Sunday Open Thread

Good Morning. I hope you are enjoying this weekend with family and friends.

Published on Sep 19, 2014

This week, the President celebrated the 20th anniversary of AmeriCorps, awarded the Medal of Honor to two American heroes, detailed U.S. efforts to combat the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa at the CDC in Atlanta, spoke to the troops at MacDill Air Force Base about our strategy against ISIL before returning to meet with the Ukraninan President. That’s September 12 to 19 or “You guys aren’t usually this quiet are you?”

This entry was posted in Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

59 Responses to Sunday Open Thread

  1. rikyrah says:

    The Root’s List for voting for the Greatest Black TV Shows of all time:

    http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/09/vote_for_the_greatest_black_tv_shows_of_all_time.html

    227
    A Different World
    Amen
    Amos ‘n’ Andy
    Arsenio
    Being Mary Jane
    Benson
    Chappelle’s Show
    Cousin Skeeter
    Def Comedy Jam
    Diff’rent Strokes
    Everybody Hates Chris
    Family Matters
    Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
    Gimmie a Break!
    Girlfriends
    Good Times
    Gullah, Gullah Island
    Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper
    In Living Color
    Julia
    Kenan & Kel
    Key & Peele
    Living Single
    Martin
    Moesha
    My Brother and Me
    My Wife and Kids
    One on One
    Orange is the New Black
    Oz
    Roots
    Sanford & Son
    Scandal
    Sister, Sister
    Smart Guy
    Soul Food: The Series
    Soul Train
    That’s So Raven
    The Bernie Mac Show
    The Boondocks
    The Chris Rock Show
    The Cosby Show
    The Famous Jett Jackson
    The Flip Wilson Show
    The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
    The Game
    The Hughleys
    The Jamie Foxx Show
    The Jeffersons
    The Oprah Winfrey Show
    The Parkers
    The Proud Family
    The Steve Harvey Show
    The Wayans Bros.
    The Wire
    Treme
    Tyler Perry’s House of Payne
    What’s Happening!!
    Tyler Perry’s Meet The Browns

  2. Shady_Grady says:

    I just heard about this but it is similar to other dishes I’ve tried/made.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/magazine/the-ultimate-cuban-comfort-food-picadillo.html?_r=0

  3. rikyrah says:

    ‘I was completely over the moon’: Little girl’s delight at being hoisted onto Prince Harry’s shoulders so she could see the bands at the Invictus Games closing ceremony

    Isabelle Nixon, five, was left upset after being unable to see the stage
    Adam Nixon, 31, had earlier captained Team GB to victory in basketball
    Prince Harry spotted the little girl and swung her onto his shoulders
    The royal then stayed and danced with Isabelle for the rest of the evening
    Her soldier father lost his left leg following an IED blast in Basra in 2004

    By Ruth Styles for MailOnline

    Published: 06:04 EST, 18 September 2014 | Updated: 15:01 EST, 18 September 2014

    Unable to see the stage and blocked in by other fans, five-year-old Isabelle Nixon was less than impressed with the Invictus Games closing ceremony – until, that is, Prince Harry came to the rescue.

    After spotting the little girl, the prince, 30, hoisted her on to his shoulders and then stayed to dance with her as the Foo Fighters took to the stage.

    Isabelle, whose father Adam, 31, from Hereford, captained Team GB’s wheelchair basketball team to victory on Sunday, didn’t realise who her hero was until her delighted mother Taryn exclaimed: ‘You’re dancing with Prince Harry!’

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2760629/Its-Harry-rescue-Kindhearted-royal-comes-aid-tearful-little-girl-finding-sobbing-Invictus-Games-closing-ceremony.html#ixzz3Dzrp6bhN
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  4. rikyrah says:

    These evil azz muthaphuckas.

    …………………….

    Plan to use teen as bait leads to rape at school, suit alleges
    By Victor Blackwell, CNN
    updated 11:35 AM EDT, Sun September 21, 2014

    (CNN) — It’s an unimaginable horror. A 14-year-old girl with special needs allegedly was raped at school after a teacher’s aide persuaded her to act as bait to catch an accused sexual predator, a fellow student.

    “It has essentially devastated her life,” attorney Eric Artrip — who represents the girl and her father — said of the alleged January 2010 incident.

    The Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education filed an amicus brief Wednesday supporting her family’s federal lawsuit against the Madison County School Board in Alabama.

    An amicus brief is a legal argument offered to the court by someone who is not a party to the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta will decide whether to accept the argument.

    “School administrators knew the student’s extensive history of sexual and violent misconduct and were alerted to the substantial risk he posed” to other students, according to the brief.

    About a week before the alleged rape, Sparkman Middle School vice principals Jeanne Dunaway and Teresa Terrell received a complaint that the boy had touched a female student inappropriately and was assigned in-school suspension, according to federal attorneys.

    ……………………….

    Attorneys: Boy had a long history of serious misconduct

    The girl was uncommunicative after the incident, Artrip said. The district attorney in Madison County investigated the incident, but with a victim who was unable or unwilling to talk about the incident, the office didn’t think they had a good case, and did not pursue it.

    Even after viewing photographs of the girl’s injuries, vice principal Terrell “testified that she didn’t know whether (the girl) had consented to the assault,” according to the brief.

    The school listed the alleged rape as “inappropriate touching a female in boys’ bathroom,” on the student’s computerized disciplinary report. He was suspended for five days and sent to an alternative school, but later returned to Sparkman after about 20 days, according to the brief.

    Vice principal Dunaway testified that the girl was responsible for herself once she entered the bathroom, according the brief.

    DoJ and DoE attorneys claim the boy had a long history of sexual and other misconduct in school and Sparkman Middle School administrators knew it. Several pages of the 126-page brief detail years of disciplinary problems.

    The boy had been involved in 15 violent or sex-related proven incidents of misconduct before the alleged rape, according to the brief.

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/20/us/alabama-school-rape-lawsuit/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

  5. Ametia says:

    An Unlikely Ballerina
    The rise of Misty Copeland.
    BY RIVKA GALCHEN

    a recent August afternoon, near Nineteenth Street, two young girls with blond hair pulled back in ponytails ran past me, one of them calling out, “Daddy, Daddy, I just saw Misty Copeland!” The tone of voice might as well have been used to announce a sighting of Katy Perry, or Snow White. A few steps later, I entered the tiny lobby of a building on Broadway, where an old electric fan was not quite keeping the doorman cool.

    A caged elevator took me up to the third floor, where I passed through a low-ceilinged hallway crowded with unlabelled posters of ballet greats, until I reached an expansive fluorescent-lit room with two walls of slightly warped mirrors and air-conditioning units sealed into the windows with black electrical tape. The American Ballet Theatre soloists Misty Copeland and Alexandre Hammoudi were rehearsing the pas de deux from Act II of “Swan Lake,” the scene in which we first meet Odette; an evil sorcerer’s spell has left her a swan by day and a human by night.

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/unlikely-ballerina

  6. vitaminlover says:

    Blessed and happy Sunday, ladies!
    Rolllllllll Tiiiiiidddde!
    Warrrrr Eeeagle !
    Gig ’em, Aggies!!!
    Hi there, SG2 Did our teams show out or what?

  7. rikyrah says:

    Sunday, September 21, 2014
    Barack Obama Was Never Your Boyfriend
    Posted by Zandar
    But conservative money groups sure seem to think he is. Or was. Now they think women (particularly white women) are so over him and his “friends”. That’s the subject of this creepy ad now playing in North Carolina.

    “In 2008, I fell in love. His online profile made him seem so perfect. Smart, handsome, charming, articulate,” the actress begins. Then things take a turn for the creepy: “He’s on my emails and text messages, spying on me.” The actress adds, “He thinks the only thing I care about is free birth control, but he won’t even let me keep my own doctor.”

    So naturally she’s going to vote for the folks that won’t even let her control her own uterus. Makes perfect sense.

    At the conclusion of the ad, the actress says, “I know I’m stuck with Barack for two more years. I get that. But I’m not stuck with his friends.” So far, the ad is reportedly airing in North Carolina, where Democratic Senator Kay Hagan is facing a tough reelection fight.

    The ad was made by political consultant Rick Wilson and paid for by a group called Americans for Shared Prosperity, which is headed by wealthy California businessman John Jordan. Politico’s Maggie Haberman interviewed Jordan recently, and he said that his goal was “to communicate with women voters in a way that outside groups and campaigns haven’t.” He added, “The purpose of this is to treat women voters more like adults.”

    Because adults need to construct teen fantasies that the President is their boyfriend, and that they have to “break up” with him over Obamacare. Oh, and the part where the adult conversation is that he’s “spying on me and ignoring real threats” like he’s an obsessive stalker with a foreign policy fetish.

    http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/09/barack-obama-was-never-your-boyfriend.html

  8. rikyrah says:

    One of John Cole’s pets is missing…the one that he got after his beloved Tunch was killed. It’s a big cat named Steve….send positive thoughts that Steve comes back home.

  9. rikyrah says:

    Pro-Pot Group Giving Free Weed to Colorado Vets

    Denver Nicks @DenverNicks

    Sept. 19, 2014

    The organization Grow4Vets is giving free marijuana to veterans Saturday

    Marijuana-smoking veterans may find themselves flocking to Denver, Colorado Saturday, when a pro-pot organization will host a weed giveaway to get grass in the hands of military veterans who seek it.

    http://time.com/3404294/marijuana-pot-colorado-veterans/

  10. rikyrah says:

    Durbin to Oberweis: You’re a walking tax inversion
    Fri, 09/19/2014 – 6:13pm
    Natasha Korecki

    U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin accused his Republican opponent, state Sen. Jim Oberweis, of being a “walking inversion,” and called on him to raise the wages of those scooping ice cream at Oberweis dairy stores across the state as well as disclose the ratio of women to men in his business.

    In a sit-down interview with Early & Often, the Chicago Sun-Times political portal, Durbin, 69, blasted Oberweis’ proposal to raise the minimum wage only for those who are older than 26.

    “I mean, they may be ice cream dippers to you, but these are college students working their way through school. These are single moms raising kids. They’re veterans coming back. And you say: “nope, don’t raise the minimum wage because they haven’t reached the age of 26?” Durbin said.

    http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/durbin-oberweis-youre-walking-tax-inversion/fri-09192014-613pm

  11. rikyrah says:

    Rahm’s approval ratings are under 40%…

    so how the hell is Fioretti a ‘ longshot’?

    G-T-F-O-H

    And objecting to Karen Lewis because of her LOOKS?

    W-T-F?

    Because she’s a frank, outspoken, Black woman who wears her hair natural?

    Uh huh.

    ……………………………………

    ANALYSIS: Fioretti a longshot for mayor, but could force run-off
    Fri, 09/19/2014 – 9:34am
    Fran Spielman

    It’s one thing to be the City Council’s version of “Dr. No.” It’s quite another to be a mayoral candidate who must advance his own solutions to Chicago’s vexing problems.

    It’s one thing to be a tireless aldermanic candidate ringing doorbells. It’s another to be a citywide candidate virtually unknown outside his fiefdom who now must build name recognition and credibility with 1.32 million registered Chicago voters.

    To say that Bob Fioretti is facing an uphill battle against Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his $8.3 million-and-rising campaign war chest would be an understatement. Fioretti had $326,338 in his campaign coffers as of the last quarterly report.

    But don’t count Fioretti out

    If Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis joins Fioretti in challenging the unpopular incumbent, it could make it more difficult for Emanuel to get the 50 percent-plus-one votes he needs to avoid a runoff — and in a runoff, the turnout would be higher and all bets would be off.

    “I don’t think Bob has any chance [of winning]. He does not seem to connect. Eighty percent of the public has never heard of him. But his presence reduces the possibility of somebody winning outright,” said veteran political consultant Don Rose.

    “If Lewis is in there, she gets the bulk of the anti-Emanuel vote. [Fioretti] gets some of the anti-Emanuel vote that might not go to Lewis. I’ve heard objections to her based on her earlier rhetoric — that she sounds like too much of rabble-rouser. I’ve heard objections to her looks. I doubt she would have the capacity to get 50 percent in the first round. Fioretti gets a relatively small share, but his presence helps force the runoff.”

    http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/analysis-fioretti-longshot-mayor-could-force-run/fri-09192014-934am

  12. rikyrah says:

    Hedge fund manager pumps another $1 million into Rauner campaign
    Fri, 09/19/2014 – 5:26pm
    Dave McKinney

    SPRINGFIELD-One of Illinois’ wealthiest political patrons has invested another $1 million into the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Bruce Rauner.

    The donation to Rauner’s campaign fund from hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin was reported in state campaign records Friday.

    Griffin has now given $4.58 million to the Winnetka Republican in the form of cash or in-kind services since last year, state campaign records show.

    Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign immediately criticized the seven-figure contribution.

    “The richest man in Illinois continues to look after his investment in billionaire Bruce Rauner’s efforts to eclipse the interest of the middle class and put their economic security at risk,” Quinn spokeswoman Izabela Miltko said in a prepared statement.

    Griffin, founder and CEO of the Chicago-based investment firm Citadel LLC, has lent his jet to Rauner and donated a record-setting $2.5 million to Rauner’s campaign in June, state campaign records show.

    Rauner’s campaign declined comment late Friday on the latest contribution and on the Quinn campaign’s attack.

    http://politics.suntimes.com/article/springfield/hedge-fund-manager-pumps-another-1-million-rauner-campaign/fri-09192014-1026pm

  13. rikyrah says:

    Chicago’s next archbishop Blase Cupich calls for immigration reform, shows off his humor
    By FRANCINE KNOWLES Religion Reporter September 20, 2014 8:04AM

    Spokane Bishop Blase Cupich, named by Pope Francis Saturday to succeed Cardinal Francis George as archbishop of Chicago, described himself as a collaborative leader, revealed a sense of humor and used the occasion to speak out for immigration reform.

    The man who will lead the third-largest diocese in the country said at a news conference in Chicago that he will bring a different approach to the position but said that’s not unusual, as he asked the people of Chicago to pray for him.

    “Everybody brings their own gifts. . .and experiences,” said Cupich, 65. “Yes . . . there will be different emphases, different approaches. That’s normal.”

    Cupich and George spoke hours after the Vatican announced the first major U.S. appointment of Francis’ papacy — an appointment some see as sending a message that major change could be in store for the U.S. Catholic church, where culture wars continue to be waged over abortion and homosexuality.

    George called Cupich well-prepared for his new responsibilities, saying he “brings to them a deep faith, quick intelligence, personal commitment and varied pastoral experiences.”

    Massimo Faggioli, assistant professor for the history of modern Christianity at the College of St. Thomas in Minnesota, which Cupich attended, described the new spiritual leader of Chicago Catholics as pastoral, moderate and not an ideologue.

    Faggioli also said the appointment “means that the Francis effect has arrived to America. I think it might be the end of the cultural wars.”

    http://www.suntimes.com/29999930-761/chicagos-next-archbishop-blase-cupich-calls-for-immigration-reform-shows-off-his-humor.html#.VB8Bqha2Ono

  14. rikyrah says:

    Bachelor detective takes on case of two Pittsburgh boys

    PITTSBURGH – Generally speaking, if you’re a kid growing up in Pittsburgh, like Jessee and Josh Lyle, the last place you ever want to be is in a courtroom, across the table, from detective Jack Mook.

    Mook is a by the book, no nonsense, chew-them-up, spit-’em-out, 22-year veteran of the force.

    Outside of work he’s a committed bachelor, a man’s man, who would never so much as let a Vidalia onion see his soft side.

    For fun he hits people. He volunteers at the Steel City Boxing gym, teaching the sport to underprivileged kids.

    “Most of the kids who come in this gym are street kids,” said Mook. “Many of them have been born into poverty.”

    Kids like 11-year-old Jessee and his 15-year-old brother Josh. Long before their date in court, Jack had been working with them. He really liked these kids and he knew the feeling was mutual. So when they just stopped showing up at the gym one day, Mook went out and found the older boy.

    “And he looked terrible – bags under his eyes – 12 years old,” recalled Mook.

    “And he was asking me about it and then I just cried,” added Josh.

    What Mook didn’t know — what no one knew until that moment — was just how bad these kids had it. They were in a foster home with foster parents who Mook says were extremely abusive and neglectful.

    “They have had it as worse as any other kid that’s ever lived in the city of Pittsburgh, living conditions wise,” said Mook. “And I had enough of it.”

    So Jack Mook took matters into his own hands. Cashed in some favors and got the kids placed in a new home: his.

    “I slept the best I ever did that night,” said Josh.

    Jack has been their foster parent for almost two years now. And for this tough-guy detective, it’s still quite a transition. He says the homework alone is brutal.

    “I’m relearning prepositions and declarative statements, and this is right up your alley, but I have no idea what this kid is talking about,” said Mook.

    And homework is just the beginning of this bachelor’s rebranding.

    “I’m in here trying to learn my culinary skills, brother,” said Mook as he walked into his kitchen.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bachelor-detective-takes-on-case-of-two-pittsburgh-boys/

  15. rikyrah says:

    he’s not listening to anyone who loves and truly cares for him

    PoliticusUSA @politicususa
    Follow

    Culture of Entitlement: Why Jameis Winston Continues to Self-Destruct http://sports.politicususa.com/2014/09/21/culture-of-entitlement-why-jameis-winston-continues-to-self-destruct.html … via @politicussports #p2 #p2b #FSU #NCAAF
    9:09 AM – 21 Sep 2014

  16. Marquis Govan, 11, talks of justice in Ferguson

    Marquis Govan reading Audacity of Hope

  17. rikyrah says:

    Coming Soon, a Century Late: A Black Film Gem
    By FELICIA R. LEE SEPT. 20, 2014

    For decades, the seven reels from 1913 lay unexamined in the film archives of the Museum of Modern Art. Now, after years of research, a historic find has emerged: what MoMA curators say is the earliest surviving footage for a feature film with a black cast. It is a rare visual depiction of middle-class black characters from an era when lynchings and stereotyped black images were commonplace. What’s more, the material features Bert Williams, the first black superstar on Broadway. Williams appears in blackface in the untitled silent film along with a roster of actors from the sparsely documented community of black performers in Harlem on the cusp of the Harlem Renaissance. Remarkably, the reels also capture behind the-scenes interactions between these performers and the directors.

    MoMA plans an exhibition around the work called “100 Years in Post-Production: Resurrecting a Lost Landmark of Black Film History,” which is to open on Oct. 24 and showcase excerpts and still frames. Sixty minutes of restored footage will be shown on Nov. 8 in the museum’s annual To Save and Project festival dedicated to film
    preservation.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/nyregion/coming-soon-a-century-late-a-black-film-gem.html?smid=pl-share&_r=1

  18. rikyrah says:

    Hell in the Hot Zone

    As the Ebola epidemic rages, two questions have emerged: How did the deadly virus escape detection for three months? And why has a massive international effort failed to contain it? Traveling to Meliandou, a remote Guinean village and the likely home of Patient Zero, Jeffrey E. Stern tracks the virus’s path—and the psychological contagion that is still feeding the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
    By Jeffrey E. Stern

    The tiny village of Meliandou, nestled in the Forest Region of southern Guinea, has begun to see flashes of the outside world. A Messi soccer jersey, three sizes too big, on a little boy. A down parka on an old man in the heavy heat, worn as a robe of distinction. You might even come across the occasional teenager on a cell phone, cupping the device from the sun as if lighting a cigarette in the wind. But mostly it is a place from the past—a rutted dirt path between thatch-roofed shacks, on a hillside sloping up toward the forest. It is home to just a few hundred people. Chickens and goats wander freely. Local shamans are the first responders when illness strikes.

    In Meliandou, bushmeat has long been a common source of food. As elsewhere in West Africa, hunters wade into the forest and come back with whatever they can find. Once, not so long ago, what they found was a rich and varied bounty: monkeys, antelope, squirrels. That has changed; the whole eco-system has re-arranged itself. After civil wars broke out in Liberia and Sierra Leone, refugees poured over the borders, and the population grew, even as a power struggle in Guinea took an economic toll. People started looking to the rich resource all around them: trees. Trees were felled to make way for farms or burned down for charcoal. Endless truckloads of timber were shipped to construction companies. The forest suffered another trauma as mining interests—the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto, the omnipresent Chinese—pushed aggressively to exploit the country’s natural resources (bauxite mostly). As the forests disappeared, so too did the buffer separating humans from animals—and from the pathogens that animals harbor.

    Ordinary life in Meliandou came to an end on the day last December when the Ebola virus, which had last claimed a fatality thousands of miles away, arrived in the village, most likely in the body of a fruit bat—its natural non-human reservoir, according to a virtual consensus among scientists. Mining and clear-cutting had driven bats from their natural habitats and occasionally closer to people, like those of Meliandou. And fruit bats love palm and mango, which ripen in the village’s remaining trees. Bats also feed in colonies, which makes them tempting targets: a single shotgun blast can bring down 10.

    Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses known to medical science, with no specific cure and mortality rates of up to 90 percent. The Ebola epidemic now raging in West Africa is the worst one in history. It has decimated Meliandou and moved far beyond. But the mystery today is not how the epidemic began—it is why a concerted effort by an army of international experts was unable to stop it. Part of the answer is the chameleon-like character the virus displays in this part of the world. An even larger part lies in the international response itself. It was rapid and comprehensive—exactly what you would hope. But there was an unexpected reaction that undermined everything the experts sought to achieve—and at the same time fooled many of them into thinking they had succeeded in their aims. Eventually they understood the truth. By then it was too late.

    http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2014/10/ebola-virus-epidemic-containment

  19. rikyrah says:

    Asking for positive thoughts and prayers to be sent to BooMan.

  20. rikyrah says:

    What Happens In A 50-50 Senate? Even More Joe Biden

    by S.V. Date
    September 20, 2014 9:55 AM ET

    f you didn’t get enough Joe Biden this week — choose your favorite gaffe, “Shylocks,” “Orient,” or the tin-eared Bob Packwood reference — there’s good news.

    With Senate polling that shows toss-up races in as many as eight states, there’s a decent chance that 2015 could showcase the vice president even more.

    Because while the Senate could end up, say, 51-49 in favor of Democrats or 48-52 in favor of Republicans, it’s equally likely right now that it will wind up exactly 50-50.

    What that 50-50 split might mean for Washington gridlock is unclear — after all, it pretty much takes 60 votes in the Senate to move legislation that’s the least bit controversial. The one thing it would definitely mean is a higher profile for the free-talking, Amtrak-riding Delawarean.

    As we might recall from grade-school civics, the vice president of the United States also serves as president of the Senate, and is able to cast tie-breaking votes. From the standpoint of Senate process, this is obviously good for Democrats. It would keep them in control of the agenda and let them continue to approve President Obama’s executive and judicial appointees.

    But what about from the standpoint of Biden — particularly if he winds up running for president in 2016?

    Well, there are pros and cons:

    On the one hand, he would instantly have a higher profile role in government – he would be more a player, and less a sidekick. He would cast votes on important legislation supporting the president’s agenda.

    And as a higher profile player, even more of what he says will make the news.

    http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/09/20/349901207/what-happens-in-a-50-50-senate-even-more-joe-biden

  21. rikyrah says:

    I can’t be the only person on this board watching Black Jesus….say it ain’t so!

  22. rikyrah says:

    Political Animal
    Blog
    September 20, 2014 8:45 AM
    The not-so-soft racism of Tom Cotton

    By David Atkins

    GOP representative Tom Cotton, telling a gross lie:

    “(My dad) taught me early: farmers can’t spend more than they take in, and I listened,” Cotton said in the ad. “When President Obama hijacked the farm bill, turned it into a food stamp bill, with billions more in spending, I voted no.”

    Of course, Cotton isn’t even in the ballpark of truth here. Food stamp bills have long been attached to farm bills in a cat’s cradle knot to encourage urban and rural legislators to vote for each others’ programs. It was the GOP who dissociated them in the hope of cutting food stamps. Obama had nothing to do with it.

    But it’s worse than that. It’s no secret that food stamps (now called the SNAP program) have long been racial code for Republicans, even though a large plurality of SNAP recipients are white. When a Republican politician tells his base that he favors cutting food stamps but not farm subsidies, he’s using Atwater’s dog whistle, promising to deliver the pork to rich (white) agribusiness to boost their profits, while stiffing a lot of minorities (most of whom do work at least part-time) who would actually benefit the broader economy by receiving spending money.

    Republicans bristle at being called racist in their policies: they feel that Democrats use every opportunity brand any conservative policy as racist. But that’s because they’ve grown so used to their own dog whistles that they don’t even realize that other people can hear them and take offense.

    Tom Cotton isn’t just lying to rural voters about the history of the farm bill. He’s also playing a deliberately divisive form of racial politics that has no place in modern America.

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_09/the_notsosoft_racism_of_tom_co052165.php#disqus_thread

  23. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning, Everyone.

    Found this great comment over at BJ:

    Richard Bottoms says:
    September 20, 2014 at 12:17 pm

    Some thin skinned jerk named Freddie deBoer doesn’t seem to like
    criticism. After reading his wallowing self-pity about the end of
    culture and his insult to Beyonce here:http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/…..ment-43646

    I responded. He deleted it. So I posted it again. And I’m reposting it here and later on my own blog. Enjoy.

    ….

    So, I’ve read two essays in which a couple of clueless white guys
    argue about whether a bunch of other clueless white guys refuse to grow up. Meanwhile black and brown people struggle at the bottom of an economic disaster created by white guys that make lives of the poor everywhere already precarious ever more desperate.

    Uber get valued at $18 billion dollars while the World Health
    Organization has to practically hold bake sales to fund operations
    designed to keep the planet from succumbing to global pandemic.

    Tony Soprano and Walter White don’t represent the last gasp of white
    guys doing evil but kind of feeling bad about it, they are simply the
    latest incarnation of it. Am I the only person who noticed that the most
    popular TV series ever featured a self absorbed jerk whose retirement plan was to sell his meth business to Neo-Nazis?

    The trashing of Beyonce is by both you whining jerks is the latest
    version of calling black women wh*res while lusting after their
    sexuality. Our music has been making white folks rich ever since we were allowed to record it, Jay-Z and Bey and Dr. Dre are simply the first generation of blacks to not get f*****d in the process. The Motown sound for the first generation of black folks to gain a piece of the pie.

    The greatest accumulation of wealth and power during the twenty years following the end of WWII occurred during a period of economic and cultural exclusion of blacks.

    Blacks were locked out of Levittown’s from coast to coast, imprisoned
    in urban ghettos in the North and crushed under the heel of state
    sponsored terrorism in the South. We received the merest sliver of
    benefit from post WWII programs, but it was enough, just barely to keep us in the game.

    And now, as white men crashed the world once again what gains we did make have almost been wiped out. When it finally looked like the %0.01 might have to at last share the world with the brown their greed and avarice plunged the capitalist system into chaos.

    At the very moment America seemed ready to evolve, to regain the
    moral standing to challenge Muslim extremism, Russian gangsterism and the legacy of Africa’s colonialist past the West seizes up in a fit of
    economic chaos at once frozen an orgy of consumerism & comfort for a tiny sliver of the population and Teahadist rage at the mere thought
    that white people may not be at the center of everything any more.

    The most powerful Lego set ever built was put in the hands of a the
    man-child George W. Bush, and when the pieces were sufficiently bent and battered a black adult gets handed the box of broken toys. And even as some rich white children run off to amuse themselves with pop culture distractions, other even richer ones are working mightily to set the box on fire if they can’t wrest it back.

    You must not have read Marvel comics in the 60’s & 70’s because
    if you had you’d know the story of the Guardians of the Galaxy is
    essentially the same one told in a cosmos spanning saga from decades ago.

    Since the more things change the more they stay the same, the
    technology may have evolved but GothG is still a story about a little
    planet wrestling with power it can barely control as it struggles
    through cosmic adolescence hopefully without erasing everything from existence.

    Thanos the death worshiping maniac allows Ronin the Accuser to become a wrathful judge of a people he hates and Peter Quill the lonely boy who learns to face mortality are all characters who did not spring into existence just the summer. They have been part of a shared universe that goes back 70+ years in new pantheon of myths created after man created electricity & computing machines & the fire of Atomic power.

    The Marvel universe has changed over time, Captain America’s
    unexpurgated comics from the 40’s contain racist imagery that would
    embarrass the KKK today. The introduction of The Falcon as equal partner to Cap in the 70’s represented a monumental shift in attitudes among some Americans, but not all. He was written at the time by white guys trying to talk black, but at least he became part of the story.

    White folks going nuts over some meaningless bit of fluff, some
    non-important entertainment fad sweeping the country is as old as the country itself only now women and minorities demand their existence be acknowledged even as you work out your identity problems. You have always been Don Draper and Walter White and Tony Soprano and Doctor Doom, and blacks know this more than most.

    So grow up and do it soon.

    The clock is ticking on climate change, Ebola, A.I., mass
    surveillance, police brutality, nanotechnology, and mass unemployment as society shifts faster & faster still.

    Beyonce isn’t the problem here, you are.

    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/09/20/no-accountability/#comment-5120575

  24. Ametia says:

    WHA’T UP WITH THE SECRET SERVICE WHO SHOULD BE PROTECTING OUR PRESIDENT & HIS FAMILY?

  25. Ametia says:

    DAMN!

    Up From Pain
    SEPT. 19, 2014
    Charles M. Blow

    I WAS away at college doing much of nothing, just pushing back against sorrow as it pressed down. My mother called. She told me someone wanted to speak to me. There was a silence on the line, and then words: “What’s going on, boy?”

    It was an older cousin, whom I’ll call Chester. He was at my mother’s house, our house. It had been years since I had heard that voice. “What’s going on, boy?” as if nothing had ever happened, as if everything was buried and forgotten. But betrayal doesn’t work that way. Even when it’s buried, it doesn’t stay buried. It’s still alive down there, scratching its way back to the surface.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/opinion/sunday/charles-blow-up-from-pain.html

  26. Ametia says:

    Good Morning, Everyone! :-)

Leave a Reply to yahtzeebutterflyCancel reply