Good Morning, 3 Chics, Friends & Lurkers. When it comes to Rock music, some folks like it soft, mild, or hard. No matter how you rock it, ROCK & ROLL soothes the SOUL, so come Rock it out this week with 3 Chics.
Seals and Crofts is a band made up of Jim Seals (born James Seals, October 17, 1941, Sidney, Texas) and Dash Crofts (born Darrell Crofts, August 14, 1940, Cisco, Texas). The soft rock duo was one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s. They are best-known for their hits “Summer Breeze” and “Diamond Girl“. Seals’ younger brother, Dan Seals was also well known as one half of another successful soft rock band in the same time period, England Dan & John Ford Coley, as well as for his success as a country artist in the mid-1980s. The duo disbanded in 1980, and both members went on to become public advocates of the Bahá’í Faith. They reunited briefly from 1991–1992 and again in 2004, when they released their final album, Traces.[1]
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Diamond Girl, sho do shine!
LOL
Democrat on Waukesha County vote panel speaks out
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/119627189.html
Waukesha – The Democrat on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers who was widely quoted as endorsing Waukesha County’s official ballot count that flipped the Supreme Court winner last week has more to say.
The Waukesha County Democratic Party released a statement Monday ascribed to Ramona Kitzinger, 80, a member of the canvassing board since 2004.
“How is this possible?” the statement says.
She said she was never told about a nearly 15,000-vote difference in Brookfield until called into County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus’ office shortly before a Thursday evening news conference. By then, the board had finished its canvass that had started midday Wednesday.
Nickolaus said during the Thursday news conference that she had failed to save Brookfield’s 14,315 votes on a program before she reported the unofficial results election night. The bulk of them went to incumbent David Prosser and gave him about a 7,500-vote lead over JoAnne Kloppenburg, who’d earlier led by 204 votes. She called it human error and apologized.
Asked at the news conference by the media how a Democrat felt about the change, Kitzinger said that “all the numbers jibed up, and we’re satisfied they’re correct. I’m not going to stand here and tell you something that’s not true.”
But in the statement released Monday by the county Democrats, she wrote:
“I am still very, very confused about why the canvass was finalized before I was informed of the Brookfield error, and it wasn’t even until the news conference was happening that I learned it was this enormous mistake that could swing the whole election,” the statement reads. “I was never shown anything that would verify Kathy’s statement about the missing vote, and with how events unfolded and people citing me as an authority on this now, I feel I must speak up.”
Victor Weers, chairman of the Waukesha County Democratic Party, said that because of national attention to Kitzinger’s statement and angry emails, party members talked to Kitzinger and solicited more details. The words in the statement are her own, Weers said.
I love the questions the students asked; particularly the question What is the hardest part of being POTUS? His reply the country is so diverse, and folks need differ, he tries to bring as many viewpoints to the table to help him make the best decisions for the GOOD of the WHOLE.
Good luck with this Mittens!
Posted at 03:56 PM ET, 04/11/2011
Mitt Romney forms presidential exploratory committee
By Chris Cillizza
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney formed a presidential exploratory committee today that will allow him to raise money for a near-certain run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
“It is time that we put America back on a course of greatness with a growing economy, good jobs and fiscal discipline in Washington,” Romney said in a web video announcing his intentions
Victory lap, kids edition
Obama milks the budget deal
By MATT NEGRIN | 04/11/11 4:23 PM
President Obama is still milking the budget deal reached late Friday to avert a government shutdown. On Monday — two days after visiting the Lincoln Memorial to note that it stayed open — Obama trotted into his garden, where 50 eighth-graders were able to visit Washington because the government didn’t close.
Obama thanked the mother of one of them for writing a “wonderful letter” asking that the government stay open, according to the pool.
“Now that things worked out, we’d figure we’d give you a little bonus,” Obama said, apparently referring to his own presence in the garden.
Obama stopped by the garden just as a poll was published showing that 48 percent of people gave him and Democrats credit for sealing the budget deal, while Republicans got just 35 percent.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0411/victory_lap_kids_edition_1c8ab066-acd7-40f6-ac43-b1fe4178fd7b.html
Posted at 04:01 PM ET, 04/11/2011
Obama thanks federal employees for ‘patience and professionalism’ during government shutdown drama
By Ed O’Keefe and Lisa Rein
How’s this for an inter-office memo: President Obama is thanking federal employees for the “patience and professionalism” they exhibited in the past few weeks during the down-to-the-wire federal budget negotiations.
In a letter sent Monday to federal employees across the country, Obama writes, “I know the past few weeks have been a time of uncertainty and concern for you and your families, but your patience and professionalism throughout this entire period have affirmed my confidence in you, and everyone who works in our government.”
The letter continues: “You do your jobs without complaint or much recognition. But it is men and women like you who help make America all it is, by responding to the needs of our people, and keeping our country safe and secure. And so, I want to thank you not only for your forbearance in recent weeks, but for the service you render each and every day to the United States of America.”
The White House sent the letter to departments and agencies Monday with instructions to distribute it to the rank and file, according to senior administration officials. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the letter from a federal employee Monday.
Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob J. Lew sent a similar message to each department’s deputy secretary and chief of staff, who were responsible for drafting shutdown contingency plans, including the sensitive question of which government services — and which workers — would be deemed “essential” and “nonessential.”
On Saturday, Obama thanked another group of people that would have been impacted by a shutdown — tourists — by making an unscheduled visit to the Lincoln Memorial to thank a cheering crowd of surprised visitors for staying in town despite the threatened closure of the Mall and Smithsonian museums.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/obama-thanks-federal-employees-for-patience-and-professionalism-during-government-shutdown-drama/2011/04/11/AF3sl0LD_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Apr 11, 2011
Olympic great Carl Lewis runs again — for political office
By Tom Weir, USA TODAY
By any measurement, Carl Lewis is one of the greatest Olympic performers of all-time, and it won’t be a surprise if his first venture into politics also provides some drama.
Lewis has scheduled a 2 p.m. ET press conference today in New Jersey where he’s expected to announce his candidacy for a state Senate seat. Lewis, 49, claimed a record-tying four gold medals in track in 1984 and finished with nine golds after dominating the long jump for more than a decade.
He also set himself apart in the ’80s by having an entourage, by often keeping the media at arm’s length, and by occasional shows of arrogance.
Much of that is from nearly three decades ago, but it will be interesting to see whether Lewis can make the transition from being an oft-aloof sports icon to a populist candidate who can freely address political issues.
He will run as a Democrat in the 8th Legislative District, which the Newark Star-Ledger says leans Republican. Lewis grew up in New Jersey but in recent years has lived mostly in Los Angeles and Houston.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/04/carl-lewis-state-senate-candidate-olympics/1
Breaking News Alert: Appeals court upholds Justice Department challenge of Ariz. immigration law
April 11, 2011 1:15:12 PM
—————————————-
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a lower court decision that blocked the most contested provisions of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that a federal judge did not abuse her discretion in blocking provisions of the law that would, among other things, require police to check immigration status if they stop someone while enforcing other laws.
The decision is a victory for the Obama administration, which had filed a controversial lawsuit challenging the Arizona law in court.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/VP6EHT/TPB1DB/X8OEMA/3SLW09/T4WIA/ID/h
I’ll bet Farve wants his life back too. /snark
Brett Favre Accuser Jenn Sterger Breaks Silence On GMA: ‘I Want My Life Back’
by Mark Joyella |
11:45 am, April 11th, 2011
Jenn Sterger, the former Jets gameday reporter who became known around the world as the object of quarterback Brett Favre’s romantic interests (complete with calls, texts and–reportedly–graphic photos), has given her first interview to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.”I just want my life back,” Sterger said. “That’s all I’m asking for. Just to be able to go back to work. To be able to go back to enjoying what I do. Entertaining people. Making people laugh. The hardest part about this whole thing is that I am a ridiculous person. I love to entertain people, and to say crazy things. And I’m pretty unapologetic about it.”
The full interview is set to air tomorrow morning on ABC’s Good Morning America, tomorrow night on Nightline and Wednesday morning on GMA. In saying she wants her “life back,” Sterger says she can’t be the person she is anymore because “I’m still the joke” and that all she ever wanted was to do her job. “I haven’t made a dime off anything in this whole situation. Not from the pictures. Not from Favre. I never wanted to sue anyone. That was never an intention of mine,” she said.
“I’m not a gold-digger,” she said. “The only way I wanted to make my money this whole time was to just have a job.”
Watch it here, from ABC News:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/brett-favre-accuser-jenn-sterger-breaks-silence-on-gma-i-want-my-life-back/
Rev. Al is thanking folks for supproting the NAN GALA last week.
He’s speaking on the MSNBC Black Agenda
http://woldcnews.com/?get-streaming-audio-player=1
Rev. Al said the whole Obama bashing/sell out is a COP OUT. What about the congress, CBC? He’ll be addressing this today.
Go to the National Action Network to see what this organization is doing, budget, jobs, where the POTUS is going with all of these issues. We don’t need an analyzes of the subjects we need action!
The Conservative Christian Taliban’s Campaign Against American Women
http://www.politicususa.com/en/christian-conservative-women
Throughout the course of history it has always been a man’s first instinct to intrinsically protect women because they were not physically as strong as a man. It had nothing to do with chivalry, but was an innate, built-in mechanism that went beyond familial ties from the cave-man days to the modern era. However, here in America in the 21st century, a segment of the male population has been indoctrinated by evangelical snake-oil salesmen to believe that women are objects to be manipulated and used as incubators instead of equal members of society worthy of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.
Let it be clear that this is not an indictment of all American men. It is an indictment of Christian conservatives who are in positions of power who have made it their goal to place women in an untenable position of forced birth based on their belief in an ancient, Bronze Age mythology from the Holy Land. By extension, it is also a condemnation of Christian conservatives who support such Draconian beliefs by voting for and supporting politicians who are proud of their suppression of women and unapologetic for allowing religious dogmata to dictate the worth and place women occupy in American society.
John Boehner Discusses Budget Deal, Says GOP Won’t ‘Roll Over’ On Debt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/john-boehner-budget-deal_n_847436.html
House Speaker John Boehner spoke about a budget deal struck between Democratic and Republican leaders late last Friday to avert a government shutdown during an appearance on Fox News on Monday.
In the exclusive interview, Boehner defended the spending agreement, which left some conservative lawmakers less than pleased, and offered a glimpse into budget negotiations that unfolded behind-the-scenes.
Asked to discuss a reportedly tense moment when Vice President Joe Biden lost his temper with the Speaker, Boehner described the heated outburst as “feigned moral outrage.” He said, however, that the behavior was “out of character” for the vice president and afterwards they “just moved on” from the incident.
The MSM is pushing Paul Ryan and GOP’s nonsensical American’s Prosperity bullshit budget, cause you know some white folks haven’t yet figured out that they’ve been getting it up the arse from these clowns for decades.
Oklahoma-born Muslim fights hate with country music
Posted on 04.11.11
By Stephen C. Webster
Categories: Culture
Kareem Salama, an American Muslim born in the U.S. to parents who emigrated from Egypt, is not like most country music stars.
Yes, you read right: He’s a country music star … From Oklahoma, no less.
Salama has also been on a U.S. government-sponsored tour of the Middle East, sharing his experiences as a Muslim growing up in the heart of America’s conservative south. That tour, according to Mother Jones, is thanks to a fan of his at the State Department, who felt his message would be a powerful tool to encourage tolerance both at home and abroad.
Watch the video below to see why he could be the best thing to happen to country music since beer.
The above video was published to YouTube on Dec. 9, 2009
Gingrich funds group that compares black people to ‘rabbits’
http://www.thegrio.com/politics/gingrich-funds-hate-group-that-compares-black-people-to-rabbits.php
One of the front groups controlled by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich funded an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group Gingrich supported is now under scrutiny for taking positions that are offensive towards gays, blacks, Muslims and others.
The news comes as Gingrich explores a run for president, and joins the NAACP in urging reform in the nation’s prison system.
According to ThinkProgress, last year Gingrich — through his ReAl Action organization — gave $350,000 to anti-gay groups. These groups successfully campaigned to unseat three of nine Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled unanimously in favor of same-sex marriage in that state. Gingrich funneled $125,000 to AFA Action, the nonprofit political wing of the Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group based in Montgomery, Alabama, AFA is a hate group — with 2 million online supporters and 180,000 subscribers to the AFA Journal. AFA also broadcasts “AFA Report” on nearly 200 radio stations. Among AFA’s stated goals are “combating the homosexual agenda” and criminalizing homosexual behavior.
And Ben Jealous is working with Newt? That’s what Mr. Jealous said yesterday on that MSNBC sham Black Agenda show. SMGDH
Trump Insists Obama’s Grandparents Planted His Birth Announcement To Obtain Welfare Benefits
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/10/trump-birth-announcement/#comments
In July 2008, a researcher “looking to dig up dirt on Obama” instead came across a birth announcement from 1961 in the Honolulu Advertiser documenting the birth of then presidential candidate Barack Obama in the state. For many, the announcement, together with Obama’s birth certificate, conclusively proved that Obama was born in the United States and is eligible to run for president.
Rumored presidential hopeful Donald Trump isn’t convinced. On CNN’s State of the Union today, Trump claimed that Obama’s grandparents planted the announcement to obtain welfare benefits:
TRUMP: The grandparents put that [birth announcement] in [the newspaper] because obviously they want him to be a United States citizen because in those days, people were much more proud than they are today unfortunately for being a United States citizen.
So they wanted him to be a citizen of the United States, for that purpose, and also for hospitalization, for welfare, for this, for that, for all the other assets you get from being a United States citizen. So there are a lot of very smart people who say that is routinely done and that was done by his grandparents. […]
CROWLEY: I will tell you we’ve checked with both these papers early on — not to the latest when you brought it back in the headlines — but the fact is that the hospitals reported this information to the papers, and the papers printed it.
TRUMP: Who knows? You’re talking fifty years ago.
Trump need his face slapped. And why the hell is CNN engaging in this asinine bullsh*t? It’s a continued attempt to smear our President.
Folks need to BOYCOTT ALL THING TRUMP. What’s another bankruptcy for this ratheaded mofo.
Hit this buffoon in the pocketbook. Ugly piece of sh*t.
Cantor Sees Current Medicare and Medicaid Programs As A ‘Safety Net’ For ‘People Who Frankly Don’t Need One’
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/10/cantor-sees-current-medicare-and-medicaid-programs-as-a-safety-net-for-people-who-frankly-dont-need-one/#comments
Having secured “draconian” cuts in a last-minute budget deal last week, House Republicans are hyping House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) new “Path to Prosperity” plan. The proposal professes to reform programs like Medicare and Medicaid to rein in spending by $6.2 trillion over the next decade. But as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein notes, Ryan’s Medicare and Medicaid plans “rely on the same bait-and-switch: They use a reform to disguise a cut.” By making Medicare a voucher program and Medicaid a block grant program with $750 billion less in funding, Ryan’s plan forces seniors to pay more for the same benefits, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, and jeopardizes vital health care services for millions of low-income Americans.
Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace questioned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) support for a plan in which Americans “pay more out of pocket.” Defending the proposal, Cantor argued that these programs sometimes provide a “safety net” for “people who frankly don’t need one” and that the shift of the burden from the government to the beneficiary will teach government “to do more with less”:
CANTOR: We are in a situation where we have a safety net in place in this country for people who frankly don’t need one. We have to focus on making sure we have a safety net for those who need it.
WALLACE: The Medicaid people — you’re going to cut that by $750 billion.
CANTOR: The medicaid reductions are off the baseline. so what we’re saying is allow states to have the flexibility to deal with their populations, their indigent populations and the healthcare needs the way they know how to deal with them. Not to impose some mandate from a bureaucrat in washington.
WALLACE: But you are giving them less money to do it.
CANTOR: In terms of the baseline, that is correct…What we’re saying is there is so much imposition of a mandate that doesn’t relate to the actual quality of care. We believe if you put in place the mechanism that allow for personal choice as far as Medicare is concerned, as well as the programs in Medicaid, that we can actually get to a better resolve and do what most Americans are learning how to do, which is to do more with less.
These mofos have already robbed the coffers of America, and now want to privitize medicare, so they can continue bilking us.
Same tired, sick games from the GOP. STEAL, LIE, CHEAT for profits, and screw the rest of America.
GOTCHA!
Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president of Cote d’Ivoire, has been arrested after a raid by French forces on a bunker at his residence in Abidjan.
Toussaint Alain, a Gbagbo advisor, told the Reuters news agency that the incumbent president had been “arrested by French special forces in his residence” and “handed over to the rebel leaders”.
Jean Marc Simon, the French ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire, confirmed the capture to the AFP news agency, saying that he was detained by soldiers loyal to Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised president-elect of the country.
A Ouattara spokesman told Al Jazeera that Gbagbo, along with his wife and several advisors, was being held by at the Golf Hotel.
The hotel has been used as Outarra’s headquarters since a disputed presidential poll in late November.
Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the United Nations secretary-general, told Al Jazeera that Gbagbo surrendered to pro-Ouattara forces, and is now being held at the Golf Hotel under the protection of the UN mission in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI).
French officials denied that French special forces had detained the incumbent president, saying that the arrest was made by forces loyal to Ouatarra.
http://english.aljazeera.net/n…
George Will: Medicare is Doomed…Not By Mr. Ryan, But By Mr. Arithmetic
By Nicole Belle
, conservatives sure do want everyone to buy into the notion that the only answer to Medicare is to not have it. They go on and on about how Medicare is going to go bankrupt. But what is never mentioned is the actual end of that sentence “…under current spending levels.”
Let’s remember that there are two sides to that coin. One way to deal with rising costs is to drastically cut benefits. But that doesn’t reduce the existence of the need for those benefits, it simply transfers the costs to the individual, who is on Medicare because they cannot afford private insurance. As in our current system with those who are uninsured, if those individuals can’t pay those costs, they get passed on to everyone else in the form of increased premiums and bloated medical charges (nothing like paying for a $20 box of tissue during a hospital stay).
But the other way to deal with it– which is apparently unthinkable to George Will and Chrystia Freeland–is to increase revenue, in the form of tax increases. Yes, I said the dreaded phrase: tax increases. At the time that Medicare was enacted in 1965, the top marginal tax rate was 70%. Now it’s less than 40%. Of course there’s no money…we’re too busy allowing the uber-wealthy and corporations to skate on their share of the social fabric to create huge population-sized holes in the safety net.
I do have to credit the GOP with the talking point that it won’t affect anyone currently getting Medicare or scheduled to receive it for the next ten years. *Wipes brow* whew! I guess that leaves me–in my mid-40s, with a history of cancer and without a steady paycheck for 15 years, so I’m imminent competitively hire-able–in the perfect spot to afford private insurance policies as a senior? I guess it’s a good thing I had children…I’ll need somewhere to live when my IRA (since Social Security is in the crosshairs as well) goes almost exclusively to my medical needs. Multiply that over tens of millions of Gen X-ers and Y-ers and Millennials and suddenly, that doesn’t seem so sustainable for the economy, does it?
And can we please call a moratorium on calling Medicare and Social Security “entitlements”? I’m so sick of that bull excrement. There is nothing “entitled” about having taxes taken out of every paycheck to a trust fund that will enable one to live through one’s golden years without resorting to eating catfood or wearing a Walmart greeter’s vest because the idea of a true retirement is out of the realm of possibility. The only entitlement I see is the white privilege of the Beltway establishment, unwilling to actually be honest about the consequences of such destructive Republican policies.
This: “And can we please call a moratorium on calling Medicare and Social Security “entitlements”? I’m so sick of that bull excrement. There is nothing “entitled” about having taxes taken out of every paycheck to a trust fund that will enable one to live through one’s golden years without resorting to eating catfood or wearing a Walmart greeter’s vest because the idea of a true retirement is out of the realm of possibility. The only entitlement I see is the white privilege of the Beltway establishment, unwilling to actually be honest about the consequences of such destructive Republican policies.”
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/george-will-medicare-doomednot-mr-rya
How Do You Just “Find” 14,000 Votes?
http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2011/04/how-do-you-just-find-14000-votes.html#disqus_thread
In America, there is no right more precious to the people than the right to vote. The vote is how “we the people” hold our government accountable to us. If we like a certain idea, we vote for it. If we dislike a certain candidate, we vote against them. No matter what you believe in, no matter what your cause or issue, this country prides itself on the fact that for over 200 years we have successfully governed ourselves not by violence but by voting. Without the vote, the people literally have no voice in the laws that affect their daily lives. Every citizen deserves the right to vote, and every vote counts. That being said, nothing makes the Founding Fathers turn over in their graves quicker than when somebody’s vote is not counted.
This past week, the State of Wisconsin (yes that state with all the union issues) held an election to decide one of its Supreme Court Justices. [*yes, some states elect their judges but that’s a whole other blog topic*] Although neither candidate officially belongs to a political party, the Democratic-backed candidate is JoAnne Kloppenburg and the GOP-backed candidate is incumbent Justice David Prosser. Now what makes this story so interesting is that after all the recent drama between Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican Governor, Scott Walker, and the public worker’s unions, Wisconsin voters have had a change of heart. 19 counties that went for Walker in the infamous November 2010 election this time flipped and went for the Democratic-backed candidate, JoAnne Kloppenburg. And after all was said and done, approximately 1.5 million Wisconsins voted and the Democratic-backed Kloppenburg won the election by a narrow 200 votes…
…or so we thought.
Kathy Nickolaus, the Waukesha County Clerk, announced the following day that she “found” an extra 14,315 votes that apparently had not been counted for the city of Brookfield, which accounts for about 11 percent of her county’s voters. Most of these newly-announced votes went for the conservative candidate, putting David Prosser ahead by about 7,500 votes. When asked to explain herself, Kathy Nickolaus cited to “human error” in failing to save the spreadsheet for the Brookfield votes onto her personal computer where the rest of the County’s votes were kept.
Where the plot thickens is that Kathy Nickolaus is a former staffer for the Assembly Republican Caucus in Wisconsin. So, naturally, when 14,000 newly discovered votes show up after an election that just so happen to put the Republican-backed candidate ahead of the Democratic-candidate who had already won, it does have a little bit of a problem passing the smell test. To make matters worse, apparently Nickolaus had been warned in January of this year by the County Board about tightening up her election procedures. Ironically, she dismissed the County Board’s recommendations, saying “this isn’t that big of a deal.” 3 months later she somehow manages to mess up one of the biggest elections in Wisconsin history. Nevertheless, election Nostradamus extraordinaire, Nate Silver, the man who singlehandedly predicted the 2008 election down to the county using regression analysis, confirmed that the newly reported numbers are a more accurate representation of Waukesha County than the original numbers that were reported.
In other words, at worst we have a Republican conspiracy to steal an election and at best Kathy Nickolaus is extremely incompetent at her job.
THIS: “In other words, at worst we have a Republican conspiracy to steal an election and at best Kathy Nickolaus is extremely incompetent at her job.
The high cost of hating government
By E.J. Dionne Jr., Sunday, April 10, 8:01 PM
One image perfectly captured the absurd, irrational and wholly unnecessary confrontation over whether to shut down the federal government on the basis of differences over a small part of the budget.
During a Tea Party rally near the Capitol last Wednesday — “rally” being generous for a gathering of a few hundred people — Rep. Mike Pence, the Republican fire-eater from Indiana, declared that if Senate Democrats refused to accept “a modest down payment on fiscal discipline and reform, I say, ‘Shut it down!’ ”
And the crowd erupted, lustily and joyfully: “Shut it down! Shut it down!”
As the shouting persisted, it became clear that the government of the most powerful country in the world was being held hostage by a band of fanatics who (1) represent a very small proportion of our population; (2) hate government so much that they relished the idea of closing its doors, no matter the cost; and (3) have neither respect nor patience for the normal democratic give-and-take between competing parties and points of view.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-high-cost-of-hating-government/2011/04/08/AFocwrGD_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
Couric’s Rocky Path to a Likely Parting With CBS
By BILL CARTER
Published: April 10, 2011
For Katie Couric, the offer in 2006 to become the anchor of “CBS Evening News” came with another incentive, one she prized almost as highly, according to two of her friends: the chance to report for “60 Minutes,” the newsmagazine that for Ms. Couric stood for the kind of serious journalism she had always aspired to.
Regular appearances on “60 Minutes” were written into her $15 million-a-year contract with CBS, but once she arrived at the network, she found a chilly reception from some of the staff members at the venerable program. Some of Ms. Couric’s associates said that the chilliness seemed to stem from the top, the show’s executive producer, Jeff Fager. That view was disputed by people close to Mr. Fager, who said that Ms. Couric has praised his stewardship of her “60 Minutes” pieces.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/business/media/11couric.html?_r=2&hp
POLITICSAPRIL 11, 2011.
Obama Puts Taxes on Table
By CAROL E. LEE And DAMIAN PALETTA
President Barack Obama will lay out his plan for reducing the nation’s deficit Wednesday, belatedly entering a fight over the nation’s long-term financial future. But in addition to suggesting cuts—the current focus of debate—the White House looks set to aim its firepower on a more divisive topic: taxes.
In a speech Wednesday, Mr. Obama will propose cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and changes to Social Security, a discussion he has largely left to Democrats and Republicans in Congress. He also will call for tax increases for people making over $250,000 a year, a proposal contained in his 2012 budget, and changing parts of the tax code he thinks benefit the wealthy.
Every corner of the federal government has to be looked at here,” David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said Sunday in one of multiple television appearances. “Revenues are going to have to be part of this,” he said, referring to tax increases.
Until now, Mr. Obama has been largely absent from the raging debate over the long-term deficit. The White House has done little with the recommendations of its own bipartisan deficit commission. And Mr. Obama’s 2012 budget didn’t offer many new ideas for tackling entitlement spending, among the biggest long-term drains on the federal budget.
The president stayed out of the long-term deficit debate in an apparent effort to see whether Republicans would move first in offering long-term deficit-reduction ideas—something House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan did with an ambitious plan last week to trim spending now and in the future.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704366104576255282893680792.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories&om_rid=DRaeQf&om_mid=_BNou2OB8aOSNsQ
I would suggest that folks tune into Rev. Al today. I think today, he’s gonna be on fire on his radio show..LOL
Got a link, rikyrah? I know he went oops! upside Corny West’s head yesterday.
I want to hear Rev Al today!
Here’s the link: http://www.wvon.com/
REv. Al is on at 1 pm. 12 noon CT I believe.
Good Morning, Everyone:)
<br
Inspiration for today…
Bible Verse Graphics
LOL Good Morning, Ladies. :-)
Big Croft & Seals, fan, SG2. Thanks!