Monday Open Thread- Popular Music Cover Songs

Posted on April 16, 2018 by rikyrah

This Week we’ll be featuring creative covers from popular music.

Today’s feature is I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston Cover by Bootstraps

This entry was posted in Music, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

88 Responses to Monday Open Thread- Popular Music Cover Songs

  1. lorraineanne says:
    August 2, 2018 at 3:55 am

    I enjoyed your post!
    If you have a chance I would really appreciate it if you could check out my art/ music blog! https://rawdumplings.wordpress.com/ Thanks a bunch!

    Reply
  2. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    April 17, 2018 at 7:20 am

    Just over a hundred years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Charlotte L. Brown on April 17,, 1863 refused to give up her seat on a horse drawn streetcar in San Francisco. Even though she had a ticket and declared she had a right to ride, the conductor ejected her. With her father’s support, she took the case to court.

    https://d28vr35rno8k21.cloudfront.net/images/hUfIMXEeyn9ZUn3kcUG2T_7404403f20127ea13dec88634e9fa1d7.jpg
    From Wikipedia:

    “Her father James E Brown hired attorney W.C. Burnett, and Charlotte Brown brought a lawsuit against the Omnibus Railroad Company for $200. African Americans had just won the right to testify against whites that same year.[14] The Omnibus Railroad argued that its conductor’s action was justified because racial segregation protected white women and children who might be fearful or ‘repulsed’ by riding in the same car as African Americans. Brown won her case, presided over by Judge Cowles, but the jury only awarded her twenty five dollars. The conductor, Dennison, was convicted in criminal court of assault and battery against Brown.

    “Brown’s civil case was tied up in appeals for the next two years. In one appeals trial, the jury awarded Brown only five cents, the price of the streetcar ticket. Meanwhile, just three days after the first trial, Brown was ejected from yet another streetcar and brought a second suit against Omnibus, this time for $3,000. Finally, in October, 1864, her case was tried in a higher court. In his judgment of October 5, 1864, Judge Orville C Pratt of the 12th District Court upheld the earlier verdict in favor of Brown, ruling that excluding passengers from streetcars because of their race was illegal. He had no desire, he said in his ruling, to “perpetuate a relic of barbarism”:

    ” ‘It has been already quite too long tolerated by the dominant race to see with indifference the negro or mulatto treated as a brute, insulted, wronged, enslaved, made to wear a yoke, to tremble before white men, to serve him as a tool, to hold property and life at his will, to surrender to him his intellect and conscience, and to seal his lips and belie his thought through dread of the white man’s power’, Judge Pratt stated.

    “In January, 1865, a jury awarded Brown $500. The Omnibus Railroad Company appealed the verdict but was refused another trial.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_L._Brown#cite_note-15

    Reply
  6. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 7:00 pm

    sitting here waiting for Peanut’s band concert to begin 😄

    Reply
  7. Liza says:
    April 16, 2018 at 6:53 pm

    This is a well deserved Pulitzer prize. I printed this article when it first came out and have read it multiple times. Ms. Ghansah attended Roof’s trial, interviewed families and townsfolk, and her insights are quite interesting. This is the best article I’ve read about Dylann Roof.

    https://twitter.com/GQMagazine/status/985960842188423168

    Reply
  8. eliihass says:
    April 16, 2018 at 6:47 pm

    I often wonder how Shepherd Smith the only sane person at Fox ‘news’, has managed to survive..

    Shep Smith: "The elephant in the room" is "Sean Hannity….A lot of people here know his number. We'll get on it in just a second."— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 16, 2018

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Reply
  9. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    April 16, 2018 at 6:14 pm

    From Wikipedia:

    “Wadsworth Aikens Jarrell is an African-American painter, sculptor and printmaker. Born in Albany, Georgia, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, where he attended the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduation, he became heavily involved in the local art scene and through his early work he explored the working life of blacks in Chicago and found influence in the sights and sounds of jazz music. In the late 1960s he opened WJ Studio and Gallery, where he, along with his wife, Jae, hosted regional artists and musicians.

    https://d1lfxha3ugu3d4.cloudfront.net/images/opencollection/objects/size4/2012.80.18_PS9.jpg
    (Angela Davis artwork by Wadsworth Jarrell)

    “Mid-1960s Chicago saw a rise in racial violence leading to the examination of race relations and black empowerment by local artists. Jarrell became involved in the Organization of Black American Culture, a group that would serve as a launching pad for the era’s black art movement. In 1967, OBAC artists created the Wall of Respect, a mural in Chicago that depicted African American heroes and is credited with triggering the political mural movement in Chicago and beyond. In 1969, Jarrell co-founded AFRICOBRA: African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists. AFRICOBRA would become internationally acclaimed for their politically themed art and use of “coolade colors” in their paintings.”

    Also this on AfriCobra from another Wikipedia page:

    When the group originally formed in 1968, they called themselves the Coalition of Black Revolutionary Artists (COBRA). By early 1970, as the group prepared for its first major exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, they were calling themselves the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA). The final name pulled sought to create a larger sense of community positing that art-making has a collective nature. The creators wanted the works to be accessible, so they made poster art that was designed for mass production.

    More paintings by Wadsworth Jarrell:
    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5b/de/ed/5bdeed929b352b3b37d3da80878cce0a.jpg

    https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/Swann/10/593010/H0132-L102572862.jpg

    Reply
  10. eliihass says:
    April 16, 2018 at 6:10 pm

    Are there any yachts registered to Russsian Oligarchs currently docked, or expected to dock in Palm Beach this week.. inquiring minds want to know..

    Any Russian oligarch courier types with correspondence from Vlad to his puppet..

    The buffoon who just returned from ‘spring break’ is back there for the entire week..

    Whenever a cone of silence à la Scottie ‘paranoid’ Pruitt is needed, buffoon scuttles off to Mar la lago..

    Might Hannity and Michael Cohen be joining him..

    Reply
  11. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    April 16, 2018 at 5:35 pm

    “Doris Ward, a fierce advocate for racial and economic equality who became the first African American president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, died Saturday at her home in San Francisco after a brief illness. She was 86.

    “Ward started her lifelong fight for social justice with the NAACP in Indianapolis in the late 1960s, opposing the Ku Klux Klan, and started her political career in 1972, after moving to San Francisco, when she became a trustee for the city’s Community College District. She would go on to win a seat on the Board of Supervisors and was sworn in on Jan. 8, 1980.

    https://s.hdnux.com/photos/72/60/06/15401391/7/920×920.jpg

    “A decade later, Ward became the first black person to serve as board president. She was the top vote-getter in the citywide election in the previous November, and at that time, the top vote-getter was appointed board president by fellow supervisors.”

    Above excerpted from this article:
    “Doris Ward, first African American to lead SF Board of Supervisors, dies at 86”
    https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Doris-Ward-first-black-woman-to-lead-SF-Board-of-12837761.php

    https://s.hdnux.com/photos/72/60/06/15401391/7/920×920.jpg

    Reply
  12. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    April 16, 2018 at 5:19 pm

    “Loyola University Chicago hosted its first Black Lives Matter Conference (BLMC) entitled: The Building Blocks of Activism: Purpose. Action. Justice. The event was held April 2, 2016 at Loyola’s Water Tower Campus.”

    https://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/diversityandinclusion/BLM-recap-web.jpg

    You can see more photos from the event at this link:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/loyolauniversitychicago/sets/72157666619756562

    “The conference, which was organized by three Loyola graduate students, brought people together from across the country to discuss racism, violence against blacks, and other diversity topics. The goal of the gathering, the organizers said, was to build solidarity and educate people about the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement.”

    https://www.luc.edu/diversityandinclusion/stories/archive/04-04-16-div-blm-recap.shtml

    Reply
  13. eliihass says:
    April 16, 2018 at 5:00 pm

    Ugh..

    The gleefully complicit media always swooping right in like clockwork, to help muddy the waters for the buffoon… And always in time with the elevation of the faux-righteous grievances and ‘superior’ rights of the ‘Trump voter’…

    Right now it’s all about the media helping to undermine Comey…

    Hence the whole coordinated focus on Comey’s so-called ‘petty insults’..

    And with a straight face, most of them talking without realizing how completely ridiculous they sound, about how Comey should not have ‘lowered’ himself to the ‘pre.d.nt’s level..

    I can’t get myself to type the p word with reference to that treasonous impostor …

    But the idea that there’s a ‘lowering’ to, with regards to the ‘presidency’ …and Comey is held to some higher standard with regards to the use of ‘petty insults’..

    Standards that the same tsk-tsking media absolutely won’t hold the buffoon to – even as they undeservedly but ever breathlessly refer to him with the sacred ‘p’ title.. and even as they constantly buck him up and run interference on his behalf, and even spin his debasement and degradation of the office as somehow positive and even aspirational..

    That whole crap many in the media all gleefully spout in unison … ‘that’s him just being him’ …and ‘it always works for him’…and ‘he’s so good at it and it works too and gets his desired results too’… ‘and he’s so much more effective than Obama’…

    Reply
  14. Ametia says:
    April 16, 2018 at 4:50 pm

    Michael Cohen couldn’t fight his way out of this

    Let alone fix or reperesent folks.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      April 16, 2018 at 5:10 pm

      LOL..

      He’s an obvious dead man walking..

      Who knows, maybe Alan Dershowitz can come up with some spin for this too ..and get another dinner invite with the buffoon..

      Your friend Jonathan Turley is in a bit of a bind these days ..and not nearly quite as effusive in his defense of all things the buffoon..

      Either because his endless prime time auditioning hasn’t quite yielded the expected job offer from the buffoon …or the fact that Stormy’s attorney Michael Avenatti used to work for him..

      Reply
  15. Ametia says:
    April 16, 2018 at 4:36 pm

    Trump puts brakes on new Russia sanctions, walking back Haley’s remarks

    Administration officials said it was unlikely President Trump would approve any additional sanctions without another triggering event by Russia, describing the strategy as in a holding pattern. The sanctions announcement made Sunday by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was swiftly denounced by the Kremlin as “international economic raiding.”

    By Philip Rucker, Carol D. Leonnig, Anton Troianovski and Greg Jaffe • Read more »
    https://s2.washingtonpost.com/5b6e54/5ad50ed3fe1ff668a04c85aa/YXdhcmVvZjQxMUBnbWFpbC5jb20%3D/7/63/3a569220054ddfca9b49a25bb24a75b5

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      April 16, 2018 at 5:24 pm

      Nimrata from South Carolina by way of Mumbai, hasn’t even yet begun to get her wake-up call..

      The idea that this person who parlayed a ‘career’ working in her mother’s dress shop, and a couple of political ‘sweetheart’ gigs in good old South Carolina, into being UN ambassador – for an impostor she originally had no use for but quickly sucked up to for the gig in a thin field of mediocrity …should have us all still shaking our heads in disbelief..

      Reply
  16. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 16, 2018 at 4:24 pm

    So #SeanHannity railed against this investigation and then we find out he was a client of Michael Cohen. The FIXER! OMG!

    https://twitter.com/selectedwisdom/status/985967327408635904

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      April 16, 2018 at 4:13 pm

      What did Comey say: 45 running a MOB operation., or some such?

      And thus 45’s ties to FAUX NOISE

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      April 16, 2018 at 4:31 pm

      May he be taken down..
      There are few people I loathe more than this Hannity person.. he’s pure, unadulterated evil..

      It is obvious that his (and some of the others) over the top defense of, and alignment with the buffoon, goes way beyond their largely fake ‘political ideology’ .. there’s a whole lot more un-kosher stuff at work here..

      Reply
  18. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 3:39 pm

    Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer for Music

    Reply
  19. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    April 16, 2018 at 3:26 pm

    Happy Birthday, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar! 🎈🎂🎈 (April 16, 1947)

    https://youtu.be/g0OKClJLUWo&rel=0

    https://youtu.be/HUFpuyUnbjA&rel=0

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 3:04 pm

    From Silverman:

    Adam L Silverman says:
    April 16, 2018 at 3:21 pm

    @Corner Stone: If the President doesn’t nominate and have confirmed a US Attorney for the Southern District of New York by close of business on 4 MAY 2018, the chief judge of that district will appoint a permanent US Attorney. The chief judge for the Southern District of New York is Kimba Woods. (Yeah, THAT Kimba Woods)Also, any other district with an interim US Attorney is going to see the same thing happen.

    Reply
  21. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 3:00 pm

    How has Hannity been allowed to report on Michael Cohen developments without disclosing that he is, per today’s revelations, Cohen’s legal client?— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  22. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 2:59 pm

    Judge Wood, to Cohen’s attorneys: “It’s not that you’re not good people. It’s that you’ve miscited the law, at times.”— Stephen Brown (@PPVSRB) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  23. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 2:57 pm

    it WOULD be irresponsible of us not to speculate, don’t ya know?

    Why on earth would @seanhannity need to hire a “fixer” whose specialty seems to be hush agreements for high profile men caught up with younger women?

    Why, gee, you know, I just can’t think of any reason at all. None. None at all.

    I’m stumped.

    — Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  24. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 1:54 pm

    Cohen’s third client is SEAN HANNITY!!

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      April 16, 2018 at 2:04 pm

      WE.CAN’T.MAKE.THIS.STUFF.UP.

      Add ANOTHER thing that would be struck from a movie script if in it as being ‘ too unrealistic’.

      TRUTH continues to be stranger than fiction.

      Reply
    • Ametia says:
      April 16, 2018 at 2:51 pm

      HA HA HA HA Faux turd. Everyy one of them are having their come-UPPENCE

      Reply
  26. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    Top Republican Official Says Trump Won Wisconsin Because of Voter ID Law
    The law blocked thousands of Wisconsinites from voting in 2016, predominantly in Democratic-leaning areas.
    ARI BERMAN
    APR. 16, 2018 12:18 PM

    Election officials and Democrats in Wisconsin have repeatedly argued that the state’s strict voter ID law allowed Donald Trump to win the state in 2016 by keeping thousands of voters—predominantly in Democratic-leaning areas—from the polls. Now a top Republican official in the state is saying the same thing.

    “We battled to get voter ID on the ballot for the November ’16 election,” Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, who defended the law in court, told conservative radio host Vicki McKenna on April 12. “How many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Sen. [Ron] Johnson was going to win reelection or President Trump was going to win Wisconsin if we didn’t have voter ID to keep Wisconsin’s elections clean and honest and have integrity?”

    The law, which went into effect in 2016, required specific forms of government-issued photo identification to vote. In a cover story last year, Mother Jones reported that the law kept tens of thousands of eligible voters from the polls and likely tipped the state to Trump. A federal court found in 2014 that 9 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin did not possess the identification necessary to vote. In a University of Wisconsin study published in September 2017, 1 in 10 registered voters in Milwaukee County and Madison’s Dane County who did not cast a ballot in 2016 cited the voter ID law as a reason why. That meant that up to 23,000 voters in the two heavily Democratic counties—and as many as 45,000 voters statewide—didn’t vote because of the voter ID law. Trump won the state by 22,000 votes.

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 12:42 pm

    A new filing reveals the three clients Michael Cohen gave legal advice between 2017 and 2018:

    1. President Trump
    2. Elliott Broidy (you know, the guy who paid $1.6 million to a Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair)
    3. A mystery person… https://t.co/G5L6a5ytcj pic.twitter.com/po8mccNEgV

    — New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) April 16, 2018

    Reply
      • majiir says:
        April 16, 2018 at 7:07 pm

        This incident happened in Macon, GA. which is where I live in Middle GA. What this white female did to these black soldiers is not a surprise to me. Some whites here have always had the attitude that they can say and do anything they want to to us and walkaway unscathed. What is different this time is that her @ss got locked up. Most of the time in incidents of this sort that happen here, it’s the black person that leaves the premises in handcuffs. I’m glad that video from several customers’ cameras prove that the white female was abusive to these soldiers for no other reason than that they drove around her car to get to a parking space so they could go inside the restaurant to get something to eat. It never surprises me that those who are always screaming, “Respect our military!!!” have no respect for some of them based on their race and sexual orientation.

        Reply
        • SouthernGirl2 says:
          April 16, 2018 at 7:11 pm

          Exactly. When they say “respect our military” they’re not speaking about black soldiers. The woman started crying, trying to play the victim. I’ll bet she won’t try that ish again.

          Reply
  31. Ametia says:
    April 16, 2018 at 11:17 am

    Desiree Linden becomes first American woman to win Boston Marathon since 1985

    Linden, a 34-year-old veteran long-distance runner who competed in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, where she placed seventh in the marathon, finished the 26.2 miles in an unofficial time of 2:39:54 to accomplish the feat for the first time since American Lisa Rainsberger 33 years ago. Linden previously finished second in the 2011 Boston Marathon.

    https://s2.washingtonpost.com/5b69ac/5ad4cc06fe1ff668a04c7747/YXdhcmVvZjQxMUBnbWFpbC5jb20%3D/2/10/3a569220054ddfca9b49a25bb24a75b5

    Reply
  33. SouthernGirl2 says:
    April 16, 2018 at 10:31 am

    White people like him have BEEN blaming Black people for their crimes and have gotten a many innocent Black people killed for no reason.

    https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/985894369348739076

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      April 16, 2018 at 11:19 am

      Was he trying to wait for friends, beofre ordering a cup of coffee?
      /SNARK////

      No! That criminal was threatening to shoot hundreds of PEOPLE.

      Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 10:04 am

    Another white collar lawyer turns down Trump

    By Kara Scannell

    Updated 10:57 PM ET, Sun April 15, 2018

    Another white collar lawyer has turned down the opportunity to represent President Donald Trump, citing an unidentified conflict, as the President struggles to add to the legal team representing him in the special counsel investigation.

    People close to Trump contacted New York attorney Steven Molo, a former prosecutor who specializes in white collar defense and court room litigation, in recent weeks following the departure of attorney John Dowd from Trump’s personal legal team.
    Molo is only the latest attorney to receive an invitation to help Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 campaign and any possible dealings with Russia. Other lawyers who declined to join Trump’s team include former US Solicitor General Ted Olson; Emmet Flood, who’s worked for multiple presidents; Robert Bennett, Bill Clinton’s attorney in the Paula Jones litigation; and Bob Giuffra, of Sullivan & Cromwell.

    Reply
  37. Ametia says:
    April 16, 2018 at 9:56 am

    New museum chief fiercely promotes African art, but faces a more prosaic problem at home

    When he talks about African art, Augustus (Gus) Casely-Hayford radiates like a beam of sunshine.

    That’s good because most of the National African Art Museum he now heads gets little of it. The subterranean architecture is symbolic of the buried treasure that is African art. African culture remains hidden in many ways, and that’s Casely-Hayford’s challenge.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/04/16/new-museum-chief-fiercely-promotes-african-art-but-faces-a-more-prosaic-problem-at-home/?utm_term=.9280e4d7e98c

    Reply
  38. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 9:50 am

    Paul Ryan Vows To Make Boomers Pay For Retiring By ‘Fixing Entitlements’ https://t.co/NCpRzEBuR6

    — #TheResistance (@SocialPowerOne1) April 15, 2018

    by using ‘ deficits’

    the same deficits that he just exploded with his tax scam?

    GET.THE.ENTIRE.PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 9:49 am

    When it came out that Trump pressured Comey to drop the Flynn investigation and then fired him when he didn’t, @PRyan excused it all saying “he’s new at this.”

    Now @chucktodd asks him whether Comey is honorable, Ryan refuses to answer even on way out. He’s corrupted to the core.

    — Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) April 15, 2018

    Reply
  40. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 9:46 am

    Paul Ryan somehow denies this, but he routinely normalized Trump and enabled his takeover of the GOP. It played out right in front of all of us. https://t.co/BAsGpI3M9L pic.twitter.com/ynltB4PpvZ

    — Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) April 15, 2018

    Reply
  41. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 9:39 am

    Bess Levin, at Vanity Fair, “Poverty Scold Paul Ryan Retiring at 48 to Join the Ranks of Idle Rich”:

    …[W]hile Ryan is leaving town after setting the Treasury on fire—something he pretended to care about under Barack Obama, when tax cuts weren’t on the line—his personal financial situation is about to get quite rosy.

    Bloomberg reports that upon leaving politics, Wisconsin’s first son will have no trouble adding to a current net worth estimated at slightly more than $6 million, given the wide range of corporate boards probably already banging down his door. “The kind of board that he would go after would probably pay between $250,000 and $300,000 a year and he could probably get three or four of them,” Fred Foulkes, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, told Bloomberg. “There would be dozens that would like to have him, particularly companies that have part of their business in key relationships with certain parts of government.” While Ryan will have to abide by a rule that says representatives must wait one year between working on Capitol Hill and lobbying work, there are no such rules about joining companies’ boards. One imagines that plenty of the Speaker‘s corporate donors, now saving millions on their tax bills, would be happy to have him.

    There’s some irony in the fact that Ryan, who famously called poverty a “culture problem” of “men not even thinking about working,” who said the social safety net is a “hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency and dependence,” and who extolled the virtues of children seeing their father working, will be quitting his job at 48 in order to do less work for more money. Corporate board seats are famously cushy gigs that involve, typically, attending a meeting every few weeks, max. By the Boston Globe’s estimates, board members usually work fewer than five hours per week per board. The positions are so lucrative and coveted that critics say some people are discouraged from raising questions about C.E.O. pay or other issues for fear of losing their seats, which we’re sure will never been an issue for the deeply principled Ryan.

    While Ryan spent much of his career railing against benefits for public-sector employees, he’ll also enjoy a hefty pension package when he heads back to Janesville—a golden parachute that will be further inflated if Ryan hangs on until the end of the year, as he has said he will do…

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      April 16, 2018 at 5:36 pm

      Man proposes, God disposes..

      In the end, even the best laid plans (and projections), never quite pan out the way folks assume it will ..

      Karma has a way of getting in the way..

      Reply
  42. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 9:38 am

    Paul Krugman,“The Paul Ryan Story: From Flimflam to Fascism”:

    …I do have some insight into how Ryan — who has always been an obvious con man, to anyone willing to see — came to become speaker of the House. And that’s a story that reflects badly not just on Ryan himself, not just on his party, but also on self-proclaimed centrists and the news media, who boosted his career through their malfeasance. Furthermore, the forces that brought Ryan to a position of power are the same forces that have brought America to the edge of a constitutional crisis…

    Look, the single animating principle of everything Ryan did and proposed was to comfort the comfortable while afflicting the afflicted. Can anyone name a single instance in which his supposed concern about the deficit made him willing to impose any burden on the wealthy, in which his supposed compassion made him willing to improve the lives of the poor? Remember, he voted against the Simpson-Bowles debt commission proposal not because of its real flaws, but because it would raise taxes and fail to repeal Obamacare…

    So how did such an obvious con artist get a reputation for seriousness and fiscal probity? Basically, he was the beneficiary of ideological affirmative action.

    Even now, in this age of Trump, there are a substantial number of opinion leaders — especially, but not only, in the news media — whose careers, whose professional brands, rest on the notion that they stand above the political fray. For such people, asserting that both sides have a point, that there are serious, honest people on both left and right, practically defines their identity.

    Yet the reality of 21st-century U.S. politics is one of asymmetric polarization in many dimensions. One of these dimensions is intellectual: While there are some serious, honest conservative thinkers, they have no influence on the modern Republican Party. What’s a centrist to do?

    The answer, all too often, has involved what we might call motivated gullibility. Centrists who couldn’t find real examples of serious, honest conservatives lavished praise on politicians who played that role on TV. Paul Ryan wasn’t actually very good at faking it; true fiscal experts ridiculed his “mystery meat” budgets. But never mind: The narrative required that the character Ryan played exist, so everyone pretended that he was the genuine article…

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      April 16, 2018 at 9:54 am

      Krugman NAILED the ZEGK!

      THIS:

      So how did such an obvious con artist get a reputation for seriousness and fiscal probity? Basically, he was the beneficiary of ideological affirmative action.

      Reply
  43. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 9:35 am

    GOP of Paul Ryan: Perpetuate racism to destroy voting rights and the social safety net.

    GOP of Donald Trump: Destroy social safety net and voting rights to perpetuate racism. https://t.co/UslkastxJG

    — Zeddy (@Zeddary) April 15, 2018

    Reply
  44. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:54 am

    Does anyone here watch Timeless?

    I love this show, and glad that it got a second season.
    Enjoyed last night’s show with a young JFK

    Reply
  45. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:51 am

    Despite some of the best evidence we’ve ever had showing that neither trickle-down tax cuts nor work requirements will work, conservatives continue to solve the problem that the poor have too much and the rich have too little. https://t.co/aDZX3S8hWU pic.twitter.com/mMwTmx0vdt

    — Jared Bernstein (@econjared) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  46. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:50 am

    We just announced the inaugural class of #ObamaFellows. These 20 civic leaders have carried out inspiring work around the world. Now, they’ll come together to collaborate, exchange ideas, and inspire a wave of civic innovation. Meet the Fellows: https://t.co/F7B9uDFqzK pic.twitter.com/7UVbdYin2j

    — The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  47. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:49 am

    JUST IN: Incoming Pence adviser withdraws after reports that Trump tried to block him https://t.co/iWMZsbrgbr pic.twitter.com/C3lb3Rbdcv

    — The Hill (@thehill) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  48. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:48 am

    “Of course Trump is raging and furious and terrified. Prosecutors are now looking at his core. Cohen was the key intermediary between the Trump family and its partners around the world; he was chief consigliere and dealmaker throughout its period of expansion into global partnerships with sketchy oligarchs. He wasn’t a slick politico who showed up for a few months. He knows everything, he recorded much of it, and now prosecutors will know it, too. It seems inevitable that much will be made public. We don’t know when. We don’t know the precise path the next few months will take. There will be resistance and denial and counterattacks. But it seems likely that, when we look back on this week, we will see it as a turning point. We are now in the end stages of the Trump Presidency.”

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/michael-cohen-and-the-end-stage-of-the-trump-presidency

    Reply
  49. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:47 am

    Only one question, Former @FBI Director @Comey – who will stop @realdonaldtrump from KILLING EVERYONE before he is arrested, prosecuted and jailed?

    cc @BarackObama @EricHolder @SallyYates #ComeyInterview #TrumpRussia

    — Bobfr (@Our4thEstate) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  50. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:47 am

    Court Doc: Donald Trump built Trump Tower with S & A Concrete Inc. Was a company owned by Anthony Salerno & Paul Castellano, heads of the Genovese & Gambino mafias. This is the same crime family James Comey prosecuted & the same mobsters Comey just compared Trump to. #TrumpResign pic.twitter.com/FR8d8jMGxt

    — Scott Dworkin (@funder) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  51. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:42 am

    Comey: pic.twitter.com/MSMFFOFxbk

    — David Frum (@davidfrum) April 16, 2018

    Reply
  52. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:42 am

    Ed Kilgore, at NYMag:

    … The belief that Clinton couldn’t lose is the only way to make sense of what a lot of people said and did in October 2016. But most of them did not have as much power to derail her campaign as Comey.

    Polls are usually blamed for the illusion of Clinton’s invulnerability. But for the most part, they weren’t that far off track, particularly if you recall that she won the popular vote by more than 2 percent, and prescient observers noted before the election that Trump was in striking distance based on the polls.…

    Perhaps all the pollsters and prognosticators who guessed wrong about 2016 are complicit in fostering the overconfidence of the Clinton campaign, Democratic voters — and yes — even James Comey. Certainly the big national news organizations whose coverage decisions reflected an apparent belief that the victorious Clinton could safely be taken down a few pegs over the email “story” have a lot to answer for. But in the end it was probably the difficulty of envisioning a President Trump that fed the overconfidence about Clinton most of all. It couldn’t happen here, until it did. And Comey is just one of the players in the political game who must now regret their lack of imagination. His mistake, however, had far bigger consequences than most.

    Reply
  53. rikyrah says:
    April 16, 2018 at 8:14 am

    Good Morning Everyone 😄😄😄

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      April 16, 2018 at 9:44 am

      Morning 3Chcis Family!

      We’re still diggnig out from 15 inches of snow at the Minneapolis airport.

      We got 12 inches in my neck-o–the-woods!

      LOL I see you, eliihass……

      Reply
      • eliihass says:
        April 16, 2018 at 10:38 am

        I thought of you once the hailstorm started, Ametia.. You’ve been lamenting your ‘spring snow’, and now we don’t get to gloat about our sunny skies .. not today at least..

        Reply
  54. eliihass says:
    April 16, 2018 at 7:38 am

    Hallo fam..

    Happy Monday..

    May this work week be everything you want it to be and more..

    Reply

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