Prayers to Pastor Shirley Caesar & family. Gospel singer Shirley Caesar loses her husband, Bishop Harold Ivory Williams, after 31 years of marriage. 3ChicsPolitico’s thoughts and prayers are with them.
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Why MTP & David Gregory’s RATING are in the SEWER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mYglzZIryI
Transcript:
DAVID GREGORY: You heard the mayor of Murrieta, “Why now? Why so many?” Is part of the answer that the administration, through some of its executive actions, have said, in effect, “Look, if you come, we’re going to let you in?”
SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: First of all, David, the reason we’re seeing this influx has to do primarily with the conditions in the three Central American countries that they’re leaving from, the push factor.
DAVID GREGORY: More than– and it’s double, though?
DAVID GREGORY: Could it be 90,000 this year?
SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: Honduras is in a really bad place right now. El Salvador, Guatemala. The push factor is what is driving this recent influx. In addition, we know that the smuggling organizations, the criminal smuggling organizations, are putting out a lot of disinformation about supposed ‘free passes’ into this country that are going to expire at the end of May, at the end of June. “Just give us your money and we’ll get you into the country by the end of the month.” It’s like a used car salesman saying that the sale’s going to expire at the end of the week.
DAVID GREGORY: But that’s not all misinformation, Mr. Secretary. There is deferred action on some children, passed in 2012, that will allow some children of illegal immigrants to stay.
SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: Well, that’s the point we keep stressing. The deferred action program is for kids who came to this country seven years ago. It’s not for anyone who comes to this country today, tomorrow or yesterday. And the legislation that the Senate passed, which provides for an earned path to citizenship, is for those who were in this country in 2011. It’s not for those that are coming here today.
DAVID GREGORY: How many– the numbers, again. I mean a year ago it’s 26,000. It’s double that. Could it get up to 90,000 this year?
SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: I believe we’re going to stem this tide.
DAVID GREGORY: I know, but my question is how bad could it get? How many more are we going to see? People want to know the challenge you face.
SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: I believe we’ll stem this tide. And we’re doing a number of things to do that right now.
DAVID GREGORY: So you don’t think the numbers will go up, is what you’re saying.
SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: The numbers have very definitely–
DAVID GREGORY: Right. I mean they’re certainly going to go up from where they are, if they’re already double this year, and we’re sitting here in the summertime.
SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON: They have definitely gone up. But I believe we will stem this tide. We are doing a number of things to do that. With regards to the adult population, who are coming here without their kids, we have dramatically reduced the turnaround time from something like 33 days down to four days.
With regards to adults who are bringing their children, we’re bringing on additional detention capacity. We’re turning that population of people around quicker. And with regards to the children, very definitely there are special considerations with the children. And we keep reminding people of the dangers that your lead-in points out, to climbing on board top of a freight train.
I’ve spoken directly to kids on the border who’ve told me that they have held on for days and hours to the top of a freight train, literally holding on for dear life because they risk falling off and dying. We keep reminding parents of the dangers of sending your children unaccompanied on this journey, this long, 1,000-mile journey, and that there are no free passes once you get here. DACA is not available for these children.
Tim Fargo @alphabetsuccess
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Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. – Mahatma Gandhi #quote
3:15 PM – 6 Jul 2014
The Real Internal Revenue Scandal
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
JULY 5, 2014
There is a scandal going on at the Internal Revenue Service, but it has nothing to do with Lois Lerner or her missing emails.
House Republicans have not given up on their noisy crusade to tie Ms. Lerner to what they imagine to be widespread political corruption within the Obama administration, but all they have proved is that the I.R.S. is no better at backing up its computer files than most other government agencies.
No,the real scandal is what Republicans did to cripple the agency when virtually no one was looking. Since the broad Tea Party-driven spending cuts of 2010, the agency’s budget has been cut by 14 percent after inflation is considered, leading to sharply reduced staff, less enforcement of the tax laws and poor taxpayer service.
As the economist Jared Bernstein noted recently in The Washington Post, a weakened I.R.S. enforcement staff will be unable to make a dent in the $385 billion annual gap between what taxpayers owe and what they pay— an unintended tax cut, mostly for the rich, that represents 11 percent of this year’s spending. Middle-class taxpayers who struggle to fill out their 1040s may welcome a diminished threat of an audit, but in fact this reduction is not about them. The I.R.S. audits a far higher percentage of tax returns from people reporting incomes over $200,000 than from those reporting less, because that is where the money is (along with the most profitable cheating).
But in 2013, it audited only 24 percent of returns over $10 million, compared with 30 percent in 2010.Of returns reporting between $1 million and $5 million, it audited 16 percent in 2013, compared with 21 percent in 2010. That is great news for the nation’s highest-income taxpayers, many of whom donate generously to Republican politicians to keep their taxes low. They are getting their money’s worth from lawmakers who debilitate revenue collection while claiming to be deeply worried about the budget deficit.
But it is bad news for building roads, keeping the air clean, protecting the nation’s security, and countless other vital government tasks. Revenue collected by I.R.S. enforcement actions has fallen by more than $4 billion over the last four years, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And every dollar spent on enforcement yields $6 in additional revenue. Many I.R.S. computers use obsolete Windows XP operating systems and cannot keep up with a growing problem of identity theft that is directing refunds to
criminals.
The budget cutters are also trying to prevent the agency from performing its new job of collecting higher taxes on the rich to pay for health care reform, and distributing health insurance subsidies for low- and moderate-income people, many of whom will now be covered for the first time. The agency also has to collect and process more information about assets held in offshore accounts under a 2010 law, for which it needs more people and resources, not fewer. Guess who uses offshore accounts?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/the-real-internal-revenue-scandal.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region
Malia Obama got a car for her birthday. Whoo Hoo!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2682234/Birthday-girl-Malia-Obama-gets-car-sweet-16-no-drivers-license.html
First daughter Malia Obama received a brand new car for her sweet 16 birthday on Friday, according to sources close to the first family, but unfortunately for her she won’t be able to drive it alone for at least another year.
Super!
https://twitter.com/_Thuraya6/status/467188134963191809/photo/1
What does the applause for Preckwinkle mean?
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By CAROL MARIN July 4, 2014 7:18PM
Updated: July 6, 2014 2:29AM
Toni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County Board, got a standing ovation Monday at the White Eagle Banquet Hall in Niles.
Meaning?
Quite a bit, I’d say, considering Preckwinkle is getting increasing pressure to run against Rahm Emanuel in 2015.
The dinner at which Preckwinkle made a surprise appearance was the 40th Annual Ed Kelly Sports Banquet. The crowd of 700 was a racial and ethnic mix, though predominantly white, not unlike Chicago’s 47th Ward, where Ed Kelly ruled the roost for decades.
Headliners included Bears’ legend Gale Sayers, Blackhawks legend Bobby Hull, daughters of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, Senate President John Cullerton and Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey. But they were far outnumbered by dozens of business leaders, hundreds of union members, and Catholic priests.
It was because of Ed Kelly — not the groaning platters of pot roast and chicken — that they came. Kelly turns 90 in August but looks 60 and booms, “I still feel like I’m 40!”
The former boss of the Chicago Park District and Democratic Party powerhouse for decades still knows which way the political wind blows in this town.
Why was Preckwinkle there?
“She’s a very old friend. It’s not political,” he assured me. “Really.” Everybody was invited, Kelly said. The governor. The mayor.
Preckwinkle seemed to have a lot of friends that night. Mayor Emanuel, on the other hand, not so many, judging from people who, unsolicited, walked up to volunteer their views, offering adjectives like “high-handed” and “arrogant.”
One word, however, was used more than any other.
It was “schools.”
Much has been reported about the anger of African-Americans, especially on the South and West Sides, about neighborhood school closings. But not about white anger.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/28460556-452/what-does-the-applause-for-preckwinkle-mean.html#.U7moCLG2Ono
Former U.S. Sen. Alan Dixon has died: Durbin
Sun, 07/06/2014 – 12:23pm
Sun-Times wires and Reema Amin
@Suntimes | Email
Alan Dixon, a fixture in Illinois politics having served in the Illinois legislature before going on to the U.S. Senate, has died, according to a statement issued Sunday by Sen. Dick Durbin’s office.
He was 86.
Dixon was known as “Al the Pal” — to both supporters and critics alike.
His opponents suggested the Belleville Democrat was little more than an old-school, glad-hander.
But Dixon made no apologies for his amiable style. As recently as last year he argued that it was what was sadly missing in Washington, D.C. today.
“We don’t have any bipartisanship now. We’ve just got everybody mad at one another. Not speaking,” Dixon said in an interview on WTAX radio.
“When I was there, you went out at night and had a beer with Danny Quayle or Bob Dole or somebody like that. I mean everybody was friendly. You worked out things.”
Dixon told of serving as a go-between in talks between Dole, the Senate’s Republican leader, and Dixon’s friend “Danny” Rostenkowski, then powerful Democratic head of the House Ways and Means Committee.
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/former-us-sen-alan-dixon-has-died-durbin/sun-07062014-1223pm
Joan Rivers storms out of CNN interview after telling anchor to ‘shut up’
Angered by anchor Fredricka Whitfield’s ‘negative’ line of questioning, the 81-year-old comedian walked off the set in the middle of the segment.
BY Kirthana Ramisetti
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, July 5, 2014, 3:19 PM
oan Rivers is one mad diva!
The comedian, who appeared on CNN to promote her new book “Diary of a Mad Diva,” walked off the set in the middle of the interview after objecting to anchor Fredricka Whitfield’s “negative” line of questioning.
The interview, which was taped earlier this week and aired Saturday, started out congenially, with Whitfield talking about Rivers’ multi-hyphenate career as an author, comic and host of E!’s “Fashion Police.”
When the anchor described the fashion critiques as “very mean in some ways,” the 81-year-old cut her off.
“It’s not mean, it’s not mean, it’s not mean,” she said. “I tell the truth.”
“I’m sure I say the same things that all your viewers say to their friends sitting next to them on the couch,” Rivers added. “We’re one of the few shows that says ‘that’s an ugly dress.’ … These ladies make $28 million a picture. You really think that Nicki Minaj cares I didn’t like her dress?”
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/joan-rivers-storms-cnn-interview-article-1.1856044
Clinton says she’s donated college speaking fees
Jul. 5, 2014 9:28 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says she’s donated to her family’s foundation the huge sums she has earned in speaking fees at colleges for the last year and half.
Some students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, have called for Clinton to return the $225,000 she is receiving for speaking at the university’s foundation dinner this fall.
In an interview this week with ABC News, Clinton responded to criticism about such fees by saying the money had gone to the Clinton Foundation for what she called its “life-changing and life-saving work.”
Clinton’s wealth has been under scrutiny since an interview last month in which she described her family as “dead broke” and in debt when husband Bill Clinton left the White House in January 2001. She later called that description “inartful.”
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/clinton-says-shes-donated-college-speaking-fees
https://twitter.com/MiamiLib/status/485462578928164865/photo/1
from Monie over at POU:
MonieTalks
Wanted to share this info about a new social networking app created by this young man in my community. Please spread the word, check him out and support if you can. It will be rolled out August 1
http://www.dailypress.com/business/dp-fea-network-app-20140705,0,6874333.story
The app over at the store
So, about those gay loggers for Jesus and Independence Day
By Brian Leland
A town’s July 4 celebration says a lot about a community, and this holiday in Bozeman promises to be relatively laid-back, with locals typically heading for nearby Livingston or Ennis to catch their parades, then back home for stirring music and fireworks at the fairgrounds.
Just five years ago, however, Bozeman woke up to controversy when the newly formed local Tea Party decided it wanted to march down Main Street on the Fourth to protest taxes and government spending. But rather than follow the normal process for a parade permit, the Tea Party stormed a Bozeman City Commission meeting and demanded a parade permit for July 4. The commissioners were so intimidated that they ignored both the usual application process and Montana’s Open Meeting Law. On the spot, the Tea Party was granted a parade permit.
The town then learned that the Tea Party’s plan to close down Main Street for its tax protest was going to cost city taxpayers $1,100 in staff and police overtime. The irony turned out to be too much to pass up, so I applied for a second parade permit for Independence Day. And because city regulations only allowed an organization to apply for a parade permit, I made the application (with tongue firmly in cheek) on behalf of a new, contrastingly “big tent” organization: The Green Coalition of Gay Loggers for Jesus.
Included in the application was a promise that the coalition would raise the $1,100 needed to reimburse city taxpayers for the cost of the parade, a thinly veiled attempt to shame the Tea Party into not relying on government spending to finance its tax protest. Ironically, the Tea Party, based 30 miles outside Bozeman, had no qualms about asking city residents to pay for its protest event.
The coalition began raising money through T-shirt sales and donations, with the stipulation that if the $1,100 goal could not be reached, the coalition would not march, and all the money collected would go to the Gallatin Valley Food Bank. Several days before the Fourth, the coalition announced that it had surpassed the $1,100 goal by $1,500, which was donated to the Food Bank.
Finally it was the Fourth, and The Green Coalition of Gay Loggers for Jesus—some 65 people strong—marched down Main Street in a fun, upbeat, fairly random parade. In contrast, the Tea Party parade that followed—estimated by organizers at close to a thousand people—featured a vintage aircraft flyover and lots of really angry signs. In the end, the coalition paid not only for its own parade but also for the majority of the street-closure costs of the Tea Party’s event as well.
http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/parade-politics/Content?oid=2059704
Students Joining Battle to Upend Laws on Voter ID
College Students Claim Voter ID Laws Discriminate Based on Age
By MATT APUZZO
JULY 5, 2014
WASHINGTON — Civil rights groups have spent a decade fighting requirements that voters show photo identification, arguing that this discriminates against African-Americans, Hispanics and the poor. This week in a North Carolina courtroom, another group will make its case that such laws are discriminatory: college students.
Joining a challenge to a state law alongside the N.A.A.C.P., the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice Department, lawyers for seven college students and three voter-registration advocates are making the novel constitutional argument that the law violates the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 from 21. The amendment also declares that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.”
There has never been a case like it, and if the students succeed, it will open another front in what has become a highly partisan battle over voting rights.
Over the past decade, Republicans have campaigned to tighten rules for voters, including requirements for photo ID, in the name of preventing fraud. Democrats have countered that the real purpose of those laws is to make voting more difficult for people who are likely to vote Democratic.
“There’s an unprecedented effort nationally by Republican-controlled legislatures to restrict the franchise in a way we haven’t seen in a long time,” said Marc Elias, the Democratic election lawyer bringing the age-discrimination claim. “Young voting in particular is a part of that effort.”
Proposals to change voting rules have frequently affected younger voters, particularly college students.
In Ohio, legislators proposed a law that would have cost colleges millions of dollars for helping out-of-state students vote locally. The measure died amid criticism from state schools. In Maine, the Republican attorney general — at the behest of the state party chairman — investigated 200 students for fraud. After finding no evidence, he sent the students a letter warning them to register their cars in Maine or to cancel their voter registrations.
In Texas, voters must show a photo ID. A state handgun license qualifies, but a state university identification card does not. North Carolina students have also complained of government efforts, distinct from the new voting law, to shut down voting sites at Appalachian State University and Winston-Salem State University.
Under the North Carolina law passed last year, the period for early voting was shortened and same-day registration was eliminated. Beginning in 2016, voters will need to show photo identification, and student ID cards, including those issued by state universities, will not be acceptable. In most instances, neither will an out-of-state driver’s license.
The law also eliminated a program in which teenagers filled out their voter-registration forms early and were automatically registered when they turned 18.
“For people like me, it makes what should be a simple process very difficult,” said Josue Berduo, 20, an economics major at North Carolina State University and a Democrat who is one of the plaintiffs.
Continue reading the main story
Mr. Berduo, who is from Asheville, N.C., has a state identification card. But many students do not, he said, and no matter how much attention the law gets, some students will be unaware of the changes and will arrive at polling places carrying out-of-state licenses or student identification cards.
Jeff Tarte, a Republican state senator who supported the voter-ID law, said lawmakers did not intend to keep younger voters away from the polls. He said they were trying to prevent students from submitting absentee ballots in their home states and also voting in North Carolina. “Not that they would necessarily,” he said, “but why even offer that possibility to occur?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/us/college-students-claim-voter-id-laws-discriminate-based-on-age.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
https://twitter.com/Our4thEstate/status/485829559573442560/photo/1
Good Morning Everyone at 3CHICS!
Beyond the pale!
The EVIL EVIL EVIL nerve of this horrible demented driver to pull such a debasing display is beyond belief!!! This driver is the lowest of the low!
They are obsessed with the President. It’s pitiful.
Good morning, everyone!
Good Afternoon Everyone. Prayers to Ms. Caesar and her family.