Thursday Open Thread | Because I love them : Smokey Robinson

Today’s voice is Smokey Robinson.

 

Smokey Robinson

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66 Responses to Thursday Open Thread | Because I love them : Smokey Robinson

  1. eliihass says:

    “..CASSIUS CLAY, born in 1942, was the grandson of a slave; in the United States of his boyhood and young manhood, the role of the black athlete, particularly the black boxer, was a forced self-effacement.

    White male anxieties were, evidently, greatly roiled by the spectacle of the strong black man, and had to be assuaged. The greater the black boxer (Joe Louis, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles), the more urgent that he assume a public role of caution and restraint. Kindly white men who advised their black charges to be a “credit to their race” were not speaking ironically.

    And yet, the young Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali refused to play this emasculating role. He would not be the “white man’s Negro” — he would not be anything of the white man’s at all. Converting to the Nation of Islam at the age of 22, immediately after winning the heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston, he denounced his “slave name” (Cassius Marcellus Clay, which was also his father’s name) and the Christian religion; in refusing to serve in the Army he made his political reasons clear: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”

    An enormous backlash followed: where the young boxer had been cheered, now he was booed..

    The heart of the champion is this: One never repudiates one’s deepest values, one never gives in.

    The mystery of Muhammad Ali is this spiritual greatness, that seemed to have emerged out of a far more ordinary, even callow personality. With the passage of time, the rebel who’d been reviled by many Americans would be transformed into an American hero, especially amid general disenchantment with the Vietnam War. The young man who’d been denounced as a traitor was transformed into the iconic figure of our time, a compassionate figure who seems to transcend race. A warm, sepia light irradiates the past, glossing out jarring details…”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/06/opinion/muhammad-ali-never-the-white-mans-negro.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

  2. rikyrah says:

    The Hill ‏@thehill 40m40 minutes ago
    Poll: 94% of black Americans disapprove of Trump http://hill.cm/fYv4SkJ

  3. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    The petition is receiving many signatures:

    Ban Assault Weapons Now
    http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/ban-assault-weapons-now-4

  4. rikyrah says:

    Someone on BJ pointed this out. Trump is now asking money from people who actually KNOW about his business practices. They KNOW that his purported self -financing primary campaign was bullshyt, and that it was nothing but loans. And any money raised now is going to pay back Trump ‘s loans to the campaign, and they are not going for that bullshyt.

  5. rikyrah says:

    Jewish Reporter in New Hampshire Targeted by Anti-Semitic Trump Supporters
    Ella Nilsen of the Concord Monitor is the latest Jewish journalist tagged with the (((echo.)))
    June 16, 2016, 11:10 a.m.

    If you’re wondering about all the parentheses you might have been seeing on Twitter lately, it’s how anti-semitic trolls tag Jewish reporters who cover presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, targeting them for online harassment.

    Once their names are nested with two or three parentheses, they are often crudely Photoshopped inside a gas chamber, with Trump, dressed as a Nazi, hovering his stubby finger over the button and the caption, “SOON.”

    Ella Nilsen, a reporter for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, was the latest target of the Trumpkins. After being tagged with the “echo,” she was placed on a Twitter list titled “Train Depot,” composed of “(((people))) awaiting Disinfection and Bath before entering Main Camp.” Nilsen said she had been aware of other journalists experiencing the so-called “echo” during the campaign, but that it had “always seemed to be an arm’s length away.”

    “When I read my name on a list of people that an anonymous Twitter troll dreamed of sending to the gas chamber, to, as he put it, ‘#MakeAmericaGreatAgain,’ that changed,” she wrote in a column describing her experience Thursday. “To say I was creeped out is an understatement. Immediately, dozens of questions raced through my mind. ‘How did this person find me? Why did he put me on this list? Did he do research on me? How can I delete my entire online presence?’”

    Nilsen recounts how her grandmother, born of two Russian and Austro-Hungarian immigrants, was subjected to anti-semitism in New York City, even changing her name for fear of a second Holocaust.

  6. rikyrah says:

    He has no policy differences with Trump.
    None whatsoever.

    He just doesn’t like that Trump doesn’t use the Luntz-approved language to sell their swill of a vision.

    ………………………

    Ryan: ‘Not my plan’ to rescind Trump endorsement

    Source: The Hill

    Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Thursday that he has no plan to rescind his endorsement of Donald Trump despite repeatedly disavowing some of the presumptive presidential nominee’s controversial comments.

    “That’s not my plan. I don’t have a plan to do that,” Ryan said. “Look, we’re going to disagree on some things. … What we do agree on is we don’t want another Democrat in the White House.”
    Ryan maintained at his weekly press conference that he believes Trump is still a better choice than presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

    At the same time, Ryan reiterated that he will express his own opinion contrary to Trump’s if he feels the occasion warrants it.

    “If I’m asked a question, I’m going to answer it honestly. And if I’m asked a question about a proposal that I don’t agree with, I’m going to say I don’t agree with it.”

  7. rikyrah says:

    Hmmph.
    Hmmph.
    Hmmph.

    GOP Senate chairman on Medicaid expansion: ‘How long can you sit there and say, ‘No, no, no’?
    June 16, 2016

    We told you some time ago that 2017 might be the year that Georgia, however grudgingly, accepts Obamacare and decides to expand Medicaid coverage in some fashion.

    Last week, state Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, chairman of that chamber’s Health and Human Services Committee, said she’s ready to look in that direction. On Wednesday, she elaborated in a lengthy, 20-minute interview with Denis O’Hayer of WABE (90.1 FM). A small slice:

    Unterman: “How long can you actually sit there and say, ‘No, no, no, we don’t want something,’ and continue to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into sustaining a system that’s not very good anyway.”

    O’Hayer: “And you’re having to do that because you’re not drawing down the federal dollars that you would have had, had you expanded Medicaid.”

    Unterman: “Right. The federal infrastructure has changed, but the state has not changed with it.

  8. rikyrah says:

    Some more water is wet news.

    ……………………

    Few if any minority senior execs in Trump’s empire
    Jun. 16, 2016 3:36 PM EDT

    WASHINGTON (AP) — There are few, if any, black executives in the upper ranks of the Trump Organization, a review by The Associated Press has found. Other minorities are also scarce at that level though Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has employed scores of executives.

    Former executives say they cannot recall a single black vice president-level executive at Trump’s headquarters during their combined tenures at the Trump Organization LLC, which ranged from 1980 to late in the past decade. Reviews of social media postings by Trump and his family and Trump’s acknowledgements thanking executives in his books also fail to identify any senior black employees past or present.

    Asked about the lack of African-American vice presidents in an interview last month, Trump assured the AP that he had hired minorities as senior executives and said his staff could readily provide specific details.

    “I am the least discriminatory person in the world,” Trump said. “I have people that do the hiring, if you want to speak to them.”

  9. rikyrah says:

    Lost in America
    How Four Teens’ Hoop Dreams Turned Into a Nightmare, Sparking a Federal Probe

    June 16, 2016

    The calls came around 11 p.m. on a cold January night in 2015, first to the Serbian boy with the little Samsung Android phone, then to the Cameroonians. “You ready? I’m gonna come tonight,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Pack your stuff.”

    Within hours, four teenage basketball players had hurriedly filled their gym bags with their scant possessions, including the clothes that now hung off their tall frames like cheap drapes, the result of months of having to scavenge for food from a nearby suburban Atlanta strip mall. They sneaked out of the drab townhouse apartments where they slept jammed into small rooms, usually on the floor and often without heat, and silently piled into a rented gray van.

    They had never heard of Lake Wales, Florida, the place where the driver of the van, Gordon Gibbons, an assistant coach who had taken pity on them, was delivering them. They didn’t care. It couldn’t be worse than the place they were fleeing in the middle of the night—Stockbridge, Georgia, and Faith Baptist Christian Academy North. They were sure they had been conned there, and they’d had enough.

    Their tribulations began as soon as they set foot in America. Rostand Ndong Essomba, a quick, 6’0″ point guard from Yaounde, Cameroon, was told back home that Faith Baptist North was offering him a full scholarship. He jumped through all the bureaucratic hoops, procuring a coveted I-20 form that grants permission for international students to apply for a non-immigrant visa to enter the country and study in the U.S.

    But when Rostand arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta in October 2014, he says Faith Baptist North’s founder, George Flint, took one look at him and told the 17-year-old African he was too short. Rostand says that Flint told him that if he wanted to stay in America, he had to cough up $2,000. “Where’s the money?” Flint allegedly asked his new recruit.

  10. rikyrah says:

    Conservative writer bashes Trump supporters on Twitter
    June 16, 2106

    Conservative writer Rick Wilson absolutely despises Donald Trump, and he’s deeply worried that the mogul’s dominance will cause incalculable long-term damage to the party’s reputation. Trump has taken a dive in his approval rating recently, and though the Orlando Shooting might shake things up going forward, Wilson went on a Twitter tirade last night about its proof the GOP will have a price to pay after the election is over.
    Trump has found himself in controversy so many times over the course of his campaign, and the GOP leadership has constantly found itself offering half–hearted condemnation while allowing him to become their 2016 nominee. By the looks of last night, Wilson isn’t having it anymore.

    I won’t say much more about this since it’s better to just read Wilson’s tweets, but take note of how “Cheeto Jesus,” “unspinnable ratfuck,” and “crypto-fascist,” are among the nicer things he says:

  11. rikyrah says:

    Trump Will Be the Nominee. Period.
    By Amy Walter, June 16, 2016

    To those GOPers still thinking/hoping that Trump will “get the message” and suddenly become a more focused and disciplined candidate, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Here’s the deal, Trump is not going to change. Ever. This is the candidate who won the primaries. This is the candidate you are going to nominate in July. And, this is the candidate who you will have to decide to support or not in November. There’s simply no other option.

  12. rikyrah says:

    Water is wet news.

    …………………………………

    Activity among white supremacists continues to surge
    USA TODAY 4:49 p.m. EDT June 16, 2016

    Inspired by a series of hate crimes and the current election season, white supremacists have grown angrier and more energetic in 2016, according to experts.

    It’s been one year since nine black parishioners were gunned down in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, murders that then-21-year-old Dylann Roof — who is white — is accused of committing. Last July, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a 33-count indictment against Roof that charged him with federal hate crimes for the June 17 attack, alleging that he sought to ignite racial tensions across the United States with the massacre. Friends of Roof have said that he wanted to start a race war. His trial is set for Nov. 7; prosecutors will seek the death penalty.

    That massacre came during what experts described as a multi-year surge in activity among white supremacists, a surge that has continued into this year. And presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump may be fueling the fire.

    “A lot of the extreme right perceives Trump as being largely sympathetic to many of their views,” said Mark Pitcavage, a historian for the Anti-Defamation League. “They rather enthusiastically support what they perceive as anti-Hispanic attitudes on his part, anti-Muslim attitudes on his part and other similar ideas.

  13. rikyrah says:

    “He’s Obsessed With Menstruation”
    Former Apprentice crew members on their old boss, Donald Trump

    June 15, 2016

    We know about Donald Trump’s on-camera persona as the star of The Apprentice: his tyrannical management style, his gruff demeanor, his terse catchphrase. But what was Trump like between takes, when the cameras were off but the crew was watching?

    Slate reached out to find people who’d worked on The Apprentice during Trump’s tenure. Most people we contacted declined to talk, citing nondisclosure agreements they’d signed as a condition of their employment on the show. But three were willing to speak—as long as we didn’t use their names. And one spoke to us on the record.

    Yep, He’s a Misogynist
    “He was always very open about describing women by their breast size. Any time I see people in the Trump organization say how nice he is, I want to throw up. He’s been a nasty person to women for a long time,” says one crew member. “My girlfriend at the time was a production assistant on the show and he made a comment about her, knowing that he was mic’d and that we’d all hear it. He said, ‘Who’s that hot little girl running around?’ For a second I was like, Cool, Donald Trump thinks my girlfriend is hot. But then I was like, Wait, an old man said something about my 28-year-old girlfriend. Take it easy, homeboy.”

  14. rikyrah says:

    UM….they sent this to the POPE and thought he’d take it?

    Huh?

    https://twitter.com/JOBoomr/status/743276408894554113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

  15. Ametia says:

    Wow John Mc Grumpys mighty desperate to blame POTUD for Orlando killings. What a bitter loser. His poll numbers must be Sinking.

    • eliihass says:

      Desperation…

      He’s even calling in as reinforcement, George W. Bush who couldn’t even deliver for brother Jeb…LOL..

      “…After eight years of largely abstaining from politics, former President George W. Bush is throwing himself into an effort to save his party’s most vulnerable senators, including several whose re-election campaigns have been made more difficult by Donald J. Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket.

      In the weeks since Mr. Trump emerged as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Mr. Bush has headlined fund-raisers for two Republican senators and has made plans to help three more. Among them are Senators John McCain of Arizona, who was one of Mr. Trump’s earliest targets of derision, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who has struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s inflammatory talk.

      Mr. Bush announced through a spokesman last month that he would not support Mr. Trump’s candidacy and would not attend the Republican convention in Cleveland next month. His father, former President George Bush, and his brother Jeb Bush, who was defeated and ridiculed by Mr. Trump in the primary campaign, are also staying away.

      It has been a painful year for the Bushes, as Mr. Trump has not only upended the party that they dominated for decades but has done so by publicly repudiating the 43rd president’s legacy. Mr. Trump denounced the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a foreign policy disaster, blamed Mr. Bush for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and painted his presidency as a failure. Yet Mr. Trump suffered little backlash from voters in the Republican primaries as a result.

      At a debate in February, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Bush’s administration “lied” about intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. And he excoriated Mr. Bush for the Sept. 11 attacks.

      “The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush, right? I mean, it came down,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference. “We weren’t safe.”

      At a rally that night in support of Jeb Bush, the only public event that he appeared at for his brother, the former president seemed to refer to Mr. Trump without naming him.

      “I understand that Americans are angry and frustrated, but we do not need someone in the Oval Office who mirrors and inflames our anger and frustration,” Mr. Bush said. “We need someone that can fix the problems that cause our anger and frustration…”

      LOL..

    • Ametia says:

      See comment above. Look for more of this foolish talk this election cycle. Black guys leaving office pile on even more to get reelected.

    • eliihass says:

      He could have used a roof over his head, guaranteed 3 decent meals a day… and daily constant check-ins from human beings who cared… or were at least paid to care..

      Human beings always tend to overcompensate after the fact…when the dead can no longer appreciate what they desperately needed while they still had life in them…

      Human beings expend so much energy, time…and spend so much more than was ever cumulatively spent in their lifetime …to mourn and bury those who died alone and neglected…

      But I suppose having a dignified burial and a final resting place is infinitely better than nothing…

  16. Ametia says:

    I don’t know about anyone else, but all this overblown theatrics in Congress over gun legislation is

    SIDESHOW

  17. Ametia says:

    Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where is EVERYONE? LOL

    • eliihass says:

      We’re here Ametia..

      Busy completing tight deadlines at work…and frankly, quite put off by the massive propaganda machine at work in our democracy…the brazen dishonesty and attempts at manipulation to arrive at a specific result…

  18. rikyrah says:

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

    …………………

    Chris Matthews Thinks Trump Would Be Fine If He’d Just Hide His Racism, Attack Hillary, and ‘Build!’
    by Tommy Christopher | 9:21 am, June 16th, 2016 VIDEO 32

    The media’s idiotic anticipation of a Donald Trump “pivot” away from racism and insanity and toward something more “presidential” has found its perfect exemplar in MSNBC host Chris Matthews. At the close of Wednesday night’s Hardball, Matthews used his “Let Me Finish” segment to fervently wish that Trump would turn things around from his “slump” this week, stop talking about all this “ethnic stuff” (that’s WhitePeople-ese for “racism”), start attacking Hillary Clinton, and just “build!”:

    ……………

    Matthews’ weird fetish for building aside (he seems to have taken the term “Erector Set” entirely too much to heart), Matthews’ rant is everything that’s wrong with the mainstream media’s coverage of the Trump campaign times ten. Trump is not in a “slump,” he’s been doing the exact same thing for exactly one year, and the only thing worse than expecting him to reverse it now is thinking that reversing it could undo the damage he has done to himself. The political media in general, and Matthews in particular, treat Trump’s racism, xenophobia, and misogyny like messaging problems instead of the fatal moral failings that they are, and his loony, frightening policy pronouncements like knocks in an engine that just needs some fine-tuning.

    It’s no coincidence, though, that the media is dominated by the type of person who can more easily forgive and forget racism and bigotry and misogyny if Trump would just keep them to himself. It’s easy for them to fill out a blank pardon for Trump’s bigotry, because they were never going to be directly affected by it anyway. They should take a page from Trump and “ask the blacks, the women, the Hispanics, the Muslims” if they think Trump can “pivot” anywhere but straight to Hell.

  19. rikyrah says:

    Jo Cox MP dead after shooting attack

    An MP has died after she was shot and stabbed in an attack in her constituency, police have said.
    Jo Cox, 41, Labour MP for Batley and Spen, was left bleeding on the ground after the attack in West Yorkshire. A 52-year-old man was arrested nearby.
    Her husband Brendan Cox said she would want people “to unite to fight against the hatred that killed her”.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36550304

  20. vitaminlover says:

    Goooooood morning, ladies!! I love Smokey’s voice. It is like silk and easy on the ears. It is soothing and melting. Whoooooo, Lord!

  21. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning 😀, Everyone 😄

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