“The Christmas Song” (commonly subtitled “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” or, as it was originally subtitled, “Merry Christmas to You”) is a classic Christmas song written in 1944 by Bob Wells and Mel Tormé.
According to Tormé, the song was written during a blistering hot summer. In an effort to “stay cool by thinking cool”, the most-performed (according to BMI) Christmas song was born.[1] “I saw a spiral pad on his (Wells’) piano with four lines written in pencil”, Tormé recalled. “They started, ‘Chestnuts roasting…, Jack Frost nipping…, Yuletide carols…, Folks dressed up like Eskimos.’ Bob didn’t think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics.”
The Nat King Cole Trio first recorded the song early in 1946. At Cole’s behest – and over the objections of his label, Capitol Records – a second recording was made later the same year utilizing a small string section, this version becoming a massive hit on both the pop and R&B charts.
https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/542163513553059841/photo/1
Very astute. Certainly sums it up.
https://twitter.com/Lib_Librarian/status/542415893578280960/photo/1
The right wing gasbags and GOP “political class” heads must be exploding.
JasFly @JasFly
Truth? Obama wouldn’t have been elected without Jay Z. He needed a shepherd that could move their large young, black flock in his direction.
Kriss Fett @insanityreport
Obama did a pretty good job of rallying young people himself. he absolutely would have been elected without “jay-z”.
itgurl @itgurl_29
Folks who think Jay-Z is responsible for getting Obama elected President are the same gullible ppl who actually believes he owned The Nets.
PragmaticObotsUnite @PragObots
HELL NO. “@TheRoot: Does #MarkWahlberg deserve to be pardoned for his hate crimes? http://bit.ly/1G7NZwv pic.twitter.com/p99y8oBmuW”
Conservatives, Democrats tussle over contraceptives in spending bill
By LAUREN FRENCH 12/9/14 12:01 PM EST
A tussle over contraceptives has ended with Democrats keeping an attachment pushed by House conservatives out of a trillion dollar government funding bill.
Conservatives had asked their party leaders to attach a policy rider to the funding bill that would have allowed corporations potentially to duck contraceptive coverage rules under Obamacare.
But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was opposed, a senior Democratic source said. Republicans will likely depend on Democratic votes to pass the spending bill, so both parties have been negotiating over the language of the legislation.
Pelosi tapped Democratic negotiators to draw “a firm line” against any changes that focused on the so-called ‘conscience clause’, a senior Democratic source said. There were no direct conversations about contraceptives between Pelosi and Speaker John Boehner or House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
And Democrats were broadly opposed to any additions to the government
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/spending-bill-contraceptives-113426.html#ixzz3LQrk1uwz
PRESIDENT’S COMMENTS ON TORTURE REPORT:
Throughout our history, the United States of America has done more than any other nation to stand up for freedom, democracy, and the inherent dignity and human rights of people around the world. As Americans, we owe a profound debt of gratitude to our fellow citizens who serve to keep us safe, among them the dedicated men and women of our intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency. Since the horrific attacks of 9/11, these public servants have worked tirelessly to devastate core al Qaeda, deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, disrupt terrorist operations and thwart terrorist attacks. Solemn rows of stars on the Memorial Wall at the CIA honor those who have given their lives to protect ours. Our intelligence professionals are patriots, and we are safer because of their heroic service and sacrifices.
In the years after 9/11, with legitimate fears of further attacks and with the responsibility to prevent more catastrophic loss of life, the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country. As I have said before, our nation did many things right in those difficult years. At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values. That is why I unequivocally banned torture when I took office, because one of our most effective tools in fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe is staying true to our ideals at home and abroad.
Today’s report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence details one element of our nation’s response to 9/11—the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, which I formally ended on one of my first days in office. The report documents a troubling program involving enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects in secret facilities outside the United States, and it reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests. Moreover, these techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners. That is why I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.
As Commander in Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the safety and security of the American people. We will therefore continue to be relentless in our fight against al Qaeda, its affiliates and other violent extremists. We will rely on all elements of our national power, including the power and example of our founding ideals. That is why I have consistently supported the declassification of today’s report. No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better. Rather than another reason to refight old arguments, I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong—in the past. Today is also a reminder that upholding the values we profess doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us stronger and that the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.
Liberal Librarian @Lib_Librarian
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If Bush/Cheney didn’t know about torture, why was WH concerned Powell would “blow his stack” in 2003?
12:00 PM – 9 Dec 2014
https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/542385086427971584
OMFG!
SG2…
THIS IS THE FOG OVER DALLAS TODAY?
http://www.dallasnews.com/incoming/20141209-1209fog8aerial.jpeg.ece/BINARY/w620x413/1209fog8aerial.jpeg
Whoa!
https://twitter.com/bobcesca_go/status/542388582749454339
Senator Feinstein, a just & lawful society would prosecute the criminals. That would restore our values. Admitting wrong is not enough. Prosecute the criminals.
https://twitter.com/CarolLeonnig/status/542352033870012416
These torture techniques are so so horrific. The persons responsible need to go right on to hell where they belong. How could anyone commit such horrific brutality on another human being and live with yourself? Savagery!
https://twitter.com/CNNVideo/status/542365573338759168
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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CIA said there were 20 success stories where torture worked. Feinstein says when it was investigated, “not a single case holds up.”
Damn.
11:00 AM – 9 Dec 2014
https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/542359508907851776/photo/1
https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/542354526020194304/photo/1
9 December 2014 Last updated at 06:15 ET
Russia admits action to buoy rouble
Russia’s central bank has admitted it intervened to support the rouble in foreign currency markets last week spending a total of $4.53bn (£2.9bn).
It has spent more than $70bn supporting the rouble since the start of the year.
Its admission came as the World Bank warned the Russian economy would shrink by at least 0.7% in 2015 if oil prices do not recover.
Both the currency and Russian share indexes fell on Tuesday as global oil prices fell to a new five year low.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30391881
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/542363878827360258/photo/1
America is known from the beginning for it’s torturous and inhumane treatment of other humans. Native Americans! African Americans! Slavery!
Good morning all.
I’m not much of a big Chris Rock fan but he does speak it real at times.
https://www.facebook.com/dailykos/photos/a.416444264254.190398.43179984254/10152929886184255/?type=1
Amelia Bedelia @TheQueenSpeaks_
Check out my tumblr for Missing black women and girls, 64,000 missing a year yet little media attention http://missingwhileblack.tumblr.com #YouOKSis
Right outraged over pending release of torture report
12/09/14 08:00 AM—UPDATED 12/09/14 08:07 AM
By Steve Benen
Today is the day. The Senate Intelligence Committee spent years studying the details of the Bush/Cheney administration’s torture policies, and today, following extensive bureaucratic wrangling, the panel’s report will be released to the public.
The right is outraged, not by the alleged misdeeds, but by the willingness to, in effect, acknowledge and confess to those misdeeds.
On the eve of a long-awaited Senate report on the use of torture by the United States government – a detailed account that will shed an unsparing light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s darkest practices after the September 2001 terrorist attacks – the Obama administration and its Republican critics clashed on Monday over the wisdom of making it public, and the risk that it will set off a backlash overseas. […]
[S]ome leading Republican lawmakers have warned against releasing the report, saying that domestic and foreign intelligence reports indicate that a detailed account of the brutal interrogation methods used by the C.I.A. during the George W. Bush administration could incite unrest and violence, even resulting in the deaths of Americans.
I suppose at a certain level, I can appreciate why the right’s argument may seem compelling: telling the truth about U.S. actions may inflame anti-American passions, enraging our enemies. It’s therefore better, the argument goes, to quietly bury the truth in the name of public safety – if people don’t know the scope and scale of what the Bush/Cheney administration did, maybe we won’t have to deal with the consequences.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/right-outraged-over-pending-release-torture-report
DarkMission1
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Thanks To Obama, $13.5 Million in Vouchers Will Be Used to Help Homeless Veterans http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/08/obamas-leadership-13-5-million-vouchers-homeless-veterans.html … #UniteBlue #P2
7:34 AM – 9 Dec 2014
New York Attorney General Seeks Powers to Investigate Killings by the Police
By JESSE McKINLEY and J. DAVID GOODMAN
DEC. 8, 2014
ALBANY — Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York asked Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday to immediately grant his office the power to investigate and prosecute killings of unarmed civilians by law enforcement officials.
Mr. Schneiderman also challenged state legislators to pass new laws to repair public confidence in the criminal justice system, which he said was badly damaged after grand juries in Missouri and on Staten Island declined to bring criminal charges against officers in fatal encounters with unarmed black men.
But he seemed unwilling to wait for new powers to investigate the police in the event that another killing occurred before new laws were passed. “When the trust between the police and the communities they serve and protect breaks down, everyone is at risk,” he said.
The grand jury’s decision not to indict in the case of Eric Garner, who died after a police chokehold during an arrest on Staten Island in July, has renewed and strengthened calls for special prosecutors to handle such cases.
While Mr. Schneiderman was joined by local and state political leaders during his announcement in Manhattan, the prospects for quick legislative or executive action seem murky at best.
While the Assembly, dominated by Democrats, has passed bills in the past allowing the attorney general to investigate and prosecute alleged police misconduct, similar measures have failed to advance in the Senate, where Republicans were recently elected to a clear majority. On Monday, Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate Republican leader, Dean G. Sklelos of Long Island, had no immediate comment on the attorney general’s proposal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/nyregion/new-york-attorney-general-seeks-powers-to-investigate-killings-by-the-police.html?smid=tw-share
This seems to be a big story that is not getting a lot of attention
………..
Hackers Release Another Wave Of Sony Data
International Business Times
Thomas Halleck 5 hrs ago
The hacker group behind the attack on Sony Corp.’s film division released another mass of private data on Monday, including a number of corporate emails. The group, which calls itself GOP or “Guardians of Peace,” threatened Sony Pictures Entertainment with further action if it releases the comedy film “The Interview.”
GOP said Sony management has “refused” to comply with its demands on filesharing service GitHub, often used by hackers as an anonymous bulletin board. The data includes a purported collection of emails from Amy Pascal, chairman of Sony Picture Entertainment’s motion pictures group, and Steve Mosko, president of Sony Pictures Television.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/hackers-release-another-wave-of-sony-data/ar-BBgwKdK?ocid=HPCDHP
what’s the word on this ‘entrepreneur’ running for Mayor.
Who is this?
How can I have lived in this city my whole life practically and don’t know who he is?
………….
LocalSouth Side Entrepreneur Plans On Pouring Millions Of His Own Money Into Mayoral Campaign
December 8, 2014 6:35 PM
HICAGO (CBS) — A South Side millionaire could turn out to be the X-factor in February’s Chicago Mayoral Election.
Dr. Willie Wilson grew up picking cotton, but he ended up reaping millions as a successful entrepreneur.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports the self-made multi-millionaire plans to spend up to $3 million of his own money, which could energize South and West siders already upset with Mayor Emanuel, but until now were without a community candidate to back.
He is not even the best known of the little-known challengers, unless you talk to his benefactors, among them, ministers who were at Wilson’s campaign kickoff on Monday.
“He’s given me his heart and he’s given me his checkbook,” said Rev. TL Barrett of the Life Center Church.
He has no political experience and has never run for office. Of course, neither did Bruce Rauner, who Wilson endorsed in a campaign commercial.
“I happen to think he is a good human being,” Wilson said. “I didn’t look at him as a Republican.”
Wilson’s his own video crew was there today, gathering footage for upcoming TV spots the two-to-three million dollars campaign plans to spend.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/12/08/south-side-entrepreneur-plans-on-pouring-millions-of-his-own-money-into-mayoral-campaign/
https://twitter.com/ellievhall/status/542144701877719041/photo/1
Pell Grants for Juvenile Offenders
December 9, 2014
By Michael Stratford
As part of an effort to improve the quality of education for young
offenders, the Obama administration on Monday unveiled new guidance that allows students confined to juvenile correctional facilities to receive Pell Grants.
The guidance clarifies that the prohibition on prisoners getting Pell Grants that Congress enacted two decades ago does not apply to offenders detained in juvenile facilities.
“Students in juvenile justice facilities need a world-class education
and rigorous coursework to help them successfully transition out,”
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. Those students “should not fall off-track for life just because they come into contact with the justice system,” he said.
The new guidance is expected to affect only a fraction of the roughly
60,000 young people who are confined in juvenile facilities, since most
have not yet completed a high school education and thus would not be
eligible for federal aid for college coursework.
“Our best estimate is that there are roughly 4,000 youth in juvenile
justice facilities across the country who have the GED or high school
diploma needed for Pell Grant eligibility,” said Raymonde Charles, an
Education Department spokeswoman.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/12/09/obama-administration-says-juvenile-offenders-may-receive-pell-grants
http://youtu.be/JFEv9FzNyBk
This is great. Love it.
https://twitter.com/Bipartisanism/status/542088308818321415/photo/1
POTUS is just so smooth
http://youtu.be/6-t_SKe0qW4
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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President Obama used a segment on Colbert to inform millions about everything #ObamaCare and this is why WHPC is mad. He doesn’t need them.
10:51 PM – 8 Dec 2014
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
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Colbert just reminded millions that President Obama is the man who saved the economy, the auto industry, saw 57mths of job creation
BOOM!
10:58 PM – 8 Dec 2014
The Real Reason Gas Costs $4 A Gallon
April 02, 201211:23 AM ET
In his latest column for the New York Times Magazine, Adam Davidson cites Gal Luft, an oil expert who dismisses political proposals from the left and the right to lower the price of gas. We asked him to elaborate in the following post.
When in December 2008, 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi how much it cost Saudi Arabia to produce one barrel of oil, he didn’t blink: “Probably less than $2 to produce a barrel.” If it costs only $2 to produce a barrel of oil, then why do we pay over $105 a barrel?
Wall Street, Big Oil, President Obama, the Fed, environmentalists, the EPA have all been accused of pinching hardworking Americans at the pump.
But there is a much more important player that gets much less attention: OPEC.
Members of the oil cartel sit on top of nearly 80 percent of the world’s conventional crude reserves. Yet they account for only a third of global oil production.
We need oil now more than ever. In the past three decades, global oil demand grew 45 percent.
During that same time, OPEC’s production increased by merely 19 percent, despite the fact that two new countries (Angola and Ecuador) joined the cartel during that time.
Clearly, OPEC could produce more oil if it wanted to. But it won’t.
The reason is that OPEC countries produce almost nothing but oil. Their population is growing by leaps and bounds, and because Saudis pay no income tax, the House of Saud will need more and more money to keep its citizens happy, and avoid the fate of toppled leaders in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/04/02/149684373/the-real-reason-gas-costs-4-a-gallon
https://twitter.com/sonamie/status/542159728399241217/photo/1
https://twitter.com/Resistance48/status/541059986475216896/photo/1
Touching and heartbreaking at once. It’s about time the world stood up for these children as well.
https://twitter.com/jazziz2/status/542142759373922304/photo/1
https://twitter.com/mydaughtersarmy/status/542050837481406464/photo/1
https://twitter.com/jasonWSJ/status/542111994737090560/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NAACP_LDF/status/542012142632075264/photo/1
PragmaticObotsUnite @PragObots
Tavis Smiley goes on Sean Hannity’s show and scolds PBO for going on BET to “lecture” Black folks. #Irony #BlackTwitter
Tavis Smiley must be on some kind of fast track to irrelevance. Or he thinks the right wing is the place to be. Either way, he’s a fool.
Sabrina @Charmed86
@PragObots @root_e @IsaiahLCarter @DADDYJOSE @tanehisicoates I also don’t understand why it’s the black man’s burden 2 make whites nt racist
Good Morning, Everyone :)