Happy FRY-DAY, Everybody. Le’ts keep “MOVIN” ON!
Wiki: Brass Construction was an American funk group formed in Brooklyn, New York in 1968. They were originally known as Dynamic Soul,[1] and went on to record a string of hit singles and albums through to 1985.
Signed in 1975 by Sid Maurer, and former Epic Records promotion man Fred Frank, they scored two US Billboard Hot 100 entries in 1976 – the most successful being “Movin’,” which hit #14. They had much more success on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart, with nine chart entries, including “Movin’,” which reached #1. Pianist/Flautist/Arranger Randy Muller went on to score a number of R&B hits with Skyy.
Over the years, Brass Construction members have included Wade Williamston (bass), Sandy Billups (percussion), Morris Price (trumpet), Larry Payton (drums), Paul C Saenz (Guitar), Jesse Ward Jnr. (saxophone), Michael “Micky” Grudge (saxophone), Wayne Parris (trumpet), Duane Cahill (trombone), Joseph Arthur Wong (guitar), and Randy Muller.[2]
Brass Construction played a concert on November 28, 2005 at the Bataclan Arena in Paris, France
Palin Says Rhetoric From Wisconsin ‘Union Bosses’ Will Get People Hurt (VIDEO)
Eric Kleefeld | March 11, 2011, 11:24AM
During an appearance Thursday night on Sean Hannity’s TV show, Sarah Palin had a warning about the protests going on against the bill just signed by Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) to curtail public employee unions — saying that unions should “tone down the rhetoric” against the bill, because it will result in people getting hurt.
Hannity and Palin discussed the death threat delivered to the Republican state Senators, which the state is currently investigating. Hannity said: And as soon as cuts start being made, we see there the violent rhetoric, the threats, this reaction. Do you think we’re gonna see a lot of more of this? In other words, is this the beginning of things to come?”
“Well, these union bosses that are acting like thugs, as they are leading some of their good union members down a road that will ultimately result in, unfortunately, somebody getting hurt,” Palin said, “if you believe the death threats that are being received by those who just happen to support amending some collective bargaining privileges of state unions. Well, it is these unions bosses’ responsibility to turn down the rhetoric and start getting truth out there, so that nobody gets hurt.”
This is, of course, the same Palin who just two months ago responded to controversies over the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and accusations that heated political rhetoric from herself and others may have contributed to it, as “blood libel.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/palin-says-rhetoric-from-wisconsin-union-bosses-will-get-people-hurt-video.php
I know Palin didn’t fix her mouth to say that? The gall of this bee itch! After she put cross hairs on opposing candidates head and one of them took a bullet to the head? Is Palin that ignorant?
Kruger hotels out to lure black middle class
Proposed hotels for South Africa’s biggest nature reserve aim to attract black visitors
SUE BLAINE
SOUTH African National Parks (SANParks) is hoping the R125m that will be spent on two lodge-style hotels for Kruger National Park will attract more of the growing black middle class, CEO David Mabunda said yesterday.
The annual spending power of SA’s 3- million or so black middle-class citizens (up from 2-million in 2005) was estimated at R237bn last year, down from an estimated high of R250bn in 2008, Paul Egan, head of the University of Cape Town’s Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing, said.
The black middle class had a combined spending power of 34% of all consumers — SA’s 34-million adults, Mr Egan said yesterday.
Attracting more middle-class blacks was one of SANParks’ three focus areas for the park, Mr Mabunda said at a news conference in Pretoria.
The others were continuing to serve the park’s traditionally largely white domestic market — which was more attracted to self- catering accommodation — and the international market, said Mr Mabunda. About 20% of the park’s visitors are black.
Market research showed the majority of SA’s black middle class wanted full- service resort-type accommodation, said SANParks’ tourism and marketing managing executive, Glenn Phillips.
SANParks had no intention of harming its “impeccable” record of upholding the highest environmental ethics by planing for the Kruger National park the type of hotel that would harm its ecology or ambience, said Mr Mabunda.
One of the hotels will be erected at the park’s main rest camp, Skukuza, and will complement the new conference centre there.
The other will be near its Malelane Gate in the south of the 2-million hectare park that is one of SA’s most well-known tourism icons.
The Malelane hotel will have 120 rooms. It will be operated by international hotel group Rezidor which has several Radisson Blu and Park Inn hotels around the country.
It was expected that the hotels would open in 2013, but this was dependent on the duration of the environmental impact assessment process.
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=136874
Interesting… GREEN is the COLOR of the season.
Julianne Moore to Play Sarah Palin? You Betcha
By: Glen Levy
We wonder what Tina Fey thought when she found out she wasn’t playing the part. (via Tuned In)
TIME’s TV blog, Tuned In, has the scoop on a (vaguely) TIME-related project: the HBO (which, like NewsFeed, is owned by Time Warner) adaptation of Game Change — written by TIME’s Mark Halperin and New York magazine’s John Heilemann — has cast Julianne Moore for the key role of Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential candidate.
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/10/julianne-moore-to-play-sarah-palin-you-betcha/#ixzz1GLHiPchm
LOL Keep them coming Dems!
Because they’re nogood, lowdown mofos
…………………………….
Conservatives Mock Ellison For Emotional Testimony On Muslim 9/11 First Responder
Rep. Keith Ellison’s emotional testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on Muslim radicalization as he recounted the tale of a 9/11 first responder who died in the attack was powerful stuff. But some conservatives had a different reaction — suggesting Ellison was putting on a show and even that there were not false rumors about the 9/11 first responder in the heated period after the attacks.
Mohammed Salman Hamdani was, as Ellison testified, “a 23-year-old paramedic, a New York City police cadet and a Muslim American. He was one of those brave first responders who tragically lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks almost a decade ago.” Ellison testified that some people “spread false rumors and speculated that he was in league with the attackers only because he was Muslim.”
“Ellison’s crocodile tears are in service of a deception,” wrote Robert Spencer on his blog Jihad Watch. “The existence of Muslims who truly accept American Constitutional freedoms does not mitigate or refute the existence of jihadists, jihad sympathizers, and Islamic supremacists among Muslims in the U.S., and vice versa. This would be an elementary point taken for granted by everyone were it not for the determined efforts of Congressman Ellison (D-Muslim Brotherhood) and his allies to obfuscate it.”
Ellison, wrote Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, was “drawing sympathy from the same liberals and pundits who had taunted the speaker of the House for his tears” — comparing Boehner’s tears over not being able to visit schools anymore to Ellison crying about attacks on a Sept. 11 victim due to his faith.
“Yes, Muslim Ellison shed big tears for a Muslim who died on 9/11, but not for all the almost 3,000 ‘infidels’ who died on that day,” writes the blogger “Robert” on the Patriot Action Network.
“Ellison crying over a Muslim killed on 9/11,” Chris Plante, a former Pentagon correspondent for CNN who hosts a radio show on D.C. radio station WMAL, wrote on Twitter. “I assume he cried harder for the U.S. Airmen shot in Germany & our troops at Ft. Hood.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/conservatives_mock_ellison_for_emotional_testimony_on_muslim_911_first_responder.php?ref=fpblg
Not surprised in the least about the mocking….. DIRTY, NOGOOD, LOWDOWN MOFOS….
Cry me a river…
These mofo clowns can fake the crying, but the black muslim man can’t cry FUCK them!
Oh I knew it was coming. Rush will be mocking all next week. These republicans have no conscience, no soul, no morals. Let them rot in hell!
Gov. Scott Walker Refusing To Release Details Of Contacts With Koch Industries
Shortly before signing the controversial bill that ends collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker appeared on Morning Joe today to lambaste the pernicious influence of “union bosses” and “outside money” on the debate in Wisconsin. Watch it:
It’s reasonable to expect national union leaders to be interested in “the largest assault on collective bargaining in recent memory.” Moreover, it is highly ironic for Walker to complain of supposedly shady outside interests.
Over two weeks after receiving a request from One Wisconsin Now, Walker’s administration has refused to release details of its contacts with lobbyists from Koch Industries, run by billionaire arch-conservatives Charles and David Koch. The group requested “all email and written communications between Koch Industries’ lead Wisconsin lobbyist and the office of Gov. Scott Walker and the Department of Administration,” but has not yet received the information.
Koch Industries was one of the biggest contributors to Walker’s election campaign. Americans for Prosperity, a group created and financed by the Koch brothers
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/11/walker-koch-donations/
They need to keep on this bastards EVERY WAKING & SLEEPING MOVE.
under THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE news
………………………………………..
NH GOP Senator Says The Mentally Ill Are ‘Defective People’ That Should Be Shipped Off To Siberia
State “budget writers looking for cash to balance the books have stripped a cumulative $1.8 billion from mental health services over the last 2 1/2 years,” with some states like Kentucky slashing their spending by as much as 47 percent. This is particularly alarming when viewed alongside incidents like the mass shooting by Jared Loughner, who many suggest was mentally disturbed.
In light of this huge wave of cuts, Sharon Omand, a community health care center manager and resident of Stafford, New Hampshire, called her state senator Martin Harty (R) recently to request more funding for community mental health programs and for the homeless. Omand was shocked by Harty’s response. The state senator told her “the world is too populated” and that there are too many “defective people.” When Omand asked what should be done with these “defective people” that are mentally ill, Harty suggested sending them to Siberia, something that he said Hitler was “right” to do:
Barrington Republican Martin Harty told Sharon Omand, a Strafford resident who manages a community mental health program, that “the world is too populated” and there are “too many defective people,” according to an e-mail account of the conversation by Omand. […]
Harty confirmed to the Monitor that he made the comments to Omand. […]
Omand says Harty then stated, “I wish we had a Siberia so we could ship them all off to freeze to death and die and clean up the population.” Omand said Harty appeared to be serious. After Omand responded that his idea sounded like what Adolf Hitler did in World War II, Omand said Harty responded, “Hitler did something right, and I agree with (it).”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/11/gop-senator-siberia/#
What’s the word on JJP & disqus, rikyrah? I still unable to post there.
Girl, I don’t know, but it’s getting on my last nerve
I’m feeling you. I can only post on JJP from my lap top.
so, does it, when you go to post, say ‘POST AS’, then gives you the choices of disqus, twitter, facebook, and openid.
then, I click on disqus, and some stupid blue button comes up in the square.
then, click on that, and another screen pops up. you put your information in for disqus, click login, and that screen goes away, but nothing happen with that first screen?
if so, are you using IE or Firefox? I can only use IE at work, and I have Firefox at home.
Yes, that’s it!
PURE EVIL….
The View From Rush Limbaugh’s Recession, Ctd
11 Mar 2011 02:04 pm A reader writes:
As it happens, I’m actually an expert on “drunks on disability” – a lawyer who’s concentrated on Social Security disability claims for the past 14 years.
(a) You can’t get Social Security or SSI for being addicted to drugs or alcohol. Not since a change in the law in 1996. Yes, there are some disabled people who are addicts; but you find addicts in every slice of life. No reason the disabled should be exempt.
(b) As a practical matter, use of alcohol or drugs makes it MUCH harder to get on disability.
Disability judges are inclined to think that if you stopped drinking or using drugs, your condition would improve and you’d be able to work again. And they’re inclined to think that if there’s a single mention of drugs or alcohol in your medical records, then you must be an addict.
(c) The biggest problem with Social Security and SSI disability is not the frauds in the system. There are few of these, for the simple reason that most people can get a higher income from a minimum-wage part-time job than they’re going to get from a disability check. A much bigger problem is the paranoid overreaction of the system to the possibility of fraud.
This means many honest claims are denied or delayed, causing genuinely disabled people to lose their life savings, their cars, their homes, their health (in most states you can’t get Medicare or Medicaid without getting approved for disability), and sometimes their lives – about once or twice a year, one of my clients dies before we can win his or her claim.
I have many clients who have been fighting their disability appeals for upwards of five years. Meanwhile, in Washington, they’re considering chopping personnel funding for Social Security. So I’m telling my clients that the waiting time will probably get longer.
Shocking, I know, to think Rush might be promoting an inaccurate view.
Another writes:
I don’t know if another reader has mentioned this yet, but according to Al Franken’s “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot,” Limbaugh has admitted on his radio show that he once took unemployment checks when he was between jobs.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/
Walker’s Big Bank Donors Take a Hit
Mike Elk | March 11, 2011
The blowback from Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s union-busting crusade has only just begun—and it may soon hit the governor where it really hurts: in the deep pockets of his biggest donors. Workers have begun organizing a “Move Your Money Campaign” against M&I Bank, whose employees are among his chief financial backers.
M&I Bank is the largest bank in Wisconsin, and was the recipient of $1.7 billion in TARP bailout money from the federal government. The bundled contributions from M&I executives were Walker’s second largest source of campaign funds. According to records provided by the Sunlight Foundation [1], executives at M&I Bank gave $46,308 to Walker’s campaign. And now, a group of local unions in Wisconsin have threatened to pull their money from M&I Bank unless it denounces Scott Walker’s attack on workers’ rights.
“Walker and his henchmen in the GOP have chosen to ignore the people of Wisconsin, but we all know now that they will listen to their big money donors,” says factory worker David Goodspeed, union member of Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 565.”This is an opportunity for donors like M&I to be good corporate citizens and do what’s right for the citizens who bailed them out.”
On Thursday morning, several hundred protestors surrounded an M&I Bank across the street from the Wisconsin State Capitol shouting “You Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out.” International Association of Fire Fighters Local 311 President Joe Conway, Jr., told me two union members marched in and pulled a combined $192,000 dollars out of the bank. “Hopefully this sends a message to the bank,” says Conway. “We wanted to illustrate how serious our threat is by having just two of our members pull their money out. “ The union said it plans to escalate actions and will soon begin handing out flyers at protests asking people to move their money.
A senior union researcher estimates that unions have at least $1 billion invested in M&I Bank, mostly through pension funds. Discussions are going on at the highest levels of the labor movement about how exactly to leverage this financial clout in the political debate in Wisconsin. Since the Bank of Montreal is in process of purchasing M&I Bank, US unions have reached out to the Canadian Labour Congress to urge their involvement in a disinvestment campaign.
“It’s good to remind these corporations that there are risks as well as profits involved in supporting right-wing political campaigns,” says Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Unions must use their economic power to fight for labor rights.”
With over $6 trillion of workers’ money in retirement plans, pension funds, profit-sharing and stock plans and union reserve funds, workers have the ability to reshape the economy and political priorities of the economic elite.
Unions have had some success with this tactic in the past. In 2009, a coalition called composed of organized labor, religious groups, community organizations and MoveOn.org, spearheaded a successful campaign to get Ken Lewis pushed out as Chairman of Bank of America.
With few tools in their arsenal to stop the escalating attacks, unions may increasingly turn to this tactic of moving their money to protect their rights. While workers may be on the defensive, fending off right-wing assaults like Walker’s, they are also realizing the power they have in society and the economy.
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/159190/walker%25E2%2580%2599s-big-bank-donors-take-hit
I love this..
you try to fuck with OUR money…we will fuck with YOURS
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M&I Bank branch on Capitol Square closes after protests
M&I Bank’s branch on the Capitol Square, at 1 W. Main St., closed Thursday after demonstrators, protesting campaign contributions by bank executives to Gov. Scott Walker, gathered outside the bank and several pulled their money out.
Sara Schmitz, a spokeswoman for M&I in Milwaukee, said in an e-mail the bank shut its doors “under the advisement of the Madison Police Department and due to the significant number of protesters surrounding the Capitol.”
Madison police said hundreds of people had gathered at the front entrance to the bank.
“(The) concern was if the crowd continued to grow, it would be difficult for us to guarantee access and safety for those trying to get in and out of the bank,” police spokesman Joel DeSpain said. He said police did not tell M&I officials to close the bank.
Members of several labor unions stopped at M&I twice between 9 and 9:30 a.m., said Joe Conway, Jr., president of Local 311 of the International Association of Fire Fighters. The protest was peaceful, he said.
Several protesters went inside and closed their accounts, displaying checks that totaled $192,000 withdrawn, Conway said. Schmitz declined to comment about any withdrawals.
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_a2066e24-4b83-11e0-ad9e-001cc4c002e0.html
Hey NOW! The Wisconsinites are about to go GANGSTA, on its state. They need to strike and boycott. If they had planned ahead, they would have saved and joined forces to take care of their basic needs.
Bottomline, these folks voted these rich, rogue, power hungry thugs in office. Now they got to put some elbow, hell both knees and all they got into fighting these MOFOs. They chose the enemy and it is THEM!
Bristol Palin’s Boyfriend Likes to Call People ‘Nigga’, Mock Kids with Down Syndrome
Bristol Palin’s new boyfriend Giacinto “Gino” Paoletti seems like a real salt-of-the-earth fellow. He’s a believer, so Sarah must love him. Except he makes fun of people with Down syndrome and thinks reality TV shows about Alaska suck.
“He’s a good guy,” Bristol said of Paoletti to E!. “He’s a family guy. He’s a Christian. We have all the same religious beliefs and our families both come first in our lives.” Giacinto is an outdoorsy laborer with a strong back—he works for a company called Refrigeration Unlimited—who fits right into the Palin family’s carefully cultivated self-image as a brutal clan of white frontier warriors. And according to his Facebook commentary, he thinks it’s cool to call people “nigga” and laughs about having sex with overweight developmentally disabled women.
Paoletti seems to have taken down his Facebook page sometime last night (the page still exists, but you can no longer find it through Facebook search and he is no longer listed publicly on his friends’ pages), but not before a tipster sent us some screenshots of some of his comments. Here are some that Sarah might not like:
In this one, Paoletti—who, as an Alaskan of Italian heritage, is stupendously white—recontextualizes the painful history of racial terror in this country by bravely appropriating the oppressor’s language and calling his bros “nigga.”
And here is family-friendly Paoletti in a delightfully witty back-and-forth with a compatriot about whether or not his pal Joby Higgins would have sex with with a hypothetical “future gf” who is “250 and has down sindrome” (we assume that’s 250 pounds, because fat chicks are funny!). Paoletti judged the prospect to be likely: “hahahaha joby would slayyyy that.” Yes! Joby would totally have sex with a 250-pound mentally and physically challenged lady! Hilarious
http://gawker.com/#!5780668/bristol-palins-boyfriend-likes-to-call-people-nigga-mock-kids-with-down-syndrome
Nothing but poor white trash…
And this: “He’s a good guy,” Bristol said of Paoletti to E!. “He’s a family guy. He’s a Christian. We have all the same religious beliefs and our families both come first in our lives.”
I’ll just let the comments on the site speak for themselves. They’re spot on!
Alaskan hillbilly attracting trailer trash
Hi Vette. How U B?
Yes, those Palin Christians values are shining through!
What a beautiful family. Just lovely
LOL
PWT!
President Obama to hold press briefing today at 12:30 pm EST/11:30 am CT
Watch it live here:
http://www.c-span.org/Events/White-House-to-Brief-on-Rising-Energy-Prices/10737420167-1/
The presser is starting now.
The president is addressing the Tsunami in Japan and sending condolences. US aid is on the way.
Gas prices= economy that relies on oil= rising prices are not a new phenomana.
PBO I’m the HNIC, and I’ll decide if we need to go into Lybia,…mmmmkay!
BWA HA HA HA
Ametia, stop it! I’m too tired to be laughing like that.
HIGH GAS PRICES BLAMED ON OBAMA!!
Okay what else is new. Obama being AA blamed on Obama so everything else is his fault too. I am so sick of this Americakka, but at the same time its fun to watch “them” go batshit crazy behind this annointed POTUS being FAIR. If this were any other POTUS Ghadafi would be bombed and dead, the USA would have already planted the flag on the Libyan Oil Fields and claimed the entire country.
Who are they fooling? How do you dissuade AAs and all their issues from reelecting this man of hope, Hispanics and immigration issues rounded up in Arizona and across this country lining up, Muslims and “them being scared” issues, and everyone other minority JUST WAITING for the polls to open in 2012. How “they” gonna stop everybody in this country, blocked from working from voting. Start the line today. How they gonna stop YOUNG intelligent people from reelecting this man with the social media machine he got and they don’t know how to turn on a computer? The strategies don’t match up with the demographics. We know where the heartland CAC vote is. Rich people who voted for Obama are intelligent enough to see thru this BS. So, the bottom line is for the Rethugs: Who you fooling, where your votes and where is your damned candidate?
Folks haven’t learned anything from since before 2008. The GOP’s main goals are to:
PILAGE, LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, FEAR-MONGER, RACE-BAIT, SUPPRESS VOTERS, DEGRADE WOMEN, POC, AND THE POOR TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO!
You nailed it, Vette. They want the black president to roll up in to another country like John Wayne with POC to blast them out, take the goodies and leave’em high & dry. Dirty MOFOs.
And the POTUS is not going to do it.
When it comes to other countries, the United States should always be on the side of opportunity for its people.
POTUS has a deep fondness for the Japanese people. He grew up in Hawaii. The rightwing heads exploding in 5..4..3..2..1
The Rethug “opportunists” see taking advantage of struggling dictators as fair advantage instead of allowing them work out what’s best for their own country. American Greed!
March 10, 2011
Obama Seeks a Course of Pragmatism in the Middle EastBy MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — In the Middle East crisis, as on other issues, there are two Barack Obamas: the transformative historical figure and the pragmatic American president. Three months after a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself aflame and ignited a political firestorm across the Arab world, the president is trumping the trailblazer.
With the spread of antigovernment protests from North Africa to the strategic, oil-rich Persian Gulf, President Obama has adopted a policy of restraint. He has concluded that his administration must shape its response country by country, aides say, recognizing a stark reality that American national security interests weigh as heavily as idealistic impulses. That explains why Mr. Obama has dialed down the vocal support he gave demonstrators in Cairo to a more modulated call for peaceful protest and respect for universal rights elsewhere.
This emphasis on pragmatism over idealism has left Mr. Obama vulnerable to criticism that he is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab street protesters. Some say he is failing to bind the United States to the historic change under way in the Middle East the way that Ronald Reagan forever cemented himself in history books to the end of the cold war with his famous call to tear down the Berlin Wall.
“It’s tempting, and it would be easy, to go out day after day with cathartic statements that make us feel good,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, who wrote Mr. Obama’s soaring speech in Cairo to the Islamic world in 2009. “But ultimately, what’s most important is achieving outcomes that are consistent with our values, because if we don’t, those statements will be long forgotten.”
On Thursday, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, deflected calls for more aggressive action in Libya, telling reporters what American officials have been saying privately for days: despite pleas from Libyan rebels for military assistance, the United States will not, at least for now, put its pilots in harm’s way by enforcing a no-flight zone over the country.
Not only is intervention risky, officials said, but they also fear that in some cases, it could be counterproductive, provoking a backlash against the United States for meddling in what is a homegrown political movement.
A senior administration official acknowledged the irony of Mr. Obama’s dilemma; he is, after all, the first black president, whose election was hailed on the Arab street, where many protesters identify their own struggles with the civil rights movement.
“There is a desire for Obama — not the American president, but Obama — to speak to their aspirations,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But, he added, “his first job is to be the American president.”
So Mr. Obama has thrown his weight behind attempts by the royal family of Bahrain, the home of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, to survive, although protesters say their demands have not been met. He has said little about political grievances in Saudi Arabia, a major oil supplier, where there were reports on Thursday of a violent dispersal of Shiite protesters. And he has limited White House critiques of Yemen, where the government is helping the United States root out a terrorist threat, even after that government opened fire on demonstrators.
The more cautious approach contrasts sharply with Mr. Obama’s response in North Africa, where he abandoned a 30-year alliance with Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and has demanded the resignation of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya. But Mr. Obama is balancing his idealistic instincts against his reluctance to use military action in Libya, where the United States does not have a vital strategic interest. Mr. Donilon noted that the administration needed to keep its focus on the broader region, where allies like Egypt loom large.
The time is coming, administration officials said, for Mr. Obama to make another major speech taking stock of the upheaval. But its central message is not yet set, and there is likely to be lively debate about questions like whether the president should admit American complicity in propping up undemocratic governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
“I don’t honestly think it would change much,” said a second senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “It isn’t going to change the perception of the United States one way or the other. What will continue to affect the perception of the United States is what we do now.”
The White House will send Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Egypt and Tunisia next week, where officials said she would congratulate the protesters for sweeping out their leaders peacefully and offer aid to revive the nations’ economies. She had planned to stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, but canceled, officials said, because King Abdullah is too ill to meet her.
This underscores one of the difficulties the United States faces in dealing with Saudi Arabia, a crucial ally that is run by an aging, infirm ruling family that has refused to open the political system. Instead, the king tried to mollify his people by doling out $36 billion worth of pay raises, unemployment checks and housing subsidies.
Bahrain poses a different problem. There, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has pledged to enter a dialogue with the protestors, after having unleashed its security forces on them. Officials said Mr. Obama persuaded King Hamad to pull back his forces, which they said won the United States goodwill from the mostly Shiite demonstrators. But the talks have failed to get off the ground, and now some Shiites feel the Americans have sided against them.
“There is a sense among many Bahraini reformers that the U.S. is a bit too eager to praise progress toward dialogue and reform that has not yet happened, and that the premature praise is easing pressure on the government,” said Tom Malinowski, the head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch.
“Striking a very balanced, and in many ways, neutral approach is recognized by many people in the region as not being with them, or on their side,” said J. Scott Mastic, the head of Middle East and North Africa for the International Republican Institute. “It’s very important that we be seen as supporting the demands of the people in the region.”
How Mr. Obama manages to do that while also balancing American interests is a question that officials acknowledge will plague this historic president for months to come. Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/world/africa/11policy.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release March 11, 2011 Statement By The President On The Earthquake In Japan And The Resulting Tsunami Warning Throughout The Pacific
“Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the people of Japan, particularly those who have lost loved ones in the earthquake and tsunamis. The United States stands ready to help the Japanese people in this time of great trial. The friendship and alliance between our two nations is unshakeable, and only strengthens our resolve to stand with the people of Japan as they overcome this tragedy. We will continue to closely monitor tsunamis around Japan and the Pacific going forward and we are asking all our citizens in the affected region to listen to their state and local officials as I have instructed FEMA to be ready to assist Hawaii and the rest of the US states and territories that could be affected.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/11/statement-president-earthquake-japan-and-resulting-tsunami-warning-throu?utm_source=031111&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=daily
Homecoming Cont.
Mar 11 2011, 9:00 AM ET
By
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Rebutting the notion of a “Reverse Great Migration” Matt writes the following:
To me that mostly sounds like black people are moving to the same metro areas as everyone else. Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami, and Charlotte in the south and Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas outside the south. After all, the basic dynamic of weak job opportunities in the midwest and no affordable housing in the northeast applies regardless of skin color. What’s more, this is really not a reversal of the Great Migration in any meaningful sense. Texas wasn’t a major historic African-American population center and it strains credulity to describe Miami as part of the south. If black people start leaving Chicago to move to rural Mississippi that be a reversal, but this is the same sun/permit-driven migration that everyone’s doing.
Probably not:
The destinations of whites and blacks who relocated across regions in the late 1990s reveal a stronger preference among black migrants for southern destinations. This pattern is evident for migrants leaving each region, especially the Northeast. Among black and white migrants residing in the Northeast in 1995, 85 percent of blacks headed South (as opposed to the Midwest or West), compared to only 64 percent of whites (Figure 3). In the West and Midwest, too, the share of black out-migrants moving to the South exceeded the comparable white out-migrant share by about 20 percentage points.
Demographers have been studying this shift for almost three decades. Perhaps the 2010 Census will show something different. But as of right now Phoenix’s black population stands at five percent. And Los Angeles isn’t gaining black people, it’s shedding them.
Matt contends that Texas has never “wasn’t a major historic African-American population center.” That will largely depend on what you consider “major.” Texas, in large measure, owes its existence to the desire to expand the South’s enslaved black population. Its demographics have always reflected that fact. In 1860, at the outset of the Civil War, a third of its population was black.
At the turn of the century, there were roughly 600,000 black people in Texas, about the same as North Carolina and Virginia. Today, of the ten metro areas with the largest black populations, two of them are in Texas. That aside, the category leader for African-Americans returning South is not Texas, but Atlanta, a city which sits in a state which most certainly was major historic African-American population center. At the turn of the century, nearly half Georgia’s population was black.
These are the numbers, but I think they actually understate the case. It’s demonstrably true that the migration of blacks are different than those of whites, but what’s much more bracing is the thinking behind those migration patterns. Surely black people are responding to the color-blind call of job opportunities and cheap housing. But they are also following something else–a return, in large measure, to the place of their invention.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/homecoming-cont/72334/
The rootedness in the south cited above is a pretty dramatic example of why it is wrong (in every sense) to conflate ‘southern’ with ‘white’.
I couldn’t agree more with this statement, WAknight. I was born in rural Southern Maryland and currently living in the midwest.
when I tell folks black and white, they exclaim, that’s not southern. Tobacco farms, sharecropping, segregation, slavery, farms, folks equate these to white.
Whites claimed the south as theirs through slavery, trickery, theft…etc. and a failed Civil War.
Blacks were born and raised in the south, and while their was a huge migration from the south to the north, we know what the conditions were that dictated this mass migration. The majority of us didn’t give up our culture or heritage, and of course black skin’s with us until we die.
No matter how much white folks tried to erase us from their delusional world of whiteness, we are southerners.
BLACK folks are not only the South, BLACKS are AMERICA as far as I am concerned.
Well said Ametia!! Hell the Midwest is 10x more racist than the south. In the south the rednecks let u know up front they don’t like ninjas. Up here they always playing! I had a friend from the south who lived up here for a short time and she moved back to Atlanta saying it was too racist up here for her. I agree.
LOL@ ninjas! Woman, you’re hilarious. Bottomline, for me, it doesn’t matter what you name it, as long as you claim it!
Tsunami Waves Reach Hawaii
UPDATED: 4:32 am HST March 11, 2011
HONOLULU — Hawaii saw wave activity along some coasts early Friday morning after a tsunami warning was issued in connection with a powerful 8.9-magnitude earthquake off Japan.
The first effects of the tsunami arrived shortly after 3 a.m. Big Island officials reported seeing a 3-foot surge. Off the Diamond Head area of Oahu saw some of the most evident changes. The water was sucked out more than 100 yards from shore followed by waves that pushed back to the shoreline.
Hawaii Tsunami Maps
Early in the evening, state and county emergency crews staffed disaster headquarters. Police and fire teams went around shoreline areas to warn the public about evacuating to higher ground or to higher floors at hotels and high-rises.
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center officials said the wave could pose a major hazard. Chip McCreary, the center’s director, said tsunami waves have the potential to swamp coastal areas of all Hawaii’s islands.
“What these waves look like is an elevation of sea level, where the sea level will rise above its normal level and stay high for 10 or 15 minutes before it starts to recede,” he said. “As a result of this, in a tsunami wave, that water can flood the coastline and be a hazard to people and buildings on the coast.”
http://www.kitv.com/r/27158841/detail.html
he is one stupid mofo
………………….
Rand Paul: I Have Less Choice In Toilets Than Women Have In Abortions (VIDEO)
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is upset that the federal government has squelched his right to own a super-toilet, leaving him with less freedom than women, who are still allowed to have abortions. It’s an unusual comparison, but it’s meant to underline his opposition to the executive branch’s involvement in encouraging energy efficiency.
In a Senate hearing, Paul laid in to Kathleen Hogan, deputy assistant energy secretary for efficiency, for imposing restrictions and fines meant to encourage people to use environmentally friendly appliances.
“It’s not that I’m against conservation — I’m all for energy conservation,” Paul admitted. “But I wish you would come here to extol me [sic], to cajole, to encourage, to try to convince me that it would be a good idea to conserve energy. But you come instead with fines, threats of jail. … This is what your energy efficiency standards are.”
Paul went on, “I think there should be some self-examination from the administration on the idea that you favor a woman’s right to an abortion, but you don’t favor a woman or a man’s right to choose what kind of light bulb, what kind of dishwasher, what kind of washing machine.”
Ideally, Paul said, the government would use a bully pulpit to persuade people to use more efficient lightbulbs, washing machines, and toilets, but not intrude in the marketplace of water- and energy-wasting products. Particularly toilets.
“I find that all of the arguments for energy efficiency you’re exactly right. We should conserve energy. Why not do it in a voluntary way?” he said. “I find this antithetical to the American way.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/rand-paul-i-have-less-choice-in-toilets-than-women-have-in-abortions-video.php?ref=dcblt
So this toupe-wearing redneck advocates choice in toilets, but denounces a woman’s right to make choices about her own body. Kentuckians must be proud of this fool. These white men really hate women. How do they suppose they got here?
I admit it…I want the stupid heifer to run.
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Bachmann for President
by BooMan
Fri Mar 11th, 2011 at 09:05:00 AM EST
Every day it seems like I read the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. Today is no exception.
“Some aspects have to be traditional,” said the source close to [Michele] Bachmann. “You’ve got to have a media guy, you’ve got to have your political guy and your message guy. Then there is the non-traditional side. If she runs, you will see a grassroots campaign that looks like none you’ve ever seen before. It will make Barack Obama’s effort pale in comparison.”
I understand the need to put a positive spin on things for your candidate, but Michele Bachmann is not going to create a grassroots organization comparable to Barack Obama’s.
Yet, Bachmann is apparently getting enough positive feedback from voters that she is leaning more and more towards running for president. Americans generally refuse to take congresspeople seriously as presidential candidates, and I see absolutely no reason why Bachmann will be any different. But she should be a spectacle at the debates and there is a good chance that Rick Lowry will see starbursts.
I’m looking forward to her campaign.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/3/11/950/05967
Run, Bachman, run… straight off the highest cliff.
I concur!
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Hapy Friday, rikyrah! Is disqus still rebuking you? LOL :-)
yep….it hates me
U.S. Escalates Pressure on Libya Amid Mixed SignalsBy DAVID E. SANGER
Published: March 10, 2011
WASHINGTON — The White House announced a five-point program on Thursday of steps to isolate Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and ultimately drive him from power, all stopping well short of military action, but distanced itself from the assessment of the nation’s top intelligence chief, who said Thursday that “over the longer term” Colonel Qaddafi’s superior firepower “will prevail” over the opposition.
The steps that the White House announced include a partial embrace of the opposition movement as well as threats to track and prosecute, in international courts, loyalists to Mr. Qaddafi who commit atrocities. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would meet with Libyan opposition leaders next week, and President Obama’s national security adviser made it clear that Washington was looking for ways to aid the Libyan leader’s opponents.
“We’re coordinating directly with them to provide assistance,” said the adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, though the United States has stopped short of recognizing them as the legitimate government of Libya. The help, he added, consisted of humanitarian aid and advice on how to organize an opposition government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/world/africa/11diplomacy.html?_r=1&hp
Good Morning, Everybody!:-)
Footage of the tsunami in Japan
Raw Video: Earthquake Triggers Tsunami in Japan
8.9-magnitude quake triggers devastating Japan tsunami
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42023385/ns/world_news-asiapacific/?gt1=43001
TOKYO — A magnitude 8.9 earthquake slammed Japan’s northeastern coast Friday, unleashing a 13-foot tsunami that swept boats, cars, buildings and tons of debris miles inland. Fires triggered by the quake burned out of control up and down the coast.
At least 29 people were killed and there were reports of several injuries in Tokyo, hundreds of miles away, where buildings shook violently through the main quake and the series of massive aftershocks that followed.
Coffee? Looks like you where up quite early this morning.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ax87_piQCOo/TVcBIqiusiI/AAAAAAAAAV4/eK6qYTvgipY/s320/cup-of-coffee.jpg
I’m still sleepy. Maybe this coffee will wake me up?
Thank you!
Al Jazeera English: Live Stream
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
Good Morning, 3 Chics!
Prayers to the people of Japan! Japan has been hit with a massive earth quake & it triggered a devastating tsunami. Lord Have Mercy!
Mornin’, SG2. Yes, let’s life the citizens up in prayer. Great job on posting details. Thank you.
the pictures from Japan are scary. prayers to them.
I know. Always something going on in this big wide world. Really helps me to put things in perspective.
Good morning all!!
Hi Dannie. What’s happening in your neck-o-the-woods?
Good Morning, everyone!
It’s a snowstorm. It’s really bad outside
Sheesh! Be careful. I’m so ready for spring…. ***sigh***