Wednesday Open Thread | Classic Blues Week! | John Lee Hooker

It’s HUMP Day, Everyone! Hope you’re enjoying Blues week here at 3 Chics. For your listening pleasure, Mr. John Lee Hooker!

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jlh69

Wiki:  John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was a highly influential American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.  Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally a unique brand of country blues. He developed a ‘talking blues‘ style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his blues guitar playing and singing. His best known songs include “Boogie Chillen’” (1948), “I’m in the Mood” (1951) and “Boom Boom” (1962), the first two reaching R&B #1 in the Billboard charts.

The ORIGINAL-BOOM BOOM

JohnLeeHooker

John-Lee-Hooker

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64 Responses to Wednesday Open Thread | Classic Blues Week! | John Lee Hooker

  1. rikyrah says:

    What will happen when Harlem becomes white?
    While many black residents, old and new, are thankful for the new amenities that gentrification brings, others worry that an emerging brand of black pride could do away with the community’s politically nourished roots, writes Rose Hackman

    Harlem is gentrifying.

    Get off at 125th street’s A subway and walk south. As you go, you will spot luxury condominiums in between brownstones and walk-ups. If you want to, you can stop off at a designer flower store or a hat boutique. On your walk, you will almost certainly spot more than a few white, middle-class-looking faces – something that would have been inconceivable 20 years ago.

    Couples can now be spotted in and out of bars and restaurants along Frederick Douglass Boulevard, locally renamed “restaurant row”. Outside of 67 Orange Street, a small craft cocktail speakeasy, reality television crews have been known to ask customers to sign off releases so that their faces can be used on film. The bar is a staple of Harlem’s “new” renaissance, where young, hip, black customers have adopted local venues to spend their downtime.

    Gentrification means that demographics are changing, and Harlem is getting whiter. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of black residents fell notably, and white population share grew, particularly in central Harlem where white residents increased fivefold.

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/13/harlem-gentrification-new-york-race-black-white

    • Ametia says:

      Ha! We know their game. They had NOTHING from jump. They might have jazzed up a few of the EMOPROGS, and got some$$$. That’s about it.

  2. Ametia says:

    Keep digging, Jeb.

    These fools give the song “Send in the Clowns” new meaning. It’s been playing on a continuous loop, since 2008

    150513-jeb-bush-clarifies-iraq-comments-digs-himself-in-deeper

  3. rikyrah says:

    “The Rich Suffered More”: The Worst Of Fox News’ Poor-Shaming
    ALEXANDREA BOGUHN & HANNAH GROCH-BEGLEY

    Fox News is outraged that President Obama called out the network’s horrible record on covering poverty, insisting they are simply an “honest messenger.” Media Matters looks back on the worst of Fox’s attacks on low-income Americans.

    President Obama Calls Out Fox News For Disparaging Treatment Of The Poor

    President Obama: Fox News’ Coverage Of Poverty Suggests The Poor “Don’t Want To Work, Are Lazy.” President Obama called out Fox News for their slanted coverage of poverty while speaking at the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty at Georgetown University on May 12:

    THE PRESIDENT: And over the last 40 years, sadly, I think there’s been an effort to either make folks mad at folks at the top, or to be mad at folks at the bottom. And I think the effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leaches, don’t want to work, are lazy, are undeserving, got traction.

    And, look, it’s still being propagated. I mean, I have to say that if you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu — they will find folks who make me mad. I don’t know where they find them. (Laughter.) They’re like, I don’t want to work, I just want a free Obama phone — (laughter) — or whatever. And that becomes an entire narrative — right? — that gets worked up. And very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress — which is much more typical — who’s raising a couple of kids and is doing everything right but still can’t pay the bills. [Remarks by the President in Conversation on Poverty at Georgetown University, 5/12/15]

    Fox News Feigns Disbelief Over Criticism Of Their Poverty Coverage

    Fox Hosts: Our Coverage Is “Honest,” And Those Who Don’t Wish To Be Poor Should Get A Job. On May 13 Fox & Friends hosts and Fox Business host Stuart Varney discussed their confusion over why Obama criticized the network for slanted coverage of those in poverty. Varney claimed Fox News was simply “an honest messenger.” Co-host Steve Doocy agreed, lamenting that if those in poverty “don’t want to be poor,” they should just get a job. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/13/15]

    http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/05/13/the-rich-suffered-more-the-worst-of-fox-news-po/203640

    • majiir says:

      The b*st*rds on Fox News know exactly what they’ve done and why they’ve done it. Their main reasons for disparaging the poor and telling endless lies about them are to force cuts in social welfare programs and to protect their own income. The bottom-line is that they want to pay as little as possible in taxes and have persuaded their viewers to help them do it.

    • Ametia says:

      Don’t FUCK WITH PBO’S BASE.

      And they should know exactly who is the DA BASE

    • eliihass says:

      The person at the end of that @Democrats Twitter handle is Mo Eillethee, rabid Clintonite turned DNC Communications Director. Never ‘communicated’ anything in support of President Obama. He operates in much the same way Jennifer Palmieri ‘communicated’ on behalf of President Obama at the White House.

      • Ametia says:

        Eliihass, you know all the ‘USUAL SUSPECTS’ don’t you?

      • Ametia says:

        How one can tell when white folks are racists

        They call you RACIST when you call out their RACISM.

        Some are scared to even talk about it. Ever notice the issue of race when it comes up and TV stations have their panels? Who is in the majority? BLACK FOLKS.

        Some White folks don’t want to have a serious conversation about RACE, because they would have to look at the fake construct designed just for them to live & prosper, while everyone else is told to take a flying leap.

    • Ametia says:

      Eventually, true colors do bleed out, and some of them leave an UGLY STAIN. Warren is no exception. Don’t put any of these folks up on pedestals, because they will come crashing down.

    • Ametia says:

      I’m sorry but something about this derailed Amtrak STINKS.

      Going at 100 MPH?!! WTF

      Collateral damage here to meet someone or party’s objectives?

  4. The POPE ROCKS!

  5. Hey Chicas!

  6. Ametia says:

    By Scott Higham, Steven Rich, Alice Crites and Katie Park
    May 13, 2015

    Report: U.S. lawmakers had trip funded by Azerbaijan

    The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference in Baku for 10 members of Congress and some of their spouses in 2013, according to a report by the Office of Congressional Ethics. Lawmakers received a number of gifts, but only one lawmaker reported them on his financial disclosure form. The lawmakers said they were unaware of the oil company’s involvement and thought the gifts did not meet the reporting threshold.

    One additional lawmaker attended while on a separate congressional delegation and did not have his expenses covered by the conference.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/azerbaijan-ethics-report/

  7. TyrenM says:

    Good Morning 3Chics,
    I’m hoping the TPP noise is the Senate fighting to get it right. That said, Senators Warren and Brown… are burnt up. I hope they’re both primaried and voted out next election.

  8. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Shaun King @ShaunKing · 1h 1 hour ago
    Citing “Garrity Protection” it now appears the officers who killed Tamir will NEVER speak to investigators.

    WED MAY 13, 2015 AT 07:02 AM PDT
    Find out why 166 days after Tamir Rice’s death, officers haven’t been interviewed by investigators”

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/13/1384436/-166-days-after-they-killed-Tamir-Rice-officers-have-still-not-been-interviewed-by-investigators

    • rikyrah says:

      Because they cannot answer the primary questions:
      1.How is it that this obviously unqualified man was hired by the Cleveland Police Department?
      2. How is it that, in an OPEN CARRY STATE, Tamir wasn’t even asked about a permit?

      #1 and the answers to it will get more than one person fired, IMO

      • Ametia says:

        #2: because Tamir was considered a BLACK MAN with super human strength and like no open & carry for the NEGROES! DOES NOT APPLY

        SNARK/

  9. Ametia says:

    And Eliihass, Woman you are BRINGING IT! Keep it coming, please. THANK YOU!

  10. Ametia says:

    Shout out to Liza too. Hope your office floor project is going swimmingly well.

    We MISS YOU.

  11. Ametia says:

    SG2, I hope you are resting and recovering. Sending love your way!!

  12. rikyrah says:

    May 12, 2015 4:01 PM

    Fast-Track Side-Stepped By Senate Democrats

    By Ed Kilgore

    Now this is going to be a test of journalistic acumen and accuracy. This afternoon a motion to proceed on a Trade Promotion Authority (a.k.a. “fast-track”) bill failed because it gained only 52 votes of the 60 needed. Only one Democrat, Tom Carper, voted for it. So does that mean 45 Democratic Senators opposed “fast-track?” No, though that’s what you’d guess from a confusing story at The Hill by Alexander Bolton with the lede: “Senate Democrats on Tuesday delivered a stinging blow to President Obama’s trade agenda…”

    A somewhat clearer piece by WaPo’s Mike DeBonis explains that Democratic fast-track supporters, including original cosponsor of the TPA bill in question, Ron Wyden, refused to let the bill go because Republicans would not agree to schedule voters on two related bills, one on currency manipulation and another on trade preferences for African countries.

    Ahead of the vote, many Democrats — including some of the handful who have supported Obama’s trade push — said they were not inclined to move forward with debate unless Republican leaders provided assurances that the various pieces would move in tandem.

    About an hour before the vote, that included Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who negotiated the trade package with top Republicans in the House and Senate and who has been a rare ally of Obama’s trade agenda inside the president’s party.

    “Until there is a path to get all four bills passed,” Wyden said after a lunchtime meeting with fellow pro-trade Democrats, “we will — certainly most of us — have to vote no.”

    White House press secretary Josh Earnest repeatedly used the term “procedural snafu” to describe what was going on in the Senate over TPA. It’s a fight between Ds and Rs in the Senate, and not so much with the president. So I think the right thing to say is that Senate Democrats, including both supporters and opponents of “fast-track,” side-stepped a vote until such time as the schedule of related bills meets their satisfaction. To the extent that it’s a temporary demand Republicans could accept without changing the TPA bill itself, I don’t know if it’s proper to even call it a filibuster. But we’ll know soon enough.

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_05/fasttrack_sidestepped_by_senat055516.php

  13. rikyrah says:

    Right takes aim at ‘affirmative-action presidents’
    05/12/15 12:54 PM—UPDATED 05/12/15 01:02 PM
    By Steve Benen
    It was probably only a matter of time before the right rolled out the “affirmative-action” argument. Apparently that time is now.

    In the new issue of the Weekly Standard, Joseph Epstein suggests Hillary Clinton may become the next president of the United States, but she won’t really deserve it.

    If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2016 she will not only be the nation’s first woman president but our second affirmative-action president. By affirmative-action president I mean that she, like Barack Obama, will have got into office partly for reasons extraneous to her political philosophy or to her merits, which, though fully tested while holding some of the highest offices in the land, have not been notably distinguished. […]

    How have we come to the point where we elect presidents of the United States not on their intrinsic qualities but because of the accidents of their birth: because they are black, or women, or, one day doubtless, gay, or disabled – not, in other words, for themselves but for the causes they seem to embody or represent, for their status as members of a victim group?

    Epstein explores his answer to his question over the course of about 3,000 words. The Weekly Standard put this on the cover.

    Note the specific timeframe the author relies on. Americans used to elect presidents based on their “intrinsic qualities” – rather than “the accidents of their birth” – right up until that rascally Barack Obama won easily in 2008. In other words, according to this exciting new thesis, George W. Bush’s rise to national power had nothing to do with the circumstances he was born into. He wound up in the White House solely on the basis of his inherent skills and attributes.

    The old joke about those who are born on third base and think they hit a triple? It’s funny because quite a few people apparently believe it.

    When Americans elect 42 white men to be president, it’s because of their “intrinsic qualities.” If Americans elect an African-American man and a white woman, we’re evidently supposed to believe they’re “affirmative-action presidents” who are “members of a victim group.”

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/right-takes-aim-affirmative-action-presidents

    • Ametia says:

      Let’s cut through the chase, shall we?

      “Intrinsic” = WHITE, ENTITLED.

      THE. END.

    • eliihass says:

      It just irritates me how both the right-winger Epstein and even the usually smart Steve Benen want to yoke President Obama together with Hillary. They both conveniently pretend to forget that Hillary was part of the field President Obama defeated in 2008. This is not some fresh-faced, first time runner.

      And President Obama worked hard for every last bit of that win and every last vote. There was no coronation. Nobody assumed it was his turn. And certainly, nobody cleared the field for him, and turned over every last Democratic resource to getting him elected.

      There are no similarities between the why and how President Obama went about getting the nomination, and how Hillary is.

      President Obama being black, was merely incidental to his run. Hillary being a woman, is the entire basis of her run.

      • Ametia says:

        Now you know we negroes gots to jump down, turn around, pick-a-bale-o-cotton!

        Hillary? It’s mine, I’m owed it, just ’cause…. you know, now give it to me!

  14. rikyrah says:

    The predictable punchline of the Christie economic plan
    05/13/15 08:40 AM
    By Steve Benen
    New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) doesn’t want to talk about his scandals anymore. “I’m not proud or happy of what happened,” he said late last week, “but I’m going to stop apologizing for it.

    If your response to the governor’s bridge scandal is, “Christie’s been far too apologetic,” I have good news: the governor couldn’t agree more.

    Yesterday, the Garden State Republican gave the political world something new to talk about, unveiling a new economic plan. The New York Times reported:
    [Christie proposed simplifying] the tax code from six brackets to three, reducing income tax rates, and eliminating the payroll tax for anyone over age 62 or those entering the workforce under age 21. The current top income tax rate would drop to 28 percent from 39 percent under his plan, while the corporate rate would decline to 25 percent from 35 percent.

    Those at the lowest end of the wage spectrum would see their rates drop to the single digits from 10 percent, though because of tax credits and deductions they often don’t face tax levies anyway.
    The governor sketched out his economic vision in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and in a speech yesterday in New Hampshire, where he called President Obama the “worst economic president since Jimmy Carter.”

    Perhaps the real Christie scandal is the poor guy’s inability to remember the George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush presidencies.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-predictable-punchline-the-christie-economic-plan

    • eliihass says:

      Aha! Look at Tiger Woods being all whiny and playing victim and the race card! Talking about being a minority and not fitting in.

      Where’s FOX news and the right-wingers? Are they still convened at the Mrs Obama bash-fest?

      • Ametia says:

        Eventually, true colors do bleed out, and some of them leave an UGLY STAIN. Warren is no exception. Don’t put any of these folks up on pedestals, because they will come crashing down.

  15. rikyrah says:

    found this over at BJ about Andrew Jackson:

    Germy Shoemangler says:

    May 13, 2015 at 7:23 am
    .
    Interesting thoughts on Andrew Jackson, from notesironbound blogspot:

    America’s true Founding Father was not Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin or Hamilton, but Andrew Jackson. The 18th century Founders were the product of a pre-modern America where politics was conducted by the “better sort,” not the masses. Jackson was the first president to be a true mass politician, as have all the presidents who have followed him since. Unlike the likes of Jefferson and Franklin, he was not a man of the Enlightenment, but a man of action who felt no need to find moral or intellectual justifications for slaughtering Native Americans, removing them from their lands, expanding the borders of slavery, and filling the government’s offices full of party flunkies. This was not politics as virtue in action, but politics as bloodsport.

    I see much of Andrew Jackson in conservative politics today. Modern day Jacksonians laugh at the notions of global warming and sustainability, and champion a volatile, extractionary economy where entrepeneurs can “drill baby drill” and have access to as much cheap labor as they want. In their minds, public expenditures on infrastructure are a waste. I see much in the same in Jackson’s day, where he pushed to open up more land in the Southwest (as it was then) for the booming cotton economy, its fields worked by slave labor. As Edward Baptist points out in his new book, the cotton frontier exploded during Jackson’s tenure, helped by his destruction of the Second Bank of the United States, and the reallocation of federal money in “pet banks” happy to speculate wildly on the sale of cotton and the sale of slaves. That same hands off, freewheeling impulse is apparent today in the conservative push to lift regulations on Wall Street banking. Jackson also famously rejected Henry Clay’s so-called “American System” of roads and canals. I see that spirit every day when I drive on pothole scarred roads in a nation that refuses to raise its gasoline tax, even when the price is rapidly dropping.

    Of course, just as Jackson and modern day conservatives champion “small government” out of one side of their mouth, they just love using the military to expand territory and reward the vested interests backing them. Jackson moved to remove Native Americans against the will of the Supreme Court, just as the “War on Terror” has relied on illegal and extralegal means. Jackson’s closest imitator, James K Polk, sparked war with Mexico with terms just as illegitimate as those formulated by George W Bush for his invasion of Iraq. Jacksonians of all era scorn the notion that government can improve people’s lives, but have little restraint when using it to further the goals of nationalist expansion.

    While the effects of the supposed populism of present and past day Jacksonians on the lower classes tends not to be economically beneficial for them, they have wielded a powerful ideology of anti-elitism. It was hardly a coincidence that Jackson, the first mass president, was by far the least educated of those to hold the office before him, and perhaps the least literate to ever hold the office. He and his supporters denigrated the educated, much as conservatives today scorn climate scientists, academics, and teachers. All three have committed the cardinal sin of having expertise and thinking that means they know more than the average yahoo. One of Jackson’s most toxic legacies has been the extremely anti-intellectual tenor of American public life, something routinely exploited by conservatives.

    Last, but not least, don’t forget white supremacy. Andrew Jackson’s America was more “democratic” in that the franchise was no longer limited to the affluent, but was now open to all white men. Women and men of color were aggressively cast out, even in places where they had once been enfranchised. While the poorest, most low-down white man could pass a ballot, African Americans were expected to toil in slavery, and Native Americans faced a fearsome onslaught of war and ethnic cleansing. Modern day Jacksonians are a lot more careful with their rhetoric, but they still love unleashing the full force of the American military on brown people around the world. These are also the same people wearing “I am Darren Wilson” shirts and are highly supportive of the police state that incarcerates people of color at a truly fearsome rate while reenforcing residential segregation. When a black man took the office of the president, they responded by treating him with unprecedented disrespect and contempt. (Just witness the behavior at the last State of the Union address.) The Tea Party, that most Jacksonian of political movements, has been vowing from the beginning of Obama’s term to “take our country back.” Gee, I wonder what that could mean.

    The America of the Founders is a strange and faraway place. The America of Andrew Jackson, the true Founder of our current dominant political mode, doesn’t seem all that foreign, despite being almost 200 years ago, because its values so thoroughly permeate our political system today. My only hope is that if there was ever an American president who was the anti-Jackson, it was Lincoln. There are alternative traditions to draw from, and we need them badly.

  16. rikyrah says:

    Amtrak train derails killing 6 people; investigation begins
    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Daylight on Wednesday revealed the destruction and devastation caused by an Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia that left at least six people dead and injured dozens more, several critically.

    Some survivors had to scramble through the windows of toppled cars to escape. One of the seven cars was completely mangled.

    The accident has closed the nation’s busiest rail corridor between New York and Washington as federal investigators begin sifting through the twisted remains to determine what went wrong.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/amtrak-train-derails-killing-6-people-investigation-begins/ar-BBjHvLi?ocid=HPCDHP

  17. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

  18. Ametia says:

    An interview with Jeb Bush’s foreign policy Advisor

  19. Ametia says:

    Good Morning, Everyone! :-)

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