The amazing Jorge Rivas at Colorlines has a hilarious post compiling photos of people’s reactions to Mitt Romney as he awkwardly addressed the NAACP (or white voters afraid he would be too nice to black people). This shot may be my favorite, but you can pick for yourself here.
Daniel Tosh’s comments to the woman he joked about being gang-raped did not constitute an apology but a “fauxpology,“ as Vanessa pointed out yesterday.
Tosh uses some classic tricks to apologize, without really apologizing.
Trick One: I was misquoted. Tosh seeks to relieve himself of any responsibility, since, hey, he didn’t even say it.
Trick Two: I was the victim. Tosh seeks to undermins his apology by defending the point that started the entire interaction. He did nothing wrong but defend himself of a heinous violation–heckling! This is a weak apology at best and a passive aggressive dig at worst.
Does he really think people will not see the trickery he is employing to NOT apologize but say he is? Well, if he does, he’s right, because the media has reported his non-apology as the real thing.
The rage-fillled Joe Walsh screams at the articulate, cool, calm collected Tammy Duckworth. Who looks more fit to govern?
Tea Partier and deadbeat dad Joe Walsh, who fought against paying over $100,000 in child support to his family, loves to attack Tammy Duckworth, who fought and sacrificed an arm and two legs for her country. This time Walsh is going after Duckworth for not shutting up about her service. This is pretty ironic, given that Walsh suffers from one of the worst cases of verbal diarrhea recorded in history. (He yelled at his constituents in a coffee shop, told the president to stop lying, said the president was elected only because he was African-American, mocked Duckworth’s service on multiple occasions.) And as recently as yesterday, Walsh doubled down on his criticism on Duckworth, saying, “I do believe she talks about her service too much. And as a voter in this district, I would want to know where she stands on issues.”
This weekend the hashtag #RepublicanSongs was trending on Twitter. (For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter trending, it means that someone tweeted an idea—in this case the retitling of a popular song to reflect right-wing thinking, tagged with the hash tag #RepublicanSongs. So many people contributed their own ideas that the hashtag dominated Twitter for a day). Here are ten of the countless Republican Songs I spent my weekend—I mean, took a few minutes here and there out of my busy social calendar—coming up with. As I consider myself not only a Twitter artist but a Twitter curator, below my own titles I present a sampler of great Republican Songs tweeted by the greater Twitter community.
#RepublicanSongs from me:
- My Country ’Tis of Me (My Country ’Tis of Thee)
- The Times Should Not B-Changin’ (The Times They Are A-Changin’)
- Fetus, I Need Your Lovin’ (Baby, I Need Your Lovin’ )
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Upworthy, the site which aggregates content with important messages, busted Mitt Romney’s failed attempt to go after Obama via Venn diagram via… some hilarious Venn diagrams going after Romney’s inability to make Venn diagrams. Get it? Enjoy!
[warning: the following is sarcasm. I’m writing this so I don’t pull my hair out and scream at the screen.] Joe Walsh is one classy guy. He continues to attack Tammy Duckworth for rubbing her service and sacrifice for this country in everyone’s faces. Every time she shows up anywhere she has to remind people she lost two legs and an arm when her helicopter was ambushed in Iraq. Can’t she, like, cover them up? It’s enough already. She may have fought for her country but Joe Walsh is also a warrior. He fought against paying over $100,000 in child support. But he is too humble and selfless to draw attention to his tireless fight against his own children. He also has fought against Tammy Duckworth for being a veteran, as he did in a Politico interview in April:
“I have so much respect for what she did in the fact that she sacrificed her body for this country,” said Walsh, simultaneously lowering his voice as he leaned forward before pausing for dramatic effect. “Ehhh. Now let’s move on.What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran … ehhh,” he continued. “She is nothing more than a handpicked Washington bureaucrat. David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel just picked her up and dropped her into this district.”
The Food and Drug Administration hasapprovedOraQuick, a product that allows you to test for HIV in your own home. An over-the-counter test already existed but required you to prick your finger and send the blood sample to a lab. But the new test allows users to take a swab from the inside of their gums and wait 20 to 40 minutes to see the results.
Dr. Robert Gallo, who headed the National Institutes of Health lab that developed the first American HIV blood test calls the news,“wonderful because it will get more people into care.” Mark Harrington, the executive director of the Treatment Action Group, (TAG), the independent AIDS research and policy think tank and advocacy organization, agrees that, “[a]ny tool that speeds up diagnosis is really needed.” And Karen Midthun, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research said,
“Knowing your status is an important factor in the effort to prevent the spread of HIV…. The availability of a home-use HIV test kit provides another option for individuals to get tested so that they can seek medical care, if appropriate.”
Katie Halper is a comic, filmmaker, and one of the newest contributors here at Feministing. Her work has appeared in sites like Guernica, Alternet, the Huffington Post, theNew York Times, Comedy Central and GritTV. When she’s not writing sharp and entertaining commentaries on politics, she’s doing stand-up comedy or working on her documentary called, “Got Camp.” Her comic routine encompasses everything from her Jewish heritage to sexism and homophobia. She’s performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, DC Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise. Her documentary tells the story of the summer camp Halper attended, which she calls “the opposite of Jesus camp,” where all religions and ideologies are encouraged. As she says, “It’s basically the right wing’s nightmare.” She’s one of the founders of the stand-up political comedy group Laughing Liberally, which is a project of Living Liberally that tours and performs in cities all over the U.S. On top of all this funny, political work, she teaches Latin American history during her day job.
Katie’s refreshing and funny voice has been a great addition to the site. No matter how serious the topic, she always finds a way to insert her comedic perspective into everything she writes about. Make sure you keep an eye out for Katie’s posts and get to know her better. Also, stay up to date on her comedic mashup videos on YouTube.
And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Katie Halper.
Anna Sterling: What came first—politics or comedy?
Katie Halper: Politics came first. I went on my first anti-nukes march when I was one year old. I remember as a kid going to pro-choice rallies and anti-war rallies. I was very influential in the public discourse around Dukakis and Bush among 7 year olds, I’d like to think. I went to a very political summer camp where the bunks were named Harriet Tubman, Anne Frank and Pablo Neruda. And then people in college told me I should do stand-up and I remember thinking, “I’m not funny on command, maybe I’m funny spontaneously.” I did a stand-up show, it went well and since then, I’ve been doing comedy.
Today, the Supreme Court ruled on Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 immigration law. The good news is that it struck down key parts of the law, which is why it is being hailed as a victory for the Obama Administration, which brought the case to the Supreme Court. The bad news is that it upheld the “show me your papers” part that encourages racial profiling, which is why Governor Jan “Finger” Brewer is praising the ruling as a victory.
Leslie Berestein Rojas at Southern California Public Radio (KPCC) lays out what the ruling does:
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katiehalper.com 