Don't drink from the Republican trough

It’s hard to imagine politicians telling lies. It’s a dirty job but somebody had to do it seems to be the message coming from Washington, D.C. these days when the topic of waterboarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay prison surfaces.

Having nothing but bitterness to cling to following the trouncing President Barack Obama gave Republicans in November, the GOP is now trying to blame torture on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The party of elephants has called for an investigation into claims that Pelosi had been briefed by the CIA about the tortures, as Obama is stepping up pressure to close the prison.

As if out of a cheap dime novel, former Vice President Dick “Shoots his friends” Cheney made a sinister appearance on TV demanding that the prison remain open and touting the benefits of torture outweigh the detriments.

Now that’s a charity that could possibly fix the economic mess Republicans created, isn’t it? It’s difficult to see what useful information any of the torturees would divulge, though. As Judge Judy tells miscreants on her TV court show, “I can tell you’re lying because your lips are moving.”

-Peace

Karl Rove deserves a cell

'Rove'ing conspiracy against Don Siegelman

Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman ran into another brick wall on Friday, March 6 when a three-member panel of the federal appeals court upheld most of the bribery and conspiracy convictions that were clearly manipulated by George W. Bush’s former political adviser Karl “Bush’s Brain” Rove.

Siegelman dedicated nearly three decades to public service, becoming the only elected politician to serve in the swing state’s four highest offices. So popular was Siegelman, the Democrat, in the Republican state, Rove and company pushed the trial during the governor’s 2006 re-election bid.

For those unfamiliar to Rove, he’s one of the guys who helped manufacture “proof” that Saddam Hussein was seeking “yellowcake” uranium, which helped sell the U.S. Congress on the invasion of Iraq. He’s the Dark Lord lurking behind the “hanging chads” shenanigans in Dade County, Fla. to structure a Republican dictatorship during the 2000 presidential elections.

Rove, in collusion with Dick Cheney’s since convicted former Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, is also the guy who leaked Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative. This was in retribution for an op-ed titled “Mission to Niger” her former Ambassador husband, John Wilson, published in The New York Times.

Those are merely a few of the more noted scandals and conspiracies Rove has been connected with. When he was summoned to testify at Siegelman's trial he refused.

Rove is the guy who should be heading to prison, not Don Siegelman.

My multifaceted bias about the case comes not only from the contempt I’ve developed watching Rove’s devious political maneuvering dating back to the 1994 bullshit he pulled in Texas to get George W. Bush — that’s right, he was Dubbya’s campaign adviser in ’94 and ’98 — elected and re-elected as governor.

I’m also concerned because the evidence in Siegelman’s case, as well as well-known prosecutorial misconduct, is extremely sketchy (topics I’ll address in an upcoming Daily Forty-Niner editorial).

I’ll also disclose that Cal State Long Beach alumna Dana Siegelman, Don’s daughter, is a good friend of mine through promoting peace, human and civil rights.

Her father has just filed a second appeal to his convictions seeking a full-panel review because the last jury was not given important instructions that could have ended this.

In the meantime, Rove continues to enjoy freedom and wealth. He’s so slippery, the U.S. can only estimate his overall worth at between $ 1.5 million and $6.3 million. Instead of being a prison cell, he continues to enjoy his freedom, something possibly allowed by connections in the IRS. If ever a conspiracy theory stood out….

BLR blurs lines of ethics

Image from Google Images

Total world domination

After editorializing recently about insignificant state and national political gunk, it’s time to bring it back down to Earth here at good old Cal State Long Beach.

The recent Beach Legacy Referendum that was put out for a campuswide vote -- and failed -- brought student campaign ethics under the microscope.

Probably the most disturbing part of the BLR blur was that it wasn’t a binding vote; it was merely to test how students might feel if they were slapped with a new fee for athletics goodies, as we learned by perusing California State University Executive Order 1034.

Regardless that the campus community overwhelmingly voted the BLR down, CSULB President F. King Alexander holds the power to impose the fee anyway. What it boils down to is an administrative power play, manipulated largely by a few insiders. There were a few suspected dungeon masters in this conspiracy.

Any student in their right mind should be pissed that the thing was treated like some winner-take-all Obama/McCain-Sarah “America’s favorite MILF” Palin campaign when the BLR was merely a survey.

This issue was essentially relegated to guerilla warfare. The Athletics Department was told, “There are no rules” and fought a no-holds barred battle accordingly. They took off the gloves and boxed bare-knuckle style.

Some of the chicanery included turning rowdy student athletes loose in the dorms pestering sleeping students in the middle of mid-term exams, celebrating victory while the election was still in process and punking students into voting ‘yes’ at the makeshift “unofficial voting” booths set up in the CSULB Pyramid.

I had tried to warn them of the implications in both editorial and signed opinion that we were putting our campus soul at risk.

There were reliable reports about swimming coaches canceling scheduled classes and walking students to the Walter Pyramid to vote.

In the end, however, the campus may have deteriorated a great deal of its essence. When ethics and fair play are overshadowed by the need to win at any cost, the money becomes secondary to benevolence.

In the arena of applied ethics, the entire CSULB community lost.

The death knell to BLR? Hardly, me thinks!!!
Enjoy the video of my homie, Tiffany Rider.

'Ahnold' takes red-eye to D.C.

Illustration Duke Rescola and Google Images
You've been screwed, Golden State...

READ MORE BELOW!

Probably the least effective teaching strategy imaginable is to slap a student upside the head with an eight-pound civics textbook and pray they absorb California politics.

I can't believe Californians haven't seen through the glitter and glam of the quasi-red carpet persona to see that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is nothing more than the bully in charge.

It’s easy to put the broken promise of his gubernatorial years under a microscope and understand how I was able to copyright the term "Educ-Hater" (sort of rhymes with Educator) in editorials nearly two years ago.

While it began as part of an editorial about the "College Textbook Affordability Act," in 2007, I tried to warn you guys against Arnold when he was running to replace former Gov. Gray "the clerk" Davis. Now we’re $42 billion in debt and on the verge of insolvency (not an economic term as gentle as it sounds).

Schwarzenegger might be many things to many people, but to me he transcends his silver screen image; he is a wealthy ne'er-do-well intent on stepping over our corpses to be a career politician.

No sooner had he given a "Terminator" reminiscent 'thumb-up' to the vile Golden State budget and he was off to promote himself as a moderate/conservative in Washington, D.C. Hell, he didn’t even leave Sacramento before he whored himself as a redeemed national conservative by pushing to have needles quickly spiked into inmates on Death Row.

Arnold is simultaneously selling himself as a George W. Bush-type kill-'em-all-let-God-sort-'em-out tough-on crime governor and giving a "woot-woot" to President Obama's stimulus package. This is playing both ends against the middle, but it isn't because Schwarzenegger thinks it’s a Kennedy/Shriver privelege; he’s spreading his political safety net.

You have to wonder if he or his agent Lou Pitt have a soul by taking a role from Sylvester Stallone in the soon-to-be flick,"The Expendables" that Arnie is locked into. Ask yourself, fellow Californians, “Who are 'The Expendables' in this multi-gazillion dollar production, where Arnold is expected to play, ahem, a governor?" They are us.

Have you any doubt that the acting role is a result of lobbying by the film industry? Part of the California budget agreement was to pony up preferential tax cuts (notice a pandering trend) to the Hollywood machine.

And now, some Ahnold via The Simpsons

Some peanutty humor to make you hungry

If this 'toon doesn't make your
mouth water for the article below,

From Google Images

Maybe this original one will:

Anybody up for grilled cheese?

Mr. Peanut delivers death threat

When Stewart Parnell, owner of Peanut Corp. of America, was questioned this week by the “House subcommittee on PB&J” he seemed to have some of his tainted product stuck to the roof of his mouth.

The beleaguered peanut butter magnate, under congressional fire for the recent salmonella epidemic that has thus far claimed nine lives and made 600 others violently ill, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment on Wednesday.

The most dramatic part of the hearings came when Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) offered Parnell a taste of his own poison.



There’s lots of evidence that the Food and Drug Administration knew about the salmonella infection but failed to warn the public. This is problematic because PCA had contracts with the federal government to sell its products as part of the federally-funded free school lunch program, which feeds millions of poverty-level children.

One of the largest food recalls in history is having a rippling effect as even pet products are being yanked off of store shelves.

It’s no small wonder the goober tycoon Parnell has gone into hiding. Just three weeks ago, a Chinese court sentenced two men to death and sent a host of others to prison for last year’s tainted milk fiasco; an international disaster that claimed the lives of six children and made thousands more ill.

As a result of the untold stomach aches Parnell’s greed has allegedly caused, his company now seems on the brink of going belly up. One tragic irony is that Parnell lives in the Virginia town of Lynchburg. Hopefully, nobody will practice lynching.

George Washington Carver, the historic peanut promoter, is probably turning in his grave. Carver, told Congress in 1921, “I do not know of a single case … that complains because peanuts hurt them.” You stand corrected, Mr. Carver.



Hopefully, chocolate is safe. Depriving us of peanut butter cups is bad enough without having to worry about threatening the planet’s second greatest addiction — caffeine, of course, being the first.

Loose Cannons

President-elect should cover his butt

They want him to guess

Among the greatest problems with political analysis is the root of the word “analysis” itself; anal. One thing everybody can believe is that scrutiny over some of President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet considerations is going to involve, you guessed it, proctologic exams.

The snapping latex gloves of Senate confirmation are not expected to be worn by Republicans, though. Their best strategy right now is to play hide-and-wait. Many of the objections to Obama’s choices will likely come from within his own party. Democrats have to be extremely cautious — call it colonic — about Obama’s picks because this is their chance to run the board for the next decade.

It’s already established that Hillary Clinton is Obama’s pick for secretary of state. No popularity gain could be made by the elephants poking Clinton in the eye about Monica Lewinsky puffing on former-Pres. Bill Clinton’s cigar; at least not until after she’s been potty trained.

That scandal, however, might kick the donkeys in the ass on another of Obama’s possible appointments. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is riding the inside track for secretary of commerce, according to The Wall Street Journal. For him to blow past the Senate, Richardson will need to explain offering Lewinsky a U.N. “hush” job during the “Lick Willie” impeachment hearings.

Republicans in the Senate will either save the Richardson choice for a later “We told you so, America” ambush, or will use the selection objection as a red herring to upset Obama’s honeymoon.

Five miles to the outhouse

Republicans might follow the latter tactic to lure lost Latino voters back across the aisle in 2012. Many Latino lobbyists had hoped Richardson would get the secretary of state post to bolster revisiting immigration reform.

My third choice as a possible hemorrhoid is Eric Holder for attorney general. It might sound conservative, but it doesn’t take a phony psychic of Miss Cleo’s stature to read the tea leaves in this toilet. Holder signed off on billionaire tax-evasion fugitive Marc Rich’s pardon, which Bill Clinton delivered on his last day in office.

Of course, nobody ever connected any sexual dots between Clinton and Rich’s ex-wife Denise, but she was a major donor to the Clinton Library.

Another of Obama’s potential shoe-ins also has a sexy past that Democrats might object to. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona governor deemed healthy to be the secretary of Homeland Security, has a skeleton or two with sharp teeth.

Will she make it?

Napolitano was part of the team that tried to roust Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas — an appointee of former-Pres. George H. W. Bush — for allegedly sexually harassing attorney/former co-worker Anita Hill and several other women. Because of Thomas’ assuredly lingering resentment from that embarrassing hearing, the Senate might want to tread cautiously in confirming Napolitano to such an investigative powerhouse.

In fact, Napolitano’s confirmation to the Senate for her slot in Arizona was delayed because of her lawyerly involvement in the Thomas hearings, a point that won’t be lost on Senate historians or Republicans.

Still on a roll...

Regardless of the calculus Obama is using for his Cabinet transitions, it’s obvious that his promise for “change” will at some point, whether now or later, need a tough nanny to situate the box of Pampers, er, Depends. If monitoring isn’t secure on his side of the Legislature’s aisle, the other team will clearly call in the dung beetle.

Candidate’s lookalikes ‘Palin’ by comparison

Looks like me!

Within two weeks of Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s announcement of Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate, the global search for her mirror images has begun in earnest.

Finding doubles to parody public personalities is a staple for late-night talk shows. Jay Leno has done it for years on The Tonight Show, even helping comedians like Brent Mendenhall — a near duplicate of Pres. George W. Bush — turn physical similarities into cottage industries.

Saturday Night Live cast member Amy Poehler regularly lampoons Sen. Hillary Clinton, even appearing side-by-side while Clinton’s presidential candidacy was still alive.

A recent Google search turned up a plethora of blogger comparisons between Palin and established celebs, like former SNL star Tina Fey.

While the blogger lauds the uncanny semblance, he admonishes that “One is funny. One is scary.” Another blogger swears Palin is an identical twin to Kathrine Narducci’s fictitious Soprano’s character Charmaine Bucco.

Looks a lot like me?

But the life of an instant celebrity can produce implications far beyond the realm of mere recognizable imagery. Scanning through photobucket.com reveals scads of people who think they are the ones who best compare to Palin. Some of these images are posted by folks who are either delusional or just plain vision impaired, or possibly both.

They range from the absurd — like “Sicko” producer Michael Moore’s face superimposed on a hairy, extremely obese body with enormous man boobs — to a voluptuous nude woman hugging a snowman.

With nearly 85,000 Google pages as of yesterday, there seems to be no shortage of people looking for women meeting the Palin glamour criteria. And there’s no lack of those seeking Palin body doubles for prurient reasons and occupation.

Looks like something I killed!!!

The candidate from the state whose state flower is the “forget-me-not” has elicited lookalike casting calls on the Internet from Los Angeles to Atlanta that she’d probably like to forget.

Provocative ads seeking women to appear in hardcore and soft porn videos are in no short supply. Some of the more crass ones have already been flagged for removal for depicting the types of “acting” counterfeit Palins are needed to perform, including one — which has since been shut down — that sought to pay a woman “tons of cash” to perform oral sex on a moose on camera.

One Los Angeles adult film producer’s ad on Craigslist reads,

NEED SARAH PALIN LOOKALIKE ASAP FOR ADULT FILM (LA)

Looking for a Sarah Palin lookalike for an adult film to be shot in next 10 days.

Major adult studio.

Please send pix, stats etc. ASAP

Pay: $2000-3000

No anal required

While much ado has been made that the hopeful second-in-command is an attractive woman, isn’t it nice to know that we don’t need to worry our pretty little heads over issues like war, the economy, health care, First Amendment rights, separation of church and state, or destroying the environment?

Our main concerns are about finding somebody who “looks” like the person trying to represent those issues.

There you have it folks. And now for a little interlude titled "The Ballad of Sarah Palin."