A proven model, indeed, reaching back to the Marshall Plan after WWII. GBT sees with a clear satirical eye, as did Leonard Wibberley, who authored The Mouse That Roared in 1955. It only hurts when I laugh.

This week's series make me wonder why Duke was so keen on keeping everyone's favorite dictator from reclaiming his throne. Could he have a tiny bit of conscience guiding his actions?

I've been a reader since the early 70s, when I was a kid. Today's strip -- I LOLd. Ya got me!

Alex is a jewel beyond price. She listens. Toggle made a good choice of partner.

The strip today showing Toggle's frustration with speaking hits home. I've stuttered all my life, and incidents like that are all too real, and all too painful. Thanks to GBT for capturing the essence. The movie The King's Speech also does a great job of conveying the emotional agony, but GBT does it in four panels.

Re today's flashback strip: I agree Congress has been wasting its time with all those procedural votes. They just needed to wait for Big Corporations (that apparently actually run this country) to say they needed more time, and presto -- Obamacare gets shoved off for another year. Remember, corporations are people -- that don't require healthcare.

Happy Birthday! And many, many happy returns of the day as well. I have been a fan since the beginning and intend to read your stuff until I cannot see anymore.

It's been amazing how many of the Flashback strips are relevant to today's events. On Face the Nation this morning John Boehner said the job of Congress is to repeal laws, not pass them -- and there was the Sunday Flashback about Congress not doing any business.

The flashback strips of Mel returning home from Afghanistan reminded me of what a wonderful character she is. Here's hoping that GBT finds a way to keep us involved in her life going forward.

The strip for today captures the dognatic partisanship and cluelessness of Fox News's talking mouths. I wait with joyful anticipation for Roland Hedley to get his comeuppance. Can we look forward to Roger Ailes's firing of Hedley in favor of someone who is a more desirable journalist -- say, Elisabeth Hasselbeck?

I found a photograph of LBJ and JFK in which Uncle Duke is clearly sitting right behind the two leaders; dark glasses, cigarette and everything. It's really quite astonishing.

There is no sich word as "stupider."

So happy to see Melissa again, even if it is in Flashbacks!

I can't take the Flashbacks any more! I need the real, fresh, surprising, current, delightful Doonesbury to make it through the day. The withdrawal is painful!

G.T. captures the essence of our collective consciousness. He's the philosopher of our century. We need these strips, and I hope enough people have the intelligence and the care to understand them.

Jimmy Crow is doing more in North Carolina. We already have the most optimized gerrymandering in the country -- now voter ID and major cutback in early voting. Alas, students must vote at home, not in the district where they attend school. Check out the Moral Monday protests; thousands gather each Monday to protest voting rights restrictions, cuts in education, shift in tax burden to the poor, cuts in unemployment benefits for the unemployed -- and the list goes on. Really, North Carolina leads the country in a return to the stone age.

Who would have thought when you started that in 40 years time the Doonesbury youth would be heroic soldiers that gave everything and worthless stay-at-homes? It sometimes feels like if the old strips were written now, B.D. would be the hero and Mike/Mark/Zonker would be the selfish-lazy-shiftless losers.

OMG! It may be just re-runs, but you couldn't have picked a better time for bringing back Jimmy Crow. Thanks to the Supreme Court, he's back in business.

I generally like the Doonesbury strip although I do not agree with many positions it takes. However, the current Jim Crow story line is absolutely racist. Even if the premise is true, which I do not think it is, this handling of the issue simply promotes racism, not a useful dialog about the situation.

Every year I go back and reread The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, Frederick Douglass's lament on being asked to give a Fourth of July speech in 1852. "What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?" I'm still down with that whole Nation with Liberty and Justice for All thing, but as we contemplate Jimmy Crow's comeback tour I'm still not holding my breath waiting for the inevitable Republican implosion.