Ted Cruz Mistress Crisis – Apparently There’s Video

Yesterday, as the entire Cuban Mistress Crisis was simmering to a boil, it was discovered that weeks ago a large number of Marco Rubio operatives and supporters were trying to bring the sex scandal story to the MSM attention.

Under the open guise of #TheThing they were communicating via various twitter feeds and following along to see if the story had been picked up. Most of the activity was centered around March 10th – March 15th.

Yesterday the hashtag CruzSexScandal went viral. Today, many of those DC operatives, participants, supporters, consultants, Super-PAC’s and campaign advisors have spent a great deal of time deleting their (The Thing) participation. The peak of their scrubbing coincided with Senator Ted Cruz accusing Donald Trump of planting the story.

Obviously, the Rubio Clan didn’t want to see themselves outed as the originating entities.

Virtually everyone in the blog-o-sphere who supported Marco Rubio was active, tweeting, re-tweeting, or following the events related to #TheThing. Now they’re running for cover and trying to hide their fingerprints.

However, interestingly one of the now deleted “tweets” was from Rick Wilson, who stated the owner of “The Thing” should just upload it to You Tube and the reporters could “discover it” there.

If you knew anything about public domain you wouldn’t have asked such a stupid question.

The photos of Melania’s GQ photoshoot are all over the web. Search Google Images or Bing Images for “Melania GQ” and you will find them along with other photos of her. Just be careful to have the appropriate safety filters on otherwise you might get a lot very nasty stuff including pornographic photos including those that purport to be, but are not of her.

It is very easy to upload an image taken from anywhere on the web to sites like Photobucket or Imgur, Flicker, etc. and then use a Meme generator like http://memegenerator.net/ . We see numerous photo memes posted here and on various blogs and Facebook all the time.

There is however most certainly a legitimate question as to whether doing this violates copyright or is an abuse of fair use. I am aware for instance that linking to Getty copyrighted images not part of their “free” and “fair use library” is verboten here because Getty Images is very aggressive about protecting their copyrights.

https://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&site=webhp&q=getty+images+copyright+violation&oq=Getty+Images+copy&gs_l=serp.1.3.0l10.106361.110130.0.113927.5.4.0.1.1.0.167.484.0j4.4.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..0.5.492.r6wT-RruvVI

I am not sure of GQ’s or the photographer’s standing since they’ve not sued over the images being uploaded and posted and turned into various memes (including here as a positive).

The question of fair use when it comes to using photos for political speech is a tricky one as discussed here:

http://lizerbramlaw.com/2014/04/01/copyright-fair-use-can-i-use-a-politicians-headshot-in-a-political-blog/

Section 107 includes four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

The purpose and character of the use.

(More likely to be fair if the use is noncommercial and “transformative” — the original is, in effect, turned into a new work with a different purpose.)

The nature of the copyrighted work.

(More likely to be fair if the copied work is factual, as opposed to creative.)

The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.

(More likely to be fair if the amount taken is small or not central to the copied work, but sometimes copying the entire work is fair.)

The effect of the use upon the market or the potential market for the copyrighted work.

(More likely to be fair if the new work doesn’t compete with the copied work in the marketplace. That is, the new work isn’t a substitute for the original.)

Several photos of Melania from a Harper’s Bazaar was posted on this thread. Did anyone here ask permission before posting them?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3380607/posts

FWIW – GQ doesn’t seem to be putting up any objections and even seem to be loving all the free publicity:

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/donald-trump-melania-trump-knauss-first-lady-erections

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/donald-trump-melania-trump-gq-photo-shoot

But turning this picture also from GQ into a meme is OK I guess:

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