With the news of Meat Loaf’s endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, it may be worth taking a moment to remember his finest performance. While Meat Loaf has undoubtedly had a distinguished career, it was his duet with Chef for 1998’s Chef Aid album that stands above all the rest, including his consumption of an animated taco on a two-dimensional stage.
For the heck of it, I went back and copied my stream-of-consciousness rants from Wednesday night’s debacle. I mean debate. The now-mythical evening will probably puzzle political scientists for a few minutes, but it at least gave us some memes. (Edited for typos and whatnot):
7:59 p.m. I’m live tweeting this bee-yotch! (I give my ADD 10 minutes before I start seriously thinking about boobs) #debate
8:02 p.m. The last time we had a Presidential #debate, I didn’t even have a Twitter account. How did I share my thoughts? How did we do anything???
8:04 p.m. I’m sure Jim Lehrer is a great #debate moderator, but you know who we need? Mills Lane, that’s who.
8:06 p.m. Obama may have the best excuse in history for skipping out on an anniversary dinner. #debate
8:07 p.m. Since the candidates always answer the first question with a “glad to be here” soliloquy, shouldn’t the first question just be “‘Sup?”
8:08 p.m. Is someone writing down Romney’s 5 points? Because I’m sure he’ll change them tomorrow.
8:12 p.m. Just for the record, Lehrer asked Romney if he had a question for Obama, and he’s making a speech. #debate
8:13 p.m. Okay, seriously, Jim, cut Romney off if he won’t ask a question!!! #debate
8:17 p.m. It’s hard to make accurate statements about Romney’s tax plan when he stays so coy about it. #debate
8:19 p.m. “Now he’s saying that his big bold idea is ‘never mind.'” #debate
8:22 p.m. Romney keeps referencing conversations he’s had with ordinary people. We’ve seen how that tends to go for him, though… #debate
8:23 p.m. Did Romney really just say his first priority is jobs? #debate
8:27 p.m. “Going forward with the status quo won’t work” says Romney. You mean like Republicans blocking everything Obama tries to do? #debate Continue reading
Republicans, to borrow a phrase, have a pop-culture problem. To borrow another phrase, while Democrats get to rub elbows with A-listers, Republicans get to “shake Jon Voight’s cold lizard hand.” The downward slide continued this week, with a, uh, memorable ad from a California race.
The plucky challenger for Nancy Pelosi’s seat, John Dennis, has put out an ad depicting Pelosi as some sort of zombie cult leader engaged in animal sacrifice. I do not condone animal sacrifice as a general rule, but I also know the difference between literalism and satire (more so than most Republicans.) What I fail to see, however, is how depicting Nancy Pelosi as leader of some sort of zombie cult–possibly even a zombie army!–is going to make people not want to vote for her. Seriously, who wouldn’t want someone who could command a zombie army as their elected representative?
Seriously, though, the knowledge that even the tiniest possibility exists that Nancy Pelosi leads a secretive army of the undead makes me want to fly out to Cali and commit a little in-person voter fraud come November.
(Note to Republicans: The previous sentence is an example of sarcasm. I do not intend to commit in-person voter fraud in California or anywhere else. Nevertheless, feel free to misinterpret me and discuss my blog on Fox and Friends. I need to monetize this biatch.)
Avert your eyes…
The first presidential debate is just two days away—and it’s a huge opportunity for all of us to send a strong message to CNN: Condoning sexism is bad for business.
CNN has remained silent since Erickson’s outrageous comments referring to the first night of the Democratic National Convention as the “The Vagina Monologues” Almost unbelievable, considering this was nowhere near his first offense. From defending Rush Limbaugh when he called a Georgetown graduate student a “slut,” to accusing women in the Obama administration of pushing American intervention in Libya “like women drivers” with “no plan,” “no map,” and “no shopping list.” (seriously.)
It’s not like firing Erickson would actually do anything to improve the tone of public discourse. Another hydra head would pop up to take his place, and the entire right wing would have an additional whining point to bring up at every opportunity. Still, the message is important, and I wholeheartedly agree that Erickson’s rhetoric tends towards the toxic.
This has nothing to do with free speech rights, by the way, so please, nobody waste the nation’s time by bringing that up. The government isn’t trying to shut Erickson down, private citizens exercising their economic power of the purse are the ones doing this.
I’m sure someone or many someones will weep that liberals are hating on Erickson just because he has an opinion that differs from theirs. I actually love when people make this argument, because to me it signals that the speaker has no intention of actually defending the substance of those opinions. They just want to wail and gnash their teeth that the liberals are being mean to them. If your only retort is that you have a right to your opinion, it could simply signal that you have reached an impasse with an opponent. If that is your opening retort, though, it suggests that you do not actually have an argument, or just can’t be bothered to defend or explain it. Just saying.
At any rate, I will not be participating in the boycott because I do not need to. I refuse to watch CNN as long as they give air time to Nancy Grace. She has done more damage to our concepts of criminal justice and basic jurisprudence (it’s a legal term, look it up) than anyone else in recent history, in my humble opinion.
Photo credit: ‘Nancy Grace’ by Vidiot [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Paul Ryan talked to Chris Wallace on Fox News today to start floating excuses in case Romney and he lose in November. Specifically, it’s the liberal media’s fault, because the media is liberal. Via the unabashedly-liberal blog PoliticusUSA:
WALLACE: But where have you seen it? Where have you seen it in this campaign where you feel they’re judging you and Romney by one standard and Obama and Biden by another?
RYAN: I don’t think — I’m not going to go into a tit-for-tat or litigate this thing. But as a conservative, I’ve long believed and long felt that there is inherit media bias. And I think anybody with objectivity would believe that that’s the case.
Shorter version: Paul Ryan believes the media have a liberal bias, and if you disagree, then you must have a liberal bias too, hippie.
(Note that I try to use “media” as a plural whenever I can, because that’s what they are.)
Since people never know anything except what their television spoon-feeds them, of course liberally-biased media would tip them to the Democrats, and that’s why Republicans never win elections!
Is that an unfair way to characterize Ryan’s words? I think not, but you’re welcome to try to prove otherwise.
Also, he said “tit.” Heh heh.
Anyway, he really shouldn’t give up hope yet. He’s still got voter suppression, and we now that he’s got registration fraud working for him!
The 2012 election season has already been a smorgasbord of weirdness, but now it has crossed over into some sort of sublime remix wonderland. Witness President Obama’s 99 Problems Political Remix (lyrics NSFW):
You definitely want to stick it out to the last line.
Via Huffington Post
The latest gaffe (metedura de pata en español) from the Romney camp involves a question of skin tone. I honestly cannot believe I am writing this.
Mitt Romney appeared to be a touch more tanned during an TV interview for Spanish-language channel Univision on Wednesday, prompting suggestions the Republican leader had piled on the make up to make himself more appealing to Latino voters.
I desperately want to call bullshit on this, so that I may continue to cling to a modicum of sanity in this world.
I’m not the only one. Adam Mordechai at Upworthy posits a few hypotheses, and I fully expect to see some good SNL skits about this soon. I just have two comments to direct to the floundering presidential candidates.
1. Don’t refer to anyone as an “illegal alien.” I would say don’t do that on Univision (seriously, what is wrong with you?) in particular, but just don’t say it anywhere.
2. You’ve got a meme here, Señor. I say own it. If you have the ability to transition between former Massachusetts Governor Romney and Generalissimo Romney, you need to own that shit. You might not be the first Generalissimo, but you could be the greatest.
“If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
–Rush (the band, not the asshole)
This is where the rubber meets the road, people. Like it or not, this country has a two-party system. You may not like Obama or Romney, but come November, one of these two is going be elected president.
If you are going to sit the election out because you just don’t care, you are of no use to anyone. If you are going to sit the election out as some sort of protest against the two-party system, no one can tell the difference between you and the person who can’t be bothered to vote. Protest is only effective if someone other than you knows you are protesting. If you live in a predominately red state but support the Democrat, or if you live in a blue state and support the Republican, shut up and vote anyway.
If you feel like you don’t know enough about the candidates to make an informed decision, and yet you are reading this sentence, get someone to teach you how to use Google and educate yourself.
If you seriously think a third party is the answer, I will make an exception for you. Please crawl back into whatever cave you live in and wait until November 7. Then, come back out, learn to type without using caps lock, and try the third party again when you might actually be able to make a difference. Also, where the hell were you in, say, December 2008 or some other time when there wasn’t an election staring us in the face? (Oh yeah, you were on message boards telling the sheeple to WAKE UP and OPEN YOUR EYES. How’s that rhetorical technique working for you?)
From now until November 6, you are on one side or the other. Deal with it. If you are going to criticize one candidate, you had better have some plausible explanation for why the other guy would be better. If you are unhappy with something Obama has done, explain what Mitt Romney will do better. If you can come up with a broad, coherent vision of how a Romney presidency would benefit most Americans, demand that the RNC hire you.
If you just want to rip on one candidate or the other, go away, because you’re not helping anything but your own sense of self-importance.
Photo credit: ‘Confusion’ by mvanrens on stock.xchng.
Paul Ryan is unhappy with the Democratic Party. In other news, water is wet and I like donuts.
Specifically, Paul Ryan is unhappy that the Democratic party’s platform doesn’t mention the capital-G man even once. (Because if Democrats should be taking pointers on their platform from anyone, it should be the other party’s Vice Presidential nominee.)
The Democratic Party’s platform makes no reference to God, drawing criticism from Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Ryan tells Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” the change is not in keeping with the country’s founding documents and principles and suggests the Obama administration is behind the decision. The Republican platform mentions God 12 times.
The 2008 Democratic Party platform made a single reference to God, referring to the “God-given potential” of working people.
“Founding documents and principles,” he says. Does he mean the Declaration of Independence? I’ll throw him a bone there, since it does mention “God” one time.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Well, it says “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Is that different from Paul Ryan’s God? Probably. Thomas Jefferson is credited with writing the Declaration of Independence, and he generally does not seem like a man who wasted words. Historians can argue over the precise meaning of “Nature’s God,” but the important thing to note is that, between this and the U.S. Constitution, i.e. the two “founding documents” that matter, this is the only time anyone uses the word “God.” He uses the word “Creator” elsewhere in the Declaration of Independence, but that’s even more ambiguous than “Nature’s God.” Continue reading
Even self-styled Nordic gods have a hard time keeping hold of their hammer now and then.
