Last Thursday the New York Times website ran this story which showed that the photos the Iranian government released following their missile tests the previous day had actually been doctored (badly). Here’s their analysis:

As the article notes:

As the above illustration shows, the second missile from the right appears to be the sum of two other missiles in the image. The contours of the billowing smoke match perfectly near the ground, as well in the immediate wake of the missile. Only a small black dot in the reddish area of exhaust seems to differ from the missile to its left, though there are also some slight variations in the color of the smoke and the sky.

This got me thinking, “What else might the Iranians have altered in their diabolical efforts to improve their image?” Well, after an exhaustive Google image search, look what I found…

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So, yeah, it’s been quite some time since I’ve updated this thing…

I thought for sure as the Primary Season ramped up I’d get more & more  motivated to draw political cartoons, but it seems the exact opposite has happened.  Ever since I started updating five times-a-week over at my other site, I just haven’t had the leftover creative juices to muster much here.  Plus, after 7 years of Dubya, I’m a little burned out.

However, don’t count me out.  I’ll try to have a new cartoon over here in a week, or so–just don’t hold your breath…

Speaking of 7 years with Dubya…we’re still suck with him for almost another year, so why not show your displeasure with one of these bumper stickers…

…or you can get it in T-shirt form…

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According to this article in the LA Times, John Kerry is finally ready to denounce the “Swift Boat” ads & challenge their veracity. Great, the only problem is that the 2004 elections, during which this was a major issue, were held back in 2004! Seriously, what fucking good does this do us now, over three years later?! Everybody knew the ads were false back then:

When the allegations against Kerry surfaced in 2004, a Los Angeles Times review of Vietnam-era public records generally supported the view put forth by Kerry and his crew mates — that he had acted courageously and came by his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts honestly.

(Also, on a side note, can anyone read the last sentence without craving Lucky Charms?)

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait until 2011 for the Dems to respond to the “Swift Boats” of ‘08.

EDIT: I was thinking of doing a cartoon about this, but it looks like Matt Bors beat me to the punch.

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Wow. Today in Congress, the Republicans were voting in favor of impeaching Cheney & the Democrats were the ones doing everything they could to keep the articles in commitee.

House Democrats on Tuesday beat back a Republican attempt to force them to vote on a divisive resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney for “fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” to justify the war in Iraq.

Seriously, here’s yet another example of just how pathetic the Democrats have become. They are not an opposition party, people.

“Impeachment is not on our agenda,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)

This basically tells Dubya & Co. that they can do anything they want & the Democrats will let them get away with it: lie, cheat, steal, you name it.

The resolution said that Cheney, “in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president,” had “purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.”

And the Democrats were voting against it. I just hope they don’t act surprised when Cheney starts bombing Iran.

Here’s the whole story.

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You may remember, Back in August, I wrote about the GOP’s efforts to divvy up California’s 55 electoral votes. Well, according to this article in the LA Times, that effort is all but dead (for now):

A proposed California initiative campaign that could have helped Republicans hold on to the White House in 2008 was a shambles Thursday night, as two of its key consultants quit.

Unable to raise sufficient money and angered over a lack of disclosure by its one large donor, veteran political law attorney Thomas Hiltachk, who drafted the measure, said he was resigning from the committee.

There remained a chance that the measure could be revived, but only if a major donor were to come forward to fund the petition drive. However, time is short to gather the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed by the end of November. And backers said Thursday that they believed the measure was all but dead, at least for the 2008 election.

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This morning, I was all set to work on a cartoon about Florida’s Democratic primary woes, but then I got news of Alberto Gonzales’ resignation…

I just know there’ll be at least a dozen editorial cartoons just like this one, but I had to draw it.  Besides, the whole process was rather cathartic.  However, with any luck, I’ll actually have a second Gonzales related cartoon for you later this week.

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An article in the New York Times discusses the recent FISA legislature & it turns out fears about the spying program have already been validated.

“This may give the administration even more authority than people thought,” said David Kris, a former senior Justice Department lawyer in the Bush and Clinton administrations

And there’s this, as well:

Whether intentional or not, the end result — according to top Democratic aides and other experts on national security law — is that the legislation may grant the government the right to collect a range of information on American citizens inside the United States without warrants, as long as the administration asserts that the spying concerns the monitoring of a person believed to be overseas.

Of course, top aides to the president claim these new powers won’t be abused, but can you really trust them, when they won’t even agree to abide by the law itself:

Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.

They’re basically saying, “We’ll follow the law, as long as it let’s us do exactly what we want. If it doesn’t, then we’re not bound to obey it.”

And where are the Democrats in all of this? Right where Bush wants them, of course, metaphorically cowering in the corner…

Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.

Full story here.

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I watched a fascinating episode of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS last night. It featured Bruce Fein & John Nichols as they made their case for impeaching both George W. Bush & Dick Cheney. I highly recommend watching the entire video. Here’s the website, as well.

Of course, after the Democrats completely caved on the Surveillance Legislature (See cartoon below) I really don’t think this is going to happen. In a properly functioning Democracy, with actual opposition parties, Bush & Co. would have been impeached long ago…

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Let’s just add this to the “Is there anything these guys won’t try” list. It seems the GOP wants to divvy up California’s 55 Electoral Votes based on Congressional districts, rather than the present winner-take-all system. I can’t believe they said this with a straight face:

“The pitch is pretty straightforward,” Eckery said. “We’re unlocking 55 electoral votes, and making it so candidates have to compete for them…. Candidates are not going to be able to ignore California. That would benefit all Californians.”

I guess Republicans are tired of seeing our 55 votes go entirely to Dems & want to take a few bites out of the biggest blue state. Now, I’m no fan of the Electoral College, but unless you do this in every state - red & blue, alike - singling out California seems like a Rovean ploy.

“This is all about rigging the system, fixing the system, to tilt the electoral college to the Republicans, all under the pretense of being a reform,” Lehane said.

As the story states, the measure is still in its infancy, but as Election ‘08 nears, don’t be surprised to see this on the ballot.

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In today’s L.A. Times there’s more bad news regarding Electronic voting machines: according to a review by the California Secretary of State, it seems those used in recent elections are all easily hacked. This doesn’t really come as much of a surprise, especially if you’ve seen the demonstration video, based on the Princeton University study of DieBold’s voting machines’ security (or lack thereof). In the video, they show just how easy it is to infect a machine with malicious software which alters the vote counts, & then erases itself, leaving no evidence. In a demo election, Benedict Arnold was able to defeat George Washington, even thought George received more votes.

Here’s a related cartoon I did several months before the last elections:

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