Count Me Blue: Weekend Cartoons

So many great cartoons to post from this past week, so little time to post them. I had a hard time choosing from the plethora of sage cartoons I ran across this week, but the ones below are the best of the best. I have limited bloggin' time today (we are on vacation in Washington State in the Olympic National Forest), so I won't offer up too many comments this week with them (below selected cartoons, as usual), but I will be tackling many of these subjects in separate posts to come later on this weekend and early next week.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend, wherever you are. Please check back soon - CMB is only going to be more and more active in the coming days and months - after all, we're down to 92 days before the election.

On to the cartoons. ...

I was listening to the Thom Hartmann show last week (I never miss it), and a man called in who was clearly a conservative, although he claimed he was an Independent, and he was whining and complaining about paying for "other people's healthcare." I never cease to be amazed by this "argument," when the facts are clearly on the side of universal healthcare. The bottom line is this (and Hartmann put it much more succinctly than I could ever hope to) - we pay for it either way. The uninsured use emergency rooms as personal doctors and they must receive care by law, and when the bills go unpaid, the insured are paying for them anyway.

There are so many other reasons for uni healthcare, and for the life of me I'll never really understand why conservatives fight it so much. Oh well - just like I hope to live to see us walk on Mars, I also hope I live to see that day when all Americans are covered.

Deregulation is another thing espoused by conservatives on a daily basis, and for the most part (with a few exceptions), it's the scourge of the working men and women of this country, as well as an excuse for corporate American to "police" itself (Read: Rape and pillage rate payers to pad a corporations' bottom lines). It will never stop cracking me up that Americans elect politicians who run on the idea that "government is part of the problem." NO - incompetent idiots running the government is the problem. There are too many real examples of this in the Bush administration to cover here, but I will in due time. Monica Goodling's testimony before Congress this week merely reaffirms the fact that the Bush administration has long valued ideology and loyalty over competency since day one. Heck of a job, Georgie, heck of a job.

Isn't this one the sad truth. Our government is broke. No, seriously, our government is broke, and no one really seems to get it. My theory is that during election years, when we decide who will lead the country for the next four years, we really do expect (and like) to be lied to. If either McCain or Obama got up in front of a crowd and said, "Our government is broke, and we are in serious, serious trouble," that candidate's electoral chances would be about as realistic as a Milli Vanilli comeback.

As I wrote earlier this week, I'm looking forward to the day that Sen. Ted Stevens is a former U.S. Senator. He's the dork of pork and also a vehement opponent to Net Neutrality. For those reasons alone (but there are many others), I'm looking forward to his demise.

This one speaks for itself.

As does this one. A majority of Americans aren't the only ones who are crying out for change in the wake of eight years of Bush - so are our allies, who have had to endure eight years of Cowboy diplomacy. Speaking of diplomacy, anyone remember Dubya's guarantee that there would be a peace settlement

This is one of the wittier posts I've seen about McCain and any comparisons to Reagan.

Sen. Claire McCaskill said on on TV last week, and I couldn't agree more - among the right-wing talking heads in the media, Obama will be criticized no matter what he does, and as if we needed any proof of that, think back to the coverage that Obama has received in the last few weeks, during the last leg of his overseas trip to the media coverage he's received since he's been back home.

Offshore drilling is a complete crock as a solution to our nation's energy problems, & I'm mighty steamed that Obama appears to be caving on this issue somewhat, as evidenced by his comments in recent days that maybe he would be open to the idea of OCS drilling as a compromise to Republicans.

I was listening to Thom Hartmann the other day talk about the Home Mortgage bailout bill, and his very educational discussion hammered home one thing - that the home mortgage crisis and our national debt are linked, more closer than probably just about every American is comfortable with.

In short, Hartmann mentioned how in the 1970s, the chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time, (President Carter had several, but I believe the one Hartmann was referencing was Paul Volcker) struck a deal with foreign governments to invest in the U.S. dollar, an in return the U.S. would give these governments a guaranteed return on their investments. Much of this money went into mortgages and housing.

Consequently, last week's bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were largely, according to Hartmann, to send a signal to the foreign governments that their investiments in the U.S. dollar are safe. Also, according to Hartmann (and I've read this elsewhere), the housing "bailout" contains very little in the way of help for increasingly desperate homeowners. Howe very comforting. So, the U.S. Government assures its creditors that the U.S. will make good on its borrowing, and in the end, millions upon millions of homeowners continue to claw and fight, day-to-day, to keep their homes. Why am I not surprised.

By the way, I know I've written about him many times, but he's certainly worth mentioning again - I learn more from listening to Hartmann than I do listening to any other radio show, by far. And his show is not about the partisan bickering and ranting that characterizes so many shows (we all know who they are on the right). When I listen to Hartmann, I hear conflicting points of view debated; he regularly has on conservatives, and issues of the day are debated in a calm and reasonable manner. Try getting that on Hannity's or Rush's show. Good luck.

The lack of oversight and regulation by our government about our food supply should be very damning to each and every American, especially since the Bush administration rejected out of hand some proposals several years ago that would have installed tracking devices on food shipments, as well as extensive record keeping, so reports of food supply irregularities could easily and quickly reported and tracked. Evidently, it was too "onerous" for businesses.

Corporate profits and political influence trump the public interest, again. It's a song we've grown accustomed to hearing all too often during the Bush administration.

It's patently absurd and asinine that McCain would go on TV and accuse Obama of being a celebrity. Who has appeared more times on Meet the Press since 2000? That would be John McCain, but to hear him say it, he never gets any press or favorable publicity. Laughable.

It's even more absurd that this country could have a major candidate for president in 2008 who isn't intimately familiar with the Internet. This guy served in Vietnam, and technologically speaking, he acts like he lives there, too.

The luggage fees and carry-on situation on many flights are quickly becoming intolerable. Before long, the airlines are going to be charging for the flotation device your seat, the air you breathe, and the napkins that are handed out with the snacks.