We will continue to spotlight Johnny Cash.
Johnny and June Carter Cash
Marriages and family
On July 18, 1951, while in Air Force training, Cash met 17-year-old Vivian Liberto at a roller skating rink in her native San Antonio. They dated for three weeks, until Cash was deployed to Germany for a three-year tour. During that time, the couple exchanged hundreds of pages of love letters.[29] On August 7, 1954, one month after his discharge, they were married at St. Ann’s Catholic church in San Antonio. The ceremony was performed by her uncle, Father Vincent Liberto. They had four daughters: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara. Cash’s drug and alcohol abuse, constant touring, and affairs with other women, and his close relationship with future wife June Carter, led Liberto to file for divorce in 1966.[30]
In 1968, 13 years after they first met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, Cash proposed to June Carter, an established country singer, during a live performance in London, Ontario,[31] marrying on March 1, 1968, in Franklin, Kentucky. They had one child together, John Carter Cash (born March 3, 1970). They continued to work together and tour for 35 years, until June Carter died in 2003. Cash died just four months later. Carter co-wrote one of Cash’s biggest hits, “Ring of Fire,” with singer Merle Kilgore. She and Cash won two Grammy awards for their duets.
Vivian Liberto claims a different version of the origins of “Ring of Fire” in I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny, stating that Cash gave Carter the credit for monetary reasons.[32]
……………………….
Early career
In 1954, Cash and Vivian moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. At night he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. Perkins and Grant were known as the Tennessee Two. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. After auditioning for Sam Phillips, singing mostly gospel songs, Phillips told him that he didn’t record gospel music any longer. It was once rumored that Phillips told Cash to “go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell,” though in a 2002 interview Cash denied that Phillips made any such comment.[39] Cash eventually won over the producer with new songs delivered in his early rock’a’billy style. In 1955 Cash made his first recordings at Sun, “Hey Porter” and “Cry! Cry! Cry!”, which were released in late June and met with success on the country hit parade.
On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley dropped in on Phillips while Carl Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks, with Jerry Lee Lewis backing him on piano. Cash was also in the studio and the four started an impromptu jam session. Phillips left the tapes running and the recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, survived and have since been released under the title Million Dollar Quartet. In Cash: the Autobiography, Cash wrote that he was the one farthest from the microphone and was singing in a higher pitch to blend in with Elvis.
Cash’s next record, “Folsom Prison Blues”, made the country Top 5, and “I Walk the Line” became No. 1 on the country charts and entered the pop charts Top 20. “Home of the Blues” followed, recorded in July 1957. That same year Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. Although he was Sun’s most consistently selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash felt constrained by his contract with the small label partly due to the fact that Phillips wasn’t keen on Johnny recording gospel, and he was only getting a 3% royalty as opposed to the standard rate of 5%. Presley had already left Sun, and Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on Lewis. The following year Cash left the label to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records, where his single “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” became one of his biggest hits.
In the early 1960s, Cash toured with the Carter Family, which by this time regularly included Mother Maybelle’s daughters, Anita, June and Helen. June later recalled admiring him from afar during these tours.
In the 1960s he appeared on Pete Seeger’s short lived television series Rainbow Quest.[40] He also acted in a 1961 film entitled Five Minutes to Live, later re-released as Door-to-door Maniac. He also wrote and sang the opening theme.
Jesse L. Martin As Marvin Gaye: Actor Replaces Lenny Kravitz In ‘Sexual Healing’
Posted: 03/04/2013 5:11 pm EST | Updated: 03/04/2013 5:11 pm EST
Lenny Kravitz will not play Marvin Gaye in “Sexual Healing,” an upcoming biopic. Deadline.com reports Jesse L. Martin will fill in for Kravitz, a surprising development given that Martin was actually originally cast in the film when it was to be produced by James Gandolfini.
Marvin Gaye III (the singer’s son) had previously expressed grave reservations about Kravitz portraying the Motown legend, going so far as to slam the entire project as “shameful.”
Kravitz was first cast in Julien Temple’s take on a portion of Gaye’s life in November. Temple remains on the project.
“Sexual Healing” is slated to start production later this month, so it seems Gaye III has come to terms with the plans. All’s not lost for Kravitz: He’ll reprise his role as Cinna in “Catching Fire,” the upcoming “Hunger Games” sequel.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/jesse-l-martin-marvin-gaye-lenny-kravitz_n_2807663.html
WH tours cancelled due to sequester & taff cuts?
Cover Preview: Taylor Swift Fights Back About Her Love Life, the Hyannis Port House—and Has Words for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
You know, Katie Couric is one of my favorite people,” Taylor Swift tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Nancy Jo Sales on the subject of mean girls in general and in response to an incident at this year’s Golden Globes, where Amy Poehler and Tina Fey mocked her highly scrutinized love life. “Because she said to me she had heard a quote that she loved, that said, ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’”
Specifically of her dating life, Swift says that “if you want some big revelation, since 2010 I have dated exactly two people,” meaning Conor Kennedy and One Direction’s Harry Styles. Though she has gone out with some of the entertainment world’s most notorious bachelors, including Jake Gyllenhaal, Taylor Lautner, Joe Jonas, and John Mayer, Swift says, “[t]he fact that there are slide shows of a dozen guys that I either hugged on a red carpet or met for lunch or wrote a song with. . . it’s just kind of ridiculous.” As she sits drinking lavender lemonade in her “Tim Burton–Alice in Wonderland–pirate ship–Peter Pan” apartment, Swift continues, “It’s why I have to avoid the tabloid part of our culture, because they turn you into a fictional character.” When Sales asks Swift if she’s boy-crazy, Swift smiles. “For a female to write about her feelings, and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that’s taking something that potentially should be celebrated—a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way—that’s taking it and turning it and twisting it into something that is frankly a little sexist.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/03/taylor-swift-fights-back-tina-fey-amy-poehler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=njgMlXL_DSo
LOL
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has died, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday. He was 58.
Chavez announced he had cancer in 2011. He spent more than two months in treatment in Cuba recently, returning to Venezuela two weeks ago. Officials have not said what type of cancer he had.
Chavez has been Venezuelas president since 1998. His countrys economy has been highly dependent on oil sales to the U.S., but he was an avowed critic of American capitalism.
On Tuesday, Venezuela accused the domestic and foreign enemies of Venezuela of attacking Chavez and expelled 2 U.S. Embassy officials who it said was seeking military support for a plot against the governme
This is what “Racial Entitlement” Looks Like
http://www.thepragmaticpundit.com/2013/02/this-is-what-racial-entitlement-looks.html
GRUESOME and profoundly powerful.. These images need to be uploaded on PowerPoint slides and shown to ALL the Supreme Court justices, ESPECIALLY, that turd, Scalia.
Merciful God!
I’m still steaming about that comment Scalia made about racial entitltement. And the very fact that Section 5 is up for discussion, is sickening. Battles we’ve fought for decades ago, are having to be refought.
The domestic policy the GOP wants to spend money on
By Steve Benen
Tue Mar 5, 2013 2:26 PM EST
Congressional Republicans have made it rather clear that they’re eager, almost desperate, to slash public investments. For political reasons, they’re often reluctant to say which investments they want to cut, but if it’s a domestic priority, chances are, GOP lawmakers believe it’s currently receiving too much money.
As it turns out, there is an exception.
Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) on Monday called for the creation of a new federal grant program that would spend half a billion dollars to educate teenagers about why they should not have sex before marriage.
In a speech on the House floor, Hultgren cited a Centers for Disease Control report from mid-February that said young adults account for 50 percent of all sexually transmitted disease infections.
According to Hultgren, for every dollar that goes to “risk-avoidance” education (i.e., abstinence education), $16 goes to “contraceptive-centered education.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/05/17197199-the-domestic-policy-the-gop-wants-to-spend-money-on?lite
Sequestration And How The ‘Liberal Media’ Keep Blaming Obama For Republican Behavior
By ERIC BOEHLERT Media Matters
—————————————
Here’s what the prism looks like, and here’s what it’s looked like for the last four years: Blame Obama for Republican obstinacy. (Or, as a backup: Both sides are to blame!)
And remember, most of the pundits currently taking misguided aim at Obama on sequestration are part of the supposedly “liberal media” cabal, the one that conservatives insist protect Obama at any cost.
.
.
So, because Obama, who just won an electoral landslide re-election, wasn’t willing to concede to Republicans everything they wanted, the sequester impasse was reached and $85 billion worth of across-the-board spending cuts went into effect. From those facts, too many pundits have rushed in to blame Obama. Why him? Because he hasn’t been able to change Republican behavior. He wasn’t able to get them to agree to a bipartisan solution.
Question: If you’re an obstructionist Republican and the press blames Obama for your actions, why would you ever change your obstructionist ways? Answer: You wouldn’t. And they haven’t.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/05/sequestration-and-how-the-liberal-media-keep-bl/192907
Taking welfare drug tests to the national level
By Steve Benen
Tue Mar 5, 2013 11:40 AM EST
Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) idea of mandating drug tests for welfare applicants failed miserably. Only about 2% of applicants tested positive, and Florida lost money when it was forced to reimburse everyone else for the cost of the drug test, plus pay for staff and administrative costs for the drug-testing program. Making matters worse, the courts rejected the law, forcing its demise.
And yet, at least one member of Congress hopes to take the failed Florida policy to the national level.
Rep. Stephen Fincher’s (R-Tenn.) bill would require states to randomly test 20 percent of people receiving benefits from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which spends roughly $16 billion per year supporting poverty-stricken parents with monthly checks averaging $392.
“Currently the federal government enables drug abusers a safety-net by allowing them to participate in the TANF program,” Fincher said in a statement. “Instead of having to make the hard-choice between drugs and other essential needs, abusers are able to rely on their monthly check to help them pay their bills.”
The Republican congressman realizes his idea, if implemented, would be legally problematic, so he intends to remedy these concerns by requiring welfare beneficiaries to sign “a waiver of constitutional rights” with respect to drug testing. (Note to Rep. Fincher: Americans who are legally entitled to a public benefit cannot be forced to waive their constitutional rights in order to receive the benefit. Just FYI.)
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/05/17195772-taking-welfare-drug-tests-to-the-national-level?lite
Hacking the Science of Black Nerds
Ahead of SXSW this week, the women behind Blerdology talk hacking, technology and embracing your inner geek.
By Erin E. Evans
Posted: 03/05/2013 08:00 AM EST
Kat Calvin and Amanda Spann are proud to host what they call “giant geek parties.” Black nerds — or blerds as they call themselves — are now the cool kids.
Calvin and Spann run Blerdology: The Science of Black Nerds, formerly known as #BlackGirlsHack, an organization that celebrates and enhances the Black tech community. They hope to provide a safe space for people of color who are interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and who may not feel like they fit in the often white world of technology.
“I feel like STEM is the new Black,” says Kat Calvin, 29, founder of Blerdology. “There are a lot more blerds/Black techies/people who are in the Black tech and the STEM community out there than people think.”
Blerdology hosted its first hackathon in Atlanta in November. Fifty Black coders and developers created mobile apps and competed to win the hackathon championship. Ama Marfo, whose team created a website for her Airfordable company, was declared the winner. A successful startup investor was in attendance and said he has plans to invest in her company.
“It’s a really amazing thing to actually help someone put the pieces together and build something that may become the next high growth company in this country,” says Amanda Spann, 26, PR coordinator for Blerdology.
The proceeds from these events — for-profit businesses who need apps/projects built pay a fee — go to local nonprofit organizations. The proceeds from the Atlanta hackathon went to nonprofit tech organization Black Girls Code, which focuses on teaching young Black girls about computer programming in cities across America.
These “giant, geek parties” generally focus on a theme or how to solve a certain problem and can last up to 72 hours. For example, in the summer Blerdology will host a hackathon in Detroit. Coders and developers will think of innovative ways to solve problems through technology about energy issues in Detroit. In April in Newark, New Jersey, the group has partnered with Rutgers business school to host its second hackathon and proceeds will go to the Centers for Collaborative Change, an organization that makes sure residents of Newark are aware of the advancements in their neighborhoods.
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2013/03/05/hacking-the-science-of-black-nerds.html
McConnell condemns Obama for thinking like McConnell
By Steve Benen
Tue Mar 5, 2013 12:51 PM EST.
Around 2 a.m. on Election Night, President Obama delivered a stirring victory speech in Chicago, and one of the very first things he did after leaving the stage was call House Democratic leaders Steve Israel and Nancy Pelosi. Why? Because Obama wanted to stress his interest in the 2014 midterms.
It wasn’t a fleeting moment. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the president is heavily focused on taking a direct, hands-on role in helping elect a Democratic House majority in 2014. The article noted, “This approach marks a significant shift in the way Obama has worked with a divided Congress. He has compromised and badgered, but rarely — and never so early — campaigned to change its composition.”
Putting aside the electoral conditions — Steve Kornacki makes a persuasive case that the numbers probably aren’t there for Democrats — Obama’s ambitions are understandable. The clock is ticking on his presidency, and meaningful progress on his top priorities is extremely difficult so long as radicalized congressional Republicans dominate the House of Representatives.
It’s difficult, in other words, to blame Obama for focusing his attention on the last election cycle of his presidency. Then again, some Republicans don’t find it difficult at all.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/05/17196389-mcconnell-condemns-obama-for-thinking-like-mcconnell?lite
The media is helping Boehner & McConnell sell their sack-o-shit lying about debt, sequester, low tax nonsense. Meanwhile the POTUS is TCB
The GOP filibustered the Senate sequester alt.
On Alec Baldwin’s “Here’s the Thing” Podcast, Brian Williams says he has ‘Profound Disappointment’ in his Country Among Other Thing
SNIP
“I sometimes think, post-war America, post-Vietnam America, has kind of become exhausted,” Williams said. “I have another theory that the growth of self, all things self, has taken away our spirit of community. We can do this, cohesion, American-ness. When an average American citizen has followers — I know you have your own history with social media. You take a citizen who works in a restaurant. They now have the preoccupation of followers.”<b.
SNIP
Audio: http://www.blackchristiannews.com/news/2013/03/on-alec-baldwins-heres-the-thing-podcast-brian-williams-says-he-has-profound-disappointment-in-his-c.html
Cornyn’s secret sources
By Steve Benen
Tue Mar 5, 2013 10:48 AM EST.
A few years ago, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) told voters she’d heard about immigrants who were responsible for “beheadings” in the Arizona desert, a claim that the governor apparently made up out of whole cloth. The Republican later conceded, “That was an error, if I said that.”
The moral of the story was obvious: don’t make stuff up about border crimes; the claims are too easy to check. It’s a lesson Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) didn’t learn.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/05/17195230-cornyns-secret-sources?lite
Malia Obama and pals hit Chelsea
Last Updated: 9:46 AM, March 5, 2013
Posted: 12:03 AM, March 5, 2013
The sight of First Daughter Malia Obama at a dinner this weekend with her friends prompted one spy to describe the meal as a “young girl’s social power club gathering.” On Saturday night, President Obama’s elder daughter, 14, was spotted at giant Chelsea restaurant Buddakan with eight of her friends, including a daughter of New York Giants chairman Steve Tisch. According to witnesses, the girls were chaperoned by four parents and five security guards who dined at the table directly next to them. “She was in the middle of a gaggle of young girls,” one source told us, while Secret Service remained a comfortable distance behind them — and deterred other customers from bothering them. The presidential teenager was dressed “very casual, jeans and ponytail.” Malia and her friends were overheard saying, “This place is so hip” while they dined on rock shrimp, edamame dumplings, short ribs, lobster fried rice and noodles. An Obama rep didn’t get back to us.
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/malia_and_pals_hit_chelsea_jBKV5Ho6DlKSmNuCsso6NO?utm_source=SFnewyorkpost&utm_medium=SFnewyorkpost
NY Post = RAG. The title of this piece alone is suspect. SMGDH
Daily Caller: WaPo got wrong hooker
By DYLAN BYERS |
3/5/13 8:30 AM EST
…”The Washington Post mistook one prostitute for another Monday in a report that initially seemed to debunk a November 2012 Daily Caller exposé of New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez,” DC editor David Martosko wrote. “While the Post said it had an affidavit from a woman in the Dominican Republic admitting she fabricated claims Menendez paid her for sex, that woman was not one of the two prostitutes TheDC interviewed for a Nov. 1 report.”
Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson also tweeted Monday night that “WaPo might have saved itself the embarrassment if they’d bothered to call us before running their stupid piece.” In her original report, the Post’s Carol Leonnig claims to have reached out to the DC by both phone and email for comment. But Carlson says time stamps show she emailed him at least 30 minutes after posting her story. (The Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment from POLITICO regarding a response to the DC’s claims.)
In a statement released on Tuesday morning, The DC said it stood by its story and again claimed the Post had not reached out for comment.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/03/daily-caller-wapo-got-wrong-hooker-158467.html#.UTX1BVfguRg.twitter
Why Are Conservatives Trying to Destroy the Voting Rights Act?
Ari Berman February 5, 2013 | This article appeared in the February 25, 2013 edition of The Nation
SNIP
Attorney General Eric Holder has called Section 5 the “keystone of our voting rights,” and the Justice Department and voting rights groups have argued that it is an essential tool for dismantling barriers to the ballot box. “The record compiled by Congress demonstrates that, without the continuation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protections, racial and language minority citizens will be deprived of the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, or will have their votes diluted, undermining the significant gains made by minorities in the last forty years,” Congress stated in reauthorizing the act in 2006. The disappearance of Section 5 would be a devastating setback for voting rights—akin to the way the Citizens United decision eviscerated campaign finance regulation—and would greenlight the kind of voter suppression attempts that proved so unpopular in 2012.
Overturning Section 5 is in many respects the most important battle in the GOP’s war on voting. As Holder noted in a recent speech, there have been more lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 over the past two years than during the previous four decades. Section 5 is in the gravest danger at a moment in contemporary history when it’s needed the most.
Read on
http://www.thenation.com/article/172685/why-are-conservatives-trying-destroy-voting-rights-act#
How Ruth Bader Ginsburg has moved the Supreme Court.
BY JEFFREY TOOBIN
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg turns eighty this month, and she can project the daunting stillness of a seated monarch. She is tiny—about five feet tall and a hundred pounds—and her face at rest conveys a pursed-lipped skepticism. She dresses with a dowager’s elegance, often in exotic shifts acquired on her travels around the world; she sometimes wears long gloves indoors. During conversations, she is given to taking lengthy pauses. This can be unnerving, especially at the Supreme Court, where silence only amplifies the sound of ticking clocks. Therefore, her clerks came up with what they call the two-Mississippi rule: after speaking, wait two beats before you say anything else. Ginsburg’s pauses have nothing to do with her age. It’s just the way she is
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/11/130311fa_fact_toobin#ixzz2MgMR7000
George Zimmerman immunity hearing won’t be held in April
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/George-Zimmerman-immunity-hearing-won-t-be-held-in-April/-/1637132/19182402/-/xi5nei/-/index.html
SANFORD, Fla. –
Attorneys for George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch leader charged with murder in the shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, said Tuesday that an immunity hearing will not be held in April as previously scheduled.
In a court hearing Tuesday, Zimmerman’s lead defense attorney, former Local 6 legal analyst Mark O’Mara, and his team were seeking movement on a handful of pre-trial motions.
Before the judge recessed to review a motion, she asked O’Mara if he wanted to go forward with the immunity hearing or if she could schedule other cases during the two-week span in April. O’Mara said the hearing would not take place at that time, but he did not say if it would be heard later or rolled into the murder trial, which is scheduled for June.
Zimmerman Stuns Court, Waives Right to ‘Stand Your Ground’ Hearing in Trayvon Martin Case
George Zimmerman’s attorneys stunned court observers Tuesday when they waived their client’s right to a “Stand Your Ground” hearing slated for April that might have led to a dismissal of the charges in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin a year ago.
However, the defense lawyers didn’t say whether they would waive the immunity hearing outright. They left open the possibility for that hearing to be rolled into Zimmerman’s second degree murder trial. Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch captain in his Florida subdivision, shot and killed the teen, who was visiting a house in the area.
The move allows the defense more time to prepare for the trial this summer, but also raises the stakes.
http://gma.yahoo.com/zimmerman-stuns-court-waives-stand-ground-hearing-trayvon-162305101–abc-news-topstories.html
Jeff Gauvin@JeffersonObama
DOW UP 112, NASDAQ UP 31
Reblogged this on Big Blue Dot Y'all and commented:
Little known fact: I graduated high school with John Carter and we all went to the same Baptist church. Johnny was always dressed in white.
Morning, KChap!
Howdy, KChap.
Republican goal to balance budget could mean deep cuts to health programs
By Lori Montgomery,
Published: March 4
Anxiety is rising among House Republicans about a strategy of appeasement toward fiscal hard-liners that could require them to embrace not only the sequester but also sharp new cuts to federal health and retirement programs.
Letting the sequester hit was just the first step in a pact forged in January between conservative leaders and Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to keep the government open and the nation out of default. Now comes step 2: adopting a budget plan that would wipe out deficits entirely by 2023.
The strategy runs counter to warnings from prominent Republicans such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal against becoming “the party of austerity.” Just as GOP lawmakers are tacitly endorsing sequester cuts to the Pentagon, long a sacred cow, they fear the balanced-budget goal will force them to abandon a campaign pledge not to reduce Medicare benefits for those who are now 55 and older.
“I know a number of people who have real concerns about where this is going,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who said Medicare cuts targeting people as old as 58 are under discussion.
“One of the last presidents to balance the budget was Herbert Hoover,” King added darkly, referring to the penny-pinching Republican blamed for deepening the Great Depression.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/republican-goal-to-balance-budget-could-mean-deep-cuts-to-health-programs/2013/03/04/94632f92-840b-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html
Congressional Lies are Propagated by the Media
Boehner Lies
Boehner lies. When he says, “the House has already passed two budgets”…he’s lying. A new Congressional session began in January and this session, the House has not met its Constitutional obligation. When he whines that the Senate hasn’t passed a budget…he’s lying. The Constitution directs that appropriation bills “must” originate in the House. When Boehner says the sequester was the President’s idea…he’s lying. After negotiations, he said he got 98% of what he wanted, so it’s 98% his. When Boehner says the President has no plan…he’s lying. The plan is posted right on the White House.gov. Boehner lies. What’s worse is the media and pundits repeat the same narrative or fail to push back when he just flat-out lies to the public.
They should know, the House and Senate must agree on a budget to fund the government. When they cannot, both chambers sign off on continuing resolutions that provide funding for existing federal programs at current, reduced, or expanded levels. This scenario has persisted for 14 years. In fact, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, in the past 26 years, Congress has passed a budget only three times, in 1989, 1995 and 1997. So why all the hype about budgetary failure and expired deadlines? Because they know the public doesn’t know, so they tell us whatever narrative advances their argument and the media helps.
The Deficit Lie
Budget aside, there is no greater evidence of willful lying to the public than the ongoing debate about the deficit. You’ve heard the declarations:
“The United States is on the brink of bankruptcy!”
“Obama has added $6 trillion dollars to the budget since taking office.”
Both statements are so ridiculous, I am ashamed that anyone with an ounce of integrity would advance them. It is a common sense deduction, you cannot go bankrupt when you print your own currency, decide how much of it should be in circulation, set your own interest rate and do your own accounting. It’s common sense. If you had a printing press in your basement, would you go broke?
More importantly, approximately a third of the obligation is debt that the government literally owes to itself…medicare, social security, etc. Suppose the government decided tomorrow to write-off the balances of all these accounts. What would happen? Remember when Rumsfeld announced that the Defense Department couldn’t track $1.3 Trillion? Did they find it? Who knows…the media went on to other things. I can assure you …all they didn’t find…they simply wrote off.
http://www.thepragmaticpundit.com/2013/03/congressional-lies-are-propagated-by.html#more
This can NOT be posted enough.
Conservative media keeps stumbling, falling
By Steve Benen
Tue Mar 5, 2013 10:10 AM EST.
Just a few days before Election Day 2012, The Daily Caller, a far-right outlet created by Tucker Carlson, ran with an exclusive scoop: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), running for re-election, had allegedly paid us for sex in the Dominican Republic. Other conservative media outlets immediately pounced on the story, finding it entirely credible.
Even at the time, there was ample room for skepticism, not just because of the convenient timing of the report or the sketchy reputation of Carlson’s outlet, but because, as Mariah Blake noted, the “controversy” appeared to be based on non-existent evidence.
Late yesterday, the allegations completely unraveled.
An escort who appeared on a video claiming that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) paid her for sex has told Dominican authorities that she was instead paid to make up the claims and has never met or seen the senator, according to court documents and two people briefed on her claim.
The woman said a local lawyer had approached her and a fellow escort and asked them to help frame Menendez and a top donor, Salomon Melgen, according to affidavits obtained by The Washington Post.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/05/17194885-conservative-media-keeps-stumbling-falling?lite
john miller @deaconmill
Dow hits all time high. Blame Obama chants being heard from the Right. Obama’s a failure as a socialist chants being heard from the left.
3:12 PM – 05 Mar 13
OBAMA IS A SO-SHU-LIST! /snark
When the ‘candidate of the people’ shtick doesn’t work
By Steve Benen
Mon Mar 4, 2013 3:40 PM EST.
Campaigning is already well underway in Massachusetts, which will hold its Senate special election primaries next month, before the June 25 general election. With this in mind, there was a Republican straw poll held over the weekend, which state Rep. Dan Winslow won.
There was, however, a question about the event’s location: Republicans gathered at a yacht club in the state’s Northeast corner.
Winslow … said he thought the event sent the wrong message.
“They gave us three minutes to speak today; three minutes is longer than I ever wanted to spend in a yacht club,” Winslow said. “I am not a tea and crumpets Republican.”
Oops.
Winslow’s professed enmity toward yacht clubs is apparently newly found: as recently as 2011, the candidate disclosed that he served on the board of directors for the Pamet Harbor Yacht & Tennis Club.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/04/17182978-when-the-candidate-of-the-people-shtick-doesnt-work?lite
And this decrepid MOFO right here…
Listen to president Brokaw regale us with his wisdom. GOP water-carrying mutha%4ka!
You’d better gather your GOP white boys club and tell them to get a clue, Tommy. You know damn good and well the Repugs don’t want to work with this president and have been OBSTRUCTING.
Antoher Bush in the WH; I.DON’T.THINK.SO!
Jeb Bush causes quite a stir
By Steve Benen
Tue Mar 5, 2013 8:00 AM EST
We talked yesterday about former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and his decision to drop his support for a pathway to citizenship in immigration reform, despite having pushed the opposite line for years. The Republican’s shift has caused quite a stir, especially among reform proponents who now feel betrayed by a man they had considered a key ally.
But there’s one group of folks who seem even more outraged: Mitt Romney’s campaign team.
The revelations angered top advisors to Mitt Romney, who felt that Bush went out of his way to make statements during the campaign that undermined the former Republican presidential candidate’s campaign by seeming to urge a softer approach to immigration.
“Where the hell was this Jeb Bush during the campaign?” said one advisor. “He spent all this time criticizing Romney and it turns out he has basically the same position. So he wants people to go back to their country and apply for citizenship? Well, that’s self deportation. We got creamed for talking about that. And now Jeb is saying the same thing.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/05/17193678-jeb-bush-causes-quite-a-stir?lite
Seriously, i won’t be flying for a while.
Inspector general report confirms rise in air traffic control errors
By Ashley Halsey III, Published: March 4
Federal investigators confirmed Monday that errors by the nation’s air traffic controllers have increased sharply, challenging the Federal Aviation Administration’s contention that most of the jump was due to better data collection.
In an audit released Monday, the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation said that “the increase in reported errors was linked, in part, to a rise in actual errors rather than increased reporting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/inspector-general-report-confirms-rise-in-air-traffic-control-errors/2013/03/04/bfb5862a-84da-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html?wpisrc=nl_fedinsider
Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9:44:39 AM
National News Alert
Dow Jones industrial average crosses all-time high
The Dow Jones industrial average, which measures the performance of 30 blue-chip companies, passed its all-time high Tuesday morning, despite fears that automatic spending cuts contained in the sequester could hamper economic growth. The Dow last traded at these levels on Oct. 9, 2007 when it closed at 14,164.53.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/SFBD1U/EWAA00/ZOC947/48MJ7L/BM8SM4/KI/h?a=http://www.washingtonpost.com
Congressional Lies are Propagated by the Media
Pragmatic Pundit
Boehner Lies
Boehner lies. When he says, “the House has already passed two budgets”…he’s lying. A new Congressional session began in January and this session, the House has not met its Constitutional obligation. When he whines that the Senate hasn’t passed a budget…he’s lying. The Constitution directs that appropriation bills “must” originate in the House. When Boehner says the sequester was the President’s idea…he’s lying. After negotiations, he said he got 98% of what he wanted, so it’s 98% his. When Boehner says the President has no plan…he’s lying. The plan is posted right on the White House.gov. Boehner lies. What’s worse is the media and pundits repeat the same narrative or fail to push back when he just flat-out lies to the public.
They should know, the House and Senate must agree on a budget to fund the government. When they cannot, both chambers sign off on continuing resolutions that provide funding for existing federal programs at current, reduced, or expanded levels. This scenario has persisted for 14 years. In fact, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, in the past 26 years, Congress has passed a budget only three times, in 1989, 1995 and 1997. So why all the hype about budgetary failure and expired deadlines? Because they know the public doesn’t know, so they tell us whatever narrative advances their argument and the media helps.
The Deficit Lie
Budget aside, there is no greater evidence of willful lying to the public than the ongoing debate about the deficit. You’ve heard the declarations:
“The United States is on the brink of bankruptcy!”
“Obama has added $6 trillion dollars to the budget since taking office.”
Both statements are so ridiculous, I am ashamed that anyone with an ounce of integrity would advance them. It is a common sense deduction, you cannot go bankrupt when you print your own currency, decide how much of it should be in circulation, set your own interest rate and do your own accounting. It’s common sense. If you had a printing press in your basement, would you go broke?
Read on
http://www.thepragmaticpundit.com/2013/03/congressional-lies-are-propagated-by.html#more
More Than Gimmicks: How Obama’s Tech Tools Are Shifting the Debate
// Critics deride the White House’s fondness for platforms like Google Plus and web petitions, but they’re proving potent tools for surfacing issues the media would otherwise ignore.
Just 10 days after a petition supporting cell phone unlocking posted to the White House’s We the People site surpassed the 100,000-signature mark that triggers an official response, the Obama Administration today replied, saying, “The White House agrees with the 114,000 of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties.” (The technologists organizing around the petition had offered an incentive: They’d jailbreak one phone for anyone who’d contribute a signature.) The response is signed by R. David Edelman, a senior White House adviser on Internet policy who is just a half-dozen years removed from his senior year at Yale. A pro-unlocking policy, said the statement, is “common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.” //
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/more-than-gimmicks-how-obamas-tech-tools-are-shifting-the-debate/273662/
yes; the ARCHAIC media and folks are getting left behind in the dust!
A tale of two falsehoods
By Steve Benen
Tue Mar 5, 2013 8:33 AM EST.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan and House Speaker John Boehner both recently appeared on Sunday shows, made claims that were not true, and got caught. But it’s worth pausing to appreciate how the two responded to the ensuing controversy.
Duncan, about a week ago, told CBS that “as many as 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs” as a consequence of the sequestration cuts. He added, “There are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall.”
This was fact-checked and proven to be incorrect. When pressed for an explanation, Duncan acknowledged that he’d made a mistake, apologized, and set the record straight.
Seven days later, Boehner told NBC, “[T]here’s no plan from Senate Democrats or the White House to replace the sequester.” This, too, was fact-checked and also proven to be incorrect. Asked for an explanation, Boehner acknowledged that he’d made a mistake, apologized, and set the record straight.
No, I’m just kidding. Boehner’s office actually doubled-down on the lie, saying the falsehood is true if Republicans are allowed to change the meaning of basic words.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/05/17194080-a-tale-of-two-falsehoods?lite
AP/ March 4, 2013, 11:57 PM
NRA becomes title sponsor of NASCAR race
RT WORTH, TEXAS The National Rifle Association is taking its relationship with racing to a new level as the title sponsor of a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.
The deal with Texas Motor Speedway comes at a time when the NRA is involved in a renewed debate on gun violence in the wake of the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
“It’s not about politics. It’s about sports marketing,” TMS president Eddie Gossage said Monday after the announcement of the one-year agreement with the NRA that includes a renewal option.
NRA: Gun control proposals “will fail”
NRA vs. Giffords’ husband at Senate gun control hearing
Gun control fight entering final round in Senate
The April 13 race at Texas, the first scheduled night race in the Cup Series this season, will be known as the NRA 500.
This is not the NRA’s first title sponsorship in NASCAR. The group sponsored the second-tier Nationwide race last September at Atlanta, which like Texas is owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57572502/nra-becomes-title-sponsor-of-nascar-race/?tag=nl.e875&s_cid=e875&ttag=e875
Spot on! Ugggh, these mugs should come with a warning. LOL
Good Morning, Everyone! :-) Yep, beside every good man is a GREAT WOMAN!
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Are ya’ll digging out this morning in Chi-town? We woke up to a fortress around our driveway and snow blowers buzzing.
the snow just began as I arrived to work. I don’t even wanna imagine what it’s gonna be like when I leave work. they say it’ll be snowing until 5 tomorrow morning.
Sheesh! We’ve already got 10 inches and counting. Guess what; my daughter won the lottery for 2 tickets to the WH Easter egg Roll! Whoo hooo! gonna get some pics of my grandson with that freaky white rabbit. LOL
@Ametia!
Whoo Hoo! Congrats on the tickets. That’s wonderful.
Morning, all!
Loving Johnny Cash this morning!
…”I keep the ends out for the tie that binds…because you’re mine, I walk the line”.
:)
Sookie sookie! June Carter Cash was a beautiful woman. Johnny knew he had the real deal She was spiritually astute too.