Author: skippybkroo

bush kangaroo

mother jones documents manipulations on hackett’s campaign

cross-posted at the new, improved skippy the bush kangaroo (now with 30% more snark!)

tho the brou-ha-ha over paul hackett’s withdrawl from the ohio senatorial campaign has died down, the persistent rumors of backstage manipulations have not.  david goodman in mother jones tells us:

hackett had demonstrated his ability to shake money from donors during a january fundraising roadshow in california and new york. but he soon discovered that top democrats were attempting to cut off his money. the hosts of a beverly hills fundraiser for hackett received an e-mail from the political action committee of rep. henry waxman (d-calif.) that concluded, “i hope you will re-consider your efforts on behalf of hackett and give your support to sherrod.” waxman’s chief of staff, phil schiliro, said the e-mail was only sent to a handful of people and that “it probably came from a suggestion from the sherrod brown campaign.”

more after the jump:

michael fleming, who manages internet millionaire david bohnett’s political and charitable giving, was one of the recipients of the waxman email. bohnett has given to hundreds of progressive candidates, but fleming says, “this was the first time i had ever gotten an email or communication like that. i find it discouraging and disheartening. it’s unfortunate that the powers that be didn’t let the people of ohio figure this out. we should be in the business of encouraging people like paul hackett and viable progressive candidates like him to run. the message instead is don’t bother, it’s not worth your time.”

sen. schumer was also reported to be trying to turn off hackett’s cash spigots. no one would confirm this to me on the record. but veteran political activist david mixner, who described himself as “a fanatically strong supporter” of hackett and who helped sponsor a new york fundraiser, confirmed that he “received calls from a couple people in congress urging paul hackett to withdraw or not to contribute money to his campaign. the reasons ranged from he can’t win, to he’s too controversial, brown has more money, is more centrist, and more appealing. it was that inner beltway circle crap,” said mixner. “they are people who have no idea what’s going on in the country but believe they know everything.”

mixner added, “i don’t think it’s inappropriate to call me. what’s inappropriate is that the people calling me were the same people who asked him to run, and now they wanted to push him out. that’s what made this unique.”

hackett was infuriated by the subterfuge. “i felt like i got fucked by the democratic party because they enticed me in and then they pulled the rug out from beneath me. it sounds eerily familiar to sending in the military to iraq, which was a misuse of the military, and then not giving them what they need to fight.”

tho both schumer and reid have publicly denied telling donors not to contribute to hackett, we’d still like their response the above allegations.

faux news discusses possible cheney resignation

faux news.com has the temerity to discuss why cheney should resign:

there are at least three reasons why cheney might step down before the end of his term in january of 2009:

1) he is 65 years-old and has well-documented health problems

two more after the jump:

(2) while the administration currently is embarrassed over the way he has handled his most recent problem stemming from the shooting incident, the real embarrassment could come if he is called as a witness in the trial of his former chief of staff, i. lewis (scooter) libby jr.

(3) republican leaders may become so worried about holding on to the presidency in 2008 that they will prevail on cheney to resign in order to position a strong candidate for the nomination by making that person the incumbent vice president.

the 25th amendment, adopted after the kennedy assassination left our country without a vice president for more than a year, authorizes the president to nominate a new vice president when there is a vacancy in the office. this amendment has been invoked twice — when president nixon nominated gerald ford following spiro agnew’s resignation, and when president ford nominated nelson rockefeller following ford’s elevation to the presidency on nixon’s resignation.

so we would posit that this story is not going away, and is evidenced by the fact that the one organ guaranteed to carry water for awol (no, not his kidney), faux news, dares to discuss cheney’s resignation, even after his victim apologized for being shot in the face.

hunting safety experts: cheney sucks!

cross-posted at skippy the bush kangaroo (now with 30% more snark!)

irrespective of the political implications of “dead-eye” dick cheney’s “hunting” fiasco (we put “hunting” in quotes, because there’s no real sport to raising domesticated animals who grow up seeing humans as friends and providers, then releasing them into the wild for the first time in their lives and killing them), there are several questions being brought to bear by real hunters who know about real gun safety.

we quote several after the jump:

reports from the owner of the ranch where the vp was hunting that whittington violated some sort of “texas protocol” requiring hunters to make formal announcement of their comings and goings in the field were a bit misleading. everywhere that upland birds are hunted, the drill is pretty much the same. it makes sense to let other hunters know when you’re moving to the left or right, or that you’re back after visiting a nearby tree, but there’s no requirement to do so. the onus is on everyone who carries a gun not to shoot at anyone else. – field&stream

if vice president dick cheney had followed the protocols taught to 12-year-olds in hunter-education programs, he never would have shot his pal last weekend while quail hunting, according to hunting safety experts…

  • 1. treat all guns as loaded.
  • 2. don’t point your muzzle at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
  • 3. never place your finger near the trigger until you’ve sighted the target.
  • 4. be certain of your target and what’s around it — behind it, beside it and under it.

it apparently was item no. 4 that resulted in a problem for cheney. – espn outdoors

members of the club receive safety lessons from james t. dobensky, a retired firefighter who has taught gun safety classes for the state and the national rifle association. controlling the gun’s muzzle is the best way to prevent an accident, and that advice might have prevented the vice president’s accident, dobensky added.

“you always control the direction of the muzzle. if you control the muzzle at all times, there wouldn’t have been accidents,” dobensky said. “i think the vice president should have kept a little closer look on where his hunting companions were at”…

“know your target, what’s beyond the target and what’s next to the target,” he said. “stay in eyesight and in a row. if someone gets up a little, we slow him down and if someone falls behind, we wait for him to come up. – meridian record-journal

cheney’s hunting party broke several basic rules: too many in the hunt party; no dog, or at least not having the dog retrieve a downed bird; hunting from a vehicle. and cheney broke some of the most basic rules: shooting at a low bird and not being aware of the placement of his hunting party members.

one report i read stated that cheney shot whittington at 5:15 p.m. on saturday — way too late to be hunting quail. – charlotte observer

but our favorite is this qualified endorsement from the jackson hole star-tribune:

wyoming gov. dave freudenthal, a democrat, said the accident wouldn’t keep him from going on a bipartisan hunt with cheney.

“i would be proud to hunt with the vice president — cautious, but proud,” he told reporters in cheyenne.

media falsely equating sheehan/young at sotu

as we pointed out yesterday, the spinmeisters are working overtime to put a “fair and balanced” patina on the arrest of cindy sheehan compared to mrs. beverly “then you are an idiot, copper” young’s polite ejection from the capitol chamber minutes before the snooze of the union speech on tuesday.

we mentioned we heard squeaky abrams on the abrams report mention the two events as if they were both equally ridiculous and obstrusive to the women’s freedoms. we now have squeaky’s transcript, and it’s even worse than we remembered.

more after the jump.
it’s not bad enough that he openswith the episode of beverly young being asked to leave, as if that in itself was a travesty of justice, and mockery of a travesy of a mockery of first amendment rights.

but he then went on to also (belatedly) mention cindy sheehan, minimizing her ordeal and likening it to ms. young’s:

beverly young, wife of republican congressman bill young, was asked to leave the house chamber for wearing a sweatshirt that simply stated support the troops, defending our freedom.

apparently they thought she was violating a federal statute that can keep demonstrators out of the capitol building. she wasn`t the only one. anti-war activist cindy sheehan whose son casey was killed in iraq wore a shirt that said 2245 dead, how many more, referring to the number of americans killed in iraq so far. she was charged with unlawful conduct.

however, what squeaky failed to mention was that, whereas mrs. young was asked to leave, cindy was forcibly removed, cuffed, arrested, booked, and held for four hours.

squeaky ended with this plea to common sense, fraternity, liberty, and the american way:

t-shirts or jackets with political slogans are just the kind of speech the supreme court is loathed to have regulated and these t-shirts were neither obscene nor vulgar. so at least supporters of both cindy sheehan and beverly young should be able to agree on one thing, that the president and the congress and the guests last night really did not need to be protected from a big message on little shirts.

what we won’t agree on, is that it’s ok for repubbbs who support the troops to be given a pass on harrassment, but critics of the war should be treated as criminals and taken away. and three guesses who got her argument heard on the floor of congress the next day?

[ed. note: if there’s only two women involved, aren’t three guesses is a little over the top?]

the nytimes, whose headline “two t-shirts, two messages and two capitol ejections” adds fuel to the “hey, it’s a bi-partisan snafu!” fire, points out that mrs. young’s congressman husband bill went straight to the top:

mr. young said later that he had discussed the case with karl rove, the president’s top political adviser, “because george bush and my wife have been friends for a long time, and i didn’t want him to think that she just got up and walked out.”

it’s nice to have friends in high places.

we think it’s ridiculous for the media to equate the two events. though the precipitating apparel might be the same (100% cotton), the outcomes, and even the processes getting to the outcomes, and motivation behind those processes are the are drastically different.

though cnn points out that “young was asked to leave but not arrested,” their story paints the picture with the same “ain’t life tough for both sides” brush (we do admit, however, cnn describes how sheehan is considering legal action).

several commenters on our site have opined that mrs. young’s ejection was plotted, planned, and planted. we are not that paranoid. yet.

and true, charges were dropped against ms. sheehan, and apologies were offered to both women.

but we do think the over-reaction to ms. sheehan, when compared to the lack of legal action by the capitol police (even when mrs. young called them idiots), shows the mind-set of a concentrated push against administration critics versus the kid-glove treatment of people married to congressfolk.

and even worse, the balancing act of bi-partisan baloney, trying to equate the two events, is yet another example of the corporate top-down media de-emphasizing the facts that are damaging to the administration.

in our admittedly-cursory search, we could only find one media outlet, the madison wisconsin capital times, which mentioned the inequality of the two ejections:

but young was not handcuffed. she was not dragged from the capitol. she was not arrested. she was not jailed.

sheehan, who caused no ruckus, was arrested not because she engaged in “unlawful conduct.” rather, by all accounts, she was arrested because of what her t-shirt said and, by extension, because of what she believes.

that makes this a most serious matter. rep. pete stark, the california democrat who is one of the senior members of the house, is right when he said that sheehan’s arrest by officers he refers to as “the president’s gestapo” tells us a lot more about george bush and the sorry state of our basic liberties in the midst of the president’s open-ended “war on terror” than anything that was said in the state of the union address. “it shows he still has a thin skin,” stark said.

it also shows that the father of the constitution, james madison, was right when he warned that, in times of war, the greatest danger to america would not be foreign foes but presidents and their minions, who would abuse the powers of the executive branch with the purpose of “subduing the force of the people.”

in fact, we found this sfchron column by debra saunders that seems to think it’s only natural for the wives of congresspeople to get special treatment:

sheehan asks why she was the only one arrested. duh. she’s not married to a congressman.

duh. she’s not a repubbblican.

fwd: george bush is a saint

from our good friends at resident bush:

bush was scheduled to visit a methodist church outside washington, d.c. as part of his campaign to appear to be a good christian. one of his aides made a visit to the bishop and said to him, “we’ve been getting a lot of bad publicity among methodists because of bush’s position on stem cell research and the like. we’d gladly make a contribution of $100,000 to your church if during your sermon you will say the president is a saint.”

the bishop thinks it over for a few moments and finally says, “our church is in such desperate need of funds that i will agree to do it.”

bush shows up looking especially pompous and smug, and the bishop begins his homily:

george bush is a petty, self-absorbed hypocrite and a nitwit. he is a liar, a cheat, and a low-intelligence weasel. he has lied about his military record, and had the gall to put himself in a jet plane landing on a carrier, posing before a banner stating ‘mission accomplished.’ he invaded a country for oil and money, and is lying to the american people about how things are going over there. he is the worst example of a methodist i’ve ever personally known. but compared to dick cheney and the rest of his cabinet, george bush is a saint.

guilt by abramoff & association

guilt by abramoff & association

we are constantly amused by the top-down corporate media’s attempts to smear democrats with the same “are they corrupt” brush as repubbblicans in the abramoff scandal.

they do this by simply adding the words “or his clients” to the sentences about who got money from abramoff (as in, both repubblicans and democrats received money from abramoff, his associates, or his clients). and, in this case, his clients are usually american indian tribes.  bosglobe:

us representative patrick j. kennedy, who has collected more donations from tribal clients of once-powerful lobbyist jack abramoff than any other democrat, intends to keep the money, joining a number of democrats who have decided that abramoff’s plea bargain on conspiracy and fraud charges won’t alter their decision.

we discuss this dishonest approach after the jump:
the problem with this guilt by association tactic is that it’s weak, and not even a real debating point.

for example: skippy is in show business. suppose skippy hires a public relations firm, let’s call them abramoff & associates, to publicize his career. ergo, skippy is abramoff’s client.

and let’s say skippy also pays some of his own money to backstage west for an ad touting skippy’s appearance in “blogtopia! the musical!” at a 99-seat equity waiver theater at the complex.

then, for the sake of argument, let’s say it turns out abramoff & associates is run by the mafia, and they are bribing television studios with payola to hire their actor clients. by the same logic, then backstage west is affiliated with the mafia, and involved in the bribery scandal. because, after all, skippy is abramoff’s client, and backstage “took money from abramoff, his associates, or his clients.”

even worse, let’s suppose abramoff & associates cheated skippy out of his money. so now it’s a case of blaming the victim. newsobserver.com:

those prosecutors say the high-flying abramoff wined and dined lawmakers, gave campaign contributions and paid for trips in order to influence legislation. they also say that through kickbacks, he bilked the indian tribes he was representing as a lobbyist of millions of dollars.

and, the houston chronicle:

an abramoff plea will finish a crucial phase of an investigation that began more than a year ago into charges that abramoff and scanlon cheated indian tribes out of about $82 million after being hired to pave the way for gambling casinos.

[ed. note:  emphasis ours].

so somehow, the democrats who took money from people that abramoff cheated, are themselves cheaters.

we have but one word to say to that:  hah?

the other point we wish to make is, weren’t there any of abramoff’s white clients involved? why do the top-down corporate media insist on singling out the evil redman as the devil involved in scandal? what kind of bigotry is this?

bush gets a letter (humor! no, really!)

we got this one from a friend of ours:

after numerous rounds of “we don’t know if osama is still alive”, osama himself decided to send george bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.

bush opened the letter and it contained a single line of coded message:

370hSSV-0773H

bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to condi rice. condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the fbi.

no one could solve it at the fbi so it went to the cia, then to the nsa.

with no clue as to its meaning they eventually asked britain’s mi-6 for help. within a minute mi-6 cabled the white house with this reply:

“tell the president he’s holding the message upside-down.”

[ed. note: yes, we know there are capital letters in the joke. but our style sheet rule of “no caps” would ruin the punchline. sometimes you have to give up style for a laugh!]

if it’s just the jews, it must be only a "story"

the skippy’s are a mixed marriage. skippy comes from a protestant background, mrs. skippy from the jewish heritage.

the result is a strange mixing of traditions this time a year. for instance, every night for 8 nights, they set a christmas tree on fire.

it is with this in mind, that we were taken aback watching the headline news network last night, which was not only christmas, but the also first night of hanukkah (the first time that’s happened since 1997).

more after the jump:
hnn reported on homeland security chief michael chertoff’s participation in the lighting of the national menorah in washington, dc.

we thought that was nice of headline news, to recognize the traditions of jewish americans during this time of year. but we were taken aback by the wording of the story.

the reporter said that the menorah was lit to celebrate a biblical “story” in which one day’s worth of oil “appeared” to last for eight days.

we would have no quarrel with the equivocations, if the top-down media would only do the same for christian traditions as well.

but when was the last time you heard anyone on the news describe christmas as a celebration of the “biblical story” about the birth of a child who “appeared” to be the son of god?

just wondering. pass the candy cane latkes, please.

way off topic: "king kong" sucks (w/poll!)

we had the misfortune of seeing an advanced preview of the new peter jackson version of king kong a couple of weeks ago. it was, in a word, sucky.

now, don’t get us wrong. we love peter jackson’s work. we love popcorn action movies. and more than that, we love the original king kong. so we were quite looking foward to it.

but it was more than disappointing, it was down-right boring. clocking in at more than three hours, the movie would be great, if you’ve never seen another movie before in your life. but it steals so freely from other films, that the only way we could amuse ourselves in the theater was to play “what flick is that reference from?”

our review after the jump.
one of the the biggest problems was, and we are not exaggerating at all here: the original king kong movie would be over by the time the monkey is first seen in this new version. and then, he doesn’t get a close up or establishing shot. you see a shadow jumping through the jungle. then a big arm reaches towards naomi watts (doing jessica lange doing faye wray). then you see a big gorilla, or at least half of him, from the side, as he looks at the blonde beauty. then he grabs her and scampers off.

it’s a good thing this kong was a computer effect. if it was a real actor, he would have demanded a full-frontal shot for his first entrance. it is, after all, his film.

other problems: pacing, as we mentioned; computer effects looking pretty tired (if you saw sky captain and the world of tomorrow, you’ve seen this version of new york; if you saw the return of the king you’ve seen this version of skull island); too many unimportant characters given too much screen time (the cabin boy and first mate were pretty disposable); terrible miscasting (jack black is no charles grodin, and when we think of action heroes, adrian brody does not leap to mind); and a terrible emphasis on the “more is more” school of film-making (kong doesn’t have to battle just one tyrannosaurus rex, and not just two, but three of the computer animated beasts).

and as to the set pieces of action…gee, we haven’t seen a dinosaur stampede since…well, the jurassic park films a few years ago. and those stampedes were less than 20 minutes, and actually looked like something. king kong’s brachiosaur stampede through the canyon, as the human actors tried to run out of the way, was murky and befuddled, and looked less like living creatures running and falling then masses of liquid grey blobs lumbering around…it became indiana jones and the lava lamp of doom for a while.

now, we will have to admit something terrible here. we had a christmas party to attend that night, and so we walked out 2 hours and 10 minutes into the movie…and the characters still hadn’t gotten back to new york! even more to the point, our christmas party did not really have a set time for beginning, so we could have stayed if we wanted to…and we would have, if there was something interesting to look at.

so after our disappointment at the movies, we have been both confused and vindicated about our feelings. confused because the film received practically universal raves from the national critics. (not-siskel and ebert gave it two thumbs up! we are crushed!)

but then, vindicated, because if you read the reviews, you see all the points we made above. even not-siskel and ebert admitted jack black and adrian brody were horribly miscast. most critics concede the film is far too long, and steals from other movies.

so, it’s a poorly-written, over-long, terribly miscast plagiaristic remake. but other than that, it’s fantastic!

and, we are feeling a bit more vindicated, because, like the remake of godzilla a few years ago, this monster is doing far less than expected (hoped?) at the box office. latimes:

total domestic sales for the three-hour-plus movie, which got a jump on the weekend with early wednesday morning screenings, were almost exactly the take that “the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe” generated the previous weekend, in two fewer days.

although “king kong” was no. 1 at the box office, the unexpectedly sluggish opening adds to growing fears that u.s. audiences might be forsaking the multiplex: for the first time in more than 40 years, hollywood by year’s end will have recorded declining attendance for three consecutive years… “this was one of the films that was supposed to help get the business back to last year’s levels, and clearly it didn’t happen,” richard greenfield, a media analyst with fulcrum global partners, said of “king kong.” “the bottom line is that this is a surprisingly low figure.”

universal conceded that the film’s first day was unimpressive but said “king kong” is nevertheless on track to be a blockbuster.

“the one thing we can say is that a geek fan base did not storm the gates,” said marc shmuger, universal’s vice chairman. he said returns earlier in the week were hurt by the film’s long running time and cited faulty estimates. “i don’t think anyone who was prognosticating had the right model,” he said. universal also believes that as more school-age children begin their winter holidays, they will start snapping up “king kong” tickets.

“i’m incredibly encouraged by where we are right now,” shmuger said sunday, adding that positive word of mouth should make “king kong” a top audience choice for weeks to come. “i couldn’t be more bullish.” universal also stressed that in overseas theaters, “king kong” grossed $80 million.

it will have to gross much more to turn a profit, given its $220 million price tag and tens of millions more spent on marketing. (studios keep only about half of a film’s theatrical receipts, and a hefty slice of the “king kong” proceeds will then go to jackson and his team.)

“king kong” carries all the possible elements for a sure-fire blockbuster: an oscar-winning filmmaker coming off three “lord of the rings” smashes, breathtaking special effects for teens, a heart-wrenching story for adults, consistent rave reviews, and hardly any competition in theaters.

that’s why, when “king kong’s” wednesday ticket sales were so comparatively weak, executives across hollywood spent hours on the telephone obsessing over the numbers. it’s something they’ve become accustomed to this year as one anticipated hit after another has received a lukewarm response from moviegoers.

 if you want to see a good movie this christmas, see munich (not an easy film to watch…but worth it) or memoirs of a geisha or harry potter.