Hot Dogs, Politics, and Hoops: A VICE Sports Investigation into the LaMarcus Aldridge Wiki Edits

LaMarcus Aldridge Wikipedia article edited anonymously from US Senate https://t.co/jDYDkMneBP
— congress-edits (@congressedits) July 1, 2015

Today, the beautiful and wondrous state of Oregon is feeling the full emotional range of the statehood experience. July 1st marks the day in which recreational marijuana is officially legalized in the state, and the first day of NBA free agency, where it appears that the state will lose Portland Trail Blazers superstar LaMarcus Aldridge to San Antonio.

And so, naturally, now comes a story that combines government affairs, recreational marijuana activities, and NBA free agency. Someone was anonymously editing Aldridge's Wikipedia entry from the U.S. Senate and was caught by the Twitter bot @congressedits.

The first edit claimed that Aldridge was currently a member of the 1985 Chicago Bears. Then, one minute later, the anonymous Senate prankster updated the page again to say that Aldridge was instead currently a member of the 2012 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Although it's unclear exactly who made these edits, as a proud son of Oregon, I can say with near certainty that this is not the work of some anonymous staffer, but rather one of our senators, Ron Wyden (D) or Jeff Merkley (D).

Wyden has long been a proponent of net neutrality and policies to expand and protect Internet freedoms, which would fall in line with wanting to make Wikipedia edits willy nilly. But Wyden isn't originally from Oregon so his motives as a Blazer fan don't really stack up.

Senator Merkley, however, is from Portland, and he loves LaMarcus. Here is a picture of them hanging out together that Merkley posted to his Facebook.

Plus, Merkley loves hot dogs! He loves them so much, in fact, that he came under fire in 2008 when during campaign stop, he was eating a hot dog as someone asked him what he thought about Russia's invasion of Georgia and he couldn't even muster a response. He just kept eating the hot dog in silence.

I see you, Merkley, anonymous Wikipedia editor and hot dog lover. You don't need to hide alone in the anonymous shadows any longer; we're all sad that LaMarcus is probably going to San Antonio.