Good Morning. More from Boyz II Men.
While touring during 1992, Boyz II Men returned briefly to the studio to record the single “End of the Road”, co-written and produced by Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, for the soundtrack to Eddie Murphy’s film Boomerang. It has been said[by whom?] that the song was recorded in only four hours. This song, released as a single on June 30, 1992, would become Boyz II Men’s biggest hit. It reached the Number 1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 15, remaining there for a record-setting 13 weeks, until November 7, 1992. The success of End of the Road instantly transformed Boyz II Men from up-and-coming R&B stars into mainstream music celebrities.
A revamped Cooleyhighharmony would be reissued during 1993, with “End of the Road” added as a special bonus track, but “End of the Road” initially appeared only on the Boomerang soundtrack. Later the track would land on a collection of singles produced by Michael Bivins called “East Coast Family, Vol. 1”.[8] Shortly after the release of this compilation, Boyz II Men and Michael Bivins parted ways professionally. Boyz II Men would continue to work with Babyface and other high-profile record producers over the next several years.
THIS
My Racist Encounter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Posted: 05/07/2013 3:00 pm
The faux red carpet had been laid out for the famous and the wannabe-famous. Politicians and journalists arrived at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, bedazzled in the hopes of basking in a few fleeting moments of fame, even if only by osmosis from proximity to celebrities. New to the Washington scene, I was to experience the spectacle with my husband, a journalist, and enjoy an evening out. Or at least an hour out. You see, as a spouse I was not allowed into the actual dinner. Those of us who are not participating in the hideous schmooze-fest that is this evening are relegated to attending the cocktail hour only, if that. Our guest was the extraordinarily brilliant Oscar-nominated director of Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin. Mr. Zeitlin’s unassuming demeanor was a refreshing taste of humility in a sea of pretentious politicians reeking of narcissism.
As I left the hotel and my husband went to the ballroom for the dinner, I realized he still had my keys. I approached the escalators that led down to the ballroom and asked the externally contracted security representatives if I could go down. They abruptly responded, “You can’t go down without a ticket.” I explained my situation and that I just wanted my keys from my husband in the foyer and that I wouldn’t need to enter in the ballroom. They refused to let me through. For the next half hour, they watched as I frantically called my husband but was unable to reach him.
Then something remarkable happened. I watched as they let countless other women through — all Caucasian — without even asking to see their tickets. I asked why they were allowing them to go freely when they had just told me that I needed a ticket. Their response? “Well, now we are checking tickets.” He rolled his eyes and let another woman through, this time actually checking her ticket. His smug tone, enveloped in condescension, taunted, “See? That’s what a ticket looks like.”
When I asked “Why did you lie to me, sir?” they threatened to have the Secret Service throw me out of the building — me, a 4’11” young woman who weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, who was all prettied up in elegant formal dress, who was simply trying to reach her husband. The only thing on me that could possibly inflict harm were my dainty silver stilettos, and they were too busy inflicting pain on my feet at the moment. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the men ask a blonde woman for her ticket and she replied, “I lost it.” The snickering tough-guy responded, “I’d be happy to personally escort you down the escalators ma’am.”
Like a malignancy, it had crept in when I least expected it — this repugnant, infectious bigotry we have become so accustomed to. “White privilege” was on display, palpable to passersby who consoled me. I’ve come to expect this repulsive racism in many aspects of my life, but when I find it entrenched in these smaller encounters is when salt is sprinkled deep into the wounds. In these crystallizing moments it is clear that while I might see myself as just another all-American gal who has great affection for this country, others see me as something less than human, more now than ever before.
When I asked why the security representatives offered to personally escort white women without tickets downstairs while they watched me flounder, why they threatened to call the Secret Service on me, I was told, “We have to be extra careful with you all after the Boston bombings.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seema-jilani/racism-white-house-correspondents-dinner_b_3231561.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Police Apparently Missed Multiple Calls About Women on Dog Leashes in the Castros’ Yard
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/police-apparently-missed-multiple-calls-about-women-dog-leashes-castros-yard/64987/
The case of the three women held captive for a decade in Cleveland reaches a new level of absurdity with a Tuesday night report detailing the many warning signs that police appear to have ignored. USA Today says that not one not two but at least three neighbors called the police between 2011 and 2012 to report suspicious activity at the house where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight escaped their years-long imprisonment on Monday. We’re not talking about the watering-the-flowers-at-midnight brand of suspicious activity. We’re talking women-being-led-around-the-yard-on-dog-leashes suspicious. Some might just call that sick. (Add it to the list.)
Cleveland Police missed something. That much is clear. Despite the department’s obviously extended effort to find the victims, the sheer volume of tips that would have led them to the Castro home is starting to looking pretty condemning. While some are calling the USA Today report “mostly hearsay,” it’s hard to believe that so many different neighbors would’ve made such similar calls. Some reported inexplicably large amounts of McDonalds being carried into the house by Ariel Castro, one of the three brothers and a school bus driver. Others reported seeing women in the windows of the Castro house and at least once incident of a woman pounding on a women, after which they called the police.
The leash stuff really is twisted, though. “[Neighborhood] women told Lugo they called police because they saw three young girls crawling on all fours naked with dog leashes around their necks,” the report reads. “Three men were controlling them in the backyard. The women told Lugo they waited two hours but police never responded to the calls.” Again, this is just one of several incidents that neighbors say they reported to police, incidents that the Cleveland Police didn’t follow up on. It’s not just the USA Today piece that’s making these claims either. Local news outlets are issuing similar reports.
The Cleveland PO PO 7 records surrounding this case needs to be THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED.
Looky here, Ametia!
Cleveland Police: ‘The Real Hero Is Amanda Berry’.
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/05/07/cleveland-police-%E2%80%98-real-hero-here-amanda-berry%E2%80%99?fb_comment_id=fbc_310500719080877_1566892_310681892396093#f2af2fc6146d0f4
******************************
STFU,Cleveland Police. Why can’t you give Charles Ramsey credit? If it wasn’t for him those women would still be held captive b/c you damn sure wasn’t looking very hard to find them.
.When are Black folks gonna learn that the system is not FAIR and EQUAL when it comes to paying/evading taxes!
Lauryn Hill gets 3 months for failing to pay taxes
By DAVID PORTER | Associated Press – 14 hrs ago.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Lauryn Hill stood in federal court Monday and compared her experience in the music business to the slavery her ancestors endured before a judge sentenced her to three months in prison for failing to pay about $1 million in taxes over the past decade.
“I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them,” Hill said before U.S. Magistrate Madeline Cox Arleo. “I had an economic system imposed on me.”
Hill, who started singing with the Fugees as a teenager in the 1990s before releasing her multiplatinum 1998 album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” pleaded guilty last year to failing to pay taxes on more than $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007. Monday’s sentencing also took into account unpaid state and federal taxes in 2008 and 2009 that brought the total earnings to about $2.3 million.
Despite having paid more than $900,000 in the past several days, Hill still owes interest and penalties, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
In a forceful but controlled statement to the judge punctuated by occasional raps with her first on the podium, Hill described how she failed to pay taxes during a period when she’d dropped out of the music business to protect herself and her children, who now number six.
http://news.yahoo.com/lauryn-hill-gets-3-months-failing-pay-taxes-212157430.html
Woods, Vonn make their first appearance in public as a couple
Found 14 hours ago on IMAGE CPR:
Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn made their first public appearance as a couple at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala in New York.
Woods, the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world, and Vonn, a World Cup skier who is recuperating from knee reconstruction surgery, appeared on the red carpet Monday night wearing classic evening attire for a party that encouraged attendees to wear clothes inspired by the history of punk rock.
http://www.yardbarker.com/golf/articles/msn/woods_vonn_make_their_first_appearance_in_public_as_a_couple_photos/13564937
Tom Cruise officially signs on for ‘Mission: Impossible 5’
But who will direct?
By Corwin Neuse 6 hours ago
http://social.entertainment.msn.com/movies/blogs/blog–tom-cruise-officially-signs-on-for-mission-impossible-5?gtr1=28101
Stephens backs off from comments
Updated May 7, 2013 4:24 PM ET
Ah, the trials and flubs of youth.
Sloane Stephens created a furor last week with her overhead slamming comments of Serena Williams in an interview with ESPN The Magazine. Now, the rising American tennis player is backing off her digs.
http://msn.foxsports.com/tennis/story/Sloane-Stephens-apologizes-to-Serena-Williams-in-tweet-050713?gtr1=39002
Charles Ramsey says the dispatcher didn’t believe him about Amanda Berry.
Of course they didn’t believe Charles Ramsey. They stereotyped him by his voice.
Louisiana Supreme Court strikes down Jindal’s voucher plan
By Steve Benen
Tue May 7, 2013 1:37 PM EDT
This just isn’t Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) year. First his plan to end state hospice care was deemed so unpopular, he had to back down. Then his regressive tax plan, which would have eliminated state income taxes altogether, was rejected by his own allies.
And now his school voucher scheme has been rejected by state courts, too.
The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled that the current method of funding the statewide school voucher program is unconstitutional. Act 2, part of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 2012 package of education reforms, diverts money from each student’s per-pupil allocation to cover the cost of private or parochial school tuition. The act authorizes both the Louisiana Scholarship Program and the new Course Choice program.
The vote was 6-1, with Justice Greg Guidry dissenting. The plaintiffs in the case include the Louisiana Association of Educators, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the Louisiana School Boards Association.
The ruling states that the per-pupil allocation, called the minimum foundation program or MFP, must go to public schools. Justice John Weimer writes, “The state funds approved through the unique MFP process cannot be diverted to nonpublic schools or other nonpublic course providers according to the clear, specific and unambiguous language of the constitution.”
……………………………..
But in the end, Jindal just couldn’t get around the fact that the state constitution won’t allow him to divert public education funds to private entities.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/07/18107162-louisiana-supreme-court-strikes-down-jindals-voucher-plan?lite
Dude..
he can’t be pigeon-holed and stereotyped.
that’s why he’s not known more.
bet on it..
if he were WHITE with these kinds of qualifications…
he’d be on every billboard coast to coast
………………………………………………………..
NFL Rhodes Scholar Retires to Attend Medical School and Nobody Knows Since He Wasn’t Arrested
By Eric Graham
Updated: May 5, 2013
By David Watts On April 26, 2013
In under-reported news last week, Myron Rolle announced his retirement from professional football and says he plans to attend medical school. At the age of 26, he’s ready to take on a new challenge in life and become a neurosurgeon like his childhood hero Ben Carson. In the wake of his retirement, as well as his decision to postpone his playing career, the question we should ask ourselves is why hasn’t the media paid more attention to the recent developments of Myron Rolle. In light of all his past and future accomplishments, the media has largely ignored Mr. Rolle in favor of many athletes who become notorious for breaking the law. Had Rolle gone broke or bankrupt last week, do you think it would have been reported more vigorously?
For those who haven’t heard about Myron Rolle, here are two important questions to ask. First, who is he? Second, why haven’t I heard of him? For a young man with so much gift and promise, I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out why hasn’t the sports crazed media continually used him as a poster boy on how our student-athletes and professional athletes should strive to carry themselves.
http://blackathlete.net/2013/05/nfl-rhodes-scholar-retires-attend-medical-school-wasnt-arrested/
Gabriel Gomez, a new kind of Republican?
Posted by Greg Sargent on May 7, 2013 at 1:20 pm
National Republicans are aggressively promoting Gabriel Gomez, the GOP candidate in the Massachusetts Senate race, as a “new kind of Republican,” casting him as the face of the GOP’s future while dismissing longtime Congressman Ed Markey as a kind of Washington dinosaur. And it’s true that Gomez is relative young (47), Latino (the child of Colombian immigrants), and an outsider (a former Navy SEAL who has gone on to a successful private sector career).
But there are two areas where Gomez isn’t such a new kind of Republican: His positions on the issues, and his work for an outside group that hammered Obama during the 2012 election for supposedly trying to take credit for the killing of Osama Bin Laden. For instance, in a Fox News interview, Gomez was asked what he would do about the weak recovery. His answer:
“I’d focus on the spending side. He only focused on the revenue side. I think we need to address the spending side. And we need to address cuts in certain programs. We’ve got all parts of the government could have some kind of cuts. And I also think we need to potentially address the entitlement issue as well for people of my generation and the younger generation, not for people actually receiving the retirement benefits or those approaching retirement benefits. We need to acknowledge we have a spending problem. And that’s the first thing we need to do.
Gomez’s leading prescription for speeding the recovery is spending cuts. Meanwhile, his suggestion that “we need to address the spending side,” as opposed to the “revenue side,” suggests he opposes higher taxes on the wealthy to bring down the deficit. The idea that we have a spending problem — and not a revenue one — has been GOP dogma for many years. He has supported a Balanced Budget Amendment — also longtime GOP dogma. He has attacked Wall Street reform.
Meanwhile, on health care, the issue section of Gomez’s web site notes that he sees Obamacare as a “so-called solution.” And while Gomez doesn’t seem to support repeal, he does seem to think health reform should be handled by the states: “States should be free to design their own programs, just as we did here in Massachusetts.” The Massachusetts reform, of course, was the basis for Obamacare. Gomez supports gay marriage and expanded background checks, but he opposes the assault weapons ban and abortion. (Update: In fairness, Gomez has come out against repealing Roe v. Wade.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/07/gabriel-gomez-a-new-kind-of-republican/
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
POTUS on military rape: “They will be court martialed, prosecuted. Period. I will not tolerate this. There will be consequences.”
1:15 PM – 7 May 2013
GOP Benghazi hearings a partisan disgrace
By Brent Budowsky – 05/07/13 10:32 AM ET
Perhaps during his next partisan exploitation of the tragic death of Americans at Benghazi, Libya, in political hearings paid for by American taxpayers, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) can replay then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warning him, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and other Republicans that their efforts to cut diplomatic security spending will endanger American lives.
Then House Republicans can testify en masse and offer a group apology for mocking and ignoring Clinton’s warning.
The latest Issa public relations event, under the guise of a congressional hearing about the assault on the U.S Consulate in Benghazi, is the latest attack in the hyperpartisan and obsessive GOP war against President Obama, and it is the first failed attack against the most popular leader in America, who may well be the next president, Hillary Clinton.
Issa, whose abuse of congressional hearings for partisan political purposes sometimes makes him resemble a farm team Joseph McCarthy, joined Chaffetz and most Republicans in battling to cut embassy security spending before Benghazi.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/298169-gop-benghazi-hearings-a-partisan-disgrace#ixzz2SdJ429Hq
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka5m
Pres. Obama with the shade. He won’t make decisions (Syria) on perceived evidence: “the U.S. has tried that before and it didn’t work out”
After 43 years, Arkansas wants fugitive back
Published: May 7, 2013 Updated 11 minutes ago
In a April 26, 2013 photo, Lester Stiggers is interviewed in Warren, Mich., by the Associated Press. Stiggers is a wanted man _ except in Michigan. Since he fled prison in 1970, the convicted killer has spent most of his life a free man in the Detroit area, thanks to a progressive governor who refused to send him back to Arkansas. Much like the U.S. gives foreign refugees asylum from threats in their homeland, that governor, William Milliken, gave Stiggers asylum from Arkansas. The state of Arkansas has renewed its efforts to bring him back to face justice.
Read more here: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2013/05/07/2498991/after-43-years-arkansas-wants.html#storylink=cpy
do you even have to ask…
OF COURSE, HE’S BLACK!
Monday, May 6, 2013
Kiera Wilmot: If You Can’t Prevent Real Terrorism, Go After 16-Year-Old Chemistry Students
On Monday, April 29, 2013, a 16-year-old girl in a high school chemistry class in the central Florida town of Bartow, mixed a couple of household products in an eight-ounce plastic bottle. When Kiera Wilmot, a student with good grades and no history of trouble-making, shook the mix, a mild explosion blew off the bottle cap. (She might have placed cough drops or Tylenol pills into a bottle of soda.) The result of the experiment startled the student more than anyone.
No one was hurt, the tiny explosion caused no property damage, and the student had not intended anything malicious. (In my day, when mischievous kids got too old to put tacks on teachers’ desk chairs, a few of them dropped cherry-bombs into school toilets. Getting caught blowing up a public commode usually resulted in a paddling and a brief expulsion. Unless the student was a known juvenile delinquent, the matter was handled in-house. Police and prosecutors did not get involved.)
The administrators at Bartow High School, following Wilmot’s harmless chemistry experiment, called in the authorities. Notwithstanding the student’s background, lack of criminal intent, and the absence of physical harm or property damage, a local prosecutor charged the student with possession and discharge of a weapon on school property and discharging a destructive device. Having been charged with these felonies, school administrators had no choice but to expel the suspected bomber. If convicted of these crimes, Wilmot will have to finish her high school years in an expulsion program.
Kathleen Nolan, author of Police in the Hallways, told an education reporter that the Wilmot case “…is an example of the absurdity of zero tolerance and the over-use of police intervention in schools….This young woman, all because of misguided curiosity, now faces expulsion and felony charges which could negatively impact her future opportunities and alter the course of her life.”
When looking for the source of such insanity, you usually don’t have to look beyond the U. S. Congress. In 1994, Congress passed a law that forces states that receive federal education funds to enact legislation that requires mandatory one-year expulsions for students who bring firearms to school. As one can be expect, school officials and criminal justice practitioners took this law and went to hell with the joke.
The beauty of a zero-tolerance enforcement policy is that it exempts bureaucrats from having to think. It also protects them from making decisions and taking responsibility for those decisions. It’s a policy for people without the guts to lead.
http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2013/05/kiera-wilmot-if-you-cant-prevent-real.html
Background-check opponents on the defensive
By Steve Benen
Tue May 7, 2013 10:10 AM EDT
It’s been nearly four weeks since a Republican filibuster blocked a bipartisan compromise on gun reforms, including expanded background checks, and the prevailing political winds appear to be blowing in a progressive direction.
How can we tell? Consider who’s feeling confident — and who isn’t.
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN he is willing to reverse his opposition to expanding background checks for guns if the Senate sponsors change on the bill’s provision dealing with internet sales.
Flake said the only reason he voted no was because of his concern that the requirement for background checks on internet sales is too costly and inconvenient, given the way guns are often sold among friends in his state of Arizona and others.
He said under the measure as written, if a gun owner sends a few friends a text or email asking if they want to buy their gun, or posts it on their Facebook page, “that is considered a commercial sale.”
The substance behind Flake’s concerns seems rather superficial, but what strikes me as interesting is the fact that the senator is backpedaling at all — after his support for the Republican filibuster, Flake saw his support plummet among his constituents. Instead of saying, “I’m confident I did the right thing,” we see the Arizona Republican effectively saying, “On second thought….”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/07/18104471-background-check-opponents-on-the-defensive?lite
The Morning Plum: Dems shouldn’t take GOP’s bait on Obamacare implementation
Posted by Greg Sargent on May 7, 2013 at 9:13 am
The notion that Obamacare’s implementation could become a major liability for Democrats in 2014 is gaining widespread currency, and today it’s the subject of a big New York Times piece reporting on confident predictions by Republicans that implementation problems will give them a powerful weapon against Dem candidates. Obama is set to do a series of events designed to educate the public on the challenges of implementing the law, beginning with one on Friday where he’ll promote the law’s benefits for women.
It strikes me that GOP Obamacare implementation triumphalism is a tad premature.
Here is how the Times characterizes the sentiment in Dem circles about the coming war over implementation:
Democrats are worried about 2014 — a president’s party typically loses seats in midterm years — and some have gone public with concerns about the pace of carrying out the law. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, told an interviewer last week that he agreed with a recent comment by Senator Max Baucus of Montana, a Democratic architect of the law, who said “a train wreck” could occur this fall if preparations fell short.
The White House has allayed some worries, with briefings for Democrats about their public education plans, including PowerPoint presentations that show areas with target populations down to the block level.
“There’s clearly some concern” among Democrats “that their constituents don’t yet have all facts on how it will work, and that Republicans are filling that vacuum with partisan talking points,” said Representative Steve Israel of New York, head of the House Democrats’ campaign committee. “And the administration must use every tool they have to get around the obstructions and make it work.”
Quotes like these are widely held up as evidence that Republicans are right that Obamacare implementation is shaping up as a major problem for Dems. But this amounts to a fundamental misreading of what it is these Dems are actually saying. Democrats are simply doing exactly what they should be doing — that is, calling for care and caution in the implementation of Obamacare, and calling for a serious effort to educate the public about the challenges and potential pitfalls it entails. This is not tantamount to running away from the law wholesale; nor is it a concession that implementation will amount to a major political albatross.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/07/the-morning-plum-dems-shouldnt-take-gops-bait-on-obamacare-impementation/
I’ll say it again: they’re so used to just throwing out whatever shyt-based numbers they can invent and having the right-wing sell it as gospel, that they don’t know what to do when someone asks them the simple question:
HOW DID YOU ARRIVE AT THESE NUMBERS?
…………………………………….
Dubious Heritage study pits right against itself
By Steve Benen
Tue May 7, 2013 10:50 AM EDT
The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein, a prominent conservative writer, noted yesterday that the Heritage Foundation’s study on the costs of immigration reform has already started a “war among conservatives.”
That’s largely true. None other than Jennifer Rubin reported yesterday:
In what was almost certainly an unprecedented press call, top fiscal conservatives from Americans for Tax Reform, the Cato Institute, the Kemp Foundation and the American Action Network took what had once been the premier conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, to the woodshed for its immigration report that sees trillions in cost and no benefits from immigration reform. […]
These are longtime allies of Heritage and promoters of free market capitalism who are witnessing the intellectual bastardization of a once great institution to adopt a cause that is inherently unconservative, namely opposition to immigration…. Fiscal, pro-growth conservatives are concerned (as they should be) that the movement may turn reactionary, rejecting not just dynamic scoring but faith in a dynamic economy and society.
There are several important angles to this, aside from the obvious significance of conservatives fighting amongst themselves on one of the most important policy debates in the country today.
Note, for example, that for much of the conservative/Republican establishment, support for comprehensive immigration reform has clearly taken root, so much so that when Heritage goes on the offensive, old alliances are thrown out the window and the pushback is candid and unrelenting. Leaders from the party and the conservative movement have clearly decided that immigration is an issue that must be dealt with — now — and it’s time for the base to get in line.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/
Workers Claim Race Bias as Farms Rely on Immigrants
VIDALIA, Ga. — For years, labor unions and immigrant rights activists have accused large-scale farmers, like those harvesting sweet Vidalia onions here this month, of exploiting Mexican guest workers. Working for hours on end under a punishing sun, the pickers are said to be crowded into squalid camps, driven without a break and even cheated of wages.
But as Congress weighs immigrationlegislation expected to expand theguest worker program, another group is increasingly crying foul — Americans, mostly black, who live near the farms and say they want the field work but cannot get it because it is going to Mexicans. They contend that they are illegally discouraged from applying for work and treated shabbily by farmers who prefer the foreigners for their malleability.
“They like the Mexicans because they are scared and will do anything they tell them to,” said Sherry Tomason, who worked for seven years in the fields here, then quit. Last month she and other local residents filed a federal lawsuit against a large grower of onions, Stanley Farms, alleging that it mistreated them and paid them less than it paid the Mexicans.
The suit is one of a number of legal actions containing similar complaints against farms, including a large one in Moultrie, Ga., where Americans said they had been fired because of their race and national origin, given less desirable jobs and provided with fewer work opportunities than Mexican guest workers. Under a consent decree with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the farm, Southern Valley, agreed to make certain changes.
With local unemployment about 10 percent and the bureaucracy for hiring foreigners onerous — guest workers have to be imported and housed and require extensive paperwork — it would seem natural for farmers to hire from their own communities, which they did a generation ago.
In fact, the farmers say, they would dearly like to.
“We have tried to fill our labor locally,” said Brian Stanley, an owner of Stanley Farms, which is being sued by Ms. Tomason and others. “But we couldn’t get enough workers, and that was hindering our growth. So we turned to the guest worker program.”
The vast majority of farm workers in the country are not in the guest worker program but are simply unauthorized immigrants. The plan to place those workers on a path to legal status would reduce the chances of their being exploited, the bill’s sponsors say, and thereby also improve the status of Americans who feel they cannot compete against vulnerable foreigners.
Mr. Stanley, like other farmers, argues that Americans who say they want the work end up quitting because it is hard, leaving the crops to rot in the fields. But the situation is filled with cultural and racial tensions.
Even many of the Americans who feel mistreated acknowledge that the Mexicans who arrive on buses for a limited period are incredibly efficient, often working into the night seven days a week to increase their pay.
“We are not going to run all the time,” said Henry Rhymes, who was fired — unfairly, he says — from Southern Valley after a week on the job. “We are not Mexicans.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/us/suit-cites-race-bias-in-farms-use-of-immigrants.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1&
Neighbor: ‘I Thought This Girl Was Dead’
http://rolandmartinreports.com/blog/2013/05/neighbor-i-thought-this-girl-was-dead-video/
Cleveland resident Charles Ramsey thought he was witnessing a domestic dispute when he heard a woman screaming, trying to get out of a house. He was shocked to find that three women were allegedly held hostage near his home for years.
Charles is a HERO. PERIOD.
Without question. No doubt about it!
Was a reward ever offered for the missing girls? If so, Charles Ramsey deserves it.
Yes; don’t try to pass this off as another Antoine and Sweet Brown Negroe’s 15 minutes of fame paradoy. GIVE THE BROTHER WHAT’S OWED HIM.
There’s huge sums of money INVOLVED, and that NEGRO ain’t getting ANY, if they can help it. Bank it!
Monday, May 6th 2013
A Laura Ashley Night Terror Come To Life
Kanye West had to lick Anna Wintour’s ass clean a thousand times to get that trash heap heffa Kim Kartrashian an invitation and this is what she wore. The theme of the night was “punk,” because the Costume Institute’s exhibit is Punk: From Chaos to Couture and I guess Kim thought that since she and Kanye are a couple of punk ass bitches they fit in with the theme perfectly!
I was watching the live feed of this mess, which was awkward comedy at its finest, and dumb ass Kim said that this was her idea of “punk.” It’s “romantic punk.” BITCH, my chihuahua’s swollen anal gland (I’m taking him to the groomer tomorrow, don’t worry) is more punk rock than the floral vomit she wore tonight. They should’ve thrown a plastic cover over her, because this is someone’s abuelita’s sofa.
She looks like that dusty, lumpy sofa that had your grandma has had for years and decided to finally get rid of it. So your grandma, with the help of two neighborhood boys, puts it on the curb for the garbage men to take, but they never take it. It just sits there on the curb. The dogs pee on it, the birds crap on it and it gets even lumpier from the rain. After a few weeks, your grandma finally gives in and drags it back into her house and puts it in her backyard. The only thing missing from Kim’s look is a grandma sitting on top of her.
http://www.dlisted.com/2013/05/06/laura-ashley-night-terror-come-life
LOL
The Hooligan Party
by BooMan
Tue May 7th, 2013 at 09:25:41 AM EST
The Republicans are going to do everything they can think of to undermine the performance of the Federal Government as it tries to implement the Affordable Care Act. They’re basically a Fifth Column at this point.
A number of health insurance changes have already taken place, but this fall, just as the 2014 election season heats up, is the deadline for introducing the law’s core feature: the insurance marketplaces, known as exchanges, where millions of uninsured Americans can buy coverage, with subsidies for many.
For the third time, Republicans are trying to make the law perhaps the biggest issue of the elections, and are preparing to exploit every problem that arises. After many unsuccessful efforts to repeal the law, the Republican-led House plans another vote soon. And Republican governors or legislatures in many states are balking at participating, leaving Washington responsible for the marketplaces.
“There are very few issues that are as personal and as tangible as health care, and the implementation of the law over the next year is going to reveal a lot of kinks, a lot of red tape, a lot of taxes, a lot of price increases and a lot of people forced into health care that they didn’t anticipate,” said Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It’s going to be an issue that’s front and center for voters even in a more tangible way than it was in 2010.”
We basically have just two political parties in this country, and one of them is actively trying to break the country.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/5/7/92541/36804
Christie reveals secret stomach surgery to lose weight
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie secretly underwent lap-band stomach surgery to aggressively slim down for the sake of his wife and kids, he revealed to The Post last night.
The Garden State governor agreed to the operation at the urging of family and friends after turning 50 last September.
He told The Post he was thinking of his four kids and how it was time to start improving his health when he decided to have the procedure.
“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he said. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”
He also insisted that, contrary to what observers may say, the effort to slim down was not motivated by thoughts of a presidential bid
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/chris_cuts_waist_oAUDrJ8Sm1fY6awWgFY6nN
Elizabeth Smart: Abstinence Education Teaches Rape Victims They’re Worthless, Dirty, And Filthy
By Tara Culp-Ressler on May 6, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Elizabeth Smart became a household name after she was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City, UT at the age of 14 and held in captivity for nine months. She was forced into a polygamous marriage, tethered to a metal cable, and raped daily until she was rescued from her captors nine months later. Smart was recovered while she and her kidnappers were walking down a suburban street, leading many Americans who followed her story on the national news to wonder: Why didn’t she just run away as soon as she was brought outside?
Speaking to an audience at Johns Hopkins about issues of human trafficking and sexual violence, Smart recently offered an answer to that question. She explained that some human trafficking victims don’t run away because they feel worthless after being raped, particularly if they have been raised in conservative cultures that push abstinence-only education and emphasize sexual purity:
Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”
Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/06/1967591/elizabeth-smart-abstinence-ed/
Time to put down the donuts!!
Christie reveals secret stomach surgery to lose weight
By TARA PALMERI and BETH DEFALCO
Last Updated: 3:59 AM, May 7, 2013
Posted: 3:01 AM, May 7, 2013
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie secretly underwent lap-band stomach surgery to aggressively slim down for the sake of his wife and kids, he revealed to The Post last night.
The Garden State governor agreed to the operation at the urging of family and friends after turning 50 last September.
He told The Post he was thinking of his four kids and how it was time to start improving his health when he decided to have the procedure.
“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he said. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/chris_cuts_waist_oAUDrJ8Sm1fY6awWgFY6nN
The politics of online sales taxes
By Steve Benen
–
Tue May 7, 2013 9:15 AM EDT
When there are 69 votes in the Senate for anything, it’s an uncommon day in the chamber, but when there are 69 Senate votes for a tax bill, something unusual is going on.
The Senate sided with traditional retailers and financially strapped state and local governments Monday by passing a bill that would widely subject online shopping — for many a largely tax-free frontier — to state sales taxes.
The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 69 to 27, getting support from Republicans and Democrats alike. But opposition from some conservatives who view it as a tax increase will make it a tougher sell in the House. President Barack Obama has conveyed his support for the measure.
The politics of this one were a pleasant change of pace. For the most part, Democrats supported the bill and Republicans didn’t, but take a look at the roll call and note the non-traditional pairings. In this bill, several conservative Republicans from red states like Mississippi, Nebraska, and Alabama voted for online sales taxes, while more progressive Democrats from blue states like Oregon and New Hampshire voted against it.
Put it this way: when Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) votes for a tax increase and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) votes against it, you know the “Marketplace Fairness Act” isn’t the usual bill.
So, what’s the story? The law currently only requires online outlets to charge a sales tax if the business has a brick-and-mortar building in the state. This system, in turn, creates a disjointed series of advantages and disadvantages — it hurts local retailers who don’t want to lose customers to Internet retailers, but it also hurts online outlets like Best Buy and Target which are trying to compete in both markets, and don’t want to lose online customers to websites that won’t have to charge sales taxes.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/07/18103701-the-politics-of-online-sales-taxes?lite
Reid sees Cruz as a ‘schoolyard bully’
By Steve Benen
Tue May 7, 2013 8:00 AM EDT
http://youtu.be/4wWGaON_0Y0
With both the House and Senate having already approved budget resolutions, Democrats are eager to do what Republicans originally said they wanted to do — follow “regular order” and hash out the differences in a conference committee. Except, as we discussed yesterday, GOP leaders have completely abandoned their own position and refuse to allow the bicameral talks.
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) once again tried to follow the process that Republicans endorsed as recently as March, and once again, Reid was blocked by the Senate minority. This time, however, it led to an interesting confrontation between the Majority Leader and the chamber’s least popular member.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he’d allow the budget process to move forward if Senate Democrats agreed to certain conditions: the House-Senate talks could not raise any taxes on anyone by any amount, and the result of the negotiations could not raise the debt ceiling, which Cruz and others still hope to use as leverage as part of another hostage crisis later this year.
Reid patiently explained that the budget process already included several hundred amendments, and that Cruz’s suggestions lost. The Texas Republican was effectively arguing that he’ll block the budget process unless the side that won these fights agrees to unilaterally concede because Ted Cruz says so. The Nevada Democrat called this “ridiculous,” adding:
“[Cruz] is s like the school yard bully — he pushes everybody around and is losing, and instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him but changes the rules. That way no one wins except the bully who tries who indicate to people he has won. We’re asking Republicans to play by the rules and let us go to conference.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/07/18102532-reid-sees-cruz-as-a-schoolyard-bully?lite
NRA Convention Gov. Rick Perry Introduced With a Tasteless AR-15 Video
http://youtu.be/yOvRxZO0rkY
The Daily Edge @TheDailyEdge
Gomez (R-MA): “I demand Ed Markey stop reminding voters I’m the lying bastard who tried to swiftboat Obama in 2012. That’s ancient history”
8:52 PM – 6 May 2013
NRA’s Wayne LaPierre ‘LIED’ About Bostonians Wishing To Have Guns
http://youtu.be/qmbdOUHLtLo
Sequester: Domestic Violence Victims Denied Programs & Shelters
http://youtu.be/Bxk6ALO8MPM
Yes, Health Insurance Saves Lives
Brian Beutler- May 6, 2013, 10:45 AM
There have been so many hasty and opportunistic reactions to the famed Oregon Medicaid study that containing the spread of misinformation is a bit like standing athwart a tsunami yelling “stop!” Moreover, people like Aaron Carroll and Austin Frakt are much more qualified to comment on it and have been doing an excellent job, so I’d really recommend you read their recent posts on the subject.
But to draw attention to one of Medicaid critics’ most effective sleights of hand, performed most recently and deftly by Ross Douthat, consider the following thought experiment.
Imagine a year-long study of 2000 uninsured people, 1000 of whom were allowed to enroll in Medicaid, the other 1000 of whom were required to remain uninsured. After a year, the aggregate data indicated that Medicaid provided the first 1000 significant economic security and measurable mental health benefits, but showed negligible (or more likely inconclusive) effects on heart health.
Not evident from the aggregate data, though, was that mid-way through the study, one male subject from each group began experiencing chest pains. After a few days, the man with Medicaid went to the hospital, had an abnormal EKG and an emergency angiogram, which revealed a major blockage and required immediate angioplasty. He survived. The man without Medicaid, by contrast, did nothing, until he suffered a massive MI, and died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
In other words, it’s possible that being uninsured cost one of my made up subjects his life, even though the made up study didn’t find significant overall improvement in measures of cardiac health. Likewise in the real world, the Oregon study was not designed to address the excess deaths issue, just like studies on insurance’s impact on mortality aren’t designed to test its impact on various health measures across the population.
But of course, most real-world excess death studies link tens of thousands of deaths a year to uninsurance. That’s a very small percentage of the millions of uninsured in the United States. But I doubt even Medicaid’s loudest critics would shrug off 10,000 or 20,000 preventable deaths a year in most other contexts.
So instead they put their heads in the sand. Douthat more or less treats the Oregon study as a de facto refutation of that entire, separate area of research.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/05/yes_health_insurance_saves_lives.php?ref=fpblg
May 06, 2013 10:04 AM
None Dare Call It Treason
By Ed Kilgore
As Brother Benen notes this morning, the National Rifle Association’s new president, James Porter of Birmingham, Alabama, likes to talk about the importance of the Second Amendment as a way to ensure the American people will be able to “resist tyranny”—i.e., shoot and kill law enforcement officers, members of the U.S. armed services, and presumably anyone else (you know, like their neighbors) who might disagree with their definition of their essential “liberties”—at some undefined point in the future. And while I’ve not yet seen evidence of him calling Barack Obama a “tyrant” (though he has called him a “fake president”) I’d be shocked if it doesn’t exist.
So let’s put it this way: Porter seems to be highly representative of the amazingly common type of contemporary “conservatives” who combine extremist language about their political opponents with violent language about their political options—who in effect point their guns at “liberals” while making it known they and they alone will decide what “liberties” to surrender, democracy or laws be damned.
It makes it worse that Porter is one of the old boys who thinks it ha-larious to refer to the American Civil War as the “war of northern aggression” (as “we” put it “down south,” he said to a New York crowd recently). Since that war, whatever else it represented, was without question an armed revolution against the government of the United States, you have to wonder if the Confederacy—or as it was commonly referred to in the north for many decades, “the Rebellion”—is Porter’s model for defense of oneself against “tyranny” (you may recall that John Wilkes Booth shouted “Sic semper tyrannus“—“thus always to tyrants”) after shooting Lincoln.
Am I perhaps being unfair to these people in suggesting that they are behaving like America-haters and are flirting with treason? I don’t think so. Porter and those like him could dispel this sort of suspicion instantly, any time they wanted, by just saying: “Let’s be clear: the kind of ‘tyranny’ we are arming ourselves to forestall is something entirely different from anything Americans have experienced since we won our independence—a regime engaged in the active suppression of any sort of dissent, and the closure of any peaceful means for the redress of grievances. We’re not talking about the current administration, or either major political party, as presently representing a threat of tyranny.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_05/none_dare_call_it_treason044576.php
Heritage says immigration reform will cost $5.3 trillion. Here’s why that’s wrong.
Posted by Dylan Matthews on May 6, 2013 at 5:00 pm
Robert Rector and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation have made a splash by releasing a paper claiming that the immigration reform bill being weighed in the U.S. Senate will cost the government $5.3 trillion. Or, more precisely, that undocumented immigrants under current law will cost the government $1 trillion, and legalizing those immigrants will increase that to $6.3 trillion. Subtract one from the other and you get the $5.3 trillion total cost estimate.
The study represents the most notable attack on the reform effort to date from a conservative group, and in conjunction with the Economic Policy Institute’s attempts to throw cold water over the high-skilled immigration sections of the bill, suggests the effort is facing flack from both sides.
So does the Heritage estimate hold up? Not really. They make a lot of curious methodological choices that cumulatively throw the study into question. It’s likely that immigrants would pay a lot more in taxes, and need a lot less in benefits, than Heritage assumes, and that other benefits would outweigh what costs remain
First, let’s review the basic methodology of the Rector/Richwine study. When they’re talking about “cost,” they really mean static fiscal cost. They add up the amount of money they expect undocumented immigrants to contribute in taxes, and subtract that from the amount of money they expect those immigrants to receive in government services. If the result is positive, then the immigrants are a net fiscal drain. If it’s negative, they’re net contributors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/06/heritage-says-immigration-reform-will-cost-5-3-trillion-heres-why-thats-wrong/?hpid=z3
Why Illinois’ GOP chair was forced to resign
By Steve Benen
Tue May 7, 2013 8:35 AM EDT.
Ordinarily, when the chair of a major political party is forced to resign, it’s safe to assume there’s been some kind of scandal. Occasionally, there’s suspected embezzlement or a personal scandal that brings a chair’s judgment into question, but as a rule, a resignation is tied to some kind of disgrace.
But not always. The chair of the Illinois Republican Party, for example, has been forced to give up his post for the shocking crime of supporting the right of gay Americans to get married.
Pat Brady, the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, announced his resignation Tuesday amid a simmering controversy over his support for gay marriage legislation.
Brady had been expected to drop out of the lead GOP role following a tumultuous period that pitted the Republicans’ social moderates against their social conservatives.
The context matters. Illinois, where Democrats control many of the key levers of government, is considering a new marriage-equality proposal, which most Republicans are predictably hoping to derail. In early January, Brady endorsed the effort — in his personal capacity, not as the state GOP chair — which drew immediate condemnations from far-right activists that make up much of the party’s base.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/07/18103054-why-illinois-gop-chair-was-forced-to-resign?lite
Filling in the blanks on the debt-ceiling hostage note
By Steve Benen
Mon May 6, 2013 2:12 PM EDT
The very first sentence in the Politico article on congressional Republicans’ debt-ceiling strategy is incorrect: “It’s never been easy for House Republicans to raise the debt limit.”
Actually, it used to be quite easy, indeed. Between 1939, when the debt-ceiling law was originally passed, and 2010, Congress raised the debt limit without incident 89 times. Most of those increases came under a Republican president, under Republican control of at least part of Congress, or both. It suddenly stopped being “easy” for the GOP after President Obama took office.
That said, it’s apparently no longer easy for the party, and Republican leaders now find themselves in an awkward spot. On the one hand, GOP policymakers have convinced themselves they deserve a reward for doing what they must do anyway, and believe they’re entitled to hold the debt ceiling hostage until Democrats give them something in return. On the other hand, Republican leaders also seem to realize that a replay of the 2011 fiasco, when they undermined the economy deliberately as part of a self-imposed crisis, is a blisteringly stupid idea.
The question, then, is what the party intends to write on the ransom note: “Congressional Republicans promise to crash the economy on purpose unless Democrats give us _________.”
Some wanted cuts to Social Security and Medicare, though this has apparently fallen out of favor. Others want an agreement on a budget plan that eliminates the deficit within 10 years. The leading contender, at least for now, is a demand for tax reforms.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/06/18087977-filling-in-the-blanks-on-the-debt-ceiling-hostage-note?lite
The real Benghazi story: The dogs that aren’t barking
Posted by Jonathan Bernstein on May 6, 2013 at 5:22 pm
If you’re not inside the conservative information feedback loop, you might not be aware that within that loop the Benghazi “scandal” is still going at 100 percent strength. Months after the actual incident, which was back in September. Even though no one has ever made clear exactly what terrible secret was the subject of the supposed cover-up; even though a succession of “revelations” have all turned out to be nonsense (here’s one from just last week). Doesn’t matter; discredited accusations are just forgotten and new ones are substituted.
This week it’s a new round of claims that whistleblowers were suppressed. Over in the House, Darrell Issa’s committee is going to get a hearing out of it. No, there’s no particular reason that it makes any sense…there’s still no core story that this cover-up was (supposedly) covering up for. But there do appear to be plenty of Usual Suspect conservative movement lawyers and flacks involved.
So what are those of us outside of the conservative feedback loop to make of all of this?
Two things. One is that this is another case of how the minimal standards of the GOP-aligned press make Republican politicians lazy. Just chant “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” and you’re sure to generate plenty of positive publicity, so what’s the incentive for actually mastering the substantive issues involved?
And second: there’s a real dogs-not-barking aspect to this; the continued focus on what has appeared for months to be a dry well suggests that there are no real Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton) scandals to investigate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/06/the-real-benghazi-story-the-dogs-that-arent-barking/
The right’s last stand against immigration reform?
Posted by Greg Sargent on May 6, 2013 at 1:01 pm
The Heritage Foundation has just released its long awaited report supposedly documenting that the path to citizenship in the Gang of Eight immigration reform compromise will sock the taxpayer with a multi-trillion-dollar bill. You cannot overstate how much opponents of reform have staked on the hope that this report will be the magic bullet to kill the proposal. This is the report that’s supposed to send House conservatives running away, never to return.
My Post colleague Jennifer Rubin has a long post detailing the substantive pre-buttals of the Heritage study that are coming from other Republicans and conservatives who favor reform and argue Heritage’s methodology is flawed:
The Cato Institute has already come up with a detailed pre-rebuttal of Heritage’s work. And, ironically, even the Congressional Budget Office can figure out that with dynamic scoring of the type pioneered by Heritage (when it was an intellectual trailblazer for conservatives), the country and the Treasury come out ahead.
In a sense, though, the substance here is beside the point. What’s remarkable about this whole spectacle is that no one is even bothering to pretend that the Heritage study isn’t simply a last ditch effort to kill the bill. That’s widely, publicly, explicitly acknowledged to be the case. Indeed, a Heritage study back during the last immigration reform battle is widely credited with giving the right the ammo they needed to scuttle that proposal, and opponents are openly discussing today’s study as providing the chance of a rerun of that glorious moment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/06/the-rights-last-stand-against-immigration-reform/
Should Martin O’Malley Be President?
The governor of Maryland is a long shot for the White House—and the best manager in government today.
By Haley Sweetland Edwards
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/may_june_2013/features/should_martin_omalley_be_presi044513.php?page=all
https://twitter.com/zekNcashe/status/331585299845099520/photo/1
BWA HA HA HA Kim’s Upholsterer. SMGDH
Good Morning, Everyone:)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone! :-)
Morning, everyone!