Friday Open Thread Sheku Kanneh-Mason Week

Posted on June 1, 2018 by rikyrah

TGIF, Everyone! More Sheku and Kanneh-Mason family

The family that plays together…

Look who got to greet the Queen.

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77 Responses to Friday Open Thread Sheku Kanneh-Mason Week

  3. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 7:34 pm

    Waiting for the doors to open. Going to see a play-Having Our Say, based on the book of the same name about two Black sisters that lived past 100.

    Reply
  4. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2018 at 7:27 pm

    Heart-rending…

    Reply
  7. eliihass says:
    June 1, 2018 at 6:46 pm

    If I were Martha Stewart, knowing the petty treasonous megalomaniac buffoon as well as we all do, and having served my time anyway, I’d tell him to stuff his illegal, agenda-driven pardon being dangled as a grovel-beckoning carrot and cover for his own messy treasonous shenanigans..

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 1, 2018 at 6:54 pm

      Accepting one of these illegal ‘pardons’ from the treasonous buffoon means that you have essentially signed yourself over to him …and he expects you to remain beholden to him, daughter-wife etc. for eternity..

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 1, 2018 at 6:38 pm

      Nothing scares and threatens an entitled alt-right Becky like a smart black woman who can hold her own intellectually, and has the nerve to occasionally expose and call out the bs, and white supremacists and those who cheerlead for and enable them..

      Reply
  10. eliihass says:
    June 1, 2018 at 5:41 pm

    You just can’t make this stuff up …Rikyrah, where are you Sis, please come take Blagojevich’s wife..

    https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/1002326450312241152?s=20

    Reply
  17. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 3:15 pm

    RACHEL MADDOW
    Weak Trump effort leaves Puerto Rico exposed for new storm season

    Rachel Maddow reports on conditions in Puerto Rico after the Trump administration’s weak restoration effort, noting that with the arrival of the new hurricane season the island is not likely to be able to withstand even a small storm.

    Reply
  18. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    Trump’s Loudest Anti-Muslim Twitter Troll Is A Shady Vegan Married To An (Ousted) WWE Exec
    @AmyMek anonymously spread hate online for years. She can’t hide anymore.
    By Luke O’Brien

    She was supposed to be a Russian bot. That seemed like the best explanation for @AmyMek. No normal person could be so prolific and prejudiced.

    For five years, the mysterious Twitter account ― which has more than 200,000 followers, including Sean Hannity, Roseanne Barr and the personal account of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and has earned endorsements from Donald Trump and Michael Flynn ― has tirelessly spewed far-right propaganda and, above all, Islamophobia. Around 25 tweets a day, sometimes more, the majority of them designed to stoke hatred of Muslims.

    And thousands of others. The bigotry was garden-variety Islamophobia: memes about Sharia executions and child rape, genital mutilation and Muslims torturing and butchering various life forms while dusky columns of Saracens, every one of them a potential jihadist, march into Western lands bent on pillage. What made @AmyMek special was her industriousness. She never took a break.

    “She’s a major cog in the Islamophobia machine,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization that @AmyMek often attacks.

    Her Twitter timeline was one long screed that reflected the collective id of the Make America Great Again movement. Tea party rage, evangelical hokum and white supremacy ― it was all there. In sufficient volume, this kind of hate can now turn any no-account right-winger into a star on social media. And it worked for @AmyMek.

    But who was she?

    Even her Twitter bio, which features a grainy photo of a blond woman who claims to be a vegan, gun-loving psychotherapist and “fixer” fighting for the “wrongfully incarcerated,” felt janky. “[A]n ideological theme park map” is how Maureen Erwin, a political consultant who wrote about her search for @AmyMek last year, described it.

    There is a real person, however, behind the bio. The headshot is real, if dated. And the Twitter handle, surprisingly, differs little from her actual name: Amy Jane Mekelburg.

    ……………………………………………………………….

    When asked by HuffPost about the veracity of this claim, the WWE at first offered a cryptic answer. “This is the first time we’re hearing about Amy Mekelburg,” said a corporate spokesperson last Thursday, requesting not to be identified by name.

    The company had reason to worry about Mekelburg’s Islamophobia. In the early part of 2018, the WWE and Saudi Arabia finalized a controversial 10-year deal to bring pro wrestling there. Siino [HER HUSBAND] was negotiating TV deals in the United Arab Emirates, according to the WWE. Back in Fishkill, his wife was casting Muslims as subhuman filth.

    Twitter’s policy against hateful conduct prohibits “behavior that incites fear about a protected group” and “repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone.” One digital sleuth who tracks @AmyMek told HuffPost that he has reported the account to Twitter more than 50 times to no avail. Although the company has “withheld” Mekelburg’s account in Germany and France, Twitter has done little to cramp her style in the U.S.

    Mekelburg appeared to operate without fear of fallout anywhere. As this story neared publication, she kept tweeting hate, even when her husband’s job was in jeopardy. Last Friday, after HuffPost asked the WWE a second time if anyone there had known about @AmyMek before hiring Siino, the company responded definitively.

    “No,” said the WWE spokesperson. “Now that it has come to our attention, Sal Siino is no longer an employee.”

    Reply
  20. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 1:08 pm

    RACHEL MADDOW
    Democrats with activist energy push Virginia Medicaid expansion

    Virginia State Delegate Danica Roem talks with Rachel Maddow about the political and activist momentum that pushed Virginia to a bipartisan passage of the long blocked Medicaid expansion that was part of the platform of many newly elected Democrats.
    May.31.2018

    Reply
  21. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 1:05 pm

    Virginia Democrats make good on promise of more health care

    Rachel Maddow reports on a Democratic wave in Virginia that came to office promising Medicaid expansion after years of Republican obstruction and delivered on that promise this week.

    Reply
  22. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 1:03 pm

    Trump could test Nixonian standard of abuse of pardon power

    Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, talks with Rachel Maddow about Nixon era lessons about how much a president can abuse the pardon power, and whether norms, once broken, are gone forever.
    May.31.2018

    Reply
  23. SouthernGirl2 says:
    June 1, 2018 at 12:46 pm

    I talked with an Indian guy in Galveston yesterday & he said as he was pumping gas a racist red neck bigot came over to him & started yelling about the truck he was driving ( Ford F350 ) and asked him how’d YOU get that truck. He said this was not the first time he’s been harassed. They’re emboldened. He said God intervened because a friend ( Black guy) of his who had just driven in from South Carolina to see him was at the store and walked over to ask what was going on and then the cowardly racist trash took off and left. These mofos are going to keep on until they catch someone’s hands.

    Reply
  24. eliihass says:
    June 1, 2018 at 12:26 pm

    Don’t know about you fam, but I’m neither convinced about this No. Korea extravaganza, complete with the visiting letter-carrying ‘high-ranking’, ‘former top spy’..

    Or the very obviously manipulated jobs report..

    A shallow, crooked, treasonous buffoon so hard up that he’ll strongarm a military doctor into declaring from the podium, a ‘clean bill of health’ and touting an obvious lie of 230lbs weight and ‘perfect genes’… that desperately corrupt buffoon is capable of anything.. and everything..

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 1, 2018 at 12:43 pm

      And hand-picking or randomly selecting one or two black folks to play savior to; to use as props for photo-ops or tax write-offs or celebrity ‘charity’ image booster ..And to give Ms Millie the necessary ‘bona fides’ to support her boast as ‘benevolent’ ‘friend’ and ‘savior’ of the blacks..

      But more importantly, to provide cover.. So that after they brazenly tweet or say racist stuff, consistent with the true racists they really are, they can cry fake tears about how their ‘30 years’ of ‘activism’ has been disregarded.. as they alternately plead ‘mental illness’..

      Reply
  26. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    BUSTED: Right-wing historian conspired with campus Republicans to smear a Stanford student
    Brad Reed
    01 JUN 2018 AT 11:44 ET

    Leaked emails show that conservative historian Niall Ferguson conspired with two conservative Stanford University students to run an “intimidation” campaign against campus progressives that even included “oppo research” on a progressive student.

    Stanford Daily reports that Ferguson, a former Harvard professor who is now a fellow at the Stanford University-based Hoover Institute think tank, encouraged conservative activists John Rice-Cameron and Max Minshull to dig up opposition research on progressive activist Michael Ocon.

    “Some opposition research on Mr. O might also be worthwhile,” Ferguson wrote to the two young Republicans. Minshull replied to Ferguson that he would “get on the opposition research” against his fellow Stanford classmate.

    In other emails, Ferguson spoke of “grinding down” their opponents, while recommending actions that he said would “intimidate” them.

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 11:24 am

    Trump sends signal with pardons, could face rude awakening

    Rachel Maddow shows how Richard Nixon’s open talk of using his pardon power to excuse his staffers in Watergate ran afoul of legal understandings of limits on a pardon, limits Donald Trump is likely to discover himself if he does for Michael Cohen what he seems to be suggestin

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 1, 2018 at 4:35 pm

      Called..?! They’ve never stopped calling her that – and so much worse..

      The historic First Lady was never looked out for; never protected or defended… not from the disrespect, disparaging or the dehumanizing attacks; not from the smears, not from the slanderous and malicious lies, undermining ..and certainly not from the condescending treatment reserved for her as the first black woman in that her historic role – even by some in her own husband’s White House and inner circle… or the black folks falling all over themselves to play save a damsel to others..

      There were no buffer pity circles formed on her behalf…or folks chiming in to chide and warn the perpetrators of ‘consequences’ ..because there were none.. Nobody cared.. she is black.

      She did not have ‘feminists’, media types, or benevolent concern trolls working overtime on her behalf.. when she was called a ‘man’, ‘tranny’…and endless falsehoods and harmful smears including about her ‘borrowing’ or “adopting’ her 2 young daughters since she was according to Alex Jones and co., a ‘man/tranny’, and so, did not birth them.. She was never given the benefit of doubt…and has had to prove herself again and again and again..

      YouTube is brimming over with millions and counting of videos and photoshopped images smearing the historic black FLOTUS …and nobody …not even in her husband’s White House, ever sought to have YouTube – which has and honors a policy about taking down such slanderous and baselessly malicious videos if and when they are reported …at the very least, crack down on as many of it… before those malicious falsehoods sunk into the psyche of some here and around the world, including some well-meaning folks – and even some young black kids, who now actually seriously question her gender.. And call her ‘Michael’…when they aren’t calling her ‘Moochelle’ or the ‘Wookie’ …

      And still nowhere to be found defending her or being ‘offended’, ‘concerned’, and selectively ‘high-mindedly’ interceding on her behalf ..?? Any of the many now ubiquitous ‘benevolent trolls’ running around ‘offended’ and tsk-tsking and finger-wagging demanding that there must be no ‘slut shaming’ and insisting that ‘sex work’ is as ‘valuable’ as being a Princeton and Harvard educated lawyer…hypothesizing and theorizing about how the complicit Birther 3rd wife was merely a ‘helpless’ victim, ‘trapped’ in an ‘emotionally and physically abusive’ marriage and a ‘bad situation’ she would like to escape but cannot.. and how her husband must have ‘forced’ her to do every bad thing she’s done, and how her sleazy nudes are really works of ‘art’ ..and at other times, explained away as the act of a desperate foreigner just ‘trying to survive’ in America …And no ‘slut-shaming’.. ever they admonish …And no mentioning the lies about having a college degree or being a fake ‘polyglot’ either..

      Same folk who automatically swung into protective mode, and were ‘sad and hurt’ for the ‘poor’ Birther 3rd wife re: the Stormy revelations, but were ecstatic and gleeful and couldn’t get enough of the ‘revelations’ by an opportunistic greasy anti-black woman ‘author’ …that the historic first black FLOTUS married for 25 years to the man she’s sacrificed so much for …the black wife who now walks around with a permanent target on her back for, was insultingly and humiliatingly demeaned as merely a ‘politically expedient’ decision after all, by her historic president husband who according to the tellers of the tales, actually really, really ‘preferred’ non-black women and had cheated on her while they were dating, and proposed marriage to others before her..

      Same folk who were apoplectic, screamed bloody murder and called the historic black FLOTUS a ‘traitor’ because after 7 years, she greeted Bush43 with a quick hug at the opening of the Smithsonian NMAAHC …The very same folk who immediately declared her husband a ‘Mensch’ for chatting up and ‘bringing a smile’ to the face of the buffoon’s Birther 3rd wife who actively propagated the Birther lie that not only sought to delegitimize his historic presidency, but more importantly, ginned up more hate and death threats from their Alt-Right supporters, against the historic First Couple …caring nothing for the well-being of their 2 minor daughters who at the time were much younger than the Birther 3rd wife’s son – the son she and her defenders now try to hide her behind as they try to ‘guilt plead’ with folk to ‘think about her son’..

      In addition to the unfettered racism, we are now witness to the most insidious of gaslighting …including that (un)witting co-opting of the husband of the endlessly dehumanized, and never protected or defended first black FLOTUS …to absolve, fluff up, boost, elevate, legitimize and normalize the very complicit lying Birther 3rd wife of the treasonous con man …an insidious feeding and enabling of that brazen entitled white privilege and ‘supremacy’, that automatically and instantly absolves and instantly normalizes, legitimizes and elevates by association, a ‘damsel’-perpetrator, while nobody will do it for your black wife..

      If they’ll do it to the historic first black First Lady – and get away with it too, And nobody comes to her rescue …the nameless, faceless black woman in the Waffle House in Alabama – or any place else for that matter, does not stand a fighting chance..

      Reply
  36. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 10:17 am

    Hayes has been good about the separating families evil going on right now with Dolt45.
    I said from the beginning, that THIS might actually STICK, because of the simplicity of its utter EVIL.
    You don’t have to approve of illegal immigration to believe that CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THEIR PARENTS.

    ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES 5/31/18
    Backlash grows against separation of migrant families
    A backlash is growing against the Trump administration’s new policy of separating parents and children at the border.

    Reply
  37. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 10:00 am

    4 Americans killed in Benghazi
    •7 Federal investigations
    •$6.9M in taxpayer money
    •Total Outrage from the Right

    4600 Americans killed by Hurricane Maria
    •0 Federal investigations
    •0 accountability
    •Total Silence from the Right

    The hypocrisy is deafening??

    — Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) May 30, 2018

    Reply
  38. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2018 at 9:56 am

    THIS BITCH RIGHT HERE

    BULLISH ON FOX
    Maria Bartiromo’s Strange Trip From ‘Money Honey’ to One of Trump’s Top Boosters
    Once a titan of apolitical financial reporting, Bartiromo has made an unmistakeable pivot toward conspiratorial and occasionally alt-right-assisted Trump cheerleading.

    ANDREW KIRELL
    MAXWELL TANI
    06.01.18 4:40 AM ET

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/maria-bartiromos-strange-trip-from-money-honey-to-one-of-trumps-top-boosters?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning

    Video: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/maria-bartiromo-the-doj-the-fbi-the-irs-the-cia-were-all-involved-in-trying-to-take-down-donald-trump/

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 9:51 am

    Friends, please check out our new RUSSIA TRACKER. We are following all the witness interviews, subpoenas, criminal charges, and much more. Track all the key players. I’ve worked on this for months with @talyellin and @stark_talk. Hope you find it useful. https://t.co/cFhLddbnaH

    — Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) May 30, 2018

    Reply
  40. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 9:50 am

    The price tag for Robert Mueller’s investigation is about $17 million–and counting. https://t.co/Zgz6xXQbOa

    — Carrie Johnson (@johnson_carrie) May 31, 2018

    It could be $170 million, and I wouldn’t give a shyt.

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      June 1, 2018 at 11:14 am

      Exactly! How many millions, BILLIONS of dollars are being FUNNELED to the oragne POS and his minions, who have been and still are ROBBING THE GOVERNMENT COFFERS.

      Reply
  41. Ametia says:
    June 1, 2018 at 9:46 am

    RIK, have you read this? I didn’t know SMH

    Editorial: Why Trump should leave Blagojevich in prison

    President Donald Trump has got this thing and it’s golden. He has the power to commute the sentence of U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate 40892-424. Never mind that Rod Blagojevich tried to sell a U.S. Senate seat that belonged to the 12 million-plus people of Illinois. Never mind that honest people and companies got cheated out of government careers and state contracts because, under Blagojevich, the fix was in. Never mind that a commutation would reassure other crooked pols that if they fuss long enough and whine loud enough, they’ll win the Get Out of Jail Free card they think they deserve.

    Presidents do have broad constitutional authority to commute sentences for federal crimes, and Blagojevich committed a lot of them. Trump’s off-the-cuff commentary Thursday about a possible commutation had the math wrong — “18 years in jail for being stupid and saying things that every other politician, you know that many other politicians say.” The accurate numbers: Blagojevich has served six years of a 14-year sentence and is likely to be released after another six, in 2024. But remember, even after federal appellate judges vacated on technicalities five of his 18 felony convictions, the defrocked governor remained eligible for a sentence of 30 years to life. As a prosecutor noted of Blagojevich’s six-year crime spree, “He was corrupt when he took the oath of office. He was corrupt until the day he was arrested.”

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-blagojevich-trump-commute-sentence-20180531-story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202

    Reply
    • rikyrah says:
      June 1, 2018 at 9:58 am

      Unlike our previous Governor that got sent to jail, I never had sympathy for Blago.

      I understood why George Ryan had to go to jail. Yes, he was dirty, but, he was stupid and dirty and everyone else made money off him. HE didn’t actually prosper from his corruption.
      He went to jail for two reasons:
      1. Those six little kids that died in the car crash because the other driver got his DL through a corrupt system
      2. He halted the Death Penalty in Illinois. I mean, he literally had a ‘ Come to Jesus’ moment about the Death Penalty, went 180 in the opposite direction, and walked the walk. He was NEVER forgiven for that.

      Reply
  42. SouthernGirl2 says:
    June 1, 2018 at 9:16 am

    $4 in damages and $1 for each child’s loss. Cruel white supremacist ISH. #Kaepernick has tried to tell y’all……………..

    This is a disgrace before God. These people have NO SHAME.

    https://twitter.com/theappeal/status/1002205242090438656

    Reply
  43. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 8:30 am

    THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O’DONNELL 5/31/18
    What Trump’s Pardons Really Do
    Lawrence talks with Laurence Tribe about Tribe’s view that Trump’s promised pardon to a right-wing commentator who pleaded guilty to illegal campaign contributions is “an elephant-whistle to Michael Cohen and all who know damning things about Trump” to protect the President- or else.

    Reply
  44. SouthernGirl2 says:
    June 1, 2018 at 8:25 am

    Good morning, all. I’m so tired & still sleepy. I need coffee. Check your email ladies.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 1, 2018 at 5:10 pm

      Hopefully Sam Bee has more staying power, and can easily out-wit her fellow Beckys.. I have faith in that..

      Reply
    • eliihass says:
      June 1, 2018 at 5:13 pm

      P.S:

      And after Sam Bee is done securing her job, I hope she comes back in force and takes down that gawdawful evil racist Megyn Kelly and her faux-righteous rubbish..

      Take her out Sam Bee.. we are rooting for you..

      Reply
  55. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 6:27 am

    Thanks so much for this week. Wonderful to highlight this amazing and talented family.👏👏🙌🙌

    Reply
  56. rikyrah says:
    June 1, 2018 at 6:21 am

    Good Morning Everyone 😄 😄😄

    Reply

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