Cliven Bundy, the rancher who thinks that he has a right to have his cattle graze on public property for free while also looking down on African-Americans as people who might have been better off as slaves rather than on welfare, is the gift for comedy that does not stop giving, mainly because he will not stop talking.
[Read more…]
With the announcement that Stephen Colbert will leave his current show and replace David Letterman as the host of CBS’s The Late Show, there has been speculation of what he will do in his new venue and what Comedy Central will place in his time slot. Of course, Colbert going on broadcast TV, the supposedly mainstream entertainment channels, has made his right-wing enemies apoplectic as a further sign of traditional values being destroyed, with Rush Limbaugh fuming that “CBS has just declared war on the heartland of America. No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values, conservatism. Now it’s just wide out in the open.”
[Read more…]
The Daily Show uses the absurd fuss over the news of the future birth of Hillary Clinton’s grandchild to examine how differently the media scrutinize male and female politicians. Although the clips are funny, it is not really a laughing matter. Talking of laughing matters, do people recall the time when she was running for president in 2007 and there was a period of intense focus on the way she laughed and whether it was an unbecoming cackle? It was ludicrous.
[Read more…]
The increasing numbers of Hispanic and other minorities in the US means that their votes are crucial to winning elections and so winning over this demographic would seem to be a natural goal of all political parties. But doing so has been problematic for the Republican party.
[Read more…]
It appears that not only is church attendance declining overall, church leaders fear that religion and churchgoing is becoming increasingly seen as something that mainly women do, which is likely to lead to even greater male defections from religious institutions. Stephen Colbert looks at some novel attempts to boost attendance and to also give worship a more manly image.
[Read more…]
While much media attention is being paid to the defiance of the Ukrainian government by various armed groups in that country, you may have missed the story of armed defiance of the US government taking place right here.
[Read more…]
Stephen Colbert returned from his break and used two segments to make fun of the media fuss over the announcement that Hillary Clinton’s daughter is pregnant. Colbert mugs a lot for the camera but in these segments he outdid himself. I was really impressed at how flexible his face is. Watch especially at the 3:24 mark on the first clip and the 1:00 mark on the second.
[Read more…]
Today is reportedly the day when William Shakespeare was born 450 years ago in 1564. There is no actual record of his birth date but he was baptized on April 26th and this makes people think that today was the likely day, which also happens to be the day he died in 1616.
[Read more…]
The success of the ACA in enrolling people has pretty much unhinged the GOP who had clearly thought that the botched rollout meant that the numbers would be way below the original target. This cartoon pretty much captures their reaction.
[Read more…]
Bob Mankoff is the long-time cartoon editor of the New Yorker magazine, notorious for the quirky and sometime inscrutable nature of its humor. In this TED talk, he tries to explain what kind of cartoon he thinks fits within the framework of that magazine. Analyzing humor and what makes people laugh is a decidedly difficult proposition but it is a little easier to do with cartoons and Mankoff gives a highly entertaining effort.
[Read more…]