David Bowie week continues with…
Modern Love
Under Pressure No contest Vanilla Ice…
You go, Gail Ann Dorsey…
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Black Girls Rock!
Flickr Photos
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Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
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AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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https://twitter.com/earthposts/status/394481640887828480/photo/1
Pittsburgh woman finds incredible deal with Affordable Care Act
Gail Roach says she couldn’t believe astonishing low premium rates
UPDATED 6:30 PM EDT Oct 29, 2013
While most of the country haggles and laments over the busted government website for health care, Gail Roach simply picked up the phone and asked a specialist to walk her through her options.
Roach, 57, said she found plenty, and suddenly she realized she would have the opportunity to walk away from her retirement health care package that required her to pay $509 a month for her premium.
Roach has Type 2 diabetes, which drove up her costs. However, through the Affordable Care Act, she found a policy offering a monthly premium at only $70.
After cashing in on a tax credit and taking advantage of a feature called the Cost Sharing Benefit, Roach saw her premium drop to a measly $1.11 a month.
“I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it. But it was within my budget,” Roach said.
Now she’s telling everyone who’ll listen that they must exercise patience while the administration straightens out problems with the website.
“I’m telling people they need to look into it. They need to be patient about it,” said Roach. “Go to the website. If you can’t get on, call the number on the website and just be very patient because it’s very much worth it.”
Read more: http://www.wtae.com/news/local/allegheny/pittsburgh-woman-finds-incredible-deal-with-affordable-care-act/-/10927008/22698256/-/l53xqa/-/index.html#ixzz2jB0OsbYE
Fox News’ Dr. Siegel: Too Many People Have Health Insurance Under Obamacare (VIDEO)
[….] Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel revealed that his number one concern was not how well the ACA covers his patients or even how affordable it is but that too many people will wind up with health
insurance. And that inconveniences him and the “haves” he treats.
Siegel said: Before they started this, we were all in trouble with insurance to begin with. There’s too much health insurance. It covers too much. Too many people have it and they can’t in my office to see me. I’m full. …I can’t see all these people. There’s a shortage of doctors. So what do they do? They’re going to pay us less.[….]
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/10/29/fox-doctor-obamacare/
Fiscal Scolds Demand ‘Reforms’ to Social Security and Medicare Based on a Myth
By: Crissie Brown
Monday, October 28th, 2013, 7:14 pm
With a joint budget committee mandated in the deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, the fiscal scolds at Fix The Debt are again demanding ‘reforms’ to Social Security and Medicare. Their entire argument is based on a myth.
An Aging Population
The U.S. population is aging. In part that’s because families are having fewer children. It’s also because more Americans are living longer. Put those two facts together and the Administration on Aging at the Department of Health and Human services estimates that the percentage of Americans over age 65 will rise to 19% by the year 2030 from the current 13.5%. Urban Institute charted Census Bureau data to make that change clearer:
In fiscal terms, our aging population will increase the costs of caring for seniors by roughly half by the year 2040, and that increase may be even more depending on how we pay for seniors’ retirement and health care.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/10/28/long-term-debt-most-cost-effective-care-debunking-fix-debt-myth.html
Senate advances Obama’s NLRB counsel nominee
By Ramsey Cox – 10/29/13 03:05 PM ET
Eight Republicans joined Democrats in advancing President Obama’s nomination of Richard Griffin to serve as general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
On Tuesday, the Senate voted 62-37 on a motion to end debate on Griffin’s nominations — 60 votes were needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.
Some Republicans criticized Griffin for being a labor advocate rather than an “umpire” while briefly serving on the NLRB, which settles major disputes between employers and employees.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/331259-senate-advances-obamas-nlrb-counsel-nominee#ixzz2j9qS8mhI
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Bernie Sanders Exposes Ted Cruz and Explains Why He is a Koch Fueled Threat to Democracy
By: Jason Easley
Monday, October 28th, 2013, 7:44 pm
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) connected the dots and explained that by blocking Tom Wheeler’s FCC nomination, Ted Cruz revealed himself to be a Koch fueled threat to democracy.
http://youtu.be/FG0MCmny-ko
Ed Schultz asked Sen. Sanders about Ted Cruz blocking the nomination of Tom Wheeler to be the chairman of the FCC.
Sanders answered,
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/10/28/bernie-sanders-exposes-ted-cruz-explains-koch-fueled-threat-democracy.html
KNEEGROW, PLEASE
………………….
Kanye West Explains Why He’s Using the Confederate Flag in His ‘Yeezus’ Merchandise
By Alicia Diaz Dennis on October 28, 2013
In an interview with 97.1 AMP Radio, West didn’t seem too concerned with how people interpreted his move to use the Stars and Bars, imagery frequently associated with the racism and prejudice.
“React how you want. Any energy you got is good energy,” West said. “I represented slavery, my abstract take on what I know about it, I wrote ‘New Slaves.’ So I took the Confederate flag and made it my flag. What are you going to do?”
http://www.zimbio.com/Music+News/articles/Sa6YXv2mkkw/Kanye+West+Explains+Using+Confederate+Flag?utm_source=Zimbio-News&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Zimbio-News-29-oct-13
I can’t, I.JUST.CAN’T. with this nigga.
tell me about it, Ametia.
tell me about it.
Republicans Won’t Admit that Cutting Social Security Is Stealing From the American People
By: Rmuse
Tuesday, October 29th, 2013, 10:02 am
A bellwether is an entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings, and in America one can arguably cite the New Deal as a bellwether that three generations of Republicans have sought to destroy. Chief among the New Deal’s features conservatives have spent nearly 80 years attempting to eliminate is the Social Security Trust primarily because it helps the American people and does not enrich corporations and the wealthy.
Over the past five years, the GOP and their conservative backers have spread lies and misinformation about Social Security and were successful in labeling it an “entitlement” to portray it as a handout that contributes to lazy Americans’ culture of dependency on government. However, Social Security is an entitlement only in the sense that people who paid into the program all their working lives are “entitled” to a return on their investment that in reality makes Social Security a “mandated retirement savings plan” Republicans lust to hand over to their wealthy Wall Street supporters.
There are myriad reasons Republicans hate Social Security including it is proof a government program can be successful, it helps the people, reduces poverty, pumps $2 into the economy for every benefit dollar spent contributing to economic growth, is wildly popular, and it has trillions of dollars in reserves conservatives believe belong to the rich. Republicans and Wall Street CEOs have spent no small amount of time, money, and energy portraying Social Security as going broke, blowing up the deficit, and an existential threat to America’s economy that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfien said “we can’t afford.” Two months ago Speaker of the House John Boehner claimed Republicans would engage in a “whale of a fight” to slash discretionary spending on “entitlements” like Social Security as a primary feature of a deficit reduction plan in the government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/10/29/republicans-admit-cutting-social-security-stealing-american-people.html
Another Phony Obamacare Victim Story
Paul Waldman
October 29, 2013
The exemplar temptation produces bad journalism.
In the last couple of decades, a particular technique of news-story construction has become so common that I’m sure you barely notice it as something distinctive. It’s the use of a device sometimes referred to as the “exemplar,” in which a policy issue is explained through the profile of one individual, whose tale usually begins and ends the story. It’s ubiquitous on television news, but print reporters do it all the time as well.
As the Affordable Care Act approaches full implementation, we’re seeing a lot of exemplar stories, and I’ve been noticing one particular type: the story of the person who seems to be getting screwed. If it were true that most Americans were indeed being made worse off by the law, that would be a good thing; we’d learn their stories and get a sense of the human cost of the law. The trouble is that in the real world, there are many more people being helped by the law than hurt by it, and even those who claim to be hurt by it aren’t being hurt at all.
To see how misleading some of these exemplar stories can be, let’s take this piece from last night’s NBC Nightly News, which uses an exemplar named Deborah Cavallaro, a self-employed realtor from Los Angeles who buys insurance on the individual market:
http://prospect.org/article/another-phony-obamacare-victim-story
Barneys: We didn’t stop black shoppers
By Kevin Fasick and Jeane MacIntosh
Barneys CEO Mark Lee publicly apologized to two black shoppers – but insisted “no one” at the luxe retailer racially profiled the pair.
“No one, and I mean no individual, should go through the unacceptable experiences described by Trayon Christian and Kayla Phillips,” Lee said Tuesday after an hour-long sitdown with the Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem headquarters of his National Action Network. “We offer our deepest sympathies to both of them.”
Sharpton and his National Action Network demanded a face-to-face with Barneys brass– and threatened to put shopping at the high-end retailer “on hold” — after Christian and Phillips accused Barneys of sending cops to question and detain them after they made big-ticket buys at the Manhattan flagship.
http://nypost.com/2013/10/29/sharpton-barneys-ny-ceo-discuss-racial-profiling/
The pic accompanying this story:
Ha ha. Rev Al Sharpton is a study in body language communication.
@linnyitssn
Let me help the media a bit. #Obamacare website will be ok. We already knew the #NSA was spying. Benghazi is not a scandal. You’re welcome.
The implosion of the GOP brand, in one more chart
By Greg Sargent
October 29 at 2:09 pm
With Democrat Terry McAuliffe taking a double digit lead in the Virginia gubernatorial contest, leading observers are increasingly looking at Virginia as an indicator of national political trends.
New Washington Post/SRBI polling in Virginia, which puts McAuliffe up 51-39, also demonstrates very clearly the dangers these trends pose to Republicans.
The crack Post polling team has produced a chart based on this poll that shows the GOP brand has collapsed among the very constituencies Republicans must improve their standing among in order to remain competitive in the future, both in Virginia and at the national level:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/10/29/the-implosion-of-the-gop-brand-in-one-more-chart/
Why Losing Your Junk Insurance is a Good Thing
Tuesday, October 29, 2013 | Posted by Spandan C at 11:42 AM
For the past week or so, the media has been replete with stories about people getting letters from their insurance companies that cancel their current coverage and replace it with a more expensive health insurance plan, providing the insured the option to look into their state’s exchange for coverage. Insurance companies are doing their damnest to blame the Affordable Care Act and President Obama for this, but the truth is that the policies that are being canceled are being canceled for one reason and one reason alone: they do not meet the minimum coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act.
So what are these minimum coverage requirements? They are simple and essential:
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/10/why-losing-your-junk-insurance-is-good.html
Morning Plum: Why normal debate about Obamacare is impossible
By Greg Sargent
October 29 at 9:01 am
Foes of Obamacare are excitedly citing a rash of new stories claiming untold Americans are “losing” their insurance, as CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell puts it. One of them is this NBC News story, which reports that “millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.”
Critics of the law are right to ask whether it is having an adverse impact on these millions of Americans. And the White House could have been clearer in laying the groundwork for this political argument: It wasn’t sufficient to say people who like their plans will be able to keep it, which is narrowly untrue.
But the GOP outrage about Americans supposedly “losing” coverage is largely just more of the same old misdirection. It’s a subset of a larger Republican refusal to have an actual debate about the law’s tradeoffs — one in which the law’s benefits for millions of Americans are also reckoned with in a serious way.
On the substance of this argument, Igor Volsky has a good response, noting that these Americans aren’t “losing” coverage at all:
Who’s Really Behind Campbell Brown’s Sneaky Education Outfit?
The former CNN anchor says her nonprofit seeks to protect kids from predators in the classroom. Its real agenda may be union-busting.
—By Andy Kroll| Tue Oct. 29, 2013 3:00 AM PDT
Early one morning in July, former CNN anchor Campbell Brown appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, pen in hand, notes fanned out in front of her. Viewers might have mistaken her as a fill-in host, but Brown had swung by 30 Rock in her new role as a self-styled education reformer, a crusader against sexual deviants in New York City public schools and the backward unions and bureaucrats getting in the way of firing them. “In many cases, we have teachers who were found guilty of inappropriate touching, sexual banter with kids, who weren’t fired from their jobs, who were given very light sentences and sent back to the classroom,” Brown, the mother of two young sons, explained.
Brown was there to plug her new venture, the Parents’ Transparency Project, a nonprofit “watchdog group” that “favors no party, candidate, or incumbent.” Though its larger aim is to “bring transparency” to how contracts are negotiated with teachers’ unions, PTP’s most prominent campaign is to fix how New York City handles cases of sexual misconduct involving teachers and school employees—namely by giving the city’s schools chancellor, a political appointee, ultimate authority in the process.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/campbell-brown-new-york-schools-rhee
Democratic Congressman Blows Up At GOP During Obamacare Hearing: ‘Are You Really Serious?’
BY IGOR VOLSKY ON OCTOBER 29, 2013 AT 12:36 PM
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) slammed Republicans for failing to support the Affordable Care Act once it became law, challenging them to go back to their districts and tell their constituents that they’ll be taking away their coverage.
http://youtu.be/9owwg1LALxk
@EmoNegro1
Why didn’t Obama use Two Brothaz And a Stick of RAM to fix the http://Healthcare.Gov website? #wheresthesupportforblackbusinesses #poverty
@AaronBlakeWP
94% of libertarians are non-Hispanic white. 68% are men. http://wapo.st/1hqsGuO
HEAD NEGRO IN CHARGE
Still hot.
LOL Here, need this, Liza?
OMG, that is quite a sketch (but I’m past all that.) :)
From itgurl_29
……………………………………
Here’s the quote:
……………………….
Ok, SG2, Ametia, where are those gifs?
Epic reply:
CBS News’ Misleading Obamacare Report: Woman’s Plan Paid $50 Per Service, Doesn’t Cover Hospitalization
by Tommy Christopher | 4:10 pm, October 28th, 2013
…On CBS This Morning, Crawford reported that 56-year-old Dianne Barrette received a letter last month “from Blue Cross Blue Shield, informing her that as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. She pays $54 a month. The new plan she’s being offered would run $591 a month, ten times more than what she currently pays.”
“What I have right now is what I’m happy with,” Barrette says in the report, “and I just want to know why I can’t keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else.”
There are very good answers to her questions, answers which Crawford, either deliberately or through ignorance, failed to report, answers which are available to anyone with a passing familiarity with health insurance.
First of all, the plan that Barrette paid $54 a month for is barely health insurance at all. It’s part of a subset of insurance that Consumer Reports calls “junk health insurance” (and which even the company that sells it recommends that customers not rely solely upon) and it pays only $50 towards most of the services it covers. That’s it. If Dianne went to the doctor every week for a year, her plan would pay, at most, $2600. Meanwhile, based on average office visit charges, Diane would pay about $5,600.00. She probably doesn’t go to the doctor every week, of course, which means her plan pays a lot less, while her premium buys her a lot less. If she goes to the doctor, say, six times in a year, she’s paid a $648 premium for the privilege of spending another $600 on office visits. The plan also pays up to $15 per prescription, which will get you a few milligrams of most prescription drugs. The one decent deal on her plan is that it covers 100% of in-network lab services.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cbs-news-misleading-obamacare-report-womans-plan-paid-50-per-service-doesnt-cover-hospitalization/
@victoriarowell
@victoriarowell: I exist because ancestors bore the brutality. I NEVER forget.
WORD, Ms. Vic, WORD.
Good Afternoon 3Chics.
Queen/Bowie… classic. I liked the story on Illinois coal mining and slavery. Also, when you do your 60’s music week, you gotta bring back the Angela Davis pic. Loved it. Have a good day.
Hi Brotha, Tyren. Will do.
Hi Tyren,
Have you seen this?
http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/watch/
More here about the book that the PBS video was based upon:
http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/the-book/
I read the book years ago. U.S. Steel, DuPont, most of the early NYSE.
Michelle Obama: Vote on November 5th
FLOTUS holding it down for these Dems, even though, I’d hold my NOSE the whole time while blackening the oval. Clintonista… Don’t judge me.
I hear you. I feel the same way!
FLOTUS is wearing the DENIM. Truly an ALL AMERICAN WOMAN.
Nevada Assemblyman: I’d Bring Back Slavery If Constituents Wanted
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/nevada-assemblyman-i-d-bring-back-slavery-if-constituents-want-me-to
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada assemblyman came under fire Monday after a YouTube video surfaced in which he told a Republican gathering he would vote to allow slavery if that is what his constituents wanted him to do.
“If that’s what they wanted, I’d have to hold my nose … they’d probably have to hold a gun to my head, but yeah,” Assemblyman Jim Wheeler told members of the Storey County Republican Party at a meeting in August.
His comments were swiftly denounced by Republicans and Democrats alike.
“Assemblyman Wheeler’s comments are deeply offensive and have no place in our society,” Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval said in a statement. “He should retract his remarks and apologize.”
U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., called Wheeler’s comments “insensitive and wrong,” while the Assembly Democratic caucus said they were “reprehensible and disgusting.”
Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, on Twitter said Wheeler’s comments are “outrageous, they are embarrassing and they are just plain sad.”
“It’s time for Jim Wheeler to find a new line of work,” Roberson said.
Wheeler, a freshman lawmaker representing District 39, said his remarks were taken out of context and that he was trying to make a point that he was elected to represent his constituents.
At the August GOP meeting, Wheeler referenced a blog post from conservative activist Chuck Muth, who in June 2010 wrote about Wheeler’s candidacy and said, “what if those citizens decided they want to, say, bring back slavery? Hey, if that’s what the citizens want, right Jim?”
Wheeler told his audience he responded to Muth and said, “yeah, I would.”
Reached late Monday, Wheeler said he was falsely being portrayed as a bigot.
“Anyone who knows me knows that I could never vote for something like that,” he said of slavery. “It’s disgusting. It’s beyond disgusting.”
He added, “There is absolutely no room in my life for any bigotry.”
*********************
TRY IT ANYTIME, MOFO
Watch Senate Stand Your Ground Hearing Live Now:
http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?comm=judiciary&type=live&filename=judiciary102913
LOLOL! Love how the Borg was defeated!
Thanks for posting this, Ametia!
http://theadvocate.com/news/7343759-123/story.html
“Four Corners – an interview with Everton Wright”
Tue, 29 Oct 2013
http://www.designweek.co.uk/industry-voice/four-corners-an-interview-with-everton-wright/3037435.article
Excerpt:
And who is to blame for this CLUSTERF*%CK?
G.O.P.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/poynter-institute-president-karen-dunlap-to-retire/2149543
Excerpt:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/illinois-teachable-moment_b_4172108.html
http://grist.org/cities/5-highly-polluted-urban-areas-you-dont-want-to-live-if-you-can-help-it/
“Black Community; Money Talks.”
October 28, 2013
http://thyblackman.com/2013/10/28/black-community-money-talks/comment-page-1/
Excerpt:
http://hechingerreport.org/content/in-memphis-city-schools-have-become-a-crucible-for-controversial-change_13650/
MSNBC Contributor Tells Hugh Hewitt Obama Deliberately Lied About Obamacare
http://www.mediaite.com/online/msnbc-contributor-tells-hugh-hewitt-obama-deliberately-lied-about-obamacare/
MSNBC contributor and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page joined conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday and admitted that when President Obama said Americans would be able to keep their plans if they like them, he was fully aware he was lying and exaggerating about it.
Page told Hewitt that Obama knew “there was no guarantee everybody was going to keep their insurance because people couldn’t keep their insurance under the old system.”
Hewitt asked, “He knew he was lying?”
Page replied, “Probably, but that’s one of those political lies, you know.”
Page partly defended Obama by saying that “most people” will be able to keep their insurance policies and Obama was simply being “too grandiose.” Hewitt found it striking that this wouldn’t really bother Page that much, but Page maintained that Obama is mostly guilty of overselling a program.
***************************
LOL Clarence did not have the balls to do a face-face with Hewitt and call POTUS a liar.
Why Clarence? We want to see those shiney tap shoes and your cheezy grinnin’ & skinnin’
Concern troll is very concerned so maybe you should be too
By TBogg
Monday, October 28, 2013 18:50 EDT
Rand Paul fanboy and holder of the Megan McArdle Memorial ‘Seemingly Reasonable If You Aren’t Hung Up On Facts’ Chair at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf is having trouble sleeping at night because he is way stressed out about Dronebama’s legacy and whether it will drone kill the shit out of Hillary Clinton’s chances to be the first woman second Clinton to be elected President.
During President George W. Bush’s tenure, most Republicans felt that criticizing him would just help Democrats. Only the end of his presidency freed them to see its flaws clearly. Staunch conservatives who voted for him twice suddenly found themselves swept up in a Tea Party rebellion against his team’s approach to governing. They felt chagrin at the ways he had transgressed against their values, and they resolved to change the GOP so that the same mistakes would never recur.
Will some Democrats behave similarly when President Obama leaves office? Right now, most feel that criticizing the White House can only help House Republicans. But one day soon they’ll be able to look back at Obama’s two terms with clearer eyes. How many will feel chagrin at policies that transgressed against their values? How many will pressure their party’s establishment to change?
Before we dive in, I’d like to point out that the photo accompanying Young Conor’s article is from this weekends #StopWatchingUs rally that drew a small libertarian-heavy crowd whose size would be embarrassing for a small town Friday night high school football game but would be a stunning haul for a Reason magazine subscription drive.
But, please Conor, go on about those primaries coming up several years down the road:
\
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/28/concern-troll-is-very-concerned-so-maybe-you-should-be-too/
‘The Butler’ Becomes 1st Black Film To Break $100 Million Sales Mark In Over 20 Years
Oct 28, 2013
By Myeisha Essex
Lee Daniels’ The Butler has reached a new milestone!
According to reports, the drama is the first black film of 2013 to surpass the $100 million sales mark at the box office. In addition, it’s now the first “black film” directed by a black filmmaker to reach the achievement in the last 23 years.
“You’d find very few films that tell stories about black people, and that were directed by black filmmakers, with grosses of over $100 million,” Indie Wire reports. “Part of the reason for that is that, within the studio system, black directors just haven’t always been given the opportunity to direct “black films” – especially those that did gross over $100 million in recent years, like Django Unchained, Dreamgirls, The Pursuit Of Happyness, and even Big Mommas House, which all grossed over $100 million, in their years of release, un-adjusted for inflation.”
Thanks to the success of the film, Lee Daniels says big box office bucks are no longer a concern for his future projects.
“I don’t think I’m going to have a problem now. I made $100 million for The Butler,” he said. “I’m in a rare group. So this is something I feel good about.”
http://blackamericaweb.com/178559/the-butler-becomes-1st-black-film-to-break-100-million-sales-mark-in-over-20-years/
House Republicans exhausted by failure
10/29/13 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Following up on a segment from last night’s show, it appears the U.S. House of Representatives, just nine months into the current Congress, can’t think of anything to do. The Republican leadership hasn’t scheduled many work days for the remainder of 2013, and they’re now considering a plan to scale back even further.
For the first time in months, House Republicans are facing no immediate cataclysmic deadlines, and GOP leaders are struggling to come up with an agenda to fill the 19 legislative days that are left in 2013.
Need evidence? The House votes Monday evening and will finish its work week Wednesday. After that, the House is out of session until Nov. 12. Internally, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and senior Republicans aren’t discussing coming back early from the scheduled recess, but instead, they are wondering if they’ll cancel some of the remaining days in session.
This Politico item was published yesterday, so there are really only 18 legislative days remaining until New Year’s Eve – it’s great work if you can get it – a total which may be poised to shrink.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-republicans-exhausted-failure
At the source of the shutdown, the economy falters — and anger at Barack Obama runs high
By Jim Tankersley,
ROME, Ga. — Tom Hackett’s life in the meat business was nearly gone by 4 p.m. on Thursday. What remained behind yards and yards of polished glass were a few scattered remnants of his final inventory — a couple of flank steaks, some shrimp, a lonely half a pound of bologna.
Hackett stood behind the case and lamented that in a few hours he would be closing the store he has run for five years. The weak local economy killed it, he said, and so did the new chain grocery store down the street and the bank that said it couldn’t lend to him anymore. But the biggest culprit, he said, was a man in Washington whose name Hackett could not bring himself to speak.
“I’m going to go hide for two years,” he said, until “he” — President Obama — is on his way out. “It’s sad. People are hurting. There’s no reason for it to be happening, other than what he’s doing.”
If you want to understand the congressional Republicans who have forced confrontations with Obama on the “fiscal cliff,” the government shutdown and the debt ceiling — and whether those lawmakers might feel encouraged to force more confrontations in the future — you need to understand the economic struggles of the Republicans’ home districts.
People in those districts are poorer and more likely to be unemployed than in the nation at large. They have focused their anger about their economic circumstances on Obama, and they want someone, anyone, to make him improve things for them. This is why Hackett praises his congressman, Tom Graves, for voting against the plan to end the budget impasse with Obama that produced the shutdown. “I think he’s great,” he said of Graves. “Somebody’s got to stand up to him.”
Forty-five House Republicans have most consistently pushed their caucus to brinkmanship over the past several years, according to a Washington Post analysis of voting patterns.
On average, the economy in the districts those Republicans represent is significantly worse than it is in the nation at large.
The median income in those districts last year was 7 percent lower than the national median, according to the Census Bureau. The unemployment rate averaged 10 percent. That was almost two percentage points higher than the national rate, and two percentage points higher than the overall rate in the states that contain each district.
The epicenter of that economic distress lies in the Deep South. Four of the congressional districts are in North Georgia. A dozen others are close by in Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and North and South Carolina. Nearly all of them ended 2012 with jobless rates in the double digits.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/at-the-source-of-the-shutdown-the-economy-falters–and-anger-at-obama-runs-high/2013/10/28/67d51c90-3fe2-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html
Nevada Assemblyman: I’d Bring Back Slavery If Constituents Wanted
Sandra Chereb – October 29, 2013, 7:16 AM EDT
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — A Nevada assemblyman came under fire Monday after a YouTube video surfaced in which he told a Republican gathering he would vote to allow slavery if that is what his constituents wanted him to do.
“If that’s what they wanted, I’d have to hold my nose … they’d probably have to hold a gun to my head, but yeah,” Assemblyman Jim Wheeler told members of the Storey County Republican Party at a meeting in August.
His comments were swiftly denounced by Republicans and Democrats alike.
“Assemblyman Wheeler’s comments are deeply offensive and have no place in our society,” Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval said in a statement. “He should retract his remarks and apologize.”
U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., called Wheeler’s comments “insensitive and wrong,” while the Assembly Democratic caucus said they were “reprehensible and disgusting.”
Senate Minority Leader Michael Roberson, R-Henderson, on Twitter said Wheeler’s comments are “outrageous, they are embarrassing and they are just plain sad.”
“It’s time for Jim Wheeler to find a new line of work,” Roberson said.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/nevada-assemblyman-i-d-bring-back-slavery-if-constituents-want-me-to
New York attorney general targeting Barneys, Macy’s over racial profiling claims
BY KENNETH LOVETT, DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013, 2:30 AM
ALBANY — The state attorney general has launched a probe into Barneys and Macy’s after four complaints about alleged racial profiling at the New York City shopping havens surfaced in the past week, the Daily News has learned.
Eric Schneiderman’s office on Monday sent letters to both retailers seeking an array of information on their policies for stopping, detaining and questioning customers based on race.
They have until Friday to comply, according to the letters obtained by The News.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/lattorney-general-probe-barneys-macy-incidentslretailers-accused-repeated-troubling-behavior-shopping-black-state-involvedlay-law-article-1.1499643#ixzz2j7EaHJIC
The Netroots Did Not Fail
by BooMan
Mon Oct 28th, 2013 at 11:06:44 PM EST
It would be easier to understand Jerome Armstrong’s argument if he wrote in English because I don’t know what he means by “I didn’t see Lieberman’s 2006 win in quite as pinnacle a light at the time” or “I certainly peg the crux of lost movement with the rise of Obama’s campaign.” The premise of his word salad is that the Netroots movement somehow failed. And I don’t really see it that way.
I think we were an organization that came together organically to achieve certain limited aims that we all pretty much agreed about, and that the movement splintered once those goals were accomplished because it turned out there were things we didn’t agree about.
There were technological and economic reasons that the Netroots didn’t endure as a united force into the Obama Era, too, and I’d say that our primary failure in that regard was an inability to realize that advertising wasn’t the right model. Obama showed the way with his army of small donors. If we had insisted on and worked collectively to build an army of subscribers who were willing to sign up to pay for free content, we might have been able to thrive economically enough to have actual political pull. But we directed our donors to give more to political candidates than ourselves. And then the advertising dried up. The users grew accustomed to free content and even learned to filter out our advertising so that our own most loyal readers were denying us revenue. But there were progressive values at play that hampered our vision. We weren’t doing it for the money, and our readers would have been suspicious of our motives if we had tried both to profit handsomely and assign ourselves as political leaders directing their money with prudence and wisdom.
But, back to Jerome’s argument, I just find it bizarre to be lectured by a man who first came to my attention as Mark Warner’s agent to the blogosphere. I like Mark Warner and think he is a good man and a decent senator. But I would never confuse him with a progressive. And then Jerome jumped on the Clinton bandwagon, which may have seemed like a solid career move, but it wasn’t where most progressives were going. And then he bailed out to work on Gary Johnson’s libertarian campaign for president, which was definitely a move out of the DLC camp, but a move that traded agreement on some issues like the Drug War and surveillance for disagreement about just about everything else in the progressive playbook.
I have never thought of Jerome as a progressive, and insofar as he immersed himself in the progressive backlash against Obama’s presidency, which was led by Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald, I think he excommunicated himself from about 90% of progressives in this country.
It’s telling that he still resents Barack Obama for not coming to him with his hat in his hand.
According to his own telling, he moved from Edwards to Clinton not because of any policy differences but because Obama didn’t seem accountable to the Netroots Movement. I saw that complaint from the consultant class a lot around that time, and it always struck me that these people expected Obama to pander to them and offer them jobs. I would have liked that, too, but I never resented Obama for not needing me. I’m not sure what the Politico resentment is about in this context, but I don’t like the sound of “identity-politics cult” because it sounds an awful lot like he’s arguing that people only liked Obama because he was black.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/10/28/23644/335
http://youtu.be/2N-6al2l0PE
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning rikyrah and everyone.
Morning, everyone!
Good Morning Ladies & 3 Chics LURKERS! :-)
“So happy together!
How is the weather?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRCe5L1imxg
When you’re with me girl, the skies are BLUE… Loved the Turtles and BREAD!
:)
Thanks for posting the vid, Ametia!
I’ll be doing some 60’s bands in the future. Their music was socially conscious, and I thoroughly appreciate it.