The Chief Wiggum character is copyrighted by Matt Groening and whoever else owns a piece of ‘The Simpsons.’
May 29, 2009
May 28, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Suggestions for the Fox Populi and the Other Media Maroons Edition
Remember, Kids, Freedom Isn’t Free: While I would never support censoring anyone’s freedom of speech, I think there should be special conditions for those in the right-wing media who regularly abuse this right by using it to spread outrageous fabrications and misleading distortions. Following are a few suggestions:
– Sean Hannity should be required to do his program in between regularly scheduled televised waterboarding sessions, say at 30-minute intervals every time he’s on the air. It’s could be like the half-hour time mark, “This is Sean Hannity and it’s exactly 8:30 – brggghhhh — arrggghhhh, STOP, STOP!!!!” This will end when Sean admits waterboarding is torture and quits show business the next day.
– Bill O’Reilly should have to do his show without a teleprompter or a script. Also, every antagonistic guest – which would constitute his entire guest list — would be a complete surprise that O’Reilly would have to deal with on-air in ‘real time’ without preparation. Oh, and the guests would all wear Keith Olbermann masks. This will stop when O’Reilly admits he uses a teleprompter and a script to do his show and there’s nothing wrong with that. He’ll also have to stop ambushing people with whom he disagrees, and say Olbermann’s name at least once during every program, until he quits show business the next day.
– Glenn Beck should be required to have Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar on his show as regular co-hosts. He would also have a crawl running under his name whenever he’s talking on the air, “Glenn Beck, Stand-Up Comic: You’re an Idiot If You Listen to Me!” until he quits show business that evening.
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May 27, 2009
May 26, 2009
Malpractice Insurance for Newspaper Publishers?
Does the constant reduction of the number of newsroom employees at the various and sundry newspapers remind anyone of the old medical procedure of bloodletting? The cure, which called for doctors to remove a quantity of blood from a sick person, would sometimes make the patient’s condition worse and in some cases would kill him/her off.
Won’t eliminating a publication’s contents to achieve an increase in circulation have the same effect as an overprescription of bloodletting?
May 25, 2009
May 23, 2009
May 21, 2009
Dowd Dood It
Further reading:
“NY Times’ Maureen Dowd Plagiarizes TPM’s Josh Marshall”
TPM, May 17, 2009.
“Gerth blames NY Times editors for Whitewater ‘mistakes’”
Eric Boehlert, Media Matters, June 5, 2007.
“Where’s the Media Mea Culpa?” [on Whitewater]
Joe Conason, Salon.com, March 28, 2002.
“United States journalism scandals”
Wikipedia.
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May 20, 2009
Tenet’s Slam Dunk House of Secrets
For a partial list of CIA lies to Congress, go here:
“Does the CIA Ever Lie? Parsing the Pelosi Torture Controversy”
Peter Hart, Common Dreams, May 20, 2009.
May 18, 2009
May 17, 2009
May 16, 2009
May 15, 2009
But Only Because the American Nazi Party Was Taken
Today’s GOP — moving from the ridiculously stupid to the space-cadet silly
“A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the ‘Democrat Socialist Party.’”
— Roger Simon, “GOP, RNC to Rebrand Democrats as ‘Socialists,’” Politico.com, May 13, 2009.
That’s fine, the Republicans should go ahead and do that, as long as
they accept this appropriate title as well:
“Things for the Republicans are bad, very bad. It is worse than just about any Republican wants to admit.” [...]
“…But the big picture is clear for all to see: Under Republican rule,
government got bigger and more intrusive.
“Which brings us to personal freedoms: From the legislating of
morality (Schiavo as the prime example), to the various conservative-led state bans on gay marriage, the Republicans did very little to
expand personal freedoms and if anything looked like the party trying
to take freedoms away.” [...]
“No one is stepping up and accepting any responsibility. The public only sees a bunch of cowards afraid to take responsibility.”
— Chuck Todd, “Yes, It’s That Bad for the GOP,” NBC News, May 14, 2009.
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The Tattlesnake – Cheney the War Criminal Edition
Those who watched Dick Cheney’s speech Thursday, May 21 had a glimpse of the ‘real Cheney’ stripped of his usual condescending corporate-CEO cold-bloodedness and country-club sham machismo — for the first part of his remarks he was a shaken, sick old man of 68 desperately trying to make a case for brazenly violating the laws of civilization and the US Constitution, apparently clinging to the notion that if he can summon up enough public support for his torture policies he can avoid the temporary judgment of a jury, and the more lasting condemnation of history.
For, in fact, Cheney’s fervid protestations that ‘we didn’t torture’ and his subsequent bizarre assertions that ‘everything we did was legal’ fail on both counts, yet another prime example of the perpetually wrongheaded Cheney approach on display since he assumed the vice presidency by way of an illicit Supreme Court decision in 2000.
The waterboarding that Cheney has blithely admitted to in several different public forums has been defined as torture since the autos-da-fé of the Spanish Inquisition 500 years ago, and various international tribunals and American courts in the Twentieth Century have reaffirmed that definition. Cheney’s justification that the torture he authorized was ‘legal’ because a couple of DOJ lawyers told him so holds no more water than if they had advised him it was legal for him to own slaves. The Constitution Cheney took an oath to uphold states clearly that ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ is banned, as do several treaties the US has signed which are by dint of Congressional approval the law of the land, as well as the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment signed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988 which specifically prohibits the sort of cruel and degrading treatment of detainees Cheney authorized.
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