Unsurprisingly, major telecom providers like AT&T and Verizon aren’t big on having to compete with the government for customers who don’t actually need the overpriced services being offered by their companies. Some GOP members have suggested that it would be more fiscally responsible for the FCC to sell the broadcast spectrum, allowing the government to raise billions in new revenue. What say you, dear reader? source
Tagg Romney, son of former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, is considering a Senate run in Massachusetts’s upcoming special election, according to the Boston Herald.
The Herald reported Monday that Romney was considering a bid to replace John Kerry in the seat that opened up after Kerry became Secretary of State. The Herald would not identify the source of its information.
Something tells us that the guy who admitted to wanting to slug the President over an election debate probably isn’t going to have the most positive effect on Senate already rendered rather ineffective by partisanship and bickering. We’d like to say his election would at least be a step up from Geraldo Rivera, but even that seems questionable at best…
It’s February 1, so you know Twitter is lighting up with white people — mostly teenagers, which makes me so incredibly depressed — who are just baffled or angry about the fact that there’s no white history month when there’s a black history month.
There are thousands of these; I just grabbed a few for posterity.
Related side note: Victoria Jackson, the Tea Partiest former cast member of SNL, put up a little ode to White History Month on her blog yesterday. Then people noticed. Then she deleted it.
Once everyone was on Twitter, everyone’s problems were on Twitter. The early adopters might have been tech-utopians, but the succeeding waves were angry cynics and partisan cranks who used the technology to make the world even louder and worse than it was before Twitter.
Compounding the problem is that — unlike everyone else — if you work in journalism, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Being on Twitter is now part of the job, meaning that you can’t not be on Twitter. What was once an inspiring place that gave you a competitive advantage became a prison.
Twitter has become like high school, where the mean kids say something hurtful to boost their self-esteem and to see if others will laugh and join in. Aside from trolling for victims after some tragedy, Twitter isn’t used for reporting much anymore. But it is used for snark.
The existence of Twitchy, which is the toilet of the internet, basically validates Matt K. Lewis’ entire point here. – Ernie @ SFB
Speculation abounds surrounding Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s future ambitions, but one group of fans has already launched a super PAC anticipating a potential 2016 presidential campaign.
The group, “Ready for Hillary,” filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission Friday. Professor and historian Allida Black is leading the super PAC,the Center for Public Integrity reported.
It’s certainly looking more and more like our Secretary of State has some big plans for her post-diplomatic endeavors, though Sec. Clinton has yet to confirm any plans to seek the presidency. Think she should run?
Obama wants to put every private, personal firearms transaction right under the thumb of the federal government and he wants to keep all of those names in a massive federal registry. There’s only two reasons for a federal list on gun owners – to either tax ‘em or take ‘em.NRA executive Wayne LaPierre • Cherry-picking a single phrase from President Obama’s inaugural address to become the subject of his latest rant against the President and the push for stricter gun control. While we’re not big fans of LaPierre ourselves, we’d hate to see the man work himself into an early grave over these fears, and just like to remind him that sometimes tracking the sale of certain products can be extremely beneficial. Even when the products being tracked were manufactured with nothing but the best intentions (We’re looking at you pseudoephedrine). source
Senior defense officials say Pentagon chief Leon Panetta is removing the military’s ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war.
The groundbreaking move recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units. Panetta’s decision gives the military services until January 2016 to seek special exceptions if they believe any positions must remain closed to women.
A senior military official says the services will develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions. Some jobs may open as soon as this year. Assessments for others, such as special operations forces, including Navy SEALS and the Army’s Delta Force, may take longer.
While it’s not an across-the-board authorization that some were undoubtedly hoping for, the changes being authorized by Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta still seem like a step in the right direction. An official announcement about the change is expected on Thursday.
We’re still looking for more info on the story, but this is a pretty big deal guys. The decision reverses a combat exclusion policy passed back in 1994. source
Video: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator Ron Johnson clash over Benghazi consulate attack (via Talking Points Memo)
“With all due respect, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of some guys out on a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.” Damn, Hill brought her A game.
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“There is something about Americans glancing up,” says Benjamin Lowy, who photographed attendees of the 57th Presidential Inauguration for NBC News on Monday. The upward glance seems to embody a hopeful gaze into the future, and it inspired similar portraits by Mr. Lowy during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions last year. “It doesn’t matter if we’re black, white, yellow, or brown,” he says. “We look the same when we look up.”
See the remainder of Mr. Lowy’s “57 Faces for the 57th Inauguration” on NBCNews.com.
While we agree wholeheartedly about the power of tilting the head up a bit, the judicious use of sun is doing a lot of work here as well.
There are a lot of Democrats who agree with the need to deal with this. It’s a mathematical thing, it’s not an ideological thing. But he basically said we’re not going to change these programs, we’re not going to reform these programs to prevent this. He basically said we will not fix this debt crisis.Rep. Paul Ryan • Expressing his disappointment with President Obama’s inauguration speech, widely viewed as a staunch defense of liberal policy, during an appearance on The Laura Ingraham Show. Many Republicans have spoken out against the remarks, saying President Obama did not sufficiently reach across the aisle with his speech. source
Republicans have to stop buying into things that demonize the president. I mean, why aren’t Republican leaders shouting out about all this birther nonsense and all these other things? They should speak out. This is the kind of intolerance that I’ve been talking about where these idiot presentations continue to be made and you don’t see the senior leadership of the party say, ‘No, that’s wrong.’ In fact, sometimes by not speaking out, they’re encouraging it. And the base keeps buying the stuff.Former Secretary of State Colin Powell • Criticizing unidentified members of the Republican Party during a Monday night appearance on ABC News. The registered Republican, who some have started calling a RINO (Republican In Name Only) after he voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, has repeatedly criticized the fringe elements of his party in recent days, though Powell has continued to insist that he simply wants to see his party grow. Powell also spoke out against what he perceived to be Republican efforts to intentionally lower voter turnout in places where Republican candidates were not polling well during a Monday morning appearance on MSNBC. source
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973. (via sonicbloom11)
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