I'm sharing a release that previews a Sunday financial column that will be running in newspapers nationwide.  It calls for an end to "insider rating" through the creation of a new federal agency, the Federal Financial Authority.

The FFA would replace credit rating agencies like Standard & Poor's and Moody's -- companies that are ultimately responsible for the subprime mess.

Love to get your opinions. Please spread the word.

The GOP's wheels keep on turning
Wanna get rid of Gov. Siegelman
If they sing some songs about the Southland
Maybe we'll forget they lied again
And they know it's a sin, yes

John F. Kennedy allayed fears about a Catholic becoming president with this famous address in 1960.  Now, Mitt Romney has announcedthat he will make a similar speech about his Mormon faith.

Karen Hughes hailed her accomplishments upon leaving her public diplomacy post today.

To bolster her argument, she held up the following chart. We think it must have been upside down or something, but we're not sure.

The media didn't ask any questions about it, so we guess it doesn't matter.

Good evening. In the life of all flying reindeer, there come moments that decide the direction of Goldilocks and reveal the character of the three bears.

We are now at such a moment.

Here is the official statement on Britney's performance at the VMAs by Britney's new flack, David Petraeus:

Mr. Perez Hilton, ranking bloggers, members of the tabloid media, thank you for the opportunity to provide my assessment of the situation at the VMAs, and to discuss the recommendations I recently provided to my client, her entourage and her accidental children for the way forward.

The entertainment objectives of the VMA performance have, in large measure, been met. The singing and dancing challenges at the VMAs, however, were exascerbated by malign actions by Sarah Silverman and Kanye West. Lack of adequate leg-muscle capacity, lingering baby weight, and easily located quantities of Haagen-Dazs and vodka have added to Britney's difficulties. To compensate, Britney has successfully employed non-kinetic means for singing and dancing.

From Broadcasting & Cable:

Ailes Cracks Whip as Fox News Slips

Slackers at Fox News Channel, you're on notice! Your boss is not pleased. Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes is on the warpath following his network's recent ratings slump, and he won't hesitate to clean house to turn things around.

So far during the second quarter, the No. 1 cable news channel's primetime schedule has dropped 22% in its core 25-54 demo and 8% in total viewers.

Paris Hilton: "I worked hard for all this. I tell girls that if you basically work hard all your dreams will come true."

George W. Bush: "I inherited half my father's friends and all his enemies."

So -- why are we falling for these fake Horatio Alger stories?  Perhaps because over the past 20 years, class mobility in the United States has increasingly become a myth itself.

More commentary at Media Orchard.

This is just a random musing. I think it's important to always reinforce and remind ourselves of our core principles, particularly on the issue of economic justice.

We must defend the New Deal and know why we defend it.

Our friend Bill O'Reilly has launched a contest for people who want to "let (him) have it" in a live, in-studio debate:

"During the month of February six lucky "Factor" viewers will be flown to New York City or Los Angeles ... with hotel and meals paid for by us. All you have to do is convince us by e-mail (and later by telephone) that you are a good debater and that you can hold your own with O'Reilly on a topic of your choosing."

Instructions for entering the contest, along with the rules, are at Bill's Web site.

"Target destruction is insufficient and perhaps even counterproductive in circumstances where the United States is seeking regime change in a manner that gains support of the defeated populace for the new government.

"Such circumstances require large numbers of properly trained ground troops for the purposes of securing population centers and infrastructure, maintaining order, providing humanitarian relief, and facilitating revived delivery of such fundamental services as electrical power and potable water."

The entire piece is fascinating.

Supposedly, Americans love the underdog. Maybe it's true for sports teams and movie heroes, but it doesn't appear to be the case for certain well-meaning underdog causes -- specifically, environmentalism and animal rights.

Despite the fact that activists are well-intentioned, poorly compensated (if they are compensated at all), and are battling self-interested opponents with exponentially greater resources, certain radio and cable-news loudmouths have made it fashionable to ridicule their efforts.

And so now we have a pair of commercials -- Kia's "Save the Greenbacks" campaign -- that effectively belittle these activists through parody. (It adds insult to injury that the spots are from a car-maker.)

Think Progress reports that MSNBC rock-star Chris Matthews defended Tom DeLay (who stepped down as House majority leader) by saying he "really lives basically, like a regular middle-class person. He doesn't live well at all."

Here are facts about DeLay's lifestyle:

"As Tom DeLay became a king of campaign fund-raising, he lived like one, too. He visited cliff-top Caribbean resorts, golf courses designed by PGA champions and four-star restaurants, all courtesy of donors who bankrolled his political money empire...

I'd like to introduce you to DeSmogBlog, a new blog by James Hoggan, founder of the Canadian PR firm JHA.

DeSmogBlog's "manifesto" states:

"There is a line between public relations and propaganda -- or there should be. There is a difference between using your skills, in good faith, to help rescue a battered reputation and using them to twist the truth -- to sow confusion and doubt on an issue that is critical to human survival.

On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite concluded the evening news with these remarks:

---

Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I'm not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff.  

Day after day in the blogosphere, right-wing pundits are unearthing shocking evidence of liberal media bias -- most recently, a poorly Photoshopped newspaper photo of Condoleezza Rice and a mysterious "X" that appeared over Dick Cheney's face during a televised speech.

Now, you and I -- as reasonable human beings of any political stripe -- would probably assume these incidents were inadvertent errors or, at worst, the unendorsed actions of lone pranksters within the news organizations involved.

But you and I don't see what the pundits see. They see the grand scheme. (Or at least, they see the tremendous Web traffic their conspiracy theories attract.)

I was on Barbara Ehrenreich's Web site (I'd heard she'd become a blogger), and I found it quite amusing that she's now launching a "local career networking" campaign in association with her new book, Bait and Switch.

Barbara's a talented writer, and I share her views on a number of issues. But Bait and Switch is a non-starter, as I explain in my Media Orchard post, "Barbara Ehrenreich Can't Find a PR Job; Therefore, the Economy is Crumbling."

For the book, Barbara assembled a fake resume documenting non-existent public relations experience; then, she spent months searching (unsuccessfully) for a PR job in the $60-100K range. She concludes that the white-collar middle-class has been sold a bill of goods, and that because of downsizing we'll soon all be working at Wal-Mart for $8 per hour.

I'm no wild-eyed liberal; I've voted for members of both parties (as well as independents) in the past.

But there's something about the nonstop "liberal media conspiracy" theorizing of certain right-wing pundits that makes me go nuts. It's goofy stuff that I would normally find amusing -- but then I realize that millions of people actually fall for this demagoguery, and I lose it.

The latest conspiracy blogstorm involves the mysterious "X" that appeared over Dick Cheney's face during a Nov. 22 CNN telecast. Today, Matt Drudge has the following late-breaking development in the CNN conspiracy: