Candidate A’s dereliction of duty included disappearing from office with no contact to his staff or constituents for six days, see-through lies about hiking the Appalachian Trail, the gigantic hypocrisy of supporting a constitutional amendment defining marriage as “one man and one woman” while being married to one woman and covertly dating another, and, of course, being charged by the state’s Ethics Commission with 37 violations, including spending taxpayer money on business-class flights.

Candidate B’s transgressions included engaging women in social media-based conversations behind his wife’s back, see-through lies about being hacked, and … well, what else? … masturbating too much (while alternating between the DM screen and staring at his naked body in the mirror)?

Is one better? Is one worse? That’s entirely up to you. It all depends on what you think about Democrats versus Republicans, what constitutes fidelity and hypocrisy, how much you value physical contact vis-a-vis cheating, and whether you believe in comeuppance for raging egomaniacs. But one thing is clear: Comparing Mark Sanford to Anthony Weiner is like comparing apples and some fruit that tweets crotch pics when it’s bored. It’s just lazy.

Both Sanford and Weiner are attempting political comebacks. Sanford won election to the United States Congress on Tuesday night, and South Carolinians showed that they are unafraid to sublimate their social beliefs for their political ones. Weiner will likely seek the New York City mayoral iron throne in the fall. Democrats are gleefully hailing Sanford’s win, all too happy to point out the steaming pile of horse dung that is the phrase “Family Values Republicans.” Republicans are anxiously looking forward to Weiner’s run so they can break out the Book of Puns over Weiner’s lack of morality.

But that’s where the similarities end. That’s it. Both men made mistakes involving women and infidelity, but their “scandals” are entirely different. Sure, lumping them together makes a good headline, and it provides the legacy media and partisan tweeters an opportunity for perfect balance and fairness to the proceedings. It also does a tremendous disservice to what each man did, and what we should take away from each man’s supposed crimes of passion.

SEE ALSO:
• The Straight-Talk Speech Anthony Weiner Needs to Deliver
• Hilarious N.Y. Post ‘Weiner Second Coming’ Headline Is a Repeat

Mark Sanford has much more in common with Bill Clinton, David Vitter, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer and David Petraeus. Anthony Weiner’s story is more like that of Chris Lee, the shirtless Craigslist congressman. But because of the “comeback” angle, because of the obsessive need for balance, we’re stuck referring to these men and what they did in the same breath.

They are not the same. The real takeaway, for me, from the Sanford scandal is not what he did for true love, or how he handled it, but that he *still* judges others’ relationships while seemingly learning nothing about why it’s best to stay out of people’s bedrooms. The real takeaway, for me, from the Weiner scandal is that we need a frank conversation in this country about what constitutes cheating and the new tools that enable real-time pornography.

But these are not conversations we will have. Instead we’re stuck with a politico-media complex that lazily wants to string everything together so it can talk about COMEBACKS! in the blandest way possible. Cool story, bro.

Of course, in the aftermath of Sanford’s victory, the media’s all in:

“I wouldn’t presume to give any other politician advice,” Sanford told CNN’s John Berman on Wednesday morning. “I just know that we had a rather robust conversation down here in the first congressional district.”

Anthony Weiner loses 1 possible consultant. I just asked Mark Sanford if he had advice for Weiner…he wouldn’t give any.@startingptcnn

— John Berman (@JohnBerman) May 8, 2013

And while the tweets are funny, they achieve the same goal:

Somewhere in a New York apartment, Anthony Weiner turns off the TV, swivels in his leather chair, and smiles

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) May 8, 2013

There you have it, Mark Sanford lives to see another day. Anthony Weiner should sleep well tonight…

— Abby Huntsman (@HuntsmanAbby) May 8, 2013

RT @steveking_: If they get Sanford back, we get Weiner. Only fair.

— Brian Fung (@b_fung) May 8, 2013

Slade Sohmer is editor-in-chief of HyperVocal and co-host of SiriusXM’s Politics Powered By Twitter. Listen every day, 2-3 pm ET on POTUS 124.

The post Stop Comparing Mark Sanford and Anthony Weiner: It’s Just Lazy appeared first on HyperVocal.

We can all thank Stephen Colbert for changing the world.

Here’s why this isn’t just a newsy joke: Clinton is one of those rare Twitter users who can actually pause the news cycle with 140 characters or less. These days not even @BarackObama can do that, though that’s partly because he doesn’t really control the Twitter account that bears his name.

Of the platform’s many good uses — news, commentary, absurdism — how should @BillClinton go about using Twitter? What would be the best use of his time, and ours? We’ll discuss this on today’s “Politics Powered By Twitter,” (SiriusXM 124, 2-3 ET) but here are some quickie suggestions:

• Live-tweeting: Think of it as DVD commentary from directors and actors. If Clinton really is the “explainer-in-chief,” he can help Democrats by tweeting during Obama’s State of the Unions, during major policy addresses, backstage from his wife’s impending 2016 campaign.

• Flashbacks: Sticking with the DVD commentary theme, how great would it be if Clinton marked certain days with multi-tweet commentaries on how the story unfolded behind the scenes? Like Howard Stern tweeting about Private Parts, only funnier. It doesn’t have to be the salacious and scandalous stuff, but how about some thoughts on how major legislation came to be? Surely Clinton has great perspective 15-20 years later, about his successes (22 million new jobs, balanced budget) and his failures (DOMA, womp womp).

• Interact with civilians: Dangerous territory, for sure. Is this DM? But we’re not talking about tweeting at @SaraJayxxx & @AngelinaCastroX to inquire about #TeamBJNBA. Take some questions, do a #ClintonQA every now and then, participate in the great equalizer like so many others.

• Strategerie: Gun reform legislation stalled. Why? Partly because of messaging. As we all saw at the DNC, very few people can communicate effectively like Clinton can. How about throwing out talking points for RTs, change the conversation from the same media-spun nonsense to unfiltered Clintonian bombshells, 140 characters at a time? Hey, if @LOLGOP can come up with new ways of looking at old debates, so can Clinton.

• Observational humor: “What’s the deal with Mitch McConnell?! Is this guy just a turtle without its shell? I mean, coooome on!”

How will he probably use it (if he uses it at all)? To announce Clinton Foundation events, spew safe political platitudes and throw out boring tweets about upcoming appearances. To paraphrase the great Seymour Skinner, prove me wrong, Clinton. Prove me wrong.

Excited to join @chelseaclinton and my good friend @stephenathome on Twitter!

— Bill Clinton (@billclinton) April 25, 2013

I taught @billclinton to tweet! This is almost as exciting as the time I taught Cheney “Dance Dance Revolution.”

— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) April 25, 2013

Slade Sohmer is editor-in-chief of HyperVocal and co-host of SiriusXM’s “Politics Powered By Twitter.” Let him know how you think Bill Clinton should use Twitter @SladeHV or @PoliticsRadio.

The post Bill Clinton Is Now on Twitter: So How Should He Use the Platform? appeared first on HyperVocal.

Thirteen months ago, the Maryland Senate passed a bill to make same-sex marriage legal (which was upheld by voters on Election Day), and in just the last month, the body’s 47 elected senators — 33 Dems and 14 GOP — have okayed laws to abolish the death penalty, decriminalize personal amounts of marijuana, control the flow of guns and develop an offshore wind project.

Here’s why liberals elsewhere might be jealous of Maryland:

• MD Senate backs decriminalizing small amounts of pot (3/19/13)

A bill that would make possession of small amounts of marijuana a civil offense passed the Maryland Senate Tuesday on a 30-16 vote.

The legislation, crafted to avoid handing out jail terms for possession of small amounts of marijuana, would remove any criminal component to the prohibion of marijuana possession when a person is caught with 10 grams or less. The maximum fine would be a $100 fine. The current maximum is a 90-day jail term.

The bill still has to pass the Maryland House of Delegates, which enjoys a similar 98-43 Democratic advantage, before making its way to the desk of Governor Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who may run for president in 2016. There are currently three separate pro-marijuana bills being considered in Maryland’s state legislature; this is the first to be passed. The other two involve medical marijuana and a complete decriminalization.

• Md. Senate passes gun control bill (2/28/13)

The Senate’s 28-19 vote in support of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s bill came after more than 12 hours of often-emotional debate Wednesday and Thursday. Supporters said the proposal — which would ban the sale of assault-type rifles and require a license to purchase a handgun — would save lives.

“You can get a gun quicker than you can get an apple or an orange in my community,” said Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden, a Baltimore Democrat. “It’s an outrage, and we need to do something about it.”

The measure now awaits consideration by the House of Delegates. A federal appeals court last week upheld a key provision of Maryland’s gun reform laws, which the legislature seeks to expand even further by banning assault weapons and requiring gun buyers to submit to fingerprinting.

• MD Senate votes to repeal death penalty (3/6/13)

Maryland became the 18th state to make this move …

Two Republicans — Sens. Edward R. Reilly of Anne Arundel County and Allan H. Kittleman of Howard County — joined 25 Democrats in supporting repeal. Ten Democrats and 10 Republicans opposed the legislation. [The vote was 27-20.]

The Senate has been viewed by repeal proponents as a tougher challenge than the House. In 2009, the last year O’Malley pushed to end capital punishment, the effort ended in a compromise that narrowed the circumstances under which the death penalty could be sought.

The House of Delegates passed the legislation by an 82-56 margin on March 15. Eighty Democrats and two Republicans voted for the bill, and Governor O’Malley will sign the bill when the Assembly session ends. But it’s not over yet: “Death penalty supporters could petition it to the 2014 ballot and leave the question to Maryland voters,” the Baltimore Sun reported. “If that happens, the law would be put on hold until after the election.”

• Md. Senate passes bill for offshore wind project (3/8/13)

The measure that passed 30-15 has been a priority for Gov. Martin O’Malley, who pushed unsuccessfully for the bill for two years before finally finding success with a scaled-back proposal. The bill was already passed this session by the House of Delegates, which will only have to sign off on several small changes the Senate made before sending it off to O’Malley to sign.

Environmental groups cheered the vote. Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, described it as a significant victory for clean energy.

Note from ThinkProgress: “The new law is the first of its kind requiring direct subsidies from ratepayers, and was made politically palatable by a 2013 poll showing 72 percent of Maryland residents would be willing to pay $2 more per month for their electricity bills to develop an offshore wind industry.”

• Maryland Senate passes gay marriage bill (2/23/12)

You know all about this one already … so let’s move along.

The only piece of liberal legislation that has failed recently in the Maryland Senate is a minimum wage increase, which did not pass out of committee on an 8-3 vote earlier this week. Womp woooomp.

Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, flanked by House Speaker Michael Busch, left, and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.; AP Photo/Brian Witte

What gives here? Why is Maryland able to go so hard to the left at a time when most other states are veering to the right? The obvious answer is a liberal super-majority in both chambers of the General Assembly and a Progressive governor who is actively setting a liberal agenda.

But, despite voting this majority and governor into office, the residents of Maryland don’t consider themselves to be overly liberal, according to a recent Gallup survey. Maryland isn’t in the top 10 among state where residents identify their ideology as liberal. In fact, Maryland is the fourth most “moderate” state in the union, with 38.3% considering themselves middle of the road.

Yet, and this is important, there seems to be no real outrage from Maryland residents about this lib’rul agenda. There are no significant shouts for recalls of these politicians, no big Tea Party protests to speak of.

Is it because these are rational, common sense measures? Perhaps its residents just understand that after Newtown, it’s time to reform our gun laws; maybe they just know that marijuana is not a harmful drug and shouldn’t be treated as such because of a legacy classification; conceivably they know that loving couples should be allowed to marry, and that we need to start putting into place alternative energy solutions, and that the death penalty is an antiquated form of cruel and unusual punishment.

Every state is different, obviously, and every state’s residents will vote for the men and women who will enact the policies they’d like to see. You won’t see this in “red states,” surely. But similarly moderate and left-leaning states, of which there are plenty, should look to Maryland as an example of what voters might see as practical legislating when others see it as liberal takeover.

Slade Sohmer is editor-in-chief of HyperVocal and co-host of SiriusXM’s daily “Politics Powered By Twitter” show. Tweet him at @SladeHV.

The post Maryland Senate Is a Liberal Wet Dream: Guns, Gays & Get High appeared first on HyperVocal.

You’ve seen the tweet, or at least heard about it. You’ve witnessed the online outrage. You may even be part of those picking up pitchforks and torches against The Onion. But don’t. It’s okay. It’s gonna be fine.

Defending this joke is so difficult that The Onion, which always — ALWAYS — plants the flag and lets it fly without fear of judgment, decided to delete the tweet. Either the tweet writer saw the initial responses and yanked it, The Onion’s higher-ups are seriously worried about comedic and financial blowback for the first time ever, or someone more important than the tweet writer just didn’t think it was funny enough to stand behind.

People are fired up, and for good reason. Call a 9-year-old girl a “cunt,” you’re going to piss people off. Wendell Pierce, for example, star of The Wire and Treme, among other shows, tweeted: “Identify the writer. Let him defend that abhorrent verbal attack of a child. You call it humor I call it horrendous.”

• SEE ALSO: What Does Quvenzhané Wallis’s Puppy Purse Look Like?

The Onion doesn’t need “defenders,” and surely they can do a better job than anyone else. But look at this indecency another way — this is a classic omelet/breaking some eggs situation. You can’t get Onion-caliber humor on the regular without calling a few nine-year-old girls the C-word along the way.

Nobody should have to explain the machinations of a bad joke. But clearly The Onion wasn’t picking on Quvenzhané Wallis. The absurdity is the joke. And because only The Onion can get away with the jokes they usually do in this EVERYTHING IS OFFENSIVE ALL THE TIME society, it allows other people to continue to try to expand the bounds of comedy.

In other words, to paraphrase the admittedly villainous Col. Nathan R. Jessep, “They should have neither the time nor the inclination to explain themselves to a society who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very comedy The Onion provides, then questions the manner in which they provide it! They’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way.”

Besides, The Onion has stood by far worse. This tweet still stands:

BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building.

— The Onion (@TheOnion) September 29, 2011

Yeah, the joke missed its mark. Yeah, it used a taboo word. Yeah, it invoked an innocent child. But it was just a joke, and it wasn’t even about Ms. Wallis. They *should* publicly apologize for it, as warranted.

Ultimately, we want The Onion on that wall. We need The Onion on that wall.

MORE OSCARS:
• Anne Hathaway Goes Fembot, Jennifer Lawrence Is Stunning
• Michelle Obama Gives Out Award For Best Picture

UPDATE: The Onion apologized just before noon on Monday:

Dear Readers,

On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.

No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire.

The tweet was taken down within an hour of publication. We have instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again.

In addition, we are taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.

Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry.

Sincerely,

Steve Hannah
CEO
The Onion

The post In Quasi-Defense of The Onion Calling Quvenzhané Wallis the C Word appeared first on HyperVocal.

It’s a speech, rarely rooted in reality. There are ovations, often forced and uncomfortable. There are camera cutaways, revealing contorted faces often forced and uncomfortable. There are guests, and ribbons, and pageantry. Everything is carefully choreographed political theater. Everything.

President Obama’s fifth State of the Union address tore us away from much more compelling drama. Whereas the anti-inflammatory speech blew hot air and puffed smoke, the burning cabin 2,600 miles away contained more interesting themes and points of discussion about the society in which we live.

The Christopher Dorner saga, honest riveting drama to the very end, isn’t simply a case of a man gone off the deep end. It’s bigger than watching a Falling Down sequel unfold in real time. There are clear issues and narratives with true news value here: tales of police and judicial corruption, of race relations, of valuing some lives above others, of the flailing mental health of our soldiers and cops, of big bureaucracies crushing the little guy.

The State of the Union over the years has become a night of lofty idealism undercut by entrenched partisanship. Of the 6,400+ words, only raising the minimum wage to $9 and tying to to cost-of-living increases had news value. The rest was about funny faces, contemptuous scowls, rehashed policy positions and MUST-CLICK GIFs. Lots and lots of GIFs. What did we really learn on Tuesday night? That a bottled water company missed a big moment when Marco Rubio lunged off-camera for a sip of God-given refreshment?

But while many joked about Obama’s speech being split screened with Dorner’s burning cabin, it’s the latter that provided not only a dramatic movie script, but also the opportunity to ask some of very real questions that don’t need to be focused grouped and packaged as news on cable television.

• There are countless stories about soldiers/police officers readjusting to life outside of their job, but it’s all from the “How can we ‘fix’ this?” angle. We never ask, “What does it say about the nature of those occupations in the first place?” We’ve gone through all this trouble to construct a way of living reasonably as a society, albeit an imperfect one, but then the organizations we setup to protect it, specifically, have a very different set of rules, which betrays a fundamental lack of trust in our principles and institutions.

• What does it say when these organizations value their own lives over the people they’re protecting? It doesn’t appear as if anyone in the LAPD or Torrance Police Department been suspended, fired or even dressed down for shooting up two pickup trucks, one carrying two Latina women and one a white surfer. It was frantic! Our officers were high-strung! “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Wayne LaPierre famously told us after Newtown. But what stops a good guy with a gun from indiscriminately opening fire on good guys without guns?

• It’s not entirely clear whether Dorner, as laid out in his manifesto, was wronged when he was fired in 2008 over his “giving false statements” in a police brutality episode involving his training officer. But as The Atlantic notes, “There is some evidence that the judge who ruled against Dorner back in 2007 was not exactly squeaky clean. Judge David P. Yaffe resigned in 2010 and did so while in the midst of a bribery scandal.” Can one man against a machine ever get a fair shake? And when such back-room deals play out, as they do all the time, what is acceptable recourse in between taking it lying down and going on a revenge killing?

• Is there sympathy for the devil? Maybe it’s a few hundred tweets and that alone, but there did seem to be at least a small contingent of people rooting for Dorner as folk hero, like a modern-day Dillinger. What is it about the way we feel about our own lives, the way we go about day-to-day, that would lead us to cheer a man who shot two innocent people because of who they were related to? Even if some people in society fantasize about being cop-killers in their minds — fight the police state, maaaan — and even if Dorner’s manifesto was filled with celebrity accolades and fan fic, where’s the line between understanding revenge and condemning vengeful acts of violence?

• Dorner even had a couple paragraphs on gun control in his rambling screed and, even if it wasn’t the basis for his spree, he was looking to get attention for change, no matter how misguided. President Obama was doing the same, only his pulpit is more bully-able. In Dorner’s case, how do we say the things we want to say without contradicting our very premises?

• How can a police department have such a stunning lack of self-awareness when it comes to how they go about policing their cities?

There are many media distractions that don’t deserve air time. There’s much Internet fodder that’s too silly to believe it’s happening. But Dorner’s story deserved its attention, and jokingly asking whether Obama’s State of the Union would get semi-bumped as the leader of the news cycle by a burning cabin is actually something of a legit question.

Yes, you could state the obvious and say that an annual speech in which the leader of the free world sets out his policy agenda for the coming term, one where everyone in Congress gathers to watch, where there are all sorts of fascinating interpersonal dynamics that the country doesn’t usually get to see, and where the major talking points of the day are digested into an hour, is entirely more newsworthy than some loon who killed a bunch of innocents and left a bizarre screed. It’s not an either/or situation.

But just because one story contains some of the biggest figures on the planet and centuries of history doesn’t mean it’s the vehicle with all the news.

The post Dorner Saga Had More News Value Than Obama’s 5th State of the Union appeared first on HyperVocal.

But, wait, slow down, fellas, put the Under Armour commercial rhetoric on hold a sec: patriotism calls. Before Alicia Keys set a new record for a slow-tempo “Star-Spangled Banner” (she clearly bet the over), 26 adorable children from Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, stood atop the NFL logo to sing “America the Beautiful,” backing Jennifer Hudson, who has her own horrific gun tragedy story to process. It was an incredible moment, touching, a reminder of all that when all is grim, we can and will rise again.

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

It was, as stated, a touching moment. But that’s because it was endearing to see our most barbaric pastime halted for just a few minutes by such innocence, only months after all that innocence had been presumed lost.

The Sandy Hook choir worked in that moment. So when news came that another group of kids from Newtown would be singing “Call Me Maybe” on Ryan Seacrest’s Grammy Awards red carpet, my first thought wasn’t “Hey, that’s cute,” it was “C’mon. Now it’s just exploitation,” executives on the hunt for another bloggable, tweetable moment. And I said as such, which caught the attention of The Atlantic, and New York Magazine, and eventually CNN.

On CNN’s “Out Front” on Wednesday, I discussed this gut reaction with host Erin Burnett and fellow guest Bonnie Fuller. Is it actually exploitation? Can it be exploitation if it’s truly beneficial for the kids’ grief? And is this just the latest example of a society in which so many of us are exploiting personal and mass tragedies? Check out the answers in this partial clip from the interview:

Kudos to Burnett, who right after that video cuts off owned up to the media’s role in exploiting tragedies. She seemed to understand exactly the points I was trying to make about the adults in the room who should know better.

The post Grammy Awards Execs Are Exploiting the Kids From Newtown appeared first on HyperVocal.

It’s not that the media ignored what was happening in southeast Alabama this past week. It’s that America, largely, didn’t much care that a Vietnam vet survivalist boarded a bus, shot and killed the driver and absconded with a five-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, who was then held in an underground 8′ x 6′ stocked bunker for seven days. How did this not warrant 24/7 coverage? We’ve cared more deeply about a girl who fell in a well before. This poor kid was a prisoner.

The ordeal, frightening at every turn, ended on Monday. Five-year-old Ethan will spend his sixth birthday, on Wednesday, reunited with his family.

What was missing here?

The traditional national news media covered the story. Every day authorities provided updates. Yet this never rose to the level one might expect for an unfolding tragedy with all the elements of “if it bleeds, it leads.”

Why didn’t this one reel us in? Was it simply Super Bowl week? Did we write it off as “The South?” If this were Long Island or Southern California, would we have cared more? Did we just feel too helpless, like there was nothing that we could possibly do? Were we scared we’d tune in at the exact second they told us the boy was dead, or sexually abused, or beaten, or eaten? Was it simply boring, all the “action” having taken place before most of us were aware of it?

Or, and this may be it, was Jimmy Lee Dykes just too crazy for a real-life villain, two steps over the acceptable level of derangement we require?

Jimmy Lee Dykes, AP Photo/Alabama Department of Public Safety

MORE MEDIA:
• Newtown: Initial Reports After Columbine & 9/11 Were Wrong, Too
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We even had a textbook hero: The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., died protecting the 21 children he was carrying. When Dykes boarded the bus and demanded Poland hand over two children, Poland stood up and blocked Dykes’ path. He was gunned down going above and beyond his call of duty.

This horrific story had all the elements: A hero, since celebrated at home, largely anonymous to the nation. A little boy with developmental disabilities in the wrong place and time. A kidnapper with a long, bad history. A hand-built underground bunker. Negotiators stymied by physical barriers.

And, yet, we passed. Why do you think that is?

The post Why Didn’t We Care Much That a Boy Was Held in a Bunker For 7 Days? appeared first on HyperVocal.

“I don’t do the gay guys man,” Culliver told Artie Lange ahead of the game. “I don’t do that. … We don’t got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do … Nah … can’t be … in the locker room man. Nah.”

Culliver’s reward? A game in which more than 100 million people tuned in to see him toasted on a long touchdown, receive a stiff arm to the face and be penalized at a crucial point for heavy petting pass interference.

AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

But here’s the thing: The Culliver Episode is a net positive for the LGBT community. The takeaway isn’t that there are still anti-gay bigots in the NFL, or in non-football life; no, the real takeaway here is that it’s no longer cool to hate the gays and be safe from instant, justified persecution.

The pendulum has swung. Homophobia, whatever that amorphous term truly means, is being stamped out of sports, one of the last bastions of acceptable non-otherness. Chicago Bulls forward Joakim Noah dropped an F bomb — the six-letter kind, not the four — and took a $50,000 hit. Commissioner David Stern dropped a $100,000 fine on Kobe Bryant for a similar infraction.

AP Photo/Matt Slocum

There was talk that Culliver would be suspended from the biggest game of his career, though thankfully he wasn’t — he got his just desserts in the form of all-out mockery, derision and the harsh limelight of poor play.

This is progress. For chiding gay people, you no longer get locker room high fives and, ironically, butt pats. It’s sensitivity training and 1,000 blogs writing about how you’re one of the biggest dickheads in sports.

Speak out against human rights, against one of the least legally protected groups in society, and YOU’RE the pariah. That’s relatively new. That’s objectively awesome. This is a good thing. Now the next time this happens, and it will, let’s not focus too much on the harsh words spoken and instead latch on to the prospect that society has our back now. We got this.

AP Photo/Gene Puskar

AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

SEE ALSO:
• What This Standing Ovation For a High Schooler’s Coming Out Means
• 6 Quick Points About Jodie Foster’s Meta Non-Coming Out Speech

The post Super Bowl XLVII’s 5 Greatest Moments For Gays and Their Allies appeared first on HyperVocal.

You have rights. Those rights are protected by the U.S. Constitution. No matter how delusional upset you are that a tyrannical dictator masquerading as a democratically elected president will personally go door-to-door and strip of you of those rights and confiscate your guns, the proper way to stand up and be counted is most definitely not to heckle a man who lost his six-year-old son in the most tragic mass shooting in American history.

But that’s exactly what happened on Monday at General Assembly task force meeting in Hartford, Connecticut, where NRA members and gun enthusiasts dropped all pretense of civility in making their voices heard by interrupting a grieving father giving testimony, according to the Connecticut Post.

“The Second Amendment!” was shouted a couple of times by as many as a dozen gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his slain 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state.

Yes, this man, crying, holding up a photo of himself with his murdered son, deserves to be heckled for trying to stop more mass shootings.

AP Photo/Jessica Hill

• SEE ALSO: I Own a Tank, and You Should Too

Whatever your level of paranoia, there’s a way to be rational about these things. There’s a way to wait your turn and make your opinion clear. You wait your turn and speak your mind. That’s what the Constitution guarantees.

It’s certainly understandable that gun owners are growing increasingly nervous about the prospect of a federal government trying to strip away rights protected by the Constitution. But these hecklers, and these protesters who are carrying around semi-automatic AR-15 rifles, the same model that has been used in these mass shootings, are going about this all wrong.

You don’t score points by scaring the hell out of innocent people.

You don’t score points by shouting at grieving fathers of slain children.

The Obama administration can either be incompetent or tyrannical. Either the White House has no idea what it’s doing and can’t find its car keys, or they’re rounding up your guns and melting them down for the betterment of society. But it can’t be both, as Second Amendment absolutists conveniently want it.

UPDATE: Newly released video from the event shows that Heslin does seem to pose a question to the audience, although it’s unclear whether or not it’s rhetorical. Gun enthusiasts in the room yell out “The Second Amendment” as the answer. Someone on the panel quiets the crowd. Watch it here:

SEE ALSO:
• Virginia Man Walks Into Kroger With a Semi-Automatic Rifle
• Just a Guy With an AR-15 Rifle Shopping at JC Penney in Utah
• Piers Morgan and Alex Jones: Trainwreck TV at Its Bestworst

The post Newtown Victim’s Father Heckled by Gun Enthusiasts at Hearing appeared first on HyperVocal.

In that spirit, Obama’s invoking President Ronald Reagan’s past statements on gun control was the smartest part of his presentation.

“Weapons designed for the theater of war have no place in a movie theater. A majority of Americans agree with us on this. And by the way, so did Ronald Reagan, one of the staunchest defenders of the Second Amendment, who wrote to Congress in 1994 urging them — this is Ronald Reagan speaking — urging them to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of military-style assault weapons.”

But will conservatives even listen to Reagan on this one? Not bloody likely.

PREVIOUSLY ON REAGAN:

Ronald Reagan is, as you know, the most beloved Republican figure, the patron saint of conservatism, adored by everyone who thinks Democrats and liberals are the biggest problem in America today. He may have even won the 2012 GOP primary if someone had dared to Weekend at Bernie’s him.

But compared to the current iteration of the right-wing echo chamber, Reagan is, at best, a centrist and a RINO. At worst — looking solely at governance, not ideology — he governed far more liberally than the job-killing, tax-raising, enemy-appeasing, immigrant-loving Barack Obama. Debt, spending, tax hikes, amnesty, talking with enemies … and, worst of all, gun control.

SharpWriter/Deviant Art

That’s not to slag off the ol’ Gipper. Reagan, for all his greatest attributes and glaring faults, always seemed to at least act in the national interest.

Consider the fact that President Reagan had his “best-trained armed guards in the world” bested and took a bullet in 1981. He could have argued for *more* guns on the streets, as was argued vehemently by some on the Friday after #Newtown, but instead he did what he thought was right for the nation when the Brady Bill faced NRA-led opposition in Congress.

On his and Jim Brady’s shooting: “This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress now — the Brady bill — had been law back in 1981.” He then went on to advocate for stricter, more reasonable gun control measures in the, GASP, pages of New York Times:

Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns.

This level of violence must be stopped. Sarah and Jim Brady are working hard to do that, and I say more power to them. If the passage of the Brady bill were to result in a reduction of only 10 or 15 percent of those numbers (and it could be a good deal greater), it would be well worth making it the law of the land.

Twelve years elapsed between the Reagan/Brady assassination attempt and the Brady Bill’s signing. Given that glacial pace, what President Obama and Vice President Biden have done since Sandy Hook must seem to gun control advocates like world-record legislative speed.

The post Obama’s Invoking Reagan on Gun Control Is Terrific Political Gambit appeared first on HyperVocal.

NBCWashington GIF’d the hell out of this Veep plot line (minus Tony Hale). Here are some great pics from his shopping trip, and our captions:

“Does this thing entitle me to mustache rides in bulk?”

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“Hey, sugar, after this how about you and I literally feel the vibrations together in the Amtrak quiet car?”

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“If I want seconds, I’ll f*&king take seconds.”

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

“Given what Michelle Antoinette’s trying to do to my snack time, this display literally makes my ticker hard.”

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

SEE ALSO:
• Parks & Rec Cameo: Give Joe Biden ALL OF THE EMMYS
• When Joe Biden Met Carmen Sandiego

Mitt Romney in late August tried to convince a voting public skeptical of his humanness that he’s just like us — hey, Ann and I shop at Costco! While most people were calling for Romney to release his tax returns, we lobbied to see his Costco receipts. Whereas Romney talks, Joe Biden does.

The Washington Post has more on Biden’s big-bulk trip:

The vice president flashed his Costco card as he walked through the doors to loud cheers. Employee Ivey Stewart handled a cart for Biden, who stopped frequently for hugs and photos.

Biden’s cart held, among other things, children’s books, fire logs, a 32-inch Panasonic TV and a large apple pie.
Biden did a loop of nearly the entire store, including bakery and frozen foods.

He spent some time looking at watches, including one that cost $1,200, and he put in a call to his daughter, Ashley, saying he needed to “get some guidance.” But it’s unknown whether he actually purchased a watch.

Biden also ate several Costco food samples and appeared to enjoy them. (Who wouldn’t?)

But he turned down employees who tried to lure him to the tire department.

“Hey man, I don’t need tires,” he said. “I don’t drive anymore.”

@achorowitz

SEE ALSO:
• That’s a Big F’in Tax Cut, Joe
• Obama, Springsteen & Jay-Z Versus Biden Meet & Greet

The post Captioning Joe Biden’s Trip to Costco appeared first on HyperVocal.

Justin Bieber does not have a New Year’s Eve show on his tour dates page. Anyone willing to wager he won’t end up on the Madison Square Garden stage singing “Boyfriend” with the popular rock band Phish?

Back in August, worlds collided in California when noted hippies Justin Bieber and then-girlfriend Selena Gomez attended a summer tour show by tween sensation Phish. Then in early October, videos hit YouTube showing off the Bieberfication of Phish hits like “Sand,” “First Tube” and “Divided Sky.”

• EARLIER: Justin Bieber, Phish Disciple

Wednesday night at MSG, Phish guitarist and former 70 Volt Parade lead singer Trey Anastasio showed up to continue the loop of this bizarrely amazing musical friendship between two artists and fan bases that could not be more dissimilar. Here’s Anastasio and Phish/Bieber lighting director Chris Kuroda, snapped and tweeted by tall Phish lyricist Tom Marshall:

@TomMarshall111

The connection is Dan Kanter, most recently seen accompanying Bieber on acoustic guitar at the 2012 American Music Awards. Bieber’s guitarist and musical director loves The Phish, and it was Kanter who originally convinced The Biebs to don his best Narc tie-dye and take in the August show at the Long Beach Arena, the kickoff to the second leg of Phish’s summer tour.

Kanter is loving what he hath wrought:

Bieber’s band’s Phish love continues at his shows — according to Marshall, the band again teased “2001,” “First Tube,” “Sand” and “Waste.”

And check out the Bieber crew Phish-related T-shirts:

@TomMarshall111

As we’ve said, between Kanter’s riffs and teases, Trey and Bieber hanging out and the fact that Chris Kuroda designed Justin’s tour, this is either the scariest development for the jamband scene since the Untz-Untz Wave became the be-all and end-all, or this will expose some teenage girls and gays to some of the most bitchin’ music they’ll ever hear. Can’t hate on this. Truly fantastic, all around. Well done, Kanter.

Now get the Biebs to MSG NYE so he can follow in the footsteps of Kid Rock, Jay-Z, Wynonna Judd, and Kenny Rogers as cool collaborators.

SEE ALSO:
• Selena Gomez & The Biebs Take in a Phish Show
• Justin Bieber, Phish Disciple

PREVIOUSLY:

4:32: “Sand” riff (Phish version here)

5:35: “First Tube” begins (Phish version here)

The post The Connection: Bieber/Phish Lovefest Continues at MSG appeared first on HyperVocal.

This weekend’s winner of the New York Times Article That Will Draw Equal Parts Praise and Rancor is “How to Live Without Irony,” a well-written, thought-provoking op-ed by Christy Wampole, an assistant professor of French at Princeton University. Read the full piece for the true effect of her Sincerity Mission Statement, but here’s the thesis:

Take, for example, an ad that calls itself an ad, makes fun of its own format, and attempts to lure its target market to laugh at and with it. It pre-emptively acknowledges its own failure to accomplish anything meaningful. No attack can be set against it, as it has already conquered itself. The ironic frame functions as a shield against criticism. The same goes for ironic living. Irony is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public. It is flagrantly indirect, a form of subterfuge, which means etymologically to “secretly flee” (subter + fuge). Somehow, directness has become unbearable to us.

How did this happen? It stems in part from the belief that this generation has little to offer in terms of culture, that everything has already been done, or that serious commitment to any belief will eventually be subsumed by an opposing belief, rendering the first laughable at best and contemptible at worst. This kind of defensive living works as a pre-emptive surrender and takes the form of reaction rather than action.

One could effortlessly rant with an easy 2,500 words in response to Wampole’s fair (and flawed) op-ed, but instead we look to the Ultimate Irony Warehouse, Twitter, where New York Daily News opinion writer (and must-follow) Josh Greenman did the dirty work in 140 characters:

Irony can be a healthy filter to help people process an often absurd world. Or it can be completely deadening. It’s a choice.

— Josh Greenman (@joshgreenman) November 18, 2012

One might also note that not all irony lovers are hipsters, and that you can be even ironic within the context of a meaningful or sincere life. One might also point to a long and storied history of irony, or pre-hipsters, and refute Ms. Wampole’s “As a Gen X’r I fear only recently are we all dead inside” thesis with Rollie Fingers’ epic handlebar mustache:

This, from an earlier post, is more convincing: Young gentros in Urban Outfitters “Navajo” tees saying “F**k the system” and “I don’t see color”: You are the problem. Two slam poets with Brave New Voices deliver this fearless indictment of hipster cultural appropriation and all its collateral damage.

SEE ALSO:
• Skinny Jeans Are Endangering Your Trouser Snake
• 8 Crafty Ways to Ensnare Your Summer Interns
• Hipster Actors in Hipster Film Killed Deer Without a Permit

The post On Hipsters: N.Y. Times Contributor Takes on The Life of Irony appeared first on HyperVocal.

Sex scandals rule. So much juicy gossip. So much Schadenfruede. So many people that aren’t us being shamed. So publicly.

We love ‘em. We foam at the mouth for consensual celebrity sex scandals. We mwah-ha-ha at a good power dynamic sex scandal. Heck, we can’t even get enough of full-on child rape scandals. More. Give it. Feed the beast.

In the past week alone, we’ve seen high-profile allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against big business leaders, top military/spy brass and famous puppeteers. A former personal assistant accused Waffle House CEO Joseph Rogers Jr. of forcing her to “perform sexual services” to keep her job. Lockheed Martin’s incoming CEO Christopher Kubasik resigned before Day 1 for having a “close personal relationship” with a subordinate. General David Petraeus stepped down as the director of CIA after becoming enmeshed in a love triangle pentagon, which now includes the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!

• SEE ALSO: Voice of Elmo Denies Sex With Minor, Takes Leave

And, of course, there’s Elmo — or, more specifically, Kevin Clash, the 52-year-old Elmo creator. The waaaay-too-easy “Tickle Me” jokes flooded Twitter, Facebook and blog headlines after it was revealed that Clash now stands accused of an improper relationship with a minor. Clash does not deny a sexual affair with the now-24-year-old, but he insists it began after the man came of age, not at 16 as the accuser suggested. “I had a relationship with [the accuser],” Clash said. “It was between two consenting adults and I am deeply saddened that he is trying to make it into something it was not.”

Clash took leave from the show while he deals with the allegations.

The other high-profile affairs and allegations are legit national news stories. The Petraeus-Broadwell-Allen-Kelley-Shirtless FBI Agent saga involves national security; the Lockheed Martin scandal involves workplace violations at a publicly traded company; the Waffle House nightmare involves a serious set of criminal allegations. Clash does not fit into these molds.

So what makes the Clash story so riveting? Why has “Elmo” been trending on Twitter since the story broke on Monday morning?

Is it the gay thing? There’s no hypocrisy there — Clash is not closeted.

Is it the age difference? Clash insists the relationship began after the accuser became legal, but there is still a 28-year gap.

Is it his line of work? Children’s entertainers are not asexual, though sometimes it makes us feel better to think they are.

Is it the ease with which the jokes come rolling off the tongue or onto the keyboard? Do a Twitter/Facebook search for “Tickle Me,” and even we went with a fisting barb in headline of this very article (linkbait!).

Is it that we’re so bored with our own lives that we’ll find something, anything we can, to feel better about our own existence?

• SEE ALSO: Shirtless FBI Agent, General Added to Petraeus Farce

Urging a scandal-mad public to ignore a sex story is like passing laws to stop rubbernecking on the highway, and inevitably, the more you want gawkers to turn away, the more they want to see the carnage. You better believe TMZ will be publishing follow-ups every day for the remainder of the week, or month, trying to dig up more intensely personal emails to divulge.

But this one feels dirty. Not because the situation is dirty, but because this seems to be such a sad, personal matter between two people who feel hurt by each other’s actions on a deeply spiritual level. They’re not megastars. They didn’t ask for this. They’re just people, maybe once in love, maybe still in love, finding their way in the world, and trying to figure out how to get the fuck out of this mess before every word they’ve ever uttered to each other in private becomes public. For a change, let’s let that happen here.

You wanna talk about Sesame Street? THIS is how it’s done.

UPDATE: The accuser has recanted.

The man who accused Kevin Clash (Elmo) of underage sexual conduct has RECANTED. His lawyer now says it was “adult consensual relationship.”

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 13, 2012

The accuser has remained anonymous. The recantation came in a statement via a law firm. The statement did not include an apology to Clash.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 13, 2012

The post Leave Elmo’s Fister Alone appeared first on HyperVocal.

Progress — it continued on Election Day 2012, and it’s still coming. It’s almost time to put away such childish toys as this absurd stat: 25 states currently allow cousins to marry; now, after Tuesday, 9 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex couples the same privilege.

Maine, Maryland and Washington made history as the first states to extend marriage rights to gays and lesbians by popular vote, something that hadn’t happened in failed 30 ballot attempts. On the other side of the equation, Minnesota’s ballot measure that would amend the constitution to deny marriage equality failed, the first time for a state.

• SEE ALSO: Why Marriage Equality Is Passing

There are many reasons for the steady bending of the arc of history towards justice, like generational shifts, societal prevalence and increased political pressure by advocacy organizations. All of that matters a great deal. But what will ultimately matter most as the fight for rights continues in more states, and eventually at the federal level, is simple exposure and communication.

Ultimately, this isn’t about gay rights, or even gay people for that matter. It’s about exposing yourself to the unknown. The same could be said for our opinions about what it’s like for others to be poor, or black, or immigrants, or whatever group we currently don’t understand. This is about meeting people who enjoy different lives than yours, instead of relying on basic stereotypes and propaganda. When that happens, when life gets in the way of what we once knew to be true, when the fictional Modern Family shows us the reality of gay lives, when old habits die hard, this is what we see.

It’s getting better. Much better.

MORE ON EQUALITY:
• California Bans ‘Ex-Gay’ Therapy For LGBT Youth
• Brad Pitt Puts Equality Money Where His Purty Mouth Is

The post States Where Gays Can Marry Closer to Where You Can Marry Your Cousin appeared first on HyperVocal.