The former president's international business dealings, global foundation and recent gaffes could create difficulties for Hillary Clinton becoming secretary of state, according to transition team insiders.The President-elect is determined to give the New York Senator the key foreign policy job in his cabinet but is concerned that her husband's complicated global business interests could present future conflicts of interest that result in unneeded headaches for the incoming commander-in-chief. However, President-elect Barack Obama and his advisors have come up with a plan to ensure that his international presence is curtailed once Hillary is appointed to the State Department. Obama has offered Bill Clinton the job of Coordinator for the White House Internship program. Aides close to the...

The Republican's longest serving US Senator Ted Steven's has lost out to the Democratic Mayor of Anchorage Mark Begich, after the recount. He is 3,724 behind with only 2,500 overseas votes to be counted. In the lead up to the election Stevens had been convicted of about gifts he had received from an oil company. But the early voters and absentee ballots which would have been cast before...

Yes I had to double take that as well when I read it on Liz Williams Singing My Song blog. However, it does appear that church and religious leaders in California have been one of the first groups to file a law suit against Proposition 8 which overturned the States Supreme Court Ruling, in March this year, that 2000's Proposition 22 violated the equal protection clause of the...

Former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has launched an attack on her former running mate following his meeting with Barack Obama in Chicago yesterday. The Alaska governor has accused Senator John McCain of associating with “a man who doesn’t see America in the narrow and oversimplified way that you or I do.” The defeated Republican presidential candidate met with President-elect Obama Monday to discuss how they can work together for the good of the nation following the bitter and divisive election campaign. According the aides, the meeting was constructive and cordial, and McCain appreciated the respect shown to him by his former rival. Agreement was reached on the principles of several important pieces of legislation that both men will work on in the New Year. But...

I figure that enough time has passed since the US elections to be able to reflect on it a little more objectively, rather than in the over-cooked excitement of the immediate aftermath - and perhaps that is something Trevor Phillips should have done. Actually I kind of agree with what Trevor Phillips said.  In fact I said something similar shortly before the US election when I still expected Republican dirty tricks to derail the Obama campaign at the last minute: our entire system of government and the way political parties operate does make it unlikely that we would get a black prime minister -not that that our systems were set up with that intention: it is just the way it works. There are many differences between our system and the US system. Our system is better in some ways, and...

Heston talking to one of the apesDeceased actor Charlton Heston has finally had his guns prised from his "cold dead hands" according to reports.  With the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president, Heston's corpse has given up his campaign for gun rights in the USA as he thinks that the new liberal majority will soon be banning people from owning extremely dangerous  firearms with questionable self defence benefits. The Planet of the Apes star continued to be an advocate for Americans having access to killing devices even after his death earlier this year, by stating in his will that he would like his burial site, "tooled up" so that he could repel anyone tried to steal a lump of rotting flesh from his body. When Heston's cadaver heard the news of Obama's victory and Democratic...

I just found a fascinating article in the WSJ about the fact that electricity companies are considering a big buy of electric cars for there staff. Apparently electricity companies who stand to profit from growing electricity demand and greater stability--are considering giving the nascent industry a boost. Utilities would take possession of vehicles when they debut, likely in 2010 or 2011...

Hillary pulling the strings from a padded cellHillary Clinton’s transition team has revealed that her former rival Barack Obama is on the shortlist for the job of president in her new administration. The New York Senator lost the Democratic primary to Obama and therefore did not take part in the presidential election, but remains convinced that she is in charge. A close friend told us: “She tends to spend most of the day weighing up the pros and cons of Obama as president and the various cabinet picks that need to be made. She sees herself as a sort of supreme leader, rising above the government, the party and the election results. Frankly, I’m scared she might be one racist remark short of a Republican rally.” Clinton’s delusions of grandeur began during the election campaign...

Joe The Plumber is writing a book. He has a website. He's planning a blog..."The other day, I was contacted by 72-year old man who pleaded with me to share his story with the media and politicians. He and his wife lost all of their savings in the stock market recently. They worked all their lives for this country and now they have nothing. Why? Because of corruption in Washington. That man asked me, “What do I do now Joe?”"Well, for one thing, you can forget about blaming Washington and have a look at Wall St instead?(Hat tip: Tim on...

Following on from the is-it-ok-to-poke-fun-at-Dubya-uses-in-the-afterlife conversation, this archive image got into Jon Kudelka’s cartoon project. If you visit the next link, you will also see nice work by my fellow British colleagues Royston Robertson and Steve Bright, who are all members of the UK Professional Cartoonists’......

WowI I've just had a look at how I predicted things in response to Malc's challenge regarding Obama's chances in the electoral college. Malc thought when I posted that I may regret painting "Colorado, Michigan, Ohio... maybe even Penn!" Blue so early in the prediction game. Boy! Back then were we both too conservative! I didn't dream of Florida, Indiana or Nevada thinking they may just stay...

Via......

Via Tygerland, this analysis of the defeat of conservatism in the US is a fucking barn-storming article by P J O'Rourke: it really is worth reading the whole thing. There are so many good bit to quote, but I particularly liked this paragraph (since it applies here too)...Conservatives should never say to voters, "We can lower your taxes." Conservatives should say to voters, "You can raise spending. You, the electorate, can, if you choose, have an infinite number of elaborate and expensive government programs. But we, the government, will have to pay for those programs. We have three ways to pay."We can inflate the currency, destroying your ability to plan for the future, wrecking the nation's culture of thrift and common sense, and giving free rein to scallywags to borrow money for...

This is the most honest and best articulation of the GOP defeat I have read… …no surprise it’s from P.J. O’Rourke. Money quote :: Our impeachment of President Clinton was another example of placing the wrong political emphasis on personal matters. We impeached Clinton for lying to the government. To our surprise the electorate gave us cold comfort. Lying to the government: It’s called April 15th. And we accused Clinton of lying about sex, which all men spend their lives doing, starting at 15 bragging about things we haven’t done yet, then on to fibbing about things we are doing, and winding up with prevarications about things we no longer can do. etc. etc. It’s all brilliant. Pure class. If conservatism were indeed such, I’d call myself a...

My Australian colleagues, Jon Kudelka and Nik Scott are running an interesting drawn project - 101 uses for George Bush - in the wake of Barack Obama’s election as the 44th President of the United States. I was very happy to see one of George’s new uses is to have been a charming host to Mr and Mrs Obama on their first official visit to the White House yesterday. My own entry, shown here, is currently under consideration, quite understandably, as it does refer to the tricky subject of death. (Drawing about death can upset some readers of cartoons who tend to think they should be ‘fun’ and not about ‘things’ at all.) At the time of writing this, I am not sure it will make the cut, although I am arguing; we all die if we get buried, we make good...

With just 71 days of the Bush presidency left, details of just what has been going on inside the White House for the past eight years are leaking out. From today’s New York Times: “The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al...

Related to my previous post, I was a little disappointed by this article, which promised so much yet failed to deliver. The last time the Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, Gillian Anderson wore pants. There were two Star Trek series at once, which promoted women and minorities and looked at the dark side of the Federation. Cyberpunk reigned supreme. The future was a shiny place — but with dread lurking just beneath its polish. Now that the Democrats have finally scored another grand slam, are we going to see the return of sunny-but-questioning science fiction? The main thing it lacks is a contrast between sci-fi under Bush with sci-fi under Clinton. First of all, let’s be clear that Star Trek: The Next Generation was a product of the Reagan/Bush Snr...

Republished 9th November 2008. Drawn originally for Tribune in the United......

The G20 financial summit will indeed be “pointless” without Obama. What, precisely, is the point of having a summit to try and sort out the global financial crisis without the man who will soon be inaugurated as President of the US? There isn’t any. President-elect Obama needs to stand up and be counted right away, not wait the two months (plus) until he is inaugurated. He should be choosing his Treaury spokesman as a matter of urgency, and they should be attending all international conferences on financial issues. After all, what would the point be of such meetings? No decisions can be made, as George W Bush no longer has any real authority to make decisions for America. Either Barack Obama needs to go to these summits, or they need to be postponed until after January...

Trevor Phillips thinks it is: The public in this country would, he believes, embrace a black leader but the system would prevent it happening. “Here, the problem is not the electorate, the problem is the machine.” It was no coincidence that there were only 15 ethnic-minority MPs, he said. “The parties and the unions and the think-tanks are all very happy to sign up to the general idea of advancing the cause of minorities but in practice they would like somebody else to do the business. It’s institutional racism.” I actually disagree with Trevor Phillips in as much as I don’t accept that the UK political system is any more institutionally racist than the US system. The House of Representatives does relatively better than the House of Commons, but the Senate does far worse...

The Election. Aftermath roundup. It’s going to be alright now. These pics are so sweet. People can be awesome. Election maps are fun. Lots of red and blue and some grey. These maps of the results are very cool. The official website of the office of Change went live yesterday. How he did it. Collection of hundreds of Obama newspaper headlines. Change. Literally. Loose change. I watched the latest episode of South Park this morning. True to form it was as odd as usual, though the amazingly fast turn around is very impressive. This sums up the dream in so many ways. This comic by American Hell sums up the election for me: live coverage from BBC News, 5 news websites open and Twitter. It is truly one of the greatest sources of photojournalism. Always exceptional images and the election...

Under the headline, Who needs monuments to freedom when you can listen to Me and Bobby McGee instead? Germaine Greer deconstructs a word which shimmers in the imagination, but dies in embodiment. The art of the 60s counterculture was almost all bad. All the flower children and peaceniks were capable of was a stream of doodlings, recycled William Morris, a little dada, co-opted Kollwitz, and so forth. The dreariness of today’s graffiti continues the tradition of visual illiteracy. The music was a different matter. Sixties musical culture was as deep as the visual culture was shallow. All the artists you heard of were only the visible parts of an iceberg of submerged musical activity that was going on in every small town across America. Integral to the tradition, whether blues,...

(James Glossop/The Times) There is something about Alex Salmond I could never tire of slapping, if only he were within arm’s reach. During 2007, this blog would frequently scandalise nationalists by mocking Salmond’s habit of waving claymores over his head to commemorate this or that historical defeat of Scotland in battle. But this photo (right) just takes the biscuit. It isn’t simply that, under the circumstances, “no they couldn’t,” it is the sheer gall of a narrow nationalist attempting to borrow the fairy dust off a post-racial candidate whose key call to arms was about unity, not division. How on Earth does: we are not a collection of Red States and Blue States, we are the United States of America (Iowa speech) … square with a plan to...

The shock is not so much that Labour won. I had a feeling in my water as long as a month ago that Labour might win, even when the bookies and the pundits were saying otherwise. But the scale of Labour’s victory must have shocked everyone. Yesterday, the BBC’s coverage began on the premise that it was “too close to call” or that, if anything, the SNP had squeaked it. Jim Murphy was making his excuses early (and doing a fairly good job of it, it has to be said). Coming towards midnight, it became clearer that Labour had won. The SNP were saying they hoped to have halved Labour’s majority. Even with that knowledge, the scale of Labour’s victory when it was finally announced amazed me. The SNP hadn’t even halved Labour’s majority. In fact,...

Check out Super Obama World, and this video.       ...

Of course, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States There was another vote in America on November 4th, with a less salubrious result, as gay marriages are banned in Arizona, Florida and California. I’m shocked that so many Americans can vote for change in a Presidential election and for the prevention of change in another election at the same time. It seems that America is only prepared to vote in favour of theoretical rather than specific change....

What a wonderful night! I'm still recovering really but thought I'd better get my final election post done and dusted. It may well be slightly unstructured because I want to move on to other things blogwise, but there are still a few bits and bobs that I really want to say and I thought I'd pack them all into one super post.The Presidential result is historic. Even at the beginning of this year who would have thought we'd see the highest electoral turnout since 1908? Although Bill Clinton received a higher level of electoral college votes in '92 and '96 (with Perot carving off a big slice of the Republican vote) the Democrats received their highest proportion of the popular vote at this election since 1964.I mean this doesn't fit the media message that people are becoming less engaged...

Yet again I find myself agreeing with David Cameron.  This time it is regarding the nice reference he made to to David Milliband when he said: “Barack Obama is the first of a new generation of leaders who will deliver...

It has been a strange week, full of unusual events. This was a small story which could sum up much of  the idiocy of the past eight years in the great war on terror. After all, carelessly deployed, marshmallow is nothing but an agent for infamy. This cartoon was drawn for Computing......