Humor

Victoria Jackson: The Greatest Comedy Hoax Ever

Posted by on July 15, 2011 at 12:29 pm. 6 Comments :

OK…I’m convinced. The recent ravings of former Saturday Night Live resident ditzy blond, Victoria Jackson, have to be part of the most deviously complex comedy hoax ever. Somewhere in a secret bunker Andy Kaufman is obviously plotting this whole thing out. Here is what she writes in her latest column for WorldNetDaily:

“Hitler, like Obama, was a “socialist” who came from a dysfunctional family, had a communist father who abused alcohol, womanized and sired several children from different mothers, had a white mother, suffered child abuse and neglect, moved often, lied about his birth and heritage, changed his name, was a narcissist, rose to power with the help of disreputable men, had the Rothschilds as financial backers, stirred up racial conflict and class warfare, wrote a biography about race at age 35, followed up with another book used to launch a political career, supported infanticide (partial-birth abortion), gave big speeches in stadiums, promised change and a new social order, had youth groups singing his praises, used propaganda, used voter fraud and intimidation, controlled the media, created “crises,” used a poor economy, hated Jews (Israel), pretended to be “Christian,” advocated population control and euthanasia, socialized medicine, formed a private army and then … killed his political opposition with his private army.

Well, I am Obama’s political opposition. That’s why I am concerned.”

That’s right. Victoria Jackson thinks Obama is going to kill her with his private army. BRAVO! That is some righteous comedy. I hope. Oh God, I hope.

What If Rupert Murdoch Had Never Been Born?

Posted by on July 13, 2011 at 10:42 am. 1 Comments :

Inspired by the classic film “It’s A Wonderful Life,” British comics Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie take a look at the world if Rupert Murdoch had never been born:

Click here to call on Congress to investigate News Corp’s hacking practices and whether they are doing it in the U.S.

Click here to call on the Justice Department to investigate whether Rupert Murdoch is violating the law.

Fox News Twitter Account Hacked – Hacker Hired To Replace Glenn Beck

Posted by on July 4, 2011 at 10:23 am. 12 Comments :

Reports are circulating this morning about an apparent hack of the Fox News Twitter account @FoxNewsPolitics. The hacker, falsely identified as Anthony Weiner in early reports, posted several tweets asserting that President Obama had been assassinated. The report of the hacking was confirmed by Fox News who issued a statement of regret for “any distress the false tweets may have created.”

Immediately after posting their regrets, Fox announced that they had hired the hacker to be the host of a new program to be aired weekdays at 5:00pm, Glenn Beck’s old time slot. Praising the hacker’s ingenuity and initiative, Fox VP Bill Sammon said, “He’s at least as accurate as the rest of our Fox News team.”

This acquisition should insure a steady supply of the sort of delusional conspiracy theories that epitomized the Beck brand. To date Fox News has not issued any regrets for the distress caused by the thousands of other false stories they broadcast on a daily basis.

Leave It To Blather: A Holiday Memorial To The Media Madhouse

Posted by on July 4, 2011 at 9:14 am. 1 Comments :

In honor of Independence Day I offer this reprise of a video I produced almost five years ago that embraces the naive wisdom found in the Golden Age of American television. Is this a great country or what?

Who would have thought that after 50 years the Cleaver brothers would be looked back upon as media visionaries? The insight and stark analysis preserved in this video unmistakably marks them as the intellectual peers of Minow, McLuhan, and Colbert.

The video above contains an actual clip from Leave It To Beaver. In the episode’s customary moralistic epilogue, the boys tackle the same defects in television news that Jon Stewart so elegantly skewered in his now famous Crossfire appearance.

Seeing this icon of innocence and family values humorously addressing a media problem that persists 50 years later, illustrates just how entrenched these problems are (and how easy they are to make fun of). But the fact that we’re still laughing at the same jokes is a bit disheartening. It’s not exactly an affirmation of progress.

The parade of prattling pundits that populate the closing credits are only a taste of the Blathering Class that infects our national discourse with deceit, diversion and division. And yet, people watch. Are we gluttons for punishment, addicted to conflict, or just starved for knowledge and hoping some will inadvertently reveal itself?

I don’t know. I guess I watch too much TV. Have a Happy Froth of July.

An Alien Discovers Paul Ryan’s Republican Budget

Posted by on June 26, 2011 at 2:45 pm. 6 Comments :

Last week the Republicans walked out of the congressional deliberations regarding the debt ceiling. They continue to hold the nation’s economic survival hostage to their obsession for ever more benefits for the wealthy and cuts for the needy – the Republican Model of Shared Sacrifice. As usual, the press fails to put into context the core differences between the Democrats and Republicans. However, those differences are pretty easy to figure out and they have been itemized by economists at the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities.

“House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get nearly two-thirds of its $4.5 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years from programs that serve people of limited means.“

If an alien exploring the Earth were to draw conclusions about what the most pressing problems are for its inhabitants based on the Ryan budget, it would probably look something like this:


What it boils down to is that Republicans think that the current deficit problems should be resolved by cutting services to seniors, poor children, the disabled, and other low-income Americans. These freeloaders should bear the the burden of restoring our economy’s health, while the wealthy get more tax relief so that they can buy bigger boats and save for their luxury retirement.

Why anyone would think that working Americans and their families should suffer in order to repair problems caused by corporations and Wall Street bankers is unfathomable. But that’s what the GOP is proposing and they’re willing to send the nation into a disastrous default if they don’t get their way.

Fox News vs Jon Stewart vs Politifact

Posted by on June 25, 2011 at 1:41 pm. 2 Comments :

Last week The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. The interview included a discussion of Fox’s well known conservative bias and disinformation. While noting that Fox’s Washington chief, Bill Sammon, dictated “marching orders” to the network’s anchors and reporters (a segment that Fox edited out of the television broadcast), Stewart remarked that “the most consistently misinformed? Fox. Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.”

Subsequently, the non-partisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact analyzed Stewart’s comment and concluded that it was false. This set off a flurry of activity in the blogosphere with lefties defending Stewart and righties hailing PolitiFact.

To be sure, there is room for debate on the matter of Stewart’s accuracy. Stewart himself accepted PolitiFact’s findings and apologized. But Media Matters made an excellent case refuting PolitiFact’s analysis and charging that they were making dissimilar comparisons. For instance, PolitiFact cited surveys that measured the civic knowledge of viewers. However, asking whether a viewer knows how many amendments there are to the Constitution is not the same asking whether the viewer believes that the health care bill contains “death panels.” The former is a civics lesson, the latter is misinformation.

One fact that is inarguable is that Fox is responsible for a great deal of misinformation. Politfact’s conclusion was strictly literal, holding Stewart accountable for saying specifically that “every poll” found Fox viewers the most misinformed. That may have been an exaggeration and, had Stewart said simply that many polls placed Fox viewers at or near the bottom of the pack, he would have been correct and PolitiFact would have agreed. On several points PolitiFact noted that…

  • Fox isn’t last on the list, although it’s close.
  • Once again, Fox News as a whole ranked fairly low among regularly used media outlets.
  • Fox clearly did the worst among the major news outlets.

After reporting PolitiFact’s findings, and apologizing, Stewart made a another attempt to illustrate the point he was originally making with Chris Wallace: that Fox misinforms their viewers, and they do so frequently. He used PolitiFact’s own research to make this point by enumerating some of the incidences where PolitiFact ruled against Fox News. It was a hilarious bit that itemized them in a rapid-fire fashion. As a public service I am reprinting them here, following the video, for those who wish to take their time to savor the irony:
  • Glenn Beck: “Less than 10 percent of Obama’s Cabinet appointees have worked in the private sector.” — False (December 2, 2009)
  • Steve Doocy: “White House Political Director once served as right-hand to ACORN chief.” — False (September 30, 2009)
  • Gretchen Carlson: “The Texas State Board of Education may eliminate references to Christmas and the Constitution in textbooks.” — A Pants on Fire! liar award (March 12, 2010)
  • PolitiFact’s 2010 Lie of the Year: “Health care reform is a government take-over of health care.” (December 16, 2010)
  • Glenn Beck: “The Muslim Brotherhood has openly stated they want to declare war on Israel.” — False (February 15, 2011)
  • Karl Rove: “American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation.” — False (March 29, 2011)
  • Brian Kilmeade: “Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s approval ratings are up.” — False (April 15, 2011)
  • Laura Ingraham: “The Massachusetts health care plan is wildly unpopular among state residents.” — False (May 16, 2011)
  • Sarah Palin: “There’s been more debt under Obama than all other presidents combined.” — False (June 1, 2011)
  • PolitiFact’s 2009 Lie of the Year: “Health care bill includes Death Panels” (December 18, 2009)
  • Kimberly Guilfoyle: “Cash for Clunkers will give government complete access to your home computer.” — False (August 3, 2009)
  • Sarah Palin: “Halting Gulf drilling costs $8 billion a day in imports.” — A “Pants on Fire!” liar award (June 3, 2011)
  • Sarah Palin: “Democrats plan largest tax increase in history.” — A “Pants on Fire!” liar award (August 4, 2010)
  • Bill O’Reilly: “Attorney General Eric Holder was involved in the dismissal of criminal charges against the New Black Panthers.” — False (July 23, 2010)
  • Sarah Palin: “Obama voted ‘present’ in the U.S. Senate quite often. ” — False (February 8, 2010)
  • Glenn Beck: “John Holdren proposed forced abortions and putting sterilants in drinking water.” — A “Pants on Fire!” liar award (July 29, 2009)
  • Glenn Beck: “Labor union president Andy Stern is the most frequent visitor at the White House.” — False (December 7, 2009)
  • Glenn Beck: “America is the only country without automatic citizenship upon birth.” — False (June 19, 2009)
  • Bill O’Reilly: “O’Reilly never called Dr. George Tiller a baby killer, only reporting what others called him.” — False (June 5, 2009)
  • Bill O’Reilly: “Only Fox News picked up that Anita Dunn said Mao was one of her favorite philosophers.” — False (October 27, 2009)
  • Bill O’Reilly: “Nobody at Fox News ever said you’re going to jail if you don’t buy health insurance.” — A “Pants on Fire!” liar award (April 27, 2010)

Is that misinformed enough for y’all?

How To Be A Media Magnet: Cutting Through The Clutter

Posted by on June 22, 2011 at 11:11 am. 4 Comments :

The state of contemporary journalism is widely regarded as defective by consumers and critics representing a broad diversity of opinion. It seems that the media has no constituency defending its professional lethargy and its reliance on sensationalism and melodrama.

The past few weeks have provided comprehensive instructions on how to be an utterly frivolous and ineffective news industry. When Americans are desperate for information about pressing issues concerning jobs, the economy, health and Medicare, and national security, they are left wanting as the major news enterprises dump loads of salacious gossip, celebrity gaffes, and lurid tales of criminal miscreants. Just trying to be heard over the caterwaul of crapola that passes for news is an Olympian feat. If it isn’t a lewd lawmaker (Anthony Weiner) flooding the airwaves, it’s a murderous mom (Casey Anthony), one of thousands of murderers, but the only one that seems to garner any attention.

Recent surveys have shown that the media is not covering the issues that the people are most interested in. The audience has made its preference clear: they want substance, not sleaze. But the media tone-deafness was demonstrated exquisitely when all three cable news networks cut away from Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives, after she informed them that she would only be addressing questions regarding jobs and the economy, and not Rep. Weiner. As is becoming routine, a non-news personality summed it up best by playing a video clip of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer expressing his reluctance to cover the titillating trivialities of the day:

Wolf Blitzer: We’ve covered these kinds of stories, It’s not a pleasure for us. It’s not something we look forward to. I’d much rather be discussing economic issues, jobs, the future of Medicare, national security issues, than talking about this.

Jon Stewart: [Incredulously] What’s stopping you?!

In an effort to enhance the public’s access to the stories that actually impact their lives, I am offering this tutorial on how to get appropriate coverage of the critical matters that face our nation. It is not enough to be brilliantly articulate about a position or to make a coherent case for a policy. You must grab the attention away from the media whores and their enablers in the press corps. Here is how to do just that in a handy shareable infographic guide:


Now get out there and make some news.

Republicans Can’t Take A Joke – Unless It’s Racist

Posted by on June 19, 2011 at 11:53 am. 8 Comments :

Much of the political press is buzzing today over the appearance of an Obama impersonator at the Republican Leadership Conference yesterday.

Reggie Brown took the stage and immediately endeared himself to the audience by taking a shot at Al Gore. This was followed by a long string of “self”-deprecating jokes aimed at President Obama, many of which straddled a racially precarious line.

The audience was unfazed by most of it, laughing heartily at jokes that portrayed the President as Fred Sanford or noted that he only celebrated half of Black History Month. The act was well received by the predominantly white audience with only scattered groans arising when Anthony Weiner’s groin was displayed on the big screen.

Eventually, however, Brown’s act was cut short by an official of the RLC and he was escorted off stage. For the most part the press has uniformly misinterpreted this as being the result of his “racially-tinged” material. But as I noted above, the audience was enjoying the race-based jokes. The boos began when Brown turned to the Republican field of presidential candidates. The first sign of trouble was a joke about Newt Gingrich’s faltering campaign. It escalated with references to Mitt Romney and the Mormon practice of polygamy. And the hook actually came in the middle of a bit on Michele Bachmann. See for yourself:

Clearly the act was aborted when the sensitivities of the crowd were challenged by material aimed at their standard bearers. It was not the racial material, which they welcomed with guffaws. Even Charlie Davis, the CEO of the RLC who made the decision to pull the plug, admitted that the beginning of the routine -the racially suspect part – was funny:

“I just thought he had gone too far,” Davis said. “He was funny the first 10 or 15 minutes, but it was inappropriate, it was getting ridiculous.”

What did he expect? If a comedian is going to impersonate Obama wouldn’t the President crack jokes about his opponents? The character demands that he do so. Personally, I wasn’t offended by any of the material, although I think that it may have been more appropriate for a more racially diverse audience. There was something about these jokes being delivered to such a uniformly white crowd that was uncomfortable. But Brown was not the one responsible for the act’s failure. It was the dumbass Republican operatives who thought that hiring Brown would go over well with this crowd.

Republicans are notoriously deficient of the humor gene. They’ve tried on numerous occasions to develop an answer to The Daily Show with zero success. Their comedic heroes are pathetic wannabes like Dennis Miller, Greg Gutfield, or even Glenn Beck. Part of the problem is that they simply can’t laugh at themselves. The most embarrassing thing about this event was not a misfiring Obama impersonator. It is that they yanked the comic for lighthearted pokes at the GOP, but sat through and appreciated borderline racist material.

CORRECTION: The most embarrassing thing about this event were the speeches by the actual Republican candidates and their supporters.

[Update] Reggie Brown tells CNN that he was cut off because he went over his allotted time. At least that’s what the RLC told him. But of course, they lied. The RLC president had already made this statement acknowledging that Brown was yanked for the content of his act:

“I just thought he had gone too far. He was funny the first 10 or 15 minutes, but it was inappropriate, it was getting ridiculous.”

Brown should seek a clarification. They are slandering him and lying about it. But I guess that’s force of habit for Republicans. They do that to Democrats every day.

Palin: The Next Generation

Posted by on June 18, 2011 at 1:18 pm. 1 Comments :

For anyone who was worried, the legacy of Alaska’s first failed VP candidate and half-term governor, Sarah Palin, will continue with her daughter, reality TV darling, Bristol. Next week her long-unawaited autobiography, “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far,” will hit bookstores promising to reveal all of the unsolved mysteries that have befuddled Palintoligists for … well, not for all that long, actually. Mysteries like: Just how drunk was Bristol when “the gnat named Levi Johnston” stole her virtue?

Historians must be frantic with anticipation over this upcoming book. Bristol’s “journey so far” is jam-packed with milestone events that define the American Dream. Events like having defeated David Hasselhoff in a dance contest (an accomplish greater than any her famous Mama Grizzly ever achieved). And then there was … um … OK, that’s about it. The real achievement is on the part of her co-author, Nancy French, who managed to stretch Bristol’s thin life story to 272 pages. There’s a lot of room there for scornful retaliations against ex-boyfriends and recollections of campaign trail shopping sprees.

Bristol Palin Levi JohnstonHowever, Bristol may not want to get over-confident about her status of cultural superiority. Levi Johnston has his own book coming out in September titled, “Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs.” Obviously, this is going to be a summer of literary enrichment. The two books occupy opposite poles of the political sideshow spectrum, at least so far as the titles are concerned. Bristol’s book extols her lack of fear, while Levi’s is analogically frozen in it.

If I thought that these defective progeny were representative of America’s youth I would be stockpiling Prozac. Gratefully, that is not the case. The only thing we have to worry about from the Palin dynasty is an endless stream of reality shows. Look for the Palin’s to appear soon on Extreme Makeover, Celebrity Apprentice, or most likely of all, The Biggest Loser.

Sarah Palin: From Grizzly Mama To Harley Mama

Posted by on May 31, 2011 at 10:59 am. 2 Comments :

The Fox News Party candidate for president and former half-term governor, Sarah Palin, did what she does best this Memorial Day weekend: Exploit others to promote herself.


Palin and Fox are playing an unethical and dishonest game to fatten their wallets. When will Fox News either admit that they know she isn’t running for president, or take her off the air until she comes clean? And more importantly, when will the brain-dead media stop salivating every time the Palin bell rings? The press has no more business hyping substanceless photo-ops for Sarah Palin than they would for Ronald McDonald.

By the way, what’s the difference between Fox News and McDonald’s? One sells cheap crap with lots of filler & seasoning to masses with no taste. The other is a fast food restaurant.

[Update] Palin spoke to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News (of course) and complained about the media saying “this isn’t a campaign tour.” and that “it’s not about me, it’s not a publicity-seeking tour.” Of course not. She is only traveling around in a massive custom bus with full exterior graphics of herself and her non-campaign logo, One Nation (stolen from the union rally last year in Washington, D.C.). Clearly she just wants to be left alone.

Palin also said “I’m like A) I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media.” First of all, I want to point out that there was no B or C, etc. She keeps her lists short as befits her attention span. Secondly, I agree with her. she doesn’t owe anything to the mainstream media, and they owe nothing to her. Stop following her, dumbasses!