WOW.

Things are moving even faster than I thought in the re-ordering of the American economy. It’s four PM on Wednesday 3/18/09. Although many people don’t know or don’t yet understand, the link between government and finances has been totally changed.

Yes, we had AIG (see below), and the foreclosures.

But now… check this…. the U.S. government is buying a TRILLION DOLLARS in mortgaged backed securities in order to create instant liquidity in the markets (read: cash you can borrow to buy a home or a market.) I never thought the hip hop chant to “make money money, make money money mon-EEE” would become so literal.

Yes, I am a news geek; and a politics geek; and I am astounded. I linked from the NYT to this handy dandy URL you can share with your friends. tinyurl.com/USmakes-fakes-Money.

I wrote the article below earlier this morning. Already it seems dated. But bear with me as I breathe.

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I’ve been guesting on WNYC’s syndicated morning show The Takeaway with John Hockenberry. (Adaora Udoji is on maternity leave.) We’ve been talking a lot about branding. Some folks told us about the brands they missed (“Bit ‘o Honey” and the “Reggiebar” candy bars each got a vote).

Other folks talked about what they would rename/rebrand “too big to fail/too small-minded to give up the multimillion dollar bonuses” insurer AIG as…

Amigos in Gold

Amateurs Implementing Guile

Anti Inflammatory Geeks

A**holes Invoking God

As If God

Appalling In Greed

(And that’s just from the journalists!)

Listeners wrote, among others:

Absolutely Insufferable Greed

Angry Investor Gross

But let me take a turn here.

Yesterday, I was invited to address the US Mission to the United Nations, now led by Ambassador Susan Rice. I was part of a panel that examined how and why then-Senator Obama won the Presidency; and what lay ahead. I spoke about Brand Black, or blackness as a mature political brand, just as hip hop is now a mature media brand. Every product/entity/person who wants market share starts out in the experimental, spaghetti against the wall.

Of all the people who start blogs, relatively few keep it up and even fewer find a longterm audience. If they do find an audience—not just bloggers but political candidates, preachers, musicians, etc.—then they enter the brand-building phase. They try to bring on a core constituency first, then expand that constituency. For hip hop, the core constituency was urban blacks/Latinos, adding graf artists, b-boys and b-girls, streetcorner wisemen…. and then multicultural urban youth… and then multicultural global youth. As hip hop has become a mature brand, you see stars like Ice Cube and Queen Latifah moving into mainstream family-oriented film; P. Diddy and Russell Simmons crossing onto Broadway; Simmons into philanthropy and spirituality; and Jay Z into the economic CEO/Beyonceed celebrosphere. My argument in the speech, which I will elide, concerned the use of hip hop as a feedback loop that helped make blackness a culturally mature brand that had political capital.

Since this is a blog post and not a dissertation, peep this:

First, check out Jay Z solo.

Then, Obama on the stump.

Then the remix:

When Obama first made the gesture, it split the world into three camps: people who thought he actually had dirt on his shoulder (maybe three people or less worldwide); people who got the intent of the gesture (back up off this; you don’t matter); and people who got the specific reference to hip hop and the 2003 hit by Jay Z.

The use of hip hop signifiers and metaphors, as well as support from the hip hop community, really drove the Obama campaign at first. The hip hop generation (or at this point, really two generations) were the “early adopters” of Brand Obama. The Civil Rights generation were later adopters of Brand Obama. And Brand Obama stood on…. the shoulders of the Civil Rights generation, who took blackness from an exiled/discredited “brand” among anti-integrationist whites to a nearly-mature brand that lacked one thing… the sense that a black man could be president.

I didn’t know that Obama would win. No one did. But Obama used hip hop to leverage early youth support, which in turn built numbers for what political scientist William Jelani Cobb of Spelman calls “The Black History Month Massacre” (Obama winning 10 Dem primaries and caucuses in a row), which in turn helped justify Civil Rights generation political figures/superdelegates like John Lewis switching their allegiance from Sen. Clinton to Sen. Obama.

In the end, Brand Obama leveraged hip hop to take the White House… a final signal that “Brand Black” is mature and thriving. What happens next? I don’t know. But I’m eager to see, hear, and write more, especially now that politics has a soundtrack.

Puff! The Magic Olympian … An old pic of Mike Phelps getting a gold medal high surfaced and had everyone in a hissy this week. As of yesterday, USA Swimming suspended Phelps from partaking in any competitions and cut off all funding for the next three months. The cereal chumps over at Kellogg announced that they will not renew their sponsorship deal when Phelps’ contract expires at the end of February. If that ain’t enough, some punk sheriff is trying to charge the swim douche for breaking the law in his county. As for Phelps, well, he says he’s sorry, but what he really means is—he didn’t inhale. No sirree. The only “high” he knows is swimmer’s high. So get off his back.

All my Beyoncé haters—now put your hands UP! If y’all don’t remember, Beyoncé sang “At Last” for our new fuzzy wuzzy prezzy and his First Lady on the night of the inauguration. Well, the original sanger of the song—the venerable Etta James—has stepped forward to announce that she ain’t too happy with her tune getting hijacked by the newbie songstress. In fact, she’s p*ssed and says Beyoncé is “going to get her ass whooped.” Whoopee!

F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! Christian Bale has a one-f*cking-word vocabulary and I’m f*cking feelin’ it. Anyone want to f*cking dance? I f*cking thought so. F*ck!

Mickey Rourke must be a fan of Blue’s Clues. (No surprise there.) And who’s a fan of Mickey Rourke? This woman. …And it’s a sad, sad day in France.

Poor Miley Cyrus. If people aren’t calling her an underage skank, then they’re calling her a racist. Skanky? She can live with that. But why would anyone think she’s racist? I mean, she was just saying “cheese” and making a funny face. It’s not like she was photographed sucking on a bong or anything—I mean, that would be totally offensive.

Guess whose opportunistic booty might pose nude for Playboy. Don’t think too hard. Here’s a hint: She recently showed up for an important (nationally televised) audition wearing her highest stripper heels and some version of a bathing suit. And she smacked a big, wet one on in-the-closet Seacrest—and thought he actually liked it. So, who we got?

And 14 cheers (or jeers?) for the mom who gave birth to octuplets and already had six youngins under the age of 8 crawling around at home. Nadya Suleman is an insta-celeb because all eight of her babes made it through the delivery (rare!) and, despite being born nine weeks premature, are growing stronger every day. She also made headlines because she’s a single momma and lives at home with her parents—who filed for bankruptcy about a year and half ago. The media demand for Suleman is out of control (uh, TV show offers?), so she hired a PR agency to represent. The hot momma decided to give her first interview to “The Today Show”—of course—and portion of the interview aired today.

According to HollywoodLife.net, Superstar Beyoncé recently released a statement saying, “I am so honored that I will be performing for President Obama and the First Lady. To sing At Last while they have their first dance is a dream come true.”

This statement about her Inauguration 2009 performance is all good except for one thing—one big thing. It was supposed to be a secret. The site says the Presidential Inaugural Committee had hoped the song would remain “classified” until the President and his wife stepped on the floor for their first dance on inauguration night. Yikes, talk about letting the cat out of the bag.

Beyoncé’s inability to keep this bit of news hush-hush may be a surprise to her fans. After all, she kept her wedding plans to rapper Jay-Z a secret for months. Come on Beyoncé, where’s the tight-lipped Sasha Fierce when you need her?

Are you interested in hearing the original version of At Last by Etta James? Listen to the song at Last.fm. Eventhough Beyoncé has a golden voice, she has some legendary shoes to fill on this one.

They tried to make me go to a health spa, and I just crawled, crawled, crawled…Amy Winehouse, who is supposed to be detoxing at the Le Sport Spa in the Caribbean, is keeping a low profile—so to speak. Winehouse is so hard-up for a drink that she’s getting on all fours, crawling up to tables, and stealing drinks from other guests—which leads me to our quote of the week: A source at the resort told The Sun that they keep catching Winehouse “crawling past bars, or hiding behind chairs. She grabs guests’ drinks and runs off, like a squirrel with a nut.”

Question: Who packs an empty (but very real) grenade into his carry-on luggage? Answer: Johnny Jackass. LAX security officers noticed a suspicious-looking explosive in Johnny Knoxville’s bag yesterday and pulled him aside for investigation. No explosives were in tow, but a legit grenade was definitely on board. Ha. Ha. Ha. Knoxville was given a citation and promptly released to go make his flight. Special treatment much? [UPDATE: Knoxville says a wardrobe assistant had put the prop in his suitcase.]

Wanna see Ryan Seacrest get the cold shoulder from Brangelina at the Golden Globes? Pop some popcorn. This is good! (And in less important news: Kate Winslet was a big winner, taking home two globes. Slumdog Millionaire went all Michael Phelps on us too, with four globes. “30 Rock” kicked ass, as usual. And then there was Mickey Rourke.) For more serious coverage of the Globes, click here.

Who’s itching for a little more attention before the cool kid comes to town? I’ll give you one guess.

Spears and Poehler and Duff, Oh My! Sarah Jessica Parker reportedly wants Brit-Brit to partake in the Sex and the City movie sequel. Perhaps we should remind SJP that Brit’s last trip to the box office was for a little whoop-dee-doo called “Crossroads,” which proved to be a total flop. In small screen news, Amy Poehler will star in a new “Office”-inspired sitcom on NBC. The sitcom will follow the ins-and-outs of small-town government bureaucrats. Hmm. Finding humor in the incompetence of our government officials and administrators? Sounds more like the “Twilight Zone” to me! And here’s the real kicker: Hillary Duff will star in a new legal sitcom on NBC. Yes, that’s right—a legal sitcom. Duff will play a young lawyer in a Doogie Howser-ish sort of role. The name of the series? “Barely Legal.” And no, it’s not a porno.

TOP GUN OF THE WEEK: Chelsey B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, the “Hero of the Hudson.” Can I get a “W00t! W00t!” for the pilot who kept calm and kicked ass when his plane lost both of its go-go-gadget engines yesterday? Sully’s four decades of experience saved 155 lives, including that of an infant’s, when he managed to execute an impromptu landing in the Hudson River.  Bad. Ass.

And finally — Beyoncé, is that YOU? . . .

Hillary Rodham Clinton may be the next secretary of state. Obama’s team has begun to scour former president Bill Clinton’s financial ties for signs of conflict of interest, signaling to some Democratic insiders that the new administration is considering his wife for the cabinet post.

President-elect Barack Obama appeared on 60 Minutes yesterday to discuss the transition to the White House from both political and personal standpoints. He stressed the need to quickly assemble a national security team to prevent vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks during the transition, and he said it would be his job to restore confidence in the financial and consumer markets. Of course, he also had to address the issue of picking the presidential pooch. Also yesterday, Obama officially resigned from the U.S. Senate.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Democratic National Convention protesters are being vindicated. Seven of the first nine defendants to face trial for participating in “anarchic demonstrations” have been cleared. One was convicted, and the other faces a retrial after the jury deadlocked. In all, 106 people were arrested in Denver on the opening night of the convention, and 50 of those eventually pleaded guilty. Defendants and their attorneys are calling the acquittals an embarrassment to Denver and are calling for the remaining cases to be dropped.

Dan Rather’s quest to clear himself may be paying off. The former CBS Evening News anchor had been pushed out after it came out that an investigation on 60 Minutes relied on false documents to show that President George W. Bush was given special treatment by theTexas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Rather has invested $2 million of his own money into a lawsuit against his former employer, and he has uncovered some documents that suggest CBS actively sought G.O.P.-approved panelists to investigate how it handled the Bush segment, apparently so the network could stop Republican criticism.

MTV’s Total Request Live had its final show on Sunday, but not without a three-hour star-jammed celebration featuring live performances by Beyoncé, Ludacris, Nelly, Snoop Dogg, Backstreet Boys and 50 Cent. Many other stars attended. Eminem and Christina Aguilera called in their congratulations. The show spanned a decade and 2,500 episodes.

Paula’s biggest stalker commits suicide. A young woman, age 30, was found dead in a vehicle parked in front of Abdul’s house on Tuesday night. The woman, who unsuccessfully auditioned for season five of “American Idol,” called herself Paula Goodspeed and had been making life-sized drawings of Abdul since she was a kid. Her death appears to be a drug-induced suicide. Simon Scowl was his usual surly self (and then some) during Goodspeed’s audition. (Straight up, now tell me: What mature adult makes fun of the metal in someone’s mouth?) We can only wonder if “American Idol” will continue to air its pre-season contestant-bashing episodes anymore.

Now that we got a black president in the White House, what we need is . . . a black Wonder Woman? Beyoncé, err, Sasha Fierce, wants to star in a new “Wonder Woman” remake. And I want to change my name to Punky Brewster and go have a tea party with the purple Teletubby, but you don’t see me going public with that. Well. Until now.

It’s official: The world as we know it may come to an end in 2011.

Family-friendly entertainment? Not when Tracy Morgan’s in the house. If you missed his appearance on “The Today Show” this week, you missed the most inappropriate utterance ever aired on morning television. (And Kathie Lee Gifford, of all people, thinks “there’s a lot of truth” to his remarks. How the heck would she know? That woman has never stepped her stilettos in any ghetto. Please.)

Is that? No. It can’t be. That’s just—wait, is it? Really? Eww. Are they sure? The National Enquirer says it has the dirt on sweet ol’ Cindy McCain locking lips with some other Johnny who resembles “a washed-up ’80s rock musician.” Fact or fiction? Who knows, but the real question is: What’s this musician’s stance on the energy crisis?

Since when is Newsweek in the business of talking dirty? The mag wants to break the news on a nine-months-from-now baby boom. Reporter Jessica Bennett is taking a poll: Who went home on Nov. 4 and had a little celebratory sexytime fun? And who went home and made a beeline for the shower to wash the Republican stench out of her hair? (Only me? Yeah, that’s what I thought.)

Anyone in the market for a conceited genius? He’s sexy, beyond talented, and itchin’ for some babies, ladies! Kanye West, who split from his fiancée last April, told People magazine that he’s single and ready to mingle— it’s just a matter of finding a woman who can tolerate that colossal ego he carries around and see through all the fame (not to mention those damn blinds) he’s got goin’ on.

Make way for an even littler Lil Wayne! Rapper extraordinaire Lil Wayne became the daddy of a lil baby boy on Wednesday. Dwayne Carter III was born in a Cincinnati hospital to a mystery momma. Couple this with the MVP of the Year prize Lil Wayne took home from the BET Hip-Hop Awards last Sunday, and I think it’s safe to say it’s been an good lil week for our fave lil lyricist.

Speaking of offspring, make way for another self-satisfied singer/songwriter/douchebag extraordinaire. John Mayer is the alleged father of the alleged fetus growing inside Jennifer Aniston’s allegedly not malnourished (and thereby pregnable) body. For real.

Is Will Smith from Planet Unicorn? Truly reliable sources say The Fresh Prince has been palling around and “getting jiggy” with male prostitutes. Add Tom Cruise into the mix and, well, need I say more?

In other news you wish you didn’t care about (but let’s be honest), Britney Spears’ ongoing trial for driving without a license was declared a good-for-nothing mistrial on Tuesday. Obviously, the jury’s inclination to see Britney make a supposed “comeback” far outweighed its civic duty to throw her in the slammer for six whole paparazzi-free months. Priorities, priorities.

Coachella’s coming! Dates have finally been announced for the artsy music fest that brings everyone and their ex-boyfriend’s momma’s uncles out. Spend your college savings for three days of unforgettable, blazing hot magic here.

LA folks, win tickets to see Flosstradamus. Subdrive is giving two tickets to see the Chi-town DJ duo at the Avalon on Friday October 10. The homeboys will be performing alongside Marshall Barnes and Hyphy Crunk. Ch-ch-check it here.

Coldplay and Jay-Z, can I get a wha, huh? Yet another legendary crossover collabo goes down as Coldplay will be releasing a new digital-only EP that will include a remix of their latest single, “Lost!” featuring the Jigga Man himself. The four-track mix comes out November 10.

Hold up, what about Mrs. Jay-Z? Beyonce shows she’s the quite the overachiever once again, releasing two new singles at once. The singles, “If I Were A Boy” and “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” are rumored to be just a couple out of 70 songs that homegirl recorded for her latest self-titled album coming out November 18. Can you say perfectionist?!?

Usher reveals tour dates to the ladies. The one-month club hop, dubbed “One Night Stand: Ladies Only Tour” will be catered to women, but men are allowed as well. My question is, who did he think he was catering to in the first place? Catch him in the “intimate setting” at New York 11/3; Chicago 11/13; San Francisco 11/18; Los Angeles 11/19-20; and Las Vegas 11/21. For more dates and ticket info, check here.

Ah, yes, John Legend’s more like it. The singer-songwriter will be embarking on a worldwide tour starting November 19 in Minneapolis. Special guest Raphael Saadiq will be accompanying Mr. Legend for the first leg. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout! Check out dates here. Legend’s upcoming album, Evolver, drops October 28.

Umm, okay. Chi-town’s finest rapper Common seems to be with the in-crowd these days (walk away from the light!), Weezer breaks five world records in the new “Troublemaker” music video, and Moby starts a punk band. Epic fail for all? You be the judge.