Ride performs Vapor Trail
Ride plays their hit "Vapour Trail" live at the Riviera Theater in Chicago, IL on September 25, 2015.
Ride is back.
This is Ride now.
I haven't been to a concert in 8 years. I am old and I don't like people anymore.
I never got to see Ride live but I know every word of every song. If I could play a guitar, I would've made it my business to learn every cord. Few bands have meant so much to me over the years. They are back and I have got to get to their show(s). Here is a great NME interview video to set the mood.
This is Ride then.
Uhg. Where did my youth go?
I haven't been to a concert in 8 years. I am old and I don't like people anymore.
I never got to see Ride live but I know every word of every song. If I could play a guitar, I would've made it my business to learn every cord. Few bands have meant so much to me over the years. They are back and I have got to get to their show(s). Here is a great NME interview video to set the mood.
This is Ride then.
Uhg. Where did my youth go?
Stephen Colbert shocks South Carolina schools by funding every single teacher-requested grant
Good guy, Stephen Colbert gives a lesson in charitable giving.
Comedian Stephen Colbert announced Thursday that he would fund every existing grant request South Carolina public school teachers have made on the education crowdfunding website DonorsChoose.org.
Colbert made the announcement on a live video feed Thursday at a surprise event at Alexander Elementary School in Greenville.
Colbert partnered with Share Fair Nation and ScanSource to fund nearly 1,000 projects for more than 800 teachers at over 375 schools, totaling $800,000.
There are certainly a lot of teachers in South Carolina celebrating this week. Thank you, Stephen Colbert!
Video of Stephen Colbert and Donorschoose.org reps making the "flash fund" announcement to SC schools:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/07/1383114/-Stephen-Colbert-shocks-South-Carolina-schools-by-funding-every-single-teacher-requesting-grants
Wolf Blitzer interviews Deray McKesson about violence in Baltimore
...and gets his ass kicked!!
That's called "framing", son!
That's called "framing", son!
ASMR Drawing: Bee
This is the first drawing that I have done on a dry-erase board. The problem is, it could've been noisier. There are taps and such but no real squeaky markers. I think the dry-erase board was made of vinyl or something. Anyway, I hope you like the bee and I'll do more of these soon.
Please like the video and subscribe!
Oh, and I take requests.
Leave a comment and I'll do my best to make your drawing.
XOXO, Jim Roy
http://whisperchat.blogspot.com/
Did These Swedish Cops School The NYPD?
Yay Sweden!!!! And just for your efforts, a hot chick wearing your flag as a coat!
So, some cops of yours were here and they saw a fight. They stopped it and subdued the subjects until the NYPD arrived.
Wait. They didn't need to empty a clip or two into the black guys to stop the fight? They didn't need guns at all? They PROTECTED these guys from each other and themselves SERVING all in the process? What a bunch of pinko commie socialists?!?!
So, some cops of yours were here and they saw a fight. They stopped it and subdued the subjects until the NYPD arrived.
Wait. They didn't need to empty a clip or two into the black guys to stop the fight? They didn't need guns at all? They PROTECTED these guys from each other and themselves SERVING all in the process? What a bunch of pinko commie socialists?!?!
House quietly passes tax exemption for megadonors
House quietly passes tax exemption for megadonors
Major contributors like the Koch brothers and Tom Steyer would get a break on gift taxes to secretive non-profit groups.
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Hillary Flynn
The House on Wednesday with little fanfare passed legislation that would protect major donors like the Koch brothers and Tom Steyer from having to pay gift taxes on huge donations to secret money political groups.
The legislation, which now heads to the Senate, is seen by fundraising operatives as removing one of the few remaining potential obstacles to unfettered big-money spending by nonprofit groups registered under a section of the Tax Code — 501(c) — that allows them to shield their donors’ identities.
Critics decry such groups as corrupting, but they have played an increasingly prominent role in recent elections, and they’re expected to spend huge sums in 2016.
And, while fundraising operatives say most donors do not pay taxes on their donations to so-called 501(c) groups, the law is somewhat ambiguous on whether gift taxes could be assessed. That’s left donors fearing that such gifts could bring scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service — which, in fact, has launched probes of major groups’ donors in recent years to determine whether they improperly avoided paying gift taxes.
There’s no such concern about donations to party and campaign committees and PACs, which are registered under section 527 of the code. That section explicitly exempts donations from gift taxes, but there’s a tradeoff: It also requires the disclosure of donor names and contribution amounts.
The bill that passed Wednesday would make clear that the gift tax does not apply to groups registered under sections 501(c)4, (c)5 or (c)6. That covers a wide swath of organizations including everything from the Karl Rove-conceived Crossroads GPS and the Tom Steyer-funded NextGen Climate (both of which are registered under section 501(c)4 of the Tax Code) to major labor unions (501(c)5) to the Koch brothers-backed Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce (501(c)6).
A coalition of conservative and liberal nonprofit groups and their lawyers on Wednesday sent a letter to members of the House supporting the bill. It asserted that the “application of the gift tax to 501(c)(4) donors raises serious constitutional questions, and threatens to hamstring smaller or start-up citizens’ groups.”
Elizabeth Kingsley, an attorney at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, who signed the letter, said the bill merely evens the playing field for donors. She said the ambiguity around the gift tax question put cautious donors at a disadvantage, and benefited those more comfortable taking aggressive positions.
“If the law is clear everyone knows what the rules are and can follow them, and I think that’s a better situation,” Kingsley says.
The bill was part of a package of measures aimed at clamping down on IRS abuses in the wake of the agency’s targeting of conservative tea party groups. The gift tax bill was proposed by Rep. Peter Roskam (R.-Ill.), the chairman of Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the IRS, but it had bipartisan support and passed on a voice vote.
Democrats who supported the bill said it merely clarified an area of the law that has not really been enforced.
“The bill codifies existing IRS practice,” said a spokesman for Sander Levin (D-Mich.), ranking member on the House Way and Means Committee, which approved this bill last month. “Right now, for contributions to 501(c)(3)s and 527s, the gift tax does not apply, and there is a moratorium applied to the gift tax on 501(c)(4) donations.”
But Democrats are not unified in their support for the bill.
Some believe it deprives their side of ammunition to use against Republicans in 2016, while also easing the way for more secret-money political spending by conservative billionaires like the industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch and the Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
They and other conservative donors have more aggressively embraced such spending through groups like the Crossroads GPS, Freedom Partners and the Koch-Backed Americans for Prosperity (also registered under section 501(c)4 of the code).
Liberal billionaires such as the financiers Steyer and George Soros have similarly funded politically active 501(c) groups such as NextGen Climate and Media Matters for America. But unlike Republicans, Democrats up to and including President Barack Obama and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid have sought to make an issue of secret-money conservative spending, with Reid explicitly and repeatedly blasting the Koch brothers from the floor of the Senate.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, seemed to pick up the charge this week, saying “We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all — even if it takes a constitutional amendment.”
Had Democrats opposed Roskam’s bill, or at least forced a roll call vote, it would have given them a cudgel to attack Republicans who supported it, operatives said Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t comment on the specific bills in the IRS package, but he said this week “we’ll take a look at the bill[s] in the near future,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Conservatives seem more united in support of the bill, partly because they feel the IRS has disproportionately scrutinized 501(c) groups and donors on their side.
James Davis, a spokesman for Freedom Partners, said the bill “would prevent political targeting by the federal government which is a response to the very real threat we’ve witnessed over the past few years. Regardless of political affiliation, Americans are rightly concerned about partisan-Washington bureaucrats targeting and penalizing individuals due to their beliefs.”
The highest profile IRS gift tax inquiry did in fact target a big-money conservative group called Freedom’s Watch, which was backed by Adelson and spent heavily supporting President George W. Bush’s military surge in Iraq.
Donors to 501(c)4 groups objected to audits into their past donations saying they came out of the blue, and arguing the law was so vague it was unclear whether the gift tax even applied.
The IRS suspended such audits in 2011, choosing to let Congress decide whether these donations were subject to the gift tax. When the agency announced the halt on these audits it said, “This is a difficult area with significant legal, administrative, and policy implications with respect to which we have little enforcement history.” Former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller’s office said it would “be coordinating with the Office of Chief Counsel to determine whether there is a need for further guidance in this area.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/house-quietly-passes-tax-cut-for-megadonors-117067.html#ixzz3XihFi3EZ
Major contributors like the Koch brothers and Tom Steyer would get a break on gift taxes to secretive non-profit groups.
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Hillary Flynn
The House on Wednesday with little fanfare passed legislation that would protect major donors like the Koch brothers and Tom Steyer from having to pay gift taxes on huge donations to secret money political groups.
The legislation, which now heads to the Senate, is seen by fundraising operatives as removing one of the few remaining potential obstacles to unfettered big-money spending by nonprofit groups registered under a section of the Tax Code — 501(c) — that allows them to shield their donors’ identities.
Critics decry such groups as corrupting, but they have played an increasingly prominent role in recent elections, and they’re expected to spend huge sums in 2016.
And, while fundraising operatives say most donors do not pay taxes on their donations to so-called 501(c) groups, the law is somewhat ambiguous on whether gift taxes could be assessed. That’s left donors fearing that such gifts could bring scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service — which, in fact, has launched probes of major groups’ donors in recent years to determine whether they improperly avoided paying gift taxes.
There’s no such concern about donations to party and campaign committees and PACs, which are registered under section 527 of the code. That section explicitly exempts donations from gift taxes, but there’s a tradeoff: It also requires the disclosure of donor names and contribution amounts.
The bill that passed Wednesday would make clear that the gift tax does not apply to groups registered under sections 501(c)4, (c)5 or (c)6. That covers a wide swath of organizations including everything from the Karl Rove-conceived Crossroads GPS and the Tom Steyer-funded NextGen Climate (both of which are registered under section 501(c)4 of the Tax Code) to major labor unions (501(c)5) to the Koch brothers-backed Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce (501(c)6).
A coalition of conservative and liberal nonprofit groups and their lawyers on Wednesday sent a letter to members of the House supporting the bill. It asserted that the “application of the gift tax to 501(c)(4) donors raises serious constitutional questions, and threatens to hamstring smaller or start-up citizens’ groups.”
Elizabeth Kingsley, an attorney at Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg, who signed the letter, said the bill merely evens the playing field for donors. She said the ambiguity around the gift tax question put cautious donors at a disadvantage, and benefited those more comfortable taking aggressive positions.
“If the law is clear everyone knows what the rules are and can follow them, and I think that’s a better situation,” Kingsley says.
The bill was part of a package of measures aimed at clamping down on IRS abuses in the wake of the agency’s targeting of conservative tea party groups. The gift tax bill was proposed by Rep. Peter Roskam (R.-Ill.), the chairman of Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the IRS, but it had bipartisan support and passed on a voice vote.
Democrats who supported the bill said it merely clarified an area of the law that has not really been enforced.
“The bill codifies existing IRS practice,” said a spokesman for Sander Levin (D-Mich.), ranking member on the House Way and Means Committee, which approved this bill last month. “Right now, for contributions to 501(c)(3)s and 527s, the gift tax does not apply, and there is a moratorium applied to the gift tax on 501(c)(4) donations.”
But Democrats are not unified in their support for the bill.
Some believe it deprives their side of ammunition to use against Republicans in 2016, while also easing the way for more secret-money political spending by conservative billionaires like the industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch and the Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
They and other conservative donors have more aggressively embraced such spending through groups like the Crossroads GPS, Freedom Partners and the Koch-Backed Americans for Prosperity (also registered under section 501(c)4 of the code).
Liberal billionaires such as the financiers Steyer and George Soros have similarly funded politically active 501(c) groups such as NextGen Climate and Media Matters for America. But unlike Republicans, Democrats up to and including President Barack Obama and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid have sought to make an issue of secret-money conservative spending, with Reid explicitly and repeatedly blasting the Koch brothers from the floor of the Senate.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, seemed to pick up the charge this week, saying “We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all — even if it takes a constitutional amendment.”
Had Democrats opposed Roskam’s bill, or at least forced a roll call vote, it would have given them a cudgel to attack Republicans who supported it, operatives said Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t comment on the specific bills in the IRS package, but he said this week “we’ll take a look at the bill[s] in the near future,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Conservatives seem more united in support of the bill, partly because they feel the IRS has disproportionately scrutinized 501(c) groups and donors on their side.
James Davis, a spokesman for Freedom Partners, said the bill “would prevent political targeting by the federal government which is a response to the very real threat we’ve witnessed over the past few years. Regardless of political affiliation, Americans are rightly concerned about partisan-Washington bureaucrats targeting and penalizing individuals due to their beliefs.”
The highest profile IRS gift tax inquiry did in fact target a big-money conservative group called Freedom’s Watch, which was backed by Adelson and spent heavily supporting President George W. Bush’s military surge in Iraq.
Donors to 501(c)4 groups objected to audits into their past donations saying they came out of the blue, and arguing the law was so vague it was unclear whether the gift tax even applied.
The IRS suspended such audits in 2011, choosing to let Congress decide whether these donations were subject to the gift tax. When the agency announced the halt on these audits it said, “This is a difficult area with significant legal, administrative, and policy implications with respect to which we have little enforcement history.” Former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller’s office said it would “be coordinating with the Office of Chief Counsel to determine whether there is a need for further guidance in this area.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/house-quietly-passes-tax-cut-for-megadonors-117067.html#ixzz3XihFi3EZ
Kansas's Failed Experiment
 |
| Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas (Orlin Wagner/AP) |
Kansas's Failed Experiment
Surviving a tough reelection race, as Sam Brownback did in Kansas last year, can often be a cleansing experience for a governor. It should certainly bring relief. After all, Brownback managed to earn a fresh nod of support from voters despite a messy first term marked by a fiscal embarrassment of his own making.
Yet three months later, the humbling in the heartland goes on, much to the frustration of a Republican governor and one-time presidential contender who hoped to make Kansas the national emblem of conservative governance. Brownback's hard-fought victory on election day won him another four years, but it did nothing to fix the problem that nearly cost him his job: the state's finances. Kansas's budget has for months resembled a wallet with a hole in it—every time the state's bookkeepers peek inside, they find less money than the government thought would be there. Just a few days after the November election, the Kansas budget office revealed that revenue projections were off by more than $200 million, bringing the budget gap facing Brownback to $600 million in all.
The yawning deficit is widely blamed on the deep income tax cuts that Brownback, along with a Republican legislature, enacted during his first two years in office. They not only slashed rates, but more importantly, they created a huge exemption for business owners who file their taxes as individuals. By Brownback's own description, the tax plan was a "real live experiment" in supply-side economics, with the idea being that lower taxes would spur investment, create jobs, and refill Kansas's coffers through faster growth. Yet even under the most charitable analysis, revenue has plummeted much faster than the economy has expanded.
Now, Kansas's red ink has left the governor red- faced. Brownback is asking Republican state lawmakers to slow the income tax cuts over the next few years, raise taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, overhaul school funding, and divert money from the state's highway fund in order to balance the budget. It's not as if he's abandoning his conservative economic philosophy—he still wants to replace the state's income tax entirely with consumption taxes over time. And like any politician on the ropes, he is preaching patience. "These things take time," he said last month. He also acknowledged the toll his stumbles have taken on his image. "We're in Lent season, so I'm giving up worldly things, like popularity," he joked to a small crowd. Brownback has blamed the budget shortfall in part on automatic increases in education spending (a subject of a long-running court dispute), and he's cited a recent uptick in job growth as evidence that the tax cuts, on the whole, are working. "Kansas is on the rise, and the state of our state is strong," the governor proclaimed in an annual budget address in January.
Yet Brownback's latest proposals represent at least a partial retreat, and it's unclear how many of them the legislature will approve. "He’s trying to figure out how to save face. I think that’s the bottom line," Rochelle Chronister, a former Republican state chairwoman, told me. Chronister has led the GOP opposition to Brownback's agenda through the group she founded, Traditional Republicans for Common Sense. A separate anti-Brownback effort led more than 100 current and former Kansas GOP officials to endorse Brownback's Democratic opponent, Paul Davis, in the 2014 election. Brownback won anyway, 50 to 46 percent. "He’s lived and died by this philosophy," Chronister said of the governor, "and it’s becoming more and more obvious that it is not going to be successful."
Lori McMillan, a law professor at Topeka's Washburn University specializing in taxation, said Brownback's latest proposals were "band-aids" and an example of a "reactionary, by-the-seat-of-your-pants fiscal policy." The original tax plan went awry, tax analysts said, not merely because it slashed rates but because it wasn't paired with deeper structural changes to the budget. The exemption for businesses wasn't tailored narrowly enough to encourage job creation, and so people rushed to take advantage of it without actually boosting employment. "They used a lot of adjectives I’m sure they now regret, like 'immediate' and 'shot-in-the-arm' and 'adrenaline,'" said Joseph Henchman of the Tax Foundation. "Just cutting taxes, and so deeply, without really any plans for how the state will pay for the spending that it’s not cutting–that’s proven to be a big problem there."
* * *
The state's predicament has drawn its share of national attention, and not only because it offers up an impossible-to-resist headline (What is the matter with Kansas?). But given how neatly Brownback's tax experiment fits into the Democratic argument against conservative budgeting, it's surprising that it hasn't drawn more coverage. That's particularly unusual because, inside Kansas, some of the blame has gone to the Koch Brothers—the favorite bogeymen of Beltway Democrats. Koch Industries is based in Wichita, and the family was a big supporter of Brownback's original tax plan. "We’ve given tax exemptions to the Koch Brothers without necessarily any outcome," said McMillan, who criticized the loophole for business owners. "Have the Koch Brothers created any more jobs? Was it meant for multibillionaires? The idea is going to be no."
The relatively dim spotlight may have something to do with Brownback himself. During 16 years in the Senate, Brownback was known not for his economic policy but for the kind of staunch social conservatism that peaked in 2004. His presidential campaign in 2008 drew little notice, and two years later, he easily won the governor's seat that had been held by Kathleen Sebelius before she became President Obama's secretary of health and human services.
Brownback's mellow personal style is most generously described as bland. He possesses neither the charismatic combativeness of Chris Christie nor the folksy humor of Mike Huckabee. And while his record as governor is as aggressively conservative as Scott Walker's in Wisconsin, Brownback passed his tax plan without the initial blowback that Walker faced from Democrats and unions in the deeply polarized Badger State. Aside from the explanation that he isn't running for president, Democratic officials in Washington say they haven't harped on Brownback only because they have so many other ripe targets among Republican governors, including Christie, Walker, Mike Pence in Indiana, Rick Scott in Florida, and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana. (Of course, that's another way of pointing out that Republicans control well over half of the nation's governorships, thanks to their recent electoral success.)
Another way to assess the impact of Kansas's conservative experiment, however, is to note the absence of copycats. “You haven’t seen any Republican governors follow in his footsteps," McMillan said. Indeed, as Politico noted earlier this year, conservatives in states like Ohio, Missouri, and Indiana view Kansas as a cautionary tale and have pulled back on their own plans for deep, immediate tax cuts. "We are not going to do what Kansas did," South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, said bluntly in January as she discussed her plans to phase in tax cuts over a decade.
It will be more interesting to see what role, if any, Kansas plays in the 2016 campaign. Brownback may not be running, but the Republican presidential nominee will be asking voters to deliver the same kind of one-party power that he used to effect such significant change in 2011 and 2012. And it wasn't limited to economic policy—just in the last week, Kansas has approved legislation allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit, and Brownback signed what is arguably the nation's most restrictive abortion law.
The crowded field of GOP contenders for the White House means that a wide range of fiscal plans will be proposed, some pie-in-the-sky and others more realistic. The debate often devolves into hypothetical arguments about exactly how many jobs a particular proposal will create, or how much money it will cost. Kansas, as Brownback once conceded, offers "a real, live experiment." Are any of the candidates interested in learning its lessons?
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/kansass-failed-experiment/389874/
Copyright © 2015 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.
ASMR Drawing: Bird
I like drawing birds. I am sure another one will come along at some point.
HEY TINGLECHASERS: Lot's of marker screeching triggers!!!
You may or may not notice, but I drew this upside down. My camera set up only allowed for this option. The top of my head got in there a smidgen. Hope that doesn't distract you.
Please like the video and subscribe!
Oh, and I take requests. Leave a comment and I'll do my best to make your drawing.
XOXO, Jim Roy
Dress Code Sexism
Hey Laci Green, I just wanted to let you know that I am using your videos to learn how to raise my daughter.
I love, love, love your brain.
I love, love, love your brain.
Old Regime France, America’s Grand Old Party, and the Gap Between Rich and Poor
by Rick Steves
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I'm taking off for Europe in a few days. And when I travel, I enjoy unplugging from the news cycles. But the news hit me with a parting shot: Our Republican-controlled Congress has proposed budget cuts directed at our country’s most vulnerable citizens. I have to ask: What motivates Congressional Republicans to work so hard to exacerbate the gap between rich and poor?
With the disturbing redistribution of wealth in our society in the last generation, I’ve been fascinated by an earlier age of unbridled wealth and decadence that I see in my travels. The châteaux of the "one percent" of the Old Regime — those 17th- and 18th-century French tycoons whose insatiable greed eventually drove their country to such despair that it erupted into violent revolution--provide a vivid example. This video clip from my most recent trip to France's Loire Valley — essentially a tour of one of their homes — helps illustrate the state of our 2015 union in “1715 King Louis” terms.
Bringing home these impressions to an America I care so much about, I've been struck by these words from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders:
“As I examine the budget brought forth by the Republicans in the House and here in the Senate, this is how I see their analysis of the problems facing our country: It is apparently not good enough that since 1985 the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen a more then $8 trillion increase in its wealth than what they would have had if wealth inequality had stayed at the same level that it was in 1985. An $8 trillion increase in the wealth of the top one-tenth of 1 percent! Apparently, that is not enough.
Meanwhile, as I understand the Republican view of our country, as manifested in the House and Senate budgets, it appears that millions of middle class and working families — people who are working longer hours for lower wages and who have seen significant declines in their standard of living over the last 40 years —apparently do not need our help. Rather they need to see a major reduction in federal programs that help make their lives, and the lives of their kids, a little bit better.
At a time when we have over 45 million Americans living in poverty — more than almost any time in the modern history of this country — my Republican colleagues think we should increase that number by cutting the Earned Income Tax Credit, affordable housing, and Medicaid. At a time when almost 20 percent of our children live in poverty, by far the highest childhood poverty rate of any major country on earth, my Republican colleagues think that maybe we should raise the childhood poverty rate a bit higher by cutting childcare, Head Start, the Child Tax Credit, and nutrition assistance for hungry kids.
To summarize: the rich get much richer, and the Republicans think they need more help. The middle class and working families of this country become poorer, and the Republicans think we need to cut programs they desperately need. Frankly, those may be the priorities of some of my Republican colleagues in this room, but I do not believe that these are the priorities of the American people.” (Watch more from at Sen. Sanders at https://youtu.be/gB1efQXFThk)
__
America’s economy is much stronger than Europe’s right now—but the gains are limited to the top strata of our population. Yet, because of Europe’s different approach to wealth distribution, when I travel I notice that the average European is doing better than then average American. And the poorer-than-average European is doing much better than the struggling American.
I wonder at what point, if ever, our Republican legislators will heed the lesson that the privileged of France's Old Regime learned the hard way: The growing gap between the elites and everyone else is not only un-American, it’s a recipe for instability.
Please help me understand this. If these numbers are correct, how can they be defensible? Are our Congressional Republicans, with their fierce advocacy, public servants or private servants? Considering all of our wealth and resources, is this the best we can do in America?
I'm taking off for Europe in a few days. And when I travel, I enjoy unplugging from the news cycles. But the news hit me with a parting shot: Our Republican-controlled Congress has proposed budget cuts directed at our country’s most vulnerable citizens. I have to ask: What motivates Congressional Republicans to work so hard to exacerbate the gap between rich and poor?
With the disturbing redistribution of wealth in our society in the last generation, I’ve been fascinated by an earlier age of unbridled wealth and decadence that I see in my travels. The châteaux of the "one percent" of the Old Regime — those 17th- and 18th-century French tycoons whose insatiable greed eventually drove their country to such despair that it erupted into violent revolution--provide a vivid example. This video clip from my most recent trip to France's Loire Valley — essentially a tour of one of their homes — helps illustrate the state of our 2015 union in “1715 King Louis” terms.
Bringing home these impressions to an America I care so much about, I've been struck by these words from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders:
“As I examine the budget brought forth by the Republicans in the House and here in the Senate, this is how I see their analysis of the problems facing our country: It is apparently not good enough that since 1985 the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen a more then $8 trillion increase in its wealth than what they would have had if wealth inequality had stayed at the same level that it was in 1985. An $8 trillion increase in the wealth of the top one-tenth of 1 percent! Apparently, that is not enough.
Meanwhile, as I understand the Republican view of our country, as manifested in the House and Senate budgets, it appears that millions of middle class and working families — people who are working longer hours for lower wages and who have seen significant declines in their standard of living over the last 40 years —apparently do not need our help. Rather they need to see a major reduction in federal programs that help make their lives, and the lives of their kids, a little bit better.
At a time when we have over 45 million Americans living in poverty — more than almost any time in the modern history of this country — my Republican colleagues think we should increase that number by cutting the Earned Income Tax Credit, affordable housing, and Medicaid. At a time when almost 20 percent of our children live in poverty, by far the highest childhood poverty rate of any major country on earth, my Republican colleagues think that maybe we should raise the childhood poverty rate a bit higher by cutting childcare, Head Start, the Child Tax Credit, and nutrition assistance for hungry kids.
To summarize: the rich get much richer, and the Republicans think they need more help. The middle class and working families of this country become poorer, and the Republicans think we need to cut programs they desperately need. Frankly, those may be the priorities of some of my Republican colleagues in this room, but I do not believe that these are the priorities of the American people.” (Watch more from at Sen. Sanders at https://youtu.be/gB1efQXFThk)
__
America’s economy is much stronger than Europe’s right now—but the gains are limited to the top strata of our population. Yet, because of Europe’s different approach to wealth distribution, when I travel I notice that the average European is doing better than then average American. And the poorer-than-average European is doing much better than the struggling American.
I wonder at what point, if ever, our Republican legislators will heed the lesson that the privileged of France's Old Regime learned the hard way: The growing gap between the elites and everyone else is not only un-American, it’s a recipe for instability.
Please help me understand this. If these numbers are correct, how can they be defensible? Are our Congressional Republicans, with their fierce advocacy, public servants or private servants? Considering all of our wealth and resources, is this the best we can do in America?
You can't ignore racism and raise anti-racist children. You have to tackle it head-on
It is true. You cannot hide from it. You cannot ignore it. It is everywhere. And not just racism, but misogyny and sexism have to be cut out like a cancer. They are embedded so deep into our culture that we have no choice but to deal with them directly if we want to effect any type of progressive change for the better.
You can't ignore racism and raise anti-racist children. You have to tackle it head-on
You can’t pretend that racism doesn’t exist or is a relic of the past. Even when it comes to children’s books
by Jessica Valenti at The Guardian
Thursday is library day at my daughter Layla’s school, which she treasures because she gets to bring a new book home for a whole week. She’s chosen books we love, books we hate and books designed to send a pointed message to mom and dad about what she wants for her birthday (“I’m a Big Sister!”). So last week, when she brought home Travels of Babar – a book about a character I remember fondly from my own childhood – we didn’t think much of it. Until we started reading.
Layla and I were a few pages into reading the Babar book when we came across incredibly offensive and racist images of black people, caricatured both in the drawings and in the text, which called the book’s characters “savages” and “cannibals”. I was so taken aback that I quickly shut the book, mumbled an explanation for why we couldn’t read it and started to pen an incredulous and angry letter to her school’s library.
This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered racism in the media to which my daughter has been exposed (Aristocats, I’m looking at you), and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But as jarring as it was, the experience served as a good reminder that raising anti-racist children is not about ignoring racism - but tackling it head on. Closing the book or shutting off the movie may be the easiest move, but it’s the wrong one.
Research has consistently shown that proactively teaching your children (and white children especially) about racism – telling them that discrimination exists in the world – is far more effective than ignoring race and pretending as if the world is “colorblind”. As tempting as it is to think of even our young children as innocent, they are exposed to the same racism and biases that adults are in culture. The best thing that we can do for them as parents is to arm them with information about the reality of racism – historic and present – and teach them that it is unacceptable.
And, in the wake of University of Oklahoma fraternity members being taped chanting a violently racist song, I can’t help but wonder what lessons – if any – about race they were taught as children. The parents of one student, Levi Pettit, said in a statement this week that their son “made a horrible mistake.” They own the fact that what their child did is “disgusting”, but insist: “we know his heart, and he is not a racist.”
I understand the fierce love that we feel for our children, but if we truly love them and want them to grow, we have to tell them the truth about their actions and how those actions shape who they are. In this case, the truth is that these young men – even if they were drunk, even if they were raised the “right way”, and even though they may feel shame now – are racist. The real next step for them needs not to be arguing that point, but figuring out how they can mitigate the very real harm they caused.
White people have the privilege of pretending that racism doesn’t exist or is a relic of the past. It would’ve been easy enough to say to myself that the book my daughter brought home from the library was published in 1937 and that times have changed, kept turning the pages and returned it like normal. But despite many people pointing out the book’s racism – its Amazon reviews are full of warnings – it is still being widely sold and, obviously, housed in children’s libraries. And, presumably, other parents are reading it to their children as though the illustrations and depictions are normal or acceptable.
I am fortunate that my daughter goes to a school where the administrators, librarian and teachers were horrified that this book was in their library – they removed it immediately from the collection. (Spare me any comments about censorship; I have no issue with removing racist crap from children’s libraries.) And though the conversation I had with my daughter later about why we weren’t going to read that book was a difficult one, I know she is so much better off for having had it. Because it will serve as a preface to a lesson that I hope she will carry with her through the future: racism is everywhere and it is incumbent on white people to cut it out.
If women were honest on dates
I usually hate these kind of generalizing videos but this one was pretty damn funny.
Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’
Teacher’s resignation letter: ‘My profession … no longer exists’
By Valerie Strauss
i-quit
Increasingly teachers are speaking out against school reforms that they believe are demeaning their profession, and some are simply quitting because they have had enough.
Here is one resignation letter from a veteran teacher, Gerald J. Conti, a social studies teacher at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y.:
Mr. Casey Barduhn, Superintendent
Westhill Central School District
400 Walberta Park Road
Syracuse, New York 13219
Dear Mr. Barduhn and Board of Education Members:
It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher.
As with Lincoln and Springfield, I have grown from a young to an old man here; my brother died while we were both employed here; my daughter was educated here, and I have been touched by and hope that I have touched hundreds of lives in my time here. I know that I have been fortunate to work with a small core of some of the finest students and educators on the planet.
I came to teaching forty years ago this month and have been lucky enough to work at a small liberal arts college, a major university and this superior secondary school. To me, history has been so very much more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my travel, guiding all of my reading and even dictating my television and movie viewing. Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or a presentation. With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching “heavy,” working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised. STEM rules the day and “data driven” education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill.
A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children?
My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up” our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case.
After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.
For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.
Sincerely and with regret,
Gerald J. Conti
Social Studies Department Leader
Cc: Doreen Bronchetti, Lee Roscoe
My little Zu.
Prison makes you 'come out gay'
Mumble-core, mega-token Ben Carson just PROVED that homosexuality is a choice. He asserts that some people come out of prison having been turned gay and that makes it a 'choice'. Setting aside the complete lack of any evidence to support such crazy, he is willingfully ignoring the fact that the 'choice' he is referring to is the timing for which one decides to make their homosexuality public. So, either he is a whole lot of dumb or a liar by omission.
Untitled (from the Thunder, Lightning series)
Untitled (from the Thunder, Lightning series)
by Milo Roy and James M. Roy
acrylic, watercolor, and pencil on paper
#createarteveryday
Does Sexism Hurt Men?
Yes, it does. It hurts everyone.
Laci Green is the bees knees.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJm5yR1KFcysl_0I3x-iReg
Go see her stuff. She has really great stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff.
Laci Green is the bees knees.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJm5yR1KFcysl_0I3x-iReg
Go see her stuff. She has really great stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff.
Boom, Crash, Roar!
Untitled (from the Thunder, Lightning series)
by Milo Roy & James M. Roy
acrylic and pencil on canvas
#createarteveryday
Socialist Obama crashes our economy to a new high on the Dow Jones
18,140.44
at today's close.
at today's close.
Thanks Obama.
In The Midst Of Measles Outbreak, Black Families Become Prime Anti-Vaxxer Recruits
By: Shane Paul Neil
The anti-vaccination movement has been a point of contention amongst parents, medical professionals and government officials for years dating back to the study published by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, published a study linking vaccinations with autism in 1998. The study has since been discredited and in the process Wakefield had his medical license revoked. Despite this, the waves created by the study continue to be felt almost twenty years later with some parents actively refusing to have their children vaccinated. One of the most prominent and outspoken parents among them is Jenny McCarthy. The former Playboy bunny and actress has penned three books espousing her view on the anti-vaccination movement. The most recent measles outbreak, which reportedly started at Disneyland and has since spread to Arizona, has been linked to the anti-vaccination movement. Currently all but two states (West Virginia and Mississippi) make religious exemptions for vaccination. In addition, 19 states allow for “philosophical” exemptions. California currently allows for both religious and philosophical exemptions, as does Arizona.
In the midst of the controversy, families of color are being actively recruited by anti-vaxxers. While the anti-vaccine movement has been traditionally white and affluent, blacks are considered fairly easy targets due to a general distrust of the medical community dating back to the Tuskegee experiments. As Monika Brooks, advocate and Executive Director of the Mocha Autism Network puts it “The accusations from the 2004 CDC whistleblower incident has widened the already strained gap between families of color and the medical community. It prevents families from seeking help for not only atypical neurological challenges, but also for simple physical medical challenges.”
Despite the fractured relationship between blacks and the medical community, vaccinations remain at a fairly high rate because as Brooks puts it “many of us don’t consider it an option. We don’t ask. “While vaccination rates for black children are lower than their white counterparts, the disparity is generally more attributable to economic and availability factors more than any philosophical viewpoint.
There are currently 100 cases of measles that have spread to 13 states following the Disneyland outbreak.
http://thisweekinblackness.com/shane-paul-neil/in-the-midst-of-measles-outbreak-black-families-become-prime-anti-vaxxer-recruits/
Shane Paul Neil
In addition to writing for TWiB and appearing on Sportsball and #TWiBPrime Shane works as a freelance writer and content marketing consultant.
Collection
Collection
1954/1955
Oil, paper, fabric, wood, and metal on canvas
80 × 96 × 3 1/2 in
© Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
A “Combine” is neither a sculpture nor a painting but
rather a hybrid of the two. Robert Rauschenberg developed the term to
describe a series of works he began in 1954 that eluded traditional art
media categories. Collection (1954/1955) is the artist’s first
“Combine painting,” an early type of Combine that hangs on the wall like
a traditional painting but reaches into three dimensions with various
elements attached to the work’s surface—such as the silk veil over the
mirror attached just off-center and the found wood scraps along the top
edge. This work also marks a new approach to color. In a decisive move
away from the experimental monochromatic series of white, black, and red
paintings he created between 1951 and 1953, Rauschenberg began Collection by
covering three panels with red, yellow, and blue fabric and layering
them with innumerable collaged, drawn, painted, and sculpted elements.
The same year that Rauschenberg began Collection he started to
experiment with extending the three-dimensionality of the Combines,
incorporating both wall and floor components and even creating fully
freestanding works, such as Untitled, in the Panza Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Collection is distinctive for the range and variety of materials it incorporates. In contrast to the approach seen in his Red Paintings (1953–54) and his Black paintings (1951–53), where the collage papers and fabrics typically play second fiddle to the painted passages, here Rauschenberg gives everyday objects the same prominence as conventional art materials. Comic strips, squirts of oil paint, art magazine illustrations, and a host of textiles jostle for attention, and gestural paint strokes drawn directly from the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism carry the same compositional weight as newspaper clippings of car thefts and department store advertisements. Rauschenberg creates a sense of equality across this diverse visual field in part through the work’s structure. The three vertical panels, in addition to referencing the traditional triptych format, appear to be horizontally subdivided into three regions: a relatively quiet area along the top, bordered by a long squeeze of red paint that crosses the surface from left to right; a densely layered strip across the center, where the majority of the collaged elements are concentrated; and a band of brightly colored stripes that fills the bottom. The resulting three-by-three grid both consolidates and unifies the work’s otherwise chaotic surface.
During preparations for Rauschenberg’s 1976 retrospective at the National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in Washington, D.C., organizing curator Walter Hopps approached the artist about naming several Combines that until that point had remained untitled. Rauschenberg’s choice of Collection as the title of this work can be read in a number of ways. Hopps suggested that the artist was paying homage to the National Collection of Fine Arts, the first venue on the retrospective tour. Interpreted more literally, the title could reference the collection of wayward scraps scattered across the composition, from the tiny fabric reproductions of masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) to the print of Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou’s bas-relief Le Passage du Rhin (ca. 1733) and the Re Umberto Brand food packaging in the upper left corner. Through such acts of gathering and combining, Collection bridges cultural references high and low. It also links Rauschenberg’s early artistic explorations with a new phase of experimentation. The Combines brought Rauschenberg international success, and their innovative approach to blending materials and categories remains one of the most significant developments in the history of twentieth-century art.
Collection is distinctive for the range and variety of materials it incorporates. In contrast to the approach seen in his Red Paintings (1953–54) and his Black paintings (1951–53), where the collage papers and fabrics typically play second fiddle to the painted passages, here Rauschenberg gives everyday objects the same prominence as conventional art materials. Comic strips, squirts of oil paint, art magazine illustrations, and a host of textiles jostle for attention, and gestural paint strokes drawn directly from the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism carry the same compositional weight as newspaper clippings of car thefts and department store advertisements. Rauschenberg creates a sense of equality across this diverse visual field in part through the work’s structure. The three vertical panels, in addition to referencing the traditional triptych format, appear to be horizontally subdivided into three regions: a relatively quiet area along the top, bordered by a long squeeze of red paint that crosses the surface from left to right; a densely layered strip across the center, where the majority of the collaged elements are concentrated; and a band of brightly colored stripes that fills the bottom. The resulting three-by-three grid both consolidates and unifies the work’s otherwise chaotic surface.
During preparations for Rauschenberg’s 1976 retrospective at the National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) in Washington, D.C., organizing curator Walter Hopps approached the artist about naming several Combines that until that point had remained untitled. Rauschenberg’s choice of Collection as the title of this work can be read in a number of ways. Hopps suggested that the artist was paying homage to the National Collection of Fine Arts, the first venue on the retrospective tour. Interpreted more literally, the title could reference the collection of wayward scraps scattered across the composition, from the tiny fabric reproductions of masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) to the print of Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou’s bas-relief Le Passage du Rhin (ca. 1733) and the Re Umberto Brand food packaging in the upper left corner. Through such acts of gathering and combining, Collection bridges cultural references high and low. It also links Rauschenberg’s early artistic explorations with a new phase of experimentation. The Combines brought Rauschenberg international success, and their innovative approach to blending materials and categories remains one of the most significant developments in the history of twentieth-century art.
There will be no Ms. Rand, either
Dick Cavett on Ayn Rand:
CAVETT: … You can piss away valuable hours of your life reading Ayn Rand—her wretched appeal to the young, her wretched writing, her wretched person.
She was supposed to be on my show; I was kind of sorry she wasn't, because I was kind of laying for her. I did not succumb, as a kid, to being enthused by Ayn Rand, and that sense of power, as every kid was at one time until they outgrew it. The old bag sent over a list of fifteen conditions for appearing with me, or for appearing with anyone, I guess. One of them was, 'There will be no disagreeing with Ms. Rand's philosophy.'
GREEN: You're kidding.
CAVETT: No! I wrote at the bottom of the list, to be sent back to her, 'There will be no Ms. Rand, either.'"
Dam
Dam
by Robert Rauschenberg
1959
by Robert Rauschenberg
1959
Oil paint, photomechanical
reproductions, cloth, and metal on canvas.
© Estate of Robert
Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
From the Hirshhorn’s
collection
Childish fantasy
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." — [Kung Fu Monkey — Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009] ― John Rogers
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