Get up and dance.
The Village People is an American disco group that formed in the United States in 1977, well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American cultural stereotypes, as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics. Originally created by Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo to target disco’s gay audience by featuring popular gay fantasy personas,[1] the band’s popularity quickly brought them into the mainstream. The Village People scored a number of disco and dance hits, including their trademark “Macho Man”, “Go West”, the classic club medley of “San Francisco (You’ve Got Me) / In Hollywood (Everybody is a Star)”, “In the Navy”, and their biggest hit, “Y.M.C.A.”. They have sold upwards of 100 million records world-wide.
If you tell me you knew this was about being gay, I’m calling you out. Didn’t nobody know that back when this was THE SONG!
Hot Damn! Go, Mr President! President Barack Obama Arrives in Tokyo.
Keep in mind all of the GOP’s obstruction, lies, racism, votes to repeal ACA, abortion bills, no jobs bill and MAKE THEM PAY at the polls!
tell it!
And thus the VOTER SUPPRESSION. and the SHAMEFUL SCOTUS right wing judges and Uncle RUCKUS Thomas.
On this day:
Granville T. Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio, on April 23, 1856
“Known as “Black Edison,” Granville Woods was an African-American inventor who made key contributions to the development of the telephone, street car and more.”
http://www.biography.com/people/granville-t-woods-9536481#awesm=~oCiuhiOyKFtIG3
********************
CarolMae, Yahtc…Y’all alright up there?!
Key Republican: Obama’s New Clemency Initiative Proves He’s Lawless
Sahil Kapur – April 23, 2014, 4:28 PM EDT
The House Republican chairman who oversees the Justice Department slammed President Barack Obama’s huge new clemency initiative unveiled Wednesday, characterizing it as a symptom of the president’s lawlessness, even though Obama has been stingier on pardons than his modern predecessors.
“In an unprecedented move to dramatically expand the clemency process for federal drug offenders, President Obama has again demonstrated his blatant disregard for our nation’s laws and our system of checks and balances embedded in the U.S. Constitution,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
The initiative makes federal inmates — mostly non-violent drug offenders — eligible for clemency if they’re serving longer sentences than they would if convicted today, and meet five other criteria. Goodlatte posited that it could apply to “drug offenders who may have possessed a firearm during the commission of their offense” and “[m]embers of gangs and drug trafficking organizations.”
In fact, Obama has granted clemency more rarely than his predecessors, including George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, according to an investigation by Pro Publica. The pardon power flows from Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which says the “President … shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”
Goodlatte’s spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a query about Obama’s historically low clemency record.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bob-goodlatte-obama-clemency-initiative
Rand Paul: GOPers May Have ‘Over-Emphasized’ Voter Fraud
Eric Lach – April 23, 2014, 3:24 PM EDT
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) thinks Republicans may have “over-emphasized” the issue of voter fraud, according to The Washington Post.
Paul made the comments on Tuesday during a sit-down interview with former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Here’s the portion from the transcript highlighted by the Post:
Paul: Dead people do still vote in some elections. There still is some fraud. And so we should stop that, and one way of doing it is (driver’s licenses).
Axelrod: Although the incidence of fraud is relatively small.
Paul: It probably is, and I think Republicans may have over-emphasized this. I don’t know.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rand-paul-voter-fraud-over-emphasized
Conservatives Rip Into Sotomayor’s ‘Legally Illiterate’ Dissent On Race
Sahil Kapur – April 23, 2014, 12:50 PM EDT
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s impassioned defense of race-conscious admissions policies Tuesday hit a nerve with conservatives and inflamed an already bitter ideological chasm over race in the Obama era.
The National Review published an editorial trashing the Obama-appointed justice’s blistering dissent as “Orwellian” and “legally illiterate” after the Supreme Court upheld Michigan’s ban on affirmative action.
“Her opinion is legally illiterate and logically indefensible, and the still-young career of this self-described ‘wise Latina’ on the Supreme Court already offers a case study in the moral and legal corrosion that inevitably results from elevating ethnic-identity politics over the law,” wrote the editors of the influential magazine. “Justice Sotomayor has revealed herself as a naked and bare-knuckled political activist with barely even a pretense of attending to the law, and the years she has left to subvert the law will be a generation-long reminder of the violence the Obama administration has done to our constitutional order.”
Appearing on Fox News, Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard said the first Latina justice’s lengthy opinion was driven by “emotion.”
“This was a decision written by somebody who was writing about emotion,” he said, as quoted by the Daily Caller. “It was President Obama’s ’empathy standard’ — that’s what he was looking for when he nominated her, that’s what I think he got.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/sonia-sotomayor-race-conservatives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO0RWeM4EbA
_________________________FLATLINES______________________
I have an appointment with the doctor this week. They can’t work me in any sooner.
Hey, everyone!
What’s happening, SG2? Oh so if you’re not coming in on a stretcher, they can’t see you? Find yourself an alternative medicine practitioner, lady.
I’m to call in first thing tomorrow morning and see if there is a cancellation. If so, they’ll put me in it. If not, I wait until Friday…unless I go to ER.
check your email
Chernynkaya @Chernynkaya
Follow
The only reason this country isn’t a fascist, apartheid hell-hole right this minute is because of President Obama and the Dems. Please GOTV.
2:49 PM – 23 Apr 2014
Tom Perez ✔ @LaborSec
Follow
Great news: Companies working w/ @JoiningForces have hired more than 540,000 veterans & military spouses. http://1.usa.gov/PtPUWw #ActOnJobs
12:26 PM – 23 Apr 2014
https://twitter.com/USDOL/status/456179753456644096/photo/1
Congressman’s Attempt To Attack Obamacare Accidentally Exposes His Staffer’s Heath Care Success Story
BY REBECCA LEBER APRIL 23, 2014 AT 2:07 PM
WAUPUN, WISCONSIN — The last thing Obamacare opponent Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) probably expected at a town hall with constituents was to learn that a member of his own staff is benefiting from the law’s provisions.
But that’s exactly what happened on Monday, when Petri asked field staffer Michael Grimm to explain the process of signing up for Obamacare through the law’s health care exchanges. However, Grimm pointed out that he did not shop on he exchanges because the law allowed him to stay on his parents’ health care plan as a dependent until age 26. “Yeah, I lucked out,” Grimm said.
Ari Berman @AriBerman
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SCOTUS says minorities should challenge discrimination at the ballot box…after gutting the Voting Rights Act, making it harder to vote
10:24 AM – 23 Apr 2014
Catch-22.
Why Obama and the Left are Hated
by Steven D
Wed Apr 23rd, 2014 at 11:00:03 AM EST
There are many reasons of course, but in part it’s because media platforms such as Fox News incite hatred against many Americans merely because they do not march to the Fox drumbeat. They deliberately include “guest speakers” to make outrageous and absurd claims to engender hatred and anger, such as Hannity’s recent guest, David Horowitz, who alleged Obama will trigger another Holocaust and is responsible for the white supremacist who killed innocent people in Kansas, because he loves Muslims and hates the Jews:
On his Tuesday radio show, Hannity pointed to the president’s “support” of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and asked if it meant that “anti-Semitism is on the rise with the potential of resulting in a modern-day Holocaust.”
“I think that’s exactly accurate,” Horowitz replied, asserting that the recent white supremacist shooter in Kansas had been “obviously encouraged by the American left.”
“The alliance between the American left and the Islamo – I don’t call them Islamo-Fascists anymore, they’re Nazis,” Horowitz continued. “They preach the same doctrine that the Nazis did, they were allied with the Nazis during the second World War. The destruction of Israel, which is welcomed by you know, like I say normal anti-Semites.”
He later added: “Obama could care less if the Jews are killed in the Middle-East. Obama – to answer your question, Sean – Obama is an anti-American president.”
This is typical, unfortunately, of how the President has been portrayed by right wing conservative “news” outlets and talk radio since before he won the nomination. That it is irresponsible, divisive and encourages the worst beliefs and emotions among those Americans who listen to these “provocateurs” (for that is what they do – provoke animosity, hatred and fear) does not bother the right wing media in the least. They encourage rage among their listeners, and invariably they implicitly endorse violence as a response to the government, all because a black man sits in the White House.
You have to posit that secretly Fox could not have been happier that Obama won re-election. Outrage and bombast and false accusations and stirring the pot are what they do best. And that is bad for our families, many of whom are torn apart over the divisive nature of our politics, and even worse for our country. As Billionaires finance these ever more costly and nasty political campaigns, as more and more people self-segregate and do not talk politics outside their own inner circle, the lies that are told become real to many people, become their reality.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/4/23/1103/37136
The Latest Plot to Undermine Obamacare and Prevent Millions From Enrolling in Medicaid
Bob Cesca on April 23, 2014
It’s actually quite easy to explain. The reason why 19 states have refused to expand Medicaid has nothing to do with the cost — the federal government would cover the full cost of the expansion for the next two years. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with a lack of need for such a solution. This, as with the refusal to establish healthcare marketplaces (exchanges), has everything to do with Obama Derangement Syndrome — Republican governors who refuse for a variety of cheap political excuses to attach their names to Obamacare. By doing so, they’re hurting their own people, including Republican voters in numbers into the hundreds of thousands per state.
The Affordable Care Act originally mandated that all states expand Medicaid eligibility from 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) to 138 percent of FPL. In other words, the government had previously established an income threshold for what constituted poverty: below the line and you’re considered poor and therefore eligible for certain safety-net benefits; above the line and you’re more or less on your own. But Obamacare raised the poverty threshold to qualify for Medicaid coverage, thus expanding Medicaid nationwide — until the Supreme Court ruled against that part of the law in 2012, allowing states to opt out of the expansion.
That’s a massive problem.
4.8 million Americans have incomes higher than the 100 percent threshold, so they don’t qualify for Medicaid without the expansion, but they don’t earn enough to qualify for health insurance premium subsidies through the marketplaces. The ACA was written with nationwide Medicaid expansion in mind so the law’s premium subsidies only kick in where Medicaid coverage was supposed to leave off, after 138 percent of FPL. Hence the coverage gap.
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/04/the-latest-plot-to-undermine-obamacare-and-prevent-millions-from-enrolling-in-medicaid/
He is SO not ready for primetime
MotherJones is on his ass like white on rice
……………………..
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/rand-paul-jimmy-carter-was-better-budget-ronald-reagan
W-T-F-?
………………
KKK group to launch neighborhood watch in Pa. township
Klan says program aims to alleviate concerns over criminal activity, but police dismiss move as publicity stunt
April 22, 2014 9:00PM ET
by Philip J. Victor – @philjvic
A Pennsylvania chapter of the Ku Klux Klan plans to launch a neighborhood watch program in response to what Klansmen say is growing concern among community members over increasing criminal activity, the leader of the white supremacist group told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
“People who are wanting to commit criminal activity… should beware because the eyes of the Klan are on them,” warned Frank Acona, imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights.
Members of the organization, which describes itself online as “unapologetically committed to the interest and values of the white race,” distributed flyers in Fairview Township on Friday that featured an image of a hooded Klansman above the words: “You can sleep tonight knowing the Klan is awake.”
The flier also encouraged local residents to call into a 24-hour “Klanline” to report “troubles” in the neighborhood.
The idea to launch the program in Fairview Township — a community of just under 17,000 residents, most of whom are white — followed a recent spate of vehicle break-ins that Acona said could indicate that police were too “overwhelmed” to respond.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/22/kkk-pennsylvanianeighborhoodwatch.html
This is the FALLOUT from the Zimmerman murder trial. It lends itself as a CLARION call to all RACISTS who want to pose as neighborhood watchman and gives them license to kill at will without consequences.
It’s FUCKED UP.
Greg Sargent ✔ @ThePlumLineGS
Follow
POLL: Pro-Ocare Gov Beshear approval at 56-36; anti-Medicaid expansion Gov Jindal at 40-54: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/04/23/morning-plum-conventional-wisdom-about-2014-takes-another-hit/ …
8:13 AM – 23 Apr 2014
Steve Benen @stevebenen
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CFPB doesn’t get enough credit for being one of the major breakthroughs for progressive governance in the Obama era http://on.msnbc.com/1idsn35
4:30 PM – 22 Apr 2014
Rikyrah, was last week’s Scandal episode the season finale? I haven’t had the chance to see it yet. *sigh*
yes, it was the season finale.
when you see it, I’m ready to discuss it
38 Republican lawmakers support lawsuit to end Obamacare subsidies
By JAKE MILLER CBS NEWS April 23, 2014, 11:16 AM
38 Republicans members of Congress signaled support Tuesday for a lawsuit from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., seeking to end federal subsidies for lawmakers and congressional staffers who purchase health insurance through Obamacare’s exchanges.
Under the health care law, lawmakers and some of their staffers are required to purchase insurance through the exchanges. Because the initial business exchanges only catered to small businesses, not entities as large as Congress, these lawmakers and staffers were forced to enlist in the exchanges for individuals.
Despite the fact that they were purchasing coverage through the individual market, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) ruled last year that they could continue to receive the same subsidies available to those who receive coverage through their employer.
Democrats and supporters of the law said the rule kept the playing field level, helping protect lower-paid congressional staffers from having to shell out more money for health insurance than employees of any other organization. But opponents of the law have said the rule reeks of special treatment — a carve-out for those who wrote the law but don’t want to live under it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/38-republican-lawmakers-support-lawsuit-to-end-obamacare-subsidies/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty_yWoLGyDE
Medicaid expansion starts to look even better
04/23/14 09:22 AM
By Steve Benen
It’s been well documented that Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act is an extremely good deal for states that choose to embrace it. The policy improves state finances and bolsters state hospitals, all while providing struggling families access to medical care. We’re occasionally reminded it’s even good for creating jobs.
MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who helped design both Mitt Romney’s health care system in Massachusetts and President Obama’s ACA recently said he wasn’t overly concerned when the U.S. Supreme Court made Medicaid expansion optional for states. After all, he thought to himself at the time, “It’s not a big deal. What state would turn down free money from the federal government to cover their poorest citizens?”
We now know, of course, that nearly half the states have done exactly that for partisan reasons that the right struggles to explain. This week, however, the policy fight became even more one-sided – the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noticed that a Congressional Budget Office analysis found that Medicaid expansion is “an even better deal for states than previously thought.”
……………
And yet, despite all of this, we saw new evidence this week that Republican policymakers in some states are working to block Medicaid expansion, not just now, but also in the future.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/medicaid-expansion-starts-look-even-better
When the right attacks the ACA from the left
04/23/14 10:50 AM
By Steve Benen
The right’s election-year attack on the Affordable Care Act was supposed to be pretty straightforward: it’s big government, it raised taxes, the website didn’t work for a couple of months, and it falls under some strange definition of “socialism.”
But as “Obamacare” starts to look a whole lot better than it did a few months ago, conservatives are switching gears a bit. In fact, the new argument from the right is nothing short of amazing: conservatives are attacking the ACA for not being liberal enough.
Yesterday, for example, Freedom Partners, a political operation that enjoys financial support from Charles and David Koch, launched a new attack ad in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, targeting Rep. Gary Peters (D). The voice-over tells viewers:
Got that? After years in which the right screamed at every opportunity that the Affordable Care Act was a socialized government takeover of the American health care system, these exact same conservatives now want the public to believe the exact opposite: the ACA is a sweetheart deal for the private health insurance industry that tried to kill the law before it passed.
Maybe now would be a good time to mention that this is bonkers. The Koch brothers’ operation and its allies can argue that the Affordable Care Act is socialism or they can argue it’s a giveaway to Corporate America. They can claim the “Obamacare” is radical liberalism or they can claim it’s too conservative
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-the-right-attacks-the-aca-the-left
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGiVX9uVB3I
Quinnoes should have rolled up into a white-owned barbershop and tried this little experiment.
On this day:
https://twitter.com/BlackHistoryUS/status/458955732881113089/photo/1/large
Living It Up: 10 Affluent Black Neighborhoods
Building Black Wealth: Even though buying a home has become riskier, these African-American communities are still going strong.
By: Erin E. Evans
Posted: April 23 2014 6:45 AM
http://www.theroot.com/photos/2014/04/_10_affluent_black_neighborhoods.html?wpisrc=obinsite
Sotomayor accuses colleagues of trying to ‘wish away’ racial inequality
By Robert Barnes, E-mail the writer
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s fierce defense of the affirmative action efforts such as the ones that helped move her from a Bronx housing project to the upper echelons of American law found renewed voice Tuesday in an impassioned dissent that accused colleagues of trying to “wish away” racial inequality — and drew a tart response from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
In her most personal moment in 41 /2 years on the court, Sotomayor read part of her dissent from the bench to emphasize her disagreement with six colleagues who upheld Michigan’s constitutional amendment banning the consideration of race in public university admissions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sotomayor-accuses-colleagues-of-trying-to-wish-away-racial-inequality/2014/04/22/e5892f90-ca49-11e3-93eb-6c0037dde2ad_story.html?wpisrc=nl%5Feve
The Wonderful World Where Justices Dwell
By Charles P. Pierce on April 22, 2014
The Day of Jubilee, declared by Chief Justice John Roberts in his decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, and celebrated in another venue with the McCutcheon decision, in which we learned that the only real form of political corruption is a direct quid pro quo, and that influence peddled is not influence at all, goes on and on at the Supreme Court, where today yet another decision was handed down that was not About Race, because nothing is ever About Race.
…. The decision was written by Anthony Kennedy, who lives in that wonderful world where the law is a pure crystal stream running through green meadows, unsullied by the grit and silt that piles up in the actual lives of actual human beings. It must be a wonderful world in which Anthony Kennedy lives.
…. This is pure majoritarianism – grotesquely so, if you consider the ongoing shenanigans at the state level regarding ballot access and voter suppression. There will be a real impact on real people – just as there will be with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and with the cascade of money that this Court has unleashed on the political system….
From the bench, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who grew up in the real world and apparently still lives there, was having none of Kennedy’s rainbows and unicorns.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/supreme-court-affirmative-action-michigan-042214
Media Matters ✔ @mmfa
Follow
Fox contributor Ben Carson has a plan to replace Obamacare. Health care experts call it “near worthless.” http://mm4a.org/1i8UuFI
9:15 AM – 23 Apr 2014
Isn’t like Uncle Ruckus to shove shit in our faces and tell us that the white man’s shit taste better.
Ben Carson, GoSitDown & Shaddup!
Obama drug clemency guidelines issued
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 4/23/14 9:40 AM EDT
The Justice Department issued guidelines Wednesday adding new detail to President Barack Obama’s plan to offer commutations to drug convicts serving prison terms longer than they would have received today.
“We are launching this clemency initiative in order to quickly and effectively identify appropriate candidates, candidates who have a clean prison record, do not present a threat to public safety, and were sentenced under out-of-date laws that have since been changed, and are no longer seen as appropriate,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole was to say at a news conference, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks.
Cole said the main thrust of the effort will be to shorten sentences of inmates whose long prison terms were due in part to the disparity between the treatment of powdered cocaine and crack cocaine in federal law. Obama signed legislation in 2010 to reduce that disparity, which many critics complained unfairly impacted minority offenders
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/04/obama-drug-clemency-guidelines-issued-187266.html
You Can’t Outdo Black People: Presidential Easter Edition
[ 41 ] April 20, 2014 | Luvvie
Happy Resurrection Sunday, Saints and Aints! God is good ALLATAHM and ALLATAHM God is good! Yes!
I love Easter, because we get to give Jesus extra praise. But also because it is a day for us to show out everywhere with fashion. It’s like the fresher we are, the closer we are to Him. And Black folks? Well, we step out with a mission to slay people within a 5 mile radius.
The First Couple wasn’t playing with none of us on this Holy Sunday when they stepped out of the White House looking like right. I love it.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/04/president-obama-easter.html#comment-495336
this was in the comments:
Flotus hair stay laid, it’s like little cherubs descend upon her follicles every morning and press her hair
BWA HA HA HA HA HA H AH HA HA HA
For you, SG2. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
SG2,
get thyself to the doctor.
Soup looks so good. I need that. I know it will make me feel better.
I want Warren to stay in the Senate, but if she were to run, I’d be on her with quickness…giving money and volunteering.
https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/458786537610956800
OMG! Next time give us a warning Liza.
BWA HA HA HA HA Trump, YOU’RE FIRED!
Too funny!!
LOL! Fugly!
https://twitter.com/Mozi_N/status/458778622913150976
This needs to be RE-TWEETED until the cows come home. NO MORE BUSHES in the WHITE HOUSE, EVER!!!!
https://twitter.com/mgrossi1/status/458779116750139392
NO KIDDING
https://twitter.com/Mozi_N/status/458774266893586432
https://twitter.com/Mozi_N/status/458774837478297600
Come with it, Liza. BRING IT!
https://twitter.com/JasonRomano/status/458959746926518273
https://twitter.com/Mozi_N/status/458767126128762880
https://twitter.com/Mozi_N/status/458765647796011008
TEE HEE HEE
https://twitter.com/coherent1/status/458913136473415681/photo/1
Air Force One is POLISHED to the MAX! Beautiful
Linda Kyambadde @globalcitizenln
Follow
I deeply despise the conservative members of #SCOTUS; Kennedy is NOT a moderate/swing justice – he is just a protector of wealth & racism
9:34 PM – 22 Apr 2014
https://twitter.com/EarthPix/status/458813101123854336/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/458952310995947520/photo/1
High Cheekbones and Straight Black Hair?
100 Amazing Facts About the Negro: Why most black people aren’t “part Indian,” despite family lore.
By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Posted: April 21 2014 6:45 AM
Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 76: What’s the truth behind the legend in many African-American families about having a Native American ancestor?
Zora Neale Hurston once wrote with characteristic irony that she thought she was “the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief.” Like most African Americans I’ve interviewed, I was raised believing that one of my great-great grandmothers was all or part Native American, with “high cheekbones and straight black hair.”
In my family, this was gospel. No one even thought about the possibility that it might not be true, since—sure enough—there were plenty of people on my family tree, as family photos attested about those who had passed, who did in fact have those proverbial and much-valued cheekbones and some variation of that long and silky straight black hair. What struck me about our mysterious Native American ancestry, even as a child, was how very important it was to my mother’s 11 siblings, and how just as important it was to my dozens of cousins.
Being “part Indian” was a much discussed and much bragged about aspect of the Coleman family’s collective identity, even if no one was certain when or how these American Indians had entered our family tree, where they had mated with our black ancestors or from what tribe they hailed. I once asked my Uncle David, our meticulous family historian, what tribe we should tell people we were part of. “Cherokee,” he replied, as if self-evident. When I pointed out that the Cherokee lived in what is now Georgia, the Carolinas and East Tennessee, my uncle responded, unflappably, “That’s right—it was the Iroquois.”
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/04/why_most_black_people_aren_t_part_indian.html
Brooke Kimbrough, rejected University of Michigan applicant, is face of affirmative action fight
by Ollie Montgomery | April 22, 2014 at 2:25 PM
arlier today, the United States Supreme Court voted 6-2, with Justice Elena Kagan abstaining, to uphold a controversial ban on affirmative action policies in the college admissions process.
The decision comes after years-long contention over a 2006 Michigan ballot initiative, Proposition 2, which banned the use of affirmative action in higher education. Voters approved the measure after the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision (6-3) in Gratz v. Bollinger which banned the use of such policies at the University of Michigan. The news is a blow to advocates who claim colleges such as U-M have had dwindling minority enrollment.
Yet today’s ruling may hit home the most for a 17-year-old Detroit high-schooler inundated with the weight of the national spotlight.
Her name is Brooke Kimbrough, 17-year-old University Preparatory Academy senior, who applied to the university with accomplishments including a 3.6 GPA, a score of 23/36 on the ACT standardized test and a national tournament win in late February as part of her high school’s debate team. Having gone national for the second year in a row, Kimbrough and partner Rayvon Dean were the first African-Americans to win the University of California-Berkley tournament, winning 11 of 13 rounds and pushing their school to rank seventh in the United States.
http://thegrio.com/2014/04/22/brooke-kimbrough-rejected-university-of-michigan-applicant-becomes-face-of-affirmative-action-fight/
uh huh
uh huh
this bitchass here.
all he did was talk.
did his talking help the scores of Black people that will be helped with the reduction of drug sentences.
did his talking help the millions of Black folk that now have access to healthcare?
did his Negro Superbowls do anything but line his pockets with corporate funds.
see, no mention of the Republican obstructionism…
like I said.
uh huh
……………………………………………..
Tavis Smiley this morning on The TJMS:
“My view on that and there will be a serious ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting when President Obama is out of office where we can be honest about the condition of our people and the suffering of our people, “ Smiley says. “I realize that some people are in a space where they can’t really have that conversation. What I loved about SOBU is that because we weren’t in this ear, we could have those kind of transparent conversations where people were willing and able and underscore both of those to tell the truth about the conditions and suffering in our own community.
“There will be books written about this. This is admittedly a moment that Black America has never entered into before and we all had to learn to do a very awkward dance about truth telling and accountability. Once we get past this era, I think there will be a lot of books and symposiums about what this era meant for black folks and I look forward to that day somewhere down the road.”
http://blackamericaweb.com/2014/04/22/tavis-smiley-getting-hollywood-walk-of-fame-star-thanks-tjms-for-12-years-on-the-show/
Barack and Michelle Obama Honor Frankie Knuckles
The president and first lady send a condolence letter to the family of the house music legend.
BY: YESHA CALLAHAN Posted: April 22 2014 4:30 PM
The legendary Frankie Knuckles, the “godfather of house music,” passed away last month at the age of 59. It was confirmed by Knuckles’ longtime business partner, Frederick Dunson, that he died unexpectedly of complications related to diabetes.
The Grammy Award-winning producer and DJ was a house music pioneer and his death touched everyone in the music community, and even the White House.
Before taking his place in the White House, in 2004, as an Illinois senator, Barack Obama officially declared August 24 “Frankie Knuckles Day.” The Obamas are still celebrating Knuckles’ life and labeled him a trailblazer in a recently released condolence letter.
David Morales, Knuckles’ former recording partner, shared the letter from the Obamas on hisFacebook page. The Obamas wrote that “his legacy lives on in the city of Chicago and on dance floors across the globe.”
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2014/04/barack_and_michelle_obama_refer_to_frankie_knuckles_as_a_trailblazer_in.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Black+News
she was a crook from the get go.
……………………..
Ex-Fla. LG didn’t report income
Apr. 22, 2014 4:05 PM
Former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll failed to report thousands of dollars she earned from a veterans charity that was accused of running an illegal gambling operation, newly released documents show.
Carroll abruptly resigned in March 2013 after state investigators questioned the work she did for Allied Veterans of the World before she ran with Gov. Rick Scott. She denied any wrongdoing, but for more than a year there has been no public explanation of why she was initially interviewed by investigators.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement show Carroll’s company was paid nearly $100,000 by Allied Veterans in 2009 and 2010 for her work as a public relations consultant. Most of the money was then transferred to her personal banking account.
http://www.tallahassee.com/viewart/20140422/POLITICSPOLICY/140422013/Ex-Fla-LG-didn-t-report-income-
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Last Call For Chris Versus The Stupid
On Monday, Chris Hayes defended his “interview” with Nevada State Assemblywoman Michele Fiore last week by saying that it’s necessary to “talk to the other side” and that his show isn’t an echo chamber.
It’s a pretty noble argument. But if Chris Hayes understood American politics better because of these steamrolling episodes, he’d understand that his nobility is being used against him in order to score political points, and that the people he brings on the show in this capacity are not interested in the goddamn least in sharing the country with the rest of us but “taking it back” by any means necessary. His nobility, while admirable, is completely one-sided.
What Hayes has actually constructed here is really a “both sides do it” and “both sides have equally valid viewpoints worth listening to” argument. There are cases where this is true, but Friday night wasn’t one of them, not by a long shot. This was a person who wanted to score cheap points at Chris Hayes’s expense, and she did. Hayes’s idealism is great in an ideal world, but against Tea Party Republicans who practice dangerous eliminationist tactics, it’s folly.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/04/last-call-for-chris-versus-stupid.html
http://youtu.be/zVCv6x452nw
Loving this vid. Is it Friday yet?
Jon Stewart on Cliven Bundy: ‘Sean Hannity has now made Glenn Beck the voice of reason’
By Arturo Garcia
Tuesday, April 22, 2014 0:40 EDT
Daily Show host Jon Stewart tore through not only “welfare rancher” Cliven Bundy’s explanation for his “range war” on Monday, and mocked Fox News’ Sean Hannity for exposing his own hypocrisy in defending him.
“Sean Hannity has now made Glenn Beck the voice of reason,” Stewart said, before challenging Bundy. “If you want to challenge the amount of federal land the government owns in the state of Nevada, fine — make your case to the voters. If you want to challenge the concept of grazing fees, fine. But Hannity’s puffery and armed friends don’t make you a patriot.”
Stewart also compared Hannity’s cheerleading of Bundy with past instances where he badgered immigration activists for “picking and choosing” which laws they followed, mocked atheist groups for losing in the courts, and raged against “jobless surfer” Jason Greenslate.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/23/sean-hannity-hits-back-why-didnt-suck-up-jon-stewart-ask-obama-about-bill-ayers/
Sean Hannity hits back: Why didn’t ‘suck-up’ Jon Stewart ask Obama about Bill Ayers?
By Arturo Garcia
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 0:08 EDT
Fox News host Sean Hannity responded on Tuesday to criticism from The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart — by virtually ignoring Stewart’s whole argument.
“He’s kind of obsessed with this program,” Hannity said. “Then he took clips of me from previous shows — by the way, dating back more than eight years — to try and discredit what I was saying and that I was being hypocritical when it comes to following the rule of law.”
Stewart mocked Hannity on Monday over his support of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy in his efforts to defy paying grazing fees on federal land. Part of Stewart’s commentary involved footage of Hannity railing against immigration and atheism activists, among others.
………………………….
Hannity did not mention that several of Bundy’s supporters took up sniper positions against BLM officials. He also failed to mention one of them, former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, telling Fox News, “We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front. If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”
Instead, Hannity accused Stewart and his “army of 50 writers” of being the “chief suck-ups to the Obama administration.”
“Jon Stewart, he’s had President Obama on his program — he was a guest, I guess, most recently in 2012,” Hannity said. “Did Jon Stewart ask Barack Obama about his friendship [with] unapologetic domestic terrorist Bill Ayers [and] Bernardine Dohrn?”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/23/sean-hannity-hits-back-why-didnt-suck-up-jon-stewart-ask-obama-about-bill-ayers/
Federal investigators: Deadly Texas fertilizer warehouse blast was preventable
By Reuters
Tuesday, April 22, 2014 21:30 EDT
By Erwin Seba
DALLAS (Reuters) – A deadly 2013 fertilizer warehouse explosion in Texas that claimed at least 14 lives could have been prevented, U.S. safety investigators said on Tuesday.
Between 40 and 60 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded 22 minutes after a fire broke out at the West Fertilizer Co warehouse on April 17, 2013, leveling a neighborhood in the town of West, 70 miles southwest of Dallas
The ammonium nitrate, which the company supplied to farmers to use as fertilizer in the region, was stored in wooden bins within a wooden building that did not have a sprinkler system, said Rafael Moure-Eraso, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
“(The fire and explosion) resulted from the failure of a company to take the necessary steps to avert a preventable fire and explosion and from the inability of federal, state and local regulatory agencies to identify a serious hazard and correct it,” Moure-Eraso said.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/22/federal-investigators-deadly-texas-fertilizer-warehouse-blast-was-preventable/
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/458934161747611648/photo/1
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/458937937334259712/photo/1
https://twitter.com/nana_tanimura/status/458938678249664513/photo/1
https://twitter.com/LesaJansenFNC/status/458938883875422208/photo/1
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/458940059039694849/photo/1
Impeaching Nixon (no, not that one)
04/23/14 08:35 AM—Updated 04/23/14 08:55 AM
By Steve Benen
There is no actual competition to see which Republican-led state legislature can govern in the least responsible way possible, but if such a contest existed, Missouri would have to be considered a credible contender.
The indictment against GOP lawmakers’ recent efforts in the Show Me State isn’t short: voting restrictions, nullification efforts, anti-union schemes, anti-evolution measures, an anti-health care push, and on and on.
To be sure, many of these efforts have fallen short, thanks in part to Missouri’s Democratic governor, Jay Nixon. But given Republican extremism, perhaps it shouldn’t come as too big a surprise that Missouri’s GOP lawmakers have responded to the governor’s objections to their agenda by raising the specter of impeachment.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/impeaching-nixon-no-not-one
Sen. Warren reintroduces herself in new book
Rachel Maddow talks to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren about her new book, “A Fighting Chance,” and how the book’s title represents her main goals as a US Senator.
http://on.msnbc.com/1nFD0Rt
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/458942639027400706/photo/1
Elizabeth Warren Is the Teacher
She has come to remind us who we are, or at least who we once were. She is the only one warning that conditions in the financial sector are in some ways worse now than before the collapse of 2008. Her message has gained her many powerful enemies. And it has a lot of people very eager for Elizabeth Warren to run for president.
By Charles P. Pierce on April 21, 2014
You cannot understand how she became a senator—hell, you can’t even understand how she became a public person—unless you understand the fact that, first and foremost, she is a teacher, having taught at Rutgers, and having been a professor of law at the University of Houston, the University of Texas, the University of Pennsylvania, and ultimately at Harvard Law School, where she was teaching bankruptcy and contracts in the fall of 2008, just as the global financial system collapsed and threatened the economy of the entire world. Her first great project as a young law professor in Texas had been to learn about how bankruptcy worked in this country, and more important, it was to learn about the people who found themselves in the process. It challenged her assumptions; she had thought she was going out to study the schemers who were working the system and the moochers who were cheating the people to whom they owed money. She learned from the people in the courtrooms that everything she knew about them was wrong, and then she set out to teach the country that everything it thought about those people was wrong….
She sees the country in a different way from most people. She has a natural way of expressing the idea of a political commonwealth by anchoring it in the individual pasts of individual citizens, by teaching history, as it were, to a country that has forgotten much of it. People are drawn to her not necessarily by her intelligence or by her willingness to speak truth to greed but by an ineffable feeling that she is reminding them of something they already knew. Somebody mentions to her that his family rose in this country because his grandfather was a cop, and his father a veteran who used the GI Bill to build a career as a public-school teacher. She rises partway from her chair, her lesson having taken hold.
“I love it. I love it,” she says. “But you and I grew up in the America that was investing in kids like us. That made education possible. Infrastructure. I gave this speech on infrastructure last night. Why infrastructure is important. Why it’s important to the economy, why it’s important to families, why it’s important to the earth, right? Why we’ve got to have that basic transportation infrastructure.
“And everyone gets this. But the choices Washington makes right now don’t reflect our values. The idea that billions of dollars would be left with billionaires through tax loopholes rather than spending that money on repairing roads and bridges? Rather than spending that money on helping our kids get through college? Rather than spending that money on NIH? And rather than a better future for all of our kids? That’s the debate we’re on the cusp of having.”…
Self-government must be an educational enterprise, with lessons learned over and over again, and that is what Elizabeth Warren is about these days. She is still teaching. She teaches because she has learned, and she has learned because she teaches. The great teachers are the ones who remain students at heart, who keep learning from their students, and from the world around them, and from their own drive to know even more about even more things, and who then are able to transmit that knowledge—and more important, the drive to know more—to their students. That is how teachers become immortal.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/elizabeth-warren-teacher-0514
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone @ 3 Chics! :-)