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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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.

Oprah Winfrey has more to worry about these days than just her flailing TV network.

The former talk show queen’s self-named magazine is also suffering a significant sales drop, according to The New York Post:

Newsstand sales plunged to 413,363 copies — down 32 percent from the same period a year ago, when she was selling 608,212 copies.

Winfrey’s last syndicated talk show aired in May 2011, so while there has been some softness for the past two years, this marked the first six-month stretch with no broadcast TV exposure at all. The magazine’s total circulation was also down by 5 percent, to 2,380,782.

Combine that with the dismal ratings for OWN, Winfrey’s upstart network, and you have a picture of a media titan in trouble.

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Rush Limbaugh isn’t making Clint Eastwood’s day.

The conservative talker spent a second straight broadcast mocking Eastwood’s now infamous “Halftime in America” Chrysler ad that aired on Super Bowl Sunday. Today, Limbaugh played a parody on his popular radio show to keep the story alive despite Eastwood’s protest that the commercial wasn’t meant to support President Obama’s auto bailout policies.

When somebody tells me Clint Eastwood did a halftime commercial for Chrysler, I expect it to be something like this,” Limbaugh told his 20 million listeners before audio of an Eastwood impersonator began:

Limbaugh’s is audio only, but video parodies from other sources were created for the Internet, including one from the Second City Network that appears to be a subtle attack on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Actress Scarlett Johansson once famously swapped emails with future president Barack Obama.

Now, the curvy star of “We Bought a Zoo” is carrying Obama’s water for his 2012 campaign.

Johansson announced she’s back on Team Obama, reading off the Celebrity Apology script while chatting to The Huffington Post about her return to the Hope and Change Express:

I think people are really in dire straits and they are very reasonably and understandably upset,” she said. “I mean Obama inherited a turkey, he really did, and he’s working to… he’s fighting a kind of uphill battle in a sense and he has these past four years. And he never ran his first term as that — he was always going to be a two-term election in that sense. And change doesn’t happen overnight, you know, we know that.

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Small wonder the White House has tweeted approval of Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl Chrysler commercial. From its calls for America to “be as one,” one wouldn’t know that Eastwood doesn’t approve of the Obama administration.

One also wouldn’t know that Eastwood calls himself a libertarian. For Eastwood’s speech, with its calls for unity and marching together from halftime to what I take to be a touchdown, is precisely the kind of collectivism libertarians shy away from.

This is at odds with Eastwood’s maverick persona. As a consistent Republican voter, he stands apart from the Hollywood liberal herd. When the country was cheerleading for an Iraq invasion, Eastwood opposed it on “practical considerations.” While Hollywood emptied their wallets for Obama, Eastwood criticized him.

Eastwood’s libertarianism has always slipped through via his film canon. With the sheriff bashing unarmed citizens in “Unforgiven,” Eastwood sounded a warning against gun control, then and now. In last year’s “J.Edgar,” Eastwood revealed that there was a decided terrorist threat from leftists in the post-World War I period, while at the same time showing the civil liberty abuses of Hoover.

But now, the actor’s message has moved from the honor of being one against the herd to urging us all to join one.

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Acting legend Clint Eastwood has already tried clearing the air regarding any political fallout from his two-minute Chrysler Super Bowl ad.

Now, it’s Chrysler Group CEO Sergio Marchionne’s turn.

Marchionne told WJR radio in Detroit this morning “politics had nothing to do” with the instantly controversial clip.

Democrats and the White House embraced the ad narrated by actor Clint Eastwood that said the United States could learn from the Motor City’s economic woes, while a former adviser to President George W. Bush criticized it….

“It has zero political content,” Marchionne said. “It was not intended to be any type of political overture on our part. We are as apolitical as you can make us… I wasn’t expressing a view and certainly nobody inside Chrysler was attempting to influence decisions.

Actor Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl ad for Chrysler got a quick and hearty welcome from Obama administration officials who saw it as an unofficial endorsement for the president’s auto bailout.

But the 81-year-old screen icon worked nearly as fast to shut down the notion his ad was meant to be taken that way.

Here’s the erstwhile Dirty Harry setting the record straight to a producer from Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor”:

I just want to say that the spin stops with you guys, and there is no spin in that ad. On this I am certain.

l am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message about just about job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it. I thought the spirit was OK.

I am not supporting any politician at this time.

Chrysler to their credit didn’t even have cars in the ad.

Anything they gave me for it went for charity.

If any Obama or any other politician wants to run with the spirit of that ad, go for it.

Judge for yourself:

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“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe “opened” his first post-boy wizard film over the weekend with “The Woman in Black.” The horror movie hauled in a very respectable $21 million, not bad for a project without built-in brand recognition or sequel pizazz.

Now, Radcliffe is opening his mouth on politics and likely losing a few admirers along the way.

First, the actor slammed the GOP presidential candidates for their stances on gay rights. Next, he applauded President Barack Obama on the issue even though Obama holds the very same position on gay marriage as his ideological opponents. He’s against it.

[Radcliffe] went on to say that he has been “disgusted, amazed, stunned” by candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination, such as Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann, who have been openly hostile to gay rights.

“But they disgusted me less than candidates like Rick Perry, who made that ridiculous advert wearing ‘the Brokeback jacket’, and I think pretend to be homophobic just to win votes.”

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Reprinted with permission from Conservatives For Palin. Written by Stacy Drake.

Many months ago, HBO announced it was planning to make a movie based on the book, “Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. After reading John Nolte’s article, which indicated that the movie would be focused primarily around Governor Palin, and it wouldn’t be portraying her in a very positive light, I decided to study up on it. I purchased a copy of the book, read the TWO chapters based on Gov. Palin, and took down some notes.

As Nicole recently noted, HBO decided to release a trailer to that movie late last year. The actual movie doesn’t air until March 10, or as John Nolte wrote in his follow-up piece:

The one dynamic HBO probably didn’t count on was Palin’s decision not to run for the 2012 nomination. The film’s promotion and the cable news chatter that’s sure to follow seems timed to hit on, before, and around March 6, which is Super Tuesday.

The one line from the notes I took back in March that stood out as I was reviewing them for this piece, was:

Even though this book is supposed to be a story about 2008, it’s really all about 2012.

This movie was orchestrated from start to finish as a way to damage Gov. Palin during an election year by people who are not merely “artists & entertainers.” Just look at the people involved in the making of the movie.

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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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The 2010 presidential election tome “Game Change” recalled the battle between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama for the Oval Office.

The HBO movie version is all about McCain’s Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. And, if this early peek is any indication, conservatives can expect a feature-length assault on the Tea Party darling.

The first full trailer for the movie, debuting March 10 on HBO, backloads the Palin bashing. We get a respectful treatment of Sen. McCain (ably reproduced by Ed Harris) and Woody Harrelson playing McCain’s campaign chair Steve Schmidt. Then we meet Sarah, and right away it’s clear that actress Julianne Moore hasn’t captured Palin’s charisma or personal pluck.

Heck, even Tina Fey’s excoriating impression of the self-described Hockey Mom had more clarity.

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American culture allows comedians of color to say things white comedians can’t.

That helped propel Richard Pryor into the comedy stratosphere and made Chris Rock one of the most incisive commentators on modern living during the early 2000s.

Enter “Key & Peele,” the new Comedy Central series debuting at 10:30 p.m. EST tonight. Biracial comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele share their mixed race ancestry in the show’s opening monologue, the kind of refreshing banter that’s immediately open and funny. The exchange doesn’t feel cobbled together by a team of writers trying way too hard to be casual.

It’s one of the best features of the new show, a program which proves both Key and Peele belong in the sketch comedy trenches – each already paid their dues on both “MADtv” and the short-lived “Chocolate News.” They’re naturals on screen, relaxed and compelling even when they’re just swapping stories.

“On a daily basis we have to adjust our blackness,”  Key says before Peele finishes, “to terrify white people.”

Normally, the pair “sound whiter than Mitt Romney in a snow storm,” Peele adds.

The premiere episode mixes the kind of material you might find on any other sketch show with bits given an edge by their heritage. That edge vanishes when the duo take on the first black president.

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Will Ferrell should still be apologizing for “Land of the Lost.”

Instead, he’s making excuses for President Barack Obama’s first term.

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The increasingly political “Saturday Night Live” alum is co-chairing a Feb. 15 fundraiser for the president’s re-election campaign. But you have to be a one percenter to afford the entrance fee – $35,800 each. Let’s hope that includes Ferrell wearing his cheerleader outfit for some high-energy kicks and jumps.

The bigger issue is getting Obama re-elected, and Ferrell argues the president’s case with a little fuzzy math.

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The Sundance Film Festival is where one-percenters gather to hurl stones at haughty, out of touch (Republican) politicians whom they claim are hurting the ninety-nine percenters. This year a curious thing happened: Gene Simmons rolled in and cleaned house.

The bassist for KISS, who can always be trusted to speak his mind and who, unlike many other entertainers, actually has something to say, gave us his take on Robert Redford, President Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney.

Regarding Redford’s statements against one-percenters, statements that only Occupy Wall Street types could love, Simmons said:

He means well, he’s a great guy. But it’s a bit hypocritical, since he’s part of the one percent, to address the 99 percent.

Simmons then went to speak to that fact that he doesn’t like all the class warfare, all the dividing of people into different camps.

Either we are all Americans, or you’re going to fall victim. This is the reason why the old Roman Empire died, it fell from within. Division from within is one of the stupidest things you can do.

Regarding Obama, Simmons basically called him a rookie, and stated anew his regret for supporting him in 2008.

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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 upcoming Comedy Central series “Key & Peele” got some viral video love earlier this month with a sketch reminding us just how cool, tough and awesome President Obama is.

Just ignore those pesky economic statistics, the flotilla of broken campaign promises and the roiling state of the world. Last night, the show’s co-hosts took to Twitter to ramp up their Obama defense during the State of the Union speech.

Caution: the language is pretty salty, although, to be fair, some of the Tweets are funny. Here’s just a short sample of what the pair fired off last night during Obama’s speech:

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Sarah Silverman, who helped Barack Obama campaign for the Jewish vote in 2008, has changed her Twitter location to “Palestinian territories,” in a possible attempt to reach out across the Jewish-Arab divide–or, just as likely, in an effort to tweak pro-Israel sensibilities.

Silverman certainly catches her share of flak from the anti-Israel left; she was recently criticized simply because a pro-Israel group happened to buy a bloc of tickets to one of her shows.

But to the extent that she is trying to strike a critical pose–as she did in a recent tweet lampooning Newt Gingrich’s staunch pro-Israel views–there is no better illustration of why Obama risks losing pro-Israel support in the 2012 election.

On the one hand, Obama is attempting to claim he has not just been pro-Israel, but more pro-Israel than any president in American history.

On the other, his penchant for confrontation with the Israeli government, and the anti-Israel passions of his core left-wing supporters, tend to undermine his pitch. Democrats are trying to redefine what it means to be pro-Israel–and it’s not quite working.

Silverman’s posture is an example of that contradiction–not because it’s axiomatically “anti-Israel” to be pro-Palestinian, but because those on the pro-Israel side who support a two-state solution have become increasingly aware that their empathy is not reciprocated. It is hard to imagine a Palestinian actor provocatively setting her location to “State of Israel,” for example.

In 2008, Silverman led “The Great Schlep,” an effort to bring pro-Obama Jews to Florida to convince their allegedly racist grandparents to give the black candidate their swing-state vote. Part of that effort included reassuring Jews about Obama’s support for Israel: “Barack Obama’s foreign policy is much more stabilizing than John McCain’s, and much better for Israel,” Silverman claimed.

It’s harder to make that case today, when Obama–and, now, Silverman–seem to be at pains to show solidarity with the Palestinian cause (and when the Middle East is more unstable today than in 2008). (more…)

Actor Samuel L. Jackson isn’t as pleased with President Barack Obama as he expected he would be at this point in the Commander in Chief’s first term,

Then again, no one will give Obama any [expletive] credit for all the [expletive] things the president has [expletive] done so far.

Yes, Jackson’s intense screen persona occasionally bleeds into the actor’s off-screen life, if his chat with Newsweek/The Daily Beast is any indication. Jackson shared his disappointment with the Hope and Change Meets Reality Tour before resorting to standard celebrity form. Yeah, but he’s still great:

Actor Samuel L. Jackson, an early supporter of the president, freely admits his ambivalence. “Some days I agree with Dr. West and what he says about the president not dealing enough with the plight of the poor,” says Jackson. “Then I think about how they won’t give him credit for anything… The president got about a week of moderate applause for capturing the most-wanted man in the world. You ask me, he should have put that motherfucker on ice and defrosted his ass Nov. 1.

Actress/director Debbie Allen didn’t bother with any equivocations while endorsing Obama for four more years.

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What’s a liberal comic to do when it becomes harder every day to defend President Barack Obama?

Why, play the race card – even when it’s not even in the deck.

Comedienne Wanda Sykes, who refused to lay a humorous glove on Obama during her short-lived talk show, is now slamming Gov. Rick Perry for something he hasn’t done.

Sykes appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” last night and tore into the GOP presidential field. Why bother speak truth to actual power – the president – when you can taunt your ideological foes?

But even by liberal standards Sykes’ shtick was out of line regarding Perry, who withdrew from the presidential field this week.

You know, he had to drop out,” she added, “because I’m pretty sure he was one more debate away from saying the N-word. He really was. Oh, he was right on the edge. He was like ‘Oh, I can’t speak in public anymore like that. One more debate, I’m just, it’s gonna fly out.’ He knew it.

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