Michael Jackson literally provided a couple of generations with the soundtrack of their musical lives.
From a child with the Jackson 5 to a superstar status that comes along once in a generation, Jackson was a musical genius who left is too soon.
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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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The Morning Plum: The next battle over Obamacare
By Greg Sargent
January 3 at 9:10 am
The Obama administration says it has turned a corner in the fight over the Affordable Care Act: the announcement of millions of new enrollees has allowed it to begin showcasing stories of people’s lives being improved by the law.
At the same time, Republicans are telegraphing their next attack: Sowing doubts about those same enrollment numbers (no matter what they actually show) to prove the law is an epic catastrophe.
GOP Rep. Eric Cantor is circulating a memo that says Republicans will vote on a proposal to require the government to notify people if personal info has been breached on HealthCare.gov. The administration says there have been no such breaches, and as Steve Benen notes, this could be about trying to scare people from enrolling more than anything else. Beyond this, though, note this from Cantor’s memo:
So expect votes on proposals to require the administration to provide more detail about enrollment numbers — who is paying for insurance, as opposed to merely enrolling — and the demographic mix of enrollees. These votes will be partly about reassuring the base that GOP leaders are still taking the fight to Obamacare, dammit!!!
Now, health reform advocates with an interest in seeing the law succeed care very much about seeing transparency when it comes to these numbers. Framed as a political attack coming from a party that wants to see the law fail, however, at what point does this kind of stuff get tuned out by voters as so much Beltway white noise?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/01/03/the-morning-plum-the-next-battle-over-obamacare/
Reid: Let’s not just extend unemployment insurance. Let’s expand it.
By Greg Sargent
January 3 at 3:55 pm
It’s a bit surprising this didn’t get more attention. But the other day, Harry Reid told a Nevada newspaper that he’d like to expand the unemployment insurance program, not just extend it.
This would go significantly farther than the current proposal in the Senate to extend unemployment insurance by a mere three months:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/01/03/reid-lets-not-just-extend-unemployment-insurance-lets-expand-it/
https://twitter.com/B0rnTh1sWe1gh/status/359398707357171712/photo/1
https://twitter.com/arapaho415/status/419236259538538496/photo/1
Carter Camp, Native American activist who helped lead Wounded Knee uprising, dies at 72
http://www.argusleader.com/viewart/20140102/NEWS/301020044/Carter-Camp-Native-American-activist-who-helped-lead-Wounded-Knee-uprising-dies-72
OKLAHOMA CITY — Carter Camp, a longtime activist with the American Indian Movement who was a leader in the Wounded Knee occupation in South Dakota, has died in Oklahoma. He was 72.
Camp’s sister, Casey Camp-Horinek, said Thursday he died Dec. 27 surrounded by family in White Eagle, Okla. Camp-Horinek said her brother had been suffering from cancer for the past year. Services for Camp were held Tuesday.
Camp, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, was a longtime member of the American Indian Movement, organizing more than 30 chapters in his home state of Oklahoma, Camp-Horinek said. The American Indian Movement was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans and demand that the government honor its treaties with Indian tribes.
He had a leading role in the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, in which a caravan of Native American activists drove across the country to Washington, D.C., to protest treaties between tribes and the federal government. They took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs for several days.
The following year, Carter headed to South Dakota with other AIM leaders, including Russell Means and Dennis Banks. There they organized the Wounded Knee uprising, a 71-day siege that included several gunbattles with federal officers. Means died in 2012 at age 72.
“He was the only person in (a) leadership position in Wounded Knee who never left Wounded Knee, not to go out and do press junkets, not to go and sit in a hotel for a while. None of that. He was a war leader there. He stayed inside with his warriors,” Camp-Horinek said of her brother.
5:09 p.m. EST January 3, 2014
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/03/weather-winter-northeast/4302001/
Michael was a fantastic entertainer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5u-6pttPqGA
Real honesty here + a few comments about White Privilege
Solomon Northup Gained His Freedom Today In History. Meet His Real-Life Descendants (Video)
Solomon Northup, whose years in slavery are the subject of Steve McQueen’s acclaimed drama 12 Years A Slave (currently in theaters), gained his freedom today in history, January 3, 1853.
In celebration, the film’s distributor, Fox Searchlight, has released a new featurette, inviting you to meet Northup’s many real-life descendants.
Watch the featurette below:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/solomon-northup-gained-his-freedom-today-in-history-meet-his-real-life-descendants-video?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Cody Crothers was accepted to Ohio State University this fall, but found out soon after that he couldn’t afford to go.
To save money, he began working as a sign artist for a mattress store in Cincinnati, Ohio, dancing on a street corner eight hours a day, five days a week. In wind, rain, sleet, and snow, Crothers danced.
Despite the setback, he always wore a smile. “I want to be out there not only to show that I have a strong work ethic and to inspire others to have the same, and maybe brighten someone’s day,” Crothers explained to Right This Minute.
Cincinnati residents passing by Crothers’ corner found his positivity infectious.
“I was driving and I was having a really crappy day, and I looked over at him and he was just dancing and so happy and I instantly got got a smile. So every time I came through Beechmont, I was always looking at him, and [he] just gave me such instant happiness,” motorist Danielle Toft says in the video above.
Along with friend Lisa Connelly, Toft set up a Facebook page called Beechmont Dancing Guy to celebrate Crothers’ energy and optimism. His fans soon grew from a few dozen to several thousand, and a flash mob was planned in his honor.
Over 100 people showed up for the December 29 flash mob, all dancing and waving their own sale
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/02/beechmont-dancing-man-flash-mob_n_4532445.html
Ametia, I think you will feel colder if you calculate your -10 degrees F into Celsius!
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In the words of Patti LaBelle … Go sista! Go sista! Soul sista! Go sista!
Major AWESOMENESS here.
This has been the underlying issue all along, that hospital does not want to accept ANY responsibility whatsover for Jahi’s descent into brain deadness from a tonsilectomy.
…Even Mr. de Blasio’s children, accustomed to the spotlight after being
featured in his mayoral campaign, received an early lesson in the level
of scrutiny that first families must face.
An online message emerged at midday showing Mr. de Blasio’s teenage son, Dante, a public school student, responding to a friend who asked him if classes might be canceled on Friday.
“Old man winter will decide,” Dante wrote in a message that spread
quickly on social media, but that he was trying to “convince my dad.”
Aides to Mr. de Blasio had no comment, but, later on Thursday, Ms.
McCray posted a photo of a shovel to her Twitter account, along with the caption, “What Dante will be doing if he does not go to school tomorrow.”
https://twitter.com/Chirlane/status/419124414005788672
Report: Ex-Utah AG’s Campaign Filed Fake Tax Papers
Eric Lach – January 3, 2014, 1:00 PM EST900
Search warrants unsealed Thursday contained a number of new details connected to the investigation of two of Utah’s former attorneys general, John Swallow and Mark Shurtleff, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Among other things, the documents showed that a campaign consultant tied to Swallow (R) allegedly filed fake tax documents to conceal the activities a political organization.
Citing information from a confidential source who worked for Swallow campaign consultant Jason Powers, the documents allege that Powers set up a nonprofit organization, the Proper Role of Government Education Association (PRGEA), which did not have to disclose its donors. Contributions to the group came mainly from payday lenders, and the group spent money on ads attacking Swallow’s opponents.
Later, Powers and the source fabricated tax documents “to hide how much the organization had raised and spent,” according to the Tribune. The actual amounts would have shown the organization had “violated Internal Revenue Service rules about how much such nonprofits can legally pump into political activities.”
The source also told investigators that Shurtleff (R) used campaign funds to pay off $30,000 in personal credit card debt.
Swallow resigned last month amid mounting investigation, but has maintained his innocence. An attorney for Powers, the consultant, told the Tribune that “Mr. Powers and his entities have legally complied with all state and federal reporting obligations.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/utah-ag-tax-documents
Maine Senate GOP Challenger: Domestic Violence Conviction Shows Integrity
Daniel Strauss – January 3, 2014, 2:15 PM EST874
A conservative candidate running against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in the Republican primary argued that his decision to fight his domestic violence conviction in court showed his integrity.
The candidate, Erick Bennett, a consultant in Portland who worked on the anti-marriage equality push in 2012, made the argument Monday at a press conference. He discussed his Senate campaign, his time serving for Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) campaign in 2010 and his domestic violence conviction.
“The fact that I have been jailed repeatedly for not agreeing to admit to something I didn’t do should speak to the fact of how much guts and integrity I have,” Bennett said. “I’ve noticed some people questioning that.”
In 2003 Bennett was convicted of attacking his then-wife. A district court convicted him of Class D Assault. Bennett fought the conviction but in 2004 a Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the lower court “sufficient evidence does exist in the record to support his conviction,” according to the Bangor Daily News. At the press conference Bennett stressed his innocence.
Bennett went on to say that that his time in jail demonstrates how much character he has.
“If I go to D.C., I’m going to have that same integrity in doing what I say, and saying what I do, when it comes to protecting people’s rights, as well as their pocketbooks,” Bennett continued, according to the Daily News.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/maine-senate-gop-challenger-domestic-violence-conviction-shows-integrity
Beneath health law’s botched rollout is basic benefit for millions of uninsured Americans
By Lena H. Sun and Amy Goldstein, Published: December 28 E-mail the writers
Adam Peterson’s life is about to change. For the first time in years, he is planning to do things he could not have imagined. He intends to have surgery to remove his gallbladder, an operation he needs to avoid another trip to the emergency room. And he’s looking forward to running a marathon in mid-January along the California coast without constant anxiety about what might happen if he gets injured.
These plans are possible, says Peterson, who turned 50 this year and co-manages a financial services firm in Champaign, Ill., because of a piece of plastic the size of a credit card that arrived in the mail the other day: a health insurance card.
Peterson is among the millions of uninsured Americans who are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law that launched far-reaching changes to the U.S. health-care system and is President Obama’s premier domestic achievement.
These beneficiaries have not been oblivious to the problems of the new insurance exchanges, including a rollout so botched that Obama called it his biggest mistake of the year. Many, including Peterson, had firsthand encounters with the error-prone federal Web site, HealthCare.gov, that tested their patience and resolve. Some called help lines that couldn’t help them. Others drove long distances to meet with trained enrollment workers who couldn’t get them enrolled. Yet they persisted.
And as New Year’s Day approaches, and with it, health insurance, their frustration is trumped by gratitude. “I get these messages from acquaintances on Facebook saying, ‘Let me keep my doctor,’ ’’ Peterson said. “Well, what about those of us who didn’t have health insurance before? . . . I have been walking a tightrope and have had some twists and falls off of it. To not have to worry about this anymore is a tremendous relief.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/beneath-health-laws-botched-rollout-is-basic-benefit-for-millions-of-uninsured-americans/2013/12/28/8ae8d93e-68e5-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html?wpmk=MK0000203
GOP’s 2014 horror strategy: Exploit Americans’ misfortune, drum up fake outrage
Prepare for them to search high and low for people disappointed with Obamacare — then pretend to share their pain
Brian Beutler
A quick look at the House and Senate vote calendars indicates that Congress did not in fact come back into session over the holidays to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which means that as of today (depending on how you count it) millions and millions of people who were previously uninsured now have comprehensive healthcare coverage.
There’s the 3-or-so million young adults under 26 who have been covered under their parents plans for a couple of years now, about 4 million new Medicaid beneficiaries, and some large percentage of the 2 million who have enrolled in a private plan via Healthcare.gov or one of 14 state-based insurance exchanges and submitted their first premium payment.
Their benefits are now active, which means proponents of repealing the law have a severe entropy problem on their hands. Just like you can’t re-create an erased image by unshaking an Etch-A-Sketch, you can no longer re-create the pre-Obamacare status quo by repealing the law. Some new beneficiaries would be returned to the ranks of the uninsured, just as they were before, but others would return to an individual market they were happy to leave behind, and even the thin skim of people who were happy with plans that have been canceled wouldn’t necessarily be able to reclaim them.
After spending three months effusing sympathy for people who’ve had their insurance plans canceled, Republicans can’t really continue to support repeal while ignoring the (2 million? 6 million? 9 million?) who would lose their coverage as a result. But the GOP lacks a consensus replacement for Obamacare, and the plans that caucuses within the party do support don’t do anything for the new beneficiaries, and fall well short of Obamacare’s coverage expansion in the long run.
They’ve walked into a cul-de-sac planting mines behind themselves along the way.
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/02/gops_2014_horror_strategy_exploit_americans_misfortune_drum_up_fake_outrage/
As Obamacare Sign-Ups Surge, So Does Conservative Rage
Josh Marshall – January 3, 2014, 2:12 AM EST
It is amazing to witness the sheer depths of rage, denial and disgust many people experience as they see millions of people gaining access to affordable health care for the first time. Back on the 31st I wrote this overview which outlined how more than 9 million people now have health care coverage because of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). It now seems like the number is more like 10 million (more on that in a moment).
This evening I mentioned this number on Twitter and saw the full force of denial and outrage as many anti-Obamacare diehards made first contact with the actual number of Americans who’ve gained coverage under the program. More though, it was clear how in the absence of a dead in the water website to cry crocodile tears over, anti-Obamacare hardliners have suddenly gotten a whole lot angrier about Obamacare.
Join me after the jump and we’ll review the numbers.
After an expected surge of sign-ups in late December, just over 2.1 million people have purchased ACA-compliant health care policies through the federal and state health care exchanges. A bit more than half came through the now-mainly-functional healthcare.gov website (which covers 36 states) and the rest came from the 14 states which established their own exchanges. That relative disparity is due both to the early problems with the federal website and active efforts to sabotage enrollment in private insurance in Republican run states.
Next there are currently rough 4.3 million people who have been enrolled in Medicaid through Medicaid expansion. A 3.9 million number is still being used in many reports. But that’s a number as of 11/30. Charles Gaba is compiling together publicly available reports from different states and currently has the number at 4.3 million – not a surprising number given how much sign-up activity there was in December. The state by state breaks in this spreadsheet are very illuminating.
Notably, we also know the number of Americans who have been prevented from getting coverage because Republican governors and/or state legislatures who refused to participate in Medicaid expansion. That’s 5 million people.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/as-obamacare-signups-surge-so-does-rightwing-rage
I laughed so hard at—-> #BlackTwitterWelcomeManual . Somebody call 911, I’m choking from laughing.
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*hollering*
BWA HA HA HA HA Lemme see what I can come up wih a few here.
Don’t step to me with that colorblind/” I don’t see you as black” line, unless you’re Stevie Wonder.
Good one!
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these are hilarious
Fox’s Benghazi Expert Endorsed Assassinating Obama Last Week
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/03/foxs-benghazi-expert-endorsed-assassinating-oba/197411
Days after he wrote a column endorsing the assassination of President Obama, Fox hosted Michael Scheuer to accuse Hillary Clinton of effectively murdering the Americans who died during the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.
Scheuer, a former CIA officer with a long history of extreme rhetoric, has appeared on Fox News and Fox Business dozens of times over the years.
Scheuer endorsed the assassinations of both Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron in his December 23 column, as The Daily Beast’s David Frum noted. Concluding a piece criticizing their handling of “the Islamists’ war on America,” Scheuer wrote (emphasis added):
As they head further down the road of losing wars and wrecking Anglo-American liberties, Messrs Obama and Cameron and their supporters in all parties would do well to read the words of the great 17th century English republican Algernon Sidney, a man who was revered on both sides of the Atlantic, who greatly influenced America’s founders, and who was executed by the British Crown for what it described as sedition. “There must therefore be a right,” Sidney wrote,
“of proceeding judicially or extra-judicially against all persons who transgress the laws; or else those laws, and the societies that should subsist by them, cannot stand; and the ends for which governments are constituted, together with the governments themselves, must be overthrown. … If he [a political leader] be justly accounted an enemy of all, who injures all; he above all must be the publick enemy of a nation, who by usurping power over them, does the greatest and most publick injury that a people can suffer. For which reason, by an established law among the most virtuous nations, every man might kill a tyrant; and no names are recorded in history with more honor, than of those who did it.”
No hurt harm or danger shall befall our Beloved president and his family in Jesus Name. Thank You Lord for Your ministering Spirits and warring Angels continually surrounding him and his family. Lord be a strong enemy to his enemies and adversary to his adversaries. Keep him always in the right places at the right time. Shield him and his family with Your Love. Give him a Spirit of Power, Love and a sound Mind. AMEN
Amen.
AMEN!
Kim Jong Un’s executed uncle was eaten alive by 120 hungry dogs: report
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/03/22156917-kim-jong-uns-executed-uncle-was-eaten-alive-by-120-hungry-dogs-report
BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful uncle was stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs, according to a newspaper with close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.
The report could not be independently confirmed by NBC News on Friday.
Jang Song Thaek, who had been considered Kim’s second-in-command, was executed last month after being found guilty of “attempting to overthrow the state,” North Korea’s state-run news agency reported.
The official North Korean account on Dec. 12 did not specify how Jang was put to death.
Hong Kong-based pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po reported that Jang and his five closest aides were set upon by 120 hunting hounds which had been starved for five days.
Kim and his brother Kim Jong Chol supervised the one-hour ordeal along with 300 other officials, according to Wen Wei Po. The newspaper added that Jang and other aides were “completely eaten up.”
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They are some cold ass ruthless mofos!
Reblogged this on ALL THINGS MICHAEL! ♥.
Good Morning 3Chics,
Michael in a day? You covered childhood to 2000’s. Not bad. Have a good day. I’ll be back when you do Michael week (or month lol.)
Hi Tyren. Yes, it would take quite a bit of time to fully cover MJ. Rik’s done the deed for the day, though. Hope you and yours are staying warm.
http://youtu.be/rUor_H7tGhQ
A new gif
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wWiKKrt6BOo/UYHYbSC2K3I/AAAAAAAAEIc/8OO_t39jwGI/s1600/Nathan-Fillion-Loss-For-Words-Reaction-Gif.gif
I look forward to seeing how you will use this!
I think I know. LOL!
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone! Happy Friday and stay WARM. :-)
Good morning, everyone!
Y’all warm up there, Rikyrah & Ametia? It’s cold down here. I don’t like it.
Mark Dayton closes Minnesota schools ahead of historic freeze
Minnesota schoolchildren will get an extra day of holiday vacation thanks to extremely frigid temperatures forecast for Monday.
Gov. Mark Dayton announced Friday that all of Minnesota’s public schools would be closed Jan. 6 to protect children from the coldest temperatures in a decade. Lows are expected to reach minus 30 degrees with wind chills predicted as low as minus 50 degrees in some parts of the state.
“The safety of Minnesota’s schoolchildren must be our first priority,” Dayton said. “I have made this decision to protect all our children from the dangerously cold temperatures now forecasted for next Monday. I encourage Minnesotans of all ages to exercise caution in these extreme weather conditions.”
The decision was announced Friday to give school leaders time to plan for closures. Officials from the Minnesota Department of Education are working with district officials to spread the word about the closings.
“Children’s safety is always our top priority, and as a former superintendent, I know these are never easy calls,” said Brenda Cassellius, state education commissioner
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_24839862/dayton-closes-minnesota-schools-monday-ahead-cold
SG2,
the high for Monday is -8.
Not the windchill.
The HIGH TEMPERATURE.
The high will be 8?
That will get you frost bite just walking from the house to the car, right?
SG2,
the high will not be 8.
the high will be NEGATIVE 8.
STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
brrr!
Good Morning, Everyone!
Seems to be a bit of snow outside :)