Some advice for the Weiners of this world
By Scott Feschuk - Friday, June 10, 2011 - 21 Comments
If you’re caught, don’t lie. It’s the worst thing you can do, other than that first thing you did.
Getty Images; Panos Pictures; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
A timely word of advice to American politicians: don’t. Whatever you’re thinking of doing tonight, just don’t.
Don’t take a photograph of yourself—bare-chested and flexing the guns—and email it to a woman you just met through Craigslist.1 Don’t make use of high-priced hookers.2 Don’t make use of low-priced hookers.3 Don’t try to score in the stall of an airport men’s room because, wow, that is not very sanitary, sir.4
Don’t exchange 14,000 sexually explicit messages with your chief of staff.5 Don’t divorce your first wife while she’s in hospital recovering from surgery to remove a tumour.6 And don’t cheat on your second wife with your future third wife. One can support family values without having the most families.
-
Newsmakers: June 2-9, 2011
By Nicholas Kohler and Cathy Gulli - Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments
A tiny Wolfe at the bathroom door, a flirty old Castro in Cuba and the Times’ new editor needs her red pen
Ken McKay/TalkbackThames/Rex Features/CP
Happy birthday, Mr. President
Turning 80 usually warrants a birthday party. But Cuban President Raúl Castro was hardly celebrated at all. It seems his advanced age is an uncomfortable reminder to many Cubans that their country’s leaders are old—and old-guard. With no young successors in place (the next in line for the job are 79 and 80), Cubans worry that economic reforms now under way will be jeopardized if either Castro or his brother Fidel, 84, take ill. Still, Castro was positively spry on his birthday, asking female reporters: “How do I look, ladies, how do I look at 80? How many old men of 60 are there who aren’t in my shape?”
Mother Fox
Three decades after losing her son Terry to cancer, Betty Fox is fighting to stay alive. The Fox family, in the spotlight ever since Terry’s Marathon of Hope across Canada in 1980, released a statement that the matriarch is “seriously ill,” but stressed she does not have cancer. Though details are scarce, she reportedly spent time at a hospice in Chilliwack, B.C. Her last major public appearance was carrying the Olympic flag during the opening ceremonies in Vancouver last year.
-
John Edwards indicted by grand jury
By macleans.ca - Friday, June 3, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments
Two-time presidential candidate accused on six counts
On Friday, a federal grand jury indicted John Edwards on counts of conspiracy, illegal campaign contributions, and false statements. The former presidential candidate is accused of using party funds to hide his mistress, Rielle Hunter, during his presidential campaign in 2008. The federal investigation leading to Edwards’ indictment spanned over two years. A spokeswoman on his behalf denied existence of the charges and refused further comments.
-
U.S. prosecutors expect to indict John Edwards
By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 at 1:11 PM - 0 Comments
Former presidential candidate facing allegations he violated campaign finance laws
Federal prosecutors in the U.S. expect to indict former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in the coming days, according to a report by the Associated Press. Investigators have been on Edwards’ trail for the better part of two years, probing almost his entire political career in connection with allegations that he violated campaign financing laws. At the heart of their investigation is money that went to keep Edwards’s mistress out of the public eye while he campaigned for the presidency.
-
Newsmakers
By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 10 Comments
Snooki’s literary side, John Edwards’s latest classy move, and Sarah Ferguson tries to find herself in Canada’s North
Justice of sorts
In a move that must have brought some satisfaction to victims’ families, Inderjit Singh Reyat, the only person ever convicted in the Air India bombing, was slapped with Canada’s longest-ever perjury sentence. Reyat, charged in 2001 with murder for his role in the bombing, had struck a plea on a promise to testify truthfully at the trial of Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri. Under oath, however, everything changed. After Reyat’s claims to not know or remember anything about the plot, the trial ended in a double acquittal. Gary Bass, B.C.’s top Mountie, called Reyat’s perjury the “most despicable kind.” Reyat, in a weaselly apology ahead of sentencing, took no responsibility for his role in the explosions: “No words in any language can ever bring closure to those who have lost loved ones in the tragedy,” he said. The apparent ploy for a lighter punishment brought a scoff from the judge, who sentenced him to nine years: “While he refuses to speak or tell the truth about what he knows, his expressions of remorse ring hollow indeed,” said B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan.
Sarah Ferguson (Kira Curtis/NNSL)
One kind of wilderness to another
Yellowknife coffeshop Javaroma played host to an unlikely guest last week. Sarah, duchess of York, Prince Andrew‘s perpetually embarrassing ex-wife, visited Canada’s North to film Finding Sarah, her forthcoming reality series for Oprah Winfrey‘s new network. While in the N.W.T., she spent a night in a tent on Great Slave Lake for adventure, she told the Northern News Service, and to experience the cold as northerners do. Fergie was caught last year accepting a US$40,000 advance (on an $800,000 payment) in exchange for access to her ex. Heavy hitters like Dr. Phil McGraw and Suze Orman will try to set her on the straight and narrow—no small task.Jay-Z, look out
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, in an effort to show how down he is with the youth, is rapping his way to another term in office. In a music video gone viral, Museveni, who was first elected in 1986, stiffly drops beats from the presidential podium, barely moving, as he raps about trading cows for wives and harvesting maize. Ugandans—90 per cent of whom are under 40—love it. Museveni’s rap, now a popular ring tone, is a hit in bars, parties and events.Two weddings and a funeral
Cheatin’ presidential candidate John Edwards, who buried ex-wife Elizabeth less than a month ago, has—hold your stomachs—proposed to Rielle Hunter, if you believe the National Enquirer, which broke the story of their affair and love child. Thankfully, a less tawdry proposal is also making news. Groupon regular Dana Burck, it seems, found the deal of a lifetime on the money-saving site. After clicking on “a surprise for a Dana from a Greg,” the 24-year-old Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader found a coupon for a marriage proposal. She turned around to find her boyfriend, Ohio engineer Greg Hill, on one knee, ring in hand. Groupon issued the following warning in fine print: “Non-transferable. Either party may develop a snoring problem. One or both participants will not always look like a 20-year-old. Good luck, you kids.”
Jeff Mcintosh/CP
She’s golden
Canada: meet the next Cindy Klassen. By winning gold in all four finals she raced at the Canadian speed-skating championships last weekend, Christine Nesbitt clinched a spot at both the World Sprint and World Allround Championships. The quadruple gold—in everything from the 500-m to the 3,000-m—also sets the stage for what may become a flawless 2011 season for the Vancouver gold medallist, who dominated the World Cup circuit last fall. On her final race of the weekend, with 2½ laps to go on the gruelling 3,000-m, Nesbitt admitted she “started to count the corners I had left—I couldn’t wait for it to be over!”
Reuters
The friends of my enemy are…
After rejecting Larry Palmer, the U.S. nominee for ambassador to Venezuela for linking Caracas to Colombian drug-trafficking rebels, Hugo Chávez helpfully issued a backup list: “I hope they name Oliver Stone,” the Venezuelan president said, suggesting he’d be equally happy with Sean Penn, Noam Chomsky or Bill Clinton. The U.S. State Department was unmoved. “We appreciate President Chávez’s suggestions,” said spokesman Philip Crowley, “but the fact is we are not looking for another candidate.”Out of Africa, with any luck
A Vancouver mom is fighting to keep her three daughters in Canada, to protect them from being circumcised in their native Nigeria. Former Nigerian TV host Naomi Koin told Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board her harrowing story of being circumcised herself, unanaesthetized, at 12, and how she’s now doing everything in her power to prevent her daughters—aged 16, 14 and eight—from suffering the same fate. Her husband, a pastor in Houston, is unable to bring his family to the U.S., so they remain in Canada—for now. The IRB ruled last spring that there was insufficient evidence the girls faced danger back home—despite their father’s relatives repeatedly “harassing, threatening” and attempting to force the horrific procedure on the girls, according to Koin’s testimony. Koin appealed, and a federal court ruled that the IRB’s decision was “seriously flawed,” turning the case back to the board.Leap from faith
“When you don’t agree with an organization that you never chose to join in the first place, the healthiest thing to do is to leave,” Damien Spleeters told Agence France-Presse. He joined a growing number of Belgian Catholics, appalled by rampant sex-abuse scandals and the Church’s conservative stance on birth control and homosexuality, who are demanding to be “de-baptized.” The Church is downplaying the trend, but almost 2,000 in the traditionally Catholic country demanded to be “de-baptized” last year, up from 380 the previous year. Meanwhile, the Church took another hit in a new, tell-all book by famed former Catholic priest Alberto Cutié, who left the faith after his affair with a Miami woman was exposed. Cutié calls the celibacy rule unrealistic. The Church, says the priest once known as Father Oprah, is “misogynistic” and “disconnected.”
MONICA ALMEIDA/The New York Times/REDUX
It’s dirty, but not it that way
No, the Playboy Mansion is not a squalid, urine-soaked prison, says Hugh Hefner, denying allegations in Bunny Tales, a new book by former “playmate” Izabella St. James. The newly minted author, who describes the mansion as a dump with stained mattresses and ratty furniture, all thick with the stench of urine, says nightly curfews are only lifted when playmates accompany Hefner to a club. There, the octogenarian constantly checks his watch to time his Viagra so he can later enjoy sex parties where, she adds, he “lays there like a dead fish.” The 84-year-old Hefner, who she claims plies his “girlfriends” with Quaaludes, recently became engaged to 24-year-old Crystal Harris, a woman young enough to be his great-grand-daughter.Now a thinking man’s snooki
Speaking of literary debuts, Snooki, Jersey Shore‘s pint-sized “guidette” has delivered a thinly veiled roman à clef about life in Seaside Heights. Although some doubt her intellectual heft (she claims to have read her first book, Dear John, less than a year ago, and routinely gets black-out drunk—”you’re like, ‘What did I do? Why did I wake up in a garbage can?’ “), A Shore Thing helps readers navigate the subtle, unexpected distinctions that separate sluts from whores and fake breasts from real ones, and sets out the mark of a good man: you can “pour a shot of tequila down his belly and slurp it out of his navel without getting splashed in the face.”Too good to play
Talk of Lionel Messi‘s award for FIFA male player of the year dominated sports pages this week. So what about FIFA’s five-time female player of the year? Marta Vieira da Silva was again awarded the title, as she has every year since since she was 19. The Brazilian phenom, the New York Times reports, though, can’t find a club and can’t earn a living, even though she may be good enough to play men’s pro. Da Silva, who dedicated her award to the struggle for women’s soccer, is vowing to play on.
FAME Pictures/KEYSTONE PRESS
Putting the twit in twitter
Always on the cutting edge, singer Courtney Love is laying claim to the first Twitter lawsuit: she’s being sued by a fashion designer she deemed a “drug-addled prostitute,” and a “nasty, lying, hosebag thief,” on Twitter, during a dispute over payment for clothes. Dawn Simorangkir filed libel charges after Love’s tirade instantly landed in the feeds of her 40,000 or so followers (and countless others). Love’s attorneys are claiming that even if her statements were untrue, her mental state was not “subjectively malicious” enough to justify the defamation lawsuit, according to The Hollywood Reporter—a claim, the Tinseltown paper says, akin to an insanity defence. -
Tiger vs. Charlie
By Patricia Treble and Michael Friscolanti - Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 4 Comments
And other men behaving badly
Who’d have thought Tiger Woods—the man once known for having a reputation as glossy and perfect as his golf trophies—could out-scandal the tabloid world’s perpetual bad boy, Charlie Sheen?
Turns out that dashing good looks, fame at a young age and a taste for blond wives isn’t all that the No. 1 golfer and the star of Two and a Half Men have in common.
Tiger Woods
Nature of scandal: Serial infidelity
Who attacked whom: His wife allegedly hit him with a phone after discovering his infidelity by reading incriminating texts on his cellphone
Site of the shocking act: Eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom 6,700-sq.-foot mansion in a gated community in Isleworth, Fla.
Reach of disgrace: World
The significant other, at least for now: Elin Nordegren, wife No. 1. The former model/nanny is a psychology student and a mother of two young children.
Lingo: Tiger Woods Syndrome: devoted family man revealed to have mistresses galore
Charlie Sheen
Nature of scandal: Violence (the criminal charge is felony menacing)
Who attacked whom: He allegedly attacked his wife with a knife and threatened to kill her
Site of the shocking act: A rented yellow clapboard house in the ski resort town of Aspen, Colo.
Reach of disgrace: North America
The significant other, at least for now: Brooke Mueller, wife No. 3. The former actress is a real estate investor and a mother of twin toddlers.
Lingo: Prehab: checking into an addiction clinic before a relapse
John Mayer
In his 2001 tune My Stupid Mouth, he sang: “Mama said, ‘think before speaking’ / No filter in my head.” Nine years later, Mayer still hasn’t found that filter. In an interview with Playboy, he blabbed about his “crazy” sex life with ex-girlfriend Jessica Simpson, comparing it to “crack cocaine.” Simpson, for the record, is “a little bit angry.”
Adam Giambrone
The Tiger Woods of Toronto City Hall, he was forced to pull out of the mayoral race—and beg his live-in girlfriend for forgiveness—after confessing to “intimate relations” with multiple women. One mistress, a 19-year-old aspiring actress, said she had sex with the golden-boy councillor on his office couch, and exchanged dozens of dirty text messages. “I like you because you’re smart and interesting,” wrote Giambrone, now 32. “You’re also good-looking naked.”
Roy Ashburn
Caught drinking and driving after partying at a gay nightclub in California, the Republican state senator admitted the truth: he is attracted to men. The divorced father of four said he believed his sexual orientation wouldn’t affect his ability to represent his staunchly conservative district. And clearly, it didn’t. During eight years in state politics, he has voted against nearly every gay rights measure that reached the legislature.
John Edwards
The two-time U.S. presidential candidate finally confirmed what everyone knows: he fathered a child with one of his campaign workers. But his belated honesty may not be enough to save the former senator from prison. Reports say Edwards is on the verge of being indicted by a grand jury for using campaign contributions to pay off his baby mama. No word yet on whether he’s running in 2012.
John Terry
Britain’s highest-paid soccer star is no longer captain of the country’s World Cup squad—and the demotion had nothing to do with his feet. He was caught cheating on his wife with a teammate’s ex-girlfriend, forcing soccer officials to find a more suitable leader. His wife, however, seems willing to forgive and forget. “We’re very strong as a couple,” Toni said. “Always have been.” Well, not always.
Lil Wayne
The 27-year-old rapper is now in a Lil jail cell, serving a one-year sentence for carrying a loaded gun onto his tour bus. If he behaves, he could be back in the studio in eight months. In the meantime, guards at New York’s Rikers Island have reportedly ordered him not to sign autographs for fellow inmates.
-
How news-savvy are you?
By macleans.ca - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 4:11 PM - 5 Comments
Who’s known as the “devil’s spawn”? What do you know about “Fatgate”? Take our spring Newsmakers quiz.
-
Monday, the President ate a burger
By Mark Steyn - Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 122 Comments
Maybe if they’d covered the love child instead of a fast food foray, papers wouldn’t be dying
John Edwards’ adultery was back in the news last week. Well, okay, “back” is probably not le mot juste, given that the former presidential candidate’s mistress cum campaign videographer wasn’t exactly front-page news even in the days when he was coming a strong second in the Iowa caucuses or being tipped as a possible vice-presidential nominee. Every editor knew the “rumours” (i.e., plausible scenario with mountains of circumstantial evidence), but, unlike, say, Sarah Palin’s daughter’s ex-boyfriend’s mother’s drug bust, this wasn’t one of those stories you need to drop everything for.Only when the hard-working lads at the National Enquirer doorstepped Senator Edwards in the basement stairwell of the Beverly Hilton after a post-midnight visit to his newborn love child and forced him to take cover in the men’s room did the Los Angeles Times swing into action. Alas, it was to instruct its writers to make no comment on a story happening right under their own sniffy noses. The editor Tony Pierce emailed as follows:
-
Megapundit: What's good for the Balkans is bad for the Caucasus
By selley - Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 1:02 PM - 0 Comments
Must-reads: Marcus Gee and George Jonas on the Georgia situation.
Russia awakes…
We shouldMust-reads: Marcus Gee and George Jonas on the Georgia situation.
Russia awakes
We should have seen it coming, and it’s unlikely to end well.Nobody should be surprised by recent developments in Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia, Marcus Gee argues in The Globe and Mail. Russian leaders have been complaining about “being encircled, encroached upon and disrespected by an arrogant West drunk on the taste of its Cold War victory” since the days of Yeltsin, he notes, and more recently, Vladimir Putin served notice that he considered the West’s recognition of Kosovo sufficient precedent for Russia to recognize South Ossetia, Abkhazia and heaven knows how many other Caucasian backwaters. The main difference, Gee contends, is that Moscow now has the financial and military resources to redress its many perceived humiliations.
George Jonas, writing in the National Post, is unimpressed with George W. Bush’s condemnation of Russia’s incursion into Georgia given how recently the United States “has bombed and invaded sovereign countries, not only potential threats like Iraq or Afghanistan, but countries that couldn’t threaten America or its allies by any stretch of the imagination—such, for instance, as Serbia.” And speaking of Serbia, Jonas argues that while Mikheil Saakashvili is a pro-western democrat and Slobodan Milosevic was “a communist-turned-chauvinist, a thug and no friend of the West,” this does not explain the binary distinction many observers seem to draw between the Georgia/South Ossetia and Serbia/Kosovo situations—which are, he contends, conceptually identical. “Putin seems ready to pull a Sudetenland in Georgia,” Jonas concludes. “I’m afraid NATO may have empowered him by pulling one in 1999 in Kosovo.”
-
Megapundit: Huzzah for the Maple Leaf-emblazoned unitards!
By selley - Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at 1:35 PM - 0 Comments
Must-reads: …Henry Aubin on the Montreal North riots; Andrew Cohen on Russia vs. China;
Must-reads: Henry Aubin on the Montreal North riots; Andrew Cohen on Russia vs. China; Jonathan Kay on the Olympics.
Live from Beijing
Stop watching the Olympics! They’re eeeeeeeevil!The National Post‘s Jonathan Kay dismisses the Olympics as “a giant exercise in petty nationalism” predicated on the delusion, in George Orwell’s words, “that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.” Dictatorships use the Games “to stir up nationalistic blood lust without actually going through the bother of military combat,” spending gazillions of dollars to “frog-march … athletes into sports that are unpopular and obscure at home, but which seem a safe bet for a massive medal tally” and pumping them full of “every drug that can possibly be slipped by the urine collectors.” And we, poor deluded Westerners, cheer on anyone who “happen[s] to be wearing a Maple Leaf-emblazoned unitard” against those drugged-up totalitarian robots in sports we don’t actually give a damn about.
We, on the other hand, think the Olympics are fun.
The Vancouver Sun‘s Daphne Bramham reports on a brand new Olympic phenomenon—cheerleaders, who will be entertaining the crowds at everything from beach volleyball to race walking (the latter a sport clearly in need of scantily clad women, or cute puppies, or something). “You’ve got to wonder, what would Mao say?” Bramham quips, but frankly, we were more interested in what Bramham might think. Her mention of the bikini-clad female volleyballers and the all-male officials dressed “in below-the-knee boarder shorts, T-shirts and hats” seems to promise some quite justifiable snark, but none ever materializes. Rip-off!
-
John Edwards admits affair
By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, August 8, 2008 at 3:07 PM - 0 Comments
Though he claims the baby is not his.
That loud noise you hear are Democrats sighing in relief that he was not the nominee.
-
It's Over
By John Parisella - Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 7:56 AM - 0 Comments
John Edwards’ endorsement of Obama is enough to add the momentum needed for the Illinois senator to close the deal . Many will ascribe motives and ambitions to Edwards, but his move reinforces Obama’s credibility with working class voters, a much needed constituency. While Mrs. Clinton should decide on her own the moment of withdrawal, this reduces to a large extent her claims of electability.
Clinton’s case in recent days implies that Obama cannot win the general election. But a close look at his coalition makes him a stronger candidate because he can go beyond the Democratic base in order to win in November. Adding Edwards only makes him more appealing. The time is coming for Democrats to unite against a challenger such as John McCain, who is by far the most attractive Republican to independent voters.
-
Now, when it is absolutely vital for Democrats to choose…
By Paul Wells - Monday, May 5, 2008 at 11:15 PM - 0 Comments
“John and Elizabeth Edwards” — apparently they were both running — show Democrats how not to choose.
I’m not sure what it is about third-placeness that makes not-choosing look like such a sophisticated option. François Bayrou has sunk almost without a trace in French politics, after briefly competing seriously against Sarkozy and Royal for the presidency. He still sees his irrelevance as an asset and guards it jealously. Apparently it is a malady that crosses oceans.
