He didn’t say it in all those words, but Mitt Romney took to twitter to let Gov. Brewer know that discrimination is wrong.
Year: 2014
The frontman of Grammy-nominated Christian band As I Lay Dying has admitted to trying to hire a hit man to kill his estranged wife.
Timothy Lambesis, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of solicitation of murder in Vista Superior Court, near San Diego, today.
The father-of-three was arrested in May last year after giving an undercover agent acting as a hit man, money, gate codes and an alibi to kill his estranged wife, Meggan Lambesis.
The Californian allegedly said he wanted his wife dead because she was going to get up to 60 percent of his income and would not allow their three young children to join him on tour.
NBC San Diego reported Lambesis could serve nine years behind bars as a result of his plea deal when he is sentenced on May 2. He is out on $2 million bail.
In honor of Black History Month, Jon Stewart said it was time that some people got their facts straight on how history really went down.
Stewart called out Fox Business Network’s “tribute” to Black History Month Monday night by playing a clip of Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano claiming that President Lincoln hurt the nation by leading “the most murderous war in America” rather than letting slavery die a “natural” death. Napolitano argued that Lincoln should have tried “purchasing the slaves and then freeing them.”
Here’s how Stewart responded:
“Compensated emancipation, why didn’t Lincoln think of that!? What’s that? Oh, he did think of that? Oh! He spent most of 1862 trying to convince the border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia to free their slaves in exchange for money and everybody said f*ck off…because it wasn’t economically feasible and the slave states had a deeply vested socio-political interest in maintaining a two-tiered culture based on cheap forced labor.”
Watch
Paula Deen continued maneuvering for a comeback Sunday, turning a beachside cooking demonstration into a public apology for the racist comments that decimated her career last year.
The former Food Network star took the stage to prepare chicken and dumplings at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, but before beginning asked the crowd if they minded if she talked about something serious for a moment. Without ever explicitly discussing the allegations or comments she has admitted making, she said she was glad to be back and that, “I am not a quitter.”
“We have come off of a very hard summer my family and I, my team, my partners,” she said to a cheering crowd of several hundred fans. “But you know, I have heard on more than one occasion … that I’ve never apologized. So if anybody did not hear me apologize, I would like to apologize to those who did not hear me.”
Deen’s career has been in shambles following a one-two punch of public relations disasters. In 2012, she was criticized for announcing she had both diabetes and a lucrative endorsement deal for a drug to treat the condition she’d until then hidden.
Then last summer, during a legal dispute with a former employee who accused her of racial discrimination and sexual harassment, she acknowledged having used racial slurs in the past. Most of her endorsement, book and TV deals fell apart within days.
Deen has mostly stayed out of the spotlight since then, even avoiding the Food Network’s 20th anniversary party last October. But lately, she has made it clear she wants back. Earlier this month, she announced that private investment firm Najafi Companies is investing $75 million to $100 million to help her make a comeback.
As part of the deal, she’s launching an umbrella company, Paula Deen Ventures, that will oversee her restaurants, cookbooks and product endorsements. And Sunday’s crowd seemed primed for it all, shouting out to her “You don’t need to apologize!” and “We want you back, Paula!”
“Ya’ll’s cards and letters that I got, helped me get out of bed every day,” she replied.
Midway through the demo, Food Network star Robert Irvine joined Deen onstage. Irvine survived his own scandal in in 2008 when the Food Network let him go over discrepancies in claims he’d made over his work experience. He eventually returned to the Network, seemingly unblemished.
“This is a warning to you,” Irvine told Deen. “You’ve apologized. You’ve eaten crow. You’re done. Don’t do it anymore. I’ve been there.”
Before a roaring crowd, Irvine then got down on his hands and knees while Deen straddled his back and rode him across the stage, a reenactment of a gimmick they’d done during a previous festival.
“I’m back in the saddle!” she yelled to the crowd.
Arizona governor Jan Brewer is still deciding whether to allow Arizona business to legally discriminate. The bill passed both state houses, and Brewer must decide if her signature will make it law.
Until that decision is made however, much of the country is embroiled in the debate – should businesses be legally allowed to deny service to anyone because their religious beliefs are contradictory to that person’s way of life?
That was one of the questions asked by Anderson Cooper as he interviewed one of the Arizona senators who passed the bill.
Watch what happened next below.
The cost of being a celebrity. All she wanted to was get to her hotel room, but that simple, common task was not about to happen. Not on this day.
According to reporting by TMZ, Rihanna could have been in Paris to meet up with her old beau Drake.
Drake is in Paris for a concert — he performed last night — but he and Rihanna have been hanging out since the weekend … grabbing a fancy dinner at Paris’s famous L’Avenue restaurant Sunday.
Rihanna re-connected with Drake at his concert the next day … slipping in the rear entrance.
Video
The law would allow businesses in Arizona to legally discriminate against gays and anyone for that matter, on the basis of Religious beliefs. The legislation passed both the House and Senate in Arizona, and is waiting on Brewer’s desk for final signature to become law.
However, NBC is reporting that this signature will not happen. Here is the latest tweet from NBC on this topic.
More: Brewer “doesn’t want to take any actions that could jeopardize the economic momentum” in Arizona, source says
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 25, 2014
Brewer has been under intense pressure from business groups and political leaders to diffuse the situation and veto the legislation which they fear will draw unnecessary attention to Arizona a year before it hosts the next Super Bowl and following economic losses on controversial immigration stances.
At the same time, three GOP state senators who initially ratified the measure have written to Brewer, a Republican, asking her to reject Senate Bill 1062, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Brewer, in an interview with CNN, said she is weighing her options. “I will do the right thing for the state of Arizona,” she said.
Imagine if you went to Burger King or any other business for the matter, made a purchase and saw those words plastered across your receipt where the “Customer name” should be. Well for a Virginian woman and her daughter-in-law, this was not an imagination, it was their reality.
In an interview with WTVR, the woman identified as only Miss Lorel, said she saw the profanity on the receipt Saturday night after she picked up her order at the drive-thru of the restaurant.
She immediately asked to see the manager.
“He did apologize. He also called the young lady over and asked her, ‘did you see this?’ She just shook her head. He said it had never happened before,” Miss Lorel said.
After apologizing, the manager returned the receipt to Miss Lorel but did not offer to refund her money
“This is more than an insult. I mean calling you names on a piece of a paper, that will hurt somebody,” Miss Lorel said through tears. “I liked going there. But after this they won’t get my business anymore. I can make my own burgers”
When contacted,franchise owner John Naparlo said, “We are obviously upset by the harm this has caused one of our customers.”
For those of you who watched Monday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks, the Knicks lost a heartbreak when a prayer from Dallas player Dirk Nowitzki bounced on the rim and fell into the basket in literally the last second of the game. That last basket broke a tie between the two teams, giving Dallas the win.
That last play summed up the way the Knicks season has gone so far, as games the team should have won, somehow resulted in losses. They have suffered numerous injuries and are now playing and praying for some way to make the playoffs, an increasingly difficult task with each breathtaking loss.
Well add this to the misery that is now the Knicks season. Felton Spencer, the point guard for the team, was arrested on gun charges.
According to a New York Police Department spokesman, Felton was arrested at the 20th Precinct shortly after the Knicks lost to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday. He is expected to be arraigned later Tuesday.
The arrest garnered him second and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon felony charges and a fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon misdemeanor charge.
According to New York courts, the second-degree felony alleges Felton “knowingly possesses a loaded firearm” and the third-degree felony alleges Felton “knowingly possesses a firearm which has been defaced for the purpose of concealment or prevention of the detection of a crime or misrepresenting the identity of such firearm.”
The second-degree felony charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years if convicted, and the third-degree charge carries a maximum sentence of seven years if convicted.
‘Dick’… Cheney was true to name and self last night when he did a telephone interview on Fox’s Hannity Show. Asked about the news that the Obama administration is considering cutting the military, Cheney responded with the usual racist stereotypes, typical of… well… racists.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is proposing cuts to the military to meet the Pentagon’s budgeted needs. The plan would reduce the military from its all time high of 570,000 to a more feasible number, between 450,000 to 490,000.
Cheney called the plan “absolutely dangerous” and went on to say that it “does enormous long-term damage to our military.”
He then dropped this piece of racist stereotypical nugget.
“He’d much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops.”
You know, the first black president and all. Despite the fact that southern whites make up a larger population of food stamp recipients than blacks, the racists would still use this argument when they have nothing else to say and when they know that their base is looking for their daily dose of hate.
A pregnant woman is just a “host” that should not have the right to end her pregnancy, Virginia State Sen. Steve Martin (R) wrote in a Facebook rant defending his anti-abortion views.
Martin, the former chairman of the Senate Education and Health Committee, wrote a lengthy post about his opinions on women’s bodies on his Facebook wall last week in response to a critical Valentine’s Day card he received from reproductive rights advocates.
“I don’t expect to be in the room or will I do anything to prevent you from obtaining a contraceptive,” Martin wrote. “However, once a child does exist in your womb, I’m not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child’s host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn’t want it.” Martin then changed his post on Monday afternoon to refer to the woman as the “bearer of the child” instead of the “host.”
Martin voted for Virginia’s mandatory ultrasound bill and supported a fetal personhood bill, which would ban all abortions and could affect the legality of some forms of contraception. The Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition had sent him a Valentine’s Day card asking him to protect women’s reproductive health options, “including preventing unwanted pregnancies, raising healthy children and choosing safe, legal abortion.”
Martin reacted strongly to their letter.
“If it’s your expectation that I should support such nonsense, I will be breaking your heart,” he wrote. “You can count on me to never get in the way of you ‘preventing an unintentional pregnancy.’ I’m not actually sure what that means, because if it’s ‘unintentional’ you must have been trying to prevent it.”
Fort Lee, N.J. Mayor Mark Sokolich met Friday with federal prosecutors who wanted to talk about the George Washington Bridge lane closures, Sokolich’s attorney confirmed to TPM on Monday.
The meeting, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was a voluntary one. In a statement, Sokolich’s attorney declined to discuss details of his client’s conversation with members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the district of New Jersey.
“Since there is an ongoing criminal investigation, neither Mayor Sokolich nor I will comment on the substance of those discussions,” attorney Tim Donohue wrote. “The Mayor is grateful for the efforts of the US Attorneys Office, and the Mayor and his entire administration will continue to cooperate fully with this investigation as well as the Select Committee’s investigation.”
Sokolich has been at the center of the bridge scandal from the start. The lane closures caused a massive, multi-day traffic jam in Fort Lee. The same week they began, Sokolich told a local columnist that he had begun to wonder if the closures were intended to send him “some sort of message.” Democrats in the state have since suggested that the closures were retaliation against Sokolich’s decision not to endorse Christie’s re-election last year — an allegation that has not been proven.