Watch your back, haters: The ACLU aims to counteract your abhorrent trash-talking with a new advertisement in Times Square. The video billboard (watch below) starts with a photograph of a woman in hijab standing before graffiti reading "Muslims Go Home." This is followed by a photo of "young Americans" holding signs reading "Support Freedom of Religion" and "Love thy Neighbor." (We're pretty sure this photo is from the "Ground Zero" mosque counter-protests over the summer.) The ad's message is "Fight Hate Speech With More Speech." Ironically, it's silent. But maybe you are supposed to provide the soundtrack with some love speech? more ›

Yesterday ousted State Senator Hiram Monserrate held a press conference to formally announce his bid to get his old job back in a special election Tuesday. After some laughable rhetoric about how voters should send him to Albany to keep crime down in their community, the girlfriend beater addressed allegations that he jacked his campaign logo from the Obama campaign. "This logo is similar to the slogan that they used, but slightly different, because the logo actually is a 'Q,' which stands for the great borough of Queens," Monserrate told reporters. "If folks had really analyzed it, they would have seen it." It's almost as convincing as Vanilla Ice's argument that he didn't rip off "Under Pressure"—but will voters buy it? more ›

Earlier this week an angry anonymous pamphleteer tossed thousands of anti-Obama fliers off of the Metrotech office complex in Downtown Brooklyn. It was said to be a profanity-filled poem of sorts (with an AA/BB rhyme scheme), and the Brooklyn Paper now has the full text; though reprinting it is only spreading the vitriol-filled message. Earlier this week the paper reported on the basics, saying it included the "F word" a whopping 29 times! One witness told them, “I think it’s ignorant—but this is America, so they have a right to free speech. But I don’t think they have a right to throw it in front of my store so I have to clean it up.” Another was less concerned with free speech, declaring: “That’s f—ed up. I wish I could smack the s— out of whoever did that.” So who is the culprit? Director of public safety for the Metrotech BID said, “I would say it’s a construction worker. That’s a secure building.” The developer of the building, the Clarett Group, claimed they had “not found any evidence that political fliers were dropped." See no evil, hear no evil. more ›

Last week, a July beating where the attacker allegedly told his victim, "We don't like faggots on Barker Street," was deemed a hate crime by the Staten Island DA's office. Chief ADA Dan Master said the victim "was targeted because of his perceived sexual orientation," and charged 24-year-old James Champagne with third-degree assault as a hate crime, a felony, and second-degree aggravated harassment, a misdemeanor. more ›