I never liked the word- Blaxploitation. I always thought it was invented to disrespect the movies that came out during that time. Look back at the body of movies that came out during that time and compare them to the images of Black people in the decades preceding it, and you can see how it was almost revolutionary. We went from being just maids and servants and slaves to where we were the heroes and villains of the movie. Some of the most creative Black minds tried different things during that time and brought their differing visions to the people. Not just in front of the camera, but behind the camera – writing, directing, and musical talents.
So, this week, we’re going to celebrate Blaxploitation Movies.
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Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the 1970s. It is considered an ethnic subgenre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre’s audience appeal soon broadened across racial and ethnic lines. The term itself is a portmanteau of the words “black” and “exploitation,” following upon the briefly-common usage “sexploitation” for porn-inflected films, and was coined in the early 1970s by the Los Angeles National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) head, and ex-film publicist Junius Griffin. Blaxploitation films were the first to regularly feature soundtracks of funk and soul music as well as primarily black casts.[1] Variety credited Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, released in 1971, with the invention of the blaxploitation genre while others argue that the Hollywood-financed film Shaft, also released in 1971, is closer to being a blaxploitation piece and thus is more likely to have begun the trend.[2]
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Stereotypes[edit source | edit]
The genre’s role in exploring and shaping race relations in the US has been controversial. While some held that the Blaxploitation trend was a token of black empowerment,[6] the movies were accused by others of perpetuating common white stereotypes about black people. As a result, many called for the end of the genre. The NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and National Urban League joined together to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Through their influence, during the late 1970s, they contributed to the demise of the genre.
Blaxploitation films such as Mandingo (1975) provided mainstream Hollywood producers, in this case Dino De Laurentiis, a cinematic way to depict plantation slavery, with all of its brutal, historical and ongoing racial contradictions and controversies, including sex, miscegenation, rebellion and so on. In addition, the story world depicts the plantation as one of the main origins of boxing as a sport in the U.S. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new wave of acclaimed black filmmakers focused on black urban life in their movies, particularly Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood, among others. These films made use of elements of Blaxploitation, but also incorporated implicit criticism of the genre’s glorification of stereotypical “criminal” behavior.
Two of my favorites, including Ossie Davis’ directorial debut: Cotton Comes to Harlem…along with its sequel, Come Back Charleston Blue.
Cotton Comes to Harlem is a 1970 blaxploitation film co-written and directed by Ossie Davis and starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, and Redd Foxx: it is based on Chester Himes’ novel of the same name. The opening theme, “Ain’t Now But It’s Gonna Be” was written by Ossie Davis and performed by Melba Moore.
Plot
Reverend Deke O’Malley (Calvin Lockhart) arrives to fanfare at a rally in Harlem. Meanwhile, two Harlem detectives, Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and “Coffin” Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) catch a pickpocket, Early Riser, among the crowd and run him off. The Reverend is selling shares in a Back-to-Africa movement ship to be called The Black Beauty. Uncle Budd (Redd Foxx) doesn’t have the $100 minimum down payment, but the Reverend accepts his $20 for a share. Some men from the District Attorney’s office arrive and ask the Reverend to come downtown. The Reverend agrees to leave as several masked gunman jump out a meat truck and begin shooting. They steal $87,000 in cash from the back of an armored car. The Reverend and two assistants chase the meat truck in the armored car; the detectives chase them both in their car. A bale of cotton falls out of the during the chase. The detectives lose them avoiding some youngsters in the street. Riser is hit by the meat truck while fleeing a pickpocketing attempt, which causes the truck and armored car to crash.
The detectives go to the Reverend’s girlfriend, Iris Brown (Judy Pace). Iris is roughed up by Ed, but she won’t talk. Patrolman Jarema arrives and says Lt., Anderson wants the detectives at the crash site. They tell Jarema to stay and watch Iris. Ed recognizes Early Riser’s corpse at the crash site as Gravedigger finds raw cotton in the meat truck. The detectives leave to find Lo Boy (Cleavon Little), Riser’s junkie partner, who tells them he saw Barry Waterfield run away from the crash, chased by white men wearing masks. Digger wants to know how Lo Boy knows they were white if they were masked. “They run white, dammit,” Lo Boy says.
Iris tricks Jarema and gets away. She meets Billie, who is practicing at the Apollo Theater, and Barry, her boyfriend. The Reverend is hiding out with Mrs. Mabel Hill, the wife of one of the people killed during the robbery. Mrs. Hill tells the Reverend she overheard two white officers discussing a reward for a bale of cotton. Mrs. Hill tries to kiss the Reverend just as Iris enters, starting a fight. Iris bashes Mabel over the head. The Reverend knocks Iris unconscious, and leaves through the window as someone begins pounding at the door.
Gravedigger demands that Caspar Brown, a number runner, take him to his Italian mafia boss. They meet Ed at a Chinese restaurant with an Italian mafioso. The mafioso claims he had nothing to do with the robbery, as $87,000 isn’t enough money to be worth angering the whole black community.
Uncle Budd has found the bale of cotton and sells it for $25 to Abe Goodman, a junk dealer. A “white man” (J.D. Cannon) comes by Budd’s place looking to buy a bale. Barry is with Budd and scares the white man off. Barry meets the Reverend in a pool hall and tells the Reverend where the bale of cotton is as Digger and Ed watch them from outside. At the junkyard, the Reverend and company search for the cotton as the detectives watch from above. As Ed sneaks down, the masked robbers arrive. A gun fight begins, leaving 6 dead. The Reverend and the remaining robbers flee. Goodman is summoned to be questioned by the police. Goodman says that Budd sold him a bale of cotton, but bought it back later for $30.
The Reverend returns, and the police arrest him. Iris is already in custody, and she has already told the police that the men from the D.A.’s office were fake; that the Reverend would use his trip downtown as cover to disappear with the cash; and that the robbery foiled his plans. Iris has told the police the Reverend hit Mabel. A patrolman informs the detectives and Anderson that Uncle Budd “has been found.” However the next scene shows the police at the junk yard – which is by the river – where they discuss the need to dredge it for Budd’s body, indicating they don’t know where Budd is. They nevertheless discuss Budd’s brutal murder.
A minor riot begins to erupt outside the police station, but the detectives promise to recover the missing money and send everyone home. An attorney arrives with a court order to release the Reverend. As the Reverend exits the jail, some men convince the Reverend to leave with them instead, as they know the Reverend is looking for a “white man” and “a bale of cotton.” The detectives decide they need bait to catch O’Malley again. Iris escapes from jail, heads back to the theater to find the Reverend tied up by Calhoun, the “white man.” Calhoun believes the Reverend has double crossed him and has the money. A sound alerts Calhoun that someone has followed Iris. Two henchman investigate the sounds with Calhoun. Iris threatens the Reverend with a broken glass bottle, but he convinces her to reach into his coat pocket.
Upstairs, the detectives have captured and gagged Calhoun’s henchmen. They shoot at Calhoun, who charges back downstairs. The detectives only find a smiling Iris wearing a new engagement ring. Digger quickly discovers a secret panel in the room and pursues the two men. Iris finds a gun in the room, takes it, and leaves. At the police station, Bryce realizes that the detectives aided Iris’s escape and sends Jarema after them.
At the Apollo, Billie performs on stage atop the bale during a production of Cotton Comes to Harlem. Iris watches from the crowd as Calhoun and the Reverend go on stage after the bale. The Reverend betrays Calhoun, telling the crowd Calhoun stole the money. The crowd attacks Calhoun, but Digger saves and handcuffs him. The Reverend goes after the bale in the prop room, but Ed is waiting for him. Ed beats the Reverend until Iris enters and shoots at Ed. Digger and Jarema surprise Iris and handcuff her. The Reverend runs to the stage and addresses the crowd. Bloody and disoriented, he attacks the children who are on stage to get their microphone. The crowd abandons him as he pleads for them not to leave him.
Back at the police station, Jarema can’t find the money in the bale. Ed and Digger threaten to replace the mafioso with “black capitalists” like Caspar unless he replaces the money, which Anderson then finds in the bale. Jarema insists the money must have been planted after his search, perhaps by Ed and Digger.
Ed and Digger laugh over a postcard from Uncle Budd, who is alive. Budd has retired to Africa with the original $87,000, surrounded by beautiful, and mostly naked, women.
Broadway star Ossie Davis’s rollicking first film, adapted from Chester Himes’s 1965 novel, was shot in Harlem during the spring of 1969, with extensive neighborhood participation and an almost entirely black cast headed by Raymond St. Jacques and Godfrey Cambridge (both playing cops) with Calvin Lockhart stealing the movie as their nemesis, a bogus preacher.
Come Back Charleston Blue is a 1972 film starring Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques, loosely based on Chester Himes’ novel The Heat’s On. It is a sequel to the 1970 film Cotton Comes to Harlem.
Plot
Coffin Ed Johnson & Gravedigger Jones are confounded by a string of strange murders in the neighborhood of Harlem, New York. The murders themselves aren’t nearly as bizarre as the calling card left by the murderer: a blue steel straight razor. Legend has it that this was the calling card of Charleston Blue, a vigilante who tried to rid the neighborhood of all criminal elements using a straight razor. Blue, having disappeared years ago after he went after Dutch Schultz (with his trusty straight razor) was considered dead by all except his girlfriend, who kept his razors locked away until his “come back.”
Soon after the murders began it is discovered that the razors were missing and all evidence points to Joe Painter, a local photographer, who has begun dating Carol, the beloved niece of mafia errand boy, Caspar Brown. Joe and Brown are at odds over Caspar’s refusal to help Joe kick the mafia out of the neighborhood, so Joe enlists the help of a group of brothers and the spirit of Charleston Blue. However, Coffin Ed Johnson & Gravedigger Jones discover that Joe’s plan doesn’t seem to be exactly what he claimed it was.
Soundtrack
All tracks written by Donny Hathaway except “Little Ghetto Boy” (Earl DuRouen / Edward Howard) and “Come Back Charleston Blue” (Al Cleveland / Donny Hathaway / Quincy Jones).[3]
Another good one set in Harlem was Across 110th Street
Across 110th Street is a 1972 American crime drama film starring Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, and Anthony Franciosa, and directed by Barry Shear. Commonly associated with the blaxploitation genre at the time, it has received considerable critical praise from writer Greil Marcus and others for surpassing the limitations of that genre.[2]
Plot
This film is set in Harlem, of which 110th Street is an informal boundary line.
By-the-book African-American Lieutenant William Pope (Kotto) has to work with crude, racist but streetwise Italian-American Captain Frank Mattelli (Quinn) in the NYPD’s 27th precinct. They are looking for three black men who slaughtered seven men—three black gangsters and two Italian gangsters, as well as two patrol officers—in the robbery of $300,000 from a Mafia-owned Harlem policy bank. Mafia lieutenant Nick D’Salvio (Franciosa) and his two henchmen are also after the hoods.
In one of many violent scenes, D’Salvio finds getaway driver Henry J. Jackson (Antonio Fargas) and brutalizes him in a Harlem whorehouse.
Production
The movie was filmed on location in Harlem, New York. The film is also notable as being the first feature film to use a self-blimped camera (the Arriflex 35BL) for sync sound; the much-reduced size of the camera allowed the production to not only use more hand-held shots and smaller locations than normal, but also record usable sound at the same time – an endeavor not previously possible under those circumstances.
Andre Leon Talley was on Rev. Al tonight, speaking of the lack of diversity in the fashion industry.
If you can get the clip, please post it.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755884/#52966399
Looking for it now. Manwhile I have a thread up with Iman & Naomi’s GMA interview this morning. They’re name-dropping on the designers racism.
9/05/2013
Obamacare Is Going to Murder Republicans:
At some point after October 1, Obamacare is going to saunter into a Republican congressional caucus meeting and stone cold murder the fuck out of everyone there. Obamacare is gonna strangle John Boehner until he turns a deep persimmon color. It’s gonna shove Eric Cantor’s glasses down his throat. And, fuck it, why not, it’s gonna break Louis Gohmert’s head open to reveal the hollow space inside. Then, bloodsoaked and sweaty, it’ll head over to the Senate to do it all over again.
As far as the GOP is concerned, the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act is their appointment with the executioner. That’s why they have desperately attempted to defund, discredit, and disappear the thing. Forty votes to overturn it in the House. Threats in the Senate and House to hold the debt ceiling or the budget hostage if it’s not defunded. A campaign of disinformation that has succeeded in making 44% of Americans unsure if it’s still a law.
And let’s be honest here: The Obama administration and the AFA’s supporters in Congress have totally fucked up in making people understand exactly what the hell the thing does, beyond easy shit like “No caps” or “Kids can stay on your insurance until 26.” Transforming health care for tens of millions of Americans is a huge undertaking, made more complicated by the demands of asshole Republicans and assholier conservative Democrats, so of course it’s gonna be hard to explain until it’s in effect, no matter how many Katy Perry tweets or Bill Clinton speeches try to help. On October 1, the health insurance exchange opens and people can start shopping and discover for themselves that Obamacare won’t rape their dogs, kill their parents, and eat their childrens’ hearts while Kenyan drums beat savagely in the background.
Unless, of course, you’re a Republican member of Congress. Then Obamacare is coming for you.
See, despite the inevitable bumps along the way that will be exploited to the extreme by the panicked right, there’s going to be time after time of some fundamentalist yahoo in Alabama or some gun-fellating nut in Michigan or some racist jackal in Arizona grudgingly getting insurance and realizing that, holy shit, they can get that weird mole looked at or get a check-up that turns up the clogged artery that leads to the operation that saves a life. And then, a few years down the road, everyone will just expect Obamacare to be there, like Medicare.
If you belong to a party that has based its very existence on keeping government out of people’s lives (except when it comes to abortion rights, GLBT rights, building permits for mosques, and so very much more), if you’ve spent the better part of the last few years attempting to say how terrible it will be, then the rate of success of Obamacare is inversely proportional to your worth as a politician. Because if the fundy yahoos, gun fellaters, and racist jackals decide they like having their infections treated by doctors without paying thousands of dollars for it, then your ideology is dead, murdered by Obamacare.
http://www.rudepundit.blogspot.com/2013/09/obamacare-is-going-to-murder-republicans.html
A good comment from JoJoRaze:
LMBAO And if Putin ain’t buying Merkel’s Bennett. then her name is “BESS” and she ain’t in this mess.
Between SoS Kerry, National Security Advisor Susan Rice and PBO’s six media interviews today. Assad & Putin better recognize1
BTW, all six media interviews plus Rice’s remarks on posted on a thread.
No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal defeated top-seeded Novak Djokovic to win the U.S. Open tennis championship
The 1 percent’s Ivy League loophole
Not only do children of rich alumni get admission preferences, now they can get taxpayers to help them, too!
By Elizabeth Stoker and Matthew Bruenig
Legacy preference in college admission, or the practice of selecting the offspring of alumni over other qualified candidates, was originally a strategy developed to grandfather Jewish applicants out of admission. Though the policy’s intention has changed, it remains the reality that as American students head back to campus this fall, 10 to 25 percent of them do not deserve their spots. They’re “legacy admits,” the kids who got a boost via birth.
Quite a boost, in fact. In their 2005 paper “The Opportunity Cost of Admission Preferences at Elite Universities,” Princeton scholars Thomas Espenshade and Chang Chung found that legacy status gives fortunate applicants the equivalent of an additional 160 points on the former 1,600 point SAT scale. One hundred sixty points is no small adjustment; on the contrary, it’s the sort of improvement hopeful high schoolers bury their noses in books for. Yet it comes gratis to a set of students already privileged enough to be born to graduates of prestigious institutions.
Legacy preference seems to intensify in effect toward the upper end of university rankings, rendering entry into prestigious institutions with valuable resources and facilities especially daunting for poor students without alumni parents (or for first-generation applicants with no graduates in the family). Journalist Daniel Golden reports that nearly 90 percent of elite institutions calibrate their scales in favor of legacy status when weighing applicants against one another; as a result, numerous top-tier universities feature legacy acceptance rates far higher than overall acceptance rates. Legacy, in other words, is a sort of affirmative action for the wealthy, with fewer outraged news specials featuring tearful interviews of rejected candidates.
Less exclusive schools also consider legacy status in admissions. But of particular concern in the case of legacy admission in elite institutions is what a degree from it confers. There is, of course, the top-notch schooling, the access to programs, resources and equipment that other schools cannot always afford, and ever-present “connections.” But through some combination of all those factors arises a path to power: Research by Thomas Dye of the Lincoln Center for Public Service shows that 54 percent of America’s corporate leaders as well as 42 percent of our government officials are all graduates of just 12 institutions – Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford among them. In 2003, Harvard accepted 40 percent of legacy applicants compared to an overall 11 percent acceptance rate; Princeton’s numbers are quite similar.
For those looking to pass power and wealth down, legacy admission practices are a handy tool. Universities, who periodically masquerade as engines of social mobility, claim that legacy admission is merely a good business practice, necessary to coax their alumni to generously donate to their alma maters.
But if this is true, then alumni donations are not donations at all. Rather, they’re implicit transactions: alumni pay universities and receive additional admissions consideration for their children in return. That is the quid pro quo of the donation-legacy arrangement.
Yet, curiously, the Internal Revenue Service does not treat alumni donations as transactional payments. Instead, it treats them as charitable giving. As a result, alumni that make such donations are entitled to deduct the amount of their donation from their income for tax purposes. In so doing, the richest alumni receive a tax subsidy of 40 percent of the amount of their donation. That is, the public ultimately funds as much as 40 percent of any given legacy admissions payment.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/09/the_1_percents_ivy_league_loophole/?source=newsletter
Why Bloomberg snapped: The real reason he must hate de Blasio
For years his political power and cash helped prevent a sustained attack on his legacy. This time he’s powerless
By Blake Zeff
Over the weekend, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg drew attention for allegedly suggesting that Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio was running a “racist” campaign in his bid to succeed him. This wasn’t necessarily the most revealing thing he said in the interview, and it’s not even clear he meant to use that word.
But the flap did reveal a central truth.
Michael Bloomberg is not enjoying de Blasio’s campaign — and there’s a pretty good reason why: The Democrat’s campaign represents one of the first sustained, publicly damaging attacks on his mayoralty that the billionaire has not been able to silence using an arsenal of personal relationships, political leverage and lots of money. For Bloomberg’s political and policy legacies, de Blasio’s impassioned critique (and its dramatic political success) pose a formidable threat he has not faced before.
First, some context. When Bloomberg entered office in 2001, the default setting for running City Hall was that at any given moment, you were likely to be hated by a sizable portion of the city, no matter what you did. It simply wasn’t possible to run New York in a way that would avoid vocal criticism from editorial pages, unions, business elites, leaders of numerous ethnic and cultural communities, nonprofits, good government groups, other politicians, the city council, and the organization of the opposition party (let alone your own) all at the same time.
To some extent, Michael Bloomberg managed to change that — partly through laudable ways, partly through less laudable ones. But either way, the result was he was able — until now — to prevent a climate of noisy pushback that most New York mayors do not.
Since his first term, the editorial pages helped set the tone. Sure, the New York Post, Daily News and New York Times hardly agree on anything. But all have owners who admire the fellow media-owning executive Bloomberg. While each took issue with him occasionally, all three would not only effusively endorse his second term, but pave the way to overturn the law that helped him land a third one (and each endorsed his tacit choice for a successor, Christine Quinn, this year).
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So, yeah, Bloomberg has been pretty successful in using his arsenal of financial and political leverage to discourage dissent.
Here’s where de Blasio comes in.
Unlike with so many other players who have come before him, Bloomberg can exercise no political or financial leverage over the Democratic front-runner.
Formally endorsing Quinn in the primary – once seen as an assured outcome – would actually help de Blasio in the Democratic primary, where voters have mixed feelings about the mayor (and seem to be penalizing Quinn for her relationship with him). Saying nasty things about de Blasio, as the mayor did in the interview published this weekend, also seems to be helping him. And with both men soon vacating their current offices, there isn’t much Bloomberg can do to him governmentally (e.g., cut his budget) at this point.
As for money, the mayor could theoretically empty his wallet and fund a PAC’s ads against de Blasio. But he hasn’t so far, and for good reason: Doing so might very well boomerang on him in much the same way his verbal attack has. Without the political leverage to quiet him or the opportunity to financially drown him, he’s been left to deploy his skilled aide Howard Wolfson to bash de Blasio and defend his legacy in various forums. Wolfson’s good at this, but compare it to the arsenal of tools the mayor previously had to protect his image, and it barely makes a dent. Even with the city’s three biggest papers endorsing Quinn, de Blasio’s only seemed to get stronger.
The result is that the Democrat has launched a sustained, vociferous attack on the Bloomberg legacy – on everything from his economic philosophy to his stop-and-frisk policy – and it has stuck. Over the course of the last 12 years, it’s one of the only lengthy, publicly audible excoriations of his performance and legacy that the mayor could not quell – whether through intimidation, punishment or reward.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/09/why_bloomberg_snapped_the_real_reason_he_must_hate_de_blasio/?source=newsletter
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Thank you for all the news articles you have provided, rikyrah!
Paul Krugman’s Stubborn Mastery of Facts Continues to Undermine G.O.P Policy
By: Becky Sarwate
Sep. 9th, 2013
Every now and then a pundit publishes a piece of writing so simple, so right on, that it’s necessary to force a momentary pivot away from the gaping maw of the 24/7 news cycle to celebrate it. It’s one thing to share a link on Facebook or retweet a story, but I have to wonder if those sorts of essentially mindless activities have supplanted the demand of critical thought. And as a busy person who is as often as guilty of the “read, digest and move onto the next thing” as anyone else, I’m going to practice what I preach this week.
Because friends, Paul Krugman’s Monday morning column, “The Wonk Gap,” subtitled, “What the G.O.P. doesn’t know can hurt us,” is really what it’s all about. I have long admired The New York Times’ Nobel Prize-winning economist for his approachable, accessible good sense. That approval went to another level in the fallout from the late 2008 financial collapse and the Great Recession that we seem unable to fully shake. While a large assortment of Krugman’s colleagues began to issue battle cries railing against the Federal deficit and debt, when it was clear that our biggest problem was the dual devastations of joblessness and demolished home value and equity, Krugman refused to throw in with popular opinion.
The result is that while the often-heartless austerity team has been proven wrong time and again (there’s zero examples of cutting a nation’s way to prosperity – see Greece, Spain, etc.), Krugman’s Keynesian philosophy has been vindicated over and over. He labeled the 2009 stimulus package too small and argued that a larger plan would pose no great threat to our nation’s long-term debt structure. With a U6 unemployment rate still hovering near 14 percent, a measure that includes people seeking full-time employment, as well as those forced into part-time positions out of basic necessity, the jobs situation hasn’t improved much in the last four years. Meanwhile factcheck.org highlights the obfuscations of the GOP’s favorite debt policy fraud, Paul Ryan, by concluding “Ryan’s chart ignores $2 trillion in deficit reduction and compounds that exaggeration by projecting the inflated deficit figures out for many decades in the future.”
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/09/paul-krugmans-stubborn-mastery-facts-continues-undermine-g-o-p-policy.html
Sunny Hostin @SunnyHostin1m
Lake Mary police have confirmed: George Zimmerman has been taken into custody after an incident involving a gun with another person.
George Zimmerman taken into custody today in gun incident
George Zimmerman was taken into custody Monday in Central Florida following an incident involving a gun with another person, WKMG-TV reports.
There were few details immediately regarding the incident in Lake Mary, Fla., Orlando TV station WKMG reports.
CNN quotes police as saying that Zimmerman is in “investigative custody.”
Police were called to a house in Lake Mary after a report that Zimmerman was involved in an incident with another person and that involved a threat.
WKMT’s SKY 6 helicopter of the scenes shows at least a half-dozen police squad cars outside the house.
Zimmerman has been arrested twice for speeding since his acquittal in the killing of a black unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin. Last week, his wife, Shellie Zimmerman. filed for divorce.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/09/george-zimmerman-gun-incident-florida-trayvon-martin/2788443/
A thread’s in the works, Yahtc.
Love movies and appreciate this thread. I remember the first Black movies that I saw; Sweet, Sweetback, Shaft, If He Hollers Let Him Go. When in college taking a film class, I went years back and found that there were many independently made movies featuring Black actors or controversial subjects, such as Nothing But A Man, The Well, and a truck load of movies starring Paul Robeson that were filmed in the U.K. My favorite Paul Robeson movie is “Song of Freedom.”
Hi Xena. Love Sweet Sweetback. Melvin Van Pebbles was the MAN! And Shaft was a Bad Mutha….
With One Speech Elizabeth Warren Terrifies the Koch Brothers and The Supreme Court
By: Jason Easley
Sep. 9th, 2013
In a brief speech at the AFL-CIO convention, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rocked the crowd by taking on the Koch brothers, and the corporate owned and operated conservative Supreme Court majority.
Here is the close of Warren’s speech:
http://youtu.be/aJS6TV6F3As
Sen. Warren called the Supreme Court conservative majority among the top ten pro-corporate justices of the last half century, and said, “You follow this pro-corporate trend to its logical conclusion, and sooner or later you’ll end up with a Supreme Court that functions as a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business.”
Warren roused the crowd by vowing to take on the powerful interests, “From tax policy to retirement security, the voices of hard-working people get drowned out by powerful industries and well-financed front groups The fight continues to rage, and the powerful interests continue to be guided by their age-old principle: ‘I’ve got mine, the rest of you are on your own. However steep our climb, I am proud to stand with you, to march with you, and to fight side-by-side with you.”
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/09/elizabeth-warren-koch-brothers-supreme-court-speech.html
President Obama Drops the Mic: Crumbling Under US Pressure, Russia Tells Syria to Disarm
Monday, September 09, 2013 | Posted by Spandan C at 10:21 AM
So last night, I wrote a piece reporting on the Haaretz piece that facing mounting pressure from President Obama and his firm resolve to use military force to cripple Syria’s ability to deliver chemical weapons given Russia’s intransigence in the UN, Russia may have started to buckle. That the world understood that Barack Obama doesn’t dick around, and responding to this – and John Kerry’s final ultimatum that Syria turn over its weapons to an international inspection regime by the end of the week – Russia is now reeling Assad in. Haaretz reported both an under-discussion proposed democratic transition in Syria as well as disarmament. This morning, several news organizations … ahem, “broke” the story that at least the second part is true:
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/09/time-to-drop-mic-crumbling-under-obamas.html
PBO dropped Ice Cube on Russia and Syria: Bow Down.
BWA HA HA HA Meanwhile the EMOPROGS & NEM are in complete MELTDOWN!
Me loves it!
A diplomatic curveball shakes up Syria debate
By Steve Benen
Mon Sep 9, 2013 1:05 PM EDT.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague greets Secretary of State John Kerry in London this morning.
One of the oddities of the escalating tensions between the U.S. and Syria is the noticeable lack of ultimatums. At no point has the Obama administration said, “Unless Syria does x, the United States will have no choice but to pursue y.” There are no deadlines the Assad government has been expected to meet; there are no promises Syria has been asked to keep. The question that has dominated the last few weeks is whether the U.S. will use force, not what Syria might do to prevent such action.
This landscape changed slightly this morning in unexpected ways.
In London, Secretary of State John Kerry was asked if there’s anything Assad could do to avoid a military strike. “Sure,” Kerry said. Assad “could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.”
The comments did not go unnoticed.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/09/20405373-a-diplomatic-curveball-shakes-up-syria-debate?lite
Surely, Assad does NOT want to go the way of Bin Laden.
Susan Rice: U.N. negotiations on Syria “shameful”: http://bit.ly/1ewA727
Ametia,
Thank you very much for posting this most important video.
Everyone needs to watch this video with an open heart and conscience and stand up and speak up!
The object of the right’s affections
By Steve Benen
Mon Sep 9, 2013 10:33 AM EDT.
The more Russian President Vladimir Putin cracked down on gay rights, the more U.S. conservatives discovered a fondness for the Russian autocrat. Indeed, support for Putin among social conservatives and leaders of the religious right movement only seems to be growing.
But in recent weeks, the right’s embrace of Putin seems to have expanded well beyond social conservatives and anti-gay activists. Eric Boehlert reported on Friday on Republican media figures backing Putin with growing enthusiasm as U.S. tensions with Syria escalate.
How far has the right’s wild-eyed contempt for President Obama gone? Far enough that conservatives can barely contain their increasingly creepy crush on the former KGB official with an authoritarian streak.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/09/20403995-the-object-of-the-rights-affections?lite
Sickening!
SHORT: White, right, and evil trumps the BLACK PRESIDENT.
Conservatives’ newfound interest in Obama’s feet
By Steve Benen
Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:13 AM EDT
Shortly after President Obama announced he would seek congressional approval for military intervention in Syria, the White House issued a photo of Obama speaking on the phone with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that morning. It wasn’t an especially remarkable Oval Office image, but the right really didn’t care for it.
Drudge put the shot on his homepage and soon after, Tea Partiers, among others, wanted to know, “Does seeing President Obama’s foot on the Oval Office desk make your blood boil?”
The right’s preoccupation with stuff like this has been odd for a long while. Republicans were outraged back in 2009 when the president was photographed in the Oval Office without his jacket on, despite the fact that there are plenty of shots of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan in the Oval without their jackets on. Likewise, conservatives were incensed last week about seeing the president’s foot on his desk, though there are plenty of pictures of Republican presidents with their feet on the Oval Office desk, too.
But that’s not the funny part. This is.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/09/20404404-conservatives-newfound-interest-in-obamas-feet?lite
I clicked the link and read the part in quotes.
They’ve totally lost their marbles and gone nuts!
Before 2016 is out and the POTUS packs up his family and leaves the WH, these nuts will be asking for him to verify his PENIS SIZE.
A presidency is not on the line
By Steve Benen
Mon Sep 9, 2013 11:57 AM EDT
The Hill published an item this morning that helps capture much of the Beltway thinking about Congress’ upcoming votes on military intervention in Syria. “The fate of President Obama’s second term hangs on his Tuesday speech to the nation about Syria,” the piece argues. “If Congress votes against a military attack on President Bashar Assad’s regime, Obama’s credibility may be shot, perhaps for the rest of his tenure.”
This is certainly the conventional wisdom, eagerly touted by Republicans. If Congress rejects the White House’s call for action, Obama’s defeat will be so catastrophic, he might as well resign.
Obviously, the House and Senate votes are very important; it’d be foolish to argue otherwise. The world is watching, and if the president’s call for authorization is rejected by Congress, it will carry significant consequences — for Syria, for U.S. foreign policy, and for the administration.
But let’s not go too overboard.
Yes, Obama is prepared to use force in response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, and lawmakers seem prepared to turn down the president’s request. But let’s not lose sight of the larger dynamic here: Obama asks Congress for a lot of things, and lawmakers routinely say no. Kevin Drum’s take rings true:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/09/20404803-a-presidency-is-not-on-the-line?lite
It is in the Congress’ hands now……they bear the responsibility. This has nothing to do with President Obama “winning or losing.”
Far-right lawmakers freelance in Egypt
By Steve Benen
Mon Sep 9, 2013 9:00 AM EDT.
We’ve kept an eye on the extent to which right-wing rhetoric from unhinged members of Congress affect U.S. foreign policy — a phenomenon that’s both real and alarming. This is especially true in Egypt, where comments from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) undermined U.S. policy last year, and equally inane theories from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) had similar effects this year.
But this clearly raises the stakes.
As Max Fisher reported, Bachmann, Gohmert, and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) — arguably the three most ridiculous lawmakers in Congress — traveled to Cairo, met directly with the leader of the Egyptian coup, and then filmed a video praising both the uprising and the violent crackdown on pro-Morsi demonstrators that followed.
This is more than just a random stunt from strange politicians. The official position of the United States was that the post-overthrow violence was needlessly brutal and shocking, so much so that aid to Egypt may well be suspended. And yet, Bachmann, Gohmert, and King traveled to Cairo to deliver a conflicting message — apparently because they felt like it.
Bachmann, at her most Bachmann-esque, even went so far as to suggest the Muslim Brotherhood was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. “We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against this great evil,” she said, adding: “We remember who caused 9/11. We remember who it was that killed 3,000 brave Americans.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/09/20402828-far-right-lawmakers-freelance-in-egypt?lite
The common good
Monday, September 09, 2013 | Posted by Liberal Librarian at 6:59 AM
What libertarians—of both the “left” and “right”—want to do is to remove the possibility of an experience I had at work this past weekend.
She’s been coming in for a couple of weeks now, and always seems to come to me for help. Her name is Anne. She’s African American, and deaf.
This past Saturday, she came in while I was on the reference desk. I recognized her immediately and she asked if I remembered her. I said “Of course”, and asked her to sit down. She wrote me a note in which she explained that since English wasn’t her first language, would it be possible for someone to help her fill out some paperwork. I asked her what the paperwork was, and she said it consisted of documents she had to prepare for a new job.
Now, technically this isn’t in my job description. As a rule, we can’t spend an inordinate amount of time with just one patron. But, it was a slow Saturday afternoon, and many times the real job description for librarian is to go beyond what is normally expected. So, I spent the rest of my reference shift helping her with her paperwork. Once my relief came, I had her come with me to the children’s area, where there is a small children’s table, and we finished with her documentation. The look on her face and her effusive thank yous were enough payment for me for the day.
Contrast this with something that’s happening in Kentucky right now, where a Tea Party group wants to roll back library funding 30 years, claiming that taxes were “illegally collected”. In service of that, it has a Survey Monkey page which asks: “Are Public Libraries Still Valid in the 21st Century”. Of course, I filled it out and encouraged all my colleagues and friends to do so as well.
Ask my deaf patron, bravely striking out on her own, getting help from a librarian, help which she couldn’t get anywhere else, if libraries are still relevant in the 21st century. Ask my regulars, with maladies at which I can only guess because I’m too circumspect to inquire deeply, who come every day to use our free wifi if libraries are valid in the 21st century. Ask the parents whose children come to my Storytime every week and are shown a world of imagination and wonder if libraries are still relevant in the 21st century. Ask the old ladies who come in every day looking for their latest book club selection if libraries are relevant in the 21st century.
I could go on. The examples are legion. But I use the example of libraries to put forth a larger point.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/09/the-common-good.html
Left/Right Libertarianism as the developing threat to progressive change
Three years ago when Jane Hamsher decided to team up with Grover Norquist to try to defeat Obamacare, most of us were shocked by her obvious Obama Derangement Syndrome. And yet today, that effort to hoodwink progressives into signing up with tea party libertarians is a pretty common phenomenon. Lately we’ve watched these folks:
1.#StandWithRand on his ridiculous anti-drone filibuster
2. Suggest that we should join forces with the tea party to defeat a budget deal
3.Tell us that America’s only hope is Ron/Rand Paul and the Drudge Report
4.Team up with tea party Rep. Justin Amash to defund the NSA
5.Agree with Sarah Palin’s “Let Allah sort it out” on the gassing of civilians in Syria
As someone who is addicted to looking at the big picture, I think it behooves us to take a look at what is happening here. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is exactly the direction folks like Assange and Greenwald have wanted to see things go for a long time. But the question still remains, “why is this sort of movement gaining traction with progressives these days?” There are two things that make this all seem counter-intuitive:
1.The Republican Party is pandering to its most reactionary lunatic base. Not in my lifetime have I seen so much distance between where the two parties would take the country, and
2.We now have the most liberal President we’ve seen in a generation.
But if we dig a little deeper, those are exactly the things that are providing a platform for this movement towards libertarianism. We all know that Ron Paul actually getting the Republican nomination for president was a pipe dream. But with the disarray that we’ve seen recently, his son Rand is actually being seen as a serious contender. The Republican neo-cons failed so disastrously during the Bush/Cheney years that they gave an opening to the libertarian alternative.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/09/leftright-libertarianism-as-developing.html
Benghazi conspiracy theories distract GOP from Syria
By Steve Benen
Mon Sep 9, 2013 8:30 AM EDT.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared on “This Week” yesterday and made a reasonable observation about the debate over U.S. policy in Syria. “Listen, this is not the time for politics,” the far-right senator argued. “This is a grave and serious moment. I would like to support our commander in chief. I would like to see our commander in chief focused on protecting U.S. national security.”
Good. Fine. No problem. It’s a perfectly fair sentiment. But then Cruz kept talking.
Actually, yes, it is a phony scandal. The attack that took place a year ago this week has been investigated thoroughly and every Republican conspiracy theory has been discredited. And yet, Cruz is annoyed that a current, ongoing crisis in Syria is getting in the way of the debunked “scandal” that conservatives would prefer to talk about.
And it’s not just Cruz. This has quickly become a problem throughout Republican politics, with GOP lawmakers unable to even consider questions about Syria because they can’t shake their Benghazi obsession.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/09/20402228-benghazi-conspiracy-theories-distract-gop-from-syria?lite
Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Their Craven and Brazen Hypocrisy on Syria
If Romney were president, his party would be wailing for Assad’s head on a pike. But since Obama wants action, Republicans like Cruz and Rubio are against ‘Obama’s war.’ It’s contemptible, says Michael Tomasky.
by Michael Tomasky Sep 9, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
The Republican hypocrisy on Syria is just amazing. Imagine that Mitt Romney were president. Romney took a far more hawkish line than Barack Obama did on Syria during the campaign. He wanted to arm the rebels, supported in-country cover ops, and so on. So if Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons during President Romney’s tenure, there’s every reason to think he’d be pushing for action too. And what, in that case, would Republicans now temporizing or opposing Obama be doing in that case? They’d be breathing fire, of course. There’s a lot of chest thumping talk right now about how a failed vote will destroy Obama’s credibility. I guess that may be to some. But to anyone paying attention, the credibility of these Republicans is what will suffer, and the vote may well come back to haunt some of them in 2016.
Some Republicans are, to their credit, taking the position consistent with their records. John McCain stood up to those people who looked like they were about two feet away from his face at that town hall meeting last week. Lindsey Graham deserves more credit, since he’s facing reelection and is being called “a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood.” On the other side, Rand Paul and the neo-isolationists are probably taking the same position they’d take if Romney were president, although we can’t be completely sure. If Romney were in the White House, by 2016, “was so-and-so tough on Syria?” would probably be a top litmus test (unless, of course, things got really terrible over there). I could easily see Paul declaiming on the unique evil of chemical weapons that just this once required him to break from his noninterventionist views, but as things stand he at least is taking the position with which he is identified.
But most of them? Please. The Gold Weasel Medal goes to Marco Rubio, as others such as Tim Noah have noted. Back in April, Rubio thundered that “the time for passive engagement in this conflict must come to an end. It is in the vital national security interest of our nation to see Assad’s removal.” Removal! Obama’s not talking about anything close to removal. So that was Rubio’s hard line back when Obama was on the other side. And now that Obama wants action? Rubio voted against the military resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.
Ted Cruz? Just in June, Cruz wanted to go into Syria and rough ’em up. “We need to develop a clear, practical plan to go in, locate the weapons, secure or destroy them, and then get out.” Now? Syria is a distraction from, you guessed it, Benghazi. He said last week: “We certainly don’t have a dog in the fight. We should be focused on defending the United States of America. That’s why young men and women sign up to join the military, not to, as you know, serve as al Qaeda’s air force.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/09/marco-rubio-ted-cruz-and-their-craven-and-brazen-hypocrisy-on-syria.html
Study Suggests Southern Slavery Turns White People Into Republicans 150 Years Later
By Ian Millhiser on September 9, 2013 at 9:00 am
White Southerners are one of the great outliers in American politics. President Obama polled significantly worse with white voters in the South than he did with whites in swing states. One survey of working class white voters found Obama only 4-8 points behind Romney in the majority of the country, while he polled 40 points behind Romney among Southern white working class voters. And a new study by political scientists Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell and Maya Sen suggests that there may be a simple explanation for this divide — slavery.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution banned slavery nearly 150 years ago, yet this study suggests that the legacy of slavery continues to drive voters in areas that once housed large numbers of slaves to vote Republican:
Drawing on a sample of more than 39,000 southern whites, we show that whites who currently live in counties that had high concentrations of slaves in 1860 are on average more conservative and express colder feelings towards African Americans than whites who live elsewhere in the South. That is, the larger the number of slaves in his or her county of residence in 1860, the greater the probability that a white Southerner today will identify as a Republican, express opposition to race-coded policies such as affirmative action, and express greater racial resentment towards African Americans. We show that these differences are robust to a variety of factors, including geography and mid-19th century economic conditions and political attitudes. We also show that our results strengthen when we instrument for the prevalence of slavery using local measures of the agricultural suitability to grow cotton. In fact, our findings indicate that in the counterfactual world where the South had no slaves in 1860, the political views of white Southerners today would be indistinguishable from those of similarly situated white Northerners.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/09/2587231/study-suggests-southern-slavery-turns-white-people-republicans-150-years/
Lowell Observatory’s Putnam wants to name asteroid for Trayvon Martin
Albert Einstein. George Takei. Jerry Garcia.
All of those men and many others have had an asteroid named after them. And if William Lowell Putnam III, trustee of Lowell Observatory, has his way, another name will be added to that list: Trayvon Martin.
The retired broadcast executive, alpinist, author and Flagstaff resident believes that Martin has not received justice.
It was an unusually warm night at Anderson Mesa south of Flagstaff on Oct. 2, 2000, when Lowell Observatory astronomers found the asteroid 2000 TM61. It was just one of hundreds that observatory’s researchers discovered as part of their search for Near Earth Asteroids.
The minor planet was placed into a catalog and forgotten until shortly after Martin, 17, was fatally shot in Sanford, Fla. The unarmed teen’s death sparked nationwide protests and renewed the race debate in America.
It also sparked disgust with Putnam.
“As I see it, the social fairness showed to Trayvon Martin was very sadly lacking,” he said. “Inasmuch as I am the sole trustee of an institution which has some naming privileges, I want to do my share to see that this lad is remembered in an appropriate manner.”
http://azdailysun.com/news/local/lowell-observatory-s-putnam-wants-to-name-asteroid-for-trayvon/article_a85daba8-15f1-11e3-a5df-001a4bcf887a.html
Rockefeller: Morrisey intimidated health group over ACA
Nonprofit declines $365K in fed funds after attorney general’s inquiry
By Eric Eyre
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Clarksburg-based nonprofit group has abruptly declined a $365,000 federal grant to help West Virginians sign up for health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act.
The decision by West Virginia Parent Training and Information Inc. came a week after state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey directed the nonprofit group to answer 26 questions about the group’s personnel and hiring practices.
“We’ve declined [the grant] because of unforeseen circumstances,” said WVPTI Executive Director Pat Haberbosch, who would not elaborate.
Morrisey, who has called for repealing the federal health-care law, is reviewing organizations that are helping to walk people through their health insurance options. Morrisey said the groups’ employees could steal personal information, such as Social Security numbers and tax documents, from people who apply for health insurance under the ACA.
WVPTI had planned to help hundreds of low-income, disabled and rural residents in West Virginia enroll in health insurance plans through online marketplaces, which open Oct. 1.
http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201309070063
Live today at 12:30 PM ET, White House National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice will discuss the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, the longstanding international norm against the use of chemical weapons, and the need for action to deter the Assad regime from future use of chemical weapons.
Watch it here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/syria?utm_source=snapshot&utm_medium=email&utm_content=090913-topper
ebonymagazine
12 hours ago
The models weren’t the only ones giving face at New York Fashion Week. Check out this little one striking a pose outside the tents. #beautifullybrown #nyfw
http://instagram.com/p/eBnV6jA-Pt/#
Russia says it’s willing to push Syria to hand over weapons
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that his country is willing to push Syria to hand control over its chemical weapons to international monitors if such a move would prevent a U.S. military strike.
Read more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/john-kerry-in-london-campaigns-for-world-to-support-military-strike-against-syria/2013/09/09/e8ad7a72-193d-11e3-80ac-96205cacb45a_story.html
Good Morning 3Chics!
This will be a great series. 2 words: Priest. Coffey.
Have a good day.
LOL Hi ya, Tyren. Rik’s gone bring it this week.
No doubt.
Sorry about your Vikes yesterday. Looks like it’s gonna be a loonnggg season.
Teh Vikings need to PONDER axing their QB Ponder. PUN intended.
Rikyrah, this is going to be a fun week. Look forward to them all.
Watching a debate descend to new depths
By Steve Benen
Mon Sep 9, 2013 8:00 AM EDT.
If news consumers tuned into the Sunday morning public-affairs shows hoping for a high-minded debate over U.S. policy in Syria, they probably came away disappointed.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), for example, complained of President Obama, “I wish he was more of a commander in chief than a community organizer.” I’m sure this will be the basis for a lovely fundraising letter, but I haven’t the foggiest idea what the line means. Neither, I suspect, does King.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, complained that the president’s schedule last week was “mystifying.” Obama announced his intention to wait for a congressional debate, the Michigan Republican said, “and then left the country for a week.” This makes it sound like the president went on vacation — in reality, Obama traveled to a long-scheduled, three-day G-20 summit where he tried to rally international support for his foreign policy, while dispatching the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense to make the case to lawmakers. What’s “mystifying” about that?
And then, of course, there was Karl Rove, who expressed his dismay at the White House’s foolish decision to seek congressional approval.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/09/20401911-watching-a-debate-descend-to-new-depths?lite
I know 3CHICS has to have a gif to tell these people where to go.
………………..
Western Maryland secessionists seek to sever ties with the liberal Free State
In Maryland, the five western counties — Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick and Carroll — represent just 11 percent of Maryland’s population, according to 2010 Census figures. They earn less than the people who live in more urban areas. They vote overwhelmingly for Republicans in a deeply Democratic state. Nearly 90 percent of the residents are white, compared with 51 percent elsewhere. About 60 percent were born in Maryland vs. 46 percent in other parts of the state.
“If you don’t belong in their party,” Strzelczyk says of Democrats, “you’ll never have your views represented” in Maryland. “If we have more states,” he says, “we can all go live in states that best represent us, and then we can get along.”
Strzelczyk concedes that he could move to another state more in line with his values, but he grew up in Maryland, his parents are here and he doesn’t want to upend his family. He launched the initiative with a Facebook page in July, trying to solicit support from other frustrated Marylanders.
The Facebook page has drawn more than 2,200 likes, with residents from western counties chiming in with ideas and offers to help. Suzanne Reisig Olden, a Carroll County paralegal, offered her services pro bono.
“The state quite honestly disgusts me,” Olden said in an interview. “Those that we elect in the House of Delegates or in the Senate who are conservative are either ignored or just told to shut up. My voice does not count.” She adds: “In a new state, my vote could count, my values would be valued. So I like the idea.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/western-maryland-secessionists-seek-to-sever-ties-with-the-liberal-free-state/2013/09/08/15e97aa8-1651-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story_1.html
LOL I’m from Calvert County. MD. Not much has changed in Western MD, I see.
BYE NOW!
Reply from Town:
Is Obama in the Process of Landing a Bloodless Humanitarian Coup in Syria?
Sunday, September 08, 2013 | Posted by Spandan C at 6:47 PM
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported today (Sunday, September 8) that under the threat of Barack Obama’s resolve against the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons, and his clear willingness to use American military force to achieve that goal, the pro-Syrian coalition may have just started to crumble. Russia and Iran may – may – have reportedly convince Assad that Obama isn’t bluffing. Details are murky, but here is what Haaretz knows:
Disarmament and an end to Assad’s power? Though American adversaries are calling this a “counter-proposal” to the threat of US military force, you can see how it seems to me like they are waving a white flag.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/09/is-obama-in-process-of-landing.html
The fallacy of transparency in an era of media hyperbole and distortion
When it comes to the debate about NSA surveillance, one of the main issues involved is transparency. President Obama has said that when he took office, his goal was to ensure that there was proper oversight of these intelligence activities by Congress and the Courts. Historically, that had been sufficient given the sensitivity of the work involved.
But now even the President is committed to going beyond that and giving the public as much information as possible about NSA activities and procedures. That is the new standard for transparency being placed on this administration.
The problem, as I see it, is that the American public is pretty dependent on the media to inform them about what is put out there for public consumption. Whether its the hyperbole and lies of omission practiced by people like Glenn Greenwald or what might be understood as lazy journalism by others, its frustrating to watch the story be twisted over and over again – giving the public a distorted view of what is happening. Let me give you an example.
Early on when the NSA story broke this summer, there was lots of talk about a FISA court order ruling that certain elements of the NSA program violated the 4th Amendment. Advocates went to court to get it declassified. Last month it was released. How many people do you suppose actually read it? Yeah, I’m pretty committed to this story, but even I couldn’t get through the whole thing. The gist of it was that the court ruled that the minimization procedures NSA was using to protect the privacy of US persons when they collected bulk data from the internet were not sufficient. Here’s how Kurt Eichenwald describes minimization.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-fallacy-of-transparency-in-era-of.html
The Morning Plum: If Congress says No on Syria, Obama should (and probably will) listen
By Greg Sargent, Published: September 6 at 9:23 am
For the reasons I mentioned yesterday, I continue to think it’s premature to predict certain defeat in the House for the use-of-force resolution against Syria. ABC News’s Rick Klein seems to agree, noting that a very hard sell from the White House — which you can expect will be directed at Congress — could ultimately prevail, even though right now the votes just aren’t there.
But it’s not too early to make the case that if Congress does sink the resolution, Obama should heed it. And he probably will.
Peter Baker has a must-read getting inside the thinking of the White House, which is looking at the coming Syria vote as a test of whether Congress will support any proposed use of force during the rest of his presidency. Paradoxically, this gives Obama a good reason not to act on Syria if Congress says No:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/09/06/the-morning-plum-if-congress-says-no-on-syria-obama-should-and-probably-will-listen/
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good morning! Happy Monday!
Good Morning. Hope everyone has a great day. I didn’t really see any of the Blaxploitation films, but in 1974 we went to see “Uptown Saturday Night”. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072351/ I don’t know how we knew what movies were playing, but when this one came to town we thought it would be hilarious considering the stars. Too many big names to list, that’s why the link. My hubby was still in the Navy and we had our first son that year. We had friends that were movie friends. We went to lots of movies because they weren’t expensive then. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC. The town was Jacksonville. So we went to the movie on opening week-end in town. We’d never been to ths theater before. There was a huge crowd waiting in line. That was probably the funniest part. After about ten minutes of waiting in line we realized people were staring at us. Not in a bad way, we just weren’t used to the attention. It was because we were four white people at one of the first (I think) big movies staring all blacks or almost all blacks. We weren’t uncomfortable, but I understand what blacks must feel like when they go to a movie in our town now. Just thought I’d through this in to bring a smile to your morning. It’s been so long I hardly remember the story line, but we enjoyed it. No, I didn’t clutch my purse or leave. Just another night at the movies. :) How many of you saw the film?
Tune back later this week. Uptown Saturday Night is on the list of films that will be spotlighted.
Good Morning, Everyone. Happy MUN-dane! :-))
Whoo HIOOO I’m looking forward to this week’s series, Rikyrah. Lawdy, woman, you done dug up a Yaphet Kotto movie.
I always admired these “Blaxploitation” movies. now they were termed that way to suggest exploitation of the negroes, but NOPE, we did our own thing, with our own peeps. who better than us to tell our own stories, using our own imagination?
Great. Have you seen it?
Thank you so much, rikyrah, for focusing on movies this week!
I just watched “Cotton Comes to Harlem”. There is so much I haven’t seen…..movies and theater! This will be a great week thanks to you!
I have to mow outside now, but will be back later with some thoughts.
Is Cotton comes to Harlem on HBO or Showtime or do you see your movies on Netflix or rent them?
Is it possible for you erase my posting mistake with the green design next to my name? You will see that the post below with the dark pink magenta design is the correct one which can be left as posted.
CarolMae,
I just clicked on the “Cotton Comes to Harlem” video above that rikyrah posted.
@CarolMae. You can see these movies on Netfixs or HBO. Most of these can be purchased for $5 at Target or WAL(R) on workers(Mart)
Thank you so much, rikyrah, for focusing on movies this week!
I just watched “Cotton Comes to Harlem”. There is so much I haven’t seen…..movies and theater! This will be a great week thanks to you!
I have to mow outside now, but will be back later with some thoughts.