“Saturday Night Live” was at it again last night, turning its satirical sites on the GOP rather than the fellow currently abiding in the Oval Office.

Here, the NBC sketch show mocks former House Speaker and current presidential candidate Newt Gingrich for his lofty plans to colonize the moon.

At this rate, GOP politicians may have to write their own campaign music before hitting the stump.

Newt Gingrich became the latest Republican to learn you can’t just crank up the classic rock to rally the base.

Survivor, the ’80s band best known for “Eye of the Tiger,” is suing the former Speaker for using “Tiger” on the campaign trail.

The suit, filed Monday in Illinois District Court, alleges that Gingrich has made “unlicensed and unauthorized use” of “Eye of the Tiger” since “at least as early as 2009” at political conferences and campaign events. The complaint cites one recent instance in Doylestown, Pa., when “Mr. Gingrich entered the packed Moose Lodge for a speech as the song ‘pulsed,’ according to the Newt 2012, Inc. website.

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You won’t see KISS rocker Gene Simmons anchoring any cable news program, but the ageless bass player is eager to discuss the current GOP field.

Count Simmons in the Mitt Romney camp, and his reasons for choosing the former governor over Newt Gingrich come down to a pragmatic view of modern women. Simply put, they won’t stand for a first lady who came in third.

Mitt Romney’s got a chance … and he’s got the experience. He’s run successful companies, knows how to make money and knows how to be taxed at 15 percent instead of 48 percent if he lived in Beverly Hills the way I get taxed,” he says. “If you invest you should be taxed at 13-15 percent because if you invest you could also lose everything, so it’s all fair.

Simmons is more cynical regarding former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s hopes of beating President Barack Obama in the fall, and it’s not because Gingrich isn’t qualified to become Commander in Chief. (more…)

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…)

If there’s anyone the entertainment media elite hate more than our GOP candidates, it’s the great unwashed who dare vote for someone who isn’t Barack Obama. In a bizarre but seething article — at an entertainment site, no less — film critic Ken Tucker was unable to control his contempt for We The People Who Think Ken Tucker Is Wrong About Everything. GOP supporters, like the ones who enjoyed themselves at last night’s debate, are now fair game — even in bathroom reading like Entertainment Weekly. But it’s Tucker’s cynical use of Martin Luther King that’s beyond the pale, even for Ken Tucker.

Ken Tucker

Lowlights from an elitist frustrated over his inability to defend President FailureTeleprompter: [emphasis added]

Huntsman was undoubtedly relieved he didn’t have to stand on-stage Monday night to face the most raucous, roused-rabble audience of any Republican debate held thus far.

[T]he people in the seats hailed lustily the history lesson offered by “Professor” Newt Gingrich: “Andrew Jackson knew what to do with his enemies — he killed them.”

It was a wild, schizo crowd. They yelled their approval of Rick Perry’s suggestion that America should “go to zero on foreign aid.”

The audience showed a nasty streak in the booing Fox questioner Juan Williams for asking Gingrich[.]

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The Chicago Black Sox might appear to be about as American a corruption as possible.

Highly recent testimony to Chicago’s immortally blackened reputation, however, is here.

God bless Ann Coulter!!

Furthermore, after having channel-hopped two of the United States’ greatest film noir classics – 1954’s “On The Waterfront” and 1957’s “Sweet Smell of Success” – there is something misleadingly American about the disease still infecting the United States.

Both Chicago’s Unionized Obama Nation and New York’s Bloomberg Occupation on Wall Street?

To coin a relevant movie title, they are “The Swampy Smell of a Waterfront Success!” A “triumph” born of the string-pulling games played by pecking orders in power. A Grand Revival of Political Malevolence in the American Bloodstream is erupting out of the possibly inner-party, Republican opposition to Herman Cain. It not only smells of racism, according to Donald Trump’s accusations, but also of a political desperation that will eventually solidify Cain’s integrity and endurance.

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Guys Adams in The Independent:

After two seasons behind one of the nation’s most talked-about programmes and with two Golden Globes, four Emmys, and 10 million viewers under its belt, the musical drama’s creators are aiming their satirical howitzers at the choppy waters of electoral politics.

A third [season], which starts in the US on Tuesday, and in the UK shortly afterwards, will feature the storyline of an attempt by high school PE teacher Sue Sylvester to run for the US Congress. Controversially, given Sylvester’s pantomime villain status, Glee’s influential profile among young viewers and the impending 2012 election, her bid will be built on an exaggeratedly conservative platform, so satirising the Republican right.

Later in the same programme, she suffers an indignity that befell Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, two Republican presidential hopefuls: a “glitter bomb” attack, in which opponents video themselves throwing glitter at Sylvester, before uploading footage of the incident to YouTube.

So far, so cheeky, you might think. But given the polarised state of US politics, the public airwaves are no place for light-hearted satire. So news of the storylines has enraged right-leaning pundits.

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***UPDATE: An emailer just alerted me to the fact that the article referenced here that was published at “Roger Ebert’s Journal” was written by Chaz Ebert, not Roger Ebert. I’ve updated the headline and post to reflect the correction.

If you remember, on Sunday night, film critic Roger Ebert was all excited after Salon’s Joan Walsh and NBC’s David Gregory (two people with racial issues of their own) called Newt Gingrich out for the hideous crime of labeling our failed food stamp president the “Food Stamp President.”

Here’s his tweet:

So “food stamp President” is “coded racism,” but when you fast-forward a mere couple of days to today you’ll find Roger Ebert publishing at his Chicago Sun-Times Journal a report written by Chaz Ebert that contains a lot of excuse-making for a famous director of pretentious films trashing Israel and proudly declaring he’s a Nazi:

[Von Trier] said he grew up thinking he was a Jew, and he was very happy to be a Jew. Then he discovered he was a Nazi, and that also gave him some pleasure. “Yes, I am a Nazi!”, he declared.

While his cast (Charlotte Gainsbourg, Udo Kier and John Hurt) looked on in horror, Kirsten Dunst tapped him on the shoulder and whispered to him to moderate his comments. He looked at her in confusion and said, “But this has a point, it will be okay.”

Then he proceeded to dig himself in deeper, saying that he understood Hitler, and that he could sympathize with his being down in that bunker toward the end. He continued, “Well that doesn’t mean I have anything against Jews, except Susanne Bier (Danish filmmaker, “In a Better World”).

“Well, Israel is a pain in the ass …

“Okay, I am a Nazi…

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Dana Loesch at Big Journalism:

In a conversation about race, when one immediately thinks of black Americans when one hears food stamps, is not that a clear indicator of prejudice and stereotyping?

If you said yes, then check out the latest column from Salon’s Joan Walsh. Apparently, Joan Walsh believes food stamps are something inherent to black Americans only. When she could have nabbed Gingrich on his remarks yesterday morning about the individual mandate (insane) or his criticism of Rep. Paul Ryan’s goal of reforming entitlements (off-base) she went straw man.

Food stamps equals “Black”?

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The Presidential race is on. We’ve already seen the first Presidential Debate, and political comics are chomping on the bit. For the past three years, political correctness has forbidden Presidential humor, so when Fox News announced the first Republican debate, “Saturday Night Live couldn’t” resist the urge to satire.

Unfortunately, their enthusiasm might have caused them to jump the gun. Since last Thursday’s GOP debate was devoid of A-list candidates, “Saturday Night Live” didn’t have any solid characters to parody. So rather than make the late night ensemble work, the writers just fictionalized a debate between the more famous undeclared candidates; using characters they will probably be able to recycle during the upcoming campaign.

It was like watching a focus group, each actor trying out catch phrases they hope to use over the next year and a half. They even had Keenan Thompson resurrect his Jimmy “Rents 2 Damn High” McMillan character (personally I would think they could have gotten the real Jimmy McMillan, at or below AFTRA rates, which would have had the added bonus of making the skit funny). (more…)

During his travels in 1831, French writer, Alexis de Tocqueville, observed that America was an exceptional nation with a special role to play in history. Tocqueville wrote that, unlike in Europe, where social standing defined a citizen, America was a new republic where liberty, equality, individualism, and laissez-faire economics defined the “American Creed.”

Citizens United Productions will premiere a documentary film about American Exceptionalism, entitled “A City Upon A Hill,” hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich, this Friday, April 29 in Washington, D.C. “A City Upon A Hill” is written and directed by award-winning film maker, Kevin Knoblock (“Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny,” “Nine Days That Changed The World,” “America at Risk”).

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Throughout our history, the United States has risen to meet great challenges — sometimes out of necessity but often out of the determination to create a better future for the next generation. At the time of our founding, no other nation had adopted the radical ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No other nation had declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” — rights that no king or government could take away.

“A City Upon A Hill” explores the concept of American Exceptionalism from its origin to the present day. What makes our Declaration of Independence and Constitution special? Why did George Washington relinquish power? How did we climb out of the Great Depression to become the world’s greatest economic power? Why did we lead the liberation of Europe during World War II? And why was it important to be the first to land on the moon? Learn the answers to these questions and more in “A City Upon A Hill.”

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The current economic crisis is not a failure of capitalism, but a failure of culture. Citizens United Productions’ film Generation Zero explores the cultural roots of the global financial meltdown – beginning with the narcissism of the 1960s which spread like a virus through the self-indulgent ’90s and exploded across the world in the present economic cataclysm.

Brought to you by award-winning writer and director Stephen Bannon, Generation Zero is the first film in the “Tea Party Trilogy,” which also includes Fire from the Heartland and Battle for America.  Featuring financial and cultural experts, authors, and pundits, including Lou Dobbs, Lawrence Kudlow, Tobin Smith, Victor Davis Hanson, Shelby Steele, Charles Krauthammer, Dick Morris, and Newt Gingrich, Generation Zero exposes the untold story of how the mindset of the Baby Boomers sowed the seeds of economic disaster that will be reaped by coming generations. Sean Hannity did an exclusive one hour special on Generation Zero, and the documentary has received extensive media acclaim. (more…)

President Ronald Reagan saw America as a special place, a shining city on a hill, and a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world. As 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of his birthday, celebrate the life that he led, the principles by which he lived, and the accomplishments that he achieved by purchasing Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich.

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Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny is a feature length documentary that focuses on the three pillars of the Reagan presidency: reviving the American economy, restoring America’s spirit, and challenging the oppression of the Soviet Union. Through interviews with historians, cabinet members, and world leaders, the film examines and celebrates the Great Communicator and his legacy.

Featuring exclusive interviews with former Presidents Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Lech Walesa of Poland, along with Reagan Cabinet and staff members including James Baker, Edwin Meese, Marlin Fitzwater, Richard Perle, William Bennett, and the late Jack Kemp, Rendezvous With Destiny is President Reagan’s story as told by the people who were with him on the front lines of the Reagan Revolution.

Citizens United Productions traveled across the United States and to historic locations in Europe to capture the sights and sounds that defined Ronald Reagan’s presidency. You’ll see exclusive interviews and footage of President Reagan’s greatest speeches, from his unforgettable “Tear Down This Wall” in Berlin, to the moving “Boys of Pointe Du Hoc” in France, to his stirring farewell address from the Oval Office. Shooting on location in four countries, Rendezvous With Destiny goes to unprecedented lengths to tell the remarkable tale of Ronald Reagan’s life.

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The 38th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is being held this week from February 10 – 12, and I am proud to announce that Citizens United, the nation’s premier conservative filmmaker, will once again be sponsoring the CPAC Theater and Film Festival throughout the weekend.  The festival will showcase some of the best conservative films in the country from both Citizens United Productions and many other critically acclaimed filmmakers.

We have some exciting events planned for this year’s Film Festival at CPAC 2011!  Starting at 2pm on Thursday, February 10th, Newt and Callista Gingrich will introduce our film America at Risk: The War With No Name.  America at Risk, hosted by the Speaker and Mrs. Gingrich, takes an in-depth look at the war against radical Islam featuring exclusive interviews with some of the top national security experts in the world.  After the film, join us for a reception with Mr. and Mrs. Gingrich.

On Friday afternoon February 11th, we have a special event planned to honor conservative women.  Fire from the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman, will be screened at 1:30pm, featuring an introduction by co-star Rep. Michele Bachmann.  After the film, conservative icon and Fire from the Heartland co-star Phyllis Schlafly will deliver remarks to the audience.  This much anticipated speech will be followed by a panel discussion on the film, co-sponsored by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. 

Be sure to stick around Friday evening for our celebration of President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday beginning at 8pm!  This event, which is co-sponsored by Young America’s Foundation, will begin with their Ronald Reagan short film, Still Point in a Turning World. This will be followed by the presentation of President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday cake, made especially for this event by Carlo’s Bake Shop from the hit television show “Cake Boss”!  Then have your cake and eat it, too, while watching our unforgettable feature film Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny. Live introductions and remarks will be made by Governor George Allen.

In addition to these fantastic events, please see the complete Film Festival schedule below or view it online at CitizensUnited.org/CPAC!  All screenings are free of charge to CPAC attendees, and will be held in the Delaware Ballroom. 

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Politico:

It’s not the Star Wars trilogy, but writer and director Stephen Bannon’s trying for something epic: his latest film, “Battle for America,” which chronicles the tea party movement, is the third in a trilogy that Bannon believes weaves a narrative about a burgeoning conservative movement. Bannon’s hoping that by paying attention to detail and aiming high, conservative documentaries might finally compete with more successful films on the liberal side of the spectrum. 

“You’ve always seen mass movements on the left,” Bannon told POLITICO. “What intrigued me was what caused this mass movement on the right.” Bannon admits that “Battle” is “a very partisan film,” but says that “it’s aimed at independents and Reagan Democrats who can actually step back and think about what the stakes are.” (The other two films in the trilogy are “Generation Zero,” which focuses on the financial crisis, and “Fire from the Heartland,” which looks at leading conservative women). 

Such conservative notables as Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Lou Dobbs, Fred Barnes, Sen. Kit Bond, Sen. Tom Coburn and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter make cameos in “Battle.” But Dick Morris, current Republican campaign surrogate, is the default star of the film.  (more…)

Like millions of other Americans I have been caught up in the Facebook/social networking craze. I believe that Facebook is like a near-death experience except your life passes before your eyes one friend request at a time. I have  been trying to “friend” a lot of people in the news, without much success. There’s been no acceptance of my friend requests from President Obama, Dede Scozzafava, Jeremiah Wright and a host of others. So in order to reach them with some timely advice I am posting some comments here. If you are on their Facebook friend list maybe you could pass them along. 

@ Dede Scozzafava – When you try to stand in the middle of the road you get run over. Thanks for showing where you stand when the heat was on. Go stand in the “has-been” line behind Arlen Specter.

@ Barack Obama - Mr. President, if the trip to Dover wasn’t a photo-op or political why take a photographer along? (more…)

Newt Gingrich is much taller in person than he is on TV. The lovely Bride of Konig (author of I Wear The Maternity Pants In This Family – www.susankonig.com) and I were invited to a screening of the Newt and Callista Gingrich – produced documentary Ronald Reagan Rendezvous With Destiny the other night, and we got to meet the former Speaker of the House. For some reason I always thought he was on the short, roly poly side. TV’s short, roly poly is, in person, tall, barrel chested and imposing. This is, oddly, the exact opposite of me. On TV I am tall and thin, in person I’m short and fat. 

Reagan, Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Boris Karloff, Gene Kelly

This rare date night out without the various Spawn of Konig, naturally coincided with a gig for me: as my wife was settling into the Director’s Guild Screening Room on W. 57th. 72nd street performing a comedy sketch with TV host extraordinaire Bill Boggs in his live show Talk Show Confidential. The cue for my sketch with Bill is the end of his Richard Nixon anecdote. Boggs tells a very funny story of being a teen-aged intern in the 1960s on a talk show, and the guest is Richard Nixon. Boggs is assigned to Nixon, to make sure Nixon gets to the set on time. En route, Nixon makes a pit stop. Young Boggs is then confronted with his first major, television talk show crisis: how to tell the imposing former Vice President that he’s not only about to go on camera with his fly open, but it’s a “Grand Mal Unzipping,” the kind where your shirt tail is hanging out of the fly. (more…)

Dear David Letterman,

I am writing this to you as a man who has been a fan of yours for 25 years, who does not go to sleep until I see the Top 10 List. I cracked up when you came to Los Angeles, and threw tacos at people on the 405 Freeway. I loved it when you sent two guys dressed as bunny rabbits into an H and R Block on April 14th one year, only to see them get screamed at by stressed out accountants. Only you would be crazy enough to have a guy dress as a bear, stop traffic, and ask a New York City cab driver to dance the waltz.

Dave, for a long time you were the best. You joked about “mailing it in,” but I never thought you did. When ABC and CBS were in a tug of war, you told Paul Schaffer, “Can you believe two networks are fighting over this cr@p?”

Yet something has happened to you Dave. You are getting snarkier, and not in a fun way. You are becoming a grumpy old man. Ironically enough, you have made a career out of painting Republican presidential candidates this way. Yes, it was hilarious when you said, “Some people see the glass as half empty or half full. Bob Dole sees the glass as a great place to put his teeth.” Yet politically speaking, you are letting your ideology get in the way of your show. (more…)

Hosted and narrated by Newt and Callista Gingrich, “Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny” looks at the life and varied careers of America’s 40th President and would make an excellent primer for anyone interested in what made the great man tick and the incredible legacy he left behind. Well paced and insightful, the 90 minute documentary presents a number of brand new interviews with, to name a few, Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, James Baker, Linda Chavez, Bill Bennett, P.J. O’Rourke, Michael Reagan and Edwin Meese, along with ABC newsman Sam Donaldson, who had the White House beat during Reagan’s two terms, biographer’s Douglas Brinkley and Lou Cannon, and Poland’s Lech Walesa.

While Reagan’s childhood, Hollywood career, and two terms as California Governor are covered, the meat of the focus is on Reagan’s handling of the Cold War. Through the interviews and Reagan’s own handwritten diaries, we’re given an insider’s look at the beat by beat history in what proved to be, much to everyone’s surprise, including many of Reagan’s allies, an astonishingly successful quest to put the Soviet Union on “the ash heap of history.” (more…)