Saturday, February 24, 2007

And the Oscar for best follow-up to a retiring legislator is...

rob tornoe, tornoe, political cartoon, press of atlantic city, sonny mccullough, bill gormley, frank blee, 2nd legislative district

If this works correctly, it should automatically post onto my blog on Saturday morning. I'm currently in New York attending the New York Comic Con, so I am unable to take your comments. However, they are important to me, so if you just leave your comment under the sketch, then I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you. Here's the sketch:

Thursday, February 22, 2007

You scratch my back...

rob tornoe, tornoe, political cartoon, labor agreement, new jersey, trenton, corzine, labor

Well, Corzine finally reached a much-promised agreement with state employees and labor unions. The deal would caused workers to contribute 1.5 percent of their annual salary to health care, a first for the state. The Minimum retirement age also increases for new hires from 55 to 60.

But in order to get the deal done, Corzine had to agree to give employees a 13.6 percent wage increase over 4 years; 3 percent in the first two years and 3.5 percent in the last two.

This just drives me crazy, not only because it is guaranteed wage hikes even when the state is facing an enormous debt problem (how many of us "private" employees would be offered the same guaranteed increase), but because Corzine promised hard negotiations to drive down the costs of state employees passed along to the taxpayers. And on top of that, as Bob Ingle of the Asbury Park Press notes on his blog, some union leaders are already griping about having to pay 1.5 percent of their annual salary to health costs, when most private employees have to pay 7, 8, 10 percent or more.

Here's the sketch:

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

And the winner of the 2nd District Seat is...

rob tornoe, tornoe, political cartoon, bill gormley, frank blee, sonny mccollough, Frank LoBiondo, atlantic city, 2nd district race

This evening, a 172 member committee of Rebublicans will choose a replacement for the state senate seat vacated by Bill Gormley. The choice is between Assemblyman Frank Blee or Egg Harbor Township Mayor James "Sonny" McCullough. Blee is supported by Gormley, while McCullough is backed by U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo.

And waiting in the wings to face the winner in November....

rob tornoe, tornoe, political cartoon, whelan, press of atlantic city, atlantic city politics, gormley, blee, LoBiondo, New Jerset Senate

If you'd like to read more, check out a story by Pete McAleer of the Press of Atlantic City by clicking here.

Monday, February 19, 2007

KAL featured in Harvard Magazine


Kevin Kallaugher, the former political cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun, and current cartoonist for The Economist, has a nice write-up in the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of The Harvard Magazine. The article discusses his current contributions to the Economist, what he did after leaving the Sun, and his latest venture into 3D animation. Read the article here

To check out more of Kevin's work, check out his website KAL Toons.

Ice ice baby..dum-dum-dum da-da dum-dum

rob tornoe, tornoe, political cartoon, anna nicole smith, east coast cold, snow storm, ice

The snow may have passed over, but it's still freaking cold in Delaware and New Jersey. At my house, the ground is still covered by the 4 inches of ice we received last Tuesday. We're even supposed to get more snow in the middle of this week!

There is only one person on the east coast happy with these weather conditions: Al Gore.

Well, that may not be true. Bush probably is thrilled, so he doesn't have to pretend to be eco-friendly and support alternative fuel sources, and can go right back to silencing NASA climatologists.

Here's the sketch:

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Weekend fun

Look what I caught today in the Rag Shop in Toms River:


Time to work on some assignments. Check back in tomorrow for some updates.