Living Liberally Blog

In case you don't believe Chris O'Reilly's claim that the Netroots Nation is like a "Klan gathering" and as hateful as the Nazis, check out this video I'm in. Five Steps Forward Media and I expose the Nazism! Why are they so hateful towards me and my people? You'll notice there is no Gypsy Caucus either, a group the Nazis tried to exterminate. What say you? Coincidence? I think not!

An effective way to joke about Obama:

by Lee Camp, LeeCamp.net

Morristown Laughing Liberally host Michael Hayne gives us a rundown of their latest Laughing Liberally Lab:

I am happy to report an extremely successful and solid lab at Danny's Pub in Morristown, NJ. We had a very enthusiastic, supportive and eclectic crowd of organizers, activists, bloggers, and Tom Wyka (Tom Wyka is a Democratic candidate in the 2008 congressional elections for the 11th Congressional District US Congress)--amounting to total of thirty-plus.

We had a very smart and talented group of comics that kept the two and a half hour show alive with their lively pontifications, including an amazing 20 min set from Nasry Malik of CNN and Comedy Central. Plugging all the relevant Living Liberally activities and keeping exuberance high with the telling of anecdotes, Kevin O' Driscoll did an excellent job as host! The highlight of the evening, however, was putting up a very special political guest in Joey Novick. Joey is an attorney, professional stand-up comedian, professional keynote speaker, and a former elected official in NJ. He resides in Flemington, New Jersey, where currently serves as the
as the Chairman of the Flemington Democratic Party

Stay Tuned for Future Labs!

Will do. Glad it went well.

(Written in satire. A literal trasnlation for the tonally impaired is available upon request.)

This weekend I went to Austin, Texas, to attend the third annual Netroots [Aryan] Nation, the convention formerly known as Yearly Kos and recently called a "Klan gathering" by Bill O'Reilly. I agree with O'Reilly that "including the Nazis and the Klan... there is not a more hateful group in the country than the Daily Kos People." I too hate this hateful conference, which encourages democracy, open politics, participatory democracy, grass roots organizing and other Nazi-ish thing. But I attend each year, under the guise of a Laughing Liberally comic and Living Liberally leader, in order to counter the lies of the liberal media, who receive their talking points and marching orders directly from Subcomandante Markos [Moulitsas]. I go because somebody needs to document the atrocities that are ignored by the appeasement era press and distorted by the Netroots deniers. I go to show the world the truth. I go to say Never Again.

So, here are some of the things you won't hear from the liberal media about the four-day gathering of over 2,000 progressive bloggers, journalists, politicians and activists.

1. The netroots are so vicious that Obama was forced to flee to the relative safety of Afghanistan.

2. The netroots are reconsidering their position on FISA. Although they were disappointed with Obama's vote and his absence from the conference, they have now realized that thanks to the new FISA law, Obama could hear everything they said.

3. The surprise guest was no surpirse. Everyone knew the surprise guest would be Al Gore. Duh! He is the inventor of the series of tubes known as the internets.

4. Al Gore proved global warming is real, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I'll admit it, I was a skeptic about global warming. But that was before I saw Al Gore speak live. Because what An Inconvenient Truth doesn't capture, is Gore's presence, energy, and sweat. After watching Gore sweat in an air-conditioned convention hall, it is impossible not to believe in global warming.

5. Al Gore is anti-American. During his speech, Gore mentioned wind turbines several times. Well, wind baseball caps are fine with me, Mr. Vice President. Love it or leave it!

6. The Socialist Party made a debut at the Convention. The convention has had Democrats and recovering Republicans. But this year for the first time, with Nancy Pelosi's attendance, the conference hosted a member of the Socialist Party.

7. Nancy Pelosi has sound judgment (for a Socialist). The Speaker of the House is a radical San Franciscan and a pusher of the Homosexual agenda, Yet when she spoke in Austin, Pelosi demonstrated sound judgment and astute reasoning through her vibrant mint green pants suit, a tasteful Clinton-Cleavage-free blouse, neutral but elegant tan heels, and warm honey highlights.

8. Donna Edwards does not belong in politics. If I learned anything from Representative Edwards' keynote speech, it's that she is too honest, hard-working, passionate, genuine, inspired, and inspiring to be in Congress. What is she thinking?

9. Contrary to popular belief, bloggers do have a sense of humor. The Netroots Nation gift bags included condoms.

10. John McCain should not be misunderestimated by the netroots. After all, McCain is already "aware of the internet." By next year's convention in Pittsburgh, the maverick may know how to get online.

This is what the internet is saying today:

1. Gas is still really expensive; we are still slaves to the oil companies.

2. Christopher Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded for a Vanity Fair story, which is fun to check out right after reading this article in the New York Times about how the folks at Gitmo are totally ripping off their torture techniques from Mao Zedong.

3. In the wake of his statements that he will support federally-funded faith-based initiatives, Obama meets with a bunch of right-wing Evanglists who, in turn, ask him a bunch of offensive questions.

4. There's still lots of coverage of Wesley Clark's remarks that getting shot down in a fighter plane doesn't qualify you for the presidency. Good news (?): Clark is getting some support, from Moveon and from Robert G. Gard. Bad news: The McCain people are still running this thing into the ground.

5. Truthdig has a report on the actually-kind-of-shocking discrepancy between American and Dutch drug use.

6. Conservative radio host Michael Savage calls Nancy Pelosi "Mussolini in a skirt" about forty times, makes mistake of dissing Media Matters.

7. Alternet ranked the top ten most "awesomely bad" moments of the Bush presidency, with "Mission Accomplished" as his "Sargeant Pepper."

8. Also, bears are great, am I right? MSNBC has the dish on their secret lives.

h/t Andrew Sullivan

The Charlotte, NC chapter of Living Liberally city leaders to the National Conference September 5-7.

(Dick Cheney will not be wearing his hunting vest to Charlotte in September, so the proverbial ducks should be safe.)

We booked a hotel that the telecoms haven't 'bugged' yet. We've reserved a meeting space that will double as the holding cell for Rove and his buddies from the White House come January. We found an airport shuttle that runs on a clean-burning 75/25 mix of organic beer and wine. And finally, we promise to count every single Living Liberally libation drunk, er, vote cast here in Charlotte!

It's about that time, City Leaders. Register for our National Conference today!

As an intern here at Living Liberally HQ, a big chunk of my day is spent looking for John McCain stories on the internet (don't worry, I don't get paid). And since we just had our McCain-themed comedy night with guest authors Cliff Schecter and Paul Waldman, I'm coming off a week-long stretch of Google searches like "John McCain, old," "John McCain, flip-flop" and "John McCain, unflattering pictures." I've learned a lot of fun facts about old Johnny boy: he is a Virgo, his favorite movie is Some Like It Hot and he graduated high school in the same year as Fred Flintstone. But what I haven't found are consistently funny internet videos about John McCain.

Sure, I've found plenty of videos--there's the whole slew up at Brave New Films which aren't comedic, but still do a great job of making you want to move to Germany if McCain gets elected, plus droves of flashy, moderately-amusing clips like this McCain rap song (worth watching for the Chris Matthews sample) and John McCain's Spring Break Tips (cute, but the skin cancer jokes are kind of a low blow). Overall, though, I haven't been able to find that one McCain video that's, you know, worth blogging about.

However, I think the answer may lie with the man himself. Wacky McCain impersonators or Midwestern teenagers with their dads' camcorders can't touch the lunacy of the real McCain as he hurtles towards senility. I laughed hardest at this clip of McCain getting owned on Meet The Press (no Russert jokes here; I'm not a monster) and I also love watching this six-second clip of McCain babbling about sending bottled hot water to dehydrated babies over and over on a loop.

In many ways, I have come to feel as though I am Ahab and the world's funniest McCain video is my White Whale. And like Ahab, I will not rest until (spoiler alert!) my resources have been totally exhausted and the blood of both myself and my shipmates has been spilled. Or until the McCain Girls make another 80s music video parody. Because, you know. That would also be pretty funny.

Laughing Liberally to Keep from Crying
by Lee Camp