Your 2011 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced! If you're "keeping score:" two for the New York Times, and two for the Los Angeles Times. The Wall Street Journal had to make do with one for editorial writing, and the Washington Post had to settle for a photography Pulitzer. Plenty of long-winded bragging and wounded sniping starts now!
The White House has released Barack and Michelle Obama's 2010 tax returns! These grifters really cashed in, too: $1,728,096 in adjusted gross income, mostly from book royalties. How much did you poor slugs make last year in the last remaining American profession, selling handjobs outside the T.G.I. Friday's? Probably not $1,728,096 in adjusted gross income! We need a fellow poor guy like Donald Trump in the Oval Office, soon.
For a segment on E!'s Friday night guilty pleasure Fashion Police, comedic warhorse Joan Rivers found a picture Jersey Shore tequila swiller Snooki tweeted of her and her cat and decided to make a string of rather amusing and absolutely crass double entendres about Snooki's pussy. This is why I love this show. Not only is Joan hilarious, but Kelly Osbourne laughs hysterically and seems shocked. If you can shock Kelly Osbourne, you know you said something really fucked up.
In your money Monday media column: the Pentagon sides with a general over Rolling Stone, The New Yorker's boring Facebook success, Sidney Harman's unfortunate goodbye column, Les Moonves is overpaid, Glenn Beck is moving, and a history of Fox.
Gelatinous cartoon slumlord Donald Trump is facing some tough questions about his previous political positions in his pretend campaign for president. He's already won, really, if this promotional stunt to increase the ratings of Celebrity Apprentice is getting reporters to read whatever dumb book he wrote in 2000 to dig up his arbitrary political stances of the time.
Last night's episode of American Sun Farts was mostly a transitional one, with people assessing old fights and laying the groundwork for new ones. A few sparks flew, but they had short trajectories, sputtering and dying out quickly, like so many SoCal marriages.
The small-town newspapers in New York's Hudson Valley that Fox News chief Roger Ailes owns with his wife Elizabeth are in a staff revolt after employees caught Ailes spying on them with News Corp. security goons.
Sarah Palin was just trying to stick it to the president at a Tea Party rally in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend, but "unhinged loons" and Union Thugs allegedly kept screaming her down. But is this really what happened? We're pretty sure that this protester, for one, is just challenging her to a cage match at Wrestlemania. MAKE YOUR CHOICE NOW, SARAH!, indeed. [via Wonkette]
President Obama pledged not to attach any signing statements, or little notes saying you'll ignore certain legislative language on constitutional grounds, to new laws back when he was a candidate. He broke that pledge in about two seconds. And in his latest signing statement — appended to the just-passed budget deal to fund the government through September — Obama announced that he's just going to ignore that bit of legislative language defunding his "czars," a terribly Russian term for "advisers."
To much fanfare and nearly constant repetition, HBO unveiled its latest lavish drama last night. Considering the push it's been given, it was hard to like Game of Thrones, but the finished product was way better than anticipated. It was like Dynasty with zombies.
The American empire took another small step towards its inevitable fall this morning as the S&P cut its outlook on the nation's credit rating to "negative." The chance that our national credit rating will be downgraded from its current AAA rating some time in the next two years is now "at least one-in-three."
Nuclear submarine secrets were exposed in poorly "redacted" documents on a British government website. It turns out all you need to beat 007's team these days are some copy and paste skills.
Hardened criminal Lindsay Lohan sent her lawyer to ask the judge in her grand theft case "how much time she'll get if she agrees to a guilty or no contest" plea, according to Radar. At what point does a repeat criminal offender who has not held an honest job in years become a "career criminal"? Her notoriety is all that's propping her up, anyway. [Radar, image via Getty]
On Friday, the Department of Justice shut down the three largest online poker websites and charged 11 poker bigwigs with bank fraud, illegal gambling and money laundering. The online poker world has been thrown into turmoil, and hardcore players are being forced to go outside and interact with humans.
Wall Street analysts hoped Larry Page would lay out his vision for Google on his first earnings call as CEO. Instead Page spoke briefly, took no questions and left. Now it's downgrade time.
Matthew Morrison flees his rat-infested home. Nicolas Cage's binge-drinking weekend melee gets weirder. David Hasselhoff is "in like" with a woman half his age. Halle Berry's custody battle forces her to quit a play. Monday gossip is filthy.
