The Temptations are an American vocal group known for their success with Motown Records during the 1960s and 1970s. Known for their choreography, distinct harmonies, and flashy wardrobe, they were highly influential to R&B and soul music.[1]
Known to always feature at least five male vocalists and dancers, the group formed in 1960 in Detroit, Michigan, under the name The Elgins. Having sold tens of millions of albums, the Temptations are one of the most successful groups in music history.[2][3][4] As of 2013[update], the Temptations continue to perform and record for Universal Music Group with one living original member, Otis Williams, still in the lineup.
The original founding members of the group were Otis Williams, Elbridge “Al” Bryant, Melvin Franklin, Eddie Kendricks, and Paul Williams. The members were from two former rival vocal groups, the Distants and the Primes. In 1964, Bryant was replaced by David Ruffin. Four years later, Ruffin was replaced by Dennis Edwards.
https://twitter.com/pnuts_mama/status/492657515503419394
riday, July 25, 2014
Yes, The White House Sees It Coming
Here’s a clever play by White House staffer Dan Pfieffer, who fully expects Orange Julius to play the impeachment card after the 2014 midterms and lets everyone know it.
Dan Pfeiffer, a senior aide who has been with the administration since Obama first took office, told reporters that he anticipated that a lawsuit filed by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) over executive actions taken by the president on health care would ultimately not be enough to satisfy some of the more vocal conservatives in Congress.
Pfeiffer added that coming executive actions surrounding immigration reform would only stoke the impeachment flames.
“I think a lot of people in this town laugh that off,” said Pfeiffer. “I would not discount that possibility. I think that Speaker Boehner, by going down this path of this lawsuit, has opened the door to Republicans possibly considering impeachment at some point in the future
Pfeiffer wouldn’t bother responding to such speculation unless the goal was to egg the wackos in the GOP on to try to force Boehner to pull the trigger, and one loudmouth wacko is playing right into it:
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/07/yes-white-house-sees-it-coming.html
OMG! I remember the ‘Temptation Step’! So cool!
House Votes To Boost Well-Off Kids, Cut Out Poor Kids
Posted: 07/25/2014 1:44 pm EDT
The House of Representatives voted Friday to change a tax credit in a way that would add $115 billion to the deficit and hurt poorer parents while aiding the well-to-do.
By a vote of 237-173, mostly along party lines, the House decided to make permanent the child tax credit and expand it to families earning up to $205,000 a year. The credit, which is worth up to $1,000 for each child in a family, would also be indexed to rise with inflation, as would the eligibility thresholds.
But the new measure fails to extend the part of the credit that was passed in 2009 to help impoverished families and that currently allows parents with annual earnings as low as $3,000 to claim some of the break. That element expires in 2017. Without it, a family would have to earn at least $15,000 to qualify for the credit.
According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, that means a mom working full time at a minimum wage job would receive no help from the credit — because she would be earning only $14,500. Indeed, that mom would lose $1,725 under the new bill, while a family of four earning $150,000 would gain $2,200, according to the center’s analysis.
About 12 million people, including 6 million children, would be pushed further into poverty if the measure became law.
Democrats contrasted Friday’s vote with the speech delivered Thursday by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, who vowed to make a new GOP push to reduce poverty.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/child-tax-credit_n_5620014.html
‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ trailer reaches almost 7 million views in first 24 hours
July 25, 2014, 1:31 PM EST
By Travis Reilly
TheWrap
The “Fifty Shades of Grey” first official YouTube trailer, which dropped on Thursday, registered nearly 7 million views in just 24 hours.
The erotic film, which stars Dakota Johnson as the doe-eyed Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan as a powerful executive and her eventual sexual mentor, Christian Grey, is adapted from an E.L. James book series that sold over 100 million copies worldwide.
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=879341
NYT: Meditation on President Obama’s Portrait
Dawoud Bey’s photograph of the man who would soon be president was taken on a Sunday afternoon in early 2007, at Barack and Michelle Obama’s Hyde Park home in Chicago. The portrait is at once stately and informal. Mr. Obama’s hands are folded gracefully in his lap. He wears an elegant suit and white shirt, but no tie. He stares intensely into the camera.
The Museum of Contemporary Photography had commissioned Mr. Bey the year before to take a portrait of a notable Chicagoan. He had known the Obamas for several years and saw them periodically at social gatherings. Impressed with Mr. Obama’s keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, Mr. Bey sensed a “growing air of expectancy” about him.
“When I was asked who I wanted to photograph,” Mr. Bey said, “it took me but a second to decide that I wanted to photograph him.”
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/barack-obama-photo-dawoud-bey/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
NBC10 Philadelphia ✔ @NBCPhiladelphia
Follow
#BREAKING: Pope Francis officially coming to Philadelphia, Will be his 1st US visit as pope. http://on.nbc10.com/Gh4tc5I
9:32 AM – 25 Jul 2014
LOL @ PBO about that ignorant heckler: I know that guy. He needs to get some new material.
Not pussy-footin’ around here…
Fashion
07.25.14
Beware the Designer Vagina
If the designer vagina generation is nipping and folding now, what will they do when gravity, childbirth, and decades of vigorous sex take their toll?
More young women are tailoring their lady bits than ever before, according to a new report from Transform, a leading cosmetic group in the UK. Research compiled during the last four years found that women between the ages of 18 and 24 seek labia reduction surgery more than any other age group. Transform receives 1,150 labiaplasty requests annually from the 18-24 demographic and attributes the surge to “unrealistic representations of female genitalia in pornographic materials,” despite facilitating these unrealistic representations.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/25/beware-the-designer-vagina.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_afternoon&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_afternoon&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet
https://twitter.com/planetepics/status/492554843945725952/photo/1
https://twitter.com/nytimesphoto/status/492666017651228672/photo/1
There Will Be No Smooth Sailing
by BooMan
Fri Jul 25th, 2014 at 11:01:18 AM EST
In the next couple of decades, America is going to have to grapple with two major changes. The first is that there are going to be new first-world powers, like China, Brazil and India, that we will have to reckon with. The West will not be driving things the way we have been accustomed to since the end of World War Two.
The second is that the American electorate is going to be more diverse and left-leaning, more like Europe.
In both cases, Hillary Clinton seems ill-suited to be our leader. The future is more Bill de Blasio than Andrew Cuomo, and the Clintons probably don’t get that. Still, Andrew Sullivan’s dripping contempt of the Clintons is irritating. He opposes them for all the wrong reasons and none of the right ones.
While I think the Clintons are a bit “out of time,” I don’t necessarily think this is a terrible thing for a country that is going to have some serious difficulties adjusting to new realities. Clinton could serve as a bit of a buffer, allowing the country to adjust to the changed world in way that doesn’t put too much shock into the system.
We should not underestimate the threat that the reactionary rebellion against change represents in this country. They are on the verge of defeat, they know it, and they aren’t going to take it lying down.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/7/25/11118/9677
The Internet Isn’t Ready For Hillary
Nothing doing here. Except in the fever swamps. posted on July 24, 2014, at 9:42 p.m.
Ben Smith BuzzFeed Staff
………….
This is hardly a blip. The same site’s tracker over the last six months shows that the most shared Clinton page, by far, is the Republican Party’s “Stop Hillary Now” campaign. The closest thing on the list to neutral coverage is in 16th place, a Politico piece headlined, “Dem base: Fine with Hillary Clinton, pining for Elizabeth Warren.”
Even when posts from liberal outlets are widely shared, they’re more often than not critical, like this Huffington Post blog demanding that Clinton “STOP NOW. Stop cozying up to the banks, to the chemical companies, to the military-industrial complex, to the party machine, and to all the various financiers who make up the plutocracy now ruining this country.”
Clinton’s book sales, similarly, suggest a modest level of interest. Despite a level of hype and access to the media — CNN, Facebook, and Twitter town halls — that virtually no other author could dream of, the book isn’t selling particularly well. Nielsen’s BookScan, which accounts for about 85% of publishing sales, reported in its newest figures, out Wednesday, that Hard Choices has slipped to 23rd place among fiction and nonfiction hardcovers in its sixth week on the list, selling 10,450 copies this week for a respectable but uninspiring total of 201,464 books. Ed Klein’s ludicrous smear of Clinton, meanwhile, is 10th on the list after four weeks.
All this data suggests that Clinton still hasn’t unlocked the only thing that could really turn a campaign into a movement, and make her a figure of the future and not just the past: authentic excitement among American women at her historic candidacy. There have been blips of real, viral enthusiasm — Texts From Hillary is the best I know. And this too could surely come. Indeed, I expect it to come. But for all the ersatz hashtags pushed by would-be grassroots support groups, it sure hasn’t happened yet.
But the data also suggests that perhaps Clinton shouldn’t rely on inspiration for her candidacy. There is, after all, another way to win. Perhaps she can’t run a campaign modeled on the Obama 2008 movement. The alternative is Obama 2012 — a boring, grinding affair that sold a nascent economic recovery, scorched the Republican, and plodded to the White House.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/the-internet-isnt-ready-for-hillary
Paul Ryan’s Poverty Plan: The Good, the Bad, and the Paternalistic
By Annie Lowrey
Let’s take that last point first. Ryan proposes asking poor families to work with a single “provider” — a government agency or approved nonprofit or for-profit group — to build and enact a life plan, in exchange for cash assistance. (He plans on consolidating the funding streams from food stamps, welfare, and housing-assistance programs.) Here are the relevant bullet points:
•A contract outlining specific and measurable benchmarks for success
•A timeline for meeting these benchmarks
•Sanctions for breaking the terms of the contract
•Incentives for exceeding the terms of the contract
•Time limits for remaining on cash assistance
Oh goodness, let’s run through the ways that this is condescending and wrongheaded.
First, it presupposes that the poor somehow want to be poor; that they don’t have the skills to plan and achieve and grow their way out of poverty. The truth is that many do have the skills, and what they lack are resources — say, enough money to pay for a decent daycare for your infant so you can work a full-time job, or cash to get your car fixed so you don’t have to take the bus to your overnight gig at Walmart. Ryan is not putting more resources on the table, as far as I can tell, and thus for many families he will not be addressing the root problem.
Second, it isolates the poor. Middle-class families don’t need to justify and prostrate themselves for tax credits. Businesses aren’t required to submit an “action plan” to let the government know when they’ll stop sucking the oxygen provided by federal grant programs. The old don’t need to show receipts demonstrating their attendance at water aerobics in order to get Medicare. Nope, it’s just the poor who need to answer for their poverty. That strikes me as flatly wrong.
Third, it threatens to punish the poorest and most unstable families for their poverty and instability. Let’s say you’re a single mom with five kids. You break your contract. You get “sanctioned” — a term normally used for money-launderers, terrorists, and narcotics traffickers, by the way. You suffer, and you fall deeper into poverty. But more to the point, your children suffer. (This is why it is a bad idea to make parents take drug tests in order to receive food stamps.)
Fourth, it does not address the core problem of a lack of jobs — or the problem of a lack of jobs paying a living wage and affording a middle-class lifestyle. What good is it to command that an impoverished teenager get a job if there is no job where he is living? Or if that job only provides poverty-level wages? Or if that job is only for 20 hours a week, not the 45 or 65 he wants to be working? Unemployment is a primary cause of poverty, but a lack of good jobs is a primary cause of unemployment.
Moving on to the part that should make the liberals queasy: block-granting. As in many prior proposals, Ryan suggests turning a number of federal programs into a “block grant” distributed to the states. In other words, states would get a given amount of money to administer a federal program as they saw fit, within certain guidelines. This is not on its face a bad thing; indeed, it could be a very good thing if it gave local areas more flexibility to address their specific needs. But often, “block-granting” is synonymous with “cutting” in Washington. Even if Ryan is currently proposing to keep funding at current levels, those programs, taken together, might be more vulnerable to budget reductions in the future.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/paul-ryans-paternalistic-poverty-plan.html
The Worrying Vacuity Of Hillary Clinton
Jul 24 2014 @ 1:40pm
I’ve tried to avoid the Clinton book tour bullshit this past month or so. Not good for my blood pressure. When I checked in occasionally, it was to discover that nothing much has changed. The Clintons are still self-pitying money-grubbers – $12 million in speaking fees since she left the State Department? – and now their offspring, exploiting her nepotistic advantage with all the scrupulous ethics of her parents, is continuing the grift. If you ask of Clinton what she’s fighting for, what she believes in, if you want to get her to disagree with you on something, good luck. Any actual politics right now would tarnish the inevitability of a resume-led coronation. That the resume has little of any substance in her four years as secretary of state does not concern her. She was making “hard choices”, and if we cannot appreciate that, tant pis.
I’d like to find a reason to believe she’s a political force who stands for something in an era when there is a real appetite for serious change. She could, after all, decide to campaign vociferously in favor of the ACA this summer and fall (universal healthcare is, after all, one of her positions), but that might siphon money away from her foundation and candidacy. She could get out there and start framing a foreign policy vision. But, again, too risky. I see nothing that suggests a real passion for getting on with the fight – just the usual presumptions of a super-elite, super-rich and super-cocooned politician of the gilded age.
So I did watch the Daily Show interview last week, and was not surprised. As in most of her softball media appearances, she was both unctuous and vapid. But even I was aghast at the sheer emptiness and datedness of her one attempt to articulate a future for American foreign policy. She actually said that our main problem is that we haven’t been celebrating America enough, that we “have not been telling our story very well” and that if we just “get back to telling” that story about how America stands for freedom and opportunity, we can rebuild our diminished international stature. One obvious retort: wasn’t she, as secretary of state, you know, responsible for telling that tale – so isn’t she actually criticizing herself?
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/07/24/self-aggrandizement-isnt-diplomacy/
HILLARY, YOU HAVE BEEN ROYALLY
R.E.A.D
House GOP poised to kill veterans-aid bill
07/25/14 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
These days, it’s awfully difficult for major legislation on high-profile issues to generate broad, bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. The parties are usually too far apart to build consensus and strike deals.
But in mid-June, the Senate nevertheless came together to support a bipartisan veterans-aid package, written by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). There was some token opposition from the far-right, but they were easily outnumbered – the bill passed with a whopping 93 votes.
At the time, success seemed like a foregone conclusion. The VA scandal was literally front-page news and the demands for action were ubiquitous. When the Senate bill advanced on a 93-3 vote, many assumed the legislation would be on President Obama’s desk within a week.
That was six weeks ago. House Republicans now appear ready to kill the bill altogether.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-gop-poised-kill-veterans-aid-bill
How the Republican Hold on the South Could Collapse
By Pema Levy / July 8, 2014 11:41 AM EDT
Henry L. Marsh III wanted to see President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in person because, at 79, he figured he might not live to see another black president elected. So the Virginia civil rights lawyer spent January 21, 2013, in Washington, D.C., witnessing a part of history he had dedicated his life to making possible.
His presence at Obama’s inauguration, however, set off one of the dirtiest political maneuvers in recent history.
Marsh is a Democrat in the Virginia Senate, a chamber that until last month was divided evenly along party lines, with 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans. But with Marsh 100 miles away in Washington, Republicans briefly enjoyed a 20-19 majority, if only for a few hours. In a power grab so brazen it caught even the GOP governor by surprise, Senate Republicans passed a bill redrawing the state Senate map to give them a permanent majority.
By the time Marsh returned, his colleagues had passed a redistricting bill that would have vastly undercut the political power of black Virginians. The new map crowded black voters into minority-heavy districts so that up to eight more districts would turn red, a strategy political scientists call “pack and crack,” leaving Republicans with a 27-13 majority in Virginia for years to come.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/18/republican-hold-south-may-collapse-257551.html?piano_t=1
Lisa Ling’s “Our America” has only one more show, the season finale on OWN and then it’s cancelled. I don’t understand why such an extremely good show can’t go on. I have no idea how many viewers it had or what kind of revenue it generated, but it’s really been one of the consistently best programs that has been available on cable for a long time, in my opinion. Bad move on the part of OWN, just my opinion.
Liza-ME&YOU- :- to :- Ling does a great job capturing REAL American’s lives. I love story-telling about the human experience
IMO, OWN is catering to the taste of the majority of it’s viewers. and right now, that happens to be “REALITY TV.” She’s trying to capture that share of the market.
Frankly, I don’t watch these shows, with al the drama and cat-fighting.
I watch Own for the “Master Classes on Sunday night and “Super Soul Sunday”
I agree, Ametia. Lisa Ling is an excellent journalist and storyteller, a rare talent in today’s sea of untalented talking head “journalists” and gasbags. Whenever I watch one of her shows, I am so affected by what I’ve learned. It just that if you (as in OWN) have a show that good, you should keep it even if it isn’t your big moneymaker, unless you aren’t targetting intelligent viewers.
The GOP’s 20-Year War on Health Care
John Boehner says Republicans are planning their Obamacare alternative. Don’t hold your breath. The party has done nada constructive for decades.
Stop the presses: John Boehner admitted Thursday that the Republican Party’s long-awaited alternative to Obamacare needs a little more time in the oven. “You know, the discussions about Obamacare and what the replacement bill would look like continue. We’re trying to build consensus around one plan,” the Speaker told Hill reporters. “Not there yet.”
As if you even needed me to tell you, rest assured: It could be six months from now, a year from now, five years from now, or the day Bibi Netanyahu and Khaled Mashal share a Nobel Peace Prize—they aren’t going to have a plan. Oh, they might have a “plan.” They had a “plan” last year, or at least Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn and two others did. For about two days, they were really tooting its horn. Then it dawned on people that paying for it would involve a hefty middle-class tax increase, on higher-end insurance plans. You may have noticed since then that the Coburn “plan” has not exactly become a leading Republican talking point.
As conservatives continue to hail the Halbig decision, some historical context is called for. In my last column, I wrote that conservatives and Republicans are going to extraordinary lengths to see that more Americans die. Not every reader was won over by that opinion, as you might imagine. But I think it’s beyond dispute, as a little discussion of political history should show.
The problem of millions of uninsured has existed in this country since—well, since forever. But as a running news story that the media paid attention to, for the last 25 or 30 years. I remember when the then-horrifying number was 15 million uninsured. Then 20 million, then 30 million, on up to the 46 million figure we often saw bandied about before the Affordable Health Care was enacted (10 million new Americans are insured as a result of it—a very respectable dent, for just one year). So, 30 years, a full generation, tens of millions of people adversely affected. And what, in all that time, has the Grand Old Party proposed to do about it all?
Not. One. Thing. Republican presidents had (if we go back to 1984) 16 years to pass some kind of health-insurance law. But none of the three ever even proposed one. George W. Bush did pass his Medicare law, but that was about adding prescription-drug coverage for seniors; it didn’t insure any previously uninsured citizens. What the GOP did instead, of course, was to fight tooth-and-nail to stop the two Democratic attempts to insure more people, succeeding the first time, failing the second.
And “tooth-and-nail” hardly begins to describe the demented and nearly sociopathic reality of Republican and conservative opposition to trying to make health insurance affordable for working-class people. Opposition to doing so has been one of the four grand accomplishments of the Republican Party of our time, which I would rank as follows, one scratched on each side of the obelisk: one, start disastrous wars and commit torture; two, make people despise the government; three, nearly cause a new Depression; and four, deny health insurance to as many people as possible, as aggressively and nastily as possible. It’s a grim record generally, and with regard to health care specifically, inarguably one that has promoted insalubriousness and suffering and, indeed, deaths that might have been avoided or delayed if people had had insurance.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/25/the-gop-s-20-year-war-on-health-care.html#
LO & Joy Reid were chatting with some dude last night and he broke down Ryan’s plan like a fraction. It’s total HORSESHIT.
Here’s the link:
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word
Obama visits with nonprofit head, ex-gang members
…”I never thought I was ever going to meet the president in my life,” said Swift, who was serving time a year ago. He said meeting the president was exhilarating. “He was a cool guy — he was kind of funny, and just like us.”
McKinley was still aglow afterward because the president had complimented him on the scraggily beard he’s growing — the one Boyle and the other teens had tried to get him to shave before the meeting.
“The president says ‘I couldn’t grow a beard like that at 19. But I couldn’t even grow a beard like that today,'” Boyle said. The comment prompted McKinley to look to Boyle, vindicated.
The gathering was part of Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, which aims to connect youth to mentors and support networks to gain skills to get a job or go to college.
As the president prepared to leave, he said, “‘Well, I’ve got to go back to work,'” Boyle recalled. “‘The work never stops. So no shortcuts.'”
Those last few words stuck with Swift.
“The way I live my life, I always try to go the easy way out,” Swift said. “But the way he became president wasn’t the easy way, so OK, to get what I want I know I’ve got to really buckle down.”…
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Obama-visits-California-non-profit-gang-members-5645326.php?cmpid=twitter
Will an Ethics Scandal—and Jimmy Carter’s Grandson—Bring Georgia’s GOP Governor Down?
Could a Carter from Georgia once again win because of a scandal-plagued Republican? Democrat Jason Carter—grandson of former President Jimmy Carter—is challenging first-term Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal this fall, and the incumbent Republican is facing an ethics controversy that could imperil his reelection chances.
Deal has been embroiled for years in a low-grade scandal regarding allegations that his staff smothered a state ethics investigation of his campaign finances. But the controversy has recently heated up. This spring, a former head of the state’s ethics commission won a lawsuit in which she claimed that she was improperly pushed out of her job for digging into Deal’s campaign. Her replacement—fearing that she might also be jettisoned from the commission—has now come forward and alleged that the governor’s aides tried to interfere with the ethics commission.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/georgia-governor-nathan-deal-ethics-commission
I can turn the grayest sky BLUE.
I can make it rain, whenever I want it to.
I can build a castle from a single grain of sand.
I can make a ship sail, uh, on dry land.
…But my life is incomplete and I’m so blue. ‘Cause I can’t get next to you.
…Can’t get next to you…
Oh, I can fly like a bird in the sky
Hey, I can buy anything that money can buy.
July 24, 2014 10:28 AM
Jeb’s Tin Ear
By Ed Kilgore
Since some folk probably continue to believe that electoral salvation for the GOP depends on turning once again to the Bush family for help, and because he’s one of the two potential 2016 presidential candidates (the other being Chris Christie) the Donor Class seems to long for, it’s worth the time now and then to note Jeb Bush’s utterances and activities. Of late, he really seems to be losing touch with the conservative zeitgeist. Most obvious is his decision to champion Common Core education standards at almost the precise moment other Republican pols have smelled danger in the air and stampeded in the opposite direction. And then there’s immigration.
Today he’s got an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with conservative movement warhorse Clint Bolick about the refugee crisis. Most of it is standard GOP rhetoric about the fecklessness of the Obama administration and the accidental impact of Anti-Trafficking legislation. But then, at the very end, the authors run off the rails:
The best antidote to illegal immigration is a functioning system of legal immigration. We must rebuild one that is economically driven—for example, looking for those whose skills and drive will make a difference—in our national interest and true to our immigrant heritage.
President Obama has promised to once again act unilaterally if Congress fails to take up immigration reform. Now is the time for House Republicans to demonstrate leadership on this issue. Congress should not use the present crisis as an excuse to defer comprehensive immigration reform. Whether President Obama is making health-care policy by fiat or using the Environmental Protection Agency to circumvent the lawmaking process, we have too often seen what happens when the president oversteps his constitutional authority. Avoiding similar disastrous results will require legislative action by both parties.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_07/jebs_tin_ear051351.php
What Paul Ryan still misses in his new, more serious poverty plan
By Emily Badger July 24 at 3:09 PM
To his credit, Paul Ryan did not once invoke “bootstraps.” In a speech unveiling his new poverty proposal Thursday morning at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, he did not describe the safety net as a “hammock” a single time. He did not use thinly veiled code words about the “inner city.” He did not misleadingly suggest — as he has often in the past — that the war on poverty has failed, when in fact much research tells us that federal programs, despite their flaws, have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution.
Ryan is learning to talk about poverty in ways that don’t make his ideas instantly unpalatable to the left, to advocates for the poor, to researchers and program officers who recognize that poverty is a sign of so much more than the absence of effort. But for all of his welcome nuance — his new plan includes several ideas that can be cheered across the political spectrum — Ryan still misunderstands or glosses over some crucial points about the causes of poverty and what’s needed to alleviate it.
The centerpiece of Ryan’s deficit-neutral proposal is an idea to consolidate the federal government’s many anti-poverty programs, including food stamps, cash assistance and housing vouchers, into a single more flexible funding stream that would be available to the states in the form of block grants. Local public or private service providers who know best would then tailor those resources to the needs of individual recipients. Maybe one family needs housing help. Maybe another requires subsidies for child care. This idea rightly recognizes the poverty isn’t experienced the same way by everyone. But here is what Ryan’s plan suggests should happen next:
Providers must be held accountable, and so should recipients. Each beneficiary will sign a contract with consequences for failing to meet the agreed-upon benchmarks. At the same time, there should also be incentives for people to go to work. Under each life plan, if the individual meets the benchmarks ahead of schedule, then he or she could be rewarded.
His “discussion draft” says more about the benefits to achieving these goals (like “getting a job within six months”) than the sanctions for failing to meet them. But the idea is fundamentally punitive. It betrays the fact that Ryan’s latest thinking has not strayed all that far from the simplistic notion that people in poverty are solely to blame for their own circumstances. An incentive system like this assumes that end goals such as employment are entirely within the control of poor people if they would just try hard enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/24/what-paul-ryan-still-misses-in-his-new-more-serious-poverty-plan/
Ryan is still a “ZOMBIE-EYED-GRANNY KILLER, AYN RAND” SHAM ARTIST!
Senate: 2014 a Year All Its Own
Republicans’ takeover odds remain decent, but this isn’t 2006 or 2010
Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley, Sabato’s Crystal Ball July 24th, 2014
Analysts always strain to generalize about elections. We want to “model” them, find the common elements, and project them as early as possible based on the commonalities. That’s a legitimate approach, but we need always remember that every election is different. Every single one.
It isn’t just the candidates that change up, or the specific events that end up defining an election season, or the particulars about presidential and congressional job approval. In midterm elections, especially, the combination of competitive districts and states varies greatly, expanding or contracting the potential for change.
Last year, and even in the beginning of 2014, we and others were inclined to think that 2014 would be another wave midterm, like 2006 or 2010. After all, it’s the “sixth-year itch” of the Obama administration — always a dangerous time for the White House party — and President Obama’s popularity had been sinking well below the 50% level. Then there was the Senate map for 2014. Arguably, this year features the best lineup for the Republicans since 1980. Almost all — some would say all — of the GOP’s 15 Senate seats are either in the bag or will be by Election Day, owing to the Red nature of the states. By contrast, many of the 21 Democratic seats are located in Red or Purple states, some with shaky incumbents and others left vacant for easy Republican pickup. Finally, midterm turnout usually (not always) favors Republicans, with poor turnouts registered by Democratic-leaning groups such as minorities and the young versus decent turnouts by GOP cohorts, including whites and those over age 60.
Well, it’s late July, and so far at least, this election hasn’t gelled quite the way it earlier appeared on paper. President Obama’s popularity isn’t impressive, but his job approval seems to have stabilized in the low-to-mid 40s — not as bad as President Bush’s level in 2006 (about 37% approval roughly this time eight years ago). Several of the most vulnerable Democratic senators on the ballot are proving more durable than expected, fending off challenges or at least holding their own so far. In 2006, Democrats at this point were up double digits in most surveys of the House generic ballot, a poll measuring the general mood of the country that suggested not only Democratic gains in the House, but also the Senate. Four years ago, Republicans by this time had taken a three-point lead in the generic ballot surveys, a lead that would only grow. Now, Democrats retain a tiny, one-point edge.
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/senate-2014-a-year-all-its-own/
Obamacare: Still Not Dead Yet
Allan Brauer | July 22, 2014
Editor’s welcome note: Hello TPV community, please welcome our newest contributor, Allan Brauer. Most of you probably already know Allan from his prolific Tweets as well as from his contribution to the Angry Black Lady Chronicles (ABLC). It is an absolute honor for me to have Allan make TPV his new blogging home! – Spandan
Obamacare is dead!
“I’m not dead yet!”
Three court rulings have come down this week in three separate legal challenges to various aspects of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. One, the case of Halbig v. Burwell, is being trumpeted loudly across the media as a death blow to Obamacare, especially by those sites with a rightward bent and/or those whose business model involves screaming headlines as click-bait.
A second ruling from the Fourth Circuit on King v. Burwell comes to a completely opposite conclusion than Halbig, so it’s likely you won’t hear as much about it. And a third ruling on the case of Johnson v. US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is a clear rebuke to legislators’ attempts to weaken the executive branch via litigation.
First, the bad news. Then, the good news. And then, the news that has John Boehner weeping into his scotch.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2014/7/22/obamacare-still-not-dead-yet
Everything that the GOP has done to bring down the ACA now seems to be evolving into a clusterf*kk of legal actions and decisions in various courts that have conflicting judicial opinions.
Really, when you get down to it, what kind of person would deny another person healthcare? Then apply that to the entire GOP. Think about the kind of people they really are at every level, from the plutocrats all the way down to the white trash in the trailer parks. What kind of people do this?
THIS: “What kind of people do this?
Liza, I got up this morning, and these were the very same questions that popped into my head.
Sheer greed, power,.. Downright EVIL.
“Sheer greed, power,.. Downright EVIL.”
There’s no other possible explanation.
Morning Plum: Only Republicans and conservatives support lawsuit against Obama
By Greg Sargent July 25 at 9:19 AM
A new CNN poll finds that a majority of Americans oppose impeaching Obama by 65-33, and oppose the House GOP lawsuit against the president by 57-41. A majority disagree by 52-45 that he’s gone too far in expanding executive power.
You’ll be shocked to hear that only Republicans and conservatives support both impeaching the president and the lawsuit against him. Republicans support impeachment by 57-42; they support the lawsuit by 75-22. Among conservatives those numbers are 56-44 and 64-33.
Meanwhile, majorities of moderates and independents overwhelmingly oppose both. Among moderates the numbers on impeachment are 26-72 and on the lawsuit they are 34-62. Among independents the numbers are 35-63 and 43-55.
This perhaps supports the Dem analysis that the lawsuit risks alienating moderates and independents in 2014. But the more important implications of these findings — should they be born out in other polls — concern the coming battles over who will be to blame if Congress punts on responding to the border crisis and, beyond that, over Obama’s coming executive actions on deportations.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/25/morning-plum-only-republicans-and-conservatives-support-lawsuit-against-obama/
The big problem with Paul Ryan’s new poverty plan
By Paul Waldman July 24 at 12:38 PM
Today, Rep. Paul Ryan is unveiling his latest idea to change the federal government’s poverty programs. For someone who is constantly saying how concerned he is about poverty, Ryan’s previous budgets have relied an awful lot on slashing benefits to poor people. But this time, he promises that his proposal doesn’t cut benefits, but merely reorganizes them. Some parts of the proposal might be worthwhile. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it’s still driven by the longstanding conservative desire to limit the help we give to the poor.
The centerpiece of the proposal is a consolidation of multiple separate programs into a single block grant that would be given to states; they could decide how to dispense the money, and the federal government’s job would essentially be reduced to oversight. States would choose whether or not to participate.
This sounds reasonable until you start to think about how it would play out. In practice, it’s likely that the states most eager to sign on would be precisely those that aren’t too happy about the ways the federal government provides benefits now. The devil would be in the details; what if a state decided to take its entire block grant and devote it to giving lectures to poor people on why they should get married? There could be a lot of needs going unmet while states implement their ideologically-driven visions of how poverty ought to be addressed.
Ryan’s plan assumes that the same Republican states that rejected the federal government’s offer to insure poor citizens through the expansion of Medicaid — in other words, who would rather see poor people go uninsured than get coverage from the government — are now going to be spectacularly committed and creative in working to help those same poor citizens through their time of need. Color me skeptical.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/07/24/the-big-problem-with-with-paul-ryans-new-poverty-plan/
All the Times Eric Holder Kept It Completely 100
Here is proof that our attorney general is as real as they come
By: Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele–Posted: July 24 2014 3:00 AM
I’ll take #1 for $1000, AG Holder!
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/07/attorney_general_eric_holder_speaks_candidly_about_racism_criminal_justice.html
Friday dose of Maddow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Tb37PW19E
Friday, July 25, 2014
Ford, The Border, And The Turtle
Last night was the annual Kentucky Democratic Party’s Wendell Ford dinner, honoring the legendary 89-year old former senator and governor who is battling lung cancer. Wendell’s grandson Clay was in attendance, along with Gov. Dinosaur Steve and Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, and the main course was fried turtle with a side of crow.
After the event, Grimes took a few questions from the press and was asked again if she supported President Barack Obama’s request for $3.7 billion in emergency supplemental funds to deal with the influx of Central American children across the nation’s border with Mexico.
When asked earlier this month, Grimes four times declined to take a position, referring instead to the immigration bill that passed the U.S. Senate in 2013. On Thursday night, Grimes said, “My response remains the same.”
“It’s an example of Washington not working right now,” Grimes said. “A year ago, we had the opportunity to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and Mitch McConnell stood in the way.
McConnell voted against the proposal, but it did pass the U.S Senate.
“Had we passed comprehensive immigration reform, we might not be here today,” Grimes said. “My hope is that we can make sure to return these children safely and make sure we are securing our borders. Comprehensive immigration reform is a way to do that.”
Grimes did say she was not in favor of “giving the president a blank check.”
It’s a good answer on immigration reform, but the non-answer on the current proposal to help the Border Patrol seems like another unforced error on Grimes’s part. At some point you’re going to have to take a stand on this bill, Alison.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/07/ford-border-and-turtle.html
Black GOP staffer fired for Facebook complaint about primary opponent’s ‘white privilege’
By Scott Kaufman
Friday, July 25, 2014 9:12 EDT
The Hartford Courant reported that a Republican consultant was fired Thursday after she complained on Facebook about the “white privilege” of her employer’s opponent.
Regina V. Ross Roundtree had been in the employ of Penny Bacchiochi, a Republican candidate for the Connecticut lieutenant governor, until she wrote on Facebook that the “white privilege” demonstrated by Bacchiochi’s Republican opponent in the primary, Heather Bond Somers, turned off potential voters.
“People think what they think, but help the party out and don’t plaster your complete sense of privilege,” Roundtree wrote in the post, which has since been deleted. “This is an example of what is sometimes phrased as ‘white privilege.’ The way Heather [Bond Somers] talks. The arrogance and belittlement of Penny’s and her family’s feelings or any other person who has experienced racism. Our feelings or the fact that we may say something is an embarrassment to the party.”
When candidate Somers discovered that an operative for her Republican opponent had described her as possessing “white privilege,” she demanded that Bacchiochi disavow the “defamatory comments.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/25/black-gop-staffer-fired-for-facebook-complaint-about-primary-opponents-white-privilege/
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Last Call For The Ryan Plan 3.0
Not content with his goal to turn Medicare and Medicaid into block grants that states will then use for purposes other than healthcare, Rep. Paul Ryan now turns his austerity machine upon those awful poor people in an attempt to block grant them out of existence.
Ryan, known as the Republican Party’s budget guru and a former vice presidential nominee, argued that disparate federal aid programs should be consolidated into “Opportunity Grants” to states, which would have the freedom to experiment with more flexible programs administered by certified providers like non-profit or community groups. No state would be required to participate in the program, which Ryan says would be budget neutral. The Wisconsin lawmaker and possible 2016 presidential hopeful, laid out the plan in a USA Today op-ed Thursday.
Ryan, whose previous budget plans have been excoriated by Democrats in national ad campaigns as heartless slashes to crucial safety net programs, tried to strike a compassionate tone in his remarks Thursday, saying that he’s visited poor communities during the last year seeking solutions. “When I went to Milwaukee or Denver or Indianapolis, nobody asked me what party I belonged to,” he said. “They welcomed anybody who was willing to listen and learn. That should be our approach in Washington.”
Let’s take a look at Operation Opportunity Grants, shall we?
Here’s how the program would work: Each state that wanted to participate would submit a plan to the federal government. That plan would lay out in detail the state’s proposed alternative. If everything passed muster, the federal government would give the green light. And the state would get more flexibility to combine things such as food stamps, housing subsidies, child care assistance and cash welfare. This simpler Opportunity Grant would include the same money as current law.
Plans would be approved on four conditions: The state would have to spend all funding on people in need. Second, the state would have to hold people accountable through work requirements and time limits for every able-bodied recipient just as there are for cash welfare today.
Third, the state would have to offer at least two service providers. The state welfare agency couldn’t be the only game in town. And fourth, the state would have to measure progress through a neutral third party to keep track of key metrics.
So privatize the system first of all, giving billions in dollars meant to help the needy to corporations whose goal is to wring as much profit out of this as possible. And of course we would need to have multiple corporations doing this to encourage competition. You know, just like your cable company. And then we’d have to of course hire more corporations to make sure the other corporations are doing their jobs. Yeah, that’ll solve the problem with inefficiency and fraud.
Second, let’s make getting poverty programs even harder to get into than getting good-paying jobs that don’t exist, and then slap arbitrary limits on these programs so that people will magically find jobs or face starvation, eviction, or worse. Because misery and shame creates good workers and magically produces jobs, or something.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/07/last-call-for-ryan-plan-30.html
Joy Ann Reid is going off on twitter
…………………………..
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
Doesn’t asking if Black voters are “open to Republican ideas” ignore the rather significant issue of what those ideas are? @Morning_Joe
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
Because if GOP ideas remain fixed on opposing Medicaid expansion, gutting the safety net, voter ID, not to mention the tone toward Obama…
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
I’m not sure it’s the AA community that needs to demonstrate its ability to be “open.” Just sayin.
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
If you want to locate the thing that may have permanently fixed the rift between Black Americans and the GOP, the party’s decision to
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
react to the election of the first AA president with total obstruction and a permanent campaign of very personal hostility would be a good
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
place to start. 50 years of policy positions opposing the Great Society would be a good place to locate the longer term break. Rant off.
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
@YuriThomas99 indeed. The GOP’s basic, historic policy positions (low taxes, small government) aren’t in and of themselves opposed by AAs.
Joy Reid ✔ @JoyAnnReid
@YuriThomas99 it’s the application of those positions to target any program depicted as “special benefits” to minorities, &again, the tone.
LMAO about being “open to Republican ideas.”
https://twitter.com/riwired/status/492461073900249088
OMG. Tears. Bless this child.
Two-Faced Marco Rubio Turns Back On DREAMers As He Wants Obama To End DACA
By: Justin Baragonamore from Justin Baragona
Thursday, July, 24th, 2014, 9:18 pm
On Thursday, after meeting with leaders of Central American countries on Capitol Hill, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement where he called on President Obama to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that the president enacted in 2012. Per Rubio’s press release, DACA is one of the main reasons why the United States has seen a huge uptick in migrant children from Central America in the past year. While the presidents of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala reiterated in their visit to Washington that violence and drug trafficking in their countries is a key driver behind the exodus of young refugees, Rubio decided that Thursday’s meeting presented a ripe opportunity to blame President Obama for this humanitarian crisis.
………………….
Essentially, with this statement, Rubio told his fellow Republicans that he is no longer for any lasting immigration reform. On top of that, he let the DREAMers know that he no longer supports their desire to finally become citizens of the United States. With the GOP presidential primary season coming up soon, Rubio has to do his hard-shift to the right and appeal to the uber-conservative base of the Republican Party if he is to have any chance of winning the nomination. With conservative pundits like Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh having already called him out on his role in drafting the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill that was passed by the Upper Chamber with bipartisan support last year, Rubio figured it is time to turn his back on the image he had created as a pro-reform Republican.
This week, Rubio has made a concerted effort to reach out to conservatives and remind them he can be just as bigoted, hateful and closed-minded as any of the other potential 2016 Republican candidates. On Wednesday, he spoke at the Catholic University of America and reasserted his positions on same-sex marriage and abortion. Rubio also emphasized that social conservatives are the real victims when it comes to the debate on marriage equality since those who seek tolerance won’t tolerate the right’s intolerance.
Therefore, with his full-throated appeal already made to the religious right, it comes as no shock that Rubio would distance himself from immigration reform. Obviously, he has calculated that he needs to appeal to old white people if he wants to get through the GOP primary. If by some miracle of miracles he’s able to make it through, or perhaps get on the ticket as the VP candidate, he probably thinks he can do an ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ and shift back to being more progressive on immigration reform, where he’ll emphasize that he supports a pathway to citizenship and that Republicans need to be more compassionate and sympathetic to the plight of immigrants.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/24/two-faced-marco-rubio-turns-dreamers-obama-daca.html
House Republican Hearing On The Harmful Impact of Obamacare Completely Backfires
By: Jason Easley
Thursday, July, 24th, 2014, 7:03 pm
A House Republican hearing on the harmful impact of Obamacare on Medicare Advantage completely backfired when the expert witnesses that Republicans invited disagreed with them.
Subcommittee on Health Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) set the stage for gloom and doom, “The future for Medicare Advantage may look grim. The questionable $8.3 billion quality bonus payment demonstration program used to mask the ACA cuts is coming to an end…This leaves the looming threat that Medicare Advantage plan rates could again include the broken physician reimbursement formula, unless we finally and permanently fix the way Medicare pays physicians. Instead of improving the situation, CMS’s regulatory actions are threatening plans through potential termination and limiting their ability to innovate.”
The Republicans quickly crashed and burned when their own witnesses disagreed with them.
Chris Wing of SCAN Health Plan said, “The MA program continues to grow in popularity. It gives seniors and other eligible individuals what they want: choice, coordination of care, affordability. It has begun to put the incentives in place for constant quality improvement by rewarding collaboration between providers and plans. Congress should have a strong interest in seeing the continued advancement of Medicare Advantage.”
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/24/house-republican-hearing-harmful-impact-obamacare-completely-backfires.html
Eddie Gehman Kohan @ObamaFoodorama
Follow
POTUS gave @Cantersdeli cashier an extra $20 to pay for the meal of a homeless woman who comes in daily, co-owner Jacqueline Canter told me
3:18 PM – 24 Jul 2014
from POU:
Miranda
I’m mad I even clicked on her bullshit. Bad weave girl is really worthless. I guess after Capeheart wrote his piece praising PBO’s townhall, here she comes to bash it to get her bonafides with the blackety black naysayers.
What President Obama gets wrong about ‘acting white’
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/07/24/what-president-obama-gets-wrong-about-acting-white/
Emily L. Hauser @emilylhauser
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#Israel’s Frmr Security Chief thinks June kidnapping of 3 Israeli teens “not coordinated or directed by” Hamas: http://spon.de/aehEo [1/3]
7:41 PM – 24 Jul 2014
https://twitter.com/HumanAfrica/status/488806787923972096/photo/1
http://youtu.be/E1ZHNvb17-0
Arapaho415 @arapaho415
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President Obama met privately w/Father Gregory Boyle of LA’s Homeboy Industries and four former gang members.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-obama-father-greg-boyle-private-meeting-20140724-story.html …
10:55 PM – 24 Jul 2014
ok, this is nothing but creepy
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Creepy Porcelain Dolls Left in Front of Homes Where Little Girls Live
Mark Shrayber
Yesterday 7:00pm
Someone’s either playing a cruel trick or issuing some kind of cryptic warning to the children of San Clemente, California. Police report that an unidentified person is leaving porcelain dolls in front of homes where 10-year-old girls live. And what’s even creepier is that the dolls resemble the children.
According to Orange County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Jeff Hallock, 11 dolls have been reported by frightened parents. The dolls were all placed in front of homes in the same gated community and, according to KTLA, at least some of the girls attend the same elementary school. The dolls have been taken into evidence and while the Sheriff’s Department says that leaving scary-as-shit porcelain dolls in front of children’s homes is not a crime (yes it is! Have you never seen a horror movie, Sheriff?) Hallock says that the police are taking this incident very seriously.
http://jezebel.com/creepy-porcelain-dolls-left-in-front-of-homes-where-lit-1610485464?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Have loved Motown this week.
TYSM! Motown forever!
…and EVER! Amen.
Good Morning, Everyone :)
MORNING, Folks & Happy Fry-day! It’s gonna be a rockin’ weekend. Got house guests coming…
Good morning! Have a great time and enjoy!