The Google logo has been blacked out today. Wikipedia, reddit, Mozilla and Twitpic are all blocking access to content.  Even Star Trek icon George Takei has blocked his site.  The moves are displays of cyber-protest against the heavy-handed and ill-conceived Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

From a political and public relations standpoint, this has already been a complete and utter failure for Hollywood and their formerly formidable lobbying arm, the Motion Picture Association of America. Former Sen. Chris Dodd became the new CEO of the MPAA after he realized he would never be re-elected in his home state of Connecticut due to his personal scandals with Countrywide Mortgage and his involvement in the mortgage collapse at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So naturally, Hollywood hired the failed Senator as their man in Washington. Dodd has been the chief architect of SOPA, which was written with about as much subtlety and constitutional protocol as his equally disastrous Dodd-Frank banking law.

The merits of SOPA and the overall issue of online piracy is a worthy topic, and it can be argued that the federal government should have some hand in policing and enforcing piracy on behalf of private industries and artists who rely on royalties as a major part of their profit structure. These details can and should be debated here and in Washington DC. What is striking about today’s Internet blackout and the over-the-top reaction to it from Dodd is that this arrogant, befuddled and inept former Senator has finally figured out a way to unite the left and the right to focus their passion against a common enemy:  Hollywood.  (more…)

“You can tell a lot about a fella’s character by whether he picks out all of one color or just grabs a handful.” ~ Ronald Reagan explaining why he liked to have a jar of jelly beans on hand for important meetings.

Our mission at BigDawg Music Mafia is to unite and encourage conservatives with creative abilities to get engaged in the culture revolution – to promote American exceptionalism through the arts.  While many of us are using our talents to draw attention to the destruction of liberty by the current administration and those on the far left, there are times when we can use our creativity to bridge that partisan divide, even if only in a light-hearted way. This was one of those times.

Taking a cue from Senators Harry Reid and Chris Dodd who recently visited the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s grave site to channel his bipartisan spirit by pouring whiskey on his grave and reciting a prayer in hopes the Super Committee would reach an agreement on the budget cuts, BigDawg Music Mafia decided to answer their call for bipartisanship in a mission we dubbed “Operation Jelly Bean.”

YouTube Operation Jelly Bean

Having heard radio’s Rush Limbaugh talk about the Super Committee’s failed attempt to reach an agreement and how the two Senators contributed to the process by their visit with Kennedy; and having heard the challenge Limbaugh posed to one of his callers to visit Kennedy’s grave site on his behalf, BigDawg Music Mafia Co-Founder, Andrew (a.k.a. BigDawg) convinced me we needed to take that challenge since the caller indicated she was not local.  My friend Reese and I, however, are.

Here’s what Rush asked of one of his callers:

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The Force wasn’t strong enough with Sen. Chris Dodd when he took Carrie Fisher out on a date.

Fisher’s new memoir, “Shockaholic,” recalls an evening out with the Connecticut politician which briefly included a third party – Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Those who recall Dodd and Kennedy’s “Waitress Sandwich” won’t be too surprised to read what happened next.

“Senator Kennedy, seated directly across from me, looked at me with his alert, aristocratic eyes and asked me a most surprising question. ‘So,’ he said, clearly amused, ‘do you think you’ll be having sex with Chris at the end of your date?’”

According to Fisher, “Chris Dodd looked at me with an unusual grin hanging on his very flushed face.”

Fisher, being the trained actress she was, responded coolly: “Funnily enough, I won’t be having sex with Chris tonight. … No that probably won’t happen. … Thanks for asking, though.”

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The MPAA’s  decision to hire Chris Dodd to replace Dan Glickman as its Chief Executive Officer is inexplicable. But first some context… 

For those of you not in the Entertainment Industry, the MPAA is the major lobbying force for the motion picture industry in Washington.  According to Wikipedia, it was started in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.  It is primarily responsible for administering the Motion Picture Rating System which is a voluntary system to inform parents whether a film is suitable for viewing by children of various ages.  That’s right, it’s the MPAA that decides whether a film is rated “R” or “PG-13.”  This rating system began in 1968 when then head of the MPAA; Jack Valenti felt that the Hays Code was grossly out of date.  It was one of the main successes of Mr. Valenti’s tenure at the MPAA. 

Jack Valenti became head of the MPAA in 1966 under the insistence of Lew Wasserman who was running Universal Pictures and essentially running Hollywood at the time.  Valenti’s background was impeccable.  He was a known Washington insider and friend of both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  Valenti wielded much power on behalf of the Motion Picture Industry during his 38 year tenure.  He was loved by both the Washington Insiders and the Hollywood Executives.  Although a Democrat, he always had the best interests of the Industry at heart.  He served it well and retired at the ripe old age of 82.  Shortly thereafter, he passed away.

 Valenti was replaced by former Cabinet Member Dan Glickman who held the post for about five years.  Glickman retired one year ago and a search for his replacement has been going on by the Studio Executives since then. 

Finally last week, the replacement was found.  Imagine my shock when such replacement turned out to be Chris Dodd, the retired Senator from Connecticut.  Or, should I say, “The forced into retirement Senator from Connecticut.”  Chris Dodd did not run for reelection in 2010 most likely as a result of the numerous controversies during his last few years in office.  Basically, he knew he was going to lose. .. in the Blue State of Connecticut. 

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The relationship between the federal government and Hollywood is corrupt and dirty.  In essence, Hollywood liberals go easy on liberal politicians – in fact, their entertainment routinely stumps for liberal causes — and in return, the politicians give handouts to Hollywood.  Government has been particularly beneficent to the television industry – from the days of Paley, Goldenson, and Sarnoff onward, warm relations between the industry and those who regulate it have been the norm.  

During the 1990s, the Democratic Party raised $8 million per campaign cycle from the Hollywood contingent.  By the way, that’s three campaign cycles every year.  Some of the biggest Hollywood donors included David Geffen, at $200,000 per year; Jeffrey Katzenberg, who clocked in at $125,000 per year; ABC Family network head Haim Saban, who coughed up $250,000 per year.  Organizationally, Disney led the way with $1 million per year, and AOL Time Warner followed suit with $500,000 per year.  According to one estimate, Hollywood gave the Democratic Party “contributions roughly equivalent to what Republicans received from their friends in the oil and gas industries.”  In return, Hollywood got what it wanted: favors.  The 1996 Telecommunications Act got rid of restrictions on cable pricing without doing anything about local government-created monopolies, leading to skyrocketing cable prices and profits. Meanwhile, President Clinton instituted a “research and development tax credit,” according to film scholar Ben Dickenson, worth $1.7 billion to the industry.  

Such warmth continues today.  As of June 2010, 73 percent of entertainment industry donations during the 2010 election cycle had gone to Democrats. Comcast – a supposedly conservative company — had given approximately $1.3 million to Democrats and $756,000 to Republicans, a 64-to- 35 percent advantage to the Democrats. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) grabbed $329,800 in Hollywood donations. Not surprisingly, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), who chairs the House Commerce and Energy Committee, which has jurisdiction over communications issues, gathered $82,500 from the industry. 

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I have a few questions on my mind and, judging by the questions asked by the likes of George Stephanopoulos, David Letterman and the mainstream media, if I don’t ask them, there’s a very good chance that nobody else will. 

First off, I’d like to know why the 535 members of Congress have to congregate in Washington, D.C.  As Dick Morris and Eileen McGann made perfectly clear in “Fleeced,” they don’t do very much in the nation’s capitol that they couldn’t do just as well or just as badly if they stayed home in their bathrobes.  Half the time, the sessions are devoted to naming post offices and other equally earth-shattering events.  (more…)

You know how it is when you’re watching a slow-motion train wreck – Britney, say – and just when you are absolutely convinced it can’t get any worse… it does? 

Congress has an approval rating of 21%. And when I heard that Harry Reid is actually discussing plans to sneak single-payer, National Health Care legislation not only past the will of the people, but sneak it past the lower house of Congress by attaching it as a rider to a completely unrelated bill… 

…Well, that is an act of such unremitting and bastardly sinfulness that it simply has to be addressed. 

Click Image to Play

I take a look at the four Senators and twenty-something Representatives currently under ethics investigations of one kind or another, and present to you, the American people, my Modest Proposal to get government back in the hands of the governed. 

I’ll save the details for the video, but suffice it to say that the Whittle Plan, at $935,000,000 is not exactly cheap, but it is definitely a bargain at .0003 of the Federal Budget for 2008.  (more…)

I used to be what I thought was a liberal.  If, at the time, anyone had asked me to explain myself, I would have said that I opposed Jim Crow laws, that I believed workers were entitled to make a decent wage and work in a safe environment, and that American citizens shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their race, religion or national origin.

I quit being a liberal because I didn’t believe that members of particular minority groups deserved advantages denied to others; that illegal aliens weren’t entitled to anything but a swift kick to the backside; that being a devout Christian didn’t make you a bad person; and that capitalism was a system that worked, while socialism not only didn’t work, but, wherever it was tried, turned into a tyranny.

I honestly don’t know why there are so many liberals today and I certainly can’t imagine why they have such a lousy agenda.  I have come up with a theory, however.  Here in California, roughly 30 years ago, because of budget cuts, a great many people were released from insane asylums.  They wound up living in the streets, which explains the large number of homeless people, even though Democrats would have you believe that those are normal people who simply lost their jobs along the way. (more…)

The City of Riverside, California today announced a new plan, in light of the high volume of foreclosed homes, that it was going to start buying foreclosed home, fix them up, and resell them to ‘the needy’.  Isn’t that nice?  The city government in that lovely southern California town is going to do something to ‘make a difference’.  Using tax payers dollars, they are going to enter the house-flipping industry in the midst of possibly the most disastrous housing market on record.

Uh…say what??

Okay.  Here again I find myself having awakened on the parallel-universe planet of Dumbassnotion – a delightful world where reason and logic are turned upside-down and everything you know is completely wrong.  (more…)

As all the politicians, left and right, run around feigning indignation at the bonuses paid to a few AIG executives I am reminded of the scene in the movie “Casablanca” when Captain Renault closes down Rick’s Café American. As his deputies empty the casino in the back room he exclaims with stunned surprise, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” He says this just as one of Sam’s employees brings him his winnings.

I am not sure what makes me angrier, that absolutely bogus attitude or their overwhelming incompetence, but that’s not what I want to write about today. I’m not going to write about a lot of stuff here. I am not going to write about fact that Chris Dodd wrote the rule that allowed these bonuses and then in perfect Clintonese quasi denied it when he said, “I can’t point a finger at someone who was responsible for putting those dates in. I can tell you this much, when my language left the Senate, it did not include it. When it came back, it did.” Then when confronted with his lie, he owned up to it. I won’t spend time on the fact he took a ton of campaign dough from AIG, headquartered in his state. (more…)