Jon Stewart Makes Mike Huckabee Sweat
Here’s why we love Jon Stewart. Who else could so politely and articulately tell Mike Huckabee he’s full of voodoo crap on the subject of gay marriage?
Year: 2008
Crist in Europe Spent Like Palin in Bloomingdale’s
Crist and Palin: “Heck, it’s not our money!”Charlie Crist’s travel bill is starting to look a lot like the tab for Sarah Palin’s wardrobe — it ain’t pretty.
You might recall us telling you last July about how the Republican Florida governor and his newly-announced fiancee jetted off to Europe under the guise of a trade mission. We thought the trip a bit of an extravagance, what with news reports at the time that Florida’s budget shortfalls would likely be much worse than previously anticipated.
We didn’t know the half of it. The bill to Florida taxpayers for Crist’s entourage was officially announced at $255,000 back then. Crist’s own travel was supposedly underwritten by business interests, not Florida residents. Now, thanks to an investigation by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the invoice has been revealed to be closer to $430,000.
First, there’s who went on the 12-day spree: the governor, his fiancee, his fiancee’s sister (who is not a Florida resident), nine bodyguards, an official photographer, a spokesperson, and numerous lawyers, business people, and realtors. The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell puts the list at six pages and 90-odd people. Maxwell also scrutinized the hotel bills.
Crist and Palin both spend too much time in tanning beds, have never passed a mirror they didn’t like, and believe public service means the bill always goes to someone else.
First of all, I’m thinking soon-to-be Mrs. Gov. Good Times was responsible for some of the drink bills. Because “minibar” receipts show someone (or some ones) in Crist’s room imbibed 14 times in Crist’s suite on the three-day stay in London.
Maxwell also questioned the need for so many bodyguards.
The bodyguards alone, split up among the four countries, spent more than $148,000. And keep in mind: We’re talking relatively safe places such as London and Paris…where people go to celebrate their anniversary. One can only imagine the bills if Charlie had gone to Baghdad.
VRC Fringe: Obama Is the ‘Most Notorious Criminal in the History of the Planet’
They’re Baaack….
The fringe of the newly revitalized Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (VRC) achieved remarkable success in its first attack on Barack Obama yesterday. With the help of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a VRC member in good standing, the fringers forced the nation’s highest court to waste 15 minutes of its valuable time deciding whether to hear evidence that Obama is not a bona fide citizen of the United States. As Buck noted soon afterward, the court refused to hear the case.
“This is the largest hoax perpetrated against the United States in 200 years.”
— Philip Berg, Obama conspiracy theorist
But as we learned during the Clinton era, the VRC always gets the last word — and nothing they say is true can ever be proved false. True to form, the fringers held a news conference in D.C. yesterday to let the world know that their fight against Obama ain’t over, not hardly — and WaPo’s Dana Milbank was there:
“This is the largest hoax perpetrated against the United States in 200 years,” Philip Berg declared in a news conference at the National Press Club. His colleagues delivered the further news that “Barack Obama is the most notorious criminal in the history of this planet” and that the president-elect’s claim to be a natural-born American has “the potential to propel our nation into a time of great peril,” a time of “widespread chaos, disturbances to public tranquillity.”
Berg, a Pennsylvania lawyer and the author of another lawsuit alleging that Obama is not native-born, and therefore is not eligible to be president, sought to establish several facts. One: “He knows he was adopted in Indonesia.” Two: “He was born in Kenya.” Three: “His real name would be Barry Soetoro.” Four: “If he didn’t go through immigration, believe it or not Barack Obama would be an illegal alien today.” And five: “If and when the right court handles this matter, Barack Obama” and everybody around him “should really be tried criminally and many of them should go to jail.”
Obama’s birth certificate has been verified by Hawaiian authorities and non-partisan fact-checkers — all of which was a complete waste of time as far as the VRCers are concerned. “That document is a forgery, it’s a fraud, just like Barack Obama is,” Berg told reporters yesterday, according to Milbank. “His birth certificate will indicate he was born in Kenya.”
The Future’s So Bright We Can Already See It
We’ve reluctantly — because we don’t want to abuse our supernatural powers — dusted off the Pensito Review crystal ball to make a few predictions for 2009.
- On her first trip to Eastern Europe as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton is met in Bosnia with sniper fire.
- Adam Sorkin creates a new West Wing-like television program based loosely on The Jeffersons sitcom where a black family moves into the White House and has to deal with a bunch of weird white people in Congress in a lot of forced, uncomfortable situations.
- In his last few hours as president, Bush pardons Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Michael Vicks, Mark Cuban, Ken Lay (posthumously), Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Todd Palin (DUI), Ted Stevens, Duke Cunningham, Larry Craig, Bill O’Reilly (sexual harassment), Rush Limbaugh (prescription drug fraud), Phil Spector and O.J. Simpson.
- Eliot Spitzer and Jon Edwards buy a Winnebago and a digital camera and hit the road for Panama City, Fla. during spring break for a new reality program called “Guys Gone Wild.”
- It’s June 2009 and they’re still counting votes in Minnesota.
- Jamie Lynn Spears, Angelina Jolie, Katie Holmes, Bristol Palin, Clay Aiken and those 17 high school girls in Gloucester, Mass., volunteer to be sterilized by aliens as a gesture of interplanetary goodwill.
- The newspaper industry completely collapses, bankrupting Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zeller, and leaving the West Framforth Argus-Beacon the only print newspaper still publishing in the United States.
- With its bailout money, the U.S. auto industry retools and comes out with the coolest hybrid ever made, called the Iaccoca. Unfortunately, although the vehicle initially is greeted with excitement and was hailed as having the potential to single-handedly cure our dependence on foreign oil, due to its name it is consigned to the dustbin of history alongside the Edsel.
- In a desperate attempt to maintain its momentum from the presidential elections, Saturday Night Live starts doing skits involving Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — and nobody notices.
- After poisoning our dogs’ food, our children’s toys and our toothpaste with melamine, China refines its efforts to kill members of both political parties by flooding the post-election market with lead-glazed Barack Obama commemorative plates and MSG-infused “Palin in 2012” T-shirts.
- Larry King finally stops doing whatever it is he does.
- On his first day in office, President Barack Obama signs Executive Order 1256 decreeing that no one, and he means no one, is supposed to pay one iota of attention to any celebrity who goes by just one name. That means you, Cher, Madonna, Beyonce, Oprah, et. al.
- Newt Gingrich gets fatter, uglier and meaner.
- So does Jeb Bush.
- Al Gore just gets fatter and more saintlike.
- General Motors apologizes to the American people for the Hummer, calling it “the single most obnoxious thing we ever did” and adding, “Our heads were up our butts, but we get it now. Buy a Chevy! LYLAS!”
- It’s October 2009 and they’re still counting votes in Minnesota.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints apologizes for its role in the defeat of California’s Proposition 8, which bars gays from entering into a civil marriage contract. The Mormon Church issues a statement that to atone for its actions, it will immediately stop posthumously baptizing Nazis and Jews. Pinkie promise!
- In what has been hailed as a further effort to seal his hetero creds, a honeymoon sex tape was released on the Internets of closeted Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and his blushing bride Carole Rome engaged in sexual acts that are illegal in every county of the state. The grainy, poor-quality tape confirms that Crist’s famous tan is an all-over one.
- Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin agrees to appear on the cover of Playboy Magazine. “How many hockey moms do you know who can have four or five kids and still have a bodacious bod like this?” asked the former Miss Wasilla.
Guess What Today Is?
Today is the birthday of Pensito Review’s favorite Sagittarius, the Buckster himself! To honor Buck, Jon and I are having this practical yet stylish racing walker shipped directly to him from Wal-Mart. He might be old, but he’s not dead! Right? Hey Buck. Buck, can you hear me?
O.K., well here’s a very special horoscope, just for people like you, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (computer pioneer), Kirk Douglas, John Malkovich, Sen. Tom Daschle, and Felicity Huffman, all born on Dec. 9. Get someone to find your glasses and then see if it sounds true:
A December 9 Sagittarius finds their identity through group involvement. These high-energy people enjoy being challenged and seem to have a knack for starting conflicts with authority. Loaded with a self-confidence that would seem like conceit in others, they’re unwilling to acknowledge the possibility of failure. They possess an edgy attitude that often draws them into controversy.
So far, so good.
December 9 natives are the envy of their friends. They surround themselves with people who know how to have a good time. They have a reputation for being fickle—
Whoops. Let’s just skip ahead a ways.
With the exception of childhood ailments and seasonal complaints, December 9 people can usually say they haven’t had a sick day in their lives. They owe much of their good health to a positive attitude. Exercise is the main component of any Sagittarian’s health program.
December 9 natives enjoy careers that let them travel. They’re talkative, extroverted individuals who make good teachers, tour guides, or language instructors. They love to spend money but don’t like to keep track of it.
Except for that positive attitude part, sounds like our Bucky.
So Buck, we hope you enjoy the walker and have the best birthday you can have on a Tuesday. And of course, many more!
Poll: Education Level, Not Race, Drove Prop 8 Win
The 2008 election introduced “low information voters” — people who don’t educate themselves about political issues until the waning days of a campaign. Now it appears that it was this group — not blacks and Latinos, as was originally suggested in early post-election analysis — that put Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment, over the top last month in California.
Fifty-seven percent of voters with a college degree opposed the amendment, while 69 percent of voters whose education had stopped after gradating high school cast their vote in favor of rescinding marriage equality.
A survey released last week by Public Policy Institute of California (PPI) of voters found that the true determining factor in who voted for Prop 8 was not ethnicity. It was education level:
Blacks, widely reported to have voted 70 percent in favor in rescinding marriage rights for gay and lesbian families, were shown in the poll … to be markedly less supportive of the amendment than originally believed.
At the same time, a higher percentage of Latinos turned out to be in favor of restricting marriage rights: 61 percent, according to the new poll, which surveyed 2,003 California residents.
The overall numbers, as determined by the poll, show that 48 percent of Californians remain opposed to marriage equality for gays and lesbians, with 47 percent in favor of restoring marriage equality.
The most important single demographic difference between supporters of the amendment and advocates of marriage parity, however, is one of education and income, according to Mark Baldassare, the president of the Public Policy Institute of California.
The article cited Baldassare as saying that 57 percent of voters with a college degree opposed the amendment, while 69 percent of voters whose education had stopped after gradating high school cast their vote in favor of rescinding marriage equality.
Said Baldassare, “Both among whites and non-whites, among college graduates and among upper-income voters, Prop. 8 lost.”
Continued Baldassare, “Among both whites and non-whites, among non-college graduates and lower-income voters, Prop. 8 won.
“It seems to me that some of what we attributed to race and ethnic differences really had to do with a socioeconomic divide in regard to same-sex marriage.”
In July, a Field Poll showed that Prop 8 was losing 51 percent to 42 percent, but that was before the Yes on 8 campaign began barraging voters with misleading ads. One ad claimed that if the amendment failed, churches that refused to perform gay marriages would lose their tax exempt status. Another claimed that school children would be recruited in to homosexuality by being forced to learn about gay marriage.
Never mind that the rights of churches are broadly protected by the U.S. Constitution or that is silly to think that a gay couple would want to have their wedding at church filled with homophobes. And when the state superintendent of schools appeared in an ad stating that the claim that gay marriage would be taught in schools was false, Yes on 8 responded with an ad calling him a “liberal politician.
Based on the PPI poll, it appears that the operatives behind Prop 8 made a cynical calculation that they could fool half the people this time. Sadly, but not surprisingly, they were right.
Bonus Quote du Jour
Huh. No. It doesn’t say that at all.
— Former Clinton strategist Mark Penn, in an interview with the Independent, denying he wrote a memo during the campaign that claimed Barack Obama was “unelectable.”
Penn elaborates: “Those memos, right, that came out, were really … er, were really, I think, show you, you know, just a piece, because … a small part, a piece of how we were looking to, I think, set up or solve the fact that he was a very strong candidate.”
Supremes: Obama is Hawaiian and, by Extension, American
Despite the best efforts of chronic self-loathers Justice Clarence Thomas and perpetual sore loser Alan Keyes, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an emergency appeal of a suit brought by some crank named Leo Donofrio claiming that president-elect Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.
Donofrio claimed that because Obama’s Kenyan father had British citizenship, Barack Obama Jr. was British, not American, although his mother was both a U.S. citizen and was physically in Hawaii — by most accounts a U.S. state at the time — when she birthed him, or as they said in the movie “Mandingo,” she “slipped a suckah.”
Apparently, no one but Donofrio was surprised at the ruling:
“This is the least surprising move by the Supreme Court in years,” said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen. “No serious legal scholar believed that the Justices would take the case and overturn the election.â€
Another crackpot, Phillip J. Berg, contends that Obama is actually a citizen of Kenya and Indonesia, apparently believing that if one spends any length of time in a country, one automatically becomes a citizen thereof. Berg’s suit looks like it is going the way of Donofrio’s and several other nuisance suits challenging Obama’s citizenship status.
But, invoking the “one-drop rule,” almost everyone agrees that Obama is a black man, even though he spent nine months in a white woman’s womb.
Rove Hawks Book by Threatening to Expose Bush-Haters. Huh?
The two chums, back in the day
All we can say is, Karl Rove must be writing a very long book.
The man widely credited with Bush’s two presidential victories says his new book will include an accounting of those in Washington who never accepted the president as a legitimate commander-in-chief.
“I’ve got behind-the-scenes episodes that are going to show how unreceiving they were of this man as president of the United States,” Rove told Cox News in an interview published Sunday. “I’m going to name names and show examples.”
I wonder if I’ll be in there. Having never met Karl Rove and not being in Washington, I doubt it, but you never know. If the White House’s domestic spying is as good as I think it is, I might have a shot.
Still, it seems like it would be an easier task to name the names of those who regarded Bush as legit, not the other way around. What would that be, maybe a dozen or so folks? Karl Rove, Jeff Gannon, Harriet Miers, um…maybe some of the members of the Bush cabinet? Wait, I doubt it. They, of all people, know what a doofus he truly is.
