The No-Compromise Compromise, or, 3-D Chess finally works out

Chief Science Officer Obama's 3-D chess playing pays off -- Fascinating.

How often have we heard the following statement about President Obama: “Oh, you don’t understand–he’s playing a 3-D chess game. You couldn’t possibly follow his strategy!” If you were a progressive (or, in hushed whispered tones, a “l-i-b-e-r-a-l”), probably a lot. Why was single payer health insurance taken off the table before the negotiations even began? 3-D chess move! Why no public option? 3-D chess move! Why no investigation into the Bush era torture policies? 3-D chess move! Bank investigations? 3-D chess move! Fascinating!

An astute observer might have noticed that all these 3-D chess moves appeared to variations on the Nimzovich strategies–instead of fighting for the center of the chess board, you concede it and allow your opponent to get overconfident so you can rush in and take advantage of his over-extended supply lines! Of course, it’s hard to overextend your supply lines on an 8×8 chess board so these openings seem to have fallen into obscurity. Nonetheless, our chessplayer-in-chief appears to be devoted to showing that they can work.

The only problem was, while Spock was playing 3-D chess, the Klingons were playing poker. Ah-HAH! I take your knight! Big deal, Full House beats one of a kind! Whoopsies!

However, we’ve finally had a situation where Obama’s chess playing has finally paid off. The brouhaha about Obamacare forcing poor religious zealots from denying women the choice of contraception. Why that’s against the freedom of religions to force their moral standards on people who need not even be members of said religions. Specifically, Catholics, the largest single church in the US–who usually vote Democratic. How quickly the Republicans rushed to their defense! I wonder how quickly they’d rush to the defense of Muslims objecting to universal health care based on Shariah law?

So Obama compromised. The church run hospitals would not have to provide contraception coverage. The health care companies would do it instead. GREET! Oops, many Catholic hospitals are self-insured! Too bad!

Mitch McConnell is furious and threatens a vote … on something. Problem is–the Catholic BISHOPS are against the idea, but Catholic women seem to applaud it. Oh, well. It gets interesting, don’t it?

On personal notes: I will be running an artists alley table at Katsucon at the Gaylord at National Harbor Friday through Sunday this coming weekend. And being as it’s a Monday holiday, there will be no cartoon until the next week. My dental problem is in the middle of recovery (I needed an extraction and implant) and it’s good not to feel the pain that has been with me for many months now. And finally, there is a very sweet kitty cat who is very ill and needs your best wishes. Thanks

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Corporations Are People Too

Mitt Romney sings a paean to corporations to the tune of 'People'.

With apologies to Barbra Streisand

Ah, Mitt! You’re our favorite candidate named after a piece of baseball equipment. And sticking up for the poor corporations like you did! Why, of course, they’re people. People who can live forever as long as they make money, who make scads of money but don’t have to pay taxes on it as long as their HQ is somewhere outside of the 3 mile limit, and who can commit all sorts of crimes, but never be sent to jail! Why, that just makes them SuperPeople. I’m certain the Roberts court will agree.

Enough, here’s the lyrics to ‘Leeches’ in case it’s too small to read on the monitor:

Leeches
Leeches who leech people
Are the luckiest leeches in the world,
Bloodsuckers, needing all you “suckers”,
With statements geared to mislead
they hide unrestrained greed,
Acting more like bandits
Than bandits.
Bankers are very special people,
They’re the luckiest people
In the world.
With two journals, two very special journals,
A mortgage deep in the hole
which should be crap,
looks like gold
Making profits untold
for corporations
Who’re just people.
Leeches who are people
Just the luckiest people
In the world!

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Weinergate, Schmeinergate, Why Does Anyone Take Andrew Breitbart Seriously? [Updated]

cartoon of Anthony's Wiener stand. The 50th time I was asked today.

The Weiner-Wiener jokes go on longer and longer and never seem to come to a climax.

UPDATE: Well well well, looks like Andy BB actually got one right. One out of four is a good record–for HIM. A shame about Weiner’s taste in underwear, though. Should he resign? I don’t know, last time I looked, stupidity wasn’t illegal, and we just finished 8 years of a stupid President to prove it. Immoral? That’s between him and his wife–and the voters of his district. Anyone remember the old saw about being a liberal or a conservative? If a liberal makes a mistake and does something bad, everyone says, “See, the hero has feet of clay.” But if a conservative makes a mistake and does something GOOD, everyone says, “Hey, he wasn’t such a bastard after all!”

I STILL say it’s meant to distract us from the DEATH VOUCHERS, though.

ORIGINAL POST:
You all know what happened. For the benefit of search engines, Andrew Breitbart got a tip about a photo some college girl received ostensibly from a tweet by Anthony Weiner, congressman from New York. Actually, I’m not sure WHAT happened–the story, which I tried to get straight before writing this–has gone through several convolutions, none of which really make any sense. I mean, if he mailed it to the girl, why was the Twitter feed so important? I mean, did he tweet that picture? Or did someone tweet it to him? If he tweeted it, why did only one person of his 180 some followers get the picture? Did he Twitpic the pic? or was it a link to a pic already on the web? If it was already on the web, was it really Weiner’s wiener to begin with? And why doesn’t Anthony Weiner know if that’s his underwear? Is his taste in underwear THAT GQ?

I guess it makes sense to someone. Andrew Breitbart. You know, the guy who uploaded the severely edited video of Shirley Sherrod that made her sound like an anti-white bigot, when she was telling a story about how some farmer’s case PREVENTED her from being an anti-white bigot. The same Andrew Breitbart that web-published James O’Keefe’s creatively edited video of his interviews in ACORN offices, where he inserted clips of himself and Hannah Giles dressed as pimp and prostitute (or is that prostitute and prostitute?) supposedly getting help from ACORN hiding their income from the IRS and their activities from other agencies. You know, the James O’Keefe who was busted trying to surreptitiously sneak a microphone into Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s office?

Why does anyone take Breitbart seriously? Everyone already knows that he won’t question a source as long as it makes Democrats or liberals look bad. See? I didn’t call him a sneaking liar! I wouldn’t say that about him because the news media has guaranteed that he doesn’t and will not ever sneak. Stinking maybe, but not sneaking! It must be the silly season already–anything to keep our minds off the DEATH VOUCHERS that Paul Ryan is trying to replace Medicare with. That’s right Democrats, be creative for a change! The Republicans renamed your end-of-life counseling sessions to DEATH PANELS. Call this “modification” to Medicare DEATH VOUCHERS. OK, maybe someone will say, copycat, copycat, but at least they’ll be focused on it.

Anyway, I no longer want to hear about Weiner’s weiner. Let this come to a climax already. I know it’s a slow season for news and reporters are hard up for copy. But Anthony Weiner has always been a standup guy. I mean, it’s not like the story’s going to come to a head and explode in anyone’s face. Nobody was playing hide the salami.

Although the salami does look kind of hidden. (Ahem!)

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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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