Short takes on Rand Paul, Steven Slater, Kanye West, and Charlie Rangel

Short takes – sound bites from TJ

Kanye West has been invited back to the MTV Video Music Awards show. Prediction: he won’t be grabbing the mic from Taylor Swift or anyone else this year. In fact, there may be a few sketches where other people grab the mic out of his had repeatedly. It will help his image if he went along with the skit good-naturedly.

Rand Paul finally denied the charges that he kidnapped a woman while he was in college. He  went 24 hours before making the denial—a major strategic blunder. Worse, his apology seemed weasily because he conflated the charges that he had been abducted by aliens with the charges that he had kidnapped a woman and said that “they” were untrue. This was either a sloppy apology or he really isn’t denying the kidnapping charges. Expect this issue to get further play in the campaign.

Steven Salter, Steven Slater, Steven Slater. Get use to hearing his name. The flight attendant turned “Thelma and Louise” is going to become Levi Johnston, Joe the Plumber and Jake the Bachelor all rolled into one if he plays his cards right.

Charlie Rangel gave a passionate speech on the floor of the House yesterday. Will it help him? Unfortunately the die is cast and people have made up their minds. It might not be fair, but congressmen who have been in public office/life for 60 years have no business owning vacation homes in the Caribbean and having numerous below market rental apartments.

Netflix makes major deal to stream thousands of major movies. The big question for the movie industry is this: now that connection speeds make it almost as easy to download a movie as it is a song, what is to keep the movie industry from imploding the way the music industry has?