Plan B Forum

well, I found this hard to believe

In what appears to be a first for a serious presidential contender, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is going after five comedians who made fun of the former Secretary of State in standup skits at a popular Hollywood comedy club.

A video of the short performance, which is less than three minutes, is posted on the website of the renowned club, Laugh Factory, and the Clinton campaign has tried to censor it. Besides demanding that the video be taken down, the Clinton campaign has demanded the personal contact information of the performers that appear in the recording. This is no laughing matter for club owner Jamie Masada, a comedy guru who opened Laugh Factory more than three decades ago and has been instrumental in launching the careers of many famous comics. “They threatened me,” Masada told Judicial Watch. “I have received complains before but never a call like this, threatening to put me out of business if I don’t cut the video.”

Practically all of the country’s most acclaimed comedians have performed at the Laugh Factory and undoubtedly they have offended politicians and other well-known personalities with their standup routines. Tim Allen, Jay Leno, Roseanne Bar, Drew Carey, George Carlin, Jim Carrey, Martin Lawrence, Jerry Seinfeld and George Lopez are among the big names that have headlined at the Laugh Factory. The First Amendment right to free speech is a crucial component of the operation, though Masada drew the line a few years ago banning performers—including African Americans—from using the “n-word” in their acts.

The five short performances that Clinton wants eliminated include some profanity and portions could be considered crass, but some of the lines are funny and that’s what the Laugh Factory is all about. The video features the individual acts of five comedians, four men and a woman. The skits make fun of Clinton’s wardrobe, her age, sexual orientation, the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the former First Lady’s relationship with her famous husband. The Laugh Factory has appropriately titled it “Hillary vs. The First Amendment.”

Masada told Judicial Watch that, as soon as the video got posted on the Laugh Factory website, he received a phone call from a “prominent” person inside Clinton’s campaign. “He said the video was disgusting and asked who put me up to this,” Masada said. The Clinton staffer, who Masada did not want to identify, also demanded to know the names and phone numbers of the comedians that appear in the video. Masada refused and hung up. He insists that the comedy stage is a sanctuary for freedom of speech no matter who is offended. “Just last night we had (Emmy-award winner) Dana Carvey doing Donald Trump and it was hilarious,” Masada said.

This seemed bizarre. Even if you buy the most grotesque right-wing caricatures about Clinton’s humorlessness and authoritarianism, it’s hard to believe that the campaign would be so clumsy, especially at a time when it’s going out of its way to make the candidate seem fun. Such a demand would only reinforce the worst stereotypes about Clinton while ensuring that the offending video went viral.

Besides, there’s nothing in the video itself to attract the campaign’s notice: It’s less than three minutes long and is mostly stale cracks about Hillary’s clothes and age, along with familiar insinuations that she’s a lesbian. One of those insinuations is even admiring: “I would love if you become president, divorce Bill, and then you marry a bitch,” says Tiffany Haddish.

Yet there was Masada—a man who has won awards from the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, and has no discernable right-wing agenda—quoted as saying, “They threatened me. I have received complains before but never a call like this, threatening to put me out of business if I don’t cut the video.”

So I called him. Masada told me that on Nov. 11, he got a call from a man named John—he doesn’t remember the last name—who sounded “distinguished, like an attorney.” John said he represented the Clinton campaign. He asked Masada “who had put him up” to posting the video. In a menacing voice, he told Masada, “This is not good for your business.” John then asked for the email or phone numbers of the five comedians who were featured in the video. “I told him, ‘Eff you,’ and I hung up,” says Masada.

How does Masada know that John was actually from the Clinton camp? He doesn’t. “I’m glad I’m not in politics or any of that stuff; you might know more than I do,” he says. “Maybe it was a prank, I have no idea. Was it real? Not real? I have no idea. He didn’t call back, that’s all I can say.” Nor is Masada sure how Judicial Watch even heard about the call. “The way I understand it, it’s because one of the [Laugh Factory] employees told a couple of people,” he says.

There are a few possibilities about what might have happened here. Maybe someone from Clinton’s campaign really did think it was a good idea to call a major figure in the world of stand-up comedy and make empty threats over a short video. Maybe the caller was a random, overzealous Hillarybot. Maybe it was a practical joker. Or maybe it was a dirty trickster, who then took steps to send the story ricocheting through conservative media. ​(For what it’s worth, the Clinton camp ​tells me​ the call didn't come from them. Judicial Watch tells me they stand by their story.)*​​

The 13 words you can’t write about Hillary Clinton anymore

Hillary Clinton has been in the public eye for a very long time, which means much has been written about her -- including quite a few adjectives. But some of these adjectives are now off-limits.

That's according to the Clinton "Super Volunteers," who have promised to track the media's use of words they believe to be sexist code words. The New York Times's Amy Chozick tweeted a missive she received from the group (which we would note is almost definitely not connected to official Team Clinton) on Wednesday:

A group called HRC Super Volunteers just warned me "We will be watching, reading, listening and protesting coded sexism..."

Sexist words, they say, include "polarizing, calculating, disingenuous, insincere, ambitious, inevitable, entitled, over confident..."

Also sexist, according to HRC Super Volunteers: "Secretive" and "will do anything to win, represents the past, out of touch..."

"You are on notice that we will be watching, reading, listening and protesting coded sexism..." the email reads.

So these words are now off the table: "polarizing," "calculating," "disingenuous," "insincere," "ambitious," "inevitable," "entitled," "over-confident," "secretive," "will do anything to win," "represents the past," and "out of touch."

You can't charge someone of having a meticulously crafted image and then say they are so incompetent to obviously torpedo that image.

Guinevere wrote:the TrumptyDump.