Champaign was a United States R&B band with adult contemporary leanings from the 1980s, best known for their 1981 hit, “How ‘Bout Us.”
The inter-racial septet, who named themselves after their hometown of Champaign, Illinois, included Pauli Carman and Rena Jones (later Day) on vocals; Michael Day and Dana Walden on keyboards; Howard Reeder on guitar; Michael Reed on bass; and Rocky Maffitt on percussion/drums. The title track from their 1981 album, How ‘Bout Us, was a hit single, reaching Top 5 in the United Kingdom and on the United States R&B charts (also #12 U.S. Pop). Their second album, Modern Heart, was released in 1983 and contained the Top 10 R&B track “Try Again” (also #23 U.S. Pop). Another follow-up, 1984’s Woman in Flames, included the Top 10 R&B song “Off and On Love.” Other songs include “Party People” and “Walkin'”.
Joe Manchin and Chris Coons Join Senate as Lame Duck Session Begins
Less than two weeks after the midterm elections, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Delaware’s Chris Coons took their places in the Senate Monday when Vice President Joe Biden swore them in as the chamber’s newest members.
Manchin, the former governor of West Virginia, won a special election to serve the remaining two years of the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s term, while Coons will serve out the final four years of Vice President Joe Biden’s term representing Delaware.
The two new Democrats will not technically change the balance of power in the Senate since they are moving into seats previously controlled by their party. But Manchin, a pro-life conservative who was endorsed by the NRA, is considered a wild card for Democrats on issues from climate change legislation to extending the Bush tax cuts. His addition to the Senate could complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to pass a series of Democratic base-pleasing issues in the lame duck session of Congress before Republican take over the House in January.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/11/15/joe-manchin-and-chris-coons-joining-senate-monday/
Miss Ginny Thomas DECIDES to step down. This excerpt just in from the Washington Post:
“Virginia Thomas’s decision to call Hill puzzled many in Washington, given that the collective national memory of the confirmation hearing had long faded – and given Thomas’s emergence as a high-profile conservative activist. With hundreds of thousands of dollars in anonymous contributions at her disposal, Virginia Thomas was on her way to becoming a political and intellectual force as the head of Liberty Central. She also has been establishing a public identity, speaking out on cable news shows and at rallies.
The call to Hill is not the only controversy surrounding Thomas, however. On the morning she made the phone call, Thomas was the subject of a front-page New York Times article questioning whether her new prominence and acceptance of large, anonymous contributions for Liberty Centra – including two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000 – might raise conflict-of-interest questions for her husband.
Also last month, Liberty Central blamed a staff error for a memo with Virginia Thomas’s name on it declaring health-care legislation unconstitutional – perhaps reflecting a new sensitivity to the relationship between her activism and her husband’s job. “
Hi Vette. How U B? Was just coming to post on this.
For millions of Americans and their families, a storm is brewing. Unless Congress acts by November 30th, two million unemployed Americans who are struggling to find work will be cut off from vital unemployment payments just before the holiday season.1
It would be a disaster — not only for people who are out of a job and whose only lifeline is these small unemployment payments, but for the entire economy.2
It’s going to be a tough fight to make sure Congress extends these benefits — Republicans and conservative Democrats have stood in the way of extending unemployment insurance in the past, and they’re likely to do it again. They say we can’t afford to pay for it, but many of the same politicians are willing to add trillions to the deficit to extend President Bush’s massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Please join us in demanding that Congress extend unemployment benefits, and ask your friends and family to do the same:
http://www.colorofchange.org/preserve/?id=1694-697050
The economic downturn has hurt everyone, but it’s hit Black communities particularly hard — unemployment among Black folks is at 16%, twice the national average. For young Black men, it’s above 40%.3
Economists say that unemployment benefits are one of the most effective ways to boost the economy, and the U.S. Census Bureau data reports that 3.3 million more people would have fallen below the poverty line in 2009 without unemployment benefits.4,5
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/567?id=1694-697050&akid=1699.992356.IRjPrT&t=3
VP Biden will swear in Joe Manchin and Chris Coons this afternoon at the Capitol around 4 pm.
Exclusive: Ensign Privately Lobbied Obama Admin For Nearly $1 Million In Health Reform Money
As the new class of GOP lawmakers prepare to assume office, congressional Republicans are increasingly divided over earmarks. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and others are fighting to preserve the practice. On the other hand, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is leading a group of Republicans deeply opposed to earmarks of any kind. Over the weekend DeMint released an updated list of senators standing behind him and his cause. Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT), one of DeMint’s most stalwart lieutenants in his earmark battle, clarified the GOP’s opposition to earmarks, defining them to include any specific grant money authorized by larger legislative items. Referring to the earmarking process, Lee told libertarian radio host Eric Dondero that he is fed up with lawmakers playing “Santa Claus” by doling out money from grant programs in laws like President Obama’s health care reform and economic stimulus package.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/15/ensign-health-reform
Obama Without Tears
William Greider | November 10, 2010
Given the election results, the question Barack Obama has to decide for himself is whether he really wants to be president in the fullest sense. Not a moderator for earnest policy discussions. Not the national cheerleader for hope. Not the worthy visionary describing a distant future. Those qualities are elements in any successful presidency, and Obama applies them with admirable skill and seriousness.
What’s missing with this president is power—a strong grasp of the powers he possesses and the willingness to govern the country with them. During the past two years, this missing quality has been consistently obvious in his rhetoric and substantive policy positions. There is a cloying Boy Scout quality in his style of leadership—the troop leader urging boys to work together on their merit badges—and none of the pigheaded stubbornness of his “I am the decider” predecessor, nor the hard steel of Lyndon Johnson or the guile of Richard Nixon.
Obama has patience and the self-confidence not to insist that his solution is the best and only one. On many vital questions, he went so far as to not even say what his solution was. Such a governing style is too nice for real-life politics, where Boy Scouts get their heads handed to them.
Some politicians may enjoy Obama’s generous spirit, but many despise him for it. Washington always takes the measure of a new president and tests him early on. Congress and the surrounding power centers, swiftly reading weakness in this president, decided they would fill the vacuum Obama left for them.
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/156384/obama-without-tears
Where you at SG2, Maher goes after the Cowboys too! Maher and Moore have penis and scrotum envy.
Hi, Ametia.
SG2 is not feeling well today. And I’ve lost my voice. It’s a whisper.
Holbrooke: US Combat Troops to be Phased Out of Afghanistan by 2014
Meredith Buel | Islamabad 14 November 2010
The U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, says U.S. and NATO combat forces will be phased out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and the handover to Afghan security forces will begin in the middle of next year. Holbrooke’s remarks came during a discussion with a group of journalists in Pakistan.
Ambassador Holbrooke acknowledged there is confusion in the region over the U.S. military commitment to Afghanistan.
U.S. President Barack Obama has set July 2011 as the date to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
However Holbrooke and other American officials are now stressing the combat mission is not likely to end until 2014.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Holbrooke-US-Combat-Troops-to-be-Phased-Out-of-Afghanistan-by-2014-107969594.html
Great pics! :-)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/photogallery/november-2010-photo-day?utm_source=111210&utm_medium=image&utm_campaign=daily
The High Court
Supreme Court shows interest in employment discrimination cases
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post staff Writer
Sunday, November 14, 2010; 11:57 PM
Vincent Staub convinced a jury that his supervisors at a hospital got him fired because they were tired of his Army reserve duties taking too much of his time.
Kevin Kasten said the plastics company he worked for got rid of him for complaining that the time clock had been illegally placed in an inconvenient spot for workers.
And Eric Thompson said his pink slip came not from anything he did wrong. He said the company where he worked along with his fiancee was looking for a way to punish her for filing a sex discrimination complaint.
All three men are before the Supreme Court, seeking to expand the ways workers are protected from employers after they – or someone close to them, in Thompson’s case – have done something to rile the bosses.
Analysts debate whether the court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has become more “pro-business” than its predecessor. Justice Stephen G. Breyer recently said he didn’t think so – the court is always friendly to business, he said – while the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center released a study that begged to disagree
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/14/AR2010111404621.html?wpisrc=nl_fed
Good Morning, 3 Chics, Friends, and Lurkers!
Happy MUN-dane :-)
Morning, Ametia & 3 Chics!
Happy Monday!
What a weekend! 10s of thousands of homes without powere and hundreds of car crashes from the snow!
My goodness. Be careful out there.
Loving Champaign this morning..