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Really F***ing Brilliant

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court upheld new stricter rules against obscenity on television. Previously, so-called “fleeting expletives” were allowed occasionally. For example, what prompted the lawsuit were live broadcasts of awards shows where “foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood” (as Justice Scalia put it) let slip the F-word. One instance was musician Bono saying that an award was “really f*cking brilliant” and another was Cher saying of her critics “f*ck ’em”.

Since either of these instances of the F-word were actually referring to any sex act, the FCC used to allow them (in moderation, of course). But new tighter FCC rules declare that some words (including both the F-word and the S-word) are so offensive that they always evoke sexual or excretory images. In addition, the famous “wardrobe malfunction” that showed Janet Jackson’s breast for nine sixteenths of a second is again considered indecent, even though a lower court had previously ruled it should have been counted as “fleeting”.

What is ironic about all this is that it was Fox Television that brought the suit against the FCC trying to overturn the new rules. Who woulda thought that conservative Fox would be defending indecent speech?

Not to mention that it is the new “liberal” administration that is making indecency laws tougher. The FCC is now free to take up “tens of thousands” of existing indecency complaints that have been pending during the review of the new rules.

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Your Government Not at Work

Jon Stewart has the clearest (and most enjoyable) explanation of the Jane Harman influence scandal:

Yes, that is an image of someone strangling a manatee.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Of course, the really big news is what’s going on in Washington, and Obama opening the door, now, to prosecuting former Bush officials about torture, or, as they call it, severe interrogation procedures, which include waterboarding, sleep deprivation, forced nudity. We have outlawed all of these practices, although they are still challenges on ‘The Love of Ray-J,’ which is a television show.” – Bill Maher

“No, it is fun watching the Republicans trying to defend torture, because they insist that what’s wrong with the Democrats on this issue is they don’t get what it’s like in the ‘real world.’ And, to prove it, they cite Jack Bauer, a character from a television show.” – Bill Maher

“It’s interesting how the progression changes with the Republicans. First, when they talked about torture, it was, ‘Well, there’s just a few bad apples.’ Then it was, ‘Okay, we did it a couple of times.’ Then it was not really torture, and now, ‘it works’.” – Bill Maher

“They first said they tortured this Khaled Sheikh Mohammed — and by the way, if there’s anyone who deserved it, it was him — but first they said they did it once. Now it comes out 183 times that they waterboarded this motherf**ker in a month. This comes out to six times in a day. I would think after that, you get used to it. He was showing up at his torture sessions in flip flops and a beach towel, with a Danielle Steele novel. ‘Would you like sparkling or flat waterboarding today, sir?'” – Bill Maher

“Dick Cheney is all over television defending this. He said yesterday, he would be happy to undergo waterboarding himself, but his heart might rust.” – Bill Maher

“Dick Cheney is claiming torture works. And he says it’s okay that we do this, because it worked. Yes, it was ugly, but eventually what came out was good. Like Susan Boyle.” – Bill Maher

“George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have announced they’re going to have a debate. They already have a name for it — ‘Alienated vs. Predator.'” – Craig Ferguson

“Unemployment is continually rising, foreclosures are through the roof. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, ‘If this van’s a-rockin’, it’s because we live here now.'” – Bill Maher

“In economic news, ExxonMobil’s profit last year was $45 billion. In second place was the company that makes those foreclosure signs.” – David Letterman

“Crime is down in New York City. Tomorrow criminals head down to Washington to request a bailout.” – David Letterman

“Yesterday President Obama hauled in the presidents of the credit card companies and said the days of tricky fine print and sudden rate increases and late fees are over. And he also demanded to know what kind of screwed up, cracker name was MasterCard.” – Bill Maher

“Obama was on the news today speaking about college spending. He’s proposing a new budget ” $15 billion for college loans, $20 billion for Ramen Noodles.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Are you ready for the next outbreak that isn’t really going to happen, but sounds really scary, so the media’s freaking out? Swine flu. Have you heard that? Yes, apparently swine flu has appeared in the U.S. This particular virus started in Mexico, and spread from pigs to humans. Probably during spring break. I’m sorry, have I offended pigs? I apologize.” – Bill Maher

“It’s World Penguin Day. Penguins are important. It’s true. Some say John McCain lost the election due to his resemblance to The Penguin from Batman.” – Craig Ferguson

“The White House was on lockdown because a small plane flew into restricted airspace. Say what you want, but Dick Cheney would have shot that thing down.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Yesterday was ‘Take Your Kid to Work Day.’ It used to be ‘Take Your Daughter to Work Day,’ but political correctness took over. Thanks to the economy, there’s a new special day for parents and kids – ‘Take Your Child to Where You Used to Work Day.’ This day shows that daddy and mommy didn’t always just sit around in their underwear.” – Jimmy Kimmel [Incidental note — a friend of mine works for a large company that — I’m not making this up — handed out layoff notices on “Take Your Kid to Work Day”. I can hear it now: “Daddy, why are you crying?” ]

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The Proper Use of Torture

First Sean Hannity called waterboarding to “dunking somebody’s head in water“. Then Charles Grodin went on Hannity’s show and asked him (since Hannity claimed that waterboarding was such a benign thing) would he be waterboarded? Hannity said yes (several times) and said he would do it for charity. Grodin immediately called his bluff and asked Hannity what he was doing the following Sunday.

Then Keith Olbermann got into the act, offering $1000 for every second that Hannity endured waterboarding, and twice that if afterwards he agreed that waterboarding was torture. But in this latest show, Olbermann took the challenge one step further:

Olbermann has found a SERE instructor who not only is willing to waterboard Hannity, but brags:

My point is quite simple: If Sean Hannity allows me to waterboard him, based on the criteria and the guidelines that have come out in these memos, I’m willing to bet that I will be able to coerce Sean Hannity. In fact, I’m even willing to bet that I can get Sean Hannity to say that Countdown with Keith Olbermann is his favorite show.

The gauntlet has been thrown!

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The Kiss of Death

Imgur

Here’s a good (and calm) summary about what we do and don’t know about the swine flu. We do know that you can’t get it from eating pork.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Next month in Toronto, Canada, former President George W. Bush will debate former President Bill Clinton. The question of the debate — is it worse to lie to your wife or lie to the entire country?” – Jay Leno

“Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, once two of the most powerful men in this country, are now suffering from Balzheimer’s disease. Why didn’t I see it before? Balzheimer’s is a terrible illness that attacks the memory and gives its victims the balls to attack others for things they themselves made a career of. There is no known cure.” – Jon Stewart

“But Dick Cheney is now criticizing President Obama, and he’s saying that his recent actions around the world are ‘disturbing’ and ‘not helpful.’ Yeah, yeah, things were so much better when Cheney was president, weren’t they?” – David Letterman

“Speaking of things like that, classified documents that were recently released show that Dick Cheney, who a couple of years ago went nuts and shot a guy, ordered Khalid Shaikh Mohammed waterboarded 183 times. When do you suppose Mohammed caught on and said, ‘I know this is just horse play’?” – David Letterman

“Former President George W. Bush said today he does not remember seeing any of those torture memos. But to be fair, to Bush, any memo on his desk was torture. ‘I’m not readin’ that.'” – Jay Leno

“But anyway, they waterboarded Mohammed 183 times, and thanks to the information they got from this guy, via waterboarding, we were able to capture bin Laden.” – David Letterman

“President Obama has kind of a happier outlook on torture. He says instead of waterboarding terrorists, he’s going to put them in dunk tanks.” – David Letterman

“How about those Somali pirates? So they bring one of the pirates to New York City so they can put him on trial. But he will also be doing some other stuff. Like, tomorrow, he’s going to ring the opening bell at the stock exchange. Friday he’ll be on ‘Rachel Ray’ making Clams Mogadishu, and he will be the starting pitcher for the Yankees. Monday, he’ll be on the ‘Today’ show singing ‘I Dream a Dream.’ And Monday night, he’ll be sleeping with Madonna. That’s the full schedule.” – David Letterman

“This pirate is everywhere. For example, this weekend, he’s hosting ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Monday, he’s attending the Tribeca Film Festival. Tuesday, he’s going to launch his new fragrance. Wednesday, he’s having lunch with Ruth Madoff. And Thursday he’s going to hijack the Staten Island Ferry, so he’s got a big, full schedule.” – David Letterman

“The Justice Department says they want to make an example of this Somali pirate guy. And I thought, really? In terms of making an example, I don’t think you can do much better than shooting the other three guys in the head.” – David Letterman

“During an interview with The New York Post, Rudy Giuliani said that he is against gay marriage. He feels marriage should be between a man, a woman, the other woman, and the other woman he met after that.” – Jay Leno

“Here’s a name out of the past. He used to be governor of the state of New York. Eliot Spitzer, does that ring a bell? Listen to this, according to a new poll, two out of three New Yorkers would like to have Spitzer back as their governor. I mean sure, two out of three New Yorkers are hookers.” – David Letterman

“Do you remember Eliot Spitzer, who was governor of New York? He had to stop being the governor of New York because he enjoyed prostitutes. Well, now, he’s talking about running again for governor in 2010. He also said he’s looking forward to spending less time with his family.” – David Letterman

“The people of New York liked Governor Spitzer. I mean, the guy had a reputation for being on top of everything.” – David Letterman

“Well, Happy Earth Day, everybody. Yes. Today is Earth Day, or as the oil companies call it, Wednesday.” – Jay Leno

“Even Eliot Spitzer is all excited about Earth Day. He was on the West Side Highway picking up trash earlier today. I believe her name was Rhonda.” – David Letterman

“Hey, I thought this was nice. To celebrate Earth Day, a group of schoolchildren in Washington each planted a hair plug in Joe Biden’s head.” – Jay Leno

“Even Dick Cheney was into Earth Day. Did you see what he said today? He called for the use of only recycled water when waterboarding prisoners.” – Jay Leno

“Happy Earth Day. You know, as a kid, every Earth Day I used to wake up and run down the stairs in my footie pajamas to see what Al Gore brought us. It was just so fun. ‘Look sis, it’s one of those dark brown Seventh Generation paper towels. Yeah, I love those.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Happy Earth Day to everyone. President Obama celebrated Earth Day by flying his enormous plane to Iowa today to visit a wind power plant. There was a huge crowd on hand to greet him, partly to hear him talk about the importance of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and partly to show their kids what a black person looks like.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Well, here’s an interesting study. Researchers in Britain announced today that global warming is caused in part by overweight people. They say obese people release more carbon dioxide into the air. No, this is real. This is real. See, all this time you used to think it was caused by coal-burning factories. Turns out it was Cheesecake Factories.” – Jay Leno

“Last night, I was watching ‘Larry King,’ who was interviewing Levi Johnston, the father of Bristol Palin’s baby. And Larry asked, ‘Exactly where did sex occur in the Palins’ house?’ And then it was incredible, my TV threw up” – Jimmy Fallon

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The Irony of Satire

I am not making this up! “The Irony of Satire” is the actual name of a study done at Ohio State University on “biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report”. The study compared conservatives and liberals, and how they reacted to Stephen Colbert.

Interestingly, both groups thought that Colbert was funny. But the ironic part is that “conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said” (in other words, they think he’s funny, but they don’t actually get the joke). Liberals, on the other hand, “were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements”.

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Late Night Political Humor

“What was it, 101 today? Man, it was hot. People were sweating like Miss California at the gay pride parade.” – Jay Leno

“A journalist from Playboy magazine attempted to withstand 15 seconds of waterboarding. And he’s going to write all about it in an article that no one will ever read.” – Craig Ferguson

“Well, here’s no surprise, Exxon has earned the top spot in the new 2009 Fortune 500 list. Last year, Exxon took in — this is an unbelievable number — $443 billion in revenue, and made a profit of $45 billion. You know, here’s my question: why not have Exxon bail out the car companies? I mean, one can’t live without the other, right?” – Jay Leno

“They are now holding national elections in India. You know, voting over there lasts a month. They have a month of voting, which seems long for an election. Unless you’re from Minnesota. Then it’s like nothing.” – Jay Leno

“Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will appear together on stage in Toronto for a two-hour, friendly debate. Each side gets to pick a topic, so the first hour will be centered on the international banking crisis. The second hour will be dedicated to Nascar trivia.” – Jimmy Fallon

“So many newspapers all across the country are going out of business. It’s pretty scary, so congratulations to The New York Times this week, which this week won five Pulitzer Prizes. I read about it online on Google News.” – Jay Leno

“And as the economy lags, the Army is getting more and more selective now. The Army announced this week they will no longer accept drug addicts and felons. But the good news is there’s always Congress, the NFL, and show business.” – Jay Leno

“President Barack Obama told his Cabinet yesterday to ensure that every taxpayer dollar is spent wisely. But there was one embarrassing moment when he had to explain to the Cabinet what a taxpayer was.” – Jay Leno

“And Rod Blagojevich, the indicted former governor of Illinois, lost his bid to travel to Costa Rica to appear on that NBC reality show, ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!’ No, he was supposed to be on that show and the judge said he couldn’t go. You know what reality show he could be on? ‘Cops.’ How about ‘Cops?'” – Jay Leno

“Remember those Somali pirates, those crazy guys that are hijacking boats and stuff? They got one of them here in New York City standing trial. And I want to tell you something, this guy thinks he’s a pirate. Well, wait until he gets the bill for his New York legal team. Then we’ll see who the pirate is. That’s what I say.” – David Letterman

“But they have the pirate locked up. And today, he met one of his idols, Bernie Madoff.” – David Letterman

“It’s ‘Green Is Universal’ week here at NBC. We’re all getting into it. Everyone here at NBC is pitching in. Earlier today, Donald Trump announced that he’s going to release his hair back into the wild.” – Jimmy Fallon

“You remember Dick Cheney? He was the guy who would go hunting and shoot guys. Also, our vice president, and I think the first vice president in a long time to actually shoot a guy. He’s now criticizing Barack Obama, because Barack Obama, one of the jobs he has to take care of now is sort of re-building the image and reputation of the United States around the world. Well, Dick Cheney has said ohh, no, no, no. He said he was very upset. He described [Obama’s] trip as a ‘disturbing trip.’ See, here’s the deal. Here’s what happened. Bush and Cheney handed Obama this country on a silver platter. And now look what he’s doing with it! That’s the problem.” – David Letterman

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Bug Box Torture

Jeff Danziger
© Jeff Danziger

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Pearls Before Republican Swine

The Republicans are in imminent danger of having another Katrina-disaster, in this case in the form of a swine flu epidemic and its effect on the economy. The swine flu has already killed over 100 people in Mexico and has spread to the US, causing the closing of schools and other public facilities in US cities. And the AP reports today that “World stock markets fell Monday as investors worried that a deadly outbreak of swine flu in Mexico could go global and derail any global economic recovery.”

So what does this have to do with the Republicans? Let me count the ways…

First, the Republicans in the Senate are still blocking Obama’s cabinet appointment of Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in a cheap political play to their base because of Sebelius’ support for reproductive rights. In the meantime, the department is being run temporarily by a Bush appointee who spent most of his career working as an accountant (I’m sure he’ll do a “heckuva job”). Not only that, but we don’t have anyone running the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) because they need to be appointed by the head of HHS. Meanwhile, the Republicans continue their delays, placing politics ahead of the safety of the American people.

Second, Republicans made a huge show of stripping $900 million in funding for pandemic preparation from the economic stimulus bill, ridiculing the spending as pork that had nothing to do with economic recovery. Just a few weeks later, the world economy is taking a turn for the worse because of fears of a pandemic. The website of Republican Senator Susan Collins even brags about her removing the money for pandemic flu preparedness. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, “If swine flu morphs into a pandemic, it’s the last thing the world economy needs, as it’s already on its knees.”

Finally, and on a slightly humorous note, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who made headlines recently because of his comments about Texas seceding from the union, formally requested help from the CDC to deal with the possible swine flu pandemic. I guess he needs the federal government after all. Of course, without a director at the CDC (because of the Republicans) who knows when they will be able to respond.

UPDATE: This might be unrelated, but I couldn’t resist. An Israeli official says that in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities to pig references, the “swine flu” should be renamed. His suggestion? “Mexican flu”, which might say more about the Israeli official’s attitude towards Mexicans than about his religion. So much for sensitivity. US scientists say that there is nothing “Mexican” about the swine flu (it was first identified in the US).
Daryl Cagle
© Daryl Cagle

UPDATE 2: An excellent rant about this is in Seeing The Forest blog.

So as you worry about this possible flu pandemic, think about why your governement is not yet fully up and running to do its part and protect us. As we saw when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, government-hating Republicans destroyed our ability to respond to emergencies, and instead set up a system where contracts were awarded to cronies who collected the cash but never delivered the services.

In addition, the blog points out that Karl Rove also made fun of the money being allocated to pandemic flu preparations.

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Baffled

Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) seems to be awfully proud of himself. On Friday, he sent out the following twitter: “I seemed to have baffled the Energy Sec with basic question – Where does oil come from?”. Barton was referring to Steven Chu, the new US secretary of energy, who appeared in front of the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where Barton is the ranking Republican.

What Barton actually asked him was “How did all the oil and gas get to Alaska and under the Arctic Ocean?”. When Chu tried to answer, Barton interrupted him and started talking about “a big pipeline that we’ve created from Texas and shipped it up there and put it under ground so we can now pump it up” Video and full transcript of the interchange here.

Considering that Chu has won the Nobel prize in physics, and before he took a job in Obama’s cabinet he was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at Berkeley, isn’t it more likely that Chu was just amazed that a member of the Energy committee would ask such a dumb question?

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Following Orders

Mike Luckovich
© Mike Luckovich

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Late Night Political Humor

“Well, as you know, President Obama’s been reaching out to Iran, reaching out to Cuba, reaching out to Latin America. The only place he can’t seem to be able to reach out to, Texas.” – Jay Leno

“Barack Obama was in Venezuela this weekend for the Summit of the Americas, and he shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Yeah, people are pretty upset about it. He’s a socialist dictator. You don’t shake his hand. Instead, you offer your hand, then pull it back and say, ‘Psych! Sucker.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“That evil Hugo Chavez from Venezuela slipped President Obama a book that is printed in Spanish. But President Obama does not read or speak Spanish. It would be like handing George W. Bush any book.” – David Letterman

“Despite Governor Rick Perry talking about how Texas could secede from the Union if it wanted to, 75 per cent of the people who live there want to stay in the United States. Of course they want to stay. I mean, after spending all that time and effort sneaking across the border to get here, why would they want to leave?” – Jay Leno

“There’s been a lot of talk lately about lifting the trade embargo in Cuba. President Obama says he understands that a relationship that has been frozen for this long won’t thaw out overnight, to which Hillary said, ‘Tell me about it!'” – Jay Leno

“It’s hot here today in L.A. In fact, it was so hot, I called up the CIA and begged to be waterboarded.” – Craig Ferguson

“And amid much criticism, President Obama has released top-secret terror memos from the Bush Administration. According to the memos, President Bush authorized various forms of torture, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and of course, the fourth hour of the ‘Today’ show.” – Jay Leno

“And American hero, Captain Richard Phillips, who was recently captured by Somali pirates, flew home to Vermont over the weekend. Ironically, the movie on the plane: ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.'” – Jay Leno

“Congratulations to ‘The New York Times,’ which won five Pulitzer Prizes today, including one for breaking the call girl scandal that ended Eliot Spitzer’s career. And Spitzer won a prize for fiction, for the story he told his wife about the affair.” – Jay Leno

“President Obama met with his entire Cabinet today. Well, sure, now that April 15th has passed, they’ve all come out of hiding.” – Jay Leno

“Very exciting news. We have a Miss USA Her name is Kristen Dalton, and she is from North Carolina. She says she’s now looking forward to one day being the Republican vice presidential candidate.” – Jay Leno

“And a lot of people thought that Miss California lost the contest when she said she was opposed to gay marriage. So, apparently, she forgot who the audience is who watches beauty pageants.” – Jay Leno

“It’s ‘Green Is Universal’ week here at NBC and we’re part doing our part here at ‘Late Night.’ In fact, the whole monologue tonight is recycled from Friday’s show.” – Jimmy Fallon

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Newt Gingrich speaks out against torture

Here is a direct quote from Newt Gingrich:

There is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions. There is no place for intolerance of dissent. … The roots of American rule of law go back more than 700 years, to the signing of the Magna Carta. The foundation of American values, therefore, is not a passing priority or a temporary trend. We believe in religious liberty and personal freedom because the people who settled our country left the lands of their birth, accepting great danger and uncertainty, to secure those basic rights.

Very clear statement against torture, suspension of habeas corpus, freedom of dissent, and freedom of religion, no?

Oops, my bad. This was Gingrich lecturing the Chinese President Jiang Zemin in 1997, back when he was the Speaker of the House. Now that America supports torture, forced confessions, and arbitrary detention, accuses dissenters of treason, and is intolerant of religions other than Christianity, does he owe the Chinese an apology?

UPDATE: In case you want to hear Gingrich’s more recent opinion about torture, here’s an interview he just did with Greta van Susteren on Fox News. Bottom line now: Is waterboarding torture? “I honestly don’t know” and Is it legal? “I think it’s debatable”.

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Truth in Washington

Walt Handelsman
© Walt Handelsman

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