More of the Material Girl.
1986–91: True Blue, Who’s That Girl, Like a Prayer, and Dick Tracy
In June 1986, Madonna released her third studio album, True Blue, which was inspired by and dedicated to Sean Penn.[46] Rolling Stone magazine was generally impressed with the effort, writing that the album “sound[s] as if it comes from the heart”.[47] It spawned three number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100: “Live to Tell”, “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Open Your Heart”, and two more top-five singles: “True Blue” and “La Isla Bonita”.[25][37] The album topped the charts in over 28 countries worldwide, an unprecedented achievement at the time and became her best-selling studio album of her career to this date with sales of 25 million.[48] In the same year, Madonna also starred in the critically panned film Shanghai Surprise for which she was awarded the Golden Raspberry Award for “worst actress”. She also made her theatrical debut in a production of David Rabe’s Goose and Tom-Tom, both co-starring Penn.[49] The next year, Madonna’s second feature film, Who’s That Girl, was released. She contributed four songs to its soundtrack, including the title track and “Causing a Commotion”.[25]
Madonna embarked on the Who’s That Girl World Tour in July 1987, which continued until September.[50] The tour was inspired by Madonna’s belief that, with the help of people, she could turn herself into something else.[51] It broke several attendance records, including over 130,000 audience in a concert near Paris, which remains her biggest concert attendance ever.[52] Later that year, she released a remix album of past hits, titled You Can Dance, which reached number 14 on the Billboard 200.[24][53] After an annulment in December 1987, Madonna filed for divorce from Penn in January 1989 citing irreconcilable differences.[35]
In January 1989, Madonna signed an endorsement deal with soft-drink manufacturer, Pepsi. In one of her Pepsi commercials, she debuted her song “Like a Prayer”. The corresponding music video featured many Catholic symbols such as stigmata and cross burning, and a dream about making love to a saint, leading the Vatican to condemn the video. Religious groups sought to ban the commercial and boycott Pepsi products. Pepsi revoked the commercial and canceled her sponsorship contract.[56][57] The song was included on Madonna’s fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, which was co-written and co-produced by Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray.[58] Rolling Stone wrote that it was “as close to art as pop music gets”.[59] Like a Prayer peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 15 million copies worldwide, with 4 million copies sold in the U.S. alone.[24][60] Six singles were released from the album, including “Like a Prayer”, which reached number one, and “Express Yourself” and “Cherish”, both peaking at number two.[25][37] By the end of the 1980s, Madonna was named as the “Artist of the Decade” by MTV, Billboard and Musician magazine.[61][62][63]
Madonna starred as Breathless Mahoney in the film Dick Tracy (1990), with Warren Beatty playing the title role.[64] Her performance led to a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress.[65] To accompany the film, she released the soundtrack album, I’m Breathless, which included songs inspired by the film’s 1930s setting. It also featured the U.S. number-one hit, “Vogue”,[66] and “Sooner or Later”, which earned songwriter Stephen Sondheim an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1991.[67] While shooting the film, Madonna began a relationship with Beatty which dissolved by the end of 1990.[68][69]
In April 1990, Madonna began her Blond Ambition World Tour, which was held until August.[70] Rolling Stone called it an “elaborately choreographed, sexually provocative extravaganza” and proclaimed it “the best tour of 1990”.[71] The tour was met with strong reaction from religious groups for her performance of “Like a Virgin”, during which two male dancers caressed her body before she simulated masturbation.[50] The Church of England and the Catholic Church criticized her performance and the Pope asked the general public and the Christian community not to attend the concert.[72] A private association of Catholics calling themselves Famiglia Domani also boycotted the tour for its eroticism.[73] In response, Madonna said, “The tour in no way hurts anybody’s sentiments. It’s for open minds and gets them to see sexuality in a different way. Their own and others”.[74] The Laserdisc release of the tour won Madonna a Grammy Award in 1992 for Best Long Form Music Video.[75]
The Immaculate Collection, Madonna’s first greatest-hits compilation album, was released in November 1990. It included two new songs, “Justify My Love” and “Rescue Me”.[76] The album was certified diamond by RIAA and sold over 30 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist in history.[77][78] “Justify My Love” reached number one in the U.S. and top ten worldwide.[37][79] Its music video featured scenes of sadomasochism, bondage, same-sex kissing, and brief nudity.[80][81] The video was deemed too sexually explicit for MTV and was banned from the network.[80] Madonna responded to the banning: “Why is it that people are willing to go and watch a movie about someone getting blown to bits for no reason at all, and nobody wants to see two girls kissing and two men snuggling?”[82] The second single, “Rescue Me”, became the highest-debuting single by a female artist in Hot 100 chart history at that time, entering at number 15 and peaking at number nine.[76]
In December 1990, Madonna decided to leave Jennifer Lynch’s film, Boxing Helena, which she had previously agreed to star in, without any explanation to the producers.[83] Around this time, Madonna had an eight-month relationship with rapper Vanilla Ice; he ended their relationship because of Madonna’s Sex book.[84] Her first documentary film Truth or Dare (known as In Bed with Madonna outside North America)[85] was released in May 1991. The documentary chronicled her Blond Ambition World Tour.[19]
ALEC And Jeb Bush Are Conspiring To Kill Off Public Schools For Good
By: Dennis S more from Dennis S
Tuesday, August, 26th, 2014, 9:43 pm
Even the most successful of power-mad schemers need reliable co-conspirators to accomplish their nefarious ends. The most power-mad of the power-mad, the American Legislative Exchange Council, relies on easily compromised spear-carriers to dominate state legislatures and push through model-legislation designed to benefit ALEC’s multi-national, special interest corporate donor base.
It was by pure happenstance I chanced upon such a co-conspirator the other day. It actually turned out to be three co-conspirators. I was digging through the South Carolina Ethics Commission’s statements of economic interests required of state and legislative office holders and their challengers. These interests include name, address, filing date, business and property interest, creditors, government contracts, lobbyist contacts and, most importantly, who is buying legislator’s votes through the section marked “gifts.”
I concentrated on my local delegation of seated representatives. On my first search, an initialism (thus termed when an acronym is unpronounceable) popped up that I’d never seen or heard of before. It appeared as SLLF. Whatever it was had gifted one of my local state delegations with a total of nearly $3,100 for the gift of a single trip. Not bad. There are some economy overseas jaunts you can take for three grand. The stipend covered ‘tuition,’ lodging and meals. As I looked at the economic interests of my other local representatives, SLLF appeared over and over. Four of my six house members accepted SLLF’s largess. This definitely called for further study.
……………………….
The SLLF Advisory Council is made up of corporate members and Trade Associations. Over half are past or present ALEC members. I think it’s more than fair to ask what so many Democrats, including a sprinkling of real progressives, are doing in this den of political iniquity.
While NSA’ing my way through various SLLF sites, I ran into the name, Rob Scheberle. Turns out the current head of ALEC was once an Assistant VP for SLLF. That led me to another pursuit of Scheberle’s. He’s on the Digital Learning Council Leadership team as a member or adviser, along with several radical right-wing outfits like ALEC climate change denier and vehemently anti-public school, the “Heartland Institute.” One of the founders of DLC was ALEC member and former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, very possibly our next president. The co-founder was another ex-governor, West Virginia’s Bob Wise. The date of DLC’s birth was 2010.
The primary emphasis of DLC is online and virtual learning, a back door wrecking ball of public schools. In addition to Heartland, The Charter growth fund is on board as well as the extremist organization, the American Enterprise Institute.
K12 is skulking around the halls of DLC as well. K12 is a private, for profit virtual school corporation (NYSE: LRN) that has a highly misleading website in South Carolina making it appear as a public, state agency. Various sources have written that their “virtual schools” are a disaster with deep-seated attendance and graduation problems and scores in reading and math falling well short of public school averages.
An interesting minority “adviser” is Gerard Robinson. He was lured from his post as Virginia’s head of the Department of Education by Florida Governor, Rick Scott, to take the same position in the Sunshine state. What followed was a chaotic year of turmoil as Robinson turned the state’s education system on its head with a series of “reforms.” He abruptly resigned. His cred for the Florida post included his position as president of the pro-choice Black Alliance for Educational Options.
Let’s complete the circle with a closing visit to the granddad of public school dismantling, the Jeb Bush “Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE)” The title should have added “as long as that education squeezes a corporate profit out of every kid.” Or, as his Website readily attest in a listing of goals; School Choice: The foundation for excellence in education
“Families need the financial freedom to attend schools that meet their needs. The Foundation supports policies that empower families to choose a public, charter, private, virtual or home school.”
FEE commands giant donations; some in excess of a million dollars. Bill and Melinda Gates anted up a mil or so. News Corp was right up there. The DeVos Foundation (Amway) was highly generous as well. Mr. and Mrs. are huge school choice advocates. Betsy DeVos has headed the Michigan State Republican Party four different times. Charter Schools USA threw a couple of bucks Jeb’s way and the other donors knew what they were buying: a giant can of public school “Whoop A**.”
That’s the agenda. And it’s being carried out by a deceitful amalgam of corporations, foundations, politicians and extremists. Now you know of at least one of the ‘kill off public schools’ conga lines; headed by ALEC, abetted by Jeb Bush and held together with high-sounding right-wing foundations and organizations.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/26/alec-jeb-bush-conspiring-kill-public-schools-good.html
Grimes Hits Mitch McConnell for Promising to Hurt Kentuckians to Benefit Millionaires
By: Sarah Jones more from Sarah Jones
Wednesday, August, 27th, 2014, 2:35 pm
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn’t have picked a worst time to be caught on tape bowing down to the Kochs.
He was finally starting to make headway against his Democratic opponent courtesy of the endless Koch money throwing dirty bombs. McConnell’s campaign is all about misleading Kentuckians until November.
Alison Lundergan Grimes (D-KY) spox Charly Norton released a statement attacking McConnell over his promise to hurt Kentuckians:
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/27/alison-lundergan-grimes-hits-mitch-mcconnell-promising-hurt-kentuckians-benefit-millionaires.html
Mitch McConnell Promises the Kochs That Republicans Can Do Their Bidding With 51 Votes
By: Sarah Jones more from Sarah Jones
Wednesday, August, 27th, 2014, 6:23 pm
The heavily Koch gifted Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is pretty desperate to win the Senate for Republicans. He’s got a lot on the agenda. A lot he can’t tell you about.
Republicans have to keep their real agendas secret, or no one would vote for them. So it is that Mitch McConnell found himself prostate before his masters, the Koch Brothers, promising anything to get that ring during a secret strategy meeting on June 15th, full of right-wing big money types.
The Republican Senate Minority leader will give them anything if they will just keep giving him money. He will give them your jobs. Your minimum wage. Your consumer protections (what few Democrats have managed to carve out for you, that is). He will give them your healthcare. He will give them your access to affordable college loans.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/08/27/mitch-mcconnell-promises-kochs-republicans-lot-51-votes.html
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
This Begich The Question
As TPM’s Dylan Scott notes, Alaska Sen. Scott Begich plans to keep his Senate seat by running against President Obama harder than his Republican competition, and that seems to be okay with Democrats.
“I’ll be a thorn in his ass,” Begich told the Washington Post last month. “There’s times when I’m a total thorn, you know, and he doesn’t appreciate it.”
It might sound a little bewildering to those in the lower 48, but it also might be exactly what Alaska voters want to hear.
In conversations with Begich’s campaign staff and outside political observers, the message seemed clear: Alaska, perhaps more than any other state, is driven by Alaska issues and personalities, a result of its history and geography. And Begich has a long history with the state: His father was a congressman and Begich formerly served as Anchorage mayor. He is spending his recess criss-crossing the state, even if it takes three planes to haul campaign stickers and window signs from one town that might be home to only 500 voters to the next.
That is his biggest asset, his campaign says. His staff exhaustively lists every government project won (like rural broadband Internet access) and his travels across the state. They talk about his “parking-lot town halls” that pop up spontaneously. A few weeks ago in Kodiak, he was leaving King’s Diner when a group of eight men struck up a conversation that turned into an extended Q&A session, according to Begich’s campaign manager Susanne Fleek, who also worked on his 2008 campaign. The same thing happened in Anchorage in recent days, she said, and that’s the accessibility that Alaskans expect.
Here in Kentucky, Alison Grimes is doing much the same thing. I don’t hold it against them (too much). Like it or not, in order to keep the Senate, we’re going to have to elect anti-Obama Democrats who will most certainly cause the President serious problems in the last two years of his term. The alternative?
Republicans.
Keep that in mind. You may be angry with them Lord knows I am. But I’ll take a Democrat any day of the week over any Republican right now.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/08/this-begich-question.html
https://twitter.com/SteveScott31/status/504722018970107905
http://youtu.be/q86u0bDE17w
Wanker of the Day: Bill O’Reilly
by BooMan
Wed Aug 27th, 2014 at 12:25:08 PM EST
I think it’s particularly cruel to compare Far Eastern immigrants in this country to African-Americans and then to blame African-Americans for having less stable families and a lower education level.
It matters a lot why someone (or someone’s ancestors) came to this country. When the slave merchants selected their stock of human flesh, they didn’t screen them for their ability to do well in science and mathematics. When the slaves arrived, they were denied anything other than a religious education and their families were routinely separated. It has never been the case in this country that the black community, as a whole, has had parity on the quality of the education available to them. They’ve never had the communal wealth of other immigrant populations. They’ve never been treated equally by law enforcement or prosecutors or judges or juries or real estate agents or car dealers or landlords.
The law has frequently been set up to move them into slums where the law has usually permitted every kind of predatory scam that can be designed to separate people from their money.
I’m very much in favor of being forward-looking at not wallowing in the pain of the past, but there are reasons why African-Americans have lower educational attainment and less stable families than other immigrant groups. And just lecturing people to get married before they have kids and to get a good education is disrespectful even if it is good advice.
But this doesn’t have much to do with white privilege. Bill O’Reilly says that white privilege doesn’t exist. But there’s approximately zero chance that Bill O’Reilly would have ever have a son shot down in a blaze of police bullets for the crime of walking in the middle of the street. It’s almost impossible to envision a child of Bill O’Reilly getting shot for the crime of walking in the rain while talking on his cell phone. So, the privilege in some cases is as simple as the privilege of being alive.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/8/27/12258/4583
Monday, August 25, 2014
Run Rand Run
Sen. Rand Paul freely admits in this latest pile of crap from Politico that he can pull the millennial Snowbro vote from Hillary (which says volumes about Snowbros) but he seems to think that’s going to be enough for him to win in 2016 and that Dems are scared of him running.
No Rand, we’re not. Go for it.
Sen. Rand Paul says Democrats are afraid his stance on war and foreign policy would attract independents and “even some Democrats” if he were to run against Hillary Clinton for president in 2016.
“I think the American public is coming more and more to where I am and that those people, like Hillary Clinton, who — she fought her own war, ‘Hillary’s war,’ you know?” Paul said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“And I think that’s what scares the Democrats the most — is that in a general election, were I to run, there’s going to be a lot of independents and even some Democrats who say, ‘You know what? We are tired of war. We’re worried that Hillary Clinton will get us involved in another Middle Eastern war because she’s so gung-ho.’
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/08/run-rand-run.html
UPDATED JACKIE ROBINSON WEST POST WITH PICTURES OF THEIR HOMECOMING AND TODAY’S PARADE!!!
At Koch Retreat, Top GOP Senate Candidates Credited Koch Network For Their Rise
Posted: 08/27/2014 12:24 am EDT Updated: 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON — Three top Republican Senate candidates heaped praise on the political network built by the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch during a secretive conference held by the brothers this past summer, according to audio of the event.
Iowa state Sen. Joni Ernst and Arkansas Rep. Tom Cotton directly credited donors present at the June 16 retreat in Dana Point, California, for propelling them forward. Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner told attendees that his race would likely be decided by the presence of “third party” money — an obvious pitch for generosity from the well-heeled crowd.
The presence of Gardner and Cotton was previously reported by The Nation magazine, though it is unclear if Cotton ever confirmed his appearance. Ernst’s attendance had not previously been reported.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/26/koch-brothers-ernst-cotton-gardner_n_5718773.html?1409113517
Morning Plum: GOP Senate candidates confirm extent of Koch brothers’ influence
By Greg Sargent August 27 at 9:24 AM
Ever since Democrats began linking GOP Senate candidates to the billionaire Koch brothers, Republicans — and plenty of neutral commentators — have sneered dismissively about the strategy. It could only be about pumping up Dem fundraising; or it was a desperate ploy to distract from Obamacare; or it was merely about driving up Republican candidates’ negatives.
The counter-argument is that this strategy is also about contrasting the two parties’ policy priorities. It’s about making the case that there really is substantial overlap between the GOP agenda and the Koch brothers’ push for an anti-tax, anti-regulatory, anti-government-interventionist agenda that, as the New York Times has detailed, benefits their bottom line. The Dem argument is that voters deserve to know why the Kochs are investing so much in a GOP Senate — which of course benefits Republican Senate candidates.
Today Sam Stein scoops that several GOP Senate candidates, in a private gathering, confirmed their reliance on the Koch brothers and the depth of their influence:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/27/morning-plum-gop-senate-candidates-confirm-extent-of-koch-brothers-influence/
On Obamacare, Democrats should attack, not defend
By Paul Waldman August 27 at 12:20 PM
Yesterday, state treasurer Doug Ducey won the GOP nomination for governor to replace Jan Brewer in Arizona. Brewer was one of eight GOP governors who accepted the expansion of Medicaid, something Ducey had opposed. Ducey’s comments on the subject are vague at; when asked whether he’d repeal the expansion, he bobs and weaves. And it isn’t hard to understand why.
Looking at this race in combination with other close races, you see that the politics of health care have shifted profoundly in recent months. As Democrats are stroking their chins wondering whether they can turn the Affordable Care Act into a winning issue this fall, and if so how to do it, the answer is simple: Don’t defend, attack.
Meanwhile, those reporting on these races should appreciate that the health care issue isn’t as simple as it was, where Republicans just used it to beat up Democrats. Both sides now have something to gain from talking about health care.
Everyone paid attention last week when Mark Pryor, a vulnerable Dem in deep-red Arkansas, aired an ad touting his support for the ACA. But the story quickly became all about how the ad didn’t name the law — supposedly showing that Obamacare is still a millstone around the neck of Dems everywhere.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/27/on-obamacare-democrats-should-attack-not-defend/
The GOP’s great Latino hope dresses down DREAMers
By Greg Sargent August 26 at 2:18 PM
As a number of us have argued, the House GOP’s hardening opposition to Obama’s programs to shield low-priority offenders from deportation is boxing Republicans into a position to the right of Mitt Romney’s 2012 “self deportation” stance. This is the opposite direction many GOP strategists hoped the party would move after its historic 2012 loss among Latinos.
If you want a preview of how this could play during the 2016 Republican presidential primary, read this Peter Hamby account of Marco Rubio’s appearance at a South Carolina fundraiser last night. Rubio scolded a bunch of savvy, in-your-face DREAM demonstrators, who were escorted from the premises as an angry crowd booed.
As CNN’s Hamby put it, Rubio had come to South Carolina “hoping to win over the kind of conservative hardliners who turned on him last year” over his backing for comprehensive immigration reform.
I have some limited video of the event, which was provided to me by United We Dream’s Yash Mori, who shot the footage and posted it on Youtube:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/26/the-gops-great-latino-hope-dresses-down-dreamers/
http://youtu.be/-n5xadE8zsA
https://twitter.com/CraigSJ/status/504669054519746561
got this from POU:
House Republicans Are Trying To Make Money Laundering A Lot Easier
August 27, 2014
excerpt:
The GOP bill represents an escalation of the deregulatory fever that has gripped the party ever since President Barack Obama signed the 2010 Wall Street reform law. But the bill’s proximate catalyst is a Department of Justice project combating consumer fraud called Operation Choke Point, which aims to cut off fraudsters from the banking system. The only public Choke Point action to date cracked down on North Carolina’s Four Oaks Bank for processing payments on behalf of a host of undesirables: a Ponzi scheme that was busted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, online gambling agencies that settled with federal prosecutors and a horde of shady online payday lenders headquartered in places as far flung as Belize and Costa Rica.
Republicans aren’t actually defending Four Oaks or its crooked clients at congressional hearings. Instead, the supporters of Luetkemeyer’s End Operation Choke Point Act of 2014 warn of a rogue administration hijacking the free market by destroying entire industries it personally disfavors.
During a June hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) called Choke Point an “ideological crusade” waged by “abusive” regulators who had put together a “government hit list of industries.”
“Could Planned Parenthood and the abortion issue be on that list?” demanded Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) at the same hearing. “I’m not saying it should. But who’s to say that they couldn’t fit into a bureaucratic scheme to shut down legitimate business. … We have a federal government that’s out of control.”
“This was political from day one,” warned Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.).
There’s really only one industry making hay over Choke Point: payday lenders, who also filed a lawsuit against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in June.
“Defendant agencies and DOJ knew early on that their coordinated, coercive campaign of backroom pressure tactics was succeeding in prompting banks ‘to exit or severely curtail’ business with all payday lenders,” the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges.
In May, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, parroted payday lender gripes in a committee report. “Internal memoranda on Operation Choke Point clearly demonstrate that the Department’s primary target is the short-term lending industry — an indisputably lawful financial service,” the report reads.
Payday lending is indisputably lawful, except when it’s totally illegal. Fifteen states ban payday lending. Others require the industry to abide by regulatory requirements ranging from basic licensing standards to interest rate limits and restrictions on the number of loans a consumer can take out in a given year. Payday lenders, especially in the online space, frequently break these rules or simply rip off their low-income customers by illegally draining their bank accounts.
You all should see the crowd in Millenium Park for JRW!
It’s off the chart!!
WOOOO HOO! Any links and pics? If so can you please add to the previous post for JRW? Thanks, Rikyrah.
ok, I’ll go search
https://twitter.com/JudyHsuABC7/status/504673059568381952
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0WvFPNEpMc
VP Joe’s a charmer. LOL
The Dreamers Have Destroyed the Republican Immigration Strategy
By Jonathan ChaitFollow @jonathanchait
After the 2012 election, Marco Rubio tried to craft himself as the leader of a pro-immigration-reform Republican Party. That effort has capsized, pulling Rubio’s standing with conservatives down along with it. Now Rubio is refashioning himself as the leader of a restrictionist Republican Party. The new Rubio can be seen talking tough with conservative publications like the Washington Examiner and Breitbart, and wooing right-wing audiences in South Carolina. The newest iteration of Rubio is the opposite of the figure he and party leaders envisioned last year. The transformation ought to terrify them.
The party’s post-election report, analyzing the increasingly solid Democratic loyalties of increasingly numerous Latino voters, conceived of its problem as a substantive issue intertwined with an optical one. The substantive problem was that the GOP was locked into restrictionist policy that so alienated Latino voters it made them unreachable on any other message. The report, and Rubio, hoped that passing immigration reform in 2013, while painful and divisive, would rip off the Band-Aid, settle the immigration issue, and move it off the front of the political agenda. The opposite has happened, and Republican candidates like Rubio are once again being forced to demonstrate their hard-line bona fides.
Then there is the optical problem, which can be summarized as a primary season of endless presidential debates in which moderators and candidates goaded each other into endorsing “self-deportation” and electrified fences. (If you’ve already forgotten, Mitt Romney attacked Rick Perry for having a tiny degree of compassion for immigrant children.) Republican leaders also proposed to resolve this problem by controlling and limiting their televised debates.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/dreamers-have-destroyed-gop-immigration-strategy.html
The Expanding World of Poverty Capitalism
AUG. 26, 2014
In Orange County, Calif., the probation department’s “supervised electronic confinement program,” which monitors the movements of low-risk offenders, has been outsourced to a private company, Sentinel Offender Services. The company, by its own account, oversees case management, including breath alcohol and drug-testing services, “all at no cost to county taxpayers.”
Sentinel makes its money by getting the offenders on probation to pay for the company’s services. Charges can range from $35 to $100 a month.
The company boasts of having contracts with more than 200 government agencies, and it takes pride in the “development of offender funded programs where any of our services can be provided at no cost to the agency.”
Sentinel is a part of the expanding universe of poverty capitalism. In this unique sector of the economy, costs of essential government services are shifted to the poor.
In terms of food, housing and other essentials, the cost of being poor has always been exorbitant. Landlords, grocery stores and other commercial enterprises have all found ways to profit from those at the bottom of the ladder.
The recent drive toward privatization of government functions has turned traditional public services into profit-making enterprises as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/opinion/thomas-edsall-the-expanding-world-of-poverty-capitalism.html?_r=1
Kansas governor faces tax cut challenge
USA TODAY 12:26 p.m. EDT August 24, 2014
GARDEN CITY, Kan. — The Kansas governor’s race is like a two-part referendum.
Part one: The fate of Republican incumbent Sam Brownback.
Part two: The political impact of an economic issue that Republicans have been using for more than four decades — tax cuts.
Democratic challenger Paul Davis and other Brownback critics — including some Republicans — say tax cuts signed by the first-term governor are hurting education and transportation services, and threaten to plunge the state budget into red ink.
Brownback, speaking recently to farmers in the southwestern part of Kansas, said the tax cuts are fueling economic growth and creating jobs.
“I’m going to do everything I can to continue to cut property taxes,” Brownback told the group assembled in a meeting room beneath the grandstands of a fairground rodeo arena.
Divisions among Kansas Republicans are another factor in Brownback’s re-election bid.
Some GOP moderates — including former legislators defeated by Brownback-style conservatives — have endorsed Davis, an attorney, 11-year legislator, and the Democratic leader of the Kansas House of Representatives
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/24/kansas-sam-brownback-governors-race-tax-cuts/14195511/
Watching the Parade for Jackie Robinson West!
Good Morning 3Chics,
The best thing about “Justify My Love” is the Public Enemy beat lol. I hope they finally got paid.
I appreciate your coverage of the Mike Brown funeral. Have a good day all.
Hi Bro Tyren. Thanks for stopping by.
McConnell Explains Plans to Shut Down Government
Aug 27, 2014
The Nation has audio of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) telling a room of conservative activists how Republicans will shut down parts of the government if they gain control of the U.S. Senate.
Said McConnell: “So in the House and Senate, we own the budget. So what does that mean? That means that we can pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called placing riders in the bill. No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We’re going to go after them on healthcare, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board (inaudible). All across the federal government, we’re going to go after it…”
Crist wins Florida Democratic primary in governor’s race
By Letitia Stein
TAMPA Fla. Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:46pm EDT
Reuters) – Charlie Crist won the Democratic nomination for Florida governor on Tuesday, defeating his primary challenger with almost 75 percent of the vote and setting the stage for a nationally watched governor’s race.
Republican Governor Rick Scott easily cruised toward victory with more than 87 percent of the vote over two little-known primary opponents.
Voter turnout was low – under 17.5 percent – in an election lacking tight races at the top of the tickets to help draw voters.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/27/us-usa-florida-primary-idUSKBN0GP1ZJ20140827
Happy HUMP day, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, Everyone :)