Champaign was a 1980s American R&B band with adult contemporary leanings, best known for their 1981 hit, “How ‘Bout Us“.
The septet, who named themselves after their hometown of Champaign, Illinois, included Pauli Carman and Rena Jones (later Day) on vocals; Michael Day and Dana Walden on keyboards; Leon Reeder on guitar; Michael Reed on bass; and Rocky Maffit on percussion/drums. The title track from their 1981 album, “How ‘Bout Us“, was a hit single, reaching #5 in the UK Singles Chart,[1] and on the US Billboard R&B chart (also #12 US Billboard Hot 100). Their second album, Modern Heart, was released in 1983 and contained the Top 10 hit “Try Again” (also #23 US Pop). Another follow-up, 1984’s Woman in Flames, included the Top 10 song “Off and On Love”. Other songs include “Party People” and “Walkin'”.
Carman released his first solo album, Dial My Number in 1986, scoring an R&B hit with the title track. His second album, It’s Time was released the following year. In 1990, Champaign (including Carman) reconvened to record, and the Champaign IV album was released the following year. It did herald a brief return to the US R&B chart with the single, “Trials of the Heart”.
Where is she Chicas? Where is she? I know she’s coming! I’m waiting…
Morning Plum: The Doom-and-Disease Chorus
By Greg Sargent October 15
A second health care worker has now tested positive for Ebola. That brings the grand total of Americans to be so diagnosed up to all of three, which perhaps isn’t yet cause for widespread panic. But it’s worth asking whether Ebola is seeping into the political atmosphere in advance of the midterm elections.
As I noted yesterday, multiple Republican Senate candidates are now invoking Ebola, and tying it to border security and ISIS, to attack Senate Dem incumbents as incapable of protecting the country from, well, pretty much everything: Illegal immigration; terrorism; disease. The dovetails with a broader GOP effort to foment generalized fear and anxiety heading into Election Day — call it the Doom-and-Disease Chorus.
A new NBC/WSJ poll suggests that there may be a very specific target for all of this fear-stoking: Republican voters. The poll finds, perhaps hearteningly, that a majority of Americans thinks the country is prepared for an Ebola outbreak, and feels okay about the Centers for Disease Control. But a certain subset of voters is more worried about Ebola than everyone else:
The new poll shows that 56 percent of Americans say that the nation is prepared for an outbreak, while 42 percent disagree – including 20 percent who say that the U.S. is not prepared “at all.”
Confidence in the country’s ability to manage Ebola also varies by party. Sixty-one percent of Democrats believe the U.S. is prepared, while only 54 percent of independents and 52 percent of Republicans say the same. Majorities of rural voters (54 percent) and Tea Party supporters (57 percent) believe the U.S. isn’t prepared…
Americans report generally positive feelings about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency most directly handling the nation’s Ebola response.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/10/15/morning-plum-the-doom-and-disease-chorus/
TVLine’s Performer of the Week: Viola Davis
By Team TVLine / October 18 2014, 9:42 AM PDT
A weekly feature in which we spotlight shining stars
THE PERFORMER | Viola Davis
THE SHOW | How to Get Away With Murder
THE EPISODE | “Let’s Get to Scooping“
THE AIRDATE | October 16, 2014
THE PERFORMANCE | Much has been said about the boldness and bravery of Davis’ performance in this week’s episode of How to Get Away With Murder. And indeed, in a TV landscape where characters go to bed, wake up, and even pull through surgeries, comas and traumatic accidents with their foundation, blush and eyeshadow in resplendent condition, there was a wonderful audacity in the way Davis stripped her character bare of jewelry, wig and makeup right there on camera. (That the Oscar-nominated actress recently found herself described as “less classically beautiful” than Kerry Washington and Halle Berry in a dumbfoundingly tone-deaf New York Times piece made her lack of vanity all the more impressive.)
The real thrill of the performance, however, went much deeper than surface-level trappings. As her powerful law professor Annalise Keating removed her glamorous armor, Davis allowed us to see deeply into the psyche of a woman who — through the first few episodes of ABC’s new Thursday-night smash — has been all but unknowable.
In the last few minutes of “Let’s Get to Scooping,” Annalise confirmed that her sexy husband Sam had (once again) cheated on her with one of his students — only in this case, the coed in question was murder victim Lila Stangard. Without a single word of dialogue, Davis made us understand the depth of the betrayal felt by Annalise — the hurt that Sam had strayed, the disgust in herself for having believed his lies, the exhaustion of being a part of their fractured union, the anxiety over having to decide how to proceed (especially since she happens to be the defense attorney for one of Lila’s accused killers). Wiping away her cosmetics with a moist towelette, and removing her sleek auburn locks to reveal her natural close-cropped curls, Annalise came face-to-face with her bare self, compartmentalized her heartbreak and reclaimed her power as an unsuspecting Sam returned home and strolled into their bedroom suite.
“Why is your penis on a dead girl’s phone?” Annalise asked flatly, holding up a screen showing her husband’s muscular, disembodied torso. It was breathtaking conclusion to an hour of gasp-inducing television — and a reminder that while Annalise may indeed be human, she’s a scarily formidable one. In other words, stealing a catchphrase from the great philosopher Beyoncé, Annalise — and the actress who plays her — woke up like this…flawless.
http://tvline.com/2014/10/18/viola-davis-how-to-get-away-with-murder-makeup-wig-performance-htgawm/
Friday, October 17, 2014
Last Call For Rand On Third Baseless
Posted by Zandar
The GOP plan to win in 2016, specifically Rand Paul’s plan to win in 2016, is to somehow split the black vote by running issues that “appeal” to us.
Personally, I think Rand’s been in the Maui Wowie again.
Sen. Rand Paul tells POLITICO that the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 could capture one-third or more of the African-American vote by pushing criminal-justice reform, school choice and economic empowerment.
“If Republicans have a clue and do this and go out and ask every African-American for their vote, I think we can transform an election in one cycle,” the Kentucky Republican said in a phone interview Thursday as he was driven through New Hampshire in a rental car.
He’s high. Rand Paul, you are high as a kite in a Kansas tornado.
First of all, “school choice” is a terrible idea, because it’s really “take money from public schools and give them to for-profit charter schools that fail.” The good schools don’t have enough room for all the students who want to get into them, and those students still have to go to school somewhere. Where they end up going are the same crumbling, failing schools that they’re trying to escape from, and that suburban and exurban taxpayers want to abandon totally since their kids aren’t stuck there. See Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia schools, and to a lesser extent, John Kasich’s charter school scheme here in Ohio, and Rick Scott’s charter school scheme in Florida and Bobby Jindal’s mess in Louisiana.
Second, Republicans aren’t interested in criminal justice reform. At all. Rand Paul might be, but fixes to our overloaded criminal justice system are worthless without the major kind of infrastructure and job improvements that predominately black neighborhoods need, and again, that Republican taxpayers don’t give a damn about. It’s one thing to reduce or get rid of mandatory sentencing, but entirely another to provide quality public defenders, clean and safe courtrooms that aren’t backlogged for years, and not to use fines and court fees from people as a revenue stream for county and city funding.
Third, if anything the phrase “economic empowerment” means Republicans like Rand Paul want to cut food stamps, social services, Obamacare and Medicaid expansion, schools, and infrastructure spending in urban neighborhoods, not improve them. Let’s not forget this means “you’re on your own to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.”
Finally, Rand Paul is stupid enough to think that decades of mistrust black voters have towards Republicans will be eliminated in the next two years, while the party is still actively engaging in “Southern Strategy” attacks involving President Obama and openly moving to disenfranchise black voters through voter ID laws in multiple red states? And hey, let’s not forget Rand Paul’s own personal record on civil rights and voting right that both are unnecessary in today’s age, and the fact that the GOP is sworn to get rid of legislation protecting them. Republicans don’t want a third of the black vote. They want to eliminate the black vote.
It’s not just fantasy, but idiotic foolishness to take Rand Paul at his word on this. Most of all, he seems to think black voters are stupid, and that’s the most insulting part of all this.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/
Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong
America is the land of opportunity, just for some more than others.
That’s because, in large part, inequality starts in the crib. Rich parents can afford to spend more time and money on their kids, and that gap has only grown the past few decades. Indeed, economists Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane calculate that, between 1972 and 2006, high-income parents increased their spending on “enrichment activities” for their children by 151 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, compared to 57 percent for low-income parents.
But, of course, it’s not just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s also a matter of letters and words. Affluent parents talk to their kids three more hours a week on average than poor parents, which is critical during a child’s formative early years. That’s why, as Stanford professor Sean Reardon explains, “rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class students,” and they’re staying that way.
It’s an educational arms race that’s leaving many kids far, far behind.
It’s depressing, but not nearly so much as this:
Even poor kids who do everything right don’t do much better than rich kids who do everything wrong. Advantages and disadvantages, in other words, tend to perpetuate themselves. You can see that in the chart above from Richard Reeves and Isabel Sawhill, presented at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s annual conference, which is underway.
Specifically, rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. Not only that, but these low-income strivers are just as likely to end up in the bottom as these wealthy ne’er-do-wells. Some meritocracy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/18/poor-kids-who-do-everything-right-dont-do-better-than-rich-kids-who-do-everything-wrong/
Supreme Court Allows Texas To Use Voter ID Law In November
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 18, 2014 6:15 AM ET
The Supreme Court rejected a Justice Department request to block Texas’ controversial voter ID law.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
The Supreme Court said Saturday that Texas can use its controversial new voter identification law for the November election.
A majority of the justices rejected an emergency request from the Justice Department and civil rights groups to prohibit the state from requiring voters to produce certain forms of photo identification in order to cast ballots. Three justices dissented.
The law was struck down by a federal judge last week, but a federal appeals court had put that ruling on hold. The judge found that roughly 600,000 voters, many of them black or Latino, could be turned away at the polls because they lack acceptable identification. Early voting in Texas begins Monday.
http://www.npr.org/2014/10/18/357117516/supreme-court-allows-texas-to-use-voter-id-law-in-november
See how much Chris Christie and his wife have made since he became N.J. governor
Gov. Chris Christie and First Lady Mary Pat last year made the most money since the governor first took office, according to tax returns the governor’s office released on Friday.
The governor’s income — he gets a $175,00 salary from the state, but less shows up in his filing because he deposits money in a tax-exempt 401 (k) retirement account — has remained steady. The first lady, who works on Wall Street, has seen her income fluctuate over the years.
Here’s a year-by year breakdown:
2013: $698,838
Tax returns released by the governor’s office Friday showed Mary Pat Christie earned $475,854 for her job as a director at Angelo, Gordon & Co. and $34,698 from Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street financial services firm where she worked part-time. The governor reported $160,054 in taxable income.
2012: $478,977
The Christies’ income fell 15 percent from the previous year. Mary Pat Christie reported $263,277, including $175,377 from Cantor Fitzgerald where she was a vice president before leaving the job in 2012, and $87,900 from Angelo, Gordon & Co. The governor reported $161,811 in taxable income.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/10/see_how_much_chris_christie_and_his_wife_have_made_since_he_became_nj_governor.html
from TOD:
dotster3
October 18, 2014 at 9:13 am
Il. Repub gov. candidate, Bruce Rauner, tried to get a Sun Times reporter fired for writing an “unfavorable” piece about him. The reporter has hired a former fed. prosecutor to investigate. The article in question told of the threats made by Rauner to a former bsns. exec. of Rauners—–that he would bury her, that if she has a family she better think twice about suing him, that he would make her “radioactive” etc. Rauner with his vast wealth seems to have been in the practice of just mowing over people who question him, intimidating, bullying.
Rauner and other wealthy buds bought the Sun Times a few years ago, he sold his stake when he launched his gov. campaign, but obviously he still has friends in high places there. Today the Sun Times endorses Rauner for governor. Big money is wrecking this country.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141017/NEWS06/141019791/did-rauner-camp-interfere-with-this-sun-times-reporters-job
Like Father, Like Daughter: Scandal Episode 404 Recap
Luvvie —October 17, 2014
The Hooked on Phonics Convention happened on last night’s Scandal episode because the amount of reading that went down was epic! Not only was the library open, but everyone got a book to take home after their life was read for filth! Chile, let’s talk about it!
By the way, this is my longest Scandal recap yet because I transcribed every READ. You’re welcome
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2014/10/like-father-like-daughter-scandal-episode-404-recap.html
This episode made me fall in love with Scandal all over again, TRULY .IT.DID.
I intentionally did not watch any tv last Thrusday.
I choose to fast occassionally. It’s good for SOUL.
Conservatives fear Roberts going soft
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 10/18/14 7:00 AM EDT Updated: 10/18/14 7:31 AM EDT
Chief Justice John Roberts seems to be going wobbly again.
Conservatives, still smarting from what they view as an ideological betrayal by Roberts two years ago in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Obamacare decision, have looked on suspiciously in recent weeks as the chief justice twice appeared to side with the court’s liberals and Justice Anthony Kennedy against the court’s conservatives.
When the high court issued orders last week blocking Wisconsin’s voter ID law and stopping enforcement of key parts of Texas’s new restrictions on abortion clinics, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented. Roberts was notably silent.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/john-roberts-conservative-quake-112000.html#ixzz3GWL5Ht9x
Don’t believe it for one minute that Roberts is going “soft.” It’s another distraction.
GOPer DeMaio’s Top Staffer On Spotting Trackers: Young, Black ‘Red Flag’
ByDaniel Strauss
PublishedOctober 17, 2014, 9:48 AM EDT 3472 views
The campaign manager for Republican congressional candidate Carl DeMaio (CA) once offered a set of tips for identifying opposition research trackers looking to catch DeMaio in a gaffe or compromising moment: if the person in question is young or black they could very well be a tracker.
Specifically, the campaign manager, Tommy Knepper, said in an email exchange on April 19 obtained by The Washington Examiner, that possible trackers could be spotted if they’re young, African American, young and at a Saturday morning event, or very talkative to staffers.
The emails are the latest revelation in a campaign that has gotten national attention mostly for a former top staffer accusing DeMaio of sexual harassment and DeMaio’s staff, in response, accusing that staffer of breaking into a campaign office and also saying he was fired for a plagiarism scandal.
The email exchange reported by the Examiner on Friday started when DeMaio said he saw two trackers at an event. Knepper, in the email change, eventually offered his advice for picking out opposition trackers. Here’s what he said in the email:
1. Young-red flag
2. black-red flag
3. young at saturday morning event-HUGE red flag
4. Very curious and want to talk to staff a a lot-red flag
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/carl-demaio-tommy-knepper-tracker-identify
In short: anyone who is white, old, and male, are in the club, all others, NOT SO MUCH!
LMBAO
In Historic Police Brutality Case, Family of Homeless Denver Pastor Killed in Custody Awarded $4.6M
(Video and transcript)
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/17/in_historic_police_brutality_case_family
The cops lied their asses off in this case and still haven’t been arrested and charged with this man’s murder. And that is despite there being a video.
This is a good segment by Amy Goodman, definitely worth watching, and very representative of what is going on all over this country.
LIZA, the killer cops in America have been given license to kill black boys & men under the guise of enforcing the laws set up by a white supremacist system of justice. so when they are called out for killing our boys and men, the killer cops are covered by system.
IT’S CRIMINAL & RACIST
It has officially begun, folks! The MSM including the NYT is pushing Darren Wilson’s LIES about executing Michael Brown Jr. Setting the stage for the grand jury to let this mofo off .
I.CAN’T!!!!!!!!!
After months of relative silence regarding Darren Wilson, the police officer accused of shooting an unarmed Michael Brown to death in Ferguson, Mo., the New York Times has published a report detailing some of Officer Wilson’s statements to investigators. Wilson tells the story of a struggle inside his police car:
The police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., two months ago has told investigators that he was pinned in his vehicle and in fear for his life as he struggled over his gun with Mr. Brown, according to government officials briefed on the federal civil rights investigation into the matter.
The officer, Darren Wilson, has told the authorities that during the scuffle, Mr. Brown reached for the gun. It was fired twice in the car, according to forensics tests performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The first bullet struck Mr. Brown in the arm; the second bullet missed.
The forensics tests showed Mr. Brown’s blood on the gun, as well as on the interior door panel and on Officer Wilson’s uniform. Officer Wilson told the authorities that Mr. Brown had punched and scratched him repeatedly, leaving swelling on his face and cuts on his neck.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/ferguson-case-officer-is-said-to-cite-struggle.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
DOJ Civil Rights Division better be on their game and not cower to whatever msm does with public opinion. We know that cops always lie when they kill or brutalize somebody and msm defends the cop and blames the victim. Always.
Liza, the 6 black witnesses for Michael Brown Jr., don’t their statements count?
That was my first thought too.
uh huh
uh huh
Roger B. Taney’s blacks have “no rights which the white man was bound to respect” STILL lives in America’s Justice system & SCOTUS! Roger B Taney cursed this country with those wicked words. Who will break the curse? Who will stand for equal justice for ALL?
Dear God,
PLEASE HELP THESE PEOPLE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNagFVwiu28
THIS IS SOME TOTAL BULLSHIT FUCKERY, RIGHT HERE
We Finally Know Darren Wilson’s Side Of The Story In The Shooting Death Of Michael Brown
Officer Darren Wilson told investigators he feared for his life during a struggle with 18-year-old Michael Brown inside his police SUV, according to The New York Times, which published the first account Friday detailing Wilson’s perspective of the shooting death of Brown two months ago.
Citing officials familiar with the federal civil rights investigation, the Times reported Wilson as having fired twice inside the vehicle, then firing four more times at Brown outside. Forensics tests found blood from Brown on the interior door panel and on Wilson’s gun and uniform.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/darren-wilson-story-shooting-michael-brown-2014-10#ixzz3GVhV5WVA
I hope that Michael Dunn’s non-apology for murdering Jordan Davis is the last time that anyone has to witness his extreme arrogance, his lies about the murder, and his lack of remorse for taking the life of a child and devastating the people who loved him. Dunn, the cold blooded killer said:
“I want the Davis family to know I truly regret what happened. I’m sorry for their loss,” If I could roll back time and do things differently, I would. I was in fear for my life and I did what I thought I had to do. Still, I am mortified I took a life, whether it was justified or not.”
FUCK MICHAEL DUNN. May that MOFO BURN IN HELL.
can’t wait until he gets to General Population
Supreme Court allows Texas to use voter ID law
By Robert Barnes October 18 at 6:50 AM
The Supreme Court in a pre-dawn order Saturday said Texas could proceed with its strict voter ID law in next month’s election, despite a lower court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional.
The court gave no reasoning for its decision, but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
“The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,” Ginsburg wrote.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/2014/10/18/0439b116-5623-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html?wpisrc=al_national
unfuckingbelievable!!
since 2009, the Roberts’ court has been in it to help the GOP win IT.
There is no longer a Supreme Court of justice in America, just a ‘GOOD OLE BOYS NETWORK” to turn back the clock on America’s progress for ALL.
And that slave-atching coon, Clarence Thomas, what a pathetic POS.
Eight Amazing Places in Asia You Have to Visit
Huffington Post UK
Asia offers an astounding variety of travel destinations. There are so many, in fact, that it can be difficult to decide where to go first and which to miss because of time constraints. The reality is that it’s impossible to cover them all in one trip unless you’re lucky enough to have plenty of time and money to spare, but hopefully this post can help you make up your mind if you’re pondering the many wonders of the East and you have to choose just a few…
Here we will look at 8 amazing places in Asia that everyone should see at some point in their lifetime.
1) Beijing, China
Beijing offers the ancient alongside the modern, and is a fascinating city in the heart of China. It is home to a wealth of history, and sights include the Forbidden City and more modern constructions such as Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. For real Chinese shopping check out Beijing’s Dirt Market, rather than the tourist-filled Silk Market. Other top attractions include the Great Wall at Mutianyu, the Temple of Heaven and Jingshan Park.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/article/eight-amazing-places-in-asia-you-have-to-visit/ar-BB9eZxB
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone!
“Some people can hold it togehter, man through all kinds of weather. Can we?”
LOVE OLD SCHOOL.
Old school FOREVER!