June 23, 2011
June 3, 2011
May 30, 2011
May 24, 2011
Death Wish IX: The GOP Presidential Field
Subtitled, for you Latin scholars out there, with what should be the GOP motto in the 2012 primaries: ‘incredibilis vos socius pro nostrum equus fimus iterum’ **
The Death Wish Nine:
1. Tim Pawlenty
2. Mitt Romney
3. Newt Gingrich
4. Rick Santorum
5. Gary Johnson
6. Herman Cain
7. Michele Bachmann
8. Sarah Palin
9. Anybody Else?
(Yes, I’m leaving off gay Republican Fred Karger, former Obama ambassador Jon Huntsman, and that other guy for the sake of brevity.)
Not a Triumph of the (George F.) Will: Mitch Daniels and Tim Pawlenty. But it’s not to be as Daniels, Junior Bush’s former budget director, who turned a $236 billion surplus into a $400 billion deficit, and the financial genius who ‘privatized’ the Indiana Toll Roads for a lump sum payment of $3.6 billion in a 75-year lease that will pay $133 billion to the Australian/Spanish firm of Macquarie-Cintra, has decided not to play, taking his name out of contention. That’s a shame as laugh-lovers will be denied the spectacle of a Daniels/Pawlenty ticket in 2012, AKA the Ambiguously Gay Duo of GOP politics.
Speaking of Pawlenty, he just tossed his hat in the pig feces swamp May 23rd by boldly announcing in Iowa that he will end ethanol subsidies as president. Next he’ll tell the Republican voters of New Hampshire that he plans to take away their guns, and then head to Wisconsin to inform the handful of GOP voters left there of how much he hates cheese and the Green Bay Packers. Apparently Timbaugh, saddled with the same no-Tea-Party, moderate Blue-State GOP governor baggage as Mitt Romney, has decided to show his hairy-chested manliness by metaphorically slapping potential voters across the chops a few times. It’s an entertaining approach, at least, and he may get the nomination just by not being as space-cadet nuts as everyone else in the GOP race.
Speaking of Mitt Romney, he has the mounds of money, confident male underwear model leer, and party contacts to be the frontrunner, but he’s bent over backwards so many times to accommodate the crazy right he looks like Richard III in reverse. Mitt’s the likeable guy nobody in the GOP likes, and it seems his ‘fire in the belly’ has turned to acid reflux — which is why he’ll be quitting after he fails to come in first in the New Hampshire primary. The Money Men in the GOP have apparently decided his goods are too tainted by long exposure to sunlight, so they’re looking elsewhere, and many of the Christopublican rank-and-file aren’t enthused that he’s a Mormon.
Then there’s the popped 1990s bubble of Newt Gingrich, who hangs himself with his own tongue every time he opens his mouth. ‘Champaign Newt,’ who’s collected millions of bucks in his risible alter-egos of ‘Adulterous Defender of Family Values,’ ‘Professor of Fictitious History’ and ‘Knuckle-Dragging Conservative Intellectual,’ has diligently shoveled so much crap for so long that he’s incapable of giving a straight answer anymore. When asked about his respectable Republican-Cloth-Coat account at snooty Tiffany’s that amounted to $500,000 in charges, Newtie mumbled awkwardly and danced around a forthright answer, this following on the heels of his embarrassing, even for a Republican, 24-hour about-face on Paul Ryan’s mad plan to eviscerate Medicare. Although Newt apparently doesn’t think his personal hypocrisy matters, convenient for a man who has made a career of sanctimonious lip service to moral precepts he doesn’t actually practice, GOP primary voters may have a different opinion. He, too, will quit in the snows of New Hampshire and no doubt find a way to blame liberals for his rejection by his own party.
Rick Santorum is such a lugnut even some Christopublicans who fear mass bestiality breaking out in the streets should a gay couple marry can’t stand him. In a year when economic issues far outweigh the perverse moral concerns of mouth-breathers like St. Santorum, he’ll fade out in Iowa; broke, miserable and about as popular as Fred Phelps, the virulently anti-gay pastor of the far-from-Christian Westboro Baptist Church. Of course by 2013, Rough ‘n’ Ready Rick, out of politics, will divorce his wife and emerge from the closet, professing his enduring love for a German Shepherd/Dalmatian mix named Rollo.
Then there’s the former GOP governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson. No reason to tarry much on this entry; Johnson shows flashes of sanity and decency that will automatically invalidate him for the Republican nomination. He’s out in Iowa as well.
Godfather pizza-peddler Herman Cain, who I understand was a black man at one time, has enough grease-coated cash to stay in until South Carolina, and maybe beyond. In the same cynical GOP race-pandering that made Michael Steele head of the RNC, party bigwigs think they might have a chance in 2012 by putting Cain in the Veep slot with Pawlenty heading the ticket. Cain will appease the hard-right and nab a few stray African-American votes while Pawlenty desperately tries to convince general-election voters that he really doesn’t believe all the things he said he believed in during the primary campaign without looking like an outrageous liar and hypocrite. But, in the wake of the GOP debacle in the Rust Belt states and Paul Ryan’s ‘kick grandma from the train’ Medicare voucher plan, the chances of this working are about the same as Donald Trump keeping his hair in place during a high wind or speaking the truth in two consecutive sentences.
Meanwhile, Tea Party Queen Bee Michele Bachmann has yet to declare, but her avid desire to make Big Money should she lose her House seat next election will compel her to run, at least until the Republican Big Daddy, the moneyed elite that own the party, take the keys away. She’ll probably win Iowa, then be quickly forgotten after she utters yet another imbecilic interpretation of the Constitution or is caught in a low-cut slinky dress shooting craps in Las Vegas and drunkenly groping a man not her husband.
May 9, 2011
Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assault Progressive Websites
Ignorant, peevish, narrow-minded, misinformed, livid, intolerant, they are an army of everything that’s wrong with America, denizens of a weird trickster God who speaks to them with words they don’t completely understand, or tints their natural interior wrath with righteous anger conferred by snake-oil preachers or haughty cable charlatans either crass or crazed, or just slyly in it for the money, or all of the above.
This minority wouldn’t matter much except they are whipped into a frenzy and ‘played’ by cynical manipulators like Frank Luntz, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck who, in turn, wouldn’t have much impact without the billions of dollars spent to spread their fetid message from such right-wing corporatists as Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers.
But beneath the second-tier video fictions of James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, and the hollow-headed bleating of the various ozone-inhabiting creatures who will never be president like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, and even in the shadow of the disingenuous theocratic mushpile that is David Barton’s twisted view of our history, exists a well-funded Republican netherworld of PR propagandists and marketing hucksters busy dreaming up unethical new ways to undercut Obama and the Democrats.
One of these is Doug Goetzloe, an anti-tax right-wing talk show host and former Young Republican who heads up Advantage Consultants. Here is the copy from one of his ads advising his conservative clients to ‘flood the zone’ on progressive sites:
“Are you ready for a blog attack?
“Get ahead of your opponent with Professional Blog Warriors.
“Be prepared to ‘flood the zone’ with comments from professionals who are ready to put your talking points on the blogosphere 24/7.
“Whether it’s defense or offense, Advantage Consultants has a dedicated team of experienced blog warriors ready to advance your candidate or campaign.
“Why wait for the attack? Launch your attack with a battery of blog and forum comments aimed at all media and blog sites in your district.
“Contact us today and let us show you the Advantage in professional blog warfare.”
Then there’s Chip Griffin, head of the now defunct NetVocates that planted comments as Advantage Consultants does back in 2005, and is still a Republican activist and PR man who was once associated with the far-right TownHall.com. Griffin is no doubt back on the scene as a sock-puppet master for the 2012 elections — it’s what he does for a living.
A poster named TomCADem recently made these points at Democratic Underground:
“However, what is often ignored are right wing/corporate funded political operatives generating attacks on Democrats from the ‘left’ while giving Republicans a free pass. Of course, these operatives do not announce their intentions, but instead simply launch attacks on Democrats from the left while largely ignoring the far more extreme positions of Republicans or suggesting that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. However, occasionally, such operatives are caught engaging in these fraudulent acts.
“The question in 2012 with Republicans and corporate American intent on taking back the White House, killing unions, and privatizing Medicare, [is] how far will Republicans and corporate propaganda groups go in their efforts to organize sock puppet attacks on Democrats from the left in order to undermine support for Democrats among liberals?”
– Posted in “‘Liberal’ Sock Puppets – Right Wing/Corporate Operatives Attacking Democrats From The ‘Left’,” April 26, 2011.
How far? The GOP is desperate to enact their anti-democratic corporate agenda as quickly as possible as they know the general public is catching onto them — they will go as far as mountains of corporate money and a total lack of conscience or ethics will take them.
Some on the progressive side are already well aware that the GOP is, and has been at least since 2005, mounting a large and well-funded campaign to plant phony ‘progressives sick of the Dems’ comments on various liberal sites to split the vote. Their masters know the psychology well: a percentage of the population, no matter what their politics, is ‘suggestible,’ meaning if they read a string of comments excoriating ALL Democrats as frauds and liars, that will become their opinion, if nothing to the contrary is offered. These ‘suggestibles’ are not necessarily stupid, but they do readily conform to whatever opinion is dominant. That’s why the GOP, through their paid operatives, flood progressive sites with so-called ‘former Democrats’ and ‘angry progressives’ who do nothing but harp on how horrible the Democrats and Obama are. It’s insidious and underhanded, but look at who’s doing it — the party of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. All of them were elected on a promise of jobs and better times, only to use their office to reward the wealthy with tax cuts and lucrative contracts privatizing public services at the expense of middle-class families who work for a living.
At one time, some of the ‘tells’ of the right-wing ‘sock puppet’ troll was their use of terms such as ‘DemoRATS’ or ‘Demonrats’ for Democrats, and their repeatedly calling Obama ‘Obummer,’ ‘Obomber’ or ‘Obomba.’ But they’ve mostly changed that language as actual progressives began to notice those repeated constructions and the fetid and simpleminded opinions attached to them. Some current ‘tells’ are when they don’t mention the GOP at all, or claim both parties are just as ‘evil,’ or try to shut down the conversation with insults, or push readers to vote for any third party, or say that they’d rather vote for a Republican than a Democrat, or make statements with no factual basis, or refer you to a right-wing website to ‘confirm’ their assertions.
Incidentally, there is no comparable effort by the left: if you try to post comments opposing the GOP or corporatists at right-wing sites, in most cases you will quickly be banned from posting there and your comments removed. They aren’t about to let the other side play their game on them, even if we had the money to fund such slimy baloney and the inclination to do so.
Our only protection against such ersatz assaults is to use our heads and common sense: if someone is a little ‘too’ enraged at Obama and the Democrats, be suspicious, especially if they never talk about Republicans. Ask them a couple of polite intelligent questions on the comment thread’s topic; if they respond by condemning or insulting you for questioning them rather than engaging you, they’re likely a sock-puppet troll; it’s in their nature to consider any question or disagreement as tantamount to treason. Also, if they keep reposting basically the same idea in one comment thread, they’re probably a sock-puppet troll; they’ve been instructed by their masters that repetition works. And don’t be swayed if they accuse you of being a ‘shill’ or ‘troll’ for questioning them — they are trained to do that.
Finally, always remember: you can pretend to be a progressive, but you can’t pretend to be smart, and these paid ‘blog warriors’ decidedly aren’t.
“The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern.”
– Paul Krugman, “The Politics of Spite,” NY Times, Oct. 5, 2009.
Copyright © 2011 RS Janes.
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May 3, 2011
Bin Laden Killing Assures Obama’s Reelection in 2012
It’s a sad fact that a sizable section of the voting public, colloquially known as Low-Information Voters (LIV), doesn’t pay close attention to politics, history or much else of serious importance to their futures. If they happen to be women, they can be found glued to shopping channels, ‘reality’ TV shows or Oprah; if men, they are usually focused on sports, video games or action films.
While we progressives can endlessly debate the nuances of Obama ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden, the LIV have already made up their minds: Obama is now the ‘kick ass’ president who brought down bin Laden, outdoing even Junior Bush, a previous favorite of this crowd because he invaded Iraq and kicked Saddam Hussein’s ass, even if Iraq and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. (Some of them still think he did.)
Most of us know or are related to members of the LIV contingent; these are the celebrators who were deliriously waving the flag, pumping their fists in the air and chanting ‘USA, USA’ in venues around the country after the news of bin Laden’s death was reported last Sunday. I have been drinking in neighborhood bars with the LIV for decades, and know how they think. They love Dirty Harry/Rambo kick ass commanders-in-chief and Obama just joined that group. No ambiguity here: bin Laden deserved to die and Obama killed him, despite the fact that al-Qaeda will not be put out of business, any more than the Gambino crime family ceased to exist when Carlo Gambino died.
Hilariously and pathetically, some Republicans are trying to give Little Bush credit for bin Laden’s demise, refusing to mention Obama, but even the demented bloviator Rush Limbaugh, Reagan’s parsimonious mouthpiece Peggy Noonan and that troglodyte Rep. Peter King are complimenting Obama for killing Osama. And what does the GOP have in the presidential bullpen to respond — Trump’s wild hair, Romney’s scintillating personality, Huckabee’s huckster Christianity, Pawlenty’s passive-aggressive puling, Bachmann’s Tea Party overdrive?
Also worth noting is that by this action Obama gained support from many in the military, proving to them he is no academic liberal wimp unwilling to ‘pull the trigger’ on the terrorists.
Obama is now the kick ass commander-in-chief and, in America, kick ass commanders-in-chief always win reelection, except for Poppy Bush. (Even his own party hated him for not going into Baghdad and taking out Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf War — and the LIV loathed him.)
Short of a full-blown Great Depression-style economic collapse, Obama just sealed his 2012 win and the LIV and military will be his margin of victory.
Copyright 2011 RS Janes.
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April 20, 2011
The Tattlesnake — Was Donald Trump Born in Jamaica, South Africa or Mexico?
Now there seems to be some question about Donald Trump’s birthplace. (That those questions were apparently invented out of thin air, possibly for humorous reasons, is of no consequence.) As we know from the example of the right-wring media, any question involving your place of birth must be answered by a slew of legal documents which they will then reject as forgeries and demand more, just as Trump, to goose up his pathetic TV show’s ratings with a presidential bid, is demanding that Obama release his ‘long form’ birth certificate since the short form, adequate for obtaining a US passport or entering the military, just isn’t enough for the blubbery mass of ham and ego some call “The Donald.”
Consider this: Not one person at the Jamaica, New York, hospital where Trump claims to have been born remembers his birth, as far as I care to find out. Aside from that, Trump’s alleged ‘real’ birth certificate doesn’t specify it is a hospital in Jamaica ‘New York’ — it simply says “The Jamaica Hospital.” What is Trump trying to pull here, MON? Was he born in the islands and smuggled into dis country?
And where are the contemporaneous 1946 newspaper birth announcements for the baby Donald? Obama has provided two; Trump has provided zero. And look closely at the signatures of the hospital administrator and attending physician — are we to believe Walt Disney was running Jamaica Hospital in 1946 and a ‘Dr. John E. Conqueroo M.D.’ delivered Donald Trump?
Below, Dr. Kevin Rooney, a birth certificate expert and well-respected forensic doctor simply because I want him to be one, makes a compelling argument that Trump was born in South Africa and didn’t enter the United States until he was 15. (Just ask yourself: do you know of anyone who saw Trump in this country as a child?)
Some malcontents may argue that Dr. Rooney’s South Africa theory is short on facts, but, IMO, what it lacks in factual content it more than makes up for in bold, risible audacity. Besides, how can you argue with a copy of Trump’s real South African birth certificate? Who could possibly have the expertise and desire to forge something like that?
Donald Trump’s Real Birth Certificate Reveals He Is a Foreigner
by Kevin Rooney
Trump was born in South Africa. His father was there on business (buying diamonds) and conceived Trump with a woman he met there. You can see her Dutch genes in Trump, the light reddish hair and very fair skin is Low Country Dutch. Donald Trump was raised in Cape Town according to strict Dutch customs which are very socialistic. (This is where he developed his great relationship with “the blacks.”)
When Trump was fifteen he was brought to New York by his father. Trump never talked about his South African background for fear of reprisals by Americans who hated apartheid.
Two years ago, when Obama was elected, Trump decided to run for president. He spent three and a half million dollars over two years manufacturing an American birth certificate, bribed doctors and nurses to say they had been present at his birth, and even hiring for life a troupe of actors to play his childhood American friends, college classmates and professors, etc. He has a staff dedicated to manufacturing articles about his ‘life’ in America, etc. He is hoping to become President of the United States, beef up its military by cutting off all unemployment funds, and finally invade South Africa and reinstate apartheid so his elderly mother can go to the beach without a gun. …
Another eminent historian has advanced the theory that Trump was actually born in Mexico. Read it all at “Was Donald Trump Born in Mexico?”
I think it is incumbent upon Trump to withdraw from the GOP presidential derby and public life until he can prove where he was born to my satisfaction.
2011 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org
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Down By the Old Rumor Mill Stream, Part Whatever
Devon Keester’s Hollywood Lowdown
“The dark, sweaty juncture where politics and show biz meet!”
[Note: Since Keester’s sources are shady and unreliable and usually found near a vinyl-covered barstool, his ramblings should be taken with a several grains of salt from the rim of his next margarita.]
– Biden Over and Out: Obama will not be running with Biden as his Veep in 2012. Word is, Joe Biden is feeling every one of his 68 years and not anxious to enter another national campaign after finally facing the realization he’ll never be president. That’s okey-doke with Obama, as it gives him the opening to offer the VP slot to Hillary Clinton, further underwriting his re-election. Now that the sharp edges of the 2008 campaign have softened, and BHO and Sec-of-State Hill have a good working relationship, he would welcome her as a running mate, and the youthful 63-year-old Clinton would have a springboard for a presidential run in 2016. The only question that remains is if Hillary will sign on. She may not have the stomach for another national campaign herself, preferring, maybe, the governorship of a state to be named later instead. If not Clinton, Obama would like to make history, and notch his appeal to women voters, by naming someone of the female gender. Next on the list if Clinton doesn’t bite is supposedly Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, although US Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are said to be strong possibilities as well.
– The Story Behind the Story: Yup, Newt Gingrich had a suspicious interest-free revolving charge account at Tiffany’s for two years that racked up $500 grand in billings, but that’s not all. Ignoring for the moment that regular customers pay 21 percent interest on their charges, Newtie’s current wife Callista, when she was a lobbyist, had ties to the silver mining industry from which Tiffany’s fabricates its overpriced doodads, and Gingrich himself, while in the House, interceded to get the jewelry company a very sweet deal on use of public lands for mining. The Newtster may soon have more to worry about than his doomed SNL-skit presidential campaign — the feds are taking notice of his involvement with the Tiff, and whether he actually paid down that half-mil himself or if some or all of it was written off by the grateful company as a lobbying fee. Whichever way it goes, Newt is going to end up in a courtroom somewhere, trying to stay out of the hoosegow, and probably still running for president in his fevered little brain. No wonder Newtie was reluctant to answer any questions about his $500K shopping spree at Tiffany’s — it’s looking like a quid pro quo bribe.
– The Story Behind the Story, Part Deux: Sure, it’s been all over the papers like a dog who got into the prune juice that pouty ex-Alaskan Ice Princess Sarah Palin is moving the whole-damn Wasillabilly brood to a luxurious $1.7 million 5-BR, 6.5-bath manse with a concrete swimmin’ hole in Scottsdale, AZ, near enough to America’s wackiest sheriff, Joe Arpaio, to be in the Red Zone if any of his pink-clad prisoners escape. But let’s just get this out of the way: the erstwhile Mama Grizzly is not running for president — her ‘tragic bus’ tour of the Nor’east is just to revive national media interest in her fast-plummeting ‘brand,’ whatever her crackpot brand is these days. How could this be when all the big-time pundits are sure she’s running? Well, she hasn’t been kicked off Fox News, and she’s got a $1 mil-a-year contract there that runs through 2013. But she also allegedly has speaking contracts to read her palm to unfortunate victims through 2014; if she reneges on those contracts — since she can’t legally take the money if she’s a candidate — she’ll have to pay a stiff penalty. That would cost her a bundle out of pocket she can’t afford. Get your laughs now — by 2015 she’ll be off Fox and consigned to introducing second-rate Branson, MO, acts with, “Hi there, remember me? I’m Sarah Palin!”
– Ailes Out at Fox? Speaking of Fox Noose, head-major-domo-top-enchilada, first-among-inferiors Generalissimo Roger Ailes’ contract with king pinsetter Rupert Murdoch is up in 2013. Surely Uncle Rupe will renew it, you say. Not so fast: Murdoch’s recent wife Wendi likes Obama and loathes Ailes, and Rupe’s wives have considerable influence on him; plus, the whole fam damily who will be inheriting the business when Murdoch retires or ascends to Media Jesusland likewise has about as much affection for the former Nixon PR flack as they do for a case of the clap. Word is, James Murdoch, current deputy operating office at Fox parent News Corp, particularly has it in for Ailes after what Rog did to brother Lachlan, supposedly pushing James’ older sibling to the point of a nervous breakdown. The elder Murdoch is also said to not be pleased at the direction Ailes has dragged the GOP-propaganda cable channel; of course, he favors its conservative slant, but the hiring of palpable nitwits like Boom-Boom Palin and Man-On-Dog Ricky Santorum didn’t sit well with News Corps’ Bigga Boss. Look for a shake-up at Fox after the next election, unless the GOP wins Reagan-’84 big.
– One More Fox Tale: A deep, deep rumor says the Keith Olbermann ousting at MSNBC was part of a deal with Fox News’ Roger Ailes. Seems Keith, the former ratings king at MSNBC, was getting under Roger’s skin with his gloves-off jibes at Fox personalities, as well as cutting into Fox’s cable dominance as his ‘Countdown’ show numbers steadily increased. In a top secret meeting with Comcast, then poised to buy up MSNBC parent NBC-Universal, Ailes and unnamed execs from Comcast and NBC allegedly struck a deal to lessen the attacks on Fox and dump Olbermann once the Comcast buy-out was finalized; in return, Fox would go easier on NBC and provide some other goodies. Part of the bargain was that MSNBC would get rid of its top rater and Fox would reciprocate. So Ailes agreed to jettison Fox ratings leader Glenn Beck in return for Olbermann’s exit. Roger got the best of the deal — he wanted to give loose-cannon Beck the heave-ho anyway while MSNBC is now struggling in Keith’s old primetime slot, and Olbermann is fixing to cut down those ‘Lean Forward’ numbers even further when he resurrects ‘Countdown’ June 20th on Al Gore’s Current TV network at his old 8e/7c berth.
– He Won’t Be Baack: A big dime is about to drop (but not in the form of a ‘bag’) on former Kali-forn-yuh guff’nor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seems the ex-bodybuilder and purported actor had more than one out-of-wedlock bambino while married to Kennedy-kin Maria Shriver — mayhap as many as 6 or 7 — and all of their mamas want more money or they are calling the media. Add to that the news that the California AG is about to prosecute the Teutonic Musclehead for using state troopers to deliver comely young ‘club’ females 18-to-25 to his Governator living quarters at the Hyatt hotel in Sacramento, a clear misuse of state funds. It’s been reported Schwarzy planned to resume his ‘achting’ career post-politics — fat chance, since the word is the major studios now think he’s not ‘bankable’ at the box office anymore. (Perhaps he can nab the independent-film roles Casper Van Dien turns down, at Van Dien pay, natch.) Oh, and one more thing: all the years of stress on his bones and muscles from over-exercising and steroid use have taken their toll — the 63-year-old Ah-nuld allegedly now has the physical mobility of a man 20 years older and can only function normally by taking prescription painkillers.
© 2011 RS Janes.
http://tattlesnake.blogspot.com