I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

"A black person voting Republican," said the father of African-American congressman J.C. Watts (R), "is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders." It's a hard truth that takes away a lot of options for African-American voters. What it means is that the Democratic party can take our support for granted because they know and we know that the alternative is so much worse. It's the difference between a bad sunburn and skin cancer. However, it doesn't stop some misguided "house negroes" from trying. Take the example of "Cowboy Troy" Coleman, an African-American "Hick-Hop" singer who performed the national anthem at the GOP convention in Minneapolis. Strangely enough, Coleman was one of the few chocolate chips to be found in the Republican's big white bowl of cookie dough. I wonder why. Anyway, Coleman was enthused about the opportunity. "This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to me," he said. "With my social beliefs, namely being pro-choice, this party is the one for me. My skin is secondary to the fact that I want my politicians to make laws that positively affect my life and the lives of my friends." When I read that, I thought about the scene in The Princess Bride where Andre The Giant says to Wallace Shawn, "You keep using that word but I don't think it means what you think it means." If you ask me, "pro-life" is a word that doesn't belong in the mouth of a Republican because it's a lie that's no different than the other overworked phrase they like to use: "compassionate consevatism". They don't know what it means. In spite of their noisy propaganda, the Republicans aren't "pro-life". What the Republicans do really, really well is kill people. Republicans launched the war in Iraq. Republicans want abortion to be illegal and dangerous. Republicans ignore global warming. Republicans oppose stem-cell research. Republicans don't want national health care. Republicans torture. Republicans watched New Orleans drown. Laws don't kill people, Republicans make the laws that kill people. Think of their ideology as "kinder and gentler" genocide. And Republicans believe that "pro-life" translates as "Imaginary babies are cute, but once you get a birth certificate, you're on your own". Now, maybe "Cowboy Troy" Coleman is simply naive or a cynical opportunist, but other African-Americans know better. For us, voting Democrat isn't a philosophical abstract; it's self-defense. Damned if I know why poor and middle-class white Americans who religiously vote Republican haven't figured it out. It's one of those perplexing "What's The Matter With Kansas?" questions, I guess. But, for their sake, I hope they figure it out soon because they're not safe either. None of us are.

Don’t take your eye off of Bush

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeThe only thing that seems to be in the news is McCain, Hillary and Obama with an occasional smattering of tornado coverage and a few blurbs about gas prices. I rarely see any recent coverage on MSM about Iraq. Last night I saw that same old tired file footage of the Al Qaeda training video that has run since 9-11 - you know, the one with the Jihadis on monkey bars. When I see these reports this morning, it makes me think Bush wants to wait till these deals go though before the US strikes. Iran eyes Azeri Shakh-Deniz gas from Caspian Sea Iran is interested in buying significant amounts of gas from the second phase of ex-Soviet Azerbaijan's largest gas field, Shakh-Deniz, in the Caspian Sea, an Azeri government source told Reuters on Wednesday. The second, $10 billion phase of Shakh-Deniz is expected to come on stream towards the end of 2013. "Iran's deputy oil minister and the general manager of its state gas company spoke to the management of (Azeri state oil firm) Socar over importing some seriously large volumes from Shakh-Deniz's second phase," the source said. Iran sees gas pipeline deal with India, Pakistan by mid-year Iran's ambassador to New Delhi said Tehran hopes to finalise a gas pipeline deal with India and Pakistan by mid-year, in an interview released on Wednesday. The 7.5-billion-dollar project which aims to transport natural gas from Iranian oilfields to Pakistan and India was discussed during a visit to India last month Iranian by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It is hoped the trilateral agreement will be signed by the middle of summer this year," Iran's ambassador to India Sayed Mahdi Nabizadeh was quoted as saying in an interview in the latest issue of India's Hardnews magazine. I just think we are taking our eye off of Bush way too much. When he is NOT watched, he tends to exercise his powers of dictatorship more readily. SPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville. I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?) This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America. So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter. candorcomment@sfchronicle.com or David Wiegand Executive Datebook Editor The San Francisco Chronicle 901 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103

My View of Mission Accomplished

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeSPECIAL REQUEST FOR TCD FANS: The San Francisco Chronicle is pondering the addition of new cartoons for their paper - a process that seems to be initiated by Darren Bell, creator of Candorville (one of my daily reads - highly recommended). You can read the Chronicle article here and please add your thoughts to the comments if you wish. If anything, put in a good word for Darren and Candorville. I am submitting Town Called Dobson to the paper for their consideration. They seem to have given great weight to receiving 200 messages considering Candorville. I am asking TCD fans to try to surpass that amount. (I get more than that many hate mails a day, surely fans can do better?) This is not a race between Darren and I, it is a hope that more progressive strips can be represented in the printed press of America. So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle or live in the Bay Area (Google Analytics tell me there are a lot of you), please send your kind comments (or naked, straining outrage) to David Wiegand at his published addresses below. If you are a subscriber, cut out your mailing label and staple it to a TCD strip and include it in your letter. candorcomment@sfchronicle.com or David Wiegand Executive Datebook Editor The San Francisco Chronicle 901 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103

My Disappointment of Hillary

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeI do not get it. Back during the first go-around with the Iraq war, it is clear Congress was lied to - we all were. They should have known better than to let Bush commit us to preemptive war, but they didn't. So you would think when the drum beat starts up for Iran, Congress would be a lot wiser. I thought they would be too until I saw the disappointing support of Kyl-Lieberman. Been there and done that but still Congress, a Democratically led Congress, can't get enough war. And the worst part was Hillary Clinton's support of it. What The Fuck? For me, that was the last straw. If we invade Iran, we will occupy a swath of Earth that ranges from Europe to China - from Saudi Arabia to the Former Soviet Union. That my friends is nation-building on a Roman scale. I have had enough of that. Honestly. Support for an Iranian war is beyond excusable, it should be seen as treasonous. I don't want to get on that "Bill Clinton is a traitor" line of bullshit left over from the 90's, but a war with Iran is wrong on a multitude of fronts, firstly being it is un-American. I'll take UFO's over war any day.

The Goracle of Memphis and his stealth campaign.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeOn May 20th, 2007 in the New York Times, Gore remarked... Having spent 30 years as part of the political dialogue, I don’t know why a 600-day campaign is taken as a given, and why people who aren’t in it 600 days out for the convenience of whatever brokers want to close the door and narrow the field and say, ‘This is it, now let’s place your bets’ — If they want to do that, fine. I don’t have to play that game. With recent Current TV video uploads, I must wonder what kind of campaign is he running? In marketing/advertising terms, this is a stealth product release. The candidate is running, but the paperwork hasn't been filed. The Current clips are strong. In the link above, some of thecommenters suggest Gore may be trying to frame the debate. I doubt this. First of all, with the exception of Edwards and Kucinich , none of the other Dem candidates really have an environmental platform that does anything about global climate change. If they aren't listening to Gore now, they never will. Gore has been successful in moving the issue to the front of the news, and the melting icecaps, crop failures and record drought have all backed him up with common sense observation - just ask the average family farmer. I have no idea what the game plan is for Gore but he has been successful in keeping himself and more importantly the issues he cares about, at the forefront of the news since he stepped in front of theMoveOn.org microphone and blasted the Bush administration over Iraq. Everything he claimed in his "In The Balance" book, his 2000 campaign and everything else since has proven to be right. Whereas everythingBushCo has said since then has turned out to be a lie. Bush may be the guy Middle America wanted to have a beer with, but once in office, Middle America learned Bush just stiffed them for the bar tab. As I speak with people across the country, they tell me they can't help but look at Gore and wonder "what if?" Since the Clinton/Gore administration was all over AlQaeda and the Taleban before Middle America knew they existed, would 9-11 have happened at all? Would all of America have their phones bugged and emails read? Would China have eaten our lunch? Would Summer at the North Pole feel like a spring day in Myrtle Beach? Would we be bogged down in a Vietnam style war in Iraq while ogling the oil underneath Iran? If Bush invades Iran, the US will control everything in the Middle East from Saudi Arabia to the former Soviet Union - from Europe to China. There hasn't been a land grab like that since (yes, I am going to say it so get over it already) the Nazi's controlled everything from Paris to with 15 miles of the Kremlin. Where Gore takes us from here is anyone's guess, except maybe Karl Rove. I think he might be sweating.

The PR Battle of Iran

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeSeriously, there is probably a group of individuals, hunkered down in the bowels of the Pentagon or White House, coming up with a catchy phrase for when Bush bombs the ever-lovin' shit out of Iran. They will narrow down the selection to maybe less than a dozen then they will present the selections to a series of focus groups. Once the propaganda unit has finished with the focus group (and disposed of the bodies, IMO) the selections will be narrowed to three or so slogans. The PR copy will then be sent to the speechwriters to see how the different slogans can be worked into the daily churn of BS that flows from the Administration and their lackeys. The slogan will also be tested for the President's dictum and cadence. Once all of that has been done, the new slogan will emerge in a "slow flourish" and within a week, the slogan will be everywhere. My choice for a slogan that probably won't get used is "the next colossal fuck-up."

Kucinich: A Monk On the Road From Burma

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge With all the noise on mainstream media and fake rage from the White House over the slaughter in Burma, still we have only one candidate that has declared himself the peace candidate. Even in this time of the Iraq war where most of the population wants to bring the troops home, we only have ONE peace candidate. That is a disconnect I cannot puzzle out. I can understand the Republicans - the reach-around party, wanting to "double Gitmo" and wage continuous war, but the top three Dem candidates are as strong as watered-down tea when it comes to peace. Is it safe to discuss peace in Burma because it is "near that Viet-Cong place?" Or does BushCo simple want the regime to chill so his corporate junta can get back to business? As I try to ponder this, I am just going to sit around and Text PEACE to Dennis. God knows my elected officials aren't taking my calls.

The Sulfur Smell of John McCain

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeMeet The Press is hard enough to watch with Tim Russert asking pointless questions, but yesterday's show was brutally painful, mostly due to the appearance of John "Baghdad Walkabout" McCain. From the transcript: SEN. McCAIN: ...I hope that we will have the patience and the understanding on the part of the American people that they’ve made great sacrifice and all of us are saddened by it. But I hope we can also point out the consequences of failure, which is what the Democrats are proposing now. SEN. KERRY: Listen to that. You just said the Democrats are proposing failure. We’ve had... SEN. McCAIN: Yeah. (Unintelligible)...failure. SEN. KERRY: ...four and a half years of failure. The Republicans stood up and cheered for Rumsfeld, who had a policy of not enough troops. To his credit, John at least said he needs more troops. But the fact is they’ve supported every step of this president, misleading America about the course of this war. Last January the president stood up to Americans. You know what he said, Tim? He said, “We will hold them accountable to their benchmarks.” They’re not holding them accountable. They have no means of holding them accountable because they’ve said we’re going to stay there with 130,000 troops into next summer. They have no leverage. We are not proposing failure, as John loves to assert and Republicans loves to assert. We are proposing a way to strengthen America in the region. We’re proposing a way to, in fact, make Iraq successful to the degree that it can be by playing to the real undercurrents of their, of their cultural and historical divisions. Nothing in the surge addresses the question of Shia, Sunni divide. Nothing in the surge is going to resolve the fundamental reluctance of Iraqi politicians to make a decision, Tim. Now, we’re not talking about abandoning the place. Why do the Republicans have a complete inability to envision a foreign policy, as we used to have, Republican and Democrat alike, which plays to our strengths and builds alliances with other countries? Bring the United Nations back in. Bring the neighbors into this. Have a standing summit in a standing conference where we resolve these differences as best as can be. The United States can’t do it alone. And we have to change the equation so we regain leverage and initiative. That’s not walking away, that’s walking forward and putting us in a stronger posture. No where in the show does McCain offer any hint, solution, idea or Divine Jesus-Speak of a way for us to get out of Iraq. McCain and the GOP are constipated and can't think of any other idea other than to stay on the pot and hope everything comes out OK. You know, like Saigon.

I no longer fear the Kucinich Revolution: Part 4

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge In Parts One and Two, I discussed the support Kucinich has and the irrational fear also associated with electing Kucinich. In Part Three, I discussed Kucinich's time as Mayor of Cleveland and how the GOP slander machine stating "he drove Cleveland into bankruptcy" is an out right lie. Today we are moving on to the real important stuff - issues. I have heard a lot of talk from the candidates stating "any Democrat running for President will be better than Bush." I believe that sentiment is true. But I also believe there are varying degrees of HOW MUCH BETTER they will be than Bush. In the comments in the previous parts of this series, there are claims that the changes we (The People) want to make to this country "can't be done." "The shift is too fast, these things will take time to change." Oh I hope not. We have 50 million people in this nation without health care. The rest of us have health insurance that is precarious. My wife just got a letter from our policy holder, Blue Cross, asking whether her recent yearly physical was the result of a work related injury - she has been out of the workforce for over ten years, yet we had to go through the damn motions with these chuckle-heads to get the claim paid. If it was something serious like cancer, I can't imagine the red tape that would get thrown at our face. With Americans daily needing health care that either allows them to live or die, this is not a problem we can gradually ease our way out of. We need swift, decisive legislation and leadership to get us out of this mess. Kucinich is the lone candidate that has universal health care for all as part of his platform - everyone else is offering "insurance." I have enough of insurance. Haven't you? Our jobs are being sucked out of this country at an alarming rate. A very alarming rate. When I was growing up in the real town of Dobson, NC, the town of 1,200 people was teeming with textile mills. They were everywhere. Even the gas station across from the court house had rented out one of the car repair bays to a guy who was making socks day and night. Jobs were plentiful, parents could send their kids to UNC or NC State and there was enough money to retire at 60. That was the horrible days of the Carter Administration in 1980. When Reagan got into office, the borders began to open for business and the jobs from my hometown were siphoned off and weren't replaced with new jobs. Now, the number one industry in North Carolina is logging. People in that Congressional District (NC-05) have had to go through "skill retraining" several times since then. You simply can't have a single career anymore in rural America. Hell, you can't even keep the same employer for more than four years - right about when you would receive matching funds for your 401K you find yourself out of work. Now, 27 years later, our economic base, the middle class has been pushed off a cliff and they (we) are tumbling toward a very nasty end. Our open border policies need to be clamped shut and not over the span of three decades. We need to exit NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and the WTO today, now, 10 minutes ago. Which candidate has this as a policy? Take a guess. Kucinich. And oddly enough, this actually makes him appealing to conservatives. This brings us to the mother-fucking war. BushCo wants another $50 billion on top of all the other requests. Hillary wants to keep troops there, Obama wants to take our time getting out of Iraq. Biden wants to split Iraq into three pieces and keep troops there (that means we will be fighting a six front civil war). No thanks. We need out, we need out now. Kucinich is the only one willing to state the obvious - the war was a failure and we need to get out. He was the only one in the race not snookered into voting for the damn thing to begin with. Hillary was for the war up until six months before the 2006 election. If it took her that long to figure out the war was an idiotic idea, then for me, she doesn't have the mental capabilities to get this nation out of the cesspool of despair we are in. If you look at Kucinich's voting record and his anthology of submitted legislation over the past 10 years, they read as if written by someone with prescient abilities. I am not saying he is a soothsayer or a prophet from Ohio, I am saying he is one smart guy and we need more of people like him in Congress, not less. Our nation is in serious trouble and we have long since passed the point where half-measures would make any difference. Unless we get a President that is willing to actually take, Honest-To-God bold steps, we may be seeing the last days of Jefferson's America. Hillary, Obama and Edwards would be an improvement to what we currently have in the White House, but their histories show they are ill-equipped to handle the challenges ahead of us. Only Dennis Kucinich has risked ridicule and even his political career to do the right thing. His political past has been nothing BUT a series of career-ending decisions, but every decision has been for the benefit for the citizens, never corporate interests. That is why he keeps getting re-elected. He is the only one that has ever gone out on a limb for We The People. Now, I wonder how many VOTERS will join him? How many will join the Second American Revolution?

Nuking Tehran - How do you say Ground Zero in Persian?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge When I was in high school, I was well educated in Soviet geography. Vladivostok, Novosibirsk and of course Moscow were all familiar places on the world map. Sadly, Americans seem to get the bulk of the geographic education when we go to war (fake or otherwise). Mosul? That is in Northern Iraq and Highway 2 goes right through it. Basra? Oh that is the seaport on the Gulf. Minnesota? What the Hell are you talking about? Despite our highest hopes of electing a Democratic Congress, they seem to have no intent of removing a war criminal from power. Nor does it appear they will make any serious moves to prevent nuclear war with Iran... yet ANOTHER nation that has done nothing us. (OK, the hostages were an issue 3 decades ago, but we did open diplomatic channels with them again - oh, my bad, that was back when we practiced DIPLOMACY. Back to our nightmare at hand.) BushCo has reneged on every nuclear arms control treaty this nation has ever signed plus he has not lifted a finger to negotiate new ones. On top of that he started building NEW nukes. The idiot never met a law he didn't want to break. Now we have this recent history of invading countries that hasn't attacked us (and avoiding those who have - ahem... Saudi Arabia) is it any wonder the United States is seen as the biggest threat to peace and stability on the planet? If we drop ANY kind of nuclear device on Iran, it will open up a Pandora's Box of sorrow that we have managed to keep shut for more than 60 years. Even if it is a bunker buster, America will then become the world's NUMBER ONE rogue nation without a doubt. When the only global friend you have is Communist China, it speaks volumes of how far we will have fallen.

Does this lead to minty fresh breath?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge How many times in American history have we fought wars over economics instead of human rights? The Revolutionary War was a fight for freedom and democracy, but it was for Whites only. The Civil War was about ending slavery but it took about a century for equal rights to bestowed upon African Americans and between those two events, we had two World Wars. In the last World War, we jailed people of Japanese descent just because of their ethnicity- even Americans that were born here were thrown into concentration camps - not in Gitmo, but in California, Arizona, Utah and many other states. During the first Gulf War, we moved into the Middle East to kick out the Iraqis from Kuwait - a theocratic dictatorship with a horrible human rights record, but we rode into town and liberated the dictatorship of Kuwait. Now we find ourselves in a fake war in Iraq with no real or visible reason other than the oil. When this nation is faced with war over Human rights, we flinch, or I should say, our government flinches. It took a lot of courage to go into Kosovo. Even though there was heavy outcry by the GOP not to go into Kosovo and stop the genocide, we did and we were successful. The Taleban has been committing endless human rights violations for years, but it took a Saudi terror attack on the United States to get us to move on the Taleban (where the Saudi's weren't). But what about Darfur? You can throw a dart at Africa and chances are you will hit a dictator that is far worse than Saddam ever was, but into Iraq we went. Darfur continues to be ignored, just as we ignored Rwanda. Oh, and maybe in another century after homosexuals gain equal rights, the Lakota will finally get the Black Hills back after it was stolen by the United States government. Sadly, this country will never fight a war to bestow the equal rights owed to homosexuals - it will need to be a slow budding of awareness in the hearts of Americans. Society is changing, not fast enough for some and too fast for others. But the change and embracement will come. Here is a little story to explain why I believe this. I am a Southern White Boy born in 1963 and my wife is a Strong Black Women born two years later. When we were born, it was illegal for Blacks and Whites to marry and it wasn't until 1967 that the last of the anti-miscegenation laws was struck down. Back in the 1960's, the racism in American was still very, very strong. Lynchings, rape and murder were all still a reality for Blacks in America. But things changed and they changed rapidly. By the time I had arrived in high school in 1978, I was living in a small little rural town in North Carolina called, oddly enough, Dobson. Somehow, between 1967 and 1978, interracial dating had gone from being a suicidal taboo to being the "in" thing to do. I started dating, and snogging like no tomorrow, out of my race by the time I was 16. Channell and I have now been married for 14 and a half years and no one, except for one idiot uncle, has ever given us any grief over the color difference. They do ask why on earth a quality woman like Channell is with the likes of me, and sometimes I wonder that myself! Color? No one cares. Soon, no idea when but soon, no one will care if two women get married. Or two men and just as color fell away from most, so will orientation. Humans will still have hang-ups and some things will still be seen as outlandishly unacceptable by society, like what if someone marries a philandering Republican that switches hookers as often as his socks? Well, that taste NEVER leaves your mouth.

Cheney Dropped The Bomb, Now I am Fabulous!

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge From the "I Kid You Not" file: The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say. <..> The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale. And this jewel was a bit deeper: A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting. Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsquently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb." Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior." The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon. "The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviewing the documents. "The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soldiers would become gay," explained Hammond. I can't understand how this even became an idea? Does Halliburton hold the contract for the Cher Tour? Editor's Note: Today some good friends of mine (which run this strip) are launching The Bilerico Project - a site with "Daily experiments in LGBTQ." This strip is for them. What started off as a project to give the Indiana LGBT community a voice has now spilled over the border of Indiana and has gone national. Ya see? You give them gays an inch and they take the whole country! Next thing you know, I will running around in my underwear, kissing men at a showing of Rocky Horror... oh wait...

Two Tribes

A big tip of the hat to Press Esc.

Who knew there was good Dick in D.C.?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge When did GOP Senator from Indiana, Dick Lugar get a voice? Lugar came out swinging on the Senate floor yesterday in a full frontal assault (for him) on the Bush Administration's folly in Iraq. Believe it or not, CNN said it best: Two respected senior GOP senators this week publicly asked the president to look for a way out of Iraq. One of them -- Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana -- is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "When Dick Lugar comes out against your foreign policy, it means your dam is breaking, and it means we're far more likely as a country to move from Plan A to Plan B this fall, when it comes to Iraq," said David Gergen, who has advised both Republican and Democratic presidents. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is jumping straight to what he calls Plan "E" for "Exit." "It's time for the United States to put together a comprehensive plan for gradual disengagement in Iraq," Voinovich said. "We're running out of time and I don't think it's fair to the next administration to say, 'Hey by the way, we're leaving this baby for you guys to figure out.' " In a letter to the president, Voinovich, also a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, called for military disengagement and increased diplomatic engagement. I am still picking myself off the floor. Voinovich's "Plan E" statement was a ball bat, studded with nails - he hit the carcass that is BushCo right out of the park. Where did THEY get the courage to say no to Bush? Oh, I know. They must have found Pelosi's - ya know, she dropped hers a few weeks back!

Things We Wish Hillary Would Say

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge The thing that bugs me about Hillary is her inability to say something straight. In this respect she reminds me a lot of McCain but without the nutty Planter's aftertaste. One example is her weaseling around her excuse for her war vote. She was the last Dem to say the Iraq war was a bad idea - she still embraced it up until six months before the 06 elections! However, I still think she has it in her to be forthright. That kind of bluntness is what Americans really want to hear right about now. Note: Congrats to Daily Kos user, Ming Vase, for planting the idea for today's strip in my head!

Harry Potter and the Blue Dog Democrats

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge Lycanthropy as defined my Wikipedia: In folklore, lycanthropy is the ability or power of a human being to undergo transformation into a wolf. There is no better definition for our conservative democrats than that of lycanthropy. You never know when they will explode into a ball of fur, claws and dimwitted logic in the halls of Congress. They are extremely undependable and definitely against the progressive agenda. It was also obvious that he full moon was out when the war funding bill passed recently and we also discovered a lot more of the dogs were blue than we previously expected. Do we do as Harry Potter does, embrace the inner good of the werewolf and help them overcome their issues or should we follow the path of the "all-out" Van Helsing and relegate the blue dogs back to the unemployment line?

Inside The Watergate Basement

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge The new strategy of the GOP is emerging it seems, give ownership of the war to the Democrats, start a draw down of troops in time for the election then claim victory in Iraq. Maybe I am a cynic, but the push seems to have already started. If the Dems capitulated on the Iraq funding bill due to a fear of GOP rhetoric, it seems they got it anyway. Rule of Thumb #129: If the GOP doesn’t have anything to really complain about, they will simply make shit up, therefore you should always do the right thing.

Get ready to fight them here!

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge I am still upset over the Democrats caving last week. All they had to do was refuse to send the bill for a floor vote. They could have rammed one with deadlines right through committee, just like the GOP has done for years and then have a vote on a Bill with deadlines. Yes, it may not have passed, but at least the Dems would have done the right thing and still been in the position of power. Now it is going to be another year in that God-forsaken desert. Will Iraq be safe once "Shiadelic September" arrives? Nope, that is just when the Pentagon will BEGIN evaluating to see whether the surge did any good. And when is that report due? March, 2008. Welcome to the Real Long Slog.

“Unseat Reid and Pelosi” Says Olbermann

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge Keith Olbermann's Special Comment last night pretty much summed up my feelings on the Democrats idiotic move to continue to fund the war. We worked our fingers to the bone to get Dems into Congress for one MAJOR thing - to bring our troops home. Immigration, the national debt, the spotted owl all took a back seat to this most pressing issue. The Dems held all the cards, the President they are facing is the WORST IN HISTORY and wildly unpopular. Plus the Dems had the support of the people - a huge swath of We The People in fact. So what do they do? Cave. The capitulated. They threw the troops under the bus. God knows, the Dems in Congress don't want to be made to feel uncomfortable.

Virginia Foxx (NC-05) Ignores Iraq

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge I am pissed off and go to send an email to Virginia Foxx expressing my displeasure over the war. I know, a pointless endeavor, but I might as well pile on. I fill out all the required info to send her an email, including looking up my damn ZIP+4 and then I go try to select a topic, but of all the things she has as a topic for - animals, health, pension, the Iraq War is not on her list. War On Terror? Nope. Afghanistan? No, no one remembers Afghanistan any more. How in the world can you be a sitting member of Congress and LEAVE OFF Iraq as a subject as an email topic? It is the biggest foreign policy goof this nation has ever committed, it is on the news CONSTANTLY, it is a subject debated in Congress every single day and it is the ONLY thing candidates are talking about in their campaigns. For Virginia Foxx, it is just a miscellaneous item. If your husband just got killed in combat in Iraq and you need your Congresswoman's help in receiving the remains, you will need to select "miscellaneous" on her web form. This is just what Foxx thinks this war is - miscellaneous. You know, she supports the troops by avoiding talking about them. As a member of a family with loved ones who served in Bush's war, it is incredibly disingenuous of Foxx to leave off the most important topic in the nation to contact her about. I guess we never should have looked to Congress for dignity.