Few gospel groups can equal the Williams Brothers in terms of longevity and popularity. The trio dates back to 1960, when Doug and Melvin’s father, the late Leon “Pop” Williams founded the group. In April 1991, Melvin, Henry and Doug decided to merge musical talent with industry expertise to form their own label dedicated to spreading the good news of Jesus Christ through anointed music. As a result, Blackberry Records was born.
Blackberry Records’ first release, “This Is Your Night,” received a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Soul Gospel Album and won two Stellar Awards. Since that time, the Brothers have earned a gold record for the WOW Gospel project that included their performance with Stevie Wonder, and have performed in some of the nation’s most prestigious concert halls, including: Madison Square Garden, The Apollo Theatre, Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, The Grand Old Opry, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and The House of Blues.
Our Lives Get No Value Without a Demand
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2011/11/our-lives-get-no-value-without-a-demand/#comment-362632166
To anyone who is not African-American, the worst of tragedies, atrocities and everything else can happen to US and no one gives a DAMN.
Black Women kidnapped and raped on the streets during the Jim Crow era – nothing is done to her White attackers, but she does get an apology from the State of “Mississippi, G*d Damn” sixty-five years later, and it damned near took an act of Congress to give it to her.
Black Children raped and otherwise sexually abused by those who brag about how they work with “under-privileged” (translation, usually African-American or Latino children) through their organizations and charities, which gives them unprecedented access to our children. These days, you can actually witness a Black child being raped in a shower stall by a white guy who is the Defensive Coordinator for a storied college, and NOTHING HAPPENS, except that shyt is covered up for over a decade. When it’s revealed that a whole lot of people KNEW about the perverseness of said Defensive Coordinator, everyone damned near up to and including the Governor of the state where the collegiate football program, worth millions of dollars to the college – said NOTHING; did NOTHING, and started a riot when the Head Coach got his decrepit ass fired and rightfully so.
Damn, if Earl Ofari Hutchinson wasn’t in my head when he said THIS:
But with the strong hints and now the public finger point by a parent of one of the victims that the victims were in her words ” Blacks about 10-12 and had a tall slim muscular build.” The Second Mile Foundation’s founder and accused Jerry Sandusky openly bragged that it was in the business of helping “underprivileged” youth, always the polite code word for poor, at risk, young blacks and Hispanics, it’s hardly a stretch to connect the dots to race.
Put bluntly, if Penn State officials kept their yaps shut for years in the face of open knowledge of and strong suspicions of the child rapes and the victims were young black males, than the last dot connected is the charge that black lives are routinely devalued when it comes to officials taking action to protect them. (Emphasis Mine) This charge has repeatedly been leveled in serial murders, inner city gang carnage, and against child service agencies that ignore or downplay repeated reports of abuse when the victims and the abused are black.
Obama Staff Profiles: Valerie Jarrett
Posted: 9/29/11 09:58 AM ET
The difference between the king and the kingmaker is this: The king sits on the throne, the kingmaker is the power behind the throne.”
Unknown
Valerie Jarrett’s connection with Barack Obama starts serendipitously and with some sense of destiny.
While deputy chief of staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, Jarrett interviewed a Michelle Robinson, soon to become Michelle Obama, for a job opening which fatefully for this country would turn into a sweeping political partnership involving big party, Democratic, Chicago-style pols.
After getting the job offer, Robinson asked Jarrett for some time to think about the offer but then momentously invited Jarrett to meet her fiancé, Barack. After dinner, Jarrett “took the couple under her wing and introduced them to a wealthier and better-connected Chicago than their own.” The rest, as they say, is history.
Born to American parents in Iran, Jarrett’s family moved back to Chicago when she was seven years old. Her father, James E. Bowman was a doctor who had been running a hospital for children in Iran. Her mother, Barbara T. Bowman co-founded the Erickson Institute.
Learning Persian and French as a child, Jarrett received a fine education including a BA in psychology at Stanford and a law degree from Michigan. Marrying Dr. William Jarrett in 1983, Ms. Jarrett and the doctor divorced in 1988 before her ex-husband died of a heart attack in 1993.
From 1987 until 1995, Valerie Jarrett cultivated political connections in Chicago at the highest level. Working for Daley as mentioned above and before that Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, Jarrett became a plugged-in political operator in Chi-Town.
Like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, the now infamous but previously ‘respected’ Blago and others, Jarrett would be amongst the first contacted if one wanted to accomplish anything politically in Chicago: considered by many including this writer as “the most corrupt city in America.”
Intriguingly, Jarrett did not have to testify at either of Blago’s trials, though she was definitely in the thick of things as the named party who was to have been installed in Obama’s vacated Senate seat in exchange for political favors and/or money. Could there have been political and judicial strings pulled by the Obama administration to get Jarrett out of the witness box, one wonders?
Valerie Jarrett was in my opinion, the main point person in assuring that everyone from Obama on down through herself, Axelrod and Emanuel were not called to testify in Blago’s first trial. This saved crucial embarrassment and exposure to potential investigations of the Obama staff. It also ensured, in conjunction with the convenient “pushing back” of the second Blago trail date, that Rahm Emanuel could be elected and inaugurated as Chicago mayor before having to testify about his deep involvement in this messy affair. It seems Valerie Jarrett made a lot of things happen for Obama team that otherwise would’ve threatened the Presidency.
The dangerous irony of two Chicago politicians such as Emanuel and Daley having enough clout to just switch places at will between The White House and Mayor’s mansion is not lost on this writer. What is this, ‘Musical Chairs’ with Valerie Jarrett stopping the music?
Like Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick, Valerie Jarrett can be considered a “Kingmaker.” Like the original “Kingmaker” of the 15th century’s War of the Roses, who ‘made’ Richard III, Valerie Jarrett plays the same role to Barack Hussein Obama. She’s the key person who whispered into Obama’s ear at the right moment, “You are the rightful heir to the throne.”
She knew how to get him there and now she does everything in her formidable political power to keep him there.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-relentless-conservative/obama-staff-profiles-vale_b_986854.html?ref=michelle-obama
Part 3 of AsiaGirlMN essays on Jerry Sandusky
This is Part III on the history of the cover-up in the Penn State University rape case. You can read Part I here and Part II here. To reiterate for the third time, the purpose of this series of posts is to focus on the systematic cover-up by PSU of the Jerry Sandusky rape case as it spanned decades, was investigated in the late 1990s, and not a damn thing happened to him until the Grand Jury investigation of 2010 concluded. My purpose is to show that this was not, obviously, an isolated incident and that it did not happen in a vacuum. Men knew. And, instead of doing the right thing, these men did – nothing.
Actually, they did worse than nothing as they did whatever they could to protect the status quo and their brand name, but I am getting ahead of myself. Suffice to say, what they didn’t do was protect the children whom Sandusky was sexually abusing and raping.
http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/11/13/the-jerry-sandusky-rape-case-the-history-of-the-psu-cover-up-part-iii/
the shame is…the real thing was funnier
hat tip ProGeo from JJP Check it out and leave Bro. Wayne Sutton some love.
Black In America 4, Silicon Valley spoiler alert! 26 things to keep in mind while watching #blackinamerica tonight
Black In America 4 spoiler alert, spoiler alert! (not really)but Black In America 4 airs tonight 8pm on CNN. The subtitle is Silicon Valley, the new promise land narrated by Soledad O’Brien. The base of story about Black In America 4 is the NewME Accelerator which I help plan/organize with Angela Benton and also as a participated in as an entrepreneur. CNN heard about the project via a Wall Street Journal Article and the rest I guess you can is history. You’ll see tonight right?
The leading producer is Jason Samuels and while Soledad O’Brien is the host we spent most of our time with Jason Samuels and his crew. The CNN Black In America production crew was great and was nice to work with. I want to say a special thank you to not only Jason but to Garland McLaurin, Kim, Mark, Ronnie Stevenson IV, Henry and more.
Some of the questions I received during the pre-screening interviews were, what was it like living in the NewME Accelerator startup house, was it like a reality TV show, how much of the documentary was real vs staged. I couldn’t answer to many of those questions before last week because I was not in attendance to any of the pre-screening until Wednesday. Now that I’ve seen it I’ll say that the documentary is not stage at all and it’s 99% accurate BUT it’s also only about 10% of everything that happen this summer.
To be fair Jason Samuels wanted two hours or at least 90 minutes for Black In America 4 but CNN only gave him one hour for the show. That’s tough to try to fit everything in one hour especially when CNN recorded over 300 hours worth of footage this summer. Regardless I’m very grateful for the one hour.
http://socialwayne.com/2011/11/13/black-in-america-4-silicon-valley-spoiler-alert-26-things-to-keep-in-mind-while-watching-blackinamerica-tonight/
Obama’s nod puts Jackson Jr. ahead
LAURA WASHINGTON
LauraSWashington@aol.com
November 6, 2011 3:40PM
Triple J is emerging from under a political boulder. He’s shovel-ready.
Fox News Chicago reported last week that President Barack Obama has told U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. he will “absolutely” support him for re-election. That tidbit might be just enough to save Jackson’s gnarly political skin.
On Oct. 16, at the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial dedication in Washington, D.C., Jackson button-holed Obama and asked for his endorsement. Jackson’s office made sure to mention that his father and sister, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson and Santita Jackson, were nearby and heard the exchange. That’s vintage Jackson: Leave no wiggle room.
Jackson is rolling out his comeback tour. In a recent speech to the Kankakee County NAACP, he declared, “I will be vindicated” in ongoing investigations connected to the federal Operation Board Games probe.
For three years, Jackson has been ducking and dodging allegations that former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat once held by Obama and that Jackson was the earnest buyer. The federal probe led to a pending U.S. House Ethics Committee investigation. Then along came salacious revelations that Jackson was involved in an extramarital affair.
Jackson has not been charged with any crime. He has issued incessant denials but languished in the political dog house. No dropping tidbits to beltway reporters, no dog-and-pony press conferences.
His troubles set the stage for the first serious challenge of his career. Last month, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson launched a bid to take out Jackson in the March 2012 primary. She has been charging hard, arguing that the 15-year incumbent is an absentee congressman and under an ethical cloud.
No love lost here. Halvorson, who lost her 11th District seat last year, has tussled with Jackson over his signature theme: building an airport in south suburban Will County. Jackson once tried to torpedo Halvorson’s bid for state transportation secretary.
Halvorson harbors hopes that Jackson’s troubles, combined with a newly drawn district, make him ripe for a knockout.
Jackson’s 2nd District now spans the South Side to Kankakee County. The district is now 55 percent black, compared with 62 percent in the old configuration, but Jackson retains about 75 percent of his old territory. Halverson, who is white, is not a familiar figure in most of the district.
Black urban incumbents are difficult to dislodge. Jackson remains a prodigious fund-raiser and, when he’s on his game, a shrewd operator.
Obama’s support for Jackson in a contentious primary puts Halvorson in a prickly position, especially since she has questioned Jackson’s loyalty to the president.
It puts a shiv to speculation that the congressman is on the bubble. Would this risk-averse president back Jackson if there were an indictment or humiliating congressional censure waiting in the wings?
I doubt it.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/8615213-452/obamas-nod-puts-jackson-jr-ahead.html
anyone watching the Black in America on CNN right now?
Hubby and I saw it. We called it that the couple with the Couply.com would get backing. I think the reality of where the black participants placed themselves was indeed real.
They got a wake up call and rose to the occassion, and I was glad that some of them decided to relocate to the valley and keep moving forward with their entrepenurial ventures.
Soledad did a comendable job with this. I would have liked to have seen the entire 6 minutes presentation from each of the participants, though.
The tip off of an NCAA Men’s Basketball game between the University of North Carolina and Michigan State University on board the USS Carl Vinson at North Island Naval Station in San Diego, Calif., Nov. 11, 2011.
Heads up, Chicas!
President Obama holds a Press Conference tonight November 13, 2011 9:45 PM EST
Honolulu, Hawaii
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
November 10, 2011
Obama Back to Even With “Generic” Republican Candidate
Independents now evenly split after previously favoring the Republican
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ — President Obama now essentially ties, 43% to 42%, a “generic” Republican candidate when U.S. registered voters are asked whom they are more likely to vote for in the presidential election next year. This marks a change from October and September, when the Republican candidate was ahead, and underscores the potential for a close presidential race in the year ahead.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150677/Obama-Back-Even-Generic-Republican-Candidate.aspx?utm_source=add%2Bthis&utm_medium=addthis.com&utm_campaign=sharing#.Tr_EZQp8tvI.twitter
AP Suggests Obama has a Donor Problem — What does the Empirical Evidence Have to Say?
Joshua Tucker
November 3, 2011
With Nate Silver asking today whether Obama is toast in 2012, I thought it would be a good time to revisit an AP story last week about Obama’s supposed donor problem. The AP reported that:
Tens of thousands of people who together gave millions of dollars to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign have gone missing this time around. Their failure to give so far may signal that some of the president’s earliest supporters have lost enthusiasm.
I was initially a bit suspicious of this conclusion – namely because in 2007 Obama was heading into a hotly contested primary race while in 2011 he is not, so I reached out to Adam Bonica, a Stanford University political scientist and expert on political donations to campaigns. Following the success of John’s recent dialogue format posts, I recast our emails as a Q&A:
Q (me): Is it correct to conclude, as the AP report noted, that “larger donations are the strongest signs of enthusiasm“?
A (Bonica): I don’t think this is really the case. Large contributions signal more about how much time and effort Obama is putting into big-ticket fundraising events. If someone can afford to drop thousands of dollars per plate at one of these events, I presume they would wait until Obama visits their area before writing a check. If they give the maximum amount over the internet, they are technically barred from giving again at the fundraising event. Small donors and midsized donors are arguably a better indicator of enthusiasm, and Obama appears to have done quite well in this respect.
Q: Should Obama be worried that, as the AP noted, “Records also show a handful of Obama contributors from 2008 donated to Romney this time; none appeared to give to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another leading GOP candidate.”
A: I’ve run the numbers on where Obama ‘08 donors are giving in 2012. I included the cross-tabs below—the columns are donors to a candidates ‘08 campaign and the rows are the totals/percentages given to 2012 presidential candidates. I count 793 donors that gave to Obama in ‘08 and Romney in ‘12, which represents 2.3 percent of donors who both gave to Obama’s ‘08 campaign and gave to any of the 2012 presidential candidates. But when I perform the same calculations for donors to Romney’s ‘08 campaign, I find that 2.2 percent of his donors gave to Obama this time around. Yet the article didn’t bother to interview any former Romney donors who switched sides. My numbers cover the entire ‘08 campaign, not just April to September 2007, but they suggest that the Obama campaign has fared well in retaining it’s donor base.
Q: What’s the overall situation with donors from 2008?
A: . It is still early in the fundraising game. The vast majority of donors from 2008 have yet to give to anyone this time time around. According to my numbers, Romney has only managed to get about 12% of his donors from 2008 to give again in 2012. Another 3% gave to other candidates and the remaining 85% haven’t donated at all. The percentage for Obama is lower (~7 percent), but his 2008 donor base was an order of magnitude larger than Romney’s and many gave during the general election. That being said, given that 43% of Obama’s 2012 donors didn’t give to his 2008 campaign the headline could just as easily been “Obama’s reelection campaign attracts crowds of new donors.” That headline would be just as meaningless since there is no attempt at comparison, but you get the point.
Q: Well, if the focus was on Obama’s donor problem, then I assume Romney must be doing better than he did in 2008?
A: Romney’s Q3 report lists him as raising $32.5M cycle-to-date, $14M of which was raised last quarter. This is actually less than he raised by this point the last time around. The 2007 Q3 filings had Romney at $44.8M cycle-to-date, $9.7M of which raised in Q3 [of 2007].
Q: Well, if Romney is doing worse now than he did last cycle, then at least he is probably doing better than the main challengers – Clinton and Obama – were doing at this point in 2007, right?
A: Here are the numbers as listed in the 2007 Q3 FEC filings. [At the same point in the last electoral cycle,] Obama had raised $79.2 Million. Clinton had raised $80.3 Million.
http://prospect.org/article/ap-suggests-obama-has-donor-problem-%E2%80%94-what-does-empirical-evidence-have-say
November 13, 2011 9:35 AM
Republicans return to the torture ‘debate’
By Steve Benen
That there’s still even “debate” over whether the United States should engage in torture is a national embarrassment, and the way it was addressed in last night’s debate wasn’t exactly encouraging.
Co-moderator Major Garrett read an email from a veteran of the Vietnam War who believes “torture is always wrong in all cases,” and asked if the candidates agree. The question was first directed to Herman Cain, who said he’d do whatever military leaders said they wanted to do. Garrett pressed further, specifically noting the argument over waterboarding. Cain replied:
“I agree that it was an enhanced interrogation technique…. Yes, I would return to that policy. I don’t see it as torture. I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique.”
This generated applause from the South Carolina audience.
Michele Bachmann took a similar line, which also drew applause from attendees:
“If I were president, I would be willing to use waterboarding. I think it was very effective. It gained information for our country. And I also would like to say that today, under Barack Obama, he is allowing the A.C.L.U. to run the C.I.A.”
I have a hunch David Petraeus would disagree.
In fairness, I should note that the pro-torture position was not universally endorsed by the Republican candidates, and both Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman were quite articulate in condemning U.S. use of torture techniques. Given what’s become of Republican politics, I’m inclined to give both of them credit for taking unpopular, principled stands on the issue.
But in light of the Cain and Bachmann responses, it’s worth keeping a couple of things in mind. First, in GOP circles, support for torture remains painfully strong, even now. Post-Cheney, it’s become practically a party norm to support torture techniques that America used to consider unthinkable. Though Rick Santorum didn’t comment on this last night, it was just this summer when he said John McCain “doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works,” because the former prisoner of war opposes torture.
And second, Republican debate audiences continue to be a legitimate story in their own right. Over the last few months, we’ve seen GOP audiences cheer the execution of 234 people, cheer letting the insured die, boo an American soldier who happens to be gay, and now applaud torture.
There’s a deep strain of ugliness in Republican politics in 2011, and it appears to be getting worse.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_11/republicans_return_to_the_tort033457.php
November 13, 2011 10:40 AM
Looking to China as a model
By Steve Benen
I’ve generally overlooked most of Michele Bachmann’s recent nuttiness, in large part because her campaign is falling apart so rapidly and there just doesn’t seem to be much point in highlighting her nonsense.
But this gem from last night was just too beautiful to let go by unmentioned.
“So what would I cut? I think, really, what I would wanna do is be able to go back and take a look at Lyndon Baines Johnson’s The Great Society.
“The Great Society has not worked, and it’s put us into the modern welfare state. If you look at China, they don’t have food stamps. If you look at China, they’re in a very different situ — they save for their own retirement security. They don’t have pay FDIC. They don’t have the modern welfare state. And China’s growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with The Great Society, and they’d be gone.”
Even for Bachmann, this is just amazing.
Sure, it stands to reason right-wing candidate would call for the destruction of “the modern welfare state”; that’s become a rather standard part of any far-right ideology. But once a President Bachmann takes a sledgehammer to the Great Society, what does she want to replace it with? A Chinese model.
Bachmann considers programs like Medicare to be “socialist,” which she thinks is bad, and looks longingly at Chinese communism, which she thinks is good.
Remember over the summer when Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll and looked like a top-tier candidate? A few months later, it still seems hard to believe.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_11/looking_to_china_as_a_model033458.php
November 13, 2011 11:15 AM
Quote of the Day
By Steve Benen
As expected, Rick Perry joked a bit last night about his previous debate performance, and last night featured no car-crash-like moments for the Texas governor.
But there was one thing he said that I still can’t quite wrap my head around.
“Listen, there are some people who have made the statement that — the 21st century is gonna be the — the century of China and that, you know, we’ve had our time in the sunshine. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that at all. As a matter of fact, you think back to the 1980s and we faced a similar type of — of a situation with — with Russia.
“And Ronald Reagan said that Russia would end up on the ash heap of history. And he was right. Mitt, I happen to think that the communist Chinese government will end up on the ash heap of history if they do not change their virtues. It is important for a country to have virtues, virtues of honest.”
First, to say the relationship between the United States and China now is “similar” to the “type” of relationship the United States had with the USSR in the 1980s is bizarre.
Second, to draw a parallel between the Soviets of the Cold War and the Chinese of the 21st century is ridiculous.
And third, I haven’t the foggiest idea what “virtues of honest” is even supposed to mean.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_11/quote_of_the_day_21033459.php
November 13, 2011 12:20 PM
‘The guy who laid you off’
By Steve Benen
Four years ago, Mike Huckabee contrasted his style as a candidate with that of Mitt Romney’s style: “I want to be a president who reminds you of the guy you work with, not the guy who laid you off.” It was a sharp quip because it hit close to home: Romney’s private-sector background involving laying off a lot of American workers.
The former Massachusetts governor has two broad flaws as a presidential candidate. The first is that he’s a craven, cowardly flip-flopper who shifts with the winds and demonstrates a practical allergy to principled stands. The second has to do with Romney’s record on jobs — specifically, how abysmal it is.
During Romney’s one term as governor — his only service in public office — his state’s record on job creation was “one of the worst in the country.” How bad was it? During his tenure, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states in job growth.
But it’s his private equity firm, Bain Capital, that should cause the real political headaches. The NYT’s Michael Barbaro takes a detailed look today at one deal in particular from Romney’s private-sector past.
Romney and his firm bought an Illinois medical company called Dade International and subjected it to Romney’s turnaround method. For some, it was a very lucrative deal. For others, not so much.
[A]n examination of the Dade deal shows the unintended human costs and messy financial consequences behind the brand of capitalism that Mr. Romney practiced for 15 years.
At Bain Capital’s direction, Dade quadrupled the money it owed creditors and vendors. It took steps that propelled the business toward bankruptcy. And in waves of layoffs, it cut loose 1,700 workers in the United States, including Brian and Christine Shoemaker, who lost their jobs at a plant in Westwood, Mass. Staggered, Mr. Shoemaker wondered, “How can the bean counters just come in here and say, Hey, it’s over?”
Romney’s firm played with borrowed money, then forced the company to borrow more money in order to pay Romney’s firm. Bain then proceeded to layoff a huge chunk of the company’s workforce, and tell many of the remaining employees that they could either accept a pay cut or leave. All the while, Romney and his business made a fortune.
In time, the over-leveraged company was forced to file for bankruptcy protection — and accused Romney’s firm of “professional negligence” and “unjust enrichment.”
And Romney thinks Americans are eager to bring this kind of experience to the White House. Indeed, the former governor hardly ever mentions his background in public service, and frequently tells voters to support him because of his business background.
What a background it is.
It reminded me of a recent piece from Frank Rich, describing Romney as a “poseur” who pretends to care about working people, and whose attempts at claiming credibility on unemployment are truly laughable.
No one doubts that Romney is a shape-shifter par excellence, whether on abortion, health care, cap and trade, or the Detroit bailout (which he predicted would speed GM and Chrysler to their doom). In his last presidential run, he was caught fabricating both his prowess as a hunter and a nonexistent civil-rights march starring his father and Martin Luther King. But to masquerade as a latter-day FDR is a new high in chutzpah even by his standards. […]
It’s a record Romney perennially tries to cover up. It may have cost him his Senate race against Ted Kennedy in 1994. In that campaign, Romney was stalked by a “Truth Squad” of striking workers from a Marion, Indiana, paper plant who had lost jobs, wages, health care, and pensions after Ampad, a Bain subsidiary, took control. Ampad eventually went bankrupt, but Bain walked away with $100 million for its $5 million investment. It was an all-too-typical Romney story. […]
That Romney thinks he can pass himself off as the working stiff’s savior and Obama as the second coming of the out-of-touch patrician George H.W. Bush of 1992 truly turns reality on its head.
There was also this gem from Stephen Colbert:
“You see, Romney made a Mittload of cash using what’s known as a leveraged buyout. He’d buy a company with ‘money borrowed against their assets, groomed them to be sold off and in the interim collect huge management fees.’ Once Mitt had control of the company, he’d cut frivolous spending like ‘jobs,’ ‘workers,’ ‘employees,’ and ‘jobs.’ […]
“Because Mitt Romney knows just how to trim the fat. He rescued businesses like Dade Behring, Stage Stories, American Pad and Paper, and GS Industries, then his company sold them for a profit of $578 million after which all of those firms declared bankruptcy. Which sounds bad, but don’t worry, almost no one worked there anymore.
“Besides, a businessman can’t be weighed down with a bleeding heart. As one former Bain employee put it, ‘It was very clinical…. Like a doctor. When the patient is dead, you just move on to the next patient.’”
Colbert presented Romney as a cross between Gordon Gecko and Jack Kevorkian, which sounds about right.
Add to the mix Romney’s belief that “corporations are people,” and his desire to cut taxes for the rich while asking those without to pay more, and we have an anti-populist Republican frontrunner who might find it very difficult to convince working families not to laugh in his face when he asks for their votes.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_11/the_guy_who_laid_you_off033460.php
Too Cool!
Hat tip- Smartypants
Masters of the Game
Fewer than 2 percent of the 47,000 members of the United States Chess Federation are masters — and just 13 of them are under the age of 14.
Among that select group of prodigies are three black players from the New York City area — Justus Williams, Joshua Colas and James Black Jr. — who each became masters before their 13th birthdays…
Although they are rivals, the boys are also friends and share a sense that they are role models.
“I think of Justus, me and Josh as pioneers for African-American kids who want to take up chess,” James said.
Thanks for posting this and hats def off to Smartypants. Our youth are amazing, and we don’t get nearly the properly deserved COVERAGE of all the GOODNESS of the next gernerations of great minds and hearts.
thank you for this
Who Should Be TIME’s Person of the Year 2011?
http://tiny.cc/0dhuq
Come on Chicas, lets vote for our President. The haters are trying their best to vote against him.
Go vote!
3CHICS!!!! LOL
i already voted for PBO!!!!
2 bits–4 bits–hey 6 bits–a dollar
All for the Texans–stand up and hollar! :)
Go Texans!
LOL So did the Texans win?
I’m just catching up. I think the Vikings are playing today too.
Bet you anything that McQueary was a victime of Sandusky’s earlier rapes.
…Ah ha! I never thought about it!
DAOWENS44:
Navy Ship “Medgar Evers” Named After Slain Civil Rights Icon | News One http://bit.ly/t4CN7O
Some Esperanza, this morning…
Note to Chris Matthews:
THE ONLY SIGNS AROUND HERE ARE SIGNS THAT YOU AND YOUR ILK CAN’T TAKE PBO FOR A SECOND TERM. HE BAKED YOUR NOODLES WITH HIS FIRST TERM, AND ITS NOT EVN OVER YET.
WHAT A LOSER,YOU ARE, TWEETY BIRD
Seconded!
The gall of this rat bastard, Matthews. On his show this morning he’s now pushing the PBO’s not up for a 2nd term BS.
Tweety needs to take his book to fantasy island cause thats where it belongs. Tweety just cant stand this ultra smart, ultra smooth black man in the white house. I can imagine ole tweety bird, sitting around at cocktail parties, bashing the Pres for being everything tweety is not. The whole culture of Washington is doing it. Poor tweety….its all gone isnt’t it? The day when white men only ruled…the day when blacks knew their place. Sorry tweety. You had your day in the sun. Its over now
BWA HA HA HA
tell it dannie
Go Dannie!
Born here
Obama on his Hawaiian hospital
By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 11/12/11 3:47 PM Updated: 11/12/11 4:24 PM
HONOLULU — People curious about where President Barack Obama was born can visit the hospital here where his mother gave birth to him, he joked Saturday.
“This is my birthplace. I know that was contested for a while,” Obama said at the start of a session at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he was being interviewed by Boeing CEO James McNerney.
“I can actually show you the hospital if you want,” Obama said. “If you want to go down there.”
In all his time living in Hawaii — where he lived with his grandparents through his teen years — and his visits in the decades since, “this is the first time that I have ever worn a suit,” Obama said. “It feels a little odd.”
After years of questions about where the president was born, the White House released his full long-form birth certificate earlier this year, stamping out most — though not all — of the lingering doubters.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1111/born_here_1d769cd3-ea52-485d-85b9-84f286562305.html
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Happy Sunday!
Inspiration for today
Let not mercy and truth forsake you: bind them about your neck; write them upon the table of your heart:
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