The
Top Ten Conservative Idiots (Week 48)
December
17, 2001
Don't Bogart That Braincell Edition
We're not sure what Asa Hutchinson's been smoking, but it
must be some good shit - because he's made it all the way
to the top of the chart this week. America's finest - the
Enron Executives - have bankrupted themselves into second,
and George W. Bush makes his customary appearance, this time
in the third slot. Meanwhile Tommy Thompson (4) wants us all
to slim for victory, Charles and Frances Witcomb (5) are making
complete fools of themselves, and Junius P. Fulton (6) gives
everyone a much-needed lesson on the consequences of irresponsible
gun ownership. Bringing up the rear we've got Mark Racicot
(9), greasing the wheels of power with his own slime, and
the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson (10), who is really just a great
big crybaby. Enjoy...
Asa
Hutchinson
Do you drink beer or coffee? Eat corn chips or snack bars?
Then you could be a closet junkie! The Pittsburgh Post
Gazette recently turned up an interesting tidbit
buried deep in the Federal Register, which indicates just
how far conservatives will go to fight their ridiculous war
on drugs. The Drug Enforcement Agency, headed by former GOP
congressman Asa Hutchinson, has announced that it will take
steps to ban certain brands of a wide variety of foods because
they contain hempseed oil, and thus trace elements of THC.
THC, in case you didn't know, is the evil substance which
turns straight-laced, productive members of society into wild-eyed,
crazy swingers who party till dawn to the sound of the jungle
drums and engage in all-night orgies with multiple partners
of either sex. Or something like that. So no more tortilla
chips for you, stoner boy! But what the DEA don't realize
is that this ban will only serve to drive snack-food addicts
onto the streets, traveling to seedy neighborhoods and selling
their bodies for just one more hit of those sweet, sweet Doritos.
Of course, all joking aside, the real irony is that you could
smoke a pound of top-drawer Amsterdam Skunk and still
be less paranoid than Asa Hutchinson.
Enron
Executives
After a sudden and precipitous collapse, Congress is starting
to take an interest in Bush & Co.'s bosom buddies at Enron.
And considering the stink over that nonevent called "Whitewater,"
you'd better damn well think so. Funny really, how our great
new president was supposed to return honor and integrity to
the White House, and now we're going to find out that he and
his cronies are up to their necks in Enron poo. But one step
at a time, my friends, one step at a time. The first job was
for Congress was to call Enron executives, including Chief
Executive Ken Lay, before a special investigative subcommittee.
Enron's response? "Uh, nah, I think we'll give it a pass thanks."
Yes, that's right - the executives decided
that they had better things to do than appear before a Congressional
subcommittee to explain why their fraudulent accounting and
securities law violations caused thousands of people to lose
their jobs. Poor Enron spokeswoman Karen Denne, who'd obviously
been thinking all night, was left to come up with the worst
excuse since "the cat ate my homework." Quote: "We don't believe
that we would be able to adequately serve the interests of
the committee while at the same time we're trying to serve
the interests of our creditors' shareholders, and former and
current employees." Oh, how very considerate of you
Enron.
George
W. Bush
We don't need no steenkin' missile treaties! Our great president
announced last week that he was about to abandon
the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty so he can chase his
missile defense pipe-dream. Apparently, while he was in Crawford,
Vladimir Putin had assured Bush that abandoning the treaty
would be just fine, which would explain why he turned around
last Tuesday and called it a "mistake." Looks like it only
takes a couple of glasses of Texas chardonnay and our George'll
let anyone put their hand down his pants. Anyway, the great
news is that the brand new defense contractor welfare program,
um, I mean, National Missile Defense system, is going exactly
according to plan, flunking
a test last week when an interceptor veered off course thirty
seconds after launch and had to be blown up by operators on
the ground (perhaps they should build a missile defense system
to protect us from the missile defense system?) So I guess
we'll only have to sink a few more tens of billions of tax
dollars into the program before the defense contractors declare
it a failure and sell the new technology back to us for a
profit. God bless America!
Tommy
Thompson
Is there anything that this administration won't call
"patriotic" if it suits them? Apparently not. According to
the LA Times, the latest
piece of dumb propaganda comes straight from the mouth of
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who wants
people to lose ten pounds for their country. A recent study
shows that 62% of Americans are overweight, up from 48% in
1980. And so, quite rightly, Tommy Thompson is asking people
to watch what they eat. Unfortunately, as is de rigeur
these days, he obviously felt the need to add "as a patriotic
gesture." So what, we're going to win the war on terrorism
if everyone does a bit of jogging? Gimme a break. And what
happens if you don't lose ten pounds? Do you get arrested
for sedition? But on the other hand, this could work out:
perhaps in light of Tommy's suggestion, we should call on
Rush Limbaugh to do his bit for these fine United States,
and get on the treadmill. C'mon Rush - you don't want anyone
to think you're being unpatriotic do you?
Charles
and Frances Witcomb
Here's another splendid example of conservatives trying
to stick their noses in where they don't belong. Step forward
Charles and Frances Witcomb of Dover, NH. The Witcombs are
members of Dover's oxymoronically (with the emphasis on moronically)
titled "Common Sense Conservatives," and they have quite
a beef
with the Dover Coalition for Youth (DCY), a community support
group for local teenagers. Why on earth is that, you ask yourselves?
Well it seems that the DCY have audaciously included a gay
support group on the list of resources in their pamphlets.
And not only that, but they have refused to consider the Witcomb's
requests to include Exodus International, an "ex-gay" ministry
which practices the extremely dubious methods of gay conversion
"therapy." Shock! Horror! What's a "common sense conservative"
to do? Well, taking a page from the Linda Tripp playbook,
Frances Witcomb brought along a tape recorder to a DCY meeting.
(Although we have no idea what she was trying to achieve -
uncovering evidence of the "gay agenda," perhaps?) Predictably,
DCY members told her to piss off. So, in Common Sense Conservative
fashion, Charles and Frances sued the city. Nobody was particularly
surprised when the city told them to piss off as well, since
the DCY is a private group which holds private meetings, and
does not receive tax dollars. And can thus do pretty much
what they like. Oh, and I must have forgotten to mention that
state wiretapping laws require permission from those being
recorded. Undaunted, the Witcombs are currently appealing
to the state Supreme Court. Conservative common sense at its
finest.
Junius
P. Fulton III
Question: what do you get if you play around with a gun in
your front yard, and it accidentally goes off and kills someone
in the house next door? Answer: if Junius P. Fulton III is
your judge, you get off scot free. And that's exactly
what recently happened to Timothy Woods of Ocean View, VA.
After Woods heard two gunshots outside his home one night
last January, his first reaction was to get his new gun, go
outside, and fire off a warning shot. You know. As you would.
Anyway, according to the Virginian Pilot, after going
outside Woods didn't fire a shot but instead, "held the gun
and admired it. He pulled the trigger several times while
keeping the hammer from striking the casing." Um, that is,
until it went off. The bullet traveled across the street,
went through Scott Rein's back door, hit him in the back,
and killed him. Woods told detectives that he didn't know
where the bullet had gone, but became suspicious that he had
killed someone after he came home from a party late that night
and found police crawling all over Rein's house. So Woods
did the honorable thing - he took the shell casing down to
the dock the next morning, and threw it into the water. Two
weeks later he was arrested and charged with murder, which
was eventually reduced to involuntary manslaughter. But the
trial concluded last week with Judge Junius P. Fulton III
dismissing all charges, calling the occurrence a "tragedy."
Yes, Woods clearly had no culpability in the matter
whatsoever, and surely could not be called negligent.
He just happened to be there playing with his gun when it
went off all by itself. You know, it's like if you're driving
your car down the street, looking for a CD on the floor, and
you accidentally jump the curb and mow somebody down, well
hell, it's not your fault right? Oh, but I forgot -
irresponsible gun ownership is a right, not a privilege.
The
Bush Administration and Friends
According
to the Boston Herald, Saudi Arabia is, "perhaps the
biggest incubator for anti-Western Islamic terrorists." So
it's interesting to note that for all the talk of "rooting
out the evil-doers" and "you're either with us or you're against
us," the Bush administration and friends are making out like
bandits in Saudi Arabia. Take for example former president
George H.W. Bush, senior adviser with the Carlyle Group, an
organization which has deep ties to the Saudi royal family.
Or Dick Cheney, who as head of Halliburton, Inc. worked to
secure several large contracts with Saudi companies. Or Condoleeza
Rice, who was a member of the board of directors of Chevron,
another company with a LOT of business in Saudi Arabia. So
since it doesn't look like the Bush administration is going
to be clamping down on Saudia Arabia's pro-terrorist activate
any time soon, may we ask just who is the "us" Bush refers
to in his mantra "you're either with us or you're against
us?" Is he talking about the American people, or just a bunch
of his fat-cat oil baron friends? Gee, I wonder...
Telecommunications
Lobbyists
Congressional Republicans have never met a poor, ailing corporation
they didn't want to take home and snuggle up to. Take NextWave
Telecom, for example, who in 1996 purchased 63 wireless licenses
from the government for $4.7 billion. Two years later NextWave
went bust, after only paying $500 million. The FCC repossessed
the licenses and re-auctioned them, but NextWave sued - and
won. Here's where it gets interesting. When the FCC re-auctioned
the repossessed licenses, back in December 2000, they received
bids up to $16 billion from a variety of companies. But a
court ruled that NextWave owns the licenses until 2006. So
in order to settle the case, the plan is that the companies
which won the bidding for the re-auctioned licenses would
give the government $16 billion. The government would then
give NextWave Telecom $6 billion. So if you've been doing
the math, that's a $5.5 billion dollar profit for a company
who had to do nothing (they never signed up a single customer
by the way) but go bankrupt. And, according
to FCC head Michael "son of Colin" Powell, the government
doesn't have much choice. So chalk one up for the special
interests - that's $6 billion of government money down the
drain.
Mark
Racicot
When
poor old Jim Gilmore got the boot as head of the RNC earlier
this year (fancy handing the governorship of Virginia to a
Democrat for goodness sake. Oh, what's that? He wanted
to spend more time with his family? Uh, right, sure) his replacement
was chosen quickly. Marc Racicot - successful politician and
close friend of George W. Bush, was nominated to fill the
empty chair. But interestingly, according to the Washington
Post, Racicot is also a "major player in Washington's
lobbying industry." And guess what - he has no intention from
stepping down from that role, even as he heads the party which
holds both the White House and the House of Representatives.
Gee, can you spell "Konflict of Intrest?" (I can't.) Racicot
is currently registered as a lobbyist with seven organizations,
although he has wisely decided to back away from one of them
(yep - it's Enron.) But he is sticking with the National Electric
Reliability Coordinating Council, who are currently engaged
in intensive lobbying to weaken the Clean Air Act. Last week,
Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the DNC, said,
"There is a real potential there for abuse, but the decision
is ultimately up to the Republican Party." So there's absolutely
nothing to worry about then. I'm sure we can leave
it in the GOP's safe hands.
Rev.
Jesse Lee Peterson
And
finally: Drama queen of the week award goes to the Rev. Jesse
Lee Peterson, a conservative "civil rights leader",
who recently
showed up to disrupt a trade bureau event. The event was scheduled
to announce a settlement between Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH
organization and Toyota Motors. (Toyota have pledged to spend
$700 million on minority outreach programs.) Peterson used
a question and answer session to insist that Jesse Jackson
would benefit personally from the deal - the crowd turned
ugly, and Peterson was escorted out. But the real theatrics
began when Peterson appeared on Sean Hannity's radio show
and claimed that he now feared for his life. "After leaving
that meeting Monday I realized that these people are so mean
and desperate that they would take me out," he lamented. And
then, to put the icing on the cake, "Sean, if anything happens
to me I want you to make sure you turn this tape over to the
authorities and have them look into Jesse Jackson's organization
or anybody that's connected with him. Jackson may not personally
do it himself, but I personally believe that he would order
it done." Sounds like somebody needs to take a chill
pill. Incidentally, Rev. Peterson also appeared on "The O'Reilly
Factor" last week - before every commercial break a teaser
breathlessly insinuated that he'd been roughed up by Jesse
Jackson - until he appeared in the final segment and lamely
explained that some people had been a bit annoyed with him.
See you next week!
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