[Kristina]

I have the distinct honor of working in the Cannon Congressional building and outside today, there was a press conference with Michael Moore. It was outside so they could have a nice background shot of the Capitol so I sat out in the hot & humid weather with my suit on to listen. It was pretty cool because not many people knew about it so it was just me, 20 or so other staffers, and the media.

Most of the stuff was pretty old hat but I did learn some interesting things...

1. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) escorted Michael Moore to the podium, introduced him, and thanked him for this movie. They made a cameo in his documentary because (I'll try to keep it brief), back in 2000 when there were discrepencies over denying to let people vote in Florida, the CBC wanted to address the floor about this issue. To get the floor, you need the signature of one house member and one senator. Well they got a bunch of Representatives but not one (neither Democrat or Republican, he IS critical of both parties) would sign it. So as they went up the podium, Al Gore who is the President of the Senate, had to painfully gavel them to sit down because even though they were fighting for him, he had to fulfill his constitutional duties. So to people who say that we already know what Michael Moore is going to say, well...guess not. Besides all the war stuff and terrorism, it does bring up a good point about voting. I checked it out, and it did happen, and I'm still amazed (and quite disgusted).

2. This will probably unleash a can of worms for more discussion but the FEC wants to ban commercials for this movie past 7/30 because they believe that it is a corporate financed ad that can sway the election, and that's not allowed. Moore obviously says he will fight this and the Congress members who were with him said they would stand right along with him.

3. Many Congress members are having "movie screening parties" with their constituents back home and then having town hall meetings to discuss it. I thought that was really interested.

4. When it was released yesterday in NY, it had the highest gross of a movie premiere beating MIB (or something like that, it was really hot so I can't remember the exact terminology). It should be really interesting to see what the response is tomorrow. I'm going to the movies tomorrow but to see another movie...hopefully it's not too packed.

So there's my Capitol Hill report, if anyone sees me on CNN from the press conference, let me know.