Jack & Jill Politics

AFTERNOON OPEN THREAD IS UP!!

AFTERNOON OPEN THREAD IS UP!!

AFTERNOON OPEN THREAD IS UP!!

O these photos are delightfull wooonderful!!

I especially liked the firstand last with the Obamas showing their love/affection for each other...just made you smile.

Like the fist bump with Reggie Love, and the Asian kiddies in the candy dish.

Just loved how, Obama, as usually has the group smiling and laughing in the Celebrity Dad photos.

Enjoy!!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2009/0...

Those WASP pilots were a cute pic.....I didnt even KNOW women flew during World War II.

No way! ohmigawd! I have stuff on that I'll post after I eat something.

Smiling GOPers Ought to be Frowning
Watching Lindsey Graham's gotcha grin as he needled Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with disingenuous and rhetorical questions you had to wonder what was so funny.

Does the Republican senator think it is amusing that he and his party's condescending tone toward the Hispanic woman was costing them ethnic votes with each passing hour of Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing?

It is not that the Republican inquiries were out of bounds in legal terms. But a confirmation hearing like this is a political forum.

Even if they vote for her, the fallout for Republicans could reach well beyond Hispanic voters. They are coming across as a bunch of snarky and bitter old white men who cannot bear the thought of their kind losing power.

The impact of this story on the political scoreboard should give Democrats much more to smile about.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/trailmix/2009/07/sm...

SONIA SOTOMAYOR CONFIRMATION HEARING OPEN THREAD IS UP!!

Great. Thanks Rikyrah...can I ask a favor...can we have a Sotomayor Open Thread, early morning on Thurs/Fri as well?...it helps to jump out of the shoot right when the hearings begin..cause they 'senators' are just raggin on her...and Thurs/Fri is the Q&A ...with the witnesses.

ok

SC gov cancels state meetings for trip with wife

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has cleared his schedule this week to take a personal trip with his wife, three weeks after announcing his extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, his office announced Wednesday.
Sanford is taking off the rest of the week for a trip out of state with first lady Jenny Sanford, spokesman Joel Sawyer said.

"This trip is personal in nature, and we're not going to offer any further comment," said Sawyer, who said the couple will be gone through this coming weekend. "The governor remains committed to repairing the damage he's done to his marriage, and so it shouldn't be any surprise that spending personal time with his wife is a part of that process."

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/sc-gov-can...

Just think, a couple of weeks ago he was canceling important meetings for his mistress.

LOL.

"Creating 'important meetings' for his mistress" may be more accurate.

Nah, he actually canceled two meetings for people who wanted to bring jobs to SC to go to Argentina.

Mark Sanford accomplishments as governor of S.C. (almost 7 years as governor)

1) Bringing shitting pigs in State House.

2) Getting a mistress.

3) Leaving state with NO executive for a week!

Being governor is important...but not as important as getting that ass!

...Chances of NOT getting re-elected as Governor of South Carolina...PRICELESS!

LMAO! I See You!

If only GreenLady was here today. You'd be in troooouble.

I didn't do it.

Wow Obama runs like an old man but looks like he's about 20 in that video. LOL

Thanks to Craig Ferguson this is my new favorite song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeuqQ1aipTY

Here's when Craig did it, it's still my fav intro ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULW2h_TK2Ik

Boo hoo rethugs are crying because their stupid ideas for health care reform weren't considered.Well guess what we won you lost.We tried to work with you on the stimulus giving in on tax cuts that rethugs wanted and you still voted against it.Like your anointed leader limpballs said "We hope he fails" well, There is a new sheriff in town and he will fix the problems that rethugs cant or wont fix.

The HELP bill the senate just came up with has 160 Republican amendments in it. In other words, the GOP is lying.

The HELP bill the senate just came up with has 160 Republican amendments in it. In other words, the GOP is lying.

OOPS! Sorry about the double post.

Rachel Maddow - TARP Admin Liz Warren: Consumers first, please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqx1FFdTeak

update on the birther & freepers who claim they won a suit against the president......

http://washingtonindependent.com/50719/obama-bi...

Obama Birthers Claim Court Victory, Sort Of
By David Weigel 7/14/09 8:41 AM

Last night, omnipresent Obama conspiracy theorist Orly Taitz gave WorldNetDaily a scoop. Taitz, a dentist with a degree from an online law school, had finally found a judge — David O. Carter of the Central District of California — who would hear a case on the president’s citizenship.

She told WND that at today’s hearing, the judge issued no orders, but promised that the case would be moved forward and he would address the merits of the dispute. He said there would be no dismissals based on “procedural issues.”

The judge said as a former Marine he recognizes the importance of having a constitutionally qualified president … Taitz told WND, “For first time, we have a judge who’s listening.”

Unfortunately for Taitz, an actual reporter from The Los Angeles Times followed up on the story.

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said that “the judge did make a bunch of comments about having the matter correctly and thoroughly aired, once and if they got to the merits of the actual lawsuit, which was not the subject of today’s discussion.”

The key word is “if,” Mrozek stressed. “We’re literally at procedural grounds at this point in time,” he said.

At a previous hearing, Carter had ruled that Taitz had not properly served the case on Obama. In Monday’s hearing, both Taitz and DeJute tried to prematurely argue the merits of the case. Carter, a former marine, told both parties that the case could easily be tied up for months or another year on procedural technicalities. A better approach would be for Taitz just to file the paperwork so that the case could proceed without more delays, the judge said.

The underlying fact here is that Taitz has no idea what she’s doing, and consistently files garbled, incoherent lawsuits stuffed with assertions and debunked rumors. Sometimes, after she does this, a judge will humor her and kick the can down the road. That happened again in California. But in the Birtherverse, this is being treated as a breakthrough.

An "online law school"??

OK, this woman is clearly crying out for help. I thought we all agreed that the mentally ill need as much help as the physically ill. Does she not have any family? Why doesn't anyone care about this Taitz woman who is obviously batshyt crazy and a danger to herself and others? OK people, when the voices finally tell her to do something violent, I'm gonna be right there to say "told ya so, told ya so, told ya told ya told ya so"

As an aside, I knew a geologist who had a correspondence school (old school) law degree. He spent many years in wilderness areas living in trailers while looking for oil. At night he worked on his law degree just to keep from getting trailer happy.
OK, it has nothing to do with the topic. mea culpa

She must be breaking laws herself somewhere, I am waiting for her to be arrested or charged with something. And she's a dentist too? How would like her working on your teeth with a drill in hand....I wonder how many of her patients are now ex-patients?

"the Birtherverse."

That's my laugh for the day.

Soldier who says Obama isn't president doesn't have to deploy, Army says

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, the reserve soldier who says he shouldn't have to go to Afghanistan because he believes Barack Obama was never eligible to be president, has had his deployment orders revoked, Army officials said.

Lt. Col. Maria Quon, U.S. Army Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Army Human Resources Command-St. Louis, said Tuesday evening, Cook was no longer expected to report Wednesday to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida for mobilization to active duty.

Didn't expect that. Here's the catch, though:

Earlier today, Quon said Cook submitted a formal written request to Human Resources Command-St. Louis on May 8, 2009 volunteering to serve one year in Afghanistan with Special Operations Command, U.S. Army Central Command, beginning July 15, 2009. The soldier's orders were issued on June 9, Quon said.

"A reserve soldier who volunteers for an active duty tour may ask for a revocation of orders up until the day he is scheduled to report for active duty," Quon said.

A reserve soldier who volunteers for an active duty tour may ask for a revocation of orders up until the day he is scheduled to report for active duty," Quon said.

If this is true, then I would expect HUNDREDS of "reserve soldiers" to follow suit.

Inquiring minds want to know, if Cook felt this strongly, why did he volunteer to be deployed to Afghanistan?

Exactly.

This dude's got little support as is, and less among my veterans' circles. It was a stunt, and it's been revealed for what it was.

LOL.

I don't doubt that part of the story. Seems to me that if you've a reservist who volunteers and then changes your mind-or something comes up-there would me a mechanism to get out of duty.

And this shows that Cook just wanted 15 secs of fame to make the point that he and like-minded freepers, brithers, etc. can make a mockery of and reject this CIC.

and this is just more proof that you can't underestimate the level of hate towards the First Family.

These people have been out there all along and this underscores what the media suppressed when Palin was doing her dog whistles to the "base" during the campaign.

The Freepers and the Birthers are two different groups.

I'm with you though...the Birthers are doing to conservative criticism of PBO what the Truthers did to the anti-war movement; make it look real stupid and petty.

D., Cook is both a Freeper and Birther, so unfortunatly the foolishness is not mutually exclusive. It is written that he has admitted happily to posting on that site

You have elected Republican dumbasses who are on the same page as Cook so nothing is new here.

How can you stand the stench of the shit Republicans dish out...it honestly makes every attempt you try to bring a different "face" to the party pointless.

This is one man's-rather, one movement's-stupidity.

I don't cast this on the GOP as a whole any more than I can cast the Truthers on the Dems. And I think you know that.

The people who are concerned about PBO's birth certificate occupy a fringe that's probably as far out there as those who want to see Bush thrown in jail for....(what, exactly, I'm not sure). Bush ain't going to Leavenworth, and Obama is the President.

Those questions are settled. Any further argument on them is, well, ignorant.

GOP pols federal and state level have publicly questioned PBO's citizenship, as an example, Shelby (R-AL), St. Rep Emery (R-MO), and others. And, there is Rep Posey (R-FL) bill H.R. 1503 with co-sponsors. This all suggests extensive GOP involvement.

From my vantage point, freepers, birthers, successionist etc. are off-shoots from the GOP.

There's no coordinated movement to question PBO's citizenship (or, there's not one that I'm aware of).

1503 and its whopping nine(!) co-sopnsors is dead in committee. That ought to tell you how seriously people are taking the birth certificate question.

There is no need for an "official" announcement or affirmation. However, when a senior Senator or House Rep here or there makes a public statement it sends a "signal".

Whether 1503 made it or not, is not the issue, again, it sends an affirmative "message" from Washington to these groups.

It sends a signal that they're pandering.

You wanna kill something like this? Ignore it. You're giving them a platform that they can't get on their own by acknowledging their stupidity.

This ain't the Tea Party movement...this is a group of a few hundred people who don't like the fact that this black man is president. I say that because, in all likelihood, a lot of them would vote for Alan Keyes...which is about as close as you can get to wasting your vote.

There was a time in my life when I would agree with you about ignoring rabble rousers, however, life's lessons have taught me that this attitude was a mistake.

Hmmmmm,

let's see D....you wouldn't call this as republican thing, BUT

how come elected Republican representatives Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Bill Posey of Florida has sponsored legislation regarding birth certificates and Rep. Randy Neugebauer from Texas went on a radio show publically saying he does not know if Obama is a citizen...

now that is just 3 ELECTED Republican congressman..and you know I could on and on with those Republicans who have insinuated....and yet you won't cast this on the GOP when you have Representative with R's behind their names peddling this AND introducing legislation supporting these birther conspiracies.

This mess is all up and ingrained in the Republican Party PERIOD.

and you wonder why most people will NOT take the Republican message seriously.

See what I said above.

Bernie Sanders- KICKING ASSES AND TAKING NAMES ON HEALTHCARE

Yes, you John McShame!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk

See this is how folks get this civil rights and comparing gays and blacks as the same twisted. Cardin just did exactly that...talking about gays then a black being dragged in TX, as examples of folks he wants the court to uphold their civil rights.

This stuff makes me furious!!

Cardin is now throwing in Loving, with Roe v. Wade...he is mixing all this stuff up, and it is horrible.

AP: It's Obama's Economy Now

" WASHINGTON – With four simple words — "Give it to me!" — President Barack Obama took possession of the economy.

For months, the White House and Obama's economic team have laid the economic crisis at the feet of President George W. Bush. But there comes a point in a presidency when inheritance becomes ownership. Obama made that pivot Tuesday in Michigan, the state suffering the worst unemployment in the nation.

"I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, 'Well, this is Obama's economy,'" the president said in a pointed deviation from his prepared text. "That's fine. Give it to me!"

It was a defiant moment, reminiscent of Bush's own "Bring 'em on!" taunt in 2003 to militants in Iraq."

Heh.

Aren't conservatives suppose to be about the "ownership society"? I swear conservatives don't ever "own up" to any of their failures.

I'm not sure I would've said "Give it to me!" just like I'm not sure I would've said "Bring 'em on!"

That kind of bravado only works when the odds are on your side. They weren't for Bush, and they're not for Obama in this case...

Obama is counter-punching. He throwing his opponents' accusation back in their faces. But I understand what you are saying.

I guess the conservative brain just cant get the concept of responsibility.I know republicans like to use the word but when have they ever step-up and accepted the f*ck ups that has us in this mess.

They'll accept responsibility on the first of Neveruary.

Neveruary... I'm using that one!

A 15-year-old Los Angeles girl who navigated a single-engine Cessna through thunderstorms in Texas and took in breathtaking aerial views of Arizona’s sunsets — landed her plane to cheering crowds at Compton Woodley Airport today, becoming the youngest African American female pilot to fly solo across country.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/07/t...

good post Conserv

What? You think JJP didn't discuss this and praise this young aviator 4-5 days ago... when it happened?!?

Glad you can recognize something other than the hate you usually spew.

Can u believe this Coryn? Asking Sotomayor how could she disregard those white folks efforts and hard work to pass the exam, and doesn't she owe them an explanation?

WTF?!!

This is unbeliiiievable white entitlement...judges do not give explanations to LOSERS

That level of entitlement is so ingrained there is no way they'll ever see it.

Sotomayor has received so-so reviews thus far but she will be confirmed.

What do you think of this analysis:

"The Republican argument is that Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor not because she was the best possible candidate and not because she was a moderate, but strictly for political purposes. None of this will affect her tenure on the Supreme Court, but it will provide further evidence that Obama has a big problem in selecting people for his administration, and that there seems to be little effort at vetting nominees for important positions.

Every prevarication and stumble Sotomayor makes deepens the impression that Obama is not a competent executive. That’s the real danger for Obama in these hearings."

"Every prevarication and stumble Sotomayor makes deepens the impression that Obama is not a competent executive. That’s the real danger for Obama in these hearings."

aaahh yea ok right -- -

GOP Complains Of Vague Responses From Sotomayor

Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are growing increasingly frustrated with what they claim is a vagueness to Judge Sonia Sotomayor's responses to their questions about past speeches or lines of judicial thought.

Speaking before reporters after the first portion of Wednesday's hearing, Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) bemoaned what they saw as a lack of forthright answers, arguing that the nominee was depriving the Senate of crucial information about what would be a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/15/gop-co...

Looks like the only one stumbling is the GOP as they fall over each other whining to the media. lol silly silly GOP

Yeah, thanks for that maverick confirmation prediction.

This analysis of Obams's "big problem selecting people for his administration" is incomplete without a good context for just how big these incompetent executive decisions are. So please tell us, just how big is Obama's selection dysfunction?

Is it Cheney big?
Ashcroft big?
Rumsfeld big?
John Snow big?
Gonzales big?
Bernard Kerik big?
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," big?

Sarah Palin for VP big?

Mark Sanford "Appalachin Trail" big?

Can you please provide a link of these reviews?

I can do that for ya!
stormfront.org
freerepublic.com
foxnation.com

No wonder he took the cowards way and didnt reply.

Oh really! Everybody he nominates is a reflection of his competence? The negative impressions people have of Obama’s intellect and competence will not be rectified by anything he says or does. Just as nothing judge Sotomayor could say will ever satisfy the GOP. Any reflections of incompetence that rub off on Obama will come from the, (I can’t stop doing business with the lobbyists and pass your bills) Congress.

Back with the cut and pasting, eh.....

And while your minions continue their desperation and show their true colors and "fear of color", there are right-wing groups hiding behind the farce of the name "Committee for Justice" linking Sotomayor to "Puerto Rican terorists" along with Bill Ayers in the mix.....huh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3o8hHTAcPI

mofos can't be serious....they can't even be original.....hell, that was last year's played out bullshit.....no wonder "anti-intellectualism" is the banner Rethugs cling to, they simply cannot keep up with the competition and continue to unleash the most mediocre, scandal ridden, hypocritical politicians......it must stink for Rethugs to look in the mirror and get sick at their own disgusting reflection.......Get an extreme makeover, already DAMN

Sonia Sotomayer has an impeccable record. She is well qualified without a doubt. So so reviews? Says who, old racist white men? These hearings are a joke. We see the haters!

Please, if anything the nomination of Sotomayor by Obama further illustrates the rabid white male entitlement of not only the supreme court, but of Washington politics as well.

I sincerely hope Latina voters are watching the antics of Graham, Sessions, Hatch, et,al. crying reverse racism and trying to paint Sotomayor as racist. It's ugly, yet predictable. We see them.

It is about the WHITE man's fears. PERIOD

The only danger and its not even a danger, more of a reality - is that the GOP has effectively alienated the Latino community and there is great video to remind everyone just what a bunch of assclowns the GOP leadership is for the 2010 races.

I think her confirmation doesn't have a thing to do with Obama and everything to do with how she is emminently qualified with a judicial record that supports her fidelity to the law.

There is no danger to Obama, there is a danger to America if those assholes in the Senate continue with their divisiveness along racial lines of creating the perception that the SCOTUS is not impartial. Even as an Italian American rules in favor of Italian Americans as a justice of SCOTUS having blatantly told the Senators in HIS confirmation hearings that he would do precisely that. Aliton is the reason this country is in danger of tyranny.

Not Obama, not Sotomayor.

Whose reviews? Who decides who is the best candidate, your white male brethren?I hope this pick was for political purposes if only to slow down the right wing picks that were for political purposes.

I think it's pure spin that means nothing. Sotomayor's confirmation will not deepen any sort of negative impression of Obama...except among the people who don't intend to vote for him in the first place.

Fuck Coryn. These fucking CRACKAS owe Blacks and other POC an EXPLANATION for disregarding our HARD work in the building America while under the crack of a whip.

Exactly! No ethnic/race of people have worked hard than AA's in this country with so little to show for it, as it enriched those who to this day claim white entitlement and supremacy!1

This is a farce, expecting her to recognition these people when she ruled as an appellate judge must, following precedent, only the SCOTUS gets to disregard and set new precedent.

I hate this type of white entitlement...HATE IT!

Asking Sotomayor how could she disregard those white folks efforts and hard work to pass the exam, and doesn't she owe them an explanation?


It's brazen white entitlement!

I hope the Hispanic voters in our state of Texas hand Cornyn his ass!

So, do I.

However, I understand that many Mexicans in the Hispanic community are not really paying attention to this, and TX has more Mexicans of Hispanic descendent than S. Americans/PRicans...the split is interesting...cause you know those Cubans, think they are better than Mexicans.

Don't you know if Sotomayor was a Black woman disrespected by a hateful bunch of bigots, Black people would be all over the TV; I assure you somebody would have apologized to the judge for their nasty attitude. I just don’t understand how the Latino community can sit silent during this clown fest. I have to hand to her; she is as cool as Obama. I wanted to reach out and slap someone myself.

This underscores the schisms WITHIN the hispanic community it is far more diverse than with the AA community. The Cubans don't like Mexicans, both don't like Spainards, and the Central Americans are not enamored of the S. Americans...big cultural differences. Amongst people who do not come from lands with these type of ethnic differences within the culture so much as economic oppression.

Mexicans in the USA have experienced both like AA and they are not into Sotomayor...in fact Linda Chavez (ugh) is a witness for the GOP!!

Sotomayor knows just like Obama did that the last thing she can be during this week is a 'hotblooded Latina" just as Obama during the primaries could not be an 'angryblack male'...both have had lots of training in dealing with people who are powerful and possess the intelligence of a gnat.

That is what is on display here...ittybitty minds in power vs. powerful intellect

Today's Conversation:
If Wanting The Best Lives for Black Women & Girls Is "Political" or "Radical" Just Call Me Angela!
http://tinyurl.com/nwstl4

jesus john cornyn is enjoying pretending to be incredibly stupid in this hearing.

Trust, He is not pretending.

The President did good with the first pitch! Woo Hoo! :)

Nancy Drew, Supreme
What a Girl Detective Helped Teach a Judge

By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Doubtless thousands of other women's ears perked up when Sen. Charles Schumer, introducing Sonia Sotomayor at Monday's confirmation hearing, mentioned the Latina jurist's girlhood affection for Nancy Drew books.

The smart, plucky girl-detective was a role model for many women who recognized themselves in Nancy -- including Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Sandra Day O'Connor and Laura Bush, to name a few.

Add yours truly to the list.

There is more.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

RNC Chairman Touts 'Historic Link' to NAACP
Steele Is Trying to Rejuvenate Relationship Between His Party and Black Voters
By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 15, 2009

NEW YORK, July 14 -- Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele continued Tuesday with the campaign he has come to call the "Freedom Tour," which is his attempt to revive the relationship between black voters and the GOP. This stop: a sales call at the 100th convention of the NAACP.

"We have a connection, and it is important and appropriate to recognize that," Steele said in a speech, harkening back to his roots in his local NAACP chapter in Prince George's County. "We have a historic link."

The NAACP visit was personal and professional for the first black man to lead the GOP, as were the stops he has made in Detroit and South Side Chicago, where his staff joked that his appearance was probably the first time a Republican chairman had ever been to that part of town.

In the past, Steele's place as one of the NAACP's most prominent Republican members has been awkward.

Five years ago, when President George W. Bush opted not to attend the association's convention, Steele said Bush was "not hurting himself at all" by not appearing and that the group's leadership had "put the NAACP dangerously close to being branded as just an arm of the Democratic Party."

Since becoming chairman in January, however, Steele has chosen to emphasize his ties to the NAACP, and in Tuesday's speech, he sought to tighten those ties even more, saying that he intended to depart from the "complete Republican's guide to speaking to African Americans."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

School-age children will be a key target population for a pandemic flu vaccine in the fall, and they may be vaccinated at school in a mass campaign not seen since the polio epidemics of the 1950s

Students 1st in Line For Flu Vaccine: Mass Campaign Against Pandemic May Begin in Fall

The federal government should get about 100 million doses of vaccine by mid-October, if the current production by five companies goes as planned. But enough vaccine for wide use by the 120 million people especially vulnerable to the newly emerged strain of H1N1 influenza virus will not be available until later in the fall.

Those were among the messages administration officials delivered to about 500 state, territorial, city and tribal health officials yesterday at a "flu summit" at the National Institutes of Health's Bethesda campus.

President Obama, speaking by audio link from the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, urged "complete ownership" of preparations for what he termed a "significant outbreak" of H1N1 flu in the next few months.

"We want to make sure that we are not promoting panic, but we are promoting vigilance and preparation," he said. He added that "the most important thing for us to do is to make sure that state and local officials prepare now to implement a vaccination program in the fall."

Children, pregnant women, adults with chronic illnesses, and health-care workers would probably be first in line for the vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the gathering.

---

Read another post here on JJP: WHO says new flu unstoppable and calls for vaccine; New virus resembles 1918 virus; Scientists Resurrect Deadly Flu Virus.

I am deeply conflicted on this subject, mainly because there is no denying that the U.S. resurrected the 1918 virus and now, our kids, the elderly, and the medically challenged are the targets of this massive vaccine campaign because it is said to be unstoppable ..

Iranian plane crashes after fire, killing 168
Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:10am EDT

By Zahra Hosseinian and Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A Tupolev aircraft crashed in Iran on Wednesday on its way to Armenia killing all 168 people on board and one senior Iranian official said the plane had caught fire in the air after suffering technical problems.

In the worst crash in Iran for six years, the Russian-built Caspian Airlines plane plowed into farmland with 153 passengers and 15 crew on board, gouging a deep smoking crater in the ground.

The aircraft, traveling to Armenia's capital Yerevan from Tehran, crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin shortly before noon (0730 GMT) after about 16 minutes in the air.

Eight members of Iran's national junior judo team and two coaches were among the dead as well as a former Iranian MP representing Iran's Armenian minority and, reportedly, the wife of the head of Georgia's diplomatic mission in Iran.

Weeping relatives and friends gathered at Yerevan airport where a notice on a wall listed people who were on board. Iran is home to thousands of ethnic Armenians. Doctors treated relatives for shock and heart problems.

Fina Karapetian, an Armenian in her 30s, said her sister and two nephews, 11 and 6, were on board the crashed plane. "I heard everyone in the aircraft has died. What will I do without Armen and Vahe," she said, before fainting.

"The Tupolev plane has been totally destroyed and the corpses, unfortunately, have been totally burned and destroyed," Qazvin police commander Massoud Jafarinasab told the semi-official Fars News Agency.

Iranian television showed footage of debris and body parts and a smoking trench with mangled pieces of metal scattered around. Smoke rose from the site as police and bystanders gathered around.

Senior Iranian provincial official, Sirous Saberi, said the aircraft had had technical problems and tried to make an emergency landing. "Unfortunately the plane caught fire in the air and it crashed," he told Fars.

A witness said he had seen the plane's left engine on fire in the air, state broadcaster IRIB said.

But state radio said the pilot had made no mention of any technical problem in a taped conversation with a control tower.

"On board the plane there were 151 adults, 2 children and 15 crew members," Caspian Airline's representative in Yerevan Arlen Davudyan told Reuters at the airport.

"Fifteen or sixteen minutes after take-off the plane fell near the Iranian city Qazvin about 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Tehran," he said, adding it was a Tu-154 and the cause of the crash was not clear nor had the black box been found.

MAJOR DISASTER

"It's been a major disaster with pieces of aircraft spread over an area of 200 sq meters," a fire brigade official said. Continued...

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTR...

May I go a bit shallow for a moment and ask what the crap is going on with the Huffington Post? It appears the trolls have found a haven to exploit snarkiness. Not to mention the infatuation with the Sarkozys, comparing them to the Obamas. Carla is not all that!

It's likely the maggots from the cesspool of freeperville spreading their unique view of the world in an effort to deflect attention from their flap. Other boards/forums are also suddenly being overwhelmed with dissenters too.

The sound and the fury at Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings signify almost nothing. Yet they still tell us almost everything we need to know about race and politics in the age of Obama.

Sotomayor opponents employ race baiting

No matter how much drama Senate Republicans wish to concoct, it is practically a foregone conclusion that Sotomayor will win confirmation and thus become the first Supreme Court justice of Hispanic heritage, and only the third woman to serve on the nation's highest court.

So as a matter of Supreme Court politics, the incendiary arguments of Sotomayor's Republican opponents amount to gruel spooned out to the party's base, shrunken and demoralized after repeated electoral losses and scandals. Unless Sotomayor suffers a "complete meltdown," Republican Sen.Lindsey Graham of South Carolina predicted, she will be confirmed.


The price, though, is barely coded race baiting that has been part of the assault on Sotomayor since her nomination was announced. And it dominates the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. The opening statement by Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the panel — whose own bid for a federal judgeship in the 1980s was turned down because of his track record against African-American voting rights — was a masterwork of this ancient art.

The senator pre-emptively declared that he would not vote for a judge who uses the "empathy standard" in deciding cases — a reference to the sensitivity toward average people that President Obama said he looked for in nominees, and which has been transformed by the political right into code for favoring blacks or other ethnic minorities over whites. Sessions seemed to predict nothing short of the collapse of American law as we know it if Sotomayor is confirmed: "Down one path is the traditional American legal system, so admired around the world, where judges impartially apply the law to the facts without regard to their own personal views," Sessions declared. "This is the compassionate system because it is the fair system."

Community College Organizer
What Obama wants to do for entry-level higher ed.
By Christopher Beam
Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009, at 7:33 PM ET

There's a joke among snooty Boston-area high-school kids: If they don't get good grades, they'll end up at Cape Cod Community College, or "4 C's by the Sea." In suburban Washington, D.C., the punch line is Maryland's Montgomery College, or "M.K." for short. Kids in Houston use San Jacinto College, long known as "Harvard on the Highway."

Community colleges don't get a lot of respect. Except, as of this week, from President Obama. In a speech Tuesday in Warren, Mich., he proposed sinking nearly $12 billion into revamping the country's community-college system. The plan would provide $9 billion in grant money to boost academic programs and raise graduation rates, plus another $2.5 billion to upgrade school facilities. It would also fund open-source online courses so that schools don't have to build more classrooms to admit more students.


The point isn't to turn Harvard on the Highway into actual Harvard. Even if the government gave all $12 billion to one community college, it wouldn't be as rich as the World's Greatest University. Nor is the purpose merely to improve the image of community colleges. And it's not to encourage enrollment: With the economy tanking and tuitions at four-year colleges and universities exploding, community colleges are in the rare position of having to turn people away. "We're bursting at the seams," says Gail Mellow, president of LaGuardia Community College in New York City, which saw a 25 percent increase in students over last year.

Rather, the plan is designed to correct decades of federal neglect. "Too often, community colleges are treated like an afterthought—if they're thought of at all," Obama said in his speech. Right now, somewhere between one-third and one-half of American undergrads are at community colleges, depending how you count. Yet community colleges receive only 20 percent of federal funding. "We've been so focused on the quality and reputation of our lead institutions" at the expense of community colleges, says Thomas Bailey of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University. (That's right: Not even the community college research center is based at a community college.) "The biggest issue in higher education has been affirmative action." Racial preference isn't a problem when you don't turn anyone away.

That model is outdated, says Mellow: "We live in a knowledge economy, and we've set up education as if we're an agrarian culture." It used to be that you could educate the top 10 percent, he said, and the rest of the population would get unskilled jobs. But in a global economy, where even professions like cashier or truck driver require constant upgrades in technology and information, a high-school diploma is not always enough. That said, a pricey Ivy League degree may not be necessary, either. Community colleges fill that hole.


http://www.slate.com/id/2222570?nav=wp

According to Roland Martin on the TJMS this morning, approximately 46% of undergrads attend a CoCo (or JuCo, depending on your geography). At the same time, 4 year colleges have received over $20 billion dollars over the past 10 years, compared to $1 billion received by community colleges. Yet the population of CoCo's is almost half the total population of college undergrads. Huge disparity.

Instead of fighting with dirty, trigger-happy cops, the NAACP should have been acting up about *this*. While not directly racial, there is a definite disparate impact on Black and Brown communities when the path to good jobs only goes through colleges that we can't afford.

How 'bout ... At the same time NAACP is fighting with trigger happy cops, they should also act up about the disparity of funding for community colleges.

The Real Court Radicals
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Monday, July 13, 2009

This week's hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court represent the opening skirmish in a long-term struggle to challenge the escalating activism of an increasingly conservative judiciary.


The Senate's Republican minority does not expect to derail Sotomayor, who would be the first Hispanic and only the third woman to serve on the court, and they realize that their attack lines against her have failed to ignite public attention, or even much interest.

Her restrained record as a lower-court judge has made it impossible to cast her credibly as a liberal judicial activist. "They haven't laid a glove on her," said Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), her leading Senate supporter.

Yet none of this diminishes the importance of the Senate drama that opens today, because the argument that began 40 years ago over the political and philosophical direction of the judiciary has reached a critical moment. Under Chief Justice John Roberts, conservatives have finally established a majority on the court that is beginning to work its will.

Republican senators know that Sotomayor's accession to the high court will not change this, since she is replacing Justice David Souter, a member of the court's liberal minority. But they want to use the hearings to paint the moderately liberal Sotomayor as, at best, the outer limit of what is acceptable on the bench to justify the new conservative activism that is about to become the rule.

"They have more or less given up on defeating her, so they are going to engage in a framing exercise," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. "They're trying to define a Republican worldview imported into the judiciary as the judicial norm for the country."


The goal, Whitehouse added, "is to define the political ideology" of the new conservative judiciary as "representing the mainstream and to tarnish any judges who are outside that mark."

If you wonder what judicial activism looks like, consider one of the court's final moves in its spring term.

The justices had before them a simple case, involving a group called Citizens United, that could have been disposed of on narrow grounds. The organization had asked to be exempt from the restrictions embodied in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law for a movie critical of Hillary Clinton that it produced during last year's presidential campaign. Citizens United says it should not have to disclose who paid for the film.

Rather than decide the case before it, the court engaged in a remarkable exercise of judicial overreach. It postponed its decision, called for new briefs and scheduled a hearing this September on the broader question of whether corporations should be allowed to spend money to elect or defeat particular candidates.

What the court was saying was that it wanted to revisit a 19-year-old precedent that barred such corporate interference in the electoral process. That 1990 ruling upheld what has been the law of the land since 1947, when the Taft-Hartley Act banned independent expenditures by both corporations and labor unions.

To get a sense of just how extreme (and, yes, activist) such an approach would be, consider that laws restricting corporate activity in elections go all the way back to the Tillman Act of 1907, which prohibited corporations from giving directly to political campaigns.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Unasked Question about Sam Alito

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Sam Alito used his opening statement to emphasize how his experience as an Italian-American influences his judicial decision-making (video is here):

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, "You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country" . . . .

When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.

Two weeks ago, Alito cast the deciding vote in Ricci v. DeStefano, an intensely contested affirmative action case. He did so by ruling in favor of the Italian-American firefighters, finding that they were unlawfully discriminated against, even though the district court judge who heard all the evidence and the three-judge appellate panel ruled against them and dismissed their case. Notably, the majority Supreme Court opinion Alito joined (.pdf) began by highlighting not the relevant legal doctrine, but rather, the emotional factors that made the Italian-American-plaintiffs empathetic.

Did Alito's Italian-American ethnic background cause him to cast his vote in favor of the Italian-American plaintiffs? Has anyone raised that question? Given that he himself said that he "do[es] take that into account" -- and given that Sonia Sotomayor spent 6 straight hours today being accused by GOP Senators and Fox News commentators of allowing her Puerto Rican heritage to lead her to discriminate against white litigants -- why isn't that question being asked about Alito's vote in Ricci?

Also: if empathy is irrelevant to judicial decision-making, why are GOP Senators calling Frank Ricci as a witness at this hearing? Since he's obviously not there to testify about the strict legalistic doctrines governing his claims, but instead is only there to trumpet the facts that make him "sympathetic" so that people will emotionally react against Sotomayor's ruling (his dyslexia, the amount he spent on books and tutors, his hopes for a promotion), isn't everything he has to say totally irrelevant pursuant to the GOP's alleged judicial principles?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/...

Or, why are the Republicans accusing Sotomayor of judicial activism (cuz ya know, that is BAD), but they are mad at her for not ruling in their favor in the Ricci case, which would have been, ya know, judicial activism?

Right, cause it's all about their white man entitlement. They could give two flying fucks if that fireman had been Latina and Sotomayor's decision had been the same.

Now these crackas need her to assuage their FEARS of racial discrimination.... GMAFB!

Did you see how Sessions pretty much chastised Sotomayor because the ruling he wanted in a particular case wasn't achieved because Sotomayor didn't vote the same way another judge "of Puerto Rican descent" voted?

And he made the statement with absolutely not a hint of irony in his voice....that was truly astounding to me. That kind of cluelessness could only come naturally.

And he made the statement with absolutely not a hint of irony in his voice....that was truly astounding to me.


Bold-faced!

Oh we SEE the GOP, and their ignorance is glaring. So glad this is the last day of this circus.

Ricci is the White man's SYMPATHY/EMPATHY card.

Obviously, Ricci will give the lie to Sotomayor being an empathy judge.
Sotomayor unlike Alito, set aside empathy, to rule by the law and be impartial.

White entitlement though is just the opposite, and THAT is why they are soooo intimidated.

It is the age old catch-22 we who have been discriminated against on the basis of ethnicity refuse to use our power blatantly to rule in favor of our ethnicity. No such ethics and compunction exist in whites, time and time again they rule in favor of their own ethnic bkgrd as Alito did.

That is why southern/white males are frightened they are AFRAID of their own INJUSTICE the HATE in their own HEARTS the overarching ENTITLEMENT they use their POWER to ensure...white supremacy ...will become black/hispanic/POC supremacy.

God knows I wish POC would play the same entitlement card, but alas I know all to well, that having been the victims of such injustice we have more of a hate for injustice than we do a lust for vengenance.

Cruel irony...as I would looove to see white entitlement not only ripped to shreds but for them to go to court and have the judges name Rodriguez, Shabazz and Sotomayor rule time and time again against them and in favor of plantiffs named, Muhammed, Jorge, and Alejandro.

There it is, right there, WRB

"That is why southern/white males are frightened they are AFRAID of their own INJUSTICE the HATE in their own HEARTS the overarching ENTITLEMENT they use their POWER to ensure...white supremacy ...will become black/hispanic/POC supremacy."

Gold Rush In Alaska
By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, July 8, 2009

When you're up to your waders in barracuda, blame the media.

And quit your job.

And say you did it for the people.

And hire an agent.

And try to keep a straight face.

On your way to the bank.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, H.L. Mencken once said. Terribly elitist fellow, that Mencken. If only he were alive to witness the phenomenon of Sarah Palin, whose biography validates every cynical thought that ever found expression in his prolific prose.


Let's just say, Palin is in no danger of going broke. From her book contract alone, she never has to worry about money again, according to one close insider.

She may be politically dead -- "If I die, I die. So be it," as Palin recently put it -- but that depends on how one defines politics. In fact, adding mystery to confoundedness, Palin has enough supporters and fundraising potential to put a ground game in play in a matter of seconds. Just to toss in a sports metaphor, if I may.

Meanwhile, getting real, can we stop pretending that Palin is interested in anything other than her own ambition?

Can we also stop nodding assent every time she says the media are to blame for her self-inflicted wounds? The media invented Sarah Palin. Before the media shined their light on those no-place-like-home slippers, does anyone recall ever wondering what a governor of Alaska was up to?

Not that Alaska isn't a beautiful, wildlife- and resource-rich state. And not that we don't all admire the rugged, frontier spirit that makes Alaskans our kind of Americans. But it took the benighted East Coast media to put one Sarah Palin on the map of the lower 48.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

LOL.....they are so sick of her...omg....the smart girls are not about to let the ditzy airhead come up in here and run shit, they're just not taking it anymore.

Parker's not holding back. The media made the 'Sno Ho, and she is complicit.

'Socialized Medicine? Bring It On
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, July 14, 2009

When I was in the Army and known to my friends as "Combat Cohen," I could not get over the fact that, during an era of almost universal military service, the American public supported high Pentagon spending despite firsthand knowledge of astounding waste and theft. I cite, for instance, the well-known and frequently witnessed pillaging of food by mess sergeants. From tasting their stuff, I can say that theft is what they did best.


Now I am similarly perplexed. Many, if not most, Americans have some experience with our nation's mostly private health-care system. Yet they still fall prey to the scare tactic that nothing -- but nothing -- could be worse than a government takeover of the system. How things could be worse than they are now, I cannot imagine.

In the past two months, I have spent many hours accompanying a loved one to hospital emergency rooms -- all of them privately operated. The rap on what is sometimes called socialized medicine is that if the government ran the system, the wait would be interminable. Well, I am here to tell you that even when the government does not run the system, the wait can be interminable.

And uncomfortable. In one hospital there was not enough space in the emergency room for all those seeking treatment. My friend got moved from a bed -- where she was relatively comfortable -- to a wheelchair in the hallway. There she sat, in agony, for about six hours. Something similar happened at another emergency room, though this time she was given a cot. The wait, though, was just as long.

The emergency room has become the equivalent of the family doctor. It is where you go if you don't have a family doctor or if you do have a family doctor -- and it's after hours or the weekend. It is also where you sometimes have to go in order to be admitted to a hospital. The staff is mostly courteous, sometimes wonderfully solicitous, but the constant triaging of new people can put you on a treadmill to nowhere. The emergency room is the great leveler of American life. Everyone gets miserable treatment.


On Friday, Bill Moyers interviewed Wendell Potter about health care and such matters. Potter is the former head of corporate communications for Cigna, the nation's fourth-largest health insurer. By his own characterization, he is one of those insurance executives who flew from meeting to meeting in private planes and hardly ever touched ground to meet real people. One day he did. He went to an outdoor health clinic over the Virginia border from his home town in Tennessee. This is what he told Moyers:

"What I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. Or they'd erected tents to care for people. . . . And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee -- all over the region."

Thank God we don't have socialized medicine.

Into this debate about the role of government in medical care, I come jaded by experience. In addition to having been Combat Cohen, I was also Cohen of Claims when I worked for an insurance company. This means that whenever someone says something about "government bureaucrats," I smile because I was once a non-government bureaucrat. It is not government bureaucrats who say that certain treatments will not be covered, and it is not the government that purges insurance rolls of the sick or the old, and it is not the government that makes money -- lots of money -- on health insurance. It is private enterprise.

But as Potter points out, the insurance industry sets out to spook the public with talk of "socialized medicine," "government bureaucrats" and "government-run health care." My loved one recently had to return to the emergency room because she was dehydrated. Her insurance company listed the reasons someone could return, and dehydration was one of them. They still denied her claim. The government had nothing to do with it.

The ongoing health-care debate is complex -- not as interesting as Michael Jackson or Sarah Palin. But in deciding what to do and who to support in the current attempt to reform health care, don't rely on insurance industry propaganda, but on your own experience. Recall the last time you went to the emergency room and ask yourself whether the government could possibly do a worse job. If the answer is yes, you might need medical attention more than you realize.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Good Morning. Your mid-week jam.Enjoy
Isley Brothers - Summer Breeze
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHZEyI8EY9I

Gee, that experience was like I had been missing something but didn't know what it was. Who in the blazes is that guitarist? Wow!!!

Ernie Isley.

Ernie Isley.If you ever get a chance to see the Isley Brothers live don't miss it.You wont be disappointed.

When is Mr. Big being released from the feds?

He got 37 months for tax evasion and the sentence was upheld in 08.So around 2012.

Thanks

thanks

Good morning fam

There is an online demonstration by Nigerian people/youths to let the Govt know dat we are tired of the incompetence of PHCN-d (electricity) entity responsible 4 power supply.
Since yesterday we took to twitter and facebook to have our voices heard...please join us in the movement


If u are on twitter, you can go abt ur business but just add the hashtag #lightupnigeria to keep the trend going.....

Here are links on this:
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=10457...
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23lightupnigeria
http://africathecontinent.blogspot.com/2009/07/...

tanx