This time it was about the two sinister, secret meetings between Jon Stewart and president Obama where it was insinuated that they had coordinated a policy agenda. It never seems to dawn on Fox News that trying to attack Stewart and The Daily Show never fails to boomerang on them. They seem to be really slow learners. And as Stewart says, just because you don’t know something does not mean it is a secret.
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Among other things, on his show Jon Stewart points to what I wrote about yesterday, about this practice of the US lecturing other countries about their failings, even when our record is not that great. As I said, it is not necessary that the country giving the lectures be free from sin (so to speak) but that there should be reciprocity.
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The issue of undocumented immigrants is turning into a big issue in the Republican primary race and you can be certain that it will feature in a big way in the debates and that any crime committed by such a person is going to get huge amounts of attention and be promoted by Fox News and other conservative media as proof positive that these people are a serious menace and will kill us all in our beds if we don’t immediately round them up and throw them out.
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On his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discusses the serious problem of having mandatory minimum sentencing laws that fill up our prisons with people serving long sentences that are not proportionate to the crimes. He makes a powerful case that these laws are unjust and abusive and should not only be repealed but that those already serving long sentences because of them should have their sentences commuted or pardoned altogether.
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I believe that politics is a serious business. It has important consequences and so do not take it lightly or treat it as entertainment. I have little patience with journalists who do not cover particular issues in depth or certain candidates because they consider them too boring. On the other hand, I must admit that an important political story that also has high entertainment value comes along but rarely and must be savored when it does, and the candidacy of Donald Trump fits the bill. Watching the Trump show is better than any reality show or soap opera. Each night ends with you wondering what the next day’s news will bring about his latest actions and reactions.
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Most reasonable people have wondered how could it be that something as crazy as the Church of Scientology got as big as it has. What made L. Ron Hubbard think he could successfully pull off such a preposterous scam as founding a religion involving aliens and the like and get lots of people to give their money, time, and lives to it?
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The Daily Show looks at the critics’ reactions to the deal arrived at between the P5+1 nations and Iran. It is obvious that they had decided what to say before they even knew what the deal contained because that is the level of politics now, where your attitude is totally unconstrained by facts. When your goal is to frighten everyone by warning of the sky falling, the actual issue doesn’t matter.
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It looks like the last three weeks of Jon Stewart’s tenure as host of The Daily Show is going to feature a LOT of Donald Trump. And who can blame him? The jokes practically write themselves. Trump says that they have invited him to be on the show and that he is mulling it over. I hope he accepts. It would be a blast.
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I hate wasting food. I really, really hate it. And it really sticks in my craw to see the amount of food that is thrown away in the US. Sometimes it is due to people just buying more than they can eat but at other times it seem just willful. For example, I am appalled by people and events that go out of their way to waste food, such as those contests involving butter sculptures and food eating contests and those all-you-can-eat buffets that seem to be designed to induce people to eat more than they would normally do.
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One of the things I hate about professional sports in the US is the way that wealthy team owners extort public money for fancy stadiums that not only do not benefit the public but actually siphon money away from much needed and better services that many more people would benefit from. It is one more of the many ways that money is diverted from the poor to the rich.
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