WTF: Your Daily Dose Of ‘I Can’t Believe It’s News’

PUNK AS F*CK FAKE RAHM EMANUEL TWITTERER OUTS HIMSELF The real Rahm Emanuel offered to donate $5,000 to the charity of the anonymous Tweeter’s choice if the creator of the account would out himself (Update: even now, the offer still stands). The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board begged the account not to stop, saying, “The fun is just beginning,” and comparing the mystery of the account’s author to the “intrigue surrounding the identity of “Anonymous,” the author of the 1996 novel “Primary Colors,” a devastating insider take on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. If that seems like a lot of fuss […]

RIP: Tony Curtis Dead At 85

NEW YORK TIMES: As a performer, Mr. Curtis drew first and foremost on his startlingly good looks. With his dark, curly hair, worn in a sculptural style later imitated by Elvis Presley, and plucked eyebrows framing pale blue eyes and wide, full lips, Mr. Curtis embodied a new kind of feminized male beauty that came into vogue in the early 1950s. A vigorous heterosexual in his widely publicized (not least by himself) private life, he was often cast in roles that drew on a perceived ambiguity: his full-drag impersonation of a female jazz musician in “Some Like It Hot”; a […]

EXIT THE RAM: Emmanuel Stepping Down

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Rahm Emanuel will resign as White House chief of staff on Friday and will begin his campaign for Chicago mayor by meeting with voters in the city on Monday, two people familiar with Emanuel’s plans said. The two people, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because they did not want to pre-empt Emanuel’s announcement, said he will return to Chicago over the weekend and begin touring neighborhoods Monday. “He intends to run for mayor,” one of the people told The Associated Press. MORE NEW YORKER: Rahm Emanuel’s office, which is no more than a three-second walk from […]

BIG BLACK: Invisible Hand Of The Free Market Man

TIME: It is also an issue that requires bravery — bravery of the sort Obama demonstrated when he pressed on with health care, even after Scott Brown’s victory. As he put it last night, “Time and again, the path forward [to energy innovation] has been blocked — not only by oil-industry lobbyists but also by a lack of political courage and candor.” Still, Obama himself didn’t show much of either. He never mentioned the phrases climate change or global warming. While he praised the House of Representatives for passing an “energy and climate bill” last year, he made no mention […]

ENDGAME: Got Waterloo?

NEW YORK TIMES: WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Sunday to legislation that would provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and remake the nation’s health care system along the lines proposed by President Obama. By a vote of 219 to 212, the House passed the bill after a day of tumultuous debate that echoed the epic struggle of the last year. The action sent the bill to President Obama, whose crusade for such legislation has been a hallmark of his presidency. Democrats hailed the vote as historic, comparable to the establishment of Medicare and Social […]

NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

FRESH AIR Earlier this month, former congressman Billy Tauzin announced that he would step down from his position as president of the pharmaceutical industry’s main lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — known by the shorthand PhRMA. Last year, PhRMA spent $28 million lobbying in favor of a health care overhaul, after negotiating a deal with the White House and members of Congress. Had the health care bill passed, the cost-cutting measures negotiated during several meetings at the White House would have saved the pharmaceutical industry $80 billion. By negotiating the secret deal, writer Paul Blumenthal explains, […]

MAD HATTER: Sarah In Wonderland

[Illustration by ALEX FINE] ANDREW SULLIVAN: There is no question in my mind that Palin is the leader of the opposition in this country. And there is no question in my mind that she is the leader of the Tea Party movement. Listening to her completely content-free rehash of every Fox News truism, underlined with the classic claim that Obama is on the side of the terrorists and is incapable of being commander-in-chief. Cheneyism is behind her. MORE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT: Nodding at the much-discussed question of whether this speech would make Palin the “leader” of the Tea Party movement, she […]

INHALE TO THE CHIEF: DOJ Instructs Prosecutors To Stop Wasting Time And Money Busting People In Compliance With State Medical Marijuana Laws

[Artwork by REUBENSLP] ASSOCIATED PRESS: The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday. Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws. The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless […]

STYLE: Lohan Fashion Line The Toast Of Hatesville

[Photo via the DAILY MAIL] THE ENVELOPE: Lindsay Lohan and Spanish designer Estrella Archs showed off their new hot mess of a Spring 2010 Ungaro collection today in Paris. And the Fashion World’s Mean Girls could simply not stop ragging on how bad it was. MORE DAILY MAIL: But the star admitted that the show has been ‘the hardest thing I’ve ever done’. The thigh-skimming dresses in peach, hot pink and white seemed designed for a Malibu Beach party, while sparkling nipple pasties flashing from underneath loose blazers were a reminder of Lohan’s own occasional wardrobe mishaps. ‘It’s not good […]

PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]

YELLOW JOURNALISM: The Last Truth Teller

POLITICO: POLITICO learned today that the Washington Post has terminated its relationship with liberal columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin. Froomkin authored the “White House Watch” blog and was told today that the blog had essentially run its course. MORE PAUL KRUGMAN: OK, I have no idea about the actual decision process. But I have a theory about the general mindset of the people who made this decision. Here’s how I see things: many people in the news media, especially at the managerial level, decided a long time ago that movement conservatism was The Future — and that the sensible thing, whether or […]

Ann Coulter’s Sultry Neo-Con Hate Bait Loses Lock On The Discretionary Spending Of The Dumb And Mean

CONDE NAST: Coulter’s latest book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, is something of a misfire by Coulterian standards. Of course, what constitutes a disappointment for Coulter would be a mega-hit for most authors; in its two months on sale, Guilty has sold 100,500 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan (a number that only reflects around 70 percent of actual sales). But with it moving steadily down the best-seller list, it looks certain that Guilty will fall far short of matching her earlier results. Her 2006 polemic, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, sold 279,100 copies in hardcover, according to […]

OPERATION RUSHBO: Culture Jamming The Right

POLITICO: Top Democrats believe they have struck political gold by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party, a full-scale effort first hatched by some of the most familiar names in politics and now being guided in part from inside the White House. The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned their longtime tormentor was deeply unpopular with many Americans, especially younger voters. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans […]