Today’s featured Girls Group are THE CHIFFONS.
He’s So Fine
One Fine Day-1963
2000 PBS Special
More Chiffon hits
-
-
Black Girls Rock!
Flickr Photos
-
Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
-
-
-
-
-
AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
-
-
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.
-
3Chics Action Alert
Lets Make It Happen
3 Chics Trio
-
REALITY Blog Award
Recent Comments
Top Posts
Guard The Change
Vote 4 Democrats
-
-
-
Go to the polls
President Barack Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama
Obama Love
Your Vote Matters
President Obama & Bo
The Obama Family
-
-
-
-
Presidential hug
-
thanks for this.
Tapper and Co. Outsmarted again. If they’d get out of their training diapers and strap on the jock straps, they’d wise up and realize they cannot and will not DEFEAT this president.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeykvNFAxCY
Liberal Librarian
May 14, 2013 at 8:22 pm
I really am starting to think that the God in whom I have my doubts has a soft spot for that Obama fella.
How Citizens United Came Back to Bite Teabaggers in the Ass
Monday, May 13, 2013 | Posted by Spandan C at 2:20 PM
That’s the way the story about the IRS giving extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups sounded to me. For all the concerns about the IRS’ Cincinnati office’s higher-than-usual scrutiny of Teabagger groups, here’s something that’s gone unnoticed in all the reportage about the story:
The appendix of the inspector general’s report — which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released — chronicles the extent to which the IRS’s exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of “social welfare” groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision allowed corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums on elections as well as register for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, as long as their “primary purpose” was not targeting electoral candidates.
The number of political groups applying for tax-exempt status more than doubled in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, forcing agency officials to make a slew of determinations despite uncertainty about the category’s ambiguous definition.
Citizens United was a group that basically were the Tea Party before it came to be known as the Tea Party. It was that case that made it possible for overly political groups to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on politics and still be tax exempt – which, by the way, created a huge, tax-payer subsidized sector of political speech – and in turn created room for the extra scrutiny under the IRS.
This isn’t to make excuses for the IRS’ practices. In fact, the President himself has repudiated the activities alleged in the news reports. Nonetheless, this is a case of being careful of what one wishes for. When a conservative Supreme Court overruled a century of campaign finance jurisprudence and declared that money is free speech, it would have been naive to think that such influx wouldn’t create any systematic problems. What is going unnoticed is that these things happened in the immediate aftermath of the Citizens United decision. The decision suddenly cleared the way for tax exempt political organizations, but supposedly we are all supposed to be shocked that it took regulators some time to set broad standards, causing chaos in the mean time.
Make no mistake, that is exactly what happened. Nor, as the fog of media barrage is telling you, were Tea Party groups the only targets of special scrutiny post Citizens United. We head back to the Washington Post’s original story on the Inspector General’s report (a report that is not yet publicly available). The following should provide some clarification on the timeline.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/05/how-citizens-united-came-back-to-bite.html
The CBO’s Projected Budget Deficits Just Shrank by Hundreds of Billions of Dollars
The Congressional Budget Office just did a new series of baseline budget deficit projections (PDF) and they’re a lot lower than the old ones. The short-term deficit, in particular, is way lower. We’re looking at a $643 billion deficit for 2013 rather than an $845 billion one. That’s about half higher-than-expected tax revenues and about half higher-than-expected payouts from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In both cases what we’re seeing is that a stronger-than-expected economy leads to a smaller-than-expected deficit.
But they’re also revising the 10-year deficit forecast down by $618 billion, primarily because of the slowdown in health care spending.
Now the trick here is that the important budget deficit problem is actually outside the 10-year window. The current projection has the deficit shrinking for the next couple of years and then growing again. That leaves us with a very manageable 2024 deficit. The problem is that it’s trending upward. And nothing in this revised projection changes that fact. Under current law, the deficit will bottom out in a few years and then grow and grow forever.
The flipside, though, is that there’s really no need to panic or think that there has to be a grand bargain. What we need are more measures to reduce the cost of health care and more measures to boost economic growth.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/14/may_cbo_update_the_deficit_is_way_smaller_than_we_thought.html
Coming Cuts to Safety Net Hospitals Reinforce Importance of Medicaid Expansion
May 14, 2013 at 2:50 pm
Health reform cuts supplemental Medicaid payments for hospitals that serve many low-income and uninsured patients because the need for such payments should shrink as more low-income people gain coverage through the law’s Medicaid expansion. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has now issued a proposed rule to allocate these cuts among the states — and the rule makes clear that adopting the Medicaid expansion is the right choice for states.
That’s true for two reasons. First, under health reform the federal government will largely pay for the Medicaid expansion. Second, the states will face cuts in these hospital payments — the so-called “disproportionate share hospital” (DSH) payments — whether or not they expand Medicaid.
Health reform cuts DSH payments by $18.1 billion through 2020. The cuts start at $500 million in fiscal year 2014, when the Medicaid expansion first takes effect, but they grow sharply in later years, to $5.6 billion in 2019 and $4 billion in 2020.
Under the proposed rule, which applies to fiscal years 2014 and 2015, the size of each state’s cut will largely reflect the number of uninsured in the state and how well the state targets its DSH payments to hospitals with the most Medicaid and uninsured patients. (Under health reform, President Obama and Congress directed HHS to take these factors into account in apportioning the cuts.) A state’s decision whether to expand Medicaid will not be a factor.
To be sure, a state’s decision on the Medicaid expansion will likely affect its number of uninsured in coming years. If HHS continues to take the number of uninsured people into account in allocating the cuts after 2015, states that don’t expand Medicaid could see somewhat smaller DSH cuts than other states because they will have more uninsured. But, given the magnitude of the total cut in later years, such states will still face substantial DSH funding cuts.
The bottom line?
Hospitals and low-income people in states that expand Medicaid will be far better off. Hospitals will gain much more in payments for the care they provide to large numbers of low-income people who will gain insurance through the expansion than they may lose in DSH payments. And low-income people will be much better off with health coverage than if they remained uninsured.
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/coming-cuts-to-safety-net-hospitals-reinforce-importance-of-medicaid-expansion/
Why Washington scandal-mania may save Medicare and Social Security
By Greg Sargent, Published: May 14, 2013 at 3:41 pmE-mail the writer
The Monica Lewinsky scandal may have helped save Social Security in the late 1990s. Now the scandal fever currently gripping Washington — IRS, Benghazi, Associated Press phone records — may save Social Security and Medicare two decades later.
Liberals who are dreading the scandal-mania that is taking hold should note that it contains a potential upside: It could make a Grand Bargain that includes cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits even less likely than it already is. That’s because when scandal grips Washington, a president actually needs his core supporters more than ever to ward it off, making it harder to do anything that will alienate them.
There is precedent for this. President Bill Clinton long entertained ambitions to dramatically reform Social Security, but those plans were shelved amid the Lewinsky crisis. While there is some argument over whether the crisis was the cause, it did make him more reluctant to alienate Democratic supporters. As John Harris put it in his book about the Clinton presidency: “Come 1998, when Clinton needed every Democratic vote possible in order to survive the Republican attack over Monica Lewinsky, the work of challenging his own ground to a halt. He had no political latitude to push for the reform of the entitlement programs for the aged.”
To be sure, the current state of scandal mania in Washington is still light years away from the late 1990s. There’s no telling how serious the IRS and Associated Press stories will prove or whether they’ll ever be directly tied to Obama himself, while Clinton was directly on the hook for perjury and sexual conduct. But if the Obama scandal train continues down the track — as Paul Waldman argues persuasively that it will — it will likely make any Grand Bargain a virtual impossibility.
Indeed, some leading liberals and labor officials are hoping this proves to be the case if the scandals continue. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with this scandal talk,” Mike Lux, a leading progressive strategist who fought in the Clinton impeachment wars, tells me. “But one thing I do know from the Clinton years is that presidents need their bases completely fired up and fighting for them when the scandal stuff hits. Anything that President Obama does to alienate the base, like cutting Medicare and Social Security, would hurt him badly when he needs the base to the maximum. The scandal talk makes a Grand Bargain less likely.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/14/why-washington-scandal-mania-may-save-medicare-and-social-security/
Someone Ought to Mention
by BooMan
Tue May 14th, 2013 at 03:04:33 PM EST
It’s probably worth noting that all these Tea Party groups that sprouted up seeking 501(c)(4) status were frauds. They weren’t doing anything illegal, although it should be illegal. The 501(c)(4) designation is for groups that can be fairly described as “social welfare organizations” or “local associations of employees.” Your average Tea Party group is neither of those things. When you start describing anti-tax fanaticism as social welfare, you’ve allowed everything to be social welfare. “We’re a social welfare group that tries to deny people access to health care!”
Give me a break.
The other thing about 501(c)(4) groups is that they have to be for-profit and they can’t have a primarily political purpose. Does that sound like a Tea Party group to you?
Maybe if the Republicans funded the IRS at an adequate level and didn’t deluge them with bullshit tax-avoidence schemes, the agency wouldn’t feel compelled to take short cuts.
Of course, the IRS will be lucky if they can keep the lights on by the time the GOP gets done with them.
Lunatics.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/5/14/15229/2561
SG2,
another gif courtesy of POU
I’m sure you will find situations where this is appropriate
http://celebdailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/oprah-shade-birthday.gif
bwa ha ha ha ha ha…I love it! TYVM!
Pingback: Serendipity SOUL | Tuesday Open Thread | Girl Groups of the 60s … | The Mod Generation
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
WHPC is so pissed off the IRS and AP story didn’t leak in 2012. Newsflash, Pres. Obama would still have won the election. Data shows that.
12:16 PM – 14 May 2013
john miller @deaconmill
Difference between Plame case & AP case? Bush admin didn’t want leaker discovered in Plame case. This admin cares about national security
12:12 PM – 14 May 2013
Bobfr @Our4thEstate
Bad news to whoever leaked CIA classified info, DOJ didn’t just begin their investigation with the @AP subpoena. Lawyer up.
12:01 PM – 14 May 2013
DOJ and HHS News Conference
Attorney General Eric Holder and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius brief reporters on the efforts to combat Medicare fraud. Questions from reporters focus on the DOJ’s investigation targeting phone records and data from the Associated Press.
C-Span video: http://www.c-span.org/
Q & As for Holder start around the 20 minute mark.
Jake Tapper blows a hole in Benghazi `scandal’
By Greg Sargent, Published: May 14, 2013 at 1:36 pmE-mail the writer
submit to reddit
CNN’s Jake Tapper scoops:
CNN has obtained an email sent by a top aide of President Barack Obama, in which the aide discusses the Obama administration reaction to the attack on the U.S. posts in Benghazi, Libya. The actual email differs from how sources were inaccurately quoted and paraphrased in previous media accounts.
The significance of the email seems to be that whomever leaked the inaccurate information earlier this month did so in a way that made it appear that the White House – specifically deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes – was more interested in the State Department’s desire to remove mentions of specific terrorist groups and warnings about these groups so as to not bring criticism to the State Department than Rhodes’ email actually stated.
The actual email is right here. The key portion is this:
“There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.”
Tapper says that ABC News, in its scoop last week, quoted from this email in a way that suggests more of an administration emphasis on resolving the State Department’s concerns with the talking points — i.e., that State wanted to remove mentions of specific terror groups and cut the CIA’s warnings about previous attacks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/14/jake-tapper-blows-a-hole-in-benghazi-scandal/
Looking a bit deeper into the DOJ/AP story
So now we know that President Obama is in for a rough ride with attacks from all sides – Benghazi on the right and the DOJ/AP controversy on the left. Oh, and a little IRS screw-up thrown into the mix. WOW!
As I said yesterday, I’m avoiding the whole Benghazi hysteria. So sue me – but this DOJ thing grabbed my attention. I think it deserves a look.
Perhaps one of the things that has caught my interest is that it seems to be separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to liberal pundits. Take a look – for example – at the measured response from people like Steve Benen and Greg Sargent. Then take a look at the hair-on-fire response from Michael Tomasky and Charles Pierce – both of whom jumped head first into the hysteria by calling for AG Eric Holder’s head on a platter.
What makes the reaction of Tomasky and Pierce so hypocritical is that both of them excoriated the Obama administration for jumping the gun in firing Shirley Sherrod before all the information on her speech to the NAACP was available. You can’t win with these guys – when the going gets tough, they are hysteria-mongers.
In following this story, its going to be important to watch reporters who are being fair-minded – that’s because this story is about the press itself and the defensive posturing about it has already resulted in many of them making ridiculous statements about it. To understand how bad it is – one need only look at a tweet like this:
The ignorance there burns! For example, D Elsberg was a military analyst – not a journalist. Not to mention that its a government leaker (ie, NOT whistleblower) that is the target here rather than the AP itself.
If you want a pretty good run-down on the whole AP phone records situation, please read the NYT story by Charlie Savage and Leslie Kaufman and the Think Progress story by Hayes Brown. Here’s what caught my eye from the latter.
…by reporting the CIA’s involvement in foiling the plot, they put AQAP on notice that the CIA had a window into their activities. The AP’s reporting also led to other stories involving an operative in place within AQAP, and details of the operations he was involved in. That operative, it was feared, would be exposed and targeted by AQAP as retribution for siding with the United States.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/05/looking-bit-deeper-into-dojap-story.html
Leave it to SmartyPants to bring some semblance of order out of the chaos.
GOP’s problems with Latinos could get much, much worse
By Jamelle Bouie, Published: May 14, 2013 at 11:43 amE-mail the writer
submit to reddit
Given the current scandal-mania, it’s no surprise this went under the radar, but in Florida, the GOP’s state director of Hispanic outreach, Pablo Pantoja, has resigned his position, left the Republican Party, and changed his party identification to “Democrat.”
His reasoning is straightforward: For all the focus on outreach to Latino communities, Pantoja believes that there is a “culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party.” In a letter, he cites the recent revelations surrounding Jason Richwine, a former scholar at the Heritage Foundation, and his ideas on race and intelligence. “Although the organization distanced themselves from those assertions,” writes Pantoja, “other immigration-related research is still padded with the same racist and eugenics-based innuendo.”
And then there’s also all the GOP rhetoric about immigration. It’s not hard to find examples of prominent Republicans using racially-loaded terms like “anchor babies” and “illegals” to describe unauthorized Latino immigrants and their children. Indeed, the Republican presidential primaries were soaked with derogatory rhetoric towards immigrants, and one candidate — Texas Governor Rick Perry — began his slide to defeat after he expressed sympathy for the children of unauthorized immigrants.
Pantoja’s departure from the Republican Party is instructive. Not only does it illustrate the dynamic of the last four years — where Latino voters responded to negative Republican rhetoric by going further into the Democratic camp — but the potential dynamic of the next decade. As Greg noted earlier this morning, conservative Republicans in the Senate are preparing to introduce a variety of “poison pill” amendments to the immigration bill — which is happening right now as we speak — designed to make the package unpalatable to supporters. Likewise, House Republicans have yet to offer their support to a comprehensive bill.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/14/gops-problems-with-latinos-could-get-much-much-worse/
From Sepia
Attorney General Holder is a BAWSE!
During the press briefing, he said that he recused himself from the AP leak investigation and that Deputy Attorney General signed off on the subpoena. AG Holder also said that the leak “was very serious” and poised a threat to the American people. He was very adamant about how serious that leak was, which made me think of what POUers have been saying: that there’s something going on behind the scenes. One reporter asked AG Holder if AP was the only news org whose phone records were subpoenaed. He said he didn’t know because he was recused. I think the entire Beltway Media shat on themselves.
Jaden Smith Wants to Be Emancipated for His Birthday
Moviefone | By Jenni Miller
Posted: 05/14/2013 11:30 am EDT | Updated: 05/14/2013 11:36 am EDT
Will Smith has revealed that his “After Earth” co-star and son Jaden has asked to be legally emancipated for his 15th birthday.
Although this seems like it would be a difficult gift to put a bow on, Smith seems OK with the idea -– or at least cool enough to laugh it off. Smith told The Sun, “[Jaden] says, ‘Dad, I want to be emancipated.’ I know if we do this, he can be an emancipated minor, because he really wants to have his own place, like ooh…”
Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, are known for their laid-back approach to parenting. As Smith notes, “That’s the backlash. On the other side, if kids just want to have command of their lives, I understand.” Plenty of folks have tisk-tisk’d over the Smith kids and their choices, like Willow’s punky style, but the method seems to be working well for the family. And they’re definitely a successful bunch so far, from Jaden’s acting career to Willow’s music moves.
http://news.moviefone.com/2013/05/14/jaden-smith-emancipated_n_3272800.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D312717
I wouldn’t do this with my children, but I’m not going to judgeJada and Will for their choice.
Long Lost Sisters Reunite at High School Track Meet
Long lost sisters Jordan Dickerson and Robin Jeter had lived in the same city for 17 years, but they never crossed paths until their high schools faced off at a Washington DC track meet.
The two teens began to suspect they had more than sports in common when Dickerson’ teammates at Woodrow Wilson High School noticed that a rival runner from Friendship Collegiate Academy bore a striking resemblance to their friend.
“Everyone was saying, ‘It’s your twin, look at your twin over there!'” Dickerson’s mother, Patrice Dickerson, told ABC News of the chance encounter. “They were freaked out by how much they resembled each other.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/long-lost-sisters-reunite-high-school-track-meet/story?id=19169722#.UZKBHLMo4dU
FINALLY!!!
A DEMOCRAT SAYS WHAT SHOULDA BEEN SAID FROM DAY ONE.
………………………………………..
‘Start by looking in the mirror’
By Steve Benen
Tue May 14, 2013 12:40 PM EDT
On “Meet the Press” the other day, David Gregory asked House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) a question that’s often ignored in the Benghazi debate. The host reminded the congressman about the attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts abroad and asked, “[I]sn’t this Congress’s job to spend the money to beef up security?”
Issa delivered a rambling, 240-word response that never answered the question. Frank Rich noted that if Issa keeps pushing the pseudo scandal, “he’ll need an answer, not a filibuster,” as to why Congress cut funding for U.S. security at embassies and consulates.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said House Republicans needed to “look in the mirror” on who is to blame for the “Benghazi scandal.”
“Start by looking in the mirror,” Boxer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “Admit that you cut too much from embassy security.” […]
“It takes funding to protect a consulate,” Boxer said. “Who cut the funds from embassy security, the Republicans in the House … so I think the ‘Benghazi scandal’ starts with the House Republicans.” […]”They cannot stand the heat so they turn it on Secretary Clinton and that is wrong,” Boxer said. “It starts with the fact that there wasn’t enough security and there wasn’t enough security because the budget was cut.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/14/18252482-start-by-looking-in-the-mirror?lite
That Didn’t Work
by BooMan
Tue May 14th, 2013 at 12:04:27 PM EST
It’s pretty bad when you send a man to Florida to do outreach to the Latino community on behalf of the Republican National Committee, and within months that man quits his job and becomes a Democrat because he discovers that the GOP is too racist. But that’s exactly what just happened. The man’s name is Pablo Pantoja, and it seems like the Heritage Foundation’s report on the immigration reform bill was the last straw. So, score another win for Jim DeMint.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/5/14/12427/4517
Sari Horwitz @SariHorwitz48s
DAG Jim Cole made the AP phone records decision because AG Holder was interviewed by the FBI in this case and recused himself from decision.
Sari Horwitz @SariHorwitz3m
A Justice Dept. official has just confirmed that AG Holder recused himself from AP phonerecords decision. It was made by Deputy AG Jim Cole.
Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World
Last Updated: 11:46 AM, May 14, 2013
They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable.
Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned.
Rich moms shamelessly hire disabled tour guides so their kids can cut long lines.
The “black-market Disney guides” run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day.
“My daughter waited one minute to get on ‘It’s a Small World’ — the other kids had to wait 2 1/2 hours,” crowed one mom, who hired a disabled guide through Dream Tours Florida.
“You can’t go to Disney without a tour concierge,’’ she sniffed. “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”
The woman said she hired a Dream Tours guide to escort her, her husband and their 1-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter through the park in a motorized scooter with a “handicapped” sign on it. The group was sent straight to an auxiliary entrance at the front of each attraction.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/disney_world_srich_kid_outrage_zTBA0xrvZRkIVc1zItXGDP
Imani ABL @AngryBlackLady
Holder has been ride or die for civil rights and voting rights. Maybe that has something to do with Republicans’ zeal to see him ousted?
9:54 AM – 14 May 2013
LOL Too many NEGROES in HIGH-PROFILE leadership positions. Yes; we know it’s MUCH too MUCH for the 2520s. TOO effing BAD.
Prince Othello @BLKSUPERMAN6111m
@DaleMoss2 @docrocktex26 half Amerikkka still hasn’t gotten used to a black quarterback much less a black POTUS and AG
I refuse to let the BASTARDS (Rethuglicans, PRESS) get me down. It’s too beautiful a mourning!
https://twitter.com/carolmaewy/status/334320694634635265
Later, I have to go. I have a life!
My Initial Take on the Associated Press Thing
by BooMan
Tue May 14th, 2013 at 10:21:51 AM EST
I have now perused the New York Times and the Washington Post, and I checked out Steve Benen, Steve M., Jeralyn, and Kevin Drum. All of this, in an effort to get my head around the controversy about the Department of Justice’s subpoena of the Associated Press’s phone logs over a two month period last May. There are a lot of angles to this story and I feel like I need a timeline to really suss it out.
The key to understanding whether this was justified is going to be John Brennan, who is now the Director of Central Intelligence, but who was then the president’s National Security Advisor. The most important component of this whole thing was concern for the safety of a CIA agent who had penetrated an al-Qaeda cell in Yemen. There were two elements to this concern. The first was to keep knowledge that we had an agent from becoming public knowledge, and the second was to protect the agent once the first effort failed.
When the Associated Press ran a story on a foiled plot by the Yemeni cell, John Brennan was accused of being the source. But that was the end of a process, and a lot had been going on behind the scenes with the White House trying to convince the AP not to publish.
The political element of this story is evident from the AP’s reporting, which emphasized that the administration had been telling the public that they knew of no credible threats from al-Qaeda at the same time that they were dealing with the threat in Yemen. Seemingly caught in a lie, John Brennan decided to do some damage control by having a conference call with some former counterterrorism folks in which he divulged that the government had had some “inside control” of the operation which assured that the public was never in any real danger. One person on the call, Richard Clarke, then went on television and made a “logical leap” that the CIA had penetrated the cell.
Once that information was public, the agent’s life was in danger and the operation was blown. Of course, the operation had been successful up to that point, but we lost a valuable asset.
While it may appear that it was Brennan who blew the asset’s cover in an effort to conduct some election year spin, he knew that the AP article was about to be published which would blow the asset’s cover anyway.
Then we get to the investigation. The Republicans wanted a Special Investigator. Attorney General Holder appointed Ronald C. Machen Jr., the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to investigate the case, and he is who obtained the subpoenas.
The purpose of the subpoenas was to identify the leaker and John Brennan was a suspect in the case and was interviewed by the FBI. As I understand it, the subpoena only covered phone logs, not actual wiretaps or recordings of phone calls. The FBI may have chosen 20 different AP-connected phone lines in an effort to find a particular number connected to Brennan or other suspects. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable, even though it is much broader than anything known to happen in the past.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/5/14/102151/828#1
Keith Boykin @keithboykin6m
Politico: One-third of all House GOP committees are currently investigating the Obama administration. http://www.politico.com/story/… …
THE REAL AMERICAN AGENDA
IMMIGRATION, JOBS, GUN SAFETY, ENDING WAR ON DRUGS & RACIAL PROFILING IMMIGRATION, JOBS, GUN SAFETY, ENDING WAR ON DRUGS & RACIAL PROFILING IMMIGRATION, JOBS, GUN SAFETY, ENDING WAR ON DRUGS & RACIAL PROFILING
THIS MOFO HERE
……………..
MATT DRUDGE ✔ @DRUDGE
Would nation have the courage to remove its first black president IF proved he is corrupt?
6:39 AM – 14 May 2013
NO Matt, Drudge, it’s you and the rest of the fuckin racist, insecure WHITE COWARDS who want to remove the FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT.
From Nancy Smash about Orange Julius
“Well, I will say this about John Boehner, and I have a good relationship,” Pelosi said. “If he were a woman, they’d be calling him the weakest speaker in history
LOL Yes, Boehner’s got both thumbs stuck up his ASS.
rootless @root_e
The AP “scandal” is an attempt to cover up for some GOP Congressman violating secrecy laws and putting US spies in danger.
7:29 AM – 14 May 2013
IOW elected official: ‘Save the Confederate money, the South will rise again’
Isle of Wight, Va. – Trying to bring light to Isle of Wight’s budget woes. Vice Chairman Byron Buzz Bailey joked the county’s troubles would go away if the South were to rise again.
“I guess you know, if we’d be like Washington, can we print some money in Isle of Wight County? Save the Confederate money, the south will rise again,” Bailey said.
His comments weren’t taken well by school superintendent Katrise Perera, who after hearing Bailey’s comments, left the meeting.
Perera wouldn’t return any of NewsChannel 3′s phone calls, someone with her office says “She was understandably very upset by those comments.”
http://wtkr.com/2013/05/13/iow-elected-official-save-the-confederate-money-the-south-will-rise-again/
The Morning Plum: A reality check on Beltway scandal-mania
By Greg Sargent, Published: May 14, 2013 at 9:17 am
The IRS scandal appears to be growing. The news that the Justice Department targeted Associated Press phone records has justifiably triggered a vociferous outcry. The Benghazi tale is mostly a bogus “scandal,” but it continues to be treated as the real thing by reporters who should know better. We’re looking at investigations that stretch over the horizon. The air is thick with talk about Obama’s “second term curse,” and the possibility that the administration could find its credibility damaged by the scandal pile-up is very real.
But cut through the noise and jubilation among Republicans and conservatives, and a basic fact about our current political dynamic remains in place: Republicans still need to figure out how to get their base to stop damaging the party’s efforts to remake itself.
As Politico puts it this morning, while the scandal-mania sweeping Washington contains great risks for Obama, it also carries a serious potential downside for Republicans:
The decision to engage in a multipronged attack against the Obama administration poses both risks and rewards for the Republican leadership. The party has yet to fully coalesce around a legislative agenda, a plan to raise the debt ceiling or a broad-based governing strategy. Republicans, who have tried to soften their image, now risk being defined by shouting matches. Their job-creating message is in danger of being overshadowed by scandal
All the scandal-fueled excitement is about to run headlong into the reality of immigration reform. The Senate is likely to pass a reform compromise widely loathed by the right, and House Republicans will have to figure out a way to get the base to accept it — or to pass it with mostly Democratic support, which would badly damage John Boehner. Failure means the GOP gets saddled with the blame for killing reform — dealing a severe blow to hopes of repairing relations with Latinos, even as demographic reality marches on.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/14/the-morning-plum-a-reality-check-on-beltway-scandal-mania/
Justice Department targets AP phone logs
By Steve Benen
Tue May 14, 2013 8:05 AM EDT
For over four years, Republicans and much of the media establishment waited for some kind of credible political controversy surrounding the Obama administration, and for four years, folks were left wanting. Occasionally there’d be some minor hiccup — remember when Darrell Issa compared a White House job offer to Joe Sestak to Watergate? — but desperate efforts to manufacture a “scandal” were pointless, silly, and ultimately unsuccessful.
All of a sudden, however, if we put merit aside, the administration’s critics have more controversies than they know what to do with. Some are pseudo scandals (Benghazi), some are legitimate controversies unrelated to the White House (IRS), but at a minimum, there’s plenty for the political world to chew on for a change.
Indeed, late yesterday, there was a third story of interest, with reports of the Justice Department monitoring the phone logs of several Associated Press reporters. I’d encourage readers to start with Rachel’s segment from last night’s show, followed by this morning’s New York Times report from Charlie Savage and Leslie Kaufman.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/14/18248320-justice-department-targets-ap-phone-logs?lite
You want a scandal? Here’s a scandal.
By Jonathan Bernstein, Published: May 13, 2013 at 5:21 pm
Want a real Washington scandal — one worse than the (phony) Benghazi scandal and the (apparently real, but apparently limited) IRS scandals combined? Try the continuing, and possibly accelerating, obstruction of executive branch nominees by Senate Republicans.
Don’t think it’s a scandal? It’s pretty basic: Republicans, by abusing their Constitutional powers, are — deliberately, in several cases — preventing the government from carrying out duly passed laws.
The New York Times yesterday highlighted two of the more recent ways that Republicans have manipulated loopholes in Senate rules to delay confirmation of Secretary of Labor nominee Thomas Perez and Environmental Protection Agency nominee Gina McCarthy. It’s worth stepping back and realizing: what’s happening here is that Republicans are delaying these nominations beyond their eventual insistence that almost all nominees must get 60 votes. In other words, they’re filibustering on top of their own filibusters.
That’s just two examples. There are numerous others; again, with virtually all nominees required to have 60 votes, one can accurately say that Republicans are filibustering every nomination. But perhaps the worst are the “nullification” filibusters, in which Republicans simply refuse to approve any nominee at all for some positions — the National Labor Relations Board, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — because they don’t want those agencies to carry out their statutory obligations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/13/you-want-a-scandal-heres-a-scandal/
Republicans In Congress Killed A Media Shield Law That Would Have Protected The Associated Press
The defeated bill would have required approval from a federal court before reporters’ phone records were subpoenaed. Darrell Issa, who condemned the AP subpoena Monday, was one of only 21 House Members to vote against the bill. posted on May 14, 2013 at 12:13am EDT
Late Monday afternoon, the AP broke the news that months worth of its telephone records had been divulged in response to a broad government subpoena. The Department of Justice issued the subpoena to the AP’s telephone company, without notifying AP itself, as part of the criminal investigation of a national security leak. Investigators obtained the call logs of numerous AP reporters and editors for a period spanning April and May of 2012 as a result of the subpoena. Last Friday, the DOJ delivered a letter to the AP revealing the subpoena and the records that had been obtained as a result.
The Department of Justice told NBC News that it had acted “consistent with DOJ regulations” in obtaining the call logs. The applicable regulations do permit the DOJ to subpoena the phone records of a news organization without prior notice only if the DOJ determines that such prior notice would pose “a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation” and the Attorney General approves.
Almost immediately, the story drew an outraged response from Congress. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa issued a statement slamming the administration. “This is obviously disturbing,” Issa said. “Americans should take notice that top Obama Administration officials increasingly see themselves as above the law and emboldened by the belief that they don’t have to answer to anyone. I will work with my fellow House Chairmen on an appropriate response to Obama Administration officials.”
Issa didn’t mention that he voted against a measure that would have protected the AP from the DOJ’s subpoena in 2007. Issa was one of 21 House members who opposed the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, a measure that would have forbidden federal investigators from compelling journalists to give evidence without first obtaining a court order. The bill included a section that specifically forbid subpoenaing journalists’ phone records from “communication service providers” to the same extent that the law protected the journalists themselves.
Despite Issa’s “No” vote, the bill overwhelmingly passed the House 398-21. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, another California Republican who criticized the DOJ and the President in the wake of today’s news, voted for the bill. It was defeated, however, by a Republican filibuster in the Senate the following year.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nycsouthpaw/gop-congressmen-killed-a-media-shield-law-that-wou-4xje
Can we have our phones tapped without notice if we’re suspected of something? I vaguely remember the Congress passing some bill after 9/11/2001 that took away a lot of our rights. Being snarky here.
Good Morning or is it just morning?
LOL it’s morning in Amurka, CarolMae!
IT’S CALLED THE PATRIOT ACT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
Morning in Amurica, duh. Yeah, the Patriot Act that no one blinked an eye about, that one. Well, I’m shoeless. The TSA has all my shoes. MOFO’s
What Makes a Man a Man?
by BooMan
Mon May 13th, 2013 at 09:52:34 PM EST
There are parts of this Michelle Cottle piece that I like and admire, and parts that make me cringe. I am beginning to wonder if my cultural antennae are malfunctioning because I am totally not getting this fascination with Senator Ted Cruz.
I was warned early on by Adam Bonin, who debated Cruz at Princeton, that Cruz was one of the finest debaters in the country. I know that the man has crazy natural talent. But I haven’t really seen him use it effectively since he got to Washington DC. From my perspective he has distinguished himself by being, alternatively, extremely rude and aggressively wrong.
I also don’t see him as having a lot of natural appeal. Being smart can be a turn-off, especially when it isn’t accompanied by basic manners. Insofar as he has some kind of Texas swagger, it really just seems like excessive self-regard. Even his wardrobe seems somewhat contrived, like he’s wearing a costume and playing a part. I felt that way about George W. Bush, too.
But Chris Christie is another matter. I’m from Jersey; he’s from Jersey. I totally get Chris Christie. I don’t like his politics at all, but I like everything else about him. If there is a characteristic that defines the prototypical Jersey boy (and it’s pretty true about the girls, too), it’s that they don’t suffer fools gladly. It’s almost not even considered rude to call someone an idiot to their face. Having lived in many different places, I have learned firsthand that Jersey personas come off as rude, curt, and condescending in most of the country. All that does is make Jersey folks value each other more. I’d much rather have an argument with Chris Christie than someone in Iowa. They’re too damn polite and liable to take offense where none was intended. With Christie, we share certain cultural assumptions, among which is that it perfectly acceptable to denounce an argument as moronic without it being a personal attack.
Chris Christie’s swagger strikes me as genuine, and I ought to be able to sense any sense of fakeness in his routine. He lies a lot, but that’s not the same thing as being fake. Not quite.
Cottle says, “Whether you prefer Cruz or Christie likely depends on your political and cultural leanings,” and that’s probably true. I like Christie better both because I have a cultural affinity for him and because he’s more moderate than Cruz. But, I think it’s more than that. I think Christie is more honest. I think he has better character, even though it would be hard not to.
Cottle is raising a different question, though. She’s trying to predict which of these two men will have more appeal to the Republican base. On that score, I think it’s obvious that Cruz has the advantage. He’s more conservative; he’s more combative; he has less reason to worry about appealing to moderates; he can explore the outer reaches of wingnuttia without consequences. And, as a racial minority, he gives permission to countless racists to compensate by supporting him.
If it’s true that rank-and-file Republicans crave a daddy figure, either of these men will do, but only one of them will speak unapologetically to their lizard brains. And that man is Ted Cruz. It’s not that he won’t suffer fools gladly, it’s that he’ll gladly be the fools’ Pied Piper.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/5/13/215234/290#23
Kelly Ayotte, staunch advocate for gun safety? Not.
By Greg Sargent, Published: May 13, 2013 at 3:38 pm
A bit of a dispute has broken out over just how much pressure Kelly Ayotte is feeling over her vote against the Manchin-Toomey compromise to expand background checks. The gun control forces have organized to pressure her at town hall meetings and on the air, but conservative media have argued that the pressure on her from the left has been exaggerated.
It’s interesting, then, that the major efforts to defend Ayotte by gun rights groups and fellow Republicans tend to emphasize her supposed support for background checks. That seems like a pretty good sign of which way the political winds are blowing on the issue.
Here, for instance, is a new ad that Marco Rubio’s Reclaim America PAC is running in New Hampshire. It says this: “Safety. Security. Family. No one understands these things like a mom. Ayotte voted to fix background checks, strengthen mental health screenings and more resources to prosecute criminals using guns.”
………………….
It’s hard not to notice that the thrust of these defenses center on Ayotte’s support for background checks, and not her opposition to expanding them.
…………………………..
It’s interesting that Republican Senators who voted No on Manchin-Toomey — such as Ayotte and Jeff Flake — are not staking out a harder stance here by saying only that, hey, I will never apologize for defending the Second Amendment, and you liberals can just suck on it. Instead, even though they are not willing to support expanding the background check system to close a loophole that poses a threat to public safety, apparently because the NRA won’t let them, they recognize that support for improving background checks is the politically necessary position to take — and is indeed the one that is tantamount to defending children and families from gun violence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/05/13/kelly-ayotte-staunch-advocate-for-gun-safety-not/
Enjoying the series, Ametia! I’m a huge fan of 60’s music.
Thanks, glad you’re enjoying it, SG2. :-)
great comments at POU:
Miranda
Morning everyone!
I saw the tweets from journos last night, all jumping on the fire AG Holder bandwagon and pretending like they are some virtuous ethical gatekeepers of truth and information. The fake cries of outrage and saying shit like like PBO is the “N-word”…heh, Nixon..yeah, that’s what Fineman meant…”Nixon.” SMH
I’ve told y’all before and my brother reminded me of it last night – “like Daddy says, A white man gone be WHITE”.
Now if you don’t understand what that means, you really will be confused and not understand why these pundunces and media jokes are acting the way they are. However I suspect most of you will most definitely understand what it means and see this fauxrage as the crescendo of bitchassness that’s been building up for the last 5 years. Sure, some of them have seemed to be fair and rational and will call out the completely irrational thought and blatant racism of their peers over the course of Obama’s presidency – but don’t slip and be fooled. Push come to shove, like Daddy says, a white man GONE BE WHITE.
……………………………………………………..
Kennymack
The election of Barack Obama was one thing. It rocked their world but they could understand it.. Bad economy, Bush disasters etc. The reelection of Barack Obama has messed them up in the head so bad their masks are slipping now. The candidate who got the majority of the white vote lost and they’re still in shock. White privilege took a kick to the nuts and now the 2520s are lashing out. It’s pathetic.
WE SEE THEM; THE 2520s.
Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy.
……………………………
My Medical Choice
By ANGELINA JOLIE
Published: May 14, 2013
MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.
We often speak of “Mommy’s mommy,” and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.
Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.
Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.
…………………………………
I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.
It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can. On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.
I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive. So to anyone who has a wife or girlfriend going through this, know that you are a very important part of the transition. Brad was at the Pink Lotus Breast Center, where I was treated, for every minute of the surgeries. We managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has.
For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.
I acknowledge that there are many wonderful holistic doctors working on alternatives to surgery. My own regimen will be posted in due course on the Web site of the Pink Lotus Breast Center. I hope that this will be helpful to other women.
Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/my-medical-choice.html?_r=2&
The choice Jolie made is one, I hope me and my daughters would never have to make. Kudos to her for making her choice and being here for her children.
If your chances go from 87% to 5% and you:
1. watched your mother die
2. and have 6 children, the oldest is 10
3. you’re less than a decade from the age of when it first hit your own mother
yeah, this wasn’t hard.
One Fine Day is one of my all-time favorite songs.
LOL Mine too. I sang lead on this song at a variety/talent show for our church.What I really love about these girl groups is their style and presentations. They were classy, they had rythmn, and harmonies that are just UNMATCHED today.
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Morning, everyone!
Good Morning, 3 Chicas & EVeryone! :-) It’s gonna be ONE FINE DAY here in the Mini-apple! 95 degrees; from frost Sunday morning to 90s. SMH, but so glad the snow is GONE.