This week we will be with Mariah Carey.
Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970)[3] is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Carey came to prominence after releasing her self-titled debut studio album Mariah Carey in 1990; it went multiplatinum and spawned four consecutive number one singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Under the guidance of Columbia Records executive and later husband Tommy Mottola, she continued booking success with followup albums Emotions (1991), Music Box (1993), and Merry Christmas (1994), Carey was established as Columbia’s highest-selling act. Daydream (1995) made music history when its second single “One Sweet Day”, a duet with Boyz II Men, spent a record sixteen weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100, and remains the longest-running number-one song in U.S. chart history. During the recording of the album, Carey began to deviate from her R&B and pop beginnings and slowly traversed into hip hop. This musical change became evident with the release of Butterfly (1997), at which time Carey had separated from Mottola.
Carey left Columbia in 2000, and signed a $100 million recording contract with Virgin Records America. Before the release of her film Glitter (2001), she suffered a physical and emotional breakdown and was hospitalized for severe exhaustion. Following the film’s poor reception, she was bought out of her recording contract for $50 million, which led to a decline in her career. She signed a multimillion dollar contract deal with Island Records in 2002, and after an unsuccessful period, returned to the top of music charts with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005). Its second single “We Belong Together” became her most successful single of the 2000s, and was later named “Song of the Decade” by Billboard. Carey once again ventured into film with a well-received supporting role in Precious (2009); she was awarded the “Breakthrough Performance Award” at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and received Black Reel and NAACP Image Award nominations.
Throughout her career, Carey has sold more than 200 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In 1998, she was honored as the world’s best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the World Music Awards. Carey was also named the best-selling female artist of the millennium in 2000. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third-best-selling female artist in the United States, with 63.5 million certified albums. With the release of “Touch My Body” (2008), Carey gained her 18th number-one single in the United States, more than any other solo artist. In 2012, Carey was ranked second on VH1’s list of the “100 Greatest Women in Music”. Aside from her commercial accomplishments, Carey has won five Grammy Awards, 19 World Music Awards, 11 American Music Awards, and 31 Billboard Music Awards. Referred to as the “songbird supreme” by the Guinness World Records, she is famed for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style and signature use of the whistle register.
Career
1988–92: Mariah Carey and Emotions
Carey exiting the Shepherd’s Bush Theatre after promoting her single “Vision of Love” on The Wogan Show, in 1990
As Starr’s friendship with Carey grew, so did her interest in helping Carey succeed in the industry. In December 1988, Carey accompanied Starr to a record executives’ gala, where she handed her demo tape to Tommy Mottola, head of Columbia Records, who listened to it on his way back home.[21][22] After the first two songs, he was so enamored of Carey’s voice that he returned to the event, only to find that she had left.[22] In what has been widely described by critics as a modern day Cinderella tale,[23][24] after searching for Carey for two weeks, he immediately signed her and began mapping out her commercial debut.[21] While she maintained that she wanted to continue working with Margulies, Mottola enlisted top producers of the time, including Ric Wake, Narada Michael Walden and Rhett Lawrence.[21] Mottola and the staff at Columbia had planned to market Carey as their main female pop artist, competing with Whitney Houston and Madonna (signed to Arista and Sire Records respectively).[25] After the completion of her debut album, Mariah Carey, Columbia spent more than $1 million promoting it.[26] Despite a weak start, the album eventually reached the top of the Billboard 200, after Carey’s exposure at the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards.[27] Mariah Carey stayed atop the charts for eleven consecutive weeks,[28][not in citation given] and she won the Best New Artist, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance awards for her single “Vision of Love”.[29] The album yielded three more number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, following the four-week number-one run of “Vision of Love”. Carey became the first artist since The Jackson 5 to have their first four singles reach number one.[30] Mariah Carey finished as the best-selling album in the United States in 1991,[31] while totaling sales of over 15 million copies.[32]
Carey began recording her second studio album, Emotions, in 1991.[33][34] She described it as a homage to Motown soul music, as she felt the need to pay tribute to the type of music that had influenced her as a child.[34] For the project, Carey worked with Walter Afanasieff, who only had a small role on her debut, as well as Robert Clivillés and David Cole, from the dance group C+C Music Factory.[35] However, Carey’s relationship with Margulies deteriorated over a contract Carey had signed before signing with Columbia, agreeing to split not only the songwriting royalties from the songs, but half of her earnings as well. However, when the time came to write music for Emotions, Sony officials made it clear he would only be paid the fair amount given to co-writers on an album. Margulies later filed a lawsuit against Sony which ultimately led to their parting of ways.[34] Emotions was released on September 17, 1991, and was accepted by critics as a more mature album than its predecessor.[36] While praised for Carey’s improved songwriting, production, and new sound, the album was criticized for its material, thought weaker than that of her debut.[37] Though the album managed sales of over eight million copies globally, Emotions failed to reach the commercial and critical heights of its predecessor.[38]
As after the release of her debut, critics again questioned whether Carey would embark on a world tour to promote her material.[39] Although Carey explained that stage fright and the style of her songs made a tour very daunting, speculation grew that Carey was a “studio worm”, and that she was incapable of producing the perfect pitch and 5-octave vocal range for which she was known.[23][40] In hopes of putting to rest any claims of her being a manufactured artist, Carey and Walter Afanasieff decided to book an appearance on MTV Unplugged, a television program aired by MTV.[41] The show presented name artists “unplugged” or stripped of studio equipment.[41] While Carey felt[vague]strongly of her more soulful and powerful songs, it was decided that her most popular content would be included. Days before the show’s taping, Carey and Afanasieff thought of adding a cover version of an older song, in order to provide something different and unexpected.[42] They chose “I’ll Be There”, a song made popular by The Jackson 5 in 1970. On March 16, 1992, Carey recorded a seven-piece set-list at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York.[43] The revue was met with critical acclaim, leading to it being aired more than three times as often as an average episode would.[44] The success tempted Sony officials to market it.[45] Sony decided to release it as an EP, priced low because it was short. The EP proved to be a success, contrary to critics and speculations that Carey was just a studio artist,[46] and was given a triple-Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),[47] and managed Gold and Platinum certifications in several European markets.[45]
GOP bill targets Michelle Obama’s prized school lunch regs
By Lydia Wheeler – 03/02/15 11:30 AM EST
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) is introducing legislation to relax the rules for healthy school lunches.
At the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) 2015 Legislative Action Conference at the JW Marriott Monday, Hoeven announced the Healthy School Meals Flexibility Act to give schools more flexibility in complying with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations when it comes to whole grains and sodium levels.
The bill would allow schools to revert back to 2012 standards, which require at least half of all grains served in school breakfast and school lunch to be whole grain rich. The standard now is for 100 percent of all grains offered to be whole grain rich.
The bill also prevents USDA from requiring further sodium reductions in school meals below the current level, which took effect July 2014.
Under the mandate, schools have to keep sodium levels in school lunch below 1,230 mg for grades K-5, 1,360 mg for grades 6-8 and 1,420 mg for grades 9-12 for the week.
“Providing our students with healthy, nutritious and delicious meals is important,” Hoeven said in a prepared statement.
“The Healthy School Meals Flexibility Act ensures our schools are providing kids with good, nutritious meals but provides the flexibility they need to serve meals that are not only well-balanced but also appealing to students.”
USDA estimates the new standards of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 — a central component of first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign to fight childhood obesity — will cost school districts $1.2 billion in additional food and labor expenses this year. According to an SNA survey, more than half of all schools offering school meal programs expect expenses to exceed revenue. Only 18 percent expect to break even.
http://thehill.com/regulation/234301-hoeven-introduces-bill-to-ease-school-lunch-regs
I always thought Tiger would beat him to the list
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Michael Jordan makes debut on Forbes’ billionaires list
Jordan is 1,741th richest person in the world, Forbes reports
52-year-old is first North American pro athlete to make list
Longtime Chicago Bull is owner of NBA’s Charlotte Hornets
Michael Jordan has become the first former or current North American pro athlete to make Forbes’ annual billionaires list, the magazine revealed on Monday.
Forbes rated Jordan as the 1,741st richest person in the world – and 513th in the United States – with an estimated net worth of $1bn.
The 52-year-old Jordan, whose playing career ended in 2003, became an 80% shareholder in the Charlotte Bobcats on a valuation of roughly $275m in 2010. That stake jumped to 89% in 2013.
Forbes said the value of Jordan’s majority shares climbed sharply when ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers for $2bn last year, lifting the values of all NBA teams. The magazine estimates Jordan’s stake in the team, which rebranded as the Hornets last year, is now worth more than $700m.
Ballmer’s purchase was enough to elevate three current NBA owners into the billionaire ranks: Jordan, Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander and Chicago Bulls owner (and Jordan’s old boss) Jerry Reinsdorf.
Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, still has lucrative endorsement deals with Gatorade, Hanes and Upper Deck, but he reportedly earned $90m from Nike’s Jordan Brand subsidiary in 2013, which did an estimated $2.25bn in sales that year, Forbes said.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/02/michael-jordan-makes-debut-on-forbes-billionaires-list?CMP=edit_2221
Why it would be hard for Obamacare to recover from a Supreme Court loss
By Jason Millman March 2 at 1:42 PM
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear about the potential disruption in health insurance coverage for millions of people if Obamacare subsidies are struck down in the nearly three dozen states that didn’t set up their own exchanges. Behind the scenes in these states, insurers are scrambling to keep the subsidies in place, as I and my colleagues wrote over the weekend.
Without the subsidies, the situation would quickly become pretty chaotic for insurers, who’ve largely benefited from the law so far. Most of the uninsured would no longer be subject to Obamacare’s individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance because they wouldn’t then have access to “affordable” coverage, as the Affordable Care Act defines affordability. But all of the law’s other features that increase the cost of health insurance, such as guaranteed coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, would remain in place. The history of similar state-level health reform efforts that enacted these consumer protections without the mandate and financial assistance shows health insurance rates skyrocketed and healthier people dropped out of the insurance markets.
The timing of the Supreme Court decision could make a tough situation for insurers selling on the ACA exchanges even tougher. They’re going to be filing 2016 rates over the next few weeks and months, before the Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision in late June. If the subsidies are struck, it’s expected that healthier and low-income people would be the first to drop coverage — and quickly — after their monthly premiums increased on average by nearly 75 percent. That would then drastically alter the insurers’ assumptions about who would sign up for 2016 health plans — they’d have a costlier population to cover, but the 2016 rates would already be locked in.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats have offered much hope that Washington could come up with a quick and workable fix if the subsidies are suddenly stripped from millions of people. The Obama administration — which doesn’t want to give the Supreme Court any reason to think that an adverse ruling wouldn’t cause chaos — says there’s nothing it could do administratively.
Republicans, on the other hand, want to show the court that a ruling against the Obama administration would not be disruptive. A trio of senior Republican senators wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Sunday that they had a plan to offer temporary financial assistance to those who would lose the subsidies. But they didn’t provide key details — such as how long they’d provide the aid, and what it would be worth — and their offices haven’t said when they might release more details. It’s also questionable how much support there would be for such a measure among Republican lawmakers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/02/why-it-would-be-hard-for-obamacare-to-recover-from-a-supreme-court-loss/
Lynn Sweet ✔ @lynnsweet
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Exclusive: @aaronschock used taxpayer money for private jet to fly him to #Bears game. And more. http://bit.ly/1E8i0wk
9:11 PM – 1 Mar 2015 Bolingbrook, IL, United States
I don’t trust her
Donna NoShock @NoShock
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Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Needs to Answer Questions About Chief of Staff – Civil Beat: http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/03/hawaii-rep-tulsi-gabbard-needs-to-answer-questions-about-chief-of-staff/#.VPT9cEmvvcs.twitter …
6:20 PM – 2 Mar 2015
http://youtu.be/-zxlrWWE0GU
Don’t Cry for John Boehner
Spandan Chakrabarti March 2, 2015
I apologize for my blog hiatus for quite a bit. I had personal reasons to be absent, along with health (I wasn’t in ill health, but medically advised and concentrated on changing certain habits that raise certain risk factors) and some crunches with time, but I expect to be back here full time from now on. I have read in comments that some of you may have tried to email me – would you mind resending those emails? I checked my inbox but I hadn’t seen anything related. Now, onto the topic at hand.
I am a little tired of hearing from the media blabbermouths how sorry they feel for House Speaker John Boehner, who is experiencing whiplash from his own House Republican caucus when it comes to funding the Department of Homeland Security. After a short one-week extension, funding is expected to run out and the Department is expected to shut down before the week is up. Homeland Security is responsible for critical law enforcement as well as counter-terrorism activity within the United States, and it could be fully funded today if John Boehner were willing to let Democratic votes provide the margin he would lose by burning the conservatives in his party.
The media’s storyline thus far has been this: poor Boehner, he’s so reasonable and wants to fund the DHS but his ultra right wing brotheren in the House GOP caucus keep messing up his plans. It’s they, we are told by the media, the unruly conservatives, that want President Obama’s executive action on immigration repealed before funding the DHS. It’s not John Boehner’s fault. After all, how can he be expected to overrule the Hastert Rule (which Dennis Hastert says doesn’t exist)? He’s trying, you see.
What utter horseshit.
First, think of what would have been said if someone tried to make these exact same excuses about unruly Democrats who refused to back President Obama on an initiative. It would have been seen as a disgraceful failure of leadership. It would have been bandied about how extreme the president is that he can’t even get Democrats in line. It would have been highlighted what a weak, failed presidency it is.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/3/2/dont-cry-for-john-boehner#.VPTYPWsRrIM.twitter
Brennan Center @BrennanCenter
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.@BrennanCenter plan to modernize registration would add 50 million voters, cost less, increase accuracy: http://trib.al/b9jh9ZD #voting
4:07 PM – 2 Mar 2015
We’re in the 21st century and reading this about MODERNIZING voting registration… just patheic
GOP immigration kabuki: A play in three acts
By Paul Waldman March 2 at 12:20 PM
On Fox News Sunday, Scott Walker admitted under questioning that he had changed his position on whether undocumented immigrants should eventually have a path to citizenship. “My view has changed,” he said, “I’m flat-out saying it.” Walker is now against “amnesty,” and insists that the first priority is to “secure the border.” Which makes him like most Republicans who run for president, not only in the fact that “Secure the border!” will be the first thing he says whenever the subject comes up, but also in the fact that his position has shifted in response to the electoral calendar.
This plot has been repeated so many times before that it’s a wonder we treat it as anything more serious than the fictional portrayal of a policy discussion that it actually is. We sat through it with John McCain in the lead role, then Mitt Romney, and now the current slate of candidates. The progression is always the same:
Act 1: We should have comprehensive immigration reform. This is what future candidates say when the next presidential election is still a few years away. They will talk about dealing with the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the United States, and acknowledge that deporting them all is impossible. They will even sound compassionate notes about them, particularly the children. A few, like John McCain in 2005 or Marco Rubio in 2013, may even write comprehensive reform bills.
Act 2: Secure the border first! As primary season approaches, the candidates realize that the Republican primary electorate isn’t interested in comprehensive reform, and in order to appeal to them, it’s necessary to demonstrate toughness and strength. In the process of doing so, some will actually switch their positions on specific details or legislation (both McCain and Rubio declared their opposition to the bills they themselves wrote; Mitt Romney went from advocating a path to citizenship to supporting “self-deportation”), but all will say that before we do anything else, we must “secure the border.”
Act 3: Can we talk about something else? Once the general election arrives, the Republican nominee will make a fruitless attempt to stop his hemorrhaging among Latino voters by changing the subject. If pressed, he will say that, of course, he supports comprehensive reform, and border security is an essential part of that — in other words, begging both conservatives and moderates not to be too mad at him for the positions he took at various times before.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/02/gop-immigration-kabuki-a-play-in-three-acts/
you voted for him.. accept that elections have consequences
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Right to work for less: Gov. Scott Walker wants to lower worker pay in Wisconsin
By Jared Bernstein March 2 at 10:00 AM
The art of the misnomer — an industry standard of American politics — has rarely been more effectively applied than in right-to-work laws. Since Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and the state legislature are in the midst of trying to turn the state into the 25th covered by the laws, it’s worth unpacking what’s going on here.
Here’s what the legislation does: It makes it illegal for unions to negotiate contracts wherein everyone covered by that contract has to contribute to its negotiation and enforcement.
Let’s be very clear about this: RTW does not confer some new right or privilege on those in states that adopt it. It takes away an existing right: the ability of unions to require the beneficiaries of union contracts to pay for their negotiation and enforcement. In anything, the law creates a right to freeload — to reap the significant benefits of union bargaining without paying for them.
Let’s also be clear about what goes on in non-RTW states, as anti-union forces consistently distort the current reality. In non-RTW states, no one has to join a union. There have been no “closed shops” in America for more than 20 years. When RTW advocates say they’re fighting against “forced unionism,” they are making stuff up. There’s no such thing.
Workers in a bargaining unit in non-RTW states don’t even have to pay full union dues. If they object to, say, the union’s political activities, they can pay reduced dues that cover only the costs of negotiating and enforcing the contract. Since that’s most of what local unions do, by the way, such fees amount to 80 percent to 90 percent of full dues.
So when Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation claims that workers in non-RTW states “can be compelled to join a union and pay dues at a union shop whether they wish to or not” or that they “can even be forced to pay union dues for partisan political activities with which they don’t agree,” he’s deep within a fact-free zone.
Gordon Lafer, whose work on this issue is indispensable, points out the following:
“There are many organizations that, like unions, require membership dues. For instance, an attorney who wants to appear in court must be a dues-paying member of the bar association. One may dislike the bar association, but must still pay dues if he or she wants to appear in court. Condominium or homeowners associations similarly require dues of their members. A homebuyer can’t choose to live in a condominium development without paying the association fees. Yet the national corporate lobbies supporting RTW are not proposing a ‘right to practice law’ or a ‘right to live where you want.’ They are focused solely on restricting employees’ organizations.”
Along with misnaming, the other silly game you see played in these debates involves cooking the numbers to make it look like your preferred policy unleashes reams of growth and jobs and whatever other fairy dust you’re selling. I could easily argue that Mississippi, a RTW state, had the highest state unemployment rate at the end of last year and the lowest job growth. You could just as easily point out that North Dakota, as a RTW state, had the lowest unemployment rate and highest job growth. In fact, that sounds uncomfortably like a D.C. pundits’ debate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/02/right-to-work-for-less-gov-scott-walker-wants-to-lower-worker-pay-in-wisconsin/
Billionaire Sells Artworks to Help Fund Harlem School
How do you smartly leave an art collection to a charitable cause? That’s the issue that William Louis-Dreyfus has been grappling with these past several years, after spending half a century amassing a collection of 3,500 artworks. The former chairman of Louis Dreyfus Holding B.V., one of the largest family businesses, is in the process of selling off his massive collection so he can donate the proceeds to the Harlem Children’s Zone.
The Paris-born Louis-Dreyfus, 82, says his bequest ranks as his first major act of philanthropy. The collection comprises some 170 artists, including Alberto Giacometti, Wassily Kandinsky, and Jean Dubuffet, and is worth anywhere from $10 million to $50 million, he estimates.
“I realized one morning that my children do not need to be any richer than they are, and they did not need the spoils from my collection,” he tells us. Instead, “I could do something good, and that I believe in.”
The impetus for Louis-Dreyfus’ decision came four years ago, when he watched a 60 Minutes profile on the Harlem charity. It explained the organization’s innovative “cradle to college” approach to breaking the cycle of generational poverty through an interconnected set of community and parenting workshops, as well as preschools, charter schools, and colleges. It all struck a chord with Louis-Dreyfus. “I just knew that whatever I was going to do with my art would involve black Americans or people in schools,” he says. “It was not going to the Met or MoMA.”
So, in March 2011, Louis-Dreyfus brought his proposal to the Harlem Children Zone’s founder and then-CEO Geoffrey Canada, and to Chief Operating Officer Anne Williams-Isom, who is now running the organization. Louis-Dreyfus showed up without an entourage. “He was very unassuming, so on the ball, so well educated, and superconnected to otherness and to black people in this country,” recalls Williams-Isom. “Here was this 80-something white man coming into our office and talking about racism. Geoffrey and I both had our jaws on the floor.”..
http://online.barrons.com/articles/SB51367578116875004693704580486213844897270?tesla=y
Hmmmmmmmm
See Roland and ’em want something similar for Black folks, so that they can get their grift on.
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The Libre Initiative: A Koch-Funded Group Being Passed Off As Empowering Hispanics
Fox News is passing off the Koch-funded Libre Initiative as a grassroots organization founded “to empower Hispanics” and advance “liberty, freedom and prosperity.” In reality, the group urges Hispanics to support policies that experts say go “against their own interests” and “disenfranchise Hispanic voters.”
The Libre Initiative was founded in 2011 and claims to be a “non-partisan, non-profit grassroots organization that advances the principles and values of economic freedom to empower the U.S. Hispanic community.” The group “has a presence in eight states” and “plans to expand to Wisconsin and North Carolina this year and increase its staff by about 30 percent ahead of 2016.”
Fox has portrayed the group as the product of “a coalition of Hispanic leadership organizations.” But Libre is staffed by veteran Republican operatives, and the group has received over $10 million in funding from oil billionaires Charles and David Koch. Libre has admitted its message “aligns more with Republicans” and “with the principles and ideas of Charles and David Koch.”..
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/03/02/the-libre-initiative-a-koch-funded-group-being/202450
No, they didn’t offer fairness. If they had, they would have run towards the President, instead of AWAY from him
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Centrist Dems ready strike against Warren wing
…Privately, moderate Democrats in the Clinton tradition say they have been working behind the scenes to change the party’s message.
Leaders at three centrist groups — the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), the New Democrat Network (NDN) and Third Way — arranged a series of meetings with moderates after the disastrous midterm elections to “discuss the future of the party,” according to a source close to the NDC.
“Democrats ought to avoid the danger of talking about only redistribution and not enough about economic growth,” said PPI President and founder Will Marshall, who addressed House Democrats during their Philadelphia retreat in January. “Economic growth is a precondition to reducing inequality. You can’t redistribute wealth that you’re not generating.
“There’s a lot of sympathy for that view in the pragmatic-wing of the party,” he added.
Gabe Horwitz, director of Third Way’s economic program, said moderates have been arguing the case for rebranding the Democratic Party around “the middle class and middle-class prosperity.”
“In the last election, Democrats, as a party, offered a message of fairness. Voters responded, and they responded really negatively,” Horwitz said. “Democrats offered fairness, and voters wanted prosperity and growth.”…
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/234224-centrist-dems-ready-strike-against-warren-wing
The many negative, disrespectful and destructive precedents being set just to undermine and sabotage the current sitting President of these United States, will come back to bite the very same people who’ve hatched them and those who loudly cheered them on – or quietly sniggered and concurred. They think they can, but they won’t be able to reverse any of it when their favored candidate eventually becomes president. The flood gates have been thrown wide open and there won’t be any re-writing of the rules in the future.There’s no going back ever, and sadly, it’s our country and democracy that’ll be the loser for it.
it’s been the GOP/KOCH BOUGHT & PAID FOR CONGRESS’s goal all along to destroy our GOVERNMENT & DEMOCRACY.
That’s what I’ve been saying. This kind of sh!t never gets rolled back, just taken to the next level.
Netanyahu’s Takeover Bid
Posted: 03/01/2015 10:34 pm EST Updated: 1 hour ago
The speech that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, will deliver to Congress on March 3rd aims to scuttle an agreement on nuclear inspections and technology between Iran and the United States. Netanyahu would like to sow a suspicion between these countries so fraught and durable that it will also prevent any possible future agreement. For that purpose he will restate his drastic and persistent belief on the subject. To permit Iran to go beyond the most primitive use of its nuclear facilities would pose an “existential threat” to Israel.
Netanyahu has given America several final chances to dispose of this existential threat. Each time, he announced that Iran would attack Israel within months if the US did not bomb Iran first; more than once, he said that Israel would attack Iran unassisted if Americans were blind to the emergency. But the Iranian attack on Israel has never come. The Israeli solo attack on Iran has never been tried. Meanwhile, it has become clear that no regimen of inspection, no matter how penetrating and rigorous, could satisfy Netanyahu of an adequate Iranian compliance. What he asks is really the surrender of Iran’s advanced technology: a surrender that would seal its consent to be a second-rate regional power, subordinate to the will of Israel.
In his attempt to choke off the latest negotiations, Netanyahu has followed the pattern that led him to urge the United States to bomb, invade, and occupy Iraq. This, he said, would bring peace to the entire region. Similar pressure, some of it again traceable to Netanyahu, backed the proposal that the U.S. lead a multinational mission against Syria in order to depose the Assad government. This, it was said, would save that country and stabilize the region. War with Iraq, war with Iran, war with Syria — there is a conspicuous common thread in all of Netanyahu’s proposed measures for a lasting peace.
His method of persuasion is always the same. A sham emergency is used to justify breaking off an impending agreement or launching a new war. But the case for emergency with Iran depends on his private theory that Iran is a “suicide nation” — that as soon as it develops a nuclear weapon, it will use the weapon to destroy Israel and precipitate its own destruction. Netanyahu has continued to hold this theory against the opposing testimony of many leaders of Israeli intelligence and state security. That they have publicly disputed his judgment on Iran shows how reckless they consider his adventurism to be.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/netanyahus-takeover-bid_b_6780986.html
I’m just so furious. Why on earth does AIPAC wield so much power over our politicians and by extension, our country? Why do we go prostrating before AIPAC, begging for understanding when it is the Israeli prime minister they back who’s disrespecting our President, our country and our democracy?
Just witness Bibi Netanyahu’s arrogance this morning as he was treated to a hero’s welcome by an audience that obviously puts Israel and its brazen and manipulative p.m over the best interests of not just the United States, but the entire world.
FUCK BIBI!
That is ALL.
Arapaho415 @arapaho415
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AZ asksSCOTUS to allow only state lawmakers, not voters or commissions, to draw CongressDistricts #WhyElectionsMatter
http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-ln-supreme-court-ruling-could-impact-congressional-districts-in-california-20150301-story.html …
11:51 PM – 1 Mar 2015
https://twitter.com/conradhackett/status/572172167393103872/photo/1
Christie quietly reaps Obamacare budget benefits
ANDREW SEIDMAN, INQUIRER TRENTON BUREAU
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, March 1, 2015, 11:59 PM
POSTED: Sunday, March 1, 2015, 3:01 AM
Gov. Christie’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 assumes hundreds of millions of dollars in savings achieved through the expansion of Medicaid under President Obama’s health-care law.
But in a budget address last week devoted almost entirely to the costs of public employees’ pensions, Christie notably did not mention how much the Affordable Care Act has helped New Jersey residents and the state’s tight finances.
Two days after his budget address in Trenton, the Republican governor traveled to Maryland for a conference of conservative activists, where attendance was all but mandatory for 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls. The vociferous opposition to the health-care law there might explain why Christie isn’t trumpeting his partial acceptance of Obamacare at home.
“Obamacare is a train wreck,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a crowd favorite, said at the gathering, “and that’s actually not fair to train wrecks.”
“We must repeal every single word of Obamacare,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said to applause. “Not a little bit, but all of it.”
Such rhetoric is likely to ratchet up as the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that challenges federal subsidies for people in 37 states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which did not establish their own insurance exchanges.
A ruling against the Obama administration could affect health insurance for more than 200,000 New Jersey residents who gained subsidies through the federal marketplace and raise the cost of premiums for others. A ruling is expected in June. The case doesn’t involve Medicaid, the government-funded health-care program for the poor.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20150301_Christie_quietly_reaps_Obamacare_budget_benefits.html#K09rGUCHvoewLkgs.99
Justice Department to Fault Ferguson Police, Seeing Racial Bias in Traffic Stops
By MATT APUZZO
MARCH 1, 2015
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has nearly completed a highly critical report accusing the police in Ferguson, Mo., of making discriminatory traffic stops of African-Americans that created years of racial animosity leading up to an officer’s shooting of a black teenager last summer, law enforcement officials said.
According to several officials who have been briefed on the report’s conclusions, the report criticizes the city for disproportionately ticketing and arresting African-Americans and relying on the fines to balance the city’s budget. The report, which is expected to be released as early as this week, will force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department or face being sued by it on civil rights charges. Either way, the result is likely to be significant changes inside the Ferguson Police Department, which is at the center of a national debate over race and policing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/us/justice-department-report-to-fault-police-in-ferguson.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1
Jenna Johnson ✔ @wpjenna
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BREAKING: Sources say Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) to retire from Senate. http://wpo.st/20460
8:15 AM – 2 Mar 2015
Pretty Foot @PrettyFootWoman
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Thomas Roberts new show starts today/His first guest ? Donald Trump.
MSNBC’s race to the bottom continues… via Linda at the Obama Diary
8:49 AM – 2 Mar 2015
I’ve always intensely disliked that Thomas Roberts guy. He just rubs me the wrong way. I just don’t see how he goes from 30 minutes of poor ratings to being rewarded with two hours of prime afternoon hours? Who’s his audience, and how exactly is he going to pull in ratings better than his morning slot or even marginally as decent as the programs he’s displacing?
https://twitter.com/arapaho415/status/571299928493797376/photo/1
Kerry warns Netanyahu against revealing details of Iran deal
US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned Benjamin
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, against revealing details of a
possible nuclear agreement with Iran.
Netanyahu is in Washington and is slated to address a joint session of Congress on March 3.
Kerry stopped short of mentioning Netanyahu by name, but he told reporters in the Swiss city of Geneva that he was concerned by reports that “selective details” of the emerging accord could be made public, AFP reports.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/03/02/399880/Kerry-warns-Netanyahu-over-Iran-deal
LAPD KILLS UNARMED MAN ON SKID ROW
A video posted online captured a group of Los Angeles police officers in a confrontation with a man who they shot and killed on Sunday. Posted on Facebook, the video shows officers struggling with the man on a littered sidewalk before they opened fire. Cmdr. Andrew Smith said the man “began fighting and physically resisting the officers” and that there was a struggle over one of the officers’ weapons.
Two of the officers and a sergeant fired at the man, who was later pronounced dead at a hospital, Smith said. It was not immediately clear how many shots were fired but five gunshots in total are heard on the recording. The officers were responding to a robbery call, Smith added. Police also said a Taser was deployed during the altercation, but was deemed “ineffective.” Authorities have identified the man but it is unclear if he was homeless. Two of the officers involved were treated and released for injuries, according to Smith. Authorities are investigating the video to understand if the police officers warned the man before firing. The video can be seen here but, be warned, it is extremely graphic
http://elink.thedailybeast.com/4e555ee3e018bee76c3458202c7dw.3r2l/VPRhLEmOzqEnAcjlB149f
he was on Skid Row.
He was unarmed.
How come the police just can’t subdue someone?
The police in this country have lost their minds. How are we better than any 3rd world country with the widespread brutality and corruption perpetrated by our tax payer funded police departments?
Tell it!
Good Morning Everyone
Good Morning, Everyone!
Morning!
Mariah! Dang, where do you find these pics, Rikyrah? They are awesome.