Political Irony

Using Irony Ironically

Monday, July 7, 2014

“BioShock Infinite” is a computer game set in the floating city of Columbia, which is run by a religious zealot and largely populated by xenophobic racists who wage war against the heathens of the world (i.e., those people who don’t live in Columbia). In this city the idea of “America” has become a kind of fetishistic religion and the founding fathers are worshiped as gods. Here’s an image from the promotional materials for the game:

I know, I know, you have to concentrate and remember that this is just a game. But “For God and Country, It is our Holy Duty to Guard Against the Foreign Hordes” is just too ironic since one of the figures in the image is a Native American Indian. Clearly the game is making fun of racism, but do the racists realize that?

Now here’s where we double down on the irony. The National Liberty Federation, a conservative “tea party” group from Florida. They post a lot of right-wing meme images and racist links to their Facebook page (which has 95K likes), and recently posted the above image. Seriously. A tea party group Facebooked an image meant to satirize the tea party.

And they aren’t the only ones identifying with a fictional racist video game. Over at Fox News, they illustrated a segment against immigration reform with the following logo:

In case that doesn’t look familiar to you, here’s the logo from the very same BioShock Infinite:

Apparently, Fox News not only blatantly copied their logo, they did it without realizing what it represents. Well, what do you expect from the same network that showed a waving American flag along with live images of the US bombing Iraq in 2003?

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Late Night Political Humor

Sunday, July 6, 2014

“I guess now Dick Cheney knows what it feels like when someone you thought was a friend shoots you in the face.” — Jon Stewart (after Fox News’ Megyn Kelly called out Cheney for being wrong on Iraq)

“President Obama said he wants his daughters to work minimum wage jobs because it builds character. The president then announced he will be raising the minimum wage to $50 an hour.” – Conan O’Brien

“After a tie with Portugal in the World Cup, the U.S. soccer team now faces Germany on Thursday. And if the U.S. team beats Germany, they advance. If they lose, Americans go back to hating soccer again.” – Conan O’Brien

“It was not a great weekend for the American soccer fan. We’re still recovering from a draw with Portugal, 2-2. It was a long game, four points total, and America didn’t win. If that doesn’t get people to start watching soccer, nothing will.” – Craig Ferguson

“Did you watch the match between United States and Portugal? I don’t know if I’m supposed to be happy or not. It ended in a tie. For a short time Americans cared about soccer.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“A tie in the World Cup puts the U.S. in a tough spot because the next game isn’t until Thursday, so people in L.A. have to pretend to care about soccer for another 72 hours.” – Craig Ferguson

“As weird as it sounds, that tie might be the biggest win in U.S. soccer history. The U.S. will advance to the next round with a win or a tie against Germany, or if Ghana and Portugal tie on Thursday, or if the goal differential, which is the total of points, falls in our favor, or if any one of the other teams gets malaria.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“That’s the nice thing about the World Cup. We can be invested if we win. If we lose it’s like: Oh, it’s soccer, I don’t care.” – Conan O’Brien

“The World Cup is very confusing. It could take up to a month after the final game to figure out who won.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“People are disappointed by the World Cup match. I haven’t seen this much disappointment since they announced Ben Affleck was playing Batman. Since Justin Bieber avoided jail. Since Honey Boo Boo’s family went to a vegan restaurant. Since Whole Foods in L.A. ran out of kale.” – Craig Ferguson

“Over the weekend Pope Francis implied that the Mafia should be excommunicated. In a related story, the Pope is missing. And nobody saw nothin’.” – Conan O’Brien

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Laboring under a Lie

Saturday, July 5, 2014

A few weeks ago the Supreme court unanimously ruled that Obama had exceeded his constitutional authority by making “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board. Recess appointments are specifically authorized by the constitution, and Obama used them because Republicans have been failing to approve many of his appointments to critical government jobs. But the Supremes ruled that a break has to be at least ten days long in order to allow for a recess appointment.

Republicans immediately tried to use this case to prove that Obama is acting like an imperial ruler. Indeed, about the same time House Speaker John Boehner announced that they are going to sue Obama for executive overreach. And other Republicans and conservatives immediately jumped on the bandwagon.

For example, on June 26, a press release from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated that the Supreme Court had stuck down Obama’s executive overreach for the 12th time.

Conservative National Review Online picked up that story and upped the ante with the headline “Supreme Court Rules Unanimously Against Obama for 12th and 13th Time Since 2012“.

And on June 29 Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the chairman of the House judiciary committee (who should know better) went on Fox News to claim that the Supreme Court had ruled 13 times that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority.

PolitiFact asked for a list of the 13 cases, and reviewed them. The problem is that in eight of the 13 cases, the overreach in question happened during the Bush administration. That means that only five of the 13 cases in question could possibly be construed as Obama exceeding his executive authority.

According to Supreme Court and legal experts consulted by PolitiFact, many of the remaining cases didn’t even involve executive overreach. For example, the 13th case – added by NRO and Goodlatte – was about a state law, and had nothing to do with the federal government (let alone Obama). In fact, of all the cases, pretty much the only one that involved Obama exceeding his executive authority was the one about the NLRB.

PolitiFact concludes “A thorough review of the 13 cases found many instances where presidential authority was not at issue. Further, most of the cases originated under and were first litigated by the Bush administration.” They rated the Republican statements “False”.

But what I want to know is where were these people when Dubya exceeded his executive authority eight times? Why didn’t anyone object then?

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Reversing Dubya

Friday, July 4, 2014

One of my favorite political blogs, Eclectablog, points out an interesting statistic:

When Bill Clinton left office and George W Bush was sworn in, the number of people without health insurance in the US stood at 38.4 million (a number which would have been zero if the Clintons had succeeded in passing single-payer health insurance). By the time Bush left office that number was 46.3 million, an increase of 20.6%, or nearly 8 million people. Most of this was due to Dubya’s Great Recession causing people to lose their jobs, and thus their health insurance.

But using numbers from a new Gallup Survey, between 10 to 11 million Americans gained health insurance in just the first half of 2014. And this includes only people who now receive health insurance for the first time.

That’s right. It took only 6 months for Obamacare to (more than) reverse the health insurance disaster from Dubya’s eight years in office.

So of course the GOP wants to take this away from us.

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Late Night Political Humor

Thursday, July 3, 2014

“You know where it’s bad now? Iraq. It was bad and now it’s getting worse. Today President Obama said he might have to send in Dennis Rodman.” – David Letterman

“Iraq is so bad that President Obama phoned Hillary Clinton and asked her if she could start early.” – David Letterman

“The Smithsonian unveiled a 3-D printed sculpture of President Obama that is detailed enough to see his pores and wrinkles. The sculpture is so realistic that Joe Biden won’t leave it alone.” – Seth Meyers

“A Canadian woman was arrested for having an open container of liquor while driving Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s SUV. Although when Rob Ford’s in the car, anyone not smoking crack is legally considered a designated driver.” – Seth Meyers

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Religious Free Speech

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

From Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s (blistering) dissent to the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing certain employers to violate the law by not providing contraception as part of their health insurance:

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be ‘perceived as favoring one religion over another,’ the very ‘risk the [Constitution’s] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.

The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.

Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]… Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.

The Moonmont Chronicle imagines how this might end:

Supreme Court Rules JCPenney Allowed to Sacrifice Employees to Appease Cthulhu

Citing the newly-established precedent of corporate-religious exemption, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of JCPenney, upholding the company’s right to sacrifice pure-hearted employees in order to assuage the Dread Lord Cthulhu, Bringer of Madness.

“Our discomfort with the beliefs and practices of their faith must not supersede their religious freedoms,” Justice Scalia wrote in the majority ruling. “By upholding corporate rights, we protect the rights of the individuals who compose the corporation, at the mere cost of a bi-weekly ritual sacrifice of the still-beating heart of a nubile intern or receptionist.”

Cthulhu
© Moonmont Chronicle

Not to mention that if owners of Hobby Lobby were Muslim rather than Christian, the same people who support this ruling would be frothing at the mouth against it. We should not be surprised when the Supreme Court uses this “narrow” ruling to further expand corporate and religious rights at the expense of individual rights.

UPDATE: Well, it took exactly one day for the Supreme Court to expand their “narrow” decision. They just expanded it to cover all contraception, even including education or counseling about contraceptives.

But the most worrisome case involves Eden Foods, whose owner claims in his lawsuit that “participating in, paying for, training others to engage in, or otherwise supporting contraception, abortion, and abortifacients” offends his “deeply held religious beliefs.” Except that an interview he gave last year shows that his belief is actually political, and has nothing to do with religion. He said:

I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court decision does not allow the courts to determine the “sincerity” of someone’s religious belief.

I just hope that the Quakers now sue to give them the constitutionally guaranteed right to not pay the 45% of their federal taxes that go to the military, based on their sincerely held pacifist beliefs.

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Late Night Political Humor

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

“Last night Hillary Clinton said she won’t support legalizing recreational marijuana until we see how it goes in Colorado. Officials in Colorado couldn’t respond because they were too busy swimming in a pool of money.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Crack-smoking mayor of Toronto Rob Ford is returning to Canada. He’s been in the United States in rehab. He’s going back to Canada. He traded himself for five Taliban prisoners.” – David Letterman

“Rob Ford is running for re-election. He’s got a very catchy campaign slogan. You’ll see it on bumper stickers all over Canada: ‘The crack stops here’.” – David Letterman

“President Obama’s approval rating in the U.S. is at its lowest point ever, 41 percent. After hearing this, the president said, ‘When did I become less popular in this country than soccer? How did that happen?'” – Conan O’Brien

“President Obama is sending troops back to Iraq. He said, ‘Don’t worry, we should not be there any longer than a Kardashian marriage.'” – David Letterman

“Over the weekend Afghanistan held its presidential election run-off. The way it works is everyone runs off, and whoever’s slowest has to be president of Afghanistan.” – Seth Meyers

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Six Months High

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

While it is probably way too early to make a definitive assessment, it has been six months since marijuana became legal in Colorado, and so far all the signs are looking good:

Overall crime has dropped 10% from this time a year ago, and violent crime has dropped 5.2%.
In the first four months, the state received over $10 million in tax revenue from retail sales.
In addition, the state estimates it will save $12-40 million over the first year just by ending arrests for possession.
Unemployment has dropped because of new jobs created.
Polls show that a majority of the state residents think making marijuana legal was a good thing.

Libertarians should be rejoicing. Marijuana became legal and the sky didn’t fall. I expect that other states will follow suit, albeit slowly.

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In a Just World

Monday, June 30, 2014

I know that in the world of 24 hour news, this is becoming old. But I couldn’t resist throwing this in. After all, it is not just Cheney who is still claiming that going into Iraq was a good idea and that the current violence is all Obama’s fault:

But the real reason I’m posting this is to get you to go read this interesting article that presents evidence that the current violence in Iraq is actually by design! In fact, splintering various Arab countries and getting Islamic factions to fight against each other was the plan, which was promoted by hawkish neo-cons including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, and even Dick Cheney, and by hawks in Israel as a way to keep their enemies weak.

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Unhealthy Skepticism

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Paul Krugman points out that Republicans made at least six dire predictions of how Obama’s health care reform was going to fail miserably:

They claimed that not enough people would enroll, which would cause an “epic fail“. In fact, they went as far as to tell people to not enroll in health insurance, which shows that they care more about fighting Obama than the health of US citizens.
Next they claimed that even if people enrolled, they wouldn’t pay their premiums. They even held a Congressional hearing on it, which was a disaster for them when their carefully rigged insurance company witnesses openly disagreed with their criticisms, causing many of the Republicans to slink away from the hearing before it was over.
They even claimed that the number of people who lost coverage because their current insurance was cancelled would be greater than new enrollments. Remember all those stories they ran about people whose insurance was cancelled, every one of which was debunked?
They predicted that the cost of insurance would go up even faster than before Obamacare, causing widespread rate shock. They predicted rates in California would go up by 65-146%.
They claimed that young, healthy people would not sign up (leaving too many old and sick people), causing a death spiral from insurance companies having to pay out too many claims. They even published articles telling people What to Do When ObamaCare Unravels because of this.
They predicted that the cost of health care would rise dramatically. Indeed, they claimed that the GDP would have gone negative and only increased because of “soaring expenditure on health care” caused by “the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion”.

Well, the Republicans are zero for six on this one. Every one of their dire predictions failed. Indeed, the cost of health care is lower than even proponents of Obamacare predicted; the first quarter of this year it even went down for the first time in decades. The demographics are good.

But of course, none of the people who blithely predicted the collapse of Obamacare will even consider admitting that they were wrong.

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Leaf Our Kids Alone!

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Samantha Bee’s stories just keep getting better and better. This one has extra added irony.

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Supreme Court Buffered

Friday, June 27, 2014

Yesterday, the Supreme Court struck down a law that prevents protestors from coming within 35 feet of abortion clinics in Massachusetts. The decision against the buffer zone was unanimous, ruling the law a violation of the First Amendment.

Ironically, the Supreme Court itself still has a buffer zone — federal law prohibits protestors from congregating on the plaza around the Supreme Court building. In fact, a challenge to the Supreme Court buffer zone is making its way through the courts. Meanwhile, a year ago the court issued a rule that requires pedestrians to “maintain suitable order and decorum within the Supreme Court building and grounds”.

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Late Night Political Humor

Friday, June 27, 2014

“This morning the Pentagon announced that the United States has captured a leader responsible for the Benghazi attacks. Republicans were ecstatic and said, ‘So, they finally got Hillary?'” – Conan O’Brien

“President Obama is sending a couple hundred troops to Iraq. We spent six years trying to figure a way to get out of Iraq. And now we’re back. But this time there is an exit strategy. Barack Obama has an exit strategy. In 2016, he’s gone.” – David Letterman

“Now, the way I hear it the Iraqi army had some trouble with the insurgents and they just dropped their guns, took off their uniforms, and went home — just like the Miami Heat.” – David Letterman

“Yesterday, the Iranian president tweeted a picture of himself all alone watching a World Cup game on television. Yeah, then he watched his favorite show — ‘It’s Always Sunni in Philadelphia.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Soccer is one of those things that the rest of the world cares more about than we do – you know, like healthcare, education, gun control.” – David Letterman

“Protesters at the World Cup got into trouble for burning American flags. It’s a shame because children in China worked very hard to make those flags.” – Conan O’Brien

“If you love soccer, you have to wait four years for a World Cup. It’s like making an appointment with a VA doctor.” – David Letterman

“Today at the World Cup, Mexico and Brazil ended in a 0-0 tie. Fun fact: Both teams were ordered by their coaches to abstain from sex. In other words, these guys can’t score on or off the field.” – Conan O’Brien

“In a new interview, Hillary Clinton said the Bible is the most influential book she’s ever read. Some people think she might be pandering to Southern Christian voters. Then Hillary said, ‘Oh come on y’all — little ol’ me?'” – Jimmy Fallon

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Third Party?

Thursday, June 26, 2014

It looks like Erick Erickson, the founder of the website RedState.com, doesn’t feel particularly Red (as in Republican) right now. In an editorial published Wednesday, he says:

Having been an elected Republican and someone who routinely takes the position of supporting conservatives in primaries and Republicans in general elections, the Mississippi race does crystalize for me the desires of many to start a third party. In essence, tea party activists are the RINOs. A Republican Party campaigning on making the Senate “conservative,” used liberal Democrats to preserve an incumbent Republican and defeat a conservative. The actual conservatives are the outsiders with the GOP establishment doing all it could to preserve its power at the expense of its principles.

The problem for those who call themselves Republicans is that it is harder and harder to say exactly what a Republican is these days. The great lesson from Mississippi is that Republican means, more or less, that if elected the party will reward its major donors, who are just different than the Democrats’ major donors. Policy differences are about different donors, not an actual agenda to shift the country in a different direction.

The Republicans have become the party of lobbyists, most of whom were on twitter celebrating their purchase.

Mississippi is a crystalizing election in that sense. Cochran is, for all intents and purposes, a marionette. His strings are pulled by staffers and lobbyists. They drop him onto the stage of the Senate and pull up a string to raise his hand. These puppeteers are so invested in keeping their gravy train going that they will, while claiming to be Republicans, flood a Republican primary with Obama voters to ensure their gravy train continues.

There’s more…

But to me, it sounds like Erickson is bemoaning the same problem that bothers many liberals — that there is just too much damn money in politics. So would he consider teaming up with progressives who want campaign finance reform? That would be an interesting partnership.

In the end, Erickson concludes:

I’m just not sure what the Republican Party really stands for any more other than telling Obama no and telling our own corporate interests yes. That’s not much of a platform.

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Late Night Political Humor

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

“President Obama just had his annual physical, which showed that he’s suffering some pain in his right foot. When asked why he doesn’t get it treated, Obama said bitterly, ‘It’s not covered by Obamacare.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Over the weekend, President Obama got his annual presidential physical. His cholesterol is up and his approval rating is down.” – David Letterman

“Obama wants to lower his cholesterol, but Congress is blocking him.” – David Letterman

“The doctor said Obama passed his physical. That’s the first thing he’s passed in the second term.” – David Letterman

“The World Cup is underway. A lot of World Cup soccer players have been faking injuries to draw a penalty from the other team. Meanwhile, a lot of Americans have been faking following the World Cup.” – Conan O’Brien

“Pope Francis has pledged to remain neutral during the World Cup. When asked why, the Pope said, ‘I picked the Miami Heat and look how that turned out.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Some Northern California counties want to form a separate state. They smoke a lot of weed up there. What would you call a state based on marijuana? Toke-lahoma. Flori-duh. How about Spliffs-consin? Dela-weed. New Hemp-shire.” – Craig Ferguson

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Using Irony Ironically

Late Night Political Humor

Laboring under a Lie

Reversing Dubya

Late Night Political Humor

Religious Free Speech

Late Night Political Humor

Six Months High

In a Just World

Unhealthy Skepticism

Leaf Our Kids Alone!

Supreme Court Buffered

Late Night Political Humor

Third Party?

Late Night Political Humor

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