Left click on image to enlarge.Sunday, September 11, 2011
Friday, September 09, 2011
Thursday, September 08, 2011
The GOP Debate or, the Injustice League of America Has a Press Conference
Left click on image to enlarge.Random Notes on the Sept. 7, 2011 Republican Debate
(Candidates listed in order of polling popularity)
First off, the questioning was pathetic. Here they are huffing and puffing that big government spending is the biggest problem with the economy, then they start babbling about building a two-thousand-mile electronic fence across our border with Mexico and hiring thousands of new officers to police it. The ‘journalists’ on the debate panel never asked how they planned to pay for all of this, especially since some, like Rick Perry, want a ‘balanced budget’ amendment in the Constitution. Okay, Rick, how do you spend the tens of billions to ‘secure’ our border (it will do no such thing, of course), and still balance the budget? Also a few of the GOP Fabricasters greased up that old Republican chant that the government doesn’t create jobs. Aside from the one these candidates are running for, or the one they already occupy, this is obvious bull pucky and I wish one of the ‘reporters’ on the panel — NBC’s Brian Williams fancies himself one I hear — would have asked them what in hell they think all of those American civilians building M-1 Abrams tanks, smart bombs, cruise missiles, predator drones, F/A-18 attack jets, and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are doing? They all, ultimately, get their paychecks from the government, i.e.: the taxpayers. That said, here’s a brief rundown of how the Clod Squad did:
— Rick Perry: For a supposed ‘Master Debater’ he didn’t live up to his reputation. Hint to Rick: Never give your opponent an opening with a snarky line about his record as governor when you have bigger skeletons hanging in your own closet. Not that this matters to the moon howlers in the Perry camp, though — they’ll refuse to hear it, just as they filter out anything that doesn’t fit their goofy worldview.
— Mitt Romney: Better than expected. His quick, sharp comeback to Perry’s snipe about falling job rates in Massachusetts under Romney’s reign was his best moment, but it’s not going to do him any good with the loony Teabaggers; Romney will merely lose ground less quickly now, barring a sex scandal or major foul-up by Perry.
— Michele Bachmann: Fading into insignificance before our very eyes. Her ad lib about kids needing a job should warrant some kind of investigation into what she did with all of those foster children she likes to brag about raising. What — was she running some kind of Dickensian sweatshop on Daddy’s farm for a little extra cash? “Goddamn it, hurry up and finish those sweaters and then you can have some cold gruel; Kathy Lee’s people are picking them up this afternoon!” I’m just sayin’ I wouldn’t put it past her.
— Ron Paul: Sure, he’s got some good ideas — ending our dumb wars, stopping illegal spying on Americans, and legalizing drugs for adults — but it comes wrapped in a lot of raging anti-government Ayn Randian stupid. I know papa Ron wouldn’t see it this way, but government work is preventing his country-club drunk son from practicing his ‘love’ on his patients, so that’s one thing the gov’t is good for, as well as keeping the elder Paul off the streets and well-fed.
— Newt Blingrich: Did I type ‘Blingrich’? Guess so — that’s my new name for this Tiffany fake who keeps reappearing every presidential election cycle like a bout of stomach flu. His funniest line last night was his insistence that kids should learn American history — that’s priceless coming from the Newt-wit who keeps revising it to fit his ideology and bank account. ‘Blingy’ should be gone by Halloween — there’s not much money flowing into his coffers these days and his campaign staff now consists of two guys he met selling DVD players out of the trunk of a car I’m told. I meant the two guys were selling the DVD players, not Newt, but I can readily understand any confusion.
(Candidates listed in order of polling popularity)
First off, the questioning was pathetic. Here they are huffing and puffing that big government spending is the biggest problem with the economy, then they start babbling about building a two-thousand-mile electronic fence across our border with Mexico and hiring thousands of new officers to police it. The ‘journalists’ on the debate panel never asked how they planned to pay for all of this, especially since some, like Rick Perry, want a ‘balanced budget’ amendment in the Constitution. Okay, Rick, how do you spend the tens of billions to ‘secure’ our border (it will do no such thing, of course), and still balance the budget? Also a few of the GOP Fabricasters greased up that old Republican chant that the government doesn’t create jobs. Aside from the one these candidates are running for, or the one they already occupy, this is obvious bull pucky and I wish one of the ‘reporters’ on the panel — NBC’s Brian Williams fancies himself one I hear — would have asked them what in hell they think all of those American civilians building M-1 Abrams tanks, smart bombs, cruise missiles, predator drones, F/A-18 attack jets, and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are doing? They all, ultimately, get their paychecks from the government, i.e.: the taxpayers. That said, here’s a brief rundown of how the Clod Squad did:
— Rick Perry: For a supposed ‘Master Debater’ he didn’t live up to his reputation. Hint to Rick: Never give your opponent an opening with a snarky line about his record as governor when you have bigger skeletons hanging in your own closet. Not that this matters to the moon howlers in the Perry camp, though — they’ll refuse to hear it, just as they filter out anything that doesn’t fit their goofy worldview.
— Mitt Romney: Better than expected. His quick, sharp comeback to Perry’s snipe about falling job rates in Massachusetts under Romney’s reign was his best moment, but it’s not going to do him any good with the loony Teabaggers; Romney will merely lose ground less quickly now, barring a sex scandal or major foul-up by Perry.
— Michele Bachmann: Fading into insignificance before our very eyes. Her ad lib about kids needing a job should warrant some kind of investigation into what she did with all of those foster children she likes to brag about raising. What — was she running some kind of Dickensian sweatshop on Daddy’s farm for a little extra cash? “Goddamn it, hurry up and finish those sweaters and then you can have some cold gruel; Kathy Lee’s people are picking them up this afternoon!” I’m just sayin’ I wouldn’t put it past her.
— Ron Paul: Sure, he’s got some good ideas — ending our dumb wars, stopping illegal spying on Americans, and legalizing drugs for adults — but it comes wrapped in a lot of raging anti-government Ayn Randian stupid. I know papa Ron wouldn’t see it this way, but government work is preventing his country-club drunk son from practicing his ‘love’ on his patients, so that’s one thing the gov’t is good for, as well as keeping the elder Paul off the streets and well-fed.
— Newt Blingrich: Did I type ‘Blingrich’? Guess so — that’s my new name for this Tiffany fake who keeps reappearing every presidential election cycle like a bout of stomach flu. His funniest line last night was his insistence that kids should learn American history — that’s priceless coming from the Newt-wit who keeps revising it to fit his ideology and bank account. ‘Blingy’ should be gone by Halloween — there’s not much money flowing into his coffers these days and his campaign staff now consists of two guys he met selling DVD players out of the trunk of a car I’m told. I meant the two guys were selling the DVD players, not Newt, but I can readily understand any confusion.
— Rick Santorum: The Google candidate. To paraphrase John Cage: he’s got nothing to say and he’s saying it, to a constituency that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately for the ‘other Rick’ in the race, he took Harry Truman’s advice to heart when he was a senator from PA — if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog, and St. Santorum did. Poor dog. Somebody call the ASPCA!
— Herman Cain: Like his pizza, he’s loaded with oily processed gunk and entirely tasteless. He’s a ‘Godfather’ only to the miserable underpaid wretches who have the misfortune to work in his restaurants, but in no other way resembles one. If he had more sense, he’d realize the GOP of 2012 is never going to nominate a black man as president and he’s just filling out the role of Token Shill to sucker in some minority voters. Who knows — maybe he’s getting some under-the-table corpo cash to run; it would be the only sane reason to bother. Cain will also be out by the winter.
— Finally, Jon Huntsman: This benighted sap believed the Beltway Media strumpets and their blather about a ‘moderate Republican’ (whatever that is) beating Obama in 2012 and thought he was just the man to do it. (Perhaps he was in China too long to fully appreciate what’s been happening in this country and the GOP.) Short and not sweet: he has no money, little support, and the only Republicans left -- angry bigoted Teabaggers and mean-spirited theocratic Christopublicans -- abhor him for his occasional flashes of decency. The demented party base wants someone who will recite comforting right-wing fairy tales like Perry and Bachmann, not a grown-up who will make them face reality. This is not the year for facing facts in the Republican Party — that’ll come after November 6, 2012 when the GOP is buried in a landslide, electronic voting machines permitting.
© 2011 RS Janes.
http://www.fishink.us/
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Friday, September 02, 2011
The Self-Delusions of the Wealthy: Are They Really Worth What They’re Paid?
“If the wealthy had to work as hard as the janitor, they’d demand enough money to hire someone else to do the job.”
-- Richard Sherricky
As summer slides into fall, if not the financial fall that’s eventual, some things haven’t changed, such as the investment bank aristocracy of Wall Street, already wallowing in obscenely large salaries, apparently believing they actually earn their pay for continuing to peddle worthless paper and hoodwinking their own customers. This addled belief, however, is nothing new.
Having misspent a part of my youth as an advertising executive at a publishing company, I once had an opportunity to encounter wealthy people at business lunches and social functions, and noticed a few habits of hypocritical thinking most of them had in common:
-- To a man — and they were all men back then — they believed, even the silver-spoon trust fund scions and coddled bosses sons, that they were ‘self-made’ and everything they had was attained by their own hard work, even if their wealth was derived from dividend income, the result of a long-dead relative fortunately picking the right investments or starting a successful business.
-- Speaking of hard work, when these CEOs and corporate presidents drifted in at 10 or 11 in the morning to check the mail and sign a few letters, left for a two-hour lunch at 12:30, and then went golfing for the rest of the afternoon, leaving their overworked and underpaid secretaries to run the place, they would still insist that they had ‘worked hard’ all day. The trust fund scoundrels were even worse; they’d sit in a quiet bar in the afternoon hunched over a drink, or lounge at home in their bathrobe, and their ‘work’ for the day consisted of a few calls to the office to see if everything was all right. As usual, a secretary or senior manager was running the company.
-- Whatever their educational institution, Ivy League or state university, they all thought they graduated because they ‘studied hard’ and ‘put their noses to the grindstone’ even though some would laughingly brag, after a few too many cocktails, about how they had hired poor ‘scholarship brainiacs’ or ‘eggheads’ to teach them how to cheat on their tests.
-- While most of them abhorred any publicly-funded program that enabled poor kids to get a better education, and especially affirmative action, they were blind to their own advantages, beyond just being born white. If Uncle Joe picked up the phone to make sure they got into the ‘right’ college, or Daddy was once a student and fast-tracked their ‘legacy’ acceptance into a good university, that was fine — just the way the world worked. Of course, left unsaid was how they would have been able to make their way through college if such financially-strapped ‘scholarship brainiacs’ were not there to help them cheat, just one of many mental cul-de-sacs that these sons of privilege passed by quickly, lest they get caught on their own conundrum.
-- Although most of them supported the war in Vietnam, none of them came close to serving in it. They either received school draft deferments like Dick Cheney; or, like Rush Limbaugh, had a note from the family doctor describing some dread condition that made them militarily unfit, but somehow didn’t interfere with their golf game. Others had a family-friend Congressman intervene to keep them out; or, like Junior Bush, had the Old Man pull a few strings to get them ‘Weekend Warrior’ duty in the National Guard. Privately, they had little regard or compassion for the troops in the field; in fact, they believed them stupid and that the grunts should show gratitude for the opportunity that military service provided to raise their lowly selves out of the ghetto or trailer park. Should they die or be maimed for life during this process of elevation – well, that’s just the price they pay for not having the foresight to be born in better circumstances.
-- Most of them hated paying taxes, the hatred much more intense than that of those lower on the income ladder. Like Leona Helmsley, they thought taxes were fine — for the ‘little people.’ A couple of them were even said to spend more money on lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes than the amount they owed in taxes. But they didn’t mind one bit freeloading off poorer folks by using roads, highways, airports, parks, sewer lines and other public facilities partly paid for by the taxes of the non-rich; and they took it for granted their class would receive preferential treatment from cops and firefighters they didn’t want to pay taxes to support. I won’t even get into the courts, prosecutors, and military all arrayed to protect their property that they also didn’t want to pay to uphold — suffice it to say that they didn’t believe in any taxes for themselves, even for those things that benefited them greatly. It would be a mistake to take this as any sort of reasonable consideration on the subject of taxation; it was not – it was a nearly-hysterical emotional reaction born of mindless greed or sheer obtuseness.
Because of my position at the time, I couldn’t easily debunk or refute their various delusions and fits of psychological zoanthropy; to do so might affect my company and my employment there and, frankly, I needed the job. While I would pose a mild question or two -- nothing too challenging or confrontational -- I mainly just listened to their hallucinations. Two of the great common myths of American culture are that you can’t be too rich or too thin. Anyone who has seen a person dying of anorexia knows the first is false, and anyone who has encountered the wealthy as I did knows that an excess of money can be just as harmful to a healthy mind as eating nothing but candy is to the body. One thought, unexpressed, went through my mind repeatedly as I listened and watched these well-heeled business acquaintances go through the motions: what exactly do these people do that is worth so much money? One-thousand dollars an hour or more for calling into the office or letting your secretary handle things? Doling out a few million to someone who cured cancer would seem appropriate; but paying that to a man who rarely worked and took months off for vacation while begrudging his employees a slight raise and a couple of weeks off for a holiday? It was outrageous and the situation has worsened in the decades since these events happened. Then, top executives received about 50 times more than the average worker; today, it’s about 700 times. Yet, are they working any harder than the top execs of the mid-70s? I’d bet Lloyd Blankfein’s yearly salary of $55 million they aren’t.
(Incidentally, I’m exempting here those who really did start their own businesses from scratch with next to nothing. They worked hard getting the place running and deserve to be paid for their effort if they succeed. That said, I don’t know if that effort is worth billions, but that’s a question for another time. Also, I’m not taking a swipe at entertainers or sports stars; most of them also worked hard to get where they are, generally have brief professional lives, and merit compensation for their talents since it’s usually based on public approval rather than a board of directors stocked with your cronies.)
Until executive compensation is brought into line with actual worthwhile work done, and the wealthy have to pay their fair share of taxes, including payroll taxes and capital gains taxes commensurate with what the average worker pays, I don’t think we can resolve our current economic mess.
That aside, the thread running through all of this is the massive degree of self-delusion practiced by those with wealth. It’s scary enough when they know they’re lying to make a buck; it’s pathologically dangerous when they buy into their own fantasies about themselves as have, it seems, the current crop of Wall Street bunco artists and banking grifters. In this case, it won’t end until Richie Rich, ensconced in an office at Goldman Sachs, dreaming up the next fraudulent financial instrument for his firm to foist on the gullible markets, hits bottom – an inevitability since they refuse to learn from their mistakes — and seeks another ‘loan’ from the contemptible ‘little people’ who pay taxes via the federal Big Daddy and, to mix metaphors, the cupboard is bare.
Then these Masters of the Universe will learn the tough lesson the cosseted Junior Bush as president had to endure: there are times when even Big Daddy can’t save you from the hard consequences of acting like a spoiled brat with too much for your own good.
© 2011 RS Janes.
www.fishink.us
-- Richard Sherricky
As summer slides into fall, if not the financial fall that’s eventual, some things haven’t changed, such as the investment bank aristocracy of Wall Street, already wallowing in obscenely large salaries, apparently believing they actually earn their pay for continuing to peddle worthless paper and hoodwinking their own customers. This addled belief, however, is nothing new.
Having misspent a part of my youth as an advertising executive at a publishing company, I once had an opportunity to encounter wealthy people at business lunches and social functions, and noticed a few habits of hypocritical thinking most of them had in common:
-- To a man — and they were all men back then — they believed, even the silver-spoon trust fund scions and coddled bosses sons, that they were ‘self-made’ and everything they had was attained by their own hard work, even if their wealth was derived from dividend income, the result of a long-dead relative fortunately picking the right investments or starting a successful business.
-- Speaking of hard work, when these CEOs and corporate presidents drifted in at 10 or 11 in the morning to check the mail and sign a few letters, left for a two-hour lunch at 12:30, and then went golfing for the rest of the afternoon, leaving their overworked and underpaid secretaries to run the place, they would still insist that they had ‘worked hard’ all day. The trust fund scoundrels were even worse; they’d sit in a quiet bar in the afternoon hunched over a drink, or lounge at home in their bathrobe, and their ‘work’ for the day consisted of a few calls to the office to see if everything was all right. As usual, a secretary or senior manager was running the company.
-- Whatever their educational institution, Ivy League or state university, they all thought they graduated because they ‘studied hard’ and ‘put their noses to the grindstone’ even though some would laughingly brag, after a few too many cocktails, about how they had hired poor ‘scholarship brainiacs’ or ‘eggheads’ to teach them how to cheat on their tests.
-- While most of them abhorred any publicly-funded program that enabled poor kids to get a better education, and especially affirmative action, they were blind to their own advantages, beyond just being born white. If Uncle Joe picked up the phone to make sure they got into the ‘right’ college, or Daddy was once a student and fast-tracked their ‘legacy’ acceptance into a good university, that was fine — just the way the world worked. Of course, left unsaid was how they would have been able to make their way through college if such financially-strapped ‘scholarship brainiacs’ were not there to help them cheat, just one of many mental cul-de-sacs that these sons of privilege passed by quickly, lest they get caught on their own conundrum.
-- Although most of them supported the war in Vietnam, none of them came close to serving in it. They either received school draft deferments like Dick Cheney; or, like Rush Limbaugh, had a note from the family doctor describing some dread condition that made them militarily unfit, but somehow didn’t interfere with their golf game. Others had a family-friend Congressman intervene to keep them out; or, like Junior Bush, had the Old Man pull a few strings to get them ‘Weekend Warrior’ duty in the National Guard. Privately, they had little regard or compassion for the troops in the field; in fact, they believed them stupid and that the grunts should show gratitude for the opportunity that military service provided to raise their lowly selves out of the ghetto or trailer park. Should they die or be maimed for life during this process of elevation – well, that’s just the price they pay for not having the foresight to be born in better circumstances.
-- Most of them hated paying taxes, the hatred much more intense than that of those lower on the income ladder. Like Leona Helmsley, they thought taxes were fine — for the ‘little people.’ A couple of them were even said to spend more money on lawyers and accountants to avoid paying taxes than the amount they owed in taxes. But they didn’t mind one bit freeloading off poorer folks by using roads, highways, airports, parks, sewer lines and other public facilities partly paid for by the taxes of the non-rich; and they took it for granted their class would receive preferential treatment from cops and firefighters they didn’t want to pay taxes to support. I won’t even get into the courts, prosecutors, and military all arrayed to protect their property that they also didn’t want to pay to uphold — suffice it to say that they didn’t believe in any taxes for themselves, even for those things that benefited them greatly. It would be a mistake to take this as any sort of reasonable consideration on the subject of taxation; it was not – it was a nearly-hysterical emotional reaction born of mindless greed or sheer obtuseness.
Because of my position at the time, I couldn’t easily debunk or refute their various delusions and fits of psychological zoanthropy; to do so might affect my company and my employment there and, frankly, I needed the job. While I would pose a mild question or two -- nothing too challenging or confrontational -- I mainly just listened to their hallucinations. Two of the great common myths of American culture are that you can’t be too rich or too thin. Anyone who has seen a person dying of anorexia knows the first is false, and anyone who has encountered the wealthy as I did knows that an excess of money can be just as harmful to a healthy mind as eating nothing but candy is to the body. One thought, unexpressed, went through my mind repeatedly as I listened and watched these well-heeled business acquaintances go through the motions: what exactly do these people do that is worth so much money? One-thousand dollars an hour or more for calling into the office or letting your secretary handle things? Doling out a few million to someone who cured cancer would seem appropriate; but paying that to a man who rarely worked and took months off for vacation while begrudging his employees a slight raise and a couple of weeks off for a holiday? It was outrageous and the situation has worsened in the decades since these events happened. Then, top executives received about 50 times more than the average worker; today, it’s about 700 times. Yet, are they working any harder than the top execs of the mid-70s? I’d bet Lloyd Blankfein’s yearly salary of $55 million they aren’t.
(Incidentally, I’m exempting here those who really did start their own businesses from scratch with next to nothing. They worked hard getting the place running and deserve to be paid for their effort if they succeed. That said, I don’t know if that effort is worth billions, but that’s a question for another time. Also, I’m not taking a swipe at entertainers or sports stars; most of them also worked hard to get where they are, generally have brief professional lives, and merit compensation for their talents since it’s usually based on public approval rather than a board of directors stocked with your cronies.)
Until executive compensation is brought into line with actual worthwhile work done, and the wealthy have to pay their fair share of taxes, including payroll taxes and capital gains taxes commensurate with what the average worker pays, I don’t think we can resolve our current economic mess.
That aside, the thread running through all of this is the massive degree of self-delusion practiced by those with wealth. It’s scary enough when they know they’re lying to make a buck; it’s pathologically dangerous when they buy into their own fantasies about themselves as have, it seems, the current crop of Wall Street bunco artists and banking grifters. In this case, it won’t end until Richie Rich, ensconced in an office at Goldman Sachs, dreaming up the next fraudulent financial instrument for his firm to foist on the gullible markets, hits bottom – an inevitability since they refuse to learn from their mistakes — and seeks another ‘loan’ from the contemptible ‘little people’ who pay taxes via the federal Big Daddy and, to mix metaphors, the cupboard is bare.
Then these Masters of the Universe will learn the tough lesson the cosseted Junior Bush as president had to endure: there are times when even Big Daddy can’t save you from the hard consequences of acting like a spoiled brat with too much for your own good.
© 2011 RS Janes.
www.fishink.us
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
The Unholy GOP Three and He Who Must Not Be Mentioned Except in Disdain
Left click on image to enlarge.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The 2+2 Job Interview
...or, how to get hired in corporate America.
A businessman was interviewing applicants for a corporate position. He devised a simple test to select the most suitable person for the job: he asked each applicant, "What is two plus two?"
The first applicant had an economics degree. He thought for a moment and then said, “This bearish market indicates it could be as low as 2.5 and as high as 5.6, but it depends on what Bernanke says tomorrow and what the EU does with the valuation of the Euro.”
The second interviewee was a former Fox News political pundit. His answer was a confident, "Twenty-two, of course."
The third job seeker was an ex-Microsoft phone tech. His answer was, “4.0, but you really should upgrade to the new 4.8 version! You can’t even get patches for 4.0 anymore!”
The next person was a former corporate lawyer. She stated that in the case of Malarkey v. Mathematics Professors of America, two and two seemed to be four, but that answer was contingent on any lawsuits that might arise from the inference that that answer was absolute, any subsequent riders that might be attached to the contract, any tort filings or motions currently under review, and any liens that might be imposed on the answer by the IRS. In any event, the lawyer refused to be responsible for her answer while the matter was still being negotiated out of court.
Next was a recently retired Republican politician. He said it depended on whether both twos belonged to a wealthy person or some poor schlub. In the case of a rich man, two plus two equaled “Tax cut”; in the case of the poor wretch, the answer was “Go to hell.”
Then there appeared a former Blue Dog Democrat. He said he would go along with whatever the Republican said while pretending he had a different answer.
An economist from the libertarian Cato Institute then entered. His reply to the question was short and sweet: “Unfettered free market capitalism is always the answer!”
Then a Messiah College graduate came into the office. She responded that two and two was whatever God said it was, unless it was something with which she didn’t agree -- then it was socialist and evil.
The next-to-last applicant was a Teabagger. After many minutes of long thought he said, “Could you ask me an easier question?”
The final applicant had previously worked for Enron and Standard and Poor’s. The now rather frustrated businessman asked him, "How much is two plus two?"
The applicant got up from his chair, went over to the door and closed it, then came back and sat down. He leaned across the desk and said in a low voice, "How much do you want it to be?"
He got the job.
2011 RS Janes, rewritten from another joke.
www.fishink.us
A businessman was interviewing applicants for a corporate position. He devised a simple test to select the most suitable person for the job: he asked each applicant, "What is two plus two?"
The first applicant had an economics degree. He thought for a moment and then said, “This bearish market indicates it could be as low as 2.5 and as high as 5.6, but it depends on what Bernanke says tomorrow and what the EU does with the valuation of the Euro.”
The second interviewee was a former Fox News political pundit. His answer was a confident, "Twenty-two, of course."
The third job seeker was an ex-Microsoft phone tech. His answer was, “4.0, but you really should upgrade to the new 4.8 version! You can’t even get patches for 4.0 anymore!”
The next person was a former corporate lawyer. She stated that in the case of Malarkey v. Mathematics Professors of America, two and two seemed to be four, but that answer was contingent on any lawsuits that might arise from the inference that that answer was absolute, any subsequent riders that might be attached to the contract, any tort filings or motions currently under review, and any liens that might be imposed on the answer by the IRS. In any event, the lawyer refused to be responsible for her answer while the matter was still being negotiated out of court.
Next was a recently retired Republican politician. He said it depended on whether both twos belonged to a wealthy person or some poor schlub. In the case of a rich man, two plus two equaled “Tax cut”; in the case of the poor wretch, the answer was “Go to hell.”
Then there appeared a former Blue Dog Democrat. He said he would go along with whatever the Republican said while pretending he had a different answer.
An economist from the libertarian Cato Institute then entered. His reply to the question was short and sweet: “Unfettered free market capitalism is always the answer!”
Then a Messiah College graduate came into the office. She responded that two and two was whatever God said it was, unless it was something with which she didn’t agree -- then it was socialist and evil.
The next-to-last applicant was a Teabagger. After many minutes of long thought he said, “Could you ask me an easier question?”
The final applicant had previously worked for Enron and Standard and Poor’s. The now rather frustrated businessman asked him, "How much is two plus two?"
The applicant got up from his chair, went over to the door and closed it, then came back and sat down. He leaned across the desk and said in a low voice, "How much do you want it to be?"
He got the job.
2011 RS Janes, rewritten from another joke.
www.fishink.us
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
“Corporations Are People” Gaffe Dooms Romney’s Presidential Bid
These days, Mitt Romney has the haunted look of a mountain climber who just heard half the strands of his lifeline snap while hanging only a few yards from the peak of Mt. Everest. He can’t turn back from his life-long quest to reach the peak, yet he knows there’s a good possibility the rope will break before he reaches his goal and he’ll go plummeting down the side. Along with the overstuffed carload of gobsmacking flip-flops on everything from women’s rights to income taxes to health care that Mitt carries with him like a mummy’s curse, his sure-thing Golden-Haired Boy 2012 GOP presidential nomination is now showing its dark roots, and it’s all the fault of Romney himself.
At the Iowa State Fair the other day, Romney attempted another of those tedious ‘Ask Mitt’ torture sessions where he is forced to extemporize to answer questions from the overly-corndogged locals. This is a dangerous zone for the Mittster, who has a hard enough time getting through his soporific stump speeches without sweating through his magic underwear. Romney no doubt figured he was on safe ground -- it’s Iowa and Republican runs here like boiling grease through a deep fryer. But the rubes were having none of it -- missiles of verbal pyrotechnics, along with derisive laughter, always deadly for a serious candidate, pierced the hot air as oldsters in the crowd fusilladed Romney about Social Security, Medicare, and raising taxes on corporations and his own top one-percent tax bracket to help pay for them. After taking the standard Norquist stupidity pledge never to raise taxes, which is akin to vowing never to move out of your house, even if it’s burning down around you, Mitt then exhibited the complacently haughty behavior that has appealed to his party’s Christopublican-Teabagger base by serenely patronizing his irate interrogators with “Corporations are people, my friend,” a phrase that will follow Romney like a dead skunk chained to his leg for the rest of his doomed quest for the Republican presidential nomination.
Consider that prior to this gaffe, Romney’s thin hold on the nomination was threefold: First, Wall Street reptiles with ice in their aortas and gin-embalmed country club Republicans embraced Mitt as a fellow-traveler -- a man willing to make the hard decisions before lunch of how many American jobs to cut or send to foreign shores and live without guilt on the proceeds. Secondly, others in the party elite thought Romney was an agreeably vacillating vessel who could easily be packaged as a caring ‘moderate conservative’ with a chance of beating Obama in 2012. Third, he has a pile of his own money to sink in his campaign, always a relief and comfort to the political investment class.
But with his ad-lib proclamation on the personhood of corporations, which comes as close as Romney gets to a core principle, he tossed it all away. Mitt might as well have announced he’s a Communist who worships Joe Stalin. To most Americans, unschooled in the prevailing hallucinations of five members of the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruminants of global high finance, the silly supply-side economists of which there seems to be an endless supply, and the curdled cognoscenti of the Federalist Society, corporations are clearly nothing like flesh-and-blood human beings and should not enjoy the same rights. Aside from the obvious that corporations cannot vote, or be hauled into court, or put in jail, and can only be fined for their wrongdoing. (They could also be put out of business, but in corporate-beguiled Washington that happens about as often as Sarah Palin submitting to an interview outside of Fox News.) Unlike Shakespeare’s Shylock, the modern corporation never suffers from cold nor heat nor injury from wounds physical or emotional and represents a unique eternal legal construct -- the front-office executives may change from death and retirement, but the corporation can go on forever. Ambrose Bierce aptly defined this swindle a century ago in “The Devil’s Dictionary”: "Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." Adding to the legalized larceny, the multi-national corporations take advantage of tax loopholes that are not available to the average American citizen, nor even small businesses, which gives these artificial abstractions unequal and superior rights to real people.
Most Americans are only vaguely aware of any of this, but they do have the fed-up feeling, rightfully, that those at the top of the corporate pie are making out like bandits, and forcing them to work longer hours at less pay to keep their jobs, and they don’t appreciate that ugly pie smashed into their faces by a spoiled multi-millionaire who thinks he should be president. Uttering “Corporations are people” with the passive-aggressive condescension of “my friend” appended removed any chance of Romney reaching the summit as he publicly tried to flim-flam the Iowans into believing that having a mountain of reeking manure in your backyard is the same as owning a prize racehorse.
In another era, a bland and malleable aspirant such as Tim Pawlenty would have taken the top spot after Romney implodes, but this is not that era in GOP politics as the pathetic two-percenter Pawlenty bends over so far backwards trying to appeal to the Teabaggers he appears to be engaged in a bizarre perpetual circus trick and the Republican base rates his conservative sincerity barely above that of Mitt’s.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin’s presidential ambitions will be confined to wistful private moments inside her ridiculous tour bus; Ron Paul will, as usual, fade as quasi-libertarianism and oligarchic corporatism actually don’t mix well; and Gingrich, Cain, Santorum, Huntsman and the other GOP stragglers will depart with vanity-wall photos of their brief moment on the national stage.
Predictions at this early stage are foolish, but here’s one anyway: I don’t think Romney will last beyond the South Carolina primary, if that far. If Obama was counting on running against Mr. Corporate Personhood, he might want to recalculate -- the vacuous but wingnut-popular Rick Perry is about to announce, and the Ed Rollins version of Michele Bachmann is taking it seriously now, and both are ready to genuflect to the Republican party establishment to get a crack at the White House.
Any progressive or liberal Democrat who takes either the Texas Governor or the Minnesota Congresswoman lightly does so at their peril. Remember the lesson of the 1970s when Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a buffoon too far right to be electable -- we are still paying for that mistake.
Copyright 2011 RS Janes.
http://www.fishink.us/
At the Iowa State Fair the other day, Romney attempted another of those tedious ‘Ask Mitt’ torture sessions where he is forced to extemporize to answer questions from the overly-corndogged locals. This is a dangerous zone for the Mittster, who has a hard enough time getting through his soporific stump speeches without sweating through his magic underwear. Romney no doubt figured he was on safe ground -- it’s Iowa and Republican runs here like boiling grease through a deep fryer. But the rubes were having none of it -- missiles of verbal pyrotechnics, along with derisive laughter, always deadly for a serious candidate, pierced the hot air as oldsters in the crowd fusilladed Romney about Social Security, Medicare, and raising taxes on corporations and his own top one-percent tax bracket to help pay for them. After taking the standard Norquist stupidity pledge never to raise taxes, which is akin to vowing never to move out of your house, even if it’s burning down around you, Mitt then exhibited the complacently haughty behavior that has appealed to his party’s Christopublican-Teabagger base by serenely patronizing his irate interrogators with “Corporations are people, my friend,” a phrase that will follow Romney like a dead skunk chained to his leg for the rest of his doomed quest for the Republican presidential nomination.
Consider that prior to this gaffe, Romney’s thin hold on the nomination was threefold: First, Wall Street reptiles with ice in their aortas and gin-embalmed country club Republicans embraced Mitt as a fellow-traveler -- a man willing to make the hard decisions before lunch of how many American jobs to cut or send to foreign shores and live without guilt on the proceeds. Secondly, others in the party elite thought Romney was an agreeably vacillating vessel who could easily be packaged as a caring ‘moderate conservative’ with a chance of beating Obama in 2012. Third, he has a pile of his own money to sink in his campaign, always a relief and comfort to the political investment class.
But with his ad-lib proclamation on the personhood of corporations, which comes as close as Romney gets to a core principle, he tossed it all away. Mitt might as well have announced he’s a Communist who worships Joe Stalin. To most Americans, unschooled in the prevailing hallucinations of five members of the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruminants of global high finance, the silly supply-side economists of which there seems to be an endless supply, and the curdled cognoscenti of the Federalist Society, corporations are clearly nothing like flesh-and-blood human beings and should not enjoy the same rights. Aside from the obvious that corporations cannot vote, or be hauled into court, or put in jail, and can only be fined for their wrongdoing. (They could also be put out of business, but in corporate-beguiled Washington that happens about as often as Sarah Palin submitting to an interview outside of Fox News.) Unlike Shakespeare’s Shylock, the modern corporation never suffers from cold nor heat nor injury from wounds physical or emotional and represents a unique eternal legal construct -- the front-office executives may change from death and retirement, but the corporation can go on forever. Ambrose Bierce aptly defined this swindle a century ago in “The Devil’s Dictionary”: "Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." Adding to the legalized larceny, the multi-national corporations take advantage of tax loopholes that are not available to the average American citizen, nor even small businesses, which gives these artificial abstractions unequal and superior rights to real people.
Most Americans are only vaguely aware of any of this, but they do have the fed-up feeling, rightfully, that those at the top of the corporate pie are making out like bandits, and forcing them to work longer hours at less pay to keep their jobs, and they don’t appreciate that ugly pie smashed into their faces by a spoiled multi-millionaire who thinks he should be president. Uttering “Corporations are people” with the passive-aggressive condescension of “my friend” appended removed any chance of Romney reaching the summit as he publicly tried to flim-flam the Iowans into believing that having a mountain of reeking manure in your backyard is the same as owning a prize racehorse.
In another era, a bland and malleable aspirant such as Tim Pawlenty would have taken the top spot after Romney implodes, but this is not that era in GOP politics as the pathetic two-percenter Pawlenty bends over so far backwards trying to appeal to the Teabaggers he appears to be engaged in a bizarre perpetual circus trick and the Republican base rates his conservative sincerity barely above that of Mitt’s.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin’s presidential ambitions will be confined to wistful private moments inside her ridiculous tour bus; Ron Paul will, as usual, fade as quasi-libertarianism and oligarchic corporatism actually don’t mix well; and Gingrich, Cain, Santorum, Huntsman and the other GOP stragglers will depart with vanity-wall photos of their brief moment on the national stage.
Predictions at this early stage are foolish, but here’s one anyway: I don’t think Romney will last beyond the South Carolina primary, if that far. If Obama was counting on running against Mr. Corporate Personhood, he might want to recalculate -- the vacuous but wingnut-popular Rick Perry is about to announce, and the Ed Rollins version of Michele Bachmann is taking it seriously now, and both are ready to genuflect to the Republican party establishment to get a crack at the White House.
Any progressive or liberal Democrat who takes either the Texas Governor or the Minnesota Congresswoman lightly does so at their peril. Remember the lesson of the 1970s when Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a buffoon too far right to be electable -- we are still paying for that mistake.
Copyright 2011 RS Janes.
http://www.fishink.us/
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Welcome to Fitzwalkerstan -- The Koch Bros. Wisconsin Nightmare Continues
Left click on image to enlarge.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Friday, August 05, 2011
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Day of the Low Crust: Notes on the Demise of the Murdoch Media Empire
Fox’s new reality TV series “Murdoch & Son” premiered July 19th with a 2-hour debut featuring the ‘Old Man’ Rupert Murdoch testifying (but not under oath) and answering questions with his son James before a committee of the British Parliament. While there were occasional moments of hilarity, such as Rupe -- a billionaire known for micromanaging his global media empire to the extent that he has fired low-level employees in remote outposts for minor offenses -- claiming he had no idea what the top officers of his corporation were up to because, well, he was just so busy doing something else. James himself made impassioned, if preposterous, pleas of his boneheaded ignorance of crimes committed before his very eyes, but he couldn’t match Dad on the giggle-meter. The question is, will audiences believe this kind of broad farce that seems more scripted than real, and Rupert’s declarations that he’s been humbled, and that he is happy to accept the blame as long as there aren’t any consequences? Moreover, will anyone buy Rupe’s logic that, after confessing he was blind to everything happening in his organization, including large payouts for lawsuits involving illegal hacking and arrests of prominent reporters, he is just the man to put things right? That requires a brand of faith available only to those who also worship a Flying Spaghetti Monster as creator of the universe.
Following “Murdoch & Son” we were greeted by the one-hour kick-off of “Rebekah with a ‘K’,” a reality-pod nod to the classic Mary Tyler Moore/His Girl Friday ‘woman in a screwball newsroom’ genre. The plot: henna-haired post-feminist Rebekah Brooks finally lands the editor’s job at one of the world’s largest-circulation newspapers but, once she’s achieved her ambition, her underlings hilariously sabotage her future as they engage in wrongdoing behind her back. Forced to resign and ultimately arrested for their criminal behavior, Rebekah fights back in the only way she knows how -- by alluding she was unfit for her high-powered position by dint of her extraordinary obliviousness and neglect. In this writer’s opinion, Fox made a blunder by unveiling this show in the same ‘testifying before Parliament’ format as “Murdoch & Son,” and it shows a real lack of imagination that the producers saddled her with the same sort of incredible excuses used by Rupert and James. Still, the contents of a laptop computer, some personal papers, and a cell phone ‘accidentally’ disposed of in a trash bin near Rebekah’s house and traced to her husband may render enough surprises in future episodes to keep viewers coming back.
But seriously, Rupert -- with a history of corrupting politicians, bribery to have laws changed in his favor, depreciating the profession of journalism, and advancing his political agenda disguised as news to the detriment of the public -- will ironically be brought down by the same celebutard sleaze-tabloid compost that built his success -- committing serious crimes to find out what Jude Law spent on room service, what Hugh Grant says on his cell phone, what Prince Harry discusses in private with his college pals -- this is the pathetic black hole that will engulf Murdoch’s News Corporation, first in England and then in the United States. Ruthless sociopath Murdoch has collected enemies over the years, many of them former friends who helped him in his rise to media prominence, but none of them as powerful as Prince Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. To the upper-crust British royal family, the Murdoch’s will always be provincial toads; low-crust louts permitted to peddle their swill as long as they didn’t step too hard on Buckingham Palace toes, and occasionally useful as a way to plant tsk-tsk stories against those the Queen doesn’t particularly care for, such as the late Lady Diana Spencer. But hacking into the private conversations of the royals is another matter, and what will destroy Murdoch’s operations in the UK, as well as bring down the conservative Cameron government Rupert helped put in place. The Queen’s family will not be mocked in lurid 72-pt. headlines.
In the United States, 1977’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act* will curtail Rupert’s clout and ability to do business here since senior corporate officers of Murdoch’s empire condoned corrupting high-level Scotland Yard officials. That by itself should be enough for a judge to order that Murdoch sell off his media assets (imagine Fox News owned by, say, NBC), and be prevented from conducting further business in this country. Aside from that, Murdoch’s obsession with purchasing print media has cost his corporation huge losses over the years and the stockholders have reached the boiling point, ready to junk the ‘dual-class share structure’** that allows Rupert to reign. An indictment for violating the FCPA will be just the edge they need to push the Murdoch’s out of the executive suite.
Don’t expect to see Rupert, James or Rebekah with a K in orange jumpsuits -- they are all prosperous enough to ride out any legal battles -- but the Murdoch family’s vast media empire is declining quicker than Great Britain’s after World War II. The demise of the 168-year-old News of the World last Sunday is just the beginning of the end.
* The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/
** Dual-Class Share Structure
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental/04/092204.asp#axzz1Sg6VX0Km
© 2011 RS Janes.
Following “Murdoch & Son” we were greeted by the one-hour kick-off of “Rebekah with a ‘K’,” a reality-pod nod to the classic Mary Tyler Moore/His Girl Friday ‘woman in a screwball newsroom’ genre. The plot: henna-haired post-feminist Rebekah Brooks finally lands the editor’s job at one of the world’s largest-circulation newspapers but, once she’s achieved her ambition, her underlings hilariously sabotage her future as they engage in wrongdoing behind her back. Forced to resign and ultimately arrested for their criminal behavior, Rebekah fights back in the only way she knows how -- by alluding she was unfit for her high-powered position by dint of her extraordinary obliviousness and neglect. In this writer’s opinion, Fox made a blunder by unveiling this show in the same ‘testifying before Parliament’ format as “Murdoch & Son,” and it shows a real lack of imagination that the producers saddled her with the same sort of incredible excuses used by Rupert and James. Still, the contents of a laptop computer, some personal papers, and a cell phone ‘accidentally’ disposed of in a trash bin near Rebekah’s house and traced to her husband may render enough surprises in future episodes to keep viewers coming back.
But seriously, Rupert -- with a history of corrupting politicians, bribery to have laws changed in his favor, depreciating the profession of journalism, and advancing his political agenda disguised as news to the detriment of the public -- will ironically be brought down by the same celebutard sleaze-tabloid compost that built his success -- committing serious crimes to find out what Jude Law spent on room service, what Hugh Grant says on his cell phone, what Prince Harry discusses in private with his college pals -- this is the pathetic black hole that will engulf Murdoch’s News Corporation, first in England and then in the United States. Ruthless sociopath Murdoch has collected enemies over the years, many of them former friends who helped him in his rise to media prominence, but none of them as powerful as Prince Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. To the upper-crust British royal family, the Murdoch’s will always be provincial toads; low-crust louts permitted to peddle their swill as long as they didn’t step too hard on Buckingham Palace toes, and occasionally useful as a way to plant tsk-tsk stories against those the Queen doesn’t particularly care for, such as the late Lady Diana Spencer. But hacking into the private conversations of the royals is another matter, and what will destroy Murdoch’s operations in the UK, as well as bring down the conservative Cameron government Rupert helped put in place. The Queen’s family will not be mocked in lurid 72-pt. headlines.
In the United States, 1977’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act* will curtail Rupert’s clout and ability to do business here since senior corporate officers of Murdoch’s empire condoned corrupting high-level Scotland Yard officials. That by itself should be enough for a judge to order that Murdoch sell off his media assets (imagine Fox News owned by, say, NBC), and be prevented from conducting further business in this country. Aside from that, Murdoch’s obsession with purchasing print media has cost his corporation huge losses over the years and the stockholders have reached the boiling point, ready to junk the ‘dual-class share structure’** that allows Rupert to reign. An indictment for violating the FCPA will be just the edge they need to push the Murdoch’s out of the executive suite.
Don’t expect to see Rupert, James or Rebekah with a K in orange jumpsuits -- they are all prosperous enough to ride out any legal battles -- but the Murdoch family’s vast media empire is declining quicker than Great Britain’s after World War II. The demise of the 168-year-old News of the World last Sunday is just the beginning of the end.
* The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/
** Dual-Class Share Structure
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental/04/092204.asp#axzz1Sg6VX0Km
© 2011 RS Janes.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Friday, July 08, 2011
Monday, July 04, 2011
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Proof a Corrupt Congress and Lower Corporate Taxes Will Not Create Jobs
Left click on image to enlarge.Saturday, June 25, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Mitt Romney, the Rudy Giuliani of 2012
Before the memory fades, let’s mentally trundle back to the early summer of 2007; Hillary Clinton had a wide lead in the polls over John Edwards and that jug-eared upstart from Illinois, Sen. Barack Obama; on the GOP side of the street, Rudy Giuliani was the clear favorite of Republicans, unless TV actor Fred Thompson decided to enter the race.
The cynical media successors to the Madmen that inhabit the glass-walled canyons of lower Manhattan, dispensing infotainment, gossip and opinion under the banner of ‘news’ -- akin to telling us rubes with a straight face that Cheez Whiz is a healthy product of nature -- and their even madder-men colleagues who toil in the shadow of Capitol Hill in Washington, had all but anointed Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as America’s Inevitable Choices for President at this time in the election cycle of 2007. Anyone with a television, access to cable news, and a strong stomach could hear the punditry burble day and night with omniscient assurance that the media-dubbed ‘America’s Mayor’ and certified Hero of 9/11 -- mainly because he gave press conferences and didn’t cower in a bunker -- was just so gosh-darned popular that no other candidates need apply except, maybe, Reaganesque actor Fred ‘The Craggy Gravitas of a President’ Thompson.
Some of us with the aforementioned TV, cable access, and a supply of airsickness bags, also drifted over to C-SPAN to catch the various candidates’ unfiltered speeches on the trail. This presented a different picture of Giuliani; in front of a live audience, the former mayor of New York City was sweaty, nervous, lisping and, worst of all for a politician, a clunking bore devoid of charisma. The response of the gawking civilians to his boilerplate GOP solutions stitched together by his frequent references to 9/11, as if Bush’s faltering economy could be tamed by War On Terror demagoguery, was tepid at best. At the end of Rudy’s tedious tirades, the C-SPAN cameras would draw back to reveal Giuliani’s politely-applauding potential voters as mostly unenthusiastic and weary -- at least those not actually asleep on their feet. It did not take much, even for the rabble who are not on a first name basis with D.C. Insiders, to see that Rudy in the flesh, stripped of his cloak of media worship, really was the sad, awkward embodiment of Joe Biden’s later quip, “a noun, a verb and 9/11.” Our Big Media, in typical form, misdiagnosed that the election of 2008 would be all about protecting us from religion-inspired terrorists and who better to do that than a dull, peevish New Yorker who once wasted taxpayer money trying to have a painting banned because it offended his Catholic sensibilities? (Incidentally, the ‘Reaganesque’ Fred Thompson did run, wrapped like a corndog in media-conferred gravitas, and also turned into a shambling heap of sleep-inducing ho-hum, dropping out early with his numbers in the tank. Without a Hollywood script, old Fred was drowning in a sea of self-created monotony.)
Similarly, Mitt Romney is a Godsend for insomniacs. Aside from the fact that he has flip-flopped more often than a Sea World attraction, Romney on C-Span is the same unsharpened pencil he was during the 2008 primaries, with a couple of important carry-over features that even Giuliani lacked: 1.) Mitt exudes insincerity as if he had soaked in musk oil. His one-cylinder ideology could fit on the back of a cereal box with room to spare for a cartoon character and full list of polysyllabic test tube ingredients, mostly the same GOP bumper-sticker nostrums that have already brought us to the brink of disaster, but his beady-eyed lack of authenticity in delivering the goods is significant. 2.) Romney is an unabashed Mormon in a party whose primaries are greatly controlled by born-again ‘Christians’ who think Unitarians consort with the devil and Methodists are destined for hell. To some of these Christopublicans, a Mormon is as exotically evil as a Rastafarian and worthy of the same fiery fate. Since they won’t be voting for Mitt, and the Tea Partiers recoil in disgust from his Taxachussetts liberal to wingnut firebrand hypocrisy, it’s hard to see who will vote for him in the primaries.
As with Giuliani, Romney has a recognizable name, bales of money, a constituency within the Pundit Class and Power Elite, and a temporary lead in the polls, but that’s not enough to secure him the GOP nomination this year. He’s a noun, a verb and it’s time for a nap, and won’t be the Republican nominee for president in 2012.
Copyright 2011 RS Janes.
http://tattlesnake.blogspot.com
The cynical media successors to the Madmen that inhabit the glass-walled canyons of lower Manhattan, dispensing infotainment, gossip and opinion under the banner of ‘news’ -- akin to telling us rubes with a straight face that Cheez Whiz is a healthy product of nature -- and their even madder-men colleagues who toil in the shadow of Capitol Hill in Washington, had all but anointed Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as America’s Inevitable Choices for President at this time in the election cycle of 2007. Anyone with a television, access to cable news, and a strong stomach could hear the punditry burble day and night with omniscient assurance that the media-dubbed ‘America’s Mayor’ and certified Hero of 9/11 -- mainly because he gave press conferences and didn’t cower in a bunker -- was just so gosh-darned popular that no other candidates need apply except, maybe, Reaganesque actor Fred ‘The Craggy Gravitas of a President’ Thompson.
Some of us with the aforementioned TV, cable access, and a supply of airsickness bags, also drifted over to C-SPAN to catch the various candidates’ unfiltered speeches on the trail. This presented a different picture of Giuliani; in front of a live audience, the former mayor of New York City was sweaty, nervous, lisping and, worst of all for a politician, a clunking bore devoid of charisma. The response of the gawking civilians to his boilerplate GOP solutions stitched together by his frequent references to 9/11, as if Bush’s faltering economy could be tamed by War On Terror demagoguery, was tepid at best. At the end of Rudy’s tedious tirades, the C-SPAN cameras would draw back to reveal Giuliani’s politely-applauding potential voters as mostly unenthusiastic and weary -- at least those not actually asleep on their feet. It did not take much, even for the rabble who are not on a first name basis with D.C. Insiders, to see that Rudy in the flesh, stripped of his cloak of media worship, really was the sad, awkward embodiment of Joe Biden’s later quip, “a noun, a verb and 9/11.” Our Big Media, in typical form, misdiagnosed that the election of 2008 would be all about protecting us from religion-inspired terrorists and who better to do that than a dull, peevish New Yorker who once wasted taxpayer money trying to have a painting banned because it offended his Catholic sensibilities? (Incidentally, the ‘Reaganesque’ Fred Thompson did run, wrapped like a corndog in media-conferred gravitas, and also turned into a shambling heap of sleep-inducing ho-hum, dropping out early with his numbers in the tank. Without a Hollywood script, old Fred was drowning in a sea of self-created monotony.)
Similarly, Mitt Romney is a Godsend for insomniacs. Aside from the fact that he has flip-flopped more often than a Sea World attraction, Romney on C-Span is the same unsharpened pencil he was during the 2008 primaries, with a couple of important carry-over features that even Giuliani lacked: 1.) Mitt exudes insincerity as if he had soaked in musk oil. His one-cylinder ideology could fit on the back of a cereal box with room to spare for a cartoon character and full list of polysyllabic test tube ingredients, mostly the same GOP bumper-sticker nostrums that have already brought us to the brink of disaster, but his beady-eyed lack of authenticity in delivering the goods is significant. 2.) Romney is an unabashed Mormon in a party whose primaries are greatly controlled by born-again ‘Christians’ who think Unitarians consort with the devil and Methodists are destined for hell. To some of these Christopublicans, a Mormon is as exotically evil as a Rastafarian and worthy of the same fiery fate. Since they won’t be voting for Mitt, and the Tea Partiers recoil in disgust from his Taxachussetts liberal to wingnut firebrand hypocrisy, it’s hard to see who will vote for him in the primaries.
As with Giuliani, Romney has a recognizable name, bales of money, a constituency within the Pundit Class and Power Elite, and a temporary lead in the polls, but that’s not enough to secure him the GOP nomination this year. He’s a noun, a verb and it’s time for a nap, and won’t be the Republican nominee for president in 2012.
Copyright 2011 RS Janes.
http://tattlesnake.blogspot.com
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Friday, June 03, 2011
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Down By the Old Rumor Mill Stream, Part Whatever
Devon Keester’s Hollywood Lowdown
“The dark, sweaty juncture where politics and show biz meet!”
[Note: Since Keester’s sources are shady and unreliable and usually found near a vinyl-covered barstool, his ramblings should be taken with a several grains of salt from the rim of his next margarita.]
-- Biden Over and Out: Obama will not be running with Biden as his Veep in 2012. Word is, Joe Biden is feeling every one of his 68 years and not anxious to enter another national campaign after finally facing the realization he’ll never be president. That’s okey-doke with Obama, as it gives him the opening to offer the VP slot to Hillary Clinton, further underwriting his re-election. Now that the sharp edges of the 2008 campaign have softened, and BHO and Sec-of-State Hill have a good working relationship, he would welcome her as a running mate, and the youthful 63-year-old Clinton would have a springboard for a presidential run in 2016. The only question that remains is if Hillary will sign on. She may not have the stomach for another national campaign herself, preferring, maybe, the governorship of a state to be named later instead. If not Clinton, Obama would like to make history, and notch his appeal to women voters, by naming someone of the female gender. Next on the list if Clinton doesn’t bite is supposedly Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, although US Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are said to be strong possibilities as well.
-- The Story Behind the Story: Yup, Newt Gingrich had a suspicious interest-free revolving charge account at Tiffany’s for two years that racked up $500 grand in billings, but that’s not all. Ignoring for the moment that regular customers pay 21 percent interest on their charges, Newtie’s current wife Callista, when she was a lobbyist, had ties to the silver mining industry from which Tiffany’s fabricates its overpriced doodads, and Gingrich himself, while in the House, interceded to get the jewelry company a very sweet deal on use of public lands for mining. The Newtster may soon have more to worry about than his doomed SNL-skit presidential campaign -- the feds are taking notice of his involvement with the Tiff, and whether he actually paid down that half-mil himself or if some or all of it was written off by the grateful company as a lobbying fee. Whichever way it goes, Newt is going to end up in a courtroom somewhere, trying to stay out of the hoosegow, and probably still running for president in his fevered little brain. No wonder Newtie was reluctant to answer any questions about his $500K shopping spree at Tiffany’s -- it’s looking like a quid pro quo bribe.
-- The Story Behind the Story, Part Deux: Sure, it’s been all over the papers like a dog who got into the prune juice that pouty ex-Alaskan Ice Princess Sarah Palin is moving the whole-damn Wasillabilly brood to a luxurious $1.7 million 5-BR, 6.5-bath manse with a concrete swimmin’ hole in Scottsdale, AZ, near enough to America’s wackiest sheriff, Joe Arpaio, to be in the Red Zone if any of his pink-clad prisoners escape. But let’s just get this out of the way: the erstwhile Mama Grizzly is not running for president -- her ‘tragic bus’ tour of the Nor’east is just to revive national media interest in her fast-plummeting ‘brand,’ whatever her crackpot brand is these days. How could this be when all the big-time pundits are sure she’s running? Well, she hasn’t been kicked off Fox News, and she’s got a $1 mil-a-year contract there that runs through 2013. But she also allegedly has speaking contracts to read her palm to unfortunate victims through 2014; if she reneges on those contracts -- since she can’t legally take the money if she’s a candidate -- she’ll have to pay a stiff penalty. That would cost her a bundle out of pocket she can’t afford. Get your laughs now -- by 2015 she’ll be off Fox and consigned to introducing second-rate Branson, MO, acts with, “Hi there, remember me? I’m Sarah Palin!”
-- Ailes Out at Fox? Speaking of Fox Noose, head-major-domo-top-enchilada, first-among-inferiors Generalissimo Roger Ailes’ contract with king pinsetter Rupert Murdoch is up in 2013. Surely Uncle Rupe will renew it, you say. Not so fast: Murdoch’s recent wife Wendi likes Obama and loathes Ailes, and Rupe’s wives have considerable influence on him; plus, the whole fam damily who will be inheriting the business when Murdoch retires or ascends to Media Jesusland likewise has about as much affection for the former Nixon PR flack as they do for a case of the clap. Word is, James Murdoch, current deputy operating office at Fox parent News Corp, particularly has it in for Ailes after what Rog did to brother Lachlan, supposedly pushing James’ older sibling to the point of a nervous breakdown. The elder Murdoch is also said to not be pleased at the direction Ailes has dragged the GOP-propaganda cable channel; of course, he favors its conservative slant, but the hiring of palpable nitwits like Boom-Boom Palin and Man-On-Dog Ricky Santorum didn’t sit well with News Corps’ Bigga Boss. Look for a shake-up at Fox after the next election, unless the GOP wins Reagan-’84 big.
-- One More Fox Tale: A deep, deep rumor says the Keith Olbermann ousting at MSNBC was part of a deal with Fox News’ Roger Ailes. Seems Keith, the former ratings king at MSNBC, was getting under Roger’s skin with his gloves-off jibes at Fox personalities, as well as cutting into Fox’s cable dominance as his ‘Countdown’ show numbers steadily increased. In a top secret meeting with Comcast, then poised to buy up MSNBC parent NBC-Universal, Ailes and unnamed execs from Comcast and NBC allegedly struck a deal to lessen the attacks on Fox and dump Olbermann once the Comcast buy-out was finalized; in return, Fox would go easier on NBC and provide some other goodies. Part of the bargain was that MSNBC would get rid of its top rater and Fox would reciprocate. So Ailes agreed to jettison Fox ratings leader Glenn Beck in return for Olbermann’s exit. Roger got the best of the deal -- he wanted to give loose-cannon Beck the heave-ho anyway while MSNBC is now struggling in Keith’s old primetime slot, and Olbermann is fixing to cut down those ‘Lean Forward’ numbers even further when he resurrects ‘Countdown’ June 20th on Al Gore’s Current TV network at his old 8e/7c berth.
-- He Won’t Be Baack: A big dime is about to drop (but not in the form of a ‘bag’) on former Kali-forn-yuh guff’nor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seems the ex-bodybuilder and purported actor had more than one out-of-wedlock bambino while married to Kennedy-kin Maria Shriver -- mayhap as many as 6 or 7 -- and all of their mamas want more money or they are calling the media. Add to that the news that the California AG is about to prosecute the Teutonic Musclehead for using state troopers to deliver comely young ‘club’ females 18-to-25 to his Governator living quarters at the Hyatt hotel in Sacramento, a clear misuse of state funds. It’s been reported Schwarzy planned to resume his ‘achting’ career post-politics -- fat chance, since the word is the major studios now think he’s not ‘bankable’ at the box office anymore. (Perhaps he can nab the independent-film roles Casper Van Dien turns down, at Van Dien pay, natch.) Oh, and one more thing: all the years of stress on his bones and muscles from over-exercising and steroid use have taken their toll -- the 63-year-old Ah-nuld allegedly now has the physical mobility of a man 20 years older and can only function normally by taking prescription painkillers.
© 2011 RS Janes.
“The dark, sweaty juncture where politics and show biz meet!”
[Note: Since Keester’s sources are shady and unreliable and usually found near a vinyl-covered barstool, his ramblings should be taken with a several grains of salt from the rim of his next margarita.]
-- Biden Over and Out: Obama will not be running with Biden as his Veep in 2012. Word is, Joe Biden is feeling every one of his 68 years and not anxious to enter another national campaign after finally facing the realization he’ll never be president. That’s okey-doke with Obama, as it gives him the opening to offer the VP slot to Hillary Clinton, further underwriting his re-election. Now that the sharp edges of the 2008 campaign have softened, and BHO and Sec-of-State Hill have a good working relationship, he would welcome her as a running mate, and the youthful 63-year-old Clinton would have a springboard for a presidential run in 2016. The only question that remains is if Hillary will sign on. She may not have the stomach for another national campaign herself, preferring, maybe, the governorship of a state to be named later instead. If not Clinton, Obama would like to make history, and notch his appeal to women voters, by naming someone of the female gender. Next on the list if Clinton doesn’t bite is supposedly Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, although US Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state are said to be strong possibilities as well.
-- The Story Behind the Story: Yup, Newt Gingrich had a suspicious interest-free revolving charge account at Tiffany’s for two years that racked up $500 grand in billings, but that’s not all. Ignoring for the moment that regular customers pay 21 percent interest on their charges, Newtie’s current wife Callista, when she was a lobbyist, had ties to the silver mining industry from which Tiffany’s fabricates its overpriced doodads, and Gingrich himself, while in the House, interceded to get the jewelry company a very sweet deal on use of public lands for mining. The Newtster may soon have more to worry about than his doomed SNL-skit presidential campaign -- the feds are taking notice of his involvement with the Tiff, and whether he actually paid down that half-mil himself or if some or all of it was written off by the grateful company as a lobbying fee. Whichever way it goes, Newt is going to end up in a courtroom somewhere, trying to stay out of the hoosegow, and probably still running for president in his fevered little brain. No wonder Newtie was reluctant to answer any questions about his $500K shopping spree at Tiffany’s -- it’s looking like a quid pro quo bribe.
-- The Story Behind the Story, Part Deux: Sure, it’s been all over the papers like a dog who got into the prune juice that pouty ex-Alaskan Ice Princess Sarah Palin is moving the whole-damn Wasillabilly brood to a luxurious $1.7 million 5-BR, 6.5-bath manse with a concrete swimmin’ hole in Scottsdale, AZ, near enough to America’s wackiest sheriff, Joe Arpaio, to be in the Red Zone if any of his pink-clad prisoners escape. But let’s just get this out of the way: the erstwhile Mama Grizzly is not running for president -- her ‘tragic bus’ tour of the Nor’east is just to revive national media interest in her fast-plummeting ‘brand,’ whatever her crackpot brand is these days. How could this be when all the big-time pundits are sure she’s running? Well, she hasn’t been kicked off Fox News, and she’s got a $1 mil-a-year contract there that runs through 2013. But she also allegedly has speaking contracts to read her palm to unfortunate victims through 2014; if she reneges on those contracts -- since she can’t legally take the money if she’s a candidate -- she’ll have to pay a stiff penalty. That would cost her a bundle out of pocket she can’t afford. Get your laughs now -- by 2015 she’ll be off Fox and consigned to introducing second-rate Branson, MO, acts with, “Hi there, remember me? I’m Sarah Palin!”
-- Ailes Out at Fox? Speaking of Fox Noose, head-major-domo-top-enchilada, first-among-inferiors Generalissimo Roger Ailes’ contract with king pinsetter Rupert Murdoch is up in 2013. Surely Uncle Rupe will renew it, you say. Not so fast: Murdoch’s recent wife Wendi likes Obama and loathes Ailes, and Rupe’s wives have considerable influence on him; plus, the whole fam damily who will be inheriting the business when Murdoch retires or ascends to Media Jesusland likewise has about as much affection for the former Nixon PR flack as they do for a case of the clap. Word is, James Murdoch, current deputy operating office at Fox parent News Corp, particularly has it in for Ailes after what Rog did to brother Lachlan, supposedly pushing James’ older sibling to the point of a nervous breakdown. The elder Murdoch is also said to not be pleased at the direction Ailes has dragged the GOP-propaganda cable channel; of course, he favors its conservative slant, but the hiring of palpable nitwits like Boom-Boom Palin and Man-On-Dog Ricky Santorum didn’t sit well with News Corps’ Bigga Boss. Look for a shake-up at Fox after the next election, unless the GOP wins Reagan-’84 big.
-- One More Fox Tale: A deep, deep rumor says the Keith Olbermann ousting at MSNBC was part of a deal with Fox News’ Roger Ailes. Seems Keith, the former ratings king at MSNBC, was getting under Roger’s skin with his gloves-off jibes at Fox personalities, as well as cutting into Fox’s cable dominance as his ‘Countdown’ show numbers steadily increased. In a top secret meeting with Comcast, then poised to buy up MSNBC parent NBC-Universal, Ailes and unnamed execs from Comcast and NBC allegedly struck a deal to lessen the attacks on Fox and dump Olbermann once the Comcast buy-out was finalized; in return, Fox would go easier on NBC and provide some other goodies. Part of the bargain was that MSNBC would get rid of its top rater and Fox would reciprocate. So Ailes agreed to jettison Fox ratings leader Glenn Beck in return for Olbermann’s exit. Roger got the best of the deal -- he wanted to give loose-cannon Beck the heave-ho anyway while MSNBC is now struggling in Keith’s old primetime slot, and Olbermann is fixing to cut down those ‘Lean Forward’ numbers even further when he resurrects ‘Countdown’ June 20th on Al Gore’s Current TV network at his old 8e/7c berth.
-- He Won’t Be Baack: A big dime is about to drop (but not in the form of a ‘bag’) on former Kali-forn-yuh guff’nor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Seems the ex-bodybuilder and purported actor had more than one out-of-wedlock bambino while married to Kennedy-kin Maria Shriver -- mayhap as many as 6 or 7 -- and all of their mamas want more money or they are calling the media. Add to that the news that the California AG is about to prosecute the Teutonic Musclehead for using state troopers to deliver comely young ‘club’ females 18-to-25 to his Governator living quarters at the Hyatt hotel in Sacramento, a clear misuse of state funds. It’s been reported Schwarzy planned to resume his ‘achting’ career post-politics -- fat chance, since the word is the major studios now think he’s not ‘bankable’ at the box office anymore. (Perhaps he can nab the independent-film roles Casper Van Dien turns down, at Van Dien pay, natch.) Oh, and one more thing: all the years of stress on his bones and muscles from over-exercising and steroid use have taken their toll -- the 63-year-old Ah-nuld allegedly now has the physical mobility of a man 20 years older and can only function normally by taking prescription painkillers.
© 2011 RS Janes.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
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