Republicans

There is something profoundly disturbing about the furore surrounding US politician Todd Akin – but it’s not what he is being hammered for by other politicians and commentators.

Akin, an 11-year veteran of the US Congress and committed anti-abortion campaigner said in a live TV interview last weekend that he believed women were unlikely to become pregnant after suffering legitimate rape.

The resulting shock and fury has continued unabated with everyone from the President down belting Akin. President Obama’s comments epitomised the popular angle of attack – that it was unacceptable for rape to be parsed into categories of legitimate and illegitimate.

Continue reading "The fact of the matter is, you can’t make up facts" »

On Wednesday, Iowa voters were the first in the union to ink their index finger, so to speak, handing Mitt Romney a win with one of the barest margins in recent history - just eight votes - but for all intents giving Rick Santorum the decisive moral victory.

Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry rounded out the top five. A mediocre cache of candidates in 2012 for sure, but in a lot of ways that makes it all the more frightening, mainly (but not exclusively) for gays in America.

Some 60,000 people caucused for Romney and Santorum; the difference between the two was less than half a Duggar family. That’s the family famous for 19 Kids and Counting, the reality series about evangelical Christians Jim Bob (yes, really) and Michelle Duggar and their brood of nineteen children (yes, really really). Twelve Duggar children travelled to Iowa to support Rick Santorum, trumpeting his socially conservative religious views.

Continue reading "The GOP, God, guns and gays" »

You may not have time to watch this whole interview between Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly but it’s worth a look if you get the chance.

Whether you’re actually interested in US politics or media or not, it’s a fascinating and civil exchange between two men who are arguably the two most influential commentators in America (assuming you take Oprah out of the equation).

One is a political satirist turned sometime serious political commentator and the other is political commentator who sometimes sounds pretty funny.

Continue reading "O’Reilly and Stewart: two sides of the same dime" »

This poster depicting Barack Obama as the Dark Knight Joker is currently causing a stir in America and the rest of the world.

Debate on the subject has been raging online and in papers on what the poster means, from those claiming it shows a backlash against Barack Obama to arguments that it is a popularised racist attack on the President.

But perhaps what is most interesting about the poster is that we’re even surprised that people are now openly mocking the American President. The debate itself is probably an indication of how incredibly popular Obama still is.

Continue reading "Why are people so fascinated by the Obama Joker poster?" »