TCR: Salvatore Giunta

I've been reading about and watching this guy all week after he became the first living soldier to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor since the Vietnam Conflict and he's always been the very definition of humility. We need to find some way to clone Giunta whilst imprinting his sense of duty and bravery upon the DNA:

Colbert's WØRD - Ownership Society

Stephen Colbert laments the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy and explains why supply side economics is still important even though it doesn't work:

TDS: Progressivism Is Cancer

Jon Stewart uses his first two segments to brilliantly mock the conspiratorial rantings of an unlikely moron. The intro:

And part II, the remockening:

Genius. Obvious fish in a barrel, yet genius nonetheless.

(hat tip: halnwolf)

[Update: Stephen Colbert follows with one of the cleverest interviews of a Republican political strategist (Mary Matalin) I've ever witnessed. Watch her hopelessly flounder as she tries to avoid her carefully prepared bingo card, right-wing talking points:
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Bill O'Reilly: Still Crunching Those Numbers...

In a previous post I took FOX News to task for a misleading report about the Netherlands by using actual facts and data to counter their claims about Holland being a moral cesspool because of the high levels of atheism amongst the population there. Bill O'Reilly then followed this up by claiming that Amsterdam was being overrun by crime and corruption because of their permissive legalized drug and sex policies, which spurred a native Dutchman to make this video countering his claims.

Well now he's claiming the same thing about the Netherlands again but this time he's refuting the Dutch statistics using the same logic he once applied to Canada:


Is it any wonder I love watching this guy? In Bill O'Reilly's world (and it seems that most of the less intelligent right-wingers live in this same world) the United States is inherently superior in whatever category you're measuring simply because that's what they want to believe. Verifiable facts and provable data say something different? They use different math in those countries, what do you expect?! And failing that of course, just rub some Wikiality on it:

You see O'Reilly and Colbert don't need literal facts, just the right facts. And in both cases those facts are the ones they make up for themselves, the only difference being that Colbert is actually playing a character making fun of serial conservative liars like O'Reilly. I'll say it again: The bar for getting your own television show in this country is set depressingly low.

(via)

Colbert's WØRD - Hippie Replacement

I've been meaning to write about the right-wing's new "grassroots" strategy on health care reform of shouting down Democratic politicians at their town hall meetings all across the country but Stephen Colbert has already done it so well that I'll let him give you the word:

As I've said before, I don't doubt that these people are genuinely angry but let's be completely honest here: They're not just angry about taxes and health care reform; they're angry about losing. They've sustained this same level of outrage ever since their side lost the last election and the tea bagging parties and now these town hall meeting disruptions are just conveniently mass-coordinated protests and meetings at which they can vent their frustrations about their side being out of power with other like minded people.

And make no mistake, this latest strategy is not comparable to the left's practice of protesting outside of George W. Bush's carefully pre-screened town hall meetings. This is an active attempt to shut down debate on health care reform by shouting down their opposition from inside these venues. Disagreeing with the other side's views is fine but actively working to prevent them from freely expressing those views in a public forum is not.

Dick Armey's FreedomWorks organization has been the top-down force behind both of these movements and while a certain percentage of this effort is indeed "grassroots" a larger percentage (the one that wrote out the insurrection instructions being emailed out across the country) certainly is not, and admitting that would be a good start towards being taken more seriously as a truly concerned political movement.

Colbert's Republican Healthcare Infomercial

To counter the Obama administration's healthcare reform proposal the Republicans have come up with a plan of their own: They're against it. Stephen Colbert lays out the finer points of their entire four page document:

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I Loves Me Some Conspiracy Theories

Radio personality Alex Jones breaks down some of the largest conspiracies looming over your precious little head every day:

I have to disagree with his assessment of the bear at the end there. I don't want to go all Colbert on everyone here but I'm convinced that Hallmark is in bed with the diamond industry by pimping Valentine's Day as if it were a hot, thousand dollar a night whore. How exactly does my love for my special lady translate into diamonds again? Jones has had the holiday wool pulled over his eyes and I don't care who knows that I'm saying it.

(via)

[Update: I've just been paid an unsettling visit by a couple of extremely well muscled and well armed men employed by the diamond industry. I hereby recant every negative thing I've ever said about that industry and it's subsidiary affiliates. Diamonds are the bomb and not at all superfluous in everyday society. I sprinkle them on my Corn Flakes every morning and you should too. Please tell my family that I love them.]

Picture Of The Day

I believe it.

The Homosexual Agenda

This anti-gay marriage ad by the Illinois Family Institute really outdoes the National Organization for Marriage ad currently being discussed across the political blogosphere. Oh my god, acceptance?! Who do these fucking queers think they are?:

I love the line about gays always having to be the best dressed in television portrayals (Really? Shocker!) rather than being the most likely candidates for suicide. I wonder where each of those incredibly unrealistic stereotypes arise. Go Christians! Oppress those gays, cause they deserve it! Dirty sinners...

(via)

[Update: The Colbert Coalition's anti-gay marriage ad trumps any parody of the NOM ad I've yet seen:
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Something Insane Someone Else Said

"So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research, and then some, fundamentally changing - remember, those great progressive doctors are the ones who brought us Eugenics. It was the progressive movement and it was science. Let's put science truly in her place. If evolution is right, why don't we just help out evolution? That was the idea. And sane people agreed with it!

And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. That came from people in white coats. That came from the best and brightest because they were unhinged from any kind of ethics. They were unhin… they believed in evolution. It came from the scientific consensus. We're headed back down there again. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up." -Glenn Beck

Yeah, wake up America! Why can't you see what advancing science and studying evolution will lead us to as a nation and a race? Beck can clearly see that we're headed towards a global conflict in which the progeny of a human genetic engineering project will establish themselves as supermen and attempt world domination, culminating with the most notable of them conquering a quarter of the planet, and he has the added mental handicap of being shithouse crazy.

Just how shithouse crazy is he? Stephen Colbert already had Beck sized up for his padded cell last month in all of his proctological brilliance:

Colbert's Better Know A Beatle - Paul McCartney

The definitive McCartney interview. If you can find another interview in which Paul McCartney accuses the Dalai Lama of potential cannibalism, I'll promise to watch it:

Blagojevich Balls

I told you this guy has balls Stephen Colbert would envy, and now you can get yourself a pair:

Unbearable Lightness Of Supreme Being

In an impassioned last "The Wørd" of the year, Stephen Colbert explains to God why he needs to change his style for 2009 to appeal to nonbelievers like myself:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - The Unbearable Lightness of Supreme Being

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Stewart/Colbert Fist Bump

The newest edition of Entertainment Weekly features Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in a recreation of the now infamous Barack and Michelle Obama "terrorist" fist bump cover of the New Yorker from last July but it sounds like the article has some choice tidbits from Stewart as well:

The article itself features some blistering quotes from Stewart on the media’s fascination with McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin: "Everyone likes new and shiny," says Jon Stewart. "We’re bored. What’s great about that is [Democratic VP candidate Joe] Biden is an absolutely eccentric character. That’s how powerful Palin’s story is—it has cast the first African-American presidential nominee, the oldest [non-incumbent] presidential nominee, and a really wild cork vice presidential candidate completely out of the picture. The press is 6-year-olds playing soccer; nobody has a position, it’s just "Where’s the ball? Where’s the ball? Sarah Palin has the ball!" [Mimes a mob running after her.] Because they can only cover one thing."

"I keep hearing that she’s 'like us.' There’s this idea that people who hunt and have 'good' values are somehow this mythological American; I don’t know who 'this' person is, I’ve never met them," Stewart continues. "She is no more typical 'us' than I am, than Obama is, than McCain is, than Mr. T is. If there is something quintessentially or authentically American about her, I sort of feel like, you know what? You 'good values people' have had the country for eight years, and done an unbelievably sh*tty job.”

As I've said before, Stewart and Colbert are doing the job of the mainstream media better than the mainstream media and nobody seems too upset by this fact. The Bush Administration's cowing of the investigative press during the run up to the Iraq war was stupefying but the press's abdication of their duties during this election cycle has been truly stunning; thank the gods that we can still expect honest, intelligent, biting sarcasm and parody from these two no matter what happens after the election. If Obama wins this one I'd expect them to give him exactly as much heat as he deserves but to be honest, it's going to be pretty hard to top the crew we've had for the last eight years.

Colbert Tip/Wags Wall Street Jagoffs

Long time readers here know that I likes me some Colbert Report and this weeks Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger was exactly what I was looking for; Stephen exposes political bias in The New York Times crossword, celebrates environmentalist hypocrisy and thanks Wall Street for all their help:

Something Someone Else Said

"Now, of course, John McCain repeatedly questioned Obama's understanding of important issues like this one: [on screen: McCain: 'I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy']. Now, nation, if you don't know the difference, a tactic is when Bush used political operatives to slander McCain in 2000; a strategy is when McCain hired those same operatives to run his campaign in 2008. Totally different." -Stephen Colbert

Sullivan Posts My Dissent

Some of you may remember the great mystery of Andrew Sullivan's disappearance from the blogosphere a few days ago. He's back now and apparently he dug my response to this post enough to put it up on his site; kinda cool.

Welcome To The PalinDrome

Sarah Palin's blog; warning: this blog contains extremely inane and ill-informed opinions about things and issues most other Americans have gathered knowledge about in their spare time not working cushy government jobs (ps- spelling counts):

But to help with the foreign stuff, they made me some really great flashcards about friend VS. enemy countries. The pictures of animals are the best part. Almost every country has a traditional animal mascot, a lot like sports teams. You probably already knew that America is an eagle, but did you know that England is a friendly lion (kinda like Aslan), Russia is a bear, and Iran is a scorpion with the head of a goat??

Anyways, finding out that Russia (also known as the Soviet's Union) is a "bear" made me think that hey, wait a sec, maybe i AM kinda ready for this foreign policy thing! I might not have gone on alot of trips away from alaska or talked to to very many foreigners (unless you count liberels!) but i have a heck of a lot of experience dealing with BEARS. one of the parts of my job that i am most proud of is that I have led the fight in Alaska against polar bears. The Interior Department (aka Big Government) tried to tell us alaskans that polar bears are an "endangered species" because of something called "global warming." Um, hey guys, have you BEEN to Alaska? It's cold as heck! anyway, I sued them and basically said "Until you can prove that this global warming stuff is actually science (aka never), then let us do what we want with our bears."

The McCain campaign is teaching her foreign policy using flashcards with animals on them to help her remember the countries, she thinks the "Soviet's Union" still exists, and she refutes global warming by looking out her window; this combined with her "lead[ing] the fight against polar bears" and all, she seems to be gift-wrapped for Stephen Colbert, no? Now I don't blame Sarah Palin for being such an unprepared dunce running for the vice-presidency; this whole debacle is clearly evidence of John McCain's poor executive skills, picking a running mate after meeting with her only once and sending his staffers to vet her the day before he announced it. This kind of ill-informed, gut reaction decision making does not a thoughtful, fully prepared president make.

[Update: The Wired.com article Palin links to from her own blog in the outtake above directly refutes her assertions about the polar bear population using the testimony of one of the world's foremost experts in the field. It's like these guys don't expect anyone to follow up on any of the things they say; the hubris is unfathomable.]

[Update II: It turns out that this is a satirical work of fiction; I sort of suspected as much just because it's so monumentally badly written but in my defense, she has said some pretty stupid shit over the last week. It's still very funny though.

(hat tip: PK)]

Colbert Classic

Stephen is interviewing Lynn Westmoreland, Republican congressman from Georgia for his 435 part series, Better Know A District. In this clip he asks the congressman about the bill he sponsored which would require the House of Representatives to give preferred treatment to the rules of Christianity over all other religions. Hilarity ensues as Colbert hoists Westmoreland on his own petard:

We're Just Replacing Words Now? Really?

I posted a few days ago about Michelle Obama's impressive speech concerning her and Barack's family life as the best part of the first day of the Democratic National Convention but apparently I made the mistake of judging her speech solely by the words she spoke; it turns out that it's the words she didn't say that prove what a disloyal communist and angry black woman she really is. Stephen Colbert reviews the incriminating video:
Yes, it seems that according to FOX News' Megan Kelly it is fair game to replace the words of public figures with words of our choice and then judge their motives and inner thoughts based on these new quotations. Now knowing these new rules of professional political journalism, I give you the real John McCain in his own words (replaced by several words of my own choosing) in the intro to an actual speech (can you believe he really said these things?) delivered to the Virginia Military Academy last year:

"Thank you. I know that seated in the front of this hall are VMI cadets who have repeatedly pissed on this country's greatness. I am grateful for your straining bladders, honored by your shitty attitudes, and mindful that I speak to an audience that can discern urine from feces in a politician's appraisal of the war this country was so cleverly tricked into (heh, heh). You know, better than most, whether our cause is futile, extraordinarily futile and "Brian's trying so hard to fuck Lois on Family Guy but it just ain't ever gonna happen" futile. You haven't risked a goddamn thing here in your little neoconfederate, backwoods pseudo-college to make it so. Fuck you. I'd also like to salute a few old comrades of mine, Adolph Hitler, Darth Vader and Prescott Bush, whose example of repeatedly doing business with the Nazi's during World War II helped to sustain the Bush family legacy long enough for his jackass of a grandson to set this country on the path to everlasting war, drain it's coffers off to his father's contracting buddies and turn us into a laughingstock around the globe that the next president (and let's face it, that dirty negro is gonna feed me my lunch in November) will spend several years just trying to repair the damage."

Can you believe he actually might have said and meant those things if he had actually said them at some point? Wow, this guy really hates his country (yet really loves Family Guy; weird). Also, and in all seriousness, that shit about Bush's grandpa is true. Now I'm not saying that he was a Nazi, just that he knowingly did business with one of the most insidious and destructive regimes on the planet while his own country was at war with them and also while millions of people were wiped out in the most infamous saga of genocide and human suffering in modern history. Bush: vote for him a third time, for the first time.