After weeks of rallies and protests springing up all over the country the Occupy Wall Street movement has certainly shown it has traction. The crowds, the visuals, the inherent drama — all have garnered its share of attention. The media has been rapt but that brings with it another unintentional collateral effect. The presence of cameras also draws an unavoidable scourge: celebrities.

Last Tuesday, communist* filmmaker Michael Moore made a very bizarre declaration on Piers Morgan Tonight: despite being an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, he refused to claim he was part of the “1%,” a number used to dehumanize the top tier of America’s breadwinners. With his disdain for the higher classes so public, he wrote a blog post on his website explaining how he got there and what distinguishes him: unlike many of his peers, he was dedicated to making money off of labor, and not money off of money.

Kanye West just touched down in Wall Street town as a guest of Russell Simmons in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protestors.

Joe Levy, editor in chief of Maxim, that veritable Bible of celebrity underboob, was a panelist on Joy Behar‘s HLN show last night. Talk, naturally, turned to Michele Bachmann‘s Newsweek, as well as to Kanye West, who compared himself to Adolf Hitler (“People look at me like I’m [fudging] insane, like I’m Hitler.”] because God forbid anyone go a day without discussing Kanye West.

Behar turned to her guests and asked “‘Why is it always Hitler? Why not that Bachelor? Why not Osama Bin Laden? Why not Saddam Hussein?” Why not, for that matter, the Pillsbury doughboy, that twittering demon-blob who is clearly the very manifestation of pure, unadulterated evil?

Then Levy weighed in…

It may not have been what Chris Brown had in mind, but it appears the disgraced star has finally found an ally in the celebrity world: Rosie O’Donnell, who on her radio show this week accused his detractors (and ABC host Robin Roberts) of racism for maligning his window-breaking behavior more than, she argues, the equivalent by white stars. A name notably absent from O’Donnell’s analysis? Rihanna.

On Monday, we reported that the five candidates for RNC Chair supported the National Organization for Marriage’s position on same sex marriage, and contrasted that unanimity with GOProud Chairman Chris Barron‘s assertion that the Republican Party is “welcoming” to gay conservatives. The story drew disparate responses from Barron, and from conservative pundit Dana Loesch of BigJournalism.com, and the daylight between those responses is quite illuminating.

For the third year in a row, DJ Earworm has created a mashup of the top 25 songs of the year, as determined by Billboard, in his 2010 United States of Pop (Don’t Stop the Pop). Featured: Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Enrique Iglesias (really? He was back this year?), the Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Eminem, and — wait, no Bieber?!? I can’t imagine a 2010 mashup without the Baby hook that I still maintain ripped off “Runaround Sue” (oh look! Proof!).

Time Magazine has released its list of the Top Ten Twitter Moments of 2010, and at least one member of the Twitterati isn’t happy. Mediaite columnist and White House reporter Tommy Christopher, who nearly gave his life in a bid for Twitter celebrity, bitterly rejected the magazine’s snub via his Twitter account. I reached out [...]

Kanye West is riding high right now after his new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, opened to rave reviews and huge sales. Yesterday he performed a surprise show in New York (which people went absolutely crazy trying to get tickets for) and made sure to include a truly ridiculous, nine and a half minute rant in it. The whole thing is epic and worth about a hundred of his awesomely insane Tweets.

Last night on Saturday Night Live, the show poked fun at the ongoing feud between Kanye West and George W. Bush with a hilarious skit envisioning the two as friends in a fake interview with Seth Meyers.

Matt Lauer threw down yesterday in his ongoing feud with Kanye West, by claiming no wrongdoing when he played the VMA stage-crashing video during a pre-taped West interview earlier this week.

He also announced West would be performing on the Today show two weeks from today – a performance West announced on Twitter this morning he would be canceling.

“Memoirs are by their nature self-serving, you get to create the parameters by which you want history to judge you.” These were the words used to set-up by Daily Show host Jon Stewart the following segment focusing on former President George W. Bush‘s recent publicity tour promoting his new memoir Decision Points. Despite the very low energy of a clearly infirm Stewart, the source interview material made for a very entertaining and humorous trip down Presidential memory lane, with appearances on Hannity, Today, and Oprah, there was no shortage of clips used for comedic juxtaposition.

So now that Pres. George W. Bush has stopped hating on Conway West after the “disgusting moment” comment, a new target for Kanye West‘s frustration became Today show anchor Matt Lauer.

Today Lauer played more of the tape, and issued a challenge to Kanye to continue this epic battle a few weeks from now.

One of the first major takeaways from the pre-released transcript excerpts from Matt Lauer‘s sit-down with Pres. George W. Bush related, surprisingly, to Kanye West.

Lauer took advantage of the live interview this morning on the Today show to address this head-on, with a soundbite from West himself.

Why should Matt Lauer get all the fun? He shouldn’t: Sean Hannity also sat George W. Bush down for an intimate, necktie-free conversation at the former president’s ranch in Crawford, TX. In a preview clip from the interview, which is set to air on Fox News tomorrow, Hannity asks Bush his thoughts on the Tea Party’s emergence. “Here’s what I see,” our most recent Republican president said. “I see democracy working.”

Yesterday, on his always entertaining Twitter feed, Kanye West tweeted that “they” had banned the proposed art for his upcoming album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Nothing new in the world of popular music but this is one of the first times a censored artist can head right over to his laptop and quickly upload the rejected art as well as a passionate defense of it. This is exactly what West did.

Last night’s SNL skits may have fallen a bit flat but Kanye West made up for it with his dazzling performance of the song Power. I have no idea how he achieved these kind of visuals live on the SNL stage but no matter, they look awesome. Watch after the jump.

Twitter is the new Oprah. Just ahead of next Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards Kanye West spent yesterday penning a long apology to Taylor Swift on Twitter. And I mean long. As in 70-plus tweets. Says Kanye: “I’ve hurt, I’ve bled, I’ve learned. I only want to do good. I am passionate I am human I am real. I wish I could meet every hater.” Also: “Beyonce didn’t need that. MTV didn’t need that and Taylor and her family friends and fans definitely didn’t want or need that.” Also, he wrote her a new song.

Kanye West took Twitter by storm a few weeks ago, and has amassed nearly 750,000 followers in a short time.

Over the weekend, West made an announcement about releasing new music in a very new media way – free, every Friday, from now until Christmas.

Kanye West made his first awards show appearance in more than nine months at last night’s BET Awards – since his infamous stage crashing at last year’s MTV Video Music Awards.

He kicked off Sunday night’s live show with a performance of his new single “Power” – rapping on top of a makeshift mountain with a gorgeous video screen backdrop.

During a performance by the comedian Dane Cook mocking the various offensive things Simon Cowell has said to audtionees over the years one of the people on the stage playing a misfit who didn’t make the cut — or perhaps it was an actual person Simon had offended! — grabbed the microphone and began to yell at Cowell. It was a minute before the producers appeared to realize this wasn’t part of the show and zoomed away to break.

After 95 episodes, the epic failure known as The Jay Leno Show airs its final episode tonight. Of course, Leno himself will be back after the Olympics, comfortably at 11:35pm all over again. Which was pretty much the problem to begin with – the 10pm offering started as a similar product to the Tonight Show, and only became more like the old format as time went on.

This has been making the rounds, and for good reason — it’s a catchy, boppy new yet familiar song that sums up the last year not only in mashing up some of the biggest hits of 2009 but in doing so in auto-tune, which was one of the distinctive, hallmark sounds of the year. (It [...]

2009 has been a year of controversies. Some of them were big, like Climategate. Some of them were not very big, but were nevertheless blown up by blogs and cable news, like Jackass-gate, when President Obama referred to Kanye West as a “Jackass.” Many were united by that ever-persistent “-gate” suffix. In this slideshow, Mediaite fondly looks back on a year of -gates (and wonders if it’s time to give the “-gate” suffix a rest):

Despite the Obama administration’s various bailout plans people are still struggling, and there is the strong things may remain this way for longer than predicted. So who’s fault is this? President Obama, has apparently pinpointed his own culprit: the media.