Jon Stewart launches the comedic genius of #mcconnelling

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Last night, as part of one of the best Daily Shows in recent memory, Jon Stewart introduced us to #mcconnelling -- that is, setting a new ad for Republican Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader running for re-election this year (against a formidable Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes), to music.

Pretty much to any music. It all works. Stewart went with Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" and The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes," both of which worked really well, but of course it's all gone viral since then, as Stewart wanted it to, and now YouTube in particular is full of #mcconnellings, many of them very amusing.

Of course it helps that McConnell himself is such a laughable creature, and in this ad he is shown acting like a regular guy / authoritative CEO just takin' care o' bizness -- and he's neither; he's really just a partisan obstructionist and giant fool -- but also smiling like a fucking idiot.

Here are two of the best videos I've come across, set to Lionel Richie's "Hello" and The Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)." Sometimes the Internet is just so awesome. Enjoy!



And here, by the way, is the ad itself:

Your slip is showing

By Mustang Bobby 

Jon Stewart's pithy question about right-wingers and their obsession with intimate acts with barnyard creatures reminds me that there are some people who have some really creepy things lurking around in their subconscious.

For example, last month Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said he was not in favor of marriage equality because he didn't plan on marrying a man. Okay, fine; no one is asking him to. The question is really about those people who want to.

Now we have another member of the Georgia congressional delegation telling us that he’s not interested in gender transition surgery. Via The Huffington Post:

"I don't want to pay for a sex-change operation," [Rep. Paul] Broun told town hall attendees, presumably referring to a proposal, scrapped by the Obama administration late last month, that would have allowed gender confirmation surgeries to be covered under Medicare and Medicaid. "I'm not interested. I like being a boy."

Yeah. Anyone over the age of twenty-one who refers to himself as a "boy" has a few more issues than what's in the fine print of Obamacare. (FYI, such surgeries are not covered. That's up to your insurance company.)

By the way, the news that Mr. Chambliss is not gay was received with great joy amongst those of us who are.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Most shameful moment on The Daily Show

By Frank Moraes 

The Daily Show annoyed me again Wednesday night with the most shameful deception I have ever seen on the show. My friend Andrea tells me I'm just angry at Jon Stewart over his treatment of the platinum coin idea. This is not true. I am often bothered by how The Daily Show deals with issues and bends over backwards to seem "balanced" when it is anything but. Last night, the show took on Hurricane Sandy relief. I figured they would do a good job of this, but they blew it completely.

They started by noting Republican obstruction in the House. Then they showed a clip that made Chris Christie look good. That's fine, when it comes to this issue, Christie has been okay (although not nearly as good as his press would indicate). Then they showed Representative Mick Mulvaney complaining about pork in the bill. In particular, there is money to help the fishery industry in Alaska and the Gulf Coast. Stewart followed up with a typical, "Can't we all just get along?"

There are two problems here. First, putting pork in a bill is part of getting along. In fact, a lot of the Congressional dysfunction these last few years comes from the fact that Congress has made it much harder to do this kind of horse trading. Second, Congressmen always have some very good reason for not voting for any particular bill. Oh yes, Mulvaney would love to vote for the bill, if only it weren't for this one thing! Stewart is showing himself to be extremely naive about the way politics works.

Read more »

The meltdown on Bullshit Mountain News

By Comrade Misfit

The folks at Bullshit Mountain News (BMN) had to deal with the fact that they were so terribly wrong in their forecasts of the election.

Jon Stewart had a lot of fun with it. [Clips one, two, and three.] (Ed. note: These clips are available only in the U.S. If you're in Canada, go here to see last night's episode. If you're anywhere else, I'm not sure what to tell you. -- MJWS)

What the folks at BMN are doing is classic "Frank Burns" mode: "It is G-d's will or someone else's fault."

Nate Silver was on The Daily Show last night and refrained, mostly, from gloating about the triumph of arithmetic over gut feelings. 

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Shades of 20 years ago?

By Comrade Misfit

The Daily Show is titling its coverage of the Republican National Convention as "RNC 2012: The Road to Jeb Bush 2016."

Which may have a bit of truth to it.

But then again, there were stories of how a lot of senior Democrats figured that they couldn't win against George H.W. Bush, who had a 91% approval rating after the Gulf War. As the stories go, they decided to sit that one out and let some of the younger kids in the party get some experience at running a national campaign.

We know how that worked out for them.

(Not that I want to see the Romneybot win, not with his unspoken motto of "Of the Plutocrats, For the Plutocrats.") 

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Herman Cain claims Jon Stewart criticized him because he's black. Seriously.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This is hilarious:

Earlier this month, ThinkProgress reported that GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain told an audience in Pella, Iowa that he would not sign a bill longer than three pages. (Cain later said he was "exaggerating.")

Jon Stewart picked up on the story, imitating Cain and joking that if Cain was president he would require everything to be shorter: "Treaties will have to fit on the back of a cereal box... The State of the Union Address will be delivered in the form of a fortune cookie." You can watch the segment here. (Chris Wallace later replayed the segment during Stewart's appearance on Fox News Sunday.)

Speaking Wednesday at the Iowa Falls Fire Department, Herman Cain lashed out at Jon Stewart, claiming that Stewart was only targeting him "because I'm black."

Right, because if you watch the show, and if you know anything at all about Jon Stewart, you'll certainly know that he's a racist bigot who targets blacks.

He doesn't make funny voices for anyone else, nor does he ever joke about non-blacks. Like, you know, he never ever makes fun of Jews like himself.

The crazy thing is, Fox News viewers probably think this is true.

Then again, Fox News viewers are, oh, a tad misinformed.

Tap water shouldn't catch on fire

By Edward Copeland

Just last week, T. Boone Pickens returned to The Daily Show to discuss how natural gas was a safe energy resource that the U.S. had plentiful supplies of that it could use to wean itself off its dependency on foreign oil. However, when Jon Stewart brought up the subject of "fracking," Pickens got tongue-tied. That's probably why he and every major natural gas executive in America refused to be interviewed about the process for Josh Fox's documentary GasLand, which details the destruction that has been unleashed on people, animals, and the environment by the practice.

Fox had never made a documentary before but sort of stumbled into it when he noticed the changes happening in the creek near his family home in rural Pennsylvania following an offer from Halliburton to lease the family's land for natural gas exploration. While they would receive a few hundred thousand dollars from the agreement, as had many rural Americans across the country, they'd also encounter poisoned water sources, dead animals, health problems and more, all which seem to stem from the process used to retrieve the natural gas.

It inspired Fox to go on a cross-country journey to other sites to see the damage done by the hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) process, which the companies insist were safe but which evidence proves otherwise. In a way, it doesn't matter because the 2005 Energy Bill, formed in the wake of the secretive Cheney Energy Task Force, exempts all energy companies from safety regulations that had been in place for decades, some dating back to the Nixon Administration, so the corporations basically can do whatever they want in the least-expensive way without any concerns for the safety of nearby residents, the companies' own workers or the environment itself.

As one man tells Fox, "Amazing. What took millions of years for Mother Nature to build can be destroyed in hours by heavy equipment." If only the equipment were the main problem... What's really causing all the destruction is the seepage of a virtual stew of hazardous chemicals that are used in the fracking process to retrieve the natural gas. It's pretty amazing to watch scene after scene in state after state of people putting a lit match next to a flowing faucet or a stream and see the flames burst forth.

There are other stories that you hear repeatedly as residents complain about contamination only to be told that the water is safe by government or company officials, who then refuse to drink a glass of the tap water when the residents offer one. It's even more disgusting when Fox meets with representatives of state departments of environmental protection and they speak the corporate party line, denying that contamination is as widespread as it is, or at congressional hearings where executives testify that there isn't any evidence of risks and the happy House members, including a particularly dumb-looking and -sounding Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), side with the businesses.

Meanwhile, Fox learns of those who have contracted cancer and died, the risks of brain damage from repeated exposure, pets losing hair and a Colorado woman who keeps the corpses of mass and sudden animal deaths preserved in her freezer for any potential investigations. Even more frightening is learning how Hurricanes Katrina and Rita scattered the junk from hundreds of thousands of sites all over the place.

GasLand is a pretty good effort for a first-time filmmaker such as Fox and another example of a documentarian doing the investigative work that the Fourth Estate has abandoned. You do learn a lot, though he tends to repeat himself and I don't think it belongs in Oscar's final five documentary features compared to some of the other finalists and nonfinalists from 2010 that I've seen. Still, it's very good and yet another case of showing the indifference both corporate America and our elected leaders have toward the average citizen's wellbeing.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Can we all just agree that McCain won't ever support DADT's repeal?

By LindaBeth

The DADT report is out, and as suspected, it shows a military that is rather unfazed by the idea of gays and lesbians in the army being allowed to be openly gay or lesbian. This report was the BIG CONDITION that John McCain had on repealing DADT. That is, of course, after his prior condition that military leaders support the repeal actually came to pass. Now that the military leaders and service members have demonstrated their support for the repeal, McCain should support it, right?

Of course not! Now he has new objections to why the demonstrated support isn't enough to win his. He wants to have a study on the DADT study! It should be abundantly clear by now that the repeal of DADT will never win McCain's support, no matter how many high ranking members and reports tell him we should--because members support it and because it's just the goddam right thing to do. McCain is reneging on his earlier pledges to act because he doesn't want it repealed and will keep coming up with excuses as to why he shouldn't support DADT's repeal. Even if it means disagreeing...with himself.

Last night's Daily Show hits the nail on the head:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gaypocalypse Now
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

Watch here in Canada.

This is just one issue among McCain's several flawed lines of thinking regarding this policy: 

• As long as gays and lesbians don't say anything, they are fine: not true, there are many ways that officers get around this, including invading privacy, to find out if someone is gay, aside from their telling.
• Not being able to "tell" is a fine way to live: I'd like to see heterosexual people live the way gays and lesbians have to in the military, without photos of their partners, without being able to fly back home in the case of serious illness or death of a partner, without being able to say "I love you" on phone calls, of having to hide all those little things that part of our everyday lives that "reveal" our sexuality.
• It's not hurting the military: anytime well-qualified women and men that we've invested time and money into is discharged under DADT, we lose.
• The right question isn't how would repeal affect the military, but should it be repealed: no, this is a matter of justice. If service members don't really care about gays and lesbians being open, then it won't disrupt unit cohesion. If it won't disrupt unit cohesion, there is no logical argument for why it shouldn't be repealed, even for conservatives.
• We should make civil rights decisions based on what won't disrupt the dominant group's lives or how people "feel" about it, rather than on what's right: if we had asked the south if schools and lunch counters should integrate, what would the response have been? In fact, the military was much less supportive of racial integration than they are of DADT. But the military integrated because it was right, not because it was popular. One important way that prejudice can be overcome is by contact in conditions of equality (i.e. peer-peer). Our nation's institutions should lead the way, not lag behind.

And who crowned McCain king of all things military? McCain is part of the old guard, the old ways of thinking--he's part of the generation who did not encounter gays and lesbians in every day life and his prejudice is steadfast. It's time to let the new blood make these decisions.

(Cross posted to Speak Truth to Power)

With some whores, at least you get sex

By Capt. Fogg

From others you get beat up and robbed blind by the pimp and you thank them for it all the way to the emergency room.

You remember Betsy McCaughey, the blond gun-for-hire who went on The Daily Show with a huge bound volume purporting to be HR3200, the proposed health-care reform bill. She's the one who thought she was smart enough to shut Jon Stewart up by referring to a mysterious clause on page 418 and was stupid enough not to realize that Stewart had read it and had a copy right there.

She all but slunk out of the studio to a chorus of jeers and allegations that she had received a good deal of money from Cantel Medical Corporation for lying about older people needing to face a "death panel" soon surfaced. She resigned her board of directors position within hours of her humiliation on The Daily Show. ABC News credited McCaughey with launching this lie about death panels on the Fred Thompson radio last July, but Stewart is not Thompson. He can and bothers to read, and has more than enough wit to skewer a media whore like McCaughey.

I still hear a lot of echoes from the brainless who pick their opinions up from the pavement with a shovel like the guys who used to follow horses, of her earlier article "Deadly Doctors" in the New York Post. It lies about Ezekiel Emmanuel, Rahm Emmanuels's brother the doctor, claiming he wants physicians to forget the Hippocratic oath and focus on "social justice" rather than healing patients. That's code for Communism, of course, and of course it's another lie and another dollar for Betsy.

She has a long history of lying about health care. Back in 1994, she wrote an article for The New Republic that did a lot to kill the Clinton health-care reform effort and which was later retracted by the magazine as being full of lies. The Atlantic magazine ran a story further debunking her statements. Crooks and Liars yesterday reported that Rolling Stone will soon report her torpedoing of the Clinton plan was bought and paid for by Philip Morris, the tobacco corporation, along with Republican think tanks and the right-wing medial.

Of course, the people who need to hear this don't hear anything but Beck and the Fat Man, and, like most victories over ignorance and falsehood, it's Pyrrhic, but it still makes good reading while you wait for the charity doctors to fly in to treat your pancreatic cancer.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

The truth is too funny to be told

By Capt. Fogg

So, Mr. Corleone, what kind of hat were you wearing the night Mr. Brazzi was shot?

Objection your honor! Answering that question would subject my client to ridicule.

Somehow that was something I would never expect to hear in a courtroom -- until today. To be sure I've never attended law school, and some idiotic defense may have escaped my notice, but our president has been to law school and yet he seems to be comfortable supporting a comical defense raised by the comical Bush administration.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan was apparently as surprised as I was to hear the Obama administration's lawyers insist that former Dick Cheney's statements to a special prosecutor about Valerie Plame need to be kept secret -- are you ready for this? -- because it might make people laugh on The Daily Show.

I don't want a future vice president to say, I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for "The Daily Show,"

said Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith. His position being that he doesn't want to become a fact-finder for political enemies.

Of course, it's interesting to speculate that the more enemies a politician has made, the more immune he would be to prosecution should this defense become precedent and the less honesty he would owe to his constituents, but I'm so baffled and confused by this position and the Justice Department that is now supporting it that I'll let you speculate upon the future of justice in America. Just don't laugh too hard, you might embarrass a protected personage.

It's not only CNBC that needs a talking to

By Creature

Here's the thing, after watching Jon Stewart face off with Jim Cramer, it's clear that everything Stewart criticized Cramer and CNBC for could easily carry over to the media at large. Our chattering class treats all issues, especially politics, as entertainment. They seem to forget that real people are affected by their chatter. We would all benefit if they dropped the snazzy, picked up the phone, hit the pavement, and actually investigated, instead of digesting the half-truths and lies feed to them on a daily basis.

More Stewart vs. Cramer commentary here.

Stewart KOs Cramer (and CNBC): The Video(s)

By Creature

As promised.

Stewart KOs Cramer (and CNBC)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We'll have the video for you ASAP.

My immediate reaction is: Wow. Incredible. This was Jon Stewart at his absolute best. Anyone who thinks he's just a funny man, a comedian, the host of a faux news show, watch this, and learn from it. There was more truth here than there's ever been at CNBC, and certainly more than there is anywhere else in the media, anywhere in "serious" news.

Cramer admitted he isn't Murrow. No kidding. Stewart exposed Cramer for what he is, CNBC for what it is -- and pretty much the entire market for what it is.

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.

The media were playing this up as a war of two prominent television personalities. To the extent that it was, and the media were making far too much of it, it wasn't even close.

(Photo: The Globe and Mail, with an article on the Stewart-Cramer "feud.")

Jon Stewart vs. Jimmy Creamer

By Creature

The fight rages on.

Jon Stewart nails CNBC

By Creature

I'm thinking, this morning, the big wigs over at CNBC are regretting their decision to pull ranting Rick Santelli from The Daily Show last night. Now, if only they regretted destroying the economy, then I'd say progress was being made.

Twit-ters

By Carl

Twitter is for twits.

I'm not basing this on Jon Stewart's breathtaking analysis of the phenomenon. I'm judging this solely on the seat-of-the-pants reaction I have to a) the concept and b) the fact that the Republicans are treating it as the end-all and be-all of the next wave of politics.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

The idiotic concept:

Jack Dorsey had grown interested in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were doing. Specifically, Jack wondered if there might be an opportunity to build something compelling around this simple status concept. When he brought the idea up to his colleagues, it was decided that a prototype should be built.

Now, how many people could possibly be so vain that they think the rest of the entire fucking planet gives a rat's ass about what they are doing on a blow-by-blow basis?

People are dying in wars in Africa and Asia. People here at home are hanging onto their homes by their fingernails. We have a budget crisis unlike anything that's ever come before, coupled with an economic disaster the size of the universe and you mean to tell me the most interesting thing you can think of is some friend missed brushing his teeth this morning????

My god, and then you wonder how the hell the Republican party remains relevant to the national dialogue?

The folks at Twitter will tell you this is just another means of "staying connected".

Right. Maybe that's a really bad idea? Maybe the ability of someone to instantly beam that they've just masturbated to your phone or e-mail is invasive, nasty, and just too much information? Maybe the idea that I need to know what my Congresscritter's thoughts on bass fishing is a bad one?

I'm sure, if used properly, Twitter makes sense. Maybe if you are keeping track of some sales agents in the field or something. But here's the thing: we're humans. We don't USE things properly. We alter them, distort them, and customize them to how we see fit.

And so you have enormous amounts of bandwidth wasted on messages that tell the rest of the planet "Hey! I'm eating pasta for dinner!"

My god, how lonely do you have to be to send that? Worse, how lonely do you have to be to read that?

The Republicans have jumped on the Twitter like flies to shit, and here's why: you can soundbite your way to renown. You don't have to explain, you don't have to detail, you can send messages to your followers, errr, such as they are, without saying a whole lot.

In effect, Twittering is the American Idol of communication. Soft, plump, fluffy, and intrusive and ultimately without any merit or value and likely destructive in the long term. Like a marshmallow Rambo.

If there was no other reason available not to Twitter, the fact that the "Know Nothings" have jumped in with both feet should be enough to give you pause.

Now, I know I've just pissed off a bunch of people who I like and even respect, because I see Twits all over the place. They can consider this an intervention, if they like, a shaking at the shoulders and a slap across the face saying, "Good god, where is your humanity???"

Or if they want to continue in denial, then they can consider this the cranky rant of a crackpot. Either way, it makes no difference. I've got it off my chest, and I could do it in more than 140 characters.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Foxed up

By Capt. Fogg

President Obama has made so many egregious mistakes that we're all in terrible danger. He's sending the "worst of the worst" from Guantanamo to your children's playgrounds. His appointments can't be trusted and most "shocking" of all, even though Mike Wallace all but forced Chief Justice Roberts to swear him in the second time, Obama isn't really the president because he didn't have his hand on "The Bible." No, I haven't gone completely insane, I'm quoting Fox News. If you watched The Daily Show Thursday night, you saw the following clip:



You see, I'm not making this stuff up. The same people who told you we have to, in the name of freedom and our safety obey the Führer president, and the same people who supported each and every act that brought on our dire predicaments; who insisted that economic collapse was a liberal lie, that we were about to "win" in Iraq every day since we arrived, are telling you this one really can't be obeyed. Of course those with longer memories remember when Bill Clinton wasn't, for some Foxed up reason I no longer remember, really the president either and shouldn't be listened to.

So whether or not Fox lives up to its promise of revealing some hideous hidden "truth" behind every aspect of the Obama presidency once a day for the first hundred days, I won't be watching them. Unfortunately others will and for them the fiction will seem real and the fear will grow. I find it hard to feel any kind of optimism and those who think that we've "won" and that things are in good hands now may soon find that the process of losing started on November 20th.

The people who watch Fox usually don't watch anything else. They have no idea that the lies and distortions they've been hearing are often repudiated and disproved by all the other news services. They haven't a clue that one of the largest anti-American campaigns, indeed the most organized program of treason against truth, justice and democracy is broadcasting 24 hours a day. Fox is using and will use everything they can find to undermine confidence in our government and anything it does and as you can see is hoping our country will fall and our hopes will fail. To me, it constitutes as great a danger to our future as any foreign enemy or global economic collapse. Traitors, saboteurs, liars and purveyors of irrational hate, Fox News is the enemy and anyone who hopes not just for our survival, but our improvement owes it to the world to use every opportunity to expose them.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Jon Stewart is full of win

By LindaBeth

Jon Stewart makes a great comeback to Huckabee, Heterosexual Questionnaire-style: "At what age did you choose to not be gay."

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

In Canada, here or here (not sure which).

Also, check out this post on what marriage would look like if we followed Biblical scripture.

(Cross-posted to Speak Truth to Power.)

Because sometimes "fake news" coverage is better than the actual news coverage

By LindaBeth

Everything I want to say about the hypocrisy around the rhetoric about Palin, and especially the Republicans' vomit-inducing use of gender rhetoric can be summed up by this brilliant analysis by "fake news" reporter Jon Stewart on the September 3, 2008 Daily Show:



In Canada, watch it on clip 2 here.

And in more The Daily Show-induced commentary....typically, I take the position that families and spouses/ partners are "off-limits" with regards to politics. But Stewart, in his interview with Newt Gingrich, makes an excellent point, which I think can help us forge a distinction between personal attacks on Palin's daughter (i.e., "what an irresponsible slut!") and dissonances between individual actions and beliefs and political positions. After all, "The personal is political."



(Here in Canada.)

Isn't it sad when politicians and pundits seem to get called on their bullshit more often by "fake news" shows than the "real" ones?

(Cross-posted to Smart Like Me.)

Lara's song

By Capt. Fogg

"Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever. "

-- Lara Logan

I was never really conscious of Lara Logan's existence until The Daily Show had her as a guest recently. She made a well presented and credible claim that the news from Iraq was being toned down, under reported, redacted and sometimes ignored, and as someone who has been in the thick of it for years as the chief foreign correspondent for CBS, and who frequently has been in the midst of combat, she has a great deal of credibility. That network has been cutting back its staff in Baghdad and some critics say that the public perception of improvement in Iraq has a lot to do with the lack of coverage. Indeed, despite the constant emphasis on danger and terror, it's possible to sit through a very long period of broadcast news without a single story from Iraq.

If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts,

she said to Jon Stewart.

It might be that she pushed the wrong buttons. Headlines and weblogs have begun to bleat about scandals in her private life, led by such liberal media as The National Enquirer and Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. Will Bunch at Philly.com has a provocative article today and a link to the Daily Show interview.

Backlashes against less than enthusiastic reportage of Bush's war began immediately after the initial enthusiasm. Networks refused to allow a reading of the names of casualties lest it be taken as criticism of George Bush or his invasion. I don't think it's far fetched at all to see this attempt to ruin a brilliant career as a continuation.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)