May 9, 2008
Hotel California
And, if you’d like to enjoy a parody I wrote of this, come drop in and see “Intel Paranoia” at my Brain. (It’s a scary place (It’s a scary place) It’s a scary place)
May 9, 2008
PIN code…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Matt Davies, NY Journal News
May 9, 2008
OpEd’s of note..
From Glenn Greenwald today:
CNN, the Pentagon’s ‘Military Analyst Program’ and Gitmo
The Pentagon has posted to its website the roughly 8,000 pages and audio tapes it was forced to provide to the New York Times regarding its “military analyst” program. Anyone who reads through them, as I’ve now done, can only be left with one conclusion (other than being extremely impressed with David Barstow’s work in putting together this story): if this wasn’t an example of an illegal, systematic “domestic propaganda campaign” by the Pentagon, then nothing is. Read on…
From Helen Thomas:
People Can Handle the Truth About War
Some readers resented The Washington Post for publishing an Associated Press photograph of a critically wounded Iraqi child being lifted from the rubble of his home in Baghdad’s Sadr City “after a U.S. airstrike.”
Two-year-old Ali Hussein later died in a hospital.
As the saying goes, the picture was worth a thousand words because it showed the true horrors of this war.
Neither side is immune from killing Iraqi civilians. But Americans should be aware of their own responsibility for inflicting death and pain on the innocent. More…
This was a really important subject to write about. Perhaps if more Americans had to look into the face of war, they would fight harder to reject it.
May 9, 2008
Daily Show: How can Obama get Clinton to stop ‘talking sh*t to whitey’
“Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again,” Clinton said, apparently citing an Associated Press article, which also found “how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
The boos that followed that remark from the Daily Show’s audience were just the sound of “the country healing,” Jon Stewart said Thursday. He and correspondent Rob Riggle delved into their “analysis” of Clinton’s statement.
“Obviously, those words from Senator Clinton struck the Obama campaign as deeply, deeply true,” Riggle deadpanned.
“Right now he only has two choices: One he can quickly get lots of white people to finish college,” but there’s probably not enough time for that.
“This leaves him with choice number two: Convince white people to stop working so hard,” he joked, “become the kind of non-hardworking Americans that make up Obama’s base.”
Stewart asked what other options Obama might have to “dig himself out of his apparently hopeless first-place hole.”
“The thought is he can beg her to take his money,” Riggle said, referencing Clinton’s massive debt and personal loans to her campaign. Event that might not work, though. “He’d have to put something else on the table, a cabinet post, maybe the vice presidency.”
Would Clinton accept such a proposal?
“At this point she would be ready to accept Barack Obama as vice president, or secretary of state,” Riggle joked. “And in my opinion he should take the deal.
“Otherwise it’s three more months of her talking shit to whitey.”
The video isn’t showing up at the moment so go here to view it. I’ll try posting the video again later.
May 9, 2008
Friday News, Views and Blues
Barack Obama has taken the lead in superdelegates! Obama has 267 to Clinton’s 265. Now he leads in popular vote, delegates, AND superdelegates! The TRIFECTA!
David Letterman had a great monologue last night: Clinton ‘has substantial lead in the state of denial’
So here is what happened on Tuesday. Hillary Clinton barely won my home state of Indiana. And she lost in the State of North Carolina. But here is the good news. She has a substantial lead in the state of denial.
I was thinking about this. And i’m no political genius. I’m no pundit but it occurred to me that Hillary Clinton has one thing in common with President Bush. Neither of them has an exit strategy.
Fighting has erupted in Lebanon. To read thorough, up-to-date and unbiased reporting, go to Informed Comment and read what Juan Cole has to say.
From OpEdNews: Special Counsel shut down probe of Siegelman case last year.
The investigation was being conducted by a task force formed at the agency a year ago to pursue high-profile political investigations in Washington,most notably whether the White House played politics in firing U.S. attorneys.It began gathering information on the Siegelman case in September and was planning to request documents from the Justice Department in October before Special Counsel Scott Bloch ordered the case closed.
More on Don Siegelman…
Remember Scott Bloch? He was the same guy that hired Geeks On Call to do a seven level wipe of his office computer hard drive, and paid for it with the agency credit card..
“Mr. Bloch had his computer’s hard disk completely cleansed using a ’seven-level’ wipe: a thorough scrubbing that conforms to Defense Department data-security standards,” the report continues, describing a process which makes it “nearly impossible for forensics experts to restore the data later. Technicians were also directed to erase laptops used by Bloch’s former political deputies, Wilke adds.
“Geeks on Call visited Mr. Bloch’s government office in a nondescript office building on M Street in Washington twice, on Dec. 18 and Dec. 21, 2006,” according the paper’s review of a company receipt. “The total charge was $1,149, paid with an agency credit card, the receipt shows. The receipt says a seven-level wipe was performed but doesn’t mention any computer virus.”
The manager of the Geeks on Call franchise involved told the Journal that the so-called seven-level wipe was not a typical remedy for a computer virus. “We don’t do a seven-level wipe for a virus,” he said.
Bloch was also the guy who was supposed to be launching a broad investigation into Karl Rove’s political activities, with particular attention on the prosecutor purge, RNC emails, and fairly obvious Hatch Act violations in which Rove’s office politicized various federal agencies.
“We will take the evidence where it leads us,” Scott Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday [4/27/07]. “We will not leave any stone unturned.”
According to The Washington Post:
Bloch, appointed by President Bush in 2003 to protect government whistle-blowers and to enforce prohibitions on political activity in the federal workplace, is facing allegations of political bias, obstruction of justice and mismanagement. The inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management has investigated Bloch since 2005 over alleged mistreatment of employees and his handling of whistle-blower cases, but Tuesday’s raid was a significant escalation.
I am wondering if this also has an impact on the Sibel Edmonds case..
This could get VERY interesting..
And now for the blues…
Jammin’ The Blues 1944 - Historic Black Jazz Jam Session
May 9, 2008
Senator McCain Doesn’t Have a Pastor Problem?
John McCain loves him some religious right. He accepts or forgives all of them eventually. There is nothing they can say that will cause Senator McCain to reject their endorsement.
Keith Olbermann on McCain’s Pastor Problems
Why is it that the only minister to get called out for his heated comments after 9/11 is Jeremiah Wright. The religious right has a history of blaming gays, abortions, pornography and anybody else they don’t like at that moment for every disaster that has cost American lives, even though the deceased are not party to these “crimes”. Is what Reverend Wright said any more inflammatory than comments by some other Christian leaders? Or to paraphrase Chris Rock, “It’s all right if you’re all white.”
May 9, 2008
“Hard-working Americans, white Americans…”
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle Editorial Cartoonist and Animation Artist.
For Nick’s animations, visit Nick Anderson: Animation Archives.
For Nick’s cartoons, visit Nick Anderson.
May 9, 2008
House Republicans vote against their own Mothers.
Obstructionist Republicans continue doing everything in Washington DC except their jobs, including voting against their own resolutions.
On Wednesday, the House took up the seemingly uncontroversial H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day.” The resolution initially passed 412 to 0, until Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) rose in protest:
Mr. Speaker, I ask for a recorded vote because I’m sure every member wants their mother to know that they have supported the goals of Mother’s Day.
Well, 177 mothers of House Republicans will be disappointed to know their sons and daughters voted against them — or maybe they won’t, these moms must know by now what kind of children they raised.
House Minority Leader John Boehner dismissed the bizarre vote of his Republicans saying, “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.” By the way, Boehner is against his mother as well.
In the comments section of this post on ThinkProgress, MsJoanne reported on her conversation with Rep Tiahrt’s staff:
I just got off the phone with Mr. Tiahrt’s office in DC. Apparently, they are going to stop votes on EVERYTHING until they get what they want in the Emergency Supplemental Bill. The goopers will be doing Motions To Reconsider every bill presented until they get what they want in the supplemental.
Great…thugs, thugs, and more thugs.
She expands on that conversation in another comment:
The guy I talked with said that they are going to use this procedural motion to stop everything “to bring to light” what they want in the bill. This man said that they have no say in it. I asked if this was a war funding bill and he replied that it was war, medicare, science, etc. (That made me a bit afraid in that they probably want to further reduce everything but the war.)
He also said that Mr Tiahrt’s district fully supported the war.
This is your government at work, folks. Not only do they throw trillions of dollars at a war which can never be won, but they piss away time and tax dollars on petty obstructionist games. This is how they “represent” us.
Both of the Representatives from my state voted against their mothers as well. How does your Rep feel about his/her mother?
ThinkProgress has video of this shameful waste of time here.
May 9, 2008
Olbermann: The point of the war in Iraq is to make sure there IS war
When Keith Olbermann offered an overview on Wednesday of recent Bush administration scandals, he touched on the failure to protect whistleblowers and the refusal to reappoint the one member of the Federal Election Commission who spoke out against John McCain’s attempt to opt out of federal campaign financing after using that financing as a loan guarantee.
But Olbermann’s harshest comments were directed against Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, whom Olbermann described as “one of the administration’s consulting dumbasses, who got us into the quagmire in Iraq and is now pushing hard for a twin disaster in Iran.”
Boot insisted in an online debate Tuesday that the surge has worked because “civilian deaths were down more than 80%, US deaths more than 60%, between September 2006 and March 2008.”
However, Boot also argued in the Wall Street Journal on Monday that the jump in American fatalities in April “could be a sign that tough combat is under way that will lead to the enemy’s defeat and the creation of a more peaceful environment in the future.”
“And there it is, in all its beautiful, elliptical, symmetrical, asinine Bushian glory,” Olbermann concluded.
“If fewer Americans die in Iraq, that’s because the surge is working. If more Americans die in Iraq, that’s also because the surge is working. And if the surge is working, the troops have to stay longer to solidify its gains. And if the surge isn’t working, the troops have to stay longer to make sure it starts working.”
“And the point of the war in Iraq is to make sure there is a war in Iraq.”
May 9, 2008
Bill Clinton Switches to Obama
Latest Superdelegate Defection for Hillary
In what some Democratic Party insiders are calling a particularly ominous sign for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, former president Bill Clinton today became the latest superdelegate to switch from Sen. Clinton to her rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill).
Sources close to the former president said that Mr. Clinton had been mulling such a defection for weeks, as early as the night of the Iowa primary, but that he only decided to make his decision public today.
“The American people want change,” Mr. Clinton said at a press conference in New York. “Lord knows I do.”
The former president said that “sometimes, at the end of a race, you have to put an old horse down,” adding, “I’m not speaking metaphorically.”
Mr. Clinton fueled speculation that he was seeking a role in an Obama administration, saying, “I know my way around the Oval Office, and I know how the super-secret double-lock works.”
The former president said he would relish a return to the White House, calling his tenure there “good times.”
For her part, Sen. Clinton said that the defection of her husband would not deter her from staying in the race, adding, “To my knowledge, he’s the only white voter Sen. Obama has.”
The New York senator denied that she was playing the race card, arguing, “Every other member of my family is supporting me, and by the way, they’re white.”
Elsewhere, a defiant John McCain said that his wife will not release her tax returns, “and neither will my girlfriend.”
(SATIRE)
