Comedians, artists and certainly political cartoonists tend to possess an anti-authoritarian, skeptical, irreverent streak. This makes the staunchly conservative cartoonist an especially odd bird. Flipping the traditional journalist ethos of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, rightwing cartoonists tend to ridicule the disenfranchised and excuse the abuses inflicted by the powerful. In some cases, their pieces literally spout the latest GOP talking points, revealing the cartoonists to be not independent voices, but merely members of the vast GOP echo chamber - not wits or critics as much they are hacks and shills.

This installment covers cartoons published between 11/28/06 and 12/3/06. Who would our conservative cartoonists rail on this week?
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I won’t even go into what a disapointment this is. Unfuckingbelievable.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — By a vote of 95-2, the Senate approved President Bush’s defense secretary nominee Wednesday, a day after the nomination sailed through the Armed Services Committee.

Robert Gates, a former CIA director, will be sworn in December 18.

Two Republican senators — Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Jim Bunning of Kentucky — cast the only no votes.

“He’s the right guy at the right time,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina.

During Wednesday’s debate on the nomination, it seemed Democrats had been successfully wooed by Gates.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he was “favorably impressed” by Gates’ candor and forthrightness.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who has been a vocal critic of Bush’s Iraq policy, added that he believes Gates will be “an independent thinker and give candid and frank advice to the president about a way forward in Iraq.”

However, Kennedy warned, the American people “are demanding a lot more than a change of faces at the Pentagon … They’re demanding — and they deserve — a comprehensive change in our policy.”

More at CNN.com

I’d say the difference between 93 and 1,100 goes way beyond underreporting. It’s like everything else in this Presidency. Lies. Lies. Lies. And more lies.

WASHINGTON - U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration’s policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said.

In its report on ways to improve the U.S. approach to stabilizing Iraq, the group recommended Wednesday that the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense make changes in the collection of data about violence to provide a more accurate picture.

The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. “Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence,” it said.

“The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases.” It said, for example, that a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack, and a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn’t hurt U.S. personnel doesn’t count, either. Also, if the source of a sectarian attack is not determined, that assault is not added to the database of violence incidents.

Read more at YahooNews

H/T Bat for sending this!

The wife and children of James Kim were rescued two days ago, but today’s news brings a sad ending to their story.

A San Francisco man who got stranded in the snowy wilderness with his family nearly two weeks ago was found dead Wednesday in a mountain creek, authorities said.

James Kim’s body was discovered in Oregon’s snowy Klamath Mountains two days after his wife and two daughters were rescued from their car, stuck on a remote road. Kim had set out on foot over the weekend to find help for his family.

Ground crews and helicopters had been searching the area for Kim for days.

A tearful Undersheriff Brian Anderson announced the discovery of the body, his voice breaking at one point. He gave no details on the cause of death or how far from the family’s car Kim was found.

Earlier in the day, searchers said they had uncovered clues that suggested Kim had shed clothing and arranged it to give searchers clues to his whereabouts. They had also made plans to drop rescue packages for Kim with clothing, emergency gear and provisions.

Kim, 35, was a senior editor for the technology media company CNET Networks Inc. He and his family had been missing since Nov. 25. They were heading home to San Francisco after a family vacation in the Pacific Northwest.

A pair of pants Kim had been wearing was found in the wilderness on Tuesday, raising fears that he had become delirious from the cold.

Kim’s wife, Kati, told officers that the couple made a wrong turn and became stuck in the snow. They used their car heater until they ran out of gas, then burned tires to stay warm and attract attention. With only a few jars of baby food and limited supplies, Kati Kim nursed her children.

Roads in the area are often not plowed in the winter and can become impassable.

source

Woman’s tail wind downs jetliner

In case of emergency . . . pull finger!

Flatulence brought down an American Airlines flight early Monday. It is believed to be the first incident in which gastrointestinal gas has forced an emergency landing.
American Flight 1053 was enroute from Washington Reagan National Airport and bound for Dallas/Fort Worth, when alarmed passengers reported smelling struck matches, Lynne Lowrance, a spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority told the Tennesseean newspaper.
Despite the odoriferous menace, the plane landed safely. The FBI, Transportation Safety Administration and airport authority responded to the emergency, Lowrance said.
The passengers were taken off the plane with their luggage to go through security checks. Bomb’sniffing dogs found the matches. Astute FBI agents managed to identify and question a passenger who admitted she struck the matches to conceal a body odor issue caused by a medical condition. The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on.
“American has banned her for a long time,” Lowrance said. It is unclear whether she intends to create a stink over the ban. She was not charged although it is illegal to strike a match in an airplane.

Link

Other than being obviously funny, this story carries a serious tone. What should one do if hit with a case of on-flight gas? It’s not like you can roll down a window or step outside for a bit. So do nothing? Oh I’m sure that would go over well…
I suggest a call to the Whoopi Cushion Company. Maybe they could build a reverse-whoopi, where one sits on a deflated whoopi and auto-inflates it… saving oneself from loads of embarrassment.

Cheney’s gay daughter said pregnant

WASHINGTON - Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of Vice President
Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, is pregnant.
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Mary Cheney, 37, and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, 45, are expecting a baby, said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president. The baby is due in late spring.

“The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth granddaughter,” McBride said.

Article here

Immaculate? Doubtful… But it sure does give new meaning behind the phrase “women with balls”!

…BECAUSE YOU ASKED FOR IT!

A pic of Kaylei that was still on the camera (I so miss her)

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A couple of pics of Ms Kitty

Senate panel unanimously approves Gates nomination

By Gordon Lubold

The man tapped to run the Pentagon said he will respect the military he is charged to lead and will not be afraid to tell President Bush what he thinks.

Then Robert Gates, nominated by Bush to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put his money where his mouth is by saying the U.S. is not winning the war in Iraq.

The committee wasted no time approving Gates- nomination, voting unanimously after the hearing to send the nomination to the full Senate, which could act as soon as Wednesday, aides said.

Gates appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to be grilled by Democrats and Republicans on just how he sees the job as Pentagon boss and what he would do in Iraq. A former CIA director who is now the president of Texas A&M University, Gates said he wouldn-t be afraid to tell Bush the truth.
…

Gates, who accepted Bush’s nomination because he said he thinks he can bring something to the job, said he isn-t returning to Washington to be “a bump on a log.”
…

Asked straight out at the hearing by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., whether the U.S. is winning in Iraq, Gates said: “No, sir.” He later said he believes the United States is neither winning nor losing, “at this point.”

Gates also said bluntly that there aren-t any new ideas on Iraq because most individuals believe in their own entrenched positions. The challenge, he said, is to assemble those different views into a coherent policy that can stand up for the long haul to the whims of presidents and lawmakers.

Link

He later said he believes the United States is neither winning nor losing, “at this point.”

Maybe he’s not “stay the course”, but I don’t see our troops coming home any time soon either. I don’t have a good feeling about this man… but I hope he proves me wrong.

Some Republicans Take a Scorched-Hill Tack

Leaving Budget Decisions To Democrats Could Disrupt New Leadership’s Agenda

By DAVID ROGERS
The Wall Street Journal - Online

WASHINGTON — Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month.

Already, the Republican leadership has moved to saddle the new Democratic majority with responsibility for resolving $463 billion in spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. And the departing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bill Thomas (R., Calif.), has been demanding that the Democrat-crafted 2008 budget absorb most of the $13 billion in costs incurred from a decision now to protect physician reimbursements under Medicare, the federal health-care program for the elderly and disabled.

The unstated goal is to disrupt the Democratic agenda and make it harder for the new majority to meet its promise to reinstitute “pay-as-you-go” budget rules, under which new costs or tax cuts must be offset to protect the deficit from growing.
…
“It’s a demonstration of the irresponsibility of Republicans that they would leave this country with this mess,” said the next House speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “But we won, we will deal with it.”

Full article at The Wall Street Journal

My way or waaah!… typical childish behavior coming from these goons. These people have some serious potty-training issues.