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Herman Cain is happy to embrace at least one story about him that’s emerged of late: his deep ties to conservative power brokers Charles and David Koch. “I’m proud to know the Koch brothers,” Cain told their Americans for Prosperity group today, reports MSNBC. “I’m very proud to know the Koch brothers.” Then he joked that he had a “breaking news announcement for the media: I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother!” Koch made light of a New York Times article that described his and campaign chief Mark Block’s relationship with the Kochs.
But that type of scrutiny probably won’t end soon: The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a related complaint with the FEC today. CREW says a nonprofit group founded by Block—Prosperity USA, which is affiliated with the Kochs’ advocacy group—illegally provided $40,000 in expenses to help start the Cain campaign. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported the allegations earlier this week. The campaign has asked an outside attorney to investigate.
PERUGIA, Italy — Amanda Knox, the 24-year-old American found guilty in 2009 of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher, was a free woman after an appeals court jury on Monday acquitted her and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
Pier Paolo Cito / AP
Knox, 24, collapsed in tears after the jury declared that the evidence against the two was not reliable.
After briefly returning to prison for a formal discharge, Knox was seen being driven away in a convoy. Rocco Girlanda, an Italian lawmaker who is close to the Knox family, said she planned to leave Italy on Tuesday.
In court, the Kercher family looked on grimly as the verdict was read out by the judge after 11 hours of deliberations by the eight-member jury.
Outside the courthouse, some of the hundreds of observers shouted “Shame, shame!”
The Kercher family issued a brief statement, saying: “We respect the decision of the judges but we do not understand how the decision of the first trial could be so radically overturned. We still trust the Italian justice system and hope that the truth will eventually emerge.”
My old pal Paul Delaney, a fellow contributor to The Root, recently asked me what kind of speech I thought Barack Obama’s Republican challenger would make to a mainstream black audience during next year’s presidential campaign.
It’s a good question because every four years, the GOP and its standard-bearer reaffirm their determination to go after every vote, including those of black America — and then proceed to prove their insincerity.
When they appear before black organizations, they are less interested in appealing to black voters than in convincing fence-sitting whites that despite their party’s historic addiction to race-baiting tactics, it’s OK to vote for them. Their intent, described perceptively by Denton Watson, the biographer of NAACP legend Clarence Mitchell, is to show that they “will talk to all sorts of Americans and not exclude anyone.”
Given those parameters, what kind of speech might the Republican champion deliver if she or he addressed, say, the NAACP?
The candidate might start out trying to score points for candor by addressing the NAACP’s charge last year that there are racist elements within the so-called Tea Party movement. Then he or she could move on to an attack on Obama before winding up with an exposition of his or her own ideas and an impassioned show of solidarity with the idea of racial equality.
I’ve pulled together a political stump speech using actual quotes from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney; former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; and businessman Herman Cain, the only African-American hopeful in the GOP field. Here goes:
“I have been called a sell-out, an Uncle Tom and shameless because I disagree with this president’s policies. Those who are calling me those names have probably never been to a Tea Party event, and I doubt officials of the NAACP have attended an event either. Those that would like to join the name-calling parade should save themselves some time. In my grandfather’s vernacular, ‘I does not care!’ ” –Cain
“It’s a false accusation that Tea Party Americans are racist. Any good American hates racism. We don’t stand for it. It is unacceptable.” –Palin
“This president ran on a campaign of hope and change, but his change is not working. Over 4 million Americans lost jobs in 2009, the unemployment rate has gone from 7.6 percent in January 2009 to 9.5 percent in June 2010, the unemployment rate for black Americans is over 15 percent and not getting better, and the national debt has increased exponentially to over $13 trillion since January 2009.
“Tea Party people are not racist. They are patriotic Americans who want the greatest country in the world to remain the greatest by exercising their right to make their voices heard. This isn’t about race. This is about results, and the results by this administration are missing in action.” –Cain
Despite earning a perfect score for her Argentine tango on Monday’s “Dancing With the Stars,” and a 57out of 60 going into the viewer vote, Brandy was eliminated from the ABC dance-off – just missing the final showdown next week. The 31-year-old singer and actress was visibly mortified, as were the judges, fellow contestants and many audience members, based on the audible sounds of shock and looks of confusion after Tom Bergeron announced she would be leaving the show. “I don’t know how to feel right now,” she said. “It hasn’t processed yet for me.”Moments later, she was shown crying.
It came down to Brandy and Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol Palin, who again had the lowest score (53) going into Tuesday’s results show. Judges’ scores are combined with viewer votes to determine which couple is ousted each week. Palin will compete with Jennifer Grey and Kyle Massey in the finals next week for the mirrorball trophy. Grey’s professional partner, Derek Hough, didn’t hide his surprise at Brandy’s dismissal on Tuesday: His jaw actually dropped. Judge Bruno Tonioli said he was shocked at the results. ”I’m so disappointed,” he told Brandy. “Your freestyle, I was looking (forward) so much to see it.”
The Internet has been abuzz in recent days about how Palin, who has consistently landed at the bottom of the judges’ leaderboard, has been able to remain on the show. Some have suggested that voters — particularly supporters of Sarah Palin — have been voting in blocs and manipulating the system. Both Palins have denied any organized vote-getting tactics. Bristol Palin, 20, says voters support her despite lackluster performances “because I started with no experience in dancing or performing at all, and I’ve come a long way.” “People do connect with me because they think I’m real and I’m not typical Hollywood,” she said.
Brandy said from the start of the “Dancing” season that she was aiming for the trophy. “I hope to go to the finals,” she said after Monday’s performance, in comments that aired Tuesday. “In the most humblest way, that’s where I feel that we belong. We’ve worked so hard. We want to go so bad.” Her professional partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, said after their dismissal that he appreciates that the show reflects the audience’s tastes. “People vote and their voices count,” he said. “I love the fact that the show represents that. It represents the people’s choice.” Palin, Massey and Grey will each perform their own no-rules, anything-goes freestyle dances next week. A new “Dancing” champ will be named on Nov. 23.
TV Guide’s Damian Holbrook rails against Brandy being voted off of “Dancing With the Stars” before Bristol Palin in a new “Watercooler” column posted today.
Titled “Dancing with the Stars’ Epic Fail,” it reads…
No. This is not right at all. Bristol Palin beats Brandy? Nope. Not buying it. Yet that is exactly what Dancing With the Stars tried to sell us last night by revealing that the teen mom who doesn’t think anyone else should have premarital sex somehow ranked higher than the R&B singer who scored a perfect 30 the night before. Not since Wretchin’ Gretchen beat Mondo Fabuloso on Project Runway has the natural order been so out of whack.
Are the conspiracy theorists right? Are member of the Tea Party really messing with the results by registering fake emails and filing multiple votes on ABC’s website? If not, then it’s very possible that the apocalypse is upon us, people. Well, that may be extreme, but this definitely stands as a sign of DWTS’ questionable credibility. Granted, Miss Palin’s mother broke ratings records with her new TLC reality show this past weekend, so it’s possible that anything bearing the Palin brand is gonna pull in the big numbers. But let’s be honest, this is a dancing competition. Talent is supposed to matter more than rubbernecker curiosity or even political affiliation. But Bristol’s performance Monday night, while vastly improved since week 1, still resembled that of a re-animated corpse learning to walk again…and most definitely did not deserve the take the popular vote.
The only upside to this upset is that Bristol is now headed to the finals — alongside Jennifer Grey and Kyle Massey — which means she could manage to achieve something her mommy hasn’t in a while: A win.
Dancing With the Stars” survivor Bristol Palin has offered an apology for comments she and her 16-year-old sister Willow used to attack a schoolmate on Facebook this week. Without mentioning the homophobic slurs specifically, Bristol posted to her Facebook page Wednesday night: “Willow and I shouldn’t have reacted to negative comments about our family. We apologize.” She then pivoted , adding, “On a nicer note, thank you for supporting the great competition in Dancing with the Stars!”
Willow, who called her schoolmate a “fa*got” for posting a negative comment about her mother’s new TLC show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” has not apologized and has since deleted her Facebook account altogether, according to TMZ. Jon Stewart weighed in on the controversy last night on “The Daily Show,” basically suggesting that the media coverage was overblown and that children of politicians should remain off limits.
CNN’s Soledad O’Brien has a new book out called “The Next Big Story.” One of the anecdotes she tells is an encounter she had with Jesse Jackson who questioned her blackness. Here’s an excerpt:
Today he is angry because CNN doesn’t have enough black anchors. It is political season. There are billboards up sporting Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper. He asks after the black reporters. Why are they not up there? I share his concern and make a mental note to take it back to my bosses. But then he begins to rage that there are no black anchors on the network at all. Does he mean covering the campaign, I wonder to myself? The man has been a guest on my show. He knows me, even if he doesn’t recall how we met. I brought him on at MSNBC, then again at Weekend Today. I interrupt to remind him I’m the anchor of American Morning. He knows that. He looks me in the eye and reaches his fingers over to tap a spot of skin on my right had. He shakes his head. “You don’t count,” he says. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I don’t count — what? I’m not black? I’m not black enough? Or my show doesn’t count?
I was both angry and embarrassed, which rarely happens at the same time for me. Jesse Jackson managed to make me ashamed of my skin color which even white people had never been able to do. Not the kids in the hallways at Smithtown or the guys who wouldn’t date me in high school. I remember the marchers behind me at the trial about the black youth/kid who beat the Latino baby. The folks that chanted “biracial whore for the white man’s media,” even they didn’t even make feel this way. I would just laugh. Biracial, sure, whore, not exactly, white man’s media, totally! Whatever. But Reverend Jesse Jackson says, “I don’t count?”
I am immediately upset and annoyed and the even more annoyed that I am upset and pissed off. If Reverend Jesse Jackson didn’t think I was black enough, then what was I?
Speaking of the Mighty O, it’s going to be a long farewell as Oprah says goodbye to daytime TV. Winfrey steps down September of 2011, and she is already running a goodbye video. The new season, the 25th and final season, of The Oprah Winfrey Show kicks off September 13th. Oprah talks about her top 25 OMG moments in the new issue of TV Guide.
Next season’s winner of America’s Next Top Model will get a cover on the Italian version of Vogue magazine.
Tyra’s Outta Here! Says Bye Bye on Final Show. It’s all over for Tyra. On Friday, she has wrapped up her talk show. “I had journalists tell me this show was going to be canceled in two weeks, and it’s five years…” The former model turned talk show host showed clips of memorable shows: Tyra as a fat woman, Tyra homeless, Tyra in jail — and snippets of interviews with President Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Larry King and others offered taped send-offs. Larry called her the ‘fiercest host’ in television. Even the queen of daytime, the Big O, Oprah Winfrey sent a recorded message saying she can’t wait to see what Tyra has in store for her next act.
Filming has started on Steve Harvey’s new movie Think Like A Man. The cast is incredible: Kevin Hart, Gabrielle Union, Chris Brown, Michael Ealy, Nephew Tommy, Taraji P. Henson and Meagan Goode. It’s based on Harvey’s bestselling book Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man.
Blair Underwood has joined the cast of Bishop T.D. Jakes’ movie On The Seventh Day. The movie also stars Pam Grier and Sharon Leal. Bishop Jakes is on a roll. He recently co-produces Jumping The Broom. His other films include Woman Thou Art Loosed with Kimberly Elise and Not Easily Broken with Morris Chestnut.
SWV is getting back together. They are planning a tour, a new album and a reality show. Coko, Taj and Lelee are back.
The Reverend Al Sharpton is getting his own show on MSNBC. The cable news network is close to hiring him for a 6pm nightly show.
Wendy Williams returns for a third season of her daytime talk show on September 12th.
Get ready for a second season of the VH1 smash Single Ladies. VHI has renewed the show. It is the cable network’s first hour-long scripted series about three best friends in Atlanta. LisaRaye and Stacey Dash star. Queen Latifah is the show’s executive producer. The second season debuts next year.
The 63rd Annual Emmy Awards air September 18th on FOX. Congrats to Taraji P. Henson, Andre Braugher, Idris Elba, Laurence Fishburne and Alfre Woodard, who have all been nominated for Emmys this year.
Dwight Eubanks has left the building.Dwight has been a staple of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta. Eubanks says he feels the show has no sense or substance. He says it’s time to leave the buffoonery and craziness behind. Sources say Eubanks is really upset because the show won’t reveal what he really does. He is the owner of a salon, and producers have never shown it. Eubanks, 50, may pop up somewhere else because he says he is not finished with TV.
Judge Mablean Ephriam says she would like to return to Divorce Court.It’s been five years since the 62-year old Ephriam left the show in a dispute over money and her hair. Judge Mablean appeared on the popular divorce show for seven years, and she made quite a name for herself. Over the past few years, she has appeared in several Tyler Perry movies, and she took care of her mother, who recently passed away.