Here It Is, Your Moment of Zen

Feb. 11, 2015

Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show after 16 years Jon Stewart, the brilliantly irreverent humorist and host of The Daily Show, has announced that he is leaving late-night's greatest news desk. Stewart apparently told the audience at the taping of Tuesday's episode that he's retiring from The Daily Show, the satirical news program that has won 18 Primetime Emmy Awards and made Stewart the most trusted name in news for millennials.  + In a conversation with New York magazine in October, Stewart made it clear that he's probably not cut out to leave for more "serious" newscasting: "I think I would be too reactionary to execute something like Meet the Press properly." + Sen. Elizabeth Warren perfectly sums up why we'll miss Stewart: "Washington is rigged for the big guys — and no person has more consistently called them out for it than Jon Stewart." + If you want to see Stewart at his best, watch his 2004 Howard Beale moment on CNN's Crossfire. Apparently President Obama's opposition to same-sex marriage was "bullshit." Here's why that matters Now, thanks to a new book by longtime Obama confidant David Axelrod, we know definitively that Obama lied to the American public about his beliefs on same-sex marriage. As Time first reported, Axelrod details in his book Believer: My Forty Years In Politics how Obama really felt about gay marriage during his first term: [I]f Obama's views were "evolving" publicly [in 2010 and 2011], they were fully evolved behind closed doors. The president was champing at the bit to announce his support for the right of gay and lesbian couples to wed — and having watched him struggle with this issue for years, I was ready too. Jim Messina, the campaign manager, was nervous about the impact of such a step. "We've looked at this and it could cost you a couple of battleground states; North Carolina, for one," he said. By year's end, however, Obama was no longer interested in analysis. "I just want you guys to know that if a smart reporter asks me how I would vote on this if I were still in the state legislature, I'm going to tell the truth. I would vote yes." + Axelrod writes that Obama "routinely stumbled over the question when it came up in debates or interviews." The president is quoted as saying "I'm just not very good at bullshitting" after one such incident. + This is a big problem, writes Mic politics editor Stefan Becket: "Compromises that were necessary to pass the Affordable Care Act and tougher Wall Street regulation are often criticized by liberals as unnecessary concessions ... Gay marriage is different. On no other issue was Obama so needlessly and deliberately misleading in his public pronouncements."

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Photo of the Day In some zoos in Japan and China, staff members perform regular security drills to practice their response to a large animal escape by using costumed zookeepers as the fugitive animals. Individuals in furry costumes or pairs in full-size mockups of larger animals run through zoo property, sometimes inflicting mock injuries, as fellow zookeepers work to surround, subdue and recapture them. Above: A policeman pretends to administer an anesthetic shot to a zoo staff member dressed as Tigger from Winnie the Pooh during a drill practicing for the possibility of tigers escaping at Chengdu Zoo in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, on June 2, 2011.

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