Category: People I Do Not Want to Piss Off

Stewart 1, Obama 0

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Stewarts notes that Obama has deliberately created a regime in which the rules are completely dependent on the goodwill of the authorities, something which our founders abhorred.

Obama makes an exception for “true emergencies,” and Stewart observes that, “We will totally follow the rules until we determine such time when we will no longer follow the rules, but don’t worry about it. You won’t hear about it, because we’re doing it in secret.”

Once again, with a smile on his face, Stewart reveals the hypocrisy of power.

Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee Take Down the Financial Press

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On a number of occasions, I have noted that it has been illegal to take out insurance on something in which one does not have an interest in its continued existence.

So, it’s illegal to take out a policy on your neighbor’s house, because otherwise, you would have an interested in burning it down.

This problem was first addressed, in the UK at least in the by the Marine Insurance Act of 1746.

The proximate cause was people who would buy insurance on a merchant ship, and then leak the manifests and schedules to the French, who were at war with the British at the time, and they would collect the insurance payouts.

It has been the law for longer then there has been the United States.

Only in the late 1990s, they decided that it did not apply to credit default swaps, and so the ripe-for-abuse “naked” CDS was born.

Well, the Daily Show found a story on Bloomberg about how the private equity firm Blackstone Group purchased a naked CDS on a 3rd party loan to the Spanish gaming company Codere.

Blackstone then made a loan to Codere that was conditional to their making their making a payment late on the aforementioned 3rd party loan, which was a “credit event” which netted the investment firm a $15,000,000.00 payout.

What I do not understand how this isn’t insurance fraud, except, of course, a CDS isn’t insurance, except, of course, that it is.

But besides the Bloomberg article there has been crickets from the financial press, which Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee discussed last night.

Brutal

The Daily Show Draws Blood

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They decided to cover voter suppression efforts in North Carolina, and the find a precinct chairman who is an unrepentant racist who admits that the new laws are purely for partisan political advantage.

Perhaps, we should say former precinct chairman.

He got canned the day after the broadcast.

I guess that saying that some of the people who were complaining about the barriers to voting were, “lazy black people that wants the government to give them everything,” was not good for his future in politics.

It’s arguable that the above quote was not the most offensive thing that he said.

Even better, this happened just before the DoJ suit against the voter suppression laws is to go to trial.

Krugman Nails It

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In accordance with Euro Zone requirements, France is taking steps to reduce its deficit.

The people who most strongly argue for “expansionary austerity”*, are criticizing Frances steps, and Paul Krugman rightly takes them to task:

Simon Wren-Lewis looks at France, and finds that it is engaging in a lot of fiscal austerity — far more than makes sense given the macroeconomic situation. He notes, however, that France has eliminated its structural primary deficit mainly by raising taxes rather than by cutting spending.

And Olli Rehn — who should be praising the French for their fiscal responsibility, their willingness to defy textbook macroeconomics in favor of the austerity gospel — is furious, declaring that fiscal restraint must come through spending cuts.

………

But the larger point here, surely, is that Rehn has let the mask slip. It’s not about fiscal responsibility; it never was. It was always about using hyperbole about the dangers of debt to dismantle the welfare state. How dare the French take the alleged worries about the deficit literally, while declining to remake their society along neoliberal lines?

It should be noted that Robert Mundell, known as the “Father of the Euro”, is also a big figure in supply side economics (aka Raganomics).

The Euro’s academic and intellectual roots are dominated by people who have the dismantling of the social safety net as one of their important goals.

It is therefore no surprise that they are prosecuting their agenda by using austerity as a tool to do this, but the people who have to live in the Euro are their victims.

*Much like sparkle ponies that sh%$ M&Ms, expansionary austerity does not exist.

I Really Don’t Think that I Have Ever Seen Rachel Maddow this Pissed Off

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Look at this video.

Rachel Maddow is pissed off, and she is pissed off at Barack Obama.

Here are the high points, but you should watch the whole 8:02:

Journalism is not terrorism. Journalism can be enraging to people in power; journalism can sometimes even be frightening to people in power, but journalism is not terrorism. Reporting on what governments do, even when those governments prefer to keep those actions secret, is not terrorism. Terrorism is a real and discrete thing in the world. It is not an all-encompassing term you apply to everything the government doesn’t want you to do.

The White House today said it had been given a heads-up in advance that the detention of David Miranda was likely to happen…. The White House went out of their way today to say that it was Britain’s decision to detain Glenn Greenwald’s partner — it was not something the US asked Britain to do; and okay fine, but the White House did know about it in advance and it still happened.

We have that kind of special relationship with Britain where if our government were outraged that this detention was going to happen, we could have objected, right? We could have at least asked our dear friends, the British government, to not do this, maybe in the interests of not intimidating the activities of the free press, if not for any other reason. Did our government make any objections when it got advance notice from Britain that this detention was going to happen? Did our government protest? And if not, why not? I tend to think we did not protest, since it went ahead.

I know the US government is not happy about Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald and their reporting about US surveillance. The president said that the disclosures from their source have led to a disorderly debate about these issues and even though we ought to have a debate about these issues, it ought to be more orderly. Fine. But if the United States wants to convince the world that the Glenn Greenwalds and Laura Poitras’ of the world are correct when they say the US government is going too far — if they want to underline and put flashing red lights on that reporting that says that counter-terrorism is being used to justify all sorts of things that are not justified by the actual threat of terrorism, and that in fact have just greenlit gross government overreach and intrusion and intimidation of legitimate activity including journalism — then putting journalists and their families through marathon interrogations and seizing all their electronics is a really great way to start convincing the world that all that reporting is accurate.

Letting our closest allies do it while we stand silent is the same thing as us doing it. Journalism is not terrorism. Pretending otherwise is outrageous, and ridiculous, and a dangerous affront to who we are as a country and a democracy. It’s an absolute outrage.

My opinion is even stronger. I believe that the British called for permission, and they got it.

That being said, Obama has lost Maddow, at least on this specific instance, and this is significant.

H/t Dallasdoc at Daily Kos.,who dutifully transcribed the above quote.

Props to Gawker for This Trenchant Analysis

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Neetzan Zimmerman at Gawker wonders why, “CNN Can’t Stop Giving Jon Stewart Stuff to Make Fun Of.” Honestly, so do I:

Standing in the parking lot outside the courthouse, Ashleigh Banfield and Nancy Grace appeared on a split-screen via satellite to discuss the proceedings.

But, as their backdrop soon revealed, the two talking heads were actually in the very same parking lot, six whole parking spots away from each other, according to an Atlantic Wire analysis.

Well, either that, or as Stewart suggested, viewers were witnessing Arizona’s fabled “seven-mile long Bus Ness Monster.”

………
Stewart has every reason to complain about CNN’s lack of professionalism, but if they ever did get their sh%$ together, his show would be half as long.

I think that this is a bit strong.  While CNN makes Jon Stewart job easier, I think that his show would still work without them.

Jon Stewart Has a Comedygasm

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Jon Stewart was positively ecstatic last night about the whole ricin mailer thing (see video).

You remember, how Paul Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator, was framed for mailing poisoned letters to President Obama and Senator Wiker? Well they have now fingered an enemy of his, Everett Dutschke, for the deed, and he is a Wayne Newton impersonator.

Remember what the Chinese say about living in interesting times?

Well, for Jon Stewart, this makes his job pretty easy.

She Stoopid, It Burns Us!!!!!!

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Not only is CNN looking to relaunch Crossfire, but they are in negotiations with Newt Gingrich.

What on earth possessed them to try bring back that moribund franchise?

Did Jon Stewart teach you idiotic ratf%$#s anything the last time around? He literally embarrassed this show off the air.

Just the other day, he cut CNN a new on on their incompetent coverage of the Boston bombing.

Seriously, do not make him stop this car.

You do not want him to open up another can of whup ass on your flabby white asses.

Just in case you do not remember, let’s roll tape:

Oh, Now I Get It!

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Suddenly, I Understand

There has always been something about Antonin Scalia that seemed familiar, and now Rachel Maddow has his essence nailed, she was in the Supreme Court for the voting rights act, and she realized that Antonin Scalia is basically a garden variety troll (At about 2:40 in the vid):

It’s a racial entitlement now, voting is a racial entitlement — something that you are entitled to on the basis of your race. Wait a second, do you know how that sounds? But I think he does know how that sounds and that’s the neat thing about being there in person is you can see, actually he’s a troll. He’s saying this for effect. He knows it’s offensive and he knows he’s going to get a gasp from the courtroom, which he got, and he loves it. He’s like the guy on your blog comment thread who is using the n-word. ‘Oh, it made you mad? How about if I say this? Does it make you mad? Did it make you mad? Did it make you mad?’ He’s that guy! He’s that kind of guy! When we’re all shocked that he said something so blatantly racially offensive while talking about the cornerstone of the federal Civil Rights Act, he’s thinking, ‘Oh yeah!’

He’s Lauren “Uncle Meat” Bandler in judicial robes. 

I’m kind of surprised that Scalia doesn’t show up to court in his underwear with a bag of Cheetos.

Why am I not surprised that she revealed this to Jon Stewart?

That concentration of truth telling on one stage is a stunning level of awesome.

Dick Cheney Pissed off Jon Stewart………

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Daym!

Recently, Dick Cheney was interviewed, and Jon Stewart and his writers had the stomache to listen to listen to him go on and on about how Barack Obama has weakened America.

I now know what that sound I heard earlier, it was the staff of The Daily Show licking their chops.

He notes that Cheney was a sh%$#y vice president, and he was wrong on everything, and followed this by a video medley Grand Moff Cheney’s greatest hits, like, “We’ll be welcomed as liberators”, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction,” and the ever popular favorite “I think that they are in the last throes of the insurgency.”

Even if Obama wanted to take our standing in the world down a peg, he couldn’t, ’cause the Bush-Cheney administration left him with no peg room… the previous administration had left us in a bit of a cash crunch, and by ‘previous administration,’ I mean these motherf%$#ers.

Ouch.

Stewart On Guns

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Best news analysis in the media

If you want to get a good background on the whole gun safety issue, you’d may not find a better primer than what Jon Stewart did last night.

He outlines the basics of the debate, and how the NRA has castrated both the ATF and the ability to collect meaningful data about gun violence.

Funny and educational.

He is a F%$#ing Comedian

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Blah, blah, blah!

So until the pundits are subjected to some scrutiny for their fact free gaffes, leave Jon Stewart alone. </LeaveBritneyAlone>

You can see the video, and I don’t think it’s great. It shows off his not-infrequent forays into “a pox on both their houses” land, but there is a difference between saying, “Not up to his normal standards,” and:

I won’t say that Stewart has the same obligation to be accurate the journalists have—in fact, if he had brought up the coin only to make a lot of silly jokes about whose face would be on it, that would have been okay. (A missed opportunity, but nothing more.) But instead he grossly misled his audience.

At its best the Daily Show is about satirizing the actual reality of American governance in an honest way. Stewart has built up a lot of credibility over the years. A great many people trust him implicitly, believing that while his main objective is to be funny, he also won’t under any circumstances BS them. Yesterday, he betrayed that trust.

Shame on you, Jon Stewart. You’re better than this.

It’s one thing to say, “It’s not his best,” and it’s another to treat it as one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.

Ryan Cooper, please get a life.

Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen

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This is why privacy, and innocent until proved guilty are important.

If your entire life is available to the state security apparatus, they will find something, and so you had better not be inconvenient to said state security apparatus, because they already have the means to destroy you.

You do not want them to be inclined to actually do so.

It is depressing that the truth tellers in our society are cartoonists and comedians.


Link

I am adding cartoonist Zach Weiner to my list of, “People I Do Not Want to Piss Off.”