Sheila Jackson-Lee answers the question, "What's your IQ, Congresswoman?"
Congratulations, Congresswoman Jackson-Lee. Your latest stupidity trifecta has now officially been completed.
CNSNews has the idiotic info:
At a House Judiciary Committee hearing about the individual mandate to buy insurance, Jackson-Lee said, “I would make the argument, one, that it [the individual mandate] is an incentive to do right – that it is not penalizing you because a penalty is punishment, and you’re not punished if you have health insurance, in fact.
“And so, you are in fact incentivized to have health insurance rather than take the negative, which is to suggest that because you have a penalty you’re being punished,” she said.
Jackson-Lee is incorrect, however, as the language of the law clearly states the following: “If an applicable individual fails to meet the requirement of subsection (a) [have government-approved insurance]… there is hereby imposed a penalty with respect to the individual, Section 5000A of the law reads.”
Another section of the health care law, entitled “Payment of Penalty,” stipulates that if an individual fails to carry a government-approved health insurance policy for any month during the year, they must pay a maximum penalty of $750.
In keeping with Jackson-Lee’s theory, we would like to announce she is smart, not stupid.
Senator Jeff Sessions pointed out that President Obama’s budget – the budget Tim Geithner signed off on – contains interest payments and other obligations that are “excessively high” and “unsustainable.” Geithner agreed.
Is this a case of unadulterated gall or sheer stupidity? You watch this clip and tell us if it’s one or the other or if some completely different word come to mind.
Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner testified before the Senate today and got grilled by Jeff Sessions. The Senator pointed out that President Obama’s budget – the budget Geithner signed off on – contains interest payments and other obligations that are “excessively high” and “unsustainable.”
Geithner agreed.
Let us repeat that. The Secretary of the Treasury agreed that spending in the budget he and the President just submitted to Congress is unsustainable.
Consensus is such a pleasant word. It brings up visions of different races, creeds and nationalities sitting around the campfire in big circle, holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Well, that and outright fraud.
Consensus is such a pleasant word. It brings up visions of different races, creeds and nationalities sitting around the campfire in big circle, holding hands and singing Kumbaya.
Well, that and outright fraud.
The FinancialPost UK describes how consensus is now achieved among the global warming crowd:
Campfire kumbaya consensus: Only hold hands with those who agree with you
The punditry looked for and found an alternative number to tout: “97% of the world’s climate scientists” accept the consensus, articles in the Washington Post, the U.K.’s Guardian, CNN and other news outlets now claim…
This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.
The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth — out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, astronomers and meteorologists.
All together now, “Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya, kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya….”
About one dozen families who recently immigrated to Canada are demanding that the Louis Riel School Division in Winnipeg excuse their children from music and coed physical education programs for religious reasons.
We’re pretty sure the Royal Canadian Mounted Thought Police have already been notified, so Professor Mahfooz Kanwar should be prepared for their arrival.
The Calgary Herald has the details:
We need more politically incorrect professors like Mahfooz Kanwar
About one dozen families who recently immigrated to Canada are demanding that the Louis Riel School Division in Winnipeg excuse their children from music and coed physical education programs for religious reasons.
The families believe that music is un-Islamic — just like the Taliban believe and then imposed on the entire population of Afghanistan — and that physical education classes should be segregated by gender even in the elementary years…
In any event, the school district is trying to find a way to adapt the curriculum to fit the wishes of these families, rather than these families adapting to fit into the school and Canadian culture.
Mahfooz Kanwar, a member of the Muslim Canadian Congress, says he has some better ideas.
“I’d tell them, this is Canada, and in Canada, we teach music and physical education in our schools. If you don’t like it, leave. If you want to live under sharia law, go back to the hellhole country you came from or go to another hellhole country that lives under sharia law,” said Kanwar, who is a professor emeritus of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
Can Keith Olbermann increase the audience at Al Gore’s Current TV? Well, let’s just say that the bar has been set pretty damn low.
Can Keith Olbermann increase the audience at Al Gore’s Current TV? Well, let’s just say that the bar has been set pretty damn low.
The Hollywood Reporter has the devastating details:
You could fit all of Current TV's viewers in an average NBA arena. With room to spare.
Olbermann’s Current show will likely premiere in late May, when the non-compete clause in his exit agreement with NBC Universal will have reached its conclusion. Sources tell THR that that agreement also stipulates that Olbermann cannot work for any network considered a competitor.
“He had no choice but to go to a place like Current because his non-compete excluded just about every other place,” said an MSNBC insider.
Current averaged 18,000 homes in primetime for fourth quarter 2010, lower than any other network measured by Nielsen.
They averaged just 18,000 homes? For god’s sake, man, that’s pathetic. When a network has fewer viewers than IHateTheMedia.com has readers, you have nowhere to go but up.
As we reported the other day, MSNBC’s ratings have completely tanked since Olbermann was unceremoniously shown the door. The universe of far left television have proven to be a mere sliver of the population, so one would assume that there will be a direct relationship between any increase in Current TV viewers and a decrease in MSNBC viewers.
Is it the ghost of King Tut? The ghost of King Farouk? The ghost of Yul Brynner? The ghost of Keith Olbermann’s career?
Is it the ghost of King Tut? The ghost of King Farouk? The ghost of Yul Brynner? The ghost of Keith Olbermann’s career?
Check out the 1:20 mark of this video clip and you see a translucent, green figure floating through – and over – the crowd of rioting Egyptians. It appears to be a rider atop a horse.
We love Herman Cain. He’s all black, all conservative and all business. TheHill.com reports on Hermanator’s barnburner of a speech at CPAC this weekend.
We love Herman Cain. He’s all black, all conservative and all business. TheHill.com reports on Hermanator’s barnburner of a speech at CPAC this weekend:
Herman Cain told conservative activists the country is being ruined by “stupid people” and said liberals attempt to discredit President Obama’s critics with accusations of racism.
Cain, a one-time Senate candidate and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, is the most prominent African-American considering a run for the GOP presidential nomination.
Print up the bumper stickers now: Hermanator 2012.
There was no neutrality in this vote. The Swiss have overwhelmingly rejected a leftwing referendum that would have taken away their guns and stored them “safely” in armories.
There was no neutrality in this vote. The Swiss have overwhelmingly rejected a leftwing referendum that would have taken away their guns and stored them “safely” in armories.
A referendum, launched by a coalition of non-governmental groups, religious authorities and centre-left parties, pushed to have the weapons stored in armouries instead.
Take back the night: "Gun monopoly for criminals? No gun control."
The initiative also aimed to abolish the practice of allowing those on military service to keep their government-issue assault rifles even after they leave the army.
But the coalition failed to secure the votes of both a majority of the population and cantons.
Final results showed that 20 out of 26 cantons were against while 56.3 per cent of the population rejected the initiative.
For any initiative to pass, the twin support of a majority of citizens and of cantons is required….
Amnesty International also issued a statement saying that it is “regrettable that the majority of the Swiss population did not find that the place of a weapon is not at home.”
When asked why he robbed banks, gangster Willie Sutton once said, “Because that’s where the money is.”
The obvious corollary that the left refuses to understand is that Swiss criminals don’t rob homes because that’s where the guns are.
The headline on Andrew Sullivan’s latest opinion piece at TheAtlantic.com is pretty damn shocking, especially coming from a one-time Obamaton: “Obama To The Next Generation: Screw You, Suckers.”
The headline on Andrew Sullivan’s latest opinion piece at TheAtlantic.com is pretty damn shocking, especially coming from a one-time Obamaton: “Obama To The Next Generation: Screw You, Suckers.”
“And he throws like a girl” is just about the only insult Sullivan didn’t break out:
Andrew "No Links" Sullivan has changed his opinion of President Obama
[Senators] have to lead, because this president is too weak, too cautious, too beholden to politics over policy to lead. In this budget, in his refusal to do anything concrete to tackle the looming entitlement debt, in his failure to address the generational injustice, in his blithe indifference to the increasing danger of default, he has betrayed those of us who took him to be a serious president prepared to put the good of the country before his short term political interests. Like his State of the Union, this budget is good short term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bullshit it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road.
To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you’re fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama’s cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America’s fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.
While we appreciate Andrew Sullivan’s change of opinion, we’re still pissed at him. TheAtlantic.com is one of the biggest, busiest websites in the world. When IHateTheMedia.com was in its formative days we did one particular story (The Most Inappropriate Logo Design in History) that got a lot of links. Sullivan cost us tons of traffic by linking to another site that ripped off our story without attribution. Even after we sent Sullivan a nice, polite email letting him know that we had originated the story, no attribution.
UPDATE: Now we’re even more pissed. We just did a Goggle image search for “Andrew Sullivan” and the image from our original story came up on the first page. We clicked on that link and learned that our story was Sullivan’s most popular story of 2009. By far his most popular story of 2009. And IHateTheMedia.com got bupkis out of it.
Thanks for nothin’, Andrew.
See that thing down at the bottom of this story. That’s what’s called a link. And what we did at the top of this story is what’s called attribution. Learn what they are, Mr. Big Time Journalist Blogger Man.
Oh, by the way, you’re a little late to the party on this Obama thing, too, buddy.
Time magazine has yet written another article on the tres fashionable Michelle Obama. This one’s written by Kate Betts, who has, coincidentally, written a new book called Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style.
Aaaarrrrrggggghhh! That’s the sound Howard Dean made when he lost the Iowa caucus and the sound we make every time we see Michelle Obama referred to as a fashion icon.
Last week’s Time magazine squeezed that horrid noise out of us again by publishing yet another article on the tres fashionable Michelle Obama. This one’s written by Kate Betts, who has, coincidentally, written a new book called Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style.
Barack Obama pauses to consider the laughable thought that his wife is considered a fashion icon
Given her widespread reputation as one of the most stylish women ever to inhabit the White House, you might think Michelle Obama automatically belongs in the Madison-Kennedy lineage. But her background argues differently. No one can claim that Michelle Obama doesn’t know what it’s like to work or that she entered marriage because she didn’t get an education and lacked economic power of her own. It is plain that she has learned as much if not more from the example of Hillary Clinton as from the example of Jackie Kennedy.
What makes Obama exceptional is that she seems so at home in both camps. So at home that the whole debate about style and substance suddenly seems passé, an anachronism of the gender wars, a false dichotomy enforced by narrow-minded men and women at war with themselves. That Michelle Obama does not see style and substance as an either-or choice is a powerful statement that the underlying assumptions about women’s roles and images have changed. Embodying the confluence of substance and style, she has helped reconcile the long-standing antagonism between them. She has, in some sense, made them one and the same.
C’mon, Kate, any impartial observer would have to admit that Michelle Obama’s fashion sense is more akin to Teddy Kennedy’s than Jackie Kennedy’s.
We’ve looked through thousands of photos of Jackie Kennedy and we cannot find one – not one – in which she looks less stylish than Michelle Obama does in any of these photos.
We’ve chronicled the First Lady’s faux pas before, but Time and Kate force us to present this additional evidence.
ABC host George Stephanopoulos showed up on O’Reilly’s show Monday night with a news flash: Americans want more government spending. And, oh, by the way, that staggering debt is all George Bush’s fault.
We were just beginning to think that liberals had finally put the “It’s George Bush’s fault” meme out to pasture. But then ABC host George Stephanopoulos showed up on O’Reilly’s show Monday night with a news flash:
Americans want more government spending. And, oh, by the way, that staggering debt is all George Bush’s fault.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually spoke up against an enemy of the United States. Yeah, the Hillary Clinton. She actually accused Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of hypocrisy.
Well, this is odd. This is something you don’t see very often.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton actually spoke up against an enemy of the United States. Yeah, the Hillary Clinton. She actually accused Iran and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of hypocrisy.
Separated at birth: Bolivian strongman Evo Morales and CHIPS star Erik Estrada. Yeah, maybe so, but we’ll bet that the Bolivian strongman can’t handle a Harley like Ponch.
Yeah, maybe so, but we’ll bet that the Bolivian strongman can’t handle a Harley like Ponch.
Our team of intrepid investigative reporters reveals Republican Congressman Christopher Lee’s 100% guaranteed-to-work CraigsList pick-up lines.
Brainless, shirtless, and jobless. Republican Congressman Christopher Lee suddenly, unexpectedly resigned from Congress after his CraigsList embarrassment. But our team of intrepid investigative reporters reveals Lee’s 100% guaranteed-to-work Craigslist pick-up lines.
Christopher Lee wasn't a Blue Dog Democrat, but he was a horndog Republicans
1. “Do you support the Second Amendment? Then check out these guns.”
2. “I’d like to gerrymander your district.”
3. “What’s your campaign sign?”
4. “I’m Christopher Lee and I approve this massage.”
5. “Lets put it to an up and down vote.”
6. “Come back to my place and I’ll introduce you to my caucus.”
7. “If I said you had a deliberative body would you hold it against me?”
8. “The Chair recognizes the gentle lady from my dreams.”
9. “How’d you like a position on my staff?”
10. “My armed forces sub committee is studying the feasibility of a quick withdrawal from Iraq … so how’d you like to help me perfect the art of pulling out?”
Plus this special bonus pick-up line used only on special occasions and on very special women:
11. “Look at me. Now look at your man. I’m the Congressman your man could smell like.”
Sheila Jackson Lee is on the warpath. She’s not pissed off about any issues she should be pissed off about. No, she’s pissed off about one of Pepsi’s Super Bowl commercials.
Sheila Jackson Lee is on the warpath. She’s not pissed off about the deficit nor about our national bumbling during the Egyptian crisis nor about our porous border nor about any of the other issues she should be pissed off about. No, she’s pissed off about one of Pepsi’s Super Bowl commercials.
In fact, she’s so pissed that she took to the floor of the Unites States House of Representatives to excoriate Pepsi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dFuWADnpIg
It’s a commercial, Sheila. It’s a commercial for fizzy sugar water. It has nothing to do with selling good nutrition. That commercial would star Michelle Obama.
Of course, as we always feel obligated to point out in every Sheila Jackson Lee story, this is the woman who once asked a NASA administrator if a Mars rover would be able to take a photo of the American flag that Neil Armstrong planted.
Genius. Pure, unadultered genius.
By the way, here’s the Pepsi commercial that has Jackson Lee’s panties in a wad.
General Motors and Chrysler, which went hat-in-hand to Washington begging for bailouts, are getting ready to cut big, fat bonus checks to their salaried employees. Some of them may add up to 50% of their annual salaries.
General Motors and Chrysler, which went hat-in-hand to Washington begging for bailouts, are getting ready to cut big, fat bonus checks to their salaried employees. Some of them may add up to 50% of their annual salaries.
An evolution: General Motors, Government Motors, Gimme Motors
Bloomberg.com has details of yet another taxpayer-funded rip-off in Motor City:
GM plans to pay bonuses to most managers equal to 15 percent to 20 percent of their annual salary and as high as 50 percent to less than 1 percent of its 26,000 U.S. salaried employees, said one of the people, who asked not to be named revealing internal plans. Bonuses for Chrysler’s 10,755 salaried workers will average about $10,000, with a small group getting as much as half of their salary, one of the people said.
The payouts come as GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. prepare for contract talks this year with the United Auto Workers, which is seeking a share of the industry’s growing prosperity. Ford, the only U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy in 2009, is expected to pay bonuses equal to 10 percent or more of base pay to some salaried staff, said a person familiar with the plan.
“The union is going to be very angry about this,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in an interview yesterday. “If these kinds of bonuses are paid to salaried workers, then the union’s demands will increase, knowing management can’t claim an inability to pay.”
The unions are going to be angry? Screw the unions. As a result of the bailouts, they now own the damn companies. Their cushy pension plans and generous medical plans remain intact.
Far as we’re concerned, it’s the American taxpayers who deserve to be pissed.
We picked up a copy of the Cal Poly’s school newspaper, The Daily Mustang, at newspaper rack the other day and got a lesson in how our tax dollars are being spent. You won’t like it.
California Polytechnic University, more affectionately known as Cal Poly, is located here in lovely San Luis Obispo, California, intergalactic headquarters of IHateTheMedia.com.
We picked up a copy of the school newspaper, The Daily MustangThe Mustang Daily, at newspaper rack the other day and got a lesson in how our tax dollars are being spent.
Your tax dollars at work: "Blow his mind with a classic blow job"
A special Valentine’s Day article was headlined “Blow his mind with a classic blowjob.”
The story noted that the writer “Caitlyn Harkins is an English sophomore, Mustang Daily copy editor and sex columnist.” Some of Harkins’ other masterpieces include “A look at nature’s Rubik’s Cube: the clitoris,” “For your viewing pleasure: a closer look at porn” and “Spice up your vocabulary with dirty talk.’
We’re pretty sure that Catilyn’s column makes her a very popular girl and that she rarely spends a Friday night home alone. But we’re far less confident that California taxpayers would consider a hardcore sex advice column in a college newspaper to be a reasonable use of their hard earned-money. Is this really the kind of journalism training we expect from a major university?
That being said, IHateTheMedia.com does have an internship available, Caitlyn.
Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, the mayor of Madrid, boasted of big reductions in air pollution since he had taken office in 2003 — unfortunately it was all an illusion.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in two years of doing whatever the hell it is we do here at IHateTheMedia.com, it’s that things are not always what they appear to be. Especially when it comes to environmental news.
Good news! Madrid's air has never been cleaner!
The Financial Times reports from Spain:
When Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, the mayor of Madrid, boasted of big reductions in air pollution since he had taken office in 2003, it seemed a moment for the city’s residents to celebrate an environmental breakthrough.
“Today we have better air quality in Madrid than ever before,” Mr Ruiz-Gallardón proclaimed.
Fabulous! That’s great news! Couldn’t be better! But it could be a bit, shall we say, misleading.
Unfortunately for him and for the 3.3m inhabitants of the Spanish capital, investigators concluded the improvements in air quality were an illusion.
The state prosecutor’s office found that in 2009 the Madrid municipality had quietly moved nearly half its pollution sensors from traffic-clogged streets in the city centre to parks and gardens.
This is, unfortunately, the way it is with environmental reporting.
One day we hear that a graph of the world’s average temperature has never been higher. The next day we learn that a huge number of weather stations in frozen Russia have been decommissioned and scientists say … well … ahem … perhaps so, but that surely has nothing to do with our funding … uhhhh … we mean … our results.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, “There are lies, damn lies and people getting federal grants.”
A marine unit got pinned down in the street in Tal Afa, west of Mosul in Iraq. They had a video camera mounted on the bumper of their armored HUM-V. The bad guys are hiding behind the white van parked just down the street.
Call us gruesome (you’ve called us worse), but this is one amazing video.
The background: A marine unit got pinned down in the street in Tal Afa, west of Mosul in Iraq. They had a video camera mounted on the bumper of their armored HUM-V. The bad guys are hiding behind the white van parked just down the street. Be aware that every time you hear a ping, it’s the sound of a bad guy’s bullet hitting the HUM-V.
Keep your eyes on the van when the Marine says they just fired the “rifle.” That’s military slang meaning an F-16 aircraft just launched a Maverick missile. You’ll hear the Maverick coming in and a split second later, see it send the bad guys off to meet their virgins.
End of story. For the bad guys, that is.
(We’ve watched this thing about a dozen times. Watch closely and you’ll see something fly up out of the frame after the explosion and fall back through the left side of the frame just before the end of the video. Is that Akbar?)
you can always count on the New York Post to come through with the best headlines on any story. Like this one on Hosni Mubarack.
When iOwnTheWorld.com runs the front page of the New York Post, you can consider it just another demonstration of their lack of creativity. When we do it, you can consider it an exposé of their lack of creativity.
Either way, you can always count on the New York Post to come through with the best headlines on any story. Like this one:
Former Minnesota Governor and expected but so far unannounced Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty delivered the best line at this week’s CPAC convention.
Former Minnesota Governor and expected but so far unannounced Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty delivered the best line at this week’s CPAC convention.
The Hill reports the laugher:
“I’m not one who questions the existence of the president’s birth certificate,” Pawlenty said.
Republican yukmeister and future Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty
The former Minnesota governor and possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate used that line as a set-up, though, to a larger jab at Obama.
“But when you listen to his policies, don’t you at least wonder what planet he’s from? On what planet do they create jobs by taxing the daylight out of people trying to grow jobs? On what planet do they try to reduce the deficit by spending even more? On what planet do they make healthcare better by putting bureaucrats in charge?” he said, according to prepared remarks.
We know the answer. We know what planet Obama is from and we’re surprised no one else has ever figured it out:
Michelle Antoinette appeared on the Tom Joyner morning radio show to promote her “Let’s Move” program. She tells Tom about what she calls a cute little trick. We call it teaching your kids to lie manipulate others and get what they want.
Michelle Antoinette appeared on the Tom Joyner morning radio show to promote her “Let’s Move” program. She tells Tom about what she calls a cute little trick. We call it teaching your kids to lie and to manipulate others to get what they want.
Here’s Michelle blathering on and on and on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw3wETtDDsk
The PSAs (public service announcements) we launched this week provide some really cute tips for parents and they’re going to start airing on the media, 33,000 media outlets over the next few weeks and they’re going to continue for several months. They give parents some cute tips. In one ad the mom makes the kid go up and down the stairs several times looking for her purse when she knows where it is – just making her go up and down and up and down the stairs a few times before she gets the dollar she’s looking for. So we have to be creative as parents particularly in the African American communities where, you know, we don’t have sports leagues, we don’t have…it’s not safe to play outside sometimes because our neighborhoods, you know, we don’t have the kind of safety net that we need. So we have to start sharing with each other some tips because there are communities all over the country that are running into these issues. We, as parents, have to get creative.
Don’t look now, Michelle, but your commercial shows a white mom and white kid in what appears to be an upper middle class home in what we assume is an upper middle class neighborhood. In your defense, however, it does show the white upper middle class mom getting just as much enjoyment out of deceiving her child as any black mom could ever get.
We picture the following scene in the White House:
Barack: “Hey, Michelle, could you run to the Lincoln Bedroom and see if I left my wallet up there.”
Michelle: (Panting) “It’s not up here, Barry.”
Barack: “How ‘bout you run over to the Oval Office and see if I left it there.”
Michelle: (Panting even harder) I don’t see it here, either.
Barack: “Never mind. I just found it in my back pocket.”
Michelle: (Gasping for air) “Hey, you tryin’ to say my ass is fat?”
Barack: “Just sayin’…”
Keith Olbermann’s last show on MSNBC was on Friday, January 21. Who would have guessed that he was the glue that held that network together? Without him, its ratings have fallen off a cliff.
Keith Olbermann’s last show on MSNBC was on Friday, January 21. Who would have guessed that he was the glue that held that network together? Without him, its ratings have fallen off a cliff.
Look at this comparison of ratings and audience size on Thursday, February 10 vs. Thursday, January 21, the day before Keith Olbermann’s sudden departure from MSNBC.
It shows that Fox has picked up huge numbers of viewers and CNN has picked up considerably fewer viewers, but MSNBC has absolutely imploded. Wow. It must be vodka and prescription drug time around 30 Rock.
Network
Show
Jan 21
Feb 10
(+/-)
Fox
O’Reilly
2,918,000
3,325,000
+407,000
Fox
Baier
1,940,000
2,335,000
+395,000
Fox
Hannity
2,079,000
2,293,000
+214,000
Fox
Beck
1,780,000
2,243,000
+463,000
Fox
Shep
1,786,000
1,936,000
+150,000
Fox
Greta
1,460,000
1,744,000
+286,000
MSNBC
8:00 PM
1,106,000
843,000
-267,000
CNN
Morgan
1,025,000
941,000
-86,000
MSNBC
9:00 PM
976,000
765,000
-211,000
MSNBC
10:00 PM
855,000
575,000
-280,000
CNN
Cooper
826,000
740,000
+86,000
MSNBC
6:00 PM
760,000
592,000
-168,000
MSNBC
7:00 PM
700,000
677,000
-23,000
MSNBC
5:00 PM
612,000
844,000
+232,000
CNN
Blitzer
524,000
1,036,000
+512,000
CNN
ParkerSpitzer
522,000
724,000
+202,000
Let’s analyze these numbers by hour rather than by host, because, quite honestly, we tried breaking it down that way but the shuffling of hosts made it almost impossible for us to comprehend our own analysis.
Keith Olbermann's word of the day is "scheudenfreude"
MSNBC 5:00 – This was the one bright spot for MSNBC. Matthews actually increased his audience from 612,000 on January 20 to 844,000 on February 10 for a gain of 232,000. It’s such a bizarre anomaly in the overall MSNBC disaster that we don’t quite know what to make of it. So let’s just say congratulations, Chris. It appears that you are now MSNBC’s biggest star. Of course, that concept must be driving MSNBC programming executives onto the ledges atop 30 Rock.
MSNBC 6:00 – When they call Cenk Uygur a temporary fill-in host, the emphasis is on temporary. He took Ed Schultz’ 760,000 viewers and turned them into 592,000 viewers. Losing 168,000 viewers is no way to get yourself a full-time gig, Cenkie.
MSNBC 7:00 – Many years ago the Editor had to attend a big quarterly board meeting in New York City. His office had miserable numbers and he dreaded having to report them to the New York bigwigs. He was seated to the immediate left of the Chairman of the Board. When it came time for each office to report it’s quarterly numbers, the Chairman started on his right and went around the table. One after another, each office manager reported worse results than the previous one had. By the time it got to the Editor, he was able to say, “Well, we aren’t making what we’d hoped for, but we’re still turning a slight profit” and the room erupted in applause simply because the numbers sucked less than everyone else’s. That’s the position Chris Matthews finds himself in. The bad news? He lost 23,000 viewers. The good news? Everyone else at MSNBC lost a lot more.
Ed Schultz is red-faced and angry about the ratings. Oh, wait. That's just his normal appearance and has absolutely nothing to do with the ratings.
MSNBC 8:00 – Keith Olbermann’s numbers were nothing to brag about, but O’Donnell makes him look like a ratings god. The time slot has gone from 1,106,000 viewers with Olbermann at the helm to a meager 843,000 with O’Donnell. Career enhancement opportunities do not follow losing 267,000 viewers in 30 days.
MSNBC 9:00 – So much for those tall tales of Rachel Maddow’s star power. Without Olbermann as her lead-in she lost 211,000 viewers.
MSNBC 10:00 – Poor Ed Schultz was convinced that the only thing keeping him from success even bigger than his head was a better time slot. So in the wake of Olbermann’s departure, MSNBC moved him from his 5:00 fringe-of-prime time slot to the much-coveted 10 pm slot. The audience responded by pretending Ed was a sinking ship and they were rats. Not only did Ed attract 185,000 fewer viewers at 10 pm than he did at 5 pm, but he also managed to lose 280,000 of the viewers that Lawrence O’Donnell had attracted when he filled the 10 pm slot. Nice work, Ed. We would have said that was impossible, but you proved us wrong.
“What we will be doing is ignoring the people’s business of creating jobs and frankly putting ourselves in the role of a clogged toilet,” said Sheila Jackson Lee.
Some readers may say we’ve gone too far by calling Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee a piece of crap. But we’d say our only mistake was in cleaning up our language. Trust us, we’ll remedy that situation at the end of this story.
Sheila Jackson Lee is a one-woman Dumb-A-Thon
TheHill.com has the details:
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said Friday that House Republicans were blocking the proper functioning of the lower chamber by debating a bill instructing committees to give closer scrutiny to regulations.
“What we will be doing is ignoring the people’s business of creating jobs and frankly putting ourselves in the role of a clogged toilet,” said Lee. “That means we are doing nothing. We are stuffed up.”
This is, of course, the same Sheila Jackson Lee who once asked a NASA administrator if the Mars Pathfinder had taken a photo of the flag planted there by Neil Armstrong. The same Shelia Jackson Lee who said that South Vietnam and North Vietnam are two separate nations now living peacefully side-by-side. The same Sheila Jackson Lee who once took a cell phone call in the middle of her own town hall meeting.
It’s no wonder Sheila Jackson Lee is concerned that Republicans are turning Congress into a toilet. You always fear a toilet when you have shit for brains.
All the Southern Democrats are becoming Republicans. Joe Lieberman became in independent. And anyone else who still calls himself a Democrat has become a socialist. That pretty much leaves the centrist DLC with no potential members.
All the Southern Democrats are becoming Republicans. Joe Lieberman became in independent. And anyone else who still calls himself a Democrat has become a socialist. That pretty much leaves the centrist DLC with no potential members.
Lindsey Graham and John McCain celebrate their election to the Democrat Leadership Council
Politico.com has the specifics:
The Democratic Leadership Council, the iconic centrist organization of the Clinton years, is out of money and could close its doors as soon as next week, a person familiar with the plans said Monday.
The DLC, a network of Democratic elected officials and policy intellectuals had long been fading from its mid-’90s political relevance, tarred by the left as a symbol of “triangulation” at a moment when there’s little appetite for intra-party warfare on the center-right. The group tried — but has failed — to remake itself in the summer of 2009, when its founder, Al From, stepped down as president. Its new leader, former Clinton aide Bruce Reed, sought to remake the group as a think tank, and the DLC split from its associated think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute…
The DLC is already showing signs of disrepair. Its website currently leads a Harold Ford op-ed from last November, titled, “Yes we can collaborate.” It lists as its staff just four people, and has only one fellow. Recent tax returns weren’t immediately publicly available, but returns from 2004-2008 show a decline in its budget from $2.6 million to $1.5 million, and a source said funding further dried up during the financial crisis that began nine months before Reed took over.
Don’t close your doors yet, DLC. There’s still hope. If you want four eager new members, go talk to John McCain, Susan Collins, Olympia Snow and Lindsey Graham. We’re pretty sure they’d love to join your organization.
