Proving once again that the American government is always willing to provide charity to the needy in other lands, the ATF (under Eric Holder's Department of Justice) apparently helped smuggle more than 1700 weapons to Mexican criminals and drug cartels "to see where they'd surface."
Theoretically, this would provide valuable information which would allow the ATF to shut down gunrunners. But in this case, "theory" went out the window... and the AK-47s and armor-piercing shells were unsurprisingly used to murder dozens (if not hundreds) of people, including a U.S. Border Patrol agent and a Customs Enforcement agent.
When a huge operation like this goes so badly awry, it's important to find out exactly who authorized it and just what the hell they were thinking. And already, an investigative House Committee has been able to strike two names off the list: Barack Obama and Eric Holder - both of whom claim they knew absolutely nothing about the operation.
Mr. Holder denied responsibility for the actions of his people, claiming that he'd established in previous testimony that "my people" are actually the Black Panthers.
Mr. Obama went even farther, explaining that he couldn't possibly be aware of every Justice Department plan to ship guns to the Mexican drug cartels because he oversees "a pretty big government" with "a lot of moving parts." He then added that many of the moving parts are "really shiny" and that he blacks out if he watches them too long.
While it's disturbing to think of so many high-powered weapons heading into Mexico, we doubt that the problem will last very long. Because considering the porous state of our southern border, we're pretty sure a lot of those weapons will be coming back eventually...
Barack Obama and Eric Holder - "No Guns" Heroes?
Update June 18, 2011
We usually go farther back in the vaults for these weekend cartoons, but this one deserved to be revisited right now. Because this week, Rep. Darrell Issa of the US House of Representative's Oversight and Government Reform Committee was holding hearings to find out just who in the Obama administration authorized a plan to put hundreds of automatic weapons and sniper rifles into the hands of Mexico's drug cartels.
So far, those in the ATF who've been interviewed aren't shedding a lot of light on the operation, other than to express their frustration at being ordered "from above" to stand down and watch the guns leave our control...on their way to the most dangerous criminals on Earth. According to one agent, "We knew the next time we’d see the guns would be at crime scenes. And not the first crime these guns were used in, but the last."
None of the ATF agents can explain why the "Fast and Furious" program was created or who is responsible...though they did not eliminate the possibility that it was done for purely political reasons.
The American people deserve answers...as does the family of US Border Agent Brian Terry, who was brutally murdered by drug runners using two high-powered rifles which had been supplied by our own government. Despite pressure, even from Democrats, the Obama administration is refusing to answer any questions, forcing the possibilty that they'll have to be subpoenaed to share what they know about "Operation Fast and Furious."
They're refusing to be fast...and the rest of us should refuse to be anything less than furious. -
Tuesday was a great day for polar bears, but a not-so-hot day (literally) for the scaremongers and political opportunists who've been pushing "man caused climate change." Because Tuesday was when the American Astronomical Society announced that the sun appears to be going into a quiet period unlike any we've seen in hundreds of years...and that the result may be a new ice age.
Scientists say the key is looking at sunspot activity, as there is a correlation between fewer sunspots and lower temperatures here on Earth. And way back in 1645...before industrialization, Humvees, Al Gore, "carbon credits," or the EPA...a lack of sunspots occurred at the same time as the "Little Ice Age" - a devastatingly harsh period of freezing temperatures that lasted 70 years.
Put another way, comparing Man's impact on the climate to that of the sun is like comparing a seagull fart to a Category Five Hurricane. Our climate changes and cycles, as it always has...because the sun changes and cycles, as it always has.
The records of history and climatology are perfectly clear. But politicians, opportunists and pseudo-scientists continue to spout nonsense...as they always have.
The reason Barack Obama was late for the 4th of July parade. -
We're not really going to waste any more breath (or even an actual cartoon) on disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner and his recently announced (but long overdue) resignation.
For what it's worth, he gave every appearance of being a wretched human being long before we knew about his predilection for tweeting pictures of his naked body to college girls and porn stars. And as is the case with nearly every other Democrat, we'd prefer to see them thrown out on ideological and Constitutional grounds rather than something as crass and tawdry as their endlessly disgusting sexual behavior.
But we'll take what we can get.
So farewell, disgraced EX-congressman Weiner, and by all means enjoy your time away at the Sex Addiction Rehab facility. With time and a lot of work, you may stop having "those" thoughts every time your Muslim wife bends over on her prayer rug. -
Despite being legally compelled by the War Powers Act to justify his one-man war against Libya to Congress, Barack "Mr. Transparency" Obama has essentially told our nation's representatives that they can piss up a rope...and adds that he has nothing to explain because there is no war in Libya.
Ohhhhhhh!
Well, we can certainly see where John Boehner and a huge majority of others (Republicans andDemocrats) in Congress could getconfused, what with American bombs and missiles blowing the living crap out of Tripoli, and bloody chunks of Libyan soldiers and civilians flying around in highly kinetic ways. But Mr. Obama's lawyers explain that it isn't really war because the other side is "unable to exchange meaningful fire with American forces."
In other words, an American president can rain down death and destruction on any country he wants, for as long as he wants, with no explanation to Congress - as long as he doesn't give the other side a really good chance to shoot back.
Using the president's convoluted logic, we suppose that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor wasn't really war either. It was more of a surprise party with lots of casualties! Whee! And the Holocaust was no big deal either, because those starving Jews certainly couldn't put up a credible fight while being marched to the ovens. So no harm - no foul, right?
Wrong. America's military is not a toy to be wielded unilaterally and unaccountably by an inexperienced and ineffectual president for purely political purposes, as is certainly the case here. And matters of life, death, and our national honor are too important for semantic games played by the president and his legal team.
Barack Obama's contempt for Congress and the War Powers Act are beyond unacceptable. It's time that a serious case was made for impeachment and removal from office.
According to Barack Obama this isn't war: it's just the creation of "shovel-ready citizens." -
Generally speaking, there are two ways to get over the jitters when it comes to public speaking. The first is to imagine every member of the audience in their underwear...although this method has fallen out of favor recently, because who the heck wants to talk in front of a room filled with creepy Anthony Weiner types?
The second method is to warm up the crowd with a really good joke, which is what Michelle Obama did at a recent campaign fundraiser when she said that her husband never takes a day off.
Except, of course, for dozens of vacations and...oh, yeah!...just a little golf. Way back in March, it was estimated that this president had already spent the equivalent of seven 40-hour weeks on the golf course since taking office. So maybe the first lady doesn't actually see "worry creasing his face," but instead sees that he's developed a squint from staring into the sun too long while driving golfballs. Still, campaigning and fundraising isn't really about telling the truth. In fact, Michelle isn't even being truthful about campaigning and fundraising, because she's having taxpayers pick up the bills to send her and her entourage to small, pointless events which just happen to be near her big campaign stops...thereby allowing all of us to underwrite her husband's fundraising efforts.
In any event, Hope n' Change is sorry to hear that Barack Obama never takes a day off, and we promise the first lady that we'll do everything in our power to give him plenty of days off as soon as possible.
Even when golfing, the president's brow is creased by worries.
A growing number of economists are coming to the conclusion that America's unemployment woes are due to the fact that Barack Obama has no idea where jobs actually come from. To face this accusation head on, the president used his weekly speech to address the situation and prove, once and for all, that he has no idea where jobs actually come from.
Specifically, Mr. Obama said that the way to spur private sector job growth was by having the government put more taxpayer money into education programs to ensure "that every worker has the necessary skills for the job they're applying for."
In other words, the president doesn't think that businesses or market demand create new jobs, he thinks job applicants create new jobs. Which should come as a considerable shock to the 30 million or so unemployed or underemployed Americans whose countless job applications haven't created doodly-squat.
But while the evidence points strongly to Barack Obama being a complete idiot, Hope n' Changefeels compelled to offer analternate explanation out of journalistic fairness and a sincere desire to decrease our odds of being audited. We think it's likely that the president knows he's spouting logically incongruous nonsense, but his ideology keeps him from admitting the one and only thing that the government can actually do to increase private sector job creation: reduce taxes and burdensome regulations, and let capitalism create jobs as it's always done in the past...when allowed to.
-
Apparently "cause and effect" was not a required course at Harvard.
Feeling that it's his patriotic duty, a California salvage diver is launching an expedition to find and photograph the rotting crab-nibbled corpse of Osama bin Laden in order to prove to himself and the world that the Al Qaeda leader is, quite literally, sleeping with the fishes.
Bill Warren is renting a ship and a remote-controlled submarine at a cost of $400,000 because he feels that the Obama administration should have released the death photos, the way previous administrations have released postmortem photos of Billy the Kid and John Dillinger.
Unfortunately, mentioning "John Dillinger" brings to mind a potential flaw in Mr. Warren's plan, especially in these media-happy days of Anthony's Weiner. It seems that the most famous death photo of John Dillinger suggests that he was enjoying being dead (to put it mildly) and gave rise to subsequent rumors that the Smithsonian Museum put Dillinger's Dingus in a jar of formaldehyde. Which, now that we think of it, might also solve Anthony Weiner's problem. But what will Bill Warren do if he finds Osama's corpse in a similar condition? Will he be unable to show the world his photos? Or if he does show them, will we have to hear Barbara Walters emit more lip-smacking "nom, nom, nom" sounds about Osama's brine-soaked willy?
Rather than run this appalling risk, we think Barack Obama should finally release the death photos of Osama bin Laden and be done with it...instead of flashing the pictures to just a few "close friends," Anthony Weiner style, in hopes of impressing them with his manhood.
- True fact: Dillinger died thinking of Barbara Walters. -
This character gets my vote for "least likely to ever have her own newspaper strip."
Update June 12, 2011
The reason today's cartoon has returned is that bleak news from Wall Street has also returned - with a vengeance. The Dow lost money for the sixth consecutive week, making it the worst run since the bad ol' days of 2002.
The reason for the dropping stock prices is all too clear: there is a growing feeling among investors (and, in fact, all sentient beings) that America's economic recovery isn't slowing - it's nonexistent.
Even more troubling to investors is the realization that Barack Obama and his Democrat cohorts aren't going to get serious about reducing debt...meaning it makes more sense to pull your dollars out of the doomed stock market and buy something (anything!) with them before those dollars become useless scrap paper.
Maybe our little fly deserves her own cartoon strip after all. -
