From ZeroZeroKappaKappa collective:

Spoof campaign poster for Cardinal Turkson appears in pre-conclave Rome
Reuters
March 1, 2013

Spoof “vote for Turkson” posters have popped up in Rome along walls still plastered with campaign posters from Italy’s general election on Sunday and Monday. Campaigning for the papacy is officially forbidden and even suggesting one is a candidate is usually enough to end any cardinal’s chances of ascending to the throne of Saint Peter.

Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson is the Irish bookmakers’ favorite to replace Pope Benedict, putting a non-European in pole position to lead the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church for the first time in more than a millennium. (more…)

Sarah Palin Wins Correction Of The Day After WaPo Runs Patently Unbelievable Al Jazeera Scoop
by Jason Linkins
Huffington Post
February 12, 2013

So, despite what you’ve heard, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not going to be proselytizing from a perch at Al Jazeera English. This is something that The Washington Post briefly reported Tuesday, on its “She The People” blog, and it is 100 percent wrong. So now, the Post gets to run this fun correction:

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that Sarah Palin planned to contribute to the Al Jazeera America news network.

Palin and Al Jazeera, eh? Well, that would sure be a weird fit, wouldn’t it, given their past intersections. Almost too impossible to believe? Well, the source for the Post’s story was this piece from a website called “The Daily Currant,” and if you can believe this, then you’ll believe anything: (more…)

Update: Checkout Joey Skaggs’ Facebook Page to see the event invitation and photos.

‘Santa Claus’ At United Nations: Prankster Joey Skaggs Demands Nuclear Disarmament
by Michael McLaughlin
The Huffington Post
November 14, 2012

Joey Skaggs, dressed as Santa Claus, worries that a nuclear apocalypse is a serious threat overlooked by the mainstream media.

NEW YORK — Doesn’t it seem like the holiday protest season starts earlier and earlier every year?

A protesting Santa on an adult-sized tricycle pedaled up First Avenue Tuesday, dragging an 8-foot missile to the United Nations. His message to world leaders: “Peace on Earth — Or Else.”

Nobody ran for cover. The comically fake bomb was a dud. And this St. Nick was the legendary media prankster Joey Skaggs, accompanied by six performance artists serving as elves.

Given that New York suffered the worst hurricane in its history just two weeks ago, perhaps it’s little surprise that this Santa and his giant toy explosive were overlooked.

Skaggs didn’t care. He just wanted to kick off the holiday season with a not-so-gentile reminder about “the absurdity of nuclear Holocaust and the direction we’re going with North Korea, Iran and Israel.

“Everyone wants a missile,” Skaggs told The Huffington Post.

“If you don’t do it now, when do you do it?,” he said, “after the Holocaust?”

(more…)

Convention protesters try to arrest Condoleezza Rice
by Mike Schneider
Detroit Free Press
August 28, 2012

Tampa — Police in Tampa stopped a dozen anti-war protesters from entering an event attended by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after the group said it intended to arrest her for war crimes.

The protesters from Code Pink carried handcuffs today and tried to enter a performing arts center. Rice was attending an event in conjunction with the Republican National Convention. They said they wanted to make a citizen’s arrest of Rice. She was George W. Bush’s National Security Adviser when the Iraq war started in 2003.

Officers told protesters to leave because they were on private property. They went back to the sidewalk and several lay down under sheets made to look like they were blood-splattered.

The group says it will try to arrest other members of the George W. Bush administration.

Submitted by Erin:

From Say It With a Condom

Russian prosecutors ask for 3 years in punk case
by Nataliya Vasilyeva
August 7, 2012
Associated Press

Moscow (AP) – Prosecutors on Tuesday called for three-year sentences for the members of a feminist punk band who performed an anti-Vladimir Putin stunt in Moscow’s main cathedral, ignoring demands by human rights groups that the three women be set free.

Defense lawyers and an influential Russian Orthodox cleric warned that jail time for the women could backfire by severing trust between ordinary Russians and the country’s institutions.

Prosecutor Alexander Nikiforov portrayed his request as lenient, saying the recommendation takes into account the fact that two of the defendants are young mothers and that they have good character references.

The hooliganism charges the three women of the Pussy Riot band face can carry a sentence of up to 7 years in prison.

The three women – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23; Maria Alekhina, 24; and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29 – have been in custody for five months following the February stunt, in which they took over a church pulpit in Christ the Savior cathedral for less than a minute, singing, high-kicking and dancing.

Their case is part of a widening government crackdown on dissent that followed Putin’s election in March and caused strong protests in Russia and abroad. Musicians including Madonna, the Who’s Pete Townshend and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys have urged their release.

The verdict is expected this week. Read the rest of this article here.

Submitted by Emerson Dameron and Clark Stoeckley:

WikiLeaks claims responsibility for fake Bill Keller column, citing donation ban
by Ed Pilkington
guardian.co.uk
29 July 2012

Hoax including fake tweets and a counterfeit Times website dismissed as ‘childish prank’ by former editor Bill Keller

Bill Keller, former New York Times executive editor and current columnist, has found himself the subject of an elaborate internet hoax. Photograph: Ruth Fremson/AP
WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing site set up by Julian Assange, has claimed that it was behind the fake opinion piece circulating on the internet under the name of Bill Keller, columnist and former executive editor of the New York Times.

In a tweet, WikiLeaks said:

The organisation implied that it – or its “great supporters”, whomsoever they might be – had carried out the stunt in a bid to embarrass the Times into covering the financial blockade of WikiLeaks by US companies: (more…)

Submitted by Mike I:

Egyptian Celebs React Violently When Told They Are On Israeli TV

Published on Jul 24, 2012 by iraqisolder:

A video featuring scenes from an Egyptian candid camera series is garnering attention on the Internet. The show, created by Memri TV, includes clips of Egyptian celebrities being told they are appearing on an Israeli channel.

The video starts with an interview between a female host and actor Ayman Kandeel “Tuhami.” Kandeel is friendly at first but grows angry as a caller tells him he’s being featured on an Israeli program. The actor gets into an argument with a producer, ultimately assaulting the original woman he was speaking with.

(more…)

How the Drudge Report, With Its Condoleezza Rice ‘Scoop,’ Again Rules the Media
by Lauren Ashburn
The Daily Beast
July 15, 2012

His Condi Rice item went viral despite its utter implausibility. Lauren Ashburn on why the press is held captive by the conservative blogger’s thinly sourced gossip.

The headline screamed across the homepage of the Drudge Report: ROMNEY NARROWS VP CHOICES; CONDI EMERGES AS FRONTRUNNER.

Matt Drudge—the shadowy, fedora-wearing Internet gossip machine who has boasted from day one that he is a conservative—crowed that his sources revealed former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is at the top of the veep list. He even went so far as to punctuate the scoop with an exclamation point!

Bull. I’m a good enough poker player to know a campaign bluff when I see one. The claim is so ludicrous as to be laughable, and Drudge must know it considering his reported alliance with the Romney campaign.

Yet in typical fashion, the media—knowing the claim had little basis in reality—went along for the ride. The Today show, Good Morning America, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, even The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, along with plenty of others, took the bait and devoted countless minutes and column inches to the tale. (more…)

Submitted by Ivan Petrovic: Perfect prank/activism from Serbia

The Art of Joining the Party
Balkan Insight
Nemanja Cabric BIRN Belgrade
April 13, 2012

Two playwrights who joined a number of political parties, using a modified speech by Goebbels as their agenda, have turned their experience into a performance called Oni Zive, (They Live).

Annoyed by unsolved burning issues in Serbian cultural policy as well as in society in general, Maja Pelevic and Milan Markovic, artists with no permanent job, came up with an unusual idea – to become members of almost all political parties at once and tackle them from the inside.

Their artistic performance resulted in a dramatic text, audio-visual materials, and a blog.

“Our main thesis is that political parties have taken over the space for performing arts and have contributed to the fact that there is almost no budget for culture. In these circumstances, when theatres face bankruptcy, and the independent scene lacks financial support – we decided to turn political parties into our space for performing arts,” Maja Pelevic told Balkan Insight. (more…)

Submitted by ABOVE:

Blood Diamond

Africa has had a devastating history of blood diamond wars. Blood diamond refers to a diamond mined in a war zone and then sold to finance an invading army’s war efforts, usually in Africa where more than two-thirds of the worlds diamonds are extracted. This site specific social / political word play was painted on the exterior wall of Johannesburg’s largest diamond trader Jewel City. Jewel City is a six-block mega-precinct that serves as a base for some 300 diamond traders as well as South Africa’s Diamond Board and State Traders Association. Jewel City is the largest diamond exporter in the southern hemisphere with over R7-Billion worth of Diamonds being exported every year.

I was able to get away with this diamond wall heist because I told the owners I would paint in big letters “Diamonds are a woman’s best friend” on the exterior of their building.

(more…)

Egypt artists “reopen” street by graffiti protest
Nasser Nasser
Seattle Post Intelligencer
March 29, 2012

Cairo (AP) — After Egypt’s ruling military sealed off streets around Cairo’s Tahrir Square with walls of imposing concrete blocks, a group of artists decided to reopen the avenues on their own — in the public imagination, at least.

On one of the walls, they painted an exact trompe-l’oeil reproduction of the street behind it, as if it were open. The perspective painting matches up with the architecture of the neighboring buildings and even has some “pedestrians” strolling along the boulevard. The street’s new name is “No Walls Street.”

The graffiti piece is the work of the Revolution Artists Association, a group of young Egyptian artists who say the uprising against authorities in the country continues a year after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

(more…)

Moderator’s note: This won’t be the first time a satirist co-opted official letterhead to make a statement (see Joey Skaggs’ Brookyln Bridge Lottery Hoax, done in 1992), but it may be the last!!

Dane County DA considers charges against cartoonist who sent fake news
by Sandy Cullen
Wisconsin State Journal
March 14, 2012

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said Wednesday his office is considering whether to file a felony charge against a political cartoonist who reproduced the letterhead of state Rep. Steve Nass on a phony press release sent to a Madison newspaper.

Ozanne said Capitol Police have asked his office to determine whether Mike Konopacki of Madison should be charged with violating a state law that makes it a felony for someone who is not a public officer or public employee to act in an official capacity or to exercise any function of a public office.

The Class I felony is punishable by up to 3½ years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Ozanne said his office has the discretion to file a different felony or misdemeanor charge, or to not prosecute.

Konopacki, 60, said Wednesday he believes his parody — which makes fun of Nass, a Republican from Whitewater, for his role in canceling an art exhibit related to last year’s protests at the state Capitol — is protected political speech.

He said he sent the fake news release to the editorial page editor at The Capital Times, which posted an erroneous story on the paper’s website and on Capital Newspapers’ website, madison.com, on Feb. 25. It was removed a short while later after the paper learned the source document was a fabrication.

Konopacki, who specializes in labor issues, has drawn editorial cartoons for The Capital Times for many years on a freelance basis, the paper said in an online statement.

(more…)

From Peter Maloney:

Stinger: James O’Keefe’s Greatest Hits
by Zev Chafets
The New York Times
July 27, 2011

The temperature was hovering near 90 degrees on the afternoon of Memorial Day when James O’Keefe III emerged from the woods and ambled over to my car. He was tall and thin, with pale skin and matted reddish hair. When his mug shot ran in the papers, some people told him he looked like Matthew Modine. Others said Lee Harvey Oswald. On the day I met him, he wore muddy work boots, filthy jeans and, despite the heat, a long-sleeved shirt. “Keeps the mosquitoes off,” he said. All day he was in the outback of a regional park just west of the Hudson, breaking rocks with a pickax to construct a trail. As a boy he was an Eagle Scout, but this wasn’t a nature project. O’Keefe, the man whose video stings helped take down high-ranking people at National Public Radio and led to the demise of Acorn, the nation’s biggest grass-roots community organizing group, was doing federal time.

Eighteen months ago O’Keefe and three confederates, two dressed as telephone repairmen, walked into the New Orleans office of Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. This was during the debate over President Obama’s health-care plan, and angry opponents of the bill, which Landrieu supported, claimed their calls weren’t being answered. Landrieu’s staff said the voice-mail system was not working properly because of high call volume, and O’Keefe’s guys were out to get her staff to say that the phones were really fine while he captured the exchange on film. Similar strategies worked well in the past, but this time he was arrested and brought before a federal judge. In the end, he pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of entering federal property under false pretenses, paid a $1,500 fine and was sentenced to three years of probation and 100 hours of community service. (more…)

Submitted by David Strom:

‘Gay Girl In Damascus’ Turns Out To Be An American Man
by Eyder Peralta and Andy Carvin
NPR
June 12, 2011

Over the last several months, Amina Arraf, a blogger who said she was Syrian-American and went by the name Gay Girl In Damascus, captured the world’s attention. Her blog caught on just as the protests against President Bashar al-Assad of Syria became widespread and the crackdowns more violent.

On June 6, it all came to a screeching halt when Amina’s cousin declared on the blog that Amina had met the fate of many bloggers in authoritarian regimes: Assad’s police had taken her into custody. Whether she was alive or dead, no one knew.

As soon as “Free Amina” groups popped up on Facebook and the State Department began looking for her, the story began to seem a lot like fiction. No one had ever talked to Amina. The Guardian published a profile of her June 7 that included a picture they soon found out wasn’t Amina but of a Londoner called Jelena Lecic. The biographical details in her blog posts did not check out. Amina Arraf couldn’t be found in any public records in Georgia or Virginia and the names of her father and mother also turned up nothing. (more…)