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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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Christopher Hayes ✔ @chrislhayes
As compelling an interview as you’ll see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance …
aspirational12 @aspirational12
@chrislhayes U mean you’re so impressed with an interview that raises red flags for most? Are U THAT gullible, or you’re just full of it?
10:02 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Michael Hargrove @MichaelHargrov1
Glenn Greenwald’s agenda is same as GOP, the destruction of President Obama. He doesn’t give jack crap about your civil liberties.
9:49 PM – 9 Jun 2013 from Marlton, MD, United States
eclecticbrotha @eclecticbrotha
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am, stuck bein an Obot with you.
9:29 PM – 9 Jun 2013
http://youtu.be/ej3_lYLDXmc
KSK(africa) @lawalazu
PRE-MEDITATED. Who goes to work for a company for only 3 months, steals security secrets and quit? And who got Snowden the job?
8:47 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Bob Cesca @bobcesca_go
Not only is the notion of real time access to user data inaccurate, but Hong Kong isn’t quite the free speech safe haven as Snowden claimed.
Terry Anderson @TerryAnderson48
@bobcesca_go The kid is making it up as he goes along with his personal Rasputin (@ggreenwald ) whispering in his ear.
7:20 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Jeff Gauvin @JeffersonObama
Glenn Greenwald and Emoprogs are working to elect Rand Paul as President. Would abolish DOL, DOE, DOJ, EPA and FED. Anarchist Utopia.
Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play
Courtney B. Vance
Billy Porter for leading actor in a musical and Patina Miller for leading actress in a musical, so four wins by Black actors tonight at the Tonys
Jeff Gauvin @JeffersonObama
Glenn Greenwald has one objective., to destroy the Dem winning coalition for his CATO~KOCH masters.
7:47 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Richard N. Haass ✔ @RichardHaass
“whistleblower” is person who reveals wrongdoing, corruption, illegal activity. none of this applies here even if you oppose USG policy
6:08 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Papa Joe Aviance Lost 250 Pounds on the ’99-Cent Diet’
By Jenna Bergen
Jun 04, 2013
Ask anyone who’s lost a large amount of weight what jumpstarted their journey to better health, and they’ll probably tell you about their “light bulb moment,” the instant that they decided they’d had enough and were willing to do whatever it took to change. For LA-based musician and clothing designer Papa Joe Aviance, that moment arrived in 2009 when his first house music release, “Last Night a DJ Saved my Life,” hit #6 on the Billboard Magazine Dance Charts. When he saw the music video for the song—which at that time was playing on MTV and VH1—he couldn’t get over how large he’d become. “I was 450 pounds—I was two cheeseburgers away from diabetes or high cholesterol,” recalls Aviance. “I had been big for pretty much all of my life, and I was sick of hating myself. It was now or never.”
To start, he trashed nearly all the contents of his kitchen. “I cleared everything out of my fridge that was going to get in the way of me losing weight—cookies, candy, sodas,” he says. “I was only going to drink water or unsweetened iced tea, and no more fast food. At that point, I’d been drinking a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew every day, and if I went through any local drive-thru, they knew my name—that’s how often I used to eat that stuff.”
But he had a roadblock to contend with—at the time, he was broke. Aviance, who was then pursuing music and clothing design on the side, had recently been laid off work. “I was unemployed and couldn’t afford a gym membership or fancy diets,” says Aviance. “I realized that walking was the easiest exercise I could do and it cost nothing. So I grabbed my dance music and tennis shoes, and started walking.” (Walk off the weight with these 14 walking workouts to burn fat and boost energy!)
At first, his walks were short—to the end of his block and back to grab the daily Billboard. “The first time around the block—I couldn’t even do it, it was just mounds of sweat,” he says. But he kept at it. One trip around the block became two, and soon he was walking a few miles every day.
Only $50 Per Week for Food
While he was determined to eat better, Aviance had to find a way to do it on a shoestring budget. “A friend told me I should check out the 99-Cent Store. Since I couldn’t afford Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, I decided to see what they had.” Aviance was pleasantly surprised to find that the 99-Cent Store in his neighborhood had plenty of healthy foods to choose from. “Oatmeal, raisins, nuts, bananas, apples, oranges, bell peppers, spinach, salad dressing, tuna fish, eggs… I was shocked. I was blown away,” recalls Aviance. “It was a huge savings. I literally spent no more than $50 a week on food.” (Feeding a family? You can still do it on the (healthy) cheap—here are 20 ways to feed your family for $100 a week.)
Within three to four weeks, Aviance started to see changes. “And within 3 months, I was like ‘Hey, this is working!” he laughs. “I started to take all of my clothes to a seamstress so she could take everything in. I was still too broke to go out and buy new clothes, but I didn’t care. I was on a mission.”
Aviance’s morning walks become so regular, that people in his neighborhood started to take notice. “Since I walk every morning, people have started giving me high fives. I felt like a mini rock star in my community. I’ve even had people stop me and tell them I motivated and inspired them to start walking.”
Low-Cost Healthy Meals
Papa Joe was able to prepare a variety of healthy meals using ingredients he purchased at the 99-Cent Store. Here are a several examples of what he ate on his diet.
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/yourbestfitness/99-cent-diet-could-it-work-you
Cicely Tyson won the Tony for Leading Actress in a Play!
Cicely Tyson has won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role in a play for her portrayal of Carrie Watts in THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL.
Tyson is one of the most celebrated actresses of the last 50 years, returns to Broadway for the first time in 30 years of making film and television history. Ms. Tyson became both the first African American to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and the only actress to receive an unprecedented two Emmy Awards for the same role as Jane in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1974). She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1972 feature film Sounder.
Ms. Tyson’s first professional stage performance, in the highly acclaimed, long running stage production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks, along with her performance as Mavis in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, earned her the coveted off-Broadway Vernon Rice Award. Her last stage appearance was in the Broadway revival of The Corn is Green in 1983. Other Broadway credits include Trumpets of the Lord (1969), A Hand Is On The Gate (1966), Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright (1963), The Cool World (1960), and Jolly’s Progress (1959), in which she understudied Eartha Kitt.
Read more about ‘BOUNTIFUL’s Cicely Tyson Wins Best Lead Actress, Play by null
http://broadwayworld.com/article/Bountifuls-Cicely-Tyson-Wins-Best-Lead-Actress-Play-20130609
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
When it comes to Edward Snowden, I say follow the money. Something stinks.
6:55 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Ina @InaMaziarcz
Mohammad Ali had Convictions, thought the US Government was Wrong, and STOOD for his Convictions. Snowhole FLED to CHINA.
6:48 PM – 9 Jun 2013
White America’s REALLY been showing their ASSES since JANUARY 20, 2009.
Steve Weinstein @steveweinstein
No one can tell me any one thing that is new in these NSA stories? I guess only thing new is black president.
6:29 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Bobfr @Our4thEstate
If your source tells you he can wiretap the President pic.twitter.com/Io60BZdd2Y & you run with it you absolutely have #ObamaDerangementSyndrome
6:48 PM – 9 Jun 2013
View image on Twitter
Dave @D_v_E
Come on, you guys, 29 year old Ron Paul supporters who flee to Hong Kong for freedom make the best constitutional law experts.
6:01 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
Edward Snowden voted and donated money to anti-Civil Rights Act Ron Paul and we’re supposed to believe he cares about civil liberties? Pfft
6:09 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Nelson Mandela is back in the hospital. Word is he’s died. Is this true?
I still see ‘ in the hospital’ stories
Why Our Structures Are Screwing Us
by BooMan
Sun Jun 9th, 2013 at 05:31:29 PM EST
Why are there 538 Electoral Votes? The answer is that that is the number you get if you add the 100 seats in the Senate and the 435 seats in the House, and then add three more votes for the District of Columbia. President Obama won 332 Electoral Votes when he won reelection last November. Mitt Romney received 206. Because all but two states are winner-take-all, this doesn’t give us a true picture of public opinion. Obama only won 51% of the vote, but he won 61% of the Electoral College. This helps explain why the some Republicans have begun agitating to get rid of winner-take-all state-level elections. Yet, if the Democrats enjoy a structural advantage in the Electoral College, they suffer from a major disadvantage in the Senate.
If we subtract the 100 Electoral College votes that represent the Senate, we have 438 votes left. How many of those votes came from states that Obama won versus states that Romney won? The answer is that the states won by Obama (including the District of Columbia) had 278 votes and states won my Romney had 160. In other words, Obama controlled 58% of them. Yet, he only has 53 Democrats in the Senate, plus two independents who caucus with the Democrats. That’s not a terrible skew, but it shows that the Democrats suffer because the Republicans are overrepresented. The Republicans do better overall in sparsely populated states, which results in them banking three extra seats in the Senate than if the seats were distributed by population.
The situation in the House is even worse. Romney actually carried 274 congressional districts despite losing by four points and despite Democratic candidates getting more than a million more votes than Republicans nationwide. The reason is gerrymandered districts. Look how this shook out in Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvanians also voted to re-elect Mr. Obama, elected Democrats to several statewide offices and cast about 83,000 more votes for Democratic Congressional candidates than for Republicans. But new maps drawn by Republicans — including for the Seventh District outside Philadelphia, a Rorschach-test inkblot of a district snaking through five counties that helped Representative Patrick Meehan win re-election by adding Republican voters — helped ensure that Republicans will have a 13-to-5 majority in the Congressional delegation that the state will send to Washington next month.
Think about it. Romney won 274 congressional districts to Obama’s 161, yet Obama won states containing 278 districts (including DC) compared to Romney’s 160. That’s completely inverted. It perfectly expresses the effect of the gerrymander.
So, contrary to Ron Brownstein the Democrats’ advantages in presidential elections and the Republicans’ advantages in midterms are not sufficiently explained by reference to differential turnout. Winner-take-all state elections make it much more difficult for Republicans to conquer the Electoral College. But the overrepresentation of small states and the gerrymander both contribute to disadvantaging the Democrats in Congress.
It’s true that midterm electorates are older and whiter than presidential electorates, but that only compounds a pre-existing structural problem. Moreover, the congressional Democrats suffer from the skew in presidential and midterm elections alike, while the Republicans only suffer from high voter participation in the presidential elections.
The bottom line is that our elections don’t do that great of a job of reflecting the will of the people. And that’s why the people elected Barack Obama for a second term and wound up with John Boehner calling the shots in the House.
Result: dysfunction
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/6/9/173129/4964
So this LITTLE prick comes out now and leaks secrets and then hides out in China. Like China doesn’t spy on it’s citizens? GTFOH
Another fake scandal by the EMOs?
totally fake scandal
Anyone watching the Tony Awards?
Linda Kyambadde @globalcitizenln
Accountability moment: republicans blocked a law that would ban private contractors from doing biz with gov’t if didn’t protect info
5:14 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Bob Cesca @bobcesca_go
A Ron Paul supporter and privacy supporter working for the NSA is like a vegan PETA supporter working for McDonald’s. I don’t get this guy.
5:03 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Michael Hargrove @MichaelHargrov1
Smells strange, worked for BAH less that 3 months, gathers classified info, passes to Guardian and Greenwald, flee to HK, living it up.
4:50 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Wieland @lawscribe
The biggest impact of Snowden? Switzerland was on the verge of opening bank secrecy to satisfy US. Will his revelation scuttle the deal?
Arrogant Demon @ArrogantDemon
@lawscribe so Snowden just might have blown going after tax cheats…..which might have also been the plan
3:27 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Wieland @lawscribe
.@ArrogantDemon hundreds of millions of taxes owed to US were at stake. And, yes Booz, Allen has fingers everywhere: http://www.boozallen.com/consultants/civilian-government/international-development-diplomacy …
3:30 PM – 9 Jun 2013
davidfrum @davidfrum
Whenever I think of a place free from intrusive state surveillance, I think of China.
3:11 PM – 9 Jun 2013
……………………………..
davidfrum @davidfrum
This map shows Snowden’s asylum problem: Most of the places w/out an extradition treaty also lack first-class hotels. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/United_States_extradition_treaties_countries.PNG …
3:10 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Michael Hargrove @MichaelHargrov1
Greenwald is now getting attaboys from Sean Hannity. You emprogs must be very proud. What next, Greenwald will get his own show on Fox.
3:31 PM – 9 Jun 2013 from Marlton, MD, United States
60th Street @60th_Street
Snowden, a dropout, entered the Intelligence community via the Army during the Bush years when recruitment was strained due to 2 wars. damn.
3:19 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Brandon Friedman @BFriedmanDC
CONFIRMED. RT @joshuafoust: People who fail out of high school don’t make $200,000 at BoozAllen. This story reeks of bullshit.
2:22 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Liberal Librarian @Lib_Librarian
Leaker doesn’t want to live in a society that conducts spying operations. So he flees to China. My head hurts.
2:04 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Liberal Librarian @Lib_Librarian
Two slight problems with hiding out in HK: 1) It’s part of China, champion of freedom; 2) it has an extradition treaty with US
2:15 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
Edward Snowden is so bothered by the U.S. Govt.’s “existential threat to democracy” that he fled to China. Is this a Family Guy episode?
2:16 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Snowden’s a cowardly little SOB needs his ass kicked.these Mofo LEAKERS need to be prosecuted.
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
Edward Snowden is the NSA leaker and he was sooooo afraid of the U.S. government that he fled to China. The derp is real.
2:00 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Jeff Gauvin @JeffersonObama
Glenn Greenwald was a key backer of the Iraq War and of the surveillance program. He now profits from the selling out of his old CATO bosses
12:19 PM – 9 Jun 2013
The Lovely Plains @DaRiverZkind
Conservative GOP #IRS Manager Denies Any @whitehouse Involvement In Screening Tea Party Cases http://go.usa.gov/b5yw http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57588387/rep-cummings-claims-evidence-irs-scandal-didnt-originate-in-d.c/?tag=socsh …
12:15 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Rep. Cummings: Proof clears WH of IRS targeting scandal
By Face The Nation @FaceTheNation
Top Democrat on House Oversight scolds GOP Rep. Issa for making “unsubstantiated allegations” and not “correcting the record when the evidence does not fit your narrative”
CBS News @CBSNews
Jeff Gauvin @JeffersonObama
I go away and now Teabaggers and Emoprogs have joined in a unholy alliance. Can’t a man enjoy some time off?
Lynn Pounian @Panger2013
@JeffersonObama Should they be called TeaProgs or EmoBaggers? #CopyrightProtected
12:00 PM – 9 Jun 2013
Toon Moene @ToonMoene
Did anyone notice that the Xi/Obama summit shows that the two most powerful persons on earth aren’t white ? And the 3rd one is a woman :-)
7:57 AM – 9 Jun 2013
AAmom @AVD911
Dear @NyTimes your Maureen Dowd column entitled “Peeping Barry” borders on racist birtherism. I am cancelling my subscription @NYTimesDowd
9:59 AM – 9 Jun 2013
Hayes Brown @HayesBrown
“First they wiretapped the Muslims, but I did nothing for I am not Muslim. Then they got my metadata and fuck that” – America, basically
6:51 PM – 8 Jun 2013
Darren Rush @darrenrush
Question for the general public: What the hell did you think the NSA has been doing all this time?
Jon Favreau @jonfavs
Bet they’re less surprised than press MT @darrenrush: Q for the public: What the hell did you think the NSA has been doing all this time?
3:08 PM – 8 Jun 2013
Goldie Taylor @goldietaylor
Man listen, unless and until Cheney is frogmarched to The Hague, I am not keen on discussing PBO’s ‘criminality’. Just stawp it.
9:38 AM – 9 Jun 2013
@peterlattman
Private equity angle: NSA whistleblower works for Booz Allen, which Carlyle Group acquired in ’08, IPOd in ’10, and still majority owns.
Tamar Braxton Gives Birth to a New Baby Boy
June 7, 2013
Congratulations to Tamar Braxton. Tamar, alongside her husband, Vincet Herbert, are now proud parents of a bouncing baby boy. The couple alerted the world via Twitter this week, showing a picture of the baby along with teddy bears and balloons.
“He’s here!” Tamar said.
The parents haven’t given out any additional information, including the name of the child. The 36-year old Braxton announced the news of her pregnancy during an appearance on Good Morning America. The couple held their baby shower at an exclusive hotel in Beverly Hills.
“I have a lot of energy. I’m always upbeat and everyone has to tell me to sit down somewhere,” she said after having the baby. “But I feel amazing!”
Tamar said that she craved potato chips while pregnant. She also says that she got regular advice on parenting from her siblings.
“I think the one that sticks out the most is be the best mom you can be and always focus on your family first,” Braxton said.
Tamar’s husband, who is 43-years old, said that he is “elated” to finally have kids. The two were married back in 2008 and seem to be going strong.
“I’m looking forward to just love her more and being a great father to her child,” he said.
http://naturallymoi.com/2013/06/celebrities/tamar-braxton-gives-birth-to-a-new-baby-boy/
Ms. Evers is on Karen Finney’s show. She said we have not come far enough in America, and we some “hateful “leaders in Washington.
The real story in the NSA scandal is the collapse of journalism
Summary: A bombshell story published in the Washington Post this week alleged that the NSA had enlisted nine tech giants, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple, in a massive program of online spying. Now the story is unraveling, and the Post has quietly changed key details. What went wrong?
By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | June 8, 2013 — 17:36 GMT (10:36 PDT)
On Thursday, June 6, the Washington Post published a bombshell of a story, alleging that nine giants of the tech industry had “knowingly participated” in a widespread program by the United States National Security Agency (NSA).
One day later, with no acknowledgment except for a change in the timestamp, the Post revised the story, backing down from sensational claims it made originally. But the damage was already done.
The primary author of the story, Barton Gellman, is a Pulitzer Prize winner, and the Washington Post has a history in investigative journalism that goes back to Watergate and All the President’s Men. On a roster of journalistic failures, this one has to rank near the very top.
This story was part of a busy week for attention-grabbing stories on the topic of U.S. Government surveillance. The Post was playing catch-up to the Guardian, whose UK and US editions had broken numerous stories, several of them by-lined by Glenn Greenwald. On Wednesday, the Guardian had published details of a Top Secret court order that required Verizon to hand over records disclosing the call data of millions of its customers. On Friday, they published another classified document outlining a U.S. Presidential Policy Directive to draw up a hit list for cyber-attacks.
And on Thursday, shortly after the Post published its story, the Guardian went public with a similar story about NSA surveillance. Based on comments by the author of the Post article, that timing is not coincidental.
The allegations by the Post are shocking:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.
The story alleges that the NSA is “reaching deep inside the machinery of American companies that host hundreds of millions of American-held accounts on American soil.” It specifically names nine companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple. And the story alleges, “From inside a company’s data stream the NSA is capable of pulling out anything it likes.”
Within hours after the story broke, it had been amplified by other news agencies and tech websites and had inspired expressions of outrage over this invasion of privacy. And seven of the nine companies named issued categorical denials that they knew of or participated in any such program.
And then a funny thing happened the next morning. If you followed the link to that story, you found a completely different story, nearly twice as long, with a slightly different headline. The new story wasn’t just expanded; it had been stripped of key details, with no acknowledgment of the changes. That updated version, time-stamped at 8:51 AM on June 7, backed off from key details in the original story.
Crucially, the Post removed the “knowingly participated” language and also scrubbed a reference to the program as being “highly classified.” In addition, a detail in the opening graf that claimed the NSA could “track a person’s movements and contacts over time” was changed to read simply “track foreign targets.”
Here’s what a key paragraph in the story originally looked like in a browser window:
wapo-original
And here’s the same paragraph, as it appeared in the heavily edited story the next day. Note that the Post’s editors had added so much to the story that this paragraph was pushed to the second page in the four-page online version:
wapo-revised
I saved a copy of the original story and used the “compare documents” feature in Microsoft Word to show the before and after versions. You can see the differences for yourself in the redlined document saved here.
……………….
So what went wrong with the Post?
The biggest problem was that the Post took a leaked PowerPoint presentation from a single anonymous source and leaped to conclusions without supporting evidence. McCullagh quotes one of his named (not anonymous) sources, former general counsel of the NSA Stewart Baker, as saying the slides look “flaky”:
“The PowerPoint is suffused with a kind of hype that makes it sound more like a marketing pitch than a briefing — we don’t know what its provenance is and we don’t know the full context,” Baker said. He added, referring to the Post’s coverage: “It looks rushed and it looks wrong.”
“Rushed” would indeed be the best way to describe why the Post story changed so dramatically in a 24-hour period. Normally, an investigative piece like this would be reported thoroughly before being published. Instead, it looks like the Post rushed to publish, perhaps fearing that the slide deck had been leaked to another publication that would beat them to the punch.
http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-the-collapse-of-journalism-7000016570/
eclecticbrotha @eclecticbrotha
I sense a great disturbance in The Twitter. Its as if millions of media voices discovered they just got played, then suddenly fell silent.
12:40 PM – 8 Jun 2013
TWITTER is the 21st NEWS-FACTS weapon of the PEOPLE.
After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet
They had promised to try everything, so Mark Barden went down into the basement to begin another project in memory of Daniel. The families of Sandy Hook Elementary were collaborating on a Mother’s Day card, which would be produced by a marketing firm and mailed to hundreds of politicians across the country. “A difference-maker,” the organizers had called it. Maybe if Mark could find the most arresting photo of his 7-year-old son, people would be compelled to act.
It hardly mattered that what Mark and his wife, Jackie, really wanted was to ignore Mother’s Day altogether, to stay in their pajamas with their two surviving children, turn off their phones and reward themselves for making it through another day with a glass of Irish whiskey neat.
“Our purpose now is to force people to remember,” Mark said, so down he went into his office to sift through 1,700 photos of the family they had been.
The Bardens had already tried to change America’s gun laws by studying the Second Amendment and meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office. They had spoken at tea party rallies, posed for People magazine and grieved on TV with Katie Couric. They had taken advice from a public relations firm, learning to say “magazine limits” and not “magazine bans,” to say “gun responsibility” and never “gun control.” When none of that worked, they had walked the halls of Congress with a bag of 200 glossy pictures and beseeched lawmakers to look at their son: his auburn hair curling at the ears, his front teeth sacrificed to a soccer collision, his arms wrapped around Ninja Cat, the stuffed animal that had traveled with him everywhere, including into the hearse and underground.
Almost six months now, and so little had gotten through. So maybe a Mother’s Day card. Maybe that.
Mark turned on his computer and began looking for the right picture. “Something lighthearted,” he said. “Something sweet.” He had been sitting in the same chair Dec. 14, when he received an automated call about a Code Red Alert, and much of the basement had been preserved in that moment. Nobody had touched the foosball table, because Daniel had been the last to play. His books and toy trains sat in their familiar piles, gathering dust. The basement had always been Daniel’s space, and some days Mark believed he could still smell him here, just in from playing outside, all grassy and muddy.
Now it was Daniel’s face staring back at him on the computer screen, alit in an orange glow as he blew out seven candles on a birthday cake in September.
“Oh God. His last birthday,” Mark said, rubbing his forehead, scanning to the next photo, knowing the chronology that came next.
Daniel dressed as an elf for Halloween. Daniel grinning after his hair was cut short on Dec. 4. Daniel in a video taken a week before his death, wearing reindeer horns and carrying cookies to the neighbor’s house. “Bye, Dad,” he was saying.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-newtown-shooting-mourning-parents-enter-into-the-lonely-quiet/2013/06/08/0235a882-cd32-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html
April @ReignOfApril20m
Using “Barry” to refer to President Obama says “I don’t respect the name you’ve chosen for yourself” & “you only deserve a nickname.”
Mark Sawyer @mqsawyer10m
@ReignOfApril I actually thing it’s more to poke fun at his difficulty with identity and assimilation in his youth.
April @ReignOfApril8m
~@mqsawyer They’re not that deep, Mark. Nobody is thinking about who he was 30-40 years ago. They’re tearing down the man he’s become.
Goldie Taylor @goldietaylor2m
@ReignOfApril @mqsawyer Bingo
Idris Elba will be BACK AS LUTHER!!!
here’s the trailer
Philadelphia adopting ‘doomsday’ school-slashing plan despite $400 million prison project
Published time: June 06, 2013 03:31
Days after Philadelphia officials pushed the city one step closer to a so-called “doomsday” education plan that would see two dozen schools close, construction began on a $400-million prison said to be the second-most expensive state project ever.
Pennsylvania’s School Reform Commission voted on June 1 to approve a $2.4 billion budget, ignoring hours of pleas from students, parents, educators and community members who warned the budget would cripple city schools.
The plan would close 23 public schools, roughly 10 per cent of the city’s total. Commissioners rejected a proposal that would have only closed four of the 27 schools that were on the block for closure.
Without the means to cover a $304 million debt, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, students can expect to go back to school in September without new books, paper, counselors, clubs, librarians, assistant principals or secretaries. All athletics, art and music programs would be eliminated and as many as 3,000 people could lose their jobs.
Only one of five state commissioners voted against the proposal, warning that Republican Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s administration had not looked hard enough elsewhere for proper funds.
That $304 million windfall is unlikely to be filled because the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania House of Representatives recently passed a tax break for corporations that will cost Pennsylvania residents an estimated $600 million to $800 million annually.
http://rt.com/usa/philadelphia-doomsday-despite-prison-project-292/
@root_e
Left has never given up their fantasy of an alliance with TeaParty – so as to limit power of black/hispanic Dems.
Rand Paul: ‘I am the conduit’ to save immigration reform
By David Edwards
Sunday, June 9, 2013 10:12 EDT
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Sunday suggested that the future of comprehensive immigration reform was in his hands because he is “the conduit” between moderate Republicans in the Senate and far-right conservatives in the House of Representatives.
Fox News host Chris Wallace pointed out to Paul during a Sunday interview that comprehensive reform would not be possible if he continued to oppose a new path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Paul, however, insisted that he was “willing to compromise” by allowing undocumented immigrants “to get in the same line” as foreigners outside the U.S., but he would not create a new pathway.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/09/rand-paul-i-am-the-conduit-to-save-immigration-reform/
If you haven’t seen it already. Elijah Cummings just put Mr Grand Theft Gut on the block and posted him up.
Cummings calls Issa’s IRS bluff: ‘I’ll release’ transcripts clearing White House if he doesn’t
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/09/cummings-calls-issas-irs-bluff-ill-release-transcripts-clearing-white-house-if-he-doesnt/
@AngryBlackLady
WaPo walked back most of the crap in this MoDo article. What is the point of the media? They’re untrustworthy. Ugh.
@allanbrauer
Ironic that the only person in the #NSA story who has actually “wiretapped” others is @ggreenwald.
Good Afternoon, Everyone :)
Hi Rikyrah.
Has anyone seen Karen Finney’s MSNBC new show”Disrupt?” She’s apparently a descendent of Gen. Robert E. Lee.
FAUX NOISE EDITS PBO VIDEO
Fla. town on edge as Trayvon Martin case goes to court
Yamiche Alcindor, USA TODAY 9:16 a.m. EDT June 9, 2013
The nation has debated the facts of the case ever since George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin. Now, those facts will be heard in a courtroom.
SANFORD, Fla. — The Trayvon Martin murder case has ignited protests, death threats, online campaigns, and become the center of national discussion about race, gun laws and self-defense.
And the trial doesn’t even begin until Monday.
For more than a year, supporters of both George Zimmerman and Martin have waged emotionally charged arguments about the deadly encounter Feb. 26, 2012, in this small southern city. The Internet has buzzed with debates about whether Zimmerman was defending himself against an aggressive teen who had begun pummeling him or whether he had profiled and murdered a black, unarmed 17-year-old.
“This is the second trial of the century as far as central Florida goes,” said Dave Sirak, chairman of the Central Florida Media Committee, referring to Case Anthony’s as the first. “This trial feels larger than the Casey Anthony trial though because we are seeing international interest right off the top.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/09/jury-selection-in-george-zimmerman-murder-case-begins/2399235/
Hey, you girls must be on vacation for the weekend or busy this beautiful Sunday morning because I don’t seen any visibly prominent posts of Serena Williams’s big win on yesterday. Actually, the whole week was a good week for Women of Color.
Check out this post I made on Tumblr, depicting the grand slams made this week by Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, Kerry Washington, and Susan Rice: http://newcenturywoman.tumblr.com/post/52493843968/in-your-face-looks-like-the-sistas-kicked-butt#notes
Good Morning, NCW, it’s good to see you. I’m just getting up and having a wonderful cup of java. It has been busy for me. Yes; I heard about Serena’s big French Open win. I’ll check out your post later today. Thanks!