In case you weren't properly terrified at the prospect of President-elect Obama and his "terrorist pals" remaking this country into a communist police state, the right-wing blogosphere would like you to get a load of this prescient quote from a past leader of the Soviet Union:

AND SO IT BEGINS!

"We cannot expect Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism."

-Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev, 1959

Except, um, Comrade Khrushchev never said any such thing.  Read more...

Self-styled "culture jammers" the Yes Men put out a 14-page alternative-reality edition of the New York Times and distributed at least a million copies in New York and Los Angeles yesterday. Unsuspecting readers did a double-take.

"IRAQ WAR ENDS, TROOPS TO RETURN IMMEDIATELY," blared the front page headlines. In place of the usual Times motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print," the box in the upper-left-hand corner read, "All the News We Hope to Print."

Said a Times spokeswoman with a straight face, "This is obviously a fake issue of The Times."

• Web version of the fake NY Times
• Reuters coverage of the prank
• A Times editorial blogger reacts
• Yes Men press release

"Yesterday, the brass at ABC News issued orders forbidding reporters to wear lapel pin American flags or other patriotic insignia," accuses a popular forwarded email. "I urge you to boycott ABC and its sponsors and affiliates."

Boycott whomever you please, but know this: it was seven years ago in the aftermath of 9/11, not yesterday, that ABC asked its news anchors and reporters to eschew on-air displays of patriotism. Among other things, the network said it was concerned for the safety of American journalists working abroad.

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