Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed “The Boss,” is an American singer-songwriter-performer who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.[1]
Springsteen’s recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide[2] and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 21 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. He is widely regarded by many as one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, and in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 23rd Greatest Artist of all time.
Ron Paul Supporter Wants To ‘Assassinate The F***ing N****r And His Monkey Children’
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/03/30/ron-paul-supporter-wants-to-assassinate-the-fing-nr-and-his-monkey-children-image/
Jules Manson is a former candidate for the Carson, California city council, a Ron Paul supporter and a Facebook user. He recently called for the assassination of the President and his two daughter, with a Facebook post ending in the phrase, “Assassinate The F***ing N****r And His Monkey Children.”
rootless @rootless_e :
Romney sternly warns Obama not to act like he’s President when he is just some black Democrat http://bit.ly/H3wGBv
Um Willard,
when one lives in the White House..
and flies around on Air Force One…
and whose car is nicknamed ‘ The Beast’…..
and goes to work in the Oval Office…
guess what?
THEY ARE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Will a Tea Party Supreme Court guarantee Obama a second term?
The court’s conservative wing appears ready to engage in some despicable judicial activism on ObamaCare. Politically, at least, the justices are doing Obama a favor
posted on March 30, 2012, at 9:45 AM
Recall the scorn toward health reform dripping from the lips of Injustice Antonin Scalia. Or think of the tight-lipped Clarence Thomas, who could send a mannequin to sit in his place at the court’s oral arguments for all the difference his brooding presence makes. Along with the more plausibly judicious Samuel Alito, he too had more than likely made his decision. And so on the nation’s highest court, satire replaced stare decisis in a slightly altered version of the Red Queen’s jurisprudence in Alice in Wonderland: First the verdict, then the trial.
Some observers, and administration officials, hold out hope that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy will decide to save health reform from the revanchist claims of right-wing constitutionalism. I’m pessimistic because I lived through Bush v. Gore, when the court acted like a political ward committee, stopping the vote count in Florida to hand the presidency to George W. Bush by the margin of a single judicial vote.
Now comes the historic decision on health reform — which could reach far beyond the case to fray the whole fabric of progress in modern America. To overturn the individual mandate, to throw out all or most of the rest of the law, would be an act of naked judicial activism, which conservatives profess to despise. In truth, though, they practice it vigorously, in barely concealed disguise, when it advances their own ends. Depending on the “reasoning” rationalized by five horsemen of the judicial right, they could jeopardize other basic protections — for example, the prohibition against segregation at distinctly local enterprises like lunch counters, a prohibition that depends on a generous and long-prevailing view of federal regulation of interstate commerce.
An over-reaching court could shatter the vestigial credibility of an institution defaced by Bush v. Gore and by Citizens United — which incredibly held that there is insufficient evidence that money corrupts politics and thereby loosed a tide of special interest cash that is engulfing the politics of 2012. The opponents of ObamaCare, congregated and clamoring on the steps of the court, demanded a judicial killing of the law on the grounds that it is unpopular. In fact, as the pollster Mark Mehlman has demonstrated, the margins here are “rather shaky” and some surveys “even suggest that more Americans now favor than oppose the reform.” In any event, it is emphatically not the province of the judicial branch to follow the polls rather than precedent.
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/226270/will-a-tea-party-supreme-court-guarantee-obama-a-second-term/1
Not Getting It At All
By John Cole March 31st, 2012
Rich “starbursts” Lowry opens up a can of silly in the National Review with a piece titled “The Murders That Don’t Count: In America, the lives of young black people are cheap, unless they happen to fit the right agenda.” Already groaning? Don’t stop now. It gets worse:
Delric Miller IV died in a hail of bullets a month ago. When someone fired 37 AK-47 rounds into his Detroit home at 4:30 a.m., he was mortally wounded while dozing on the couch. He was nine months old. No one made the multicolored teething ring he got for Christmas or his toy hammer into a national symbol of random violence.
Last year, Charinez Jefferson, 17, was shot and killed on a Chicago street. “She begged the shooter not to shoot her because she was pregnant,” a pastor explained. The alleged assailant, Timothy Jones, 18, shot her in the head, chest and back after seeing her walking with a rival gang member. New York Times columnist Charles Blow did not write a column about Jefferson’s killing as a symbol of the perils of being a young black woman in America.
Last June, a stray bullet from a confrontation on a Brighton Beach, N.Y., boardwalk killed 16-year-old Tysha Jones as she sat on a bench. A 19-year-old man, out for revenge after an earlier scuffle on the boardwalk, was charged in the shooting. Tysha’s heartbroken mother was not featured on all the national TV shows.
In January, 12-year-old Kade’jah Davis was shot and killed when, allegedly, 19-year-old Joshua Brown showed up at her Detroit house to demand the return of a cellphone from Davis’ mother. When Brown didn’t get the phone, he fired shots through the front door. No one held high-profile street protests to denounce gunplay over such trifles.
You have to work to be this obtuse. In each and every case listed above, the police and authorities have arrested and charged the murderer, or are working nonstop to discover who the murderers are and track them down and prosecute them.
That’s one reason why the Trayvon Martin case is different. We know precisely who killed him, yet he walks free and clear. That is why the outrage is so loud. Trayvon Martin was killed for the crime of walking while black, the cops did nothing to investigate his death and appear to be actively impeding any investigation, they basically gave his killer a pat on the back before sending him on his way, and then they slapped a John Doe tag on his corpse and threw him into the morgue’s lost and found pile.
Yes, each and everyone of the murders that halfwit Lowry mentioned is awful. Yes, black on black crime is awful. But in each case above, the victim’s family are receiving some semblance of justice.
And that is all anyone wants for Trayvon Martin. Justice.
Lowry just can’t be that stupid.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/03/31/not-getting-it-at-all/
THIS: “That’s one reason why the Trayvon Martin case is different. We know precisely who killed him, yet he walks free and clear. That is why the outrage is so loud. Trayvon Martin was killed for the crime of walking while black, the cops did nothing to investigate his death and appear to be actively impeding any investigation, they basically gave his killer a pat on the back before sending him on his way, and then they slapped a John Doe tag on his corpse and threw him into the morgue’s lost and found pile.”
Trayvon Martin was treated like a pile of shit, by the Sanford Police. And this Lowry nut can go straight to HELL!
It’s Not That Complicated
by BooMan
Sat Mar 31st, 2012 at 12:09:56 PM EST
I keep seeing these articles from the right about how appalling the whole Trayvon Martin case is because people are “politicizing” it, or “jumping to conclusions,” or assuming a racist motive. I find it all crushingly boring. At its simplest, this case is about a boy who was minding his own business and lost his life. But it’s also about the man who killed him and remains free. Why is he free? Is it because the police believed his story? No, the lead investigator recommended charging him with manslaughter. Is it because of the Florida Stand Your Ground law? The chief of police claimed that the same day his department asked the prosecutor to bring charges. Plus, the law doesn’t seem to apply to the facts in this case. The Stand Your Ground law would not appear to have anything to do with why Zimmerman wasn’t charged. Is he free because witness testimony backs up his story? Not that I can tell. Other than officer Tim Smith’s police report, I haven’t seen any witness testimony that backs up his story.
For some unknown reason, this man killed someone and was not charged with a crime. We know the state prosecutor made the call, and then recused himself from the case to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. But we don’t know what that conflict might be. Did he know Zimmerman’s father? Did they talk to each other the night of the incident? We don’t know.
But it isn’t appalling that people think this poor unfortunate boy’s death should be adjudicated. By all means, let Zimmerman bring forth any evidence he can to sustain his claim that he was attacked, injured, and fearful for his life. Let him prove that he received medical care, that his head had a wound so bad it ordinarily would need stitches, and that his nose was broken. He can bring forth the medical records his family says will back up his case. He can bring forth the fire department medic who supposedly tended to his wounds.
But none of these witnesses can be compelled to speak up until there is an arrest, charges are brought, and there is a discovery process.
That’s all people want. Zimmerman killed a boy. Let him explain why he had to do that to a jury of his peers. And let’s have another investigation into why the state prosecutor did not bring charges and find out why he had a conflict of interest in the case.
Is that so hard? Do we have to inject all kinds of irrelevant crap into this case?
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/3/31/12956/7045
You’ll get no arguments from me, Booman. It’s criminal justice 101
Quote of the Day
By Steve Benen
–
Fri Mar 30, 2012 5:09 PM EDT
We talked earlier about Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, who insisted yesterday that he, not America’s military leadership, should be trusted when it comes to Pentagon spending levels. Ryan went on to say that he believes Pentagon leaders may be deliberately misleading Congress about spending cuts that they’ve requested, but which Ryan does not want to make.
Today, the highest ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces responded to the congressman’s unfounded accusations.
[Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] took sharp exception to the chairman’s comments.
“There’s a difference between having someone say they don’t believe what you said versus … calling us, collectively, liars,” Gen. Dempsey told reporters aboard a U.S. military aircraft after a four day visit to Latin America. “My response is: I stand by my testimony. This was very much a strategy-driven process to which we mapped the budget.”
Gen. Dempsey said the budget “was a collaborative effort” among the top officers of the military branches as well as combat leaders.
It would appear Gen. Dempsey was unimpressed with Ryan’s allegations, which were made without proof.
The question for members of Congress is whether they consider the chairman of the Joint Chiefs more credible about necessary Pentagon spending or the right-wing Budget Committee chairman, who has no experience in the military or in national security policy at any level.
Or put another way, Gen. Dempsey is, in effect, saying, “We don’t need this money to keep America safe.” To which Ryan is, in effect, replying, “You do need this money, and if you disagree, you’re not telling the truth.”
As for suggesting that U.S. military leaders are, in Dempsey’s word, “liars,” it’ll be interesting to see if Ryan reconsiders the nature of his criticisms.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/30/10945170-quote-of-the-day
Dazed And Confused
By Zandar March 31st, 2012
Greg Sargent asks why Mitt Romney is embracing the Paul Ryan Jump Off The Cliff economic plan so tightly.
Ryan fires up the base on both sides like nothing else, which is why Republicans like Romney want him in the role of hero, and Dems want him in the role of villain. But what about swing voters? Dems seem confident that the Ryan vision is absolutely toxic among them. And yet, as Jed Lewison notes, Republicans seem equally confident that Ryan’s radical vision — or “bold,” if you prefer — is a political winner this fall.
Nonpartisan observers say Ryan’s plans amount to a huge giveaway to the rich at the expense of exploding the deficit. Polls suggest that huge majorities favor preserving Medicare’s traditional function, and reject Ryan’s reforms. And yet the amount of influence Republicans have accorded to Ryan over the GOP’s fiscal policies, worldview, ideology, vision, priorities and direction is really kind of extraordinary. They’re going for it.
They’re going for it Greg because they’re counting on your employers at Kaplan, Inc. and the other Village media outlets to sell the Ryan Plan as not only morally desirable but absolutely necessary economically over the next several months and well beyond. It worked for the Bush tax cuts and Medicare drug benefit giveaway. It worked for Afghanistan and especially Iraq. Those cost us trillions but were sold as the right thing to do.
The Ryan/Romney Austerity Plan will be no different. It will be the reason why, should the GOP gain control of the Senate, that the filibuster will be done away with and the President will get a nice shiny austerity budget. Selling that Romney will sign such a budget into law will be the big talking point.
Meanwhile, austerity is destroying the EU and UK right now. All indications are they are back into a recession with no real hope of getting out. These guys want to make sure we’re next
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/03/31/dazed-and-confused/
LIVE COVERAGE OF NAACP RALLY FOR TRAYVON MARTIN
http://www.breakingnews.com/topic/trayvon-martin-shooting
Patrick vows to veto ‘stand your ground’
By Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press,Associated Press
Posted: 03/30/2012 12:04:16 AM EDT
BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick is vowing to veto a bill that would create a so-called stand your ground law in Massachusetts.
More than two dozen state lawmakers are backing the bill, which mirrors the law at the heart of the debate over the killing of an unarmed black teenager in Florida by a neighborhood watch captain.
State Sen. Stephen Brewer has sponsored the bill for the past five years. The Barre Democrat said his main goal is to protect individuals who defend themselves in public from criminal and civil penalties.
Massachusetts residents already have the right to defend themselves if they’re attacked inside their homes.
“What I was focusing on when I put my name on the bill was the civil part of it,” Brewer said. “I have no interest in the commonwealth resorting to vigilante justice.”
Patrick said he doesn’t see a need for the bill.
“It won’t get past my desk,” Patrick said Thursday on his monthly radio program on WTKK-FM.
Critics of “stand your ground” laws say they encourage the use of deadly force when it could be avoided.
They point to the case of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was shot to death after an encounter with 28-year-old George Zimmerman in the central Florida town of Sanford. Zimmerman told police he was attacked by Martin, who was not armed, and shot him in self-defense. Zimmerman has not been arrested. Gun control activist John Rosenthal, founder of Stop
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_20287223/patrick-vows-veto-stand-your-ground
Brzezinski Says Romney Lacks ‘Grasp’ of Foreign Policy
A former Democratic national security adviser assailed Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney for lacking a grasp of foreign policy and said the former Massachusetts governor would return the U.S. to the policies of George W. Bush.
“If we take seriously what he has been saying in the course of the campaign, we have every reason to be very worried,” former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “He probably subscribes to the notions articulated by his Republican predecessor,” George W. Bush, Brzezinski said.
Romney is surrounding himself with advisers from the Bush administration, and he doesn’t display a “broad grasp of what is unique about this century, how it differs from the preceding one,” said Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser.
In Brzezinski’s view, the best candidate to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a second term for Obama would be Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential nominee. Chuck Hagel, a former Senate Republican from Nebraska, also would be “awfully good,” he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-30/brzezinski-says-romney-lacks-grasp-of-foreign-policy.html
LOL MHP’s guide for how white folks can talk about Trayvon Martin. SHE.BROKE.IT.DOWN.
it was on today’s show?
Yes; SG2 will post it later on today, when available.
It’s posted up thread.
NAACP, civil rights leaders to hold march, rally today in Sanford: http://j.mp/H4eumx #trayvonmartin
Zandar @ZandarVTS :
There is never “benefit of the doubt” for a young black male. Ever. Not even when he’s shot and killed while unarmed. #nerdland
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)
Good Afternoon, Everyone :)