February 21, 2009
February 20, 2009
February 19, 2009
Ye Olde Scribe Productions Presents: Cleaning Out Most of the YOS Closet
You may have noticed, gentle reader, that Ye Olde has been missing for more than a few weeks. From deep inside his anti-Archie Bunker he has been recovering from one big party induced headache. If only Junior and Biggus had been led away in chains Scribe woulda partied so hardy he’d still be zithered.
He came out of his bunker and found a big rainbow. Damn Jesse Jackson Coalition. Not that? Created by the Rainbow People? Damn hippies. Not that? Oh, nobody’s Mama Obama actually WON!?!? The birds were all a twittering. No? That was the sound of some regressive progressives on the Left sharpening their knives; you know, that “special” back stabbing cutlery already stained with the blood of Al Gore, Bill and Hillary Clinton?
Well, anywhosiewhatsis, all this time Scribe has been gathering quotes, links and other specters pleasurable; and not so. Time to examine what Scribe saved. Perhaps you will find a few gems amongst the expelled roughage…
Spooky Quotes
“Haunting the Net Since February 19th, 2009.”
What did I do wrong? I did more to protect my Mistress than Junior ever did to protect his country from bin Laden.
-Ghost of a Dead Chimp
(more…)
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The Tattlesnake – The Suicide Kings of the GOP Edition
The Right-Wing Media Frankenstein is Pushing Its Republican Political Prisoners to Electoral Doom
“You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.”
– Glaucon, from Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave,” Book VII, “The Republic.”
Out in the formerly sunny Kal-i-forn-yuh, now the province of the disastrous ‘leadership’ of Republican Gov. Arnold “Worse Than Gray Davis” Schwarzenegger, GOP lawmakers are resisting a sensible bill that will save the state from bankruptcy and collapse. Why? Because it contains necessary tax increases to balance the state budget and the California Republicans are under threat from right-wing radio talkers that if they vote for the bill, they will be targeted for removal from office and their political careers ended.
Similarly, national Republicans in Congress have also gotten the message from Rush Limbaugh and his braying ilk: vote against even the most reasonable spending bills that would help Americans enmeshed in Bush’s new Great Depression and hope Obama fails – or else.
Democrats have been rightly criticized for leaving their spines in a lockbox in the conduct of national business, but this is an exhibition of cowardice unparalleled in US political history: Not only are the chickenhawk Republicans afraid to risk their dainty flesh in the nation’s interest, now they are trembling in fear at the thought that obtuse gasbags like Limbaugh might attack them for voting the wrong way. (One, a featherweight embarrassment named Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia, blubberingly apologized and begged forgiveness on Limbaugh’s radio show recently for veering from Rush’s notion of conservative orthodoxy.)
The irony here is as thick as Rush Hudson Limbaugh III’s porcine jowls; the two ‘new’ political ideas hatched from the dank cellar of Nixon’s presidency were appealing via code words to white bigots – the infamous ‘Southern Strategy’ – and mobilizing fringe right Christians, formerly opposed to political involvement, to take up the GOP banner in the name of fighting abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was ruled on by the Supreme Court in 1973. The third ‘new’ idea, which really hearkened back to the broadcast rants of Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s, was the inception of right-wing talk radio infesting those AM bands that had been all but deserted in the rush to FM in the 1970s, pioneered by the unlikely success of post-Fairness Doctrine Rush Limbaugh in 1988. In the early days, the Mighty Wurlitzer of conservative talk radio served the interests of the Republican Party, helping to elect Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America’ Congress in 1994, and took their marching orders from the Republican National Committee, or GOP political operatives like Ed Rollins, Lee Atwater or, later, Karl Rove. The concept was simple: take all of the rage that was building in the nation from working class poor and blue-collar whites who were being consistently reamed by corporations owned by wealthy Republicans and their GOP political puppets and turn it on liberals, Hollywood, Democrats, feminists, scientists, gays, college professors, Barbra Streisand, welfare queens, ‘elites’ or anyone else not providing money or faxed talking points to the host, then urge them to support whatever jive pinhead the Republican Party dredged up to run against it all.
That the promulgators of this fictional universe, donning imaginary overalls during airtime and portraying themselves as straight-talking ‘average Americans,’ themselves were making millions of dollars (Limbaugh himself just signed a deal worth $400 million) and living the most elite lives possible off air was carefully hidden from the office-bound rubes and factory-floor yokels of the new GOP diaspora, strangers in their own land and eternally the patriotic put-upon victims of some liberal outrage, smart-ass scientist, gay celebrity or urban welfare recipient who had no other thought in life but to retire early with their new Cadillac and color TV bought on the downtrodden white man’s hard-earned dime.
For a time, the right-wing media prevailed with this fantasy of misdirected ire and ratings boomed, especially during the ’90s when they had Bill and Hillary Clinton to vilify for all that’s wrong with the world, and it reached it’s influential zenith with the election of the dullest knife in the drawer, the malaprop-prone black sheep alcoholic son of a politically-prominent family, a failure at everything he had ever tried, shoehorned into the Texas governor’s mansion by the slimy machinations of Karl Rove, and illegally appointed to the presidency by Daddy’s friends on the US Supreme Court — George W. Bush. The Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s celebrated – they had catapulted one of their own into the highest office in the land; but that was also the beginning of their downfall, concurrent with the nosedive of Bush and the GOP, and the concomitant blossoming of their blind arrogance that is on track to reduce the Republicans to a small regional party, grasping for votes from the unlearned, unteachable and plain dumb. This media Frankenstein, stitched together haphazardly to assist the GOP, now bullies the party to work against its own interests, just as they have been doing to their misbegotten audience for decades, an audience diminishing in the harsh light of economic reality.
As the prescient Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com – he was correct about the last presidential election and the baseball Tampa Bay Rays winning 2008 season – has noted:
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February 17, 2009
The Tattlesnake – It’s Time For Obama to Fire Petraeus Edition
GOP Candidate-in-Waiting Petraeus’ Machinations Are a Threat to the President’s Civilian Authority
Lincoln had his George McClellan; Truman had his Douglas MacArthur; there’s a history of politically ambitious generals undermining their elected Commander-in-Chief to bolster their own prospects at the presidency. In McClellan’s case, he dragged his feet and lost battles that he should have won, setting the stage for his promise to negotiate an end to the conflict with the Confederacy in his 1864 run for the presidency against Lincoln, a man he privately loathed and irrationally blamed for the Civil War. Fortunately, the self-styled ‘American Napoleon’ lost that election. Dugout Doug MacArthur openly flouted Truman’s orders and tried to widen the Korean War into a war with China, including the use of nuclear weapons, hoping to capitalize on his war hero status to glide to victory over Truman as a Republican in 1952. In both cases, the generals were appropriately fired: McClellan was quietly relieved of his command of the Army of the Potomac in 1862; MacArthur publicly axed by ‘Give ‘em hell Harry’ in 1951.
It’s an open secret that CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus lusts to be the GOP presidential candidate in 2012, and thinks he can ride to the White House as an Eisenhower-like hero who ‘won’ the war in Iraq, thanks to his Surge plan, which mostly amounts to bribing warlords with US taxpayer money. However, his CinC President Obama, elected on a promise to end the unpopular Iraq War and concentrate on our collapsing economy, has ordered Petraeus and his deputy, chief US commander in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno, to have US combat forces out of Iraq within 16 months. Petraeus’ reaction, according to Gareth Porter of the Inter Press Service, was to put pressure on Obama to change his policy, offer to disguise our continued presence in Iraq by calling combat troops ‘support troops,’ and enlist the aid of military brass to push for a continuation of our occupation of Iraq. As Porter notes:
“A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama’s decision.”
– Gareth Porter, “Generals Seek to Reverse Obama’s Iraq Withdrawal Decision,” Feb. 2, 2009.
It is not up to Petraeus nor any of his deputies to ‘mobilize public opinion’ against a presidential decision, to find ways to keep troops in Iraq contrary to a presidential directive, nor to use their command to enhance their future in politics. (The CENTCOM commander himself would hardly countenance such scheming by a member of his staff.) Petraeus’ only two options, according to the oath he took when he joined the US Army, is to either follow a legal order from the president, or resign his commission; anything else smacks of insubordination. Since it’s unlikely Petraeus will resign, that leaves only one choice for Obama, the same one exercised by Lincoln and Truman before him – fire his insubordinate subordinate and replace him with someone who will follow orders.
February 14, 2009
The Tattlesnake – What’s in a Name? Edition
A Rogue By Any Other Name…
From an AP news story yesterday:
US Security Firm Mired in Iraq Controversy Changes Its Name
Blackwater Worldwide renamed Xe as company tries to salvage its tarnished brandThe Associated Press
February 13, 2009Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning its tarnished brand name as it tries to shake a reputation battered by oft-criticised work in Iraq, renaming its family of two dozen businesses under the name Xe. The parent company’s new name is pronounced like the letter z.
Read the rest of the AP article here.
Now that the schutzstaffel wannabes at Blackwater have taken the plunge, perhaps some of our other fetid corporations will do likewise to improve their ‘brand image’:
Halliburton could rename itself ‘Dick’s Kids’ – “Won’t you help them help themselves with your tax dollars?”;
Kellogg, Brown & Root could turn into ‘Beds, Breakfasts & Beyond’ – “You’ll be shocked at our low prices!”
General Dynamics could become ‘Jets ‘n’ Stuff’ – “Hey, there, America, we’re flyin’ for you!”
ExxonMobil could go with ‘OXOXOX’ — “We just love you and you’ll love us!”;
DynCorp could become ‘The Dyners Club International’ – “Always at your service!”;
Bechtel could be rebranded as ‘Builder’s Square’ – “From a shed to a skyscraper, we’re on your side!”;
The Carlyle Group could change its name to ‘Defense R Us’ — “If it rolls, flies or floats, we’re there!”;
And Blackwater itself, instead of the weird ‘Xe,’ could change its name again to the more comforting ‘Snuggle Security’ – “We’re your blankie when you’re afraid.”
February 13, 2009
The Tattlesnake – GOP Fiddles While America Burns Edition
Or, Nero Was No Hero
“But one of the good things about reading history is you learn a good deal. And, we know for sure that the big spending programs of the New Deal did not work. In 1940, unemployment was still 15%.”
– Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaking the untruth of the powerful, Feb. 6, 2009.“[O]ne of the things that really has gotten dumber about our culture: the media constantly talks about truth as if it … were always equidistant from two points. In other words, sometimes the truth is one-sided.” […]
“[I]t’s exactly like saying … ‘so-and-so says, two plus two equals five. But, of course, mathematicians say that it really equals four.’ The mathematicians are right. The people who say that two plus two equals five are wrong. The media blurs that constantly.”
– Susan Jacoby, from Bill Moyers’ Journal, PBS, Feb. 15, 2008.
That great economic historian, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, took to the floor of the Senate last week to excoriate the memory of FDR and claim the New Deal didn’t end the Great Depression. In fact, Roosevelt’s New Deal programs put millions of average Americans to work and reduced unemployment from a high of over 35 percent to 14 percent. Aside from that, if FDR was such a failure, why did he win by 62.6 percent of the popular vote, and 98.5 percent of the electoral vote, in 1936, and 55 percent in 1940, with 84.6 of the EV? Why was he retained in office for 12 years, from 1932 until his death in 1945, the longest-serving president in our history, if he accomplished nothing toward solving the primary issue of that time – the economic crisis? Some smart reporter should ask McConnell those questions.
“Only with the New Deal’s rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression.”
– Ben Bernanke, the Republican-picked Fed chief, from his book, “Essays on the Great Depression.”“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”
– President Franklin D. Roosevelt
In his first press conference on February 9, Obama put the screws to the GOP, albeit wrapped in enough padding that no blood was drawn but, to mix metaphors, this is Obama’s style – wear them down with civility while you score with shots to the gut and dance away. Our ‘Gentleman Jim’ President nimbly peppered the punch-drunk Republicans just as ably as the original did in 1892 to win the heavyweight crown from the blundering beast that was John L. Sullivan who had only his ‘strong right arm’ as a weapon.
Pushed by such withered toads as McConnell, blatant numbskulls like Mike Pence of Baghdad street bazaars are ‘just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime’ fame, and the inchoate babblings of the evidently very corrupt new RNC chair Michael Steele, the GOP is collectively lurching toward irretrievable disaster, one every bit as bad as anything the Dimbulb Son who just left the White House wrought — you know, the one whose name must never be mentioned in public by any Republican ever again. They seem determined to take the mean-spirited, unpopular opinion on nearly every issue, just to gratify a shaky base of fringe nutcases, religious retrogrades, Fox News employees, Wall Street Journal editorial board members, Coulter cultists, racist rednecks, professional malcontents, crumb-bum lobbyists, and off-shored-assets tycoons channeling Leona Helmsley.
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February 12, 2009
Republican Heaven
Muslim warriors believe that when they die, 72 virgins will be waiting in heaven for them to arrive.
Republicans believe that when they get to heaven all social programs will be eliminated as a cost saving measure and their taxes will be reduced to zero.
Last weekend, the headline for the L. A. Times Sunday late edition hinted that the Republicans are just about to get to heaven and begin the “uber-fun” phase of their program. Soon, the Republicans will hardly be able to contain their glee while seeing the look on liberals faces when the cutting of funds for social programs begins. If that isn’t heaven for them, then it’s impossible to say what would be.
The costs of the wars America is fighting will have to be covered. Police and firemen have to be on duty and be paid. Other than that, it is becoming obvious that the budgets for city, county, and state agencies have reached the “cut or die” breaking point. Either they cut programs or the programs and the state budgets will go completely out of control..
Republicans have always been sickened by the costs that social programs add to the various government budgets and have strongly urged that they be eliminated. Now, thanks to the Bush budget legacy, President Obama will have to be at the helm when many “unnecessary social programs” “take the bullet” and are sacrificed to cut overall costs.
Rush Limbaugh will use this disparity to goad members of various minorities into resenting the coincidence that Obama happened to be President when it happened, and el Rushbo will urge them to take out their resentment of Obama at the voting polls when the next elections are held.
Republican officer holders can shrug, mumble the “compassionate conservative” nonsense, and stifle their mirth, while “going along with Obamas’s cuts.”
Cuts which follow the approval of a stimulus package will seem (to those affected) especially galling and Rush will be sure to stir up the maximum possible amount of resentment among the Democrats.
In essence George W. Bush has dismantled the New Deal and has managed to do so in a way that will (for many) make it seem like President Obama is the culprit. The last vestige of the New Deal left to remove is Social Security and the Republicans are willing to wait another term or two before making the elimination of Social Security a move that is a “critical necessity.”
The Republicans have always hated “the New Deal” and watching the elimination of all the social programs they hate will be like life in heaven for those compassionate conservatives who never did like FDR.
February 10, 2009
February 9, 2009
February 8, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Six Neocon Whoppers: Myth, Truth and Proof Edition
The Dirty Half-Dozen: Exposing Some Recent Right-Wing Fairy Tales and Deceptions
1. Myth: Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation media possessions, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, are the only national media outlets making money and increasing audience right now. Truth: Murdoch’s News Corp. is losing money hand over fist, $6.4 billion in the last two quarters, and cutting staff as the circulation of the WSJ and ratings for Fox News decline. Proof: Here’s an excerpt from an AP report:
“News Corp., the global media giant controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said Thursday it lost $6.4 billion in its most recent quarter because of a massive write-down in the value of its assets.
“The New York-based company, which owns The Wall Street Journal and the Fox broadcast network, also forecast a 30 percent drop in operating profits for the fiscal year to June from a year ago, when it earned $5.13 billion.” [...]
“News Corp. also said it had cut 800 positions across its Fox properties, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, in moves that it expected to save $400 million a year. The Wall Street Journal said Thursday it is cutting about two dozen newsroom positions.”
– Ryan Nakashima, AP Business Writer, “News Corp. loses $6.4 billion in 2Q,” Feb. 5, 2009.
2. Myth: “Government jobs don’t stimulate the economy.” Recently Sen. Tom Coburn (R-NotOK) was promoting this bit of balderdash on MSNBC, but I’ve heard and read it elsewhere in the right-wing media as well. Truth: This is nonsense from the days of Herbert Hoover. Proof: Under Franklin D. Roosevelt such government employment programs as the WPA and CCC reduced unemployment dramatically during the Great Depression and improved the economy, as much as many neocon economists are desperately trying to rewrite history to reflect the opposite. Just like everyone else, government employees pay taxes and buy things – houses, cars, food, clothes and appliances –– that stimulate the economy.
3. Myth: Rush Limbaugh never actually said about President Obama, “I hope he fails.” Truth: Yes, he did and I heard it. Proof: Here’s the audio clip. He plainly says he was asked for quote about Obama and replied, “I hope he fails.”
4. Myth: “Tax cuts are the best way to improve the economy.” Truth: No, they aren’t. Proof: The last eight years of tax cuts under Bush.
5. Myth: “Free market capitalism will regulate itself.” Truth: You’re crazy. It’s like saying a basket of vipers will regulate itself into a litter of puppies. Proof: The economic collapse engendered by the ‘hands-off’ policies of Bush as well as bankers, Wall Street, automakers and other large corporations begging for bailouts to avoid bankruptcy. Then there’s Bernie Madoff, Enron, and all of the other members of the Corrupt Bastards Club, with the latest outrageous entry being the Peanut Corporation of America, who knowingly sold salmonella-tainted nuts to poor kids enrolled in school free-lunch programs while Bush’s FDA inspectors slept on the job. (Maybe they should have tried cake instead.)
6. Myth: “Bill O’Reilly and Fox News never really got anything wrong.” Truth: Yes, they have, and the list is as long as your arm. Proof: Here are some highlights and a link:
Reviewing the accuracy of Fox News and O’Reilly over the past eight years:
February 7, 2009
February 6, 2009
The Tattlesnake – The Dying of the Right Part Deux Edition
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you concentrate on.”
– George W. Bush
“It is the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn’t know — and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.”
– Joyce Cary
Larry (not his real name) pretty much confirms what many of us already suspected about the “I hope he fails” crowd. After years of taking public surveys, Lar developed this scientific rule of thumb, which can be stated thusly: “Twenty percent of the American people are utter freaking morons.” To put it another way, about two out of ten knew such tidbits as all or most of the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment, the names of their two senators, in what century the Second World War was fought, who LBJ was and what his initials stood for, and how old the United States is; six of ten knew at least one senator, and managed to get more than half of the American history/political questions correct; two out of ten, meanwhile, barely knew what century they were living in and were hard put to name the kind of skin used to make a bear skin rug. Guess what political party and ideology was embraced by 90 percent of the bottom-feeding twenty percent, and who their favorite radio talk show host was?
Speaking of Rush Limbaugh, I heard the other day that the three most well-known Republicans in the nation were Maj. Anal Cyst, Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber’s Helper, a regular triumvirate of Jim Crow snark, Wasillabilly fark and dee-do-diddley dumb fronting for the wealthy old firm of Dewey, Cheatum and Howe. The GOP is in the process of desperately trying to shore up its dwindling ‘base’ of Jaywalk All-Stars, and the Democrats, borrowing their gumption from single-cell amoeba, continue to flinch at the shadow of the embalmed corpse of Ronald Reagan, the threatened filibusters of King Wanker Mitch McConnell, and the fading influence of the soon-to-be perp walked Karl Rove. I’ve given up seeking the goose juice to make the Dems act like winners for a change. We can only hope Sheriff Obama will be able to corral these shaky steers long enough to pass legislation to end Bush’s National Nightmare. Out of ideas, out of favor, out of power, and sinking ignominiously into the Hee Haw-rerun party, this is all the GOP has left.
Former Dan Quayle Chief of Staff and Original Neocon Bill Kristol, lately bounced from the NY Times op-ed page as even Andy Rosenthal could no longer cover for his nitwittery with a straight face, has laid out the reason for the strident and baffling GOP opposition to the badly-needed stimulus package: this is just the warm-up to the big fight coming over health care reform, of which the Republicans want none, contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of the public. Why does the right-wing hate America?
Being and Nothingness
The World’s Laziest Journalist doesn’t want to do all the research that a column titled “Sartre vs. Bush” would require because the conclusion would be obvious from the start: Sometimes the difference between there being a wedding celebration and nothingness can be one accidental air strike. No American politician will have the gumption to sanction a war crimes trail into being and watching his own political career dissolve into nothingness.