With lead singer Michael Rose seemingly at the top of his game, he parted ways with Black Uhuru, with the intention of redefining his musical direction as a solo artist. In the early 1990s, Michael Rose suddenly appeared on the scene with new material including Jamaican singles produced by Sly & Robbie (“Monkey Business,” “Visit Them,” “One a We Two a We”), and three albums (Proud, Bonanza, and King of General) released in Japan.
As a solo artist, Michael regularly tours the U.S. and Europe, and has maintained his Jamaican fan base with hit singles on the island and abroad. He is a modern roots singer, and fits perfectly into today’s scene. With a glorious past and a wide-open future, Michael Rose is truly a reggae superstar.
Just saw the Verizon Halloween episode with the Black family dressed like characters from Star Wars..
The baby as Princess Leia…
LOL
Loved it.
http://youtu.be/C1aBsDc-ck0
I’ve been listening to music from 1969.
I love the 60’s music.
JPMorgan Chase nears $13 billion deal with Justice Dept.
The Justice Department and JP Morgan are nearing a $13 billion deal to settle several probes stemming from the bank’s mortgage-backed security business, a person familiar with the matter said. If finalized, the deal would represent the largest settlement the U.S. government has ever reached with a single company.
Still the penalty would be just a fraction of the damage JPMorgan’s mortgage divisions wreaked on the economy in the financial crisis that began in 2008.
Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Conservatives see McConnell’s shutdown deal-making as a betrayal — and an opening
By Matea Gold, Published: October 18
TAYLORSVILLE, Ky. — Back in Washington, Kentucky’s five-term senator, Mitch McConnell, was being hailed for pulling the country from the brink. The minority leader boasted to reporters about his ability to “step into the breach,” cutting a deal with Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) that reopened the government and headed off a fiscal crisis.
But here in the scenic countryside southeast of Louisville, conservative voters gathered in a meeting hall at the local farm bureau to slam his deal-making as a betrayal — and to consider the bid of McConnell’s GOP primary challenger, Matt Bevin, who pledged to be their voice in Washington.
I don’t feel he represents us or that he’s, frankly, even in touch with where we are,” Bevin, a self-made entrepreneur and affable father of nine, told the audience. “I think these last several days have helped to indicate some of that. There’s a certain amount of disdain.”
He added, “There are a lot of naked emperors that are parading around in Washington. These emperors need to be exposed.”
More than two hours later, the room was still packed and people had their checkbooks out on their laps, ready to back him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/conservatives-see-mcconnells-shutdown-deal-making-as-a-betrayal–and-an-opening/2013/10/18/ce1f9722-380e-11e3-8a0e-4e2cf80831fc_story.html?hpid=z1
How Obama, Reid, and Pelosi Stopped Republican Extortion Three reasons the Democrats won
BY JONATHAN COHN
It’s over. The Senate voted yes. The House voted yes. President Obama signed the bill and, on Thursday, the federal government is open for business again.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was careful not to gloat: “There are no winners here.” And he was right. Macroeconomic Advisers thinks the shutdown will end up costing the country $12 billion, while Standard and Poor’s is projecting a loss twice as large. That’s a lot of damage to the economy and it will inevitably translate to a lot of unnecessary hardship for everyday Americans.
But in a narrower political sense, this was one of those (relatively) rare Washington battles in which one side clearly prevailed. It was the Democrats. When this episode started, they said they were determined not to make major concessions simply because Republicans were threatening shutdown and default. Sure enough, here we are—with a new continuing resolution, a higher debt limit, and no major changes in law. Democrats achieved the policy outcome they had sought, while establishing a precedent for the future: No more negotiating while under such threats.
Lots of people doubted it would turn out this way. Obama, after all, had negotiated with Republicans over the debt ceiling once before. Democrats in Congress don’t have a great reputation for party unity. But Obama held his ground—in public and in private. On Capitol Hill, Democrats from both chambers and both wings of the party said the same things and, behind the scenes, coordinated their actions.
Perhaps no episode better illustrated party determination and unity than the reaction, late last week, to a proposal from Republican Senator Susan Collins. The proposal was arguably more generous to the Democrats than what House Republicans had offered. But it still demanded Democrats give up something—in particular, lower domestic spending for the first half of next year. Particularly because it came from Collins, a moderate from Maine, it was the kind of proposal that seemed likely to attract interest from more conservative Democrats and perhaps the president as well. But at the White House and in Senate leadership offices, the word went out: Don’t take the deal. And it died.
So what did Democrats do right? How did they hold it together? Among the many factors, three come quickly to mind:
Thought Experiment
by BooMan
Sat Oct 19th, 2013 at 01:00:19 PM EST
Reading this article about the potential for the Republican Party to split in two if they lose the 2016 presidential election, I began to wonder how the 20th-Century would have played out differently if the Republican Party hadn’t been able to adopt Dwight D. Eisenhower as their standard-bearer and win two presidential elections during the 1950’s. Of course, that’s an immensely complicated question. How would Adlai Stevenson have handled the Korean War or Iran or the CIA or the Civil Rights movement? Imagine a world without Tricky Dick? Without President Kennedy?
But, the main idea is that Eisenhower moderated the right at a very important time and solidified the New Deal. Conservatives have been trying to undo that damage, as they see it, ever since. Yet, over half a century has elapsed since Eisenhower left office, and they haven’t figured out how to repeal the 1950’s, yet. In fact, they seem to think back on the 1950’s as some kind of idyllic age.
The Truth About the Obamacare Rollout: The feds botched the website. But the states are doing much better.
BY JONATHAN COHN
The federal government is open and paying its bills, which means you can start looking at the other big story from the past few weeks: The startup of Obamacare’s marketplaces. But to fully appreciate what’s happening, you need a split screen.
On one side is the story you’ve heard so much about. In 36 states, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is operating the new insurance marketplaces, where non-elderly people without employer benefits can buy coverage on their own. This part of the rollout has gone … really badly. Two weeks after the sites went online, people are still have trouble setting up accounts and logging onto the system.
……………………………………..
In fairness, federal officials operated under tremendous political and logistical constraints, the kind few outsiders can grasp. Private developers don’t have the same stringent standards for privacy and security, for instance. And given the enormous challenges of trying to integrate so many systems—some new, some old—nobody seriously expected the launch of Obamacare’s federal websites to take place without glitches. But few expected this many problems. And nobody seems quite sure when things will get better.
North Dakota Landowners Sue Fossil Fuel Companies Over Wasted Natural Gas
By Andrew Breiner on October 17, 2013 at 4:16 pm
Nearly 30 percent of natural gas drilled in North Dakota is intentionally burned off, or flared, resulting in an approximately $1 billion loss, and releasing greenhouse gases equivalent to nearly one million new cars on the road. Now, some North Dakota landowners are fighting back.
Mineral owners from multiple states are suing ten oil and gas companies for millions of dollars in lost royalties for flared natural gas. They claim companies are burning off more gas than is allowed by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, disposing of valuable resources mineral owners should be getting paid for.
The cases filed Wednesday sought class-action certification, and an amount in damages to be determined by trial, based on future flaring and flaring that occurred in for the six years prior.
Since oil is 30 times more valuable than natural gas, companies are rushing to pull it out of the ground fast, while prices are high. Building the infrastructure to capture the natural gas that’s part of oil drilling would take time and money, and companies aren’t willing to wait or pay.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/17/2801111/natural-gas-flaring-lawsuit/
Billionaire Koch Brothers Spending Millions To Deny Health Coverage To Low-Income Americans
By Igor Volsky on October 19, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Conservative advocates funded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch have launched a massive campaign pressuring states to deny health care coverage to lower income Americans through the Medicaid expansion contained in the Affordable Care Act.
The effort, orchestrated by the group Americans for Prosperity, is targeting lawmakers in Virginia tasked with deciding whether the state should accept federal dollars to provide insurance to individuals and families below 133 percent of the federal poverty line ($31,321 in income for a family of four). Volunteers with the organization are distributing flyers through door-to-door canvassing, attending committee hearings, and according to one lawmakers who has become a target of the campaign, intimidating constituents.
As many as 400,000 Virginians could qualify for coverage if the state expands the Medicaid program, but AFP is warning Virginians that the system “will cost Virginia taxpayers billions,” require “future tax hikes and budget cuts to vital services like schools, police and fire departments,” undermine the “doctor-patient relationship,” increase wait times and even endanger lives. “Medicaid patients are almost twice as likely to die during surgery than individuals with private insurance,” the group writes on its website.
Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the cost of growing the program from 2014 to 2016 and states would contribute 10 percent thereafter. Analysis from the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis in Richmond finds that “net savings from Medicaid expansion would average about $135 million per year in the upcoming budget cycle” since expanding Medicaid “would allow the state to use federal funds instead of state dollars for these programs that already provide care to the uninsured in Virginia.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/19/2806521/billionaire-koch-brothers-spending-millions-deny-health-coverage-income-americans/
it’s a really long post, so be warned.
……………….
James Fallows has posted a massive load of correspondence with “Atlas Shrugged Guy”, the person who wrote him immediately after the 2012 election and announced he was going Galt. Almost two years a year later, the world is still going to hell in a bucket, to hear his telling, but he’s apparently still in business and doing as well as he ever has.
As with most of the big-talking Galt goers, he’s evasive about how he’s really doing.
Authorities Investigating Threats Made Against Ted Cruz.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/authorities-investigating-threats-made-against-ted-cruz/
The Capitol Police are looking into threats being made against Senator Ted Cruz by one Twitter user who has made a number of violent, graphic threats against the Texas senator.
A spokesman for the Capitol Police told The Hill that they are looking into this threat from someone on Twitter who went so far as to publish Cruz’s address.
A spokesman for the senator said they alerted authorities to the matter.
I don’t condomn senseless physical threats or violence. Ya know whata? Ted Cruz is a physical threat to Americans, when he has healthcare, yet rails against and attempts to block it for others,
Ted Cruz is an emotional and physical threat to Americans when he rallies with folks who wave confederate flags in front of the White House, and doesn’t call them out for their bigotry.
So forgive me, if I’m a little suspicious in these supposed threats to Senator Cruz. Is this a distraction, used to shift the conversation from what a jackass he’s been, so he can claim VICTIMHOOD?
Anyhooo… I could give 2 fucks about Cruz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFjVc-FoKk4
Whew…..what a mess of people.
Harry Reid On David Vitter And His Obamacare Amendment: ‘He Just Is Not Playing With A Full Deck’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/harry-reid-vitter_n_4118512.html?1382063872
it really goes in on the incompetence of Orange Julius
Anatomy of a shutdown
By JOHN BRESNAHAN, MANU RAJU, JAKE SHERMAN and CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 10/18/13 12:29 AM EDT
House Speaker John Boehner just wanted to sneak out of the White House for a smoke.
But President Barack Obama pulled him aside for a grilling. Obama wanted to know why they were in the second day of a government shutdown that the speaker had repeatedly and publicly pledged to avoid.
“John, what happened?” Obama asked, according to people briefed on the Oct. 2 conversation.
“I got overrun, that’s what happened,” Boehner said.
billmon @billmon1
The entire fight was rigged from the start. Boehner just didn’t feel like he could take a dive until the final round:
10:40 PM – 18 Oct 2013
billmon @billmon1
Pretty clear Boehner planned all along to keep gov shut right up to debt ceiling deadline: http://politi.co/15Q4oFM He has a lot to answer for
10:31 PM – 18 Oct 2013
Of course Boner was in on the plan from JUMP. I never had any doubts about his complicity in the SHUTDWON DEBACLE.
They Went Crazy in Stages
by BooMan
Fri Oct 18th, 2013 at 11:25:22 PM EST
……………………………………
I think one of the less appreciated legacies of the Bush administration is that they made Republican ideology incoherent. One moment the GOP was calling for the liquidation of the Department of Education and planning to let Medicare “wither on the vine,” and the next moment they were giving us No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D. One moment they were closing down the government because they wanted spending cuts, and the next moment the vice-president was telling us that Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter. One moment Bush was campaigning on a more humble foreign policy and the next moment, if you weren’t with us, you were against us. The Bush administration was awful from every perspective you might wish to view it, and that includes the movement conservative’s perspective.
But movement conservatives were nonetheless willing to go along with the Bush administration and defend it with the harshest, coarsest, most vituperative language and rhetoric. As they unlearned logical consistency, they also lost the ability to think clearly. Logic became a kind of threat.
So, that was the first real tectonic slip. The next came in late August and September of 2008 when, first, Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain’s running mate, and then the economy completely collapsed. It became almost immediately clear that Sarah Palin was a colossal moron who had absolutely no business on a presidential ticket. It also became clear that John McCain had no idea how to deal with the financial crisis, as he suspended his campaign, unsuccessfully tried to skip a presidential debate, and called for an emergency meeting at the White House where he had nothing to say.
This forced the conservative movement to defend both McCain and Palin is ways that no sentient human being should ever defend other human beings. I believe the experience caused permanent collective brain damage to the entire Republican community. Arguing that Sarah Palin should be a stroke away from the nuclear football will do that to a brain, and a political party.
The final straw, however, was the decision to oppose every single thing the president tried to do. They turned him into a monster when he was never a monster. He became the Kenyan socialist usurper. That was a decision that Mitch McConnell made before the president was even sworn into office. And the result was that the Republican Party started rejecting their own ideas and labeling them communist plots to destroy the country. At that point, with all the bad habits already ingrained, the party just lost control of its base.
They hadn’t governed according to their “principles,” and they had ramped up the fear of the Democrats to such a height that the base decided that they were facing some existential crisis.
Basically, the big steps were ideological inconsistency followed by epic failure which both required people to defend the indefensible which broke people’s logical brains and respect for the truth which then caused them to respond to manufactured fear with rebellion against their own puppet masters.
Or, you know, the tiger ate the Republican elite.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/10/18/232522/85#15
The Daily Edge @TheDailyEdge
RECAP: September: #GOP voted to cut Food Stamps by $40B because “we’re broke” October: GOP wasted $24B on #TeaPartyShutdown #GOPFail
10:16 PM – 17 Oct 2013
Chris L. Robinson @chrisLrob
That awkward moment when you have to take a sip of the coffee brought to you by a staffer you tried to screw on health care.
10:19 AM – 17 Oct 2013
Top Conservative Cat @TeaPartyCat
162 Republicans voted for a debt default, but only because they’re so patriotic they’d rather destroy the country than let Obama run it.
9:05 PM – 17 Oct 2013
Russell Schaffer @RussOnPolitics
Cowardice: @ChrisChristie saying marriage equality is up to the voters. As if Alabama voters would have desegregated on their own. Please.
3:40 PM – 18 Oct 2013
rob delaney ✔ @robdelaney
.@FoxNews I’m hearing glitches on ACA websites are much, much worse than going bankrupt from cervical cancer treatment.
2:21 PM – 18 Oct 2013
Thanks for posting these great comments, rikyrah!
http://youtu.be/86D7kaba7s8
GREAT JOB by President Obama this week!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TOlNCzi404s
You can learn more about the play entitled “Blues” by clicking onto Susan Small-Harris’
videos page at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Trueunitedchurch6201/videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XZa64-8IWXw
http://wmuk.org/post/struggles-modern-african-american-family-acted-out-stick-fly
“Bus tour explores Aiken’s African-American history”
Maayan Schechter Posted: Saturday, October 19, 2013
http://www.aikenstandard.com/article/20131019/AIK0101/131019381/bus-tour-explores-aiken-x2019-s-african-american-history
http://www.nydailynews.com/black-women-played-large-role-u-s-wars-article-1.1256718
From February 2013:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/tasty-tour-big-apple-black-history-article-1.1262274
Ametia, rikyrah, and SG2,
Have you heard about this one? I imagine you will have opinions on it:
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/hair-doc-digs-deep-black-roots-article-1.1489933
put your hand in my hair, and you will get a slap
Yes; go ahead and tocuh my hair.
DIGITS & APPENDAGES will be DISASSEMBLED.
This morning I realized that I had not read the opinions of the individual Supreme Court justices regarding their opinions that factored into their individual decisions on the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County vs. Holder.
I just found this past NY Times article that shows the opinions of Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, and Justice Ginsberg:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/06/25/us/annotated-supreme-court-decision-on-voting-rights-act.html
After reading the article, you can click on any one of the page links next to the opinions and read the complete opinion document.
Good Morning Everyone!
Good Morning, Everyone at 3CHICS!
It is 10:00 am, SG2 and Ametia.
Time to get up :)
Things to do, places to go, family outings :)
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/funny-cartoon-chicken-23924120.jpg
Good morning, everyone!
Yahtc, I must have slept w/ one of my eyes opened b/c when I woke up it hurt like everything. OMG, it was painful.
Good Morning, Yahtc, Rikyrah & 3 Chics Lurkers!
*wipeseyesyawns* Join me
and for non-coffee drinkers:
Oooo…..midday coffee! Thanks, Ametia.
SG2, ouch…..use Refresh or an eye wash all day today to keep your eye moist.
Do you think you might have scratched your eye against something while you were sleeping?
I didn’t scratch it b/c it’s ok now. It must have been so dry. It hurt like everything. I can’t believe I slept w/ an eye opened. ICK!
Maybe you were keeping one eye opened for Michael Rose, SG2 :)
(I am glad that your eye is okay now.)
Sooky! Sooky! ;)