Big F*cking Deal (Hint: The “*” is a “u”)

The rest of the world might have a lot of reasons to poke fun at us right about now but having a badass for a President isn’t one of them. You can actually buy one of these shirts on Obama’s website.

With the exception of maybe Eisenhower, I can’t think of any President in recent memory that would be willing to lay it out like this.

How to Score a Free iPad 3, Legitmately


Whenever Apple releases a new product scammers fall all over themselves trying to con people into believing that they can somehow get their hands on a new iPad 3 for free. In case you were wondering, yes they’re ALWAYS scams.

However there is one legitimate way to get your hands on an iPad 3 before it comes out, although it does require a few rather unique circumstances.

Requirements for legitimately scoring a free iPad 3:

  1. Be the President of the United States
  2. Live in the White House
  3. Invite Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jonathan Ive to said White House for dinner

The recently knighted Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, will join other notable brits at President Barack Obama’s state dinner honoring British Prime Minister David Cameron’s first visit to the U.S.

As part of his first U.S. tour, Cameron will take part in a White House dinner where a number of British elites and other guests are planned to take part in a meet and greet with President Obama, reports The Guardian.

Seriously, who’s going to show up to the freaking White House for dinner without the hottest tech gadget of the year in tow? Well played Mr. President, well played.

American Politics Jumps the Shark as Barack Obama Starts Tumblr-ing

In case you’re sick of ingesting your political news in chunks larger than a microblog post, you’re in luck, President Obama has started a Tumblr just in time for the 2012 elections!

With inside posts including Instagrams, animated gifs, spotify playlists, and chili recipes you’ll be sure to be as informed and educated about the current political climate as anyone who doesn’t follow politics at all.

Mitt Romney Thinks the 99% is Just Envious of the 1%

Have you ever coveted the 1%’s ability to put food on the table, not get evicted and afford health insurance? That’s not inequality you feel, it’s envy…according to Mitt Romney.

In the video, Romney breaks it down for Matt Lauer saying, “I think it’s about envy. It’s about class warfare. I think when you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing American based on 99% vs 1% …that’s inconsistent with ‘One Nation, Under God.’”

Can anyone point to a time when Obama was encouraging Occupy Wall Street or the 99%?

When Matt Lauer asks if questions about the distribution of wealth can ever be asked without it being seen as “envy” Romney responds by saying, “I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policies and the like…”

Hear that your poor schmucks? Get your ass back in the house, or the motel room/shelter you’re living in since your house was foreclosed on, and discuss how rich the 1% are in there…quietly.

The Daily News Gets in on the Obama/Osama Photo Mashup Meme

For the past few years the line between so-called mainstream media and blogger media has been slowly dissapearing but I have to say this is the first time I’ve seen a major newspaper’s website jump on a viral photo mashup meme and publish so many of them.

For a minute I wasn’t sure if I was reading Reddit or the Daily News.

A couple more for reference sake of course.

This little girl can't catch a break. First she's miserable at the Royal Wedding, then she's miserable watching bin Laden get Black Opped

Call of Duty: Osama bin Laden

FOX News Passing Off Articles from The Onion as Real News Stories

UPDATE: Since this post was published FOX News has added “The Onion:” to the beginning of the article’s title. Still begging the question, how many FOX News readers/viewers actually know what the hell the Onion is? FOX News: If you insist on posting misleading satirical content on your site (is that an oxymoron?) then at least predicate it with “Satire:” not just “The Onion:” to try and cover your ass.

Either someone at FOX News doesn’t understand satire, or they’re just stupid. Personally I’d like to believe that the two may not be mutually exclusive.

FOX Nation published the title and first two paragraphs, verbatim, of an article the Onion ran about a “frustrated Obama writing a 75,000 word email to the Nation at four in the morning”. The only hint at all that it’s an Onion article is a small link to the Onion pretty far down from the actual post.

What makes it worse is that FOX Nation buried the story in with a couple dozen other REAL stories (here’s a screenshot of where the story was on the homepage). So either they didn’t know the story was satire which makes them stupid, or they didn’t care it was satire and tried to pass it off as real, which makes them, at best, unethical.

Obama Keeps On Cleaning up Bush’s Mess

Via Chelicerata:

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting the ban on sending U.S. government funds to organizations that provide abortion counseling with money from other sources as part of overseas family planning programs.

To clarify: Reagan (and then Bush, after Clinton dropped it) made it illegal for the US to give any money to international groups that gave abortion counseling – even when the money for that work came from other sources!

America. Fuck yeah!

Obama Becomes First President to Use a Blackberry in Office: Gets a $3,300 Sectera Edge

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNx0ANZQono&eurl=http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/barack-obama-super-blackberry&feature=player_embedded

Back in November I wrote a post about Obama more than likely having to give up his Blackberry thanks to email security vulnerabilities and the Presidential Records Act.

Looks like he’s going to get to keep it after all according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

“The president has a BlackBerry through a compromise that allows him to stay in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends,” Gibbs said at a White House press conference, “in a way that use will be limited and that the security is enhanced to ensure his ability to communicate, but to do so effectively and to do so in a way that is protected.”

Watch the video above for more specs on Obama’s new Blackberry. It has a red button that switches the device to “classified” mode to access Top Secret documents and “secret emails”. Barack Obama is James fucking Bond!

Obama Branded Heroin Hitting the Streets of New York

obama_heroinCops in upstate New York broke up a drug ring that was allegedly selling Obama branded heroin.  I expected a rise in kids named Barack or something, but come on, Obama branded heroin? 

Investigators arrested five suspects for their alleged roles in the narcotics distribution activity. The branding of illicit drugs is a favorite of pushers, who have previously sold bin Laden heroin, Harry Potter Ecstasy, bricks of Teletubbies cocaine, and green-tinted crack in recognition of St. Patrick’s Day.

Damn, these guys should open an ad agency.

Rush Limbaugh Says He Hopes Obama Fails

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcZjLgOI00M&feature=player_embedded

Imagine if a prominent Democrat would have said this about Bush during such a precarious time in the Nation.  It would have been fodder for the right wing pundits for years.

I certainly hope we are slowly reaching a point in American history where blowhard bullies and shit stirrers like Limbaugh find themselves being tuned out more and more by people who actually want to be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Just this past August, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Jeb Bush all called in to Rush’s show to congratulate him on 20 years of being on the radio.

Oil prices were at their highest, the country was in the midst of a recession, Wall Street and the banks were crumbling, the War in Iraq and Afghanistan were still raging with no end in sight.  All a result of choices Bush had made during his last eight years in office.  Did Rush use the opportunity to take Bush to task?  Not likely.

Here’s a sample of how the conversation went:

RUSH: Have you heard what Senator Obama wants to do? He wants another stimulus check of a thousand dollars to every American paid for by the oil companies.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Well, what we ought to be doing is encouraging oil companies to find oil, and that’s the best way to take the pressure off the gasoline prices. We’re on a very strong push to get the Congress to allow for there to be offshore drilling, and most Americans understand now that an increase in oil, particularly here in America, will help take pressure off of price. And I tell people I’d rather, you know, be buying American oil instead of sending our money overseas.

RUSH: You know, Mr. President, it’s amazing. In 2004 during your campaign, Senator Kerry was constantly criticizing you for not “jawboning” with the Saudis enough to bring the price of oil down. Now, four years later, they’re doing everything they can to keep the price from coming down. They apparently want it to remain high.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they may want to, but the American people want to see some relief. It would be like a massive tax cut when the gasoline prices decline. So we’re in times of economic uncertainty and the more money people have in their pockets the quicker we’ll be able to recover, in my judgment. You asked how I’m doing. My spirits are high; I’m going to finish strong. I love my family and I’m spending two days here with mother and dad before I head overseas.

Somehow he managed to insult Obama and Kerry all while slobbering over how brilliant Bush’s run in office had been.

Amazing.  But there is no reasoning with mean-spirited bullies like Limbaugh.  They huff and puff just to hear themselves speak.  There is no sense of introspection.  To them they are right, end of story.  There are no other sides.

The only way to get rid of people with that frame of mind is to tune them out.  Arguing with people like that just boosts their egos as if they are definding some noble thought or ideal, when in fact they are just towing the line.

Obama to shut down Gitmo

Prisoners are tortured at Gitmo. They are made to wear sensory deprivation goggles, headphones and breathing restriction masks. Their hands are bound and cuffed. They are forced to kneel for hours. Sensory deprivation and "self inflicted pain" are among the most devastating forms of torture the CIA has devised.Prisoners are tortured at Gitmo. They are made to wear sensory deprivation goggles, headphones and breathing restriction masks. Their hands are bound and cuffed. They are forced to kneel for hours. Sensory deprivation and “self inflicted pain” are among the most devastating forms of torture the CIA has devised.

While Bush and Cheney were making their farewll tours basically bragging that they knew about and authorized the torture at Gitmo, it’s taken only a couple of days for Obama to close down that shameful spot on American history.

President Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year and halt military trials of terrorism suspects held there, a senior administration official said.

The executive order was one of three expected imminently on how to interrogate and prosecute al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters believed to be threats to U.S. security.

We’re going to have to give Obama another four years.  His first four years are going to be filled trying to fix everything Bush fucked up.

At Last

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnOQfjWfxDQ&feature=player_embedded

The dawn of a new Day

080211_changeI started blogging in late 2002.  I began blogging to add my voice to the chorus of dicontented rabble.  

We were in our infancy.  We were still figuring out what power our words held and how to effeciently unite and bring about real change.  Many of today’s most popular political blogs were born in those heady days and cultivated by people who wanted nothing more than to have their voice be heard.  To feel like they were not being marginalized by a corporate takeover of the government.  

Much has changed since those times., personally, professionally and in the world around us.  We managed to survive the last eight years.  We managed to come through with a few our spirit in tact.  We managed to come through with our hope still resonant.  We managed to Take what we learned in 2004 and had been honing since 2002 and use it to propel the most unlikely of candidates to the highest office in the Nation.  

We managed to find a man who held the torch of hope high, who believed in us as much as we believed in ourselves.  We managed to be a part of one of those perfectly scripted moments in time, a time that will be written about in history books.  A moment that our children and grandchildren will hear about from us, and wonder exactly sparks that wry smile and that gleam in our eyes as we recount our memories of Barack Obama.

Today we are firmly planted in our deals, facing forward.  Facing in the right direction for the first time in many years.  

Today is our day.  

In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.

Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. 

Yes we did.

Yes you can party: Last Minute Brooklyn Inauguration Events

obamalogoStill undecided on what to do tomorrow to celebrate the end of the Dark Ages?  Whether you’re looking for a way to wash off the stench of the last eight years or clasp hands and proudly declare, “Yes we can,” to the next eight, Brooklyn has plenty of spots to get your drink on, your spirits up your Obama down.

  • The Community Bookstore - Events all day long and into the evening
  • BAM - Live Inauguration Broadcast
  • Two Steps Down - 240 DeKalb Ave., Fort Greene, will have music, dancing and a light buffet. Admission is free; cash bar. 6 p.m. 
  • NY City Explorers - Inauguration Day Family Party
  • The Bell House – Brooklyn Inaugural Ball: A Benefit for P.S. 261
  • Smack Mellon - Inaugural Ball
  • Southpaw - Post Inauguration Celebration Time & The Goodbye WreckRoom Party for Bush
  • Barbès - You don’t have to go to DC. We will be open at 11am and show the festivities live on our big screen in the backroom.
  • The Brazen Head – Inauguration day bash
  • South 4th Bar & Cafe – Inauguration events all day

Know of any other events/parties you want to shout out?  Email me at blog@jamespoling.com and let me know.

President-elect Obama Lays Out His Plan to Make the Internets Better

It’s pretty freaking cool that we have President that not only knows, but realizes how important it is that the United States is ranked 15th in world broadband adoption.  He promises to bring broadband to schools and hospitals across the country.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpIT2bVZDw&eurl=http://www.google.com/reader/view/&feature=player_embedded

That’s all well and good but let’s home he also deals with the fact that our broadband completely sucks compared to the rest of the world.

Umm yeah, I’ll take some of that Japanese broadband please.  Is there anything invented in the US that the Japanese don’t take and make a thousand times better?