Bombastic 'Mo

Jon Stewart Vs. Jim Cramer: Reality Bytes

Just finished watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Cramer from last evening. It was beautiful.  Full show, both edited and unedited available below.

I think we’re at a strange crossroads when it comes to our news media.  As “mainstream” organizations drop left and right, many have been wondering who would be the muckrakers of the future.  Who will reveal corporate or political misdoings?  I kind of doubt it’ll be asshole bloggers like me.

I think part of the reasons the news organizations failed was they didn’t fulfill their obligation to the public.  While I’m long divorced from network television, when I do find time to watch the news, it’s pathetic.   It’s violent, quick, and there’s no analysis.  People jump through hoops and deep fry stimulus bills and repeat the words pork and earmarks until everyone turns off the TV and begins their daily walk to the food bank.  (Unless you’re already homeless, then perhaps you sleep right outside.)

Somehow Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have managed to really stand up for the people.  Their role as comedians gives them room to be truthful, and call out people when they are wrong.  I’m in awe.

I still look fondly upon Colbert’s speech/roast at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner.  At a time when everyone else was ignoring the fact that this country was going down fast, he had the cojones to insult the president and the lame-duck media all in one sitting.  I remember telling my roommates at the time (a bunch of smelly drunks and a ChiMo) that I was sure he’d die in his sleep of a heart attack.

He didn’t.

And here we are, a little over two years later, and we’ve fallen out of the frying pan and into Abu Ghraib.   The deregulation of markets (which began in the Clinton years) has led to a global collapse.  And yet who in the media is really taking a look at how the hell we got here?

Two men, and a depressing woman named Amy Goodman.

Here’s the entire unedited video of the Stewart vs. Kramer, as well as the full show courtesy of Hulu  And for good measure, I threw in Colbert’s speech.

How the Cast of 30 Rock influences US Politics

Short and sweet, and totally off Huffington Post.

Bobby Jindal, potential GOP candidate for the 2012 election gave a long, slow, tedious and patronizing speech to his constituents on the need for less government and no bureaocracies.

I don’t know what’s more salient:  that he talks to his constituents like they are five year olds (”Mommy and Daddy are against big government, because it’s bad!”) or that he’s a spot on ringer for Kenneth Parcell from TV’s 30 Rock.

If Jindal makes it to the finals four years from now, here’s hoping we get some spot on parody from Tina Fey and Jack McBrayer.  After all, wasn’t Palin gonna try again?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Let’s Vilify Some More People

Representative Mark Miloscia just introduced a bill that would add an 18.5% sales tax to all adult entertainment items.  The Digest of the Bill reads:

“Dedicates revenue from a tax on the sale and use of adult entertainment materials and services to crime victims’ compensation, with an emphasis towards providing services, support, or therapy to those children who are victims of sexual abuse.

Imposes an additional tax on each retail sale of adult entertainment materials and services equal to eighteen and one-half percent of the selling price.  Requires all revenue collected on sales and use of adult entertainment materials and services to be deposited in the general fund to be used solely for the general assistance unemployable program.”

I’m pro-tax in almost any regard, and I really appreciate that we’re in dire need of new streams of revenue.  But this bill is completely wrong.

I believe in the “sin tax”.  I think raising the taxes on cigarettes makes sense, as they do have a tangible cost to society.   (Full disclosure: I’ve never smoked in my life.)

I can also get behind taxes on alcohol.  Like cigarettes, they have an associated cost to society (DUI’s, disintegrating livers, urine in alleyways) that’s not bundled into the cost of production.  (Full disclosure:  I got so drunk in Portland last weekend I vomited in my pants.)

But this doesn’t pass those same standards.  First off, it’d be very difficult to associate any real, tangible, negative affects of pornography or sex toys on society.  If anything, I think it’d be easier to prove their positive effect.  (One example would be this study that links an increase in access to Internet pornography to a decrease in rape.)

Second, this tax is simply meant to impose a tax on people who generally would be unwilling to speak up for themselves.  Unfortunately we’re still living in the remnants of a very Puritanical society, and many people are rather closeted about their adult entertainment expenditures.  It’s a very dangerous precedent to set to tax people who are either afraid or unable to defend themselves.

And third, the adult entertainment industry isn’t a good revenue source.  With the rise of YouTube-style porn sites, the vast majority of porn is now available for free.  In addition, unless the state gets a LOT better at policing our Internet use, it’s going to be a hard item to itemize.  Especially since the providers (who are mostly out of state already) will simply move further away from Washington.

Seriously folks.  It’s time for a fucking income tax.

That’s not a fucking Privilege

I’m still editing the earlier story, and listening to the Senate hearing.

I just had to spit out.

No one has the privilege to make sure that no one else has privileges.  You do not have the right to know that people you don’t like don’t have rights.

Crazy old lady just gave us a Sex Ed talk about Adam and Eve and men and women coming together physically.

Ah!

Live from Oly: Domestic Partnership Hearings

The atmosphere was tense, the temperature hot, and the crowd an uneven mix of vitriol and hope at today’s House Bill 1727 public hearing.  Openly gay Representative Jamie Pedersen introduced the bill, which will provide all of the benefits of marriage to Washington State’s domestic partners.“[I know] there are strong feelings on this bill,” Pedersen said to the crowd in a plea for civility.  “But we are not going to tolerate disrespect.  I understand that there has been some name-calling and pushing out in the halls.  We are not going to tolerate that in here and neither will security.”

Constituents against the bill outnumbered those for the bill nearly 3 to 1.  Wearing white “Vote No! on 1727 and 5688” stickers and matching pins featuring the silhouette of a man and a woman, the members of the crowd cheered, applauded, and yelled amen while their side spoke, despite repeated requests from legislators to be silent.

“We can’t have outbreaks like that if we are to have people coming up to testify,” Pedersen told the crowd.  “It’s against the rules.”

The crowd booed.  Many of the people against the bill were children who looked to have been pulled out of middle school to attend the hearing.  Pubescent youth leaned against walls, their “Vote No” stickers oversized on their small, acne-riddled forms.  Many seemed disinterested and bored.  A mother sitting next to me scolded her son for putting his “Marriage is between a Man and a Woman” pin in his mouth.

Those for the bill sat in front of the angry crowd and told personal stories about their families.  Pairs of mothers introduced their children, and a gay firefighter spoke of his fear of dying on the job and being unable to leave anything to his partner of 13 years.

The opposition to the bill spoke just as passionately, although their arguments seldom were about the bill itself.  Pastors, church groups, and concerned citizens from Eastern Washington threatened the collapse of the public school system, the dissolution of the economy due to rising gay health care costs, and burning in Hell.

Pedersen sat quietly during much of the testimony; his hands clasped across his mouth as he listened to women talk of their experience “working with the ex-gay” community.  Repeatedly, he and other Representatives would interrupt to remind those against the bill that this was not a Gay Marriage bill, nor a chance to preach about the Bible.

“I’m sorry,” Pedersen would repeat.  “I really wish that you could speak to the bill.”

Last 8 years: Remixed

Sorry, I know I’ve taken to posting silly audio snippets, but sometimes I can’t help myself.  These kids are so entertaining.

Emergency: Domestic Partnerships a danger to “Public Peace, Health or Safety”

The gays have had their fun, and after two years of state-sponsored domestic partnership, it’s time to preserve “public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions”.

So says house bill 1980, the brainchild of Representative Jim McCune R-2,  whose district I couldn’t find on a map.

Co-sponsored by like-minded Republicans Shea, Crouse, Schmick, Cox, and Roach, the bill is “AN ACT Relating to reaffirming and protecting the institution and benefits of marriage as a union between a man and a woman”.  In doing so, the legislation would revoke all domestic partnership benefits to already registered same-sex couples in Washington, as well as denying any future benefits that could be granted to the gays of the future.

Citing “serious concern” over the recent California Supreme Court “imposition” that ruled domestic partnerships were unequal to marriage and violated the state’s constitution, the representatives have decided they should nip all problems in the bud by declaring domestic partnerships illegal.

The good news, there is only six Republicans signed on to the bill.  In contrast, house bill 1727 (which expands all rights of marriage to domestic partners) has support from Representatives Pedersen, Walsh, Moeller, Johnson, Carlyle, Quall, Sullivan, Maxwell, Roberts, Chase, Upthegrove, White, Conway, Nelson, Cody, Hudgins, Morris, Eddy, Liias, Kagi, Ormsby, Rolfes, Clibborn, Dunshee, Pettigrew, Springer, Hunter, Williams, Blake, Darneille, Goodman, Dickerson, Hasegawa, Linville, Kenney, Appleton, Van De Wege, Kessler, Santos, Sells, O’Brien, Ericks, Wallace, McCoy, Kirby, Haigh, Takko, Hurst, Seaquist, Wood, Flannigan, Orwall, Jacks, Finn, Hunt, Simpson, and Driscol.

Domestic Partnerships >= Marriage?

Well, just equal.  But you get rid of all that crazy religious guilt and saving yourself for marriage.  And you still get to have the party!

Right now the Domestic Partnerships we have in Washington are a start, but they provide a small fraction of the benefits that true marriage provides.

HB 1727 intends to change that.  The 110 page bill will provide all rights that marriage provides to state-sponsored Domestic Partnerships.  The bill is accompanied by Senate Bill 5688, which would do the same thing.

The bill digest reads:

“Declares that for all purposes under state law, state registered domestic partners shall be treated the same as married spouses. Any privilege, immunity, right, benefit, or responsibility granted or imposed by statute, administrative or court rule, policy, common law or any other law to an individual because the individual is or was a spouse, or because the individual is or was an in-law in a specified way to another individual, is granted on equivalent terms, substantive and procedural, to an individual because the individual is or was in a state registered domestic partnership or because the individual is or was, based on a state registered domestic partnership, related in a specified way to another individual.  Provides that the act shall be liberally construed to achieve equal treatment, to the extent not in conflict with federal law, of state registered domestic partners and married spouses.”

Anyone wishing to either listen in on the hearing, or give testimony should attend the public hearing Thursday, February 5th at 10 AM (the house bill) or 3:30 PM (senate version) in Olympia, Washington.

Powerful

This video, in response to the some of the religious right’s recent claims of Christian-Bashing, or Christ-a-phobia is really good. It also kind of hurts.

Fair warning, there is some graphic stuff.

Anyone down to Drink Liberally?

A new friend brought my attention to the group Drinking Liberally.  From their website:

“An informal, inclusive progressive social group. Raise your spirits
while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher.
Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place
to talk politics. You don’t need to be a policy expert and this isn’t a
book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent
frustration and hang out in an environment where it’s not taboo to talk
politics.

Bars are democratic spaces - you talk to strangers, you share booths,
you feel the bond of common ground. Bring democratic discourse to your
local democratic space - build democracy one drink at a time.

While drinking liberally, always remember to drink responsibly, and make
liberal use of designated drivers. Drinking and driving is reckless and
irresponsible, like a neocon war or corporatist tax cut. Liberals, don’t
do it.”

They have groups throughout Washington, including my usual haunts, Seattle and Olympia.

Anyone down?

Lesbian to Lead Iceland

Sorry… third gay story of the day.

Johanna Siguroardottir, an openly gay woman, appears to be the most likely candidate for the prime minister of Iceland.  Geir Haarde, the previous prime minister, stepped down recently amid the country’s financial crisis and a battle with cancer.

Beyond just being the first gay prime minister, Siguroardottir would also be the first woman in the position.  She currently has a 73% approval rating with Iceland’s populace.

“If she is gay, that is not an issue at all,” Olafur Sigurdsson, deputy chief of mission at the Icelandic Embassy told On Top Magazine.  “We are very liberal in that sense. It has never been an issue for her as a politician.”

Obama’s Stimulus Package: Spending Money to Make Money

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our economy lately.  It’s kind of inevitable, considering the straits we’re in.

Obama is working really hard to get Republicans in line behind his recent stimulus package.   And it’s a hard fight to win.  I’ve heard talk around the water cooler that they’re not too into spending.

To his credit, Obama and his think tank have clearly put a lot of thought into the measure.  The 13 page summary of the stimulus package clearly lays out where Obama wants to spend this money, and the reasoning behind each and every expenditure.   Although the immediate purpose of the package is to increase spending to create jobs, it appears that the long term investments will save money and generate income.

Below are the seven core goals of the stimulus package, as well as a few highlights of each.

• Modernize our Energy Systems. $11 billion to create a more efficient energy grid, $6.2 billion to help weatherize low-income homes, and $8 billion to create new sources of renewable energy.
• Fund needed improvements to Science and Technology.  $6 billion will be invested in expanding access to broadband Internet, of which the stimulus package claims “for every dollar invested in broadband the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment”
• Improve and Create Better Transit Options.  Obama wants to spend $30 billion on highway and bridge construction projects, and a measly $10 billion on mass-transit options.  Of course, I live in the city where mass transit is viable.  The majority of this country is not a city.
• Reemphasizing Education.  $20 billion dedicated to technology and energy upgrades in schools, and another $1 billion in computer and science labs, as well as trainings for teachers who don’t understand 1337 speak.  $16 billion will be dedicated to student loans, to assist those who have gone back to school after failing to find employment.
• Lower Health Care Costs.  $20 billion to create electronic medical records, $3 billion to promote preventative care, $1.5 billion to expand Community Health Centers to provide care to the uninsured, and $600 million to train new doctors to “prepare our country for universal healthcare“.
• Provide Relief to the Unemployed.   $27 billion to extend unemployment benefits, $30.3 billion to extend COBRA to those losing their work-sponsored insurance, and $4.2 billion to help low-income communities purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed properties.
• Save Public Employees.  $120 billion to school districts to prevent tax increases on the middle class without laying off teachers.

After reading through the entire package, I’m impressed.  There’s not a single line I’d disagree with, although even I’m a little nervous about the price.  I’ve always maintained a strange fanaticism with mathematics, but I can’t even begin to imagine what $550,000,000,000 dollars would look like.

If you’re making Washington’s minimum wage of $8.55, it would take you 64.3 billion hours to make this money.  If that number’s too big to picture, how about 7.3 million years.  Better hope Starbucks offers overtime….

Ok, those numbers are scary.  Perhaps it’ll help to put it in perspective with our population of 305,697,065.  If each of us footed an equal share, it’d be a one time payment of $1,799.  Shit, that’s a months mortgage.  I’d gladly pay up.

History Will Be the Judge

And it looks like history is going for the throat.

“Other than that, the economic record of President Bush was largely a disappointing one. During his administration, the country grew at the slowest overall pace of any recent president, whether measured in gross domestic product (GDP) or employment. The last president to preside while the stock market did worse was Herbert Hoover.”

“…During President Clinton’s administration, the number of jobs created was greater than the growth in the population of working-age Americans, something that had happened in only one previous administration since World War II, that of Lyndon Johnson. Job growth also sputtered after Johnson left office.

Bush’s administration was marked by a recession that began two months after he took office and another downturn in his final year of office. In the end, the economy during his term added enough jobs to employ only 14 percent of the added number of working-age Americans, the lowest proportion of any postwar administration.”

Dude’s Been Busy

It’s Friday.  Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday.  In the past three days, Obama has accomplished the following:

• Told Military Leaders to End the War in Iraq.
• Limited the Ability of Ex-Presidents to Hide their Secrets.
• Started the Close of Guantanamo.
• Created Alternatives to Bush’s Military Commissions Act.
• Lifted the Ban on Foreign Aid to Groups that Provide Abortions or Family Planning.
• Put Pay Freezes in place for White House Staff Earning more than $100,000.
• Set Ethics Rules Clearly Separating Lobbyists and the Executive Branch.
• Require New Hires to Sign Statements indicating they were not hired for Political Ties or Campaign Contributions.
• Banned Lobbyists from Giving Gifts to Executive Employees.
• Adopted Strict Laws against the use of Torture and Mandated Adherence to the Geneva Conventions.

And so much more.  I just wanna kiss him on the mouth!

In Portland, you only have to be 18 to have a Sam Adams

Ok, I bit the headline from a commenter on Queerty, who in turn found it somewhere even Google couldn’t track.

I was made aware of this story on January 20th, but I didn’t want to take part in the muck-raking during our spectacular inaguration.  That and I may have had a few drinks at breakfast….

The Willamette Weekly has been covering the long-dead sex life of the openly gay mayor of Portland, Oregon.  Sam Adams was elected as their mayor in May of 2008, and was sworn in on January 1st.  During his campaign, allegations were raised by one of his challengers that he had sex with the aptly named Beau Breedlove, a man who was 17 when they met in 2005.  At the time, Adams denied the allegations.

Pressed with mounting evidence that Adams was romantically involved with Breedlove, Adams confessed to lying during his general election.  He admitted to having sexual relations with Breedlove after he turned 18 (the legal age of consent in Oregon).  Adams indicated he lied to avoid the wild speculation that he had sex with Breedlove before he was of age, citing stereotypes that gay men are attracted to underage children.

Since then the media has thrown a giant fit reminiscent of the Clinton-Lewinsky years.  And I’ll clarify now, I was 12 years old when that happened, and even then I knew it wasn’t a big deal.  And I still thought girls had cooties.

Journalists all over are calling for Adams to resign.   Just Out, Portland’s largest gay paper, is out for blood.  Seattle’s own alt-weekly (aka gay weekly) The Stranger has differing opinions within its ranks.  Erica C. Barnett called for a resignation based solely on the fact that he lied to reporters, while sex advice columnist Dan Savage defends Adams rights to privacy and to stay in office.

Savage is also attending a rally tomorrow outside the Portland’s City Hall (Friday, 1/23 at 5:30 PM PST).  The Facebook group Support Sam Adams currently has 1,083 members and is growing.

My take?  I almost resisted blogging about this because it shouldn’t be news.  Who cares.  This is nothing more than a sex-negative witch hunt.  While it’s comforting for members of the press to hide their outrage behind the allegations of lying, this is nothing but a facade.  All politicians lie.  Obama lied about Gay Marriage.  And, in all honesty, I lied. Obama doesn’t actually read this blog.  Yet.

What it comes down to is a populace ready to devour a politician for being human.  My disdain for age of consent laws aside, this has nothing to do with his ability to be the mayor of a city.  This doesn’t affect his years of public service.

Let it go journalists.  This isn’t a story.  And if you’re in the Portland area, show some solidarity for your mayor.  After all, what a DILF.