In 1990, Rose began his return to the international scene, with the release in Britain of his solo album Proud. Two years later, Japan was treated to Bonanza, which was followed by 1994’s King of the General. The next year, the Taxi label released Sly & Robbie Presents Mykal Rose: The Taxi Sessions, which compiled up recordings from earlier in the decade. During this time, the singer had Ethiopian-ized his name, and his Jamaican singles were usually credited to Mykal Rose. In the States, the VP label released Voice of the Ghetto, an album overseen by Anthony Deheny and Bunny Gemini. And in the U.K., Ruff Cut released the Junjo Lawes-produced Last Chance, whose title track was a huge club hit. By now, Rose had come to the attention of the American Heartbeat label, who signed the singer, and put him back in the studio with producer Holness. The result was Rose’s eponymous album, his third release for 1995. The track “Short Temper” was also spun off as a single. 1996 brought the Nuh Carbon album, which was released in the States by the RAS label, but actually featured older recordings, overseen by Jah Screw. Heartbeat, meanwhile, offered up the brand new, self-produced Be Yourself, which spun off the club hit “Rude Boys (Back in Town).” The album created quite a firestorm, as it included two classic Uhuru songs, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “I Love King Selassie.” A dub counterpart of the album also appeared, Big Sound Frontline. Rose also moved into production and launched three labels, Grammy Rose, Ruff Roze, and Imaj, as homes for his own music and productions.
Scorned wife rents billboard to air husband’s dirty laundry
GREENSBORO, NC – A new billboard in Greensboro, North Carolina has people wondering if it’s real, and if so… whether a cheating husband is still in one piece.
The billboard purportedly is the work of a woman named Jennifer, who
accuses her soon-to-be ex of lying, cheating, and shacking up with a
woman named Jessica.
The sign reads as follows:
MICHAEL, GPS Tracker $250, Nikon camera with zoom lens S
$1600, Catching my LYING HUSBAND and buying this billboard with our
investment account, PRICELESS. JENNIFER.
Tell Jessica you’re moving in!
The billboard has people stopping to look, chuckling, and some, wondering if it’s real.
http://www.kare11.com/news/article/1017592/333/Scorned-wife-rents-billboard-to-air-husbands-dirty-laundry
hat tip-morphus:
From The Sunday Times:
LOVING THIS
Native American Woman Legislator Reminds Anti-Immigrant Politician He Was An “Illegal” Immigrant, Too
SNIP
Here is what Ponka-We Victors communicated to Kobach.
From CJ Online:
The Legislature’s annual attempt to repeal a statute allowing in-state tuition for Kansas students without legal residency drew an emotional crowd to a House committee Wednesday.
Students who have lived in the United States most of their lives got choked up as they described the academic lifeline in-state tuition has provided to improve their lives. A counselor who works with such students in Wichita high schools shed tears as she showed legislators a scrapbook of success stories. Murmurs of unrest were heard in the gallery as one House member asked about the prevalence of illegal immigrants from gangs and drug cartels in American prisons.
But nothing drew a bigger reaction than when Rep. Ponka We-Victors, D-Wichita, wrapped up a series of questions to the bill’s chief proponent, Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
“I think it’s funny Mr. Kobach, because when you mention illegal immigrant, I think of all of you,” said Victors, the Legislature’s lone American Indian member.
The heavily pro-immigrant gallery burst into cheers and applause — a rare reaction in normally staid hearings.
SINP
http://tucsoncitizen.com/hispanic-politico/2013/03/20/native-american-woman-legislator-reminds-anti-immigrant-politician-he-was-an-illegal-immigrant-too/
‘You’re all illegal!’
Donahue just sealed the motives for why we see the high percentage of GOPbaggers on Sunday morning gabfests. *looking@johnmcgrumpy*
THIS.BITCH.IS.CRAZY.GRIFTING.FOOL
FOX Developing OJ Simpson Drama
Fox is working on a project currently titled “The Run Of His Life: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson” from Nina Jacobson (The Hunger Games franchise) and Brad Simpson (World War Z) and based on legal journalist Jeffrey Toobin’s best-selling book of the same name about the Simpson trial.
“Everybody remembers where they were when O.J. Simpson, riding in a white Bronco, led the police on a low-speed chase all over Los Angeles,” Fox noted in its announcement, crediting the event with the emergence of the 24-hour news cycle and “the birth of reality television.”
The Hollywood Reporter has more details:
Both projects hail from FX Productions, which recently hired former HBO exec Gina Balian to oversee the newly launched division as it supplies content to FX, the Fox Movie Channel and broadcast cousin Fox. Fox topper Kevin Reilly at the time said the network was hungry for longform content — which FX has found success with in American Horror Story — that will start as 10- to 12-part events that can either stand alone or evolve into franchises.
[…]
For its part, the Simpson project recounts the “Trial of the Century,” starting with the former football star fleeing police in his white Bronco through his murder trial for the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman and the news cycle that followed. Golden Globe winners Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs. Larry Flint) will pen the project
http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/03/fox_developing_oj_simpson_drama.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+racewireblog+%28ColorLines%29
These folks are just BAT SHYT CRAZY.
The “Show Me Your Papers Before You Go Potty” Bill
Posted on March 21, 2013 at 3:30 pm by JM Ashby
Arizona Republicans are considering a bill that would punish you with six months in jail if you use the wrong — or more specifically what they say is wrong — bathroom.
PHOENIX (AP) — A prominent Republican lawmaker in Arizona wants to link public bathroom use to birth certificates in what civil rights advocates are calling the nation’s toughest anti-transgender measure.
The bill would require people to use public restrooms, dressing rooms or locker rooms associated with the sex listed on their birth certificate or face six months in jail. […]
With more people identifying as transgender, state and local governments are increasingly banning gender-identity discrimination to ward off legal battles, but opponents and proponents alike complain the laws don’t explicitly demand businesses provide equal access for transgender people, creating confusion over how governments, restaurants, clothing stores and other establishments must act.
According to the Associated Press, the local Arizona press has dubbed this the “Show Me Your Papers Before You Go Potty” bill, which I couldn’t have come up with myself.
http://bobcesca.thedailybanter.com/blog-archives/2013/03/the-show-me-your-papers-before-you-go-potty-bill.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-show-me-your-papers-before-you-go-potty-bill
Rikyrah, do you have this pic? I LOVE IT!
ok, this is wonderful
March 21, 2013
Don’t celebrate yet; there’s plenty catastrophe in the wings
Politico’s Jake Sherman anticipated yesterday the deceptive comity of today’s government-shutdown-averting CR:
[D]on’t be fooled: House Republicans are still planning to push for steep spending cuts or budgetary reforms alongside legislation to allow more borrowing
In plainer English, another debt-limit implosion.
House Republicans are already scheming: perhaps “a bill in April to prioritize government payments if the nation defaults on its debt,” as well as others to follow, from a bill “t[ying] tax reform” to a raised debt ceiling to a bill “tether[ing] entitlement reforms” to same.
Their strategy entails the dubious recognition that it itself–strategy–“is not our long suit,” as one GOP congressman tells Politico. (I say “dubious” because it’s amazing to watch a minority political party–one so clearly out of favor with the majority electorate–essentially control every domestic agenda.) So this time they intend to stack the battlefield deck, to remove the land mines and corner the president before the fighting begins.
The GOP House will simply claim that it already raised the debt ceiling–nothing to see here folks, it’s the president who’s being so ornery.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2013/03/dont-celebrate-yet-theres-plenty-catastrophe-in-the-wings.html
Rachel Maddow Busts The Media For Their Pro-Tea Party Bias
By: Jason Easley
Mar. 20th, 2013
Rachel Maddow called out the mainstream media for blaming the dead, dying, and virtually non-existent tea party for the fact that Republican policies are unpopular.
Maddow said, “The House Tea Party Caucus established 2010 was founded in 2010 and by halfway through 2011 accumulated 60 members, 60. But then poof. As quickly as it emerged, it appears to have fizzled. slate.com‘s Dave Weigel says the Tea Party Caucus that was supposedly shaking up Washington and changing politics haven’t met since July of last year. Their website is still up and running, so somebody is paying web hosting fees but the membership page no longer exists. Apparently the group is refiling to try to make themselves exist again in Congress, but right now they’re just not there. Haven’t been there for months. Until today, nobody really noticed, which is fine, unless the Beltway wants to keep using their supposed existence as justification for why no one listens to the Republican Party’s so-called leaders. If you don’t have existence of the Tea Party Caucus to blame for that any more, who are you going to blame instead?”
Maddow asked a really important question. Why is the media making excuses for lack of popularity of the Republican agenda. The media keeps blaming the tea party. This blame is based on the myth that the tea party is separate from the Republican Party. The tea party is/was a part of the Republican Party. The media has created all kinds of delusion and denial to cover up the fact that most of the country strongly disagrees with the Republican agenda.
Instead of making excuses for the Republican Party, wouldn’t it be nice if the media told truth? Both parties aren’t equal right now, and one party is way out of step with the direction of the country. It would be refreshing if the media, especially the Beltway media would stop pretending.
http://www.politicususa.com/rachel.html
The progressive triumvirate: Guns, gays, minimum wage
Posted by Greg Sargent on March 21, 2013 at 1:13 pm
You’ve often heard Republicans talk about organizing campaigns around the vaunted “guns, God, and gays” formulation long beloved by GOP strategists. Now progressives and Democrats are increasingly organizing around a cultural and economic issue triumvirate of their own: Guns, gays, and the minimum wage.
National progressive groups are eying this trio of issues as potential litmus tests for Dems running for the Senate, Congress, and even president. The increased focus on these issues — which has multiple causes — is already showing up in the maneuvering among 2016 presidential hopefuls, who have staked out aggressive positions on gun control and gay marriage.
To get a sense of how this dynamic is playing out, note that national liberals and labor are closely watching how two of the likely 2016 candidates — Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland — are handling minimum wage bills in their states. In New York, Cuomo is in talks with state legislators about a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $9 — which has disappointed labor and progressive activists who have organized a group called the New York Minimum Wage Coalition to push for a bigger hike. In Maryland, a state senate panel just voted down a minimum wage hike, frustrating labor and progressive activists who privately want to see more leadership from O’Malley in pushing an increase.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/21/the-progressive-triumvirate-guns-gays-minimum-wage/
John Boehner Admits President Obama Didn’t Want the Sequester Cuts
By: Sarah Jones
Mar. 21st, 2013
In an exclusive interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) replied to a question about the sequester by admitting that Obama ‘didn’t want the cuts.’
BOEHNER: And so, he (Obama) forced this process to occur. And insisted –
TAPPER: But he didn’t want the sequester cuts –
BOEHNER: Well, no, he didn’t want the cuts, but uh, uh, oh, we have the sequester as a result of his demands. And I, uh, told my colleagues in the House that the sequester will stay in effect until there’s an agreement that will include cuts and reforms that will put us on a path to balance the budget over the next ten years.
Speaker Boehner has been trying to blame President Obama for the sequester for months, but sequestration is a Republican idea (long-touted by their budget “hawks”), which was presented as a last ditch option to the Republican’s taking the country hostage over the debt ceiling.
http://www.politicususa.com/john-boehner-admits-president-obama-sequester-cuts.html
the booze is frying Bone’s brain cells.
Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor Are Trying to Con You Into Paying Their Debts
By: Rmuse
Mar. 21st, 2013
Most Americans go through their entire lives without experiencing an event they expect to lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting their existence, because a crisis typically means a life-changing emergency event is imminent. It is prescient, then, that for the past two years (at least), America has went from one crisis to another with hardly a moment’s respite, and it turns out that as many have surmised, Republicans manufactured and masterminded each crisis for political expediency and to further their two primary goals over the past four years. Central to their goal of portraying President Obama as a poor steward of the nation’s economy after they sent the nation into a Great Recession, was thwarting his economic plans at every turn through obstruction and creating dangerous situations for the nation and its people.
Regardless the particular economic crisis America has gone through over the past two years, they were all down to Republicans and their never-ending warnings that the nation is broke, in a debt crisis, and cannot spend one penny on anything other than entitlements for their favorite charities; the oil industry, tax cuts for the rich, and defense. All of the economic crises America suffered through the past two years stem from the debt ceiling crisis and credit for all of them belongs to Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan. The debt ceiling debacle did more than just cost America a credit downgrade, it risked the sovereign credit of the United States, spawned the failed super-committee, and delivered brutal sequestration cuts that all were the result of Republicans’ contention that America has a spending problem and a debt crisis.
The Republicans refused to raise the debt limit in 2011 unless there was a dollar-for-dollar amount of spending cuts that led to President Obama and Speaker John Boehner working out a so-called Grand Bargain that included new revenue and budget cuts, but House Republicans demanded spending cuts only. Eric Cantor recently said that Boehner wanted to accept the Grand Bargain, but Cantor and Paul Ryan said no. Cantor, in particular, told Boehner ”Don’t do this deal, because that deal was basically going along with this sense that you had to increase taxes, you had to give on the question of middle-class tax cuts prior to the election, and you knew that they had said they weren’t giving on health care.” Cantor continued, “Let’s just get what we can now, abide by our commitment of dollar-for-dollar, and we’ll have it out on these two issues in the election.” The deal was scuttled, replaced with the Budget Control Act, created a super-committee Republicans failed to support, and led to sequestration.
It is important that Americans understand all of the subsequent economic crises originated with the failure of the Grand Bargain including the debt ceiling crisis, credit downgrade, fiscal cliff, and sequestration because Cantor and Ryan said since the President would not budge on taxes or let Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act, they would “have it out” on those issues in the 2012 election. Cantor wanted to take the issue of taxes and health care to the voters in the 2012 election rather than strike a big deal with President Obama, and although the Grand Bargain was not an ideal compromise, at least it would have prevented the perpetual economic crisis dysfunction, and provide a relatively complete fiscal solution to America’s so-called “debt crisis
…………………………….
If America does not have a debt crisis now, then America never had the debt crisis Republicans used to create the debt ceiling crisis, credit downgrade, super committee failure, and sequestration the country will suffer through over the next ten years. One wonders if Republicans decided to fabricate a debt crisis when they met secretly on Inauguration night to obstruct President Obama’s attempts to save the economy, and it is reasonable to assume that is precisely what they did. Both Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor attended the secret strategy meeting, and their primary tactic was to “show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies” that began eight days later when Cantor held the House Republicans to a unanimous no vote against President Obama’s economic stimulus plan because America could not afford it due to the nation’s dreaded “debt crisis.” Subsequently, for the next four years, and counting, Republicans obstructed job creation measures, went on Draconian spending cut sprees targeting everything from Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, regulatory agencies, education, and disaster relief all due to a phony “debt crisis.”
There are plenty of reasons to cast aspersion on John Boehner and the rest of the Republicans in Congress, but Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan are the culprits responsible for refusing to go along with the Grand Bargain that, although not ideal, would have prevented the debt ceiling fiasco, credit downgrade, super-committee failure, and sequestration cuts. Maybe if Boehner had been a stronger Speaker he could have reined in recalcitrant teabaggers and the rest of the Republican caucus, but he did not and he did parrot the debt crisis canard for four years, but he was not at the Inauguration night meeting and he did want to pass the Grand Bargain deal with President Obama. What is stunning is that Cantor accepts responsibility for scuttling the deal between Boehner and the President and was willing to stand by the results of the election; until Republicans lost.
http://www.politicususa.com/paul-ryan-eric-cantor-con-paying-debts.html
Bad intelligence
By Kay March 21st, 2013
I’m sympathetic to people who appear uninformed or confused on any given issue, generally. I no longer do a whole lot of ranting on the “stupidity of the American electorate” because more and more I realize it takes a certain amount of work and time just to find a complete set of facts, let alone make the connections between the various actors and what the ultimate goal might be. It’s easy to say “they’re all watching American Idol” or whatever, but even if they aren’t, even if they’re making some good-faith effort to stay informed (in addition to all the other things they have to do) this stuff is complicated. There are layers.
This is a story on an affirmative action lawsuit, from propublica:
There were people in my class with lower grades who weren’t in all the activities I was in, who were being accepted into UT, and the only other difference between us was the color of our skin,” she says. “I was taught from the time I was a little girl that any kind of discrimination was wrong. And for an institution of higher learning to act this way makes no sense to me. What kind of example does it set for others?”
It’s a deeply emotional argument delivered by an earnest young woman, one that’s been quoted over and over again.
Except there’s a problem. The claim that race cost Fisher her spot at the University of Texas isn’t really true.
In the hundreds of pages of legal filings, Fisher’s lawyers spend almost no time arguing that Fisher would have gotten into the university but for her race.
If you’re confused, it is no doubt in part because of how Blum, Fisher and others have shaped the dialogue as the case worked its way to the country’s top court.
Journalists and bloggers have written dozens of articles on the case, including profiles of Fisher and Blum. News networks have aired panel after panel about the future of affirmative action. Yet for all the front-page attention, angry debate and exchanges before the justices, some of the more fundamental elements of the case have been little reported.
Race probably had nothing to do with the University of Texas’s decision to deny admission to Abigail Fisher.
In an interview last month, Blum agreed Fisher’s credentials and circumstances make it difficult to argue — as he and his supporters have so ardently in public — that but for her race Fisher would have been a Longhorn.
“There are some Anglo students who had lower grades than Abby who were admitted also,” Blum told ProPublica. “Litigation like this is not a black and white paradigm.”
Blum started his one-man nonprofit, the Project on Fair Representation, in 2005. The organization is funded by deep-pocketed conservatives to, according to its website, influence “jurisprudence, public policy, and public attitudes regarding race and ethnicity” in voting, education, contracting and employment. To do so, Blum — who is not a lawyer — helps arrange pro bono representation to fight race-based policies that were meant to address inequalities.
According to a Reuters profile, Blum has brought at least a dozen lawsuits against such programs and laws — including four that made it to the Supreme Court. He has two on the current docket, Fisher and the Shelby County, Ala., case challenging a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
So the facts were incomplete or skewed as reported-take your pick-probably leading anyone hearing about the case to believe this applicant was denied admission because of her race. The listener or reader would believe that because that’s what she says: she says the “only other difference between us was the color of our skin”. That’s not true. Further, this case is part of a broader strategy by the same group of people who are challenging the Voting Rights Act, and the ultimate goal of Mr. Blum and his conservative and libertarian backers is this:
So while the Fisher case has been billed as a referendum on affirmative action, its backers have significantly grander ambitions: They seek to make the case a referendum on the 14th Amendment itself.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/03/21/bad-intelligence/
Coburn 1, political scientists 0
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:02 PM EDT.
When we talk about Republicans having an anti-science agenda, we’re not just talking about biology, climate science, human sexuality, cosmology, physics, chemistry, and the environment. As GOP policymakers reminded yesterday, they’re against political science, too.
A measure limiting National Science Foundation funding for political science research projects passed the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, quietly dealing a blow to the government agency.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) submitted a series of amendments to the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, the Senate bill to keep the government running past March 27. One of those amendments would prohibit the NSF from funding political science research unless a project is certified as “promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States.”
Coburn has been on this kick for several years, but he’s never had this level of success until now.
It’s never been altogether clear why the far-right senator has this hang up over political science — we’re talking about $13 million in grants, which is less than a rounding error when it comes to federal spending — but it’s even less clear why Coburn’s colleagues went along with this nonsense. It’s not like the move even saves money, per se, since this is more about restricting the kind of research that’s eligible, not cutting the grants themselves.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/21/17403348-coburn-1-political-scientists-0?threadId=3689233&commentId=74975298#c74975298
House approves far-right Ryan budget plan
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:32 PM EDT
When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) unveiled his budget plan, he acted as if the 2012 elections never happened, so there was no need for his Republican Party to change. Apparently, the vast majority of his GOP colleagues feel exactly the same way.
The House of Representatives successfully passed Republicans’ 2014 budget on Thursday with four votes to spare, relying only upon GOP votes to advance Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s third budget blueprint.
The House voted 221-207, largely along party lines, to advance the budget for the next government fiscal year. The plan seeks to balance the budget within a decade, primarily by saving $4.6 trillion through cuts to spending, and reforms to Medicare that would transform the plan into a “premium support” (or voucher) system.
Though there were whispers that GOP leaders had to worry about significant defections, only 10 House Republicans broke ranks and opposed Ryan’s budget — the exact same number of Republicans who voted against their party’s budget blueprint last year.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/21/17402601-house-approves-far-right-ryan-budget-plan?lite
Republicans recommit to the radical Ryan fiscal vision
Posted by Jamelle Bouie on March 21, 2013 at 11:57 am
Just this morning, House Republicans passed this year’s version of Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which — if implemented — would defund the Affordable Care Act, slash tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, slash spending on social programs, and radically restructure the nation’s retirement programs. The measure won support from the vast majority of House Republicans, passing with 221 votes, with all Democrats in opposition.
It’s hard to square this vote with the GOP’s stated desire to expand its appeal to more voters. In its report on the 2012 elections, notes National Journal’s Nancy Cook, the Republican National Committee implores “Republicans to put forth new or different policy ideas to address the economic anxieties of the working and middle classes.”
And indeed, if you consider last year a referendum on budget policy, clear majorities expressed their support for President Obama’s economic approach, giving reform-minded Republicans ammunition for their views. In a CNN poll released just after the election, 67 percent expressed support for a deficit reduction plan that balanced spending cuts with tax increases. Likewise, in a December poll from the Pew Research Center, only 32 percent said debt could be reduced without raising taxes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/21/republicans-recommit-to-the-radical-ryan-fiscal-vision/
The Morning Plum: The GOP’s self-refuting argument on guns
Posted by Greg Sargent on March 21, 2013 at 9:08 am
Now that the assault weapons ban appears to be all but dead — which anyone who was paying even minimal attention knew was going to happen — the focus will now intensify on Obama’s proposal to expand background checks. This has always been the centerpiece of his plan — despite the best efforts of some observers to pretend otherwise — but now it will be treated as such, which means more scrutiny of the proposal itself and of its prospects.
In this context, John Boehner’s interview on the topic with Jake Tapper is important, because it highlights an argument you’re going to hear a lot in the days ahead.
First, the comic relief. As Steve Benen notes, Boehner slipped up and accidentally endorsed the policy goal at the heart of the proposal. Asked if background checks should be part of our response to ongoing killings, Boehner replied: ”They should actually do a real background check on everyone.”
Obviously, under current law we don’t “do a real background check on everyone.” That’s the problem the new proposal would fix. But lest you think Boehner suddenly had an outbreak of common sense, his office quickly walked this back and said he supports only current law.
That’s pretty telling. But what is even more interesting is what came next:
“We’ve got plenty of laws on the books. Let’s go and enforce them before we just load up more laws on law-abiding citizens. Criminals don’t respect the law.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/21/the-morning-plum-the-gops-self-refuting-argument-on-guns/
From The Maddow Blog:
As ‘Obamacare’ turns three, the politics haven’t changed
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:44 AM EDT.
The Affordable Care Act was signed into law three years ago this week, and while a great deal has changed for American consumers and the nation’s health care system, the politics of health care remains largely stuck.
Yesterday, for example, congressional Republicans voted for the 36th time to repeal “Obamacare,” as part of a vote on the budget process, and today, they’ll cast their 37th repeal vote. Apparently, old habits die hard.
But what about with the public at large? The Kaiser Family Foundation published its latest non-partisan report this week, and there were some striking details in the survey results.
There’s quite a bit to chew on in the results, but this chart, published by the KFF in its report, struck me as the most interesting. Many provisions in the Affordable Care Act are extremely popular, enjoying at least two-to-one levels of public support, but (a) most Americans still have no idea what’s in the law; and (b) the most popular provisions are the ones Americans don’t know about, while the least popular provisions are the ones Americans do know about.
No wonder “Obamacare” isn’t more popular. The mainstream doesn’t yet have enough information to realize how much they support it.
Indeed, it appears the key takeaway from the latest survey is that confusion still reigns. Not only does much of the public not realize that popular ideas are included in the law, many Americans think imaginary provisions are included in the ACA — 57% believe the law includes a public option (it doesn’t); 47% believes it extends benefits to undocumented immigrants (it doesn’t); 44% believe it cuts benefits for Medicare beneficiaries (it doesn’t); and 40% believe death panels are real (they’re not).
Some wealthy and powerful opponents of the White House invested heavily to make sure as many Americans are as confused about the Affordable Care Act as possible. Three years after the reform plan became law, they’ve clearly had a fair amount of success.
——————————————————————————–
As long as we’re on the topic, let’s also note that Republican opponents of “Obamacare” used to talk quite a bit about a “repeal and replace” strategy. The idea was, Republicans realized that the American mainstream wants to see real improvements to the old, dysfunctional system that cost too much and covered too few, so they’d kill the ACA and replace it with a superior alternative.
In time, however, GOP officials effectively gave up on the “replace” part of the plan, and simply tried (and tried, and tried) to repeal the Democratic law. In theory, it’s not too late — Paul Ryan’s House Republican budget repeals the parts of the Affordable Care Act that actually provide benefits to Americans, while keeping the parts of the law that generate revenue, and could theoretically point to Republican-friendly health care reforms. Some notable conservatives find it “rather odd” that GOP lawmakers refuse to outline a replacement for “Obamacare.”
Jon Chait explained the other day that it’s really not odd at all: “It’s the furthest thing from odd. It’s the House Republican ideology.”
Bloomberg and VP Biden on gun violence
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/vice-president-biden-and-mayor-bloomberg-speak-gun-violence
Congress approves spending measure to avert government shutdown
Congress has approved a short-term spending measure that averts the chances of government shutdown next month, locks in the across-the-board sequester cuts but blunts its impact for certain key agencies.
The House gave final approval Thursday on a broad bipartisan 318 to 109 vote to a continuing funding resolution that outlines spending through the Sept. 30 conclusion of the fiscal year.
The bill now goes to President Obama for his signature, ending a relatively smooth and drama-free process for a Congress that has repeatedly deadlocked on spending issues.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-approves-resolution-to-keep-the-goverment-running-bill-heads-to-white-house/2013/03/21/b06e0e92-922e-11e2-9cfd-36d6c9b5d7ad_story.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jMb89mNoCxs
Boner’s talking out the side of his neck. WTF does he mean by a REAL background check?
Interview With Vice President Joe Biden
by NPR STAFF
March 20, 2013 6:53 PM
The Obama administration is still fighting for a ban on assault weapons to be included in a larger bill in Congress, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with NPR.
After the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., last December, President Obama appointed Biden to lead a task force that would recommend changes to the nation’s gun laws. Besides proposing a ban on assault weapons, the group also suggested limiting high-capacity magazines, such as those used in the deadly shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Audio here: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=174880882&m=174878518
I’m so glad that VP Biden is not falling for the old “It’ll never pass” BULLSHIT!
RE; ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN
Always a pleasure to see their brilliant tactics end up… maybe not so brilliant
By Kay March 21st, 2013
A dilemma arises:
Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele on Wednesday continued his critical talk of his successor, wondering how current RNC chair Reince Priebus can mesh the organization’s much-ballyhooed minority outreach with the GOP’s push for tougher voter registration laws widely viewed as discriminatory.
“How does Reince Priebus reconcile his approach and his agreement with voter registration policies that many in the black community view as anti-black, racist, whatever the term happens to be,” Steele said. “You’ve got to reconcile how people feel about your policies, not just the fact that you’re going to show up. You can show up any time. It’s what you say and what you do when you get there that matters most to people.”
I’m always gratified when a short-term conservative political and procedural tactic to win elections comes back and bites them in the ass, longer term, and threatens their ability to win elections. As I’ve said here before, I agree with Michael Steele. They have a problem with their position on voting.
I don’t think Republicans are actually reaching out to minority voters, so I disagree with Steele there. I think Republicans want to appear less bigoted and backward so they appeal to a larger, younger group of more tolerant white voters. But there is a real, practical and political problem with that. They’ve sold these voter ID laws so successfully the last 10 years that now the GOP base completely buy that voter fraud is a huge problem. They have an additional political problem along with their voting laws at the state level, and that’s the court cases brought by libertarians joining with conservatives. The Voting Rights Act is the most high profile case but there’s another case on the voting laws that target Latino voters.
Decisions in the Supreme Court won’t immediately become part of the discussion at the ground level, but these are important cases for voting rights advocates as a practical matter and those advocates will bring those decisions down to ground level. They’ll be doing that in the midst of the GOP minority outreach campaign.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/03/21/always-a-pleasure-to-see-their-brilliant-tactics-end-up-maybe-not-so-brilliant/#comment-4303408
The GOP can take their so-called “minority outreach” and shove it. Steele has known for years that these MOFOs have been suppressing the Black & Hispanic vote, and it continues today.
Paul’s perplexing ‘Personhood’ palaver
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:23 AM EDT.
Unlike most people who claim to celebrate strict limits on government power over individuals, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) rejects the reproductive rights American women already have. Indeed, less than a week ago, on the heels of a 13-hour filibuster on libertarian ideals, the Republican senator introduced “fetal personhood” legislation — called the “Life at Conception Act” — which would extend constitutional rights to “preborn humans.”
Paul’s bill (S.583) immediately picked up 15 co-sponsors, all of them Republicans. As Rachel explained on the show the other day, the legislation, if approved, would “ban abortion altogether at the federal level,” and would probably ban hormonal birth control and in-vitro fertilization.
What about giving Americans the ability to make their own choices? Don’t worry; the Kentucky senator intended to make “exceptions.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q8Q4HJ3fNyQ
For those who can’t watch clips online, Paul said that under his vision, “there are thousands of exceptions” to his proposal to ban all abortions in the United States. He added, “[E]ven if there were eventually a change in the law — let’s say people came more to my way of thinking — there would still be a lot of complicated things the law may not ultimately be able to address in the early stages of pregnancy that would have to be part of what occurs between the physician and the woman and the family.”
How reassuring. The senator intends to ban all abortions in the United States, and give fertilized eggs all the legal protections afforded to American citizens, but he hopes to do so in a vaguely pro-choice fashion.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/21/17400961-pauls-perplexing-personhood-palaver?lite
Boehner (briefly) supports ‘real background checks on everyone’
By Steve Benen
Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:00 AM EDT
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper yesterday, and their discussion turned to the Sandy Hook shootings. The host asked about the Speaker about his emotional reaction “as a dad,” and Boehner replied with a complaint about President Obama.
“Our hearts go out to those who are the victims of Sandy Hook, or these other mass shootings,” Boehner said. “I would hope the president would have focused on the bigger problem, you know, violence in our society.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/21/17400054-boehner-briefly-supports-real-background-checks-on-everyone?lite
New video of CPAC ‘race’ encounter shows crowd reactions to segregationist, black radio host
A new video has been released showing an encounter between a self-described segregationist and a black radio host during a Conservative Political Action Conference session on race.
The session, entitled “Trump the Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?” was hosted by a black tea party activist, K. Carl Smith, who at one point was questioned by Scott Terry, a North Carolina man who said he was there to stand up for his “demographic” and that Smith’s advice on how conservatives and Republicans could reach out to minority voters was coming “at the expense of young white Southern males.”
http://thegrio.com/2013/03/19/new-video-of-cpac-race-encounter/
hat tip-TresL
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755883/ns/msnbc-the_last_word/vp/51265281#51265281
And why she won’t be elected POTUS in 2013 either… These folks think we have short memories or are just plain stupid. NEITHER
The Silent Majorities
By Charles P. Pierce
at 11:05AM
There’s a lot of buzz at and around the Cool Kidz table today because, glorioski, there’s actually another budget proposal out there, the one put together by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and it not only seems to make more sense to more people than, for example, Paul Ryan’s exercise in Magical Unicorn Math, or even than the principles underlying the president’s proposal, which seem to be that, before we act on it, we should carefully check the Magical Unicorn’s work before appointing the unicorn to the Council Of Economic Advisers. Moreover, that budget is certainly more consonant not only with the blog’s First Law Of Economics — Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money — but also with the results of the latest Gallup Poll, the sub-themes of which latter is, quite clearly, “Why In Hell Are We Listening To Joe Scarborough On This Stuff Anyway?”
That’s 77 percent of the respondents who want some sort of WPA 2.0 to make sure the bridges don’t fall down while we’re driving to work. That’s 75 percent who want a federal jobs creation program. These two numbers include, respectively, 63 percent and 56 percent of Republican respondents. You could poll Paul Ryan’s immediately family and not get these numbers. Neither Mr. Simpson nor Mr. Bowles could score this well on Christmas morning with the grandkids. You could ask Americans the question, “Would you favor immediate federal action that would provide you with unlimited whiskey and the sexual favors of your favorite movie stars?” and come close. Maybe. Does the House progressive budget, which proposes programs that track these numbers, have a chance in hell of passing? Of course not. It’s barely in the conversation.
Read more: The Other Budget Proposal – The Silent Majorities – Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Silent_Majorities#ixzz2OBDR4uqm
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone! :-)