BartBlog

June 22, 2010

The Tattlesnake – It’s McChrystal Clear: The General is Running for President Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:29 pm

By publicly making derogatory comments about his superiors in the chain of command – President Obama, VP Biden, Defense Secretary Gates, White House National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones — US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has committed an act of rank insubordination, and I think he did it intentionally.

Subsequent apologies for his loose-lipped Rolling Stone interview notwithstanding, McChrystal knows Obama must, in order to maintain what little credibility he has with the military as commander-in-chief, relieve McChrystal of his command and he should break him in rank down to a Colonel or, at least, Brigadier General, but, considering Obama’s reticence in such matters, he likely won’t do the latter.

McChrystal well knows that if he wants to criticize his superiors there is a legitimate and honorable way to do so – resign his commission and fire away as a civilian. Instead, the wily general has manufactured a situation wherein Obama must relieve him or lose all respect with the military establishment and a good portion of the public, as well.

Why would McChrystal set up such a situation? The easiest answer is that he’s planning on running for president as a Republican in 2012 and he can use it to a) play the aggrieved victim of a president and administration that doesn’t know what it’s doing in the Middle East; and b) insulate himself from charges of incompetence when we are forced out of Afghanistan. “I told the president the strategy he was pursuing to defeat the Taliban was naïve and wrong and that I had a better plan. This so angered him he found a flimsy reason to dismiss me.”

This is the line I believe McChrystal will employ following his resignation after Obama has relieved him of his command. Such criticism dovetails nicely with the GOP’s probable angle of attack on Obama in 2012 – arrogant, incompetent, headstrong, vengeful, naïve – and McChrystal will go to the head of the class of potential presidential candidates in a so far thin field for the Republicans — Romney’s no barn-burner; Palin’s a sour joke; Gingrich is stuck in the mud of 1994; Pawlenty’s a calamitous bore, and no one else is really on the radar.

Of course, the GOP establishment would welcome McChrystal with open arms as the second coming of Dwight Eisenhower, but even the various Teabaggers, quasi-Libertarians and Christian zealots who are now the party’s foundation would most likely not much contest nominating a ‘military hero’ such as the general. His campaign would also provide some lengthy (and stable) coattails for other Republicans to ride, a surcease from the almost daily factional friction of a minority party in turmoil.

The question: Will former Pentagon black-ops chief McChrystal’s new strategy to gain the White House work any better than did his plans to tame Afghanistan?

The answer: For a man as arrogant, incompetent, headstrong, vengeful, and naïve on public matters as Stanley McChrystal — who also, according to Rolling Stone, thinks Bud Light Lime is a great beer – is a resounding no.

Read more:

“The Runaway General” – Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone, June 8-22, 2010.

Stanley A. McChrystal’s Wikipedia bio.

“New Afghanistan Commander Ran Secret ‘Executive Assassination Ring’ Under Cheney”
– Tom Englehardt, TomDispatch.com, May 21, 2009, by way of The Huffington Post.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

June 18, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Hayward Ho, Joe Blows It, Michele’s Glow Dims and All That Glitters Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 4:37 am

– Why Ask Me? Thanks to Tony Hayward’s appearance before Congress, we now know the qualifications for a CEO of British Petroleum apparently are to be completely uninformed about your business and the details of the greatest man-made oil disaster in US history that your company caused. For maintaining this extraordinary level of blissful ignorance, Hayward was paid $4.7 million in salary last year. Note to BP: Seems like you could find someone just as empty above the neck for considerably less – I know several people looking for a job who know nothing about the oil business and would gladly accept $50K per annum to stay just as dumb as Tony.

– Speaking of Tony’s eye-rolling Congressional performance, crackpot Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton, coincidentally the recipient of at least $27,000 in campaign cash from Big Oil, took the occasion to dump on Obama for making sure BP paid for its disaster with a $20 billion escrow fund (which Joe hilariously called a ‘shakedown’) and then apologized to BP for any inconvenience the people of the US might have caused the oil giant by holding them responsible for destroying the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 Americans and ruining the lives of millions of others. President Obama may not have had his finest moment in his speech last Tuesday, but with the opposition spearheaded by half-baked corporate cheerleaders like Barton; Mississippi Gov. Haley “You Sure These Here Tar Balls Are From BP?” Barbour; Louisiana Gov. Bobby “I’m Against All Federal Bail-Outs Except When My State Needs One” Jindal; Alabama Gov. Bob “The Oil Will Never Reach Our Beaches” Riley and other GOP space cadets echoing the same forehead-slapping “Let’s not be so hard on BP” line, Obama looks like FDR in high-gear in comparison. The delusional, pop-eyed, tongue-lolling crazy GOP is committing suicide in the Gulf States; seems like the political opposition could take advantage of that by running ads simply showing what the various Republican pols have said in defense of the hated BP, especially Barton. (Just imagine the spittle-flecked furor on the right if a Democrat apologized to BP.) But, then, these are today’s Democrats who have made ‘bipartisanship’ with the lunatic Republicans their religion. FDR would not have approved. (Incidentally, GOP House Minority Leader John Boehner forced Barton to apologize for his BP apology; even the Ohio SunTanMan knew what a stench of electoral defeat Strokin’ Joe’s words left in their wake.)

– Speaking of losers, I think it’s a cinch that dipsy-doodle Republican wingnut Michele Bachmann will lose her bid for reelection in Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District. Given a strong Democratic challenger (for a change) and the embarrassment she’s caused to her constituents by her public bouts of delusional babbling, paranoid hysteria, and defense of BP’s unethical and destructive practices, she may very well be retired to a Fox News berth, or a sinecure as a lobbyist for the Focus on the Family’s Anti-Woman League.

– Gold Rush and Bust: For those who think buying gold will be a hedge against disaster if the economy melts down even further, keep in mind it is just a tradable commodity like corn, and actually worse than corn because at least corn is edible. Gold is a soft metal not good for much except jewelry and spacecraft and the price is high only because, for now, there are more buyers than sellers. However, if in the future the number of sellers exceeds the number of buyers, the price will plunge, which is exactly what I think will happen as things worsen. Although most economists think there’s no chance the price of gold will drop precipitously, these are some of the same seers who thought real estate values would perpetually increase. Unless you can find a way to eat it or wear it for warmth, investing in gold is just another junk bond scheme where the little guy will end up holding the bag. (Gold purveyors are now Glenn Beck’s primary sponsors – what does that tell you?) As John Kenneth Galbraith once said, “In economics, the majority is always wrong,” and Galbraith has been proven right, again and again.

BTW, those who favor a return to the gold standard for US currency don’t seem to realize that the price of gold is unstable and fluctuates daily and, therefore, so would the value of the dollar. Besides, the US doesn’t own enough gold to make this a viable notion.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

June 14, 2010

The Tattlesnake — The Alvin Greene Fraud (and More) Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:20 am

Just How Stupid Are South Carolina Republicans?

“I’m the Democratic Party nominee. I mean, I mean, the people have spoken. The people of South Carolina have spoken. The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina. The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina.”
– Alvin Greene, apparently accepting the Dem nomination for US Senate from South Carolina, as quoted by CommonDreams.org.

Did the South Carolina GOP really think they could sneak this poor hapless vet through without anyone noticing? Regardless of what the Bias-Belted Insider Punditocracy says, I think the SC GOP, including cynical rump-pimple Sen. Jim DeMint, are a lot more vulnerable than the Big Media Babblelonians realize. It’s the only reason the GOP dirty tricksters would try a lame stunt like this – what with the aftermath of the Mark Sanford scandal and the Republican-run state cratering economically mired in record unemployment, they’re getting desperate.

Sadly, 13-year military veteran Greene resembles an advanced PTSD case in the way he speaks and acts. He may also have a drinking or drug problem that needs servicing. Such people are easy to hornswoggle for money into buffoonish charades such as this. If the SC Republicans abused a brain-damaged vet this way, they should be boiled in BP’s Gulf oil. (They should anyway, but that’s another story.)

It shouldn’t be too hard to find out how an unemployed man who had declared himself indigent a couple of months ago came up with $10,400 to put his name on the ballot, didn’t spend a dime for anything else in his ‘campaign’ (even his t-shirt reads ‘Greene Family Reunion,’ although he wears it as if it had something to do with his senate run), and somehow won against an experienced former judge and state legislator, Vic Rawls, who actually went out and campaigned across the state. (Maybe it has to do with the fact that in SC Republicans can vote for Dem primary candidates, or the state’s easily-hacked, no-paper-trail touch screen voting equipment manufactured and installed by GOP-friendly companies.) This stinks of blatant election fraud and it would seem easy to prosecute the seamy GOP lowlife that is surely behind it.

Not only that, but SC Rep. Jim Clyburn’s Democratic primary opponent, a shit-grinning ‘bidnessman’ named Gregory Brown, supposedly spent $70K to challenge incumbent Clyburn. Curiously, more than a third of that money was paid for ‘marketing strategies’ to a firm owned by Preston Grisham, who worked as a special assistant and campaign manager for Republican Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Wilson up until November of 2009, and was flacking for two SC Republican candidates at the same time he was being paid by Brown. Move along, nothing to see here, stop connecting those dots.

Perhaps this is to be expected in a state that spawned the late Lee Atwater and his nasty and devious approach to political campaigning, but certainly Eric Holder’s DOJ can take action to charge those responsible for such obvious, and stupid, attempts at defrauding South Carolina voters – these were elections for federal office, after all.

Read more:

“Clyburn’s Dem Challenger Denies He’s A ‘Plant’ — But Hired GOP Rep.’s Aide”
– Christina Bellatoni and Justin Elliot, TPMMuckraker, June 11, 2010.

“Clyburn Alleges Conspiracy To Plant Candidates In Three Dem Primaries In S.C.”
– Christina Bellatoni, TPMMuckraker, June 10, 2010.

“The Alvin Greene Interviews; a TPMtv Original Video”

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

June 10, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Primary Post-Mortem Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 2:18 pm

“Dear Lord Jesus, I do not often speak with you and ask for things, but now, I really must insist that you help me win the election tomorrow because I deserve it and Paul Metzler doesn’t, as you well know. … I’m asking that you go that one last mile and make sure to put me in office where I belong so that I may carry out your will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.”
– Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) from the film classic “Election” (1999).

A quick rundown of the five most prominent primaries last Tuesday:

The DOA GOP

California:

US Senate: Creepy Republican Carly Fiorina is such a dimwit that Dem Sen. Barbara Boxer shouldn’t have much problem with her. All Barb has to do is run ads revealing that Carly’s idea of improving the American economy is shipping 13,000 jobs overseas, her record as one of the 20 worst CEOs in the country when she ran Hewlett-Packard, her flip-flop on cap and trade, and that squirrelly flub she made when supporting McCain for president in 2008 by saying (truthfully) that neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin were qualified to run a US corporation. Meanwhile, word is Carly’s gearing up ads to brand Boxer as a – gasp! – liberal Democrat, as if California voters didn’t already know that. Ms. Fiorina can be counted on to make at least one thoroughly ridiculous, out-of-touch, mind-numbingly dumb statement at some time during the campaign – she can’t help herself – and that will seal her fate. (She’s already fired some opening shots in that direction by carping about Barbara Boxer’s hairstyle as if she were in a high school catfight, and dumping on fellow CA Republican Meg Whitman for appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News laugh-a-thon.) Prediction: Bet on Boxer by a KO.

“There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation.”
– Carly Fiorina in 2004, telling American workers they should work for less, except herself, of course – she got a $20 million pay-off for resigning from HP after reducing the worth of their stock by half.

Governor: Speaking of Ms. Whitman, here’s what I know about eBay – three separate people I’ve met, unconnected to one another, have all had very bad experiences selling or buying items on eBay and will never use them again, and they were all enraged at the negligent treatment they received from the company in settling their complaints. That doesn’t augur well for any business and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman was in charge when these events happened. Meg just spent a record $80+ million to seize the Republican nomination for governor in the Golden State, which seems like an egregious waste of money since she’s bound to be the GOP sacrifice to Dem Jerry Brown. After years of the Republican Guffernator, whose poll numbers are now lower than Gray Davis’ when he was recalled, it seems Kalifornyuns are plumb tuckered out from the big business-small government-low taxes hoohah that has been Ahnuld Schwarzenfluffer’s theme song and that Whitman is now peddling. It’s worked so well that CA is an economic basket case, suffocating in massive debt and cutting needed services. Time for a change from the regressive buncombe. Prediction: Easy victory for Brown.

“We can’t impede progress in the name of environmental action that yields little for the environment and even less for our people … and we should look at the environment as an economic opportunity.”
– Meg Whitman. Yes, what an ‘economic opportunity’ the Gulf of Mexico has become thanks to lax ‘environmental action.’

(Side Note: What is it about these Republican women politicians? They all talk and act like none-too-bright Century 21 reps at a sales seminar. Could it be that all of the smart, accomplished women become Dems and the shiny-eyed Tracy Flicks go GOP? Certainly seems that way.)

Nevada:

US Senate: Okay, there’s no denying Dem Sen. Harry Reid is a horse’s ass, but he’s at least a generally rational horse’s ass, which cannot be said of his newly-minted Republican opponent and Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle.

Angle has hit all the Stations of the Cross in Wingnut Wackadelphia: She wants to get rid of Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare; advocated for more offshore oil drilling and further deregulation even after the BP Gulf disaster; drools to eliminate the EPA, the Dept. of Education, and get out of the U.N.; and she’s even revisited the reactionary-fringe past by opining that booze be banned along with the fluoridation of water. Angle is now desperately trying to play down how many nuts are in her fruitcake, but Reid should have a field day letting her own dopey words drag her to defeat. As lame as Reid may be, Nevadans are sick of Republican shenanigans and corruption – Gov. Jim Gibbons and Sen. John Ensign come to mind, to name just two – and they don’t need another glaring embarrassment like Angle in Washington, competing with Michele Bachmann for the Goofball of the Week prize. Prediction: Reid will coast to victory next November.

“We have oil reserves and petroleum reserves that we should tap into. And that’s a policy that we really need to look at as a nation. How do we deregulate enough to invite our industries to come back into the United States and quit outsourcing their business?”
– Sharron Angle on May 26, 2010, more than a month after the BP Gulf oil disaster began, as quoted by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line.

The DOA Dems

Arkansas:

US Senate: Your Tattlesnake called Bill Halter in the runoff by 5 points and was, obviously, wrong. Of course, I didn’t count on most of the polling places in districts friendly to Halter being closed by election officials with ties to his opponent — such as only 2 open out of 36 in Garland County – so that may have affected the final tally. Be that as it may, sitting Blue Dog Dem Sen. Blanche Lincoln is headed for doom in November – her campaign and an anonymous senior idiot at the White House who sounds suspiciously like Rahm Emanuel managed to gratuitously insult unions sufficiently that they will sit out the Arkansas vote. With no massive GOTV ground game, few moderate Dems enthusiastic about her reelection, and unions and progressives turning their backs on her in droves, Blanche is fixing to be blanched by a boiling landslide. No great loss – the Democrats need to shed backstabbers like Lincoln.

“Voters must have faith in the electoral process for our democracy to succeed.”
– Sen. Blanche Lincoln, apparently unconcerned about the AR primary runoff chicanery.

South Carolina:

Governor: Unless the lurid charges of hetero extramarital affairs and a lesbian tryst with, say, Wanda Sykes, turn out to be true, Republican Nikki Haley will be the next governor of SC. Maybe by the election cycle after that, the white-bread troglodytes who inhabit much of the state will learn how to read a calendar and realize it’s 2012 and not 1912. Still, a female governor of Sikh Indian ancestry, albeit one endorsed by McCain’s half-term wonder-thinker from Wasilla, is a slight improvement over most of the testicled louts that usually hold civic office in the steaming heap just south of the Tar Heel State, which may soon be known as the Tar Ball State, depending on the strength of the Loop Current from the Gulf.

No quote from Nikki Haley except to say that she agrees with her predecessor and endorser Gov. Mark Sanford’s neocon policies that have brought SC to the brink of ruin. Just guessing, but she probably doesn’t agree with him in the realm of personal conduct or trail hiking in the Appalachians.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

June 2, 2010

The Tattlesnake – The Bibi Tweak, the GOP Geek and the BP Leak Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:50 pm

– Does Not Compute:
If you believe the official Israeli government story regarding their boarding of those humanitarian aid ships that were bound for Gaza, Israeli commandos, thought to be among the toughest, best trained and equipped military outfits in the world, can be easily disarmed, beaten and stabbed by out-of-shape amateurs wielding metal rods. Either the Israeli commando force has turned into vanilla pudding or Netanyahu’s government is lying through its teeth regarding the events surrounding the deaths of at least nine aid workers aboard those ships. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is more believable.

– Old Soldiers (and Sailors) Never Lie, But They Do:
Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, who awarded himself a military citation, ‘Intelligence Officer of the Year,’ he never received and even boasted about it in Congress and in his official bio; and who also claimed on his website he was part of Bush’s Iraq invasion when he wasn’t, just lost the race for Barack Obama’s US Senate seat in Illinois. Well, that’s if his Dem opponent, Alexi Giannoulias has the nachos to run an ad showing Kirk blabbering on about the mythical citation and then citing the fact that Kirk just made it up, and pointing our as well that Kirk was really safely in Washington when he said he was serving in Iraq. The tagline: ‘How can you trust Kirk to represent you honestly when he can’t even honestly represent himself?’ Sure, the same can be said about Democrat Richard Blumenthal in CT who inflated his military record to service in Vietnam, and you can bet the GOP will be milking that for all it’s worth. (Side Note: Vets never forget where they served or what medals or citations they received, and they don’t ‘misspeak’ when discussing them. Kirk’s full of it when he says otherwise, and so is Blumenthal, for that matter. A pox on both of these cheesy military resume-bloaters!)

– The World Turned Upside Down:
MSNBC reported this afternoon (6/2) that crude oil has hit the barrier shores of Mississippi and Alabama – you know, the ‘safe areas’ according the BP — and west Florida is next. While BP CEO Tony Hayward continues making cringing pronouncements that would befit a ditzy Monty Python character – yes, Tony, those 11 people who were killed on your Deepwater Horizon rig would no doubt like their lives back, too, as well as the tens of thousands who depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods – watch for BP to declare bankruptcy soon and split up into several smaller companies. Bankruptcy means what’s left of BP will only be paying for a fraction, if any, of the cost of the clean-up and, regardless of Eric Holder’s tough prosecutor stance, there won’t be any senior BP execs heading for jail. (Most of them are in the UK and the Brits likely won’t extradite.) Uncle Sucker, that’s you and me fellow taxpayer, will get stuck with most of the tab and the generations of suffering that comes with it. I only hope our redneck friends down in the Gulf states get the hint and stop electing corrupt Big Oil-funded boobs to office; I hope the rest of us get the message that it’s time to get off the oil teat permanently and switch to renewable energy. Okay, and I want world peace and a flat belly by tomorrow, too.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

May 19, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Even Kids Know Bristol’s Bunkum Isn’t Worth 30K Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:53 am

“Bristol Palin will earn $30,000 per speech to talk about getting knocked up!”
– The Zeitgeisty Report, May 18, 2010.

Mom picked up her precocious 8-year-old daughter from school and, on the drive home, as was their custom, she told Mom how her day went.

About once a month, daughter’s teacher presented her class with the question, ‘If you could be anyone, who would you be and why?’ and that was the big event of this school day

“Oh,” Mom said pleasantly, “and who did you want to be?”

“Bristol Palin.”

For a fleeting instant, Mom fought back a strong urge to stop the car and throttle her progeny while cursing the kid’s pinheaded Republican grandfather on her father’s side. Instead, she asked calmly:

“Uh, do you mean Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol?”

Daughter toyed absentmindedly with a shoulder strap on her neon pink knapsack, “Yeah.”

“Why would you want to be Bristol Palin?”

“It said on the news she was going to get $30 thousand dollars a speech. She doesn’t know anything, so I thought I could get a hundred times that much for a speech ’cause I know more stuff now than she does and I won’t have to have a baby or hang around with her awful mother to get the job.”

Mom laughed, amused and relieved: At least her only daughter could always make a living as a stand-up comic.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

May 18, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Goodbye Specters of Doom Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:20 am

A Brief Breakdown of Today’s Most Notable Primaries

Pennsylvania Democratic Primary: One of the best political ads I’ve seen in some time is Rep. Joe Sestak’s spot featuring Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter admitting he changed parties solely to get reelected. The old lizard practically hisses when he snarls the word “reelected” and you could easily imagine his desiccated Dorian-Gray-on-the-easel face asking Eve if she wanted a bite of his apple. Mr. Magic Bullet Theory has shown himself time and again to be a coldly calculating old-line politician at heart, and now it’s caught up with him. The last polls I saw had Sestak and Specter running even, but I don’t think it will be that close – the solons of the Big Media (BM) Punditsphere don’t seem to have noticed that Arlen has no real Democratic constituency in PA, unless it’s 80-year-old vipers, and, contrary to Dem Gov. Ed Rendell’s public support, the Edster is not about to exercise his state political muscle to shoehorn a creature like Specter into office again, especially after Obama and Biden politely flipped Arlen off. I call it Sestak by 10 points. (Tip to Dems: Follow Sestak’s lead and run ads showing your GOP opponent making an ass of him or herself in their own words. They work.)

Arkansas Democratic Primary: Once again the BM has managed to miss the story here, as they did in Connecticut when Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in the Dem primary. As in Specter’s case, what was Lieberman’s core base of support? Wealthy insurance company execs, AIPAC and Republicans. Why would the GOP back Quisling Joe? Because they knew he was a closet Republican with electable name recognition who would help with their issues and screw up the Dem majority in the Senate. But this won’t happen down in Clintonland – sitting Dem. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, like Lieberman, has very narrow Dem support and none of it particularly enthusiastic, and the GOP hates her. On the other side, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter has the same kind of avid progressive ground game Lamont had in CT. It may not even be close but, if it goes to a run-off, Halter will win the day: He’s got the eager troops; Blanche has the establishment Dem coffee klatch. Halter by 5 points.

Kentucky Republican Primary: Let’s keep it short and sweet: A Libertarian who believes in legalizing drugs and ending our wars overseas, Rep. Ron Paul’s son Rand Paul, is about to beat the pants off of the official GOP-endorsed candidate, Trey Grayson. This election may be a heads-up ‘game changer’ with a long shadow – GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell’s KY machine is dead and a Red State is heaving toward purplish Libertarianism rather than Mitch’s grisly Bush Neoconnery. The bonus is that the always-wrong and unfailingly unpopular (except to the BM Punditocracy) Dick Cheney has wholeheartedly endorsed Grayson, the sure kiss of death. Paul by at least 10 points and probably much more.

Update, May 19, 2010: Here’s how I did:

Pennsylvania: Sestak beat Specter, but I didn’t cover the spread – Sestak won by only 9 points instead of 10.

Arkansas: Headed for a run-off with Halter and Lincoln neck-and-neck. I’ll stick with Halter by 5 points in the run-off.

Kentucky: Rand Paul walloped Trey Grayson by more than 20 points. Although this election is being framed by the BM Punditburo as a victory for the Tea Partiers, do they mean the original Ron Paul Libertarian tea partiers or the astroturf Dick Armey-Glenn Beck corporate Teabaggers? Methinks it’s the latter, and the BM has it wrong again.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

May 2, 2010

The Tattlesnake — Glenn Beck’s Greased Rail Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Quote — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 4:21 am

News Item: Glenn Beck Has Lost 1/3 of His TV Audience Since January

A Shame He’ll Miss Out on the Tar and Feathers

Unlike his semi-serious colleagues O’Reilly and Hannity, Beck was always just a babbling flash in the pan; a sideshow freak-out of raving, nearly incoherent right-wing outrage and contradictory conspiracy theories. He had to keep topping himself in craziness or risk boring his audience with deadly repetition. He’s now run out of ideas and gone with the latter, and his viewers are turning him off, so his only hope for a final ratings coup is to go out like a flaming comet with a total on-air screeching psychotic meltdown and then R&R at some luxurious mental rehab facility. But don’t fret for Beck – he’s made many more millions from his strange circus act than most legitimate clowns.

With his ratings dropping, nearly all of his A-line advertisers gone, and his goofy Prof. Irwin Corey and Howard Beal Meet Joe McCarthy routine growing stale, isn’t it high time for Uncle Rupert to show Glenn Beck the door?

“Let’s put Beck’s ratings into context. Yes, in the world of cable news, his numbers are impressive, and virtually any host would be happy to have them. But look how far Glenn Beck has fallen recently. In late January and into February, the program was averaging 3 million viewers each week. And late last year, the show spent month after month flirting with that figure. Today, the viewership is trending around 2 million (Last week it was exactly 2.01 million viewers.) — which means that in a span of just three months, Glenn Beck has lost nearly one-third of its television audience.” […]
“Corporate America (aka the beloved free marketplace) wants nothing to do with Beck. … Today, there are less than a handful of nationally recognized advertisers who appear willing to purchase air time on Glenn Beck. Think about the deep, deep discounts Fox News likely has to offer the remaining advertisers in order to get them to come aboard. (And the show is supposed to be a hit.) Now add to that equation the fact that Glenn Beck has lost 1/3 of its audience since January, and you can see where this is heading for Fox News.
“How soft are Beck’s current ratings? He’s now posting the type of numbers that his show used to get when he was on vacation and somebody less famous stood in for him, like when he took a few days off in late March and his show averaged 1.9 million viewers. Beck’s been back from his March vacation for weeks now, but his ratings are roughly the same as when he wasn’t even there.”
– Eric Boehlert, “Glenn Beck Has Lost 1/3 of Its TV Audience Since January,” Media Matters, April 20, 2010.

Prediction: Beck will be off of Fox News before 2011.

April 15, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Word on the Street Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 9:19 am

In the spirit of the late Mike Royko’s Slats Grobnik, here are comments from the unFoxed Vox Populi:

– L.A. Mike, who was born and lived in Los Angeles for most of his life, on the Republicans paying $2K for simulated lesbian bondage at the Voyeur Club:

“What wrong with those dudes? It’s really stupid. For half that price in L.A. you could rent a motel room, hire a couple of hookers, see the same show up close and join in if you felt like it. You’d even have enough left for a bottle of some primo liquor. That’s really a stupid waste of money.”

– V.J., a small business owner for over 20 years, on Obama’s tax plan:

“I’m a middle-class small business owner and everybody was telling me, ‘watch out, Obama’s gonna raise your taxes!’ I just got my tax forms back from my accountant and I’m paying $800 less this year than last, and he specifically said it was thanks to two deductions Obama put through. If this is Obama’s big tax increase for the middle-class, keep it coming!”

– Anna, who worked in state government for 20 years, on Sarah Palin:

“I don’t get it – how do you quit as governor and then pass yourself off as a winner? How do you tell other families to practice abstinence when your own kid gets pregnant when she’s underage? Why does anybody take her seriously?”

– Al, who worked at a mail order firm, on the ruthless corporate culture:

“Worked at the same job for 12 years. We heard the rumor that company was being sold, but my boss, the owner of the company, looked me straight in the eye and told me he’d never sell and I’d always have a job there. Six months later we’re all fired and the owner makes off with a fortune from selling the company. I asked one of the ladies in accounting what happened – the S.O.B. was in the process of selling the company the very day he told me that B.S. that he’d never sell! The lady said he lied because he didn’t want people quitting to take other jobs before the new owner took over – wanted to squeeze every dime out of the place, even if it left us flat. He lied to my face and I thought this man was my friend!”

– Vernon, who managed an office for 10 years, talks about Michael Steele’s RNC spending:

“I’ll tell you this: If I had been charging anything from Tiffany’s or the liquor store to ‘office supplies,’ and I had approved an expenditure of a couple grand to a strip club, there would have been about two minutes before I was fired and out on the street. I don’t know how he gets away with it.”

– Lily, a waitress at an upscale restaurant, on GOP tax cuts:

“Why doesn’t the media ever call these guys out? They get up there, these Republicans, always talking about tax cuts and they’re rich as fuck! Sure, they want tax cuts – for themselves! Yeah, I got my little piddley-ass tax cut from Bush, and the price of everything went up, including my state taxes, so I went way further in the hole. They really treat us like we’re too dumb to know what they’re doing. Fuckers!”

– Rory, who once worked at a mental health facility, on the Teabaggers:

“These people must all have Alzheimer’s like Reagan. They don’t remember we had big deficits and big government under Republicans since Reagan? They don’t remember Reagan bailed out the savings and loans in the 1980s? I didn’t see them out there screaming and yelling then. They think the shitty economy started under Obama? Give me a break. They just hate him cause he’s black. These tea party people should go to their doctors and be tested for Alzheimer’s – they’ve definitely lost it. I mean if they can afford a head doctor on their fixed incomes — oh, wait a sec, Medicare will pay for that, so they’re covered!”

April 4, 2010

The Tattlesnake — The Teabaggers Should Thank Liberals Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Toon — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 1:24 am

Aging Tea Partiers a Jaw-Dropping Example of Stupidity and Ingratitude

“It’s the same with narrow-minded people as it is with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.”
– Anonymous, from Planet Proctor 2010-7.

Most of the gray-haired Teabaggers are snapping, snarling and filled with rage but, like a dog driven mad by rabies, they are mindless in their wrath and blinded by their disease. They should stop and think who they have to thank for that Social Security check they receive at the beginning of every month. (Hint: it’s not the pretentious pecksniffs of the faux-populist GOP or the bedeviled bellowers of the Right-Wing Noise Machine they so assiduously follow.)

Steve Benen’s piece below is consistent with my own anecdotal exposure to the Teabaggers – they are mainly retired whites who watch Fox News and then gripe bitterly about the government from the comfort of their La-Z-Boy loungers while they collect their Social Security checks, pay their doctor bills via Medicare, and take advantage of housing and other discounts for seniors subsidized by the taxpayer. Many are also ex-military and not only received a government check while they were on active duty, but live off vets benefits provided by the government they despise. They especially loathe the evil liberals who proposed and passed that legislation so that they wouldn’t be eating out of garbage cans, dependent on their children, or dying in poor houses in their old age. All of the things that provide them a relatively comfortable and independent life in retirement were vehemently opposed by conservatives in the past, and the cynical Talk Show Hosts and crass Republican Politicians they currently worship would be against every single ‘socialist’ program – Social Security, Medicare, etc. — that keeps them going were it presented for a vote in Congress today.

Instead of hating liberals, they should be thanking them. Theirs is arguably the most colossal case of ingratitude in American history, and they should be ashamed of themselves rather than enraged.

Unaware of the Contradiction

Steve Benen
Political Animal
The Washington Monthly
March 28, 2010

There’s an old joke that goes something like this: my neighbor went to public schools before joining the military. He went to college on the G.I. Bill, bought his first home through the FHA, and received his health care through the V.A. and Medicare. He now receives Social Security.

He’s a conservative because he wants to get the government off his back.

I mention the joke because a surprising number of right-wing activists don’t seem to appreciate the humor. We talked the other day, for example, about a radical libertarian activist who encourages his allies to throw bricks through the windows of Democratic offices to protest the Affordable Care Act. He hates government involvement in the lives of citizens — but his main income is taxpayer-financed disability checks sent to him every month by the federal government.

This is not uncommon. The NYT reports today on some of the well-intention[ed] folks who’ve been caught up in the Tea Party nonsense. Take Tom Grimes, for example.

(more…)

March 27, 2010

The Tattlesnake – What Would They Have to Say? Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 4:07 am

What would the right-wing bloviators have to babble before their core audiences said, “that’s over the line”?

Would Rush Limbaugh have to say: “Why should some poor working stiff nobody cares about have the same vote as me? I’m an important, influential multi-millionaire who owns a $44 million estate in Florida with 5 swimming pools and a $14 million apartment in New York City and yet I only get a single vote. That’s wrong. I’m rich, so naturally I’m better than you, so I should get something like 100,000 votes to the single vote of some dumb middle-class slob, like the idiots who listen to my show! That’s only fair! For that matter, why should some dope who makes below a million per even get a vote?”

Would Glenn Beck have to say: “We have to get rid of these evil progressive programs like Social Security and Medicare. If grandma and grandpa are poor or sick and dying, well, they’ve had a good life – let them die or kill themselves and get out of the way to make room for the future! Why should my tax money go to keep your grandparents alive? That’s communist socialism, folks, and we can’t have it here in the free-market capitalist Christian America I love! Hey, it’s a fact: Jesus hated the poor and loved the rich – just like me! If you aren’t rich then your proper place is to be a slave and do what you’re told by those who are – it says so in the Bible and the Constitution if you read them right!”

Would Bill O’Reilly have to say: “I don’t care, frankly, if I’m completely wrong about some historical event, if it helps me make my point. As long as I believe it and you believe it, who cares? I’m not some wimpy historian and I’m not in the business of telling you the truth. I mold opinions, even if they are usually based on pure crap I make up or something my employers tell me to say for political reasons. Facts are vastly overrated; it’s faith and ratings that count!”

Would Sean Hannity have to say: “Sure, I lied about where those donations to my college fund for the kids of dead veterans were going; it’s true, only about ten percent actually went to the families of military personnel killed overseas. So? I have a high-overhead life, folks, and I’m sure if those dead peasants – uh – vets were alive to say it, they’d tell you that they’d want your donations to go to keeping me and my family traveling in style. C’mon, I’m a TV star – these guys were little nobody’s! What, am I supposed to fly Business Class or even – ack! – Coach for this friggin’ charity? What are you, nuts?!? I’m a Republican – I’m in it for the money, people!”

Would Michael Savage have to say: “You know why I’m doing this, my friends? Because I failed at being a hippy-dippy herbal medicine and homeopathic healing book author. That’s right, I was as liberal as they come back then and called myself ‘Dr. Michael Weiner,’ but I couldn’t rub two dimes together. Ha, ha, I swam naked with homo beat poet Allen Ginsberg – did you know that? Then I noticed all the loot Limbaugh was raking in from you ultra-conservative bozos and jumped on the gravy train. So I changed my name and thought up the most outrageous, disgusting political stuff I could and here I am – rich and almost king of the hill! I don’t believe a word I say but I get a damn good laugh that you do! Hey, and I voted for Obama! Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

Would Neal Boortz have to say: “My fellow patriots, I have a lovely family, but you know what really gets me off? Sex with animals, particularly sheep. There’s nothing like a warm sheep to keep you company at night – why, I’ve even installed a small stable on the second floor of my mansion just to be near Maizie, one of my special favorites. It’s okay, my wife understands completely – I’ve even introduced her to a very handsome horse named Oater to see if she’d like to ‘go for a ride,’ if you know what I mean.”

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

March 17, 2010

The Tattlesnake — Erin Go Braless Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 3:43 pm

Some ‘Green Day’ factoids and toasts in honor of me late grandmother who, like Guinness stout, Harp lager, and G.B. Shaw, was a great Irish export.

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

Five Factoids About St. Patrick’s Day

1. St. Patrick’s real name was Patricius, and historians believe he was born in either Wales or Scotland.

2. The original color associated with St. Paddy’s day was blue instead of green.

3. St. Patrick’s Day was alcohol-free holiday in Ireland until the mid-1970s.

4. The shamrock was intended by St. Patrick to signify the Holy Trinity, not the luck of the Irish. He also created the Celtic cross, which is a combination of pagan and Christian symbols.

5. A pint of Guinness Stout, a staple of Irish drinkers on St. Paddy’s Day, has fewer calories than a pint of low-fat milk or orange juice.

A Random Sampling of Irish Toasts (for anyone who’s toasted to use):

Here’s to health,
fitness and tone
I’ve drank to health
So many times
I’ve managed to
ruin my own.

May we get what we want,
May we get what we need,
But may we never get what we deserve.

In all this world, I do think
There are five good reasons why we drink:
Good friends,
Good luck,
Good times,
And lest we be dry,
And any other reason why.

May the winds of fortune caress you,
May you sail a gentle sea.
May it always be the other guy
who says, “this drink’s on me.”

Here’s to cheating, lying, stealing, fighting, and drinking:
If you cheat, may you cheat death;
If you lie, may you lie on a loved one’s breast;
If you steal, may you steal another’s heart;
If you fight, may you fight for what’s right, brother;
And if you drink, may you always drink
With friends and none other.

Though you may be a scoundrel
And a sinner times seven
May you get lost on your way to hell
And end up in heaven.

BTW, think corned beef and cabbage is a traditional Irish dish? Cabbage, yes, but corned beef is English. Read below.

(more…)

March 13, 2010

The Tattlesnake – The Texas School Book Suppository and the Mississippi Prom Queen Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:05 am

Your Tattlesnake admits to being slightly gobsmacked by reading the news lately. First, we have the regressive far-right clodhoppers down in the Lone Star Beer State rewriting the school textbooks for the entire country, inserting such gems as eliminating any reference to the history of institutional racism in America (slavery never existed?); praising Confederate generalship (they lost the war, remember?); invoking Moses as an inspiration for the Constitution, while practically ignoring Jefferson, Franklin, the Age of Enlightenment, and the reasons for the separation of church and state; disregarding the Mexicans who died alongside Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett defending the Alamo; promoting the jingoistic myth of ‘American exceptionalism’ and the non-existent ‘free market economy’; and even peevishly describing our form of government as a “Constitutional Republic” rather than the “Democratic Republic” it has been called since our founding because, you know, any phrase containing the word “Democrat” has to be inherently evil and unpatriotic. No doubt even some Creationist buffoonery is included for the comic relief of the smarter students.

How did a bunch of piss-drunk mouth breathers, psychotic snake shooters and half-assed Holy Rollers who would install an empty-headed slouch like Junior Bush as their governor and follow him with a vain numbskull like Rick Perry ever get such clout? Well, one thing’s for sure – you’ll never get the answer to that question from one of their ‘abridged-for-stupidity’ textbooks.

I feel sorry for our kids – even more than in previous generations they are being batter-dipped and deep-fried in a vat of convoluted hooey by a bunch of uneducated, narrow-minded yahoos who think faith equates to knowledge and facts are as malleable as a pile of fresh horse manure. Third-world country, here we come.

Conversely, down in the fetid armpit of poverty-row Dark Ages America, in the homophobe paradise of Fulton, Mississippi, a lesbian teenager is suing the local school for not allowing her to bring her gal pal as a prom date – in fact, the authorities cancelled the whole damn prom rather than permit such twenty-first century San Francisco-style perfidy to undermine the town’s Taliban morality.

As the lesbian teen in question, 18-year-old Constance McMillen, told CBS’ News, “I explained to him that you can’t pretend like there’s not gay people at our school, and if you tell people they can’t bring [a] same-sex date, that is discrimination to them.”

Wait a minute, putting aside Constance’s prom problem, she’s saying there are openly gay people in Missi-fracking-ssippi? When was the last time you heard anyone living in mushmouth Haley Barbour’s Stinking State of ‘Grace’ (or is that ‘grease’?) admit they were gay, especially a high school kid? Why, shut my mouth and call me Foghorn!

Who knows, maybe the students forced to read that skunky rot passed off as a textbook by the Texas tyrants are smarter than we think and will laugh it off; perhaps times are moving forward faster than the howling hordes of retrograde simpletons can change, no matter what they do. There may be hope yet, even in the last-to-know, slow-flowing mud of Mississippi, always packed with crackers and nuts and, now – will wonders never cease? — some openly gay folks as well.

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

February 25, 2010

The Tattlesnake – CPAC Proof GOP is Still Doomed Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:33 am

CPAC’s Corporate Mythmakers and True Believers Headed for a Hard Fall

“Con artists have a word for the inability of their victims to accept that they’ve been scammed. They call it the ‘True Believer Syndrome.’”
– Matt Taibbi, “Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle,” Rolling Stone, Feb. 21, 2010.

You know you’re in trouble when your keynote speaker is Glenn Beck, the current Dancing Bear of the Fox Evening Zoo and promulgator of preposterous pompous carnival-clown revisionism of everything from the political thinking of progressive Tom Paine to the nature of Marxism. (Well, at least he left the cry-eye Vick’s VapoRub in the dressing room for this event.) Beck, like the rest of the Fox News team, seems to delight in unapologetically getting it wrong, time after time, and he knows his fans never read such authors as Paine or Karl Marx so, with skillful editing, ventriloquist Glenn can plant whatever Bizarro World ideas he desires in the mouths of the departed and defenseless. The most dedicated inhabitants of TV’s Beckistan no doubt reject the proof of their own eyes and ears when confronted with any reality that veers from the Ringmaster’s teachings, as any mind-locked True Believer does. It’s a matter of faith — in a Republican Jesus, or Roger Ailes’ political ads disguised as news, or Frank Luntz’s fright-laden euphemisms, or a former beauty queen turned half-term governor from Alaska. It’s amazing that they wave the flag of freedom so strenuously – they apparently only want the freedom to follow a leader, and down the narrowest of ideological paths, at that.

Speaking of Gov. Mrs. Palin, she was not in appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference; not only could the organizers not meet her hefty price for speechifying, but she perhaps discerned, with the dumb canniness sometimes given to the vapid, that she wouldn’t be welcome in a crowd that voted Mitt Romney first in their last three presidential straw polls.

And then there’s the bright-eyed Romney himself; like most of his party, the former Massachusetts governor stopped making any consistent and coherent sense long ago; his speeches are now grab-bags of memorized GOP Talking Points and anti-Obama crowd-pleasers, but he has mostly refrained from the cringe-inducing personal vignettes such as tying incontinent pets to the roof of the family ride for a jaunt on the open highway or his Milquetoast macho-man exploits of gunning down small rodents with a hunting rifle. The things most people would be embarrassed to admit, Mitt banters about airily with a male model’s manly grin, which I guess proves he is a Republican to his core.

And speaking of core Republicans, we have Mr. Cheney, Richard the Lyin’-Hearted, a man with no intelligence or military experience (an appointment as Secretary of Defense does not make one an expert on interrogation or confinement), who openly boasts that his unconstitutional torture program worked, believes he competently handled his role as White House counter-terrorism chief prior to 9/11, and has a long, clanking string of wrongheaded predictions following him like a trail of empty cans tied to a cat’s tail. Cheney is arguably the most disliked politician in America, but in the upside-down world of CPAC, he is a national champion and was greeted with the garlands of approbation by the assembled worshippers in Washington that he once erroneously said would be thrown at our troops in Iraq. Perhaps as a sign of how far out in the ozone the gathered Republicans and their neoconservative cohorts orbit, many lustily cheered a Cheney run for president in 2012; Bush’s superordinate vice president had enough sense to tease and then quickly squelch that notion and spare himself the humiliation of a 50-state landslide victory for President Obama.

Cheney, on cue, availed himself of the opportunity to produce another of his wacky spells of side-splitting clairvoyance – the Republicans would be resurgent in 2010 and Obama would be a one-term president. With his shot-in-the-face record of the exact opposite happening, you’d think he’d bury his cloudy crystal ball and stop making an ass of himself in this way but, then, you don’t know Dick – he seems to thrive on being wrong and then denying it. Regardless of the Beltway Conventional Wisdom, three races where the Republican won against miserable Dem candidates does not make a trend and, as the overworked Cocktail Party Punditocracy cliché goes, “in politics, a month is like a year.” With Cheney’s smug regurgitation of this trite BCW on the glowing prospects for Republicans this year, it’s bankable that it won’t be quite as bad a year for the Democrats as the GOP would like it to be. And defeating Obama in 2012? Perhaps Dick should have a candidate in mind first to complete that task – none of the current GOP front-runners would come anywhere near to pushing Obama out of the presidency except Ron Paul, and Cheney and the GOP elite loathe him.

(more…)

February 22, 2010

The Tattlesnake – In Defense of Tiger Woods (Sort of) Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 10:07 am

The Abridged Tiger Woods Apology Speech, After a Quick Spray with the Truth Ray

TIGER WOODS: “Hello to you all. I am here to publicly apologize for cheating on my wife Elin with other women. (Why am I apologizing to the public? I didn’t cheat on them. Oh, right, kids look up to me as a role model. Kids are watching golf now? Jeez, can’t they look up to someone besides a golfer as a role model? Basketball players, baseball players, football players … okay, never mind.)

“While my publicist and marketing people actually wrote these words, I can assure you they come straight from my heart. (And a billion dollars a year in endorsements.)

“In a sane world, I could just be respected as a great golfer and my private life would be my own business, but you self-righteous hypocrites in the media and you sex-starved moralists in the celebrity-obsessed public need some cheesy scandal to drool over, and right now it’s me. (Why don’t you all get a life?) You know, you don’t make rock stars and movie idols apologize like this – at least I haven’t seen Mick Jagger or Warren Beatty pestered endlessly for cheating on their wives, but then I guess you can’t play golf and then pose with a car or disposable razor unless you have a spotless personal life. Hey, why don’t you ask the CEOs of the corporations that pay me for endorsements to publicly apologize for their marital infidelities? Oh, right, they aren’t celebrities. Besides, many of you in the media pull a paycheck from one of those corporations. What amazing courage.

“Okay, sorry, I was told by my handlers not to go off script. So, here, I’m just apologizing all over myself for being a kid and young man who never had much of a life outside golf, with a Domineering Stage Father who forced me to practice all the time so that I could fulfill all of his unrealized dreams, and once I was out from under his influence I went nuts and took advantage of my fame and got laid as often as I could. Every honest man listening to me, if they had grown up the way I did, would have done the same thing. Most of you men would do the same thing even without having a Domineering Stage Father, if you had the chance, especially you sportswriters.

“You know who really owes the public an apology: The media vultures covering this story by obsessing on every minute detail of my personal life. Maybe you should try spending the same amount of time on explaining things to the public that really affects their lives – like health care reform, and the growing power of corporations over our lives, and the reality of war, and who’s lying about what in Washington. Oh, but that’s too controversial; instead you pick the safe route – go after the golfer. You know, it’s not going to put a penny in the public’s pocket, or make their lives one bit better if I apologize, but here it is, for what it’s worth:

“I apologize completely for anything in my private life that might have ever offended anyone. But I know this mea culpa won’t be the end — my bones haven’t been picked entirely clean yet.

“Just to sum up, my adulterous dalliances outside of my marriage, and any apologies I make for them, as I’ve said, really aren’t and shouldn’t be important except to those close to me. The only important thing about this story is how much valuable airtime and empty words of fake outrage the mainstream media are willing to waste to pursue the sordid details of my private life. Let me reiterate: For that, I don’t owe you an apology – they do.”

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

February 10, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Once Again, Jon Stewart Shows the BM How It’s Done Edition

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:33 pm

Good on Jon Stewart for showing the ‘political infotainment’ arm of the Big Media, once again, how to do their jobs. Last night on The Daily Show, Stewart’s guest was Newt “Like The Reptile” Gingrich and they were discussing trying terrorist suspects under American criminal law. Newt claimed that the ‘Christmas Underwear Bomber,’ Umar Abdulmutallab, shouldn’t be tried in a U.S. court and had no rights since he wasn’t an American citizen. (Not true, incidentally — even foreign nationals have rights when charged with a crime in our country, but a topic for another time.)

At any rate, Stewart sensibly countered that the ‘Shoe Bomber’ Richard Reid was tried and convicted by the Bush Administration in an American courtroom and then Newtie, as usual, blatantly lied to make his point – he said Reid was a U.S. citizen and Abdulmutallab was not. Stewart let it pass as I yelled in futility at the TV, “Bullshit, Reid was a British subject!”

Following the commercial break, however, after the interview had ended, Stewart came back on to say his staff had checked and Reid was not an American citizen but a British national. This was a simple, unbiased fact, and it made Gingrich look like the horse’s ass he is and laid bare his lame argument to the light of day. If every ‘real’ news show adopted this practice of fact-checking guests and informing the audience where they lied during the show, not only would it better serve the news consumer and the country, but it would have the side benefit of keeping politicians honest – if pols knew that at the end of the show (ideally accompanied by a crawl across the bottom of the screen), their falsehoods would be exposed they might become more circumspect in their habitual dishonesty. BTW, I also think would be good for ratings.

Of course, this will never happen on Fox News, if only because 45-minutes of each hour would be taken up correcting the lies of the first fifteen minutes, and most of the other networks would shy away since it would cost them ‘access’ to prominent politicians, not to mention discomfit their corporate bosses, but just think – no more Republicans spreading fraud on national TV and fewer quisling Democrats trying to justify their cowardice! No doubt this measure would pass by a massive majority if subjected to a national referendum.

Since that’s not going to happen, all you can do is write or call your favorite media outlet and refer them to Jon Stewart’s interview with Newt Gingrich on Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010, but don’t expect miracles – the BM will likely change the same day Newtie the Lizard bangs the drum for universal single-payer health care.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/newt-gingrich-lies-jon-stewart-claim

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress