It's the most wonderful time of the year for Behind Enemy Lines Radio! It's #BOTY time!
Join us for our annual Buffoon of the Year Selection Show where Gene, Russ & friends run down the "Scandalous 16" as selected by the show from the ranks of politics and media that really REALLY screwed the pooch this year.
For those unfamiliar with "Buffoon of the Year", it's basically what you think it is - we here at the show hold the truly idiotic, dim-witted and buffoonish characters from the past year of politics for abject ridicule in the hopes that our public shaming will lead to corrective measures. It's all about the kids, y'all.
You can check out past winners here.
Now let the hilarity and shenanigans begin!
BRACKET 1: Media Buffoons
No 1. Huffington Post vs. No. 4 Jamelle Bouie
Coming out right out of the gate hot with two buffoon-ish members of the media!
Off all the "major' news outlets that got Election 2016 wrong, The Huffington Post might have been the wrongest of the wrong. Predicting that Hillary Clinton would have well over 300 electoral votes is one thing. But claiming - before any vote had been counted - that Hillary Clinton was a 98% favorite to win the Presidency takes a special kind of buffoonery. Even political analyst Nate Silver, who was wrong himself, called out HuffPo on its buffoonery with severe prejudice.
Meanwhile, while Slate's chief political correspondent Jamelle Bouie is not such a household name, his buffoonery is no less noteworthy. Like many others, Bouie sees nothing but color in politics. That's why headlines like "The Most Astute Analysis of American Politics in 2016? SNL’s “Black Jeopardy!” Sketch", "The Trump Campaign Is Ending as It Began: Bigoted as Hell" and "For Minority Voters, a Ballot for Clinton Is a Proclamation That This Is Their Country Too" during the election cycle and "White Won" and "There's No Such Thing As A Good Trump Voter" popping up after Trump's victory. We encourage you to go beyond the headlines, where you'll read that Bouie's body of work consists of nothing but race politics echoing in a bubble of liberal lunacy that is not only buffoonish, but dangerous.
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
No 2. Breitbart News vs. No. 3 #NeverTrump
This one is gonna be lit.
Within the conservative movement, the divide between Trump supporters and so-called "Never Trump" conservatives was never so prevalent as it was within conservative media.
On one side, Breitbart News didn't just embrace Donald Trump, they became a de facto extension of the Trump campaign once Steven Bannon joined his senior campaign advisors. The basic job qualifications for writing for Breitbart went from writing about issues conservatives cared about to writing rah-rah puff pieces on the smallest of Trump campaign developments. Basically, if Trump sneezed, Breitbart was there to wipe his nose.
On the other side, and just as buffoonish, was the so-called #NeverTrump movement which was the informal name for the concerted effort on the part of some Republicans and other prominent conservatives to prevent Donald Trump from obtaining the Republican Party presidential nomination, and, following his nomination, the presidency, for the 2016 United States presidential election. National Review even devoted an entire issue to work penned by anti-Trump conservatives that banded together to derail the Trump Train. The movement became so fervent, that the in-fighting among everyday conservatives became palpable on social media.
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
Bracket 2 - Buffoonish Politicos
Let's focus on some monumentally buffoonish blunders by political insiders who should know better.
First, the fall of once "respected" mainstream media figure Donna Brazile. One of the many breaking news coming out of the Wikileaks publication of emails "obtained" from the DNC (more on this later!) was the revelation of something that conservatives only suspected until 2016: that members of the media were in cohoots with politicians. Suspected, that is, until then-CNN contributor and DNC co-chair Donna Brazile had access to at least one (if not two) question(s) that the network's moderators was going to ask Hillary Clinton in a town hall. According to Wikileaks, Brazile sent that question to Hillary’s campaign in a total breach of journalistic integrity and ethics. She then went onto news outlets and attempted to sidestep the issue claiming that the Wikileaks emails had no validity because they were stolen, yet never denied the content of the emails themselves. Brazile's buffoonery pulled back the veil on the incestuous conflict of interest between media and politics.
Speaking of emails, you may or may not know who Cheryl Mills is, but once you read the net sentence, you'll know all you need to in order to cast your vote. According to published reports from those darn Wikileaks emails, Cheryl Mills was the Clinton staffer who approved the use of a private email server by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mills also received immunity from the FBI in connection with its investigation into Clinton's private email server. Need we say more?
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
No. 2 DWS vs. No. 3 Gary Johnson
Now let's have a little fun with a battle of a couple of kooks.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz returns to this year's BOTY with something to prove. I mean, for what other reason would she have put her thumb on the Democratic Primary scale by setting the rules solidly in favor of Hillary over Bernie and by using her position to actively work for the Clinton campaign. And when she was found out, she bolted to "officially" work for Hillary's losing effort.
As for Gary Johnson, you had one job! If there was ever an opportunity to blow open a space in the political debate for a third voice, Johnson shudders that door completely by acting like an unprepared ass who may or may not have been high. Whether it was his "Aleppo" moment, or antics with reporters, Johnson squandered a golden political opportunity.
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
Bracket 3 - Buffoonish Personalities
No. 1 Beyonce vs. No. 4 Mark Cuban
Oh look, famous buffoons!
Beyonce's buffoonery is two-fold. First, she turned the Super Bowl halftime show into a political statement in tribute to Black Panthers. Second, she threw her star power into the political arena behind Hillary Clinton, most notably throwing a last-minute concert at the behest of the then-floudering Clinton campaign in a shameless display of pandering race politics. So in essence, Beyonce's buffoonery is that she was a useful idiot in 2016.
She goes one-on-one with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who couldn't decide during the election process whether he was with or against Donald Trump. An early Trump supporter in 2015, Cuban flip-flopped and turned troll later in the campaign vehemently advocating for Hillary Clinton. However, now that all the election night smoke has cleared, it looks like Cuban is trying to buddy up with the Trump transition. No one is buying it, Mark.
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
Think what you want about Colin Kaepernick's protest during the playing of the National Anthem at NFL games where he and his 49ers stink up the joint. Colin Kaepernick's righteous indignation has been shown to be nothing but hypocrisy when he revealed that for all his outspoken behavior, he didn't even bother to vote, or even register to vote, for the leader of the free world or any other person who could further his "agenda". He also went to Miami in a Fidel Castro t-shirt and lauded Castro's "accomplishments" during his bloody reign in Cuba. Kaepernick's cause is not racial equality or social justice. Kaepernick's cause is Colin Kaepernick.
Speaking of out of touch, Amy Schumer is a hypocrite. A comedienne with a pretty vulgar act, Schumer is no stranger to pushing the comedic envelope when talking about sex, ethnicity and the like. But apparently, supporting Donald Trump crosses the line! After Trump supporters walked out of a Florida show in October after Schumer's schtick turn into a Trump-hate monologue, Schumer blamed "rich, entitled white people", of whom we assume Schumer is a part of, for being intolerant. Wow.
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
Bracket 4 - The Wild Cards
So who's more to blame for Hillary Clinton's loss? The answer may be one of these two buffoons.
First, he's baaaaaaaa-aaaaack! What would a BOTY selection be without the man, the myth, the Weiner! While it's hard to believe that disgraced Congressman / failed Mayoral candidate / serial over-sharer Anthony Weiner could top past BOTY appearances, this year's "accomplisments"are not of a joking matter. After a third scandal involving Weiner sharing photos of his... um... body with a woman came to light, photos revealed that Weiner's young child was in frame on some of those photos. Then, news broke that Weiner was alleged having inappropriate conversations with an underage girl. Not only did Weiner screw up his marriage and painted himself a target of an FBI investigation, but, somehow, Weiner's alleged sex addiction may have sacked the Clinton campaign's chances of winning, as examination of his computer prompted FBI Director James Comey to re-open the investigation into Clinton's private email server mere days before Election Day. That's one dirty Weiner!
To be honest, John Podesta's buffoonery is something that we all may have done at some point in our lives - he let his email password get in the hands of the wrong people. Podesta's emails became the focus of what seemed like weeks of scrutiny into Hillary Clinton's inner circle, its operations when she was Secretary of State and the internal communications of her Presidential campaign. When a hack gets hacked, the fallout is major, and Podesta's hack had Clinton hacked off!
Marilyn Mosby makes the grade for her dogged determination in pursuing hopeless prosecutions against Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. As expected, Mosby not only failed in epic fashion to obtain one conviction of any charge, but the courts completely rebuked her flimsy theory of prosecution as contrary to law. That prompted calls for her to be disbarred. Thus, Mosby answers the question of what happens when you pursue political ambition through the criminal courts: buffoonery.
So Who Ya Got, America! Voting starts... NOW!
First, he's baaaaaaaa-aaaaack! What would a BOTY selection be without the man, the myth, the Weiner! While it's hard to believe that disgraced Congressman / failed Mayoral candidate / serial over-sharer Anthony Weiner could top past BOTY appearances, this year's "accomplisments"are not of a joking matter. After a third scandal involving Weiner sharing photos of his... um... body with a woman came to light, photos revealed that Weiner's young child was in frame on some of those photos. Then, news broke that Weiner was alleged having inappropriate conversations with an underage girl. Not only did Weiner screw up his marriage and painted himself a target of an FBI investigation, but, somehow, Weiner's alleged sex addiction may have sacked the Clinton campaign's chances of winning, as examination of his computer prompted FBI Director James Comey to re-open the investigation into Clinton's private email server mere days before Election Day. That's one dirty Weiner!
To be honest, John Podesta's buffoonery is something that we all may have done at some point in our lives - he let his email password get in the hands of the wrong people. Podesta's emails became the focus of what seemed like weeks of scrutiny into Hillary Clinton's inner circle, its operations when she was Secretary of State and the internal communications of her Presidential campaign. When a hack gets hacked, the fallout is major, and Podesta's hack had Clinton hacked off!
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
No. 2 New York City Board of Elections vs. No. 3 Marilyn Mosby
When government goes rogue, buffoonery abounds.
The New York City Board of Elections lands onto this year's list because it mistakenly removed more than 120,000 voters from the rolls in the run-up to the New York presidential primary in April, many of whom showed up to the polls looking to vote for Bernie Sanders. It is the latest in a string of recent buffoonery at the BOE, where candidate petitions have been shredded and incompetence abounds. That would be enough. But later in the year, a Project Veritas investigation revealed that Manhattan Democrat BOE Commissioner Alan Schulkin was filmed on hidden camera saying that voter fraud is rampant, that NYC Mayor de Blasio's IDNYC complicated efforts to maintain voter integrity and that voter ID is needed. Schulkin's term as BOE Commissioner was not renewed. Funny how that happens, hmmm?
Marilyn Mosby makes the grade for her dogged determination in pursuing hopeless prosecutions against Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. As expected, Mosby not only failed in epic fashion to obtain one conviction of any charge, but the courts completely rebuked her flimsy theory of prosecution as contrary to law. That prompted calls for her to be disbarred. Thus, Mosby answers the question of what happens when you pursue political ambition through the criminal courts: buffoonery.
WHO YA GOT! #BOTY2016
So Who Ya Got, America! Voting starts... NOW!
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.