https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b5g1avyCSA
The 1970 movie “Patton” is best remembered for its opening speech by George C. Scott as General George S. Patton, standing in front of a giant American flag (see audio above). The speech, primarily written by Francis Ford Coppola and based largely on snippets by Patton himself, could serve as an inspiration to Democrats for the upcoming 2014 election:
Zombie protester at Sarah Palin rally
Democrats and progressives may have noticed a trend lately: your Republican friends or family members send you an email, and they write something like “this isn’t meant to be political, it’s just a joke that I thought was funny.” Then the joke contained in the email is something offensive to President Obama or Democrats. It’s never politically neutral, or making fun of both sides, and never ever makes fun of Republicans. Then if you call out the sender, they tell you you’re being too sensitive, or have no sense of humor, or “can’t take a joke.”
But make no mistake, these Republican jokes are meant to score political points, or at least to make Republicans feel better by hating on Democrats. Humor can take down a politician. Remember Chevy Chase‘s “Saturday Night Live” caricatures of a clumsy President Gerald Ford? Or Tina Fey’s dead-on “SNL” takedowns of Sarah Palin using Palin’s own words? So how about we fight back, and turn the tables on these Republican jokers?
Rally for Travon Martin at Univ. of Minnesota
On a recent ski trip, we noticed two types of profiling: First, the lift operators at the bottom of the mountain scanned the lift tickets of some skiers and snowboarders, but not others, to make sure they had purchased a ticket that day. It seemed like only younger and less affluent-looking snowboarders were being checked, while older, prosperous-looking skiers were not. That night, at a nice restaurant in town, the host told some younger, scruffier looking snowboard types that it would be an hour and a half wait for a table, and then told an older, affluent looking couple that they could get a table in just ten minutes.
Empty stage for empty suits at CPAC 2014
Dispatches from the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) are coming in, and they’re not pretty. The CPAC conference is being held at the Gaylord Hotel (oh, the irony) in Maryland, and thus far has been a showcase for the Republican Party’s cultural symbols of God (love ‘im), Guns (love ’em) and Gays (hate ’em).
Judy Oerly gathers food she will be taking home from the Central Pantry in Columbia, Mo., on 10/4/13.
Perhaps it’s not a surprise that Fox “News” attacks the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”), which Fox and the Republicans refer to by its old-fashioned and perhaps derisive name “food stamps.” Perhaps it’s also not a surprise that Fox “News” attacks almost all things in the great Blue State California, from “liberal Hollywood” to progressive policies such as green energy (which, by the way, is responsible for many good California jobs.) But what might be surprising is that Fox found a way to attack both SNAP and California at the same time, via its “Food Stamp Surfer” story.
The Republican Party has a theme for 2014. We saw it in Bill O’Reilly‘s prosecution of President Obama in the form of an interview during the recent Super Bowl. The Republican 2014 election theme is: Attack Democrats on the Affordable Care Act, Benghazi and the I.R.S.
This week, Organizing for Action (formerly Obama for America), the Obama administration’s activism arm, sent around an email asking a terrific question about the Affordable Care Act:
Now that more than 3 million Americans have health insurance — a number that is growing every day — do these Health Care Repealers still want to take it away?
http://youtu.be/1zFruNyiUHQ
Yesterday, NBC’s “Meet the Press” held a climate change “debate” between Bill Nye “the Science Guy” and Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. The debate (see video above) represented the triumph of science over stupid.
President Bill Clinton once proclaimed, “the era of big government is over.” That did not turn out to be entirely true, but what we all should want is good government. The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are a good example of bad government. A personal anecdote from here at home provides an example of good government.
Remember the commercial above? How about this one? If you grew up in the U.S. between the 1950s and 1980s, chances are you were bombarded with negative stereotypes about the Soviet Union. It seems that Russia is delivering on some of those Cold War stereotypes this week, as the Sochi Winter Olympics take place.
follow: RSS