Wednesday Open Thread | Janet Jackson Week

Posted on December 30, 2015 by rikyrah

Sending positive thoughts and prayers to Ms. Jackson.

 

janet jackson-12

janet jackson-14

janet jackson-15

janet jackson-16

janet jackson-17

janet jackson-19

janet jackson album cover-5

janet jackson album cover-6

This entry was posted in Music, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

65 Responses to Wednesday Open Thread | Janet Jackson Week

  1. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 8:53 pm

    Luvvie has weighed in on Aretha at Kennedy Center Honors.

    Aretha Franklin is Every Older Black Woman at the Kennedy Center Honors

    Awesomely Luvvie — December 30, 2015
    Last night was the airing of the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors, saluting Rita Moreno, George Lucas, Cicely Tyson, Seiji Ozawa and Carole King.

    Aretha Franklin performed “Natural Woman” to a standing ovation to honor Carole. President Obama and FLOTUS Shellie were getting their entire good times because the Queen of Soul can’t help but slay. She even moved Barack to tears. She is legend and she has been on more stages than she can count. She can literally do this and leave everyone hollering IN HER SLEEP.

    Reply
  2. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 8:49 pm

    About the Cosby situation..

    I said it before – they are all suspicious as phuck

    EVERYTHING about this case goes against EVERYTHING I know about Black Men in AMERICA.

    AND I MEAN EVERYTHING.

    I.simply.don’t.buy.it.

    I.simply.don’t.believe.them.

    They could have spoken up.

    GMAFB about him being so ‘powerful’.

    GET DA PHUQ OUTTA HERE WITH THAT BULLSHYT.

    If it were the bunch of BLACK teens – as in the RKelly situation, YES…I get that.

    But, all these scurrrred 2520 women?

    PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.

    I have been Black in America longer than 3 days.

    Reply
  3. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 6:31 pm

    love this article…..LOL

    …………

    Obama cries as Aretha Franklin proves why she’s the queen of soul

    You want to know why Aretha is the indisputable Queen of Soul? Watch this. You want to know why hacks like me send her fan mail by the week pleading for an interview, knowing there is sod-all hope, but not resenting her one smidge? Watch this.

    Aretha is performing at the 38th Annual Kennedy Center Honors, held on 6 December in Washington and broadcast on CBS on Tuesday night. It wasn’t even Aretha’s night. Oh no. This ceremony was to award, among others, Rita Moreno,George Lucas and Carole King. Then up steps Aretha to sing the King/Goffin/Wexler 1967 classic (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.

    Look at King, open-mouthed in shock and awe (the right kind of shock and awe) – and this is before Aretha’s even opened hers. Everything about Aretha is astonishing – the range, depth, control in her voice, the phrasing, the passion, the playing, the floor-length fur, the sparkling clutch purse. The more Aretha sings, the harder it is to believe that King is not going to die and go to heaven. President Obama is wiping away tears before Aretha’s even done with the first verse. Aretha is 73, looks wonderful, and might just be singing better than ever.

    To top everything, she throws the mink to the ground with supreme elan. Nobody chucks a fur like Aretha. This is not the performance of the year, it’s the performance of the millennium. Long live the Queen.

    Reply
  7. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 6:19 pm

    Pataki Was Running for the Nomination of a GOP That No Longer Exists
    By Ed Kilgore

    The classic comment about the impact of George Pataki’s withdrawal from the presidential race came from the rival he most disdained, his onetime constituent Donald Trump: “There’s not much to split up because he’s at zero.”

    Truth is, Pataki registered just enough support to qualify for “undercard” debates; the real “zero” candidate was yet another former governor, Virginia’s Jim Gilmore. And some may just lump Pataki together with the assortment of current and past state chief executives who turn out to have picked the worst possible year to run for president (four of them have now dropped out; four are still in, though Mike Huckabee probably won’t survive caucus night in Iowa; and the other three are decidedly second-tier at best).

    But what’s distinctive about Pataki is that he has credentials that used to account for a lot in national politics, even in the GOP. For many decades, being governor of New York was an automatic qualifier for a presidential run in either party. You don’t have to go back to Averell Harriman or even Nelson Rockefeller to find the era of Empire State power; the man Pataki vanquished in 1994, Mario Cuomo, could have almost certainly become a viable candidate and possibly the Democratic front-runner in either 1988 or 1992 had he pulled the trigger. He sure wouldn’t have been delegated to an “undercard” during debates. And even more recently, a pol who theoretically ranked below Pataki in the New York political world, Rudy Giuliani, entered the 2008 cycle as a putative front-runner. Yes, Rudy was a dominant personality who benefited enormously from his global media exposure on 9/11, but New York’s cultural, economic, and historical preeminence mattered, too. Had Al Qaeda struck Omaha, it’s doubtful its mayor would have automatically been considered presidential timber.

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/pataki-matched-expectations-of-no-impact-on-race.html

    Reply
  9. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 5:10 pm

    Pete Souza has up his own personal favorite pictures from 2015. I have to say – I hadn’t seen a lot of them.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      December 30, 2015 at 8:37 pm

      I once shared with my family here about my sense of the immense and unspoken power of official photographers and videographers hold…

      The power to shape, define and tell the official story of this and any presidency through their pictures and videos…POWERFUL stuff…very powerful…scarily powerful actually…

      They decide and communicate through their official pictorial record who matters, who’s highlighted and how…who’s important, who gets show-cased, who’s elevated – who’s not…They even control the way in which we see people…They hold the power to capture you at your best, most attractive, best angles, worst angles, most unattractive, at your worst…They can choose to tell wonderfully impressive and powerful stories about you with their photographs…or they can choose to treat you as meh…point and shoot…They can withhold and destroy the not so flattering images out of so many they take of you..or they can choose to release those particular ones specifically..It’s their call… It’s the untold and immense power they wield…

      I shared my reservations and concerns about how the first black First Lady will fare when the story of this historic presidency is told through the lenses of a white official White House photographer and white female Videographer and a predominantly white media/communications team who come with their various personal and racial slants, preferences and biases…

      The conscious and unconsciously hostile, condescending, sub-human and incredibly disrespectful prism through which proud black women no matter how complete, well-educated and together like our glorious First Lady, are viewed – especially when one is confident, knows who they are, eschews affectation, doesn’t seek out the approval or validation of the self-appointed crowd who decide who rates and who doesn’t, or switch to sounding and acting like a valley girl, or to ingratiate herself to, suck up to, live by and be measured against the contrived and flimsy standards of some archaic and infinitely bogus white standard – where everything from the particular shade of your skin, the shape of your nose, how petite and thin your God-given form, and how anally-retentive, nasal-sounding, fake and choreographed you are, determines how ‘classy’ you’re deemed…

      I continue to have those concerns and reservations…more than ever…

      One glance at Mr Souza’s 2015 ‘year in review’ tells exactly what I fear…But you do get a strong sense of who Mr Souza likes…and who he feels obligated to include..

      I can’t stress enough that Mr Souza also covered President Reagan…Please feel free to check out how he very respectfully covered and pictorially portrayed Nancy Reagan …as very much an integral and inseparable and sacred and honored part of her husband’s presidency…as wife, partner and First Lady…

      An almost non-existent First Lady in the 2015 pictorial year in review, tells the story…an occasional ceremonial showing, and even when present, an exclusion of her from important frames entirely (see the one with both the Chinese President and his wife – we know FLOTUS was there, but she’s not in that important and ‘favorite’ frame)…But hey, there she is lifting weights in her gym clothes…But not one picture that captures her in the many important moments – or even one from any of her many important initiatives and events or even her trip to the girls’ school in the U.K or to Qatar…where she gave fantastic and very well-received and impactful speeches which most people still aren’t even aware of … Nothing…

      And we wonder why so many don’t know how hard she works and see her only as some ‘vacationing’ fiend…See her alive and beautiful face in the Christmas message video with the President and compare to the single unflattering still of her taking calls tracking Santa with kids…

      When the White House released the single picture of the First Lady speaking to children on Christmas eve, we all looked at each other knowingly at my parents home…You seriously mean that’s the absolutely best capture of the First Lady the WH photographer with nothing else to do in Hawaii could come up with…? (The photographer in this instance, the young white woman Ms Lucidon) ..

      After all this time, good photographers and videographers know their subjects well enough to understand their best angles, the best lighting etc.

      When the President and First Lady do their photo lines at White House parties, it is said that the WH photographer takes 3 shots of them with each guest just so there are options and the best one gets selected and shared…we’re talking photo lines with up to a 100 guests…Hard to believe that Ms Lucidon couldn’t come up with a better shot of the First Lady all alone at her vacation home in Hawaii with no rush happening..But then again, as I’ve also shared in the past, the best photographs of Mrs Obama have been those taken by non-White House photographers…

      Perhaps at some point before the end of this presidency, the White House will finally figure out the historic importance of our first black First Lady…one can only hold out hope…

      In the interim, forgive me if I remain completely unimpressed with and continue to side-eye Pete Souza and the whole lot of them…

      Reply
      • Ametia says:
        December 31, 2015 at 5:22 pm

        Yes; you have indeed shared your reservations about Mr. Souza. I did view all the photos today, and I have to agree that

        1. FLOTUS was not captured in as beautiful a light as we here at 3 Chics knows her to be. and she certainly was not captured in many of his pics.

        2. I would have loved to see more pics of PBO with his entire family, although I know they don’t want the spotlight on them.

        3. That one pic of First Lady Michelle Obama in the gym … Wow! just feeds into the sterotype of the strong, black woman. And we all know that she is, but you nailed it. FLOTUS in all her stunning brilliance hosting events, formal and non-formal-WHERE ARE THE PHOTOS?

        Reply
        • eliihass says:
          January 2, 2016 at 2:00 am

          Only just saw your response tonight Ametia..Thank you..There are times when I want to hold back, but then I find myself completely unable to…

          It’s not just Mr Souza who rankles me…there are plenty others…

          I don’t want FLOTUS occasionally humored or patronized…or treated as if she were irrelevant, inconsequential or inconvenient…

          Not by anyone – and especially not by the hired help –

          I want her respectfully deferred to and honored as the longtime partner and wife to her man that she is – and extended every right, privilege and respect freely doled out to and enjoyed by every First Lady before her…More than most of her predecessors, she’s more than earned it not only as the historic first black First Lady, but as one who toiled, sweated and built up a life together with her husband from scratch – and without trust funds or already set plans for ascension to political power…or even the valuable buffer that is the pre-conditioning stint in a Governor’s mansion…

          As some very smart and observant people who are as miffed about this as I am note, it’s as if the world has gone mad and all things have flipped…There’s something dreadfully wrong when Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen consistently, ungrudgingly and without question are projected, represented, treated, presented, exulted as full, inseparable, indispensable and inarguably equal, vocal partners to – and positioned as infinitely more important, powerful, relevant and esteemed in Kanye and John Legend’s worlds respectively, than the long-married first black First Lady of the United States is extended in her husband’s…The wife and partner to the President for all these many and uncountable years before any of these staff people ever knew them, is presented as if she were no more than some opportunistic floozy who only recently wondered into the already made President’s cushy life yesterday…Like all First Ladies before her, she’s supposed to be the official hostess at all White House events for crying out loud – with State dinners and other such high-profile soft dip. events and receptions at the White House being her domain…but she doesn’t even make it into photographs where the President is showing the visiting Chinese president and his wife around before dinner..? And most of the time she’s only listed as ‘will attend’ at events that the First Lady traditionally hosts or co-hosts with the President…’attending’ a reception in her own house where she’s the Chief Hostess..?

          I never heard any previous White House announce an event/reception as the President ‘hosting’, and the First Lady ‘attending’…Or for that matter, any U.S President traveling with his wife on vacation or officially, referred to or discussed in singular terms as if the President was all alone and the First Lady was not along on the trip – or not equally contributing and making decisions together with her mate – distinctly separating the President from his grown wife, and dismissing and yoking the grown First Lady – the other half of the First Family’s adult decision-making duo, as if she were nonexistent – President Obama and ‘the first family’…

          They wouldn’t dare discuss Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton or Nancy Reagan as if these women were not visible, equal and important contributing adult mates to their men…You’d think Mrs Obama no longer has any say in her own family…that she’s some non-contributing wife who only now tags along when she’s permitted to – as she’s ranked lower and lower than her daughters – and given less voice and even much less consideration than her daughters in more than a few instances…

          Even kept women like Melania Trump are allowed more central presence and heft and offered infinitely more respect and authority in their political husband’s life – and in the telling of theirs and their partner’s stories…

          It was always the ‘First Family’ for previous White Houses – denoting the President, First Lady and offspring – or more specifically, President and Mrs Bush and their daughters, or President and Mrs Clinton and their daughter….Things have gotten so out of hand that there’s now this ‘President Obama and Michelle’ rubbish that’s become the norm in official media reports and statements…What previous First Lady would they rudely refer to in that manner? They were always all respectfully referred to as ‘President Bush and Mrs Bush/First Lady Laura Bush’ or ‘President Clinton and Mrs Clinton/First Lady Hillary Clinton’…As someone pointed out recently, the White House even put out an official statement to the media instructing that Mrs Biden be referred to as ‘Dr Biden’, and even in reports of the V.P’s family – and even when he was weighing a run, she’s not only deferred to and given her place of prominence as wife, she’s specifically referred to as the release dictates – So the media and the White House do know how and what to do when they want to..

          But enough for now…too soon in the New Year…I’ll save my other comments for later…

          Hope you and yours had a fantastic New Year Ametia…May 2016 be beautiful and perfect and everything you want it to be for you and your loved ones…

          Reply
  10. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 4:59 pm

    Well, the Governor of Kentucky has followed through with his promise to destroy Kynect.

    And I have not one single, solitary, any resemblance of an ounce of sympathy for them.

    Nada.

    Not for the muthaphuckas who never had insurance before Kynect, and couldn’t be bothered to get their azzes up to vote….

    but, especially for the muthaphuckas who never had insurance before Kynect and voted for this asshole anyway…

    2017…..

    yeah, sure…whatever.

    ………………………

    Bevin: Medicaid changes to come in time

    Bevin, who campaigned on a pledge to reshape Medicaid and the expansion under the Affordable Care Act, said it will take time to change the program but he expects to succeed.

    “We are going to transform the way Medicaid is delivered in Kentucky,” Bevin said.

    Bevin has enlisted the help of Mark Birdwhistell, a former secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services under former Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

    Birdwhistell, vice president for health services at the University of Kentucky, said he’s ready for the challenge.

    “The people of Kentucky need a Medicaid system that is affordable and sustainable,” he said.

    Bevin and Birdwhistell said Kentucky will begin work on a waiver they will ask the federal government to approve to let Kentucky establish its own Medicaid plan, as Indiana and some other states have done.

    They expect to introduce the plan in 2017.

    Bevin Wednesday morning voiced support for a Medicaid waiver system similar to the one used by Indiana to hold down costs and said an effort during the coming six months will show “whether this will work or not.”

    http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/ky-governor/2015/12/30/medicaid-changes-discussed-bevin/78064514/

    Reply
  11. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 4:43 pm

    they are working to stop being poisoned and this is all he can up with:

    https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/682301509372108800/photo/1

    Reply
  12. eliihass says:
    December 30, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    We have tax-payer paid police on video murdering an innocent 12year old boy sitting alone in a park, manhandling an innocent young woman who turns up dead in a jail after a bogus traffic stop, shooting an unarmed man in the back after a traffic stop…

    We are told that even with all the preponderance of damning evidence in these and other murders of innocents at the hands of police charged with protecting them, grand juries and district attorneys in each instance, have declined to charge any of the cop murderers…Claiming in each instance that the police acted ‘reasonably’…

    We have a former president who engaged in various sexual acts in the Oval office with a starry-eyed intern who was infatuated with him/his charm via power, settled with another woman who brought charges against him for sexual harassment – just before the statute of limitations ran out, had his people silence several other women including one who’d had an ongoing affair with him for several years…who knows how many more women might have come out of the shadows, been emboldened to speak up had there not been a concerted effort to squash it all…

    The media talking heads, black, white and blue, actively acting on behalf of the former president and the former president’s wife – turned 2 time presidential candidate, quickly shut down any and all talk or mention of these sexual shenanigans by the former president. They effusively sing his praises and remind you of how ‘popular’ he remains – he polls so much higher than the sitting president they say…They caution all not to ‘re-litigate’ or ‘rehash’ any of those ‘old indiscretions’… They warn that it’s old news, but more importantly, that it will only ‘rile women up’ since any such vocalized remembrances of the former president’s sexual exploits with other women, only make his wife the presidential candidate, all the more ‘sympathetic’ – including they say, even with ‘conservative’ women (read, white supremacists), who’d otherwise not support Democrats..never mind that no Democratic presidential candidate (all white except one by the way), in modern history has ever secured more than 46% of the white female vote…

    And then there’s Bill Cosby…

    There’s so much to be gleaned from what’s unfolding, and what’s not; what’s making ‘breaking news’, what’s not…what’s eliciting outrage, what’s not…what’s being dissected in the media by panels of ‘experts’, what’s not…what’s considered despicable, horrid, what’s not…what deserves a one-line mention in the news, and what gets hours of nonstop analysis…when a myriad of assorted black commentators are brought in to have their t.v moment, when there’s not a black face to be found…what’s termed old news, what’s not…how similar incidents involving women who crush on, actively pursue and swarm to charming, powerful married men with their known and unknown predilections – when they’re wives are not around, and even when they are – can be interpreted and pooh poohed as ‘indiscretions’ that are none of our business, or ‘terrible, horrible, despicable’ acts that we must all condemn or risk the ire of the ‘feminists’ with their selective causes, selective outrage and selective victims and targets…

    We see which women get sympathy, and who don’t, we see what women we’re told to rally around and for, and who’s left hanging…we see what wife is held blameless and rewarded, and which is shamed and made a pariah…We see when these fallouts are heightened and cheered on all the more because the celebrity had the nerve to scold and lecture black folks, and when they are laughed off, downplayed and blown-off even when the former president instituted the devastating 3 strikes law, welfare ‘reform’ etc. designed to check the stereotypical excesses of black folk seen as unruly, and sullying and destroying the cultural, moral and social fabric of our sound and perfect society with their bad behaviors and their blackness..

    We see how the sexual shenanigans of a former president are completely muted, summarily dismissed and deemed off-limits, while the 30+ old sexual shenanigans of a celebrity infinitely trumps the cold-blooded murder of a child at the hands of yet another murderous cop who gets to walk free and keep on… We see how Sandra Bland murdered for being a strong, conscious black woman, isn’t even seen as a victim…how she never seemed to qualify even in death, for the support and outrage of feminists, yet we are told that not sufficiently showing outrage at Cosby means we’re horrid and victim-blaming – all while we’re kept apprised of the well-being of his poor ‘traumatized victims’…

    Who knows how each of us view life and its many moments and happenings…But there is something terribly wrong with how similar and different events are contradictorily weighted by our media, the spin-masters that inhabit and shape and re-tell events – and by extension, all of us…

    In the end, our media, our society – designs, shapes and feeds the way we ultimately see, interpret and judge everything and everyone…Murder at the hands of a cop? No biggie…Clinton sexual acts? No biggie…Cosby sexual acts? Damn shame…

    I’ll be the first to tell you that I’ve always had a huge problem with the crossing of boundaries and blurring of lines (commonly accepted) that steadily occurs with public figures and those who support them…the endless sexual suggestions, objectification and projections on MARRIED celebrities and politicians in the name of support – sometimes even actively encouraged by the powerful themselves and those who package and market them…I’ve seen some really mentally disturbed folks on social media who begin to turn a public figure they ‘know’ only via carefully massaged media images, into remote surrogate romantic interests …I’ve butted heads with ‘supporters’ who thought it was ‘harmless’ to sexually and inappropriately objectify another woman’s husband simply because they happen to be a ‘public figure’ they voted for and effusively’ defend’ in the public sphere… And yet when monsters are created and and things get out of hand, nobody takes responsibility…and everyone plays righteous victim…while others look for a payday..

    No matter how seemingly decent, dignified, charming, who knows the predilections, perversions, sordid or shameful secrets many a celebrity and powerful folk carry around … some with regret perhaps, others less so – or not at all…them are those that endlessly imbibe from the narcissistic punch bowl..

    What I do know is that the same folk who turn purveyors of righteous indignation when the variously aggrieved and scorned women who typically start off as ‘admirers’, ‘fans’ and ‘supporters’, eventually show up with Gloria Allred to tell their story, are the very same folks who initially feed the beast and tell you to lighten up when you caution that the assigning of public figures as sexual objects can and does get terribly unseemly, unhealthy and ultimately go awry and destructive… At the time it begins, not much if any thought is given to the spouse who’s unquestionably disrespected and damaged by it all, or the children who are too…If they’re lucky like Hillary Clinton, they get rallied around and supported, lifted up and propelled to ‘admired feminist icon’ status…all while some of them still willingly sniff around her husband…If they are Camille Cosby, they’re blamed, maligned, scorned and turned into society’s pariahs…

    Hopefully Cosby calls Thomas Mesereau – he’s not only one of the best in the business, in a profession that’s littered with low-lifes, he’s one of the few with any integrity – and one of the nicest and most loyal out there…

    Sadly, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and their families are out of luck…no outrage, no support, no media coverage, no feminists rallying, no expensive attorneys…and no black talking heads making strong, impassioned moral arguments on their behalf as actual VICTIMS…that’s reserved entirely for Cosby’s ‘victims’…

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      December 30, 2015 at 5:09 pm

      you speak all kinds of truth and I hope that SG2 breaks this up and puts it out into the twitter universe.

      Someone pointed out that the vulture Gloria Allred was front and center today.

      But, that heifer couldn’t be bothered for the 13 women raped by Officer Friendly in Oklahoma.

      Bitch, please.

      Reply
      • eliihass says:
        December 30, 2015 at 8:46 pm

        Gloria Allred is a huge disappointment Rikyrah…A woman who could have put her knack for drawing media attention to much better use…but it sadly isn’t about helping the downtrodden for her…

        Reply
    • Ametia says:
      December 30, 2015 at 6:30 pm

      And there you HAVE IT.

      Broken down like a FRACTION!

      TWITTER BOUND comment. Thank you eliihaas.

      Reply
      • eliihass says:
        December 30, 2015 at 8:52 pm

        So frustrating Ametia…Our priorities and values as a society suck…

        And we’re quickly raising a generation of selfish, soulless people …

        But look at it this way, Jamilah Lemieux has never had more t.v time than she’s gotten today…

        Instead of inconvenient happenings of murders of innocent black folk, I bet all these media folk are hoping for more Cosby like scandals …

        Reply
  13. Liza says:
    December 30, 2015 at 2:02 pm

    Unarmed African-American teen badly beaten by Grand Rapids, Mich., police in wrongful arrest, lawsuit says
    BY TOBIAS SALINGER NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, December 29, 2015, 9:04 PM A A A

    An unarmed African-American teen was badly beaten by a Michigan police officer during an arrest that violated the Fourth Amendment, his lawyers said Tuesday.

    A federal lawsuit filed last week accuses a Grand Rapids officer of using “unreasonable and excessive force” while having “no lawful authority” for the June 2014 arrest.

    Officer Sean McCamman punched the boy in the head and bludgeoned him with the bulb end of a flashlight after a chase involving vague reports of a black male carrying a gun, according to the lawsuit. The teen, who was 15 at the time and is referred to in court papers only as “D.B.,” was later cleared of all charges stemming from the arrest.

    D.B. suffers from severe headaches and muscle spasms, nausea, vomiting and speech problems, his attorneys said. His injuries delayed his high school graduation and kept him off sports teams where he had excelled, according to a statement from the lawyers and D.B.’s mother, Natalie Thompson.

    The boy’s mother said he’ll “never fully heal” from the injuries he suffered in the arrest.
    “My son’s injuries are so severe that he will never fully heal mentally, physically, or emotionally,” Thompson said. “He, myself, and our family are devastated by the abusive beating that a minor child endured. The officers involved have no concept of the severity of their actions. No one is above the law. We are all accountable for our actions.”

    The lawsuit also names Michigan’s second-largest city, which it alleges failed to adequately train and supervise McCamman and two other officers, Nathan Mead and Peter Thompson. It accuses Thompson of doing nothing while McCamman struck the teen and all three of them of providing misleading information to prosecutors.

    D.B. and four other teens ran away when ordered to stop blocks from where the reported armed man had been seen around 9 p.m. on June 13, 2014, according to the lawsuit.

    McCamman caught him trying to scale a fence, threw D.B. on the ground face first and hit him multiple times, D.B.’s attorneys said. McCamman “intended to use deadly force,” according to the lawsuit. The attorneys released images Tuesday of the boy’s bloodied scalp and cut hand after the arrest.

    The images show staples on the boy’s head and handcuffs on his hand. He was charged with resisting and obstructing a police officer and carrying a concealed weapon after being treated at a hospital.

    But a county judge who ruled police had no reasonable suspicion to stop D.B. dismissed the resisting and obstructing charge in March and a jury acquitted him of the gun charge two months later, according to the lawsuit. Prosecutors had argued a gun found near the scene belonged to D.B., attorney Keeley Heath told the Daily News.

    Heath and Joshua Blanchard of Miel & Carr, a Grand Rapids firm specializing in criminal and police misconduct cases, are leading the suit on behalf of D.B.’s family, Heath said.

    “They want to see change with the racist practices of the Grand Rapids Police Department that have been prevalent for some time,” Heath said. “At this point, I think, for the family, it’s much less about the money. It’s about sending a message to the police that this can’t continue.”

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/black-teen-badly-beaten-wrongful-arrest-lawsuit-article-1.2480394

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      December 30, 2015 at 2:08 pm

      The cops didn’t kill this 15 year old kid, although they tried to and failed. They just permanently altered his life. How much of this is going on? No one seems to be counting. How many people end up with disabilities caused by police beatings?

      This story is straight out of Jim Crow. May as well be 1955 in Mississippi.

      Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      December 30, 2015 at 4:31 pm

      uh huh
      uh huh

      Reply
  15. Ametia says:
    December 30, 2015 at 11:41 am

    3 Chics sees the SMOKE & MIRRORS

    Building Trump HATE all day since June on a continuous loop now juxtaposed with Cosby

    NO REPORTING ON TAMIR RICE MURDERED & NO POLICE INDICTMENTS.

    WEE SEE YOU MOFOS.

    Reply
  16. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 10:45 am

    All of these happened to me as a kid

    https://youtu.be/3_BGkJZEN-o

    Reply
  23. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 10:13 am

    I will eventually see this movie

    …………..

    Bennet Omalu, doctor who raised alarm bells about NFL head injuries, on racism in U.S. science

    Bennet Omalu, the brilliant and somewhat quirky forensic pathologist who is credited with bringing the issue of head injuries in pro football players into the public spotlight, blames racism for efforts by the National Football League and fellow doctors to discredit him.

    In a wide-ranging interview, the Nigerian-born Omalu addressed the criticism of his scientific contributions that preceded Friday’s release of the Columbia Pictures movie “Concussion.” Though other researchers have recognized Omalu’s work as essential to directing attention to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in athletes, some have claimed that he did not actually discover the disorder or name it as he has said.

    “An African American called me to say that effort is pretty much code,” Omalu said. “Like calling me the ‘N’ word.”

    He believes the controversy regarding the naming of the disease is a matter of semantics that has been used to hurt his reputation. While the characteristics of CTE were mentioned in medical literature years prior to his discovery, he said no one had named it as a disorder until he discovered it in the brains of deceased football players. The degenerative condition is caused by repetitive hits to the head and is seen over time through changes in mood and behavior and deterioration in cognition.

    Omalu, who now is chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, Calif., said he endured similar attacks during the many years he spent fighting to be heard while NFL officials denied any issue existed. He received emails with racist undertones. “It was ugly and un-American,” he said.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/12/29/bennet-omalu-doctor-who-raised-alarm-bells-about-nfl-head-injuries-on-racism-in-u-s-science/

    Reply
  24. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 10:08 am

    If you are an elected politician…the very least you can do professionally – is to pass the petition challenge. That’s the least you can do. If you are too damn lazy to get enough signatures, your azz should be thrown off the ballot – looking at you, John Conyers.

    ……………………………..

    December 29, 2015

    Bobby Rush repels challenge to his nominating petitions

    Comments Email Print

    GREG HINZ ON POLITICS

    Veteran Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush has survived a challenge to his nominating petitions and now is the favorite to win his 12th term in the U.S. House in the new year.

    The other Democratic candidate in the race, Ald. Howard Brookins Jr., 21st, had loudly and legally protested that Rush’s petitions were filled with improper signatures and that the congressman lacked the number needed to get on the ballot. But the Illinois State Board of Elections disagreed and Brookins’ campaign today ran up the white flag.

    “The campaign has concluded that it is in the voters’ best interest that the challenge against Congressman Rush be ended at this time,” Brookins said in a statement, suggesting that Rush still could have been knocked off if further legal sparring had continued. “After years of not showing up for this community Congressman Bobby Rush couldn’t marshal the community to help him get on the ballot without the fortune of a technicality.”

    Rush’s spokesman was not available for comment. But you can bet the Brookins forces would have continued the legal fight had they been reasonably sure of victory.

    http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20151229/BLOGS02/151229890/bobby-rush-repels-challenge-to-his-nominating-petitions

    Reply
  25. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 9:49 am

    At a Santo Domingo Hair Salon, Rethinking an Ideal Look

    ………………..

    Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the Miss Rizos Salon on Calle Isabel La Católica. This was a departure from that reverence.

    Long hair that hangs down your back has so long been the prevalent beauty ideal in the Dominican Republic that many residents who mastered hair-straightening on the island emigrated to the United States and opened successful salons throughout the country.

    The phrase “Dominican salon” is now synonymous with immaculately straightened hair, but Miss Rizos is expanding that definition by catering to a clientele that until fairly recently did not exist: Dominican women, many of them expatriates returning home for a visit, who want to retain their hair’s natural texture. For some Dominican women it has become as much a ritual as habichuelas con dulce on Holy Week or Johnny Ventura records on Christmas.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/travel/santo-domingo-dominican-hair-salon.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

    Reply
  26. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 9:42 am

    Obama’s skin looks a little different in these GOP campaign ads

    By Max Ehrenfreund
    December 29 at 6:01 AM

    A new study shows that negative ads targeting President Obama in 2008 depicted him with very dark skin, and that these images would have appealed to some viewers’ racial biases.

    The finding reinforces charges that some Republican politicians seek to win votes by implying support for racist views and ethnic hierarchies, without voicing those prejudices explicitly. The purported tactic is often called “dog-whistle politics” — just as only canines can hear a dog whistle, only prejudiced voters are aware of the racist connotations of a politician’s statement, according to the theory.

    That debate has been prominent in the 2016 campaign, primarily targeting Donald Trump, but it has existed in almost every recent presidential election. To hear their opponents tell it, when Republican politicians say they oppose a generous welfare system, they really mean black beneficiaries are lazy. If they endorse strict immigration enforcement, they really mean that Latinos are criminals, critics say.

    A study published online this month in Public Opinion Quarterly provides new evidence that one GOP campaign — intentionally or not — has aired advertisements that exacerbate viewers’ racial biases.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/29/obamas-skin-looks-a-little-different-in-these-gop-campaign-ads/?postshare=7291451433582941&tid=ss_tw

    Reply
  27. Ametia says:
    December 30, 2015 at 9:16 am

    I’m am LOVING MS. JACKSON this week. Thank you, Rikyrah.

    Reply
  45. rikyrah says:
    December 30, 2015 at 7:00 am

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

    Reply

Leave a Reply