BartBlog

January 30, 2009

So many topics . . .

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 3:10 pm

When President Obama names the new Attorneys General across the USA, how long will it take for the conservative talk radio folks to distort the issue (all incoming Presidents do it) and say that the Dems are hypocritical for doing what they condemned Bush for doing just last year?

Rush or Dennis mentioned Friday that a return to the fairness doctrine may be on the Obama agenda. In Australia, radio has a variety of formats and community radio (which is a lot like the radio version of local TV cable access shows) are the norm. Rush will want his listeners to protest the fairness doctrine. It will be twisted into blocking the unfair ratio (90 conservative to 10 liberal) of talk radio as a way of promoting freedom of speech. Is it time for an update column?

Did you see an item on-line this week saying that Republicans are promoting a bill that would eliminate all IRS tax penalty fees?

Which is worse; the journalists in Thirties Germany who could not tell the truth or the American journalists who stifle themselves so as not to antagonize the Bush family? (When George HW Bush spoke about the possibility of Jeb becoming President, did any mainstream journalist say just the phrase “Broward Savings and Loan,” let alone elaborate on why that might be a relevant side-bar story?

On radio in the San Francisco area, in promos, Mike Savage is saying that now that Barack Obama is President, folks should follow the money. He doesn’t indicate if it would be important or of interest to follow where the bank bailout funds went. Is that unfair and unbalanced?

This past week Rush Limbaugh seemed to be quarterbacking the Republican strategy. He wrote an article outlining his version of a good bailout legislative package. Would a column speculating about the possibility that this might be an early part of a Rush for President effort be premature? If Rush is not the Republican “front-runner,” then who is?

Sean Hannity (on Thursday) suggested that the Obama program would be to go toward “European style socialism.” Any thoughts that the Bush banks bailout funds were socialism for capitalism, was not verbalized. Would a column outlining that contention be appropriate for this weekend?

If (conservative moles/trolls please note the use of the subjunctive mood)President Bush & Co. were guilty of war crimes, does the mainstream media silence about “justice,” indicate a move to avoid any allegations of “accessories” because of their poor performance on that story? (Was Robert Brasilach guilty of collaboration or just a misplaced effort to be fair and balanced?)

Should we write a weekend column speculating on the possibility that Murilee Martin ever leaves Alameda and if he does why does he?

What can readers do with pictures of their smiling dogs?
Isn’t “the Bark” magazine looking for such material?

Would folks in the SF Bay area rather see “The Blue Angel” (Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum) than the big football game and all those cool ads? Can that question be expanded into an interesting column?

What is the mathematical probability that any readers of this site would read a column about “the Monty Hall problem”?

What are the odds that Rush would use this Gen. George S. Patton quote:”If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”?

Now our disk jockey will play Seasick Steve’s “Save me.” It’s time for us to ask: Will Karl Rove testify for . . . Jesus? Have a “hallelujah” type week.

January 28, 2009

Thank you, Dennis Miller! ! !

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 5:04 pm

After writing a column lamenting the demise of hypocrisy, this columnist was forced to realize that it’s not dead after all. A morning monitoring, recently, of the Dennis Miller radio program produced a Phoenix moment. Hopes to be able to continue a connoisseur’s appreciation of sanctimonious Republican drivel sprang back to life almost immediately.

The column was a hasty misjudgment. Miller’s attempt, on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2009, to goad journalists into mauling every aspect of the Obama program was so encouraging and reassuring for someone who now realizes that Dracula will die before Republican hypocrisy is laid to rest.

Anything but complete obeisance to the Bush press policy that stenography is excellent journalism and that any antagonistic questions from the press is tantamount to treason are applicable only during a Republican President’s term in office.

When a Democrat takes office, it’s time to take the gloves off. The Republican radio personalities will never say anything disparaging about a Republican and never concede that a Democrat has done anything that is not reprehensible and despicable, but the “pro liberal”media must, for the rest of Obama’s term in office, become completely antagonistic and skeptical to prove that they are fair and balanced.

Any derogatory comments made by the “pro liberal” press about a Democratic President will be as welcome as a cash contribution to the Republican National Committee. Any positive assessments of a Democratic President will be challenged and discredited by Republican lackeys in the radio game and be denounced as an example of prejudicial propaganda masquerading as “journalism.”

Miller punctuates his comments with guffawing but doesn’t indicate if he is chuckling with his listeners about how quickly the news media have forgotten that Bush had them fully trained to ignore his deficiencies, or if he is laughing at his listeners about how stupid they are to believe his two-faced standards.

Miller’s Tuesday program was soothing reassurance that a four year long supply of hypocrisy raised to the third power will be available for those who have become addicted to it.

El-Rushbo has indicated that he will wallow in disloyalty to the new Commander-in-chief, so don’t tune in to him to hear a daily dose of hypocrisy in action.

As viewers of the film “Gone With the Wind” know, tomorrow is another day and perhaps a listen to Sean Hannity will provide a new and powerful hit for a hypocrisy junkie! ! !

Andre Gide has said: “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.”

Now, the disk jockey will play a recording (from 1943?) of Fats Waller’s “You’re a Viper” (just for you Dennis) and we’ll be out of here faster than a Dendroaspis polylepis can slither. Have a “have a nice day” type of week.

The Tattlesnake – It’s Worse Than You Think Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 2:39 pm

MSNBC reported this morning that the Peanut Corporation of America – yes, someone actually named a company that – knowingly shipped out products contaminated by salmonella. (So much for the market policing itself.) The FDA alerted the PCA of the contamination last year. Did some exec at PCA decide, ala the Ford Pinto, that it would be cheaper to handle food poisoning lawsuits than recall its products? Stay tuned. (They’re just lucky that the salmonella wasn’t one of the new drug-resistant strains.)

BTW, we’ve been losing approximately 500,000 jobs a month, or 6 million annually, for some several years now. That means that the Bush Labor Department’s employment figures were skewed and actual unemployment is much higher than the government has been reporting. (But you knew that.)

Quick — try to think of the difference between the way Stalin ran the USSR and the way the average American CEO runs a multi-national mega-corporation. Those at the very top prosper, everyone else suffers, and the system is completely corrupt and immoral. (And don’t fool yourself that the stockholders are any more effective at controlling Comrade Chairman than were the Politburo; as in the old Soviet Union, the deck is stacked against the ‘little guy’ investor.)

On the other hand, Corporate America, and the world economy, are collapsing of its own weight. Read The Financial Times — the vipers in finance and investment no longer trust each other — no honor among these thieves — and the current corporate structure can’t make money for the stockholders nor even themselves anymore. Like any large beast doomed to extinction, they have greedily gorged themselves to the point where there are no more suckers left to fleece and they can’t fleece each other since they all play the same tricks. The bailout is their last desperate gasp before the final curtain. The diversified multi-national mega-corporation of today is finished, although its slow-motion fall will take a few years and there will be some further suffering on our part. The practitioners of Disaster Capitalism have finally seen the catastrophe dumped on their own heads and they don’t have a clue as to how to dig themselves out, since most of their inbred management, buzzing with the erroneous free market lingo of the transient MBA, are only slightly smarter and more adept than Bush the Younger. When your heroes are utter monsters like Al ‘Chainsaw’ Dunlap, or sleazy film characters like Gordon Gecko, your demise is predictable and well deserved. Fortunately for us, it seems President Obama is smarter than to go down with this sinking ship.

‘Zell’ — It Rhymes with ‘Stink’: “[T]he Tribune Company. This media conglomerate, which owns some of America’s top newspapers and television stations, was bought a year ago by a Chicago real estate baron named Sam Zell.
“This fellow didn’t have anywhere near enough money to pay the $8.2 billion purchase price, but, hey, that’s no problem for a striver. Zell simply got the company’s CEO to let him use the employees pension fund as collateral for bank loans to buy the Tribune. Even though their money was put at risk, the employees had no say in the deal, nor in how the company was run. It was run badly. Less than a year after Zell’s takeover, the Tribune has had to declare bankruptcy, and employees are likely to lose jobs, severance payments and pensions.”
– Jim Hightower, “Pirate Ethics,” Dec. 18, 2008.

“Sam Zell never really had much skin in the game. Last year, when he purchased the Tribune Company… he put up $315 million of his own money and paid the balance of the purchase price, $8.2 billion, with the employee stock ownership plan — a move in which Tribune employees had no say whatever. But that actually overstates the amount of Zell’s investment. Of the $315 million he sunk into the company, it turns out that $225 million was simply a promissory note. Due to the vagaries of bankruptcy law, writes business analyst Mark Lacter on LAobserved.com, that means that Zell has better protection for his stake than all his employees.”
– Harold Meyerson, “The Worst CEO,” Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2008.

The Zell-owned Chicago Tribune has been at the forefront of the relentless media attacks on Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption and demanded his impeachment even before Fitzgerald arrested Blago. Now, that’s entertainment.

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January 27, 2009

Carter did not stay silent

Filed under: Commentary — Peregrin @ 5:12 am

A couple of months ago I picked up Carter’s “Our Endangered Values” from the thrift shop. Didn’t really expect to like it, since he’s devoutly religious. But surprisingly, I did.

First, to deal with the religiosity thing. Sure, he’s a religious guy. He’s ministered and preached the word of the other famous JC. But his “born-again” status was overblown by the press. He has always defended religious freedom (a President who takes the First Amendment seriously?), and eventually he ended up leaving the Baptists because they got too damn political.

Second, to address Bart’s questions, Carter certainly did speak out against Bush, verbally and in print. He was against the Iraq war, he has always been against torture, and he opposed the screwed-up financial priorities of the BFEE.

But, when he was doing that, the whore press ignored him.

If I still have the files, I’ll send some nice sound bites your way from the book.

January 24, 2009

Wish Granted for Jim Morrison and Dutch

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , — Bob Patterson @ 4:31 pm

President Reagan had, while he was in office, (according to two reliable sources) expressed a wish that the United States would have a new Great Depression.

(Note for conservative troll/moles:  I invoke the Limbaugh rule of discourse; only insecure nancy-boys will challenge that pronouncement and they are not worth a rebuttal effort.  So take it or leave it go.)

If Reagan’s wish had been immediately granted, the whole country would have been upset with him and his party so good strategists would move slowly to achieve that goal and if they were especially devious and conniving, they would arrainge for a Republican administration to make it inevitable, but fix it so that a Democratic successor would take the fall for the event when it happened.

For rich people the advantages of a new Depression would be many:  undoing the unions, making many government provided social services unaffordable, returning to the old way of running a society: the rich vs. the poor, and making it an enviable thing to be so wealthy that cares about day to day expenses were irrelevant to good living.

Jim Morrison (lead singer of the rock group “the Doors”) once said he wanted to get his kicks before “the whole S*******e (outhouse) goes up in flames.”  Naturally the conservatives denounced this as being unpatriotic claptrap and therefore reprehensible.  It was the irresposible ravings of a lunatic and quite fully condemmed.  How clever is it to denounce what a rebel says if that is exactly what you want? 

So George W. Bush and his cronies have gutted the banking industry (can you say Broward Savings and Loan, boys and girls?), invaded Iraq (what was said at Nuremburg about “any invasion”?) is handing out “bail out” funds to various companies (who nationalized the German auto industry in the thirties?), and is destroying your 401K nest egg?

Then, just as folks realize “we’ve been had!,” the opposing party wins big and takes the reigns of control just in time to preside over a new Depresssion.

Does it look, to anyone else, like President Obama is being set-up as the fall guy?

Herbert Hoover once said:  “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.”  To which one conservative friend would reply:  ” . . . and so, what’s your point?”

Now, the disk jockey will play a song just for George W. Bush, Woody Guthrie’s (ever notice how much he looks like Sean Penn?) song:  “So long, it’s been good to know you.”  We’ll wave good-bye to the departing president (using just one finger) and we’ll do the dustbowl thing and head for California.  Have a “rich fat cats never notice a depression” type week.

January 20, 2009

Ye Olde Scribe Presents: A Report from the Festivities in Washington

Filed under: Commentary — Ye Olde Scribe @ 10:57 am

Being the famous, universally praised, rich internet entity that he is, Scribe is experiencing the festivities first hand. He has a prime seat: outside the furthest back barricade with a horde of stern SS agents (Are there any other kind? They come out of the box that way.) …and heavily armed soldiers blocking access.

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January 10, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Presidential Meeting at the White House Edition

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:49 pm

On January 7, 2009, the four living US presidents and President-Elect Barack Obama met for lunch at the White House. Details of their private conversation have been kept from the media but, thanks to a Tattler fly on the wall, the details can now be revealed.

Scene: George W. Bush (JUNIOR), his father George H.W. Bush (POPPY), Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

JUNIOR: “Let’s all take a load off an’ get this here thing started.”

[Everyone sits down.]

OBAMA: “First, I’d like to ask you all for your opinions on the crisis in the Gaza –”

JUNIOR: “Whoa, doggies, there, pard’ner. I’m still the president here so I get to do the decidin’ of whut goes first where.”

OBAMA: “Of course, Mr. President. What topic would you like to address first?”

JUNIOR: “Uh, I dunno – hey, since muh Daddy’s here, why don’t we talk about pussy?”

POPPY: “Arrrhhhh, har, har, har, har, arrrhhhh, uuuhhhh.”

OBAMA: “Pussy?”

CARTER: “Oh, my God.”

CLINTON: “Sweet Jesus on a pogo stick.”

JUNIOR: “Yeah, ah think thass a real good topic for conversatin’ over. Hey, Bill, show us whut happened with that Lew-in-sky girl in here.”

POPPY: “Arrrhhhh, har, har, har, har, arrrhhhh, uuuhhhh.”

CLINTON: “George, you know I’m not gonna talk about that.”

OBAMA: “Excuse me, Mr. President, but I asked for this meeting to get your perspectives on some of the pressing issues of our time.”

JUNIOR: “Take th’ stick outta yore butt, Bar-rack! Presidentin’ is easy – all you do is sign yore name where they tell yuh tuh sign it, say whut they tell ya’ tuh say, and pose pretty for th’ pictures. Oh, yeah, an’ yuh gotta main-tain the dignity of the office. Ain’t that right, Daddy?”

POPPY: “Arrrhhhh, har, har, har, har, arrrhhhh, uuuhhhh.”

CLINTON: “That’s what’s known as the ‘Bush Doctrine,’ I believe.”

JUNIOR: “I sleep like a baby ever night ’cause I don’t let things get tuh me by thinkin’ about ‘em too much. Thass the key to successful presidentin’!”

CLINTON: “We aren’t going to accomplish much here. We’ll talk later in private, Barack.”

OBAMA: “I think you’re right, Bill.”

CARTER: “Let’s pose for the photo-op and get the hell out of here.”

OBAMA: “Can we have the photographers in now?”

JUNIOR: “Yuh mean we ain’t gonna talk about pussy?”

POPPY: “Arrrhhhh, har, har, har, har, arrrhhhh, uuuhhhh.”

(Photographers enter; the end.)

January 9, 2009

Warning for Americans!

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: — Bob Patterson @ 12:14 am
Warning!

Warning!

This warning isn’t a political message for Americans. 

Since Australians drive on the left hand side of the

road, Americans are in danger.  They are used to

looking left and stepping into the street. 

In Australia, they could be blindsided by traffic

coming from the right, so this warning for American

pedestrians is painted at many intersections in Sydney.

January 7, 2009

Let’s Focus on 2009

Filed under: Commentary,Uncategorized — Greg in cheeseland @ 4:49 pm

After a few weeks hiatus from politics, and a few weeks of travel, family, holidays, etc….I found myself thinking on New Year’s Eve, 2008. At that moment every year we get the opportunity to think about how we got where we are, how we can improve ourselves and how we can have a positive impact on the world around us.

2008 left America in the deepest recession since the Great Depression in the 30’s. A myriad of problems left by the last administration that have already led to a near economic collapse have barely begun to be addressed. It’s tempting to get cynical and lash out at the details of what our new administration has done and will do, instead of seeing the big picture and looking ahead. In times of stress, however, Americans tend to pull together.

I prefer to think of these difficulties as an opportunity not only to make significant changes in our society, but also in the way we think about our society. Piecemeal, patchwork, incremental plans won’t be enough to solve the problems that our country faces. Only a new vision can erase the failures of the past eight years. The last time America faced such a challenge was in the 1930’s, and out of that came some of America’s boldest policies. Our 21st-century ideas must be as progressive and innovative as the ones that led us into the last half of that century. We need to restore confidence in our government through transparency, fairness and equity. Our economy must be enabled, or forced, to grow in a sustainable way. We need to put our resources into helping those most in need within our borders, and elect representatives that represent the desires of our community for a safe, sustainable, forward-looking society.

So, how do we do that?  (more…)

January 6, 2009

Why America Is Still Awesome

Filed under: Commentary — Peregrin @ 1:31 am

By John Devore

First things first: Don’t freak out about the title. I know things look bleak. You’re stocking up on shotgun shells and Dinty Moore Beef Stew, dreading the day you inevitably have to pitchfork-fight a hobo over the last piece of firewood in the Hooverville. Hell, you might even be thinking that Kanye West was wrong for once: maybe “The Good Life” isn’t all that. Maybe the mass pursuit of diamond-spackled grills, champagne Jacuzzis and McMansions the size of Vatican City was not actually the happiness we totally had the right to pursue.

This past year, we learned that karma is a bitch. That Wall Street is run by Hamburglars. The government is basically too many pigs at too small a trough. That we’re broke, at war(s) and, instead of dealing with it, we’ve chosen to watch celebrities dance, dance, dance for the bloodthirsty hordes. We torture to make ourselves feel safer, cheat each other to make ourselves richer and have generally behaved like raging assholes.

I get all that, and still I say with total and utter conviction: America is awesome. And we’re awesome because we are batshit, out of our minds crazy. The French are intellectuals, the Russians are brooders and the Chinese are hard workers. Americans are crazy. Our optimism, ambition, and self-interest verges on the manic.

Read the rest of this article

January 2, 2009

Ye Olde Scribe’s Day After New Year’s Day Quotation Bomb Bonanza

Filed under: Commentary — Ye Olde Scribe @ 8:28 am

“As Scribe, dressed as Slim Pickens, rides da bomb down to planet Blog.”

“Slim Pickens?” What ever happened to his brother who hogged the buffet line, “Fat Sloppings?”

-YOS

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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 23, 2008

More on the Death of Rove’s IT Man Michael Connell, Who Allegedly Helped Rig Elections for Bush and the GOP

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion — Tags: , , , , , , , — RS Janes @ 6:59 pm

Just to expand on Ken Carmen’s “A Very Convenient Crash” post at Liberaltopia.org that dealt with the mysterious death last Friday of Karl Rove’s electoral IT man Michael Connell, here’s part of an interview Amy Goodman conducted with Mark Crispin Miller, who has been following this case, and Bush/GOP election fraud in general, closely.

Here are some fascinating excerpts, but read the whole transcript here.

Rove’s IT Guru Warned of Sabotage Before Fatal Plane Crash; Was Set to Testify
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Posted on December 22, 2008

Amy Goodman: A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Mike Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. He also set up the official Ohio state election website reporting the 2004 presidential election returns.

Connell was reportedly an experienced pilot. He died instantly Friday night when his private plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Akron, Ohio.

Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count and his access to Karl Rove’s e-mail files and how they went missing.

Velvet Revolution, a non-profit investigating Connell’s activities, revealed this weekend that Connell had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [him] under the bus.” Cliff Arnebeck had also previously alerted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to alleged threats from Karl Rove to Connell if he refused to “take the fall.”

Well, Mark Crispin Miller joins us now, a professor of media culture and communication at New York University, the author of several books, including Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 and Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too. Mark Crispin Miller us now in our firehouse studio.

[...]

AG: Alright, well, we had you on right before the election, because that’s when Mike Connell was being deposed. This news that came out of his death in a plane crash on Friday night, talk about what you understand has happened.

Mark Crispin Miller: Well, I cannot assert with perfect confidence that this was no accident, but I will say that the circumstances are so suspicious and so convenient for Rove and the White House that I think we’re obliged to investigate this thing very, very thoroughly. And that means, first of all, taking a close look at some of the stories that were immediately circulated to account for what happened, that it was bad weather. That was the line they used when Wellstone’s plane went down. There had been bad weather, but it had passed two hours before. And this comes from a woman at the airport information desk in Akron. We’re told that his plane was running out of gas, which is a little bit odd for a highly experienced pilot like Connell, but apparently, when the plane went down, there was an explosion, a fireball that actually charred and pocked some of the house fronts in the neighborhood. People can go online and see the footage that news crews took. But beyond the, you know, dubiousness of the official story, we have to take a close look at — and a serious look at all the charges that Connell was set to make.

AG: Now, he had asked the Attorney General Mukasey for protective custody, because of threats to him and his wife?

MCM: He reported threats to his lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, and Arnebeck — also, Velvet Revolution heard from tipsters, as well, tipsters who also claimed that Connell’s life was at risk. Stephen Spoonamore, the whistleblower who was the first — who was the one to name Connell in the first place, also had an ear to the inside. He’s also very connected. And all these people were saying Rove is making threats, the White House is very worried about this case.

Having heard all this, Arnebeck contacted Mukasey, he contacted Nancy Rogers, who is the Ohio Attorney General, and he wrote a letter to the court, telling all of them that “This man should be in protective custody. He is an important witness in a RICO case. Please do something to look after him.” And they didn’t respond to this.

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December 20, 2008

The Tattlesnake – The Quotalizer Rides Again Edition

Filed under: Commentary,Opinion,Quote,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — RS Janes @ 7:52 am

A Quoteload of Seasonal Quotable Quotes of the Quippy and Quirky Variety

“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few his precepts!
O! ’tis easier to keep holidays than commandments.”
– Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757.

“Jesus wasn’t a Christian, and he never preached in a church. He was also a drinker, and liked to hang out with sinners. We think of him very highly in the Church of Stop Shopping. We put him right up there with Lenny Bruce.”
– Reverend Billy

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
– Lenny Bruce (or, these days, tiny syringes.)

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”
– Lenny Bruce

“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than going to the garage makes you a car.”
– Dr. Laurence J. Peter

“Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?”
– Jules Feiffer

“Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.”
– Butch Hancock

“To hear many religious people talk, one would think God created the torso, head, legs and arms, but the devil slapped on the genitals.”
– Don Schrader

“Christian fundamentalism: the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.”
– Andrew Lias

“The problem with fundamentalists insisting on a literal interpretation of the Bible is that the meaning of words change. A prime example is ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ A rod was a stick used by shepherds to guide their sheep to go in the desired direction. Shepherds did not use it to beat their sheep. The proper translation of the saying is ‘Give your child guidance, or they will go astray.’ It does not mean ‘Beat the shit out of your child or he will become rotten’ as many fundamentalist parents seem to believe.”
– Author Unknown

“I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, ‘If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘not if you did not know.’ ‘Then why,’ asked the Eskimo earnestly, ‘did you tell me?’”
– Annie Dillard

“Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he’ll starve to death while praying for a fish.”
– Author Unknown

“Most sermons sound to me like commercials — but I can’t make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product.”
– Mignon McLaughlin, “The Second Neurotic’s Notebook,” 1966.

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December 19, 2008

Ye Olde Scribe Presents: Hell to the King, a Scent is Born

Filed under: Commentary — Ye Olde Scribe @ 11:27 am

Ye Olde Scribe’s Links to Oblivion and Other Fun Places
“Stinking up the net at the speed of Barf”

Horrible advertising. Won’t make it Scribe’s way. Scribe knew there must be other reasons why he was avoiding a place that tells even bigger Whoppers than he does.

“My pain runs deep. My acne has never left my face. My memories of adolescence are riddled with the smell of chicken tenders and Vanilla Shakes. I have seen the creatures that live at bottom of the dumpster. I have seen the rat by the soda machine. I have seen dead frogs in the fresh salad lettuce. I have seen undercooked meat served to children and I have seen bags of trash piled higher than I stand as they lay less than 3 feet from the hamburger meat. I am the DISGRUNTLED EX-BURGER KING EMPLOYEE!”

Now, the Rest of the Whore-y
“Before our main attraction, ‘READ ME FIRST, READ ME FIRST’”

Looking for that special Christmas gift? Barf coated? Here ya go! But don’t forget to click above before seeing THE SOURCE FOR THE FOLLOWING SATIRE… done yet? Scribe will wait. (Whistling all the various orchestra parts for Scheherazade, one at a time, and then the 1812 complete with attempts at the canons.) Now, more in the Jeff the Cannon Gannon mode: here’s our main attraction.

Hell to the King, a Scent is Born

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