Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor that hosted Obama’s supporters in her New York townhouse and who recently co-hosted a $35,000 per person fundraiser at Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s home, is heading up the venture. In the past, Wintour’s tony political functions were attended by the likes of Alicia Keys and $70,000 dinner power couple Coldplay singer Chris Martin and his actress wife, the “suddenly everywhere” Miramax “muse,” Gwyneth Paltrow.

So with Wintour now raising reelection funds, you can just forget the $5 raffle tickets for a hot dog dinner with Barry and Shelley. Instead, the campaign will be hawking designer duds to people who, last time around, were in such dire straits they hoped the new president would fill their gas tank and pay their mortgage.

For her latest effort, Anna Wintour has recruited Hollywood notables, designers, pop and hip-hop artists, and other all-around really rich people to raise money for Barack 2012 by designing overpriced T-shirts, tank tops, scarves, wristlets, and bags to sell at inflated prices to people who, in the midst of an Obama recession, really can’t afford them.

Thus, “Runway to Win” is yet another example that Barack Obama and his helpful circle of elite Hollywood friends and Seventh Avenue designer devotees are all pretty much insulated from reality, out of touch, and oblivious to the plight of the common man.

Recently, in order to make a point that a $40 tax cut is needed in order to feed starving American families, Obama asked the question: “What does $40 Mean to You?” Most Americans were probably thinking warehouse club paper towels and lunch for two at Taco Bell, not $45 T-shirts.

Unlike them, Obama was thinking T-shirts!  Apparently, the budget-minded President is comfortable with Mrs. Jay-Z, barely off the delivery table and out of the special maternity suite with the 10-man security team at Lenox Hill Hospital, designing cotton tee jerseys for impoverished Americans.

Beyonce’s creation stands to pull down a hefty profit for merchandise that’s actually worth no more than $5. For 45 bucks, clotheshorses all along the “Flaws and All” campaign trail, instead of buying groceries, will have a chance to wear a cheap quality “Yes we can… Greater Together” T-shirt.

New mom Beyonce is only one of many slobbering Obama supporters who will be joining forces to produce a trendsetting Barack Obama clothing line for 2012.

Thanks to all the participants, Obama for America supporters will have an opportunity to parade around with an Obama-logo tote bag while wearing clothing that shouts to the world that just because a person’s been unemployed for more than three years doesn’t mean they don’t want to contribute to four more years of watching Michelle Obama wear $2,000 sundresses.

For most Americans, splurging means shopping at Target. In the meantime, while the 99% eat Spaghetti-Os for dinner, the “Runway to Win” list of designers reads like a Who’s Who of attendees at White House Wednesday-night Kobe-beef Conga/cocktail parties.  The list is a couture catalog of who dresses Mrs. Obama in outfits whose one-year cost, when totaled, tallies to an amount that could save 1.2 million American homes from being foreclosed.

Some of the 22 designers participating in the effort are: Russell Simmons, billionaire business magnate of Def Jam fame; Sean “Diddy” Combs, another billionaire, rapper, and record producer who’s also recognizable by the names Sean John Combs, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy; and even Tory Burch, the designer of the $500 boots Michelle wore to turn over the White House lawn when instructing Americans on the money-saving benefits of planting an at-home organic vegetable garden.

Many of Michelle Obama’s highbrow clothes designers will also be contributing to the effort: Narciso Rodriguez, Jason Wu, Alexander Wang, Joseph Altuzarra, Rag and Bone, Rachel Roy and Tracy Reese.

For those wanting a “first access pass,” on the tongue-in-cheek “Proudly made in America” campaign blog is the following announcement:

We’re launching something new, and a little different, over the next few weeks: Runway to Win, a collaboration by some of the country’s top fashion designers in support of Obama 2012. In the coming weeks, we’ll be rolling out Obama-inspired designs by everyone from Tracy Reese to Jason Wu to Tory Burch at runwaytowin.com. The details are still under wraps, but sign up for your First Access pass to get updates—and a first look at the new designs. Then invite your friends and family to do the same.

The truth is, any designer invested in Obama winning another term is probably secretly hoping their names will continue to be printed on the tags of what fills Mrs. Obama’s sartorially-stuffed clothes closet.

On the other hand, previous Obama supporters like Donna Karan, who participated in 2008, decided this year their idea of change would be to put Republican customers and capitalism first. Apparently, some decided to bow out because maintaining a customer base means more to them than being introduced by Scarlett Johansson at an Obama 2012 fashion show/fund raiser.

So, while Americans continue to suffer, big-name fashion designers and a diverse group of entrepreneurs like ‘Let’s Move’-Beyonce will be directly involved in “Runway to Win.” And yet, aside from the all the glitter and glamour, in light of 2008’s “Runway to Change,” the whole thing is really a bit scary. Why? Because if “change” is any indication of what four years of “winning” will be like, instead of walking the runway, if Mr. Fashionista manages to win a second term, America will more likely be walking the plank.

Monae is not a lapdog seeking affirmation from authority, nor is she a loud-mouthed hypocrite who wants to tell you how to live your life.  She is merely a singer who believes that a certain political party’s platform can liberate people and improve their lot in life.  She’s entirely wrong on that, but she has class enough to know (and repeatedly insist) that people should glean what message they want to from her music, not from any snide proselytizing outside of her songs.

We’ve previously noted how Ms. Monae is a true role model for young women, giving an example of how to express oneself, especially through fashion, without caving in to the sickening cultural demand for self-debasement through younger and younger hypersexuality.  Recently, we received a message informing us that she is taking that facet of her career to a whole new level:

Janelle will be holding a live-streaming interview to celebrate the launch of a new online community for young women called Shape What’s to Come where she will be answering your questions live [on November 3rd at 1 p.m. PST]. Fans from all around the world have the opportunity to watch the video and submit questions for Janelle to answer live on the air.

But we want to give her fans (i.e., Big Hollywood and the readers of Big Hollywood) dibs on the questions she’ll answer first…

So, what exactly is Shape What’s to Come and what does it have to do with Janelle Monae? As we both know, today’s woman has limitless opportunities for what to do with her future, but with these options comes the ever-present question, “How can I pursue what I love or make a living doing it?” The questions and infinite possibilities can be daunting, yet women, like Janelle, are finding a way to balance passion and profession like never before. That’s why Levi’s® has launched an international community for young women who are looking to connect with others who are daring to be themselves and defining their own future, and Janelle is helping to kick it off. The community will inspire and connect young women, provide exclusive on and offline events and act as a platform for women who are forging their own paths.

We’d love to see you on Shape What’s to Come and hope you enjoy the livecast!

If you have any questions for Janelle, especially our female readers, don’t hesitate to post them in the comments.  We’ll select the 5 best questions (based on appropriateness to the subject matter) to submit for the live webcast.

To set the mood for your inquiries, here’s a little reminder of how Ms. Monae is possibly the only young pop star today who has any connection to or reverence for the classics.  Eat your heart out, Katy Perry.

Of course the first thought that anyone has of pop singer Madonna is sex, sex, sex. She has made her entire career on selling her sexuality. From the days of 1983’s hit “Holiday,” to photo spreads in Playboy and Penthouse, to crawling on stage like a cat in heat, to girl-on-girl kisses, and raunchy videos throughout, Madonna has made her bucks with her body with as much skin showing as possible at all times even today in her 50s.

But, suddenly mother Madonna is hopeful that her own 13-year-old daughter, Lourdes, will “dress more conservatively.” Sex is bad all of a sudden when Madonna is talking about her own child.

Madonna told the magazine Us Weekly that she wished her child would not emulate the sexually exploitive style she herself made her career on.

Madonna may be a style icon, but that doesn’t mean daughter Lourdes Leon, 13, takes her advice. “If anything, I wish she’d dress more conservatively,” says the pop star, 51. “How’s that for irony?”

No, Mz Madonna. How’s that for hypocrisy, not “irony.”

Like a true lefty, Madonna sees nothing wrong with exploiting her own sexuality and creating an empire that invites millions of pre-teen girls the world over to emulate her, yet when it is her daughter that wants to sex herself up, suddenly it’s “conservative” time for Mz Madonna!

This is a direct admission that she knows that what she has spent the last 40 years doing was illicit, wrong, and bad for kids. But, you see, when it’s her fans and her fans parents that are being harmed, Madonna doesn’t care. But should her own child start down that path it’s Katie bar the door and time to enroll the girl in a Nunnery. Suddenly Mz Madonna becomes all prudish and wants to prevent the sexual exploitation of her own daughter.

It isn’t “irony,” Mz Madonna. It’s hypocrisy that you wallow in.

No environmentalist would ever allow their child to be treated in a hospital fully powered by “renewables”. They would not take the risk that the wind might stop whilst their baby was on the operating table. They would insist that the hospital and the life support systems had a fossil fuel powered back-up.

And so it is with “sustainable development”. It just isn’t sustainable. At least it does not sustain a lifestyle that those who promote it would consider acceptable for themselves. But of course that is the key. Renewable energy and sustainable development are for “other people”.

Even though environmentalists come from societies and very often families that became rich because of their use of non-renewable energy and unsustainable development they will not allow these opportunities to be extended to the poor in the developing world.

Environmentalists come from wealthy societies and families who cut down forests and burned coal and oil to make their families and societies healthy and prosperous. But, nowadays, for the poor in Africa and Asia and even middle America their path out of poverty must be “sustainable.” No fossil fuels or factories for them. But what this really means is sustainable poverty. It is a system that condemns people to a lifetime of drudgery and subsistence farming because modernity and industrialisation is “unsustainable.”

Which brings me to Bono, the lead singer of rock band U2 and more lately a campaigner for sustainable development in Africa, Asia and south America. In 2005 Bono and his wife Ali Hewson set up Edun a clothing range that was going to prove there is a different way to end poverty. It was going to be a non-corporate and of course “sustainable”.

At he time MSNBC said it would be “clothing with a conscience”. Vogue magazine said Edun was going to “flip capitalism on its head”.

But now it seems that Bono has now discovered that big companies with their big carbon footprints are useful if you want to keep paying the wages and produce the goods and sell them. Last week the rock star announced he has sold out to LVMH, the worlds largest luxury goods company. Announcing the deal Bono all but admitted that his touchy feely version of capitalism and development just didn’t work. Selling out to LVMH was a great deal, said Bono, and would “bring greater and longer-term stability to our manufacturers and the communities they support”.

In other words my Clooneyesc view of business is plain wrong and I now have to admit that I can’t pay the workers salaries without a proper business running the company. They, with their international marketing skills and economies of scale will make the business truly sustainable – that is – they will ensure that the workers have work and a salary every week and for years to come.

It is an admission that capitalism works and is the only way to ensure a better future for some of the world’s poorest people. And now Bono’s clothes with a conscience will be marketed and sold by a company that also sells Louis Vuitton, Donna Karan and Givenchy. LVMH’s also make and sell the delightfully unsustainable Moët & Chandon, Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot. It also makes and sells parfum Christian Dior and Givenchy and luxury jewellery and watches such as TAG Heurer, Christian Dior and De Beers Diamond Jewellers.

Neither side felt it necessary to say how much Bono got for selling half the company to LVMH. Edun has, in the past, made much of the company’s transparency. However it seems that the transparency only extends to poking our noses into what the workers earn. Bono and his wife are exempt from such questions. But good luck to them. It is really not important to know how much money they have.

But it is important for them to stop keeping people in poverty in the name of sustainability. We used our resources – we burned coal and oil and chopped down our forests. We drove our cars and flew our planes. We have used capitalism to conquer disease and poverty and as a consequence our children are the best-educated and healthiest in history.

But it seems that now some of these children want to stop the poorest on the planet from having what we have. Bono loves sustainable development but only for other people. U2’s latest album was recorded in separate sessions in France, the UK, Morocco, the US and Dublin. The band is now going on a worldwide tour to promote it.

This is not “sustainable” but it is necessary to keep people in work and to keep Bono’s bank balance healthy. And this is a good thing. U2 will provide employment for hundreds if not thousands through selling the album and going on tour. But it is being done the old fashioned way – through unsustainable but wealth creating capitalism.

If it is good enough for Bono and his band of Irish multi-millionaires then it should be good enough for the poorest on the planet.

Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney are the directors and producers of “Not Evil Just Wrong,” a documentary which looks at the true cost of Global Warming hysteria. noteviljustwrong.com

Last week, while Barack Obama was busy apologizing for America and lauding the laughable hokum of “Europe’s leading role in the world” in front of qualified world leaders at the G20 summit, Michelle Obama was apparently charming the unmentionables off the marveling Euros with her alleged grace and beauty. The on-going media orgasm over the first couple reached an indecently sloppy crescendo in Europe as the groupthink fiction which now passes for mainstream news bizarrely acclaimed the Obamas the new American royalty.  

In a previous article, I lamented the Obama administration’s perverting of the English lexicon to further its cultural mythology.  The president’s media confederates lovingly disgorged some of this mythology last week under the guise of summit coverage. 

In a particularly unsettling display of sycophantic idol worship, former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown gushed: 

It was smart of France’s ravishing first lady, Carla Bruni, to let her husband go to the conference without her. The second Madame Sarkozy was a big wow when she visited London last March, but she’s a shrewd enough PR hand to know she would suffer in comparison to the first and only Mrs. Obama.

A simple google images search of the two first ladies reveals that one always looks like she just came off a runway, while the other… doesn’t.  To suggest that Ms. Bruni would be somehow upstaged by First-Lady-In-Training Obama is pure, uncut, Atlantic Coast hackery. 

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson explained on NBC’s Meet the Press that he “was impressed by Michelle Obama’s grace, which is a national asset.”  In an effusive abcnews.com article comparing Michelle Obama to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, various observers are quoted saying things like “she has a fresh glamour;” “she’s very stylish, always looking amazing;” “she’s probably in the Top 10 of being best dressed, in the world.”  

Welcome to the media’s reinvention of Michelle Obama.  Evidently, Jackie O. has been reincarnated in the person of Michelle O.  This former campaign liability; this bitter, congenitally angry woman; this America-basher who needs a teleprompter to cue a forced, awkward smile is the new Jackie O.  

After this Jackie O. redux demonstrated her exalted grace by trying to manhandle the Queen of England to the horror of the slightly more decorum-conscious Brits, The Houston Chronicle tapped Syracuse University professor Bob Thompson for an explanation:

The power, the voltage of the Obama family is so great it not only can make the queen of England forget her own protocol but invite a violation of it. The whole Obama thing is like an unstoppable cultural force. Even the queen of England is all of a sudden playing footsie.

So powerful was this “voltage” that it was all the Queen could do to keep from knuckle-bumping Michelle. Indeed, it’s only a matter of time before the Obama “unstoppable cultural force” makes England the 57th state.

As for Michelle’s better half, MSNBC’s heart-smitten Chris Matthews effervesced:

He is the new us! That’s right, President Obama is in London tonight as the new emblem of the American people… We’ve got Barack Obama as our president and Michelle Obama as our First Lady. We’re all immensely proud… I thought about that scene for months, the first time they get to come as our American couple. To represent us, really in a new way. A kind of a sophisticated new leadership.

So what are the indicators of this “sophisticated new leadership”? Insulting the mentally-challenged on a late night talk show? Giving the British Prime Minister unplayable DVDs of ET and Star Wars? Suggesting Sarah Palin is a pig? Leaking information about a political rival’s peculiar sex habits to the press? Traveling with 12 teleprompters?  Attending the church services of a racist preacher for 20 years? Fear-mongering the financial markets to 12-year lows? Nominating a procession of tax cheats for cabinet positions? Filling out an NCAA tournament bracket on ESPN? Voting ‘present’? Snorting coke? 

When he wasn’t bowing down to Saudi kings, marginalizing the US, or doing to the European Union what my neighbor’s over-excited poodle sometimes does to my leg, BHO was engaged in his favorite pastime, blaming George W. Bush for stuff.  Percolating diplomatic tensions, increasing worldwide anti-American sentiment, international financial crises, etc… Bush did it.  Duh?! But now “the new emblem of the American people” will clean up the mess. 

Insulting the former regime at every available opportunity is the stuff of little men with inferiority complexes dressed in store-bought army general’s uniforms speaking to the unwashed masses from tall balconies in countries with more coconuts than pavement.  In his own, sophisticated way, our current president keeps telling us, “We won. You lost. Get used to it.”  

So this is class?  This is the new American royalty?  It seems more like the tacky overcompensation of the nouveau riche desperately trying to fit into a social stratum beyond its provincial qualifications.

The more the Obama mythology is repeated, the more it takes on the facade of authenticity.  Through outlets like this website, hopefully we can eventually transition the reality about the current administration from the politically incorrect underground to the sunshine of conventional wisdom.  

How do you say, “glorified community organizer” in Austrian?

Parcbench does not profess to be like most other publications, although we have derived much inspiration from Big Hollywood and its founder, Andrew Breitbart, who has agreed to join our Board of Advisors.  And we believe that we share a common mission.  Specifically, we strive to bring people pop-culture that reflects mainstream America.  

While we intend to deliver a fair share of policy and political coverage as well, we will focus on the culture that makes our nation the richest and most diversified in the world.  We will do it not just through parcbench.com but in person, in your town, on your college campus, and without the liberal spin that one finds in virtually every other cultural media outlet.  

Our magazine will feature stories on current events, television, music, celebrities, movies, fashion, style, art, architecture, health, food, books, sports, and the military.  We aspire to promote a brand that explores everything and cultivates a following that is intensely curious and patriotic.  

Most importantly, Parcbench is beholden to no one.  We owe no allegiance to any corporations or politicians.  We will tell it like it is, including who and what is threatening America, and who and what is preserving it.  And we will do it with your help.  Because we believe that Parcbench is fundamentally a grassroots American experiment. 

Although we live in tumultuous times, we believe that hope is not a new feature of the American landscape, but a fundamental part of our ethos.  Parcbench will reflect that hope, optimism, love of country, and American sense of entrepreneurship.  And best of all, Parcbench will be fun, something that is all too easy to forget these days. 

Brett Joshpe is co-author of the book Why You’re Wrong About the Right: Behind the Myths: The Surprising Truth About Conservatives (Simon & Schuster). He graduated from Harvard Law School and is currently General Counsel of The American Civics Exchange.