More Sarah…
Sarah Vaughan ft The Bob James Trio – The Shadow Of Your Smile
Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown – Lullaby of Birdland
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Black Girls Rock!
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Potus Takes Oath of Office
Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China
My Brothers Keeper
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AFRO PUFFS
Most Adorable Shoe Stealer
Six Little Babies
Fatherhood
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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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Democrats aren’t done thanking Paul Ryan
07/10/14 11:34 AM—Updated 07/10/14 11:41 AM
By Steve Benen
A few months ago, following terrific ACA enrollment numbers, the New York Times reported that Democrats were starting to walk with a spring in their step. “Obamacare” was finally succeeding, unemployment was dropping, and for a little icing on the cake, House Republicans were needlessly embracing a right-wing budget plan.
“Thank you, thank you Congressman Paul Ryan,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said.
Months later, Democrats aren’t done thanking Ryan – which is to say, they’re not done using Ryan’s far-right blueprint as a cudgel against congressional Republicans who voted for it.
In Arkansas, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) is putting Rep. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) support for the Ryan budget to good use, and polls suggest Pryor may have an edge in his re-election bid. In Montana, appointed Sen. John Walsh (D) has an uphill fight ahead of him, so he’s using Rep. Steve Daines’ (R-Mont.) vote for the Ryan plan against him.
In Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) is using Rep. Bill Cassidy’s (R) support for the Ryan budget as a key part of her campaign, and in Kentucky, Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) launched her first critical ad of the cycle, hitting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) for having backed the Ryan budget, including its anti-Medicare provisions.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/democrats-arent-done-thanking-paul-ryan
Harry Reid’s effort to affix the blame for dysfunction
By E.J. Dionne Jr. July 9 at 9:22 PM
Some elections are contests between voters who are happy and voters who are not. This fall’s elections are of a different sort: Since almost all the voters are unhappy with politics, the battle will be over which party gets the blame for dysfunction, inaction and disillusionment.
No one understands this better than Harry Reid. The Senate majority leader gets plenty frustrated when people claim that both parties are equally responsible for the mess in Congress. The evidence, he insists, is that the Republicans are gumming things up for their own political purposes.
“It irritates me so much when people say, ‘Why don’t they just work together?’ ” Reid says. What this overlooks, he argues, is that “the Republicans made a decision . . . to oppose everything Obama wants.” It’s in the GOP’s interest to keep things from happening because it plays into a simple narrative that Reid described this way: “Democrats control the Senate. We have a Democrat in the White House. Why can’t you get things done?”
The result: “They won’t let us vote on things that the vast majority of the American people want a vote on.”
“It’s so bad around here,” Reid adds, “that they filibuster their own bills.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-jr-harry-reid-tries-to-shift-the-senate-blame/2014/07/09/54fdb862-07a5-11e4-bbf1-cc51275e7f8f_story.html?hpid=z3
Oiling The Tumbrels
By Charles P. Pierce on July 9, 2014
I’m not cockeyed optimist to believe that we have achieved the heads-on-a-plate retribution that we should have been enjoying since 2008, but a federal judge has put the happy into the late afternoon.
One county in Pennsylvania.
$16 million.
Maybe more.
And, if there’s any molecule of justice left in the universe, there will be other counties and more millions of dollars.
Admittedly, a long shot, I know.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/One_Small_Victory
Obamacare Haters, Your Case Just Got Weaker New report suggests number of uninsured declined, just as expected
By Jonathan Cohn @citizencohn
Back in the spring, some conservatives insisted that Obamacare enrollment statistics were some kind of sham. Sure, people were finally signing up for the program. But early reports suggested that most of these people had insurance already. The law’s critics figured that meant the Affordable Care Act wasn’t really helping substantially more Americans to get coverage, as it is supposed to do.
A new report suggests that the critics were wrong about that.
It’s a survey from the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that focuses on health care programs in the U.S. and abroad. The results provide a detailed look at the Affordable Care Act’s impact, including the question of whether more people now have insurance—and, if so, how many. The answer is consistent with previous reports. And it is encouraging.
According to the survey, the proportion of working-aged adults without insurance dropped from 20 percent in the late summer of 2013 to 15 percent in the late spring of 2014, a period that corresponds roughly to the beginning and end of open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces. To put that in more concrete terms, there are still a lot of Americans walking around without health insurance today. But there are about 9.5 million fewer of them than there were last fall, almost certainly because so many people have enrolled in the newly expanded Medicaid program or purchased subsidized insurance through the Obamacare marketplaces.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118629/obamacare-reduced-uninsured-95-million-close-cbo-target
SHAHEEN OPENS COMFORTABLE LEAD OVER SCOTT BROWN: A new WMUR Granite State poll finds that Senator Jeanne Shaheen now leads challenger Scott Brown and his pickup truck by 12 points, 50-38. Shaheen’s job approval is 57 percent, while Brown’s favorability ratings are under water at 31-40. The average of polls finds Shaheen leading by nearly nine points.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/campaignmonitor/12700901-95/polls-shows-shaheen-with-comfortable-edge-over-all-republican-challengers
Morning Plum: Rick Perry, the new face of the GOP opposition?
By Greg Sargent July 10 at 9:22 AM
As the political war over minors crossing the border continues to escalate, Texas Governor Rick Perry met with President Obama yesterday and demanded that he beef up border patrols and seek changes to federal law that would expedite the removal of arriving minors. For his part, Obama prodded Perry to rally Congressional Republicans to pass the $3.7 billion in funding to expedite removals and provide care the president has asked for.
In a good piece, Amie Parnes of the Hill observes that Perry “has seized the spotlight in recent days to become the national face of opposition to President Obama’s immigration policies.” But what does this mean, exactly? Parnes helpfully supplies these very revealing quotes from Perry allies:
“This gives Gov. Perry an opportunity to take very legitimate and timely shots at the White House and the president’s failed leadership and philosophy to tout his expertise in border security and get to the heart of the immigration issue,” said Raymond Sullivan, a former adviser to Perry.
“I think it positions himself as someone who is fighting the president,” added Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist based in Austin, Texas. “That’s what Republicans want, and more importantly, what Republican voters want.”
“He really had the president on defense,” Mackowiak continued. “I think he outflanked him strategically.”
There may be something to the idea that Obama is on defense, in the sense that the press is far more focused on the question of why the President won’t visit the border than it is on why Republicans won’t fund the expedited removals they themselves say they want. At the same time, though, a larger truth is captured by the notion that the national face of the GOP opposition on immigration is scoring because he’s getting in “timely shots” on Obama, which is “what Republican voters want.”
The question is whether that’s a sustainable posture. How do Republicans continue decrying the crisis while denying the funding to address it, without revealing that they are wholly uninterested in participating in basic problem solving? Jackie Calmes and Ashley Parker offer a pitch-perfect explanation of why this creates a conundrum for Republicans:
Congressional Republicans are left with a dilemma. Their goals are to increase the federal presence on the border and address what they agree is a humanitarian crisis, but they do not want to accomplish them by giving Mr. Obama $3.7 billion that would help get him out of a situation that they believe is of his own making.
Well, there you have it. Republicans don’t want to provide the funding for the expedited removals they say they want because it would “help” Obama “get out” of a political “situation,” never mind whether it would help solve the problem.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/10/morning-plum-rick-perry-the-new-face-of-the-gop-opposition/
John McCain and the case of mistaken identity
07/09/14 04:45 PM
By Steve Benen
If you’ve ever watched a congressional hearing featuring Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in a bad mood, you know the Arizona Republican can get pretty quarrelsome with witnesses who annoy him in some way.
Take today, for example.
During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the ongoing border crisis, McCain was outraged by a recent memo saying visitors to detention facilities had to check cell phones with cameras. The senator, outraged, demanded that Thomas Winkowski, a Deputy Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, explain himself (thanks to my colleague Nazanin Rafsanjani for the heads-up).
McCAIN: Mr. Winkowski, I’ve been representing the state of Arizona for many years and I’ve never seen anything like your instructions to signed by your name, ‘interim protocol for visitations and tours to CBP detention facilities.’ Are you telling me, when I visit a detention facility that I can’t bring a cellphone with me? Are you saying that? A United States Senator visiting a facility. These are the instructions that you have signed. Is that what you’re saying?
WINKOWSKI: That the visitors can’t bring cell…?
McCAIN: Visiting congressional deleg, uh, member of Congress.
WINKOWSKI: I don’t recall saying that. What I recall….
McCAIN: Let me provide you with a copy. It says see distribution. R. Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner interim, protocol for visitations and tours to CBP detention facilities. You didn’t see your own memo?
You might have noticed the problem. R. Gil Kerlikowske wrote the memo. McCain was yelling at Thomas Winkowski.
For the record, R. Gil Kerlikowske and Thomas Winkowski are not the same person. Their names may rhyme, but I’m afraid that doesn’t much matter. Senators in high dudgeon should probably get these details right before upbraiding a witness publicly.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/john-mccain-and-the-case-mistaken-identity
Alleged Texas Shooter Choked, Threatened Mom Week Ago
http://abc13.com/news/alleged-texas-shooter-ron-haskell-choked-threatened-mom-week-ago/175709/
A week before Ron Haskell allegedly killed four children and two adults in a Texas rampage he taped his mother to a chair, choked her and threatened to kill her for speaking to his ex-wife, according to police records obtained by ABC News.
The wife had also filed domestic abuse complaint against her husband in 2008 after he dragged her by the hair and repeatedly punched her in the head and five years later sought a restraining order against him, court documents state.
Haskell, 33, was charged with capital murder today for allegedly shooting seven people in Spring, Texas. Six died and one is in the hospital with a head wound. He shot his victims after kicking open their door, tying them up face down on the floor and demanding to know where his wife was, according to testimony in a preliminary hearing today. He then shot them execution style.
Haskell, who is divorced from Melanie Kaye Haskell, has left a trail of complaints about his violence and the most recent one was filed by his own mother.
Haskell’s mother, Karla Jeanne Haskell, told police in San Marcos Calif., on July 3 that she wanted a restraining order against her son after a ferocious argument that began when she told him that she was in contact with his ex-wife, court documents state.
She said that he forced her into the garage and tied her wrists with duct tape before taping her to a computer chair.
“He yelled at me and twice placed his hands around my neck trying to choke me and caused me to pass out,” Karla Haskell, 61, said, according to the court documents. “He told me he was going to kill me, my family and any officer who stops him. He hid my telephones. I was taped up for four hours.”
Remember Christopher Dorner; how the cops FRIED him alive on national TV?
Nope, can’t treat Haskell like a murderer or potential murderer. Sorry, but mom, I would have done everything to have gotten that MOFO locked up
It would have been kill or be killed. Yeah, I said it.
Meet The First Poor Person Allowed To Testify At Any Of Paul Ryan’s Poverty Hearings
By Bryce Covert July 9, 2014 at 10:21 am Updated: July 9, 2014 at 11:11 am
On Wednesday morning at 10 a.m., Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) will hold a fifth hearing on poverty and the social safety net. For the first time, a person actually living in poverty will be allowed to testify.
Tianna Gaines-Turner’s family
Tianna Gaines-Turner, a childcare provider who makes $10.80 an hour, a mother of three, and a participant in the advocacy and story-telling Witnesses to Hunger program, will testify before the House Budget Committee about her experiences. She submitted written testimony for a hearing last year, even there was no indication on the hearing’s website and it was included on page 64 of the record. But she wanted to speak in person: the Witness program tried and failed twice to have its members testify at these hearings.
“It was a long time coming, but I’m glad it’s finally here,” Gaines-Turner told ThinkProgress about her testimony on Wednesday. “I’m finally getting the opportunity to speak up for so many Americans that are going through life struggles that obviously the committee doesn’t know anything about. I would hope that if they knew, they wouldn’t keep constantly trying to cut the programs in the safety net.”
Gaines-Turner certainly knows what it means to struggle. She and her husband have weathered two bouts of homelessness together and two of her children suffer from epilepsy while all three suffer from asthma, afflictions that mean they all have to take medication daily. “I know what it’s like to be homeless and to couch surf, to miss meals so my children can have a nutritional meal,” she said. “I know what it’s like to wake up every day wondering where the next meal will come from or how to pay the bills today or will someone come today and cut off the water. I’ve been through all of that.”
Her husband works at a food market and makes $8.50 an hour on top of her wages. They’ve both worked jobs without paid sick days, and “if one of the children got sick me and my husband had to decide who stays home with the kid,” she said. “We were grateful to take off the time, but it’s three or four days without pay.”
“I am the best experienced witness that they’ll ever maybe get close to to know what it’s like to walk in my shoes and those of so many other people in the United States,” she said.
Her commitment to testifying and excitement about the opportunity were evidenced by the fact that as of Monday she was struggling with pain from a kidney infection. But she said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world… I’ll suck it up and go and be in pain.”
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/07/09/3458147/ryan-poverty-hearing-poor-person/
The GOP’s problem: Governing requires working with Obama
By Paul Waldman July 9
The government is facing two similar crises right now that demand short-term fixes even as we contemplate how to solve them in the long term: transportation infrastructure and immigration. In both cases, the outcome is going to be determined by just how far Republicans, particularly in the House, are willing to go to watch Barack Obama suffer.
When congressional Republicans decided literally on the day Barack Obama was inaugurated to obstruct and oppose everything he wanted to do, it was a decision that could be justified both politically and substantively. Making the President’s tenure as difficult as possible would be good for them, because they were unlikely to get too much blame so long as he looked like he was failing to get things done, and most of what he wanted to do they disagreed with anyway. But they may not have realized at the time how a kind of absolutist fetish would overtake their party, making even the most basic kinds of legislating all but impossible. In short order it came to the point where even agreeing on a budget or raising the debt ceiling so the United States of America doesn’t go into default was seen as an act of betrayal.
But what do you do when there’s an acute problem that you claim to want to solve — and may even sincerely want to solve — but solving it means coming to an agreement with the President? That’s what Republicans are facing right now on these issues, and they have a rather profound choice to make.
The first issues is the highway trust fund, which is about to run out of money, putting as many as 700,000 jobs at risk as transportation projects around the country grind to a halt. This provides a similar, if not quite identical, problem for the White House and opportunity for Republicans. A long-term solution for the trust fund, like increasing gas taxes, could take some time to negotiate. But in the short term, the solution is pretty simple: the fund needs money. In the past, Congress has made up shortfalls by just appropriating it from general revenues. No sane person thinks it’s okay to just let roads and bridges fall into disrepair. So the responsible thing would be to say, let’s just keep the fund afloat, then start working on its future.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/09/the-gops-problem-governing-requires-working-with-obama/
Thu Jul 10, 2014 at 12:02 PM PDT
The court cases Republicans are hitching their anti-Obamacare dreams to
by Joan McCarter
In the coming days, two federal courts will rule on the most laughable of challenges to Obamacare. Or they would be laughable, if the Supreme Court majority hadn’t already proven that it’s perfectly willing to make bullshit decisions about the law. This one, though, is different because what’s at stake is the insurance 4.7 million people obtained this year through the federal exchange.
The theory in these suits is purely resting on semantics, that the language of the law does not allow for health insurance subsidies to go to people who buy their insurance on the federal exchange. They contend that the drafters of the law specifically said that the subsidies were only available “through an exchange established by the state,” and by “state” they meant one of the 50 states. It’s an interesting interpretation, since it was news to the drafters:
It was so secret that it was never mentioned in any of the voluminous debates or hearings on the act. Indeed, not even the heads of the House and Senate committees in charge of the legislation knew of it, as they have stated in briefs filed in the courts. It was, rather, hidden deep in the statute for someone some day to find and use to bring down the law and the protections it offers to uninsured Americans.
The problem is, we’ve seen how little the Supreme Court cares about congressional intent in Hobby Lobby. The drafters of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act filed a brief explaining that the law did not apply to for-profit corporations, and look how seriously the Supremes took that. But before these cases come to the SCOTUS, they have to make it through the appeals level, and there we’re looking at kind of a mixed bag.
The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who heard Halbig v. Burwell seemed split along party lines in the oral arguments, with one judge Judge Thomas Griffith, a George W. Bush appointee, leaning toward the challengers. If this panel decides for the challengers, the administration will undoubtedly ask for a ruling from the entire DC Court, which (thanks to filibuster reform) will surely reverse it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/10/1313058/-The-court-cases-Republicans-are-hitching-their-anti-Obamacare-dreams-nbsp-to
By Greg Sargent July 10 at 12:48 PM
GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, a key player in the House on immigration, just met with the House GOP leadership to make one final plea that Republicans act on immigration reform in the face of the current crisis. He was told that it is dead for the year.
In an interview with me just now, Diaz-Balart confirmed the meeting, and said he is “very disappointed” in his party’s decision not to move forward. Crucially, he cast the GOP leadership’s refusal to move forward as the key obstacle to reform. He said he had legislation ready to go, and that his conversations convinced him that a solid number of Republicans and Democrats would have supported it.
Diaz-Balart also broke with his party on immigration in two key ways. He said that the current crisis at the border is an argument for reform, not against it. And he dismissed the argument made by many Republicans — that the proper response to the current crisis is to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Obama’s program to defer the deportation of the DREAMers.
“I’m seriously disappointed,” Diaz-Balart told me. “We have a historic opportunity to fix a system everyone knows is broken. We’re squandering that opportunity. The bottom line is, we have a bill that is ready to go. We had bipartisan support. And yet I’ve been told we’re not going to move forward this year.”
The bill Diaz-Balart is talking about has not been released publicly, but reporting by this blog and others indicates that it would probably offer some sort of legal status to the 11 million, packaged with concurrent border security triggers that would have to be met for the process to continue moving forward — the basic outlines of the solution that everyone knows would form the basis for compromise on this issue, if Republican leaders would allow it to move forward.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/10/diaz-balart-republicans-are-wrong-about-current-border-crisis/
Plum Line
Why the border crisis is the exact opposite of Katrina
By Paul Waldman July 10 at 3:23 PM
If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s taking a genuine policy crisis and turning into an inane discussion about “optics,” which is what’s happening now with regard to the situation at the southern border. Both Republicans and the media have become obsessed with the question of whether President Obama should go to the border for a photo opportunity, with the accompanying and bizarre assertion that this is “Obama’s Katrina.”
In fact, it’s just the opposite. In that case, it was Bush’s failure of competence and his inability to go beyond photo ops that resulted in so much destruction. In this case, the president’s critics are actually demanding a photo op, while refusing to take any immediate practical steps to address the problem.
Here’s a front page story from today’s Post, which in the paper is headlined, “Obama defends itinerary in Texas.” NBC News asks: “Has Obama Already Failed On Immigration Crisis?” This, not because of what’s actually happening, but because of the “optics” of his failure to put optics first. Here’s the National Review’s Rich Lowry: “The first rule in a crisis for any executive is put on your windbreaker and your boots and get out on the ground. President George W. Bush didn’t do it soon enough after Hurricane Katrina and, politically, could never make up for it, no matter how many times he visited New Orleans subsequently.” Right, the president’s first job is to get in front of the cameras.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/10/why-the-border-crisis-is-the-exact-opposite-of-katrina/
little boy calls 911 because he needs help with math homework
http://youtu.be/G0iXEIpgzNk
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https://twitter.com/samsteinhp/status/487319994204966912/photo/1
Damn! Lucy folks. What I would give for some good old-fashioned BBQ
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/487348655264129024/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NoShock/status/487356989614215168/photo/1
Daniel Newhauser @dnewhauser
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Boehner lawsuit against Obama will focus on ACA employer mandate delay. Rules Cmte to file language today
4:31 PM – 10 Jul 2014
The shooter in Houston had a protection order filed against him. Why didn’t anyone take away his damn guns? IF only the abuser’s guns were taken away, these people would be living. What is wrong with America?
Fed on FOX.
Is he getting the DEATH PENALTY?
We shall see. He has been charged with capital murder.
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/487301393049350144/photo/1
PBO to GOP & TEA PARTY:
</a
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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PBO: “The statement I’m making is not partisan. It is a statement of fact. Republicans have blocked every legislation that moves us forward”
1:08 PM – 10 Jul 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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PBO: I don’t believe in pulling up the ladder once I’ve made it. I believe in stretching it down for others
Difference between Dems & GOP
1:13 PM – 10 Jul 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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President Obama says the best thing about the GOP is that they haven’t shut down the government yet. “But it’s only July” he says. #ObamaATX
1:14 PM – 10 Jul 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Hecklers try to heckle President Obama.
Pres. Obama: “Sit down, guys. I don’t have time for this. I’ll talk to you later”
BURN!!!
https://twitter.com/MattOrtega/status/487307303839100929/photo/1
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/487300401335926785/photo/1
LOL Yep
Washington man first to buy legal weed in Spokane is fired after spotted on news
Mike Boyer, 30, was canned Tuesday after waiting 20 hours to buy pot and immediately going home to smoke. He was called up for urine analysis after he was spotted on TV buying the pot. Boyer told The News he ‘regrets nothing.’
BY Sasha Goldstein /
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS /
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/wash-man-buy-legal-weed-spokane-fired-spotted-news-article-1.1861214#ixzz375v3z8WY
North Carolina voter law hurts African Americans: Justice Department
By Colleen Jenkins
WINSTON-SALEM N.C.
Thu Jul 10, 2014 1:04pm EDT
(Reuters) – North Carolina’s decision to reduce early voting days and eliminate same-day registration will cause irreparable harm to African Americans if not halted ahead of the midterm elections in November, a Justice Department lawyer argued on Thursday.
The U.S. judge hearing final arguments in Winston-Salem has not indicated when he will rule on a preliminary injunction sought by the federal government and civil rights groups challenging the sweeping voter law changes passed by the state’s Republican-led legislature last year.
…The law shortened the early voting period by seven days, ended same-day registration, banned provisional ballots cast outside the correct precinct from being counted and ended a program allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote.
“African Americans came to rely on these mechanisms of voting and the legislature knew that,” Justice Department lawyer Bert Russ said.
Lawmakers “took a sledgehammer to the early voting period when no one was asking for these changes,” he added.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/10/us-usa-north-carolina-election-idUSKBN0FF20H20140710
https://twitter.com/WitherspoonC/status/487283751471550464
Joy Behar Slams Elisabeth Hasselbeck For Rosie O’Donnell Comments Amidst The View Drama
The View just keeps on giving! Joy Behar joined in on the shenanigans on Wednesday, July 9, slamming her former View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck after the Fox News contributor took shots at Rosie O’Donnell earlier in the day.
Hasselbeck, 37, interrupted her vacation this week to call in to Fox & Friends to speak out against O’Donnell, 52, after rumors swirled that the comedian may be returning to The View next season.
The television personality said the news of O’Donnell’s possible return ruined her vacation, and added, “Here in comes to The View the very woman who spit in the face of our military, spit in the face of her own network, and really in the face of a person who stood by her and had civilized debates for the time that she was there, coming back with a bunch of control ready to regain a seat at the View table.”
Behar, 71, took issue with Hasselbeck’s statement, which she called “a hate-filled remark” when she stopped by CNN to make her voice heard with Don Lemon.
“I thought that was really kind of below the belt—to say that she spits in the face of the military,” she told the CNN host. “I’d like Elisabeth to explain herself, really. What does she mean by that?”
Read more: http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/joy-behar-slams-elisabeth-hasselbeck-for-rosie-odonnell-view-comments-2014107#ixzz375rFFda3
Emmy Awards Nominations 2014: The 5 Biggest Snubs Including Orphan Black, Walking Dead, Good Wife
EntertainmentJul. 10, 2014 AT 11:10AM By Esther Lee.
Dissed list, pissed list? Game of Thrones, True Detective, and Breaking Bad racked up the accolades at the 2014 Primetime Emmy Award nominations on Thursday, July 10, but many acclaimed, celebrated shows and stars were omitted by the Television Academy. Us Weekly rounds up the five biggest snubs here.
1. Tatiana Maslany and Orphan Black
Twice not as nice! Fans were fuming that the popular BBC drama was snubbed for the second year in a row. Even more infuriating, though, was the omission of show lead Tatiana Maslany, who plays not one, but five different characters in the series.
Read more: http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/emmy-awards-nominations-2014-biggest-snubs-orphan-black-good-wife-2014107#ixzz375pJ9r1z
Thursday, July 10, 2014
President Obama plays tortoise to the media’s hare. And we know who wins that one!
I’ve often thought that the best metaphor for the Obama presidency is the fable about the tortoise and the hare. Of course – in the role of the hare is our linkbait-obsessed media that runs from one form of hysteria to another in a constant quest for “Obama’s Katrina,” only to tire almost immediately before the story’s conclusion. The role of the tortoise is played by our President, who is always focused on the long game (“slow and steady wins the race”). As FLOTUS once said:
Here’s the thing about my husband: even in the toughest moments, when it seems like all is lost, Barack Obama never loses sight of the end goal. He never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise, even if it comes from some of his best supporters. He just keeps moving forward.
And in those moments when we’re all sweating it, when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass or the negotiation will fall through, Barack always reminds me that we’re playing a long game here. He reminds me that change is slow — it doesn’t happen overnight.
As we approach the finish line, we can begin to see who is going to reach the tape first. Here are some recent “long game” headlines:
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2014/07/president-obama-plays-tortoise-to.html
Prostitute charged with manslaughter of Google executive
Jul 9th 2014 5:07PM
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A Silicon Valley success story turned sordid this week with the arrest of an upscale prostitute who allegedly left a Google executive dying on his yacht after shooting him up with a deadly hit of heroin.
Forrest Hayes, 51, was found dead by the captain of his 50-foot yacht Escape last November. At the time, a simple obituary described him as a beloved husband and father of five who enjoyed spending time with his family and on his boat.
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/07/09/calif-police-say-prostitute-gave-fatal-heroin-overdose-to-custo/20927945/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl13%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D499389
uh uh uh
pitiful
They certainly were a beautiful, young family.
Well, it’s Texas and the killer will be executed eventually. Doesn’t bring back the dead, though. Just a really sad story.
So incredibly sad, Liza. Those poor little children and their parents. My heart hurts for them.
By LAUREN FRENCH | 7/10/14 12:05 PM EDT
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Americans should be afraid of the Supreme Court after it ruled that some employers can elect not to offer birth control as part of company health care coverage if they have religious objections.
“We should be afraid about this court … five men can decide if a woman can use a diaphragm,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday during her weekly news conference at the Capitol.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/nancy-pelosi-americans-fear-supreme-court-108761.html#ixzz375cHUkct
I get so angry when I read pieces like this. Instead of thinking ‘ there but for the Grace of God’, I bet she always looked down on ‘ THOSE PEOPLE’. She probably never knew a poor person in her life. Believed that Paul Ryan bullshyt of poor folks having ‘ charater’ flaws.
They make me sick…..just ‘discovering’ poverty.
…………………………………
This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps
July 09, 2014 12:15 am • Darlena Cunha Special To The Washington Post
HARTFORD, Conn. — Sara Bareillis played softly through the surround-sound speakers of my husband’s 2003 Mercedes Kompressor as I sat idling at a light. I’d never been to this church before, but I could see it from where I was, across from an old park, abandoned in the chilly September air. The clouds hung low as I pulled the sleek, pewter machine into the lot. But I wasn’t going to pray or attend services. I was picking up food stamps.
Even then, I couldn’t quite believe it. This wasn’t supposed to happen to people like me.
I grew up in a white, affluent suburb, where failure seemed harder than success. In college, I studied biology and journalism. I worked for good money at a local hospital, which afforded me the opportunity to network at journalism conferences. That’s how I landed my first news job as an associate producer in Hartford, Conn. I climbed the ladder quickly, free to work any hours in any location for any pay. I moved from market to market, always achieving a better title, a better salary. Succeeding.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/this-is-what-happened-when-i-drove-my-mercedes-to/article_9b8c5639-b253-5949-93ff-c4ab830666b7.html
Hey lady, I got your Mercedes & food stamps, right here:
Cindy & Meghan come get MCGRAMPY.
Race Is On to Profit From Rise of Urgent Care
By JULIE CRESWELL
JULY 9, 2014
NORWALK, Conn. — Start in Room 4, just beyond the reception area: A man is having blood drained from a bruised finger. Over in Room 1, a woman is being treated for eye trouble. Next door, in Room 2, a boy is having his throat swabbed.
For more than eight hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, an assortment of ailments is on display at the tidy medical clinic on Main Avenue here. But all of the patients have one thing in common: No one is being treated at a traditional doctor’s office or emergency room.
Instead, they have turned to one of the fastest-growing segments of American health care: urgent care, a common category of walk-in clinics with uncommon interest from Wall Street. Once derided as “Doc in a Box” medicine, urgent care has mushroomed into an estimated $14.5 billion business, as investors try to profit from the shifting landscape in health care.
The office here is part of PhysicianOne Urgent Care. Bankrolled by two private investment companies, PhysicianOne has grown into an eight-clinic operation, the largest of its kind in Connecticut, with plans for even greater expansion.
But what is happening here is also playing out across the nation, as private equity investment firms, sensing opportunity, invest billions in urgent care and related businesses. Since 2008, these investors have sunk $2.3 billion into urgent care clinics. Commercial insurance companies, regional health systems and local hospitals are also looking to buy urgent care practices or form business relationships with them.
The business model is simple: Treat many patients as quickly as possible. Urgent care is a low-margin, high-volume proposition. At PhysicianOne here, most people are in and out in about 30 minutes. The national average charge runs about $155 per patient visit. Do 30 or 35 exams a day, and the money starts to add up.
Urgent care clinics also have a crucial business advantage over traditional hospital emergency rooms in that they can cherry-pick patients. Most of these centers do not accept Medicaid and turn away the uninsured unless they pay upfront. Hospital E.R.s, by contrast, are legally obligated to treat everyone.
But as urgent care centers expand their reach, regulators in some states are scrutinizing their activities. While some states require the clinics to be licensed, most do not. It is unclear whether such urgent care centers offer better or worse care than other providers. But some family physicians — who stand to lose business to the newcomers — wonder if patients are trading quality for convenience.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/business/race-is-on-to-profit-from-rise-of-urgent-care.html?ref=business&_r=0
Woman, 98, Evicted From San Francisco Apartment After 50 Years
By Mario Sevilla
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Don’t be fooled by the frail frame of the 98-year-old woman that answers the door of a San Francisco apartment.
The elderly woman is putting up a brawny fight against the landlord that is trying to kick her out of her home.
“I didn’t sit down and cry, I just refused to believe it,” said Mary Phillips.
“They’re going to have to take me out of here feet first.”
Phillips has lived at her Dolores Street apartment for 50 years, but now her landlord, Urban Green Investments, is evicting her along with several other tenants through the Ellis Act.
The 1986 Ellis Act is a state law that gives landlords the unconditional right to evict tenants to get out of the rental business.
Urban Green Investments has purchased a number of buildings in San Francisco, has evicted its residents through the Ellis Act, and is reselling the buildings for profit.
Many of those being evicted are low income families and seniors.
http://news.kron4.com/news/woman-98-evicted-from-san-francisco-apartment-after-50-years/
Shamelful, CRIMINAL really…
Rikyrah, please join us on the news reporter Hank thread. He deserves a righteous BEATDOWN
For my money, I’ve learned more about the ACA from Balloon Juice FPer, Richard Mayhew than anywhere else.
He has a good post up today about how Medicaid is changing the game of coverage, and just reading his post, you realize the grasp of what those Americans whose evil ass Governors won’t expand Medicaid are doing.
And, like others say, it can not be said enough:
Obamacare is the biggest expansion of the American Social Safety net EVER.
And, in its design, it did NOT exclude huge swaths of the American Populace – it took the Roberts Court to do that.
…………………
Deep penetration is oh so good
Posted by Richard Mayhew at 8:21 am Jul 102014
Now get your minds out of the gutter… I’m talking about Medicaid expansion market penetration.
Traditional/Legacy Medicaid had an adult penetration rate of around sixty five percent. Two out of three adults who were eligible for Medicaid signed up for it. This varied by state as some states aggressively pushed to sign people up, and others exhibited benign indifference at best to making sure their working poor adult population had decent health coverage. Kids tended to be in much shape as the combination of CHIP and the basic fact that telling a poor kid to shut up and die quietly is a good way to lose general elections even if it is a winner in a Republican primary.
Medicaid expansion for the states that have taken it is primarily aimed at non-disabled adults who are not destitute but are working poor.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/07/10/deep-penetration-is-oh-so-good/
The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Abolishing Anti-Discrimination Laws
By: Rmusemore from Rmuse
Thursday, July, 10th, 2014, 11:22 am
Although America was founded on the brilliant, but false, premise that all citizens are equal, it has taken the course of the nation’s history, a Civil War, and several hard-fought civil rights battles for most Americans to realize a semblance of equality. Obviously, most Americans either could not comprehend, or adamantly opposed, the idea that social equality means every citizen has the same status and equal rights under the law, or that true equality requires the absence of legally enforced boundaries and government enforced discrimination; precisely what the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees all Americans.
One would think most Americans support the 14th Amendment’s prohibition of unequal treatment under the law unflinchingly. Unfortunately, the religious right is intent on abolishing the concept of equality and rejects the idea that no American, or government entity, has the right to abridge any other Americans’ right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now, they are using the Hobby Lobby decision to attempt to establish Christianity’s prohibition against gays as a government policy as a jumping off point in the rush to government by theocracy.
According to a noted constitutional lawyer, Edward Tabash, the High Court’s conservatives failed to reconcile the two religious clauses in the First Amendment and decided that by merely professing a religious objection, someone can establish their religion as law and over other Americans by constitutional fiat. Tabash explained the Establishment Clause as ensuring that believers and non-believers were equal before the law and that no branch of government can favor one religion over another religion, or no religion, and the free exercise clause ensured that because of someone’s religious views they can not suffer lesser rights. By butchering the Free Exercise clause, the Court gave Christians special constitutional rights over the law and other Americans that conflicted with the Establishment Clause. It is that new interpretation of the Establishment Clause that religious leaders are beginning to use to force the government to establish the Christian right’s objections against anti-discrimination laws such as the 14th Amendment’s as government policy. The conservative Court effectively gave fundamentalist Christians the right to establish their religion on the government and the people, and it is why an expanded consortium of faith leaders are demanding that President Obama use taxpayer funds to legally discriminate against gays in direct conflict with the 14th Amendment.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/10/supreme-courts-conservatives-abolishing-anti-discrimination-laws.html
GOP Escalates Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric With Attacks on DREAMers and Child Refugees
America’s Voice | Released on 07/09/2014 at 1:08pm
.
Republican Leaders Enabled and Emboldened Nativist Wing, to Detriment of National Party
When House Republican leadership decided to block broad immigration reform, they capitulated to the Rep. Steve King (R-IA) caucus. Now that same segment of the GOP is emboldened, spinning themselves into a froth over the idea that we might actually give refugee children from Central America a bed, a meal, and a hearing before we deport them (sarcasm implied).
The President’s emergency spending request to address this issue is all the excuse restrictionists needed to unleash the crazy.
Among the recent ugly comments by high-profile Republicans and conservatives:
■Cliven Bundy compared the children fleeing violence to the recent standoff at his ranch, saying that federal agents are “pointing their guns at we the people” and not at the “enemy,” who he said is the “encroacher that’s illegally coming in here” (AKA the children).
■From Sarah Palin, in her call to impeach Obama yesterday: “Enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president. His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that makes the battered wife say, ‘no mas.’”
■In a tweet, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) called Obama an “imperial” president and faulted DACA for letting “illegal aliens overrun” the country: “@BarackObama creates DACA by fiat & illegal aliens overrun USA. AZ will continue to fight this imperial POTUS & demand secure borders.”
■Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) accused the Obama administration of letting the children on the border in so that they can vote Democrat: “In the end they have said they want to turn Texas blue and they want to turn America blue. If you bring in hundreds of thousands or millions of people and give them the ability to vote and tell them if you want to keep getting the benefits you have to go vote…that drives people to vote and it would ensure republicans will never get elected again.” He also suggested that the President send troops to Mexico and that the child migrants may include radical Islamist terrorists.
■Laura Ingraham on Bill O’ Reilly’s show this week: “OK, first thing you do is start deporting people — not by the hundreds, not by the dozens. By the thousands. And that means entire families. Not just a father, a mother. But we keep families unified by deporting all people who are are here illegally, that’s number one…Number two, we have to stop visas and stop foreign aid to countries who will not repatriate the citizens of those countries that left and came to our country illegally…Number three, I think there has to be an end to this thing called birthright citizenship. Some people call it anchor babies.”
■The Madison Project, a Tea Party group supported by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): “We are now languishing from the flood of over 100,000 illegal immigrants teaming over our southern border, adding to the millions of illegals already here. At stake is nothing less than the preservation of our civil society, sovereignty, and solvency as a nation and as a stable economy. They drain our resources, health care, education, and criminal justice system…We feel like strangers in our own country.”
http://americasvoice.org/blog/gop-escalates-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-attacks-dreamers-child-refugees/
https://twitter.com/DemondFernandez/status/487049114979291137/photo/1
https://twitter.com/GorillaPig1/status/483317983737950208/photo/1
https://twitter.com/FromTulsa/status/487037305580822529/photo/1
Cummings Issues Statement on Release of Benghazi Interview Transcripts by Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon
Washington, DC (July 9, 2014)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued the following statement in response to a decision by Rep. Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, to declassify and publicly release transcripts of congressional interviews with officials throughout the military chain of command regarding the attacks in Benghazi:
“These transcripts definitively show that Republican attacks against our nation’s military servicemembers and former Secretary of State Clinton are completely unfounded and utterly offensive. They have been refuted by military officials who repeatedly told our two Committees that there was no ‘stand down’ order and that significant military assets were deployed on the night of the attacks. Now that Chairman McKeon has made these transcripts public, I urge Republicans who made these baseless accusations to apologize to both Secretary Clinton and our brave men and women in uniform.”
http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/press-releases/cummings-issues-statement-on-release-of-benghazi-interview-transcripts-by-armed-services-committee-chairman-buck-mckeon/#
If you want your portrait painted, this is the guy to go to. Anson does excellent work.
The Asaka Gallery.Charcoal and Pencil Portraits $30.00.Color Pencil & Pastel Portraits $35.00.
http://theasakagallery.blogspot.com/
Thanks for this, SG2. I remember Anson from J&J Politics. His art work is really good.
so beautiful
So talented, Anson and his daughter!
Justin Bieber charged with vandalism, takes plea, will pay $80K to fix to egg damage to nearby home
After months of investigation, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office criminally charged teen pop singer Justin Bieber with vandalism Wednesday over a January incident in which up to $20,000 worth of damage was reportedly caused by eggs thrown at a neighboring mansion.
At that point, the case started moving quickly. At an afternoon arraignment in Los Angeles Superior Court in Van Nuys, a plea deal was announced in which Bieber, 20, will be on probation for two years and pay $80,900 in restitution, CNN reports. He must also participate in 12 anger management sessions, complete five days of community labor and stay 100 yards or more from the victim’s family. TMZ broke the news of the planned plea bargain.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/justin_bieber_faces_new_case_will_be_charged_in_vandalism_to_neighbors_home/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_email
Hey Chicas! Check out Anson Asaka’s little girl. She is good. Anson says she won first place at the World Jumprope competition for this routine.
She is amazing!!!
So agile…so talented!!!
She is so good! I love it!
Get it girl! Great moves, you’re a STAR.
Congratulations to Khalilah! Whoo Hoo!
Khaliliah’s amazing! check your email, please! thanks
OK
GO young lady!!!
Summer…..50 years ago:
Bob Dylan!!!!!!!!
John Hurt performed at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival.
The following video was Uploaded on Jul 27, 2009 by Brett Marvin:
“Born John Smith Hurt in Teoc, Carroll County, Mississippi and raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt learned to play guitar at age 9. He spent much of his youth playing old time music for friends and dances, earning a living as a farm hand into the 1920s. In 1923 he partnered with the fiddle player Willie Narmour as a substitute for his regular partner Shell Smith. When Narmour got a chance to record for Okeh Records as a prize for winning first place in a 1928 fiddle contest, Narmour recommended John Hurt to Okeh Records producer Tommy Rockwell. After auditioning “Monday Morning Blues” at his home, he took part in two recording sessions, in Memphis and New York City. The “Mississippi” tag was added by Okeh as a sales gimmick. After the commercial failure of the resulting records, and Okeh Records going out of business during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to Avalon and obscurity, working as a sharecropper and playing local parties and dances.
“In 1963, however, a folk musicologist, Tom Hoskins, inspired by the recordings, was able to locate Hurt near Avalon, Mississippi. Seeing that Hurt’s guitar playing skills were still intact, Hoskins encouraged him to move to Washington, D.C., and begin performing on a wider stage.
His performance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival saw his star rise amongst the new folk revival audience. Before his death he played extensively in colleges, concert halls, coffee houses and also on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, as well as recording three further albums for Vanguard Records. The numbers his devotees particularly liked were the ragtime songs “Salty Dog” and “Candy Man”, and the blues ballads “Spike Driver Blues” (a variant of “John Henry”) and “Frankie”.
Hurt’s influence spanned several music genres including blues, country, bluegrass, folk and contemporary rock and roll. A soft-spoken man, his nature was reflected in the work, which remained a mellow mix of country, blues and old time music to the end.
Hurt died in November 1966 from a heart attack in Grenada, Mississippi.
always remember…with these folks…
BIRTH CONTROL isn’t covered
but VIAGRA IS
https://twitter.com/bluecalgal/status/485089354704883712/photo/1
Yep….shows the inequality….
Ahead Of Midterm Elections, GOP’s Message Appears To Be One Of Racism And Hatred
By: Justin Baragona
Wednesday, July, 9th, 2014, 4:36 pm
With roughly four months to go until 2014′s midterm elections, which will decide which party holds the majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate, the Republican Party seems to have made the decision that blatant racism and ugly hatred will be the message the party’s candidates will push on the campaign trail. Over the past few days, we’ve seen a renewed focus by the GOP to alienate and demonize African-Americans and Hispanics, all in an effort to energize the party’s ‘old, angry white guy’ base. The hope is that this will be enough to secure victories in key House and Senate races. On the other hand, this may finally be the course of action that finally destroys the Republican Party once and for all.
Two recent events have brought out the Republican Party’s inner racist demon — the GOP’s Senate primary runoff election in Mississippi and the current crisis at the border involving migrant children from Central America. In Mississippi, Republican State Senator Chris McDaniel lost a close runoff election against incumbent Senator Thad Cochran last week. McDaniel had finished ahead of Cochran in the initial primary election weeks earlier but did not receive 50% of the vote. Therefore, a runoff was necessary. As Mississippi has an open primary system, Cochran decided to appeal to Democratic voters, and more specifically, African-American voters.
McDaniel, as well as other Tea Partiers, has objected to this, saying it is illegal and unethical. McDaniel’s team has threatened a lawsuit and wants all of the results to be tossed out. They have claimed they have seen evidence of thousands of illegal votes being cast in the runoff. They have even offered cash rewards for proof of voter fraud. Obviously the implication here is that Republicans have no business courting African-American votes. In the minds of McDaniel and the Tea Party, it doesn’t matter that Mississippi is an open primary state where there is no party registration. It is just WRONG for another Republican to appeal to black people.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/09/midterm-elections-gops-message-appears-racism-hatred.html
this picture tickled me yesterday, and I love all of the obviousness and subtlety of the pic.
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/487058617288228864/photo/1
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
We Gratefully Request To Be Allowed To Discriminate
Welcome to the “post-Hobby Lobby FREEDOM for all the kids” era, where thanks to SCOTUS, religiously affiliated companies that hire federal contractors are happily asking the President to allow them to discriminate against those awful, awful gay people because MURICA.
I talked about this some last week, but this is precisely what Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor warned about in their dissents on this ruling.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/07/we-gratefully-request-to-be-allowed-to.html
Rick Scott Breaks The Law By Using On Duty Cops As Props At Campaign Event
By: Jason Easleymore from Jason Easley
Wednesday, July, 9th, 2014, 8:17 pm
Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) broke the law this week when he used on duty officers as political props at an event for his re-election campaign.
The Tampa Tribune reported that the on duty officers thought they were there to provide security and that they were attending an official event, “Spokesmen for two of the agencies involved, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, said their officers’ attendance resulted from a misunderstanding; they thought they were invited either to provide security or that it was an official governor’s office event.”
Gov. Scott’s campaign says the purpose of the event was made clear in the invitations, but the officers say that they didn’t get the message. It is illegal in the state of Florida for public employees to take part in political activities during working hours, so somebody clearly broke the law by sending on duty officers to the Scott event.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/09/rick-scott-breaks-law-duty-cops-props-campaign-event.html
Rathergate’ Drives ‘Truth’ Film; Robert Redford To Play Dan Rather, Cate Blanchett To Play Producer
Redford is attached to play CBS News icon Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett is attached to play his producer Mary Mapes in Truth, a film that will mark the directorial debut of James Vanderbilt, the A-list screenwriter behind the first two installments of The Amazing Spider-Man. The film will explore the scandal that erupted after Rather reported on 60 Minutes II that George W. Bush had gotten preferential treatment that put him in the National Guard to avoid the Vietnam War draft. The ensuing scandal during Bush’s reelection campaign left Mapes fired and Rather’s storied reputation in tatters.
http://www.deadline.com/2014/07/rathergate-movie-robert-redford-dan-rather-cate-blanchett-george-w-bush/
This is a film I want to see.
Texas Family Murdered, Including 4 Kids
During what appears to be a domestic dispute, six members of the Spring family in Houston were shot to death on Wednesday night. Four of the victims were children. The suspect, Ron Lee Haskell, 34, who was estranged from the family, was arrested after a four-hour standoff with police. Victims were two boys, ages 4 and 14; two girls, ages 7 and 9; a 39-year-old man; and a 33-year-old woman.
A 15-year-old girl was wounded in the shooting and was airlifted to a hospital. Police had responded to reports of a shooting, and when they arrived they found five dead and two with gunshot wounds to the head. One of those who was wounded told police it was a domestic dispute from “someone who had left the family.” Police went to the relative’s home, which led to a standoff that required SWAT teams and armored vehicles
http://elink.thedailybeast.com/4e555ee3e018bee76c3458201o9gi.54r/U76D4uYQg4qT-JYqB4784
This is too much…..heartbreaking
He gunned down the whole family. But too chicken shit to pull the trigger on himself.
’60 Minutes” shameful attack on the disabled
The wealthy Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., tells “60 Minutes” about all the poor people whom he says are scamming the government.
by MICHAEL HILTZIK
Is it possible for a major news organization to produce a story about the Social Security disability program without interviewing a single disabled person or disability advocate?
That’s the experiment “60 Minutes” conducted Sunday. The result was predictably ghastly.
The news program’s theme was that disability recipients are ripping off the taxpayer. Anchor Steve Kroft called the program “a secret welfare system… ravaged by waste and fraud.” His chief source was Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican with a documented hostility to Social Security. Coburn has a report on the disability program’s purported flaws due out Monday. Good of “60 Minutes” to give him some free publicity.
Together Kroft and Coburn displayed a rank ignorance about the disability program: how it works, who the beneficiaries are, why it has grown. This is especially shocking because after a similarly overwrought and inaccurate “investigation” of disability aired on National Public Radio in March, numerous experts came forth to set the record straight. They included eight former Social Security commissioners, experienced analysts of the program, even the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary, Steve Goss.
“60 Minutes” apparently talked to none of them.
http://touch.latimes.com/
saw that repeat last month. 60 minutes has LOST ALL CREDIBILITY.
The right sharpens its knives for Social Security disability, again
Rep. Darrell Issa aims to make scapegoats out of America’s disabled
July 9, 2014
As we all know, the official animal of Washington, D.C., is the scapegoat. Today’s example is Carolyn W. Colvin, the acting commissioner of Social Security.
Colvin recently was raked over the coals by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, the capital’s chief scapegoat wrangler, for problems at Social Security that can largely be traced to its budget squeeze. In other words, to Congress.
In a letter to Colvin, who has been acting commissioner since February 2013 and has been nominated to take over the job officially, Issa blamed her for a backlog of disability reviews that dates back to before 2007 and that is directly related to Congress’ failure to provide for enough administrative law judges to handle the workload. A bailout of the disability fund after at least a decade of serious agency mismanagement…without meaningful reforms to a broken appeals process…is not a responsible solution.- Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, dodging responsibility for the disability crisis
But the politics of Issa’s attack goes beyond mere personnel matters. What he’s really up to is promoting the conservative attack on the disabled. That’s clear from the report that Issa’s House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform issued in conjunction with his letter to Colvin. The disability program is within a year or two of needing an infusion of cash; the conservatives’ goal plainly is to undermine the program’s credibility so they can cut it, instead of supporting America’s disabled with resources they need.
http://touch.latimes.com/
Elisabeth Hasselbeck trashes Rosie O’Donnell’s impending ‘View’ return
July 9, 2014, 1:13 PM EST
By Tony Maglio
TheWrap
Rosie O’Donnell is clearly not one of the titular “friends” of “Fox & Friends.”
Elisabeth Hasselbeck called into the Fox News morning show while on vacation to slam the reported return of her former “View” co-host.
Hasselbeck said that O’Donnell told her she produced Barbara Walters’ goodbye show, which the current Fox News employee contended was truly intended to be O’Donnell’s “Hello” show.
“Talk about not securing the border,” Hasselbeck said of O’Donnell’s reported return on Wednesday morning. “Here in comes to ‘The View’ the very woman who spit in the face of our military, spit in the face of her own network, and, really, in the face of a person who stood by her and had civilized debates for the time that she was there — coming back with a bunch of control, ready to regain a seat at ‘The View’ table. Not surprising, I think that it’s been in the works for a long time.”
Hasselbeck continued: “Go back to the reunion show for Barbara, how odd is this? When you have the woman who again insinuated that our own troops were terrorists in Iraq at the time, then left the show, meanwhile, while still at the end of her contract — to have such ease the day of Barbara’s goodbye show was shocking to me. She walked around with a lot of control and then when I had the chance to talk to her, Rosie herself, told me, on-set while we were mic’d up, that she produced the reunion show to have everybody together and that it was her idea. Now, do you think the woman who left the way that she did would be producing Barbara’s goodbye show? Here’s the shocker, it was actually her ‘Hello’ show.”
http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=876674
LOVE MS. VAUGHAN!!
Thank you for this week.
YVW!
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, rikyrah, Ametia and Everyone :)
Ametia, I love the paintings of Ms. Vaughan that you have posted this week!
Good morning, everyone!
Ametia is rocking Sarah Vaughan week. Love the paintings. Where do you find these?
Thanks Yahtc & SG2 Hee hee hee GOOGLE’S my best friend.