“Fallin’” is a song by American recording artist Alicia Keys. It served as Keys’ debut single from her debut album, Songs in A Minor (2001). Written and produced by Keys, it was released by J Records to radio and music video outlets in 2001. The song is generally considered her signature song.[1]
The song attained global success, reaching number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100, and reached the top five in several countries. It also received numerous certifications around the world, and is one of the best-selling singles of 2001. In 2009, the single was named the 29th most successful song of the 2000s, on the Billboard Hot 100 Songs of the Decade.[2] Rolling Stone ranked it number sixty-two on their Top 100 Songs of the 2000s decade.[3] “Fallin'” charted at 413 in Blender magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born.[4] It won three Grammy Awards in 2002, including Song of the Year, Best R&B Song, and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and was also nominated for Record of the Year.
https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/status/514862821482704896/photo/1
Lawsuit over November election ballots dismissed
UPDATED 4:45 PM CDT Sep 24, 2014
MILWAUKEE — A Waukesha County judge has dismissed a lawsuit that asks that ballots for the November election be redesigned.
Circuit Judge James Kieffer said Wednesday the lawsuit brought by the campaign committee for state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, both Republicans, was not properly filed.
Read more: http://www.wisn.com/politics/lawsuit-over-november-election-ballots-dismissed/28223090#ixzz3EHOS72KD
Jury selected in Dunn retrial
Jacob Long, First Coast News 4:44 p.m. EDT September 24, 2014
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A jury composed of 7 white men, 3 white females and 2 African Americans (one male, one female) was picked late Wednesday afternoon, the third day of the retrial of Michael Dunn.
Judge Russell Healey opted to allow the 12 jurors plus 4 alternates to go home and pack up for the expected lengthy sequestration. They will report to court at noon Thursday for opening arguments.
The four alternates consist of two white females, one white male and one black female.
Fourth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Angela Corey finished up questioning potential jurors at approximately 11:15 a.m. Wednesday before a brief break was taken by the court.
Dunn’s attorney, Waffa Hanania of the Office of Regional Conflict Counsel, started with her line of questions shortly before noon.
Circuit Judge Russell Healey said previously court would go to lunch once Hanania is done.
After lunch Healey conferred with prosecutors and the defense and began officially seating jurors.
Sixty-six individuals were in the pool of potential jurors after more than two and a half days of questioning. The initial pool started at 140 people.
Cameras have not been allowed inside the jury selection process, but according to First Coast News staff inside the courtroom, 21 of the potential jurors left on Wednesday were minorities, 30 were women and at least 12 had concealed carry permits. Some belong to the National Rifle Association.
The potential jurors answered questions regarding race, loud music, crime/legal shows on television, law enforcement, violent crime, social media and whether they could set aside any opinion they have about the case or defendant.
At least one juror openly admitted he could not set aside opinions he has formed about race. Another person said it would be difficult to set aside prior experiences with crime and law enforcement.
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/story/news/crime/jordan-davis/2014/09/24/jacksonville-michael-dunn-jordan-davis-retrial-jury/16140879/
Action News Jax reports the breakdown:
Juror 1: White male; married; has two kids, 19 & 16; lives in Whitehouse area; has been in Duval for 15 years; has two relatives in law enforcement; has not been a victim of a crime; was arrested as a teen 30 years ago; has a concealed weapons permit.
Juror 22: White male; married; has three children; lives at the Beaches; has been in Duval for three years; has no friends or family in law enforcement; has not been the victim of a crime; has not been arrested.
Juror 23: White male; married; has two children; lives downtown; has been in Duval for 20 years; has no friends of family in law enforcement; has not been the victim of a crime; was arrested once and the charges were dropped.
Juror 32: White male; married; has one 10-year-old child; lives in East Arlington; has been in Duval for 33 years; has friends in law enforcement; has not been the victim of a crime.
Juror 34: Black male; married; has two children; has been in Duval for 29 years; does not have family or friends in law enforcement.
Juror 35: Black female; single; no children; lives in Arlington; has been in Duval for 18 months; has no family or friends in law enforcement; has not been the victim of a crime; two brothers were arrested for drugs and are now dead; intends to get concealed weapons permit.
Juror 41: White male; single; one son (disabled 43-year-old); lives in Mandarin; has been in Duval for 24 years; has no family or friends in law enforcement; has not been the victim of a crime; has not been arrested; has a concealed weapons permit; owns a .40 Glock.
Juror 52: White female; has one 10-month-old child; lives in Atlantic Beach; has been in Duval for four years; has no family or friends in law enforcement; is a gun owner.
Juror 58: White female; single; no children; lives in San Marco; has been in Duval for three years; has no family or friends in law enforcement; has not been the victim of a crime.
Juror 59: White male; no children; lives on the Westside; has been in Duval for 10 years.
Juror 65: White female; married; five children; lives on the Southside; has been in Duval for 22 years; son is a wildlife officer; has been the victim of a crime.
Juror 70: White male; married; one 18-month-old child; lives in Arlington; brother is an FBI analyst; has a handgun.
I dunno. My first impression is that there are too damn many white people. But my first observation is that this trial has a better chance of conviction in Jax than if they had a change of venue and took it to the innards of Florida.
Well, there are previous convictions so Dunn won’t walk no matter what happens. We at least have that. Dunn will live in a cage.
I feel so bad for Jordan’s parents going through this again.
ummmmm
ummmmmm
https://twitter.com/MsJamilaAisha/status/514909774803390464
SG2, did you see this?
Faith Jenkins is the host of the new daytime court show Judge Faith premiering nationally September 22, 2014.
Judge Faith’s legal career has spanned over a decade in New York– from working as a wall street litigator to a tough New York City prosecutor. She’s faced adversity, overcome obstacles, and worked hard to achieve her goals. Now she takes the bench in her own courtroom on her own show to resolve disputes between real people with real cases.
Judge Faith is also known for her legal and social commentary on television. Prior to signing as a legal analyst exclusively with MSNBC, she was appeared regularly on CNN, Fox News, and HLN to analyze the nation’s most high profile cases and legal issues.
http://www.faithjenkins.com/
September 24, 2014 3:50 PM
Why Obama’s War Is Different Than W’s
By Ed Kilgore
In my initial post on the president’s speech to the UN, I predicted we’d hear more than a few voices arguing that Obama has simply dusted off George W. Bush’s rationale for going to war and replicated it. What I didn’t predict is that a well-regarded pundit, Mike Tomasky, would quickly offer a comprehensive refutation of that premise:
[I]t’s hard for me to imagine how the differences between the two actions could be starker. This is not to say that they might not end up in the same place—creating more problems than they solve. But in moral terms, this war is nothing like that war, and if this war doesn’t end up like Bush’s and somehow actually solves more problems than it creates, that will happen precisely because of the moral differences.
The first and most important difference, plainly and simply: Obama didn’t lie us into this war. It’s worth emphasizing this point, I think, during this week when Obama is at the United Nations trying to redouble international support to fight ISIS, and as we think back on Colin Powell’s infamous February 2003 snow job to Security Council. Obama didn’t tell us any nightmarish fairy tales about weapons of mass destruction that had already been destroyed or never existed. He didn’t trot his loyalists out there to tell fantastical stories about smoking guns and mushroom clouds….
Difference number two: This war doesn’t involve 140,000 ground troops. That’s not just a debating point. It’s a massive, real-world difference. I know some of you are saying, well, not yet, anyway. Time could prove you right. But if this works more or less as planned, it establishes a new model for fighting terrorism in the Middle East—the United States and Arab nations and fighting forces working together to do battle against terrorism. That’s kind of a huge deal.
Which leads us to difference number three: This coalition, while still in its infancy, could in the end be a far more meaningful coalition than Bush’s. The Bush coalition was an ad hoc assemblage bribed or browbeaten into backing the United States’ immediate geopolitical aims. It was brought together pretty much so Bush could deflect the essentially true unilateralist charge and stand up there and say “41 countries have joined together” blah blah blah.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_09/why_obamas_war_is_different_th052212.php
CBS Evening News ✔ @CBSEveningNews
Follow
NEW: DoJ will launch a civil rights investigation into the fatal police shooting of an Ohio Wal-Mart shopper.
-@PaulaReidCBS
1:51 PM – 24 Sep 2014
Good luck with the investigation DOJ!
Jon Swaine ✔ @jonswaine
Attorney for John Crawford’s family: grand jury decision “absolutely incomprensible”. Says they are “disappointed, disgusted and confused”.
THURSDAY, SEP 11, 2014 11:00 AM CDT
Panicked Georgia Republicans look for an edge: Suppressing black votes
The GOP secretary of state warned supporters “minority voters” are key to a Dem win. Now he’s charging voter fraud
JOAN WALSH
Georgia Republicans are anxious. The bright red state stays that way because African-Americans and Latinos are less likely to vote than white people. Democrats are trying to change that this year – Michelle Nunn has a decent chance of picking up a Republican-held Senate seat, while Jason Carter threatens Gov. Nathan Deal — and the GOP is fighting back.
State GOP leaders are ever more openly admitting that they’re threatened by black voter participation. And now the state’s top election official, caught on tape warning that turning out “minority voters” is the key to a Democratic victory, is accused of harassing a key voter registration project run by the pastor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church and an African-American state legislator.
Earlier this week state Sen. Fran Millar got national attention when he railed against a decision by Atlanta’s DeKalb County to expand Sunday voting and open a new polling place at a shopping mall near black churches. “How ironic! Michele [sic] Obama comes to town and Chicago politics comes to DeKalb,” Millar railed in response, calling the move “blatantly partisan.”
Of course Sunday voting is a national phenomenon, available to citizens of all races – although it must be said that once black churches began to organize “Souls to the Polls” events after church, it suddenly became controversial on the right, and states like Wisconsin have limited it sharply. The spectacle of pro-Christian Republicans trying to keep other Christians from voting has always been vexing, and it’s hard to conclude it has to do with anything but race.
Criticized for his reply, Millar didn’t back down, posting on Facebook: “I would prefer more educated voters than a greater increase in the number of voters.” Yes, that does imply he thinks black voters are less educated. He added: “If you don’t believe this is an effort to maximize Democratic voters, than you are not a realist. This is a partisan stunt and I hope it can be stopped.”
But Democrats see a partisan stunt in a move by GOP Secretary of State Brian Kemp to subpoena the records of the New Georgia Project, the state’s largest voter registration effort, alleging the group has committed voter fraud. And by records, Kemp means every imaginable record – you can see the subpoena here. It could tie up the group indefinitely.
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/panicked_georgia_republicans_look_for_an_edge_suppressing_black_votes/
“Scandal” line of clothing!
Kerry Washington is a master handler
Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY
5:46 p.m. EDT September 23, 2014
NEW YORK — Kerry Washington looks in the mirror, approves of the precise waves just added to her hair with a styling iron, and smiles at her hair and makeup team. “You can stand down now,” she says.
Suffice to say that, folks, it’s handled.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/09/23/kerry-washington-olivia-pope-scandal-collection-limited/15899959/
Mass Vote Registration in Georgia Brings Accusations of Voter Fraud
By Pema Levy
Filed: 9/23/14 at 9:22 AM | Updated: 9/23/14 at 9:23 AM
There’s something fishy going on in Georgia.
On the eve of the midterm elections—with high profile Senate and gubernatorial races on the line—a group undertaking a historic effort to register tens of thousands of minority voters is all of a sudden under investigation by Georgia’s Republican secretary of state’s office. And the crime doesn’t quite match the punishment.
Georgia Democrats’ chance to win this year hinges on registering and turning out new voters on Election Day. Namely, Democrats need to draw from the Peach State’s swelling black, Hispanic and Asian populations, communities that largely support Democrats and are slowly turning Georgia from a red state to a purple one.
These new voters will be critical if Democrat Michelle Nunn (daughter of former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn) is to stand a chance at winning this year’s Senate contest against Republican candidate David Perdue (cousin of former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue), and the only hope of state Senator Jason Carter (grandson of former President Jimmy Carter) to unseat the Republican governor, Nathan Deal.
Enter the New Georgia Project, a group spearheaded by the minority leader in the Georgia state House, Representative Stacey Abrams, a rising star in the Democratic Party. So far, her group has collected 85,000 voter registration applications. Together with around 20,000 registration forms collected by smaller partner groups, Democrats are close to registering 120,000 new voters—mostly black, Hispanic, Asian and young people—before the November elections.
But on September 9, the group received a broad subpoena from the office of the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brian Kemp, as part of an investigation into the group stemming from evidence of fraudulent registration applications. Kemp’s office also sent a letter to county election officials in Georgia’s 159 counties warning that a “preliminary investigation has revealed significant illegal activities.” At an emergency meeting of the State Board of Elections last Wednesday, the deadline for the subpoena was extended to Friday.
Abrams is quick to point out, however, that her group is required by law to turn in every application they collect, even if it contains errors. “If the form says Mickey Mouse registered in Anaheim, California, we have to turn that form in,” Abrams said in an interview with Newsweek last week.
That’s why she’s calling the investigation a witch hunt. ”There was no way to win. And that’s what this really resembles,” Abrams said. “We were being told if you follow the law, you were wrong. And if you didn’t follow the law, you’re wrong.”
At the the State Elections Board meeting, Kemp’s office stated that there were 25 forms that are not valid and another 26 that are suspect. Kemp’s chief investigator, Chris Harvey, acknowledged that the New Georgia Project has been helpful in identifying the problematic forms.
http://www.newsweek.com/mass-vote-registration-georgia-brings-accusations-voter-fraud-272358
Lighter-skinned minorities are more likely to support Republicans
By Spencer Piston September 17
Many political analysts and media pundits argue that the Republican Party has a “race problem” when it comes to national elections. The logic is that Latinos and Asian Americans constitute the two fastest growing segments of the population, and they tend to vote Democratic, most notably in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Projections suggest that the proportion of the electorate that is Latino and Asian American will continue to increase; therefore, the proportion of Republican votes will decline.
But two considerations should make us pause before ringing a death knell for the GOP.
First, research shows that Latinos and Asian Americans have weaker partisan attachments than blacks and whites. The battle for the allegiance of these largely uncommitted groups isn’t over yet.
Which Latinos and Asian Americans might be most susceptible to Republican appeals? Recent research suggests that social exclusion can lead Asian Americans to identify as Democrats. The idea is that upon experiencing discrimination, Asian Americans decide to ally themselves with minority constituencies that also experience discrimination, as well as the party thought to represent those constituencies – the Democratic Party. By this logic, those ethnic minorities most likely to lean Republican should be those least likely to suffer discrimination: those with light skin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/17/lighter-skinned-minorities-are-more-likely-to-support-republicans/
Light-skinned minorities won’t grow the Republican Party
By Karthick Ramakrishnan
September 24 at 9:00 AM
In a recent post, Spencer Piston laid out a plausible case for Republicans to gain the support of Latino and Asian American voters, who are among the fastest growing segments of the electorate. Based on his analysis of surveys in 2008 and 2012, and reference to some recent studies showing white political backlash based on fears of demographic decline, he argues that in the future we may “witness movement toward the Republican Party from: (1) light-skinned Latinos; (2) light-skinned Asian Americans; and (3) prejudiced white Independents and white Democrats.”
There are several reasons to be skeptical of this scenario, particularly when we look at absolute levels of party support among light-skinned Latinos and Asian Americans. Furthermore, we only get a limited view of racial identification and group partisanship when we predict the future based on single surveys today. Finally, we have to take account of political issues—particularly immigration, which likely has wiped out any gains that might have been made from any appeals to “whiteness” directed at Latinos and Asian Americans.
That light-skinned Latinos are more predisposed toward the Republican Party than their darker-skinned compatriots is not something new. A statistically significant relationship between party identification and skin color can be found, for example, in the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS) from 1989-1990 (the graph presents LNPS results among adult citizens only, for purposes of comparison to the 2012 American National Election Study). Indeed, it is remarkable how little has changed in the relationship between party identification and skin tone among Latinos given the two decades that separate these surveys. To put it most simply, there is no evidence of a net migration of light-skinned Latinos toward the Republican Party
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/24/light-skinned-minorities-wont-grow-the-republican-party/
TOTAL BULLSHIT ARTICLE.
Why was the New Georgia Project subpoenaed?
09/24/14 11:26 AM
By Steve Benen
Republican officials in Georgia, a state that will host some very competitive statewide elections this year, haven’t exactly been champions of voting rights recently.
One GOP state senator, for example, recently complained about Sunday voting in an Atlanta shopping mall “dominated by African American shoppers.” Around the same time, we learned about remarks Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R) made in July, when he expressed concern about Democrats “registering all these minority voters that are out there.”
It’s against this backdrop that the Republican Secretary of State – Georgia’s top elections official – also subpoenaed the New Georgia Project, which happens to be the driving force behind the state’s largest voter-registration campaign. As Joan Walsh noted, the recently launched probe is so broad, it could tie up the voter-registration organization “indefinitely.”
That may well very be the point. Pema Levy reported yesterday on the dubious subpoena, issued on the eve of key, competitive races.
So far, [the New Georgia Project] has collected 85,000 voter registration applications. Together with around 20,000 registration forms collected by smaller partner groups, Democrats are close to registering 120,000 new voters – mostly black, Hispanic, Asian and young people – before the November elections.
But on September 9, the group received a broad subpoena from the office of the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brian Kemp, as part of an investigation into the group stemming from evidence of fraudulent registration applications. Kemp’s office also sent a letter to county election officials in Georgia’s 159 counties warning that a “preliminary investigation has revealed significant illegal activities.”
“
Significant” is a relative term. In reality, there were 25 invalid voter-registration applications out of 85,000. Or, put another way, more than 99.9% of the New Georgia Project’s paperwork was fine.
So why the pre-election crackdown?
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-was-the-new-georgia-project-subpoenaed
Watch Courtney B. Vance, Gloria Reuben &
Stephen King ‘Find Their Roots’ (Full Premiere Episode Now Online)
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and ActSeptember 24, 2014 at 1:08PM
Last night, the season premiere of the popular PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Dr. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., aired on the network, starting at 8pm. The emotional genealogical exploration, during which Courtney B. Vance, Gloria Reuben and Stephen King, searched for clues about their biological parents, delivered as you’d expect, is now available online for you to watch, courtesy of PBS, if you missed yesterday’s broadcast.
Looking further out, every Tuesday from here-on, a new group of guests will discover their diverse histories, including actresses Angela Bassett and Khandi Alexander, actor Ben Affleck, journalist Anderson Cooper, tennis great Billie Jean King, and rapper Nas to name a few.
Visit Thirteen.org to get a sneak-peak of upcoming episodes and to stream last season. Plus, enter to win a copy of the book “Finding Your Roots: The Official Companion to the PBS Series.”
Watch the full episode of last night’s season premiere, featuring Courtney B. Vance, Gloria Reuben and Stephen King, below:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/watch-courtney-b-vance-gloria-reuben-stephen-kind-find-their-roots-full-premiere-episode-now-online-20140924
Interview: ‘Black-Ish’ Creator Kenya Barris Talks Blackness in the Age of Obama and in the Shadow of Cosby (Premieres Tonight)
By Jai Tiggett | Shadow and ActSeptember 24, 2014 at 2:17PM
Leading up to the series premiere, show creator Kenya Barris made time to talk with Shadow And Act about ‘Black-ish’ and what he hopes to achieve with it.
Premiering tonight on ABC, “Black-ish” follows Andre Johnson, a successful advertising executive, husband, and father trying to establish a sense of cultural identity for his family in the age of Obama and post-racial dogma.
The series is loosely based on the life of show creator Kenya Barris, who leads a team of black executive producers including Larry Wilmore, Brian Dobbins, and Helen Sugland, as well as Anthony Anderson and Laurence Fishburne, who also star.
Leading up to the series premiere, Barris made time to talk with Shadow And Act about the show and what he hopes to achieve with it.
About the series title, “Black-ish”:
I looked at my kids and realized that they’re growing up in a much different way than I did. I’m from Inglewood; my kids are not. And my understanding of what it was to be black growing up is not the world that they’re living in. They have a filtered version of that; it’s a little black-ish. They’ve taken a lot of different things from what Americana has become.
And at the same time I looked around at everyone else who was in an additive way a little black-ish. I say it in the pilot – Kim Kardashian, Justin Timberlake, everyone else who – it used to be called “co-opting,” but now it’s “an homage.” And it’s people sort of finally giving us credit for our contribution to the Zeitgeist of the world today. So I felt like the younger generation is living in this homogenized world that we’ve never really seen before, which is capped off by our President who is black and mixed race. I could have called it “The Johnsons,” or “Keeping it Real” or “The Burbs,” but I felt like I wanted to say something about this world.
On comparisons to “The Cosby Show”:
KB: Cosby is one of my mentors and that show changed my life. It was groundbreaking, but it was about a family that happened to be black. I wanted to do a show about a family that is absolutely black. Because as Du Bois has shown, we do have to live a double consciousness every day in the world. We have to walk our path and walk the mainstream path, and there’s never really been a show that’s talked about what that’s like.
To me [“Cosby”] is one of the greatest shows ever created. Monetarily, it’s proven to be one of the greatest shows ever created. I set out to tell my story, which is based on my family. Dr. Cosby told his story in “The Cosby Show.” The comparisons stop there in terms of my creation of the show. We just both happen to have black fathers at the center of it
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/interview-black-ish-creator-kenya-barris-talks-blackness-in-the-age-of-obama-and-the-shadow-of-cosby-premieres-tonight-20140924
https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/status/514813137615601665
https://twitter.com/EjmAlrai/status/514735708008120320/photo/1
https://twitter.com/ThinkAgain_DOS/status/514800802557206529/photo/1
https://twitter.com/BMUatYale/status/514839159106961408
Ann Romney: Dem rhetoric ‘offensive’
By LUCY MCCALMONT | 9/23/14 5:35 PM EDT Updated: 9/24/14 12:27 AM EDT
Ann Romney on Tuesday skewered Democrats’ claim that there’s a GOP “war on women,” calling the accusation “offensive” and saying it won’t work as a campaign tactic.
“It’s ridiculous, honestly, I mean I don’t think they’re getting very far with that, by the way. It’s not going to work. I think women are a lot smarter than that, and that’s kind of offensive to me, to tell you the truth,” Romney said in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox News in response to a question about both the so-called “war on women” and DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s recent comments about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/ann-romney-dem-rhetoric-offensive-111266.html#ixzz3EFhKFKRL
Why don’t the Romneys just go away? Does this mean that Mitt really is thinking of having another go at the Republican presidential nomination? God help us.
john miller @deaconmill
Follow
Anyone who believes GOP govs like Walker, Scott, Christie, etc, really care about the people who live in their states is seriously misguided
9:56 AM – 24 Sep 2014
https://twitter.com/fareedzakaria/status/514793767426355200
?
https://twitter.com/KellieAskew1/status/514807232475574272
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/514803356368662528
See how this works, folks? Next grand jury who decides not to INDICT? FERGUSON Darren Wilson the killer cop who executed Michael Brown Jr.!
Those mofos are GOING DOWN.
Jeffco students protest proposed “censorship” of history curriculum
By Jesse Paul
The Denver Post
Posted: 09/22/2014 10:55:24 AM MDT289 Comments | Updated: a day ago
Students from Evergreen High School meet with Jefferson County Schools officials over their concerns about advanced placement history curriculum, Monday, September 22, 2014. (Jesse A. Paul. The Denver Post)
GOLDEN — Dozens of Evergreen High School students walked out of their morning classes on Monday and carpooled to the Jefferson County School Administration Building to protest what they see as the school board’s attempt to censor advanced history curriculum.
“I want honesty in my classroom,” the students said in a letter presented to Superintendent Dan McMinimee, who spoke with four student representatives and the board. “Teachers want honesty in the classroom.”
The protest followed a teacher sick-out that closed two schools last week. Schools were back open on Monday despite rumors that educators might not show again. Students said similar protests are planned for the rest of the week.
“We came in as a preventative measure,” said Mali Holmes, a senior at Evergreen.
The group of 100 to 200 students protested for about 45 minutes before returning back to school, specifically asking that civil disobedience topics not be removed from the AP U.S. History course. Student leaders told The Denver Post that the gathering was planned on Facebook late Sunday night.
Monday’s protest marked the second day in a week that students missed school because of mounting controversy in the district. McMinimee said he asks students and educators to let him come to them instead of having kids miss school driving to the administration building.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26582843/jeffco-students-skip-classes-protest-censorship-history-curriculum
In reference to this story, I give you TOWN
Town
Well he WON’T get MY vote. If you are a Democrat but you won’t support your own Democratic president, choosing to resign from the Senate rather than work with the president and/or feeling Obama was gonna lose and you didn’t want to be on the ballot with him, don’t EVEN ask for my vote. If ya scared, say ya scared! I guess his selling point is he will do better among working class white voters than Obama, huh?
And Miss Ann Romney needs to sit it on down too with the “Mitt might run again” crap. All she wants to do is be First Lady so she can throw lovely parties with white people. Ho had to call the interior decorators on Election Night and sob their services wouldn’t be needed after all.
Clear people, clear people: We see you!!!!
…………..
Webb says he’s seriously considering presidential bid
By ANDREW CAIN Richmond Times-Dispatch
Former Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said Tuesday that he is seriously contemplating a run for president.
“I am seriously looking at the possibility of running for president, but we want to see if there’s a support base from people who would support the programs that we are interested in pursuing,” he said in an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington.
Webb, who in 2012 chose not to seek a second six-year term in the Senate, said he has been involved in discussions “among people that I respect and trust about the future of the country” and that he will continue having such discussions over the next four or five months.
“We’re taking a hard look, and we’ll get back to you in a few months.”
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/virginia-politics/webb-says-he-s-seriously-considering-presidential-bid/article_da71cf8e-6e09-5c0f-8f24-3b2544db7c82.html
Mr. Webb, you ain’t the future. Neither is Mitt Romney.
https://twitter.com/NettaFinesse/status/514239566031908865/photo/1
I have never seen anything so ignorant in all of my life. WTF is he doing on a police force?
Officer involved in death of young black man warned of drugs linked to Rasta culture
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/23/utah-officer-darrien-hunt-black-rasta-culture
Matthew Schauerhamer, placed on leave following the death of Darrien Hunt, wrote article in June suggesting ‘if your child is listening to Bob Marley, it is highly likely your child is highly high’
A police officer involved in the fatal shooting of a young black man in Utah wrote an article warning parents that their children might be taking drugs if they showed a particularly deep interest in Rastafarian culture or dance music.
Corporal Matthew Schauerhamer, who has been placed on paid leave following the death of Darrien Hunt, posted an essay online offering advice on how to recognise if a child is “descending into the culture and subcultures that drug users associate with”.
Schauerhamer, 32, told parents that if their son or daughter was fanatical about Bob Marley and wore a red, yellow and green Rastafarian-style hat, it was a strong indication of drug use.
The article was first published in June this year by the Crossroads Journal, a regional newspaper serving Saratoga Springs, where Hunt was shot dead at a strip mall earlier this month after allegedly lunging at Schauerhamer and another officer with a replica samurai-style sword before fleeing.
The ‘Obamacare’ victory lap takes another spin
09/24/14 09:34 AM—UPDATED 09/24/14 09:58 AM
By Steve Benen
Supporters of the Affordable Care Act have had quite a few reasons to celebrate lately, and as of yesterday, the news keeps getting better.
Consumers in much of the country will have a broader selection of health insurance plans next year, the Obama administration said Tuesday, as it predicted an increase of about 25 percent in the number of insurers that are expected to compete in federal and state marketplaces. […]
So far, [administration officials] said, the number of insurers, also known as issuers, is up to 315 next year, from 252 this year. For the 36 states served by the federal marketplace, it said, the number is up almost 30 percent, to 248 next year, from 191 this year.
When congressional Republicans predicted that private insurers would want nothing to do with “Obamacare,” and the lack of participation would be a disaster for consumers, the GOP lawmakers had it backwards. Competition has already helped hold down premiums, and with more insurance companies now eager to get into the system and compete for Americans’ business, consumers are poised to benefit even more.
This follows more good ACA news from the day before, when we learned consumers who shop around next year can expect to find some great deals, including premium increases of about 1%. And even if Americans don’t shop around and stick with what they’ve got, premium increases will be a fraction of what they were before the Affordable Care Act became law.
This followed good news about the number of Americans paying their premiums after enrolling through an ACA exchange. Which followed good news about Medicaid expansion. Ezra Klein noted two weeks ago that President Obama’s “signature accomplishment” is “succeeding beyond all reasonable expectation.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-obamacare-victory-lap-takes-another-spin
yeah, that will work out, Marco. Tell the United States Armed Forces that they will always be stationed somewhere.
ok.
yeah, try and sell that.
He is SO out of his league.
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Rubio eyes ‘permanent U.S. troop presence’ in Middle East
By Steve Benen 09/24/14 08:51AM
President Obama recently summarized his vision for a military offensive against Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria. The administration’s entire approach was packaged in four sentences:
“To confront the Islamic State terrorists, we need a sustained air campaign targeting their leadership, sources of income and supply routes, wherever they exist. We must increase our efforts to equip and capacitate non-jihadists in Syria to fight the terrorist group. And we must arm and support forces in Iraq confronting it, including responsible Iraqi partners and the Kurds. In addition, we must persuade nations in the region threatened by the Islamic State to participate in real efforts to defeat it.”
Wait, did I say that was President Obama’s summary of his policy? I meant this was an op-ed from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), in which the far-right senator condemned “the president’s failed isolationist policies.”
Rubio has been going out of his way to position himself as a leading, hawkish voice on foreign policy, though his efforts have occasionally been awkward, as evidenced by the senator urging Obama to follow the exact same course Obama himself had already presented to the nation two days earlier.
This continued yesterday when the Florida Republican talked to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto about developments in the Middle East.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-eyes-permanent-us-troop-presence-middle-east
Congress content to sit on the sidelines
09/24/14 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), arguably more than any other senator, has invested considerable time and energy urging Congress to do its duty. As a U.S. military offensive gets underway in Syria, President Obama has received no real authorization from lawmakers, and the Virginia Democrat knows the system isn’t supposed to work this way.
“The president shouldn’t be doing this without Congress,” Kaine said yesterday, adding, “Congress shouldn’t be allowing it to happen without Congress.”
It’s that latter part that stands out. In recent years, congressional Republicans have been almost hysterical about presidential overreach, condemning the White House for alleged abuses that leave Congress out of the policymaking process. In nearly every instance, their evidence has fallen somewhere between baseless and ridiculous.
And yet, here’s a legitimate example of Obama ignoring Congress when he shouldn’t, and those same Republicans who pretended to care about this institutional dynamic are sitting on their hands, perfectly content to ignore their constitutional responsibilities in the name of political convenience.
The United States has begun a bombing campaign in Syria, but don’t bet on Congress returning to Washington to vote on a new war authorization anytime soon.
Shortly after airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria started, some lawmakers started pushing again for an authorization vote. But so far, leaders aren’t gearing up to bring their members back to town.
Asked to explain why Congress is satisfied doing nothing, House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office told Roll Call, “As the Speaker has said, he thinks it would be good for the country to have a new authorization for the use of military force covering our actions against ISIL, but traditionally such an authorization is requested and written by the commander-in-chief – and President Obama has not done that.”
Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) added that Obama “should seek a new congressional authorization.”
Republicans may not fully appreciate just how extraordinary this approach to governing really is.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/congress-content-sit-the-sidelines
SEPTEMBER 22, 2014
The Wisdom of the Crowd
BY HENDRIK HERTZBERG
Don’t follow leaders,” the bard of Hibbing once advised. “Watch the parking meters,” he added—whatever that meant.
At Sunday’s vast and beautiful climate march, on Central Park West somewhere in the Sixties, I ran into Bill McKibben, a longtime acquaintance (he got his start as a New Yorker writer back in the nineteen-eighties). He was strolling at the edge of the crowd, unmolested, with his wife and colleague, Sue Halpern. We had a brief conversation about how the march was going (very well indeed), then he and Halpern strolled on—again unmolested, and mostly unrecognized.
If anyone can be called a leader, even the leader, of the People’s Climate March (and of the movement it represents, for that matter), McKibben’s the one. He dreamed the march up in the first place; he is its intellectual father, he wrote its manifesto, and he was its principal organizer. He is at once its Thomas Paine and its Bayard Rustin. Yet there he was, taking a walk down Central Park West like everybody else.
This was remarkable, and it was emblematic of what made this march feel different from other big marches I’ve been on for other big causes—for civil rights, against wars in Vietnam and Iraq, for nuclear disarmament, against nuclear power, for or against what have you. At those marches, most of them, leaders were a big deal, a major drawing card. The V.I.P.s spent most of their time in special tents to which admission required special credentials, and when they ventured out they were generally accompanied by phalanxes of aides and hangers-on. Not this time. There was a smattering of relevant celebrities, to be sure—the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Mayor of New York, Al Gore—but as far as I know there were no special tents, no special credentials, and no phalanxes.
There was another notable, and related, absence at Sunday’s march. Typically, at such events, the destination is an open-air field or arena featuring an elaborate speakers’ stand, with a backstage infrastructure of headquarters tents, satellite vans, and port-a-cans. The stand is festooned with microphones, amplifiers, and powerful loudspeakers. Rock bands and folksingers, the more famous the better, alternate with orators representing the various factions comprising the sponsoring coalition. At the People’s Climate March, there was no speakers’ stand, because there were no speakers. There was just the march and the people marching.
The crowd was big—three hundred and ten thousand, according to a scientific count conducted by a complex-systems mathematician from Carnegie Mellon University using data supplied by thirty-five spotters. It was probably closer to four hundred thousand, judging from the constant churn of people arriving and leaving. The crowd was noisy, with lots of impromptu chanting and singing and drums and noisemakers, including not a few vuvuzelas. (Remember the 2010 World Cup, in South Africa?) At precisely 1 P.M., an hour and a half into the march, the throng fell silent, suddenly and completely. Then came the wave—first a rolling tsunami of arms thrown into the air, travelling swiftly at us from the head of the march, two miles away, then, like thunder after distant lightning, a wall of sound, a deafening, exuberant roar of human voices all around. No speakers? Not quite. More like hundreds of thousands.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/peoples-climate-march-wisdom-crowd
September 23, 2014 11:48 AM
Jeb ‘16—The Excitement Builds!
By Ed Kilgore
It’s no secret the GOP Donor Class loves Jeb Bush and would like to see him run for president. But if you have any doubts, read this unintentionally hilarious spin sent out via Politico’s Mike Allen today:
As Jeb Bush plunges into a frenzy of fall travel for Senate candidates, his allies insist a presidential campaign is becoming more of a possibility than even they thought a few months ago. He’s doing a lot of under-the-radar prep, including foreign policy tutoring and meetings with tech gurus. And several of his friends think he is leaning more yes than no. The more opaque his plans, the greater the clamor – a “Greta Garbo strategy” that has amped up demand for the former Florida governor.
In the next breath, Allen is admiring Bush’s practice of holding fundraisers IN FLORIDA for Senate candidates in other states. That’s on top of the “frenzy” of travel, I suppose, and none of this wildly exciting activity contradicts the “Greta Garbo strategy” of acting coy. As to why this would “amp up demand for the former Florida governor,” Allen is as “opaque” as the man he’s hyping
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_09/jeb_16the_excitement_builds052195.php
Wind energy proposal would light Los Angeles homes
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and MEAD GRUVER
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The push for clean energy to reduce greenhouse gases has led to multibillion-dollar investments in wind and solar projects, but finding an economical way to store renewable energy that comes and goes like the breeze or the sun has proved challenging.
An alliance of four companies say they have found an answer in an underground salt formation.
On Tuesday, the group proposed an $8 billion power project that would start with twirling turbines on a huge wind farm in Wyoming and end with enough electricity for over 1 million households in Southern California.
Key links between the two would be an energy storage site inside Utah caverns carved out of the salt formation and a 525-mile electric transmission line cutting across several western states.
“Energy storage, paired with renewable energy, has been the holy grail of utilities and energy companies,” said Travis Miller, an analyst for investment research giant Morningstar.
Construction is far from assured — the proposal faces years of regulatory reviews, and success will also hinge on striking agreements to sell the power that would be essential to secure financing to build it.
Jeff Meyer of Pathfinder Renewable Wind Energy, one of the companies behind the plan, called it “a landmark of the clean energy revolution.”
“This project would be the 21st century’s Hoover Dam,” he said in a statement, referring to the 726-foot-high span across the Colorado River that produces hydroelectric power for Nevada, Arizona and California.
The announcement came on the same day that President Barack Obama urged world leaders to follow the United States’ lead on climate change in a U.N. summit aimed to gather support for a treaty to reduce heat-trapping pollution.
The new proposal, with a tentative completion date of 2023, would potentially generate twice as much energy as the 1930s-era dam.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3084cb4c459f4ffd9b666f5d5d2e44e3/wind-energy-proposal-would-light-los-angeles-homes
now that they can’t give us rotten loans, they’d just rather not give us any loans at all.
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Lending to Minorities Declines to a 14-Year Low in U.S.
By Clea Benson and Alexis Leondis Sep 24, 2014 3:00 AM ET
The share of mortgage lending to minority borrowers fell to at least a 14-year low as U.S. regulators struggle toease credit to blacks and Hispanics shut out of the housing recovery.
These borrowers, whose share of the purchase mortgage market has been shrinking since the collapse of subprime lending, continued to lose ground to white borrowers through 2013, according tofederal data released this week. Blacks and Hispanics were a smaller portion of borrowers last year than they were in 2000, before the housing bubble.
Minorities, who tend to have less savings and lower credit scores than whites, have been hit hardest by lenders who are giving mortgages only to the strongest borrowers. Fair-lending advocates and civil-rights groups are urging the government to create new loan products and change how creditworthiness is determined to give blacks and Hispanics greater access to one of the best vehicles for building wealth
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-24/lending-to-minorities-declines-to-a-14-year-low-in-u-s-.html
evil azz, lowdown, no good muthaphuckas
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Hospital worker ‘used as a human shield’ in gang-related killing, police say
Police arrest two men in Sunday night shooting
By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun
9:27 p.m. EDT, September 23, 2014
A Maryland Shock Trauma Center technician was waiting for a bus home after work Sunday night when he was “used as a human shield” and killed during a gang shootout, Baltimore police said.
Police said Tuesday that they have arrested two members of the Black Guerrilla Family in the death of Brandon Finney, a 25-year-old father who was saving up for his first car.
The intended target — a Bloods gang member, Christopher Camphor, 20— was also killed in the attack, police said.
Finney’s death drew dozens — some who barely knew him — for a vigil Tuesday night at the bus stop where he died at Saratoga and North Paca streets.
“No family should go through that,” said Larry Stewart, a mourner who said he knew Finney only from seeing him at the bus stop regularly.
Finney was described as an innocent bystander in court documents. A witness told detectives that he “was used as a human shield while the shooting erupted.”
Tuesday evening, Finney’s stepfather, James Carr, sat at the dining room table of the family’s home on Mount Holly Street in West Baltimore and grasped for answers. Grieving relatives streamed into the house.
Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-ci-shooting-arrest-20140923,0,5086519.story#ixzz3EErJincm
Political Animal Blog
September 23, 2014 3:31 PM
Dynamic Scoring, How May I Mock Thee?
By Ed Kilgore
Among those paying close attention to Paul Ryan’s maneuvering of late, it’s sort of predictable if laughable that he’s returned to the ancient conservative chestnut of “dynamic scoring” to square the various circles in his latest tax plan.
Jonathan Chait calls dynamic scoring “magic pixie dust,” and as used by Ryan, that’s pretty accurate. The way I’d define dynamic scoring is that it demands the scorekeepers assume the economic world behaves the way supply-siders thing it does, even though it demonstrably doesn’t. Thus to a considerable extent high-end tax cuts pay for themselves, and also enable policymakers to cut the rest of the population a slice of tasty pie through much smaller tax cuts as well.
But I’ve already used a couple of metaphors here. I would invite readers to come up with their own ways to describe the incredibly convenient world of dynamic scoring, wherein if you assume an ideology is right then the numbers say so, too!
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2014_09/dynamic_scoring_how_may_i_mock052200.php
India becomes first Asian nation to reach Mars orbit, joins elite global space club
By Rama Lakshmi September 24 at 4:05 AM
NEW DELHI — India became the first Asian nation to reach the Red Planet when its indigenously made unmanned spacecraft entered the orbit of Mars on Wednesday — and the first nation in the world to successfully reach Mars on its first attempt.
The spacecraft called “Mangalyaan,” or “Mar’s craft” in Hindi, which was launched last November, slowed down just enough to reach orbit early Wednesday, securing India a place in the elite global space club of Martian explorers.
Images of beaming scientists clapping and hugging each other at the command center in the southern city of Bangalore were shown live in a nationally televised broadcast after a breathless, nail-biting countdown during the spacecraft’s final leg.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/india-is-the-first-asian-nation-to-touch-mars-orbit-joins-elite-global-space-club/2014/09/23/b6bc6992-a432-4f1e-87ad-5d6fc4da3460_story.html?wpisrc=nl-headlines&wpmm=1
Orman catches another break in legal fight over Kansas Senate ballot
By Sean Sullivan
September 23 at 11:29 AM
The Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday sent the question of whether the state Democratic Party is required to appoint a Senate nominee to replace Chad Taylor to a lower court, a decision that helps independent candidate Greg Orman against Sen. Pat Roberts (R).
In a three-page order, Chief Justice Lawton R. Nuss wrote that transfer of the case to the Shawnee County district court “is appropriate” because petitioner David Orel’s “pleadings do not contain sworn evidence necessary to enable this court to make any of a myriad of legal determinations.”
Rick Hasen, an expert on election laws, wrote on his blog that the court’s order lessens the chance Democrats will have to appoint a replacement. That’s good news for Orman, since it increases the odds he will not have to compete for anti-Roberts voters with a Democratic opponent.
“The effect of this order is to delay things beyond the point at which it would make sense for Democrats to put a name on the ballot,” wrote Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. “That is, by the time the issue would get back to the Supreme Court, ballots may have been printed. Democrats had been hoping to run out the clock in this case, and this is a big order helping that cause.
As the Topeka Capital-Journal notes, Orel is described in documents as a registered Democrat but is the father of a field director for Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s campaign.
The state Supreme Court ruled last week that Taylor, who ended his campaign on Sept. 3 , fulfilled all the legal requirements to be removed from the ballot. Republicans sharply criticized the decision and vowed to try to force Democrats to appoint a replacement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/09/23/orman-catches-another-break-in-legal-fight-over-kansas-senate-ballot/
Pat Roberts warns of ‘national socialism’ in the U.S.
09/23/14 04:07 PM—UPDATED 09/23/14 07:16 PM
By Steve Benen
Remember, Sen. Pat Roberts is supposed to be the experienced, mainstream Republican in Kansas.
Incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who is facing an unexpectedly fierce challenge for re-election, warned Monday at a campaign stop that the United States is heading for “national socialism.”
It’s not clear whether Roberts intended to make a reference to Nazism or simply meant to invoke the run of the mill looming specter of socialism.
Let’s pause here to offer a friendly reminder to politicians everywhere: If you don’t know what “national socialism” means, don’t use it in a sentence.
In this case, Roberts has left his home in Virginia to campaign in Kansas full time, and in remarks captured by American Bridge, the senator argued the “America that we love and cherish and honor will not be the same America for our kids and grandkids.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/pat-roberts-warns-national-socialism-the-us
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone. Happy HuMp day! :-))