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'Mexican Man' costume offends Latino shoppers, community groups By Sean Maher EMERYVILLE — A costume dubbed "Mexican Man" has offended Latino shoppers and community groups after being discovered at a Halloween chain store. The photo on the costume packaging shows a man with a thick mustache wearing a poncho and a sombrero. Oakland resident Monica Plazola said she discovered the costume last week at the Spirit Halloween store in Emeryville, which she was visiting with her two children, ages 7 and 9. "We were there at the store, with all kinds of costumes, and that was the only one identified...

OBAMA: What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) Another way of putting it is when, you know, I'm busy and Nancy busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess --- we don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way. (Applause.) Why don't you grab a mop, why don't you help clean up. (Applause.) You're not mopping fast enough. (Laughter.) That's a socialist mop. (Laughter and applause.)...

Couldn't resist. He blames Bush for everything else. I guess Obama has inherited his low poll numbers from Bush too....

Lemme cut to the chase, Kanye West is phony as was his contrived outburst when he rushed the stage to disrupt an acceptance speech from country singer Taylor Swift, during last night’s MTV Video Music Awards. It was a perfectly executed stunt which was designed to make national headlines (which it did). It was designed to become among the top trending topics in twitter and one of the hot key words in google (which it is). It was obviously designed to take away attention from issues at hand as Kanye’s outburst overshadowed many of the performances and presenters including the...

ACORN is the latest victim of Fox news personality Glenn Beck's racist smear campaigns. Beck aired a staged video on his program entrapping a couple of low level members of ACORN. ACORN is a non-profit organisation that works to serve low income and working Americans. ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low and moderate income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. These are good Americans working for the benefit of those less fortunate. ACORN has over 400,000 members and more than 850 neighborhood chapters in over 100...

Specter wants Wilson censured Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.), who's looked at POTUS from both sides now, was just on the Bill Press radio show suggesting the South Carolina firebrand Joe Wilson be censured for his heckle heard round the world. Said the Republican-turned-Dem: "He apologized immediately afterward but I don't think that’s adequate... If an apology is the consequence of an outburst I think we can expect more – that’s not a sufficient penalty that’s not a sufficient price to pay.. I'm not saying the guy should be kicked out of the House… But there ought to be some rebuke,...

Your tax dollars at work... funding this America-hating gasbag on PBS. Bill Moyers goes on a tirade against Republicans and angry town hall protesters for not allowing Obama to nationalize health care.

Editor, At the risk of sounding sexist, how did the health care debate get hijacked by an overgrown teenage girl on Facebook? Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska to become an unpaid right-wing blogger, yet still has the power to disrupt any rational discourse. Possibly related: How did someone like Palin even rise to the spotlight in the first place? Her rise was born in the waning days of the contentious Democratic primaries between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. After the controversial Democratic National Convention Rules Committee decision to split in half the delegates from Michigan and...

Accusations and responses from Liberal Kook to Rational Conservative:. You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.[ Damn straight! - The US Supreme Court said, "No Cherry Picking Vote Recounts from Democrat Counties....It's UnConstitutional ] You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.[ That's Right - Its like NOT having Politicians pretending to be Health Care Providers ] You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.[ Plame was not "covert" -- she was a political HACK that needed to be outed.....her and her...

Think about it. Has there been a lousier 10 years in American history? OK, the Civil War, granted. And the Great Depression wasn't so hot, either, the pictures suggest. But this one has been close enough to an all-time bad to merit the kind of willful amnesia that I'm proposing. sajohnson@tribune.com

Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill: I won. That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy. As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power—provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in...

MADRID - Spain’s former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar drew criticism Wednesday by reportedly referring to what he called the "historic exoticism" of Barack Obama’s election as US president. Aznar was asked by a journalist from the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair magazine about the election in November of the first black president of the United States. "A historic exoticism and predictable economic disaster," replied the conservative former leader. "Obama is a person of black race who managed to become president of the United States, which is an extraordinary change for them", he said, without indicating whether he was referring...

At least Dick Cheney, as wrong a guy as we've ever had this close to the presidency, goes out in character, thinking that he and George W. Bush were right about everything. The problem is that Cheney's character now sounds as weird and unhinged as Jack Nicholson's in "A Few Good Men." There was Cheney on the Fox television network Sunday, always more a home to him than Yankee Stadium is to Derek Jeter, defending the last days of a dying administration and a dying Republican empire, defending Bush and Iraq and Donald Rumsfeld, defending Guantanamo and torture and surveillance...

Tina Fey appeared right when I needed her, just when all seemed bleak. The NYPD was reporting another murdered child and the latest casualty reports from Afghanistan included a New Yorker who was a particularly nice guy. That made me think of two other fine men I know in Afghanistan, as well as two buddies in Iraq. Then my lawyer friend Eddie Hayes called to say that the economy seemed to be headed for the Greater Depression. "The guys who are supposed to be getting us out of this are the same guys who got us into it in the...

You cannot parody these people. You just can’t: “Palin is wearing white again, inciting the racist crowds. She should just drop all pretense and put on her white hood and light up a cross. She is a despicable human being.” A sample of comments in the PDS-infected thread at the Democratic Underground: Coming next: The Associated Press publishes an “analysis” of Sarah Palin’s “racially-tinged” wardrobe.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a Dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself. Those are just a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down. Who says public discourse hasn't deteriorated? The fierce reaction to my column has been both bracing and enlightening. After 20 years of column writing, I'm familiar with angry mail. But the past few days have produced...

So Sarah Palin's participation in the vice presidential debate is going to be the sparring equivalent of bumper bowling. The McCain camp insisted upon a tightly formatted structure for Palin's debate with Joe Biden, one that is designed to protect her from spontaneous questions and discussion. Geraldine Ferraro was granted no special protection when she debated George H.W. Bush in 1984, and it is inexplicable why the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates gave in to McCain's demands now. It's hard to call this progress. An experienced, knowledgeable female candidate should not require special treatment. But Sarah Palin is a female...

I know, I can't believe it either: Karl Rove, the legendary Republican strategist whose name has become synonymous with hard-ball campaign tactics, has asserted that both presidential campaigns have wandered too far from truth. "McCain has gone in his ads ... one step too far," Rove said on Fox News Sept. 14. "Sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test." In recent weeks the McCain campaign has accused Barack Obama of advocating sex education in kindergarten. (In reality, Obama voted for a bill that called for warning young children about sexual predators.) The McCain...

I assume John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential partner in a fit of pique because the Republican money men refused to let him have the stuffed male shirt he really wanted. She added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn't already have sewn up, the white trash vote, the demographic that sullies America's name inside and outside its borders yet has such a curious appeal for the right. So why do it? It's possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she's a woman. They're...

Sarah Palin makes me sick. I hate that she was able to steal Barack Obama's mojo just by showing up wearing rimless glasses and a skirt. I hate that she makes Joe Biden look like John McCain and John McCain look like the maverick he is not. I hate that Palin reminds me of Susan Sarandon's feisty character in "Thelma & Louise." I loved Sarandon in that movie, yet I couldn't stand Palin's feistiness at the Republican National Convention. Sarah Palin makes me sick -- not because she may speak in tongues -- but because she is a fast talker....

Maybe he was sick of the lack of media attention…maybe he had enough of the late night talk show hosts poking fun at his age…maybe he realized that belonging to a party that has been associated with rich, white men was not going to connect with voters in this historical election year. Or maybe he was just ready to take back some of the spotlight that has shined so brightly on Barack Obama and the Democrats since the beginning of the Democratic convention. Desperation can motivate people to make some pretty cynical and hypocritical decisions. Whatever the reason, John McCain’s...

ABC News' Jennifer Parker reports: Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said conservative criticism of his wife, Michelle, infuriates him. "I don't have a thick skin when it comes to criticism of my wife," Obama told the women's magazine Glamour in an interview to run in the magazine's October issue. "And you know, the problem is that rarely do these folks have the guts to say it to your face." Obama, who is vying for the support of women voters who flocked to Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign during the primaries, argued his wife and Clinton have been the target...

SUSAN SARANDON, who appeared in three films last year and won kudos for her TV movie "Bernard and Doris," is still not a contented soul. She says if John McCain gets elected, she will move to Italy or Canada. She adds, "It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people."

Sen. Joe Biden, piling on to Democratic complaints about President Bush’s speech in Israel today: “This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset . . . and make this kind of ridiculous statement.” Speaking before the Knesset, Bush said that “some people” believe the United States “should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." "We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland...

In a stealthy flurry of legal mumbo-jumbo, the Boulder County Commissioners have launched a proposal that would ban any April Fools jokes targeted at the “general Boulder County public,” including residents, visitors and employees within county limits. “If there was a way, we’d ban all statewide pranks, but we don’t have that authority,” Commissioner Will Tour said. “We had to settle for county-wide bans, but that should put a stop to them.” When pressed, Tour said that “them” referred to a certain monthly newspaper that had been a thorn in the commission’s side since it began concocting stories, but that...

Via Media Matters: During the March 31 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist repeatedly mocked Sen. Barack Obama’s bowling performance — which Scarborough called “dainty” — at a March 29 campaign stop at Pleasant Valley Lanes in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Deriding Obama’s score, he said: “You know Willie, the thing is, Americans want their president, if it’s a man, to be a real man.” Scarborough added, “You get 150, you’re a man, or a good woman,” to which Geist replied, “Out of my president, I want a 150, at least.” Later in the show, after NBC...

This redirects the attack on the Electoral College by avoiding the amendment process to the US Constitution.   The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among U.S. states that would effectively end the electoral college system of presidential elections and replace it with a direct nationwide vote of the people. As of February 2008, this interstate compact has been joined by Maryland and New Jersey; their 25 electoral votes amount to 9.3% of the 270 needed for it to take effect. The compact is based on Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives each state the...

Comedienne Rosie O'Donnell has hit back after she was named the world's most annoying celebrity by insisting all stars are irritating.

A usual round of media self-criticism turned into a schoolyard brawl last week, as editors, reporters and bloggers traded insults over a front-page article in The Washington Post, all at the very online water cooler where they usually get their news about the industry. The Post article, which ran on Nov. 29, was about rumors of Barack Obama’s ties to the Muslim world. snip Then things got really ugly. On Dec. 10, Chris Daly, a Boston University journalism professor, posted an entry on his blog that turned the debate over the merits of the article’s reporting into a debate over...

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education. The basic data -- based on an aggregated sample of more than 4,000 interviews conducted since 2004 -- are straightforward. The differences are quite significant, as can be seen. While...

AP Posted: 2007-07-23 06:09:53 Filed Under: Nation, Politics WASHINGTON (July 22) - Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution. But Feingold's own party leader in the Senate showed little interest in the idea. An attempt in 2006 by Feingold to censure Bush over the warrantless spying program attracted only three co-sponsors. Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions - measures that would amount to a formal condemnation of the Republican president. The first...

GULFPORT, Miss. - They gave Greg Porter the key to the city for his volunteer work after Hurricane Katrina. Then, he says, they showed him the door. Porter received widespread acclaim — including an award from the White House — for founding God's Katrina Kitchen, a faith-based relief operation that has served more than 1 million meals to the storm's victims and the volunteers who helped them. But the roadside-tent operation has been forced to move for the second time since September, because of what officials say were neighborhood complaints. Unable to find a new home, Porter expects to close...

President Bush, at podium, speaks to members of the media prior to the ribbon-cutting ceremony ... At this morning's ribbon-cutting for the newly renovated White House Briefing Room, President Bush dropped in just long enough to rub reporters' noses in his cheerful refusal to take them seriously. ... the president was in full frat-boy mode, clowning around during introductory remarks by C-SPAN's Steve Scully. ... Bush apparently felt Scully went on too long. "I like a good, short introduction," Bush jeered as soon as Scully gave up the podium. Here's the transcript. "We missed you -- sort of," Bush...

Description on main page of website: "Some of us — hopefully most of us — are trying to understand and appreciate the effect our recent election will have on you, the citizens of the rest of the world. As our so-called leaders redouble their efforts to screw you over, please remember that some of us — hopefully most of us — are truly, truly sorry. And we'll say we're sorry, even on the behalf of the ones who aren't."

I’m not backing off. I tried to remove myself from the political realm of the US, what BushCo is turning into an Evil Empire, but the blatant audacity of George commuting Scooter’s sentence (he’s not ruling out a full pardon —and you know he will) has dragged me kicking and screaming back in… Did we ever think that the criminality and arrogance of the Nixon White House would be eclipsed in our time with nary a “baaaah” from the Sheeple in Congress?… The recent commutation of I. Scooter Libby’s sentence, however, was the straw that broke my camel’s back of...

Coulter is a prime suspect in the theft of the nation's moral compass. (SALEM, Ore.) - When we grow up we are taught the difference between right and wrong. Well before reaching adulthood, we are supposed to have a sound understanding of the bottom line, and a reasonable appreciation for the fact that mistakes carry consequences. But moral decay, divisiveness and polarity are the order of the day in 2007. As a society, it seems like we no longer aspire to be chivalrous. Instead we go for the most outrageous, the most shocking, the most revealing, and the least-clothed. And...

Hollywood beauty Scarlett Johansson has fueled reports she will star in the New York City production of South Pacific, after declaring her love for the musical during an interview. Last month, the New York Post reported Johansson was in talks to play US Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in a revival of the musical at the Lincoln Center, which is scheduled to open in January 2008. In an interview with the latest UK edition of Glamour magazine, Johansson admits she's a huge fan of the Rodgers And Hammerstein show, but she has a problem with the heroine's surname, which shares a...

This is directed at those so called "conservative" retards who did not vote for their Republican Senators and Representatives in the few close states, or who voted Libertarian or Democrat. I knew a country once. It was called "America". "Libertarians" and Republicans who didn’t vote; YOU ARE TRAITORS to that country and your so called conservative values. It’s that simple. And you just handed America to the Modern American Socialist party. Good job. Well done. GO TO H**L!!! I am so disgusted and ashamed of America right now I can’t even hardly type. I can’t sleep either. I can not...

LONDON, Sept. 18, 2006 — Three words suddenly have a lot of Westerners worried and, it must be said, likely making some wrong assumptions about modern Islam. "Yaum al Ghadab" is Arabic for "Day of Rage." When the Qatari Islamic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for a Day of Rage this Friday in response to Pope Benedict XVI's remarks about Muslims, it might have sounded like a call for street violence. But if there is trouble Friday, and there could well be, it will not be because of language but because of what some people choose to do after they have...

The Left-Wing blogosphere is now in an UPROAR over the fact that part 1 of The Path To 9/11 aired last night. Although there were a couple of disclaimers in the movie that it was fictionalized as well as some minor editing changes (primarily the removal of the scene where Sandy Berger hangs up the phone on the team trying to capture Osama bin Laden) the main thrust of the movie is quite clear: the Clintonistas were not serious in their attempts to stop terrorism. As could be be expected, the loony left is OUTRAGED that this movie has...

Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck have crafted an insightful and heartfelt look at the experiences of the Dixie Chicks over the last three years, chronicling the often bizarre consequences of singer Natalie Maines' anti-Bush wisecrack on a London stage. Maines' statement is captured in "Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing," as are the meetings where they plot how to circumvent the core country audience and, eventually, how to reroute a tour and cancel shows due to poor ticket sales. It's the rare thorough documentary on a musical act whose dilemmas are faced in the here and now, one that should...

Just wanted to send a note and say hey and tell you about one of the darnedest things. And I gotta say it is one of the clearest examples of how CONservatives (not to be confused with honest conservatives) have managed to convince so many people so many lies are in fact the truth. This is indeed a rather mind numbing stor ... eh ... no ... actually it's what I'd expect. So here's what happened, Droppings: Somebody with the screen name of "presidio9" picked up my piece Green diets vs. global warming and posted it on the Internet message...

So L.A - The Chris Ayres Weblog IT BEGINS with a caricature of Al Gore — grossly overweight and dressed like a Victorian industrialist — pointing an umbrella at an overhead screen of climate data. The former vice-president’s audience is made up of cartoon penguins, who — in spite of the increasingly balmy conditions in Antarctica – snore at his global-warming lecture and fantasise about going to see X-Men 3. “What is Al Gore’s new movie, An Inconvenient Truth, all about?” reads the video’s description on YouTube.com, where it was posted. “Global Warming? The Environment? Or something much more BORING?...

DNC Chair Howard Dean: "If Karl Rove had been indicted it would have been for perjury. That does not excuse his real sin which is leaking the name of an intelligence operative during the time of war. He doesn't belong in the White House. If the President valued America more than he valued his connection to Karl Rove then Karl Rove would have been fired a long time ago. So I think this is probably good news for the White House, but its not very good news for America."

The results of the California 50th Congressional District special election have been in for only 8 business hours and ALREADY the DUmmies and the Leftist Blogosphere are crying "VOTE FRAUD" via their favorite culprits---Diebold Voting machines. Apparently the DUmmies were NOT satisfied with their "moral victory" and wanted a REAL victory. And the only way to achieve such a victory in this election is to act like sore losers and WHINE about vote fraud as you can see in this DUmmie THREAD petulantly titled, "Results of Busby/Bilbray U.S. House Special Election in Doubt!" Yes, there is no DOUBT about...

Remember the dopey DUmmie plan to surround the White House or some such nonsense? It has been almost completely FORGOTTEN because it just fizzled out completely. One big reason is that it would have actually required the DUmmies to remove their carcasses from in front of their computer screens and actually DO something (which is why DUAC also flopped). Well, they haven't given up. DUmmie benburch, in his reliably nutcase way, has come up with another KOOKIE plan that requires the DUmmies to converge on Washington as you can see in this THREAD titled, "Lets not WAIT for Impeachment....

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - Britney Spears reportedly rushed her baby son to hospital - because he was constipated. The pop babe is said to have panicked when four-month-old Sean Preston wouldn't stop wailing, and was terrified he was ill. She called a bodyguard who drove her straight to Los Angeles' Malibu Urgent Care Centre. But nurses at the clinic told the singer there was nothing wrong with the tot - he was just struggling to fill his nappy. One nurse is quoted in Britain's Daily Star newspaper as saying: "It seems he was just straining to fill his diaper....

Capitol Police may have dropped charges against antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and apologized, but that apparently hasn't made her any less angry over her arrest, or how she was treated as it happened. Sheehan was one of two people kicked out of the audience of President Bush's State of the Union address in t-shirt-related incidents Tuesday night, but she was the only one arrested, on unlawful conduct counts. She was wearing a t-shirt that alluded to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: "2245 Dead. How many more?" Also removed was Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, R-Fla.,...

The Wal-Martification of AmericaI don't expect you to shed any tears about Aron's closing. Unless you grew up in L.A. as I did, you've probably never even heard of it. Aron's was this used record and CD store that I discovered 30 years ago. It was a quirky place, an audiophile heaven where there was never any telling what offbeat treasure you might find. More to the point, it was “my” place, a store where I spent endless hours browsing for rarities and oddities you could never find elsewhere. To this day, no trip back to L.A. is complete without...