Weekend Cartoons

I found plenty of laugh and be very outraged about this week. My comments are below the cartoons, and I'll be tackling many of these issues this weekend.

Enjoy...

Don't look now, but the airline industry is one in another long line of industries where the Bush administration has its criminal negligence on full display - an industry where corporate America screws the common man. How so? Well, following 9-11, each and every airline company cried and whined to the federal government that it needed billions and billions to survive, and they got it. Now, we find out that they've been giving our safety short shrift? I don't know what's worse - this pathetically, tragically and criminally inept administration willfully not doing its job by enforcing safety regulations, or the airlines, who only care about making money. Call me crazy, but I would think that the airlines would make safety their number one priority. What a concept, huh?

I've written it many times, and it bears repeating - it will never cease to amaze me that the American people will put a party in charge of our government who campaign on the idiotic notion that "government is part of the problem." No, government is part of the problem when morons like these are put in charge of the government.

The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming regarding some Americans' belief that the US should boycott the Olympic games. I will have much more on this later tonight. In short, we absolutely should not.

I included this cartoon because it's such bullshit. I'm soo sick and tired of the Republican Party's reputation of being vehement tax cutters, because it's all one big goddamn lie. Or, I should say, at least by contemporary Republican Party standards. The fact is, the Bush tax cuts, which overwhelmingly favored the rich, those same tax cuts that McCain wants to make permanent. It's typical of politicians these days - cut taxes now to get the political benefit, and to hell with the people who are going to have to pay all of this money back, with interest, in successive generations. What a joke. The minute Democrats realize this, and state the painful fact that taxes will have to be increased, they are called "tax and spend liberals" by hacks like Frank Luntz and Karl Rove.

By the way, McSame also wants to lower the corporate tax rate by an astounding 10 percent, too. I guess McBush thinks that the federal deficit is some sort of fantasy, like a viable missile defense system, but I digress.

I didn't hear any comedians say this last week, but I was surprised I didn't - something along the lines of, "Can we finally take Heston's gun from his cold dead hands now?"

As uncomfortable as this cartoon might make some, it's sadly the reality of what many troops are coming home to, and will continue to come home to, until the government does something about the appalling benefits our vets receive. I'm not holding my breath - with the impending crushing deficit, our politicians in Washington will no doubt try and come up with plenty of justifications for not giving our returning heroes the treatment, wages and benefits they so richly deserve.

This should be written across the sky - there cannot be any sort of meaningful discussion about our crumbling economy without talking about the incredible black hole that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are having on our economy. I'm not hearing nearly enough discussion about this immutable fact. Bush's wars, in addition to his absurd stewardship of our economy (including an almost complete lack of regulation in many areas), are having a great deal of impact on our spiraling economy. Every time I turn on the news, I feel like America is circling the bowl, and the pace is getting quicker and quicker.

Both parties are to blame for the idiocy that is our coming economic stimulus package. Ho boy! Like a few hundred dollars are going to turn everything around. I've insinuated this many times before, but I guess we can stop with the insinuations now - this administration now only thinks most of us are stupid, but it counts on it as being true.

(See my above comments about the airlines.)

The sad fact is that this administration can stick a microscope up anyone's arse and have a good look around if it wants to, and according to the laws on the books, and this administration's very broad and generous interpretation of them, there's little anyone can do, especially if the administration labels you a terrorist.

(Again, see comments above about this administration's handling of regulation and corporate oversight.)

General Petraeus' broken-record analysis of this past week, which was a virtual repeat of last summer's song and dance, paints a pretty bleak picture for America's future, much less Iraq's, not to mention our troops in the field. More on Petraeus's Congressional testimony a bit later.

We'll see if McSame has this same sort of cakewalk in the fall. In short, if Clinton or Obama can't beat McCain, either one doesn't deserve to be president, but most importantly, we'll all screwed.

The great Senator from Arizona has been so busy cheerleading the escalation Surge, he doesn't even know the difference between a Shi'ite and a Sunni. And this is the so-called foreign policy expert in the campaign? Unreal.

Thank God for small favors - the Bush administration has announced that it's reducing tours of duty in the Middle East from 15 months to 12 months. What a great, generous measure to help our long-suffering troops. How much do you want to bet that private mercenaries will be increased to offset the difference?

Our political March Madness is giving way to April Anxiety among the candidates, and I'm looking forward to it all, including the gaffes, botched jokes, and misstatements - and none of the remaining three candidates are immune.