At Madonna's concert in Washington, D.C. last night, she had a very important voting message: Re-elect for the Black Muslim in the White House.

The kicker here is that there is not currently an elected black Muslim in the White House. Just some guy named Barack.

From a video of her performance posted on Gawker:

For better or for worse, alright, we have a Black Muslim in the White House, okay?

Oh boy. The Hill has a bit more:

“You all better vote for f—-ing Obama okay,” she told the crowd at Washington's Verizon center.

Later in the show, Madonna took off her shirt and pulled down her pants to show she had “OBAMA” written in all capital letters across her lower back.

“When Obama is in the White House for a second term I'll take it all off,” she said to cheers and whistles from the audience.

Oh Madonna. I know that you long for better, more controversial, more lucrative times, but validating something that's been thoroughly debunked time and time again probably isn't the way to do it.

For video of her ranting, check out Gawker.

For more of The Hill's coverage, check them out here.

Eventually, people will stop falling for this, right?

From the BBC:

Seven groups said there were instances of people being told by faith leaders they had been "healed" through prayer - and then pressured to stop taking antiretroviral medication, according to the charity African Health Policy Network (AHPN).

A Department of Health spokesman said: "Prayer is not a substitute for HIV treatment and we would be very concerned if people are not taking their medication on the advice of faith leaders."

AHPN said the cases reported to it by community groups showed:

- Most respondents were aware of more than one case of faith healing claims and pressure to stop taking medication. One member was aware of five cases
- Many followers believed the testimony of pastors who claimed they could heal them
- The majority of cases reported involved Evangelical or Pentecostal Christian pastors
- In some cases treatment has been restarted, in others the health and mental health of clients has declined.

I understand having faith, and I understand the concept that "doctors treat; God heals" addressed later in the article by one of the groups accused of pressuring people to stop taking meds. But this? This just leads to tragedies.

Because nothing says "I am a reasonable human being" like bringing back the age-old tradition of lynching, people are using empty chairs as a way to protest against Barack Obama.

Just to reiterate: Lynching chairs that are meant to symbolize a black man.

What the f—k.

From Gawker:

Katherine Haenschen, the concerned citizen who brought this controversial metaphor to the public's attention, says she reached out to the homeowner, Bud Johnson, to complain, but he was less than forthcoming about addressing her grievances.

"I don't really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not," Johnson reportedly told Haenschen. "You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don't give a shit. If you don't like it, don't come down my street."

Well, at least he's passionate. And unfortunately, he's not alone. A second story was recently posted, indicating a similar chair lynching — this one with a sign attached to it that read "Nobama."

Sigh.

So it turns out that being seen hugging and lifting a Democratic president can be bad news for small business owners — particularly if they personally identify as Republicans.

Scott Van Duzer, the owner of Big Apple Pizza in Fort Pierce, Florida, exuberantly hugged (and lifted) President Barack Obama this weekend during a campaign visit, and became an internet sensation because of it.

Unfortunately for Van Duzer and Big Apple Pizza, he didn't consider the backlash of angry Yelpers that accuse him of betraying his politics.

One Yelper wrote:

I will not eat from traitor's hands and I'll never take food from man who DIDN'T BUILD his business.

Calling a person a traitor to a political party by deciding to vote for the person whose policies he finds most acceptable just doesn't work. It's akin to calling someone a traitor because, though they generally prefer to wear shorts, they've chosen to wear pants because they've decided that wearing shorts on that particular occasion would be infantile and, depending how rainy it is, possibly get his socks wet.

He owns a business. He creates jobs. And, unfortunately, he may lose those jobs after the business bump he's been getting, as it seems spiteful folks tend to have the longest memories.

[Huffington Post]

On Wednesday, former DPS officer Robb Gary Evans walked out of a courtroom, sentenced with two years of probation for sexual abuse. His victim, a Flagstaff woman who was groped by Evans at a bar, was chastised by the sentencing judge, and told to be more vigilant, according to a report from the Arizona Daily Sun.

From the Sun's report, published yesterday:

The judge sentencing Evans, Coconino County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Hatch, said she hoped both the defendant and the victim would take lessons away from the case.

Bad things can happen in bars, Hatch told the victim, adding that other people might be more intoxicated than she was.

"If you wouldn't have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you," Hatch said.

What? Let's go back to the Sun's report to see what Evans, who was found guilty in July, did that night:

Prosecutors contended that he drank eight beers and then drove himself to the Green Room, where he flashed his badge in an attempt to get into a concert for free. While inside, he walked up behind the victim, who was a friend of a friend, put his hand up her skirt and then ran his fingers across her genitals.

So it appears that, at some point, this invasion of a woman's right to stand in a bar without being fondled became the victim's fault. Makes sense, considering that the now-former cop drank eight beers, drove to a bar, groped an unwilling party, then threatened the bouncers who removed him with arrest, according to the report.

Yesterday, the Sun quoted the victim as saying that she is "still kind of in shock that [Hatch] said that to me,” the victim said later. “Coming from a woman, I would expect her to be a little bit more realistic about women being strong and independent and the fact that there’s nothing wrong with that.”

For more on the sentencing, including absurd reactions from a former "romantic partner" of Evans, see here. For more from the follow-up story, see here.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has said something, uh, "interesting" again.

From Fox News Latino:

The sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, said Wednesday in Tampa that the Obama administration should give him a "medal" for apprehending undocumented immigrants rather than investigating him for his methods.

"I should be getting a medal. The president should invite me to the White House ... and thank me for helping the government fight illegal immigration and the drug cartels," Arpaio told members of the foreign press covering the Republican National Convention.

Arpaio goes on to deride the Justice Department for investigating his office, and claims that Mexico should be making an effort to stem the tide of illegal immigration, saying, "It's a two-way street. It requires mutual cooperation."

But let's backtrack here. A medal for "fighting" drug cartels? Sure. Why not? While we're at it, we should give Arpaio medals for wasting his constituents' money in sending a deputy to Hawai'i to investigate the President's birth certificate.

Or perhaps one for ignoring sexual assault crimes within his jurisdiction? Maybe one for wasting and misusing $100 million in taxpayer money?

Arpaio may be making a name for himself worldwide for his antics (hey, remember the time he and Steven Seagal USED A TANK AND 40 DEPUTIES to knock down the wall of a suspected cockfighter?), but there's absolutely no way he should be celebrated by anyone—lord knows he does it enough on his own. More than that, there's no way he should have a job after this year.

Just ... wow.

Watch at around the 1:20 mark, where Jan Brewer talks about who she hopes wins the presidency in November.

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Sad, strange news out of Big Sky Country. A man dressed in a Ghillie camouflage suit, designed to look like a big pile of grass and sticks, was killed after being hit by two cars on a Montana highway on Sunday night.

That's the sad part. The strange part?

From CNN.com (emphasis added):

(The victim, Randy Lee Tenley) was "well into the driving lane," and according to his companions he was "attempting to incite a sighting of Bigfoot — to make people think they had seen a Sasquatch," (state trooper Jim Schneider) said in the KECI report.

According to police, a 15-year-old driver struck Tenley with her car, a second car swerved to miss him, while the third car ran over him.

Apparently, no one had called that evening to report any Bigfoot sightings, which means that not only did a man die for no good reason, he didn't even accomplish what he hoped to do with his final actions. Bad times.

Apparently, Pat Robertson thought he was getting too many Christmas cards from the Jolie/Pitt household when he said that he didn't necessarily think people should be adopting foreign children.

Relevant "weird" quote from Mr. Robertson for those who can't YouTube at work:

I've got a dear friend who adopted some little kid from an old fishing town in Colombia. Child had brain damage and grew up, uh, weird. You just never know what been done to a child before you get that child, what kind of sexual abuse, what kind of cruelty, what kind of food deprivation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

At least he showed remarkable self-awareness of the potential rabble he just roused, closing his rambling with, "OK, let's get the next question, I'm in trouble."

The voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Vin Scully, announced yesterday that he would return next year for his 64th season behind the microphone.

LA's KTLA Channel 5 had an anchor do a rundown of some of the accomplishments of the greatest sports announcer who has ever lived. And then this happened.