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Guest Post From A U.S. Marine About Barack Obama’s Shocking And Disgusting Use Of An Umbrella

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

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Nonetheless, we called our older brother, Eric Steinberg, to ask if there could possibly be anything to the nonsense M. Joseph Sheppard and the entire Internet was vomiting all over the place, before it could get on our shoes.

He started yelling. A lot. “I GUARANTEE YOU!” he yelled, “IF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF GIVES YOU A LAWFUL ORDER YOU FOLLOW THE MOTHERFUCKING LAWFUL ORDER. IF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF WANTS AN UMBRELLA YOU BETTER BELIEVE A WHOLE FUCKING GRIP OF JARHEARDS ARE GONNA BE HIGH-STEPPING TO BRING HIM A MOTHERFUCKING UMBRELLA!”

And then he warmed up. “IN FACT! THE REAL FUCKING SCANDAL IS THAT THE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF WASN’T THE ONE HOLDING IT. ‘YOU! CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS! HOLD MY MOTHERFUCKING UMBRELLA!’”

Then he decided to calm down, and write his words, with a lot of violent ideation that would get him banned five times over for disregarding the Rules for Commenting Radicals. Do not try this at home (or in the comments).

http://wonkette.com/516692/guest-post-from-a-u-s-marine-about-barack-obamas-shocking-and-disgusting-use-of-an-umbrella

BY JONATHAN COHN

Childcare in the U.S. is frequently mediocre, sometimes awful, and very occasionally deadly. If you read my recent article, “The Hell of American Day Care,” then you know all about this—and you have some sense of why such conditions prevail. Among the reasons: States have primary responsibility for childcare. And many states do a lousy job.

But the federal government isn’t powerless to fix the problem. Through the Child Care and Development Fund, it provides most of the money that states use to subsidize childcare for low-income parents. That subsidy gives officials in Washington some leverage: They can insist that any state or any provider using federal funds live up to federal standards.

Officials haven’t really used the leverage before: The last time the Department of Health and Human Services issued safety and quality regulations for childcare was 1998, shortly after legislation created the Fund. Those standards were minimal, creating the loose regulatory environment in which so many shoddy child care providers can operate.

But change may be coming, thanks to the Obama Administration. On Thursday, HHS officials announced that they were formally proposing a new, stricter set of regulations on childcare. Some of the regulations would establish a national baseline of quality standards—like making sure every caregiver has CPR training and gets a full background check, using fingerprints. Other regulations would require states to collect and post more information about childcare providers on the internet, so that parents can determine for themselves which ones are likely to take the best care of their kids.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113233/child-care-quality-new-standards-obama-administration#

Are the Ibo people of Nigeria a lost tribe of Israel? A longstanding tradition among the Ibo says they are, and points to similarities in Ibo and Jewish cultures: a prescribed day of rest, circumcision (male, that is), the prohibition of pork. And now some Ibo have embraced Judaism, considering it the religion of their ancestors.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/movies/re-emerging-the-jews-of-nigeria-a-documentary.html?src=recg

The nurse and the soldier may never have met – and eventually married – had it not been for the American government’s mistreatment of black women during World War II.

Elinor Elizabeth Powell was an African-American military nurse. Frederick Albert was a German prisoner of war. Their paths crossed in Arizona in 1944. It was a time when the Army was resisting enlisting black nurses and the relatively small number allowed entry tended to be assigned to the least desirable duties.

“They decided they were going to use African-Americans but in very small numbers and in segregated locations,” said Charissa Threat, a history professor at Northeastern University who teaches race and gender studies.

Ms. Powell was born in 1921 in Milton, Mass., and in, 1944, after completing basic training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., she was sent, as some other black nurses were, to tend to German prisoners of war in Florence, Ariz.

“I know the story of how they met,” said Chris Albert, 59, the youngest son of Elinor and Frederick Albert. “It was in the officers’ mess hall, and my father was working in the kitchen. He kind of boldly made his way straight for my mother and said: ‘You should know my name. I’m the man who’s going to marry you.’”

Frederick Karl Albert was born in 1925 in Oppeln, Germany. “He volunteered for the paratroops to impress his father, who served in WWI,” Mr. Albert said. “His father was an engineer and not really interested in his children. My dad ended up getting captured in Italy.”

He joined many other German prisoners who were detained in camps across the United States. With millions of American men away in combat or basic training, P.O.W.’s became a solution to the labor shortage. Under the Geneva Convention, enlisted prisoners of war could work for the detaining power, said Matthias Reiss, a professor at the University of Exeter, in England, who has researched the history of German P.O.W.’s. “So the idea was, bring them over to America and let them do the unskilled work.”

In the camp in Arizona, Frederick Albert worked in the kitchen, where he prepared special meals for Elinor. A romance between the two blossomed but not without consequences. “My dad was severely beaten by a group of officers when they found out about my mom,” Mr. Albert said, referring to American soldiers.

At Camp Florence, as well as other camps, the environment for black nurses could be particularly humiliating. The nurses were forced to eat in separate dining halls, apart from white officers on the base.

“My mother mentioned that she was in a bar or some place that had food or drink and they refused to serve her,” said Stephen Albert, 66, Elinor and Frederick’s oldest son.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/a-black-nurse-a-german-soldier-and-an-unlikely-wwii-romance/?src=recg

“Federal Spigot Flows as Farmers Claim Bias” (front page, April 26) degraded black farmers’ legal victory against racism in federal farm lending, calling it a “magnet for fraud.”

The article tarnished our long fight against racist Agriculture Department lending practices by implying that it was some sort of scam.

Black farmers are dignified, industrious, independent and proud. I am a fourth-generation farmer, and like my peers I have worked hard to pay off mortgages and find resources to keep farming. We work for what we get, and we want nothing more than our due. We deserve the same level of fairness in the press as we fought to get from our government. I have heard from many black farmers who despise being characterized as frauds.

It is hurtful to wage a long, difficult fight for a worthy cause, then have the successful outcome sliced and diced by a publication you have trusted and admired.

I have been advocating for justice for black farmers for the past 30 years. I went to Congress and successfully campaigned for three bills. The statute of limitations on our group’s claims was lifted by Congress in 1998. In 2008 Congress passed a bill allowing the claims of late filers to be heard. Then in 2010 Congress approved $1.25 billion in payments to compensate the black farmers.

The struggle seems never to be over for black people. We won in court. We won in Congress. Now that we have prevailed, playing by all the rules, the game is suddenly flawed.

This article was a slap in the face for those black farmers still waiting for fairness and the thousands more who died waiting for justice.

JOHN W. BOYD Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/seeking-justice-for-black-farmers-in-loan-bias-case.html?src=recg