Elizabeth

Candidate for Massachusetts Democratic Senatorial nomination, Elizabeth Warren:

I like how Obama and Warren are attacking the GOP "class warfare" smear head-on.

And lest we forget, she spoke so intelligently on the financial crisis and need for reform, she made Jon Stewart horny.

The Exploitation Memorial

Jon Stewart nails it oh so well, yet again, another topper:

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God bless America.

The Return of the Dick

Former Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney, the man who was acting President for George W. Bush's first term, the man who has done the most damage to America since the year 2000, is back with his memoir. Don't even think about an Amazon link for this one.

It turns out he's such a continuing asshole that those he smears in the book, including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice from the same Administration, are calling him out on it. Whatta guy.

Here's the list of questions someone should ask him on the tour. Got to imagine he's an ultimate "get" for The Daily Show. Think he has the guts to go up on Jon Stewart -- and think Stewart would do any better with him than he did with Rumsfeld?

And, by the way, how much had you been drinking when you shot your best friend in the face?

Even better: Did You Tell Scooter Libby To Leak Valerie Plame's Identity As A CIA Agent To The Press?

Best Rant Ever

I was going to write about Mittens Romney's non-surprise announcement that he's running for the GOP Presidential nomination (and I still think he'll win that opportunity to lose to Obama) but it's so thin except for the lies (we're "inches away" from becoming a socialist dictatorship!) that instead I decided to share the best Jon Stewart rant ever, from last night, fully impassioned about Donald Trump and, yes, pizza:

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Now to visit all those places he mentioned next time I'm in NYC.

Double Trouble

I was prepared to continue touting the Democratic Party's chances in the next election, until this and this. So the Dems punt on the incredibly popular vote to let the Bush tax cuts on the rich fade while keeping them for the rest of us, and the Obama Administration loses the gay vote for at least this cycle maybe more. WTF -- DC insider thinking?

Here's the thing: we want something to fight about. The Teapublicans have something. Even the establishment Republicans. They want power. They want to defund the entire Federal safety net, roll us back into the Robber Baron era. But Obama and the Dems aren't rallying the base. They aren't whipping up the enthusiasm. They aren't making me want to fight for them -- not today.

We still remember how El Presidente Bush didn't care what the law was, he just did what he and puppetmaster Cheney wanted. I don't know the details behind the Executive Branch obligation to defend laws the Congress has passed against judicial review, but why not just let it slide? Bush would have, if he didn't believe in it.

Yep, the GOP are worse. The Dems are vexing, but they aren't equivalent, not if they let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire and take the Middle Class out of the hostage position. The Republicans have already brought down our banking and housing system, and their only ideas are the same ones that got us there. Paul Krugman's review of their "Pledge" (I prefer the furniture polish) is blisteringly accurate on the direct threat to our Republic if they regain power:

On Thursday, House Republicans released their “Pledge to America,” supposedly outlining their policy agenda. In essence, what they say is, “Deficits are a terrible thing. Let’s make them much bigger.” The document repeatedly condemns federal debt — 16 times, by my count. But the main substantive policy proposal is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which independent estimates say would add about $3.7 trillion to the debt over the next decade — about $700 billion more than the Obama administration’s tax proposals.

True, the document talks about the need to cut spending. But as far as I can see, there’s only one specific cut proposed — canceling the rest of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which Republicans claim (implausibly) would save $16 billion. That’s less than half of 1 percent of the budget cost of those tax cuts. As for the rest, everything must be cut, in ways not specified — “except for common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops.” In other words, Social Security, Medicare and the defense budget are off-limits.

So what’s left? Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has done the math. As he points out, the only way to balance the budget by 2020, while simultaneously (a) making the Bush tax cuts permanent and (b) protecting all the programs Republicans say they won’t cut, is to completely abolish the rest of the federal government: “No more national parks, no more Small Business Administration loans, no more export subsidies, no more N.I.H. No more Medicaid (one-third of its budget pays for long-term care for our parents and others with disabilities). No more child health or child nutrition programs. No more highway construction. No more homeland security. Oh, and no more Congress.”

Drown it in a bathtub. Right.

And then there's that GOP propensity to paint our President as The Other. Bitter Palin spewing "Barack Hussein Obama" as her evil tentacles grow. Quitter Governor Reality Politics Star as harbinger of the apocalypse.

As Jon Stewart said in response to a question from Bill Reilly, Obama ran as a visionary but appears to govern as a functionary. I don't think that is entirely fair, and I think in retrospect the Obama Administrations accomplishments will add up to visionary.

But did he have to file in support of DADT?

"It's a trap!"

If you only watch one Jon Stewart clip this year, this one may be it:

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The Apparent Trap
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Enjoy.

Please, sir, may I have another?

I don't want to keep relying on this Jon Stewart takedown of Jim Cramer, CNBC and the whole twisted relationship between big media and Wall Street, but I can't help commenting on Tucker Carlson's quote today regarding the matter.

In a Politico piece on how media critics have been piling on Cramer, Carlson goes counter:

Carlson, reached Friday, described Stewart as "a partisan demagogue."

"Jim Cramer may be sweaty and pathetic — he certainly was last night — but he's not responsible for the current recession," Carlson told POLITICO. "His real sin was attacking Obama's economic policies. If he hadn't done that, Stewart never would have gone after him. Stewart's doing Obama's bidding. It's that simple."

Could Carlson, who's career suffered mightily after a confrontation with Stewart on his soon-after cancelled CNN Crossfire, be looking for another helping?

Just a reminder, here's the appearance that was later seen at least 1.8 million times online:



Maybe Carlson has earned himself a mention on Monday night's Daily Show...?

Jonathans

It was all anybody could talk about today, and it was pretty intense because clearly our big expensive news media can't do their job. CBS felt that Murrow blood running through their veins and ran Jeff Greenfield's excellent piece:


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Time media critic James Poniewozik gets to the core of the modern television journalism problem -- and how Cramer was trapped by it under Stewart's questioning:

"These people were my friends." Cramer said that, or something like it, repeatedly: that longtime friends flat-out lied to him. So problem one: coziness with sources is death for the information business. Now, Cramer is a commentator, not a reporter, and I don't begrudge him friends per se. But it is a problem when reporters either become too close to their subjects to treat them skeptically, or become so obsessed with access that they are leery of being too skeptical: i.e., "If I do that, they'll never talk to me again."

Journalists prize getting people to talk to them, with good reason, but they shouldn't be hostage to it. Part of the problem is a culture in which interviewing is privileged over research: "reporting" is defined as getting a person to talk to you, preferably a famous person. But as the original Daily Show CNBC clip showed, research can be pretty powerful—then it created a situation where Cramer pretty much had to talk.

So what I heard today was that Jon Stewart is doing CNN and MSNBC job for them, that it's only the court jester who can speak truth to the emperor as he reveals him to have no clothes, and that he's essentially our century's Mark Twain.

Or maybe our Jonathan.

Cramed Him

Jon Stewart went well beyond any comic's usual job tonight on The Daily Show, but more importantly he went far beyond any cable newsperson. Any.

The feud with CNBC and Jim Cramer had been building for almost two weeks, and one has to give Cramer credit for coming on the show to try and end it, but Stewart took Cramer, CNBC and, by extension, the entire entertainment-industrial complex to task. Stewart essentially represented the American people -- everyone who lost half their IRA in four months thanks to massive, massive Wall Street greed -- while Cramer revealed in his whipped-dog response to the grilling a number of things:

1. He doesn't realize that he is "them."
2. He's not a responsible financial journalist, he's just a guy with opinions for hire.
3. When the faux-anchor of a fake news show is asking tougher questions than an entire financial news network, that network loses whatever reputation it may have thought it had as a responsible financial journalistic outfit, and instead appears to be just another cheap sales job on those rubes we call the American people.
   

The whole uncut interview (they lost maybe 8 minutes for TV) will be up by the morning on the show's website -- you can watch the whole thing -- here's a hefty taste:



Stewart's a hero for standing up and challenging the media powers, even it through their court jester.

Oh, and the markets are up significantly this week. Does that mean that Obama is a hero, or at least can the stupid people on TV stop blaming him for the crash now?

Ponzi Network

I'm not sure how long this video will be available, since Viacom always pulls them from YouTube, so go to this HuffPo link if it disappears below, but Jon Stewart's evisceration of CNBC in the wake of Wall Street mouthpiece Rick Santelli's Daily Show guest appearance cancellation is one of the finest and most visceral explanations of everything wrong with today's financial cable news ever created -- better than any created by any news organization:



And to think it was on a "comedy" show...

Feith No More

Jon Stewart once again proves why with maybe Bill Moyers (appearing Tuesday night in what should be a very interesting follow up to tonight) he is perhaps the finest interviewer of political figures working in television today, taking apart key Cheney henchman and leading Iraq War pyro Douglas Feith:



Here's part two of the full-length (only on Web) with the the Bush Administration official that U.S. Army General Tommy Franks called, "the stupidest fucking guy on the planet:"



Now how about those tribunals?