First Posted: 10-13-10 11:31 AM | Updated: 10-13-10 12:23 PM
On last night’s “Daily Show,” host Jon Stewart announced that the upcoming Rally To Restore Sanity would be televised, just like the “revolution” you were promised not too long ago. And in addition to being carried live, on Comedy Central, the event will be streamed live on Comedy Central’s website. Plus, if you are the sort of people who can only watch teevee with other people, or are interested in using the Rally To Restore Sanity as an inroad to conquering your crippling agoraphobia, head on over to RallyMAO (which stands for “Rally My Ass Off,” and not “Rally Mao Zedong,” don’t get it twisted, Glenn Beck!) to find a “satellite rally” near you, where you can join people in your local community in rededicating yourself to classical Stoicism.
This is good news for all who cannot attend, and especially good news for Democrats, because I’ve been led to believe that their entire volunteer workforce for that weekend’s Get Out The Vote effort were going to be flying across the country to attend the rally, because that’s precisely the sort of wealth that’s been concentrated into the hands of campaign volunteers. Our position on this remains the same, by the way. If you’ve agreed to work for a political campaign, you should honor your commitment. And if you’re a candidate running the sort of campaign that doesn’t inspire the same fealty as a teevee show in people, perhaps you ought to consider another line of work? Thanks ever so much!
In addition, Stewart offered up many important rules for attending the Rally To Restore Sanity, including: “No nudity, no throwing stuff, and no totalitarian fascism. When in doubt, don’t be douchey.” (That last one will be a difficult task to master for any and all Congressional staffers who might be attending.)
Watch the clip for the rules, and stay for one of the better Huffington Post Bus jokes you’re likely to hear. For the record, we’ve no affection at all for the brutal, autocratic regime in North Korea, but we nevertheless see the appeal of a military culture that seems to think that their best means of intimidation is to spend all day lindy-hopping around the town square.
WATCH:
Meanwhile, poor Stephen Colbert! He forgot to apply for a permit for his March To Keep Fear Alive! But at the very least, he’s got important news: Rally/March merchandise! And, as Colbert has done in the past, proceeds will benefit the Yellow Ribbon Fund, a fine organization which assists our veterans in convalescence at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval hospitals, their families and their caregivers.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Contact: Garrett Russo //
13 Oct 2010 //
Washington, D.C. - Corrupt lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are polluting the United States Capitol. These members highlight the need for increased oversight by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), including expanding its reach to the Senate. Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released The Most Corrupt Members of Congress: Unfinished Business, highlighting the urgent need for active ethics enforcement in Congress. In fact, ethical lapses are the only true bipartisan activity in Washington today, and further highlight the need for increased enforcement in the 112th Congress. Many of these same characters will likely remain on the public payroll.
“Since CREW released our first Most Corrupt report in 2005, more than half of the unethical members of Congress we’ve highlighted have left office,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s Executive Director. “That’s a pretty good batting average, but not good enough. 26 shady politicians remain, most of whom haven’t even been investigated by the congressional ethics committees. Congress must give the OCE the tools it needs to ensure that every corrupt politician is held accountable for his or her actions. In addition, the Senate would benefit from the creation of a similar office with jurisdiction to inquire into senatorial misdeeds.”
Currently the OCE has no subpoena power, a very limited time frame to investigate any allegations, and can only look at misconduct that occurred since March 2008. In spite of being forced to fight with one hand tied behind its back, the OCE has referred 13 cases to the House Ethics Committee for review, though the committee has taken action against only two. Even that limited success has prompted members of both parties to openly talk of stripping away the OCE’s authority — or even dismantling the office altogether — in the 112th Congress. Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-OH) has proposed legislation that would eviscerate the OCE, and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has said he wants to “take a look” at its usefulness.
How dare you say there’s racism in the Teabircher movement? I’m so offended by that notion. Isn’t what Rush Limbaugh just soooooo true?
LIMBAUGH: This is a tough thing to say, because a lot of people don’t want to hear this, because it goes against everybody’s desire that we all be the same, that there be no pain in life and that there be no suffering and that everybody do well and that everybody have what they want and so forth.
But there is no equality. You cannot guarantee that any two people will end up the same. And you can’t legislate it, and you can’t make it happen. You can try, under the guise of fairness and so forth, but some people are self-starters, and some people are born lazy. Some people are born victims. Some people are just born to be slaves. Some people are born to put up with somebody else making every decision for them.
Some people, on the other hand, are born and they’re not going to take anything from anybody. They’re going to be totally in charge of their lives. They’re not going to sit around and wait for something. They’re going to make it happen. You can see this throughout the American strata — population.
Even in — well, born and raised. I think both. I think born and raised.
But you can — even in down economic times, there are people getting wealthy. In recessions and depressions, there are still people who are profiting from it. Most people are not self-starters. Most people, if you ask them as adults — think back. Who was the best teacher you ever had? They’ll tell you — it almost, without fail — that there was somebody in their life that showed them that they were capable of much more than they thought they were capable of themselves. Because most people are not self-starters. Most people don’t push themselves. They have to be pushed. To be shown
He’s absolutely correct because there were many people that were born slaves in America. They were actually slaves. My time-line may be off, but it was somewhere between the years 1619-1865. It’s fine that he got mixed up a little bit. After all he has to fill three hours a day of air time and mistakes will be made. Oh Rush, you’re so right on man. It’s so beautiful how you tell it like it is.
I’ve probably written and rewritten this opening paragraph about Glenn Beck and his morning zoo sycophantic sidekick Pat Gray four or five times with various sequences of compound obscenities and ad hominem insults. But I’m opting for more restraint at this point, even though neither of these jackals deserves it. Especially so, considering their latest hand-in-hand plunge into all new depths of awfulness.
By now, you’ve probably heard the news about Gene Cranick and his family, and how the South Fulton, Tennessee fire department stood by and allowed the Cranick house to burn to the ground, destroying everything and killing the family’s dogs and cats. All because the Cranicks failed to pay a $75 fee. While a raging brush fire neared his home, Cranick begged the fire chief to stop the fire before it engulfed his house. He even offered to immediately pay the $75 fee, but the chief refused and the house burned to the ground.
As a survivor of two house fires (technically, one was a gas explosion) my heart goes out to the Cranicks and the nightmare they’re enduring today. But my own experiences are incidental — you don’t have to have survived a pair of house fires to recognize the unapologetic callousness of Beck and his squishy Quatto-from-Total-Recall parasitic twin Pat Gray.
Here’s what happened.
Yesterday on his radio show, Beck and Gray not only defended the fire department’s refusal to save the Cranick’s house, but they also accused Cranick of “sponging” off his neighbors — all the while mocking and ridiculing Cranick’s rural accent. Courtesy of ThinkProgress, here’s the clip:
And the takeaway quote from Beck:
If you don’t pay the 75 dollars then that hurts the fire department. They can’t use those resources, and you’d be sponging off your neighbor’s resources.
That’s right. A matter of days after losing everything they owned, including their home, their pets, family photographs — everything — and all because of a delinquent $75 fee, Gene Cranick and his family were excoriated, scolded and teased by multimillionaire celebrity televangelist Glenn Beck in front of a radio audience estimated at upwards of 10 million listeners.
Some good news for the Democrats. So taking over the House and the Senate isn’t quite as easy as Republicans hoped – or as Democrats feared. The situation is still fluid, and Dems need to keep up the pressure:
WASHINGTON — Republicans carry substantial advantages as they move into the final month of the fall campaign, but the resilience of vulnerable Democrats is complicating Republican efforts to lock down enough seats to capture the House and take control of the unsettled electoral battleground.
By now, Republicans had hoped to put away a first layer of Democrats and set their sights on a second tier of incumbents. But the fight for control of Congress is more fluid than it seemed at Labor Day, with Democrats mounting strong resistance in some parts of the country as they try to hold off a potential Republican wave in November.
The chances of a Republican takeover in the House remain far greater than in the Senate, according to a race-by-race analysis by The New York Times. But enough contests remain in flux that both parties head into the final four weeks of the campaign with the ability to change the dynamic before Election Day.
Races typically tighten in the final month as voters on both sides become more engaged, and the political climate is no more favorable for Democrats than it has been all year, with no substantial signs of improvement in the economy or the outlook for unemployment.
Yet even as spending from outside groups is threatening to swamp many Democratic candidates, Republican strategists estimated that only half of the 39 seats they need to win control of the House were definitively in hand.
Politics in Arizona’s 3rd congressional district sure are getting “Dirty.”
Jon Hulburd, the Democratic candidate in the district, recently released a radio spot on three Christian radio stations and a conservative talk radio station accusing his Republican opponent, Ben Quayle, of contributing to TheDirty.com, a racy website about Arizona nightlife, according to Politico. In the ad, a woman who identifies herself as “a Christian and a mom” says that Quayle helped create “one of the most offensive websites I’ve ever seen.”
Quayle, who is the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, was first confronted with accusations of writing for TheDirty.com during the primary campaign. Just weeks before the Aug. 24 primary, Nik Richie, the founder of the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based website whose legal name is Hooman Karamian, told Politico that Quayle was one of the original contributors to the site when it launched in 2007 as DirtyScottsdale.com. Richie claimed that Quayle published eight to 10 blog posts on the site under the alias “Brock Landers” – the name of a fictional porn star from the 1997 movie “Boogie Nights.”
Politico reported that Quayle, who campaigned as a “family-values conservative” according to the Associated Press, initially denied any involvement with the website. But one day after dismissing the accusations, Quayle changed his story, telling Phoenix’s 12 News that he “just posted some comments there to try to drive some traffic” but could not remember what those comments were, according to Politico.
The day after Quayle won the Republican nomination, an Arizona Republic blog reported that Hulburd had released a statement that called the general election a race “between Jon Hulburd and Brock Landers,” identifying Quayle by his alleged alias.
The controversy seems unlikely to fade in the coming months, with Democrats eager to put Quayle on the defensive in the Republican-leaning district, according to The Arizona Republic. On Sept. 8, the Quayle campaign began running an ad on Phoenix radio stations criticizing Hulburd’s positions on social and moral issues. Among other things, the ad accuses Hulburd of using his “massive wealth to fund abortion lobbies,” Politico reports. The ad also notes that Quayle is pro-life and that he “strongly supports constitutional protection of marriage between a man and a woman.”
Apparently Bill Maher really doesn’t want to see the Republicans back in office any more than I do. Maher channeled his inner “Barry Whitehouse” and reminded everyone why as aggravated as many of us might be with the Democrats right now, we don’t need to be putting the Republicans back in office and had a bit of fun while doing it.
Maher: Why can’t the Democrats get props for what they’ve achieved? Oh, I know… I know. Obama’s black. He’s used to being denied credit. And there’s nothing wrong with being hard on him. He’s the president and it’s our job to keep him honest.
But when it comes to voting, when we only have two choices, you’ve got to grow up and realize there’s a big difference between a disappointing friend and a deadly enemy. Of course the Democrats are disappointing. That’s what makes them Democrats. If they were any more frustrating they’d be your relatives.
But in this country they are all that stands between you and darkest night. You know why their symbol is the letter “D”? Because it’s a grade that means good enough, but just barely.
You know why the Republican symbol is “R”? Because it’s the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark.
The truth is the Democratic base is still way larger than the Republican base. The reason why they’re losing is something called the enthusiasm gap. Yeah. And the voters that Obama and the Democrats have really lost are the women. Women like Velma Hart are just not getting enough love from the president.
So tonight I thought I’d try to make their fantasies come true and speak to you as Barack Obama’s alter ego, Barry Whitehouse.
At least, the National Tea Party Unity Convention that was being planned for mid-October in Las Vegas is off. It was supposed to be a repeat of the convention in Nashville last February, which drew 600 “delegates” (and almost as many reporters) and an adoring audience for Sarah Palin, the keynote speaker.
Sponsored by Tea Party Nation, a social networking site, the convention was supposed to emphasize Tea Party groups working together — a contrast to the convention in February, which was plagued by infighting among groups, with sponsors and speakers dropping out right up until its opening hours. Organizers chose Las Vegas not least because it is the center of the Senate race that Tea Party activists would most dearly love to win: Sharron Angle, a Republican supported by Tea Party groups, is challenging Harry Reid, the leader of the Democratic majority.
Barbee Kinnison, a Tea Party activist in Las Vegas who had been helping organize the convention, sent an e-mail to supporters saying that it was with “deep sorrow” that she had to announce “the convention is just not going to happen.”
Tea Party Nation still draws scorn from some other Tea Party groups, which have raised eyebrows at asking people to spend more than $200 to attend a convention, so it was not clear what this said about the strength of the movement. Tea Party Patriots, a large umbrella for about 2,700 local Tea Party groups nationwide, had criticized the media attention on the convention in February, saying it was not a real representation of Tea Party activism.
DISCLAIMER:
The Suzie-Q blog is owned, authorized, and operated by Suzie-Q. Comments or Guest articles posted by individuals on this blog are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Suzie-Q. Any endorsement of any comments or guest articles posted herein is neither implied nor suggested.
Differing opinions are welcome, personal attacks will not be tolerated and those engaging in personal attacks will be banned.
We will delete those comments that include the following actions:
• are abusive, off-topic, use excessive foul language
• contain racist, sexist, homophobic and other slurs
• are solicitations and/or advertising for personal blogs and websites
• are posted with the explicit intention of provoking other commenters on this blog.
Suzie-Q
anthony
wordgeezer
sudhan
Bob Cesca
JollyRoger
betmo110
cosanostradamus
barbaraobrien1
