When The Going Gets Tough

In this tumultuous and wildly volatile political season, it's almost refreshing to see that some things never change. In this case, the fact that the Obama family is winging their way to yet another taxpayer funded multi-million dollar 5-star vacation in Martha's Vineyard and coincidentally getting the hell out of Dodge just as fresh feces is hitting the fan.

In this case, the word "coincidental" is central to at least one bit of that fan-flung poop. Specifically, the claim by the White House that it was only coincidental that the Obama administration flew $400 million in untraceable cash to Iran, after which the regime released a handful of hostages for no particular reason whatsoever outside of being, in the president's words, "really swell guys."

Even Obama's DOJ Department was against the transfer, saying that it would look exactly (and perhaps accurately) like a ransom payment - a feeling shared by Iran's mullahs who declared to their ululating masses in the streets that this was absolutely ransom money. And for that matter, the American hostages were given the same impression.

All of this is being flatly denied by Secretary of State John Kerry, who asserts "the United States does not pay ransom and does not negotiate ransoms," whether it be to cash-hungry state sponsors of international terror or our other mortal enemies, radicalized air conditioners and refrigerators.

Also in the news as Barry heads out to the golf courses is his unprecedented commutation of hundreds of federal sentences for prisoners who were in the pokey for (ahem) mostly low level drug offenses.  Granted, many violent criminals plead guilty to lower level drug offenses in exchange for not being tried for their bigger crimes...but that's hardly the president's concern.

In fact, this president seems concerned with very little other than making sure his freeloading family takes full advantage of their last opportunity to hobnob with the rich and famous while sending the very considerable bill to the working schlubs of America.

All of whom are, in the president's eyes, low level offenders.

This cartoon is from 2009.  Did we call it, or did we call it?

The Internet News Game

Some days, the search for positive political news - or even entertainingly negative news - can get pretty frustrating. Oh sure, a crop of nude pictures of a certain candidate's wife turned up, holding forth the possibility of really, really good photos on White House Christmas cards for the next four years. But journalistic integrity demands that we don't comment on a woman's ill-advised youthful indiscretions, just as we refuse to comment about a certain presidential daughter who was twerking and flashing her ass at Lollapalooza.

Rather, we're going to a genuinely important news story which was, unfortunately, pretty much ignored in the mainstream media because of colorfully distracting nonsense like all of the above.

Specifically, we're referring to Hillary Clinton's post-convention interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday in which she declared that, following an investigation into her use of a secret and unsafe email server, FBI Director James Comey "said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people."

At this point, what splatter does it make?

This was a lie so baldfaced and brazen that it earned a rare "4 Pinocchios" from the Washington Post, meaning a lie so big that it actually risks ripping the time-space continuum apart.

For those who may not remember or care, many of whom seem to find regular work on television and in newsrooms, what Comey actually said was that Hillary Clinton's statements about not having documents with classified markings on her email server were not true. Her claims to have never sent classified documents through unsecure channels were not true. Her claims that she only used a single electronic device for email (her excuse for setting up the private server) rather than multiple devices were not true.

In fact, Comey didn't really assert that anything Hillary said was true with the possible exception of when she stated her name for the record - and even that requires people to forget her claim to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary, despite the fact that she was born before he went mountaineering.

Granted, it's not really news when "Lyin' Crooked Hillary" tells yet another whopper. But if you think we were going to pass on the chance to do an exploding head cartoon, you don't know us very well. Although sadly, it's our heads that are exploding these days.

Just Say Noh

Cue the honorable rimshot.

For those who didn't get the joke in today's title, Noh is an ancient, traditional form of ritualized Japanese theater, as is Kabuki. Which we're explaining for the benefit of anyone who also didn't get the joke after watching the even more ritualized theater of the back-to-back political conventions.

Just how completely staged the Democrat convention was is only now being revealed. Actors were hired to fill seats and cheer wildly every time Hillary was able to bark out a sentence without going into a blood-spraying coughing spasm. Huge white noise machines were positioned throughout the convention hall in order to augment applause as needed or drown out protesters (because #WhiteNoiseMatters).

And of course, who can forget the images of Bill and Hillary feigning wide-eyed slack-jawed awe and wonder at the miraculous and completely unexpected sight of balloons falling from the rafters (or quite possibly leaping suicidally after hearing Hillary's angry acceptance speech). To quote Robert Downey Jr in the film Tropic Thunder, they "went full retard. Never go full retard."

Although the conventions are now over, the big show is about to start: the Trump vs Hillary knockdown drag-out mud-flinging pummeling match of the century...out of which we're expecting no winners (certainly not the American people).

In some ways, Hope n' Change is feeling a little Kabuki-ish ourselves at the moment. Without putting on a thick coat of white face paint and a kimono, we can't really feign happiness about Mr. Trump committing himself to an online flame war with the father of a fallen American soldier who happened to be Muslim. Nor is it helpful to have the GOP-ish candidate claiming that he received a letter from the NFL complaining of scheduling conflicts between upcoming games and the Hillary/Trump debates...then being forced to admit that he made up the NFL letter.  Frankly, we think The Donald needs to add Robert Downey Jr to his advisory staff as soon as possible.

Granted, Hillary is also a gift that keeps on giving - thanks to new revelations that her campaign had been hacked (possibly by those pesky Russians) and she refused to let the FBI investigate. And there are stories breaking about the possibility that the Clinton Family Foundation may be facing investigations by the IRS, the DOJ, and other acronym agencies which are part of the big Democratic cover-up machine. Yawn.

Maybe it's just the Monday "blahs," but we're feeling a bit more pessimism than passion about politics today - and we're admitting it because we don't ever want to be guilty of just going through the motions to the discordant sound of plucking shamisens and kotos.

And no, we didn't originally use the word "plucking" when we thought of that sentence...