More of Country Legend Johnny Cash.
Highwaymen
From left to right Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, who formed the country music supergroup, The Highwaymen
In 1980, Cash became the Country Music Hall of Fame’s youngest living inductee at age 48, but during the 1980s his records failed to make a major impact on the country charts, although he continued to tour successfully. In the mid 1980s, he recorded and toured with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson as The Highwaymen, making three hit albums which were released beginning with the originally titled “Highwaymen” in 1985, followed by “Highwaymen 2” in 1990, and concluding with “Highwaymen – The Road Goes on forever” in 1995. Of the group’s four members, Cash was the only one not a Texan.
During that period, Cash appeared in a number of television films. In 1981, he starred in The Pride of Jesse Hallam, winning fine reviews for a film that called attention to adult illiteracy. In the same year, Cash appeared as a “very special guest star” in an episode of the Muppet Show. In 1983, he appeared as a heroic sheriff in Murder in Coweta County, based on a real-life Georgia murder case, which co-starred Andy Griffith as his nemesis. Cash had tried for years to make the film, for which he won acclaim.
Cash relapsed into addiction after being administered painkillers for a serious abdominal injury in 1983 caused by an unusual incident in which he was kicked and wounded by an ostrich he kept on his farm.[55]
At a hospital visit in 1988, this time to watch over Waylon Jennings (who was recovering from a heart attack), Jennings suggested that Cash have himself checked into the hospital for his own heart condition. Doctors recommended preventive heart surgery, and Cash underwent double bypass surgery in the same hospital. Both recovered, although Cash refused to use any prescription painkillers, fearing a relapse into dependency. Cash later claimed that during his operation, he had what is called a “near death experience”. He said he had visions of Heaven that were so beautiful that he was angry when he woke up alive.
Cash’s recording career and his general relationship with the Nashville establishment were at an all-time low in the 1980s. He realized that his record label of nearly 30 years, Columbia, was growing indifferent to him and was not properly marketing him (he was “invisible” during that time, as he said in his autobiography). Cash recorded an intentionally awful song to protest, a self-parody.[citation needed] “Chicken in Black” was about Cash’s brain being transplanted into a chicken. Ironically, the song turned out to be a larger commercial success than any of his other recent material. Nevertheless, he was hoping to kill the relationship with the label before they did, and it was not long after “Chicken in Black” that Columbia and Cash parted ways.
In 1986, Cash returned to Sun Studios in Memphis to team up with Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins to create the album Class of ’55. Also in 1986, Cash published his only novel, Man in White, a book about Saul and his conversion to become the Apostle Paul. He also recorded Johnny Cash Reads The Complete New Testament in 1990.
Religious beliefs
Cash, a troubled but devout Christian,[62][63][page needed] has been characterized as a “lens through which to view American contradictions and challenges.”[d][65][66] A Biblical scholar,[2][67][68] he penned a Christian novel titled Man in White; in its introduction Cash writes about a reporter who, interested in Cash’s religious beliefs, questions whether the book is written from a Baptist, Catholic, or Jewish perspective. Cash denies an answer to the book’s view and his own, and replies, “I’m a Christian. Don’t put me in another box.”[69][page needed][70] and he made a spoken word recording of the entire New King James Version of the New Testament.[71][72] Even so, Cash declared that he was “the biggest sinner of them all”, and viewed himself overall as a complicated and contradictory man.[73][e] Accordingly,[f] Cash is said to have “contained multitudes,” and has been deemed “the philosopher-prince of American country music”.[78][79]
Legacy
From his early days as a pioneer of rockabilly and rock and roll in the 1950s, to his decades as an international representative of country music, to his resurgence to fame in the 1990s as a living legend and an alternative country icon, Cash influenced countless artists and left a large body of work. Upon his death, Cash was revered by the greatest popular musicians of his time. His rebellious image and often anti-authoritarian stance influenced punk rock.[80][81]
Among Cash’s children, his daughter Rosanne Cash (by first wife Vivian Liberto) and his son John Carter Cash (by June Carter Cash) are notable country-music musicians in their own right.
Cash nurtured and defended artists on the fringes of what was acceptable in country music even while serving as the country music establishment’s most visible symbol. At an all-star concert which aired in 1999 on TNT, a diverse group of artists paid him tribute, including Bob Dylan, Chris Isaak, Wyclef Jean, Norah Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Dom DeLuise and U2. Cash himself appeared at the end and performed for the first time in more than a year. Two tribute albums were released shortly before his death; Kindred Spirits contains works from established artists, while Dressed in Black contains works from many lesser-known artists.
In total, he wrote over 1,000 songs and released dozens of albums. A box set titled Unearthed was issued posthumously. It included four CDs of unreleased material recorded with Rubin as well as a Best of Cash on American retrospective CD.
In recognition of his lifelong support of SOS Children’s Villages, his family invited friends and fans to donate to the Johnny Cash Memorial Fund in his memory. He had a personal link with the SOS village in Diessen, at the Ammersee Lake in Southern Germany, near where he was stationed as a G.I, and with the SOS village in Barrett Town, by Montego Bay, near his holiday home in Jamaica.[82][83]
In 1999, Cash received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Cash No. 31 on their “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” list.[84][85]
The main street in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Highway 31E, is known as “Johnny Cash Parkway”; the Johnny Cash Museum is located in the town.
On November 2–4, 2007, the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival was held in Starkville, MS. Starkville, where Cash was arrested over 40 years earlier and held overnight at the city jail on May 11, 1965, inspired Cash to write the song “Starkville City Jail”. The festival, where he was offered a symbolic posthumous pardon, honored Cash’s life and music, and was expected to become an annual event.[86]
JC Unit One, Johnny Cash’s private tour bus from 1980 until 2003, was put on exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum in 2007. The Cleveland, Ohio museum offers public tours of the bus on a seasonal basis (it is stored during the winter months and not exhibited during those times).
http://youtu.be/7cKTBy7_S_I
Exclusive: Elisabeth Hasselbeck Leaving The View After Nine Years, Viewers Found Her “Too Extreme and Right Wing”
Celebrity News March 8, 2013 AT 2:00PM By Joyce Chen
The people have spoken. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, one of the five cohorts of ABC’s daytime talk show The View, will not be returning to the couch next season, following hot on the footsteps of fellow cohost Joy Behar, a source tells Us Weekly.
According to the source, the show’s resident conservative voice is being ousted after market research revealed that she isn’t popular with TV audiences.
“The viewers they polled all said she was too extreme and right wing,” the insider tells Us. “People did not watch the show because of Elisabeth. So they told her yesterday her contract would not be renewed.”
When reached for comment, a rep for the show told Us in a statement: “Elisabeth Hasselbeck is a valued member of The View and has a long term contract.”
Hasselbeck, 35, joined the cast of the daytime talk show in November 2003 after guest-hosting the show following Lisa Ling’s departure in 2002.
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/elisabeth-hasselbeck-leaving-the-view-after-nine-years-viewers-found-her-too-extreme-and-right-wing-201383#ixzz2Mz73k3M8
BYE NOW1
JUSTIN BIEBER
Flips Out at Photog
‘I’LL BEAT THE F**K OUT OF YOU’
Video
Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2013/03/08/justin-bieber-fight-photog-bouncers-london-video/#ixzz2MzMit8o8
Visit the TMZ Store: http://tmzstore.com
This kids not gonna make it, if he keeps this up.
Strange claims predicated on ignorance
By Steve Benen
–
Fri Mar 8, 2013 2:31 PM EST
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Getty Images
Everyone looks forward to Fridays, but there’s one thing about the day I’m especially fond of. Every Friday, I know Peggy Noonan will write a column I disagree with in the Wall Street Journal, and some friends of mine will write very amusing responses to it so I don’t have to.
But today’s Noonan column, by way of Dan Amira, is a little too remarkable to pass up. She begins by reflecting on her recent experience at a hotel in Pittsburgh.
Things are getting pretty bare-bones in America. Doormen, security, bellmen, people working the floor — that’s maybe a dozen jobs that should have been filled, at one little hotel on one day in one town. Everyone’s keeping costs down, not hiring.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/08/17239044-strange-claims-predicated-on-ignorance?lite
Beltway bubble insulated from reality of sequester
Posted by Greg Sargent on March 8, 2013 at 3:37 pm
The Huffington Post has put together a terrific collection of local news coverage of the sequester’s impact around the country — and contrasted it with Washington press coverage that treats the sequester mostly as political theatrics.
Note the contrast created in the video — as Republican officials and D.C. commentators mock the White House for canceling tours, local TV stations are talking about lost jobs, local airport closings, and eliminated funding for public health, natural disaster relief, and hunger programs. The worst offender is probably Larry Kudlow, who smugly claims that the White House tour cancellation is “bush league” — a moment that is then followed by a local newscast about the possibility of rising unemployment causing rising need for food assistance:
There are a lot more examples of local coverage like this, and HuffPo concludes: “The coverage was pretty consistent at the local level, revealing that viewers of these channels are getting a different story about the ramifications of the budget cuts than those simply consuming their news from cable television.”
There’s been a good deal of triumphalism among Republicans about the sequester of late, with many of them claiming the cuts are a “win” for them, and others pointing to Obama’s outreach to Republicans as proof that the White House is nervously recalibrating its strategy in response to his supposed slippage in the polls. Beltway press coverage — understandably — is heavily focused on the winners and losers of every micro news cycle and on whether the White House botched the theatrics of this battle (did Obama cry wolf?) by making a number of specific false sequester claims (which were rightly debunked by fact checkers).
But this local coverage tells a different story with a different emphasis. Real people around the country are beginning to tune into the possibility that these spending cuts could do real damage to their communities and to the country’s economic recovery.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/08/beltway-bubble-insulated-from-reality-of-sequester/
Marco Rubio Won’t Support Continuing Resolution Unless Obamacare Is Defunded
The Huffington Post | By Luke Johnson Posted: 03/08/2013 8:45 am EST
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Thursday that he would not support a stopgap bill to fund the government unless it defunded President Barack Obama’s health care law, allying him with tea party darling Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“So look, about a year and a half ago, I voted for the first continuing resolution and then I announced, ‘This is the last continuing resolution, the last stop-gap measure that I am going to vote for. I will only vote, from here on, on something serious,'” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “But here is what I’ve said about this continuing resolution, you know Senator Cruz from Texas is offering this amendment to defund Obamacare. If that gets onto the bill, in essence if they get a continuing resolution and we vote on that and we can pass it onto a bill, I will vote for a continuing resolution, even if it’s temporary, because it does something permanent and that is defund this health care bill, this Obamacare bill that is going to be an absolute disaster for the American economy.”
Rubio’s position puts him to the right of House Republicans, who passed a continuing resolution Wednesday that does not defund the health care law upheld by the Supreme Court. The move caused ire in the conservative blogosphere, with RedState’s Erick Erickson accusing the GOP of “capitulation” and threatening primary challenges for House members who voted for it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/marco-rubio-obamacare_n_2836163.html?ref=topbar
Gallup Presidential Poll: How Did Brand-Name Firm Blow Election?
Posted: 03/08/2013 8:16 am EST | Updated: 03/08/2013 2:57 pm EST
Gallup, which has long touted itself as the most trusted survey brand in the world, is facing a crisis. If Barack Obama’s reelection in November was widely considered a win for data crunchers, who had predicted the president’s victory in the face of skeptical pundits, it was a black mark for Gallup, whose polls leading up to Election Day had given the edge to Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
Obama prevailed in the national popular vote by a nearly 4 percentage point margin. Gallup’s final pre-election poll, however, showed Romney leading Obama 49 to 48 percent. And the firm’s tracking surveys conducted earlier in October found Romney ahead by bigger margins, results that were consistently the most favorable to Romney among the national polls.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/gallup-presidential-poll_n_2806361.html
The GOP’s primary problem
Posted by Jamelle Bouie on March 8, 2013 at 11:33 am
Shortly after the election, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus announced an effort to investigate problems in the Republican nomination process, to avoid a repeat of last year’s debacle, which resulted in a general election nominee who had adopted a range of extreme positions in order to win the nomination.
This morning, in an interview, Priebus elaborated on the difficulties the party faced in 2012, blaming the GOP’s non-competitiveness in states like Delaware and Washington on the narrow geography of the Republican presidential primaries:
“The issue is that in the past, it wasn’t just Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina. It used to be that we fought over states like Washington and California. We actually fought in the Northeast. And we were winning in places like Delaware and New Jersey. Now we’re not winning any of those places.
“So my point is we’re not going to improve as a party if we’re holding a national election in eight states,” he said in an interview with The Des Moines Register
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/08/the-gops-primary-problem/
Rubio moves to the right of House GOP
By Steve Benen
Fri Mar 8, 2013 10:39 AM EST.
When House Republicans passed a temporary spending bill to keep the government running through September — its “continuing resolution” — they picked a small fight over sequestration, but left the bigger fights for another day. Some on the far-right pushed GOP House leaders to go further, but Speaker John Boehner demurred, unwilling to push towards a government shutdown.
Soon after, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he hopes to block the stop-gap spending bill unless Congress delays funding of the Affordable Care Act. The reaction from nearly everyone, including Republicans, was a whole lot of eye-rolling — not just because Cruz has positioned himself as an unserious crank, but also because no one seriously believes GOP lawmakers will shut down the government in order to block “Obamacare” implementation.
But in a curious twist, Cruz now has an ally: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Greg Sargent reports this morning:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/08/17237358-rubio-moves-to-the-right-of-house-gop?lite
2014 can’t come soon enough to smash these LUNATICS and send them packing.
GOP fantasies about entitlements
Posted by Greg Sargent on March 8, 2013 at 1:01 pm
Politico has a big reported story today that claims Obama is searching for a grand bargain involving entitlements and new revenues because he “has no choice.” The basic idea is that, by refusing to deal on the sequester, Republicans have boxed Obama into a position where he must come to the table with entitlement cuts, or be stuck with the sequester cuts.
Politico characterizes the thinking of GOP leaders this way:
A lull in the deadline-driven budget battles could soon give way to a fresh round of fiscal crises — from rising public pressure to lift the sequester to a looming summer deadline to increase the debt limit. If the president is to have any hope of resolving either fight to his liking, he’ll need more revenue. But Republicans won’t even consider it unless entitlement reforms are on the table. […]
Privately, House Republican leaders think they’ve checked two of the three boxes of a grand bargain: first, the Jan. 1 tax increases; second, the spending cuts via the sequester. Now, in their view, all that’s left is entitlement reform. Top Republicans are also skeptical Obama would agree to the kind of tax reform that House Republicans have drawn a firm line on: The revenue to be generated by closing loopholes would go to lowering rates.
don’t know how to be any clearer than this, but here goes: Entitlement reforms are on the table. The President’s offer includes Chained CPI for Social Security and means testing for Medicare has also been floated. As for the suggestion that Republicans have drawn a “firm line” against any new revenues from closing loopholes, this gets us back to the most basic fact about the fiscal battle, which is this: There is no conceivable scenario under which Republicans will get serious entitlement cuts without agreeing to new revenues. None.
The President and Senate Dems will never agree to a package that only cuts entitlements. There’s a simple reason for this: From the point of view of Democrats, the sequester cuts are preferable to replacing them with entitlement cuts. There is no imaginable scenario under which Dems would agree to replace the sequester only with entitlement cuts. Such a thing could never be sold to rank and file Democratic officials, let alone to the base.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/08/gop-fantasies-about-entitlements/
This is bullshit. The POTUS won the election on MANDATE from the American voters.
This right here’s the GRAND-FUCKIN-BARGIN. mmmkay!
Didn’t I say this was ALL ABOUT THE GRIFT?
…………………………………….
Rand Paul pushes his luck
By Steve Benen
Fri Mar 8, 2013 12:44 PM EST’
Sen. Rand Paul hasn’t done much in his career on Capitol Hill, but he certainly managed to cause a stir this week with his 13-hour filibuster. With one rather long spectacle, the Kentucky Republican not only gained national notoriety, he also drew cheers from libertarians, progressive skeptics of executive power and the national security state, and Republicans who are reflexively pleased by criticisms of the Obama administration.
Given the attention and the senator’s ambitions, it stands to reason that Paul would take steps to exploit the success of his grandstanding. Indeed, it wasn’t at all surprising that the senator sent out a fundraising appeal, trying to cash in before the headlines faded. The problem, however, was with the pitch.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/08/17238293-rand-paul-pushes-his-luck?threadId=3680986&commentId=74702408#c74702408
A BONIFIDE
Gins up fear and makes the FEARFUL pay himf or GINNING up the FEAR. Pathetic assclown, and the dummies who eat this shit needs their heads examined.
Justin Amash@repjustinamash
Sen McCain called @SenRandPaul @SenTedCruz & I “wacko birds.” Bravo, Senator. You got us. Did you come up with that at #DinnerWithBarack?
8-Year-Old Girl Handcuffed & Held By Police For Throwing A Tantrum
March 7, 2013 | Filed under: Headlines | Posted by: Editorial_Staff
Apparently throwing a tantrum at the tender age of eight can get you almost thrown in jail, thats is if you are a Black 8-year-old girl.
St. Louis’ KMOV reports an elementary school student Jmyha Rickman, 8, was handcuffed by her wrists and feet and was taken to the police station after throwing a tantrum in school.
School officials at Lovejoy Elementary School called the Alton, Ill. police to intervene during what was apparently a bad tantrum that Jmyha Rickman regularly has.
Rickman’s guardian, Nehemiah Keeton told KMOV, “Her eyes were swollen from her crying and her wrists had welts on them.” She also said the 8-year old was treated like a criminal.
Alton police told KMOV they were answering a call regarding an out of control child who was tearing up two classrooms. Police also clarified that Rickman was put in a supervised juvenile detention room at the police station. An officer says he thinks the appropriate actions were taken, according to KMOV.
No one from the school has commented on why they would even call the police for an 8-year-old child.
http://www.africanglobe.net/headlines/8-year-girl-handcuffed-held-police-throwing-tantrum/
Fox Tells Viewers To Take Lowest Unemployment Rate Since 2008 With A Grain Of Salt
ALBERT KLEINE
Fox News figures downplayed the February jobs report that showed a significant improvement in the labor market, continuing in their effort to diminish economic developments made during the Obama presidency.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report for February showed 236,000 total jobs added, edging the unemployment rate down to 7.7 percent. Fox News reacted to the lowest unemployment rate since 2008 by cautioning viewers to take it “with a grain of salt.”
While the hosts eventually noted that the numbers are moving in the “right direction,” this admission came after an attempt to downplay the report’s significance. Meanwhile, other outlets are reacting positively.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/08/fox-tells-viewers-to-take-lowest-unemployment-r/192971
Juan Williams column cribs from think-tank report
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Fox News pundit Juan Williams lifted — sometimes word for word — from a Center for American Progress report, without ever attributing the information, for a column he wrote last month for The Hill newspaper.
Almost two weeks after publication, the column was quietly revised online, with many of the sections rewritten or put in quotation marks, and this time citing the CAP report. It also included an editor’s note that read: “This column was revised on March 2, 2013, to include previously-omitted attribution to the Center for American Progress.”
But that editor’s note mentions only the attribution problem, and not the nearly identical wording that was also fixed.
In a phone interview Thursday evening, Williams pinned the blame on a researcher who he described as a “young man.”
“I was writing a column about the immigration debate and had my researcher look around to see what data existed to pump up this argument and he sent back what I thought were his words and summaries of the data,” Williams told Salon. “I had never seen the CAP report myself, so I didn’t know that the young man had in fact not summarized the data but had taken some of the language from the CAP report.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/juan_williams_column_cribs_from_think_tank_report/
Top Republicans Demand Obama Provide Coverage To People With Pre-Existing Conditions
By Igor Volsky on Mar 8, 2013 at 9:34 am
Republicans voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act more than three dozen times, ran on a pledge to eliminate the law on “day one,” and sought to underfund the measure at every opportunity. But since the Supreme Court upheld the ACA and President Obama won re-election the political dynamics of reform have changed: Republican governors are slowly embracing elements of the law and Congressional Republicans are no longer scheduling votes to repeal it.
In another sign of the growing political support for health reform — or the sense that opposing its most popular elements has become politically perilous — a group of top House Republicans have written a letter to President Obama asking him to preserve a temporary program included in the law that provides health care coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/08/1690341/top-republicans-demand-that-obama-provide-coverage-to-people-with-pre-existing-conditions/
The Rise of the Paulistas
by BooMan
Fri Mar 8th, 2013 at 10:23:58 AM EST
There are plenty of people on the left who, reluctantly or otherwise, supported Rand Paul’s 13-hour “filibuster” of John Brennan’s confirmation as CIA director. Did he bring an important subject to the attention of the American people? I suppose he did, although he did it in about the stupidest way imaginable. The incident was actually less interesting for what it taught us about drones than what it taught us about the current state of the Republican Party.
Last year, Ron Paul didn’t do very well in his effort to win the Republican nomination for the presidency, but his ground game was better than the candidate. A lot of delegates at the Republican National Convention were Paulistas. Ron Paul and his son Rand are clearly insane, but they are also implacable opponents of the neo-conservatives who are now represented most strongly in Washington by the John McCain-Lindsey Graham-Kelly Ayotte troika. McCain and Graham had dinner with Obama the night of Rand’s blabfest, and they went to the floor of the Senate the next morning to ridicule Rand and defend the president. The thing is, they don’t have as much company as you would think. After all, even Minority Leader Mitch McConnell briefly joined Rand Paul’s filibuster. And there is Newt Gingrich:
“What I find sad about Sen. McCain’s recent comments both to Ted Cruz, when Ted Cruz was frankly raising legitimate questions [about Benghazi] and with Rand Paul, is, you know, when I first knew John McCain in the House — he was a maverick. In the Senate, for years, he was a maverick,” Gingrich said Thursday on Fox News.
He continued: “Of everybody I know in the Senate, I didn’t know anybody who had a better record of bucking the leadership, doing what he thought mattered, marching to his own drummer. And I think that it’s unfortunate. But I think frankly it doesn’t hurt Ted Cruz and it doesn’t hurt Rand Paul — it hurts John McCain. The country is moving on, we’re in a new era, people know that these are legitimate questions.”
Gingrich was reacting not only to McCain’s comments on the Senate floor and during a recent hearing, but to his conversation with Jon Ward of the Huffington Post, in which he referred to Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mi) as “wacko birds.”
Another sign that the militant wing of the Republican Party is in decline is that the Sequester has gone into effect despite the deep defense cuts it contains. If Obama miscalculated about anything, it was in not realizing how ascendent the Paulistas would be after the 2012 election. The Sequester was designed to be a fool-proof deterrent, but it didn’t turn out that way. It didn’t turn out that way because defense hawks like John McCain have gone from being the dominant force in American politics during the Bush years, to being lonely voices that are dismissed by Newt Gingrich as irrelevant relics of the past.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/3/8/102358/0625
California Business Leaders Drop GOP
by BooMan
Fri Mar 8th, 2013 at 01:34:56 PM EST
George Skelton has a piece in the Los Angeles Times on the collapse of the Republican Party in California. The numbers are pretty startling. Just 22% of voters under thirty, and 18% of Latinos are registered as Republicans. The Democrats control all the statewide offices and they achieved supermajority status in the legislature after the November elections (although vacancies have since brought them temporarily below a supermajority in the Senate). The California Business Roundtable has done some extensive polling of the state electorate, and they’ve come to the conclusion that there is no longer any benefit to be gained by giving money to the Republicans.
The white GOP core is aging, [Paul] Mitchell [vice president of Political Data] notes, significantly reducing the party’s share of the California electorate. “Republican voters are going out the back door,” he says. “And coming in the front door are Latinos and youth — voters who are much more Democrat.”
The business community, always focused on the bottom line, increasingly sees moderate Democrats as the best investment for campaign dollars. The GOP just hasn’t been producing.
“We’re going to be redoubling our effort to help elect Democrats who understand business,” says Rob Lapsley, president of the Business Roundtable.
It’s nice that the business community has concluded that the California GOP is as useless as tits on a bull, but the power of money never really goes away. It just finds new partners.
http://www.boomantribune.com/
Lisa Desjardins@LisaDCNN
DROP in VET UNEMPLOYMENT: For Afghan/Iraq vets was led by big drop for female vets from those wars, down from 17.1% to 11.6%.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Big Dog Bites Back On DOMA
Posted by Zandar
In 1996, President Clinton signed the Defense Of Marriage Act into law, preventing the federal government from recognizing any aspect of a same-sex marriage. Some 17 years later, Big Dog says he did it to prevent an even worse law from going into effect, but he admits that discriminatory DOMA needs to go in a new op-ed for the Washington Post.
When I signed the bill, I included a statement with the admonition that “enactment of this legislation should not, despite the fierce and at times divisive rhetoric surrounding it, be understood to provide an excuse for discrimination.” Reading those words today, I know now that, even worse than providing an excuse for discrimination, the law is itself discriminatory. It should be overturned.
We are still a young country, and many of our landmark civil rights decisions are fresh enough that the voices of their champions still echo, even as the world that preceded them becomes less and less familiar. We have yet to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, but a society that denied women the vote would seem to us now not unusual or old-fashioned but alien. I believe that in 2013 DOMA and opposition to marriage equality are vestiges of just such an unfamiliar society.
Read on
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2013/03/big-dog-bites-back-on-doma.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ZVTS+%28Zandar+Versus+The+Stupid%29
U.S. economy adds 236,000 jobs in February; unemployment rate falls to 7.7 percent
U.S. employers ramped up hiring in February, adding 236,000 jobs and pushing the unemployment rate down to 7.7 percent from 7.9 percent in January. Stronger hiring shows businesses are confident about the economy, despite higher taxes and government spending cuts.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-job-growth-likely-continued-in-feb-fueled-by-consumer-spending-and-economic-gains/2013/03/08/c9f0078e-87c6-11e2-a80b-3edc779b676f_story.html
OBAMA’s a SO-SHUL-IST!
The Worst Mistake in U.S. History — America Will Never Recover from Bush’s Great Foreign Policy Disaster
Ten years ago, George Bush made a decision that this country will regret for a very long time.
March 7, 2013 |
I was there. And “there” was nowhere. And nowhere was the place to be if you wanted to see the signs of end times for the American Empire up close. It was the place to be if you wanted to see the madness — and oh yes, it was madness — not filtered through a complacent and sleepy media that made Washington’s war policy seem, if not sensible, at least sane and serious enough. I stood at Ground Zero of what was intended to be the new centerpiece for a Pax
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/worst-mistake-us-history-america-will-never-recover-bushs-great-foreign-policy
The conclave to elect a new pope will begin Tuesday, the Vatican press office says.
There will be 115 cardinal-electors taking part in the conclave, the Vatican confirmed. Only those younger than 80 are eligible to vote.
Benedict XVI’s time as pope came to a historic end last week, as he became the first pontiff in six centuries to resign.
Who’s gonna wear those red shoes next?
Newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has just landed in Kabul, Afghanistan in his first, unannounced trip to the region since being appointed to the position.
On the plane heading into Kabul, Hagel told reporters his primary reason for going was to thank the troops and to get a better understanding (of) what is going on there …get a good sense from our commanders on the ground.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=neEVoFODQOE#!
BWA HA HA “BULLSHIT!
Thread post on this ENTIRE CLASSIC series.
Attorney: 86-year-old ‘must’ be charged with voter fraud
SAINT PETER, Minn. – An 86-year-old woman, who suffers from dementia, must be charged with voter fraud, according to the Nicollet County Attorney. Michelle Zehnder Fischer said prosecutors have no discretion in cases of alleged voter fraud, unlike other criminal cases.
Margaret Schneider, 86, Saint Peter apparently voted twice in the 2012 primary elections, once by absentee ballot and once, in person, at her local polling place. Ms. Schneider, the mother of 5 children, told Kare11’s Allen Costantini that she suffers from Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
Schneider said she has voted in every election since she was eligible to vote. “I thought that was my duty. I want to speak my mind when they come,” said Schneider.
http://www.kare11.com/news/article/1014864/391/Attorney-86-year-old-must-be-charged-with-fraud-because-of-law
Damn shame; the real voter fraud criminals are the VOTER SUPPRESSING GOP!
Anyone watching this series?
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013
Don’t You Dare Interrogate My Pleasure! They Just Don’t Want to “Read” Popular Culture Such as The Walking Dead TV Show as a Text Worthy of Race Critical Analysis
One of the most common search terms that bring folks to We Are Respectable Negroes are those associated with critical essays about The Walking Dead TV show.
http://wearerespectablenegroes.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-you-dare-interrogate-my-pleasure.html
Daughter of Racist Gov. George Wallace: Rejecting Dad’s Bigotry
By: Jenée Desmond-Harris | Posted: March 8, 2013 at 9:21 A
Former Alabama Governor George Wallace will always be remembered for his bigoted attitude toward African-Americans, captured by his infamous declaratio, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.”
If his daugher, Peggy Kennedy Wallace has anything to say about it, that part of the family legacy will end with her. In a commemoration of “Bloody Sunday,” she recently walked across Edmond Pettus Bridge hand in hand with Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis. And she’s writing a book about the impact her father’s politics had on her family.
Her goal: “I just would like for my children to not remember where my father stood, but where I am standing now.”
http://www.theroot.com/buzz/daughter-racist-gov-george-wallace-rejecting-dads-bigotry
A RIGHTEOUS dismantling of Bobbie Woodward…
The Myth of Bob Woodward: Why Is This Man an American Icon?
by Max Holland Mar 12, 2013 1:00 AM EDT
For the past week Washington has found itself debating Bob Woodward. The occasion: his very public argument with White House senior official Gene Sperling, in which Woodward left the impression that Sperling had somehow tried to intimidate him—only to see this accusation undermined by the release of an email exchange in which the pair sounded rather conciliatory.
Read on
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/03/11/the-myth-of-bob-woodward-why-is-this-man-an-american-icon.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
The GOP’s easy route to victory in fiscal fight
Posted by Greg Sargent on March 7, 2013 at 12:36 pm
The single most important fact about the fiscal battles consuming Washington right now continues to be poorly understood. It’s this: Republicans are not going to get the serious entitlement cuts they say they want unless they agree to new revenues.
To put this in another way, there is no imaginable scenario in the next three years, and probably beyond, under which Republicans win a total victory. Obama and Senate Dems will never agree to a fiscal deal that achieves the remaining deficit reduction experts have called for with only spending cuts, including serious cuts to retirement programs. There’s actually precedent for trying this: In 2005, President Bush and Republicans tried to enact a massive plan focused only on reforming entitlements. Even though Bush was riding high after reelection — and Republicans controlled both houses of Congress — the whole effort collapsed in abject failure, with even GOP officials running away from it. So, no, there won’t be any entitlement-reform-only package anytime soon.
Here’s why this is key to the current battle. It leaves only two possible conclusions: Either the two sides reach a deal that combines serious entitlement cuts and new revenues via the closing of loopholes, or there is no deal and the sequester continues indefinitely.
It is plainly obvious that the former outcome is far better for not just Dems, but Republicans, too. This is the operating premise behind the White House’s new strategy of reaching out to GOP Senators who may be open to a revenues/cuts deal. Even if the GOP leadership is entirely entrenched in its no-revenues stance, sooner or later, the basic reality of the situation will become impossible for other GOP lawmakers to fail to acknowledge. These lawmakers have ducked this reality by taking refuge behind a party-wide distortion (Obama only wants more tax hikes!) of the actual compromise Obama is offering.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/07/the-gops-easy-route-to-victory-in-fiscal-fight/
What do Republicans want?
Posted by Jonathan Bernstein on March 7, 2013 at 5:38 pm
Nancy Pelosi today renewed the Democratic push for a minimum wage hike, supporting legislation by Senator Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller to gradually move the minimum wage to $10.10 — and then keep it there by linking it to inflation.
The politics of this issue have always played well for Democrats; raising the minimum wage seems to be perpetually popular.
So what would ordinarily happen now? In a world of divided government with two sensible parties, the logical compromise is that Republicans would trade the minimum wage hike — a popular policy Democrats care more about than Republicans anyway — for something which Republicans care about more than Democrats. That’s what happened last time, when Republicans were able to extract tax cuts for business in exchange for supporting the increase, with the whole thing going into a larger bill that had plenty of things for both parties.
And this gets at a larger problem that explains a lot about dysfunction in Washington right now: Republicans have largely given up on developing specific policy goals while becoming more and more dedicated to opposing compromise on everything as a some sort of fundamental principle
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/07/what-do-republicans-want/
I hope Granholm runs for the seat.
…………………………………
Michigan’s Levin latest to exit Senate
By Steve Benen
–
Fri Mar 8, 2013 8:00 AM EST.
Getty Images
One of the top electoral goals for the Senate Democratic leadership going into this Congress was keeping retirements to a minimum. That strategy doesn’t seem to be going well.
Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, D, a mainstay of the upper chamber since 1979, will not seek re-election next fall, he said Thursday.
Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced in a statement that he would not seek a seventh term in 2014. Levin is currently 78-years-old.
Levin, the longest-serving senator in Michigan history, becomes the sixth incumbent to announce that he won’t seek another term in 2014. Of the six, four are Democratic: Levin, Iowa’s Tom Harkin, West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller, and New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg.
Had he sought re-election, Levin would have won easily, so it’s not as if fear of defeat scared him away. Rather, the Michigan Democrat just felt it was time to move on.
In light of Levin’s announcement, there are two questions to kick around. The first, of course, is what’s likely to happen to his seat. Democrats appear to have a structural advantage — Michigan tends to be a “blue” state; Republicans have only won one Senate race in the state in the last four decades; and the GOP’s bench is woefully thin, as evinced by the party’s weak field challenging Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) in 2012.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/08/17236079-michigans-levin-latest-to-exit-senate?lite
Bye Carl; it’s time for the old guards to step down. Thanks for your service.
Granholm ROCKS.
Job growth picks up steam, unemployment drops
By Steve Benen
Fri Mar 8, 2013 8:47 AM EST
Heading into today, most expected a fairly encouraging jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but few expected it to be this good.
The economy in February added 236,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate dropping to 7.7% from 7.9%. As is usually the case, austerity measures undermined the employment landscape — America’s private sector added 246,000 jobs in December, the public sector lost 10,000 jobs. (It’d be easy for Washington to improve the latter number and lower the unemployment rate, but congressional Republicans still won’t allow it.) Update: the 7.7% jobless rate is the lowest in the U.S. since December 2008.
While we’re accustomed to looking at jobs reports relative to where we’ve been — figures only look heartening when compared to how dismal they were at the height of the Great Recession — today’s report is genuinely good news on its own terms. The 236,000 jobs created in February is the second best total in a year, and the seventh best month of the last five years. Glancing through the report, it was also encouraging to see improving data from the construction and housing sectors.
The stronger job creation comes immediately on the heels of January’s tax increases. I’ll look forward to Republicans explaining how this is even possible, or whether there’s been some kind of tear in the space-time-economic continuum.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/08/17236470-job-growth-picks-up-steam-unemployment-drops?lite
Votes on domestic-violence bill lead to GOP fibbing
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 7, 2013 4:10 PM EST.
It’s one thing for congressional Republicans to vote against the Violence Against Women Act. It’s another for some GOP lawmakers to try to deceive the public about their votes.
At first glance it seemed as though Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri had broken with the majority of her fellow conservatives in the House of Representatives last week to renew an expanded version of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which funds programs to assist survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse.
A statement from her office proclaimed: “Hartzler votes to protect women from acts of violence.”
“Violence against women, in all its forms, is unacceptable,” Hartzler said in the statement.
Reading the Hartzler press statements, one would believe she voted for the law. She didn’t — like most Republicans in Congress, Hartzler opposed VAWA when it was brought to the floor for final passage. But she voted for a watered-down version that was brought to the floor in order to be defeated, and Hartzler, aware of the popularity of the law, assumes the public won’t be knowledgeable enough to tell the difference.
This way, she can get the credit for pretending to do the popular thing, while actually doing the opposite.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/07/17226837-votes-on-domestic-violence-bill-lead-to-gop-fibbing?lite
comment from Camille:
Camille
And now we see again and again why this Karen Finney chick was never an option or even remotely a suitable choice for anything least of all press secretary for President Obama.
Not only is the woman fickle and shallow as hell, she’s as unimpressive as they come.
Can’t even hold the mildest of arguments in solid defense of the obvious – but she of the President Obama “caves and over compromises” fame, sure does have a way of constantly falling for and caving to the most ridiculous and most easily disputable of rightwing talking points with regard to President Obama.
Least of which isn’t this bogus tripe about him not sufficiently courting the domestic right wing terrorists who’ve held our country hostage for too long (in their bid to as they themselves have admitted, to deny the president a second term and a solid legacy) – something Karen Finney obviously believes to be true.
There’s just something about some of these professional Democrats. They are just so reliably flaky. And to hear them tell it, they are the cream of the crop as far things go. Shudder, shudder.
If Karen Finney, Melissa Harris Perry, Ari Melber etc. are the future media voices of the Democratic party, we are in deep doo doo.
Report: James O’Keefe To Pay $100K Settlement To Former ACORN Employee
According to court documents obtained by Wonkette, conservative activist James O’Keefe has agreed to a $100,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed against him by Juan Carlos Vera, a former employee of ACORN. Vera filed the suit against O’Keefe in 2010, alleging O’Keefe had illegally taped their conversation at an ACORN office in California as part of his fraudulent “exposé” of the community activist group.
Vera was one of the ACORN employees portrayed in O’Keefe’s videos as offering assistance in setting up a nonexistent child prostitution ring. After his encounter with O’Keefe, Vera contacted the police to report “possible human smuggling,” unaware that he had been duped. Vera claims he lost his job as a result of O’Keefe’s deception after the conservative’s video of their encounter was posted on a Breitbart website.
According to the settlement documents obtained by Wonkette, O’Keefe has agreed to “pay Vera $100,000.00,” and that “as part of this settlement O’Keefe states that at the time of the publication of the video of Juan Carlos Vera he was unaware of Vera’s claims to have notified a police officer of the incident. O’Keefe regrets any pain suffered by Mr. Vera or his family.”
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/07/report-james-okeefe-to-pay-100k-settlement-to-f/192958
Police Chief’s Polygraph Targets Racist Applicants
By SHEILA BURKE Associated Press
COOPERTOWN, Tenn. March 8, 2013 (AP)
A police chief hired to rebuild a tiny Tennessee department dismantled by scandal is using a lie-detector test to keep racists off his force.
Coopertown Police Chief Shane Sullivan took over the department in November, becoming the 11th chief in as many years. He was hired on the heels of a series of police scandals that for a few months left Coopertown with no police at all. Years before that, a mayor was voted out of office after the local prosecutor accused him of racism and running a notorious speed trap.
Law enforcement experts say Sullivan’s polygraph approach is unusual, though some departments use the devices for other purposes during the application process. Others try to root out bias in other ways. One polygraph expert warned that lie detectors can’t accurately predict racism for reasons that include people’s inability to recognize their own racism.
Sullivan said he doubts racists will even apply for the force if they know about the tests.
“I think the polygraph will definitely keep these people from applying,” the 39-year-old chief said.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-chiefs-polygraph-targets-racist-applicants-18681558
Joy Behar Leaving ABC’s ‘The View’
By NELLIE ANDREEVA
EXCLUSIVE: After 16 and a half years on The View, Joy Behar is departing ABC’s long-running daytime talk show. I hear Behar’s contract is up in August and she has informed the network that she will not renew it as she is looking to move on to other things, including hosting a new interview show. Behar is the last original cast member of The View besides co-creator/executive producer Barbara Walters who is still on the panel. The two started off alternating as the fourth co-host before Behar was named a full-time co-host.
In a phone interview, Behar said she felt 16.5 years on The View were enough. “It seemed like the right time,” she said. “You reach a point when you say to yourself, ‘Do I want to keep doing this?’ There are other things on my plate I want to do — I’ve been writing a play, I’ve been neglecting my standup.” And following stints hosting her own shows on HLN and now Current TV, which will end with the network’s takeover by Al Jazeera, Behar is ready to do it again. “I do like talk shows, I’m interested in talking to people,” she said. “I want to do an intelligent talk show where you have room to breath.” Will that show be on CNN following reports of Behar meeting with new CNN topper Jeff Zucker? Behar would not elaborate beyond saying that she indeed had “a positive meeting” with Zucker and that “CNN would be great place” for her next show.
http://www.deadline.com/2013/03/joy-behar-the-view-abc-leaving/
http://youtu.be/xxfIsgVljV8
REPOST
MAPS: Did Your Congressmember Vote Against the Violence Against Women Act?
After a year and a half delay, VAWA reauthorization passed on Thursday. Here’s how your elected officials voted.
—By Erika Eichelberger and Dana Liebelson
| Fri Mar. 1, 2013 6:00 PM PST
On Thursday, the House finally reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act—a full year and a half after it expired. VAWA had been held up by House Republicans in the last Congress after the Senate voted to add new provisions aiding Native American, immigrant, and gay victims of violence.
It looked as if the bill might suffer the same fate in the 113th Congress, after the House GOP leadership refused to schedule a vote on the version of the bill passed by the Senate 78 to 22, and instead pushed a stripped down version without protections for LGBT and Native American women. But in the end Republican lawmakers allowed a vote on the Senate’s legislation, and it passed on Thursday, 286 to 138. Not one Democrat in either chamber voted against it. (Though one representative abstained.)
One major change to VAWA that drew objections from House Republicans were steps to give tribal courts greater jurisdiction over domestic violence committed by non-native men on Native American lands. The National Congress of American Indians defines congressional districts as having a “high concentration” of Native Americans when the community makes up .3 to 23 percent of the population. (Only a few such districts are in the higher range; most are in the low single digits, according to NCAI.) Here is how members of Congress from those districts voted:
http://www.motherjones.com//politics/2013/03/violence-against-women-act-reauthorization-house-senate-votes
LOL Murdering Joke has Jeb Bush on this morning, ‘SPLAININ’ his FLIP FLOPIN’ on IMMIGRATION. Go away jeb; NO.MORE.BUSHES!
The Group Behind CPAC Has a White-Nationalist Problem
—By Stephanie Mencimer
| Fri Mar. 8, 2013 3:00 AM PST
On Tuesday, the Hill published a story noting that the organizers of the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the preeminent national confab for politicians and activists of the right, are responding to the last November’s election by using the event to “showcase the movement’s ‘diversity.'” Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Sarah Palin will be headlining, but 20 percent of the panelists this year will be African American, according to CPAC bean counters. And the CPACers proudly point to the prominent role of Latinos and women on various panels. Yet the CPAC organizers have neglected one important task as they attempt to appeal to minorities: staying away from white nationalists.
Read on: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/03/white-nationalist-work-featured-conservative-conference-organizers
Good Morning, Everyone! :-) Happy FRY-day.
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good morning! Happy Friday!
Howdy Cowgirl! Check your email please!
OK
wow love the video with Amstrong! Great peace of music! Love it!
Cash and Armstrong,to GREAT LEGENDS for sure. ;-)