Sunday, March 21, 2010

the day the tea bag died

From the get-go “Tea Baggers” were poorly disguised Movement Conservatives pretending to be grass root populists. Staunch Bush-Cheney Republicans, they hid their party affiliation behind silly costumes and loathsome signs. Nothing but a toxic brew of shrill incoherence and blatant racism, it is a national disgrace that these ignorant sore losers were allowed one second of media attention. Even though “Tea Baggers” bore an uncanny resemblance to Rush Limbaugh’s ethnically diverse audience, too many in the media went out of their way to portray the remaining dregs of Reagan’s Revolution as an independent voice representing genuine fear over Big Government’s assault against super-sized value meals.

It’s time to call the “Tea Baggers” out for what they really are: Republicans. And since the Republican Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox & Rush Limbaugh, Inc., Republicans need to officially change their party’s name. Past association with socialists like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower could entice a mob of “nigger” shouting, gun-toting “real” Americans into a flurry of spittle-fueled race baiting. Shots might be fired if a rifle-toting asshole found out Reagan raised taxes.

There is only one option left for the survivors of Jim DeMint’s Waterloo: Costa Rica.

I’m going to send the losing party’s chairman a terse email:

Hola!

How is President Obama’s hope and change working out for you?

Have no fear, my deaf amigo.

There are still mucho fancy mattresses to sell.

Juan Don

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Scam American & an ongoing concern

So far Sean Hannity has remained beneath the Cone of Silence in hopes that his less-than-charitable participation with Ollie North’s Freedom Alliance will fade from our media’s scandal obsessed radar screen. Because his audience of ill-informed ideologues receive their “information” exclusively from propaganda peddlers, Hannity can rely on the right’s well-oiled smear machine to mount an attack against Debbie Schlussel’s apostasy. Schlussel, no slouch in the wingnut department, committed the cardinal sin of exposing one her own. Worse yet, she provided evidence of Hannity’s below-board behavior: committing an act of blatant transparency does call into question Schlussel’s credibility.

But if Jupiter is aligned with Mars, skittish grifters may decide that edging away from Hannity qualifies as self-preservation -- assuming the scandal is fueled by further evidence of purulent misconduct. It’s one thing to take cash for personal appearances and ghost written books; it’s quite another to pretend money raised is earmarked for wounded soldiers and children. Keep in mind that should the usual suspects realize defending Hannity is counter-productive, it’s only because he was caught red handed. Every “Great American” knows that one bad apple spoils the whole barrel.
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I hope this is true: Democrats no longer need Bart Stupak’s vote. The C-Street disciple canceled his scheduled press conference this morning, creating buzz that his coalition is falling apart. Ezra Klein, providing real time updates, is reporting that Speaker Pelosi rejected Stupak’s insistence on a separate vote that would add further restrictions to the odious Hyde Amendment.

It should be clear to House leaders that Stupak was never going to support HCR. The Wisconsin saboteur has spent more time scheming with Republicans than working with colleagues. Still ___ votes short, a full-court press in on to woo the remaining uncommitted. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is confident that Speaker Pelosi has the 216 votes without Stupak -- and what’s left of his bill-killing gang. Alas, there is no way to confirm Schakowsky’s optimism.

If President Obama signs an executive order reaffirming the bill’s current abortion funding restrictions, he has the blessing of key pro-choice Democrats. Klein believes that this extra layer of protection might allay the reelection fears of skittish Blue Dog fence-sitters. Ironically, the Blue Dogs worried about losing pro-life votes should be paying more attention to organized labor. The unions are making no bones about withholding campaign cash from defecting Democrats. In fact, they can expect to face a well-financed primary challenge.

Also known as Bart Stupak meets Connie Saltonstall.

It’s time for Merlot before shoveling spring snow.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

inching closer

House Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is supporting HCR. Dennis, an unabashed liberal, was previously dead-set against the current bill: he believed it wasn’t strong enough. Dennis is in favor of the public option. And he’s right; a single-payer system is the best solution to fix the health-care crisis. Unfortunately, the deep pockets of special interest will not permit rational policy to trump greed. That’s the world we live in.

Kucinich’s acquiescence, accepting the reality that HCR is an historic first step in dragging America’s broken, over-priced and exclusionary disgrace into the 21st century, probably won’t have much sway over Democratic fence-sitters, as he was the last member of the Progressive Caucus to switch sides. According to Chris Bowers of Action Left, eight more are needed from the 15 undecided Reps to reach the magic number. A majority of the 15 come from Bart Stupak’s Roman Catholic coalition. Stupak (D-C Street) still objects to abortion language contained in the Senate bill. However, the fierce pro-lifer has difficulty keeping his facts straight. Specifically, Stupak’s objection over the use of taxpayer money to fund elective abortions is unfounded. The Catholic Health Organization -- representing 600 hospitals -- agrees:

“Despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions. It will uphold longstanding conscience protections and it will make historic new investments in the support of pregnant women. This is a real pro-life stance, and we as Catholics are all for it.”

Dale Kildee (D-MI) offers a glimmer of hope that Stupak’s pro-life block is feeling the heat from pro-passage constituents. Kildee has peeled away, saying that voting for the bill in no way compromises his staunch pro-life stance. It’s telling that Stupak has gone to Fox and whined about how fellow Democrats are no longer kissing his ass, hoping he’ll do the right thing. The media spotlight placed on Stupak has revealed him to be a bad faith player with dubious connections. Good luck winning reelection, Bart.

And best wishes to all the Blue Dog Democrats come November -- assuming they aren’t defeated in the primary election.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

A meager swarm

Nate Silver, the best political pollster in the business, is “guardedly optimistic” that 216 House members will vote yes for HCR. I’d cross my fingers if such delicate manual dexterity was still possible. Thus far I’ve haven’t found one serious observer ready to wade the Rubicon and declare reform a done deal. And so I wait in puckered repose.

Dick Armey’s orchestrated assault on Capitol Hill will no doubt receive extensive news coverage. For some reason the corporate media enjoys transforming a gaggle of Tea Baggers into Joel’s Army. Using Texas-style mathematics, Village stenographers will add an additional six figures to a mob easily stuffed inside an average sized mega-church. A clever hack, Armey has removed references to the Republican Party’s generous supply of placarded outrage, lest a roving reporter’s tale of homegrown antipathy against affordable health-care be tainted by signs of RNC patronage.

I do like the “Ides of March” analogy uttered by Mark Sanford, South Carolina’s gallant Romeo. The image of toga-robed, knife wielding Senators saving the republic from an African Caesar’s attempt to reign in health-care costs is more colorful than anything J.D. Hayworth could whip up. Then again, J.D. might whip out another man-on-horse aberration to warn the “base” away from Obamacare. Lord knows what unnatural perversions Democrats have planned for Pop’s colonoscopy. Why right-wing grifters inject bestiality into political discourse is a question best left for abnormal psychology specialists.

At least Hayworth and Rick Santorum (Rick’s infatuated with man-on-dog coupling) omit sheep from their hairy harem. Thrusting out a wild poke, I suspect that probing an occasional ewe’s forbidden fruit is considered a rural perk among the “base’s” staunchest defenders of man-on-cousin coitus.
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I’m placing CNN on my no-fly list. Disturbing at it was that the cable news channel paid for Glenn Beck’s loony tunes, hiring Erick Erickson is the final straw. I won’t delve into the gory details concerning Erik’s contribution to brain-dead punditry. Confident that all three Juan Don readers are up to speed on the moron’s seedy history, I’m spared spending time rehashing Erick’s greatest misses.
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It appears that “Code Red” turnout was so small reporters were forced to guesstimate “hundreds” littered the Capital’s concrete. Although the national media is blessed with a healthy budget, justifying the expense of sending out camera crews to cover a “handful” can generate testy inter-office memos. Good thing Fox has canned footage of anti-war demonstrations to compliment hard news interviews with wandering stragglers.

Monday, March 15, 2010

red nosed rosary

Jim Wallis, founder of the progressive Christian website Sojourners, was one of many who took issue with Glenn Beck’s rant against churches preaching the concept of “social justice”. Beck went so far as to encourage his radio audience to “leave their church” if Father Gerry weaved such blasphemous heresy into his Epistle lesson. The Jesus that Glenn knows and loves would never, ever give a sucker an even break.

Every idiot knows that “social justice” is communism with two words. The savvy idiot understands that socialism is how liberal elites spell communism. If an idiot is really on his or her game, fascism can be attached to the other ‘isms’ -- assuming the President of the United States hates white people. Glenn, a self-educated disc jockey before earning his “rodeo clown” pants, is very sensitive to slurs against The Gospels, especially those claiming Jesus worked pro bono. Glenn’s Jesus would be earning $23,000,000 a year entertaining confused bigots, and not wasting his time on sick deadbeats.

Wallis wrote Beck a nice letter and asked if they could meet in an open forum and debate whether or not “social justice” is anathema to Christianity. He went out of his way to stress that his beef with Beck was nothing personal, and hoped that they could have a civil conversation.

Glenn responded to Jim’s invitation on his radio show:

“So Jim, I just wanted to pass this on to you. In my time I will respond -- my time, well, kind of like God’s time, might be a day, might be a week to you, I’m not sure. But I’m going to get to it in my time, not your time. So you go ahead and you do your protest thing, and that’s great. I love it. But just know -- the hammer is coming, because little do you know, for eight weeks, we’ve been compiling information on you, your cute little organization, and all the other cute little people that are with you. And when the hammer comes, it’s going to be hammering hard and all through the night, over and over…”

It appears that some “rodeo clowns” have a mean streak. Maybe it’s caused by over-exposure to horseshit.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Ailes or your lyin' eyes?

Howell Raines: “For the first time since the yellow journalism of a century ago, the United States has a major news organization devoted to the promotion of one political party. And let no one be moved by occasional spouts of criticism of the GOP on Fox. In a bygone era of fact-based commentary typified, left to right, by my late colleagues Scotty Reston and Bill Safire, these deceptions would have been given their proper label: disinformation.”

Raines’ Washington Post op-ed is spot on.
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The disease injected by Murdock-Ailes into the body of national discourse is a cancer that can only be eradicated if professional journalists publicly defend the Fourth Estate against FNC’s far-right subterfuge. Fox purports to be a legitimate news operation, not another Comedy Central. Ailes dodges accountability by claiming evening programming is nothing more or less than televised editorials -- meaning views expressed represent the host’s personal opinion. But then Ailes is just another over-paid Republican Philistine. There is no disclaimer attached to these “shows” that identifies content as prejudicial, fact-free hit pieces. Of course the work-a-day talking heads are held to a slightly higher standard. Who could argue that “Fox and Friends” doesn’t bend over backwards to avoid the appearance of blatant political partiality?

Roger Ailes shrugs when pressed to defend his slanted “news” operation. He's on record muttering that his only obligation is to ensure Rupert Murdock makes money. In his warped universe selling garbage repackaged as serious content is fine as long as it’s profitable and helps keep Republicans in power; if viewers aren’t able to disseminate the difference between honest journalism and agenda-driven drivel, that’s not his problem. Pretending that every other for-profit news outlet is tainted with liberal bias, Ailes implies that his 24 hour hyper-partisan attack against President Obama and the Democratic Party provides “balance” to the mainstream media’s non-existent love affair with progressive ideology. In short, Glenn Beck’s psychotic episodes are a reasoned rebuttal to Rachael Maddow’s researched and sourced reporting.

It’s unlikely there would be a ‘grassroots groundswell’ of tax-hating Tea Baggers protesting Obama’s $298 billion dollar tax cut without the “news” channel’s active encouragement and promotion; nor would Sarah Palin’s vast reservoir of expertise concerning “Death Panels” be exploited without Ailes supplying her a “fair and balanced” platform to expose the murderous intentions American Medical Association Marxists have in store for senior citizens.

And where else can cable television subscribers hear Frank Gaffney rattle his plastic saber, demanding yet another unfunded, preemptive invasion? Because the unnecessary aggression against Iraq was such a smashing success (he predicted Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a “cake walk”), Gaffney must be taken seriously. After all, he does have a track record. Assuming FNC junkies are lucky and William Kristol joins Gaffney in a rousing round of Sunday morning Obama bashing, local airheads will have two foreign policy “experts” to ape when concern trolling the president’s lack of commander-in-chief credentials. Compared to Gaffney, Kristol is a fucking military genius.
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This should make Anson Burlingame's Ayn nice and Rand:

Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is taking full advantage of the court's recent ruling that gave corporations the unalienable right to play Pinocchio and become a real live boy. She is using corporate funds to start a new Tea Party lobbying group. And who said this fairy tale wouldn't have a happy ending?

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Hey! That's not a scrub brush!

The best comment I’ve read that succinctly captures the kook-off between ex-Congressman Eric Massa and Glenn Beck: “It was Beck’s Geraldo in Capone’s vault moment”.

The best contextualizing of Massa’s tickle me Elmo defense is from The Onion (circa 2006): “Why Do Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?”

Riveting television, to be sure.

Not even a genius like Rush Limbaugh could detect the whiff of ‘wangy’ fruitcake wafting from Massa’s shower towel. It took the smartest (or highest) man in America 24 hours to pad away from Massa’s meltdown. In fairness, El Rushbo was hard-pressed to continue his embrace of the ex-Congressman’s initial hosiility against the White House after discovering Massa had previously denounced him as an unpatriotic dick: Rush had no option but to do the only honorable thing and proclaimed Massa a spurious flake.

Politico has yet to determine whether it was Massa’s unbecoming disrespect for Limbaugh’s butt boil deferment (keeping the warrior pillow-bound during Vietnam) or allegations of male staff groping that soured their budding relationship. I find it hard to believe that Limbaugh would give Massa the cold shoulder just for playing a little grab ass. Known to be a rather randy man, Limbaugh doesn’t let his love of Jesus override innocuous hand-to-todger horseplay. Real Christian men, like Limbaugh, know the difference between locker room jocularity and full-blown 'faggotry'. It’s liberalism's perverse ideology that has ruined steamy bonding between naked white millionaires. Because time-honored mores have been polluted, an inadvertent, near-sighted peter-pull invariably leads to an awkward apology and strange reminiscence about the good old days of roped soap.

Compounding Rush’s on-air lapse of judgment is his declaration to flee the U.S. if HCR becomes a reality. On record preferring New Zealand as his Elba-of-choice, the beloved conservative icon has apparently changed his mind, and is now threatening Costa Rica with his presence.

New Zealand is a beautiful country. A friend of mine lived there for several years and returns whenever his wife will let him. Unfortunately, New Zealand is a poor sex tourist destination -- unless the traveler has a thing for sheep. Although lacking in sheep, Costa Rica does have socialized medicine -- and has for some time. I guess this is why Limbaugh back-pedaled this afternoon, and slurred that he never intended to live in Costa Rica, only hang around until his Viagra was gone or he ran afoul of honest vice cops .