Sunday Open Thread | Praise and Worship

About SouthernGirl2

A Native Texan who adores baby kittens, loves horses, rodeos, pomegranates, & collect Eagles. Enjoys politics, games shows, & dancing to all types of music. Loves discussing and learning about different cultures. A Phi Theta Kappa lifetime member with a passion for Social & Civil Justice.
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42 Responses to Sunday Open Thread | Praise and Worship

  1. Ametia says:

    “…I did my best to make sure, along with my staff and along with our debate partners, to come up with a schedule that we felt was going to allow for the — to maximize the opportunity for voters to see our candidates….”

    — Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, responding on CNN to criticism from some in her party that the Democratic debate schedule, which has included weekend forums, gives an advantage to Hillary Clinton.

    http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/17/verbatim-debbie-wasserman-schultz-says-democratic-debate-schedule-was-intended-to-maximize-exposure-to-voters/?_r=0

  2. Ametia says:

    Is anyone watching this tonight?

    Billions, Season 1: The stakes are in the billions in this timely, provocative series. Series premiere Sunday, January 17th at 10PM ET/PT.

    http://www.sho.com/sho/video/titles/41377/maggie-siff-on-wendy-rhoades

  3. rikyrah says:

    uh huh

    uh huh

    Anyone else disturbed by him getting over $100k for fostering children?

    I’ve never done it..is this a normal payment for foster kids?
    ………………………..

    Oregon Militia Spokesman Says Foster Children Were Removed From His Home

    Brendan O’Connor
    Today 11:56am
    Filed to: OREGON

    Oregon militia spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum told OPB that the four foster children who had been living with him and his wife on their Chino Valley, Arizona, ranch have been taken away. “I hope people are seeing the sacrifices we’re making here,” he said.

    The rancher estimated that more than 50 boys, often coming from group homes, drug rehabs, and psychiatric institutions, have lived with them in the past decade. “My ranch has been a great tool for these boys,” Finicum said. “It has done a lot of good.”

    ………………………………………..

    That represents an enormous loss of income for the Finicums. According to a 2010 tax filing, Catholic Charities paid the family $115,343 to foster children in 2009. That year, foster parents were compensated between $22.31 and $37.49 per child, per day, meaning if the Finicums were paid at the maximum rate, they cared for, on average, eight children per day in 2009.

    “That was my main source of income,” Finicum said. “My ranch, well, the cows just cover the costs of the ranch. If this means rice and beans for the next few years, so be it. We’re going to stay the course.”

  4. Ametia says:

    Black Twitter, White Tears
    January 14, 2016 • admin • racism

    Something is happening everyday on Black Twitter, the social media platform that amplifies African American culture.

    When Twitter began in 2006, it is doubtful that the founders had any idea that it would become a platform for race dialogue. Yet from Nicki Minaj’s critique of structural racism to Donald Trump spreading fabricated statistics about the relationship between race and crime to the recent discussion and debate over the #BlackGirlMagic and #OscarsSoWhite hashtags, here we are, almost ten years later, watching racial debates play out in 140 characters or less.

    For those of us in academia, Twitter provides ample “teaching moments” for our students. The combination of relatability an

    http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2016/01/14/black-twitter-white-tears/

  5. Ametia says:

    Panthers win the AFC championship against Seahawks 31-24!

  6. rikyrah says:

    From DON over at TOD:

    Don
    January 17, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    Maybe the problem is that we’re looking at the Hillary Clinton situation through a political lens and not a psychological lens. When you’re beloved by black folk as much as the Clintons were you can’t come away from thinking that you’re not one of them, or that you don’t understand the plight of black folk. The problem the Clintons encountered was that an actual black man arrived and challenged their standing in the black community. When Bill Clinton was attached, many in the black community defended him.

    When his impeachment was taking place every black minister with a church ran down to the White House to lay hands on Bill Clinton and to pray for him. Damn near every black celebrity that ever met Bill Clinton said that Bill had a special connection with them. For lack of a better word, Bill Clinton had a stranglehold on the Black community. In the eighties in the black community you had a lot of social and judicial unrest, blacks had to find a way to channel that unrest, and they found it through starting businesses, they found it through the arts, and they found it through politics. And by the time the nineties arrived the black community was on the verge of realizing its power.

    Then Bill Clinton arrived, he invited us into the White House to break bread with him, in so many ways “he felt our pain.” To this day Bill and Hillary Clinton can walk into any neighborhood of color and be welcomed with open arms. In the black community the past works of the Clintons guaranteed our never wavering loyalty.

    And then it happened, on a cold day in Illinois an unassuming skinny black man with an unusual name said that he was running to be President of the United States of America. And as quickly as he announced he was also quickly dismissed, even by some in the black community. The black political structure was not ready for Barack Obama, we were ok if you ran for Mayor or Senator or Governor. But for the Presidency, hold on a minute young buck. The psychological chains are the hardest chains the black community has ever had to break; even to this day we struggle to break them to some extent. And this is where the Clintons come in; we in the black community we put the Clintons on such a pedestal that they’ve convinced themselves that they can do no wrong when it came to the black voter. What the Clintons failed to understood was that a vote for Barack was not necessarily a vote against them.

    Many people believed that black people voted for Barack because he was black, some of that is true. But those voters didn’t outnumber those voters that voted against Barack because he was black; those two groups cancelled each other out. So, now you have the Clintons being loved in the black community versus the black community voting for Barack Obama. And that is the problem that the Clintons couldn’t understand, to this day they still don’t understand it. And because they didn’t understand it they lashed out in ways that didn’t make sense in the black community. Bill Clinton telling Ted Kennedy that back in the day someone like Barack would be serving them coffee, questioning Barack’s citizenship. And undermining the President Obama at every opportunity are just some of the ways that they have lashed out. The Clintons would do well this time around to embrace President Obama and understand what he represents for the country, but more importantly what he represents for the black community.

    • Ametia says:

      ON POINT

    • Liza says:

      “The Clintons would do well this time around to embrace President Obama and understand what he represents for the country, but more importantly what he represents for the black community.”

      Honestly, I don’t know how the Clintons could NOT understand unless they are both devoid of emotional intelligence, which is certainly a possibility. They are a couple of old war horses who have been in politics for so long they seem to have lost their foothold in the real world. It’s all politics, campaigning, winning, say anything, do anything, get that power, get that money, and revel in the applause of their followers. I see them as no more than that, so IMHO, it is time for them to take their final bows and ride out into the sunset. For crying out loud, pass the f**king torch.

      • Ametia says:

        THIS:

        For crying out loud, pass the f**king torch.”

        Teddy Kennedy SAW exactly who the Clintons are, and that is PRECISELY why he ENDORSED Barck Hussein Obama.

  7. rikyrah says:

    The One Weird Trait That Predicts Whether You’re a Trump Supporter

    And it’s not gender, age, income, race or religion.
    By Matthew MacWilliams

    1/17/2016

    If I asked you what most defines Donald Trump supporters, what would you say? They’re white? They’re poor? They’re uneducated?

    You’d be wrong.

    In fact, I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.

    • Ametia says:

      Wow, just WOW! I’ll bet Matthew MacWilliams is one helluva YOGA student, twisting himself into all kinds of complicated POSTURES.

      Just like this bullshit he’s pushing about he profile of Trump supporters going beyond….

      RACE

      cmonson

      “Authoritarianism” my black ass. WHITE POWER, BABY. That’s what this about.

      GTFOH

  8. rikyrah says:

    BWA HA HA HA H AH HA HA HA

    He does it in tweets….HILARIOUS

    …………………………………….

    I Went to Bikram Yoga and Here’s What Happened (Hint: It Was Horrible)

    I now know that I can survive Navy SEAL training after making it 20 minutes in a Bikram/hot-yoga class.

    BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR.

    Posted: Jan. 17 2016 3:00 AM

    http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/01/i_went_to_bikram_yoga_and_here_s_what_happened_hint_it_was_horrible.html?wpisrc=mostpopular

  9. rikyrah says:

    uh uh uh

    Sad Sack: How Redskins Quarterback RGIII Bows Out in Washington

    In 2012 Robert Griffin III was the toast of Washington, D.C. On Sunday he cleaned out his locker for what is most likely the last time.

    BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR.

    Posted: Jan. 12 2016 10:33 AM

    As the clock wound down on the Washington Redskins’ final home game Sunday evening, Robert Griffin III began giving hugs to people on the sideline whom he may never see again. The camera caught him hugging an equipment manager, their embrace longer than usual, then he walked into the locker room and cleaned out his locker for what is most likely the last time at FedEx Field.

    “That first year, man, Robert was a rock star. Then different things happened,” former Redskins receiver Santana Moss told ESPN. “But he can take all those things, learn from them and get better. If Robert is like any of the best people in the history of this game, then he’ll use it all as motivation. But you look at a lot of these quarterbacks out there, and you mean to tell me Robert ain’t gonna get another chance?”

    In 2012, just three years ago, RGIII looked as if he would be the savior for the woeful franchise. He was a dual-threat option whose accuracy on the long ball was a blessing to a town that hadn’t had a winning season, a real winning season, in years.

    But three football years might as well be ages ago, since that was all it took for the 2012 Rookie of the Year to become the last sad note from an Adele song played on repeat at ungodly volumes.

    http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/01/sad_sack_how_redskins_quarterback_rgiii_bows_out_in_washington.html

  10. rikyrah says:

    well, 2520’s gotta be 2520’s.

    NY Town Votes to Keep Seal That Appears to Show White Man Choking Native American

    Residents in Whitesboro voted 157-55 to keep an emblem that many outside the town believe is racist.

    BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR.

    Posted: Jan. 14 2016 1:06 PM

    Residents in Whitesboro, N.Y., voted overwhelmingly to keep the town emblem, which appears to depict a white man choking a Native American man.

    According to the New York Times, some residents have balked at the image for over four decades, but very little has been done—and that tradition continued after a viral push to remove the image led to an actual vote Monday.

    Residents of the Oneida County town, which has roughly 3,700 residents, voted overwhelmingly to keep things as they are, with 157 of 212 votes cast in favor of letting the image continue to represent the community.

    “Whitesboro views this seal as a moment in time when good relations were fostered,” Dana Nimey-Olney, the village clerk, told the Associated Press.

    The story behind the seal might be more devastating than the image.

    http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/01/ny_town_votes_to_keep_seal_showing_white_man_choking_native_american.html

  11. rikyrah says:

    Children’s Book Showing Slaves Happily Baking a Cake is Just Another Attempt to Rewrite America’s Shameful History
    A Birthday Cake for George Washington makes it seem as though an enslaved father and daughter were perfectly fine with being oppressed.

    BY: DEMETRIA LUCAS D’OYLEY
    Posted: Jan. 17 2016 4:49 AM

    I learned about Scholastic’s new children’s book, A Birthday Cake for George Washington, when a friend emailed me on Friday to ask, “Uh … have you seen this [expletive]?” Her note was accompanied by the book’s back cover, which depicted an illustration of a smiling enslaved man and child, accompanied by their beaming master—America’s first president, George Washington. Washington had his arm around the enslaved man’s shoulder like they were bros instead of oppressor and oppressed.

    My knee-jerk reaction was a string of expletives as I tried to process this level of disrespect. Can you imagine a modern-day American publisher pushing a book about a cheery Jewish father and daughter on a trivial mission to bake a cake for the birthday of, say, an SS guard at Auschwitz? Can you picture a children’s book depicting a Jewish dad and child at a concentration camp snuggled up and cozy with Hitler?

    Never! So why is it somehow OK to show enslaved black folks practically cuddling with their oppressors?

  12. rikyrah says:

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

    ………………..

    Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Young Whites
    By GINA KOLATA and SARAH COHEN
    JAN. 16, 2016

    Drug overdoses are driving up the death rate of young white adults in the United States to levels not seen since the end of the AIDS epidemic more than two decades ago — a turn of fortune that stands in sharp contrast to falling death rates for young blacks, a New York Times analysis of death certificates has found.

    The rising death rates for those young white adults, ages 25 to 34, make them the first generation since the Vietnam War years of the mid-1960s to experience higher death rates in early adulthood than the generation that preceded it.

    The Times analyzed nearly 60 million death certificates collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1990 to 2014. It found death rates for non-Hispanic whites either rising or flattening for all the adult age groups under 65 — a trend that was particularly pronounced in women — even as medical advances sharply reduce deaths from traditional killers like heart disease. Death rates for blacks and most Hispanic groups continued to fall.

    The analysis shows that the rise in white mortality extends well beyond the 45- to 54-year-old age group documented by a pair of Princeton economists in a research paper that startled policy makers and politicians two months ago.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/science/drug-overdoses-propel-rise-in-mortality-rates-of-young-whites.html?action=click&contentCollection=Music&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

  13. Ametia says:

    We don’t have to give Hillary Clinton any rope. She’s learned nothing from 2008, and is using th esame rope that her advisors used back then.

    Hopefully, she will stand on a chair and have it kicked out from under her. Get where I’m going with this?

    WE NEED YOU, JOE BIDEN!

  14. rikyrah says:

    Iowa Poll: Clinton slides, leads Sanders by 2 points

    COPYRIGHT 2016, DES MOINES REGISTER AND TRIBUNE COMPANY

    Hillary Clinton has lost most of her lead over Bernie Sanders in the race to win Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses, a new Iowa Poll shows.

    Clinton, who has been the favorite all along, now leads Sanders by just 2 percentage points in The Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll. That’s down from 9 percentage points a month ago.

    Clinton is now the top choice of 42 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers, compared with Sanders’ 40 percent, the poll finds. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

    “It shows Bernie is around to stay for sure. It’s not a fly-by-night thing,” said Grant Woodard, a Des Moines lawyer who has worked for several state and national Democratic campaigns. “It really shows we’re going to have a pretty crazy last few weeks here.”

    The tightening race is not because of a surge in support for Sanders, the poll indicates. His support has risen just 1 percentage point in the past month. But Clinton has seen her support slide from 48 percent to 42 percent. The big shift has been in the number of likely Democratic caucusgoers who say they are undecided or who plan to stand up for “uncommitted.” Fourteen percent now say that, up from 8 percent a month ago.

    • Liza says:

      I hate this election. I can’t even put into words how much I hate this election. And I deeply resent the ramming of the old war horse down the throats of the Democrats. We deserved better, we deserved to have a CHOICE. The Democratic Party is not supposed to be a plutocracy, and the presidential nomination is not supposed to be a gift granted to one of the elitists. And, bottom line, I don’t trust Hillary. Leopards do not change their spots.

      • Ametia says:

        The DNC under the disgraceful leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz had NO INTENTIONS of building and maintaing a bench of YOUNGER, PROGRESSIVE, qualified future DEMOCRATIC presidential/senatorial, gubetorial candidates/leaders.

        They want to take us back to the Clinton era. Last week when Hillary DEPLOYED Chelsea to go before constituents and FLAT OUT LIE about Bernie Sanders and the ACA… ……

        It’s the same old tactics, differenct day.

      • Liza says:

        Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been a disaster for the Democrats, but they seem unwilling to admit that as of yet. I really don’t think that her tunnel vision allows her to see anything other than Hillary as president and herself in some high level position in Hillary’s administration. The Clinton era, like the 20th century, is gone. And there were a lot of things about the Clinton era that weren’t so great. I don’t understand all of this pushback against moving forward and fighting what is inevitable in the future.

    • Ametia says:

      Hillary is a LOSER.

      PERIOD

  15. Liza says:

    I saw one of the mattress store ads yesterday with a picture of MLK and I thought, “No, this has gone too far. Black folks MUST reclaim Dr. MLK Jr.”

    All these mattress sales are exactly what Dr. King envisioned. We did it, y'all.— George Wallace (@MrGeorgeWallace) January 16, 2016

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    • Ametia says:

      This is the very reason I.DON.T DO SALES of any kind on any day , especially celebrating VISIONARY LEADERS.

      CORPORATE GREED KNOWS NO BOUNDS, and we as a country have consciously and UNCONSCIOUSLY fed the beast!

  16. Ametia says:

    PBO statement on Iran thread is up!

  17. Ametia says:

    Good Morning, Everyone. :))))

  18. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

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