Rep. Nancy Pelosi has had enough of Stephen Colbert’s political sheninagans.

Not really. The former Speaker of the House has unleashed a new faux political ad chastising the Comedy Central comic for his faux political ads. Their combined purpose? To squash the GOP’s Super PAC ads, of course, before they can take aim at President Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, Obama’s recent flip-flop on using those very same Super PAC ads goes unmentioned in Pelosi’s new video:

In a new TV ad, Nancy Pelosi takes aim at Colbert’s Super PAC, suggesting that their former friendship (note picture of her signing his wrist cast) has been ruined by the mock-conservative pundit’s refusal to disclose the complete sources of his funding….

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On February 7th, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the marriage protection amendment, commonly known as Prop 8, violates the U.S. Constitution. Although it passed with the support of 52% of California voters in 2008, the court said it “serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

From where I sit, this ruling was a travesty, not only because it discarded the wishes of 7 million Californians who voted for it, but because much of the money to overturn it came from Hollywood elites who are completely out of touch with the heart and soul of America.

Honestly, watching the decision come down from the 9th Circuit was like watching Brad Pitt and Elton John stomp all ever everything that flyover country holds near and dear to its heart. I cite Pitt and John because Pitt gave at least $100,000 to “fight the proposition,” and in Jan. 2011, John played a benefit concert in Beverly Hills that raised $3,000,000 for the same cause.

Of course, these two were not alone. Steven Bing, long time Democrat Party donor and Hillary Clinton supporter, donated $500,000 to the cause, and according to Advocate magazine, Mary J. Blige and Melissa Etheridge were right there in the mix as well. Oh, and we can’t overlook old “Meathead,” Rob Reiner, who opposed Prop 8 when it was on the ballot in 2008 and who’s been “one of the biggest fundraisers behind the legal effort” to overturn it since. (more…)

Out here in the wilds of North Carolina, I haven’t yet had a chance to see ”The Iron Lady,” but as someone who generally finds Meryl Streep’s acting self-conscious, over-affected, and showy — in other words, not acting at all — I’m rooting for “The Help’s” Viola Davis to win.

THAT was a performance, as opposed to what we’ve seen from Streep for the last two decades.

I have a very simple rule when it comes to acting: If I notice the acting, if I see the strings — you’re doing it wrong. If you break the spell and take me out of the film with all your “technique” — you’re doing it wrong. If I notice your accent — you’re doing it wrong.  Patrick Swayze’s performance in “Road House” was ten-times better than almost anything Streep’s done since 1998. That’s not a joke, either. Swayze was more convincing, and that’s what true acting is really about. The rest is nothing more than bait for foo-foo critics and shallow Academy voters.

Anyway, here’s a wrinkle in Streep’s march to another trophy:

A Weinstein Company email that appears to skirt AMPAS campaign rules by using a third party to reach Oscar voters has stirred up anger among Academy members and rival campaigners.

But the email does not violate Academy regulations, AMPAS COO Ric Robertson told TheWrap on Tuesday. One of the organization’s campaign rules, he said, “allows for media entities to send such things to valid subscribers who’ve opted into being a subscriber.”

The email in question, which went out on Tuesday morning, is not part of Weinstein’s aggressive Best Picture campaign on behalf of “The Artist,” but instead promotes Meryl Streep’s Best Actress candidacy for “The Iron Lady.”

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Artist John McNaughton should have beefed up his bandwidth this month.

News of the Nevada-based artist’s new painting, “The Forgotten Man,” went viral over the past few days sparking massive sales and a bit of outrage as well. The painting depicts President Barack Obama standing on the Constitution while previous presidents look on with outrage.

John McNaughton’s “The Forgotten Man” sold in one day “what we would sell in three months.”

The amount of traffic the story generated even crashed his website.

“I hate to think of the sales I lost with the site being down, but I’m pleased that the message got out,” he told CBS Las Vegas.

His webmaster needed to increase the amount of bandwidth for the site four times before it went back up Saturday night.

Naturally, some Obama supporters instantly dubbed the painting racist, charges McNaughton refutes on his web site:

There is no racial meaning or undertone that the FM [Forgotten Man] isn’t black. This is not a racial painting; it is about the vanishing of the American dream.

The NFL blamed NBC for allowing video of singer M.I.A. flashing her middle finger to be seen by 111.3 million viewers on Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast. NBC, in turn, blamed the NFL for hiring the talent behind the incident.

Stuart Katz, an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University’s Department of Strategic Communication, said all the finger pointing over the offending digit misses the target.

“It shouldn’t have happened, and it didn’t have to happen,” says Katz, who has been working on live broadcast sporting events like The Olympics since 1978.

“The reality is somebody has to operate the technology. No technology recognizes an obscene gesture,” Katz told Big Hollywood. “That halftime show was rehearsed repeatedly … that reinforces the concept that it didn’t have to happen that way.”

Katz says it was likely human error responsible for the gaffe, adding that it’s improbable the equipment tasked with blurring an offensive image suddenly malfunctioned during showtime.

“They were supposed to blur the picture or at least cut to the wide shot in time… they didn’t do it fast enough … or somebody wasn’t watching,” he says.

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For all the pomp and excess of Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime show, it is likely to be a single extended middle finger by guest singer M.I.A. that is most remembered.

The gesture, accompanied by a barely disguised expletive, came during a performance of Madonna’s new single, “Give Me All Your Luvin.’” At the end of her lines, M.I.A. appeared to sing “I don’t give a (expletive),” although it was hard to hear clearly.

The incident was reminiscent of Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” eight years ago — a surprise risque moment in front of tens of millions of unsuspecting viewers. The brief exposure of Jackson’s nipple during the 2004 halftime show raised a storm of controversy and put CBS in hot water with the Federal Communications Commission.

The Super Bowl, shown on NBC this year, is routinely viewed by more than 100 million people, the biggest TV event of the year.

The screen briefly went blurred after M.I.A.’s gesture in what seemed like a late attempt to cut out the camera shot. The NFL, which produces the show, had no immediate comment. (more…)

In May 2010, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg posited that the individual who packed a Nissan Pathfinder full of explosives and parked it in Times Square was likely a homegrown American “with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something.”

Fortunately, the car bomb did not detonate.

The terrorist turned out to be Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen. And, not surprisingly, Shahzad wasn’t upset about the health care bill. After pleading guilty in court he said, “I consider myself a Mujahid, a Muslim-soldier.” He was upset, as he put it, over “American occupation of Muslim Lands.”

Shortly after the attack, Bloomberg prematurely asserted that there was no evidence suggesting the bomber was part of any recognized terror network. Shahzad later told the court he trained with the Pakistani Taliban to learn bomb-making and other related skills.

Could it be that Bloomberg has underestimated the threat of Islamist terror, or is there another agenda?

The issue has again become relevant in recent days. The New York Times ran a series of articles and editorials blaming the NYPD for using the film The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision for America as part of their counter-terrorism training. (more…)

Egypt’s Arab Spring is making freedom of speech a punishable offense.

The Arab world’s most famous comic actor is heading to jail for supposedly insulting Islam through his films and plays.

Adel Imam has received a three-month jail sentence for insulting Islam in films and plays, a court document showed on Thursday.

Imam, who has frequently poked fun at authorities and politicians of all colors during a 40-year career, has one month to appeal the sentence and will remain out of jail until the appeal process is concluded.

The sentence Wednesday evening came weeks after Islamists swept most seats in a parliamentary election. The case was brought by Asran Mansour, a lawyer with ties to Islamist groups, and had languished in court for months, judicial sources said.

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Guess those “Desperate Housewives” checks go a long way.

The Obama administration released a list of its top money bundlers yesterday, and while the list featured the usual political suspects it also contained some familiar Hollywood power brokers.

Top fundraisers include movie producers Jeffrey Katzenberg and Harvey Weinstein, and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Actress Eva Longoria was in the second highest tier, bundling $200,000 to $500,000 for Obama’s re-election.

The biggest surprise for celebrity watchers was the inclusion of Longoria. She’s hardly the most outspoken actress on the Hollywood circuit, but the svelte star clearly wants to fatten up Obama’s re-election campaign coffers.

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Just like four years ago, another group of legendary Obama 1 percent supporters have stepped forward to lend a creative hand to help the President raise money for his 2012 bid for reelection. Last time around it was “Runway to Change.” This time the design-for-Obama group effort has been dubbed “Runway to Win.”

Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor that hosted Obama’s supporters in her New York townhouse and who recently co-hosted a $35,000 per person fundraiser at Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s home, is heading up the venture. In the past, Wintour’s tony political functions were attended by the likes of Alicia Keys and $70,000 dinner power couple Coldplay singer Chris Martin and his actress wife, the “suddenly everywhere” Miramax “muse,” Gwyneth Paltrow.

So with Wintour now raising reelection funds, you can just forget the $5 raffle tickets for a hot dog dinner with Barry and Shelley. Instead, the campaign will be hawking designer duds to people who, last time around, were in such dire straits they hoped the new president would fill their gas tank and pay their mortgage.

For her latest effort, Anna Wintour has recruited Hollywood notables, designers, pop and hip-hop artists, and other all-around really rich people to raise money for Barack 2012 by designing overpriced T-shirts, tank tops, scarves, wristlets, and bags to sell at inflated prices to people who, in the midst of an Obama recession, really can’t afford them.

Thus, “Runway to Win” is yet another example that Barack Obama and his helpful circle of elite Hollywood friends and Seventh Avenue designer devotees are all pretty much insulated from reality, out of touch, and oblivious to the plight of the common man.

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The Stop Online Piracy Act resistance continues to draw players from both sides of the ideological aisle.

This week, the Free Press Action Fund blasted MPAA President Chris Dodd for threatening to cut off money to politicians who dared to block the unpopular legislation.

As a result, the media reform group wants politicians who previously pocketed Hollywood cash to return those checks, or at the least send the money to a charitable cause instead.

It all started with a tersely worded statement Dodd gave to Fox News regarding SOPA, according to a press release Free Press fired off this week:

After Congress shelved two controversial Web-censorship bills, Dodd told Fox News: “Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

Free Press Action Fund President and CEO Craig Aaron made the following statement:

“The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV. We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.

“Last week’s unprecedented grassroots uprising, in which millions mobilized against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act, clearly got Washington’s attention. And we’ve since seen dozens of legislators scrambling to show they were really against these bills all along. But the real test is whether they will put their money where their mouths are by returning the MPAA’s dirty money.”

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Both articles linked below make excellent points about how indifferent the public was to this year’s nine Best Picture picks. Other than “The Help,” which was a smash, none came close to reaching $100 million at the domestic box office. So unlike the last two years, where the nominations contained more than a single film people had actually seen, we have eight films practically no one did.

Yes, that’s a problem.

But here’s the bigger problem: 29 films topped the $100 million mark last year, but how many of those are worthy of an Oscar? “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and ”X-Men: First Class”  were certainly good movies, but they’re not Best Picture material.

The problem isn’t so much that the Academy is out of touch (which it is), it’s that the product the industry created was so lousy last year, there really are no crowd-pleasers good enough to add to the list of nominations. And as someone who has seen the middling “Midnight in Paris,” the pretentious and impossibly dull “Tree of Life,” and the just pretty good “War Horse” — none of which is better than “Rise of the Apes,” “X-Men,” or “Resident Evil 4,” for that matter – the Academy is still guilty of stacking the deck with brand-tarnishing mediocrities.

Box Office Mojo:

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Best Picture

“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“The Help”
“Moneyball”
“War Horse”
“The Tree of Life”

Best Actor

Demian Bichir, “A Better Life”
George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”

Best Actress

Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”
Viola Davis, “The Help”
Rooney Mara, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh, “My Week With Marilyn”
Jonah Hill, “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte, “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Max Von Sydow, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

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What happens when a pro-American rock band tries to infiltrate an “Occupy” event and is bold enough to sign up to perform on the event’s Open Mic Sign Up website? When Richard Mgrdechian, President & CEO of Terabit Media Corporation, fellow “Dawger” at BigDawg Music Mafia, and manager for the openly conservative band Madison Rising, told me he had signed them up to perform Jan. 17 at the Occupy Congress rally, my first thought was, “there is no way the organizers are going to allow them to take the stage once they find out who they are.” I was wrong.

As I was making my way to D.C. to meet up with the band for their scheduled free concert at the Capitol Hill Club immediately following their scheduled “Occupy” performance, I spoke with Richard on the phone and was surprised to hear Madison Rising was still listed in the lineup for an on-stage appearance.

I thought to myself, “Oh boy, this is going to get interesting; when these malcontents hear the lyrics to their songs, especially their song Honk if You Want Peace, which mocks the occupiers, they will be booed right off the stage, at a minimum.”  Wrong again.

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Buried near the bottom of a mostly glowing feature piece written by George Soros’ disciple Ken Vogel at the left-wing Politico:

Brad Smith, a past FEC chairman who now heads the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for less campaign finance regulation, also counts himself a fan of Colbert’s campaign finance jokes in the past, but thinks that this year, he’s off base.

“I think his super PAC stuff has largely been misleading the public,” he said. “He’s giving very misleading impressions about how disclosure obligations work, and he’s given a misleading understanding about why there are rules about coordination in politics.”

The rule banning coordination is “intended to prevent campaign contributions from being essentially a substitute for bribery,” he said, and is not really as ridiculous as Colbert and Stewart try to make it seem.

More broadly, he takes issue with those who look at Citizens United as some kind of cataclysmic event.

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All of President Barack Obama’s desperate outreach to Hollywood may end up going for naught.

Obama, who in recent days has sent out a wish list of celebrity surrogates he hopes will push his re-election campaign and assigned a special envoy to curry favor with Tinsel Town, now finds himself cut off from some of the fattest wallets in the industry.

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that some major movie moguls are refusing to cut the Obama campaign any more gaudy checks due to the administration’s refusal to back the MPAA’s online piracy legislation.

The blowup came after President Obama on Saturday dashed moguls’ hopes that he would remain on the sidelines in the dispute over the U.S. House Of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act and the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act. In a posting on the White House web site, three of the Obama administration’s top officials for Internet and intellectual property matters said that they share many of the concerns that the Internet community has about the Hollywood-supported bills.

The trio said that they “will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, and Special Assistant to the President Howard Schmidt tried to soften the blow to Hollywood by acknowledging that that online piracy is “a serious problem that requires a  serious legislative response.” They added that they plan to host an online event “to get more input” on the matter….

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Reuters:

A government watchdog group is suing the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, claiming the agencies are refusing to release details of their alleged meetings and communications with director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal.

It has been alleged that Bigelow and Boal — in preparation for the script to their Annapurna Pictures movie about the killing of Osama Bin Laden — received classified information regarding his death.

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act complaint — which was obtained by TheWrap — in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. The group says the DoD and CIA have not complied with its FOIA requests within the legally required 20 working days.

Judicial Watch sent FOIA requests to the DoD and the CIA on August 9, seeking records of alleged meetings and communications between government officials, the makers of the Bin Laden movie and employees of Annapurna Pictures, according to the group’s complaint.

The DoD and CIA acknowledged they received the requests but said they couldn’t release the alleged information, according to Judicial Watch. The DoD cited “unusual circumstances which impact our ability to quickly process your request,” the suit says. The CIA said the agency was inundated with FOIA requests and couldn’t respond within the legally required 20 working days, Judicial Watch claims.

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ABC has relented to objections from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and cancelled the unbelievably bad comedy “Work It” after only two episodes.

It’s my guess that with the protests from GLAAD gearing up, ABC felt it would be hopeless to try and defend (note to Canada, you can probably take Detroit).

It also bespeaks a certain prejudice inside of GLAAD who has never said a word about Tyler Perry, Martin Lawrence or Eddie Murphy (who was once known to be quite transvestite-friendly despite his transvestite comedy). Of course, GLAAD has never been terribly courageous about confronting the black community. Political correctness forbids crossing racial lines.

This might reveal a hint as to why GLAAD felt empowered to attack “Work It.” The plot revolved around two men who are forced into women’s clothing just to get a job. Don’t they know that only women are discriminated against in the workplace (and only make three-fourths of a man’s salary)? Perhaps the writers’ ignorance of Women’s Studies 101 made GLAAD think it had been written by conservatives. (more…)

***UPDATE: One of the folks involved in the event was kind enough to forward the video. It’s a must-watch. The great Frank Luntz gets bigger laughs than Colbert (who gets none) and not because these South Carolina moms “don’t get” the joke. These are smart women who know Colbert’s joke really isn’t. Watch how many of them describe Colbert as a left-winger and, quite hilariously, as a “Charleston dandy.”

Man, I love the American people.

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Because those left-wing journOlists at Politico share Colbert’s agenda to define GOP candidates as out-of-touch, because Politico shares Colbert’s goal to deny free speech to millionaires not named Stephen Colbert and corporations not named Politico, it makes sense that after gushing all over Colbert in somewhere around 258,223 stories, Politico would bury the lede in the 258,224th:

Via POLITICO’s Mackenzie Weinger in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Stephen Colbert made his appearance at the Café Moms town hall via a recorded video message:

Stephen Colbert made a cameo appearance at the Café Moms town hall meeting in Myrtle Beach on Monday with a recorded message asking the audience if they agree with Mitt Romney’s line that “corporations are people.” …

“My next question for the Café Moms South Carolina town hall is: What do you think about South Carolina’s favorite son forming an exploratory committee to run for president? While you discuss that I’m going to call my mom.”

And snark, snark, snark, and blah, blah, blah.

The real story, however, is found (as it usually is at Politico) near and at the bottom:

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HBO is one of the most liberal entertainment outlets ever conceived, but at the very least you had to respect them for not trying to hide that agenda. So why go all spineless now? Part of HBO’s absurd, intelligence-insulting denial is simply disingenuous. The network’s “agenda” took a pretty big hit when Governor Palin chose not to run in 2012, but the timing of this docu-drama, which is based on a political book written my John Heilamann and Mark Halperin, was always obvious: Drop this bomb in the heat of the GOP primary.

AP:

In a politically polarized country, the people behind HBO’s upcoming movie on Sarah Palin’s vice presidential campaign are being careful not to take one side or the other.

“There is no agenda here,” Danny Strong, writer of the film “Game Change,” said at a news conference Friday. Filmmakers said they sought historical accuracy.

The movie debuts March 10. It is based on John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s book about the 2008 presidential campaign, but focuses specifically on Palin. Director Jay Roach said he wrote a long letter to the former Alaska governor seeking an interview with her to help the film, “but I got a very quick email back from her attorney saying, `I checked, she declined.’”

Roach and Strong were the team behind HBO’s Emmy-winning “Recount” about the disputed 2000 presidential election.

“I don’t think this movie is going to change people’s minds one way or another,” Strong said. “People are very polarized. It’s not designed to change people’s minds.”

Of course, what HBO won’t tell you is that the source material chosen to tell this story is in and of itself agenda-driven. So egregious was “Game Change” in its lack of sourcing that even liberal news outlets were critical:

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