North Korea confirmed on Sunday that it launched a satellite into space in the early morning, calling the move “peaceful,” despite no one believing that for a second.
The Kwangmyongsong carrier rocket launch was reportedly ordered by Kim Jong Un himself. The launch was described to North Koreans on the country’s state media, according to BBC.
“The fascinating vapour of Juche satellite trailing in the clear and blue sky in spring of February on the threshold of the Day of the Shining Star.’’
Meanwhile in the U.S., we were all distracted by the Republican presidential debate, and the parade of buffoonery that came along with it. There was, however, one question regarding this very launch. Let’s relive:
A massive Zippo Gold Box, Apple Watches, and Amazon devices kick off Super Bowl Sunday’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click hereto learn more.
If you didn’t pull the trigger on Black Friday, Target’s giving you another chance today to save $100 on almost any Apple Watch model, plus an extra 5% for REDCard holders. [$100 off Select Apple Watch Models]
For the first time since the holiday shopping rush, Amazon’s offering discounts today on several of their popular in-house devices, including a 7", $40 Fire tablet.
We’ve seen slightly better deals on 2TB external drives in the past, but if your computer’s running low on space (or heaven forbid, not backed up), then this is a solid discount. [WD Elements 2TB External Drive, $70]
I bought the FitDesk 2.0 on a whim last year and was surprised both by how viable it was to work at, and how compact it gets when folded up. It fits easily into a closet, or opens up for use while working, gaming, or marathoning Netflix, and is particularly nice out on the balcony. Today’s price isn’t the cheapest it’s ever been, but it doesn’t get a discount often. - Shane
Today you can grab a Fitbit Aria smart scale on eBay for an all-time low $85, and with no tax for most. The Aria will give you your weight, BMI, and body fat percentage and of course sync them to your Fitbit app to track changes over time. [Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Weight/Body Fat/BMI Digital Smart Scale, $85]
Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker, click here to learn more.
Marco Rubio, once a young, wide-eyed Senator with a thick head of hair and a skip in his step, was once thought to be the GOP’s best bet. Now, he is a caricature of a broken robot.
During a miserable showing at Saturday night’s Republican presidential debate, the Senator from Florida, perhaps flummoxed by the bright lights and the aggressive wheezing of Chris Christie, short-circuited, repeating the same talking points over and over.
In response, campaigners showed up at Rubio’s first event on Sunday morning in New Hampshire, dressed as robots bearing the words “Marco Roboto” and “Rubio Talking Point 3,000.”
The bots were reportedly sent by the liberal organization American Bridge, and showed up at a town hall to mock him. Interestingly, Rubio supporters, rumored to have been sent by the Rubio campaign itself, showed up with signs blaming Jeb Bush for the robots. Poor Rubio, he doesn’t even know who’s mocking him.
For context, the canned response that the Marco-bots are mocking was actually pretty striking. But seriously, now, let’s dispel with this fiction that Marco Rubio is not a robot. He knows what he’s doing.
Buchanan New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, a three-unit reactor power plant, reported yesterday afternoon that radioactive tritium has been detected in groundwater testing wells near the facility.
Three groundwater monitoring wells surrounding the plant have reported radioactive samples. Despite the discovery at the site, the risk to the public in this instance is low: the discovery is far removed from drinking water systems. That said, tritiated water is often diluted and routinely released from nuclear power plants.
According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “tritium emits a weak form of radiation, a low-energy beta particle similar to an electron. The tritium radiation does not travel very far in air and cannot penetrate the skin.”
Instead of a single proton and neutron, Tritium has a proton and two neutrons. As it decays, beta particles travel only about 6 millimeters, and can’t penetrate human skin. However, if it is inhaled or more often, ingested, it can present a radiation hazard. This can be worrisome, because tritium can bond with oxygen to form water molecules: because of its chemical structure, it can’t be filtered out, hence the dilution.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office released a statement that emphasized that the leak didn’t post a threat to the public:
Our first concern is for the health and safety of the residents close to the facility and ensuring the groundwater leak does not pose a threat.
This latest failure at Indian Point is unacceptable and I have directed Department of Environmental Conservation Acting Commissioner Basil Seggos and Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to fully investigate this incident and employ all available measures, including working with Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to determine the extent of the release, its likely duration, cause and potential impacts to the environment and public health.
Entergy also issued a statement, downplaying any risk to the public, and noted that they had reported the leak to authorities:
While elevated tritium in the ground onsite is not in accordance with our standards, there is no health or safety consequence to the public, and releases are more than a thousand times below federal permissible limits. The tritium did not affect any source of drinking water onsite or offsite.
While the effect of these elevated values is less than one-tenth of one percent of federal reporting guidelines, Entergy made voluntary notification to the NRC, state agencies and key stakeholders.
After the revelations that the water systems of Flint, Michigan and other major cities across the United States have serious issues with lead and other heavy metals, there’s a real concern when it comes to public infrastructure.
The Indian Point facility is owned by the Entergy Corporation, which operates ten nuclear power plants across the United States. Several of its plants in the Northeast, including Vermont’s Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, Massachusetts’ Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station and New York’s James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant have closed or are slated for closure, due in part to increased competition with cheaper oil and natural gas energy supplies.
As nuclear power has become less competitive with other energy sources, they are becoming less profitable as they become more expensive to maintain.
While Entergy has been motivated to close down its power plants due to increased competition from other energy sources, many of the plants under its control are have reached the ends of their forty-year licenses: Indian Point’s Units 1, 2 and 3 were activated in 1962, 1974 and 1976, respectively, while the Fitzpatrick plant was brought online in 1975. Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee were brought online in 1972.
These plants are facing more expensive upkeep in the years ahead, and that pressure has pushed the company to begin shutting down their nuclear plants. While Indian Point has had a decent service record over its history, Governor Cuomo has called for the plant to close as of late last year.
In the meantime, an investigation has been launched into the leaks. While increases in radiation have been detected in three (of the forty) groundwater testing wells, these levels still remain below federal safety limits.
On the way to New Hampshire, my friend Joanna and I listened to a radio segment about a man named Vermin Supreme, a performance artist and political satirist who wears a boot as a hat and is running for president for the 7th time on his“pony economy” platform. “Vermin Supreme—find him,” I typed in my phone.
Luckily, Vermin found us. We spotted him—armed with a giant toothbrush and a Gandalf beard, his companion wielding a hobby horse—through the window of the Bridge Cafe in downtown Manchester, surrounded by a fast-growing crowd. I sprinted outside.
“I’ve been running since ‘92 in the New Hampshire primary, and I’ve been utilizing some simple, elegant and very effective tools to get my message out, of course including something so simple as wearing a rubber boot on my head,” he told me, when I asked what he’s been up to lately.
What do you consider the most important issue in the upcoming presidential election? I asked him.
“Oh, obviously it’s the lack of ponies in America, that’s certainly something I’ve been addressing for a long time.”
What about the second-most important issue?
“That would be the lack of mandatory toothbrushing laws in America today, for you and your children’s protection and safety.”
Third?
“The lack of proper zombie apocalypse awareness and contingency plans, there’s been some starts but I think I could do a lot better on it. And, of course, I’m going to harness the awesome power of zombies to create energy utilizing the latest in giant hamster-wheel technology.”
We took a selfie, and then I went back inside and stared at my Caesar salad.
The Bronx District Attorney’s office announced Friday that it will drop charges against Enger Javier, a man who spent two years in Rikers Island for a 2012 murder he has long maintained he didn’t commit.
District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said in a press release that her office did not have enough evidence to prove Javier’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that new evidence had changed its stance on his case. “Our duty as prosecutors is to do justice, and since I am not convinced that the identification of Mr. Enger as the perpetrator is correct in light of these recent statements by the witnesses and other evidence that we reviewed, this indictment must be dismissed,” Clark said.
Javier (above left) was accused of killing Hansell Arias, a 19-year-old, in a gang-related stabbing outside a Bronx McDonald’s in 2012, and spent two years in pre-trial detention at Rikers before potentially exculpatory DNA evidence led to his release on bail. A key piece of evidence against him was the testimony of Jansel Paula—a man who later recanted, saying the statement he gave police was coerced. Other witnesses also came forward claiming that Javier was not involved in the killing, and pointed to another member of his gang, the Trinitarios, as the perpetrator. (In light of the ordeal, Javier has since said he’d like to leave the gang life behind.)
Surveillance video that police recovered from the scene shows a crowd chasing Arias down Webster Avenue before his death. Javier is present in the video, but he stands away from the crowd, on the sidewalk. According to court transcripts, prosecutors repeatedly denied the existence of the video before turning it over to Javier’s legal team in December.
“Imagine being in jail, being charged for something you didn’t do,” Javier told Gawker in an interview at his home in January. “You would go crazy, thinking about it every day, you know?”
Reached by telephone Sunday, Javier was considerably sunnier, saying he thought the news was a joke when he first heard it “I’m feeling great,” he said.
Still, after years in jail and on house arrest, he was reluctant to fully accept the news until it is made official. The charges have not yet been formally dropped, and he is scheduled to appear in court later this month. “I’m going to celebrate when they officially drop the charges,” he said.
According to District Attorney Clark’s statement, the investigation into Arias’ death is still ongoing. “We must do right by Mr. Hansell Arias and his family,” she said.
Donald Trump is as hungry for the approval of America’s veterans as he is for a big, juicy Trump Steak. But for some veterans, at least, the feeling is not mutual.
On Friday, Liberty House executive director Keith Howard received a call from a Trump campaign staffer, who conveyed that Trump would like to publicly present them with a six-figure check at a Londonderry rallyon Monday, right before the Granite State primary.
It’s an enormous amount of money for a small charity. But Howard said he wouldn’t do it—risking the entire, substantial donation on a point of principle.
Howard said that while he doesn’t oppose accepting money from political campaigns that want to give it, he wouldn’t appear publicly with any campaign, feared that appearing at a candidate’s side could even threaten the status of a non-profit.
“We’re very thankful that the Trump Foundation is donating money, but we’re not going to change what we do in any way for a paycheck,” he told the Beast.
Liberty House isn’t the only veterans organization that refuses to be a prop for the Trump campaign. Last month, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, representing over 150,000 veterans, announced that it would refuse donations from the Trump campaign, with its CEO saying that they “need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts.”
It’s not the first time Trump has tried to pander to veterans for support, with his most recent episode being a rally meant to benefit veterans during the presidential debate he skipped. That being said, Trump’s definition of “veteran” is often wishy-washy, and his respect for veterans—even those who were prisoners of war—is dubious.
Ted Cruz’s latest enemy hates him about as much as his own daughter does—and it’s not even another presidential candidate.
During the Republican presidential debate on Saturday night, the Senator from Texas again misstated the role that CNN played in reporting that candidate Ben Carson was taking a break from the campaign. During the debate, Cruz said, “My political team saw CNN’s report breaking news and they forwarded that news to our volunteers, it was being covered on live television.”
No, Ted, that’s not what we said, said CNNon Sunday. The network released a clip asserting that “at no time” had it ever reported that Carson was dropping out of the race, and suggesting that it did is “a flat-out lie.”
Carson, as it turns out, was just going home to his house in Florida for a fresh set of clothes (ok, sure, whatever). Disregarding this odd detail, the Ted Cruz campaign sent out emails, texts, and voicemails to its campaigners in Iowa just before the caucuses last week, asserting that Carson was in fact dropping out of the race, and that voters should vote for Cruz instead.
“In no way, shape or form did they say that Ben Carson was dropping out of the race,” said CNN’s Tom Foreman.
Kristin Cavallari—shoe designer; jewelry designer; book designer—didn’t always have it so easy. During an interview with Us Weekly at a quasi-charity event for the Boys & Girls Club last week, she revealed, “Laguna Beach was tough.”
Yesterday, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced a series of regulations that would essentially eliminate so-called conversion therapy, a practice that claims to change the sexual orientation of LGTBQ people. Though conversion therapy continues to be used by a handful of religious groups, the practice has been widely criticized by the scientific community; both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association are opposed to the “therapy.”
Mr. Cuomo’s plan relies on economic incentives meant to discourage conversion therapy’s use on young people. Insurers in New York, for instance, will now be prohibited from covering the cost of such therapy for anyone under 18.
That action — issued through the State Financial Services Department — would be combined with a new regulation from the State Health Department that would prohibit the use of Medicaid to pay for conversion therapy. Centers overseen by the State Office of Mental Health would also be barred from providing conversion therapy to minors, according to the governor’s office.
The Times notes that taken together, the measures would effectively eliminate the practice. In a statement, Cuomo called conversion therapy “a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice.” He added that the state would no longer “allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish L.G.B.T. young people for simply being who they are.”
Cuomo’s measures are part of a relatively recent political pushback against conversion therapy. Use of conversion therapy on minors is currently banned in four states and the District of Columbia. Last year, President Obama called for an end of the practice after he was moved by the story of 17-year-old trans teen Leelah Alcorn.
In December 2014, Alcorn committed suicide after her mother forced her to attend conversion therapy.
Hillary Clinton can’t seem to get out from under a scandal involving a series of speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs employees, and she’s turned to sarcasm as a last resort.
For weeks, critics have been calling on the Democratic presidential candidate to release transcripts of the speeches, arguing that Clinton could have been promising big bank staffers that she’d go easy on them if elected president. Clinton has categorically refused, and took to ABC’s This Week on Sunday to say that she’d release them if all her rivals do the same:
“Let everybody who’s ever given a speech to any private group under any circumstances release them. We’ll all release them at the same time.”
Clinton earned about $600,000 for the speeches, and has said that she will “look into” releasing their transcripts.
Okay.....that’s a thought. It makes sense that rules should apply to everyone. The issue here, however, is not that voters want transcripts from every single speech that Clinton has given throughout the history of her political career—a demand that is as impossible as it is irrelevant. The problem, rather, is that Clinton has repeatedly been scolded for accepting large sums in campaign funds from wealthy donors, many of them with connections to Wall St., and with a vested interest in keeping the Wall St. working the way it already does now. By refusing to tell the public what she tells Goldman Sachs’ bankers in private, Clinton is leaving too much to the imagination: what could she possibly have promised bankers that is too damaging to release to her constituents? More likely than not, what we imagine is actually worse than what she actually said behind closed doors.
Clinton has noted, rightfully, that this kind of scrutiny would likely not be heaped on her if she weren’t a woman. It’s undeniable that the game is rigged against her because of gender. That being said, Democratic voters value transparency, and they already have a candidate who is giving them more of it.
This Sunday, cord cutters around the country will participate in the grandest tradition of the year: trying to figure out how to stream the Super Bowl online. Well, we have your answer, sports fans. Here’s how to stream the big game at home over the internet, to whatever device you want to watch on.
This year, CBS is pulling out the big guns with a wide array of ways to stream the main event. Live streaming on mobile devices is limited to Verizon Wireless customers, but everyone else can watch the game—including the halftime show—online through one of several options:
Web: CBS Sports will have a stream here that you can view on your computer, or from any device with a web browser.
Set top boxes: If you have an Apple TV, Android TV, or Roku box, you can watch the game via the CBS Sports app. You can download the the Android TV app here, and the Roku app here. For the Apple TV, search for “CBS Sports” (assuming it’s not featured right now, which it probably is).
Xbox One: Current-gen Xbox users can also download the CBS Sports app from the Xbox One Store to stream the game. Sorry, PS4 fans.
Windows 10: If you want to watch on the computer, but the stream in your browser isn’t working, you can also download—say it with me now,—the CBS Sports app for Windows 10 from the Windows App Store to stream it live as well.
iPad and Android Tablets: If you want to watch the game on the 10" screen in your hand, on top of the 40" screen in your living room, you know the drill by now, grab the free CBS Sports apps for Android and iOS.
iPhones and Android Phones: If you want the big game on an even smaller screen, or you need to go somewhere during the game but don’t want to miss anything, you’ll need the NFL mobile apps. Here are the downloads for Android and iOS. Both apps are free, but as we mentioned, live Super Bowl streams are only available for Verizon Wireless customers. Sad day.
All of this is on top of the regular broadcasts. You can catch the game on CBS which will be broadcasting over the air and free in most areas. If you’re using an OTA antenna, you can check TV Fool to find an affiliate and channel in your area carrying the game. If all else fails, there’s certainly a bar or pub nearby with the game on. For those outside the U.S., you may need the NFL Game Pass to watch, which is $99/year (though they offer a 7-day trial period which might work if you haven’t used it already).
All-in-all, this is a pretty impressive spread for the biggest football event of the year. Cord cutters are getting off easy this time around. The game starts at 6:30PM ET on Sunday, February 7th.
It’s one thing to endorse someone for president. It’s a whole different ballgame to memorize what they say, word for word, and mouth it as they say it.
But for Steve King, the U.S. Representative from Iowa, the memorization of Ted Cruz’s speeches, and hand gestures, are just another way to express his affection and admiration. In a Vine posted earlier this week, King is seen mumbling along with Cruz, as he speaks at a campaign rally. The Vine is truly a triumph of unsettling majesty:
King has expressed his admiration for the Republican presidential candidate before, endorsing him in a similarly unsettling video last November. It makes sense, though—King is an anti-Muslimhomophobe who advocated for the rights of dog fighters. It’s a match made in heaven.
On this day of all days, arguably the most important day of the year for both athletics and for #brands, we must not forget the ties that bind us: namely, the ties between the Denver Broncos’ quarterback, and the youngest Bush boy.
It’s been well established that Peyton Manning is a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. According to The Denver Post, Manning has donated a total of $2,700 to Bush’s campaign so far—the maximum an individual can donate. Manning, a devout Christian, has donated more than $14,000 to Republican campaigns since 2004, including $2,000 to the campaign of Jeb’s brother, George W. Bush.
And the feeling, it seems, is mutual. During the Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire on Saturday night, Bush confirmed the relationship with a sly smirk.
The Panthers clawed back to within three points of the Broncos with this second quarter dive over the lines by Jonathan Stewart. With the hundreds of photographers in the stadium keyed up for a goal line touchdown, we got a ton of cool angles of Stewart’s touchdown.
Bill Clinton has decided to start attacking his wife’s opponent for the Democratic nomination for president, since that worked so well eight years ago. At a rally in New Hampshire on Sunday, Bill mocked Bernie Sanders’s desire for “revolution” and accused Sanders supporters of sexism.
Per the New York Times, Clinton portrayed Sanders as “hypocritical, ‘hermetically sealed’ and dishonest” in a speech to Hillary supporters. “When you’re making a revolution you can’t be too careful with the facts,” he said. Then he fully embraced the “Bernie Bro” narrative:
...Mr. Clinton’s most pointed remarks may have been when he took aim at Sanders supporters who, he said, use misogynistic language in attacking Mrs. Clinton. He told the story of a female “progressive” blogger who defended Mrs. Clinton online through a pseudonym because, he said, the vitriol from Mr. Sanders’s backers was so unrelenting.
“She and other people who have gone online to defend Hillary, to explain why they supported her, have been subject to vicious trolling and attacks that are literally too profane often, not to mention sexist, to repeat.” Mr. Clinton, growing more demonstrative, added that the liberal journalist Joan Walsh had faced what he called “unbelievable personal attacks” for writing positively about Mrs. Clinton.
True as these claims may be, Bill Clinton—you know, the guy who screwed his intern—is probably not the right guy to be making them. It’s also not hard to remember what happened when Bill attacked Barack Obama in 2008, calling his campaign “the biggest fairytale I’ve ever seen.” Video of Bill delivering that choice comment was all over the news for weeks, and it didn’t do much to actually help Hillary’s campaign. The Clinton campaign is lucky no video of Bill’s attack on Sanders has surfaced yet—though maybe that’s exactly why they had the former president making a campaign appearance at a small New Hampshire middle school.
Over the course of our four-day jaunt across snowy New Hampshire, a thought occurred to us that has also recently occurred to Marco “Roboto” Rubio: we, the media, are very annoying.
Most of the politicians we saw were at least 20 feet away; at many events, we were penned up at the back or in a separate location altogether, kept as far away as possible from the candidate in question. Mostly, our up-close encounters were with our grim mirror images: the drawn, gray faces of other members of the media.
Nearly every event we attended was an over-capacity disaster that would likely have been tolerable if not for the swollen crowd of reporters blocking all excess movements and causing considerable fire hazards. Multiple times, we tried to interview a member of the press, thinking they were New Hampshire voters. Multiple times, we saw other members of the press do the same thing. We were everywhere, and there was no escape.
Still, we managed to capture some great photos of candidates on the campaign trail.
Here is a photo of the press room at Thursday’s MSNBC-Union Leader Democratic Debate, which was not located in the same building as the debate. We had a lot of fun reporting live from the scene.
And here’s the press room for the McIntyre Shaheen 100 Club Celebration at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester. If you look very closely you can see little white and blue sandwich boxes, which were labeled with either an H or a T. This proved highly agitating to the reporters in the room, one of whom muttered, “I do want it if it’s turkey, but I don’t want it if it’s tuna!”
We were actually allowed into the main arena for the 100 Club celebration, which was kind of shocking. This is us getting some good face time with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The stage setup looks vaguely totalitarian!
Here’s an exciting up-close view of presidential candidate and famed pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the hallway of his campaign headquarters, saying hello to the extra supporters who weren’t allowed into the over-capacity event. In a few moments, we’d get to shake hands with him and his wife, Candy. It was a meaningful three seconds for all of us.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had a “meet and greet” at Bruschetti’s Pizzeria in Sandown, NH. We honestly thought we might be sitting down and eating pizza, which is, in retrospect, hilarious.
We were unable to get into the small restaurant for at least 10 minutes, because cameras and boom microphones were literally bursting out of the front door. Once in the restaurant, we found ourselves boobs-to-back with tens of other vaguely urban-looking media types holding little note pads. When Christie finally emerged from the restaurant, it was apparent that the crowd was about eight-to-one, press to civilians.
Our view from the press section at Gov. Jeb Bush’s town hall in Bedford, NH. What you can’t see from this photo is that the media section spanned the width of the middle school gym, and it was this obnoxious the whole way! The image at the top of this article is of the press pen from the perspective of the audience—bonus points if you can spot a miserable Joanna!
We tried to catch a glimpse of Sen. Marco Rubio at his “Pancakes with Marco Rubio” event in Londonderry, NH. Notably, there were no pancakes because, according to Rubio, his campaign staff “couldn’t figure out how to make pancakes for 800 people.” Ironically, most of the attendees likely only came for the pancakes, not the stump speech and handful of canned answers that he delivered.
We also attended events for Carly Fiorina and Jim Gilmore, but we didn’t experience much trouble getting a good view there.
The year 2015 was the year female journalists let their boyfriends dress them for content. The trend began last February, when xoJane published a personal essay titled, “I Let My Boyfriend Dress Me for a Week,” by Kelsey Lawrence. In order to promote honesty in their relationship, Lawrence wrote, she asked her boyfriend to pick out her outfits each day for a week, and he did.
Since then, over 20 different outlets have published nearly identical pieces in which women writers breezily discuss how it felt to let their significant others wield complete control over their self-presentation for seven days. Buzzfeed just published one just last week titled, “My Boyfriend Dressed Me for a Week and This Is What Happened.”
Monster hybrids of stunt and confession (“I am VERY insecure about my flabtacular arms, so I envisioned people gawking at my jiggly fat,” wrote Buzzfeed’s Nina Mohan about wearing one of her boyfriend’s chosen ensembles), these essays have been universally successful, with Buzzfeed’s post approaching two million page views.
The boyfriends who agreed to participate and be featured in the essays, however, have been universally bad. Which one is the worst? We took a look at seven of the top essays from the last year to find out. Here are the boyfriends who dressed their girlfriends for a week, ranked from bad to worse.
The fiancé: “Will” An outfit the fiancé picked out: a little black dress and studded sky-high heels Something the fiancé said: “I had an interesting time dressing Penny for the week, it was a fun challenge trying to balance not embarrassing her in public (I spend enough time working on that anyway) with trying to pick things that I thought looked good on her.”
The boyfriend: “Luke” An outfit the boyfriend picked out: a San Diego Chargers jersey, yellow pencil skirt, and rabbit fur coat Something the boyfriend said: “[Leggings] abstract your body because they’re normally worn with something baggy over them. Jeans are simple and have buttons.”
The husband: “Rand” An outfit the husband picked out: a pink button-down shirt and cropped jeans Something the husband said: “Why do you have clothes in your closet that don’t fit?”
The boyfriend: “Chris” An outfit the boyfriend picked out: a miniskirt, leather jacket, and big hat Something the boyfriend said: “As far as makeup, I’ve always been attracted to the ‘less-is-more’ approach. I just want her to have the confidence to capriciously change things up and throw on threads she shied away from in the past.”
The fiancé: “David” An outfit the fiancé picked out: leggings, white tank top, plaid button-down, long hoodie, leather jacket, and metallic slip-on sneakers Something the fiancé said: “I like when women wear things that are less restrictive and flowy—it sends a relaxed vibe that says, ‘I’m chill and laid back,’ which makes me feel comfortable.”
The husband: “D.J.” An outfit the husband picked out: a v-neck sweater, skinny jeans, and boots Something the husband said: “I think your butt looks good. And you kindof look like a dude?”
The husband: “Thomas” An outfit the husband picked out: a silk jumper, blazer, and strappy sandals Something the husband said: “I know you like to wear your leather jacket with this look, but you have a meeting today, and blazers are better for meetings.”
Reports of an email promising Marco Rubio better coverage if he’d just appear on Morning Joe have apparently prompted host Joe Scarborough to take to several mediums to hammer home a single point: He’s really not jealous of Marco Rubio.
“I have never met Rubio,” he writes. “We never crossed paths politically, professionally, or socially.... I have never once said a single thing negative about Rubio personally off the air. Not once.”
Furthermore, Joe Scarborough says, he only talks shit about Marco Rubio to people who don’t work in politics, media or business or live in Florida, D.C. or New York.
There is no one in the entire state of Florida, in Washington, D.C., in New York, in the political world, the media world, or the business world that can name a time that I have ever spoken an ill word about Rubio as a person.
Scarborough was apparently prompted to write the denial after someone who doesn’t not work for Rubio’s campaign began circulating an email a Morning Joe employee wrote trying to book Rubio for the show.
According to the New York Times, which obtained a copy of the email, Rubio—the only presidential candidate not to pass by Joe’s desk this election—has appeared on the show only once since taking office in 2010. And it hurt Joe’s feelings.
The message from a top producer at MSNBC was blunt: Joe Scarborough, the host of “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, was displeased that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida repeatedly appeared on rival cable news shows but kept rebuffing invitations to appear on his program.
For Mr. Scarborough, the email from the producer made it clear, it was personal.
“Joe sees this as disrespectful given their past relationship,” the producer wrote to a Rubio aide who had complained about the show’s coverage of Mr. Rubio. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Have him come on with us,” the producer wrote.
Although the Times does not quote the email in full, the paper notes one portion “seemed to offer better coverage for increased access.” Scarborough, in a text to the Times reporter, said, “That’s a booker being a booker and being aggressive.”
But many of Mr. Rubio’s allies, and even some pundits, view Mr. Scarborough’s distaste for him as driven by something more elemental: envy.
“Almost every election cycle since Joe left Congress, there is talk that he should run for U.S. Senate, governor, or something else,” said Brian Crowley, a former Florida political reporter, adding that after Mr. Rubio became the Florida House speaker, “he started crowding that space.” Mr. Scarborough is a former Republican congressman from the state’s panhandle.
...
Both men were ascendant conservative stars in Florida until their paths diverged.
Mr. Scarborough, who served four terms in the House, had long eyed a Senate seat. But it was Mr. Rubio, who ran and won in 2010, buoyed by a Tea Party wave. (At the time, Mr. Scarborough questioned the viability of Mr. Rubio’s candidacy, at one point warning that the “other shoe” was going to drop — though the promised scandal never emerged.)
This cycle, Mr. Scarborough encouraged speculation that he might wage a presidential bid. But again, it was Mr. Rubio who mounted a campaign for president. Mr. Scarborough said he never considered running for president, and pointed out that he lives in Connecticut — so he would not have been competing with Mr. Rubio for a Senate seat.
“I don’t know Marco well enough to resent him,” is what Joe Scarborough has to say about all of that.
