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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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“Judge dismisses lawsuit against Spike Lee from Zimmerman tweet”
Read more: http://www.wesh.com/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-against-spike-lee-from-zimmerman-tweet/26987842#ixzz37ggwEc6E
If you think mofos haven’t lost their minds, think on this.
A man slaps a 79 year old black Cook County Judge, spits on her and says, Rosa Parks move.
RUN, that ‘s all these MOFOs can do. COWARDS
Scott Brown Flees Hobby Lobby Questions
Scott Brown does not want to talk about the Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby as he campaigns for a Senate seat in New Hampshire. Paul Lewis, a reporter for The Guardian, pressed Brown for his reaction to the ruling granting some companies exemption from Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Brown regularly and aggressively deflected the questions, one time fleeing to a bathroom in a diner. At another campaign stop, a police officer was called to keep Lewis from questioning Brown. The Republican is also pro-choice and has mostly supported access to birth control
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/07/16/scott-brown-flees-hobby-lobby-questions.html
https://twitter.com/BabyAnimalPics/status/423812910230818816/photo/1
Too cute.
LOL Too cute!
ThinkProgress: The GOP’s Plot To Convince You They Support Birth Control
There’s a war over birth control brewing in the Senate, and Republican lawmakers want to make it clear that the GOP is on the right side.
On Tuesday, after Senate Democrats introduced a measure to override the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Hobby Lobby and clarify that for-profit companies must offer contraceptive coverage, their Republican colleagues announced some forthcoming legislation of their own. As the Hill reports, GOP leadership will introduce a bill that appears to be supportive of women’s access to birth control.
…. the GOP’s competing legislation likely wouldn’t do anything to change the status quo or ensure that Hobby Lobby employees have insurance coverage for contraception. Instead, it’s simply a way for Republicans to reinforce the point that the high court’s ruling on Hobby Lobby doesn’t inhibit women’s legal access to birth control.
… But legality isn’t exactly the same as accessibility. And the Hobby Lobby case was about the latter
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/15/3460393/gop-hobby-lobby-contraception-bill/
Opening Act Ready in House v. Obama
Lawyers on both sides in the GOP’s proposed lawsuit against the president will argue Wednesday before the House Rules Committee.
In an unlikely setting for political theater—the cramped meeting room of the House Rules Committee—lawyers for and against Speaker John Boehner’s proposed lawsuit against President Obama will stage a kind of mock trial Wednesday to expound upon the plan’s possibilities and pitfalls.
Although the testimony will be equally divided between the pros and the cons, the outcome is inevitable. With a 9-4 majority on the Rules Committee, Republicans are certain to follow their leader’s suggestion and write a resolution for the full House to consider calling for litigation against the president.
In fact, a draft resolution has already been prepared, stating that “the Speaker of the House may initiate civil actions in federal court on behalf of the House seeking declaratory or injunctive relief” against the nation’s chief executive for failing to act “in a manner consistent with that official’s duties under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
For strategic legal reasons, Boehner says the House will be suing Obama specifically for delaying enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate last year, on grounds that doing so without congressional approval violated the Constitution. But Republicans have complaints extending to Obama’s executive actions more generally across a wide horizon of areas, from environmental to immigration policy.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/opening-act-ready-in-house-v-obama-20140715
I wish I had words to express how much I hate John Boehner and his GOP House of Representatives.
Obama Administration Seeks End to Tax Inversion Deals
By DAVID GELLES
July 16, 2014 9:30 am
The Obama administration has urged congressional leaders to take swift action to halt the rush of United States companies moving abroad.
In letters sent to four lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said the administration supported a quick fix that would halt the trend of so-called inversions, in which United States companies buy a smaller competitor and reincorporate overseas to save money on taxes.
Speaking at the CNBC Delivering Alpha conference on Wednesday, Mr. Lew called for legislation that would include a package of business reforms, one of which would bring tax levels of companies in the 20 percent range.
“The best way to deal with this is through comprehensive business tax reform and we have a plan out there that would accomplish multiple goals,” he said, citing business tax reforms and providing resources for infrastructure investments.
Members of the House and Senate have made proposals to curb the inversion trend in recent months, and the president included a provision in the budget he presented to Congress this year that would have effectively banned the move. But none of these efforts have yet gained traction.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/obama-administration-seeks-end-to-inversion-deals/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1&
BWA HA HA HA
4 Things We Already Know About Season 4 of Scandal
Posted: 16 Jul 2014 05:00 AM PDT
Gladiators! Long time no chat about our addiction, Scandal. The show ended its season 3 in mid-April. That feels like ages ago. It’s been 3 months already. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! Anywho, Scandal is revving up again because channels are getting ready for Fall TV.
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/07/4-facts-scandal-season-4.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Luvvie+%28Awesomely+Luvvie%29
=email
go LUVVIE!!
Koch Heads: How The Koch Brothers Are Buying Their Way Into The Minds Of Public School Students
n the spring of 2012, Spenser Johnson, a junior at Highland Park High School in Topeka, Kansas, was unpacking his acoustic bass before orchestra practice when a sign caught his eye. “Do you want to make money?” it asked.
The poster encouraged the predominantly poor students at Highland Park to enroll in a new, yearlong course that would provide lessons in basic economic principles and practical instruction on starting a business. Students would receive generous financial incentives including startup capital and scholarships after graduation. The course would begin that fall. Johnson eagerly signed up.
In some ways, the class looked like a typical high school business course, taught in a Highland Park classroom by a Highland Park teacher. But it was actually run by Youth Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit group created and funded primarily by Charles G. Koch, the billionaire chairman of Koch Industries.
The official mission of Youth Entrepreneurs is to provide kids with “business and entrepreneurial education and experiences that help them prosper and become contributing members of society.” The underlying goal of the program, however, is to impart Koch’s radical free-market ideology to teenagers. In the last school year, the class reached more than 1,000 students across Kansas and Missouri.
Lesson plans and class materials obtained by The Huffington Post make the course’s message clear: The minimum wage hurts workers and slows economic growth. Low taxes and less regulation allow people to prosper. Public assistance harms the poor. Government, in short, is the enemy of liberty.
Though YE has avoided the public spotlight, the current structure of the program began to take shape in November 2009, documents show, when a team of associates at the Charles G. Koch Foundation launched an important project with Charles Koch’s blessing: They would design and test what they called “a high school free market and liberty-based course” with support from members of the Koch family’s vast nonprofit and political network. A pilot version of the class would be offered the following spring to students at the Wichita Collegiate School, an elite private prep school in Kansas where Koch was a top donor.
First, the Koch team chose its mascot: a golden eagle holding a knife in its beak. They also assigned each other nicknames: Ol’ Mucky Terrahawk, Mighty Killer, Big Gay Mule, Midnight Bandit and the Erratic Assassin. The group dubbed itself the “Wu-Teach Clan.”
http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2014/07/koch-heads-how-koch-brothers-are-buying.html
Let this be a LESSON to the rest of these NUTS. You TRY to fuck with POTUS….
So there’s a Federal Grand Jury taking place to determine if charges are to be brought against GZ?
Karma’s KNOCKING, “Georgie.” You hear her?
To this day, I could slap that B37 sideways into Sunday for here fuckery.
X’s 10
Wow, so it’s true. I read a comment that mentioned the grand jury and Frank Taaffe a couple of days ago on Xena’s blog.
In all honesty, I never wanted to get my hopes up about this but I have always suspected that there was a lot, lot more to know about George Zimmerman that could bolster the case for a hate crime. I would love to see his FBI file.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up. The verdict knocked the wind out of me. I could hear that woman’s words “not guilty” for so long. All my strength was gone. It was so painful. And then he taunted the family by keeping himself in the news. Please let justice be served this time.
Yeah, I know. it’s been just a year since that verdict but feels, in some ways, like an eternity. It said so much about this country, where we still are, our horrible media, and all of the ignorance.
Liza, I went to retweet this. There’s no retweet button here. LOL!
Haha, yeah blogs need to catch up to the times.
Rep. Renee Ellmers’ full comments regarding the ‘war on women’ narrative
On Sunday, I wrote an article about the GOP’s poor messaging on the “war on women” narrative. I posted some comments from Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., who said GOP men need to bring their messages “down to a woman’s level.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/rep.-renee-ellmers-full-comments-regarding-the-war-on-women-narrhttp://washingtonexaminer.com/rep.-renee-ellmers-full-comments-regarding-the-war-on-women-narrative/article/2550883ative/article/2550883
Chicas!
So the GOP House voted to remove AG Holder’s pay? WTFF?
ASSCLOWNS!
wonder if SEAN would have ever reported on WHITE KKK police officers. GTFOH
Yes, Cheetos, Funnel Cake, and Domino’s Are Approved School Lunch Items
And other lessons from my trip to the annual school nutrition conference
—By Kiera Butler | Wed Jul. 16, 2014 6:00 AM EDT
At exactly 10 a.m. on Monday, hundreds of school cafeteria workers ran hooting and clapping down an escalator into an exhibition hall that looked like a cross between a mall food court and the set of Barney. Pharrell blared over loudspeakers. The Pillsbury Doughboy was on hand for photo ops, as was Chester the Cheetah (the Cheetos mascot) and a dancing corn dog on a stick. Attendees queued up to be contestants in a quiz show called “Do You Eat Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” and flocked toward trays groaning with every kind of kid food one could imagine: tater tots, PB&Js with crusts pre-removed, toaster waffles with built-in syrup, and endless variations on the theme of breaded poultry: chicken tenders, chicken bites, chicken rings, chicken patties, and of course chicken nuggets.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/07/school-lunch-conference-cheetos
This Road Work Made Possible by Underfunding Pensions
JULY 12, 2014
The Federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to run out of money in August. So, naturally, Congress is debating a temporary fix that involves letting corporations underfund their pension systems.
Of course, we could replenish the fund by raising the federal gasoline tax, which is its primary source of financing. That’s what Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, and Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, want to do. But increasing gas taxes is unpopular, so Congress hasn’t done so since 1993, which means that the tax on gas has actually fallen 39 percent over the last 21 years after you adjust for inflation. Instead, Congress has used a series of gimmicks and shifts to keep the fund solvent as highway construction costs have risen.
The latest proposal, which passed the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday, works like this: If you change corporate pension funding rules to let companies set aside less money today to pay for future benefits, they will report higher taxable profits. And if they have higher taxable profits, they will pay more in taxes over the 10-year budget window that Congress uses to write laws. Those added taxes can be diverted to the Federal Highway Trust Fund.
Unfortunately, this gimmick will also result in corporations paying less in taxes in later years, when they have to make up for the pension payments they’re missing now. But if it happens more than 10 years in the future, it doesn’t count in Congress’s method for calculating budget balance. “Fiscal responsibility,” as popularly defined in Washington, ignores anything that happens after 2024.
Letting companies underfund pensions so they pay more taxes is a dumb idea, but it’s not a new one: A similar strategy was part of the last bipartisan highway bill, which passed in 2012. The new proposal would simply extend the underfunding that was already allowed in the 2012 bill for a greater number of years.
This idea has come up in the last few years because pension costs are heavily driven by interest rates — and lower rates mean higher costs. When rates are low, as they are now, the government tells companies to set aside more money to pay for future pension benefits because they can’t count on high returns on safe investments to cover pension costs. Some companies have complained that “artificially low” interest rates are forcing them to actually overfund their plans. The 2012 highway bill and the new proposal give companies relief on that front, letting them fund their pensions based mostly on a historical 25-year average of interest rates; essentially, they’re being allowed to calculate the cost of promising pension benefits on the basis of investments — safe, high-yielding bonds — that were once available to pension funds but can’t be found today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/upshot/this-road-work-made-possible-by-underfunding-pensions.html?_r=1
Good news, bad news on the Highway Trust Fund
07/14/14 12:01 PM—UPDATED 07/14/14 03:44 PM
By Steve Benen
Congress has just a few weeks remaining until the Highway Trust Fund runs out of money. To put it mildly, that would be extraordinarily bad for the economy – the Highway Trust Fund finances nearly all federally-supported transportation infrastructure in the United States. If the fund is exhausted, 700,000 workers would no longer have a job and infrastructure projects nationwide would be abandoned – before they’re done.
Indeed, there’s some evidence congressional delays have already undermined the economy, preventing the start of some construction projects that couldn’t begin because local officials weren’t sure if Capitol Hill would act on the highway bill before the deadline or not.
The good news is, Congress wants to restore Highway Trust Fund resources, preventing a disaster. The bad news is, lawmakers disagree about literally every other facet of the debate.
President Obama already sent a strong infrastructure package to Capitol Hill, which would give the economy an important boost, and which Republicans immediately said they would not pass. The Senate Democratic majority also prioritized a long-term extension for the Highway Trust Fund, which GOP lawmakers also rejected.
This, in turn, left lawmakers scrambling, looking at a variety of bad choices, none of which they have time to debate in earnest. And that has led Congress to once again turn to its old standby: a short-term fix, which will prevent a crisis while kicking the can down the road.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/good-news-bad-news-the-highway-trust-fund
Rick Scott discovers the value of repetition
07/15/14 08:39 AM
By Steve Benen
One of the first truly great examples of the phenomenon came to public light three years ago. British Labour leader Ed Miliband was being interviewed by the BBC about controversial public strikes, and Miliband managed to repeat the exact same phrases, word for word, over and over again, regardless of the question.
From a journalistic perspective, it was dreadful. From a political perspective, it was a rhetoricians’ case study on how to stay on-message. After all, when someone is being interviewed for later broadcast, he or she has no idea which comment will actually reach the public. The only way Miliband could be absolutely certain his message will be aired was to offer only one message – regardless of the question.
Since then, we’ve had some fun documenting similar examples. In 2012, for example, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) threw around some ugly anti-Obama rhetoric, questioning the president’s birthplace and patriotism. Pressed for an explanation, Coffman talked on camera to a local reporter, but instead of answering the questions, the conservative congressman just kept repeating the same phrases ad nauseum until the reporter gave up.
Soon after, a far-right congressional candidate in Arizona named Jesse Kelly tried the same tack following revelations he’d received support from a group tied to white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
This week, it’s Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) turn.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rick-scott-discovers-the-value-repetition
Issa’s new search for ‘good theater’
07/15/14 12:49 PM—UPDATED 07/15/14 02:05 PM
By Steve Benen
A few years ago, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) pretended to be outraged by President Obama recording campaign messages from the White House. Issa realized there was no legitimate controversy, but the California Republican complained bitterly in order to create, in his words, “good theater.”
Apparently, Issa, unable to manufacture any real White House “scandals,” is ready for some more theater.
The White House is asking Rep. Darrell Issa to withdraw a subpoena of a senior adviser to President Barack Obama and is offering instead to hold a private briefing on activities in the administration’s political affairs office.
In a letter sent Monday, White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston offered to brief Issa, a California Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on the role of the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach on Tuesday. That’s one day before the office’s director, David Simas, is under subpoena to testify on potential violations of the Hatch Act.
Ordinarily, there’s a usual pattern to stories like these: Issa raises allegations against Obama administration officials, which the White House dismisses as baseless. But this story is a little different: Issa has subpoenaed Simas, not to respond to any allegations in particular, but because the Oversight Committee chairman just wonders whether a hearing might turn something up.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/issas-new-search-good-theater
How not to tackle contraception policy
07/15/14 05:07 PM
By Steve Benen
About a week ago, Senate Democrats announced their legislative response to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, which empowered employers to limit contraception access to women employees. The Dems’ bill, called the “Protect Women’s Health From Corporate Interference Act,” would require insurance plans to cover birth control, just as the ACA intended, though houses of worship would be exempt and religious non-profits would be accommodated.
The good news is, for all the kvetching I do about Republicans refusing to govern, there is an actual GOP alternate proposal. The bad news is, the Republican bill is so meaningless, it’s rather amazing the Senate minority was even willing to unveil it (thanks to my colleague Kate Osborn for the heads-up).
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Republicans plan to put forward a bill that would ensure employers cannot prevent their employees from obtaining contraception.
“We plan to introduce legislation this week that says no employer can block any employee from legal access to her FDA-approved contraceptives,” McConnell said. “There’s no disagreement on that fundamental point.”
Perhaps realizing that the entirety of the Senate Republican leadership team is made up exclusively of white Christian men, McConnell recruited Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), a loyal party soldier, to help make the case for the GOP plan.
“I’ve been deeply disturbed by the misrepresentations that are being made about what the Hobby Lobby decision means,” she said. “There is nothing in the Hobby Lobby ruling that allows a company to stop a woman from getting or filling a prescription for contraception.”
But it’s worth pausing to appreciate exactly what this proposal intends to do. In a word, the goal is to do nothing.
By “nothing,” I don’t mean the Republican measure is inadequate or intended to push policy in a misguided direction. Rather, I mean the GOP plan actually does nothing.
Laura Bassett explained that the bill “literally does nothing.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-not-tackle-contraception-policy
The 10 best states for retirement in 2014
Move over, Arizona and Florida: When it comes to your golden years, these 10 states are tops.
By Chris Kahn, Bankrate.com
Living your golden years
In the center of the country, there’s a patchwork of states that’s tough to describe without a map. They’re north of the Sun Belt, east of California, west of Appalachia. Some are in the Midwest, a couple of states are in the West and one is ensconced in the South. While collectively they have no geographic identity, perhaps there’s now a reason to give them one.
They’re the best states in the country for retirement.
Bankrate’s 2014 ranking found that these predominantly interior states would be the best choices for your golden years.
Just like last year, Bankrate considered a variety of factors in creating this ranking: the local weather, access to health care, cost of living, crime rate and tax burden. This year we fine-tuned the process by evaluating government statistics on health care quality, and we improved our measurement of weather to include levels of sunshine and humidity. Finally, this year’s ranking adds a broad standard-of-living measurement from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a comprehensive survey gauging people’s satisfaction with their surroundings.
http://money.msn.com/retirement/the-10-best-states-for-retirement-in-2014-1
How GOP Donors Funded Sen. Thad Cochran’s Winning Appeal To African-Americans
Posted: 07/15/2014 11:36 pm EDT Updated: 07/15/2014 11:59 pm EDT
WASHINGTON — Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) appeal to African-American voters in his winning primary election runoff last month was funded entirely by a super PAC supporting his campaign.
According to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, a super PAC called All Citizens for Mississippi received all $144,685 of its funds from the Mississippi Conservatives super PAC run by Henry Barbour, a lobbyist and nephew to former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R).
Bishop Ronnie Crudup of New Horizon Church in Jackson, Mississippi, runs All Citizens for Mississippi. He said previously that he had raised the super PAC’s money from other sources.
“I raised money for our PAC; that’s what PACs do,” Crudup told the Clarion-Ledger on July 9. “And there is no doubt as part of that I raised some money from the Republicans, I raised money from African-Americans. I raised money from a number of sources.”
Mississippi Conservatives super PAC was heavily funded by establishment Republican Party donors, including those closely connected to the Barbour family’s political network in the state. This included Barbour himself and businesses and their executives that have relied on federal money secured by Cochran over the years, including Bollinger Shipyards and General Atomics. The super PAC also received contributions from the leadership PACs of Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/15/thad-cochran-african-american_n_5589944.html?1405481815
http://youtu.be/BxtKAvv1hLA
Charles Pierce went all in on ” Tiger Beat on the Potomac” – POLITICO – and them inviting the Cheney family to some forum
……………..
Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Mainline Antifreeze, Part The Infinity
By Charles P. Pierce on July 15, 2014
Its puerilty has finally crossed over into indecency. Its triviality has finally crossed over into obscenity. The comical political starfcking that is its primary raison d’erp has finally crossed over into $10 meth-whoring on the Singapore docks. Once a mere surface irritation, Tiger Beat On The Potomac has finally crossed over into being a thickly pustulating chancre on the craft of journalism. It has demonstrated its essential worthlessness. It has demonstrated that it has the moral character of a sea-slug and the professional conscience of the Treponema pallidum spirochete. Trust me. Stephen Glass never sunk this low. Mike (Payola) Allen has accomplished the impossible. He’s made Jayson Blair look like Ernie Pyle.
It’s not just that TBOTP invited the Manson Family of American geopolitics to come together for an exercise in ensemble prevarication. It’s not just that the account of said exercise is written in the kind of cacophonous cutesy-poo necessary to drown out the screams of the innocent dead, and to distract the assembled crowd from the blood that has dripped from the wallet of the celebrity war-criminal leading the public display. And it’s not as though this was a mere interview—a “get” that could help you “win the morning (!).” In that, it might have been marginally excusable. No, this was one of Mike Allen’s little grift-o-rama special events—a “Playbook lunch,” sponsored by that noted mortgage fraud concern Bank Of America. There’s an upcoming TBOTP “event” in L.A. that is sponsored by J.P. Morgan. I know what Mike Allen is, but I am so goddamn tired of haggling about the price. Here’s how TBOTP’s own account of the event begins.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Politico_Dances_With_The_Devils
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Happy HUMP day, Everyone! :-)
Good morning, Chicas!