Bob James, David Sanborn & Al Jarreau – Since I Fell For You
Bob James, David Sanborn & Al Jarreau – Since I Fell For You
Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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LORD HAVE MERCY!
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/877274805900390401
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Kushner’s Office of American Innovation Is Cribbing Obama’s Ideas
by Nancy LeTourneau
June 20, 2017 1:30 PM
Over the last couple of weeks, the White House has been trying to master the art of the tiny. First came Infrastructure Week, then it was Workforce Development Week and yesterday they launched Technology Week. The irony is that Jared Kushner is behind most of it via his Office of American Innovation and he seems to be busy cribbing Obama’s ideas.
Last week I noted that for workforce development, the White House is focusing almost exclusively on apprenticeships, something that was a big push from Obama’s Labor Department via Secretary Tom Perez. It’s also true that many of the infrastructure projects being highlighted by Kushner—like high speed rail and broadband access—were major priorities for the Obama administration.
For Technology week, here’s what they announced yesterday:
That’s all well and good…except for the part about providing “citizen services in a way that has never happened before.” Color me surprised (not) that Kushner didn’t mention that it was the Obama administration that created the U.S. Digital Service, whose mission is “to deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design.”
We know that Kushner is aware of this service because just prior to the inauguration in January he sent this email to Todd Park, Obama’s chief technology officer:
TRIFLING, THUGGERY, THIEVES.
We need just 3 Republican Senators to stand up and say this is not how it is done. You can’t repeal health care for millions in secret. pic.twitter.com/dTzqof7ye2
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) June 20, 2017
Republicans intend to execute ‘a legislative heist’
06/20/17 12:59 PM
By Steve Benen
The news last night was in line with expectations, but was nevertheless extraordinary: Senate Republicans really are moving forward with plans to hold a vote next week on a health care overhaul, bringing a still-secret bill to the floor. There will be no hearings, no testimony from industry stakeholders or subject-matter experts, and no meaningful deliberation among lawmakers themselves.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, apparently flabbergasted, wrote on Twitter, “This is quite literally unprecedented. I’ve run out of adjectives for it. It’s like a legislative heist.”
The more I thought about it, the more I liked that analogy.
To a very real extent, Americans have already seen Senate Republicans pull off one of the most important political heists in at least a generation. GOP senators recently stole a Supreme Court seat, taking it from one administration and handing it to another, affecting the direction of American jurisprudence for decades.
Last year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared, “One of my proudest moments was when I told Obama, ‘You will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.’” As regular readers know, this is the kind of pride one feels when they steal something and know they’ve gotten away with it.
But just as every great heist movie seems to get a sequel, McConnell & Co. may be pulling off an even bigger robbery in plain sight.
Consider what goes into every successful heist:
Deception? Check.
Secrecy? Check.
Misdirection? Check.
The heist always culminates in the theft itself, which in this case involves stealing millions of Americans’ health benefits, stashing the savings in the bank accounts of the wealthy in the form of needless tax breaks.
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/876282348916146176
Excerpt from article link in above tweet:
https://twitter.com/ravishlydotcom/status/877013171709632518
Happy Birthday Lionel Richie!
https://youtu.be/_7Mi77iqMjA&rel=0
https://youtu.be/Gz1jrlX27kE&rel=0
https://twitter.com/AuthorBlkCoffee/status/877136172560113665
https://twitter.com/shellbatts/status/877153409404739586
Devin Nunes: ‘I never recused myself’ from Russia probe
06/20/17 11:21 AM—UPDATED 06/20/17 11:29 AM
By Steve Benen
By early April, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) had become the punch-line to an unfortunate joke. The California Republican, who was supposed to be leading an investigation into the Russia scandal, took steps to effectively blow up his own probe by partnering with the White House, keeping secrets from his colleagues, and lying publicly about his own antics.
With circumstances forcing his hand, and facing an ethics probe, Nunes announced on April 6 that he was recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Responsibility for overseeing the probe quickly shifted to other GOP members of the House Intelligence panel.
All of which brought us to yesterday, when the GOP congressman said he didn’t actually recuse himself after all. The Washington Examiner reported:
As Rachel noted on last night’s show, we were certainly led to believe Nunes had withdrawn from the process, “but he now says that was all fake news. He’s still in charge. He’s not recused and he’s still controlling the subpoena power on that committee. That’s weird.”
https://twitter.com/Crystal1Johnson/status/876892144677662721
(Marcus Mosial Garvey)
https://youtu.be/cVeM52bmi8c&rel=0
https://twitter.com/Crystal1Johnson/status/876904353646477312
https://youtu.be/6lgPr4kD0Rc&rel=0
Congratulations Aaron on your graduation and on your amazing perseverance!!!
https://twitter.com/Crystal1Johnson/status/876971923166679042
https://twitter.com/womensmarch/status/877177782836625408
https://twitter.com/splcenter/status/877195717097508864
Excerpt from article linked in above tweet:
(The article details refugee crises of other countries not mentioned in above excerpt.)
https://youtu.be/JsAcLH3VUzw&rel=0
https://youtu.be/pb0PPYBXIqI&rel=0
Former AG Eric Holder: ‘Now is the time to be heard’
06/20/17 10:50 AM—UPDATED 06/20/17 11:16 AM
By Steve Benen
Former Attorney General Eric Holder has been making a variety of public appearances lately, including delivering a speech to the Virginia Democratic Party last weekend. Before his remarks, Holder spoke with NBC News about a recent trip he took with Barack Obama, and the discussion the two had about redistricting reform.
In fact, Obama asked Holder to lead a new organization, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, “to prepare Democrats for 2020, when states will redraw the boundaries of their legislative and congressional districts for the first time in a decade.”
Holder joked, “Part of my job is to make redistricting sexy” for Democrats.
As it turns out, that may not be the only job the former attorney general has in mind. Yahoo News published an interesting piece this morning, noting that Holder is “re-entering the political fray,” perhaps with a national campaign in mind.
Women Are Leading the Charge in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District
The local Indivisible chapter is campaigning hard for Jon Ossoff, but they have their eyes on a bigger prize as well.
By Joan Walsh
andy Springs, Georgia—Father’s Day morning was a little quiet in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, where Democrat Jon Ossoff is battling Republican Karen Handel in an epic special election. That’s because some of the women leaders behind the Democratic renewal there had taken the briefest of pauses to give the men in their lives some attention. “They don’t know where we went,” said Louise Palmer, a cofounder of the local Indivisible chapter. “My house is a mess. We’re eating a lot of takeout. And we’re getting a lot of favors from our husbands because we’re at meetings every night.”
Palmer took most of Sunday off from the campaign, going to only one evening meeting. Essence Johnson, another Indivisible leader, took off an unprecedented—at least lately—full day. “I decided I needed to focus on him [my husband]. There’s been a lot of takeout. A lot of drive-by kisses.”
These suburban Atlanta Indivisible activists once seemed invisible—middle-aged, most of them mothers, some natives, many transplants, voting Democratic, sometimes not voting at all, in a deeply red congressional district that once belonged to Newt Gingrich. Donald Trump’s unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton changed everything here, shattering Democrats, especially women. There were signs of hope, though, even in the depressing election result: Trump beat Clinton here by only 1.5 points. The district has the highest proportion of college graduates of any led by a Republican. Sorting through the post-election rubble, devastated Democrats here found some clues about how to rebuild—and how to find one another.
Indivisible is just one of many new progressive groups that’s aligned itself with the Ossoff campaign. (Some of the women I spoke with belonged to all of them.) Liberal Moms of Roswell and Cobb came first, uniting women who met at preschool meetings and soccer fields to take the first steps toward more visible Democratic activism. Then there’s the women-led Pave It Blue, which is more Yippie than yuppie (though not many are old enough to know what that means). They describe themselves as “ninjas.” They dress up like dinosours and make Ossoff signs that “glitter bomb” (the signs are bordered in Vaseline with clear glitter, so people who attempt to remove them find themselves coated in Vaseline and glitter). It’s a brilliantly defensive move: Sign removal has been a problem in this traditionally red district. And when their Ossoff signs began being set on fire, they started attaching American flags to them, since conservatives believe flag-burning should be illegal.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/19/17
Democrats push back as GOP sneaks health bill in secrecy
Senator Jeff Merkley talks with Rachel Maddow about the push by Senate Democrats to raise awareness of the secret, partisan tactics Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP is using to sneak an Obamacare repeal with as little public notice as possible.
McConnell Keeps Winning by Playing the Villain
by Nancy LeTourneau
June 20, 2017 8:00 AM
When the Republican plan to repeal/replace Obamacare, AHCA, was working its way through the House, some people started calling it ZombieCare. That’s because the bill died the first time, only to come back to life and survive. Now, Paul Krugman compares the Senate version to a vampire.
…………………………………………….
What we are facing is a Senate bill that affects one sixth of our economy, whose House companion bill has the support of about 20 percent of the American public, but has been kept a secret to minimize any challenges. Yes, outrage is certainly called for. This is not how a democracy is supposed to work.
Would Sen. Mitch McConnell really try to pull off something that unprecedented and inconceivable? We’re talking about the man who rallied Republicans to oppose anything the Democrats tried to do during the worst recession since the Great Depression. The same man who denied a sitting president the chance to even hold hearings—much less a vote—on his Supreme Court nominee.
Not only did McConnell do those things, he won a Senate majority for his party and secured the nomination of a Supreme Court judge for a newly elected Republican president. So he got exactly what he wanted and never had to pay a price for taking the risk to go low with his political strategy.
I’d suggest that the current Republican Majority Leader will keep on doing unprecedented things unless/until he pays a price for doing so. A profile of McConnell back in 2013 described him this way:
While most politicians desperately want to be liked, McConnell has relished—and cultivated—his reputation as a villain.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/19/17
Is Mike Pence raising PAC money for legal defense?
Rachel Maddow explores the possibility that the fundraisers Mike Pence is holding to raise PAC money is being done in part to pay for his legal defense as the Trump Russia investigation moves ahead.
Remember when Trump vowed, ‘We’re not going into Syria’?
06/20/17 09:20 AM—UPDATED 06/20/17 09:32 AM
By Steve Benen
In April, shortly after ordering a missile strike against a Syrian airbase controlled by the Assad regime, Donald Trump said in an interview that “we’re not going into Syria.” Even at the time, it was a strange thing for a sitting president to say.
After all, not only had he just launched a new military offensive against Bashar al Assad’s government – putting the United States on more than one side in Syria’s civil war – but there’s also the fact that American troops are already serving in Syria.
The assertion that “we’re not going into Syria” appears even more bizarre now in light of the developments from the last few days, as reported by the Washington Post:
McConnell, GOP prepare a showdown over secret health care bill
06/20/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
As things stand, they’re actually doing this.
As the Wall Street Journal report makes clear, the Republicans’ legislation – the life-or-death bill that will be voted on next week – does not yet exist. What’s more, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not yet secured the 51 votes he’ll need to advance the measure.
Perry sees climate denial as evidence of being ‘intellectually engaged’
06/20/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
In the Obama administration, the first Energy Secretary was Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and a physics professor at Berkeley. He was succeeded by Ernest Moniz, who led the physics department at MIT.
In the Trump administration, things are a little … different.
In an apparent attempt to drive the reality-based community batty, Perry added that his skepticism towards climate data is a sign of a “wise, intellectually engaged person.”
They’re writing this bill in secret because they can’t defend it.
Together, we can defeat this. https://t.co/CIUmCwsIMQ https://t.co/XAUgT3GbYX
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) June 20, 2017
As @SenFranken points out Dems held 25 days of debate on ACA…I’m reminded McConnell complained about having to be in session to debate it
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) June 20, 2017
Wow: @brianschatz has the most succinct explanation for how undemocratic the GOP Obamacare repeal effort really is. It’s an embarrassment. pic.twitter.com/YfMHLIucXF
— CAP Action (@CAPAction) June 20, 2017
13 men are drafting a bill without any input from women, from Democrats, from experts, or the 250M Americans not represented by the 13 men https://t.co/4RIewyDVFo
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) June 20, 2017
“Why are my constituents not allowed to see the details of what’s about to happen to their lives?” — a frustrated @ChrisMurphyCT asks pic.twitter.com/s6EVaOAOJo
— CAP Action (@CAPAction) June 20, 2017
4: I’m hearing the holdouts as of right now are CAPITO, FLAKE, COLLINS, MURKOWSKI, and HELLER. They need to hear from you!
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) June 20, 2017
Don’t count on Jeff Flake (AZ). He’ll pretend to be undecided then vote with the GOP, as always. He’s a dick.
Flake’s Trump score is 95.1. But I call him anyhow.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/jeff-flake/
Just gonna drop this TURD right here:
Good Morning, Everyone 😐 😐😐
Good Morning, Rikyrah & Everyone.