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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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I can’t log into my email, I can’t log in to fb and my msm page is not loading. Wassamatta?
http://youtu.be/2FG98NusLEA
Saturday, Jul 12, 2014 08:45 AM CST
Rand Paul’s twisted race lies: His new views on civil rights are as phony as the old ones
Prospective GOP front-runner claims views on civil rights have evolved. Not if you dig into what he actually says
Paul Rosenberg
If you Google “Rand Paul Civil Rights Act,” the first prompt that comes up is “unconstitutional,” so it was definitely heartening to see his apparent about-face on the act’s 50th anniversary, when he attended a local commemoration at the Shelbyville, Kentucky, home of Dr. Maurice F. Rabb, a prominent civil rights activist in the 1940s and ’50s. “Every major civil rights activist that came to the South stayed with my parents,” Chris Rabb said. “They were not allowed to stay in hotels.”
Paul has previously voiced his objection to the Civil Rights Act precisely because it put an end to such private-sector discrimination. But on this occasion, he released a statement saying, “’It is simply unimaginable to think what modern America would be like if it were not for the brave men and women who stood up for the rights of all Americans. The legislation changed the future of our nation by enforcing the belief that all men and women are created equal.”
The next day, Rachel Maddow duly noted Paul’s change of heart. “Rand Paul went to Shelbyville yesterday, and he sang the praises of the civil rights movement and the civil rights activists and specifically the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” she said, going on to repeat Paul’s statement, even displaying it on screen. “Rand Paul coming out in full support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” she said afterward, “which is nice, and I don’t mean to be raining on the parade, but I have to point out that this marks something of a shift in Rand Paul’s position on this legislation.” She then replayed a clip of her famous May 19, 2010 interview with Paul, in which he repeatedly refused to say he would have supported the bill. Specifically, she played a segment in which Paul said, “There’s 10 different titles, you know, to the Civil Rights Act, and nine out of 10 deal with public institutions, and I’m absolutely in favor of. One deals with private institutions, and had I been around, I would have tried to modify that.” He went on to indicate that he might or might not have finally agreed to support the bill, with just one title that he objected to.
……………………
Yet on that date, Millhiser noted, Paul insisted otherwise to an audience at the historically black Howard University. “I’ve never been against the Civil Rights Act. Ever,” he said, “I have been concerned about the ramifications of the Civil Rights Act beyond race… but I’ve never come out in opposition.”
It’s good that Paul’s views have apparently evolved over time, but it’s disturbingly less good that he still can’t admit the change in his thinking, because there’s still a great deal of confusion, contradiction and outright falsehood that he’s perpetuating. In the passage I quoted above, for example, he substantially misrepresented the balance of the Civil Rights Act, and dramatically downplayed the extent of his “principled” opposition. A true change of heart would mean coming to terms with those inconvenient truths, admitting his past mistakes, and coming to terms with them, rather than stubbornly refusing to square with the facts.
First off, the Civil Rights Act was not simply 9/10ths concerned with public institutions and 1/10th with private. The balance was far more mixed than that, because the forms of discrimination were far more deeply intertangled than Paul’s superficial philosophy can allow for. As already noted, there were 11 titles in the act, not 10, though the eleventh was titled “Miscellaneous.” Of the other 10, not one but two of them dealt with private institutions: Title II dealt with discriminatory service in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce — which is what Barry Goldwater, following his then-aide William Rehnquist, pegged his libertarian opposition to — while Title VII dealt with employment discrimination.
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/12/rand_pauls_twisted_race_lies_his_new_views_on_civil_rights_are_as_phony_as_the_old_ones/
Friday, Jul 11, 2014 11:44 AM UTC
The 1 percent’s loathsome libertarian scheme: Why we despise the new scalping economy
From parking spots to reservations, scalping apps are giving rich people what they want, when they want it
Andrew Leonard
Maybe we’re just easily annoyed in Northern California. The froth of our rage over Monkey Parking — an app that auctions off public parking spots — had barely begun to subside and then along came ReservationHop, an outfit that makes phony reservations at “hot” restaurants and then sells them at a premium to the general public. And we got all worked up, all over again.
Yep, the fact that there’s now an app for scalping restaurant bookings rubbed some people the wrong way. Of course, it could be that the critics were just jittery and irritable from too many days of wondering whether an eviction letter was about to arrive in the mail, but still: Even such a normally Silicon Valley-friendly tech press outfit as TechCrunch was impelled to decry the rise of the new “JerkTech.” When TechCrunch tells you to “go disrupt yourself,” it’s probably time for bleeding edge entrepreneurs to take a long hard look in the mirror.
That does not mean, however, that the new wave of scalping apps lacks for defenders. Cato Institute policy analyst Matthew Feeney took me personally to task for attacking Monkey Parking, lamenting that “it’s a shame that he doesn’t appreciate that the price system is extremely efficient at communicating information to producers and customers …” (Feeney also found my reference to “classic transnational neocolonialist libertarian arrogance” “worrying” and “frightening.” What can I say? Libertarians almost never get my jokes.)
ReservationHop also won the dubious honor of being declared not “as loathsome as it seems” in a smart San Francisco magazine article by Scott Lucas and Ian Eck. Their argument: ReservationHop is doing basically the same thing as StubHub — finding a market clearing price for an artificially undervalued commodity.
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/11/the_1_percents_loathsome_libertarian_scheme_why_we_despise_the_new_scalping_economy/?source=newsletter
Teen gets 23 years in prison for killing a dog
July 12, 2014
After NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s career was almost ruined for taking part in a dog fιghting ring, some observers wondered whether society valued the life of dogs more than black men. This conversation is bound to be reignited now that a 17 year old black teen has been sentenced to 23 years behind bars for taking the life of a retired police dog during a burglary.
Ivins Rosier, 17, and two other teens broke into the home of a Florida trooper and gunned down his retired K-9. The dog passed away several days after the burglary.
Rosier was convicted in May for the break-in and shoοting the five year old German Shepherd named Drake.
Although Rosier was only 16 when he broke into the home of trooper Robert Boody in 2012, Judge Robin Rosenberg said sentencing requirements left her little choice but to throw the book at the teen.
http://naturallymoi.com/2014/07/uncategorized/teen-gets-23-years-in-prison-for-killing-a-dog/
Bedbugs Are Infesting Detroit City Buses, Says Councilwoman
Posted on July 11, 2014 by staff
The city of Detroit is currently going through bankruptcy and is inundated with the sorts of issues that plague any city which can’t afford to fund its vital functions. Added to the list of problems, bus riders are reporting an infestation of bed bugs.
Detroit Councilwoman Brenda Jones said during a meeting she’d been informed that bed bugs on city buses are a problem.
CBS Detroit reports that D-DOT Director Dan Dirks explained that Detroit is not the only city to deal with bed bugs and assured riders that the buses are routinely sprayed.
http://themedicalblog.net/2014/07/11/bedbugs-are-infesting-detroit-city-buses-says-councilwoman/
Go sisters go! Black women are the most educated group in the United States
July 9, 2014 Filed under black women, Latest posts, News, politics Posted by admin
April V. Taylor
For Harriet is reporting on a collection of data compiled by the National Center of Education Statistics from the US Census that reveals that for the first time in the history of the United States, black women have surpassed all other groups in terms of race and gender for the percentage of people who have enrolled in college. While this is an accomplishment to be proud of, Janks Morton, creator of the blockbust film, “Hoodwinked,” cautions that it should not be forgotten that education in the United States generally comes with a hefty load of student loan debt, and that people need to be conscious of not taking on too much debt. According to a recent graphic published by Mother Jones, student loan debt surpasses all other debt held by borrowers including credit card and auto loan debt.
In a recent episode of the web series, “Truths You Won’t Believe,” Morton discusses the fact that despite the misconceptions and stereotypes perpetuated by the media about African American women, half of all black women between the ages of 18 and 24 are now pursuing degrees. The 2011 data shows that overall, 9.7 percent of all black women are enrolled in college. Asian women come in second at 8.7 percent, followed by Asian men at 8.4 percent, white women at 7.1 percent, black men at 7 percent, Hispanic women at 6.6 percent, and white men at 6.1 percent. Since 1990, the number of African Americans who have earned bachelor’s degrees has risen from 11.3 percent to 19.6 percent. The average enrollment for the entire U.S. population is 6.9 percent. The increase for black women represents a 31 percent rise from data reported in 2000. This means that African American women are now the most educated segment of the American population.
http://naturallymoi.com/2014/07/news/go-sisters-go-black-women-the-most-educated-group-in-the-united-states/
Nomalanga: Why Sherri Shepherd Should Walk Away From The Test-tube Baby
By Nomalanga Mhlauli-Moses
Sherri Shepherd has been in the headlines a lot of late, even before she announced she was leaving The View. First it was revealed that her second husband was filing for divorce and soon after it was revealed that she had also filed for divorce in a different state. The latest news is that Shepherd allegedly said that she does not want the unborn baby that her and her soon-to-be-ex-husband paid a surrogate to carry for them.
It has been reported that the The View co-host accused her husband of plotting to have a baby with her so that he would then divorce her and collect child support. The problem with her husband’s alleged plan is that when the “test-tube” baby was conceived, the eggs that were used were not Shepherds’ even though the “seed” came from her husband, Lamar Sally.
It has been reported that the reason why Shepherd filed for divorce in a different state is that she filed in New Jersey where she can petition the court to absolve her of any responsibility for the surrogate baby. Many people have taken to social media to voice their harsh judgement of the talk show host for walking away from “a baby that she agreed to create”.
Now, had the comedienne and her husband agreed with a surrogate that the surrogate would carry their baby and said baby was conceived with Shepherd’s eggs and her husband’s “seed”, I may have understood why there was an uproar about Sherri not wanting to have anything to do with the baby. Considering that the comedian and actress reportedly says that she believes that her soon-to-be-ex was just plotting to come for her money and he’s the one that filed for the divorce, I think she is well within her rights to walk away from both him and the “test-tube baby” (that has no biological connection to her).
If you think that Shepherd is evil for wanting to walk away from a baby that she originally wanted to raise with her husband, consider that she can still be in the child’s life without all the court drama and child support fees. If Sally really wants Sherri to be a co-parent, he could have tried to work things out with her amicably. The fact that his first instinct was to run to the courts, to me, suggests he had “money on his mind”!
Consider, as well, that Sherri Shepherd is the same woman who, on an episode of The View blurted out that she had had “many abort!ons”. Why does it seem like a stretch that a woman who would repeatedly get pregnant and keep terminating the pregnancies would walk away from a baby that was not even biologically hers? And why did Sally think she would hesitate to cut ties?
http://www.healthyblackwoman.com/nomalanga-why-sherri-shepherd-should-walk-away-from-the-test-tube-baby/
Woman Found Baby On Doorstep, Adopted Her, And Is Now Sending Her to College
July 13, 2014
Reported by Nigel Boys
Eighteen years ago, Janessa Gibbs was left by her birth mother on the doorstep of a doctor’s office in Corinth, Mississippi. However, the lucky young baby could not have dreamed that she would have a great life ahead of her after she was adopted by a night shift worker at a hospital next door.
This week Sara, the adoptive mother, and Janessa Gibbs shared how their 18 years together have been years of love, even though Sara was not prepared to become a mother when she found Janessa.
Sara remembers that fateful night when she was called into work at the hospital next door to the doctor’s office where Janessa would be found by first responders. She adds that she was single, working 12 hour night shifts and nothing in her life had prepared her to be the mother of a baby.
However, with the encouragement of her pastor, friends and co-workers, Sara eventually plucked up the courage to go through the adoption process and become the legal mother of Janessa, according to a local news report.
In a video interview, Janessa said that her adoptive mother has always told her that her real mother left her where she did because God had designed it to be so. Sara adds that she believes that it was divine intervention because she had been called into work that night and was not on her regular shift.
There certainly have been many memories of their eighteen years together, and the loving mother and daughter have a scrapbook full of pictures to prove it. Sara adds, tearfully, that she has never let a birthday of her daughter go by without remembering the child’s birth mother.
According to Janessa, her mother is the best mother anyone could have. She adds that she doesn’t think of her as her adoptive mother because she’s always been her mom.
http://naturallymoi.com/2014/07/news/woman-found-baby-on-doorstep-adopted-her-and-is-now-sending-her-to-college/
Sister of domestic violence victim says she saw warning signs in new boyfriend
July 13, 2014
Reported by Liku Zelleke
When confessed killer Angelo Smith Jr. was shown being taken into custody, the images that flashed on TV screens across the country showed a man wearing a Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity shirt as he was led away by two officers on either side of him.
When the police later said that it was Smith’s own fraternity brother who led investigators to what is believed to be the body of Bianca Tanner, the two facts made others in the Greek organization community sit up and take note of the situation.
Tanner, a Guilford County teacher was Smith’s girlfriend and no information has been released as to how she was murdered or even why.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe made that fact clear when he said, “Let me be clear, at this point we only have remains.”
While that might have put everything on hold until Smith’s case goes through the legal system and everything is eventually made clear, members of Greek organizations across the country are seizing the chance to raise awareness about domestic violence.
One such organization that is also looking to mend the image that is often associated with Greeks by doing something positive is Omega Psi Phi.
http://naturallymoi.com/2014/07/news/sister-of-domestic-violence-victim-says-she-saw-warning-signs-in-new-boyfriend/
The Brewers placed shortstop Jean Segura on the bereavement list on Saturday after the 24-year-old left the team to return to his native Dominican Republic following the death of his 9-month-old son, the team announced.
Manager Ron Roenicke said Segura did not learn of his son’s death until after Friday’s 7-6 loss to the Cardinals
http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/07/12/brewers-jean-segura-leaves-after-death-9-month-old-son?xid=aol_home&ncid=webmail3
10 ways Chris Christie’s White House ambition hurts Jersey: Moran
The list below offers 10 cases in point.
1. Birth control
In his first budget, Christie cut $7.4 million in funding for family planning, giving up a potential 9-1 match in federal dollars as well. The money was not used for abortions, but for birth control, cancer screenings and other services for low-income women without insurance.
Six Planned Parenthood clinics were forced to close as a result, and others cut back their hours.
Christie claimed his only motive was to save money. But giving up that 9-1 federal match is irrational budgeting. And this program was tiny, amounting to less than 0.03 percent of the state’s $31 billion budget.
Gov. Pinocchio had political motive for this one. Funding Planned Parenthood clinics would have been tough to justify on the trail.
2. Gun control
Christie vetoed four gun control bills, including one that would ban .50-caliber sniper rifles, and another this month that would limit ammunition magazines to 10 bullets.
On this issue, he is an incoherent mess. He proposed a ban on .50-caliber rifles himself last April, then vetoed the ban that reached his desk. And he’s offered no rational reason why New Jersey gun owners could possibly need more than 10 rounds in a magazine.
“The last thing he wants is the right mad at him for being a gun control advocate,” said Julian Zelizer, a political science professor at Princeton University. “He’s now entering the Republican primaries as a fragile candidate. He can’t have any more enemies.”
3. Climate change
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/07/christies_white_house_ambition_and_10_ways_it_hurts_jersey_moran.html
https://twitter.com/MiamiLib/status/488343115812454403/photo/1
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Colorado’s governor says he didn’t throw pool game with Obama: “The man is a shark” http://j.mp/1rj9UJX by @JTSTheHill
2:53 PM – 13 Jul 2014
https://twitter.com/iFalasteen/status/488333339330244611/photo/1
Exclusive poll: Karen Lewis could give Rahm run for his money
Sun, 07/13/2014 – 3:02pm
Natasha Korecki
@natashakorecki | Email
For the past couple of weeks, Karen Lewis has been saying she is “seriously” considering running for mayor.
It turns out voters are taking the fiery Chicago Teachers Union president’s potential candidacy seriously as well.
And Mayor Rahm Emanuel probably should, too.
At least that’s what a surprising new Early & Often Poll suggests.
If the mayoral election were held today, the lightning rod union leader who was the architect behind a 2012 teachers’ strike would beat Emanuel by 9 percentage points in a head-to-head contest, the survey found.
Lewis was leading Emanuel 45 percent to 36 percent with 18 percent of the likely voters undecided.
And Emanuel could face an even steeper hill if he faces Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, long considered his most formidable challenger.
A head-to-head contest found Preckwinkle romping Emanuel by a stunning 24 points.
Preckwinkle dominated with 55 percent of those surveyed. Emanuel notched just under 31 percent.
“Laughable” is what Emanuel’s camp called the results of the automated telephone poll, conducted for the Sun-Times’ political portal by We Ask America.
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/exclusive-poll-karen-lewis-could-give-rahm-run-his-money/sun-07132014-302pm
Whites getting more spots at top Chicago public high schools
Mon, 04/28/2014 – 12:18am
Tim Novak and Chris Fusco
More white students are walking the halls at Chicago’s top four public high schools.
At Walter Payton College Prep on the Near North Side, more than 41 percent of freshmen admitted the past four years have been white, compared to 29 percent in 2009, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Chicago Public Schools data has found.
At Jones College Prep in the South Loop, 38 percent of this year’s freshman class is white, compared to 29 percent four years ago.
In 2010 — the first year race was no longer used to determine the makeup of Chicago schools — the percentage of white freshmen at Northside College Prep in North Park rose from 37 percent to 48 percent.
And at Whitney Young College Prep on the Near West Side, the percentage of black freshmen has steadily declined in the past three years, while the percentage of whites has risen.
The increase in the number of white students fulfills the predictions of education observers that minority students would be edged out of slots at the city’s top schools as a result of a 2009 ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles P. Kocoras lifting a 1980 consent decree that had required Chicago’s schools to be desegregated, with no school being more than 35 percent white.
“We saw that coming in 2009,” says Julie Woestehoff, executive director of the group Parents United for Responsible Education.
As things now stand, Woestehoff says, “I consider these schools to be gated communities for children of privilege.”
Since Kocoras lifted the desegregation order, CPS has built a new, bigger campus for Jones, allowing the school to increase its freshmen class by more than 100 students this year.
And Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced plans to expand Payton and to build a new selective-enrollment high school on the North Side, to be named for President Barack Obama, that’s set to open in 2017 and eventually will have 1,200 students — all in an effort to keep middle-class families in Chicago.
“Isn’t it interesting that, when the system was based on race, there weren’t as many slots,” Woestehoff says. “I think it would be really great to see these North Side institutions provide more opportunities for black and Hispanic kids.”
The Chicago school system now has 10 “selective-enrollment” high schools. Students are admitted to these based on their standardized test results, admissions test scores and grades, as well as on socioeconomic criteria. Five of the schools — Brooks, King, Lindblom, South Shore and Westinghouse, all on the South Side and the West Side — see few applications from whites and have virtually no white students.
Instead, when white students apply for admission to a selective-enrollment high school, they often target Northside, Payton, Jones and Whitney Young, the highest-ranking schools in Chicago in terms of test scores and also among the tops in the state. They also apply to Lane Tech, the city’s No. 5-ranked high school, where the number of white students has held relatively steady, at 30 percent, the past six years.
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/whites-getting-more-spots-top-chicago-public-high-schools/sun-04272014-434pm
Demographics tell different story of Obama High School plan
By: Linda Lenz April 28, 201
When Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that Chicago Public Schools would build another selective enrollment school on the Near North Side, he argued it would serve the whole city, not just the gentrifying communities around it. The reason: It would be “accessible from two rail lines and four bus lines.”
But enrollment demographics at the city’s other test-in high schools on the North Side suggest it will take more than good transportation to get a geographic, racial and socioeconomic mix at Barack Obama Preparatory High School.
Sarah Karp, deputy editor of Catalyst Chicago, crunched these numbers for our winter issue: In 2012, only 17 percent of students at the elite North Side schools were African-American, down 11 percentage points from 2000. (Latino enrollment held steady at 30 percent.)
If the mayor truly wanted the president’s high school to serve the city, he could have chosen the Near South Side or Bronzeville, where an elite school also would have promoted much-needed economic development.
Further, at those locations the school would not as readily undermine an already struggling neighborhood school, as the chosen site does with nearby Wells High School. Wells is one of 18 low-performing schools in Chicago to receive a multimillion-dollar school improvement grant from the president’s education department, which has had some positive effect but still leaves the school far behind.
In the case of Bronzeville, a selective enrollment school also would have made up for its impending loss of Chicago High School for the Arts to, yes, the North Side.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140428/OPINION/140429813/demographics-tell-different-story-of-obama-high-school-plan
Columbusing: white people taking credit for uncovering “new” things that actually existed long before they were aware of them.
http://youtu.be/BWeFHddWL1Y
YEP! CO-OPTING, STEALING…NO ORIGINALITY.
CPS to build selective-enrollment high school named for Obama
Thu, 04/24/2014 – 1:15pm
Fran Spielman , LAUREN FITZPATRICK AND BECKY SCHLIKERMAN
Barack Obama — first black commander-in-chief, adopted Chicago son, one-time boss of the mayor — will have at least one prominent public building named after him in Chicago.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel made sure of that Thursday — well before the president decides where to put his library — as Emanuel announced plans to build a selective-enrollment high school, the city’s 11th, on the North Side using $60 million in tax-increment financing money and eventually serving 1,200, giving much needed hope to parents who want their kids to have a chance at the best high school education the city has to offer.
The announcement and its proposed Near North location a stone’s throw from another academic jewel — came as a surprise that cheered many parents while disappointing others who hoped for a closer option for their children to travel to south of Roosevelt Road.
The move furthers Emanuel’s education legacy — a complicated history that includes a seven-day teacher’s strike, a record shutdown of 50 schools, slashed budgets, schools handed over to private operators, an expansion of selective enrollment high schools Jones College Prep and Payton College Prep, and now the creation of a new one on the North Side, a move sure to bolster an Emanuel goal of keeping middle-class families in the city.
Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) fears losing his middle class families to suburban Oak Lawn and Summit, so he’s been asking for a selective-enrollment high school on the Southwest Side where there are none.
……………………………..
I would love to see a selective enrollment school on the Southwest Side. It makes sense. Why is everything always on the North Side?
………………………………….
The mayor, who plans to use $60 million from the tax-increment-fund surrounding Stanton Park, 618 W. Scott, defended the location so close to Payton, and to the old Cabrini Green housing projects now quickly gentrifying.
“The way to think about it is, it’s all TIF,” he said. “So you have to kind of look at a combination. One is, because it serves the entire city, it has two different rail lines, four different bus lines, open land and it’s all being funded by TIF,” Emanuel said. “That makes the choices come down dramatically to literally less than a handful.”
……………………………………………..
Where the “neighborhood” boundary will be drawn remains to be seen but will involve community input, Hood said.
“The next question that needs to be answered is what is going to be the boundaries,” said Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd), who fought for a community component at Jones College Prep in the South Loop.
“I’m concerned that we don’t have an equal footing here across the city and a selective enrollment school and [good] neighborhood schools in every area of our city,” Fioretti said. “We need to help all of kids no matter where they are and not just pander in certain areas.”
Louella Williams’s grandson at Manierre Elementary School, 1420 N. Hudson Ave., could benefit from the neighborhood preference. Manierre was spared in the 11th hour from the closing list. “Schools are being closed and now where is money coming in to build a brand new school?” the 79-year-old wondered.
“When you come down to the black community, there’s no money.”
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/cps-build-selective-enrollment-high-school-named-obama/thu-04242014-115pm?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_campaign=hootsuite
People like Michael McCaul called Native Americans a threat, then it was the blacks, latinos, middle eastern men, muslims. It’s never ends! Always pointing the finger at other races looking threatening but never white people but it’s young white boys/men shooting up churches and schools.
http://3chicspolitico.com/2013/04/20/white-men-are-the-problem%e2%80%8f/#comments
There you GO!
Vanessa Williams on Oprah’s Master Class tonight.
Republican billionaire Bruce Rauner has been campaigning to become Illinois governor for more than a year now, but there are many remaining questions about his beliefs, his business dealings, and his plans.
In many cases, these questions are a direct result of his refusal to answer reporters’ questions or speak publicly about his policies.
Below are just some of the pieces of the puzzle that is Bruce Rauner—as more facts come to light, we’ll continue to fill in the picture of who the real Rauner is.
http://www.realrauner.com/
https://twitter.com/TheBaxterBean/status/488333201077993472/photo/1
Prince Fielder And The Beauty Of ESPN’s Body Issue
By Travis Waldron July 10, 2014 at 2:25 pm
A few weeks ago, when Real Madrid superstar-slash-walking Greek God Cristiano Ronaldo ripped home a penalty kick in the Champions League final then subsequently ripped off his shirt to reveal his superhuman abdomen, there were audible groans throughout the bar where I was watching. The bustle wasn’t just a reaction to Ronaldo’s putting underdog Atletico Madrid to bed, but a reaction also to the fact that then he had to show us exactly how much better looking he is than all of us beer-swilling nobodies.
I laughed then, because the reality is that if my body looked like Ronaldo’s I probably wouldn’t ever wear a shirt. And I surely wouldn’t feel bad about showing off the fortress I had worked so hard to build.
Prince Fielder does not have Cristiano Ronaldo’s body. For the most part, the 275-pound Texas Rangers first baseman looks more like an argument for why baseball players aren’t real athletes than he does an athletic specimen, which is why he regularly lines lists of the “best out of shape athletes” on our list-craving internet. So we laugh whenever we see him leg out a double and finish with an earth-quaking slide into second or complete one of the most awkward baserunning displays with a belly-flopping dive into third.
But now here he is, standing on the cover of ESPN The Magazine’s 2014 Body Issue, holding a baseball bat and baring (almost) every bit of what Prince Fielder’s body has to offer.
Already, the pictures have drawn laughs and typical fat jokes, and some sites have asked whether Fielder’s naked pose was “a little much” for our eyes to see. But that is nonsense, because it is pictures like these that make the Body Issue so beautiful — and so much more important than most ideas that began as marketing ploys ever could become.
The issue isn’t all Fielder, of course: it features athletes like Serge Ibaka (my god, Serge) and Larry Fitzgerald and others who look more like what we envision athletes to be, more like the godly sculptures we think all athletes have or at least should. As Will Leitch wrote last year, these are their temples, these are their works of art, these are the products of hours in the gym and rigorous diets and training regimens. They deserve to show those bodies off.
But it’s athletes like Fielder that make the Body Issue truly beautiful, because they are the ones who send the message that the human body can be an impressive, lovely thing even if it doesn’t look like Ronaldo’s or Ibaka’s. Athletes’ bodies, just like those of us mere mortals, come in all shapes and sizes, and they can all be magnificent in their own ways. That isn’t all about Fielder. There is Venus Williams, whose body has gotten relatively little attention or appreciation juxtaposed as it is next to the oft-critiqued physique of her younger sister. There is Paralympian Amy Purdy in her prosthetic legs (returning to a motif The Mag has used before); there is soccer star Megan Rapinoe, the first athlete to appear in The Body Issue after coming out as gay (her U.S. teammate Abby Wambach appeared in the issue before coming out). There are the women sending the message that its OK for girls to have muscles and shape instead of looking like rail-thin supermodels; men like Fielder saying that it is possible to be comfortable and impressive in a body that doesn’t look like the strapping figure Ronaldo and others display.
http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2014/07/10/3458865/prince-fielder-and-the-beauty-of-espns-body-issue-2/
Congressman Goes On Diatribe Against Migrant Children, Urges Texas To Unilaterally Declare War
By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee July 11, 2014 at 3:00 pm
During a speech on the House floor Friday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) compared the surge of unaccompanied migrant children to soldiers invading France during World War II. Criticizing President Obama’s request for Congress to provide $3.7 billion in emergency funds to process the deportation proceedings of more than 52,000 children, mostly fleeing violence in Central America, Gohmert asked Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) to “use whatever means” like troops, ships of war, or taxes to “stop the invasion.”
“Even with $3.7 billion that’s requested, there’s no way for what’s being called for is going to stop the invasion that’s occurring,” Gohmert said. “That’s why I’m hoping that my governor will utilize Article 1, Section 10, that allows a state that is being invaded — in our case more than twice as many just in recent months, more than twice as many than invaded France on D-Day with a doubling of that coming en route, on their way here now under Article 1, Section 10, the state of Texas would appear to have the right, not only to use whatever means, whether it’s troops, even using ships of war, even exacting a tax on interstate commerce that wouldn’t normally be allowed to have or utilize, they’d be entitled in order to pay to stop the invasion.”
Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution provides that “[n]o state shall, without the consent of Congress, . . . engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.” The fact that this provision contemplates a state making “war,” however, strongly suggests that the framers were thinking about military invasions when they drafted it — not that they were concerned about an “invasion” of children.
Gohmert also suggested that the state of Texas should send National Guard to the border to secure the border, citing the time that President Woodrow Wilson sent General Pershing into Mexico to pursue Pancho Villa who had killed Americans. “I’m not advocating an invasion into Mexico,” he added. “I’m advocating strongly we stop the invasion into the United States.”
http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/07/11/3459331/gohmert-unaccompanied-children-dday/
Tennessee Arrests First Mother Under Its New Pregnancy Criminalization Law
By Tara Culp-Ressler July 11, 2014 at 11:01 am
At the beginning of July, 26-year-old Mallory Loyola gave birth to a baby girl. Two days later, the state of Tennessee charged her with assault. Loyola is the first woman to be arrested under a new law in Tennessee that allows the state to criminally charge mothers for potentially causing harm to their fetuses by using drugs.
The legislation, which officially took effect about a week ago, stipulates that “a woman may be prosecuted for assault for the illegal use of a narcotic drug while pregnant, if her child is born addicted to or harmed by the narcotic drug.” However, this may not actually apply to Loyola’s case. So far, there’s no evidence the young woman either used a narcotic drug or caused harm to her newborn child.
According to local news reports, Loyola tested positive for methamphetamine and admitted that she smoked that drug several days before giving birth. Meth is not considered to be a narcotic, which is a legal class of drugs that refers to opiates like heroin and prescription painkillers. Tennessee’s new law was passed specifically in response to fears about babies being exposed to opiates in utero, something that can lead to “Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.”
“This law was sold as if it were just about illegal narcotics. But sure enough, the first case has nothing to do with illegal narcotics — and nothing actually to do with harm to anybody,” Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), one of the groups that’s firmly opposed to laws that criminalize drug use during pregnancy, told ThinkProgress. “There’s no injury. There’s just a positive drug test.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/11/3459150/tennessee-arrest-pregnancy-criminalization/
Private summer schools prompt debate on education inequality
In Beverly Hills, high school students can take a U.S. history course for $798 this summer; in La Cañada Flintridge, Spanish is offered for $775, and in Arcadia, a creative writing course costs $605, plus a $25 registration fee.
While summer programs in many California public school districts have been scaled back or eliminated, scores of students in predominantly affluent areas can pay for courses, bolstering their transcripts to be more attractive to colleges.
The classes, which have gained popularity in recent years, are offered by nonprofit foundations on leased high school campuses. They often are taught by district instructors and run by administrators hired by these groups.
The foundations carefully structure their programs to sidestep state law that bars public schools from charging for educational activities, by remaining independent of the school district
Critics say the foundations, though well-intentioned, privatize public school, undercut California’s guarantee of a free public education for all and contribute to an already wide inequity in educational opportunity by offering public school credit at a cost only some can afford.
“What about the kids whose parents can’t create a foundation and pour money into it?” said Cal State Fullerton political science professor Sarah A. Hill, who studies public education finance. “They say, ‘We just care about our kid’s education’ and you can understand that, but so do poor parents — they just don’t have the resources to pay for summer school.”
Jinny Dalbeck, who oversees the La Cañada summer program, said because the La Cañada Unified School District has cut summer school, her group is filling the void.
Students enroll for a variety of reasons: some seek to get a head start on the coming school year, or clear up space for more advanced courses, and others want to retake classes for a better grade, Dalbeck said.
“It’s truly a stand-alone, private school for five weeks,” Dalbeck said. “We’re not a public school. We’re meeting a need that the students have — to be able to work ahead.”
About 675 local education foundations operate in the state, according to the California Consortium of Education Foundations. The groups raise money from parents as well as some local businesses with the express purpose of addressing shortfalls in state funding.
They have become a crucial fundraising arm for some schools, donating tens of millions of dollars each year.
A review of tax documents by Hill and others found that some of the more affluent groups provide campuses with thousands of dollars per student in addition to state per-pupil funding.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-summer-school-20140712-story.html#page=1
HumanityCritic @HumanityCritic
Nurse: I’m part Ethiopian, part Cuban, part part Dominican, part Panamanian.. Mom: Goddamn girl, that’s a whole lotta words for “Black”.
The Tea Party Isn’t a Political Movement, It’s a Religious One
Obama is the Antichrist, Republicans are heretics, and compromise is unholy. Politics can’t explain how the right acts.
by Jack Schwartz 07.13.14
America has long been the incubator of many spiritual creeds going back to the Great Awakening and even earlier. Only one of them, Mormonism, has taken root and flourished as a true religion sprung from our own native ground. Today, however, we have a new faith growing from this nation’s soil: the Tea Party. Despite its secular trappings and “taxed enough already” motto, it is a religious movement, one grounded in the traditions of American spiritual revival. This religiosity explains the Tea Party’s political zealotry.
The mark of a national political party in a democracy is its pluralistic quality, i.e. the ability to be inclusive enough to appeal to the broadest number of voters who may have differing interests on a variety of issues. While it may stand for certain basic principles, a party is often flexible in applying them, as are its representatives in fulfilling them. Despite the heated rhetoric of elections and the bombast of elected representatives, they generally seek consensus with the minority in order to achieve their legislative goals.
But when religion is thrown into the mix, all that is lost. Religion here doesn’t mean theology but a distinct belief system which, in totality, provides basic answers regarding how to live one’s life, how society should function, how to deal with social and political issues, what is right and wrong, who should lead us, and who should not. It does so in ways that fulfill deep-seated emotional needs that, at their profoundest level, are devotional. Given the confusions of a secular world being rapidly transformed by technology, demography, and globalization, this movement has assumed a spiritual aspect whose adepts have undergone a religious experience which, if not in name, then in virtually every other aspect, can be considered a faith.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/13/the-tea-party-isn-t-a-political-movement-it-s-a-religious-one.html
Texas voter ID law must stand trial, judge rules
07/10/14 01:27 PM—Updated 07/10/14 04:24 PM
By Zachary Roth
It’s far too soon to make any predictions. But a recent decision by a federal judge in the challenge to Texas’s harsh voter ID law may augur well for the chances of getting the law struck down when it goes to trial in September.
Overturning the law would be a massive win for the Obama administration, which is spearheading the challenge, and could boost Democrats’ long-term hopes of competing in Texas. It would be an embarrassing defeat for Gov. Rick Perry and for Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is highlighting his defense of the law as he runs to succeed Perry as governor.
The law, passed in 2011 with strong support from Perry, imposes the strictest ID requirement in the nation. It requires that Texans show one of a narrow range of state or federal IDs. Gun licenses are accepted, but student IDs, and even out-of-state driver’s licenses, aren’t.
Finding that it would disproportionately affect minority voters, a federal court blocked the law in 2012 under the Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required the state to get federal approval for its voting laws. But hours after the Supreme Court invalidated Section 5 last year, Abbott announced that the law would go into effect. The U.S. Justice Department, joined by civil rights groups including the NAACP and groups representing Hispanics, then filed a new challenge to the law under a different section of the Voting Rights Act.
Abbott has responded defiantly. “Eric Holder is trying to stop Texas from enforcing our voter identification law,” he frequently says on the campaign trail. “Voter fraud is real, it must be stopped, and I will take my case all the way to the Supreme Court.”
If the law stays in effect, it could give Republicans an electoral edge going forward, including this fall when Abbott will take on Democrat Wendy Davis. It’s hard to say how many voters will ultimately be disenfranchised by the ID requirement. But by one estimate, one in ten Texans—disproportionately non-whites—lack any of the forms of ID that the law accepts. An aggressive effort by Democrats and their allies to register new voters—many of whom are Hispanic—as they look to make the Lone Star State competitive means the law’s impact in keeping people from the polls could be especially large.
But last week’s ruling, in which U.S. District Court Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos denied almost all of a set of motions filed by Abbott’s office to dismiss the case before it goes to trial, suggests that keeping the law in place won’t be a slam-dunk for the AG and his allies.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/texas-voter-id-law-must-stand-trial-judge-rules
FBI report: Deputy police chief, officer in Florida town were members of the KKK
Fruitland Park Deputy Police Chief resigns after FBI report shows KKK
By Lauren Ritchie and Jayna Omaye, Orlando Sentinel
10:54 p.m. EDT, July 11, 2014
The deputy chief of the Fruitland Park Police Department resigned and another officer was fired after the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement turned over a report to the city describing their link to the Ku Klux Klan, a prosecutor said Friday.
Deputy Chief David Borst, 49, of Wildwood, resigned and the second officer, whose name couldn’t be immediately confirmed, was dismissed, city officials said.
On Friday, police Chief Terry Isaacs said Borst resigned because of “personal family issues.” Asked about the report, Isaacs said he knew of a report but he refused to say what was in it.
Fruitland Park City Manager Gary La Venia said FDLE presented the police chief with information this week that showed two officers were involved in possible improper action and misconduct. La Venia would not comment on specifics.
However, Chief Deputy State Attorney Ric Ridgway said Isaacs contacted his agency Wednesday after the FDLE gave him a report on the pair, looking for advice. The report, which wasn’t available late Friday, contained “a lot of fairly substantial evidence that tends to support” the pair were members of the Klan, Ridgway said.
Pictures: Orange County Jail mug shots
While there is no crime in belonging to a hate group, such membership could pose problems for the state attorney when trying to prosecute a case based on evidence provided by a KKK member or supporter, Ridgway said.
“It’s not a crime to be a member of the KKK, even if you are the deputy chief. It’s not a crime to be stupid,” Ridgway said. “It’s not a crime to hate people. It may be despicable, it may be immoral, but it’s not a crime.”
Borst could not be reached for comment
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-fruitland-park-kkk-police-20140711,0,7100873.story
Violent crime in black neighborhoods price of debts unpaid
By Salim Muwakkil
July 13, 2014
In 2014, Chicago is more than a city name; it’s a metaphor for urban perplexity. The word simultaneously evokes a glittering urban sky-scrape of festive commercialism and a fetid, murderous underbelly.
More than a tale of two cities, those contradictory images reflect a perplexing refusal to recognize the connection of poverty to community dysfunction.
Chronic poverty is criminogenic; the links are thick and reinforced by rigorous scholarship. In Chicago’s communities, rates of violent crime correlate to poverty rates in ways that make that point irrefutable. There is little dispute that if violence prevention is the goal, reducing poverty is the most effective tactic.
But it’s a tactic that would require enormous resources that we (Chicago, Illinois and the feds) claim we don’t have. And even were the resources available (which they are, re: war, bailouts, bond sales, etc), it’s unlikely that most Chicagoans would be willing to expend them on compensatory programs for black communities.
But according to a major article in a recent edition of The Atlantic magazine, such expenditures are not only needed to help vitalize Chicago’s poverty-racked black neighborhoods, they also are owed to those communities as reparations.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ much-discussed essay in The Atlantic’s June edition made a comprehensive and compelling case that reparations are justified for the descendants of enslaved Africans. The essay avoided the traditional emphasis on slavery and concentrated instead on more contemporary racial injuries, zeroing in on Chicago’s history of racist exclusion.
Coates’ controversial piece set printing records for the 157-year-old magazine and was the topic of discussion at many prestigious venues across the country. Chicago media (except for the Chicago Reader and Chicago magazine) seem to have ignored the story, although this city was Coates’ primary focus.
He noted how banks, the federal government and local corruptions like “contract buying” literally siphoned economic resources from black communities into white ones, impoverishing one while subsidizing the other. Contract buying was a practice of being grossly overcharged for properties by the real estate agents blacks turned to for help in buying homes.
The essay elucidates how this dynamic has produced wide, race-based disparities of wealth that manifest in the dysfunction now ravaging too many black neighborhoods.
Coates argued that the structural misdirection of resources from black to white communities since WW II alone is enough to warrant a compensatory program of reparations.
That focus on the recent past distinguishes Coates’ pro-reparations argument from those that stress the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow apartheid — although he notes that racial slavery was the basis for the white supremacist biases that account for anti-black practices.
The award-winning Atlantic writer chose Chicago to make his point because, he said, the city exemplifies the tragic narrative of the Great Migration that pulled millions of African-Americans from Southern farms to Northern cities.
He told the story of Clyde Ross, who was born in Clarksdale, Miss., but who moved Chicago in 1947 and, with thousands of other black migrants, was later victimized by a contract buying scheme that robbed him of his equity and wiped out his financial future.
“In Chicago and across the country, whites looking to achieve the American dream could rely on a legitimate credit system backed by the government,” Coates wrote. “Blacks were herded into the sights of unscrupulous lenders who took them for money and for sport.”
He noted that 85 percent of all black homebuyers bought on contract from the 1930s to the 1960s. “Contract sellers became rich, North Lawndale became a ghetto,” he noted. “Clyde Ross still lives there … he is 91.”
Ross is a historical figure with a compelling story, but for the most part, Chicago media took a pass on his tale. In fact, in what I consider an act of journalistic malfeasance, Chicago media seem to have passed up the entire reparations story. A serious examination of Coates’ well-researched essay would have obliged city leaders at least to engage his provocative, persuasive argument: the poverty of the black community is the product of specific, race-based policies and could best be remedied by race-based repair.
Coates wrote he came late to this conclusion, but he now joins others who long have advocated for a systematic program of reparations as logical remedy for the race-based deprivations that obviously are the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow apartheid.
A program of reparations is the most effective way to reduce race-based social disparities, invest in a less criminogenic Chicago and, incidentally, pay our enormous debt to a racist history.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-oped-raparations-0713-20140713,0,4948431.story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOiJfzpPHE
Rachel, don’t you EVER blame yourself for Zimmerman murdering Trayvon & getting away with it!
Interesting. Of course, I’m glad to see that Rachel Jeantel is looking so good and doing so well in school. And it’s good that people saw her predicament with being so far behind in learning and stepped up to help her while she is still young. All of that is good and I wish her the best. I believe she will be fine.
But, we still have Don West and his INAPPROPRIATE cross examination that was not challenged by an incompetent and/or corrupt prosecution. And we have a murderer walking the streets.
Rachel Jeantel was talking to a friend on a cellphone just like trillions of other phone calls that have been made, only her friend was being stalked by a killer. She witnessed the prelude to a murder when her friend’s cellphone was knocked away from him by the soon to be killer. She witnessed that her friend was fleeing from the stalker. What else mattered about this woman in this context except that she witnessed the prelude to Trayvon Martin’s murder? Her testimony was positive proof that George Zimmerman was stalking Trayvon Martin, that Trayvon was fleeing, and that George Zimmerman confronted him with violence, the first hit being the one that knocked away the cellphone. What else mattered?
If someone is to be blamed for anything being wrong with the testimony of the prosecution’s most important witness, then blame the prosecution because they failed to do what they were supposed to do for Rachel. And, in the end, the jury would have acquitted Zimmerman no matter what she said or how she said it or how she looked.
Rachel did the best she could for her friend.
Eric Holder:Palin Wasn’t a Good VP Candidate. Even Worse Judge of Who Should Be Impeached
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BWA HA HA HA HA *sipsmycoffee*
Attorney General Eric Holder is not playing with these mofos today. Asked about his “Nation of Cowards” speech. AG Holder stood firm & says: “I wouldn’t walk away from that speech”. “I think we are still a nation that is too afraid to confront racial issues,” rarely engaging “one another across the color line [to] talk about racial issues.”
*************
They want him to walk it back. Hell to the No! The reporter need to go have a seat and sit the fuck down.
SG2, check your e-mail please. THANKS!
OK
Yowzer! Nothing like waking up to Eric Holder beyotch slapping Sarah Palin….
Eric Holder: Palin Wasn’t a Good VP Candidate, Even Worse Judge of Who Should Be Impeached
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/eric-holder-palin-good-vp-candidate-worse-judge/story?id=24539828
Attorney General Eric Holder is challenging Republicans who are calling for his and President Obama’s impeachment, and denouncing what he calls a “gridlocked Washington” stalled by what he says is a Republican Party bent on blocking any of the administration’s efforts.
“For whatever reason, [some] Republicans decided early on that this was a president they were just simply not going to cooperate with,” Holder said in a rare interview with ABC News’ Pierre Thomas. “And over the past five-and-a-half years, we have seen demonstrations of that, where the president has reached out his hand, offered compromises that have simply not been met [in the way] they have been in the past by a Republican Party willing to do the appropriate things.”
Administration efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, for example, have failed. Asked about calls by Sarah Palin to impeach Obama over the administration’s immigration policies, Holder said: “She wasn’t a particularly good vice presidential candidate. She’s an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.”
Seriously, when is the corporate media going to let go of Sarah Palin and stop treating her as though she is still a player, that anything she says actually matters? This ding bat was a half term governor of a sparsely populated state and a gambit for a failing GOP presidential campaign in 2008, for crying out loud. It’s 2014 and time to let her go. What she says is not important or even interesting.
For you, Liza!
Thank you, SG2.
Idiot reporters have the nerve to ask the Attorney General about something the empty head Sarah Palin said. I mean really! WP, please!
Yeah, isn’t it about time for Sarah Palin to be hawking something on QVC?
LMBAO @ QVC What’s she going to hock? Grizzyly bear outfits?!
Ha ha. I dunno. Do they sell guns on QVC?
https://twitter.com/NYCMayorsOffice/status/488062867229646848/photo/1
Good morning!
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Everyone. :-))