Comedian Kathy Griffin faced swift backlash after the photo in which she posed with a fake severed head that looked like President Trump. And since, she has continued to receive threats. In a press conference on Friday, she repeated her apology, but said that it is outrageous and unprecedented that the President of the United States is personally trying to “ruin a comedian.”

Standing next to her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, she said, “I don’t think I will have a career after this. He broke me.” She said that people fell into some kind of mob mentality and that death threats started rolling in. Her video apology doesn’t seem to have had much effect on public scrutiny, and she was also reportedly contacted by the Secret Service, which is now investigating her.

After the controversy, Griffin has lost several jobs, including five stand-up gigs and her annual job as co-host of CNN’s New Year’s Eve program. She has hosted that show for 10 years. Griffin said the Trump family is bullying her by exercising its influence on private companies as well as the public sector, calling for everyone to fire her.

Kathy Griffin on fallout over photo: “Regarding the image that I participated in, that apology absolutely stands. I feel horrible.” pic.twitter.com/ffqhfnijKf

— ABC News (@ABC) June 2, 2017

“He’s the president of the United States,” Bloom said. “This is outrageous and unprecedented.” She added: “For the first time in history that we are aware of, the President of the United States and his family has personally attempted to ruin a comedian. The message was clear: Criticize the president, lose your job.”

Bloom also pointed out what many people on social media already have said: President Obama had to withstand a number of threats during his time in office. Musician Ted Nugent made threats against him and Hillary Clinton, but was recently invited to the White House.

“Obama, he’s a piece of s—. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless b—-,” Nugent said on a stage appearance in 2007, while holding two machine guns. In April, he had dinner with Trump in the White House.

It’s reprehensible what Kathy Griffin did, & the left has denounced it.
Ted Nugent did it to Obama, & your dad invited him to the WH. https://t.co/jhOGmr4egG

— Laurie Crosswell (@lauriecrosswell) May 30, 2017

A lot of people started calling out the Trumps for having a double standard, and when Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the controversy during Wednesday’s press briefing, he just said he didn’t know what Trump’s response was at the time.

After the bipartisan outrage at the photo shoot, at least two celebrities have come to Kathy Griffin’s defense. “I still love Kathy Griffin. She went past the line, she’ll pay for it in the way she pays for it, and we’ll go out and we’ll laugh with her again,” said Jamie Foxx to Entertainment Weekly. And Jim Carrey agreed–he said when a president does the type of “crazy things” that Trump is doing, comedians are the “last voice of truth.” “I think it is the job of a comedian to cross the line at all times — because that line is not real,” he said.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Obama commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning. How many people died because of manning’ leak? https://t.co/WrijBtp4fo

— Judith Miller (@JMfreespeech) January 17, 2017

Miller, now a Fox News contributor, is the former New York Times reporter who wrote a series of stories on the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq using unnamed sources who gave Miller information that we now know to be completely false. After they were published, Bush administration officials used Miller’s stories as verified evidence of the presence of WMDs in Iraq, which helped to bolster support for the Iraq War–a more than $2 trillion military endeavor that resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 U.S. troops and millions of Iraqi civilians, as well as thousands of U.S soldiers who have been wounded both physically and mentally.

In 2015, Miller published her memoir, “The Story: A Reporter’s Journey,” in which she tried to rationalize her reporting and divert blame to her sources who, as she told Jon Stewart, “had never been wrong before.” Twitter wasted no time pointing out the hypocrisy of Miller’s Manning tweet, unleashing a flood of backlash.

@JMfreespeech pic.twitter.com/tt7xpnZuNZ

— Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech pic.twitter.com/GG40QGenQj

— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech pic.twitter.com/rm1eG6Pdt8

— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech I dunno, Judith. How many died because you peddled lies about Saddam’s WMD?

— Mark Colvin (@Colvinius) January 17, 2017

.@JMfreespeech Good question. The answer is: None. Zero.
How many people died because of the Iraq War you helped enable with fake news?

— Peter Kofod (@peterkofod) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech Do you realize you’re THAT Judith Miller?

— Meredith Haggerty (@manymanywords) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech you literally caused the iraq war to happen under false pretenses, bye.

— Myles Tanzer (@mylestanzer) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech Your lies contributed to the deaths of more than 170,000 people. You are a weapon of mass destruction.

— Pete Forester (@pete_forester) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech Talk about the pot telling the kettle lies in order to start the iraqi war

— Sir Jeffington IV (@JeffCerulli) January 17, 2017

Judith Miller should probably sit this one out.

— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) January 17, 2017

In an attempt to quell the online hate, Miller took time out to respond to one of her critics–and plug her book.

@HarleyPeyton not lies or propaganda, but Intel estimates that proved wrong.Big https://t.co/t0K4ba5ucQ “The Story, a Reporter’s Journey”

— Judith Miller (@JMfreespeech) January 17, 2017

However, that response quickly backfired as well.

@JMfreespeech @HarleyPeyton From the NYT: “This sad and flawed book won’t help her be found.”

— Greg McMullen (@gmcmullen) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech @HarleyPeyton “To PROVE I’m not a lying sociopath, read my book: I’m Not a Lying Sociopath” By Judith Miller.
uh… ‘Kay. pic.twitter.com/QJPDsXjmsp

— Tony (@jaxtonypiper) January 18, 2017

@JMfreespeech @HarleyPeyton Sorry, Judy, but the author of that book has been thoroughly discredited by real journalists.

— (((TonyD))) (@Dogger55) January 17, 2017

@JMfreespeech @HarleyPeyton Girl….

— Charlie (@notcharchar) January 17, 2017

Regardless of where one stands on the Chelsea Manning commutation, one issue we can all agree on is that Judith Miller should not be the moral arbiter for anything.

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

The post Twitter Unleashes Its Wrath on Judith Miller After Chelsea Manning Tweet appeared first on Law Street.

Bud Light, produced by beer giant Anheuser-Busch, is apologizing after controversy broke out over one of the beer’s labels. The brand has been using a number of slogans as part of its “Up for Anything” marketing campaign; however, one sparked a lot of controversy–the phrase that posited Bud Light as “the perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night.”

Bud Light….the perfect beer for marketers about to lose their job. #NoMeansNopic.twitter.com/dLWtDSMhXQ

— Jeff Barrett (@BarrettAll) April 28, 2015

There was a lot of backlash in response to this slogan, as many who saw it thought that it was an inappropriate, if inadvertent, nod to rape culture. The phrase “no means no” has become a popular rallying cry for those combatting the incredibly prevalent problems of rape and sexual assault. So for Bud Light to hint that its product takes away, in any way, the ability to say “no,” struck plenty of negative chords.

Moreover, there are plenty of other things that people should say “no” to if they’ve been drinking–driving, to name just one. This slogan indicates that people drinking Bud Light would engage in activities they normally wouldn’t–and that doesn’t exactly scream responsible alcohol consumption. While Bud Light’s slogan was supposed to be light-hearted, and presumably indicate that its beer would lead to a fun night where its consumers were open to new experiences, this slogan completely missed that mark.

Twitter users took to the social media platform to express a wide variety of reactions, ranging from disgust to mocking.

Sorry AB. NO does mean NO. No matter how much beer. #SoWrong #BigFail http://t.co/OXBbwQd4uq

— Rep. Stacey Newman (@staceynewman) April 28, 2015

Stolen from reddit: “No” always means “No”…especially if the question is: “Do you want a Bud Light?” #terribletagline#UpForWhatever

— TheRealLouisWeiher (@LouisWeiher) April 28, 2015

Bud Light has stopped production of the bottles featuring the slogan in question, although it won’t be recalling the ones that are already on the shelves. The bottles are sold in packs with mixed labels, meaning a 12-pack may contain a few offensive labels, just one, or none at all. Logistically speaking, a recall would have been difficult, which is understandable. Also in response to the backlash, Alexander Lambrecht, Vice President for Bud Light, released a statement:

The Bud Light Up for Whatever campaign, now in its second year, has inspired millions of consumers to engage with our brand in a positive and light-hearted way. In this spirit, we created more than 140 different scroll messages intended to encourage brand engagement. It’s clear that this particular message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior. As a result, we have immediately ceased production of this message on all bottles.

It’s good that Bud Light made the call to remove the slogan from its labels, but the fact that it took such a concerted backlash to do so is a bit concerning. While we shouldn’t expect everyone to have an encyclopedic knowledge of every current social movement, “no means no” has been a pretty visible one. The fact that a single Bud Light marketing executive didn’t think of the overall implications of their label is pretty surprising. Bud Light did the right thing by apologizing–hopefully in the future it gives a little more thought to what message it is sending to consumers.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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So this week in controversial t-shirt news, a market in the Philippines received a bit of backlash via Twitter over a top encouraging rape culture. Supermall, the major department store chain with several locations throughout the Philippines and China, promoted the offending item featuring the message “It’s not rape, it’s a snuggle with a struggle.”

In this case, I can’t really give Supermalls the benefit of the doubt. What’s even more bizarre about the product is that it was apparently featured in the little boys section of the store because you might as well get them to start disrespecting women as early as possible. There’s no way this could have been an oversight. Although I don’t know how aware Asian culture is regarding the topic of rape, the only excuse that I could begin to provide for Supermalls is that perhaps something got lost in translation. The word “rape” may not translate the same from Tagalog or Mandarin but I can’t see how “struggle” could mean anything other than something that implies difficulty, which is not a word that anyone would want to use to describe sexual encounters.

‘It’s not rape – it’s a snuggle with a struggle’: Store withdraws T-shirt after complaints http://t.co/jCnIn3jZt3 pic.twitter.com/gLMiAepsmI

— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) September 24, 2014

In response to all the Twitter backlash, Supermalls released the following statement:

Update on t-shirt statement. pic.twitter.com/cDTPamPC1e

— SM Supermalls (@smsupermalls) September 23, 2014

Why thank you, Supermalls as long as you’re sorry it makes it okay right?

What’s even more interesting is that Supermalls’ Twitter banner features a picture of a happy Filipino family with the statement “Everything’s Here for the Love of Lolo (Grandpa) and Lola (Grandma).” Because I’m sure wearing a shirt that promotes rape culture would make Lolo and Lola extremely proud.

Supermalls also apparently has its own foundation in which they “contribute to the welfare and well being of various communities,” according to its website.

While I’m not sure exactly how such a disturbing t-shirt came to be, the issue behind it only goes to further prove that many countries, including the United States, have a long way to go to erase the mindset of rape culture. The U.S. could learn from this incident in the Philippines and work toward spreading awareness about rape prevention while enacting laws that prevent such vile messages from being featured on advertisements and products.

Katherine Fabian

Katherine Fabian is a recent graduate of Fordham University’s College at Lincoln Center. She is a freelance writer and yoga teacher who hopes to one day practice fashion law and defend the intellectual property rights of designers. Contact Katherine at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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