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Headline of the Day

GiggleSugar — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:00:00 -0800

'Obama Girl' Didn't Vote

She wore an itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie-bikini and urged folks to give Obama their vote. Her music vid went viral on the net and the "Obama Girl" became an unofficial campaign mascot for the presidential hopeful. Super Tuesday came and went this week, but our cheerleader failed to high kick it to the polls. Why? Someone had a bad case of the sniffles- how could she blow her nose and walk to the polls at the same time? To read more, click here.

She's Got A Crush On Obama

GiggleSugar — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 07:00:00 -0700

Eat your heart out Monica, cuz there's a new intern gone wild on Capitol Hill. She shamelessly calls herself "Obama Girl" and recently released a music video to show her support (among other things) for presidential hopeful, Barack Obama. With lines like, "universal health care reform/it makes me warm/...you can Barack me tonight," she's at least sticking to the issues here. Loosely, that is. Very "loosely."

First Dad Creates White House Council on Women and Girls

CitizenSugar — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:59:31 -0700

Son, grandson, husband, father, and president Barack Obama told an audience today that the creation of the White House Council of Women and Girls goes out to all the women in his life.

Obama said:

I sign this order not just as a president, but as a son, a grandson, a husband, and a father, because growing up, I saw my mother put herself through school and follow her passion for helping others. But I also saw how she struggled to raise me and my sister on her own, worrying about how she'd pay the bills and educate herself and provide for us.

The new council will be chaired by his longtime friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett. Want more details? Well we know it will meet on a regular basis to discuss how federal policy should account for women and girls. Obama wants all women to "have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers never dreamed of."

Source

Women Worry That Obama Is Throwing Them Under the Bus

TresSugar — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:42:32 -0800

Back in January, feminist magazine Ms. hailed Barack Obama as a super feminist. But the president's recent tepid response to protecting abortion rights might mean that the love affair with Obama is about to end for many women. Over at the Daily Beast, women's rights activist Amy Siskind argues that the Stupak amendment, which treats women's rights as a political bargaining chip that can be traded for healthcare reform, is just one more example of how Obama couldn't care less about women . . . except when he's trying to win their votes of course. She writes:

He appointed fewer women into his cabinet than President Bill Clinton. He surrounded himself with czars, more than 90 percent of whom are male. He appointed Larry Summers, of "girls are inferior in math and science" fame, to a key economic post. He played basketball, golfed and fished with men and men only. He had beers with Skip Gates, but ignored it when Rihanna was almost strangled to death. And so on.

Of course it's not all bad. Ms. released a report chronicling the giant strides Obama made for women during his first 100 days in office. These actions included: signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, instituting a new ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, establishing the White House Council on Women and Girls, and overturning the "global gag rule" in order to re-fund global family planning organizations.

Has the Obama administration let you down when it comes to women's rights?

Front Page: Fort Hood Shooting Suspect in Stable Condition

TresSugar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:59:12 -0800

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting, is in stable condition; he was set to be deployed to Afghanistan. - New York Times
Meet Kimberly Munley, the police officer who brought down the gunman. - CNN
Texas polygamist sect leader Raymond Jessop is convicted of sexual assault. - AP
The jobless rate hit 10.2 percent in October, a 26-year high. - Wall Street Journal
Obama signs bill offering tax credit to first-time home buyers. - AP
The Parents Television Council is up in arms about the upcoming threesome episode on Gossip Girl. - PopSugar

Front Page: HPV Vaccine Reminds Girls of Sexual Risks

TresSugar — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:00:43 -0700

A new study shows that the HPV vaccine reminds girls of risks associated with sex, such as contracting STDs, instead of giving them a license to be promiscuous as some people feared. - Salon
Wal-Mart is now selling affordable coffins. - BBC News
A Dutch court has told 14-year-old Laura Dekker that she is too inexperienced to sail around the world by herself, and she will be placed under the guardianship of child protection authorities until next year. - New York Times
A sixth person has been arrested for the gang rape of the 15-year-old California girl outside her homecoming dance. - CNN
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley sat down for another beer this week, this time without President Obama. - Huffington Post

Front Page: Michelle and Jill Have a Night at the Ball Game

TresSugar — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:00:51 -0700

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden attended game one of the World Series last night, watching the Phillies beat the New York Yankees. - Huffington Post
The US economy grew for the first time in year last quarter, with GDP expanding at an annual rate of 3.5 percent. - New York Times
There's growing speculation that Michael Jackson's This Is It could win an Oscar. - AP
Friends of the girl who was gang raped outside her school's homecoming dance are blasting school officials over lack of safety. - CNN
Kenya will hold a census of its gay population with hopes that the information will boost HIV prevention. Homosexuality is a crime in Kenya, punishable by 14 years in jail. - BBC News

Just Like Reagan's Kids! Obama's Girls Are Featured in People

CitizenSugar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:00:42 -0700

The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh? This week in history, waaaayyy back in 1980, then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan's children were featured in People magazine - fast-forward to 2008, and while Obama is in Israel meeting with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders on his plans for containing the nuclear threat from Iran and building peace in the Middle East, his daughters are getting their time in the mag.

In the Reagan kids' profile (which has a hilariously vintage feel) daughter Patti scandalously admitted to the question of whether she would vote for her dad, "gee, uh, I don't know - maybe I wouldn't vote for anybody. I'm really kind of antipolitical. I just get the newspaper and turn to the comics." Gee? Too good. In the profile, Patti, 27, was living at home "until I can find a new apartment."

Michael on the other hand was fully engaged as a campaigner for his dad, despite that his age (35) made his dad look ancient - and scandalous with his blended family. He said, "I suppose it makes Dad look old, having older children. Headquarters may feel it's embarrassing if Maureen and I are in the forefront, and the real kids [the two by Nancy] are not. Sometimes I've felt like I was fighting to volunteer."

And this! After talking about Ron's love of ballet, the piece included the quote from dad, "he's all man-we made sure of that," and the article goes on to say, "in fact, young Reagan seems thoroughly heterosexual." Oh, 1980. You're so cute!

All in all, it's kind of a shock to see how unmuzzled the kids were during the campaign - not produced in the least.

Though the Obama girls are decidedly younger than their Reagan predecessors, they gave out the goods, too. To see what they said, read more.

The magazine said that the girls have a "youthful zeal" and "manners" and though there was no talk of ballet; Sasha takes tap and gymnastics to Malia's soccer and drama.

They have to make their own beds, mom says, "doesn't have to look good, just throw the sheet over it," and the big rule, "no whining, arguing, or annoying teasing." Moooooooommm! What fun is that?

For chores, the girls get $1 a week, which dad has to pay back wages on sometimes, "I'm out of town for weeks at a time, so Malia will say, 'Hey you owe me for 10 weeks.'" All in all, Obama says the girls "have a wonderful life in Chicago. So I'm sure there's a part of them that won't be heartbroken if things don't work out."

Source

Cleese Calls Palin a "Parrot" & Gossip Girl Stumps for Obama

CitizenSugar — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:51:04 -0700

Perhaps it's because dear old dad hails from the land of Cleese, or because that accent can make anything sound measured and thought out, this video of John Cleese on Sarah Palin caught my attention this morning. His pointed commentary on Palin comes as the Troopergate probe expands and at one of her becoming-signature enthusiastic rallies yesterday, Palin mistook a group of supporters for protesters.

The crux of Cleese's argument is that if one were to take the whole of Europe, regardless of political persuasion, one wouldn't find "5 percent" who think she's good enough to run the US.

Cleese says:

Can they not see that she's basically learned certain speeches - and she does them very well, she's got a very good memory - but it's like a nice looking parrot. Because the parrot speaks beautifully, and kind of says 'Aw, shucks,' every now and again but doesn't really have any understanding of the meaning of the words that it is producing, even though it is producing them very accurately. . . the extraordinary thing is that so many people are taken in by it.

Does Cleese's argument strike a bad chord - or ring true?

An entirely different generation and genre of entertainment is getting into the mix too. To see the Gossip Girl gang's new Obama ad, read more.

In their take-off on those anti-drug PSAs, apparently McCain is the new high? OK, sorry, I know that's not what they meant but. . . doesn't making something off-limits make it more appealing? Just thinking. . .

The spot is part of MoveOn's Youth Vote program. Does it make a compelling case? More compelling than Cleese? Should entertainers stick to that, and leave politics alone?

New York Times Traces First Lady's Slave Roots

TresSugar — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0700

The New York Times ran a captivating historical piece today about a six-year-old slave named Melvinia. The paper traces her family's five-generation journey from slavery to modern success.

It's a fascinating American story that just so happens to be part of first lady Michelle Obama's story, too. Using old public records, fading photos, and recollections of older family members, the New York Times, along with genealogist Megan Smolenyak, have uncovered Melvinia's story, which fully connects the first lady to the history of slavery for the first time.

To see an excerpt from the piece, read more.

In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475. In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of nearly two centuries.

In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, marked the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.

Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.

To many, Michelle's family story powerfully represents African-American advancement. But her mixed background is also representative of Americans in general, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explored in his definitive documentary on genealogy called African American Lives. A historian who discovered that he had black relatives when he researched his memoir tells the New York Times: "We’ve all mingled, and we have done so for generations."