LT Saloon

The Tattlesnake – Post-It Notes From the Underground Edition

Riff, Raff and Other Chaff

“For your information, I would like to ask a question.”
– Samuel Goldwyn

Worried about Obama’s experience as a leader? He just ran an organization for two years that had outlets in all fifty states, took in over $600 million dollars, and successfully completed its goal, against long odds. Compare his performance to the overpaid touts on Wall Street and the dunderheads of the Big Three US auto corporations, begging for bailouts.

Latest Hot Under-the-Door Rumor: Word is, Al Gore is topping Obama’s list of nominees for the next Supreme Court vacancy. This means Big Al could be there every day, within spitting distance of three of the five justices who denied him the presidency in 2000. (Does the irony never stop?) Also supposedly on the short list: University of Chicago Professor Cass Sunstein, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, Georgia SC Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, fired Bush prosecutor David Iglesias, and Scooter Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Speaking of the ‘high’ court, 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens is alleged to be aching to retire, as is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75, who is in poor health. Antonin Scalia is getting up there at 72, and has no intention of quitting, but his health is said to be questionable. Anthony Kennedy is also 72, but in better shape than Scalia. Obama could name as many as four new SC justices during his term.

MSNBC’s loudmouthed sometime-neocon ‘Morning’ Joe Scarborough has been consistently offending his colleagues, his viewers and his bosses. Plus his ratings are soaking in bilgewater. The ‘Countdown’ is on – how long until NBC management buys out Joe’s contract and packs him on his way? (Stephanie Miller and other able portside replacements wait in the wings.)

Speaking of MSNBC, looks like Chris ‘Tweety Bird’ Matthews is going to bring his Hardballs to Pennsylvania, challenging ancient GOP vampire Arlen ‘Single Silver Bullet’ Specter for his Senate seat in 2010. Although Matthews publicly denies he’s a candidate, it’s said he’s been in close contact in with some of Obama’s team about making the run. I can see the bumper stickers now, “Screamer for Senate 2010.” (Perhaps Chris divined that his career as a TV talker is coming to a close.) So, when is Pat Buchanan tossing his spiked helmet in the ring to become Lord High Chancellor of Germantown, and when will Tucker Carlson be running for Dog Catcher – excuse me, Chief Executive Canine Control Consultant — of Park Avenue?

Don’t waste your time on D.L. Hughley’s Saturday show on CNN, “D.L. Hughley Breaks the News.” The man’s a stand-up comic and good in his element, but this ain’t it. Hughley does his best, but he’s trying to coax laughs and knowing nods out of an audience of what appears to be mostly white undertakers who’ve huffed too much formaldehyde. (I think they pine for the cozy family jokes of Cosby’s Dr. Huxtable.) Well, it’s CNN, after all, where Lou Dobbs is just short of donning Napoleon’s bicorn hat and proclaiming himself Emperor of El Norte; Prince of Mars Dan Senor’s wife Campbell Brown has a job; Larry King calls the likes of Suze ‘Invest in Your 401K!’ Orman a ‘financial expert,’ and they have the odd notion that Sanjay Gupta is a real doctor rather than a Bollywood wannabe. (Say, CNN, Dennis the Miller’s looking for TV work…)

Comedy Central, after all of its head-butting with popular star Dave Chapelle, may have a chance to resolve the conflict – Chapelle supposedly wants to do a political satire show, a combination of Bill Maher’s Reel Time and The Daily Show, but less ’safe.’ Fewer skits, lots of bleeped talk, and a panel of guests, handpicked by Dave. Will CC go for it, especially with David Allan Grier’s “Chocolate News” already in progress?

Well, it’s three days after Thanksgiving and Hillary Clinton has still not been named as Obama’s Secretary of State. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.

Inspection- The Dangerous Dynamic

American Indians, Puritans who feared starvation,  shared resources in what one side referred to as “The New World,” the other by many names… but to them it was very old, going back so many generations we only have good guesses as to how it was first discovered by humans.

Now, not that much more than 400 years later, the dishes have hopefully been washed and put back, the turkey is waiting for fattened bellies to dip a bit to be carved some more, it’s time to pause and reconsider a few things…

A while ago I joined a discussion over at Volconvo.com called, “So, when will it be OK to mock Obama?”

Here was my initial response…

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The Tattlesnake – What We Have to Be Thankful For Edition

Aside from our personal and family connections, America has much to be thankful for on this fourth Thursday in November:

1. The Bush Boy will soon be gone. Regardless of all of the dismal forecasts of martial law and suspended elections (and accepting that he still has 54 days left for this kind of mischief), the Reign of Error is nearly over and, as a parting gift, Our Worst President Ever has ruined the neocon movement as a political force; proven Milton Friedman’s untrammeled free trade and Arthur Laffer’s supply-side ‘Trickle Down’ economic theories a bitter joke by implementation; soured the majority of America on the right-wing agenda; lessened the political influence of the Christopublicans; eliminated the chance of any future spawn of the Bush family holding national office for a generation, and nearly destroyed the Republican Party to boot.

2. President Barack Obama – if he does nothing else, just by dint of his election he has changed the way the world sees us, and the way we see ourselves. And it will be refreshing to have a president that we can be proud of for a change, and one who can even complete a full sentence in grammatical English.

3. Big Media influence is waning as ‘Citizen Journalists’ on the Inner Tubes present opinions not found in the corporately-owned mass media. Americans now read more of the foreign press online than ever before, meaning we are gradually becoming less parochial and xenophobic in our knowledge of the world.

4. The GOP might actually nominate Sarah Palin as its presidential nominee in 2012, thereby guaranteeing its decline into a regional, mostly southern, party sure to lose national elections for generations to come. Even short of that, the GOP will be wandering in the wilderness – they have to either go left, and lose part of their base, or stay to the same course and swallow defeat.

5. Karl Rove and his minions are finished as a force in politics, and Rove himself is likely to face indictments up the ying-yang after January 20th. He may be frog-marched in handcuffs yet.

6. Word is, hundreds of federal employees, silenced by fear or fiat during the reign of BushCo, will be blowing the whistle following Obama’s inauguration. Can investigations, indictments and convictions be far behind?

7. Science and the rule of law will be respected once again by our government, and decisions will be made by a president who uses his brain for the job rather than his gut.

This was just a quick list; add your own reasons to be thankful, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Ye Olde Scribe Presents: His Thanksgiving Culinary Secret

Still wondering how to best give your family and relatives the bird? Yes! It REALLY IS TRUE. YOS, the family chef, tried a variation on this a few years back and… YUM! …it works well. Like Junior “worked…” for eight, long, hideous, nightmarish years. So grab ahold of your personal giblets… WOAH! Not THAT hard, Bucko! OK, now that you’ve stopped moaning in pain; or pleasure: depending on how kinky you are, be prepared for a tasty treat of the likes you’ve never, ever had since Momsie cooked pig’s liver in 50 weight; 100,000 mile worth of over used Pennzoil.

A Recipe for Dirty Diaper Turkey

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The Tale of Two Presidents

The Right-wing has been complaining about Obama acting like the Acting President.  FAUX News points out that while Obama stands behind a podium with a sign, “The Office of the President Elect”, he has absolutely no authority as a president.

In case the Right hasn’t noticed, the current president has been phoning it it since the election.

If it weren’t for Obama talking about it, there wouldn’t be ANY president talking.  Not that it would matter much, Bush can’t open his yap without causing a crash on the markets.  Nobody wants to hear anything he has to say.

Obama, on the other hand, is going to be taking actual control in fifty-something days, and he realizes that in order to make things easier the day he is sworn in, he needs to be communicating his actions and intents now.  He is putting together a powerhouse of a team and he wants us to know it.  More importantly, he wants the banks and the market to know it also.

Although the new sheriff in town doesn’t have a badge yet,  he is doing much more to try and stabalize things right now than anyone in the Bush administration.

I realized the other day when Bush talked about assisting in making an easy transition, there was something in his phrase that bothered me.  I just couldn’t put my finger on it until yesterday.  Bush said that he would inform Obama of any actions that needed to be taken on the economic front.

Inform, not consult, or ask for input.  Inform.

Bush is still bent on his bull-headed ways even though he has 55 days left in charge.  It is obvious to everyone that Bush is not to be trusted with anything more complicated than his bicycle,  yet he is going to deliberately do everything he can to NOT work with Obama.

So yeah, while there cannot be two presidents at once, the only one that matters at this point is the one making all the decisions — to be implemented the day he is sworn in.  The other one might as well go back on vacation 55 days early.  If we need him, we will call him.

But I wouldn’t bother waiting around the telephone.

Imagine that…..

Now that Obama has been elected you can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting a reformed racist!

I hear all the time about “well….I voted fer that colored boy, but I was fraid to say so….”.
Funny but the returns say Kentucky was pure red for MCCain. However a little closer examanation shows that the very eastern part of Kentucky where i am voted for Obama! He actually carried this redneck enclave! McCain got just 8% here…
I guess there is hope for us after all….now if people would just pass a law saying its not a bad thing to marry a family member…(after all, who want’s a stranger at the dinner table?)
Happy Thanksgiving evevrybody.

The Tattlesnake — You Might Be a Neocon If… 2008 Update Edition

With a hat tip to Jeff Foxworthy, it’s time to play:

You Might Be a Neocon If…

… you believe any of the following: Barack Obama is (a) a socialist; (b) a Muslim; (c) the illegitimate son of Malcolm X; (d) the illegitimate son of Uncle Ben.

… you think Obama was a domestic terrorist who helped Bill Ayers plant bombs in the Pentagon; that he doesn’t have a legal birth certificate proving he’s an American citizen; and that his middle name indicates anything more than sheer coincidence.

… You believe President Obama’s first act will be to make the ‘nation’ of Africa our 51st state and send every resident a free Cadillac.

… you heard Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 and don’t think it was a state then, thereby making it illegal for him to be president, but are too lazy to look it up before you forward the email.

… you believe Sarah Palin is really intelligent and informed and that the reason most of America thinks otherwise is due to the liberal media and their evil ‘gotcha’ questions.

… you think an unwed teenage girl’s pregnancy is a sign of the moral failings of permissive secular parents and liberalism in general, except for 17-year-old Bristol Palin.

… you believe Sarah Palin is (a) a real feminist; (b) a true populist; (c) a ‘good ole gal just like me!’; (d) winking at you seductively through the TV.

… you think it was fine for the Big Media to criticize every detail of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and excoriate her for her laugh, her clothes, her personal taste, or minor mistakes, yet Katie Couric asking Sarah Palin to name what newspapers and magazines she reads ‘every day’ is an outrageous and out of bounds ‘gotcha’ question.

… you thought John Kerry’s record of military heroism didn’t entitle him to be president, but John McCain’s did.

… you believe that, despite everything, this remains a ‘center-right’ nation.

… you think any of the following windbags are still politically relevant: (a) Rush Limbaugh; (b) Bill O’Reilly; (c) Sean Hannity; (d) Michael Savage; (e) Glenn Beck; (f) John McCain’s brother Joe.

… you actually believe that Big Media corporations are owned by flaming liberals, except Fox News.

… you think Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch is ‘too liberal’ because he once held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton and employs Alan Colmes.

… you believe any of the following are real-live conservative intellectuals: (a) Bill Kristol; (b) Pat Buchanan; (c) Dinesh D’Souza; (d) Joe the Plumber.

… you think prayer in school is more important than a good education in school.

… you believe that courts should not ‘make law’ but go by a strict interpretation of the Constitution, except in the case of Bush v. Gore, Terry Schiavo, and keeping those designated as ‘terrorists’ by the president in prison without due process.

… you think Swift Boater Jerome Corsi is a great investigative journalist.

… you think Michael Moore is a communist dedicated to overthrowing the country’s health care system and forcing you to go to a government doctor for free.

… you’ve never read anything by Karl Marx other than a quote or two, yet consider yourself an expert on what is Marxist.

… you believe liberals and/or Democrats are all (a) atheists (b) liars (c) commies (d) America-haters (e) arugula eaters (f) always sitting around trying to think up ways to take away your guns.

… you think anyone who disagrees with you is unpatriotic, even if it’s an old woman in a wheelchair yelling at you for parking in the Handicapped space.

… you think Handicapped parking spaces are liberal commie plots to take away our freedoms.

… you believe wearing a flag pin is more important than living up to the Constitutional law of the land.

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The Tattlesnake – The Senate’s Teddy Bear Picnic and Other Maddening Madness Edition

“I don’t have a rearview mirror. I look only forward. And I still see the day when I can remove the cloud that currently surrounds me.”
– Disgraced and defeated Sen. Ted Stevens (R-VECO), on the Senate floor, Nov. 20, 2008. (Perhaps he can bribe it to go away.)

Even in politics, a business known for honking weirdoes and depraved lowlifes, outgoing Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is Weird with a strut and horns and as crooked as a pig’s tail. Yet there were his Senate colleagues standing and applauding the convicted-on-seven-counts-of-corruption felon last Thursday, proving, I guess, that there is some honor among thieves — or, at least, praise. No wonder the Senate Ethics Office is a toothless farce – what do you have to do to engender the disrespect of these ‘public servants’? (Oh, right, tell the truth.) Utah’s ‘Mr. Republican’ Orrin Hatch, another blazing nutball with a hard nougat center of Petrified Kook, publicly ejaculated without shame that Ted was “one of the greatest men I ever met,” while his colleague from the Planet Strange, Sen. Jim Bunning, GOP marital aid of the KY-Jelly state, spread it on less grammatically: “If only you knew the Ted Stevens like I knew.” Democrat-turned-Wolfman Norm Coleman, verging on a well-deserved term limitation up in Minnesota, bayed to Ted’s moon-that-don’t-shine, “Those of us who know him also see the love that’s in his heart, reflected in love of country, love of family…” unnatural love of sheep. Even I-da-ho Spud Stud Larry Craig felt moved to knock three times on Stevens’ pipe with his own spit polish, so to speak.

Jebas, what if Uncle Ted had shot a man in Memphis just to watch him die? Would the Senate just rise as one to elect him King – or maybe Pope?

It’s too bad that AG Michael Mukasey collapsed suddenly during a speech Thursday night, but what the Big Media didn’t remark on was who Mukasey was speechifying to – the frickin’ Federalist Society, home base for the Unitary Executive malarkey that the departing Little King has used to justify dodging the Constitution. Sure, BushCo is on its way out the door, but you might think that the BM would be a little discomfited at the idea that the Attorney General, dressed up in a tux, was addressing a meeting of a group that basically believes in an American monarchy, much like democracy-distrusting icon Alexander Hamilton, who once encouraged George Washington to declare himself King of the United States. [Take a gander at FedSoc’s founders and current members: Ed ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ Meese, Robert ‘Nixonite’ Bork, Ted ‘Florida Recount’ Olson, John ‘Bob’s Dad’ Roberts, Tony ‘Bush v. Gore’ Scalia and Sam ‘The Sham’ Alito.) For a rough political equivalent, imagine the hew and cry if Obama’s new AG Eric Holder passed out while speaking to the Socialist Worker’s Party — think the venue would go unnoticed by the still-unjailed Press Gang at Newsweek and Time?

She Stoops to (be) Flounder: Remember those stories about a young Danny Quayle seeing the Robert Redford film, “The Candidate” and thinking it was a primer for a career in politics? Now it seems the Alaska Hockey Momster has aimed even lower; she’s apparently using Tim Robbins’ satirical flick, “Bob Roberts” as a roadmap for political success. For more cinematic inspiration to further Sarah’s future in government service, may ‘oui’ suggest “Amazon Women on the Moon,” “Idiocracy,” “The Aristocrats,” “Weird Science,” “Ernest Goes to Jail,” and “Linda Lovelace for President”?

And finally, the Vatican has forgiven John Lennon – imagine that? (Hint: it has to do with something he said in 1966.) I wonder if they’ve caught up with the news that he was murdered in 1980? (Lennon’s lucky; it took the Pope about 400 years to forgive Galileo for finding out the earth is round and circles the sun.)

(Quotes re Stevens from “We Salute You, Ted Stevens!” by Benjamin Sarlin, The Daily Beast, Nov. 20, 2008.)

Sarah Palin – The Trainwreck You HAVE to watch

It is human nature to stop and watch someone make a complete fool out of themselves.  No matter HOW much we tell ourselves we aren’t going to look, we still do.

Sarah Palin is one such person — and she just can’t seem to understand that the more she puts herself out on front street in the media, the more foolish she looks.

Here we have the Governor doing a media and photo op on the annual turkey pardoning, and uses the slaughtering of turkeys as a background.

Inspection- No Need to Go on “Auto”

Until this edition of Inspection I really haven’t been able to comment about the hat in hand automakers. My mind, 45 years later, is still filled with shadows of Studebaker Packard’s three year slide into total belly up as a marquee as probably one of the most innovative automakers ever in the industry. I hate to see any of them go: especially since I am the proud owner of a 07, full convertible, Jeep Ultimate.

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