Posts Tagged → politics
Santa T w/ miss Nancy
And now: Mr. T dressed as Santa Claus, with Nancy Reagan in his lap
Celebrities say don’t vote. but vote. but…wait, I’m confused
Leonardo DiCaprio, will i. am, Tobey Maguire, and Forest Whitaker have created public service announcements to encourage American youth to register to vote. The non-partisan PSAs, produced by DiCaprios Appian Way, were created to engage and inspire young people to register and vote and participate in the upcoming election. Celebrities appearing in the PSAs include: Amy Adams, will.i.am, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Bacon, Halle Berry, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Connolly, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Jonah Hill, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Kiedis, Ashton Kutcher, Adam Levine, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Ethan Suplee, Kyra Sedgwick, Michelle Trachtenberg, Usher, and Forest Whitaker.
there’s even a song!! OMG! just TRY not bobbing your head along to THIS little diddy…
But wait! there’s MORE!!! (following video is uncensored)
Think the videos are a little pretentious, condescending, ironic and nonsensical? Then there’s good news! A bunch of no names have created a non-partisan public service announcement response video to thank Hollywood’s elite for telling us to vote:
The Bradley effect in election history
What the FraggleRock is the “Bradley Effect”? It’s a fun name for the theory that black candidates will poll much stronger than the actual election results. SNL exshpleens further:
Is this Bradley effect whosiwhatsis RIKKA-RACISSST? well, some blonde lady writes in a column that if the explanation for such a dichotomy is true, then really its the opposite of racism: It is fear of being accused of racism.
Political correctness has taught people to lie to pollsters rather than be forced to explain why they’re not voting for the African-American.
This is how two typical voters might answer a pollster’s question: “Whom do you support for president?”
Average Obama voter: “Obama.” (Name of average Obama voter: “Mickey Mouse.”)
Average McCain voter: “I’m voting for McCain, but I swear it’s just about the issues. It’s not because Obama’s black. If Barack Obama were a little more moderate — hey, I’d vote for Colin Powell. But my convictions force me to vote for the candidate who just happens to be white. Say, do you know where I can get Patti LaBelle tickets?”
In addition to the social pressure to constantly prove you’re not a racist, apparently there is massive social pressure to prove you’re not a Republican. No one is lying about voting for McCain just to sound cool.
Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.
She goes on to mention the perplexing fact that accusations of racism have previously notsomuch been claimed in these notable cases:
–1976: Jimmy Carter narrowly beat Gerald Ford 50.1 percent to 48 percent.
Bradley effect?: on Sept. 1, Carter led Ford by 15 points. Just weeks before the election, on Oct. 16, 1976, Carter led Ford in the Gallup Poll by 6 percentage points — down from his 33-point Gallup Poll lead in August.
–1980: Ronald Reagan beat Carter by nearly 10 points, 51 percent to 41 percent.
Bradley effect?: A Gallup Poll released days before the election on Oct. 27, had Carter leading Reagan 45 percent to 42 percent.
–1984: Reagan washes America dark burgundy-red with Walter Mondale’s blood by winning 58.8 percent to 40 percent, — the largest electoral landslide in U.S. history.
Bradley effect?: Oct. 15, The New York Daily News published a poll showing Mondale with only a 4-point deficit to Reagan, 45 percent to 41 percent. A Harris Poll about the same time showed Reagan with only a 9-point lead. The Oct. 19 New York Times/CBS News Poll had Mr. Reagan ahead of Mondale by 13 points. All these polls underestimated Reagan’s actual margin of victory by 6 to 15 points.
–1988: George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by a whopping 53.4 percent to 45.6 percent.
Bradley effect?: A New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 5 had Bush leading the Greek homunculus by a statistically insignificant 2 points — 45 percent to 43 percent. (For the kids out there: Before it became a clearinghouse for anti-Bush conspiracy theories, CBS News was considered a credible journalistic entity.)
A week later — or one tank ride later, depending on who’s telling the story — on Oct. 13, Bush was leading Dukakis in The New York Times Poll by a mere 5 points.
Admittedly, a 3- to 6-point error is not as crazily wrong as the 6- to 15-point error in 1984. But it’s striking that even small “margin of error” mistakes never seem to benefit Republicans.
–1992: Bill Clinton beat the first President Bush 43 percent to 37.7 percent. (Ross Perot got 18.9 percent of Bush’s voters that year.)
Bradley effect?: On Oct. 18, a Newsweek Poll had Clinton winning 46 percent to 31 percent, and a CBS News Poll showed Clinton winning 47 percent to 35 percent.
So in 1992, the polls had Clinton 12 to 15 points ahead, but he won by only 5.3 points.
–1996: Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole 49 percent to 40 percent.
Bradley effect?: And yet on Oct. 22, 1996, The New York Times/CBS News Poll showed Clinton leading by a massive 22 points, 55 percent to 33 percent.
–2000: George Bush and Al Gore basically tied. Bush won in the recounts, yes, but only by a few hundred, so “tie” is really the only fair way to describe it.
Bradley effect?: The New York Times/CBS News Poll on Oct. 3, 2000, showed Gore winning by 45 percent to 39 percent.
–2004: G. Dubya Bush beat John “did you know I served in Vietnam??” Kerry, 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent.
Bradley effect?: Most of the October polls showed the candidates in a dead-heat, with Bush 1 to 3 points ahead, but the exit polls on election day had “Dewey defeats Truman”esque tales of a clear Kerry victory.
Damon (political scholar/acteuur), fears competancy of Palin (hockey mom/possible VP)
The quote in the picture is real: Matt Damon says the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for vice president in the United States could end up “like a really bad Disney movie” if John McCain wins the November presidential election.
We missed the sub-par Disney movie about the hockey mom that saves the day (I think it was the Lion King), but what of Damon’s larger concern about the VP choice?
Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Palin, retorted “It’s not surprising that the Barack Obama and his celebrity supporters continue to tear down Gov. Palin with little more than blatant name-calling,” she said. “It’s clear they’re threatened by a candidate who actually has a record of achieving reform and change, while Barack Obama just talks about it.” Oh no u di-int gurlfrennnnd! lolz!
Our favorite part of the Damon-as-pundit hilarity is that apparently he was totally duped by an obvious satire blog post he read about Palin and totally thought was realz. Watch the video and you’ll see him extol his fear about a person possibly being Vic President who might think dinosaurs roamed the land 4,000 years ago (clearly one of the hot policy conflicts facing our nation today. your priorities ROCK Matt!).
HotAir asks, could a Harvard grad be so stupid as to have read this and taken it at face value?
On oil exploration and drilling in the ANWR:
God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats.
That comes from this. A viral e-mail supposedly containing “real quotes” from an Anchorage newspaper. For Damons sake, we will ask you to ignore the title of this post– “FAKE Sarah Palin Quote” — and the disclaimer at the end — “She didn’t really say these things — I made them up. But thanks for all the visits.”
CNN mentions the book burning thing was a viral el fibo as well…
Ace comments:
Not Only Is this Obviously a Joke… But it’s a variation on an old joke. Some years back, Jimmy Fallon, on SNL’s Weekend Update, cracked a joke that a state would allow teaching evolution, but only if the curriculum called dinosaurs “Jesus horses.”
Hilarious. I’ve quoted that before.
This blogger did a variation of that joke (no offense — it’s not theft if you change it up, and kudos to that blogger for having the taste to recognize a great joke when he or she heard it).
The point is, it’s a fucking joke. It’s a goof. It’s obviously a goof. The line comes directly from an SNL punchline (well, slightly retrofitted and with the factory serial number filed off).
But this genius, Matt Damon, who spends his off hours splitting atoms… with his mind, couldn’t recognize an obvious (and old) joke for what it was.
For him, it wasn’t a joke.
It was an Important Action Alert and Pretty Vicious Rant.
Celebrities are paid to entertain us, and it’s hard to say that this doesn’t so…mission accomplished? Aside from the inevitable question you then have to ask: Are They This Stupid? You think they’d have learned the simple proposition that one should check uncited claims made in internet emails before parroting them. Do they not remember Barbra Streisand’s quote of “Shakespeare” warning us all not to vote for Bush?
Sorry Matty! For astute political analysis and biting condemnation on political positions, WE know who to turn to…
It’s illegal to say…
Whitest Kids U Know sketch.
It’s illegal to say, “I want to kill the President of the United States of America.”
CNN to Obama: Our viewers don’t want Wright ?s. OK with you?
Way to fight accusations of bias or evidence that you’re in the tank for the candidate you’re interviewing by saying “I’m not going to ask you any questions on this tough and uncomfortable subject and I want you to know this before we start the interview. Is that okay sir?”. Jesus…
Obama handled it with exactly the kind of grace he should have. He didn’t laugh or do anything obnoxious like nod vigorously – he just says “fair enough” and goes on – even though “fair enough” is something you usually say when someone contradicts or playfully combats something you said, not gives you a present like this. but whatever.
The reverend Wright issue continues to poll as a topic that voters actually DO care about a great deal, so the anchor (John Roberts) was purely injecting his own “I’m sick of this” feelings and claiming it was a public sentiment. Which is… odd, since it coincides with the talking point that official Obama surrogates are going on the cable news shows saying. hmm.
My favorite part though? The fact that they labeled this segment “Obama Unfiltered”.
Full interview is here if you’re interested – with the “Obama Unfiltered” tag conveniently deleted. They talk about a gas tax holiday, Iran, and Sen. Clinton.