Archive for February 5th, 2014

05
Feb
14

Night Owl Chat – Etta James, live at Montreux, 1993

By Liberal Librarian 60 Comments
Categories: All Videos and Music

Chat on, night owls!

05
Feb
14

A Tweet or Two

By Chipsticks 104 Comments
Categories: All Photos

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05
Feb
14

Get Schooled

By Chipsticks 106 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Michelle Obama

@FLOTUS

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Transcript:

Hi! My name is Michelle Obama and I’m first!

Neither of my parents graduated from college, so when I got to campus as a freshman, I’ll admit I was a little overwhelmed.  I didn’t know how to choose my classes or find the right classrooms. I didn’t even know how to furnish my own dorm room. In fact, when I moved in, I realized that I hadn’t even packed the right size sheets for my bed.  Mine were way too short. So that first night, I slept with my legs sticking out past the end of the sheets, rubbing up against one of those old plastic mattresses… and I ended up sleeping that way for my entire freshman year.

But here’s the thing – I may not have had the right sheets, but I learned pretty quickly that I had what it took to succeed in college.

Sure, there were moments when I had doubts.  At first, I even worried that maybe I just wasn’t as smart as some of my classmates.  But soon enough I realized that that was all in my head.  I was just as smart as everyone else – and I had just as much to contribute – I just had to have the confidence to believe in myself and the determination to work hard and ask for help when I needed it.

So that’s my message to all of you – no matter where you come from or how much money your family has, I want you to know that you can succeed in college, and get your degree, and then go on to build an incredible life for yourself.

That’s been my life story, and my husband’s as well.  And if you’re willing to put in the time and the effort, I want you to know that it can be your story too.

So I want to wish you the best of luck in the years ahead… I know you can do it.

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First Lady Michelle Obama speaks to students at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., Feb. 5, during a workshop to help students fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Mrs. Obama told students that filling out the FAFSA is a pivotal step toward finishing their education beyond high school.

First Lady Michelle Obama poses with parents and students after she delivers remarks at a Free Application for Federal Student Aid Workshop at T.C. Williams High School-King Street Campus in Alexandria, Virginia

05
Feb
14

The strange case of Russia, gays, Snowden, and Greenwald

By Liberal Librarian 117 Comments
Categories: Articles

The following is a trailer for a documentary airing on Channel 4 in the UK. Entitled “Hunted”, it is a harrowing look at the lives gays lead in Putin’s Russia.

The Mirror newspaper has a write up on the documentary.

She discovered only 1% of homosexuals are openly gay, and the reason for this is very simple.

Vigilante gangs are on the lookout for targets and trying to infiltrate gay chat rooms or find gay men on social media.

Once found, the men are lured to a meeting place and captured like animals before they are beaten and filmed. It is common for them to have urine poured on them and to be left with permanent injuries.

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But most of the gangs believe they are doing “good work”, link gay men with paedophiles, and see no shame in what they are doing.

This is the reality facing gay Russians. As we transition into the winter Olympics in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, the games will be held in a country whose president says the country must cleanse itself of homosexuality, even as he makes assurances that gays will be welcome for the Olympics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered new assurances to gay athletes and fans attending the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics next month. Yet he defends Russia’s anti-gay law by equating gays with pedophiles and says Russia needs to “cleanse” itself of homosexuality if it wants to increase its birth rate.

The Games will be held in a country where its legislature passed anti-gay laws in 2013 criminalizing disseminating gay “propaganda” to minors, out of a fear that doing so will make those children gay, with, of course, right wing US pundits applauding and lauding countries like Russia.

Continue reading ‘The strange case of Russia, gays, Snowden, and Greenwald’

05
Feb
14

Rise and Shine

By Nerdy Wonka 110 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Articles
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

On This Day: President Obama greets a young visitor in the Oval Office, Feb. 5, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Presidential Daily Schedule (All Times Eastern):

10:45: President Obama receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

11:30: Meets with senior advisors

1:45: Meets with Democratic Senators at the Senate Democratic Issues Conference; Washington Nationals Park

4:0: Meets with Treasury Secretary Lew

4:45: Meets with Secretary of State Kerry

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Michael Hiltzik: Why The New CBO Report On Obamacare Is Good News

The Congressional Budget Office is out with its latest report on the Affordable Care Act, and here are a few bottom lines:

— The ACA is cheaper than it expected.

— It will “markedly increase” the number of Americans with health insurance.

— The risk-adjustment provisions, which Congressional Republicans want to overturn as a “bailout” of the insurance industry, will actually turn a profit to the U.S. Treasury.

…. The ACA will increase the number of Americans with health insurance by 13 million this year, 20 million next year, and 25 million a year from then through 2024. Some 80% of those enrollees will be receiving federal subsidies to keep their coverage affordable.

There will be fewer uninsured people living in the United States, and most of those with individual coverage will be getting help to pay for it. Is there another other conclusion to draw from those statistics than the Affordable Care Act is working?

Full article here

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Washington Post: The media’s massive revisions on CBO-Obamacare story

The Post’s Glenn Kessler today published a fact-checking post breaking some news: No, he wrote, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) never, ever reported that Obamacare would somehow or other kill more than 2 million U.S. jobs.

Okay, to say that Kessler broke this news is a rhetorical exaggeration to highlight the point that many-o-many media outlets misconstrued the CBO findings. For a while this morning, the Internet was hopping with job-killing hype, when in fact the truth was vastly different. Obamacare’s impact, the CBO concluded, would lessen the supply of labor by encouraging certain folks not to work: “The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked. . . .”

For someone approaching retirement, notes Kessler, Obamacare could well mean that they needn’t hold onto a bad job just to keep health insurance. That’s a far different dynamic from job-killing.

More here

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Image: Supreme Court Upholds Obama's Affordable Care Act

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Steve Benen: CBO Delivers Welcome News To Obamacare Backers

If Republican press releases and reports from conservative and major media outlets are any indication, the Congressional Budget Office’s findings on the Affordable Care Act are simply brutal. National Review, which probably published its report before actually looking at the CBO’s findings, ran this headline: “The CBO Just Nuked Obamacare.”

As we discussed earlier, the coverage has been profoundly misleading. Despite what Americans are being told, the CBO did not find that the health care reform law would cost the nation over 2 million jobs. What it actually said is that the law will empower more than 2 million Americans to leave the workforce if they want to, no longer feeling forced to stay at a job in order to have benefits for them and their family.

Why “Obamacare” critics consider this a bad thing remains unclear….

More here

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ThinkProgress: Obamacare Finally Gives Workers The Freedom Conservatives Demanded

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office projected that The Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by 2.3 million in 2021, leading critics to seize on the claim as evidence that the health care law is undermining job growth.

But that’s not what the CBO actually said. In fact, CBO economists write that “[t]he estimated reduction [in labor] stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor.” Americans won’t be losing their jobs, but people who are only working to maintain access to their employer sponsored health insurance plans will be able to leave the workforce or work fewer hours because they can obtain coverage elsewhere. That’s a goal that prominent Republicans, conservative think tanks and policy analysts have supported for years…..

More here

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National Memo: Obamacare — The Greatest Pro-Life Victory Ever  

A new report finds that between 2008 and 2011, the abortion rate hit its lowest point since 1973, when Roe v. Wade declared access to the procedure a Constitutional right.

The rate fell 13 percent to 16.9 per 1,000 women in 2011, down from its peak of 29.3 per 1,000 in 1981.

While conservatives want to claim credit for the decline with onerous restrictions on a woman’s right to choose, the availability of contraception and family planning deserve most of the credit, according to the Guttmacher Institute’s Rachel Jones, the lead author of the study.

More here

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Yahoo: New Report: Budget Deficit To Drop To $514B

A new report released Tuesday says the government’s budget deficit is set to fall to $514 billion for the current year, down substantially from last year and the lowest by far since President Barack Obama took office five years ago. The Congressional Budget Office report credits higher tax revenues from the rebounding economy and sharp curbs on agency spending as the chief reason for the deficit’s short-term decline.

Last year’s deficit registered $680 billion. Obama inherited an economy in crisis and first-ever deficits exceeding $1 trillion. The 2009 deficit, swelled by the costs of the Wall Street bailout, hit a record $1.4 trillion, while the deficits of 2010 and 2011 both registered $1.3 trillion. The report predicted the economy will continue to rebound this year and grow at a 3.1 percent rate and by 3.4 percent next year. It foresees the jobless rate holding steady at 6.8 percent this year; the most recent nationwide unemployment rate registered 6.7 percent.

More here

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Tal Kopan: Emmitt Smith Gives Wendy Davis Committee $10K

Team Wendy just landed an all-star running back. Former Dallas Cowboys running back and NFL MVP Emmitt Smith donated $10,000 to the committee backing Wendy Davis’s campaign for Texas governor last month. According to campaign filings, the CEO of EJSmith Enterprises donated the money on Jan. 8 to Texas Victory Committee, a joint effort from Wendy Davis for Governor and Battleground Texas, a group that supports Democrats in the state.

More here

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Jonathan Chait: ‘Obamacare Bailout’ Does Not Exist, Confirms Government; House Republicans Demand Its Repeal Anyway

As of yesterday, House Republicans were torn, Sophie’s Choice-style, over what to demand in return for lifting the debt ceiling to accommodate the budget they passed. (Caveat: I’ve never seen Sophie’s Choice; I assume it’s a movie about a bungling kidnapper who has to choose what ransom she should demand.) One option was the Keystone XL pipeline. The other was the risk corridor provision in Obamacare, which they falsely call a “bailout.”

Here’s what happened next. First, the Congressional Budget Office released its annual budget report, and, among other things, it utterly annihilated the premise that there is any such thing as an “Obamacare bailout.” Having seen their imaginary claim conclusively debunked, Republicans are now leaning toward demanding its repeal anyway…

…. Today’s report projects that the bungled launch will mean enrollment in the exchanges will collapse all the way from seven million people to … six million people. Now, the number of people in the plan isn’t the only or best measure of its success, but it is a measure critics have seized upon. The existence of the nefarious Obamacare Bailout was a second reason – as the House Republican hearing asks, why the need for a bailout, if not to save a doomed law? There’s no reason why the lack of an Obamacare bailout should prevent conservatives from feeling anger at it anyway.

Full post here

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NYT: Karzai Arranged Secret Contacts With the Taliban

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been engaged in secret contacts with the Taliban about reaching a peace agreement without the involvement of his American and Western allies, further corroding already strained relations with the United States.

The secret contacts appear to help explain a string of actions by Mr. Karzai that seem intended to antagonize his American backers, Western and Afghan officials said. In recent weeks, Mr. Karzai has continued to refuse to sign a long-term security agreement with Washington that he negotiated, insisted on releasing hardened Taliban militants from prison and distributed distorted evidence of what he called American war crimes.

The clandestine contacts with the Taliban have borne little fruit, according to people who have been told about them. But they have helped undermine the remaining confidence between the United States and Mr. Karzai, making the already messy endgame of the Afghan conflict even more volatile. Support for the war effort in Congress has deteriorated sharply, and American officials say they are uncertain whether they can maintain even minimal security cooperation with Mr. Karzai’s government or its successor after coming elections.

More here

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Richard Sherman’s fantastic response

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DeadSpin: Now A Champion, Richard Sherman Deals With An Insult In The Best Way

Colin Kaepernick had an excellent method of dealing with people who hated him by favoriting their anger on Twitter. Seahawks corner Richard Sherman—now a Super Bowl champion—handled an angry Twitter person in a less passive but equally fantastic way.

More here

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Bryce Covert: GM’s First Female CEO Will Make Half Of What Her Predecessor Made

In December, General Motors (GM) made headlines for picking Mary Barra to replace Dan Akerson as its new CEO. That meant she would not only be the first woman at the helm of the carmaker, but any global carmaker. But while she may have shattered that glass ceiling, her pay is another story. Looking at the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Elizabeth MacDonald notes that Barra will be paid $4.4 million in total compensation, which includes a base salary of $1.6 million.

Akerson, on the other hand, made an estimated $9 million, with a $1.7 million base salary and $7.3 million in stock. That means Barra will make less than half of what he made. In fact, Akerson will continue to make more as her, as GM will pay him $4.68 million as an outside senior adviser.Worse, Barra comes to the job with an outsized amount of previous experience. She’s been with the company since 1980 and was most recently serving as senior vice president of global product development. Akerson, on the other hand, came into the role without a background running a car company

More here

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Caitlin McNeal: WaPo Rebuts Its Own Columnist On Claim That Obamacare Is Killing Jobs

The Affordable Care Act is killing jobs, or not, depending on which portion of the Washington Post you read on Tuesday. The paper’s conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote that Obamacare was “killing jobs and squelching growth” based on a newly released CBO report.

However, the report notes that the reduction in hours worked by Americans will “almost entirely” be due to workers’ choice to leave the work force — not because they lost their jobs or can’t find a full-time job. Glenn Kessler, the Post’s “Fact Checker,” followed up a few hours later giving the claim made by Rubin and other news organizations three Pinocchios out of four.

More here

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Josh Barro: The Buried Lede In The CBO Report: Obamacare Will Raise Wages

Obamacare will drive wages up. The price of labor, like any good or service, is determined by supply and demand. If producers of labor (workers) become less inclined to sell it, but consumers of labor (firms) are unchanged in their interest in buying, then the price of labor has to rise in order to bring the quantity supplied and the quantity demanded into line.  If (as CBO predicts) the decline in work is driven almost entirely by a decline in labor supply, the upshot will be very different. Employers will be left holding the bag economically. Workers will choose to work fewer hours; since firms won’t be any less interested in hiring, they’ll have to pay more per hour to get those workers in the door.

The positive wage effect should be concentrated among low-skill workers, who will face the greatest discouragement to work from Obamacare, and therefore will be able to command the greatest wage increases in order to keep working. More broadly, Obamacare alters the employer-employee relationship in a way that empowers employees. When an employee is dependent on his job not just for a wage but for health insurance, he is less able to threaten to leave if he doesn’t get a raise. Severing the work-insurance link strengthens the employee’s hand in bargaining — which is bad for employers and good for workers.

More here

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On This Day:

Sen. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama during a Super Tuesday primary campaign rally at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago, February 5, 2008

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The President is applauded by House Democrats as he is introduced to speak at the House Democrats Issues Conference at the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va, Feb. 5, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama wears a AF1 jacket on his first flight aboard Air Force One from Andrews Air Force Base to Newport News, Va., Feb. 5. 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama talks with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in the Oval Office, Feb. 5, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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President Obama shows Washington, D.C. area students, who were featured in the Washington Post, the valet button on his desk during their surprise visit to the Oval Office, Feb. 5, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Feb. 5, 2011 – Pete Souza: “The two coaches for Sasha Obama’s basketball team couldn’t make it to one of her games, so the President and his then personal aide, Reggie Love, filled in as coaches for this game one Saturday. Here they along with Sasha’s teammates react during the game.”

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05
Feb
14

Early Bird Chat

By Chipsticks 103 Comments
Categories: All Photos and All Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Barack Obama, the first African American elected President of the Harvard Law Review, 1990

(I can’t work out if he was elected on February 5 or 6 in 1990, different places give different dates – maybe the election was one day, and the results the next? So, we’ll make it a two day anniversary celebration!).

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