Happy New Year from Everyone at 3CHICS!!
Hope you enjoy today with family and friends…and don’t forget those blackeyed peas. :)
STILL,
THE PICTURE of the Obama Presidency.
From The Obama Diary:
A girl looks up at U.S. President Barack Obama during a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada September 12, 2012.
—REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Barack Obama kisses First Lady Michelle Obama prior to speaking during a Kids’ “State Dinner” in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on August 20, 2012. This first-time event includes 54 kids, aged 8 to 12, from all US states, three territories and Washington, DC, to a luncheon in support of the Let’s Move campaign, featuring healthy recipes and a performance by Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush.
—SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages
President Barack Obama kisses First Lady Michelle Obama for the “Kiss Cam” while attending the U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team’s game against Brazil at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., July 16, 2012. Vice President Joe Biden and Malia Obama look up at the jumbotron.
First Lady Michelle Obama greets members of the general public as they enter the Blue Room during their tour of the White House, Feb. 16, 2012.
—Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the 2012 National Urban League Conference at the Ernst N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans July 25, 2012. ——REUTERS/Larry Downing
U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama (2nd L) and U.S. Ambassador Louis Susman (L) meet Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, during a reception at the Buckingham Palace, London July 27, 2012, to welcome the Heads of State and Heads of Government to the United Kingdom before they travel to the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
—-REUTERS/Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
First Lady Michelle Obama hugs USA’s Kobe Bryant after Team USA defeated France in a preliminary men’s basketball game at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Sunday, July 29, 2012, in London.
—-AP Photo/Charles Krupa
U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama (R) walks with her daughters Sasha (2nd L) and Malia (2nd R) to the home of Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s advisor, in Chicago June 16, 2012. The Obamas attended the wedding of Valerie’s daughter Laura on Saturday.
—-REUTERS/Jason Reed
First Lady Michelle Obama reacts to the applause from supporters and volunteers during a campaign stop at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colo., Wednesday, June 20, 2012.
—-AP Photo/Ed Andrieski
The President was able to replicate this classic moment in American History with his own update the day the Supreme Court upheld OBAMACARE:
U.S. President Barack Obama (2nd L) and First Lady Michelle Obama (L) wave as they depart for events in Ohio and Virginia to officially kick off his 2012 re-election campaign, from the White House in Washington, May 5, 2012.
—REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 09: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) speaks to participants along with (L-R) FirstLady Michelle Obama, and daughters Sasha and Malia during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 9, 2012 in Washington, DC. Thousands of people people are expected to attend the 134-year-old tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. ——Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama pose with British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha after arriving at the White House for a State Dinner held in their honor March 14, 2012.
—-REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
U.S. President Barack Obama pumps air pressure into Extreme Marshmallow Cannon designed by Joey Hudy (L) of Phoenix, Arizona, before firing a marshmallow across the State Dining Room of the White House during the second White House Science Fair in Washington February 7, 2012. The fair celebrates the achievements of student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country.
—-REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend the ground breaking ceremony for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington February 22, 2012.
—REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
U.S. President Barack Obama with first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia (R) and Sasha walk to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington January 29, 2012.
—REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
for you, Orange Julius…
love….
your GOP caucus.
LMBAO Hubby and I are watching a marathon of “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers.”
Happy 2013 ladies.
Hello, SHO. Happy New Year to you!
On the Fiscal Cliff, Obama Does What He Can Against 200 Years of Bad Faith
The fiscal-cliff impasse had its roots in—where else?—the old South, with its lunatic blend of obstructionism and greed at the public trough, writes Michael Tomasky.
by Michael Tomasky Jan 1, 2013 4:45 AM EST
While most liberals were stewing at Barack Obama yesterday for his “capitulation” on tax rates, I confess that I was feeling philosophical about it, and even mildly defensive of him. He is negotiating with madmen, and you can’t negotiate with madmen, because they’re, well, mad. I also spent part of yesterday morning re-reading a little history and reminding myself that rascality like this fiscal-cliff business has been going on since the beginning of the republic. So now I’d like to remind you. It’s always the reactionaries holding up the progressives—and usually, needless to say, it’s been the South holding up the North—and always with the same demagogic and dishonest arguments about a tyrannical central government. We’ll never be rid of these paranoid bloviators, and if no other president could stop them I don’t really see why Obama ought to be able to.
This history of legislative hostage-taking begins with the odious three-fifths compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for census purposes. That much I trust you know. What you may not know is that the Southern states, backers of the three-fifths rule in this case in order to get greater representation in the House of Representatives, had opposed a different three-fifths rule earlier, back in the Articles of Confederation days. Then, three-fifths of all slaves were going to be counted for purposes of deciding how much federal tax each state owed.
……………………………………
Mitch McConnell may have cut a deal with Joe Biden. But don’t forget, even though he agreed to something, and even though it went through the Senate, now it goes to the House, where all these historic resentments fester and boil. They are not now limited to the South, but the region remains their locus (think of it this way: if those 11 states of the Confederacy somehow weren’t around, we’d obviously be having no such fights).
So I’m feeling for Obama. A number of presidents have had to deal with this kind of behavior, and most haven’t done it very well. If the House will pass today the deal Obama and Joe Biden worked out last night with the Senate—higher tax rates at $400,000 and up, a higher estate tax rate, an extension of unemployment benefits, and a delay in the sequester—he will have done all right. Liberals who think he should just stand tough because he “holds all the cards” aren’t recognizing two important things.
First, he simply doesn’t hold all the cards. The Republicans control the House, and they have enough to block in the Senate. Where I come from, those are cards, and serious ones. Second, they aren’t remembering that his opponents draw on and are part of this nation’s long and often tragic history of people who represent an obsolescing minority viewpoint but do so all the more tenaciously precisely because they secretly know the viewpoint to be both of those things. We will never be rid of them. Obama is having to cross swords with a particularly intense concentration of the type, and right now, he’s doing alright.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/01/on-the-fiscal-cliff-obama-does-what-he-can-against-200-years-of-bad-faith.html
Am I the only one looking forward to the Real Husbands of Hollywood?
I think it’s gonna be hilarious.
Glenn Grothman Slams Kwanzaa: ‘Almost No Black People Today Care.. Just White Left-Wingers’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/01/glenn-grothman_n_2392816.html
Wisconsin state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) slammed Kwanzaa, claiming “almost no black people” care about the holiday.
“Almost no black people today care about Kwanzaa — just white left-wingers who try to shove this down black people’s throats in an effort to divide Americans,” Grothman said in a press release, according to Patch.
“Why must we still hear about Kwanzaa?” Grothman asked. “Why are hard-core left wingers still trying to talk about Kwanzaa — the supposed African-American holiday celebration between Christmas and New Year’s?”
****************************
Father,
Hear this prayer. Deliver us from this evil.
if you aren’t Black…don’t open your mouth about Kwanzaa
trose1
– A 5 year extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit for low income Americans.
Many of the Black people who stood in line for hours to vote for PBO just got a return on investment on just those credits passing.
Holla!
What Was America’s 1st Black Town?
100 Amazing Facts About the Negro: It was formed long before the Emancipation Proclamation
http://www.theroot.com/views/what-was-americas-1st-black-town?wpisrc=obinsite
As the nation turns its attention to the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, it’s worth noting that decades before the United States was even formed, African Americans lived free in a town of their own — at least for a while.
Sometime between March and November of 1738, Spanish settlers in Florida formed a town named Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, two miles to the north of St. Augustine. Initially, it consisted of 38 men, all fugitive slaves, “most of them married,” who had fled to Florida for sanctuary and freedom from enslavement in the Carolinas and Georgia. It came to be known as Fort Mose.
The enclave was the first line of defense between the Spanish settlers in Florida and their enemies, the English colonists to the north in Carolina (which did not officially split into North and South Carolina until 1729, and then the Southern part of South Carolina split in 1732 to form Georgia). Fort Mose was manned entirely by armed black men, under the leadership of Francisco Menendez, who became the leader of the black militia there in 1726. It deserves to be remembered as the site of the first all-black town in what is now the United States, and as the headquarters of the first black armed soldiers commanded by a black officer, who actively engaged in military combat with English colonists from the Carolinas and Georgia.
Stephanie Cutter’s on Obama’s most effective campaign ad:
Steph Cutter’s on The Daily Rundown with Chuckie T. now.
Krugman Disappoints Me
by BooMan
Tue Jan 1st, 2013 at 12:03:44 PM EST
I think today’s Krugman is Krugman at his very worst. A lot of progressives really do wait to see what he says before they make up their minds about whether something is good or bad, and he provides totally inadequate guidance based on idiotic principles. Krugman is good with numbers and terrible with politics, and that really shines through this morning. He explains that progressives have a bad taste in their mouths because they didn’t like the way the president negotiated, not because of the result he got. A hugely bipartisan deal in the Senate that actually raised taxes on the rich (on their income and their deductions, on their dividends, on their capital gains, and on their estates) while preserving tax cuts for students, the poor, and the middle class, without touching entitlements is not something we should feel badly about.
Disappointment that the president didn’t get everything he wanted should be tempered by the fact that he also gave up nothing near what he “offered” to give up. Arguing that he showed weakness by wanting a deal is foolish when what he really needs is a series of deals over the next two years with a very reluctant and frankly unhinged Republican Party. We need a lot more votes in the Senate where we get close to 90 votes, not less.
Krugman should stick to telling us how the economy works and leave the politics to the pros who keep winning battle after battle with the Republicans.
http://www.boomantribune.com/
Mark Knoller@markknoller
House having heated debate on bill to block cost-of-living pay raises for Congress and other federal employees.
Of course; it’s ALL about the DO NOTHING CONGRESS getting phat paid. LOSERS
Fiscal deal sails through Senate, awaits House action
By Steve Benen
Tue Jan 1, 2013 10:51 AM EST
\
In the end, it wasn’t close. Despite the fact that no one on either side seemed especially impressed with the fiscal agreement negotiated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Biden, the deal nevertheless passed 89 to 8. Among the eight opponents were five Republicans and three Democrats.
The Senate did not quite make its midnight deadline — the vote was held at nearly 2 a.m. — but with House action delayed, it didn’t much matter.
Despite widespread grumbling, leaders on both sides made statements expressing satisfaction. President Obama called the agreement “the right thing to do for our country,” which was followed soon after by a similar statement from McConnell: “I think we can say we’ve done some good for the country.”
From a progressive perspective, there’s plenty to disapprove of in this compromise, and I’ll explore the president’s concessions in more detail later, but I’d note one observation in the agreement’s defense: if you’d told me a week ago that the Senate would easily approve a fiscal deal with no Medicare cuts, no Social Security cuts, and no new spending cuts of any kind, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. And yet, that’s what happened.
In the short term, however, the more pressing question is whether the package will actually reach the president’s desk. We can all think of plenty of instances in which a controversial measure will clear one chamber, only to run into stiff opposition in the other, and House passage today is hardly a sure thing.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/01/16283617-fiscal-deal-sails-through-senate-awaits-house-action?lite
Good stuff from Smartypants! Check it out!
The tangle and the weave
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-tangle-and-weave.html
Last spring I read a wonderful book by Jonathan Odell titled The Healing – a story that takes place on a slave plantation in the South. One of my favorite moments came when midwife Polly Shine is teaching her young apprentice Granada about the art of healing and says that her own mother’s people in Africa were the finest weavers in the world.
“She told me the secret…what made them so fine, mother after daughter after grandaughter, all the way down the line.”
“What was it Polly?”
“She say, the difference in weavers is, some see the tangle and others see the weave. The ones that can’t take their eyes off the tangle, they never rise above it.”
Great metaphor and post! Thanks for the hat tip.
On the Senate Deal
by BooMan
Tue Jan 1st, 2013 at 10:05:04 AM EST
One hundred and fifty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In retrospect, it seems to have been somewhat more important than whatever the Senate was doing last night. While you probably want to know what is in the Senate deal, it’s important to remember that it isn’t law until the House passes it and the president signs it. One thing I don’t want to hear a lot of whining about is the $400,000/$450,000 top marginal rate. We are talking about a 4.6% tax cut on $250,000 of income, which amounts to $10,500. When you consider that Obama exchanged that for an extension of unemployment insurance and a whole host of tax credits that affect the middle class and working poor, it’s not a big concession at all. What’s more difficult to swallow is that the capital gains and dividends rate only went up to 20%. It’s a hike on top earners, but not enough of a hike for my tastes. On the other hand, the rich will have to deal with a Personal Exemption Phaseout (PEP) set at $250,000 and an itemized deduction limitation (Pease) set to $300,000. That is where Mitt Romney will feel the pinch. The deal also extends the Farm Bill, which avoids a massive spike in the price of milk. It permanently fixes the problem with the Alternative Minimum Tax not being indexed to inflation, and it solves the so-called Doc Fix for Medicare compensation to physicians (a long-time headache).
The Republicans think they can make another go of hostage-taking during the debate over the debt ceiling, but I discussed yesterday why the White House is not overly concerned about that. In any case, the deal establishes that a quarter of the cost of extending the sequester for two months will come from defense spending and that half will come from new revenues from a change in the tax-deferral of individual retirement accounts.
Please keep in mind that all but seven Republican senators just voted to raise taxes (the first Republicans to do so in over twenty years). The Republican holdouts were Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Richard Shelby of Alabama (who voted against), and Mark Kirk of Illinois and Jim DeMint of South Carolina (who didn’t vote). That means that 40 Republican senators (minus those who are retiring) will have to defend their vote to raise taxes when facing reelection. We’ll see how many follow suit in the House.
When judging the merits of this deal, it is important to keep in mind all the people on the margins of our society who will not be paying eight dollars for a gallon of milk or face losing their unemployment check or the loss of their child tax credit or their college loan tax credit. Keep in mind that the president won an extension of tax credits for clean energy. Even if taxes did not go up as much as they should on the rich, they will pay more in income, capital gains, and dividend taxes, while losing significant opportunities to create tax write-offs for themselves through charitable giving. The Estate Tax also went up modestly.
Let’s see if Boehner can do his job.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/1/1/1054/91079
Can you repost on Bohener thread, please? Thanks!
Happy New Year, Everyone :)
Happy New Year, Rikyrah! Hubby & I were down for the count before midnight. Hope your ringing in was a good one.
Wobble Line Dance
http://youtu.be/rFdeskwbhAM
Alright now! This dance has got my blood flowing and my body moving.
My cabbage & blackeyed peas are on.
LOL yummy…I believe you, but can you please show me a dish when it’s done? Thanks !
I don’t know how to upload the photos to my computer. I’ll have to wait until Josh comes over. My other kids are in Dallas and frm there travelling to Oklahoma.
Dawn of freedom: Photos of slavery’s end
http://www.theroot.com/multimedia/images-emancipation-150-years-later
On the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, see some rare & powerful images from the era of this major milestone in US history.
Thanks for these pics, SG2. Oh the times they are a changin’
Keep on Pushing
Happy New Year Republicans, Obama Just Cleaned Your Clock on the Fiscal Cliff
By: Jason Easley Jan. 1st, 2013
Some on the left are already griping that the White House gave up too much by raising the income limit on the Bush tax cuts to $400,000-450,000, but here is what the president got in return for his minor concession:
– A permanent rise in tax rates to the Clinton era levels for all individuals making over $400,000 a year.
– A return to the Clinton era rates on capital gains.
– The Estate Tax will be set at 40% for those at $400,000 threshold with a $5 million exemption.
– A 5 year extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit for low income Americans.
– All Obama small business tax breaks extended for another year.
– A full year extension of unemployment benefits.
– A nine month Farm Bill.
– A permanent patch for the Alternative Minimum tax.
For what was supposed to be a short term deal, the president got a lot of long term changes. Those on the left who feel “betrayed” because Obama moved off the $250,000 number, and believe that the president should have done nothing need to consider what the fiscal cliff cuts would have meant to some important social programs.
If the country would have gone off the cliff, Medicare would have faced an $11 billion cut. Falling off the cliff could have killed the entire Meals on Wheels program in many parts of the country. Programs ranging from Head Start to AIDS drug assistance programs, and Veterans aid and training would have all been slashed if some on the left would have gotten their way.
http://www.politicususa.com/happy-year-republicans-obama-cleaned-clock-fiscal-cliff.html
Krugman’s Perspective on the Deal
The good news for progressives is that danger #1 has been averted, at least so far — and not without a lot of anxiety first. Romney lost, so nothing like the Ryan plan is on the table until President Santorum takes office, or something. Meanwhile, in 2011 Obama was willing to raise the Medicare age, in 2012 to cut Social Security benefits; but luckily the extremists of the right scuttled both deals. There are no cuts in benefits in this deal.
The bad news is that the deal falls short on making up for the revenue lost due to the Bush tax cuts. Here, though, it’s important to put the numbers in perspective. Obama wasn’t going to let all the Bush tax cuts go away in any case; only the high-end cuts were on the table. Getting all of those ended would have yielded something like $800 billion; he actually got around $600 billion. How big a difference does that make?
-snip-
So why the bad taste in progressives’ mouths? It has less to do with where Obama ended up than with how he got there. He kept drawing lines in the sand, then erasing them and retreating to a new position. And his evident desire to have a deal before hitting the essentially innocuous fiscal cliff bodes very badly for the confrontation looming in a few weeks over the debt ceiling.
If Obama stands his ground in that confrontation, this deal won’t look bad in retrospect. If he doesn’t, yesterday will be seen as the day he began throwing away his presidency and the hopes of everyone who supported him.
I saw the same point made by Brian Beutler in a tweet last night. If Obama stands firm and refuses to negotiate on the debt ceiling — which is what Biden was assuring Democratic senators would happen — then this fiscal cliff deal was pretty good.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/perspective-on-the-deal/
Love the pics tis morning, Rikyrah. Lovely :-)
HAPPY NEW YEAR 3 CHICAS’ & EVERYONE!!!
Reuters Top News@Reuters
North Korean leader, in rare address, seeks end to confrontation with South http://reut.rs/12UXIDN
Dannie Owens@DAOWENS44
01.01.13: Obama Issues Proclamation On 150th Anniversary Of Emancipation Proclamation | National Confidential http://bit.ly/131ADyl
BREAKING: FULL TEXT OF THE 157 PAGE BILL TO AVERT THE FISCAL CLIFF http://read.bi/VW2jhD
BREAKING: Senate passes fiscal cliff deal, 89-8
Lisa Desjardins@LisaDCNN
BREAKING: Senate passes fiscal cliff deal. They have over 60 votes.
The Best Is Yet To Come!
happy new year!!!
Happy, Happy New Year!!!! 2013 in da’ houuuuusse!!!!!