This means the various poorly dressed and oddly coiffed young terrorist hep cats who burned the Olympic banner on the streets of the Windy City have won. Presumably they are right now pausing the Crass albums on their "Disc Mans" just long enough to cheer the failure of America. And they will be joined in that cheer by Matt Drudge!

"WORLD REJECTS OBAMA," Drudge says! That is a hilarious and easily predicted distortion! Also wasn't it weird how suddenly the right-wing hated the idea of a President trying to get America the Olympics? Like, seriously, what the fuck was that about?

Some of us were against having the Olympics in America because the IOC is run by vile old bastards, the bidding process is staggeringly corrupt, and Chicagoans, like New Yorkers, did not particularly want the Olympics, all that much. We did not want the IOC to reject our bid because Chicago has too many black criminals and because the idea of Obama trying to boost an American city enrages us, though. Why does Matt Drudge hate America? (Note: Chicago is part of America!)

Here we have the forces of American Exceptionalism and unrepentant jingoism teaming up with dreadlocked anti-American anarchists. Maybe the Spanish fascist who used to run the IOC will win the Olympics for Madrid, or (most likely) they will go to Rio de Janeiro.

Conde Nast's Mckinsey-recommended budget cuts should be formalized any day now, and nobody's looking forward to it. The latest Conde in-house chatter today, from Crain's: Budgets could be chopped up to 25% (same scary number floating around last week). More specifically, one insider says: "This round is going to suck." Yes. However, the company "isn't going to become like [less opulent] Hachette." Ha. Heaven forfend.


There's a new survey out about how much Americans hate the media. Fabulous! How did we, the media, do? "63 percent of respondents said news articles were often inaccurate and only 29 percent said the media generally "get the facts straight"." Worst ratings ever! Tune in next year for the new Worst Ratings Ever.


Ha, here is a story of journalistic humiliation before Anna Wintour that we can all enjoy: A reporter knelt before her and asked her holy opinion on the question: "What is style?" Anna's reply: "You need to think of something more original." Ask her about poor people, next time!


Hard to believe that corruption would infiltrate the hallowed halls of Las Vegas local TV news, but here you have it: Just before the ABC affiliate there was set to air some stories on how an auto repair chain there was ripping people off, an anchor at the station called the company and advised them to hire her boyfriend, who just happens to be great at crisis PR! That anchor should be so fired, god I would totally pay money to fire her myself over webcam just for fun. God.

Basically the FBI equipped a real estate developer named Solomon Dwek with a recording device and set him loose on the swamp of kickback schemes, mob payoffs, and money-grubbing pols that is New Jersey, where you have bribe someone to get your driver license. Dwek—whom the Wall Street Journal has identified as the unnamed "cooperating witness" whose testimony the indictment relies on—was charged with defrauding a bank of $25 million in 2006. He apparently turned snitch rather than fact jail and suckered half of the state's political class into doing business with him on behalf of the feds.

In doing so, he (allegedly):

• Paid $25,000 in cash bribes to Peter Cammarano, a city councilman who just got elected mayor of Hoboken on July 1. Dwek paid $10,000 of that last Thursday. "In return," according to a press release from the office of the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, "Cammarano [said he] would sponsor zoning changes and push through building plans for [a] high-rise development in Hoboken.
• Paid New Jersey Assembleyman L. Harvey Smith $15,000 in bribes "to help get approvals from high-level state agency officials for building projects."
• Paid Daniel Van Pelt, a New Jersey Assemblyman, a $10,000 bribe.
• Paid Dennis Elwell, mayor of Secaucus, a $10,000 cash bribe.
• Paid Anthony Suarez, mayor of Ridgefield a "$10,000 corrupt cash payment for his legal defense fund."

There's so, so much more. The press release announcing the arrests [pdf] is 12 pages. Aside from reeling in greedy politicians, Dwek also set his sites on a vast money-laundering ring centered among New Jersey's Syrian Jewish community and run by delightfully named rabbis, who used their synagogues and affiliated charities to clean up dirty money. Dwek approached them and told them he was "involved in illegal businesses and bank frauds," according to the release, and "was in bankruptcy and was attempting to conceal cash and assets." So Rabbi Saul Kassin of Sharee Zion in Brooklyn, Rabbi Edmund Nahum of Deal Synagogue in Deal, N.J., Rabbi Eli Ben Haim of Congregation Ohel Yaacob in Deal, N.J., and Rabbi Mordchai Fish of Congregation Sheves Achim in Brooklyn all happily accomodated him, laundering more than $3 million over two years. They would take a check from Dwek, written to their synagogues or associated charities, and pay him back—less a 10 percent cut—in cash from Israel or Switzerland that they kept in a network of "cash houses" throughout Brooklyn.

Dwek is an Orthodox Jew; it's unlikely he could have penetrated the ring otherwise. For a look at the Syrian Jewish community's xenophobic ways, check out this New York Time Magazine piece on the Brooklyn enclave, which excommunicates any member who marries outside of the tribe—including gentiles who convert to Judaism. Rabbi Kassin, who was arrested today, cut off his own daughter for marrying a non-Jew. After 25 years, she made contact with the family, and they told her she was welcome back, but without her husband and kids.

Lastly—and it's not clear from the release how this relates to the money-laundering and corruption investigations—Dwek somehow hooked up with Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a Brooklyn man who offered to sell him a human kidney for $160,000. According to Talking Points Memo, which has been poring over the indictment, "Rosembaum explained the process of finding a donor in Israel and stated that "[t]here are people over there hunting . . . One of the reasons it's so expensive is because you have to shmear all the time." We think a good sun-dried tomato shmear goes nicely with a kidney.

All of these people are going to roll over on everybody else, and the New York and New Jersey state legislatures are going to be completely emptied out within a week.

He is just nuts, this one! The show is not a light-hearted romp, or gently mocking tribute. It is basically a reenactment of the various scummy things listed in the criminal complaint against the former Illinois governor, "making ample use of tape." The Tribune's theater critic describes the surreal scene:

Blagojevich only showed up at the start of the Navy Pier show (above), and in the improv set at the end. But he still found time to recite a portion of the St. Crispin's Day speech from "Henry V," shill for his wife's reality TV show set in the jungles of Costa Rica ("If you can vote for her, please do"), invite the cast of this "fictional show" to dinner ("we'll be serving tarantulas"), indict the "football" hairbrush used in the Navy Pier show as "too small," and get off a few gags.

What a weird, weird guy.

[Via Wonkette]

The "world famous Moonlite BunnyRanch" announced in a press release today that they've offered the beloved hero of the Illinois taxpayers an "apprenticeship" at their legal house of ill repute.

This apprenticeship could be featured throughout the upcoming season of HBO's CatHouse. Rod's willpower would be challenged daily by the ladies as they bribe him to acquire finer rooms or better working hours and days off. In lieu of Rod's work throughout the apprenticeship Dennis Hof will pay him a handsome amount of money.

Yes, ok, it is a dumb press release promoting one of the HBO shows that only exists to give old dudes without internet skills something to jerk off to but we have not yet mentioned the best part:

The Mancow Muller radio show in Chicago facilitated a conference call with Dennis Hof and Rod Blagojevich's PR Manager, Glenn Selig. The conversation was successful and Glenn Selig is taking this offer very seriously and will present it to Rod Blagojevich very soon.

Isn't that thrillingly plausible? Blago's PR manager is clearly almost as insane as he is. This could happen!

According to the story thus far, the Israeli agent whose phone was being tapped by the NSA promised Harman that, if she could get the Department of Justice to abandon its prosecution of two former AIPAC staffers, Saban would use his influence with then-minority leader Nancy Pelosi to keep Harman in her leadership seat on the House intelligence committee.

The Los Angeles Times, in a brief profile today, describes Saban, who was worth $3.4 billion in 2008, in quasi-heroic terms as a generous and committed man of passion:

Even in a town of bigger-than-life personalities, media mogul Haim Saban stands out — lion-like in demeanor, furiously determined and unshakably loyal to those people and causes in which he fervently believes.

Those causes: Israel, the Democratic Party and medical philanthropy — in that order. And he has a history of putting his vast fortune behind all three.

Saban has a reputation as a brutal businessman. In person, he projects all the charm and terror of Ian McShane's Deadwood character Al Swearengen. Once, according to an excellent Portfolio profile from last year, while negotiating with Kiss' Gene Simmons over the rights to Kiss characters for use in a cartoon, Saban turned to his partner and said, in Hebrew, "Now we gut him." Saban didn't know that Simmons, who was present, was Israeli and spoke Hebrew.

Another way to put it is that Saban decided to buy himself a foreign policy. He has personally paid more money to politicians than any other American—$13 million since 1999, according to Portfolio—all with the avowed intent of ensuring that the U.S. will support Israel no matter what Israel does. Saban told Portfolio that his grudging support of Barack Obama in the 2008 election was premised on being reassured that Obama had a "visceral commitment, as opposed to a logical or strategic one," to the Jewish state.

Saban was born in Egypt, moved to Israel in 1956, and landed in America in 1983. He started his career as a musician and promoter, playing bass in an Israeli Beatles cover band called the Lions. He began making his fortune by buying the rights to background music in children's cartoons, and is credited as the "composer" for more than 3,700 theme songs and cues—meaning he gets paid every time they are aired—but the Hollywood Reporter reported in 1998 that he simply paid the actual composers a one-time fee for the rights and the credit. (That's not an uncommon arrangement in Hollywood, but a number of composers threatened to sue Saban, according to Portfolio, and he settled for $10,000 to each of them.)

Saban's interest in cartoon music led him to discover the Might Morphin' Power Rangers in Japan in the mid-1990s, which made him a fortune when he brought it to the United States. He parlayed that into a deal with Fox to purchase Pat Robertson's Family Channel, which they sold to Disney in 2001 for more than $5 billion. He is currently an owner and chairman of Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster.

He applies the same attitude to his political machinations. During the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, when it looked like superdelegates were going to decide the race, Saban reportedly offered the Young Democrats of America—which controlled two superdelegate votes—$1 million if they would support Hillary Clinton. Saban denied it. Nor is his political largesse limited to the U.S.—he reportedly paid $120,000 to Shimon Peres' prime minister campaign in 2006 in exchange for help in purchasing the Israeli communications company Bezeq.

In 2002, Saban launched the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, an arm of the Brookings Institution, with a $13 million grant. It served as a sort of left-wing cover operation for proponents of the invasion of Iraq, employing liberal hawks like Kenneth Pollack, whose book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq was influential in bringing Democrats on board with the Bush Adminsitration's plans.

Personally, Saban is a boisterous showman. The gardens at his Beverly Hills estate are modeled after the ones at Versailles. When he learned in 2000 that a $250,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee had been bested by someone else who gave $500,000, he sent another check for $250,000 plus a $1 bill: "No. 2 doesn't fly for me," he told Portfolio. He's married to a shiksa wife, and the family buys a Christmas tree every year.

It's not surprising that Saban is wrapped up in the Harman story—he's been at the center of Israeli advocacy in the U.S. for decades. But it is odd that Israeli intelligence—if that's what the sources describing the wiretaps are referring to when they say "suspected Israeli operative"—would engage such a well-known and colorful figure in a highly sensitive operation.

Saban has been active in Hollywood and the media business for years. What can you tell us about him?

As the Times and Journal report today, the SEC is investigating Quandrangle Group founder and crazy social climber Rattner for paying $1 million to play with the state's massive pension fund.

The state pension fund was just a hilarious morass of corruption, mostly revolving around former comptroller Alan Hevesi, who was the sole trustee of the whole system. Charges have been filed against former deputy comptroller David Loglisci and Hevesi pal (in Post parlance) Hank Morris. Morris, a Democratic political consultant who ran Chuck Schumer's '98 and '04 campaigns, was the man to send your massively inflated "finders' fees" to in exchange for pension business. Morris and Lovlisci made tens of millions in kickbacks, because they directed the "alternative investments" wing of the $122 billion fund.

And just this week former Liberal Party chair Ray Harding was charged with accepting $800,000 in reward money (from the Morris kickback pool) for some favors he did for Hevesi. Is anyone else growing to like this Andrew Cuomo kid?

So! Quadrangle—meaning Rattner—paid $90k to acquire a shitty movie Loglisci produced, and three weeks later they were doing $100 million worth of business with the pension fund. Shortly after that, Quadrangle paid $1.1 million in fees to Hank Morris.

Here is the film, Chooch, that actual legitimate investment firms invested in, in order to get that sweet pension business. Let's just quote the entire plot summary:

The life of Queens resident Dino Condito is about to take a surprising turn. After letting down his softball team by striking out in the bottom of the ninth against Hoboken, his crew brands him the chooch. Trying to cheer up his cousin Dino, Jubilene Condito cashes in his savings from his first holy communion and springs for a vacation to Cancun. You mean leave Queens? asks Dino, as if the thought had never occurred to him. But there's a mix-up on the way to the airport involving a mysterious bag of money. As soon as Dino and Jube land in Mexico, they're abducted by a pair of thugs and left in the desert at the mercy of a trio of soldiers. It takes reuniting Dino's old Queens crew, including Dino's beloved pet dachsund, to save the two cousins. Only after a jail bust, donkey ride, chicken coop explosion, and a life-changing love affair at the local bordello does the crew finally arrive to save the day. Returning home in triumphant glory with his reunited crew and newfound love Ladonna, Dino discovers the meaning of family, friendship and neighborhood.

Oh man. Rattner paid almost six figures for the rights to distribute the DVD of this heartwarming action-comedy. The only user comment is a 2-star pan from someone who knows an actress with a bit part in the movie from back home in Denver. Hah. Chooch: the shitty low-budget mob mix-up comedy that brought down a large segment of the early-2000s New York political establishment.

And now Rattner will save the auto industry for Barack Obama, who hired him because Rattner millions in donations to get himself out of the investment business and into Democratic politics.

Former Illinois Governor Blago was charged with 16 federal criminal counts because he kept asking for money in exchange for things, like appointing a Senator.

The case won't go to trial for months still, so there is plenty of crazy left to cherish while we wait. One of Blago's ex-chiefs of staff is cooperating with prosecutors! His brother's on trial too! Whee!

Jackson is not actually in any legal trouble, because he didn't actually do anything, but according to taped conversations, corrupt former Illinois governor Blago seemed to think he might end up with a pretty decent payday if he appointed Jackson to the Senate to replace Barack Obama.

Blago told his brother to get in touch with Raghuveer Nayak, a friend of and fundraiser for Jackson, and try to sell Nayak on giving Blago "tangible political support" in exchange for the Jackson appointment. Now Blago didn't actually seem to want to appoint Jackson, 'cause Jackson had not really been his best political ally, but it still seemed worth a shot to approach Jackson's rich friends. And then there was this fundraiser Jackson and his brother and Nayak went to, a couple weeks before Blago's arrest, but honestly who knows what was actually going on out there, in Chicago, with the favor-trading.

Now the "Office of Congressional Ethics" is a toothless citizens' board sort of thing that was just formed last year, and all they can really do is ask politely for interviews and documents and then recommend that the for-real Ethics Committee look into something, but still: you don't really want to be the only member of the Illinois congressional delegation not named "Roland Burris" to be under investigation by any group with "ethics" in the name.

Hah, yes, hooray—details from a federal indictment released Thursday tell the proud story of "Congressman A," our own Rahm Emanuel, and how Blago tried to block money meant for a school in Rahm's district. Then Blago told Rahm, Rahm, he said, you know what would be really super nice? If your brother Ari got some celebrities to throw a fundraiser for me!

Rahm's brother Ari is, of course, a famous agent, and he is played by famous poisoned actor Jeremy Piven on a tv show, so obviously he knows lots of famous people.

Prosecutors said a fundraiser was never held. The aide would not say whether Emanuel ever actually learned of the request.

Hah. No, of course not. We're guessing Rahm did know of the request, and we're guessing he ignored it, because it was probably best to just ignore the crazy things Governor Blago said.

Of course this is proof that Rahm Emanuel is corrupt and probably guilty of CRIMES, according to The Corner.

"Alaskans deserve to have a fair election not tainted by some announcement that one of the candidates was convicted fairly of seven felonies, when in fact it wasn't a fair conviction," Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in an interview.

Hah, yes, well, it wasn't fair when voters thought Barack Obama was a muslim socialist terrorist who should be feared, but they still made the right call.

Anyways, Palin says the fact that the Justice Department finally stopped it's completely inept prosecution of Ted Stevens for crimes that he's still probably guilty of means that there should now be a special election or something, and she calls on Mark Begich to step down, because why not, let's just call on people to do stupid things that make no sense. We call on Mayor Bloomberg to ride a dragon to our birthday party!

The head of the Alaska GOP, some guy who won a contest probably, agrees! Congressional Republicans and people with brains in their heads, not so much.

"In light of the good news yesterday, I am sure many of us wish we could turn the clock back to last November," said Alaska's senior GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski. "Unfortunately, that is not an option."

Corrupt dick Rep Don Young wants to have it both ways, sort of, with the bemoaning the sad treatment of his political hero but also not demanding crazy things.

"The seated senator there, Mark Begich, will be in the Senate, he will do a good job," Young told Fox News. "It's just sad that Alaskans were frankly hoodwinked into malfeasance of office work by the Justice Department itself."

What does that second sentence mean? Anyone?

Meanwhile, Palin daughter-impregnator Levi Johnston went on Tyra to lie about using a condom when he impregnated Bristol Palin one of the many times they had hot high school sex. He is still basically a sad, kinda dumb kid, but his "the condom had a wardobe malfunction" excuse is still less dumb than whatever thing Sarah Palin will say to the press next.

While there is no doubt in our mind that former Senator Stevens is genuinely felonious, the Feds, the FBI, and the Bush Justice Department so thoroughly fucked up the prosecution that we shouldn't be surprised at this late "exoneration."

• A prosecution witness recanted his testimony and later claimed he made up his testimony because of death threats made against him by his uncle Bill Allen, the oil company owner who gave Stevens all those gifts.
• Then an FBI agent involved in the wide-ranging Alaska corruption investigations came forward with allegations that the government investigation was marred with the exact same sort of hilarious bribery and favor-trading that makes up Alaska politics in general.
• The DOJ tried to relocate a witness that the defense subpoenaed in the middle of the trial, and then they forgot to redact the names of the people they wanted redacted in their own request to redact those names, because their investigation was apparently run by the DOJ's "Kindergarten Cops" division.
• Supposedly another FBI agent was sleeping with Bill Allen.
• Then the names of all the folks shamed in that FBI whistle-blower's statement were released, even though they didn't give consent.
• The judge held the prosecution in contempt for ignoring a court order.
• Then, in February, the Justice Department finally replaced the morons who'd been running the prosecution.
• But it was too late. Eric Holder admitted defeat and dropped the charges against Stevens.

So hey, if you were an elected official, 2000-2008 was basically your window to do any fucking thing you wanted because the Bush Justice Department was staffed by illiterate morons. Congratulations to Ted Stevens, the most innocent man in America!

Well, not a lot of people liked him to begin with, but he ended up getting seated anyway. He seemed at first like a harmless political also-ran allowing himself to be used by evil Blago, then he was an opportunist, then he was a crazy person who had a giant monument to himself built in a graveyard, which endeared him to some (us).

But now he's looking like another shitty Chicago politician, and one almost as dangerously narcissistic as Blago himself, and not so much fun to have around in the Senate. Gee, who know actually seating the guy Rod Blagojevich appointed would turn out to be a bit of an embarrassment? Once again, nice work, Harry Reid.

Now, at least, it'll be easier to mount a primary challenge against him with actual candidates.

[Photo: AP]

Vice cops in Staten Island raided a bar and busted it up and stole a bunch of cash and, oops, the surveillance tape ended up on YouTube, and then with the internal affairs department (which is investigating) and then in the Post and now here, for you, proving once again that the internet is the best weapon for crime fighting. (The Post calls this an "internet hit": YouTube says less than 1,500 views. Until now!). This isn't quite as dramatic as the cop knocking the guy off his bike, but it's not bad:

A hero who was removed from office because he loves old people, children and kittens too much. No, seriously. Whether he's a psychopath or that helmet of hair is actually an alien mind-control device, Blagojevich's complete lack of self-awareness is staggering. So here he is, just about an hour after he was removed as Illinois governor, telling a bank of cameras that he's never loved the people of Illinois as much as he does today. The day they unanimously told him to get the hell out of their lives.

His utter shamelessness probably saved him from doing time—Fitzgerald rushed the arrest to stop Blago from appointing a Senator and tainting the Senate, and then Blago appointed a Senator! And meanwhile the US Attorney's case against him is mostly just "he kept threatening to do something illegal."

And so Blago leaves office but becomes, instead of another scummy imprisoned Illinois politician, a sort of harmless lovable nut who says crazy things to Larry King and is almost charmingly shameless. When Shep Smith interrupts Blago's rambling news conferences to ask "WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL" it is because Blago's stories about saving the lives of cancer patients are almost endearingly kooky. While his media blitz was ostensibly about convincing the Illinois Senate to allow him to call witnesses that would ruin his upcoming criminal trial, what it was really about was introducing the crazy personality behind those ridiculous and scuzzy phone transcripts.

Oh, those threats came from the funny little guy under the hair? Hah! What a character!

So while he'll probably never hold public office again, its worthwhile to remember that he hasn't even been indicted yet. He's already been offered a radio gig back in Chicago, if he steps down. He might end up with G. Gordon Liddy's career without spending a day in the clink.

Good work, Blago, on your transformation from representation of endemic corruption to funny guy with the hair.

On GMA the tiny criminal Illinois Governor told a stone-sober Diane Sawyer that he was totally going to appoint Oprah Winfrey to Barack Obama's Senate seat. Which would've been amazing.

She seemed to be someone who had helped Barack Obama in a significant way become president," he said. "She was obviously someone with a much broader bully pulpit than other senators."

Unfortunately he couldn't pick her, because he was pretty sure she wouldn't decline the offer, and also she refused to put him on the cover of O Magazine.

[Update: Oprah, calling into her buddy Gayle King's show on Sirius, responded, "If I had been watching from the treadmill I probably would have fallen off the treadmill."

Also he carefully calculated the most insanely deluded statement a corrupt politician could possibly make:

"I thought it was actually a friend of mine who was playing a practical joke," he said of his arrest. "Unfortunately it wasn't. And then the day unfolded and I had a whole bunch of thoughts — of course my children and my wife — and then I thought about Mandela, Dr. King, Gandhi and tried to put some perspective in all of this, and that's what I'm doing now."

Haha also he thought about Jesus, and Santa Claus, and Lou Gehrig, and George Clooney. He is pretty much just like all of those people!

Good news: within the hour, Blago hits The View, and he finishes the day on Larry King Live. It's America's Birthday!