Colbert's sister to run for Congress
A Colbert is running for office in South Carolina once more, but this time, it’s not a joke.
Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, sister of comedian and Charleston native Stephen Colbert, will file candidacy papers for South Carolina’s first congressional district today, St. Andrews Patch reports. When she does, she will officially enter a race that already features colorful candidates like former Gov. Mark Sanford, who held the Congressional seat in the ’90s and ended his gubernatorial term in scandal when he went missing for a week and was later discovered to be visiting a woman in Argentina.
Colbert-Busch, who is filing as a Democrat, currently serves as the director of sales and marketing for Clemson University’s wind turbine drivetrain testing facility in North Charleston and lives in Mount Pleasant.
There is already speculation that the long-held Republican seat may have a chance to turn Democrat due to Stephen Colbert’s star power and fundraising abilities; the comedian raised more than $800,000 for his Super-PAC when he was running for “the President of the United States of South Carolina.”
—Amanda Coyne, Assistant News Editor
Obama celebrates second inaugural
President Barack Obama’s second inauguration was held in Washington, D.C., Monday, marking the beginning of his second term.
Due to constitutional mandates, Obama actually took the oath of office Sunday. The Constitution states the president must be administered the oath before noon on Jan. 20.
Because he took the oath again Monday and had to retake the oath in 2009 after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts misspoke while administering the oath of office at Obama’s first inauguration, Obama became the second president to swear the oath four times.
The only other president who swore the oath four times was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected four times, before presidential term limits were implemented.
The inauguration was a star-studded event, featuring performances by Beyoncé, Kelly Clarkson and James Taylor. Celebrity fundraisers like Eva Longoria were also in attendance.
—Amanda Coyne, Assistant News Editor
Roth almost victim of Te'o-style hoax
After Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o was revealed to be the victim of an elaborate Internet hoax featuring a fake girlfriend, a car crash and leukemia, former Gamecocks baseball pitcher Michael Roth revealed on his personal blog that he was once on the wrong end of a similar scheme.
While spending the summer after his first College World Series win playing for the New England Collegiate Baseball League in Maine, he received a text message from a woman claiming to have met him while at the College World Series.
After more than a year of talking and suspicion, Roth took to the Web to see if the woman was trying to scam him. He found similar stories in chat rooms about the same woman and discovered she had begun contacting random men to see if people could fall in love over the phone. After learning this, he confronted her and told her never to contact him again.
—Amanda Coyne, Assistant News Editor