Bad Company are a British rock supergroup formed in Westminster, London in 1973 by two former Free band members—singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke—as well as Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also managed Bad Company until 1982.
Bad Company enjoyed great success throughout the 1970s. Their first three albums, Bad Company (1974), Straight Shooter (1975) and Run With the Pack (1976), reached the top five in the album charts in both the UK and US.[1][2] Many of their singles, such as “Bad Company“, “Can’t Get Enough“, “Good Lovin’ Gone Bad“, and “Feel Like Makin’ Love“, remain staples of classic rock radio.
https://twitter.com/HBCUBuzz/status/608668427499266048/photo/1
https://twitter.com/VP/status/607949804006699008
https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2145/6801/original.jpg
never should have been charged in the first place
………………
Murder Charges Dropped Against Georgia Woman Who Took Abortion Pills
By TIERNEY SNEED
PublishedJUNE 10, 2015, 12:28 PM EDT
Prosecutors have dropped murder charges against a Georgia woman who took abortion pills in an apparent attempt to terminate her pregnancy, the Washington Post is reporting. Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards said the termination was still illegal, but that Georgia law does not apply to the woman herself, 23-year-old Kenlissia Jones of Albany, Georgia.
“Although third parties could be criminally prosecuted for their actions relating to an illegal abortion, as the law currently stands in Georgia, criminal prosecution of a pregnant woman for her own actions against her unborn child does not seem permitted,” Edwards told the Washington Post. “Applicable criminal law and statutes provide explicit immunity from prosecution for a pregnant woman for any unlawful termination of her pregnancy.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/murder-chargers-abortion-pill-georgia
https://twitter.com/theGrio/status/608046525445468160
This Man Speaking Out About The McKinney Pool Party Isn’t Telling The Full Story
A man claiming in media interviews to have observed the chaotic scenes was allegedly part of a group of adults who instigated the racist abuse that led to the initial violence.
posted on Jun. 10, 2015, at 1:14 p.m.
David Mack
…………………..
Jennifer Stone, the mother of the white teenage girl who defended her black friends, told BuzzFeed News that emotions in the town are running high. Her daughter, Grace, was handcuffed by police for around 30 minutes after trying to give her version of events to the officers. Grace said she was the only white person detained.
“You hear people generalizing the kids who got cuffed. Almost speaking to you like they don’t realize that your daughter was one of them,” Jennifer Stone said. “And you say, ‘Well, Grace was put in handcuffs,’ and all of a sudden it gets very quiet. The thought around town was this it was a bunch of out-of-control black and minority kids that were handcuffed.”
Stone said her family had already felt out of place in McKinney and had planned to move to downtown Dallas before the drama at the pool, but some residents’ reactions to the events have continued to rub her the wrong way. “It’s people that feel like they have just a little bit of money and that makes them better. My husband has a term. He calls them ‘$30,000 millionaires.’ They act like they have this grand, luxurious life, and they’re probably just moving from credit card to credit card. We certainly like some of the people, but some of them rub you the wrong way. It’s almost as if they feel entitled.”
It was this sense of entitlement, she said, that caused the adults to react so strongly to a group of teens taking over the pool for an afternoon.
“When is it ever appropriate to call a child [racist words] because they’re in your pool?” she asked. “I don’t know how I would react and I’m 40. I can’t imagine how a 14-year-old would.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/what-caused-mckinneys-pool-to-boil-over#.rlOkY943P
June 10, 2015 12:43 PM
“Clinton Democrats:” Been There, Done That
By Ed Kilgore
It’s been four days since the appearance of a big Jonathan Martin/Maggie Haberman Sunday New York Times piece that suggested (mostly via blind quotes from red-state pols and “strategists”) Hillary Clinton could be endangering both victory and an opportunity to govern by focusing “narrowly” on the people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 rather than the “broad” swath of Americans her husband appealed to in 1992 and 1996. Most observers have panned the piece, with the notable exception of those professional scorners of Democratic “extremism” Ron Fournier and David Brooks.
Yesterday Jonathan Chait conducted a brisk but thorough mopping-up operation, refuting the Fournier/Brooks case for a return to the Mark Penn version of the Clintons along with the original article. For the most part, Chait relies on the kind of math and history lessons that Nancy LeTourneau and yours truly, among others, have deployed on this topic. But he comes up with one powerful argument from more recent experience:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_06/clinton_democrats_been_there_d_1056017.php
Has ‘sports extortion’ reached Wisconsin?
06/10/15 12:55 PM—UPDATED 06/10/15 01:17 PM
By Steve Benen
Thanks to Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) far-right vision and national ambitions, Wisconsin is already home to some of the nation’s most contentious and divisive political fights. But just off the beaten path, a new debate is taking shape that has nothing to do with the culture war, taxes, or health care.
It has everything to do with a basketball arena.
As sports fans know, the general outline of the story is all too familiar: a sports franchise wants an expensive new venue; it wants taxpayers to pick up the tab; and the team’s owners have made clear that without a new home, they’ll abandon the community and move the team elsewhere.
That’s exactly what’s happening in Wisconsin, where the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks want out of the Bradley Center, which opened way back in 1988, and also want a new half-billion-dollar arena. Walker thinks that’s a great idea – and has a plan to offer $250 million in public funds to prevent the Bucks from moving elsewhere. (The cost would be spread out over several years, and include the sale of public land.)
The Huffington Post’s Travis Waldron reported last night that even the governor’s allies are not on board.
[H]is plan has already drawn criticism from Republican-friendly groups who oppose the idea of handing millions of dollars in public money to private entities. The libertarian Cato Institute and conservative blog RedState have editorialized against it. Even Americans For Prosperity-Wisconsin, a wing of the Koch brothers-backed group that Walker has courted in his run-up to a presidential bid, issued a statement this week opposing the final deal.
Some Wisconsin Republicans have similar qualms. “Let’s put it this way: I’m scrutinizing this plan to an extreme level,” state Rep. David Murphy (R) told The Huffington Post. “The Bucks staying in Wisconsin would be very good for this state. But I do have a philosophical objection to seeing taxpayer money go to millionaire basketball players and billionaire team owners.”
For Walker, it would cost the state too much to lose the team and the economic impact of the new arena would be significant.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/has-sports-extortion-reached-wisconsin
INVISIBLE White man…oh, the irony…
………………………..
The ‘Invisible’ White Man Holding the Camera in McKinney
The video of Officer Eric Casebolt shoving an unarmed, black 15-year-old’s face into dirt before holding her at gunpoint is proof: Only white people can choose to be invisible when the police come.The most telling detail about this weekend’s viral video from McKinney, Texas, is the part you can’t see: the race of the man behind the camera, the one who’s holding the phone.
Brandon Brooks, the man who took the video, casually walks around from place to place filming Officer Eric Casebolt performing a tuck-and-roll, as though dodging imaginary gunfire, before grabbing a 15-year-old girl in a bikini, shoving her face into the dirt, and pulling a gun on bystanders.
None of that too-forceful police work—like being forced to sit on his hands, being shoved to the grass on his face, having a gun brandished at him—happened to the guy holding the camera. Brooks says Casebolt “didn’t even look at me. It was kind of like I was invisible.”
That’s one of the definitions of “privilege.” Sometimes it means being visible when it’s time to hand out awards or make the movie. And sometimes it means suddenly becoming invisible when the shit hits the fan.
The “bystanders” at a protest I attended in Cleveland two weeks ago seemed perfectly calm and certain they weren’t about to suddenly be targeted by cops, forced face-down onto the ground and be taken to jail to wait 48 hours before hearing from a lawyer. But that’s exactly what happened to 71 protesters marching in objection to the acquittal of Officer Michael Brelo, who is a free man after firing 49 shots at two unarmed people.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/08/the-invisible-white-man-in-mckinney.html
because the White working class is…well…you know…
……………………..
Why Does Immigration Divide the GOP Along Lines of Education and Age?
In the internal GOP debate over immigration, a persistent trend has emerged: Republicans without college degrees stand farther to the right than most candidates.
BY RONALD BROWNSTEIN
June 9, 2015 Across the key issues related to both legal and undocumented immigration, significantly more Republicans without a college degree expressed conservative views than Republicans who have completed at least four years of higher education, according to detailed results provided to Next America from a Pew Research Center national survey. Likewise, older Republicans embraced conservative views more often than the party’s younger members, the survey found.
These consistent contrasts may help explain why several of the likely 2016 GOP candidates jostling for blue-collar support have camped out positions not only opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but also urging reductions in the level of legal immigration—a view rarely heard in recent presidential elections. That list includes Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and in a more limited way, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Santorum has called for reducing legal immigration by 25 percent, while Walker has spoken more generally of reducing legal immigration levels to protect American workers, especially during slow economic times. Huckabee has sharply criticized the H1-B visa program favored by technology companies to bring in high-skilled immigrants. Among the other candidates, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has most forcefully rejected the calls for reducing legal immigration levels.
The challenge for the GOP field is that the immigration positions preferred by their growing blue-collar faction generally land well to the right of the country overall, including independents. If one of the candidates holding these hardline positions wins the nomination—or succeeds in substantially pulling the eventual nominee toward their views—that could leave the party crosswise with majority opinion in next year’s general election.
The education and generational splits among Republicans on immigration are mirrored to varying degrees on other cultural issues such as gay marriage, notes veteran GOP pollster Glen Bolger. “The Democrats went through this back when they had blue-collar whites vote for them, but they left and came to our party,” said Bolger, who is working in 2016 for the super PAC supporting former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. “Our party has changed from a kind of suburban middle manager party to a party that is more diverse, not racially, but socioeconomically. Now some of the strains that used to affect Democrats between hippies and union members are affecting Republicans on our side of the spectrum.”
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/newsdesk/republicans-oppose-immigration-reform-20150609
College is not a commodity. Stop treating it like one.
What truly makes an education valuable: the effort the student puts into it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/09/college-is-not-a-commodity-stop-treating-it-like-one/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b
even the horn-rimmed one gets it
………………….
The McKinney, Texas pool party: More proof that ‘black children don’t get to be children’
By Jonathan Capehart June 10 at 11:13 AM
……………..
But after watching the full seven-minute video of Casebolt’s horrific treatment of Dajerra Becton, the headline on a powerful and important November 2014 opinion piece by Stacey Patton for The Post summed up my feelings perfectly:“In America, black children don’t get to be children.”
Lord knows what really happened to spark the chaos. Tatiana Rhodes said it was two white women who uttered racial insults to her and her pool guests. an altercation between two adults. Benét Embry said it was “a pool party run amok” by teens who didn’t live in the Craig Ranch suburb north of Dallas scaling the fence to get to the community pool. To be honest, I don’t quite care. Calling the cops was fine. What they did once they got there is what’s at issue. And what we watched Casebolt do to Dajerra was unconscionable.
…………..
The list of horribles in this video is lengthy. Dajerra and friends walk away after Casebolt yells, “Get out of here. I already told you. Leave!” Seconds later, he grabs Dajerra and slings her around like a rag doll. Casebolt pulls his gun on two other teens. He restrains a half-naked and crying Becton, who continually pleads for her mother to be called, face down in the grass. Throughout the encounter, he can be heard hurling expletives at the kids like candy.
The disturbing video was made by Brandon Brooks, a white 15-year-old whotold CNN, “I was one of the only white people in the area when that was happening.” He continued, “You can see in part of the video where he tells us to sit down, and he kinda like skips over me and tells all my African-American friends to go sit down.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/06/10/the-mckinney-texas-pool-party-more-proof-that-black-children-dont-get-to-be-children/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b
“..even the horn-rimmed one gets it…”
Lol, Rikyrah…
Pope Creates Tribunal for Bishop Negligence in Child Sexual Abuse Cases
ROME — Roman Catholic bishops accused of covering up or failing to prevent the sexual abuse of children by priests will now be subject to judgment and discipline by a new Vatican tribunal, according to a plan approved on Wednesday by Pope Francis.
The decision is a measure that abuse victims have urged for years. The church has judicial procedures for judging priests accused of abuse, but until now bishops accused of negligence or cover-ups were almost never held accountable by the church itself.
The tribunal will also deal with the backlog of cases involving sexual abuse, “which are still very numerous,” a Vatican official said on Wednesday.
The issue of accountability has been under discussion for some time, said the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. “As you see, it didn’t remain on paper,” he said.
The Vatican announced on Wednesday that the pope had approved a series of proposals advanced by the committee that advises him on sexual abuse.
The proposals set out the procedures for examining complaints of abuse of office by bishops. The complaints will be first investigated by the congregations that the bishops belong to, and then will be judged by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which already reviews all cases of clergy accused of abusing minors.
http://nyti.ms/1Ge1kUS
Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid 55m55 minutes ago McKinney, TX
It’s not clear whether the callers are locals or not. Department until yesterday was getting angry calls ABOUT Casebolt. Now it’s flipped.
Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid 56m56 minutes ago McKinney, TX
Sources on the ground say McKinney police dept is getting angry, n-word filled phone calls for not “standing up for” Eric Casebolt.
Joy is finding her authentic voice and calling once more…I’m encouraged and gratified because it’s very much needed…
Faculty uneasy about working at UW after cuts, tenure changes
Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/university/faculty-uneasy-about-working-at-uw-after-cuts-tenure-changes/article_79135697-7e0e-5a11-8b86-49eccf2cc909.html#ixzz3cgZiXXT8
Carson Proposes Spies on Government Workers
Ben Carson said that if elected president he might implement a “covert division” of government workers who spy on their coworkers to improve government efficiency,MSNBC reports.
Carson told a crowd of Iowa Republicans he is “thinking very seriously” about adding “a covert division of people who look like the people in this room, who monitor what government people do.” He suggested people would work harder if they suspected their coworkers of monitoring their work.
http://politicalwire.com/2015/06/10/carson-proposes-spies-on-government-workers/
NEW INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED AGAINST DUGGAR FAMILY — 911 CALLED
Jun 10, 2015 8:28AM
The Duggar family is under investigation again by the Arkansas Department of Human Services and police were called when the family refused to cooperate, In Touch magazine is reporting exclusively in its new issue that hits newsstands today.
A representative from the Washington County DHS called 911 on May 27 at around 11 a.m. asking for police assistance when DHS was not allowed to see the minor they were concerned about. In Touch, which broke the story of Josh Duggar’s sexual molestationscandal, has the full transcript of the emergency call in the new issue.
The new investigation comes as the family tries to save its TLC reality show, 19 Kids and Counting, which the network pulled off the air, while determining its fate. Jim Bob,Michelle and two of their daughters sat for interviews with Fox News, attempting to minimize the damage, but much of what they said was widely condemned as misinformation and not full disclosure.
The Duggars made no mention of the fact that they have been under investigation again, but In Touch discovered what they are hiding via another Freedom of Information Act request that produced the 911 call.
http://www.intouchweekly.com/posts/new-investigation-launched-against-duggar-family-911-called-60330
UH UH UH
drip, Drip, DRIP!
WED JUN 10, 2015 AT 09:20 AM PDT
McConnell’s new Obamacare trick: ‘Protecting’ America from a bad law
byJoan McCarter
Turns out that Sen. John Thune’s (R-SD) really dumb tweet (“Six million people risk losing their health care subsidies, yet @POTUS continues to deny that Obamacare is bad for the American people”) was just Thune completely bungling what Greg Sargent identifies as the emerging Republican narrative for a post-King v. Burwell decision that puts them on the spot by gutting subsidies.
Sargent quotes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell being interviewed on Fox News. Here’s the key part: “Depending on what the Supreme Court decides, we’ll have a proposal that protects the American people from a very bad law. […] What we will do is offer a proposal to protect the American people.”
So the argument goes something like, “see, we said all along this was a bad law and now the court has proven it so we have to protect the American public of the really bad outcome of us fighting this really bad law.” Convoluted? Hell yes. Sargent:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/10/1392096/-McConnell-s-new-Obamacare-trick-Protecting-America-from-a-bad-law#
of course this is their strategy. Those scaredity cat Dems better WAKE DA PHUQ UP!!
……………..
Morning Plum: Mitch McConnell’s fiendishly clever strategy for coming Obamacare war
By Greg Sargent June 10 at 9:27 AM
If you want to understand the evolving GOP strategy for the political war that may be unleashed by a Supreme Court decision gutting Obamacare subsidies for millions, pay close attention to this new exchange between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Fox News’ Bret Baier:
BAIER: Doesn’t this hold some potential problems for the GOP? What do you think the solution is if you have to deal with this quickly?
McCONNELL: Depending on what the Supreme Court decides, we’ll have a proposal that protects the American people from a very bad law. Obamacare was the single worst piece of legislation that’s been passed in the last half century. The single biggest step in the direction of Europeanizing our country…What we will do is offer a proposal to protect the American people.
BAIER: But won’t there be some in your party who say that any vote, even that — that patch — will be a tacit endorsement of Obamacare in some way?
McCONNELL: I think we have to see what the Supreme Court decides before we announce a proposal to deal with it.
The repetition of the word “protect” has a distinctly focus-grouped aura to it. But this clever formulation contains the seeds of its own refutation, and neatly indicates why the Republican post-King argument will, of necessity, be incoherent and (one hopes) politically untenable.
McConnell’s reply raises a question: How can Republicans simultaneously argue that the American people must be “protected” from the damage that undoing Obamacare will do — from the damage that will ensue from a Court decision unraveling subsidies that are crucial to the law’s basic functioning — without implicitly conceding that the right response is to reverse the immediate impact of the decision, and cleanly restore the subsidies?
In this interview, McConnell is telegraphing a partial answer to that question. Republicans will argue that the post-King chaos is the fault of the law itself, and not the fault of the Court decision (which Republicans urged on) that is knocking out a key pillar of it. In this telling, the cause of all the damage will be that Obamacare held out the false promise of economic security for millions, in the form of expanded coverage, but that security was then snatched out from under all those people (thanks to Obummer’s incompetence) when the Court clarified what the law actually says. All this is only the latest way in which Obamacare is hurting countless Americans.
That’s pretty damn slick.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/10/morning-plum-mitch-mcconnells-fiendishly-clever-strategy-for-coming-obamacare-war/
THAT SHIT’S NOT GONNA FLY.
Baby, if I think about you, I think about love
Darling, if I live without you, I live without love
And if I had the sun and moon, and they were shining
I would give you both night and day, love satisfying
Feel like makin’…
Feel like makin’ love, feel like makin’ love
Feel like makin’ love, feel like makin’ love to you
UM HMMM….
Lol…
I see y’all , Ametia & Eliihass!
LOL!
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
The concern is not just that #TraceyCarverAllbritton is a violent racist, it’s also that she has the potential to manifest racism at work.
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
Her place of work just so happens to be involved in the maze that is acquiring and maintaining a home; a pressure point in race relations.
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
The city in which she works has been the subject of recent legal proceedings related to housing discrimination. https://twitter.com/docrocktex26/status/607953225078079488 …
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
The racist comment she made pertained to Black people belonging in Section 8 housing rather than Craig Ranch. Did Core Logic teach her that?
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
And vice versa which of her racist views is she teaching her coworkers at Core Logic? How is it impacting their work environment?
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
How does Core Logic pride itself on fair practices when it employs Racist Tracey to handle data that determines where Black folk can live?
https://twitter.com/bexaraven/status/608662128661168128
Marco Rubio’s problem isn’t his personal finances. It’s his party’s economic ideas.
By Paul Waldman June 9
If you learned that a presidential candidate had been less than sensible with his own personal finances, would that make you less inclined to vote for him? It probably would, even if you’d rather not admit it; after all, if nothing else it’s one more mark on the negative side of the ledger.
But how much should it matter, if at all? Unless we’re talking about someone who’s being blackmailed by the mob over seven-figure gambling debts, should we care if a candidate doesn’t handle his own money all that well?
That’s the question raised by an article in today’s New York Times about Marco Rubio, one that contains a number of colorful details about the Florida senator’s financial history:
A review of the Rubio family’s finances — including many new documents — reveals a series of decisions over the past 15 years that experts called imprudent: significant debts; a penchant to spend heavily on luxury items like the boat and the lease of a $50,000 2015 Audi Q7; a strikingly low savings rate, even when Mr. Rubio was earning large sums; and inattentive accounting that led to years of unpaid local government fees.
Mr. Rubio has acknowledged missteps: using personal credit cards to pay for his campaigns (a bad idea, he said); appointing his wife, Jeanette, as a treasurer of a political action committee (ill advised, he said); and using the party money for the reunion trip (an accident, he said). Mr. Rubio, in his 2012 memoir, “An American Son,” confessed a “lack of bookkeeping skills” and an “imperfect accounting system.”
Who among us hasn’t spent $80,000 we couldn’t afford on a speedboat? But all kidding aside, if you want to find reasons to question the judgment Marco Rubio might exercise as president, this is the wrong place to look. The problem isn’t that Marco Rubio would buy America a speedboat. It’s that he’d follow the same basic course as other Republicans have. And we know how that turns out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/09/marco-rubios-problem-isnt-his-personal-finances-its-his-partys-economic-ideas/
OOP! There it is
drip, Drip, DRIP. STACEY, you gone get yours, lady.
June/July/August 2015
Wealth and Generations
By focusing on the growing riches of the “1 percent,” we miss another form of inequality that is bigger, and arguably even more dangerous.
By Phillip Longman
Today, the top 1 percent earn a higher share of our national income than any year since 1928.” That’s Tea Party champion Senator Ted Cruz talking. Other GOP presidential contenders, from Jeb Bush to Rand Paul, now trot out similar formulations. Yet even as Americans across the political spectrum find themselves agreeing that growing “inequality” is a big problem, most politicians, as well as most political journalists and the experts they quote, are not talking about the kind of inequality that most matters to most people.
That’s because today’s talk about inequality generally isn’t about actual people. It’s about disparities between different, abstractly drawn, arithmetically defined, statistical categories. And so we hear about how, say, the “top 1 percent” compares in income to the “bottom decile.”
Of course, important truths are revealed by such comparisons. Mostly these have to do with the strong trend of super-rich people getting even richer—a trend that leads many people to worry, with reason, about rule by plutocrats and the coming of a new Gilded Age.
But, frankly, that kind of inequality is not the half of it. For one, most of us are much more concerned with how well we are doing compared to five or ten years ago, or compared to the life we remember our parents having at our age, or about whether our children will ever do as well. Those kinds of questions have a lot more emotional and practical personal import than whether the “1 percent” gobbled up another percentage point of the nation’s income.
Nor, at least arguably, is the kind of inequality measured by such statistics the kind that has been growing the most over the last several decades. Worse, because of the habits of thought that build up from constant use of such statistical artifices in political discourse, our political conversations tend to minimize the full extent of inequality as it’s experienced by most Americans.
Here’s an example. How often have you heard it said that the average middle-class family is suffering from “stagnant” income? That’s the kind of formulation that emerges if you look at, say, the middle three-fifths of the income distribution today and compare it to the middle three-fifths of the income distribution in, say, 1979. After adjusting for inflation, the picture shows middle-class households having basically the same income as they had thirty-six years ago.
Yet there is a big problem with that conclusion: these are not the same people! The heads of today’s young households weren’t even born in 1979. And those who were middle-aged in 1979 are now deep into their retirement years.
What happens when we use statistics that treat these very different people as if they were the same people? We come up with averages or medians that smooth over and obscure the vast differences in the economic trajectories that Americans of different generations have been on during the last several decades.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaugust_2015/features/wealth_and_generations055898.php
June 10, 2015 8:53 AM
Fifth Circuit Invites SCOTUS To Gut Roe v. Wade
By Ed Kilgore
It’s been on the horizon ever since Justice Kennedy created a big loophole in the right to choose in the “partial-birth abortion” case of Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007, which validated the antichoice tactic of using “health” provisions deemed unnecessary or even harmful by medical professionals to restrict access to abortion services. As Republican-controlled state legislatures have moved into this loophole aggressively, guerrilla warfare has broken out in the federal courts with some restrictions surviving challenges and others succumbing. But the biggest antichoice victory yet just occurred in the conservative southern Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a Texas law designed to shut down most of that state’s abortion clinics. Ian Millhiser of Think Progress has the details:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_06/fifth_circuit_invites_scotus_t056008.php
Even Kansas has its limits
06/10/15 11:23 AM
By Steve Benen
Republican officials in Kansas have been working overtime lately to bolster the state’s ruby-red reputation. On everything from economic policy to undermining an independent judiciary to cracking down on imaginary voter fraud, Kansas’ GOP-run state government has been a model of far-right governance lately.
But Arthur Delaney reported for the Huffington Post late yesterday that on one front, Kansas seems to realize it may have gone a little too far recently.
[A recently approved state law] capped ATM withdrawals with welfare debit cards at $25 per day – an unprecedented restriction. It also banned the cards from being used at a long list of establishments, including swimming pools, fortune tellers and cruise ships. Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed the law in April.
Now, prompted by concerns that the cash withdrawal limit went too far and would jeopardize the state’s compliance with federal rules, Kansas lawmakers are revisiting that provision. An amendment that cleared the Kansas State Legislature on Saturday would give the state’s Department for Children and Family Services leeway to loosen the limit or get rid of it altogether.
It doesn’t appear to be a done deal just yet, but undoing what’s been done would be a welcome development – not just because Kansas’ new policy may conflict with federal guidelines, but also because it’s needlessly cruel.
As the Washington Post’s Max Ehrenfreund recently explained, we’re talking about a policy that punishes the poor in unnecessarily punitive ways.
The legislature placed a daily cap of $25 on cash withdrawals beginning July 1, which will force beneficiaries to make more frequent trips to the ATM to withdraw money from the debit cards used to pay public assistance benefits. Since there’s a fee for every withdrawal, the limit means that some families will get substantially less money.
It’s hard to overstate the significance of this action. Many households without enough money to maintain a minimum balance in a conventional checking account will pay their rent and their utility bills in cash. A single mother with two children seeking to withdraw just $200 in cash could incur $30 or more in fees, which is a big chunk of the roughly $400 such a family would receive under the program in Kansas.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/even-kansas-has-its-limits
GOP has no interest in a ‘one-sentence’ ACA fix
06/10/15 10:36 AM
By Steve Benen
At a Monday press conference, President Obama was asked about the pending ruling in the King v. Burwell case, and he expressed optimism that the Supreme Court would be responsible. But if it’s not, the president added, “Congress could fix this whole thing with a one-sentence provision.”
It took about five minutes for Republicans to reject the resolution. Politico reported this week:
Senate Republicans quickly shot down that possibility. “Let’s be clear: if the Supreme Court rules against the administration, Congress will not pass a so-called ‘one-sentence’ fake fix,” said Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the Senate’s No. 3 Republican.
Remember when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said, during King oral arguments, that lawmakers would approve a simple legislative fix? Scalia, responding to Solicitor General Don Verrilli, specifically said, “If the consequences are as disastrous as you say, so many million people without insurance and whatnot, yes, I think this Congress would act.”
Just two days ago, Senate Republican Policy Chairman John Barrasso made clear that Scalia is mistaken.
In theory, I suspect much of the American mainstream might find this bizarre, if not hard to believe. If a court ruling would cause systemic chaos and strip millions of families of their health care benefits, but there’s a simple, one-sentence fix that would prevent anyone from suffering at all, most Americans probably assume that Congress would just take a few minutes, approve the sentence, and prevent imposing deliberate hardship on the country.
Indeed, it probably seems like common sense – the bare minimum of public service should lead elected officials to at least try to shield the public from pointless, unnecessary, and easily avoided harm.
But in a political environment in which there’s a radicalized political party, and that party controls the entirety of the legislative branch, those assumptions need to be recalibrated.
Congressional Republicans, despite literally years of unmet promises, have no alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and have not yet said what they’ll do, exactly, if their allied Republican justices rule their way in this case. That said, Vox’s Sarah Kliff explained this week that GOP lawmakers have shared some potential plans on how they might try to proceed.
Republicans lawmakers have also come up with five alternatives plans to keep the dollars flowing [if they prevail in King v. Burwell]. The question is whether they’ll do much good. Most of the plans would extend the availability of subsidies, while dismantling other parts of Obamacare. The result would likely be a world that looks much more like America before Obamacare – where fewer people are enrolled in coverage and are paying higher premiums.
You’re welcome to review each of the five proposals here, but they’re all (a) awful; (b) far more complicated and dangerous than the obvious, simple, one-sentence remedy; and (c) predicated on the assumption that Republicans will prevent some Americans from suffering in the short term, but only if Republicans can cause more Americans to suffer soon after.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-has-no-interest-one-sentence-aca-fix
DontStartNothingWontBeNothing
Twitter Drags Montel ‘Payday Loans’ Williams Into Oblivion After He Insults Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay McKesson
http://tiny.cc/bib9yx
DeRay be like:
SOME Negroes, they can’t STAND IT when some of us get SHINE.
I call it: #BLACK IS THE NEW GREEN WITH ENVY
Tweet this, SG2, please.
Got it.
WTF was THAT for? Some of these damn negroes!
Montel needs to keep smoking weed for his condition, and shut up. He and Magic J. been pushing these bogus high interest pay day loans on black neighborhoods for decades.
Can we say the same for DeRay? NOPE
MONTEL, PLEASE JUST HAVE A STADIUM FULL-O-SEATS!
Montel feels the need to maintain the dubious attention he’s gotten with right-winger audiences hustling his military bonafides, by periodically insulting black folks…
because…..just because
OH MY
From ‘Fancy’ to a canceled tour: A breakdown of Iggy Azalea’s demise
It was just a year ago that Azalea’s “Fancy” was being heralded as the song of the summer, but the past few months have not been kind to Australia’s most famous rapper. She was forced to postpone, then altogether cancel her Great Escape tour when she couldn’t procure an opening act. After being nominated for four Grammys, she failed to win any, but inspired many, many inches of writing from those who hoped that she wouldn’t.
Her career has had some bright spots — she was, after all, the only artist besides the Beatles to have her first two singles occupy the top two spots on the Billboard 100 chart simultaneously. She’s released collaborations with Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears, and newer acts such as Ariana Grande, Rita Ora and Charli XCX. She claims T.I. as a mentor.
And yet, an image problem that may have started as a dark spot on an otherwise promising career has now metastasized into a nasty network of tumors that could derail it entirely — some would say it already has. A highly palpable wave of schadenfreude made its way through the Internet when Azalea’s tour was canceled. It’s not just that people don’t like Azalea, or even that they want her to fail — they want her to disappear.
—
The backlash against Azalea came as swiftly as her ascendance.
Most recently, Azalea was forced to abandon a scheduled appearance at Pittsburgh Pride when LGBT groups started dropping out in protest over her inclusion, citing past racist and homophobic remarks Azalea made on social media. In 2012, someone created a Tumblr blog called Piggy Azalea which archived those now-deleted tweets.
Among them were gems like these:
“This Asian lady on the plane tried to act like she didn’t understand me. I told her a– b—- u gone know English today cause that’s my seat!”
“Asian women abuse false eyelashes.”
And these:
“B—-es in la be stick skinny. To the bone. White, black, mexican… Okay… So maybe not mexican :s they still got the box body on lock.”
“wondered why my butt felt like it was about to grow 2 legs, flip me off, & walk away. then i remembered i played soccer yesterday w 5 d–e b—-es.”
“Is it wrong that I feel happy to hear southern accents again & not mexican ones? F— it. Iam.”
In her 2011 song “D.R.U.G.S.,” she rapped, “When the relay starts I’m a runaway slave-master.” She later apologized for the lyric.
This wouldn’t have been a good look for anyone, but it was especially bad for Azalea, who has been criticized for misappropriating hip-hop culture and not understanding or really respecting it. At its core, rejection of Azalea wasn’t just about the fact that she was a white Australian woman who rapped like a black girl from Atlanta — it was that, to many, it was obvious that she’d jumped to the head of the line because of it.
—
When Iggy announced that she was postponing her Great Escape tour, it was a prime moment for her detractors to say “I told you so.” And then she was forced to cancel it completely due to less-than-stellar ticket sales. Azalea, it seemed, was no longer capable of selling out the massive arenas for which she’d been booked. Billboard reports that multiple sources confirmed some dates had only sold 20 percent of their available tickets.
The only thing more embarrassing than yanking the tour might have been the pictures of empty seats that would have circulated with lightning speed had Azalea proceeded.
Iggy announced her engagement to Nick Young just days after news hit that her tour was canceled. It was difficult not to interpret the move as a calculated effort to redirect heat away from her torpedoing career, which was beginning to resemble the burning carcass of Bernadine’s cheating ex-husband’s Beemerin “Waiting to Exhale.”
What happens next? We’ll just have to wait and see.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
BYE GIRL
https://twitter.com/metaquest/status/608637811302895616/photo/1
ICYMI
GO CLEVELAND CAVALIERS!
any hope for this? I’ll wish for the best
…………….
MGM’s ‘Fame’ Reboot Is Heading to Lifetime as a Scripted TV Series
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
June 9, 2015 at 6:20PM
The 1980 Alan Parker MGM musical film already spawned a television series and spin-off, a stage musical, a reality TV competition series, and a 2009 film. But MGM apparently isn’t through with “Fame” yet.
The studio’s TV arm is now teaming up with the Lifetime TV network, as well as Josh Safran (“Smash,” “Gossip Girl”) and Nigel Lythgoe (“American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance” executive producer), to launch a scripted series based on the original film, and previous TV series.
The producers are calling it a re-imagining of the first film and TV series. Here’s how they briefly describe this reboot: “Set against the backdrop of today’s unprecedented access to the world of celebrity, it will expose the gritty struggle, heartache and pain endured in the search for stardom.”
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/mgms-fame-reboot-is-heading-to-lifetime-as-a-scripted-tv-series-20150609
OT: Back to the debate about the continued coddling of the White Working Class.
When people vote against their own self-interest, there comes a time when they should not be coddled anymore.
IF they vote this mofo Bevin in and he takes away their health insurance…no better for them. I have not one ounce of pity for them.
……………………….
Kentucky election could blot an Obamacare bright spot
Matt Bevin has made eliminating the state’s Obamacare programs a central plank of his platform.
6/9/15 6:48 PM EDT
excerpt:
Gallup polling shows Kentucky saw the second biggest drop in its uninsured rate in the country, behind only Arkansas.
Yet, Republican gubernatorial nominee Matt Bevin, a tea party favorite who narrowly won a brutal primary last month and could run a competitive general election race, has made eliminating the state’s Obamacare programs — and sharply curtailing the ranks of the newly insured — a central plank of his platform. If he wins this November, more than half a million people who got covered through the exchange or an Obamacare-proscribed expansion of Medicaid could find themselves in health care limbo.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/kentucky-election-could-blot-an-obamacare-bright-spot-118794.html#ixzz3cfLVNrn2
Seriously, I ain’t in this for these folks. ADIOS!
Obama takes ACA victory lap: ‘We’re not going backward’
06/09/15 04:39 PM—UPDATED 06/09/15 05:17 PM
By Steve Benen
At a German press conference yesterday after the G7 Summit, President Obama fielded a question about the pending King v. Burwell case at the Supreme Court. The president noted what is already plainly true to everyone involved in the process: “[T]his should be an easy case,” Obama said, “Frankly, it probably shouldn’t even have been taken up.”
And once he got started talking about the Affordable Care Act, it seemed the president just couldn’t help himself. “What’s more, the thing is working,” Obama added. “I mean, part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them come to pass.”
Today, the president was back in the nation’s capital, and went even further while delivering remarks at the Catholic Hospital Association Conference, offering a candid, spirited defense of one of his signature domestic policy initiatives. MSNBC’s Amanda Sakuma reported:
President Obama pressed to preserve his landmark health care law Tuesday ahead of a Supreme Court decision later this month that could imperil insurance access for millions of people, calling the reform too critical and “woven into the fabric of America” for the U.S. to let unravel.
Forcefully defending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) during remarks before the Catholic Health Association Assembly, Obama went after the partisan attacks designed to gut a key pillar of the reform law.
“We’re not going backward,” Obama said. “There’s something, I have to say, just deeply cynical about the ceaseless, endless, partisan attempts to rollback progress.”
For those who feel like they haven’t heard the president offer a full-throated celebration of the “Obamacare” lately, today’s remarks were a powerful reminder that Obama is not only proud of the amazing successes he’s delivered on health care, he’s also eager to protect these advances against those who want to tear down the American health care system.
This portion, in particular, stood out for me:
“[F]ive years in, what we are talking about it is no longer just a law. It’s no longer just a theory. This isn’t even just about the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. This isn’t about myths or rumors that folks try to sustain. There is a reality that people on the ground day to day are experiencing. Their lives are better.
“This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another. This is health care in America – which is why, once you get outside of Washington and leave behind the Beltway chatter and the politics, Americans support this new reality. When you talk to people who actually are enrolled in a new marketplace plan, the vast majority of them like their coverage. The vast majority are satisfied with their choice of doctors and hospitals and satisfied with their monthly premiums. They like their reality. […]
“I understood folks being skeptical or worried before the law passed and there wasn’t a reality there to examine. But once you see millions of people of having health care, once you see that all the bad things that were predicted didn’t happen, you’d think that it would be time to move one…. It seems so cynical to want to take coverage away from millions of people; to take care away from people who need it the most; to punish millions with higher costs of care and unravel what’s now been woven into the fabric of America.”
That’s no small claim. There was a point several years ago at which one might describe the health care system in a two-tiered way: there’s the old system, and then there’s the Affordable Care Act that was added to it. But in 2015, that description no longer makes sense – the distinction between the law and the American system no longer exists.
In very practical terms, those who say they’re eager to gut “Obamacare” are effectively saying they want to gut the American system, largely out of partisan spite.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-takes-aca-victory-lap-were-not-going-backward
Video of McKinney PD Chief Conley & mayor press conference is up!
POWER fans…news for you
A 3rd Season Secured? ‘Power’ Season 2 Premiere is Starz’s Highest Rated Episode of an Original Series Ever
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
June 9, 2015 at 2:28PM
The second season of Starz drama “Power” premiered on Saturday, June 6, drawing 1.427 million viewers. Not only were those numbers a series high, they were the highest ratings ever for an episode of a Starz original drama, the cable TV network announced today.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/a-3rd-season-secured-power-season-2-premiere-is-starzs-highest-rated-episode-of-an-original-series-ever-20150609
looks like some possibly interesting interviews.
……………
Watch New Series ‘Actors on Actors’ – Viola Davis, Taraji P. Henson, Queen Latifah, Jane Fonda Interview Each Other
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
June 8, 2015 at 4:43PM
I appreciate this new series from Variety, titled “Actors on Actors,” which features pairs of actors interviewing each other. The series launched just a few days ago, so there isn’t a full library of conversations to watch. As of today, there are 2: the first is between Taraji P. Henson and Queen Latifah; and the second is between Viola Davis and Jane Fonda. Both videos are embedded below – each is about 10 minutes long – so check them out.
Each conversation covers several different areas specific to the craft of acting and the business itself, like their process, fighting for roles, playing complex women in television, staying in character and the break-neck speed of filming television (or as Taraji P. Henson says, it’s like shooting a mini-movie each week); also Queen Latifah (Bessie) reminisces about her time on “Living Single,” and more.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/watch-new-series-actors-on-actors-viola-davis-taraji-p-henson-queen-latifah-jane-fonda-interview-each-other-20150608
I’m very much looking forward to this series. Nothing like hearing it straight, no chasers.
FLOTUS dropping truths.
https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/608616183621935104
Thread is up! :-)
Jeb’s doing the European tour too?
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
………………………….
Jeb Bush’s anti-Putin speech in Berlin is a strategic and political blunder
Updated by Max Fisher on June 9, 2015, 8:40 a.m. ET @Max_Fisher max@vox.com
I happened to arrive in Berlin a few days before Jeb Bush, who is visiting the German capital today for a big anti-Putin speech. The governor did not see fit to recruit me into his advance team. But if he had, I would’ve called the home office to strongly urge that he cancel, for the good of both his political campaign and American strategic interests in Europe.
Having Jeb Bush come to Berlin to argue on behalf of US foreign policy in Europe is a bit like sending Edward Snowden to give a speech on NSA reform to the Republican National Committee. Bush has come up in nearly every conversation I’ve had here since arriving, and always with a warning: that skepticism of the US is already high here, that the German public’s support of tough policies toward Russia is tenuous, and that the mere sight of a Bush makes Germans want to run in the opposite direction of US foreign policy.
……………
Jeb Bush is extremely unpopular in Germany, where only 7 percent see him in a positive light, according to a recent YouGov poll, with 27 percent negative. His last name is deeply intertwined with a popular opposition to US foreign policy that, to my surprise, Germans themselves have frequently characterized to me as “anti-Americanism.” When Germans express skepticism toward Merkel’s hardline policies on Russia and Ukraine, they often do so by suggesting those policies are being pushed by the Americans, and raising the much-loathed 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. The very worst person to convince them to stay the course on Russia, then, is anyone named Bush.
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/9/8750597/jeb-bush-berlin
Germany to Jeb Bush: Don’t come at us, unless we SEND.FOR.YOU!
LOL
Happy HUMP day, Everyone!
I see you, SG2. LOL Bad Company is the Shi-nitz! We’re in Good Company with ‘Bad company.’
Bad Company!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww5GXbk58R0
“BAD COMPANY, I CAN’T DENY IT. BAD COMPANY, TIL THE DAY I DIE.”
Don’t make me get out my guitar!
Those white boys can play THAT music.
Jeb Bush faces deep skepticism in Berlin
06/09/15 12:47 PM—UPDATED 06/09/15 01:24 PM
By Steve Benen
When Barack Obama was a presidential candidate, and he traveled to Berlin to help lay a diplomatic groundwork for the future, the Democrat was welcomed like a rock star. By some estimates, a crowd of 200,000 people attended Obama’s event in July 2008.
Seven years later, it’s another American presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who’s headed to Europe, visiting Germany, Poland, and Estonia this week. MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin reported overnight on the Republican’s overseas excursion.
Bush will open the trip on Tuesday in Berlin with a speech at an economic conference hosted by the ruling Christian Democratic Union. The party’s fiscal conservatism under German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is also speaking at the conference, lines up with Bush’s views and the event will give him a chance to tout his vision for a “right to rise” economy.
From there he’ll participate in a series of meetings, some public and some private, including a roundtable with Polish civil and business leaders in Warsaw on Thursday and a discussion of joint security concerns in Tallinn on Friday between American and Europe.
Bush is hardly the only GOP candidate making overseas trips to bolster their foreign policy bona fides in advance of national campaigns, though it seems most Republicans go to England – and the trips never turn out well.
The Florida Republican’s destinations, however, aren’t random. As BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins explained, Bush’s trip is “designed to place him in meetings and photo ops with some of the continent’s leading critics of Putin’s Russia.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/jeb-bush-faces-deep-skepticism-berlin
found at POU:
LeBron James bows to Cleveland Browns’ legend Jim Brown pregame
Jun 10, 2015, 8:30 AM EDT
The last time the city of Cleveland celebrated a professional sports title of any kind, it was because of Jim Brown. The legendary running back was at the heart of the 1964 Browns that won a title beating the Baltimore Colts.
Brown was sitting courtside for Game 3 in Cleveland, and LeBron James acknowledged him with a little bow pregame.
http://youtu.be/Qj6MbmIG_mA
10 Tropical Places Americans Can Visit, No Passport Required
http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/10-tropical-places-americans-can-visit-no-passport-required/ss-BBkxELf?ocid=HPCDHP
Good Moring, Everyone :)
Morning everyone! It doesn’t feel good tho.
Wassamatta-U! ? :-(((
Sad. My heart hurts.
Feel better SG2
SG, take care of you…
Thank you. I’m trying.
Good Morning Everyone :)
Wesley Lowery @WesleyLowery 11h11 hours ago
Police commission rules LAPD officer was wrong to use deadly force in Ezell Ford shooting (via @katemather)
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ezell-ford-lapd-police-commission-decision-20150609-story.html#page=1 …