Well, it looks like it backfired. Republican plans to “reform” our electoral college voting system to make it even more unfair – and to boost Republican chances of winning the next presidential election, even if they lose the popular vote – couldn’t stand up to the glare of attention it received.
And the difference? Voters sometimes speak out.
The media gets distracted by a non-issue, and puts their foot in it:
So the White House calls their bluff:
“House Speaker John Boehner said that President Obama’s focus is to annihilate the Republican Party. Do Republicans look like they need any help from President Obama? They’re doing a hell of a job themselves.” – Jay Leno
“The Pentagon has allowed women to serve in combat. Yeah, the hope is that we can now finally defeat the Taliban by giving them the silent treatment.” – Conan O’Brien
“Women can now serve on the front lines in combat. I believe up until now, the only woman who had ever seen action under a general was of course Paula Broadwell.” – Jay Leno
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was grilled by Congressmen about the attack on Benghazi. Then out of habit she grilled them about where they were last night, and who’s this Megan?” – Conan O’Brien
“A scary moment at John Kerry’s secretary of state confirmation hearing. One of the senators had taken his Ambien the night before and combined with the stuffy room and Kerry’s boring speech, he slipped into a coma.” – Jay Leno
“North Korea said it will test a rocket that they hope will hit the United States. In other words, watch your back, middle of the Pacific Ocean.” – Conan O’Brien
Yes it’s true, federal laws against computer crime are so vague and overreaching that pretty much everyone is guilty of violating them. Of course, these laws are invoked only when you piss someone powerful off, like Aaron Schwartz did.
I have a friend who discovered that some computers at the company where he worked as a system administrator were improperly secured. This embarrassed the VP responsible so much that he called the police. The crime? Breaking into a computer, a felony. Even though there was no intent to steal anything, damage any computers, or do anything else nefarious, he was convicted.
In one of the largest academic scandals in recent history at the school, as many as 60 students have been forced to withdraw from Harvard University after they were found cheating on a final exam.
Why is this ironic? Because the class was “Introduction to Congress”.
“There’s a photo from the Inauguration in which Former President Bill Clinton appears to be checking out Kelly Clarkson. Clinton said, ‘That’s not true, I was checking out Beyonce and Kelly Clarkson got in the way’.” – Conan O’Brien
“Beyonce is remaining silent about charges that she lip-synched the national anthem. However, the charges are being strongly denied by a recording of Beyonce.” – Conan O’Brien
“Yes, lip-gate. Beyonce-gate. The crisis in Lip-ya. Beyonc-gazi … If Beyonce lip-synced at Obama’s inaugural, do you know what that means? If so, please write in because I’d love to know why I’m so angry!” – Stephen Colbert
“Steven Tyler defended Beyoncé after she lip-synced at President Obama’s inauguration. Tyler said, “I know how she feels, I did the same thing at the Harry Truman Inauguration.'” – Conan O’Brien
“Joe Biden made another one of his famous gaffes on camera Monday, saying he was proud to be president of the United States. I guess he forgot he wasn’t at home standing in front of the bathroom mirror.” –Jay Leno
“Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed on to a new ‘Terminator’ film. Due to his age, this one features the catchphrase, ‘I’ll be back right after ‘Wheel of Fortune.'” – Conan O’Brien
Glenn Beck reveals his vision for Utopia, and Jon Stewart points out the obvious flaw – that it looks more like a fascist tin-pot dictator’s home-owner’s association, which controls what you can and cannot do even more than the government Beck professes to hate:
“I’m still reeling from yesterday’s inauguration disaster. First off, where was security? The Secret Service is supposed to protect the president and first lady, but in the middle of a kiss, they were viciously photobombed. Enjoy Gitmo, Malia.” – Stephen Colbert
“The president gave a brief but powerful speech. He did not shy away from the many challenges he faces: a massive federal deficit, a conservative majority in the House, an aging population, runaway entitlements, humongous ears.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Actually, you know who gave the shortest inauguration speech in history? George Washington. It was only like three minutes long. Well, sure. George Washington couldn’t tell a lie.” – Jay Leno
“Where did we go wrong? The Republicans had everything going for them – a terrible economy, an unpopular incumbent, and a positive message for the American voter: ‘less than half of you are parasites’.” – Stephen Colbert
“At the inaugural ball, President Obama was caught doing some very stiff and awkward dance moves. In other words, Obama is already reaching out to Republicans.” – Conan O’Brien
“On the news they made a big deal out of the fact that four years ago there were twice as many people at President Obama’s first inauguration than there was at this one. That’s because four years ago, twice as many people could afford to stay in hotels.” – Jay Leno
“More than a million people gathered in our nation’s capital yesterday, and tens of millions more watched from home to celebrate the first lady’s new haircut.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Most people seem to like the hair style, though some Republicans are demanding further cuts. But bangs aren’t easy to pull off. As far as I know, the only other women who have done it successfully this decade are Jessica Biel and Justin Bieber.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“The CEO of Whole Foods is criticizing Obamacare, once again calling it fascism. He did this before when he called it socialism. And he said the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money. As opposed to shopping at Whole Foods, where you eventually run out of your own money.” – Jay Leno
“Video game-maker Atari has filed for bankruptcy. Atari fans are so upset they’re organizing a massive letter-writing campaign to President Reagan.” – Conan O’Brien
“The post office may sue Lance Armstrong for all of the money they spent sponsoring his team. In fact, after all these lawsuits, they say that Lance Armstrong could end up as broke as the post office.” – Jay Leno
The Republican governor of Florida has claimed that implementing Obamacare in Florida will cost the state billions of dollars. But now, the first detailed study of the costs shows that rather than costing the state money, it will actually save money. $300 million in the first year alone.
Obamacare will be especially important in Florida, where 30% of non-elderly adults are uninsured, compared to 18% nationwide. Plus, the implementation of Obamacare will create 56,000 jobs.
Saves lives, saves money, creates jobs. No wonder Republicans are against it.
“Today’s inauguration marked the first time ever a president used the word gay in an inauguration speech. It was the part of the speech where Obama pointed at the Washington monument and said, ‘Whoever designed that thing must have been pretty gay’.” – Conan O’Brien
“During the inauguration, Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos gave a shout-out to who he thought was Morgan Freeman, but was actually Celtics great Bill Russell. Stephanopoulos then went on to say he was so excited to be at Denzel Washington’s inauguration.” – Conan O’Brien
“During the inauguration, a teenage boy was spotted flirting with Malia Obama. At this moment, the boy is being flown to a remote location in Afghanistan.” – Conan O’Brien
“Vice President Joe Biden was also sworn in for his second term today. Biden swore on the Bible to ‘uphold the Constitution and to keep doing whatever it is I do’.” – Conan O’Brien
“In his inaugural address, President Obama said America’s possibilities are limitless. Unfortunately at that moment Lance Armstrong shouted out, ‘That’s what I used to think’.” – Conan O’Brien
“There once was a man named Barack,
whose re-election came as a shock.
He raised the taxes I pay,
and then turned marriage gay.
And now he’s coming after your glock.” – Stephen Colbert
Finally! Score one (and a big one) against patent trolls.
Newegg, an online electronics retailer, has won their patent appeal against Soverain Software.
Soverain is a patent troll, a company that has never produced anything, but has managed to extort millions of dollars against companies including Amazon and The Gap, and was in the process of suing Nordstrom’s, Macy’s, Home Depot, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Kohl’s, Wallgreen’s, and many others.
How? They bought some patents from a defunct company that claimed to cover the online shopping cart, lawyered up, and sued companies in patent-friendly West Texas. Never-mind that taking an obvious and well-known physical concept and implementing it on the Internet isn’t even vaguely deserving of patentability.
Defending against a patent suit can cost many millions of dollars and depress the market cap of a company due to uncertainty. So companies are often willing to settle even bogus claims, and once a few big companies settle it gets harder and harder for other companies to defend themselves. Soverain was working their way to collecting a stunning 1% of the gross revenue of every online retailer.
But back in 2007, Newegg decided on a new strategy: they would not settle with patent trolls, ever. As Newegg’s chief legal officer put it “We basically took a look at this situation and said, this is bullshit. We saw that if we paid off this patent holder, we’d have to pay off every patent holder this same amount. This is the first case we took all the way to trial. And now, nobody has to pay Soverain jack squat for these patents.”
Kudos to Newegg!
Now, I’m a computer scientist and I even hold a few software patents, but I would be very happy if the federal government invalidated all software patents. They do nothing to encourage or reward inventors like me, and in fact cause lots of problems. Imagine you are trying to start an online shopping business, but nobody will invest in you because in order to sell anything online, you would run afoul of patents like those held by Soverain. Soverain could extort any amount of money they wanted from you, and could even refuse to license their patents and put you out of business. Just like that.
Other patent trolls hold patents on things as silly as drop-down menus. These trolls could basically sue the vast majority of websites and force them off the internet. Think about what that would do to our economy.
And because many judges don’t know obvious from a hole in the ground, especially in highly technical fields, lawyers can often get away with this crap.
It has to stop, and this is a great first step in the right direction.
Republican Roxanne Rubin is convinced we need Voter ID laws in order to prevent voter fraud.
This has always been an issue with me. I just feel the system is flawed. If we’re showing ID for everything else, why wouldn’t we show our ID in order to vote?
So she decided to prove how easy it is to commit fraud by — you guessed it — committing voter fraud herself. After voting once, she went to a polling place in another city and tried to vote again. The poll workers instead had her arrested. While voter fraud is a felony, Rubin pled guilty to a misdemeanor and was fined $2,481, has to perform 100 hours of community service, take an impulse control class, and is required to stay out of trouble.
Even the GOP Secretary of State (who has called for a photo ID law) said: “If Ms. Rubin was trying to demonstrate how easy it is to commit voter fraud, she clearly failed and proved just the opposite.”
Bottom line: when supposedly pro-freedom, anti-government whack jobs tell you we need additional laws to protect us from virtually nonexistent voter fraud, just laugh at them.
Robert Reich makes a strong argument that the Republican party is finally unraveling. Ronald Reagan managed to put together a coalition of different factions who put aside their huge differences and united against common enemies, namely “communists and terrorists abroad, liberals and people of color at home”. But the 2012 presidential primary exposed the cracks in the party, along with its crackpots:
The Party offered up a Star Wars barroom of oddball characters, each representing a different faction — Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Cain, Santorum. Each rose on the strength of supporters and then promptly fell when the rest of the Party got a good look.
The Republican libertarian faction (led by Ron Paul) openly fought with the social conservatives. The big business and Wall Street wing (who are bankrolling the whole operation in return for their tax breaks and subsidies) fought with the “nativists and racists in the Party who want to exclude immigrants and prevent minorities from getting ahead”. And Grover Norquist’s shrink-the-government fanatics fought with the deficit hawks who (like Reagan) don’t mind raising taxes in order to reduce the size of the deficit.
The 2012 election exposed something else about the GOP: it’s utter lack of touch with reality, its bizarre incapacity to see and understand what was happening in the country. Think of Karl Rove’s delirium on Fox election night.
But the biggest problem with the GOP is that it has become a joke. As Bobby Jindal put it, the Republicans need to “stop being the stupid party”.
So what will they stand for instead? A telling article in The Atlantic asked GOP lawmakers at the Republican National Committee meeting what the Republican Party should stand for. These are the people who should be building policy for the GOP, and yet they couldn’t agree at all. Bottom line? “GOP leaders don’t just want to be the party of ‘no’ — but they have a hard time articulating what they want to say ‘yes’ to.”
For now, the last remaining thing holding the Republican party together is their hatred of the president and his administration. But that only makes them look petty and out-of-touch with the rest of America. Think of the toothless attacks on Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearing, filled with all the rage of a grumpy old man yelling at kids to stay off his lawn.
Reagan espoused happy nationalism using patriotic imagery. The GOP has now given itself over to the dark side of that force.
“It was reported that President Obama’s 2013 Inauguration Committee is receiving fewer donations than it did in 2009. The scaled-back event will feature fewer inaugural balls, a shorter parade, and a musical performance from the Black Eyed Pea.” – Seth Meyers
“Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant on Wednesday asked state legislatures to declare President Obama’s new gun control proposals ‘illegal’, though I’m not sure if the Mississippi state legislature has that kind of power since it’s just thirty hissing possums in a barn.” – Seth Meyers
“Firearms groups across the country have declared today the first annual Gun Appreciation Day. So don’t forget to set your clock back 100 years.” – Seth Meyers
“Ann Romney has reportedly declined an offer to appear on this season’s Dancing With The Stars. She’s probably not a good fit for the show anyway, because I’ve heard of her.” – Seth Meyers
“During an interview with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday, Lance Armstrong admitted to using banned drugs and blood transfusions to get his seven Tour De France victories. Which explains why, during his last two races, he didn’t even need a bike.” – Seth Meyers
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