Jon Stewart is the Most Trusted Newsman

A year ago, the NY Times asked

Is Jon Stewart
the Most Trusted Man in America?

Jon Stewart is definitely great, but even I wouldn't go quite THAT far, even rhetorically. However a recent Time poll showed a result that I can agree with, even though Stephen Colbert might disagree:

"Who is America's
Most Trusted Newscaster?"

(Hint: It's not Katie Couric)

The Daily Show & The Colbert Report are the only shows that I try to watch every night.

I almost never watch the network news, and I'll change the channel if the cable news is airing what I consider to be worthless content.

The world we live in is often absurd & approaching the news from a strictly serious, respectful angle only gives a false sense that the many clowns (<Warning: Clicking here may cause nightmares) in public life are "serious" & should automatically be given respect.

Comedy Central's political comedy lineup is a great because there are plenty of smart, funny people who appreciate an irreverent look at current events. Satire is a sublime form of information that can have a powerful effect on public opinion. Although he tends to play the simple goofball alot, Mr. "Stewart" is in a very unique position to expose, humiliate, & scorn the most powerful people on earth with no real consequences. He's the modern political court jester for the entire country. It's a pretty awesome thing when you think about it....

The Satirical Genius of Stephen Colbert

 Stephen Colbert transferring his "Colbert SuperPAC" money to Jon Stewart.

I've been a regular viewer of The Colbert Report since the first episode. He was one of the funniest 'correspondents' on The Daily Show, and (in my opinion) has far surpassed Jon Stewart has the greatest political satirist alive... maybe ever.

The NY Times magazine had this great article that gives a look behind the persona that he has meticulously crafted.

NY Times Magazine:

How Many Stephen Colbert's Are There?

His roast of Dubya in 2006 was a legendary performance & guaranteed him a place among the Gods of Comedy.

Google Video

2006 White House Correspondents Dinner

However, since then he has continued to bring an insane amount of wit & cutting insight to every show. His character is a consistently brilliant parody of the know-nothing plutocratic jerks who can usually be found on right-wing media like Fox News, as either guests or pundits.

Recently on his show, he has been masterfully utilizing all the great comedic material being provided by the buffoons running in the GOP primaries.

He has also been busy exposing the ludicrous process & laws behind elections in our country. At the forefront of his crusade to highlight the absurdities of our political system has been the 'Citizen's United' decision by the Supreme Court.

NYT:

Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit

Basically, it ruled that current election law allows corporations to be considered "people" when it comes to political speech.

Therefore, through supposedly unconnected groups known as Super PACs, unlimited money can be raised by supporters of candidates. There is no requirement to disclose how much has been raised or where it came from.

Therefore, he started Colbert SuperPAC to show the process behind forming these legal entities which are having such a detrimental effect on the democratic system.

This week he made a surprise move to hand over the operation of his Colbert SuperPAC to Jon Stewart. By doing this, he has opened himself up to exploring a run as a candidate in the South Carolina primary election!

This should be very interesting... & hysterical!

The Colbert Report: January 12, 2012

Full Episode Link

The Colbert Report
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Amen to The Daily Show Choir

"Humor is reason gone mad. "
-Groucho Marx

Fox News is much too 'right'-leaning for my tastes, especially the opinion shows. I can watch some of the objective news reports, but the rabid 'conservatism' of entertainers like Hannity & Glenn Beck doesn't jive at all w/ my worldview. Those 2 boneheads make Bill O'Reilly seem like a supreme voice of reason nowadays. Of course, 'Papa Bear' is still as full of it as the rest of Fox News.

MSNBC, of course, has the opposing liberal lineup of opinion talk show hosts. I feel- in my totally fair & balanced opinion- that they tend to be more empirical and forward-thinking in their viewpoints. What can I say... I prefer rationality to visceral emotional response. That said, all news opinion shows are subject to hyperbole & general ridiculousness.

Most people getting their news from more varied objective sources find a lot of Fox News programming to be more objectionable than objective. Sometimes it's just a waste of breath to try to engage the craziness, though. That's when Jon Stewart speaks for the socially conscious yet irreverent among us when he suggests, "Go F*ck Yourself" to the unreasonable regressive mindset of right-wing political ideologues & talking heads.

One of those idiotic talking heads, Bernie Goldberg, figured he'd try to get some publicity by taking some jabs at Jon Stewart & his audience on O'Reilly's show, despite proof that Daily Show viewers (like myself) are predictably less ignorant than the average Fox News acolyte.

PEW SURVEY:
Daily Show/Colbert Viewers Most Knowledgeable,
Fox News Viewers Rank Lowest

Of course The Daily Show stepped back up to deliver the knockout blow to poor Bernie in a segment that was a close 2nd to the Jon Stewart's legendary "Conservative Libertarian" monologue mocking Glenn Beck.

When you have a America's most influential social humorist singing a chorus of "Go F*ck Yourself" this time backed up with a gospel choir, the exchange is over... & you (meaning Fox News & Bernie Goldberg) have lost.

The power of absurdity & mockery is supreme...

The Daily Show:
April 20, 2010: Bernie Goldberg Fires Back

Rally to Restore Sanity!!!

No sooner did I finish writing about the craziness of the extreme right-wing ideologues & Tea Party candidates dominating the national political discourse... than I turned on The Daily Show to see the big announcement.

Rally to Restore Sanity

Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert have been hinting at some kind of event, a la Glenn Beck. Tonight, Jon Stewart revealed the planned "Rally to Restore Sanity" which is probably going to make Beck's facetious 'Rally to Restore Honor' look like a little picnic.

This is so great. I am absolutely going if it's humanly possible. The Daily Show's political humor & reverence for The Absurd helped me smile through the years of incompetence/malfeasance of the Bush Administration. I've been watching The Colbert Report since the first episode and now both shows are required viewing for me.

Despite the satirical nature of the event, my fellow Daily Show viewers are actually the most accurately informed news consumers. You have to know the people, facts, & context of current events to understand all the jokes on the shows. It's hard to follow the humor if you're an ignoramus.

Anyway, I'm psyched, & if it goes according to plan it should be an awesome day.

Jon Stewart on the Right-Wing Freak Show

The other night, Jon Stewart had prime material to work with as he went to town on the same set of wackos that I just posted about:

He had the appropriate response to the reactions of Pat Robertson & Rush Limbaugh to the Haiti earthquake.
"Shut your pie hole old man." Amen to that...

The Daily Show:
"Haiti Earthquake Reactions"

The stupid, corny, & weird interview between Glenn Beck & Sarah Palin. I didn't even see the opening segment- which was uncomfortably creepy. I was laughing my ass off, though.

The Daily Show:

"Crazy Like a Contributor"

For the record, I'm embedding clips from Hulu because Comedy Central's embedding code sucks & I don't care enough about programming to figure it out.

Zach Galifianakis on a Banana Phone

I was just flipping through channels & Comedy Central had on Jon Stewart's telethon for autism.

Comedy Central's
Night of Too Many Stars

At one point, they were showing the panel with dozens of celebrities taking pledge phone calls. I noticed madman Zach Galifianakis holding a banana up to his ear in the background.

Eventually Jon Stewart noticed & asked him if he was having an interesting conversation.

Star Wars Stuff: Cool Graphics & Celebration V

I've seen a lot of neat Star Wars related items from The Internets lately.

A friend of mine emailed me this cool panorama of the Hoth ice planet w/ a roving probe droid amongst the mountains of ice. The artist is Dan McCarthy.

click for larger version

This is a crazy detailed technical breakdown of everyone's favorite droid, R2-D2:


At the annual Star Wars Celebration geek convention, George Lucas unveiled an action figure that combines 2 of my favorite pop culture phenomenons- Star Wars & The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.

"George Lucas Honors Jon Stewart,
Makes Him a Stormtrooper."

To try & balance out the Star Wars geekness, I'm including a photo from the Celebration V- a stage full of "slave Leia" cosplayers... This might be simultaneously the hottest & dorkiest damn thing I've ever seen.

Jabba knew what he was doing.

Then there's the newly revealed deleted scene from Return of the Jedi that would've been a good one to include (minus all the maniacs in the background cheering):

...
Then there's this.

Jon Stewart Interviews Pres. Bush!

Ok, so it's actually Will Ferrell... but it's funny stuff, especialy considering how hard it is to outdo the ridiculous antics of the real Dubya.

Jon Stewart Analyzes Fox's 'Nazi' Logo

As a graphic artist, I recognize how easy it is to make arbitrary connections between similar visual designs.

Especially with modern tools like the internet & digital imaging software, the ability to make a convincing correlation between seemingly random elements is easier than ever.

Sometimes, the subversive use of symbolism is intentional- like artists Jay-Z or Lady Gaga incorporating obvious Masonic imagery into their creative repertoire which, despite the inevitable conspiracy theories, is mostly for the visual impact. I got one of Jay-Z's Rocawear shirts with Freemason symbols for my brother, not because he's in on a secret society, but just because it looks cool! Which is probably the primary intended purpose.

Even more intellectually dishonest & downright sinister is the use of symbolism to misrepresent the facts in order to push a political agenda. One of the most shameless hucksters of this kind of disinformation is Fox News & it's shameless Pied Piper to America's most gullible scared white people, Glenn Beck. The Pasty Propagandist has blown my mind on occasion with his paranoid ramblings about socialist messages on the US Dime & in Rockefeller Center, and how Obama is the next Stalin. Fortunately, I am not nearly stupid enough to be misled by the political dissembling of that money-grubbing shithead.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of art, or even the basic reality that we inhabit, understands that connections can be made between literally anything- as Jon Stewart effectively demonstrated recently:

The Daily Show:
"A Farewell to Arms"

Obama: Won't Enslave the White Race!!!

Jon Stewart on the Daily Show has been giving a so-so performance lately. It seems like he expects unfunny things to be funny just because he's saying it. It's a stark contrast to Stephen Colbert's sharp character-driven wit. Both shows are great in their own way, though.

However, the iconic Mr. Stewart made up for any recent mediocrity with the single most absurdly poignant question of the campaign to Barack Obama, that comes toward the end of the 1st part of the interview. He exposes the ridiculous undercurrent of perceived racial implications of a non-white person leading the country.

JS: Sir, we are concerned that ultimately, at the end of the day, if you are fortunate enough to get the Democratic nomination, fortunate enough to become President of the United States, will you pull a ‘bait and switch’, sir, and enslave the white race? Is that your plan? And if it is your plan, be honest, tell us now.

BO:That is not our plan, Jon. But I think your paranoia might make you suitable as a debate moderator.

The Daily Show w/ Barack Obama

Where the interview completely fails is
1) his request for Obama to "add hope" to stupid phrases.
I could absolutely write better segments than that.
2) Stewart's obnoxiously self-indulgent recommendation of some unknown restaurant near Pittsburg. wtf cares?

Sen. Obama was also on the Colbert Report where he acknowledged "The #1 Threat to America"...

Colbert Report w/ Barack Obama

Goodbye, Colbert Report

 Last night, I watched the final episode of "The Colbert Report". It was a great end to one of my all-time favorite shows:

The Colbert Report
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I've been watching The Colbert Report since the very first episode. Having already been a fan of the Daily Show, I was was eager to see what kind of humor Stephen Colbert would bring on a nightly basis.

In many ways, Colbert surpassed Jon Stewart & his former gig at the Daily Show. The brilliance of his performance cannot be understated. Night after night, he has exposed the absurdities in our culture, politics, entertainment, & all aspects of our lives.

Even though I didn't get to see actually see him there, one of the most interesting events of my life was "The Rally to Restore Sanity" that he and Stewart organized in Washington DC. The crowd was, by far, the biggest mass of human beings that I've ever encountered. My brother and I went with our friends and had a truly memorable time.

The Monkey Buddha Archives:

Rally to Restore Sanity

Our Lord & Savior, St. Stephen

This is one of the "protest" signs I made for the rally

Stephen Colbert is simply the greatest satirical mind of our generation. His spot-on parody of a self-absorbed, corporate boot-licking, blindly patriotic ignoramus was pure genius. His persona allowed him to openly mock the viewpoints of idiotic, right-wing blowhards who are so wrong about everything in the world- like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly & America's stupidest pundit, Sean Hannity.

What I give both Stewart & Colbert the most credit for is providing sanity through humor, amidst the madness and chaos of the world we live in.

This was especially true during the Dark Ages of the Bush/Cheney presidency. All these conservatives who now think life under Obama is so terrible... they completely forget the constant horror the world faced while Dubya & his Dungeon Master caused havoc in America and around the globe.

In this light, I believe Stephen Colbert's most historic contribution to comedy was his speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner. It was the ultimate example of speaking truth to power, and took giant balls of red, white, & blue steel.  It was especially satisfying for those of us who deeply disagreed with Bush's policies at the time, yet risked being called 'anti-American' or 'terrorist sympathizers' for daring to speak out against the War Monkey and the morons who unquestioningly supported his regressive agenda.

Thank you Stephen Colbert, for providing nightly laughs and comic relief to your Nation for almost a decade.

Glenn Beck's Dream... My Nightmare

The figureheads of America's Moron-ocracy.

I was outside eating breakfast at the park & the weather is beautiful. I figured Glenn Beck's rally (starring Glenn Beck & Sarah Palin) was already underway to Restore America's Honor™.

Of course, we've lost our Honor™ to the communist black guy that I & everyone else in the country elected President- in order to stop the slide into Beck's regressive brand of conservatism. Therefore, Glenn Beck feels the need to have a rally on same steps & the anniversary as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. This way, his suckers... I mean Goldline customers, I mean fans... can "reclaim" whatever the hell they're trying to reclaim from Obama's bloodthirsty tyranny.

NYT:
"Thousands Hear Beck
and Palin at Washington Rally"

I admit it's possible that Glenn has honest intentions that are based solely on concern for the well-being of America's people.
...It's also possible that today I'll get a big tattoo of Glenn Beck's face on one side of my butt & Sarah Palin's face on the other.

Glenn's melodramatic, self-righteous performance art is directed toward the most impressionable, uninformed, & easily incited of Fox News viewers. I try to watch a few segments of the show when I can stomach it & am absolutely astounded that anyone can take that dork seriously. His followers must think The Pasty One is delivering an inspired revelation revealing the hidden secrets of politics & government. However he has been proven repeatedly to either make misleading, nebulous connections or just make crap up entirely.

Media Matters:
Search "Beck+False"

I'm not going to comment any further than agree w/ my brother who texted me yesterday with a simple message, "Glenn Beck is such an a-hole douchebag." He must have been watching a news report about the rally or reading about it. It's the feeling any normal person should get watching Beck's self-serving antics.

The masters of political comedy, Stewart & Colbert, have already whipped this one to death...

Daily Show:
"I Have a Scheme"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
I Have a Scheme
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Colbert Report:
"Glenn-Livid"

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Glenn-Livid
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

Jon Stewart Tells The Truth While Wearing Glasses

The news of Glenn Beck's departure from Fox News inspired The Daily Show team to produce this humorous homage.

The full episode is here:

The Daily Show:
April 07, 2011

The Daily Show - Intro - Jon Tells the Truth While Wearing Glasses
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

This segment really channels the craziness - mocking Fox News, mixing up Mayan & Aztec history, slandering The Left, and conspiracies galore.

Professor Rodeo Clown deserves nothing less.

How Fox Gets Its News

In memory of one of my favorite progressive bloggers, Bartcop, who just passed away. I'm still finding myself visiting Bartcop.com out of habit, expecting new political humor...

I've reduced my intake of cable news lately, but sometimes (if I'm feeling especially masochistic) I'll watch a little bit of the Fox News opinion shows.

It's like taking a quick, relatively painless trip to a bizarro-dimension, where facts don't matter & insanity is badge of honor.

I always enjoy watching Jon Stewart dismantle the red, white, & blue facade of this corporate Republican propaganda outlet.

click to enlarge

Fox News: 

WE READ 

THE CHAIN EMAILS

YOUR GRANDMA GETS

IN HER INBOX

OUT LOUD 

LIKE THEY WERE TRUE

Crazy Greed

I think this trader is being honest to the extent that he's giving a clear glimpse into the mind of a sociopathic financial parasite.

He's also right that without checks on their power & influence, Goldman Sachs and the other 'too-big-to-fail' banks & investment firms are an unstoppable cancer draining the wealth from society.

I don't enjoy working with numbers, so I would never work in the financial industry. Trading stocks & managing investments would be like my nightmare job, it just seems so crazy. Maybe, to some extent, it is:

Daily Mail:

City Traders Can Be More 

Reckless and Dangerous Than Psychopaths

Obviously, not everyone who works for a bank is a greedy lunatic out to pillage mankind.
However, the fact that the looting of our country by these corporate vampires has gone completely unpunished has given rise to the 'Occupy Wall Street' protest in NYC that has been going on for almost 2 weeks.

Occupy Wall Street

The great populist of our time, Michael Moore, was on MSNBC live from Wall St. earlier & stood up for all the working people who are preyed upon by the nation's banking institutions. He's right on the money, so to speak.

Here's Part 2

of the interview

The only thing I've ever been a part of that could be a considered a protest was the awesome huuuuuge rally in DC organized by Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert.

"The Rally to Restore Sanity" 10-30-10

I've got a good job & need to pay my bills, so I've got nothing to get really pissed off about. However, I'm glad there's all those activists who are there. They are helping to bring awareness to the massive injustices happening on in our county, so people feel empowered to speak out and take action against them.

The Daily Show: Crisis in Dairyland

Jon Stewart & The Daily Show's writers were right on the money with last night's opening segment, highlighting the Republican party's blatant efforts to crush the middle class, for the benefit of their corporate overlords.

It's amazing that people's views can be so warped by right-wing propagandists that union workers & public school teachers are seen as greedy scumbags.

Daily Show: Crisis in Dairyland - Angry Curds

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - Angry Curds
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Daily Show: Crisis in Dairyland - Message for Teachers

The Daily Show - Crisis in Dairyland - Message for Teachers
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Terrorist Death Mosque of Doom™

I was reading the local town newspaper & read a rant by a local woman about the "Cordoba House" community center/mosque that is being proposed in Manhattan.

The shrill letter was unfairly inflammatory to both Muslims & also the so-called "Left" or "liberals" of this country- which seems to be anyone like myself, not filled with fear, hate, & vitriol toward a particular group of people. Basically, her letter described how Islam and The Left are both out to destroy America, and this Park51 center/mosque being proposed is an example of some nefarious agenda. I would recommend the lady turn off the TV or get offline & take a nice, long walk outside to get some fresh air.

To be clear, I don't have any special concern for Muslims, other than they are fellow human beings. Their beliefs are no more or less crazy than the other 2 Abrahamic religions, or any other belief system for that matter. Our country is founded on freedom to worship & you just can't lump in all people of a faith/race/creed together for exclusion and persecution based on the purported actions of a few zealots. If there were really hordes of insane evil Muslims or any other group collectively plotting the destruction of America from within, there'd be bombs and attacks going off in our cities constantly.

Especially considering that the funds for this project aren't even close to being raised yet, this whole 'debate' is basically a manufactured distraction for those easily persuaded.

Politico:
"Mosque a Long Shot to be Built"

Religious Wars are much more exciting for the news industry & 'right-wing' reactionaries than practical issues, like monetary policy or the need for infrastructure investment!

The level-headed among us hesitate branding a general group as The Enemy not out of naïve "coddling," as the writer put it it. The intention is to prevent the violent backlash that has been unleashed on innocent people throughout history, simply because they were part of a particular hated group. It starts with spiteful rhetoric like that letter, but hopefully American society can more quickly learn to deal with these divisive situations in a constructive way.

The op-ed letter really seemed like a Fox News-driven paranoiac screed. The irony lost on the viewers of intellectual luminaries such as Glenn Beck & fellow knucklehead Sean Hannity is that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is a shareholder in Fox's parent company, News Corp. This same prince has also backed the imam behind the proposed community center! The news channel raising the biggest stink about this project is the one with the closest ties to it!!!

NYT:
"Saudi Royal Backs Imam
and Fox News"

Anyway the fact that people are still so monkey-like to still be having these conflicts deriving from primitive clan mentality is expected, but still disappointing in an age of amazing progress in other areas.

I've been seeing plenty of the hateful reation to the specific project & the general idea of Islam in the national news. However, seeing this kind of openly venomous bigotry in my own town's paper has compelled me to respond with an attempt at a rational perspective - free from the emotional parasites of fear, hatred, and anger. Unfortunately when it comes to good ol' traditional religious feuds, it's probably like trying to teach nuclear physics in a room full of apes throwing poo.

Predictably, the best commentary on this whole "Ground Zero Mosque" debacle has been from Jon Stewart & the Daily Show.

The Gods of Comedy are Back

Despite the ongoing writer's strike, the Jon Stewart & Steven Colbert were back on the air tonight.

I'm not sure exactly how the show production is functioning at this point, but they are doing exactly what makes the shows & their hosts so great. The program is being used to advocate for the cause of the creative staff vs. the corporation - on the company's own airwaves!!!

The irony & effectiveness of this use of the situation is absolutely brilliant, which is why I watch the Daily Show & Colbert Report every night.

Jews For (& Against) Obama

The Daily Show had a hilarious segment last night. Wyatt Cenac went to Florida to see how old Jewish voters reacted to the Presidential Debate. Jon Stewart's own reaction at the end is priceless.

Like all groups that we, 'human beings', categorize ourselves into, Jewish people are never a monolithic entity. Groups of 'Jews', like 'Christians', 'Eastern', 'black', 'white', 'old', 'young', 'rich', 'middle class', etc, etc are all going to include many, many people who have differing political views, religions, moral outlooks, artistic tastes, sense of humor & personalities in general.

One of the many annoying things about the corporate-driven 'mainstream' media is the natural human tendency to treat segments (ie. Jewish voters in Florida, women, African-Americans, middle-class) of the population as some kind of hive mind. This is especially true during elections, when stereotypes of all kinds are amplified & reinforced.

As this small group of older Jewish people suggests, even the strongest of social bonds can't prevent strong differences of opinion.



Alot of the people in the Daily Show clip weren't really fond of Obama, but the raunchy & very funny Sarah Silverman is a comedienne of Jewish heritage who definitely supports a President Obama. This video I saw on BoingBoing immediately made me think of the Daily Show clip above. It's like Sarah watched the same clip of those wacky old folks watching the debate.


The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Droopy Dog on "The DC"

I was going to embed this clip in my last post, but it wasn't online yet. It was classic Jon Stewart mockery. The health care montage & Joe Lieberman bit had me laughing.

The Daily Show:
"The DC"