Weekend Cartoons, post-holiday edition

I have so much to get to tonight, so I'll make these quick. It was a pretty eventful weekend in the world of politics since last Friday, and I've got a ton of video and even more wit and wisdom ;) to bring you, so I won't offer too many comments about the cartoons this week.

On to the comics - less than 21 days now - three weeks from this morning we'll go to the polls.

Suddenly, I have a bunch of good Halloween costume ideas, inspired by the cartoon above. Hey, part of the beauty of an economic collapse is keeping one's sense of humor.

Voter fraud is one of the biggest frauds perpetuated on the American people by the Right, and ACORN is merely the latest tool by the right to stoke fears of a "stolen election." Pretty ironic, considering it's the Right that's been doing the thieving of elections lately. This reminds me of Tzu's The Art of War, where Tzu theorizes that a principle tactic of warfare (in this case, political warfare) is to present your biggest strength as your biggest weakness to your enemies, and that's precisely what Republicans are doing these days - using bogus claims about voter fraud to distract from the real threat to our elections - the possible hacking of our voting machines, and the GOP's voter suppression tactics. Much more on this in the coming days.

It's beyond outrageous that AIG, after being bailed out by American taxpayers, goes on a jaunt to a California spa, where the company blew over $400k. And this isn't just a rumor - it's a confirmed fact. More on this a bit later.

Lost in the bailout and the merger of all the banks, both investment or otherwise, is the danger that there will be so few banks, they will be "too big to fail," meaning that when these larger, more powerful banks inevitably fail again, who will have to bail them out... again? C'mon, I don't really need to say it, do I?

The above cartoon pretty much says it all, and believe it or not, Bush will be laughing all the way to the bank. Our lying, conniving, thieving, incompetent murderer of a President (and if you think that last adjective is too harsh, why don't you ask the Iraqi people?) will soon ride off into the sunset, having crippled America's economy and standing in the world. And what will he have to show for it? Just a billion dollar library, and speaking fees out the ass. Bonus: He'll certainly pardon the many thieves and profiteers on his way out the door, unless the Democrats stop him. Which, of course, means that he'll get away with it, considering the feckless and pathetic nature of the Democratic "leadership" in Congress.

Remember our budget surplus in 1999-2000? Yea, I don't, either. But, his millionaire backers got their tax cut - thank God. Our unborn children and grandchildren will undoubtedly be eternally grateful, generations from now, for all of the debt that Bush has saddled us with. And those absurd tax cuts? The old McCain (no pun intended) of 2002-2003 was opposed to them because of how they favored the rich. The "new" McCain? He wants to make them permanent. Flip flop much?

I sure as hell hope that the moronic notion of electing someone we want to have a beer with is as dead as the telegraph. Certainly there are much more crucial criteria in selecting a president. Sarah Palin is merely the latest example of this philosophy backfiring. Most people loved her at first blush, but her résumé withstood scrutiny for about as long as a Paris Hilton jail sentence.

This is an important issue, but the political reality is that most Americans care about their own self interests first, and foreign affairs a distant second. (Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, anyone?)

So much for the much-ballyhooed global economy and all its benefits.

The right's castigation (and even the McCain campaign, right before the debate) of Gwen Ifil right before the vice presidential debate paid off big time - a widely respected journalist let Palin get away with doing and saying pretty much whatever the hell she wanted during the veep debate. Certainly the right would have cried from the debate until the election if Ifil had actually done her due diligence and asked tough follow-up questions, as any moderator should, of all the candidates during these debates.

The sad, pathetic truth - 159,000 more jobs were lost in September, and over three million manufacturing jobs have been lost during the Bush presidency, an inconvenient fact that Obama should mention repeatedly in the final days of the campaign.

McCain's gaffe will go down in presidential debate history as one of the more stupid, and also indicates the utter contempt he has for Obama as a person.

I included this cartoon because I so vehemently disagree with it. Anyone who thinks that the media is simply fawning over Obama hasn't been following the media closely for the last two years. McCain was given a veritable free ride during much of the Democratic Party primaries when Hillary and Obama were slugging it out. Lest we forget, McCain so famously called the mainstream media "his base."

I will go to my grave firmly believing that the price of gas is plummeting because Big Oil is so desperate to get McCain elected. (And I'm not naïve enough to believe that idea is a groundbreaking idea, but it certainly is based in political fact.)

I hope OJ goes to jail for the rest of his life, and that the homeboys run a train on him. Daily.

I believe that privatizing Social Security is one of the dumbest ideas the Right has ever had, and I'll always oppose it. But, I also know the Right won't rest in fighting for this moronic idea, either.

Because of our addiction to foreign oil, we are funding the likes of Chavez, Putin and the terrorists who rule Saudi Arabia, as well as Iran, etc. The only way to stop it is renewable energy. I find it more than a little ironic (and tragically comedic) that Bush rails against these terrorist states, (sans Saudi Arabia) yet we keep buying their oil and boosting their economies. One of many moronic contradictions of the Bush years.

This may not be as true as it was last week, but we certainly aren't out of the woods regarding our economy - the fundamentals of our economy are still the same, but the $700 billion BAILOUT (Calling it a Rescue Package is simply a b.s. PR tactic) is merely serving as a deodorant until after the election. Put another way, I firmly believe that the Bushies are merely trying to buy enough time to keep this thing together until after the election, in the hopes that McCain gets elected in 20 days.

Once the roof falls in, Bush will be back at his "Ranch," playing windshield cowboy, laughing with his millions in the bank. He'll have his $1 billion library and his rich speaking fees - disastrous war and wrecked economy be damned. He'll then start his "legacy building" tour, where he'll undoubtedly whitewash any wrongdoing by his administration. Oh, and the pardons! Boy, how there are going to be pardons - Bush is going to make Mark Rich look like Princess Diana by the time he gets down handing out his many pieces of justice-flavored candy in the days before Jan. 20. Bank on it. (But make sure it's a solid bank.)