“Mary, Did You Know?” is a Christmas song with lyrics written by Mark Lowry and music written by Buddy Greene.
Mark wrote the words in 1984 “when his pastor asked him to write the program for the living Christmas tree choir presentation. It was while he was working on the project that Mark considered what it would have been like to have been Jesus’ mother”[citation needed]. The music was written by Buddy Greene several years later. Michael English was the first recording artist to record and release ‘Mary did you know” on his debut album aptly titled “Michael English” which was released on January 1st, 1992.
i don’t think the folks protesting in NYC should stop protesting because they’re asked to for the murdered cops. One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.
bad cops kill and bad/mentally citizens kill. These folks want to try and stop free speech, tying it to the cops who where murdered to deflect from the cops who have MURDERED.
HELL NAW!
Well said.
Mayor De Blasio’s NOT TAKING ANY SHIT OFF THE JACKALS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJPnKpMeBNg
SLAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Next Up in America: The Liberal RetreatWalter Russell Mead
The Obama administration may represent “Peak Left” in American politics. As a result, what we are getting from the left these days is a mix of bewilderment and anger as it realizes that this is as good as it gets.
As the United States staggers toward the seventh year of Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, a growing disquiet permeates the ranks of the American left. After six years of the most liberal President since Jimmy Carter, the nation doesn’t seem to be asking for a second helping. Even though the multiyear rollout of Obamacare was carefully crafted to put all the popular features up front, delaying less popular changes into the far future, the program remains unpopular. Trust in the fairness and competence of government is pushing toward new lows in the polls, even though the government is now in the hands of forward-looking, progressive Democrats rather than antediluvian Gopers.
For liberals, these are bleak times of hollow victories (Obamacare) and tipping points that don’t tip. For examples of the latter, think of Sandy Hook, the horrific massacre in Connecticut that Democrats and liberals everywhere believed would finally push the American public toward gun control. Two years later, polls show more Americans than ever before think it’s more important to protect gun access than to promote gun control.
Sandy Hook isn’t the only example. There was the latest 2014 IPCC report on climate change that was going to end the debate once and for all. The chances for legislative action on climate change in the new Congress: zero or less. There was Ferguson and the Garner videotape showing the fatal chokehold, both of which set off a wave of protests but seem unlikely to change public attitudes about the police. There was the Senate Intelligence Committee “torture report” that was going to settle the issue of treatment of detainees. Again, the polls are rolling in suggesting that the public remains exactly where it was: supportive of “torture” under certain circumstances. And of course there was the blockbuster Rolling Stone article on campus rape at UVA, the story that, before it abruptly collapsed, was going to cement public support for the Obama administration’s aggressive attempt to federalize the treatment of sexual harassment on campuses around the country.
In all of these cases, liberals got what, from a liberal perspective, appeared to be conclusive evidence that long cherished liberal policy ideas were as correct as liberals have always thought they were. In all of these cases the establishment media conformed to the liberal narrative, inundating the airwaves and flooding the cyberverse with the liberal line. Some of the stories, like the UVA rape story, collapsed. Some, like the Ferguson story, became so complex and nuanced that some of their initial political salience diminished. But even when, as with Ferguson, other follow-up stories seem to reinforce the initial liberal take (the Garner case, for example), the public still doesn’t seem to accept the liberal line or draw the inferences that liberals want it to draw. It’s becoming hard to avoid the conclusion that many Americans will continue to disagree with many liberal policy prescriptions no matter what.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/12/19/next-up-in-america-the-liberal-retreat/
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Sunday Long Read: As Good As It Gets For Liberals
Posted by Zandar
American Interest curmudgeon Walter Russell Mead makes the case that liberals in the US have no idea how good they had it under Obama, because the near-permanent rightward shift of America is imminent.
Shell-shocked liberals are beginning to grasp some inconvenient truths. No gun massacre is horrible enough to change Americans’ ideas about gun control. No UN Climate Report will get a climate treaty through the U.S. Senate. No combination of anecdotal and statistical evidence will persuade Americans to end their longtime practice of giving police officers extremely wide discretion in the use of force. No “name and shame” report, however graphic, from the Senate Intelligence Committee staff will change the minds of the consistent majority of Americans who tell pollsters that they believe that torture is justifiable under at least some circumstances. No feminist campaign will convince enough voters that the presumption of innocence should not apply to those accused of rape.
These are not the only issues in which, from a left Democratic point of view, the country is overrun with zombies and vampires: policy ideas that Democrats thought had been killed but still restlessly roam the earth. The finale of the George W. Bush presidency was, for many Democrats, conclusive evidence that conservative ideas just don’t work. The post 9/11 Bush foreign policy led to two long and unhappy wars. America had lost the trust of its allies without defeating its enemies. At home, the Bush tax cuts led to an exploding deficit, and the orgy of deregulation (admittedly, much of it dating from the Clinton years) led to the greatest financial crash since World War II and the most serious economic downturn since the Great Depression.
“Could a set of political ideas be more discredited?” liberals ask. The foreign policy failures of the Bush years, they believe, should have killed conservative ideology about America’s role in the world, and the financial crisis, they are certain, should have driven a stake through the heart of conservative economic doctrine. Yet: Here we are, six years into the Age of Obama, and the Tea Party is alive and Occupy is dead. The Republicans swept the midterm elections both nationally and at the state level—and Hillary Clinton appears more interested in conciliating Wall Street than in fighting it, and more interested in building bridges to conservative foreign policy thinkers than in continuing the Obama foreign policy. (And with even Jimmy Carter lambasting Obama’s Middle East policy as too weak, and the President committing to new troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s not clear that even President Obama wants to stay the course.)
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2014/12/sunday-long-read-as-good-as-it-gets-for.html
Here we go again, folks. It never ends.
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/547056484664606720
hee hee hee
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Miley Cyrus Shriver: Miley Banned From Kennedy Christmas, Patrick Schwarzenegger Fighting With Maria Shriver?
Miley Cyrus and Maria Shriver don’t get along apparently, but Miley’s boyfriend (Shriver’s son) Patrick Schwarzenegger has been sticking up for his new girl, and getting into fights with his mom in Miley’s defense. According to NewsMax, Shriver has told Patrick that Miley is not welcome at the family’s Christmas celebrations this year. Instead of respecting his mother’s wishes, Patrick has reportedly told his mother that he won’t be attending either if that’s the way it’s going to be.
“Maria doesn’t want her there and won’t budge She doesn’t think it’s appropriate to have Miley around the rest of the Kennedy family. Patrick insists on having her there – or he will not come. They’ve been talking less and less. Every time they do talk, it ends up in an argument where Patrick is defending Miley.”
Miley Cyrus and Maria Shriver have not exactly gotten along according to numerous reports. Ever since Patrick started dating Miley there have been rumors about Maria’s disdain for her son’s new relationship, and for many, that’s understandable, simply because Miley has been one of Hollywood’s most controversial stars over the past year or two.
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/1697590/miley-cyrus-shriver-miley-banned-from-kennedy-christmas-patrick-schwarzenegger-fighting-with-maria-shriver/#uGwLeOcXY2Bi9ykG.99
well, seems like Single Payer was too much for even Vermont.
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Saying good bye to the single payer dream
Posted by
Richard
Mayhew at 7:52 am
Dec 222014
Any public health financing program has a couple of major
moving parts that must be resolved in order for the program to work.
a) Who gets covered and how is eligibility determined?
b) Who provides the services and how/how much are they paid.
c) How does the money for A and B get raised?
The Veterans Administration determines that vets with service related injuries are covered for all relevant medical services by providers employed by the VA at VA owned facilities and the funds are raised by general taxation.
CHIP covers kids whose families make under certain thresholds to receive subsidies, or any kid at full price. Services are provided by the private sector and they are paid at near commercial rates. Funds are raised through cigarette taxes and general taxation.
Medicare covers people over 65 or the long term disabled. Services are rendered by private providers on a fee for service basis (usually) at rates that are based on roughly the average cost of services. There are three funding streams. The first is FICA taxation. The second is Part A and B premiums paid by recipients of Medicare, and the third is a series of deductibles and co-pays for services.
PPACA Exchanges have services rendered by privately employed providers on a variety of fee structures ranging from roughly Medicare to roughly commercial. People are eligible for subsidies if they make more than 100% but less than 400%
of FPL, and anyone can buy an off-exchange policy. The services are paid for by a reduction in Medicare Advantage payments, increased income taxes, user premiums, and c0st-sharing.
So how does the Vermont single payer program answer these questions?
Single payer in Vermont has answered the first question. Everyone in Vermont would be covered by virtue of residence in the state. The second question was being worked on. It looked like the plan would be similar to most of Europe where the providers are privately owned/employed. Payment details had not been
worked out to a publishable degree yet, but some type of capitation or accountable care organization model with gain sharing was highly probable.
Vermont had not come up with a viable answer as to how to raise the money and this is leading to the cancellation of the single payer dream in Vermont at this time.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/12/22/saying-good-bye-to-the-single-payer-dream/
https://twitter.com/HelloBlkQueen/status/546823128861925376/photo/1
Side-Eye (Forever)@prisonculture
1. Killing of cops with impunity is not a systemic problem.
2. Organize your own damned protest if you want.
Side-Eye (Forever) @prisonculture
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I find this conflation between someone who murdered a cop and people who are protesting against police violence to be an intentional ploy.
10:45 AM – 21 Dec 2014
Lucas Neff ✔ @RealLucasNeff
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He shot his gf. Her mother reported it. No one cared.
He shot #NYPD later that day. The world explodes.
Maybe if we cared abt all victims?
10:39 AM – 21 Dec 2014
Imani ABL@AngryBlackLady
You know what’s not going to happen? Media digging into these cops’ background to figure out if they deserved it. #BlackLivesMatter
Imani ABL @AngryBlackLady
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The point, for those too dense to grasp it, is that media goes over the lives of black victims to find out if they deserved it. Jesus.
9:43 AM – 21 Dec 2014
https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/status/546413539377045504/photo/1
https://twitter.com/ChidzHazenberry/status/546448105533882370/photo/1
Terrell J. Starr @Russian_Starr
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White people are NEVER asked to apologize for white men who kill cops. #BlackLivesMatter protesters shouldn’t have to apologize now, either.
2:14 AM – 21 Dec 2014
BWD @theonlyadult
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Only in racist America the Brown and Garner families need to apologize for a crime they had nothing to to with.
12:09 PM – 21 Dec 2014
BWD @theonlyadult
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Only in racist America white people get away with murders they committed and black people apologize for murders they had nothing to do with.
12:12 PM – 21 Dec 2014
Lucas Neff ✔ @RealLucasNeff
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2 cops get killed and cops everywhere are terrified.
Yet they don’t understand the terror of black people when it comes to cops.
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
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Please enlighten us on how the #BlackLivesMatter movement incited this dude to shoot his ex-girlfriend before he shot the cops.
7:50 AM – 21 Dec 2014
A. Deno Vir MD PhD @Adenovir
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If a crazy white guy kills someone he’s called a crazy white person.
If a crazy black guy kills someone, all black people are guilty?
7:58 AM – 21 Dec 2014
Sally Kohn ✔ @sallykohn
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Muslim shooter = entire religion guilty
Black shooter = entire race guilty
White shooter = mentally troubled lone wolf
10:18 AM – 21 Dec 2014
Dean Obeidallah @Deanofcomedy
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2 NYPD officers being killed is horrible. But it’s irresponsible of NYPD union officials to use it as reason to stop protests vs NYPD
7:52 AM – 21 Dec 2014
Propane Jane@docrocktex26
The people screaming that cops have extremely dangerous jobs are invariably the same folk who don’t support gun control.
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
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It wouldn’t be so easy for folk to just walk up and shoot cops if we didn’t allow our citizenry to have the same firepower as the cops.
7:33 PM – 20 Dec 2014
jdavidgoodman ✔ @jdavidgoodman
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Man who fatally shot two NYPD cops in Brooklyn told a Georgia court in 2011 that he had a history of mental illness. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/nyregion/a-divided-city-mourns-the-deaths-of-two-officers.html?_r=0 …
11:19 AM – 21 Dec 2014
F.Corey @cfgodwell
NYPD turning backs to @BilldeBlasio are likely to do the same to his children in a moment of need @JoeNBC. But it’s ok, your sons are white.
F.Corey @cfgodwell
@BilldeBlasio @JoeNBC I would fire each and every one of them, immediately. You can’t overlook nor trust that kind of dissension.
#NYPD
PragmaticObotsUnite @PragObots
T.I. tried to defend Iggy and now he’s about to get that work from #BlackTwitter => #whentiptweets
https://twitter.com/Yabdi_Ali/status/546878060914802689/photo/1
Sam Washington III @SamWashIII
#WhenTIPtweets you understand why Tiny dyed her hair blonde and permanently changed her eye color to blue
Beau De Toilette @HonorablyHaS
Lately #WhenTipTweets he wears a cape. pic.twitter.com/HfzEkfcv0H
Ella Septima-Hamer @Jbrous14
#whentiptweets I am reminded of how gravely important black studies courses are.
#BoycottAmerica @Negro_Agitator
#WhenTipTweets you wonder how he can type and tap dance at the same time.
Natasha Nicole @Iam4everNatasha
#WhenTipTweets I’m wondering is he being coached by Charles Barkley
WritingIsRight @mealeethomas
#WhenTipTweets Doesnt help anyone understand why he protects Iggy more than his wife/woman .. Leaves her out to get ate up on the internet
PragmaticObotsUnite @PragObots
#WhenTipTweets we understand why you should never get high on your own supply.
https://twitter.com/PragObots/status/546890223180054528/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PragObots/status/546894922893500416/photo/1
http://youtu.be/7fz98_pfh7E
Lucas Neff ✔ @RealLucasNeff
Police unions don’t get to decide what citizens get to be upset about. And I’m a union man. But their leadership has lost its mind.
https://twitter.com/TODAYshow/status/547016911188660224/photo/1
https://twitter.com/DIAMOND_NFRAME/status/546917514056196097/photo/1
The unfortunate rush to politicize the NYPD murders
12/22/14 08:01 AM—UPDATED 12/22/14 08:10 AM
By Steve Benen
Saturday’s murder of two New York police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, was as brutal as it was heartbreaking. There wasn’t even a violent confrontation – the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, simply approached the officers’ squad car in Brooklyn and opened fire, before fleeing to a nearby subway station and killing himself.
We also continue to learn more about the murderer, including his criminal background, the fact that he shot his ex-girlfriend, Shaneka Thompson, on Saturday morning, and his brazen boasts before he targeted two NYPD officers.
And while many were still trying to come to terms with such a senseless tragedy, the effort to inject partisan politics into the calamity was almost immediate. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) helped lead the way, appearing on Fox News early yesterday, connecting “four months of propaganda starting with the president” to the slaying.
Giuliani went out of his way to be clear that he’s not blaming a handful of bad apples. He thinks the culprits are everyone protesting police misconduct everywhere.
“The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged. The protests, even the ones that don’t lead to violence – a lot of them lead to violence – all of them lead to a conclusion: The police are bad. The police are racist,” said Giuliani. “That is completely wrong. Actually, the people who do the most for the black community in America are the police.”
He was hardly alone. Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R), who last week talked up a possible presidential campaign, lashed out at NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Attorney General Eric Holder. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) pointed fingers at Obama, among others.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-unfortunate-rush-politicize-the-nypd-murders
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: The Police Aren’t Under Attack. Institutionalized Racism Is.
Dec. 21, 2014
According to Ecclesiastes, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose.” For me, today, that means a time to seek justice and a time to mourn the dead.
And a time to shut the hell up.
The recent brutal murder of two Brooklyn police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, is a national tragedy that should inspire nationwide mourning. Both my grandfather and father were police officers, so I appreciate what a difficult and dangerous profession law enforcement is. We need to value and celebrate the many officers dedicated to protecting the public and nourishing our justice system. It’s a job most of us don’t have the courage to do.
At the same time, however, we need to understand that their deaths are in no way related to the massive protests against systemic abuses of the justice system as symbolized by the recent deaths—also national tragedies—of Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, and Michael Brown. Ismaaiyl Brinsley, the suicidal killer, wasn’t an impassioned activist expressing political frustration, he was a troubled man who had shot his girlfriend earlier that same day. He even Instagrammed warnings of his violent intentions. None of this is the behavior of a sane man or rational activist. The protests are no more to blame for his actions than The Catcher in the Rye was for the murder of John Lennon or the movie Taxi Driver for the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Crazy has its own twisted logic and it is in no way related to the rational cause-and-effect world the rest of us attempt to create.
http://time.com/3643462/kareem-abdul-jabbar-nypd-shootings-police/#3643462/kareem-abdul-jabbar-nypd-shootings-police/
Happy Monday, Everyone! :-)
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good morning, everyone!
Countdown to Christmas. 3 more days!