You can't see me
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, who told a New Hampshire interviewer last October that to reduce her carbon footprint she mostly flies commercial, appeared to hide behind a staff member last week after stepping off a private plane in Iowa and spotting a camera following her.
As she moved from the plane to the adjoining building, she continued to hide behind a staff member until she was out of range of the camera.
Warren has backed the job-killing Green New Deal proposal but has not said much about her travel on private planes ($721,000 of it in just the fourth quarter of 2019). Instead, in the October interview, she made the statement about flying commercial, then said without elaboration that her campaign has been trying to look at "other ways" to reduce its carbon footprint.
Just last week, though, instead of flying together, she and fellow Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, boarded different private planes 36 minutes apart to fly from Iowa to Washington, D.C., for impeachment hearings.
Never mind the truth
Images from the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people and injured 53 others were lumped in a recent Michael Bloomberg for president ad that ends with the words "Dump Trump."
The only problem is the shooting occurred June 12, 2016, seven months before Donald Trump was inaugurated as president. Indeed, the shooter, domestic terrorist Omar Mateen, had been investigated in 2013 and 2014 for connections to terrorism by the Obama-era FBI but not detained.
It wasn't the ad's only misplaced image. Along with picturing individuals who have had some relation with the Trump administration and incidents that have occurred during his administration, it also featured clips of the far-left violent group Antifa shouting and fighting with other demonstrators.
Bloomberg has acknowledged his intent to spend millions of dollars of his money for ads in an attempt to buy the presidency, but it appears he might want to spend them a little more wisely.
Classics re-imagined
Barnes and Noble planned to roll out a new twist on Black History Month recently with 12 classic novels with culturally diverse covers. Alas, it didn't go well.
The bookseller teamed up with Penguin Random House to release novels including "The Wizard of Oz," "Moby Dick," "Frankenstein," "Treasure Island," "The Secret Garden," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Peter Pan" that were said to be "inclusive" and "diverse." The books, which each had five "culturally diverse custom covers designed to ensure the recognition, representation, and inclusion of various multiethnic backgrounds," were tabbed "Diverse Editions."
However, the initiative, which was to be kicked off with an event at the retailer's Fifth Avenue location in New York City last week, was cancelled after outcry.
The company's statement announcing the cancellation noted that "diverse" book covers are a poor substitute for showcasing the works of "black voices or writers of color."
Among the reactions to the initiative were "fake diversity nonsense," "classics in blackface" and "cartoon POC" (person of color).
Eye of the beholder
Even largely leftist universities sometimes understand when art expression is taken too far.
Delaware University recently shut down an online art exhibit when one of the submissions was President Donald Trump being beheaded in a re-creation of the 16th-century work "Judith and Holofernes" by Italian painter Michelangelo Caravaggio.
In the submission by student Jennie Williams, which appears to be a work of poor Photoshopping, Lady Liberty is shown cutting off the president's head.
Although there were no specific guidelines for submission for the exhibit, Joe Aviola, the college's senior director of administrative and legal affairs, said the work "did not meet the university's values" and was not protected under "expression of speech" because of its overt violence.
"It's more violent than it is expression of speech," he said.
In hindsight, Aviola said "we maybe should've had some other people review it" before posting it.
Naturally, there was pushback because ... Trump.
"Even violent inappropriate art pieces should be judged for what they are," said John Flaherty, president of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government. "You ought to have controversial pieces submitted. That's part of being an artist."