At her for-profit National Tea Party Convention speech in Nashville, TN, on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010, Sarah Palin said the T.P. movement is “a ground-up call to action,” and, for once, she’s right: It was ‘ground up’ in the meat grinder of Fox News, wealthy commodities trader and CNBC personality Rick Santelli, lobbyist and FreedomWorks head Dick Armey, and the legions of anonymous employees of the Corporate Astroturf world. BTW, the former Czarina of Russia East said she was donating her $100K speaking fee to a ’cause,’ without specifying what cause that might be. Could it be her future 2012 presidential campaign, or just to buy up some more of her own books?
October 11, 2010
February 8, 2010
December 19, 2009
The Tattlesnake – The Political Good, Bad and Ugly Edition
Good: Your husband has decided to get more involved in
local politics.
Bad: He’s running for congress as a conservative Republican.
Ugly: He’s Karl Rove.
Good: Your wife just got a great-paying job.
Bad: She’s on Fox News.
Ugly: After fifteen years of marriage, you never knew she was a wingnut.
Good: Your 22-year-old daughter just announced she’s marrying the man of her dreams.
Bad: He’s old enough to be her grandfather.
Ugly: He’s Mitch McConnell.
Good: Your 21-year-old son’s new book is about to be published.
Bad: It’s a biography of George W. Bush.
Ugly: He’s started talking like him.
Good: Your wife buys a new hat for her birthday.
Bad: It has teabags hanging off the brim.
Ugly: They’ve all been used.
Good: The recently discovered Bush emails prove conclusively that Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al, committed high crimes while in office.
Bad: Holder’s Justice Department refuses to prosecute them.
Ugly: Obama excuses them by saying, “Anyone could make a mistake.”
Good: You laugh at an Andy Borowitz satire about Glenn Beck ‘editing’ and releasing an ‘abridged’ version of “1984″ wherein Big Brother’s name is replaced by Obama’s.
Bad: Turns out it’s not an Andy Borowitz satire.
Ugly: The MSM quote from the book as if it were George Orwell’s original version.
Good: Your daughter just got a new job.
Bad: She’s working for Bill O’Reilly.
Ugly: She just bought a case of loofahs.
Good: Your son just got a new job.
Bad: He’s working for FreedomWorks.
Ugly: He’s Dick Armey’s ‘butt boy.’
Good: You just got a tenured job at a university.
Bad: You’re teaching ‘Creation Science.’
Ugly: At Messiah College.
Good: The ideas of Tom Paine are being discussed on TV.
Bad: By Glenn Beck on Fox News.
Ugly: Beck has made liberal agnostic Paine into a far-right Christian fanatic just like himself.
Good: Your son has been signed to star in a major motion picture.
Bad: It’s “The Life of Rush Limbaugh.”
Ugly: He was hired due to his strong resemblance to the subject.
Good: You’ve accepted a $50,000 speaking gig.
Bad: At the next CPAC convention.
Ugly: Your topic is “The Incredible Genius of Sarah Palin.”
Good: You’re not feeling well and your friend says he will find you a good doctor.
Bad: You’re flat broke.
Ugly: Your friend is Joe Lieberman.
© 2009 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
December 5, 2009
The Teabagger Movie — Political Porn and It’s No Joke!
Here’s the trailer from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2qil4Swce
“…[T]he premiere was sponsored by FreedomWorks, an organization chaired by [Dick] Armey that’s known as an astroturfing outfit for its campaign to foment discontent among those regular citizens nationwide. FreedomWorks was instrumental in orchestrating the disruption of town-hall meetings on health care reform called by members of Congress during the August recess. (You can find the FreedomWorks town-hall action kit here in a PDF file; this famous memo [PDF] on how to disrupt a town-hall meeting was distributed by the Tea Party Patriots Google Groups listserv, which was managed at the time by FreedomWorks … Florida State Chairman Tom Gaitens.
“Also involved in creating our summer of discontent was Americans For Prosperity, whose consultant, Joel Aaron Foster, wrote the script for the Tea Party documentary, and is listed as the press contact on the movie media kit [PDF]. Throughout the film, AFP’s ubiquitous ‘Hands Off My Health-Care’ signs, which feature a bloody handprint, bob up and down at Tea Party rallies.”
– From “‘Tea Party: The Documentary’ — Attending a Bizarre Movie Premiere for Right-Wingers in Washington,” Adele M. Stan, AlterNet, Dec. 4, 2009.
November 6, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Post-Election Portents and Predictions Edition
…And How the Big Media Speculators Got It Wrong Again
The usual Big Media Punchinellos were out in force the past few days, blaring and bleating the Beltway Conventional Wisdom that the Democratic Party’s loss of the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey are a sure referendum on Obama Administration policies. This is the sort of doomed facile reasoning found in the bottom of a Washington cocktail glass typical of Our Pundit Class who, from non-existent Iraq WMD to Fred Thompson’s popularity with voters, can never seem to fit the square peg in the round hole, pound though they might.
A brief review of the Dem candidates in VA and NJ clearly shows why progressives and like-minded independents didn’t bother to vote for Creigh Deeds in Virginia or Jon Corzine in New Jersey, and it had nothing to do with Obama. For various reasons explained below, they were both terrible candidates.
Creigh Deeds: In an era of change, Deeds was a shambling throwback, a dismal campaign clunker with four flat tires, who rejected Obama’s advice and help until it dawned on him in the final weeks he was going to lose in a landslide. He ran a miserably negative campaign, devoid of ideas, and presented his pap on toast so dry even peppy Dem loyalists fought to stay awake during his speeches. A Dem Blue Dog so blue he threatened to opt out of a public option should it become available to Virginians, he was nearly as conservative as his GOP opponent Bob McDonnell. Why leave the house to vote when the choice is between a Republican and a Dem who thinks like a Republican? Seen clearly, this was a referendum, and portent of the future, for Blue Dog Dems rather than President Obama.
Jon Corzine: The one-time ‘Garden State’ US Senator who was just bounced from the governor’s mansion is a Goldman Sachs Golden Boy who made piles of money on Wall Street and insists on spending it on vanity campaigns. Why he doesn’t just buy a new summer home or sumptuous overpriced yacht instead of squadering his fortune to impose himself on our political process is beyond me, but Corzine has never shown much talent for governing once elected, and what few things he has accomplished were always moderate to the point of invisibility. Jon is the kind of drab Dudley Do-Nothing the Democratic Party needs to send packing, if they expect to keep the majority in the future. Again, the portentiousness of Corzine’s defeat was not his affiliation with Obama’s policies, but the yellow line up the middle of his back from avoiding tenaciously either the right or left lane. He will not be missed, at least by this writer.
The point? Neither of them were progressives and didn’t stir independents or liberal Dems to go out and vote for them.
And now to stare into the crystal – but not Kristol – ball for some predictions on the Republican winners of those two elections:
September 11, 2009
The Day Before 9/11
THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL LETTER! It’s just indicative of the attitude of Republicans like Dick Armey on the day before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
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.