I had so much fun on Countdown with Keith Olbermann talking about Sarah Palin, Glen RIce, and the Teaparty. David Shuster was an amazing host!
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Rick Perry Kills an Innocent Man & Covers it up/ Save Troy Davis
Rick Perry’s record number of executions drew applause at last week’s GOP debate. Among the 234– whoops, make that 235 as of today, it’s hard to keep up– killed under Perry was Cameron Todd Willingham, who received the death penalty for killing his three daughters by arson. Right before the execution, it was revealed that the science on which Willingham’s conviction was based was bogus. Perry ignored the revelation, executed Willingham, and then covered it up. While the state of Texas rates number one in number of executions, Georgia is a close seven and even has its own executions of innocents under its belt! Georgia is gearing up to kill another one, Troy Davis. Davis has been on death row for 20 years for the 1989 murder of a Savannah police officer. The case against him rested on witness testimony but seven of nine key witnesses have recanted or changed their testimony, some alleging police coercion. Help save an innocent man and sign the petitions launched byAmnesty International, the NAACP, Change.org by Troy’s sister, and moveon.org
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This Week in Bigotry: Homoeroticism, Boehners & Boycotts!
In quoting Einstein, Mitch McConnell alienates teaparty base, skeptical of science and “the whole Jew thing.”McConnell was able to read into the future and predict the insanity of the president’s speech, saying, “What is surprising is the president’s apparent determination to apply the same government-driven policies that have already been tried and failed. The definition of insanity, as Albert Einstein once famously put it, is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Frankly, I can’t think of a better description of anyone who thinks the solution to this problem is another stimulus. The first stimulus didn’t do it. Why would another one?” McConnell was also able to travel back in time and make the stimulus not work.
Boehner and his fellow Republicans refuse to applaud Obama’s radical socialist statement that “Every child deserves a great school.” And while they differ on policy, Obama, Boehner and Biden have conference call before joint session to coordinate pastel ties.
New Mexico Governor says “Do as I say, not as my grandparents did.” Republican Susana Martinez has tried to repeal the law allowing undocumented workers to have drivers licenses and opposed the dream act, saying “It is not comprehensive reform to put people who are here illegally, who violated the law, and put them in front of the line for those folks who have been waiting and doing all the right things to come to the United States, to come here legally, and/or to become a citizen. We cannot allow those folks to just jump the line.” I guess Martinez would “grandfather in” her own grandfather since, as she just revealed in an interview on Spanish television, her grandparents “arrived without documents, especially my father’s father.”
Joe Walsh Boycotts president’s speech & reads it and projects it on a big screen instead. Refusing to be a political prop, Walsh, the deadbeat dad who owes his ex-wife over $100,000 in child support and lecture the president on spending, set up a small-business forum last night. The Daily Herald reports that “While people watched the speech live on a large screen in the center’s auditorium, Walsh was sequestered in an anteroom, where he later said he was reading a copy of Obama’s remarks. Moments after Obama ended his speech, Walsh emerged and spoke to the media outside the building.”
Viewers of GOP debate confused by homoerotic tension between anti-marriage equality nominees Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Perry and Romney have signed the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) pledge, vowing that if elected they would push for a federal same-sex-marriage ban, nominate strict Constitutionalist judges, defend DOMA and investigate the “harassment” of traditional marriage advocates. Yet it was undeniable that political and sexual tension were in the air between the two strapping tanned governors.
Top 10 Ways the Congressional Black Caucus Should be More like Allen West
I doubt that any members of the Congressional Black Caucus got any sleep last night. I’m sure they were tossing and turning, sick with worry and regret, trembling in fear over Allen West’s threat to leave the caucus. What could possible make West want to break ranks with colleagues he respectfully and lovingly likens to overseers? Apparently, West was disturbed by comments byCBC members like Andre Carson, who said “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.” Chairman Emanuel Cleaver must have had the fear of death in him when he read West’s ultimatum. West urgedCleaver to “condem” and “disassociate the Congressional Black Caucus” from the “hate filled comments.” “Otherwise” wrote West “I will have to seriously reconsider my membership within the organization.” Grounding his decision in the wise words of President Obama, whom he respectfully and lovingly calls “the dumbest person walking around in America right now” West explained “we heard the president talk about some of this over-the-top rhetoric and we should move away from that.” I seriously hope the CBC changes its oh so hateful tune and adopts, instead, the rational, moderate and not at all over the top voice spoken by Allen West. Here are the 10 of the countless Allen Westisms the CBC should emulate.
1) on Obama: West calls Obama “the dumbest person walking around in America right now,”and says “I can’t stand the guy. I absolutely can’t stand him.” Referring to a speech by Obama, West said “What you continue to see is a third world dictator-like arrogance… I’m starting to believe that a community organizer is nothing but a low-level socialist agitator.”
2) on fellow Representative Keith Ellison: West said the Minnesota Congressman, who is Muslim, represents the “antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established.”
3) on Debbie Wasserman Shulz: West emailed his fellow Florida Representative, “You are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the U.S. House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up.” He added that she was “not a lady” and “shall not be afforded due respect from me!” West CC’d House Leaders on the email so they would be aware of the Congresswoman’s “heinous characterless behavior.”
4) on Obama supporters: “I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.”
5) On Islam: West said: “A nation goes to war against an ideology…. we are against something that is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology and it is called Islam.”
6) On his critics: after the Florida Newspaper The New Times criticzed West for violatingviolateing U.S. federal law by flying an American flag underwater, he called the newspaper “idiot Liberals,” “delusional dummies,” and “a bunch of losers.”
7) On women: ” The women in our campaign printed up t-shirts that said “Women for West.”…. to let these other women know, on the other side, these Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women who have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness, to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient.” West also called Code Pink “losers” and “Code Yellow, as in cowards, for you are nothing more than a group of misguided partisan sycophants devoid of principle, integrity, and character.”
8) on Black Democrat leaders: West called Back Democrats including CBC member Maxine Waters: “overseers of this 21st-Century plantation,” me
ant to “pacify and keep the black community firmly behind [white liberals]….”
9) On himself: Allen West showed some love towards himself with this totally not over the top statement: “I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman, to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad, away from thatplantation into a sense of sensibility.” It turns out West sent his own unemployed brother to a jobs fair held by the very overseers he criticizes, which means he sent his own brother to find work on a “plantation.” I guess his underground railroad goes in reverse. In all fairness, it must be confusing for Allen given that he calls “Plantation” home. He literally lives in the town of “Plantation”, Florida, whose motto is “The Grass is Always Greener.”
10) On Yehiya Hamoodi, the Iraqi detainee West had beaten, tortured, and shot at: “In my anger, I couldn’t remember how many shots were fired.” Also, West joked, “It wasn’t torture. Seeing Rosie O’Donnell naked would be torture.” West was fined for his treatment of the prisoner, and even admits “It’s possible I was wrong about Mr Hamoodi” but he would do it again!
PEN’s Literary Pub Quiz at Brooklyn Book Festival
When: Friday, September 16
Where: St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn
What time: 7-9 p.m.
St. Ann’s Warehouse, DUMBO. Photo by Etienne Frossard.
PEN is pleased to announce the return of our popular Literary Pub Quiz! ThisBrooklyn Book Festival Bookend event gives you the chance to compete with (and against!) editors and writers from your favorite literary magazines, including Cabinet, Gigantic, Harper’s, and Electric Literature, as well as authors Matthea Harvey, Ben Greenman, and many more. Come early to reserve your spot on the team with the writer-captain who also knows where Hemingway was born. We’ll supply the paper and the pencils; you bring the literary smarts!
Team captains include George Prochnik of Cabinet Magazine, James Yeh o fGigantic Magazine, Ben Greenman,Matthea Harvey, and more; hosted by Katie Halper.
MLK Monument
While in Washington DC for the Women Media Center’s Progressive Women’s Voices training, I went to see the just-opened Martin Luther King monument. It was beautiful. That’s it. No jokes.
Comedy School Dropout
Beauty School Dropout
Hosted by Negin Farsad & Amy Albert
Our next Show!
March 30th @ 8pm @ Beauty Bar @ 231 East 14th street
FREE!
with Katie Halper, Damien Lemon, John F. O’Donnell, Seaton Smith,
Laughing Liberally! Comedy Show!
Laughing Liberally! Comedy Show!
Start: 03/15/2011 – 14:00
End: 03/28/2011 – 14:00
I’m performing March 15, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28Politics may make you scream and shout, worry and wail…now it will make you laugh.
LAUGHING LIBERALLY: THIS AIN’T NO TEA PARTYMarch 14th – May 22ndThe Midtown Theater163 West 46th Streetbetween 6th & 7th Avenues
Click here to buy tickets forLAUGHING LIBERALLY: THIS AIN’T NO TEA PARTY
Learn more about our cast! (Performers differ each week)
LAUGHING LIBERALLY: THIS AIN’T NO TEA PARTY is a comedy extravaganza, which mixes humor, musical numbers, video, and political satire, to spread understanding of liberal ideas and advance progressive values. LAUGHING LIBERALLY: THIS AIN’T NO TEA PARTY will save democracy one laugh at a time.
Featuring performers from Comedy Central, HBO, The Onion, The Huffington Post, MTV and National Tour, including:
Scott Blakeman * Lee Camp * Jim David * Negin Farsad * John Fugelsang * Julie Goldman * Jamie Jackson * Katie Halper * Jamie Kilstein * Dean Obeidallah * Harry Terjanian * Baratunde Thurston * Elon James White
Laughing Liberally! Political comedy show on Wed 2/23
An evening of political punchlines & laughter from the Left with a line-up of comedians from the Onion, Comedy Central, Showtime, MTV, the Huffington Post and C-SPAN.
Featuring: * Lee Camp * Costaki Economopoulos * Katie Halper * Negin Farsad * John Fugelsang * Jamie Kilstein * Dean Obeidallah *
@ The Tank @ 354 West 45th St (between 8th and 9th Aves) Wednesday, Feb 23rd – 7:30pmTickets: $10
Electric Literature says I’m “hysterically funny… Jeez, someone hire this girl as a comedy writer.”
Here is a KatieHalpe-centric excerpt of a longer review by Electrick Literature’s Emily Firetog of the Mischief + Mayhem Valentine’s Day Show I MC’d. Go to “read more” to read the whole article.
1. Big crowd at Housing Works. There are never enough chairs! 2. Dale Peck, co-founder of Mischief + Mayhem, reads. 3. Ben Greenman (Celebrity Chekhov) takes a break from the reading to catch up on his favorite picture book about the first lady.
As my boyfriend lives a hundred and seventy-seven miles away and Valentine’s Day dinner over Skype seemed a pretty grim idea, I headed down to Housing Works Bookstore for Mischief + Mayhem’s take on the Day of Love, a reading that promised to be “evil, sarcastic, and mean.” The MC for the evening was Katie Halper – hysterically funny and “recently single” – who was happy to share her red flags for soon-to-fail relationships: writer-types, drinking straight out of the bottle, talking about how much of an asshole you are, aspiring to be a pot head. The good thing, she notes, about dating underachievers is that you don’t have to wish ill on them… they’re already living it. Jeez, someone hire this girl as a comedy writer.
Dale Peck, co-founder of Mischief + Mayhem, read first, then had to run because he had a class to teach at The New School. He did, however, introduce us all to his boyfriend and gave him a box of chocolate in front of everyone. WTF, where’s the meanness and sarcasm in that? I barricaded myself in front of the door as he was trying to leave and asked why he started M&M: “We wanted to change the way people bought books. We’re bourgeois revolutionaries, we’re not blowing anything up. It’s boring and exciting.”
1. Max Blagg, journalist and poet, loves Valentine’s Day. Sort of. 2. MC Katie with an adoring fan. Actually, while I was talking to Katie about how funny she was, writer Cara Hoffman (whose novel So Much Pretty is out from Simon & Schuster next month) accosted Katie to say she was absurdly funny and listening to her was incredibly therapeutic. Why therapeutic? “I just finished writing a really dark book.” Katie thought she looked like Tina Fey.
1. I caught reader Marian Fontana (A Widow’s Walk) outside with friends Scott, Jesse and Tara. “We’re going for dinner and cocktails. I hope they have tables for four and not just two.” 2. And look! I wasn’t lying about 30 Rock! Watch out for the episode that takes place in a bookstore. You’re in the know!
katiehalper.com 