Weekend cartoons

Here's another edition of weekend cartoons. It's going to be a good year for them; presidential election years always are. Enjoy.

Funny how the whole issue of where in the world the tens of thousands of deleted White House e-mails went. What's worse, Congress doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. But, thank GOD we are looking into steroids in baseball. Rep. Henry Waxman and the rest of the Democratic Party "leadership" in Congress are a disgrace.

Bubble is right - it seems to me that Bush is more out of touch than ever (maybe he is learning the lessons from his father's playbook from 1991-1992). I'd say it seems like Bush is merely playing out the string, but he's been doing that since right after the '04 election.

It certainly makes sense. I still find it stunning that an intellectual midget like Our National Embarrassment has an MBA from one of the top business schools in the country. Of course, he's probably the only president to joke and even "brag" about his "C" average in college.

The beef recall from a few weeks back is simply amazing to me. Seems like nothing in this country is safe any longer. The oversight of our food and even our drugs seems to be so lax and wanting, it's amazing that we don't have more incidents of people becoming sick from both.

Self explanatory.

Another cartoon that is self explanatory. Most of the people I know of, especially the right-wing neo-con artists I see on TV, wouldn't know the meaning of patriotism if it bit them in the face. Yet, whenever people don't toe the line to conform to the neo-con version of Democracy, those people are unpatriotic. Riiiight.

Every voter in this country, especially the working class, should consider the results of our disastrous energy policy before they step into the voting booth in December. I could only laugh with amazement last week when Bush said he "hadn't heard" that fuel prices could reach $4 a gallon. Even if he had, would he care? His oil buddies continue to line his political coffer, and now it's for his presidential library. (By the way, just try finding out the donors to his library, and how much they are donating. Best of luck.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the economic stimulus package that's being pimped by Congress and the Bush administration is one of the biggest shams of this young 21st century. We are borrowing $170 billion from countries such as China to give to the American people in the hopes they all "buy something." Wow, what quality leaders we have in Washington.

Once Hillary Clinton is out of the campaign, which could happen as early as next week, the debate will rage on about whether she reigned in President Clinton too much, or not enough. I would have to say "too much"; the former prez is still enormously popular with a large majority of Democratic voters, and they probably should have heard more from him. However, it's only the one of literally dozens of strategic mistakes that Hillary has made during her presidential candidacy.

I don't completely agree with this cartoon, but it does have a point. There has been more than a few times when the former president has overdone it on the stump. I know that seems like a contradiction to what I just said about the cartoon above this one, but I would say that voters haven't heard enough of the proper President Clinton.

This one is proper and dead on, but too bad Democrats and Republicans alike don't believe this to be true, or not nearly enough of them. I've written it before, and I'll write it again - it's not the domestic surveillance program I have a problem with - it's the lack of oversight. (And I believe that many Democrats in Congress share this point of view.)

Bush's rhetoric lies about the necessity of the surveillance program, as well as his line that opponents threaten America's safety, is nothing short of profoundly disgraceful. Gee, I wonder how the Clinton administration (despite what the right-wing media would have its sheep who view and read it believe) kept America relatively safe in the 1990s? Sure, there were incidents, but there were far more incidents that were foiled, too, including many around the turn of the millennium. Ahh, but why let facts get in the way?

If the morons in our government spent as much time trying to fix what's wrong with our economy as they do debating whether something is wrong with the economy, we probably wouldn't be in anywhere near the mess we are in now.

The sage cartoon of the week. If you listen to John McCain and follow his stance on the issues, it's pretty obvious that McCain would be tantamount to Bush Term III. Quickly now, who wants that? According to the latest polls, less than 20 percent of Americans.

Lurita Doan: GOP hack, on the govt's payroll

This testimony just blew me away. It's Lurita Doan, the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration, testifying before Congress about illegal political activity by the GSA.

Way to go all Oliver North/Ronald Reagan before Congress, Ms. Doan. (I'm referring to the Iran/Contra Scandal when President Reagan and Oliver North made "I can't recall" the reigning champ of political euphemisms in America, replacing I'm not a crook. Reagan's comment was knocked off the top spot by Bill Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.")

Here's a quick explanation of the Doan controversy from WaPo's Wednesday edition:

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House joined in a video conference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using "targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country."

On Wednesday, Doan is scheduled to appear before Waxman's committee to answer questions about the video conference and other issues. The committee is investigating whether remarks made during the video conference violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes. Those found in violation of the act do not face criminal penalties but can be removed from their jobs.

She attended the meeting, allegedly made those statements, yet this is the first time she's seeing these PowerPoint slides? Um, sure.

This is exactly the kind of abuse of power that needs to be stopped in government, and the chief reason why Democrats were sent to Congress last November - to clean up all of this corruption.

I wonder how much of this stuff has happened in the last 6+ years that we don't and may never know about?

What really peeves me is when people say, "Every administration does this sort of stuff, but these people are just getting caught." No, no, no. A thousand times NO. That does not excuse abuses of power and in some cases criminal wrongdoing by this administration and its party.

Any president and any party that partakes in this type of behavior to maintain and strengthen power should be called to task before the American people, and we are seeing that now.

Good. That's called checks and balances, and that's how Democracy is supposed to work. Asinine dolts like Tom DeLay love to try to fire up the right by saying, "This is what the next two years is going to be like." Right you are, Tom. And that's because we've suffered under six years of stupid, mindless, incompetent rule at the hands of Bush and his cabal.

And Doan is yet another example of this. She should be removed from her job if these allegations are true, and the evidence looks pretty strong.

We've all met liars in our lives - take a look at this tape and you make the call about whether she's being truthful or not. A five-year old can conclude she's not being truthful. She completely wilts under the questioning of Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA).

Doan, like so many others in this administration, should go.