Thursday Open Thread
Welcome Back SG2–U Know W.E.E. LOVE YOU! SG2 Returns on Friday!
Back to the schedule…well dang, how can we play Beyoncé without playing Mr. Beyoncé…
What’s up WSY Family? SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!
From Wikipedia:
Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969),[1] better known by his stage name, Jay-Z is an American hip hop artist and businessman. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America,[2] having a net worth of over $150 million,[3] selling over 30 million copies of his albums in the United States alone and receiving several Grammy Awards for his musical work.[4]
Jay-Z co-owns The 40/40 Club and the NBA‘s New Jersey Nets and is also the creator of the clothing line Rocawear. He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings[5], one of the three founders of Roc-A-Fella Records and recently, the founder of his new venture Roc Nation. He is also the current holder for the record of most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200.[6]
Along with his financial and musical success, Jay-Z is known for being involved in the feud between him and fellow New York rapper Nas, which was eventually settled in 2005.[7] He married singer Beyoncé Knowles on April 4, 2008.[8]
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November 12th, 2009
Oh, we will find out what went down at some point…Dobbs won't keep his mouth shut for too long and Klein may not be around much longer if CNN's ratings don't get better. They'll both be free to talk.
As for John King, just more vanilla. CNN must be “trying” to position itself as the “neutral” news network between Fox and MSNBC. Unfortunately, they're all still too vanilla.
November 12th, 2009
And Gen. Powell told POTUS “dont let these micky-ficks do to you what they did to me….to hell wit'em, take your damn time”
November 12th, 2009
W.E.E. Peeps Thursday Link Sweep is up.
November 12th, 2009
Demands to see Rep. Cao's birth certificate shall begin shortly, stay tuned.
Cao: Obama Administration ‘Has Been Tremendous’ For New Orleans On Katrina Recovery Effort
Last month, President Obama visted New Orleans for the first time since taking office and touted his administration’s focus on assisting the area’s still on-going recovery effort four years after Hurricane Katrina. “I’m pleased to report that we’ve made good progress,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve made progress.”
But conservatives such as Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) criticized Obama’s visit calling it a “drive-through daiquiri summit,” while others “criticized the president for not touring the battered wetlands.”
Yesterday during an interview with Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) — the lone Republican to vote for the House health care bill last week — Washington Times radio channeled the GOP criticism. “He didn’t even stick around very long during his trip,” the host said. But Cao defended what the administration has done for the area:
CAO: Well, I just want to set the record straight, that even though the President only visited New Orleans once since his election, it was a brief stay, but this administration has been tremendous for the people of the 2nd district. Secretary Napolitano has been down here three or four times, the secretary of HUD, the secretary of Education, they have been down here numerous times. [...]
So I guess for me, it’s not that important to have the visit of the President, its much more important for me that I have a good working relationship with the administration and have the commitment…from the administration to push all the recovery issues of the 2nd District forward and they have been doing that in the last 9 months.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/12/cao-obama-k...
November 12th, 2009
Righteous rant NMP1. You better say that again!
November 12th, 2009
Q: How much will your résumé be a factor?
A: It's actually starting to work in my favor — I have nothing to hide. A sex tape of me isn't going to pop up and shame me; there are 150 of them at the video store.
Q: Do you think you're more qualified than Senator Vitter?
A: Absolutely not. But in one movie, I did play a Secret Service agent marooned on an island controlled by North Korea. I butt heads with dictator Kim Jong-il and come out on top.
*dead, dead, dead*
November 12th, 2009
Instead of focusing on jobs and the economy (and getting health care passed and off the table to focus on jobs and the economy), Democrats are self-destructing over issues that most Americans don't give a damn about right now, allowing so-called progressives to lead them off a clilff.
…
These issues, non issues, are nothing but political weapons being used by white progressives (and their negro slaves) to beat our President into submission and attempt to make themselves more relevant than they are.
Preach NMP!
November 12th, 2009
Amen, NMP.
And remember this, folks: The folks who are leading the charge on abortion, public option and gay rights are FINANCIALLY SECURE “PROGRESSIVES”!
November 12th, 2009
LMAO
November 12th, 2009
“President Obama's half brother Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo answered questions from Post readers online Thursday about his new book, “Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Novel of Love in the East.”
You know these Obama men got a helluva lot of brains. This brother went to Brown undergrad BA in Mathmatics then to Stanford where he gets a Masters in Physics then on to Emory for an Executive MBA.
Mad smart men in the Obama family tree
O and he is fluent in Mandarin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/di...
November 12th, 2009
King cracks me up when he calls himself neutral. Please! He may not come out and say partisan bs like Hannity, but you can tell which side he's on by his line of questioning (and lack of questioning).
November 12th, 2009
It was “Obama's Army” aka OFA that identified CAO to POTUS as a possible vote.
“Christina Bellantoni gets a glimpse at some metrics that — while still less-than-stunning compared to the 13 million e-mail addresses on the campaign's lists by November 2008 — suggest that “OFA has strengthened into a (smaller) mirror of the campaign, with volunteers in every single Congressional district and staff on the ground in every state but Oklahoma.”
In terms of impact on the Hill, here's a biggie: It was OFA volunteers who flagged for headquarters the possibility that Rep. Joseph Cao, R-La., would vote for the health care bill, Bellantoni reports.”
November 12th, 2009
I'm telling you…the $7 latte-drinking, $80 birkenstock wearing fauxgressives that pat themselves on the back because they voted for the black guy.
November 12th, 2009
“A handful of states stand to win significant federal funding to revamp schools and impose strict testing standards under an Obama administration effort to alter educational practices across the country.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to release final rules Thursday that states must follow to vie for $4.35 billion in education grants, one of the most significant competitions within the $787 billion stimulus package and the largest pot of federal discretionary funding ever for local schools.
The program, called Race to the Top, comes as states are struggling to fill huge school budget gaps, which some estimates say could top $20 billion by 2011.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125799419446144...
November 12th, 2009
“The Obama administration, under pressure to show it is serious about tackling the budget deficit, is seizing on an unusual target to showcase fiscal responsibility: the $700 billion financial rescue.
The administration wants to keep some of the unspent funds available for emergencies, but is considering setting aside a chunk for debt reduction, according to people familiar with the matter. It is also expected to lower the projected long-term cost of the program — the amount it expects to lose — to as little as $200 billion from $341 billion estimated in August.
A $210 billion surplus in TARP funding could be used to reduced the U.S.'s towering national deficit. WSJ's Deborah Solomon says the move follows criticism of the Obama administration's approach to debt.
The idea is still a matter of debate within the administration and it is unclear how much impact it would have on the nation's mounting deficit levels. Still, the potential move illustrates how the Obama administration is trying to find any way it can to bring down the deficit, which is turning into a political as well as an economic liability.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125799009185344...
November 12th, 2009
The Nations problems are weighing heavily on POTUS:
War and tragedy are putting President Obama through the most wrenching period of his young administration. Visibly thinner, admittedly skipping meals, he is learning every day the challenges of a wartime presidency. Health-care reform, climate-change legislation, the broken economy — all are cerebral exercises compared with the grim responsibility of being the commander in chief.
snip
“It looks to me from the outside that the reality of being a wartime president is beginning to sink in,” said Eliot Cohen, a former Bush official and a military historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
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“From mid-September on, there's been something of an effort by the White House to relaunch President Obama as commander in chief,” said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke who worked on the National Security Council in the Clinton and Bush administrations. He said new presidents often struggle with this part of their job.
“It really involves the whole person, not just the mind,” Feaver said. “It's a very emotional role. Emotional in a positive sense. You have to order men and women to risk their lives. That requires a moral courage, an emotional stability. It's very different from a policy wonk job.”
Obama has often been described as possessing the political magic of John F. Kennedy, but his tenure so far has similarities to that of Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson: an ambitious domestic agenda built around a more vigorous federal government, paired with an increasingly thorny overseas war. Making things even more complicated, if Obama sends significantly more troops to Afghanistan, the sworn political enemies of his domestic policies could become his critical allies as he tries to sell his war plans to a skeptical nation.
“With this decision, he's really going to own this war, and he's going to be sending young men and women to their deaths. And when that realization sets in, it's a very grim thing. He may have known it intellectually before, but what I think is happening is he's learning it viscerally,” Cohen said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
November 12th, 2009
Next week, the number one topic is gonna be Oprah's interview with Palin. I really hope the interview won't be a softball piece.
November 12th, 2009
Amen!
Like the questioning he did with Dick Cheney!
November 12th, 2009
TELL IT!! Secretary GATES…they are disrespecting the Commander in Chief..with all these LEAKS!!!
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is normally a mild-mannered man, at least in public, but he unleashed a torrent on his plane on Thursday morning about leaks during the investigation of the Foot Hood shootings and President Obama’s deliberations on sending more American troops to Afghanistan.
First, his comments on the president’s meetings regarding Afghanistan. “I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on in this process,’’ Mr. Gates told reporters en route to a Wisconsin factory that is churning out thousands of armored trucks manufactured specifically for the rough terrain of Afghanistan.
“I think a lot of different places are leaking. I’m confident that the Department of Defense is one of them.To have details or options that are being considered out there in the middle of the president’s deliberative process I think does not serve the country and it does not serve our military.’’
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/
November 12th, 2009
The President Announces a Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth
Posted by Jesse Lee on November 12, 2009 at 12:15 PM EST
As the President was preparing to leave for his trip to Asia this morning, he took a moment to discuss the economy, which will of course have a central role in his discussions with leaders throughout the trip. He made clear that while we have come back from the brink of what many predicted would be a depression, he will not be satisfied until robust job growth returns. Towards that end, he announced that in December he will bring minds and stakeholders together for an intensive jobs forum:
“As I've said from the start of this crisis, hiring often takes time to catch up to economic growth. And given the magnitude of the economic turmoil that we've experienced, employers are reluctant to hire.
Small businesses and large firms are demanding more of their employees, their increasing their hours, and adding temporary workers — but these companies have not yet been willing to take the steps necessary to hire again. Meanwhile, millions of Americans — our friends, our neighbors, our family members — are desperately searching for jobs. This is one of the great challenges that remains in our economy — a challenge that my administration is absolutely determined to meet.
We all know that there are limits to what government can and should do, even during such difficult times. But we have an obligation to consider every additional, responsible step that we can [take] to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country. And that's why, in December, we'll be holding a forum at the White House on jobs and economic growth. We’ll gather CEOs and small business owners, economists and financial experts, as well as representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups, to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again.
It's important that we don't make any ill-considered decisions — even with the best intentions — particularly at a time when our resources are so limited. But it's just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back to work. That’s what this forum is about.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/11/12/presi...
November 12th, 2009
Apparently, Sarah Palin is taking a tour… according to Balloon-Juice.
The “Going Rogue” tour
by DougJ
This is pretty exciting—Sarah Palin is coming through my town as part of her book tour next week.
Find out here if she’s coming through your town.
Maybe if you are lucky, not only could you get an autograph, but maybe she could lay her hands upon you.
Then you can be blessed with the eternal wink-a-tude, the ability to see Russia from your backyard, to sell stuff on ebay and pick off a wolf from 500 yards from a helicopter skid.
November 12th, 2009
I don't always agree with Sullivan…but he is dead right with this observation:
“What strikes me about this is the enormous self-confidence this reveals. Here is a young president, prepared to allow himself to be portrayed as 'weak' or 'dithering' in the slow and meticulous arrival at public policy. He is trusting the reality to help expose what we need to do. He is allowing the debate — however messy and confusing and emotional — to take its time and reveal the real choices in front of us. This is politically risky, of course. Those who treat politics as a contact-sport, whose insistence is on the 'game' of who wins which news cycle, or who can spin each moment in a political storm as a harbinger of whatever, will pounce and shriek and try to bounce the president into a decision. And those who believe that what matters in war is charging ahead regardless at all times will also grandstand against the president's insistence on prudence.”
andrew sullivan
November 12th, 2009
Sounds good. You know, one of the things I admire about PBO is his creativity. The administration uses common sense and imagination to come up w/solutions. Imagination and creativity are adjectives I'd used to describe politicians. lol
November 12th, 2009
hey where's the link LRW?
November 12th, 2009
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EA3...