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On Abraham Galloway:
Published on Youtube Feb 10, 2014 by ncculture
“David Cecelski speaks about Abraham Galloway, Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation at the Lay My Burden Down Civil War Conference in Winston-Salem. Cecelski is an independent historian based in Durham.”
I just finished reading his article in the “Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism 1850-1950” edited by Charles M. Payne and Adam Green.
This Bridal Party’s Drunk in Love Routine is a Mess
[ 128 ] May 27, 2014 | Luvvie
In my Facebook newsfeeds for the past coupla days has been a video of a bridal party and their dance routine at a wedding reception. It’s 5 women who actually hired a choreographer and put together this whole thing and I watched it. And you should too.
http://youtu.be/-i_TNrDLXfo
GIRRRRRLLLLL!!!
I’d cuss out every member of my bridal party if they pulled this stunt at my classy ass wedding. I mean, I’d retch (not reach, but retch) back and find some insults that involves ancestors and shaming family names. I ain’t lying. You bitties ain’t bout to come here and show out on my special day with your Apollo Night routine. WHERE IS SANDMAN SAM???
Let’s talk about all the pause-worthy stuff in this video (there’s so much).
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/05/bridal-partys-drunk-love-routine-mess.html
https://twitter.com/EurosportCom_EN/status/470643383938342912/photo/1
Racist Asshole Trolls Touré, So Of Course Touré Must Apologize
Tommy Christopher on May 26, 2014
MSNBC host and cultural critic Touré is under fire this Memorial Day Weekend for, as down-the-middle website Mediaite puts it, “Chalk(ing) Up Holocaust Survival to ‘The Power of Whiteness’” in a Twitter exchange with an alleged descendant of Holocaust survivors. The right-wing blogosphere is up in arms over what “Black Nazi” Touré said, and if he really said that, maybe they’d have a point. It’s what these websites aren’t saying, though, that’s particularly telling.
Influential conservative website The Right Scoop characterized Touré’s remark as “Touré Thinks Being In A Concentration Camp Is NBD For Whitey,” Gateway Pundit said the “racist, anti–Semitic comment” came from “Black Nazi” Touré, while National Review Online described Touré’s exchange this way:
Early Saturday morning, the MSNBC host/hyperventilating philosopher Touré again enlightened the world. Facing a tweeter who mentioned that his parents had survived the Holocaust and then found the American dream, Touré responded, “The power of whiteness.”
Wow, what a horrible person that Touré is, if he really did engage in the “trivialization of 6 million Jews killed for being Jewish,” as NRO goes on to say. What’s missing from all of this outrage are a few key points, like what Touré actually said, and to whom he actually said it. Here’s the exchange in question:
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/05/racist-asshole-trolls-toure-course-toure-must-apologize/#.U4UA3kopLgA.twitter
https://twitter.com/wusa9/status/471406490788851712/photo/1
https://twitter.com/shadowandact/status/471413018035625984/photo/1
Miranda
This makes no damn sense…..let’s just cut the shit, white rural hicks just hate “Obamacare” because they hate the black President. They’ve signed up for it knowing it is saving their very useless lives, but that doesn’t matter, they will still hate it and the President even more. What’s worse is Grimes can’t figure out how to speak “hick” to these clowns to get them to, at the least, not vote for McConnell who would take AWAY what they are using right now after signing up for it.
—————————–
excerpt:
During a joint press conference at his campaign headquarters with Sen. Rand Paul last Friday, McConnell reiterated that the Affordable Care Act is the “single worst piece of legislation” passed in half a century.
The GOP leader still favors repealing it “root and branch,” but when asked if Kynect, the state health exchange, should be dismantled, McConnell suggested it wasn’t related to the Affordable Care Act.
“I think that’s unconnected to my comments about the overall question here,” McConnell said.
Approximately 415,000 Kentuckians have signed up for insurance through the state exchange, which was created as a result of the health care law. McConnell’s comment didn’t draw the ire of the Grimes camp, but one Kentucky Democrat has stepped forward to defend the law.
From Gov. Steve Beshear:
Eliminating ACA means that folks with pre-existing conditions will struggle to find coverage, young adults won’t be able to stay on their parents’ coverage, women won’t be treated equally by insurers and federal subsidies for Kentuckians will end. Senator McConnell either doesn’t understand what the ACA is, or is just trying to mislead Kentucky families for his political benefit at their expense.
Polling shows the health care overhaul is a political minefield.
As WFPL reported in January, an overwhelming majority of Kentuckians favored the state’s decision to expand Medicaid for low-income residents.
“We’ve seen great numbers of Kentuckians enroll in insurance through Kynect to get either Medicaid or more affordable, better coverage in the private sector,” says Healthy Kentucky President and CEO Susan Zepeda, who organization conducted the survey. “There are significant numbers of Kentuckians who clearly see an advantage to having access to having insurance they didn’t have previously.”
On the face value that is a benefit for Grimes, but it’s an argument she appears unwilling to fully embrace on the campaign trail. Grimes has said she is against “taking away insurance” of the 400,000 people who recently enrolled.
But she is also busy maintaining a safe distance from President Obama, and for good reason.
Earlier this month, a NBC News/Marist poll showed 57 percent of registered voters in Kentucky hold an unfavorable opinion of “Obamacare.” When it’s called “Kynect” the same survey found just about 29 percent of voters hold a favorable view of the law versus 22 percent who do not.
http://pragmaticobotsunite.com/tuesday-afternoon-thread-kool-and-the-gang-week/#comment-1407153140
http://wfpl.org/post/obamacare-presents-political-dilemmas-alison-lundergan-grimes-and-mitch-mcconnell?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wfplnews+%28WFPL+News+Stream%29
I will continue to say this:
40 fucking percent
they have lowered the uninsured in Kentucky by
FORTY FUCKING PERCENT
and her ass can’t run on Obamacare?
Remember Ms. Grimes PALS around with HIL & BILL
For months I tried to get an interview with House Speaker John Boehner, the Republican from Ohio, and he refused every request.
So last week I boarded a plane, flew to Washington, and went to a press conference he was giving instead. The result was anything but pretty. But as a journalist and an immigrant, I had to ask him some questions.
“Why are you blocking the immigration reform?” I asked Boehner.
“Me?” he replied, chuckling.
“Yes, you,” I answered. “You could bring it to a vote, and you haven’t.”
Boehner clearly didn’t like my question – he looked at me angrily.
Too bad. I wanted to know how he could justify preventing the passage of legislation needed to create a path to citizenship for the United States’ 11 million undocumented immigrants. The Senate passed a reform bill almost a year ago, but Boehner and the Republicans in the House have done everything possible to delay a vote. It was time to bring this matter into public view.
“There’s nobody more interested in fixing this problem than I am,” he said.
But those were empty words. Millions of Latinos don’t believe him.
Boehner tried to deflect blame for the delays onto President Barack Obama, saying he doesn’t trust Obama because the administration made so many changes to his signature health care legislation .Obama has to win Republicans’ confidence, Boehner said. That’s just another excuse, and completely beside the point, since the Affordable Care Act has nothing to do with immigration reform.
If you weigh all the facts, there is only one possible conclusion: The man who is blocking immigration reform is John Boehner, and he has no good reason for doing so. Boehner is not doing his job. Period.
—
So why don’t the Republicans want to reform our immigration laws, which are so clearly failing almost everyone? It’s possible that preventing the legislation’s passage may suit Republicans’ short-term goals – some political calculation that is part of their plan for winning the congressional midterm elections in November, most likely by attacking Obama.
And in the long term, it’s a losing strategy: If Republicans don’t help to create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, they will suffer the consequences for decades.
According to recent estimates, in 2060 there will be 129 million Latinos in the United States, constituting 31 percent of the population. Soon ,any politician who wants to win an election will need the Hispanic vote. If Republicans keep doing what they’re doing, they’re going to lose the White House for generations to come.
But I’m afraid they don’t understand this, or perhaps in their stubbornness and ignorance, they refuse to recognize that the country is changing. They don’t seem to be aware that they’re alienating voters as they pursue shortsighted policies and strategies that cater to their traditional base – mostly older white males – while showing no compassion for undocumented immigrants.
I don’t see any glimmer of hope right now, nor for the rest of the summer. This fall the focus of the immigration reform fight is going to change. Instead of pushing Republicans to approve the reform legislation, activists will mostly turn to trying to persuade President Obama to suspend most deportations of immigrants, since his administration has deported over 2 million immigrants, separating thousands of Latino families in six years.
Should activists who are already protesting Obama’s policies pause their efforts until the end of July? Should they hand Democrats a truce – at least to give his administration’s plan of waiting the Republicans out a chance to work? It would be hard to ask that of a parent who is at risk of being deported.
Three things have become clear to me: First, if immigration reform does not pass this summer, Boehner and the Republicans will be to blame. Second, Latinos won’t forget this failure. And third, Boehner will never grant me an interview. But I know where to find him.
http://fusion.net/america_with_jorge_ramos/story/mr-boehner-blocking-immigration-reform-720493?utm_campaign=tifn_boehner_immigration_jorgeramos&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
NYC MAYOR BARS MEDIA FROM DOZENS OF EVENTS
By JONATHAN LEMIRE— May. 27, 2014 6:03 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — From the first moments of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, when he initially declared his midnight swearing-in off limits to the media, he has established a record of frequently conducting public business in private, with dozens of events closed to the press.
In nearly five months in office, de Blasio barred the media from 53 events and limited access to 30 more, an Associated Press analysis of de Blasio’s schedule shows. On a handful of days, his entire schedule was off limits. All told, more than 20 percent of his listed events were closed to the media.
Events in which reporters were notified of their existence but prevented from attending ranged from meetings with government figures such as the mayor of Seattle and Israel’s minister of foreign affairs to sit-downs with the NBA commissioner, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Russian band Pussy Riot.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-nyc-mayor-bars-media-dozens-events
MOFOs, De Blasio ain’t got time for your BS.
Racism played a role in Elliot Rodger’s Santa Barbara murder spree: experts
Misogyny and entitlement were factors, but Rodger’s manifesto reveals his rage was also directed at people of color, Michael Kimmel and Cliff Leek write.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/racism-played-role-elliot-rodger-murder-spree-experts-article-1.1806390
The horrific mass murder in Santa Barbara has pundits and armchair diagnosticians scrambling for an explanation.
This time, we’ve seen misogyny and men’s sense of entitlement added to the usual suspects of guns and mental illness. We’d suggest another variable be added to the lethal equation: race.
We are not saying that the fact that Elliot Rodger identified himself as white is the single cause of his gruesome rampage. Not at all.
But if we want to understand how this happened, and how to prevent it in the future, we are going to have to confront race. Let’s look at the facts. In the last 20 years, all but one of the school shootings were committed by a white man.
Rodger’s enemies were not only the beautiful white girls who he felt constantly turned him down for dates and rejected him sexually. His rage was also toward all the men of color he felt those white girls chose over him.
Black folks who read Elliot Rodger’s manifesto DO NOT need EXPERTS to inform us that racism played a role in HIS mass murders.
https://twitter.com/DeanBerry2013/status/470054338229178368/photo/1
Father of victim in Santa Barbara shootings to politicians: ‘I don’t care about your sympathy.’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/father-of-victim-in-santa-barbara-shootings-to-politicians-i-dont-care-about-your-sympathy/2014/05/27/8a030d10-e5ad-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html
GOLETA, Calif. — The father of a young man gunned down Friday during the rampage in Santa Barbara said he is asking members of Congress to stop calling him to offer condolences but nothing more for the death of his only child, Christopher Michaels-Martinez.
“I don’t care about your sympathy. I don’t give a s— that you feel sorry for me,” Richard Martinez said during an extensive interview, his face flushed as tears rolled down his face. “Get to work and do something. I’ll tell the president the same thing if he calls me. Getting a call from a politician doesn’t impress me.”
Saying “we are all to blame” for the death of his 20-year-old son, Martinez urged the public join him in demanding “immediate action” from members of Congress and President Obama to curb gun violence by passing stricter gun-control laws.
“Today, I’m going to ask every person I can find to send a postcard to every politician they can think of with three words on it: Not one more,” he said Tuesday morning. “People are looking for something to do. I’m asking people to stand up for something. Enough is enough.”
Dear lawmakers, leave Richard Martinez alone with your cowardly asses. You are all spineless cowards. Until you move your ass to make change..please stfu!
https://twitter.com/ObamaFoodorama/status/471371824542912512
DO NOT mess with our FLOTUS!
Mad Men: How Much Money Did Each of SC&P’s Partners Make This Week?
Only read on if you’ve watched this week’s Mad Men.
With due respect to the singing communist ghost of Bert Cooper, money is a nice thing to have. After last night’s mid-season finale of Mad Men, with the expected sale of the firm to McCann, the partners at SC&P — Don Draper, Roger Sterling, Joan Harris, Pete Campbell, Jim Cutler, Ted Chaough, plus whoever Bert’s beneficiary is — stand to make a load of it. If, like Roger says, McCann values Sterling Cooper & Partners at $65 million and buys 51 percent of the company, that would put the total sale price at $33,150,000. With the caveat that math is not our first language, here is our best estimate for how that would be split up.
Joan: We know she owns 5 percent of SC&P, which by Roger’s calculation would net her “a little over one and a half million.” Or, more specifically, $1,657,500, which in today’s dollars is about $10.4 million.
Pete: He owns 10 percent of the company, which makes his take $3,315,000 — or about $20.8 million today.
Ted and Jim: According to Pete, Ted owns 20 percent of SC&P, which means Jim probably does, too. So they each made $6,630,000 in the sale. Adjusted for inflation, this is approximately $41.6 million.
Roger, Don, and Bert’s estate: Let’s assume for our purposes that Roger, Don, and Bert owned equal parts of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce when the firm merged with Cutler, Gleason, and Chaough last season (and that Bert’s ownership has not yet been redistributed). That would mean each owns 15 percent of SC&P, which would make their takes $4,972,500 each. Or, in 2014, $31.2 million.
Harry: Since he didn’t complete his paperwork in time, he owns a 0 percent stake in SC&P, which makes his share of the sale $0. (Adjusted for inflation: $0.)
http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/mad-men-how-much-did-each-of-the-partners-make.html
Today at 8:00 AM
Watch Snoop Dogg and Seth Rogen Recap Game of Thrones High
By Jesse David Fox
Spoiler Alert, just in case you were planning on reading only the first sentence before watching below: The video consists of Snoop and Seth Rogen smoking weed, being high, and talking about the last episode of Game of Thrones. They also watch a YouTube edit of one of the episode’s big scenes mixed with Ludacris’s “Move Bitch.” Fortunately, it’s not possible to die from giggling because, if it were, society would be down two of its favorite potheads.
http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/watch-snoop-dogg-and-seth-rogen-recap-got-high.html?mid=imdb
Koch Brothers Spent more on 2012 Election than Top 10 Unions Combined
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
In the campaign spending race between the largest American labor unions and the conservative Koch brothers during the 2012 election, the contest was decidedly one-sided.
The Koch brothers, who provide one of the largest sources of money for Republican politicians and conservative causes, spent $413 million two years ago.
That total far exceeded the combined spending of the top 10 unions: $153 million.
Union spending included that by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), National Education Association (NEA), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), United Auto Workers (UAW), United Brotherhood of Carpenters (UBC), the Teamsters union, Communications Workers of America (CWA) and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
The money totals by each side include official financial disclosures and so-called “dark money” that individuals and organizations spend without filing reports to the government.
As for the Koch’s war chest, its compilation was by no means a two-man operation involving only the brothers, Charles and David.
The Washington Post says the Kochs employ a vast network of like-minded individuals and groups that raise money, much of it in secret.
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/koch-brothers-spent-more-on-2012-election-than-top-10-unions-combined-140311?news=852653
Philip Rucker ✔ @PhilipRucker
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UCSB victim’s dad to Congress: “I don’t give a s— that you feel sorry for me. Get to work and do something.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/father-of-victim-in-santa-barbara-shootings-to-politicians-i-dont-care-about-your-sympathy/2014/05/27/8a030d10-e5ad-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html?hpid=z1 …
12:36 PM – 27 May 2014
May 27, 2014 11:16 AM
Kingston Leaps Into GOP Lead With Right Fist Held High
By Ed Kilgore
\
It’s still early in the GA GOP SEN runoff battle between “Republican Establishment” figures David Perdue (who finished first in the May 20 primary with 31% of the vote) and Jack Kingston (26% of the May 20 vote). But Kingston, who so far has run by far the more ideological campaign, seems to have taken an early lead thanks to perceptions of his as the most right-wing option at this point in the cycle.
A PPP survey for the progressive group Better Georgia showed Kingston up over Perdue 46/34. Kingston held an even more impressive 54/30 lead among self-identified “very conservative” voters. He’s now been endorsed by two of the most prominent conservative supporters of third-place primary finisher Karen Handel: RedState’s Erick Erickson and Atlanta Tea Party co-chair Julianne Thompson.
It will be interesting to see how Perdue copes with these early signs that he’s already been outflanked on the right by Kingston. A big showy ad on a hot button wingnut issue might be just what the political doctor ordered, but I’m not sure which one he’d be inclined to pursue.
The PPP survey, BTW, showed Democrat Michelle Nunn basically running even with either Republican. The more vicious the GOP runoff fight becomes, the higher the odds she can start the general election in the unaccustomed (for recent Georgia Democrats) position of favorite.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_05/kingston_leaps_into_gop_lead_w050515.php
May 27, 2014 1:04 PM
The Hundred Million
By Ed Kilgore
When you read about Florida’s governor’s race, it often seems there are three candidates. There’s incumbent governor and Republican nominee Rick (Very Scary) Scott. There’s former governor and party-switcher Charlie Crist. And then there’s The Hundred Million, the amount Scott is pledging to spend to beat Crist into submission. In one sense, this third candidate has been an important ally for Crist, insofar as it has chased off major Democratic competition, as suggested in an overview of the race by the Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo and Steve Bousquet:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_05/the_hundred_million050520.php
For Black Kids in America, a Degree Is No Guarantee
A new study shows that African-American college graduates face unemployment rates nearly twice as high as others with the same education.
Janell RossMay 27 2014, 12:24 PM ET
The Ivy-League-educated barista who can’t find a job that pays enough to live anywhere besides her childhood bedroom. The freshly minted MBA and law-school graduates strapped with debt and frustrated about the six-figure jobs and master-of-the-universe titles that haven’t materialized.
Nearly five years after the Great Recession officially ended, the struggles and dampened expectations of young college graduates have become a fixture of American politics and even popular culture. But amid all the focus on the difficulties of college-educated millennials, one facet of this upheaval has remained largely unexplored: the continued significance of race.
As a new crop of college graduates joins the American workforce, unemployment rates among minorities with degrees remain distinctly elevated and their economic prospects disproportionately dimmed, a new report released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research has found.
In 2013, the most recent period for which unemployment data are available by both race and educational attainment, 12.4 percent of black college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 were unemployed. For all college graduates in the same age range, the unemployment rate stood at just 5.6 percent. The figures point to an ugly truth: Black college graduates are more than twice as likely to be unemployed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/05/when-a-degree-is-no-guarantee/371613/
just so we don’t get the ‘ but they majored in the wrong thing’:
Manosphere Site Warns More People Will Die Unless Women Give Men Sexual Options
By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Tuesday, May, 27th, 2014, 7:27 am
I wrote yesterday that “Only one political ideology in America is teaching young American men that women owe them something, and that is conservatism.”
What do I find later that day, but a rant by a fellow named Roosh, on so-called “manosphere” site Return of Kings. Roosh, also the author of “The Time is Right for Traditional Sex Roles to Return,” says that women owe men sex, and says that if women don’t start giving men what they want, there will be more Elliot Rodgerses.
And of course, it’s all the fault of “the American media and blogosphere, men’s rights activists, “PUA haters”, and progressive organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center“:
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/05/27/manosphere-site-warns-people-die-women-give-men-sexual-options.html
Gun Activists Flaunting Assault Rifles Get Booted From Chili’s and Sonic
As a backlash grows, open-carry groups in Texas beat a retreat.
By Mark Follman Tue May 27, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
It would be an understatement to say that the tactics of gun rights activists have been backfiring of late. The showdown has taken place foremost in Texas, where in recent months groups such as Open Carry Texas have conducted provocative demonstrations in which armed men exercise their right under state law to carry semi-automatic rifles in public. No fewer than five national food and beverage chains have now told them to get rid of their guns or get lost, including Starbucks, Wendy’s, Applebees, Jack in the Box, and Chipotle.
And now Chili’s and Sonic have effectively joined the list: Two videos posted on YouTube on May 19 by the San Antonio chapter of Open Carry Texas—since removed from public view but obtained by Mother Jones—show its armed members being refused service at both restaurants. The two companies have not made official statements on open carry but have since indicated that they are reviewing their policies. From the nervous and angry reactions of some patrons to comments from some of the gun activists themselves, it’s not difficult to see why these spectacles haven’t been winning many people over.
“I just wish I had my kids in there when that one dumb chick come up and started rattin’ her mouth,” said one of the gun activists.
When a young woman approaches the group in Chili’s and expresses her dismay, a guy with an assault rifle strapped across his back offers her a flyer. “Um actually, there’s children here,” she replies, “and you’re a dumbass.” As she walks away one member of the group comments mockingly, “Yes, I’m a dumbass,” and then says of her, “must be Moms Demand Action,” referring to the national gun reform group.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/guns-open-carry-chilis-sonic-videos
Joe The Plumber To UCSB Parents: ‘Your Dead Kids Don’t Trump’ My Guns
Tom Kludt – May 27, 2014, 11:32 AM EDT
Samuel Wurzelbacher gave his condolences this week to the families of the victims of the mass shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara. But no tragedy is going to stop “Joe The Plumber” from defending the Second Amendment.
In an open letter published Tuesday on the website Barbwire, Wurzelbacher went out of his way to explain to the victims’ parents that the deaths won’t undermine his “Constitutional rights.”
“I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now,” wrote Wurzelbacher, who became something of a mascot for John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign. “But: As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.”
Wurzelbacher singled out Richard Martinez, whose son Christopher was one of the six students killed by Elliot Rodger in Isla Vista, Calif. Since the deadly rampage, Martinez has twice railed against politicians and the National Rifle Association for the failure to pass new gun laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-the-plumber-wurzelbacher-ucsb-shooting-dead-kids
The Conservative Movement Virus
by BooMan
Tue May 27th, 2014 at 10:18:26 AM EST
Todd Purdum has a piece at Politico on the structural deficit the Republicans have in presidential politics. He doesn’t mention the Electoral College, which I consider a major oversight, but he still hits the major points. The party is just too socially conservative, hostile to minorities, skeptical of science, and opposed to gay equality to make inroads into the Democrats’ presidential turf. In fact, in staking out these radical positions and opposing things like a hike in the minimum wage besides, they probably cannot even tread water.
They ought to look at the problem with clear eyes. They need to win Virginia. They need to win Florida. They need to win Ohio. They need to win Colorado. Why can’t they do a calm analysis on what the voters in those states want to see from a policy perspective and craft an agenda that will appeal to them? Back when the Democrats faced a similar problem and social issues were dragging them down, they developed the mantra, “It’s the economy, stupid.” In other words, they deemphasized the issues that weren’t helping them win votes. The Republicans simply do not do this. Brought to power in the midst of the recovery from the Great Recession, they immediately launched an all-out assault on women’s reproductive freedom. Suddenly, we weren’t talking about government spending but government-mandated trans-vaginal probes.
If your problem is that suburban women aren’t supporting your party, this seems like the dumbest possible way to improve your prospects. The same can be said for voter ID laws, climate science denialism, and opposition to gay rights, which all alienate ascendent constituencies that must be wooed if the GOP hopes to regain the White House.
But it makes sense if you understand that the Conservative Movement is not the same thing as the Republican Party. The Conservative Movement is still animated by support for school prayer, opposition to Roe v. Wade, and a host of John Bircher heat-fever fantasies. When they gained power in Congress and in the state legislatures, they set out to do what they had been fighting for for decades. What they have done is totally consistent with what they’ve been saying for all these years.
The Conservative Movement has captured the Republican Party and they aren’t going to change just because the party needs to change if it wants to win. This is an anti-intellectual movement based in an anti-intellectual form of religion, that has been coupled with a paranoid and xenophobic strain of embittered nihilism. It’s greatest crime is that it has been able to take advantage of on-team solidarity to convince a lot of formerly moderate and reasonable people to abandon reality-based thinking. Climate science is a perfect example. Only six years ago, John McCain and Sarah Palin ran on a cap and trade proposal to cap carbon emissions. Today, the party refuses to concede that carbon emissions are causing climate change. People didn’t suddenly get less intelligent. They just followed what their leaders were saying because they want to stay loyal to the team. They willingly chose to be more stupid.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/5/27/101826/681
This Is No Way to Win the Presidency
by BooMan
Fri May 23rd, 2014 at 12:43:59 PM EST
Among American political analysts, Ron Brownstein is better than average. But he can still be frustrating. When you start to write about the 2016 presidential election and respective prospects of the two major parties, you need to begin with the Electoral College. Yes, it is important that white people’s trust in government is down and that the Republicans are continuing to struggle to attract non-white voters. But, much more important is the Republican Party’s need to find a path to 270 Electoral College votes. So, for example, if you are going to posit that growing skepticism about government among whites is going to pose a problem for the eventual Democratic nominee, you ought to show how that might manifest itself. Which states that voted for Gore and Kerry and (especially) Barack Obama are likely to move over into the red column.
All things being equal, heavily white states like New Hampshire and Iowa would be good candidates for this. Are there any signs that those two states are moving against the Democrats? If so, why are the Democratic senate candidates in those two states consistently ahead in the polls?
Moreover, the radical rightward lurch of the Republican Party isn’t going to do them any favors in the multiethnic suburbs of Northern Virginia or Philadelphia. Their strident anti-immigration reform stance won’t help them win in Colorado or New Mexico or Nevada or Florida.
And, if Hillary Clinton is the Democrat’s nominee, her appeal among white working class voters will eat into the Republicans’ numbers in southeast Ohio, likely taking that state out of play.
The Democrats could lose Florida, Virginia and Ohio and still win by carrying all the rest of Obama’s 2012 haul. But let’s say that the Republicans don’t win Florida. In that case, the Democrats could lose Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico and still win with 271 Electoral Votes.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/5/23/124359/345
It’s Memorial Day And The Country Is At War With Itself
By Charles P. Pierce on May 26, 2014
At the beginning of this Memorial Day weekend, another American decided to make war on his fellow Americans. Elliot Rodger preceded his hostilities by announcing to the world, in terms so firm and clear as to command its assent, the casus belli under which he presumed to make war. It was as formal, if decidedly twisted, declaration of war, which gives Elliot Rodger’s war on his fellow citizens something that no American president has seen fit to request for any military action the country has taken since World War II.
This is a country now at war with itself. This is a phrase that is generally tossed about when political debate gets too heated. It was popular to say it back in the 1960s, when it seemed quite possibly to be true, with leaders bleeding out on balconies in Memphis or kitchen floors in Los Angeles, and students bleeding out from gunfire on college campuses, and half-baked revolutionary idiots blowing themselves up in Greenwich Village. But this is not the same thing. This is a country at war with itself for profit. This is a country at war with itself because its ruling elite is too cowed, or too well-bribed, or too cowardly to recognize that there are people who are getting rich arming both sides, because the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, so you make sure that it’s easy for the bad guys to get guns in order to make millions selling the guns to the good guys. This is a dynamic not unfamiliar to the people in countries where brushfire conflicts and civil wars are kept alive because distant people are making a buck off them. In Africa, war is made over diamonds and rare earths. In South America, war is made over cocaine. Here, for any number of reasons – because Adam Lanza went crazy or because Elliot Rodger couldn’t get laid – and the only constant in all those wars is the fact somebody gets rich arming both sides.
That is what has come home to roost now. This is a country at war with itself because cynical people have told its citizens that their fellow citizens – all of them, because you can never tell, can you? — are the enemy. This is a country in which citizens make war on each other because that’s what they are being encouraged to do. Someone finds it more profitable to maintain the war than they do to stop it.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/memorial-day-2014-052614
Talking about race is no black-and-white matter
By Eugene Robinson, Published: May 26
When Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) remarked last week that some of the opposition to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act is “maybe he’s of the wrong color,” he was just saying out loud what many people believe. And no, he wasn’t calling Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) a “racist.”
Believing that some of the Republican and tea party opposition to Obama has to do with his race is not, I repeat not, the same as saying that anyone who disagrees with the nation’s first black president is racist.
Speaking Wednesday at a sparsely attended Senate commerce committee hearing, Rockefeller said this subject is “not something you’re meant to talk about in public.” He’s retiring from the Senate at the end of the year and, well, he’s a Rockefeller, so I imagine he feels free to talk about anything he likes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-the-challenge-of-talking-about-race-in-america/2014/05/26/cd765890-e2b5-11e3-8dcc-d6b7fede081a_print.html
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MEDIA ALERT: @KellyandMichael will interview President Obama this Friday! #p2
8:15 AM – 27 May 2014
GOP pols want 2014 ‘Contract with America’
By Manu Raju – 5/27/14 @ 8:43 AM ET
A faction of Republicans including Sen. Lindsey Graham is agitating for party leaders to unveil a policy manifesto in the midterm elections, detailing for voters what the GOP would attempt with a Senate majority its members are increasingly confident they’ll achieve.
Advocates of the strategy, which has triggered a closed-door debate in recent weeks among the party’s current 45 senators, say it would serve as a firm rejoinder to Democrats casting the GOP as the “party of no.” They say voters should know what they’d be getting by pulling the lever for Republicans in November.
With many election handicappers pegging a Senate takeover as a better than 50-50 proposition, the quandary of how specific they should get during the campaign underscores the difficulties Senate Republicans face transitioning from opposition party to governing party. While Republicans are in broad agreement over their principles, such as repealing Obamacare and opposing higher taxes, a new GOP majority would have its own challenges unifying behind an ambitious agenda.
The policy agenda would be modeled after the “Contract with America,” the 10-bill document that Republicans campaigned on en route to a historic takeover of the House in 1994.
Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 4 Senate Republican who chairs the Republican Policy Committee, has asked all ranking members of Senate committees to send him legislative proposals they would want to pursue if they become chairmen next year. It’s not clear, at this point, whether the exercise will yield more policy papers or be presented as a unified GOP agenda, but Barrasso said it would help showcase a slew of GOP economic ideas either way.
That may not be enough for some in the caucus.
“I think it’s a strategic mistake for our party leadership not to come up with a document that has four or five action items,” Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the House class of 1994, said in an interview. “I’ve tried to allow those in leadership to do this. If they don’t move forward soon, there will be a rebellion among the rank and file.”
But the idea has met a cool reception from other senators, including some in leadership such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who faces a tough reelection race this year. Skeptics say it would be difficult to unite ideologically diverse candidates around a uniform set of ideas and argue the plan would give Democrats a fat target to attack. Better, they say, to keep the focus squarely on the shortcomings of President Barack Obama and his party than to make promises Republicans might not be able to keep.
“Even if we have a good election, President Obama is still going to be president,” Sen. John Cornyn, the minority whip from Texas, said when asked if his party should unveil a Contract with America-style agenda this year. “I don’t think we should be in the business of overpromising.”
http://mobile.politico.com/iphone/story/0514/107097.html
KIDS REACT TO ROTARY PHONES
http://youtu.be/XkuirEweZvM
KIDS REACT TO OLD COMPUTERS
http://youtu.be/PF7EpEnglgk
The news media’s Hillary Clinton problem
By Paul Waldman May 26 at 3:21 pm
About a dozen Republican governors and senators are preparing to run for president in what promises to be a rip-roaring primary. On the Democratic side, on the other hand, a serious challenge to Hillary Clinton’s potential candidacy has yet to emerge. The Democrats who are considering a run — Martin O’Malley, Andrew Cuomo, Brian Schweitzer — are at the moment doing little more than considering. This is a remarkable political phenomenon, fascinating in its own way. But it presents a serious problem for the news media, because you can’t really report on what isn’t happening — at least not in the way political reporters are used to reporting.
Which is why we get things like this article in Politico today, which I think offers a taste of what’s to come as we move toward the 2016 campaign, a campaign that in some ways is already underway. “The ‘Wary of Hillary’ Democrats” reads the title, playing off “Ready for Hillary,” one of a number of organizations, pro and con, preparing for Clinton’s candidacy, and promising a report about distressed Democrats concerned that her early strength could prove disastrous for the party:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/05/26/the-news-medias-hillary-clinton-problem/
A More Diverse Medical Profession Means Better Care for a Diverse America
In the medical profession, institutional equity—and better health outcomes—occur when institutional leadership is diverse.
By: June M. McKoy, M.D.
Posted: May 27 2014 3:00 AM
If there was any doubt left that the Obama era didn’t usher in a postracial society, it was erased in the last few weeks by the spectacle that was the Donald Sterling affair. It probably doesn’t surprise anyone at this point that we have not yet reached the promised land of equality and racial blindness of which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke 50 years ago. And we have regular reminders of just how far we fall short in this country in many arenas and disciplines—particularly in higher education and at medical schools.
While the overall number of black and Latino physicians is steadily rising, the numbers in leadership remain anemic. Blacks represent only 5.7 percent of deans at American medical schools as of 2013.
As a physician of African-American and Latina ethnicity, I have seen a tepid, though somewhat steady, increase in the number of African-American medical students, but no corollary in the numbers of black medical-school faculty members.
African Americans account for 13 percent of the population but only 6 percent of those matriculating at medical schools. In 2011 fewer than 3 percent of all medical-school faculty members were black.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/05/why_we_need_more_black_med_school_profs.html
The Root’s Summer Reading List
Hey, you on that beach chair. You really don’t want to miss these books about the black experience, and now is the perfect time to catch up.
By: The Root Staff
Posted: May 27 2014 3:00 AM
Who says summer reading has to be fluff? There are so many recent titles and reprinted standouts tackling the black experience—in poetry, biography and works of fiction—that even the most voracious readers can barely keep up. Pack one of these to turn a trip to the pool into an inspiring escape, and get your sun with a side of substance. There are more where these came from, but this list will have you on track to read one a week between now and the end of beach season.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/05/african_american_books_summer_reading_recommendations.html
Nigerian Official: Kidnapped Girls Located but not Rescued
Nigerian military officials claim that they have located the over 200 girls that were kidnapped over a month ago but are fearful that a rescue attempt might endanger them.
By: Stephen A. Crockett Jr.
Posted: May 27 2014 7:38 AM
Nigerian officials believe that they have located the over 200 schoolgirls kidnapped last month by an Islamic militant group but are hesitant to implement a forceful rescue worried that it may endanger them, CNN reports.
“We want our girls back. I can tell you that our military can and will do it, but where they are held, can we go there with force?” Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh said, a News Agency of Nigeria, a state-run news service reports. “Nobody should say Nigerian military does not know what it is doing; we can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.”
Badeh continued: “The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are, but we cannot tell you.
“We cannot come and tell you the military secret, just leave us alone, we are working to get the girls back,” Badeh reportedly said.
Pentagon spokesman Adm. John Kirby told CNN that U.S. officials “were not able to confirm the report.”
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/05/nigerian_official_kidnapped_girls_located_but_not_rescued.html
The VA Scandal, More Of The Same
On this Memorial Day weekend, you may, if you like, picture me making the “I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!” face.
So there’s chicanery and malfeasance in the Veterans Administration, is there?
The VA hospital in Phoenix diddled the books, did they?
Administrators shuffled ailing vets into secret waiting lists, delaying medical treatment for months, maybe years, in order to pump up the hospital’s stats and make it look like they were meeting the goals established by President Obama for prompt service.
Veterans, some forty and maybe more, died while awaiting treatment – whether or not any of the deaths can be directly linked to deferred access is still undetermined.
And now it’s emerging that this practice of secret lists and deliberately delayed care might be far more widespread within the Department of Veterans Affairs than just the Phoenix hospital.
Outrageous, isn’t it?
I mean, you’re outraged, right? Well of course you are.
The country is outraged in patriotic indignation. This is bullshit! We should treat our heroes better than that!
Congress is outraged, oh boy are they ever, and they’re going to get to the bottom of it, you bet!
The President is outraged, and by God heads are going to roll! Sure they will!
Don’t worry, Veterans, things are gonna change! America won’t stand for this injustice!
Heh heh.
That’s great, Folks. Really. Thanks for dropping by, thanks for coming, drive safely, and, please, don’t forget to take your outrage with you – we veterans have plenty of our own and frankly I don’t need any extra.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2014/05/the-va-scandal-more-of-same.html
https://twitter.com/ZZion/status/470316365405229056/photo/1
https://twitter.com/ks44/status/471084683418009601/photo/1
Vincent Harding, 82, civil rights activist
Vincent Harding, 82, an influential behind-the-scenes figure during the civil rights movement who wrote a controversial speech for Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday, May 19, while in Philadelphia on a speaking tour
His death, from an aneurysm, was announced by Denver’s Iliff School of Theology, where he was a faculty member. He formerly taught at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Harding, who said his service in the Army made him a dedicated pacifist, wrote a speech for King that addressed Vietnam in the context of civil rights. King delivered the speech in April 1967, saying it was morally indefensible to send African American troops to “guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/20140526_Vincent_Harding__82__civil_rights_activist.html#hYsKlpmdmuEueAaA.99
https://twitter.com/nhdogmom/status/471054116710408192/photo/1
Ayn Rand was a MONEY GRABBING, FREE-LOADING, SUCK ON THE GUBMINT TEET, WITCH!
https://twitter.com/missLtoe/status/470359892616695808/photo/1
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Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan backed out of deal to free some kidnapped girls – http://cbsn.ws/1jW2zht
6:20 AM – 27 May 2014
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Ha!
LOL
https://twitter.com/CUMS0CK/status/471023072376406016/photo/1
Brian Dickerson: Why did Republicans go against DIA-loving constituents’ wishes?
excerpt:
Goike, a second-term legislator from Ray Township, is the latest in a long line of Macomb County Republicans who have established political careers by demonizing Detroit and ridiculing the notion that their own constituents’ future is somehow yoked to that of Michigan’s largest city.
Goike’s House district is in northeastern-most Macomb and has more in common with Michigan’s Thumb than with the more cosmopolitan tri-county region. Goike’s predecessors include former state Sen. David Jaye, who reigned as Lansing’s premiere race-baiting charlatan until his legislative colleagues voted to expel him in 2001, and former state Rep. Leon Drolet, who liked to barnstorm the state with a giant papier-mâché pig named Mr. Perks.
Like Goike, Jaye and Drolet were anti-tax ideologues, and both men would likely have applauded House Bill 5571, a Goike-sponsored measure that would bar voters in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties from ever renewing the special millage that they imposed on themselves in August 2012 to stem the Detroit Institute of Arts’ chronic operating losses.
http://www.freep.com/article/20140525/COL04/305250066/Detroit-bankruptcy-DIA-art
https://twitter.com/Chernynkaya/status/471073608438403073/photo/1
Thanks for this. Can you post on the McGrumpy-GOP blocking VA thread, please? Thanks!
https://twitter.com/HumanAfrica/status/464384749604048896/photo/1
https://twitter.com/HumanAfrica/status/464561824315473923/photo/1
https://twitter.com/HumanAfrica/status/465227960073474048/photo/1
African-American cowboy crooner Herb Jeffries dies
By JESSICA HERNDON — May. 26, 2014 6:05 PM EDT
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Herb Jeffries, the first African-American singing cowboy to appear in movies in the 1930s, died of heart failure Sunday morning at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 100.
His death was confirmed by Raymond Strait, who worked with Jeffries
on his not-yet-published autobiography titled “Color of Love.”
Jeffries, who was born Umberto Valentino in Detroit in 1913 and was of Sicilian, Irish and Ethiopian decent, appeared as a horse-riding good
guy with a thick mustache in a number of ’30s westerns including
“Harlem Rides the Range” and “Harlem on the Prairie,” a musical that
featured an all-black cast that included actor Spencer Williams.
Jeffries was known for his luscious baritone. In the 1940s, he performed as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and released his signature tune “Flamingo.” In 1941, he appeared in Ellington’s all-black musical revue “Jump for Joy” alongside Dorothy Dandridge in Los Angeles.
His popular solo hits “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano” and “Basin Street Blues” were released after he’d served in World War II.
Jeffries appeared in nine films and on television shows like “Hawaii
Five-O” and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame in 2004.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/african-american-cowboy-crooner-herb-jeffries-dies
10 most and least affordable areas for the middle class
By Jed Kolko of Trulia
Where can the middle class afford to buy a home today? Affordability has worsened in the past year, as home prices have climbed faster than incomes and mortgage rates have risen. But compared with the longer-term past, homeownership still looks relatively affordable. Homes are still undervalued, and mortgage rates remain near historic lows. In most U.S. markets, the majority of homes for sale are within reach of the middle class, and buying is cheaper than renting in all of the 100 largest metros.
In many markets, however, especially along the coasts, homeownership is out of reach for the middle class. There’s no easy way to make housing more affordable, though new construction can help.
Using Trulia’s latest Middle Class Report, we calculated the share of for-sale homes on Trulia that are affordable to a middle-class household, based on whether the total monthly payment including mortgage, insurance and property taxes was less than 31 percent of the metro area’s median household income. Because we define “middle class” separately for each metro based on the local median household income, our affordability measure takes into account that a middle-class income is higher in some markets than in others.
More than four of five homes for sale in Detroit and Cleveland are within reach of the middle class, compared with one out of four in New York and Los Angeles and one out of seven in San Francisco. Middle-class affordability is worsening in expensive markets and won’t improve long-term without more construction.
http://realestate.msn.com/10-most-and-least-affordable-areas-for-the-middle-class
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, rikyrah and Everyone!
Thanks, rikyrah, for all of the important articles you post. I appreciate your keeping me informed!
Good Morning, Everyone. Happy MUN-dane! :-)
Loving the African Couples and their attire.
Good afternoon, everyone!
It’s a rainy day here. Water coming across the road. Some rural bridges out. Yuck!