Monday Open Thread | Kool & The Gang Week

Posted on March 28, 2016 by rikyrah

Happy Monday, Everyone! This week, we feature the music group Kool & The Gang.

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How about some Hollywood Swinging:

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54 Responses to Monday Open Thread | Kool & The Gang Week

  1. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 6:38 pm

    I girded my loins and watched all three Undergrounds back-to-back this weekend.

    Wow.

    Reply
  8. SouthernGirl2 says:
    March 28, 2016 at 2:03 pm

    Breaking News @CNN: White House, US Capitol on lockdown. Reports of shots fired.

    Reply
  9. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    An excellent comment about the GOP from BJ:

    109
    Daulnay says:
    March 28, 2016 at 2:33 pm

    Some of the Republicans do seem to be trying to replace civic democratic government with a corporate-controlled ‘private’ government. Consider the three segments of government…

    Legislative:
    – drafting of legislation is no longer done nearly entirely by sitting civic legislatures. Much legislation is now drafted by ALEC (mainly), or by individual corporations. You get the ridiculous situation of legislators being ignorant of the contents of the legislation they ‘draft’ and propose.
    – election of legislators has gone from a mainly democratic process to one where corporate and plutocratic interests strongly influence the outcome. Tom DeLay’s K Street Project overtly embraced the corruption of Congress.

    Judicial:
    – Forced arbitration clauses. For those unfamiliar, a big part of the justice system in the past has been civil dispute resolution through the courts. A huge amount of that dispute resolution has been ‘privatized’ — moved to the arbitration system that is tilted strongly in favor of corporations. To quote a recent local bar association journal, “Arbitration is no longer a small outpost at the fringes of the American legal system; increasingly it is the legal system” (emphasis theirs).
    – starving the courts: justice delayed is justice denied, and throughout the nation Republicans have been working to cut court system funding so that the civic government’s justice system cannot manage the workload.

    Executive:
    – privatizing/corporatizing schools, municipal utilities, prisons and every other civic government function that they can. The Cheneyites even tried to corporatize the military (remember Blackwater?)
    – privatizing entire civic governments, as in Flint and Benton Harbor, Michigan. Mainly to loot, of course.

    Does this add up to a concerted effort to replace the entirely of civil/national government with a system of government by corporation and contract? Is it hard to see many issues as part of a struggle between a civic, democratic form of government and a corporate, autocratic one, rather than the more usual left/right?

    Reply
  10. Ametia says:
    March 28, 2016 at 1:17 pm

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Reply
  13. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 1:03 pm

    Look who was at the Easter Egg Hunt – the little girl who was so upset at the thought of PBO leaving Office…

    LOVE IT!!!

    https://twitter.com/vj44/status/714455970643111936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    Reply
  18. SouthernGirl2 says:
    March 28, 2016 at 11:52 am

    Can y’all help me to figure this out? Debbie Wasserman Shultz has been a disaster for the party. Why would he endorse her?

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/714482456368443393

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      March 28, 2016 at 1:03 pm

      PBO is toeing the party line, that’s for sure. That’s what they expect him to do, but I sure don’t agree with him on DWS or HRC.

      Reply
      • Ametia says:
        March 28, 2016 at 1:17 pm

        Yes, he is, Liza. This written endorsement didn’t take much thought.

        This content, highlighting what this fried haired failure is doing for her district and being progressive since he elected her in 2011….

        IS TOTAL BULLSHIT!

        There ain’t shit that’s progressive about her Chairmanship at the helm as DNC.

        And President Obama knows it. We’re smart enough not to fall for this nonsense.

        NOT VOTING FOR HILLARY & FUCK DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHUTZ!

        Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      March 28, 2016 at 11:32 am

      FROM POU:

      jds09
      I love this woman so much. She’s reminded us to ignore “the noise”,trust GOD and keep it moving. And modeled this behavior for a whole generation. FLOTUS is a free Black woman and she’s beautiful inside and out.

      Reply
    • Ametia says:
      March 28, 2016 at 2:25 pm

      YES! Noise & this fact right here:

      THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES

      Reply
  22. SouthernGirl2 says:
    March 28, 2016 at 11:31 am

    Can y’all help me to figure this out? Debbie Wasserman Shultz has been a disaster for the party. Why would he endorse her? I still say she needs to resign!

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/714482456368443393

    Reply
  25. Ametia says:
    March 28, 2016 at 10:37 am

    Media Unimpressed as Sanders Barely Gets Seventy Per Cent of Vote
    By Andy Borowitz

    NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Bernie Sanders failed to impress major media outlets over the weekend as he barely managed to win seventy per cent of the vote in three western primaries.

    The major cable networks briefly mentioned Sanders’s vote tallies in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii but noted that he ran out of steam well shy of eighty per cent.

    “There’s no point in sugarcoating it,” one analyst put it. “Rough night for Sanders.”

    According to one cable executive, Sanders needs to “put up some big numbers fast” if he expects the networks to continue giving his campaign airtime.

    “It’s going to be harder and harder to justify covering him while he’s stuck down in the seventy-per-cent range,” the executive said.

    While Sanders campaign officials remain optimistic about the upcoming primary in Wisconsin, media outlets are calling it a “do or die” state after his sputtering finishes over the weekend.

    “I think if he limps across the finish line with, say, seventy-five or seventy-nine per cent, it’s going to be time for him to reassess things,” one cable representative said. “That would have to be a wake-up call.”

    A spokesperson for CNN could not be reached for comment, as the network was busy preparing a ninety-minute special on the birth of Donald Trump’s new grandchild.

    http://www.newyorker.com/?p=3183434&mbid=nl_032816%20Borowitz%20Newsletter%20(1)&CNDID=24441272&spMailingID=8717308&spUserID=MTA5MjQwMjI1MDIzS0&spJobID=883104440&spReportId=ODgzMTA0NDQwS0

    Reply
  26. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 9:36 am

    Did Bill Clinton Attack President Obama’s ‘Awful Legacy’?
    Former President Bill Clinton needs to watch his tongue if he’s going to help wife Hillary Clinton hold on to voters who like President Obama.

    BY: JASON JOHNSON
    Posted: March 22 2016 1:09 PM

    It’s no secret that former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama are more “frenemies” than political friends. Bill Clinton was his wife Hillary Clinton’s biggest attack dog in the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, and both publicly and privately suggested that then-Sen. Obama wasn’t up to being commander in chief. Hillary Clinton and Obama have since buried the hatchet, but there have always been two Bill Clintons when it comes to his dealings with the president.

    One Bill Clinton desperately wants his wife to win and supports Obama as a fellow Democrat. The other Bill Clinton is like an ever-competitive Michael Jordan watching Kobe Bryant, grousing every minute and throwing shade by pointing out how he was better in his prime. Which is why it’s not surprising that on Monday, Bill Clinton described Obama’s presidency as having an “awful legacy.”

    The question now is, which Bill Clinton is going to clean up the mess?

    On Monday during a campaign stop in Spokane, Wash., Bill Clinton said the following about his wife during an extended riff: “If you believe we can rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that, where we were practicing trickle-down economics, then you should vote for her.”

    Republicans jumped on the statement, and the Hillary Clinton campaign immediately started having flashbacks to “off message” Bill Clinton from campaign 2008. This is a horrible way to start the stretch run of the nomination race for Hillary Clinton.

    It’s difficult to claim that this was just a slip of the tongue, since Bill Clinton clearly references not just the Obama administration but also the previous Bush administration in the same sentence. And it’s not as if he got confused and somehow thought he was stumping for his wife in 2008. Next, and perhaps most important, the Hillary Clinton campaign has unofficially dubbed itself the third Obama term, so any suggestion that Obama’s administration is a failure is not a good look, especially when she so desperately needs African-American voters this fall.

    Reply
  28. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 9:33 am

    uh huh

    uh huh

    Sean Combs Launches Harlem Charter School; Educator Steve Perry to Oversee

    Combs’ school has been in the works for over five years and will open in the fall.

    BY: YESHA CALLAHAN

    Posted: March 28 2016 10:20 AM

    Sean “Diddy” Combs is going from hip-hop and vodka mogul to education. Combs is opening a charter school in his hometown of Harlem in El Museo del Barrio and the Museum of the City of New York. Combs started the prep work for the Capital Preparatory Harlem Charter School in 2011, and it will finally open this fall, according to the Associated Press.

    The school also has some big names on board. Steve Perry will oversee the school, Danita Jones will be the school’s principal, and Iyanla Vanzant and the Rev. Georgiette Morgan-Thomas are on the school’s board.

    Capital Prep will be a free, public school for grades 6-12, and will aim to provide a “year-round, college prep education,” according to the school’s official site.

    Reply
  29. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 9:31 am

    NoVo Foundation Announces $90,000,000 Investment in Young Women of Color in US
    The foundation, created by the son and daughter-in-law of business magnate and philanthropist Warren Buffett, announced Wednesday that it will be investing $90 million over seven years to address and combat the systemic inequalities that young women of color face in the United States.

    Reply
  30. SouthernGirl2 says:
    March 28, 2016 at 9:15 am

    Good morning, everyone!

    Reply
  31. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 8:51 am

    ‘Calm’ May Not Fit Country’s Mood, but It’s Obama’s Only Choice
    Anger is an emotion that only the privileged, like Trump, can perform without criticism.

    BY: MARY C. CURTIS
    Posted: March 25 2016 3:00 AM

    Sometimes, even when I suspect that he knows it will hurt him, President Barack Obama does not follow the script. The evening of the day when terrorists struck in Belgium, the president and his family attended a Major League Baseball exhibition game in Cuba. Why didn’t he rush back to Washington, D.C., or to Belgium to show solidarity with our European allies? “The whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people’s ordinary lives,” he told ESPN during the game.

    Agree or disagree with the choice—and Republican critics didn’t hesitate to strongly disapprove—Obama showed the calm that has characterized his presidency but that may be out of step with Americans’ fear of terrorism reaching our shores again. (At least, that what’s GOP presidential candidates and their supporters are hoping.)

    When Obama was running for president in 2008, however, calm was one of the few emotions allowed in his public persona. If he had introduced himself in red-faced, hair-on-fire mode (think the current Republican front-runner), his campaign would have ended before it began. After President George W. Bush and a war that America had grown tired of, Obama’s mood fit the country’s.

    But just as important was the fact that the man who wanted to be elected the country’s first African-American president already saw how he and his family, without evidence to back it up, were being tagged with the go-to adjective of “angry.”

    Much has been said and written about “respectability politics,” and it has played out—most prominently for me—in the images of well-dressed, well-behaved civil rights demonstrators being called uncivilized by screaming, violent men, women and children. The contradiction was as plain as could be, but it hardly changed the minds of true believers in the way things—socially, culturally, politically—had always been and should remain.

    Civility is an expectation for some Americans; violently acting out is not an option, at least not one that will be tolerated.

    Reply
  32. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 8:30 am

    Just a little dust in my eyes.

    ………

    Texas College Student, 24, Surprises Grandparents by Paying Off Their Mortgage

    Stefun Darts made a promise to God that one day he would pay off his grandparents’ home, and almost two decades later, he’s made good on that promise.

    BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR.

    Posted: March 28 2016 7:49 AM

    Stefun Darts, 24, is a full-time college student who holds down a full-time job and runs a small nonprofit. In the second grade, he made a promise to God that he would pay off his grandparents’ Texas home and help them retire.

    “A promise I would never break,” Darts, 24, wrote on Facebook. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched … but are felt by the heart.

    “Even with this, I could never repay you for what you’ve done for me,” the San Jacinto College student continued. “I sacrificed my teenage and early adulthood of not having fun for this moment. I couldn’t stand you going to work at night, some nights I didn’t even sleep knowing it shouldn’t be like this. Never have I wrote a check wanting this to be the first one. To all my friends that stood by me over these last 6 years I appreciate you.”

    Darts, who founded the Caring Youth mentoring program, told KHOU that he saved money wherever he could.

    “I’ve been eating pizza, microwave pizza for all my life,” Darts told the news station. “My friends will tell you I never did go out. They didn’t know, but this was the reason why.”

    On March 20, Darts presented his grandparents, Marilyn and Cecil Roberts, with a $15,000 check, and although the Roberts had been making mortgage payments for over 20 years on time, they were still stunned by their grandson’s generosity.

    Reply
  33. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 8:09 am

    Mother Angelica, nun who founded cable TV religious network, dead at 92
    Thomson Reuters
    CHRIS MICHAUD AND RICHARD PULLIN
    Mar 28th 2016 6:04AM

    Reuters) — Mother Angelica, a soft-spoken nun who dispensed homespun religious and life advice for years on television after founding a cable network, died on Sunday aged 92, officials and religious leaders said.

    “Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, foundress of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), passed away on March 27 after a lengthy struggle with the aftereffects of a stroke,” the Catholic News Agency said in a statement.

    “Mother has always and will always personify EWTN, the network that God asked her to found,” said EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Warsaw.

    Reply
  34. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 8:02 am

    Wisconsin’s ‘war on voting’ leads to real consequences
    03/25/16 04:39 PM
    By Steve Benen
    Wisconsin’s April 5 primary is likely to be important for all kinds of electoral reasons, but the day will also be significant in terms of the voting process itself: it will be the first big test of the state’s ridiculous voter-ID law. Gov. Scott Walker (R) signed legislation to create the system in 2011, responding to a “voter fraud” scourge that did not exist, but following a series of legal disputes, this will be the first presidential election year in which the system is fully implemented.

    For supporters of voting rights, this isn’t good news. A report from Pro Publica noted this week, for example, that the law requires Wisconsin’s Republican-run state government to run “a public-service campaign ‘in conjunction with the first regularly scheduled primary and election’ to educate voters on what forms of ID are acceptable.”

    To date, it appears that public-service campaign has not happened and no money has been a set aside to educate the public. With literally hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters facing disenfranchisement, it’s a major problem officials are not even trying to fix.

    It’s also not the only step backwards Wisconsin has taken on voting rights. MSNBC’s Zack Roth reported today:
    A bill signed into law last week by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker could make it much harder for the poor and minorities to register to vote in the pivotal swing state just as the 2016 election approaches.

    The Republican-backed measure allows Wisconsinites to register to vote online. But voting rights advocates say that step forward is massively outweighed by a provision in the bill whose effect will be to make it nearly impossible to conduct the kind of community voter registration drives that disproportionately help low-income and non-white Wisconsinites to register.
    No other state, including states led entirely by Republican officials, has created a registration system that dismantled community-registration drives.

    Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 7:59 am

    Trump’s newest dubious boast: ‘I do know my subject’
    03/28/16 08:40 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Last week, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump had a fairly long conversation with the Washington Post, which tried to explore his views on foreign policy in detail. The discussion made it abundantly clear that the GOP candidate simply has no idea what he’s talking about. It’s not just that Trump’s arguments are wrong; it’s also that he seems lost when it comes to basic details.

    On Friday afternoon, it was the New York Times’ turn. Alas, it appears efforts to teach Trump about international affairs aren’t going well.
    In criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, he expressed particular outrage at how the roughly $150 billion released to Iran (by his estimate; the number is in dispute) was being spent. “Did you notice they’re buying from everybody but the United States?” he said.

    Told that sanctions under United States law still bar most American companies from doing business with Iran, he said: “So, how stupid is that? We give them the money and we now say, ‘Go buy Airbus instead of Boeing,’ right?”

    But Mr. Trump, who has been pushed to demonstrate a basic command of international affairs, insisted that voters should not doubt his foreign policy fluency. “I do know my subject,” he said.
    It’s quite clear, of course, that he doesn’t know his subject. The full transcript has been posted online, and honestly, it’s hard to even know which parts to highlight – because so much of the interview is incoherent. Andrea Mitchell noted on “Meet the Press” yesterday that Trump “is completely uneducated about any part of the world.” The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg added on “Face the Nation” that it’s “remarkable to imagine that someone who shows so little interest in understanding why the world is organized the way it is organized is this close to the presidency of the world’s only superpower.”

    Reply
  40. rikyrah says:
    March 28, 2016 at 7:51 am

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

    Reply

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