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November 5, 2010
The Tattlesnake – Jon Stewart WTF?!? and Other Miscellaneous Head-Slappers Edition
– What is Jon Stewart playing at? I’m a big fan of The Daily Show star and think he’s done a great job in the past, so it pains me to write this, but WTF?!? Okay, so to make his point at the Rally to Restore Sanity he tossed Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz under the same bus reserved for Glenn Beck and Fox News. Last Monday, Olbermann graciously took his point and even cancelled indefinitely one of my favorite Countdown segments, “Worst Persons in the World.” But the other day on TDS, here’s Stewart heaping honey on Chris Wallace of Fox News and agreeing to appear on Wallace’s “Fox News Sunday.” Yes, he took a few mild swipes at Fox’s obvious Republican partisanship, but he also equated MSNBC, the home of Olbermann and Schulz, to a AA ball club compared to the Big Leaguers at Fox. He didn’t mean that in a complimentary way, but Jon can’t seriously believe there is any parity between what Fox does and what MSNBC does. (For one thing, Fox doesn’t give a liberal Democrat a three-hour weekday morning program, as MSNBC has with conservative Republican Joe Scarborough.) Put simply: Fox lies, as Stewart well knows, and MSNBC’s progressive hosts, even though they may display passion for their side, don’t. You can’t possibly have a restoration of sanity without fact, and Jon Stewart knows that, as well. So, why is Stewart trying to make them both seem equal? A few possibilities:
H/T to the Bartcop main page for the graphic
2. Maybe Stewart just has some personal animosity toward Olbermann and Schultz and he’s taking it out this way. That would be mighty petty of him, but nobody’s perfect, particularly in an ego-driven arena like show business.
3. This is the ugly one: Comedy Central is owned by corporate media giant Viacom and it’s possible they finally noticed TDS and Stewart have had quite an impact on recent elections and the voting trends of those under 30. Was Stewart brought in by Bush-backer and Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone for a pointed “Network” reminder of who signs his paychecks and told to back off? I have noticed Jon has been much more civil to right-wingers this year, even bottom of the barrel types like Bill O’Reilly. I’d hate to think the reason he’s promoting this ‘equivalency’ is that he doesn’t want to end up back humping the comedy club circuit doing 300 “Hey, I’ll be at McLaughington’s in Akron on Friday!” road gigs a year. He’s now a middle-aged man with a home, wife, family and a pile of bills – powerful reasons to toe the corporate line.
4. And this is the really horrible one: Perhaps his head is being turned by the ‘charm’ of the right-wing corporatists; they can be very persuasive ‘good guys’ in person, unless you remember the whole fetid history of the Republican Party of the past 30 years. I recall when Dennis Miller had his HBO show years ago: first he brought on right-wingers to lightly mock them, as Stewart does; then he had them on to explain their positions while he nodded his head; then he became one of the Pod People himself. Miller should be a warning of what happens to those who turn their backs on sanity and the facts – they end up losing their core audience, and money, as they perform for a bunch of dimwit thumbsuckers who don’t get their jokes.
5. Even more horrible than the last one: Stewart is angling for a nice, long-term berth at Fox hosting a TDS-style political satire show. It’s no secret Roger Ailes has been looking to compete with TDS; what better way than to back up Murdoch’s money truck and hire away Stewart? (Think Karl Rove: attack their strong point.) I’d hate to think this is Stewart’s motivation, but it’s a possibility.
Whatever the reason is, I wish Stewart would, in the interest of fairness, have Olbermann and Schultz as guests on his show to present their side, as he does with the Fox Newsers. (And Olbermann and Schultz should reciprocate by having Stewart on their shows to explain himself.) Let’s clear the air.
I hope this is all a tiff among friends, rather than the creation of another Miller monstrosity or Ailes attack dog.
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October 7, 2010
The Tattlesnake – Unuttered Utterations and Which Witch is Which? Edition
– Tattlesnake’s ‘Media Insider’ says cool cats and kittens should not be swayed by the ‘official’ story regarding Rick Sanchez’s bouncing from the Corporatist News Network otherwise known as CNN. The reason Jon Stewart’s hilarious portrayals of Sanchez as something of a babbling idiot were so devastating is because, well, he’s something of a babbling idiot. (As evidenced by his comments about Stewart’s alleged ‘bigotry’ and Jewish ownership of the media.) Word is, CNN has been looking for a reason to dump this ratings-tank boob without having to pay off his contract. Like most Big Media bobbing heads, Sanchez’s contract no doubt had a standard clause that said if he did anything egregiously immoral, racist or embarrassing in public that had the potential of bringing scorn upon CNN, such as shaving his public hair on live TV or wearing a hood and announcing his selection as a Grand Imperial Wizard of the KKK, he could be summarily dismissed and his contract immediately cancelled with the balance due unpaid. CNN knew its man – with Rick’s fetid history of on-air loopiness, it was only a matter of time until Sanchez crossed the line, and this just happened to be that moment. Of course, Sanchez has now issued the stock Pro Forma Apology to the Universe, (you’ll find it between ‘Memo, Traditional Format’ and ‘Resume, Classic Form’ at your local Big Box stationery store), and eagerly looks forward to his “new future of opportunities” somewhere else. That ‘somewhere else’ will probably be the graveyard shift at Fox Business Channel where Roger Ailes has provided a comfortable if little-watched retirement village for dimbulb dogmatists who have bottomed out elsewhere in MediaLand. Here’s to not seeing you again, Rick!
–Republican Tea Party senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell, when not busy denying she’s a witch, told Fox News she was refraining from national campaigning to focus on the concerns of Delawareans. (That would be the denizens of tiny Delaware, not a race of talking plants in “Star Trek-The Next Generation,” although any confusion is completely understandable.) Howsomever, as Rachel Maddow recently exposed, the Anointed Chipmunk has not been doing much campaigning in Joe Biden’s home turf, either; no public events scheduled, nor interviewing forays with the local media. Is this evidence that she’s given up, facing a 20-point deficit in the polls and broad exposure of her two decades of public nuttiness? Her campaigning seems to be confined solely to running a batty ad where she informs voters up front she’s not a member of a coven (she only ‘dabbled’ in witchcraft, folks), and that she’s just like them, when they haven’t taken their meds. Aside from the roasting over hot flames any Dem candidate would receive from the rabid right for confessing even a fraction of Christine’s abuses of sanity, God Girl’s latest revelation that she’s been receiving ‘classified’ information that China is planning some kind of invasion of the US isn’t really classified or new. Your Tattlesnake has a couple of pals who were paid to teach English in China, only this was not the standard grammar-and-syntax English most of us think of when the subject comes up. Instead, what they were really hired to teach was street-American patois and the intricacies of our popular culture. (One friend spent a whole class on Elvis Presley, for example.) The Chinese ‘invasion’ is no secret, either, only it won’t be military – as reported by several financial publications, the Chinese are using their abundant hoard of US dollars to buy up large tracts of American land; it seems reasonable, more reasonable than Christine, anyway, that the Communist tyrants in Beijing plan to use that real estate to set up factories to manufacture their cheap junk here, once the US labor laws have been sufficiently weakened by Christine’s GOP to allow the kinds of unsafe job conditions and meager salaries Chinese workers endure. (Or maybe they’ll just use prisoners, as they mostly do back home.) What the little Non-Witch misses is that a good Christopublican corporation, Walmart, is the chief importer into the US of Chinese-made goods; her Republican Party has been the main driving force behind suspending tariffs and other regulations to prevent foreign nations from having this kind of power within our country; and notorious picked-by-Jesus ‘president’ Junior Bush borrowed $2 billion a day to pay for his bumbled, illegal war in Iraq and lavish tax cuts for his wealthy family and their rich friends. If ODon weren’t already losing large in the polls, it might behoove her opponent to point this out – yet another thudding contradiction that is going to kill the GOP in future elections.
– Why is it that this morning, an atheist did not see an image of Richard Dawkins in her burnt English Muffin, or Madalyn Murray O’Hair in her Lay’s Sour Cream & Onion potato chip? For that matter, Buddhists have not reported visions of Siddhartha in the swirls of their Cream of Wheat, nor have Jews spotted Moses in bowls of chopped chicken liver. For some reason, only Christians, and especially those of the odiferous American variety, seem to have this penchant for apprehending the Christopublican-sanctioned Jeffrey Hunter Jesus in everything from Melba toast to grilled cheese sandwiches. What does that say about the dominant religious delusion in the US? “Whoa — I see God in my snacks!”
© 2010 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.
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September 7, 2010
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September 12, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Stossel Gets Foxed Up and ‘Lord’ Boustany Fizzles Edition
Plus: Obama’s Playing Health Care Reform Chess with the Death Party – and He’s Winning
It’s About Time: Pretend journalist and right-wing dipthong John Stossel and his gay-porn-star-mustache have joined Fox News, his ideological home for the past twenty years anyway. Actually, the AP article says he’ll have a regular show on the moribund Fox Business Channel – which has an audience of about 150 poor wretches employed by owner Rupert Murdoch – and pop up on Fox News occasionally. The story-behind-the-story? ABC News couldn’t wait to get rid of this strutting little pimple and they’ve been gently pushing him out the door for the better part of a decade. After years of bellowing the tiresome “Give me a break!” to the point where some of his viewers volunteered to administer one to his neck, Stossel is finally getting his – hee, hee — ‘big break’ on Fox. The spoiled Stossel’s lowest and most hilarious moment at ABC came when ‘Mr. Honest Libertarian’ admitted on-air that he had a luxury vacation beach house that had been flattened by a hurricane that he then had the evil government pay to rebuild through just the kind of program for rich idiots like himself that he railed against on a regular basis on ABC’s “20/20.” Hey, he didn’t like stealing the taxpayer’s money, but as long as the program was available, what the hell? And he’d do it again, too, he said, because he really loved that luxury beach house. Never occurred to his hypocritical ass to pay for it out of his own fat wallet. Give me a f*cking break indeed. Have a nice time working for Rupert and Roger Ailes, Johnny – maybe you they’ll let you trade quips with Glenn Beck and Orly Taitz about Obama’s birth certificate and do in-depth interviews with ‘morans’ at teabag rallies — you know, real news.
The GOP Sleep Doctor: Why did the GOP pick a potato-headed southern doctor in a bad suit who resembles a Hicksville undertaker to give the Republican response to Obama’s health care speech? Easy, they knew they didn’t have anyone with the firepower to outdo BHO, so they went the other way and dredged up this boring drone named Charles “Lord” Boustany who by some cosmic accident was elected to a Congressional seat from Louisiana. Well, at least the Republicans avoided the embarrassment of another humiliating pratfall by a Bobby “Big Checks!” Jindal, the lame Louisiana governor who is now running around the state taking credit for Obama’s stimulus money that he once indignantly said he would refuse. Most viewers probably ignored Boustany, the same way you’d turn away at a whiff of formaldehyde, but he was actually entertaining, in a demented GOP way – the Republican’s puny rant was obviously written before Obama addressed Congress, so Lord B. was getting pissy over things Obama had already clarified in his speech. Not that truth has ever been any hindrance to GOP BS, but seeing it in such stark contrast to what Obama had just said a quarter-hour before was hilarious.
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April 30, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Rep. Hoot, Sen. Smalley and the Fox Swine Crew Edition
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
Down By the Old Rumor Mill Stream, Part Whatever
Devon Keester’s Hollywood Lowdown
“The dark, sweaty juncture where politics and show biz meet!”
[Note: Since Keester’s sources are shady and unreliable and usually found near a vinyl-covered barstool, his ramblings should be taken with a several grains of salt from the rim of his next margarita.]
– Biden Over and Out: Obama will not be running with Biden as his Veep in 2012. Word is, Joe Biden is feeling every one of his 68 years and not anxious to enter another national campaign after finally facing the realization he’ll never be president. That’s okey-doke with Obama, as it gives him the opening to offer the VP slot to Hillary Clinton, further underwriting his re-election. Now that the sharp edges of the 2008 campaign have softened, and BHO and Sec-of-State Hill have a good working relationship, he would welcome her as a running mate, and the youthful 63-year-old Clinton would have a springboard for a presidential run in 2016. The only question that remains is if Hillary will sign on. She may not have the stomach for another national campaign herself, preferring, maybe, the governorship of a state to be named later instead. If not Clinton, Obama would like to make history, and notch his appeal to women voters, by naming someone of the female gender. Next on the list if Clinton doesn’t bite is supposedly Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, although US Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are said to be strong possibilities as well.
– The Story Behind the Story: Yup, Newt Gingrich had a suspicious interest-free revolving charge account at Tiffany’s for two years that racked up $500 grand in billings, but that’s not all. Ignoring for the moment that regular customers pay 21 percent interest on their charges, Newtie’s current wife Callista, when she was a lobbyist, had ties to the silver mining industry from which Tiffany’s fabricates its overpriced doodads, and Gingrich himself, while in the House, interceded to get the jewelry company a very sweet deal on use of public lands for mining. The Newtster may soon have more to worry about than his doomed SNL-skit presidential campaign — the feds are taking notice of his involvement with the Tiff, and whether he actually paid down that half-mil himself or if some or all of it was written off by the grateful company as a lobbying fee. Whichever way it goes, Newt is going to end up in a courtroom somewhere, trying to stay out of the hoosegow, and probably still running for president in his fevered little brain. No wonder Newtie was reluctant to answer any questions about his $500K shopping spree at Tiffany’s — it’s looking like a quid pro quo bribe.
– The Story Behind the Story, Part Deux: Sure, it’s been all over the papers like a dog who got into the prune juice that pouty ex-Alaskan Ice Princess Sarah Palin is moving the whole-damn Wasillabilly brood to a luxurious $1.7 million 5-BR, 6.5-bath manse with a concrete swimmin’ hole in Scottsdale, AZ, near enough to America’s wackiest sheriff, Joe Arpaio, to be in the Red Zone if any of his pink-clad prisoners escape. But let’s just get this out of the way: the erstwhile Mama Grizzly is not running for president — her ‘tragic bus’ tour of the Nor’east is just to revive national media interest in her fast-plummeting ‘brand,’ whatever her crackpot brand is these days. How could this be when all the big-time pundits are sure she’s running? Well, she hasn’t been kicked off Fox News, and she’s got a $1 mil-a-year contract there that runs through 2013. But she also allegedly has speaking contracts to read her palm to unfortunate victims through 2014; if she reneges on those contracts — since she can’t legally take the money if she’s a candidate — she’ll have to pay a stiff penalty. That would cost her a bundle out of pocket she can’t afford. Get your laughs now — by 2015 she’ll be off Fox and consigned to introducing second-rate Branson, MO, acts with, “Hi there, remember me? I’m Sarah Palin!”
– Ailes Out at Fox? Speaking of Fox Noose, head-major-domo-top-enchilada, first-among-inferiors Generalissimo Roger Ailes’ contract with king pinsetter Rupert Murdoch is up in 2013. Surely Uncle Rupe will renew it, you say. Not so fast: Murdoch’s recent wife Wendi likes Obama and loathes Ailes, and Rupe’s wives have considerable influence on him; plus, the whole fam damily who will be inheriting the business when Murdoch retires or ascends to Media Jesusland likewise has about as much affection for the former Nixon PR flack as they do for a case of the clap. Word is, James Murdoch, current deputy operating office at Fox parent News Corp, particularly has it in for Ailes after what Rog did to brother Lachlan, supposedly pushing James’ older sibling to the point of a nervous breakdown. The elder Murdoch is also said to not be pleased at the direction Ailes has dragged the GOP-propaganda cable channel; of course, he favors its conservative slant, but the hiring of palpable nitwits like Boom-Boom Palin and Man-On-Dog Ricky Santorum didn’t sit well with News Corps’ Bigga Boss. Look for a shake-up at Fox after the next election, unless the GOP wins Reagan-’84 big.
– One More Fox Tale: A deep, deep rumor says the Keith Olbermann ousting at MSNBC was part of a deal with Fox News’ Roger Ailes. Seems Keith, the former ratings king at MSNBC, was getting under Roger’s skin with his gloves-off jibes at Fox personalities, as well as cutting into Fox’s cable dominance as his ‘Countdown’ show numbers steadily increased. In a top secret meeting with Comcast, then poised to buy up MSNBC parent NBC-Universal, Ailes and unnamed execs from Comcast and NBC allegedly struck a deal to lessen the attacks on Fox and dump Olbermann once the Comcast buy-out was finalized; in return, Fox would go easier on NBC and provide some other goodies. Part of the bargain was that MSNBC would get rid of its top rater and Fox would reciprocate. So Ailes agreed to jettison Fox ratings leader Glenn Beck in return for Olbermann’s exit. Roger got the best of the deal — he wanted to give loose-cannon Beck the heave-ho anyway while MSNBC is now struggling in Keith’s old primetime slot, and Olbermann is fixing to cut down those ‘Lean Forward’ numbers even further when he resurrects ‘Countdown’ June 20th on Al Gore’s Current TV network at his old 8e/7c berth.
– He Won’t Be Baack: A big dime is about to drop (but not in the form of a ‘bag’) on former Kali-forn-yuh guff’nor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seems the ex-bodybuilder and purported actor had more than one out-of-wedlock bambino while married to Kennedy-kin Maria Shriver — mayhap as many as 6 or 7 — and all of their mamas want more money or they are calling the media. Add to that the news that the California AG is about to prosecute the Teutonic Musclehead for using state troopers to deliver comely young ‘club’ females 18-to-25 to his Governator living quarters at the Hyatt hotel in Sacramento, a clear misuse of state funds. It’s been reported Schwarzy planned to resume his ‘achting’ career post-politics — fat chance, since the word is the major studios now think he’s not ‘bankable’ at the box office anymore. (Perhaps he can nab the independent-film roles Casper Van Dien turns down, at Van Dien pay, natch.) Oh, and one more thing: all the years of stress on his bones and muscles from over-exercising and steroid use have taken their toll — the 63-year-old Ah-nuld allegedly now has the physical mobility of a man 20 years older and can only function normally by taking prescription painkillers.
© 2011 RS Janes.
http://tattlesnake.blogspot.com