ABC is sending a really messed up message: It’s okay to give face time to a convicted batterer, but a same-sex kiss and racy dancing between men is offensive.

Good Morning America dumped Adam Lambert the morning after his appearance on the American Music Awards, but plan to air an interview with Chris Brown who was convicted of felony assault on his then girlfriend singer Rhianna. Slap-happy Brown’s interview was reportedly booked before Lambert got the un-vite, and details of him hitting the stage performing live has yet to be finalized.

A source at ABC told the New York Post than Lambert

was not canceled over a gay kiss. He showed himself to be unpredictable on live TV.

And Chris Brown is only unpredictable around Rhianna.

Through his organization American Solutions, Newt Gingrich invited Dawn Rizos–the owner of Dallas’ most upscale strip club The Lodge– to dine with him at the exclusive Capitol Club (where conservative porn star Carrie Prejean backed out of speaking engagement!) and informed her that she had been selected to receive an Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Now that’s the new GOP for ya! The handwritten note on the invite read

Dawn – Newt is looking forward to finally meeting you face to face

The cost to secure her spot with Newt? $5,000. Pretty sleazy huh? But it gets sleazier! Dawn got the the unvite! CNN reports that after the The Lodge sent in the check for five grand:

they were notified by a marketing company working for American Solutions that the invite had been mistakenly extended, and was being rescinded.

How rude! Well, Dawn didn’t get bitchy, and decided to use the cash for good; she donated the money to the Animal Guardians, a dog rescue shelter 40 miles outside of Dallas which now bears the name of the pooches’ unsuspecting and very impolite patron. Newt’s Nook is meant to provide a place for dogs to recuperate until they are adopted,and

Rizos also announced a Valentine’s Day special. The Lodge will donate an additional $100 to the Animal Guardians for each dog adopted through Valentine’s Day 2010, along with a gift certificate to The Lodge or Stratos Global Greek Taverna.

Journalist Mark Pittman who foresaw the subprime mortgage crisis and fought to open the Fed to scrutiny died November 25. Cause of death is not yet known; Pittman suffered from heart-related illness, reports Pittman’s employer, Bloomberg News.

Pittman’s reporting led to Bloomberg News suing the Fed to affirm

the public’s right to know about the central bank’s more than $2 trillion in loans to financial firms.

Pittman was profiled in Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s film American Casino; the documentary takes its name from a phrase the journalist coined about subprime mortgage lending. It was Pittman who had written, Cassandra-like, a number stories in predicting the collapse of the banking system. In the “Wall Street’s Faustian Bargain” series, he

explained how 5 percent of U.S. mortgage borrowers missing monthly payments could lead to a freeze in lending throughout the world.

He won the 2007 Gerald Loeb Award from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the highest accolade in financial journalism, for the  “Faustian Bargain” series.

Pittman strongly believed that citizen and lawmakers should understand how the financial system worked and why the financial crisis happened to in order the better affect public policy.

Hopefully, we will be able to inform the people enough to know how badly we’re getting screwed. We need to know how to prevent it from happening again, and we need to know who did it.

Bloomberg filed lawsuit against the Fed after Pittman’s requests under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act were denied. The lawsuit now continues without him. While the central bank won a delay pending an appeal, which is scheduled for the week of Jan. 4.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says:

congressional proposals to audit the Fed and strip it of regulatory powers as part of post-crisis reforms could damage prospects for economic recovery and financial stability going forward.

Reuters says Bernanke wrote in a column posted on the Washington Post’s website:

These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States.

Now that’s Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to have our brains turned to mush by endless versions of the barkings dogs brutalizing “Jingle Bells,” the effing Chimpmunks screeching “Christmas Christmas” and if you’re lucky maybe Madonna singing “Santa Baby” or Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song.”

But now there’s this: The. Best. Xmess. Song. Ever.

Especially with this video from Howie Klein at Crooks and Liars which gives you and fam something a chance to play “spot the biggest jerk” while munching leftovers.

We speculated yesterday–and Gawker caught up with us today–that the party crashing Salahis’ ties to the Indian ambassador and and attache may have lead to their appearance at the State Dinner, but the Indian Embassy spokes person Rahul Chhabra says “nay”:

Neither the embassy nor anyone from the embassy was involved in any way in their getting into the White House. Nor did we request any invitation for them

Maybe POTUS is behind their impromptu drop by? Here’s a photo pf them all from May and one from the State Dinner.

Raising CA's taxes, not paying his

California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a tax lien on his property for 79,064 according to documents obtained by TMZ. The lien filed in May indicates that the Governator

owes $39,047.20 from 2004 and $40,016.80 from 2005. The document also lists a section of the IRS code that suggests the debt may be penalties for a failure to report certain business transactions. Ooops.

Schwazenegger’s spokeshole told the Los Angeles Times

The governor has paid his taxes in full and on time. No one, including the IRS, has notified the governor of any issues whatsoever with his taxes. We are contacting the IRS to determine if the document in question, which appears to be a penalty for missing info and not for unpaid taxes, is legitimate and if there is any discrepancy to resolve.

And he parked his Porsche in a red zone a couple days ago. What an arrogant douche.

They might not have been on the official guest list for the State Dinner, but Tareq and Michaele Salahi managed to get their picture taken with President Obama and the Black Eyed Peas in May of this year at

the America’s Cup Rockin’ the Runway Televised Show, Washington DCs Largest Fashion Show, and Televised to 3 Million Viewers

Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the Virginia couple who allegedly crashed the White House’s first State Dinner Tuesday night have caused a huge embarrasment for the Administration and the Secret Service and potential problems for themselves. Or maybe they were invited, you know, just drop on by for coattails cocktails?

Tareq explained their apparently univinted presence to the Washington Post:

“India is the challenger in the America’s Polo Cup World Championships June 11/12 2010, and they are very excited in this first ever cultural connection being hosted on the DC National Mall since Polo is one of the primary sports in India.” When pressed about why they did not appear on the official list, he added, “it was last-minute attending.”

The America’s Polo Cup 2009  website lists

Tareq Salahi, Team Captain of the US Polo Team, Michaele Salahi, Model and Fashion expert

as

Government representatives

joined by India’s Ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar at the America’s Polo Cup announcing 2010′s match against India. Last year the America’s Polo Cup was sued by a Middleburg, VA caterer over alleged non-payment. The suit remains unresolved. That part isn’ mentioned on the polo promoting website, though, which explains

The America’s Polo Cup has a different nation challenging the United States every year through their head of state or Ambassador in Washington DC.

Aspiring reality star Michaele–she’s up for a spot on Real Housewives of DC and the Polo Cup event was taped as part of the show’s potential footage–posted on her Facebook page Wednesday just before the story broke that she

was honored to be invited to attend the First State Dinner hosted by President Obama & the First Lady to honor India. In June 2010, the America’s Polo Cup will be between INDIA & the UNITED STATES. Please join me in this cultural celebration of politics, diplomacy, fashion, sports, entertainment & family fun

an obvious attempt at damage control, since Tuesday night after appearing at the State Dinner Michaele had posted

Honored to have attended the state dinner at the White House…

Though it’s not known if the polo-focused socialites met POTUS, FLOTUS they did have their photos taken with VP Joe Biden, Congressman Ed Royce, an Indian dignitary the Salahi’s caption as “Ambassador Singh” in their photos (though there were a number of Singhs in the Indian delegation, including the guest of honor  Indian Prime  Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, none bore the title of ambassador), DC Mayor Fenty, CBS’s Katie Couric and ABC’ Robin Roberts.

The photo of the couple with the White House Chief of Staff was originally captioned “Ron Emanuel” but has since been corrected to “Rahm,” because it’s really important to spell the name of a the brother of a huge Hollywood agent correctly, especially if you’re up for a part on TV. Even if it is a reality program. Heck, Jeana Keough from Real Housewives of Orange County left the show allegedly because she wasn’t getting a raise from $30,000 an episode in the series’ fourth season, Star Magazine reported this week, and after the first season, other Housewives versions see about the same pay day.  And the Salahis have some expenses…Good luck with the show!

Don’t you think by now “Ron” Emanuel is burning up the phone lines to his agent bro Avi who in turn is making some calls to insure the misspellers don’t get cast on the DC show? Or even appear on any program ever? Rahm’s displeasure filtered through his brother probably sounds like this:

You interview those arrivistes $#@^s and you *&^%* never get %$#@^ any of my clients on any of your %$^# morning show again, on any show! No Oscar access for your network either, nada.   I don’t even want to see the Salahis’ &*%$ faces on ^%&%$ Fox!

And anticipate some IRS auditing for the social climbing couple as well.

But wait, maybe they were invited and Michaele simply made the hideous faux pas of posting to Facebook–she now has almost 4000 fans, an increase of 1500 in just 3 hours!–and this will end up being even more embarrassing when it’s revealed the Salahis were actually invited by the someone fomr the Indian delegtion and oops, their names were left off the printed list!

No matter what, it makes for great dinner conversation. Thank you Tareq and Michaele for sparing us stories about how well other members of our family are doing as we dodge questions about

that computer writing thing you do…Oh it’s not programming? There’s a lot of money still in that…Oh ‘blogging”… Meg has a cute blog on about the twins, it’s called Look Who’s Pooping Now. She send us the all the updates about them, and she just got promoted to VP!  So, when are you thinking about having kids, you’re not getting any younger and you know you dont need to be married any more, or even to have a man to have babies. But you know that, since you’re a Democrat…

Though their lives have been full of glamor–Tareq once played polo against Prince Charles at Windsor Castle and Michaele was a cheerleader for the Washington Redskins–the slef-promoting Salahis have been beset with family and financial drama over the past few years, including  lengthy, expensive feuds over the family winery and vinyards, Oasis, located in Fauquier County, Virginia. After  neighbors complained for almost a decade about noise and traffic from events and tourism at the winery and finally passed legislation to limit the number of commercial parties, Michaele, a former cheerleader registered as a lobbyist and

helped forged House Bill 2643, which removes the power of county zoning authorities to regulate “customary or usual” vineyard activities, such as wine dinners or weddings. The so-called buy-right legislation went into effect in Jul, 2007. Then Hurricane Isabella hit, wiping out their crop.

The Washington Post reports:

The elder Salahis said their son ran up too many expenses with tourism initiatives that could not be paid back. Tareq Salahi said the winery lost revenue because it was spending too much money in lawyers’ fees — $2 million — battling Fauquier officials over zoning restrictions of the winery events.

The intercine dispute began when the elder Salahis wanted to sell their share in the business to a group of investors that included Shaquille O’Neal.That deal and subsequent others fell through.  Family tensions escalated, including a civil suit against Tareq and Michaele filed by his parents, claiming interference with sale of the winery and seeking to evict the couple from their apartment on the property. The sheriffs department recorded 26 incident reports in 2007. The Washington Post reports that Tareq sued his mother’s Realtor for defamation (and $3.6 million dollars) and also claimed his parents’ lawyer assaulted him–both the Realtor and the lawyer deny the charges against them.

In 2008 Tareq told the Post that he has

met twice with a TV producer about using the dispute as the basis for a movie or miniseries.

Adam Lambert’s performance during the America Music Awards–which aired after 10pm during the “safe harbor” broadcasting period–has cause a bunch a of conservative bluenoses like the Liberty Counsel to get all worked up. Guess they haven’t read the FCC guidelines recently. For material to be “obscene” it

must meet a three-prong test: (1) an average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (i.e., material having a tendency to excite lustful thoughts); (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Lambert’s performance has artistic value, and even if you don’t care for his music. And enough people do like him that they voted him American Idol.

And as for as his performance being “indecent, there are regulations in place for that:

Indecent material contains sexual or excretory material that does not rise to the level of obscenity. For this reason, the courts have held that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be banned entirely. It may, however, be restricted to avoid its broadcast during times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience. The FCC has determined, with the approval of the courts, that there is a reasonable risk that children will be in the audience from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., local time.

In interviews since, and most recently on CBS’ The Early Show, Lambert made the point that it’s a reaction to the male-male kiss

If it had been a female pop performer … I don’t think there’d be nearly as much of an outrage at all.

And and his debut album was released the day after the show…hmmmm. Listen to the lyrics, it’s pretty clear he’s a super showman whether he was just carried away by the moment as he claims, or had it planned.

Perhaps in a wretched attempt at humor, last Bill O’Reilly wished his viewers a

Happy solstice unless you’re not religious

which makes no sense because even if he were Pagan–heavens and hell forfend! –the solstice isn’t for almost another month. And if he was trying to be witty or clever, like when I had blue hair and people would ask if that was my real hair color, he failed. Not even an epic fail but sort of little flatulent fail. Maybe he was trying to make fun of politically correct holiday wishes?