IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
HUBRIS: SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR
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Black Girls Rock!
Flickr Photos
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Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
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AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ride in the inaugural parade in Washington, D.C., Jan. 21, 2013.
—-Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/8476861194/in/photostream/
I’m coveting those purple gloves. They’re having a good time connecting with their supporters.
Maya Angelou on activism and the GOP disrespect shown President Obama.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755884/#50863336
BWA HA HA HA Damn; girl you make Mary Todd look like Ulysses S.Grant.
Matt Murphy@MattMurph24
The Dow is now only 130 points away from breaking an all time record
Damn that SOCIALIST, Barack Obama! LMBAO
I found this graphic over on Dothprotesttoomuch.com
Powerful…
Obama challenges congressional GOP: put away the ‘meat-cleaver’
By Steve Benen
Tue Feb 19, 2013 12:39 PM EST.
With just 10 days to go before brutal sequestration cuts kick in, President Obama has decided to use his bully pulpit, not just to frame the debate and show the way out of this latest manufactured crisis, but also to make his opponents look reckless and irresponsible. In this case, it meant appearing at a White House event, surrounded by first responders who will suffer if congressional Republicans continue to refuse to compromise.
The president had a fairly compelling pitch to present, which had the added benefit of being true: “[T]hese cuts are not smart. They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls.”
“[I]f Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research. It won’t consider whether we’re cutting some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or a vital service that Americans depend on every single day. It doesn’t make those distinctions.
“Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find childcare for their kids. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.
“And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/19/17018558-obama-challenges-congressional-gop-put-away-the-meat-cleaver?lite
IF Michigan takes over Detroit, does that save the city?
By Laura Conaway
Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:06 PM EST
The perpetually broke city of Detroit in the on the verge of a state takeover. Today, the Detroit Free Press calls for Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to go ahead and appoint an emergency manager:
[T]he prospect of an emergency manager carries its own set of fears. No one is quite sure what Detroit, post-EM, would look like. Will already-inadequate city services be further cut? What would it mean for quality of life, for public safety, for blight enforcement or garbage pickup?
Detroiters who support the idea of an emergency manager do it because they believe, or want to believe, that life after an EM would be better. That the city’s problems are fixable, and that this process could lead to a better Detroit and a better life.
So, do it.
It’s not for me to say whether an emergency manager would save Detroit. It seems worth noting that with one exception, having the Michigan state government take over your town or school district and sideline the local elected officials has not yet led to halcyon outcomes. Ask Muskegon Heights, where an emergency manager took over the school district and now they’re dealing with uncertified teachers. Ask Pontiac, where a judge the other day said the emergency manager’s decision-making “looks like a dictatorship.” Ask the Detroit school district, where they’ve had an emergency manager since 2009 and the schools are still a mess.
——————————————————————————–
In Flint, the mayor said yesterday that it’s time for the emergency manager to go, and the emergency manager says he’s not so sure the city is financially ready for that. The future of Flint “must be decided in a democratic fashion,” the mayor said. “It really only matters what the governor thinks,” said the emergency manager.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/19/17018596-if-michigan-takes-over-detroit-does-that-save-the-city?lite
Judge denies motion to dismiss Shellie Zimmerman perjury case
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Judge-denies-motion-to-dismiss-Shellie-Zimmerman-perjury-case/-/1637132/18985986/-/12i8air/-/index.html
ORLANDO, Fla. – A judge denied a motion to dismiss the perjury case on Tuesday for the wife of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin.
Shellie Zimmerman, is charged with one count of perjury-lying under oath after the state alleges that she lied about her and George Zimmerman’s finances during a bond hearing. Shellie Zimmerman was arrested and charged June 12 and released the same day after posting bond.
YOU LIE, Shellie Zimmerman, and you’re going to trial!
How’s that great life work out for you, Shellie?
get your ass to jail, heifer
Lock that bitch up, and throw away the key.
This why the HATERS ARE HATIN’
Chris Matthews hailed Bush and Co for going to war with Iraq in 2003, and has revised his cheering them on. If you watched Hubris last night, you’d see and hear him
August 31, 2010 08:38 PM
Chris Matthews Revises History on His Opposition to the Iraq Invasion During his ‘Let Me Finish’ Segment
By Heather
SNIP
And for viewers that night who didn’t get a strong enough sense of just how obediently in-step the press corps was with the White House, there was the televised post-press conference analysis. On MSNBC, for instance, “Hardball’s” Chris Matthews hosted a full hour of discussion. In order to get a wide array of opinion, he invited a pro-war Republican senator (Saxby Chambliss, from Georgia), a pro-war former Secretary of State (Lawrence Eagleburger), a pro-war retired Army general (Montgomery Meigs), pro-war retired Air Force general (Buster Glosson), a pro-war Republican pollster (Frank Luntz), as well as, for the sake of balance, somebody who, twenty-five years earlier, once worked in Jimmy Carter’s White House (Pat Caddell).
SNIP
Read on
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/chris-matthews-revises-history-during-his-
The problem with Boehner’s newest ‘rule’
By Steve Benen
Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:04 AM EST.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has a curious habit: he likes to make up “rules” on the fly. It’s a bit like Bill Maher’s affinity for “new rules,” except Boehner isn’t the least bit funny.
We’ve seen this a few too many times. In 2011, the Republican Speaker came up with a “rule” that said any increase in the debt ceiling would have to be accompanied by an identical decrease in debt reduction. How’d he come up with this? No one knows; it was just an arbitrary standard Boehner came up with, which he promptly labeled a “rule.” Boehner was equally wedded to a made-up “rule” about only passing House bills that enjoyed at least 218 Republican votes.
And last week, the Speaker came up with an entirely new rule: “The sequester will be in effect until there are cuts and reforms that put us on a path to balance the budget in the next 10 years.” Again, there’s nothing substantive or policy-driven by Boehner’s made-up standards — he just manufactures rules out of thin air and expects all of Washington to honor them.
Boehner may not have fully thought this one through.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/19/17017175-the-problem-with-boehners-newest-rule?lite
GOP’s sequester shenanigans carry risks for 2014
A few moments ago, President Obama renewed his call for a temporary solution to averting the sequester — one that contains a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases, rather than just the spending cuts Republicans want. Obama pointedly noted that the GOP position was akin to Democrats demanding that we avert the sequester only through tax hikes.
This is a difficult political position for Republicans to sustain, for the reasons Greg pointed out this morning. But judging by the immediate Twitter response to Obama’s remarks, House Republicans are convinced they can blame the sequester on Obama, or at least, certain they can avoid political blowback for any economic slowdown that comes as a result of implementing large, across-the-board spending cuts. Their reasoning is straightforward: The public is results-oriented and unconcerned about the particulars of congressional procedure. Americans neither know nor care about how created the sequester, they are just looking for Washington to get something done. And since, for most Americans, the president is representative of Washington, any gridlock will harm Obama far more than it does Congress, and Republicans in particular.
In one sense Republicans are close to the mark as far as the political dynamics of this are concerned. Yes, Obama can use the “bully pulpit” to castigate Republicans and highlight the consequences of letting the sequester go through. As The Hill points out, the White House has already warned “that the cuts will reduce loan guarantees to small businesses, end Head Start funding for 70,000 children and leave 373,000 seriously mentally ill people without treatment.”
But as we saw with the fight over the fiscal cliff in 2011, those warnings mean little to a public that just wants action from Washington. Remember, the outcome of that fight wasn’t just lower approval for Congress and congressional Republicans, but a lower rating for Obama as well. That fall saw Obama’s popularity reach its nadir, and he has the debt ceiling crisis to thank for it. Even if he wins the sequester stand-off, odds are good the public will blame him for any economic harm that comes as a result.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/19/gops-sequester-shenanigans-carry-risks-for-2014/
Don’t blame ‘ineptitude’ on ‘Washington’
By Steve Benen
Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:27 AM EST.
CBS’s Bob Schieffer ended “Face the Nation” the other day with a brief commentary on dangerous automatic spending cuts due to kick in next week.
For those who can’t watch clips online, Schieffer had this to say on the sequester:
“[T]hese automatic cuts in spending that go into effect March 1 are Washington`s own doing. The law cut spending programs to the bone. It ends Head Start, reduces the number of food inspectors, ensures longer lines at airports because of massive furloughs of federal workers, not to mention layoffs at shipyards and on and on and on. All of which would probably cause a recession.
“The idea was that no sane person would allow such cuts to happen, which was theorized, would force Congress and the White House to take responsible steps to slow down deficit spending.
“Well, guess what? Even Washington managed to underestimate its own ineptitude. The sequester and the draconian cuts are about to happen because the White House and Congress cannot close the partisan divide and figure out what to do about them.”
Now, my point is not to pick on Bob Schieffer. I share his concerns about the severe damage the sequester is likely to do, and I, too, would like to see a bipartisan compromise resolve the issue before it’s too late.
But the trouble with his commentary is the assumption that “Washington” is to blame for the “ineptitude” on display.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/19/17016865-dont-blame-ineptitude-on-washington?lite
The Morning Plum: GOP is in weak position in sequester fight
Posted by Greg Sargent on February 19, 2013 at 9:17 am
Today, President Obama will renew his call for Congressional Republicans to agree to a temporary measure to avert the sequester that includes a mix of spending cuts and new revenues via the closing of loopholes that benefit the wealthy and corporations. Obama will be surrounded by emergency responders — the sort of public worker who will get laid off if the sequester hits.
In other words, here comes the bully pulpit. A White House official emails: “If these cuts go into effect, hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost and middle class families all across the nation will feel the devastating impact. With less than two weeks before these cuts hit, the President will challenge Republicans to make a very simple choice: do they protect investments in education, health care and national defense or do they continue to prioritize and protect tax loopholes that benefit the very few at the expense of middle and working class Americans?”
The Hill reports this morning, however, that Republicans say they’re not worried about the political impact of the sequester. They tell the paper that they will be able to make the case to the public that the sequester was Obama’s idea, meaning he’ll take the blame for the damage it does.
This is ridiculous on the merits: Lawmakers in both parties voted for the sequester. But the more important point here is that this argument is an implicit admission of the weakness and incoherence of the GOP’s position in the sequester battle.
Here’s why: It’s an implicit admission that deep spending cuts are bad politically for whichever party owns them. After all, if this were not the case, then Republicans would not need to try to shift the blame to Obama for the cuts that are coming. Yet Republicans, and not Democrats, are the ones who are advocating for replacing the sequester only with deep spending cuts!
Indeed, in that very same Hill piece, Republicans also say letting the sequester go forward is the right thing to do for the country, since we need deep spending cuts to save the country from fiscal Armageddon. By contrast, Obama and Democrats are arguing against spending cuts of this magnitude; they’re insisting that the sequester cuts be replaced in part with new revenues drawn from closing high end tax loopholes, to avert layoffs and cuts to government that will hurt poor and middle class Americans. In other words, only one party — the GOP — is advocating for the very thing that Republicans themselves implicitly concede is politically perilous!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/19/the-morning-plum-gop-is-in-weak-position-in-sequester-fight/
President Obama Responds To Child’s Plea For Gun Control.
David Axelrod joins MSNBC
By DYLAN BYERS | 2/19/13 10:22 AM EST
David Axelrod, the former White House senior advisor and senior strategist for President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, has joined NBC News and MSNBC as a senior political analyst, the networks announced today.
Axelrod is NBC Universal’s second major hire from the Obama administration this month: Last week, POLITICO learned that Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary and senior adviser to President Obama’s 2012 campaign, had also joined the networks as a contributor. Like Gibbs, Axelrod will appear across the networks’ programming.
The move of two high-level Obama staffers to the NBC family is notable, but not without precedent. In 2008, Fox News hired George W. Bush’s senior advisor Karl Rove, and almost all the cable and broadcast channels feature contributors who formerly served as administration hands or campaign operatives.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/02/david-axelord-joins-nbc-msnbc-157291.html
David Axelrod Joins NBC News, MSNBC As Senior Political Analyst
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/david-axelrod-nbc-news-msnbc-senior-political-analyst_n_2716923.html#comments
Former White House senior advisor David Axelrod joined NBC News and MSNBC as a senior political analyst, the network announced on Tuesday.
Axelrod often appears on NBC News’ Sunday public affairs program “Meet The Press” and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” During the 2012 election, he entered into a bet with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, which led him to shave his decades-old mustache on live television.
Axelrod said he would shave the mustache he had for 40 years if Obama lost Pennsylvania, Minnesota or Michigan. He also said he would shave it if his charity C.U.R.E raised $1 million for epilepsy research by Nov. 30. The charity raised enough money, so Axelrod shaved the mustache.
According to the network, Axelrod will be a frequent contributor across “all broadcasts and platforms of both networks.”
LOL me
Ben Labolt is KILLING IT on Twitter
https://twitter.com/BenLaBolt
Ben LaBolt @BenLaBolt
The White House has found more ways to engage Americans in the conversation directly, so should the media
Jay Carnery WH Presser now
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
February 19, 2013 11:57 AM
Deficits and Old Folks
There’s a new Simpson-Bowles plan out today, and your interest in it probably depends not only on your political views but on which news sources you consult—some of which are greeting it as divine revelation and others as a nothing-burger.
Since the latter category includes most of the actual key decision-makers in Washington, Simpson-Bowles 2.0 is likely to serve as a symbol (and to certain deficit hawks, an idol) of a theoretical Austerity Deal (higher taxes and reduced spending) that remains out of reach. But as Matt Yglesias notes today, let’s don’t pretend Simpson and Bowles are just bringing out the green eyeshades and nothing more:
The main policy debate here isn’t about deficits, but about spending, and specifically spending on the elderly. The number of elderly people is expected to grow as a share of the population, and because some of our elderly-focused spending specifically targets health care, the volume of spending per old person is also poised to rise. What to do about that—to increase the taxation of the non-elderly to pay the tab, or to cut the tab by reducing our commitment to helping the elderly—is what’s being debated.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_02/deficits_and_old_folks043083.php
[wpvideo FFAoHzs3]
LOL
Dave Chappelle, Political Visionary
How much of this illustration, now zooming around the Internet, is actually “true”? I don’t know. But if you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/02/dave-chappelle-political-visionary/273267/
MSNBC Panel: GOP Rallying Around Dr. Benjamin Carson ‘A Sign Of Some Serious Desperation’
On Monday, a panel segment moderated by MSNBC’s Martin Bashir sought to examine the Republican politicians with the most potential to mount a successful presidential bid in 2016. After analyzing the political prospects of a variety of current GOP officeholders, the panel turned to Dr. Benjamin Carson who rose to relevance after he delivered a conservative speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Bashir’s panel guests said that, if the GOP turns to Carson in the hopes that he could remedy their political problems, it is merely “a sign of some serious desperation.”
Bashir asked Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post, for his thoughts on Carson’s electoral prospects.
“Far be it for me to predict the future, but to me it seems like a sign of some serious desperation,” Grim said. “If they’re all gravitating around a person who has never held any public office, and nobody has ever heard of them up until, you know, a couple of weeks ago. So, I just don’t see how this becomes a presidential campaign by 2016.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-panel-gop-rallying-around-dr-benjamin-carson-a-sign-of-some-serious-desperation/
That negro isn’t going anywhere. He’s soon to retire and is trying to sell his book, just like Herman Cain. If he’s lauded by Faux Noise & Co, GOP. Got to give him the side eye.
Sepia
Dude breaks down Goldie Taylor like a fraction, but this can also be applied to 99.9% of political pundunces:
alpha1906@gmail.com @alpha1906
I mean, really? Most peeps on Twitter interact w/peeps as equals. Like some folks, dislike others. Cool. But Goldie seems to think Twitter..
alpha1906@gmail.com @alpha1906
is some sort of weird space where people are starved to hear her voice. And blocking you is supposed to be the worst thing to happen to you
from TOD:
utaustinliberal
February 19, 2013 at 8:57 am
I watched Hubris at 4AM this morning and wow…wow…wow. 10 years down the line and documentary after documentary on the Iraq war continues to blow my mind. Bush and Co. were determined to go to war come hell or high water and they aren’t apologetic about the 4000+ American lives lose and the 100,000+ Iraqi lives lost. So much for patriotism huh?
The underlying revelation about Hubris was the media’s complicity in selling the war. Folks from Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc. all have their hands covered in blood because report after report showed that a lot of the claims were dubious. The NYT knew that the pipes weren’t for uranium enrichment and yet they still colluded with the Bush Admin. in the destruction of thousands of lives. 10 years down the line and instead of bettering itself, the media has simply become one cesspit of incompetency, lies, and utter drivel.
Watching standards fall to new lows
By Steve Benen
Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:57 AM EST
When it comes to the Senate’s “advise and consent” role on cabinet nominees, this really isn’t a constructive development.
Two U.S. senators have written a letter to Chuck Hagel to ask the defense secretary nominee to explain his assertion that “the State Department was becoming an adjunct of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.” Hagel, the Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday, made the comment in 2007.
“Dear Senator Hagel,” Senators Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte write. “Yesterday, the Washington Free Beacon reported that in a 2007 speech at Rutgers University regarding America’s relationship with the Middle East you remarked that ‘the State Department was becoming an adjunct of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.’ According to notes posted on the internet by a Republican political consultant and supporter of yours, George Ajjan, you made the remarks during the question and answer period following the speech.”
So, let’s take stock. A strange website with a troubled reputation published an unsubstantiated rumor about something Chuck Hagel is accused of having said in 2007. There is no proof that Hagel made the comment or anything like it, but two Republican senators nevertheless demanded an explanation.
In other words, for Graham and Ayotte, there’s nothing odd about effectively saying, “We heard some unsubstantiated rumor on a website we know little about, and we expect you to take it seriously and provide us with an immediate explanation.”
Can anyone seriously consider this a healthy development for the American political process?
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/18/17004860-watching-standards-fall-to-new-lows?lite
The details Paul Ryan doesn’t want you to know
By Steve Benen
Tue Feb 19, 2013 8:40 AM EST
Last week, after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) blamed President Obama for automatic sequestration cuts, I reported an overlooked detail: in August 2011, Ryan told Fox News that he and congressional Republicans deserve credit for the sequester, which contradicts the new GOP line.
The good news is, someone at ABC News noticed by post. The better news is, ABC’s Jonathan Karl confronted Paul Ryan with the quote and asked for an explanation. Here’s what the far-right congressman said in response:
So those are the budget caps on discretionary spending [1]. Those occurred. We want those. Everybody wants budget caps. The sequester we’re talking about now was backing up the super-committee. Remember the super committee in addition to those caps was supposed to come up with $1.2 trillion in savings. The Republicans on the super-committee offered even higher revenues in exchange for spending cuts as part of that [2]. It was rejected by the president and the Democrats [3].
“So no resolution occurred and therefore the sequester is occurring. And what we’ve always said is let’s cut spending in smarter ways to replace this sequester. We passed two bills doing that and we’ve heard nothing in response from the Senate Democrats or the president [4].”
This certainly won’t help the “Lyin’ Ryan” moniker go away anytime soon, since there’s almost nothing in the response that was true. Consider: [1] when Ryan boasted about the sequester in August 2011, he wasn’t talking about budget caps, he was talking about the sequester; [2] GOP members on the super-committee didn’t offer “higher revenues,” but rather, they offered tax breaks they said might someday lead to higher revenues; [3] President Obama and congressional Democrats were desperate to strike a super-committee compromise, but Republicans refused; and [4] the White House and Senate Democrats have proposed a sequester alternative, but the House GOP has not.
In other words, Ryan was confronted with a fact — he took credit for the policy he now wants to blame on the president — and he responded with a series of claims, each of which are demonstrably false. It’s almost as if the House Budget Committee chairman assumes there are no consequences for saying things that aren’t true.
Wait, it gets worse.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/19/17016480-the-details-paul-ryan-doesnt-want-you-to-know?lite
GOP = FAIL
Obama’s Cooties and Republican Meltdown on Immigration
Monday, February 18, 2013 | Posted by Deaniac83 at 4:14 PM
So, after USA Today reported on a White House draft legislation on immigration reform – something the president has always said he would do in the event Congress follows its usual path of doing nothing – Republicans began melting down faster than wax in a lit candle. Suddenly after months of complaining that the president won’t put his own plan out to deal with the debt, Republicans are seething that the president has his own plan on immigration.
Sen. Hydration, I mean Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida accused the White House proposal of following some sort of failed path even though he wouldn’t say just what in the White House draft he disagreed with. John McCain appeared on Meet the Press and implored David Gregory to get off his lawn.. I mean John McCain appeared on MTP and insisted that the president’s bill would fail because… well, no Republican actually gave any policy reason why the president’s bill would fail, so I’m guessing it would fail because Republicans think it’s got Obama’s cooties on it. Yet other Republican senators are complaining that the president isn’t calling them to sign them a lullaby or something.
This is what has become of the Republican party. Even on things they know they have to ultimately do, like immigration reform, and do those mostly to the president’s liking, since if they had gotten their way, we’d be talking about self-deportation programs instead of a path to citizenship, Republicans are complaining that things will blow up if the White House puts its ideas on the table. Why? Because – and astonishingly, they admit this openly – anything with Obama’s name on it is toxic to the GOP base, and evidently, the elected Republicans lack the courage to stand up to their extremist base on anything.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/02/obamas-cooties-and-wounded-elephant.html
Political gamesmanship on immigration reform gets messy
By Steve Benen
Tue Feb 19, 2013 8:00 AM EST
Over the weekend, USA Today published the leaked blueprint of the White House’s comprehensive immigration reform plan, built around an eight-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), demonstrating the kind of devotion to serious policymaking we’ve come to expect over his brief career, immediately condemned the unfinished plan he had not yet seen.
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, issued a statement late Saturday calling the president’s reported legislation “half-baked and seriously flawed.” He said its approval “would actually make our immigration problems worse.”
The far-right Floridian added that President Obama’s fallback plan would be “dead on arrival” if sent to Capitol Hill for consideration.
What’s far less clear, at least for now, is why Rubio rejected Obama’s outline with such ferocity.
The White House’s draft, which was circulated among government agencies that deal with immigration and border security, includes provisions that will sound very familiar to those following the larger immigration debate: undocumented immigrants would be eligible for a pathway to citizenship, but they’d be at the back of the line behind those who applied for citizenship legally. Undocumented immigration would also have to pay back taxes, pay a penalty, and learn English.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/19/17016138-political-gamesmanship-on-immigration-reform-gets-messy?lite
Etan Thomas: A session with a lesson for fathers and men
excerpt: Thomas gave a discourse about his trip to the juvenile ward at Rikers Island. He spoke in a gymnasium filled with about 500 young men who were incarcerated for an array of crimes. These juveniles ranged in age from 13 to 17. Upon turning 18, he is sent to the main unit of the prison. In his interaction with the young men, Etan asked how many knew their father, very few hands went up. When asked how many were fathers themselves, dozens of hands were raised.
It’s a story which has become too familiar, generations of Black men have been compromised for money, drugs and criminal acts among themselves. Left in their wake is a new, fatherless generation left to fend for themselves, headed down the same path. As fathers and as men we are the last hope for our children, all of our children. We are out of excuses, our babies are being shot, raped and abducted in our presence and all we’ve done is look the other way or go about the task half-assed. We’ve done little to understand these young bleeding hearts searching for a listening ear, a watchful eye or even a shoulder to lean or cry on. erry is more than just a coach to the youth he calls his babies. Feel free to add counselor, role model and father figure to his services.
Black men as a whole have been the missing link in the progression of our youth. Time is out for passing it off to mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters. Let’s create more answers and less excuses. This generation is more advanced than any in human history and we’re falling behind.
http://thestartingfive.net/2013/02/11/etan-thomas-a-session-with-a-lesson-for-fathers-and-men/#more-23019
Who’s to Blame for the Sequester?
Conservatives keep reminding everyone that the sequester was Obama’s idea. But, says Michael Tomasky, that doesn’t mean he’s to blame for the current crisis.
by Michael Tomasky Feb 19, 2013 4:45 AM EST
Whose “idea” was the sequester, and why should it matter? My Twitter feed these last couple of weeks has been overflowing with people going beyond the usual “communist” and “idiot” name-calling that I get every day and throwing the occasional “liar” in there because I “withhold” the information that the sequester was the Obama administration’s idea. Very well, consider that nugget hereby unwithheld. Let’s grant that this is true. But it’s true only because the Republicans were holding a gun to the administration’s head—and besides, the Republicans immediately voted for it. In any case the important thing now is that outside of Fox News land, it’s an unimportant fact whose “idea” it was. The Republicans are partial owners of this idea, and as the party that now wants the cuts to kick in, they deserve to—and will—bear more responsibility for the negative impacts.
A trip back through the full context of this saga tells the story. The idea of having these deep budget cuts called “sequestration” goes back to the summer of 2011 and the debt-ceiling negotiations. You’ll recall readily enough that it was first time in history that an opposition party had attempted to attach any conditions to increasing the debt limit. You’ll also recall that the Republicans made this intention quite clear from the beginning of 2011; indeed, from campaign time the year before. Remember Obama’s quotes from late 2010 in which he said he felt sure the Republicans would behave more reasonably once the responsibility to govern was partly theirs?
Instead, they almost crashed the economy. And they were also clearly the side pushing for drastic spending cuts. Let’s go back quickly over a partial 2011 timeline. In April, Obama spokesman Jay Carney said it was the president’s position that raising the debt limit “shouldn’t be held hostage to any other action.” On May 11, Austan Goolsbee, then Obama’s chief economic adviser, said that tying a debt-limit increase to spending cuts was “quite insane.”
On May 16, the United States went into technical default, but the Treasury Department was able to string things along a few more weeks. Tim Geithner made it clear that the real problem would hit August 1. A key moment, as Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress wrote in The Huffington Post, came on May 31. That’s when the GOP-run House voted on Obama’s request for a “clean” debt-limit increase. It failed, and all 236 Republicans voted no.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/19/who-s-to-blame-for-the-sequester.html
THAT video of HUBRIS can’t be posted enough. thank you.
The Bush admin and media all EVIL.
They ALL need to go to JAIL.
Damn! They were planning to go to War way before 9/11. And they have no remorse, no shame, no regret for the lost of innocent lives. Why aren’t they in JAIL?
The Doc should have been done years ago. If anyone’s seen Zero dark Thirty, it appears to me that Rachel & Co tried to imitate the lead character Maya, played by Jessica Chastain.
She was a CIA agent that stayed FOCUSED on Al-Qaeda and the manhut for Bin Laden. If only the cable networks had been this focused on Bush and his warhawks taking our men and women into not one, but 2 fucking wars.
Good – Morning , thank you for posting “HUBRIS” .
Good Mornuing, radd. Thank you. Bush, Cheney, and Co. need to be in GITMO
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, Everyone at 3CHICS!
Good morning, everyone!
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr It’s -6 here in MinneSNOWta! I need some hot chocolate.
Good Lord! And to think I complain about being cold here? SG2 couldn’t make it in MinneSNOWta.
LOL It’s frosty.