Great point about the media ripping Colbert, and their own lack of any real reporting

Hammerito

On Hardball, Chuck Todd and his panel are currently ripping Stephen Colbert apart for appearing in character in front of Congress today.

First of all, Elmo appeared before Congress in 2002. ELMO.

Secondly, these are the screeds of politicos who are pissed off that a ‘comedian’ (I think ‘satirist’ is a much more precise term, but whatever) has done what they can’t/won’t/don’t - he said what he believed and did it in a way that was precise, authoritative, and interesting.

This is haterade, pure and simple. Colbert was invited to testify by a congresswoman on a subject about which he is (while not well informed) better informed than most members of Congress.

No one likes being made a fool of, and today, Colbert made everyone on Capitol Hill and in mainstream newsrooms look like dicks. I hoped they might take a bit of humility from the fact that they have been out-journalismed* by Stewart and Colbert for years now. I hoped that they might try to up their game to keep from being embarrassed every time they fail to do their job.

Instead, they’re bitching and moaning** that Colbert did what they won’t and was entertaining in the process.

Stephen Colbert testifies before Congress on immigration

Huff Post

Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert testified before Congress today about immigration during a hearing called "Protecting America's Harvest."

Colbert appeared with United Farm Workers (UFW) President Arturo S. Rodriguez before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. In August, the comedian spent a day working at a corn and vegetable farm in New York state after Rodriguez appeared on his show to discuss UFW's "Take Our Jobs" campaign.

The effort is intended to debunk the theory that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens and highlight the fact the nation's food supply is dependent on these farm workers.

Watch Colbert's opening testimony today:

Watch his testimony:


In the most powerful part of the segment Colbert was asked why, of all the issues he could talk about, or bring attention to, he decided to get involved in this issue. Colbert, for the first time today, drops out of character.

"I like talking about people who don't have any power...I feel the need to speak for those who can't speak for themselves....We ask them to come and work, and then we ask them to leave again. They suffer, and have no rights."

He also quotes Matthew 25:40: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"



Of course, this last segment likely won't get much air time as the media rushes to demonize his testimony with headlines like Stupid Stunt and Jokester Colbert.

Stewart catches GOP recycling same old plans as part of new Pledge

Question: why do we get mad when Ahmadinejad spouts shit, and orgasmic when teabaggers do?

MSNBC

The U.S. and several European delegations walked out of the U.N. speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday after he said most people believe the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks in order to assure Israel's survival.

In his speech to the annual General Assembly, Ahmadinejad said it was mostly U.S. government officials who believed a terrorist group was behind the suicide hijacking attacks that brought down New York's World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon.

Another theory, he said, was "that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime" — his way of characterizing Israel.

Nuts, right?

But when Palin and Gingrich go full birther and allege the President is a secret Muslim, when Christine O'Donnell insists that scientists are engineering mice with human brains, when Jan Brewer lies about beheadings, when Palin lies every time she speaks, half the nation stands and cheers. The Tea Party can claim that Obama is an African-born, socialist, Muslim, terrorist-coddling, white-people hating, anti-colonial, white-people hating rat out to undermine America - and they pick up support.

I thought a lie was a lie.

What the fuck?

Details emerge on The Republican Pledge to Further Screw America

Ezra Klein

Take the deficit. Perhaps the two most consequential policies in the proposal are the full extension of the Bush tax cuts and the full repeal of the health-care law. The first would increase the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years, and many trillions of dollars more after that. The second would increase the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years, and many trillions of dollars more after that. Nothing in the document comes close to paying for these two proposals, and the authors know it: The document never says that the policy proposals it offers will ultimately reduce the deficit.

...At the end of the day, America may be an idea -- but it is also a country. And it needs to be governed. This proposal avoids the hard choices of governance. It says what it thinks will be popular and then proposes what it thinks will be popular -- even when the two conflict. That's an idea that may help you win elections, but not one that'll help you govern a country.

Fineman on Obama's Could-Have-Been-Worse Presidency

Howard Fineman

If (the Democrats) avoid a blowout it will in part be because voters see the Obama that is, not the fiction they worshiped or dreaded. He is the plodding “national incident commander” for our beleaguered era, and his accomplishments—to the extent he has them—so far are mostly about how our predicament would have been worse had it not been for his bailing of water. It’s a hard message to sell in the midst of 9.5 percent unemployment, when dollar discount stores are all the rage, and the gap between the rich and everyone else in the country is as wide as it has been since the Progressive Era.

...(H)e is what he is. To get a real fix on our 44th president and what he has done—or not done—it’s best to leave behind the grandiose language and grand expectations. He is a singular, history-making character, yet he is best defined by what he is not. He is neither the we-are-the-change savior his acolytes saw early on, nor is he the radical his foes see now. Obama is labeled a socialist by the hungriest recipients of government welfare in the history of commerce—Wall Street banks—but he is nothing more nor less than a legalistic believer in the regulatory state.

...Oddly, his foes think he is viciously effective; it’s only his friends who think he is ineffectual.

In fact, he’s neither. Halfway into his second year, we can see that he is just a smart but cautious guy who succeeds by dogged effort and not by eloquence (he really isn’t very eloquent) or by grand gesture. Critics on the left and right—from Paul Krugman to Sarah Palin—can say what they want, but the truth is that Obama and his team did help avoid, or forestall, a global economic collapse, in part because his demeanor was cool and his ability to grasp the details (and desire to do so) was evident well before he was even elected.

...The president doesn’t have the rhetorical chops to tout such items with Clintonian, kitchen-table vividness (you can just imagine Big Dog with all this material to work with). But that doesn’t mean the incremental achievements aren’t real.

Obama was elected as a sensation, but he is isn’t governing as one. He is putting points on the board, sometimes with little notice and comparatively less fuss than either was anticipated or was the case in the past: a pay-equity law for women; two quite liberal justices on the U.S. Supreme Court (without a filibuster in a filibuster-mad Senate); a renewal of Mideast peace talks. Road and bridge projects, however delayed, are now underway—bright spots in the much-derided Stim.

...I can say this about the president. It could have been worse. And if we aren’t careful, it probably will be.

Stewart On Blocked DADT Repeal: 'Are We Run By Assholes?'

Huff Post

Last night on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart lamented the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" failing to move forward in the senate, leading him to ask if the United States really is "run by a**holes."

Just like the 9/11 first responders' health care bill that was "snatched from the jaws of victory" by the Senate, another seemingly popular bill can't become a law. The problem lies with both Republicans and Democrats acting like a**holes, as Stewart so artfully put it, beginning with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) attaching the repeal of DADT to a military arms bill, forcing those who normally wouldn't vote to repeal to do so or risk looking soft on defense.

This terrible strategy begins a snowball effect of a**hole behavior, when GOP leader Mitch McConnell asks for 20 amendments to the bill, of which Senate majority leader Harry Reid says they could have one and also tied a "Dream Act" to the bill regarding illegal immigration, that conservatives would presumably not vote for.

After this tit for tat battle, Senator John McCain filibusters, and Stewart does all he can to keep from making innuendos when he suggests the Senate not try to "push this through." Still, Stewart had to state the obvious:

"Are we run by a**holes? Indeed."

The Republican Pledge to Further Screw America

Dan Pfeiffer

Tonight, we learned more details about the Congressional Republican agenda – their “Pledge to America.” With this plan, they have made clear that they want to take America back to the same failed economic policies that caused this recession. Instead of charting a new course, Congressional Republicans doubled down on the same ideas that hurt America’s middle class.

Here’s what they made clear:

•Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires by borrowing $700 billion we can’t afford;

•Tax hikes for 110 million middle-class families and millions of small businesses;

•Cutting rules and oversight for special interests like big oil, big insurance, credit card and mortgage companies and Wall Street banks;

•Doing nothing to stop the outsourcing of American jobs or to end tax breaks that are given to companies that ship jobs overseas;

•All while adding trillions to our nation’s deficit.

Their plan is also notable for what it doesn’t talk about: protecting Social Security and Medicare from privatization schemes; investing in high-quality education for our nation’s children; growing key industries like clean energy and manufacturing; and rebuilding our crumbling roads, rails and runways.

This is the same agenda that caused the deepest recession since the Great Depression, costing 8 million jobs, wiping out trillions in family wealth and setting middle-class families back. Instead of a pledge to the American people, Congressional Republicans made a pledge to the big special interests to restore the same economic ideas that benefited them at the expense of middle-class families.

Andy Reid elevates Michael Vick and screws the entire organization

Talk about short-term gain at the expense of the guy you had christened the new franchise QB. Who'd have thought that the Kevin Kolb era would last 30 minutes?

For three years, we've been told that Kolb was being groomed to replace Donovan McNabb. Then we showed the best QB we've ever had the door in favor of The Ascension Of Kevin Kolb. And then Andy yanks Kolb out of his job after THIRTY MINUTES!

So here are the scenarios as I see them:

1) Andy has never had that much faith in Kevin, hence the quick pull. But if so, why deal Donovan in favor of the at-the-time unproven Vick? If you were going to be so quick on the trigger with Kolb, why deal The Franchise in favor of The New Franchise That I Don't Trust? If your faith in Kolb is so easily shaken, why deal Donovan in the first place?

If this lack of faith in Kolb is the case, then Andy has been lying for three years about Kolb being The New Franchise, and has lied consistently up until - and including - yesterday.

This calls Andy's long term decision-making into great question.

2) Andy just has a quick trigger finger and is going with the hot hand. For the record, Reid acknowledges the hot hand but denies the quick trigger finger. One can also deny that there's shit on one's shoes, but the smell doesn't lie.

If scenario two is the case, then you've abandoned your four year plan in favor of a quick-hit, win-now strategy. In the process, you've pretty much ruined Kevin Kolb. Although Andy denies it, he's telling the world that Kevin Kolb, after 3 years of grooming, is not an NFL starter. How can Kolb, or anyone else, see it any differently? After preaching patience, Andy has shown none.

I don't see how Kevin Kolb can ever be the starter for the Philadelphia Eagles. Andy's lack of faith after professing said faith for the last eight months ruins Kevin Kolb in Philadelphia.

This also calls Andy's long term decision-making into great question.

I don't see any other scenarios. None. Even if the Eagles win the Super Bowl with Vick (shudder....), where do we go from here? Vick is only 2 years younger than McNabb. How much longer are those legs going to hold out? How much longer can he take those big hits he exposes himself to?

Watch and see what happens. 2011 is an uncapped year, so now is a great time to sign Vick for the long term, if that's the Eagles design. If that happens, it means that despite Andy's statements to the contrary, they're jettisoning Kolb, and mightily screwing him in the process.

If they don't resign Vick and he walks in March, does Andy then aim to convince the world that Kolb is now ready to start in 2011? Based on what? He's had no game action, and after four years, how much can he learn holding a clipboard?

There's also the following complication: in 2011 it's no longer a young team ready to grow with a young quarterback. It's now a ready-to-contend team and you're throwing your young quarterback into a difficult situation where he's not allowed to make mistakes, because the rest of the team is ready to contend now. Talk about your short leashes.

Andy has totally screwed all of the following: Kevin Kolb, his own credibility, the franchise, and the fans... including me, who bought the girlfriend a $75 Kolb jersey.

This has nothing to do with the dog issue (though a convicted felon dog killer is now the face of your franchise), it has to do with Vick as a player, and I'm not sold on Vick The Player. He's a career 50% passer, he's notoriously streaky, and I'll remind you that he looked good against Detroit. Detriot.

Maybe Jeff Fisher is looking to leave Tennessee...