Happy Wednesday, Everyone!
Guess what day it is. LOL Love this commercial…
Hope you’re enjoying the smooth, debonair sounds of Smokey & The Miracles.
CRUSIN’ Live:
Shop Around
-
-
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
-
https://twitter.com/Interior/status/364865397138288640/photo/1
I’ll Stop Writing About Glenn Greenwald’s NSA Coverage When He Stops Lying
By Bob Cesca · August 05,2013
Recently, I’ve been badgered on Twitter by several overzealous cranks who’ve asked me whether I’ve become a professional Glenn Greenwald troll. This is especially bizarre considering how this question emanated from real-life anonymous trolls who fail to exhibit the courage of their convictions by using their actual names, and so, nestled snugly within the cozy protection of esoteric pseudonyms, they can tweet about anything with impunity.
I generally don’t take it seriously or personally, nor do I respond very often. But one troll in particular demanded that I stop covering this beat. I replied, “I will. When Greenwald stops lying.”
Of course I’ve written about many other topics in the meantime, both in this space and within my daily blog, but the ferocity with which I’ve pursued this story is a direct reflection upon the pervasiveness of the serial misinformation I’ve observed from Greenwald, Edward Snowden and their collective acolytes on the NSA issue.
Consequently, I’ve been predominantly focused on recording my day-to-day observations on this epic story. It’s not because I particularly like fighting my way through Greenwald’s pedantic articles and TV spots. It’s chiefly because I feel as if he’s leading a considerable segment of the left down an embarrassingly unhinged, conspiratorial, non-empirical road. And, simply put, I think it’s wrong. Actually, that understates how I strongly I feel about this thing. As with the far-right or Fox News Channel, or the National Rifle Association for that matter, I’m compelled by my own desire to seek the truth — to exploit my very small chunk of the internet as a means to correct willful misinformation, irrationality and outright lies.
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/08/ill-stop-writing-about-glenn-greenwalds-nsa-coverage-when-he-stops-lying/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ill-stop-writing-about-glenn-greenwalds-nsa-coverage-when-he-stops-lying&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Eric Schultz @Schultz4 48s
POTUS to speak at 50th Anniversary of March on Washington http://wapo.st/15b7G14
http://dc.about.com/od/specialevents/a/50th-Anniversary-Of-The-March-On-Washington.htm
And rightly so…
Jackie Robinson statue defaced with swastikas and racist slurs outside Brooklyn Cyclones stadium in Coney Island
By Thomas Tracy AND Rich Schapiro / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, August 7, 2013, 1:11 PM
Cops are hunting for a vile vandal who scrawled swastikas and racist slurs on the famous Jackie Robinson statue outside the Brooklyn Cyclones stadium in Coney Island.
A manager at MCU Park stumbled upon the defaced statue about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, cops said.
Among the hate-filled messages written in black marker on the monument to Robinson and his Brooklyn Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese were: “Heil Hitler,” “Die n—-r,” “F–k n—-r” and “F–k Jackie Robinson.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/jackie-robinson-statue-defaced-swastikas-brooklyn-article-1.1420102#ixzz2bJKvTEdF
evil doings
Evil in broad day light. KARMA will not spare these sons of bitches.
http://themiddleway.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/karma.png
Harkin: Southern senator described Obama as ‘exotic’
By Daniel Strauss – 08/07/13 02:55 PM ET
President Obama was described as “exotic” by one senator from a Southern state during a closed-door meeting, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) claimed Wednesday.
Harkin said the remark was made at a private event attended by nearly the entire Senate on filibuster reform.
“I’m not naming any names, but one senator got up from a Southern state and said, ‘Well, you’ve got to understand that to my people down here, Obama seems like he’s exotic,’ ” Harkin told the Des Moines Register’s editorial board on Wednesday. “That he’s just exotic, he doesn’t share our values.”
Harkin spoke in response to a question about polarization in Congress. He said the Congress hadn’t been this polarized since the Civil War.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/316001-harkin-southern-senator-described-obama-as-exotic#ixzz2bJXq4MUa
NIH finally makes good with Henrietta Lacks’ family — and it’s about time, ethicist says
by Art Caplan, Ph.D., NBC News Contributor | August 7, 2013 at 4:12 PM
Over the past six decades, huge medical advances have sprung from the cells of Henrietta Lacks, a poor, African-American mother of five who died in 1951 of cervical cancer. But Lacks never agreed that the cells from a biopsy before her death taken could be used for research. For years, her own family had no idea that her cells were still alive in petri dishes in scientists’ labs. They eventually learned they had fueled a line called HeLa cells, which have generated billions of dollars, but they didn’t realize until this spring that her genome had been sequenced and made public for anyone to see.
On Tuesday, the National Institute of Health announced it was, at long last, making good with Lacks’ family. Under a new agreement, Lack’s genome data will be accessible only to those who apply for and are granted permission. And two representatives of the Lacks family will serve on the NIH group responsible for reviewing biomedical researchers’ applications for controlled access to HeLa cells. Additionally, any researcher who uses that data will be asked to include an acknowledgement to the Lacks family in their publications.
The new understanding between the NIH and the Lacks family does not include any financial compensation for the family. The Lacks family hasn’t, and won’t, see a dime of the profits that came from the findings generated by HeLa cells. But this is a moral and ethical victory for a family long excluded from any acknowledgment and involvement in genetic research their matriarch made possible.
It took more than 60 years, but ethics has finally caught up to a particularly fast-moving area of science: taking tissue samples for genetic research. Thanks to the efforts of a dogged journalist, some very thoughtful science leaders in Europe and the U.S., and an ordinary family willing to learn about a complex subject and then to do the right thing to help you and me and our descendants, a long-standing wrong has now been fixed.
The news of the day is that the analysis of the genetic makeup of HeLa cells, the most useful cells used in all of biomedical research, has been completed. But the real news here is that medicine and science have finally done right by the person from whom those cells were taken—Henrietta Lacks.
Lacks’ story was made famous in 2010 after publication of Rebecca Skloot’s award-winning book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which stayed on The New York Times best-seller list for two years.
The book chronicled how before Lacks died died, a research team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore led by George Otto Gey took a sample of tissue from her cervix. He found he was able to grow them in dishes outside the human body. This was a major research breakthrough: having an immortal cell line gave researchers a crucial new tool against disease. Indeed, the first benefits from HeLa cells came in their use by Jonas Salk in developing the first vaccine against polio. Subsequently, scientists went on to use the cells in many experiments. More than 60,000 articles have appeared based on HeLa cell research including cancer and AIDS and even in developing vaccines for dogs, cats and other animals.
The downside of this story is that no one said anything to Lacks herself about taking her cells — nor did anyone get permission from her family. And as the years went by, and some people began to make money from the cells no one ever revealed this to Henrietta’s descendants, as is told in Skloot’s wonderful book. But that failure has now been fixed.
http://thegrio.com/2013/08/07/nih-finally-makes-good-with-henrietta-lacks-family-and-its-about-time-ethicist-says/
The Lacks family SHOULD still seek RECOMPENSE.
@GOPBlackChick #StruggleHustle Exposed
Mo’ Kelly reveals that Crystal Wright, aka @GOPBlackChick donated to and lobbied for Democratic candidates up to 2010 before jumping on the lucrative black conservative train.
UPDATE: GOPBlackChick claims she only donated to Meek “on behalf of her client” and challenges Mo Kelly on his facts.
UPDATE 2: Did GOPBlackChick commit a CRIME by knowingly donating money to a candidate on behalf of another party, as she claims?
http://chirpstory.com/li/108306
Team Wears I AM TRAYVON Shirts-Why Didn’t ESPN Cover Story?
excerpt:
The biggest omissions of national coverage were ESPN, The Associated Press,Sports Illustrated, and Fox Sports.
Now, does anyone think if these young men got into a brawl during the Vegas Tournament, that they wouldn’t be covered?
Most notably, ESPN chose not to cover this story.
ESPN is singled out because there is almost nothing (negative) a young Black athlete can do to avoid an ESPN story.
Is it because, ESPN does not care about AAU basketball?
Nope, they were all over this Vegas tournament have posted 58 articles and videos just in this month.
Is it because ESPN doesn’t care about the reaction to the Zimmerman verdict?
Nope, when Victor Cruz tweeted a controversial reaction, ESPN posted articles, video of his apology, and debated it on Mike and Mike.
Is it because ESPN doesn’t care about T-shirt statements?
Nope, last week they issued: “Butler Tweets Apology for Vulgar T-Shirt” which opened:
“Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler tweeted an apology on Tuesday for a photo on the Internet of him wearing a t-shirt with a vulgar phrase from a song by rapper Lil’ Wayne.”
Let’s analyze ESPN’s standards to get an article.
It is Jimmy Butler… ESPN is discussing his TWEET… About his Lil’ Wayne inspired T-shirt…
Which is more notable than the statement of a team of young unified men wearing “I AM TRAYVON” T-shirts.
So why didn’t ESPN cover this story?
http://blackathlete.net/2013/08/team-wears-trayvon-shirts-why-didnt-espn-cover-story/
Because ESPN’s number one goal, like practically ALL PRO sports is to make money off the black pros, while attempting to keep their image as “THUGGISH” as possible.
Use people, love money.
Mo’Kelly, Inc. @MrMokelly12m
Here is the crux of the matter. @GOPBlackChick says the checks to Dems Meek and Nelson are for “clients” which is AGAINST THE LAW. #LIAR
The Associated Press @AP 9m
BREAKING: Yemen says it foiled an al-Qaida plot to take over key cities, blow up gas facilities
Confederate flag will fly along I-95
Heritage group’s plan draws opposition from state NAACP
Posted: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 12:00 am | Updated: 7:22 pm, Wed Aug 7, 2013.
A Confederate heritage group confirmed Tuesday that it plans to fly a 10-by-15-foot Confederate flag along Interstate 95 just south of Richmond.
The flag will fly on a 50-foot pole, and will be visible from the northbound lane, said Susan Hathaway, founder of Virginia Flaggers, the group behind the flag. It’s tentatively scheduled to go up Sept. 28.
“Basically, the flag is being erected as a memorial to the memory and the honor of the Confederate soldiers who sacrificed, bled and died to defend Virginia from invasion,” she said.
The state’s chapter of the NAACP is vocally opposing the move.
“It would be an embarrassment,” said Virginia NAACP Executive Director King Salim Khalfani.
Khalfani said he thinks the flag will be detrimental to efforts to attract tourism to Richmond. “It’s going to continue to make Richmond look like a backwater, trailer park, hick town,” he said.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/confederate-flag-will-fly-along-i/article_14dcfb38-3535-5016-a110-7e786b8817e2.html
Damn. You took my Friday (It’s the weekend, baby…let’s cruise) request! Lovin it!
The 50th Anniversary of VRA post, solid.
Baby let’s cruise, away from heeeeeeeeeeeere
Don’t be confused, the way is cleeeeeeeeeeear
Sooky Sooky , Chicas!
Hi Tyren; you can start your Friday early. Thanks!
Love Love Cruising! Oh baby, baby! ;)
Let the music take your mind, Just release and you will find….
Well. Made it over the hump (that camel cracks me up.) Have a good night.
Secessionist staffer puts Rand Paul on the defensive
By Steve Benen
–
Wed Aug 7, 2013 11:43 AM EDT
About a month ago, we learned that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had hired Jack Hunter — also known as the “Southern Avenger” — to work in his Senate office, despite Hunter’s past as a neo-Confederate, pro-secessionist activist. Indeed, the staffer, who helped write Rand Paul’s book, used to make public appearances in a Confederate flag wrestling mask and has boasted that he raises “a personal toast every May 10 to celebrate John Wilkes Booth’s birthday.”
After Paul acknowledged having mixed feelings about Abraham Lincoln, the senator defended Hunter, saying he was just “a youth” when he wrote ridiculous things. (Hunter was 35 when he was still defending the Confederacy in print columns.) Eventually, Paul accepted Hunter’s resignation.
And now he really doesn’t want to talk about it.
Paul appeared on NPR’s “On Point” yesterday, interviewed by CNBC’s John Harwood, and got quite unusually testy when asked about his former aide and co-author, telling Harwood the host didn’t want “an intelligent discussion.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/07/19913906-secessionist-staffer-puts-rand-paul-on-the-defensive?lite
OK, Here are more for 3CHICS gifs:
http://www.lolwtfcomics.com/upload/uploads/1316833800.gif
http://images.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2542-89342_-_animated_apple_bloom_daisy_dinky_hooves_Li.gif
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/259/672/e32.jpg
LOVING THESE! Not even giving any fucks. PERIOD.
Wendy Davis’s Catch-22
Abby Rapoport
August 7, 2013
The Texas Democrat can run for governor and help revive her party, but she can’t win—or can she?
When a politician announces she may or may not run for office, it’s usually not news. But when Texas Democrat Wendy Davis told her audience at the National Press Club Monday that she could “say with absolute certainty that I will run for one of two offices, either my state senate seat or governor,” it prompted a slew of stories across the national media. Without saying much, Davis, who became a national liberal star when she filibustered a 20-week abortion ban last month, had everyone speculating. “Wendy Davis: Ready to ride for governor of Texas?” asked the Christian Science Monitor. “It Sure Looks Like Wendy Davis is Running for Governor” proclaimed The New Republic. Among conservatives, the speech prompted RedState founder and Fox contributor Erick Erickson to dub Davis “abortion Barbie.”
The national interest in Davis’s non-announcement only reflects the extreme anticipation among politicos; plenty of liberals see the stars aligning in Texas, believing they can overcome a statewide losing streak that’s lasted nearly 20 years. At the beginning of 2013, a number of Obama campaign field staff members, who created the exceptional turnout operation that largely won the election, started Battleground Texas. The group is a political-action committee dedicated to turning Texas blue primarily through registering voters and delivering the Democratic message through knocking doors and engaging potential voters in long-neglected communities. The state has plenty of big Democratic donors, but for most of the last two decades, that money has flowed to races in other states. But for the first time in over 25 years, national liberal groups and state heavyweights are considering serious, long-term investment in Texas.
Just a few months later, as Battleground Texas began generating buzz, its efforts got an unplanned boost as thousands of pro-choice activists stormed the state capitol to protest the abortion bill. In a state that consistently ranks among the lowest in voter turnout, with a Democratic Party that has often floundered at getting its message out, these activists stunned lawmakers on both sides. Then Wendy Davis killed the bill with a 13-hour filibuster. Though it was later passed in a second special session, the move was one of the first tastes of victory liberals in Texas have had in ages.
It might seem obvious that Davis, with the help of a major organizing effort and a galvanized set of supporters, should run statewide. The trouble is that she—just like any Democrat—is almost certain to lose.
The quest to turn Texas competitive—let alone blue—will require not only money and organizing and good candidates but, above all, time. Democrats have lost every statewide race since 1994—a 100-race losing streak. Demographic trends certainly favor Democrats; Latinos, who usually split two-to-one Democratic, are rapidly becoming a larger proportion of the state. (By 2040, 52 percent of Texas will be Latino and only 27 percent white, according to the state demographer.) But right now, Latinos only make up 26 percent of eligible voters, far lower than their population percentage; among registered Latinos, turnout is lower than in other states like California, Colorado, and New Mexico. In 2010, when Governor Rick Perry won re-election, the Latino turnout rate was just 16 percent. Democrats have tended to run statewide campaigns based on big media buys and selling a candidate—party investment in a sustainable grassroots infrastructure has been largely nonexistent outside of efforts in Austin and Dallas.
http://prospect.org/article/wendy-daviss-catch-22
Democrats need to take their ASSES to the polls in 2014. PERIOD.
Tom Cotton is ready for his close-up
By Steve Benen
–
Wed Aug 7, 2013 2:06 PM EDT
Rep. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) entire career in elected office has spanned about seven months, but he’s already eager for a promotion.
As first-year freshmen lawmakers go, Cotton, a former Army Ranger, has been embraced by the political establishment much quicker than most. The Arkansas congressman has already made five Sunday show appearances this year — more than the vast majority of U.S. senators, let alone House members — and Politico recently described Cotton “an angular soldier-politician … seemingly destined for higher office.” Why? Because Politico says so.
The Weekly Standard can hardly contain its gushing, almost-creepy affection for Cotton, with Bill Kristol arguing on Fox News that the Arkansas Republican should be seen as a possible candidate for national office in 2016. Cotton had been in Congress for a grand total of about two weeks when Kristol made the comment.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/07/19915328-tom-cotton-is-ready-for-his-close-up?lite
PolitiFact finds its pants on fire
By Steve Benen
–
Tue Aug 6, 2013 8:00 AM EDT
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) appeared on Fox News on Sunday, and when the discussion turned to a possible self-imposed budget crisis, the Virginia Republican said lawmakers should be “focused on trying to deal with the ultimate problem, which is this growing deficit.”
What Cantor said was the opposite of the truth — he said the nation has a “growing deficit,” when in reality, we have a shrinking deficit. We can have a discussion about whether the House Majority Leader was deliberately trying to deceive the public — Republicans have an incentive to convince the public that U.S. finances are in worse shape than they really are — or whether Cantor simply doesn’t know the basics of current events. But I’m afraid it’s either one or the other.
Unless, that is, you’re PolitiFact.
As regular readers know, I have, from time to time, taken issue with the fact-checking website’s work, but this Cantor example should be an easy one. Cantor said the deficit is growing; the deficit is shrinking; so even PolitiFact can’t ignore the straightforward arithmetic.
Or so I thought. My colleague Will Femia found this report last night.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/06/19892587-politifact-finds-its-pants-on-fire?lite
He’s 47 percent Negro’: Anti-Obama Arizona protest turns racist
By Arturo Garcia
Wednesday, August 7, 2013 11:54 EDT
A protest against an appearance by President Barack Obama in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday was marked by several instances of racist language directed at Obama, the Arizona Republic reported.
“He’s 47 percent Negro,” 77-year-old Ron Enderle shouted at one point, later telling the Republic that he was “ashamed” to have Obama as Commander-in-Chief.
According to the Republic, at one point critics of Obama sang “Bye Bye Black Sheep” and at least one sign in the crowd read “Impeach the Half-White Muslim.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/07/hes-47-percent-negro-anti-obama-arizona-protest-turns-racist/
they are who we know them to be.
riddle me this, boys and girls…
what if this man were BLACK?
…………………………………………..
University Professor Revealed To Have Killed Entire Family, Keeps Job And Support Of Many Students
by Andrew Kirell | 4:26 pm, August 6th, 2013
Despite a university professor’s gruesome past being revealed, his job is safe and his support among the student body remains firm.
Last week a local Texas newspaper reported that Millikin University psychology professor James St. James is actually James Wolcott, the man who, at the age of 15, murdered his mother, father, and teenage sister in 1967.
During trial, the young Wolcott admitted to killing his family but pleaded insanity due to mental illness compounded by weeks of huffing airplane glue. He used a .22-caliber rifle to fatally shoot all three family members in the chest and/or head.
St. James was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to a mental institution until he was found sane. After six years of confinement, he was released. He changed his name and went on to obtain a PhD in psychology and became an esteemed professor at the private university in central Illinois.
Despite the emergence of these gruesome details, the school’s administrators and nearly 2,400 students appear to be standing by the award-winning professor. In an official statement, the school wrote: “Millikin University has only recently been made aware of Dr. St. James’ past. Given the traumatic experiences of his childhood, Dr. St. James’ efforts to rebuild his life and obtain a successful professional career have been remarkable. The University expects Dr. St. James to teach at Millikin this fall.”
http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-professor-revealed-to-have-killed-entire-family-keeps-job-and-support-of-many-students/
Give me a moment. GTFOH with that bullshit!
@EBONYMag
Q5. What SHOULD happen when someone like Riley Cooper is outed for such behavior? How do you fix that? Can you? ##EBONYchat
@EBONYMag
(NOTE: We didn’t say Paula Deen because the allegations against her were far greater than just saying the N-word “20 years ago” #staywoke)
Yeah, I saw where a couple of days of counseling cured Riley Cooper of being a racist a$$hole. He gets to keep his job and make millions of dollars because he now understands that he hurt a lot of people. I realize that the new Eagles coach is in a difficult position, but I think it is asking too much of the AA players to put aside Cooper’s blatantly expressed racism and to be vested in his success which is what teams are about. If I were a black man on that team, I know that I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t.
Liza, if Riley Cooper thinks that he’s off the hook from his team, he’s SADLY mistaken. And if the Eagles having a horrendous season, I guess it will be his NEGRO team mates who are to blame.
They hatin on poor ole Riley ’cause he said he wanted to fight all those niggers, and even after he said he was “SORRY” The coach and Riley can bite the big one. His team mates have something in store for him, BANK IT.
Ha ha. Yeah, I would imagine that players on other NFL teams have not taken too kindly to Riley’s remarks either. Riley thinks he can blather his way out of this.
Blacks could rock the vote in 2014 — if they vote
By Jonathan Capehart, Published: August 6 at 11:52 am
There was a line in Dan Balz’s terrific analysis of the Republican Party’s political dilemma that kind of bugged me. Not because he was wrong, but because he could be easily disproven. All that’s needed is for black folks to vote.
Balz argued that the GOP would retain control of the House and could take the Senate thanks to redistricting and the number of seats Democrats have to defend in the upper chamber. But Balz also said this, “Republicans also will enjoy a more favorable electorate in 2014 than they did in 2012, if past patterns prevail. Midterm electorates are older and whiter in composition than the electorates in presidential years.” The key phrase is “if past patterns prevail.”
During the 2012 presidential election, Republicans certainly thought past patterns would prevail. Specifically, they thought the coalition of minorities and women, many of whom were first-time voters, wouldn’t return to the polls for two reasons. First, there was a strong belief that because those first-time voters didn’t have a tradition of voting, many of them would stay home on Election Day. Second, there was an even stronger belief that President Obama’s coalition was so disillusioned by what their guy was unable to achieve that they would be too demoralized to vote. Wrong and wrong, again.
A Census Bureau report released in May showed that the rate of African American voters in the 2012 presidential election surpassed that of whites for the first time in history. “About two in three eligible blacks (66.2 percent) voted in the 2012 presidential election, higher than the 64.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites who did so,” the study showed. But the Census revealed another noteworthy nugget about black voters.
Blacks were the only race or ethnic group to show a significant increase between the 2008 and 2012 elections in the likelihood of voting (from 64.7 percent to 66.2 percent). The 2012 increase in voting among blacks continues what has been a long-term trend: since 1996, turnout rates have risen 13 percentage points to the highest levels of any recent presidential election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/08/06/blacks-could-rock-the-vote-in-2014-if-they-vote/
@EBONYMag
The racist trolls on our timeline objecting to our September covers need to have a seat at a Klan meeting and get out of our mentions.
Tee hee hee
How to win the war over Obamacare
By Greg Sargent, Published: August 7 at 12:17 pm
The battle over Obamacare may rage on for years, and it will certainly play a major role in next year’s House races. Republicans say that since the law is unpopular, their repeal message must be a winner for them. Dems allow the law is unpopular but argue that people want reform more than repeal — and favor individual ACA reforms — so their message that Republicans would only return us to a pre-reform insurance-industry-unbound free for all will ultimately carry the day.
But in the end, the side that wins the war over Obamacare may be the one that most convincingly positions itself as the party that wants to fix our health care system.
Liberal groups — the White House-allied Americans United for Change, the Center for American Progress, and SEIU — just held a conference call to roll out the results of a new poll of 2014 likely voters by Dem pollster Geoff Garin on Obamacare. The poll seems designed partly to put some spine into 2014 Dem candidates who might be tempted to run from engaging the battle against Republican candidates pushing repeal. The poll’s key finding is that whatever Obamacare’s unpopularity, full repeal is a losing message:
Only 36 percent of all voters say they would prefer Obamacare to be repealed, whereas a 40 percent plurality would prefer to leave the law as it is (15%) or just make minor changes (25 percent). Another 18 percent of voters support making major changes in the ACA. Among the key grou who are undecided in the 2014 generic Congressional ballot, only 39 percent want to repeal Obamacare.
“The clear message here to Republicans is that they are out of kilter with the electorate because of their obsession with repealing Obamacare,” Garin said on the call. “This sends a very strong message to Democrats that taking the initiative, being proactive in making the case against repeal, and making the case for fixing and improving the law, is a very strong political position for 2014.” This roughly mirrors what the more nuanced public polling has shown.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/08/07/how-to-win-the-war-over-obamacare/
Brokey McPoverty @brokeymcpoverty9m
white folk are threatening to boycott @EBONYMag bc of their covers? LMAO SHOW ME YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS, PLZ.
Hilarious!
EBONY @EBONYMag6m
We have so many Tea Party readers and followers. To lose all zero of them due to our September cover would be devastating.
@MariaLiaCalvo
#NotSurprised RT @ppppolls Favorability ratings with Georgia Republicans: Paula Deen 73/11, Martin Luther King Jr. 59/28
Every Gentrifier @EveryGentrifier
The city has a program offering free breakfast for school age children but not free brunch. That’s discrimination.
Every Gentrifier @EveryGentrifier
I roll my eyes at people who give their children “ghetto names”
I named my children Bear, Satchel, and Library.
Every Gentrifier @EveryGentrifier8m
I’m boycotting Ebony Magazine. I’ve never bought or read it but now I’ll never buy it for the black guy I befriended to prove I’m not racist
today’s gif for the 3CHICS stable of gifs:
http://cdn.meme.li/instances/400x/31716566.jpg
LOVE IT!
News/ Usher’s Ex-Wife Files for Emergency Custody Hearing After Son Nearly Drowns in Pool
Usher’s ex-wife, Tameka Foster, has filed paperwork requesting an emergency custody hearing in the wake of the pool accident that put their young son in the hospital.
The former couple divorced in 2009, with the Voice coach receiving primary custody of their two sons in 2012.
In the court filing, Foster’s attorney, Angela Kinley, claims that “the children are at risk while in the care of third-party caregivers…while (Usher) travels around the world for his work-related activities.”
Foster is asking a Georgia judge to immediately award her temporary custody of all her minor children currently under Usher’s care.
http://www.eonline.com/news/446559/usher-s-ex-wife-files-for-emergency-custody-hearing-after-son-nearly-drowns-in-pool
Back were I come from , preachers, teachers, and farmers were revered too Rev. Barber.
Oh Yes!!
“We are children of a movement…a multiracial, multicultural movement” !
“We are children of a movement of deep faith and values and vision.” !
“We are the children of a movement that keeps our eyes on the prize.” !
“Now, it’s our time” !!
Yes, yes, yes! Thanks for posting this, Ametia!
Let’s roll! Let’s keep our eyes on the prize!
I think we need some music here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY0tsKCB4lc
We need a graphic here, SG2. Where be ya?
Great choice, Ametia!
Talk to da HAND, GOP!
Booker’s Buckraking Is Surprising—If You Don’t Know Booker
BY MARC TRACY
The New York Times’ front-page report on Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s involvement in a fledgling web-video start-up called Waywire contains some troubling and surprising revelations. The article details that the majority of Booker’s wealth—and up to $5 million—involves shares in the company, for which he tapped both celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and campaign donors for seed money. Unusually for someone who does not work on it day-to-day, Booker received the largest stake of its three co-founders. In both federal and municipal forms, Booker was late to formally disclose his ownership. Waywire employs a couple friends of Booker’s, and, as the Times drolly notes, it “has put Andrew Zucker, 14, the son of Jeff Zucker, president of CNN, on its advisory board and given him stock options.” Booker’s buckraking was brazen enough that it is likely he never could have gotten away with it had he been a senator—as he soon shall be, assuming he wins next Tuesday’s Democratic primary, which he is nearly certain to do, and a subsequent special election in October.
In fact, though, if you know Booker, this sort of graft is not all that shocking. It is not only that Booker is rabidly friendly to the investor class even by the standards of Tristate Area elected officials. Nor is it that this news makes him roughly the 800,000th crooked mayor in New Jersey history. It is that the same reasoning he uses to justify his involvement in Waywire explains his philosophy of governing. Silicon Valley-inflected, do-gooder corruption is his credo.
To hear Booker as well as Waywire’s other principals tell it, Booker’s interest in Waywire, whose original mission (which is probably as-yet unfulfilled, since the company has already undergone one round of layoffs) was to magnify the “marginalized voices,” including those of “high school kids,” whose YouTubes were not getting deserved attention. “He stressed that he was drawn to exploring technology because he believes it can be, among other things, a democratizing force,” the Times reports. “What was exciting to me,” Booker says, “was that it was expanding entrepreneurial, economic, and educational opportunities for so many.”
Indeed, perhaps more than any other politician, and particularly more than any other nominal liberal, Booker has echoed Silicon Valley’s belief that public aims are best achieved at least partly through private enterprise. It is no coincidence that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg chose Newark’s school system for his $100 million donation—which was originally supposed to spur much smaller charity from ordinary citizens. (Am pretty sure that is what taxes are for?) As Salon detailed recently, Booker is as quick to credit private investment as anything else in helping Newark’s nascent recovery. He is not particularly friendly to unions; he loves charter schools. “He was always a part of the privatization movement,” said Ronald Rice, whom Booker defeated in the 2006 mayoral race. (Silicon Valley has hollered back at Booker; according to the Times, Booker has received more than one million dollars in his two most recent elections from tech executives and employees.)
Power to Booker for lowering crime and making life a little better in Newark, the land that urban revitalization forgot. But it has been curious, these past seven years, to see a Democratic politician—and a darling of many young liberals, who lapped his schtick up at this year’s South by Southwest—so eagerly embrace private enterprise as the solution to public problems. What happened to public solutions to public problems?
http://blogs.tnr.com/article/114197/bookers-buckracking-surprising-if-you-dont-know-booker#
Booker is Something New
by BooMan
Wed Aug 7th, 2013 at 10:26:29 AM EST
The idea behind Waywire is interesting, but I can’t help but believe that Cory Booker is a made man in the Silicon Valley Cosa Nostra. There are worse groups, especially for a North Jersey politican (see HBO’s The Sopranos), but I don’t like the way they made Booker a potential millionaire without even expecting him to do any actual work.
I also don’t like how Booker has been caricatured by so many on the left as some kind of Wall Street sell out. It’s much more complicated than that. If he’s been captured, in some real sense, he also has real ideas about how to utilize the power he’s gained to help the poor and the marginalized. I don’t think he’s lying when he argues that social media is an important democratizing force.
He has over 1.4 million Twitter followers and has made over 30,000 tweets. That’s real commitment. I think I am too old to know what it means.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/8/7/102629/4030#14
No Patience for Post Sentimentality
by BooMan
Wed Aug 7th, 2013 at 12:20:28 PM EST
I don’t really have anything against the Graham family and I believe that they have truly earned the intense loyalty of Washington Post employees and veterans. I understand the sadness people are feeling over the sale of the Post to Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com. I do.
But these people need to understand how truly awful the Washington Post has been for decades now. To properly document the atrocities committed by the Post would take up an entire career, but you can get a taste just by opening up the opinion page any day of the week.
But rather than even get into the details of how the paper operates, perhaps it would be better to just stipulate that the Post reflects the common wisdom and values of the upper crust of Georgetown society, and that that society has been letting America down since at least the moment that LBJ was sworn in on Air Force One.
We have been failed by our leaders repeatedly, and we have come to have contempt for them, and definitely not for the reasons Sally Quinn imagines. They see themselves as honorable, and permanent, and impervious to whatever ideology is ascendent in town at any particular time.
The television parallel of the Post is CNN, which similarly employs people for life without regard for performance and takes an agnostic stance on which side of any argument has more merit, instead focusing on the dispute itself. Ever since Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire with hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala, it’s been clear that this kind of politics-as-show agnosticism is the worst kind of hackery and that it’s hurting the country. Mr. Stewart actually single-handedly killed Crossfire (at least, he did for a number of years) by simply shining an honest light on what they did and why it sucked.
This kind of faux-objectivity just creates a vapid din that enables the weaponization of the county’s stupidity. It’s an endless he said/she said, where the point is not the truth or value but the fact that an argument is taking place. It’s much more entertainment than news. And, worse, the debate is so narrowed and constricted that no opinion can be allowed to exist if it doesn’t lie somewhere between what Mary Matalin thinks and what her husband James Carville thinks. And they’re both wrong, about everything.
That’s what the Washington Establishment is and has been for decades now, and it makes ordinary Americans want to puke. If Jeff Bezos can do something to improve matters, that will be great. But he can’t do it unless he comes in with some heavy equipment and just razes the place.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/8/7/122028/7623
Spike Lee Gets Heated at Kickstarter Criticism With Bloomberg
http://youtu.be/t38bi5dAxZY
Spike SLAPPED that BEY-OTCH!!!
President Obama on Wednesday canceled his Moscow one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid U.S. anger over Russia’s harboring of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/obama-disappointed-in-russias-decision-to-grant-asylum-to-nsa-leaker-edward-snowden/2013/08/06/8b9088a8-fef7-11e2-8294-0ee5075b840d_story.html
Have fun with your lil Bitch, Snowden, Vlady boy!
Thanks for posting on Dosier reform school at Lake Okeechobee FL JUST PLAIN EVIL, Liza. I was driving home yesterday and heard about it on NPR. Then when I got home we got hit with servere storm that took out our power. We didn’t get power back until 3 am this morning.
Hi, Ametia. I was in shock when I first read about this Florida reform school for boys a couple of weeks ago. The exhumations that the state just allowed are going to be at the Marianna campus that was recently shut down in 2011. Marianna is in the panhandle and it may as well be part of Alabama, there is absolutely no difference.
This was state sanctioned torture, enslavement, and murder of children. Evil, sadistic little white men (many of whom were pedophiles) were allowed to destroy the lives of thousands of children, murder with impunity, and get paid by the State of Florida. It is incomprehensible.
Happy HUMP day, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning,Everyone at 3CHICS!
Good Morning All !
Hello, everyone!