Happy HUMP DAY, Everyone! We hope you are enjoying Jill Scott week!
2010–2012: Hidden Beach lawsuit, The Light of the Sun (2011), and tour[edit]
Early in 2010, Scott was sued by Hidden Beach Records for leaving halfway through her six album contract and owing millions of dollars in damages.[15] The label’s founder, Steve McKeever, claimed that he helped launch Scott’s career and nurtured her into a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, but was unceremoniously dumped in October after a 10-year plus relationship. Scott, however, countersued that claim.
To offset the damages, Hidden Beach planned to release several compilation albums consisting of previously unreleased material by Scott. The first album in this series was The Original Jill Scott from the Vault, Vol. 1. Previously titled Just Before Dawn, the album was asked to be paused by Scott so that fans would not get confused with the new material she was releasing entitled The Light of the Sun being released under a distribution deal by Scott and Warner Brothers signed in early 2011.[16] The deal gives Scott direct control over her marketing and promotions and releases her music under her imprint of Blues Babe Records. She also signed a multi-tour deal with Live Nation to expand her concert touring.
The Light of the Sun officially began production in 2010. Scott gave fans a preview of the music on her 18 city venue, co-headlining tour with R&B singer Maxwell, Maxwell & Jill Scott: The Tour. After tour, Scott began studio sessions with the album’s executive producer, JR Hutson. Recording sessions took place in several locations including 9th Street Studios, Studio 609, Fever Recording Studios in North Hollywood, California, Threshold Sound & Vision in Santa Monica, California, and The Studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The Boom Boom Room in Burbank, California, and The Village Studios in West Los Angeles, California. It features collaborations from Anthony Hamilton, Eve, Doug E Fresh, and Paul Wall. The album was released for pre-order days before it was officially released on June 21, 2011. It debuted at #1 on the US Billboard 200 chart, with 135,000 copies sold in its first week, becoming her first #1 debut on the chart.
The album was preceded by the promo single “Shame”, which was released on Scott’s SoundCloud account in April 2012. The single features the rapper Eve and R&B trio The A-Group. The video was released on Essence.com on April 13. The album’s official debut single was “So in Love” featuring Anthony Hamilton. It was released in April and debuted at #43 on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, Scott’s highest debut on that chart. It peaked at #10, and tied a record with Maxwell’s “Fortunate” for spending 14 weeks at #1 on the Urban Adult Contemporary Chart.
Scott promoted the album with several tactics including The Light of the Sundays, several online Essence interviews, and releasing the album as an iTunes LP, giving fans exclusive photos and videos. Scott also embarked on her Summer Block Party tour sponsored by Budweiser’s Superfest. The tour was a hit, selling out venues throughout the country with opening acts Anthony Hamilton and legendary group Mint Condition. It also featured Doug E Fresh as the host and DJ Jazzy Jeff as the DJ. The album’s second official single, “So Gone (What My Mind Says)” featuring Paul Wall was released in August 2011, and the video premiered on September 13 on E! Online. It has peaked at #28 on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Scott also released a video for the song “Hear My Call”. The project gained Scott four NAACP Image Awards including Outstanding Female Artist, Outstanding Music Video (“Hear My Call”), Outstanding Song (“So in Love”), and Outstanding Album (The Light of the Sun).
https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/629012013503614976
https://twitter.com/BET/status/629009019684782080
As Bernie would say..
KICK IT
http://i.imgur.com/8OxpcPk.gif
https://twitter.com/thekarami/status/629020430804779009
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/629030461449338881
https://twitter.com/BET/status/628958862519898112
https://twitter.com/nanaslugdiva/status/629012203312513024
https://twitter.com/mattwhitlockPM/status/600779331921641473
https://twitter.com/TomAdelsbach/status/628917963073167360/photo/1
https://twitter.com/BlkHistStudies/status/628152027261046788
https://twitter.com/Dirk2112/status/629057188565254144
https://twitter.com/Lib_Librarian/status/629062970677407745
https://youtu.be/Vb1Mtx9BONA
Cotton talks up benefits of striking Iran
08/05/15 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
The debate over U.S. policy towards Iran tends to follow a predictable trajectory. The Obama administration has told lawmakers that they have a choice: they can allow the international, diplomatic agreement to move forward, or they can push us closer to yet another military conflict in the Middle East.
For Republicans and their allies, this has been labeled a “false choice.” U.S. conservatives don’t want a war, they insist, they just want a different diplomatic solution. What might that alternative policy look like? Republicans, at least for now, haven’t the foggiest idea.
But once in a while, prominent GOP officials slip up and acknowledge that the choice isn’t quite as “false” as they like to pretend. Last week, for example, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) seemed quite enthusiastic about the prospect of a war with Iran. The Times of Israel has a related report today on Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) talking up the benefits of military strikes in Iran.
Speaking to the Israel Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Cotton – who retired from the US Army with the rank of captain – called for the US to make plain to the Iranians that it wouldn’t hesitate to use force if it felt the need to do so. […]
“You can destroy facilities. I don’t think any military expert in the United States or elsewhere would say the US military is not capable to setting Iran’s nuclear facilities back to day zero,” Cotton said. “Can we eliminate it forever? No, because any advanced industrialized country can develop nuclear weapons in four to seven years, from zero. But we can set them back to day zero.”
There are two broad problems with this.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cotton-talks-benefits-striking-iran
BREAKING NEWS: Suspect dead after police respond to reports of shots fired at Nashville-area movie theater.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/suspect-in-nashville-movie-theater-shooting-is-dead-police/ar-CCvX0?ocid=u146dhp
uh uh uh… when will this madness ever end?
This is a big deal
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/250317-sec-finalizes-contentious-ceo-pay-ratio-rules
https://twitter.com/auntoona/status/627442056114208768/photo/1
https://twitter.com/NBCLA/status/628573569174380544
I saw that video. These vicious assaults are probably going to get worse as these old white people succumb to varying degrees of dementia, making them unable to control their behavior.
https://twitter.com/Omid_M/status/628971360816115712
and…he’s alive…..who’d a thunk it?
https://twitter.com/sts10/status/628974979103752192
https://twitter.com/ericgeller/status/628966755747164160
https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/628972703119220736
https://twitter.com/dabeard/status/628885330255552512
It already is his party. I will keep on saying it.
they created it….the bill is due.
………
The GOP Is About to Become the Party of Trump
Aug 5, 2015 4:01 AM CDT
The billionaire’s metamorphosis into a Republican politician carries demographic risks for the GOP.
When Donald Trump takes center stage at Thursday’s Fox News debate in Cleveland, it will be a critical moment for the Republican Party. Until recently, Americans mentally categorized Trump as a celebrity entertainer and interpreted his madcap antics and controversial pronouncements accordingly. But on Thursday, voters will experience Trump in a much different context: as the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, who not only leads the presidential field by a wide margin but, as a new Bloomberg Politics poll shows, has a powerful appeal to every segment of the Republican electorate.
That’s great news for Trump. But if voters start associating his demagogic rantings about Mexican “rapists” not with Trump alone but with the broader Republican Party, his presence in the field could doom the GOP’s efforts to extend its appeal to new voters. “If he got the nomination talking like that, it would be a big problem,” says Grover Norquist, the conservative anti-tax stalwart. Even Trump’s current standing could tarnish the Republican brand, says Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee: “It’s something very scary for the party establishment.”
……………
But Trump’s broad popularity and enduring strength among Republicans lend credence to a different interpretation: that his candidacy has become the preferred vehicle for Republican voters to express maximal outrage at their own party’s leaders for failing to carry out the agenda they keep promising. It’s one that many conservatives ardently desire: to deport undocumented immigrants, kill Obamacare, overturn Roe v. Wade, and return the GOP to a position of primacy in American politics.
“If you look at the whole Republican Party, from libertarians to evangelicals to the Tea Party,” says Steele, “you have a group of people who’ve been lied to for 35 years. Republican [presidential candidates] have said, ‘Elect us and we’ll do these things.’ Well, they haven’t. And that frustration is manifesting itself in Trump.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-05/the-gop-is-about-to-become-the-party-of-trump?cmpid=BBD080515_POL
Ro-Ro talks back to Roger Stone.
https://twitter.com/NoShock/status/628958075081392129
Go Pope Frankie
https://twitter.com/americamag/status/628937000494735360
RT America @RT_America 11h11 hours ago
“Cops claim privacy violation, sue over video showing them eating marijuana during raid http://on.rt.com/6ofp“
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLnwJCsWwAAOd5C.jpg
I love this
………………..
Breaking News: Black Panther Is the World’s Richest Superhero Thanks to Commodity-Rich Continental Africa
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
August 4, 2015 at 1:25PM
I’m sure this is all based on years and years of extensive research, and absolutely cannot be debunked by any other existing data, so, I’m taking it all as gospel.
This comes courtesy of the folks at TIME magazine’s Money blog, in an item published last month (I’m only just seeing it), in which they compiled a list of the top 5 richest superheroes, listing Black Panther/T’Challa (the black superhero who will be played by Chadwick Boseman in the upcoming film adaptation) as indeed the richest of all superheroes, beating out the man in the number 2 slot, Tony Stark (aka Iron Man), by quite a margin – $90.7 trillion to Tony Stark’s piddly $12.4 billion.
T’Challa’s wealth is primarily as a result of the fact that his homeland, the fictional African nation known as Wakanda, is where all of the world’s deposits of vibranium, the most precious and desired metal on the planet, reside. I’ve always considered it a nod to the numerous valuable and cherished commodities that call countries within the African continent, home – like oil, diamonds, coltan, gold, cobalt, even coffee, and much more. However, real opportunities to capitalize on their resource endowments arguably haven’t yet been fully exploited, especially as we continue to see changes in a global economy that promotes economic transformation through commodity-based industrialization, to address poverty, inequality and unemployment. Although this may not apply to all African countries, and should not be the only way African resource-rich nations industrialize.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/breaking-news-black-panther-is-the-worlds-richest-superhero-thanks-to-commodity-rich-africa-20150804
From Zandar in Cincy:
Trials And Tribulations
Posted by Zandar at 8:51 am .
Aug
05
2015
.
Didn’t take long for this to happen, did it?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/08/05/trials-and-tribulations/
Because these officers are so trustworthy.
Uh huh.
Uh huh.
UH HUH
UH HUH
Where Should a Poor Family Live?
AUG. 5, 2015
If its goal is to move up the ladder, where should a poor family live? Should federal dollars go toward affordable housing within high-poverty neighborhoods, or should subsidies be used to move residents of impoverished communities into more upscale – and more resistant — sections of cities and suburbs with better schools and job opportunities?
Three developments this year – an academic study, a Supreme Court decision and a tough new Department of Housing and Urban Development regulation – have challenged existing policies that place the bulk of low-income housing in the most deprived neighborhoods.
The dominant force behind existing policies is what critics call the “poverty housing industry,” a de facto alliance of multimillion-dollar nonprofit housing companies, city politicians, state and local housing authorities and grass-roots organizations based in distressed urban communities.
This alliance justifies the placement of affordable housing in the poorest sectors by arguing that it will encourage neighborhood revitalization and economic growth. In addition to these claims of renewal, there are significant advantages for developers in building on sites in the most destitute areas. In contrast to residents of upscale communities, those in poor neighborhoods are unlikely to object to low-income housing; local activist groups are desperate for money and will gratefully back developers who award them grants; and local politicians welcome the opportunity to claim credit for new construction projects.
Now, the poverty housing industry has been thrown on the defensive by charges that — whatever its intentions — current location selection practices further promote the isolation of the poor, leaving hundreds of thousands of children in communities with high crime, low-performing schools and single-parent families. Instead of revitalization, according to this argument, putting affordable housing into already distressed areas serves only to further concentrate disadvantage.
This concentration, in turn, has significant negative consequences.
“A growing body of research over the last several decades suggests that stress and exposure to violence in high-poverty neighborhoods can affect children’s cognitive development, school performance, mental health and long-term physical health,” argue Barbara Sard of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Philip Tegeler, director of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, in a report published by Furman Center of New York University, “Children and Housing Vouchers.”
For some nonprofit companies, low-income housing is big business. Two of the biggest tax-exempt housing companies are Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Enterprise Community Partners/Enterprise Community Investment.
Since 1980, LISC has invested a total of $14.7 billion nationwide in 330,000 affordable-housing units and 53 million square feet of retail and community space. Michael Rubinger, president and C.E.O. of LISC, had a 2013 compensation package of $485,727, the most recent year for which figures are available, and 15 other LISC executives received in excess of $200,000 that year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/where-should-a-poor-family-live.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article
Charmaine @_LuckiestCharm
Y’all aren’t saying #AllLivesMatter when y’all are shooting up movie theaters, schools, + churches. https://twitter.com/brocktheginger/status/624292549868527616 …
The Voting Rights Act at 50
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
AUG. 5, 2015
For the first 48 years of its existence, the Voting Rights Act — signed by President Lyndon Johnson 50 years ago this week — was one of the most popular and effective civil rights laws in American history. Centuries of slavery, segregation and officially sanctioned discrimination had kept African-Americans from having any real voice in the nation’s politics. Under the aggressive new law, black voter registration and turnout soared, as did the number of black elected officials.
Recognizing its success, Congress repeatedly reaffirmed the act and expanded its protections. The last time, in 2006, overwhelming majorities in both houses extended the law for another 25 years. But only seven years later, in 2013, five Supreme Court justices elbowed in and concluded, on scant evidence, that there was no longer a need for the law’s most powerful tool; the Voting Rights Act, they claimed, had done its job.
In truth, the battle for voting rights has had to be unrelenting, and the act itself has been under constant assault from the start. As Ari Berman writes in his new history of the law, “Give Us the Ballot,” the act’s revolutionary success “spawned an equally committed group of counterrevolutionaries” who have aimed to dismantle the central achievements of the civil rights movement.
Today there are no poll taxes or literacy tests. Instead there are strict and unnecessary voter-identification requirements, or cutbacks to early voting and same-day registration — all of which are known to disproportionately burden black voters.
The relative subtlety of the newer measures does not make them any less insidious. But it does make them more resistant to charges of illegality. A federal trial that ended last week in North Carolina provided the clearest example of the challenges faced by those who want to protect democracy’s most fundamental right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/the-voting-rights-act-at-50.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=1
https://twitter.com/EPA/status/628930700570415104
https://twitter.com/colorlines/status/628915651369902080
Mitch McConnell’s Preemptive Capitulation
by BooMan
Tue Aug 4th, 2015 at 10:38:22 PM EST
This Alexander Bolton piece in The Hill is pretty damn good. It’s so good, in fact, that I recommend that you read it to get a sense of how fucked up things are in Congress and what you should expect to see there for the remainder of the year.
If you read between the lines a little bit, one thing becomes pretty clear. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fully intends to screw over conservative budget hawks, blow off military hawks, tell the culture warriors to pound sand, and to almost completely capitulate to the administration.
The way he’s probably going to try to do this is by just punting on all the work the Senate will do this year on appropriations and asking for a last second continuing resolution that will keep spending the same. All he gets out of the deal is the ability to preserve the cuts he won during the fight over the Budget Control Act of 2011, but that means that defense spending will remain below what even the Obama administration wants.
He’ll need the Democrats to go along with his plan, in both the Senate and the House. And he’ll have to let his own caucus vote on a bunch of riders to do things like ban spending on Planned Parenthood, kill Obamacare (again), declare Iran the second coming of the Third Reich, and obliterate the Environmental Protection Agency. But, since the only way the Republicans could conceivably prevail on any of those issues is to shut down the government and pray for a miracle, McConnell doesn’t really give a shit about them. He’s not interested in another government shutdown that yields nothing but aggravated voters and higher disapproval numbers for his party.
However, he’s going to have to contend with 17 presidential contenders braying at him to fight, fight, fight, as well as constant bellowing about what a sellout he is and how Washington Republicans never keep their promises. The only thing he has going for him, besides reality, is that he’s not Speaker Boehner. He can hide behind Democratic filibusters, for example, and he doesn’t have 150 members who make Michele Bachmann look statesmanlike. Boehner will deliver a conservative heat-fever wish list of a budget and then have to turn around and sell McConnell’s nothing burger to his caucus.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2015/8/4/223822/9819#9
they’ve found Dorothy!
………………..
NBC’s ‘The Wiz Live!’ Has Found Its Dorothy
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
August 5, 2015 at 8:26AM
It was in May when NBC has announced an open casting call for the lead role of Dorothy in the network’s upcoming holiday special “The Wiz Live!,” set to air on Thursday, Dec. 3.
Revealed this morning, just moments ago, on NBC’s “The Today Show,” newcomer Shanice Williams has been cast as Dorothy, beating out the competition. This could be the break of a lifetime for the actress/singer.
Williams joins David Alan Grier, who will play the Cowardly Lion; Queen Latifah stars as the Wiz; Mary J. Blige will play Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West; and Stephanie Mills (who played Dorothy in the original Broadway production of “The Wiz”) will portray Auntie Em in NBC’s December production.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/nbcs-the-wiz-live-has-found-its-dorothy-20150805
this is what I’ve been saying…he’s not appealing to a sliver of the GOP. He’s straight in the MAINSTREAM GOP.
……………………….
It’s Wrong to Call Donald Trump a ‘Fringe’ Candidate
A new Bloomberg Politics poll of Republican and Republican-leaning voters demolishes the claim that he appeals to mouth-breathing xenophobes and nobody else.
Donald Trump’s rise to a position of total dominance in the Republican presidential field has been accompanied by a dismissive snort from Beltway mandarins that Trump is merely a “fringe” candidate. The idea, in essence, is that Trump has a strong but narrow appeal to a group of mouth-breathing xenophobes and practically nobody else.
But a new Bloomberg Politics poll of Republican and Republican-leaning voters demolishes this claim. Trump not only laps the competition—he has twice the support of the second-place candidate, Jeb Bush (21 percent to 10 percent)—but he also leads among every demographic subgroup, but one (self-identified “moderates”).
Let’s break it down. Trump leads with male voters (Trump 24 percent, Bush 11 percent, Walker 10 percent) and female voters (Trump 18 percent, Bush 10 percent, Huckabee 10 percent). He leads with voters younger than 45 (Trump 15 percent, Bush 10 percent, Rubio and Paul at 9 percent) and voters older than 45 (Trump 25 percent, Bush 11 percent, Walker 9 percent) and seniors (Trump 23 percent, Bush 14 percent, Walker 9 percent).
Trump wins voters with no more than a high school degree (Trump 27 percent, Huckabee 13 percent, Bush 11 percent) and voters with a college degree (Trump 19 percent, Walker 12 percent, Bush 11 percent). He leads among affluent voters who earn $100,000 or more annually (Trump 18 percent, Bush 14 percent, Walker 13 percent) and those who make less than $50,000 a year (Trump 19 percent, Bush 11 percent, Walker 9 percent).
The thrice-married Trump, who recently told a Christian forum that he “never” asks God for forgiveness, wins “born-again” voters (Trump 16 percent, Huckabee 14 percent), as well as Catholics (Trump 27 percent, Rubio 9 percent) and Protestants (Trump 18 percent, Bush 12 percent). And he also wins “Tea Party” conservatives (Trump 24 percent, Walker 11 percent).
The only demographic category Trump does not win is self-professed moderate voters. But even here, Trump who is often said to horrify moderate Republicans, is a narrow second choice: Bush leads with 20 percent, followed by Trump with 19 percent. Nobody else is even close.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-04/it-s-wrong-to-call-trump-a-fringe-candidate
PragmaticObotsUnite @PragObots
First, there was this: https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/628751295801901056 … then came this: #NYTimesTweetsLike
Bougie Black Girl @BougieBlackGurl
#NYTimesTweetsLike Slavery was evil but it taught Black people about the love of Christ.
Ayanna Dozier @Komiksgrrrl
#NYTimesTweetsLike 150 years after slavery, plantations make for great hipster wedding venues.
Trigger Fingers @INeedJa_Kadeeja
Rent prices have doubled in NOLA, forcing its poor into the outskirts w/ no transportation BUT THIS FRESH SEAFOOD #NYTimesTweetsLike
Dandy MxFopperson @rosefox
#NYTimesTweetsLike Quitting your job after your boss sexually harasses you is a great opportunity to start your own business.
alexandros! @SubSentences
#NYTimesTweetsLike Centuries After the Atlantic Slave Trade and Genocide of Natives, Tourism To Caribbean is Booming
https://twitter.com/dcmadness202/status/628715933545144320/photo/1
https://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/628659185761275904
So 33% of blacks are satisfied / somewhat satisfied with the way black people are treated in the US? That is 1/3 give or take a few points and whatever integrity this poll has. Even so, I think it should be close to zero, 5 percent at the most.
Idris Elba Makes History as First Male ‘Maxim’ Cover (Photo)
https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2350/8725/original.jpg
Actor Idris Elba graces the cover of Maxim’s September issue, the first solo-male cover in the history of the men’s publication.
Wearing a dark coat alongside the caption, “Man Up,” Elba’s cover differs significantly from Maxim’s usual covers, which usually features scantily clad women.
“We’ve never in U.S. Maxim history had a man on the cover solo,” new editor-in-chief Kate Lanphear told Racked. “This is the very first time, and there was no one else in the world more badass than Idris.”
Elba is the perfect embodiment of what Lanphear wanted a man on the cover to be: “He’s multi-dimensional, he’s complex, he’s sophisticated, but he’s down to earth. It was funny when on set, I was like, ‘Is there anything this guy can’t do?’ He’s an award-winning actor, he’s a DJ, his capsule clothing line for Superdry is about to hit stores. The guy broke the [British] land speed record, which hasn’t been touched since like 1928. He’s sort of a living, breathing superhero.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/idris-elba-makes-history-as-first-male-%e2%80%98maxim%e2%80%99-cover-photo/ar-BBlp3uk?ocid=HPCDHP
Ciara takes son to Russell Wilson’s football camp and it’s too cute
The “Future” of the NFL?
Although the Seattle Seahawks boast a bevy of superstars, a 14-month-old boy stole their spotlight after Ciara brought her infant son to the team’s training camp on Aug. 3.
The pictures of baby Future are beyond adorable. The little tot looks right at home on the football field, watching his mommy’s boyfriend, quarterback Russell Wilson, practice with his team. Pictures show Future playing with a football, drinking from his bottle, hugging Russell and getting tossed in the air by his mother.
As cute as they photos are, some fans didn’t appreciate the visit, and as usual, took to Twitter to voice displeasure. Likewise, there was another person very close to the situation who was none too pleased: Ciara’s ex and Future’s daddy of the same namesake.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/ciara-takes-son-to-russell-wilsons-football-camp-and-its-too-cute/ar-BBloSmP?ocid=HPCDHP
and you thought it would be any different?
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THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/4/15
Fox News rigs debate to hide close call, RNC allows it
Rachel Maddow points out that Fox News violated their own debate qualification criteria by ignoring the fifth most recent poll and instead taking the sixth, with the result being a greater distinction between tenth and eleventh place, Kasich and Perry. Duration: 13:35
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/fox-news-rigs-debate-to-hide-close-call-498639427657
The coal industry’s problems go far beyond Obama
08/04/15 03:58 PM
By Steve Benen
If you own a coal-fired power plant, chances are pretty good you aren’t impressed with President Obama’s new Clean Power Plan. The policy, unveiled yesterday, will further scale back carbon pollution, which is the opposite of what the coal industry wants to hear. For those invested in the “war on coal” talking point, yesterday was striking proof of the conflict.
But pesky details keep getting in the way of the rhetoric. The New Republic’s Rebecca Leber argues effectively in a new piece that the industry is struggling badly anyway, for reasons unrelated to the White House.
In 2008, when Obama took office, almost 18,000 coal miners were employed in Kentucky, 14,000 of them in Eastern Kentucky. Today, fewer than 6,000 miners remain in the region. Yet the real cause of the industry’s decline isn’t Obama. It’s the free market that Republicans love to embrace. As renewables and natural gas have driven coal prices down, coal jobs have shifted away from Central Appalachia, where coal is more expensive, to Wyoming, where it is cheaper to mine. Mining coal is simply no longer an economically viable option in Kentucky.
That will remain true, of course, no matter who’s in the Oval Office, whether an administration is combating the climate crisis or ignoring it.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-coal-industrys-problems-go-far-beyond-obama
Incoherence on women’s health trips up Jeb Bush
08/05/15 08:01 AM
By Steve Benen
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush was in Nashville yesterday, speaking at a Southern Baptist Convention event, where he made a comment that voters are likely to hear more than once in the coming months. The quote is a little long, but I’m including the whole thing so readers can see the full context:
“The next president should defund Planned Parenthood. I have the benefit of having been governor and we did defund Planned Parenthood when I was governor. We tried to create a culture of life across the board. The argument against this is, well, women’s health issues are going to be, you’re attacking, it’s a ‘war on women’ and you’re attacking women’s health issues.
“You could take dollar for dollar – although I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues – but if you took dollar for dollar, there are many extraordinarily fine organizations, community health organizations, that exist, federally sponsored community health organizations, to provide quality care for women on a wide variety of health issues. But abortion should not be funded by the government, any government, in my mind.”
Most of the sentences in Bush’s quote include an error of fact or judgment. The former governor has never been able to explain why Planned Parenthood – a health organization championed by his father and grandfather – should lose its public funding. He also knows that taxpayers aren’t funding abortion – that’s already illegal – and for Bush to argue otherwise is needlessly dishonest.
But the real problem was with his offhand reflection: “I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues.” At this point, the GOP candidate didn’t seem to be referring to Planned Parenthood, so much as Bush was questioning investing in women’s health in general.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/incoherence-womens-health-trips-jeb-bush
Good Morning, Everyone :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8IhAHxFhx4
We’re ABSOLUTELY sure BILLIONS of dollars were not needed for the WAR in IRAQ, Jeb!
Good Morning, Everyone. :-)
Buenos Dias!
Good Morning!
https://youtu.be/Dt0vKYWOIXc&rel=0