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May 11, 2009

The Tattlesnake – I Heard It Through the Grapevine Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 12:48 pm

There’s nothing more reliable than anonymously-sourced comments, as readers of the NY Times well know…

Item 1. “Here’s the way it worked in the GOP when Bush Junior was in office: If some Republican senator or representative threatened to vote against the White House on an important issue, they’d get ‘The Call,’ which went something like: ‘Okay, you vote any way you want but, when you’re up for re-election, don’t count on any help from the RNC, and we’re gonna call the big money donors to the party and tell them to take you off the list. Oh, and we’re also gonna run a heavyweight Republican against you in the primary, so you may not even get to run for re-election. So, you go on and cast your vote however you want.’ You could count the number of Republicans who crossed the line on one hand. I don’t understand why the Democrats can’t do this with the Conserva-Dems.”

Item 2. “These big biotech companies like Monsanto have labs down in Mexico that experiment on all kinds of weird sci-fi stuff they couldn’t get away with in the States. This new Swine Flu virus – H1N1 — is some kind of mutant combo of bird flu, swine flu and a human flu. How did those three get together naturally? If one of these weirdo genetic combos got loose outside the lab and started making people sick, you really believe in your wildest dreams that Monsanto or whoever is going to fess up and say ‘Whoops – our bad! We goofed and this genetically-altered mutant virus we created got loose!’ Sure — the billions in lawsuits and bad PR would bury them.”

Item 3. “Arlen Specter’s dreaming if he thinks he’s going to win the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Off-year primaries are where the real party faithful vote and some of these folks still remember when Specter jumped from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1965, and they’re still pissed about it. Any credible Democrat could beat him. Hell, Chris Matthews could beat him. Specter could maybe save his bacon if he became a real progressive Democrat, but he’s already shown he’s not going there. Obama and [PA Gov. Ed] Rendell will say a few good words about him, but that’s not going to save him. That old man’s living in a fairyland. His ass is astroturf in 2010, in my opinion.”

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May 6, 2009

New Republicans Still Going to the Devil

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Quote,Toon — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:10 pm

‘New Ideas’ Mitt Romney distorts American history for fun and profit…

cartoon-mitt-satan

** Actual quote from Mitt Romney babbling BS in public at the GOP-Lite National Council for a New America ‘town hall listening tour’ at a pizza place in Northern Virginia, May 2, 2009, as quoted by CNN.

Brief history lesson: During the Revolutionary War the American Tories, the conservatives of their day, sided with the British; the rebels were the progressive liberals who wanted to break from King George III and bring an independent nation founded on the principles of freedom to the colonies, where no one was above the law. The Unitary Executive theory, which essentially makes the American president a monarch unaccountable to the laws of the land, is an invention of the Republican right-wing, not the Democrats.

“That new study indicating that conservatives might not quite understand that Stephen Colbert’s wingnut rants are devastating mockery rings true. Because not understanding isn’t just a failure to get the joke, it’s a defense mechanism: Without a certain level of cluelessness, the whole party would be knocking around in an unstatesmanlike manner, blurting, ‘My God, what have I done?’ Isn’t it simpler to insist, as Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe does, that Arlen Specter’s flight from the GOP is exactly what the party needs to regain control of both the House and the Senate? ‘This is the first visible evidence that what happened in 1993 is happening again now,’ Inhofe told Fox News, sounding like Caligula claiming that treasure chests of seashells were his tribute from Neptune for defeating the sea.”
[…]
“The sad fact is, fidelity to a Lost Cause valorizes you, it imitates honor. So the Republican Party isn’t about greed or power or any base selfishness; rather, it’s about nobly committing to something larger than itself–ending abortion, spreading democracy by force, saving Terri Schiavo, or, as of late, saving the GOP itself from knowledge of itself. Never mind that none of those commitments is remotely achievable, even the last.

“For the kingdom of Lost Cause Republicans is not of this world. This world is corrupt and fallen. But there is another world where all of our desires, be they sleeping with 72 virgins or living tax-free, will be fulfilled, and heavenly justice will prevail.”
– Leslie Savan, “GOP Has Hit the Dead-End of Politics: Who’s Going to Buy Their Fear and Hysteria?” TheNation.com, May 5, 2009.

April 30, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Rep. Hoot, Sen. Smalley and the Fox Swine Crew Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:50 am

The Harder They Fall…

What a Hoot: As Keith Olbermann reported Wednesday night, perpetually-insane Minnesota comediatrix Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Daft) brought the funny the other day when she took to the House floor to condemn Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Dems for the ‘Hoot-Smalley Act’ of the Great Depression era. While you can never be sure when dealing with a dingbat like Bachmann, who apparently stole her blank eyeballs from a crazy doll in “Bride of Chucky“, she probably meant the ‘Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act‘ that was sponsored by two Republicans, and signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover in 1930. In reality, FDR campaigned against the act in 1932, and a Dem majority in Congress effectively repealed Smoot-Hawley in 1934 with the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, but in Michele’s loopy-dumb, wish-I-had-a-brain, far-right universe facts are a liberal, commie plot invented by the Devil to trip up those patriotically lying in the name of Jesus. If you’re a sane Republican (okay, that would be confined to ex-McCain manager Steve Schmidt and Sen. Olympia Snowe) you know that Bachmann’s Sixth District is already in the ‘D’ column in 2010 (she nearly lost to an unknown children’s book character named Elwyn Tinklenberg in ’08), and that you must find a legal means to (a) shut this woman up before she further damages what’s left of your party and (b) prevent her from running for president or vice president in 2012. (The vision of a ‘Palin-Bachmann 2012′ ticket privately induces dyspeptic nightmares of an LBJ/Goldwater electoral slaughter among GOP bigwigs.) Of course, it may be too late – the GOP brand is so tainted that if you jettisoned all of the dotty Dittoheads, nattering neocons, tone-deaf teabaggers, putrid Palinites, raging racists, Savage Nation neo-Nazis, fatuous Freepers, flaming fully-automatic gun nuts and kinky religious kooks, you could assemble what’s left of the party in a Washington hotel ballroom with space to spare for a trained elephant act. (For more on this, read the last two items in this article.)

He’s Good Enough, He’s Smart Enough and Doggone It, the People Liked Him! Speaking of Minnesota, the drab electoral Death March of Numb Norm Coleman, the Republican Sore Loser, received a little spark of life thanks to the wily minds in Al Franken’s

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April 28, 2009

The Fox and the Hare-Brained

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Toon — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:40 am

cartoon-fox-news-ad

March 31, 2009

And Don’t Forget to Use a Condom

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Toon — Tags: , , , , , — RS Janes @ 4:57 am

cartoon_my_date_1

March 29, 2009

The Tattlesnake – GOP: Road to the Nut House Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Quote — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:27 pm

Conservative Christopublican Michele Bachmann Offends American History By Quoting Liberal Deist Thomas Jefferson

Descending into obscurity, bereft of leadership, and driven to distraction by Obama’s cool, the fading Republican Party has opened yet another can of crackpot and let it pour over the religiously bewitched and acutely ignorant leftovers of nasty Nixonism, regressive Reaganism and bumbling Bushism.

Joining the cranky ranks of Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Mike Pence, John Boehner and all of the other daft neocons needing professional help, the new can in question is boiling-over-the-top-crazy Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who barely won reelection in 2008 over an obscure Tolkien character named, no kidding, Elwyn Tinklenberg. No offense to poor old Elwyn, but Tinklenberg is a politician like Limbaugh is a neurosurgeon.

Bachmann’s fringe-right dementedness is nothing new for her, as the excellent Dump Bachmann blog has archived, just not yet exposed to a national audience. In fact, Michele’s been in the forefront of every extreme Christopublican-corporatist nutcase movement since she was in the MN state legislature. In her Jesuitic devotion to the poor, she vehemently opposed any increase in the minimum wage, saying in January of 2005: “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage … we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would able to offer jobs at whatever level.” (No doubt she did not mean this to include Minnesota Congresswomen, nor any member of their immediate families.)

She has also been a stern Old Testament foe of all things gay, as this quote from a 2004 interview on a Minnesota radio program called “Prophetic Views Behind The News” highlights: “This is a very serious matter [homosexuality], because it is our children who are the prize for this community, they are specifically targeting our children.” (The gay is comin’ ta get ya!)

But just so the reader doesn’t think this might have been a singular anti-gay eruption elicited by one too many cocktails, there are also these tidbits from something called the ‘EdWatch National Education Conference’ in November 2004: “If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” (As opposed to the bondage, despair and enslavement to corporate kindness caused by the lack of a minimum wage.) At the same venue, she took the hatchet to companies that neglected to contribute to her campaign fund, “They aren’t just kind of gay-friendly, they are gay advocates at Proctor and Gamble… Here’s just a few other companies that support the pro-homosexual agenda. They include Levi-Strauss, American Airlines, Sara Lee Bakery, Jaguar and Land Rover.” (“Sara Lee – Their Delicious Cakes Will Make You Gay!”)

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February 6, 2009

The Tattlesnake – The Dying of the Right Part Deux Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 8:09 am

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you concentrate on.”
– George W. Bush

“It is the tragedy of the world that no one knows what he doesn’t know — and the less a man knows, the more sure he is that he knows everything.”
– Joyce Cary

Larry (not his real name) pretty much confirms what many of us already suspected about the “I hope he fails” crowd. After years of taking public surveys, Lar developed this scientific rule of thumb, which can be stated thusly: “Twenty percent of the American people are utter freaking morons.” To put it another way, about two out of ten knew such tidbits as all or most of the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment, the names of their two senators, in what century the Second World War was fought, who LBJ was and what his initials stood for, and how old the United States is; six of ten knew at least one senator, and managed to get more than half of the American history/political questions correct; two out of ten, meanwhile, barely knew what century they were living in and were hard put to name the kind of skin used to make a bear skin rug. Guess what political party and ideology was embraced by 90 percent of the bottom-feeding twenty percent, and who their favorite radio talk show host was?

Speaking of Rush Limbaugh, I heard the other day that the three most well-known Republicans in the nation were Maj. Anal Cyst, Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber’s Helper, a regular triumvirate of Jim Crow snark, Wasillabilly fark and dee-do-diddley dumb fronting for the wealthy old firm of Dewey, Cheatum and Howe. The GOP is in the process of desperately trying to shore up its dwindling ‘base’ of Jaywalk All-Stars, and the Democrats, borrowing their gumption from single-cell amoeba, continue to flinch at the shadow of the embalmed corpse of Ronald Reagan, the threatened filibusters of King Wanker Mitch McConnell, and the fading influence of the soon-to-be perp walked Karl Rove. I’ve given up seeking the goose juice to make the Dems act like winners for a change. We can only hope Sheriff Obama will be able to corral these shaky steers long enough to pass legislation to end Bush’s National Nightmare. Out of ideas, out of favor, out of power, and sinking ignominiously into the Hee Haw-rerun party, this is all the GOP has left.

Former Dan Quayle Chief of Staff and Original Neocon Bill Kristol, lately bounced from the NY Times op-ed page as even Andy Rosenthal could no longer cover for his nitwittery with a straight face, has laid out the reason for the strident and baffling GOP opposition to the badly-needed stimulus package: this is just the warm-up to the big fight coming over health care reform, of which the Republicans want none, contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of the public. Why does the right-wing hate America?

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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 31, 2009

The Tattlesnake – After Blago the Deluge? Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:18 am

“How many legs does a dog have, if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
– Abraham Lincoln

Last Thursday, Illinois Speaker of the House and state Democratic Party Chair Mike Madigan finally managed, with the help of Patrick “Spotless Mind” Fitzgerald, the bankrupt Chicago Tribune editorial board, and their cohort in the national Big Media, to get rid of Gov. Rod Blagojevich on 14 articles of impeachment that are quaint and laughable compared to the blatant offenses of Bush and Cheney. Among the horrible crimes Blago committed were abusing his power by making it easier for senior citizens to get their drugs at cheap Canadian prices; bringing health care to uninsured kids, and helping poor women get regular mammograms and cancer treatment. Seriously. Since Blago bypassed, apparently legally, the corrupt lead-asses in the state General Assembly, they called this an abuse of power. Of course the main charge that he tried to sell the US Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama was based entirely on Fitzgerald’s lip-licking public readings of excerpts of wiretapped tapes – the actual full tapes have yet to be released — and remain unproven in a court of law. Here are a few things the BM, in its haste to bury Blago under ridicule, have missed:

– I live in Illinois and have known for years that Blago was not popular with the state Power Elite comprised of corporations, wealthy country-clubbers of both parties, the mortgage-lending industry, the bankers, the conservative Chicago Tribune, and the for-profit health insurance creeps. In fact, these various groups, through their mouthpieces at the Trib editorial board and elsewhere, have been trying to impeach ‘The Rod’ for years, but they needed the supposedly bias-free imprimatur of Fitzgerald’s bizarre press conference on December 9, 2008, following Blago’s arrest – he had yet to indict Blago, and hasn’t to this day — to bring it to a head.

– I also know a trustworthy woman who has worked for various organizations for more than two decades to bring health care to uninsured Illinoisans. She claims Blagojevich was the first Illinois governor to listen and take action, action that would have resulted, eventually, in universal health care for every Illinois resident. This alone, she says, made him a pariah among most IL politicians who rake in campaign contributions from the for-profit health care industry and he had that industry shaking in its boots – universal health care in a state the size of Illinois? It would be the beginning of the end of for-profit insurers across the land. This had to be nipped in the bud before it got out of hand.

– Speaker Madigan is an Old-School Chicago machine politician who has amassed immense power in Springfield and committed every public vice he’s imputed to Blago. (If you think Blago has a foul mouth on him, spend a few minutes off camera with Mike or any of Daley’s Army – this is the way pols talk in Chicago.) He also wants his daughter Lisa, currently the Illinois Attorney General, to be governor and Blago stood in the way. Make no mistake, Pat Quinn may have been sworn in as governor on January 29, but the real power is Madigan who controls the purse strings, both in state government appropriations and Dem party politics. That’s how he got many of these State House toads to go along – he no doubt threatened he would throw official Dem party support to another candidate in the next primary, thereby guaranteeing they would lose their cushy seats in the legislature. (Some of these slack-jawed monkeys aren’t fit for much else; a good portion of them might drown in a rainstorm if they looked up.) Of course, he didn’t have to convince the Republicans – they all needed drool cups at the prospect of impeaching Blago.

– You’ve heard the old line that a Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich. Illinois’ rules of impeachment are so lax you can be removed from office for just talking about that ham sandwich on the phone.

– Just in case, as is likely, Fitzgerald isn’t able to prove his corruption charges in a court of law (he may even quietly drop the charges now that the mission has been accomplished), Illinois lawmakers added an extra fillip to the impeachment indictment – Blagojevich is now barred from holding elective office in the state for life, so he won’t be in the hair of the health care apparatus and Corprocracy ever again, even if he’s cleared of corruption charges in court. They thought of everything.

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January 1, 2009

The Tattlesnake – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of 2008 Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 2:12 pm

Coverage of the Big Stuff of 2008, in the form of cheesy top ten lists and lofty-worded think pieces, will be churned out endlessly by Our Corporately-Owned Media over the next few weeks, so here are some of the lesser-reported annoyances, intrusions on sanity, and other head-smackers of the year past.

The Good: It’s a new year and Obama takes office in less than 20 days! (Happy 2009, BTW.)
The Bad: Bush and Cheney can still stir up trouble in their ‘Final Days.’
The Ugly: What if they decide not to leave?

The Good: The already-weakened Republican Party is splitting apart in a war between the ‘Jesus Camp’ Christopublicans and the Neocon Corporate Pragmatists. (The true principled conservatives having ditched the GOP years ago.) The latter are willing to bend rather than break; the former can’t, since they arrogantly believe, apparently without the assistance of hard drugs, that their Invisible Omnipotent God of the Infinite Universe Who Hates Liberals and Homos has nothing better to do than whisper in their ears what kind of retail politics and holy wars against his other creations will set them straight with Heaven.
The Bad: There’s a good chance the NCP will dump the Republicans entirely and put all their money into the Dems, which will have the result of making the Dems as debased and corrupt as the GOP.
The Ugly: Even though the Theocrats-for-a-Better-Armageddon are a small minority, the GOP in their hairy paws will become a rural party of ranting rubes, bedeviled boobs, slick hicks, hypocritical hucksters, predatory politicians, snake-handling simpletons, and mumbling morons (not that it mostly isn’t already) and, thanks to our unique system of apportioning two senators to each state no matter what the population (another nasty legacy of the era of slavery), the Christopublicans will continue to wield enough influence to block legislation and stir up other governmental mischief to the detriment of us all. The future of the Republican Party might very well be an army of pious Puritan dunderheads marching in righteous lockstep, infecting the US body politic like a bad case of psoriasis – it won’t kill you, but it can be damned aggravating.

The Good: Speaking of Sarah Palin, her 18-year-old daughter Bristol had a healthy baby recently.
The Bad: As Bart of Bartcop fame wrote, “[Sarah] Palin promised her daughter ‘and the young man’ would get married but that was during the campaign so she can’t be held to it.” So, now that Bristol’s bun is out of the oven, where is the fuming outrage of the Big Media and the Christopublicans that she’s officially an unwed mother and, since Ma holds down a gub’mint job, she’s being supported by taxpayer money?
The Ugly: The kid’s father, Levi Johnston, remains a proudly ignorant redneck oaf, and he just went to work for a ‘let’s-rape-the-wilderness’ energy company.

The Good: A Democrat has finally vowed to fight back against Republican smears and refuses to cave in to their demands.
The Bad: That Democrat is the convicted-by-the-media-without-a-trial Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich.
The Ugly: Here is the dumb-bunny guilt-by-location smear the RNC and every right-wing website will be repeating ad nauseum as long as Obama is president, even if Blago is cleared of all charges: “Obama and Blagojevich are both from Chicago, Illinois, which is, like, the most corrupt city and state in the union – the FBI guy said so! – and, hey, common sense says they must both then be completely corrupt, right? This is another one of those unanswered questions about Obama that the public deserves to hear the full truth about!” 2010 BM pundit’s comment: “Let’s say ‘hello’ to Illinois’ newly-elected Republican Governor Patrick Fitzgerald! At least he’s ethical, even if he couldn’t convict Blagojevich of anything!”

The Good: Illinois finally has a US Senator to replace Obama, a man with a clean and honorable record, former IL Attorney General Roland Burris.
The Bad: He is being morphed into Blago’s Rev. Wright by the scandal-happy ‘Whitewaterized’ Big Media, eager to toss him into the same ‘guilty-even-if-he-hasn’t-been-convicted-of-anything’ pot with Blagojevich. Burris is now ‘tainted’ just because he accepted the appointment. Note to the Big Media: What about all of those prominent Washington Senators of the Republican persuasion – Mitch McConnell, John Ensign, Saxby Chambliss, Richard Shelby, Orrin Hatch, et al — who openly dined and danced with the likes of Jack Abramoff and Karl Rove? Oh, right – Rove hasn’t been convicted of any crime – but when has that stopped you? (Hey, the Clintons weren’t convicted of any crime in the Whitewater land deal; and no crime was even committed in the ‘Travelgate’ fiasco, but that didn’t matter – they were still media-created ‘scandals’ that filled up newspaper columns and media airtime for years.) Lack of conviction, so to speak, certainly hasn’t been any bar to gleefully drubbing Blagojevich and Burris with the corruption stick. Abramoff is in prison and Rove is being subpoenaed and investigated all over the place for bribery, fraud and other assorted dishonesty, yet their close connections to prominent Republicans, not to mention the White House, somehow doesn’t carry the same ‘taint’ of corruption? Is the BM afraid of the GOP High and Mighty, or is it just your ingrained conservative bias showing?
The Ugly: Congressional and Illinois state Democrats are incredibly doing the Republicans’ job for them, sticking the blade in deep and twisting it not only with Blago, but now Burris, too. Hey, dingbat Dems, a simple ‘innocent until proven guilty, it’s the American way’ would be the way to go.

There’s more below the fold…

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December 29, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Is Gov. Rod Getting Rammed? Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:08 am

What’s the Republican Political Angle to the Blagojevich Prosecution?

Is Illinois’ F**king Golden Boy Merely the Stooge for a Partisan GOP Attack on Obama and the Dems?

Had Enough Leading Questions Already?

While some may choose others – such as Billo, Hannity, the Savage Wiener or Radio’s Anal Cyst Rush — as a reliable weathervane of what not to believe, I have my own preference – second-tier CNN newsreader Kyra Phillips. In the case of the first four names, we know they are regurgitating their daily Talking Points from the Ministry of DoublePlusGood Neocon Truth, but Kyra aspires to a level of journalistic integrity that renders her eructations of state-sanctioned Big Media hooey more entertaining – and she’s easier on the eyes and ears than the Cave Boys.

I first noticed Kyra’s particular talent in this regard back in May of 2003, following Junior’s Commander-Cody-with-a-Codpiece moment on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and his hilariously boneheaded ‘Mission Accomplished’ ramblings afterward that ‘major combat operations’ had been completed in Iraq.

The Most Trusted Name in Newspeak had Kyra onboard the carrier that day and, with time to fill and a Glorious Victory in Eastasia to celebrate, she was given a free ride on a US Navy jet at the taxpayers’ expense. After landing, the breathless and excited Ms. Phillips gushed — only verbally, as far as I know — over the sea-going military, jet pilots, aircraft carriers and the whole goddamned Good War thingie – we had kicked Iraqi behind and all was right-wing with the world! But I noticed something in Kyra’s flushed smiling face and twittering-with-glee voice – why, it reminded me of a time decades before when I ran into a notorious groupie just hours after she had ‘balled’ (late ’60s slang term for copulation) every member of her favorite band! Of course, the video of Bush’s dumb publicity stunt is only useful now as a platform to launch a thousand jokes, and I’m sure Kyra’s embarrassing orgiastic spurt of militaristic slathering, wearing a flight helmet, no less, has been filed in the root cellar at CNN never to be seen again.

In the years since, whenever Kyra decides to editorialize the news, whether it be Rudy Giuliani’s popularity with Dixie-Fried Republicans, Fred Thompson’s manly irresistibility to voters, or Sarah Palin guaranteeing a big McCain win with the womenfolk, I have sure knowledge that whichever way Kyra blows, so to speak, the opposite is true.

This came up again a few weeks ago as the news of Scooter Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s December 9th arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich blanketed the airwaves like an all-day Chicago blizzard. There was Kyra, frowning eyebrows crawling toward one another, serious-minded caterpillars an omen of the bad news to come, hyperventilating that the Blago scandal was “ten times worse than Watergate,” an attitude likely shared by some of her second-string Big Media cable colleagues but not expressed in so grandiose and historic a phrase.

Really, Kyra, ‘ten times worse than Watergate’? Hint to Phillips’ fevered brainpan: Blago didn’t have a private ‘Plumbers’ force breaking into his political opponents’ offices, he didn’t suborn perjury, he didn’t claim executive privilege to protect himself, he didn’t have a slush fund with millions of dollars in it to pay off criminals in his employ, and any scandals he’s alleged to be involved in are fairly pedestrian examples of political corruption and not a Constitutional crisis for the nation.

Perhaps she was taking her cue from Fitzgerald, who buzzed that Blago was on a “crime spree.” Whoa! Al Capone went on ‘crime sprees’ such as the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre – Blago’s babbling about wringing cash out of various politicians and bigwigs comes nowhere near that level of violent wrongdoing.

Whatever Blago’s crimes, no one died, no one was injured, he didn’t start any unnecessary wars based on lies, he didn’t authorize torture or the waste of billions of dollars in taxpayer money through no-bid contracts, he didn’t order Ken Blackwell to finagle the Ohio vote in 2004 to shoehorn Junior back into the presidency, he didn’t conspire to steal an election and jail the winner, as in the Don Siegelman case in Alabama, all of which seem to me to be much more serious than these routine instances of alleged malfeasance by Blagojevich.

But there’s more to this story than has been unearthed by the corporate BM, using the telescope from the wrong end, as usual.

Here are a few facts that have been missed in the rush to convict Blago:

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December 14, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Big Media Blago Beat Blow Out Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:48 am

Bored and Lazy Big Media Drooling to Catch Obama in Blagojevich Dragnet

Have you noticed? The Big Media have been desperately trying to shoehorn Barack Obama into the ethical problems of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, even though there’s not a particle of evidence that he was in any way involved. The Chris Matthews Crank-It-Up-Loud-and-Stupid Machine over at MSNBC presented a good example of the ugly process in action:

“MATTHEWS: Barack Obama, of course, rose to political power in a city, Chicago, in a state, Illinois, known for corruption. But Fitzgerald made clear that Obama was not implicated today. Here he is, quote, ‘The complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever.’ Obama said this afternoon that he had no contact with Governor Blagojevich over who was gonna fill that Senate seat.

“Still, there are many unanswered questions, including that one. What conversation did occur between Blagojevich and Barack Obama about who would fill his Senate seat once he became president? Obama said this afternoon there were none at all.

“What conversations, if any, did Governor Blagojevich have with Rahm Emanuel about his replacement as a Democratic candidate in the special election in Chicago? Will this Illinois scandal in any way distract Obama from dealing with the financial crisis? What happens to Obama’s Senate seat now? Who gets to fill it? The disgraced indicted governor? The state legislature? Who? And what is it about Illinois that seems to make the state’s politics so relentlessly corrupt?”
– Chris Matthews, “Hardball,” Dec. 9, 2008, as quoted by Media Matters.

Jeepers, Tweety, that’s one Olympic leap of pure, empty, pull-it-out-your-keester speculation. Wasn’t Matthews once seen in a public men’s room in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the Republican National Convention? Wasn’t Sen. Larry Craig convicted of soliciting men for sex in a similar place? What does this say about Matthews? And what is it about Minneapolis that seems to attract so many gay men to their public facilities? There are some ‘unanswered questions’ concerning Mr. Matthews’ conduct in Minneapolis during the Republican National Convention and the American people demand answers. (See the way this works? Take even the most tenuous, ridiculous association and blow it out of proportion ending with the dire ‘unanswered questions’ malarkey. There are always ‘unanswered questions’ about everyone and everything – it’s just that most of them are time wasting and ludicrous. Eating in a restaurant where mobsters occasionally dine does not make you a Mafia kingpin, except in the RNC’s Bizarro World of infinite guilt-by-association and silly questions.)

As far as the ‘relentlessly corrupt’ Illinois, Tweety and his pals should check some other states such as Alaska, Alabama and Florida, all of which ranked ahead of Illinois in the number of political scandals between 1998 and 2007. Wait, as Jamison Foser at Media Matters recently noted, USA Today already did: “[O]n a per-capita basis … Illinois ranks 18th for the number of public corruption convictions the federal government has won from 1998 through 2007…”

This is the line of ‘logic’ being used as the BM line up to slather over yet another invented ‘scandal’ for Obama — already they’re trying to make this his ‘Blagogate.’ Even the New York Times has the green-eyeshade on backwards as it attempts to conflate Obama’s passing acquaintance with Blago with involvement in some sort of shady business with the Rodster. As Eric Boehlert points out:

“The larger point is that in order for the Beltway press to gin up the Blago story this week, basic journalism guidelines had to be set aside and in some cases brazenly ignored. That’s the only way this story worked because simply reporting the facts as presented by the prosecutors would have made it painfully clear that, in terms of Obama’s involvement, there was none. In fact, Obama had thwarted Blago’s money-making scheme.”

But the worst of the bad lot was Liz Sidoti of the (Guilt By) Associated Press. In her December 10th article “Analysis: Scandal threatens to dog Obama,” she actually kicked off with these two vapid, meaningless paragraphs:

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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 3, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Final Election Prediction Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 4:30 pm

Note: The figure following the state name indicates its number of electoral votes.

First off, let’s stipulate that McCain-Palin should carry Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Nebraska (5), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Utah (5), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3) for a total of 49 electoral votes.

Obama-Biden should win Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New Jersey (15), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington D.C. (3) for a total of 110 electoral votes.

Here’s a breakdown of the remaining states:

Alabama (9): McCain. In the tank for McPalin, but some Congressional districts could switch to the D column.

Alaska (3): McCain, barely. Palin’s stomping ground will probably tip to McCain, but GOP Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young will be on the outs.

Arizona (10): Obama by a fingertip. Amazingly, Obama is only one point behind on McCain’s home turf and surging. A quarter of the state’s population are people who have arrived since McCain last ran for office in 2004, and most aren’t voting Republican. I’m giving this one to Obama in the upset of the night.

Arkansas (6): McCain. It’s something in the water down there, which will soon be owned by billionaire T. Boone Pickens, if they aren’t careful.

California (55): Obama. Gov. Musclehead notwithstanding, this is a state as deep indigo as a new pair of blue jeans; the only question is if Obama wins by more than a 20-point margin. Look for some GOP congress-critters to bite the dust, including David Dreier, Mary Bono and Satan’s Apprentice Darrell Issa.

Colorado (9): Obama. The home of the USAF Academy and countless right-wing evangelical churches, also features a large contingent of retired celebrities, progressive libs, Rocky Mountain high guys, and Hispanics. The state’s been trending cerulean; this year it will go the whole route.

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November 2, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Obama’s Not Black Anymore Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:21 am

In my informal surveys of John and Jane Q. Public-Sixpack over the years (and usually conducted near a six-pack), I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon – the more well-known and admired a black person is, the less black they become in the mind of the average honky mo-fo.

Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, et al – their skin color faded to neutral as their popularity with whites increased. Oprah Winfrey’s audience is comprised mainly of white women – do they think of her as black? No, she’s just ‘Oprah,’ girlfriend. Caucasian-Americans have embraced Michael Jordan, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, and scores of black sports stars as one of their own without regard to skin shade – what white sports nut wouldn’t rather hang out with Jordan than some mediocre ofay B-Ball player? And the Super Bowl a couple of years ago between the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts was played by teams with black head coaches. No big whup.

In the music world, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, James Brown, B.B. King, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix and others have all transcended race and now have more white fans than black. The pop music of every generation since the beginning of the 20th century, true American music – blues, jazz, soul, rock, and even much of country – all originated with black musicians in the South. Generations of white children have been conceived to the colorless ballads of Barry White, Lionel Ritchie and Isaac Hayes.

Let me put it this way, Barack Obama has been part of the national public consciousness for about two years now and he’s generally perceived by white America as an affable, intelligent, calm, non-threatening man, and he’s world famous, so his color has become immaterial.

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October 24, 2008

The Tattlesnake – The Worms Turn On the Wormy Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:59 am

Plus: Palin Prop Blames the Hired Help, the Rove-Rezko Connection, and the GOP Fear of Michael Moore

Well, you know it’s really hit the fan when all McCain can do is babble on vacuously about Joe the Plumber while Sarah the Terror veers off the reservation with an eye to her own future political career and the Backstage Crew, Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis’ crack squad of Rove-inspired GOP intelligentsia who have managed to mount one of the worst and most negative political campaigns in modern history, are eviscerating each other anonymously in the pages of The New York Times magazine. The End is Near, but not in Palin’s ecumenical concept of that notion, as the Solons of Scat have realized they simply can’t chisel and cheat enough and in a sufficient number of states to overwhelm the Obama juggernaut. With a dozen days to go and the Dem ahead by as much as 10 points in rock-ribbed Republican Indiana, the game is up. Expect resumes to be sailing out of McCain’s HQ any day now, if they haven’t been already. Meantime, The Tattler will stick to his earlier prediction: If Indiana goes to Obama, the rest of the Rust Belt Midwest, from Iowa to PA, will follow and it will be an early night and a landslide of over 300 electoral votes for BHO.

The barely mentioned saving grace this time around is that Rove’s nasty tactics aren’t working for McPalin, just as they didn’t work in 2006, nor in the subsequent special Congressional elections in GOP districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi, all won by Dems.

Thankfully, we are seeing the final death of this horrific negative-campaign monster — created by Nixon’s dirty tricksters, perfected by Lee Atwater, and adopted with a few new kinks by Rove — played out in the Palin-McCain fiasco, a proof of that Euripides quote: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Is there any doubt that what is destroying McPalin at this point is their own insanity?

When asked by David Shuster on MSNBC, Oct. 23, 2008, to explain ‘non-elitist’ regular-gal Sarah Palin’s expensive taste in clothes and accessories, ‘Republican Strategist’ Jennifer Millerwise-Dyck fell back on the time-tested and threadbare GOP excuse – blame the underlings. She basically said that Caribou-Slayer Mom was too busy herding her kids and mucking-up campaign appearances to do her own shopping, so it was all the fault of her clueless staff forcing her to wear those pricey duds from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus. Yes, Sarah really wanted to go to ‘Tar-Zhey’ but her damn staff fouled up! Do you laugh at the ludicrous flop-sweat desperation or moan at the pathetic lack of imagination? The Palin-McCain crack-up is like watching a limbo contest – how low will they go?

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