Quit Whining About the ABC Debate You Hypocrites!

For the past couple days I've read stories about boycotting ABC, and every insult possible against George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson, but for the life of me I can't understand why the outrage now. You won't find me defending the debate because I thought it was bad also, but to me what made this debate terrible had to do with the timing of the debate and the questions asked. Given the fact that we are down to two candidates and we've heard all the basic positions at least 19 times before I was expecting to hear questions that went into those positions in much greater detail. That of course did not happen...

The hypocrisy about this whole whine fest about the ABC debate is astounding considering what had gone in the previous 19 or so debates. The way everyone is treating this ABC debate is as if the other debates were "good". Now all of a sudden we are the debate police after all the bullshit that happened before this ABC debate? Where was the outrage when Senator Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were being excluded from debates? Where was the outrage when Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards were given more time and questions in the debates than any other candidate? I don't recall any outrage against Wolf Blitzer, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Brian Williams, or Anderson Cooper(forgive me I may have missed someone). Honestly, please tell me because I might have missed it...

What makes this situation more hypocritical is the fact that Obama supporters are whining that the questions were slanted against Obama. Sorry "Yes We Can"ers, but Obama can't be given a pillow in every debate. I don't recall any outrage from Obama supporters about the questions in that MSNBC debate hosted by Tim Russert not to long ago where it was visibly apparent the questions were slanted against Hillary.

I appreciate the fact that the quality of debates has reached a forefront, but it's a little late and for the wrong reasons. For the record I thought the Tavis Smiley debate on PBS was the best Democratic debate, and every other debate failed for various reasons.

Another Debate; Another Waste of Our Time

I'm just about a couple hours or so removed from just watching one of the most uninformative, and boring debates of this election cycle on ABC. There's really not a whole lot to add to that. The first hour of the debate featured mostly tabloidesqe type questions, and while answering Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama looked like they accidentally drank a bottle of NyQuil. This disaster was created by moderators George Stephanopoulous and Charles Gibson, and believe me they will hear that from everyone.

I didn't like almost all of the recent debates because quite frankly none of them brought any new ideas to the table. I find that these debates are more meant for the American that has been living in a shell and not paying attention. These Hillary vs Obama debates are tough to watch because they are hardly debates at all. Both of them generally have the same policies, and the reason we are at this deadlock in my opinion is because some want the first woman president now and others want the first black president now.

If you entered this ABC debate undecided there was nothing in this debate that would have swayed you one way or another. Thank you ABC for wasting our time.

(My apologies if you were expecting a more in-depth critique)

Congestion Pricing Rejected; Brains Do Exist in Albany After All

As a New Yorker and someone that lives in Brooklyn a big victory was won today. Today the New York State Assembly rejected a "congestion pricing" proposal by Mayor Bloomberg(recently passed by the NY City Council)that would have charged cars and commercial vehicles 8 dollars and trucks 21 dollars to enter certain zones within Manhattan during peak hours from 6am - 6pm. The plan was seen as an environmental plan to reduce pollution. The money collected from congestion pricing would theoretically have been used to pay for upgrades and more service within the MTA.

The NY Daily News reports the major contributing as factor to why the congestion pricing plan was killed:

Its fate was sealed after Bloomberg refused to negotiate major changes in his plan to charge cars $8 to enter Manhattan below 60th St. on weekdays to raise money for mass transit, ease traffic and improve air quality.

I guess Mayor Bloomberg isn't such a great negotiator after all.

Citing the fact that Mayor Bloomberg wined and dined many Councilman in Gracie Mansion to get his plan to pass the City Council, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester said:

"And it should be no surprise that the combination of strong-arm tactics and Jedi mind tricks that he used didn't work up here."

Given the fact that this proposal received little attention nationally or locally I was very scared that this proposal might get passed. This proposal was a direct attack on the middle class, and on New Yorkers from Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, Staten Island, and people commuting from New Jersey. Just imagine how many businesses would have been effected by this. It may work in other places in the world like London, Singapore, and Stockholm, but with the U.S. economy in shambles and the price of gas high this plan should have never been proposed in the first place. I'm shocked it actually got this far. On another front, this was also a victory for civil liberties because cameras would have been placed around the city to take pictures of license plates. Who knows what else those cameras would have taken pictures of, and where that data would have been transmitted too.

Brains do exist in Albany after all.

Air America Radio Wrongfully Suspends Randi Rhodes

Last night I read a blog post on DailyKos pointing out that Air America radio host Randio Rhodes had called Geraldine Ferraro a "whore"and Hillary Clinton a "big fucking whore". I hadn't seen this anywhere except that one blog post on DailyKos. In that blog post was a link to a video of the Randi Rhodes "rant" which today got her suspended. See where I'm going with this? This Randi Rhodes case seems to have some parallels to the Don Imus scandal almost a year ago. The Don Imus scandal brewed from a website(I wish I knew which site it was) that was the first place to raise an issue about Don Imus' remarks. Had that website not raised the issue it's extremely likely that the Don Imus remarks would have went unnoticed. (Seriously, who listens to Don Imus anyway?)

Even though Don Imus and Randi Rhodes said obscene things the difference between the two is that Don Imus used his air waves to say the things he said and Randi Rhodes didn't! Many people are overlooking this fact. Which brings me back to the "brewing from a website" argument. Randi Rhodes was suspended for her remarks from a stand-up comedy routine! The only reason this story has gained any traction is because of a video of the stand-up comedy routine posted on YouTube(posted below). Had this video not been put up
would we be talking about this story today? I'm willing to bet the house on "No!".

If we really want to get technical we need to look at this from a stand-up comedy routine perspective. If you look at it from that lens then there's no problem with it. The remarks were below the belt, but it's nothing we haven't heard from a comedian before. Are people bound to feel uncomfortable about these remarks? Of course, but since she wasn't on-air this was not worthy of a suspension.

2007 YouTube Victim of the Year: Don Imus
2008 YouTube Victim of the Year: Randi Rhodes (so far at least)