Tag Archives: Rolling Stone

Is There Anyone Who’s *Not* Trolling Mehmet Oz Right Now?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and tooling around Twitter, when I came across this tweet from longtime NBC journalist Josh Mankiewicz.

Dr. Oz . . . Wizard of Oz . . . Wizard of Lies . . . what’s going on here, Doc?

– Blizzard of Oz

Dear Blizzard,

Yeah, it’s a lot to take in, all this Ozifying.

Start with the viral video Mankiewicz tweeted, which comes from the troll factory Meidas Touch, an outfit that’s all the rage these days.

If that’s the shot, #WizardOfLies is the chaser.

Not everyone, however, thinks Meidas Touch is golden, as Rolling Stone’s Seth Hettena reported last year.

The group spent more than $1 million on an advertising strategy that it calls revolutionary but campaign veterans and independent experts say is nonsensical and a more effective tool for fundraising than for helping Democrats win elections. And despite its promised transparency, MeidasTouch’s financial structure makes a dollar-for-dollar accounting of its spending impossible — and, according to a former Federal Election Commission attorney, raises some of the same legal issues that got the Trump campaign into trouble in 2020.

Regardless, the group is having a moment right now.

As is Pennsylvania Lt. Governor/Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman, whose campaign against Mr. Oz seems entirely dedicated to trolling the celebrity carpetbagger.

Exhibit A: This video from “Jersey Shore hot mess” Snooki, who assures Oz that the Garden State loves him and he’ll be back there soon.

Exhibit B: This piece in The Independent by Abe Asher.

Senate candidate John Fetterman trolls Dr Oz by trying to get him inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame

John Fetterman is again taking aim at his Pennsylvania Senate rival Mehmet Oz over Mr Oz’s longstanding ties to neighbouring New Jersey.

On Thurdsay, Mr Fetterman launched a petition asking that Mr Oz be inducted into the New Jersey State Hall of Fame — noting that Mr Oz spoke at the hall’s induction ceremony in 2019 and hoped to join the ranks of its honourees one day.

“We all know that Dr Oz is so proud of being Jersey Strong,” Mr Fetterman said in an accompanying video. “He’s a huge New Jersey celebrity who’s lived there for three decades. Clearly he loves his home state. To honor Dr Oz’s deep New Jersey roots, we thought it would be a great idea to start a petition and help him reach his dream.of being inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.”
Oz is doing his best to troll back, as J.D. Prose reported at Penn Live.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz is taking the gloves off when it comes to his opponent’s absence on the campaign trail.

Oz has unleashed a new line of attack on Democrat John Fetterman for laying low following his medical crisis after remaining silent on the situation for several weeks.

Oz’s campaign on Tuesday unveiled the daily “John Fetterman Basement Tracker” to monitor the days Fetterman “has hid in his basement,” according to a campaign press release.

And here it is.

Not bad, but in the end, Oz is no Snooki.

Wait – A GOP Candidate’s Ad Compares Anthony Fauci to Osama bin Laden?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Bess Levin’s excellent newsletter in Vanity Fair, when I came across this item.

Wanna defend your fellow doctor here, Doc?

– Fauci Grouchy

Dear Grouchy,

First, we need to post this Federally mandated disclosure:

Warning: Dr. Ads is not a licensed physician

Whatever.

Anyway, here’s the spot.

Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramirez provides this helpful description.

The ad compares President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — as well as perceived cultural enemies like Tony Fauci — to foreign terror groups and totalitarian regimes.

Standing in what looks like a shooting range decked out in tactical gear and wearing clothes intended to resemble military fatigues, Mills cites his background as a veteran who “fought tyranny” and governments “forcing citizens to cover their faces” with burqas. “In America, our enemy is different but their objective is the same,” says Mills, “Total. Government. Control.”

(The irony of a post-Roe, anti-abortion rights Republican comparing Democrats to a regime imposing religious controls over woman is, well, a bit much.)

At least the ad doesn’t wonder why we’ve never seen Fauci and bin Laden in the same room.

Ramirez also notes that Mills previously ran this ad, in which he “[suggests] he would tear gas members of the media.”

Given the results of the latest poll in that race, as Jacob Ogles at Florida Politics reports, the next tears you see might be streaming down the cheeks of Cory Mills.

A new poll released by a conservative group shows Anthony Sabatini leading the GOP field in Florida’s 7th Congressional District.

U.S. Term Limits published results from RMG Research, run by conservative pollster Scott Rasmussen, on Republicans seeking the Central Florida seat. Pollsters found 23% of likely Republican Primary voters plan to support Sabatini, a state Representative from Howey-in-the-Hills.

Behind him is Cory Mills, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and the choice for 16% of voters. Brady Duke, the fundraising leader through June, comes in third place in this poll, with 9% of the vote.

Forty-two percent of voters, according to that poll, remain undecided.

Gary Fineout at Politico’s Florida Playbook, however, cites a poll that paints a different picture.

[A] crowded GOP primary in Florida’s 7th District shows Cory Mills, a combat veteran and defense consultant, pulling in 23 percent to 21 percent for state Rep. Anthony Sabatini. Brady Duke, a former U.S, Navy SEAL sniper and minister, has 8 percent. The poll shows that there was still 40 percent undecided in the contest.

The Doc’s diagnosis: Cory Mills better hope most of those undecideds are just as Fauci grouchy as our faithful correspondent, yeah?

Why Is Mars Incorporated Slut-Shaming the Green M&M?

by doctorads

(Aditor’s note: Thanks to both readers of this site for joining in the triumphant return of the good doctor yesterday. We won’t forget your kindness.)

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag once again and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, just minding my own business and scrolling through Twitter when I came across this.

The Hill’s Judy Kurtz reported that “candy is about to get more ‘inclusive,’ with the maker of M&M’s announcing its famed characters are getting modern makeovers and will have more ‘nuanced personalities.’”

For example:

The green M&M, previously seen in ads posing seductively and strutting her stuff in white go-go boots, will now sport a pair of sneakers. A description for the green candy on the M&M’s website says she enjoys “being a hypewoman for my friends.”

A hypewoman? What the hell even is that? Help me out here, Doc.

– Candy Crushed

Dear Crushed,

In the past, the Doc’s efforts to tackle delicate subjects like this one have tended to go over like the metric system. So let’s leave it to the Double Xers.

Danielle Cohen at The Cut.

Let the M&M’s Be Hot and Mean

Have you ever gazed at a piece of chocolate and asked yourself, What if this candy were … progressive? Can’t say I have, but lucky for me, somebody thought to do just that. Mars has rolled out new versions of famed M&M’s characters to reflect what the company sees as a “more dynamic, progressive world” and what I see as a very rude corporate rebrand nobody asked for.

Claire Carusillo at Gawker (headline: They Made the Green M&M a Dumpy Slut).

[Yesterday], the Mars Wrigley company rolled out a sterile, bone-dry rebrand of those sentient, sexy, candy-shelled roly-polys we like to call M&Ms. Notably, the hot green one is no longer wearing go-go boots, and the brown one has a lower heel. Anton Vincent, the president of Mars Wrigley North America told CNN that tamping down the sexuality of our most beloved screen sirens by giving them more sensible footwear is “a subtle cue, but it’s a cue nonetheless” that M&Ms are feminism, that they are geopolitics, that they are egalitarianism, and that they are corporate ladder climbing.

EJ Dickson at Rolling Stone (headline: Let the Green M&M Be a Nasty Little Slut).

The recent push to rebrand corporate logos to be more inclusive has, for the most part, been a good thing. Making Barbie more body-positive? Great. Renaming Aunt Jemima syrup? About damn time. Yet in brands’ fervent quest to capture youth audiences and capture the woke zeitgeist, they may be going just a little bit too far. Case in point: the slut-shaming of the green M&M.

‘Nuf said.