Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at 3CHICS!!!
I love this song, and want to thank Boyz II Men for it.
For all the Mama’s out there…..
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Black Girls Rock!
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Potus Takes Oath of Office
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My Brothers Keeper
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AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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Kevin Hart and his famous Hollywood friends are all suited up for the “Real Husbands of Hollywood: The Reunion Special” premiering Tuesday, May 28th at 10 P.M. ET/PT on BET. Hosted by Lala Anthony, viewers will get to revisit some of their favorite moments from “the fakest reality show on television.”
And in addition to the core cast, fans will witness a visit from recently departed cast member Robin Thicke and original husband Bobby Brown makes an explosive cameo appearance that is sure to turn heads.
http://theybf.com/2013/05/10/sneak-peek-at-the-rhoh-reunion-special-tionna-smalls-nabs-%E2%80%9Cgirl-get-your-mind-right%E2%80%9D-show
Pat Buchanan Calls For ‘Southern Strategy’ Against Latinos, Immigrants
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/12/pat-buchanan-southern-strategy_n_3263356.html
Pat Buchanan has a plan to win more white voters for the GOP.
In an article published by the website World Net Daily last week, Buchanan describes increased black voter turnout and Latino demographic growth as a “crisis for the Grand Old Party.” To combat it, the conservative pundit implies that the Republican Party should adopt a new version of the “Southern Strategy” revolving around immigration.
The Southern Strategy, first adopted by Richard Nixon, aimed to cultivate the support of Southern voters in part by appealing to racial tensions while avoiding overt racism. The strategy played a key role in alienating African-American voters from the GOP.
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Lord, hear this prayer. Remove this wickedness from us. Purge the racism and hate so we can move forward to becoming a great Nation that you intended it to be.
they can’t help themselves. they really can’t. they’re so used to hating, they don’t know what else to do
The Coming Attempt to Impeach Obama
The idea of impeaching Obama is industrial-strength insane. Republicans will probably try anyway, predicts Michael Tomasky.
by Michael Tomasky May 12, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
When the histories of this administration are written, I hope fervently that last Friday, May 10, does not figure prominently in them. But I fear that it might: the double-barrel revelations that the White House hasn’t quite been telling the whole story on Benghazi and that some mid-level IRS people targeted some Tea Party groups for scrutiny are guaranteed to ramp up the crazy. But to what extent? I fear it could be considerable, and the people in the White House damn well better fear the same, or we’re going to be contemplating an extremely ugly situation come 2015, especially if the Republicans have held the House and captured the Senate in the by-elections.
Let me clarify a point that’s been going around. On MSNBC Friday, I broached the I-word. You know the one. Three syllables. Links Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton. I said something like: I have little doubt the Republicans would try to pursue it—something I’ve written dozens of times without readers really batting an eye. But I guess saying it on TV, and on a fateful day, is different. I was on the business end of a small number of angry tweets from liberal readers, and I see that the UK Daily Mail trotted out my statement in a way that made it sound as if I thought it was legitimate
I didn’t get to finish my thought on television for one reason or another, but here on my home field, as it were, permit me to finish it: I think the notion of impeachment is industrial-strength insane. There is utterly no proof that the President Obama even knew anything directly about the shifting Benghazi responses, let alone did something about them (yes, folks; under the Constitution, the President must do something). And as for the Internal Revenue Service story, from what we now know, those transgressions were committed by IRS staffers in Cincinnati who have never been closer to Obama than their television sets. I always held a squishy spot in my breast for the Daily Mail because of the “Paperback Writer” mention, but as of this weekend they can go stick it up their punter, or whatever it is they say. Impeachment is crazy, the Daily Mail is crazy, and the idea that Obama has any direct culpability in either of these matters is, given what we know today, utter madness. Okay?
But this is my point: utter madness is what today’s Republicans do. You can present to me every logical argument you desire. Benghazi at the end of the day was a terrible tragedy in which mistakes, bad mistakes, were certainly made, and in which confusion and the CYA reflex led to some bad information going out to the public initially, but none of this remotely rises to the level of high crime. The IRS cock-up was just that, a mistake by a regional office. I get all this, and I agree with you.
But what we think doesn’t matter. I can assure you that already in the Pavlovian swamps of the nutso right, the glands are swelling. Theirs is a different planet from the one you and I inhabit. Most Republican members of the House live in districts where it is a given (among the white constituents, anyway) that Obama is a socialist; that’s he bent on bringing the United States of America down, or at least that he definitely doesn’t love the country and the Constitution (nudge nudge) the way they do; that he’s not a legitimate occupant of the Oval Office to start with. At the time he was sworn in to his second term, 64 percent of Republicans agreed that Obama was “hiding important information” about his background. Half thought in December 2012 that he stole the election.
At this point some of you may be protesting: but at least Clinton did commit a crime, however lame a crime it was. Obama has done no such thing. Again, in reality-land, no, he hasn’t. In their land, however, he has committed a string of them; he just hasn’t been caught yet. And that’s what Darrell Issa and his committee are there to unearth. Besides, he need commit no conventional crime. A high crime or misdemeanor is whatever the House majority decides it is. Remember, in January 1998, impeachment talk started before Clinton had perjured himself.
There is no end to it. And there is no end to Republican figures—and to a distressing extent, the mainstream media—feeding the crazy. When Lindsey Graham calls Benghazi “Obama’s Watergate,” he knows exactly what he’s saying, and so do Republicans in South Carolina, and across the country. And observe over the next few days—it’s already happening—how quickly journalistic shorthand, certainly in the right-wing media, converts the Cincinnati IRS office into “Obama’s IRS,” as if he were sitting around like Nixon personally targeting these groups. You and I know that’s absurd. But on the right, it’s a given that he was doing exactly that.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/12/the-coming-attempt-to-impeach-obama.html
How the GOP cast Obama as Gatsby (minus the parties)
He’s a flawed, handsome idealist with a puzzling life story, hounded by his enemies as a sinister outsider
By Andrew O’Hehir
One of the biggest differences between F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and Baz Luhrmann’s overblown new movie version, as Richard Brody of the New Yorker has pointed out, is that Fitzgerald’s book was (among many other things) a work of prescient social criticism, published at the very height of the Roaring ’20s boom, whose dark side he saw so clearly. A few years later, the stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression would smash all the champagne glasses, exposing the Gatsby-scaled dream of ever-widening affluence (which was only ever available to white Americans above the poverty class) as a mass delusion.
Luhrmann’s “Gatsby” may have similar ambitions, but it reaches us at a different kind of historical moment, several years after a major crash, when we apparently haven’t learned our lessons or abandoned our delusions. Our culture seems more fixated than ever before on the specter of immense wealth, even as the gap between rich and poor widens to levels never imagined in Jay Gatsby’s time. Polls suggest that the public no longer associates working hard with getting rich, and depending on your perspective, that either reflects a decline in morality or an increase in comprehension. Gatsby himself is everywhere as a cultural signifier; every briefly famous rapper, overpaid athlete or reality-TV sensation is following in the footsteps of onetime North Dakota farm boy James C. Gatz, whether they know it or not.
Arguably we don’t need a new movie of “The Great Gatsby,” both because we already had a better screen Gatsby this year (James Franco’s chrome-grilled Florida rapper in “Spring Breakers”) and because the story keeps welling up all over the place as a defining myth of American life. One of the problems the Republican Party faces in its relentless, boats-against-the-current quest to marginalize and demonize Barack Obama is that the Right has half-consciously cast the president, in our delusional theater of national politics, in the tragic-heroic, doomed-but-appealing role of Jay Gatsby.
Bear with me a minute; it’s not as crazy as it sounds. Obama-as-Gatsby is a charismatic and good-looking outsider who rose from obscure origins through a process of self-invention. His life story has some murky passages and – as people who write all-caps emails love to remind the staff of left-leaning online publications – even his name has been subject to change. One could argue that the Hawaiian-born child of two peripatetic intellectuals had to learn to play the role of big-city African-American politician just as much as Jimmy Gatz had to learn to play an old-money “Oxford man.”
In the book, Gatsby’s likable personality and ostentatious display turn out to be a front for old-fashioned organized crime — and specifically for Jewish gangster Meyer Wolfsheim, whom Fitzgerald closely modeled on Arnold Rothstein, the real-life racketeer who really did fix the 1919 World Series. In various more-or-less paranoid forms, the Right has long suggested something similar about Obama, who is seen as the smiling face of sinister alien forces: A Kenyan-born, crypto-Muslim, Red-inoculated 1960s radical whose real bosses are Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Malcolm X and — I don’t know — the stuffed corpse of Lenin.
Of course there’s one glaring difference between Obama and Gatsby, which feeds into the obvious current of racial bigotry and panic behind the obsessive Right-wing quest to tar Obama as a “fake president” who is fundamentally un-American and to block even his most routine appointments or legislative measures: While the GOP leadership in Congress is slightly too savvy to openly endorse far-right, birther-type conspiracy theories, plenty of prominent Republican members have wandered into that territory in nod-and-wink, “just asking questions” mode. I’m inclined to believe that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are spineless, soulless political insects rather than crazy people (although that’s open to debate), but their party represents a deranged and deeply racist base of true believers who would give nearly anything to escape from this Philip K. Dick alternate universe where a you-know-what could actually wind up in the White House.
This too is present in “The Great Gatsby.” If the Republicans have assigned Obama the part of Gatsby, they’ve locked themselves into the unhappy role of Tom Buchanan, the brutish, old-money white supremacist. We like Gatsby, or at least Nick Carraway, the book’s narrator, does his best to convince us to like him: There’s something innocent about Gatsby’s brazen ambition, his phoniness, even his corruption. Nobody likes Tom, whose attempt to brand Gatsby as an outsider who doesn’t belong in high society is closely tied to his repeated references to a paranoid racial jeremiad called “The Rise of the Colored Empires.” (Fitzgerald was evidently thinking of historian Lothrop Stoddard’s notorious “The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy,” a hot cocktail-party topic in the 1920s that retains a covert following on the anti-immigration Right today.)
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/11/how_the_gop_cast_obama_as_gatsby_minus_the_parties/?source=newsletter
oh my…
yum yum yum
that’s so sweet. Happy Mother’s Day
My kids are so darling. I love them so much. They fired up the grill today. And they brought me Cake, Flowers, an Edible arrangement with Pineapple, Strawberries and Grapes. I am so spoiled! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbT16AW6lbQ
Great question, FLOTUS.
Love & Hip Hop Atlanta is General Hospital with Microphones
April 30, 2013 by Danielle C. Belton
There was a moment last night during the latest episode of Love & Hip Hop Atlanta that further revealed how less and less the show cares about looking “real” and is about getting cool staged, stunt shots – like the kind you’d see in traditional, scripted television – to push the storyline.
It involved a woman’s legs, apart and slightly out of focus, and Lil Scrappy’s ex-pimp mother getting out of a car between them in the distance. It was classic story staging through film 101, ending with the ex-pimp giving Lil Scrappy’s former lover the once over before having her get into her car, then confusing her with a lot of mind-wash mumbo jumbo (as pimps are wont to do) in order to execute her plan of disrupting Scrappy looming marriage to his long-time girlfriend Erica.
Love & Hip Hop Atlanta, now in its second season, doesn’t care anymore about being a “reality” show in the traditional sense as they’ve long since stopped doing what other reality shows do. They no longer cling to the patina of “realness” by hewing to the “documentary style” that gives the illusion of reality and real-time interactions. It’s not that the occasional emotion isn’t real, but everything else is an obvious scripted set-up, no different from your grandmother’s “stories.” And Love & Hip Hop Atlanta is the most soap opera looking, feeling, sounding, acting and staged of any reality show.
http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2013/04/love-hip-hop-atlanta-is-general-hospital-with-microphones/
Published on Jan 8, 2013
Trailer for the new short film, SCHOOL OF MY DREAMS, from EMMY-winning Out of The Blue Films, Inc. and Executive Producer Deborah Santana. An engaging portrait of students of Daraja Academy, a free Kenyan boarding school for exceptional girls living in poverty. In their own words and art, Daraja’s first graduating class demonstrates how education is expanding their vision and unlocking their dreams. They commit to transforming their communities and the world.
http://youtu.be/YfHTRrk8FEc
TPMDC
Can The Jihadi Geek Squad Secure The Web For Al Qaeda?
Hunter Walker May 10, 2013, 6:00 PM
The Global Islamic Media Front Technical Center is a group of mysterious programmers with links to Al Qaeda who claim to be trying to arm jihadists with digital weaponry. These high tech terrorists have released a series of plugins that purportedly encrypt instant messages to help mujahideen avoid surveillance while communicating online. However, it’s unclear if this Jihadi cryptography software is effective. In fact, experts said these programs may do would-be terrorists more harm than good by leaving behind traceable, digital breadcrumbs and even possibly exposing them to dangerous trojan horse downloads planted by law enforcement.
In February, the “Global Islamic Media Front Technical Center” released a program called “Asrar al-Dardashah,” or “Chat Secret.” It was billed as “the first Islamic program for encrypted instant messaging.”
“Allah has facilitated in the technical field its designing of the program Asrar al-Mujahideen. It is a program for encrypted text conversations, thereby recording a distinct development in Jihadi media,” declared a press release on the GIMF Technical Center website. “Asrar al-Dardashah offers the highest levels of encryption for secure communication through instant messaging.”
Asrar al-Dardashah works with an earlier piece of software released by the GIMF Technical Center in 2007, “Asrar al-Mujahideen,” or “Mujahideen Secret.” All of the GIMF Technical Center messaging programs employ so-called public-key encryption. This method involves users maintaining two sets of digital keys, a public one they exchange with those they are messaging with and a private key they do not expose to anyone else. A person sending a message will encrypt it with the intended recipient’s public key and it can only be decrypted using the corresponding private key. Public-key encryption is one of the most common forms of cryptography currently used for internet communications.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/05/the-jihadi-geek-squad.php?ref=fpblg
An Open Letter To Moms from Kid President
http://youtu.be/pQ4Rnba85o8
A look at the Republican Benghazi talking points as they’ve been laid out so far
Sat May 11, 2013 2:00 PM EDT
Depending on the day, depending on which hour of Fox News you’re watching, there are a number of different ways, that the right has tried to make the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya into a political scandal. Sometimes they say: IT WASN’T A SPONTANEOUS ATTACK! IT WAS PLANNED!
Sometimes they say: WHO CHANGED THE TALKING POINTS!!
Sometimes they say: WHY DID YOU NOT CALL IT AN ACT OF TERROR!
Sometimes they say: WHY WERE YOU NOT BETTER PREPARED FOR THE ATTACK!
Sometimes they say: WHY DID THE MILITARY NOT RESPOND
We know the answer, now, to why they said it was a spontaneous attack. The answer is they were wrong. But the intelligence community thought it was a spontaneous attack and said so in the talking points that they gave to the administration (pdf). That was the initial assessment, it was wrong, and when they realized it was wrong, they said so, and stopped describing it that way. That happened right away
On this one, “Why did the president not call it an act of terror!” Mitt Romney tried to gotcha the president with that at the debates, remember? The problem was that the president did call it terror, right away, the day after the attacks. In public. On tape:
“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.
So, that one’s answered to — they did call it an act of terror. Right away. Immediately.
As for why the military did not respond to stop the attack, the military has also answered that one. The then-secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, did, back in February:
“There was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond.”
And then there’s this one:
Who changed the talking points! -the intelligence community talking points for administration officials in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
They were sent around to the FBI, the State Department, the White House — the e-mail chain showing the initial draft and the revision process was sent to members of congress a couple of months ago, while they were considering the nomination of the new CIA Director. So they have had this for a couple of months, showing these revisions. ABC published them today as a smoking gun, and all the Republicans purported to be outraged by what was in them! Shocked! Impeach! But they have had them for a couple of months, and never said anything about them before.
And that leaves this: Why were we not better prepared for the attack? Right? Good question. And that was the point. That was the unsparing and damning conclusion of the inquiry into what happened in Benghazi — headed up by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, and veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering. Tasked with an independent comprehensive review (pdf) of what went wrong, they found that the State Department had a “security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi, and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”
It condemned “systemic failures in leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels” of the State Department.
When that report came out, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she accepted all the report’s recommendations without reservation, and she accepted full responsibility:
“As I have said many times, I take responsibility, and nobody is more committed to getting this right. I am determined to leave the State Department and our country, safer stronger and more secure.”
That was back in January, after the official report came out, cataloging the one actually outstanding question from what happened in Benghazi. The same question that could be, and is, asked every time one of our diplomatic facilities abroad is attacked. This is still the outstanding matter — the administration accepted all the recommendations of the report on this as a problem and is implementing those recommendations now. But today, impeach! All of a sudden. Impeach! We’ll figure out why later, I guess.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/11/18184149-a-look-at-the-republican-benghazi-talking-points-as-theyve-been-laid-out-so-far?lite
Maya Angelou, India.Arie Set for Oprah’s ‘Super Soul Sunday’
Posted in Books, Commemorations, Entertainment, Holidays, Media/Internet, Non-Fiction, Philanthropy, TV by goodblacknews
oprah dr angelouIn the first of a special two-part event, Oprah Winfrey sits down with her mentor, acclaimed writer, author and poet Dr. Maya Angelou, on her Emmy-winning series “Super Soul Sunday,” premiering Mother’s Day, May 12 from 11 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. ET/PT on OWN.
In this candid conversation, Oprah’s “mother-sister-friend” opens up about forgiveness, family, and the rich relationship they’ve shared for more than thirty-five years.
Discussing her latest book “Mom & Me & Mom,” Dr. Angelou delves into one of the deepest personal stories of her life: her relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter. Dr. Angelou also reveals intimate stories from her childhood, including how her nurturing, yet fiery, mother challenged her to find strength in the face of adversity.
This season’s “Super Soul Sunday” line-up continues with all-new inspirational episodes airing every Sunday (from 11:00-12:00p.m.) on OWN, including:
May 19- “Oprah & Dr. Maya Angelou, Part Two”
Oprah’s heart-to -heart conversation continues with acclaimed author, Dr. Maya Angelou. Discussing her latest book, “Mom & Me & Mom”, Dr. Angelou reveals how her tough, but tender-hearted mother transformed her life. Plus, she shares her insights on aging brilliantly, and how love can liberate you.
May 26- “The Bigger Picture with Oprah, Rev Ed Bacon, Elizabeth Lesser & Mark Nepo”
Join Oprah and three dynamic thought leaders for the first installment of ‘The Bigger Picture,’ a Super Soul Sunday panel discussion about today’s top global headlines, bringing unique and thoughtful perspective to world news topics ranging from prescription drugs to terrorism, gun violence, and our fascination with celebrity culture.
June 2- “Oprah & Dr. Brian Weiss: Reincarnation, Past Lives and Miracles”
Groundbreaking psychiatrist and best-selling author of “Many Lives, Many Masters” tells Oprah of how he came to practice past life regression therapy.
June 9- “Oprah & Karen Armstrong, Part One”
Former Roman Catholic nun and best-selling religious historian Karen Armstrong, who created TED’s Charter for Compassion, reveals her life story and why she is on a mission to build greater compassion in the world.
June 16- “Oprah & Coach Phil Jackson”
Widely considered one of the greatest American basketball coaches in history, 11 time NBA Championship coach Phil Jackson opens up to Oprah like you’ve never seen him before, talking about his strict upbringing, his coaching philosophy as it relates to life lessons and his battle with cancer.
June 23- “Oprah & Grammy-Award Winner India.Arie: Spiritual Awakening”
Grammy Award-winning musician and songstress India.Arie sits down with Oprah for a truly spiritual and heart-opening conversation where she reveals her downward spiral after being shut out of her first Grammy nominations. Arie talks about what was holding her back and how she broke through. Plus, Arie performs a very special song from her new album.
June 30- “Oprah & Grammy-Award Winner India.Arie: How to Break Through”
The India.Arie conversation continues as she addresses a recent controversy that landed her in the headlines. She explains her spiritual awakening in Hawaii, talks about love relationships and why she chose to trust her intuition.
http://goodblacknews.org/2013/05/11/maya-angelou-india-arie-set-for-oprahs-super-soul-sunday/#more-4575
Enjoyed Maya’s one-one with Oprah this morning. Definitely want to see India Irie’s one-one.
I really like this Col. Wilkerson.
http://youtu.be/UkUqYhvJyVw
http://youtu.be/yTxH4Px-lNY
http://youtu.be/stJox3xK1JM
DAR in Norwalk Makes History with 1st African-American Regent Autier Allen-Craft
Autier Allen-Craft, the first African-American member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Connecticut, was inducted last week as regent of Norwalk-Village Green Chapter, according to a statement from the group.
“There are many African-American women who are not aware that they have Patriot ancestors,” Allen-Craft said. “An estimated 5,000 black soldiers fought on the patriot side during the Revolutionary War. Their female ancestors are entitled to become members of the CTDAR. My goal is to assist African-Americans, as well as any other resident of Norwalk who believes she is a descendant, become a member.”
As the new regent, Allen-Craft said she is looking forward to growing the chapter’s membership.
“Our registrar will help compile the research material and submit the required paperwork needed to become members of the Norwalk-Village Green Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. We welcome all inquiries.”
Allen-Craft is the second African-American to become a regent in Connecticut. Also, at the 120th annual state conference in Hartford on March 23, she was elected to the position of the South Western District director for the state of Connecticut.
For the past two years, Allen-Craft has been vice regent for the Norwalk-Village Green Chapter, working with Pat Rubino, the outgoing regent.
The Norwalk-Village Green Chapter was organized on Dec. 16, 1892. The society is made up of women who can trace their lineage back to one or more of the Revolutionary patriots. In keeping with a focus on history, education and patriotism, the local chapter was responsible for erecting many of the historical markers and monuments commemorating the history of Norwalk.
Allen-Craft’s two children, Jaylen and Aren Craft, belong to the Captain Stephen Betts Society of the Children of the American Revolution. They are the first African-American members in the state of Connecticut.
http://goodblacknews.org/2013/05/11/dar-in-norwalk%E2%80%88makes-history-with-1st-african-american-regent-autier-allen-craft/
Good Morning, Everyone :)
To all the Mothers…
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
Good Morning, Everyone. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! :-))
Good morning, 3Chics! Happy Mother’s Day to all the beautiful Mothers!
I love you so much, Mama!
I miss your love and your hugs. Your arms were such a safe haven. I long for them everyday.
Happy Mother’s Day!