This is just political theatre–is C-Span getting my angle right?

I love drawing Mitch McConnell, he has such IN-teresting LIE-ins. I was saying to my friend Sadie the other day, I said, Sadie, you know Sadie, she works in the parlour down the street, Sadie, I said, I hope Mitch McConnell comes in today, he has such IN-teresting LIE-ins, and Sadie says to me, I know, I KNOW, such IN-teresting LIE-ins, and now here he comes in because of this health care thingie and how it’s going to be on C-Span and EV-erything and how I have to make him just as PRETTY as possible because he’s going to be the star of the show and just make a fool of that Obama person. Oh, Mr. McConnell, I said, you have nothing to worry about, you have such IN-teresting LIE-ins. If I had my way, I’d just be listening to your LYin’s all day!

Of course, the damn thing IS just political theatre, but not for the reasons the Republicans are saying–so much of what could be called REAL Health Care Reform has already been bartered away. As Miles Mogulescu noticed in the Huffington Post:

“On August 13, The Times reported that while President Obama had presented himself as ‘aloof from the legislative fray,’ particularly in connection with the public option, ‘Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and advisors have been…negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially at odds with the president’s rhetoric.’ One of the deals reported in The Times article was the Pharma deal. The other was a deal with the for-profit hospital lobby to limit its cost reductions to $155 billion over 10 years in exchange for a White House promise that there would be no meaningful public option.”

Wonder WHY Obama has been so pessimistic on the public option he promised during the campaign but almost immediately reneged on and why everyone keeps saying we don’t have 60 votes when it should take only 51? It’s because they don’t want a public option at all. What do the Republicans have to scuttle? The Democrats have already stove a hole in the hull.

Have your day in the spotlight, Mitch, at least the public will get the chance to see you baling water in instead of baling it out. But the ship’s already sinking without you.

Health Care Reform, Season II: Defecate or Decamp

Now that the basic idea of health care reform has finally limped across the finish line with both the House and the Senate having voted for different seriously damaged versions of what the public actually wants, Republicans have started crying, “But we never had a chance for any input!” And President Obama, bless his pointy little head, decided to have a televised love fest where the official protectors of business will get a chance to show how little they think of the bill, whether accurate or not, and give Obama the chance to magically make everyone happy by his words.

BULL! The Republicans had ample chance to influence what was in the bill, had they not been sitting on their hands and saying that they were going to make health care Obama’s Waterloo. They didn’t give a snap of the fingers what was or what wasn’t in the bill until it actually passed and there appeared some glimmer of hope that the most expensive health care system in the world might actually become the fifteenth best instead of down in the dismal 30s somewhere. Now that the train has left the station, like the villains in an antique horse opera, it’s time to ride hellbent for leather over to Perilous Chasm with dynamite to wreck the train. Obama’s not going to give them the dynamite tho’, no sir, he just runs the livery stable to give the boys a good start trying to get to the chasm before the train does.

I’m not sold on the present form of health care reform: in fact, I think it kinda sux. It isn’t single payer, the only SENSIBLE alternative to what we have; it has no public option, its limpwristed cousin, even if there’s still a pulse in that supine body; and it includes a mandate forcing everyone in the United States to make the health insurance vampires richer. But would somebody please explain to me Obama’s sick fetish with bipartisanship? As Arianna Huffington pointed out the other day, slavery wasn’t repealed with a bipartisan compromise, it took a @#$%^&* war. And Americans are being forced into an economic servitude where they do not have health insurance, they are OWNED by the insurance companies and dare not move from the one they are subject to lest they lose coverage over a pre-existing condition. Sounds to me like an unfree condition.

Not only that, but health care is driving our economy into the crapper. As costs for medicine, health care insurance rise and rise, it’s become one of the major facets of the American economy. That’s just crazy! Communism didn’t bury us, but we need to get a handle on health care before we’re buried by our own Capitalism. The health care bill isn’t going to reverse this, but at least it will slow it down. So I have one thing to say to Obama. Tell the Republicans to defecate or decamp. Don’t compromise this thing any further if you don’t want PASSING health care reform to become your Water “loo”.

What Would It Take For A President to Say “The State of the Union Ain’t Very Strong”?

I mean seriously, what WOULD it take for the President to start out, “The State of the Union isn’t very strong”? Massive depression? Naw, even Herbert Hoover said the SOTU was strong. Open rebellion? I bet even Abe Lincoln said the state of the union was strong. And it was, if you didn’t count the 11 states that up and left when he was elected. Perhaps alien invasion? “Let me remind you, you still have two out of three branches of the federal government and that ain’t bad,” as the President said in MARS ATTACKS. Actual unemployment and underemployment is around 20%, we’re in debt up to our yinyangs to China because of a double recession during the Bush presidency, two wars that we shouldn’t have been in in the first place, tax cuts for the people who didn’t need them and a massive bailout of banks that had been holding a craps game with our money, credit card companies charging 30% interest, 30 million people without health insurance, BUT–The State of the Union is strong.
We did get one moment of high comedy tho–thanks to Chris Matthews of MSNBC. Forgot he was black for an hour, Chris? Way to GO! Only one month into 2010 and you already have the gaffe of the year! But wait–maybe you can outdo yourself–you have 11 more months to do it in!
President Obama gave himself a number of pats on the back, waved his finger at the right side of the aisle and outlined an ambitious agenda to get us back on track–well, not all that ambitious, there were a lot of half-measures–i.e., we need to increase jobs, but we need to keep the budget under control, so hey, let’s just do a little of both. He pointed the finger at the Bush administration for getting us into this mess more forcefully than he had since…his inauguration. You told Justice Roberts where to get off (and Stephen Colbert brought up a great point about how Roberts is willing to overturn precedent if he has only two dissents to do it on–and just where WERE Scalia and Thomas last night anway?). And he wants to see things on his desk! Well, Barry, let’s hope that you tell people exactly what you want on your desk this time around the calendar and that you knock some heads together to do it.
The problem is that we’ve heard all this before and we haven’t seen enough action on it. As my hookers say in the cartoon, you’re good at oral, now let’s see a little bump and thrust. You told us bank presidents weren’t going to get away with things and then you turn around and let them get away without showing up for their meeting with you. LEAD! Stop taking things off the table before you start negotiating. Get rid of your bad advisers. Rely more on Joe Biden than on Rahm Emanuel–Emanuel’s been advising you to give away the farm for nominal victories but Biden knows where the bodies are buried. Get rid of the financial cronies and slap around those bank presidents like you did the auto manufacturers. And for god’s sake, stop going on expensive dates with Michele while your middle class is going down with the ship–at least look like you have a bit of empathy. You said you’d rather be a good one-term president than a poor two-term one. Well, we don’t want you to be a good one-term president–we thought we were voting for a GREAT president. So stop futzing around and be what you promised.

Happy New Year … it should be better than the Old one?

Happy New Year–Happy New Decade! Good Riddance to the Old one(s)! What a pile of manure the new century has turned out to be so far (as Bess Truman said to the people who complained about Harry saying “you need some ‘manure’ on these roses”, “What? It took me 25 years to get him to say THAT!”) Let’s start things off right with a really funny but hard-hitting cartoon. What’s been happening?
Hmmm, we’re still talking about the airliner bomb FAIL, the security FAIL and the “no intention of invading–I mean, sending troops to Yemen” (I hope) not-yet FAIL. That’s two weeks old and I posted an oldie-but-goodie over Christmas to cover it. Timmy Geithner and his magic “shhhh-let’s keep this a secret” emails? Not funny enough, that can wait for Thursday. Health Care? SOOoooo last year! Besides they’re hashing it out behind closed doors, contra Obama’s promise that it will be televised on C-SPAN. Transparency is becoming more opaque every day. What else?
All righty then, let’s check and see if Lindsay Lohan is having a meltdown. Oh wow, Lindsay had to fly–COMMERCIAL! How sad. Casey Johnson died–who was she again? Some rich heiress who was Tila Tequila’s ‘wifey’? Whose biggest claim to fame previously was turning down Paris Hilton’s offer to start a TV program called “The Simple Life”? And who’s Tila Tequila again? Let’s call this one too sad for SO MANY reasons and decide not to start off the new decade with such a bummer!
AH-HAH! I have it–someone’s exhibiting a sexbot at the Vegas Adult Entertainment Expo! Now there’s something you could get your teeth into! errrrrrr… Oh, she’s not REALLY a sexbot. Inventor Douglas Hines says “The sex robot thing is marketing – it’s really about making a companion.” Um-hum…sure. Well, not in its present state, she can’t even walk yet–has to be carted around in a wheel chair so far. And she kind of has the expression of the girl in the bar who’s had one too many when you passed that marker two hours ago. Actually from her rather limited set of capabilities, she looks like a “stripped-down” version of Aiko, the “not a sex bot” gynoid that Le Trung is making up in Canada. Although designed to eventually service as a maid, (Everybody ought to have a maid…) Aiko’s name is actually a Japanese word meaning “love child,” and she looks a heckuva lot more sophisticated than Roxxxy, the new robot, tho not as realistic as the computer generated photos from RealDolls (bet the real dolls don’t look half as good), life-sized dolls that are actually SUPPOSED to be sexbots. Oh, brave new world…
Anyway, since Roxxxy is actually supposed to have conversations like a real woman, I thought I’d give my take on one of the many discussions that might come up. Happy New Year

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ABOUT MEH

Cartoons and text by Greg Uchrin (aka Gregorius alexandrinus), with the able assistance of Fred and Bert Squirrel, with special appearances by George Dymme. Published Mondays and Thursdays.

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