Todd's Mischief Blog

It's not "ego." It's a claim that you encounter a lot—an insult really—that people are buying bigger and bigger trucks to compensate for… something. Here's one particularly cringeworthy example, because the person making it doesn't seem to realize the go-kart he's praising doesn't meet US emissions standards.  whenever americans say that they *need* a massive pickup truck that gets 12mpg just show them the Subaru Sambar utility vs. ego pic.twitter.com/NqexDbQcok — sam (@sam_d_1995) May 11, 2022 In response, a lot of people will defend their big truck purchase by saying they need a larger vehicle for their family, their business, or just because they like it. And to an extent, market forces are partly responsible for the increase in truck sizes, particularly when it comes to features like crew cabs. But it turns out that even a lot of people who like the big trucks don't know the full story of how their trucks got so big. The rest of the story ...

Despite this being a piece of agitprop in favor of CFPB from prior to it's creation — and thus not very funny — it's still a great showcase of comedic talent that I want to talk about. I'm sure there are a lot of ideas about what makes a good celebrity impression. Certainly there are a lot of techniques. But if you ask me, a good impression is equal parts mocking and complimentary. It's a hyper-accurate portrayal of the person. Put another way, a good impression is neither fawning nor spiteful. Let's consider how each stacks up. We start with Armisen's Obama, which is incredibly bland. One might argue that Obama himself was bland and so the material just wasn't there. No. Playing Obama as simply dull is being gentle. A good impersonation would portray him as dull to the point of somnambulism. I'm gonna skip over  Michelle b/c she's basically a prop in this scene and I'm not as familiar with Rudolph's other portrayals of her. Next, in order of...

Though I was unavailable to attend the 50th anniversary commemoration of the 1963 march on Washington D.C. and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, I did make the point of listening to President Obama's speech delivered at the event, a transcript of which can be found HERE . What follows are my thoughts on the speech and reactions to some of the topics raised.  In the opening, Obama acknowledges that progress has been achieved in civil rights. He names several important historical figures who contributed to that progress and reminds us that to say otherwise would be to say their work was in vain. That's more acknowledgement of progress than we are generally accustomed to. Of course, being black and president forces a few admissions. Still, it puts the lie to the perennial detractors who claim the President speaks as though we are still in the days of dogs and fire hoses. Next, Obama spends some time giving a history lesson on the march of 50 years ago. I...

Yes. That is a Stones reference. Since the naming of Paul Ryan as the running mate of GOP Presidential nominee-apparent Mitt Romney, the Anybody-But-Romney crowd has quieted down its protests. It’s about time, considering that his last serious competitor, Newt Gingrich, dropped out of the race in May, and even the ABR crowd can’t get behind holdout Ron Paul. Still, as pleased as they are with the Ryan pick, and the unabashed conservatism he represents, they aren’t singing Mitt’s praises just yet. Oh, they’ve come around in just about every way imaginable. They’ve always praised his business experience. The flip-flopper and gaffe memes have been largely discredited. His lack of foreign policy experience is dismissed by citing the same of Reagan. Likewise, the Tenth Amendment is cited to put aside questionable aspects of his governorship in Massachusetts apart from RomneyCare. And even there, the ABR’s seem to now take Mitt at his word that he intends to do away with ObamaCare and are ev...

by AndrewPrice (originally posted at Commentarama ) I did this before the 2010 election and it’s worth doing again. Below you will find a list of reasons to vote against Obama and the Democrats. Share this with your friends. Post the link on other websites you visit. Don’t let people forget! Here are some of the things the Democrats did over the past two years that you may not have liked: Obama Economic Record • You didn’t build that. • 8-9% unemployment for four solid years, 17% real unemployment. • 5 straight years of trillion dollar deficits. • Adding more to the national debt than all presidents combined. • Hyper Inflation. • Billions wasted on money to “clean energy companies” (read: donors to Obama) who went bankrupt right after getting money, e.g. Solyndra. • Vetoing the Keystone Pipeline. • The trillion dollar union/Democratic-interest-group giveaway known as the Stimulus bill and its dozen sequels. • The trillion dollar Big Bank giveaway know as the TARP, the TALP a...

In just over four years, Barack Obama has taken the United States from “Yes, We Can!” to “Oh No, You Didn’t!” But in the days since the Campaigner in Chief told business owners that “if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own,” his apologists and his campaign have been very vehement that Barry did not actually say what he in fact did. They’ve even gone so far as to slide the president’s words off onto his political opponent, Mitt Romney. Just a few days ago, the Obama campaign released the following ad claiming that Romney put words into the president’s mouth: The only problem is, Barack Obama said exactly what Mitt Romney claims he did: Of course, the argument du jour is that Barry was taken out of context. Well, here’s some context: LINK So, what do you think Obama meant? (For a mind-bendingly overwrought interpretation of what the president meant, check out this article from Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog.

There is a definite upward trend in both the quality and content of conservative political ads. Check this out: Hat-tip to Patti at NotaWonk .

Susan B. Anthony List has produced a shiny new ad against the Obama administration. I'm impressed with the production on this. It's on a budget but it has the creativity and the punch to overcome that. I'd like to see more Republican and conservative ads like this one. RespectMyVoice.com

Don't ask.

Incredibly Versatile 

There are two is one side s to every story News must have been pretty slow last Friday because the biggest story was about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer wagging her finger at President Obama on the tarmac when he paid a visit to her state. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the media managed to draw this story entirely from a single photo. Almost every version of the story makes a point of the fact that no one actually heard the two executives' exchange. Nevertheless, so eager was the legacy media to further the guise of Obama as the benevolent savior to the ungrateful hordes that they whipped up a story of Brewer's belligerence out of practically nothing. Cue the stream of commentaries and editorials decrying Brewer for her "hostility." As such, it should probably come as no surprise that the single photo driving the story is also edited.  No, there is no Photoshop chicanery, but the image that is most returned on Google Images has been strategically cropped. Th...

Obama's disastrous new campaign slogan Hat tip to NotAWonk for alerting me to this piece of "comedy gold." We who have been paying attention already know that good sense is in short supply among Obama and his crew. To put a big underline beneath that, the Obama-Biden campaign has chosen "Change Is" for its 2012 slogan. (I'd say they put an exclamation point on it, but it's an open-ended sentence. This is a slogan that is just begging to back-fire. It invites everyone to finish the thought however they choose. Allow me to demonstrate: Change Is...bowing to foreign princes and apologizing for America's greatness. Change Is...worthless solar panels instead of reliable fuel. Change Is...food stamps for all! I didn't even believe it at first, but ABC News is reporting that the "meme will likely be here to stay" as it already appears on campaign merchandise. Wow! And if you don't think slogans are important, don't forget the massive...

Snippets from other conversations: There is a reason why the analogy is "slippery slope" and not "sheer cliff," because reaching the bottom is not inevitable on the slope. But if you only focus on the bottom, you are liable to not catch sight of the footholds you pass on the way down. If there is one thing I wish I could make more people realize, it is that Republican ≠ Conservative. I also wish I could get more people to realize that Conservative ≠ Right-Wing. Conservatism is the real centrism. "Moderate" just means taking liberal Republican ideas and throwing them in a blender with liberal Democrat ideas. Comparisons between Paul and Obama cannot be made too strongly. Both have run on a blank-slate platform claiming their pasts don't matter. The Ron Paul R ЭΛΘΓ UTION posters put me off before I knew anything about the man simply because they reminded me of Obama's HOPE and CHANGE posters. Those gut instincts seem to have borne out. Isn'...

The smear campaign against Cain continues   By now the internet, radio, television, and wagging tongues everywhere are all abuzz over the latest campaign blunder by Herman Cain. But is it really the gaffe everyone says it is? Or was it a selective editing job a la Ed Shultz ? Well, call me cynical, but I’ve seen enough media shenanigans to be suspicious of anything taken out of context and this definitely tripped my radar. In the clip that has gone viral (below), Cain does appear to be caught off-guard by a question on Libya, a topic he ought to have been ready for. My first reaction was to wonder how many clips like this land on editing room floors instead of online. In a world used to hyper-slick video and equally slick candidates, a moment of thought gathering can seem disastrous. Still, this isn’t about a some candidate’s “senior moment.” Rather, it is about a hatchet job gone awry. This clip was released by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel along with the entire half-hour interv...

I'm gonna miss this face. How this, too, is about Obama Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, paragon of fashion and autocratic ruler of Libya since 1969, is dead, presumably by sudden lead poisoning.  The winner of the race to see who can jam Obama's name into a headline about Col. Gaddafi's demise first seems to be the Financial Times, with a piece entitled " Gaddafi death boosts Obama reputation ." Clocked in at 4pm London time, FT beats President Obama's speech by a full six hours. Nifty headline, considering new polls have yet to be taken since the late Colonel's passing. I have no doubt President O will get a handy post-Gaddafi bump. But considering how quickly his after-Osama bump spoiled, I wouldn't expect this one to last even as long. Did he even get a bump from al-Awlaki? Don't expect the spelling of Gaddafi / Qaddafi / Kadafi to stop changing, either. Now with Gaddafi off the stage, the world is wondering, who will be next in the Obamistration'...

Distancing conservatism from “birthers” may not be as easy as it seems Trump is strutting like a peacock over the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate. Not surprisingly, even this does not quell the birthers, as indicated by Trump’s promises to now investigate the document . So leave the kooks to themselves. For the rest of us, the issue is put to bed and we can all move on, right? Maybe not. Having the birth certificate released ought to make it easier for Republicans and Tea Partiers alike to distance themselves from the birther movement. As the 2012 presidential campaign season opens, it would be nice to focus on important issues like the economy, foreign affairs, and entitlements. But don’t be surprised if you hear charges of racism lobbed at the president’s political adversaries once more. Already, left-wing pundits say that it was racism in the Tea Party that gave rise to the birther movement. Even if they are willing to admit that birthers were a Clinton Machine creati...