I, Elie Mystal, do hereby announce my write-in candidacy for Governor of New York. My sole qualification is that I am a married man who has remained faithful to his wife since our wedding five years ago. More than that, I was faithful to my wife even before we were married. Eight years of dating followed by five years of marriage, and I’ve never once put my penis somewhere it doesn’t belong. That’s got to be a record of some sort, right?

Don’t get me wrong, my fellow citizens, I am not holier than thou. I lie all the time. Especially to my wife, mother, friends, co-workers, and strangers at random. But when it comes to dutifully banging one — and only one — person: I. Am. A. Champion. You could put me in a room full of horny Playboy models, and I guarantee you, none of them would sleep with me.

Now, I understand that some voters might expect a little more from their elected officials than marital fidelity. And I’ll admit, I can’t budget my own checkbook, so I’m not entirely sure how I’ll deal with the fiscal mess that is New York State right now. Albany is ugly and boring, so I’ll be doing most of my gubernatorial work from my Manhattan apartment. Also, full disclosure: I’ve got little use for bi-partisanship. We’re passing gay marriage first, or I’m not signing a single bill. The government can grind to a halt, state employees won’t be paid, I don’t care. Good Government = #2, My Agenda = #1.

But, since you’ll never catch me in a closet that doesn’t exist with a woman who shouldn’t be there, what do you care? I’ll wake up every morning knowing that the fate of New York rests with my willingness to masturbate in the shower instead of showering with an intern. And I won’t let you down.

Still, it is curious that so many men seem incapable of following my path of monogamy. Yet we’ve come to expect public outrage whenever it turns out that another elected official likes to have sex with many different women. Is there any way we can get the powerful and the people on the same page about this issue?

Cheating 101 after the jump. continue »

As a liberal, it took me a while to get over the centrist drivel of Wednesday’s State of the Union. For energy, we’re back to nuclear power, offshore drilling, and clean coal. While we’re at it we might as well get poor people to ride stationary bikes that power turbines. The vastly outnumbered Republican minority is sure to like that too.  Health care is back to the “if you have a better idea, let me know,” stage. I’ve got a better idea: it’s called single freaking payer you alleged Democrat who was elected with a MANDATE to fix this. And there will be a spending freeze, which is awesome. Accepting the Republicans flawed macroeconomic logic is a superb way to impress no one.

Okay, obviously I’m still not over the State of the Union.

There were a few things I that I did like. It’s about time don’t ask, don’t tell, didn’t exist. I’m a huge fan of Obama’s smackdown of the Supreme Court over their potentially election shattering Citizens United decision. Too bad he can’t actually do anything about it.

There was one legislative proposal that I unequivocally support. Obama said: “In the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.” Ain’t that the truth?

At some point, our laudable goals of making college “affordable to every American,” morphed into making college “able to be debt financed by anybody willing to start their careers in an enormous financial hole.” During the State of the Union, Obama said that education was the best “anti-poverty” defense. But we also know that massive educational debt is also the easiest way to prevent young people from reaping the financial rewards of their hard work and the sacrifices of their parents.

Now we have the President of the United States at the “these debts are killing me” party. I’m happy he showed up. But will his plan actually help recent graduates and their families? Go make yourself a drink and then we’ll talk. continue »

This morning my father, who is Haitian, said: “They’ve been hit by hurricanes that completely missed the Dominican Republic, and now this. It’s not fair.” I noted the remark because in my life, I can’t recall my father — ever — asking or expecting anything about this world to be “fair.” Fair is simply not a concept my father acknowledges.

But today, it certainly feels like a beautiful country that has the good sense to keep all of its wars civil in nature is in some kind of cosmic doghouse. I mean, after all these people were displaced from their destroyed homes, you know what happened last night? It rained. And it’s going to freaking rain again tonight. I’m not a spiritual man, but if you are down with the Lord, can you please ask God to stop peeing on Haiti?

I can literally not think of a country that is less prepared to deal with disaster of this magnitude. Port-au-Prince, a city of well over 2 million people, didn’t have a functional fire department before yesterday’s earthquake. And they still have aftershocks registering over 5.0 on the Richter scale happening right now.

With the help of friends, family, and Twitter, let me try to put what is happening in Haiti right now in a perspective Americans will understand. continue »

Image via Wikipedia

Harry Reid made a quip about Obama’s lack of a Negro dialect. Bill Clinton arguably said something far worse. And now some people want those men to be roasted over the fire of racial outrage just as Trent Lott and Don Imus before them. Some Republicans are even crying that there is a racially insensitive comment double standard: One conservative commentator was so sad that he couldn’t get away with calling Obama a light-skinned, coffee fetching, well-spoken Negro I thought he was going to cry into his Morning Joe.  Interestingly, I don’t hear many Republicans saying that Harry Reid was wrong: i.e. that America is perfectly ready for a dark-skinned African-American candidate who speaks with a “dialect.” But I suppose that’s besides the point.

A number of people have told me that if Harry Reid was Mitch McConnell, I’d be screaming for McConnell to be fired on the spot.

I don’t know about that. But I have forgiven Joe Biden’s surprise at the President’s ability to speak and bathe. Joe the Veep gets a lot more racial rope (with which to hang himself) from me than, say, Dick Cheney.

Does that make me a hypocrite? Hardly. Does that make me a slavish shill for the Democratic Party? Well, not on this issue. Instead, I think we do live in a world where some people can say things that others cannot. Equality doesn’t require me to treat everybody exactly the same. There is a language double standard, one that I’m perfectly comfortable with. continue »

When you think of an insular community of not particularly well educated individuals who fervently defend the second amendment and constantly complain about taxes, you think of right-wingnuts living on a compound in Texas. Right? I used to.

But I’ve learned that the brain malady that makes people think Jesus was an action hero who wanted nothing more than to pop caps into Roman asses isn’t limited to Sarah Palin supporters. If you are looking for a group of people who strap-up before they put their socks on, look no further than the modern professional athlete. The armed shenanigans of Washington Wizards guard, Gilbert Arenas, is just the latest — and funniest — evidence of the mentality:

After piecing together several different reports, the story (at present) appears to go like this: Gilbert Arenas, Javaris Crittenton, JaVale McGee were all playing cards on a flight home from Phoenix before Christmas. Arenas and Crittenton both lost big, but because he was upset over a dispute about the rules, Arenas quit the game, leaving Crittenton to pay the entire pot himself. Crittenton argued with Areans over his share of the losings and at one point threatened (jokingly?) to shoot Arenas in his gimpy left knee.

Two days later, before practice, Arenas thought it would be funny to place three of his own guns next to Crittenton’s locker with a note saying, “Pick one.” That’s funny, right? Well, Crittenton apparently didn’t think so. He angrily picked up one of the guns and threw it across the locker room, screaming about how he has his own gun and doesn’t need hand-me-downs. So touchy.

Via Deadspin

Oh, to be young, talented, and armed. My favorite part of the story (thus far) is when Crittenton gets angry at the suggestion he can’t afford a high quality firearm of his very own. Crittenton basically had the same reaction I have when somebody condescendingly offers to buy me a haircut, only he expressed himself by throwing a gun across the room.

I have no intention of harping on how stupid it is to be this casual with weapons or pointing how much damage gun violence does in this country. I mean, it is (stupid) and it does (do horrible damage); but that is why I’m always happy to vote for an actual liberal with enough sense and testicular fortitude to stand up to the gun lobby.

What I’m really interested in is the fact that a young black kid from D.C. and an old white man from Mississippi would probably agree on this (and many, many issues) as long as they were blindfolded and not allowed to talk about music. How does that happen? continue »