Traditionally, Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball is held in the UK, but for the first time ever, the comedic fundraising event is coming to New York City on March 4th. The showcase will include Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Russell Brand, who presumably will try and redeem himself for remaking Arthur.

Terrible Fox News person Bill O’Reilly is apparently still very upset over the White House inviting lily-white rapper Common to a poetry event and so Jon Stewart ventured into enemy territory to try and help set the record straight.

The Daily Show host argued that Bono of U2 has also sung controversial lyrics and yet no one had a problem with him visiting Pennsylvania Avenue. Of course, the key difference is, he is white.

Although prominent Republicans are demanding that President Obama release postmortem photos of Bin Laden as an overall strategy to debase the White House, others on the left, like Jon Stewart (and liberal columnist Eugene Robinson), are motivated by other factors.

Last night on The Daily Show, Stewart argued why the pics should be distributed. He said Americans should see the true face of war, literally and made the point that people in the Middle East and elsewhere can handle the gruesomeness. Have you seen the unsanitized news programs the rest of the world watches lately?

Last night, Jon Stewart ripped a Republican politician for adding a provision to the 9/11 Health Care Bill that would require first responders who worked in the ruins of the World Trade Center to prove they’re not terrorists before collecting benefits.

He aptly describes it as “one final kick in the nuts” to emergency workers. But hey, at least we can rest assured that ailing illegal immigrants who also assisted in the cleanup won’t be able to get their greedy hands on any money now matter how badly their health has deteriorated. That’s patriotism!

Earlier this week, Ricky Gervais hit the circuit to to promote his new HBO special, Talking Funny. The comedian appeared on the Late Show and David Letterman told him there was nothing wrong with his now infamous Golden Globe jokes. Last night, Jon Stewart basically said the same.

Stewart offered his support and said the only apology Gervais owes is to him and that’s for setting the bar way too high as far as award shows go. Truthfully, the only people who didn’t enjoy those jokes were stuffy cunts and some of the privileged celebs that were being made fun of.

In last night’s episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart and his writers eviscerated CNN for devolving into an entertainment network that pulls content from YouTube and then intersperses it with important news bits that must be voted on to be watched. Their hosts have basically become video bloggers, but worse. Much worse.

Within a minute of their discussion, someone altered Jon Stewart’s Wiki-page and did just that, but not two minutes later, it was already changed back and locked “due to vandalism,” just as Wales had stated.

Click here for full size screengrab.

Jay-Z continues his press circuit for Decoded and last night appeared on The Daily Show, only half of which aired. But here’s the full, uncensored version that includes the more illuminating second part of the interview, where Hov discusses the main difference between how success is gauged in rap music versus rock and roll.

Conservative lawyer Ralph Kasarda complains, “California is not in sync with the federal mandate against giving Brownie points for being an illegal immigrant.” Yeah, like all the free lodging in federal detention facilities in they want, and separation from their families. STFU, Ralph Kasarda, if that’s your real name. |LA Times|

Other National Haps:

• Sen. Lisa Murkowski‘s now officially ahead in Alaska, and probably reenacting this video right now. |NY Times|

• House Rep. Charlie Rangel‘s “how are my ethics doing?” hearing was yesterday. How did it go? Well … he walked out, after saying he needed time to raise money for a new lawyer. His Etsy shop just isn’t doing that well. But his trial went on without him. We’ll see what happens. |NY Mag|

• Now the Republicans don’t want earmarks because the Tea Partiers say earmarks are bad. Former earmark addict and Kentucky ducky Mitch McConnell says he’ll support a ban on them, because he’s in an earmark 12-step program and that’s what his sponsor told him to believe. |NY Times|

• Rachel Maddow made a little movie showing John McCain contradicting himself over and over and over again. It’s 15 hours long and features a cameo appearance by Crispin Glover. |MSNBC|

• Meanwhile, Jon Stewart criticized McCain for his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” stance, which will please and amuse Stewart’s fans very much, to be sure. But it will do nothing to make McCain change his grumpy ol’ mind. |Gawker TV|

• Breaking: Our federal debt is crazy and dangerous and could ruin us forever. |WSJ|

• They can porno-scan you, they can touch you all over, and they can also search your laptop for suspicious pasta salad recipes. They’re your friendly TSA officers, and they’re here to help you stay safe. |NY Times|

• Just saw a headline for “Magic Shuts Down the Grizzlies” and at first glance thought it might be referring to “mama grizzlies.” Kinda sad/pathetic. |NY Times|

Local Haps:

• Police in 2009 fired the fewest number of shots, in the fewest number of incidents, in recorded history.” So what did they do all year, then? |NYPD Twitter|

• Tomorrow’s taxis, yesterday. Oh, and did you know about free cabs for a year? |NYC Taxi and Limo Commission’s Twitter|

• Oh wait, it’s actually $5,000 in cab rides for a year. That’s about two trips to the airport if the new fare increases happen. Maybe a romantic sojourn to Newark as well. |NYC Gov|

• Rep. Anthony Weiner said he’d change his tie between teevee appearances. |Weiner Twitter|

• Pat Kiernan promoted something called the Big Squat, which sounds like the super-squat but big. |Pat Kiernan’s Twitter|

• The mayor of Rio de Janiero came to town and gave Mayor Mike Bloomberg some clothes. |City Hall Twitter|

Photo at cafepress