• A group calling itself "Blacks Against Obama" interrupted Obama's speech today in Coral Gables, Florida. Their main beefs appear to be his support for child support, reproductive rights and marriage equity, though they're also not fans of, well, all African-American women, so we're guessing it's really "Black Men Against Obama". [Stereohyped, Over The Rockies, For Obama]
• Time's Karen Tumulty points out that McCain's new ad about Obama's economic advisers' ties to Fannie Mae don't feature white former Obama adviser Jim Johnson but do feature African-American non-adviser Frank Raines — and one very sad looking little old white lady. No race-baiting here, folks, they swear it was just an "honest" mistake. [Time]
• In yet another advertising fuck-up for the McCain camp, they've received a cease-and-desist letter for Fox News for using Major Garrett's voice over in an ad. Seriously, when Fox News doesn't want their guys associated with your Republican campaign for the Presidency, you got problems. [Politico]

• Now that the government is taking over everything, the Dow rebounded nearly 400 points. Apparently, people in the stock market hold the Bush Administration in higher esteem than pretty much anyone else in the country. [LA TimesIf elected, Sarah Palin plans to continue the Grand Old Tradition of pretending she's not a part of the Executive Branch to avoid subpoenas when her office commits illegal acts. She's got some experience in that, after all. [Think Progress]
• In yet another poll of stupid things Americans would do with the candidates, they'd rather Obama teach their kids (he'll never call their daughters "cunts") and they'd rather watch football with him. But who would they rather get shitty drunk with? Who? Who? Americans demand real answers to real questions except when they don't. [Breitbart]
• New York Congressman and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) may face an election-year investigation of his many, many shady dealings, led by the Democratic chair of the House ethics committee. He claims that his tax fraud, illicit use of rent-controlled apartments, use of his position to solicit funds for an outside group and (now) wrongful use of the House parking garage to store his car are part of a Republican "guerrilla war." Maybe it's just because you did some bad stuff, Charlie? I often find that refraining from doing illegal things generally keeps people from investigating me. [Washington Post, New York Times]

Just to refresh everyone's memory, here is what the leaked memo said: "The Department proposes to define abortion as 'any of the various procedures — including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.'"

Leavitt doesn't refute the idea that this is what the Bush Administration's HHS department believes, he merely says, in a blog post on the HHS website, that "the issue I asked to be addressed in this regulation is not abortion or contraceptives." He prefaces that with the sentence, "The Bush Administration has consistently supported the unborn." That reminds me of Beetlejuice when they continuously refer to the "undead," as a race of people. His language is appalling. He's calling them "unborn" like you'd refer to "the Jews" or "the Chinese." They're a bunch of frickin cells, dude. They're not a group of people.

Leavitt wants to ensure that medical practitioners have the right "to practice according to their conscience, and patients should be able to choose a doctor who has beliefs like his or hers." I made a similar point with the original post on the HHS memo, but what if I were diabetic and all the doctors at the hospital in my small town thought that giving me insulin was disrupting God's plan for me? The same thing can go for birth control, because, as many Jezebel commenters pointed out, birth control has many non-sex-related uses, like regulating fibroids.

Katha Pollitt put in her two cents on the Bush administration's "Stealth Assault On Reproductive Rights" on the Nation's website earlier this week. Mike Leavitt's "respect for moral beliefs only goes one way. A Catholic hospital has no corresponding obligation to hire pro-choice workers or accommodate their moral beliefs by permitting them to offer emergency contraception to rape victims or hand out condoms to the HIV positive," Pollitt raged. "A 'crisis pregnancy center' would not have to hire pro-choice counselors who would tell women that abortion would not really give them breast cancer or leave them sterile. Only anti-choicers, apparently, have moral beliefs that entitle them to jobs they refuse to actually perform."

Pollitt provides a link to more info and how to help make sure our reproductive rights are upheld, and I'll do the same. Also provided with this post is a picture of Mike Leavitt's thin-lipped, smug little face, (above) so that you can fantasize about kicking him in the nards. That's one kind of religiously sanctioned birth control I can get behind!

HHS Chief Denies New Rule To Attack Contraception [Reuters]
Stealth Assault On Reproductive Rights [The Nation]
Fight Bush's Proposed Anti-Birth Control Regulations! [Reproductive Health Reality check]

Earlier: Bush Administration Memo Tries To Define Birth Control As Abortion

So is it too predictable to point out here that no women's magazine would ever or probably will ever be a disillusioned military commander's chosen outlet for airing grievances with his or her superiors in the hegemony? Is it too broken record-y of me to point out one more time that women's magazines are such a fucking joke the most powerful woman in America stood up an interviewer hailing from the most famous one of them? That they are such a fucking joke she worried her fluffy, pointless coverage by one — in a year her fiercest opponent got his most impressive poll bounce from Oprah — would be damaging to her campaign? That it would make her look foolish and yet elitist? I wanted this post to be a lighthearted recommendation of some powerful women Glamour and Cosmo should start lobbying to resign. How awesome would it be if Cosmo finally snagged Condi? If Self got Monica Goodling? Ha ha ha, yeah, it would be awesome only to us, because those magazines are crap. Even ELLE, which is a pretty decent magazine, is so far from claiming this sort of influence it is PITIFUL. And what's the problem? Women's magazines simply make too much money. Esquire is allowed to break even. JANE was folded for not growing its profits briskly enough. Anyway, I am grumpy. Can you tell I just took my meds? I'm totally going to cheer myself up now by writing a fake Monica Goodling profile for Cosmo.

• The somewhat pompous William F. Buckley, Jr. died, raising to almost Buckley-esque heights the brow of the average AP story sentence: "Yet on the platform he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent's discomfort with wide-eyed glee."
  
• WFB was an early mentor of Joan Didion and guest of Truman Capote who came to oppose the Iraq War, which is why he gets a pass for the whole "early segregationist" thing. [WSJ]
  
• He also sought to legalize pot. Hey, and that one even made today's Digg homepage! [National Review]
  
• He hated the Women's Liberation movement because it encouraged people to express themselves imprecisely. [National Review]
  
• And also because: rapists, communes. [NY Times]
  
• He even called one episode of Firing Line "Resolved: The women's movement has been disastrous." [

• How did civilization survive its three hours sans Starbucks yesterday evening? [Washington Post]
• You know how presidential administrations are bound by law to save every piece of official correspondence, including emails? Well the Bush Administration did. They just don't care about laws. [Washington Post]
• You think it'd be so rad to be a little kid with a mohawk like Maddox. But what if you got suspended from kindergarten? Totes traumatic. [Yahoo! News]
• So that study came out about how antidepressants were really no more effective than placebos, but now doctors are telling all their patients, holy shit, please don't go off your meds, another inexplicable school shooting is not exactly what this world needs now. You can see how vicious cycles like the "Drug War" begin. [Breitbart]

• The facts speak for themselves: Heidi Klum is designing a capsule collection for Jordache, for which she has been modeling over the past year. Think she'll offer hair extensions to cover nipples as well? [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Kathy Hilton just released her own perfume. It's called "My Secret." We don't really want to think about what Kathy Hilton's secret might smell like. [BellaSugar]
  
• Gloria Steinem would not approve: Georgina Chapman, Marchesa designer and wife of Halston co-owner Harvey Weinstein, was named "Georgina Weinstein" on her front row seat at Halston yesterday. Only, as Chapman herself put it, "I didn't change my name, they did it for me." [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Jimmy Choo's CEO Tamara Mellon thinks that boyfriend Christian Slater should take a more active, or acting, role in fashion. Mellon says Slater would be "perfect" to play Halston in any upcoming biopic on the designer. [WWD, 1st item]

• One last Halston item! Rachel Zoe, who sits on the label's creative advisory team, wasn't at yesterday's debut show. A rep for the label was quick to issue a statement that Zoe has not been fired. Um, the lady doth protest too much? [WWD, 2nd item]
• Does the fashion industry hate the Bush Administration? Laura Bush is having a luncheon next week for all the designers who participated in this year's The Heart Truth's Red Dress Collection but Nicole Miler, Donna Karan, Carmen Marc Valvo, Tracy Reese, and Marchesa designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig have all said that they won't be able to attend. [WWD, 3rd item]
• Is anyone else depressed that Naomi Campbell and Andre Leon Talley collaborated to star and style in a SoBe "Thrillicious" commercial? [Fashion Week Daily]
• Burberry faux-fur parkas actually use dog fur. Fun! [UPI]
• Charges have been dropped against the manager of the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Virginia Beach, who was scapegoated by a cop whose delicate sensibilities were offended by A&F ads. [MSNBC]
• The latest item up for sale under Bono's (Product) RED line: The Mulberry Roxanne bag, done in sweatshirt material (red, naturally), for the Gap. [Sassybella]
• Count Fergie in as the latest face of MAC Viva Glam lipstick. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Brittany Murphy on Mr. and Mrs. Max Azria: "They're a very nice family, with great morals, very grounded. Plus, they'll even invite you over for Shabbat dinner. Who would turn that down?" [WWD, 4th item]
• Model Caroline Trentini has declared that she will be donating a percentage of her earnings from New York fashion shows to the Center of Support of Underprivileged Children with Cancer in her native Brazil. [WWD, 5th item]
• Is model/First Lady of France Carla Bruni pregnant with a son? [Vogue UK]
• Just what the world needed: Chocolate Armani Easter eggs. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Avon profits have dropped by 30%. There is no time for beauty in a recession. [Breitbart]

[A] White House Wedding will be great politics. It could be a terrific way to hook women — who are the angriest about the war, and one of the biggest problems for Republicans going into the election. Women — even the angry ones — are going to eat this up...The father of the bride is responsible for the loss close to 4,000 American lives, the lives of uncounted Iraqis, and many thousands of injured and maimed... But on this day... eyes will grow moist, and approval ratings will rise.

It is sad to say, but Drexler is pretty much on the money. Because if the TheKnot.com message boards are any indication, people looooove them a wedding. Even when there is a war going on. (Especially when there's a war going on!) We'd make a joke that the whole thing is something so sick only Karl Rove could have dreamed it up but then we remembered that little Jenna's fiance is none other than Rove's former intern.

Here's To The Happy Couple — And A 10-Point Bump [Huffington Post]
Related: Afghan Weddings Bring Limos And Bling

• A musical about the life and times of Clay Aiken and his obsessive fans is no longer bound for Broadway. [TMZ]
  
• Next time someone tells you you're rude for yawning at them, correct them and explain that you're actually empathizing. [News.com.au]
  
• Raise the legal drinking age in England? Fuck no! [BBC]
  
• New Jersey Buddhists have released animals bought in NYC's Chinatown into the wilds of New Jersey, hoping they reach their "karmic potential." Run, Thumper, run! [MSNBC]

• Dude, we just hate it when baby bibs are contaminated with lead, don't you? We aren't going to say it, but they're made in China. [CNN]
• What? The Bush administration is going to label another group of Arab / Middle Eastern folk terrorists? Shocking. [NYT]
• So many fantasies, coming true: Barack Obama. To appear on The Tyra Banks Show. Please God let Ms. J show up for that one to give our boy Barry O some runway stomping tips! [ABC News]
• Wow. Shocking. Another couple formed from The Bachelor call of their engagement. [People]

• Jennie Garth and Neve Campbell's hairdresser to shill line of hair care products in infomercials, natch. We think this sounds like an awesome idea... if it were 1992. [WWD, 1st item]
  
• Nicole Miller has created a new lingerie line which she's naming "3rd Date" since, we guess, that on the 3rd date people who actually bother to buy designer lingerie sometimes let dudes see it? [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Big for winter: anything and everything with sparkles on it? [WWD, sub req'd]

• Ann Taylor's chief financial officer resigns the day after it is announced how unanticipated drops in sales figures had occurred in the company's first quarter. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Though meanwhile, Ann Taylor decides it should launch a line aimed specifically at baby boomers. Uh, wait: so the two other existing Ann Taylor lines are aimed at who exactly? Above item now makes much more sense. [NYTimes]
• TopShop is being accused of exploiting cheap labor in Mauritius. [Vogue UK]
• Ferragamo's brooding womenswear design consultant Graeme Black has finally made it official and said buh-bye to the Italian design house to design his own collection full-time. Paging Valentino? [Vogue UK]
• Trunk shows, once an experience offered exclusively to the rich and the aspiring, are now moving online, making them available to even poor suckers like us! Ah, the democracy of the market. [WSJ]

• Apparently posting up photos of Britney Spears and labeling her "crazy" is illegal. Does this mean we're part of some sort of underground economy? [E!]
  
• In today's installment of what happens when we read too quickly, we thought this said, "Robot explores giant crayon." [BBC]
  
• Bush's budget director Rob Portman, the only member of the administration who could actually define the word "budget," resigned for "personal reasons." [CNN]
  
• Imagine a future without consensual sex...[Daily Mail]
  
• Per the Vatican, thou shalt not cut off another driver, flick him off, and scream, "I hope you die, motherfucker!" [CNN]
  
• The Rubik's cube gets a "facelift." [ABC News]
  
• Fire in South Carolina the deadliest for firefighters since September 11. [Guardian]
  
• 6 U.S. casualties identified. [DoD]

• Eating chocolate is more of a turn-on than kissing, says a new study. Bullshit! Everyone remembers their first kiss! Who remembers their first Hersheys? [DailyTelegraph]
• The Bush Administration's expensive abstinence-only programs were colossal failures. Expensive? Failures? Bush Administration? Definitely a theme continuing on here. [CNN]
• Girl Power: Making spinsters out of millions of girls and young women. [Feministing]
• More and more health providers in the UK are refusing to perform abortions. [BBC]