Grouchy’s Liberaltopia

The Tattlesnake – Drowning Down at the Old Rumor Mill Again Edition

 
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From Everybody’s Favorite: Various Possibly Reliable Sources Who Wish to Remain Anonymous:

– China has already given the back-channel ultimatum to the Bushites – attack Iran and interrupt the flow of Iranian oil vital to the Asian nation’s economy and China will interrupt their loans and imports to the US, causing the American markets to crash even further and faster. The question is: will the mad Bush-Cheney neocons, drooling over an assault on Persia before Junior leaves office, pay attention?

– It’s a done deal: Bill Clinton has allegedly started secretly raising money for a run at the New York Governorship in 2010. Not only is Big Dog tired of campaigning for other people, he also sorely misses having political power. And he wouldn’t mind a spot in the record books as the first president to also be elected governor of two different states, one prior to the presidency and one after.

– Take it to the bank: Among those who WON’T be Obama’s VP are USA Gen. Wesley Clark, USMC Gen. James Jones, USN Adm. William Fallon, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, or a certain junior senator from New York. However, two barely-mentioned Veep candidates are said to be receiving close scrutiny by Barack: former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke and former diplomat and Hillary supporter Joe Wilson, husband of ex-covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

– Bobby Bye-Bye: McCain just crossed Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal off of his Veep list. Jindal is in trouble deep in the Big Easy state and a recall election movement is swiftly gaining momentum. Also take Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty out of the running – rumor has it McCain thinks he’s something of a wimpy dope and MN is going Solid Blue in 2008. Word is, McCain also doesn’t want a woman on his ticket and he favors ‘real men’ he can ‘relate to’ like Tom Ridge or former-Gen. Tommy Franks. Iraq ’surge’ instigator Gen. David Petraeus is also supposedly in the top five and, although Petraeus is said to have political ambitions, he also doubts McCain can win, so he might turn the VP slot down.

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Happy Independence Day

 
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Read it and weep — how many Americans these days even know its history, what it says or care? Say ‘Independence Day’ and they think of a Will Smith movie. Listen for that ‘whirring’ sound — it’s Thomas Jefferson spinning in his grave.

The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
Passed by Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. …

Read the rest here.

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Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By Presidency

 
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Another Reason Why McCain Would Be Bad

 
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Only one Republican voted with Dorgan — and it wasn’t McCain.

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The Tattlesnake – Newsweek’s Cindy McCain Puff Pastry Falls Flat Edition

 
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Surprise! The Recipe is Not Original

This isn’t really intended to criticize Cindy McCain – God knows the woman has suffered enough from 30 years of marriage to John McCain – but rather to dissect the puff profile Holly Bailey concocted for Newsweek June 21, “In Search of Cindy McCain.”

In her often risible attempts to slab on sugar frosting over the rocky-road history of John McCain and his second wife Cindy, Ms. Bailey, a young Corporate Media go-getter plainly anxious to avoid ruffling any powerful feathers, instead leaves gaping cracks through which the careful reader can detect glimmers of harsh reality, rendered as it is by the leaden hand of an ardent, if inexpert, propagandist.

For those of us who relish chuckling at such obvious kiss-up buncombe, here are just a few of the more entertaining highlights, but read the article for the full head-slapping impact:

– Without an ounce of shame or regret, Ms. Bailey persists in inserting flag-waving quotes from Mrs. McCain which sound as if they were invented by McCain’s campaign staff. To explain her “long-distance marriage” and “together but apart” relationship to political animal Johnny, Holly has Cindy comparing Mr. McCain going to Washington with a Navy officer’s deployment overseas: “It was almost like a deployment …What I told the kids from the time they were little is that their dad was deployed and serving our country in Washington.” She followed that selfless patriotic tearjerker with Mrs. Sen. McCain admitting that when she married her husband, she knew that he would “put country first” before his bride and kids. Rather than the portrait of a dedicated pol with his nose to the grindstone in Congress that Ms. Bailey tried to etch, one could also take from this that John McCain didn’t much care for his wife or children, and preferred staying alone in Washington to hanging out at home with the family.

– Ms. Bailey also notes that exemplary Good Citizen John somehow didn’t notice his wife was addicted to both booze and painkillers for years “brought on in part by the stress of politics,” as Holly writes, but doesn’t think this angle is worthy of further pursuit. Cindy herself is quoted, somewhat pathetically, as saying she’s her husband’s “best friend, best adviser and closest confidant” yet she neglected to tell him she was strung out on drugs and liquor, so apparently that relationship didn’t cut both ways. Just to review: Here is a man who seeks to be the president of one of the most powerful nations on earth, yet he is completely ignorant of what is happening to his wife right under his nose? Voters might care to know how that’s even possible unless it was willful, and if it was willful, how McCain could be that unfeeling and blind toward someone he supposedly loves? After all, his calling card is his love for his country – as president, would he refuse to face reality as it declines as well? Ah, but don’t rely on Ms. Bailey bringing up any of those uncomfortable questions – she’s on a mission to fluff up the hair and apply cosmetics to her subject’s past, not commit any actual acts of journalism.

– Speaking of drugs, never was a finer gloss applied to an incident that, were Newsweek talking about some kid from Inner City Poverty Row, would be twisted to make him or her look like some horrible bust-out degenerate who deserved a long sentence in jail. By this I mean Holly’s perky willingness to excuse Cindy McCain’s downing a score of Percocets and Vicodins a day, eventually leading to a habit her regular doctors wouldn’t support, so she turned to the physicians at the charity group she founded, the American Voluntary Medical Team, and clipped her drugs illegally from them. Ms. Bailey cast the theft in this soft-focus light, “But as her appetite for pills increased, she began stealing drugs from her own nonprofit, asking doctors who worked for the group to obtain the pills for her trips overseas,” without the sense of outraged moral condemnation the Big Media reserves for those lacking in power and money. Holly ends this section by noting that Mrs. McCain did not escape scot-free after she was arrested by the DEA: “Cindy paid restitution, did community service and attended counseling sessions.” Holly should spend a little time in a Chicago courtroom and see what kind of sentences are handed out to those not related to members of Congress who steal drugs from charities – a fine, community service and counseling would be a slap on the wrist. In our drug courts, the Great Unwashed habitually do hard time in the overcrowded Graybar Hotel while the pampered Republican Elite get ‘counseling sessions,’ and that’s obviously just dandy with Holly and her editors at Newsweek, apparently suffering from the same thick-headed lack of cognizance Sen. McCain exhibits toward his wife’s problems.

– Holly goes on to putter that Cindy McCain misses her privacy and, “She may have prepared herself for a largely independent life, but she didn’t count on—and never sought—the close, often unforgiving, scrutiny that she now cannot avoid.” Well, parts of that sentence are dubious, such as that the wife of a career politician would not ‘count on’ press coverage, but she definitely could curtail the media scrutiny she allegedly dislikes if she simply stopped campaigning for her husband. Ms. Bailey later contradicts her earlier musings on the reservations of Mrs. McCain toward her loss of privacy as she burbles that “Recently, Cindy has set out to show the country that she is no vacant ‘Stepford wife,’” without mentioning that Mrs. McCain’s personal appearances and interviews thus far confirm just that view.

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FLASHBACK to October 2001

 
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Amazingly, Drudge had this story up on his site today.  It is an October, 2001 NYT business article that talks about how one of Osama Been Forgotten’s goals was that crude oil would go for about $145 per barrel.

Today we’ve surpassed that.

He also wanted the United States (the West) to invade Iraq, to provide a training ground for Al Qaeda fighters.

We’ve done that.

So far President Bunnypants and his merry band of followers has appeased the man who orchestrated the events on September 11, 2001.  We have done absolutely nothing in trying to capture or kill this barnacle on the face of humanity.  If anything, Bush has gone out of his way to give Bin Laden a free pass.

I don’t think there is a middle school child in this country, let alone anywhere in the world who DOESN’T know where Osama Bin Laden is.

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Ye Olde Scribe’s Second Creature Feature: The Tree of Liberty

 
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Uncle Sam, Mother Liberty and Ye Olde sat at the dinner table sipping coffee. They were talking about the Tree of Liberty that they had been keeping in their house for closing in on three hundred years.

“Yeah,” Sam said, “the little bastard broke into our house, keeps roaming around defiling it and he poisoned our damn tree. The cops won’t do anything. The Congress refuses to do anything. I’ve tried to toss him out on his ass, but he’s a slimy, slipper motherfu…”

“Sam,” Mother said, “LANGUAGE!”

“Sorry, Mother.”

“Well, Scribe, he’s suppose to be leaving in a few months… though I’ll believe it when it happens.”

Two children: two boys, played on the floor…

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YOS Productions Presents: Ye Olde Scribe’s Presidential Portraits

 
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What if they allowed Scribe to repaint all the portraits on, or about to be hung, or might be hung, on the White House walls? How should they be remembered? What should be their legacy? That’s what the current portraits DON’T offer. Here are a few changes Scribe might make, with a few captions…

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What GENERAL Wesley Clark Said

 
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The latest kerfuckle, the latest outrage is McCain getting his panties in a bunch over what retired General Wesley Clark said on CBS on Sunday.

First, Clark made it a point to honor the sacrifice that McCain made in service to this country.  But apparently, McCain felt that Clark was attacking him for making the following statement Sunday on CBS:

“I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war,” Clark told “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer.

“He hasn’t held executive responsibility,” he said. “That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron.”

“I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

Where in that statement is there an “attack”?  Where is Clark wrong? 

Clark stated a fact — there is no requirement that you had to be a fighter pilot and/or be shot down.  It certainly isn’t the “executive experience” McCain is basing his qualifications on. 

So in response to this “outrage”, McCain has put together a “Truth Squad” to fight back against these types of perceived “attacks” on McCain’s service record.  One of those members is Colonel Bud Day,  who was connected to the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry’s military service.

Hypocricy much?

John Kerry came out this afternoon with the following statement:

“Senator McCain should condemn these remarks and cut ties with the Colonel and anyone else connected to SBVT. Day’s comments only serve to disparage all those who served on swift boats in Vietnam.”

Obama on the other hand tried to distance himself from Clark’s statement.  On one hand I understand his thoughts of wanting to keep these kinds of things out of the political discourse, but on the other, he needs to understand that if the tables were turned, the Republicans would try to accuse him of child molestation if they figured the charge would stick.

Fuck McCain and his hurt feelings over nothing.

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Inspection- Of Vampire Myths, Legends, Terrorism and Hillary

 
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Every time I open another Christopher Moore book; by the time I reach the final punctuation mark, I walk away with a new perspective…

The first draft of this edition of Inspection was written in a Big Y shopping plaza snuggled close to Spencer, Massachusetts. I was waiting for the magic hour: show time, when my core audience; munchkins… would walk in, sit down, and hopefully laugh themselves silly. I’m kind of the King of Silly, I suppose… I’m often referred to as, “You’re a silly man.” I wear that moniker proudly, like my father wore “The Ding-a-ling Hermit of Twitchell Lake,” after he retired as a Park Ave. exec.

There are worse things to be called.

What I didn’t realize was that I was about to get a different kind of cue, the kind that arrives on a weekly basis; usually with a sense of irony: the cue that always provides me with whatever I need to write this week’s edition of Inspection.

A yellow National Grid truck drove past me and parked. I noticed that fang-like orange construction cones dangled down from its thirsty mouth: the grill. A few minutes another one drove in and they started to plot. I covered my neck but… then relaxed. I realized they were looking for more local wallets, and “Grandma Millie” purses, to bite.

These days myths abound and walk the planet; or drive around in the form of Grid trucks. When insanity is accepted by those who should be regulating it, or investigating it, madness grips a society between its bulldog teeth and refuses to let go. Strange things happen, like “National Grid,” that arose from the ashes of the scam ran by the likes of Niagara Mohawk: who many suspect colluded with other northeastern power companies to create one huge “oops…” many years ago: a huge blackout, so they could suck the green financial lifeblood out of consumers when the power jolted back on.

Then they collectively headed for the hills when a mere handful of politicians lit their investigative torches, only to rise from their crypts with a new name.

Wish politicians would light their torches a hell of a lot more these days. They’re more likely to join in the bloodfest: sucking out both the green and the red… “red” as in “wasted lives,” with no responsibility for what, at best, should be considered homicidal actions and inaction. Hence a city filled with floating corpses: New Orleans, for example. No, “reward” seems the operative word when venders for the U.S. gov get more and more no bid contracts to feed off of. Shoot unarmed people in the streets of NO? Hey, Good job! Here’s another contract coming at ya…

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