Does Hannity know that the mascot doesn't actually play?

And now the Justice Department *is* an extremist group.

This is a parody of The Apprentice called "The Oligarch." It appears in the June 2025 issue of MAD Magazine. A silhouetted figure that appears to be Donald Trump asks Jeff Bezos to show what he did for this week's task of redesigning the American flag. Jeff Bezos holds up his modified version of the flag says "I replaced the stripes with duct tape from the roll I used to gag Washington Post journalists." In the next panel, Elon Musk says "My flag design represents America after my troop of programmers *fix* all of the countries vital systems." The flag resembles a Nazi flag, but instead of showing a swastika in the center circle, it instead has a "404 Error" message. In the third panel, Trump asks OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to show what he did for this week's task of redesigning the American flag. Altman holds up his flag says "I used AI to create this entirely original design by stitching together many existing flags." Some of the flags he's quilted together include the flag for Canada, the Slytherin house flag, and the logo for the hardcore punk band Black Flag. In the final panel, Trump says "Well, you all did a great job of selling your souls. Now it's time to see who will be my new favorite oligarch--and who will accidentally fall out of a boardroom window." In the background, Mark Zuckerberg is indeed falling past the boardroom window. If all of this seems like behaviour more in line with Vladimer Putin's Russia, that may be because Trump is literally a puppet being puppeteered by Putin. The article was written by Matt Cohen and illustrated by Hermann Mejia.

This MAD Magazine panel shows Putin operating a Trump puppet. Art by Hermann Mejia. (From the article "The Oligarch.")

And MAD is *still* on the case:

There's a reason he's been on the cover at least 9 times!

This is the text that used to come up at the start of a movie. It says "This DVD is for private home viewing only. It is not authorized for any other use. Any public performance, copying or other use is strictly prohibited. Duplication in whole or in part of this DVD is prohibited. All other rights reserved."

This is another anti-piracy warning. It says "Piracy is not a victimless crime. For more information on how digital theft harms the economy, please visit www.iprcenter.gov." If you go to that website now, you can see that they've sold their soul and they're offering training on how artificial intelligence can be "used by brands to bolster IP and brand protection practices."

Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock have become AI advocates just like Seth MacFarlane.

Remember when movie studios warned us that piracy was not a victimless crime? That was back in the good old days before companies realized that *they* could use generative AI to pirate content from *us.*

The visionaries As always, if you find value in this work I do, please consider helping me keep it sustainable by joining my weekly newsletter, Sparky’s List! You can get it in your inbox or read it on Patreon…

This new comic from @tomtomorrow.bsky.social accurately sums up our AI dystopia:

www.dailykos.com/stories/2026...

With the possible exception of JK Rowling, who missed the point of the Harry Potter books.

Doug Gilford's Mad Cover Site - The Don Martin Dictionary - Alphabetical Listing

(If you wished that there was an *actual* listing of real Don Martin SFX... there is! madcoversite.com/dmd-alphabet...)

I checked the official Don Martin Sound Effect Dictionary, and the sound of Ted Cruz being tossed out of office and bouncing on his ass is "Kerflump, Kerflump, Ker Sklop-Sklop-Lopitty-Lop!"

In conclusion, do NOT use all caps. They hurt legibility and make it harder to emphasize words (especially on social media.)

Or, if you're not convinced yet:

IN CONCLUSION, DO NOT USE ALL CAPS. THEY HURT LEGIBILITY AND MAKE IT HARDER TO EMPHASIZE WORDS (ESPECIALLY ON SOCIAL MEDIA.)

This is a panel (within a panel) from the graphic novel adaptation of by Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. It was written by Ryan North (@ryannorth.ca) and illustrated/lettered by Albert Monteys (@albertmonteys.bsky.social). Published by Archaia / Boom! Studios.

Panels from Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero Paperback by E. Lockhart and Manuel Preitano. Published by DC Comics.

Panels from Penny Nichols by MK Reed, Greg Means, and Matt Wiegle. It's wildly underrated. Check it out! Published by Top Shelf Productions.

Panels from Just Roll With It by Veronica Agarwal and Lee Durfey. Published by Random House Graphic.

Using all caps for lettering #comicbooks (and comic strips) is a tradition, but it's a bad tradition. Lots of #graphicnovel publishers are breaking with that tradition by using upper and lowercase lettering. This trend leads to lettering that's more approachable and expressive.

a man in a suit and tie is talking and says i 'm unable to control the pitch or volume of my voice Alt: A monotonous Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live explains that "I'm unable to control the pitch or volume of my voice."

...then you give up one of your tools.

If I write "Do NOT eat my yogurt," the NOT stands out. It underscores my point. If on the other hand I write "DO NOT EAT MY YOGURT" then the emphasis is lost. The sentence not only sounds like shouting, it sounds like MONOTONOUS shouting.

Legibility is the main reason to avoid typing in all caps. Another reason is that using all caps makes it harder to emphasize words.

Most people add emphasis to a word by using all caps, bold type, italics, or underlines. But if you set the entire sentence in capital letters...

The regular and the all-caps versions of the "With great power comes great responsibility" quotes from Spider-Man's Uncle Ben have both been blacked out to show their rough shapes.

For one or two words, all caps isn't too hard to read. But over the course of a sentence or an entire book... it hurts the legibility.

It also becomes visually monotonous. Here's how "With great power comes great responsibility" looks when you focus on just the profile:

In this image, black boxes have been drawn over the lowercase and uppercase versions of the word "great." The shape of covering the lowercase "great" has some distinct characteristics. You can't say for sure if the obscured word is or is not "great," but you can say for certain that it's now a word like "power" or "come." The shape covering the all caps version of the word "GREAT" is just a rectangle. "GREAT," "POWER," and "COMES" all have the same rough profile in all caps.

...these are known as descenders and ascenders.)

If you draw a box around "great" and "GREAT," you'll see that the all caps version sacrifices some distinguishing characteristics of the word. The "G" has the same profile as the "T" (and the other letters too.)

In the entertainingly named book "Stop Stealing Sheep," Erik Spiekermann and E.M. Ginger make the case that the profile of a word helps us to read it quickly. The descending portion of a "g" helps distinguish it from the ascending portion of a "t." (In typography...

The text in the image says "great" in lower case letters and "GREAT" in all caps.

You might think that the all caps version is more legible because the letters are bigger, but the shape of words has a huge impact on legibility.

Let's zoom in on just one word from above. Here's how "great" compares with "GREAT."

The same sentence is written twice, once in upper and lower case letters and once in all capital letters: "With great power comes great responsibility" "WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY"

This is going to be controversial, but you should never use ALL CAPS for more than a word or two.

You already know that all caps is the visual equivalent of yelling, but that's not the only reason to avoid them. The main reason is that they make words less legible. For example:Th

This image features two panels from Superman Smashes The Klan written by Gene Luen Yang with art by Gurihiru (AKA Chifuyu Sasaki and Naoko Kawano.) It shows Daily Planet editor Perry White talking to his reporter Clark Kent. PERRY WHITE: It's just... the Klan Of The Fiery Kross kidnapped a kid? Here in Metropolis? Great Caesar's ghost, is the really my city? CLARK KENT: But they didn't get away with it, right? Superman... PERRY WHITE: That's just it. Superman did something. And so should we.

Read these two Clark Kent/Perry White panels from Superman Smashes The Klan if you wish that newspapers were run by people who didn't coddle the racists in our midst. #graphicnovels

This is a spread from Superman Smashes The Klan, a graphic novel written by Gene Luen Yang with art by Gurihiru (AKA Chifuyu Sasaki and Naoko Kawano.) This panel features Superman delivering a knockout punch to a Nazi villain.

Read these two Clark Kent/Perry White panels if you still need to be convinced to pick up this book (or if you just wish that newspapers were run by people who didn't coddle the racists in our midst.) This image features two panels from Superman Smashes The Klan written by Gene Luen Yang with art by Gurihiru (AKA Chifuyu Sasaki and Naoko Kawano.) It shows Daily Planet editor Perry White talking to his reporter Clark Kent. PERRY WHITE: It's just... the Klan Of The Fiery Kross kidnapped a kid? Here in Metropolis? Great Caesar's ghost, is the really my city? CLARK KENT: But they didn't get away with it, right? Superman... PERRY WHITE: That's just it. Superman did something. And so should we.

Superman was an immigrant's story from day one. Dopes who complain about comics being "woke" now don't understand what characters like Superman have ALWAYS stood for. They should read Superman Smashes The Klan to get a better sense of what real heroism and real American values look like.

And finally, a reminder to those who agonize over what to do about the young men who are increasingly angry, disaffected, and entitled.

Look no further than the President of the US. Speak out against his rhetoric. Teach youth that he is an abuser and abuse is never okay. Let’s start with that. 3/3

I don't recall any previous transformative technologies that had to be sold to the public so hard. No one in 1999 was going, "Guys. Cell phone? It's coming, whether we like it or not. I think it's important, FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, to learn about cell phone. So that we're not left behind!!"

"Arson for hire? It's coming. No way to avoid it. Better learn how to burn your own house down now or you'll be left behind."

This is the text that used to come up at the start of a movie. It says "This DVD is for private home viewing only. It is not authorized for any other use. Any public performance, copying or other use is strictly prohibited. Duplication in whole or in part of this DVD is prohibited. All other rights reserved."

This is another anti-piracy warning. It says "Piracy is not a victimless crime. For more information on how digital theft harms the economy, please visit www.iprcenter.gov." If you go to that website now, you can see that they've sold their soul and they're offering training on how artificial intelligence can be "used by brands to bolster IP and brand protection practices."

Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock have become AI advocates just like Seth MacFarlane.

Remember when movie studios warned us that piracy was not a victimless crime? That was back in the good old days before companies realized that *they* could use generative AI to pirate content from *us.*

Beware of anyone who says that the civil rights of other people are a “distraction.”

It's impossible to make a "slippery slope" argument against this administration because they spend all day greasing up the slopes themselves.

Of *course* the slope is slippery; they slathered it in Crisco!

This is a screenshot of a Hollywood Reporter article. The headline reads "Dave Chappelle Knocks Republican Party for “Weaponized” Transgender Jokes: “That’s Not What I Was Doing”" The subhead says, "After being called out for transphobic jokes, the superstar comedian told NPR that Lauren Boebert and other Republicans are politicizing his humor." The article was written by Etan Vlessing and the Getty Images photo is by Monica Schipper.

In the musical Cabaret, there's a song that seems funny until the last line reveals to the audience that they've been laughing at a racist joke all along. The composer said "We wanted people to realize what antisemitism is REALLY like, what REAL prejudice comes with: It comes with jokes." #Chappelle

Chappelle's newfound discomfort with being embraced by the GOP reminds me of Gavin Newsom objecting to the SCOTUS "conversion therapy" ruling -- a ruling that he *enabled* by discouraging the fight for trans rights by mischaracterizing it as "spending a disproportionate amount of time on pronouns."

Dave Chappelle was just *selling* the weapons; he didn’t expect anyone to *use* them as weapons.

A screenshot of a Hollywood Reporter politics news article. The headline reads, "Dave Chappelle Knocks Republican Party for “Weaponized” Transgender Jokes: “That’s Not What I Was Doing”" The subheadline states, "After being called out for transphobic jokes, the superstar comedian told NPR that Lauren Boebert and other Republicans are politicizing his humor." Below the text is a photo of Chappelle in a black tuxedo speaking at a podium, with a caption noting he is accepting the President's Award at the 2025 NAACP Image Awards.

No, that's exactly what Chappelle was doing and it's why trans people criticized him for doing it.