July 31, 2022

Ah, a now rare opportunity to rehash my results of 10-15 yrs of monitoring him:

Etymology of "Tweety". During Campaign 2000 the media noise machine was swooning over the nicknames Shrub was giving some of them. Media Whores Online ran a contest to nickname Chris MATTHEWS. In the first three or so weeks, there was no clear, catchy front runner, with "The Screamer" sort of leading. Then one of MATTHEWS's own Hardball staff leaked to MWO that they themselves called him "Tweety" because of the Clairol shade of hair coloring he favored. This was immediately declared the winner. But in some quarters, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. For one thing, by the time the name was declared, the shade had changed to platinum, leading to a suggestion he be called "Carole LOMBARD". Plus, "Tweety" sounded too affectionate.

   

His Misogyny.  Then M-TV held its 20th or 25th or whatever anniversary, and all the cable echo chambers were doing segments of Britney shedding her duds down to almost nothing. Not to be left behind, Tweety followed suit, with a guest "culture" commentator from Time Mag, the young humor columnist, Joel STEIN. The staff kept re-running the Britney clip, and Tweety was clearly DROOLING disgustingly. STEIN said, "You're beginning to creep me out." Tweety responded, "Yeah, well, wait till YOU're 50." This led to the suggestion that "Tweety" be modified to "Tweezer" to retain the hair reference while canceling out the affection factor and also adding the (dirty old) "geezer" angle.

Back when, misogyny was a wink-wink/smirk-smirk thing among the old style flunkies like him, there were many examples of his, with HRC being his prime target for years until she was becoming a real contender, when he yearned to host her, but the bridges had been burned.
 
But here's a vignette from back in the day, regarding his wife Kathleen. He deigned to host her or let her co-host a segment or so, this time with him and another recycled miscreant Mike BARNICLE. She was standing like at the front of a class and they two were sitting like the smirking, spit-balling, Catholic schoolboy-jerks that they really are. She trudged through her presentation, taking her subject seriously while the two of them smirked, giggled, and mocked all the way. But regarding Kathleen, he exemplifies one signature characteristic of misogynists: Despite the obviously hostile behaviors, they claim to adore, honor, put-on-a-pedestal women. And Tweety frequently does that over-compensating, protests-too-much thing by referring to her as, "MY QUEEN." 

*************So flash forward decades to the TWITLER atrocious era, specifically calling Senator WARREN “Pocahontas.” Tweety hosted her soon after a TWITLER episode of it, besides a manic outburst of his sputtering interrupting, almost giggling every time he said that name, catching himself each time then protesting that it was a horrible thing, like Beavis/Butthead giggling at a dirty word. So WARREN kept to the high road and that TWITLER was not going to silence her. So then he struck, like when he lashed out at DONAHUE. He was in bursting giggle mode and said, "So, for you 'Pocahontas' will be like a clarion call for you to come charging out!1" and he busted his gut. WARREN looked sucker punched. 

Darrell HAMMOND "Doing" Tweety on SNL. Tweety's ego was massively stroked after the debut of HAMMOND's impersonation of him, either in 2001 or 2002. He said, "I am now an ICON: I have been 'done' on Saturday Night Live'." The funniest line in the debut was HAMMOND as Tweety, cracking himself up with, "For the ... FIFTY ... people who watch this show...” (Hardball, not SNL). In the first few times HAMMOND featured him, the target was Tweety himself -- manically interrupting, spitting, and drooling. However, the characterization evolved, not true to the original, where Tweety became the "rational" character surrounded by oddball, extremist "guests", with HAMMOND-Tweety shaking his head in disbelief at their partisan spin.   

"Turning" from Being a Democrat. He (like G.E.RUSSERT and Pat CADDELL) still trades on having been a Democrat in the CARTER/O'NEILL era. In the hothouse of big time political flunkydom, STATUS and POWER come from the SUCCESS of your boss. RAYGUN kicked Tweety's bosses' rears, and Tweety gravitated to admiring that "success". When he started up his media career he was mentored by G.E. RUSSERT, who had himself already started "turning" by "reaching out" to LIMBOsevic and expending his formerly-Lib-bleeding-heart on those poor wingnuts who had been maligned and marginalized by the Liberal Elite, lo those many years. Tweety started doing video valentines to RAYGUN, promenading arm in arm with Nancy. He might have tapped into the frenzy of the FAKE impeachment, but "hatred of the CLINTONs" isn't what made him turn. The last time he was identifiably a Democrat was sometime around 1988 when Hardball (the book) was published.  Throughout the year of Campaign 2000 he savaged the Dem candidate daily and went on to years of bromance over Shrub, renouncing any Democratic heritage.  He said his parents were “cloth coat" (Rethugs), and that basically what first drew him to the Dem side was Irish-Catholic pride over JFK.  Not ideology, not idealism.  He said the reason he joined the Peace Corps was specifically to avoid going to Vietnam. 

How Tweety "Executed" DONAHUE on MSNBC. Tweety was on his book tour for another one of his "books" (large type, wide spaces between lines, blank half-pages). It was in the jingoistic hysteria in the run-up to the illegal Iraq attack. The book was about supposed "Americanism" -- an American Civ 101 ripoff about books and movies and cultural stuff that are essentially American (think, "The Great Gatsby" ). So Phil welcomed him as a colleague and peer on Phil's MSNBC show for the full hour to plug the book. From the moment he appeared, there was a strange, deadly snake look in Tweety's snake eyes. Phil was walking around the audience, apparently not sensing anything, while Tweety was motionless, following him only with his eyes. Phil brought up something or other questioning blind, kneejerk jingoism, and Tweety STRUCK! He started out with venom dripping, "You see, THIS is EXACTLY what's wrong with YOU Liberals: You are NEGATIVE about this country, you find NOTHING good about it," and on and on. It took awhile before Phil figured out what was happening. Later, Phil, devastated and spent, was sitting at the table with Tweety and, weaker and weaker, did some of his trademark shoulder shrugging and arm waving. Tweety delivered the coup de grace, "What's THIS (mimicking the movements)??!! What's with the --APE-- movements???!" Days or a week or two later, Phil's cancellation was announced and took effect. 

How Tweety "Triggered" a Gun Incident (re: Kathleen WILLEY). At the height of the FAKE impeachment, Ms WILLEY claimed that a mystery jogger had threatened her or her cat or somebody, with the insinuation that there was a CLINTON connection. Several months later, there was gossip that the jogger had been identified. Tweety hosted her and it appeared they had discussed the identity off camera. He tried mightily to get her to say the name on the air, which she wouldn't do. Finally, he himself blurted it out, "Was it (Name/Surname)?" She wouldn’t confirm it. Within days there was a bizarre incident, with the mentally disabled brother of Pat and Bay BUCHANAN going with a gun to the house of the supposed jogger named by Tweety, where there were only some foreign exchange students present. Later it was determined that the person Tweety named on the air had NOTHING to do with the supposed jogger incident. 

"Heroes" Tweety and Tom DeLAY. In the aftermath of the 07-24-98 shooting of two Capitol police officers when the slain officers were duly eulogized and called heroes, Tweety latched on to this, the way we have seen him attempt to glorify himself in other instances: Like saying he was assigned to Africa in the Peace Corps and "WALKED THE SAME GROUND" THAT CHURCHILL had passed through. Or when he said, "I am an ICON! I have been 'done' by SNL!". So now that the Capitol policemen were being called heroes, Tweety came forward to say that HE had been a Capitol policemen, TOO, JUST LIKE THEM, when he was starting out. It turns out that he had worked a (temporary?) job for three months as that. In all the years before the officers were shot and eulogized, he probably NEVER referred to that job, most likely thinking of it as a rent-a-cop turn, until he could see in retrospect the glory that he had been DESTINED to from the beginning.  

But he is not the only glory hog. When that incident was happening, the news of the moment reported that Tom DELAY had hopped a plane out of town and immediately turned around in Houston when the incident was over. This show of courage is why he has been dubbed, "Tom-DePLANE!-DePLANE!-DELAY".  But searches of countless news reports of that time show no mention of the hopping-the-plane. Only this is left: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm /... "...House members, many rushing out of town, did not have to remain behind. DeLay slipped out the main door of the Capitol less than 15 minutes after the shooting. He looked stricken. Asked if he'd seen anything, he said, "Did I ever. I don't want to talk about it." Aides rushed him into his waiting car. ...."------------

July 27, 2022

"trashing (various venues) is elitist" - somehow those/here who try to dictate acceptability of

everybody else's choices are oblivious to one of our Left core principles, free thinking. I monitored LIMBOsevic, O'LOOFAH, yes-Tweety, and others in between those for years. Critical thinking or opposition research. Hostile ideologies can't knead my own beliefs, am not skeered of opposing expressions.

Now, the ones I monitor are those who are not parrots. I cannot abide the ones who are just ideological puppets - Hannity, Ingraham, Levin, etc., who are totally predictable and obtuse. Those only influence the blockhead type of audience. The truly dangerous ones are the "creatively" devious types mentioned above who knowingly master rhetorical, propaganda techniques. There's also the keep friends close & enemies closer.

Some here rail against MAHER and ROGAN, fine. I'm not skeered of those two. I can separate out the parts of them that are incorrect. MAHER gives some valuable constructive criticism and strategizing for our benefit. ROGAN has a lively curiosity about a variety of topics. What is "off" for me about them and all the others, I either refute or just tune out as irrelevant.

*** Our cohorts who attempt to dictate and gate-keep are our version of wanting-to-hear-only-what-we-like, the same as the Faux audiences who are fed what they want to hear.

I even listen to "suburban mothers" despite my not being one - haha!

July 15, 2022

In the Bleeding Heart spirit of bipartisanship toward wingnuts/Qanonites, an offer of help.

We Bleeding Heart Libs must REACH OUT and UNDERSTAND various wingnuts, Qnunneries, and make an opportunity to help. Them. Out. Because that’s what we do: We HELP. And we know what HURT feels like, such as when we are accused of being hypocritical in our choices of exhibiting our Bleeding Hearts excluding wingnut travails.

So it has sunk in with us that the aforesaid ones have had their feelings deeply hurt by our Lib fighting back at their primary, signature-type projects, but let’s give a pass for now to that type of vicious, hateful projects.

We must be sensitive to how much the aforementioned ones must be crying out for something more than aloe vera for the hits their reputations have taken, how their projects have been targeted as malicious, vicious, untrue, and conspiratorial.

So in the spirit of our Bleeding Heart Bipartisanship, let’s take off a bit of the burden of their always having to do all the heavy lifting of conspiracying, by contributing one coming from our Leftist side toward conspiracy on the wingnut side. Because they surely want to be known as even handed and pop one out about The Right instead of always about The Left. And we know how much it would hurt for them to do that one about The Right.


REMEMBER THESE WORDS from 2017, we’ll need them anon:
“He took the divorce as a business deal. And he cannot lose. He has to win.”


73 years old? Not unheard of, and any age is susceptible. But I’m 75 and tons of peeps live far longer than us on our last legs who haven’t accomplished what MOZART did by 35. Well, she *did* rack up mileage in the very fast lane.

Fell down the stairs? It happens. But most often heard in works of trite theatricality and crime dramatizations. This could go either way.

Alone, found by doorman. It’s always puzzling when celebrities with tons of moola accrue infractions like DUIs, like, they can easily afford their personal chauffeur, although one A-Lister attributed her DUI to being tired of being constantly minded, wanting to be OFF on her OWN!1 So this currently under discussion (the deceased), loaded jet setter had no live-in attendant, 73 year old celebrity alone with a dangerous staircase? Yes, at 75 I’m constantly off balance. Where was this staircase that a doorman had access to? Seems like it would be inside her quarters, a “doorman” in my unwashed connoting being in livery outside at the front door on the street? Although, not unheard of, servants with privileges – let’s dismiss this.


In a high percentage of the aforementioned works of theatricality and crime reenactments, the spouse/ex-spouse sooner or later turns out to be the hiding in plain sight perpetrator. In this Deceased case, her other ex-es are either amicably separated or Departed themselves – EXCEPT FOR ONE!1 And this particular One is said to have personal appearances Outside of Florida, in D.C. easy access to the Deceased abode, meaning Opportunity!


Her prescient words from years ago: “He took the divorce as a business deal. And he cannot lose. He has to win.” The ex-spouse has a crushing load of civil and criminal charges mounting up, and he can’t bear for somebody (the Deceased) with so much history with him to see him NOT WINNING and, indeed, LOSING. So AWAY with her, the same as with anybody else (because nobody is above the retribution) who in his estimation doesn’t polish any facet of his parts.


“He took the divorce as a business deal. And he cannot lose. He has to win.”

July 1, 2022

My pseudo-punditry re: the wingnut SCotUS judicial activism, Judicial Dictatorship

I’ve long said that wingnuts don’t believe in government and this Wingnut Court is putting the Wingnut deconstruction of democracy on BLAST. A partial review of the Court decrees and the local radio wingnuts’ reactions:

• The GUN thing, guns anywhere – wingnuts ECSTATIC.
• Roe – happy for the wingnut victory but not that thrilled, their being more secular, less Fundie about the religious impetus of the anti-Choice issue.
• The Praying Coach, end Church/State, another step towards the Sharia model – same as for Roe.
• No stay in Mexico – DISASTER for them – blame BIDEN for the coming DOOM. But my take, Court shares the blame, diffusing a bit.
• Crack the EPA, end of the Agencies not to mention the planet – wingnuts ECSTATIC.
• Upholding Repuke Gerrymandering, continued war on voting - too long range for ecstasy.

Two ways to explain: 1) The ‘murican culture, and, 2) the Roman model.

Let’s start with the Romans: Their cycle was KINGS for a few hundred years at first, then the REPUBLIC for another few hundreds, then the EMPIRE for a thousand. Civil wars at least in each transition.

• We’re at the End of the Republic part. Perhaps the cycle is inevitable, but The ‘murican Nature/Culture fits right in: That vaunted “Rugged individualism” and 18th Century mechanical (The Clock) Constitution – the former making “Every man a king” meaning every wiseass dude thinking he knows-it-all, making the country UNGOVERNABLE.

• The Constitution with the vaunted “separation of powers” being the seed for GRIDLOCK. In our times fueled by LIMBAUGH’s Scorched Earth/POLARIZATION – no cooperation/”bipartisanship” – only Winners/Losers.

I remember when the Court was “Liberal” that the wingnuts fumed about “JUDICIAL ACTIVISTS.” But it feels fine to them now that the activism is on the other foot. Now Judicial DICTATORSHIP is the m.o.

And the local wingnuts are claiming that the Court is NOT POLITICAL – hardeeharhar, yeah-right.

Since the end of a 50-50 Court with a swing vote, that the wingnuts rose and then gained confidence in their power, they went from chipping away at Voting Rights to now tsunami-ing their Judicial Dictatorship to destroying democracy.

Guess what’s on their docket for next term: Giving STATES power to regulate federal elections, reversing popular vote outcomes in the states.