• Obama’s interference in governors’ races is upsetting to those who think that Obama’s desire to keep Democrats in power is soo partisan. [New York Times]
• Internet service providers are terribly angry with the FCC, which wants “net neutrality,” a concept of unimaginable injustice that would prohibit these Internet service companies from purposely slowing down connections and blocking access to their competitors’ content. [WSJ]
• Fewer troops in Afghanistan will be fighting in deserted actual desert areas and will concern themselves more with defending cities and humans. Except N.B. to the Taliban: this is not because America is weak! [Washington Post]
• Here are your MacArthur Genius Grant winners!  [Los Angeles Times]
• Bank of America just cold refuses to tell Congress all about its consensual hook-up with Merrill Lynch. The SEC is THISCLOSE to just subpoenaing the bank, the judicial equivalent of correctly guessing its Gmail password. [Reuters]
• Nancy Pelosi is going to send a health care bill to the floor by the end of the week. She’s like, “Fucking bet me.” [The Hill]

• Some states, including some you might actually live in like New York, are trying to introduce an online sales tax to things like iTunes, Amazon, and pornography sites like “XX Factor” etc. [AMERICAblog]
• Obama will select a Columbia/Harvard pal of his, “Orange” Julius “Caesar” “Salad” Genachowski, to be the new chairman of the FCC. [The Caucus]
• George Bush is the most popular human of all time in Sudan, Israel, Georgia (the Georgia that did not actually elect him) and some other places. [Daily Beast]
• Dick Cheney will maybe write a book! One that will settle “a few scores.” What “scores” did he possibly leave unsettled, or alive? [Top of the Ticket]
• Mitt Romney would still like to be considered for the position of John McCain’s losing Vice President. [CNN Political Ticker]

The FCC has announced a bold new socialist plan to provide wireless Internet all over America, for free! But it won’t have any pr0n, so Americans won’t actually use this free gift. Also, it will be hella slow, as it will be operated by wireless companies forced to do so, by the government, and in competition with the for-profit porn Internet wireless service, which will be super fast. [Silicon Valley Insider/Wall Street Journal]

The FCC this afternoon approved easing restrictions on media ownership in the 20 largest cities and grandfathered in 42 current and pending exemptions to their rules on owning a print and broadcast outlet in the same market. Congress is threatening to do something about it, sorta like they threatened to do something about the war, and about tax breaks for oil companies, and about cleaning up Washington, so, all hail our corporate media overlords! [Yahoo News]

Ah, how quickly they forget the rules when there is free food! Last week, the Federal Communications Bar Association held their annual FCC Chairman’s Dinner to roast and then listen to the incredibly young-looking Kevin Martin (sample one-liner: “Kevin looks so young even Mark Foley would throw him back”). But what Kevin probably didn’t know is that some of the companies sponsoring the event were playing a little fast and loose with the ethics rules that night.

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Because the dignified president and vice president are obscenity-spewing feces, wealthy fucktards like “socialite Nicole Richie” can F-bomb away on live teevee. MORE »

* Easter holiday for President Bush and Congress begins with volley of zingers over Iraq war funding bill. [WP, NYT]
* Mitt Romney’s cult is just naturally good at raising money, knocking on doors in short sleeved dress shirts. [WP, WP, NYT]
* McCain’s merry band of psychos, not so much. [NYT]
* FCC: yes, it still blows. [WP]
* Gonzales aide Monica Goodling refuses to answer the question of what questions she refuses to answer. [WP, NYT]
* Loud-mouth truck-stop managers really love readin’ bout politiks on the internets. [WSJ]

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* Send a Valentine to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. It’s the least you can do after he went A2M with all those lobbyists for you. [Free Press]
* The Iranian weapons doing all the blowing up in Iraq? Yeah, not so much. [Informed Comment]
* ExxonMobil executives too hacky to be funny. [My DD]
* The Divine Mrs. C … [Sweetness & Light]
* … Gets her MySpace page deleted by Rupert Murdoch. [Passport]
* Dan Finkelstein doesn’t read Noam Chomsky so you have to. [Comment Central]
* Political bloggers are boring. This is a fact of the universe. [Althouse]

• Lou Dobbs doesn’t know shit about the Middle East, but neither do you. [CNN]

• Potential government jurisdiction clusterfuck over Bush’s s-bomb drop. [Fishbowl DC]
• Apparently, firing a missile at someone isn’t smack talk enough, as “your mamma” jokes now getting written on Lebanon bound rockets. [AP]
• A picture of Putin as a small boy just yearning for some tummy-kissing-man-love. [Iran Defense]
• Rush Limbaugh’s “Viagra-fueled boners” convince him to cite a lady blogger whose statistics seem to come from, “out of her anal cavity.” [James Wolcott]

Gary Ackerman (D-NY), seen here penning erotic Buffy fanfic, gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the House decrying the bill that boosted indecency fines tenfold for TV networks. It even ended with the classic legislative sendoff, “Mr. Speaker, I for one will be voting against this bill.” The only problem: He voted for it. MORE »