk Show, the senator continued to insist he had been justified in asking the question. When targeted later by TMZ with the truth, Schmitt replied: “My job is to ask the question.”

Among fellow Republicans, the mishap was palpable. A heavily shared video of Sen. Katie Britt, (R-Ala.,) flashing a petrified look quickly circulated online. One Republican senator anonymously argued the bad intel came directly from the White House. Schmitt’s general counsel, Ethan Harper, who stood behind him holding the inaccurate and faulty poster, learned his potential White House staff position was suddenly in immediate jeopardy.

But what the episode really reveals is how today's conservatives never let the truth take precedence over the art of personal and palatal advancement. Schmitt declared victory despite being publicly embarrassed and humiliated.

Schmitt’s defenders have also engaged in the same nefarious antics, treating a false perjury accusation as permissible because it was geared toward shedding light on exposing potential corruption. It was a moment Republicans intended to go viral and it certainly did, just not in the way they intended.

The ample level of gross incompetence of such a botched and aborted effort does not change the outcome nor intent.

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Copyright 2026 Elwood Watson, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate

Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.