Sometimes a candidate can plan on certain calendar events to help them make their case, but often fortune and their opponents can lend a hand as well.  That’s the case today, which happens to be Cuban Independence Day, which gives politicians at all levels a chance to connect to the Cuban-American community, especially in Florida.  But when one of the two candidates in a race just gave a visa to a member of the Castro family to allow her to conduct activist politics in the US, well, that’s an opportunity a candidate simply can’t pass up.  Mitt Romney released a video today celebrating Cuban democracy activists and scolding American politicians who act to undermine them

Howard Kurtz gave viewers an insight into the creative process of The Daily Show‘s comedy with former show producer Mike Rubens. Rubens was on to talk about a recent column he wrote for Salon about how over the years, he’s grown to be more accepting of people with political views opposite his because of the people he’s met and subsequently made fun of.

David Letterman recently reminded his audience he's all in for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.
Never mind that it's practically written in the Late Night Host Manifesto that comedians tastefully torment presidents with their barbs.

Now, Letterman is turning his attention to presumptive GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. And one of the first lines of attack appears to be Romney's wallet. Never mind that Letterman became rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams by telling jokes for a living, or that former presidential candidate John Kerry was also fabulously wealthy.

BILL MAHER: There’s lots of new evidence that was made public this week in the Trayvon Martin case. He did have marijuana in his system, a drug that has never made anyone on planet earth violent. And at the moment that he confronted or was confronted by the wannabe cop loser who was stalking him, turns out he probably did beat the dog s—t out of that guy. I just want to say if I had a son he would not look like Trayvon Martin, but I hope he would act like him.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture of veteran Seattle TV Host Nancy Guppy arriving to cover the red carpet at the 38th Seattle Film Festival stuffed into an undersized dog kennel on the roof of a car is worth at least that many.

STRONG LANGUAGE WARNING!

Three of the individuals arrested in the Wednesday apartment raid of an Occupy Chicago member were charged last night for conspiracy to commit terrorism. The suspects, Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H.; and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24 were detained for approximately 48 hours before finally being charged around 2 am this morning.

The suspects are apparently the same three individuals who published the recent viral video on YouTube of what they claimed was police harassment outside of Chicago Police Department. Coincidentally two of these suspects appear to have been at the first violent action of the NATO week protests on Tuesday night.

KATMANDU, Nepal -- A 73-year-old Japanese woman climbed to Mount Everest's peak Saturday, smashing her own record to again become the oldest woman to scale the world's highest mountain.

Tamae Watanabe reached Everest's 8,850-meter-high (29,035-foot-high) summit from the northern side of the mountain in Tibet on Saturday morning with four other team members, said Ang Tshering of the China Tibet Mountaineering Association in Nepal.

Watanabe had climbed Everest in 2002 at the age of 63 to become the oldest woman to scale the mountain. She had retained the title until she topped herself a decade later.

Will Smith just slapped a Ukrainian reporter across the face at the Moscow premiere of "Men in Black 3" -- and it was all caught on tape.

The Ukrainian reporter tried to kiss Will on the lips on the red carpet and the actor angrily pushes him away and then backhands him across the face.

You can clearly see that Will is incredibly angry that the guy showed overt affection toward him.

After Will slaps the guy, Will says, "He's lucky I didn't sucker punch him."
 

You have to say this much for Desmond Hatchett: He has a way with the ladies.

The 33-year-old Knoxville, Tenn., resident has reportedly set a Knox County record for his ability to reproduce. He has 30 children with 11 women. And nine of those children were born in the last three years, after Hatchett -- who is something of a local celebrity -- vowed "I'm done!" in a 2009 TV interview, saying he wouldn't father more children.

But Hatchett is back in the news this week because he's struggling to make ends meet on his minimum-wage job. His inability to make child-support payments on such a meager salary also means he's back in court again and again, most recently to ask for a break on those payments.

On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days. The single-day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under one department -- the Department of Defense. Each of the military leagues and orders was asked to drop sponsorship of its specific service day in order to celebrate the newly announced Armed Forces Day. The Army, Navy and Air Force leagues adopted the newly formed day. The Marine Corps League declined to drop support for Marine Corps Day but supports Armed Forces Day, too.