Posts tagged: Twitter

CNN Contributor Roland Martin In Trouble Over Tweets About The David Beckham H&M Super Bowl Ad

By , February 7, 2012 2:07 pm

UPDATE: CNN suspended Roland Martin.

When the David Beckham underwear ad for clothing retailer H&M came on during the Super Bowl, CNN’s Roland Martin took to Twitter to comment on it. Now, Martin is under fire from gay rights group GLAAD.

Here are Martin’s tweets:

A lot of people on Twitter responded negatively to the remark, including GLAAD. The gay rights group and Martin had this exchange:

Critics also point to a history of remarks including this piece he wrote on his website in 2006. In the post, he equates homosexuality to sinful behavior like stealing and infidelity and says his wife, a Baptist minister, “has counseled many men and women to walk away from the gay lifestyle.”

On Monday, Martin posted this on his Twitter feed:

Fam, let me address the issue that some in the LGBT community have raised regarding some of my Super Bowl tweets yesterday. I made several cracks about soccer as I do all the time. I was not referring to sexuality directly or indirectly regarding the David Beckham ad, and I’m sorry folks took it otherwise. It was meant to be a deliberately over the top and sarcastic crack about soccer; I do not advocate violence of any kind against anyone gay, or not. As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, anytime soccer comes up during football season it’s another chance for me to take a playful shot at soccer, nothing more.

Martin’s Twitter timeline is filled with protestations that he was just talking about soccer. Even if that’s the case, he implies football is a better sport because it’s manlier. And because it’s better and manly, it should beat up inferior and less manly sports – presumably, like soccer – and the people who like them. By saying a “real bruh” wouldn’t buy David Beckham’s underwear and by suggesting followers should “smack the ish [shit]” out of someone who likes the ad, he basically said my sport is better, manlier, and can kick the shit out of you and your sport.

That’s if you believe he was just talking about soccer, but I don’t think he was.
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Round Up: Osama bin Laden Dead

By , May 3, 2011 2:12 am

UPDATE: As with any big breaking news story, initial stories turn out to be false as details emerge. The death of Osama bin Laden is no different. It’s now being reported that Bin Laden wasn’t armed when he was killed and he didn’t use his wife as a human shield. This is the “new narrative” put out by the White House.

At this point, you probably know some of the facts about the raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. You probably know a U.S. Navy SEAL team conducted the operation at bin Laden’s compound near Pakistan’s military academy.

Because there’s a lot of information out there, here are some videos, news bites, and opinion pieces about bin Laden’s death that you may have missed.

First, President Obama’s speech on Sunday night announcing bin Laden had been killed:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ABC News was able to go inside the compound where bin Laden and three others were killed, including one of his wives who was used as a human shield by the al-Qaeda leader during the firefight.

The National Journal goes inside the Navy SEALs to see how it worked with intelligence and other military agencies to succeed in the operation.

How was bin Laden positively identified? According to the Daily Telegraph, with the help of DNA from his dead sister’s brain.

BBC News has reaction from more than world 30 leaders.

Some people critical of the celebrations in reaction to bin Laden’s death. The Root’s Jenée Desmond-Harris writes, “Americans can do better than just jumping for joy.” While 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser writes in the Huffington Post, “today is not a day of celebration for me.”

How did you learn about bin Laden’s death? I was without a TV, but I had Twitter. “[It] was faster, more accurate, and more entertaining than any other news source out there,” wrote Matt Rosoff in Business Insider. I second that!

In what could be called a the biggest head-fake in history, (wait, it already was on Twitter), 24 hours before Obama’s announcement, “Saturday Night Live’s” Seth Meyers joked about bin Laden’s whereabouts at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates (who you can see in the audience) kept cool and revealed nothing. They laughed and they laughed…

Hat tip to mediabistro’s Newsfeed and The Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet for pointing me in the right direction of some of these links.

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