Here's a video clip of MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan literally saying "call your congressman" last month, during one of his screeds about "corporate communism." And here he is literally writing "tell your congressman" on the Huffington Post.

(And we need a break from absurd conspiracy theories about devious flacks, too.)

1. HOLY SHIT BARACK OBAMA THINKS HE IS ALLAH!!

Yesterday, on a conference call with rabbis about healthcare, Obama declared that "we are God's partners in matters of life and death," which is evidence that his messianic tendencies have merged with his hatred of the elderly into a potent tonic of cartoonish villainy. He was inspired by a Rosh Hashanah prayer—"On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed / And on Yom Kippur it is sealed / How many shall pass away and how many shall be born / Who shall live and who shall die"—and signed off the call with a hearty "L'shanah tovah," Hebrew for happy holidays (even though Rosh Hashanah's a ways off, but still). Politico's Ben Smith smelled Drudgebait, so he wrote it up without really drawing attention to how insane people would surely interpret the comments. Drudge smelled traffic from insane people, so he linked to it while only subtly drawing attention to how insane people would interpret the comments. Insane people saw the story on Drudge, and went insane: "You know who used to talk like this? Jim Jones and David Koresh." (Interestingly, Smith's source for the Obama quote was a rabbi who was in on the call and "live-Tweeted" it. That rabbi has since deleted all the posts—including the one about being "God's partner"—and apologized for publicizing it.)

2. HOLY SHIT JAKE "THE OCTAGON" TAPPER THINKS BARACK OBAMA IS MALCOLM X!!!!

ABC News' Tapper wrote a blog post yesterday in which he quoted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman saying, of the healthcare bill, "we are determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary." Malcolm X once strung together the words "by any means necessary," so Journalist Jake decided to add a video of Malcolm X to his post just to underscore the point that Barack Obama is a radical Muslim black separatist. We kid! While we've been perfectly happy to mock Tapper in the past for offenses big and small, we think this (crazy) conflation of Malcolm X and the legislative process is motivated more by a misguided attempt on Tapper's part to be cheeky rather than to remind terrified old people that Obama hates "working white people," or to get Drudge's attention. Poor Tapper has been furiously defending himself on Twitter, reminding folks that "President Obama not even mentioned," and the DailyKos says, "Seriously, WTF Jake?"

3. HOLY SHIT SOMEONE THINKS DYLAN RATIGAN SHOULD BE FIRED!!!!!!!!!!

That's right—the president of a group has written an angry letter to MSNBC, and Politico's Michael Calderone has it exclusively! Apparently MSNBC, like Fox News, cut its tape of the guys carrying assault rifles outside Obama's Phoenix town hall to make it look like it was all white guys, when the most prominent gun-toter was in fact black. Which means, according to Greg Gutfeld, that MSNBC is trying to start a "race war." And the president of Americans for Limited Government has written a letter to MSNBC demanding that Ratigan, Contessa Brewer, Touré (!), and "any and all others involved in any way with the fraudulent 'news'" be terminated immediately. Now that we think of it, we've got to get started on our item about the letter we just got from MindY0urOwnBiz demanding that President Obama immediately seek the resignations of "geitner and bernaki." (We don't blame you, Michael, we blame August.)

Oh shit. Dylan Ratigan aired an embarrassing clip of Jonathan Capehart scarfing a bagel. So this morning Capehart's mom called in and chewed Ratigan out for mocking her son. She is cool, but somehow we think this isn't making Jon look cooler. [Jon Capehart is actually cool!]


NPR's Mara Liasson is sorry that she said the "Cash for Clunkers" program was "like a mini-Katrina." What she meant to say was "like a mini-Holocaust." We are hypocritically giving you a hard time, Mara! We are worse than Pol Pot.


American psycho Glenn Beck called President Obama "racist" and now he's lost three advertisers. Procter & Gamble refuses to have its brands associated with anyone who even mentions the name of Obama, the racist fuck.


Experience! A bunch of J-school students from Alaska went with their professor to be embedded in Iraq for a month, and before they even got their press credentials they already "came within a few minutes of being hit by an IED." This is maybe America's only worthwhile J-school program. Good luck, kids.

In this clip, Capehart doesn't know that Dylan Ratigan—a dick—is broadcasting during the precious few seconds that MSNBC allows for him to stuff his face before they make him start talking about birthers again. Off-camera, Ratigan's colleagues are calling him out for airing the footage and threatening to catch him when he doesn't know he's on the air. Maybe that would go something like this?

The tape dates to last summer, when Susan Krakower, a CNBC executive and co-creator with Ratigan of Fast Money, dared to speak into his earpiece during a commercial break in the newscast. Ratigan didn't like that—it seems the pair had been going through some communication problems:

I'm available all day, every day, and yet you choose not to communicate with me in any way, shape, or form. So I consider it rude and disrespectful on your part, Susan, to decide to communicate with me for the first time in months in the commercial break between the A and the B block.... You're effectively a liar. You lie to me routinely.

The New York Post reported on the exchange back in March, and indicated that Ratigan's issues with Krakower were partially responsible for his decision to jump to MSNBC—after promising himself to ABC News as a negotiating tactic to get more money—in May.

Sounds like a fun guy to work with.

Since loudly leaving CNBC in late March, Ratigan had been rumored to be going to ABC, perhaps to Good Morning America.

"In ABC's mind, they had—and have—a deal with Ratigan," says a source with knowledge of the negotiations. "This wasn't a handshake deal. This was a deal deal. ABC got fucked, royally."

Ratigan, who has said his ambitions run more toward David Letterman than David Brinkley, will anchor MSNBC from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

News of Ratigan's departure from CNBC were accompanied by a leak to Page Six of a tape of him screaming at his producers: "I'm not going to host a fucking TV show that consists of reading fucking e-mails to fucking traders."

ABC News and Ratigan couldn't consummate their agreement because CNBC had a noncompete clause in Ratigan's contract, which barred him from negotiating with competitors until six months after he left. But CNBC could waive that clause, which it clearly did in order to let its sister network snatch Ratigan from ABC News's grasp.

Ratigan's move from CNBC to MSNBC, which are both units of NBC Universal, was expertly orchestrated—instead of simply working his way over internally, he left suddenly, with an attendant tabloid story making the announcement, and put himself on the open market so ABC News could bid up his price. Then he wound up back in the embrace of the same company, presumably with a tidy raise.

"If MSNBC is paying this guy what ABC would have paid him," the source says, "then they are way overpaying him."

An ABC News spokesman, citing the noncompete clause, denies that the network was ever in negotiations with Ratigan: "You can't lose something you never had."

The New York Times is going to fold its City section as part of the cost-cutting package that came down last week, to save money on freelance payments and whatnot. This is not only disastrous for the Columbia J-school freelancers and other assorted mortals whose only hopes of getting an NYT clip was through the City section; it's equally bad for regular NYT reporters, because this is a mere foreshadowing of a coming trend called "write more stories or else." But without the City section, how will we ever know what's happening in McCarren Park's ironic sports leagues, or other places that freelancers hang out on the weekends? Democracy is dying.


Brazil's president said "white people with blue eyes" were the villains of the financial crisis. Turns out he was talking about Sam Zell.


Great Magazine Die-off: Hachette has apparently put design magazine Fulcrum on hold, and prospects of its revival don't sound too promising, judging from the linked internal email. If you know more, email us.


A rumor is Going Around that Nielsen will either fold Brandweek and Mediaweek into Adweek, or shrink the three titles down to two. The magazines have all been had their staffs and resources slashed recently, so this would be the next logical step. There's really no getting around the fact that Ad Age eats just about every trade magazine for lunch. [Disclosure: I've had/ have friends working at Brandweek and Adweek and Ad Age. Still Ad Age is the best.]

Dylan Ratigan, who, it's widely speculated, will soon be quitting his gig as host of CNBC's Fast Money (not long after a tape of him cussing out his producer surfaced), tells Jon Friedman that he plans to pursue the story that "The value system of capitalism has been corrupted by a small group of bankers, insurance executives and politicians." Is Dylan Ratigan the first CNBC personality shamed into quitting by the rhetorical power of Jon Stewart? I don't know, but it's an angle!

• Dylan Ratigan is quitting as CNBC's Fast Money host, supposedly over disagreements with the producer at whom he yelled, during a commercial break, "Don't ask me to talk about every [bleep]ing e-mail that comes up on the screen. I'm not going to host a [bleep]ing TV show that consists of reading [bleep]ing e-mails to [bleep]ing traders... now is an unwelcome time to hear your voice... You lie to me routinely." It's all on tape. Ratigan is widely expected to explore a collaboration with actor Alec Baldwin. [P6]
• Madonna is determined to adopt a second child from Malawi into her stable, nurturing home. (It's not clear if current "boy toy" Jesus Luz will accompany her to Africa.) [Sun]
  
• If you squint at the data just right, Katie Couric's not in last place: Her CBS Evening News beat NBC Nightly News in the New York TV market for the past six months. Page Six, which has enrolled in Fox News' feud with NBC News, is happily trumpeting this tremendous victory. [P6]
  
• Prince William's girlfriend's friend runs some kind of regular orgy party, supposedly. This marks the British Royal Family's first-ever encounter with scandal of a sexual nature. [Sun]
  
• Method Man has the money to pay his taxes, it's just that, like, the self-described pothead has been avoiding opening his mail for the past seven years. There's totally some checks in there! [Gatecrasher]
• Rihanna showed up to yet another nightspot with yet another guy, and it was reported in yet another tabloid. We get it: The official line is that she's over Chris Brown. Now just please make that actually be true. [P6]
  
• Also: Rihanna got a tattoo of a "tiny gun" above her ribcage. [Scoop]
• Nadya Suleman took two more of her octuplets home from the hospital, but didn't get much attention for it. What a waste. [Us]