RELATED: Bill O’Reilly Does Epic Segment On The ‘War On Christmas™’

Surely, he joked, calling a Christmas tree a “holiday tree” was “akin to wiping you ass with the Shroud of Turin,” compared to how Americans in the past treated Christmas. To prove Laura Ingraham‘s point that Americans in the past respected Christmas more. Namely, he noted that Congress didn’t even bother to take the day off. “When the country was founded, Congress had the same attitude towards the sanctity of Christmas as a 7/11 does: ‘yeah, we’re open.’”

He then looked around for other signs of attacks on Christmas, but seemed to find only Christmas all around. “We take for granted the ubiquity of Christmas,” he noted, arguing that every major city “looks like it got hit with a 500-lb tinsel bomb and the White House looks like a yuletide episode of Hoarders.” Not to mention that there were real attacks on the sanctity of Christmas– like that weird Mariah Carey/Justin Bieber music video.

To that end, Stewart declared war on Christmas, opting instead to celebrate every other religion, but most, “the end of the fourth fiscal quarter.”

RELATED: Justin Bieber’s Christmas Video With Mariah Carey: Creepy, or Really Creepy?

The segment via Comedy Central below:

Part 1:

Part 2:

In the first half of the video, Carey is dressed in a skimpy Santa outfit, and poses against a wall in various sexy poses (although she tends to go for the “back-to-the-camera-while-looking-over-her-shoulder” pose every other time the camera is on her). Bieber, meanwhile, is shopping with friends and joyfully doing that thing where people throw gifts into those ubiquitous Macy’s shopping carts. Sexy singer and teenager. Fine.

In the second part, Bieber and Carey are now together as crowds surround them. Carey is sitting in a sleigh, and Bieber eventually joins her. That’s when the sexual energy gets ramped up. The two flirt, Carey flashes her legs as Bieber stands across from her in the sleigh, and we get the idea that this might lead to something less innocent. At one point, it almost looks like they might neck. Then a puppy shows up, and the video ends.

Nothing says Christmas like product placement, cleavage, Macy’s shopping carts, and a 17 year-old Canadian who just emerged from an insane scandal where he allegedly impregnated an older woman… flirting with an older woman. Is the song good? Yes, it actually kind of benefits from Bieber’s addition. Is the video unnecessarily awkward and creepy? Absolutely. But how creepy it actually is remains up to the individual.

Watch the video below, courtesy of Bieber’s VEVO channel, and judge for yourselves:

Bieber loved the “He’s making a list” line, inserting it at least twice into the song where it didn’t belong. About halfway through, possibly aware that he wasn’t going to figure out all the lines on live TV, it looked like he just gave up on singing the first line of each stanza, waited to hear what the backup singers came up with for his cue, then took it from there.

To Bieber’s credit, the fact that he flubbed the lines actually speaks to his quality as a performer. Instead of taking the easy way out by just playing a pre-recorded track and doing flashy dance moves to it, the Biebs sang his songs live, strolling up and down the stage and slapping hands with fans, who wrapped around Fifth Avenue — way out of any sight lines — just hoping to catch a bit of his angelic voice from hundreds of yards away. So somehow, some way, flubbing the lines to a song that most people know actually made Justin Bieber… more endearing.

It warms the heart.

Enjoy the dose of mixed-up holiday cheer below, courtesy of NBC:

In the past week, both Justin Bieber and Herman Cain have done something many people faced with scandal usually refuse to partake in — paternity and lie detector tests that would refute the claims of their accusers. In Bieber’s case, he has been accused of getting a woman pregnant when he was 16. In Cain’s case, he is accused of making sexual advances towards a woman about a decade ago.

Both cases have crossed several genres of pop culture. Both have piqued curiosity. And both tests — if they actually happen (chances, just based on history of the way things go, are pretty slim) — will give a definitive answer to cases which are usually left lingering in “he said, she said” territory.

So we ask — which set of test results will help you sleep better at night, knowing the definitive answer? Click below and let your side be known:

“I’d just like to say that none of those allegations are true. I know I”m going to be a target, but I’ll never be a victim,” Bieber said. “Every night after the show, I go right from the stage to my car. So it’s crazy that people want to make up such false allegations. But, to set the record straight: None of it is true.”

“Do you know this woman? Her name is Mariah. Have either of you ever met?” Lauer followed up. “Never met the woman!” Bieber replied.

“Obviously, this is what comes along with life in the fast lane, as they say,” Lauer postulated.

Watch the interview between Lauer and Bieber below via NBC:

It is completely unclear whether Bieber knew exactly who he was talking about, as his comment does not name her. In fact, it’s a pretty sure bet that Bieber has no idea who he is trying to get arrested, as he initially said of Sen. Klobuchar, “that guy needs to be locked up,” followed by “whoever she is, she needs to know that I’m saying she needs to be locked up.” She needs to know! These kids today and their sense of entitlement.

RELATED: S.978 Panic: Is Justin Bieber Going To Jail? (In A Word: No)

Sen. Klobuchar, a Democrat, introduced a bill that would make “unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty of up to 5 years in prison.” Some have interpreted this to mean that anyone covering copyrighted songs on YouTube would be vulnerable to serve jail time, and as this happens to be precisely the way Bieber got his record deal and became a media darling, he may have just been trying to turn the tables on the Senator for trying to send him to jail, as far as he and his fans understood the Senate bill. The idea that the bill would somehow mean Bieber would go to jail has been since debunked.

RELATED: Justin Bieber: “I Don’t Really Believe In Abortion”

So with this thoroughly unexpected foray into the political realm a comical flop, only one question remains: how long until Justin Bieber (despite being Canadian-born) becomes the 2012 Republican frontrunner for a week? Stranger things have happened.

The audio of Bieber political rant via Hot 99.5 below:

[Photo via]

I’m talking about Klout Perks, the next step from the folks at the social media ranking site, Klout. While Klout Perks have been around for over a year, it seems the program has really picked up momentum lately. These days my Twitter stream is filled with people tweeting their latest perk. I joined Klout on a whim and rarely looked at the site after that, so I was surprised the first time I received a tweet from @KloutPerks notifying me I was eligible for a perk. I almost dismissed it as Twitter spam; along the lines of a free iPad or Walmart gift card. It wasn’t until I saw others tweeting about their Klout Perks that I caught on that it was an actual thing. And it is a good thing.

Just in the last couple weeks I’ve received a $25 Macy’s gift card and a $15 iTunes card. It’s like free money just to tweet. My tweets aren’t even all that interesting. Before the commenters jump in, yes, I know. Nothing is ever really free. I’m tweeting my soul away to “The Man” for a few freebies. -I don’t know exactly who “The Man” is in this scenario, but I suspect plenty of people have their own ideas. I actually don’t really care. I just like free stuff. In my eyes, this is a win-win for everyone; brands get publicity and potentially new customers, people get free things, and Klout gets whatever they get. I’m pretty sure it’s revenue from their Perks partners, and that’s okay too.

For people who have never heard of Klout, it works like this: Klout gives social media users a score between 1 and 100 based on their level of engagement across several social media platforms. The higher your score, the more influence you supposedly have. The average score is in the 20′s, while popular media outlets and celebrities can have scores in the 80′s. For some perspective, Oprah’s score is 78 and Justin Bieber has the highest possible Klout score at 100. People are listed as “influential” about various topics. Sometime it’s a good fit, and other times I wonder what I did to make them think I’m influential about West Virginia.

With Klout Perks, you’re eligible for certain perks based on your score, location or influential topics. A perk could be a gift card, discount offer, early access to technology or an experience. The better perks tend to be reserved for those with higher scores. I bet Justin Bieber gets some awesome perks. My score fluctuated between 47 and 49 and allowed me some decent perks – until the recent algorithm changes dropped it like a rock. Okay, only down to 42, but I took it personally. The recent scoring changes have some users freaking out. It has nothing to do with not qualifying for free deodorant, but the loss of a bigger perk; status. Popular blogger @TheBloggess just saw her score drop from 86 to 69. That had to sting a bit.

Offering free loot in the hopes that the recipients will act as brand ambassadors and spread the word isn’t new. Bloggers see their inboxes inundated with offers of free items in exchange for a write up all the time. What I love about Klout Perks is that I don’t really have to do anything extra to earn them, and there’s no pressure to share the details with everyone. There’s an Influencer Code of Ethics that specifically says I’m under no obligation to talk about my freebies. I excitedly tweeted when I received a year supply of deodorant (that stuff is expensive!), but I didn’t tweet when I received “VIP access” to a couple of Fox shows, because, well, that’s not nearly as exciting as deodorant.

As a mom with a family on a budget, I also prefer the consumer outreach of Klout Perks than Groupon. I’m so over Groupon. Some of the Klout Perks partners offer deals as well, and I don’t have to pay a dime for the discount, which I may or may not get around to using. The recent offer from Handbags.com is a good example. My perk was a $25 credit, which I applied toward a new purse. They made additional money off me, and I’ll likely use them again. The same goes for the offer of free mini cards from Moo.com.

The only issue I have with Klout Perks is that the really great perks seem to be for big city dwellers, and since I live in more of a medium sized city, I feel like I miss out on a lot of cool offers. Like, that Chevy Volt I could have been taking for a test drive. If I were in Chicago. Or had a higher score. That could just be the jealousy talking. There’s also the free Windows Phone for folks in New York City. I’m also a bit unhappy that I never qualify for the Subway gift card perk. After all, Klout is certain I’m influential in mustard. Yes, I said mustard. If that doesn’t qualify me for a Subway perk then I don’t know what does.

The buzzword of Tuesday wasn’t a word at all — it was a collection of numbers and punctuation marks; more specifically: “s.978.” The measure, which is expected to be brought to Congress today, essentially extends charges for bootlegging DVDs and music albums into the 21st century, making it a felony to illegally stream copywritten material. The bill was introduced by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who took some unnecessary lumps by the pro-Bieber crowd, as the bill was fully misinterpreted and brought to new heights of irrationality by the people behind FreeBieber.com. The site caused a minor panic by starting a petition to thwart s.978, saying that Justin Bieber, who rose to fame covering songs on YouTube, could be sent to jail for five years under the bill. CBS News didn’t help things by jumping on the bandwagon.

Simply put, Bieber is safe. Unless he starts a website that charges $10 for people to stream digital copies of films, TV shows, or live sporting events that he hasn’t been given permission to stream, he will remain free. The only way the teen pop star is getting arrested under s.978 (assuming it passes) is if he opens a site — we’ll call it Biebster — and just begins streaming movies like Paranormal Activity 3 without the permission of Paramount on that site.

The YouTube fears — that Bieber will have to pull down all his early cover songs or be thrown in jail — are also unfounded. Even if Bieber uploads 50 videos of him covering copywritten songs each day, he is only the uploader, not the streamer. That action, however questionable, is covered under a different law. YouTube, as the streamer, has a responsibility to take the content down (which it has been very good at doing), or else they will be hit with the penalty. s.978 goes after nefarious YouTube clones who illegally stream copywritten material, not after Canadian teenagers with floppy hair and angelic voices. And it does so with a felony charge, as opposed to the misdemeanor that it had been carrying before.

So Bieber is safe, for now, unless he gets into some very un-Bieber-like behavior. With that all being settled, please enjoy — legally — some of they early Bieber magic from his YouTube channel, below:

Dana Loesch

Man, it’s too bad Sesame Street is on PBS, Loesch could have a hell of a side-job there.

Loesch’s main problem with Romney, if her twitter feed is any indication, is Romney’s individual health care mandate. I don’t know, am I reading these right?

I didn’t protest socialized health care for three years to support the guy who wrote it before Obama. #romney

I was against Romney last election, I’m against him this election. I will be against him so long as he’s an unrepentant RINO.

Yeah, about that. A liberal St. Louis blogger tracked down this blog post from Loesch, dated February 5, 2008 10:06 AM:

Team Loesch went to the polls this morning and cast two votes for Mitt Romney. I think he’s the best candidate of change and more qualified than McCain. Rush just has personal beef with McCain and Coulter, well, she’s Coulter.

Loesch doesn’t say anything about holding her nose while pulling that lever, but to be fair, the post’s title, “Tuesday Isn’t THAT Super,” can be seen as an indication that she wasn’t crazy about Romney or McCain. Still, why choose Romney over McCain when the thing you don’t like about the Democrats is this:

Even though I don’t like John McCain for several reasons, one of which includes McCain-Feingold, another is his hostility to small business and the free market – he’s still a better choice to me than the two successfully underwhelming socialists the other side is offering with their tax-heavy universal healthcare which circumvents our liberties and makes us all wards of the state.

The funny thing is, while Loesch was casting that vote for Mitt Romney, Barack Obama was actually to the right of Romney (and primary opponent Hillary Clinton) on the issue of health care. One of the things I didn’t like about Obama’s primary platform was that he was against an individual health care mandate. You can’t do away with preexisting condition limitations without it. It’d be like taking the “buy one” out of a “buy one, get one free” deal.

Now, we all have our internet skeletons in the closet (like my early support for John Edwards), and it’s quite possible that Loesch was unaware of Romneycare at the time. He certainly wasn’t running on Romneycare. If that’s the case, though, then why go to the trouble of deleting the post from the blog’s archive? Surely, Loesch’s current Tea Party crowd would understand, wouldn’t they?

Update: Since posting this story, BreitbartTV editor Larry O’Connor has taken issue with the headline, and Dana Loesch has responded, although she says she hadn’t actually read my post before responding to it. In any case, after hearing her response, it appears that I missed something significant in the original story.

Let me handle Larry’s objection first, which is with the headline “Internet Busts Dana Loesch For Voting For ‘Unrepentant RINO’ Mitt Romney In 2008,” specifically, with the word “busts.” The headline is intended to convey that Loesch, who now says she was “against” Mitt Romney in 2008, wrote a blog post in 2008 (in which she says she voted for Mitt Romney and expressed support for him), which was later deleted from the blog’s archive. This contradiction, however, was caught through the use of the “Internet Wayback Machine.” The “Internet Busts” construct is a self-evident metaphor, since the internet is neither sentient, nor possessed of authority of any kind.

Larry also thought I was accusing Dana Loesch of hypocrisy, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, there was a contradiction, but I never implied it was anything but an honest one. I even acknowledged that the post’s title, “Tuesday Isn’t THAT Super,” could be seen as an indication that she wasn’t crazy about Romney or McCain, and that it was possible she just didn’t know about Romneycare back then. Not everyone follows state politics. I sure couldn’t tell you a thing about Utah’s health care laws.

Dana Loesch, in her response, explains that she wasn’t for Romney in 2008, she just opposed John McCain more strongly, and cast her vote for Romney to prevent McCain from securing the nomination. After her first choice, Fred Thompson, dropped out, Loesch says “We were, at that point, faced between choosing Mitt Romney or John McCain. I did not like Mitt Romney.”

Now, you would never know that from her blog post, a fair reading of which would lead you to conclude that she at least liked Mitt a little. “I think he’s the best candidate of change,” she said. A fair person would acknowledge that, based on that post, no one would conclude that she was “against” Romney in 2008. A cynical person might think Loesch was just trying to backstop an embarrassing contradiction.

However, in her response, Loesch says that there are podcasts from the period that demonstrate her dislike for Romney. Fair enough. She goes on to explain her thought process. “I weighed Romneycare against McCain-Feingold, and that’s ultimately what made my decision. I disliked both of them to the point where I almost wanted to choke. And I ultimately decided that McCain-Feingold, in that particular instance, was worse.”

Again, she doesn’t mention Romneycare at all in her post, and she clearly states that the Democratic challengers’ stance on health care was much worse than anything McCain did. “He’s still a better choice to me than the two successfully underwhelming socialists the other side is offering with their tax-heavy universal healthcare which circumvents our liberties and makes us all wards of the state,” is how Loesch put it in February of 2008. That’s almost exactly how she describes Romneycare now. In my original post, I allowed that maybe she didn’t know about Romneycare then, but let’s take her at her word, here, that she did.

If all of this is true (which means that she was somewhat less than forthright with her blog’s readers in 2008), then I missed something glaring in my original post. If Dana Loesch’s true intent was to deny John McCain the Republican nomination, despite her opposition to Mitt Romney, she appears to have made a horrible, horrible mistake. See, not only was there no reason for Dana Loesch to hold her nose and vote for Mitt Romney in order to deny McCain victory, that action was actually instrumental in McCain’s nomination. John McCain won the Missouri primary, and the state’s 58 delegates, by a margin of 1%…over Mike Huckabee!

Yes, the same Mike Huckabee that Dana Loesch was scheduled to introduce at a St. Louis Tea Party event earlier this year. If only she had known about him in 2008! In a bit of cruel irony, she even, coincidentally, referenced the Tea Party-friendly former governor in that 2008 blog post, defiantly decrying big government with a folksy, “HUCK THAT.”

If just a tiny fraction of Missourians had voted for Huckabee, instead of Mitt Romney, the 2008 presidential race could have gone a whole different way. Going into Super Tuesday, Huckabee was within 67 delegates of the lead, with 1,069 up for grabs that day, and was polling in a statistical tie with McCain for the lead in Missouri. Had he won Missouri, he might have stayed in the race longer, raised more money, and really given McCain what for. He kept on winning states even after he dropped out, and even wound up with more delegates than Romney!

Update 2: At the January 30, 2008 Republican debate, Romney defended his individual mandate as a conservative idea, apparently in a persuasive manner:

With regards to my health care plan, let me describe what is the ultimate conservative approach. In this country, you have today about 47 million people that don’t have health insurance. We went out and tried to find out why they don’t. We found out that about half of them could afford to buy insurance if it were reasonably priced. They could afford to buy it, but they weren’t buying it. it? If we get sick, we can go to the hospital and get care for free.“ And we said: what? If somebody could afford insurance, they should either buy the insurance or pay their own way. They don’t have to buy insurance if they don’t want to, but pay their own way. But they shouldn’t be allowed to just show up at the hospital and say, somebody else should pay for me. So we said: No more free riders. It was like bringing “workfare” to welfare. We said: If you can afford insurance, then either have the insurance or get a health savings account. Pay your own way, but no more free ride. That was what the mandate did.

Dana Loesch, liveblogging the debate, ate Romney’s lunch, or something. Here’s what she had to say about Romney’s defense of the Romneycare individual mandate:

7:19 Is it just me or are they going after Romney tonight? I like Romney’s “pay your own way” approach to healthcare. Now the debate is starting to sound like an exercise in conservatism. First time all night.

Loesch is right, of course. Most liberals feel that Obamacare was a half-measure, watered down by Republicans, conserva-Dems, and would have preferred a public option, or Medicare for all. What we got was the equivalent of eliminating starvation by making it illegal not to buy food.

Vanity Fair, taking a break from its tried and true formula of featuring flaxen-haired starlets in pin-up poses on its cover, made Bieber its February cover model. And, in this case at least, it hasn’t quite paid off. Women’s Wear Daily breaks down the numbers:

The Bieber cover has sold 246,000 copies, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations’ Rapid Report. The ABC Rapid Report data is submitted directly by publishers but has yet to be audited by ABC, so the figure could be slightly adjusted.

But if the number holds true, the Bieber cover will be Vanity Fair’s biggest bomb since Will Smith graced a July 1999 cover while atop a black stallion to advertise the movie “Wild, Wild West.” The Smith cover sold 202,701 copies at the newsstand, according to ABC data.

The reason? Well, it would appear that the singer’s young fans aren’t routinely purchasing copies of Vanity Fair… and we’re willing to suggest that the men and women interested in reading about Julian Assange or Warren Buffet likely aren’t keen on carrying around magazines featuring lipstick kiss-covered teen boys on their covers.

What’s more, Bieber’s October 2010 Teen Vogue cover performed about 12 percent below the magazine’s average for that year, and his April 2010 People cover sold roughly 25 percent below that magazine’s average.

Hey. There’s always perfume.

h/t WWD

Wall came to the attention of the president after sending him a 1,500-word letter earlier this year, about the pain she had suffered when losing her father, an executive working at the World Trade Center that morning, and how she coped with the pain throughout the past decade. She explained in the letter that Bieber’s Never Say Never had a tremendous impact on her life and helped her view the world in a more positive life despite her personal tragedy. Upon meeting the president, he told her that “I know Justin… maybe I could set something up.”

And he did this weekend. Though the President was only in attendance in cardboard form, Bieber and Wall, along with some of her best friends and family, met and chatted for a while, mostly about the new perfume Bieber keeps trying to sell people, Someday:

“It was so cool. I couldn’t even believe it,” gushed Payton, who got a private sit-down with the Canadian crooner at Macy’s in Herald Square. They met just moments after a near-riot among fans outside the store where the singer was promoting his fragrance “Someday.” “He just said ‘Hi,’ ” said Payton, who admitted she was more nervous around Bieber than the president.

The girls carried a life-size cardboard cutout of Obama and were so overcome with shyness, they could barely get any words out when the teenybopper showed up. “He was really nice and is so cute,” Avery beamed. “He didn’t even look real.”

Bieber, Wall, and her friends posed for a photo (above) with the President’s cutout for the New York Post. No word on the ramifications with summit will have for the 2012 elections, or how the current crop of Republican hopefuls have responded to the news.

—

Singer and perfumer Justin Bieber was tackled and knocked to the ground this afternoon by a man who jumped a barricade outside a New York City Macy’s. The teen pop star was visiting the store to promote his new fragrance, “Someday.”

Bieber fought back against the man. He was startled, but is reportedly uninjured and was able to return to his promoting duties. His attacker was given a summons for disorderly conduct.

Our sister site Gossip Cop managed to procure video of the incident. Note that the men filming use foul language on multiple occasions:

h/t Gossip Cop

This is in the context of a media world that featured three channels, and only a couple of hours of news time to fill each day, not the gaping 24-hour maw of today, where there’s a new lead story every time you change the channel. Garbus tells Mediaite, “I so wanted to call the movie that, ‘But First, Bobby Fischer,’ but it would have taken a little too long for the viewer to get to appreciate what that was all about.”

“It could never happen today because Bobby Fischer meant what he meant because of the Cold War,” she says. “There was no internet then, but Bobby Fischer was a celebrity who was sought after and scrutinized in a way that became too much for him, but if it happened today, it would be an entirely different story.”

I asked Garbus if she could think of a modern-day equivalent to Fischer’s celebrity at its height, like a Sarah Palin or a Justin Bieber. “Well, It’s hard to imagine what it meant, because it wasn’t just celebrity, it was also celebrity with this total cultural-historical importance.”

Director Liz Garbus

“I mean, everybody wanted (Fischer) to win,” she continues, “but you can’t say that about Sarah Palin, she divides people. I don’t know if you could even use Tiger Woods, because he was a champion that changed his sport, but he also didn’t have the same historical-political context.”

The film took over two years to produce, but Grbus says that’s not unusual, especially for a film with this much archival material. “We’re using film and photographs that have never been seen before.”

She uses the material to terrific effect, crafting a narrative that grips and propels the viewer from the very first frame, and the archival interviews with the enigmatic Fischer gives the film its pained, impenetrable heart. The suspense that builds around the Fischer-Spassky match, and whether Fischer will even show up, is damn near as exciting as the match itself.

Garbus illustrates the import of the match through news footage that shows American news anchors fishing for scraps over scratchy trans-continental telephone hookups, and throngs of Americans gathered around televisions in front of department stores, a stark contrast from the fragmented American attention span of today.

The match also features the kinds of eccentricities that even Charlie Sheen couldn’t make up, with Spassky accusing Fischer of everything but Jedi mind trickery, and Fischer making demands that ended up with the match being moved to a closed room, with only closed-circuit TV cameras. If you don’t know the outcome of the match, I won’t ruin it for you, but even knowing the broad result, the ending is somewhat mind-blowing.

Aside from being a thoroughly absorbing transportation back to another age, Bobby Fischer Against The World also manages to close the gulf between the beloved figure that he was during his time, and the troubling aspects of his later years. Through the benefit of hindsight, and Garbus’ lens, we see the end of Fischer in the beginning, in all of those early interviews, the machinery of madness set in motion by his obsessive genius for the game. There is an argument to be made that the sane genius is the one who can contain his potential, rather than realize it.

Watch a clip of the movie airing tonight, below:

Yes, the prank occurred during the shocking news that actress Marg Helgenberger claims Bieber was “kind of a brat” on the set of CSI. Important stuff. You can go read all about it. I’ll wait.

…

Done? How dare she, right?

Anywho, instead of a photo of Bieber’s amazing bangs, the report from Isha Sesay was accompanied by a photo of Cooper. He didn’t seem particularly thrilled.

“COOPER: Are you saying I was a brat?

SESAY: I would never say you were a brat. Kind of weird as a kid.

COOPER: Where did this picture suddenly materialize from?

SESAY: Control room, would you like to share?

COOPER: I’m being told in the control room that it was a technical glitch. I don’t believe that for a second.

SESAY: You do look kind of odd though. I mean, lets face it.”

The backstory behind the picture? Apparently nine-year-old Anderson Cooper appeared on To Tell the Truth and pretended to be Wally Naughtin, the world’s youngest bear trainer. Yeah, that is kind of odd.

Watch the clip from CNN below:

(h/t HuffPo)

Wall, whose father was an executive at the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald and lost his life in the September 11th attacks, sent a 1,500-word letter expressing her grief to the President, never expecting a response. The letter, according to the teen, was meant to honor her father and express the grief she had experienced in the decade since his death. In the process of describing how she coped, Wall wrote about the impact Bieber’s film, Never Say Never, had on her. The President responded to her letter overnight and invited her to the ceremony at Ground Zero last Thursday, where the two chatted about the letter and everything in it– including Justin Bieber:

Payton spent days practicing a strong handshake, but in the end Obama gave her a presidential bear hug. She said he also told her that he “knows Justin” and that he would help arrange a meeting between the two.

The teen said she’s thrilled, but “I just don’t want it to seem like I only wrote the letter to meet Justin Bieber. I did it to honor my father,” she said. “My father is the reason that we all came together today. I miss and love him and don’t go a day without thinking about him.”

Given that most of what Bieber tweets (and retweets) seems to be inspiration self-help talk nowadays, knowing he inspired a young girl to grow out of tremendous grief seems right down the pop star’s alley. But then there’s President Obama’s assertion that he “knows” Bieber– maybe someone should tell America’s teens that, while he has met with the pint-sized crooner, President Obama prefers the soothing sounds of Jay-Z and Frank Sinatra.

[h/t New York Magazine]

According to a source within the WHCA, the demand for tickets to this year’s dinner was at an all-time high, with 360 requests for tables submitted, out of only 262 available tables. The demand was so high that some dues-paying members of the Association weren’t even able to get a single seat, although the source says these were all organizations that only signed up recently. “We can’t have people joining just so they can go to the dinner.”

The WHCA accepts applications, and checks, for whatever the number of seats requested, then divvies them up according to several factors. WHCA board members get first dibs, followed by those organizations which participate most heavily in pool coverage, and those that travel most frequently with the President. This can lead to some unhappy campers, as World Net Daily‘s 2010 lawsuit illustrates. WND requested three tables to fete correspondent Les Kinsolving, but was only granted two tickets. Kinsolving, the second most senior correspondent, will not be attending this year.

Of those members who do get to attend, many have had to scale back their own guest list to accommodate larger outlets, who can lock up as many as seventeen seats, many for non-press interlopers like Justin Bieber, Alec Baldwin, and Bristol Palin. While not the most egalitarian approach, such star wattage helps to make the dinner a buzzworthy affair.

For the workhorses who actually cover the White House, the dinner is something of a mixed bag. CBS radio’s Mark Knoller, a Twitter superstar and leading contender for Press Corps “Dean,” relishes the “chance to see old friends and colleagues,” but in addition to the perpetual nightmare of parking in DC, doesn’t care for “the Golden Globes aspect of the dinner. Unless I get Anne Hathaway to be my guest.”

Mother Jones‘ David Corn isn’t a big fan of the overcrowding, or the strained availability of tickets. Asked why he thinks the dinner is such a hot ticket for celebs, Corn theorizes, “Their lives are empty and meaningless? Or could it be the food?”

Perhaps the toughest cookie in the press corps, AURN’s April Ryan, looks forward to the dinner as a welcome reward for hard work. “It is really like a break after a continual study for what seems like a masters degree that never comes. We have to know every topic daily in a matter of minutes, and then pepper the President and/or administration officials for answers that matter to the public.”

For Ryan, the worst thing about the dinner is the “curse” of a glamorous night. “About 5 thousand people are packed into very small rooms for pre receptions trying to make it down the hall without getting your gown stepped on, or stepping on another fabulous creation.”

She doesn’t see a problem with the megawatt guest list, either. “Since I have been covering the White House for the past 14 years, it has alway been a major deal for politics and Hollywood to meet,” she says. “They follow us and we follow them. It seems like the natural order of things to me.”

Ryan doesn’t agree with critics of the dinner’s glitzier aspects, and notes the positive effects of such luminaries on the coverage of the dinner. “People come me out in large groups and wait in the Hotel lobby to see their favorite celebrity, and all the entertainment cameras are there, and the event is being aired on C-SPAN.  And, has anyone stopped to think some of the celebrities may actually have a connection with some Correspondents?”

Progressive radio host Bill Press, part of the “Professional Left” clique (along with Corn) in the briefing room, sees the dinner as a unique opportunity. “Last year, I met Joy Behar. I’m a huge fan. Since then, I’ve been on her show several times, and she’s been on mine. Great networking!”

Not every celeb sighting is a joy, though. Press’least favorite part of the event is “running into total jerks who don’t belong there and should never have been invited, like Donald Trump. I also don’t like seeing people I otherwise admire make whores out of themselves by inviting jerks like Donald Trump.”

Inevitably, events like these lead to criticisms that the press corps is “too cozy” with the administration it covers. Knoller allows that “In some cases, the criticism is right on target,” but others, like Corn, scoff at the idea.

“It’s very difficult to be cozy in a room full of 3000 people,” Corn begins. “In other words, I don’t think the media swallowed the Bush administration’s bogus case for war in Iraq because once a year reporters shared an evening in a cavernous ballroom with a handful of government officials who misrepresented intelligence to push a phony argument for the invasion.”

Huffington Post’s Jon Ward, late of The Daily Caller and The Daily, thinks the criticism is just overblown. “I like parties,” he says. “Parties are good. People who get all tense about parties maybe need to go to more of them.”

Press sees the criticism as sour grapes. “Those who criticize dinner as administration getting too cozy with media are those who couldn’t score a ticket,” Press says, adding, “Frankly, I’d rather see more people from administration and fewer from soap operas.”

If anything, the dinner is a demonstration of how much each White House needs the press corps, not the other way around.

The ever-increasing celebrity glare is both a blessing and a curse, raising the dinner’s profile, and with it, that of the work done by the press corps, but also diluting the journo-centric vibe of the event. Hopefully, a beneficial balance will be struck, but at the very least, we hope that folks remember this event the next time someone tries to suggest that we ain’t got no reason to live. No ticket for you!

i want to see this country and all the places ive dreamed of and whether its the paps or being pulled into politics its been frustrating

As he reads Bieber’s tweet, Ratigan confesses to having just learned that “paps” means “paparazzi” (as opposed to, say, several trips to Walgreens), then deadpans into the camera that Bieber should be happy he’s holed up in a hotel room, instead of (dramatic pause) “in a bomb shelter.”

Fight the power, Dylan!

In fairness to Bieber, who’s only 16 years old, Ratigan seems to have skipped over some of Bieber’s earlier tweets:

You would think paparazzi would have some respect in holy places. All I wanted was the chance to walk where jesus did here in isreal.

They should be ashamed of themselves. Take pictures of me eating but not in a place of prayer, ridiculous

People wait their whole lives for opportunities like this, why would they want to take that experience away from someone

Yeah, what a prick.

In an adorable iMovie-looking photo and video slideshow, Greg Gutfeld, Bill Schulz, and Andy Levy shared their experiences last weekend meeting, greeting, and answering tough questions about how hot the ladies were (“I don’t see gender,” answered Levy) and why they didn’t do college campus rounds (Gutfeld is “not allowed” for mysterious reasons). While, as on the show, they did answer a good number of serious questions on their panel– particularly about youth involved in politics and what sort of hurdles conservatives face in recruitment, they also got to remind the crowd that there was a stereotype that “you guys are not fun,” and they were there to break it. They discussed Levy’s cats, Meghan McCain, and the aforementioned Bieber, who got significant discussion time as a result of Gutfeld’s constant Twitter heckling of the singer. Asked what he would say to Bieber if he were a guest on Red Eye, however, Gutfeld appeared to be looking for something a bit too friendly: “What are you doing later?”

Following the recap, they played the clip of Ann Coulter explaining that her voice had been sabotaged the night before her speech by the Red Eye boys taking her to a bar. This gave guest S.E. Cupp a chance to note that she, too, was a victim. Cupp had “Ann’s disease” the next morning despite having attempted to take care of herself, she explained. The bad influences themselves took no credit, and Levy argued that he didn’t even remember the event at all, except for a champagne bottle Cupp apparently “held on to” that night. Despite the alleged thievery, Levy concluded that “it looks like we had a good time.”

The segment via Fox News below:

Behar began by dismissing Bieber’s youthful thoughts and said “truthfully if I want to hear about abortion from an adolescent or health issues, I’ll turn on Glenn Beck.” Behar thought it was insulting for Bieber to suggest everything happens for a reason, and instead declared there is never any reason for rape. Although this “reason” comment of Bieber’s seems to be the subject of Rolling Stone‘s correction, so it’s unlikely that’s what the teen sensation actually suggested. Hasselbeck instead argued they should not discount his opinion on abortion just because he happens to be young.

Barbara Walters, ever the peacemaker, suggested that Bieber is “a young mind that is still growing” and with a mother who is very religious and a reporter asking inappropriate questions just to create buzz, that ultimately Bieber should not be criticized. Whether all of The View co-hosts continue to be “beliebers” in the future remains to be seen.

Watch the clip from ABC below:

In the interview published online, the magazine had quoted Bieber as having said the following:

“I really don’t believe in abortion,” Bieber says. “It’s like killing a baby?” How about in cases of rape? “Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.”

But his original thoughts weren’t quite as precise or decisive:

“Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.”

Emphasis ours.

The question we have, however, is why the magazine chose to add a question mark after “it’s like killing a baby.” Was Rolling Stone attempting to reflect Bieber’s typically adolescent inflection, or his confusion about the issue? And if the magazine chose to edit that sentence in such a way as to make Bieber seem either 1) young and, presumably, naive or 2) unsure about answering such a heavy question on politics and morality, then… why ask the kid about abortion in the first place? We’re fairly certain the issue would have flown off shelves without resorting to asking him questions that are sensational and arguably irrelevant to his role and his job.

h/t NY Observer

Bieber tells Rolling Stone “I don’t think you should have sex with anyone unless you love them.” Where his comments get much more controversial though are on the issues of abortion and universal healthcare. Bieber declares, “I really don’t believe in abortion . . . It’s like killing a baby?” And Bieber isn’t even sure about making an exception for rape, “Um. Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that.”

Although just in case conservatives start to swoon too much over Bieber for this pro-life stance, Bieber has a position to keep liberals happy too, suggesting “Canada’s the best country in the world” for having universal healthcare, while America is evil for making its citizens “broke because of medical bills.” Hey if this whole singing career thing doesn’t work out, maybe the kid has a future in politics?

In the event you are just waking from a coma, Justin Bieber is the 16 year-old Canadian kid who has moved lots of music units and caused shopping mall riots with his adoring fans of mostly pre-teen girls. He is a protege of pop-star Usher, and his musical style is in the style of pop R&B. As many 16 year-old kids, his communication style is often littered with hip-hop patois, which makes his impersonation of Obama seem so strange. Put another way, here is a skinny white kid who has made millions of dollars co-opting a traditionally African-American art form impersonating the first African-American president in what might be described as a dorky white guy voice.

Perhaps this is the best evidence to date that we are living in a post-racial world? Watch the clip below and see for yourself.

(H/T Breitbart.tv)

Then, celebrated singing fetus Justin Bieber visited with… uncomfortable results.

We feel dirty explaining where J-Biebs made Church Lady all tingly, so just watch the sketch for yourselves. Maybe have some holy water handy. Or Jägermeister:

They grow up so fast.

Bieber first confronted this political resistance from a Facebook group created by Andy Sullivan, a construction worker who founded the 9/11 Hard Hat Pledge– a group for construction workers who will boycott construction of the Park51 mosque. The group, “Boycott Companies Who Support the Ground Zero Mosque (Starting With GQ)” at one point prominently featured Bieber’s likeness, and Sullivan went as far as telling the media that his children, aged 8 and 11, had taken down their Justin Bieber posters in their rooms and refused to go to concerts.

The comments upon which this boycott was founded, however, were likely as shocking to Bieber as they were to anyone who is remotely familiar with the tiny phenom, as they were from a satirical website called “CelebJihad.com,” which attributed to Bieber such quotes as “Coming from Canada, I’m not used to this level of intolerance, eh” and “Christians are lame-o-rama.” Still, the group persisted until it came to Sullivan’s attention that these comments were fictitious. In response, Sullivan has issued an extended apology where he explained that his children were “free to make up their minds” on Bieber and that he understood “what that can do to someone and their family”:

I offer my most genuine apology to Justin Bieber his family and his fans. If I have caused any grief or pain I am terribly sorry. I for one know what that can do to someone and their family. I also hope this does not detract from our” Sacrificed Survivors” cross country Tour where will be be taking on Imam Rauff and his Pro Ground Zero Mosque Band of propagandists. The Tour begins the 15th of January in Dearborn Mich. Stay tuned I am sure the sparks will be flying.

The campaign, however, will continue, and no word on whether Sullivan’s children will reconsider their personal Bieber boycotts. Salon has the rest of the apology letter here.

You tweeted them right to the top. The most talked about–and tweeted about–people in the world are Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

The president, though, was way out in front on both the “People” and “Politicians” lists, according to Klout, a company that tracks influence across social media and released the study today.

Among the surprising results was the Fox News show Red Eye placing third on the list of TV Shows, right after Lost and American Idol, and ahead of Glee.

According to Klout:

The fact that Lost and American Idol top this list is no surprise as they have a fervent following. Red Eye, a show on Fox News, was the dark horse of this list.

Soccer edged football and London beat New York in the “sports” and “cities” lists, and the right triumphed over the left in the all-important hashtag competition, with the Top Conservatives On Twitter hashtag #tcot placing first, followed by #p2 (progressive 2.0).

The company analyzed the 25 billion tweets sent over the year and found that the following ten topics were what kept the world buzzing in 2010.

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

The list is notably free of any Julian Assange-related topics (unless he dressed up as Lord Voldemort for Halloween), so the swirling rumors about Twitter preventing #wikileaks from trending will probably only get more swirly. But even the most avid hacktivist has to feel good about the end of the nightmare that was the Summer of Vuvuzelas.

Twitter also listed the year’s top trends for individual categories, like sports and news (WikiLeaks Cablegate made it to #7), which you can check out here.

I reached out to Christopher for comment, and in a Mediaite exclusive, he provided us with his thoughts on Time’s entire list, including their snub of his heart attack live-tweets.

While angry at being left off of Time’s list, Christopher acknowledged that it was a little weird for him to write about himself in the third person. “Still, though,” he said, “what does a guy have to do to make that fracking list?”

Maybe if he gets worked up enough, he can have another heart attack, and perhaps make next year’s list. Here is Time’s list of Top Twitter Moments of 2010, with commentary by Tommy Christopher.

1. Kanye West Joins Twitter: I’ma let you finish, Time, but first, Kanye West didn’t almost die to make Twitter history.

2. Conan O’Brien’s Twitter Wit: Conan O’Brien got crapped on by Jay Leno. Join the club, Coco.

3. Justin Bieber, Trending No More: Twitter finagles its trending algorithm to screw Bieber out of his rightful trending props, then Time compunds the injustice by screwing me out of my Twitter props. I’m right there with ya, Biebs. Fight the power!

4. Library of Congress Archives Tweets: “We know some tweets are important…but are most really important enough to be in the Library of Congress?”

No, just the important ones!

5. New Twitter Design: Big whoop. I had my whole heart redesigned.

6.  From Twitter Feed to Hit Sitcom: What sense does it make for Time to censor the title to “Sh*t My Dad Says,” but also include a screenshot of the titular Twitter account that says “ShitMyDadSays?” About as much sense as leaving me off of their list.

7. Journalist Freed After Tweets: I’ve got to hand it to Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka, he really knows how to overshadow a guy.  He tricked his Afghan captors into letting him tweet his location, and was released the following day. Still, Time even notes that “his release may not have directly resulted from the posts,” so what’s the big deal? Also, as Mediaite noted, this was the second time Tsuneoka had been abducted. C’mon, Kosuke, fool me once…

8. MTV Selects Twitter Jockey: Gabi Gregg wins a contest to become the first TJ (Twitter Jockey). That’s impressive, until you consider that my main competitor was a guy named @Death!

9. Ivy Bean, Oldest User, Dies: Touché, Ivy. Touché.

10. @BPGlobalPR: Oil-Spill Satire: All the hilarious BP-satirizing tweets in the world can’t “plug the hole”…in my heart.

According to the Associated Press, a contestant on the show Wetten Dass (Bet It) was attempting to jump over a car driven by his father. The son was wearing special shoes with a suspension system that may have failed, and instead of clearing the car safely, viewers witnessed the son hit and critically injured:

Broadcaster ZDF said the accident by the 23-year-old prompted it to cancel the live broadcast of the “Wetten Dass” (“Bet It”), which had an audience of about 10 million people, according to German media.

Koch suffered multiple back injuries and fractures, underwent surgery Sunday, and his condition initially life threatening, the German news agency DPAD quoted Duesseldorf hospital Dr. Wolfgang Raab as saying.

But it remained unclear if or when Koch would fully recover since “he is in an extremely critical stage,” Raab told journalists.

Watch it here, from German broadcaster ZDF:

Wetten Das attracts massive live audiences across Germany, in part for its wild stunts–and also for the appearance of international stars. Teen idol Justin Bieber was set to perform on the show Saturday, but cancelled after the accident, sending a series of messages to his fans via Twitter:

ABC News has released a preview of how the interviews will play out. Palin, who will be celebrating her third consecutive year on the list, will discuss some of the “BS” being spread about her family:

There’s also rumors that Trig isn’t my son. There’s also rumors that Track went to Iraq to avoid jail. There is a lot of BS out there. I don’t want to just believe that it comes with the territory, when you put yourself forward, in the name of public service, that you have to take that kind of garbage that’s out there. There are constant rumors out there about us. I saw on the cover of a tabloid, that we were getting a $20 million divorce. I was in the grocery checkout line when I saw it and I called Todd and said, “I can’t believe the cover of this magazine! This is what it says.” And Todd says, “20 million bucks? Write me a check.”

Walters will also talk to Bieber about his mom, ask Betty White about her sex life, and have the Jersey Shore gang teach her what “smooshing” is.

Yikes. Check out the slideshow below to find out who else Walters will talk to for her annual special.

Sarah Palin (1 of 9)

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