The Best of Rocky Mountain Mike (2014)

I often feature the works of Rocky Mountain Mike on the blog, not because I have anything to do with making them--I don't--but because I'm a huge fan, and Mike posts handy-dandy embedding links! Also, I'm a huge fan of The Stephanie Miller Show, which is how I came to find Mike in the first place.

Through the year, as in previous ones, he's produced quite a few masterful song parodies, some Stephanie Miller in-joke specific, some brilliantly spot-on takedowns of whatever happens to be driving the news cycle, from Sarah Palin's latest drunken family brawl, to the Bundy Ranch, to the evil that is Dick Cheney. Here's a taste of several of them in this year end medly.

For more the complete tunes, go here. And buy his album, Politically Incoherent on Amazon!

 

How The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report Kept Liberals Sane in 2014

I have a problem with virtually everything that emanates from Right Wing World these days, but there is one thing they are excellent at: messaging. It's their super power. Unfortunately, they are more on the Legion of Doom side of things, preferring to put their powers to evil use. But they--for all of the malarkey you hear about a "liberal media"--control the message, the narrative and the news cycle, by-and-large. Check out Meet the Press, Face the Nation, FOX "News" Sunday, This Week or any of the other political shows, and check out the ratio of conservatives to progressives. And check out the way they're unbound by worries about the truth. Truthiness is key.

And that's where Comedy Central's potent twosome of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert came in. From completely different perspectives, they point out the cracks, flaws and falsiness behind the truthiness. While Stewart is still going strong (for now), Colbert has left for more networky (and less political) pastures, leaving us with the untested Larry Wilmore's The Nightly Show instead. Wilmore has some huge shoes to fill. And he'll have to decide if he's himself or a character! Because, while Stewart is a version of himself, Colbert's faux conservative persona went places that skewered the right in ways that are otherwise hard to reach.

I still hope that Col-bert doesn't completely kill off Col-bear. Hopefully, we'll still get glimpses, or even complete segments featuring Colbert the character, even if we don't get them right away. In any event, 2014 sure needed these guys.

[Excerpt]
 
These Daily Show And Colbert Report Segments Helped Cure A Year Of Right-Wing Lies

Nothing captures the absurdity and insincerity of conservative media quite like Comedy Central's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Media Matters takes a look back at Stewart and Colbert's best takedowns of 2014. . .