National

The mocking sarcasm that laid bare much of the lies and hypocrisy and bias of the corporate media that was at the heart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart will not die with the retirement of Jon Stewart. It will go on because it has to go on, it is needed, and hopefully the Daily Show is enough of an established franchise to allow that to happen. But it will not be the same. But such is life. Things change and are not the same all the time. Remember how important Keith Olbermann was at a certain time? We and he moved on, and so will we now. Colbert will be back soon as the host of the Late Show on CBS. I hope Jon Stewart likewise doesn't disappear forever. But people come and go all the time, including politicians, newscasters, satirists, comedians, entertainers, and musicians. Still, damn am I going to miss Jon Stewart when he goes.

E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes Obama’s Christian humility:

President Obama’s speech to the crowd on Thursday did not seem terribly controversial when I first listened. […] Who knew that denouncing religious extremism and calling on people of all faiths to guard against “a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith” would prove to be so controversial?

Attention Christians, especially you American Evangelical Christians who should really call yourselves Evangelical Old Testamentians rather than Christians since your religion does not, in any way, at all, follow the teachings of Jesus Christ,the Son of God... even today, there are those who kill and terrorize others in the name of the Christian religion and Jesus Christ and his Father. And in our history, hundreds of thousands if not millions will killed in the name of the Christian religion and Jesus Christ. It is long past time you all grew up and realized that, like Jesus said, we are all sinners, and we are all guilty.

Matt Yglesias looks at what isn’t in Obama’s budget:

There’s no entitlement reform. There’s no Obama negotiating with himself. There’s no bending over backwards to look reasonable to his adversaries or to centrist pundits. Every previous Obama budget has been about positioning himself for a legislative or electoral showdown. This one isn’t. And while It would be an overstatement to call it a liberal dream budget — left-wing Democrats could dream up plenty more — for the first time it’s really Obama’s dream budget. This is the end of the “grand bargain” era, and instead an opportunity for Obama to lay out his priorities for the long term — from transportation infrastructure to transforming child care. Rather than position himself in advance of a potential compromise, he wants to outline his vision for a future that will extend well beyond the life of his administration.

I think the root of my problem with the Democratic Party arises from the fact that "Democrat" mean something to me that it doesn't mean to mainstream Democrats. In fact…

Horse racing must not die, so we need slot machines that must not die, so we need table games that must not die, so we need sports betting that must…

The "I abstain" vote currently doesn't hurt the right people (Tom Carper and John Carney) but sooner or later it will. We Democrats just have to keep shunning the politics of GOP-lite. Here is what Celia Cohen wrote on her blog:

I am so fucking sick and tired of having the dumbest, most ignorant, most know nothing idiots drive our national conversation. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that restaurants should be allowed to opt out of regulations requiring restaurant employees to wash their hands. What. The Actual. Fuck? And what the actual why? Is there now a RELIGIOUS FUCKING FREEDOM PRINCIPLE ABOUT WASHING HANDS???? I remember Jesus Fucking Christ washing the feet of his disciples, so I guess that means you only ever wash your feet, and never your hands! Tillis the Fecal Master's rationale is that washing your hands would be optional for employees so long as the establishment posts a sign warning the customers that their employees' hands are dripping with slimy brown diarrhea which recently escaped their asshole. And, under the Grand Ayn Rand Theory of the Free Market, that establishment would soon lose all business, and those employees would be out of a job, all so that an employee can have the freedom of not washing his hands. This is why Randians and Libertarians are idiots. You do not have the freedom to not wash your hands. It is not in the Constitution. It is not in the Bill of Rights. It is not in the Declaration of Independence. If you want to serve food and be paid for it, you wash your hands after you wipe your ass. Period. End of Discussion. If you don't like it, move to Russia and fellate Putin.

Both Chris Christie and Rand Paul have come down on the side of the lunatics by questioning the science behind vaccinations. What could possibly be the next so-called established scientific fact to be debunked by conservative conventional wisdom? How do fish breath? Does anyone really know? Is the moon really 238,900 miles away, or could we build a tall ladder and catch it in a net? People deserve to have some choice on these issues. This is America after all. If Wyle E Coyote can defy gravity by not looking down, why should anyone look down? Does looking down trigger the effects of gravity? We simply don't know, so the prudent thing to do is to teach the controversy. Anything else would be discrimination against parents who have made the anti-gravity choice for their children.