Tag Archives: news

The Republican Party: A Voice for the Voiceless.

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In just a few weeks the tax cuts implemented by George W. Bush will expire, causing a hike in tax rates that will put a huge hurt on Americans. The President keeps butting heads with Congress trying to pass a bill that will extend some of the tax cuts on middle class families but the republican led House of Representatives refuses to back down from a bullying president that wants to try to help fix the country’s deficit on the backs of the most underrepresented minority in this country, the rich man.



For far too long rich people have been treated as second class citizens in this country. They’re forced to fly on private jets rather than use public transportation. They have to send their children to private schools. Some of them are so ostracized from society that they have to send somebody out to shop for their groceries.



This sort of prejudice is so deep and widespread that it’s affected rich people’s very own view of their identity. Most of them don’t even see themselves as rich and actually say things like it’s hard living on $400,000 a year.



Even if they do see themselves as rich they try to hide it. They call themselves “Job creators” and “small business owners”. They’ve been so bullied by society that some of them will actually try to make it look like they make less money when they file their taxes out of shame.



Some people try to justify their rich bashing by hiding behind the bible. Taking quotes out of context like “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Hate is hate, no matter how you try to mask it.



Thankfully, the rich have an ally with the Republican party. Republican congressmen have stated over and over that they do not want this economy fixed on the backs of the rich. They will not see this country raise tax rates on some people just because they have an insane amount of money.



Thank you, republicans. When our grandchildren look back and scratch their heads at how we’d even think to ask people to pay more because they have more, you’ll be content to know you were on the right side of history.

All the Cops in the Donut Shop Say “GO BACK TO YOUR HOMES OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO USE TEAR GAS TO DISPERSE THE CROWD”

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The other day, somewhere in Cairo, an old janitor swept up some dirt and rubble into a dustpan. His back strained as he leaned down to pick it up and dump it in a trash can. Once the task was done, he wiped the sweat off his brow and said “there! That’s the last of the mess from the revolution. Now to take a well deserved vacation.” Poor guy didn’t even see it coming.



Shit’s going down in Egypt once again as protests are erupting all over the country over recently elected president Mohamed Morsi issuing a decree that granted him a bunch of new powers. He has stated that the increase in power is only temporary to ensure the smooth drafting and ratification of the new democracy’s constitution.



Because, you know, nothing protects a democracy like giving one man Executive, Legislative and Judicial power.



I’m not sure why this guy thinks nobody’d bat an eye to this. Maybe because he’s the scariest looking politician this side of Putin –



President Brickhouse here looks like Zangief and Wilford Brimley had a middle eastern steroid baby.




Or because he has the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Whatever the reason. The people are a protestin’ and now it’s all a question of whether or not there’s going to be a revolution. Could be, since Egypt seems to just love having revolutions. Here’s just a brief look at some of Egypt’s revoltings in the last 100 years.


BRITISH REVOLUTION: 1919
Oh hey England used to own Egypt! Then they had a revolution and England backed off! Just like us! Revolution buddies!

Unlike the U.S.A, Egypt transitioned to a parlimentary monarchy and let British people hang around and run some shit. Bad move, Egypt. You’re just going to have to have another revolution in a few decades. Oh and hey look –



EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION: 1952
Sick of the corruption of their obese, corrupt and narcissistic King Farouk (actual official title: “His Majesty Farouk I, by the grace of God, King of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, of Kordofan, and of Darfur.”) Farouk was exiled and his infant son Faud was made king. Faud reigned for a year before the Egyptian people realized that having a king is a huge responsibility that they’re just not mature enough to handle. After realizing that the best solution for both them and Faud’s future would be to give him up for abdication, they left him on the steps of Switzerland, rang the doorbell and ran off.



PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION: 1999
Okay, I was working on a gag for this but the only video I could find for Prince’s 1999 had no sound. Apparently the copyright holders asked to have the audio removed but the video’s still there. It’s actually really creepy to watch in complete silence –



[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQu-yU_cAbw&w=420&h=315]



ARAB SPRING: 2011
Oh hey this was the one in the news last year! Now we’re all caught up.



For more information on Egyptian revolutions, read the international news in the next few weeks.


Funeral for a Friend.

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You ever have somebody in your life who was just there for you? Somebody you could always count on? Somebody who didn’t judge you, never asked anything of you? A friend who just wanted to make you feel better during the bad times and celebrate with you during the good?



For me that friend is Hostess Brand Snack Cakes and they’re gone now.



would you knooooow my naaaaaame, if I saw you in heaven?





They were there for me whenever I was feeling down. I could always count on them to be waiting for me at the gas station after a night of binge drinking. They’ve kept me company on countless road trips but now they’ll be gone forever as Hostess will be shutting down operations.



Sure, they’ll be selling off their assets and somebody else may pick up the mantle but it won’t be the same. The new owners will change the formula slightly or just rebrand their product as a hostess product. It won’t be the Hostess I fell in love with.



So what can I do? Hoard the product? That’s an option. When I was in 7th grade my science teacher told the class about how she was given a Twinkie as an award by some friends in college. She was known for loving them so they glued one to a plaque and presented it to her. 30 years later she was going through some old boxes in the attic and she found her Twinkie trophy. All wrapped up and fresh looking as the day it was purchased. Out of curiosity she opened up the 30 year old Twinkie and ate it. Tasted just fine.



So sure, you can hoard but what happens then? There’s only a finite amount of Hostess products and as their supply diminishes their value will grow until that shit is like gasoline in The Road Warrior –



Just walk away. Give me your Cupcakes, the Ding Dongs, the Fruit Pies, and the Ho-Hos, and I’ll spare your lives. Just walk away and we’ll give you a safe passageway in the wastelands. Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror.





No. The best thing to do is remember the good times but let our friend pass. Only then can we gain some closure and maybe lose some weight.

World News for Dummies Like Me.

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I got hooked on NPR on election day.



I’d never really cared for radio news in the past but on election day I had to work and wanted to hear the results throughout the day and as polls closed around the country. For the first time in my life I listened to NPR news and was blown away by how thorough and impartial they were. I always assumed they’d have a liberal bias because, well, conservatives are always bitching about liberal Bias.



Granted, I googled “fox news on npr” and a bunch of stories came up about how public radio listeners are way more informed than Fox News viewers so that’s probably just sour grapes on the conservative end.



Since the election I’ve listened to NPR every time I get into my car. There’s just one problem. I have no idea what they’re talking about when they report on world politics.



Seriously. Totally lost. Let’s look at one of the things NPR news has reported on in the last few days and what I know about it.



SYRIA
What I know: There’s fighting I guess? Like, a war or something? Maybe a middle east thing?

What I don’t know: Who’s fighting. Why they’re fighting. Where Syria is.

Other misconceptions: The first time I heard Bob Marley’s “Stir it up” I thought he was singing “Syria”.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3UqvWk8-uw&w=420&h=315]



Alright let’s take a look at what this is all about:

Turns out Syria is in the middle east!




Also, turns out there’s a civil war going on. It started out as peaceful protests until the government cracked down on them (shot a bunch of protesters). Now there’s rebels, fights, shit’s spilling over to Israel for some reason and now Israel’s firing shit into Syria. It’s crazy but it doesn’t looki like the U.S. will be there anytime soon since we’re busy occupying a bunch of other middle eastern countries and Syria doesn’t have a ton of oil –



Oh, google autocomplete. You truly are the mirror held up to society.




What will I do with this newfound knowledge of a world event: Be the snootiest motherfucker at the party! No use having knowledge about something unless you can make yourself feel better by flaunting it around people who don’t have that knowledge! Time to go to some parties and start some conversations with casual acquaintances by with topics like “Did you hear about the scandal over at the BBC?” When they look at me confused and say they haven’t heard about it I’ll just roll my eyes, take a sip of my martini and say something dismissive like “Oh, they were just talking about it on NPR. I like to stay informed.”



Knowledge is power!


New York Daily News: Handling Stories With Class and Dignity Since Never.

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This weekend it was revealed that General David Petraeus, current head of the C.I.A., resigned due to being caught in an extramarital affair.



Now I was all set to do up a blog about posting fake emails between him and his mistress but when I googled “David Petraeus” to get more details on the story the first article that came up was something from the N.Y. Daily News –



Fucking really?





“Gen. Betray Us! Caught In the Act!” That’s their headline. Puns and acronym jokes. It doesn’t even stop there. Read the article and there’s a picture of his mistress with John Stewart and the caption for it literally reads “Paula Broadwell chats with comedian Jon Stewart, but there’s nothing funny about mess she’s in with Gen. David Petraeus.” Ugh.



What I really don’t get is how they haven’t played with the fact that the biography Broadwell wrote of Petraeus is called “All In”. Where’s the headline “Petraeus caught ‘All In’ Biographer’s vagina”? Here’s a coulple other potential headlines –


“Biographer Caught Fellating More Than Gen. Petraeus’ Ego!”

“General Petraeus Caught Redacting Paula Broadwell’s Classified Dossier!”

“C.I.A. Chief Resigns After Being Caught in Affair but That’s Okay Because Anybody Who Lets Their Emails Get Hacked So Easily Probably Shouldn’t be the Head of a Spy Agency.”

Creepiness in Advertising and Caption Contest!

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So a couple of weeks ago an Oregon court released the Boy Scouts of America’s “Perversion Files”. Turns out the Boy Scouts had binders full of pedophiles that worked for them and when they would find out about molestations they’d give it the ol’ Paterno/Catholic Church treatment and just not call the cops.



Of course the Boy Scouts are going to suffer a huge hit and some people would think that the organization should be shut down but the Boy Scouts of America will continue their mission and they’ve even rolled out a new ad campaign to boost membership!



RAPE VAN





Okay seriously I saw this van like a day after I heard about the whole “perversion files” thing. Let’s see what kind of captions I can do for this picture!



Learn to tie knots so tight that no boy could wriggle free from them!





Hi, I just moved in across the street and I’m required by the state of Minnesota that scouting rules! Also, I’m a pedophile.





Didn’t make the cut as a choir boy? Join the scouts!





Join the boy scouts! It’ll be our little secret…





Got a caption of your own for the creepy scout van? Leave it in the comments section! 1 lucky winner will receive a half eaten jar of peanut butter!


This is not a Political Post

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Really. It isn’t. I promised I wouldn’t make any more political posts until the election is over and I’m sticking to that. This isn’t about politics.



Okay, it’s kinda political but it’s about North Dakota. I don’t think talking politics counts if it’s North Dakota. Here’s what happened.



Last weekend I went up to Bismarck, ND to tell some jokes with Mike Brody. As we drove down Interstate 94 further and further away from the cities we saw fewer and fewer lawn signs and billboards telling us what to vote for. Instead, we saw more and more hand-painted signs with clever little slogans like “WORST PRESIDENT EVER! SAY NO TO SOCIALISM!” or “REAL MEN VOTE YES. SO DO SMART AND PRETTY LADIES!” (actual sign on 94 by Fergus Falls). As we crossed the border to ND, we started seeing hand painted political signs against “5”. The first one we saw said “Don’t hurt hunters and farmers! NO on 5!”



Well, shit. I don’t know who’s hurting all these hunters and farmers but I hope they beat this “5” thing and leave the poor guys alone.



The second sign we saw said “Stop outside special interests! Vote no on 5!”



So it’s outside special interests coming to hurt hunters and farmers? Somebody needs to stop them! These poor hunters and farmers are getting hurt by outside special interests! If I could, I’d have voted no on 5 right there on the spot. Hunters and farmers are people, too!



When I was home last night I remembered all the “no on 5” signs in ND so I decided to look up what that bill was all about. Was it a law that, if passed, allowed outside special interests to come in and punch hunters and farmers? Who knows?



Turns out it’s a measure that, if passed, will make it a felony to torture dogs, cats and horses.



Seriously. Here’s the official ballot measure courtesy of ballotpedia –

Initiated Statutory Measure No. 5
This initiated statutory measure would create section 36-21.1-02.1 of the North Dakota Century Code. This measure would make it a class C felony for an individual to maliciously and intentionally burn, poison, crush, suffocate, impale, drown, blind, skin, beat to death, drag to death, exsanguinate, disembowel, or dismember any living dog, cat or horse and provide a court with certain sentencing options. The measure would not apply to production agriculture, or to lawful activities of hunters and trappers, licensed veterinarians, scientific researchers, or to individuals engaged in lawful defense of life or property.

YES — means you approve the measure summarized above.
NO — means you reject the measure summarized above.



Okay. How the shit does this hurt hunters and farmers?



Seriously. Have I been Pheasant hunting the wrong way all these years? I mean, I’ve shot a few birds but I haven’t beaten any cats to death or exanguinated any horses. They never covered horse exanguination in our gun safety class.



Also, how does this hurt farmers? Exactly how many dogs do you have to impale to grow an acre of corn?



There’s a ton of exemptions for all this written into the measure, too! If this measure passes you can still drag a cat to death if you’re a licensed veterinarian or scientist. You can still blind a horse if you can prove he wanted to kill you.

It’s not just a few farmers off of 94 that feel this way, either. North Dakota seems pretty split down the middle on whether it’s within your rights to disembowel a dog for no reason.



Granted, it seems some of the opposition comes from the fact that the bill is limited in scope and does nothing to prevent the most common forms of animal abuse seen in the state. Which sort of makes sense I guess but “it’s not good enough” shouldn’t invoke such vehement opposition. The other big sticking point with the “vote no” crowd is that a lot of the financial support for this bill is coming from the Humane Society of the United States (the “outside special interest group”). To get a better idea of why people oppose this, you can either read this article detailing farmer’s concerns or just check out this comment from a blog post criticizing measure 5 –

mony • 13 days ago −
Im born and raised north dakotan hillbilly broke horses raise cattle chickens goats aint never done nothin wrong this measure was NOT wrote here some dumbass veggie lovin ass did it wake up nd all animals are equql not just the horses cats n dogs vote no and say yes when they can protect ALL farm critters i hunt and trap and there is nothin inhumane about it like i said wake up nd and if u aint from here dont vote this year u city crybaby jerk



Man, I thought politics in this state were fucked up…

Protect Hunters and Farmers! Because… horses…. uh….

Ann Coulter: Retarded.

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Ugh. Ann Coulter.







For all the politics and conservative bashing I do on this blog I’ve never really talked about Ann Coulter because she doesn’t seem real. Even the craziest republican politicians or news commentator knows not to go off and write books saying stuff like “Joe McCarthy was right!” –



You’re all Communists!





She’s like the extra strength, industrial grade conservative. Use her too much in the media and it can cause a rash but if applied as directed can effectively rile up the base.



Unfortunately it looks like Ann Coulter has not been getting enough attention or something because she totally called Obama a retard on twitter and when there was a bunch of backlash against it she did it again.



Let’s just push past the fact that this is the classic case of a kid repeating bad behavior because it got people to pay attention to her the first time. A lot of people are angry because using the “R” word is demeaning to people with disabilities but it’s cool. Ann Coulter is mentally disabled so she can use that word. She’s just taking it back for all the people with severe brain injuries that have felt the sting of that word coming hatefully off of somebody’s lips. By using the word she takes the power away from anybody who would use it against her.



Although this could cause a backlash from disabled people who would be offended that she’s trying to associate herself with them. Maybe that’s why they’re mad. I wouldn’t blame them.


Seriously Though What Does the Vice President do?

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Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan are preparing to face off Thursday in the only Vice Presidential debate of the campaign. Finally, we’ll get to hear what the Vice President and his opponent think. Their policies, their plans, their…



Man, I’m honestly having a hard time getting into this. I didn’t even give a shit about the presidential debates. Why would I care about the VP debates? I don’t even know what the VP does, anyway.



That’s not (completely) true. I have the average American’s knowledge of the Vice President’s duties. I know he’s the next in line for presidency if something happens to the president and I think he also presides over the Senate or something.



Okay, just checked wikipedia. He’s totally the president of the senate. Presides over it and casts tiebreaking votes. That seems like it’s important, right? I’m going to read up on this some more and find out if there’s any other duties.



Hold up. Turns out all that Senate stuff is actually usually handled by the President Pro Tempore. The VP doesn’t even do most of the President of the Senate shit. So what, does he just sit in an office all day waiting for the president to die? Is that a job?



“Hey, Barry. How’s it going? Everything all right? No heart problems? Alright, then. Guess I’ll head back to my office.”





Okay, after more reading it turns out the VP has a bunch of informal duties. Aside from being a presidential advisor, the VP is also the president’s total bitch. Really. From the wikipedia article – “Under the American system the President is both head of state and head of government, and the ceremonial duties of the former position are often delegated to the Vice President. The Vice President may meet with other heads of state or attend state funerals in other countries, at times when the administration wishes to demonstrate concern or support but cannot send the President himself.”



So that’s what the VP does. All the bullshit busywork that the president doesn’t want to do. Okay.



Well now I want to watch the debate Thursday even less. Who wants to watch a couple of errand boys go at it? Granted, if Romney wins, Paul Ryan will totally be running things. Remember this –
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CSVSwSaypg&w=560&h=315]


Move Over, Bachmann! There’s a New Nutjob Republican Congressman in Town!

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His name is Todd Akin!



“Howdy, y’all! Wimmin’re things!”





You probably know Rep. Todd Akin as the man who is running for Senate in Missouri and said that horribly untrue thing about women not being able to get pregnant when raped but did you know he says awful, misinformed things about women all the time?



It’s true! Why, just the other day he was spouting off on why womenfolk shouldn’t receive equal pay –



[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMG9Aqd8tx0&w=560&h=315]



Or you can check out this little ditty where he claims abortion providers commonly give abortions to women who aren’t pregnant and kill women through misuse of anesthetics



Don’t worry, though, dudes! If you’re feeling left out because Rep. Akin is focusing all of his ignorant hate on women he also says some stupid shit that can be directed at men, too!



“I think that the thing you have to do is, people have to start being held accountable for their decisions. If somebody’s not buying insurance, then they’re going to have to be selling their car, or whatever it is to try to help cover that.” — at a primary debate, in response to a moderator’s question about what an uninsured 28-year-old who gets cancer should do, January 2012 (source: politico.com



If you weren’t convinced of his dismissive, 1950’s attitude towards women, he stated that after his first debate with Senator McCaskill that she wasn’t as ladylike as her first campaign in 2006.



Now you’d think this race would be a slam dunk for McCaskill and it was until recently. See, after that whole “legitimate rape” thing (which by the way some people still swear is true), most republicans abandoned him and some, including Mitt Romney, suggested he withdraw his campaign. Todd Akin just didn’t realize that no means no and kept on campaigning despite his fellow republicans begging him to stop. Now that the date has passed for him to take his name off the ballot the Republicans are going to see his campaign all the way through even though he really forced himself onto the ballot and created this unwanted candidacy. I’m sure the Republican party would love to replace him somehow before his candidacy reached full term but they’re stuck with him and they need the senate seat so they’re throwing their support and money behind him.



The worst part of this all is that he’s only slightly behind in the polls! the RCP poll average (which, granted, can be a little right leaning) has him behind 1. Fucking. Percent. An internal poll done by the Claire McCaskill campaign has her up by 9% but that gap should be even wider, given the things Akin’s said.



I can’t even believe Akin stands a chance. Get your shit together, Missouri. Don’t prove grandpa Simpson right.



[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM3NSTbi4OQ&w=420&h=315]