If you haven’t been keeping up, a Democratic institution in Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has been investigated by the House Ethics Committee. This has been an ongoing saga for several months, but finally the normally secretive Ethics committee is convening publicly over the Rangel matter.
Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Ala., the ranking member of the committee and likely to be the chairman of this committee when the new Congress is sworn in, offered a harsh critique of Rangel, for his use rent-controlled apartments and evasion of taxes, despite being in charge of writing tax code.
The video speaks for itself, if you have roughly eight minutes to spare.
It’s not much of a secret that there is a real reluctance by the rank and file in the U.S. House of Representatives to support Rep. Michele Bachmann’s, R-Minn., run for the open House Republican Conference slot.
The favorite among more House Republicans presently seems to be Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. Both have near-perfect voting records according to the America Conservative Union. One of the Hensarling backers, likely House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., appeared on Fox Business Network’s “Imus in the Morning” and gave a real unconvincing reason for not supporting Bachmann. Host Don Imus pressed Cantor on his pick.
Exchange as follows:
IMUS: Well, in an effort to stir up trouble.
CANTOR: Why would you ever do that?
IMUS: As we made clear, [Bachmann] really represents the Tea Party. So if she were to ascend to this leadership role that would be a representative for them that they’re not otherwise going to have. Why wouldn’t you back her instead of the other buddy of yours from Texas?
CANTOR: You know what, Imus, I think with the Tea Party is looking for is results, is a return to fiscal discipline. Read the rest of this entry →
If you haven’t heard, the folks at Media Matters are the fortunate recipients of a $1 million donation from billionaire George Soros, which Fox News “Red Eye” host Greg Gutfeld points out on his Oct. 23 show.
“From big babies to bad billionaires – he is giving a million to fight Glenn and Bill,” Gutfeld said. “He announced he is donating the Dr. Evil-ish sum of $1 million to the bed-wetting bottom feeders at Media Matters for America. Yeah, $1 million. And now you are asking yourself, why is Greg talking about this group of hacks that takes nobody seriously? Well, I’ll tell you why – because it is time for ‘Red Eye Robot Theater.’”
The “Red Eye” crew offered viewers a glimpse of how the contribution might have gone down between Media Matters Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert and Soros by recreating it on their “Robot Theater.” Transcript as follows: Read the rest of this entry →
Over the past week, several political-insider wizards of smart have deemed Republican senatorial hopeful Christine O’Donnell unelectable – almost taking it to the point of vitriolic screeds you’d expect to hear from left-wing commentators, which would probably appear as a guest on MSNBC in their prime time lineup.
Their issue: In an interview, O’Donnell had claimed she could be the potential target of political opponents and that she had to be extra careful when she would go home at night.
“They’re following me,” she told The Weekly Standard. “They follow me home at night. I make sure that I come back to the townhouse and then we have our team come out and check all the bushes and check all the cars to make sure that—they follow me.”
Now suddenly this has raised the ire of some conservative pundits – suggesting that she isn’t fit for office because of her caution. But actually, she does have cause for concern. According to a video from her campaign – it has been documented that operatives from her opponent’s campaign, Rep. Mike Castle, have in fact attended events she hosted with video cameras. So how would you feel if you were being followed with a video camera?
That being said – who are these detractors, as conservative males, to call into question the safety self-concerns of a 41-year-old female in what could be a highly charged political contest? Is it really the smartest thing to do to be so obsessed with the race for a Delaware Republican senatorial nomination that one would make these judgment calls about someone’s character, especially coming from the political right? It’s a bizarre phenomenon to say the least.
It’s a an oldie but a goodie – a 2000, “Saturday Night Live” sketch fictionalizing the recording of the song “[Don't Fear] The Reaper” by the Blue Öyster Cult. In it Christopher Walken plays a fictional music producer who keeps insisting that a cowbell player, Gene Frenkle – played by Will Ferrell, amp up the song with “more cowbell.”
One of the memorable lines – “I got a fever, and the only prescription…is more cowbell!!” [Click here to watch the skit]
On “Larry King Live” on Aug. 27, late-night talk host Jimmy Fallon went on to promote the Emmy Awards. He was asked by one of King’s callers how hard it was to keep a straight face during some of his routines. He named this skit as one of the hardest, which is listed as fifth on the all-time greatest SNL skits.
“I really break up in sketches,” Fallon said. “I’m very unprofessional actor. But I’ve worked with — we did a sketch called — I think it was called — everyone calls it Cow Bell now or I Need More Cow Bell. It was with Will Farrell and he was a cow bell player in the band. And he played it so loud that the band couldn’t hear any of the instruments. They have the amplifiers and he’s hitting this cow bell really loud. ”
He went on to relive the episode:
“And then the producer comes in, Christopher Walken — he would come in and go, ‘what was wrong with that take? It was great.’ He goes, ‘I got to have more cow bell, though.’ You know? So he kept doing this. Will Farrell’s like, that’s what I’m trying to say. That’s what I’m saying. We have to have more. And so he did this bit dress rehearsal and then on air, he came on with a smaller shirt. And so when he lifted the cow bell, his gut came out the bottom. I couldn’t — then the glasses fell off at one point. He was running around kicking things.”
And according to Fallon, he wasn’t the only one struggling during the sketch. King asked him if he could see the other actors laugh as well.
“I couldn’t — it was looking in the eyes of a lunatic,” Fallon said of Ferrell. “He’s the funniest man on Earth. It was fantastic.”
If you don’t know the back story, Eric Boehlert of liberal media watchdog Media Matters fame has decided to engage in a back-and-forth Twitter fight with a few of the conservative and libertarian figures in the media. At first it was Andrew Breitbart, but since “Red Eye” host Greg Gutfeld announced intentions to build a gay bar near the proposed Ground Zero mosque, Boehlert has determined he would go after Gutfeld.
This failed miserably with Breitbart, so it’s even more confusing as to why Boehlert would pick a fight with a guy that has a TV show, albeit at 3 a.m. However, that just means there are less rules Gutfeld has to play, while at best Boehlert can fight back in a three-minute segment on MSNBC’s “The ED Show,” which sadly has less viewers than “Red Eye.”
Gutfeld didn’t disappoint. He took it to Boehlert on his Aug. 14 broadcast.
“You’ve gone gray: time to stop braiding the hair of your Barbie Doll,” Gutfeld advised.
But the highlight of this is clearly the “Robot Theater” portion — “Media Matters Sleepover.” Enjoy.
Is the “WikiLeaks” leak a crime worthy of the death penalty? It might not sound like it at face value, but Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, makes the case.
In an interview aired on WHMI 93.5 in Livingston, Mich., Rogers makes the case for capital punishment to be applied in the case of Private Bradley Manning, who according to Rogers looks to be guilty of treason in time of war and that is a capital crime worthy of a death sentence.
Rogers explained the root of the problem – there’s exists’ a desire to make everything in government transparent.
“There is a serious and growing problem within the government of this – I call it ‘the culture of disclosure,’ where if you don’t like something or you think you don’t like something,” Rogers said. “In many cases the information that causes the leak is not accurate – is they have such a small portion of the whole picture. It’s hard to make a decision with just one piece of the puzzle, but they do it often and this was the same example.” Read the rest of this entry →
According to Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., the House Republicans should exercise their power to subpoena and hold continuous hearings. Speaking to a gathering for the GOP Youth Convention on July 22 in Washington, D.C., she emphasized this point.
“Oh, I think that’s all we should do,” Bachmann said. “I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is going on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people’s patience is about this big.” Read the rest of this entry →
Give a hoot, don’t pollute. Eat only dolphin-free tuna. Organic arugula rules the world!
All those are familiar mantras that give off the notion that your government knows better than you, at least when it comes to whatever damage you want to do to your body. But lately, the federal government seems to be targeting goods and services that penalize specific segments of society. Case in point: A 10-percent tax on people that use tanning salons, which women operate 67 percent of indoor tanning businesses and are the most frequent tanning clients. And don’t forget the Botox tax, another tax that disproportionately hits women.
While some of these same self-appointed do-gooders in the seats of power in Washington, D.C. seem to think it is fine for women to opt for abortion, because what a woman does with her body is no one’s business – the same can’t be said when it comes to cigarettes. The latest all-out war isn’t on cigarettes, but a particular “flavor” of cigarettes, menthols, as a recent letter from the American Conservative Union to Margaret Hamburg, M.D., the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration pointed out. Read the rest of this entry →
Within the GOP power structure of the U.S. House of Representatives, and it’s probably true for the Democratic side aisle as well, there are two types of members – the workhorses and the showhorses (so I’m told). That is there are members that work behind the scenes and remain out of the national spotlight in order jockey for better committee assignment and negotiate certain legislative deals. Those are the workhorses. But then there are the ones we see on TV all the time that aren’t necessarily high-ranking members – the Reps. Michele Bachmanns, Anthony Weiners, etc. – any member of the House that is on national TV more than twice a month.
Now from outsiders perspective, one might try to read into this and think – well there are certain members of Congress that are doing it for the public exposure and the ones doing it because they want to make a difference in Washington. But don’t be fooled – the ones that are quiet have their own ambitions. It’s just that they’re not quite willing to go on national TV for fear of saying something dumb and being ruined. Read the rest of this entry →
If you haven’t been keeping up, a Democratic institution in Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has been investigated by the House Ethics Committee. This has been an ongoing saga for several months, but finally the normally secretive Ethics committee is convening publicly over the Rangel matter.
