Remember what happened last time Joe the Plumber tried to do comedy? THIS happened:
Lesson not learned, Mr. Plumber is making another foray into painfully bad wingnut humor. He’s the new pitchman for a horrid comic strip called “Microman,” which appears to be aimed at the elderly, Gold Bond-dusted teabagger demographic.
Mr. Plumber and the strip’s creator, Robert Stern, plan to hawk the wingnut comic book at teabagger events in Vegas. From the press release:
This toast to the Tea Party movement and American freedom stars Microman, the new hero of the conservative right. Microman loves liberty and loves his life. He just doesn’t like the notion of paying taxes on his hard-earned money and watching his country turn socialist.
Presented in a series of original comic strips, Microman’s humorous musings on education, fiscal policy, foreign affairs, healthcare, and more will make readers laugh and feel good about fighting for the principles our Founding Fathers set forth.
How horrible is “Microman”? So horrible it makes “Family Circus” seem like avant-garde comedic genius. See just HOW horrible it is after the jump…
If Harry Reid loses his senate seat to flaming kook Sharron Angle this fall, it will be all Rachel Maddow’s fault. No, really—that’s respected (in some quarters) media critic Bob Somerby’s take:
For various reasons [because she’s a flaming kook!—ed.], Angle is a highly vulnerable candidate, even though Reid has low approval ratings in Nevada. But uh-oh! Since last Thursday night, an unpleasant thought has played in our heads: If anyone can get Angle elected, it may be “the bad Rachel.”
Since Angle won the GOP primary, the bad Rachel has been mocking her in predictable ways. As with other top-shelf liberals, Maddow never seems to understand how her attitudes may be perceived by people who aren’t from the clan. (That is, by the bulk of voters.)
It seems our Rhodes Scholar has been making fun of Angle for wanting to abolish Medicare and Social Security and advocating a return to Prohibition in a state that’s chock-full of drunken Medicare and Social Security recipients. Tut-tut.
Imagine “Glenn Beck” with real advertisers, minus the prop humor, stage tears, ecstatic religious trances and bipolar ambushes of Tea Party candidates and contract FoxNews co-freaks who fail Beck’s Princess-and-the-Pea purity test.
That seems to be the formula behind Fox Business News’ “Freedom Watch” package, which premiered over the weekend, with the largely anodyne Judge Napolitano pitching softballs to nutballs and nodding sagely at the resultant bursts of mostly-rehearsed wingnut static.
The NYT frames “Freedom Watch” as part of News Corps’ evolving outreach to the Libertarian viewing audience—which explains the presence of Ron Paul, if scant else about a show that wedged “Social Conservatives” Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann—as well as Tea Party idol Jim DeMint—into the same slot. Rand Paul, who has already been denounced by the Kentucky Libertarian Party, also appeared…as did PA Governor Ed Rendell, in a supporting role as Villain-of-the-Week.
Granted, this was just the first foray; but, so far, NewsCorps’ definition of “Libertarian” programming looks a lot like “All of the Crazy, with None of the Beck.” Except, of course, for the fact that the second installment of Judge Napolitano’s show will feature an appearance by Special Guest Glenn Beck.
So maybe the appropriate tag would be “All the Crazy, All the Time.” But tell me again where Libertarians fit into this picture, and why this show is airing on a “business” channel.
Sophie B. Hawkins jumps over Obama’s bus, but unfortunately most of her pants don’t make it.
According to The Hill the political opinions of a washed-up adult-contemporary pseudo-hippy qualify as “news.” Has anyone checked in with other one-hit wonders from the 90’s like Right Said Fred or Lou Bega?:
Singer Sophie B. Hawkins told The Hill on Thursday that “America’s being thrown under the bus” by President Barack Obama as he presses forward with his agenda and comes under criticism for his response to the Gulf oil spill. [...]
The singer campaigned on the trail with Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign, and told The Hil from her tour bus that she “never believed in [Obama’s] philosophy”—which she said runs contrary to her beliefs in “smaller government, smart government, flexible government.”
“I think the writing was on the wall,” Hawkins said. “I honestly couldn’t believe so many people were into him.”
She describes herself as a centrist who’s identified with the Democratic and Green parties, but said even though she’s never been Republican she wouldn’t cross that vote off the list if the right leader came along.
In fact, she’s open to a Republican Congress.
“I want the Congress that really is going to listen to the people,” she said. “I really don’t care what party it is anymore.”
Hawkins said she attended a Tea Party rally in Santa Monica, Calif., that was “mostly all Democrats.”
“The Tea Parties are only here because people are not listening,” she said.
The singer said she viewed the government’s attitude as “arrogant” and said people are hungry for leaders who will “take us in a direction that’s truly American.”
Hawkins also complained that Obama doesn’t make her feel like moving her life up another level:
As for substantive meetings with the current-century UK government, well, you betcha not:
One individual involved in the talks about the visit said: ‘Palin’s people haven’t said anything about meeting Cameron. Their main interest is getting a picture of her with Lady Thatcher. I’m not sure they know who David Cameron is.’
I thought Dale Peterson had a lock on Freakiest Alabama Campaign Spot of 2010, but Montgomery billiards maven Rick Barber breaks clean and runs the Crazy Table in his latest TV ad.
Flintlocks—check. Constitution—check. Bad wigs—check, check and check. But “Gather your armies”? I guess that’s either winky Tea Party code-speak, or Colonial slang for “Whassssssup?”
UPDATE: TUESDAY, 10:28AM—Glenn Beck just called Barber “the stupidest person I’ve ever seen” for running this ad, which is yet more evidence that Dick Armey is now totally in command of Beck’s Brain.
Even more than Confiscatory Taxes and Tyrannical Big Government, Rick hates him some Islam…and he’s ready to take a pool-cue to it below the fold.
Will someone please stage an intervention with Mittens before he dumps tens of millions more devalued dollars into a doomed quest for the 2012 GOP nomination? The Five Sons of Mitt are the most obvious candidates for the task. The Romneys are loaded, but they are multiplying like bunnies and will eventually need every cent to keep the MiniMitts in MittMansions and Guatemalan gardeners.
Mitt’s definitely running, though, else why would he churn out hilarious shit like this?
The first rule of turnarounds is to focus time, energy and resources on what matters most. The president simply cannot treat this crisis like another of his many problems. The oil disaster could hurt millions of families, slam the regional economy, kill untold numbers of non-human lives and irreparably damage the planet. Among other things, he must not hold more rock concerts at the White House — I understand James Carville’s venting: His hero fiddled as oil churned.
That last sentence is a rather obvious lie—nobody really understands anything crazed-fetus-look-a-like Carville says, least of all Mitt, who is also too dumb to realize that Obama is hardly Carville’s hero. But no more rock concerts—great point.
Michael Steele wasted no time in rushing to embrace kooky NV Republican senatorial candidate, Sharron Angle, after she won the primary yesterday. Maybe he was thinking that at least she was better than chicken economist Sue Lowden. Maybe he should think again.
According to Steele, the election won’t be about Angle’s rather, um, unconventional ideas.
Steele said the election won’t be about Angle’s views—which even her rivals in the Republican primary said are too extreme to win a general election against Reid.
“We expect this election will be as much about Harry Reid and Barack Obama as anything else,” Steele said. He said the RNC is “fully-committed” to helping Angle win, and promised to bolster her shoestring campaign with national and state Republican resources “within the next 10 days.”
Well, the Republicans may not want this election to be about Angle’s views but you can damn well guarantee the Democrats are going to make it all about them. How far out in left right field is she on the issues? Probably somewhat to the right of Rand Paul.
Reid’s people have already lined up the talking points, some of which include her opposition to fluoridated water, her opposition to unemployment benefits, her crusade to end social security and Medicare, her disdain for Americans working in the hospitality industry (and, yeah, Vegas is in Nevada) and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Read about her support for a group called the Oath Keepers who think the government is gearing up to put us all in concentration camps (FEMA camps?).
In a state rife with foreclosures (and as an assemblywoman she voted against protecting homebuyers from mortgage fraud) with high unemployment and a lot of retired people it’s pretty hard to see how the Repubs are going to not make the election about Angle and her far right point of view. Chicken economics looks pretty good compared to her.
(Title edited to correct radical right wing state she’s running in. ed.)
Sarah could have been a leader. But she chose to duck accountability, cash the checks…and become the National Kvetch.
Fortunately, at this point, her tweets are so coded, gnomic and content-free that her Twitter Feed has become a cross between a test-pattern and a carrier-wave—kind of the UVB-76 of parked, pointless, clock-setting telemetry from the Wasilla White House.
So what if she won’t grace us with her solutions to America’s greatest challenges? At least we know she still has a trickle-charge on her transmitter. Party on, Ice-Ninny.
South Carolina politics just never gets boring! In today’s development, the slack-jawed dimwit above (who is Indian-American GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley’s Republican colleague in the SC Statehouse) called the governor wannabe a “raghead:”
[GOP State Senator Jake] Knotts appeared on a Columbia internet talk show and used a racial slur to describe both Haley and Obama.
The program is called “Pub Politics” and on it Knotts said “We already got one raghead in the White House, We don’t need a raghead in the Governor’s Mansion.”
This was too much even for the South Carolina GOP, which called on Knotts to apologize. His response:
“I still believe Ms. Haley is pretending to be someone she is not, much as Obama did, but I do apologize to both for an unintended slur.”
And it was unintended too, you skeptics! I can understand where Ol’ Jake is coming from, since I never actually intended to call him an inbred, pea-brained, cretinous bigot who should go choke on a bowl of chicken-fried dicks. Oops! I hate it when that happens…
[Note: the image of a farmhand breakfast appearing in Senator Knotts’ thought-bubble coincidentally appeared in an advertisement next to his photo at the link above. I don’t think it’s his real breakfast, though. No grits.]
"[W]e wholeheartedly endorse the excellent Rumproast blog" -- Jim Newell, Wonkette
"Mind you, don’t let yourself be trapped dialoging with these guys: truth is their enemy; pyschological warfare and misinformation dissemination is their profession." -- TeaParty.org
