UPDATE: One point that I don’t see anyone making is that they said that they were giving him the award primarily for his work to control nuclear proliferation. That work started long before he became president. Why does everyone keep assuming that they were only giving him the award for what he has done as president?
UPDATE 2: Bono on the Nobel award.
“So what NASA is doing, they’re crashing a rocket, which will have the energy of two tons of TNT It’s part of NASA’s new strategy, ‘What would Wile E. Coyote do?'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Now, listen to this. I’m no rocket scientist so far be it from me to tell these people who are rocket scientists how to do their business, but NASA, they’re shooting a missile. They’re going to launch a huge missile — kaboom — right at the moon, looking for water. And I said, ‘Why not? Now that everything here is taken care of on Earth, why not? We’ve got no problems here. Let’s just go give it a shot.'” – David Letterman
“Here is some very good news. At NASA, the countdown is on. After years of wasting taxpayer money on research to increase the quality of life here on Earth and all that rubbish, NASA is finally doing something cool. They’re blowing up the moon!” – Craig Ferguson
“No, it is not a joke. I’m not kidding! Right now, a Centaur missile is hurtling through space, headed for the moon’s south pole. And I for one would just like to say how awesome that is!” – Craig Ferguson
“So they’re going to attack the moon, and they’re going to be looking for water. And I thought, well, that’s pretty much sounds like our government — bomb first, look for evidence later. That’s the way we do business.” – David Letterman
“We could make a ton of money if they find water on the moon. Can you imagine how much showbiz weasels in L.A. would pay for moon water?” – Craig Ferguson
“In a global survey of the most admired countries, the United States went from number seven to number one. They don’t admire us enough to give us the Olympics, but…” – Jay Leno
“There’s been some squabbling in the Republican Party. In a recent interview, John McCain’s former campaign manager said that if Sarah Palin is the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, the results will be catastrophic — as opposed to when she was the vice presidential nominee and everything went perfectly.” – Conan O’Brien
“Now, here’s something that will put a smile on your face. Yesterday was the first day of the new Supreme Court session. And we have a freshman Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, and it’s her first day in court. So you know what they do? It’s like a rookie hazing for the new justices. And it was hilarious. The other judges, yesterday, switched her robe with a blanket. It was unbelievable. Boy, that was funny. Crazy.” – David Letterman
“And then, then, Chief Justice Roberts sent her to the hardware store to buy a left-handed gavel. That’s a regular yuck rodeo down there.” – David Letterman
“Don’t kid yourself. Sonia Sotomayor really has her work cut out for her. Think about this — the responsibility of replacing Paula Abdul. Is she going to be able to do that? Is that a possibility, even? I don’t think so.” – David Letterman
“And over the weekend, the President and the First Lady celebrated their wedding anniversary. They went out to dinner. There were no gifts exchanged. They didn’t exchange any gifts because, as you know, that would be socialism.” – Jay Leno
“President Obama’s national security adviser just said that Obama is going to overturn the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ As a result, the signal for an enemy attack will change from ‘incoming’ to ‘what’s her problem?'” – Conan O’Brien
“President Obama’s national security advisor said the President will overturn the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy in the military. Well I think that’s good. I think gay people should be allowed to serve in the military. It seems ridiculous if they’re not. And listen to this. They’ll be able to keep the same slogan, an ‘Army of One — Singular Sensation.'” – Jay Leno
“Nobel Prizes in science were awarded yesterday, and the three winners in physics are known as the ‘masters of light.’ Not to be confused with Dick Cheney, known as the ‘prince of darkness.'” – David Letterman
“Today marked the eighth anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan. Dick Cheney celebrated by champagne boarding himself.” – Jimmy Fallon
“And President Obama had a very tense 25-minute meeting aboard Air Force One last week with General McChrystal, our top general in Afghanistan. And apparently, McChrystal gave a speech in London last week very critical of Obama’s policies in Afghanistan. And Obama was not happy. In fact, he considers it so important, he’s thinking about canceling his upcoming appearance on ‘Ellen.'” – Jay Leno
“And earlier in the week, President Barack Obama met with 150 doctors. He got all kinds of advice from them. This weekend, he’s going to try out the tips they gave him on the golf course.” – Jay Leno
“The other day at a political fundraiser, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi got to meet actor Robert Redford. And witnesses say she was flirting with him. There was an awkward moment when Pelosi winked at Redford and $4,000 worth of Botox squirted out.” –Conan O’Brien
I’ve been enjoying watching Alan Grayson take the Party of No to task, and wondered if other Dems would catch on. It looks like they might be.
In response to Republicans attacking Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the DNC sent out the following email:
The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize. Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize – an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride – unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It’s no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore – it’s an embarrassing label to claim.
Of course, now the RNC is complaining about the DNC equating them with the Taliban and Hamas. However, Rush Limbaugh even stated that he he is on the same side as the Taliban. Seriously!
Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn’t deserve the award. Now that’s hilarious, that I’m on the same side of something that the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban.
And it isn’t the first time the Republicans have tried to be more like the Taliban.
Personally, I find it hilarious that Limbaugh can call Obama a worldwide joke after eight years of Dubya.
“You know, President Obama went to Denmark to try and get the Olympics for Chicago. They turned him down. He was so upset that they wouldn’t give us the Olympics that he had to invite himself to the White House for a beer.” – David Letterman
“Well, congratulations to President Obama and first lady Michelle. They celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary this week. Well, at first, they couldn’t agree where they should celebrate. He wanted to go to Chicago, she voted for Rio.” – Jay Leno
“I think Obama is starting to get a little desperate. After losing the Olympics last week, he scaled back a little bit. Like, today, he was in New York, making the case for Chicago-style pizza.” – Jay Leno
“This weekend, President Obama is going to speak to the nation’s largest gay rights group. And members of the group are upset that he hasn’t kept his campaign promises to them. However, the gay rights group says all will be forgiven if Obama makes his speech shirtless.” – Conan O’Brien
“Well, in response to criticism that he’s not fulfilling a campaign promise, the President’s national security adviser said President Obama will overturn the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy at the right time. When asked what the right time would be, he said, ‘Don’t ask, I’m not telling.'” – Jay Leno
“President Obama gave a talk to members of the House and Senate today about options for the war in Afghanistan. The title of the speech was, ‘Any Ideas? Because I Got Nothing.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Catholic churches throughout New York City are no longer offering wine at communion to help prevent the spread of swine flu. I like that it took swine flu for people to realize that sharing a cup with hundreds of other New Yorkers is a health risk.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Well, listen to this. You can’t call the swine flu swine flu anymore. It’s now the H1N1 virus. You know why this is? This is true. The pork lobby in Washington lobbied hard to get the name changed because they didn’t want people to think you could get sick by eating pork. I mean, bacon will still kill you; you just won’t get a runny nose.” – Jay Leno
“The founder of Cirque du Soleil is currently onboard the international space station. And today, he got all of the other nine astronauts to put on red clown noses. Then the astronauts conducted experiments on the loss of dignity in space.” – Conan O’Brien
“Isn’t that NASA fascinating? I think NASA may be my favorite governmental agency because they’re always doing cool stuff. We went to the moon. Remember how cool that was? We now have the International Space Station and the shuttle goes up there regularly. They worked on the Hubble telescope. You know what they want to do now? They’re thinking about firing a missile to moon. I thought, oh, great, another war. Do we need that?” – David Letterman
“The cover of Sarah Palin’s book has been released. And it features a picture of Palin gazing off into the distance deep in thought. The photographer said that capturing that one moment was the rewarding 11 hours of his career.” – Conan O’Brien
“Well, the Post Office told Congress this week they are sorry, but they can no longer continue to deliver Saturday’s mail on Saturday. Hey, I’d be happy to get Wednesday’s mail on Saturday.” – Jay Leno
“Rapper Method Man didn’t pay his taxes for three years. Yesterday, he told a judge he forgot to pay, because he was high. And the remarkable thing is that’s the one excuse the I.R.S. is totally cool with.” – Conan O’Brien
“North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il is now saying that he’ll consider talks with the United States if it can help improve our relationship. I’m starting to feel like we’re the Jon and Kate of countries.” – Jimmy Fallon
“I read about this. Apple is withdrawing from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, because the chamber is skeptical of global warming theories. Apple said that it was a tough call to make, but still not as tough as making a call on the iPhone.” – Jimmy Fallon
It seems like the Republican strategy recently has been to throw out an enormous number of negative memes about Obama, to see if any stick.
First, they said that he was doing too much. Between cap and trade to roll back global warming, bailing out the economy with the stimulus bill, appointing a hispanic woman to the Supreme Court, negotiating with our enemies, and working on health care reform, he was quickly turning this country socialist.
But that was so last month. The new meme is that Obama has not accomplished anything. There was even a Saturday Night Live sketch about it, although it was difficult to tell if they were tweaking people who think Obama hasn’t accomplished anything, or (more likely) actually tweaking Obama for not accomplishing anything.
My favorite tweak about this, however, is “Those Democrats are Outta Control!” in Political Relief. Go read it if you haven’t seen it already.
Never mind that these two memes directly contradict each other. I mean, how can Obama destroy our constitution and turn us into socialist drones if he doesn’t actually accomplish anything? And it is highly ironic that the same people who are accusing Obama of not accomplishing anything are the same people who are violently obstructing everything he does and hinting at armed insurrection if he does accomplish anything. See also the previous post, at the end of Grayson’s rant, where he says that if Obama cured world hunger, the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation, and if he brought about world peace, they would blame him for destroying the defense industry.
As a sign of how quickly these memes get established, here is is a clip from Fox News, where their heads are exploding over the news that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Price. How could he win, when he hasn’t actually accomplished anything?
One of my favorite sayings is that you shouldn’t believe your own PR. Fox News fails.
Fox does get off one good line, when they say that Obama won the Nobel prize for not being Bush.
UPDATE: I think the fact that some people are questioning why Obama won says more about the US media than it does about either Obama or the Nobel committee. Most people in the rest of the world (other than right-wingers) know why he won and agree with it — probably because they aren’t listening to our corporate media or teabaggers.
Madame Speaker, I have words for Democrats and Republicans tonight.
Let’s start with the Democrats
We as a party have spent the last six months, the greatest minds in our party, dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote on health care reform. I want to remind us all that Olympia Snowe was not elected President last year. Olympia Snowe has no veto power in the Senate. Olympia Snowe represents a state with one half of one percent of America’s population.
What America wants is health care reform. America doesn’t care if it gets 51 votes in the Senate or 60 votes in the Senate or 83 votes in the Senate, in fact America doesn’t even care about that, it doesn’t care about that at all. What America cares about is this; there are over 1 million Americans who go broke every single year trying to pay their health care bills. America cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that there are 44,780 Americans who die every single year on account of not having health care, that’s 122 every day. America sure cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that if you have a pre-existing condition, even if you have health insurance, it’s not covered. America cares about that a lot. America cares about the fact that you can get all the health care you need as long as you don’t need any. America cares about that a lot. But America does not care about procedures, processes, personalities, America doesn’t care about that at all.
So we have to remember that as Democrats, we have to remember that what’s at stake here is life and death, enormous amounts of money, and people are counting upon us to move ahead. America understands what’s good for America. America cares about health care, America cares about jobs, America cares about education, about energy independance, America does not care about processes politicians or personalities or anything like that.
And I have a few words for my Republican friends tonight as well. I guess I do have some Republican friends.
Let me say this; last week I held up this report here and I pointed out that in America there are 44,789 Americans that die every year according to this Harvard report published in this peer reviewed journal because they have no health insurance. That’s an extra 44,789 Americans who die who’s lives could be saved, and their response was to ask me for an apology.
To ask me for an apology?
That’s right. To ask ME for an apology!
Well, I’m telling you this; I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize for a simple reason; America doesn’t care about your feelings. I violated no rules by pulling this report to America’s attention, I think a lot of people didn’t know about it beforehand. But America DOES care about health care in America.
And if you’re against it, then get out of the way. Just get out of the way. You can lead, you can follow or you can get out of the way. And I’m telling you now to get out of the way.
American understands that there is one party in this country that is favor of health care reform and one party that is against it, and they know why.They understand that if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation
They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace they would blame him for destroying the defense industry.
In fact, they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tommorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon.
But that’s not what America wants, America wants solutions to it’s problems and that begins with health care, and that’s what I’m speaking for tonight.
I yield back the balance of my time.
UPDATE: Grayson on Hardball. Someone who thinks Grayson will scare the Democratic establishment to death (plus an interesting video of Grayson). And another short but funny video of Grayson.
This is hilarious:
via Melting Pot Project.
Maybe instead of calling them red states, we should call states that are full of birthers and teabaggers “Yellow States”, after Big Bird.
ABC News seems shocked (shocked, I tell you) to learn from Michael Moore’s new movie that companies routinely take out life insurance policies on their employees and then benefit when they die.
But what I find ironic about this is that what they found shocking was that it was “creepy”, saying “it’s immoral to benefit from your death if I don’t know you.”
Wrong. It makes sense for companies to take out insurance policies on employees, especially if the death of those employees would hurt the company.
But what ABC missed completely is the real reason why this is shocking. It is shocking because it is a corporate tax dodge. Under current tax law (probably written by insurance company lobbyists so they could sell more policies), the payouts from these life insurance policies are tax exempt. Not only that, but companies can borrow money to take out these insurance policies and like any corporate loan, the interest they pay is tax deductible. Even crazier, corporations can collect on policies taken out on people who no longer work for the company.
Companies actually make money taking out policies on their employees. In some cases corporations took out multi-million dollar policies on low-level employees. This is definitely shocking, considering that a 2008 study shows that a majority of companies have used our corporate-friendly tax laws to avoid paying any taxes at all.
If these insurance policies are for the purpose of insuring against a loss of revenue in case of the death of an employee, then the tax laws must reflect this. The payouts from these policies should be taxed as revenue (after all, they are being used to offset a loss of revenue that would be taxable). Not only that, but the insured person must still be an employee, and the payout must reflect the deceased person’s value to the company (say, some multiplier of the employee’s salary).
I’m posting this cartoon in honor of Apple quitting the US Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber’s opposition to federal attempts to curb global warming. Apple is the largest company to quit the Chamber of Commerce on this issue, as well as the first technology company.
“Hey, how about this? President Obama goes to Denmark and he’s trying to get the 2016 Olympics for the great city of Chicago. And he presented his case in a heartfelt manner but they weren’t buying it. And boy, do I know what that feels like.” – David Letterman
“According to the latest Gallup poll, the group President Obama is most popular with — you know who it is? Obama is most popular with the Jewish community. The group he’s least popular with — International Olympic Committees.” – Jay Leno
“As you know, President Obama flew to Denmark, made his pitch. The international committee voted. Chicago finished last, dead last. Well, I guess the committee thought Chicago already had enough amateur athletes with the White Sox and the Cubs.” – Jay Leno
“You know what the mistake was? We shouldn’t have sent President Obama over there to get the votes. We should have sent Acorn. It would have been a landslide. We would have gotten all the votes, thousands of votes.” – Jay Leno
“You know what the saddest part is about Chicago not getting the 2016 Olympics? Former Governor Rod Blagojevich already sold 10 free seats for 100 grand apiece to the opening ceremony.” – Jay Leno
“I was sad to see Chicago lose it. Because they had a great mascot. It was Loafy, the 5-pound pork sandwich with legs.” – Jay Leno
“It’s a great day for America because three Americans were awarded the Nobel prize for medicine today. Take that, Brazil! Brazil got the 2016 Olympics.” – Craig Ferguson
“Today, at the White House, President Obama met with a group of doctors from every state in the union to press his case for health care reform. It was the biggest gatherings of doctors, I guess, since Dick Cheney had his last staff meeting.” – Jay Leno
“And starting today, we get the swine flu vaccination. Doctors are set to receive the vaccination first, because they’re the only ones who can still afford to go see the doctor.” – Craig Ferguson
“At the box office this weekend, the movie ‘Zombieland’ was No. 1. It beat Michael Moore’s new documentary. ‘Zombieland’ and the Michael Moore movie are very different, of course. One has a disgusting, lumbering monster that eats everything in its path, and the other one has zombies.” – Craig Ferguson
“Well, congratulations. The Obamas celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary this past week. The paper said this is the first wedding anniversary Obama is celebrating in the White House. Sadly, it’s also the first thing the Obamas have to celebrate since they’ve been in the White House.” – Jay Leno
“President Obama celebrated his 17th wedding anniversary. Isn’t that nice? The President celebrated by going out for a romantic candlelit dinner with just his wife and Oprah.” – Conan O’Brien
“Did you hear about this? Over the weekend, they came up with proof that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Jewish. I wonder how much they wanted to keep that quiet.” – David Letterman
“Hey, listen to this. According to reports from the Daily Telegraph, Iranian President Mahmoud Amedinejad is part Jewish. He has Jewish ancestry. Well, this is great. You know, he’s anti-Semitic. Now he can just kill himself.” – Jay Leno
“Ahmadinejad won’t be talking about it. He’s referring all questions to Rubenstein Communications.” – David Letterman
“Well, the latest job numbers are out. The bad news is we have the worst unemployment in 26 years. The good news, that unemployment also includes Jon from ‘Jon & Kate.'” – Jay Leno
“Governor Schwarzenegger said if he comes back to California, there should be no special treatment for Roman Polanski. I think that’s what he said. It was that or ‘I’m going to Japan to ski.’ I don’t know what he said.” – Jay Leno
“And Sarah Palin’s new book comes out Nov. 17. A lot of people are surprised they paid Sarah Palin to write a book. Hey, they paid Tom DeLay to dance. Why not pay her to write a book?” – Jay Leno
“Hey, speaking of presidents, a former speechwriter to President Bush was quoted as saying that, contrary to what people think, ‘Bush wasn’t dumb.’ In fact, as we speak, that quote’s being engraved on the wall of the Bush presidential library.” – Conan O’Brien
Keith Olbermann has been absent from his show, taking care of his ailing father and having an unplanned first-hand experience with the US health care system. This is a long video — he dedicated his entire show to this special comment — but it is worth watching. Olbermann outlines the depth of how broken our system for paying for health care really is, and what we can do about it:
Olbermann has two concrete suggestions: one is to stop calling it the “public option” and start calling it “Medicare for everyone” (although he admits it may be too late to change that). The second is to help organize and fund free health care clinics in the home cities of the key Senators working on health reform. The National Association of Free Clinics already had a free clinic in Houston that served 1500 people.
Republicans are fond of claiming that they have nothing against Obama personally (what, me racist?), it is just they don’t like his policies.
So it is interesting to see that the right can’t contain their glee that Obama failed to get the 2016 Olympics in Chicago:
As Paul Krugman puts it, “the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.”
It is clear that the right has eliminated any semblance of thinking and is now on autopilot, opposing anything and everything the president is for, just for the sake of trying to defeat him in any way they can. They don’t even bother to offer alternatives; their agenda starts and stops at NO. Even if saying no is bad for America.
House Minority Leader John Boehner recently told reporters that he hadn’t been able to find a single American (other than a politician) who is in favor of a public health care option. This despite the fact that a majority of Americans are in favor of the public option. So in response, here is a video of someone who found over 1,800 Americans in Boehner’s Ohio congressional district, some of whom had even tried to contact Boehner to voice their support for the public option. Makes you wonder who Boehner is spending all his time talking to.
Be sure to watch until the end, for the hilarious interview with a teabagger.
UPDATE: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Boehner has received more money from the health industry than any other member of Congress. They say money talks, but in this case it is talking so loud that Boehner can’t hear anyone else.
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