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A Consumer Protection Carol

Funny or Die creates a funny/serious ad about Obama’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Starring Will Ferrell, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, Dana Carvey, Fred Armisen, Maya Rudolph, and Darrell Hammond.

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Parliamentary Maneuvers


© Tom Toles

Not only was Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) singlehandedly blocking unemployment benefits for millions of Americans, he also put a hold on all of Obama’s nominees last week. The Senate ground to a halt, with the economy following closely. This is what some politicians will do in the name of partisan bickering.

The only good news is that Bunning apparently finally realized how much he was pissing everyone off, and ended his filibuster on the unemployment benefits. But he had one last procedural maneuver up his sleeve: an amendment to the bill that was ironically quickly scuttled by a procedural maneuver. Of course, that didn’t stop Bunning from hypocritically deriding the move as “a procedural gimmick”. I guess it isn’t a procedural gimmick when the Republicans do it.

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Do As I Say, Not As I Do

The Washington Post published a long op-ed piece by Senator Orrin Hatch, titled “Reconciliation on health care would be an assault to the democratic process”. We know the drill — he calls budget reconciliation an “arcane budget procedure” that Obama wants to use to “ram through” a bill that does those nasty things you’ve heard all about in the Republican talking points. He also says that its use would not only be “unprecedented” but it would be “against the will of the American people” (I can almost hear the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background). He even claims that it goes against the intent of the Constitution!

There is only one problem. Almost everything he says is a complete fabrication. As has been already pointed out, the Republicans have used reconciliation in order to avoid filibusters four times as often as the Democrats, and the majority of health care legislation in the last 30 years has been passed using budget reconciliation.

Not only that, but Hatch himself has often voted for the use of reconciliation in the past, when it favored Republicans.

Why are Republicans so blatantly lying about the use of reconciliation? They must be awfully afraid of health care reform passing.

UPDATE: As usual, Rachel Maddow says it far better than I did:

UPDATE2: Newsweek has an excellent article on the history of reconciliation. Needless to say, they describe what the Republicans are parotting against reconciliation as “ludicrous talking points”.

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Unprecedented in the Annals of Crazy


© Tom Tomorrow

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Late Night Political Humor

“President Obama met with the Republicans for seven hours. And he was very patient with them. He praised them when it was appropriate, he was gently critical when necessary. It was like watching a really good special ed teacher.” – Bill Maher

“President Obama hosted a bipartisan healthcare summit today. They met for a little more than six hours which, coincidentally, happens to be the average wait time at the emergency room, if you’re bleeding.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“At the end of the day, the Republicans proved they are not the party of No. They’re the party of ‘F*ck No!'” – Bill Maher

“Obama and several others made the point that Congress uses taxpayer money to buy themselves excellent health insurance. It actually led to a plan to make everyone in the country a member of Congress, so congratulations, representatives.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Being politicians you know, they all got to sharing their personal stories. Obama talked about his mother’s battle with cancer. And Harry Reid talked about a kid with a cleft palate. And John McCain’s told how he once carried a brain dead woman through an entire campaign.” – Bill Maher

“At the end of all of this, Obama says, he doesn’t think that he can reach a deal with the Republicans. You’re just figuring that out now? I keep telling you, Barry, they’re not that into you. Obama’s like a guy in college who spends a whole year, wasting it, trying to hit on Ellen DeGeneres.” – Bill Maher

“The U.S. Mint has announced they’re redesigning the penny. It’s going to have Abraham Lincoln on the front and a shield on the back. Lincoln is probably thinking, ‘Sure, now you give me a shield.'” – Craig Ferguson

“The Olympics have been a mixed blessing for Canada. They were hoping to win more medals than any other country, but they are way behind. You would think that at this point, Canada would be very comfortable not being number one.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The Olympic Games were fun, but there were some high-profile mistakes, come on. Admit it. Like the terrible decision to let Toyota design the luge.” – Bill Maher

“The Winter Olympics end on Sunday and even our weather is beating Canada. We’re completely out-snowing them.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The whole East Coast is covered in snow right now. Millions of people are unable to get to where they used to work.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“The weather in L.A. is unbelievable. Today I had to dig my car out from under 18 inches of sunshine.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Bernie Madoff’s daughter-in-law, Stephanie Madoff, is changing her name. She says the Madoff name is tainted with scandal and she wants a name with less negative connotation. She is now known as Stephanie bin Laden.” – Craig Ferguson

“Balloons dropped because Dick Cheney had his millionth heart attack. And who came by yesterday to cheer him up? The Angel of Duh himself, George Bush. They sat together, and Bush said he had spent the last year working on his book. I swear. Hard to believe Bush has a book. But if you buy Cheney has a heart…” – Bill Maher

“It’s a bad day for General Motors. They’re shutting down the Hummer. The Chinese were going to buy it, but after careful consideration, the Chinese decided they don’t want it. You know you’re in pretty bad shape when you can’t even give away a Hummer.” – Craig Ferguson

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The Bipartisanship of NO


© Drew Sheneman

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Memorable Quotes

In the spirit of quotes that have enough truthiness that they should be true:

© Paul Szep

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Don’t take the world too seriously

There is a brilliant post by The Desperate Blogger over on Salon.

The post is full of brilliant quotes, supposedly from Pat Robertson talking about the earthquake in Chile, who says:

God is even angrier with them than he is with the people of Haiti.

If I had to guess, I’d say it must have to do with Chile’s persecution and attempted prosecution of their great former leader, and a personal hero of mine, Augusto Pinochet – who, it should be noted, had never been convicted of a crime when the Lord called him home three years ago.

But my favorite quote is:

General Pinochet not only assisted the CIA in the overthrow of Chile’s Marxist government, but is widely credited with personally arranging the meetings of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his countrymen with Jesus.

The post concludes by saying that Robertson is:

praying that the people of Chile will heed this warning, and never again blaspheme against God and international free-market commerce by nationalizing their most precious natural resources.

The post is obviously satire, even if you don’t notice the tag “satire” or the blog’s recommendation that you “Don’t take the world too seriously”.

But what’s really delicious is that lots of people, including people on the left, are taking the post as the truth. It just has so much truthiness that people want to believe it. Even Fark posted it as if it were true, and they pride themselves on being ironic.

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Incremental Change


© Tom Toles

If we change things faster, it might give him a heart attack?

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Ironically, the more evidence there is to support man-made global warming, the fewer Americans believe it is true

Bill McKibben, who wrote the first book on global warming aimed at a general audience in 1989, notes that at the time even the Wall Street Journal and then president Bush (Senior) both generally agreed that there was a problem. Way back then, there were only a few dozen scientific studies that supported man-made global warming.

But now, two decades later, there are thousands of rigorous studies that confirm global warming, not to mention little things like the fact that the 15 warmest years on record have occurred during that time. And yet, the number of Americans who believe that global warming is man-made is decreasing.

McKibben makes an interesting analogy to the OJ Simpson trial. At the start of the trial everyone knew Simpson was guilty of murder, but the dream team of lawyers Simpson hired did everything to create doubt, any doubt, by examining any crack in the evidence, or anything done wrong by the police. And the more evidence there is, the easier it is to find cracks or mistakes.

And that’s the whole point. Because there are so many studies on global warming, it is easier to find one or two studies where some small scientific mistake was made, or at least some shortcut taken. As he says, the larger the haystack, the more likely it is to contain a needle or two.

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Irony


© Ben Sargent

Most Americans are upset at health care reform because it doesn’t go far enough, and are upset at the stimulus because it isn’t creating enough jobs.

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Late Night Political Humor

“It was a fun day for the head of Toyota U.S.A. today. He had to appear in front of Congress to be yelled at by men who don’t do anything.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“I have to say, it was actually refreshing to see a car company C.E.O. appear before Congress and not ask for $10 billion.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Today, Congress held more hearings with the executives of Toyota. Akio Toyoda, the president of the company and great-grandson of the company founder, came in from Japan to testify. This is a big deal, because this guy is a notoriously private person. He rarely checks his Facebook account. He’s very private.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“He came to apologize, and I think he even offered to kill himself with a sword.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“About a third of the members of Congress are on Twitter. Now we know why nothing is getting done.” – Craig Ferguson

“There’s a new member of Twitter: the Dalai Lama. I think he just did it to make China mad. Everything he does annoys China, it’s like he’s Ellen DeGeneres and China is Simon Cowell.” – Craig Ferguson

“Former Vice President Dick Cheney was rushed to the hospital in Washington, D.C., yesterday with chest pains. Doctors say he — oh. Let’s just move on. We’re not going to top that.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“It’s a great day for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was released from the hospital today. He’s doing well. Doctors say he’ll be up and shooting lawyers in no time.” – Craig Ferguson

“I disagreed with Cheney about a lot of things, but when he shot that lawyer in the face — you took my heart, Dick.” – Craig Ferguson

“Former Vice President Dick Cheney was released from the hospital today after being treated for a mild heart attack, his fifth heart attack. Next one’s free.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Something weird happened in the hospital. When they were putting the electrodes on him for the EKG, he suddenly started screaming, ‘Stop! I’ll tell you everything you want to know!'” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Doctors have sent him home with strict instructions not to watch ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ anymore.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Yesterday, Oprah’s entire set was made of chocolate. See, this is what happens when Oprah gets high.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“More than 100,000 free condoms have been distributed in the Olympic Village…Because if there’s one thing we don’t want, it’s the best athletes in the world getting together and producing more.” – Jimmy Kimmel

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Slowly I turn, step by step…


© Joe Heller

Haven’t we been dragging out health care reform for the last 60 years? Isn’t it time to actually do something?

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The Coffee Party

Tired of being teabagged by the Tea Party? Angry at grass roots movements that turn out to be corporate astroturf? Exasperated at what passes for political discourse in this country?

You’re not alone. Now there is an alternative to the Tea Party, and it is called the Coffee Party. Their mission?

The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.

They have a website. They have a FaceBook page. And there is an article about them in the Washington Post (what, were you expecting Fox News?).

UPDATE: And they have a video.

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Rachel Maddow Explains our Health Care System

This video embodies why I love Rachel Maddow. As she says, don’t blame health insurance companies for our broken health care system — they are just doing what they are supposed to do:

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