A US legislator’s communications director was facing social media calls she be fired after her Facebook rant about US President Barack Obama’s daughters prompted widespread anger.
Elizabeth Lauten, spokeswoman for US Representative Stephen Fincher, wrote a scathing post on Facebook account scolding Malia and Sasha Obama, 16 and 13, for what she called “looking bored” while attending a public event with their father on Wednesday.
‘STRETCH YOURSELF’
In the post, since deleted but widely reproduced in screenshots, Lauten tells the girls: “Try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play.”
The girls stood beside Obama as he issued an annual Thanksgiving holiday turkey “pardon,” saving two birds from the dinner table.
The underwhelmed expressions of the teenaged sisters sparked mainly amused commentary, but Lauten’s remarks were notably more caustic.
“Then again, your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter,” Lauten wrote in her post. “So I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ department. Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you.”
“Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar,” she added, apparently referring to the girls’ short skirts.
APOLOGY
The post quickly drew ire on Twitter and elsewhere, with many calling for Lauten to be fired, even after Lauten deleted it and posted an apology.
“After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents and re-reading my words online I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were,” Lauten wrote on Facebook, also widely reproduced before she made her page private.
“I’d like to apologize to all of those who I have hurt and offended with my words, and I pledge to learn and grow (and I assure you I have) from this experience,” she added.
‘TACKY’
Star Jones, a lawyer and television personality, was among those unimpressed.
“I’ve seen tacky people ... but rarely seen someone as tacky as #ElizabethLauten for slamming the children of the #POTUS,” she tweeted.
Many directed their tweets to Lauten’s boss, as the hashtag #FireElizabethLauten went viral.
One commenter, whose username is Eclectic John, wrote: “@RepFincherTN08 There is nothing that excuses what #ElizabethLauten posted re the children of our President. That’s off-limits. Fire her now.”
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CARTEL ARRESTS: The president said that a US government operation to arrest two cartel members made it jointly responsible for the unrest in the state’s capital Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday blamed the US in part for a surge in cartel violence in the northern state of Sinaloa that has left at least 30 people dead in the past week. Two warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan in what appears to be a fight for power after two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. Teams of gunmen have shot at each other and the security forces. Meanwhile, dead bodies continued to be found across the city. On one busy street corner, cars drove
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to