Sunday Open Thread: P.O.U. Sunday Jazz Brunch

Sepia – - – -A TRIBUTE – - -BY BLACK WOMEN – - -2 a BLACK WOMAN: -

——Black women running race for their lives

— -Fitness treks salute freedom fighter Harriet Tubman – -

- —-Harriet Tubman led hundreds to freedom during the height of slavery and contemporary black women hope her inspiration will lead tens of thousands to physical freedom of another sort, starting this Sunday.

To keep it accessible, many are free.—-

– — –ALSO – - — LIKE – -OUR BELOVED FIRST LADY♥ – - — THEY R – - -MOVIN’ – -FORWARD – –>Woo! Hoo! – - -

P.S. – — -THANK U – - – MS. HARRIET TUBMAN.♥ — –:>)

And the MSM attempts to take America down another blind alley….

“Rand Paul is more than capable of providing a top-tier challenge in 2016,” said Chris LaCivita, a Virginia-based GOP senior strategist. “His understanding of the issues and where they intersect with the basic foundations of liberty inspire legions of followers.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rand-paul-will-be-a-major-player-in-2016/2013/03/09/7b0e6006-892a-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html

Good Morning, Everyone

Jeb Covers Up The Family Legacy of Economic Destruction With a Bushel of Obama Lies

By: Jason EasleyMar. 10th, 2013

On ABC’s This Week, Jeb Bush lied about Obama’s record on the debt to cover up his family history of destroying the American economy.

Here is the video

When asked about the debt, former Gov. Bush said that Obama has not been serious about deficit reduction,

I haven’t seen the seriousness of the president’s efforts. I’d love to see a specific plan that really did reform- bend the cost curve for Medicare and the entitlement system. I haven’t seen it, so if there is through these talks, some kind of consensus that emerged, I don’t think you should say, ‘no, no, no’ about anything.’

Frankly, there was already been one of the largest tax increases in American history a month ago. And frankly, we ought to be focused on sustained economic growth, which grows more revenue for people and for government than any tax increase that’s been suggested, so there are a lot of things that could be done to create a real grand bargain. And let the process work. I’m hopeful that the president’s sincere about this.

Jeb Bush was completely lying about both Obama’s seriousness about reducing the national debt, and the drivers of our debt. It is stunning that Bush would so openly try to fool the American people into forgetting his brother’s role in creating our current debt problem. Bush repeated the Great Republican Lie that entitlement spending is responsible for the debt. (Bush also ignored the fact that President Obama has put entitlement reform on the table numerous times during his presidency.)

If you look at the impact of the policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, it becomes clear who was/is not taking the debt seriously. President Obama’s policies will only add $983 billion to the debt over the course of his eight years in office, while George W. Bush’s policies added $5.1 trillion to the debt during his presidency.

The other debt on Obama’s record was caused by the collapse of the economy, and we all know who is responsible for The Great Recession:

http://www.politicususa.com/jeb-covers-family-legacy-economic-destruction-bushel-obama-lies.html

Senate Republicans Plan to Shut Down the Government Unless Obamacare is Defunded

By: Rmuse
Mar. 9th, 2013

In the recording industry it is fairly common knowledge that regardless which artist, producer, arranger or record label puts out a bad song, it
was destined to fail because it was a bad idea. A highly-regarded, big-name artist can re-record the song, use a different arrangement, and record label, but they will not have any more success than the original artist because the song itself was a bad idea. In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama likened John McCain’s alleged “change” to the same failed Bush-Republican ideas and said “You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig,” and the same principle applies to Republicans today who claim they are a changed party after their defeat in November, but are still adhering to the same bad ideas and strategies with enhancements that make them worse.

For four years, Republicans obstructed and attempted to block every effort by the Obama Administration and Democrats to jumpstart the economy, and held recovery hostage to achieve more tax cuts for the rich, eviscerate the public sector workforce, and slash spending to keep the private sector in a perpetual hiring slump. However, President Obama and Democrats foiled Republican’s strategy with the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (stimulus) and payroll tax reduction that bore fruit the economy is still benefitting from. Republicans began the 113th Congress with the same agenda and tactics they used throughout the last session, and their goal is the same; halt recovery, kill jobs, and resort to hostage taking to fulfill their anti-government austerity mission as the economy is improving.

The GOP message coming out of their post-election defeat was a friendlier group not beholden to the richest one-percent of income earners, and strong advocates for the middle class, but regardless cosmetic changes, they are the same Republicans. Thus far, instead of growing the economy and creating jobs, John Boehner pledged the GOP’s primary mission in 2013 is ending abortion, Senate Republicans plan to withhold funding to keep the government running as hostage for a ransom of defunding the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), and House Republicans for ending the contraception coverage mandate to satisfy religious extremists promoting theocracy. Paul Ryan is expected to reveal a House budget proposal that gives the wealthy tax cuts, privatizes Medicare, and enacts severe austerity measures to impact hiring and create deeper poverty among already struggling Americans. Last week, Republicans celebrated the Koch brothers’ sequestration cuts that guarantee to slow growth, kill jobs, and take food out of the mouths of children, seniors, and the working poor that repeats the entire agenda of the 112th Republican Congress.

…………………………………………………………..

In the Senate, teabagger hero Ted Cruz promised to shut down the government unless the Affordable Care Act is defunded, and Republican savior Marco Rubio concurred with Cruz that unless the health law is eliminated by defunding, he too will vote against any continuing resolution to keep the government running. House Republicans have their own ransom to keep the government operational to satisfy evangelicals desperate to end contraception coverage in conjunction with Paul Ryan’s Sanctity for Human Life Act that grants personhood to a single-celled organism. It is the same Republican agenda that Americans suffered through for the past two years and it is predicated on wasting time on issues unrelated to growing the economy and creating jobs, and shutting down the government unless the healthcare law and contraception are eliminated.

http://www.politicususa.com/senate-republicans-plan-shut-government-obamacare-defunded.html

While Boehner Takes Millions in Illegal Donations, Republicans Accuse Obama of Selling Access

By: Jason Easley
Mar. 8th, 2013

This has not been a good week for Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), but you wouldn’t know it from the lack of media coverage. Earlier this week, an FEC complaint was filed against the Boehner connected super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund by Public Citizen and others for taking $2.5 million in illegal campaign contributions.

Then came from former Rep. Bob Ney’s (R-OH) new book. The congressman who did time in prison for his role in the Abramoff scandal, confirmed what has long been known about Boehner. The National Journal reported Ney’s very unflattering characterization of the Speaker, ‘Boehner “spent almost all of his time on fundraising, not policy.’ He ‘golfed, drank constantly, and took the easy way legislatively.’ Ney recalled Boehner handing out checks on the House floor and said his ties with a tobacco company were so tight that lawmakers could get free cigarettes from Boehner’s office. His golfing, Ney said, was ‘nonstop’ and ‘paid for by lobbyists.’ Ney wrote: ‘If the Justice Department were ever to make John produce receipts for his addiction to golf just for the years from 1995 to 2004, he would be hard-pressed to comply. John got away with more than any other Member on the Hill.’”

The complaint and the book paint a picture of a politician that deserves to be investigated by the media, but instead the our hapless corporate media has chosen to focus on the Republican Party’s claim that President Obama is selling access to the White House through the grassroots group Organizing For Action.

http://www.politicususa.com/boehner-takes-millions-illegal-donations-republicans-accuse-obama-selling-access.html

Grumble grumble, good afternoon everyone.

On politics by temper tantrum
Friday, March 08, 2013 | Posted by Liberal Librarian at 11:40 AM

19

This week we were treated to something I don’t recall seeing in my political lifetime: an actual, honest to goodness talking filibuster.

Senator Rand Paul, who never met a vaginal probe he didn’t like, suddenly was up in arms over Americans’ civil liberties. The Obama Administration’s legal finding that under extraordinary circumstances a president had the authority to use weaponized drones within the borders of the US inflamed Senator Paul to fantasize of missiles flying into Jane Fonda’s window. (An event which, I’m sure, Mr. Paul would not mind.) He carried out his talking filibuster for 13 hours, upon which when assured by Attorney General Eric Holder that no, the President didn’t have the authority to randomly kill people from the air without an imminent threat to the nation, he ended his opportunistic stunt principled stand, and allowed a vote on approving the new CIA director.

Rand Paul’s filibuster provided an object lesson in politics by tantrum. More than a few on the “left” were taken in by his “principled stand” on drones. Many on the “right”, who would be fine with drones shooting at people all over blue states if Mitt Romney were president, cheered him on for striking yet again at the Kenyan usurper.

The loudest voices in our political culture believe that throwing tantrums is the way to move the ball down the field. The loudest on the left have decided that Obama is even worse than George W. Bush, as he purports to be “liberal”, but is not in fact so—at least not according to their definition of “liberal”. The loudest on the right, after losing consistently to Obama and his allies, rail that more purity is needed. The country is ready to accept a reactionary rightist, just as long as the GOP doesn’t dilute the message.

This cacophony is magnified by the news media. There was a time when network news operations were run as a public trust. They were shielded from having to make money for their networks. With the advent of cable news and media consolidation, that’s no longer true. The yelling classes bring in ratings, so their screams are broadcast by the national media.

Now, post-Rand Paul (who admitted on CNN that he was, in fact, for the drone program, thus trolling his new-found leftist supporters), the latest irruption on the Left, via Ed Schultz, is that Obama will gut social programs, as proven by his dinner with GOP senators. On the right, the civil war progresses, as its luminaries lambasted McCain and Graham for eviscerating Paul’s filibuster stunt.

Again, Obama proves that governing by strategy is far more effective than governing by tantrum.

By meeting with select senators—ones with whom agreement can be reached on resolving the country’s fiscal dilemma—he is quite simply dividing and conquering. Even if no workable solutions are agreed, the fact that any Republican would meet amicably with the President sows more discord in the caucus. If he in fact manages to split GOP senators and representatives for a “common sense caucus”, the GOP will descend into fratricidal warfare. And any “sane caucus” will be operating based on Obama’s priorities.

This politics by temper tantrum has been building for decades, and has reached a crescendo under Obama. When Ronald Reagan fully embraced the “Southern strategy”, and brought the Religious Right into the GOP tent, the new blood’s ire fueled Republican politics, and set the tone for national politics for decades. Some on the left, given to yelling as a strategy, saw the success of the Right and thought that emulating its tactics would likewise bring it to power.

Obama doesn’t operate in that manner, and it infuriates his foes both on the left and right. They can’t drag him into the mud with them. No, he’s not Mr. Spock, absolutely cold and logical. But he knows that passion has to be tied to an effective strategy for it to be effective. Passion has to be the engine, not the driver. Someone has to be in control, channeling all that pent up power so that it doesn’t blow up uncontrollably. Both the extreme right and left are spinning wildly, and can’t understand why no one listens to them.

http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2013/03/on-politics-by-temper-tantrum.html

Is Jeb Bush running for president?

BY JOY-ANN REID
joyannreid@gmail.com

Jeb has long worn his ambitions on his sleeve. You needn’t have read the Kitty Kelly unauthorized biography of the Bushes to suspect that Jeb is the one who had the real desire to be president — though he was usurped by his less competent, less articulate, more suggestible older brother.

………………………………………………………….

And yet, a Jeb Bush campaign-in-waiting seems to make perfect sense. The Republican Party veered so far to the right in response to Barack Obama’s emergence they could no longer keep their rape pregnancy theorists and birther kooks quiet. Crazy became so much the currency of the party, the confusion coughed up the worst of all worlds: Willard Mitt Romney.

Jeb could simply swoop in and save the GOP from itself. He was a popular governor (except among those who oppose education by test, or thought affirmative action was a good idea). He knows how to handle a hurricane (sorry, George.) And he is a Spanish-speaker with a wife born in Mexico and an actual relationship with black and brown people in politics.

But then, the media and the politicos got distracted by a shiny penny, partly of Jeb’s minting: Marco Rubio. And the obsession with the Cuban-American Ronald Reagan who could somehow save the party with mostly non-Cuban-American Latinos was in full bloom.

Far be it from Jeb to cede the stage to his junior partner, so out comes his book, Immigration Wars, co-authored with Clint Bolick, a Phoenix-based attorney and supporter of Jeb’s pet cause: channeling federal tax dollars to private schools through vouchers, and pushing “school choice” referenda to benefit charter schools.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/06/3270754/is-jeb-bush-running-for-president.html##storylink=cpy

How the Iraq war hurt Republicans

By Phillip Carter,

Published: March 8

Phillip Carter, an Iraq veteran, is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

Beyond the thousands of casualties incurred, the millions of troops and civilians deployed, and the trillions of dollars committed, the most enduring legacy of the Iraq war will be the political movements it triggered in this country: It shattered Republicans’ monopoly on national security and eroded service members’ allegiance to the GOP.

The Republicans’ mismanagement of the war allowed Democrats to reclaim an issue lost to them since the Truman administration. Suddenly, the GOP wasn’t viewed as unquestionably strong on national security. It’s a shift that, since 2006, has profoundly affected elections and arguably contributed more than any other factor — save the economy — to Barack Obama’s 2008 victory.

We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction on March 19, 2003, when U.S. troops invaded. This false casus belli alone would have been enough to tarnish the Republican brand. However, the Bush administration compounded that error with its failure to admit the existence of the insurgency, let alone plan for it, and its failure to provide adequate resources — until the troop surge of January 2007.

Senior administration officials made matters worse with their arrogant statements about the war and the troops’ plight — such as when then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz casually dismissed then-Gen. Eric Shinseki’s troop predictions as “wildly off the mark.” Or when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld glibly told troops scavenging for vehicle armor in Kuwait that “you go to war with the army you have.”

To those serving in Iraq at the time or preparing to go, like I was, these statements suggested that our Republican leaders cared little about the people they were sending into harm’s way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-iraq-war-hurt-republicans/2013/03/08/34e7eab8-82ca-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

Sepia — – -ANOTHER — -Woo! Hoo! – —is IN ORDER – –FREE AT LAST. – — –

— – -Security Officer Wins $13.2 Million Verdict for Civil Rights Violations by Cleveland Detectives – –

– —– A federal jury awarded $13.2 million to a former housing authority security officer Friday after finding two Cleveland detectives fabricated or withheld evidence at his 2000 murder trial.

Ayers continued to maintain his innocence, filing appeals while serving a life prison term for aggravated murder. He finally prevailed in 2011, when DNA tests proved that a single pubic hair found in Brown’s mouth did not come from him. – - – –

THERE IS MORE.- — -BLE$$ U sir. :>) – - -