August 11, 2011
August 4, 2011
December 24, 2009
December 14, 2009
The Tattlesnake – A Stake Deep in the Heart of GOP Texas Edition
Judging by this, Lone Star state Republicans may have much to fear in the future.
I’ve made plenty of fun of Texas and that breed of Texan that keeps electing crooks and nitwits like Tom DeLay and Junior-clone Rick Perry against their own best interests, but it seems things have gotten bad enough down there that even Houston, the nexus of Bush Oil Country, has elected a lesbian Democrat, former City Controller Annise Parker, as Mayor rather than face a corrupt and/or dumb Republican. (Albeit that Houston has been trending Dem for some years and the last mayor was a Democrat.) Although Parker has some past ties to the energy industry, her most recent non-political gig was running a bookstore and she is regarded as fairly liberal, at least by Texas standards.
It’s no secret the GOP has raped the state from one end to the other, giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations while cutting social safety-net programs to the bone, eviscerating the educational system, and putting workers at the mercy of employers – it was the neocon corporatist blueprint for what King Junior tried to do in Washington, but didn’t quite succeed at entirely. Now that the economy has gone all to hell, fed-up Texans are worse off than most of the nation, and they have no one to blame but the laissez-faire policies of the Republican Party.
Sure, the voting machines have been rigged and districts redrawn to keep the GOP in perpetual power, but even that may not be enough to underwrite the Republican Party’s future in Texas.
The Tattler’s prediction: Within ten years all the major state offices will be held by Democrats, as well as the two US Senate seats. Texas was, at one time, a populist state; I think it will be returning to those roots – who knows, maybe the great Jim Hightower will end up in office again, if he can stomach campaigning one more time.
Houston biggest US city to elect openly gay mayor
Monica Rhor, AP Writer
December 13, 2009HOUSTON – Houston became the largest U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor, with voters handing a solid victory to City Controller Annise Parker after a hotly contested runoff. [...]
Parker, 53, has never made a secret or an issue of her sexual orientation. But it became the focus of the race after anti-gay activists and conservative religious groups endorsed Locke and sent out mailers condemning Parker’s “homosexual behavior.”
Read the rest here.
“Anti-gay activists and conservative religious groups” couldn’t defeat an openly gay woman in TEXAS?! Oh, yes, the doom come soon for the GOP.
© 2009 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org
April 16, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Short Cuts in New Ruts Edition
Double-Dipping Teabag Hag: The Ol’ Tattler’s failing peepers can’t be sure, but I believe I saw the same woman who was sporting the insulting ‘Kerry Band-Aid’ at the GOP convention in NY circa 2004 wearing a hat adorned with hanging teabags yesterday at one of Fox News’ corporately-sponsored tea parties. Just a quick impression: She’s probably the head of the Pig Whistle, Louisiana, chapter of the DAR, the treasurer of the local ‘I Love Sarah’ Fan Club, chairwoman of the county Republican Party, and a good Southern Baptist who, in the name of the Lawd, beats her kids regularly “just to keep the li’l buggers in line.”
BTW, shouldn’t the videos of these astroturf ‘spontaneous events’ be repackaged by some bright young Republican sociopath into a TV reality show called “Just How Stupid Are You?”
Meantime, over at Rachel Maddow last night, a good point was made – I think by Ana Marie Cox — about the anti-tax FNC Teabag Party nonsense. She pointed out that most of these dismal events were held in public parks – in other words, land paid for and maintained by taxpayer funds. If you hate taxes and government so much, go hold your damn teabag party or your own private property and don’t make those who think you’re nuts foot the bill, not only for the land, but the clean-up afterwards. And would all of those tax-haters sprouting gray and white hair at those FNC rallies please return their Social Security checks and refuse medical treatment courtesy of the government?
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September 30, 2008
The Tattlesnake – McCain Failin’ ’08 Edition
Or, The Rake and Raquel Drop Down the Well
You Can’t Make This Up: Sarah Palin blows the two interviews she has with CBS’ Katie Couric, so she comes back for a rematch bringing her Grandpa John to help out. In-frigging-credible. Palin already looks lame, so you make her appear even lamer by sticking McCain in there for another sit-down with Katie? Whose idea was it to put that on the air? Is Grandpa going to go onstage and hold her hand during Thursday’s debate with Biden, too?
McCain also invoked what was perhaps one of the dumber ripostes in a campaign festooned with them when he accused an average voter, asking a question of Palin about attacking terrorist camps in Pakistan, of playing the ‘Gotcha’ game. So now asking St. Sarah about anything to which she gives the wrong answer is playing ‘Gotcha’? Should be an interesting debate Thursday – “Uh, that question you just asked me about borrowing money from China is a ‘Gotcha’ question and I don’t answer ‘Gotcha’ questions, sir.”
Latest Big Media Euphemisms for McCain’s Lies and Flip-Flops, collected over the past couple of weeks from various sources: “His position has evolved,” “He’s finding a new mechanism to present his case,” “He’s altering his message,” “He’s appealing to the Republican base,” “He’s responding to change by changing,” “He’s proving his maverick streak,” “He’s reforming his position on the issue,” “He’s looking for the right message here,” “He’s fine tuning his message to the base.”
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Texas ‘Bizarre Claims’ Couple Deported
‘Bizarre Claims’ Couple Deported
By Walt N. Ponde
The Corpus Christi Sun-Journal
December 24, 2009
SPECIAL TO THE SUN-JOURNAL — The strange tale of illegal immigrants Jose and Maria Natividad has finally come to an end after a federal judge yesterday ordered the couple deported to Mexico.
They were arrested on the streets of Corpus Christi last Tuesday while seeking a place they could stay for free. Because they had no money and were unemployed, police initially charged them with vagrancy and loitering until a Spanish translator – the Natividads speak no English – discovered they were illegally in this country. The case was then turned over to U.S. immigration authorities.
INS agents told federal prosecutors that due to their age difference – Jose is 60 and Maria is 15 – they wanted Jose charged with statutory rape and transporting a minor across national borders for immoral purposes, but federal immigration Judge Ben Dayeau found that their marriage was legal under Mexican law, and ordered the deportation without additional charges filed. The local vagrancy and loitering charges were also dropped.
But that was after Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) investigators uncovered what Judge Dayeau called, “the most bizarre claims that have ever been heard in my courtroom.”
Nine-months pregnant Maria Natividad told DFPS social workers that she had never consummated the marriage with her husband, that she was a virgin, and that her pregnancy was the result of divine intervention. As the DFPS report put it, “Mrs. Natividad claims she was impregnated by God and that her unborn son is the Messiah or second coming of Jesus Christ as promised in the New Testament of the Bible.” Interviewed separately, Jose Natividad concurred with his wife’s story.
DFPS spokesman Rod N. Staph told the Sun-Journal that under ordinary circumstances it would have ordered a complete physiological and psychological examination of Mrs. Natividad, but that recent state immigration restrictions prevented that. “She’d be in a hospital right now,” Staph said, “except a new state law prohibits hospitals from treating undocumented immigrants.” Instead, DFPS recommended the couple be deported as quickly as possible.
In Austin, Gov. Rick Perry reacted to the judge’s ruling, telling reporters, “The people of Texas don’t want to pay for another illegal Mexican mother to have her baby here, no matter what kind of crazy tale this woman is telling. If born here, their child will then be an American citizen, and it will make it more likely this couple, who have no useful skills, no money and can’t speak our language, will stay here and We the People will have to pay for them. The tough new immigration laws I signed protect Texas and America from these illegal bloodsucking deadbeats and their welfare babies.”
Texas religious leaders contacted for comment all agreed that Mrs. Natividad’s assertions were improbable at best, with Good Samaritan Baptist Church of Dallas pastor Ballman Gilead summing up their feelings: “This is, frankly, nuts. We know the second coming will happen in the Middle East and it won’t be a child of poor Mexican parents, you can be sure. This Natividad couple are just using this wild story to try and get a free ride from the U.S. taxpayer.”
Mindy Putts, a translator for DFPS, said that as she was helping the Natividads on an INS bus bound for Mexico early Thursday morning, Mrs. Natividad turned to her and said in Spanish, “I would ask God to curse this state of Texas for its lack of Christian decency and hospitality, but I see that He has anticipated my request.”
On her Facebook page, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin responded to the Natividad controversy by writing, “Controlling our borders is controlling our great American national destiny, and nothing is too important for that goal.”
© 2009 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.