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Producer Defends Having a Skinny Woman Lip Synch a Fat Woman's Vocals

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In the '70s and '80s, Martha Wash was known for singing club hits alongside the legendary Sylvester. With Izora Rhodes, she formed the duo Two Tons o' Fun, which was renamed the Weather Girls when their indelible 1982 hit "It's Raining Men" took off. Her titanic soprano voice is unmistakable, but it didn't stop multiple producers from employing much thinner model types to lip synch Wash's vocals in videos without properly crediting Wash. And all because Wash is overweight and not your average girl in the video. These videos included Black Box's "Everybody Everybody" and "Strike It Up," as well as C+C Music Factory's global smash that helped define early '90s dance pop, "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)."

Wash's unbelievable story was recounted in last night's episode of TV One's Unsung, the network's Behind the Music for black/R&B-oriented artists who don't otherwise generally get to tell their stories on TV. Even more unbelievable was that Robert Clivillés, the surviving member of the core production duo of C+C Music Factory (David Cole died in 1995), to this day defends employing Zelma Davis (a singer herself) to lip synch Wash's lines.

Referring to Wash's lawsuit against him, which claimed that she was not just under-credited, but that she also took a lower rate because she believed she was recording demos, Clivillés said on Unsung:

For Martha Wash to continue to live with saying that she was working on a demo would be false. I always asked her, every time we finished a song, if she wanted to be part of the group, but she always gave me the same reason: "I want to be taken seriously as an R&B artist." Being that Zelma Davis sang eight out of the ten records on the album, we thought, "Hey, since she's singing the majority of the songs, it would make sense to have her come sing the part"...If we knew that Martha Wash not being in the video would have caused a problem, we would have absolutely made sure that she was on it. But I don't think that would have ever changed anything. I think what changed it was that record went on to be an anthem of anthems, and the album went on to be a multi-million seller.

Wash won her lawsuit against both acts, and scored a solo contract with RCA in the process. Black Box refused to allow their music to be licensed to Unsung, explaining to producers that it "wasn't personal."

Incidentally, I remain obsessed with lip-synching scandals of the early '90s like the one(s) Wash found herself part of. If I worked at Jeopardy!, I would lobby for a category called "Early '90s Lip-Synching Scandals" and here is what it would be:

$200

Producer Defends Having a Skinny Woman Lip Synch a Fat Woman's Vocals

$400

Producer Defends Having a Skinny Woman Lip Synch a Fat Woman's Vocals

$600

Producer Defends Having a Skinny Woman Lip Synch a Fat Woman's Vocals

$800

Producer Defends Having a Skinny Woman Lip Synch a Fat Woman's Vocals

$1000

Producer Defends Having a Skinny Woman Lip Synch a Fat Woman's Vocals

(Answers below)


Don Lemon Has No Idea What an Automatic Weapon Is, But You Should

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CNN's Don Lemon is having a tough year, and it's not getting any easier. But he's great for cautionary tales. When, for instance, he tries to have a Ferguson-related conversation about guns and mucks it all up, he offers us a chance to learn something important and improve the national conversation.

In the clip above, from last night's telecast, Lemon cringeworthily fulfilled a textbook right-wing journalistic stereotype by completely misunderstanding what the term "automatic weapon" actually refers to. During a panel conversation with Van Jones and conservative pundit Ben Ferguson, Lemon asserted that just anyone can buy an automatic weapon. He's wrong, wrong wrong—but the way in which he's wrong illustrates a key part of the gun debate that's not being discussed well:

FERGUSON: The law says that you and I can't just randomly go out and buy an automatic weapon, so let's deal with the facts here. A semiautomatic weapon is gun that you and I are allowed to own, and in different places they have different rules. But to imply that anyone can walk out and buy an automatic weapon is just not true, Don.

LEMON: What do you mean anyone can't wa— Listen, during the theater shooting in Colorado, I was able to go and buy an automatic weapon, and I, you know, have maybe shot a gun, three, four times in my life. I don't even live in Colorado. I think most people can go out and buy an automatic weapon. I don't understand your argument there.

Ferguson, who is in the right on this discussion over the lingo, asks Lemon what the hell he thinks an "automatic weapon" is. The Blaze (sigh) picks it up from there:

"For me, an automatic weapon is anything that you can shoot off a number of rounds very quickly. I was able to buy an AR-15 in 20 minutes," Lemon said.

That's when Ferguson pounced.

"With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about," the radio host shot back. "An automatic weapon is when you pull the trigger one time and it continually shoots off one after another, after another."

But Lemon refused to back down, claiming that he can do exactly that with the AR-15 that he purchased in Colorado and accusing Ferguson of "getting into semantics."

Well, yeah, it is semantics, but it matters. Journalism involves educating audiences with precise and accurate language. In this case, if Lemon had known what he was talking about, he could have challenged Ferguson on some important points.

First, the facts: There are "full-automatic" and "semi-automatic" firearms (as well as some other categories that don't really figure into this conversation). Fully automatic weapons continue to fire rounds of ammunition as long as the trigger is held down—machine guns, chiefly. These are highly regulated and extremely difficult to obtain, unless you're a licensed dealer or a rich collector. And even then, getting your Gatling gun on is not easy.

Far more common are semi-autos, guns that fire a single round with every pull of the trigger. These include most home-defense pistols and shotguns sold today, as well as the nasty-looking and easily obtainable assault-style weapons, like the AR-15, to which Lemon refers above.

Technically, all of these weapons are automatic firearms of one type or another, but most people in the know use the term "automatic" to refer exclusively to the rarer full-auto guns. Lemon and many other journalists aren't savvy to these subtleties. As a result, fairly or unfairly, they lose a lot of credibility in trying to address gun policy.

More importantly, their ignorance deprives them of an opportunity to address some real policy problems. In federal law, the distinction between full-auto and semi-auto is a somewhat antiquated one, and new technology is finding a lot of loopholes around it. Take a gander, for example, at this fancy rapid-fire thing:

Looks and sounds like a machine gun, huh? Except it isn't, and it's totally legal, as Mother Jones has reported:

Slide Fire is a company that sells gun stocks that you can use with an AK-47 or an AR-15. These attachments enable accurate "controlled rapid firing," according to the company's website, meaning "you can shoot one round, 2 rounds…15 rounds or a full magazine," as Jeremiah Cottle, the US Air Force vet who invented the product, told Guns America last year...

[D]espite enabling rapid fire that mimics a fully automatic weapon, Slide Fire doesn't appear to violate the production ban in the National Firearms Act. The law only regulates weapons that are designed to shoot "automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading." The way the Slide Fire works, as Cottle explained to Guns America, makes it easier for semi-automatic gun owners to do what they've been doing anyway: "bump firing," which is where you simulate automatic firing by rocking the gun against the trigger finger.

In essence, the Slide Fire—or even creative fingerplay—can make semi-automatic weapons shoot really, really fast, so they're not illegal. But they're super-popular: That single Slide Fire promotional video has nearly one and a half million views.

Yet because so few journalists even get how firearms work, they're at a loss to ask the right questions about problematic modifications such as these. It's like trying to get your grandma to identify cheat codes for Grand Theft Auto V.

Of course, this all may strike uninitiated unarmed citizens as irrelevant geek shit. Full-autos, or even rapid-fire cheats, aren't what's killing tens of thousands of Americans a year: semi-automatic pistols, shotguns, and assault weapons are. Acknowledging that fact—and not getting your butt handed to you in a distracting semantical debate—is a necessary step for anyone who wants to use public policy, however nominally, to address gun violence; not just to establish one's credibility, but to get at a deeper understanding of problems and possible solutions.

That doesn't mean that every critic of a wide-open, absolutist, NRA-style pro-gun ethos needs to be a proficient shooter or hunter. But on the other hand, if you want to have coherent opinions that are taken seriously, you shouldn't be a Don Lemon, either.

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

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These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

We haven't seen or heard from Darren Wilson in the time since he killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, but plenty of people want the Ferguson police officer to know that they stand behind him. They've donated nearly $140,000 to him on Gofundme, and left telling comments of commiseration and support attached to their pledges. Here's where the worst of white America is patting itself on the back.

In 1969, Richard Nixon popularized the term "silent majority" to refer to white, middle class Americans whose viewpoints he thought had been suffocated by the liberal press. At this very moment, as Ferguson's nightly protests radiate across all forms of news, the silent majority is hiding in plain sight.

The following comments are pulled from that Gofundme, which was started four days ago by an unknown entity

They want to Darren Wilson to know that they're proud of him for staring down "what others fear"—black people.

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

They Darren Wilson to know that they will help him defeat the real racists—black people.

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

They want Darren Wilson to know that they will support this case's innocent victim—himself.

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

And, of course, they want him Darren Wilson to know that, above all, God is on his side.

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

These Are the People Donating Money to Mike Brown's Killer

[top image via Ferguson Police Department]

Putin's Celebrity Friendships​ Put His Heart in Grave Danger

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Putin's Celebrity Friendships​ Put His Heart in Grave Danger

Vladimir Putin is a man. He has budding friendships with famous actors Gérard Depardieu and Mickey Rourke—and a deep bond with action hero Steven Seagal. Seagal took to the stage at a pro-Russian concert in Crimea, not long ago. Rest assured, when sanctions fail, the West will hit Putin here, where it hurts most.

That is, of course, presuming that these friendships were not already spy games from moment one. As the president of Russia, and a former KGB man, Putin should have known better than to bare his soul to glamorous foreigners, perfect HUMINT dangles, who appeal so assiduously to his masculine vanity.

Just speculating, but what if these famous, or once famous, actors don't even know that they're part of a black ops program to fatally wound Vladimir Putin's pride? They could be MK-ULTRA Manchurian Friends, mind-controlled under the same covert project (Project Monarch) as Shia LaBeouf.

How did it come to this?

Item: Steven Seagal and Vladimir Putin Share a Taste for Martial Arts, Physical Fitness, and Rocking Blues

First, to cite some primary source documents, here is Steven Seagal rocking out with his blues band a little over a week ago in the Crimean seaport of Sevastopol, for the glory of Russia and because, Seagal says, his "greatest desire is to bring Russia and America together; It always has been."

Always.

Courtesy of the Washington Post and a thing that I cannot believe Russia Today calls Ruptly.

(Ruptly is the Russian state-funded network's live video-news arm. Your guess is as good as mine, but it certainly sounds like their neologism is meant to evoke something like this: "Whereas 'free market' Libertarians in American Silicon Valley wish to disrupt world system, sowing chaos and misery, [vodka swig] we at Russia Today wish to innovate ruptly." There is no word like it in Russian—but rupt is Romanian for "broke.")

That above is a rock opera depicting Russia's version of the Ukrainian conflict; the concert finale to the three-day event, which was ostensibly an international bike festival organized by the Russian biker gang the Night Wolves. You will note that the suspected perfidious influence of the United States in Ukraine's February coup is here depicted onstage with a giant "Eye of Providence/Illuminati dollar-bill-pyramid." A touring company could really clean up putting a version of this show on in America's fearful, self-loathing heartland.

In the past, Steven Seagal, an action film star, 7th-dan Aikido black belt, musician, reserve deputy sheriff, alleged sex slave owner, and entrepreneur, has praised Putin as "one of the greatest world leaders, if not the greatest world leader alive" adding that he "would like to consider him as a brother."

Together the duo have grabbed lunch before catching Judo competitions at the Sambo-70 Sports Center, congratulated Russia's Olympic Judo team after their impressive showing in London, and collaborated on a reboot of the Soviet-era fitness workout "Ready for Labor and Defense." Their shared interest in martial arts was the initial spark that lead to this, according to the Moscow Times. Over a decade ago, Putin co-authored the book Judo: History, Theory, Practice, in which he outlines just how its techniques have influenced his political style and personal philosophy.

"Putin and Seagal have long been friends," according to Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, "and they regularly meet each other."

Seagal has even lobbied American legislators on Russia's behalf, asking them to remove barriers preventing Russian-made weapons from being sold in the United States, according to the state-owned RIA Novosti news service. That's what friends do, right?

Now, try to imagine how devastating it would be, if Seagal—around whom Putin has relaunched an entire national fitness regime—were to suddenly decide that Putin wasn't so cool, or that the Russian leader was actually a weak poser who isn't even half as strong as he claims to be.

Seagal has publicly supported Russia's annexation of Crimea, calling the U.S. policy in Ukraine "idiotic," but think of how crushed Putin would feel, if his cool friend changed his mind, lobbing such harsh language in a new direction.

Item: Mickey Rourke has a Russian Girlfriend

Putin's Celebrity Friendships​ Put His Heart in Grave Danger

"I have a Russian girlfriend, that's all I care about."

"Her father is a good person, her mother's great, her babushka's wonderful. To me it's all about family. I don't give a fuck about the politics. That's not my department."

That's Mickey Rourke for you. Rourke is new to Putin's international Wild Hogs entourage. So he wasn't quite prepared for the flak he caught from press recently, when he showed up at the GUM department store in Red Square to pick up souvenir gifts from the new Vsyo Putyom line—which includes t-shirts of Putin guaranteed to appear at Urban Outfitters soon.

"If I didn't like him," Rourke said of Putin defensively, "I wouldn't buy the T-shirt believe me."

"I met him a couple of times and he was a real gentleman, a very cool regular guy, looked me right in the eye. I think he is a good guy. If I didn't, believe I wouldn't wear the T-shirt."

It is easy to believe. Irony and self-awareness are clearly just not Mickey Rourke's thing.

He fared much better on Russian state-owned TV.

"It's a very strong picture of him, of 'the boss'" Rourke told the host of Russia's L!FE news, describing his new Putin shirt, a mercurial smile creeping up his face.

Rourke also told the show that he admired Putin's "directness and frankness" in his foreign policy. Huh. Suddenly politics is his department.

This kind of inconsistency should be a red flag for Putin. Rourke could very well be an American agent provocateur.

Item: Gérard Depardieu Hated Paying French Taxes

Putin's Celebrity Friendships​ Put His Heart in Grave Danger

Can you believe the nerve of François Hollande, raising taxes on France's million-euro earners to 75 percent, in accordance with his campaign promises?

Gérard Depardieu cannot. The actor, whose "hooligan essence" he says Putin appreciates, renounced his French citizenship a year and a half (or so) ago—in favor of Russia's 13-percent-flat income tax, as well as generous relocation packages offered by regional leaders in Saransk and the central Russian region of Mordovia. (According to the BBC reports, Mordovia is "known for its Stalin-era prison camps." Depardieu went with Saransk.)

In January of last year, after signing a decree granting Depardieu Russian citizenship, Putin had dinner with the Frenchman in pre-Olympic Sochi. Here you can see the pair meeting in the Black Sea resort town and engaging in a tender embrace:

Depardieu was effusively warm in his gratitude to Putin, penning an open letter that said "I love your country, Russia—its people, its history, its writers. I love your culture, your intelligence."

He also said that Russia was "a great democracy, and not a country where the prime minister calls one of its citizens shabby," a not even thinly veiled dig at French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who had fatefully used the s-word to describe Depardieu's move to Russia.

But his praise did not stop there. His body and wealth expatriated, Depardieu has become one of Putin's most vocal celebrity advocates. He has compared Putin warmly to both former French president Francois Mitterrand and Pope John Paul II. He has condemned the protest that landed radical punk band Pussy Riot in prison, using the same talking points as the Kremlin. He's made fun of Putin's opposition, dismissing political activist and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov's intellect as "good for chess and not much else."

But what would happen if some other country, perhaps a U.S. client regime dependent on America's generous foreign aid, were to institute at 10-percent-flat income tax? Or lower?

All we're saying is that Depardieu hasn't exactly been spending his tax savings on light arms bound for Donetsk. Talk is cheap, Cyrano!

Item: The Value Putin Places on His Rigidly Male Gender Identity is His Achilles' Heel

Since the conflict in Ukraine began, the European Union and the U.S. have been scrambling to find—as the Associated Press put it in July, and as David Koranyi, Deputy Director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council put it two days ago—"Putin's Achilles' Heel."

The conventional wisdom is that, if the global West wishes to truly force Putin's influence out of Ukraine, it must be willing to levy tough sanctions on Russia's energy sector, sanctions that will do real damage to that nation's economy, regardless of the consequences for its international business partners (e.g. Exxon). Here's Koranyi:

[In] their current form, energy sector sanctions are weak. They are limited in both time and scope. They only prohibit new agreements and fail to cover such major deals as Rosneft's and Exxon's joint venture at the Kara Sea inaugurated just last week. The unwillingness to extend the sanctions to the gas sector will mean technology transfer and investment will not be seriously hindered in Russian shale and offshore plays, due to the dual use of most technologies in both oil and gas extraction.

The EU and the United States need to adopt extended, better defined, and more comprehensive energy technology sanctions with urgency, especially if Putin decides to invade Eastern Ukraine under the pretext of humanitarian assistance. Even ramped up energy sector sanctions may not deter and force him to deescalate in Ukraine. But over time, they have the potential to seriously undermine Putin's power base. The West must show its resolve to play the long game.

As is so often the case with conventional wisdom, this wrong and self-destructive.

Putin's real Achilles' heel is his personal friendships with an international Gym-Rat Pack of famous action men (and Gérard Depardieu). Like riding horseback shirtless, these friendships define his strength and prestige to the Russian people and just as importantly, define these qualities deep within the Freudian ego of Putin himself.

This has been true nearly forever, which is critical to understanding just how deeply ingrained it is. It's fundamental to Putin's capacity to function. Here is a particularly illustrative example, dating back to the late 1990s, from a New Yorker piece this July:

Putin came to power thanks to Yeltsin, but Putin did not hesitate to put some distance between himself and his ailing patron. Bill Clinton, at the very end of his time in office, visited Putin at the Kremlin, and at one point in their time together Putin led Clinton on a tour of the vast and magnificent premises. (Compared with the Kremlin, the West Wing of the White House is as grand as an Ethan Allen furniture outlet.) First, they visited a gym, full of state-of-the-art equipment. "I spend a lot of time here," Putin said, body-proud even then. They proceeded down a long hall to another room; this one was gloomy, abandoned, with a hospital bed, a respirator, a cart filled with medical paraphernalia. Putin turned to the President. "The previous resident spent a lot of time here," he said.

Putin's displays of shirtless virility may play as a joke abroad, but to supporters like Prokhanov strength and its projection are at the center of Putinism.

Russia can and always has withstood devastating losses that impact its economy and people, predictably the least of its people most. What it cannot stand to lose, especially under Putin, is face.

Do you know what love is?

I will tell you: It is whatever you can still betray.

[Photos: Putin and Seagal via AFP; Rourke in Putin t-shirt via Reuters; Putin and Depardieu via Alexei Nikolsky/RIA Novosti/AP/File]

To contact the author of this post, email matthew.phelan@gawker.com, pgp public key here.

New Mexico Sheriff and Son Indicted for Pistol-Whipping Incident

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New Mexico Sheriff and Son Indicted for Pistol-Whipping Incident

The history of law enforcement in New Mexico—dating back to the days of the Wild West, if not earlier—is littered with the names of men who, in a just society, would have been run out of the state on a rail instead of given a badge and a gun.

For instance, lawman Pat Garrett gained international fame in 1881 as the man who killed Billy the Kid (under still murky circumstances).

But Garrett was also a notoriously unlikable bully who bragged, drank, gambled or shot his way out of essentially every job he ever held, until he was finally shot and killed in 1908 during an argument with a southern New Mexico rancher over goats.

There were also disreputable lawmen like Sheriff William Brady and Billy the Kid himself (who was briefly deputized as a "Regulator" during the 1878 Lincoln County range wars) but, hell, just go watch Young Guns again to get the gist of those stories.

Rio Arriba County Sheriff Thomas Rodella and his son, Sheriff's Deputy Thomas Rodella, Jr., could soon find themselves added to that pantheon of Land of Enchantment law enforcement mediocrity.

Thanks to federal prosecutors, Rodella, 52, and Rodella Jr., 26, are potentially facing several decades in prison after allegedly violating the civil rights of a motorist they apprehended and allegedly pistol-whipped following a chase in March.

The two were indicted in an Albuquerque federal court last Friday. Trial is set to start in September.

According to U.S. District Attorney Damon Martinez, the younger Rodella was with his father and driving his dad's unmarked personal Jeep on March 11 when they chased down a 26-year-old driver—identified by the Rio Grande Sun as Michael Tafoya—who prosecutors say was driving the posted speed limit of 35 mph.

The two Rodellas (neither of whom were in uniform) allegedly tailgated and eventually stopped Tafoya and challenged him to a fight.

Prosecutors say that Tafoya then drove away again. When the Rodellas managed to pull Tafoya over again, Sheriff Rodella got out of his Jeep, jumped into Tafoya's vehicle and beat the man with his revolver.

Tafoya, who federal prosecutors say was begging the Rodellas not to shoot him, was then allegedly dragged out of his vehicle and thrown to the ground by Rodella Jr.

The senior Rodella then allegedly pulled Tafoya's head up out of the dirt by his hair, shoved his badge in Tafoya's face and yelled, "You want to see my badge? Here's my badge, motherfucker!"

Sheriff Rodella then called in other deputies to arrest Tafoya, before he and his son allegedly falsified police reports to show that Tafoya had tried to assault the Sheriff with his vehicle.

Sheriff Rodella and his son each face five counts in federal court—one count of conspiracy against the free exercise of civil rights, deprivation of rights, brandishing a firearm and two counts of falsifying documents.

But according to the Albuquerque Journal, attorneys for Sheriff Rodella—who actually lost his reelection bid in June and whose term expires at the end of the year—claim that the charges are part of a vendetta against the Rodellas, saying that Martinez was hostile to Rodella after a heated argument between the two regarding a dispute with the U.S. Forest Service over what Rodella claimed was federal overreach over land use in the county.

Rodella's attorneys say that during the meeting last May, Martinez threatened the sheriff with arrest if he interfered the Forest Service patrols. The attorneys say they sent Martinez a letter on Tuesday claiming that the charges were malicious and "vexatious."

"Multiple officials witnessed and will testify to your arrogant and vitriolic behavior during the meeting and what appeared to be your extreme hostility to Sheriff Rodella because he refused to your unreasonable demands," the letter said.

Prosecutors and FBI agents who investigated the case disagree.

"A vast majority of law enforcement officers work courageously every day to make our communities safe," said Martinez in a statement. "Because those in uniform deserve our respect and support, it is vitally important to prosecute officers who violate their oaths of office and the public trust placed in them. The Department of Justice is committed to holding law enforcement officers accountable when they violate their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution."

In the same statement, FBI Special Agent in Charge Carol K.O. Lee says that nobody is above the law, regardless of rank or uniform.

"Let today's arrests serve notice to those few out there who would tarnish their badge by violating the public trust: the FBI will thoroughly investigate each and every allegation, and the U.S. Attorney's Office will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law."

This is far from the first time Thomas Rodella, Sr. has found himself in trouble for shady law enforcement work—in fact, the soon-to-be-ex-sheriff of Rio Arriba County has found himself in and out of legal and ethical trouble of one kind of another for at least the past 22 years.

It's nothing short of amazing that Sheriff Rodella's law enforcement career has survived long enough for him to get federally indicted in the first place.

It's a story that really could only happen in northern New Mexico, where a few prominent families have risen to the top of the state's social hierarchy to become political fixtures every bit as ubiquitous in New Mexico as, say, the Kennedys of Massachusetts or the Daleys of Chicago.

In Rio Arriba County, around the town of Española—located about 30 minutes north of the state capitol in Santa Fe—the Rodellas have become one of those fixtures.

Thomas Rodella Sr.'s wife, Debbie Rodella, is a longtime Democratic state representative and chairwoman of the House Business and Industry Committee and whose popularity in the area is such that she hasn't even had to face an opponent in eight years.

But Thomas Rodella's somewhat-checkered law enforcement career could send it all crashing down around them.

According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Rodella Sr. spent 13 years as an investigator with the New Mexico State Police but was the target of an internal affairs investigation that concluded that he used his position to fix traffic tickets in 1992 to help his wife's reelection campaign.

He was also disciplined at one time or another for using marijuana and abusing sick leave. In addition, he was also once arrested and suspended from the force for 30 days for shooting from his vehicle at a deer decoy used by Jicarilla Apache Nation game and wildlife officials to catch poachers.

He retired from the force in 1995 on a disability pension.

And yet somehow that wasn't the end of his law-enforcement career.

In 2006, Rodella lost his job as a magistrate judge for helping a friend out of a drunk driving charge, much to the chagrin of then-New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who had appointed Rodella to the job a year earlier to fill out an unexpired term and who had made improving the state's horrifying drunk driving statistics a priority as governor.

(It's commonly said that in New Mexico one out of every four drivers you see on the road at any given time is fucked-up on one thing or another. The actual statistics aren't quite that dire, but while it's getting better it's still pretty bad.)

But, in an astonishingly fast political comeback, Rodella was actually re-elected to the magistrate position he was forced to vacate in 2006—only to be forced out yet again and barred from ever running for reelection in 2010 by the state Supreme Court after he improperly told an alleged victim of domestic abuse that she didn't have to show up in court to testify against her husband.

Permanently booted off the bench—but not actually barred from running for another political office—Rodella made another unlikely political comeback by winning the race for Rio Arriba County Sheriff in 2010, winning with just 25 percent of the vote in a field of seven other candidates.

But even that victory celebration didn't last long before Rodella managed to step in shit yet again. In 2012, Rodella fired one of the candidates for sheriff he defeated in 2010, Deputy James Luján, from the force.

Luján (another prominent surname in northern New Mexico politics, although the two are not directly related) then sued the department for unlawful termination and won a $102,000 settlement.

In a turnabout highlighting Rodella's latest fall, Luján then actually defeated Rodella in the Democratic primary for sheriff in June. His term in office will begin on January 1.

(In Rio Arriba County, like in many places across the heavily-blue northern New Mexico, winning the Democratic primary is essentially the same as winning the overall general election, which is typically only a formality. In fact, in the last round of county elections the Republican Party didn't even bother to try.)

Prosecutors in court said that Rodella's son, Thomas Rodella Jr., has a documented history of steroid abuse, and is forbidden from using any drugs not prescribed by his doctor as a condition of his release pending trial.

So now, in a time where across the nation the excesses and abuses of law enforcement are the focus of worldwide attention and disdain, the two Rodellas, if convicted, could be facing the next 37 years behind bars.

As part of the terms of their release pending their federal trial, neither is allowed to carry a firearm, contact any witnesses in the trial, discuss the trial with any other members of the Rio Arriba Sheriff's Department or leave the county without permission.

The federal court ruled that Rodella is allowed to stay on as Rio Arriba County sheriff, provided that the county commission wants to keep him. That body has scheduled a meeting for August 21 to discuss the matter.

Around Española, some say that this might have finally been the final straw for the Rodella family—the key word there being might.

"I think voters in Northern New Mexico are very forgiving," former Espanola Mayor Joe Maestas told the New Mexican. "They're steady and consistent. But this development could change that. There are folks who think a line has been crossed."

Image via Rio Arriba Sheriff's Department

Who Are These Media Assholes in Ferguson?

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Who Are These Media Assholes in Ferguson?

If you follow the inner workings of the media industry, you’ve probably read journalist Ryan L. Schuessler’s fairly devastating rant about the scrum of reporters and photographers in Ferguson, Mo. currently covering the August 9 killing of Michael Brown. In the course of stringing for Al Jazeera America, Schuessler witnessed:

  • “TV crews making small talk and laughing at the spot where Mike Brown was killed, as residents prayed, mourned”
  • “A TV crew of a to-be-left-unnamed major cable network taking pieces out of a Ferguson business retaining wall to weigh down their tent”
  • “Another major TV network renting out a gated parking lot for their one camera, not letting people in. Safely reporting the news on the other side of a tall fence.”

And this whopper:

  • “One reporter who, last night, said he came to Ferguson as a ‘networking opportunity.’ He later asked me to take a picture of him with Anderson Cooper.”

Schuessler won’t name the networks or the reporter. But we will. If you know who Schuessler’s talking about, hop in below or send us an email.

Update: The reporter treating Ferguson as a “networking opportunity” might be this guy.

Dating Naked Cast Member Sues After Everybody Sees Her Crotch

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Dating Naked Cast Member Sues After Everybody Sees Her Crotch

A cast member of VH1's nude dating show Dating Naked claims in a new lawsuit that VH1 accidentally aired an uncensored shot of her crotch on July 31.

The New York Post reports that producers promised 28-year-old Jessie Nizewitz that all of her private areas would be blurred when they convinced her to perform a "WWE-style wrestling move" on her nude date. She talked to the Post about how she felt when she found out that her most private of private areas, uh, wasn't blurred:

"I felt lied to, manipulated and used. I was horrified. ... I immediately started getting text messages. Everyone saw it. One of the messages read, 'So your money shot is on cable TV.'"

Eek! Get better friends! Nizewitz says even her grandmother, who probably didn't need to know about any of this, got an eyeful:

"My grandma saw it. I saw her this week and she didn't have much to say to me. She's probably mad. My parents are just annoyed."

The New York Post reports that the $10 million suit names Viacom, Firelight Entertainment, and Lighthearted Entertainment. Nizewitz says the incredibly unfortunate blooper even cost her a "budding relationship" with a man she'd been seeing for a month:

"He never called me again after the show aired. I would have hoped we could have had a long-term relationship. He was employed, Jewish, in his 30s and that's pretty much ideal."

Well, shoot.

[image via VH1]

Man Calls 911 to Report Stripper Who Wouldn't Have Sex With Him

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Man Calls 911 to Report Stripper Who Wouldn't Have Sex With Him

A Montana man called the police Saturday night because a stripper accepted his $350 for a private dance and "ripped him off" by refusing to have sex with him.

William McDaniel's night at suburban Butte's Sagebrush Sam's gentleman's club didn't play out exactly as he planned, though: Officers arrested the 53-year-old man for soliciting, and presumably explained the difference between dancers and prostitutes.

Police say that the dancer cut McDaniel's backroom session short when he "became sexually aggressive" toward her.

"He felt he was ripped off by the bar," Butte-Silver Bow Undersheriff George Skuletich told the Montana Standard. "He assumed he paid the $350 for sexual acts that didn't occur."

McDaniel didn't get a refund, and was released Sunday morning after paying $550 for bond.

The Smoking Gun points out that the charmingly named Sagebrush Sam's (pictured below) only had one Yelp review at the time of the incident, a one-star screed that read, "This establishment needs a complete makeover. Walls and floor are extremely filthy. Even the stripper pole looked like it was going to break loose from the floor."

Man Calls 911 to Report Stripper Who Wouldn't Have Sex With Him

[H/T HuffPo, Photos: Butte-Silver Bow Police, Google Maps]


Deadspin John Calipari Called Into Mike Francesa's Show To Yell At Him | Gizmodo Stop Refrigerating

​Thursday Night TV's Trying Better Choices, Dating Less Dangerous Men

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On the television tonight there are cartoons for the gender-fluid child in you, killer boyfriends for the romantiphobic Liz Lemon in you, a double Defiance for the former Mayor in you, and Big Brother for the aggressively bicurious golf instructor in you.

At 6/5c. there's Teen Titans Go! which is off-and-on my goddaughter's favorite program so I have seen a lot of it and I find it good, and then Steven Universe, which I don't love but lots of people do. The former is about wacky adventures by teen superheroes and the latter is like, what if a fat gay kid from the '80s wrote a fan fiction story about joining the cast of Facts of Life. What if you were the Mackenzie Astin of a post-Finn feminist superhero cartoon. I'm not saying I wouldn't do anything like that—not even saying that I didn't—I'm just saying I'm 36 now.

At 8/7c. there's The Quest, but honestly there's really just Defiance. For some reason it's back-to-back episodes tonight, but I guess that's just to hype us for the finale next week. Now, last year's finale was pretty much the pits in a lot of ways, so I think tonight's double-header will be especially important, given that we've just recently hit a pretty explosive act break, with massive shifts involving arguably the two closest characters to Amanda Rosewater this year; the fact that the second of tonight's episode is entitled "Doll Parts" makes me even more worried than usual for our riot grrl-obsessed former Mayor. (Did you see her St. Finnegan medal at Stahma's private mourning ceremony? Scary!) Or perhaps it's simply indicating she'll end up with the most cake.

At 9/8c. there's Dating Naked on VH1, Sundance's Rectify and Rush on USA, and the Rookie Blue two-hour finale on whatever station that's on. There's the second Braxton Family Values ("Sisters on the Verge"!) and a two-hour premiere of something called Gypsy Sisters on TLC that was explained to me as being a more depressing spin-off of the already depressing My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I guess there are sisters and they fight a lot. And that sounds awful to me, too. I would only sit through that shit for one reason and it is named Jacqueline Laurita and she is no longer on TV, so: No.

Do you find that you can handle any amount of Amish stuff but (American) "Gypsies" just bum you out? Is this a thing we have in common? It's so weird too because objectively speaking—or at least in terms of my fucked-up Western ideology—the Amish have it much tougher. If I had to rank reality-TV things I can handle it would be Honey Boo Boo on the far left (Pumpkin to the farthest left) and then waaaay over here on the right, TLC Gypsies. And like two-thirds to the left, most Amish shows, and maybe slightly to the right of that, Breaking Amish, which was... the word is harrowing.

Otherwise it's Project Runway and Big Brother—both of whom have open threads tonight, if you can handle that much fun after dark—and a show that I hate for being on ID because I know how the story will end, called Handsome Devils, which I presume is about killer boyfriends and Craigslist murderers, although I think it would be funnier if it was just one lady that kept accidentally dating murderers and being like, "Classic Lisa. When will I learn?" but already I know they are going to cast exactly the kind of actors that make me feel confused about if murder is sexy or not, and then on top of it this one's called "The Navy SEAL Pastor," which is like, literally all the things. So I will definitely be watching that for sure! I need to stay informed on exactly what kind of murders I deserve for dating these total hotties all the time, because apparently that's the #1 way your ugly ass can die.

At 10/9c. It's Garfunkel & Oates on IFC and Honorable Woman on Sundance, opposite Married/You're the Worst on FX and SWV Reunited on WE, then at 11/10c. you have the new Black Jesus on Adult Swim, and the third of Showtime's 7 Deadly Sins: Wrath.

What makes you enraged or wrathful? I can't think of anything. I guess I'm just super chill and easygoing is probably why. People are always saying so, all like "I can't imagine your spooky intensity would ever erupt into explosive rage, that's so cool about you" and I'm like quiet for a few seconds and then I'm all, DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT! Oh, we have fun. Do you like fun? We have fun.

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. What are you watching tonight? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.

Gimmick App "Yo" Offered Gimmick Car Service and No One Wanted It

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Gimmick App "Yo" Offered Gimmick Car Service and No One Wanted It

Silicon Valley hit a new pinnacle of pointlessness earlier today as the summer's hottest two-letter app co-branded with Smart Automobile to offer minimalist-themed rides across San Francisco.

Free rides in the miniature German-made electric vehicles were being hawked across the street from Betabrand's Mission District headquarters. The premise was simple: walk up to the Yo/Smart pop-up promo station (sponsored by Mercedes-Benz), "Yo" @smartmission, and then scrunch your way into a two-seater and be driven across town.

"The main priority is to get people to drive the vehicle, and tapping into that Yo audience is a great way to do that," a spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz, the United States distributor of Smart cars, explained to TechCrunch. "We're giving 'Electricurious' San Franciscans the world's first-ever Yo-powered test ride."

While a line of cars were parked along Valencia Street, idly waiting for passengers that would never come, a Smart representative I spoke to insisted that you must download Yo and summon your ride through the app. "That's part of the promotion," she told me.

Of course, the event was a flop. People already have Uber and Lyft for on-demand rides, and the entire premise of walking to a glorified taxi stand undermines the promise of convenience that has fueled the growth of service apps. And for some reason, the media—presumably the only people in San Francisco interested in this stunt—were not welcome to participate.

For the fifteen some odd minutes I hung around the area, the only people there were a film crew, Smart handlers, a man delivering fruit to a nearby restaurant, and a bored police officer tasked with protecting the scene.

Gimmick App "Yo" Offered Gimmick Car Service and No One Wanted It

Unfortunately for Smart, the company paid to bring a film crew out to document the brand synergy, hoping to shoot a commercial featuring excited Yo-users blasting around town in the easily-flippable car.

"Are you about to take a ride?!," one of the cinematographers asked me as lurked about. "No, I'm just press," I responded.

He went back to filming the parked cars while a production script sat abandoned on the sidewalk. Like Yo, it was of little use to anybody.

Gimmick App "Yo" Offered Gimmick Car Service and No One Wanted It

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Eight Things That Should Get You Banned From Dating Naked

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VH1's Dating Naked is a reality dating show where two naked-ass people go on a date with each other. Then they each date two more naked people, and all of them hang out between dates in a resort that's presumably lousy with butt prints. At the end of three days, the two contestants must decide who they want to pursue a relationship with.

We can all appreciate VH1 really "going there" with this premise, and certainly they've nailed the ABC Bachelor in Paradise vibe via mid-range outdoor furniture and talking-head cutaways. Still, nudity changes the game enough that for safety and sanity's sake, a few extra rules need to be imposed. Therefore, I've thoughtfully composed a list of eight things that should get contestants banned from Dating Naked. VH1 producers, you're welcome.

1. Describing someone's genitals on-camera. Ashley lost all sympathy from me as an audience member when she described her impressions of Greg dick first. Please don't give the editors sound-bytes that will follow your fellow contestant through the rest of his life just because you can. Remember, "Just because you see a dick, doesn't mean you have to be a dick" : motto of the Round Table.

2. Breaking plates around naked people.

Ashley is an art therapist, but while breaking plates may calm her unsteady soul out here in real life nothing is less welcome around a genital than an airborne razor-sharp shard of broken glass.

3. Never having seen naked people before. Greg's second date, Angelica, got her first in-person view of a dick courtesy of this show/Greg's dick.

She was so weirded out by being naked that she barfed all the way through their yacht trip and then announced she was leaving. I blame casting for this one.

4. Saying you're not looking for a relationship. The cardinal sin of all dating shows, clothed and unclothed, is saying you're not looking for a serious relationship. Ashley's second date, sexual healer Alika, told her he was looking not so much for a girlfriend as a "helpmate", which I'm pretty sure is a euphemism for "personal assistant."

5. Being a sexual healer. When Alika told Ashley his nine-to-five job is helping female clients get the most out of their g-spots, her face lit up like a Christmas tree on fire.

Making bells ring for a living gives Alika too much of an edge in a competitive dating scenario. What chance do a pair of normal bros have against a surfing shaman who can channel the omnipotent healing energies of the universe via his dick, fingertips and butt hole? Nada.

6. Peeing in the pool. Self-explanatory.

Eight Things That Should Get You Banned From Dating Naked

7. Not sitting on a towel. Self-explanatory.

I cannot believe they continued to sit on that couch.

8. Wearing shoes AND socks when you're otherwise nude. Naked bodies? Pretty sexy. Naked bodies with shoes and socks on? Hilarious, awkward, and then weirdly depressing. Flip flops are okay. White sneakers and tall white socks on a naked body is the opposite of sex.

By my metric Ashley would've been banned six times over, but perhaps the last laugh is on me (and basic health and safety concerns) because ultimately Ashley did find love via this process. Ashley and sexual healer Alika, who met in this episode, are going to be getting married on a televised Naked Wedding special in September. All VH1 needs is about two more couples to get together and they'll have bested the number of married couples produced by the Bachelor franchise, a dating show that's been running for approx. 1200 seasons now. If you break records, maybe you can break rules, Dating Naked!

Except for the one about sitting on towels. Please. Observe basic OSHA regulations.

[ Videos via VH1]

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. What are you watching tonight? What are we missing out on? Recommendations and discussions down below.

Perhaps ISIS should open a new training camp to instruct its murderous recruits on how to tweet with

Report: Leonardo DiCaprio Has Given up Pasta--and He Loves Pasta

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Report: Leonardo DiCaprio Has Given up Pasta--and He Loves Pasta

Star Magazine reports that after "spending all summer feasting and drinking on yachts," Leonardo DiCaprio is trying to lose ten pounds by autumn. Oh! But will he be able to overcome his love of pasta to meet his noble goal?

The magazine spoke to a source who gave a little insight into Leo's now infamous Ten Pound Plan. From Star Magazine (via Celebitchy):

"He has given up pasta – and he loves pasta," says the source. "He also plans on working out more and he is taking his bike wherever he goes."

Aw, jeeze, but he loves pasta! Does he even really need to lose the weight? I mean—does his 21-year-old model girlfriend care, or is he Leonardo DiCaprio?

But when it comes to his romance with 21-year-old model Toni Garrn, Leo's extra girth just means there's more of him to love! "Of course she doesn't care," says the source. "He's Leonardo DiCaprio!"

I knew it! Put the pasta back inside your mouth, Leo, and swallow it down to your tum—nobody cares!

Shucks, well, anyway. Good luck to that ol' tubba flub, on whatever path he chooses.

[image via Getty]

Bane Crashed a Wedding During Dark Knight Rises Filming

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Bane Crashed a Wedding During Dark Knight Rises Filming

When The Dark Knight Rises came to Pittsburgh back in 2011, a couple found their wedding at St. Paul's Cathedral taking place in the shadow of a necessary evil: Tom Hardy as Bane. The ceremony took place so close to the set that Gotham's reckoning even waved to the bridesmaids between takes.

A lot of people saw the photo for the first time on Reddit this week, but the wedding was big local news in Pittsburgh when it happened, especially because the groom was WPXI sports reporter Rich Walsh (now at KDKA.)

Here's Walsh's story about how his wedding came to collide with the Dark Knight shooting schedule, and how he and his wife, Michele, ended up taking wedding photos on Batman's Tumbler:

And this is a video from the Tumbler that Walsh tweeted this week:

Rich and Michele were especially lucky because this happened during peak Dark Knight hysteria, when fans were freaking out over every new photo of the Batmobile or Bane's costume.

The fight scene being filmed that day disrupted the proceedings a little bit—"there were explosions and gunfire on the street," according to one witness—but it doesn't sound like the couple is complaining.

[H/T Vulture]


How To Fix The Police: A Former Chief Is Here To Take Your Questions

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How To Fix The Police: A Former Chief Is Here To Take Your Questions

Norm Stamper is a retired Seattle police chief, columnist, advisory board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing. He is in the comments below and ready to take your questions about Ferguson, militarization of police throughout the country, and the War on Drugs.

Update: Norm's out of the chat. Thanks for the questions, and feel to keep the conversation going in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Scott Olson/Getty

Celebrity Gift Bag Peddlers Use Robin Williams for (Bad) PR

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Celebrity Gift Bag Peddlers Use Robin Williams for (Bad) PR

Robin Williams' death—like many celebrity deaths—was marked by an outpouring of clumsy attempts to use it as a way to get PR for something other than Robin Williams. Today: we honor Robin Williams by using his name as a way to peddle celebrity gift bags.

A Gawker Media writer received this email today. I guess the only context you need is... Robin Williams died less than two weeks ago, and this company's slogan is "Connecting Powerful Products With Powerful People."

From: Sara Paul

Subject: Robin Williams

To: [unfortunate journalist]

After the recent tragic dealth of Robin Williams, my partner and I realzied how much the entertainment industry really needs healing. In 2014, we launched a project in which we have been giving gift bags full of organic, vegan products as well as healing services like massage, accupuncture, reiki, etc. Robin Williams was one of the celebrities who received our gift bag in June 2014. Scott and I now realize even more that you never know what is going on behind the scenes and who might really be in need of healing services, raw foods, yoga, meditation, etc. We recall the same thoughts after Michael Jackon died. Going forward, we have decided to step deeper into our own healing gifts and offer our healing services to the entertainment industry. We recently went to Jim Carrey's publicist's office and did healing work on her and the office as well as Will Smith's assistant. We were very well received. Jim Carrey's publicist even wrote a testimonial for us on our website... For our future gift bags, we are going to include more healing services, so if you or anyone you know is in the healing arts industry and/or has organic vegan product to share, please send them our way.

Thank you,

Sara Paul

Scott Manning

Sure will.

[Photo: AP]

Washington Post Editorials Will Stop Using Redskins Team Name

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Washington Post Editorials Will Stop Using Redskins Team Name

The Washington Post editorial board announced today it will stop using the word "Redskins" to refer to DC's professional football team.

The decision comes after "many years" of advocating that the team change its obviously racist name, the board writes:

But the matter seems clearer to us now than ever, and while we wait for the National Football League to catch up with thoughtful opinion and common decency, we have decided that, except when it is essential for clarity or effect, we will no longer use the slur ourselves. That's the standard we apply to all offensive vocabulary, and the team name unquestionably offends not only many Native Americans but many other Americans, too.

Politely, it insists that fans who back the name don't necessarily "have racist feeling or intent," and makes clear that its decision won't affect the Post's sports page or any other non-editorial section. Unlike those pages, the board writes, it has "the luxury of writing about the world as we would like it to be."

Good call! Won't change Dan Snyder's mind, but still.

[Image via AP]

Gaming CEO Says Politics Is a Game He Can Fix With More Money

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Gaming CEO Says Politics Is a Game He Can Fix With More Money

Dark money has been plaguing politics even since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The subsequent Super PACs, fueled by shadowy donations from millionaires and billionaires, have brought unwelcome influence into elections and made political parties more polarized. And Silicon Valley's elite know just how to fix the problem: pouring millions into their own super PACs.

The latest tech heavyweight to take on the Valley's favorite political pet issue is Jim Greer, co-founder of gaming network Kongregate. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Greer says politics "is to some degree a game—the most important game there is," and he is playing the game with a tech-funded super PAC to battle other corporate-funded super PACs:

This summer, the Noe Valley resident tried to do just that by co-founding CounterPAC, a super political action committee that urges candidates against taking money from unidentified donors, known in the trade as "dark money." It is the latest in a series of super PACs that aims to clean up the way super PACs operate.

With less than $5 million to spend in this fall's midterm races, CounterPAC - in fail-fast tech fashion - is testing out its ideas on Senate races in Alaska and Georgia and a congressional race in West Virginia, with more to follow.

All this sounds similar to Lawrence Lessig's Mayday PAC. Like CounterPAC, the Harvard Law professor's PAC has raised $7.8 million from the likes of Sean Parker, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman to take on dark money in politics.

Both crusaders are making the dubious argument that financing can save us from special interest financiers. The major difference between the two, however, is that Lessig is a public intellectual with a history of dealing with campaign finance reform. Greer, on the other hand, is the kind of guy who "donated to both President Obama and GOP Sen. John McCain's presidential campaigns."

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Photo: Joi Ito

Farrah Abraham's Strip Club Contract Just Bought Her a $100,000 Car

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Farrah Abraham's Strip Club Contract Just Bought Her a $100,000 Car

Former Teen Mom Farrah Abraham, fresh from landing what she claims is a $544,000 contract to dance at an Austin, Tex. strip club, has wisely reinvested the money in her burgeoning frozen yogurt business. Just kidding: She bought a very expensive new car.

The sex tape star tweeted some photos Thursday with her new Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG sedan, which has a suggested retail price of $99,700, before you start adding options. If that six-figure dancing contract isn't real, she's certainly spending like it is.

Farrah's residency at the Palazio Gentleman's Club begins tonight and runs through New Year's Eve. A dance from her reportedly costs $500 for 10 minutes, or $2,500 for an hour. Fro-yo is extra.

[H/T Guyism, Photo: Twitter]

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