BY JONATHAN VALANIA They are already calling it The Gotcha Debate. Lucky us! First up, we discuss how Obama is a latte-sipping, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening, America-hatin’ so-and-so and why that is so bad, and don’t you agree Hillary? Stephanopoulos just asked Obama if Reverend Wright loves America as much as he does. What next, loyalty oaths? Dude volunteered to go to Vietnam, George, where were you? * Now for a brief yet pointless detour into vox populi with a coupla questions from embittered Pennsyltuckians. Joe Stupid Sweater from Pittsburgh wants to know why Hillary lied about sniper fire in Bosnia and what […]
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CONTEST: Do You Cebu?
How does a shot and beer with big Bob Brady sound? We have just been given 10 tickets to giveaway to Phawker readers. Hit us back at FEED@PHAWKER.COM and we will duly deputize you as a member of the pajama-clad media. PROGRAMMING NOTE: We will be live-blogging from inside the belly of the beast tonight. JONATHAN VALANIA will be inside the press room, translating the candidates comments into something closer to the truth and providing an update on the size of Howard Fineman’s ass. He’s bringing his calipers. TIFFANY YOON will be shooting the pageantry and street theater of the […]
LIVE AND DIRECT: The Audacity Of Teamsters
Sen. Barack Obama, on his way to address a union audience in Philadelphia this morning. [photo by MASTERCHEF28] BY NICK POWELL CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENT Obama addressed the AFL-CIO at a Center City Sheraton this morning, and judging by the roaring cheers and Holy Ghost shrieks, one would have thought that Barack Obama had already saved our sagging economy, brought the boys home from Iraq and ended racism as we know it. Speaking to a major pow-wow of union workers, the effervescent U.S. Senator fired up his base, dissed his own bowling skills, discussed the Rocky comparisons, and drew a line in […]
What’s Good For The Silly Gooses Of Wall Street Is Good For The Soon-To-Be Foreclosed Ganders Of Main St.
Hillary Clinton delivers economic policy address this morning at Penn [NICK POWELL] BY NICK POWELL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT Flanked by a Pennsylvania Dream Team of Governor Ed Rendell, Mayor Michael Nutter, and Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, Senator Hillary Clinton attacked the Bush administration, spared Barack Obama, and outlined her new four-point plan to save the country’s reeling economy this morning at the University of Pennsylvania. Clinton began today’s press conference by praising both Rendell and Nutter for their “visionary leadership” and for their efforts to fix “an issue critical not only for Pennsylvania but for our country.” Clinton also made a brief […]
KID IN THE HALL: Like A $16 Million Parking Ticket
BY NICK POWELL CITY HALL CORRESPONDENT Starting next year parking will cost Philadelphians $16 million more than it did in 2008 if a new parking tax bill before City Council passes. The bill, sponsored by Council President Anna C. Verna and Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco, would call for a 33 percent hike in the current tax rate, which works out to be a whopping 20 percent of the cost of parking your car in a lot. The parking tax as it currently stands requires drivers to shoulder 15% of the tax on every parking transaction. Newly appointed Revenue Commissioner Keith […]
FUN WITH TOURISTS: Ordinance Would Forbid Telling Gullible White Trash Things Like Ben Franklin Invented The Internet & Washington Kept Dinosaurs As Pets Etc.
BY NICK POWELL CITY HALL CORRESPONDENT In the interest of ensuring historic accuracy in the city’s burgeoning tourism industry, a long-threatened bill was finally brought before the Committee of Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs today that would amend a Philadelphia law and require all Philadelphia tour guides to be certified. The bill, sponsored by Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, was met with a very mixed reaction from those giving testimony and otherwise. * The bill itself, Brown said, will be implemented in two phases before being brought before the City Council. They will first test the certification requirement, including an application […]
WIRE FROM THE BUNKER: Meet The New Dylans
BY JONATHAN HOULON FOLK MUSIC EDITOR Bruce Springsteen is certainly the most famous artist to have been saddled with the “New Dylan” tag at the beginning of his career and, indeed, in a stamp-sized photo on the back cover of his first LP, the Boss looks like he coulda been Bob’s greaser cousin from Joisey. His blue work shirt, in particular, calls to mind Bob’s working stiff appearance on the front cover of his own Times They Are A-Changing release from 1963, a good decade before Springsteen’s emergence on Greetings From Asbury Park in ’73. But, musically, Bruce never […]
THE NEW DEAL: Obama Announces Nat. Sec. Team
NY FISHBOWL: Barry Blitt, the cartoonist responsible for the New Yorker‘s controversial terrorist fist-jabbing cover, among others, returns this week to “vet” Barack Obama. Of course this time around “Vetting” refers to the all important decision of picking a “first” puppy — thus far we know they want a mutt, but that it needs to be hypoallergenic and won’t be a girly dog. MORE LOS ANGELES TIMES: Reporting from Chicago — President-elect Barack Obama unveiled his national security team today, including formally announcing his intention to nominate his onetime rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, […]
PAPERBOY: Election Afterglow Edition
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
TEXAS OBSERVER: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Chasing Assassins Bobby Kennedy died believing his brother’s killers had not been found by Matthew Stevenson/THE TEXAS OBSERVER Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years By David Talbot Simon & Schuster 478 pages, $28 When President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas in November 1963, his younger brother Robert, then the U.S. attorney general, was having lunch at his home in northern Virginia. As recounted in Brothers, David Talbot’s stirring and troubling history of Bobby’s descent into the underworlds of conspiracy, word of the shooting reached him when J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, telephoned. In […]