The Yeti » Opinions

Who is Bill McCollum, anyway?

morgan — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:06:58 +0000

Apparently, he is state attorney general under Charlie Crist but is running to be governor of Florida too. He is also trying to sue the federal government.

Let’s get this straight. Bill McCollum is standing up for our rights as citizens against health care reform! Three cheers for our one-man squad. Oh wait, he seems to have a team with him. A few other states have agreed to come together for this case, including: Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington. The attorney generals for each state have finally joined forces to stand up for our rights!
They just happen to be mostly Republicans. Definitely a coincidence. Definitely.

According to CNN, “White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the Obama administration expected to win any lawsuits filed against the health care bill.” The big guys don’t seem to really be worried about the little Republican ant army.

Specifically, McCollum stated he had problems with the insurance mandate in the health care bill, that requires everyone to be insured or pay a fine, but low-income people get an exception if the insurance costs are too much. His argument: “This is a tax or a penalty on just living, and that’s unconstitutional. There’s no provision in the Constitution of the United States giving Congress the power to do that.” He wants to personally sue President Obama for surpassing his boundaries as President of the United States.

However, there is power in the people. More specifically, power in a single man to speak for the country as a whole. Oh wait, that’s the president, the one who signed the health care reform bill after the House of Representatives passed it. (You know the House of Representatives, that group of folks we the people decided were qualified to make decisions on our behalf as representatives in an election.)

It seems like this fun little political scandal/press gimmick is a fresh and interesting reminder that most people in this country don’t really understand that we do control the government, hence the title DEMOCRACY. The president was elected, remember that? In 2008, with all the signs with John McCain’s face on them?

McCollum claims this is an infringement on our rights, but let’s take a few steps back. Exactly what will the Health Care Bill do, anyway? What McCollum didn’t say:

Health care reform would reduce deficit by $143 billion over the next ten years.
Over 32 million Americans will now be insured with affordable health coverage who were not insured previously.
With Medicare, senior citizens also will receive a 50% discount on prescription drugs starting in 2011.
Medicaid will expand to include 133 % of the federal poverty level (FPL) and to include childless adults.
The Federal Government will pay 100% of newly eligible individuals’ costs.
Illegal immigrants can no longer legally purchase insurance coverage, even if they pay for it themselves… in cash.
Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to children with preexisting medical conditions and by 2016, they cannot deny coverage to anyone with a preexisting condition.
Insurance companies have to allow children to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they are 26. (Now that’s a plus I can get behind!)

So regardless of the insurance mandate that McCollum so avidly hates, the reform bill really isn’t some big bad monster come to eat all of our lives away. If we are looking for inexpensive health care, and I think that deep down inside we all are, it seems Obama had his head on straight when he signed that bill. It appears there are a lot of benefits, that responsible leaders carefully thought out to put into this health care reform bill. Most of them are benefits, but nothing in this world comes free, hence the mandate. Whoever expected to have doctors at their door begging to treat patients who don’t have insurance and can’t afford to pay out of pocket must have been confused–and that is what the mandate is for. So calm down McCollum, Big Mr. President Man knows what he’s doing.

Yahoo! News has its take on the matter with this outstanding headline: “White House, experts: Health care suit will fail.” I think that says it all.

For all those who claim Canada or Costa Rica are better options, or are maybe looking over to Russia from their Alaskan border where the ice is apparently whiter, remember that Canada and Costa Rica have socialist universal health care like most of Europe, and Russia used to be the USSR.

Gator Golden Boy Steps on Pro-Choice Toes with Controversial Superbowl Ad

Andy — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:00:58 +0000

image via knightnews.com

Before even stepping foot in any NFL stadium or combine, Tim Tebow is already making a bad first impression on the league. But is he untouchable? He is, after all, still in college.

Ah, Super Sunday. No one loves it more than I do, even if my team is watching from home this year. What could ruin such a special day? Someone trying to preach to you about the gift of life, that’s what. These people refer to themselves as “pro-life,” but I call them “anti-abortion.” The other way makes its opposing party seem to be pro-death, a willful distortion on the part of anti-abortion advocates.

Somewhat-overrated college football star Tim Tebow came on screen Super Sunday with momma ‘Bow to tell the story about how she was advised during her pregnancy to abort the future Heisman-winner because of serious medical concerns. Surprisingly enough, the commercial didn’t even drop the a-bomb, and except for the sight of Timmy’s face, wasn’t too insulting.

Funded by the conservative evangelical group Focus On The Family, the commercial was thirty seconds long and cost a reported three million dollars. CBS has faced criticism for agreeing to show the ad, as it rightly should have.

I’m not saying commercials must or should be crass and involve bikinis and beer, but frankly, the Super Bowl is like polite conversation: no religion or politics. Tebow broke both rules.

At The University of Florida, student-athletes must abide by a set of guidelines as determined by the university, as they must at any other school. According to the UF Student-Athlete agreement:

A student-athlete shall not be eligible for participation in intercollegiate athletics if the individual accepts any renumeration for or permits the use of his or her name or picture to advertise, recommend or promote directly the sale or use of a commercial product or service of any kind.

But Tim Tebow is no longer a participating student-athlete since his pitiful performance at the Senior Bowl (with only fifty passing yards), so does this apply to him? In this writer’s opinion, yes, yes it does. He will probably be attending his alma mater’s Pro Day and (former?) Coach Urban Meyer will surely be spanking his prodigy’s buns as he crosses the white lines for the NFL combine.

Also, let’s consider that Tim Tebow has gotten a lot of screen time over the past three years, and is currently just about the most high-profile representative of his university.

It’s too much to ask for more than a week without hearing about Tebow, and even though he’s a known pushy evangelical, I wonder if he just couldn’t handle the minimal time out of the limelight.

And so, Judgment came sandwiched between beer commercials on Sunday, but it was nice to remember that there’s only one city in the whole country that likes hearing from this particular spokesman, and they live in a self-proclaimed “Swamp.”

Life goes on, but Tebow’s career probably won’t. I for one take some solace in that.

Sarah Palin’s Keynote Speech at the National Tea Party Convention: A Poetry Reading

Andy — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:30:38 +0000

[Ed. Note: We at The Yeti love politics. We also love poetry. Most of all, though, we love combining things we love.]

A HAIKU ON CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES:

Time-tested truths, like
“The gov that govs least govs best.”
(Somalia rules!)

A GHAZALVILLANELLE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

[Ed. Note: Originally I wanted the national security poem to be a ghazal, an ancient Arabian poetic form, for irony. But ghazals are super difficult and complicated, so I wrote a villanelle that steals pretty heavily from Dylan Thomas' classic "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" instead.]

Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights,
We must oblige our enemies if they want to call it war;
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

The Muslim snuck in ‘cause our security wasn’t tight,
They should have made him strip, drop his pants to the floor;
Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights.

And that other country, Yemen, should be in our bombing sights—
If we aren’t killing foreigners, then what’s our freedom for?
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

We aren’t even torturing, that keeps me up at night,
The rule of law prevailing will just make them hate us more.
Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights.

But Mr. President, for Iran please do what’s right.
(Psst, I heard the Ayatollah called Michelle a whore.)
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

We must shock and awe the world, must attack with all our might,
Must kill and maim our enemies, must wage an Endless War.
Do not be so gentle as to give terrorists rights.
After all, America is always looking for a fight.

A CINQUAIN ON ECONOMIC POLICY:

Ronald
Common sense con
Did it stimulate you?
We got the cornhusker kickback
Reagan

William Blake? Who dat?

(Images via Yahoo! News)

The State of the Union: Less Talk, More Rock (An Opinion)

Andy — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:00:50 +0000

President Barack Obama at his first State of the Union address.

President Obama gave his first State of the Union address on Wednesday, January 27, and I had my concerns about what was to come. My fears proved well-founded. Dubya’s State of the Union addresses were more than mere political speeches – they were masterpieces of dark, screwball comedy, using blatant absurdity to reveal deep and disturbing truths about our national character. Anyone with a heart and a brain had to laugh, if only to keep from breaking down in tears.

Inevitably, Obama failed to live up to his predecessor. Besides a few quips, the whole affair came off as pretty much sober-minded and reasonable, hardly the laugh riot one would expect from contemporary American politics. However, I’ll do my best examine the speech in a similar manner.

How much of what was said matters?

Obviously, certain parts of the speech matter very much. When the President announces goals and policies for the coming year, we should all pay attention. What doesn’t matter, is how much Obama claims to understand the average American’s anxieties. Every politician worth his campaign contributions says they know how rough it is for the working class, and it’s all touchy-feely bullshit. We already know we need more jobs that pay better. We already know about our own cynical and distrustful attitudes towards the government. We already know Wall Street is doing better than Main Street, and that Tennessee Street is just gross. We already know our own deeply moving and allegorical stories—we’re the ones sending those letters to the White House.

Obama waxing poetic about how much he sympathizes with us isn’t a serious explanation of his new jobs bill. It’s about selling himself as President. I get worried when I see fellow progressives trust that he means every word he says and thus things are great. I voted for the guy, and I support the jobs bill. I don’t think it goes far enough, but it’s something, at least. A good idea, and it was eloquently presented. But that eloquent presentation doesn’t matter. It’s impressive, sure, but what matters is whether or not the bill actually becomes law. And so far, Obama and our Democratically controlled Congress haven’t shown much skill in that area. [Ed. Note: Gotta love conventional wisdom.]

Yes, the Republicans are obstructionist. As Obama pointed out, they’ve nearly annihilated meaningful health care reform out of spite. But Obama and the other Democrats let them do it. Instead of getting organized, making demands, and refusing to take no for answer they twiddled their thumbs playing nicety-nice bi-partisan games that, from the outset, clearly weren’t going to get anywhere. If anything proposed Wednesday night takes a similar route, none of Obama’s inspirational talk matters, which in many cases would be very problematic, possibly catastrophic. We need debt forgiveness for student loans. We need better public transportation, and the new high-speed railway connecting Tampa to Orlando is an awesome example. We need clean energy – although I have to say, the nuclear power, offshore drilling, and “clean” coal plants Obama mentioned don’t really fit into that category. But still, these are all important issues.

Also important, as the President mentioned, is the necessity of transparency in government and the protection of civil rights. What went unmentioned were some major blemishes on the President’s record concerning both issues. On the issue of transparency, there was the secret negotiating with the pharmaceutical lobby. As for civil rights, there’s the continued practice of holding terror suspects without officially charging them with a crime, a practice that can extend to American citizens like Syed Fahad Hashmi.

To be fair, Obama has kicked ass over that last guy, even if he’s not as funny, and his big ears will never be able to rival that dumb squint. By and large, 2009 was a vast improvement over the preceding eight years of crazy. Even I felt a twinge of hope in my lightless, anarchic, distrustful heart at the mention of troops coming home. And I love having a President who can fluently speak his native language. Unfortunately, if it turns out all he can do is talk, that’s not good enough. The planet is melting, and most of my friends can’t afford to see a doctor when they need to. That’s not funny.

[Ed. Note--In keeping with the promise laid out in The Yeti Blog's original charter, we are happy to supplement Matthew's serious commentary on the State of the Union with a light-hearted musical interpretation from The Gregory Brothers (schmoyoho), the folks behind the Auto-Tune the News series of web videos. We hope you enjoy.]

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The State of the Union: A Haiku

Andy — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:00:25 +0000

[Ed. Note: We at The Yeti love politics. We also love poetry. Most of all, though, we love combining things we love.]

Presented is a rendition of President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address in haiku form:

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! my wife
Fixing our problems: easy
Filibusters suck.

And here is a haiku version of the official Republican response from Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia:

My sons enjoy sports
Republican talking points
The Scriptures say, “Jobs”

Eat shit, Robert Frost.

Operation Hate This Guy: Pat Robertson / Operation Help These People: Haitians

Andy — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:00:27 +0000

I am not someone who usually holds hate in his heart, but Pat Robertson and blame-the-victim types like him provoke only one emotion out of me. I’m not very religious, but I know there’s a special circle in Hell for him and his ilk.

He’s talking of course about the only successful slave revolt in history and the foundation of the first republic ruled by black people, which as we all know was led by Toussant L’Ouverture’s undead army of voodoo zombies.

We fully expected someone from the wingnut religious right to blame the earthquake on the Haitian people’s “unholy” ways. Everyone did. Sometimes it just sucks to be right, doesn’t it?

Go here to find a list of relief organizations bringing aid to the people of Haiti to which you can give donations. Or give $10 to Red Cross efforts over there by texting “HAITI” to 90999. It will come out of your phone bill automatically.

(via Wonkette, Huffington Post)

Operation Love This Girl: Rachel Maddow

Andy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:00:07 +0000

Did you see Rachel Maddow interview “ex-gay” huckster Richard Cohen on Tuesday night? Because if you haven’t, you need to:

So many things. First of all: This almost made me wish Richard Cohen was right about being able to Cure the Gays, so I could turn Rachel Maddow straight and MARRY HER!

Sorry, that joke was Very Inappropriate, especially considering how Very Serious this interview was. Because, as summed up perfectly at Videogum-temporarily-Seriousgum, “DOUBLE YIIIIIIKES.”

And even that was an understatement. Because the Ugandan legislators who wrote the sickening Anti-Homosexuality Bill have been touting Richard Cohen’s teachings about curing people of their homosexuality as justification and inspiration for what they’re doing. (Cohen vehemently asserts that he doesn’t “cure” homosexuality, but as Maddow deftly points out, it’s merely a semantic difference, not a substantive one.)

Some of the provisions in that bill:

Life in prison for being gay or having gay sex.
Death penalty for having gay sex more than once.
Death penalty for being gay with HIV.
Death penalty for having sex with a minor.
3 years in prison for knowing someone gay and not snitching on them.
“Promotion of homosexuality” prohibited (read: goodbye, HIV/AIDS prevention organizations!).

It proposes the execution of human beings because of who they are.

And by all accounts, Maddow thrashed him for it, easily shattering his phony credibility and slicing through his equivocation and double-talk. Throughout the interview Maddow kept her relative cool and was polite, but incredibly stern. Her questions had the quietly devastating bite of terrific journalism. At several points in the interview Cohen is visibly shaking. No wonder Dick Cheney won’t let her interview him. She makes David Frost look like…well, he still looks like David Frost. But she is our generation’s David Frost, or something! She is great, is what I’m saying.

Coverage of Maddow’s takedown has been pretty much universally positive in Bloglnad, with the word “eviscerates” popping up more than once. (A happy surprise! “Eviscerate” is one of my favorite words.) I suspect this is mostly because people who wouldn’t like her don’t watch her and don’t care what she does. Also, if this interview is any indication of the kind of opponent she normally is (and having been a fan of the show since its inception, I can attest that it is), Rachel Maddow is not someone you want to be mad at you, even if your livelihood is based on liberals being mad at you. She is too smart and too thorough and too polite to be trifled with.

Now: time for nitpicking. (What else are blogs for, after all?) Not with Maddow’s performance, obvs–she is a prize fighter. Muhammad Ali ain’t got shit on her. My beef is with some of the liberal bloggers dutifully fawning over her and their accidental oopsies that actually reveal many sad truths about how we approach the world today.

Here’s something from Jezebel, a usually great site which I read often and possesses an Official Yetiblog Endorsement, which is meaningless, but hey:

It [the bill] would effectively ban HIV/AIDS prevention education, would imprison those who fail to report homosexual behavior, and, perhaps most disturbing of all, would allow people to be executed for having HIV. [My emphasis]

Why, pray tell, is execution for having HIV more disturbing than execution for having consensual sexual intercourse with another human being of the same sex as yourself?

This is from Gawker, another typically great site with Official Yetiblog Endorsement:

Maddow has been prepping for this fight for days, ever since a proposed Ugandan anti-gay bill that would make homosexuality punishable by death became one of her show’s pet issues. [My emphasis]

Um, PET ISSUE? Listen, Gawker, I know as well as anyone that as a professional blog it becomes second-nature to make jokes about serious matters and flippantly trivialize important things, and the Rachel Maddow Show does have a proclivity for so-called “pet issues,” but um, Gawker? We’re talking about a sovereign nation trying to INSTITUTIONALIZE HATE CRIME. This is not a “pet issue” so much as it is “responsible journalism,” and a “Why the fuck isn’t fucking everybody freaking the fuck out about this?! issue.”

Because let’s all be crystal clear about what this legislation is: INSTITUTIONALIZED HATE CRIME.

OK, nitpicking over. Those relatively little things aside, both articles were good and worth reading.

While we’re on the subject of INSTITUTIONALIZED HATE CRIME, though: amorphous grey blob of pudding CNN’s article about the legislation actually has the four most chilling lines I’ve read in a news article in a long time (it’s still CNN, so of course they’re buried in the middle, aka The Part That No One Bothers To Read):

The Rev. Esau Omara, a senior church leader, said over the weekend that any lawmaker opposing the bill will pay for it during the next election, according to local newspaper reports.

Ohhhhhh boy. Church leaders vehemently supporting the institutionalized persecution of human beings because of who they are and how they choose to live their own lives? It’s 1478 all over again.

And a leading Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ramathan Shaban Mubajje, has called for gays to be rounded up and banished to an island until they die.

Remember kids, bigotry knows no religion or creed.

Several media outlets also have inflamed sentiments in recent months by publicly pointing out gays and lesbians.

In April, the Observer newspaper published tips to help readers spot homosexuals. And over the summer, the Red Pepper tabloid outed 45 gays and lesbians.

Another round of “DOUBLE YIIIIIIKES” for everyone! Wait, what am I saying? Using the media to target already vulnerable marginalized groups has, historically, always worked out for the best. Nevermind.

At least we have people like Rachel Maddow trying to stop this from happening by holding accountable those who have enabled, aided, and abetted the people who created this situation. When she tells Cohen “you’ve got blood on your hands here,” she’s absolutely right.

[Rachel Maddow Rips Into Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill, American Backers - Jezebel]
[Seriousgum Presents Rachel Maddow's Interview of Richard Cohen - Videogum]
[Rachel Maddow vs. The Man Who Claims He Can Make Her Straight - Gawker]
[Why is Uganda attacking homosexuality? - CNN]

Operation Love This Guy: Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri

Andy — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:30:23 +0000

Isn't he ADORABLE? I wish he was my Grandpa.

This past weekend, the New York Times did a profile on this guy, [Ed. Note--Yes, we at the Yetiblog read the New York Times. Three cheers for smug liberal elitism!] and oh boy, he is great! He is like the Iranian Yoda, but REAL.

Ayatollah Montazeri has emerged as the spiritual leader of the opposition, an adversary the state has been unable to silence or jail because of his religious credentials and seminal role in the founding of the republic.

And he’s playing a unique role in the Iranian reform movement thanks to those religious credentials, which outshine even those of the current Supreme Leader Ali Khameini. This one goes out to all the ridiculous claims that Islam and democracy are incompatible or mutually exclusive:

“We have many intellectuals who criticize this regime from the democratic point of view,” said Mehdi Khalaji, a former seminary student in Qum and now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He criticizes this regime purely from a religious point of view, and this is very hurtful. The regime wants to say, ‘If I am not democratic enough that doesn’t matter, I am Islamic.’

“He says it is not an Islamic government.”

This is already patently obvious to many people, it’s true. But the fact that such a revered and esteemed figure as Montazeri is saying so openly and loudly to whoever will listen is a huge blow to the regime.

“He is able to delegitimize Khamenei more than anybody else on the Earth,” Mr. Khalaji said.

BOOSH! Indeed he is. And he knows it, and he’s taking full advantage of it.

Now, it’s important for us Americans to remember that Khameini is the Big Bad, so to speak. He is the man in charge. The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gets way more play in the media, but he’s really just a figurehead. He doesn’t have nearly as much control over how the country is run as cable news tends to assume he does. Khameini is the one actually in control.

The media loves to make a big deal out of Ahmadinejad because he’s very dramatic and makes all these ludicrous speeches, but there is almost no real bite to Ahmadinejad’s bark. To poorly continue the Star Wars analogy from earlier, Khameini is like The Emperor, and Ahmadinejad just Darth Vader. No, not even Darth Vader. He’s more like Grand Moff Tarkin, the guy in charge of the first Death Star. Remember him, nerds? That’s Ahmadinejad.

That’s why Ahmadinejad isn’t once mentioned in the Montazeri article–he’s irrelevant to what Montazeri is doing. And Montazeri has been doing his thing for a long, long time.

Ayatollah Montazeri’s disillusionment, and his alienation from the state, came within a decade of the revolution [Ed. Note--the Iranian Revolution took place in 1979]. He mocked Ayatollah Khomeini’s decision to issue a fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” saying, “People in the world are getting the idea that our business in Iran is just murdering people.”

Sounds like he should be Supreme Leader of the ZINGlamic Republic of Iran, amirite? [Ed. Note--Another quick reference for those unfamiliar with the history: Ayatollah Khameini is the current Supreme Leader of Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini was its first Supreme Leader and the leader of the Iranian Revolution.]

Also contributing to Montazeri’s greatness is how much he gave up by standing up and speaking out. Before he was an outsider and an opposition leader, Montazeri was as elite and inside as it got, practically Khomeini’s right hand. If he hadn’t criticized the government as openly or as forcefully as he did, Montazeri would be Supreme Leader right now instead of Khameini.

The breach with Ayatollah Khomeini became irreparable in January 1988, when Ayatollah Montazeri objected to a wave of executions of political prisoners and challenged the leadership to export the revolution by example, not by violence.

“He was not willing to sell his soul to stay in power,” said Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California. The next month, Ayatollah Khomeini criticized Ayatollah Montazeri in a letter and then forced him to resign as his deputy and heir apparent.

Like a true champ, Montazeri refused to let anyone shut him up or make him toe the party line. He spoke his mind without fear and accepted the consequences standing up, head held high. He’s a credit to the dignity and pride of the Iranian reform movement.

“There is no one else in the current leadership of the Green Movement who risked as much, as publicly, as early, as consistently as he has, and has lost as much,” said Abbas Milani, a professor of Iranian studies at Stanford University who as a young man shared a jail cell with Ayatollah Montazeri during the time of the shah.

Seriously, commence Operation Love This Guy.

“Independence,” he said in a recent speech on ethics, “is being free of foreign intervention, and freedom is giving people the freedom to express their opinions. Not being put in prison for every protest one utters.”

Someone get this man a Twitter account, STAT!

(via the NYT)

MY, WHAT BIG POP ARTS YOU HAVE

Andy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:33:02 +0000

Now I understand why Miley Cyrus deactivated her Twitter. Two weeks ago [Ed. Note-- a million billion years in Internet Time, we know, we're sorry], on the evening of October 14, “hip Republican” Meghan McCain Tweeted about her “spontaneous night in” with her “Andy Warhol biography.” For those of us who can’t imagine what a book looks like, Meghan was kind enough to post a picture, sporting a devilish grin and bedroom eyes. At the heart of the composition, however, were her humongous breasts.

Cleavage Canyon National Park

Of course, there was a tremendous and instantaneous internet uproar over the picture, followed immediately by an outpouring of support from her followers. Meghan has since apologized (to whom, exactly?), but only after angrily threatening to quit Twitter (gasp!). To all you internet people (“people” in this context means “shrieking idiot monsters”) who called her a slut—that’s a little harsh [Ed. Note-- and stupid]. The totality of a person’s character can’t be judged by a single action, duh. Better to step back and try to look at the situation from different perspectives.

That said, in hindsight we must ask why she even posted the picture in the first place. Did she really think that everyone would ignore her boobs and focus on the book? Please. It’s impossible to ignore those things.

There is widespread suspicion that the whole thing was a publicity stunt, much like the balloon boy debacle (though she recently tweeted “OK, at least I didn’t dupe the media into thinking I flew away in a homemade balloon “). McCain’s blog for the Daily Beast has certainly gotten some heat from this “controversy.” Whatever her reasons may have been, Meghan will probably think before she tweets in the future—or just wear a turtleneck.