Thursday, October 7, 2010

Randi Rhodes: Free Speech Tested

The Supremes heard arguments yesterday in the case of the anti-gay funeral protesters of the Westboro Baptist Church vs. the father of a killed Marine. Unfortunately, sometimes the only remedy for someone else’s disgusting free speech is exercising your own – and so I will.
Time for some “less than a month until Election Day” updates. Candidate for Governor of New York and anger management poster boy Carl Paladino has purchased airtime today at 5:13pm ET for a major announcement! Nobody knows what he’s going to say, but we can be pretty sure that he will be yelling.

The US Chamber of Commerce is using funds from foreign entities to influence American elections. That’s because the US Chamber of Commerce has a lot more to do with commerce than it does with the US. It’s still illegal for foreign corporations, countries or individuals to make political contributions in the United States for any election, but the Supreme Court opened the floodgates of corporate money into elections, and a lot of foreign money is getting lost in the flood. There’s your vicious circle—US jobs go overseas, where they make money for foreign corporations, who send some of that money back to America to elect Republicans who will ship more jobs overseas. The only American jobs that the Chamber of Commerce gives a damn about are the jobs of Congressman and Senator. And they want to make sure that those jobs are on their payroll.

Finally, it turns out that the regular-looking guys talking in a diner in a Republican ad in the West Virginia Governor’s race are actually actors. And the ad was shot in Philadelphia! If I was a voter in West Virginia, I would be very upset over this. And if I was a Screen Actors Guild member in West Virginia, I’d be even more upset. The casting call for the ad said “We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look.” So this ad features people who pretend to be regular working class stiffs, but really aren’t. That pretty much describes any Republican candidate, when you get down to it. The casting call also lists “clothing suggestions” including jeans, work boots, and flannel shirt. You know who is really set for this? Any actor who has recently appeared in a revival of “Lil’ Abner.” But the person they really should have used for this role is that poor Gene Cranich whose house they let burn down in Tennessee. He’s got the accent down, and he needs the money. But then I don’t know if Gene Cranich would be anxious to appear in a commercial that advances the same agenda that let his house burn down.
STUDY: We'd Rather Be Swedish
Finally, something we all can agree upon! When Americans were asked how much the top 20% should have, 92% said they'd rather live in a country with Sweden's wealth distribution. Click here for the story and report.

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