Friday Open Thread | Christmas Jams

Posted on December 9, 2016 by SouthernGirl2

Christmas candles 84Sleigh Ride” is a popular light orchestral piece composed by Leroy Anderson. The composer had the original idea for the piece during a heat wave in July 1946; he finished the work in February 1948. Lyrics, about a person who would like to ride in a sleigh on a winter’s day with another person, were written by Mitchell Parish in 1950. The orchestral version was first recorded in 1949 by Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops Orchestra. The song was a hit record on RCA Victor Red Seal 49-0515 (45 rpm) / 10-1484 (78 rpm), and has become the equivalent of a signature song for the orchestra. The 45 rpm version was originally issued on red vinyl. This original mono version has never been available on CD, although the later 1959 re-recording is available in stereo. The orchestra has also recorded the song with John Williams, their conductor from 1979 to 1995, and Keith Lockhart, their current conductor.

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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32 Responses to Friday Open Thread | Christmas Jams

  1. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 9:08 pm

    The Head of EXXON AS SECRETARY OF STATE??

    Reply
  10. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 4:12 pm

    Trump’s Team Is Trying to Figure Out How to Upend Obama’s Climate Policy
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    December 9, 2016 3:35 PM

    A few days ago, Politico reported that Trump was basically ignoring his policy team that is at work crafting plans for how the administration will govern. But Catherine Traywick and Jennifer A Dlouhy got a scoop on what some of those folks are digging into with regards to energy policy.

    Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are developing plans to reshape Energy Department programs, help keep aging nuclear plants online and identify staff who played a role in promoting President Barack Obama’s climate agenda.

    The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules.

    Most of the reaction to that news has been to focus on the targeting of employees and contractors – which is, indeed, ominous. But it’s also interesting to pair that information with an article by Valerie Volcovici and David Shepardson titled, “Trump’s EPA pick could have a surprisingly tough time dismantling Obama’s environmental legacy.” In listing the hurdles Scott Pruitt might face in an effort to dismantle the climate change efforts put in place by the Obama administration, they included this:

    Another option Pruitt could take would be to challenge the very basis upon which Obama’s EPA created many of its climate change focused regulations: its finding that carbon dioxide endangers public health. Successfully overturning the so-called “endangerment finding” would remove the foundation upon which most of the administration’s clean air regulations were based, experts said.

    But doing so would be hard given the volumes of scientific research that support it, and the requirement to build up a new case that shows carbon dioxide is innocuous.

    The effort would likely also trigger lawsuits. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears all cases challenging federal clean air rules, has been supportive of the scientific evidence for manmade climate change.

    Reply
  11. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    Ladies.
    Did you know about this?
    WHAT THE FUCK?????

    https://mobile.twitter.com/TheRoot/status/807056135249391616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

    SG2,
    Please retweet

    Reply
  12. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    I have never despised a group of voters as I do those who voted for Ferret Head. My reaction to them is visceral.

    Reply
  13. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    Soap Opera Fans…another loss..

    Damn you, 2016.

    Joseph Mascolo, who played Stefano DiMera – dead at 87.

    Man, I loved me some Stefano, with his evil, rotten self.

    Reply
  14. Liza says:
    December 9, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    So I guess this is our first glimpse of what Dylann Roof looked like after the massacre?

    I can’t write what I’m thinking.

    Where did Dylann Roof change his clothing after his murderous rampage? We see blood on his clothes after he leaves the church. Who help him? pic.twitter.com/n9oPTbtoTC— 3ChicsPolitico (@3ChicsPolitico) December 9, 2016

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Reply
  16. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    Am I wrong, but isn’t this the same scam that they used to destroy the solvency of the United States Post Office?

    …………………………….

    GOP Plans Major Social Security Cuts
    By JOSH MARSHALL
    Published DECEMBER 9, 2016, 2:13 PM EDT
    We’ll have a story coming shortly on what I just mentioned a short time ago: that Republicans are now planning to pass major cuts to Social Security this year.

    Until then let me cover the broad details of the plan.

    Unlike the Bush-era plan to partially phase out Social Security and replace it with private investment accounts, this plan takes a different approach. Through a variety of mechanisms, this plan simply cuts benefits and introduces means testing. To look at specific cuts, changes in eligibility and so forth look at pages 2 and 3 on this official Social Security Administration scoring document analyzing the plan. The benefit cuts appear to hit everyone but are weighted toward more affluent recipients.

    The big picture is that the current Social Security Trust Fund is predicted to be exhausted in the mid-late 2030s. So roughly in 20 years. People often refer to this as ‘bankruptcy’. But that’s not really accurate. At that point Social Security would only be able to pay 79% of benefits recipients will be entitled to in those years.

    By 2090, that percentage falls to 74%. So it’s fairly stable after that drop-off in the 2030s.

    Now there are a number of ways to cover that shortfall – the most obvious is to remove or alter the so-called ‘cap’ on Social Security taxes. Once you get over $118,500 of income per year you stop paying Social Security taxes. So your Social Security tax rate is much higher if you make $50,000 a year than if you make $500,000 a year. Change that and most of the problem disappears.

    The plan with this new GOP bill is to proactively solve this problem entirely with cuts and really big cuts. Out over 75 years, the GOP proposal has the Trust Fund growing substantially out into the infinite horizon. In other words, a lot of the cuts are more than are necessary to pay for all benefits.

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      December 9, 2016 at 1:53 pm

      This was a reply at BJ to me:

      jl says:
      December 9, 2016 at 2:34 pm
      @rikyrah: No, not quite the same. The post office scam was to use problems caused by underfunding of various public and private pensions to insist that the post-office ridiculously overfund their pension, and in a way that immediately strapped them for cash. From GOP perspective, probably a wise move, since their purpose was not to destroy the post office. The public, particularly their white rural dupes, would insist private carriers offer unprofitable or low profit replacement services, and they don’t want that business, too much headache any way you look at it, even from a price gouging perspective. But it did cripple post office ability to compete in various new service niches.

      This is just a massive cut. Assuming the GOP plans to sell it all, it will be through scare mongering with the damned lie that Social Security is ‘going broke’ and nothing can be done to fix it. So the best fix is to cut it right now now now, as bigly as possible, rather than waiting to see if, or how much, we need cut it later (ignoring that even under current funding, cuts may not be needed). I guess they will play up the smaller cuts for lower income people, while trying to hide the massive upper income tax cuts that will be funded by the theft of the trust fund. Not sure that is the exact con, since details are sketchy now, but probably something like that.

      Reply
  17. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 11:45 am

    Quick Takes: Another Shoe to Drop on American Workers
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    December 8, 2016 5:03 PM
    POLITICAL ANIMAL BLOG

    There’s no denying that Trump demagogued the issue of trade during the election. But if you have any doubts about where all that is going, take a look at what Nick Timiraos noticed about his cabinet:

    President-elect Donald Trump railed against the Trans-Pacific Partnership on his way to winning the White House and has vowed immediately to withdraw the U.S. from the 12-nation accord.

    Several of his cabinet picks and other early nominees to top posts, however, have endorsed or spoken favorably about the trade pact, including Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, announced Wednesday as Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to China, and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, Mr. Trump’s pick to head the Department of Defense…

    Gen. Mattis joined 16 other retired military leaders and former defense secretaries in a May 2015 letter to congressional leaders that said TPP would help the U.S. maintain a geopolitical advantage in Asia…

    Another signatory to that letter: David Petraeus, the retired general who ran the Central Intelligence Agency and who has been considered by Mr. Trump for secretary of state. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., also considered candidates for the secretary of state post, have supported the TPP…

    Wilbur Ross Jr., Mr. Trump’s nominee for Commerce secretary, has been extremely critical of the TPP in recent interviews, but he signed a letter in support of the agreement last year to the New York congressional delegation…

    Vice President-elect Mike Pence also supported the TPP as Indiana governor, but he said he changed his mind on the trade accord, and other multilateral deals, after he discussed the issue with Mr. Trump this past July.

    I have no illusions that TPP will survive. All the talk from Trump folks these days is about negotiating bilateral trade agreements. But just as the president-elect promised in a debate with Clinton, it is a sure bet that he’ll put his corporate friends in charge of those negotiations. And I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that they turn out to be worse than TPP when it comes to their impact on American workers.

    Reply
  18. Ametia says:
    December 9, 2016 at 11:38 am

    Good Morning, Everyone. TGIF.

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 10:55 am

    Trump’s Con Job Exposed
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    December 9, 2016 9:29 AM
    POLITICAL ANIMAL BLOG

    Yesterday was not a good day for anyone who still believed the con job Trump ran on about concern for working class Americans.

    Last night in Iowa, he was on the defensive about feeding the swamp (rather than draining it) by picking so many millionaires/billionaires to be members of his cabinet, saying, “I want people that made a fortune.” On his choice of Andrew Puzder to be Labor Secretary, even the folks at Breibart were unhappy with him. But the much-vaunted Carrier deal continues to unravel, leading Trump to show his disdain for working class people.

    It all started on Tuesday when Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers 1999 (which represents Carrier employees) said that Trump “lied his ass off” when he said that he’d saved 1,100 jobs at the company. Jones had learned from Carrier just prior to Trump’s victory lap in Indianapolis that the number was really about 730 jobs. It became his task the next day to explain to the remaining 550 workers that the deal didn’t include them and they’d lose their jobs after all.

    Obviously that comment upset our thin-skinned president-elect and he did what he usually does…he tried to bully Jones on twitter.

    Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2016

    If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. Spend more time working-less time talking. Reduce dues

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2016

    It looks like Trump might have met his match in Chuck Jones, though. In an interview with the Washington Post, the union guy brushed off the nonsense, as well as the threats he is now receiving from Trump supporters by saying “It is what it is. It don’t phase me.” Then he published an article in the paper titled “I’m the union leader Donald Trump attacked. I’m tired of being lied to about our jobs.” Jones provides some interesting background on the situation at Carrier.

    Reply
  21. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 10:22 am

    I mailed off a Christmas Card and Thank you letter to the First Couple. Sort of ashamed that I hadn’t done sooner in his 8 years in office. But, I couldn’t let his time pass by without expressing my thanks and appreciation for their service to this country.

    Reply
  29. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 6:46 am

    The South Korean President has been impeached?

    Reply
  30. rikyrah says:
    December 9, 2016 at 6:15 am

    Morning, Everyone😐😐😐

    Reply

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