It was all Boehner could do to stop Mike Pence from holding his breath til he turned blue…

No, that's not a basketball team uniform...

Our country is in a world of hurt. Seriously. In one party, we have a bunch of two-year-olds who demand everything and won’t be satisfied without sugar on top. And on the other hand, we have a chief executive who has the backbone of a sponge. SpongeBarack. He sucks in all this abuse, giggles annoyingly, and then declares it a great accomplishment for the American people. OK, Barry doesn’t giggle annoyingly, but it would be better if he did.

Now I understand narcissism. I was an actor once. And that’s possibly the one profession which is more narcissistic than politics, but it’s a close race between actors, politicians and strippers. Politicians see every deal as an accomplishment–even turds that have been spray-painted gold. And this budget deal is a turd so moist the paint can’t even stick. Yet President Obama goes and describes it as some kind of rosey-hued vision of democracy because “Americans of different beliefs came together,” to avoid a government shutdown–when the tyrannical threat of a shutdown should never have existed in the first place! Then he went to the Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the fact that it was still open, but don’t worry, your tax dollars will help pay for those tax cuts for the upper 1% we caved on back in 2010. My, how long ago was THAT? Oh, by the way, we’ll have to cut out some government jobs–like 100,000! (But the stock market is doing great, isn’t recovery grand?)

And immediately after the deal was struck–we get assholes like Mike Pence intoning that the deal was probably not good enough. Not good enough? According to one Republican, they got 79% of what they wanted. What does Mike Pence want? 100% capitulation, an apology for not surrendering sooner, war reparations and Obama, Reid and Pelosi committing seppuku on the steps of the Capital?

As a wise ‘possum once said, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” God save the United States of America–’cause nobody else is trying.
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The awful tragedy in Japan is continuing–hundreds of thousands of people have been homeless for a month now and agriculture in the area–particularly rice farming–is non-existent. Many people kept their money at home rather than the banks, and now are penniless. So a reminder, please give generously for Japan relief in this time of need

Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 from your phone
Text MED to 80888 from any mobile phone to give $10.
Text ‘JAPAN’ or ‘QUAKE’ to 80888 to make a $10 donation or visit SalvationArmyUSA.org.
Also Save the Children
Japan-earthquake-tsunami-relief @ Global Giving
Doctors Without Borders
Americares
Shelter Box
Peace Winds
Operation USA
World Vision

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To the shores of Tripoli (if that’s all right with you)

Muammar plans a courageous last stand fighting his own citizens.

Well, I’ve been fighting the con crud all week and I have a doctor’s appointment in an hour and a half so I’m going to rush this in. Our favorite insane dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, certainly has his hands full this week. Seems his entire citizenry has said, enough is enough, and is not just demonstrating, but fighting for his ouster, with “rebel” forces fighting loyalist troops. Gaddafi ordered the troops to fire on protestors, bringing him not only the condemnation of the UN, but al-Qaeda and, finally, the US government. Pretty soon he’ll be down to Muammar and his all-blonde bodyguard. Now, I can appreciate a nuanced approach, unlike John McCain who seems to want to replay the Marine hymn and send them back “to the shores of Tripoli.” But there’s a difference between nuance and sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what everyone else is going to do. However, now that the world has given its permission, we are at last suggesting that Muammar step down. Before he’s given the Mussolini treatment by the populace.

Passing on to more important things, the feel-good movie of the year, “The King’s Speech”, won best picture at the Oscars. I’m so surprised. Other surprises included Natalie Portman for Best Actress and Colin Firth for Best Actor. Ho-hum. The most interesting moment in the whole thing (not counting Melissa Leo’s “bleep” and Banksy not showing up) was when “Inside Job” director Charles Ferguson used winning the Best Documentary award for his movie indicting the greedy bastards who caused our economic meltdown to deliver a scathing condemnation of the fact that none of them have gotten indicted by the justice system, but instead are living in the gated communities and off-shore retreats with billions of ill-gotten gains stolen from the citizenry of the United States. I hope you were watching the Oscars, Barry. Hollywood has spoken. Permission has been granted to at least get a few token bastards in jail. After all, we don’t want what is happening in Libya and Egypt and Tunisia to be happening here.

But if it does, you can bet we won’t hear about it. Seems the only backlash that gets any airplay is the Tea Party–you know, the chumps that wanted the rich bastards to get tax breaks as well? Over 100,000 people gathered outside the Wisconsin State House to protest the railroading of the unions by Governor Scott Walker and scant word was seen on the cable TV news programs. Scant mention on Fox, predictably, except for Shep Smith admitting the real issue was union-busting not a deficit, but CNN and MSNBC seemed to think that the Tea Party anniversary and Charlie Sheen’s meltdown were more important than the biggest rally held since the Vietnam war protests. The People Magazine-ification of News in America!

You know, sometimes I wonder if we get what we deserve?

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We’re Back (Hopefully) And Watching the Bill-Barry Sparring Match

Lilliputian Attack Dogs

Well, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks. I took off Martin Luther King Day weekend and the following weekend because I was going to be doing Artist Alley at Setsucon in State College PA, but I was also in the middle of finishing a manga parody that I wanted to have printed so I could sell it at Katsucon down here at Washington Harbor in February. Now, if you’ve ever done a publication, you KNOW that in the last week or so you’re doing nothing else but finishing things you forgot you hadn’t finished or had left for the end and FINDING PROBLEMS with the pages you thought you were already done with before you commit the whole damn thing to posterity. So, I’m running on 3 hours of sleep every night and get the mess to Ka-Blam in time to pack for Setsucon, when (ahem) KA-BLAM! another attack of whatever stomach ailment laid me up in December threw me onto a bed of pain for the day I was supposed to drive up to State College. Although the con lasted two days, it wouldn’t make much sense to drive up the next day since I’d get there in time for maybe 2 hours before I had to close the table for the day, so I sadly cancelled my plans.

BUT THE GOOD NEWS–BLECCH! Part One, will be on sale at Katsucon (manga and anime lovers can probably guess which manga/anime is the main focus of my parody ) Along with my book of reprints from my Bush era cartoons: BUSHWHACKED–The Wurst of HAIL DUBYUS! For those who aren’t going to be at Katsucon, you can get both of these at IndyPlanett, or rather BUSHWHACKED now and BLECCH! when it is finished printing.

However, it looks as if I have a LOT of catching up to do. Tea party representatives coming to free us from socialist government health care at the same time as demanding their socialist government health care. A state of the union address with Republican/Democratic mixed seating (oh, the shame! what will their parents say!). Keith Olbermann–quitting or fired? An uprising in Tunisia and *drumroll* another one in EGYPT! We’re really caught between a pillow and a mattress there–on the one hand, we have our favorite Middle Eastern dictator, the only person the US has been able to trust near not-so-shrinking violet Israel for the past 30 years, and on the other, a populist democratic uprising against the tyranny he’s unleashed against his own people. Wow, smothered with kindness–do we back the devil or the deep blue sea?

As much as we want to plant democracy in the rest of the world to make the world safe for democracy, we’ve discovered that unless we’re sitting in a country with an army of 100,000 or so, elections don’t always go the way we’d like them to. The “soon to be canonized in honor of his 100th birthday” Ronald Reagan found that out in South America where people actually voted in governments that were interested in people instead of profits–so he ignored the elections and sent in the CIA to provide money and other care packages to right wing goon squads to protect American commercial interests. More recently, we found that out in Palestine and Lebanon. And right now, Fox News is creaming in their jeans about the possibility of The Islamic Brotherhood–their current bugaboo version of the Si-Fan–turning Egypt into an anti-American/anti-Israel haven, delaying the apocalypse for a few more weeks. Or bringing it forward. Or something. In any case, as always on Fox News, it’s Obama’s fault.

With that in mind, and trying to start out to slowly figure out where the world is after my illness and publication cramola, I turned to Bill O’Reilly’s interview with our President before the that icon to American excess, the SuperBowl. Barry grants an interview to whatever network is hosting the game, so this year was Fox’s turn, so they sent over the only potty-trained member of their attack dog squad to perform the interrogation. Bill O started off by playing nice and thanking Obama for helping to get Fox News’s reporters out of perilous peril in Egypt and Obama replied that that was his job. Then the gloves came off. O’Reilly came in with, not fair but tough questions, but questions worded and designed to tempt Obama into pique or anger, for example, when O’Reilly called the Health Care package by the politically loaded monicker Obamacare. This maneuvering didn’t do O’Reilly much good against the King of Cool. Trying to bait Obama by practically being insulting to his face–at several points, O’Reilly literally tried to shut Barry up by cutting him off (I thought he was going to yell at his engineers, “I’ve had it with this pinhead, shut off his mike.”)–but the President kept it together and brought things back to what he was saying like a patient parent faced with a child who hadn’t taken his Ritalin. For Several Days.

Big O almost lost control of his narrative at one point. Explaining that he was faced with a disaster in the first two years of office, he described those years AS a disaster. One can imagine what the RW blogosphere is doing with that one! But beyond that, Bill never managed to nudge him into a shouting match, despite trying to play gotcha on health care, on the fact that people HATE YOU (They don’t hate me, Bill, they hate a funhouse mirror image of me–a nice way to describe the workings of Roger Ailes’ pet network). Finally, Bill got to the SuperBowl and asked who Obama wanted to win–of course, since the Chicago Bears weren’t playing, Obama really couldn’t care less, but he phrased it nicer. “AH-HAH!” cried O’Reilly, “you don’t care who wins the SUPERBOWL?” Finally he had it on record, Obama saying the most un-American thing short of “Jesus Christ’s mom made lousy apple pie.” Could he really be Kenyan? But Barry brought it back and said that there were two great teams and he wanted to see a great game. Offered to let Bill come and watch with him. But Bill said no, “I wouldn’t want to spoil anyone’s fun,” as he thought:

“The way you just spoiled mine.”

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Here a Mosque, There a Mosque, Everywhere a Mosque Mosque

Obama plays Hamlet, the man who could not make up his mind...about anything!

Speak the speech, I pray you, tripping over your tongue...

So a moderate Moslem cleric wants to build a mosque and Islamic center. Where? Two blocks from “Ground Zero.” Why? Was this meant as some sort of insult to the victims of 9-11? No, he got a good deal on the property. He’ll be happy to build it someplace else, if a deal can be made.

The problem is that this has given all the yahoos something to scream about in a month when people should be hiding from the heat. Once again, it has become obvious that the so-called “War on Terror” was understood by all and sundry as some 21st century Crusade redux. Our enemy wasn’t al-Qaeda, the guys who actually carried out the deed, but all of Islam, which is why we attacked Afghanistan, letting al-Qaeda move a couple of miles into Pakistan, and then attacked Iraq, which had nothing to do with anything except we didn’t like Saddam Hussein’s moustache. And we’re still in both places, with Americans fronting the bill for two quagmires that have done nothing but drain our economy and are as much a reason for the Great Recession as the thieving banks were.

The banks aren’t terrorists. Unless you’ve gotten behind in your mortgage payments, or haven’t opted into overdraft insurance, at which point, you can’t answer your phone in the daylight hours without being attacked by some customer service rep. But all of Islam is, because we are bound and determined to hold a billion people guilty for the work of a handful of crazies. Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, those paragons of bravery while someone else does the fighting, have been leading the charge. No Mosques at Ground Zero.

Our fearless leader, of course, has taken a principled stance. Anyone has the constitutional right to build anything anywhere in the United States–he said at a Ramadan dinner with an Islamic group. Then when he heard the howls from the hinterlands–you know, the people who were convinced that Saddam Hussein was going to nuke their local mall on 9-12–President Obama turned around and said he didn’t necessarily think it was a good idea. Despite Fox News having said he’d done the right thing and defended the Constitution. I guess if Fox News says you did something right, it’s best to assume you pulled the biggest boner in creation.

Well, I happen to believe both statements are right, but, for crying out loud, Barry, can’t you take a stance on anything that doesn’t have a picket fence poking a hole in your ass? I mean, you could’ve said both things at the same time, but no, first you had to play to one audience and then turn around and play to the opinion polls. Leaders lead, they aren’t lead. Not everything has a golden mean of compromise to be found.

I swear, one day, I’m gonna wake up to read the headline that Barry brokered a deal between God and Satan where Satan accepted a 50% cap on souls he reaped. With a proviso that the terms will not take effect until after 2016.

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