Recently in Controversy Category
Hoping to make a fashion statement, a 25 year old Manhattan student decided to sport an "Obama is My Slave" T-shirt. Onlookers were offended, and some teenage girls shoved and spat on her. She was surprised by this response. (What kind of dumbass is she?)
She is now suing Apollo Braun, who designed the shirt and sold it to her for $69. Braun says the First Amendment shields him against the student's lawsuit.
Braun has designed and sold other shirts with anti-Obama slogans. The most popular is his "Who killed Obama?" shirt.
Braun says that he "can't stand" Obama "because he is Muslim." Obama is Christian, not Muslim.
New ad by the Tennessee Republican Party targets Michelle Obama. The ad takes a 5 second clip from one of Obama's speeches and plays it over and over again to critically characterize who she is and what she stands for.
Is this okay? Do you think Michelle Obama fair game? Let us know in the comments.
By the way, we haven't seen a potential first lady attacked like this in an ad before (absent a simultaneous attack on her husband). If you know of such an ad, give us the heads up in the comments, k?
What nutcases are wearing now. Photo credit: Review Journal
Why does Hillary Clinton keep getting the short end of the stick when it comes to celebrity endorsements? Barack Obama gets Oprah, and Hillary gets stuck with Roseanne Barr. Anyway, much to Hillary's chagrin, Roseanne announced her endorsement with this rant against Barack and Oprah on her blog (printed as written, with spelling errors and all):
barak obama
is an empty suit selling "hope" in lieu of Truth. Oprah Winfrey helped to elect Arnold Swartzenegger. I have no doubt that she voted her purse by doing this, as she is a large land owner in California, and that ilk fears Dems because they do not want to pay their "fair share" of Cali tax. Oprah has given us Swartzenegger and Dr. Phil. If that was not offensive enough to decent thinking people, now she brings us Obama. He has no ideas, no plan and nothing to add other than the cynical pacification of the masses with bedtime stories about hope, while calling Unions "special interest groups" that need to be done away with.
Obama votes with Bush constantly funding this terrible endless war. Oprah, you play the race card and the gender card too.
You are a closeted republican and chose Barak Obama because you do not like other women who actually stand for something to working American Women besides glamour, angels, hollywood and dieting!
When Americans find out that Obama backs right wing corporate racist anti worker bullshit, they will not vote for him, and the victory will go to the most racist right wing republican ever.... Mccain, who is a fascist! That the culinary service workers in vegas have promised barak their vote,( he is anti union in his votes) over edwards, who is a pro-union man, just proves how stupid americans are and how they can be tricked so easily by the color of a person's skin...exactly what MLK hated!
Obama doesn't even back reproductive rights for any woman! It is historical that Oprah Winfrey, beloved of women, chooses a flashy man with small credentials over a seasoned woman politician with 35 years of experience...and sells that to the female demographic who look to her for inspiration!
She backpedalled in a follow-up post:
I am so sorry for sounding like I don't like Oprah or Obama. I do. Oprah has been a force for good for a long time, and I just got carried away with my preference for Hilary over Obama. I think she is smarter and better than he is, but either of them is better than any Republican, and will get my vote no matter who ends up on top. I got upset because I felt Oprah was adding to the divisiveness in this country. I am sorry Oprah, I really do admire and love you for all the good you do and have done in this country and the world at large. I am just so worried about another Republican getting in, my stomache hurts and I can't sleep, and I go over the top sometimes!
Everybody knows by now that Rudy Giuliani was getting it on with then mistress and now 3rd wife Judith Nathan, while he was still married to 2nd wife Donna Hanover. Giuliani made frequent trips Nathan's Southhampton condo to "do it." That's the old news.
The new news is that he billed the travel and security expenses to New York City taxpayers, and allegedly tried to hide it by charging the accounts of obscure city agencies. "There is really no good reason to do this except to have nobody know about it," a former New York City budget director told Politico.
None of this is good news for Giuliani's presidential campaign. "Using public money to carry on an affair, and do it in a way that is designed to conceal that fact from the public, people would think that reflects on his character," David Rohde, a political science professor at Duke University, told the AP. "And most especially social conservatives, who are dicey about him in the first place."
See also:
Giuliani biled obscure agencies for trips [Politico]
Security billing case for Rudy Giuliani for Rudy Giuliani's Hampton trysts with Judith Nathan raises questions [AP]
Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire received phone calls from a mysterious source that questioned Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. Such calls are known as "push polls" - "surveys" that are intended to spread negative information about a candidate, rather than collect information about a voter's opinion of a candidate.
Voters who received calls were asked questions that could give a negative impression of Romney based on his faith, such as, "Some people say the Mormon church is a cult, would that make you more or less likely to vote for Mitt Romney?" Conversely, the calls included questions that could lead to a positive impression of rival John McCain, such as, "If you knew [John McCain] was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, would that make you more or less likely to vote for him?"
New Hampshire is investigating the source of the calls, as New Hampshire law requires all campaign advertising to identify the candidate being supported. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have denied that their campaigns had anything to do with the calls. Whoever did it, this is so not cool.
See also:
Romney: Anti-Mormon phone calls 'un-American' [CNN]
Mitt Romney, Push Polls And McCain-Feingold [CBS News]
N.H. to probe negative calls tarbeting Romeny campaign [The Boston Globe]
A 19 year old woman who was kidnapped and gang raped 14 times by 7 men in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in prison. The sentencing court said that the young woman violated laws prohibiting women from being alone with unrelated men.
See also:
Ruling Jolts Even Saudis: 200 Lashes for Rape Victim [The New York Times]
Saudi court ups punishment for gang-rape victim [CNN]
Saudi gang-rape victim is jailed [BBC]
Saudi orders court lashes, prison for rape victim [The Boston Globe]
Mikhail Gorbachev and his pet Louie.
Former leader of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, knows the power of a hot handbag. He appeared in a recent advertisement for Louis Vuitton, seated next to a Louis Vuitton bag in a limo.
The ad has caused drama, because of a Russian magazine poking out of the open bag. The headline of the magazine (when tranlated from Russian to English) says, "The Murder of Litvinenko: They Wanted to Give Up the Suspect for $7,000."
Litvinenko is Alexander V. Litvinenko, the former KGB spy who died last Novermber after being poisoned with a radioactive material. On his deathbed, Litvinenko said that President Vladimir V. Putin was behind his poisoning. British officials later charged Andrei K. Lugovoi, an associate of Putin, with the crime.
So the drama is all about whether the magazine was placed in the ad on purpose, and if so, what does it mean? Louis Vuitton, its ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, and a representative for Gorbachev all deny that the magazine placement was intentional or designed to send a message.
Not everyone is buying their story though. As one observer told the New York Times, "In an industry where sesame seeds are hand-placed on a hamburger bun by food technicians before a shot, one would reasonably assume that this was not something that happened by chance. Ads like these get art-directed to the very millimeter and airbrushed so that the advertiser gets exactly what they want.”
Come on, Louis Vuitton. We may be polichicks, but we're not dumb broads.
CNN reports that former New York City Police Chief, Bernard Kerik, has been indicted by a federal grand jury. Details of the charges against him are not expected to be available until the indictment is unsealed on Friday.
Prosecutors had been investigating Kerik for bribery and tax evasion. He admitted to misdemeanor charges of financial impropriety one year ago.
President Bush nominated Kerik to head the Department of Homeland Security in 2004. Kerik withdrew his name from consideration after allegations that he hired a nanny with questionable immigration status surfaced.
Kerik is a longtime friend and protege of Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Frenemy Giuliani has called his previous support of Kerik "a mistake."
According to CBS News, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating 6 televangelist ministries for financial misconduct. He reportedly wants to make sure that the ministries are spending their flock's money in compliance with the requirements of their IRS tax exempt status, rather than using it to pay for the evangelists' personal lavish lifestyles. The six ministries under investigation are led by Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn.
"Ahaaaaa.... Smell that smell. That's the smell of freedom," said Drew Carey, as he walked into Farmacy while filming a video on marijuana use and the war on drugs. Farmacy is a store in California where you can buy marijuana legally, as long as you have a doctor's note. (Hmmm. Good to know... uh, in case we ever get hurt or something.)
Anyway, Carey wants to legalize marijuana for medical use. Okay, Carey really wants to legalize weed for any use, but his first battle is to push the federal government to legalize medical marijuana.
“I think it’s clear by now that the federal government needs to reclassify marijuana," Carey said in the video. "People who need it should be able to get it – safely and easily."
Carey interviewed several people in the video who use marijuana for medical purposes, including Bill Lehey, who is a self-described gun-toting, right-wing Republican. "If you want my gun, you better take it off my dead body," Lehey said. He also said that he supports legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, because he needs it to treat backpain. He said that sometimes his back hurts so much that it wakes him up at night. "Two puffs" of weed, and he's sleeping like a baby.
This video is part of The Drew Carey Project, a Reason.tv video series in which Carey plans to address the political issues of the day, such as traffic congestion and immigration. You can watch it below.
Carla Babb, a journalism student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, wondered why John Edwards based his poverty focused presidential campaign in an affluent Chapel Hill neighborhood, rather than in a low income community that would better reflect his message about ending poverty. She videotaped interviews with Chapel Hill residents about the issue (they were split), and the video was later posted on the University's website and YouTube.
The video got few hits and went virtually unnoticed, until the Edwards campaign tried to get it taken off the web. Babb said, "I was completely shocked to get a phone call from the Edwards campaign saying that the story was straight from the Republican Party and that we needed to take it down." The campaign also threatened that leaving the video up would harm the Edwards' relationship with UNC (ie., no more alumni contributions from us, Tar Heels!). Both John and Elizabeth Edwards attended law school at the University.
See also:
Edwards campaign tried to stop student's TV story, professor says [AP]
Edwards tussles with UNC j-school [The News and Observer]
Still pressed for a Halloween costume? Why not be a U.S. Senator? Download and wear the Sen. Larry Craig paper bag mask, and you are sure to be the scariest at any Holloween party.
Sen. Larry Craig. AP Photo.
In an interview with Matt Lauer, Sen. Larry Craig called out frienemy Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) for not supporting him after he was arrested in a public men's room for soliciting sex from an undercover cop. Sen. Craig had served as Senate liason for Romney's presidential campaign, but he resigned when the news of his sex scandal broke. At that time, Romney said that he was disappointed in Craig's "disgusting" behavior.
"I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney," Craig told Lauer. "... And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again."
Hmm. We beg to differ. We would say that Romney threw Craig under his campaign bus, backed up, ran over him again, hopped out of the bus to check to see if Craig was really dead, got in a few licks while Craig lay flattened on the ground, then backed up his bus again a few times just to make extra sure that Craig was super dead.
Alas, Romney's efforts failed, and Craig lived to file an appeal today to overturn a judge's refusal to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea in the case. And, of course, bring about even more negative publicity to the Republican party by doing an interview with Matt Lauer about the scandal, which will air Tueday night on Matt Lauer Reports and Wednesday morning on Today.
Photo from BarackObama.com
Barack Obama is Christian. An untraceable email campaign, however, has sought to turn voters with anti-Muslim attitudes away from Obama by spreading the lie that he is Muslim. So not cool.
Politico published excerpts from the untruthful emails:
“Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background,” warns an e-mail titled “Who Is Barack Obama,” that was circulating in South Carolina political circles this summer and sent to Politico by a South Carolina Democrat.
“The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out; what better way to start than at the highest level?”
“Please forward to everyone you know,” it ended.
The other widely forwarded e-mail is titled “Can a good Muslim become a good American” and answers that question in the negative, before concluding: “And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our president!!!”
AP Photo
Sen. Larry Craig has announced that he has no plans to resign, because he still has some very important work to finish in the senate. He's probably redecorating the senate men's room right now.
The New York Times published an op-ed entitled The Smear This Time by Anita Hill today. Hill defends herself against accusations Clarence Thomas made against her in his new book, My Grandfather's Son.
From The Hotline:
October 01, 2007
Quote Of The Day
From today's Hotline:
"The choice was pretty easy for me, obviously. Not like Giuliani's daughter."
-- Cate Edwards, NBC/National Journal, 9/29.
[Cate is making reference to Caroline's preference for Barack Obama over her own father, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.]
Anita Hill was on Good Morning America today to respond to Clarence Thomas's attack on her in his new book.
Urbandictionary.com's word of the day:
This is coined from the transparent defense of Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), to charges of disorderly conduct, stemming from his apparent solicitation of an undercover officer, underneath the partition of a restroom stall.
Prior to pleading guilty, Sen. Craig attempted to explain his behavior by claiming that his shoe touched the officer's underneath the partition because he had a "wide stance", when going to the bathroom.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (stopchildhoodobesity.org) has produced an ad that parodies Sen. Larry Craig's (R-ID) arrest for soliciting sex from a cop in a public restroom. The ad takes place in a men's bathroom stall and involves a lot of foot tapping and reaching into neighboring stalls.
What the heck do Larry Craig's stall tactics have to do with childhood obesity? Watch and see.
Giuliani Party, Just $9.11 To Attend
A party will be held soon in Palo Alto, CA to raise $10,000 in campaign donations for Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. According to the party invitation, the party theme is "$9.11 for Rudy," and party goers are asked to contribute $9.11 each "to show how many individual, everyday Americans support `America's Mayor.'"
We know what you're thinking: "This sounds like the tackiest, most self-serving and insensitive exploitation of those who lost their lives in the 911 terrorist attacks. No one, not even Rudy 'let's flaunt my mistress in front of the kids' Guiliani would be this insensitive, this stupid. Is this some kind of sick joke?!"
Nope. No joke. You can't make stuff like this up.
