BartBlog

April 26, 2009

Have a Grand Old Rubber Mask Party!

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April 25, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Even Under Obama, Our Two-Tiered Justice System Rolls On Edition

Why Are Glenn Beck and His Media Colleagues Walking Free While Minnesota’s ‘RNC 8′ Are Prosecuted for Terrorism?

Real Texans, natives from those parts of the state not dominated by the alligator-cowboy-boot luxury of the oil-pump Petrograds of Dallas or Houston, claim that, even in its death throes, a poisonous snake is still dangerous. Poke it with a stick and, with it’s a final ounce of waning spite, it will snap and try to kill as it writhes its last.

Such is the case with the fading right-wing media and their cohort in the Republican Party, their only hope for continued relevance encapsulated by the fervent wish that the increasingly popular President Obama fail miserably, and take the country down with him. These neocon elite know, even from their musings of history by the dim firelight in Plato’s cave, that a successful Obama spells the end, at least in their lifetimes, of the modern ‘free market’ corporatist-conservative movement blueprinted by Milton Freidman and his acolytes, and set into motion by Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two Bush presidencies, culminating in the Dubya-initiated disaster of our current economic crisis, the inevitable historically-repeated result of stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

But the Limbaughs and Becks, Hannitys and O’Reillys are also battling with each other for ratings from a dwindling, aging audience, causing them to engage in a war of words wherein they must out-do one another in issuing paranoia-laden proclamations in a voice of sullen outrage, bray archaic Cold War bombast or, in the case of Glenn Beck, display the tearful, fearful ramblings of a man losing his mind.

Not that any of them actually believe any of the guff they spread daily – they are mental itinerant workers who are well-paid for peddling a continually shifting ideology – when Bush said we are not at war with Islam, he was statesmanlike and diplomatic; when Obama does it, he’s surrendering to our Muslim enemies. When Bush ordered Shock and Awe bombings of Baghdad that killed innocent Iraqi teenagers, that’s understandable – the unfortunate ‘collateral damage’ of war; when Obama orders the three teenage pirates threatening the life of an American citizen shot, he’s killing kids. When Clinton was in office, seemingly his every movement, even firing staff in the White House Travel Office, was worthy of a special prosecutor; when Obama talks about holding those accountable who illegally ordered torture, he’s turning the country into a banana republic. And on it goes, an endless stream of swill offered up by the millionaire shills for the entertainment division of the Fox funhouse mirror of political propaganda, toiling in the fields planted by Edward Bernays, Joseph Goebbels, H.R. Haldeman and unsung laborers in behavioral psychology and mass marketing who devoted their professional lives to convincing the public to buy products they don’t need and adopt political ideas that empty their bank accounts and lower their wages, while tempering their minds to accept ever larger loads of pernicious claptrap that serves the profitable interests of the wealthy moguls who bankroll the whole anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional neoconservative operation.

Every day, in the safe confines of the radio or cable TV studio, these media evangelists of the New World Order wrestle with indomitably evil straw men, unleash torpedos of invective at liberal ghost blips on the radar, launch fusillades of bile at comic book enemies from the Eisenhower era, crucify those they detect as suspicious of Jesus’ divinity or conservative Republican provenance, and, most hilariously, mount fearsome attacks on the mythical Left-Wing Media, the corporate conglomerate parents of which are owned by wealthy capitalists who invest on Wall Street, seek further tax cuts for their upper-income bracket, deregulation for their companies, pay good money to lobby politicians, and, in many cases, own a piece of the outlet that broadcasts the daily doses of outrage and hate to the lower caste of ignorant, addled Proles seeking an easy leftist scapegoat for what has happened to their country in the wake of the misrule of the elite Republican right.

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April 19, 2009

Fox News Gets It Right?

Has Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing propaganda channel had a flash of sanity and a change of heart on the tea party demonstrations and the secession talk? Like Fox News, I report, you decide.

1. “[Why have] we listened to [this] movement? The same protesters back then as the ones today — the world [isn't] a safer place. Why do they even have any credibility based on their failure after failure, historically speaking?” […]
“They do organize this thing with very anti-American ideas.”

– Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.

2. “I think there are some sincere demonstrators. I just think they haven’t thought it through. Because for every cause there’s an effect, all right? And then what happens? Are you responsible for that?”
– Bill O’Reilly on The O’Reilly Factor.

3. “You know, I was struck by how uninformed and morally empty these demonstrations were. These demonstrators are morally vacuous, they’re stupid, they’re disingenuous.”
– Fred Barnes on Fox News’ Special Report.

4. “You saw the protests. Some of the placards on display: ‘The idiot is going to start World War III.’ ‘Stop your terror.’ ‘Baby killer.’ ‘Spoiled fascist.’ You get the idea. And there’s a lot of anti-Americanism and, frankly, there are a lot of anti-Semitic statements in some of the different protests.”
– Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.

5. “It was the activists, who were the ones who are the extremists, who were the ones advocating militant ethnic separatism [at these protests]. You had folks with T-shirts mugging for the cameras in front of city hall. These are people who do nothing more than try to sabotage our sovereignty.” […]
“The kind of quote-unquote ‘pride’ that a lot of these activists are touting now goes much further than just being proud about one’s heritage and one’s roots.”

– Michelle Malkin on The O’Reilly Factor.

6. “These kids don’t know anything. A lot of these are poor kids, struggling along in those schools and struggling to gain some sense of identity, so they’re going to wave the flag because they feel somehow they are fighting for the United States. And they’re even going to get into crazy arguments — all kinds of stupidity. I mean, they use kids as demonstrators. The kids know nothing, but at their heart, they feel like they’re giving a voice to what their uncles, their aunties, you know — the Minutemen and the far right wing that wants to throw everybody out.”
– Juan Williams on The O’Reilly Factor.

7. “Here’s what I don’t like. I didn’t like a lot of these signs: racist or anti-immigrant, [and these] people holding the flag up. It seemed to be, in many, many ways, outrages, some of the things that were said and done.”
– Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.

8. “Especially, Chris, because reasonable Americans are probably having a difficult time finding anybody to root for. On the one hand, you have, you know, tens of thousands of people demonstrating, waving flags, against the idea [of] America. What a repellent spectacle.”
– Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

9. “There seems to be an antagonistic edge to these protestors that is just making matters worse.”
– David Asman, guest hosting Fox News’ Your World.

10. ASMAN: “But Ron, let me just ask you, are they going to secede from the Union, these states in the Southwest?”

MAXWELL: “Well, the mere fact that we’re talking about this, why should we have this as a possibility? Why are we creating the conditions where 15 and 20 years from now, who knows what’ll happen? Do we want a separatist movement like what’s going on in Canada with Quebec or a separatist movement like the Basques?”
– David Asman, guest hosting Fox News’ Your World, talking to film director Ronald F. Maxwell.

Make sure to read below the fold:

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April 18, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Ten Signs of the Crimes Edition

Somebody notify Planters – some of their product is running loose on the streets!

If you watched the scenes from Fox News’ tea party ‘protests’ April 15, you had to marvel at all of this fuming outrage because people making over $200K a year will pay 3 percent more in taxes, from 36 to 39, while most everyone else gets a tax cut.

Of course, the ‘FNC Tea Parties’ were not really about taxes or big government — they were about having a black president — especially one who is more intelligent and articulate than the previous inhabitant of the Oval Office and most of the teabag protestors themselves, leaving their ignorant claims of ‘white superiority’ in The Jerry Springer Show’s dumpster where they belong. It’s no longer socially acceptable for even these nimrod Fox News viewers to be open bigots, so they disguise their seething racial hatred under the ‘anti-big government intrusion, no taxation, freedom’ rubric. Yet much of the signage at these corporately-supported Astroturf rallies was solidly anti-Obama. Naturally, these people weren’t out in force every April 15 when Junior Bush was expanding the size of the federal government, surveying their phone calls and emails without a warrant, illegally detaining American citizens, torturing prisoners, asserting an anti-Constitutional right to act as a monarch, and piling up the largest deficit in history. But, then, Bush was white.

10 Most Offensive Signs From the GOP Teabag Parties:

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April 17, 2009

Fox Nation Fun Book

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April 16, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Short Cuts in New Ruts Edition

Double-Dipping Teabag Hag: The Ol’ Tattler’s failing peepers can’t be sure, but I believe I saw the same woman who was sporting the insulting ‘Kerry Band-Aid’ at the GOP convention in NY circa 2004 wearing a hat adorned with hanging teabags yesterday at one of Fox News’ corporately-sponsored tea parties. Just a quick impression: She’s probably the head of the Pig Whistle, Louisiana, chapter of the DAR, the treasurer of the local ‘I Love Sarah’ Fan Club, chairwoman of the county Republican Party, and a good Southern Baptist who, in the name of the Lawd, beats her kids regularly “just to keep the li’l buggers in line.”

BTW, shouldn’t the videos of these astroturf ‘spontaneous events’ be repackaged by some bright young Republican sociopath into a TV reality show called “Just How Stupid Are You?”

Meantime, over at Rachel Maddow last night, a good point was made – I think by Ana Marie Cox — about the anti-tax FNC Teabag Party nonsense. She pointed out that most of these dismal events were held in public parks – in other words, land paid for and maintained by taxpayer funds. If you hate taxes and government so much, go hold your damn teabag party or your own private property and don’t make those who think you’re nuts foot the bill, not only for the land, but the clean-up afterwards. And would all of those tax-haters sprouting gray and white hair at those FNC rallies please return their Social Security checks and refuse medical treatment courtesy of the government?

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April 14, 2009

Fox News Teabags America

Headline: FOX NEWS TAKES OWNERSHIP OF TEA PARTIES…

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Definition of ‘teabagging’ from the Urban Dictionary:

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April 13, 2009

Glenn Beck’s Strange But True

TRUE NEWS ITEM: The Associated Press reported April 12, 2009, that Fox News host Glenn Beck is going to do a stand-up comedy tour starting June 1 in Denver, Colorado. Here’s the story:

Fox’s Glenn Beck Announces Comedy Tour

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February 8, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Six Neocon Whoppers: Myth, Truth and Proof Edition

The Dirty Half-Dozen: Exposing Some Recent Right-Wing Fairy Tales and Deceptions

1. Myth: Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation media possessions, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, are the only national media outlets making money and increasing audience right now. Truth: Murdoch’s News Corp. is losing money hand over fist, $6.4 billion in the last two quarters, and cutting staff as the circulation of the WSJ and ratings for Fox News decline. Proof: Here’s an excerpt from an AP report:

“News Corp., the global media giant controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said Thursday it lost $6.4 billion in its most recent quarter because of a massive write-down in the value of its assets.

“The New York-based company, which owns The Wall Street Journal and the Fox broadcast network, also forecast a 30 percent drop in operating profits for the fiscal year to June from a year ago, when it earned $5.13 billion.” [...]

“News Corp. also said it had cut 800 positions across its Fox properties, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, in moves that it expected to save $400 million a year. The Wall Street Journal said Thursday it is cutting about two dozen newsroom positions.”
– Ryan Nakashima, AP Business Writer, “News Corp. loses $6.4 billion in 2Q,” Feb. 5, 2009.

2. Myth: “Government jobs don’t stimulate the economy.” Recently Sen. Tom Coburn (R-NotOK) was promoting this bit of balderdash on MSNBC, but I’ve heard and read it elsewhere in the right-wing media as well. Truth: This is nonsense from the days of Herbert Hoover. Proof: Under Franklin D. Roosevelt such government employment programs as the WPA and CCC reduced unemployment dramatically during the Great Depression and improved the economy, as much as many neocon economists are desperately trying to rewrite history to reflect the opposite. Just like everyone else, government employees pay taxes and buy things – houses, cars, food, clothes and appliances –– that stimulate the economy.

3. Myth: Rush Limbaugh never actually said about President Obama, “I hope he fails.” Truth: Yes, he did and I heard it. Proof: Here’s the audio clip. He plainly says he was asked for quote about Obama and replied, “I hope he fails.”

4. Myth: “Tax cuts are the best way to improve the economy.” Truth: No, they aren’t. Proof: The last eight years of tax cuts under Bush.

5. Myth: “Free market capitalism will regulate itself.” Truth: You’re crazy. It’s like saying a basket of vipers will regulate itself into a litter of puppies. Proof: The economic collapse engendered by the ‘hands-off’ policies of Bush as well as bankers, Wall Street, automakers and other large corporations begging for bailouts to avoid bankruptcy. Then there’s Bernie Madoff, Enron, and all of the other members of the Corrupt Bastards Club, with the latest outrageous entry being the Peanut Corporation of America, who knowingly sold salmonella-tainted nuts to poor kids enrolled in school free-lunch programs while Bush’s FDA inspectors slept on the job. (Maybe they should have tried cake instead.)

6. Myth: “Bill O’Reilly and Fox News never really got anything wrong.” Truth: Yes, they have, and the list is as long as your arm. Proof: Here are some highlights and a link:

Reviewing the accuracy of Fox News and O’Reilly over the past eight years:

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January 23, 2009

The Tattlesnake – Random Notes on Bush’s Exit, Obama’s Entrance, and the Dying of the Right Edition

Part the One

– Wow. Obama’s been president for three days and already he’s signed Executive Orders closing Gitmo; banning torture; suspending those odious ‘military tribunal’ trials; ending revolving-door lobbying; preventing lobbyists from occupying senior positions in agencies they once lobbied; requiring ethics courses for all of his staff (and he took the course himself); limiting the use of secrecy classification, even imposing Justice Department oversight on his ability to classify documents secret; and expanded government transparency, directing his administration to err on the side of Freedom of Information Act requests rather than the other way around. He also froze the pay of senior White House staff and informed them that as long as he’s president, none of them will quit and then turn around and lobby their friends still in his government, reversing years of Bush/Cheney corruption, sleaze, secrecy and illegality.

What’s more, he did all of this while acting like a grown-up, speaking in full, clear, grammatical sentences, and taking his job seriously. It will be difficult, but pleasant, to adjust to a president who doesn’t have a smirk perpetually playing about his mouth, doesn’t need someone else to run his brain, and can think on his feet. We’ve gone from Barney Fife to Denzel Washington, and the change is striking. I’ll be criticizing Obama in the future I’m sure, but for now all I can say is: Wow. I think he’s one of those rare politicians who really meant what he said when he was campaigning.

– The Dying of the Right 1: While the vast majority of America is celebrating our new competent president, the peevish drones over at Fox News, led by Chris “My Dad’s the Journalist!” Wallace, have been foaming at the mouth over whether Obama’s really president, since Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts bumbled the reading of the oath on January 20th and Obama followed him. This is the largest load of unprocessed fertilizer since the questioning of Obama’s birth certificate. (Hint to all the ‘reporters’ at Fox: As well as the certificate itself, long available online and sanctioned as genuine by fact-checking organizations, there was also a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper welcoming Barack H. Obama Jr. into the world in 1961.) In fact, the law says that, as the victor in the last election, Obama was officially president at Noon last Tuesday, whether he was sworn in or not, and documents were signed after the inaugural ceremony signifying that official transfer of power. Just to head off frivolous lawsuits from tinfoil-hat pinheads, Obama had Roberts drop by the White House the next day and redo the swearing in. Incredibly, some of the bloviating scoundrels claimed this was a – oooohhhh — ‘secret ceremony’! Horse pucky. The press was invited in, still photos were taken and an audio track was recorded – it was as secret as an American Idol audition. Only the TV cameras weren’t involved, and that was likely because Obama wanted this formality completed quickly and didn’t want to get bogged down with silly questions from the Usual Media Meatheads like Fox News. (“Mr. President, will you now come clean about your place of birth? Weren’t you really born in Kenya or Cuba or Mexico? Isn’t it true that Patrice Lumumba is your real father and Squeaky Fromme is your real mother?” )

– The Dying of the Right 2: Rush “Rhymes with Limbo” Limbaugh, who once went apoplectic criticizing liberals as ‘unpatriotic America-haters’ because he had convinced himself they wanted the Little King to fail in Iraq, has now joined the ranks of unpatriotic America-haters, according to his lights. On his radio show the other day, he confessed openly, “I hope Obama fails.” Aside from the fact that about 83 percent of the public doesn’t agree with him, even some the brain-dead rubes who still give any credence to the great blubbery gasbag, suffering under the GOP economy and dying in the senseless Republican wars Rushbo helped peddle, had to be appalled by this statement. He wants the country to go down the drain to what – make the era of conservative Republicans look good? That’s some patriot; George Washington would be proud. Prediction: This is the sort of nasty, psychotic hypocrisy that is losing ratings for the neocon hustlers of the broadcast media and it’s going to result in Limbo being dropped from the airwaves across the country. In eight years, Rush will have lost his syndication deal and will end his miserable existence shouting through a tin can at a little 1000-watt daytimer in North Peckerwood, Alabama. (“Hey, Limbaugh, y’all forgot to take out the trash from the studio last night!” “I’ll get it, boss, I’ll get it!” “Yeah, and don’t forget to mop them washrooms extra good while you’re at it.” )

– Laugh-A-Bullroar: If you were watching the inaugural ceremonies on CNN or MSNBC, did you notice they cut the mics picking up the crowd sounds when Bush, Cheney and the Republicans were introduced? And the band was cranked up extra loud to try and drown out the tidal wave of booing. Earlier in the day, even addle-pated ‘Morning’ Joe Scarborough remarked on the two to three million Obama fans flooding into Washington that the GOP had better pay attention to this political shift or risk being the minority party far into the future. Forget Dimmy and Dick, they’re gone, but I wonder if those Congressional Republicans got the point? (Some of them nearly lost their safe seats last election.)

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January 1, 2009

The Tattlesnake – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of 2008 Edition

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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November 15, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Miller Shills for the Wasilla Chinchilla on Billo and Other Atrocities Edition

Plus a Weird Election 2008 Factoid and a Plea to the GOP

“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”
– H.L. Mencken

Gov. Snowjob said on Larry King Nov. 12th that there is nothing wrong with “calling people out” on their past associations, defending her lame McCarthyite attempts to link Obama to Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground. She added that she expected she would be called out on hers as well. Good. Let’s see, she’s openly palled around with and supported for reelection convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens, corrupt ex-Governor of Alaska Frank Murkowski, and she’s married to a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, a group that despises and wants to secede from the United States. Imagine if Obama had strongly supported two crooks and his wife once belonged to an organization that hated America? C’mon, Big Media, time to apply some fairness here, and Sarah asked for it.

Speaking of Sarah the Terror: Miller and Palin, Sittin’ in a Tree:

“Listen, she’s a great dame. People are fascinated by her because the left hate her. I think the left hate her — mostly women on the left hate her, because to me, from outside in, it appears that she has a great sex life. All right? I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. I think most of the women on the Upper East Side, their husbands haven’t been aroused since Mailer signed copy [sic] of The Executioner’s Song at Rizzoli’s back in the early ’70s.
“So they look at her, and they hate her. I think that snowmobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me, and that’s why people are fascinated by it.”

Dennis Miller on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Fox News, Nov. 12, 2008.

I remember when Dennis had a functioning frontal lobe and was even occasionally clever, but years of drinking, drugs, chickenhawk fear, raging ego and his wiseguy notion that he’d just jump on the money train of what he thought would be generations of Republican rule softened his gray matter to the point where he’s defending a vacuous Alaska opportunist he once would have gleefully impaled with humor. BTW, I wonder what ‘non-neurotic sex’ is — the Moose Mama ‘Missionary Position’ (that would be a ‘rear mount’) or the opposite of whatever you call it when Miller picks up his paycheck these days?

My sympathies to the frustrated Mrs. Miller, if she’s still around – married to a goofball who thinks snowmobiles equate with foreplay can’t be a pleasant existence.

It’s was so bad even Billo took note of what had surfaced in his ‘No Spin Zone’ punchbowl:

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November 9, 2008

The Tattlesnake – More Zippity-Doo-Dah From the Fading Right Edition

In the anguished ‘why we lost’ analyses in the days to come from the Fox News-Karl Rove-Bill Kristol neocons and their compadres in the Big Media, still discombobulated over Obama’s landslide victory in what they think is a ‘center-right’ conservative nation – the ‘liberal socialist’ Obama of November 3rd even magically transforming into a ‘fiscal conservative’ 24 hours later to preserve this incredible myth — you’ll read much about how the economic meltdown in late September killed McCain’s chances after he had pulled even or ahead in the polls. Horse pucky. McCain and Palin’s sour performance in the debates, the GOP’s over-the-top negative ads, a miserably run campaign, Palin’s exposure as an ignorant nitwit, plus the general public disgust with the Bush Republican Party had as much to do with his loss as the financial crisis. Also underestimated are Obama’s superior organization, discipline, massive GOTV efforts in most of the fifty states, and that the country, already centrist-liberal except in name, has been trending more to the left for many years.

McCain got an expected uptick in the poll numbers following the Republican Convention, which is commonplace after any major party convention, but he was receding even before the banks and markets hit bottom in late September. In fact, except for McCain’s brief post-convention bounce, the individual poll margins had remained consistent since summer with Obama in the lead, as this chart shows:

CNN 6/26-6/29: Obama 50%, McCain 45%
CNN 7/27-7/29: Obama 51%, McCain 44%

CBS 7/7/-7/14: Obama 45%, McCain 39%
CBS 7/31-8/5: Obama 45%, McCain 39%

Ipsos 6/5-6/11: Obama 50%, McCain 43%
Ipsos 7/31-8/4: Obama 48%, McCain 42%

Time 6/19-6/25: Obama 47%, McCain 43%
Time 7/31-8/4: Obama 46%, McCain 41%

Pew 6/18-6/29: Obama 48%, McCain 40%
Pew 7/23-7/27: Obama 47%, McCain 42%

NBC/Wall Street Journal 6/6-6/9: Obama 47%, McCain 41%
NBC/Wall Street Journal 7/18-7/21: Obama 47%, McCain 41%

(Hat tip to Rich Gallagher of Fishkill, NY, who compiled and posted these numbers at Altercation, Aug. 8, 2008.)

Obama-Biden popular vote percentage: 52.3%

McCain-Palin popular vote percentage: 46.2%

Obama-Biden electoral vote total: 365

McCain-Palin electoral vote total: 173

(Final numbers from FiveThirtyEight.com.)

November 2, 2008

The Bill of Wrongs

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , — bobman1234 @ 7:42 pm

What the Fox is wrong with Bill O’Reilly?

If Joseph Goebbels  and Joseph McCarthy had a kid together, it would definitely be Bill O’Reilly.

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August 23, 2008

MSNBC Says It’s Biden

MSNBC reported early Saturday morning that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has picked Sen. Joseph Biden, 65, to be his vice presidential running mate. There is an Obama rally planned in Springfield, Illinois, this afternoon to officially announce Biden’s addition to the Dem ticket.

Predictably, the half-crazed wingnuts aboard the sinking USS McCain and their allies, the 101st Keyboard Commandos, will be sharpening their pitchforks ready to stick it to the Delaware Senator and erstwhile presidential candidate in any spot that looks tender. Here are the soft places they’ll likely poke with glee:

1. Biden was once called the Senator from DuPont, and for good reason. Joe has been very chummy with the chemical giant, as well as other large corporations from his state, which has no corporate tax. These slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — considering they’re from the wholly-corporatized Republican Party — will be shamelessly slung at Biden for being too close to evil Big Bidness, probably via a strenuous Internet email campaign and multiple postings on some of the more frothing hoof-and-mouth neocon websites like Hind-Acher’s Powerline blog and Freeper Republic.

2. Joe will be endlessly drubbed for appropriating without attribution British Labour Party PM candidate Neil Kinnock’s “born the son of a coal miner, first in the family to attend college” bio that derailed Biden’s presidential run in 1988. That this might have been an innocent mistake won’t cut any mustard with the ravening wolves of the right — “Plagiarist!” “Liar!” will be sprinkled like salt on potato chips all over the right-wing Media Vomitorium, with Michelle Malkin no doubt inferring in a screechy nut-pile smackdown that perhaps Biden really is a liberal Brit, and therefore a foreigner not to be trusted. Next Sean Hannity will demand that Pennsylvania-born Biden produce his birth certificate and, when produced, will ignore it. I can see the Fox News splash now: “Is Joe Biden Really an American Citizen – How Can We Be Sure?”

3. Obama will take a hit for naming Biden since Joe has been in the US Senate for over 30 years, longer than John Sidney McBush III. “Some change you can believe in,” the Tighty-Righties will sneer without embarrassment while in the next paragraph they praise their sealed-in-amber candidate, trying to drag the country back to the Age of the Cold War and a victory in Vietnam – I mean, Iraq.

Also, look for McCainiac ads quoting Biden during the 2008 Dem primary debates wherein he called Obama too inexperienced to be president, and for his ‘yea’ vote on the Iraq invasion. I hope the Obama campaign has some quick short answers ready for these slaps up the side of the head.

Biden’s Good Points:

(more…)

August 21, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Rachel in TV Lady Clothes Edition

Wit and Intelligence Increasingly Crawling Its Way Onto the Cable TV News Schedule as Maddow Nails Down Her Own MSNBC Hour

As mentioned by Your Tattlesnake months ago, Rachel Maddow has finally sealed a deal with MSNBC, getting everything she wanted – choice of guests, choice of topics, no ‘funny’ comedian co-host, and the coveted spot following the cable news network’s most successful entry, Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Her as-yet-untitled show debuts on Sept. 8, 2008 at 9:00pmET, just in time to dissect the presidential election with Maddow’s arched-eyebrow irony, unpretentious delivery and solid grasp of the issues. Rachel’s naturally attractive TV presence, fetching both men and women viewers, should put her in good shape to make a serious run at CNN’s Larry King Live and that unwatchable bag of flaming dog poop hosted by Sean Hannity over at Fox. (Sorry, Colmes.) Word is The Verdict with Dan Abrams will move to the slot following Rachel’s show and that NBC execs are seeking a political comic in the mold of Bill Maher to fill out the late-night hour at eleven ET, with VH1′s Paul F. Tompkins and The Daily Show’s John Oliver said to be leading the list of candidates. All four shows would then be rebroadcast starting at midnight, mercifully ending the present low-rated ‘doc bloc’ programming. MSNBC will also cause regressive heads to spontaneously combust as the network embraces the liberal/progressive label with more gusto since they found out – guess what? – in the current horrid economy, L/P’s have more disposable income than the poor wretches still watching Fox, a strong selling point to advertisers.

Prediction: Rachel will dominate the time slot by November.

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