What, No Cesspool Party?

Jump right in folks, the water’s perfect!  Tonight we’re going Cajun.  I don’t know what that splashing is but I’m sure it’s harmless.

What are you all drinking?

How puzzling…

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
John Cole, Scranton, PA Times-Tribune

Mocking McClellan

The remaining Bushies and their press flacks are pulling out all the stops in their attempts to discredit Scott McClellan and his new book, which shines a bit of light into the backroom of the White House. For those on the Left, none of McClellan’s story is “news”, but it does validate what most believed all along about the lies, deception and propaganda oozing out over the last seven years, particularly in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. The remaining Wingnuts have called McClellan a traitor,  and suggested he was a drunk, delusional, money-hungry, victim of leftist publishers and bloggers. It’s always possible that they’re know how thin all of this sounds, so they’ve added the “we always knew he was lame and incompetent” argument.

I’m not at all sure why my local paper persists in reprinting the pathetic scribblings of Jonah Goldberg (aka Doughy Pantload) from National Review Online; while their resident wingnut editor, David Reinhard, is incapable of producing anything but regurgitated Republican talking points, Goldberg is scarcely an improvement. Today’s paper reprints his column from yesterday’s NRO, in which he joins in the fun, splashing dirty water like a three-year-old and attempting to dismiss McClellan entirely. Not unexpectedly, coming from someone devoid of perception or talent himself, the effort is loaded with unintended irony and reeking of hypocrisy.

It’s been rumored that McClellan was hired by the Bush White House to appeal to a specific sub-constituency: pasty middle-aged men with a thumbless grasp of the English language.

That sentence alone cracked me up; if anyone has a handle on pasty middle-aged men, it would be Doughy Pantload. He then writes:

I have not read the book. I will once I finish eating the contents of my sock drawer (which ranks slightly higher on my to-do list).

and then proceeds to quote from the unread book and to dismiss as childish McClellan’s accusation that the Bush/Cheney crowd relied on propaganda to convince Americans to support their invasion of Iraq. “Everyone does it!” “Bill Clinton did it!” (Come to think of it, Goldberg sounds a lot like the dopey trolls infesting liberal blogs.)

The wingnuts are running out of time, and running out of shiny objects to distract Americans in the runup to November. They’re reduced to eating their own and piling on the irony: criticizing McClellan (and the others bound to follow) for taking the money and biting the hand that fed them. It won’t be long before Tom Toles cartoon comes to pass.

Stupid Knows No Boundaries, Does it Rush?

One of South America’s few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.

BBC News has more on this story.

Naturally, this genius had to inform his dittoheads what to think on this issue.

On the May 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh referred to “[o]ne of … South America’s few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes” — recently photographed by the Brazilian government from an airplane — as “these savages.” Recounting the story, Limbaugh said, “[T]hey’ve spotted an isolated tribe in Brazil. An airplane flew over this hut, this thatch roof hut or something, and these savages are body painted in red and they’re trying to shoot the airplane down with bows and arrows.”

Limbaugh further stated, “Wait a minute. Why do we have to help protect the land of this tribe? Aren’t they the essence of purity, according to the environmentalist communists? … Why do we need to protect their land? They’re doing a better job of it than any of us ever could protect our land. … I mean, I’m sure these people — not only don’t they have to get rid of their incandescent light bulbs and go to these compact fluorescents, they don’t have light bulbs. They don’t have electricity. They don’t have running water. This is the ideal. These people need to be contacted. We need to learn from this civilization, because this is where we’re all headed if the extreme environmentalist communists get their way.”

Listen to the clip. limbaugh-20080530-brazil.mp3

Via Media Matters

You misplaced a WHAT???

Remember when the Air Force “mistakenly” sent nukes to Louisiana? According to this latest article, our nuclear bombs and missles are guarded by the Simpsons.

The Air Force wing blamed for a foul-up in which a bomber mistakenly flew to Louisiana armed with nuclear missiles will have to be retested after coming up short in an inspection.

The Air Force Times said inspectors saw a security forces airman playing video games on his cell phone while standing guard at a restricted area. Another airman nearby was “unaware of her duties and responsibilities” during the exercise, the newspaper said.

Well, Bart and Homer, anyway.

The article says the base will be retested in 90 days. So, for the next three months, the whole world knows which of our bases holding nuclear armaments failed a mock attack exercise.

Previous articles on Minot Air Force Base and those “missing nukes”.

Cousins!

MoveOn.org has created a very entertaining clip of McSame.

Contributions to MoveOn.org can be made here.

Raven says….

Men At Work, It’s a Mistake

This is one of my favorite bands, and a (sadly) still timely message…..

Another favorite…

Lord knows, I’m in some wide open spaces right now, and I’ve made some really big mistakes. 

dbadass’ music

The Pretenders, Tattooed Love Boys (I was supposed to choose one?) 

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Give it to me

The Strokes, Last Night

hackerbob’s KISS

Why?

Ah hell, why not?  😉

KISS, War Machine

Happy Friday #1

The Streak – Ray Stevens

And this is a bonus because it cracks me up.

Mississippi Squirrel Revival – Ray Stevens

Amazing voices

Portishead, Glory Box.  Beth Gibbons singing…

Massive Attack, Unfinished Sympathy

For Zooey..

Dixie Chicks – Long Time Gone (just sayin’..)  😀

Cowboy, Take Me Away

I am a HUGE Dixie Chicks fan. I got tickets to see them last year for myself and the boys. Sean got a really bad headache right when they were warming up, and we spent the entire concert out in the lobby with him sitting at with his head on the table, crying and wanting to go home… 😦

My other son got to stay inside and see it. He said it was a fantastic concert…

The two others I am throwing in, you have to watch them at YouTube:

Brad Paisley – Alcohol

Its 5 O’Clock Somewhere..

I’m not crazy about Country Music, but Sean has it running all weekend long (CMT) on the TV, so we have learned to live with it (and memorized most of the songs…)

Zooey’s totally whacked out music

What can I say?  I love their earmuffs.  😉

Goldie Lookin’ Chain, Your Missus is a Nutter

trueblue’s Weapon of Choice

Kicking off Music Night, Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim

What IS Your Job, Mr. Gregory?

This has to be one of the most infuriating segments seen on a news program that isn’t Fox.

And if you and your colleagues had broadcast to the American people — in prime time and with as much ferocity as others possessed when reporting about Monica or shark attacks — that the administration’s case was false, most of the American people might have ultimately believed you. So don’t thrust the burden of your failure onto the people with, “If there wasn’t a debate in this country, the American people should think about ‘why not.’…where was public opinion?” Sadly, too many Americans were hysterically-blinded by patriotism and the fog of September 11th at that time. Yes. But it’s the press/media’s responsibility to cut through the hysteria and to present the objective reality — so we don’t eventually have to confront the failure and the guilt. As we all are right now.

Even in 2004 when the President was up for re-election, very few of the so-called “liberal” cable news hosts made the argument that four more years of George Bush meant four more years of war. But, oh well. Senator Kerry was an elitist who asked for Swiss on his cheesesteak, so… No White House for him! Concurrently, no-one seemed to care that the Pentagon was feeding military propagandists to the cable news networks in order to positively spin the war. What about that, Mr. Gregory? Can these trespasses be blamed on the people — the opinion polls?

Much more by Bob Cesca at The Huntington Post.

Jon Stewart interviews Richard Clarke

Richard Clarke discusses his new book “Your Government Failed You”.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Jon Stewart interviews Richard Clarke“, posted with vodpod

Got Delusion?

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Where’s the Outrage?

It’s perfectly acceptable to mock Barack Obama if you’re a man of the cloth apparently just not any of the other presidential candidates. Monsignor Silante gave the invocation at the New York State Republican Party fund raiser yesterday before Dick Cheney spoke. Since so few people are turning out at events featuring our Vice President not too many people saw these insults. Certainly we’ll be seeing the video on Fox News though.

Jim Silante’s Prayer at GOP Dinner-May29-2008

What a slime…

All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jeff Danziger, Syndicated Political Cartoonist

Friday News, Views, and Blues

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Scott McClellan, author of the new book “What Happened”, was a guest of Keith Olbermann’s on Countdown MSNBC last night for the full hour.
You can watch the videos here.
When asked by Olbermann, in comparing the run-up to the Iraq War to this obvious run-up to the likely coming war with Iran:

“So knowing what you know,” Olbermann inquired, “if Dana Perino starts making noises similar to what you heard from Ari Fleischer in 2002 and other members of the cabinet, you would be suspicious?”

To this, McClellan answered:

“I would be,” McClellan said. “I think that you would need to take the comments seriously and be skeptical.”

The entire interview was actually very good. Watch it if you get the chance. The videos are in five parts.

A lot of people are angry at Scott McClellan, and feel he is, as Brent Budowsky put it, “a bum“. Budowsky compares his being “a bum” to the heroism of Generals Fallon, Zinni and Shinseki, who spoke out with courage when it mattered. BuzzFlash also went on record , giving McClellan their “Hypocrite of the Week Award“. Scott McClellan is pretty much taking the heat from both sides of the aisle..

The McClarifier.. He’s all for Telecom immunity:

Dodged by an obscure issue on the campaign trail, Sen. John McCain was asked at a town hall meeting in Greenvale, Wis., today whether he would prevent warrantless wiretapping, which the questioner said was a violation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. The issue has been a hot one in Congress, with vigorous debate specifically over whether telecommunications companies should receive immunity for assisting government surveillance efforts in the wake of 9/11.

McCain said he supports a pending Senate bill, which may have been an effort to clarify a position muddied last week by a campaign aide.

CNN’s Ware dissmisses McCain’s challenge that Obama visit Iraq.

Ware said that U.S. officials’ trips to Iraq are usually “divorced from reality” adding that its “impossible” to “get much of a real picture.” Ware then noted that McCain’s own trips to Iraq have not helped him get a sense of the realities in Iraq:

WARE: I’ll issue a word of caution, too. I mean Senator McCain has been here, what, more than half a dozen times. And we’ve seen him get assessments of Iraq terribly wrong. So I wouldn’t be hanging my hat on the fact that your opponent has only been here once.

Defense lawyers for the alleged 9/11 conspirators on Thursday accused the Pentagon prosecutor of rushing to begin the complex Sept. 11, 2001, mass-murder trial in the height of the presidential campaign season:

The date, in fact, is 10 days after Sen. John McCain, an architect of Military Commissions law, is expected to be officially nominated as the Republican presidential candidate at the GOP national convention in St. Paul, Minn.

What a surprise.. They hold these people for.. how many years, torturing them all the while? And now they suddenly decide to hold trials right before the election? And of course, they’ll hold the trial as close to the anniversary of 9/11 just to accentuate the significance. Wouldn’t surprise me if they planned it to be ON 9/11. Defense lawyers have to prepare for a death penalty case for the five men in this article, (including Khalid Sheik Mohammed – the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind):

”Three months and 18 days is not enough time to prepare a defense in this death penalty case even if the government had provided the defense with the attorneys, resources, and facilities necessary to do so,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, attorney for Ammar al Baluchi, who is also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali.

From McClatchy: Obama prepares to declare victory after Tuesday primaries

But, ahhh, will Clinton do something to stop him? What’s she planning on doing next? (Anyone else as sick of this as I am?) Will the Democratic Party step in and put a stop to this before she blows the entire party apart and loses this election for us?

Don’t miss this one.. David Corn writes “Foreclosure Phil“. If McCain wins the presidency, this man is likely to be the next Secretary of the Treasury..

Who’s to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He’s been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That’s right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

Don’t forget! Its Friday: Music (and Math) Night!

And now for the blues..

Not really the blues, but this has to be seen to be believed..
This is an 8 year old kid on the guitar..

8 year old guitar whiz Quinn Sullivan and Buddy Guy

The Reverend Michael Louis Pfleger

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This is the video that’s being featured on Fox News to slam Obama. Unfortunately we don’t know what he said at the beginning of his speech because, shockingly, it’s been cut.

This was originally posted on April 21, 2008.

That is the full name of the Roman Catholic priest being interviewed for this piece. He is an icon in the Chicago area for his tireless work on anti-drug campaigns, outreach to prostitutes, and controlling the sales of guns near schools.

But now, largely because of his relationship to Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright and his support of the candidate, he is in the crosshairs. Comments that detractors are using against him involve a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition protest outside a gun shop that reportedly sold over 2,000 weapons that were traced to crimes committed between 1996 and 2004.

Addressing the owner of the shop, Pfleger announced, “We’re going to find you and snuff you out. Like a rat you’re going to hide. But like a rat, we’re going to catch you and pull you out.” Cardinal George rebuked Pfleger, saying, “Publicly delivering a threat against anyone’s life betrays the civil order and is morally outrageous, especially if this threat came from a priest.” Pfleger responded that he did not intend to use the word “snuff” as a slang term for “kill”, but rather as a substitute for “pull”, as he used later in his statement.

Wikipedia has a list of the good works of Father Pfleger that are too extensive to list here.

This weekend, in less than 72 hours, there were 31 shootings in Chicago leaving 8 dead. And while there are many reasons people should be allowed to keep their guns in this country, keep in mind this is the community Father Pfleger serves:

Beginning on Friday and ending Sunday evening there were 31 victims of gun violence in Chicago resulting in 8 deaths and 23 wounded. The Chicago Tribune has the details of many of these incidents here. The Tribune lists the final tally here.

The man has done a staggering amount of good work in the Chicagoland area for which he has frequently incurred the wrath of his boss, Cardinal George . So why is he being vilified now? Well, he is supporting Barack Obama and Reverend Wright. And if any of this negativity is coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign it is important to keep in mind that Hillary was raised in a Chicago suburb, her family still resides there, and she should know better.

RIP Harvey Korman

Harvey Korman died today, at the age of 81 years.  I first saw Harvey Korman on the Carol Burnett Show in the 70s, and then later in Blazing Saddles (Hedley Lamarr).  He was a comedic genius on his own, and when he teamed up with Tim Conway, all bets were off.  They’d have me laughing until my stomach hurt, and there were tears streaming down my face. 

I’m gonna miss ya, Harvey.

Invasion of the Body Snatcher…

WoOoo-oOoo-oOoo-oOoo……

From the WSJ:

Ari Fleischer: “Something changed, something happened to Scott the last six months…to put him on a different path.”

Current press secretary Dana Perino said Mr. Bush “is puzzled, and he doesn’t recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years; and disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts, he never came to him or anyone else on the staff that we know of.”

Maybe the pod people got to him… How puzzling…

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.

Time warp..

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I am posting this because yesterday on HardBall With Chris Matthews, [ultra]Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan made the statement that the “Antiwar Candidate in wartime has never won a presidential election”…
(Buchanan’s statement is halfway through this video)

I beg to differ..

“Vote for PEACE!” “Its time for CHANGE!” “Its time for all good Americans to come to the aid of their country!“

Barack Obama? No, this was Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. In a time of war (Korea), Eisenhower won the presidency on a message of peace, of ending the war, and on a message of “change”.

Interesting ads…

Dwight D. Eisenhower – Change for Peace Address (1953)