As reported earlier in the week, Mitt Romney flip-flopped on his support of Issue 2 on the Ohio ballot November 8, an attempt to repeal Gov. John Kasich's Senate Bill 5, which gutted collective bargaining rights for Ohio government workers. The flip-flop was highlighted by the Daily Show's Jon Stewart as part of a bigger pattern from Romney of changing his stance on issues based on how popular the issues are with Republican primary voters.

To recap, in June, Romney posted on Facebook:

My friends in Ohio are fighting to defend crucial reforms that the state has put in place to limit the power of union bosses and keep taxes low. I stand with John R. Kasich and Ohio's leaders as they take on this important fight to get control of government spending. Please visit www.BetterOhio.org for more information.

Then on Tuesday, it was reported that Romney said:

I’m not saying anything one way or the other about the two ballot issues.

After conservative backlash, he changed his position again:

"I fully support Gov. Kasich's [Issue 2] in Ohio," Romney said. "I’m sorry if I created any confusion in that regard. … What I was referring to was I know that there are other ballot questions there in Ohio and I wasn’t taking a position on those. One of them, for instance, relates to healthcare and mandates — I’ve said that should be up to individual states. I, of course, took my state in one direction. They might want to go in a different direction.”

Continue reading »

Jon Stewart on Texas Governor Rick Perry's sitting style: "Try not to move around in your chair like you need your anal glands squeezed."

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's economic plan was released Tuesday. "You can go on Amazon Kindle - and - I don't know if its free or not - but I hope so and its in color," said the candidate.

Stewart: "First off - you don't know how much your economic plan costs people to get. And secondly: Oh good it's in color - because otherwise your 150-page economic plan might be boring."

DOWNLOADS: (576)

PLAYS: (6259)

Embed

Now that the 9/11 first responders' health bill has passed the Senate, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show obviously deserve a round of applause for stepping up and playing a critical role in getting it done.

That really seemed to stick in the craws of the crew at Fox & Friends this morning. Check out this exchange between Gretchen Carlson (who I think is just still mad at Stewart for calling her out on the dumb-blonde schtick), Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, culminating with this:

Carlson: I think it's interesting when you have Jon Stewart, who apparently decided to get really serious on this topic, have a serious show about it. That's like mixing apples and oranges, c'mon! I mean, people already think that his show is real news, which is a problem.

So then when you have comedy and then one day you decide to just get totally serious --

Doocy: He's an activist.

Carlson: But I don't know if that works in the mind of the -- mind of the American people.

You know what's an even bigger problem, Gretchen? That people already think every show on Fox News other than Shep Smith's is real news. When in fact, it's demonstrably little more than lying, smearing, fearmongering propaganda. Now THAT'S a problem.

"Our Unelectable Founding Fathers" from the audio version of "America: The Book" by Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show.

Open Thread below...

President Obama killed and Jay Leno bombed at the WHPC. That's got to be embarrassing to all comedians, especially conservative comics.

Wanna know why?

The only person whose ratings fell more than mine did last year is here. Great to see you, Jay!” Obama dinged the off-and-on Tonight show host, who, when his turn came on the podium at the Washington Hilton, proceeded to confirm just why that might be true.

Obama—aided (as presidential political guru David Axelrod acknowledged to me when the show was over) by the razor-sharp jokesters from The Daily Show—came armed with fresh and funny material that prompted some of the biggest laughs I’ve witnessed the Leader of the Free World receiving in more than two decades of attending this strange Washington media-political celebration of self-congratulation—a tribal (and, to outside observers, potentially unappealing) rite of spring in which supposedly discerning and skeptical journalists laugh their posteriors off and lavishly kiss the one belonging to the Comedian-in-Chief.

Leno, while entirely competent, recycled and repurposed old material from his television show—and even made a mother-in-law joke. After one of his japes was greeted by eerie silence, it was hard not to feel a tinge of sympathy for him when he marveled desperately, “This is a tough room!”

Quakers Life: I don't get it

TomDispatch: Welcome to Glennbeckistan

OurFuture: Health Care Reform's hidden tax gem

Calitics: Is Carly Fiorina a global warming denier, a fool, or both?

Crooked Timber: Partisan/Bipartisan

HOLY CRAP: A personal issue...The Daily Show weighs in...Should Ratzi resign?...Loud and loaded words and actions...Rick Pino versus Christian Side-Hug...A face full of woo woo...Fox News on the Shroud of Turin and Jesus' real face...Great gift idea...Freethought of the Day...Not the Pope's fault, it was “permissive sexual culture” of 70’s....Just like Jesus!...Obama responsible for pedophile priests

Since Walter Cronkite's passing, new focus has been put on the decline of legitimate news sources in America. The big three networks have fallen the way of the corporate cable news/propaganda networks and people are turning to alternate sources like The Daily Show to get a little truth with their news. That's why it came as no surprise that Jon Stewart was voted Most Trusted Newscaster In America in a recent Time poll.

Here's the breakdown of the results:

Jon Stewart - 44%

Brian Williams - 29%

Charles Gibson - 19%

Katie Couric - 7%

Not to take away from Stewart's accomplishments, but it does speak volumes about the way the American people view the major networks and their "news" departments -- and that they would take the word of a comedian more seriously than high profile, highly paid network news anchors.

Stewart has long taken on the corporate media, beginning with his notorious smackdown of the feckless Tucker Carlson on CNN's Crossfire in 2004, which lead to the eventual demise of the show. Since then, he has been relentless in his pursuit of the truth, and C&L has been posting videos from The Daily Show for years, along with many other blogs, big and small.

DOWNLOADS: (2850)

PLAYS: (13134)

Embed

There's no other word than "dumbass" that adequately describes Arizona State University's decision not to award President Obama an honorary degree when he addresses the school's commencement today.

Sure, you can cook up lame excuses, such as that the school instead decided to name a scholarship program after him. That's nice. It's still an insult. A dumbass insult.

The Daily Show's Jason Jones visited Tempe to get some of the flavor of local sentiments. That same word kept coming to mind as we watched ASU students try to explain why Obama didn't deserve an honorary degree. My favorite:

"We're trying to be like the Cambridges, where they don't give out any, uh, honorary degrees. Make them so, uh, prestigious. To give them to, like, important people. Heads of state and stuff like that."

Runner-up:

"Wull, I've been at ASU for three or four years, and I don't have a degree yet. Why does he deserve one for being in office for 100 days?"

DOWNLOADS: (4075)

PLAYS: (15490)

Embed

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart got the official word in the origins of the swine-flu outbreak from John Oliver, reporting from the Centers For Disease Control, and Jason Jones, reporting from the Centers For Stuff I Heard From Some Guy:

Stewart: What have you been hearing at your center?

Jones: All kinds of things. OK, A: This disease was engineered by the government as an excuse to declare martial law, so that B: They can liquidate private health-insurance coverage.

Stewart: Yeah, that sounds a little farfetched there, Jason.

Jones: Well, then why is the government hoarding all the Tamiflu for themselves, their families, and disgraced Wall Street tycoons?

Stewart: Where did you hear that?

Jones: [pause] ... Some guy.

Stewart: Do you have a second source?

Jones: What, you mean another guy?

Oliver: Jon, Jon, Jon! You know this is preposterous. This is a naturally occurring mutation that has so far traveled a pathogenic route --

Jones: Can it, Science Boy! While you babble, Americans are being infected by the millions!

Oliver: Not true --

Jones: The entire state of Arizona is dead!

The problem that Daily Show writers must face each day is that their routines often mimic the real behavior of the wingnuts on the right.