Saturday Open Thread | Sheryl Crow Week

Posted on November 18, 2017 by rikyrah

Happy Saturday, Everyone. Enjoy your weekend with Family and Friends.

This entry was posted in Current Events, Media, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

57 Responses to Saturday Open Thread | Sheryl Crow Week

  2. SouthernGirl2 says:
    November 18, 2017 at 3:15 pm

    It’s going to go from 80 degrees to in the 40’s by morning. Brrrr *cuts eyes at Ametia and Rikyrah *

    Reply
  6. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    What Will Become of California’s Progressivism If the Court Sides with Janus?

    Gabriel Thompson

    November 17, 2017

    The Supreme Court is expected to side in Janus v. AFSCME against public-sector unions, a key force in bringing the state’s progressive ballot initiatives to victory.

    Mark Janus, an Illinois child-support worker, will soon argue
    before the U.S. Supreme Court that his free-speech rights have been violated because he must pay “agency fees” to a union that negotiates contracts on his behalf. Last year, California elementary school teacher Rebecca Friedrichs made the same First Amendment arguments at the high court against the teachers association to which she paid agency fees.
    The court deadlocked on Friedrichs’s complaint following the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, but his replacement, Justice Neil Gorsuch, is widely expected to cast a decisive vote in favor of Janus and against public-sector unions in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

    In 2012, as Election Day neared, polls
    showed dwindling support for California’s Proposition 30, which sought to avoid a crippling $6 billion cut in the state’s public education system. Without Prop 30, Governor Jerry Brown warned, many more teachers would be laid off from a system already racked by cutbacks, and the schoolyear would likely be slashed by three weeks.

    Despite a $36 million donation from Republican activist Charles
    Munger Jr. to a committee opposing both Prop 30 and another ballot
    measure, along with a competing proposition sponsored with $44 million from his sister, Molly Munger, voters passed the initiative by a
    55-to-46 margin. By doing so, they rescued the school system by
    reinvesting billions of dollars into preschool, K-12, and community
    colleges. And voters did so, in large part, thanks to the political
    muscle of the state’s public-sector unions.

    In the weeks leading up to the election, armies of union members
    fanned out across the state to knock on doors, while three unions—the California Teachers Association, the statewide council of the Service Employees International Union, and the American Federation of Teachers—spent a combined $26 million in support of the initiative, serving as a counterbalance to the deep pockets of the Mungers and other wealthy donors. Last year, as Prop 30 was set to expire, unions pushed through Proposition 55, which extended the income tax on high earners for another dozen years.

    “The truth is, in the last 25 years, no major progressive proposition
    has passed without labor being a primary donor,” said Kenneth Burt, who retired last month after spending two decades as the political director of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT). A 2012 study of public-sector union influence over California ballot initiatives since 1980, prepared by the conservative Manhattan Institute, came to the same conclusion. “Whenever a proposal was especially important to the unions,” its author wrote, “they almost always won.”

    http://prospect.org/article/what-will-become-californias-progressivism-if-court-sides-janus

    Reply
  24. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:55 pm

    So true..don’t forget Race Bannon, who is up to his eyeballs in all of this.

    https://twitter.com/lawalazu/status/931834470247882752

    Reply
  26. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:51 pm

    We are in a strange time, when Gerson makes absolute sense.

    https://twitter.com/MJGerson/status/931475112003555333

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:48 pm

    Keep a printout and just whip it out when needed:

    https://twitter.com/LOLGOP/status/931720998059167744

    Reply
  31. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:43 pm

    Yet ANOTHER meeting they lied about

    Uh huh
    Uh huh

    https://twitter.com/votevets/status/931933270115106816

    Reply
  37. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:25 pm

    found at TPV:

    News And Guts

    4 hrs ·

    IMPORTANT: This story is from a few
    days ago but you need to know the tax bill, with the “personhood”
    language, passed out of committee last night and is on its way to the Senate floor. The measure would allow, by law, an unborn child to be the beneficiary of a college savings account, thereby giving rights to the unborn which would then make it a crime to abort them. Sneaky. From HuffPost:

    “It’s already relatively easy, under current tax law,
    to open a 529 before a child is born. The real intention here is to
    sneak anti-abortion language into federal law, according to feminists
    and abortion rights advocates.

    The tax bill’s language is part of a broader strategy employed by the White House and Congressional Republicans to chip away at Roe v. Wade, says Sarah Lipton-Lubet, vice president for reproductive health and rights at the National Partnershipfor Women and Families. For years, anti-abortion activists have tried
    (and mostly failed) to get “personhood” laws passed that would give
    embryos and fetuses rights ― ultimately making it a crime to abort
    them.”

    Senate Republicans Shoehorn Anti-Abortion Measure Into Tax Bill

    The tax break for fetuses, also in the House bill, is part of a broader
    effort to establish “personhood” rights and destroy Roe v. Wade.

    Reply
  38. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:20 pm

    Trump’s New Conflict Of Interest Could Involve Paying Off Officials To Not talk About Russia

    Source: Newsweek Magazine

    BY SUMMER MEZA ON 11/18/17 AT 9:33 AM

    As the investigation into Russian collusion builds, President Donald Trump has started paying his own legal bills, rather than using campaign donations or charging the Republican National Committee, and has created a fund to finance the legal bills of his former and current staffers—which could violate ethics laws if there’s a chance it could influence their testimonies.

    After several months of the Republican Party picking up the tab, the president started paying in order to make things “even,” Trump’s attorney John Dowd confirmed on Friday to Reuters. The payments are for Trump’s personal lawyers who are helping him navigate the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether he obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey in May. But it’s not just his own legal bills that he’s paying—Trump has also established a legal fund that pays for staffers who are also involved in the investigation, a method that has caught attention from the Office of Government Ethics. There is no law that bars the president from giving gifts and money to his staffers, but in the face of a tricky investigation, this case raises questions of whether Trump’s financial help will influence staffer’s testimonies, said Walter Shaub, former head of the ethics office.

    White House lawyer Ty Cobb says that President Trump is well aware of the ethical questions that arise with the arrangement. “The president has assumed responsibility for his own legal fees and while he isn’t involved directly in the creation of a mechanism to take care of staffers, it is important to him that they be taken care of and whatever approach is agreed upon by OGE and relevant tax authorities be bulletproof,” said Cobb.

    The RNC paid more than $230,000 for two of Trump’s personal attorneys, but it’s unclear who paid for the third attorney, who Trump hired specifically to respond to the allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:18 pm

    GOP governors up in 2018 discuss how to keep Trump away from states

    Source: The Hill

    BY JULIA MANCHESTER – 11/18/17 10:13 AM EST

    Republican governors up for reelection in 2018 are grappling with how to approach President Trump during the contests, and whether they should keep him away from the campaign trail, according to a report from The New York Times.

    The governors have discussed strategies to avoid Trump on the trail, and have even gone directly to Vice President Pence to voice their concerns about the White House intervening in races.

    The 2018 races are critical to both parties because the governors who are elected could play a significant role in redrawing legislative boundaries after 2020.

    Republican governors are reportedly concerned by Trump’s increasingly low approval ratings with voters, and the strength from opposition voters in the Democratic Party. This opposition was most recently seen in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia earlier this month.

    http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/361024-gop-governors-up-in-2018-discuss-how-to-keep-trump-away-from-states

    Reply
  45. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:10 pm

    ICYMI

    Pictures of Serena Williams’ wedding in New Orleans.

    https://twitter.com/voguemagazine/status/931698603395112962

    Reply
  46. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:08 pm

    Norman Ornstein‏Verified account @NormOrnstein

    From @CillizzaCNN to @maddow media people equate Al Franken’s boorish behavior of a simulated grope to Roy Moore locking a teenager in his car and attempting to rape her. Reminiscent of feeding frenzy over emails. More media failure to calibrate responsibly 1
    9:11 PM – 17 Nov 2017

    Reply
  47. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 12:04 pm

    SG2,

    Please tweet Joy Reid and tell her not to have that Coon Pastor that she had on this morning on her show anymore.

    Reply
  50. rikyrah says:
    November 18, 2017 at 9:27 am

    Good Morning, Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply

Leave a Reply