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"Jon Huertas - Sergeant Antonio 'Poke' Espera"

"Lee Tergesen - Evan Wright"

"Some one needs to explain to the Republicans that Ebeneezer Scrooge is supposed to be the bad guy. And before conservatives start whining about another "war on Christmas", they must admit they hate everything about Christmas; because brotherhood, good will toward men, and especially charity make their skin crawl. This week Michelle Bachmann proposed cutting huge holes in the federal safety net, demonstrating a total misunderstanding of the concept of a net. Here's what she said:"

"The only voices...religious voices...that we hear often in the media are the voices of condemnation and separation. And if religion is not a bridge instead of a wedge; if it isn't about inclusiveness of other people's views, not just that they have our view, it's gonna separate us, and it's going to destroy us."

"We have to understand that we're fighting a war against people who think that they are engaged in a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. They believe that this is not an Earthly battle; this is a war between the forces of Christianity and the forces of Islam. We cannot legitimize that viewpoint by saying the exact same thing. We're not going to out-fanaticize these fanatics."

"I like a good ass-fuck as much as the next guy. But that makes me gay? Come on!"

"There is no logical pathway that would lead you from atheism to do those terrible things. There is a logical pathway that would lead to that from a Christian religion or something like that, or from one of the state religions like Nazism, like Stalinism, and so on. You really can justify doing those awful things if you believe in something as strongly as religious people do. But nobody is going to go and kill for the sake of atheism. Why on Earth would you?"

"Do you remember the '60s and '70s? You didn't have to go more than a week before there was an article in Life magazine – "The Home of Tomorrow", "The City of Tomorrow", "Transportation of Tomorrow". All that ended. In the 1970s, after we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended. We stopped dreaming. And so I worry that decisions that Congress makes doesn't factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow's gone."

"But we owe ourselves, and the United States that we will pass off to our children, to re-learn the tools of reason, logic, clarity, dissent, civility, and debate. And those things are the non-partisan basis of democracy, and without them you can kiss this thing goodbye."

"Could there ever be a better argument for a woman President than the fact that the members of the other party are arguing over their dick size?"

"[to Mitt Romney] There are not many issues where you have seen eye-to-eye with you. I mean, you like you as a person, but on policy it's gonna be kind of hard to bridge the gap between you and your stance on health care, immigration, gun control, abortion, climate change, campaign finance, Afghanistan, gay rights, space exploration, The Treaty of the Sea, Meghan's Law, the infield fly rule..."

"There is a growing trend in this country that needs to be called out, and that is to label any evidence-based belief a religion. Many conservatives now say that belief in man-made climate change is a religion, and Darwinism is a religion, and, of course, atheism, the complete lack of religion, is somehow a religion too, according to the always reliable Encyclopedia Moronica. Now it's a dodge of course, straight out of the grand intellectual tradition of "I know you are, but what am I?" It's a way of saying, "Hey, we all believe in some sort of faith-based malarkey, so let's call it a push." No. No-no-no-no-no. It's not fair that people who can't defend their own nonsense get to create a fake fair-and-balanced argument, the way they do when asserting that evolution and creationism are equally valid. I'm not saying atheists are perfect thinkers; everyone has blind spots. I'm sure there are atheists who think a ponytail looks good on a man, and pineapple belongs on a pizza, and Ayn Rand was an important thinker; but when it comes to religion, we're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your un-reason up on the same shelf as my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken."

"The other big political event that happened in December was there was a big fight in Washington over the payroll tax. After protecting hedge fund managers, oil companies and heiresses, Republicans proudly found a group they were willing to tax – employees. And somehow Obama was the one fighting to lower taxes, and the insanely anti-tax Republicans were the ones fighting to raise them, because, no matter what the issue, the prime directive is they can never agree with Obama. But Democrats swelled with pride when the president put his foot down and told Republicans, "It's your way or the highway.""

"In a study from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine last month, scientists found that a single dose of psilocybin, which is the drug in magic mushrooms, created a "long-term positive personality change in most patients." People improved in the areas of sensitivity, imagination, and broad-minded tolerance of others. In pharmaceutical speak, psilocybin is known an "asshole inhibitor.""

"When Steve Jobs was young, the drug of choice was acid. And Jobs told his biographer that dropping acid as a young man was one of the best things he ever did, because, when he took it with his girlfriend, the wheat fields started playing Bach. Which is pretty unbelievable. A computer nerd had a girlfriend?! Now maybe there is no connection between LSD and genius, but it's something no great American ever said about a Kit-Kat bar. If it weren't for acid, you might not have an iPod, and you definitely wouldn't have some of the best music in your iPod."

"Adderall is the drug of choice these days on campus. Oh, what fun! I don't know what I'd enjoy more – the extremely focused parties, or the highly detail-oriented sex."

"The kids are on drugs all right, the problem is they're on the wrong drugs. They're on a combination of processed sugar so they can be mini coke fiends, and mind-narrowing pharmaceutical crap like Ritalin that doesn't open up their minds, it levels and controls them. These drugs are all about keeping rowdy children in check, or, as we used to call it, parenting."

"I get it, you're bitter because we fought a culture war in the '60s and the right lost. Rick Santorum is like that Japanese soldier on the island who doesn't know the war is over, so he's still fighting against birth control and butt sex. Plus, Republicans are now mostly a southern party, and if there's one thing southerners don't do well it's lose a war and get over it."

"Mormonism is just the silly end of a larger problem, which is that religion itself is a con, and it's a con that you pull on your own mind. It's not unfair to ask serious candidate Mitt Romney if he really believes that Joseph Smith received golden plates from an angel in 1823 and translated them into "scripture" that contains not a single person or place name that has been shown to ever exist. Are you too gullible to be president if you believe in a world full of characters who appear in the historical record exactly as often as leprechauns?"

"Blacks who kill whites are sixteen times more likely to be executed than whites who kill blacks; black unemployment is 17%, white unemployment is 8%; the median wealth of white households is twenty times that of black households; 39% of black children live in poverty, and the rest with Angelina Jolie. And what is the Republican solution to these outrageous inequalities? There isn't one, and that's the point. Denying racism is the new racism. To not acknowledge those statistics; to think of that as a black problem and not an American problem; to believe, as a majority of Fox viewers do, that reverse racism is a bigger problem than racism racism – that's racist!"

"Since the economy won't come back until we start buying stuff, and the only stuff Americans buy is anything from Apple or guns...Apple has to make a gun. Call it the iKillyou. Although if you want to get it to NRA members you probably can't sell it at the Genius Bar."

"I'm not really rich. I'm something far more noble I'm a job creator. [Heavenly chorus] Sort of the same way Patagonian tooth-fish became Chilean sea-bass. [chorus] But y'know what, just by suggesting, just by bringing it up, that he is going to tax me more, Comrade Obama has created an atmosphere of uncertainty that makes me skittish about creating more jobs, yeah, I have been so freaked out that today at breakfast I could barely butter my gold. You see, you poor people, you don't get how much "uncertainty" gives us job creators the willies. It's terrifying...like when you find out your private island has natives; or when your wife notices the maid's kid looks just like you; or when the limo driver tries to start a conversation. So tax me at a higher rate if you like, you're practically firing yourselves. Because I'll tell you something, I have been so shitting in my pants about this uncertainty thing, that yesterday I let go a dozen essential workers at my compound, including my Tivo programmer, my manscaper, the liposuctionist, my gardener's personal trainer, my dog whisperer, the lookalike I hired to foil assassination attempts, my private farmer, the lady who dispenses hand sanitizer after our pre-show prayer circle, the girl I pay to mistake me for Jon Hamm, and the guy who takes care of the shark tank. Which reminds me, I'm gonna have to let go two sharks!"

"We can't throw around the word "sexist" just to stop people like me from pointing out that Michelle Bachmann, now running second for the Republican presidential nomination, isn't a dangerous nincompoop. And when I point out that Sarah Palin is a vainglorious braggart, a liar, a whiner, a professional victim, a scold, a know-it-all, a chisler; a bully who sells patriotism like a pimp, and the leader of a strange family of inbred weirdos straight out of The Hills Have Eyes...that's not sexist. I'm saying it because it's true, not because it's true of a woman."

"Bush said his tax cut for the rich would create jobs. They didn't. We're now being told that if multinational corporations bring home their current overseas profits of $1.4 trillion, they'll only be taxed 5% on it...because we're told it will create jobs. It won't, just like it didn't the last time we tried it in 2004. Companies took the savings and paid it out to themselves in dividends. Yes, Republican base, you are just like that jury – it is pathetically clear who is killing the middle class, but you keep letting them get away with murder."

"Is it really that radical to suggest slightly trimming the tax break on corporate jets? It seems like a reasonable idea, given that, a) people who buy corporate jets are filthy rich, and b) I DON'T NEED A B!"

"Every election roughly half the population votes Democrat and the other half votes Republican. Now I understand why the Republicans get one percent of the vote – the richest one percent. That other 49% someone will have to explain to me. The facts about what the Republicans have done to the middle class are beyond reasonable doubt, and yet their base refuses to see it. The monied elite in America are dragging a bag filled with your future down the steps, and your reaction is "Hold on there, that looks heavy. Let me give you a hand getting it into your trunk.""

"[the perfect Republican candidate] A candidate who will meet these criteria: a) Never compromise on anything or ever work with the Democrats; b) Always treat Obama like he's some mysterious black guy who showed up uninvited at your country club...President Bagger Vance; and c) Never admit that government is useful for anything; the government is always like Snooky's vagina – it's too big, it services too many people, and nothing good will ever come out of it."

"Now that it's become clear that Republicans, the fiscally-conservative, strong-on-defense party are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense, they have to tell us what exactly it is they're good at. Because it's not defense: 9/11 happened on your watch; and you retaliated by attacking the wrong country; and you lost a ten-year game of hide-and-seek with Osama bin Laden; and you're responsible for running up most of the debt, which more than anything makes us weak. You're supposed to be the party with the killer instinct. But it was a Democrat who put a bomb in Gaddafi's bedroom and a bullet in bin Laden's eye like Moe Green."

"We have this fantasy that our interests and the interests of the super rich are the same; like somehow the rich will eventually get so full that they'll explode, and that the candy will rain down on the rest of us; like they're some kind of piñata of benevolence. But here's the thing about a piñata – it doesn't open on its own, you have to beat it with a stick."

"New Rule: Bacon, egg, and cheese between two waffles isn't breakfast, it's a suicide attempt. This is Dunkin' Donuts' new waffle sandwich. You could wait in line for yours or, if you're in a hurry, just snatch the pistol from the cop sitting at the counter and shoot yourself in the head."

"If you think Michelle Obama is after your freedom because she merely suggests our kids should exercise more and eat a little broccoli along with their lard, you don't deserve a place in the free market of ideas, you belong at The Cheesecake Factory. She's not Stalin because she notices your kids sweat Mountain Dew....Now I'm not saying the right objects to Mrs. Obama's efforts because the Teabaggers are stupid, or their hysterical, or because they hate black people, though all of that is true...but what does it say about America when even a First Lady's suggestion has to be controversial? Especially when she picked something no one could disagree with – maybe we should send our kids outside to play."

"I think people get hung up on the word "religion." Hitlerism, Stalinism, Maoism were state religions. Hirohito in Japan was a god-like figure. The real crux of it is, anytime people give up on logic and put their faith in someone– Kim Jong-il in North Korea, the mythology around him...they said the first time he played golf he had eleven holes-in-one. That's religion!"

"The last decade, year, and month are all the hottest on record. And then there's the floods, the killing of the oceans, Category 5 hurricanes, giant wildfires, the vanishing water supply; you know, the little things. And yet deniers say "It's just a theory." As is gravity. Y'know, for progress to happen, certain things have to become not an issue anymore so we can go on to the next issue. Evolutions was an issue until overwhelming support among scientists made it not an issue. Devastating worldwide climate change is happening, whether you phone in for it or not. You can't vote for rain. What's real is what's real, and, like it or not, no one can change the nature of reality. Except with mushrooms and Pabst Blue Ribbon."

"That's the problem with our obsessions: to always see two sides of every issue equally, especially when one side has a lot of money. It means we have to pretend there are always two two truths, and the side that doesn't know anything has something to say. On this side of the debate: every scientist in the world. On the other: Mr. Potato-Head. There is no debate here; it's just scientists and non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don't get a vote. We shouldn't decide everything by polling the masses. This is the fallacy argumentum ad numerum, the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it, as in "Eat shit. 20 trillion flies can't be wrong.""

"Instead of confronting real problems like the debt, or the environment, or Utah, we pick out the poorest, most defenseless kid on the block – illegal immigrants – and say, "What're you looking at?!" But I'll tell you something, you anti-immigrant hoopies – as usual you're mad at the wrong people. It was corporate America that busted your unions and didn't keep your pay up to the cost of living, causing your wife to have to go back to work, and Esmerelda having to come in and watch the kids."

"I'm very glad that Obama is reaching out to the Muslim world, and I know Muslim living in America and Europe want their way of life to be assimilated more. But the Western world needs to make it clear, some things about our culture are not negotiable and can't change. And one of them is freedom of speech. Separation of church and state is another – not negotiable. Women are allowed to work here and you can't beat them – not negotiable. This is how we roll!"

"[after passage of PPACA] And yet, before the Democrats got to take a single victory lap, they were being warned not to get drunk with power. I disagree. All you Democrats – do a shot. And then do another. Get drunk on this feeling of not backing down and doing what you came to Washington to do."

"There are some bad teachers out there; they don't know the material; they don't make things interesting; they have sex with the same student every day instead of spreading the love around. But every school has crappy teachers. Harvard has crappy teachers. They must, they gave us George Bush. But according to all the studies, it doesn't matter what teachers do – although everyone appreciates foreplay. What matters is what parents do. The number one predictor of a child's academic success is parental involvement. It doesn't even matter if your kid goes to private or public school. So save the twenty grand a year and treat yourself to a nice vacation away from the little bastards. It's been proven that just having books in the house makes a huge difference in a child's development. If your home is adorned with nothing but Hummel dolls, DVDs, and pictures of bleeding Jesuses, congratulations! You've just given your child the gift of "Duh"."

"The "life sucks and then you die" philosophy was useful when Buddha came up with it around 500 B.C. because, back then, life sucked and then you died. But now we have medicine, and Pinkberry, and Tivo...Our life isn't all about suffering anymore."

"Here's an amazing statistic. In a recent poll, 90% of Teabaggers said that they thought taxes had either gone up or stayed the same under Obama. Only 2% thought they went down. But the reality is taxes have gone down. For 95% of working families taxes went down. Think about that – Only two percent of people in a movement about taxes, named after a tax revolt, have the slightest idea what's going on with taxes."

"If you look at any cult, whether it be the Hale-Bopp comet people, Scientologists, or Oprah's Book Club, you'll find several common elements, the primary one being cult members are taught to quickly withdraw into the group and distrust the outside world. Teabaggers distrust everything. They think people are coming for their guns and they shouldn't pay taxes. They're like Wesley Snipes crossed with a fat old white guy who runs a landfill. Folks, no one is coming for your guns, your Bibles, or your fishing poles. And that's not a monster under your bed, it's the Ab-Lounger you bought last year and never use. Cults are also always driven by some ridiculous, unattainable goal, like a fiery apocalypse ringing in paradise, or deficit reduction by way of giant tax cuts. You know someone has fallen into a cult if you see these signs: 1) Cults have their own vocabulary. Now I don't speak shit-kicker, but I know in their world "freedom" means guns, "diplomacy" means weakness, "elitist" means reader, and "socialist" means black; 2) Cults tend to populate from within, encouraging members to have huge broods of children and to give them strange names like Moonbeam and Trig; and 3) Cult members always attribute all their problems to one simple explanation. [shows poster of Obama with Hitler mustache]"

"If conservatives get to call universal healthcare "socialized medicine", I get to call private, for-profit healthcare "soul-less vampire bastards making money off human pain.""

"Since viruses like swine flu get to be potentially deadly because they evolved, if you don't believe in evolution and you get it, you have to pray it away. You can't crap all over Darwin, and stem cell research and global warming, and then come crawling back to science when you want Tamiflu. That's for us sinners....Folks, there is a lot that is not yet known about this swine flu, but there is one thing we do know: the process that brought us the new flu is called evolution. It's not rocket science, but it is science. A virus is Darwinian behavior we can see happening in real time. We can see that it jumps on a host, procreates until the host is exhausted, and then jumps on something new. Like Mel Gibson."

"It seems to me like nowadays there's two kinds of issues in America. There's the kind that's too Byzantine and boring for the average Joe to even know what's going on. You know, the environment and the filibusters and the gerrymandering and what did Tom DeLay do on vacation. And then the really stupid issues that they can understand like Terri Schiavo and gay marriage. And it seems to me the American people have become completely irrelevant."

"I didn't like that he [George W. Bush] lied to get us into this war. I certainly didn't like that it was conducted in such an incompetent way. But now that he's morphed the script from what it was in 2003 to 'I'm the Johnny Appleseed of democracy and we want to bring freedom to the world.' I like that script better, I have to say. I know it was bullshit how we got there. But this script I like better. And it sounds exactly like the script that Carter used to say: human rights, remember that? You can't love it when they said it and hate it when Bush says it. It's the same thing."

"Politically, it's always been advantageous to divide people, to make America a place of warmongers versus wimps, elitists versus morons, gun nuts versus people with normal size penises. The only problem is, it's not true. Hollywood isn't your cesspool, America. It's your mirror."

"Let's be honest - this electorate has switched because that Christian right has taken over the Republican Party. They started it in the '80s with Reagan and Pat Robertson. And like a parasite on a host, they now own it… Let's examine what 'moral values' are. Because I don't think religion always corresponds with moral values. To me — and they're very good at conflating morality with religion, just the way George Bush won election by conflating integrity with monogamy. He ran against Bill Clinton and his terrible blowjob by saying, 'I have integrity.' That's different than monogamy. Okay, the same way, when we talk about values, I think of rationality in solving problems. That's something I value. Fairness, kindness, generosity, tolerance. That's different. When they talk about values, they're talking about things like going to church, voting for Bush, being loyal to Jesus, praying. These are not values."

"The key lesson to me of Vietnam is that you cannot outlast insurgents in their own country. This idea that when Bush says, 'Well, we can't say we're going to pull out in six months because they'll only have to wait six months and a day.' They'll wait a hundred frigging years if they have to!"

"I was watching Ashlee Simpson on Jay's show last night… She was really singing, and I was saying, 'Bring back the lip synch.' …And it struck me that Ashlee Simpson is a lot like George Bush — because she wouldn't even really be in the big leagues if it wasn't for family connections, and she's in way over her head. And she doesn't know what to do. And she blamed her band."

"And to answer the question that people have about this conspiracy theory that he has a pack in his back, my answer is, if someone was feeding him answers, couldn't they be able to feed him better ones than he came up with?"