BartBlog

July 9, 2012

Fox News Indoctro TV

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July 8, 2012

Republican Paradox Comics

1acartoon-gop-paradox-comics

January 29, 2011

The GOPs Slash-Spending, Balance-the-Budget School Lunch Program Illustrated

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January 27, 2011

Teabagger Teen Meets Jesus

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December 29, 2010

The Tattlesnake – East Coast Blizzard Buries Snow-Job Political Futures Edition

Your Tattler remembers well the Chicago blizzard of 1979 that buried the city under several feet of the stuff, along with the political future of Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic. Days after the snow stopped, the side streets were still not plowed, main arteries were narrow two-lane ruts in the snow, and parking was a matter of driving into a snow bank and digging your car out the next day. If that was not aggravating enough, Bilandic had the chutzpah to go on TV and assure Chicagoans all was well and that things had been plowed – including designated public parking areas – that were not. The anger of city-dwellers reached the boiling point over those jaw-dropping pronouncements and, in one of those incredible political miracles, Daley Machine inheritor Bilandic lost his sure-thing nomination to Jane Byrne in the Democratic primary, and Byrne went on to become Chicago’s first woman mayor.

New York City’s independent ‘No Labels’ Mayor Michael Bloomberg apparently forgot the lesson of Bilandic, if he ever learned it. Yes, voters often have short memories, but not when it comes to the tangible physical and mental stress engendered by a massive snowstorm. Seeing your expensively-attired billionaire mayor, appearing dry and comfortable on TV, braying that everything is fine, all that can be done is being done, and to stop complaining, is not the message snow-besieged proles want to hear. I think this stunt finishes Bloomberg’s future in politics, just as NYC Mayor John V. Lindsay’s presidential ambitions were plowed under by his failure to adequately respond to a Big Apple blizzard 41 years ago.

Next door, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the GOP’s emerging Golden Boy already declining in popularity back home from his managerial incompetence – he lost $400 million in federal aid for state public education due to bumbled paperwork, for one – and obsessive Republican addiction to cutting any program, including state pensions, that benefits the ‘little guy’ while protecting his wealthy benefactors from economic pain, will likewise see his political future melting like a Newark snowball in June, as the clueless Guv has remained on vacation in warm and sunny Disney World in the aftermath of the crippling storm. Christie has, as yet, made no public announcement or curtailed his vacation in order to deal with his state’s weather crisis – perhaps an acknowledgement that his blustery Tony Soprano style of governing may intimidate some, but not Mother Nature.

Massive blizzards demonstrate the need for full-capacity city and state services during a time of crisis, the very things manic cost-cutters like Bloomberg and Christie have put on the chopping block; and the need for leadership that understands what’s happening on the ground, even when that ground is covered with snow; something these conservative budget-balancers forget, to their political peril.

President Bloomberg? President Christie? Fuhgedabouit!

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

October 11, 2010

The Tattlesnake – Even More New Entries for the (Politically) Askewed Dictionary

Aspigmatism: The inability to see that wealthy elites are making a sucker out of you. (See ‘Tea Party Express.’)

Atwatering: Throwing up so many specious charges that your political opponent is forced to spend all of his or her time responding to them, thereby destroying any chance they have for election by leaving the impression in the minds of the impressionable that some of it must be true, even though each charge is found to be false. (See ‘Swift Boat Veterans.’)

Cantstitutionalism: Inventing parts of the Constitution that, in your imagination, prevent a Democratic president from exercising the same powers you approved of when the office was held by a Republican. (See ‘Issa, Darrell.’)

Deficitmock: A conservative who only worries about the deficit when Democrats are in control of Congress. (See ‘Boehner, John.’)

Freedumbery: The notion that attaching the word ‘freedom’ to any half-baked conservative idea or title, especially when used in the form of ‘protecting freedom’ by incarcerating innocent people or naming your corporate-funded Washington Astroturf group ‘FreedomWorks,’ magically confers a patina of true American patriotism on your efforts, rather than exposing you for the greedy fascist sneak you really are. (See ‘Armey, Dick.’)

Hyde-rophobia: Rabidly denouncing a sitting Democratic president for the same sins committed by senior Republicans in Congress. (See ‘Gingrich, Newt.’)

In Flagrante Demento: Displaying an embarrassingly excessive number of American flags at your speeches and rallies, as if you needed a visual reminder of what side you’re supposed to be on, but aren’t. (See ‘CPAC Convention.’)

Noonanery: Pretending to be an objective and rational political observer while maintaining the late Ronald Reagan could do no wrong, no matter how you have to inflate his record. (See ‘Noonan, Peggy.’)

Quaylery: Making an egregiously stupid statement – e.g.: “Social Security is welfare” or “Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya” — and then retracting or denying it when it might hamper your chances of winning an election, only to later repeat it when among a friendly crowd. (See ‘Angle, Sharron.’)

Teabuggery: Demonstrating your ardent belief in freedom of speech for all Americans by shouting down those who disagree with you. (See ‘McCarthyism.’)

Xetgeist (pronounced ‘Zeet-geist’): The conviction that changing your name will also eliminate your past criminal record. (See ‘Blackwater.’)

© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.

April 4, 2010

The Tattlesnake — The Teabaggers Should Thank Liberals Edition

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.

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March 29, 2010

The Dying of the Right: Frum Fired For Telling the Truth

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“Republicans originally thought that Fox [News] worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox.”
David Frum on Nightline, March 22, 2010, blowing Fox’s whole ‘fair and balanced’ mumbo-jumbo, as quoted by Media Matters.

“Waterloo”
– David Frum, Frum Forum, March 21, 2010

“David Frum: “What the Hell is Going On at Fox News?”
– Jamison Foser, Media Matters, March 18, 2010

March 13, 2010

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

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.

November 21, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Frank Luntz is a Scum-Sucking Pig Edition

(With apologies to our porcine friends who also happen to suck scum, but don’t have much influence on the electorate.}

While some readers may chastise me for gross understatement in the title, and I take their point, I decided to keep this clean, or as clean as you can when describing the contents of the sole working Port-O-Potty on free chili and beer night at a baseball game.

“[A]sk a question in the way that you get the right answer.”
– Frank Luntz on his ‘fair and balanced’ polling methods.

What makes Republican word-whacker Frank Luntz my target is that he is an intentional and dedicated deceiver of the public, smart enough to know full well what he’s doing, but blithely willing to trot out his wares — borrowed from the misuse of modern psychological techniques to sell the gullible what they don’t need joined with a carnival conman’s shell game pitch — for the temporary benefit of his bank account, while his country slides into a wreckage of divisiveness and debt. If you’d like to find the home base for the decimation of our public speech into ignorant, inflamed, fearful, flag-draped hatred; the revision of our history into a reeking bonanza of selfish suicidal capitalism, evangelical Christian crapola and nasty neoconservative warhawk bilge; and the reduction of our political discourse into so much overheated, oversimplified, covertly racist, sound-bite slag, you can point to three names: the late Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and the lesser-known, but every bit as important, Frank Luntz as the authors of the meltdown in progress.

“Luntz is glibly amoral, worrying only about whether language has the right effect, not whether it’s true.”
– Steven Poole, commenting on Luntz’s book “Words That Work” in The Guardian (UK), July 21, 2007.

It was Frank’s notion to rename a bill allowing more pollution as the ‘Clean Air Act’; it was Luntz who told the GOP to re-label estate taxes as ‘death taxes’ so that the wealthy paid less while the rest of us took up the slack; it was his demented mind that connected Iraq to 9/11 and instructed Republican pols to always preface any mention of the failed Iraq incursion with ’9/11 changed everything’; behind nearly every current and past GOP talking point, endlessly repeated in the Right-Wing Echo Chamber, you’ll find Frank’s pasty round face, tirelessly choosing just the right words to convince a malleable faction of the American public to eat corporate Republican turds and think it’s prime rib.

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October 23, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Who Said What? Edition

Time for a quiz? I thought so. Grab your paper and pencil and no cheating with the Google machine. As you read, you’ll catch on to the theme of this baker’s dozen of questionable quotes:

1. “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

2. “Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.”

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

3. “War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.”

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

4. “We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary.”

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

5. “The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction.”

A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

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October 21, 2009

It’s the Truth That Hurts

From the Shoq Value website, by way of the William K. Wolfrum Chronicles:

Best Letter to Editor, ever!

To Washington Post Letters:

Steven F. Hayward wrote: “The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level. . . .”

No.

The single largest defect of modern conservatism is that it has ruined the nation.

Conservatives do not have ideas; they have interests.

Conservatives are not “thinkers”; they are rationalizers who give an intellectual gloss to their belief that an alliance of predatory businesspeople and religious extremists should rule the rest of us.

The wreckage caused by modern conservatism lies all around us, and speaks for itself: If conservatism isn’t dead, it should be.

DANIEL ROSEN
Baltimore

From the Washington Post, October 9, 2009.

Thanks, Mr. Rosen. It’s a shame the members of our so-called ‘liberal’ party don’t repeat these points at every chance.

June 25, 2009

Conservative sentiment in Pasadena

Filed under: Guest Comment — Tags: — Bob Patterson @ 11:12 am
How conservatives see it.

How conservatives see it.

This conservative sentiment was seen in a church’s parking lot in Pasadena CA.

March 10, 2009

You’re Dead Right!

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Toon — Tags: , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 5:24 am

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March 7, 2009

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

…With No Particular Place to Go But Here

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

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

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March 5, 2009

The Tattlesnake – GOP Shrinks Into a Cult Edition

The CPAC-Right Left Behind as America ‘Moves On’

“The country’s conservative, Republican-dominated strongholds have shrunk to the Deep South, the Plains and talk radio. […]
“This is the first time since the aftermath of Watergate that conservatives have known what it is like to be so completely out of power, out-funded, out-organized and arguably irrelevant to national governance.”

– Joel Achenbach, “The Conservatives’ ‘Cleansing’ Moment,” Washington Post, March 1, 2009.

It’s said when it rains it pours and what’s currently happening to the ultra right-wing remnants who still call themselves conservative Republicans is no trickle-down sprinkle – they have put themselves in the path of monsoon season, apparently trying to hasten their status as a fringe political cult akin to the People’s Temple or the Moonies.

The new Know-Nothing Party, assembled in Washington for the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) Conference last weekend, proved both its penchant for blockheaded obliviousness and rare talent for unintended hilarity by honoring as ‘conservative intellectuals’ (that whirring sound you hear is William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater spinning in their graves) a nerdy little wimp, a has-been simp and a bloviating blimp, also known as, respectively if not respectfully, 13-year-old annoyance Jonathan Krohn; long over-The-Hill GOP retread Newt Gingrich and, of course, the Master of Disaster, the rotund right-wing radio bleater Rush Limbaugh.

While adorable future drug addict Krohn studiously and without irony recited to appreciative hoots and ringing applause the common themes tilled up by most of the CPAC speakers – conservatives stand for respecting the Constitution; respecting life, (at least the unborn kind as opposed to that in uniform or in jail); less government; personal responsibility, and protecting the freedoms and rights of the people – neither he nor his big brothers Newtie and Rush bothered with a brief history lesson of America under conservative Republican rule. Not surprising, since it pulls out the rug from beneath their empty claims. For example:

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