Tag: political prank

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Ian Murphy’s Running… for Congress

“˜I am not a witch”: Buffalo Beast editor running for Congress to replace Rep. humiliated on Craigslist
by Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story
March 29th, 2011

Exclusive interview: Journalist behind prank on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is on the ballot in New York’s 26th congressional district

Ian Murphy has been at the lonely work of gonzo journalism for a while now, but it’s only recently that he’s achieved a level of national notoriety from his perch atop New York publication The Buffalo Beast. Others might call it infamy.

You may remember his last hit: prank calling Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, pretending to be billionaire tea party supporter David Koch.

Well, Murphy has a new project: He’s running for Congress.

When Gawker published shirtless photos that New York Republican Congressman Chris Lee sent a woman he contacted on Craigslist, Murphy didn’t see red like so many other voters living in New York’s 26th congressional district. He saw green.

Today, less than two months out from a special election, Murphy has secured a place on the ballot as the Green Party’s nominee: a nod he won by a unanimous vote.

In his candidacy announcement, Murphy sits by a fireplace smoking a pipe, reading off his hand (à  la Sarah Palin) and intentionally flubbing his talking points for laughs.

This video is from YouTube user MurphyCanHasCongress.

Continue reading “Ian Murphy’s Running… for Congress”

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Editor Ian Murphy Masquerading as David Koch Prank Calls Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

Update from Huffington Post 2:28pm: Buffalo Beast Website Goes Down Following Walker, Koch Prank Call. But you can listen to the prank call here or watch the 2 part video below.

Blogger Pranks Wisconsin Gov
Daily Beast
February 23, 2011

Wisconsin”s public workers are still deadlocked in a fierce battle with Gov. Scott Walker, but one blogger has his number””literally and figuratively. Ian Murphy, a writer for the Buffalo Beast, says he posed as businessman David Koch, a major funder of conservative and libertarian causes, and managed to get through to Walker, engaging him in-and recording-a somewhat embarrassing conversation. The ersatz Koch offers favors, draws Walker into an objectifying remark about MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, and gets him to tip his hand on a procedural trick to draw Democratic senators back to the state after fleeing to Illinois. Walker”s office confirmed the recordings are genuine on Wednesday. Read it at Buffalo Beast.

Here’s video in two parts of the phone call:

Koch Whore: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, part 1

Koch Whore: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, part 2

image: dailynews-update.net

Additional links:

  • Scott Walker Gets Punked By Journalist Pretending To Be David Koch, Huffington Post, February 23, 2011
  • Governor Walker’s office confirms prank Koch call, Washington Post, February 23, 2011

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    Top 9 Political Art Projects of 2010 from ArtThreat.net

    9 amazing political art projects of 2010
    by Michael Lithgow
    ArtThreat.net
    December 10, 2010

    Nasty galleries, arrests, fast food, American imperialism, Olympic culture jamming, cyborgs and cute cartoons

    The star of “˜engaged art” is on the rise. The number of artists creating, performing, and exploring in the world of social and political reality is mushrooming. Or maybe that”s the way it has always been, and new technologies are allowing us to do end-runs around gate-keeping curators and mainstream media. Either way, we are discovering whole worlds of politically engaged and celebrated artists that not so long ago would just as likely have been escorted from the hallowed houses of high art for disturbing the peace.

    Call it what you will “” engaged art, social practice, avant-garde, dialogical aesthetics, community art, public art, activist art, radical art “” audiences for the confounding, beautiful, horrible and hilarious kinds of symbolic dissidence these practices describe are growing. When Art Threat started three years ago there was only a few websites like us. Now there are dozens. This is a very good thing.

    A top 10 (or 9) list is a necessarily troubled compromise made up as it is by hierarchy and exclusion. On the up side it”s like a map “” something to help navigate an increasingly complicated and at times overwhelming volume of cultural choices. So here”s my map of people and organizations to watch for, some better known than others, but all involved in making art that gets under the skin and changes “” at least I hope it does “” in some undeniable way those who encounter it.

    Read the rest of this article here.

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    Rush-ing to Judgement

    Limbaugh Taken In: The Judge Was Not Loaded for Bear
    by Kevin Sack
    The New York Times
    September 15, 2010

    Pensacola, Fla. “” Anyone listening to Rush Limbaugh”s radio show Tuesday could be forgiven for thinking that Judge Roger Vinson has the federal government dead in his sights.

    Mr. Limbaugh spent some time profiling Judge Vinson, a senior judge on the Federal District Court in Pensacola, who had just announced he would allow a legal challenge to the new health care law to advance to a full hearing. The conservative radio host informed his listeners that the judge was an avid hunter and amateur taxidermist who once killed three brown bears and mounted their heads over his courtroom door to “instill the fear of God into the accused.”

    “This,” Mr. Limbaugh said, “would not be good news” for liberal supporters of the health law.

    But, in fact, Judge Vinson has never shot anything other than a water moccasin (last Saturday, at his weekend cabin), is not a taxidermist and, as president of the American Camellia Society, is far more familiar with Camellia reticulata than with Ursus arctos.

    Apparently, Mr. Limbaugh had fallen prey to an Internet hoax. Continue reading “Rush-ing to Judgement”

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    Glass Bead Collective Unity Action at Ground Zero Mosque

    Shining a light amid the angry debate over mosque
    by Lincoln Anderson
    The Villager
    September 16-22, 2010

    There”s been an overabundance of loud, often ugly rhetoric about the Islamic center planned near Ground Zero. But last Thursday night, a video-and-art collective did something entirely different “” words were involved, but they were presented silently.

    For half an hour, a handful of members from the Glass Bead Collective projected a loop of a 7-second video onto the facade of the “Ground Zero Mosque,” on Park Place.

    The image, 30 feet by 30 feet, was of a globe that morphed into a circle. Superimposed were the words “unity” and “equality,” alternating between a dozen different languages, including English, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian.

    Watch the video:

    Continue reading “Glass Bead Collective Unity Action at Ground Zero Mosque”

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