12 Days of Christmas Scorn: Day 1 -- Con Men, Grifters, and Outlaws Edition

A true bipartisan: Lester Maddox, seen here in 1965 in the Lester Maddox Restaurant, the reopened version of his shut-down whites-only Pickrick Cafeteria, achieved notoriety as a die-hard segregationist armed with his famous Pickrick Drumsticks (pick handles). He explains in a longer clip from 1965 that the reopened restaurant remained unwelcoming of "integrationists." When he sought the Democratic nomination for governor of Georgia in 1966, Republican votes cast in the Democratic primary runoff pushed him past moderate former Gov. Ellis Arnall.

by Noah

Welcome to the SCORN AWARDS.

2009 will go down as the year that the ever-shrinking Republican Party abandoned the last vestige of even a pretense of sanity. Republicans clicked their heels and left their shoes behind as they raptured themselves into a Never Never Ever Land of unrestrained psychosis, sociopathy, and overall hate for any hint of anything that didn’t meet their narrow view of the way things should be in their cold, dark universe. And, in the spirit of Obama-inspired bipartisanship, let’s not forget the Crackpot Party’s Blue Dog Conservadem compadres -- er, comrades.

We already knew that our Supreme Court was corrupt. That was well demonstrated in December 2000. Now, if the yearlong fiasco of so-called health care and insurance reform has taught us one thing, it is that what the more naïve among us might have thought of as “our” House of Representatives and “our” Senate are corrupt beyond our wildest imaginings. We can now even assign dollar amounts to the insincerity, duplicity, betrayal, and treachery of our elected officials. Let’s not forget the Executive Branch either.

I’ve taken it upon myself to create my own awards program, wherein I can recognize those I found to be among the year’s most egregious examples of humanity. I call them the Scorn Awards. It’s a long list, and it will be spread over many days. Some of the worst who walk among us and pollute our air with their very existence get more than one award. Who said life is fair? Think of this as just my small way of delivering some holiday scorn to some deserving creeps, poseurs, and gutless wonders. What better legal way to look at the year in review than to hand out these awards to those who made the year what it was as they continued to engineer the destruction of the middle and working classes?

As I mentioned, you’ll see that some people get more than one award, especially the Grand Prize winner, who will be announced on Day 12. What’s the prize? There is no prize. All the winners get nothing, not even a piece of dusty coal, just as they contribute nothing but heartache, heartbreak, and pain.

So now, without delay (after all, this is not Washington) and quicker than you can sing “Beck’s Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire”: ladies and gents, the Scorns!


1. THE JUDAS ISCARIOT 30 PIECES OF SILVER AWARD

Can this go to anyone other than über-sleaze $en. Max Baucus (D-MT)? His version of the health care bill was nothing but a phone-book-thick job application for a soon-to-come post-Senate gig in the Medical-Industrial Complex. He even sent a copy of his bill to K Street before he sent it to the White House -- for approval from his masters, I guess.


2. THE LESTER MADDOX AWARD (in the shape of a pick handle)

To Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) -- with Honorable Mention to his patron, $en. Jim “Waterloo” Dementia (R-SC) -- for calling the president a liar during his address to a joint session of Congress, on national multichannel TV, no less. No doubt God told to him to do it -- at least the Confederate-flag-displaying, pro-slavery god, that is. This is a state where Thanksgiving featured tax-free gun purchases. They even called it a “Second Amendment Holiday Sale.” I suppose for Christmas, it was “Buy 2, Get 1 Free!” and “Blow Santa Outta The Sky!” It’s all just “heritage,” you know. To stimulate car sales, they probably offer things like “Get a new Escalade with front- and rear-mounted air-cooled .44-caliber machine guns, twin rear bazooka tailpipes optional!”

There’s a growing movement in South Carowacko for secession. Go ahead, make our day! You wanted Fort Sumter. You got it. You might have a little trouble with the slavery thing, though, especially after you fought so hard for everybody to have guns, and lots of ‘em. No biggie, though. In the corporatocracy, slavery is for all!


3. THE THREE-CARD MONTE AWARD

To Max Baucus’s sotto capo, $en. Kent Conartist (D-ND), for his health care coop ideas, offered under the guise of helping the public, which would give control of reform itself to the Medical-Industrial Complex, as if they needed any more control. What this escapee from a viral-lab petri dish really meant was not about structuring cooperative health care plans. No, for Kent Conartist it was about cooping reform in favor of his corporate masters.

If you followed The Sopranos, you can assume that people such as $ens. Kent Conartist, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Joe “It’s All About Me, Me, Me” Lieberwhore, and so many others would be considered “good earners” by the insurance companies.


4. THE BUMP OFF GRANNY AWARD

To $en. Chuck "Grasshole" Grassley (R-IA). No explanation needed.


5. THE SODOM AND GOMORRAH AWARD

To the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. That’s one ancient city for each. It’s all there in both houses: theft, bribery, avarice, nepotism, envy, greed, murder, adultery, pedophilia, diaper-wearing kinkiness, and, yes, plenty o’ sodomy. Judging by the look of things, if we take just a quickie look, we’ll probably find some incest under a rock, or somebody’s desk.

They even legalized Washington bribery when, just like some Third World dictatorship, they created a system wherein they get bribes they euphemistically call “campaign contributions” from an increasingly deregulated K Street and kick some of it back in the form of legislation favorable to their masters. It even provides for a nice, neat "hush money" system. If, somehow, they get booted by the public, K Street will have a nice, cushy job for them as bagmen (and bagwomen).

Vote yourselves another raise, slimeballs! It’s on the taxpayers! You even have government health care! None dare call that socialism! That’s on the taxpayers too! Screw ‘em! Smirk on!


6. THE I HOLD MY CONTEMPT TO BE SELF-EVIDENT AWARD

To Treasury Secretary “Timmy G” Geithner. This guy has no clue. Zero. Nor does he care. For this fratboy assclown, it’s all about hustling our dough out of our U.S. Treasury and giving it to his old pals on Wall Street, all with a nod and a wink instead of conditions. It’s redistribution of our wealth to the wealthy. Bush’s kind of guy. and apparently Obama’s too. Honorable Mention to National Economic Council director Larry Summers: You're no different.

I’ll just be polite and say, "Go to hell," but what I’d like to see is an open-air court on Wall Street where we put these gangsters on trial and walk ‘em over to some newly constructed (by union labor, of course) gallows on flatbed trucks. Then, after we’re done with Wall Street and some Madison Avenue corporate types, drive the flatbeds down to Washington and park them in front of the Capitol building. If we were to invite fellow Americans to join the convoy, you’d see the biggest gathering of Americans of all kinds, millions, gathered on the Mall to demand democracy and justice. I-95 would be backed up to Maine. But I digress . . .


7. THE PUBLIC ENEMY AWARD

To AIG. We’ve all seen those westerns where the evil, sweaty, filth-encrusted villain holds the water canteen just out of reach of the dying old man in the desert and pours out the contents into the sand. Nothing better represents where AIG is coming from. This company is so guilty, they even had to change their name, just like Diebold had to. The first thing they did was take down their sign so angry citizens couldn’t find them or hassle employees as they slithered out of the building every day.

Check this out, from Yasha Levine at AlterNet, who recently discussed what effect the nice folks at AIG have recently had on two small communities in Kentucky:

“Middlesboro and Clinton are two tiny, impoverished towns in southern Kentucky with a combined population of 12,000. In 2008, Middlesboro’s per capita income was $13,189 a year, only a few hundred dollars more than the average worker earned in third-world Mexico. That is if they were lucky to even get a job. Real unemployment hovers somewhere around 30%, and the state is so broke that half the people eligible for unemployment benefits can’t receive them. Life may be tough and most people live in poverty, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be made a little poorer. That’s the lesson locals learned after bailed-out insurance villain AIG took over their water utility and instantly raised rates to squeeze an extra $1 mllion in profits out of its new customers, forcing some to consider choosing between running water and food.”

This is in America in the 21st century, not some Old West town taken over by a gang of outlaws, right? Well, apparently, it’s something quite like that. We’ve heard about people not being able to afford heat and having to choose between their health care and food or between prescriptions and food for their kids. Now it’s running water. You can bet that the insipid, despicable suits at AIG also sit around conference tables on Wall Street laughing as they fantasize about a future of selling us our air too.

Our tax dollars went to bail these vermin out and keep their lawn sprinklers running and their swimming pools filled all summer. If we can send so many troops to Afghanistan, why can’t we send a few Special Forces squads to the offices of AIG? That’s a military action I can get behind! Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the citizens their might want to question what kind of U.S. $enate representation they have gotten from the likes of Jim Bunning and Minority Leader "Miss Mitch" McConnell.


TOMORROW: DAY 2 -- THE MORE THINGS CHANGE,
THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME EDITION

1. The Vast Wasteland Award
2. The One Thin Little Wafer Ever-Expanding "Stay Puft Marshmallow Man" Award for Odds-Defying Longevity
3. The Bait-and-Switch Award

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