Benghazi!–IRS!–He Bowed to Someone!–His Tie is Crooked!–Scandal! Scandal!

O, my stars! I'm fixin' to have the vapors!

Do I really need to go into this? I think my cartoon expresses the ho-hum attitude the American people have for the incessant attempts to find some kind of scandal on a President who, as far as we know, has never even THOUGHT about getting a blowjob from an intern. These scandals like Benghazi never stick not because Barack Obama is made of teflon (like Ronald Reagan) but because despite something BAD happening, there has been no wrong-doing.

About the IRS singling out the Patriot and Tea Party groups for investigation–well, I have one thing to say–wouldn’t YOU take a good look at groups whose extreme members claim that the income tax is illegal and unconstitutional? It has nothing to do with Democratic/Republican politics, but it does have a lot to do with the politics of “No Taxation” which these groups tend to espouse. I’ll bet that Fox News wouldn’t look twice at singling out–oh, I don’t know, say, groups with names in ARABIC–but racial profiling is part of their thing.

None of these lances the fright-wing has thrust have made the slightest dent in Sir Barack’s armor — or honor. There ARE scandals (I am indebted to an article that I can’t find right now for this) that should have–the secret drone war, the killing of American citizens without due process–but these will never be blown up into proportion by Fox News because it LIKES those kinds of things. So instead, the Republican elephants are trumpeting over mice. ‘Nuff said.

I want to remind everyone that I will be at AnimeNext in Somerset, NJ the weekend of June 7-9 and Anime Mid-Atlantic in Chesapeake VA, June 14-16. I will be in Artist Alley in both and also giving panels on inking and planning your manga at Anime Mid-Atlantic. Please come and say hello!

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Barrie Antoinette: “Let Them Eat Catfood…”

L'Ancien Régime. "Let them eat catfood."

"Life Among the Nobililty: The Swing" by Gregonard...

Well, Barrie Antoinette–excuse me, President Barry Obama, delivered his proposal for a budget and yes, indeed-y, there was the much hated-by-the-constituency-but-loved-by-Wall-Street “chained CPI”. According to one writer, Barry has called the Republican bluff–they have said they will brook no tax increases unless something is done about “entitlements”–you know, the money you’re entitled to because, well, you GAVE it to the Fed to invest throughout your working career! Well, the Prez has proposed chained CPI–the cost of living mal-adjustment that assumes that if you can’t afford steak, you’ll buy chicken and everything is still jake. Or if you can’t afford Chicken of the Sea, you’ll buy canned skipjack mackerel. And if you can’t afford canned mackerel, you’ll just go to Friskies.

The theory is that the Republicans will be so scared of losing their seats that they will do anything to avoid agreeing to this proposal. Except for one thing–who’s REALLY gonna get the blame for this? Why, the guy who proposed it, of course. President Obama. You know, the guy who DOESN’T HAVE TO RUN FOR ELECTION AGAIN?

Why all this “save Social Security” nonsense when it is solvent for the next 30 years? Why all this “entitlement reform” bullshit when Social Security has nothing to do with the budget? For that, we have to go back eight years (and actually more) to when President BUSH proposed “privatizing Social Security.” That’s right, this one has a long history–and the reason for privatizing SS was? So the money boys, the banks, the oligarchy, the plutocracy, could get their hands on that money and drain it from our senior citizens faster than any drug addict by stealing your Grandma’s Social Security check.

But wait–how does the chained CPI do THAT? Remember back then–the seniors, the AARP, everybody and their brother decided that the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) was good enough to keep them going so please do not do us the favor of letting us make bad investments, please. So the money boys–whom Barack Obama is as beholden to as any Republican, any blue dog Democrat, hell, almost every “progressive” Democrat as well–said to themselves, “If the COLA is good enough, then let’s screw the COLA. Then they’ll be clamoring to let us invest the money for them.”

And that, kiddies, is how the sky turned blue. So remember, when Grandma, when Ma and Pa, when YOU start having to eat catfood, it wasn’t just Congress, it wasn’t just Obama…

It was the banks, too big to fail, too big to jail, who wanted your money.

“Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!”

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NoKo On the Mogogo A-Go-Go!

Quick--Send for Commando Cody!

I’m still having eyestrain and headaches and waiting for new eyeglasses that will hopefully stop some of them, so this will have to be short. I was considering doing an Obama/chained CPI cartoon that was evil, offensive and right on target. I decided not to do it, but I will if I have to.

So let’s turn instead to North Korea and Kim Jong-un. Rhetoric and saber rattling have been indulged in along the 49th parallel for some time and it has recently been ratcheted up several notches. Kim Jong-un, boy wonder leader of NoKo and Cartman cosplayer, has been shouting that a state of WAR exists between NoKo and SoKo, having pictures taken of him seriously watching serious operations through serious binoculars, photoshopping landing operations, shooting off his mouth…errr missiles that seem to go nowhere near their targets, and … was that seismic bloop an atomic bomb test? South Korea has shown how serious they think this is by telling us how serious it is, and serious President Obama has taken it seriously enough to send two serious stealth bombers to fly over NoKo and back just to let them know that they could be seriously obliterated without the US breaking a serious sweat.

First of all, Little Kim isn’t doing this for anyone’s benefit except his own people’s. He needs to be taken seriously by them as a dangerous warlord like his father and grandfather before him. Is Kim Jung-Un really as Ill as Kim Jung-Il? He’s hoping to wring out some concessions by convincing the South and the US that he’s as crazy as his late nutbag of a father. But…

Look at the pictures of the Korean “computing power?” Have we seen anything that antiquated since the 1950s? Look at those missile tests–if Kimmy lobbed a missile at Japan, he’d be lucky if it hit Mongolia! And those “atomic bomb tests”–all underground and only the first showed any low level radiation escaping the test area–are in such a low kiloton range that they could have easily been caused by (drumroll please) 4-5 kilotons of TNT being exploded. Right–lots and lots of those red sticks you see in the movies! Enough raw power to wipe out a neighborhood! Call Commando Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen! We need a hero worthy of a Republic serial–or defunct rock band.

Of course, our “pacifist” President Obama–a Democrat who actually makes Richard Nixon look like a liberal–has to show we mean business. So we’re again stuck in a serious military situation with a pissant dictator of a pisspot country. What wouldn’t have needed to be sequestered if we didn’t have to act like the megapower of the universe?

BTW–why hasn’t the CIA sent a drone over to Pyongyang? Or do we only do that to Muslims?

Oh well, my ranting has never affected anything. In other news, the person who with Ronald Reagan, that’s right, the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, was responsible for turning the world from the high point of Western Civilization to the crapfest we’re in today, has died. The 1980s are finally over.

Long live the Gatsby era.

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Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi–Wait, Is Anyone Listening?

With all due respect, Senator, while the sun isn't shining over there, that is a hole in the ground your head is in...

Senator Johnson doesn't know his what from a hole in the ground?

Benghazi. We got caught with our pants down and four Americans were killed. Why? We didn’t know when it happened–except that we didn’t have enough security after Congress voted down the State Department request for more funds for security. Now everyone agrees it was al-Qaeda.

But the grandstanding goes on. First, the Republican Party, also known as Fox News, tried and tried and tried again to embarrass President Obama with it during the election. Why didn’t he know it was an orchestrated terrorist attack five minutes after it occurred? After all, the Bush Administration knew who committed the 9/11 attacks–they had all these memos they’d been ignoring since Georgie was in office. Evidently, they’ve never heard of the word “investigation” before. When you don’t know what happened, you have to spend a little time trying to find out what did. You don’t, say, blame it on Saddam Hussein when he had nothing to do with it, do you?

Well, that didn’t get any traction because nobody thought Mitt Romney would have any more of a clue (and probably less). But that hasn’t stopped the grandstanding. It rolled off Obama’s back, let’s see if we can land it on Hillary.

Ahhh, Hillary Clinton, don’t mess with her boys–she takes no prisoners. Her testimony delayed by a concussion and blood clot near the brain–which the noise machine tried to get people to believe was faked–she testified last week and wiped the floor with Senators Johnson and McCain. Poor Ron Johnson, not only was he smacked down by Hillary, but he tried to call her emotional response faked and got smacked down by Soledad O’Brien! McCain used his five minutes of “questioning” to be the querolous old man he’s become. Hillary smacked him down by smacking down Congress for NOT providing the security funds that were needed, effectively tossing the hot potato back at him.

That’s Republican obstructionism in a nutshell–prevent the Obama administration from doing something that needs getting done. Then, when the consequences of not getting it done come home to roost–blame it on Obama.

The right has gotten one win out of this–they forced the withdrawal of Susan Rice from consideration as the new Secretary of State so that John Kerry could be persuaded to withdraw from his seat in the Senate, a strategically bad move for the Democrats.

But what gets me in all this is that the one word the media uses consistently to describe Hillary Clinton is “polarizing”. A poll recently put her favorable rating at 65% and unfavorable rating at 29%–very close to the same percentage of people who consistently supported George Bush. In other words, Republicans. Republicans hate Hillary. Republicans hate Obama. The media intones that Obama is the most polarizing President in U.S. history. Why doesn’t the media get a clue? It’s the Republican party that is the polarizing element in America because they hate anyone who isn’t one of them. And these so-called patriots are going to cause the country they claim to love to crash and burn.

And what will they do? Blame it on somebody else.

Like usual.

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If the Africans Brought to America Had Been Given Guns…

Little Johnny goes to school, guns a-blazing

You should see the family going to church on Sunday...

Congratulations President Obama on the start of your second term. The first piece of advice I will give you for you to ignore is: Don’t negotiate with terrorists–stand your ground on the debt ceiling!

I pretty much ignored the Newton massacre before the end of last year–although I had plenty of ideas that my better half pronounced, “TOO SOON!” Fortunately, plenty of people–most of whom have guns–have kept the story alive–by their IDIOCY! It took several days before the NRA had gotten its collective head out of its nether orifice far enough to respond. The answer to gun violence in schools? MORE GUNS! Set up armed guards in every school building and school yard. I’m surprised David Keene didn’t add issuing kevlar vests to every student and teacher–perhaps because in Newton since the killer shot almost everyone execution style. But it’s definitely a thought.

It has been suggested before that teachers and principals be issued sidearms to keep the peace at the frontier–AKA nursery, grade, middle and high school. There’s some justification to this with kids being given handguns to come to class for safety. After all, the teachers should be allowed to return fire. You might argue that it would take far too long and cost far too much to train teachers how to handle a shootin’ iron. Nonsense, just sit them down for one of the AMC John Wayne/Clint Eastwood marathons and they’ll be ready! At least as ready as the three gun experts who managed to shoot themselves and a few other people by accident at gun shows this past weekend!

Larry Ward, founder of Gun Appreciation Day, held on the 19th, has persuasively argued that holding it just before Martin Luther King Jr. Day is something that Dr. King would have approved, if he hadn’t been assassinated. After all, if the African immigrants to America had been given the right to bear arms, there might not have been slavery. I’m sure the labor entrepeneurs who brought them over would have been happy to provide them with musket, balls and powder. And I do mean balls.

Now let me see. Armed guards are needed in schools. Guns are allowed in several state legislatures, but they already have armed guards. Several states allow guns in saloons–we’ll need armed guards there–and churches too. My question is, “Who’s going to pay for all these armed guards?” I’ve asked my local tea partiers who loudly said, “Not ME! You’d have to raise taxes to pay all those armed guards!” Well, there’s just one solution, which will appeal to the business owning crowd, I’m sure. Privatize the police forces! It only makes sense–people who don’t have any property don’t need it protected! Open up police services to be bought by the lowest bidder and allow private citizens to pay a yearly fee for police protection.

Now we don’t want to completely take protection away from people who can’t afford a yearly contract. They can obtain police services on a per incident basis at a modest rate. All major credit cards and Paypal accepted. Yessirree Bob! I’m sure that will be the most equitable solution. Just what the Founding Fathers envisioned!

Don’t forget to pack heat with lunch, dearees!

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