BartBlog

March 12, 2009

Fans Send Rush to Judgment!

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Toon — Tags: , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:17 am

dittohead-monthly

March 7, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Odds and Ends from the Week’s News Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:54 am

…With No Particular Place to Go But Here

If This Were in a Book, You Wouldn’t Believe It: It’s been hilarious watching various members of the GOP hierarchy criticizing the Rush monster, and then scurrying hat in hand to apologize or ‘clarify’ their comments, the new Republican euphemism for kneeling at the ‘flabulous’ bloviator’s altar and seeking forgiveness. (Michael Steele’s ‘clarification’ – “Really, I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about!” – was worthy of a Monty Python skit.) Doubling the fun is watching some of the same humbugs deny the bleeding obvious — Limbaugh is the 500-pound elephant in the middle of the Republican Party’s leaky punchbowl and he’s calling the shots now. This is killing the GOP and there’s nothing they can do about it – welcome to your self-made hell, neocons.

Speaking of the Mouth of the Wingnut South, Limbaugh recently challenged Obama to debate him on his show, knowing full well, naturally, that the president has much more important things to do than goose Lard Lad’s ratings. If Rush really wants to debate Obama, here’s something he could do, if he has the guts: Run for president in 2012 and, if he’s the Republican nominee, he’ll get his debate with Obama, probably even two or three. Don’t bet on that happening, though – Limbaugh would never face the people that way – he only talks to Dittoheads and other psychotics. (Incidentally, the Radio-Dazed Monarch’s assurances of 20 million weekly listeners may be as exaggerated as his bulbous torso – it also doesn’t confirm how many are tuning in to laugh with him and how many to laugh at him.)

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February 17, 2009

The Tattlesnake – It’s Time For Obama to Fire Petraeus Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:15 am

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 8, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Six Neocon Whoppers: Myth, Truth and Proof Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:05 am

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:

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February 2, 2009

The Tattlesnake – The Hilarity Begins at Home Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:39 am

Short Cuts on the Collapse of Bush’s Republi-conism and Letterman’s Resurrection of Bill Hicks

Here’s the Future of the GOP:

“One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let’s commit ourselves, just everyday American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again.”
— Sarah Palin, Vice Presidential debate, Oct. 2, 2008.

Yes, never again elect another Booby-Hatch Neocon like Junior the First as president, and I won’t mention any particular governor from Alaska who does Fargoesque photo-ops with a working turkey chipper in the background. What do you think – Obama wins 49 states in 2012 against the Mad WASP Caribou Mangler of the Great White North?

Oh, Brothern and Sistern: A “Full Armor of God Playset Kids Costume” is up for sale at EBay from the ‘God4me Ministries,’ which looks amazingly similar to a Roman legionnaire’s battle rattle. Does God4Me Ministries recall who it was that put the spikes into Big J and let him die on a cross? Hey, but for only $8.99, it’s relatively cheap to turn your bambino into one of Pontius Pilate’s boys.

How shoddy can your reporting get? One anonymous “Republican official” makes false claims about President Obama’s stimulus package and there is no attempt to fact-check the charges or get a response from Democrats or the White House? I would have gotten a dressing down for this kind of sloppy nonsense even in my pathetic journalism course at a no-name school. This is what happens when the guy in charge of your Washington Bureau crawls under the covers with the Demonic Forces of the Republican Party, as has Ron Fournier. In 2004, then-AP reporter Fournier had an email exchange with Karl Rove and ended one message with the line, “Keep up the fight” and has been stroking the GOP since. (He’s almost as bad as King Sucker Mark Halperin or one of those Tiny Tots at Politico.com.) Tell me about the liberal media, Elton, ’cause it makes me wanna puke. Media Matters has more details at “The AP’s Thursday Train Wreck.”

Speaking of Mrs. Rove’s Evil Spawn: If Karl Rove doesn’t show up in Congress soon to answer questions from John Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee, it’s inevitable that Eric Holder’s DoJ will instruct the FBI to compel Rove to appear, arresting and jailing him if necessary.

Crazy Karl is bizarrely claiming permanent executive privilege on an issue he supposedly never discussed with the president — Don Siegelman’s corrupt prosecution and imprisonment in Alabama and Rove’s involvement in ‘changing’ the Alabama election results late at night — after Siegelman had won — to put Republican Bob Riley in as governor.

Executive privilege only extends to actual communications with the president and Rove has stated he never discussed these matters with Bush, so it doesn’t apply. Besides that, no court has ruled that the privilege is eternal.

Unfortunately, if it comes down to it, Rove might pull a Scooter Libby and fall on his dagger to protect Dick and Dumbo, taking the heat for the political corruption of the Bush Regime while Rummy is nailed for approving torture. As pleasing as it would be to see Karlo and The Don in orange jumpsuits, the idea that Cheney and his Puppet would skate free is outrageous.

Finally, David Letterman has apologized to comic genius Bill Hicks’ mother Mary for censoring him in 1993 and banning him from his show. Hicks, who died shortly thereafter from pancreatic cancer, was, along with George Carlin, one of the few ‘no sell-out’ social satirists of the ’80s and ’90s, giants in the tradition of Lenny Bruce and Mark Twain. (Incidentally, Letterman didn’t know Bill had cancer when he barred him.) Good on Dave for coming to his senses, even if it took 16 years. No word on why CBS’ late night talk show host chose this time to make amends, but better late than never. When will we see equal treatment for Harvey Pekar? He’s still alive so the apology could be face-to-face. Click here for videos of the on-air apology and short clips of Bill’s brilliant routines. (H/T to Quinn Esq. at TPM Cafe.)

January 28, 2009

The Tattlesnake – It’s Worse Than You Think Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 2:39 pm

MSNBC reported this morning that the Peanut Corporation of America – yes, someone actually named a company that – knowingly shipped out products contaminated by salmonella. (So much for the market policing itself.) The FDA alerted the PCA of the contamination last year. Did some exec at PCA decide, ala the Ford Pinto, that it would be cheaper to handle food poisoning lawsuits than recall its products? Stay tuned. (They’re just lucky that the salmonella wasn’t one of the new drug-resistant strains.)

BTW, we’ve been losing approximately 500,000 jobs a month, or 6 million annually, for some several years now. That means that the Bush Labor Department’s employment figures were skewed and actual unemployment is much higher than the government has been reporting. (But you knew that.)

Quick — try to think of the difference between the way Stalin ran the USSR and the way the average American CEO runs a multi-national mega-corporation. Those at the very top prosper, everyone else suffers, and the system is completely corrupt and immoral. (And don’t fool yourself that the stockholders are any more effective at controlling Comrade Chairman than were the Politburo; as in the old Soviet Union, the deck is stacked against the ‘little guy’ investor.)

On the other hand, Corporate America, and the world economy, are collapsing of its own weight. Read The Financial Times — the vipers in finance and investment no longer trust each other — no honor among these thieves — and the current corporate structure can’t make money for the stockholders nor even themselves anymore. Like any large beast doomed to extinction, they have greedily gorged themselves to the point where there are no more suckers left to fleece and they can’t fleece each other since they all play the same tricks. The bailout is their last desperate gasp before the final curtain. The diversified multi-national mega-corporation of today is finished, although its slow-motion fall will take a few years and there will be some further suffering on our part. The practitioners of Disaster Capitalism have finally seen the catastrophe dumped on their own heads and they don’t have a clue as to how to dig themselves out, since most of their inbred management, buzzing with the erroneous free market lingo of the transient MBA, are only slightly smarter and more adept than Bush the Younger. When your heroes are utter monsters like Al ‘Chainsaw’ Dunlap, or sleazy film characters like Gordon Gecko, your demise is predictable and well deserved. Fortunately for us, it seems President Obama is smarter than to go down with this sinking ship.

‘Zell’ — It Rhymes with ‘Stink’: “[T]he Tribune Company. This media conglomerate, which owns some of America’s top newspapers and television stations, was bought a year ago by a Chicago real estate baron named Sam Zell.
“This fellow didn’t have anywhere near enough money to pay the $8.2 billion purchase price, but, hey, that’s no problem for a striver. Zell simply got the company’s CEO to let him use the employees pension fund as collateral for bank loans to buy the Tribune. Even though their money was put at risk, the employees had no say in the deal, nor in how the company was run. It was run badly. Less than a year after Zell’s takeover, the Tribune has had to declare bankruptcy, and employees are likely to lose jobs, severance payments and pensions.”
– Jim Hightower, “Pirate Ethics,” Dec. 18, 2008.

“Sam Zell never really had much skin in the game. Last year, when he purchased the Tribune Company… he put up $315 million of his own money and paid the balance of the purchase price, $8.2 billion, with the employee stock ownership plan — a move in which Tribune employees had no say whatever. But that actually overstates the amount of Zell’s investment. Of the $315 million he sunk into the company, it turns out that $225 million was simply a promissory note. Due to the vagaries of bankruptcy law, writes business analyst Mark Lacter on LAobserved.com, that means that Zell has better protection for his stake than all his employees.”
– Harold Meyerson, “The Worst CEO,” Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2008.

The Zell-owned Chicago Tribune has been at the forefront of the relentless media attacks on Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption and demanded his impeachment even before Fitzgerald arrested Blago. Now, that’s entertainment.

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January 6, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Them That’s Got and Stan Getz Edition

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:12 am

And This Day in Hell…

“Them that’s got shall get,
Them that’s not shall lose…”
– From “God Bless the Child (That’s Got His Own),” by Arthur Herzog Jr. and Billie Holiday, and recorded by her for Okeh Records in 1941.

“Free market capitalism — as a faith — really is an inverse of Marxism. It is a theology that believes their system will bring paradise on earth and moral perfection. When their system is in power in the real world, their true believers claim that any problem only happened because their ideology has not been applied with sufficient purity.”
– Larry Beinhart, “The Fall of a Free Market Prophet,” Common Dreams, Dec. 7, 2008.

“Sometimes the Invisible Hand is all thumbs.”
– Jared Bernstein, C-Span, April 16, 2008.

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
– Ernest Hemingway [Bush reversed the formula, but it's still true today.]

So far we’ve seen the Top Dogs – underline ‘dogs’ – of Wall Street and Detroit parade before Congress insisting they need our tax money to bail them out. The former ‘Masters of the Universe’ have made so many stupid short-term decisions they have shamed their MBA parchment into so much worthless sheepskin accorded to those who can pay the tuition, or have the family clout, to squeeze them through college. To add insult to injury, the bankers who have fleeced us for billions in the name of providing credit to keep businesses going have refused to use our money to provide credit to keep businesses going, instead financing bonuses for themselves, luxury retreats at pricey resorts, and apparently precipitating a sit-down strike by 300 union workers at a Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago last month. Not only were these people unceremoniously fired and given one day to clear out, the company reneged on its contract to provide wages and vacation pay owed them and the severance pay they were guaranteed. That’s right – Republic refused to pay wages and vacation pay already earned and blamed it on the Bank of America, while they hastily moved their Chicago equipment to Iowa. BoA received $25 billion of our tax dollars to avoid just this kind of situation. Fortunately, thanks to nationwide publicity for this sit-down strike, and support from near-President Obama, the Republic workers finally received their back wages and other pay, but let’s see this for what it was: A naked attempt to bust the union, and it was mostly successful. Republic’s union workers are still out of a job and the company has set up a low-wage non-union plant in Iowa. (Incidentally, inquiring minds would like to know: who is paying the salaries of Republic’s top executives and how much do they make?)

Morality and ethics hardly exist in the corporate boardroom but, if this isn’t wrong, what is?

How to correct it? Let’s hope President Obama takes a page from Franklin D. Roosevelt, especially his Economic Bill of Rights speech delivered January 11, 1944, during the Second World War, which included:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

As FDR concluded: “All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

“America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.”

If we have those rights, the economy will take care of itself.

What Does Late Jazz Sax Player Stan Getz Have to Do with Our Economic Meltdown? Read on:

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December 4, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Was Wrong Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:56 am

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
– Mark Twain

In previous editions of The Tattler, some drunken idiot wrote piffle such as:

“Well, it’s three days after Thanksgiving and Hillary Clinton has still not been named as Obama’s Secretary of State. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Well, it did happen, last Monday, and, I confess, the drunken idiot was staring back at me from the mirror this morning. (I am now hunched into a Basil Fawlty ball, hopping around with my head between my hands in disgust with myself.)

In another edition of The Tattler posted here November 18, 2008, “The Tattlesnake – Big Media Hillary Silly Season in Full Swing Edition,” I hilariously typed:

“Lost in most of their [the Big Media] circuitous gossip is any sort of common-sense analysis: Why would Hillary give up her powerful senate seat, and an excellent chance to be Senate Majority Leader, to serve as a peripatetic foreign service factotum in Obama’s government? The appointment would also proscribe her from criticizing him should things go sour, thereby tainting her bid for the 2012 nomination. Quick, name the last five Secretaries of State before Condi and look at what has happened to them. I think it’s fair to say the energetic Sen. Clinton doesn’t desire to live out her days lounging in academia, playing golf, or filling space on the board of some think tank or corporation, publishing occasional knotted-brow op-ed pieces in The New York Times.”

Those were, I felt, valid questions IF Sen. Clinton wanted to be president some day but, since then, I’ve checked with an Anonymous Source Close to the Obama Camp (just like the Mighty NYT!) and gathered some exclusive background that changes the picture considerably.

First off, my A.S.C.O.C. says Hillary doesn’t desire the presidency any longer. She allegedly feels that 2008 was her best shot and she hates ‘mass-market’ retail campaigning. (Hubby Bill is the political animal who loves that glad-handing stuff.) Although she likes talking to people in small groups, the speaking to large gatherings, the endless traveling, the repeated stump speeches, and the sheer exhaustion of running for president turned the fire in her belly into a bad case of dyspepsia that she never wants to experience again.

Secondly, while she liked the Senate, her ability to work on the issues that most animated her — health care, economic justice and children’s rights — was limited, and she supposedly got The Word: even with her national celebrity, there would be no jumping ahead in line – the junior senator from New York would have to wait her turn to become Majority Leader and that could take decades. (Even NY colleague Chuck Schumer is ahead of her in seniority.) Aside from that, the appointment as SoS relieved her of having to campaign for office again, and she and Obama have actually become friends since the summer and work well together. She’s willing to respect his office and policies, so there should be no conflict there, and she’s a popular figure overseas. Her keen intelligence and ability to quickly process new information are a relief to foreign leaders accustomed to dealing with the Bush-bedazzled Condi Rice.

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November 15, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Miller Shills for the Wasilla Chinchilla on Billo and Other Atrocities Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:39 am

Plus a Weird Election 2008 Factoid and a Plea to the GOP

“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”
– H.L. Mencken

Gov. Snowjob said on Larry King Nov. 12th that there is nothing wrong with “calling people out” on their past associations, defending her lame McCarthyite attempts to link Obama to Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground. She added that she expected she would be called out on hers as well. Good. Let’s see, she’s openly palled around with and supported for reelection convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens, corrupt ex-Governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski, and she’s married to a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, a group that despises and wants to secede from the United States. Imagine if Obama had strongly supported two crooks and his wife once belonged to an organization that hated America? C’mon, Big Media, time to apply some fairness here, and Sarah asked for it.

Speaking of Sarah the Terror: Miller and Palin, Sittin’ in a Tree:

“Listen, she’s a great dame. People are fascinated by her because the left hate her. I think the left hate her — mostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life. All right? I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven’t been aroused since Mailer signed copy [sic] of The Executioner’s Song at Rizzoli’s back in the early ’70s.
“So they look at her, and they hate her. I think that snowmobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me, and that’s why people are fascinated by it.”
– Dennis Miller on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Fox News, Nov. 12, 2008.

I remember when Dennis had a functioning frontal lobe and was even occasionally clever, but years of drinking, drugs, chickenhawk fear, raging ego and his wiseguy notion that he’d just jump on the money train of what he thought would be generations of Republican rule softened his gray matter to the point where he’s defending a vacuous Alaska opportunist he once would have gleefully impaled with humor. BTW, I wonder what ‘non-neurotic sex’ is — the Moose Mama ‘Missionary Position’ (that would be a ‘rear mount’) or the opposite of whatever you call it when Miller picks up his paycheck these days?

My sympathies to the frustrated Mrs. Miller, if she’s still around – married to a goofball who thinks snowmobiles equate with foreplay can’t be a pleasant existence.

It’s was so bad even Billo took note of what had surfaced in his ‘No Spin Zone’ punchbowl:

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November 7, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Some Suggestions for Obama Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , — RS Janes @ 7:46 pm

There has been some leftward carping about President Obama’s pick of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, but it’s what was required, unless he wanted to play out his first one hundred days in office as another Jimmy Carter. (Carter had his ‘Georgia Mafia’ with him when he came to office and they had to learn the wicked ways of Washington. By the time they did, Carter was ending his first term.) Emanuel, for all of his manifold faults, is good at playing the ‘enforcer’ and knows Congress inside out – he’ll use strong-arm tactics when necessary to push through legislation, and that’s just what Obama needs.

At any rate, here are some suggestions to fill out President Obama’s cabinet, although I’m not delusional enough to think most of them will become reality:

Attorney General: David Iglesias. He’s a Republican, but an honest man who refused to prosecute cases for political reasons, even after pressure from heavy-hitters like New Mexico’s Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson; that sort of integrity alone should qualify him for this job, but he’s also a good lawyer and his appointment would demonstrate a real change of direction for the tattered Justice Department. If not him, how about California prosecutor Carol Lam who was also one of the eight Republican federal attorneys fired for not toeing the line for Karl Rove? Short of that, John Dean is out there, tested, rested and able.

Secretary of State: Bill Richardson is the obvious choice, and on Obama’s short list, but he may not want to give up New Mexico’s governorship. How about a surprise pick – Valerie Plame’s husband and former ambassador Joe Wilson?

Secretary of Defense: Reaching across the aisle, how about Colin Powell? Yep, we’ll have to forgive his despicable performance at the UN and some other unsavory acts he indulged in out of fealty to the Bush clan, but he does know, and is respected by, the military and he was, initially, against the Iraq debacle. Aside from that, it will reassure older brass that Obama can be trusted. If not Powell, ex-Gen. Wesley Clark is looking for work.

Secretary of the Treasury: Either Paul Krugman or Dean Baker since they are both economists who clearly foresaw the current fiscal meltdown, but that probably won’t happen. Clinton retread Robert Reich has been mentioned, and he wouldn’t be bad at all. Obama campaign economic advisor Austan Goolsbee also wouldn’t foul the nest. (Please, no more Paul Volcker’s or Robert Rubin’s.)

Secretary of Labor: Barbara Ehrenreich. (I know, I know, she won’t be asked and probably wouldn’t do it if she were, but she is more of an expert on the subject than the Inside-the-Beltway desk jockeys usually named to this post.)

Secretary of Health and Human Services: Eleanor Holmes Norton. The DC Delegate to Congress has spent most of her adult life working on these issues and she’d be a tireless advocate for the people, for a real change.

Secretary of Homeland Security: Richard Clarke. The former White House Counter-Terrorism chief who was ignored by the Bushites before 9/11 knows his business, he’s competent to do the job and he respects the Constitution.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Max Cleland is the obvious choice, in an upgraded department. He headed up the VA under Carter and intimately knows what vets returning from combat are going through – he was once one himself.

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