This is what Jon Stewart, host of the Jon Stewart Show on Comedy Central, said in a recently: “I have one source for news that I turn to more than any other: Twitter.”
I agree with Stewart on that point. Twitter and other social media networks have revolutionized how news and other information is distributed. But Stewart said something else I have to disagree with. “Cos I likes my news like I likes my ladies,” he said, “short and punchy and delivered second-hand by anonymous sociopaths.”
We’re not all sociopaths.
But my disagreement with Stewart was short-lived. Especially when he made the point to congratulate “old white men” in the Republican party for their role in ending racism. Stewart of course, was basing his remarks on a tweet made by the Republican National Committee earlier this week, in which they came to the conclusion that racism in America, was over.
“It’s OVER!” Stewart exclaimed, “It’s official! Stick a fork in racism, it’s done!”
But Stewart’s excitement was also short-lived. Moments after the Republicans declared that racism was over, they issued another tweet stating that their proclamation was in fact, incorrect. Stewart took note of that too.
“You declare an end to racism and then three hours later, you start it again?” Stewart then equate the GOP’s back and forth on whether or not racism had ended to being “an Indian giver.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s (R) awkward attempt to link Vice President Joe Biden to the GOP’s policies against womens’ reproductive health was smacked down hard by Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on Tuesday.
“Democrats like to complain about a Republican ‘war on women,’” Gingrich said on Crossfire, before mentioning Biden’s visit to a Japanese e-commerce company, DeNA, in which Biden asked a group of women working there if their husbands “like them working full-time,” if they were married, and if they were allowed to work from home.
“How do you explain Biden’s inability to stay in touch with reality?” Gingrich asked Wasserman Schultz, who expressed amazement that Gingrich would link the “war on women” term with Biden, the author of the Violence Against Women Act, which was been staunchly opposed by Republicans even after passing in the House in February 2013.
“Your party spent two years holding back on bringing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to the floor,” Wasserman Schultz responded. “Your party has nominated, consistently, the likes of [Pennsylvania Gov. Tom] Corbett in Pennsylvania, who famously said, ‘Well, if women don’t want to have an ultrasound when they have an abortion, they can just close their eyes.’”
Schultz also pointed out that another Republican, Virginia Attorney General nominee Mark Obenshain, introduced legislation four years ago that would have required pregnant women to report a miscarriage to authorities.
“If you want to talk about the war on women — and that’s just a couple of examples –” Schultz said, before getting cut off by Gingrich.
“I understand your version of reality,” Gingrich shot back, before being interrupted himself by co-host Stephanie Cutter.
“That’s not a version of reality, Newt,” Cutter chimed in. “Those are facts.”
Rowling had been dating 25-year-old Montrell Cooper on and off for more than three years, but her ex-boyfriend became so abusive that Cooper eventually wound up serving time for a domestic dispute in August. Ironically, he did jail time in 2012 for another domestic dispute where he reportedly stabbed her in the neck. For some reason, Rowling testified on his behalf in order to help Cooper get his sentence reduced to probation. This time around, after the incident in August, she didn’t testify, but was uncooperative in helping prosecutors with their case against Cooper so he was released on probation. The day he was released from jail on November 25, she posted this message on her Facebook, alarming friends and followers:
When a follower told her to cal the police, she responded with, “THE POLICE. ………….LOL IM GONE B GONE BOUT TIME THEY COME.” Unfortunately, by the 30th, Rowling was found in her apartment after police received a disturbance call, stabbed several times and bleeding out. She was rushed to the hospital, but died upon arrival. Now her family accuses Cooper of being behind the attack. The police can’t find him, but they did find his abandoned car. Anyone out there who knows of his whereabouts is of course asked to contact the police.
The Pope has been getting on Republicans’ nerves lately. He recently let his feelings about capitalism and trickle down economics be known, saying that the theory of trickle down “has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power…”
This proclamation by the Pope caused the right wing to practically blow their tops. Rush Limbaugh, the author of much of the Republican’s talking points took to his radio show and denounced the Pope and all that he stands for. Said Rush;
“Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as ‘a new tyranny.’ He beseeched global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality, in a document on Tuesday setting out a platform for his papacy and calling for a renewal of the Catholic Church. In it, Pope Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the ‘idolatry of money.’ ”
I’ve gotta be very caref– I have been numerous times to the Vatican. It wouldn’t exist without tons of money. But, regardless, what this is — somebody has either written this for him or gotten to him. This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope. There’s no such — “unfettered capitalism”? That doesn’t exist anywhere.
And a Fox Host Stuart Varney also lashed out at the Pope for him suggesting that we should be helping the less fortunate among us.
And now this news. A recent interview with Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, the “Almoner of His Holiness,” raised speculation that the Pope joins him on his nightly trips into Rome to give alms to the poor, and it turns out that the rumors are probably true.
A knowledgable source in Rome told The Huffington Post that “Swiss guards confirmed that the pope has ventured out at night, dressed as a regular priest, to meet with homeless men and women.”
Krajewski earlier said, “When I say to him ‘I’m going out into the city this evening’, there’s the constant risk that he will come with me,” and he merely smiled and ducked the question when reporters asked him point-blank whether the Pope accompanied him into the city.
What will these Republicans do now? Oh the calamity!
In this image made available Tuesday Dec. 3, 2013, The hand of Harrison Odjegba Okene stretches through the murky waters to reach a rescue diver as the diver’s headcam video records the moment he becomes aware that Okene is still alive after nearly three days underwater. Okene was working as a cook aboard a tugboat in the Atlantic Ocean off the Nigerian coast in June 2013, when a heavy swell caused the vessel to capsize and his boat sank to the sea bed, where his 11 colleagues drowned, but Harrison Okene was able to find an air pocket inside the sunken ship where he survived for nearly three days before being found by a group of South African rescue divers. A video made available Tuesday Dec. 3, 2013, was filmed while the South African crew searched his vessel and found Okene alive before being given water and oxygen and then led to safety and to a decompression chamber for his recovery. (AP Photo/DCN Diving)
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — About 100 feet down, on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, divers had already pulled four bodies out of the sunken tugboat. Then a hand appeared on a TV screen monitoring the recovery.
Everyone assumed it was another corpse, and the diver moved toward it.
“But when he went to grab the hand, the hand grabbed him!” Tony Walker, project manager for the Dutch company DCN Diving, said of the rescue in May.
Harrison Odjegba Okene, the tug’s Nigerian cook, had survived for three days by breathing an ever-dwindling supply of oxygen in an air pocket. A video of Okene’s dramatic rescue — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArWGILmKCqE — was posted on the Internet more than six months after the rescue and has gone viral this week.
As the temperature dropped to freezing, Okene, dressed only in boxer shorts, recited a psalm his wife had sent him earlier by text message, sometimes called the Prayer for Deliverance. “Oh, God, by your name, save me. … The Lord sustains my life.”
To this day, Okene believes his rescue after 72 hours underwater was the result of divine deliverance. The 11 other seamen aboard the tug Jascon 4 died.
Remember Trayon Christian, the 19-year old engineering student who was handcuffed and arrested by the NYPD after he bought a $349 Salvatore Ferragamo belt at Barneys New York? And Kayla Phillips, who bought a $2300 orange suede Céline bag from Barneys with her debit card — only to be accused of credit card fraud by cops just blocks away from the upscale store? Or “Treme” actor Rob Brown, who is now suing Macy’s and the NYPD after being handcuffed for “shopping while Black”?
October’s racial profiling stories that turned into a series of “shopping while Black” exposés highlighted the ugly racism that still runs rampant in New York City. Two NYC-based retailers, Barneys and Macy’s, were at the center of the storm. Shortly after the news that African-Americans were seemingly often accused of credit card fraud by New York City police, including repeated accusations of “how did you afford to buy that?”, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman began an investigation.
Schneiderman demanded statistics on how many customers — detailed by race and national origin — the stores had detained, what their policies for detaining customers are, what contracts or relationships they have with external security firms — including the NYPD — and what anti-discrimination policies are currently in effect.
In what appears to be a separate investigation by the NYC Human Rights Commission, Barneys apparently has complied, but Macy’s, and higher-end Bloomingdale’s, owned by Macy’s, have not, according to Women’s Wear Daily. WWD adds that the NYC Human Rights Commission is investigating 17 retailers in total.
The New York City Commission on Human Rights has issued a subpoena to Macy’s Law Department, ordering them to provide the commission with documents by Dec. 10 for all Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s locations in New York City, regarding information that pertains to their policies on loss prevention and approaching and detaining individuals suspected of theft.
Patricia L. Gatling, NYC Human Rights Commissioner, said Monday, “It is disappointing that they have not fully cooperated in the commission’s investigation into recent allegations of racial profiling at some of the city’s larger retail stores and instead sought to dictate the terms and scope of our investigation. The commission will be issuing subpoenas to other stores that have been unresponsive, including Old Navy and Banana Republic.”
Of course, it’s still unclear in the NYPD was acting alone, or in conjunction with the retailers, or if the retailers were the ones who contacted police.
But between NYC’s “shopping while Black,” and “stop and frisk” attacks, and recent reports like the three Black Rochester, NY high school basketball stars arrested for waiting on the sidewalk for their school bus, it feels like the entire state has jumped into the 1950s.
The top fundraiser behind Hillary Clinton’s first presidential bid is currently in talks to join Priorities USA, the leading super PAC behind President Obama last year that is now positioning itself for a possible Clinton White House bid in 2016.”
Jonathan Mantz, who served as Clinton’s national finance director in 2008 and is one of the Democratic Party’s biggest names in fundraising, is set to join Priorities USA in a senior adviser.
Four sources familiar with the Mantz discussions said he will fundraise for Priorities as transitions from the last presidential election into its next phase — a pro-Clinton paid media effort, likely led by Jim Messina and John Podesta, top former aides to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton respectively.”
An East St. Louis woman who was found stabbed to death in her apartment Saturday night had posted a Facebook status update prior to her murder warning her friends that she might die.
“If anything happens to me tonight just let my kids know I loved them dearly and tell my momma I love her,” Michelle Rowling posted on November 25th.
Less than a week later, police were called to Rowling’s housing complex to investigate a disturbance and found the 25-year-old bleeding out, having sustained several stab wounds.
She was rushed to a nearby hospital, but was pronounced DOA.
According to the St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly, Rowling’s post was in reference to the release of her ex-boyfriend, 25-year-old Montrell Cooper, who had been jailed since August for assaulting her.
Cooper, who is the chief suspect in Rowling’s murder, had assaulted Rowling before, but she testified on his behalf and managed to get his sentence reduced to probation.
With Healthcare.gov now functioning at a higher capacity, conservative activist and RedState editor in chief Erick Erickson has a new recommendation for Republicans looking to undo President Obama’s signature healthcare reform: sabotage!
In a blog post at RedState, Erickson claims that Healthcare.gov remains “unusable” but insists “conservatives are wrong to fixate on it.” Rather than focus on the site, Erickson recommends, conservatives should devote their energy to thwarting Democratic attempts to improve the law.
“Conservatives need to keep their focus on the law overall,” Erickson writes. “The website is a reflection of a terrible law.”
“As we all get back to business today, we must remember the law itself is the problem — not the website,” Erickson continues. “The website they can fix. We must deny them the opportunity to fix the law itself. Let the American people see big government in all its glory. Then offer a repeal.”
Erickson’s approach is in marked contrast to that of his fellow Republican, Georgia’s Jack Kingston. While Erickson recommends thwarting attempts to improve the law, Kingston is on record saying that letting flaws in Obamacare linger would be irresponsible.
Frankly, I’m proud of her. I know a few women who just cannot get back their pre-pregnancy body. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a post-pregnancy body, but these women have tried diets, exercise programs, personal trainers etc. and nothing seems to work. That this new mom is able to get her body back is fascinating. But apparently, this picture is causing worldwide controversy.
Is the postpregnancy body the new weapon of choice among superfit women? Yes, charge critics of Norwegian soccer wife and fitness blogger Caroline Berg Eriksen, who posted a flat-stomach, bra-and-panties selfie to her 245,000 Instagram followers just four days after giving birth.
“This is not a selfie. This is an act of war,” writes one Australian blogger in response to the image — just one of many blogs, news outlets, body image experts, and social-media commenters around the world to weigh in on the matter in the past few days, putting the photo at the center of a major online body image controversy. “This whole situation has become ludicrous. The competition for women to give birth and then immediately remove any trace from their their bodies that they ever carried a child is OBSCENE. There is no other word for it.” Another blogger calls the photo of Eriksen, who is married to pro soccer player Lars-Kristian Eriksen, “wildly provocative.”
Eriksen posted the photo of herself on Instagram, along with the caption, “I feel so empty…4 days after birth,” igniting the online backlash. Twitter users called Eriksen and her washboard abs “intimidating,” “unhelpful,” “obviously a freak,” and “unfair to all women.”
A Washington state man is accused of trying to kill his wife and father-in-law by setting their motor home on fire while they were inside.
The Olympian reported that 32-year-old Joshua Ford has been charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of first-degree arson after being arrested Saturday night in Rainier, Washington.
Ford is accused of locking his wife, who has not been identified, and his father-in-law, Ricky Luppino, inside the motor home after an argument before trying to set the vehicle on fire.
“He said he was gonna kill us, me and my daughter both” Luppino told KIRO-TV. ”
KIRO aired video showing Ford pulling a 5-gallon can of gasoline out of another vehicle, then kicking the door to lock it from the outside before pouring the gasoline onto the motor home and setting it on fire, resulting in a fireball emanating from the front of his relatives’ vehicle.
Ford can then be seen walking back toward the RV’s door and saying, according to Luppino, “I hope you both die.”
Luppino escaped through a window at the front of the vehicle and opened the door, allowing his daughter to follow suit.
The know-nothings who decided that market-based reforms were just what the public schools needed can look to New Jersey for proof that what they have wrought is having its intended terrible effect on education. The corporate takeover is going according to plan. The worst victims are the students themselves.
One of the warnings that veteran educators tried to sound was that the growth of charter schools would create two levels of opportunity: one for parents who were proactive and worked to get their children into top charter schools, and the rest of the population that either couldn’t compete or was shut out and stuck in the now-depleted public system. That seems to be happening in Newark, if this article is accurate. Yes, there are some significant successes if you count the students who are thriving in schools that can skim the best off the top and can generally avoid recruiting the poorest and least-able students. Test scores are up. There are fewer disruptions.
But it’s a false success if it means that other students are denied that quality of education. Free market principles are great for businesses, stock markets, and competitions for talent and ability. It can be deadly, however, when it comes to education.
Public schools by law must educate all children. Think about that: all children. Not one exception. And they need to educate them so they will be productive members of society. What the know-nothings have done is to criticize the public schools as unwieldy, rife with union activism, and failing our children. What they’ve created are academies that are exempt from the public school’s rules and worse, have created winners and losers. That’s not what education is about. As a matter of fact, it runs against every rational, reasonable and moral imperative that undergirds an education system in a compassionate society. It’s wonderful that more students are doing well and are thriving in these new schools. For the losers, though, it’s a life sentence.
As for the teachers, the know-nothings created a new evaluation system that is supposed to weed out the less effective educators from the classroom. What they’re created in reality is a time-wasting, money-sucking, mathematically-skewed nightmare that is taking money from school programs and budgets that can best be used in the classroom, and not on software that shows faculty members what an effective lesson looks like. We already know that.
With the Common Core Standards breathing down our necks, educators need more resources that students can use to learn, such as technology that works, interactive readings and mathematics lessons, and more time to plan collaboratively with teachers of other disciplines, grades, and expertise.
What we’re getting is a system that requires teachers to spend hours writing or rewriting lesson plans to meet the new guidelines, to meet with administrators to coordinate scoring rubrics, and to defend what we’ve always done in every other year, but now have to write down. If the goal was to create evaluations that mimicked the business world, then congratulations; it’s just as ineffective as your average corporate annual review.
Again, it’s the students who will really pay for the damage in time, in money and in lost resources. I give this new teacher ratings system about five years before the corporate world and the Koch brothers move on to something else they can try to ruin. Until then, the race to the bottom will be quick.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
