Congress's Most Embarrassing Illegal Downloads

Technology enthusiasts often complain that members of Congress regulate industries they know precious little about. You may remember these complaints, most recently, when legislators began meddling with the cat-video-streaming tubes by trying to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Whatever you thought of the ill-fated SOPA, it's simply not true that Congress doesn't know anything about bittorrents and online piracy. They are experts at it.

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Tags: House of Representatives, Internet, Senate, SOPA

From the Pork Barrel: A Mockery of the System

* MSNBC's Chuck Todd is angry that Stephen Colbert is "making a mockery of the system" when that's clearly the news networks' job.

* SOPA and PIPA have been dropped by Congress, leaving legislators with no choice but to think up innovative new ways to tear down civilization.

* Chuck Norris joins the list of people who have endorsed Newt Gingrich going into the South Carolina primaries, marking the first time that he has ever been the least ridiculous person on any list.

* South Carolina politics continues its proud tradition of being the absolute worst.

Tags: Chuck Norris, House of Representatives, Internet, Newt Gingrich, Pork Barrel, Primaries, Republicans, Science & Technology, Senate, SOPA, South Carolina

Barack Obama Losing Hollywood Cash Over Opposition to SOPA

It must be a really awful feeling when you put so time, effort and money into the hobbling of an entire international information network in the interest of buying an extra Mercedes Benz for your daughter's 13th birthday only to see the President of the United States express his measured and highly-equivocal non-support.

Doesn't surprise me at all to see the top suits in Hollywood threatening to withhold their campaign contributions to Obama over this whole SOPA thing. I mean, if they can't buy a new technological Dark Age, then what good are all their billions of dollars anyway?

"We just feel very let down by the administration and Obama for not supporting us," one studio chief explained to [Deadline Hollywood]. "At least let him remain neutral and not go against it until we can get the legislation right. But Obama went against it. I'm personally not going to support him anymore and not give a dime anymore," another movie mogul who's also a well-known Obama supporter told me this week…

Several moguls have informed Obama’s newly anointed Hollywood re-election liason to the entertainment community Nicole Avant and her husband who is helping her, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, that they are pulling out of major fundraisers planned over the next few days and won’t participate in any more headed by Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (whom they see as in the pocket of the Internet giants like Google)…

Alarmed by the mogul boycott, Sarandos sent a personal plea to the Hollywood studio chiefs over the weekend begging them to continue supporting the Obama re-election campaign even though he knows they are disappointed with the Obama administration's position on the piracy bills. Several moguls, in response, "sent back word saying 'Fuck You' basically," one insider tells me, expressing how they feel used and abused by the President despite their campaign contributions.

Ugh, what a bummer of a story! I don't like it at all. It needs a happier ending. The President needs to come to his senses at the last possible moment, push SOPA through Congress and then shut down the entire Internet. And somehow that should make all the online pirates get electrocuted or something. (Look, it's not my job to figure out WHY. Just make it happen.)

Oh, and let's give the main Hollywood mogul a sidekick. Something cute. But also badass. Something that'll appeal to kids and adults, men and women, black people and white people. Like a gremlin who's kind of Asian-looking and supercool. He should rap. Let's make him CGI. But not that fake-looking CGI, the good kind. The kind you can't tell is CGI, but looks CGI. You know what I mean. And, fuck it! Let's get Michael Bay to direct it, and Meryl Streep will play Margaret Thatcher playing Barack Obama. It'll make $500 million the first weekend, and it'll win 40 Academy Awards.

And the best part is it'll make everybody realize how wrong they were to stop shoveling money into the Hollywood machine.

Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Barack Obama, California, Internet, Money, Movies, Music, Nancy Pelosi, Science & Technology, SOPA

The Daily Show on the Online SOPA Protests

I'm so torn on this SOPA thing. I don't know who to trust. The thousands of technophiles who make their living on the Internet and have created an information pipeline unlike anything that has ever been seen on this planet prior to a few years ago? Or the middle aged men and women who publicly ridicule science and innovation so that superstitious grandparents will continue to pull a lever for them every few years. There's so much to say for both sides!

Coverage continues with Senior Newest Correspondent Jessica Williams…

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11/10c.

Tags: Google, House of Representatives, Internet, Jessica Williams, Jon Stewart, Nerdiness, Science & Technology, Senate, SOPA, The Daily Show, Video, Wikipedia

From the Pork Barrel: Mitt Romney Is Delighted!

* Looking for a way to delight your prospective party nominee? Here's 30 sexy suggestions!

* Turns out Mitt Romney's so rich even his money gets luxurious vacations in the Caribbean.

* More evidence for an insider conspiracy to assassinate the public option.

* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar becomes world's tallest appointed global cultural ambassador.

* Well, in DC they say that the SOPA/PIPA congressional co-sponsors's hearts grew three sizes that day.

* Herman Cain and "Herman Cain" together at last!

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Basketball, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Herman Cain, House of Representatives, Mitt Romney, Pork Barrel, Primaries, Republicans, Senate, SOPA, Sports, Stephen Colbert