Last year, comedian Stephen Colbert’s “super” political action committee (PAC) raised over a million dollars that he said was used “to materially influence the elections – in full accordance with the law.” “It’s the way our founding fathers would have wanted it,” he said, “if they had founded corporations instead of just a country.”
Colbert was poking fun at what many Americans believe to be one of the worst U.S. Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history.
This month marks the 3rd anniversary of the controversial Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision, which narrowly passed by a 5-4 vote on January 21, 2010 and gave corporations the status of individuals for the purpose of election contributions.
Following that decision and others in lower courts, the FEC implemented changes in the election laws that further expanded corporate power. Super-PACs were born to legally channel unlimited amounts of money to campaigns, giving corporate interests enormous influence over government policy.
With public welfare already taking a back seat to corporate profit, the Citizens United decision was utterly misguided. The inevitable effect of the ruling was of such concern that even retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor spoke against it.
In the three years since the decision, a national movement has taken root to overturn Citizens United by amending the U.S. Constitution. There is broad support from businesses, organizations, and individuals across the political spectrum.
In October 2012, New Jersey became then the 9th state in the nation to pass a resolution supporting an amendment-to-overturn.
Last night on the Colbert Report, Newark Mayor Cory Booker sat down with Stephen Colbert and talked the City of Newark and the new documentary " Brick City" which will be presented on the Sundance Channel next Monday at 10 pm.
Colbert asks Booker why he is "docu-bait", Brick City is the second documentary to feature Booker in the past few years. For those who do not know what "Brick City" refers to, Newark has long been call the "Brick City".
The mayor of Newark answered by saying that Brick City wasn't just about him, but about a number of unique, grassroots folks and characters that every day, who fight to make sure that the city reaches it's full potential.
Mayor Booker also discusses the decreasing crime rate within the city and how the quality of life for residents has steadily increased.
At one point during the interview, Colbert points out that as a "Lefty Liberal" the ACLU has given Booker a grade of "C" and asks Booker to remind him, not to visit Newark on St. Patrick's day because they have arrested individuals for public urination.
The mayor answers by giving Colbert permission to pee in Newark... as long as he uses a urinal!
Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, assuming his best fake-conservative pundit persona, was wildly enthusiastic on Thursday about the Republican House members' unanimous refusal to vote for President Obama's stimulus program.
Declaring Today's Word to be "The Audacity of Nope," Colbert exclaimed, "We don't neet a package filled with handouts -- we need one filled with balls! And yesterday, 177 House Republicans put their nuts on the line and said, 'No! We will not vote for this bill that we know will pass anyway!'"
Read more about the Audacity of Nope from Raw Story >>> Here
On The Colbert Report, Dr. Stephen T. Colbert (DFA) noted that John McCain was doing something peculiar with his tongue. The upshot of the joke was that McCain was repeatedly sticking his tongue out like a reptile.
While the late-night laughanistas were having their fun, as a professional poker player I instantly recognized an increasingly well-known poker tell that I’ve been able to use to my advantage at the table.
Retired FBI agent Joe Navarro, a Bluff Magazine columnist and author of Read ‘Em and Reap, a book on poker tells culled from his professional interrogation experience, has written about the “tongue jut,” which is exactly what McCain was doing in the Colbert debate clips. Its significance? Tongue-jutting behavior is a gesture used by people who think they have gotten away with something or are “caught” doing something. I have seen this behavior in flea markets both in the United States and in Russia, among street vendors in Lower Manhattan, at poker tables in Las Vegas, and in business meetings. In each case, the person made the gesture – tongue between the teeth without touching the lips – at the conclusion of some sort of a deal or as a final nonverbal statement. This behavior has several meanings – depending on specific situations – but is usually associated with one of these: I got caught (taking candy from a drawer), gleeful excitement (look at what I just did, Mom), I got away with something (and I didn’t get caught), I did something foolish, or I am naughty. Naturally, this made me curious as to what exactly McCain was saying when his tongue jutted. So, today, I watched a replay of the whole debate tape.
A few examples:
“Greed is rewarded. Excess is rewarded.” “I have a fundamental belief in the goodness and strength of the American worker.” “I don’t believe we’re gonna go back to the Cold War. I am sure that that will not happen” “... loss of all the fragile sacrifice that we’ve made of American blood and treasure which grieves us all.”
What can we conclude from this? I’m not a trained psychologist, but I have used observation of this particular tell in the past to my financial advantage. Usually when I’m observing two players are in a hand against each other, one decides to make a laydown, and the other tongue juts when that happens, I’ll mentally capture their entire body language during the hand in my memory bank, and when I see it again, I’ll assign greater likelihood that the opponent is bluffing. I’ve profited from this tell.
Does that mean McCain is getting away with something he knows he shouldn't? Not necessarily -- he could be excited to be scoring points -- but Navarro's long FBI experience tells us this unconscious reptile-brain mimic is in that ballpark. Perhaps trained body language experts will see the clips and make more definitive conclusions about what McCain is doing here.
Looked at as a composite body of jut-work, I notice these are definitely moments when McCain is feeling pretty good about himself and the points he's making. McCain partisans may even like this clip being out there, because, juts or no juts, they're a lot of the comments he wanted to get in. Every mention of General Petraeus seems to be something McCain feels good about, for example.
Or he could just have a really hilarious tic and it could mean nothing.
"Any change is as good as a vacation at this point. I don't know if you've paid much attention to the past eight years, but it has been a shit burger supreme. If somebody gives me an empty burger, it's better than eating shit."
-- Stephen Colbert, setting aside his conservative TV pundit character for an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
