Your generous
donations help keep
this site running.
Visa/MC/PayPal accepted.
We're going to do something today we haven't done for a while here -- take a cartoon break! Our resident cartoonist, C.W. Cunningham, has surfaced once again and sent in the following for you to enjoy.
-- Chris Weigant
About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy
It's "Budget Season" once again in Washington, and since it's going to be a particularly contentious and complex one this year, it's worth taking a moment at the beginning to provide an overview of the entire process which is about to play out over the next two or three months. There are, at this point, three main budget battles to be fought. One of these isn't strictly a budget battle, but will likely devolve into one, hence its inclusion in the list. Two of these have hard and fast calendar deadlines. All three of them are going to be major political battles, and it's unclear what the outcome of any of them is going to be at this point.
The stunning news today of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak stepping down has all but eclipsed the other political news of the week. Who would have thought, a month ago, that a government that had oppressed its own people for over three decades would fall simply because a bunch of people marched in the streets and refused to give up?
What fun is a scandal if you don't even have time to make fun of it?
Speaker of the House John Boehner seems not to be able to count votes very well. Or, to be more charitable, perhaps he's just working through his opening day jitters. But it certainly seems that he is indeed making a few rookie vote-counting mistakes as he learns his new job.
Christina Aguilera is -- quite rightly -- getting a lot of grief these days, because she flubbed a line while singing the National Anthem at the start of last weekend's Super Bowl. But while her mangled version of the lyrics was pretty cringe-inducing, to me what was completely indefensible was her mangling of the tune itself. Because this is one song which really shouldn't be open to "interpretation" -- at least not during such a prominent event.
Corporate America is on our minds today, because President Obama just gave a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. With the future decidedly uncertain, Obama made overtures to the corporate community, and also called on them to be responsible and help build the middle class of this country, by insuring that all boats are lifted by the tide, and not get (as he put it) "left behind, stuck in the mud." This wasn't the only time in the speech he got Kennedyesque, also calling on the corporate titans to: "Ask yourselves what you can do to hire more American workers, what you can do to support the American economy and invest in this nation."
This doesn't mean blind obedience or unquestioned following of any leader. But it does mean "don't bump his elbow" deference to our elected leader when the country needs to speak with one voice.
Egypt, it seems, is failing to follow a convenient storyline for the American journalists to follow.
Obama poll-watchers have been waiting to see a "bump" upward in public opinion job approval ratings pretty much ever since he took office. In two years, there really hasn't been one. Until now.