Politics

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Wednesday Link-Off: Video Game Break

meg-turney-playboy15-02Let’s take a little time to get away from our coverage of E3 2015. Don’t worry, I’ll have trailers from all of the press conferences at E3 and then some news coverage of the more exciting announcements and reveals at the convention.

Right now, it’s time for us to look at some of the other important happenings in the world outside of the Los Angeles Convention Center with the Wednesday links. Keeping with the E3 theme, though, here’s Meg Turney.

CSIS warned the Province of Ontario that a cabinet minister could be under China’s influence. The provincial government disregarded the spy agency. (The Globe and Mail)

Donald Trump is planning to run for President. Philip Bump tried fact-checking the speech but found it to be completely impossible. (Washington Post)

How is Kansas paying for its tax cut for the rich? Raising taxes that will most adversely affect the poor. (Think Progress)

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Wednesday Link-Off: Investigate This

salma-hayek-guyschoice15-01bIf there’s one thing that I’m a fan of, it’s an empowered press corps. Often times, the press are at their best when they try to do actual reporting. When investigative reporting works, it’s one of the great public services. Of course, as an ex-newsman, I might be a little biased there.

Anyway, it’s time for us to do the Wednesday set of links. Let’s kick things off with Salma Hayek.

The boss of Canadian investigative reporters, Kevin Donovan, just took down another big star. This time, it’s the CBC’s Evan Solomon. (Toronto Star)

Investigative reporting isn’t just the realm of newspapers any more. InTouch did some solid investigative reporting to break the Duggar story. (Washington Post)

One of the reasons that Sepp Blatter got re-elected (for four days) as FIFA president was because of the help he supposedly gave poorer soccer nations. While they’re getting money, they aren’t improving because of it. (FiveThirtyEight)

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Sunday Link-Off: Selfie

Hello and welcome to The Lowdown Blog. Okay, that’s the podcast intro but we recorded an episode yesterday and I’m going to start the editing soon. Hopefully, I’ll have it up this week. If not, we’ll be missing some E3 coverage. At least that’ll be on the blog.

Anyway, it’s time for us to do the links. Let’s change things up and kick things off with Kate Hudson.

You’ve probably heard the term about how the rich get richer but it’s actually true. Even the IRS helps the rich get richer as they make more money. (Washington Post)

How did the Americans make their latest strike against ISIS? By back-tracking a selfie. (Washington Times)

Penn Jillette has been watching official videos from Presidential candidates and has found out what might make Bernie Sanders the most formidable candidate on the trail. (CNN)

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Wednesday Link-Off: Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows

gillian-jacobs-criticschoice15-01I think I’ve got a good mix of links today. We’ve got some stories about modern society and some about politics and some about FIFA. This has been a pretty interesting week so far and we’re really only two days into it. Granted, in my many years doing this blog, that usually means a dull back half of the week.

Anyway, it’s Wednesday which means that it’s time for the links. Since Community just wrapped up Season Six, here’s Gillian Jacobs.

Here in longform news that is obvious any time people go on the internet: “Badly educated men in rich countries have not adapted well to trade, technology or feminism.” (The Economist)

Hilary Clinton might be the most popular politician in America. She’s so popular that the media machine that hates the Clintons might be broken by popular support to the contrary. (Vox)

Breaking news: Your scoop doesn’t matter any more. (Gawker)

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Sunday Link-Off: The Grab Bag

elizabeth-banks-edit15-02Sometimes, it’s really hard to come up with a theme with a linkdump post. I know I’ve said that a few times before but I’m struggling to come up with a title and intro for this post. So I’m just going to shut up and let links happen.

And with that out of the way, it’s time for the Sunday set of links. Since Jackie covered off San Andreas yesterday, today, let’s cover off Pitch Perfect with Elizabeth Banks.

The 2016 Presidential campaign hasn’t really started but Jeb Bush is already slinging mud and lies. This is going to get ugly people. (Washington Post)

RIM/BlackBerry was one of the many short-lived great Canadian tech success stories. This time, it wasn’t a tech bubble that killed a Canadian tech giant but leadership that killed RIM. (MacLean’s)

A man threatened to kill himself so his girlfriend called the police. He ended up getting killed. Is suicide by cop a problem with the suicidal person or the cops? (The Daily Beast)

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Wednesday Link-Off: Quick Hits

Tomorrow and Friday is review day this week. We’ll have a couple of Game of Thrones reviews. One will be the TV show review that’s on Fridays of Ice and Fire. Tomorrow, it’s a look at Episode Three of Telltale’s Game of Thrones game. Maybe it should have been Game of Thrones week here on the blog. Mind you, we’d probably get a lot of hits if we did daily GoT content during the season.

Anyway, it’s time for us to do Wednesday’s links. Continuing our photos from Cannes, here’s Irina Shayk.

The Baltimore riots weren’t really about one person dying in police custody. It was the result of an ongoing pattern of police violence that we’ve seen in the news time and time again. (Rolling Stone)

Bad news for America’s political right. Americans are starting to lean back to the left and are more open about identifying as liberals. While President Obama might have started this trend, he won’t be around to reap the benefits. (Washington Post)

Not helping matters for the GOP is that a former Republican Senator has some pretty damning things to say about the party’s legal challenge to Obamacare. (The New Republic)

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Sunday Link-Off: The Political Domain

chrissy-teigen-bbma15-02bToday’s set of links has a lot of links about politics and the economy. Considering how many important things are happening in the world, it amazes me how few people seem to care about the stuff that truly matters. Maybe it’s just the people I spend my time with day-to-day but they’ll gladly talk about sports or reality TV but things like current events? Forget about it. And you wonder why people worry about younger generations.

Alright, it’s Sunday so it’s time for us to do the links. Let’s kick things off with Chrissy Teigen.

Five big banks have been hit with nearly $6 billion in fines for rigging currency markets. It’s kind of a big deal. (The Real News)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership was supposed to be a slam dunk trade deal. Now that the public is catching wind of what it’s really about, there’s push back that is threatening the agreement. (Al Jazeera America)

Al Jazeera America was built to be a newsman’s dream. Think of it as The Newsroom of newsrooms. However, somewhere along the way, the culture has taken a tumble and AJAM is falling apart. (Jezebel)

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Wednesday Link-Off: America, F*ck Yeah

miranda-kerr-cannes15-02A little late but probably better for it, it’s time for the Wednesday links. Today, we’ve got a bit of a ‘Murica themed edition of the links. It includes such timeless links as how many Americans are married to their cousins and… Yes, that is an actual statistical analysis someone did. And, yes, it was an American site that did it.

Anyway, let’s get to the links. We’ve got a lot of pictures from the Cannes Film Festival and let’s start with Miranda Kerr.

How to do the Republican Presidential candidates want to assure you they aren’t all gung-ho about war? They’re now blaming faulty intelligence for the Iraq War. Faulty intelligence that most people saw through. (Mother Jones)

The question everyone wants the answer to: Just how many Americans are married to their cousins? (FiveThirtyEight)

Could Stephen Harper be considered one of the worst Prime Ministers of all-time? Of recent memory, yes. In 50 years, he could go down as one of the most forgettable. (National Observer)

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Sunday Link-Off: The Road to 2016

nina-dobrev-self15-02I don’t know about the rest of you but I was really, really busy last week. I thought that weeks before and after long weekends were supposed to be fairly easy. Instead, I’m busier this week and weekend than I have been at any point in the last six months. I’m not sure that I can call this a holiday weekend.

But enough of my petty bitching and moaning. I can’t imagine anyone else cares. So let’s just do the Sunday links. Since it’s a Canadian long weekend, let’s kick off with Canadian actress Nina Dobrev.

It’s been a long time since “mission accomplished” was declared in Iraq but it may play a big part in how the 2016 Presidential candidates security and diplomacy policies are evaluated. (Washington Post)

It’s not just his own record that Jeb Bush will be running on. He’ll also be judged on the actions of Bush’s past. (New York Times)

With new agreements for direct publishing onto Facebook, the likes of the New York Times and BuzzFeed could be compromising their editorial standard for traffic. (TKTK)

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Wednesday Link-Off: Botchamania

zooey-deschanel-cosmo15-01Sometime, it’s easy to come up with a theme for a post. Other time, you find two links that are vaguely related to some common theme so you can toss that in as a theme. So we have a link about botches in wrestling and another about CZW. Well, that’s just tailor-made for Botchamania.

Anyway, it’s time for us to do the links. Let’s change things up and kick off with Zooey Deschanel. At least her show survived to next season not many people seem to stick around Fox for long.

Toronto FC fans shouted sexually vulgar remarks at a City News reporter on Sunday. Writing this intro to the link made me realize how easy it is to say something like that and generalize a whole group of people who don’t deserve it. These people don’t represent TFC or its fans but we almost make it sound that way when generalizing the story like this. (Toronto Sun)

One of the men that heckled the reporter was fired from his day job. I’d imagine he’ll have some wrongful dismissal action on the way. (CBC News)

If you’re a minimum-wage worker in the US and want to get above the poverty line, you only need to work 50 hours a week to get there. And where is a worker supposed to find time for a family. (Wall Street Journal)

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