Time for some Sunday funnies

Since the Bush Administration's Justice Department had a big "data dump" on Friday, I figured I'd have a cartoon dump this afternoon. Speaking of that data dump, notice the administration followed the age-old, tried-and-true, cardinal rule of political PR - always release bad political news/notes after deadline on Friday night.

This cartoon got me thinking about global warming. I've heard skeptics and global warming deniers (and thank God there are fewer and fewer of these people) reason that the US should not do anything to combat global warming because "China or India both aren't doing anything."

My response to that is two-fold (I'll stick with China, since it's much more populous than India): First, China IS doing something about global warming, or at least trying to. Recently it announced that it's spending $200 billion to try and convert a whole city in Western China to solar power. Hmm - can anyone name a U.S. city that's trying to do that?

Also, the United States is still by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world at around 33 percent. Right now, China's greenhouse gases are around 13 percent. So we are belching almost three times as much greenhouse gases as China, yet we have 1/5 of China's population. If you were China, wouldn't you resent this just a little bit? And what kind of message are we sending the rest of the world, specifically the developing countries? "We had our industrial revolution, but you can't have yours - sorry." China, which boasts the world's largest coal reserves, needs cheap energy NOW. Along comes the US saying, "You can't burn coal" after we've been doing it for over 100 years. Yea, a lot of good that's going to do us.

I say this because I question what's happening to leadership in our country? We're the United States - we used to lead, not follow. Evidently, we've turned into a bunch of followers, most notably on the important issues like nuclear proliferation and global warming - issues that affect every member of the human race. Can you imagine the response by the rest of the world if we announced we are taking drastic measures to curb greenhouse gases? It would be HUGE news. What's more, then and only then, if the rest of the world didn't take appropriate action, we'd have a leg to stand on. We don't have one now.

I winced at this one, but there's some truth to it, too. I'll have more on carbon trading later today.

There's a lot of truth in this cartoon, too.

Yes, I'm capable of joking about it, but the "Gore invented the Internet" lie still bugs the living daylights out of me.

This one's gold, plain and simple. There are more similarities between the Bush and Nixon administrations than people are realize, but it looks as if some very intelligent journalists are finally waking up to this fact.

This one nails it. The one on the left, in a metaphorical, political sense, is what's best for the country. I'm very happy the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoena power in the investigaton of the Justice Department's dismissal of eight federal prosecutors. This should get very, very interesting. Again, I'll have more on this later today.

Nice. And accurate, too. Rudy's wife should be embarrassed that she's made such a fool of herself. Being married three times (or if your wife happens to have been married three times) shouldn't disqualify a candidate. But, how do you forget a marriage? Sounds intentional to me, but whatever - there are much more important things to be discussing, even at this early stage of the campaign.

Blowhard DeLay hasn't lost his ability to say totally stupid, asanine things.



Speaking of DeLay, I forgot to bring this one to you - it's DeLay getting bitch slapped by Meredith Vieira on The Today Show last week. At one point, he even gets a bit testy, telling Vieira "I didn't know you spoke for the American people," when she brought up a poll that said 59 percent of the American people want the troops out of Iraq.

I got a pretty big kick out of DeLay's comment that the federal prosecutor firings is "a made-up scandal" and "that there's no evidence of any wrongdoing." He also says "this is just a taste of what it's going to be like for the next two years" and that the Democrats are "on a fishing expedition."

You're absolutely right, this is what the next two years are going to be like, scumbag. This administration needs looking into, because before January, Repubes had no oversight whatsoever during Bush's entire presidency. It's breathtaking that DeLay says this stuff with a straight face, considering he's one of the principle architects of the character-assassination, partisan-warfare politics that have dominated Washington since the early 1990s and continues today.

It's pretty entertaining that DeLay's got the balls to say he "never did anything wrong," and how the Democrats set up a specific strategy to "get Tom DeLay 12 years ago. It was on their Website." Ooooohhhhh! Their Website! The Republicans, when Clinton took office, set out to destroy him before he ever raised his right hand on January 20, 1993. That is a well-documented fact - dozens and dozens of books have been written, based on internal memos from Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, about their plan to destroy Clinton at all costs.

DeLay would still be in office if he did nothing wrong. Does anyone think that a man as ruthless and power hungry as DeLay wouldn't have given up his Congressional seat unless it was absolutely necessary? Two of his aides pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff Scandal, and DeLay knew he was next. Oh, and he's still under federal indictment, by the way. He sounds exactly like Nixon in the clip above - playing the victim, and even referring to himself in the third person. One more thing - learn how to say "terror" - it's "error" with a "t," not "terruh." Wait, keep saying it that way - it makes you appear like the rube you really are.

I have no intention of ever reading his book, or putting money in his pocket for it. But, I did read this on the Huffington Post last night - an excerpt from DeLay's book. The excerpt:

"I believe it was Adolf Hitler who first acknowledged that the big lie is more effective than the little lie, because the big lie is so audacious, such an astonishing immorality, that people have a hard time believing anyone would say it if it wasn't true. You know, the big lie — like the Holocaust never happened or dark-skinned people are less intelligent than light-skinned people. Well, by charging this big lie" — that DeLay violated campaign-finance laws in Texas — "liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler."

Check out HuffPo's analysis, by Rachel Sklar:

Never mind the invocation of Godwin's Law, never mind the fact that, where big lies are concerned, the Republicans seem to have that covered — DeLay can't even be bothered to fact-check his own book! "I believe it was Adolf Hitler, but I can't be sure, because I haven't bothered typing the phrase "Hitler" and "big lie" into Google. Buy my book!" Seriously. What a bozo.

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Is DeLay even relevant anymore? Now Democrats are Nazis? I'd really like to know when references to the Nazi Party, Munich, or Hitler became the Titanic of cliches for the Republican Party. Having a Nazi reference in your hip pocket is now like the American Express Card for the GOP - Don't Leave Home Without It.

More on DeLay later, including what I think of his appearance on Meet the Press last week.

Comics from Slate Magazine.