Matching Prominent Republicans with Appropriate Film Titles

The story is Dan Quayle saw the 1972 Robert Redford film ‘The Candidate’ and thought it was a primer on entering politics instead of a warning about selling out one’s principles. Ronald Reagan is said to have had a regular weekly ‘movie premiere night’ while in the White House. Then we had GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy using a clip from the 2010 Ben Affleck crime saga ‘The Town’  to make a point to Teabaggers in Congress. For a party that has so much enmity towards Hollywood, seems the GOP loves itself some flicks, which got me to wondering what movie titles would accurately reflect certain prominent Republicans. For better or worse, here’s what I came up with, in no particular order:

— Rick Perry: ‘They Live!’

— John Boehner: ‘The Lost Weekend’

— Mitch McConnell: ‘Hell Comes to Frogtown’ (or, ‘White Hunter, Black Heart’)

— Mitt Romney: ‘Liar, Liar’

— Michele Bachmann: ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’

— Tim Pawlenty: ‘The Incredible Mr. Limpet’

— Sarah Palin: ‘Mars Needs Women’

— Allen West: ‘Watermelon Man’

— Paul Ryan: ‘Throw Momma from the Train’

— Herman Cain: ‘Blackula’

— George W. Bush: ‘Moon Over Parador’ (or, ‘Wag the Dog’)

— Dick Cheney: ‘Above the Law’

— Scott Walker: ‘Gone with the Wind’ (or, ‘The Great Dictator’)

— John Kasich: ‘Joe Dirt’

— Rick Snyder: ‘Shadow on the Land’

— Rick Scott: ‘The Hucksters’

— Rupert Murdoch: ‘Citizen Kane’

— Rush Limbaugh: ‘It Came from Outer Space’

— Glenn Beck: ‘Dumb and Dumber’

— Bill O’Reilly: ‘The Mouse That Roared’

— Sean Hannity: ‘Frances the Talking Mule’

— Ann Coulter: ‘Heathers’

— Michael Savage: ‘Home Alone’

— Frank Luntz: ‘The Phantom of the Opera’

— David H. Koch: ‘The Magic Christian’

— Karl Rove: ‘Revenge of the Nerds’

— Ron Paul: ‘Dr. Strangelove’

— Rick Santorum: ‘Look Who’s Talking Now’

— Newt Gingrich: ‘No Country for Old Men’ (or, ‘Goldfinger‘)

— Donald Trump: ‘Mr. Bug Goes to Town’ (or, ‘Hairspray’)

© 2011 RS Janes. www.bigfishink.com

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Lightnin’ Hopkins in the Early ’60s

Texas bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins (b. Sam John Hopkins in 1912) doesn’t get a lot of notoriety these days, but listen to the guitar licks and the rhythm on this video and you can hear the same patterns used by modern rock and blues guitarists. Hopkins was one of those transitional artists like B.B. King and Muddy Waters who moved the blues from country acoustic to urban electric and, like many solo bluesmen of his day, sometimes had an ‘imaginative’ approach to chord progressions and timing. That said, when Lightnin’ was at his best, there was no one better at that finger-picking roadhouse blues style. By the time he died in 1982, Lightnin’ had amassed a cult following in Europe and a whole southbound freight train of fans among blues-rock musicians, aficiandos, and other ‘outsider’ oddballs. In his obituary, the NY Times claimed he was the single greatest influence on rock guitar players of all the Robert Johnson-era bluesmen; that may be an overstatement, but not by much. In the ‘I never would have guessed that’ department, Hopkins made more albums than any other bluesman. I don’t have any citation for the video below, but it’s likely a TV show from the early ’60s and damned if that doesn’t look like a young and slightly embarrassed Joan Baez sharing the stage with Lightnin’s ‘debbil music.’

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“Rag, Mama, Rag” by Blind Boy Fuller

Blind Boy Fuller (b. Fulton Allen) was a contemporary of Robert Johnson and popular in his day, but he never received the adulation and respect Johnson has. Here he is playing “Rag, Mama, Rag” recorded in 1935.

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Class Warfare Comics

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Cartoon: Who Are The Real Job Creators?

Copyright 2011 Matt Wuerker.

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“Monday Morning Blues” by Mississippi John Hurt

Who is Mississippi John Hurt, you ask? Man, you got to be ‘learned up’ on the King of Three-Finger Delta Blues Pickin’ who influenced a whole passel of later guitar players, such as Dave Van Ronk, John Fahey, Leo Kottke and Keb’ Mo’, including some others you might have actually heard of. Read more about MS John here as you listen to “Monday Morning Blues” below.

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Latest Hairstyles for Republican Women (and Men)

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If You Have to Have a Religion…

The chart below is probably as good a way of getting one as any other:

Copyright HolyTaco.com. H/t to Bartcop.com.

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The Last Words of Lee Hays

Shortly before he died in 1981, Lee Hays, the poet and writer, and bass voice of The Weavers folk group, composed his own last testament. Here it is:

In Dead Earnest

By Lee Hays

If I should die before I wake,
All my bone and sinew take:
Put them in the compost pile
To decompose a little while.
Sun, rain, and worms will have their way,
Reducing me to common clay.
All that I am will feed the trees
And little fishes in the seas.
When corn and radishes you munch,
You may be having me for lunch.
Then excrete me with a grin,
Chortling, “There goes Lee again!”
Twill be my happiest destiny
To die and live eternally.

Copyright 1981 Lee Hays.

This is likely the only funny story about Lee Hays and his House UnAmerican Activities Committee blacklisting in the early ’50s:  seems there was another ‘Lee Hayes’ in show business at the time and he was blacklisted as well, even though his last name had an ‘e’ in it. (Can’t be too careful when you’re protecting the nation from left-wing folk singers.)  Lee later said this about the blacklist, “If it wasn’t for the honor, I’d just as soon not have been blacklisted.”

And here’s one of The Weavers’ signature tunes, the old Leadbelly staple, “Goodnight, Irene” and that’s Lee Hays doing the intro; he died shortly after this Carnegie Hall concert appearance:

And here’s Leadbelly on the case:

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Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann Try to Bring a GOP Voter to Reality with the Facts

Yeah, it’s funny because it’s so true. As a poor fool who has tried to penetrate the steel shell of misinformation, illogic and sheer stupidity that surrounds the average Teabagger, I’m acutely aware of the frustration illustrated by the comedy bit below. These GOP zealots are Chauvinists in the original sense of the term, going back to Nicolas Chauvin, a French soldier who supported Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte I long after his countrymen realized that Bonaparte was nothing more than a brutal dictator, another King Louis XVI, albeit much more intelligent. Today’s Republican Tea Party Chauvinists refuse to see what the GOP and its wealthy backers are doing to the country and their way of life. To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, they ‘would rather die than think’ and they are going to do so.  We’re just lucky they are a small minority made large by the Big Media penchant for hostile controversy, playing horse-race political games, covering the loudest and most obnoxious morons they can find, and, of course, helping their corporate owners use these nitwits to vote against their own best interests and for the deleterious-to-America pro-corporate agenda.

Copyright 2011 HBO and Bill Maher. H/t to Mediaite for the video.

Posted in 2012 Election, Bizarre But Real, Christopublicans, Conservatives, Humor, Idiots, Media, Politics, Religion, Republicans, Teabaggers, Video, Wingnuts | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment