(IVCAFF News) Wayne LaPierre addressed members of the Houston NRA on Saturday, sparking the usual liberal controversy, but generating cries of “Remember the Alamo” accompanied by six-gun shots fired into the air.

“I was inspired by last week’s piece in Intravenous Caffeine. What else could better protect you against unknown bombing suspects who’d probably already left the scene? If I were in Boston, I’d put my faith in my trusty Peacemaker to make sure that no suspicious characters approached or fled from me.

“Police lockdown? Northerners cowering in fear! How would you know that that knock on the door was a real Boston policeman unless you had your piece by your side to make sure you could return fire. How would you defend yourself from marauding bands of looters climbing into your windows? That’s what “stand your ground laws” were made for. Of course, Bostonians would have felt more secure with more guns!”

After the meeting, LaPierre was assisted back into his straitjacket by attendants before being driven by ambulance back to the facility.

NOTE TO STEPHEN COLBERT:
Dear Stephen, this is Greg. I know you’re talking about me, I’ve heard you on your program. I let it go the first time, but now it’s just too much. Do I have to say it again? It’s over. Over. Must I get that restraining order?
Yours alwaysnever again,
Greg

• “Too soon?” “No, too late–did you ever taste Wayne’s mom’s cooking?

“Well, despite all the additional help by CNN, doing their best imitation of the kids down the block watching “what’s going on with all the cop cars,” the forces of the law managed to deal with the alleged Boston bombers. I say “alleged” for a reason. Even though Tsarnaeva made a confession, we are still in America–presumed innocent until proven guilty. That’s why careful news coverage still refer to him as a suspect. We will exempt, of course, exempt the New York Post from any taint of carefulness in their news coverage. Thanks to CARELESS news coverage, there’s at least one other victim of the Boston bombing–Sunil Tripathi, who was misidentified as the “white hat” bomber due to crowd sourcing on Twitter and Reddit. Crowd sourcing, in matters of life and death, often resembles a lynch mob. Although I have not seen any speculation, there’s a pretty good chance that some person or persons found Tripathi and executed lynch mob justice. And, just like in The Oxbow Incident, they got the wrong man.

There was another wrong man who seems to have been arrested–at least in the news coverage–before he was discovered to be a person of no interest rather than a person of interest–that Saudi student whom even Fox News recognized was selected by “racial profiling.” This poor guy ran AWAY from the blast–like many of us would have done–after all, your first response in a dangerous situation is your own safety. Once you realize there are no pieces missing (as was the case with so many unfortunate people who were close to the explosion)–then you can help others (I am constantly amazed at the bravery of police who ran TOWARDS the blast instead of away). I think he may have had more than safety from the explosion to worry about.

After all, if the police, the FBI, the media, were all racial profiling, what about the crowd? How many of them immediately suspected it to be the work of some Middle Eastern radical? What if the right person–that is to say, the WRONG person–saw that student running away. That student risked getting beaten at the very least if he stuck around.

But what if, as in Wayne LaPierre’s America, there were “good guys with guns” in the crowd? That student wouldn’t have had a chance.

We should all thank Congress for not passing even the mildest of gun regulations so that Wayne’s vision will come true.

And on a completely irrelevant note–”What would Batman call the Boston Marathon Bombing suspect?”

He’d call him, “Jo-Kar!”

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS

• “Life Among the Nobililty: The Swing” by Gregonard…

Well, Barrie Antoinette–excuse me, President Barry Obama, delivered his proposal for a budget and yes, indeed-y, there was the much hated-by-the-constituency-but-loved-by-Wall-Street “chained CPI”. According to one writer, Barry has called the Republican bluff–they have said they will brook no tax increases unless something is done about “entitlements”–you know, the money you’re entitled to because, well, you GAVE it to the Fed to invest throughout your working career! Well, the Prez has proposed chained CPI–the cost of living mal-adjustment that assumes that if you can’t afford steak, you’ll buy chicken and everything is still jake. Or if you can’t afford Chicken of the Sea, you’ll buy canned skipjack mackerel. And if you can’t afford canned mackerel, you’ll just go to Friskies.

The theory is that the Republicans will be so scared of losing their seats that they will do anything to avoid agreeing to this proposal. Except for one thing–who’s REALLY gonna get the blame for this? Why, the guy who proposed it, of course. President Obama. You know, the guy who DOESN’T HAVE TO RUN FOR ELECTION AGAIN?

Why all this “save Social Security” nonsense when it is solvent for the next 30 years? Why all this “entitlement reform” bullshit when Social Security has nothing to do with the budget? For that, we have to go back eight years (and actually more) to when President BUSH proposed “privatizing Social Security.” That’s right, this one has a long history–and the reason for privatizing SS was? So the money boys, the banks, the oligarchy, the plutocracy, could get their hands on that money and drain it from our senior citizens faster than any drug addict by stealing your Grandma’s Social Security check.

But wait–how does the chained CPI do THAT? Remember back then–the seniors, the AARP, everybody and their brother decided that the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) was good enough to keep them going so please do not do us the favor of letting us make bad investments, please. So the money boys–whom Barack Obama is as beholden to as any Republican, any blue dog Democrat, hell, almost every “progressive” Democrat as well–said to themselves, “If the COLA is good enough, then let’s screw the COLA. Then they’ll be clamoring to let us invest the money for them.”

And that, kiddies, is how the sky turned blue. So remember, when Grandma, when Ma and Pa, when YOU start having to eat catfood, it wasn’t just Congress, it wasn’t just Obama…

It was the banks, too big to fail, too big to jail, who wanted your money.

“Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!”

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.

• Is that yellow cake I see on the floor?

Last week, we saw the passing of the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq war—ooops, excuse me, Congress never declared war, so, ummmm, what do we call it?

When the airplanes struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, somewhere amid the horror of what I was seeing rose an additional realization, “Oh, my God, we’ve just had our Reichstag Fire.” I could see with horrifying clarity that this would be the defining moment that turned the United States from its democratic principles to something totally antithetical to the dreams of our nation’s Fathers. We have resisted the impulse of creating concentration camps for Moslems–we incarcerated many, but mostly exiled them for visa transgressions. We have created gulags where we gathered a mostly hapless group of alleged terrorists whose major crime seems to have been being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the wrong person wanted to collect a reward. We HAVE built massive PRISONS, but these are privately run camps to provide slave labor and corporate profit and anyone can enter. We passed the grossly obscene “Patriot” act through which almost any crime can be considered to be an act of terrorism–when the need arises.

Our incursion into Afghanistan almost looked legitimate. We claimed the head of, what was his name, Osama bin Laden? Yes, he was there, later on he claimed credit for “9/11″, which our government was already doing within minutes of the tower falls–since it had pointedly ignored the warnings from the intelligence community of terrorist actions inside the US. He was there, but the Taliban government had the nerve to ask for evidence before they would consider handing him over. So like a western posse, we went in and cleaned up the corruption in Rock Ridge and hunted down bin Laden until we were just yards from his hiding place in the mountains when…

Wait, what? The real danger is from Iraq? The country which had been under UN sanctions for a decade? Whose dictator, Saddam Hussein, couldn’t even afford to buy shoes for his army? HE had weapons of mass destruction? Yes, we had the ominous YELLOW CAKE requests–which turned out to be forgeries. We had George Bush and Tony Blair smirking their way into war. We had Dick Cheney and Condi Rice promising us mushroom clouds of doom if nothing was done immediately. We had a mountain of evidence that Colin Powell presented at the UN. I remember listening to him and being absolutely convinced by the man’s sense of sincerity… until the next morning, when I realized that all that evidence had no context. That if you believed it was something bad it was, but those conversations about hiding things could have just as easily been hiding the porn when the inspectors arrived.

And so we went off and destroyed a country within weeks. Killed several thousand Americans and maimed 10s of thousands. Killed 100s of thousands Iraqis and destroyed the infrastructure of the country. Wasted around two trillion dollars (when asked about the loss of a trillion dollars from the Pentagon budgets, Donald Rumsfeld remarked, “I’ll have to look into that,” and didn’t) which the Tea Party is now trying to collect from the poorest among us. For which sinful errors of judgment or outright acts of war-mongering for profit no one has been held accountable.

Many of us felt powerless to do anything to stop it. Only after the deed was done did I decide that I could do a political cartoon series against these criminals. I was scared too–protesting the war COULD have been considered an act of terrorism according to the Patriot Act.

HAPPY F$%^&*G ANNIVERSARY.

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.

• On the table again–tip–invest in Mars, Nestle and Colgate-Palmolive–that’s right, they make most of the cat food

Senator Rob Portman has announced that he no longer supports chained CPI as a means of saving Social Security. Ohio’s junior senator said that his change of heart came from a personal discovery.

“I found out over the weekend,” Portman explained, “that my parents are old. I did not realize that they were on Social Security.”

Portman recently changed his stance on gay marriage about a year after his son came out. “I would have changed my stance sooner, but I had been hoping that Mitt Romney would tap me for his VP running mate. Fat chance–that asshole suggested we send my son to Tuvalu until the election was over. Tuvalu? That place is under 2 feet of water these days!”

“I always believed that all old people had socked it away and were taken endless Royal Caribbean cruises in their twilight years. And then when they couldn’t get on the boats anymore without vomiting, it was the fiscally responsible thing for their children to loot their bank accounts and put them into a home so they’d be covered 100% by Medicare and Medicaid.”

“But the parent-child relationship doesn’t exist for most Republicans. After mating, the female lays 1000 eggs and after spawning, the young eat each other to ensure survival of the greediest. They never know their mother, let alone who their father is. What happens to the mating pair with no children to put them into the nursing home? They’re left to fend for themselves. And I’ve seen a recently made study that shows that at the present rate of inflation, the price of filet mignon today will be the price of Companion cat food in five years time.”

Senator Portman added, “If this passes, I’d invest in Mars, Nestle and Colgate-Palmolive. Pet food stocks are sure to go through the roof.”
_________

Too late to do anything with: Run on the banks in Cyprus over the weekend? Only seeing news about it now that the European stocks have been affected? Tut-tut, America, that’s a little country–it’ll never happen here…

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.

• The Vienna Boys’ Choir was rather thrilled at the exclusion…

With the retirement of Pope Benedict, following the example of the Emperor Diocletian and going off to tend a vegetable garden, the Catholic Church is at a crossroads again–namely, how to look like they’re dealing with the problem of priestly and episcopal pederasty while selecting in the conclave of the College of Cardinals a colleague who tacitly condoned the problem by doing nothing about it. One thing for certain–he will be from the conservative wing of the Church in order to complete the return of Catholicism to the 19th century after Vatican II dragged it, protesting and screaming, into the 20th century. Ahhh, decisions, decisions. God forbid we have another Pope like John XXIII who’d actually done things like save Jews in the Holocaust, visit a prison on the 2nd day of his Papacy, and had a predilection for sneaking out of the Vatican to talk to people and find out what they thought.

Father Roncalli (John’s real name) was no saint–and won’t be if the Church has anything to say about it. But he was probably the closest pope to one in the last few centuries. His stance to pederasty was pretty clear–and at the same time muddled. On the one hand, he expressly taught that those seminarians who showed a tendency to homosexuality and pederasty were to be barred from ordination. That was back in 1961 and the world’s attitude about homosexuality has been thoroughly revised. Given the misunderstanding of the time, the connection between the two is understandable since the greater bulk of priestly crimes of this type have been with boys rather than girls.

On the other hand, there is a document from 1962 issued under Pope John’s seal that instructs that the investigation of cases involving “‘worst crime’, described as an obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with ‘youths of either sex or with brute animals (bestiality)’” to be dealt with in absolute secrecy. While the penalties for priests involve suspension from celebration of the sacraments through defrocking, (which are not mentioned in the news article but can be found in the linked pdf) nonetheless, there you have the paradox in a nutshell. The horrible nature of the crime is admitted, yet the door is opened to the cover-ups that have exploded in the last 20 years.

My bet is that if John XXIII knew how his instructions would be used to justify the cover-ups, he would have made sure that the cover-up of crimes was dealt with with equal severity. At least, one hopes.

PS: I hate Daylight Saving Time.

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.

• When you’re the Supreme Court, you can definitely put one over on Fred C. Dobbs–’The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (revised)’

The latest battle in dismantling the 20th century is about to be lost in the Supreme Court. Maybe. We’ll soon find out. The Voting Rights Act–the law that forbids discrimination against voters based on race or color–not just black people, mind you, Asians, Hispanics, native Americans, Alaskans–is in danger of being overturned. There’s very little anyone can do about it. Justice Roberts makes snide and objectively false statements about there being more discrimination in Massachusetts than anywhere else. Nino Scalia calls protecting voting rights, a “racial entitlement.” OMG the E-word! Entitlements are bad–except when they benefit rich old white men. Hey Nino–Italians were a discriminated against minority as recently as the 1930s–and Sicilians were barely considered white men by substantial numbers of people in the US. Perhaps the “original intent” would mean that you only have to ensure the voting rights of 3/5 of the non-white population?

Among the other conservative four, Alito has been wisely keeping his mouth shut, but we know which way his tail blows in the wind. This leaves Clarence Thomas. OK Clarence. Is protecting the voting rights a racial entitlement? Just remember–if it is, you may never have made it to those robes. In fact, you may never have voted Republican. Or Democratic. We really want to see how you’re going to come down on this one.

Still, it could be a 5-4 one way or the other depending on which side of the bed Kennedy, the usual swing voter, got up this morning. But let’s hope that Roberts gets one of his “Do I really want my court to come off as the worst court since the Dred Scott Decision” moments. And maybe one or two others will be so disgusted at Scalia’s blatant bigotry.

And remember–race is the first step. Property ownership is the next.

“Hey, mister, can you stake a right to vote to a fellow American what’s down on his luck?”

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.

A shoo-in for a Razzie for 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 …

Well, the Academy Awards were last night and, just in case the fright-wing had any doubts about the liberalness of Hollywood, Michele Obama was on hand to deliver the Best Picture Award to ARGO. I’m sure Rush et al will be making hay out of that for the next week.

Actually, the reason the FLOTUS was there was to present an award to a movie that celebrated one of the few times when the CIA got one right. With liberal dollops of help from Canada, eh? Hey, Ben Affleck! Canada says you didn’t give it enough credit–how aboot a big “I’m sore-ry.” Teehee–couldn’t resist twitting my Canadian relatives.

The BIG SERIOUS news tho is the dreaded SEQUESTER that is aboot–err, about–to descend upon the American people. Yes, that’s right, once again the American economy is about to be wrecked by the Tea Partiers who love America–unless a last-minute rescue worthy of THE PERILS OF PAULINE gets performed. Said last-minute rescue will naturally screw everyone in the United States except the 1% of the 1%–but that’s OK because the sequester will screw EVERYBODY and push us back into the Great Recession. Might as well save SOME people! Too bad it’s the ones who already have life rafts.

At this point, I almost wish the SEQUESTER gets performed. It will be the first time the Pentagon actually loses money and MAYBE, those damn tax-hating nincompoops will see what havoc their ideology shall wreak. But I don’t have any confidence in that. The one thing that invariably happens when you prove a true believer wrong to his face is that he will retrench and believe all the harder. Sort of like saying “I do believe in fairies” to save Tinkerbell, only screaming it.

In any case, yours truly had a great weekend at Katsucon last week. I didn’t get to see too many friends because the weekend was so good for sales, I did not dare leave the table for more than a few minutes at a time. I premiered a new work based on the HELL GIRL anime which my friend Charles Dunbar showcased in his “Dead Like Us/Remixed” presentation at the con. Thanks to Kevin and Peter of A Kawaii Boutique for their company and for taking care of my table when I needed a break. And thanks to all the cosplayers and artists who dropped by to say hi and especially the ones who bought something!

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.

Okay, guys, time to prove just HOW OLD I AM again:

THE ROAD TO DYSTOPIA
To the tune of “The Road to Morocco”. Dystopia is pronounced Dis-TOPE-ya for the purposes of the song.
For those of you who are too young to have ever heard it, watch this Youtube video to get the tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_w3UG6C_Mo

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Pushbuttons do not hurt our spines!
Where they’re goin’, where we’re goin’, how can we be sure?
Just keep on believing that our motives aren’t impure!

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Watch out! There’s no end to the line!
I hear our target’s where they do the dance of the seven veils,
They won’t be doing it too long with rockets on their tails!

We certainly do get around!
Like endless wars in Orwell,
We’re Dystopia Bound!

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Look out! Well, clear the way, ‘cuz HERE WE COME!
As long as they’re shot over there, we haven’t any cares!
We hope our next-door neighbors don’t say five-fold daily prayers!

We’re off on the Road to Dystopia!
Thinking just makes us go numb!
They told us they would never shoot them off on US soil.
Our government would never sell us second-rate SNAKE OIL!

We certainly do get around!
Like a Jimmy Cameron movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, we’re Dystopia Bound.
Or a comic book by Alan Moore that’s made into a superbudget movie that gets everybody wearing Guy Fawkes masks,
WE’RE DYSTOPIA BOUND!

No cartoon next Monday because *drumroll* this coming weekend I will be in Artist Alley at Katsucon 19, at the Gaylord in National Harbor, MD, so if you’re there, stop by and say hi–and perhaps buy a signed print or two. For those of you who CAN’T make it, go over to my Facebook fanpage and click on the LIKE button to get updates on this blog and on my other art that’s available at the conventions.

See you then. Intravenous Caffeine will be back in two weeks.

YESYESYES–I admit it–I was lipsyncing!!!
__________
Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.

• Beyoncé shows she didn’t have to lipsync. 3rdQuarter Blackout–a conspiracy? SuperbowlXLVII is over-now get back to work!

Superbowl XLVII is now over and everyone can go back to work. It was amazing–so little seemed to be happening this week–except for the NRA deepthroating the feet that they were busy cramming into their mouths. Everything else seemed to be Superbowl related–a possible shortage of chicken wings (when DID they become America’s snack of choice?) and speculation as to whether Beyoncé would try to lip-sync her performance. Well, there was no shortage of wings–a shortage of beer would have been a worse occurrence–and Beyoncé proved that even if she DID lipsync the Star-Spangled Banner at the Inauguration, she sure as hell didn’t HAVE to. Not the most exciting game for the first half, but after the lights came back on in the 3rd quarter, it suddenly looked like a football game. We will ignore the conspiracy theorists who speculated that the blackout was planned to break the Ravens momentum, expecially since the 49ers didn’t quite catch up (if it was ANY conspiracy, it was perpetrated by the network, hehehe). Congratulations to the Ravens but a great performance by the Niners (if you don’t count the first two quarters).

You know, when I was growing up, BASEBALL was the “National Pastime”. Football started to get on the map in 1958 with the Colts-Giants championship battle, dubbed the “Greatest” game in history–which I missed due to the NY blackout for a “local game”–like TV could cause spectators from NOT attending a championship game. There never seemed to be as much excitement for a World Series as for the Superbowl in my lifetime. Possibly because it’s easier to get excited for ONE game rather than seven. Possibly because the glory days of baseball were in the golden age from the 20s to 50s.

But the intensity of excitement for the Superbowl is incredible! A paean to American excess. Even the COMMERCIALS are considered the greatest commercials in history. You know, if I wanted to commit any sort of crime, from highway robbery to murder, I’d commit it during the Superbowl–guaranteed that even IF someone noticed during the three-hour-plus gladiatorial combat, nobody would DO anything about it until the final whistle! I guess we’re lucky in one respect–even the criminals are too busy watching the game to do anything truly nasty!

In the meantime, Yours Truly will be appearing in the DC area at Katsucon 19, the weekend of February 15-17 at the Gaylord at National Harbor, MD. I’ll be in Artists Alley so stop by and say hi–and perhaps buy a signed print or two. For those of you who CAN’T make it, go over to my Facebook fanpage and click on the LIKE button to get updates on this blog and on my other art that’s available at the conventions.

See you then!

Greg Uchrin is a satirist, cartoonist and professional cynic in Alexandria VA. This diary is cross-posted to his blog Intravenous Caffeine, the post-Bush era successor to HAIL DUBYUS.