‘Billboard’ Kills PETA Ad Aimed at J-Lo

MinkI’ve always thought Jennifer Lopez was a better actor than she gets credit for. She’s an accomplished pop singer from the Paula Abdul school – and I don’t care about her personal life – but she’s lost big points with her efforts to popularize fur in fashion. It isn’t retro-street glam, J-Lo – it’s disgusting. Not surprisingly, the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has taken a similar position. They created a website – www.jlodown.com – about the issue, as well as a print ad that shows a gruesome photo of a skinned animal (which I have but will not post; let’s just say the photo above could be labeled “Before”) next to a letter to Lopez, attacking her for using fur in her Sweetface clothing line. Now PETA is accusing Lopez and her record company of bullying the NY-based record-industry trade magazine Billboard into removing the ad from a recent issue.

The music magazine had agreed to run PETA’s advert…[but] Billboard cancelled the $5,000 [ad], leading PETA Vice President Lisa Lange to conclude that the magazine “caved to pressure” from Lopez’s record label, Sony Corp’s Epic Records, and Lopez’ publicist Nanci Ryder of Baker-Winoukur-Ryder.

Ryder admits, “I’m doing my job, which is protecting my client. I don’t understand why PETA want[s] to meet with Jennifer. “In my opinion, there would be nothing worse than a meeting, unless in the meeting we could commit to not wearing fur and not using fur in fashion. Unless we could do that, I didn’t quite understand where the meeting would go.”

However, LA-based radio industry trade paper Radio & Records opted to run the PETA ad in its April 8, 2005, issue.

Rightwing Domestic Terrorist Pleads Guilty

If Karl Rove dictated language discipline for the Left instead of the Right, Eric Rudolph would be referred to in all references as a rightwing domestic terrorist:

Accused 1996 Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph has agreed to plead guilty to all charges against him…

Rudolph is charged with the bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, that killed one person and injured more than 100. [He] also is charged in the 1997 bombings of an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in the Atlanta area.

This Is What It Sounds Like When Scandals Dovetail

The Schiavo memo was written by Sen. Mel Martinez’ staff attorney, one Brian Darling, who is a former staffer for none other than … Tom DeLay.

None of these dots are being connected for John & Jane Q Public by the media, of course. The cablers have been fixated on the Pope’s funeral, now its 15th year. Wait, no – that was the Schiavo coverage. Teed up for the weekend is the Royal Wedding. Next is coverage of the funeral for Prince Ranier. Then who knows – maybe another Very Famous Person could die. If DeLay is lucky – and God knows he is – his troubles will all blow over before the likes of Judy Woodruff and Tim Russert take notice.

Imagine if it were Hillary Clinton who’d been connected to four scandals in one week. The DC Kool Kids would have decamped from Rome on the first plane to Chappaqua. Buh-bye Pope! Have a nice eternity.

Meanwhile shoes are dropping in rapid succession around Tom DeLay, and the reaction by the Washington press corps barely rates negligible.

Poll Drop Forces Change in Plans for Gubernator

First came this – new poll numbers showing that Californians are finally seeing through Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gimmickry and media manipulation.

Then came this. Schwarzenegger does an about face on his threat to go over the heads of the Dem-controlled legislature and take his risky pension privatization scheme to the public via a ballot initiative.

The poll drop is significant and is in line with recent polling that shows the governor to be slipping in popularity. This latest poll found that “the governor’s job performance is approved by 49% of voters, disapproved by 38%. His rating is worse among all adults: 43% approval, 43% disapproval — a steep slide since it was 59%-26% in January. Polls last year had shown Schwarzenegger with stratospheric job ratings in the high 60s.”

Ahnold has a problem with the fundamentals too. “People also were asked a standard question about whether they think ‘things in California are going in the right direction or are they seriously off on the wrong track.’ Only 39% answered right direction; 49% said wrong track. In January, it was almost reversed: 52% right track, 35% wrong direction.”

Wait! I think I just heard bellowing from the general direction of Bel Air. Sounded like a man with an Austrian accent bellowing: “Maria! Get Oprah on the line!”

Tax Amnesty Produces Billions for California

LA Times:

State officials say $3.2 billion has come into California coffers through a tax amnesty program that is sparking a national debate over how aggressive governments should be in pressuring corporations to pay all they owe…

Lenny Goldberg of the California Tax Reform Assn., a group that advocates for low-income taxpayers and unions, said he has little sympathy for companies caught in state tax officials’ nets.

“In a lot of these cases, the disputes are dragging on because they are paying accounting firms to get in there, stonewall for them and make it as contentious as possible,” he said. “They make a living out of getting everything they do to get corporations not to pay taxes. They try to be as uncooperative as possible, and then they make complaints about audits and requests for information.”

The state is in dire need of revenue as lawmakers try to close a budget gap now estimated at $8.6 billion.

DeLay Made Pro-Milosevic Move While on the Take from Russia

From Mark A. R. Kleiman (via Atrios):

Kevin Drum offers another good reason to move to expel DeLay right now. Kevin recalls correctly that DeLay was on Milosevich’s side against Bill Clinton. He doesn’t mention the extraordinary maneuver by which DeLay managed to send an encouraging message to the enemy while our men and women in uniform were in harm’s way, by promising Clinton a resolution of support for the air war and then arranging for it to come to the floor and fail. (Of course, DeLay wasn’t alone among Republicans, back then, in hating the President more than he hated the mass murderer the President was trying to rein in.)

And now we know, as Kevin points out, that DeLay was doing all of this as the beneficiary of largesse from the Russian security services. Taking an expensive vacation at the expense of the military of a foreign power to support America’s enemies probably doesn’t amount to treason under the Constitutional definition, but it comes close.

The debate on the motion to consider immediate expulsion should be well worth listening to: once Nancy Pelosi offers it, that is.

Worst President Ever Snubs Greatest Living President

George W. Bush is not worthy to shine Jimmy Carter’s shoes. But because Carter has been critical of Bush’s disastrous foreign policy, the Bushies dis-invited him from attending the Pope’s funeral.

It’s important to remember in all this adulation of John Paul II’s social conservatism (read: internalized homophobia, etc.) that he also opposed the Bush foreign policies, especially the war in Iraq. In all the wall to wall coverage of the Pope’s funeral, you never hear that John Paul II was very harsh in his crticism of the Bush Administration over Iraq. This fact simpy doesn’t jive with the MSM’s script on the funeral.

Third DeLay Scandal of the Day

Now Tom DeLay is accused of taking a luxury trip to Saipan paid for by a DC sleazebag lobbying to stop a bill that would end sex slavery and sweatshops in the Mariana Islands, which is United States territory.

Three new potential scandals in one day? Remember in the 1990’s how the Gops kept saying about the Clintons – “if there’s smoke there’s fire?” Funny how you don’t hear them saying that now about the Bugman.

What will we tell the children?

A Washington lobbyist under federal investigation for his lobbying activities arranged a lavish overseas trip to the island of Saipan for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, over the New Year’s holiday in 1997.

DeLay, his wife and daughter, and several aides, stayed for free at a beachfront resort. The DeLay trip to the South Pacific island, originally reported by a “20/20” investigation, was part of an effort by former aide Jack Abramoff to stop legislation aimed at cracking down on sweatshops and sex shops in the American territory, which is known as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).