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Posts Tagged ‘Crazy People’

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Sanford & Scum

In Poll on May 10, 2013 at 12:48 pm

Sanford and son title card

This Week’s Poll!

Disgraced politicians everywhere are paying super-crazy-close attention to the surprise comeback of Mark Sanford, the studly Republican former governor of South Carolina who just won a special election to Congress. Sanford’s return is remarkable, of course, because of just how far he’d sunk. This is the guy who made “hiking the Appalachian Trail” the most overworked sexual double entendre of 2009.

But it seems that South Carolina voters are all too ready to forgive the “family values conservative” who misused public funds, secretly left the country and lied to his entire staff about his whereabouts and deceived his wife about his sexual affairs with his South American mistress. Sanford was even busted trespassing on his ex-wife’s property during this current campaign — the same campaign that his ex-wife declined to run for him when, unbelievably, he asked her to. This bad ole boy has certainly got some balls.

After all he put us through, Sanford’s latest victory has left much of the country pretty stunned. It really doesn’t seem that long ago that the S.C. legislature agonized for months over whether to impeach him for the 37 violations he was formally charged with. People: this is the same guy who once hopped on a state plane just to get a hair cut. Who was once named one of the worst governors by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The guy who made the words “soul mate” cringe-worthy.

Still, some are asking: Is all of this a cause for celebration or despair? Shouldn’t we be kinda sorta happy that the voters in South Carolina chose ideology over Puritanical reaction to all that ugly messy stuff?

Well, Sanford’s 9-point win loses some of that shine when you realize that Mitt Romney took the same district by a whopping 18 points in 2012, and that this district hasn’t sent a Democrat to D.C. since Dick Nixon learned to use chopsticks. And Paul Krugman, on his New York Times blog, argues it doesn’t even matter who you send to Congress, as long as he or she is from the party of your choice.

But, still… Sanford won.  And we’re in shock. Come on, this guy was supposed to be done. Maybe his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch — who by most accounts ran a competent campaign — just didn’t try hard enough to appeal to South Carolina voters. Or maybe South Carolinians just happen to like their candidates Sanford-level crazy!

This got us thinking. What’s a Democrat have to do to get elected in states like South Carolina? How can they be competitive in a ring with odds and logic and common decency stacked against them? What do YOU think?

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NEW Video From Lester & Charlie’s “Do It At Home, America!” Series: Make Your Own Penny Candy!

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I Am… I Said

In Poll on May 3, 2013 at 10:08 am

Clint Eastwood Chair

This Week’s Poll!

Republicans give themselves more reasons to exercise their God-given spin control muscles than Democrats do.

Sure, Dems like Anthony Weiner have to tuck their Twitter accounts back in their pants now and then, and some sucker with industrial strength pliers has to shadow Joe Biden and dislodge that foot from his mouth every few days. But only the GOP has to own up to endless, egregious affronts on consensus reality — like Jan Brewer’s headless bodies in the desert, Bobby Jindal’s “Bible Math” and any noise that comes out of Michele Bachmann’s mouth when she opens it.

The Republicans have exercised so many spin control muscles that those muscles have started to act involuntarily and instantaneously.  Like the heart at the core of any wild animal, the GOP has developed an instant if not repetitive spin for everything. Got no experience? You’re the Washington outsider we need! Can’t locate Iraq on a map? Well then, you’re just like a regular American!

Sometimes, conservatives are so proud of how they’ve spun their embarrassments that they refuse let them go.  One of those embarrassments made two comebacks this year. We’re talking Clint Eastwood’s Empty Chair!

You know, that chair. The one Clint bizarrely dragged onstage at the 2012 GOP convention and had a long, painfully awkward one-way conversation with. Even Republicans were against this senile display before they were for it.

Inevitably, the chair’s first comeback was in January when it found a home in the office of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. Talk about “owning” the party’s missteps! And this week, everybody’s favorite turtle impersonator, filibuster enthusiast and all around funnyman, Mitch McConnell, gave the spun-out meme a new spin.

Now, remember: this was the chair that made us imagine Obama telling Romney to go f**k himself. The one that inspired a guy in Texas to lynch his living room chair in effigy – probably while humming “Strange Fruit.” Even nutty Republican Governor Scott Walker described it at the time as “that one moment” at the convention that he truly “cringed about.” (Just one?)

So it was pretty bold of Mitch – in his public response to Obama’s comical jab at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that ended with, “Really? Why don’t you get a drink with Mitch McConnell?” – to pose next to an empty chair reserved for Obama in a Twitter photo.

This got our brains a-whirl. If the Obama chair can make two comebacks, what’s next in the GOP garbage heap for them to recycle and rebrand?

What do you think? What’s the next political disaster they’ll turn into a triumph?

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NEW Video From Lester & Charlie’s “Do It At Home, America!” Series: Make Your Penny Candy!

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Would You Have Done Any Better?

In Poll on April 24, 2013 at 3:06 pm

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Click here: Please Stand By

Now, This Week’s Poll!

Former President Bush

So you think being president of the United States is easy? All those pesky press conferences and state dinners? Correctly pronouncing Kim Jong Il and those big words in “My Pet Goat”?

Well, at the brand-new George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas, everybody’s favorite former president George W. Bush wants you to know he tried really, really hard. And he seems to be asking, would you, Average American, have done any better?

Here’s your chance to find out! The brick-and-limestone museum offers visitors an interactive opportunity to play the role of the Decider, using touch screens (made in China?) to choose: Invade Iraq or no? Let the banks fail or bail ‘em out? Deploy federal troops to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans or just airlift in a few teacups and let ‘em fix things locally?

“It’s unfair for us to assume that an exhibit depicting a president’s administration will be objective when the president is alive,” said Mark K. Updegrove, the director of the LBJ Library, also in Texas. True — but we can’t help feeling like this whole museum is, well, more than a little defensive on Bush’s part.

As the New York Times points out, the 14,000 square feet museum takes pains to juxtapose the presidency Bush wanted to have (tax cuts, education reform, faith-based social services) with the dumb-luck presidency he ended up having (9/11, Katrina, financial meltdown). The exhibits tango around things like, say, the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq, offering guests the vague caveat that, while no W.M.D. were found, “Post-invasion inspections confirmed that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to resume production of W.M.D.”

Condi Rice shows up, hopefully on skates, to defend waterboarding and other interrogation techniques with a claim that, after the World Trade Center attacks, “every day after was Sept. 12.” See how hard it is to be president?

The whole exercise seems to embrace the idiotic idea that, in America, not only can anyone grow up to be president, but, really, just about anyone is qualified. The sneering “So you think you coulda done better?” tone suggests that the president of the richest and most powerful country in the world doesn’t particularly need better deciding skills than anyone else the voters might want to have a beer with. But we think it’s irrelevant that some of the choices a president faces would stymie an average person. The president isn’t supposed to be average.

“The challenge when you’re a former president,” said Bush in a recent interview in Parade Magazine, “is how do you use your God-given talents?” Of all the challenges Bush has faced in his lifetime, really, this one should be a no-brainer.

BUT, if he wants his library to be interactive, let’s all participate. If, according to Bush, any old dope can make decisions just as good as anyone else, let’s jump in and help him design his library! Tell us: What would YOU like to see in the new George W. Bush Library?

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NEW Video From Lester & Charlie’s “Do It At Home, America!” Series: Make Your Choking Poster!

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Make Your Own Restaurant Quality Choking Poster!

In Video on April 20, 2013 at 10:51 am

Choking

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Everybody wants their own restaurant-quality Heimlich Maneuver poster for the kitchen, but who can afford it? Fear not – Lester & Charlie can show you how to make your own! Check it out!

Special Note:

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And it’s in the final countdown with only days to go. If you want to help support our first book, Please Stand By: Lester & Charlie’s 50 Favorite Test Patterns, come over and get involved!

You can learn more about it HERE.

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Where are We Going? And Why am I in This Handbasket?

In Poll on April 19, 2013 at 1:28 pm

Quick Programming Note:
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Click here: Please Stand By

Pledge Drive

Now, This Week’s Poll!

i want to beleive

It was heartening to see so many in the media rush to point out that, in the immediate aftermath of the horrific explosions at the Boston Marathon last Monday, so many people — runners, cops, spectators — rushed toward the chaos to help the injured, despite knowing that anything could happen next.

We’re gripping tightly to the thought that so many people didn’t hesitate to help, given what so many right-wing lunatics were rushing to do instead. It took only minutes for the first conservative conspiracy theories to start pinballing around the Internet. Too many conservatives are twisted enough to take any tragedy — from Boston to Newtown to Aurora — and turn it into an opportunity to prance.

Was there a Facebook page set up to memorialize the victims two days before the explosions went off? Is Obama behind this? Family Guy? Unbelievably, the first question Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick received at the news conference after the attack was “Was this another false flag staged attack to take our civil liberties?” (Note the clever use of the word “another” in that question, presupposing that there have been others.) The governor was quick to respond with a terse “No.” We agree with Rex Huppke, writing in the Chicago Tribune, who gave the governor credit for restraint for not answering, “No, you idiot.” We can think of a few other impolite words Patrick could have said.

And it wasn’t just the conspiracies that were turning our stomachs. A FOX News guest, Erik Rush, helpfully tweeted — before the FBI even had any suspects — that Muslims were “evil” and we should “kill them all.” A Wall Street Journalist tore Obama apart for daring to make a statement instead of parroting John Boehner’s “moment of silence.” (Though we’ll admit it’s helpful whenever Boehner decides to shut up.)

Patrick Dollard, a contributor to Breitbart News, wasted no time tweeting his claim that “GEORGE BUSH KEPT US SAFE FOR 8 YEARS.” Who is he blaming that whole “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US” memo fiasco on? Jimmy Carter?

We suppose, given what happened after Newtown and what happened after Aurora (and countless other tragedies), that we really shouldn’t be surprised. And social media and the 24-hour news cycle are just making things worse.

Or was it always like this, and we just weren’t paying attention? Let’s take a quick trip into the recent and not-so-recent past and try to figure out: What conservative conspiracies have we missed over the years? What do YOU think?

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NEW Video From Lester & Charlie’s “Do It At Home, America!” Series: Make Your Choking Poster!

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The Week in Politics

In Study Break on April 13, 2013 at 9:12 pm

This week, a delusional dictator who inherited political power from his father threatened to destroy the United States. But we’ve all heard that before.

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By the way, don’t forget to check how you can help with Lester & Charlie’s first book!

You can read more about it HERE.

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The Week in Politics

In Study Break on March 23, 2013 at 7:34 pm

This week, House Intelligence Committee member Michele Bachmann proved that she’s still on top of her game when she announced some brand new lies and slogans. Did you know that Air Force One has 5 chefs? That guns don’t kill people, Obamacare kills people?

We got a hold of this footage of Michele’s Great Aunt Emily, which explains a few things. Whatch it HERE.

And Don’t Forget, Please!

A Lester & Charlie Programming Note

Everyone over a certain age can tell a story about television test patterns: The insomniac’s best friend, the promise of programming worth watching, the proof that you were slowly being dragged into the digital age.

And everyone under a certain age has no idea what those above a certain age are talking about. Which is because no one has ever written a coffee table book about them that fits in a Kindle!

But we’ve got that covered. Enter “Please Stand By: Lester and Charlie’s 50 Favorite Test Patterns.”

And we’re holding a fundraiser to help offset a few of the costs.

We’d like to thank the folks who have jumped in and donated a few dollars to the cause, and remind the rest of you that there’s still time. Even a dollar helps!

You can read more about it HERE.

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Attack of the Cookie Monsters!

In Poll on March 17, 2013 at 12:29 pm

Quick Programming Note:
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Click here: Please Stand By

Pledge Drive

Now, This Week’s Poll!

Girl Scout

We’ve been wondering: Is there anyone out there that the GOP doesn’t hate?

Don’t get us wrong. You don’t have to have a conservative black-and-white view of the world to get a thrill out of cheering heroes and hissing villains. We all enjoy a character we can love to despise! But, with a whopping 36% of Republicans now saying that it’s the people in their own party who are the bad guys, it’s getting awfully hard for conservatives to know who to hiss at.

So they’re getting desperate, even looking back in history. Why else would they be trotting out hippies — yes, hippies! — as the latest examples of evil incarnate? That’s what they’re doing in Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana, where a voucher school is now using an 8th grade “history” book titled “America: Land I Love” to teach kids that “hippies” are really dirty, ragged Satanists! (Check out the link; we’re not exaggerating.)

Just when it started to look like the GOP had run out of contemporary suspects to demonize (union workers, welfare queens, people who don’t like their kids getting shot), along comes Linda Harvey, founder of the Ohio-based Christian Organization Mission:America, to remind us: Everything can be blamed on the gays!

Last Tuesday, Harvey denounced the venerable Girls Scouts of America for promoting lesbianism by featuring homosexuals in their materials, using “radical feminists” as role models, and just overall man-hating! “Unless you have an attitude of suspicion toward males in general,” Harvey accused the GSA of teaching girls, “unless you bring home a paycheck and unless you have a worldview based on self-indulgence with never a notion of sacrifice, you as a woman are really diminished in worth.” Listen up, girls. Linda Harvey wants you to know your place.

Though the GSA angle may be new, Harvey has been obsessed with homosexuality for some time. She previously called gay rights advocates “fascists” and “masters of demonic manipulation,” called the Obama administration’s efforts to promote equal rights a “humanitarian disgrace” and even called the It Gets Better video series — the series that reaches out to young gay kids to tell them that life probably won’t suck forever — wrong, evil and dark. She’s so obsessed with homosexuality that the Southern Poverty Law Center went as far as to designate Mission:America as an active hate group a year ago. But Harvey’s not likely to let it go. We gotta wonder what happened to her as a kid to make her hate homosexuals this much. Did she once have a crush on Rock Hudson?

Well, we decided to have a little fun at Linda Harvey’s expense. Since she’s bound to see a radical gay conspiracy behind almost anything, we’re wondering what will make her explode next. What do YOU think? Tell us!

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From Lester & Charlie’s “GOP Time Machine” Series: Truth in Advertising!

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Evolution for the Creation Museum

In Poll on March 7, 2013 at 4:26 pm

Woman on Dinosaur

This Week’s Poll!

(Quick Programming Note: To find out how you can be part of Lester & Charlie’s new book project, click here: Please Stand By)

America has a tradition of some pretty wacky roadside attractions. Like the Sod Museum in Nebraska, the Twine Ball Museum in Minnesota and Washington D.C.’s very own House Science Committee.

Few of these oddities can hold a candle to Kentucky’s famous Creation Museum. The Creation Museum, if you’re some kind of Neanderthal unfamiliar with it, is the go-to place for any young-Earth scientist in the mood to, say, weep at tear-jerking videos of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Or ogle dioramas showing humans and dinosaurs peacefully co-existing. Or hobnob with like-minded museum employees, all of whom have signed a “statement of faith” agreeing that “no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.”

Founder Ken Ham’s Creation Museum has been called “the Creationist Disneyland.” The UK’s Guardian called it “one of the weirdest museums in the world.” (That’s an impressive distinction, seeing as it’s not only competing with said Twine Ball Museum but also with that museum in Japan that’s dedicated solely to instant ramen noodles.)

Sounds to us like the Creation Museum is the perfect mecca for both Bible thumpers and potheads! That’s why we were shocked to learn that this major, multimillion-dollar facility has suddenly found itself taking a crash course in survival of the fittest.

In other words, attendance at the Creation Museum was down 10% in 2012, continuing a four-year downward spiral and setting a new low. Making matters worse, dwindling revenue is jeopardizing completion of Ham’s next big project, a theme park centered around a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark!

Why is the museum’s attendance tanking? Are the zealots getting all the creationism jabberwocky they need from Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal for free?

We’re betting that there are still plenty of certifiable lunatics willing to shell out $30 for a stroll through the Dinosaur Den, ride a camel through the Garden of Eden and sneak into the planetarium to make sure that Earth is still in the center.

So let’s put our heads together and come up with a few ideas that might get them some welcome attention. If we’re lucky, there’ll be enough cash left over to finish building Ham’s Ark Encounter! And we can all say we did our part building a better, weirder America.

Tell us: What do YOU think are some awesome ideas to sell more tickets to Kentucky’s Creation Museum?

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From Lester & Charlie’s “GOP Time Machine” Series: Energy Conservation! (With Ronnie and Nancy Reagan)

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The $10,000 Pyramid Scheme

In Poll on February 21, 2013 at 1:13 pm

karl rove arrested

This Week’s Poll!

The Higgs-boson may be on its way to proving that the universe is inherently unstable, but it seems to us that nothing could be as unstable as the clown car leading the Republican party.

Just this week, an email from the Grand Poobah of the Tea Party Patriots went out with the subject line, “Wipe the Smirk Off Karl Rove’s Face!” And it included a picture of the esteemed GOP strategist photoshopped to look like the Nazi officer Heinrich Himmler.

The Tea Party’s beef with Rove – what this non sequitur of a photoshop job is trying to telegraph to believers – is that Rove’s recent attempts to raise support for establishment, rather than insane, candidates is nothing short of pure evil.

Understandably, after the lousy return on investment from his American Crossroads Super-PAC in the 2012 elections, Rove is eager to rally support for slightly more electable conservative candidates, ones who spend at least a few hours a day in this century and might even be able to read, write and cross-multiply. Gone are the far-right witches like Christine O’Donnell or creepy rape-obsessed goblins like Todd Akin.

“But wait!” says the Tea Party. “Sane candidates are not going to be on our butterfly ballots!” So to foil Rove’s Sisyphean attempt at finding someone both marginally sane and Republican, they’ve set up a new PAC to “help Tea Party candidates challenge entrenched, big-government Republicans for the nomination.”

And — best of all — veteran conservative activist Richard Viguerie has offered a whopping $10,000 prize to any grassroots conservative who can “submit a plan or ideas to take over the Republican Party, win the November 2016 elections, and govern America by 2017.”

Wow. Uh… $10,000!?! That won’t buy many magic beans for the deserving individual who single-handedly saves America’s two-party system.  

Still, ten thousand dollars is ten thousand dollars. In this economy, most of us would have to go on “Jeopardy!” to ever see that kind of cash. (But if you do, just make sure you forget everything you know about Michele Bachmann first.)

We’re fascinated with the image of all those Tea Party wizards who’ll be scratching their pointy heads, sharpening their erasable ink pens and devising a plan to simultaneously save America and put $10,000 in their piggy banks.

But, it’s not their brilliant or perhaps not-so-brilliant ideas that interest us. It’s what they’ll do with that cash. $10,000 could be a huge windfall to whatever poor, white, rural, government-teat-sucking conservative comes up with the best idea to save the GOP.

So we’re wondering: What do YOU think? How will the savior of the GOP spend all that prize money?

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From Lester & Charlie’s “GOP Time Machine” Series: Good Times!

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