Tuesday Afternoon Thread: Let’s Stay Together

J.Crew to retire Malia’s coat, first lady’s accessories

Love the sparkly belt Michelle Obama wore over her Inauguration Day jacket? How about the deep plum overcoat worn by her daughter, Malia?

Don’t bother to search J.Crew’s website for either item, because both are being retired, the company’s creative director told TODAY on Tuesday.
“The lady day coat that Malia was wearing has been in our line for years, and we’ll continue that, but we’ll retire the color,” said J.Crew’s creative director, Jenna Lyons. “We won’t do the color again, just out of respect for the first family.”

more here
http://thelook.today.com/_news/2013/01/22/16641959-jcrew-to-retire-malias-coat-first-ladys-accessories?lite

@jonathanalter:
Obama has now fully integrated the American presidency to the point that his race was not mentioned much yesterday.

IMO this isn’t true. The focus was on climate change, immigration, and gay issues because that was the focus of PBO’s speech. That doesn’t mean that the American presidency is “fully integrated” by a longshot. Mainstream left is only too glad to embrace post-racial politics despite the glaring, blatant issues with racism against black people still obviously embroiling the country. I doubt highly that a truly “integrated” presidency would be accused of faking a birth certificate or of being “unAmerican” by major campaign surrogates mere months ago. Come on.

The Morning Plum: What Obama’s Inaugural tells us about the next four years
Posted by Greg Sargent on January 22, 2013 at 9:17 am

Yesterday, President Obama used his Inaugural Address to lay out an expansive case for progressive governance, one rooted in the country’s founding, history and identity, vowing action on everything from climate change to immigration to voting reform to gun control to expanded civil rights for women and gays.

What knits all these specifics together, however, is the speech’s implicit recognition that in order to accomplish any of these goals, he will have to defeat the opposition, rather than win it over. Indeed, one of the most significant things that happened yesterday is that Obama signaled recognition of the true nature of the implacable opposition he faced during his first term and will inevitably face for the duration of his second one. This means a second term in which Obama, rather than forever chase after the illusory notion that he can secure bipartisan cooperation through outreach and charm — not to mention adopting Republican ideas outright — will resort more directly to executive actions and to mobilizing the public to force cooperation wherever possible.

Fewer than 24 hours have passed since Obama’s speech, and we’re already reminded of the governing realities he faces. It appears likely that Harry Reid will announce to Senate Dems today that he favors watered down filibuster reforms that he has negotiated with Mitch McConnell. This all but ensures more unprecedented levels of obstruction from Senate Republicans. Meanwhile, it isn’t even clear that the GOP-controlled House can pass a temporary debt limit increase to avert default, thanks to House conservatives who would sooner flirt with economic Armageddon than cooperate with Obama and Democrats.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/22/the-morning-plum-what-obamas-inaugural-tells-us-about-the-next-four-years/

The politics of crowd size

By Steve Benen
Tue Jan 22, 2013 8:00 AM EST.

Many of President Obama’s detractors seemed pleased yesterday morning when reports pointed to diminished turnout for his second inaugural. After historic crowds four years ago, most estimates said the 2013 audience would be less than half as big, and Obama’s critics took saw that as meaningful evidence of … something.

But as Inauguration Day wrapped up, the right’s talking point started to look far less compelling.

At least one million people attended the president’s swearing-in on Monday, an inaugural official said.

That far surpassed projections of between half a million and 700,000 attendees provided by inaugural planners before the event. But despite the healthy turnout, the crowd size was far below the president’s first inauguration, where an estimated 1.8 million flooded the National Mall.

In a case like this, context is everything. Looking back through recent history, Bill Clinton’s first inaugural drew about 800,000 people in 1993, which was considered an enormous crowd. In contrast, about 300,000 came to see George W. Bush’s first inaugural, and 400,000 saw his second.

It’s true that Obama’s crowd yesterday wasn’t nearly as big as the audience from 2009, but the 1 million people who showed up was significantly more than Bush’s two inaugural crowds combined — a detail some on the right chose to overlook when making a fuss yesterday morning

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/22/16640981-the-politics-of-crowd-size?lite

Will Immigration Reform Hurt African-Americans?

Seeing Red AZ questions the Democratic coalition:

[W]hy would black American citizens, who have disproportionately high rates of unemployment both locally and nationally, be among those encouraging more illegals to be given legal status — allowing them to compete for jobs these citizens need and should have? … The Business Insider reported that while the overall employment rate remains weak, job reports show that minorities are still getting hit much harder by the job crisis — with African Americans suffering the highest unemployment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics show the unemployment rate for black Americans jumped to 14.0 percent last month, from 13.2 percent the previous month. Hispanic unemployment was unchanged at 11 percent, while 184,000 more black Americans went jobless.

……………………………………………

Such conclusions are bolstered by a 2006 paper [pdf] by George Borjas, Jeffrey Grogger and Gordon Hanson for the National Bureau of Economic Research:

Using data drawn from the 1960-2000 U.S. Censuses, we find a strong correlation between immigration, black wages, black employment rates, and black incarceration rates. As immigrants disproportionately increased the supply of workers in a particular skill group, the wage of black workers in that group fell, the employment rate declined, and the incarceration rate rose. Our analysis suggests that a 10-percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the black wage by 4.0 percent, lowered the employment rate of black men by 3.5 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of blacks by almost a full percentage point

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2013/01/the-economic-case-for-immigration-reform-ctd-1.html

miranda – — BWAHAHA —- Your AFTANOON –LAFF!! LOL — -He said WHA’? – - LOL.

- – — -Mega-Rich Professional Golfer Complains That Paying Higher Taxes ‘Doesn’t Work For Me Right Now’ — -

- – –As governments at both the federal and local levels attempt to cut down budget deficits, taxes are going up on wealthy Americans like superstar professional golfer Phil Mickelson. The federal tax rate returned to its Clinton-era levels for income above $450,000 at the beginning of 2013, and voters in California, where Mickelson lives, approved a three percentage point tax increase on incomes above $1 million in November.

I’m not sure what exactly, you know, I’m going to do yet. I’ll probably talk about it more in depth next week. I’m not going to jump the gun, but there are going to be some. There are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state and, you know, it doesn’t work for me right now. So I’m going to have to make some changes. [...]
- — -SNIP — -
- – -Meanwhile, the amount of taxes paid by the wealthy has plummeted over the last two decades, even as states like California face budget deficits that force them to cut spending on education, public safety, and poverty and children’s programs. And while he complains about his burdensome tax rate, the average California household would have to spend the next 775 years working to make what he made last year alone. –THERE IS MORE.- –

GET your — TH’OW-UP – BUCKET!– -LOL- –

- —POU FAM♥ — REACTION!!<- — -LOL – —

Looks like Nutanyahoo is going to win Israel’s election. Hate to say it, but the Palestinians will never get their state. NEVER. Israel will simply keep building and building and pushing them out, knowing full well the world and unfortunetely your government will not do a dam thing but keep giving them billions of dollars.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/23-reasons-sasha-and-malia-stole-the-inauguration photos of the obama girls at inauguration

Evening Thread is up!

miranda – –Awwwww – –DANG! – - -

— – -US Trade Rep. Ron Kirk to step down in February –
- – - U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who worked to get trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama through Congress, is leaving the Obama administration next month.

–In a statement, Obama praised Kirk for cracking down on unfair trade practices by other countries.
THERE IS MORE. —

-YA KNOW — – -SOMEHOW I get the feelin’ that MR. PRESIDENT’s – –GOT A PLAN. :>)

- – -THANK U -annnd BEST WISHES – - -US Trade Rep. Ron Kirk . :>)