Brooks & Dunn was an American country music duo consisting of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, who were both vocalists and songwriters. The duo was founded in 1990 through the suggestion of Tim DuBois. Before the foundation, both members were solo recording artists. Brooks wrote number one singles for John Conlee, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Highway 101; both he and Dunn also charted two solo singles apiece in the 1980s, with Brooks also releasing an album for Capitol Records in 1989.
Signed to Arista Nashville in 1991, the duo recorded ten studio albums, one Christmas album, and three compilation albums for the label. They also released fifty singles, of which twenty went to number one on the Hot Country Songs charts and nineteen more reached top ten. Two of these number-one songs, “My Maria” (a cover of the B.W. Stevenson song) and “Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You“, were the top country songs of 1996 and 2001, respectively, according to the Billboard Year-End charts.
https://twitter.com/thetoast2015/status/587090414945075200
Chicago Prepares to Pay $5,000,000 to Family of Teen Shot 16 Times by Cop
A proposed settlement of $5 million to the mother of Laquan McDonald, 17, is scheduled to be discussed Monday.
BY: LYNETTE HOLLOWAY
Posted: April 11 2015 11:33 AM
Chicago officials are prepared to approve a $5 million settlement with the family of a 17-year-old black youth who was fatally wounded after being shot 16 times by a police officer on the Southwest Side, reports the Chicago Tribune.
The settlement with Tina Hunter, the mother of Laquan McDonald, is scheduled to be discussed at Monday’s monthly Finance Committee meeting at City Hall, according to an agenda for the meeting posted online Friday, the Tribune writes.
The family has not filed a lawsuit, but Hunter is the administrator of her son’s estate in Cook County probate court.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/04/chicago_prepares_to_pay_5_000_000_to_family_of_laquan_mcdonald_who_was_shot.html?wpisrc=mostpopular
https://twitter.com/black_ishABC/status/587037416495669249/photo/1
https://twitter.com/celiaweise/status/585784988290969600
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/587081987824947200
rolandsmartin ✔ @rolandsmartin
Article says Obama will be scarce in Ohio. Uh, white, blue collar voters are not the only ones in Ohio! Not smart. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/587081987824947200 …
Retweeted by PragmaticObotsUnite
rolandsmartin ✔ @rolandsmartin
Team @HillaryClinton should be VERY careful about reducing Pres Obama to a Black surrogate. This WILL backfire. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/587081987824947200 …
Retweeted by PragmaticObotsUnite
rolandsmartin ✔ @rolandsmartin
It’s offensive to Obama supporters to reduce him to campaigning for Clinton specifically in heavy Black counties https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/587081987824947200 …
rolandsmartin ✔ @rolandsmartin
Don’t tick off Obama’s supporters, especially Black women. Team @HillaryClinton better be REAL careful! https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/587081987824947200 …
Retweeted by PragmaticObotsUnite
HILLARY CLINTON CANNOT WIN THE PRESIDENCY WITHOUT THE BLACK VOTE.
PERIOD
https://twitter.com/SunnyBanks_/status/587058446907928577/photo/1
https://twitter.com/PragObots/status/587088961270484992/photo/1
LOL Hillary needs to USHER her ASS on home and play grandma to Charlotte.
https://twitter.com/KiyoDandre/status/587054071636480001?s=09
uh huh
uh huh
……………………..
Fla. Prosecutors Drop More Than 36 Cases Linked To Racist Cops
The Broward County State Attorney’s Office has abandoned more than three dozen criminal cases connected to four former Fort Lauderdale police officers entangled in a racism scandal.
BY: LYNETTE HOLLOWAY
Posted: April 11 2015 9:06 AM
Prosecutors in Broward County, Fla., have dropped more than three dozen criminal cases connected to four former police officers embroiled in a racism scandal, according to CBS Miami.
The move comes after three Fort Lauderdale police officers, Jason Holding, 31, James Wells, 30, and Christopher Sousa, 25, were fired last month after a five-month investigation into a racist video and a litany of racist text messages. A fourth officer, Alex Alvarez, 22, resigned in January.
Since then, prosecutors have been reviewing arrests made by the officers and confirmed Thursday that they “plan to drop 17 misdemeanor cases where the officers were the main officer involved in the case and they have already dropped 12 felony cases, eight misdemeanor cases and one juvenile case,” the report notes.
CBS Miami says Broward State Attorney’s Office spokesman Ron Ishoy said that all of the defendants in the cases are black and that the felony charges include such offenses as aggravated assault with a firearm, drug possession, grand theft and unlawful possession of someone’s personal identification.
“This is a serious matter,” Ishoy said, according to the television news outlet. “We continue to review each case in which these former policemen were the principal officers involved in the arrest. We are dropping charges against the defendants where it is appropriate.”
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/04/florida_prosecutors_drop_more_than_36_cases_linked_to_racist_cops.html?wpisrc=mostpopular
NY Teen Overcomes ‘Dark-Skinned’ Taunts to Earn $10,000 Scholarship
Nosa Akol, 17, was called “burnt toast,” among other hurtful names, but now the Binghamton, N.Y., teen will be the recipient of the 2015 4-H Youth in Action Award, which includes a $10,000 scholarship.
“Burnt toast.”
“Dark as night.”
“Your mother kept you in the oven too long.”
These were the kinds of racially charged comments that Nosa Akol walked into on her very first day of middle school, which would mark the first time in her life she’d ever been subjected to bullying.
The results were damaging. Nosa admits to The Root that insecurities started to take over. “I felt really insecure,” the 17-year-old student from Binghamton, N.Y., recalls. “Middle school [is] kind of where people start breaking off into their groups, and that’s where I first experienced bullying, and that’s where my insecurities began taking over and just really started to deteriorate me mentally, emotionally and physically.”
Originally from South Sudan, Nosa, who has a rich, dark skin tone, came to the U.S. with her parents when she was 5 years old.
“Growing up in Sudan, everyone there has the same skin tone; no one points that out. And then, growing up in America, everyone has a different skin tone, so [my parents] wouldn’t, even if I had told them about it, there wouldn’t be any understanding. They wouldn’t really know how to deal with it,” she explains, saying that for this reason, she kept the bullying bottled up inside her.
But Nosa’s story is one of triumph and overcoming her insecurities. The Binghamton High School student, who joined Citizen U 4-H as a freshman, has been announced as the 2015 recipient of the 4-H Youth in Action Award, the highest honor in the organization.
She was chosen out of more than 80 other candidates because of her phenomenal story, in which she overcame her personal struggles while empowering her peers and facilitating positive change in her community. Nosa will be honored at the National 4-H Council’s sixth annual Legacy Awards on April 23 in Washington, D.C.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/04/ny_teen_overcomes_dark_skinned_taunts_to_earn_10_000_scholarship.html?wpisrc=topstories
The Young Hopes of Kenya, Laid in the Grave
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
APRIL 10, 2015
GATUNDU, Kenya — The cars swung out onto Thika Road, one by one.
They moved together, in a line on Friday morning, past miles of apartment buildings, up into the hills, deeper and deeper into rich green farmland. In front, a hearse carried the body of Angela Nyokabi Githakwa, 21, one of the 142 students massacred last week at a Kenyan university.
As one of the first in her family to go to a national university, Ms. Githakwa’s prospects had been swiftly rising — just like Kenya’s.
Her generation witnessed the end of dictatorship, the growth of democracy, an incredible economic expansion, Kenya’s netting gold medals at the Olympics and a recent Oscar. The country even played a hand in producing the first African-American president of the United States.
Just as Ms. Githakwa was taking baby steps, Somalia was imploding. Its government had collapsed. Its economy flatlined. Militant groups flooded the streets. Many children born in Somalia at this time did not get to go to school; they picked up guns.
As the years passed, and Ms. Githakwa was preparing for her high school exams and General Electric and Google were investing millions in operations in Kenya, the Shabab Islamist militant group was bullwhipping women next door, trying to establish a seventh-century caliphate.
Kenya and Somalia — two nations that achieved independence around the same time and share a border — could not have been headed in more opposite directions.
“We had no idea what was happening over there,” said Dennis Mwaura, one of Ms. Githakwa’s friends. “Somalia wasn’t something we studied in school. We didn’t think about it much — until this.”
Last week, Kenya’s promise generation collided with Somalia’s generation chaos. Four young militants on a suicide mission claimed by the Shabab burst into Garissa University College and shot to death scores of students, sparing the Muslims and telling the Christians to lie down, eyes closed.
The Shabab are Kenya’s new plague. One of the most murderous offshoots of Al Qaeda, they have claimed responsibility for slaughtering hundreds of Kenyans in recent years, striking street markets, country buses, rural police posts, a rock quarry and the country’s fanciest mall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/11/world/africa/kenya-mourns-students-from-its-generation-of-promise.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article
uh huh
good question
…………………
Where Are the Teachers of Color?
By MOTOKO RICHAPRIL 11, 2015
GROWING up in the 1970s and ’80s in the Chicago suburb of Blue Island, Ill., Gladys Marquez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, never once had a Hispanic teacher. Sometimes, when trying to explain to her parents her plans for college — or even why she wanted to play softball or try out for the cheerleading team — she wished she had a mentor who shared her background.
“It would have been nice to have a teacher in the classroom who could help you bridge over and help you become a better version of yourself,” she said in a recent interview.
Now Ms. Marquez is herself a high school teacher in Blue Island. But while nearly half of the students at the school are Hispanic, Ms. Marquez is still one of a small minority of Latino teachers in the building.
Across the country, government estimates show that minority students have become a majority in public schools. Yet the proportion of teachers who are racial minorities has not kept up: More than 80 percent of teachers are white.
In some school districts, the disparities are striking. In Boston, for example, there is just one Hispanic teacher for every 52 Latino students, and one black teacher for every 22 African-American students. The ratio of white teachers to white students: one to fewer than three.
In New York City, where more than 85 percent of the students are racial minorities, 60 percent of the teachers are white. In Washington, black teachers represent close to half of all teachers — in a district where two-thirds of the students are black — but the Latino teaching force lags behind the growing Hispanic enrollment.
Few would say that a black child needs to be taught by a black teacher or that a Latino or Asian child cannot thrive in a class with a white teacher. “Ultimately, parents are going to respect anybody who they think cares for their kids,” said Andres Antonio Alonso, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “But if there are no people who somehow mirror the parents and the kids, then I think there could be a problem.”
A few studies have suggested a link between academic performance and children being taught by a teacher of their own race, although the effects are quite small. According to Anna Jacob Egalite, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard and an author of a new study, the largest improvements amounted to about one month of additional learning within a school year.
Other researchers who have found similar academic effects say more than test scores are at stake. “When minority students see someone at the blackboard that looks like you, it helps you reconceive what’s possible for you,” said Thomas S. Dee, a professor of education at Stanford University.
With the population of Hispanic students exploding relatively recently, it will take some time for the population of Latino college graduates — and future teachers — to catch up.
Fewer African-Americans, particularly black men, graduate from college than whites, shrinking the pool of prospective black teachers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/sunday-review/where-are-the-teachers-of-color.html?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article
The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison
At 84, she sits comfortably as one of the greatest authors in American history, even as her uncompromising dream for black literature seems farther away than ever.
By RACHEL KAADZI GHANSA
HAPRIL 8, 2015
Not too long ago, Toni Morrison sat in the small kitchen attached to the studio where she was recording the audiobook for her newest novel, “God Help the Child,” telling a roomful of strangers stories that I will never forget. The studio, a small, refurbished barn in Katonah, N.Y., was more than a hundred years old, but only a few rustic touches remained, like a sliding barn door and knotty pine floors. A solid kitchen table had been laid with fresh fruits, muffins and tins of jam. Beams of sunlight reflected off the blindingly white snow outside the glass window. A young woman from Random House kept mentioning her sunglasses, how it was bright enough to wear them inside. Everyone giggled at her nervous chatter, but they seemed to be mostly laughing at her brave attempt to make small talk in the presence of Toni Morrison.
The only person not bothered by the glare and the room’s awkward giddiness was Morrison herself, who sat at the head of the table, in a thin, black linen caftan, a wool beret and with a sizable diamond ring on one hand. Morrison wears her age like an Elizabethan regent or a descendant of Othello via Lorain, Ohio. Long before we met, I read that she could be impervious at times, coquettish at others. What was evident that day in Katonah was that had she so much as lifted a finger, every person in the room — the studio’s director and his engineer, her P.R. person from Knopf, her publisher and two young women from the audiobooks division of Random House — would have stopped what they were doing to ask if they could assist. Not because she required it, but because the unspoken consensus was that the person who produced the 11 novels that Morrison has written, the person those books came out of, was deserving of the fuss.
It takes a long time to record a book. Many authors use actors. But that’s not how Morrison hears her own sentences, so she does these tedious sessions herself. That day, she would go into a narrow, low-lit booth, carrying a small pillow for her back, sit down and read from her new book for hours. We followed along in the control room, listening to her barely-a-whisper voice read from a chapter called “Sweetness”: “It’s not my fault. So you can’t blame me. I didn’t do it and have no idea how it happened.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/magazine/the-radical-vision-of-toni-morrison.html?src=me&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Most%20Emailed&pgtype=article
A New Phase in Anti-Obama Attacks
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
APRIL 11, 2015
It is a peculiar, but unmistakable, phenomenon: As Barack Obama’s presidency heads into its twilight, the rage of the Republican establishment toward him is growing louder, angrier and more destructive.
Republican lawmakers in Washington and around the country have been focused on blocking Mr. Obama’s agenda and denigrating him personally since the day he took office in 2009. But even against that backdrop, and even by the dismal standards of political discourse today, the tone of the current attacks is disturbing. So is their evident intent — to undermine not just Mr. Obama’s policies, but his very legitimacy as president.
It is a line of attack that echoes Republicans’ earlier questioning of Mr. Obama’s American citizenship. Those attacks were blatantly racist in their message — reminding people that Mr. Obama was black, suggesting he was African, and planting the equally false idea that he was secretly Muslim. The current offensive is slightly more subtle, but it is impossible to dismiss the notion that race plays a role in it.
Perhaps the most outrageous example of the attack on the president’s legitimacy was a letter signed by 47 Republican senators to the leadership of Iran saying Mr. Obama had no authority to conclude negotiations over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Try to imagine the outrage from Republicans if a similar group of Democrats had written to the Kremlin in 1986 telling Mikhail Gorbachev that President Ronald Reagan did not have the authority to negotiate a nuclear arms deal at the Reykjavik summit meeting that winter.
There is no functional difference between that example and the Iran talks, except that the congressional Republican caucus does not like Mr. Obama and wants to deny him any policy victory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/a-new-phase-in-anti-obama-attacks.html?ad-keywords=socialopinion&smid=tw-nytopinion&_r=0
Why Obama went to Jamaica
04/09/15 10:50 AM—UPDATED 04/09/15 02:02 PM
By Steve Benen
President Obama will meet this week with leaders from throughout the Hemisphere at the Summit of the Americas, hosted this year in Panama, where attendees are expected to cover quite a bit of ground on energy policy, security, and economic measures.
But before the U.S. leader reaches the Central American country, Obama is making some stops, including a visit yesterday to Jamaica. It was his first visit as president, and only the second sitting president to visit the Caribbean nation since its independence.
It does raise the question, though, of why Obama made the trip, if there was no official reason to stop in Jamaica. The White House characterized it as little more than a goodwill excursion in which the president played tourist, but I think there’s a little more to it.
The New York Times published a piece exactly three years ago this week about international affairs that continues to be of great interest.
A brand new $35 million stadium opened here in the Bahamas a few weeks ago, a gift from the Chinese government.
The tiny island nation of Dominica has received a grammar school, a renovated hospital and a sports stadium, also courtesy of the Chinese. Antigua and Barbuda got a power plant and a cricket stadium, and a new school is on its way. The prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago can thank Chinese contractors for the craftsmanship in her official residence.
China’s economic might has rolled up to America’s doorstep in the Caribbean, with a flurry of loans from state banks, investments by companies and outright gifts from the government in the form of new stadiums, roads, official buildings, ports and resorts in a region where the United States has long been a prime benefactor.
And this most definitely includes Jamaica, where a Chinese company has invested heavily in sugar estates, and where the Chinese government has loaned Jamaica several hundred million dollars in loans for infrastructure.
We are, of course, far removed from a Cold War environment in which two global superpowers battled for influence and alliances around the globe, but the broader dynamic is not dissimilar – it’s clear that China sees itself as a 21st-century power, and it’s eager to make inroads just about everywhere, including the Caribbean.
This is a part of American foreign policy that isn’t often discussed, which Republicans tend to ignore, and which the White House cares deeply about in a very quiet way.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-obama-went-jamaica
It’s all about them. Their entire woman for president thing starts and ends with Hillary for them. And if Hillary flunks, it’ll become about Chelsea or some other white woman they handpick. As far as they’re concerned, every other woman is unworthy, deserving only and subject to ridicule and condescension by the very same people who scream ‘misogyny’ whenever Hillary is challenged (notice nobody has ever used that word to describe the many attacks on Mrs Obama. They even dismiss the blatant racism), and argue it’s time for a ‘woman’. Woman in their context being Hillary and Hillary alone.
I just saw a HuffingtonPost clip with Marc Lamont Hill, Roy Sekoff, Bob Saget and Isaiah Washington. They’re talking Hillary announcing tomorrow, and Isaiah Washington chimes in to say he’d like to see a Hillary/Michelle Obama ticket. The PUMAs Saget and Sekoff disapproved with Roy Sekoff condescendingly saying something to the effect maybe on black twitter.
As someone rightly pointed out, if Michelle Obama ever decides to return to the White House, it won’t be as Hillary’s or anyone else’s vice president.
As usual, we only serve a specific purpose. If people don’t understand that Hillary Clinton and her supporters have only contempt for you, for me and for everyone else who isn’t them, watch and see as their barely disguised contempt and still not contained condescension quickly unfurls if at any point we refuse to fall in line on her behalf, or they realize we’re not going to be supporting her. Right now, their half-arsed act of fake civility and unity designed to get us to all rally behind Hillary, aka ‘woman’, is killing them and they can barely contain their disdain and having to even remotely have to do this to get our support.
you speak the truth.
Thanks Rikyrah. There’s something simmering that we’ll all have to contend with sooner than later. The tricky matter of those who’ve been embracing of our first black President, but for whom deep down and even superficially, black lives and black dignity does not really matter or count for much. They may effusively support President Obama, but that’s it. Their embrace doesn’t even extend to his black wife, and certainly not to any other black people. Hillary will still get their support, and some are already trying to use President Obama’s polite praise of Hillary to justify and make their slick move for Hillary. you know them. You know them.
I say this to say that I’ve kept my eyes and my ears open. Followed closely and tried to carefully discern the basis for the why. In much the same way all our skinfolk aren’t our kinfolk, so too not all who’ve embraced our first black President, are on our side.
I know some wonder why I keep bringing up our First Lady. Well, as my very wise mother, a black woman married to my Jewish father for decades, who’s lived it and has seen it all and has very wisely explained to me, our First Lady is the metaphor for all black women at the moment. My mother says that as important as it is to pay close attention to how people respond to and treat our black President (say what they may, he’s got the power, and nobody will ever be able to take that or his 2 historic terms away), it is even more pertinent and instructive how they respond to and treat our black First Lady. She says the best test of any right now, is exactly that. I’ve since learned to take my cues about people based on their treatment of, and response to Mrs Obama. No matter how fleeting, how casual, or how jokingly.
I agree with you absolutely about all your points. I understand them clearly and hear you from here to the moon.
SPEAK.ON.IT.
Never once heard Emily’s list put out any clarion calls for the ugly, disrespect for First Lady Michelle Obama. FUCK all those PUMAs.
I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR HILLARY. I’ll write in a candidate, before I ever blacken an oval for her or any GOP candidate.
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/587029100692385792
Since I was busy most of the week, I’ve been going back and checking out the past week on the blogs.
Please go to this post at TOD and read the story told in the tweets. It will have you LYAO.
http://theobamadiary.com/2015/04/10/140-characters-of-lols-to-end-the-week/
it begins with this tweet. the story is HILARIOUS
https://twitter.com/KashannKilson/status/585957829791461376
get ready for the tears
https://twitter.com/mashable/status/586952075231232000
https://youtu.be/BM-_6L8DvIM
My heart is so joyful for her!!!! and her mom and family!!
This is so beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. Her kids are great kids too..
https://twitter.com/rbsw/status/586929404896415745
https://youtu.be/UA5NEbW9hCc
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/586935775679352834
https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/586618424199090177
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/587001446782013441
Anyone watching Michael Ealy on The Following?
He’s been a great creepy killer.
‘It’s Racist As Hell’: Inside St. Louis County’s Predatory Night Courts
BY ERICA HELLERSTEIN
POSTED ON APRIL 10, 2015 AT 9:01 AM UPDATED: APRIL 10, 2015 AT 5:08 PM
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MISSOURI — In 2004, Sean Bailey recalls, he was driving through the streets of St. Louis County en route to a party, when he saw a familiar black-and-white car out of the corner of his eye. He reached for his phone to warn the friend he was following to slow down, but it was too late; the cop blared his siren and pulled up behind him. Bailey, who had a warrant stemming from a failure to appear in court for unpaid traffic tickets, felt a familiar pang of anxiety. He knew exactly what was going to happen next.
“I was like, I’m going to get into this little orange jumpsuit and sit in this cold cell for a couple of days here,” the bespectacled St. Louis, Missouri native recalls, lighting a cigarette and blowing out a thin ribbon of smoke.
The officer ran Bailey’s name and discovered he had a warrant. Bailey was arrested and sent to jail in Florissant, a municipality in northern St. Louis County bordering Ferguson. When Bailey stepped inside his cell, he was greeted with a gust of cold air. It was chilly outside — maybe 20 degrees, he speculates — “and they had the AC blasting.” The interior was grimy, and “there were a lot of guys in there, beating on the cells and calling for [help] and nobody was coming.”
Bailey sits comfortably on the stoop of a red-brick apartment in North St. Louis County while his daughter, who is groggy with a cold, naps inside. The 35-year-old single father is homeless, and for the moment he’s staying in a relative’s place on a noisy street dotted with crumbling corner stores. Since 1995, Bailey estimates he’s been jailed upwards of 20 times throughout St. Louis County — tallying up to more than two months behind bars — for warrants stemming from traffic violations. At least once, he was subject to what some call “riding the circuit” — shuttled to jail in a handful of municipalities back-to-back after the officer who arrested him notified police in other municipalities where he had warrants. Bailey, diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and prone to regular panic attacks, says he once faked a heart attack in his cell just to get medical care.
“A lot of people were locked up with diabetes, high blood pressure, and they weren’t able to get their medicine. I had been locked up for days and I didn’t have my medication,” he pauses. “The paramedics got there and were like ‘he’s not having a heart attack but you might not want to keep him there anymore.’ It’s very stressful.”
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/04/10/3643582/worse-ferguson-week-st-louis-countys-egregious-night-courts/
Found at BJ via LGM:
Competition Improves the Product
by BooMan
Fri Apr 10th, 2015 at 10:46:56 AM EST
In 2008, Barack Obama wrapped up the delegates he needed to be the Democratic nominee at a shockingly early point in the campaign, which is something that Al Giordano and I never tired of pointing out. Our analyses of how the delegate system worked proved correct, as even a very strong finish by Hillary Clinton did nothing to improve her chances. She was finished before she knew what hit her. That didn’t keep her and her most ardent supporters from fighting, however. I found their detachment from reality irritating and their attacks on Obama to be dangerous fodder for any eventual Republican nominee to use against us.
On this latter point, I was wrong. It definitely helped, for example, to get the Jeremiah Wright controversy thoroughly aired during the primaries so that it was old news by the general election. Looking back, it’s very easy to see how much Obama improved as a debater over the course of the primary campaign, which benefited him greatly when he had to go toe-to-toe with John McCain. And, very importantly, Clinton’s refusal to give up forced Team Obama to organize in almost every state in the union, which probably put him over the top in both North Carolina and Indiana in November. Clinton’s interminable campaign didn’t just air the dirty laundry early and help Obama perform in debates, it probably led directly to him winning two states against McCain. The competitive primaries and caucuses also boosted Democratic voter registration and engagement all across the country. In retrospect, it’s hard to see any negatives, and certainly I can’t see any negatives that would outweigh the benefits for Obama and the party as a whole.
Maybe Brian Beutler is right that there has never been a failed Senate candidate who looked back and wished that they’d had a spirited primary to help lift them to victory, but there have been some successful ones who credit strong challengers for improving their chances in the general. And I think President Obama would acknowledge all the things I listed above. Anyone who is saying that Hillary Clinton needs a strong primary challenger to toughen up her calluses is only looking at part of the picture.
Beutler makes an important point that Clinton, like any Broadway star, needs an understudy in case she literally or figuratively breaks a leg. Choose your analogy about eggs and baskets, or whatever suits your fancy. But most people who want a challenge to Clinton actually want an alternative to Clinton. Then there’s another group that wants their particular interests to be aired in the campaign, either because they want to influence Clinton or because they think their issues are popular and will help Clinton win by improving the Democratic brand. Finally, there’s the group that thinks Clinton needs to work her way through the answers to tough questions about her record in a primary so that she doesn’t get ambushed in September.
All of these things matter. I’d argue that voter engagement, voter registration, and party building matter a lot, too.
What are the upsides of a waltz to the Philadelphia nominating stage with only nominal competition? Maybe she’ll have more money to play with in the general, but even that can be exaggerated.
On the whole, a real nomination fight would be a good thing, and not simply because Clinton needs an understudy.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2015/4/10/104656/051
Why Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Frightens Democrats
By Brian Beutler @brianbeutler
Hillary Clinton, who reportedly will announce her candidacy this weekend, is such a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination that she more or less cleared the field simply by behaving like someone who was going to run. That’s as much a testament to her political talent as it is to her nominal association with the boom times of the late 1990s. But it’s also the source of genuine anxiety among liberals, who worry she’ll enter the general election rusty and untested unless someone formidable dares to challenge her in the primary.
This sounds like a reasonable point, until you apply the logic to all other major political races, where favored candidates labor tirelessly to avoid primary campaigns, whenever possible. No losing Senate candidate has ever looked back and wished he’d endured a primary to loosen him up, and no winning Senate candidate ever has ever attributed his victory to the months he spent doing battle with members of his own party. Senate Republicans attribute the two recent election cycles they spent in the minority to undisciplined activists backing primary challengers, and attribute their recent victory to hobbling those activists.
In Hillary Clinton’s case, though, there’s still a good argument that the Democratic Party could use a contested primary this cycle: not to toughen Clinton’s calluses, but to build some redundancy into the presidential campaign. It may even be the case that some of these Democrats with rattled nerves are less anxious about Clinton’s prowess against Republicans than about the fact that all of the party’s hopes now rest on her shoulders. Her campaign has become a single point of failure for Democratic politics. If she wins in 2016, she won’t ride into office with big congressional supermajorities poised to pass progressive legislation. But if she loses, it will be absolutely devastating for liberalism.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121391/hillary-clinton-loss-would-be-devastating-democrats-liberalism
What No One is Saying About the Killings of Blacks in America
Audio: http://thebenjamindixonshow.com/what-no-one-is-saying-about-the-killings-of-blacks-in-america/
https://twitter.com/mydaughtersarmy/status/586973685778485248/photo/1
Yes, let’s re-tweet this, and also let the vets and their families know that when they vote for GOP, they vote for folks who don’t give two shits about VETERANS, but want their sons and daughters to go to WAR, any war that they can PROFIT from!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR9kO0u9L8I
Aubrey Stewart, youth advocate and a former Head Boy of Cornwall College, shared an embrace with President Obama after introducing the world leader at a Town Hall meeting at the University of the West Indies moments ago.
HEE HEE HEE
https://youtu.be/OaURm7qlN9w
In a remarkable vote of confidence from a Cuban leader, Castro added: ‘In my opinion, President Obama is an honest man.’
The remarks just hours before the pair are expected to hold a historic meeting on Saturday night.
The two leaders, who clasped hands yesterday at a brief encounter.
Latin America Raul Castro Delivers Historic Speech to Summit of the Americas
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Raul-Castro-Delivers-Historic-Speech-to-Summit-of-the-Americas-20150411-0016.html. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. http://www.teleSURtv.net/english
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4QGQQRn3TA
RIGHT WING HEADS EXPLODING!
GOOD!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Np_HS7JN8
Remember Hillary saying: “As far as I know.” When asked about Barack Obama’s birth certificate being legit?
This and so many other instances. And nothing’s changed for them really. They’re just playing along to ensure support for Hillary’s presidential aim.
Best line in 5 years of Grimm:
She’s a freaking hexenbeast?!?!?!
LMAOPMP
Y’all deserve some good news.
https://twitter.com/jarvisdeberry/status/586904923578753024
Most wonderful news, Liza! Thank you.
Yes, agreed, just as long as it isn’t Hillary or you Chelea!
Chelsea Clinton on a Female President: ‘Absolutely It’s Important’
by Meredith B. Kile 6:13 PM PDT, April 10, 2015
http://www.etonline.com/news/162613_chelsea_clinton_on_a_female_president_absolutely_it_s_important/
It’s all about them. Their entire woman for president thing starts and ends with Hillary for them. And if Hillary flunks, it’ll become about Chelsea or some other white woman they handpick. As far as they’re concerned, every other woman is undeserving and subject to ridicule and condescension by the very same people who scream ‘misogyny’ whenever Hillary is challenged, and argue it’s time for a ‘woman’. Woman in their context being Hillary and Hillary alone.
RUN JOE, RUN!!!!! PLEASE
ALL.OF.THIS
DOMESTIC TERRORISM
Hillary Clinton to Democrats: don’t you want to see a female president?
NO, ESPECIALLY YOU!
She thinks we’re idiots.
Liza, I will never ever forget, nor forgive Hillary for holding out before CONCEDING
Yeah, she was blindsided. She never believed anyone could challenge her until she came in third in Iowa. Then she bounced back in NH and got really, really ugly, something the Clintons don’t mind doing. Well, the Democrats are clearing the path and ramming her down our throats. I refuse to participate.
I’m not participating. No. I can’t.
So desperate and so obvious.
Walter Scott Homegoing thread is up!
Walter Scott’s obituary on legacy.com:
Walter Scott CHARLESTON – The relatives and friends of Mr. Walter Scott, and those of his parents, Elder Walter and Minister Judy G. Scott; his brothers, Anthony N. Scott and Rodney E. Scott, and his four children: Samantha, Sebastian Lamar, Walter Lamar, II, Miles Quincy Lamar, and special devoted friend Charlotte Jones are invited to attend his viewing on Friday, April 10, 2015 at Fielding Funeral Home, 122 Logan St. Charleston, SC. The funeral will be held on Saturday, April 11, 2015, 11am at W.O.R.D. Ministries Christian Center, 301 Cross Creek Road, Summerville, SC. The family wishes to extend a special thank you to Fielding Home for Funerals and Dickerson Mortuary for their professional service. Visit our guestbook at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ charleston
Published in Charleston Post & Courier on Apr. 10, 2015
Thank you, Liza. Would you please re-post on the Walter Scott Homegoing thread too?
Done.
Well, BW Stevenson wasn’t as cute as Brooks and Dunn, but the original “My Maria” is the best, IMHO. This was a favorite of mine way, way back in the day.
Liza, this was one of my favorites too! It’s classic.
https://twitter.com/petesouza/status/586866134466473984/photo/1
https://twitter.com/Schultz44/status/586873678861770752/photo/1
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/586826297780867073
Good Morning Everyone.
Off to swim and run errands
Good Morning, Everyone!
Good Morning, Rikyrah, Ametia and Everyone.
The funeral of Walter Scott is about to begin. Photos being tweeted by WCBD:
https://twitter.com/MeganDiceWCBD
https://twitter.com/deray/status/586916336116355072
Thank you, yahtzee!
YW, Ametia.
Deray just tweeted this:
deray mckesson @deray · 10m 10 minutes ago
Just informed that the family has asked that we do not post pictures from the funeral program handout. #WalterScott