The Week in a Flash

Me and Ty have been gettin ready for the Super Bowl this week like most men, so let me catch you up on what's been going on in the world.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was unanimously impeached by the state Senate on Thursday. He went on the morning show circuit this week to plead his case to the public, but he probably should have saved some of that money and bought a Snuggie.

Obama got his big stimulus package through Congress...now taxpayers are on the hook for another $819 billion dollars. Or maybe everybody in Congress will get part time jobs at Starbucks to pay it off, that's what thousands of college kids across the country do to pay off their debts.

On the Super Bowl, I got Pittsburgh, I can't stand Arizona because they slept through the last month of the season.

I leave you with some Miller High Life ads that didn't make the cut for the game on Sunday.

Russ Feingold's amendment to be

Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold will propose a constitutional amendment that would require a special election in the event of any Senate vacancies. They already do this in the House, so why not the Senate? Currently, 38 states allow for the governor to appoint someone to the senate for at most two years. As we have seen with Illinois and New York's vacancies, these can bring about controversies of their own, and besides have you looked at who they let be governor these days? Clearly these people can not be trusted, though as Minnesota has shown neither can voters.

This actually seems like a great idea, one whose time should have come years ago. In order for an amendment to pass, it needs a 2/3 majority in the House, a 2/3 majority in the Senate and then a simple majority approval in 3/4 of the state legislatures, so this will of course never pass.

Weekend Viewing: The War Briefing

This is a good documentary about the foreign policy issues facing Barack Obama in the coming years.

You can watch it in its entirety here.

Have a good weekend.

The Obamaberry

After Barack Obama was sworn in and official like a referee with a whistle, one of his first pieces of business was to make sure his favorite device came along too.

According to ABC News, Obama will be the first president to use a Blackberry in office.

Because of security concerns he'll only be able to talk to a few select people, but it's better than Bush's system of passing notes by carrier pigeon.

I wonder if he has to call the same customer service line that everybody else does...imagine taking that complaint call.

Maybe this will be his new ringtone:

Caroline Kennedy will NOT be your new senator New Yorkers

The New York Post is EXCLUSIVELY reporting that Caroline Kennedy has told New York Governor David Patterson she is withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Hillary Clinton in the US Senate. So now it is up to Andrew Cuomo, son of former governor Mario, to become the latestdynastic senator from New York. Gov. Patterson did say he is considering Cuomo, but Cuomo has not publicly expressed interest in the position. Otherwise Patterson will just pick someone who does not have any famous relatives, which shouldn't be allowed since their other senator's most famous relative is a daughter that was on Last Comic Standing.

Cooper Manning will be your new senator from New York.

A New Day.

Unless you were frozen solid on the side of a road the past few days, you know that Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation's 44th President yesterday.

Now that all the pomp and grandeur is over, its time for Barack to get to work.

According to the LA Times, Obama has already met with economic and foreign policy teams to figure out early strategy on the economy and Iraq, and he read a letter that George Bush left him.

5 to 1 odds that letter was written on construction paper with a blue crayon.

Good luck Barack, oh man are you gonna need it.

Fin.

And with that, Dubya has left the building.

As the saying goes, don't let the doorknob hit ya where the good Lord split ya, PEACE OUT!

Must-Ignore-TV

If you're done watching the interesting and informative things Charles posted a couple days ago, you can turn your TV on tonight and see another President. Tonight at 8 pm EST, George W Bush will appear on all the TV stations, just like that other guy did a few months ago. He will talk, for fifteen minutes or so, about . . . who knows. He'll probably just talk about what a great country America is and how the surge is working, for laughs. Then he'll go away for real this time.

Tennessee: The place where Democrats have a spine

Pictured: Jason Mumpower after the vote

So something's up in the Volunteer State. For the first time in a long time, Tennessee's House of Representatives has a Republican majority of 50-49 (weird, huh?) and they were all set to elect a new House Speaker. The consensus pick among Republicans was Rep. Jason Mumpower, a very conservative legislator who has in the past voted to ban abortion in the state , voted against letting gay couples adopt, and has been accused of race baiting during the 2008 election. Having been named House Majority leader, he was supposed to become Speaker, until something happened.

Democrats rallied together and, instead of nominating the current Democratic Speaker, nominated a moderate Republican, Kent Williams. The Dems all voted for Williams, Williams voted for himself, and Mumpower lost by one vote. Now the Democrats ensure that all of the committee positions will not go to far right Republicans who want to ban the teaching of evolution and give every newborn baby an uzi and what not, and the Republicans are left holding their Charles Dickens. Can you imagine Harry Reid having the balls to do something like this? Of course not.

Tennessee is now officially interesting, to everyone, except this guy.

UPDATE: And here's video of the whole thing. The Republicans apparently tried to nominate Herc from The Wire, but the Democrats would have none of it and selected the terrible basketball player instead.

Must See TV: American Experience

With a week left until Barack Obama gets inaugurated as the next President of the United States, this series of documentaries on seven past presidents called American Experience would be a good refresher course on how the presidency used to work before Dubya stepped into the big chair.

You can watch all seven online at the link provided.

I've seen the Truman and FDR documentaries so far, I highly recommend watching those to give you some insight into how alot of the toughest decisions in our history were made.

This probably should have been a weekend post, but these are long (and worthwhile) documentaries.

Two "reporters," one with the mind of a child

Remember that guy everyone was falling over themselves to please in the debates, "Joe" the fake plumber? Now he's in Israel, where there is not a war (that would be Gaza,) acting as a war corespondent for the conservative blog Pajamas Media. Here is his "dispatch."



If you didn't sit through that, I'll sum it up. He had no questions of his own to ask the Israelis, then he ranted about why the media even having war reporters is a horrible thing, because it causes us to lose wars all the time. Particularly good is this little nugget.

You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for them.

"Reporter" Joe the 14:56, 14:57, 14:58 admitted that he prefers government propaganda to actual reporting. Why the hell did anyone care enough about this clown to pander to him in the first place?

The other big internet sensation/kinda reporter news, 10-year-old Florida kid Damon Weaver, who became net-famous when he somehow got to interview Joe Biden, was awarded press credentials for the inauguration next week after earlier being turned down for an interview with Barack Obama.

Forget that it's an obvious publicity stunt that's only there so everyone will say "haha that kid's hilarious" and then go back to freaking out about losing all of our jobs. From his interview with Biden, Weaver asked a question, listened, and generally came off like someone who's not an entitled asshole phony who is proud of his ignorance.

When the bald guy's 15 minutes are up, can we make Damon Weaver the next pseudo-political mini-celeb with an elementary school understanding of how the country works?

George W Bush: A look back

Thanks to 23/6 for this. Truly the last eight years have had many shining moments.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Congress Goes Muslim

no more bacon for you Congress!

Fresh out of the prison that is the campaign trail, John McCain linked back up with his favorite co-defendent in Sen. Russ Feingold to enlighten their brothas on poison that is pork.

McCain and Feingold announced that they will push for reform on adding earmarks to bills coming out of Capitol Hill.

The same group of people who chastised auto execs for flying to Washington to ask for money approved $188,000 in spending for The Lobster Institute in Maine; $212,000 for fruit fly research in France; and $125,000 for a Mother's Day shrine in West Virginia.

The irony is killing me right now.

This quote by Feingold might be the worst one of the entire article:

"We can't afford this; we simply can't afford it," he said. "And we ridicule it, but we also are saddened by it because it's obvious that at least some members of Congress don't know how serious the fiscal situation we're in is or they would not be making these kinds of proposals."

If Young Jeezy knows it's a recession, how don't elected officials who get paid big bucks to represent us in these matters?

Something to think about this weekend.

Blowjobs and Bailouts.

Better Days for Ol' Larry.

Larry Flynt showed he still has a knack for getting publicity for the adult industry out of current events by teaming up with Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild fame to ask the government for a bailout.

Flynt claims the $5 billion request is not a publicity stunt, but this is the same man who coincidentally released a porno called "Who's Nailin Paylin?" during the presidential campaign season and been in front of the U.S. Supreme Court at least three times in his lifetime.

Nobody is taking the request seriously, unless Flynt and Francis bring a convoy of affected employees (i.e. porn stars) to Capitol Hill to "persuade" Congress...expect Flynt to get his money in two weeks.

Obama's big economy speech: Grim

Earlier this morning, president-elect Barack Obama delivered an economic address from the campus of George Mason University (remember them?) It was unsurprisingly short on details, talking about transparency and working together and new technologies and whatnot. The only actual policy was the announcement of a $1,000 tax cut to middle class families, because Bruce Wayne has enough money, maybe.

What was most memorable about the address was it's tone. Normally, presidents don't like to talk about how bad the economy is actually doing for fear of causing panic in the markets. While Obama wasn't willing to go in depth with the specifics of his recovery plan, he was more than willing to get specific about how awful the economy is. According to Obama, 2.8 million people have had to go form full-time to part-time employment, manufacturing is at a 28 year low, and the economy could fall as much a $1 trillion below capacity. No political entity was blamed for the terrible economy (though cmon, who do you think he was talking about when he said "an era of irresponsibility") because we're all post-partisan or something.

I guess there's nothing wrong with him outright saying the economy is in the toilet and it's getting worse before it gets better. It's not like it's a secret anymore. Still, it's a little odd to hear a president say things suck right now, even though we all know it to be true.

'Cism? You Make the Call

"I can't make things worse you say? Watch this."-Rod Blahblahblahblah


The best way to start the year off is with some good old 'cism, and its even better when its gubment 'cism.

With Illinois Gov. (for now) Rod Blagojevich in enough trouble for putting Illinois' Senate seat up for sale, I guess he figured he might as well kick it up a notch and appoint a Senator despite Senate Democrats pleading with him not to.

Appointing any old senator wasn't enough for Blagojevich though, he had to appoint a black man, Ron Burris.

Senate Democrats had already planned on not accepting anybody Blagojevich appointed, but the racial dynamic added on (Burris will be the only black Senator.) makes it an even stickier situation.

You hear that? That's the sound of Jesse Jackson fainting from the possiblities of all the grandstanding he'll get to do on this issue.

I wouldn't be surprised if Blagojevich just went all out and snorted coke in the courtroom as they send him off to jail, he clearly doesn't care about anything at this point.

Oh yeah, Happy New Year.