Author: Richard

Obama goes on every Sunday show…except Fox’s

Barack Obama pushed his healthcare bill on 5 sunday talk shows yesterday.. Five. That’s every single one, right?
1. CBS
2. NBC
3. ABC
4. CNN
5… Gotta be FOX, right?… wrong.. #5 was Univision. wtf?

ABC News asked White House spokesman Josh Earnest about this and he answered “We figured Fox would rather show ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform.” In other words: Revenge.

That’s a reference to the program the Fox network aired at 8 p.m. on Sept. 9, when other major broadcast networks were airing the president’s speech to the joint session of Congress.

MSNBC’s Morning Joe panel asked wtf was with this “only avoid the highest rated channel” strategy…

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

O’Reilly reviewed highlights from the Presidents rounds:

Alison Brie is a cool chick

I just watched this Red Eye and she was great enough to make me investigate this Crazy Men show thing that I hear the kids talking about (something about Austin Powers, lots of sex and smoking?) and her new show Community. She’s one of the few in the business that I like to call “not a raging bitch ass shallow c*nt whore with no personality who should die”. I like her.

Hidden camera Satire vs not satire

It’s annoying when news outlets and opinion commentators falsely ascribe seriousness or comedy to something to fit their bias. If someone they like says something outrageous, then it was just a silly joke, not meant to be taken seriously and thus can’t be offensive – but if someone they don’t like makes a joke that could be taken as mean spirited, the reverse logic is applied in the reporting of the comment. The Daily Show fits this balance perfectly in that supporters who think Jon Stewart may have made a particularly devastating point are able to tout the show as truth speaking journalism, however if a detractor tries to criticize a point made on the show, its supports and in fact Stewart himself, dismiss it because after all its a “fake news” comedy show. duh.

Here are 2 examples I recently noticed involving James O’Keefe, a 25 year old activist who specializes in illustrating absurdity by being absurd, such as holding an “Affirmative Action Bake Sale” in college (an event popular among Campus Republicans nation-wide where the racial discrimination of affirmative action, which lowers standards for racial minorities, is illustrated in a bake sale by charging whites more for a cookie than a minority). His latest work released a series of 5 hidden camera videos showing corrupt employees of community activist group ACORN, a Democrat front-line group closely associated with Barack Obama, helping him cheat the tax system, hide and operate a whore house, traffic illegal aliens, and use 13 year old El Salvadorian girls as sex slaves. In fact these revelations recently led congress to cut funding to ACORN.

Right wing media has been calling O’Keefes expose a “sting” and “journalism the mainstream media used to do” while left wing media has dismissed it as “Borat style gotcha-videos”.

Steve Krakauer, a writer for Mediate.com, is clearly not a fan of O’Keefe as displayed in a recent piece investigating and mocking O’Keefe. The title, Right Wing Darling James O’Keefe: The Man Who Exposed ACORN and Lucky Charms, gives the tone of the article away, but the snarkiness is also misleading. Krakauer reports about O’Keefe on the Lucky Charms thing:

He waged a campaign against dining halls serving Lucky Charms. You see, besides being magically delicious, O’Keefe thought the cereal was offensive to Irish Americans.

That sounds… odd. And it should. because it isnt true. The Mediate columnist failed to mention that O’Keefe didn’t find the cereal offensive, but rather was satirizing the idea that anyone would find it offensive. I was fooled by Mediaites mis-reporting on this myself until I read the real background from the New York times:

In 2004, at a buddy’s suggestion, he and a few fellow Rutgers students set out to satirize what they saw as a pious sensitivity to ethnicity on campus. The result is still there to see on YouTube: Mr. O’Keefe protesting to a slightly befuddled university dining official that the leprechaun on the cereal box “appears to be an Irish-American.”

“As you can see, we’re not short and green — we have our differences of height — and we think this is stereotypical of all Irish-Americans,” Mr. O’Keefe deadpans, as the official earnestly scribbles notes.

I appreciated the Times clearing that up for me as a reader, however in that very same column the author Scott Shane says this of O’Keefe’s previous under cover endeavors:

He has lampooned liberals by inviting them to become pen pals of imprisoned terrorists, and, more darkly, recorded Planned Parenthood staff members agreeing that he can designate his donation exclusively to the abortion of black babies.

eh.. “Lampooned”?… Really? I thought “lampoon” meant comedic satire, ie: the National Lampoon Chevy Chase movies were humorous satirizations of American life, aka: actors acting out a comedy.

Before I embarrass myself by having to make a correction, I went and looked it up and “lampoon” in fact means “a harsh satire”. So… what exactly is the satire taking place here? How are you “lampooning” anything when you ask an abortion advocacy group if you can donate money to kill black babies and they say yes, or ask a government aided organization if you can get help trafficking 12-15 year old south and central american girls to be used as sex slave prostitutes and getting help?

Satire should be reported as satire. Jokes as jokes. Serious acts as serious acts.

First tell the truth. then give your opinion.

Lindsay Lohan’s voicemail password is 1234

In the spring of 2008, LiLo made the unfortunate decision to post her private information — including her cellphone number — on Facebook which was soon snatched up and passed around by approximately half the internet population.

As a result, Lindsay left her private voicemail easier to hack – even EASIER to hack once it was learned that the 4 digit password she chose was… “1…2…3…4”

Yes…1 2 3 4 5. So the sneak who cracked the code then put what is allegedly her voicemails up on the interwebs, and shown here below. Another reason I don’t have voicemail on my phone anymore… Be sure to listen to the end where apparently “her desperate deadbeat father warbles a heartfelt message and then holds his cellphone up to the car stereo speakers to let her know he’s listening to her new CD as he drives.” yikes…

Kanye West interrupts Obama

This appeared within 2 hours of Kanye West being an asshole at the MTV Video Music Awards me making this exact gag on RichWatch. Clearly I’m the only person who is smart and politically astute enough to make the connection, so my idea was perjured, but I don’t mind since it was done so quickly and in a quality fashion…


Continue reading Kanye West interrupts Obama

Kanye West sh*ts on Taylor Swifts big moment

Alternate title to this post: Kanye West shows Joe Wilson how it’s DONE. UPDATE: Someone pounced on that gag already. geez, that was quick.

Alternate title #2: Kanye West doesn’t care about white people…

I’d love to think Kanye West is not an insensitive narcissistic asshole. but… dude…

Tonight’s VMA awards were messy. The transitions were sloppy. The performances were so-so. And the emotional outbursts were, well, tacky. Our evidence: Kanye West upstaging Taylor Swift’s big win. In a bit of a surprise, singer Taylor Swift won the Best Female Video for her track “You Belong With Me.” Sure, many of us aren’t familiar with this 19-year old country girl’s entertainment outputs, but that’s really no excuse for Mr. West, a man so consumed by his own fame that he has no respect for fellow travelers in the starosphere, to take the mic and declare Beyonce and her silly “All The Single Ladies” video the real winner. “Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time,” he declared, although that’s wrong on more than one level.

Honestly, Kayne, you look like an asshole. More so than usual. This poor girl had a moment to shine and, as is apparent by her reaction, you stole that and ruined what should have been a proud moment. That’s mean and childish and you should be publicly shamed. Oh, wait. Your own fame guarantees that. Good. As for Beyonce. She looked somewhat appalled, albeit under the guise of self-conscious humility.

First President Bush, now Taylor Swift. why is Kanye always picking on little girls who did nothing wrong?

(video updated since MTV keeps yanking uploads off of Youtube)

The contrast in this picture says it all: Classy, elegantly dressed young woman with good posture vs some hunched over thug-douche wearing sunglasses inside a brightly lit facility with a topiary maze shaved into his head, wearing a black (pleather?) shirt with – are those sleeves rolled up?? – and torn up jeans? wtf.

19 year old Swift was reportedly spotted “crying hysterically” backstage afterwards.

Stars watching the show and tweeting immediately posted their thoughts on the incident:

“Kanye needs to learn how to wait his turn,” Zac Hanson wrote. “I am sure he will get plenty of mic time to say something stupid later in the show.”

Country singer John Rich went even further with his tweet: “KanyeWest is a lowlife. He needs to have his @@@ kicked in the middle of the stage right now! What a piece of @@@@!!! Go TAYLOR SWIFT.”

Pink, who was also nominated for best female video, tweeted: “Kanye west is the biggest piece of s– on earth. Quote me.”

And Katy Perry followed suit: “F– U KANYE. IT’S LIKE U STEPPED 0N A KITTEN.”

Later, when Diddy and Jamie-Lynn Sigler took the stage to announce the best male video winner (rapper TI took it), they mentioned each of the nominees, including West, who was loudly booed by the crowd.

Flashback from 2007 when there was this: Video: Whiny loser loses, whines like a five-year-old at Video Music Awards... but actually it’s so much “whining” as it is a race-based hate tantrum…

Haunting tales of the Twin Towers jumpers on 9/11

In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity’s divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did — who jumped — appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to the geometric balance he has achieved, he is the essential element in the creation of a new flag, a banner composed entirely of steel bars shining in the sun. Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation; others see something else — something discordant and therefore terrible: freedom. There is something almost rebellious in the man’s posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end. He is, fifteen seconds past 9:41 a.m. EST, the moment the picture is taken, in the clutches of pure physics, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared. He will soon be traveling at upwards of 150 miles per hour, and he is upside down. In the picture, he is frozen; in his life outside the frame, he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears.

Read more: The Falling Man – Tom Junod – 9/11 Suicide Photograph via Esquire.com

Another story from the Daily Mail:

For those who have discovered that their loved ones may have been among the estimated 200 or more who plunged to their deaths, this uncomfortable official reticence can only compound the suffering they have already endured.

University administrator Jack Gentul cannot possibly imagine his late wife’s torment before she died. Alayne Gentul, mother of two and the 44-year-old vice president of an investment company, was in the South Tower and had gone up to the 97th floor to help evacuate staff after the other tower was hit. In her final moments, she rang Jack to say in labouring breaths that smoke was coming into her room through vents.

‘She said “I’m scared”,’ he tells me quietly. ‘She wasn’t a person who got scared, and I said, “Honey, it’ll be all right, it’ll be all right, you’ll get down”.’

Alayne Gentul’s remains were found in the street outside the building across from the tower — sufficiently far from the rubble to suggest she had jumped. Mr Gentul, who has since remarried, is not convinced she took that option but is clearly irked that some believe jumping was some sort of cop-out.

‘She was a very practical person who would have done whatever she could to survive,’ he explains in a quiet voice. ‘But how can anyone know what one would do in a situation like that, having to choose how you go from this Earth?’

The notion that she jumped is, indeed, consoling to Mr Gentul in some ways, in that she exercised an element of control over her death.

‘Jumping is something you can choose to do,’ he says. ‘To be out of the smoke and the heat, to be out in the air, it must have felt like flying.’

Obama makes speech on healthcare. Democrats focus full attention on heckler

A congressman says “you lie!” to Obama during a speech and becomes a bigger story than the speech he was interrupting. Yup, thats American politics for ya.

allaboutjoe

President Obama made an address to Congress last night to try and and squeeze an approval rating bump out that he could ride into passing his Government run healthcare bill plan thingy (Sarah Palin calls it the Bureaucratization of Health Care”). I played the Obama drinking game while watching it: you take a sip every time a black guy says something. – so I had to go to bed early. I do remember though that some guy I assumed was from the Republican side yelled something at some point. Turns out it was Republican congressman Joe Wilson from SC and he yelled “You lie!” at point when Obama claimed that his legislation would not offer benefits to illegal aliens.

brackgottachokeabitch
Barack reacting to the congressman’s outburst…

John McCain denounced him, his daughter Meghan McCain called him a child, blah blah blah.

He deserves the scolding, but it’s pretty vomit-worthy to watch the hippies freak the hell out over this disrespect toward the Obammessiah. The guy running against Wilson in the next election is getting donations streamed in even though it seems a bit of a waste (his district has voted Republican for the last 44 years), Wilson is bucking back, and its open season for smear-timez as some wonder if he’s a drug addict.

Listening to Democratic histrionics about civility in response to this, you’d almost think they hadn’t booed and yelled “no” at President Bush during his 2005 State of the Union. Or…wait a tic…

Okay, but was Wilsons rude comment at least right? Did Obama lie? Well… The bill available online in PDF form expressly says: “HR 3200 SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS: Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.” Which would sorta kinda suggest – ehno, he didn’t.

But there was a loophole that apparently is being fixed now due to Wilsons outburst (great. just what we need: public admittance that uncivil yelling will get you what you want):

Indeed, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service study found that the House health care bill does not restrict illegal immigrants from receiving health care coverage.

House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner amplified the complaint that without proof of citizenship, illegal immigrants could be insured.

“There were two opportunities for House Democrats to make clear that illegal immigrants wouldn’t be covered by putting in requirements to show citizenships,” he said. “Both of those amendments were, in fact, rejected.”

In the Senate, Democrats in the so called “Gang of Six,” a group of bipartisan senators on the Senate Finance Committee which is the last panel yet to release its bill, began moving quickly to close the loophole that Wilson helped bring greater attention to.

“We absolutely assure that those who are here illegally would not get the benefit of any of these initiatives,” Sen. Kent Conrad said.

Congressional Research Service: H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on non-citzens participating in the Exchange–whether the non-citizens are legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently. Nonetheless, only aliens who could be classified as resident aliens would be required under the bill to have health insurance.