Yes, a Republican candidate for the Indiana state legislature really did say that, although he quickly backtracked after he hit the national news with his stupidity.
However, and almost unbelievably, Glenn Beck said the following on his radio show today:
From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn’t. … Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have.
“Hillary Clinton said she wants to travel this year, and won’t make any announcements about her plans to run for president until 2015. When asked where she’ll travel, she said, ‘New Hampshire, Iowa, and maybe spend a few months in Florida.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Hillary Clinton said she would make her decision on running for president ‘by the end of the year.’ Specifically, the year 1998.” – Seth Meyers
“This week Hillary Clinton launches the tour for her new book. When he heard, Bill Clinton said, ‘I’m so proud of her, and what day exactly is she leaving?'” – Conan O’Brien
“In an interview she said that she and her husband were dead broke when they left the White House. Hillary said things were so bad, the two of them needed to share a bedroom.” – Conan O’Brien
“Hillary Clinton has a new book out on her experiences as secretary of state. Instead of a book jacket, her book is wearing a pantsuit.” –Conan O’Brien
“President Obama faced some criticism for chewing gum during a D-Day ceremony. He said, ‘Sorry, but if I don’t get my Nicorette, there’s going to be another war on this beach.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“On Friday the CIA launched its official Twitter account. Which means that you could receive this terrifying email: ‘The CIA is now following you.'” – Seth Meyers
“Vladimir Putin’s personal envoy said that allowing Finland to join NATO could lead to World War III. Yes, if there’s one country that’s definitely going to start World War III, it’s Finland.” – Seth Meyers
I’ve almost given up on predicting how the conflict between the “establishment GOP” and the Tea Party will play out, but a few things are clear. In particular, both sides seem to be hell bent on shooting themselves in the foot. It seems obvious that Eric Cantor’s worst enemy was himself, not some tea party candidate. By trying to be everything to everyone, Cantor was nobody to no one, and by seriously overreacting to an opponent who posed almost no threat to him, he gave him credibility.
Between that and the tea party’s quest to eliminate in the primary anyone actually, you know, generally electable, maybe the Republican party will completely blow their overwhelming statistical advantage of taking over the Senate this November.
But whatever happens, this will not end well. Too bad for us.
“Something happened this week that in the past was always completely not controversial, we brought home a prisoner of war. Bowe Bergdahl is his name, from the Afghanistan war. Of course if you saw Fox News, you saw what really happened: Obama surrendered to the Taliban.” – Bill Maher
“It was a tough week for conservatives because, you know, on the one hand they love the military and soldiers, but they hate Obama. So at first, FOX News was like, ‘We don’t want to weigh in until all the facts were distorted.'” –Bill Maher
“I’m kidding, of course. They weighed in right away. And the conclusion they came to is if there is one inviolate, eternal, etched-in-stone rule, which is that we never leave an American solider behind in war, unless Obama does it and then of course it’s a stupid, horrible thing to do.” – Bill Maher
“Exactly right. Good presidents, people like George Bush, he sends people to war. They don’t bring them home and rescue them. This is America, we rescue insurance companies and banks.” – Bill Maher
“We don’t trade terrorists for hostages. We trade arms for hostages. But there are of course aspects of this story that are actually controversial. Like this guy may very well have been a deserter, which is not good. You just can’t pick up and leave in the middle of your job. You’re part of a military unit, not the governor of Alaska.” – Bill Maher
“Sarah Palin, she was all over this story, attacking this Bowe Bergdahl guy because, you know, she found out through reports, we don’t really know this, that he has trouble now speaking English. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.” – Bill Maher
“Of course he has trouble speaking English. You know, he was five years around nobody else who speaks English. Sarah, what’s your excuse?” – Bill Maher
“I mean, come on, cut this guy some slack. When you spend five years in captivity it can make a man do some crazy things, like when McCain picked you!” – Bill Maher
“Look, whatever happened over there in Afghanistan, we’re not going to find out or really know for a while. He will spend weeks, they say, recovering and then months until he can get an appointment at the VA.” – Bill Maher
“The other controversial aspect of this, and it is controversial, is that Obama did kind of did do it illegally. You are supposed to give Congress 30 days notice, but the administration says their excuse for that is that Bergdahl’s life was in immediate danger. And that’s just because the Taliban were driving a GM truck.” – Bill Maher
“Guns aren’t just a tool of last resort. They’re awesome. That’s why people stroke them. And name them, and take pictures with them. You guys aren’t just firearm enthusiasts — you’re ammosexuals. And before you try and deny you have some sort of unnatural romantic relationship with your gun, consider this. You’re taking it out to dinner! Because it completes you. Get a room.” – Bill Maher
The number of health insurance companies joining the healthcare exchanges is increasing. A number of companies who didn’t participate in the exchanges during the first enrollment period last year have changed their minds. This is partly because the first year’s enrollment in the exchanges exceeded expectations.
In New Hampshire, the number of Obamacare insurers is rising from one to five, from 13 to 18 in Michigan, and from six to ten in Illinois.
But the great news is that prices for health insurance on the exchanges is lower than for companies not on the exchanges. So with more companies joining the exchanges, we can expect price competition to continue and even increase.
So, the ACA has increased the number of people with health insurance, and has lowered costs.
The GOP has vowed to use the healthcare law against the Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. When asked for comment, Republicans responded “Benghazi!”.
“President Obama says that the United States never leaves soldiers behind. But that’s because we never leave.” – David Letterman
“This Bergdahl guy was in a Taliban prison for five years, and he’s now recovering in a hospital in Germany. The reason he is in Germany is because he couldn’t get into a VA hospital until 2020.” – David Letterman
“When asked about criticism from Hillary Clinton, Russia’s President Putin said he doesn’t like to argue with women. Putin is either being a misogynist, or else ladies he’s the perfect catch.” – Conan O’Brien
I’m having lots of trouble paying any attention to this story. It seems like it is just so much noise. Even worse, it is the same noise we have heard over and over (and over) again. OMG, Obama did something, and the Republicans are attacking him over it. Maybe if everyone ignores it, then it will go away.
Tea party candidate David Brat won a completely unexpected upset in his Republican primary, defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). It is the first time ever that a House Majority Leader has lost in a primary.
The media had almost unanimously predicted that Cantor would win easily. Politico said “In other news, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor is expected to beat his primary challenger”. The Hill said “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) are cruising to primary victories Tuesday after fighting Tea Party challengers every inch of the way. Both incumbents showed fire in the belly. Their campaigns are the latest proof that establishment Republicans can triumph over insurgents if they really want the win and do what it takes to turn that hope into reality.”
Oops. After this, I expect an even more dysfunctional Congress.
UPDATE: How did Brat win? Even his campaign manager doesn’t know.
UPDATE 2: Interesting articles in Slate and Salon on why Cantor lost.
UPDATE 3: A survey of different opinions on why Cantor lost, which makes some really interesting points. My favorite analysis is that while the tea party may be crazy, at least they aren’t completely in thrall to the corporations who caused the financial crisis, like the establishment Republicans are.
“We bring back a POW, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, from Afghanistan and to get him back we traded five Taliban thugs. And now everybody’s gone crazy. People say it’s the most controversial trade that has taken place since NBC traded me here to CBS.” – David Letterman
“These guys were down in Gitmo and now they get freed after 10 or 15 years. So now they’re released and they get to fly home. And I’m thinking, if you go to the airport and you’re stuck behind these guys in security, good luck.” – David Letterman
“When they sent the Taliban thugs back to Qatar, they got picked up in a stretch camel.” – David Letterman
“French President Francois Hollande will host two dinners tomorrow night, the first one for President Obama, followed by one for Vladimir Putin. Hollande was pretty worried about keeping them separate. Then his girlfriend and his mistress said, ‘You’ll figure it out.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“A Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona, who is white, recently changed his name to Cesar Chavez to appeal to Latino voters. It backfired when Arizona’s governor immediately deported him.” – Jimmy Fallon
“The United States has traded an American POW for five Taliban prisoners. Originally, the deal included Joe Biden, but the Taliban said no.” – David Letterman
“I don’t want to complicate your hatred of facial hair there, friend, but my guess is if you gave Bob Bergdahl a bandana and a duck, you’d like him just-f*cking-fine.” – Jon Stewart (reacting to “Fox and Friends” cohost Brian Kilmeade’s criticism of the father of freed American POW Bowe Bergdahl)
“The NRA is accusing a Texas gun rights group of going too far after the group has posted YouTube videos of their members walking into restaurants with semi-automatic rifles. The NRA saying you’ve gone too far is like Johnny Depp telling you you’re wearing too many scarves.” – Seth Meyers
“I think the second term is getting to President Obama. He is saying that he wishes he could be anonymous. And I say: Hey, according to the new approval ratings, you’re pretty close.” – David Letterman
“President Obama is in Poland. He’s not doing anything official. He just wants to go before Putin invades. Poland shares a border with Ukraine, which shares a border with Russia. It’s kind of like living two doors down from Alec Baldwin. Eventually you’re getting attacked, right?” – Craig Ferguson
“Last Friday CNN had its worst 10 p.m. ratings of all time, with only 35,000 viewers tuning in. I left it on for my dog, and when I came back, she was reading a newspaper.” – Jimmy Fallon
“CNN got just 35,000 viewers. Even worse, most of those views came from monitors left on in the background on CNN.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Pope Francis is now telling married couples to have children, because only having pets could lead to anger or bitterness in old age. As opposed to having kids, which leads to anger AND bitterness in old age.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Pope Francis said that married people should have more kids. When asked for comment, married people said the Pope should have a kid and then get back to us.” – Conan O’Brien
“Yesterday French President Francois Hollande announced that he will be having two consecutive dinners on Thursday night in order to keep President Obama and Vladimir Putin separate. It’s an old trick he learned from having a wife and a mistress.” – Seth Meyers
The Texas Republican Party gave a rare victory to gay rights advocates this week by removing language that stated that “homosexuality tears at the fabric of society” that has been in the party platform for decades.
But instead, they inserted a new plank that recognizes “the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle.”
“Reparative therapy” is psychological treatment that attempts to turn gay people straight. Such counseling has been condemned by the American Psychological Association and many other major health organizations. It is especially harmful to minors and has been known to cause serious psychological harm. In fact, a law making such treatment illegal for minors was passed in California, and a similar law was passed in New Jersey and signed by Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie (which may explain why the delegates cheered when Christie finished a distant 11th in their 2016 presidential straw poll).
In other areas, the Texas Republican party platform moved further to the right. For example, tea party groups succeeded in winning a harder line on immigration, even though this will cost the party votes in states like Texas where the hispanic population is increasing.
I had an interesting discussion with a friend recently. We were talking about the fact that there really is almost no need for telecom companies any more.
Originally, telephones had to go through a large, centralized switch to connect one phone to another and to connect to long distance trunk lines that tied different cities together. Hence, there once was a requirement for a telecom company, both for local telephone service and for “long distance” service. Already, the need for any distinction between long distance and local has gone away. After all, my phone service now makes no distinction between calling someone in the same city, or someone in 60 countries worldwide.
But now, it is technologically reasonable to replace the centralized switches of our telecom system with “mesh nets”, where calls are forwarded through other nearby phones.
Likewise, there is absolutely no need for the internet to have a “backbone”. In fact, having centralized points for routing internet traffic creates points of failure, and is what makes it easy to spy on us. It is also the only reason why we have arguments about “net neutrality” — the backbone gives power to internet telecoms that makes it possible for them to discriminate against internet traffic.
What would be preferable to having a centralized backbone is to have lots and lots of local connections between ISPs. That would be far more robust, more secure, and harder to game for profit.
A side point is that maybe we should not be fighting for net neutrality rules. After all, if the telcos are able to freely destroy net neutrality and completely screw up the internet, maybe that will give incentive to people to create a new, better, decentralized internet that is not dependent on the telcos.
I am of two minds about this, but it is interesting to think about. Comments? Opinions?
“Newly leaked documents show the NSA has been collecting millions of pictures of people online for its sophisticated facial recognition program. Americans said it’s a huge violation of their privacy – then they went back to posting selfies every 30 minutes.” – Jimmy Fallon
“In a new interview, President Obama revealed that his daughter Malia recently went to her first prom. She wore a corsage on her wrist while her date wore a red laser dot on his head.” – Jimmy Fallon
“President Obama had lunch with Hillary Clinton. Hillary told the president, ‘After phoning my top advisers, I think I’ll run for office.’ And the president said, ‘I know. I listened in.'” – Craig Ferguson
“A lot of people in Washington were shocked by this Obama-Hillary meeting. I’m not sure about Nancy Pelosi. She looks shocked all the time.” – Craig Ferguson
“President Obama said Hillary Clinton would be very effective if she ran for president. And Joe Biden said, ‘Thank you very – wait, what?'” – Jimmy Fallon
“This morning President Obama announced a new 600-page proposal to lower carbon emissions and help stop global warming. Step one: Stop printing 600-page proposals.” – Seth Meyers
“Marijuana dispensaries in San Jose, California, will give out free weed to people who vote in tomorrow’s municipal election. Which should backfire when the winner of the election is ‘Pizza’.” – Jimmy Fallon
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