Cartoons of the Week
It was an interesting and very news filled week, from the Supreme Court ruling about the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, to Tim Russert's passing to Barack Obama forgoing public financing for his fall presidential run. I won't offer too many comments on the cartoons this week, but I will be commenting a great deal on these issues individually.
As always, my comments are below selected cartoons.
I'm just as unhappy about it as the next person, but the fact of the matter is that nuclear power is going to have to be a power option for the US, at least in the near-term. I'm also unhappy that the government hasn't come up with a viable solution for nuclear waste, but honestly, nuclear can't possibly be worse for the Earth than the thousands of coal and oil fired power plants around the world.
And drilling off of our coasts and ANWR? Forget it. We cannot and will not drill our way out of this mess.
... and I've got absolutely no problem with that. Obama needs to get out in front of our energy crisis and offer some real, viable solutions. He also needs to be honest and straightforward with the American people - it's going to be a long, painful weaning process from fossil fuels, but we've got to start somewhere. John McCain offered up some viable proposals over the weekend, and Obama needs to start doing the same. Simply offering up a windfall profits tax for the oil companies (which was just blocked by Republicans in Congress) isn't going to do it.
I'll have plenty more on this in the coming days, including my letter to the Obama campaign.
This too will be a long, arduous process - repairing and undoing much of the damage done by the Bush administration. Actually, if Obama wins, I hope to see a litany of Executive Orders from the White House on Day 2 (we'll give him a day to get settled) that undo some of the more absurd policies of the Bush administration, including torture, some environmental regulations, IRS policy, energy policy, and I won't even get started on education (at least right now).
The cartoon immediately above is the best one I saw about Tim Russert all week. Right after his death, I found the coverage to be a bit overbearing, but the tributes to him during the viewing and funeral were more than appropriate. I was especially moved by the tributes on his show, Meet the Press.
I in no way mean this as disrespect to Russert himself, but the tributes and nearly around-the-clock coverage of him during the few days following his death are a pretty sad commentary on the corporate media in this country - collectively, our media personalities never miss an opportunity to tell us how great they are, and they sure didn't miss a chance this time.
It's tragic, a moral outrage and patently absurd that we now know more about Tim Russert than we do about what's going on in our name on the streets of Baghdad right now. Last week, a suicide bomb went off, killing over 50 people, and we received a whole lot more coverage of Russert than we did that bomb.
Incidentally, how are things in Baghdad, Senator McCain? It might be time for another stroll down a Baghdad market for McBush, flanked by 50 soldiers while wearing all the protective gear he can fit on his body. What a farce.
It's criminal that our government can't keep our food safe, period. There's plenty of blame to go around, but I'll offer up this comforting chestnut - thank God the terrorists who hate us are as hapless/unmotivated/underfunded as they are, because tainting America's food supply is startlingly easy if one were so inclined. I love it when Bush and Cheney get on TV and lick themselves all over with pride and pomposity that there haven't been any major terrorist attacks in American since 9-11. Well, it sure as hell isn't for lack of opportunities, that's for sure.
I'll never tire of pointing out just how insanely stupid opponents of gay marriage are. I really can't think of any way to put it better than that.
I'm yet to hear a compelling argument as to why detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba should not have any rights under the Constitution. As I understand it, the Constitution applies to everyone on foreign soil, not just American citizens. What's more, our government has the right to call anyone it likes, including American citizens, an enemy combatant, and anyone of us could be hauled off to Gitmo, without knowing why or having the right to counsel, before this ruling. How American is that? We are supposed to be the country that abides by the rule of law, where all people have their day in court when accused of a crime. Why should this not apply to terrorists?
Now, all of a sudden, people who are applauding the SCOTUS ruling are siding with terrorists or are in favor of making the US less secure and safe? C'mon! I will NOT apologize, ever, for not supporting my government's right to torture people. We are supposed to be better than that. But, the Bush administration has seen to it that we are not. Color this as another one of the many black eyes that Bush has given this country over the last 7+ years.
Reports are coming out of Iowa from people who have had to wait days and days for FEMA to arrive with water, food and shelter. Hmm, doesn't that sound familiar? I'm quite certain that the Bush administration has learned a few lessons from Hurricane Katrina, but thank God we'll have a new administration soon, and whomever wins in November, I don't see how either candidate could possibly handle natural disasters worse than Bush has.
I have to say, though, that Bush's visit to Iowa last week (as well as McCain's) was a stupendously bad idea. Whenever a president visits one of these areas, valuable resources are used to squire him around for his photo op. Bush would have been much better to simply stay away, and do all he could for Washington, D.C. And McCain should have stayed away, period. Last week, Barack Obama sagely canceled a trip to the flood-battered Midwest.
Will McCain '08 = Dole '96? It's hard to say - 12 years is a long, long time and so much has changed since then. But, like Clinton that year, Obama ought to mop up the floor with McCain, but that doesn't mean he will.
As always, my comments are below selected cartoons.
[Click on any cartoon for a larger image]
I'm just as unhappy about it as the next person, but the fact of the matter is that nuclear power is going to have to be a power option for the US, at least in the near-term. I'm also unhappy that the government hasn't come up with a viable solution for nuclear waste, but honestly, nuclear can't possibly be worse for the Earth than the thousands of coal and oil fired power plants around the world.And drilling off of our coasts and ANWR? Forget it. We cannot and will not drill our way out of this mess.
... and I've got absolutely no problem with that. Obama needs to get out in front of our energy crisis and offer some real, viable solutions. He also needs to be honest and straightforward with the American people - it's going to be a long, painful weaning process from fossil fuels, but we've got to start somewhere. John McCain offered up some viable proposals over the weekend, and Obama needs to start doing the same. Simply offering up a windfall profits tax for the oil companies (which was just blocked by Republicans in Congress) isn't going to do it.I'll have plenty more on this in the coming days, including my letter to the Obama campaign.
This too will be a long, arduous process - repairing and undoing much of the damage done by the Bush administration. Actually, if Obama wins, I hope to see a litany of Executive Orders from the White House on Day 2 (we'll give him a day to get settled) that undo some of the more absurd policies of the Bush administration, including torture, some environmental regulations, IRS policy, energy policy, and I won't even get started on education (at least right now).
The cartoon immediately above is the best one I saw about Tim Russert all week. Right after his death, I found the coverage to be a bit overbearing, but the tributes to him during the viewing and funeral were more than appropriate. I was especially moved by the tributes on his show, Meet the Press.I in no way mean this as disrespect to Russert himself, but the tributes and nearly around-the-clock coverage of him during the few days following his death are a pretty sad commentary on the corporate media in this country - collectively, our media personalities never miss an opportunity to tell us how great they are, and they sure didn't miss a chance this time.
It's tragic, a moral outrage and patently absurd that we now know more about Tim Russert than we do about what's going on in our name on the streets of Baghdad right now. Last week, a suicide bomb went off, killing over 50 people, and we received a whole lot more coverage of Russert than we did that bomb.
Incidentally, how are things in Baghdad, Senator McCain? It might be time for another stroll down a Baghdad market for McBush, flanked by 50 soldiers while wearing all the protective gear he can fit on his body. What a farce.
It's criminal that our government can't keep our food safe, period. There's plenty of blame to go around, but I'll offer up this comforting chestnut - thank God the terrorists who hate us are as hapless/unmotivated/underfunded as they are, because tainting America's food supply is startlingly easy if one were so inclined. I love it when Bush and Cheney get on TV and lick themselves all over with pride and pomposity that there haven't been any major terrorist attacks in American since 9-11. Well, it sure as hell isn't for lack of opportunities, that's for sure.
I'll never tire of pointing out just how insanely stupid opponents of gay marriage are. I really can't think of any way to put it better than that.
I'm yet to hear a compelling argument as to why detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba should not have any rights under the Constitution. As I understand it, the Constitution applies to everyone on foreign soil, not just American citizens. What's more, our government has the right to call anyone it likes, including American citizens, an enemy combatant, and anyone of us could be hauled off to Gitmo, without knowing why or having the right to counsel, before this ruling. How American is that? We are supposed to be the country that abides by the rule of law, where all people have their day in court when accused of a crime. Why should this not apply to terrorists?Now, all of a sudden, people who are applauding the SCOTUS ruling are siding with terrorists or are in favor of making the US less secure and safe? C'mon! I will NOT apologize, ever, for not supporting my government's right to torture people. We are supposed to be better than that. But, the Bush administration has seen to it that we are not. Color this as another one of the many black eyes that Bush has given this country over the last 7+ years.
(See my Tim Russert comments above.)
Catchy, and true, in many ways.
Reports are coming out of Iowa from people who have had to wait days and days for FEMA to arrive with water, food and shelter. Hmm, doesn't that sound familiar? I'm quite certain that the Bush administration has learned a few lessons from Hurricane Katrina, but thank God we'll have a new administration soon, and whomever wins in November, I don't see how either candidate could possibly handle natural disasters worse than Bush has.I have to say, though, that Bush's visit to Iowa last week (as well as McCain's) was a stupendously bad idea. Whenever a president visits one of these areas, valuable resources are used to squire him around for his photo op. Bush would have been much better to simply stay away, and do all he could for Washington, D.C. And McCain should have stayed away, period. Last week, Barack Obama sagely canceled a trip to the flood-battered Midwest.
Will McCain '08 = Dole '96? It's hard to say - 12 years is a long, long time and so much has changed since then. But, like Clinton that year, Obama ought to mop up the floor with McCain, but that doesn't mean he will.Labels: Guantánamo Bay, Weekend Cartoons
posted by RJ at 6:57 PM
2 Comments:
As I understand it, the Constitution applies to everyone on foreign soil, not just American citizens.
You never took a civics class, did you?
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
And if you read the history of the negotiations and drafting, you would know that its provisions and its protections were meant solely for US citizens and those within the control and protection of US authorities...
It no more "protects" enemy combatants in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than it lent its protections to Japanese, Germans or Italians who fought against us in WWII, Koreans in the Korean Conflict or the Viet Cong in Vietnam. (You might want to brush up on the Nuremberg "trials" while you're at it. Those were military tribunals (not trials) and not one of the defendants had access to the US Courts or the protections afforded American citizens under their constitution.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I'm not in the habit of attacking people who comment on here, which accomplishes nothing. The goal on here is reasoned, passionate political discourse. However, I have several problems with what you wrote.
First, you're absolutely right in one respect ~ you caught me in a typo. Where I wrote As I understand it, the Constitution applies to everyone on foreign soil, not just American citizens, what I meant to say was that the Constitution applies to everyone on Amerian territory, which the American military base in Guantánamo Bay most certainly is.
By the way, it sounds as if YOU need a brush-up on civics, because those "enemy combatants" (or whatever else the Bush administration is calling them this week) at Gitmo? The last time I checked, they are in control of U.S. authorities. (But, protection is another matter altogether.)
Since you profess to be such an authority on U.S. history, here's a little lesson for you.
The Geneva Convention treaties, of which the United States is a signatory, guarantees the humane treatment of POWs. Before you jump up and down and say "the prisoners at Gitmo aren't prisoners," think again (and quit drinking the Fox News/George W. Bush Kool-Aid). Besides, this IS the so-called Global War on Terrorism, is it not? (Which is an absurd term, but I won't get into that here.)
What's more, we are the United States, the supposed moral authority in the world, or at least until our clown of a president was appointed to his office in the fall of 2000. We have always condemned nations that kill and torture people (didn't we have Saddam executed for that?). Okay, the U.S. isn't Saddam at his killing best, (in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, when we turned a blind eye to his murderous ways and funded him, but that's another topic for another time, too) but Bush has an extraordinary amount of blood on his hands. There are plenty of reports that multiple prisoners have died while in U.S. custody at various CIA black sites around the world (and those are only the ones we've heard about - it's a virtual certainty that there's more).
Hell, even Adolf Eichman got a trial, and he was responsible for more deaths than bin Laden only wishes he could be as murderous as Eichman & his fellow Nazis. Don't take my word for it - the words "Even Adolf Eichman got a trial" are the words of none other than John McCain on Meet the Press to the late Tim Russert on June 19, 2005. Oops.
And those Nuremberg Trials you wrote about? Um, yea, I think I read about those somewhere once. I also know that while the defendants didn't have access to U.S. courts, in a way, the U.S. courts were brought to them. The two U.S. judges who participated in the trials were straight out of the U.S. legal system: Francis Biddle was the U.S. Attorney General until shortly before the trials, and the U.S. alternate judge, John Parker, was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for decades and just narrowly missed being elected to the Supreme Court.
My point? Even the Nazi butchers on trial at Nuremberg had more rights than the prisoners at Gitmo. That should be a not-so-subtle dose of reality.
Furthermore, the last time I checked, our government didn't have the power to perform warrantless searches during the wars you mention. And even if it did, this so-called war isn't like any of those wars, anyway. Going all the way back to the Civil War, many historians agree that perhaps the biggest stain on President Lincoln's presidency was his suspension of Habeas Corpus, and Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents ever. (I put him right behind Washington.)
Even the conservative Supreme Court has ruled that the detainees at Gitmo have many more rights than the Bush administration is willing to give them. I find that irony hilarious, since Bush appointed Alito and Roberts.
Finally, can one discussion about foreign policy ever take place with someone on the right without World War II being brought up? Get over it! It was almost 70 years ago. I'm an aficionado of WW II, but there aren't too many parallels to the disaster Our National Embarrassment has gotten us into. And someone needs to shout this fact into John McCain's ear, too; if I had a barrel of oil for every time McCain compares our troops in Iraq to our troops in Korea, Japan and Germany, I could lower the global price of oil by at least $30.
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