Simply Red was an English soul and pop band that sold more than 50 million albums over a 25-year career. Their style drew upon influences ranging from blue-eyed soul, New Romantic and rock to reggae and jazz. From their early days, the main driving force behind the band was singer Mick Hucknall, who, by the time the band was disbanded in 2010, was the only original member left.[1] At the 1992 and 1993 Brit Awards, they received the award for Best British Group.
Simply Red’s origination dates from a 1976 Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. Manchester art student Mick Hucknall was one of the many young music fans present, along with Mark E. Smith of The Fall as well as original members of the bands Joy Division, The Smiths and Buzzcocks.
The first incarnation of the band was a punk group called The Frantic Elevators, whose 7-year run produced limited releases on local labels and ended in 1984 upon critical acclaim for their final single, “Holding Back the Years“.
https://twitter.com/GlobalRevLive/status/518826806687047680/photo/1
Dear God!
Immigration Activists Call Out Kentucky Dem’s “Morally Reprehensible” Tactics
Alison Lundergan Grimes promises she won’t support amnesty. “She is essentially aligning herself with her opponent.” posted on Oct. 13, 2014, at 6:28 p.m.
Latino advocates were shocked to learn Monday that Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes is running an under-the-radar campaign to paint herself as less interested in a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants than her opponent, Senator Mitch McConnell.
“I approve this message because I’ve never supported amnesty or benefits for illegal immigrants and I never will,” Grimes says in a TV ad first uncovered by Vox. The ad attacks McConnell for voting in favor of a bipartisan immigration bill in 1986 that was the last time Washington provided a path to legality for undocumented workers.
The TV ad is, as Vox notes, “unlisted on YouTube, meaning it doesn’t show up on Grimes’ main YouTube page and isn’t searchable — minimizing the likelihood that out-of-state supporters will see it.”
The subterfuge did not sit well with Latino and immigrant advocates, most of whom are supporting Democrats like Grimes against the GOP in November.
“It smacks of desperation,” said Frank Sharry, president of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice. “It’s a real eye-roller. First of all, when Democrats try to get to the right of Republicans on immigration it just doesn’t work. Number two, she’s attacking him for a vote in 1986? Really?”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/immigration-activists-call-out-kentucky-dems-morally-reprehe?utm_term=2foe0ef#2vy8gfn
Forty Portraits in Forty Years
Photographs by NICHOLAS NIXON
The Brown sisters have been photographed every year since 1975. The latest image in the series is published here for the first time.
Nicholas Nixon was visiting his wife’s family when, “on a whim,” he said, he asked her and her three sisters if he could take their picture. It was summer 1975, and a black-and-white photograph of four young women — elbows casually attenuated, in summer shirts and pants, standing pale and luminous against a velvety background of trees and lawn — was the result. A year later, at the graduation of one of the sisters, while readying a shot of them, he suggested they line up in the same order. After he saw the image, he asked them if they might do it every year. “They seemed O.K. with it,” he said; thus began a project that has spanned almost his whole career. The series, which has been shown around the world over the past four decades, will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art, coinciding with the museum’s publication of the book “The Brown Sisters: Forty Years” in November.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/03/magazine/01-brown-sisters-forty-years.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
https://twitter.com/jncatron/status/521793789241737216
This is one HELLUVA, HEAPING OF RECOGNITION!
That’s good news.
Monday, Oct 13, 2014 10:46 AM CDT
GOP voter ID law gets crushed: Why Judge Richard Posner’s new opinion is so amazing
Conservative icon/federal judge changes mind on photo ID laws, issues blistering dissent against them. Read it here
Brad Friedman
If you read just one top-to-bottom dismantling of every supposed premise in support of disenfranchising Photo ID voting restrictions laws in your lifetime, let it be this one [PDF].
It is a dissent, released on Friday, written by Judge Richard Posner, the Reagan-appointed 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge who was the one who approved the first such Photo ID law in the country (Indiana’s) back in 2008, in the landmark Crawford v. Marion County case which went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Posner’s ruling was affirmed.
If there was ever evidence that a jurist could change their mind upon review of additional subsequent evidence, this is it. If there was ever a concise and airtight case made against Photo ID laws and the threat they pose to our most basic right to vote, this is it. If there was ever a treatise revealing such laws for the blatantly partisan shell games that they are, this is it.
His dissent includes a devastating response to virtually every false and/or disingenuous rightwing argument/talking point ever put forth in support of Photo ID voting restrictions, describing them as “a mere fig leaf for efforts to disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government.”
Posner is, by far, the most widely cited legal scholar of the 20th century, according to The Journal of Legal Studies. His opinions are closely read by the Supreme Court, where the battle over the legality and Constitutionality of Photo ID voting laws will almost certainly wind up at some point in the not too distant future. That’s just one of the reasons why this opinion is so important.
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/13/gop_voter_id_law_gets_crushed_why_judge_richard_posners_ruling_is_so_amazing/
http://twitter.com/EcheMadubuike/status/521580548205330432/photo/1
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
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Christopher Columbus – the first person to invoke Stand Your Ground on American soil. #HappyColumbusDay
9:26 AM – 13 Oct 2014
Christopher Harris @cdewayneharris
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#HappyColumbusDay – the day that led to America’s original sin, the brutal genocide and marginalization of our indigenous people.
10:58 AM – 13 Oct 2014Arkansas, US, United States
Bobby J. @BobbyJComedy
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When you steal something and keep it so long, it now belongs to you.
#HappyColumbusDay
11:28 AM – 13 Oct 2014
Marisol @lunarseawitch
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#HappyColumbusDay Celebrate the holiday by breaking into a family’s house and claiming their property as your own.
11:30 AM – 13 Oct 2014
How is ‘The Equalizer’ Doing Overseas? Very Well, Thank You…
By Sergio | Shadow and ActOctober 13, 2014 at 10:44AM
As we have mentioned numerous times here on this site, the foreign film market is key. All filmmakers, including, and especially black filmmakers, must keep in mind that whatever film they make, they should consider that there is an audience for their film outside the USA, around the globe.
Antoine Fuqua’s “The Equalizer” with Denzel Washington, once again challenges the lie that there is no appeal for black film stars in foreign countries. The film opened in late Sept, in 37 territories across Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East (now 39 territories) and, as of yesterday, has grossed some $57 million to date. That’s in addition to the nearly $80 million it has made here domestically.
Among the highest grossing countries is the U.K. with $6.9 million, followed by Russia, with just over $5 million. Other high grossing countries are Australia, Brazil, France. Mexico, Malaysia and The Netherlands.
And it has yet to open in Japan, where it’s been heavily promoted, and, no doubt will be very successful there as well; Also in the rest of Europe including Spain, Germany and Italy, most of South America and other Middle Eastern and African countries..
The film, at this rate, will very likely reach the $150 million mark overseas alone at the box office.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/how-is-the-equalizer-doing-overseas-very-well-thank-you-20141013
Bounce Sets Season 2 Premiere of ‘Family Time’ + Guest Stars to Include Lynn Whitfield, Jackee, Rodney Perry & More
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and ActOctober 13, 2014 at 12:58PM
The new, 10-episode second season of Bounce TV’s popular sitcom “Family Time,” will premiere Tuesday night, Oct. 14 at 10 p.m. (Eastern Time) with new episodes premiering weekly in that time slot.
“Family Time” chronicles the lives of the Stallworth family who have recently relocated to the suburbs, headed by the dad Tony Stallworth (Omar Gooding), a struggling general contractor, and his wife Lisa (Angell Conwell), an unfulfilled stay-at-home mom. These high school sweethearts lovingly quarrel with each other and their mischievous children Devin (Bentley Kyle Evans, Jr.) and Ebony (Jayla Calhoun) as they make up their own rules to love, marriage, and family along the way. When they are not battling each other they are contending with a host of family, friends, and neighbors, including Tony’s snobby older brother Todd (Christopher Williams) and Lisa’s feisty sisters Rachel (Tanjareen Martin) and Lori (Paula Jai Parker), all set in the tight knit community of Windsor Hills. The half hour situation comedy was created by Bentley Kyle Evans (“The Jamie Foxx Show,” “Martin,” “Love That Girl”) and is produced by Evans and partner Trenton Gumbs (“Love That Girl”).
Guest stars in season two include Lynn Whitfield, Lawrence Hilton Jacobs, Jackee, Richard Gant, Rodney Perry and Judyanne Elder.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/bounce-sets-season-2-premiere-of-family-time-guest-stars-to-include-lynn-whitfield-jackee-rodney-perry-more-20141013
A Prequel To ‘Gone With The Wind’ Which Tell Mammy’s Story Solely, Hits Bookstores Tomorrow (Movie Next?)
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/a-prequel-to-gone-with-the-wind-which-tell-mammys-story-solely-hits-bookstores-tomorrow-movie-next-20141013?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
I’ve had 3 people in 3 days tell me to go see Gone Girl. and they are such different ‘ types’ of people, I am now curious about the movie. Anyone see it?
SHIT BOUGIE BLACK PEOPLE LOVE: 23. THINKPIECES
by Damon Young, 10/9/14
Whether they’re injecting facts to conversations (“Speaking of Obama’s speech on ISIS, did you know ‘Malia’ is a Hawaii name meaning ‘calm and peaceful‘?”), providing obscure tidbits (“I know everyone loved Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but Jason Segel’s best role was in Bye Bye Benjamin”), using smart sounding words (“That trope harkens back to a deconstructionist narrative“) or making analogies (“Ray J is the Derrick Rose of reality TV“), Bougie Black People relish opportunities to show everyone exactly how educated they are.
This is done for two reasons:
1. Education is a Bougie Black status marker, no different than an Uber account or an awkward selfie on a mountain bike trail, and proving that they’re educated allows them to self-identify. If they’re ever in a new environment and immediately need to know who the other Bougie Black People are, all they’ll have to do is notice the person who segues a conversation about pizza into an “unpacking of the racialized history behind the gluten-free movement.”
http://verysmartbrothas.com/shit-bougie-black-people-love-23-thinkpieces/
Playlist Rachel Maddow
RACHEL MADDOW 10/09/14
40,000 voter registration forms gone missing in Georgia
Georgia State Rep. Stacey Abrams, House Minority Leader, talks with Rachel Maddow about Republican challenges to a voting registration drive by the New Georgia Project, and over 40,000 new voter registration applications that have not been processed.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/40-000-voter-registration-forms-gone-missing-339865155696
Civil rights groups sue over Ga. voter backlog
10/13/14 12:53 PM
By Steve Benen
Georgia may be considered a reliably “red” state in the Deep South, but this year, it’s home to two closely watched, highly competitive statewide races. In fact, recent polling suggests Georgia’ U.S. Senate race and gubernatorial race may even go to a runoff.
It makes lawsuits like these all the more important. Sarah Wheaton reported late Friday:
A coalition of civil rights organizations on Friday sued the Georgia secretary of state’s office and five counties over an alleged backlog of 40,000 voter registration forms. […]
Filed in Fulton County Superior Court, the suit asks a judge to order the counties and Secretary of State Brian Kemp to immediately process the remaining forms.
If you saw Rachel’s segment on this on Thursday, you probably have a sense of why this is such a big deal, but let’s recap for those just joining us.
Voter-suppression efforts have been a scourge in recent years for much of the country, but it’s proving to be especially problematic in Georgia. Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R), Georgia’s top elections official, was recorded over the summer expressing concern, for example, about Democrats “registering all these minority voters that are out there.” Kemp also subpoenaed the New Georgia Project, which happens to be the driving force behind the state’s largest voter-registration campaign, for reasons that appear quite dubious.
But it’s the voter-registration materials that may ultimately matter most. According to the New Georgia Project, the group has submitted “more than 80,000 new voter applications to county election boards.” But as Election Day nears, the New Georgia Project says roughly half of these new voters, some of whom registered months ago, are not yet on the voter rolls.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/civil-rights-groups-sue-over-ga-voter-backlog
Meet TIME Magazine’s 25 Most Influential Teens Of 2014
The Huffington Post | By Amanda Scherker
Posted: 10/13/2014 1:11 pm EDT Updated
Whether they’re solving world hunger at the Google Science Fair or setting the bar for creative genius on Instagram, it’s pretty clear that teenagers today are leading the way (but you already knew that).
Among the teens in the spotlight, TIME Magazine has selected 25 nominees in the running to be named 2014’s Most Influential Teenager. Newcomers to the list include fashion and beauty vlogger Bethany Mota and Hong Kong student protest leader Joshua Wong. Several of last year’s nominees qualified again, including singer-songwriter Lorde, actress Chloë Grace Moretz and recent Noble Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/time-most-influential-teens_n_5977080.html?&ir=Politics&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016
The Village Voice can go Phuck Itself
https://twitter.com/villagevoice/status/521715587010265088
https://twitter.com/Kennymack1971/status/521742124056711168/photo/1
https://twitter.com/stop1033/status/521739967916040192
OOP! THERE IT IS!
https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/521670442487398401
https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/521705889275736065/photo/1
Two religious women lament Satan’s influence on their families’ lives and compare the painful things they each want to do to him.
http://youtu.be/a-C9q-Na6_w
McConnell’s new best friend: Chuck Todd
10/13/14 12:20 PM EDT
Chuck Todd’s recent appraisal of Alison Lundergan Grimes has thrown him into the center of the Kentucky Senate race.
On Friday, the “Meet The Press” moderator told MSNBC that Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes had “disqualified herself” from the race by refusing to disclose who she voted for in 2008. Todd’s remark is now the final clip on a six-figure ad buy by the Mitch McConnell campaign.
The 30-second spot, which will run across Kentucky, features a montage of newscasters and pundits talking critically about Grimes’ evasive answer to a question from the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board. Twenty seconds in, Todd is seen criticizing Grimes: “And Kentuckians expect her to cast a tough vote on anything? Is she ever going to answer a tough question on anything?” he asks rhetorically.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/10/mcconnells-new-best-friend-chuck-todd-196997.html#.VDv8N-DzNzk.twitter
STILL A NIGGER IN PARIS
by Kayle Barnes, 10/12/14
paris
“I don’t want to raise my children in this country.”
I’ve seen many iterations of that sentiment on social media, and I get it. As should anyone who pays any attention to the news and/or has personally experienced the permanent and occasionally paralyzing anxiety present when raising a little Black or Brown boy or girl in the United States of America of today. I understand wanting to escape to a utopia where all people are actually judged by the content of the character. I just don’t know where that place is. I’ve even been guilty of thinking about living the expat life and chunking up the deuce to my home country. Then I remember that the first negative interaction that I had with police happened in the land of liberté, egalité, et fraternité: France.
I was on the way from one small town to another, a trip I had taken many times to see old friends. There was a train stopover for about an hour, so I decided to get eat something instead of staying in the small station. I had been in that town before; visited friends, shopped in its little shops, gone to its bars all without incident. After I ate, I left the little restaurant, walking briskly to make sure I had enough time to get my preferred seat on the train. That’s when I saw two police officers. I smiled at them, as I do most humans, and continued on my way. A few steps later they said “Mademoiselle!” and asked me to stop. I was confused and assumed I had dropped something, but then they asked for my papers.
Confused by why I was being asked, I racked my brain to see if I had made any transgressions in the past few minutes. I hadn’t jaywalked, but I was walking fiercely. For anyone who has never been asked for proof that they belong where they are in the universe, it’s an incredibly insulting, dehumanizing experience. I asked them if I had done something wrong, in French, while my shaking hand grabbed my passport. The pair seemed nice enough, but it was too late. Tears had started welling in my eyes and I asked again, if I had done anything wrong. After seeing the dark blue of my American passport and seeing my visa and that I wasn’t “illegal”, they tried to comfort me, but the damage was done. “Mademoiselle, are you okay?” one of the officers said in accented English. “I’m fine. Can I go now?”
It took that incident for me to realize that my idealized vision of a better life, a better country for Black Americans in France, didn’t exist. I felt the same othering then and there that could have been felt when being followed in an American store by a profiling salesclerk or asked by an American cop if the car I was driving had been stolen. In this sense, France was no different than Ferguson.
http://verysmartbrothas.com/still-a-nigger-in-paris/
We’d be very naive to think Europeans, especially the Parisians don’t have their issues with racism.
I’m going to Paris in December. Can’t wait to experience the “city of lights.”
WHY THIS PICTURE OF JOE BIDEN COUNTING CASH AND EATING ICE CREAM IS THE BLACKEST THING WE’VE EVER SEEN TODAY
by VSB, 10/10/14
Although Bill Clinton has been a honorary Black American so long that he’s basically honorary Black emeritus, Joe Biden is the one who truly deserves that honor. Because he’s been an outspoken advocate for civil rights. And because along from Huck from Scandal, he’s the only other White man to willingly serve under a Black person for eight years.
2. Because the only people who can get away with wearing aviators indoors while counting money are Black rappers and old Jewish women playing Bingo. Biden is obviously neither of these things. But he’s been on Parks and Recreations before and Aziz Ansari knows Kanye West, so this practically makes Joe Biden a Black rapper.
3. Because he’s giving someone two $10s, which means he has nothing smaller than $10s in his wallet, and not carrying any small bills is something every Black man’s quasi pimp uncle taught him when he was eight.
4. Because the face he’s making is the same face every lactose intolerant Black person makes when they’re like “Fuck this lactose intolerance. I’m e
http://verysmartbrothas.com/why-this-picture-of-joe-biden-counting-cash-and-eating-ice-cream-is-the-blackest-thing-weve-ever-seen-today/
Love VP Biden!
Krugman: Obama among the most ‘successful presidents in American history’
10/13/14 11:44 AM
By Steve Benen
Paul Krugman would never be mistaken for an Obama cheerleader. When President Obama was riding high, enjoying broad support and high poll numbers, it was Krugman who was discouraged, offering substantive criticism and words of caution. In late 2007, the then-senator’s campaign team was discouraged with Krugman that Obama’s aides dropped an oppo document on him.
Six years later, it’s interesting to see how much the roles have reversed. The president’s support has clearly faltered. Much of the country either blames him for tumultuous events, refuses to credit him for national progress, or both. But it’s Krugman who’s come around – much of the American mainstream has turned on Obama, for reasons that may not be entirely rational, but it’s the Nobel laureate offering a spirited defense of the president in a Rolling Stone cover story.
… Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn’t deserve it. Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. […]
This is what a successful presidency looks like. No president gets to do everything his supporters expected him to. FDR left behind a reformed nation, but one in which the wealthy retained a lot of power and privilege. On the other side, for all his anti-government rhetoric, Reagan left the core institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society in place. I don’t care about the fact that Obama hasn’t lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn’t quite say, a big deal.
Krugman’s piece goes into considerable detail – on the economy, on health care, on Wall Street reform, on climate – but the broader takeaway is that the New York Times columnist is saying what much of the country is not: that Obama’s presidency has been a great success. The praise is qualified at times, but it’s nevertheless enthusiastic.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/krugman-obama-among-the-most-successful-presidents-american-history
Republicans won’t ‘temper their policies’ following success
10/13/14 10:20 AM—UPDATED 10/13/14 10:36 AM
By Steve Benen
In late 2010, after the midterm elections but before far-right Republicans took office, a variety of pundits made confident predictions about GOP modesty. Americans need not fear Republican extremism, many commentators said at the time, because GOP officials realized they would have no choice but to be constructive and open to compromise.
Shortly after the 2010 midterms, for example, David Brooks insisted that Republicans were feeling “cautious.” They’re “sober,” the center-right columnist said, adding that the GOP wouldn’t “overreach.” The same week, Jacob Weisberg made a similar prediction, arguing that GOP leaders “will feint right while legislating closer to the center.” These Republicans, he added, “don’t think working with Democrats is evil. On the big picture tax and budget issues, they plan compromise with President Obama.”
We now know, of course, that these predictions were painfully inaccurate, and the 2010 elections helped propel Republican politics to radicalism unseen in the United States since the 19th century. But some in media are reluctant to learn the appropriate lessons.
Take, for example, the Denver Post’s endorsement of far-right Rep. Cory Gardner (R) in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race.
If Gardner wins, of course, it could mean the Senate has flipped to Republicans. However, that doesn’t mean it will simply butt heads with President Obama as the Republican House has done. As The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib recently pointed out, “A look back shows that eras of evenly divided power – Congress fully controlled by one party, the presidency by the other – have turned out to be among the most productive” because both sides temper their policies.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-wont-temper-their-policies-following-success
Voter ID laws: partisan, but also really, really racist
Posted by Tim F. at 10:35 am Oct 132014 Voter ID laws offer a classic case of Republican win-win for Republicans in that they both help the party win elections and they hurt minorities. Now insofar as it reflects basic machiavellian calculation you can sort of understand the GOP trying to tip the rules of the game in their favor. On the other hand raw fear and hate of different people is just shameful and self-destructive.
Fortunately social science has a great protocol for testing a large group for different kinds of bias. Take for example gender bias in science. Everyone knows that women have a harder time getting high-profile postdocs, securing faculty positions and winning grants but nobody had a solid handle on why. To resolve that a research team sent one identical resumé to over a hundred different research faculty and asked them to rank the candidate on various metrics. The one and only difference on the applications was the name – half had a male name on the top and the other half was female.
Responses showed a startling and highly significant disparity. On average the female candidate scored lower in competence. Faculty ranked the identical female application as less hireable, they were less interested in mentoring her and they proposed paying her an average of $4,000 less*. Female faculty showed just as much bias as men.
The scientific sting works well because it is easy and cheap. It works because people have no idea they are even taking part in a study so you can’t just lie like people do to a phone survey. You can never point a finger at any one single person since it only studies how a group behaves, but in a number of ways that works out for the better. You know that good feeling that you get when someone singles out a bad actor? That feels good because it lets people tell themselves the problem is over there, in those bad people. A study is a lot more effective when it speaks for everyone. In the study I linked science collectively fell on its face. I can tell you that study shook a lot of us quite deeply. Making us all second guess our own snap judgment will ultimately do a lot more good than it does to put any person in the pillory and hand the rest of us rotten fruit.
Group data also matters a lot more to the person who does not have power. More than any single bad actor a young scientist or a black/hispanic person voting mostly wants to knwo what kind of headwind he or she will face when they apply for a job, give an interview or show up to vote (bolding mine).
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/10/13/voter-id-laws-partisan-but-also-really-really-racist/
Woman says fake Obama tombstone is disrespectful
Published 9:40 PM CDT Oct 11, 2014
EDMOND, Okla. —An Edmond woman said her neighbors are taking Halloween too far.
Jamilla Phillips said she couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw President Barack Obama’s name on one of the fake Halloween tombstones across the street.
“I was absolutely offended,” Phillips said.
The Dockens family members said they have put the tombstone up in their yard for the last three years and haven’t had a complaint before.
Phillips recently moved into the neighborhood, and said she felt like she had to speak up.
“He is the president of the United States and it actually is about respect,” Phillips said. “It’s a total respect thing because this person is still alive.”
http://www.koco.com/news/woman-says-fake-obama-tombstone-is-disrespectful/29072814#ixzz3G2H4xpUv
Walker struggles to defend Wisconsin voting restrictions
10/13/14 09:30 AM
By Steve Benen
Wisconsin’s voter-ID law is such a fiasco, it’s hard not to wonder sometimes how anyone could defend it. In a debate on Friday night, Gov. Scott Walker (R), who fought to impose voting restrictions before his re-election bid, made his best case.
Walker said that the voter ID law, which the U.S. Supreme Court just blocked from being enforced, is worthwhile if it stops one person from fraudulently casting a ballot.
“It doesn’t matter if there’s one, 100 or 1,000,” Walker said. “Amongst us who would be that one person who would like to have our vote canceled out by a vote that was cast illegally?”
This isn’t a good argument, but it’s important to evaluate in the context of the Republican “war on voting” in general.
Walker realizes that there are no documented incidents in modern Wisconsin history of a voter committing voter fraud, at least not in a way that could be prevented by a voter-ID law. The Republican governor also realizes that independent estimates suggest more than 300,000 legal, eligible Wisconsin voters could be disenfranchised by this voter-ID law, which addresses a problem that doesn’t exist.
But note the calculus Walker makes: disenfranchising 300,000 legal voters is a price he’s willing to pay to ensure that one – not one percent, just one literal individual – fraudulent-but-hypothetical vote isn’t cast. Wisconsin’s governor is prepared to create the worst election-related chaos in the nation, on purpose, regardless of the costs or consequences, if it means one individual who might cast a fraudulent vote is prevented from doing so.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/walker-struggles-defend-wisconsin-voting-restrictions
HE MURDERED A WOMAN IN COLD BLOOD.
WHAT DA PHUQ DO I CARE IF HE’S ‘ BROKEN’?
Have you EVER seen them write about a Black Killer, caring about his ‘ state of mind’?
OF COURSE NOT.
………………………………
Psychologist says Pistorius is ‘broken man’
Associated Press
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and GERALD IMRAY 2 hrs ago
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) Oscar Pistorius is a ”broken man” after killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp because he lost the woman he said he loved as well as his reputation, friends, income and sense of self-worth, a psychologist called by his lawyers testified Monday.
Dr. Lore Hartzenberg gave the testimony ahead of the runner’s sentencing for culpable homicide, and it was almost immediately characterized by the chief prosecutor as unbalanced.
Hartzenberg said the double-amputee runner had sometimes cried, retched, perspired and paced up and down during meetings in which she tried to assist him.
”Some of the sessions were just him weeping and crying and me holding him,” Hartzenberg said.
The testimony was part of an effort by the runner’s legal team to persuade Judge Thokozile Masipa that Pistorius has suffered emotionally and materially for what he said was an accident and that he is remorseful. The team hopes the judge will be lenient when she sentences Pistorius after what is expected to be about a week of legal argument and testimony.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/psychologist-says-pistorius-is-broken-man/ar-BB92M0n
We’ve been saying this repeatedly. The media glorifies the white male criminals & murderers! That NASCAR driver Tony Stewart and Mike phelps almost mum on their cimres. Phelps could have killed somebody. Adding Pistorious to my thread post.
Because, of course, a billionaire knows how to resolve things.
………………….
Mark Cuban: Limit student loans to improve economy
CNBC.com staff 2 hrs ago
Instead of taxes, jobs or government spending billionaire investor Mark Cuban said tackling the $1 trillion student debt crisis would be most effective in saving the U.S. economy.
The burden of loans is curtailing college graduates’ purchasing power that could stimulate the economy, Cuban said at Inc.’s GrowCo conference.
“That’s the same money that, when you graduated, you used to move out of the house or you went out and spent money that improved the economy and helped companies grow,” he said.
The best way to fix the student loan bubble is to limit the allotted amount of loans each student is allowed to receive each year to no more than $10,000, Cuban said.
Rising tuition costs don’t help the economy as much as increasing students’ purchasing power—a college may just use the extra cash to “build a better fitness center at your school.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/spendingandborrowing/mark-cuban-limit-student-loans-to-improve-economy/ar-BB93Mdp
Finished the season of Black Jesus.
I really loved the show.
GOP’s South Dakota Candidate is Roadkill
by BooMan
Sun Oct 12th, 2014 at 11:38:52 PM EST
Jonathan Ellis of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader refers to Republican senate candidate Mike Rounds as “road kill” who is attracting buzzards. In an brutal assessment of the former two-term governor’s campaign, Mr. Ellis says that it was more appropriate for a run for sheriff than a run for the upper chamber of Congress. He didn’t raise serious money and he didn’t take his opposition seriously.
The political world outside of South Dakota learned some stunning news last week: Mike Rounds, the guy everybody assumed would be the next senator from South Dakota, actually has been running a campaign more suited for sheriff of Mayberry County than U.S. Senate…
…Rounds failed to raise the resources necessary to defend himself in the cutthroat world of U.S. Senate campaigns, where millions of dollars can be beamed into a race with the flip of a switch. Rounds woke up last week to find $3 million of hostile money sitting outside his comfy campaign headquarters in Pierre. And there’s nothing he can do about it…
…Rounds reassembled a campaign team from his days as governor. The team was adequate for a governor’s race. The problem is, nobody outside of South Dakota cares who is governor of the state. Senate races are fought on an entirely different level — the difference between high school football and pro football. GOP leaders were concerned that Rounds and his team didn’t grasp this reality. As it turns out, justifiably so.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/10/12/233852/04
Alaska’s ban on marriage equality struck down
10/13/14 09:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Just seven days ago at this time, marriage equality was legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia. It’s occasionally surprising what can happen in a week.
Take last night, for example, where Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage was struck down by a federal court. Emma Margolin reported:
The nation’s oldest voter-approved amendment banning same-sex nuptials has fallen. On Sunday afternoon, a federal judge struck down Alaska’s 1998 amendment defining marriage as an institution between one man and one woman. […]
Alaska’s was the first ban of its kind, soon replicated in state legislatures across the country, and now the latest casualty in an unprecedented wave of pro-marriage equality rulings, set off by the Supreme Court’s decision last year to invalidate the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
The Alaska ruling, which is available online here (pdf), was issued by U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess, who was appointed to the federal bench by George W. Bush.
What’s more, let’s also not forget that late Friday, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy lifted the temporary stay he’d imposed in this week on marriages in Idaho. This, in turn, allowed an appeals court ruling to go into effect, striking down Idaho’s ban against same-sex marriages.
And right around the same time, District Court Judge Max Cogburn Jr. struck down North Carolina’s gay-marriage ban, clearing the same for immediate same-sex unions in the state.
As the dust settles on this extraordinary seven-day stretch, what does the marriage landscape look like now?
When the Supreme Court took a pass on pending appeals, it immediately legalized same-sex marriage in five states: Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. At the same time, the justices’ inaction also cleared the way for marriage equality in six additional states: Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/alaskas-ban-marriage-equality-struck-down
Senate candidate: single women need government benefits ‘to survive’
10/10/14 03:24 PM—UPDATED 10/10/14 03:58 PM
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By Steve Benen
In his infamous “47 percent” video, Mitt Romney told donors that nearly half the country was effectively made up of lazy parasites, but he also made a fairly specific connection between Americans, government benefits, and voting patterns.
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Romney said. “All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
It wasn’t subtle. In the Republican’s mind, recipients of government benefits are necessarily “dependent,” which means voting Democratic “no matter what.” Reality, of course, tells a very different story, but the number of Republicans who continue to think this way has not faded.
Take Republican Jeff Bell, for example, Sen. Cory Booker’s (D) challenger in New Jersey. Laura Bassett reported:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/senate-candidate-single-women-need-government-benefits-survive
GOP reverses course, invests in South Dakota
10/13/14 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Last week, in the wake of new polling showing South Dakota’s three-way Senate race becoming surprisingly competitive, Republicans said they were unconcerned. Even as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee reversed course and purchased $1 million in airtime, GOP officials insisted their polls showed former Gov. Mike Rounds (R) “with a low double-digit lead of 11 to 14 percentage points over independent Larry Pressler and Democrat Rick Weiland.”
It didn’t take long for Republicans’ confidence to disappear.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is buying more than $750,000 in ads in South Dakota as they work to counter a $1 million investment from their Democratic counterparts, Politico reports.
The money will try to help Republican nominee Mike Rounds’ chances in a tight multi-way Senate race – though it’s unclear whether the ads will boost Rounds, attack Democrat Rick Weiland or independent Larry Pressler, or a mix.
It’s a timely reminder: there is no bluffing in campaign politics at this point. It doesn’t matter what party operatives say; it matters what they do – or more to the point, where they send the checks. The fact that Republicans are making these expenditures removes all doubt about what the party thinks about this race.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-reverses-course-invests-south-dakota
Let’s send Kris Kobach to political oblivion
BY STEVE ROSESPECIAL TO THE STAR
10/11/2014 10:00 AM 10/11/2014 5:10 PM
If Sam Brownback wins re-election as Kansas governor, the world will not end.
If Pat Roberts wins re-election to the U.S. Senate, for sure the world will not end.
If independent candidate Greg Orman upsets Roberts for the U.S. Senate, again the world will not end.
If Kris Kobach wins re-election as Kansas secretary of state…well, that’s another story.
Kobach would fill the secretary of state’s seat for four more years, where he will continue to ignore his duties and spend his time in courts fighting one thing after another. But that’s only the beginning of the havoc he would to wreak.
Kobach, who is only 48, would then find himself in the catbird’s seat to run for governor in four years or to seek in six years the U.S. Senate seat that either Roberts or Orman would hold.
Kobach has to be nailed by the electorate in such a way that he goes away. Long, long away into political oblivion.
Of all the politicians I have covered in more than four decades, starting with a campaign trip with Richard Nixon in 1968, I have never run across a meaner, nastier, more egomaniacal politician than Kris Kobach.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/steve-rose/article2666312.html#storylink=cpy
Good Morning, Everyone :)
https://twitter.com/karynmaughan/status/521560717573775360
Oscar Pistorius trial: sentencing begins – live coverage
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/oct/13/oscar-pistorius-trial-sentencing-live
https://twitter.com/nkosi_milton/status/521557583019380737
https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/521564588748599296
this mofo needs to be under the jail He blasted through a locked bathroom door where his girlfriend was likely HIDING from him in terror..
PRISON!!!!
I think my favourite simply red song was fairground. Great post b
Hi Steve. I love Simply Red. This song brings back such wonderful memories. Makes me feel so good.
Prayer For The 4 Directions
Good morning, everyone!
Happy Indigenous Peoples Day! Columbus Day my arse!
Good Morning, SG2. LOL Happy Indigenous Peoples Day, too.