Your cowardly rag blacked out Doonesbury? Vleeptron mirrors the hot potato strip on state abortion laws

Click comic strip,
maybe it gets larger.

The Associated Press
(USA newswire)
Monday 12 March 2012

Some USA papers 
wimp out, won't 
publish Doonesbury's 
abortion law strip

by Bill Draper

KANSAS CITY, Missouri -- A national syndicate is offering replacement "Doonesbury" comic strips to newspapers that don't want to run a series that uses graphic imagery to lampoon a Texas law requiring women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, executives said.

A handful of newspapers say they won't run this week's series, while several others said the strips will move from the comics to opinion pages or websites only. Many already have opinion-page placement for the strip by cartoonist Garry Trudeau, whose sarcastic swipes at society's foibles have a history of giving headaches to newspaper editors.

"We run 'Doonesbury' on our op-ed page, and this series is an example of why," said David Averill, editorial page editor for the Tulsa World. "Many of our readers will disagree with the political stance the series takes, and some will be offended by the clinical language. I believe, however, that this series of strips is appropriate to the abortion debate and appropriate to our op-ed pages."

The comic strips feature a woman who goes to an abortion clinic and is confronted by several people who suggest she should be ashamed. Among them is a doctor who reads a script on behalf of Texas Gov. Rick Perry welcoming her to a "compulsory transvaginal exam," and a middle-aged legislator who calls her a "slut."

One panel equates the invasive procedure to rape and describes the device used to perform it as a "10-inch shaming wand."

"Our readers are accustomed to pointed political and social commentary in strips like 'Doonesbury' and 'Mallard Fillmore,'" Tom McNiff, managing editor of The Gainesville Sun and Ocala Star-Banner in central Florida, said in an emailed statement explaining the decision not to run the series. "But the language the author used to make his point in two of the strips was quite graphic for a general
readership."

Trudeau said Friday that "it would have been a little surprising" if there hadn't been any pushback against the series.

"Abortion remains a deeply contentious subject. Having said that, the goal is definitely not to antagonize editors and get booted from papers," he said in an email to The Associated Press. "It's just an occupational risk."

Texas' law does not specify the type of sonogram a woman must receive, but a transvaginal ultrasound is necessary to meet requirements that the doctor show the woman an image of the fetus, describe its features and make the fetal heartbeat audible in the first trimester. The procedure uses a wand inserted in the vagina to yield an image instead of a wand rubbed over a woman's belly.

Asked for comment on the "Doonesbury" series, Perry spokesman Catherine Frazier said the governor is proud of his leadership on the sonogram law.

"The decision to end a life is not funny," Frazier said. "There is nothing comic about this tasteless interpretation of legislation we have passed in Texas to ensure that women have all the facts when making a life-ending decision."

Sue Roush, managing editor at the Universal UClick syndicate, said newspapers uncomfortable with the abortion law series have the option of a set of substitute strips.

The [San Jose, California] Mercury News is running the abortion series in the cartoon's usual place, on the comics page.

Steve Shirk, manager editor of The Kansas City Star, said his paper would use the replacements in the comics section while moving the abortion series to the opinion page.

"We felt the content was too much for many of the readers of our family friendly comic page," Shirk said. "We felt that (op-ed) page was more appropriate for that story line."

Dennis Ryerson, editor of the Indianapolis Star, said the newspaper would use an earlier "Doonesbury"
strip instead.

"We simply don't want to be part of the personalization and debasement of political discourse. We've had too much of that from all sides," Ryerson said.

Chris Mele, executive editor of the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania said the paper will run the replacement strips during the week, but the Texas series will appear [Sunday] March 18 on the front of its op-ed section. He said the paper would try to "have a dialogue" with its readers about the debate.

Universal UClick president Lee Salem said he wouldn't be surprised if 20 to 30 of the 1,400 newspapers that carry "Doonesbury" decided to opt out and run the replacements.

"Once every five or six months there's usually something in 'Doonesbury' that causes a stir. Every two or three years there's something that causes a bigger stir," Salem said. 

"Historically, that's par for the course with 'Doonesbury' because Garry [Trudeau] explores topics on comics pages that are not normally there."

Six installments of "Doonesbury" satirizing the anti-abortion movie "The Silent Scream" were canceled in 1985 when the syndicate decided they were too controversial to be distributed.

Other states have enacted laws requiring pre-abortion ultrasounds, although Virginia removed a provision from its measure that specifically called for the invasive exam. The measure in its original form had become a target of national political columnists and the word "transvaginal" was mocked and parodied on "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

Associated Press writers Matt Moore in Philadelphia; Mitch Stacy in Tampa Bay, Fla.; and Chris Tomlinson in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

- 30 -
 

Robert H. Schuller & family resign from Crystal Cathedral board

Click on photo to enlarge.

The Los Angeles Times
(daily broadsheet California USA)
Saturday 10 March 2012

Robert H. Schuller, wife resign
from Crystal Cathedral board

by Nicole Santa Cruz and Howard Blume

SANTA ANA, California -- Embroiled in a legal dispute with the church he founded, Robert H. Schuller and his wife have resigned from the international board of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

The resignations are a result of a breakdown in negotiations over financial claims against the church that the Schullers filed in Bankruptcy Court.

Schuller; his wife, Arvella; their daughter Carol Schuller Milner; and her husband, Timothy Milner, allege that the church owes them money for copyright infringement, intellectual property violations and unpaid contracts.

"We cannot continue to serve on the board in what has become an adversarial and negative atmosphere especially since it now seems that it will not be ending any time soon," Arvella Schuller said in a statement Saturday.

Sorting through competing financial claims has delayed $12,500,000 in payments to some church creditors and could threaten the church's ability to continue its ministries, including the "Hour of Power" broadcasts.

The Schullers' resignation marks the end of an era. For the first time, no family member is serving on the board of the church that Robert Schuller founded 42 years ago.

The financially ailing church sold the Crystal Cathedral campus to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange in February for $57,500,000 . Payment to creditors was expected this spring, but because some claims are for unknown amounts and the Milners and Schullers have not agreed to establish a payment reserve, vendors cannot be paid until those amounts are determined by the court, said Nanette Sanders, attorney for the creditors.

The Schuller family insisted Saturday that they did not want to delay payments to creditors. They blamed the current church leadership for halting discussions.

The family received word Tuesday that there would be no further negotiations, Carol Schuller Milner said.

"This could be a long deal," she said in an interview Saturday. "That's why we feel bad for the creditors too."

"We've been hoping there was another way," Schuller Milner said. "It will continue to be a long and probably painful time."

She added that her parents were "baffled" by the breakdown in talks.

A spokesman for the church was not immediately available to respond, but its board generally has sided with the committee of creditors, which has filed objections to the Schuller and Milner claims.

The creditors committee has alleged that the church ministry, of which family members are a part, has borrowed money from an endowment fund and continued to receive generous salaries and perks even as the church struggled financially.
- 30 -

Mitt Romney straps Rick Santorum in kennel to roof of car

Click image, maybe gets bigger.

hope it wiggles for you, it's wiggling for me

Courtesy of Happynewgeiger from Italia. 

If you click image, it will wiggle. It does for me.

further growth in the rectal hemmorhoid of the electronic public dialogue / rush screws the pooch real good this time / his big sponsors now see a cursed, puss-leaking leper

Why I Apologized 
to Sandra Fluke
 
by Rush Limbaugh

Monday 5 March 2012
 
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Yeah, I knew it was getting bad.  I was watching the media on Saturday, and I said, "You know what? I gotta call myself and cancel and suspend the Two If By Tea advertising."  So I called myself to cancel the advertising.  I got a busy signal so I couldn't cancel my own company's advertising.  So Two If By Tea remains a sponsor of the Rush Limbaugh program and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.

Great to have you here, folks, looking forward to talking with you today as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears.  Our telephone number, 800-282-2882, the e-mail address ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

While I have your attention, give me 30 minutes here.  It's all I ask and then you can do what you want.  I want to explain why I apologized to Sandra Fluke in the statement that was released on Saturday.  I've read all the theories from all sides, and, frankly, they are all wrong. I don't expect -- and I know you don't, either -- morality or intellectual honesty from the left.  They've demonstrated over and over a willingness to say or do anything to advance their agenda.  It's what they do.  It's what we fight against here every day.  But this is the mistake I made.  In fighting them on this issue last week, I became like them.

Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right and wrong I descended to their level when I used those two words to describe Sandra Fluke.  That was my error.  I became like them, and I feel very badly about that.  I've always tried to maintain a very high degree of integrity and independence on this program.  Nevertheless, those two words were inappropriate.  They were uncalled for. They distracted from the point that I was actually trying to make, and I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her.  I do not think she is either of those two words.  I did not think last week that she is either of those two words.

The apology to her over the weekend was sincere.  It was simply for using inappropriate words in a way I never do, and in so doing, I became like the people we oppose.  I ended up descending to their level.  It's important not to be like them, ever, particularly in fighting them.  The old saw, you never descend to the level of your opponent or they win.  That was my error last week.  But the apology was heartfelt.  The apology was sincere.  And, as you will hear as I go on here, it was not about anything else.  No ulterior motive. No speaking in code. No double entendre or intention.  Pure, simple, heartfelt.  That's why I apologized to Sandra Fluke on Saturday, 'cause all the theories, all the experts are wrong.

What's gone on since and what really is going on here is what we all know to be true.  Our president, Barack Obama, has a socialist agenda when it comes to health care, when it comes to birth control, when it comes to virtually every aspect of his agenda.  In this case, Barack Obama wants the government, his government, making moral decisions about what treatments, prescriptions, pills you pay for through your insurance premiums.  He isn't willing to let you or the market make that decision for yourself.

Now, the hearing that started all of this, I want to go back and put the timeline here in context, start at the very beginning.  The hearing that started all of this was called by Darrell Issa, a California Republican, he's the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  Issa is on our side.  His point in calling this hearing was to get facts into the record that otherwise would not be aired.  But his committee is made up of both Republicans and Democrats, and there are rules and procedures that are followed in calling witnesses.  What this was all about was the president of the United States acting extra-constitutionally, mandating that Catholic churches and their schools provide contraceptives, abortifacients.  He doesn't have that power constitutionally.  He cannot mandate these things.

That was the original purpose of the hearing.  He was to get facts into the record that otherwise would not be aired, but his committee is made up of Republicans and Democrats and there are rules and procedures that are followed in calling witnesses.  So the Democrats tried to play a game with Darrell Issa and his committee, and he rejected it.  What they did was, they requested a witness for his hearing, a man named Barry Lynn to make their points for them.  Barry Lynn is a guy that remits the Democrat point of view.  They asked for him in advance.  Issa's committee checked him out, invited him, and prepared for his testimony.  Issa agreed he has a degree of expertise about the subject matter of the hearing, which was not contraception.  That's what Obama wants to turn this into.

Obama is sorely hurting with women in preelect polls.  He wanted to turn this into an issue much as they used to use abortion.  So the Democrats played the game.  What happened next is instructive, and it's very important.  At literally the last minute the Democrats decided they want Sandra Fluke.  What happened next, at the last minute the Democrats decided that Sandra Fluke would be a better witness for them, not because she had any special knowledge or credentials like Barry Lynn has, but because her optics as a woman and a college student, a 30-year-old college student and an activist on Democrat issues, by the way.

They thought all of that would show better than Barry Lynn. Now, this is at 4:30 p.m., 4:30 in the afternoon, the day before the hearing that the Democrats asked Issa to un-invite Barry Lynn, the guy they had asked for originally, and replace him with Sandra Fluke. Darrell Issa said (paraphrased), "Sorry, it's too late. She hasn't been vetted. We don't know who she is. She doesn't have any real qualifications to appear before this committee. We don't have the time to prepare for her and ask her questions. So the answer is: 'No. You cannot have her testify.'" All of this, by the way, is in a very interesting Washington Examiner article from last week, and I've linked to it at RushLimbaugh.com so you can read it yourself.

Now, the Democrats and the leftists sensed opportunity over this controversy that they created themselves. They publicly turned the situation they created to their own advantage. They invite Barry Lynn. They disinvite him at the last moment and they want him replaced with Sandra Fluke. "Who is this? We don't know who she is." The second panel of witnesses. It was Carolyn Maloney. If you don't recall last week, Carolyn Maloney, Democrat from New York, started shouting, "Where are the women? Where are the women?" They start saying Republicans hate women; they started attacking Issa and Republicans on the committee, saying, "They don't want hear from women! They're misogynist, sexist," or what have you.

Issa's committee invited the Democrat choice again, Barry Lynn, and the Democrats on the committee tried to replace him at the very last minute with this sympathetic woman when it was too late for the committee. So again they said no. So the Democrats played their game of lies, and Issa complained. On February 16th, he said, "The Democrats on his committee have appeared," this is a quote, "outright giddy in attempting to distort the testimony offered and purpose of the hearing." You bet they did. They wanted to turn this from a committee hearing on Obama and his unconstitutional mandate to the issue of contraception so as to bring back to life page 1-A of the Democrat playbook: Republicans Hate Women.

They wanted to change the whole subject. So how did they do it? Well, the Democrats have their own little subcommittee called the steering committee. This subsets inside the larger oversight and reform committee that Issa chairs. And they wanted their sympathetic witness on the record, Sandra Fluke. So they called her to testify before them, not Issa's committee. The subcommittee. They staged what was essentially a conference to look like a committee hearing. She gave the testimony that she was going to give to the full committee. It was taped and released and made to look like a committee hearing. And Darrell Issa had been right all along. Her testimony was not that of an expert.

It was just another non-expert person in this case, in Sandra's case: A 30-year-old, longtime birth control activist who went back to law school after a career of years of championing birth-control issues. In fact, she told stories less about birth control as a social tool (which was, of course, the left's true agenda) and more about birth control as a medication for treating other conditions, such as pregnancy. To the left, pregnancy is a disease. If you're listening to me for the first time, you may say, "Well, that's crazy." It's not. They treat pregnancy as a disease for political purposes. All of this, folks, is political.

Sandra Fluke gave vague examples based on unnamed friends who she says couldn't afford birth control to treat medical conditions they had, since Georgetown University wouldn't pay for them. Georgetown paid for all of their other medical treatment, but it wouldn't pay for the birth control pills that these doctors prescribed should they be necessary -- or so she says. We still don't know who any of these friends of hers are, these other women, and we don't know what happened to them. Her testimony was hearsay, and it was unprovable. And Issa was right not to let her give the testimony, particularly when the Democrats foisted her on the committee at the very last minute for the express purpose of pulling this fast one, this trick.

Now, let's get a few facts on the record here. Georgetown is a Jesuit University. It's Jesuits, run by the Jesuits, which are a Catholic order of priests. Their policy on birth control is not exactly a secret. It's not given to you in a sealed envelope after you sign up. It's out there for everybody to see. It's a Catholic university! Everybody that goes to there knows. Miss Fluke stated on occasion she went there specifically to change the policy. If birth control insurance is important to you as an enrolling student, and you find out that Georgetown doesn't offer it, you might want to attend (or work at) a school that isn't run by Catholics. I mean, just a thought.

But if you know the place doesn't offer contraceptives when you sign up, and that is your big political issue, then why are you really there? Actually, they know what they're doing. They intentionally target schools like Georgetown to advance an agenda of ultimately forcing them to abandon their religious beliefs. All of this is to serve Obama's agenda. The agenda he worked all summer on. He abandoned it only when America stood up, united, and this said they would not tolerate tearing down religion to increase government's control over our lives. You did that. You stood up to him. You made him stop. That was a proud moment for all of us.

This is his second attempt at mandating Catholic churches and other organizations (under the cloak of a so-called committee hearing) be forced to provide contraceptives against their moral conscience, dictates, what have you. So Sandra Fluke, a 30-year-old birth control activist gives unverified and inexpert testimony about how Georgetown's long-standing and public policy has hurt her unnamed friends. And let's be clear on something else. I haven't called Georgetown to see if they pay for birth control pills when being used to treat her medical conditions. I have no idea if they do or don't. If somebody at Georgetown wants to weigh in on that, I'd be interested.

But the point here is that this was an issue that represents a tiny, tiny slice of what the Democrats really want here. They use Sandra Fluke to create a controversy. Sandra Fluke used them to advance her agenda, which is to force a religious institution to abandon their principles in order to meet hers. Now, all of this is what I should have told you last week, 'cause this is what happened. I use satire. I use absurdity to illustrate the absurd. The story at the Cybercast News Service characterized a portion of her testimony as sounding like (based on her own financial figures) she was engaging in sexual activity so often she couldn't afford it. I focused on that because it was simple trying to persuade people, change people's minds.

I am huge on personal responsibility and accountability, people providing for themselves when they're totally able to. The government has no business doing any of this, getting in people's bedrooms and mandating that other citizens pay for other citizens' social activities and so forth. That was the wrong one to focus on. I acted too much like the leftists who despise me. I descended to their level, using names and exaggerations to describe Sandra Fluke. It's what we have come to know and expect of them, but it's way beneath me. And it's way beneath you. It was wrong, and that's why I've apologized, 'cause I succumbed. I descended to their level. Don't be mad at them or mad at her. Everybody here was being true to their nature except me. I'm the one who had the failing on this, and for that I genuinely apologized for using those words to describe Ms. Fluke.

Now, I've gotta take a break but I'm not through.

END TRANSCRIPT

==============

The Chicago Tribune
daily broadsheet, Chicago Illinois USA
Tuesday 6 March 2012

Rush Limbaugh advertisers
keep heading for the exits

Sears, Allstate say
their ads ran mistakenly

================
ad via Google:

    Tell Rush to Hush
Demand Limbaugh Apologize for His Hateful Comments.
Sign Here. DSCC.org/Stand-Up-To-Limbaugh
================

by Robert Channick, Becky Yerak and Ameet Sachdev, Chicago Tribune reporters

Two Chicago-area companies were caught up Monday in the growing backlash over Rush Limbaugh's on-air branding of a law student as a "slut," but both said their commercials aired on the radio talk show by mistake.

Responding to calls that they pull their ads or face boycotts, Sears and Allstate both said that the commercials were never scheduled to run on the "Rush Limbaugh Show" in the first place.

Sears came under fire after the Daily Kos blog called for a boycott of the retailer for advertising on Limbaugh's show. But Sears does not sponsor or advertise on the show, Sears Holdings Corp. spokesman Tom Aiello said. He explained that WABC, a New York radio station, mistakenly ran a Sears ad Thursday during a news break from the Limbaugh show.

Seeking to mollify critics, the Hoffman Estates-based company on Monday tweeted: "Sears and Kmart did not intentionally advertise on the Rush Limbaugh show. We've taken actions to ensure our ads do not run on this show.''

Meanwhile,Allstate Corp.blamed a network media vendor for mistakenly running its commercials Monday afternoon during Limbaugh's show. The Northbrook-based home and auto insurer said that its advertising purchase strategy has not included the "Rush Limbaugh Show."

"We contacted the vendor that arranges for our advertising placements and discovered that an error had been made and advertising time had been mistakenly purchased for the show," Allstate said.

Industry sources confirmed that Allstate avoids controversial programming and had not previously run on Limbaugh's show, and that the company was due both an apology letter and make-good spots from the media vendor.

Media Matters for America, a group that targets conservative media, is promoting a boycott of Limbaugh's show, distributed byClear Channel Communications Inc.'s Premiere Radio Networks.

Despite public apologies by Limbaugh to the woman, at least nine advertisers have fled the show, including the ProFlowers delivery service and mortgage lender QuickenLoans.

LegalZoom.com Inc., an online provider of legal services, is among those dropping its ads.

"Our company does not in any way support or endorse the recent comments of Mr. Limbaugh," said Andrea Holland, a spokeswoman for LegalZoom.

AOL.com, the Internet-based publisher, and Stamps.com, the online retailer, said Monday that they would pull ads from Limbaugh's program.

"We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh's comments are not in line with our values," Caroline Campbell, an AOL spokeswoman in New York, said in an emailed statement. "As a result we have made the decision to suspend advertising on the Rush Limbaugh show."

The controversy began last week when Limbaugh criticized Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student who spoke to Congress last month in favor of President Barack Obama's policy requiring insurers to offer contraceptives to women.

He described the 30-year-old as a "slut" and a "prostitute" who effectively wanted government to subsidize her sexual activity and demanded, "We want you to post the (sex) videos online so we can all watch."

Limbaugh posted an apology on his website Saturday, saying, "My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.''

On Monday, he again apologized while firing back at critics.

"I acted too much like the leftists who despise me," Limbaugh said on the show, according to a transcript on his website. "I descended to their level, using names and exaggerations to describe Sandra Fluke. It was wrong, and that's why I've apologized."

Representatives of Premiere and Clear Channel didn't respond to requests for comment.

Limbaugh averaged 13,200,000 listeners a week as of spring 2011, according to ratings supplied by Horizon Media Inc., an ad planning and placement company. Talkers magazine, a Longmeadow, Mass., publication, called Limbaugh the most listened-to talk-radio host.

The controversy isn't likely to have a long-term impact on the show, said Michael Harrison, editor and publisher of Talkers.

"Millions of people like to hate him, because he's entertaining," Harrison said. "To many advertisers, this is showing why they might want to be on his show. Some advertisers will come back. Some are dropping him for the attention they get for doing so."

Fluke, speaking Monday on the television show "The View," responded to Limbaugh's apology.

"I don't think a statement like this issued, saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything," Fluke said. "He's under significant pressure from his sponsors who are beginning to pull their support."

Clear Channel, based in San Antonio, operated 866 U.S. stations in 150 markets as of Dec. 31, according to a regulatory filing. The Premiere Networks unit produces or supplies 90 syndicated programs to almost 5,800 affiliate stations.

Bloomberg News and Tribune Newspapers contributed.
rchannick@tribune.com
- 30 -

bloated lard-ass fascist gasbag satyriatic drug addict apologizes to Georgetown University law student

A Statement from Rush [Limbaugh]

March 03, 2012
 

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week.  In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

=================

Reuters (UK newswire)
Saturday 3 March 2012

UPDATE 2-

Limbaugh apologizes to student for 'insulting' comments

* 'Choice of words not the best' * Obama called student to express support (Adds comment from advertiser)

by Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) -- Right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, roundly criticized for branding a law student a "slut" over her outspoken support of President Barack Obama's new policy on contraception coverage, apologized on Saturday for his "insulting word choices."

The furor over Limbaugh's comments, made on his influential radio program, prompted Obama to call the 30-year-old Georgetown University law student and women's rights activist, Sandra Fluke, on Friday to express his support.

"My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir," Limbaugh said in a written statement. "I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices."

Fluke, who has advocated making contraception available to all women, has been caught in the middle of a contentious election-year fight between Obama and Republicans over his policy that requires health insurance plans to cover contraception.
Religious-affiliated organizations, the Roman Catholic Church and social conservatives have protested the policy as an infringement on religious liberty. An effort by Republicans in the Senate to overturn it failed this week.

Fluke told lawmakers in a Democratic House of Representatives hearing last month that female students at Georgetown, the Washington, D.C., school that is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit university in the country, suffered financial hardship because contraception was not covered by their healthcare insurance, and in some cases had stopped taking it because it cost too much.

Her comments were mocked by Limbaugh, an influential conservative commentator known for his take-no-prisoners style.

"What does it say about the college co-ed Fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? Makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex," Limbaugh said on Wednesday on his radio show.

On Thursday, he said: "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is: We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

In the written apology issued on Saturday, Limbaugh said he had not intended to make a personal attack on Fluke but "chose the wrong words" as he attempted to make a point.

Several of Limbaugh's sponsors said they would stop advertising on his program following his incendiary remarks and David Friend, CEO of online data backup company Carbonite, said the apology was not enough to change his mind about that decision.

"Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency," Friend wrote in a blog post.

"Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse," he said.

Fluke, who earlier told Reuters she was initially hurt, then outraged by Limbaugh's remarks, has said she hoped the incident raised awareness about the new policy. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the apology. 

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney)
 

PostíMollyringwald commemorative: Snooki / Snooki is pregnant / Apocalypse is nigh / la vie Jersey / put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty & meet me tonite in atlantic city

Click on stamp to enlarge maybe

click HERE for ethereal cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" by The Band




Reality TV World
(self-explanatory website)
Wednesday 29 February 2012

Snooki reportedly actually
pregnant and expecting
despite denials

by Reality TV World staff

Snooki is reportedly expecting a more pint-sized version of herself despite her prior denials. While she denied it earlier this month, Jersey Shore star Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi is "indeed pregnant" and expecting her first child with boyfriend Jionni LaValle, the New York Post reported Wednesday.

According to the Post, Snooki, who is about three months along, hopes "to bankroll her mommy-to-be status into becoming 'the next Kourtney Kardashian'" and has already landed a deal to announce her pregnancy on the cover of Us Weekly.

Snooki's representative declined comment when contacted by the Post.

Although MTV also declined comment, the network is reportedly privately concerned how Snooki's pregnancy will impact the new Jersey Shore spinoff she recently began filming with Jenni "JWoww" Farley.

"MTV went into crisis mode after they found out," a source told the Post. "They're trying to hide it because it would greatly affect the creative direction of the show."

Star Magazine reported Snooki was pregnant with LaValle's child on February 1, however both she and her rep quickly denied it.

"There's no truth to the reports," her representative told MTV News later that same day.

"I definitely do want kids, but I'm not pregnant ... being pregnant should be a real thing and a happy thing, and I'm not," the Jersey Shore star said during a February 2 appearance on Good Morning America.

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• 'The Voice' completes coaches' teams and determines Top 48 artists
• Jennifer Hudson to be called as witness in her family's murder trial
• 'Dancing with the Stars' fourteenth-season celebrity cast announced
• 'The Bachelor' star Ben Flajnik cuts Nicki Sterling, selects his final two
• Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied wed in unknown ceremony
• Lucy Liu to play Watson to Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock Holmes on CBS

COMMENTS:

    Bob Merkin · 65 years old
    surely this spawn of Snooki is one of the prophesied signs that the Apocalypse is nigh ... the Trailer Park Trash will inherit the Earth.

    Reply · Like · Unfollow Post · about an hour ago

    Adam Donn
    Ew She's spawning!

    Reply · 9 · Like · Follow Post · about an hour ago

        Jean Segers
        Good Lord!! Let's hope she doesn't breastfeed, the baby will get wasted!

        Reply · 10 · Like · about an hour ago
    Marilyn Benitez · New York, New York
    a lil snooki... If its true I hope she stops drinking.

    Reply · 6 · Like · Follow Post · about an hour ago

    Jonathan Nikki Snook
    I wish she would change her nickname...I hate being called Snooki now!

    Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · about an hour ago

    Buster Ford · Top Commenter
    She will be as wide as she is tall!

    Reply · 1 · Like · Follow Post · about an hour ago

    Marion Nigro · Wantagh, New York
    I AM SO HAPPY TO REPORT - I SAW THEM DOING IT - AND MOST OF HER COOCH. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO PROUD OF THAT DRUNKEN HOAR. NOW THE SITUATION IS GOING TO ASK FOR A PATERNITY TEST.

    Reply · Like · Follow Post · about an hour ago

    Kristoffer Dana Phoenix
    Don't people believe in getting married first anymore?

    Reply · Like · Follow Post · about an hour ago

    Natasja Nicole Currier
    Not surprised, she wanted a little Guiddo.

    Reply · Like · Follow Post · about an hour ago

View 15 more

The Bartered Bride / Prodana Nevesta by Smetena

Click score to enlarge.

Click HERE for 1978 Metropolitan Opera version (in English) starring Teresa Stratas.

Publicke Notice: the annoying little lines and unwanted ads in my blog

Publicke Notice

VleeptronZ has recently been plagued by annoying little underlines under words in the text. (You'll probably see a few of them in this post.)

If you put the cursor over the lines, little advertisements pop up.

This is NOT an intentional feature of VleeptronZ. 

It is a kind of malware / adware which some fucking creeps called text-enhance slipped into my computer.

VleeptronZ is endeavoring to purge this annoying crap as soon as possible.

If you know the solution to this crap, please let me know. If you know anyone associated with text-enhance, please run them over with your car.

 

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik: the fool in a yarmulke

Click image, it gets larger and uglier.

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik
Associate Rabbi
Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun

New York, NY

 

Rabbi Soloveichik --

 

Re your appearance on the all-male panel before Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:

 

I have never been so offended by the public act of an American rabbi, and I have never been so embarrassed to be an American Jew.

 

In America, women vote, have (in theory) legal rights equal to men, and have the same rights as men to have their opinions heard.

 

You assisted Rep. Issa in suppressing and silencing the voice of American women.

 

Your duty as a steward of Jewish ethics was clear: The instant you saw you were there to stooge for Issa's rigged male-supremacy hearing, you should have walked out and removed your name from the hearing.

 

You're a fool in a yarmulke. You're certainly not an American Jew.

 

Robert Merkin
Chesterfield, Massachusetts USA

 

Muslim college students spied on in Northeast USA by New York City police

Click photo to enlarge.

The Associated Press
(USA newswire)
Tuesday 21 February 2012
 
New York City police
monitored Muslim students
all over Northeast

by Chris Hawley, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- One autumn morning in Buffalo, N.Y., a college student named Adeela Khan logged into her email and found a message announcing an upcoming Islamic conference in Toronto.

Khan clicked "forward," sent it to a group of fellow Muslims at the University at Buffalo, and promptly forgot about it.

But that simple act on 9 November 2006 was enough to arouse the suspicion of an intelligence analyst at the New York Police Department, 300 miles away, who combed through her post and put her name in an official report. Marked "SECRET" in large red letters, the document went all the way to Commissioner Raymond Kelly's office.

The report, along with other documents obtained by The Associated Press, reveals how the NYPD's intelligence division focused far beyond New York City as part of a surveillance program targeting Muslims.

Police trawled daily through student websites run by Muslim student groups at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and 13 other colleges in the Northeast. They talked with local authorities about professors in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.

Asked about the monitoring, police spokesman Paul Browne provided a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations, which the NYPD referred to as MSAs. They included Jesse Morton, who this month pleaded guilty to posting online threats against the creators of the animated TV show "South Park." He had once tried to recruit followers at Stony Brook University on Long Island, Browne said.

"As a result, the NYPD deemed it prudent to get a better handle on what was occurring at MSAs," Browne said in an email. He said police monitored student websites and collected publicly available information in 2006 and 2007. But documents show other surveillance efforts continued for years afterward.

"I see a violation of civil rights here," said Tanweer Haq, chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Syracuse University. "Nobody wants to be on the list of the FBI or the NYPD or whatever. Muslim students want to have their own lives, their own privacy and enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities that everybody else has."

In recent months, the AP has revealed secret programs the NYPD built with help from the CIA [USA Central Intelligence Agency] to monitor Muslims at the places where they eat, shop and worship. The AP also published details about how police placed undercover officers at Muslim student associations in colleges within the city limits; this revelation has outraged faculty and student groups.

Though the NYPD says it follows the same rules as the FBI, some of the NYPD's activities go beyond what the FBI is allowed to do.

Kelly and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg repeatedly have said that the police only follow legitimate leads about suspected criminal activity.

But the latest documents mention no wrongdoing by any students.

In one report, an undercover officer describes accompanying 18 Muslim students from the City College of New York on a whitewater rafting trip in upstate New York on 21 April 2008. The officer noted the names of attendees who were officers of the Muslim Student Association.

"In addition to the regularly scheduled events (rafting), the group prayed at least four times a day, and much of the conversation was spent discussing Islam and was religious in nature," the report says.

Praying five times a day is one of the core traditions of Islam.

Jawad Rasul, one of the students on the trip, said he was stunned that his name was included in the police report.

"It forces me to look around wherever I am now," Rasul said.

But another student, Ali Ahmed, whom the NYPD said appeared to be in charge of the trip, said he understood the police department's concern.

"I can't blame them for doing their job," Ahmed said. "There's lots of Muslims doing some bad things and it gives a bad name to all of us, so they have to take their due diligence."

City College criticized the surveillance and said it was unaware the NYPD was watching students.

"The City College of New York does not accept or condone any investigation of any student organization based on the political or religious content of its ideas," the college said in a written statement. "Absent specific evidence linking a member of the City College community to criminal activity, we do not condone this kind of investigation."

Browne said undercover officers go wherever people they're investigating go. There is no indication that, in the nearly four years since the report, the NYPD brought charges connecting City College students to terrorism.

Student groups were of particular interest to the NYPD because they attract young Muslim men, a demographic that terrorist groups frequently draw from. Police worried about which Muslim scholars were influencing these students and feared that extracurricular activities such as paintball outings could be used as terrorist training.

The AP first reported in October that the NYPD had placed informants or undercover officers in the Muslim Student Associations at City College, Brooklyn College, Baruch College, Hunter College, City College of New York, Queens College, La Guardia Community College and St. John's University. All of those colleges are within the New York City limits.

A person familiar with the program, who like others insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it, said the NYPD also had a student informant at Syracuse.

Police also were interested in the Muslim student group at Rutgers, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2009, undercover NYPD officers had a safe house in an apartment not far from campus. The operation was blown when the building superintendent stumbled upon the safe house and, thinking it was some sort of a terrorist cell, called the police emerency dispatcher.

The FBI responded and determined that monitoring Rutgers students was one of the operation's objectives, current and former federal officials said.

The Rutgers police chief at the time, Rhonda Harris, would not discuss the fallout. In a written statement, university spokesman E.J. Miranda said: "The university was not aware of this at the time and we have nothing to add on this matter."

Another NYPD intelligence report from 2 January 2009 described a trip by three NYPD officers to Buffalo, where they met with a high-ranking member of the Erie County Sheriff's Department and agreed "to develop assets jointly in the Buffalo area, to act as listening posts within the ethnic Somalian community."

The sheriff's department official noted "that there are some Somali Professors and students at SUNY-Buffalo and it would be worthwhile to further analyze that population," the report says.

Browne said the NYPD did not follow that recommendation. A spokesman for the university, John DellaContrada, said the NYPD never contacted the administration. Sheriff's Departments spokeswoman Mary Murray could not immediately confirm the meeting or say whether the proposal went any further.

The document that mentions Khan, the University at Buffalo student, is entitled "Weekly MSA Report" and dated Nov. 22, 2006. It explains that officers from the NYPD's Cyber Intelligence unit visited the websites, blogs and forums of Muslim student associations as a "daily routine."

The universities included Yale; Columbia; the University of Pennsylvania; Syracuse; New York University; Clarkson University; the Newark and New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers; and the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam; Queens College, Baruch College, Brooklyn College and La Guardia Community College.

Khan was a board member of the Muslim Student Association at the University at Buffalo at the time she received the conference announcement, which went out to a mailing list of Muslim organizations.

The email said "highly respected scholars" would be attending the Toronto conference, but did not say who or give any details of the program. Khan says she never went to the conference, was not affiliated with it and had no idea who was speaking at it.

Khan says she clicked "forward" and sent it to a Yahoo chat group of fellow students.

"A couple people had gone the year prior and they said they had a really nice time, so I was just passing the information on forward. That's really all it was," said Khan, who has since graduated.

But officer Mahmood Ahmad of the NYPD's Cyber Intelligence Unit took notice and listed Khan in his weekly report for Kelly. The officer began researching the Toronto conference and found that one of the speakers, Tariq Ramadan, had his U.S. visa revoked in 2004. The U.S. government said it was because Ramadan had given money to a Palestinian group. It reinstated his visa in 2010.

The officer's report notes three other speakers. One, Siraj Wahaj, is a prominent but controversial New York imam who has attracted the attention of authorities for years. Prosecutors included his name on a 3 ½-page list of people they said "may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, though he was never charged.

The other two are Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir, two of the nation's most prominent Muslim scholars. Both have lectured at top universities in the U.S.. Yusuf met with President George W. Bush at the White House following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

There is no indication that the investigation went any further, or that Khan was ever implicated in anything. Browne, the NYPD spokesman, said students like her have nothing to fear from the police.

"Students who advertised events or sent emails about regular events should not be worried about a 'terrorism file' being kept on them. NYPD only investigated persons who we had reasonable suspicion to believe might be involved in unlawful activities," Browne said.

But Khan still worries about being associated with the police report.

"It's just a waste of resources, if you ask me," she said. "I understand why they're doing it, but it's just kind of like a Catch-22. I'm not the one doing anything wrong."

The university said it was unaware its students were being monitored.

"UB does not conduct this kind of surveillance and if asked, UB would not voluntarily cooperate with such a request," the university said in a written statement. "As a public university, UB strongly supports the values of freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of religion, and a reasonable expectation of privacy."

The same Nov. 22, 2006, report also noted seminars announced on the websites of the Muslim student associations at New York University and Rutgers University's campus in Newark, New Jersey.

Browne said intelligence analysts were interested in recruiting by the Islamic Thinkers Society, a New York-based group that wants to see the United States governed under Islamic law. Morton was a leader of the group and went to Stony Brook University's MSA to recruit students that same month.

"One thing that our open source searches were interested in determining at the time was, where (does the) Islamic Thinkers Society go — in terms of MSAs for recruiting," Browne said.

Yale declined comment. The University of Pennsylvania did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Other colleges on the list said they worried the monitoring infringed on students' freedom of speech.

"Like New York City itself, American universities are admired across the globe as places that welcome a diversity of people and viewpoints. So we would obviously be concerned about anything that could chill our essential values of academic freedom or intrude on student privacy," Columbia University spokesman Robert Hornsby said in a written statement.

Danish Munir, an alumnus adviser for the University of Pennsylvania's Muslim Student Association, said he believes police are wasting their time by watching college students.

"What do they expect to find here?" Munir said. "These are all kids coming from rich families or good families, and they're just trying to make a living, have a good career, have a good college experience. It's a futile allocation of resources."

- 30 -

View the report at: http://apne.ws/zLpfdM
 
Associated Press reporters Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org

Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies! ( -- Ned "Scotty" Scott: "The Thing from Another World")

Click to enlarge.

Screw Darrel Issa, screw Syria and Iran, screw the government of Israel, screw North Korea, screw all the GOP presidential candidates, screw the government of Honduras.

Looking down at its surface, Earth seems ugly, brutish, hopeless, dirty, polluted, a notorious slum and embarrassment in a bad part of the Milky Way.

But Earth is constantly drowning in Beauty.

To see the Beauty, Wonder, the magnificent Creation, look up at the night sky.

Required Equipment: eyeballs, binoculars, cheap telescope. (Or expensive telescope.)

Subscription Fee: $0

Age Range: 2 or 3 years old or older.

Offer lasts only until the End of Time. (Offer began at the Beginning of Time, 13,700,000,000 years ago.)

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?
God speaks to Job
Job 31-33, King James Version

================

National Geographic
(USA multimedia empire defying accurate description)
Friday 17 February 2012

Night Sky News:
Gaze Up at a 
Planetary Showcase

by Andrew Fazekas

While winter is not usually thought of as a great time to gaze at the starry heavens, some of the brightest planets are putting on a show not to be missed. Starting off with Venus, you can find the goddess of love dominating the early evenings in the southwest starting right after sunset. Look to its upper left and you cannot miss the king of all worlds, Jupiter. Not quite as bright as Venus it still looks impressive, especially through binoculars and telescopes.

Despite its 650,000,000 km distance, Jupiter’s brilliance is due to its monster size -- more than 11 times the diameter of Earth.
 
You can expect binoculars will show off Jupiter’s four main moons which look like a row of ducks beside the planet, while a telescope will reveal atmospheric details like brown cloud belts straddling the equatorial region. If you have good viewing conditions while using at least a 6 to 8  inch sized telescope you could even catch the Big Red Spot -- a hurricane three times the size of the Earth, raging for at least three centuries.

Over the next month keep an eye on Venus-Jupiter planetary duo as they quickly begin to converge in the sky. This weekend the two will be separated by about 23 degrees; by the end of the month it will be half that, and by mid March they will be less than 3 degrees. That’s equal to the width of your three middle fingers held at arms’ length!

Saturn dominates the southern sky before dawn.

Meanwhile for those late night owls, the ringed planet Saturn will be on display in the southern sky after midnight until dawn. It shines like a yellowish bright star more than 1,500,000,000 km away and is in the middle of the constellation Virgo. Look carefully and you will notice just to the lower right of Saturn is Virgo’s brightest star, Spica, shining away at more than 260 light years away. They really make a pretty pair to the unaided eye being only 7 degrees apart -- less than the width of your fist held at arm’s length.

By the way, if you have a chance, check out Saturn thru a telescope, and the rings will knock your eyes out -- especially now that they are tilted towards Earth at nearly 15 degrees!

========================




SPACE.com
Friday 17 February 2012

Elusive planet Mercury
shines bright in evening sky

by Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist

The planet Mercury is often cited as the most difficult of the five brightest naked-eye planets to see. I've always thought this was a bad rap because there are some times during the year when Mercury is surprisingly easy to see.

Mercury is called an "inferior planet" because its orbit is nearer to the sun than that of the Earth. Since it always appears from our vantage point to be in the same general direction as the sun, relatively few people have set eyes on it. There is even a rumor that the famed scientist Copernicus, living in northern Poland, never saw it.

Yet the planet Mercury is not really that hard to spot in the night sky. You simply must know when and where to look, have a night of good weather, and find a clear western horizon.

And for those living in the Northern Hemisphere, we're about to move into a very fine "window of opportunity" for seeing Mercury in the evening sky. That window, which will open on Feb. 22 and close after March 12, will provide several good opportunities to see this so-called "elusive planet" with your own eyes. The sky map of Mercury with this column shows how it will appear on Wednesday 22 February alongside the bright planets Venus and Jupiter.

- 30 -

left-wing gazillionaires battle right-wing gazillionaires to buy the next USA president / the finest president money can buy

The San Francisco Chronicle
California USA daily broadsheet
Saturday 18 February 2012

Obama joins crowd 
trying to buy the election

by Robert Reich © 2012 Robert Reich

How many billionaires does it take to buy a presidential election? We're about to find out. The 2012 campaign probably will be a battle between one group of millionaires and billionaires supporting President Obama and another group supporting his GOP rival.

Perhaps this was the inevitable result of the Supreme Court's grotesque decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission in 2010, which opened the floodgates to unrestricted campaign money through super PACs. But I'm not sure. What if Obama had stuck to his guns and eschewed super PACs?

Sadly, this month the president caved. He endorsed a super PAC set up to funnel unrestricted campaign money from fat cats into his campaign. And he's made a total mockery of the court's naive belief that super PACs would remain separate from individual campaigns, by allowing campaign manager Jim Messina and even Cabinet officers to speak at his super PAC events. Obama will not appear at such events, but he, first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will encourage support of the Obama super PAC.

Why did he do it? His campaign aides explained that they had been surprised by how easily Mitt Romney's super PAC delivered Florida to him and pushed Newt Gingrich from first place to fourth place in Iowa. They also took note of the fact that Republican super PACs outspent the GOP candidates themselves in several of the early primaries. Messina said they didn't want to "unilaterally disarm" by failing to use the same technique.

I don't believe Obama's refusal to play the billionaire election game would have been unilateral disarmament. Obama has proven himself a hugely successful fundraiser, especially with small donors. He cobbled together an unprecedented U$745,000,000 for the 2008 election, including an unprecedented amount of small donations, and has already raised more than $225.000,000 for 2012.

Had Obama continued to eschew his own super PAC, he might have had a rallying cry that nearly all Americans would get behind: "More of the nation's wealth and political power is now in the hands of large corporations and fewer people than since the era of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. I will not allow our democracy to be corrupted by this! I will fight to take back our democracy!"

Obama could have highlighted the starkest choice facing America in a century -- an economy and a democracy dominated by great wealth, or an economy and a democracy that work for everyone. What better way to dramatize this choice than by offering America a choice between a political campaign financed by millions of small donors, and a Republican campaign underwritten by a handful of America's most powerful and privileged?

Romney's friends on Wall Street and in the executive suites of the nation's biggest corporations have the deepest pockets in the nation. Romney's super PAC got U$18,000,000 from just 200 donors in the second half of last year, including million-dollar checks from hedge-fund moguls, industrialists and bankers. If Romney is the Republican nominee, more money will come into his presidential campaign from the smallest number of super-rich than ever before in American history.

Had Obama taken a strong stand against this, my guess is that average Americans would have flooded the Obama campaign with enough small donations to overwhelm Romney's billionaire friends. The people would have been given a chance to be heard, and the people would prevail.

But we'll never know. Now that Obama has decided to embrace super PACs, big money is flowing as never before.

The president has called Citizens United a threat to democracy. If he is re-elected, and he's sincere about his concerns, he should go to bat for a system of public financing that will make it possible for candidates to raise enough money from small donors and matching public funds that they won't need to rely on a few billionaires pumping unlimited sums into super PACs.

In addition, he should fight for public disclosure of all donations, including those to super PACs. He should commit himself to nominating Supreme Court justices who will reverse Citizens United. And he should give his unbridled support to a constitutional amendment that would limit the vote to American citizens, not corporations.

And I hope he shows the public that, despite support from some of the fattest cats in the land, he'll still fight for a tax system that requires millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share of the nation's bills.

One Obama adviser crows that Obama's decision to openly endorse his super PAC has had an immediate effect. "Our donors get it," the official said, adding that they now want to "go fight the other side."

That's exactly the problem. When a relative handful of super-rich Democrats want to fight a relative handful of super-rich Republicans, the rest of us are left on the sidelines. And if we're sidelined in the election, we could be left on the sidelines of our democracy.

As the great jurist and Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, "We can have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future." He blogs at www.robertreich.org. To comment, go to sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1.

- 30 -

Great Moments in Racism and Disgusting Political Ads

Lisa Chan, a USA-born American, acts the role of a Chinese woman bicycling through a rice paddy, thanking the U.S. Senate race foe of U.S. Pete Hoekstra for votes which sent USA jobs to China. Hoekstra's ad aired on Michigan stations broadcasting the [USA football] Super Bowl, the most watched television show in USA history.

The Detroit [Michigan] Free Press
USA daily broadsheet
Thursday 16 February 2012

Asian-American actress says
role in Pete Hoekstra ad
was 'absolutely a mistake'

by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press Washington Staff

WASHINGTON -- The Asian-American actress who played a role in a controversial campaign ad says it was "absolutely a mistake" to take the role, which was criticized as portraying cultural stereotypes.

Lisa Chan, a 21-year-old who lives in the San Francisco area, posted a message on her Facebook page Wednesday saying, "I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities."

Former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Holland Republican running for the U.S. Senate, aired the ad on Super Bowl Sunday in Michigan.

In it, Chan is seen bicycling along a rice paddy, making it seem as though she is in China. In broken English, Chan then thanks Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow for supporting policies the Hoekstra campaign suggests have helped create jobs overseas.

Critics blasted Hoekstra for perpetuating cultural stereotypes with the ad, which received national notoriety. Hoekstra has since taken the ad down from his website.

Chan was also singled out for criticism by commentators who wondered why she agreed to such a role.

In her Facebook post, Chan wrote, "As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven."

The Hoekstra campaign declined to comment directly on the post, with spokesman Paul Ciaramitaro saying only that the ad deals with issues "we will continue to address."

According to a report in the Napa Valley Register in December, Chan is a recent graduate of University of California, Berkeley, with a sociology degree who last year named herself Miss Napa Valley USA in order to enter the 2012 Miss California competition.

- 30 -