More on Rove's contempt for everybody...

Real quick Moron post for this week's 'toon, as I've got about eight different (animated) balls in the air...

• Brave New Films has an entire website devoted to sending old turd blossom to jail.
  
  
• David Iglesias:
  

  It is unacceptable in a country where the rule of law is the cornerstone of our jurisprudence that a former White House official fail to appear to claim privilege before Congress. Rove should have appeared before Congress and claimed privilege. Rather, he thumbed his nose at a co-equal branch of government and showed his utter disregard for their powers. His actions are contemptuous per se and he should be held in contempt by the House. The language of 18 USC § 1503(a) is broad since it speaks of “influencing” an “officer…of the United States” in the “discharge of his duties” including the “due administration of justice.”
  Applying this test to the allegations concerning the Siegelman matter, for instance, the evidence suggests that Rove influenced a U.S. Attorney in the discharge of her duties. This is a very serious matter and needs to be fully investigated since a non-attorney policy adviser has no business influencing the indictment of an elected official.

• In case you missed it, the House Judiciary Committee did indeed vote to hold Rove in contempt of Congress. So, this means the Democrats are totally getting serious now and he's gonna be in a jail cell by the end of the week, right?
  
  Uh huh...
  
  Pelosi says the full House isn't even going to think about it until September, by which time the Dems will be in full-on election mode. Close Obama adviser Cass Sunstein has already "cautioned against prosecuting criminal conduct from the current administration," or even the "slight appearance" of such attempts.
  

Fighting Words: 7/28/08 Cartoon...

"The Barry Novack Show: I Have an Out-of-Control Teen!"...

Oh God Yes...

This story is so delicious, it just has to be fattening...

The Duke Cunningham scandal and Tom Delay scandal and Jack Abramoff scandal and Mark Foley scandal and David Vitter scandal etc. etc. etc. etc. etc...... were all satisfying, but nothing would be quite as scrumptious as seeing Ted Stevens stink up a jail cell with his "old man smell":



...unless he was sharing the cell with Inhofe.

More on Rove, various scandals...

Some articles that inspired Rove Ninja:

• On Rove's role in the email scandal, check out Dan Eggen, Michael Abramowitz, Daniel Schulman, and Michael Isikoff. As you probably know, Rove's "role" was pretty cut-and-dried: he intentionally deleted about four years' worth of emails, probably containing information on his role in such schemes as the outing of an undercover CIA agent and the firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons. Apparently, he was using an RNC email system to evade legal requirements for document retention and to avoid having to turn the material over to Congress. Rove's deleting got so out of hand during the Plame investigation that the RNC had to take away his "erasing privileges"... after which, they probably made him stay after class for a half-hour to clean the blackboards.
  
  Patrick Martin also suggests that the White House is preparing to sacrifice Alberto in order to save Rove's ninja ass. Any day now... maybe...


• Can you spot all the contemporary movie references in this week's 'toon? Rove's teacher, of course, was based on Pai Mei from Kill Bill. I also just re-watched Batman Begins the other night... so that's in there. I think there's a Spiderman reference or two in there, too...

Fighting Words: 4/23/07 Cartoon

"Rove Ninja: Master of Deception"...

More on Alberto, U.S. Attorney's Scandal...

Short (and late) list of articles for this week's 'toon, since it's a topic that has been rapidly evolving:

• Glenn Greenwald on one of the more objectionable things that Alberto has overseen in his tenure, the FBI's abuse of "national security letters."


• E&P on the rash of editorial pages calling for Alberto's head.


• Speaking of heads: Think Progress on Alberto's head-scratching claim that "there is no express grant of habeas corpus in the Constitution" (it just says you can't take it away). Ummm... what?


• John Dean on Bush's use of executive privilege, which he says illustrates how "a conservative ideology that had always been devoted to limiting government power has been transformed into the largest expansion of executive power since FDR."


• Stephen Crockett's interesting suggestion that "underlying Bush's resistance to a full investigation is evidence of longstanding criminality that borders on racketeering." Ah, such are the days of the Capone administration...


• Check out my previous blog posts on the related subjects of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, domestic surveillance, and executive privilege and the MCA.

And yeah, I know... the caricature of Alberto in this week's 'toon is just about the worst one I've ever done. I'll work on it... but check out a better one that I did of him as Alberto the Torture Turtle.

On a good note, in researching Alberto's "cop persona" for the 'toon, I ran across a great '80's TV show that I had totally forgotten about: Sledge Hammer. It was a Police Squad!-like satire of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, with David Rasche as an over-the-top, hard-as-nails cop who liked to shoot first and ask questions later. I remember specifically the opening sequence with a "near-sensual" panning over Sledge's .44 Magnum as it rested on top of a satin pillow. What a great show that was...

Fighting Words: 3/26/07 Cartoon

"Law & Order: Justice Department"...

More on U.S. v. Libby...

For this week's 'toon, I was seriously considering having Libby and some of his criminal cohorts reenact the scene from Goodfellas when they're in prison making pasta sauce. I would've had Abramoff and maybe DeLay there, perhaps Duke Cunningham also... and Cheney as Paulie Vario (who was doing a year for contempt) using a razor blade to "slice the garlic so thin that it liquifies in the pan." Classic scene. (By the way, some people think I'm crazy because I was disappointed by The Departed... I thought it was good, but not a fraction as good as Goodfellas was.)

Two things occurred to me: first, I do a lot of cartoons with gangster themes. Mostly, though, I don't think Libby's ever going to see the inside of a jail cell, minimum security or otherwise...

Anyway, here are some articles:

• Looks like the whole story is old news already with the U.S. attorneys scandal hitting a boil... Arianna Huffington ties the two scandals together.


• The central theme of this scandal (and the cartoon) is lies and liars... so many, in fact, that it often seems like you need a scorecard to keep them straight. Edward Lazarus has a couple of articles on the culture of lies in the current White House.


• On ol' crazy-ass "Rusty Spikes" Cheney's obsession to get even with Joe Wilson, check out columns by Ray McGovern and Sidney Blumenthal. Michael Duffy says that ol' Dick ain't quite done in the White House yet, though...


• Contrary to what anyone says, Libby was not "innocent." The Nation reports on Cathie Martin's testimony that Libby was "intensely engaged" in Cheney's campaign to get vengeance on Wilson. And, it was not "bad memory" on Libby's part... Patrick Fitzgerald maintains that Libby "made time to deal with the Wilson matter day after day after day."
  
  Don't kid yourself, though... his pardon is a done-deal. Most likely, he will appeal until after the 2008 presidential election, and then Dubya will bail him out. William Rivers Pitt agrees, and points out that Libby is a "damned lucky man" considering that "the lies promulgated by Mr. Libby led directly to the deaths of 3,185 American soldiers and the wounding of between 47,000 and 53,000... [which] amounts to between a third and a fourth of the entire active combat force of the United States military." The only question is whether Fitzgerald will push for Libby to begin serving his sentence now, which might force Dubya's hand earlier than expected.


• The mainstream media has been typically fabulous on this story, in particular the Washington Post editorial page. Robert Parry has an excellent column on this. Media Matters also has a roundup of some of the myths and falsehoods that have been coming out of the mainstream press on the Libby verdict.


• Will Karl Rove ever be indicted in this case? Not bloody likely... Fitzgerald says that he's "going back to his day job."

Fighting Words: 3/12/07 Cartoon

"U.S. v. Libby -- The Ballgame"...

More on Foley, Woodward...

On the comparatively unimportant but entertaining Foley scandal:

• Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei on the possible repercussions for the GOP in the upcoming election.


• A post from several weeks ago from Pam's House Blend that caught my eye again, on Hastert's "House Republican American Values Agenda." It includes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a Pledge of Allegiance protection act, an "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act" (requiring doctors to inform women seeking abortions that the unborn child feels pain), and a "Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act" (particularly constructive -- it would prohibit governments from using federal funds to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens during emergencies).
  
  Interestingly, there's nothing about protecting children from sexual predators in the House of Representatives... he probably just "forgot" that one, though.

On the fallout from Woodward's State of Denial:

• Mike Whitney, who asks why Woodward waited until now to disclose these crucial details, and argues that his "real job is not to maintain an 'informed public' or preserve the free flow of information," but to serve the interests of "disenchanted elites [who] want a place at the policy table again."


• Think Progress on the revelation that Henry Kissinger has been advising Bush and Cheney, noting:

  Says Woodward, “Now what’s Kissinger’s advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply, ‘Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.’” Woodward adds. “This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will.”



• A CBS report with several nice little nuggets from Woodward's 60 Minutes interview, including this one on Saudi Prince Bandar:

  Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.
  
  Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”



• Another CBS report and an article by John Dickerson on the palace intrigue of the Bush administration, including all your favorite names in Republican professional wrestling (as seen in the last square of this week's 'toon, from left-to-right): Laura "Spacegirl" Bush, Andy "Bad News" Card, Don "The Galloping Geezer" Rumsfeld, George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, Colin "Sgt. Sycophant" Powell, Condi "The Shopping Queen" Rice, and "King Kong" Cheney.
  
  (OK, I could probably come up with better wrestling names for most of those if I put some thought into it...)

Fighting Words: 10/9/06 Cartoon

"Republican Wrestling Federation, #2"... see the previous episode here.

More on Abramoff, GOP "morality"...

Check out:

• Think Progress has a summary of the Abramoff scandal, including his Coushatta scam, which involved Christian-right activists James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and (most prominently) Ralph Reed. See also an article by Joe Conason on Tom DeLay's involvement, which points out:
  

  Not many politicians have been as bold as DeLay in publicly claiming the mandate of heaven... What did God tell DeLay about those lavish trips and dinners and donations, and about the money funneled to his wife? The actual Bible, which he professes to believe is the word of the Lord, is quite clear on the question. Bribery is strictly prohibited in Exodus 23:8 and Job 36:18, which specifically warns: "Be careful that no one entices you by riches; do not let a large bribe turn you aside."



• Think Progress also has a good wrap-up on DeLay's misdeeds, up to and including the Abramoff scandal. See also a report by Beyond DeLay, which identifies the 20 most corrupt members of Congress, and 5 to watch (21 of the 25 total are Republicans).


• On the Religious Right, check out Rob Boston's list of their top 10 power-brokers. Number 4 is the Alliance Defense Fund, which recruits young lawyers to "pledge 450 hours of pro-bono time to the Body of Christ," in an effort to "reclaim the legal system for Jesus Christ" (huh?). See also the Time article asking "Does God Want You To Be Rich?"


• Regarding Clinton, watch him rip Chris Wallace a new one.


• Lastly, the joke about hookers comes from good ol' Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who, aside from being sent to the clink for conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion, reportedly liked to put on a turtleneck sweater and pajama bottoms and entertain prostitutes on his yacht by the light of his favorite lava lamp.

Fighting Words: 9/25/06 Cartoon

"Fundamentalist Broadcasting Network, #2"... see the previous episode here.