Tina Fey teams up with director of "Game Change" to make film about shooting at Kent State.

Courtesy of Philly Voice:  

Tina Fey is co-producing the film “67 shots,” which will depict the events leading up to the 1970 shooting at Kent State University. 

The film will be directed by Jay Roach, who previously worked with Fey on “Sisters,” which Roach produced.

Roach’s other work as a director includes “Game Change,” the HBO drama depicting Sarah Palin’s rise to a vice presidential nomination (and, no, Fey did not play Palin), and “Trumbo,” among others. His more recent political work comes after directing franchises like “Austin Powers” and “Meet the Parents.”

The film will be a historical drama detailing the events that led to the shooting of Kent State students during a Vietnam War protest in May 1970. Sixty-seven shots were fired by the Ohio National Guard, four students were killed and nine were injured. 

“There was a prevailing movement in the country – they measured it with polls – where the vast majority of Americans blamed the students for what happened,” Roach told Deadline. “We have footage of the people on the streets saying, ‘I wish they’d shot them all.’” 

Roach also compared the 1970 events to today’s political protests, specifically the controversy surrounding athletes' choice not to stand for the national anthem. 

“The tamer version of this now is the NFL protest, the hatred that comes out for any show of what some people consider lack of patriotism,” he said.

"Four dead in O-h-i-o."

A troll asked me recently how I could have been so politically aware at such a young age.

Well the answer to that were events like this which shocked and inspired my generation to become more aware and ultimately more involved in the political process.

For me this was a seminal event in my life, and it definitely impacted how I saw government and the military for decades to come.

And I think a movie about it at this time in America will send a very powerful message about how terrible things can become in this country if we do not stand up as speak truth to power.

Tina Fey represented all of us on last night's Weekend Update. #sheetcake.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Tina Fey is fuming about last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, home to her alma mater, the University of Virginia. 

In response, the former “Saturday Night Live” comedian and writer is spearheading a movement: “sheetcaking.” 

In a surprise appearance on SNL’s “Weekend Update: Summer Edition” Thursday night, Fey urged Americans not to get into screaming matches with neo-Nazis. Instead, she said, “order a cake with the American flag on it … and just eat it.” 

She proceeded to stuff her face with sheet cake as she bashed white supremacists, President Trump, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and conservative pundit Ann Coulter (“yard-sale Barbie”). 

With her mouth full of frosting, she seemed to capture the frustration of many Americans in the past week. Almost immediately, the hashtags “#sheetcakemovement” and “#sheetcaking” began circulating on social media.

I had a couple of thoughts while watching this genius at work last night.

First, why doesn't this woman have her own show right now?

Second, I totally feel everything that she was expressing. Totally.

And third, is that not the moistest cake you have ever seen?

I don't even usually like cake, and she was eating it like a rabid wolverine, and yet I still wanted some of it. Really bad.

So thank you Tina Fey for channeling all of our emotions to eloquently.

And thank you for the extra three pounds I am definitely going to gain when I sit down to eat my own entire sheetcake.

Remember when it all began?

Somebody sent this to me, and after SNL's premiere on Saturday I thought we could all use a trip down memory lane back to when Donald Trump, his campaign, and his earliest supporters were just one big joke.

They are still a joke, but the problem is that so many people in this country do not seem to recognize one when they see it.

Nancy French channels Sarah Palin's anger at Tina Fey's impression of her, by accusing SNL of being desperate. All while posing as her daughter Bristol Palin of course.

Courtesy of Brancy's blog: 

I’m sure many of you saw Tina Fey, who sounds nothing like my mom, do a skit based on my Mom’s endorsement of Donald Trump. 

I don’t know about you, but hearing her fake accent is like nails on a chalkboard for me!

You know you can decide for yourself whether or not Fey sounds like Palin by watching the Vine embedded below.

Oh yeah, they sound NOTHING alike. You know, except exactly.

Well at least she's right about that nails on a chalkboard thing.

Wait you're going to love this part:

I may be biased, but I think my mom trumps her in the looks department. (Especially for having three more kids and seven more years on Tina!)

Is anybody else visualizing the e-mail exchange that instigated THAT defensive remark?

But of course Nancy/Sarah/Bristol is not done yet:

Saturday Night Live and Fey have been clinging to this impersonation a little too long. It’s getting pathetic. Its been 7 years! Are they desperate for content? Or just desperate for viewers?

French then mocks the fact that SNL does not have a fancy PAC to help them buy super expensive porcupine wear, and had to make Fey's version in their costume department.

There's a "who wore it better poll" offered as well for click bait, but seriously is that even a contest?

In the other news it looks like Bristol is returning to that fake job of hers and abandoning yet another child to a nanny, or poorly qualified sibling to watch.

Oddly enough the People magazine article that featured this photo also said the following:On Dec. 23, Palin welcomed daughter Sailor Grace, whose father is former fiancé Dakota Meyer.

Uh, isn't that sort of an unsettled matter thus far?  Or does People magazine know something we don't know?

Here is SNL's cold open from last night mocking Sarah Palin and featuring the amazing Tina Fey.

Okay that was awesome!

And you know the truly frightening thing is that if you close your eyes Fey sounds almost EXACTLY like Palin. Except when you look at her she is so much better looking.

Speaking of Palin, and you know she wants us to, Maureen Dowd had a rather interesting article published in the New York Times which explains how Palin has liberated people who are now allowed to openly criticize her without being called "sexist."

Here is a taste of what she wrote:

But when Palin turned out to be utterly unqualified and unintelligible, spouting her own special Yoda-like language, it did not reflect poorly on women as a whole — only on her and John McCain. What the hell were you thinking, Senator? 

Ordinarily, it’s considered sexist to call a woman shrill. But Palin liberated us on that score. She really is shrill. 

Ordinarily, it’s dicey to focus on what a woman in politics is wearing. But again, Palin has freed us up. She sported a cardigan so gaudy and rogue at her Iowa endorsement of Donald Trump (the man who viciously mocked her former running mate’s war record) that we would be remiss not to mention that it was the sartorial reflection of Palin and Trump themselves. 

Ordinarily, you have to tread gingerly in critiquing a working woman on her mothering skills. But Palin’s brawling brood runs so wild around the state she once governed, in a way that is so contrary to her evangelistic, sanctimonious homilies on family values, that it seems only Christian to advise her to study the Obamas to see what exceptional parenting looks like.

I LOVE that last line.

Boy I remember back to the days when damage con-trolls rushed over here to call me a sexist and a misogynist.

I guess I have Sarah Palin to thank for forever undermining their attack strategies.

Yeah, I'm not going to say thank you.

Somebody thought it was a good idea for Sarah Palin to spoof Tina Fey? Oh God, why?

Courtesy of The Hill:

In a new Independent Journal video for "31 Rock," Palin stands in for Fey's Liz Lemon character, a stressed-out New York City transplant who manages a cast and team of writers for a television comedy show. 

Palin wears an oversized hoodie reminiscent of Fey's character with her own twists on the show, such as complaining about a character being in her "safe space" and demanding a big gulp. 

Actor Kevin Brown, who plays the character Dot Com in the actual "30 Rock" show, is featured in the spoof where he touts "Sarah Palin's new book" that he calls a "great reminder of the pressures of PC culture." 

"The only PC I need is right here," Palin's character responds, stroking her laptop. 

What in the hell did I just watch?

I have not seen such terrible acting since...since...well since this:
So is this the next step for the Palin family? Acting?

Well it can't be any worse than their writing. Of course as far as I know there are no "ghostactors" to handle the hard parts for them.

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey brought the ghosts of campaigns past to SNL last night.

"Also if it gets too hard just quit, who cares?"For the record Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin is officially my favorite version of Sarah Palin.

I have little doubt that Palin herself is beyond thrilled that she was being referenced on SNL I imagine there will be some giddy Facebook comment sometime today.

P.S. Oh and there was also this rather brilliant cold opening last night. 

Has it been seven years already?

Courtesy of The Decider: 

The great thing about the sketch that Fey and Amy Poehler delivered in the season premiere wasn’t just that it lived up to the hype (and think about that for a second: this sketch was so inevitable that there was hype for it) but that they did so much more than they could’ve gotten away with. Honestly, if they’d just trotted out to the stage, walked Tina through some easy punchlines about moose and Wasila (“Alaska’s crystal meth capital” is still how I think of that city, for better or worse, probably worse), the sketch would have killed. But pairing Palin with Poehler’s Hillary Clinton — something that wasn’t exactly intuitive, as Clinton had largely exited the political conversation by this point — was an act of pure genius. 

Suddenly, the sketch wasn’t just about putting all of Palin’s absurdities on display. It was also about sexism and ageism and double standards and the media’s fascination with sideshows over substance. In a very real way, it set a tone for Hillary just as effectively as it set a tone for Palin. In Poehler’s hands, Clinton was driven, overly intense, and unable to accept defeat, but she was also righteous. By the time she got to the part about offering to lend the media her balls, the audience was whooping their approval.

I still remember seeing this skit for the first time, exactly seven years go today, and realizing that Sarah Palin's chances of ever even get close to the White House had just taken a critical hit.

Because now EVERYBODY saw her as a joke. 

I was blogging about Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and the presidential campaigns everyday. And all of the sudden here came SNL, not only providing awesome material, but making the whole thing fun again.

Could Tina Fey be the next host of the Daily Show?

Courtesy of The Hill:

The public wishes Tina Fey could be the next host of “The Daily Show,” according to two separate polls. 

When asked who should take the reins of the long-running Comedy Central faux news show after Jon Stewart exits later the year, respondents in polls conducted by Quinnipiac University and by Ranker.com chose the “30 Rock” and “Saturday Night Live” alum as their top pick. 

Fey garnered 19 percent of votes in the Quinnipiac poll released Monday, while comedian and Fox News Channel personality Dennis Miller came in second place with 16 percent. HBO “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver, a former “Daily Show” correspondent, snagged 8 percent of the vote, and suspended “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams and former CBS late-night host Craig Ferguson both brought in 7 percent. 

The Ranker.com poll had similar findings, with Fey topping the list and Oliver taking the runner-up spot. "Daily Show" alum Steve Carell, “Parks and Recreation’s” Amy Poehler, and comedian Lewis Black rounded out the top five slots in the website’s poll of more than 6,700 people.

Well I didn't get polled but allow me to weigh in now with a  very exuberant voe for the amazing Tina Fey.

I like both Steve Carell and Craig Ferguson too, but no way should it go to Dennis Miller who became to terrified after 9-11 that now he is one of the most ardent right wingers out there.

Besides let's face it if Tina Fey got this job we might see a return of our favorite version of this person.

Amy Poehler's new book discusses her fearlessness, including rapping a song as Sarah Palin, with the real Sarah Palin sitting on set.

Amy Poehler has written a new book, much like fellow SNL alum Tina Fey before her, that discusses her life and what she has learned along the way.

On of those things was to overcome her sense apprehension and to courageously move forward with decisions that others might have balked at.

One of those decisions occurred on Saturday Night Live during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Here is more courtesy of The New Yorker: 

“I like picking fair targets,” Poehler writes in “Yes Please.” This means avoiding jokes that feel “too mean or too lazy.” The most satisfying example of this, perhaps—a perfect deployment of satire—was her Sarah Palin rap, which she wrote, with help from Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg. The conceit was that Palin had planned to do a rap number about herself but had backed out of it, and that Poehler casually agreed to pinch-hit. “One, two three!” she yelled. She presented, in lyric form, the nightmarish essence of the 2008 Palin campaign experience (“When I say Obama, you say Ayers! I built me a bridge, it ain’t goin’ nowhere”; “I got a bookish look and you’re all hot for teacher”), as Palin gamely and helplessly played along, trying to look cool and comfortable. The fact that Poehler did it while nine months pregnant—fully committed, technically perfect, firing finger guns at a moose and doing Cypress Hill-style la-la-las—felt like the ultimate out-mavericking, combining Palin-style trappings of macho-feminine power with humor and smarts. The sketch was scathing but ostensibly respectful, her performance relentless and irresistible. Watching the rap now, years later, the Palin era over, you still laugh and cry with admiration. When she growls, “I’m an animal, and I’m bigger than you!” you feel it. Poehler had her baby a week later, and she watched “Weekend Update” from her hospital bed. 

While not as iconic as Tina Fey's Sarah Palin impression, Poehler's Palin rap was a real show stopper, made even more memorable by the fact that Palin gamely tried to play along despite the fact that her eyes betrayed her realization that she had suddenly stepped off into the deep end of political parody.

And with lyrics like this who can blame her:

i'm jeremiah wright cause tonight i'm the preacha 
i got a bookish look and you're all hot for teacha 
todd lookin fine on his snow machine 
so hot boy gonna need a go between 
in wasilla we just chill baby chilla 
but when i see oil lets drill baby drill 

my country tis a thee 
from my porch i can see 
russia and such 

For those who may have missed this amazing television moment,  take a moment to enjoy the incredible, and very pregnant, Amy Pohler, and her incredibly naive victim by clicking here.

New editions of the book "Live from New York" contains new excerpts which demonstrate just how upset Sarah Palin was at Tina Fey's impersonation.

Here are just some of the new excerpts concerning the 2008 election and Palin's appearance on SNL courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter:  

Sarah Palin, guest: I think SNL is egotistical if they believe that it was truly an effect on maybe the public debate about who should lead the country in the next four years.

Palin: I know that they portrayed me as an idiot, and I hated that, and I wanted to come on the show and counter some of that. (Kind of hard to accuse SNL of portraying her as an idiot when the writers borrowed whole blocks of her actual answers to Katie Couric, much of it left unedited,  for one of their segments.)

Palin: If I ran into Tina Fey again today, I would say: "You need to at least pay for my kids' braces or something from all the money that you made off of pretending that you're me! My goodness, you capitalized on that! Can't you contribute a little bit? Jeez!"

Yeah lady I think enough people have already contributed to help to support that family of yours. 

And Tina Fey can keep her money, after all she earned it money the old fashioned way. She worked for it.

Remember that? Remember working?

The funny thing is that Tina Fey demonstrated a great deal of empathy for Palin and even tried to protect her.

Fey: I was the one pitching, "Why don't you start her backstage, you know, with Alec, so the crowd won't boo." She had just been booed at a hockey game in Philadelphia, and I thought we had to be cautious. And of course the audience was just happy to see her because she was a star, a media star. Even the New York audience was not feeling their politics at that moment.

SNL did a brilliant job with Palin (Much of which you can see by visiting the Hollywood Reporter website.), but they did NOT destroy McCain and Palin's chances in 2008. That they did all by themselves.

All SNL did was allow us all to blow off steam by laughing at what could have been a terrible tragedy for this country.

And for that we owe them, and the amazing Tina Fey, a huge debt of gratitude.

I KNEW that the Sarah Palin Channel sounded familiar.

The Sarah Palin Network from Michael Pastor on Vimeo.

You not to be unnecessarily judgmental, but if your big idea for making money and getting your message out is taken from an SNL parody of you from several years ago, there might be something wrong with your business model.

Just saying.

John McCain explains why he chose Sarah Palin as his VP in 2008.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joined Seth Meyers on Late Night Monday night to reminisce about his various appearances on Saturday Night Live over the years. By picking Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, McCain figured he’s at least partly responsible for Tina Fey’s massive success. 

“It made Tina Fey famous forever,” McCain said of her “iconic” Palin impression. Asked if he knew right away that Palin looked like Fey, McCain joked, “That’s why I selected her.”

Yeah, ha ha that's funny.

You know what's not funny?

The amount of damage that lunatic has helped to visit on this country.

If I were John McCain I would be ashamed to show my face in public.

Of course shame does not seem to be a possibility for the Republican party these days.

Did Tina Fey predict Sarah Palin's future?

The Sarah Palin Network from Michael Pastor on Vimeo.
Okay this is just spooky.

My favorite moment from last night's Golden Globes.

I laughed way too long and hard at this.

In my defense the audience that was there did the same.

(P.S. Here is the opening.)

Two political science majors have decided that the conventional wisdom which says that Sarah Palin damaged John McCain's 2008 chances is wrong. Oh and they think she has a shot at the presidency in 2016. I know, right?

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

It's been debated for five years, and the conventional wisdom has generally concluded that Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, hurt Sen. John McCain's chances to beat then-Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency with her outsized and controversial personality. 

But now a comprehensive new analysis of the so-called “Palin Effect” finds that in the final analysis, the former Alaska governor helped McCain by attracting more voters to the ticket, crushing a mainstream media view. 

What’s more, while she attracted wider press attention than most prior veep candidates, her actual impact for a No. 2 was about average. 

“Palin had a positive effect on McCain,” according to the new Palin analysis in the authoritative Political Research Quarterly. 

Digesting mountains of data, two political science professors from Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., said their findings showed that the conventional wisdom that independent voters ran from the McCain-Palin ticket was wrong. They found that independent voters had the same reaction to Palin as Republicans, who largely liked her. 

Both findings could provide a basis for a 2016 run for the presidency by the Tea Party favorite. 

“Palin did not have a negative effect on McCain's voter share overall, nor did she result in eroded support for McCain among critical swing voters such as independents and moderates,” the duo wrote. 

Their analysis picked apart a recent report that Palin drove off voters and was uniquely divisive, claiming it was flawed.

Okay well let me first admit that I DO NOT have a degree in political science, however what I DO have is memory of what happened in 2008. After all I blogged about it daily. 

And what I remember was there was a HUGE amount of interest in Sarah Palin when she was announced as McCain's running mate, and that they kept her away from the press as long as they could before people started asking what was wrong with her. So they relented on September 11, 2008 and let her be interviewed by Charlie Gibson.

That is when everybody learned what was wrong with her.

That was then followed up by those Katie Couric interviews, during which Palin, blaming Nicolle Wallace for her problems with the Gibson interview, refused any help with preparation. That was essentially the beginning of the end for Palin's help in the John McCain campaign.

She was mocked by EVERYBODY, including being hoaxed by a Canadian comedy duo on radio, and becoming a staple for late night comedians, and even helping to turn Tina Fey into a household name.

By the end everybody on the McCain campaign, and virtually every political expert in the country, knew that Palin was an albatross around McCain's neck.

So I don't know what kind of data these two idiots were looking at, or how far up their ass they had to mine for it, but any political scientist who thinks that Palin was anything but a disaster, or has ANY future in politics, needs to choose a different profession immediately.

Because Spanky, this is NOT your thing!

P.S. I know this article is a few days old, but I literally just ran into it today.

Speaking of Sarah Palin.

This photo showed up yesterday on the Saturday Night Live Facebook page.

Underneath it said: Excited? You betcha!

This is the clearest indication yet that Palin has successfully inserted herself back into the nation's consciousness. Her infrequent appearances on Fox only garnered an occasional ridiculing from blogs and a bored MSNBC host, but lately she has been impossible to ignore.

At first I thought that having Tina Fey mock her on television would irritate her, but of course that is the opposite of the truth. She will love it!

After all the worst thing that can happen to Snowdrift Snooki is for nobody to pay any attention to her, and this last week that certainly has not been the case.

My only hope is that SNL has figured out WHY Palin is back with such a vengeance and will make the connection that she is now nothing more than a sock puppet for Jim DeMint's Heritage Foundation.

I think seeing Tina Fey play a Sarah Palin with puppet strings controlling her mouth and movements would not only be quite humorous, it would also be quite accurate. As well as having the added benefit of actually pissing Palin off.

Hmm, perhaps I ought to submit a script?

James Lipton of the Actors Studio interviews Tina Fey in character as Sarah Palin. Oh, you HAVE to see this!

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

James Lipton, the long-time host of Inside the Actors Studio, often asks his guests if he can interview them as one of their most famous characters. So when he invited Tina Fey onto the show last night, it was a not-so-surprising delight that he asked her if he could speak to Sarah Palin for a few moments. Fey happily obliged, showing off her sharp improv skills by answering questions as Palin and offering unique insight on some of the biggest issues facing the country. 

On guns: “I believe that if everybody had guns, then there would be fewer guns in the stores.” 

On same-sex marriage: “Well, the bible says it’s gross, and I don’t judge. A lot of the amazing, wonderful people I met in the audience at Dancing with the Stars seem to go that way. But, no, marriage is meant for people who wear different kinds of swimsuits.” 

On being a woman in a man’s world: “I don’t think of it as a man’s world or a woman’s world, unless again we’re talking about marriage. But I think of it as people being mavericks or not being mavericks.”

That was awesome!

I swear the ONLY time I can stomach Sarah Palin is when Tina Fey is channeling her.

The curse of Sarah Palin is almost impossible to escape.

Rolling stone has this great article about the last days of 30 Rock. In it they document Tina Fey having a rather unfortunate, and apparently all too common, run in with a "fan."

Courtesy of Rolling Stone:  

So yeah, sure, call her Liz (Character Liz Lemon from 30 Rock), if you must. But don't get too cute. As the late-middle-aged couple at the table next to us get up, the male half approaches, grinning: "Excuse me, aren't you Governor Sarah Palin?" It's so lame that Fey can barely manage a quarter of a fake smile. "Not for, like, three years now," she says, looking as if she'd like to dive under the table. 

The guy has his gag, though, and he's going to run with it. "I so enjoy watching you on Fox," he says. 

"Thank you, have a nice day," she replies. As he walks away, she murmurs, "Until the day I die. Until the day I die." 

I really do feel very sorry for those like Tin Fey and Julianne Moore who may forever be cursed by their connection to the Swamp Creature from Lake Lucille, but to me they will always be heroes who sacrificed much in order to show the world just what kind of a nutty, idiotic, and hateful bitch was almost given the opportunity to be one 72 year old cancer survivor's heartbeat from the White House.

After Tina used Palin's actual word salad to ridicule her, and Moore showed the psychotic side of her personality, it removed forever the threat that she will EVER become a viable threat to our country or our democracy again.

"Game Change" walks away with three Golden Globe awards. Including one for Julianne Moore as "Best Actress in a TV movie."

"Game Change" won three of the five Golden Globes it was nominated for, including "Best TV Movie" and "Best Actress in a TV Movie."

In his acceptance speech, while contemplating Moore's performance, director Hal Roach sent a little zinger Sarah Palin's way:  

“Now with you and Tina Fey, we have three of the most incredible impersonations of Sarah Palin,” Roach said, “counting Sarah Palin.”

(You can see his acceptance of the best picture award here)

During HER acceptance speech, Julianne Moore could not resist giving a shout out to Katie Couric and Tina Fey for making a "significant difference in the 2008 elections."

(Oh you just know there was a fresh ding in that Wasilla refrigerator after THAT comment!)

Here is Julianne Moore's acceptance speech in its entirety.