Author: Ezra Grant

I'm just tired of the lies and nonsense coming from the GOP, so this is my little contribution to combat the nonsense!

Categories
Healthcare Politics

President Obama Defends “You Can Keep Your Insurance” Claim – Video

They’re attacking from all angles. Republicans are circling the president like sharks tasting blood in the water. They think they have the upper hand this time and they’re going all out to convince you that having affordable health insurance is not a good thing for you.

They’re now attacking the claim the President made during the campaign when he said, “if you like your insurance you can keep it.” Republicans are now using this claim to say the President lied to you, because Insurance companies are now forced to cancel the garbage plans some people had, and upgrading those plans to acceptable plans.

Some people just don’t get it, so now the President has to explain his phrase, if you like your insurance you can keep it. “What we said was you could keep [your plan] if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed,” Obama said, as quoted by CBS News. “If the insurance company changes it … they’ve got to change it to a higher standard.”

But these people don’t care about getting a better plan or having their garbage plans upgraded to a higher standard. This is not about health, it is about winning a political argument. So the garbage collectors will happily give up their healthcare – some wouldn’t even look at the upgrades available – if it means winning the argument.

Dumb, yea, I know…

Categories
Featured

Police Forced Brooklyn Man to ‘Rap’ for his Freedom

Racist police acting as judge and prosecution? What else is new?

A Brooklyn man claims that “vicious, wicked and cold-hearted” cops forced him to rap an entire song in exchange for his freedom – but only if the rhymes were up to their discriminating standards.

The 28-year-old aspiring hip-hopper “was thus compelled to perform a rap song for his freedom,” the complaint states.

Shingles was at the Brooklyn home of a pal when a crew of cops – including at least one officer under investigation for other illegal entries – demanded access to perform a search, the suit states.

Homeowner Donyale Kitchens refused to allow them in until they produced a warrant. The cops agreed to come back later with the paperwork and Kitchens left, the suit states.

But the plainclothes crew eventually convinced a building super to give them keys to her pad, according to the suit.
Once inside, the officers handcuffed Shingles and two other men while they searched the apartment, the suit states.

But the cops abruptly decided to break for a musical interlude after learning that Shingles was an aspiring rapper.

“The defendant officers then told the plaintiff Quinshon Shingles to show them some “spits and bars,” specifically to perform a rap song, and that if he was ‘hot’ they would let him go,’ the suit states.

With his freedom on the line, Shingles burst into his verses – and passed the test.

“Apparently satisfied with the plaintiff Quinshon Shingles rap performance, the defendant officers indeed released him and allowed him to leave the subject premises,’ the suit states.

The search did not turn up any illegal items, the suit states.

Kitchens and Shingles are suing the NYPD for illegal search and false imprisonment for an undisclosed sum

Categories
Politics shooting

New Jersey Mall Shooter Found Dead

The crazed gunman who brought terror to a New Jersey mall on Monday night by casually strolling through the building firing bullets into the air, has shot himself dead, authorities claim.

The body of 20-year-old Richard Shoop was discovered at 3:20 a.m. this morning in an area of the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus N.J., which was still under construction.

Shoop, who was wearing body armour and a motorcycle helmet, walked into the Garden State Plaza mall shortly before 9.30pm on Monday night and opened fire.

Bergen County prosecutors said Snoop, of Teanick, NJ, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an area deep withing the mall described as ‘a literal Byzantine area of new construction’, NBC reports.

Authorities say he had a history of hard drug abuse and was a frequent user of MDMA. But they said they do not believe he had intended to harm anyone but himself.

He reportedly left a note to his family at his home, before stealing his brother’s gun and setting off to the Westfield mall.

No one is understood to have been injured in the attack although up to 1,000 shoppers were left barricaded inside the building.

Categories
ObamaCare Politics

Republicans: Defending the Garbage Collectors of the Insurance Industry

Why would anyone want to keep an insurance policy that give them absolutely nothing in the unfortunate event of them getting sick, is beyond my level of understanding. But for the 5 percent of Americans who have received cancellation letters from their insurance companies, these Americans are apparently angry. And the Republicans are using this anger as their launching pad for yet another Obamacare is the worst thing to ever happen to the United States of America campaign.

You all have heard the president made this claim time and time again while campaigning fo the Affordable Health Care Act, akso known as Obamacare. The president said, “nothing is going to change for those people with insurance. If you like your insurance you can keep it.”

The president’s only mistake when  he made that statement was not anticipating that there are people out there who loves garbage. And given the opportunity to get rid of the garbage for some quality insurance, these people would prefer the garbage instead.

What Mr. Obama should have done was made an exception for these garbage collectors. He should have said something like, if you like your insurance you can keep it, especially the garbage collectors. You wouldn’t know what to do with quality insurance anyway.

Yes, Mr . Obama should have let these people know that they are special. That they belong in a special class all by themselves, and that the rest of the country knows how special they really are.

Health insurance is not a political game. For many, it is literally the difference between life and death. And given the opportunity to choose life, sensibility should overcome partisan gamesmanship. Instead, it’s the other way around with Republicans and the garbage collectors of the insurance industry complaining that they cannot choose death instead.

Yea, you folks are special alright!

Categories
Entertainment money

How Much Money does Candy Crush Make Daily?

For a game that involves lining up confectionery in a row, smartphone app Candy Crush is notoriously addictive and is played by more than 45 million users a month, AppData reports.
It is a fine way to entertain yourself but some have lost control of their habit.

The game’s manufacturer, King, makes $670,000 a day from users purchasing extra lives or access to the next level.

Users are blocked from playing for a period of time after completing various levels until they choose to pay.
Hooked readers said they regretted spending hundreds and even thousands of dollars on Candy Crush.

An upset wife fumed that her husband had cracked the triple digits with his addiction. “My husband spent over $100 on it, which made me mad,” Lexie said.

But that’s nothing compared to Jeanna. “I spent more than $1,000 on tokens via PayPal,” she wrote. “That was a huge mistake”.

How do these expensive addictions come about?

Technology blog Gamasutra calls it “fun pain” where so-called reward mechanisms “defeat a consumer’s ability to make informed choices about the costs and value of these products.”

Mobile gaming companies are also using the latest technology to replicate the “appetizing” qualities of poker machines, according to Professor Sudhir Kale, a marketing and gaming expert from Bond University.

He said the same combination of “fixed” and “variable” rewards perfected in poker machines is being programmed into mobile phone games such as Candy Crush.

Only a small number of people become addicted to games such as Candy Crush, Kale explained. Addicts become stimulated by a secretion of dopamine by the brain.

Categories
Politics voter suppression

Texas’ Voter Suppression Law Denied Former House Speaker the Right to Vote

Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright (D) was denied a Photo ID for voting purposes in Texas over the weekend by the state’s Department of Public Safety (DPS).

The 90-year old Wright, who is lucky enough to have an assistant to drive him to and from the DPS office, says that while he believes he’ll be able to get an ID in time to vote in this Tuesday’s election, he’s concerned the state’s “unduly stringent requirements on voters” will reduce turnout.

According to the Star-Telegram, Wright’s driver’s license expired in 2010 and — because he no longer drives — he didn’t bother to renew it. That expired license, he learned Saturday, is not good enough to obtain a Photo ID to vote under the law TX Republicans passed in 2011. That law will be in effect, for the first time, on Tuesday. The state statute had previously been nixed just last year by the U.S. Dept. of Justice and by a 3-judge federal court panel after being found discriminatory, in violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), as based on statistics supplied by the state itself.

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court gutting a key provision of the VRA over the summer, however, Texas announced the law would finally be enforced for the upcoming election.

Wright is hardly the only well known figure to be stung so far by the Lone Star State Republicans’ purposely disenfranchising law. And the hoops that many voters — even ones like Wright, who says he’s voted in every single election since 1944 — must now jump through in order to have a chance at their vote even being counted at all, is remarkable…

Last month in Corpus Christi, for example, 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts was forced to sign an affidavit when trying to vote early, after the name on her driver’s license didn’t match the one she was registered under. Her driver’s license included her maiden name as her middle name, as once required by Texas law, but her voter registration didn’t. “What I have used for voter registration and for identification for the last 52 years was not sufficient yesterday when I went to vote,” she explained to local media. The name on her license had been the same for 52 years, and she’s voted in every election for the last 49. “This is the first time I’ve ever had a problem voting,” she said.

Categories
Politics shooting

LAX Shooter Carried Propaganda From “Patriot” Movement

The Associated Press, quoting a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, reported that suspect Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, said in the note found in the duffel bag he carried into the airport on Friday that he wasn’t targeting a specific TSA employee.
“Black, white, yellow, brown, I don’t discriminate,” the note read, according to a paraphrase by the law enforcement official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Ciancia was charged Saturday with murder of a federal officer and commission of violence at an international airport. A federal criminal complaint said that Ciancia also shot at least two other uniformed TSA employees and a civilian passenger.

It was not immediately clear why Ciancia wanted to lash out at the agency, but a leading organization that tracks U.S. hate groups and extremist organizations reported Saturday that the suspect  may have been influenced by propaganda of the antigovernment “patriot” movement and fringe conspiracy theories.

As reported Friday by NBC News, the suspect was carrying anti-government literature outlining an alleged conspiracy to create a single global government, possibly prepared by a group known as the “New World Order,” when he opened fire on workers with the Transportation Safety Administration, killing one and injuring several others.

Categories
Featured Teacher

Chris Christie Yelled At Teacher, The Teacher Responds – Her Letter

Chris Christie hopes to continue his job as New Jersey’s governor after the vote on Tuesday November 5th. But until then, he is apparently continuing to do what he does best – yelling a anyone who has the nerve to ask him a question.

Melissa Tomlinson was the latest New Jersey citizen to feel the wrath of the Christie, when she had the audacity to attempt ask him a question on Saturday. Christie showed his true colors then, but Melissa is intent to have the last word.

Here’s her letter to the Governor!

Dear Governor Christie,

Yesterday I took the opportunity to come hear you speak on your campaign trail. I have never really heard you speak before except for sound bytes that I get on my computer. I don’t have cable, I don’t read newspapers. I don’t have enough time. I am a public school teacher that works an average of 60 hours a week in my building. Yes, you can check with my principal. I run the after-school program along with my my classroom position. I do even more work when I am at home. For verification of this, just ask my children.

I asked you one simple question yesterday. I wanted to know why you portray NJ Public Schools as failure factories. Apparently that question struck a nerve. When you swung around at me and raised your voice, asking me what I wanted, my first response “I want more money for my students.” Notice, I did not ask for more money for me. I did not ask for my health benefits, my pension, a raise, my tenure, or even my contract that I have not had for nearly three years.

We got into a small debate about how much money has been spent on education. Too me, there is never enough money that is spent on education. To invest in education is to invest in our future. We cannot keep short-changing our children and taking away opportunities for them to explore and learn. As more money is required for state-mandated curriculum changes and high-stakes standardized testing, it is our children that are losing. Programs are being cut all over the state as budget changes are forcing districts to cut music, art, after-school transportation, and youth-centered clubs.

But let’s put money aside for a moment. What do I want? What do ‘we people’ want? We want to be allowed to teach. Do you know that the past two months has been spent of our time preparing and completing paperwork for the Student Growth Objectives? Assessments were created and administered to our students on material that we have not even taught yet. Can you imagine how that made us feel? The students felt like they were worthless for not having any clue how to complete the assessments. The teachers felt like horrible monsters for having to make the students endure this. How is that helping the development of a child? How will that help them see the value in their own self-worth. This futile exercise took time away from planning and preparing meaningful lessons as well as the time spent in class actually completing the assessments. The evaluations have no statistical worth and has even been recognized as such by the NJ Department of Education. I am all for evaluation of a teacher. I recognize that I should be held accountable for my job. This does not worry me, as long as I am evaluated on my methods of teaching. I can not be held wholly accountable for the learning growth of a student when I am not accountable for all of the factors that influence this growth. Are you aware that poverty is the biggest determination of a child’s educational success. If not, I suggest you read Diane Ravitch’s new book Reign of Error. Take a moment and become enlightened.

Getting back to the issue of money. I am fully aware of our educational budget. Where is all of this money? To me it seems like it is being siphoned right off into the hands of private companies as they reap the benefits of the charter schools and voucher programs that you have put into place. It certainly hasn’t gone to improve school conditions in urban areas such as Jersey City. The conditions that these students and teachers are forced to be in are horrifying. Yet you are not allowing the funds needed to improve these conditions. Are you hoping that these schools get closed down and more students are forced to go to private charter schools while the districts are being forced to pay their tuition? I know for a fact that this is what has happened in Camden and Newark. Yet these charter schools are not held to the same accountability as our public schools. Why is that? Because deep down you know that you are not really dealing with the issues that influence a child’s education. You are simply putting a temporary band-aid into place. Unfortunately that temporary fix is already starting to be exposed as Charter Schools are showing that they actually are not able to do better than public schools.

You are setting up teachers to take the blame for all of this. You have portrayed us as greedy, lazy money-draining public servants that do nothing. I invite you to come do my job for one week Governor Christie. I invite you to come see my students, see how little they really have during the school day as they are being forced to keep learning for a single snapshot of their educational worth. For that one end-all, be-all test, the NJASK. The one that the future of my job and my life is now based upon.

Why do you portray schools as failure factories? What benefit do you reap from this? Have you acquired financial promises for your future campaigns as you eye the presidential nomination? Has there been back-room meetings as you agree to divert public funds to private companies that are seeking to take over our public educational system? This is my theory. To accomplish all of this, you are setting up the teachers to take the blame. Unfortunately, you are not the only governor in our country that has this agenda. What do “we people’ want, Governor Christie? We want our schools back. We want to teach. We want to be allowed to help these children to grow, educationally, socially, and emotionally. We want to be respected as we do this, not bullied.

BadAss Teacher,

Melissa Tomlinson

Categories
Featured Halloween

Mother Allowed 7 Year Old to Wear KKK Hood as Halloween Costume

This is how you teach hate to your young. This so-called “mother” allowed her 7-year-old child to wear a KKK hood as a Halloween costume. And she sees nothing wrong with it. She thinks the KKK and the look on her child is “meaningful.”

A 7-year-old boy’s homemade Ku Klux Klan Halloween costume is continuing to stir controversy and threats days after he was photographed trick-or-treating in his Craigsville, Virginia neighborhood.

Jessica Black, the pint-sized boy’s mother who made his white robe and cloak, says her son understood the risk when putting it on. Not only that, it’s a “family tradition,” she argued.

“I did tell him that if you do it, you know there’s going to be people talking about you, there’s going to be people saying bad things about you when you do wear it,” Black defended to WHSV.

True to her word, Black says she has received several online threats since word and pictures spread of her son’s attire.

Black’s son, appearing oblivious to those threats — and the outfit’s meaning — told a WHSV reporter he first saw it in the 1991 movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes.”

Asked why he wanted to wear it, he answered, “Cause it was cool.”

Black argues it being more than just cool but meaningful.

“It’s supposed to be white with white. Black with black. Man with woman and all of that. That’s what the KKK stands for,” said Black. “The KKK every year raises money to donate to the St. Jude’s.”

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which describes the KKK as “the most infamous – and oldest – of American hate groups,” there are at least eight active chapters in the state of Virginia.

Texas has the most with 26 chapters. Mississippi has 17 and Georgia 11.

Craigsville neighbor Wendi Sprouse, who saw Black’s son donning the cloak on Halloween night, called the costume and his ignorant upbringing completely unacceptable.

Categories
Politics

Florida’s New Democrat Charlie Crist Running Against Old Teaparty Govenor Rick Scott

Former Republican Florida Governor and present Democrat Charlie Crist has announced that he will run for governor of Florida again, this time as a Democrat, against his old party and against the contamination brought on Floridians by Teabagger Rick Scott.

Proud Teabagger Rick Scott has been a national embarrassment almost since the day he took office, and Florida has never been worse off for it. Mere hours ago, Charlie Crist addressed a crowd at an event near his home in St. Petersberg, unofficially kicking off the start of his upcoming campaign. The transcript isn’t available yet, but we do know this — Rick Scott is already running scared, and is expected to spend more than $25 million on attack ads against Crist.

Categories
New York Sports

Tim Hardaway Jr Creates Good Headache For Knicks’ Coach

Tim Hardaway Jr. has impressed as a rookie — so much so, he played nearly the entire fourth quarter Thursday night against the Bulls, one of the teams the Knicks figure to be fighting and clawing with for favorable playoff seedings.

But on the horizon looms J.R. Smith, who will serve the third leg of his five-game NBA-imposed suspension Sunday. When he returns, Hardaway’s minutes should take a big hit.

“It is a logjam,” coach Mike Woodson said of the perimeter spot, which both Smith and Hardaway play, along with Iman Shumpert, and often Pablo Prigioni. “That’s a good problem to have. But somebody’s not going to be able to play a lot of minutes. So they’ve just got to understand that. When you get your opportunity, you’ve got to make the most of it to help us.”

Hardaway is trying to do just that. In 42 minutes over two games, he has averaged 7.5 points and made 3 of 7 3-pointers.

“In the Chicago game, Tim stepped up,” Woodson said. “He’s a young kid that’s poised.”

“His confidence is sky high,” Carmelo Anthony said. “His work ethic. How much time he puts in. It pays off and shows when he gets on the basketball court.”

Hardaway credits Woodson’s faith for that soaring confidence.

“Coach said before the [Bulls] game, ‘People that are playing well are going to stay on the court and here’s an opportunity to play,’ ” said Hardaway, who hit a 3-pointer that launched the Knicks’ fourth-quarter rally and feels he has shown “heart” to the staff. “Once I heard that, just tried to take advantage, just tried to do the little things: play defense, run the floor hard, box out, defend on the low post.”

Categories
Barack Obama Politics

Bill Clinton on Obama: “He’s Luckier Than a Dog with Two Dicks”

And no,  I’m not talking about Dick Cheney. The revelation came courtesy a new book calked Double Down, with exerts published by Politico.

The book details behind the scenes comments and statements made by those closest to the president’s re election campaign 2012. For example, unnamed sources in the book claim that President Obama, when asked about a Golf outing with former President Bill Clinton, replied “I like him… in doses.”

Clinton, on the other hand, thought Obama was one of the luckiest people in the world, and expressed this as only Bill Clinton can.

Romney’s ineptness staggered Clinton. After the release of the 47 percent video, he remarked to a friend that, while Mitt was a decent man, he was in the wrong line of work. (‘He really shouldn’t be speaking to people in public.’) As for Obama, Clinton trotted out for his pals the same line again and again: ‘He’s luckier than a dog with two dicks.’”

“He’s luckier than a dog with two dicks.”

If that doesn’t become a t-shirt slogan by tomorrow, I will be very disappointed in the internet.

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