Special interests want you to be apathetic. The less you know, and the less you vote, the more power they get.
Everyone is given the right to vote. If you don’t, you’re just throwing your power away.
It takes less time to vote than it does to complain about how corrupt and dysfunctional our government is. And if you don’t vote, you don’t really have the right to complain.
Meanwhile, the GOP is all over the place trying to come up with a debate format that works for them. Unfortunately, they seem to think that the debate is for the candidates. Silly Republicans, debates are for voters. And here’s the debate format that would really increase the ratings and bring in the money. And isn’t that what it is all about?
“Tonight’s Republican debate took place in Colorado, where marijuana is legal. Which explains why every single question from the audience was, ‘Where am I?'” – Conan O’Brien
“I haven’t been able to watch tonight’s Republican debate yet, but I’m excited to see the face-off between the party’s biggest opponents: Carson and staying awake.” – Stephen Colbert
“Tonight was the World Series and the Republican debate. In other words, two events with completely different attitudes toward Latino immigrants.” – Conan O’Brien
“Meanwhile, the other big competition from Boulder, Colorado, another Republican presidential debate on CNBC. Do we learn anything from these debates? The only thing voters might learn is CNBC is a channel.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Like a lot of New Yorkers, I am a little tired and pissed off this morning. I’m guessing a lot of you flipped over from the third Republican debate. I don’t know what happened yet because we taped this at 5:30, but I am super excited about the brand new Republican front-runner, retired neurosurgeon and current tired person Ben Carson.” – Stephen Colbert
“It’s been a great time for him. This surgeon is surging in the polls, 26 percent, ahead of Donald Trump’s 22 percent. The other 52 percent, of course, is going to the other 52 candidates.” – Stephen Colbert
“The two front-runners: Ben Carson, who doesn’t believe in evolution; and Donald Trump, who kind of proves his point.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Carson’s strongest support comes from evangelical Christians, a group that Donald Trump has had real trouble with, evidently. People who read the Bible just don’t want to follow someone who looks that much like a golden calf.” – Stephen Colbert
“On Monday, former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson endorsed Donald Trump. Tyson joins Trump’s biggest group of supporters: ‘People Who Have Been Hit in the Head a Lot’.” – Conan O’Brien
“Earlier this week Donald received the endorsement of one of America’s great political minds. Remember, Mike Tyson once bit a man’s ear off on national television — and endorsing Donald Trump is the craziest thing he has ever done.” – James Corden
“But Tyson isn’t the only celebrity endorsing Trump. He’s also been endorsed by Kirstie Alley, Gary Busey, Dennis Rodman, and Hulk Hogan, which sounds like a season of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’.” – James Corden
“Yesterday, Donald Trump told the crowd in Iowa, ‘I am a great Christian.’ If you have to tell people you’re a great Christian, you might not be a great Christian. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Which is why Donald Trump is now currently working on plans to build an enormous needle.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Donald Trump said yesterday to supporters, ‘If I lose Iowa, I will never speak to you people again.’ He added, ‘But if I win, I will never speak to you people again.'” – Seth Meyers
“Republican candidate Mike Huckabee has earned endorsements from several members of the Duggar family. And that is a smart political move, since nearly 40 percent of Republican voters are actually members of the Duggar family.” – James Corden
“Bernie Sanders has received an endorsement from Justin Long, the actor who famously played a ‘Mac’ in those old Apple commercials. The endorsement meant so much to Bernie, he’s thinking of switching over to a Mac from his current computer, a yellow legal pad.” – James Corden
Barack Obama made fun of the Republican candidates for president, saying that these would-be tough guys can’t even handle a bunch of CNBC moderators. During a fundraiser, Obama said:
Have you noticed that every one of these candidates says, ‘Obama’s weak. Putin’s kicking sand in his face. When I talk to Putin, he’s going to straighten out’? And then it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators at a debate. I mean, let me tell you, if you can’t handle those guys, you know, then I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you.
So far, no.
Yesterday, the voters of Ohio rejected a ballot measure that would amend the Ohio constitution to legalize marijuana.
What’s ironic about this is that many of the organizations who are working to legalize marijuana urged voters to reject the measure. And (even more ironically) I’m glad the measure failed.
Drugs are big business, so it is amazing that it took this long for business to realize that they could make a lot of money off of marijuana. But once they figured that out, they didn’t waste any time. The ballot measure in Ohio was a blatant greedy power grab.
The ballot measure would have authorized ten (and only ten) specific businesses to supply legal marijuana, and keep it illegal for anyone else to sell it. And how did the writers of this measure select those ten businesses? They were the businesses that contributed a bunch of money to get the ballot measure passed. If it had passed, those ten companies would have had a collective monopoly to make a great deal of money, likely forever.
It wasn’t that long ago that we had a similar oligopoly, selling another (even more addictive) drug, tobacco. We don’t need big business pushing drugs again.
Bernie Sanders has finally defined what he means by “Democratic Socialism”.
What I mean by Democratic socialism is looking at countries in Scandinavia that have much lower rates of child poverty, that have a fairer tax system that guarantees basic necessities of life to working people. Essentially what I mean by that is creating a government that works for working families, rather than the kind of government we have today which is largely owned and controlled by wealthy individuals and large corporations.
Getting more specific, he gives some examples:
If we go to some countries, what they will have is health care for all as a right. I believe in that. They will have paid family and medical leave. I believe in that. They will have a much stronger childcare system than we have, which is affordable for working families. I believe in that.
Sanders has often used Denmark as his example of democratic socialism, but there are just a few problems with this.
First of all, as Hillary Clinton has pointed out: “We are not Denmark. We are the United States of America.” This might sound like an excuse, but ideologues often make the mistake that just because a system works in one country, it will work just as well in another country. Just because England loves their monarchy doesn’t mean that we should elect someone as our king (but can’t you imagine Donald Trump running for the job).
Second, the Danish prime minister himself claims that Denmark is not at all socialist. Speaking at the Harvard School of Government this week, he said:
I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.
In fact, the current government of Denmark is a center-right coalition, and the second largest political party in Denmark is a hard-right one that is strongly anti-immigration.
Personally, I feel that Sanders is being loose with the term socialism. Socialism is where the state owns and controls the means of production. Examples of socialism in the US include our public streets and highways, our national parks and forests, and our military.
From his examples, it seems like Sanders is really talking about is our social safety net, or as some people might call it, creating a “welfare state”. But a welfare state is not the same thing as socialism.
If people are afraid of the word “socialism”, there is an easy solution. Why doesn’t Sanders just claim that socialism is what you have when you use social media? 🙂
“New York has a team in the World Series and Donald Trump is no longer ahead in the polls — I think we’re back to normal, everyone!” – Jimmy Fallon
“In response to his drop to second in the polls, Donald Trump said today that he will run until the very end and does not mind running from behind. Trump says he knows what it’s like to be the underdog, because he wears one on his head.” – Seth Meyers
“Dr. Ben Carson, for the first time ever, leads Donald Trump in a new national poll. According to the new CBS News/New York Times poll, Carson at 26 percent, Trump is in second place with 22 percent. Jeb Bush only has 7 percent. Jeb Bush has officially become the most embarrassing member of the Bush family, even below Billy Bush.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“One of the top political Halloween costumes this year is Donald Trump. Meanwhile, even Jeb Bush doesn’t want to go out dressed as Jeb Bush.” – Conan O’Brien
“Former President George W. Bush yesterday spoke to voters on his brother’s behalf, and told them ‘one reason Jeb is going to win is because he’s a fierce competitor.’ Adding, ‘And one reason he’s going to lose is because of me.'” – Seth Meyers
“Chris Christie was kicked out of the Amtrak quiet car for making too much noise. Christie said it wasn’t him that was making the noise, it was his eight-pound block of peanut brittle.” – Conan O’Brien
“Paul Ryan finally agreed to run for Speaker of the House even though he’s repeatedly said he didn’t want to run. So basically, Paul Ryan is that guy at karaoke who just pretends like he doesn’t want to sing.” – Jimmy Fallon
“President Obama gave a speech in Chicago this afternoon and told police they have ‘work to do to restore trust’ in minority communities. It was going pretty well, but halfway through the speech, Obama got pulled over.” – Seth Meyers
“Russia is making plans to send four monkeys to Mars. Not as preparation for a human mission — but because the monkeys criticized Vladimir Putin.” – Conan O’Brien
“A cracker that survived the sinking of the Titanic sold today for $23,000. Experts say the 100-year-old Titanic cracker pairs very well with any hot dog from 7-Eleven.” – Conan O’Brien
“Joe Biden announced that he will not be running for president. He made the announcement with President Obama right by his side, and you could tell it was an emotional moment because at one point, Obama actually gave Biden a shoulder rub.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Following Joe Biden’s announcement that he will not run for office in 2016, Hillary Clinton said she is ‘confident that history isn’t finished with Joe Biden.’ Adding, ‘But I am! HA-HA!'” – Seth Meyers
“On ’60 Minutes,’ Vice President Joe Biden said he chose not to run for president because he couldn’t win. After hearing this, Bobby Jindal said, ‘Since when is that a reason not to run?'” – Conan O’Brien
“More good news for Hillary Clinton — Joe Biden is not running for president. As a voter I’m sad to lose Joe Biden but I can understand. Being a candidate sucks. It’s an ugly, nasty battle with a single bloody survivor. It’s like the hunger games. No, it’s more than that. It’s the hungry-for-power games!” – Stephen Colbert
“Analysts say Bernie Sanders has shifted his focus to more aggressive attacks on Hillary Clinton. In fact, Sanders is planning to go after her emails as soon as his granddaughter explains to him what an ’email’ is.” – Conan O’Brien
“Last week Democratic candidates Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb announced that they are dropping out of the race. Which raises the question, what if two trees fall in the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it?” – Jimmy Fallon
“Happy birthday to Hillary Clinton, who turned 68 today. It was the first time anyone has ever blown out the candles on a birthday cake and NOBODY wondered what they wished for.” – Seth Meyers
“Former President Bill Clinton served as the warm-up act for pop star Katy Perry at a rally for Hillary’s presidential campaign. Then he stood in the audience and yelled out, ‘Sing that one about you kissing another girl!'” – Seth Meyers
“Happy birthday to Hillary Clinton, who turned 68 today. When asked what her favorite gift was, she said, ‘Donald Trump’.” – Jimmy Fallon
“One of the top Halloween costumes this year is Donald Trump. Which is why this year, the phrase ‘trick-or-treat’ has been replaced with ‘gimme a Kit Kat or I’ll deport you’.” – Conan O’Brien
“A new poll conducted by the Associated Press shows a majority of Republican voters think Donald Trump is the most electable Republican candidate. Saying Donald Trump is the most electable candidate is like saying glazed is the healthiest doughnut. Is it possible people don’t know what the word electable means? Do they think it means delicious?” – Jimmy Kimmel
“During a town hall meeting, Donald Trump was asked by Matt Lauer if he is nice enough to be president. Trump answered, ‘Of course I’m nice enough, baldy.'” – Conan O’Brien
“Donald Trump said in an interview this weekend that Iraq is the ‘Harvard of terrorism.’ And he’s got a point: The only reason George W. Bush got into Iraq is because his dad went there.” – Seth Meyers
“Ben Carson now holds a 14-point lead over Donald Trump in Iowa. Experts say Carson appeals to Iowa’s conservatives, Iowa’s evangelicals, and both of Iowa’s black people.” –Conan O’Brien
“Some politicians attack people with words. Not Ben Carson. He uses knives and hammers. Hammers, plural. Let’s not forget this man is a brain surgeon. Ben Carson would be amazing at the game ‘two truths and a lie.’ He’s like, ‘I’m one of the world’s best brain surgeons, I stabbed my friend with a camping knife, and my favorite flavor is vanilla. Got you — it’s strawberry!’ “– James Corden
“Ben Carson tried to kill one of his friends with a camping knife, but sure, let’s keep talking about whether Hillary Clinton used Yahoo or Gmail.” – James Corden
“All the candidates are trying to reinvent themselves, but sometimes they try a little too hard. Jeb Bush last week tried to appeal to a younger, hipper audience when he called ‘Supergirl’ pretty hot. Jeb Bush calling ‘Supergirl’ pretty hot is something your stepdad says when he’s trying to connect with you.” – James Corden
“Meanwhile, Jeb Bush is trying to get momentum going by releasing a new book. It’s a collection of emails he sent and received when he was governor of Florida. The book is called ‘Reply all.’ Because nothing gets people excited like group email.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“In addition to the book, Jeb is launching the ‘Jeb can fix it’ tour. Their new slogan: ‘Jeb can fix it.’ Fix the election? That might be his only hope.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Researchers somewhere studied 75 brands of hot dogs and found some of them contained human DNA … I guess my bologna really does have a first name.” – Stephen Colbert
In the last debate, current leader for the Republican presidential nomination, Ben Carson, was asked about his involvement with Mannatech, a nutritional supplements company. Mannatech has been making outlandish claims about its products, including that they cure cancer and autism (even Down Syndrome, which is actually caused by having an extra chromosome). Mannatech paid $7 million to settle a lawsuit over their deceptive practices.
Carson’s response was to attack the question, calling it “total propaganda” and saying “I didn’t have an involvement with them.” But the facts show he had a lengthy (and profitable) relationship with them. In other words, Carson lied.
In the same debate, Donald Trump was asked about a statement of his, saying that Marco Rubio is (Facebook founder) Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator. Trump responded “I never said that. I never said that.”
Unfortunately for Trump, during the debate PolitiFact looked on Trump’s own website, which says “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.” (As I write this, it is still there.)
Paul Krugman points out that GOP political candidates seem to be going on the offensive about their lies, and seem to be getting away with it. When Carson was asked about his questionable associations, the Republican audience booed. When Trump was asked about his statement, the questioner apologized. As Krugman puts it:
But the Republican base doesn’t want to hear about it, and the candidate apparently believes, probably correctly, that he can simply brazen it out. These days, in his party, being an obvious grifter isn’t a liability, and may even be an asset.
And this doesn’t just go for outsider candidates like Mr. Carson and Donald Trump. Insider politicians like Marco Rubio are simply engaged in a different, classier kind of scam — and they are empowered in part by the way the grifters have defined respectability down.
Rubio claims that his proposed massive tax cuts will pay for themselves. I can’t believe anyone still believes that scam. But he’s squarely positioned as the most sensible GOP candidate. Ted Cruz claims that we should return to the gold standard, and his vocal backer Glenn Beck makes money promoting Goldline, a company that sells gold coins at highly inflated prices. Or Ron Paul (a former candidate and father of a current one), who spent decades warning about runaway inflation that never appeared, but he cashed in anyway selling books and videos telling you how to protect yourself from the coming financial disaster.
Probably the best examples of milking suckers are the Tea Party groups, the best of which (the Tea Party Leadership Fund) only spent 13% of the money they raised supporting political candidates, with the rest going to administrative costs and consultants’ fees (note that charities are expected to spend at least 75% on their mission). Sarah Palin’s “Sarah PAC” was a dismal 5%, and they weren’t even the worst. The worst was the Tea Party Express, with 4% going to candidates. More than half of that paltry amount went to a single candidate, who dropped out of the race. I wonder if that’s what their donors intended when they gave all that money to fight business-as-usual in Washington.
Unfortunately, the Age of Teflon, started by Ronald Reagan, now applies to all Republican politicians. The poor schmucks taken in by these swindlers won’t believe any news reports about how gullible they have been. As Krugman puts it:
You might think that such revelations would be politically devastating. But the targets of such schemes know, just know, that the liberal mainstream media can’t be trusted, that when it reports negative stories about conservative heroes it’s just out to suppress people who are telling the real truth. It’s a closed information loop, and can’t be broken.
Ironically, even blaming everything on the “liberal mainstream media” is a scam. Fox News has been the most popular news network for over a decade, beating MSNBC and CNN combined in total viewers.
“Bernie Sanders praised Joe Biden’s decision not to run. Sanders said, ‘There’s only room for one goofy old dude.'” – Conan O’Brien
“After a lot of speculation, Vice President Joe Biden today announced that he is not running for president of the United States. He made the announcement this afternoon from the Rose Garden at the White House. It’s weird to hold a press conference to say you’re not doing something, right? Like announcing to your girlfriend that you won’t be proposing.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Joe Biden announced he is not running for president. And so, as promised, Hillary Clinton immediately released his dog.” – Conan O’Brien
“Biden said the window is closed on a presidential campaign, which is true. The election is only 13 months away. There’s barely enough time to put a suit on.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“I don’t know if anybody was watching the Benghazi hearings. They were going all day. There was one moment when a representative told Hillary Clinton he could wait while she read her notes. She said, ‘I can do more than one thing at a time.’ Then Bill Clinton said, ‘When I say that, I get in trouble.'” – Conan O’Brien
“At the White House the other day, President Obama sang to Usher. And because the president was singing, Usher went to the Situation Room and approved a drone strike in Syria.” – Conan O’Brien
Today is ‘Back to the Future’ Day. It’s the day Marty McFly traveled forward in time only to find out the most important thing to people in 2015 is movies from the ’80s.” – Conan O’Brien
Are voters finally getting tired of Donald Trump? It was fun while it lasted, but it might have just been a summer fling.
UPDATE: During Trump’s presidential announcement speech, he attacked the performance of the US economy under president Obama, saying, “The last quarter, it was just announced, our gross domestic product — a sign of strength, right? But not for us. It was below zero. Who ever heard of this? It’s never below zero.”
Well, he got one thing right: The GDP is never below zero. Last quarter, as usual, it was in the trillions of dollars. What Trump meant to refer to was that the growth in GDP was below zero. So let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he simply misspoke.
Unfortunately for Trump, even then he lied. GDP goes up and down all the time. For example, it goes up for the Christmas holiday buying spurt and then goes down in the following winter quarter pretty much every year, which is why the government “seasonally adjusts” the figure (and Trump was talking about numbers for the first quarter). But even if you use the seasonally adjusted number, quarterly GDP growth has gone negative 15% of the time since they started tracking it in 1947.
Lately, the winters have been unusually harsh, causing the winter quarter to decline even more than normal, but it is hypocritical to blame this on a president who is fighting strong opposition from Republicans to fight climate change. Oh, and if you are going to be blaming economic cycles on the president, then you should note that of the 42 quarters of negative growth since WWII, 30 of them occurred under Republican presidents and only 12 under Democratic presidents.
By any measure, even giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, Trump lied. In fact, Trump has never received a “True” rating from PolitiFact.
“Donald Trump is now trying to appeal to Southerners. Yeah, he’s been touring the South and pointing to his hair, saying ‘How y’all like my critter?'” – Conan O’Brien
“Donald Trump was supposed to be here tonight. Last night his people called, and canceled on us and were cryptic as to why he canceled. They said he had a major political commitment but wanted me to relay the message to you that if he had been here, he would have been great.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“I’m dying to find out what this major political commitment was. Usually that means he had to go on CNN and call someone an idiot.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Don’t worry. Tonight we’re going to give everyone in the audience basketball dipped in cologne so you can fully experience what it would have been like had Donald Trump been here.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Canada’s new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, once put on a striptease show for charity. In Canada, a strip tease just means unzipping your outer layer of fleece.” – Conan O’Brien
“Canada elected a new Prime Minister named Justin Trudeau, and many consider the guy a heartthrob. The good news is, any Canadian heartthrob named Justin is sure to be popular forever.” – Conan O’Brien
In an odd footnote to Republican Paul Ryan being approved as Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert pled guilty to evading federal banking laws. Hastert was the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House ever.
The guilty plea avoids subjecting Hastert to his day in court, where further details of his misconduct would have to come out. Hastert is guilty of structuring $1.7 million in cash withdrawals in order to avoid the notice of bank officials. The cash was apparently hush money used to pay off someone, to cover up sexual misconduct with a male student of of Hastert’s when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach. Hastert was not charged with any sex crimes because of the statute of limitations had run out.
Best of luck to Ryan, who said his nomination “begins a new day in the House of Representatives”.
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