Times at Ridgemont High is a 1982 American coming-of-age teen comedy film written by Cameron Crowe, adapted from his 1981 book of the same name. As a freelance writer for Rolling Stone magazine, Crowe went undercover at Clairemont High School in San Diego, California,[2][3] and wrote about his experiences.
The film was directed by Amy Heckerling (in her feature film directorial debut) and chronicles a school year in the lives of sophomores Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Mark Ratner (Brian Backer), and their respective older friends Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates) and Mike Damone (Robert Romanus), both of whom believe themselves wiser in the ways of romance than their younger counterparts. The ensemble cast of characters form two subplots with Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn), a carefree stoned surfer, facing off against uptight history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), and Stacy’s brother, Brad (Judge Reinhold), a senior who works at a series of entry-level jobs in order to pay off his car, and who is pondering easing out of his relationship with his girlfriend, until she herself dumps him.
In addition to Penn, Reinhold, Cates, and Leigh, the film marks early appearances by several actors who later became stars, including Nicolas Cage, then billing himself as Nicolas Coppola, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, and Anthony Edwards. Among the actors listed, Penn, Cage, and Whitaker would later on in their careers win the Academy Award for Best Actor, with Penn winning twice.
In 2005, Fast Times at Ridgemont High was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High Soundtrack
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/us/dean-at-claremont-mckenna-college-resigns-amid-protests.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTphlwVWwAAaI4r.jpg
The above is how a Chancellor or President of a college needs to respond to racial incidents.
Apparently, the former President at Mizzou was not responsive when racial incidents were reported to him. When leaders of colleges are not responsive, racist perpetrators are emboldened.
This is too cute.
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OH ISH!
https://twitter.com/SteveKornacki/status/664934122964520964
Told you fam…Nina knows!!
She’s a smart woman who the Beckies pretty much humored as they only paid her (marginal) lip-service instead of offering real and tangible support for her campaign. This while they poured major resources into Wendy Davies’ campaign. Nina is no fool. This sudden attempt to rally the so-called ‘sisterhood of women’ (that never aided or supported black women even to this day), is cynical and self-serving and only to elect Hillary their symbol of white supremacy.
Good for Nina for taking a principled stance and not falling for the okie dokie. Nina is now persona non grata with Ms Ann and Becky poisoned swords are now drawn in the stab position waiting for her.
I still maintain that in spite of the propaganda and whipped-up outrage that has been driven by the Clinton campaign against Bernie Sanders, there is nothing Bernie Sanders or his supporters have done that can even begin to scratch the surface of what Hillary and her supporters have done when it comes to anti-President Obama drivel.
Nobody in the Democratic party has undermined, and attempted to sabotage the Obamas and this historic presidency more than the Clintons. Don’t fall for the okie dokie.
Thank you, Eliihass!
PREACH IT, Lady! Truthfully, these BECKIES keep their SWORDS drawn.
Hillary want the negroes to jump on board, and play like Bubba’s the “Black President” back in the nineties. HELL NAWL!
So proud of Nina Turner for not prancin, dancin’ coon’ *& spoonin for this woman!
You have no idea just how proud I was of Nina Turner, Ametia. But we have to help watch and have her back…I read some of the comments on the article SG linked, and the Beckies are already out in force breathing fire and threatening Nina. As far as they’re concerned, Nina’s political career is over – because Ms Ann says so… and what Ms Ann wants, Ms Ann gets. ..LOL.
No, thank you my sis for bringing us the information and giving us a space to fully speak our truth as we know it, and recall events as we very accurately remember it.
Robinson deserved everything Murdering Joe & his white cohorts threw at him. DAMN FOOL!
And Lil Jonny Capehart ALSO TOO!
Eugene is a disappointment. A smart man who knows the truth but who gets conveniently tongue-tied or mealy-mouthed because he’s a big wuss. Jonathan is a flake. They exist entirely as token black faces to dance hard – around the edges…and only for their supper. Can’t be seen to have too much of an opinion, contrarian or not – even if it’s the truth.
But then again, that’s the quality of black men they’ll hire. Can’t possibly have honest, self-respecting, strong, well-informed black men ‘opinionating’ and making sense – or making Joe Scarborough look rightfully foolish..
RILEY!
https://twitter.com/eonline/status/664673268557864961
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/664914315464409090
Here they go, folks! A threat is a threat! Dylan Roof walked into a church and slaughtered 9 people. Prosecute him to the fullest!
https://twitter.com/SJNPHoppa/status/664891825732227072
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/664906850869993472
https://twitter.com/stltoday/status/664879682882433024
Reuters Top News ✔ @Reuters
“It’s not murder if they’re black.” Howard University tightens security after online death threat: http://reut.rs/1MZEeb0
Cassandra Fairbanks @CassandraRules 1h1 hour ago
Texas Police Respond To Attempted Suicide, Shoot Hispanic Man, Then Learn He’s A Cop (VIDEO): http://www.addictinginfo.org/2… … via @AddInfoOrg
https://twitter.com/FORUS50/status/664894788710195200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Always some flimsy justification – if that, for the now completely routine gunning down of black people..
Rubio’s faith outreach director raises eyebrows
11/12/15 01:03 PM
By Steve Benen
During any national campaign, the country looks for evidence of what kind of president the various candidates would be. And as part of the exercise, we can go through all kinds of areas, including the candidates’ records, speeches, and proposals.
But it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on who presidential hopefuls surround themselves with, because this, too, offers a hint about the candidates’ intentions. The fact that Jeb Bush, for example, has hired so many members of his brother’s foreign policy team speaks volumes about the kind of approach to international affairs we can expect to see if the former governor is elected.
With this in mind, the Huffington Post ran an interesting piece this week on Eric Teetsel, who’ll serve as the director of faith outreach for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign.
A prominent young voice among evangelicals, Teetsel was the executive director of the Manhattan Declaration, a 2009 manifesto declaring the “sanctity of life” and marriage signed by more than 550,000 people…. In June, after the Confederate flag came down on the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol in the same week the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal in all 50 states, Teetsel lamented on Twitter that the U.S. “traded one symbol of illiberalism and sweeping cultural sin for another.”
Teetsel expanded on his thoughts after the court ruling, warning that gay Americans would experience “suffering” unless Christians point them “toward the better way.”
It’s true, of course, that candidates and their top aides don’t always agree on literally every issue, and it’d be unfair to argue that everything Teetsel has ever said or written necessarily enjoys Rubio’s endorsement.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubios-faith-outreach-director-raises-eyebrows
https://twitter.com/BlackStudiesUT/status/664892156255977472
https://twitter.com/DMVFollowers/status/664838150926286854/photo/1
The WSJ is Dismayed By the Tone
by BooMan
Thu Nov 12th, 2015 at 09:06:40 AM EST
The Wall Street Journal is dismayed that several Republicans used the occasion of a debate that the Journal cosponsored to bash the Fed and the financial sector. And they’re not alone:
“A nasty—and ignorant—anti-Wall Street climate prevails in both parties, and it’s something our industry has to worry about,” said Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments, in a client note Wednesday.
I’ve noticed that these big investor types have a remarkably thin skin for a class of people that is supposed to be pretty sophisticated and not a little cynical. I mean, the investor class got in bed with the “antediluvians” in the conservative base way back in 1964 when Prescott Bush decided to get on his moral high horse and tear down Nelson Rockefeller for his scandalous personal life:
“Have we come to the point in our life as a nation where the governor of a great state—one who perhaps aspires to the nomination for president of the United States—can desert a good wife, mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade a young mother of four youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the governor?”
That was over fifty years ago now, and it’s a little late for the Northeast Establishment to seek a divorce of their own. They’ve been fine with aligning themselves politically with religious stone-agers and anti-science zealots. But they sound less like the one seeking a divorce than the one trying to discover when and how they started to grow so far apart. Maybe they’re hoping a little counseling can patch things up. It’s just that the conservatives seem so angry.
The fourth GOP debate, sponsored by The Wall Street Journal and Fox Business Network, illustrated how Republicans are competing to bridge their populist message with the party’s traditional support for lower taxes and less regulation. Candidates castigated crony capitalism, questioned the value of a Pacific trade pact and bashed the Fed as a cause of the financial crisis and a tool of the Obama administration.
The Goldwater brigades did favor lower taxes and less regulation and when they fully wed themselves to the social conservatives in the Nixon coalition, the Wall Street folks decided they could live and prosper with this new Republican Party just as well as they had lived with the old one.
But now they seem to have lost their last bit of control over the process and they not only have hurt feelings; they’re getting genuinely alarmed.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2015/11/12/9640/3534?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boomantribune%2FSvpw+%28Booman+Tribune%29
Ben Carson Profits From Ties With Convicted Felon, AP Report Finds
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Republican presidential contender Ben Carson has maintained a business relationship with a close friend convicted of defrauding insurance companies and testified on his behalf, even as the candidate has called for such crimes to be punished harshly.
Pittsburgh dentist Alfonso A. Costa pleaded guilty to a felony count of health care fraud after an FBI probe into his oral surgery practice found he had charged for procedures he never performed, according to court records.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/ben-carson-profits-ties-convicted-felon-ap-report-finds-n462046
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Another Train Wreck for McConnell
You might remember that back in early 2010 Senate Democrats used a rule called budget reconciliation to by-pass a Republican filibuster and tweak their version of the Affordable Care Act to make it consistent with the one in the House. As a result, Republicans had a bit of a hissy fit, making the dubious claim that a simple majority vote in the Senate signaled the end of democracy as we know it.
In a move that should break all of our irony meters, Senate Republicans will soon attempt to use that same budget reconciliation rule in an attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act with a simple majority vote on a bill that has already passed the House. And we wonder why the practice of politics gets a bad name.
But hold onto your hats. This one is running into some trouble because, even with 54 Republicans in the Senate, McConnell is going to have trouble rounding up the 51 votes he needs.
The first problem comes from the Senate’s version of insurgents – Cruz, Rubio and Lee – who say that simply throwing a monkey wrench into Obamacare is not enough.
“On Friday the House of Representatives is set to vote on a reconciliation bill that repeals only parts of ObamaCare. This simply isn’t good enough. Each of us campaigned on a promise to fully repeal ObamaCare and a reconciliation bill is the best way to send such legislation to President Obama’s desk,” the three senators said.
The House version of the bill also contains provisions that defund Planned Parenthood – which is a problem for some Republican Senators representing more moderate states.
But if the Planned Parenthood provision is in the final bill — Senate Republican aides say no final decisions have been made — a handful of votes from the moderate wing could also break away. They include Murkowski, and Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Susan Collins of Maine.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2015/11/another-train-wreck-for-mcconnell.html?spref=tw
Thursday, November 12, 2015
The Business of Media and Politics
After the last GOP presidential debate, the Fox Business Network is determined to gloat about how much more accommodating they were to the candidates than CNBC. But there is a much deeper story about the relationship between television media and political campaigns than that kind of one-upmanship reveals. Michael Wolff captured that pretty well with a story titled: GOP Candidates are Hollywood’s Unlikely New Divas.
At some point, politics crossed over from being a civic obligation of television news to television news’ central business. The dutiful and high-minded became incredibly profitable, complicating the responsibilities and attitudes of journalists (and their managers), most recently in NBC’s exclusion from the Republican debate cycle over complaints about CNBC’s “gotcha”-style questioning.
News was once the loss leader of TV, and politics was the loss leader of news, the slog you waded through before crime, disaster, human interest, weather and sports. Two things changed that status.
The first thing Wolff points to that changed things is the flood of television advertising money from political campaigns – which is estimated to be as much as $5 billion in 2016, “making politics the single biggest local television advertising category.” If not for revenue from political campaigns (and major sporting events), the entire television industry might be collapsing in this age of new media.
The second factor that Wolff identifies is where the Fox Business Network failed to produce.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-business-of-media-and-politics.html?spref=tw
Because this always makes me LOL
https://youtu.be/K_P7yWnAAd0
Am I…?”: A Photo Series and Documentary Film Explore the Complexities of Black Woman’s Identities.
Written by Nadia A. Sesay.
It makes sense that a question about self-identity begins with “Am I…?” This is the starting point for both photographer Endia Beal, in her newest photo series, “Am I What You’re Looking For?” and for Nadia Sasso, filmmaker of “Am I: Too African to be American or Too American to be African?”
Endia Beal captures the anxiousness of young African American female undergraduate students who are preparing for their first job interviews. The reservations the women express come from uncertainties they feel on how to best present themselves in the workplace. For many, if not most, black women, occupying professional settings and navigating through these very white spaces often means sacrificing facets of not only their physical identifies, but their characters too. These attempts at ‘fitting in’ and camouflaging oneself often come from the need to not be categorized as any of the negative stereotypes associated with black womanhood, as a form of survival.
http://dynamicafrica.tumblr.com/post/132055013380/am-i-a-photo-series-and-documentary-film
uh huh
uh huh
Police Protest Outside Gracie Mansion, Chant ‘One Term Mayor’
By Margaret Hartmann
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s relationship with the NYPD wasn’t great to begin with, and now officers are furious at the mayor over a proposal that would give them a retroactive raise of just one percent. About 400 members of the Police Benevolent Association protested outside Gracie Mansion on Wednesday night, chanting “de Blasio — One Time Mayor,” “Blue Lives Matter,” and “de Blasio Sucks,” according to CBS New York. “New York City police officers give a hundred percent. We have lost eight New York City police officers since the expiration of our contract. Their lives mattered. Their lives are worth more than one,” said Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/nypd-protests-at-gracie-chants-one-term-mayor.html#
and damn near all of them, if they’re anything like Chicago PD, makes half of their salary in overtime (and you know I’m being on the low side). So, you get a cop’s salary, those kinds of benefits, more than likely have a side job for your off days, get half of your salary in overtime….you can’t treat folks decently and with professionalism…and I’m supposed to give two shyts about you getting a raise?
GET.DA.PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
Jason Sickles @jasonsickles 8m8 minutes ago
NEW: Police in Palm Beach Gardens, FL say they have fired Officer Nouman Raja, who fatally shot #CoreyJones in Oct.
As they should have…But now he needs to be locked up for a very long time..
https://twitter.com/WPTV/status/664869692209815553
https://twitter.com/KennyUnfazed/status/638891030088126464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://chaffeyart.wikispaces.com/file/view/William_Edmondson,_Sculptor,_Nashville,_1941.png/100622923/William_Edmondson,_Sculptor,_Nashville,_1941.png
Sculptor William Edmondson was born on this day in 1863.
https://youtu.be/0T7aDXxm2m8&rel=0
I asked a legitimate question. The St. Louis Dispatch requested Michael Brown’s juvenile records and he didn’t kill anyone or threaten to kill anyone. These THUGS threaten to kill black people. No 19yr old just casually wakes up & decide they want to kill black people.
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/664655456187494400
https://twitter.com/AntonioFrench/status/664857807863287808
https://twitter.com/DejuaeMonee/status/664825732984623104
https://twitter.com/ClarkePerkins/status/664845917829378049
https://twitter.com/TPM/status/664852196903776256
This was the first I’ve seen of this story. I guess the rest of the Internet (including so called “progressive” white bloggers) are too busy being outraged about a student reporter being rebuffed at Mizzou. And of course the mainslime media is too busy giggling over Trump’s latest tweet to notice. Or care. Grrrr.
I hope you ladies are well.
Nice to see you Kathleen. Much love!
https://twitter.com/NAACPUiowa/status/664580892271099905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
See, this is why I don’t buy the Justice department investigation into Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Donte Hamilton’s death whatsoever. The whole system is corrupt from the top to the bottom.
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/664835440499802113
uh huh
Ted Cruz’s jobs boast comes up short
11/12/15 11:29 AM—UPDATED 11/12/15 12:05 PM
By Steve Benen
The “Romney Standard” has slowly become the stuff of legend. About six months before the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney sat down with Mark Halperin, who pressed the GOP nominee for specifics about the economy. The Republican nominee bragged that if he’s elected, a Romney administration could “get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent, perhaps a little lower” by the end of 2016 – “by virtue of the polices that we put in place.”
Romney lost that election, of course, and yet the unemployment rate nevertheless fell below 6 percent in September 2014 – more than two years faster than Romney projected – and fell to 5 percent in October 2015. By Republican standards, in other words, President Obama has done extremely well.
The Romney Standard came to mind this week when Ted Cruz boasted in a debate about the projected effects of his proposed tax cuts.
“I have rolled out a bold and simple flat tax: 10 percent for every American that would produce booming growth and 4.9 million new jobs within a decade.”
And while 4.9 million new jobs certainly sounds great, I can’t help but wonder if President Obama, in addition to beating the Romney Standard, has already surpassed the Cruz Standard, too.
I suppose it comes down to the meaning of “within a decade.” By any measure, 4.9 million new jobs over the course of a decade would be awful – that would be an average of 490,000 jobs per year, or roughly 41,000 jobs a month. That would represent anemic growth, far short of what we’ve seen in the Obama era.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ted-cruzs-jobs-boast-comes-short
A whole new (and far worse) approach to U.S. infrastructure
11/12/15 10:54 AM
By Steve Benen
It didn’t generate a lot of attention, but the House did something entirely unexpected last week: it actually passed an important bill without a lot of drama. The nation’s Highway Trust Fund is set to run out of money on Nov. 20, pushing Congress to do something before the infrastructure deadline, and in his first tangible victory, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) advanced a six-year package, carrying a $340 billion price tag.
The final vote was surprisingly lopsided: 363 to 64. Most of the opponents were far-right lawmakers, but they didn’t come close to derailing the bill. The Ryan honeymoon is apparently real.
It’s not yet a done deal – the House bill will have to be reconciled with a related Senate bill – but given the usual crisis atmosphere on Capitol Hill when a deadline nears, it’s refreshing to see a process go relatively smoothly, at least for now.
But in an interesting twist, some Republican presidential candidates are watching these developments with a wary eye, arguing that Congress shouldn’t be investing in infrastructure much at all.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is backing a plan to cut the 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax, which pays for most federal transportation projects, by about 15 cents.
“We need to get the federal government out of this infrastructure business, other than vital economic highways,” the former Pennsylvania senator said [in Tuesday’s undercard debate]. “It has been said that if we cut the gas tax to three to five cents and send the rest back to the states, and just take care of the federal infrastructure that’s vital for our economy,” he continued, “we don’t need the federal government in the road business that it is today.”
A little context is probably in order. The Highway Trust Fund, which plays a central role in financing infrastructure projects, is financed through a federal gas tax that hasn’t changed in two decades. The result has been a disaster for much of the country – the resources simply don’t exist anymore to keep up with the nation’s infrastructure needs. U.S. investments have dropped to levels unseen in generations, at least in part because congressional Republicans won’t increase the gas tax.
Santorum’s idea is to decrease the gas tax to almost nothing, and dramatically curtail the federal role in infrastructure investments across the board.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/whole-new-and-far-worse-approach-us-infrastructure
no shock in the least.
How the Kochs launched Joni Ernst
New details reveal the billionaire brothers’ network efforts to reshape the GOP are more ambitious than previously reported.
By Kenneth P. Vogel
11/12/15 05:19 AM EST
Updated 11/11/15 11:13 PM EST
Joni Ernst was surprised to receive an invitation in the summer of 2013 that she later credited with starting her meteoric rise to the U.S. Senate.
Ernst was then a little-known Iowa state senator and lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who was considering a long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate. Polls showed more than 90 percent of her state’s voters had no opinion of her. At least a half-dozen other Republicans ― some with better funding and connections and stronger establishment support ― also were positioning themselves to run against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Rep. Bruce Braley.
But Ernst was being watched closely by allies of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who saw in her an advocate for their brand of free-market, libertarian-infused conservatism. Operatives affiliated with the Kochs’ political network invited Ernst to the network’s August 2013 gathering of wealthy conservative donors at a posh resort in Albuquerque’s Santa Ana Pueblo.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-kochs-vs-the-gop-215672#ixzz3rIVbPIi9
The Pundits Have It All Wrong. Ted Cruz Is a Real Threat For the Nomination.
By Rich Lowry
November 12, 2015
Teed Cruz gets no respect. At least no respect in keeping with the impressiveness of the campaign he’s built and his increasing odds of winning the Republican nomination.
The press and the political class are beginning to catch on to Cruz’s strength and there has been more talk of a prospective Cruz-Rubio race over the past two weeks, but his coverage and his buzz have been lagging indicators — and they are still lagging.
From October to November, as the seriousness of his campaign has become even more evident, the disparity has gotten worse. According to the Post, “He’s on the air 70 percent less than his polling would suggest, even as he’s climbed past [Jeb] Bush and into fourth place in the race.”
Donald Trump, as you might expect, gets more coverage than warranted by his polling. So does Bush. It’s as though the media still haven’t been able to adjust the level of coverage of the former Florida governor to account for their erroneous initial presumption that he’d probably be the nominee.
The indications of the strength of Cruz’s operation and the shrewdness of his positioning are mounting.
He had more cash on hand at the end of the third quarter than any other Republican.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/get-over-it-ted-cruz-is-a-real-threat-for-the-nomination-213351#ixzz3rIV4Pe9d
https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery/status/664806657050865664/photo/1
https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/664840568955117568/photo/1
Police misconduct complaints by whites more likely to be upheld
Over the past five years, whites in Chicago were almost seven times more likely to have their police misconduct complaints sustained than African-Americans, even though blacks filed three times more complaints against police officers, according to an analysis based on a new public database.
The Chicago Police Department’s Internal Bureau of Investigation and the Independent Police Review Authority examined about 17,500 complaints of police misconduct between March 2011 and September 2015 in which the complainants were not anonymous. Of those, 61 percent were filed by African-Americans, 21 percent by whites and 12 percent by Hispanics, according to an analysis by The Chicago Reporter and City Bureau, a Chicago-based newsroom and journalism training lab.
But of the complaints sustained, only 25 percent were filed by African-Americans, compared to 58 percent by whites and 15 percent by Hispanics. Each group represents about a third of the city’s population.
“Race matters,” said Craig Futterman, law professor and director of the University of Chicago’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. “It matters in terms of who is most likely to be victimized by police abuse, it matters in terms of who is most likely to be believed when there is a complaint, and it matters within the Police Department in terms of racial bias.”
The analysis of police complaints is based on the Citizens Police Data Project, a website containing misconduct complaint records for more than 8,500 Chicago police officers. The project is under the umbrella of the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism production company, which released the information on Tuesday. A collaboration with the University of Chicago Law School’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, where Futterman works, the project is believed to be the most expansive public database of its kind.
http://chicagoreporter.com/police-misconduct-complaints-by-whites-more-likely-to-be-upheld/
I wanna have sympathy….really, I do.
But, my heart has been hardened by their repeated stupidity in voting against their own best interests.
Also, They’ve always been there…how come the media is doing stories on them NOW?
Robert Kennedy told you about these folks in 1968.
Hmmmmmmmm
……………………………………….
America’s poorest white town: abandoned by coal, swallowed by drugs
In the first of a series of dispatches from the US’s poorest communities, we visit Beattyville, Kentucky, blighted by a lack of jobs and addiction to ‘hillbilly heroin’
aren Jennings patted her heavily made up face, put on a sardonic smile and said she thought she looked good after all she’d been through.
“I was an alcoholic first. I got drunk and fell in the creek and broke my back. Then I got hooked on the painkillers,” the 59-year-old grandmother said.
Over the years, Jennings’ back healed but her addiction to powerful opioids remained. After the prescriptions dried up, she was drawn to the underground drug trade that defines eastern Kentucky today as coal, oil and timber once did.
Jennings spoke with startling frankness about her part in a plague gripping the isolated, fading towns dotting this part of Appalachia. Frontier communities steeped in the myth of self-reliance are now blighted by addiction to opioids – “hillbilly heroin” to those who use them. It’s a dependency bound up with economic despair and financed in part by the same welfare system that is staving off economic collapse across much of eastern Kentucky. It’s a crisis that crosses generations.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/12/beattyville-kentucky-and-americas-poorest-towns
Obama White House throws support behind Equality Act
11/12/15 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen
President Obama this week became “the first sitting president to be photographed for the cover of an LGBT publication,” appearing on the special OUT 100 issue with the caption, “Our president: Ally. Hero. Icon.” But the day the magazine hit newsstands, the Obama White House also announced a related policy position that shouldn’t go overlooked. The Washington Post reported:
The White House endorsed legislation Tuesday that would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, plunging into the next front in the national battle over LGBT rights.
Speaking to reporters, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the administration has been reviewing the bill “for several weeks.” “It is now clear that the administration strongly supports the Equality Act,” he said, adding that it would advance the civil rights of “millions of Americans.”
If the announcement left you wondering what the Equality Act is, you’re probably not alone. It’s an important piece of legislation, but because it faces fierce Republican opposition – and because Republicans control Congress – it’s been largely overlooked.
And that’s a problem the White House’s endorsement should help correct.
For those looking for a recap, Vox had a good piece on the legislation back in July.
The Equality Act would effectively expand the Civil Rights Act, originally passed in 1964, to protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace, housing, public accommodations (hotels, stores, and similar public places), education, and various other settings. It also expands public accommodations protections to prohibit sex discrimination, and strengthens other, existing protections in public accommodations.
It’s similar to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (or “ENDA”), but it goes significantly further.
What are the bill’s odds of success? In this Congress, effectively zero. But it’s worth noting the Equality Act has quickly become part of the Democratic agenda – as of this morning, it has 170 co-sponsors in the House (all Dems) and 39 co-sponsors in the Senate (all members of the Democratic caucus). That’s 9 out of 10 of every Democrat in Congress, and it’s likely the others just haven’t gotten around to signing on yet.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-white-house-throws-support-behind-equality-act
Rubio’s rivals take aim at his biggest vulnerability
11/12/15 08:00 AM—UPDATED 11/12/15 08:02 AM
By Steve Benen
In early December 2007, about a month before the Iowa caucuses, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was still a top-tier candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. In some surveys, he was even the frontrunner. There was, however, a small problem with his candidacy: as actual voting drew closer, rank-and-file Republicans were just starting to learn about his positions on the issues.
His rivals subtly let GOP voters know, “By the way, Giuliani is pro-choice and supports marriage equality,” and the mayor’s candidacy collapsed soon after. Republicans thought they loved Giuliani, right up until they realized how much they disagree with him on a major issue the GOP base takes seriously.
Eight years later, to put it mildly, it’d be a stretch to equate Giuliani with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) – the former held several centrist positions, while the latter is extremely conservative on almost everything. But like Giuliani, Rubio has been at odds with his party over an issue the GOP base considers important, and like Giuliani, the Florida senator’s rivals are starting to remind Republicans about this as the early nominating contests draw close.
The issue, of course, is Rubio’s partnership with liberal Democrats on an immigration reform package that conservatives consider “amnesty.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for example, said over the weekend, “It was a Rubio-Schumer bill. So, he does have to explain it.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubios-rivals-take-aim-his-biggest-vulnerability
https://twitter.com/Quicksilver2723/status/664808842434244608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Luvvie weighs in on the University of Missouri protests
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About Mizzou, White Supremacy and Freedom Fighting
Awesomely Luvvie — November 11, 2015
The state of Missouri has been a racial hotbed in the last year and a half, starting in Ferguson with the killing of Michael Brown Jr., in August 2014.
The Black students at the University of Missouri have been protesting the mishandling of incidents on campus, and the football team boycotted taking the field until the President resigned. He finally did on Monday (because they cannot risk losing $1 million a week without football) so people celebrated that victory. However, it was short-lived because yesterday, Black students started getting terrorized on campus. An anonymous comment was posted to the network YikYak from someone claiming that he’ll shoot every Black person he sees on sight.
Mizzou barely flinched at it and took to Twitter to say there are no threats on campus BUT then they today, a boy named Hunter Park was arrested for making threats. If 2+2=4, that one equals 5 because how were there no threats yet someone is now in custody?
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2015/11/about-mizzou-white-supremacy-freedom-fighting.html
https://twitter.com/Ronc99/status/664805938247901184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
They’ve already paid out FIVE MILLION? Yeah, no wonder they want the video suppressed.
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The video that might rip Chicago apart — and why you need to see it
There is a video that could tear Chicago apart.
It will go viral if released, and the world will see something ugly and frightening on the Southwest Side.
It comes from a police dashboard camera. City Hall worries that political hell may be on the way. Activists are primed. The politics of race and police use of force are at hand.
And a court hearing is scheduled for next week on whether it should be released to the public.
All this is going on just below the surface. All the players know what’s at stake, so I thought you should know about it, too.
The video, without sound, is said to show Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old African-American reportedly with PCP in his system, holding a small knife. He was shot to death by a white Chicago police officer, Jason Van Dyke, on the night of Oct. 20, 2014, at 41st and Pulaski on the Southwest Side.
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Attorney Jeff Neslund, a former prosecutor, helped quickly secure a $5 million settlement from the city for McDonald’s family. I figure Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not want the video shaping his mayoral-runoff election campaign.
“It shocks the conscience,” Neslund told me. “The video was disturbing. It was described accurately by one of the witnesses as an execution. He was on the ground, and the police officer kept shooting.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-police-shooting-video-kass-met-1111-20151110-column.html
UH HUH
UH HUH
Cop who shot teen 16 times has history of citizen complaints
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-police-shooting-16-shots-04—met-20150425-story.html
The public NEEDS to see that video. They MUST release it in order to bring about true justice.
This is why we can’t have nice things. There is absolutely no excuse for ANY Democrat, let alone a Black Democrat, to go along with ANYTHING that helps our Robber Barron Governor. So, whatever Madigan does to you Duncan, you brought on yourself. And, you know how much I dislike Michael Madigan.
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State lawmaker who crossed Madigan to help Rauner says Democrats ‘vindictive’
State Rep. Ken Dunkin, the Chicago Democrat who denied House Speaker Michael Madigan crucial votes against Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in Springfield this week, is defending his decision to break from his party, saying Democrats were being “vindictive” and trying to embarrass the rookie governor.
Dunkin, a supporter of imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, also said he got something for his non-votes, with Rauner agreeing to turn on the spigot of lucrative tax credits for filmmakers, which have been on hold during the budget impasse.
The 13-year lawmaker spoke a day after he twice refused to cast votes during Democratic attempts to overrule Rauner on spending for child care and services for the elderly and disabled.
Those votes stemmed from a monthslong struggle over Rauner’s decision to use executive authority to force the cuts to the programs while the two sides have been locked in a stalemate over a spending plan for state government. Rauner contended for months that the state didn’t have the money to pay.
Dunkin says that while Democrats were preparing to use their supermajorities to overrule Rauner on the cuts, he was working behind the scenes to strike a deal. By his telling, Rauner agreed to roll back the cuts as long as any override attempts were assured to fail.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-state-lawmaker-who-crossed-madigan-to-help-rauner-says-democrats-vindictive-20151111-story.html
SMH..
There’s always one or two..
College students confront subtler forms of bias: ‘microaggressions’\
Teresa Watanabe and Jason SongContact Reporters
USC junior Vanessa Diaz was raised in Dallas. But at a party two years ago, she was asked if she could speak English.
When Diaz became offended, the other student tried to pass off the question as a joke. But it did not amuse her, any more than the idea of Mexican-themed parties on Greek Row featuring students in sombreros and fake mustaches.
“Because of the society we live in, it’s not OK to be overtly racist,” Diaz said. “But that doesn’t mean everything is OK.”
Some call it the new face of racism — not the blatant acts of bias that recently led to the University of Missouri’s campus unrest and resignation of the president and chancellor. Instead, a phenomenon known as “microaggression” — everyday slights and snubs, sometimes unintentional — is drawing widespread attention across college campuses and kicking up a debate about social justice and free speech rights.
Students are sharing their experiences with microaggression on websites and Facebook pages at Harvard, Oberlin, Brown, Dartmouth, Swarthmore, Columbia, Willamette and other universities.
In the last eight years, researchers have conducted more than 5,500 studies on the topic documenting how such seemingly minor slights harm student performance, mental health and work productivity, said Derald Wing Sue, a Columbia University psychology professor and leading expert on the topic.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-colleges-microaggressions-20151112-story.html
This video helps bring home an understanding of racial micro aggressions:
“If Microaggressions Happened to White People | Decoded | MTV News”
https://youtu.be/KPRA4g-3yEk&rel=0
Helpful video by the Times:
“Racial Microaggressions: Comments That Sting | The New York Times”
https://youtu.be/_85JVcniE_M&rel=0
https://twitter.com/trueblacknews/status/664517129111228420?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Thanks for posting Antwynette’s story. She needs justice and monetary justice for the horrific, unjustified treatment she received.
I hope everyone watches this video you posted, Rikyrah.
https://twitter.com/djbenhameen/status/664545121199923201/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Chris Christie Really Wants You to Know He Doesn’t Like Black Lives Matter. And China.
Tue Nov. 10, 2015 9:12 PM EST
At Tuesdays kids-table presidential debate in Milwaukee, Gov. Chris Christie (N.J.) tried to remind Republicans why they ever liked him in the first place—by getting really angry at everyone. Here are some of the targets of Christie’s attacks:
China: A former US attorney, Christie appeared to take the Chinese government’s hack of a massive database of federal employees personally. “If the Chinese commit cyber warfare against us, they are gonna see cyber warfare like they’ve never seen before,” he promised. Christie explained that his administration would then leak embarrassing details from its counter-hack of the Chinese government. “They’ll have some real fun in Beijing when we start showing them how they’re spending money in China.” In case there was any remaining ambiguity about his position on China, he unloaded on the Obama administration for not challenging China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. As president, he promised that his first move on China (even before he launched a cyber war, evidently) would be to fly Air Force One over China’s artificial islands. “That’ll show them I mean business,” he said.
Black Lives Matter: Christie has won praise for his campaign-trail compassion on substance abuse. That empathy doesn’t apply to victims of police violence. He ripped into Democratic politicians for, he alleged, turning their backs on police officers. “They’re not standing behind our police officers across the country, they’re allowing lawlessness to rein across this country,” Christie said. He promised things would be different if he’s elected: “When president Christie’s in the Oval Office, I’ll have your back.” Christie returned the subject unprompted later, even connecting support for Black Lives Matter to overseas engagements with ISIS. “When the president doesn’t support law enforcement officers in uniform, he loses the moral authority to command anyone in uniform,” he said.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/chris-christie-milwauke-debate
https://twitter.com/Xpressionable/status/664574754993651712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/usweekly/status/664602529943199744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/TheAnimaIGifs/status/664248487945576448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
‘Y’all gotta go cause we got pizza.’
That’s some cold azz shyt right there.
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Garden City’s mayor says residents who wanted to plead with the City Council to save their homes weren’t allowed to speak because officials had a pizza party planned after the meeting.
Speaking one day after he and other City Council members walked out of session without taking public comment from at least seven former homeowners facing eviction, Randy Walker said the meeting’s main purpose was to swear in new officials.
Those meetings don’t usually feature public comment — and a party was planned immediately afterward, he said.
“It’s a happy occasion,” Walker said. “We had food waiting. We had pizza coming out of the oven at 7:45 (p.m.).”
The explanation was hard to swallow for Nicholis P. Dunsky, whose home was foreclosed because of back taxes. He faces eviction and brought his family to the council meeting.
“That’s a … (poor) excuse,” he told The News. “We felt like we didn’t matter.”
The controversy arose because Garden City, like several suburbs, acquired tax-foreclosed homes from Wayne County before they were offered on public auction. The homes were then sold to developers, including JSR Funding of Warren, that plan to flip them for profit.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2015/11/09/foreclosed-homeowners-thwarted-garden-city-council/75493992/
VarietyVerified account@Variety
Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise has added two cities: Dallas, Texas & Potomac, Maryland http://bit.ly/1WN2kdA
https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/664603937824071680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Prince Is Going on a Piano Tour in Europe
Lauren Porter
http://www.essence.com/2015/11/10/prince-piano-tour-europe
https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2788/9444/original.jpg
He had serious issues.
One Life to Live’s Nathaniel Marston Dead at 40, Following Car Accident
Nathaniel Marston, best known for his six-year run as Michael McBain on One Life to Live, died Wednesday of injuries sustained in a late-October car accident. He was 40.
His mother, Elizabeth, confirmed her son’s passing in a Facebook post Wednesday evening. “It is with a heavy heart that I share this devastating news,” she wrote. “My beloved and cherished son… who was putting up the good fight until last night was not able to continue due to the traumatic and devastating nature of his injuries. Nathaniel passed away peacefully as I held him in my arms.”
Marston had been in critical condition following the accident, which took place near Reno, Nevada and left him with a broken neck and back. “Had Nathaniel lived he would have required a ventilator and would never have been able to utter one more word and would have been sentenced to life as a quadriplegic — a condition that Nate would have never have been able to tolerate,” Elizabeth added. “By Gods love and mercy Nathaniel was spared this living hell.”
In addition to OLTL, Marston appeared in episodes of Blue Bloods, Law & Order: SVU, Castle and White Collar.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/one-life-to-lives-nathaniel-marston-dead-at-40-following-car-accident/ar-BBmUmf1?li=BBgzzfc&ocid=HPCDHP
https://twitter.com/DEdzJr/status/664587589295304704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/SoLyrical/status/664641440727744512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/TheKitchensHeat/status/661815202019606528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/ParisBurned/status/664651708199477248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/Ireland0828/status/664583851088306176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
HUH?
HUH?
https://twitter.com/LiberalPhenom/status/664586434309963776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
November 11, 2015, 11:00 am
In new shock poll, Sanders has landslides over both Trump and Bush
By Brent Budowsky, columnist, The Hill
In a new McClatchy-Marist poll, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leads Republican candidate Donald Trump by a landslide margin of 12 percentage points, 53 to 41. In the McClatchy poll, Sanders also leads former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) by a landslide margin of 10 points, 51 to 41.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/259812-in-new-shock-poll-sanders-has-landslides-over-both
November 12, 2015, 07:59 am
Trump blasts Wall Street Journal over ‘third-rate’ editorial
By Jesse Byrnes
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump went after The Wall Street Journal Thursday morning over an editorial critical of his comments on a major trade deal.
“There’s so much misinformation, but you would think that a paper like The Wall Street Journal would call for clarification,” Trump said on “Fox and Friends.”
“But they don’t do that, they just write. That’s why they’re not a respected paper too much anymore,” Trump added.
The newspaper said in its editorial that, based on Trump’s comments in the fourth GOP debate Tuesday night about the trade pact, “it wasn’t obvious that he has any idea what’s in it.”
“I know it intimately, although it is 6,000 pages,” Trump responded on Fox News.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/259911-trump-blasts-wall-street-journal-over-third-rate
*SIGH* Here we go again, folks. When are white folks going to admit they are the cause of their own DEMISE? Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, etc.
The fatal trend among white working class Americans
By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer November 11 at 8:59 PM
White working-class voters have been a key building block of the Republican coalition since the rise of the Reagan Democrats 35 years ago. You would think that the party’s presidential candidates would want to respond to the heartbreaking crisis these Americans are facing.
Two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, issued a study last week that should push what the writers Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb called the “hidden injuries of class” to the center of our political conversation. Deaton and Case found that the death rates for whites 45 to 54 who never attended college increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people between 1999 and 2014. They unearthed a startling rise in suicides as well as diseases related to alcohol and drugs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-injuries-of-class-turn-fatal/2015/11/11/c90ad6cc-88b4-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines
Carson brings his message to Falwell’s Liberty U
11/12/15 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
Fresh off his latest odd debate performance, Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson traveled to Virginia yesterday, where he spoke to a crowd of nearly 12,000 at Liberty University, an evangelical school founded by the late Jerry Falwell.
And while the bulk of Carson’s remarks were about his background, faith, and vision, the retired right-wing neurosurgeon also reportedly took aim at, of all things, Bernie Sanders’ higher-ed plan. The Hill reported yesterday:
“If people are not well informed, they just [listen to] unscrupulous politicians and news media and off the people go in the completely wrong direction, listening to all kinds of propaganda and inculcating that into their way of thinking,” the GOP White House hopeful said.
“It becomes easy to swallow things. If you don’t understand our financial situation and someone comes along and says, ‘free college for everybody,’ they’ll say, ‘oh how wonderful,’ and have no idea they’re talking about hastening the destruction of the nation.”
First, I’m not sure Carson should be giving lectures on the importance of people being “well informed.”
Second, Sanders’ plan, while ambitious, would cost about $75 billion per year over the course of the next decade, which in turn would make college tuition effectively free (the way we already make K-12 education free).
If implemented, American students would be able to graduate without crushing debts, bringing them in line with young adults in many other advanced democracies.
One may see this as worthwhile or not, but a $75 billion investment in higher-ed would not “destroy” anything.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/carson-brings-his-message-falwells-liberty-u
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good morning, everyone!
Good Morning, Everyone! :-))