Average American Joe, Domestic Beer, and NASCARs

Stephen talked about the Oscars and about Matthew McConaughey's best hero of many times, but I figure if you are interested in the Oscars, you watched it over and over. And if not, then you don't need Stephen to tell you about it. (No offense Stephen and now Stephen says none taken.)

So, then, on to something that not many people are aware of - The Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare. You may remember Rep Rep (that's short for Republican Representative) Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington talking about ObamaCare when she gave the GOP response to the SOTU.

A woman, going by the name of  "Bette in Spokane" lamented the fact that she had to pay nearly $700 more per month for health care. Stephen point out, as did this article in The Spokesman-Review about Bette in Spokane, revealed the reason. She wouldn't go on the Obama website, choosing instead the wise decision to just go without health care. (No way that can turn out badly.)

Turns out there's lots more  stories out there about horror stories that don't hold up when scrutinized. (I know, I know, some of you out there don't care all that much for facts, but just read on.) The Los Angeles Times had an article, "Maybe there are no genuine Obamacare horror stories."

Here's the part now for those of you who don't like facts. Stephen showed an ad by Americans for Prosperity that showed sad people unhappy with Obamacare. Problem is, those people in the ad.... they are all paid actors. So said Reverend Al Sharpton on msnbc. Stephen made a comment about Rev. Al's journalistic credentials, but really, aren't Stephen and the Rev about equal as far as journalistic degrees.

As a treat to people who want to hear from salt of the earth type of people to get their facts, Chuck Dupree of Louisiana, a hard-working fisherman, was on the show to talk about Obamacare. Chuck confirmed to Stephen that he was not an actor and he couldn't lie about that because it's the law. We heard all about his hard life and health problems and the problems caused by The Affordable Care... The Affordable Care... Stephen hollered "Act" and Chuck hollered back that he was trying to. After Chuck Dupree's son and his understudy son came on, I started to wonder about the veracity of this whole account by this fisherman.

His final words were about state run insurance exchanges.

Stephen did a wonderful segment about Sports Illustrated models. He talked about Barbie and had a short interview with Mrs., let's call her Mrs. Spud. It was okay, but it was just talk. I think it would be so much better if he had Barbie on for actual interview. He's able to get supermodels on his show, this should be a no-brainer.

Stephen's guest, Caitlin Flanagan, was there to drink beer and talk about fraternities with Stephen. It was an interesting interview, but here's an idea. Just go read her article in The Atlantic about fraternities and you will get an even better idea of what the interview merely touched on.

Stephen reminded us at the end of the show to go see a play which featured Patrick Stewart in it.

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi

We are all looking forward to the Big Game and Stephen is pumped to be learning how to be a great football player. We got to see some more demonstrations of his most excellent skills last night and I was especially pleased to find out that he is good enough to play in the Bowl Game. We got to see a preview and it was priceless. At half-time he went into the locker room to give an inspirational talk to the "players" that unified them and gave them the spirit they needed to go back out and play.

Hopefully you got to watch the SOTU speech by President Barack Obama. President Obama called for 2014 to be the year of action and Vice President Joe Biden was just happy to see everyone who was in the audience.

After all the great ideas presented by the POTUS in the SOTU speech, the GOP got in their 2 cents worth, I mean 4 cents worth, I mean 6 cents worth, I mean 8 cents worth. They had four different responses to the SOTU speech. There was Mike Lee for the Tea Party, Rand Paul for the other Tea Party, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for Spanish speakers and the official real GOP response by Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Stephen compared it to having your own personal Sleep Number Bed. I'm sure everyone was especially happy when Cathy McMorris Rodgers looked directly into the camera as she gave her response. (Apologies to Michele Bachmann.)

Just as important as the GOP response to the SOTU speech by the POTUS was the media response to the GOP response to the SOTU speech by the POTUS. Steve Schmidt weighed in and basically said she didn't provide any comedic material for the likes of Jimmy Fallon or Jon Stewart. Kirsten Powers said she didn't do any harm. I think George Will summed it up best when he quoted (I assume) Mother Goose .

A cow kicked Nelly in the belly in the barn.
Didn't do her any good, didn't do her any harm.

On to more football. The guest last night was Cris Carter. There was the obligatory discussion about jewelry, namely Cris Carter's ring. Stephen admired the ring and learned it was not a Super Bowl ring but a Hall of Fame ring. Kudos to Stephen for giving the ring back to Cris Carter after trying it on. They talked a lot about football, what it takes to be a good wide receiver (large hands). And they even played a little football. They had good football chemistry and were even able to use Cris Carter's book, "Going Deep: How Wide Receivers Became the Mose Compelling Figures in Pro Sports," to play a little football type catch.

At the end of the show, Stephen paid tribute to Pete Seeger who died this week. He was 94 years old. Stephen had a clip from when he and Pete Seeger sang the song "If I Had a Hammer" from Pete Seeger's appearance on the show. He was an American treasure.

UPDATE New link for Rubio

In my post for last night I said the link might disappear. Well it's still there, but the "English" transcript is gone. I found a different link. It doesn't have the total speech, but you can get the idea of how the transcript got so muddled.

This may also disappear, so look at it soon if you are interested.

Marco Rubio's SOTU Response Spanish Version - ABC News

Nobody Noticed ... That You Gave ... a Speech

Another great show and I learned a lot. Of course the big news was the SOTU - the State of the Union. If you listened closely, you noticed that President Obama was very pro government. All the news outlets were talking about it. It was offensive to Stephen that President Obama would give such a pro government speech in front of all those government workers.

The main event of the (SOTU) night was Marco Rubio's response to President Obama's State of the Union speech. Stephen had a little bit of fun with that, insisting that people would forget the speech and only remember the quick grab of that bottle of water, Poland Spring water. (Wikipedia has already updated their page on Poland Spring with Rubio's quick grab. It's at the bottom of the article here.) Stephen even demonstrated drinking water as only he could. And I could talk about that, but you really need to watch it yourself if you didn't see it on the TV machine. Catch it later tonight or tomorrow when the show is repeated. Otherwise, go over to Colbert Nation tomorrow and catch the show there. It will be worth it.

What really grabbed my attention though was that Marco Rubio also gave the response in Spanish. Stephen pointed out that it was four minutes longer than the English version. That's not that surprising. Different languages have different ways of expressing things. The fascinating thing was that apparently you can watch video of Marco Rubio delivering the response in Spanish. And there is a transcript that you can read. Unfortunately, it probably is a machine doing the translating and no one told the machine it was a speech in Spanish and so the machine tried to make English words out of what Marco Rubio said in Spanish.

Here's the link. (UPDATE: THAT LINK DOESN'T HAVE TRANSCRIPT. SEE POST FOR FEBRUARY 14.) Go watch it soon because I have a feeling this it the type of thing that could be fixed and then the transcript would be gone. Stephen gave a few examples. It's a hoot.

The guest tonight was Dave Grohl and he was the director for Sound City. He figured out how to play drums and he figured out how to play guitar without anyone teaching him, so he figured why not make a documentary. And he did! After tonight's show, he was off to do a gig with the Sound City Players and Stephen sort of invited himself to join in the fun. I wonder if he really did or not.

Now, go over to the link to Marco Rubio's speech in Spanish and read the transcript. (UPDATE: THAT LINK DOESN'T HAVE TRANSCRIPT. SEE POST FOR FEBRUARY 14.) Just look for the white box that says:

Transcript for Marco Rubio's State of the Union Response (Spanish Language Version).