Friday Open Thread | Maame Biney—-remember that name…I think we’ll hear a lot of it at the Upcoming Olympics

17-Year-Old Maame Biney Becomes 1st Black Girl to Make US Olympics Team for Speed Skating
Angela Helm
12/17/17 9:40am

We ’bout to see all the #BlackGirlMagic during the Winter Olympics in South Korea, now that a 17-year-old from Virginia has bust through.

On Saturday, Maame Biney became the first African-American woman to qualify for the U.S. Olympics team in speed skating, with two victories in the 500-meter race.

“I can’t believe it, aww geez,” said the Reston, Va., native, according to the Associated Press. “It’s a really good feeling, but it has to set in first because it takes me a while. I’m like, ‘Holy cow.’

After Maame qualified, she let her teen euphoria get the best of her and came tumbling down on the ice, the Salt Lake Tribune reports—but she popped back up like Beyoncé and took it all in stride.

“When I realized I made the Olympic team, I started cheering like crazy and then I made my epic fall,” she said afterward. “So, yeah, you’re welcome.”

Maame, whose parents are Ghanaian, will be the second black speed skater on a U.S. Olympic team. Shani Davis was 19 when he qualified for the short-track team in 2002. He later switched to long track and won four medals, including two golds, according to USA Today.

And in case you’re wondering how her last name is pronounced, her father cleared all that up with a sign he held from the stands on Saturday: “Kick Some Hiney Biney.”

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34 Responses to Friday Open Thread | Maame Biney—-remember that name…I think we’ll hear a lot of it at the Upcoming Olympics

  1. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Fantastic:

    Video: “5-Year-Old Tavaris Dances with tWitch”
    https://youtu.be/Yab6RBfce6E&rel=0

  2. yahtzeebutterfly says:

    Lots of wise insights and pass-down guidance:
    https://youtu.be/PFZJoU44uOo&rel=0

  3. Ametia says:

    Trump is as unfit and ignorant as ever
    By Jennifer Rubin December 29 at 11:30 AM

    The Post reports:

    Even though he is vacationing in Palm Beach, Fla., where temperatures are in the 70s, Trump tweeted on Thursday seemingly mocking those who accept climate science, suggesting that the East Coast will be so cold on New Year’s Eve that global warming may be a good thing instead of an environmental calamity.

    He tweeted, “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”

    Trump either was again playing dumb or evidencing his inability to distinguish between “weather” and “climate.” (“Man-made global warming, as the name suggests, refers to the steady rise of average temperature of Earth’s climate system because of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Indeed, at the moment much of the rest of world is warmer than normal even if a portion of the United States is chilly.”)

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/12/29/trump-is-as-unfit-and-ignorant-as-ever/?utm_term=.6e0891f7209e&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

  4. rikyrah says:

    RIP

    Mystery writer Sue Grafton has died in Santa Barbara, California. She was 77.

    Her daughter, Jamie Clark, posted news of her mother’s death on Grafton’s web page Friday.

    She says her mother passed away Thursday night after a two-year battle with cancer and was surrounded by family, including Grafton’s husband, Steve.

  5. rikyrah says:

    Ive now heard from small business owners I know that they have discovered in fury that their taxes are going up because of the GOP bill. More proof that the “I want a win, let’s rush a bill in a couple of weeks changing the entire tax code” is not a good strategy. Policy matters.
    — Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 28, 2017

    Here are the Texas Republicans I know who have discovered, to their dismay, that they are NOT in the 1% (they thought they were) and their taxes are going up A LOT:
    1. Lawyers
    2. Doctors
    3. Dentists
    — Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) December 28, 2017

  6. rikyrah says:

    More from the Dolt45 interview:

    O.K., let’s get onto your final question, your other question. Had the Democrats come through. …

    SCHMIDT: Tell me about that, yeah.

    TRUMP: Had they asked, “Let’s do a bipartisan,” Michael, I would have done bipartisan. I would absolutely have done bipartisan.

    SCHMIDT: But they didn’t. … They didn’t …

    TRUMP: And if I did bipartisan, I would have done something with SALT [the state and local tax deduction]. With that being said, you look back, Ronald Reagan wanted to take deductibility away from states. Ronald Reagan, years ago, and he couldn’t do it. Because New York had a very powerful group of people. Which they don’t have today. Today, they don’t have the same representatives. You know, in those days they had Lew Rudin and me. … I fought like hell for that. They had a lot of very good guys. Lew Rudin was very effective. He worked hard for New York. And we had some very good senators. … You know, we had a lot of people who fought very hard against, let’s call it SALT. Had they come to me and said, look, we’ll do this, this, this, we’ll do [inaudible]. I could have done something with SALT. Or made it less severe. But they were very ineffective. They were very, very ineffective. You understand what I mean. Had they come to me for a bipartisan tax bill, I would have gone to Mitch, and I would have gone to the other Republicans, and we could have worked something out bipartisan. And that could’ve been either a change to SALT or knockout of SALT.

    But, just so you understand, Ronald Reagan wanted to take deductibility away and he was unable to do it. Ronald Reagan wanted to have ANWR approved 40 years ago and he was unable to do it. Think of that. And the individual mandate is the most unpopular thing in Obamacare, and I got rid of it. You know, we gained with the individual. … You know the individual mandate, Michael, means you take money and you give it to the government for the privilege of not having to pay more money to have health insurance you don’t want. There are people who had very good health insurance that now are paying not to have health insurance. That’s what the individual mandate. … They’re not going to have to pay anymore. So when people think that will be unpopular. … It’s going to be very popular. It’s going to be very popular.

    Now, in my opinion, they should come to me on infrastructure. They should come to me, which they have come to me, on DACA. We are working. … We’re trying to something about it. And they should definitely come to me on health care. Because we can do bipartisan health care. We can do bipartisan infrastructure. And we can do bipartisan DACA.

  7. rikyrah says:

    He literally adopted a “Godfather” phraseology to all but say Democrats could have avoided blue state tax hikes via SALT if they had “come to him” to plead for his largesse. It’s a combination of the impulses of 1. and 3.

    — Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) December 29, 2017

  8. rikyrah says:

    Trump says approval stacks up to Obama’s despite Russia probe
    The Hill
    Max Greenwood

    President Trump boasted on Friday that his approval rating is largely on par with that of former President Barack Obama at the same point in his tenure in the White House.

    “While the Fake News loves to talk about my so-called low approval rating, @foxandfriends just showed that my rating on Dec. 28, 2017, was approximately the same as President Obama on Dec. 28, 2009, which was 47% … and this despite massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

    While the Fake News loves to talk about my so-called low approval rating, @foxandfriends just showed that my rating on Dec. 28, 2017, was approximately the same as President Obama on Dec. 28, 2009, which was 47%…and this despite massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax!
    – Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017
    The tweet appears to be reference a recent poll conducted by the conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports, which pegged Trump’s approval at 46 percent. The Real Clear Politics average puts his approval at 39.3 percent.

  9. Feeling sick, y’all. It burns when I cough. My sister is sick and coughing.

  10. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/28/17
    Trump DoJ assertion more than Nixon would have dared: Beschloss
    Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, talks with Joy Reid about the historical context for Donald Trump’s assertions about his power over the Justice Department and its investigations.

  11. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/28/17
    African-American vote threatens redness of Southern states
    Alabama State Representative Merika Coleman talks with Joy Reid about how the African-American community expressed themselves in the Alabama special election of Doug Jones and the emerging strength of African-American voters, including in red Southern states.

  12. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/28/17
    Trump nominee’s racist roots raises alarm
    Rev. William Barber talks with Joy Reid about his concerns about the racism of Donald Trump judicial nominee Thomas Alvin Farr.

  13. rikyrah says:

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/27/17
    Mueller probing Republican non-Trump work with Russian hacking
    Natasha Bertrand, political correspondent for Business Insider, talks with Joy Reid about a report that the Mueller investigation is expanding to look at the extent to which RNC digital operations overlapped with Russian hacking activity.

  14. This can’t be real, y’all. Wake me up from this hellish nightmare. Somebody do something. He’s destroying the country while the GOP looks on like bumbling idiots.
    https://twitter.com/tlrd/status/946735823487107072

  15. rikyrah says:

    MSM to Hillary: prove you didn’t have anyone murdered

    MSM to Obama: Explain this policy in detail. Explain how you’ll do it and how you’ll pay for it and what happens in 10 years

    NY Times to Trunp: Uh huh uh huh uh huh go on… pic.twitter.com/p424oF9ibu

    — Oliver Willis (@owillis) December 29, 2017

  16. rikyrah says:

    Now that I’ve read the entire transcript of @nytmike’s Trump interview, a few observations:
    1. Trump speaks a lot like a child does. Lots of focus on who likes him, who loves him, who is his friend… his biographers all emphasize his deep desire to be loved & it comes through.

    — Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) December 29, 2017

  17. rikyrah says:

    A brilliant @dancluchey piece on @SenatorCollins.

    “Herein lies the modus operandi of Susan Collins: partisan when it matters, and principled when it couldn’t matter less.”

    I wanna mail this essay to every reg’d voter in Maine. Seriously. Wanna help?https://t.co/1cgl2laMO8

    — Ady Barkan (@AdyBarkan) December 28, 2017

  18. rikyrah says:

    I’ll say it again..

    They are trying to kill these American Citizens.

    THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 12/28/17
    Puerto Rico crisis lingers as Trump administration moves on
    Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz of San Juan, Puerto Rico, talks with Joy Reid about the challenges the island is still dealing with months after catastrophic hurricanes, problems made worse by the Trump administration’s bungling of the response and the new Republican tax law.

  19. rikyrah says:

    Don’t tell me that folks won’t know come November 2018.
    They are gonna have almost an ENTIRE YEAR to stew about how their finances have been phucked up and compromised by this bill

    …………………………………

    Tax law creates confusion and uproar in city halls across America

    Just a week after it was signed, the tax overhaul is already triggering a swift backlash from puzzled taxpayers and officials.

    By AARON LORENZO 12/29/2017 05:13 AM EST

    Mass confusion is erupting in town halls across the country thanks to the new tax law, as tens of thousands of property owners scramble to pay next year’s taxes ahead of schedule — while the governors of their states and the IRS give conflicting signals about whether that’s even allowed.

    In the Albany suburb of Bethlehem, N.Y., more than 100 people waited in a gym to pay their property tax bills — some of them for over an hour — on Thursday before a new federal $10,000 cap on state and local deductions goes into effect Jan. 1. Municipalities on Long Island were preparing to open over the weekend to give taxpayers more time to pay. But the IRS issued an edict Wednesday night saying the early payments could only be deducted on 2017 taxes if they had already been assessed. That threw residents and local government officials into a new round of confusion as everyone scrambled to determine which payments would qualify.

    The uncertainty this week could be the first of many misunderstandings to come as new tax rules take effect starting New Year’s Day. The tax law that President Donald Trump signed Dec. 22, which Congress rushed to pass before the end of the year, is explicit in some of its language, but vague in other areas. It explicitly forbade prepayments of state and local income taxes but was silent on prepayments for state and local property taxes.

    “What the federal government did and the timing of their actions was, in our view, cruel and unusual,” said Steve Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties. “They passed this tax bill at a time of year when government is very much in transition to the next fiscal year. There was great confusion this week.”

  20. rikyrah says:

    You might have missed this.

    From Charles Pierce:

    last paragraphs:
    “This, from The Washington Post, is the statement released last December by the Obama administration when it rejected Twin Metals’ attempt to renew the leases.

    “The Boundary Waters is a natural treasure, special to the 150,000 who canoe, fish, and recreate there each year, and is the economic life blood to local business that depend on a pristine natural resource,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a joint statement with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. “I have asked Interior to take a time out, conduct a careful environmental analysis and engage the public on whether future mining should be authorized on any federal land next door to the Boundary Waters.”

    And here, from The Chicago Tribune, is a curious factoid of a kind that we’re also all coming to regard as business as usual.

    The decision, made public Friday in an Interior Department legal decision, marks a win for the Chilean mining firm belonging to the family of billionaire Andronico Luksic, who rents a home to Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, in Washington.

    Jared’s landlord. These people never cease to amaze and astound.”

  21. rikyrah says:

    From the NYT interview with Dolt45:

    The interview started with a discussion of an interview Mr. Schmidt conducted with Mr. Trump in July, when Mr. Trump said he would not have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general had he known that Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

    DONALD J. TRUMP: I thought it was a terrible thing he did. [Inaudible.] I thought it was certainly unnecessary, I thought it was a terrible thing. But I think it’s all worked out because frankly there is absolutely no collusion, that’s been proven by every Democrat is saying it.

    MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT: You’re O.K. with me recording, right?

    TRUMP: Yeah. Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what’s going on — and in fact, what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been. Great congressmen, in particular, some of the congressmen have been unbelievable in pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is. So, I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion.

    And by the way, I didn’t deal with Russia. I won because I was a better candidate by a lot. I won because I campaigned properly and she didn’t. She campaigned for the popular vote. I campaigned for the Electoral College. And you know, it is a totally different thing, Mike. You know the Electoral College, it’s like a track star. If you’re going to run the 100-yard dash, you work out differently than if you’re going to run the 1,000 meters or the mile…

    SCHMIDT: You would have run completely differently.

    TRUMP: It would have been a whole different thing. The genius is that the popular vote is a much different form of campaigning. Hillary never understood that.

    SCHMIDT: What’s your expectation on Mueller? When do you —

    TRUMP: I have no expectation. I can only tell you that there is absolutely no collusion. Everybody knows it. And you know who knows it better than anybody? The Democrats. They walk around blinking at each other.

    SCHMIDT: But when do you think he’ll be done in regards to you —

    TRUMP: I don’t know.

    SCHMIDT: But does that bother you?

    TRUMP: No, it doesn’t bother me because I hope that he’s going to be fair. I think that he’s going to be fair. And based on that [inaudible]. There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair. And if he’s fair — because everybody knows the answer already, Michael. I want you to treat me fairly. O.K.?…

  22. rikyrah says:

    Good comment from BJ:

    mike in dc says:
    December 29, 2017 at 9:21 am

    Things we learned we need as a result of the Trump presidency:
    1. A mandatory release of tax returns for major presidential candidates
    2. Divestment of financial holdings into a proper blind trust–again, mandatory, for presidents entering office
    3. Mandatory physical exams annually with full disclosure by 3rd party physicians
    4. Mandatory psychological and neurological evaluations annually with full disclosure by 3rd party professionals(maybe a 3 person panel for the psych eval)
    5. A stronger deterrence policy and infrastructure for dealing with cyber-interference(hacking, social media, etc) by foreign and other adversaries
    6. Some form of policing and self-policing by social media giants in this regard
    7. Phasing out the Electoral College
    8. Establishing a news media space where journalism and media does its job of holding public figures to full account, not normalizing awful behavior or acting as stenographers to power, resisting access journalism
    9. Finding ways to effectively counter and rein in right-wing nationalist media, including Fox News, Breitbart/Daily Caller etc, talk radio and social media disinformation campaigns
    10. Greater protection for special counsel, the DOJ, FBI and intelligence community from improper interference

  23. rikyrah says:

    EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE!!!

    Report: Trump DC Hotel employee wrote in email that Trump is definitely still involved

    Source: The Hill

    An email sent by the director of revenue management at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. suggests that President Trump is still involved in the management of the Trump Organization despite claims he has divested himself of his business interests, according to a new report by The Daily Beast.

    The Daily Beast reports it obtained the email from director of revenue management Jeng Chi Hung to an acquaintance. In the email, Hung writes that Trump is “supposed to be out of the business and passed on to his sons, but he’s definitely involved.”

    “I had a brief meeting with him a few weeks ago, and he was asking about banquet revenues and demographics. And, he asked if his presidency hurt the businesses. So, he seems self aware about things, at least more than he lets on,” Hung wrote in the email.

    It is unclear when the email was sent or when Hung met with president Trump. Hotel officials immediately refuted the contents of the email in statements to The Daily Beast.

  24. rikyrah says:

    Rose Marie, Decades-Spanning Showbiz Veteran, Is Dead at 94

    Source: New York Times

    Rose Marie, who became a radio star as a toddler in the 1920s and a television star on the hit sitcom “The Dick Van Dyke Show” in the 1960s — and who continued performing into the 21st century — died on Thursday in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was 94.

    Her death was announced on her website and confirmed by her longtime publicist, B. Harlan Boll.

    Originally known as Baby Rose Marie, she is probably best remembered for her “Dick Van Dyke Show” role as Sally Rogers, one of three comedy writers — the others were Rob Petrie (Mr. Van Dyke) and Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam) — who worked for the fictional series-within-a-series, “The Alan Brady Show.”

    She was also seen frequently — from the first episode, in 1966, to the last, in 1980 — on the original version of “Hollywood Squares,” the game show on which celebrities answered questions (and made jokes) to help contestants score X’s or O’s on a giant tick-tack-toe board. There, with her trademark bow in her hair, she flaunted the persona she had perfected: a feisty, witty, outspoken spinster (although she was actually a widow) who refused to grow old without a fight.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/obituaries/rose-marie-dead.html

  25. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning,Everyone 😄😄😄

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