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07 Jan 2011 14:28

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Politics: Some thoughts on Ted Williams’ golden-voiced situation

  • Williams is an interesting figure who represents something far more than his own situation. And as more details come out about Williams, that becomes clear. He’s a product of that specific brand of fading industrialization that cities like Columbus have perfected over the last thirty years. A few years back, when Morgan Spurlock hosted the memorable reality show “30 Days,” he lived in Columbus, Ohio on minimum wage for a month. Spurlock gets beef for his Michael Moore-lite methods, but the truth is, the minimum wage episode was pretty on-point. We imagine Williams being in the background of that episode, thrown away by the society that let him down. And there’s the problem. There are lots of guys like Williams who were also in that scene, who don’t have his miraculous luck. Or the voice. We call them deadbeats. We criticize them for being dregs on society (looking at you, Fox News). Well, what are we doing to fix this? Enforcing drug laws? Citing them for trespassing? Ignoring them? For every Williams with a broken home life and no way to improve his situation, there are thousands of others. And we, as a society, should be asking why. (Now’s a good time to suggest donating to Street Sense. Help the homeless help themselves.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jan 2011 10:13

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Politics: Did John Edwards get engaged recently? If so, save the date!

  • claim The National Enquirer reports that John Edwards is engaged to Rielle Hunter, which would be awful timing considering his estranged wife just died like a month ago.
  • denial Edwards’ family denies the allegations, which have more heft because, well, the National Enquirer surprisingly broke the original Rielle Hunter story. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jan 2011 22:43

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Politics: After reciting Constitution aloud, House Republicans violate it

  • first After reciting the Constitution on the floor of the House, Republicans got to work attempting to repeal health care reform.
  • but Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), however, missed the official swearing in ceremony (a violation of the Constitution).
  • so That means he’s not technically a Congressman, and all of his votes over the last two days have been invalid. Whoops!
  • nowJohn Boehner has to ask Nancy Pelosi for unanimous consent to retroactively validate Sessions’ votes.
  • We’re having a little fun here. This isn’t actually that big of a deal; it was an honest mistake on the part of Sessions (and Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, who also missed the swearing in), it will likely be rectified by tomorrow, and Sessions and Fitzpatrick have already been officially sworn in. Still, it’s amusing and slightly ironic that, after making a big show of reading the Constitution aloud on the House floor, two Republicans inadvertently violated it whilst on the House floor. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jan 2011 22:28

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Politics: What would be the effect of repealing health care reform?

  • $250billionincrease in deficit over the next ten years if the GOP succeeds in repealing health care reform
  • 32million more people would be uninsured, too. Three cheers for repeal! source
  • » This isn’t according to Congressional Democrats. It’s not according to the White House. No, these numbers come from the third party, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Republicans have cited CBO numbers in the past, too, so this isn’t an example of a biased report coming from a politically-motivated source. It’s just the facts, ma’am.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jan 2011 22:26

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Politics: Santorum puts an end to questions of Palin’s qualifications

  • What does it mean to be qualified to be president? She is born in this country and she’s the right age. Those are the qualifications.
  • Rick Santorum • When asked if Sarah Palin is qualified to be President. The former Senator brings up a valid point, and yeah, it’s silly for us to keep asking if she’s qualified. However, keep in mind his motivations: Santorum is widely seen to be considering a run for President himself in 2012. Were he and Palin to both enter the race, they’d be directly competing for the social conservative vote, so it makes sense that he’d start subtly deriding her now. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jan 2011 19:52

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Politics: The Juan Williams after-effect: NPR shakes up its leadership

  • cause NPR decided to quickly fire news analyst Juan Williams for saying that Muslims made him feel uncomfortable, which drew a lot of controversy and led Fox News to hire him full-time.
  • effect After an investigation into what happened, NPR’s Senior VP for News, Ellen Weiss, resigned, and CEO Vivian Schiller won’t be getting a bonus this year. Them’s the breaks. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jan 2011 19:44

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Politics: Boehner not a birther, won’t clamp down on GOPers who are

  • The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That’s good enough for me.
  • House Speaker John Boehner • Speaking on the topic of birthers, a topic that found itself in the news today thanks to someone who really likes shouting during a formal recitation of the U.S. Constitution. Despite his own personal feelings on Tea Partiers, don’t expect Boehner to stomp on the political beliefs of his fellow members of Congress, no matter the party: “People come, regardless of party labels, they come with all kinds of beliefs and ideas. It’s the melting pot of America. It’s not up to me to tell them what to think.” Ultimately, we pretty much agree with that sentiment, even if it means a couple of weirdos get in there. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

06 Jan 2011 13:14

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Politics: “Help Us Jesus!” Birther interrupts House’s Constitution-reading

  • Look, it’s great that Congress is doing this, seeing as it’s never ever been done, but please, don’t shout any imagined amendments to the Constitution while it’s being read. It’s just kind of lame. (thanks joshsternberg for the tip) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jan 2011 10:28

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Politics: He deserved it: Elizabeth Edwards took John out of will

  • six days before Elizabeth Edwards died, she took her estranged husband John out of the will
  • no he is not listed as guardian of the youngest children, either – that job went to oldest sister Catharine source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jan 2011 23:25

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Politics: Dear Obama: We’re everything you need in a press secretary

  • Look, now that Robert Gibbs is leaving you must be taking resumes or something. And before we go about submitting an application to the Obama/Biden beast (and spending hours upon hours updating our resume), we thought it might help to explain what you’d be getting if the ShortFormBlog staff took over the work of Mr. Professional himself, Robert “Obama’s bulldog” Gibbs. We can’t expect to be everything for you that he was, but we do have a lot of unique qualifications, including:
  • We like complaining! We notice that your administration doesn’t know when to complain about the right’s withering attacks on your character, on your policies, on your place of birth, on how ugly Bo is, on how much money Michelle spent on that trip to Spain, etc., etc. … God, can you give us a break? This job is really hard and we’re trying to save you from yourselves!
  • Blurby Press releases The Obama administration has had many PR innovations in its first two years in office – an open-source Web backend, a hugely-popular Twitter account, an entertaining Flickr account … but you’re missing something. You need press releases with giant numbers, profanity and myriad obscure pop-culture references. We can offer that.
  • The press will be putty Look … between CNN, Fox News, NBC, the other networks … they’ll all ask really tough questions and we’ll evade them by using the Socratic method. Sample dialogue: Them – “Why was Obama golfing during the oil spill?” Us – “Why do you care? You’re annoying and nobody watches your channel anyway, CNN.” Yeah, we’re good.
  • » So, what do you say, brah? We’re available to work immediately, and your organization could use someone like us. We’d make things interesting, because we know how drab the White House gets when there’s no change. We can be that change you promised, Barack.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink
 
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