Tag: cnn

Why Christine O’Donnell walked off Piers Morgan

I think I know what happened here… First the setup: in the 2010 midterm election, things were looking bad for Democrats, and they turned out to be. But Democrats kept control of the open senate seat in Delaware made vacant by Senator Biden becoming Vice President Biden. Barack Obama’s Illinois Senate seat was won by a Republican, Mark Kirk, and Bidens seat was marked as an easy pickup for Republicans at the beginning of the race, which would have been an interesting symbolic victory as the opposition party took both senate seats of the sitting President and Vice President. but it didn’t happen that way because of Christine O’Donnell who played the “pesky kid” who Scooby Doo’ed the Republicans track to grab the seat.

A guy named Mike Castle was running for the Delaware senate seat but the Tea Party wing of the Republican party did not consider him sufficiently conservative and so Christine O’Donnell, who had ran against Biden and lost the last time around, ran against Castle in the primary and beat him for the Republican nomination. While Castle, Delaware’s only congressman at the time (that one congressional seat is now in Democrat hands) and the states former Governor was widely popular in the state and expected to win in a landslide, O’Donnell instead lost in a landslide because she was portrayed as ditzy, a religious nut and way too conservative for the state.

So now it’s awhile after the election and she has a new book talking about it and is making the rounds to promote it. Piers Morgan asks her a bunch of Socially Conservative and religious based questions which she was specifically told by her handlers to stay away from since that is what gave her such a bad rep in the first place. Indeed she started this strategy on debate night against her opponent, now the junior Senator from Delaware, Chris Coons, where she stuck to fiscal policy and legislation. Clips from her appearances on Politically Incorrect and an MTV special form the 90s where she espoused her hardcore Catholic religious views were being played everywhere and sinking her credibility as a viable candidate. So when Morgan brings these subjects up again, she keeps trying to steer the conversation away until finally coming out and saying “I don’t want to talk about this shit” (not an actual quote). Piers naturally responds “why the fuck not?” (more accurate, but still not a verbatim quote) and she doesn’t know what to say other than to repeatedly ask him to stop asking such questions.

On the one hand, Piers is asking these questions precisely because they play to the negative stereotype O’donnell is trying to clear her name of, but on the other… c’mon. battle it out with him instead of being the outraged Duchess at the tea party (pun intended) and chiding him for being rude to his guest. Her minders in the studio with her go as far as to stand in front of the camera as they direct her to walk out of the interview. Bizarre…

The same thing happened with Miss California on Piers’ predecessor, Larry King and I mean exactly the same thing: her handlers told her to not ruin her image further with this religious and social conservatism crap and she got frustrated when the host of the show she was on wouldnt oblige that request.

Liveblogging the CNN Republican Primary Debate

Each new line is a new thought… Play the drinking game if you’re watching live too.



this tweet is obviously a joke, but it makes great sense. Government jobs should be like jury duty: everyone contributes but no one should want to. I like the thought of candidates saying “elect me and I will give myself less power than the current guy is giving himself”.

Bachman looks great (she doesn’t always). Gingrich looks creepy (he does always).

Bachmann answered a question about how she would repeal Obamacare with a 1 minute response saying Obamacare is bad. Romney is answering the question by answering the question (he will repeal Obamacare and replace it with a better program in addition to issuing a waver to all 50 states

Pawlenty is asked about a criticism he made of Romney just yesterday. Doesn’t answer.

Romney’s gotta lose the smirk. I remember it from 2008. When an opponent is making a scurrilous attack, dont smile at it unless it’s funny.


Santorum gets a bad rap, mostly cuz of the “he hatez teh gahys” smear, so I wanna defend him. but… c’mon dude. why are you up there? Couldn’t be president if he was still a senator. REALLY can’t be president when he lost his last re-election for senate by 18 points (in 06).

I’ve said it before but i’ll say it again: why wasn’t it McCain/Bachmann in 08? She’s answering mostly in soundbytes and is weak on substance so far but still comes off a lot better than Palin. I think it’s more than just the [lack of] accent.

Lol. Hermain Cain. You go, brother. oh, shit. that’s racist. cuz he’s black. I can’t explain why calling a black guy “brother” is racist, but I think the rule is “anything you say in regards to a person of color is or can be racist”. Oh well. I like hearing him add his spice into this. He has no chance of winning.

I got super bored with this and Facebooked for awhile. Pawlenty is talking now. Just said his family listens to Rush Limbaugh, which I think was an intentional name drop so Rush would play the clip on his radio show tomorrow. Smart move from a candidate who needs the publicity.


[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Lol. Hermain Cain. He says “I studied” as “Ah Studded”.

Enouughhhhh with the “ah..al..alr…alri…alrigh…alright…” interruptions by John King 5 seconds into every single answer. Jesus. I get that there are time limits, even though there shouldn’t be. Lincoln and whoevertheotherguywas famously debated for hours and there was only 2 of them. I get that cable news isn’t about news so much as it’s a profitcenter for advertising dollars paying for news based entertainment, but come ON… give everyone an extra minute to give their shitty blowhard answers.

“Mr Speaker: Dancing with the Stars? or American Idol?”. Wtf CNN? this is pathetic. The last question before the break was to Santorum, asking “Conan or Leno”. He said “Probably Leno” but then botched the answer by throwing both under the bus saying that he doesn’t watch either. This is all a gimmick over what a news headline it was when Bill Clinton was asked at an MTV sponsored debate in the 90s “Boxers or Briefs?”. We get it. silly question to a person of power. teehee. 20 years later? These are stupid. CNN: the MTV of cable news except not as popular.


[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Lots of boring stuff. I took a break again until — HAHA, oh wow. Ron Paul just said the First Amendment is the right for anyone to practice their “Christian” faith. oh geez…

This before-break “this or that” question is to Mr Cain: Deep Dish or Thin Crust? oh giggle giggle snicker teehee. Cain said in a deep authoritative voice “Deep. Dish”. eha..ehaaa……


[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Romney says spicy wings are better than mild. This is a real question and answer in a real presidential debate…

Is Bachmann still in this debate?

Oh, next question to Bach. about New Hampshires same sex marriage law. she says it’s not the Presidents role to mess with state laws like that. right answer. good for her.

“Are you a George Bush republican, meaning a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and woman or a Dick Cheney republican, meaning leave it to the states” – um…George Bush never instituted a constitutional amendment to define marriage. He mildly supported a theoretical amendment, what? once? in response to a question about it? lame misleading question.

Ron Paul touts the old “get the government out of marriage” line. dislike. government is in maraige for the kids.

Moderator from the audience asks Santorum if Romney is a big fake phony over switching from being Pro-choice to Pro-life 6 years ago. Romney fixes the smirk issue and has appropriate body posture. Santorum answers the question with class, talking about his own opinion on life instead of attacking Mitt.

Mitt says he’s firmly pro-life and will appoint Justices that will follow the constitution.

Bachmann: “I am 100% pro-life, I’ve given birth to 5 babies…” lol.

Romney says troops need to come back from Afghanistan ASAP and hand leadership over to “the Taliban military” as CNN cuts to a General in the audience giving the same “da Fukkk?” response everyone who heard it at home did until Romney quickly corrected, saying “excuse me – the Afghan government, to DEFEND from the Taliban”.

Ron Paul says he wouldn’t listen to the Generals on the ground in Afghanistan if he was president and would pull out no matter what.

-DEBATE ENDS-

An Obama supporter analyst after the debate keeps saying that Tim Pawlenty needed to “cut” him and “make him bleed”. “You need to cut them and make them bleed”. said it 3 times. geez. The dude is black. I wonder if a white guy who said that about Obama would be called racist…. hmmm

UPDATE: Conan recaps:

Homeless man breaks into abandoned bar, sells alcohol

lulz at the crawl: homeless man breaks into abandoned bar, begins selling alcohol.

I of course had to look it up and it gets even better: he did it ALL WEEKEND. haaa. It was at a bar in California (the “the Penryn area of Sacramento Valley” if that means anything to you) called the Valencia Club that went out of business and the liquor license expired. So this 29 year old named Travis Lloyd Kevie somehow gets inside the closed building and brings in beer he bought somewhere else and – boom – back in business…

Kevie allegedly started with a six-pack of beer and used money he received to buy more alcohol.

He kept the bar open for a weekend serving about 30 customers a day, authorities said.
He was so successful that a local newspaper did a story about the bar reopening.

“A local newspaper report alerted a Placer County Sheriff’s Office Detective of a possible ongoing crime being committed in the Penryn area,” the Placer County Sheriff’s Office said. “As Detective Jim Hudson read the morning newspaper he recognized an individual pictured on the front page as a local transient who has had numerous contact with the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.”

Balloon boy and live TV do not mix

First, some background from the BBC as they insert a few “those damn crazy Americans” type jabs into this report giving a little background on the family, their weird weather hobbies, past history on Wife Swap and a summary of yesterdays saga:

During this painful-to-watch CNN interview with the family, Falcon (the balloon boy) was asked by his father Richard why he did not come out of the attic despite his parents repeatedly calling his name. Falcon answers “You guys said that … we did this for the show”, to which his dad just ignores while his mother tries to correct him and tell him “…no…”, so.. eh… wtf? If that wasn’t weird enough, the interviewer, Wolf Blitzer (lulz. Wolf asks Falcon) asks for clarity about that and the uncomfortableness goes nuclear as the father pauses, thinks how he can re-ask the question to his son, pretends to not understand the question by asking Wolf what it was again, then pausing more turning toward his son before finally saying he will not re-ask that question because of CNN’s nefarious motives he thinks are behind the question. weeeeeeird…

I have a hard time imagining someone holding a full family interview on the subject of their son just hours after they supposedly thought he was in a life threatening situation thousands of feet in the air, but they also seem pretty different in general in general so who can tell for sure.

The 911 call by the family was released. I didn’t listen to it because I don’t care, but I guess it’s worth posting. Does it sound like the family is acting or genuinely terrified? It seems really weird that if the parents were behind this as a hoax that they would let the kid go on live tv to uncover the whole thing but I guess stranger things have happened.

Police say they believe there was no hoax based on body language:

“I don’t know, after three hours of dealing with the media I couldn’t tell you what he was saying at that time or what he meant. What I can tell you is that our investigators were there from the onset, very experienced investigators,” [Larimer County Sheriff Jim] Alderden said. “They can do forensic interviews; they’re well trained at looking at body language . . . nonverbal communications to look for deception.”

Alderden says the investigators on scene believed the incident was legitimate and not a hoax even after interviewing Falcon separately from his family.

“After the boy came out they did a forensic interview with the boy just between the investigators and them and they again thought that it was a legitimate thing from his perspective,” he explained…

“Now, if this turns out to be a hoax and it can be proved that it is a hoax and criminal charges are filed certainly we would seek compensation for everybody’s effort,” Alderden said.

Should the fact that the family was pitching a reality show be factored in? I guess. but its still hard to tell wtf this means.

All I know is that this family needs to stop dragging this poor kid, who is sick (probably with swine flu) onto life TV interviews because it never goes well…

The hot air balloon boy story that wasn’t

I didn’t have any tv or radio’s on today as I was entrenched in computer work, but I saw on many websites that an omg-saga of world importance was apparently unfolding. Cable news all had live shots, seen below of a runaway and out of control UFO tinfoil laced weather balloon that everyone thought contained a 6 year old boy named… wait for it… Falcon. yes. that’s right… Except, no. that’s not right. because it didn’t. The boy was later found hiding in a kinda-sorta attic in the homes garage because he didn’t want his dad to yell at him…

Indeed, the whole thing deserves a closer look…

The 7 minute clip below is not required viewing, but the first 2 minutes have a little guilty lols in them by way of dramatic irony…

The Landing:

The…”Show”?… huh?…

The Theme Song:

Fishy info

The Whitehouse is asking people to send “fishy” information they’re seeing online to flag@whitehouse.gov so the Obama administration can lay the truth-hammer down on any stray dis-info nails. In theory, I love the idea, but some Obama critics are freaking out about its Orwellian implications, like Obama is going to use these emails to come after anyone who’s talking smack about his HopeandChange master plan.

The White House cannot delete communications, nor keep information about citizens exercising their free speech rights. Linda Douglass admits the White House is Breaking the law.

Hard News: Reporting Jesse Jacksons “Nuts” remark

When Jesse Jackson’s comments about Barack Obama broke yesterday evening, the true attraction for us wasn’t the story itself, but the beautiful awkwardness of watching every cable news anchor struggle to explain the story without being able to say one specific word.