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Late Night Political Humor

“Congrats to Chelsea Clinton. Last week, she announced that she is expecting her first child. If it’s a girl, it’ll get some of Chelsea’s old hand-me-downs; and if it’s a boy, it’ll get some of Hillary’s.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Hillary Clinton is going to be a grandmother. She’s very excited about it. She’s home right now knitting a tiny pantsuit.” – David Letterman

“Chelsea Clinton has announced that she is pregnant with her first child. The baby is expected to crawl after nine months and run in 2055.” – Seth Meyers

“Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is running for re-election, and he’s got a catchy campaign slogan: ‘Forget my first term. I was on crack.'” – David Letterman

“This weekend over 37,000 people went to Denver to participate in the 4th annual Cannabis Cup. And they all made memories that would last a few minutes.” – Seth Meyers

“Vladimir Putin said he thinks that President Obama would save him if he were drowning. Then President Obama said, ‘There’s only one way to find out.'” – Jimmy Fallon

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The Justice of No

Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed a small victory to the Obama administration, ruling 6 to 2 to uphold the EPA’s authority to regulate coal pollution that crosses state lines.

The two dissenting votes were from Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. They are not the brightest jurists on the court, but in their dissenting opinion, they made what some legal scholars are calling “hugely embarrassing”, “epic”, a “cringeworthy blunder”, and a “mind-blowing misstatement of a basic fact”.

In the dissent, Scalia wrote “This is not the first time EPA has sought to convert the Clean Air Act into a mandate for cost-effective regulation. Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457 (2001), confronted EPA’s contention that it could consider costs in setting [National Ambient Air Quality Standards].”

There is just one problem. The 2001 case they reference was exactly the opposite. The EPA refused to consider costs against health benefits, while the trucking industry was trying to force them to do just that. The Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0 in favor of the EPA.

Now here’s the ironic part. The author of that 2001 ruling was Scalia. He not only completely mischaracterized a Supreme Court decision (a bad mistake in itself), it was a unanimous decision that Scalia himself wrote.

I know it is the “highest court in the land”, but what drugs was he on?

[Note that on Wednesday, the Supreme Court updated and corrected Scalia’s opinion. But with one of his main arguments against the case gone, why did he still feel the need to dissent?]

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Pride of Place

There is a rather unusual poll out from Gallup. In the poll, they asked residents of all 50 states to rate their own state as the best place to live. Thus, the survey was not based on objective measures like crime rates or cost of living, but was completely subjective. Or put another way, the poll measures state pride.

Here are the results. The numbers show the percentage of state residents who say that their state is either the best, or one of the best possible to live in:

poll results
© Gallup and USA Today

Some interesting results:

  • Most of the top states are mountainous and have cold weather.
  • Most of the top states are in the west, with the exception of New Hampshire and Vermont.
  • Most of the bottom states are in the eastern half of the country, with the exception of New Mexico.
  • Most of the top states have relatively low population, with the exception of Texas. Traditionally, Texans have a somewhat overblown view of their home state. In fact, Texas had the highest percentage of people who said that their state was THE best to live.
  • 25% of people in Illinois say that their state is the worst place to live (followed by Rhode Island and Connecticut, both with 17%).
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Late Political Humor

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.” – Mark Twain (not Twain, likely from the book “The Peter Principle by Laurence F. Peter)

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” – Thomas Jefferson (not Jefferson, but probably inspired by things he wrote).

“There are men running governments who should not be allowed to play with matches.” – Will Rogers

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill

“Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many, for appointment by the corrupt few.” – George Bernard Shaw

Instead of “Late Night Political Humor” this is political humor from dead (“late”) people. Isn’t it ironic that warnings given even hundreds of years ago are still true and relevant today?

Even more ironically, this gives me hope. Democracy has been a mess for a very long time, and yet we have somehow managed to survive and (generally) prosper.

I realize that politicians and the media do a very good job of scaring people into thinking that the world is about to end. I guess fear is a very potent message for getting votes and selling newspapers. But in the end, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

UPDATE: Ok, the quote from Jefferson wasn’t written by him, but it is similar to things he did say. And the quote from Mark Twain, like many things attributed to Twain, was from someone else. But my point (and optimism) still stands.

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No Longer Number One

America just passed another milestone. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that a milestone passed us. For many years, the US has been known for having the more affluent middle class in the world. Indeed, we’ve used this fact to make fun of other countries, mocking them for their high taxes, or their “socialist” tendencies. The US was the land of opportunity.

Well, not so much any more. Sometime around the year 2010, the median income in Canada (the amount the average person earns, after taxes) passed that of the US. Europe is not far behind. And that’s just the middle class — the poor in Europe have earned more than the poor in the US for a while now.

It isn’t because our economy is doing poorly. It is actually doing very well, but the spoils of this economic prosperity is increasingly bypassing the middle class (not to mention the poor) and going directly to the rich.

Why? Three reasons: First, we aren’t educating our youth. Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 rank near the bottom in education among rich countries, significantly behind Canada, Australia, Japan, and Scandinavia and close to even Italy and Spain. Second, while wages for top executives have skyrocketed, pay for the middle class and poor has stagnated. Our minimum wage is lower and we have all but dismantled labor unions. Finally, while other countries work at redistributing income to low- and middle-income households, the US seems to be doing the opposite, giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy, especially inheritance taxes. The rich in America pay lower taxes than the rich in most other countries.

It is ironic to note that countries like Sweden, which conservatives make fun of because if their huge welfare state, the per capita GDP has consistently grown faster than that in the US over the past 30 years (you know, since the Reagan revolution, which was supposed to get rid of all those deadbeat welfare “takers” and energize the economy through “trickle down economics”).

So the rich are doing fine, but as for the rest of Americans, they seem to have been sold a (very expensive) pack of lies.

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Late Night Political Humor

“Chelsea Clinton is pregnant. There is another one coming. A little baby Clinton. People are already wondering, is the baby a girl? Is it a boy? Is it going to run for president in 2016?” – Craig Ferguson

“Chelsea Clinton has announced that she is pregnant with her first child. The baby is expected to crawl after nine months and run in 2055.” – Seth Meyers

“Hillary Clinton is going to be a grandmother. She’s very excited about it. She’s home right now knitting a tiny pantsuit.” – David Letterman

“Congrats to Chelsea Clinton. Last week, she announced that she is expecting her first child. If it’s a girl, it’ll get some of Chelsea’s old hand-me-downs; and if it’s a boy, it’ll get some of Hillary’s.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Potential Republican candidate Jeb Bush is married to an immigrant from Mexico. Yeah, so they’re taking our jobs and our Jebs.” – Conan O’Brien

“Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is running for re-election, and he’s got a catchy campaign slogan: ‘Forget my first term. I was on crack.'” – David Letterman

“Vladimir Putin said he thinks that President Obama would save him if he were drowning. Then President Obama said, ‘There’s only one way to find out’.” – Jimmy Fallon

“This weekend over 37,000 people went to Denver to participate in the 4th annual Cannabis Cup. And they all made memories that would last a few minutes.” – Seth Meyers

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Starting to Mesh

You may have seen terms like “mesh network” and “power grid” but not paid much attention (or even knew their significance), but the ideas behind these terms are becoming very important in many diverse ways.

Whenever you connect things together, there are generally two ways to do it: in a centralized way, or in a distributed (decentralized) way:

Centralized network

Centralized network

In a centralized network, everything has to go through one or more central nodes, like in the illustration to the left.

For example, an airline might use a “hub and spoke” model for its flights, so in order to fly from one city to another you would typically fly to a central “hub” airport, and then take a second flight to your destination. Likewise, most people access the Internet through a centralized Internet Service Provider (ISP), so in order to send an email to someone in the house next to yours (or even to someone in the same house) the email travels to a central location (which might be hundreds or thousands of miles away) and then back to its destination. Another example is our power distribution system, where large centralized power plants distribute power to individual customers.

Distributed network

Distributed network

In a distributed network, there are no centralized nodes. In the illustration on the right every node is connected to every other node, but more commonly in larger networks each node is connected to a a few neighbors, who are connected to other neighbors, like a screen mesh (hence the name mesh network).

For example, some airlines avoid using hub airports, and instead try to have as many direct flights as is economically feasible. In a distributed power distribution system, instead of large centralized power plants you would have many smaller power generators, like solar panels on individual homes, or windmills. Distributed computer networks are commonly used inside of companies or buildings, so that individual computers can connect directly to other nearby computers without going through a centralized network router (and without leaving the building).

Why is this significant? It is all about control. When a network has to go through a central node, it is easier to control the network. Centralized networks are less robust — during hurricane Sandy, centralized networks (including cell phones and internet) failed but mesh networks were able to keep working because they didn’t have a single point of failure. But most worrisome, centralized networks are also easier to attack, since they have a single point of access. The NSA is able to spy on your phone calls and emails because these all go through centralized locations.

Indeed, the US State Department is worried enough about the insecurity of the Internet that it is spending millions of dollars helping people in other countries set up mesh networks, so that dissidents can communicate with each other without their government finding out. They provided $2.8 million to help set up a mesh network in Tunisia, and have pledged $4.3 million to set up another such network in Cuba. They are also helping set up similar networks in Asia and other places.

According to a former State Department official: “Exactly at the time that the N.S.A. was developing the technology that Snowden has disclosed, the State Department was funding some of the most powerful digital tools to protect freedom of expression around the world. It is in my mind one of the great, unreported ironies of the first Obama administration.”

Even more ironic are political attack ads, funded by the Koch brothers, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, and big power companies. These ad campaigns in Kansas, North Carolina, Arizona and other states attack solar energy, in particular the policy found in dozens of states that guarantees homeowners and businesses with solar panels on their roofs the right to sell energy back into the power grid. In effect, this starts to convert our national power grid from a centralized network (large power stations sending power to individual consumers) into a mesh network.

A mesh network for power saves money, because power generation can be closer to power consumers (power doesn’t have to be transported as far, so there are fewer losses) and is more reliable. Solar power is especially good, since it generates more power when it is most needed — during hot sunny days when air conditioning is most used. Studies (especially those not funded by power companies) have shown that distributed solar generation like this actually saves power companies money.

But the power companies want to charge individuals for access to their power grid, as much as $100/month. This would destroy solar power.

You would think that self-proclaimed staunch libertarians like the Koch brothers would be all in favor of mesh networks, which favor individualism and individual control over collectivism and large centralized control. But instead they are spending lots of money trying to kill it. Maybe we should start calling them LINOs (Libertarians In Name Only), but a simpler term would just be “hypocrites”.

UPDATE: NY Times has an editorial about The Koch Attack on Solar Energy.

Or as Daily Kos puts it:

The Koch Brothers are frequently described librertarian, but they want us all to be dependent on their dirty fossil fuel. They don’t care about anyone’s liberty but their own. They want to have the government to use eminent domain to take the land of ranchers and farmers to build Keystone XL to ship their dirty tar sands oil to Texas for refining and export. And they are demanding that the government taxes the sun.

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Racial Code Words

Satirist Andy Borowitz hits the nail on the head. Even Cliven Bundy’s staunchest supporter, Sean Hannity, has been forced to distance himself from Bundy’s remarks about black people picking cotton and speculating that they were better off as slaves.

Republicans Blast Nevada Rancher for Failing to Use Commonly Accepted Racial Code Words

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — Republican politicians blasted the Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy on Thursday for making flagrantly racist remarks instead of employing the subtler racial code words the G.O.P. has been using for decades.

“We Republicans have worked long and hard to develop insidious racial code words like ‘entitlement society’ and ‘personal responsibility,’ ” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). “There is no excuse for offensive racist comments like the ones Cliven Bundy made when there are so many subtler ways of making the exact same point.”

Fox News also blasted the rancher, saying in a statement, “Cliven Bundy’s outrageous racist remarks undermine decades of progress in our effort to come up with cleverer ways of saying the same thing.”

Kevin Siers
© Kevin Siers

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Checks and Balances

Jen Sorensen
© Jen Sorensen

I have never understood why some companies treat talking to other employees about salaries as a firing offense. Seriously? Do they really have that little faith in their employees?

I’ve run a number of companies, and we always treated everyone’s salary as public information (at least internally), so everyone understood everyone’s compensation. It always worked out best that way.

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It is ok to be a pussy as long as you have a dick

Jon Stewart is on a roll brilliantly showing how sexist American media is against female politicians:

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More Cow Turds

Tom Tomorrow
© Tom Tomorrow

A good article in Newsweek summing up the whole affair.

UPDATE: It turns out that Cliven Bundy’s claimed “ancestral rights” to graze cattle “from the time the very first pioneers come here [sic]” are a lie. A local TV station discovered that his parents bought their ranch in 1948, and didn’t start grazing cattle there until 1954.

Protestors are claiming that Bundy is being forced off his land, just like the Indians were:

They are literally treating western United States citizens, ranchers, rural folks like this- are the modern day Indians. We’re being driven off of our lands. We’re being forced into reservations known as cities.

Ironically, the Paiute Indians were forced onto reservations in 1875, but two years before that they were promised the very land where Bundy’s ranch is located.

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Cow Turd

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Cliven Bundy, the rancher from Nevada who refuses to pay grazing fees because he doesn’t believe the US government exists. Some people (like Fox News’ Sean Hannity) think Bundy is a hero. Jon Stewart trivially destroys that idea and shows the hypocrisy of Hannity:

UPDATE: Sean Hannity responds on Fox News in the only way he knows how — using cheap character assassination and other ad hominem arguments.

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Late Night Political Irony

“A Colorado company has introduced the first marijuana vending machine. As a result, the vending machines around it are doing much better.” – Conan O’Brien

“This year’s Easter Sunday happens to fall on the same day as the marijuana holiday, 4/20. Which means no matter what your religion, this Sunday you’re probably going to see a giant bunny.” – Conan O’Brien

“Speaking of religion, the Pope let two 11-year-old boys ride in the Pope-mobile with him. Afterwards the Vatican told the Pope, ‘That’s not the kind of publicity we’re looking for.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Every year, the IRS collects over $950 billion in taxes. There’s more money coming at them than a stripper at Charlie Sheen’s house.” – Craig Ferguson

“Let’s play ‘How busy do accountants get on tax day’? They’re busier than drug dealers at Coachella. Busier than someone doing sign language for Regis Philbin. Busier than Justin Bieber’s lawyer. Busier than gossip blogs when a late-night show’s host retires.” – Craig Ferguson

“A new study says that an average person’s chances of getting audited by the IRS is the lowest they’ve been since the 1980s. Don’t get any ideas, Willie Nelson.” – Craig Ferguson

“Yesterday, North Korea held its annual marathon. Congratulations to first, second and third place winner, Kim Jong Un.” – Conan O’Brien

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Family Matters

Charles Cooper was a former top official in the Reagan Justice Department and was named “Republican lawyer of the year”, but he is more recently famous for defending California’s ban on gay marriage (Prop 8) in front of the Supreme Court. He lost.

Ironically, Cooper now finds himself planning his daughter’s gay marriage. Cooper learned of his daughter’s engagement before he argued the case, but the news was only made public recently in a new book about the movement to legalize gay marriage.

In the book, Cooper is quoted as saying that he came to admire the lesbian couple who challenged and eventually overturned Prop 8. Interestingly, that couple returned the favor. In a statement about Cooper’s defense of Prop 8 at the same time his daughter was planning on marrying a woman, they said

Some may find this contrast between public and private jarring, but in our opinion, loving an LGBT child unequivocally is the single most important thing any parent can do.

Cooper’s daughter lives in Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage.

Other prominent Republicans whose children are publicly gay include Dick Cheney and Rob Portman.

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Late Night Political Humor

“A woman in Las Vegas was arrested after she threw a shoe at Hillary Clinton while Hillary was giving a speech. The woman was tackled, cuffed, and thrown into a police car. Then the cops said, ‘Normally, WE do that, Hillary, but thank you for the help.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“A super-PAC urging Hillary Clinton to run for president says it raised $1.7 million in the first three months of the year. Said President Obama, ‘I’ll kick in another million if she’s willing to start early.'” – Seth Meyers

“Congratulations to our pal Stephen Colbert, who will be taking over for David Letterman next year. People in the media are already talking about there being a new late-night war — and I just want to say there’s not going to be any war. It’ll be a late-night dance-off. Get ready, Stephen.” – Jimmy Fallon

“I have a big announcement: Starting in 2015, I will be the new host of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central.” – Jimmy Fallon

“CNN announced that Anthony Bourdain’s show is taking over Piers Morgan’s time slot. Anthony is a culinary expert who loves good food. His show is the highest-rated series on CNN. But let’s be honest. The highest-rated series on CNN is like being the least drunk Australian.” – Craig Ferguson

“After handling the bumpy rollout of the Obamacare site, Kathleen Sebelius announced today that she is resigning. Which explains why being thrown under a bus is now covered by Obamacare.” – Jimmy Fallon

“The White House just released President Obama’s tax returns, which show that he and Michelle paid 98 thousand dollars in taxes last year. When he saw that, even Obama said, ‘Thanks, Obama’.” – Jimmy Fallon

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