Yesterday, I posted here what was called "Segment 1" of the Bad Lip Reading version of the musical Hamilton -- which in the hands of the Bad Lip Reading people came across as Axe-Assassin Albertson. I said that unlike their other efforts, I felt pretty certain there would be additional videos. I only had to wait one day. Here then is "Segment 2," thanks to the KASCAID voice analyzer with a 98.3% accuracy. If and when more segments show up, we'll ring the curtain up again.
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The other day, Mitt Romney (R-UT) released a comment that it was stupid of Democrats to help promote the craziest far-right Republican loons in GOP primaries as being potentially the easier candidates to win in general elections because, as Romney said, it was a danger to democracy.
First of all, if Mitt Romney wants to talk about dangers to democracy, he must start in his own house and point to the Big Lie his party has been pushing about election fraud, the insurrection that far too much of his party enabled, voter suppression laws throughout red states, and the GOP actually putting up this crazy far-right loons in their primaries who their GOP voters actually vote for. Democrats might try to create a situation where they run against the crazies…but to make that possible, Republicans have to be the ones who vote for them. And secondly, no, it is not a stupid strategy at all to try to run against your opposing party’s worst candidates. That’s actually pretty smart. It was how Claire McCaskill won her re-election to the Senate when it was assumed she’d lose. But her campaign helped promote the woeful Todd Akins, who ended up winning the Republican primary, and she beat him in the General Election. (She lost six years later to the insurrection runner Josh Hawley.) What the strategy is, however, is risky. If it backfires, then, yes, some true crazies will be elected to Congress. But that’s still more on the Republican Party for voting for the crazies just because they’re Republicans. The thing is, the more I’ve thought about this strategy by Democrats, I’m not sure I think it’s as risky as it appears on the surface. And that’s even if the crazy loons win. I say that because so many of the other Republican candidates running against these crazies aren’t the mainstream, solid candidates of yesterday. When crazy J.D. Vance won the GOP Senate primary in Ohio, he beat Josh Mandel who was battling Vance to see who could be more gallingly offensive and hate-filled. Today, a Republican isn’t going to win most party nominations if they start saying rational things like the presidential election wasn’t stolen, it was wrong to storm the U.S. Capitol, I think evidence shows Trump tried to stage a coup, I agree with the vast majority of Americans who think all abortion should not be banned and same-sex marriage is okay and we shouldn’t ban contraceptives and we shouldn’t have white supremacists in the military – and anyone who follows QAnon and thinks JFK is coming back to life to run with Trump and Anderson Cooper eats babies. Not to mention that any Republican candidate pretty much has to say that they support what Trump stands for. So, to say otherwise, to be against all of that seems pretty crazy on its own terms, yet a “Team Normal” Republican today pretty much has to be against all of that…at least in a race where a crazy loon actually has a very real chance of winning the race. So, the downside of Democrats pushing to run against the weakest Republican candidate who might scare off Independents and a few moderate Republicans isn’t as “risky” as one might think. Because the alternative to a GOP crazy loon candidate is still pretty crazy and awful and fascist. They might be fairly rational in their core – but they can’t vote that way. Just look at how the Republicans vote in Congress. Almost lock-step united on most measures, no matter how rational and reasonable. On a House vote to protect contraceptives, 195 Republicans voted “No.” Only eight said yes. For the House vote that would keep white supremacists and neo-Nazis out of the military to protect the country, all 208 Republicans voted “No.” When the House voted to protect same-sex marriage (something 71% of the country supports), it was a big deal in the news that 47 Republicans actually voted “Yes” – but what that means is that 157 Republicans voted no. And further, there is uncertainty whether the Senate will be able to get just 10 Republicans there to vote for it and break a filibuster. It should pass there -- and may. But it should be an "Of course!!" vote where the only question is there would be 10 Republicans willing to vote against something 71% Americans are for. So, no, the downside of pushing the weaker crazies, while having a risk, doesn’t have all that much of a risk or downside. Especially when the upside of winning is huge. It should be incredibly risky. It should be dangerous. But that’s today’s fascist Republican Party. That is where the danger and risk is. I’ve long been a big fan of the Bad Lip Reading people. For those who haven’t seen their work, the premise is that they supposedly are trying to lip read various kinds of video…but just do a really awful job of it. They’ve generally “lip read” political debates and hearings and sports sideline footage, though occasionally delve into entertainment. Their most recent is one of their most ambitious – it’s a truly terrible lip reading version of the Disney+ production of Hamilton. It’s about six minutes and doesn’t cover the full breadth of the musical – though they call it “Segment 1,” so even though they've never done sequels before, I feel pretty certain they’ll be posting more. What's fun, too, is that for this they decided to create a backstory on why the video exists. And what they came up with is a hoot, and puts the whole thing in an even more odd perspective. I don’t know the lyrics of Hamilton well, most especially compared to those who can do the full show by themselves in the shower. But it still was a lot of fun for me. Especially when I realized that the title of their effort is the bad lip reading result of the main character’s name. Curtain up. Here then is the first segment of -- – Axe-Assassin Albertson. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been on a bit of a roll lately. First, there was his TV ad that aired in Florida, taking on the restrictive laws that Gov. DeSantis has had passed, and welcoming those in the state to the protections of freedom in California. Then there were the full page ads he took out in Texas papers, taking on the restrictive abortion laws in the state pushed by Gov. Abbott, by touting the new, tough gun laws in California by noting, in one of the ads – “If Texas can ban abortion and endanger lives, California can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives. If Governor Abbott truly wants to protect the right to life, we urge him to follow California's lead.” This came at the time two weeks ago Newsom helped push through new gun laws in the state, which I wrote about here. And then last week, Gov. Newsom announced perhaps his most fascinating project – dealing with a problem he’s talked about taking office, but only finally brought to fruition. What’s surprising is that is truly major, hugely so, yet it’s gotten very little national attention. I only found out about it when I got a text message from Newsom. And while it has been covered in California, it hasn’t gotten much anywhere else. Which is boggling when you realize that this is the story -- Newsom announced that because the cost of insulin, the critical drug in dealing with diabetes, is so incredibly high, the state of California was going to develop its own insulin, manufacture it and distribution close to cost. Yes, really. The state has approved $100 million for the project. That includes $50 million for the development of insulin products, and another $50 million to manufacture and distribute it, creating new jobs at the same time. How high is the cost of insulin in the U.S.? The nonprofit Rand Corporation studied 34 countries, and the second-highest country was Chile where the price per unit is $25. Again, that’s the second most expensive in the world. In the U.S., which has the highest cost, it’s $100 per unit, on average, four time as much – as the second highest. The health care organization CharityRx recently commission a survey and found that among Americans who need insulin, four out of five have taken on an average credit card debit of $9,000 to pay for the medication. So, it’s not like California’s project came out of the blue. In fact, this past March, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would cap insulin costs at $35 for people with private health insurance and the Medicare drug benefit. It will not shock you to learn that the Senate has not yet passed the bill. Whether other states create their own projects, or whether insulin manufacturers in the U.S. will be lowering their costs -- and whether the Senate will pass the House bill, remains to be seen. Including whether, if the program is successful, California will eventually begin selling its insulin to other states. So, as Gov. Newsom said, “California is now taking matters into our own hands. Because in California, we know people should not go into debt to receive life-saving medication.” Here’s a brief news report on it, with a little bit of Newsom’s video announcement. After a brief detour, we return to close out our fest with singer Jo Stafford and her husband, pianist-composer Paul Weston who put out a series of "alter ego" comedy albums as the woefully off-key Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. As I mentioned before, Stafford and Weston's career had its peak in the 40s and 50s, with her even having success into the 1960s with a couple of TV series. However, their careers went much father, even with "Jonathan and Darlene." And that's what we have here today as a sort of bonus finale -- two of their songs released as a single in 1977. (In fact, they even had a subsequent album in 1982!) Most of the Jonathan and Darlene albums were mangling classic standards. But here we have them doing the Bee Gee's "Stayin' Alive" and the anthem made famous by Helen Reddy, "I Am Woman." By the way, it's also worth noting that when the ZAZ team of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker (who would soon go on to make Airplane! and The Naked Gun, among others) made their first film, Kentucky Fried Movie in that same 1977, they used the Jonathan and Darlene Edwards' recording of "Carioca" in the opening and closing credits. Here, though, is "Stayin' Alive." And released on the flip side, this their mangling of "I Am Woman." Listen closely near the beginning at the 20-second mark when "Darlene" has some trouble with the lyrics, though quickly recovers. The MeidasTouch group has been making some excellent, blunt political videos for a couple of years. They released one yesterday that was among their best. As a "production," I'd suggest it is their best, since usually they just edit news footage impactfully. It's also just flat-out extremely clever. This one is about the Pennsylvania Senate race. And it was so good that I'm going to turn things over to them and just let the thing run on its own. It's a little over two minutes -- and a gem. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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