Monday, February 14, 2011

A Valentine Message


(Very Special Thanks to Pepe Le Pew)


"In the good old days, cartoon characters were allowed to smoke."
-Youtube Commenter 


Happy Valentine's Day!
-2Truthy

Friday, February 11, 2011

2Truthy's Happy Friday Dance Hour: Groove Is In The Heart


 (Special Thanks to Dee Lite - Back by Popular Demand) 
2Truthy's Whirlwind Weekly Roundup



Obama Dresses Down Chamber, GOP Congressman Loses Shirt  for Dressing Down on Craigslist, AOL Bags Arianna, Hizzoner Rahm's 4 Letter Word and Mubarak Out



Thumbs Up to President Obama. While Ralph Nader, this country's most formidable consumer and civil rights advocate ripped Obama a new one for his Chamber of Commerce speech on Monday here, (h/t Dandelion Salad) we must applaud the president for giving it the good old college try by prodding those ungrateful, transnational bound American oligarchs who, you know, love lots and lots of heaping government U.S. taxpayer subsidies but could do a WHOLE LOT more to “reform” unsustainable outsourcing and insourcing hiring practices by stopping the influx of cheap labor that discriminates against American citizens:

As you know, it's not always profitable in the short-term for you to invest in basic research. That's why government has traditionally helped invest in this kind of science, planting the seeds that ultimately grew into technologies from computer chips to the internet." 
 
Obama then explains to these merciless ingrates how the benefits should go to U.S. workers as he appealed to their "spirit of patriotism" and "sense of mutual regard and common obligation" that has carried us before in harder times:


If the government is going to invest in innovation, that innovation should lead to new jobs and manufacturing on our shores. Now is the time to invest in America." 


Arianna Huffington Sells Out to AOL. Who knew? The author of PIGS AT THE TROUGH knows how to bring home the bacon. Six years after the diva celebrity of pop-politico “progressive” blogozine tabloid journalism hit the nets with her signature Huffington Post, it's about time she cashed in on that thing which rapidly spiraled down into a filthy lucre driven censorship pit. Who cares if she stealthily exploited the Left and lured millions and millions of unwashed, faithful, hopeful, left-leaning, downstairs commenters along with many upstairs bloggers and investigative journalists like Al Giordano who offered up their bloggy goodness FOR FREE who might not be getting a cut of her ba-ba-ba-booty? What – did they think the author of PIGS AT THE TROUGH was The Good Witch of the North or The Easter Bunny or something?

Rahm Emanuel Says He'll Lead Chicago's “New Economy”. And he will because Hizzonner Rahm is the guy who tells it like it fucking IS, bitches! He said “I know Chicago is up to facing the truth”. Aside from his ambitious and worthy plans to clean up crime (code for “the ghetto”), here's the next rare town hall meeting question: What will he truthfully do to clean up the cheap labor lobby and put that 4 Letter Word JOBS thing on rails for educated middle class unemployed/underemployed citizens?

Married GOP Congressman Dude Loses His Shirt (Seat) Over Shirtless Pictures on Craigslist. Since the married, upstate New York Republican Congressman's dirty sexy shirtless photo was allegedly directed at a LADY, this story naturally has less legs. Must have been a slow news week for this one to hit wires, but then, this morning's biggest news to bust the pipes...something about an Egyptian dictator...

Mubarak is OUT! No more Pharaoh Phodder now for millions of Egyptians or let the good times roll!

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The High Cost of Incivil Society


Demonizing Public Workers, Expensive Dental Work and Tort  Laws with Teeth



Oh, the morality and social civility! A couple of things:


Stop demonizing public workers. Why is it that the One Big Party of Money's increasing demonization of ordinary public employees like teachers, firefighters, garbage men and other public servants (you know, most of the ones with very few exceptions who DON'T hold Congressional seats) for “public money handouts” and “special treatment” in the form of tenure, pensions, and health care is en vogue but as far as most members of Congress are concerned, it's “hands off our Cadillac health care plans, multiple terms and a golden ticket to K Street on the way out the door”? Meanwhile, A high profile anti-teachers union billionaire (with a high school education) recently asked why teachers should be eligible for tenure while sausage makers are not. Maybe out of touch billionaires like this need to put on their thinking caps to understand that most dedicated public school teachers have invested in advanced degrees and trade off higher salaries working in the more lucrative private sector for a lifetime commitment of extra long hours to the teaching profession with negotiated earlier retirement. Conversely, what is the educational cost of entry and professional prerequisite to the demanding field of sausage making? A couple of mermaid tattoos and a background in car boosting?



Tort Laws are Vital as Dental care is very expensive. Let's take the most recent high profile example of why we need to strengthen consumer protection laws. Anyone who has ever had to undergo complicated and extensive dental work will tell you that no matter how good your health care plan is, dental work is just a token, nominal sprinkling on the cake. As we learn that Congressman Dennis Kucinich had to endure grueling and complicated dental work after chomping down on an olive pit that clearly did not belong in his sandwich, dental emergencies can and do happen, and strong tort laws are vital. Aside from a ridiculously minimal amount per annum for limited work and cleanings, individual, corporate and government sponsored health care plans - even the very best health insurance plans (like the one Congressman Kucinich has, for example) don't cover anywhere near the costs of necessary dental procedures. At least he has a job to afford the cost prohibitive dental work that he unfortunately had to endure, unlike the increasing millions of unemployed educated U.S. citizens kicked to the curb for age discrimination. (h/t Patrick Thibodeau and Sharon Machlis at Computerworld.)


It's Not the Economy, Stupid. It's Your Job!

-2Truthy

Monday, February 7, 2011

AOL (Assholes On Line) Bags HuffPo



Only the Rich Can Save Us Now.”
-Ralph Nader


HuffPo Finally Finds a Suitor


Our Arianna Huffington is all grown up now, announcing that AOL has bought The Huffington Post. The virtual brass ring of “progressive” media has finally settled on a big, fat suitor as the deal came down on Super Bowl Sunday.

What do we have here? Either an obituary OR a new beginning, where the undisputed doyenne of sensationalist political blogging could turn the corporate AOL brand into an uncensored news outlet that truly benefits the American people by marginalizing the Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State perps instead of the educated American middle class for a change. It could happen.

Let's start with the obituary.

Agenda driven news outlets are typical and as old as Methuselah, but 2005's Huffington Post debut will go down in the history books as revolutionary for incorporating journalists, celebrities, politicians, economists and a slew of corporate sycophants (bloggers) with millions of ordinary people (commenters) in a caste oriented, Victorian UPSTAIRS/DOWNSTAIRS format that would make Gandhi and Dickens both spin in their ethers. The Huffington Post's unique online salon format broke ground by sensationalizing the “far Left” reaction to G.W. Bush's unarguably horrible eight year ride across the U.S. Constitution while jobs for educated Americans were and continue to be sold out to the lowest foreign bidder which HuffPo's agenda driven editors conspicuously omitted. But the blog's ONE everlasting redeeming legacy will forever be known by enormously entertaining commenting plebes like “Moe, Larry and Jesus” and others who burned the online midnight oil as they raged against the machine. All good, all good.


Not to mention the weekly upper left hand column that featured Arianna's undeniably rich essays and insights which really had legs back in the day.

Here is my all-time favorite from the Divine Ms. Stassinopoulos entitled Obama Happens: A Cautionary Tale for Perfect Little Hillarys Everywhere that struts her writing chops, mingling brilliant political insight and a telling touch of sour grapes mash with a whimsical bent for enchanting fairy tale fiction that only the mistress of real girl writing could artfully serve up with such precision and conviction. (Yours truly had commented on this post, but the message today reads “Comments for this entry are currently under maintenance but will be restored soon.” At least they haven't scrubbed the whole post.)

The charismatic and enterprising Arianna Huffington put the “P” in personality and featured wit master Stephen Colbert with The Gettysburg Address of Comedy: Colbert's 2006 Bush Roast who put the “T” in truthiness along with Al Gore whom she helped throw the book at Global Warming. It was never so much a question as who Arianna Huffington was, as renowned investigative journalist Maureen Orth left no stone unturned in her 1994 award winning Vanity Fair article entitled Arianna's Virtual Candidate or who she's carrying water for. What tangible displays of integrity and solidarity towards the educated American middle class has she demonstrated in her high profile “progessive” media push to stop the increasing marginalization by the Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State?


So how would a large corporate tax cutter cow like AOL possibly embrace the unprecedented need for uncensored, uncontaminated, non-culty and objective investigative journalism at the local level with Arianna Huffington?

If it's any consolation, AOL plans to put Arianna in charge of capitalizing on crowd control at the very local level with online “local” news Patch.com. WTF is this? Salem Witch hunt season in America? Or will AH configure Patch.com to resurrect all the talented journalists kicked to the curb by the integrity challenged Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State? That would depend upon whether or not the On Becoming Fearless book author loathes educated middle class Americans as much as Chris Hedges says self-appointed corporate sponsored media elites in America tend to do, as he writes in his latest essay Recognizing the Language of Tyranny:

Those who administer empire—elected officials, corporate managers, generals and the celebrity courtiers who disseminate the propaganda—become very wealthy. They make immense fortunes whether they deliver the nightly news, sit on the boards of corporations, or rise, lavished with corporate endorsements, within the vast industry of spectacle and entertainment. They all pay homage, even in moments defined as criticism, to the essential goodness of corporate power. They shut out all real debate. They ignore flagrant injustices and abuse. They peddle the illusions that keep us passive and amused. But as our society is reconfigured into an oligarchic system, with a permanent and vast underclass, along with a shrinking and unstable middle class, these illusions lose their power. The language of pleasant deception must be replaced with the overt language of force. It is hard to continue to live in a state of self-delusion once unemployment benefits run out, once the only job available comes without benefits or a living wage, once the future no longer conforms to the happy talk that saturates our airwaves. At this point rage becomes the engine of response, and whoever can channel that rage inherits power. The manipulation of that rage has become the newest task of the corporate propagandists, and the failure of the liberal class to defend core liberal values has left its members with nothing to contribute to the debate.”

While AH is an excellent writer of Swiftian proportions and a knowledgeable connoisseur of history, the agenda driven HuffPo blog gradually degenerated into a slow as molasses loading, cult-driven house of hysteria as it succeeded in its apparent divide and conquer mission of pitting American citizens against each other with endlessly boring and predictable faux Left/Right screeds from featured bloggers that hatefully pitched against “hate speech” by deploying hate speech. BORING. Adding insult to injury, both teabaggers (Right) and fleabaggers (Left) flooded the comments section in empty headed tail-chasing exercises, albeit some entertaining. But all too soon the monotonic voice of GROUPTHINK aka wisdom of the laugh out louds reared its anti-individualistic conformity head and buh-bye, open forum, intelligent discussion driven media model and the smart people it rode in on. The name of the game is co-option.

R.I.P., Huffington Post? Or is there an Afterlife “good” reincarnation waiting in the wings for what pro-American worker agenda driven journalism could be once AH digs her heels into AOL? As Ralph Nader says, only the rich can save us now.

Score ONE for the Dark Side as it co-opts another talented writer into the gates of Hell's monopolistic, cult-driven Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State's One Big Money Party black hole that is sucking the life out of educated middle class Americans across this country. With Arianna's expanded role at AOL, maybe she can help turn that tide around and even find something for cutting edge investigative journalists like Maureen Orth to do, too.

Party on, plebes!

-2Truthy