April 9, 2009
April 8, 2009
April 7, 2009
April 5, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Rushing to the Bottom-Feeders Edition
Who Else is There Left for Limbaugh to Influence?
Rush Limbaugh is a phenomenon of the ’80s and ’90s when he still retained some ability to shock, and the entire regressive Republican agenda he insistently trumpeted daily, which fundamentally amounted to electing Republicans to throw money at the rich and permitting corporations and Wall Street to act without regulation, had yet to be proven by events, such as our present Great Depression redux, to be the recipe for mass disaster it has historically been.
Limbaugh had quite a time back then kicking around FDR’s liberalism that had brought the nation out of the last Republican-generated economic crisis of the 1930s, and counted on the uneducated knuckledraggers, attention-deficit cretins, McCarthyite jingoists, terrified shut-ins, imperial chickenhawks and outright cases of brain damage that populate his audience to trust his hooey-fied history lessons and giggle at his class-clown racism and sexism.
Rush often claims his talent is on loan from God but, since he’s never clear as to the identity of his personal deity, it might very well be one with two horns and a scaly tail who causes young girls to prodigiously vomit pea soup. (A reaction Rush is no doubt accustomed to from women by now.) Conservatism has often been used as a respectable ideological shield for the darker aspects of the human character such as greed, selfishness and cruelty, and Limbaugh evinces all of these flaws is his daily three-hour howlings at the moon.
What does this spoiled self-serving multi-millionaire mostly gripe about on his show? Those in the upper-10 percent tax bracket such as himself paying higher taxes. He makes $50 million a year and he’s complaining bitterly over paying a few percentage points more in taxes to help his country out of the mess caused by the Republican ‘principles’ he’s ardently promoted of deregulating markets, banks, investment firms, real estate, and unfettered corporate expansion, while lowering taxes for the rich and running enormous deficits. Instead of taking responsibility for what he’s advocated, Rush blames it on Obama and the Democrats. What a mighty good man.
Before confusing Limbaugh’s brand of patriotism with the dictionary definition of that word, it’s instructive to heed the underlying message of his broadcasts: Money before country — particularly Rush’s own sacrosanct bankroll.
April 4, 2009
April 3, 2009
The Tattlesnake – Fitzgerald Finally Indicts Blagojevich for Jaywalking Edition
19 Charges Against Blago, 16 of Them Felonies, But Not Much St. Pat the Prosecutor Can Hang His Halo On
The AP has reported that federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald finally indicted impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich yesterday, April 2, on 16 felony charges, including conspiracy, attempted extortion, wire fraud and racketeering.
This all stinks to high heaven – Fitzgerald needs four months to indict a guy who, in his words, was on a “crime spree” and then doesn’t even have a press conference to announce the particulars of the indictment? Quite a bit different from the media circus he ringmastered last December to drive Blago from office. Plus, his key witness is apparently the jailed slimebucket Tony Rezko. Rezko is doing hard time in solitary and might be amenable to saying whatever Mr. Fed wants to hear to shave off some months from his sentence – not what you’d call a stellar witness.
Charges that Blago used his influence to arrange job interviews for his wife with companies doing business with the state where she wasn’t hired, used ‘improper influence’ (did he have a gun?) to block efforts to consolidate state retirement funds, held up taxpayer money to fix the Tribune Company’s privately-owned Wrigley Field, and ‘discussed the possibility’ of having Fitzgerald replaced tip off the flop-sweat desperation of a prosecutor trying to pad his case. Privately ‘discussing the possibility’ of removing a prosecutor, blocking the consolidation of state funds desired by a corporation, withholding taxpayer money for a private sports enterprise, and arranging job interviews for your wife are now illegal? Fitzgerald is going to be mighty busy from now on, prosecuting every single politician in Illinois.
Also named in the charges is a ‘Candidate A’ that some of the TV Talking Heads are claiming is Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. The allegation is that Candidate A was offered Obama’s vacated US Senate seat in return for a contribution to Blago’s campaign of $1.5 million. All well and good, except Jackson has already categorically denied that he discussed any kind of deal with Blago or his staff.
According to Jim Warren, formerly of the Chicago Tribune, speaking on Chris Matthews’ Hardball last night, there is little in these 16 counts that was not brought out in Fitzgerald’s press conference last December. If so, Fitzy is armed with 16 counts of wet noodle here – he supposedly has wiretaps that have Blago discussing bribes, but no actual bribes taking place. He might be able to make a thin-beef conspiracy charge stick but, then again, does he really want Blago and his staff taking the stand to expose the way the sausage is made in Springfield by both the Dems and GOP?
Regular Tattlesnake readers know that I have a friend who has 20 years experience with non-profit organizations trying to bring health care to everyone in Illinois. She reports that Blago was the only governor, and one of the few statehouse politicians, who ever took the issue seriously, and even appointed a liaison to the non-profit health care groups, with the aim of instituting single-payer universal health care for every Illinois resident. For this, and other progressive ideas, such as supporting unions and cracking down on the mortgage-lending industry, Blago was loathed by the corporate Powers-That-Be who have been trying to get rid of him since he took office. On the Republican side, the attacks have been spearheaded by the Chicago Tribune, and on the Dem side by Illinois Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, a corrupt leftover from the old Daddy Daley Chicago Machine who wants his daughter Lisa, currently the Illinois AG, to be governor someday.
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April 2, 2009
April 1, 2009
The Tattlesnake: What Fools These Morsels Be Edition
Separate the wheat from the chaff in this April Fool’s Day quiz: which are the real news items and which are the fakes (and no cheating with the Google):
1. Pacino Eyes Run at NY Senate Seat
(New York Daily News)
Excerpt: “The veteran actor told the Daily News that he thinks ‘the time is ripe for progress, and I can bring the progress.’” […]
“On the inevitable comparisons to his role as mobster Michael Corleone in ‘The Godfather,’ he said, ‘If a little ‘Michael’ helps me get things done in Washington, that’s not a bad thing is it?’”
2. Octomom Admits Praying to Satan
(Christian Science Monitor)
Excerpt: “Saying she was frustrated with her life at the time and what she termed ‘God’s dissing me totally,’ Nadya Suleman revealed today that she prayed for Satan’s help a week before she found out she was pregnant with octuplets…” […]
“‘I was really desperate and felt like a real loser,’ she said, ‘and I’d never do it again.’”
3. Florida Attorney General Reopens Limbaugh Drug Case
(Reuters)
Excerpt: “Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum told the Miami Herald Wednesday that, based on grand jury testimony in an unrelated drug case, he has sufficient evidence that the talk show host violated his probation by continuing to use narcotics after the date of his plea agreement.” […]
“Roy Black, Mr. Limbaugh’s attorney, claimed no such agreement was ever struck with the court.”
4. Miss Universe and Miss USA Tour Guantanamo
(Associated Press)
Excerpt: “Miss Universe and Miss USA have taken a firsthand look at the U.S. prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay.” […]
“‘I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful,’ [Miss Universe Dayana] Mendoza wrote on [her] blog.”
5. Something Fowl in Customs
(MSN)
Excerpt: “A 23-year-old man flew into Australia with a pair of pigeons hidden in his pants. According to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, the man was concealing a live pigeon in each leg of his trousers.”
6. CNBC Hires Ex-Treasury Secy. Paulson as Analyst
(Bloomberg)
Excerpt: “‘What better business analyst can you have than a former secretary of the treasury?’ asked Dan Bledsoe, the cable financial channel’s senior V.P. for programming. “This will amp up our credibility 1000 percent.’”
7. Zucker Plans ’24′ Spin-Off to Star Garofalo
(Entertainment Weekly)
Excerpt: “David Zucker, executive producer of Fox’s hit show ’24,’ has announced Tuesday that he will launch a similar program starring controversial actress Janeane Garofalo as a government agent who ‘does her own thing, law-wise’ tentatively titled ‘The 24 Woman’. […]
“‘It will appeal it the same audience as the current show, same format,’ Zucker said, ‘With a little more sexiness from Janeane, but there will be plenty of rock’ em, sock ‘em action.’”
Click ‘Read on’ for the answers.
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March 31, 2009
March 30, 2009
March 29, 2009
The Tattlesnake – GOP: Road to the Nut House Edition
Conservative Christopublican Michele Bachmann Offends American History By Quoting Liberal Deist Thomas Jefferson
Descending into obscurity, bereft of leadership, and driven to distraction by Obama’s cool, the fading Republican Party has opened yet another can of crackpot and let it pour over the religiously bewitched and acutely ignorant leftovers of nasty Nixonism, regressive Reaganism and bumbling Bushism.
Joining the cranky ranks of Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Mike Pence, John Boehner and all of the other daft neocons needing professional help, the new can in question is boiling-over-the-top-crazy Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who barely won reelection in 2008 over an obscure Tolkien character named, no kidding, Elwyn Tinklenberg. No offense to poor old Elwyn, but Tinklenberg is a politician like Limbaugh is a neurosurgeon.
Bachmann’s fringe-right dementedness is nothing new for her, as the excellent Dump Bachmann blog has archived, just not yet exposed to a national audience. In fact, Michele’s been in the forefront of every extreme Christopublican-corporatist nutcase movement since she was in the MN state legislature. In her Jesuitic devotion to the poor, she vehemently opposed any increase in the minimum wage, saying in January of 2005: “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage … we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would able to offer jobs at whatever level.” (No doubt she did not mean this to include Minnesota Congresswomen, nor any member of their immediate families.)
She has also been a stern Old Testament foe of all things gay, as this quote from a 2004 interview on a Minnesota radio program called “Prophetic Views Behind The News” highlights: “This is a very serious matter [homosexuality], because it is our children who are the prize for this community, they are specifically targeting our children.” (The gay is comin’ ta get ya!)
But just so the reader doesn’t think this might have been a singular anti-gay eruption elicited by one too many cocktails, there are also these tidbits from something called the ‘EdWatch National Education Conference’ in November 2004: “If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” (As opposed to the bondage, despair and enslavement to corporate kindness caused by the lack of a minimum wage.) At the same venue, she took the hatchet to companies that neglected to contribute to her campaign fund, “They aren’t just kind of gay-friendly, they are gay advocates at Proctor and Gamble… Here’s just a few other companies that support the pro-homosexual agenda. They include Levi-Strauss, American Airlines, Sara Lee Bakery, Jaguar and Land Rover.” (“Sara Lee – Their Delicious Cakes Will Make You Gay!”)
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How Young Neocons Get Rich