The Rio has lots of fail, but if you know how to work the system there, you can get a decent room for a decent price.

It's not the right hotel for you if you don't have a car, though.

Natalie Maines is a cunt. I am a fan of country music, but I never understood the early 2000s fascination with the Dixie Chicks. They weren't terrible, but I didn't find them to be anything special.

Most of you know about the incident in early 2003 where she criticized President Bush while performing in England, and said that she was ashamed that he was from Texas.

Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas
I thought it was pretty crappy for an American act to go to a foreign country and bash their President (even if they disagreed with him), but it was also incredibly stupid and reckless to their careers. It's not like Maines was a rapper, where most of the audience wouldn't be likely to lean Republican. She was a performer in the heavily-Republican-leaning country genre, and I can't imagine how she could have ever thought such comments wouldn't have a major backlash.

She also went after Toby Keith, for his song "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue":

I hate it. It's ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture—and not just the bad people who did bad things. You've got to have some tact. Anybody can write, 'We'll put a boot in your ass' ...
I didn't understand this criticism. Keith's song was clearly aimed at the terrorists, and not the Arab culture.

The Dixie Chicks' popularity collapsed as a result of both of these situations (mainly the comments about Bush), and they quickly fell into irrelevance.

Some people felt this was unjust or some kind of assault on free speech. No. You have to understand your audience and your appeal. If you make tens of millions of dollars from the country music community, you also need to understand how not to piss them off. If she wanted "free speech" in her career, she should have become an op-ed writer or a talk show host.

President Bush actually had a good response to them about a month later, in an interview with Tom Brokaw.

The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say ... they shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out ... Freedom is a two-way street ... I don't really care what the Dixie Chicks said. I want to do what I think is right for the American people, and if some singers or Hollywood stars feel like speaking out, that's fine. That's the great thing about America. It stands in stark contrast to Iraq.
Bush was basically saying, "You're free to criticize me, but America is also free to stop buying your records if you piss them off."

Exactly.

So now she's picking on the Rio in her tweets, when it was her choice to stay in a middle-end property despite being able to afford much better? LOL

I am not even criticizing her for choosing a cheaper hotel. That's fine. But you have to understand what you're getting when you pay less money, and I can't believe she doesn't realize that. The fact that she is tweeting only pics of her towel-couch-bed and not the supposed filth in the room seems to indicate that she's exaggerating. I haven't seen a problem at the Rio with dirty rooms.