Happy Monday, Everyone! Let’s Dance today and the rest of the week with David Bowie.
David Robert Jones (born 8 January 1947), known by his stage name David Bowie (/ˈboʊ.i/ BOH-ee),[1] is an English musician, singer-songwriter, actor and arranger. Bowie has been a major figure in the world of popular music for over four decades, and is renowned as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice as well as the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.
Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song “Space Oddity” reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single “Starman” and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie’s impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, “challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day” and “created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture.”[2] The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.
Let’s Dance
Young American
http://youtu.be/xMhImCOeP-k
Let’s dance! Let’s sing!
I am with you!
rikyrah, ametia, or SG2……I just watched “Shout”…….it is not the one that I usually post.
PLEASE erase it…….HURRY!
IF you watch it, you will know why I want it erased immediately.
I took care of it. No problem.
Yeah!
Thank you very much, SG2.
https://twitter.com/AriMelber/status/394878092436463616/photo/1
Wanker of the Day: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III
by BooMan
Mon Oct 28th, 2013 at 05:35:36 PM EST
Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is opposed to confirming any of President Obama’s three nominees to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. When told that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts supported filling the positions back in April, Sen. Sessions was incredulous:
That’s right. John Roberts isn’t a real conservative because he wants pay raises for judicial staff and thinks judges should serve in slots reserved for judges rather than having multiple vacancies just because Sen. Sessions is a dick.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/10/28/173536/62
House to Pass 5-Year Pay Cut For the VA
Posted on October 28, 2013 at 5:00 pm by JM Ashby
The House is poised to take time out of their busy schedules to pass a pay cut for employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
The VA was making solid progress on clearing the backlog of claims prior to the GOP Government Shutdown, and the shutdown jeopardized that progress by eliminating several weeks of overtime that would have been spent clearing the backlog.
http://bobcesca.thedailybanter.com/blog-archives/2013/10/house-to-pass-5-year-pay-cut-for-the-va.html
Penn State paying $59.7 million to Jerry Sandusky’s victims
By Nam Le @AGuyNamedNam on Oct 28 2013, 1:49p
Penn State has reportedly settled with 26 victims of Jerry Sandusky’s, reaching an agreement to pay out $59.7 million between them.
According to an official release from the school, 23 of those 26 have already signed the agreement, with the last three having agreed in principle. These settlements are reportedly not funded by donations, tuition or taxpayer dollars, but rather, from insurance and interest revenues:
The University maintains various liability insurance policies, which the University believes cover the settlements and defense of claims brought against Penn State and its officers, employees and trustees. Expenses not covered by insurance are expected to be funded from interest revenues related to loans made by the University to its self-supporting units.
This may not be the end of it just yet, though — Penn State says that it is still talking to others:
Penn State has received claims from 32 individuals who were or allege that they were victims of Sandusky. The University has rejected certain of the six remaining claims as being without merit and has engaged others in possible settlement discussions.
Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Penn State, was found guilty on 45 of 48 charges regarding child abuse at a trial last year, a long list that includes seven counts of indecent assault, 10 counts of endangering the welfare of children and eight counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
He is currently serving a 30- to 60-year sentence in Pennsylvania.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/10/28/5038936/penn-state-jerry-sandusky
The location of the store where Jordan Davis was murdered (in the parking lot) is at the intersection of Southside Blvd. and Baymeadows Rd. in south Jax. The house that I grew up in is just 6.5 miles north of that intersection. When I lived there, what is now called “Baymeadows” was mostly vacant land and it was later developed in the 80s and 90s. So most of that area is relatively new and middle class, but I don’t know what the demographics are like now. I know that Jordan Davis attended Wolfson High and it is definitely one of the best schools in Jax. We can probably assume he was a bright, middle class kid with a future.
My gut feeling about Michael Dunning’s trial is that there is a better chance of a conviction if the trial were to be held without mainstream media attention. I really believe that the media made a significant contribution to George Zimmerman’s acquittal and there are many other lesser known cases where media influenced the outcome. And this seems to be especially true in today’s media where so many of the talking heads and their guests do not differentiate facts from opinions and outright lies.
Liza,
I totally agree that mainstream media, whether intentionally or out of laziness, did NOT present the true facts as revealed by the released evidence in the case.
They eagerly lapped up everything O’Mara had to say and that Frank Taaffe and Robert Jr. spouted about. It was as if they were more interested in sensationalism over facts just to maintain their ratings to bring in money through their advertisers.
Sanford being what it is as a nest harboring so much racism, and the problems that we have discussed regarding the jurors have to be factored into why Trayvon and his family were let down.
I hope that George Zimmerman will have a nervous feeling that Trayvon will always be watching him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WY3bQjzvzHM
(by LLMPapa)
I pray that the DOJ brings justice for Trayvon.
“Sanford being what it is as a nest harboring so much racism, and the problems that we have discussed regarding the jurors have to be factored into why Trayvon and his family were let down.”
Agreed. And I would add the prosecution’s incompetence and maybe something worse
than incompetence on the part of Judge Nelson. I have at times thought that the prosecution, hyped pre-trial as being the best, may actually have been considered to be the best prosecutors until they were scrutinized on a national stage. In other words, prior to Zimmerman’s trial, their exposure was limited and their performance was not judged by better lawyers. As for Judge Nelson, she may have never had a trial like this before but her exclusion of the audio expert witnesses was so questionable that, in my opinion, she should find a different occupation.
“I pray that the DOJ brings justice for Trayvon.”
Me too. But if that doesn’t happen, George Zimmerman lives as a free man. Even if he cannot sleep or go to bathroom without a loaded gun, it is still better than living in a cell and being institutionalized for the rest of his life. No matter how awful his life may eventually become, it is still better than living in a cell which is where he belongs.
I so agree with you, Liza, that the audio expert witnesses should have been allowed in the trial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QaGdOF0iVtg
(by LLMPapa)
I really think that the DOJ can use this recording to PROVE that George Zimmerman IS a racist and that he committed a hate crime.
Confronting the Legacies of Slavery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/opinion/international/confronting-the-legacies-of-slavery.html?_r=0
DURHAM, North Carolina — Late one afternoon in March, officials unveiled a new monument at the University of the West Indies, in Cave Hill, Barbados. The ceremony featured African drumming, a historian’s lecture, a bishop’s prayer and a song performed by a school choir with the chorus, “We cry for the ancestors!”
Those ancestors, 295 of whom have their names on the monument, were slaves who once lived where the campus now stands. What today is a university was once a plantation. What is now a nation was once a colony. In Barbados and throughout the Caribbean, slavery remains a vivid and potent metaphor, and a cultivated memory.
Presiding over the event was Sir Hilary Beckles, the head of the university and a prolific historian. He and his Jamaican colleague Verene Shepherd have spurred on the recent call by the 15-member Caribbean Community for Britain, France and the Netherlands to pay an undefined amount of reparations for slavery and the slave trade. The group plans to file suit in national courts; if that fails, it will go to the International Court of Justice.
For all those that consider Rand Paul a ‘ friend’…
I bet not one of those emo mofos will speak up on THIS
see…for all his bullshyt talk about ‘ freedom’..
it doesn’t extend to him being free to leave my uterus the fuck alone…
let alone that my family and my ancestors should have been FREE from American Apartheid.
………………..
Rand Paul raises specter of eugenics
10/28/13 02:12 PM
By Steve Benen
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) waves to the crowd as he makes his way to the stage to speak during the “Exempt America from Obamacare” rally, on Capitol Hill, September 10, 2013 in Washington, DC.
Election Day in Virginia’s closely watched gubernatorial race is a week from tomorrow, and the major-party candidates are bringing some notable figures to the commonwealth to give their campaigns a boost. On the Democratic side, for example, Terry McAuliffe campaigned with Hillary Clinton last week, and former President Bill Clinton over the weekend.
On the Republican side, it’s a slightly different story. Ken Cuccinelli recently welcomed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to Virginia, but didn’t want any photographs of the two of them together. Today, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tried to lend a hand.
According to the AP report, the Kentucky Republican argued, “In your lifetime, much of your potential – or lack thereof – can be known simply by swabbing the inside of your cheek. Are we prepared to select out the imperfect among us?”
Note, for much of the year, Cuccinelli has hoped to appear more mainstream, downplaying his right-wing positions on culture-war issues fearing a voter backlash in this increasingly “purple” state
James Montgomery III has been a walk-on with the Northwestern basketball team for two years. On Thursday, head coach Chris Collins had a special announcement for James and the team…
http://youtu.be/NEvnE0QOXI0
I’ve said it a few times..
one of the things that the right absolutely HATES are the pictures of the President with young people.
They can SEE how this President is affecting young Black people and young people of color. That he’s lifting their dreams that they didn’t even know they could have.
But, what also disturbs them to no end is how little White children respond to this President. THAT is the other side of their nightmare.
Those pics we have in our sidebar….scares them SENSELESS!!!
…………………
How the Obama presidency may be changing young people’s views of race
BY JOHN SIDES October 28 at 10:12 am
Decades of political science research show that political attitudes can be strongly affected by the events we experience in adolescence and young adulthood, or what are sometimes referred to as the “impressionable years.” New research shows how this applies to the racial attitudes of young people who came of age politically in the Obama years — people who were born between 1982-92 and thus reached their impressionable years in the 2000s as Obama became a more salient political figure.
University of Massachusetts political scientist Tatishe Nteta and Brandeis political scientist Jill Greenlee compared the racial attitudes of what they call the the “Obama generation” to the attitudes of six previous generations. Naturally, later generations tend to express more positive views of blacks than earlier generations. But Nteta and Greenlee did not find that each generation has become inexorably more favorable toward blacks. After accounting for other factors, they found that the Obama generation was more favorable to blacks than every previous generation — even the generation that came of age in the 1990s immediately prior to the Obama generation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/28/how-the-obama-presidency-may-be-changing-young-peoples-views-of-race/?wprss=rss_national&tid=pp_widget
How the Obama presidency may be changing young people’s views of race
BY JOHN SIDES October 28 at 10:12 am
Decades of political science research show that political attitudes can be strongly affected by the events we experience in adolescence and young adulthood, or what are sometimes referred to as the “impressionable years.” New research shows how this applies to the racial attitudes of young people who came of age politically in the Obama years — people who were born between 1982-92 and thus reached their impressionable years in the 2000s as Obama became a more salient political figure.
University of Massachusetts political scientist Tatishe Nteta and Brandeis political scientist Jill Greenlee compared the racial attitudes of what they call the the “Obama generation” to the attitudes of six previous generations. Naturally, later generations tend to express more positive views of blacks than earlier generations. But Nteta and Greenlee did not find that each generation has become inexorably more favorable toward blacks. After accounting for other factors, they found that the Obama generation was more favorable to blacks than every previous generation — even the generation that came of age in the 1990s immediately prior to the Obama generation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/28/how-the-obama-presidency-may-be-changing-young-peoples-views-of-race/?wprss=rss_national&tid=pp_widget
Obamacare Rate Shock and Premium Joy: Now It’s Real
BY JONATHAN COHN @citizencohn
The conversation about Obamacare shifted a bit over the weekend. Nobody has forgotten about the technical problems with healthcare.gov. But now critics are also focusing on something else: Reports of sharp premium increases that some individual consumers are facing. In the last few weeks, several hundred thousand Americans have received notices from their health insurance companies, effectively cancelling their existing policies. These consumers can get new policies, of course, but frequently they have to pay more for them.
The news reports are real—and not at all surprising. Obamacare is transforming one part of the existing health insurance market, in ways that will force some people to pay more than they do now. But that’s only part of the story. Many other people, quite possibly the majority of people in that market, will pay less than they do now. And even those paying more will be getting more comprehensive, more secure insurance.
If all of this sounds familiar, it should. Health policy experts spent much of the summer arguing about this very point—about the likelihood of both “rate shock” and “premium joy” and which effect matters more. The lesson of that debate (at least to me) was that journalists, politicians, and anybody else talking about this should really provide a full, nuanced picture—noting all the ways Obamacare is affecting premiums and how that will play out for people in different situations.
But that doesn’t seem to be happening, except at places like Politifact. More typical is a recent study from the Heritage Foundation suggesting that most people will end up paying more. That report continues to reverberate throughout the right wing press, even though it left out half the facts.
So here’s a quick refresher on what’s really happening:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115372/how-obamacare-changing-insurance-premiums-and-coverage
Ametia, SG2
this must be added to the 3CHICS cooning gifs collection:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/5d536d451aa5c6d0ce420636b272aab3/tumblr_mic9uifjfm1rav0jbo1_400.gif
Good one! Thank you! Can you put the code in one of the draft threads? It’s a keeper!
It’s in the pics for sidebar – first one
Thank you!
BWA HA HA HA HA This is HILARIOUS. ’cause there shole is a whole lotta tap dancin’ coons in town.
Minnesota’s once-woebegone progressives have quietly crafted a road map for turning state capitols blue.
—By Andy Kroll
| September/October 2013 Issue
It was the Friday before Memorial Day, and nearly 50 of Minnesota’s most powerful businessmen and Republican operatives met for lunch at the Town and Country Club, overlooking the Mississippi River in western St. Paul. They had gathered at the invitation of Tom Rosen, who runs the nation’s fifth-largest beef-processing company, and Stan Hubbard, the billionaire media magnate who pioneered satellite television. Over Caesar salad and tomato-basil soup, Rosen, Hubbard, and their friends bemoaned the direction of their state. As one after another rose to speak, the tone was one of outrage and incredulity: “It’s time we coordinate.” “It’s time we stand up and do something.” “We’re getting chewed up!”
How far has the GOP fallen from the days when Minnesota was Karl Rove’s prime example for the cascade of blue states poised to turn red and create a permanent Republican majority? A decade ago, Tim Pawlenty was governor, Norm Coleman had replaced the late Paul Wellstone in the US Senate, and Rove was touting Minnesota—which hadn’t voted for a Republican president in 37 years—as a battleground state. Today, Democrats control the state Legislature. They hold both US Senate seats, five of the state’s eight congressional seats, and every constitutional office—governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and state auditor. In November, they defeated ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage and enact restrictive voter ID rules. And to top it all off, Rep. Michele Bachmann, the tea party torchbearer under investigation for ethics violations, announced in May that she would not seek reelection. “If you look at the history of our party since 1944, we’re at the apex of our political power,” gushes Ken Martin, the chairman of what in Minnesota is known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party.
They’ve not been shy about using that power. Last spring, Gov. Mark Dayton signed bills legalizing gay marriage, creating Minnesota’s Obamacare health insurance exchange, allowing public colleges to freeze tuition, and investing $174 million into pre-K and all-day kindergarten. Dayton and his Democratic colleagues erased a $627 million budget deficit by hiking taxes on smokers, car rentals, and the wealthiest 2 percent of Minnesotans. At the same time, they cut property taxes for middle-class families. It was the most liberal legislative session anyone could remember—and a nightmare for the guests at Rosen and Hubbard’s luncheon. “It was a big wake-up call,” Hubbard told me in June at his St. Paul office, where a framed letter from Ronald Reagan hangs next to a replica of the Declaration of Independence.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/minnesota-progressives-turn-state-blue
We SHOULD be able to keep the state dark blue. With us still cleaning up after Pawlenty, Amy Klobuchar ran unopposed, only wingnuts want to run against Al Franken, plus lower unemployment all work in our favor. The worst thing they have is Viking stadium bs. That isn’t outweighing balanced budget, schools getting repaid… people back to work.
Charles Pierce: The Slow, Sad, Yet Oddly Entertaining Decline Of Marco Rubio
His strength is failing. The shrink-wrap is winning. And Marco Rubio (R-Flashinthepan) continues to flail around like a scarecrow in a windstorm. When our adventure began, young Marco was going to be the smiling face of the rebranding of the Republican party, which was going to habla the daylights out of the ol’ espanol because it finally had concluded that it wasn’t going to win an national election even if it did get the votes of everyone who owns the complete Murder, She Wrote on Blu-Ray. Of course, then Rubio made the mistake of believing that the party was serious about this whole rebranding business, proposed an immigration reform plan that made a little bit of sense, and then found his standing in the party sinking into Middle Earth. Ever since, he has done everything to romance the base save dress up as Angela Lansbury.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
______________FLATLINES___________
Pierce is PRICELESS
Graham pushes new obstructionism based on Benghazi conspiracy theories
10/28/13 10:11 AM
By Steve Benen
When congressional Republicans finally ended their government shutdown two weeks ago, it was only natural for political observers to wonder what GOP lawmakers would tackle next. The most common guesses were obvious: (1) keep trying to undermine the Affordable Care Act; (2) kill immigration reform; and (3) bring back Benghazi conspiracy theories.
The first is well underway, as is the second, and right on cue, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is back to the third.
On Fox News this morning, Graham called for yet another new committee to investigate the same attack that’s already been investigated by several other committees. He added, “I’m going to block every appointment in the United States Senate until the survivors are being made available to the Congress.” He liked the line so much, the Republican senator pushed it on Twitter soon after.
Hayes Brown documented the series of recent Graham tantrums, of which there are many.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/lindsey-grahams-benghazi-based-obstructionis
The Morning Plum: Maybe GOP should try governing again
By Greg Sargent
October 28 at 9:13 am
This week, House Republicans will begin taking baby steps towards entering into the normal give and take of governing that they had foresworn for much of the year, in a last-ditch effort to achieve through chaos governing what they could not achieve in the 2012 election. That’s what will happen, hopefully, when lawmakers will enter into the budget negotiations that were mandated by the recent deal to temporarily reopen the government and raise the debt limit, which Republicans agreed to after admitting their scorched earth tactics couldn’t carry the day.
However, it remains to be seen whether the GOP posture has actually changed.
This is how Politico sums up the thinking among House Republicans right now:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/10/28/the-morning-plum-maybe-republicans-should-try-governing-again/
Wonderful comment from Rhoda:
Halloween Has a Blackface Issue and It’s a Racism Problem
October 27, 2013 | Luvvie
Every year. EVERY GAHTDAMB YEAR, Halloween rolls around and we have to deal with folks who want to paint themselves black and brown for some costume. It is exhausting and enraging and absolutely overwhelming. It’s REALLY hard for me to write about it because I just wanna cuss and fight the air and kick trashcans and throat punch the offenders.
I’ve never been a fan of Halloween, and it isn’t for any reason besides that I am pretty indifferent about rocking costumes and I’m lazy. That’s it. But, I didn’t mind the holiday because it can be amusing to see what people come up with. Now, I’m ready to place Halloween in the “HATE” box.
SO. MUCH. BLACKFACE! There are too many pictures floating around of college students, adults, fashion designers, random ingrates who decided that their costumes weren’t complete without the use of black or brown paint to change their skin color. AND MY SOUL IS BOTHERED TO THE CORE.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2013/10/halloween-blackface-racism.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Luvvie+%28Awesomely+Luvvie%29
Liberals go to war with each other over Obamacare
By Ryan Cooper
October 25 at 4:08 pm
The rocky Obamacare rollout have sparked a big, raucous debate within lefty precincts over how far to go in criticizing the problems that have plagued the law. On one side, liberal wonks — like Ezra Klein and Ryan Lizza — have been harshly critical of the rollout and of the administration for making a mess of things.
On the other side, people like Joan Walsh argue that the criticism has exaggerated the problems and enabled the right’s campaign to destroy the law, while Zerlina Maxwell added that the privilege of Ezra and company — as already-insured Americans, and as men – have distorted their perspective on the law’s problems.
This discussion matters because it’s a small example of a larger phenomenon on the left and internet culture generally: the tendency for discussion to get swamped by unnecessarily personal argument, when large political battles with big stakes are underway.
Here’s Zerlina:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/10/25/liberals-go-to-war-with-each-other-over-obamacare/
Ted Cruz’s Brand of Self-Sufficiency
by BooMan
Mon Oct 28th, 2013 at 09:30:40 AM EST
You may have heard that Senator Ted Cruz is carried on his wife’s Goldman Sachs-provided health insurance policy. What you probably haven’t heard is that the policy cost $40,543 in 2009. Austin Frakt used publicly available data to estimate the size of the tax-subsidy Cruz receives from the federal government for his insurance.
Sen. Cruz hasn’t done anything to “earn” this tax subsidy beyond agreeing to be married to his spouse. If he were unemployed and had no income, he’d still get the roughly $14,595 in subsidies through lower tax payments for his wife. Because both he and his wife have high six-figure to seven-figure incomes, they don’t really need this tax assistance, but it is particularly galling that Sen. Cruz’s spokeswoman said that his health plan “comes at no cost to the taxpayer.” It actually comes at the expense of paying for five typical adult Medicaid plans.
And then we can begin calculating the damage Goldman Sachs did to ordinary Americans with their role in the housing bubble and the financial collapse.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/10/28/93040/866
FreedomWorks Blogger Shocked By Texas Turning Blue Under His Nose
Author: Egberto Willies October 25, 2013 6:21 pm
Texas is the sleeping giant in the United States. It turns out that Battleground Texas is starting to scare the hell out of the Right Wing Tea Party Texas Republican Party.
It turns out that FreedomWorks blogger Shane Wright wrote a blog piece that lays it out pretty well. He says,
Top-level Democrats and OFA strategist are on the ground all across Texas registering hundreds of new voters every week. Currently Battleground Texas reports that they are on pace to register approximately 600,000 new Democrats by the 2014 midterms. Considering Rick Perry won the gubernatorial race in 2010 by less than 700,000 votes, Texas could be in real trouble. Mathematically speaking, the path to the White House could be lost for an entire generation if Democrats are able to turn Texas.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/10/25/freedomworks-shook-core/
North Dakota town approves building moratorium; white supremacist says he’s being targeted
http://www.startribune.com/nation/229525111.html
LEITH, N.D. — Leaders in a small North Dakota town have approved a moratorium on new construction in a move a white supremacist says unfairly targets him.
Craig Cobb has bought a home and 12 other lots in Leith (leeth) and is encouraging others who want to build an Aryan enclave with him to move there and help him take control of the community.
The Bismarck Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/HlSBpI ) that city officials are working on an ordinance that will require Cobb to install water and sewer service in his house, where three other male white supremacists and two children also are living. Another ordinance would prevent tents and campers from being on a city lot for more than 10 consecutive days.
Cobb calls the proposals “patently unfair.”
Missy Graham means the Bush admin makes survivors of the Iraq war TESTIFY doesn’t he?
Obama blasts ‘rooting for failure’
10/28/13 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
President Obama, not surprisingly, devoted his weekly address over the weekend to problems with the Affordable Care Act’s website, and vowed, “[I]n the coming weeks, we are going to get it working as smoothly as it’s supposed to. We’ve got people working overtime, 24/7, to boost capacity and address these problems, every single day.” But as part of the same message, Obama added an even more pointed sentiment, directed at the law’s critics on the right.
Accusing elected officials of “rooting for failure” has long been a provocative argument, and for good reason – American norms suggest policymakers aren’t supposed to actively, publicly hope that the nation’s fortunes take a turn for the worse. It’s one thing for officials to predict failure; it’s something else entirely when they hope for failure.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-blasts-rooting-failure
Party Crashers
by Steve Coll
November 4, 2013
… Like a guerrilla army, the Tea Party is learning how to influence public opinion even when it loses a conventional battle. The budget caps that Obama conceded in 2011 have already enshrined in law a portion of the movement’s draconian fiscal agenda. And although Cruz and his allies in the House won no additional cuts this time, they managed to spread magical thinking among their followers about a possible future debt default. (The next debt-ceiling deadline arrives early next year.) Cruz and the others systematically promoted the idea—the fantasy—that, if the Treasury Department were prohibited from issuing any new debt to finance interest payments and government operations, the country would do just fine. The global economy, this story goes, far from collapsing into crisis, would prove resilient, and, while some nonessential federal departments might wither for lack of funds, that would only demonstrate how Americans could get by with a much smaller government.
This campaign has been dismissed by some Wall Street analysts as just a form of coercive bargaining. Washington is a grand opera of phony crises. Congress has raised the debt ceiling more than seventy times since 1960 without forcing an actual default. It’s tempting to believe that even a diva like Cruz, who, after all, holds a law degree from Harvard and evidently aspires to higher office, would never countenance a final default. Yet history is rife with political radicals who have shocked the world by doing just what they always said they would: Confederate secessionists, for example, who seem to inspire so many Tea Partiers today…
As recently as 2007… it still seemed possible that a modernizing Republican Party might build a formidable political coalition of Latinos, evangelicals, disaffected Catholic Democrats, high-tech entrepreneurs, libertarians, social and educational reformers, and eclectic independents. Instead, as Geoffrey Kabaservice puts it in his history of the Republican decline, “Rule and Ruin,” movement conservatives have “succeeded in silencing, co-opting, repelling, or expelling nearly every competing strain of Republicanism from the party.” Political purges have no logical end point; each newly drawn inner circle of orthodoxy leaves a former respected acolyte suddenly on the outside. That a Tea Party-influenced purification drive now threatens such a loyal opportunist and boardroom favorite as Mitch McConnell seems a marker of the times.
McConnell’s would-be usurper is Matt Bevin, a businessman who owns a bell company; his campaign slogan is “Let Freedom Ring.” He told Glenn Beck recently, “We have got to wean people from this idea of free lunches.” (He might start with fellow Kentuckians; their state pays sixty-six cents in federal taxes for every dollar of federal spending it takes in.) Bevin pleaded, “What we need to tell the American people is that the party’s over.” Presumably, he didn’t mean the Grand Old Party, but the American people may be forgiven for thinking that he did.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2013/11/04/131104taco_talk_coll
Now when I use the phrase
CLINGING TO THAT WHITENESS
doesn’t get more obvious than this…
…………………….
The Real Deadbeats
by BooMan
Sun Oct 27th, 2013 at 07:13:58 PM EST
Karen Tumulty has piece in the Washington Post on why West Virginia has moved from a solidly Democratic state to an increasingly Republican state (at least, on the national level). She’s starts out with an anecdote about Pineville, where Jack Kennedy made a famous speech two weeks before winning the West Virginia primary in 1960.
One wonders why everybody hates Barack Obama.
What makes Bill and Hillary “the right kind of Democrat”?
According to the article, fully 27% of West Virginians receive some form of government aid, the highest rate in the country. They rank 47th in terms of overall health, which is why only one health insurer has agreed to offer plans in the state’s exchange. Despite this, they profess to dislike the federal government.
Shaking my head……ignorance and racism all wrapped up in one package mess.
In case we didn’t already know..
Shopping While Black
is real as a muthafucka.
……………………..
Fourth New York shopper, pointing at Macy’s, makes racial profiling allegations
Art Palmer says four plainclothes cops questioned him three blocks away from the flagship store after he bought $320 worth of Polo dress shirts and ties.The latest accusation echoes those by Trayon Christian and Kayla Phillips against Barneys and by actor Robert Brown against the same Macy’s.
…When Palmer returned to the store the next day to complain, a Macy’s manager blamed it on the cops and said officers frequently come into the store to monitor surveillance videos without permission, according to Palmer.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/4th-nyc-shopper-accusing-macy-race-profiling-claims-article-1.1498427#ixzz2j1GoWaNa
@keithboykin
NY Times poll shows Bill de Blasio could win the largest margin of victory in an open NYC mayoral race since 1897. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10… …
@keithboykin
NY Times poll: “The more voters get to know Mr. Lhota [GOP mayoral candidate], the less they like him.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10… …
University receives Illinois’ former poet laureate’s literary archives”
http://www.dailyillini.com/news/campus/article_6d18710c-3f65-11e3-8a6d-0019bb30f31a.html
Posted: Monday, October 28, 2013 12:00 am
By Jacqui Ogrodnik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JIf5vKQdJLU
Uploaded on Mar 26, 2007 by Gregory Pickett
Biography
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gwendolyn-brooks
Much thanks to The Obama Diary for these videos about how Obamacare is changing lives RIGHT NOW.
http://youtu.be/6YWEW3I1fKs
http://youtu.be/r9omNZqSI7w
http://youtu.be/Jn9OBSNBE4M
http://youtu.be/-VI_A1TPS6o
http://youtu.be/R-oxvOTLCYU
http://theadvocate.com/home/7411406-125/activists-pulled-out-of-no
Brenda Gazzar
Posted: 10/27/2013
http://www.willitsnews.com/ci_24400463/oldest-living-tuskegee-airman-walter-crenshaw-celebrates-104th
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/chris-christie-obama-hurricane-sandy-98914.html?hp=l7
http://www.trentonian.com/general-news/20131027/trentons-naacp-celebrates-its-first-100-years
“Young city council electee an ‘old soul'”
http://www.statesville.com/news/article_6b8e8626-3f85-11e3-b795-0019bb30f31a.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/chirlane-mccray-activist-lady-article-1.1497941
http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/342287/19/Ben-Crump-flooded-with-civil-rights-cases-after-Trayvon
http://www.thestate.com/2013/10/28/3059111/bolton-att-african-american-history.html
Good Morning, Ametia and Everyone!
Yes! I am ready to dance with David Bowie!
Good Morning, Everyone :)
I’m with Yahtc…
SG2…where’s that dancing gif?
Good morning, everyone! Here we go..
Morning, 3 Chickas & Everyone! Wow; I’m finding it a bit challenging with re-entry. The conference was FAN-TAB-U-LOUS. On my way home now. Catch up with y’all later.
LOL I see SG2’s keeping everyone in a dancing mood too. :-))))