St. Louis Tea Party activist and budding citizen journalist Andrew Sharp talked to Fox’s Neil Cavuto about his run-in with Democratic Representative Phil Hare, during which the young man got the Congressman to say on camera that he cares more about the lives of people than finagling over the finer points in the Constitution as it applies to the health care reform bill. “Jackpot baby!” Sharp says off-camera, and it is a misspeak on Hare’s part (though if you listen closely, he says he doesn’t worry about the constitution on this…” which could be construed as the Congressman saying that he doesn’t believe there is anything in the books saying the bill is unconstitutional) and yep, he does get the Declaration of Independence confused with the Constitution when he says “I believe everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. After the Cavuto video, watch Hare’s response, in which he calls his own response to the “gotcha-type” journalism “out of context.”

Bill Maher, not really known for being the most moderate of liberals, spoke with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show about the passing of the health reform bill. Leno should have known what he was getting himself into when Maher started off his reply with “Dems win!” and then went on to thank the entire Tea Party (which he called “tea baggers”) for being so crazy that America decided to go with “the calm Black man.” Except that “America” didn’t vote on the health care bill, Congress did. So…

Maher continued:

“Sarah Palin screaming about death panels…you know Sarah? If we were killing off useless people, you’d be the first to know.”

Well, good. As long as Maher continues making liberals look as vindictive and angry as some on the right have been accused of, Leno can continue being the exact opposite of David Letterman, who most recently featured calm, educated tea party activist Pam Stout.

One can’t help but be reminded of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” controversy several weeks ago, where CNN reported that MTV had pulled the video from its channel due to its graphic nature (though that rumor was later revealed to be false), and yet that video remained on Youtube, and was far more sexual than the statement Badu was making with her “Window Seat” politics.

Badu claimed that the video – which was all done in one take – represented the power of “group think” and as of Thursday said on her Twitter that no one has pressed charges. So far, YouTube has refused to comment on why it has pulled even the censored version of the video.

Dr. Jack Cassells is a Florida urologist who has put signs up outside his office urging patients who support Obama to go seek treatment elsewhere. “Changes to your health care begin right now,” one sign reads. Florida Dem. Congressman Alan Grayson has never been one to shy away from controversy, and last night he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that since many Obama supporters in his district are African-American, this was akin to violating the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm,” regardless of a person’s race. We see Grayson’s point, but saying that the majority of Obama supporters are African-American may actually be just as racist as what he’s alleging Cassells of.

So far the updates have come at irregular intervals…anywhere from 5 minutes to a whole half hour apart, with topics ranging from “Overheard in line” (“This is like ‘Star Wars’ for Apple geeks”) to user-submitted images of the first guy in Miami Beach to own an iPad. Though we’re not really sure how that can be fact-checked…is there really only one Apple store in all of Miami Beach? We’d say check back throughout the day for more updates, but we don’t want you to lose battery power while waiting online yourself.

The Daily Show is never going to miss an opportunity to take a swing at Sarah Palin or John McCain, and the recent reunion of the two while McCain struggles to keep his job as a U.S. Senator is prime picking. Jon Stewart does raise a good point though: “No matter what Sarah Palin is saying about John McCain, she can’t help but make him look bad. Just by sitting next to her…he’s just sitting there in her radiant aura.” While Stewart is poking fun, there’s little doubt that at this point Palin is the star of the show and McCain comes off as not the man who plucked her out of obscurity, but merely the object of her latest endorsement.

Fox is having some problems with their Sarah Palin special tomorrow, namely that two of the segments stars, LL Cool J and Toby Keith, have claimed that their interviews have been lifted from year-old videos they did for the station, and that they were unaware they’d be featured on Palin’s new program. Which makes the former Alaskan governor an absurdly easy target for Keith Olbermann tonight, albeit a little unfairly. Palin didn’t put together this program, Fox producers did, and with all the commotion surrounding tomorrow’s special, what’s the MSNBC host doing except giving the show more lip-service than its already been paid? If your goal is to boost the ratings for tomorrow Keith, you did a fine job.

There’s no arguing that the grassroots Tea Party movement hasn’t been portrayed in a very positive light recently. After the P.R. debacle on Capital Hill during the passing of the Health Care bill, when members of the party were accused of shouting slurs at Democratic Congressmen and and throwing money at a sick man, the campaign needed a new face if it was ever going stop being so easily demonized by the left. And last night, a new candidate emerged from the most unlikely of places in the form of the well-spoken middle-aged Pam Stout from Idaho, appearing as a guest on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman.




While some may be scratching their heads to why Letterman would have chosen Stout as a guest (it’s no secret that David’s had some bad run-ins with the GOP, most notably when John McCain canceled on him during the 2008 elections) the decision was actually brilliant. Not only as ratings gold, but a chance for the late night host to insert himself back into the news cycle. As Entertainment Weekly noted:

Stout was the mildest of souls, calm and remarkably composed for someone probably not used to the glare of network TV cameras. And Letterman loves this sort of person — a Midwestern citizen, a non-celeb; while raising serious points, he made a point of keeping things light .

Stout may have voted herself into a prime position in the Tea Party, but now that’s she had a platform to show herself as the more genial and articulate version of some in the movement, it will be Letterman she can thank when she’s put on the 2012 ballot.

Monday’s shocking revelation for most people wasn’t that Menudo singer Ricky Martin was a “fortunate homosexual,” but that the 90s pop icon was coming out of the closet now, years after his turn in the American spotlight. Then we found out he was pitching his autobiography, and that made a little more (business) sense. But there was at least one person for whom Martin’s sexuality was a total “surprise”: as Stephen Colbert said on his Comedy Central program, “I knew he was livin’ la vida loca…just not that loca.”




We hope that Colbert’s producers can convince Ricky to come on the program for an interview…we’d love for an excuse to see Stephen in that belly-shirt again.

Yesterday a video emerged on the Internet that had the perfect elements for a viral sensation: the last scene in an apparent grade-school production of Brian DePalma‘s Scarface. Instead of cocaine, lil’ Tony Montana had a mountain of popcorn. Instead of swearing, the tiny Michelle Pfieffer in a blond wig screamed “Fudge you, Tony!” At the end, an audience of proud parents clapped. As some outraged individuals pointed out, we’ve heard of putting your kids on a theater track early, but a tiny tots Scarface was more ridiculous than Rushmore‘s high-school production of Serpico. And, as it turned out, just as movie-magic fabricated.




This video was created using professional child actors and directed by music video veteran Marc Klasfeld, trying hard to earn his Spike Jonze street cred. Klasfeld talked to the L.A. Times about the Internet outrage on this video, saying that the real issue “all these unnecessary sexual [messages]” and violence that’s already marketed to kids. Some parents may have felt that this video exploited children, but were these kids exposed to anything more egregious than they could see in a Lady Gaga video (which Klasfeld’s company ironically produces)? It’s not like Klasfeld had them watch the original Scarface for reference…right?

Much better than the inevitable John Boehner/“No You Can’t” viral mashup (that we totally called, by the way), this music video about embattled RNC Chairman Michael Steele‘s bondage club spending scandal – created by the people over at KatieHalper.com – will forge the slogan “Drill baby drill” and Fat Joe/ Lil Wayne‘s “Make it Rain” stuck in your head for the rest of the week. Which isn’t to say the vid isn’t full of misinformation (reports claim it wasn’t Steele in the bondage night club but one of his aides, and the chairman demanded that the money charged to the RNC be paid back) but like any good parody song, is pretty entertaining and ingratiatingly catchy.

There are several reasons why this is a completely useless tool: the only time it would ever come in handy is if you’re on some sort of device (say, the upcoming Apple Tablet) that doesn’t allow for more than one browser window to be open. Yahoo keeps well away from the Google (and Facebook) gray zone of privacy rights violations – the other added feature of their Facebook combo allows you to see the profile picture of people already your Facebook friends when they email you – but without forging into these new territories, Yahoo’s “playing it safe” method feels more like bumper bowling when there’s nothing at stake.

Merton may or may not be singer/songwriter Ben Folds. He is a guy in a hoodie that if you manage to connect to, will sing you a little improvised song on his piano, sounding a lot like Ben Folds. Ben Folds recently did a concert and performed an “Ode to Merton” where he and his audience connected to Chatroulette and basically did the same thing. But Merton claims he’s not Ben Folds, and vice-versa. Despite YouTube pulling down all of Merton’s content last week, he’s back with two new videos. They’re edited for all the boring stuff/NSFW stuff, so it’s about 100 times more interesting than going on ChatRoulette yourself. Here’s his latest, decide for yourself whether or not he’s Ben Folds alter-ego:

While Congress is in recess, President Barack Obama is using this time to appoint 15 new members into key positions in his administration, including “extremist” pro-Union lawyer Craig Becker as the newest member of the National Labor Relations board. Obama is using this recess to sidestep the Republican Party, which has blocked several of these nominations, which is not that unusual: George W. Bush made over 170 of these appointments; Bill Clinton scraped by with a 100. But it’s quality, not quantity, right? And in this case, Becker’s nomination – and what it may mean for Big Business – is going to stir up a lot of GOP outrage.