Shirley Ann Caesar (born October 13, 1938, Durham, North Carolina) is an American Gospel music singer, songwriter and recording artist whose career has spanned six decades. A multi-award winning artist, with eleven Grammy Awards and seven Dove Awards to her credit, she is known as “First Lady of gospel”.
Beginning recording at the age of 13 in 1951,[1] Shirley Caesar has released over forty albums, exploring her gift and spreading messages of faith. She has participated in over 16 compilations and three gospel musicals, Mama I Want to Sing, Sing: Mama 2 and Born to Sing: Mama 3.
Her credits also include a series of commercials for MCI Communications and several awards for her recordings. She has won or received 11 Grammy Awards, 13 Stellar Awards, 18 Doves, 1 RIAA gold certification, an Essence Award, McDonald’s Golden Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, NAACP Achievement Award, SESAC Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. According to Soundscan, she has sold 2.2 million albums since 1991.[2] Pastor Shirley has made several notable appearances including the televised Live from Disney World Night of Joy, the Gospel According to VH1, a White House performance for George Bush, and a speech on the Evolution of Gospel Music to the US Treasury Department [3]
WTF ? Rhianna and Britney on Billboard Awards.
Obama Moneygall Chocolates
http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-moneygall-chocolates.html
Chocolate bars commemorating President Obama’s visit on Monday to Moneygall, Ireland, home of his maternal great-great-great grandfather Falmouth Kearney, are being sold in the village, to go along with the Obama breads and other fun souvenirs that are on offer.
Watch the Corrigan Brothers band music video Welcome Home President Barack O’Bama. It tells the story of the discovery of President Obama’s Moneygall ancestry, featuring the key players in the drama, as well as the people of Moneygall dancing through the village. Henry Healy, President Obama’s eighth cousin who still lives in Moneygall, takes a star turn in the video.
Welcome Home President Barack O’Bama Corrigan Brothers
A funny
I love watching the E-Trade baby! Hilarious!
Come on, 3 Chics…
People get ready, there’s a train comin’
You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’
You don’t need no ticket…… you just thank the lord…..
People Get Ready
Great music; 3 Chics is ON BOARD!
…Watching Freedom Riders: American Experience!
Jesus, Son of the living God!
Very brave young people!
The Freedom Riders (1): 1961 Effort to Challenge Segregated Bus System
SG2, thank you for putting that up!
You’re welcome! My pleasure! I salute these very brave young people. It was 17 year olds that sat in at the Woolworth lunch counter. 17 year olds!
I hope that young people of all colors are made aware of this fact, if they’re not already. Especially when they get discouraged about how they’re constantly portrayed in the media and those who don’t encourage them to stand up and fight for positive changes. Promoting anger and frustration is nonproductive as a long-term strategy.
In the future, these young people will be not only adults but husbands, wives, and partners who have families to take care of , business owners providing jobs, educators who teach the little ones, future leaders, and so much more. They have just as much at stake as everyone else and are capable of accomplishing great things when encouraged and inspired.
Well said. PBO continues to send a message to youth, that if they want change; they have to be cause of said effects.
Good Post, Creolechild!
“One can’t look at what the Freedom Riders did without taking a hard look within. Is there anything I believe in so strongly that I’m willing to go to jail for it? Is there any cause for which I’d risk being beaten or burned to death? When confronted with evil, would I stand up brave, or would I shrink back in self preservation?”
“We didn’t fear nothing,” Jerome Smith said Monday about the CORE activists in New Orleans. He said he and others would have been on one of those first two buses moving through the South had they not already been in jail here for protesting segregation. “The only thing we feared is that we could not do enough.” They did participate in later rides. During one, Smith had his head bashed with brass knuckles.”
“On May 4, Oprah Winfrey had on her show 178 surviving Freedom Riders. She showed some of them responding to the question why they got on the bus.”
One rider put it as simply as it can be put. She said, “I would rather be dead than not free.”
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2011/05/to_board_freedom_rides_to_new.html
THIS:
Yes Lord! I salute them!
Watch: The Big Oil Stickup Cartoon
“Mother Jones illustrator Zina Saunders creates editorial animations riffing on the political news and current events of the week. In this week’s animation, Big Oil preys on the American consumer at the pump and in the tax code. Yet even as gas prices remain above $4 per gallon and the deficit balloons, Senate Republicans are working to defeat a plan that would eliminate $4.4 billion in tax breaks for the oil industry. That’s Saunders and Barry Schiffman performing the voiceovers. Sounds effects are from freesound.org.” —The Editors
http://motherjones.com/media/2011/05/zina-saunders-tax-breaks-oil-companies
Strauss-Kahn Screws Africa
Friday, May 20, 2011
by Greg Palast for The Guardian
Now that I’ve dispensed with the obvious and obnoxious teaser headline, let’s drop the towel and expose Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s history of arrogant abuse. The truth is, the grandee of the IMF has molested Africans for years.
On Wednesday, the New York Times ran five – count’em, FIVE – stories on Strauss-Kahn, Director-General of the International Monetary Fund. According to the Paper of Record, the charges against “DSK,” as he’s known in France, are in “contradiction” to his “charm” and “accomplishments” at the IMF.
Au contraire, mes chers lecteurs.
Director-General DSK’s cruelty, arrogance and impunity toward African and other nations as generalissimo of the IMF is right in line with the story told by the poor, African hotel housekeeper in New York City.
Let’s consider how the housekeeper from Guinea ended up here in New York. In 2002, this single mother was granted asylum. What drove her here?
It began with the IMF rape of Guinea.
In 2002, the International Monetary Fund cut off capital inflows to this West African nation. Without the blessing of the International Monetary Fund, Guinea, which has up to half the world’s raw material for aluminum, plus oil, uranium, diamonds and gold, could not borrow a dime to develop these resources.
The IMF’s cut-off was, in effect, a foreclosure, and the nation choked and starved while sitting on its astonishing mineral wealth. As in the sub-prime mortgage foreclosures we see today, the IMF moved quickly to seize Guinea’s property.
But the IMF did not seize this nation’s riches for itself. Rather, it forced Guinea to sell off its resources to foreign corporations at prices much like the sale of furniture on the lawn of a foreclosed house.
The French, Americans, Canadians, Swiss (and lately, the Chinese) came in with spoons out and napkins tucked in under their chins, swallowing the nation’s bauxite, gold and more. In the meantime, the IMF ordered the end of trade barriers and thereby ruined local small holders.
As a result of the IMF attack, Guineans who could, fled for freedom and food. This week, then, marked the second time this poor African was molested by the IMF.
Now we have the context of how these two, the randy geezer of globalization and the refugee ended up, in quite different positions, in that New York hotel room.
Since taking over the IMF in 2007, erstwhile “Socialist” Strauss-Kahn has tightened the screws in an attempt to maintain the free-market finance mania that ruined this planet in the first place. [That’s worth a story in itself – and that’s coming. Our team has a stack of inside documents from the IMF that we will be releasing in my new book in the Fall.]
DSK’s lawyers say the relationship with the housekeeper was “consensual.” But DSK says that about all IMF agreements with nations over whom it holds life and death powers. That’s like saying a bank robbery is consensual so long as you don’t consider the gun.
Whether it was agreed-upon sex or brutal rape, it could only have been “consensual” in the same way that the people of Guinea consented to IMF-ordered financial rapine.
The Times article quotes an IMF crony of Strauss-Kahn saying DSK gets his way by “persuasion” not “bullying.” Tell that to the Greeks.
It was DSK who, last year, personally insisted on brutal terms for the so-called bail-out of Greece. “Strong conditionality” is the IMF term. Strauss-Kahn demanded not just a devastating cut in pensions and a deliberate increase in unemployment to 14%, but also the sell-off of 4,000 of 6,000 state-owned services. The DSK IMF plan allowed the financiers who set the financial fires of Greece to pick up the nation’s assets at a fire-sale price.
The Strauss-Kahn demands were not “tough love” for Greece: The love was reserved solely for the vulture bankers who received the IMF funds but were not required to accept one euro in lost profit in return. DSK, despite the advice of many, refused to ask the banks and speculators to reduce their usurious interest charges that were the root of Greece’s woes.
Requiring Greece to sell assets, drop trade barriers, and even end the rule that Greek ships use Greek sailors has nothing to do with saving Greece, but everything to do with DSK’s commitment to protect every banker’s balance sheet from unwanted violations.
I do not consider it a stretch to say that a predator in the bank boardroom suite assumes his impunity applies to the hotel suite.
http://www.gregpalast.com/strauss-kahn-screws-africa/
Politico Has Not Heard About the Collapse of the Housing Bubble and Economic Crisis
“That is the conclusion that readers of a Politico article headlined, “budget surplus to deficit: how we got here,”must conclude. This article attributes the increase in the deficit in the Obama years to increased spending coupled with tax cuts, only mentioning in passing at the end of the article that the single biggest factor in the rise of the deficit was the economic collapse. It fails to point out that virtually all of the additional spending and tax cuts by President Obama was carried through for the explicit purpose of counteracting the loss of private sector demand due to the collapse of the bubble.”
“It is absolutely inexcusable for a serious news organization to run a piece like this. The collapse of the housing bubble was by far the biggest economic disaster since the Great Depression. Complaining about the size of the deficit under President Obama, while only mentioning in passing the reason for the deficit, is like complaining about a city’s use of water without mentioning that it had been trying to extinguish a massive fire.”
“If reporters and editors were held accountable for the quality of their work in the same way as dishwashers and schoolteachers, people would be fired for this piece.”
http://truthout.org/politico-has-not-heard-about-collapse-housing-bubble-and-economic-crisis/1306086148
True journalism is D.E.A.D. We have to perform a scavenger hunt to find FACTS.
Things that can give you nightmares. Taken nothing for granted!
“I have that fire in my belly,” Sarah Palin told Fox this week. Apparently she is locked and loaded to defeat “Obama” for the presidency. Or maybe not. Who knows? How much money is in it? How much money is in not being in it?”
“It is easy to conclude that running for president, much less being president, is way too much work for the eternally bellyaching Palin. An 18-month slog on the campaign trail is potentially way too embarrassing (Is Turkey Asian or European or for Thanksgiving only?) and damaging to her brand (see Donald Trump). And it doesn’t pay all that great. Teasing the media while coaxing new donations from her easily duped minions seems a far more believable sled run for a woman who has already quit her actual government job for the riches of a TV somebody or other.”
“But what if….The Republican Party has all but conceded the presidency to the Man who got Bin Laden? What if they realize, like Trump, Christie, Barbour, Jeb and Huckabee obviously have, that no matter whether it’s Romney or Daniels or Bachmann or Pawlenty who carries their Medicare-killing flag, a second term for President Obama looms virtually unavoidable?”
//
“Enter the crazy conspiracy. Enter the Abominable Snow Snooki. She avoids the GOP dog & pony show for months and months, flinging barbs and “refudiations” from her million dollar throne on Fox. And then, when Romney or Daniels or the logo of Exxon or Anthem Blue Cross sews up the nomination, Palin swoops in as the first Tea Party candidate ever to run for president. She’d stride onto the big stage for an easy few months, spewing venom at President Obama and bathing in the adoration of Valentino blazers and her ardent devotees. Yes she’d lose. Yes it would be wildly fun and horrifying and entertaining. And yes she’d return to Fox more feisty and popular than ever.”
“So it might work famously for Palin, but a third party candidate? Wouldn’t that gift-wrap electoral college victories to President Obama in Georgia, Montana, perhaps even Texas? How could the Republican powerbrokers stand for it?”
“Because they know that she’ll electrify the zanies, Aynsteins, anti-taxers, secessionistas and Born Again Dominionists, who drawn to the booth to vote for their Alaskan Idol would likely then proceed to mark Xs for the regular GOP anti-abortion, Medicare killers elsewhere on the ballot. Even if she swiped 15% of the total from the top of the GOP ticket, all those extra Republican votes she draws to the polls could keep Boehner banging his giant gavel and install a couple more Scott Walkers, Rick Scotts and Dan Snyders in governor’s mansions across the land.”
http://crooksandliars.com/steve-weinstein/koch-secret-formula-third-party-sa
s/b taking nothing for granted. I need more tea! (:
**HOLLERING**
Right?!!
Drink up, creolechild!
http://www.ochadokoro.com/ori/30158/etc_img/category_tea_pot.jpg
Thank you, Boo-Boo!
This bears repeating for all those who are all over the President for not doing enough about the economy and jobs. These are the people you should be sending letters to, emailing, and protesting against.
“There’s no sign of Speaker John Boehner’s promised “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Instead, extremist teabagger Republicans are busily trying to take care of the already-rich, kick people when they’re down, and further weaken the ability of those who do have jobs to strike against employers:
“All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street; they are attacking workers’ collective bargaining rights, which has provoked a huge Main Street Movement to fight back.”
“Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”
“Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer.”
“The bill also includes a provision that would exempt households from losing eligibility, “if the household was eligible immediately prior to such strike, however, such family unit shall not receive an increased allotment as the result of a decrease in the income of the striking member or members of the household.”
“Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions — something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.”
“But here’s the punchline: Striking workers have been ineligible for food stamps for years. (The only way a striker is eligible right now is if you met the eligibility standards before you went on strike — and if you belong to a union, odds are, you didn’t.) So not only are teabagger Republicans just plain mean and pandering to special interests, they’re stupid to boot!”
“Their bill also rolls back back spending on government assistance programs back to 2007 levels, plus inflation, once unemployment falls below 6.5 percent. (Well, at least we know that won’t be anytime soon!)”
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/remember-jobs-jobs-jobs-instead-repub
Thanks for posting this reminder, creolechild.
You’re welcome, Ametia. Facts, facts, …and more facts!
BWA HA HA **still recovering from that Mr. Potato head video**
Apparently, stupidity in this country is at an all-time high:
“I try really, really hard not to hate people. I really do. But I can’t help it, I do hate the small-minded, vicious politicians who come up with these proposals. Dear God, please save us from the Republican nuts in the Pennsylvania state legislature. This is the same wack job who wrote a bill that will let Pennsylvanians shoot to kill if someone makes you nervous:
“A Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives says he wants to reform the state’s unemployment insurance system in part because the way benefits are currently calculated lets workers take a paid vacation for most of the year.”
“This is a fairness thing,” Rep. Scott Perry said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “What we’re trying to accomplish here is to make sure the system is solvent for people who are truly needy.”
“Perry’s bill would save the state $632 million a year through 2018, according to an analysis by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. The measure would achieve most of the savings by changing the way benefit amounts are calculated. Under current Pennsylvania law, the size of a claimant’s weekly check is based either on his highest quarterly earnings in the previous year or 50 percent of his full-time weekly wage, whichever is higher. (More detailed explanations are available on the department’s website.) Perry would change the former method to base benefits on the average of a claimant’s best three quarters.”
“While it sounds like a small, technical change, it would reduce payouts to unemployed workers by $463 million a year because 70 percent of claimants in Pennsylvania have uneven wages during the course of a year and would no longer receive benefits based on just their best three months. The average weekly payment would drop from $324 to $277, according to Sharon Dietrich of Community Legal Services, a nonprofit that advocates for the legal rights of low-income Pennsylvanians.”
“And the change would stop people from abusing the system, Perry said. “We have people that might work only one quarter of the year and are making more on unemployment than somebody that works all year long at a sustained job,” he said. “How is that fair?”
“Must. Bang. Head. On. Wall.”
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/pa-republican-change-unemployment-ben
“The Politico/GWU poll found that despite 56% of voters saying they are concerned about the economy, President Obama has a 52% job approval rating. Obama only has a 42% approval rating on the economy, but by a margin of 48%-42% he is more trusted to handle the economy than congressional Republicans.”
“Obama is also more trusted to create jobs (47%-43%), healthcare (52%-41%), handle Social Security (50%-37%), keep America safe from terrorism (55%-34%), and more Americans believe that he shares their values (51%-38%). The only issue that the GOP led him on was the deficit, and their lead was within the margin of error (47%-44%).”
“84% of voters in battleground states said that the death of Bin Laden did not change their support for Obama either way, and 59% of them were either definitely going to vote for Obama or are strongly considering voting for Obama. Only 38% of those polled said that they would definitely not vote for Obama.”
“The numbers on national security (55%-34%), and basic values (51%-38%) are particularly damning, as it’s the Republican Party which traditionally runs on national security and values. With voters already clearly favoring President Obama over the Republicans in those areas, that means he can spend the majority of his time campaigning focused on issues where his lead isn’t as solid.”
“Republicans, on the other hand, have to long way to go to convince voters that they are good for, well, anything.”
http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2011/05/poll_potus_more.html
But don’t make the mistake and become too complacent, thinking that this is a wrap…
“I’m happy that we have so many people who put themselves on the line at these protests. Not that I think it changes corporate minds — the only thing that will do that is if people show up at the executives’ suburban mansions:
“Protesters crashed Aetna Inc.’s annual shareholders meeting in Philadelphia on Friday morning, accusing the Connecticut-based health insurer of publicly supporting President Obama’s health-care plan while privately funneling money to its opponents – in particular, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
“Aetna chairman Mark T. Bertolini had just gone to the microphone at Le Meridien Philadelphia, a Center City hotel, when the protesters walked into the meeting, chanting and carrying signs.”
“Hotel security and police hurried the group of about 20 out, detaining three of them for 30 minutes. No arrests were made, said one of the organizers of the protest.”
“Unfortunately, Aetna’s shareholder meeting this morning was disrupted by a group of protesters,” the company said in a statement. “We believe this disruption was inappropriate, uncivil and unsafe. Aetna has been a strong proponent of health-care reform and has been working to shape the future of health care for the past decade.”
“After the group was removed from the hotel’s third-floor lobby, where coffee and tea where being served for shareholders, the protest resumed outside.”
“[…] The protesters based their accusations on a November story by Bloomberg News that used sources to connect an $86.2 million donation made to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2009 from America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry lobbying group.”
“The donation, which was noted in the Chamber’s tax returns, was one of the largest to the business advocacy groups, and helped pay for advertisements, polling and efforts to drum up grass roots opposition to Obama’s health plan, a Chamber spokesman told Bloomberg. Neither the Chamber nor AHIP would comment on the source of the money.” [AND THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE PUBLIC’S SIDE?]
“On Friday, one of Aetna’s chief spokesmen, Mohit Ghose, who previously worked for AHIP, declined to comment. However, the company did issue a statement Friday saying that “we also worked through our testimony to Congress, our meetings on Capitol Hill, and through the efforts of such groups as AHIP and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to educate the American people about the negative implications of a public option in health-care reform.” [I GUESS BY NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS THEY MEAN THEY CAN REFUSE ANYONE HEALTH CARE ANYMORE OR JACK UP THE RATES WHENEVER THEY WANT TO. OKIE DOKIE…]
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/philadelphia-healthcare-activists-cra
What IS she smoking?!!
“Well, it’s official; former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain has formally launched his presidential campaign today. And according to Fox News “political analyst” Angela McGlowan, if Cain just picks wingnut Rep. Allen West as his running mate, he can beat Obama in 2012.”
Alan Colmes explained why he disagreed:
“COLMES: Herman Cain… it’s not a coincidence that he announced his candidacy on doomsday. This is a guy who said he’d put no Muslims in his Cabinet. He said Muslims want to either convert you or kill you. He’s a birther. He has absolutely no chance whatsoever of becoming President of the United States.”
“McGlowan interrupted Colmes and reminded him that “being that extreme” could win him the primary to which Colmes basically responded, bring it on if that’s who Republicans want to run in 2012.”
“COLMES: If that’s who you want to have represent you. You want someone who can win the primary who could never win the general election, if that’s the way you want to go, be my guest. Have a good time. Have fun.”
“MCGLOWAN: If he chooses Allen West, he could win.”
“COLMES: Absolutely not. Allen West is another cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs far right extremist.”
“McGlowan also went on to suggest that after the latest Fox attack on President Obama after his speech on the Middle East this week that Hollywood Jews are going to abandon him in droves.”
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/fox-political-analyst-he
**FACEPALMS**
From Chad Stone of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a rather eye-popping chart:
As we’ve noted, my colleagues Kathy Ruffing and Jim Horney have updated CBPP’s analysis showing that the economic downturn, President Bush’s tax cuts, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire federal budget deficit over the next ten years. So, what about the public debt, which is basically the sum of annual budget deficits, minus annual surpluses, over the nation’s entire history?
“The complementary chart, below, shows that the Bush-era tax cuts and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — including their associated interest costs — account for almost half of the projected public debt in 2019 (measured as a share of the economy) if we continue current policies.
//
“Altogether, the economic downturn, the measures enacted to combat it (including the 2009 Recovery Act), and the financial rescue legislation play a smaller role in the projected debt increase over the next decade. Public debt due to all other factors fell from over 30 percent of GDP in 2001 to 20 percent of GDP in 2019.
“We focus here on debt held by the public, which reflects funds that the federal government borrows in credit markets to finance deficits and other cash needs. That’s the proper measure on which to focus because it’s what really affects the economy. We compare it to GDP because stabilizing the debt-to-GDP ratio is a key test of fiscal sustainability.”
“As Kathy and Jim note, simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule (or paying for any portions that policymakers decide to extend) would stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio for the next decade. While we’d have to do much more to keep the debt stable over the longer run, that would be a huge accomplishment.”
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/whats-really-driving-national-debt–0
“ABC News’ Jonathan Karl sat down this week for this gimmicky “Subway Series” interview with Sen. Tom Coburnof Oklahoma. Coburn opined on Grover Norquist, the tax structure (where to his credit, he was surprisingly honest, admitting that our taxes are at a 100 year low) the deficit, leaving the Gang of 6, effectively killing it, and the debt ceiling.”
“But note what wasn’t mentioned: Coburn’s role in the Ensign sex scandal:
“Contained in the 67-page report {written by the Senate Ethics Committee investigating John Ensign’s conduct}, however, is troubling evidence of the central role that current Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) played in trying to keep Ensign’s mistress and her husband quiet — evidence that contradicts Coburn’s previous public statements on the matter. In July 2009, Coburn said he was consulting with Ensign “as a physician and as an ordained deacon” and he considered it a “privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody.” Asked about the claim from Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress, that he “urged Ensign to pay the Hamptons millions of dollars,” Coburn said, “I categorically deny everything he said.”[..]
“Coburn eventually agreed to cooperate with the Ethics Committee; their findings on the level of his involvement are startling. According to the committees report, Coburn actively assisted in the discussions of a hush money package, negotiating a proposed package from $8 million down to $2.8 million.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but that sounds like some seriously ethically-challenged behavior to me. Ensign left office the day before the report came out and had the unbelievable luck to do so just before Osama bin Laden was killed, so the entire event flew under the radar of the media. But Coburn continues his luck that no one in the media bothers to ask him about his role whatsoever. So what will it take? What will make the media wake up and do their job? Or is it just okay to be brokering hush money to your colleagues mistress if you’re a Republican?”
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/media-fails-you-example-23745-why-med
Darryl Issa…come on down:
“As Cenk Uygur noted here, apparently the current Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wasn’t doing much oversight of his own company. And as he noted, ironically this is the same man who once made the statement that “There will be a certain degree of gridlock as the president adjusts to the fact that he has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.”
//
“The Vista car-alarm company once owned by Congressman Darrell Issa was paying about half the required tariffs on certain parts it imported from China for years and paid an estimated $2.5 million in back duties earlier this year to rectify the situation.
Issa no longer owns DEI Holdings Inc., although he is still on the board of the company, which is being sold to Boston-based Charlesbank Capital Partners for $285 million in cash.”
“In a prepared response to questions from The Watchdog, Issa said he was aware of the misclassifications and participated in efforts to resolve them. “Once these issues came to the attention of the board of directors, we called for an independent review by expert counsel,” he wrote. “My understanding is the company has made appropriate tariff adjustments and disclosures both to Customs and our independent auditors. DEI said the classifications were corrected as quickly as possible when the problem was discovered early in 2010. In the first quarter of this year, the company reported the underpayments to Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency that enforces tariffs.” [SOMEONE’S NOT TELLING THE TRUTH! QUICK! GUESS WHO?]
“Former DEI executive Mike Wilhelm noted that the disclosure was made a year after the fact, and only after he filed a whistle-blower complaint with Customs on March 14 of this year. “They weren’t going to do it unless I forced them to,” said Wilhelm, a DEI vice president who resigned over the issue in March after 10 years with the company. “Frankly, I became ashamed to work there.”
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/chair-house-oversight-committee-issas-comp
I’ll say it, rikyrah. Issa is fucking crazy.
“For months, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has berated President Obama and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for not giving the state more federal money to combat historic wildfires that have so far burned 2.5 million acres.”
“Despite the fact that the administration has offered 26 different kinds of federal assistance to combat the fires, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) claimed that Obama is waging “a war on Texas.” After months of blaming the President for not doing enough, Reuters reported yesterday that Perry is poised to sign a budget that slashes funding for the state agency that is battling the wildfires.”
//
“The Texas Forest Service faces almost $34 million in budget cuts over the next two years, roughly a third of the agency’s total budget. The cuts are in both the House and Senate versions of the proposed state budget. […] Assistance grants [for volunteer fire departments] are likely to take the biggest hit. Volunteers — two of whom were killed in fighting this year’s fires — make up nearly 80 percent of the state’s fire-fighting force and are first responders to roughly 90 percent of wildfires in Texas.”
“Chris Barron, executive director of the State Firemen’s and Fire Marshals’ Association, says the funding on the chopping block is indispensable. Many volunteer fire departments already have worn-down equipment, and without funding for new equipment, ‘response times will almost certainly increase.'”
“Perry’s recent boast that Texas is “a model for the nation in disaster preparedness and response” is especially ironic in light of his approval of cutting Forest Service funds when the agency most needs them. Meanwhile, the governor, who one Texas political columnist notes “has made almost a religion of blasting everything Obama does and doesn’t do,” has accused the president of pursuing a political vendetta against Texas.”
“Why are you taking care of Alabama, why are you taking care of other states,” Perry said at a press conference this month, adding, “The letter [requesting federal aid] didn’t get lost in the mail.” Perry carried his public blame game so far that he even refused to meet with the president when he visited Texas last week to deliver an immigration address.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/21/tx-gop-obama-fires/
That hair of Perrry’s is woven way too tightly on that nogdin of his.
LOL! Perry should give that horse back its tail…
BWA HA HA HA
‘Two weeks ago, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) marked “a new era for education in Indiana” when he signed into law one of the most expansive school voucher laws in the country, opening up a huge fund of tax dollars for private schools. A few days later, the Wisconsin state Assembly vastly expanded school vouchers, freeing up tax dollars even for private religious schools. GOP legislators in the Pennsylvania Senate say they have the votes to pass a sweeping voucher bill of their own. And on Capitol Hill, House Republicans successfully revived Washington, D.C.’s voucher system after it was killed off two years ago.”
“This rapid expansion of voucher programs — which undermine and undercut public education by funnelling taxpayer money to private schools — is remarkable. After all, vouchers have been unpopular with the American public. Between 1966 and 2000, vouchers were put up for a vote in states 25 times, and voters rejected the program 24 of those times.”
“Yet if one looks behind the curtain — at the foundations, non-profits, Political Action Committees (PAC) — into the workings of the voucher movement, it’s apparent why it has gained strength in recent years. A tight-knit group of right-wing millionaires and billionaires, bankers, industrialists, lobby shops, and hardcore ideologues has been plotting this war on public education, quietly setting up front group after front group to promote the idea that the only way to save public education is to destroy it — disguising their movement with the innocent-sounding moniker of “school choice.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/21/billionaires-privatize-education/
LOL! And…another one bites the dust. It’s curious with the claims coming from both the left and the right about how the President is not taking X, Y, and Z issue seriously, lacks leadership, and is going to “destroy” American that they can’t find anyone of substance to run against him. What does that tell you?!!
“Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels — who had for months been flirting with a run for the White House — has decided not to enter the fray, the Indianapolis Star reports. ‘I will not be a candidate, he said, saying his wife and children had encouraged against running.”
“‘On matters affecting us all, our family constitution gives a veto to the women’s caucus, and there is no override provision,’ Daniels said in a statement. ‘Simply put, I find myself caught between two duties. I love my country; I love my family more.'”
“Seeking a credible consensus candidate in a weak GOP field, allies of former President George W Bush had reportedly being encouraging Daniels to run.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/daniels-not-running-i-love-my-country-i-love-my-family-more.php
TRANSLATION: “I can’t see putting myself and my family through what President Obama and his family has endured over the past 2 1/2 years. Can’t do it!”
Spot on translation, creolechild.
+ Daniels knows damn well he can NOT beat PBO.
Hey, SG2 and Ametia! Hope you’re doing well today. And I’m happy that Ametia had a safe journey! (:
Happy Sunday, Creolechild; thanks.
Hiya, Creolechild!
Good to see you! Hope you’re enjoying your Sunday! Yeah, we’re happy Ametia is back safe and sound!
Why doesn’t Cornel shut up already?!!!!
Dr. Cornel West Responds To Criticism Over Controversial Comments Made Against Pres. Obama
Bleech….notice how’s he’s trying to walk back his statements. Because if you read the articles that have been posted on this site and elsewhere West was anything BUT respectful to President Obama. He attacked him personally, talked about his family who raised him and questioned his ethnicity as though it was some sort of barrier to his manhood and serving in the office to which he was elected. Yet, Martin didn’t grill him on those aspects of his ugly, nasty comments.
If West was truly interested in the state of black America what HE done all these years BEFORE Barack Obama arrived on the scene to create solutions?
I’ll wait…
Oops…last sentence should read what has he done all the years before Barack Obama arrived on the scene.
So sick of this coon, shuckin & buckin’ Cornel West. He’s full-o-shit.
He did walk it back, but who cares, PBO’s dealing with the REAL deal for Americans. West on the other hand is whining for attention and profits. Go take care of your daughter in Germany!
Interesting that he’s considered such a great intellectual but he’s unaware of the President’s accomplishments in the very areas that he’s criticizing. We found the information, why stopped him. Oh, that’s right…what would he left to talk about?
Secondly, the economy began taking a nosedive under the Bush administration, and the criminal justice system became much harsher to people of color under the CLINTON administration. Where was his outrage then?
Third, given the fact that a large proportion of jobs in the manufacturing sector have been outsourced and aren’t coming back why isn’t he, and his circle of critics, looking at ways to support entrepreneurs who could create permanent jobs in communities of color? Why isn’t he emphasizing the importance of acquiring additional skills to communities of color? And when is someone going to drag him out of the 60s and free him from that outdated, irrelevant nonsense that he leans on so heavily? The quest for knowledge should lead you to more questions than answers as you progress–not less!
Get your mind right, Cornel…
Sorry again…second sentence should read, we found the information, what stopped him?
Seriously, Corny West is NOT
I , along with truthrose and keep it cleva got into a convo with Imani Perry, who is a colleague if west at Princeton. Asked her about her support for west in light of his comments and all the criticism that m h Perry received when she criticised west. Imani Perry continues to defend west and dies not support mhperry criticism. It was very enlightening in that it was clear that west has a hold over many black Princeton profs. He is probably responsible for them being at Princeton so they are beholden to him.
I’d be ok with criticism but west criticism is blanket “plutocrats” and “oligarchs” Plutocrats and oligarchs help fund Princeton or didn’t he know that?
Interesting CIRCLE JERK, Dannie. West get paid paid by the same system that he berates PBO for. And he supposedly is the head nigga in charge of the Black Princeton professors under such rule. Interesting indeed.
West and his nonsensical HYPOCRISY can kiss my blue-black shiny ass.
Dannie- interesting indeed. I guess they’re reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them, honesty and truth be damned.
I just had another thought on this issue. Don’t you all find it interesting that people are defending West’s right to criticize the President in any manner that he deems fit (read: nasty personal attacks) but these very same people are opposing Melissa Harris-Perry’s right to criticize West? Very interesting…..
“What’s good for the police apparently isn’t good for the people — or so the law enforcement community would have us believe when it comes to surveillance. That’s a concise summary of a new trend noted by National Public Radio last week — the trend whereby law enforcement officials have been trying to prevent civilians from using cellphone cameras in public places as a means of deterring police brutality.”
“‘Oddly, the effort — which employs both forcible arrests of videographers and legal proceedings against them — comes at a time when the American Civil Liberties Union reports that ‘an increasing number of American cities and towns are investing millions of taxpayer dollars in surveillance camera systems.'”
“Then again, maybe it’s not odd that the two trends are happening simultaneously. Maybe they go hand in hand. Perhaps as more police officers use cameras to monitor every move we make, they are discovering the true power of video to independently document events. And as they see that power, they don’t want it turned against them.”
“Though you’d expect that uncomfortable question to evoke dissembling, Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Jim Pasco was quite straightforward about it. Police officers, he told NPR, “need to move quickly, in split seconds, without giving a lot of thought to what the adverse consequences for them might be.” He added that law enforcement authorities believe “that anything that’s going to have a chilling effect on an officer moving — an apprehension that he’s being videotaped and may be made to look bad — could cost him or some citizen their life.”
“Obviously, nobody wants to stop officers from doing their much-needed job (well, nobody other than budget-cutting politicians who are slashing police forces). In fact, organizations such as the NAACP have urged citizens to videotape police precisely to make sure police are doing ALL of their job — including protecting individuals’ civil liberties.”
http://www.alternet.org/rights/151021/turning_the_camera%3A_why_are_cops_allowed_to_film_citizens%2C_but_citizens_not_allowed_to_film_police_brutality/
I posted the previous article for another reason. So, according to Cornel West and company, President Obama doesn’t relate to, or care about issues that directly affect people of color?
For real?
Well, how do you explain these actions which were taken when he was a senator—BEFORE he was elected to the Oval Office? He’s always had our backs even when we weren’t aware of it. And anyone who says otherwise is a LIAR!
–Legislated protecting police detainees during interrogation
“[Obama’s] record as a state senator, especially on civil liberties, is strong. Obama sponsored successful legislation to combat racial profiling and to protect police detainees during interrogation. He sponsored an unsuccessful bill banning discrimination against lesbians and gays.”
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p. 22 Nov 11, 2007
–Pushed Illinois bill to videotape all capital interrogations
“Obama had a 2002 bill to stop police abuse. Chicago had become infamous for use of torture by police to help frame innocent people. Thirteen innocent men on Death Row were exonerated and released, some of them victims of these tortured confessions. Illinois desperately needed some action to restore confidence in the police.”
“Obama’s proposal was to require videotaping of interrogations of suspects in capital cases. When Obama began, the idea of a bill was opposed by police, prosecutors, most of the senate and the governor. The governor was determined not to appear soft on crime, and had promised to veto any proposal for mandatory tapings.”
“By the time Obama finished his work, the police and prosecutors embraced the bill, it passed in the Illinois Senate by a vote of 58-0. The governor took the unusual step of reversing himself to sign it, and Illinois became the first state to require such tapings.”
Source: The Improbable Quest, by John K. Wilson, p.145 Oct 30, 2007
— No extra penalty for gang association
“Most people like the idea of a politician who votes for individual rights, but the fact that Obama could do so and still maintain the respect of law enforcement shows his political skills. Obama voted against a proposal to criminalize contact with a gang for any convicts on probation or out on bail. In 2001, Obama opposed making gang activity eligible for the death penalty.”
“There’s a strong overlap between gang affiliation and young men of color…. I think it’s problematic for them to be singled out as more likely to receive the death penalty for carrying out certain acts than are others who do the same thing.“
“In 1999, Obama opposed mandatory adult prosecution for youth who discharge a firearm nea[r] a school, declaring, “There is really no proof or indication that automatic transfers and increased penalties and adult penalties for juvenile offenses have, in fact, proven to be more effective in reducing juvenile crime or cutting back on recidivism.”
Source: The Improbable Quest, by John K. Wilson, p.146 Oct 30, 2007
— Works on ex-offender laws because it could have been him
“Obama said, “In my book, I mention that I dabbled in drugs or that I was acting tough. I put that in there explicitly because what I wanted to communicate was the degree to which many young men, particularly young African-American men, engage in self-destructive behavior because they don’t have a clear sense of direction. But I also wanted to point out that there is way to pull out of that and refocus, and in my case, it was tying myself to something much larger than myself. In my case, that was trying to promote a fair and just society. That is the reason I work on ex-offender legislation. I say to myself that if I had been growing up in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago, there is no reason to think that I wouldn’t be in jail today, that I could have easily taken that same wrong turn. That is something that I am very mindful of and it is something that motivates me.“
Source: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell, p.202 Aug 14, 2007
— Need justice that is not just us, but is everybody
Q: In the last decade, whites were 70% of persons arrested, but only 40% of inmates. Why?
A:” The criminal justice system is not color blind. It does not work for all people equally, and that is why it’s critical to have a president who sends a signal that we are going to have a system of justice that is not just us, but is everybody. I passed racial profiling legislation at the state level. It requires some political courage, because oftentimes you are accused of being soft on crime.”
Source: 2007 Democratic Primary Debate at Howard University Jun 28, 2007
— Reformed death penalty by listening & compromising
“I arrived in this capital city as a state Senator. It was here, in Springfield, where I saw all that is America converge–farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. I made lasting friendships here–friends that I see in the audience today.”
“It was here we learned to disagree without being disagreeable–that it’s possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we’re willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst.”
“That’s why we were able to reform a death penalty system that was broken. That’s why we were able to give health insurance to children in need. That’s why we made the tax system more fair and just for working families, and that’s why we passed ethics reforms that the cynics said could never, ever be passed.”
Source: Speech in Springfield, in Change We Can Believe In, p.194-5 Feb 10, 2007
http://www.ontheissues.org/domestic/Barack_Obama_Crime.htm
REFUTE THIS, CORNEL WEST!
First lady Michelle Obama talks to graduating cadets and their families at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. , on Friday, May 20, 2011. First lady Michelle Obama urged more than 1,000 cadets Friday night on the brink of graduating to keep in mind the families of the soldiers they will lead.
Tonight on the Bollboard awards, FLOTUS will be honoring Beyonce
Thanks for the heads up, Dannie! :-)) Beyonce has been very supportive of FLOTUS Let’s Move initatives.
Democrats meddle in slow-starting GOP primary
(AP) – 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Maybe President Barack Obama and his friends got tired of waiting for the 2012 campaign to start.
The early action was supposed to be in the competitive Republican primary. But the White House and its allies are meddling from the sidelines with a good cop, bad cop routine, hoping to exploit the GOP’s late start.
A pro-Obama group called Priorities USA is airing a TV ad in South Carolina that jabs Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, two of the best-known Republican contenders. The ad coincided with Romney’s visit to the state Saturday, his first since forming a presidential exploratory committee.
Obama keeps offering praise, which he knows can damage a candidate in a Republican primary, to Romney on health care issues and to Jon Huntsman for his service as the Obama administration’s ambassador to China.
Huntsman, a former Utah governor, also is considering running.
A safer strategy might call for Obama and his allies to stay quiet, save their money and let the Republicans bash each other. But the GOP rivals aren’t doing much bashing in their slow-starting contest. So Democrats are filling the void with ads and emails meant to divide the Republicans or at least annoy them.
Mischief is partly at play.
At a Boston fundraiser Wednesday, Obama credited Romney with helping to shape the Democrats’ 2010 health care law, which conservatives detest and Romney has pledged to repeal. As Massachusetts governor in 2006, Romney enacted a state law that, like the federal one, requires people to obtain health insurance.
Obama has offered winking praise of Romney before. But Democrats feel Gingrich gave them a new opening on the health care front when he called a recently passed GOP House bill “radical.” It would reduce Medicare’s costs and benefits over time and convert Medicaid to a state block grant program.
Gingrich’s efforts to apologize and retract the comments have not stopped Democrats’ criticisms. The Priorities USA ad in South Carolina seeks to pit Romney against Gingrich, in terms neither will find flattering.
“Newt Gingrich says the Republican plan that would essentially end Medicare is too radical,” the ad says. It suggests it’s hard to know where Romney stands because he has neither criticized nor fully embraced the House measure.
Romney’s camp is firing back and using the pro-Democratic ad to raise money. Romney’s exploratory committee, in an email seeking donations, calls it “a misleading, negative attack ad.” Romney “will not allow these tactics to slow him down,” the email says.
Romney adviser Kevin Madden said the Democrats “are trying to be cute.” But the South Carolina ad actually “is a sign of weakness” from a president who wants to divert attention from jobs and the economy, Madden said.
Obama and his allies have little to lose by linking Romney to the Democrats’ health care law. If Republican voters accept the argument, they may nominate a less mainstream candidate who could prove weak in the general election.
If Romney is the nominee, he might have a harder time distinguishing his policies from Obama’s, complicating Romney’s claim that it’s time to change leaders.
The Democratic National Committee maintains a barrage of “rapid response” criticisms of Romney, Gingrich, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and other GOP contenders.
“Tim Pawlenty: Uninspiring at Best,” said one DNC statement, based on portions of a Time magazine article.
Some Democrats question the wisdom of undercutting Pawlenty, Gingrich or any other Republican besides Romney, who many see as potentially the strongest contender in a shaky GOP field.
Bill Burton, a former Obama aide who heads the Priorities USA group, said there’s no point in trying to guess who the Republicans will nominate, and no point in waiting to hit the candidates’ weaknesses.
Romney “is a flawed candidate,” Burton said, “but he’ll be well-funded.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i5mg6hRolf60ZH2lk21S-Tibohfw?docId=3485bc54514841308abc096d6fba1ff6
So what? Republicans can dish it out…but can’t take it! Now, after 2 1/2 years of race-baiting, hate mongering, lies, misinformation, and distortions and the Democrats have finally started pushing back we’re supposed to feel sorry for them. Kiss my gumbo!
LOL @kiss my gumbo!
Screw the Republicans. Dems betta stay on the attack with FACTS.
“‘Republican super lawyer James Bopp, the mastermind behind the Citizens United case that opened the door to unfettered corporate campaign spending, has a new scheme that would tie political candidates more closely than ever before to corporations and other special interests seeking to influence federal elections. He’s trying to unleash what could be called a ‘super-duper PAC.'”
“Last week, Bopp registered the Republican Super PAC (or political action committee) with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as an independent expenditure committee. That means the money it raises can’t be coordinated with any of the candidates it supports, but that it can accept and spend unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations. Outside expenditure groups are nothing new to American politics. Bopp, in fact, helped pioneer such groups with the creation of the first “527” organization—nonprofit groups that can spend money on campaigns but that are regulated by the Internal Revenue Service, not the FEC. (Read the Mother Jones profile of Bopp here.) But Bopp’s super PAC envisions doing something that’s never been done before: using candidates themselves to do the fundraising.”
“The different thing here with our PAC is that we are going to harness the political fundraising of candidates and parties,” he says. He explains that the committee will allow candidates and parties to fundraise for their campaigns and party organs at the same time they solicit unlimited, anonymous contributions to the super PAC.
“Here’s how it works: Say House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) approaches the CEO of Exxon for a contribution to his reelection campaign. Under federal law, the CEO can only give Boehner $2,500. In the past, that’s the end of the conversation. But Bopp’s plan envisions Boehner and his campaign asking that same donor—and his company—to pony up more money, as much as he wants, for the Republican Super PAC. The donor can even specify that the money be spent supporting Boehner or attacking his opponent. Then Bopp’s PAC can buy ads, send out mailings, canvass neighborhoods, and do all the other things a political campaign typically does on Boehner’s behalf.”
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/republican-super-pac-james-bopp
President Obama Speaks at AIPAC Policy Conference 2011
May 22, 2011 10:35 AM EDT
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
President addresses AIPAC
http://www.cspan.org/Events/President-addresses-AIPAC/10737421659/
This morning, President Obama will address the Israeli lobbying organization, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). While Israel and the U.S. are long-standing allies, the reception the President may receive at today’s conference is in question after the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations between he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached a roadblock.
During a major policy speech on the Middle East Thursday, President Obama said Israel’s borders should be based on 1967 lines when Israel expanded its boundaries by obtaining parts of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in a six-day war. During a meeting at the White House Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected those terms. He said, “The first is that while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines — because these lines are indefensible; because they don’t take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years.”
“Last week, President Obama said that “a lasting peace” between the Israelis and the Palestinians “will involve two states” and that “the borders of Israel and Palestine be based on the 1967 lines.” The American right has since accused Obama of selling out Israel despite the fact that the idea Obama proposed isn’t really all that controversial.”
“Mitt Romney said the President threw Israel “under the bus,” while others like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said the President “betrayed” Israel and that “Obama’s call for 1967 borders will cause chaos, division & more aggression in Middle East & put Israel at further risk.”
“Yet Israel’s opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, reportedly backs Obama’s rhetoric, and she chastised Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu for coming out against the Obama administration:
“Tzipi Livni, leader of Israel’s opposition Kadima party, also backed Mr Obama’s two-state solution and accused Mr Netanyahu of putting Israel at risk in order to save his right-wing coalition.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/21/livni-obama-1967/
“The prime minister has violated relations between Israel and the United States,” she said, speaking after Mr Obama’s speech but before the Oval Office meeting. “He has endangered the security of Israel and its power of deterrence.”
“Obliquely and with respect to his audience, in his speech to AIPAC today, President Obama also responded to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s repeated lies about what President Obama said only the day before.”
“Just as no man is an island, no country can be either. On its present course Israel is on its way to becoming a pariah state, a status in which it cannot indefinitely or even perhaps long survive. Neither the fact that Israel faces a profound cultural animosity among the region’s Arab populations nor the bad faith that often greets its actions nor even the anti-Semitism that is sometimes beneath the animus changes this essential fact.”
“The make-up of the 21st century world is simply not compatible with a perpetual military occupation of another people, especially one that crosses a boundary of ethnicity and religion. Only the willfully oblivious can’t see that.”
“I’ve had so many conversations with American and Israeli hardliners who say essentially, why give up this land as long as the Palestinians won’t do this or that thing? Such folly. As though the settlements of the West Bank were a thing of great value as opposed to a lethal threat. Like you insist on keeping the knife in your belly as opposed to removing it at the first opportunity because someone else you’re negotiating with won’t do what you want.”
“Netanyahu believes that US power is forever and that the US political consensus to support Israel in almost any policy choice it makes will never change. So he can simply ignore the currents of history and international affairs and thumb his nose at every other country in the world. But neither is true.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/05/a_proud_day_for_obama.php?ref=fpblg
Adding yet another sprinkling of batshit crazy to spice things up!
“I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States … [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis [Genesis 12:3], we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel.” Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann
“A curse? Okeee. Another of a thousand reasons why Bachmann should not be allowed anywhere near American foreign policy.”
http://bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2011/05/crazy-quote-of-the-day.html
THANKS!
Beyonce’s Billboard Awards: Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Bono To Honor Singer
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michelle-obama-lady-gaga-pay-190884
The singer is set to be honored with Millennium Award and, according to Access Hollywood, First Lady Michelle Obama, Barbra Streisand, Lady Gaga, Bono and Stevie Wonder will take part in a tribute during the award show in Las Vegas.
Beyoncé recently contributed a music video to Obama’s National Education Foundation, which works to fight childhood obesity. She also sang Etta James’ “At Last” during the president’s inauguration.
Fox News Chief Roger Ailes Thinks Sarah Palin Is ‘Stupid’: New York Magazine
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/22/roger-ailes-palin-stupid-fox-news-new-york_n_865117.html#comments
NEW YORK — Fox News still dominates the cable news ratings, but chairman Roger Ailes wants something more: to help elect the next president.
That’s the takeaway from Gabriel Sherman’s New York magazine cover story hitting newsstands Monday. Sherman, who’s currently writing a book on Fox News for Random House, looks at how Ailes — who built up a stable of possible presidential contenders after the 2008 election, including Sarah Palin — isn’t so pleased with their chances at beating President Barack Obama in 2012.
Ailes doesn’t speak on the record in the article, but several Republicans close to the Fox News chief describe his concerns going into an election year.
“He thinks things are going in a bad direction,” another Republican close to Ailes told [Sherman]. “Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she’s stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven’t elevated the conservative movement.”
Ailes, a television titan, has schooled past presidential candidates on how to handle the media. Before helping Rupert Murdoch launch Fox News in 1996, Ailes worked as a strategist for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (who he still talks to regularly).
But Palin, a former Alaska Governor and current Fox News contributor, hasn’t always listened to Ailes’ sage advice, as Sherman reported a couple months back. Although Ailes reportedly told Palin to lay low after the Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), she still went ahead with the infamous “blood libel” video.
Question: If he thought she was so stupid, why did he boost her up?
Answer: $$$ for the attention she received and the rating which resulted from people tuning in to Faux to hear the next idiotic thing that came out of her mouth!
Not working out quite the way you had planned, eh Roger? LOL!
How embarrassing…
“A Tea Party rally on Thursday in Columbia, South Carolina was expected to draw 2,000 to 3,000 people, or so its organizers claimed. A key speaker, Donald Trump, canceled his appearance, but the state’s governor, Nikki Haley, who’s been talked about as a Republican vice presidential candidate, did speak. And yet attendance wasn’t in the four figures or even the three figures — it was 30.”
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/594460/tea_party_rally_promises_to_bring_in_thousands_–_and_only_30_people_show_up/
Gonna need more people than that to “take back America!” (smirk)
Inspiration for today….
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear ..
1 John 4:18
Morning, SG2! Looks like we’re back in business. See you later on. Ready to meet the Drem Master. long trip…
Sweet dreams, Ametia! Yeah, 3 Chics is rolling again. We got it cleared up!
Good Morning, SG2 & Everyone!
coffe: http://topnews.in/health/files/cup-of-coffee11.jpg
I <3 U 2!