Saturday Open Thread | Baby girl dancing with dad & killing it

Posted on February 28, 2015 by SouthernGirl2

About SouthernGirl2

A Native Texan who adores baby kittens, loves horses, rodeos, pomegranates, & collect Eagles. Enjoys politics, games shows, & dancing to all types of music. Loves discussing and learning about different cultures. A Phi Theta Kappa lifetime member with a passion for Social & Civil Justice.
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53 Responses to Saturday Open Thread | Baby girl dancing with dad & killing it

  6. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    February 28, 2015 at 8:31 pm

    Black History —How the Black Vote in Mississippi was suppressed in 1875:

    from Wikipedia

    Mississippi Plan

    The Mississippi Plan of 1875 was devised by the Democratic Party to overthrow the Republican Party in the state of Mississippi by means of organized threats of violence and suppression or purchase of the black vote, in order to regain political control of the legislature and governor’s office. The Mississippi Plan was successful in those aims and was later adopted by white Democrats in South Carolina.

    During Reconstruction, former slaves were granted citizenship and the vote by the 14th and 15th Amendments. The consequences of this were far-reaching and almost immediate, as blacks eagerly registered and flooded the polls. In Mississippi’s 1874 election, the Republican Party carried a 30,000 majority in what had hitherto been a Democratic Party stronghold.

    Republicans took the governor’s office and many legislative seats, including the election of blacks to many offices, such as 10 of 36 seats in the state legislature (although they comprised a much larger majority of the total population). The city of Vicksburg in 1874 set the precedent for the Mississippi Plan. White armed patrols prevented blacks from voting and succeeded in defeating all Republican city officials in August. By December the emboldened party forced the black sheriff, Crosby, to flee to the state capital. Blacks who rallied to the city to aid the sheriff also had to flee in the face of superior white forces. Over the next few days, armed gangs may have murdered up to 300 blacks in the city’s vicinity. President Ulysses S. Grant sent a company of troops to Vicksburg in January 1875 to quell the violence and allow the sheriff’s safe return. The sheriff was shot in the head on June 7, 1875, by his white deputy, A. Gilmer.

    In 1875, under the Mississippi Plan of the Democrats, a political dual-pronged battle to reverse the otherwise dominant Republican trend was waged. White paramilitary organizations such as the Red Shirts arose to serve as “the military arm of the Democratic Party.” Unlike the Ku Klux Klan (which was defunct by then), the Red Shirts operated openly, with members known in local areas; they sometimes invited newspaper coverage, and their goals were political. They were well-armed, with private financing for the purchase of new weapons as they took on more power. The first step was to persuade the 10 to 15 percent of Scalawags (white Republicans) to vote with the Democratic party. Outright attacks and a combined fear of social, political and economic ostracism convinced carpetbaggers to switch parties or flee the state.

    The second step of the Mississippi Plan was intimidation of the black populace. Planters, landlords and merchants used economic coercion against black sharecroppers with limited success. The Red Shirts more often used violence, including whippings and murders, and intimidation at the polls. White paramilitary groups, also called “rifle clubs,” frequently provoked riots at Republican rallies, shooting down dozens of blacks in the ensuing conflicts.

    Although the governor requested Federal troops to curb the violence, President Ulysses S. Grant hesitated to act, for fear that in doing so, he would be accused of “bayonet rule”—which he believed would undoubtedly be exploited by Democrats to carry Ohio in that year’s state elections. The violence went unchecked and the plan worked as intended: during Mississippi’s 1875 election, five counties with large black majorities polled 12, 7, 4, 2, and 0 votes, respectively. The Republican victory by 30,000 votes in 1874 was reversed to a Democratic majority of 30,000 in 1875.

    The success of the white Democrats in Mississippi influenced the growth of Red Shirts in North and South Carolina as well. They were particularly prominent in suppressing black votes in majority-black counties in South Carolina. Historians estimated that they committed 150 murders in the weeks leading up to the 1876 election.

    Reply
  7. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 8:13 pm

    Emanuel and Garcia face different personality challenges

    By Bob Secter and Bill Ruthhart
    Chicago Tribune

    Mayor Rahm Emanuel has long nurtured a national reputation as a short-fused political savant, but with his re-election unexpectedly on the bubble, he finds himself trying to convince voters those defining personality traits are a positive.

    Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, the Cook County commissioner hoping to unseat Emanuel in an April 7 runoff, faces the opposite problem. He is possessed of an earnest, nice-guy demeanor but now has to demonstrate to a wide pool of voters he has the vision and backbone to lead a city facing deep and difficult troubles.

    And both rivals face a tight deadline to pull off those sales jobs

    In an era when political campaigns often drag on for months or years, the race for Chicago’s next mayor has been compressed into a six-week sprint bound to test the savvy and resources of Emanuel and Garcia. They were the top vote-getters among five candidates in an initial round of balloting Tuesday that produced no outright winner.

    As the campaign resets, the edge for Garcia lies in momentum. For Emanuel, it’s money.

    Emanuel underperformed in Tuesday’s vote despite an enormous fundraising advantage that allowed him to dominate the airwaves with his message. That advantage is almost sure to continue into the runoff, affording Emanuel an effective mechanism to try to define the lesser-known Garcia in the minds of voters before Garcia can define himself.

    At the same time, by simply surviving to fight another day, Garcia’s up-to-now low-budget campaign is almost sure to gain energy, money and a fresh look from voters. “I’ve largely represented districts on the Southwest Side, so my name recognition isn’t where a mayoral contender needs to have it,” Garcia acknowledged Wednesday.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-chicago-mayor-emanuel-garcia-runoff-met-0226-20150225-story.html#page=1

    Reply
  9. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 7:59 pm

    Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia’s journey from a village in Mexico to the race against Mayor Emanuel
    Rahm Emanuel is a heavy favorite, but Garcia offers voters a compelling personal history.

    Last Labor Day, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia spent four hours at Karen Lewis’s house, discussing her plan to run against Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Garcia, 58, is a Cook County Board commissioner and a former alderman and state senator; Lewis, 61, is the fiery president of the Chicago Teachers Union. He’s Mexican-American; she’s African-American and Jewish. “We were strategizing her victory path,” Garcia told me recently. “We talked plenty about conditions in the Latino community.”

    Lewis hadn’t formally announced that she was running, but she’d begun raising money for the race and was considered a potent challenger to Emanuel. All that changed in early October; she experienced light-headedness and strokelike symptoms, and was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. On October 8, she had emergency surgery, and a spokesman announced she wouldn’t be running for mayor after all.

    Soon after Lewis got home from the hospital, she invited Garcia over again. “I went as a well-wisher,” he said. But he quickly learned Lewis had an agenda: she wanted him to run against Emanuel.

    Garcia told me he was stunned. “What else did they do to you when you had your surgery?” he asked Lewis. She laughed and gave him a high five. But she persisted: “She said, ‘Seriously, you need to think about this. The communities of Chicago need someone to be their standard-bearer.'”

    “Why me?” he asked her.

    Lewis told him his years as a community activist and his stellar political career made him an attractive candidate. She conceded that many black Chicagoans weren’t aware of him, but she said they’d support him when they learned his history. She stressed his long-standing ties with labor and with gay and lesbian leaders, Jews and Muslims, and the city’s leading liberals.

    Garcia was flattered but uncertain. Lewis asked him to think it over and discuss it with his wife.

    He and his wife, Evelyn, talked about it for a week. Evelyn has multiple sclerosis. Because her health had declined, she’d just taken early retirement from her job as a teacher’s assistant in the Chicago Public Schools. Garcia had pledged to spend more time with her “to make sure she’s taking care of herself, to go for walks with her as part of her therapy.” Their three children are grown, but their three grandchildren visit often. The campaign would devour their family time and diminish their privacy, he told Evelyn.

    But Evelyn thought he should run. “That’s when I knew I was in trouble,” he told me.

    Jesus and Evelyn are residents of Little Village, a low-income Latino community on the southwest side. “I have my complaints about daily life in the neighborhood,” Garcia said earlier this month. We were in the dining room of the modest three-bedroom home on 25th Place he and Evelyn bought 24 years ago. “Having to pick up people’s dog poop and beer bottles in front of my house. Noise on 26th Street in the summer—loud music, screeching tires, people yelling, kids acting up.

    “But it’s still my community of choice, because there are good neighbors here,” he went on. “They offer to help if you’re shoveling snow, or if you’re having trouble with your car. They’ll call you if you leave your garage door open—’Hey, it’s been open for the last hour, is that how you want it?’ They’ll bring food over—’We just made some carnitas,’ ‘Check out this salsa.’ They’ll come over with a six-pack on a hot summer day.”

    Little Village is still struggling to recover from the 2008-’09 recession. There’s a boarded building—a foreclosed property—across the street from Jesus and Evelyn’s home. Many residents are jobless. Shootings and killings have declined since Garcia helped create antiviolence programs in the neighborhood a decade ago. But he and Evelyn are still occasionally awakened by gunfire, followed by sirens. “Then your heart sinks, because of the likelihood you’ll know whose child it is.”

    Garcia said he and Evelyn decided he should run “because we felt I could offer an alternative to what hasn’t worked in Chicago in some time, certainly the past four years. We thought I had a responsibility to move a cause forward—the cause of everyday people in Chicago who are struggling to make ends meet, parents worrying about their children’s safety, their education. And that there was the potential for a candidacy like mine to catch fire, and put the city on a different course.”

    http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/jesus-chuy-garcia-rahm-emanuel-chicago-mayor-race-karen-lewis/Content?oid=16255514

    Reply
  10. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    Where has Mo’Nique been since her Oscar win? She says she was blackballed. But did she blackball herself? This weekend on Cafe Mocha Radio Jawn Murray joins Loni Love and Angelique to give the dirty details of the real reason Mo’Nique is no longer welcome in Hollywood.

    https://soundcloud.com/angeliqueperrin/the-real-reason-monique-was-blackballed

    Reply
  11. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 5:42 pm

    How an Obscure Rule Could Give Boehner a Way Out of DHS Mess (Updated)
    By Niels Lesniewski and Emma Dumain
    Posted at 4:37 p.m. Feb. 28

    Updated 5:57 p.m. | A provision tucked deep in the House rule book could provide a way out of the Homeland Security funding mess for Speaker John A. Boehner — without the Ohio Republican actually having to do anything.

    With rumblings about a full-scale revolt from within the ranks should Boehner put a funding bill on the floor that doesn’t explicitly block implementation of President Barack Obama’s immigration executive actions, there was talk Friday night from senior House Democratic aides of Republicans having found a face-saving procedural gambit that would ultimately end in full funding for Department of Homeland Security for the remainder of the fiscal year.

    The bottom line is any House Democrat could have the power next week to force a vote on a clean DHS funding measure. Here’s how:

    The Senate voted to amend the House-passed DHS funding bill — with immigration policy riders — and replace it with a “clean,” six-month spending bill. The House, in turn, voted to “disagree” with the Senate’s amendment to the House’s proposal, thereby sending the bill back across the Rotunda and requesting a conference committee (the theory being that, in that scenario, the House could negotiate with the Senate to reinsert some of the immigration riders back into a final product).

    But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had already rejected the notion of a conference.

    Going to conference is debatable in the Senate, meaning the motion can be filibustered. Accordingly, the Senate is scheduled to hold what should be an ill-fated cloture vote Monday evening to limit debate on an agreement to go to conference with the House. If the Senate then returns the papers to the House, it could provide an opening for Democrats to test a seldom-invoked provision of the chamber’s rules.

    Clause four of House Rule XXII (not to be confused with the more-often cited Senate Rule XXII) provides: “When the stage of disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be privileged.”

    As the Congressional Research Service explains, “A chamber enters the stage of disagreement by formally agreeing to a motion or a unanimous consent request that it disagrees to the position of the other chamber, or that it insists on its own position.”

    In other words, any House lawmaker, arguing that a conference scenario is moot and won’t be resolved before the clock runs out on the current extension of DHS funding, could take to the floor and move that the House recedes from its previous position and concurs in the Senate amendment.

    Because such a motion is “privileged” that would then trigger a vote on sending the Senate-amended full year Homeland Security appropriations bill to Obama’s desk without any of those riders designed to block his executive actions on immigration.

    “Your vote tonight will assure that we will vote for full funding next week,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote in a Friday evening Dear Colleague letter to her fellow Democrats, encouraging them to support a one-week Homeland Security CR.

    If it were to prevail, Democratic aides told CQ Roll Call that Republicans think the plan could protect Boehner from blame that he “caved” to his party’s moderates. Boehner and his allies could just point to House Rules and parliamentary procedure, however obscure and arcane, to explain what just occurred ostensibly beyond his control.

    It would still require a majority vote of the House, and therefore would require dozens of Republican votes and likely at least the tacit approval of House leadership. A determined House majority could also theoretically preemptively vote to suspend or amend Rule XXII via the Rules Committee to block the gambit.

    http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/house-rule-boehner-dhs-appropriations-shutdown/?dcz=

    Reply
  14. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 4:40 pm

    Does mayoral runoff mean return of ‘Rahmner?’
    Posted: 02/28/2015, 10:15am | Natasha Korecki

    Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner outside the Paradise Valley near Livingston, Montana, in 2010. near Livingston, Montana, in 2010. manuel is carrying a pricey bottle of Napa Valley Reserve wine. | David S. Lewis/Montana Pioneer
    Several elections ago, what feels like a political lifetime, a wealthy guy named Bruce Rauner wanted to run for governor.

    In those early days of 2013, Rauner knew he had to appeal to the far right to get through the Republican primary, while staying somewhat toward the middle to not alienate voters he would need in the general election.

    That meant staying as far away as he could from an old pal — Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

    As one of my colleagues, Neil Steinberg, once entertainingly put it: the two are like lovers who see each other at a party but have to pretend they don’t know each other.

    In the thick of the Republican primary, Rauner’s opponents tossed Emanuel’s name at him like it was a dirty word.

    They called him “Rahmner.” They accused the private equity investor of making Emanuel wealthy after Emanuel left his post as White House chief of staff. They brought up the fact that the two took fishing trips together at Rauner’s Montana ranch and that their families vacationed together.

    A Sun-Times analysis showed the two shared a slew of wealthy, top-tier contributors, including some of the wealthiest businessmen in the world.

    The pair’s fine tastes in wine were the subject of much scrutiny before the gubernatorial election.

    Rauner eked his way through the primary and went on to win the general election by a comfortable margin.

    Now, the tables are turned. It’s Rauner who is the dirty word in the Emanuel camp, as the mayor failed to reach the more than 50 percent needed to avoid an April 7 runoff against Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.

    The governor just proposed a budget that would mean $125 million in cuts to the local share of income taxes coming to the city of Chicago.

    http://chicago.suntimes.com/news-chicago/7/71/401987/april-runoff-means-return-rahmner

    Reply
  15. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    Spock’s Advice To A Teenage Girl Will Make You Cry
    In 1968, Leonard Nimoy was moved by a girl’s difficulty fitting in, so he wrote to her about how Spock overcame prejudice.

    posted on March 11, 2013, at 1:59 p.m.

    Spock’s “It Gets Better” Letter

    The following appeared in a 1968 issue of a teen magazine called Fave. The magazine had apparently published a letter addressed to Spock the month before, written by a mixed-race girl who was having trouble finding her place. Leonard Nimoy was moved and penned a detailed response that didn’t just offer words of courage, but concrete advice on how to overcome. *tear*

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/spocks-advice-to-a-teenage-girl-will-make-you-cry#.bvp3RZWQJ

    Reply
  16. SouthernGirl2 says:
    February 28, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    My husband just brought back Girl Scout cookies. Samoas. :)

    Running around

    Reply
  17. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    Pot calls kettle black: Rahm on Chuy’s property tax vote
    Posted: 02/28/2015, 12:00pm | Mark Brown
    Last spring, Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed the “biggest property tax increase in Chicago history” — a whopping $250 million to shore up two city pension funds.

    “Then he got in BIG trouble” — and backed down.

    I’m hoping some of you recognize the above quotations from the just-finished mayoral campaign.

    If not, you might be surprised to realize those words were never used to describe the mayor’s $250 million property tax hike proposal.

    Instead, they were a centerpiece of Emanuel’s own campaign literature and commercials attacking Jesus “Chuy” Garcia for a 1986 vote by the then-alderman in support of an $80 million city property tax increase sought by Mayor Harold Washington.

    “[Garcia] voted for the biggest property tax increase in Chicago history,” the Emanuel campaign declared in a series of mailers. “Then he got in BIG trouble.”

    I’m still amazed at the sheer gall or chutzpah or whatever you want to call it that led the mayor to approve that disingenuous line of attack, considering his own attempt to set a new record just last year. I can only assume he figured he could get away with it because Garcia didn’t have the money to fight back.

    It’s more amazing — even in the short attention span of today’s world — how quickly Emanuel’s property tax increase plans have faded from memory.

    I’d wager most voters have also forgotten it was Gov. Pat Quinn, with an assist from skittish Chicago aldermen, who helped save Emanuel from what we now can see in hindsight would have been a potentially fatal blow to the re-election chances of the mayor and many of those aldermen.

    http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/7/71/402154/pot-calls-kettle-black-rahm-chuys-property-tax-vote

    Reply
  18. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 3:39 pm

    Mike Madigan renews push for ‘Millionaire’s Tax’
    Posted: 02/26/2015, 06:36am | Associated Press

    Illinois’ longtime House speaker has renewed a push to tax the state’s millionaires to boost funding for schools.

    Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan’s proposal would amend the state constitution to add a 3 percent surcharge to incomes of more than $1 million.

    Madigan says the recent rollback of the state’s temporary income tax increase places many state services in precarious financial positions.

    The legislation comes on the heels of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s budget proposal, which would cut a number of programs and services and does not rely on additional revenue.

    An earlier effort on the “Millionaire’s Tax” failed last year when Madigan was unable to get enough backing in the Illinois House.

    But voters overwhelmingly supported the idea through a non-binding ballot question last fall.

    http://chicago.suntimes.com/springfield-politics/7/71/397676/mike-madigan-renews-push-millionaires-tax

    Reply
  19. Ametia says:
    February 28, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    Elizabeth Warren ✔ @elizabethforma

    If Scott Walker sees 100,000 teachers & firefighters as his enemies, maybe it’s time we take a closer look at his friends.
    10:59 AM – 28 Feb 2015

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    ANALYSIS: Rahm must learn from Byrne to avoid being one-termer
    Posted: 02/28/2015, 06:36am | Fran Spielman

    An angry union that felt provoked into a strike.

    Financial problems so massive and long-festering, they were a set-up for a one-termer.

    Black voters who turned on a mayor they helped put in office after a mayoral decision that felt like a slap in the face.

    A reluctant and under-funded mayoral challenger whose charisma seems to grow with the movement he was drafted to lead against a wounded incumbent with money to burn who loves to play on the national stage.

    Thirty-two years ago, Harold Washington became Chicago’s first African-American mayor on the strength of all of those factors and more.

    http://chicago.suntimes.com/news-chicago/7/71/402180/analysis-rahm-must-learn-byrne-avoid-one-termer

    Reply
  22. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 3:05 pm

    Saturday, February 28, 2015
    The Scott Walker Antidote: Minnesota

    Via Mother Jones

    With the Iowa caucus still 11 months away, the media has become obsessed with the candidacy of Scott Walker. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but in the midst of all that, a few good reporters are taking a look at flyover country and finding out that Wisconsin’s next door neighbor provides a great antidote to his policy claims.

    Up here in the tundra, that comparison started a while ago. In 2013, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an article reminding us that when it comes to population, commerce and politics, Minnesota and Wisconsin have an awful lot in common. But something drastically changed after the 2010 election.
    Wisconsin has been cutting taxes, curbing unions, expanding private school vouchers and rejecting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

    Minnesota has been raising taxes, empowering unions, legalizing same-sex marriage and embracing Obamacare.

    Wisconsin is getting its most conservative governance in decades. Minnesota is getting its most liberal governance in decades.

    In their underlying political makeup, they may be as similar as any two states in America.

    But one is being governed like South Carolina, the other like Vermont.
    In a true testament to the idea that “every vote matters,” here is a summary of what spurred the different path each state would take:
    In Wisconsin, Republicans captured the governor’s office (Scott Walker) and both chambers of the Legislature in the GOP wave of 2010. Thanks to that unified control, Republicans were able to pass a hugely favorable redistricting plan that helped ensure the party’s legislative majorities in 2012 in an otherwise poor election for the GOP.

    In Minnesota, Republicans also took over both chambers of the Legislature in the 2010 conservative wave. But the party fell four-tenths of a percentage point short of winning a three-way race for governor. Democrat Mark Dayton’s razor-thin victory with less than 44% of the vote resulted in divided government, which resulted in a fairly neutral, court-approved redistricting plan. And that helped make it possible for Minnesota Democrats to retake the Legislature in the more favorable election climate of 2012.
    I mentioned a while ago that Larry Jacobs had suggested in 2013 that this divergence of such similar states could provide a laboratory for measuring the outcomes of liberal and conservative policies. Recently Patrick Caldwell and Carl Gibson seemed to have noticed as well.

    Caldwell focused on the fact that – unlike Scott Walker – Gov. Mark Dayton is an “unnatural” politician.
    For a man who has won a competitive US Senate race and secured his second term as governor in November, Mark Dayton is a terrible retail politician. “He’s very shy and he’s an introvert,” Ken Martin, the chair of the state party and a friend of Dayton’s, told me unprompted earlier this month. “He’s not a typical, backslapping politician,” Martin continued. “He’s not very articulate; he’s kind of jerky,” Tom Bakk, the Democratic Senate majority leader, says of his ally’s style. When Dayton first ran for his current job, in 2010, The New Republic dubbed him “Eeyore for Governor.”
    Nevertheless, Dayton managed to get the job done.
    Think of Dayton as Scott Walker’s mirror image. With the help of GOP-controlled legislatures, Walker and other Republican governors, such as Kansas’ Sam Brownback, have passed wish lists of conservative policies and touted their states as laboratories that demonstrate the benefits of conservative governance. Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, has parlayed that hype into a potential 2016 presidential run. And across the border in Minnesota, Dayton seized a brief moment of unified Democratic control to create the liberal alternative to Walker’s Wisconsin—a blue-state laboratory for demonstrating the potential of liberal policies. Dayton didn’t “set out” with the objective of one-upping Walker in mind, he told me after the Eagan event. But “the contrast,” he notes, is obvious.

    Over the past several years, Minnesota has become a testing ground for a litany of policies Democrats hope to enact nationally: legalizing same-sex marriage, making it easier to vote, boosting primary education spending, instituting all-day kindergarten, expanding unionization, freezing college tuition, increasing the minimum wage, and passing new laws requiring equal pay for women. To pay for it all, Dayton pushed a sharp increase on taxes for the top 2 percent—one of the largest hikes in state history. Republicans went berserk, warning that businesses would flee the state and take jobs with them.

    The disaster Dayton’s GOP rivals predicted never happened. Two years after the tax hike, Minnesota’s economy is booming. The state added 172,000 jobs during Dayton’s first four years in office. Its 3.6 percent unemployment rate is among the lowest in the country (Wisconsin’s is 5.2 percent), and the Twin Cities have the lowest unemployment rate of any major metropolitan area. Under Dayton, Minnesota has consistently been in the top tier of states for GDP growth. Median incomes are $8,000 higher than the national average. In 2014, Minnesota led the nation in economic confidence, according to Gallup.

    http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-scott-walker-antidote-minnesota.html?spref=tw

    Reply
  23. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 3:00 pm

    Obama library plan is a reminder of bad blood between community, U. of C.

    While many South Side residents share the hope that the library honoring the first African-American president will be built in the community where President Barack Obama rose to prominence, some are suspicious of the University of Chicago’s motives for proposing to place it in a public park.

    That suspicion may be, some residents said, due in part to an unsavory history between the university and the neighborhoods that sit in its shadow — conflict that spans more than 80 years.

    As Mayor Rahm Emanuel moved forward this week with a plan to make at least 20 acres of green space in either Washington Park or Jackson Park available for the library, university officials acknowledged that the institution was at least partly to blame for that historical mistrust.

    They concede that the Hyde Park university did not stand on the right side of justice in supporting restrictive covenants that kept African-Americans from buying homes in the Washington Park neighborhood in the 1930s. And they acknowledge the ill feelings that linger over the university’s push for urban renewal in Woodlawn in the 1960s.

    But a far more progressive institution exists today, they said.

    “There was a time when the university was more inward focused than outward focused. And people have certain reactions, and they carry that with them,” said Derek Douglas, vice president for civic engagement at the U. of C. “But the focus over the last decade under President (Robert) Zimmer has been to be more engaged with the city. Our actions, programs and initiatives demonstrate a different view than the historical view that people have.”

    Indeed, the university has formed educational, art and housing partnerships with the communities. Last year, the University of Chicago Medical Center sought to address a more current controversy — demands from youth and community activists that it open an adult trauma care center to serve South Side residents who must travel miles for level one care. Hammered with demonstrations linking the trauma center controversy to its library bid, the university agreed to accept 16- and 17-year-olds in its pediatric trauma center.

    Despite the mistrust, there is one thing on which residents in the Washington Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods seem to agree — the library belongs on the South Side, even if parkland must be given up to make it happen.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-obama-library-u-of-c-community-met-20150122-story.html#page=1

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      February 28, 2015 at 3:12 pm

      U of C has not been a good neighbor. I don’t blame folks for being suspicious. But, since they eliminated the other two good possible South Side Sites, we’re stuck with the U of C bid. I want it Chicago, and I want it on the South Side of Chicago. That is where the library should be.

      Mark me among those who want U of C to be forced to fork over their PRIVATE Land for the Library. The reason why this rubs the wrong way, is because these arrogant muthafuckas believe they should have their cake – the Library – and eat it too – without giving up THEIR privately held land.

      While the Daniel Burnham plan is not ‘LAW’ in Chicago, it is part of the ethos of the Chicago spirit. How we feel about our public lands. This is why Rahm’s in trouble over that George Lucas museum – you simply CANNOT TAKE PUBLIC LAKEFRONT LANDS FOR PRIVATE ENTITIES IN CHICAGO!!

      NOT THE LAKEFRONT.

      Great battles were fought in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s over this principle. It’s why we’re so unique when it comes to our lakefront, and unlike other major cities, we do NOT have ‘ private beaches’. The lake was fought over hard to be OPEN TO EVERYONE – as were the parks. It’s the Daniel Burnham ethos.

      I’ll forever believe, though, that the perfect spot for it was the old Michael Reese Hospital site.

      Reply
  24. Ametia says:
    February 28, 2015 at 2:18 pm

    Sorry Nancy, Speaker Boehner hasn’t had a GRIP, since you passed the gavel to him!

    Reply
  27. Ametia says:
    February 28, 2015 at 11:00 am

    That little girl is tearing it up on the dance floor.

    Reply
  30. Ametia says:
    February 28, 2015 at 10:01 am

    OOPS! Clue: Putin critic!

    Putin critic, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov killed in Moscow

    MOSCOW — Boris Nemtsov, a towering figure in Russian post-Soviet politics and a biting critic of President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down steps from the Kremlin early Saturday, authorities said. The drive-by shooting had the potential to open a violent new chapter in Russian political life

    http://link.washingtonpost.com/548289943b35d072688b4aaa2bzyf.5ini/VPDtAMPo05tC-kziA4230

    Reply
  31. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 9:28 am

    Saturday, February 28, 2015
    A House Divided
    The plan was to force President Obama to either sign a bill repealing his executive actions on immigration or veto it and shut down the Department of Homeland Security. But things didn’t work out that way.

    Senator McConnell couldn’t get the 6/7 Democratic votes he needed to pass a bill that paired funding for DHS to repealing the President’s immigration actions and Speaker Boehner was unwilling to pass a stand-alone funding bill with primarily Democratic votes. So we got a one week reprieve before we do this all over again.

    The good news is that we found out that neither Republican leader is willing to follow through with their threats to blow up hostages in order to force Democrats to give them what they want. So at some point, they’ll pass a bill that funds DHS.

    Here’s the bad news:

    After the Republicans gained control of the Senate and increased their margins in the House in the November elections, both Mr. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, promised to reverse Congress’s pattern of hurtling from crisis to crisis, even over matters like appropriations that were once relatively routine.

    But in their first big test, the Republican leaders often seemed to be working from different playbooks, at times verging on hostility, with each saying it was time for the other chamber to act.

    The funding stalemate bodes poorly for any larger policy accomplishments this year, leaving lawmakers pessimistic that the 114th Congress will be able to work in a bipartisan fashion on more complicated issues.

    The Office of Management and Budget has said that a vote to increase the nation’s debt limit will be necessary by mid- to late summer, and lawmakers were also hoping to take up trade policy, as well as at least a modest overhaul of the nation’s tax code — undertakings that now look increasingly imperiled.

    When you’ve spent the last six years convincing your base that your opponent is a tyrant who is out to destroy the country and that his party’s agenda is the tool by which he will do that, its pretty hard to actually govern in a system that is designed to require compromise.

    I wouldn’t say that any of that is a big surprise to those of us who have been paying attention. But what is surprising – and will be worth paying attention to over the next few months – is the apparent hostility between McConnell and Boehner. I don’t think anyone saw that coming. But it does suggest that there is more than one fault line in this divided house.

    http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-house-divided.html

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  32. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 9:20 am

    Lee Daniels blames Mo’Nique for “reverse racism,” says he doesn’t mind selling out

    Lee Daniels seems to be having a problem with the actress Mo’Nique. After a recent article in the Hollywood Reporter with Mo’Nique claiming that she’d been blackballed, Daniels has been out explaining what happened to her career. Daniels was also put into the spotlight by telling Mo’Nique that she’d been blackballed for “not playing the game.”
    So, it appears that the drama of Black Hollywood is now front and center for everyone in the world to enjoy.

    Mo’Nique felt that her winning an Academy Award would open doors for her, but it didn’t.

    “I thought, once you won the award, that’s the top prize—and so you’re supposed to be treated as if you got the top prize,” Mo’Nique wrote.

    Mo’Nique also seems to blame Daniels for her losing opportunities to work.

    “I was offered the role in The Butler that Oprah Winfrey played,” she said. “I was also approached by Empire to be on Empire. And I was offered the role as Richard Pryor’s grandmother in [Daniels’ upcoming Pryor biopic]. Each of those things that he offered me was taken off the table.”

    Daniels says that Mo’Nique was blackballed for offending whites with what he refers to as “reverse racism.” Also during an interview with Don Lemon on CNN, Daniels says that he doesn’t mind being called a sell-out if that means getting his films into theaters.

    “She was making unreasonable demands, and she wasn’t thinking—this was when reverse racism was happening, I think,” Daniels said. “I told her, ‘You have to thank the producers of the film, you have to thank the studios.’ And I think she didn’t understand that, and I said, ‘People aren’t going to respond well if you don’t.””

    “This is not just ‘show.’ It’s ‘show business,’” he said. “And you’ve gotta play ball, and you can’t scream—I don’t like calling the race card. I don’t believe in it. If I buy into it, it becomes real. If I knew what I knew when I was 21, I wouldn’t be where I’m at right now.”

    “Some people call that ‘selling out,’” Lemon noted.

    “Well, I guess I’m a sellout,” Daniels responded. “But I’m not going to not work, and I’m not going to not tell my truth. And I’m not going to call people out on their bull. So whatever that means, sell out. I’ll see you in the theaters.”

    http://financialjuneteenth.com/lee-daniels-says-monique-was-blackballed-for-reverse-racism-against-white-people/

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      February 28, 2015 at 9:55 am

      Short: Those white folks in Hollywood don’t respond well when you don’t KISS THEIR WHITE ASSES.

      Lee keeps his head down, his mouth shut, and tows the line.

      Reads like Mo’Nique is telling her own truth, Lee.

      What sayeth Mo ‘Nique about what Lee Daniels is saying?

      Reply
  33. rikyrah says:
    February 28, 2015 at 9:08 am

    Good Morning, Everyone.

    Off to swim and run errands.

    Reply
  34. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    February 28, 2015 at 7:46 am

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

    “Kids dress up as the African American leaders you won’t hear about this Black History Month”
    http://qz.com/353015/kids-dress-up-as-the-african-american-leaders-you-wont-hear-about-this-black-history-month/

    Reply

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