Here – allow me to let you use my barf bucket as you listen to the new president of SEIU, Mary Kay Henry speak about how evil the descendants of immigrants are because we are mean to illegal aliens and want them to stop breaking our laws and use the front door like our ancestors did.
“The time to organize is now when a nation of immigrants seeks to criminalize and disenfranchise new immigrants who share the same hopes and dreams of all workers to provide for their families, and to give their children a shot at a better future.”
I don’t know about you, but I am so far over these lying sacks of crap spinning their little tales of woe to get the poor and stupid to give them all their money.
NEW YORK — Lena Horne, the enchanting jazz singer and actress who reviled the bigotry that allowed her to entertain white audiences but not socialize with them, slowing her rise to Broadway superstardom, died Sunday. She was 92.
Horne died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Gloria Chin. Chin would not release any other details.
Horne, whose striking beauty and magnetic sex appeal often overshadowed her sultry voice, was remarkably candid about the underlying reason for her success.
“I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept,” she once said. “I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.”
In the 1940s, she was one of the first black performers hired to sing with a major white band, the first to play the Copacabana nightclub and among a handful with a Hollywood contract.
In 1943, MGM Studios loaned her to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black movie musical “Stormy Weather.” Her rendition of the title song became a major hit and her signature piece.
On screen, on records and in nightclubs and concert halls, Horne was at home vocally with a wide musical range, from blues and jazz to the sophistication of Rodgers and Hart in songs like “The Lady Is a Tramp” and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.”
In her first big Broadway success, as the star of “Jamaica” in 1957, reviewer Richard Watts Jr. called her “one of the incomparable performers of our time.” Songwriter Buddy de Sylva dubbed her “the best female singer of songs.”
But Horne was perpetually frustrated with the public humiliation of racism.
“I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn’t work for places that kept us out … it was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world,” she said in Brian Lanker’s book “I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America.”
While at MGM, she starred in the all-black “Cabin in the Sky,” in 1943, but in most of her other movies, she appeared only in musical numbers that could be cut in the racially insensitive South without affecting the story. These included “I Dood It,” a Red Skelton comedy, “Thousands Cheer” and “Swing Fever,” all in 1943; “Broadway Rhythm” in 1944; and “Ziegfeld Follies” in 1946.
As Rev. Manning so aptly put, the ‘long-legged Mack daddy’ is about to choose a person with no ‘bench time’ to sit on the SCOTUS. Did anyone expect anything less from the fraud and interloper who continues to pretend to be a Constitutional law professor? Did anyone expect anything BUT this from the guy who isn’t qualified to be president?
If I was not so worried about the impending financial holocaust descending on Europe and the rest of the world (and peoples’ reaction to it), AND millions of gallons of oil being pumped into our oceans, I would write more about the insanity of seating a person for life on the Supreme Court who has never worn a freakin’ judge’s robe.
WASHINGTON — President Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan as the nation’s 112th justice, choosing his own chief advocate before the Supreme Court to join it in ruling on cases critical to his view of the country’s future, Democrats close to the White House said on Sunday.
After a monthlong search, Mr. Obama informed Ms. Kagan and his advisers on Sunday of his choice to succeed the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. He plans to announce the nomination at 10 a.m. Monday in the East Room of the White House with Ms. Kagan by his side, said the Democrats, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the decision before it was formally made public.
In settling on Ms. Kagan, the president chose a well-regarded 50-year-old lawyer who served as a staff member in all three branches of government and was the first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member and the third woman on the current court, as well as the first justice in nearly four decades without any prior judicial experience.
That lack of time on the bench may both help and hurt her confirmation prospects, allowing critics to question whether she is truly qualified while denying them a lengthy judicial paper trail filled with ammunition for attacks. As solicitor general, Ms. Kagan has represented the government before the Supreme Court for the past year, but her own views are to a large extent a matter of supposition.
Wow – she’s argued before SCOTUS for a whole freakin’ year. Well, why not? Barry got a Nobel without doing anything except breathing.
Can we get Paul Ryan or Ron Paul to get the ball rolling on changing the rules about SC Justices serving for life? Remember, lifetimes used to be a whole hell of a lot shorter when the Constitution was written.
May 10 (Bloomberg) — European Union finance ministers moved toward agreement on an unprecedented loan package worth at least $645 billion to prevent Greece’s fiscal woes from triggering a broader sovereign-debt crisis and shattering confidence in the euro.
Jolted into action by last week’s slide in the currency to a 14-month low and soaring bond yields in Portugal and Spain, the 16 euro governments sketched out plans to make 440 billion euros ($570 billion) available, with 60 billion euros more from the EU’s budget, according to three officials at the talks in Brussels. An additional, unspecified sum may come from the International Monetary Fund, the officials said.
“We are going to defend the euro,” Spanish Economy Minister Elena Salgado told reporters as she arrived to chair the meeting yesterday. “We think we have a duty for more stability for our currency. We will do whatever is necessary.”
The European Union and the International Monetary Fund early Monday morning agreed an emergency funding facility worth as much as €720bn (£625bn) in loan guarantees and credits to stabilise the eurozone before financial markets opened.
As part of a massive EU plan to shock the markets into believing eurozone finances were sound, the European Central Bank was also set to play a big role by buying eurozone government debt.
WASHINGTON (MNI) – The following statement was issued by the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank:
In response to the re-emergence of strains in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets in Europe, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are announcing the re-establishment of temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap facilities. These facilities are designed to help improve liquidity conditions in U.S. dollar funding markets and to prevent the spread of strains to other markets and financial centers. The Bank of Japan will be considering similar measures soon. Central banks will continue to work together closely as needed to address pressures in funding markets.
Federal Reserve Actions
The Federal Open Market Committee has authorized temporary reciprocal currency arrangements (swap lines) with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Swiss National Bank. The arrangements with the Bank of England, the ECB, and the Swiss National Bank will provide these central banks with the capacity to conduct tenders of U.S. dollars in their local markets at fixed rates for full allotment, similar to arrangements that had been in place previously. The arrangement with the Bank of Canada would support drawings of up to $30 billion, as was the case previously.
These swap arrangements have been authorized through January 2011. Further details on these arrangements will be available shortly.
TEL AVIV — China, Iran and North Korea have established a strategic alliance that focuses on missile and nuclear development, according to a new report.
The report said that Beijing, Pyongyang and Teheran were helping each other in missile and nuclear programs. The report, titled “China, Iran and North Korea: A Triangular Strategic Alliance,” by Israel’s GLORIA Center said China and North Korea were the key suppliers of Scud-based ballistic missiles to Iran’s military, the target of Western sanctions.
“This flurry of activities underscored the growing proliferation threats posed by DPRK [North Korea] assistance to Iran’s missile capabilities, which has also led to collaboration in the nuclear realm,” the report, published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs, said.
The report from Middle East Review Of International Affairs:
While the international community is facing a nuclear stalemate with Iran and North Korea, China is increasingly emerging as a Great Wall in blocking the path towards sanctions and peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis and denuclearizaton of the Korean Peninsula. While much recent literature has been written on the deleterious effects of a regional nuclear arms race should Iran become a nuclear power, there has been relatively little effort to explore why China persistently defends Iran by blocking or watering down UNSC sanctions and on the strategic partnership between Iran and North Korea in missile and nuclear collaboration. This paper explores the triangular strategic alliance between China, Iran, and North Korea and the attendant negative spill-over that poses a threat to East Asia and Middle East regional stability.
Introduction: Iran in China’s Strategic Calculus
There is a paucity of research on Sino-Iran relations in the international security literature, yet this relationship has important implications for East Asia and Middle East regional security. Historically, Sino-Iran relations span back thousands of years, and their modern partnership began in the 1970s, first with the Shah and then continuing with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, coupled with the Shah’s fear of Soviet misadventures in Iran and the Gulf, paved way for Sino-Iran rapprochement. This was further reinforced by their shared sense of history as great ancient empires that were humiliated by the West.[1] From 1858 to 1860, Russia seized large swaths of Siberia from China, while throughout the 1800s, European powers carved up China and Iran.[2] Currently, on a pragmatic level, China is paving a new energy silk road with Iran to meet its energy security-driven foreign policy goals and to hedge against U.S. domination over their energy supply in the Persian Gulf.
China’s Persian Gulf Strategy
In 1993, China became a net importer of oil and is now the second biggest energy consumer in the world, after the United States. However, China’s peer competitor, the United States, with its formidable naval power, controls sea lanes of communications (SLOC) for oil supplies that may be cut off over a potential Taiwan clash. As such, in 2000 a Chinese article in the influential Strategy and Management Journal recommended that China’s strategy in the Persian Gulf should be to align with Iran.[3] In the article, the author posits that since the United States already controls the west bank of the oil-rich Persian Gulf via its pro-American proxies (e.g., Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states), the Gulf is in effect an “internal sea” for the United States, and challenges to that position are likely to fail. However, if China and Russia expand relations with Iran, they could maintain a “minimum balance” to thwart U.S. moves. Since securing oil imports from the Gulf requires both the U.S.-controlled west bank and the China/Russia-supported Iranian east bank, this axis would block U.S. efforts to impose oil embargoes against other countries. Should the United States and China ever have a military clash over Taiwan, the United States would not shut off China’s Gulf oil supplies since China, Russia, and Iran control the Gulf’s east bank.[4] Indeed, in 2001, China followed this strategic vision and formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with a Sino-Russia-Iran axis to counterbalance perceived U.S. hegemony.[5]
Hit the link above to read the rest of this detailed article.
If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate, perhaps up to 150,000 barrels — or more than 6 million gallons per day — based on government data showing daily production at another deepwater Gulf well.
Day 19 of Deepwater Horizon pumping crude into the ocean.
What happens when the oceans die?
I’m so glad a so-called constitutional professor who had to go to a correspondents’ dinner instead of respond to what could be a planet killer is in charge of the federal government and it’s myriad of scientists and ejumacated peoples. I know I have been sleeping better since this incident has been allowed to run it’s course.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Concern grew Sunday that the US Gulf coast is facing a whole new level of environmental disaster after the best short-term fix for a massive oil spill ran into serious trouble.
May 9 (Bloomberg) — European Union finance ministers pledged to stop a sovereign debt crisis from shattering confidence in the euro as they held an emergency summit to hammer out a lending mechanism for deficit-stricken nations.
Jolted into action by last week’s slide in the currency to a 14-month low and soaring bond yields in Portugal and Spain, leaders of the 16 euro nations agreed on the backstop yesterday and told ministers to get it ready before Asian markets open.
“We are going to defend the euro,” Spanish Economy Minister Elena Salgado told reporters as she arrived to chair today’s Brussels meeting. “We think we have a duty for more stability for our currency. We will do whatever is necessary.”
Europe’s failure to contain Greece’s fiscal crisis triggered a 4.3 percent drop in the euro last week, the biggest weekly decline since the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse. It prompted the U.S. and Asia to urge broader steps to prevent a debt crisis from pitching the world back into a recession.
President Barack Obama spoke by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the second time in three days, adding to the international pressure Europe has faced since a hurriedly arranged conference call of Group of Seven finance chiefs on May 7. Obama today emphasized “the importance of the members of the European Union taking resolute steps to build confidence in the markets,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters in Hampton, Virginia.
‘Wolfpack Behavior’
“In the night, when the markets are opening, we cannot afford a disappointment,” said Finance Minister Anders Borg of Sweden, one of 11 EU nations not in the euro. “We now see herd behavior in the markets that are really pack behavior, wolfpack behavior.”
European officials declined to disclose the size of the stabilization fund, to be made up of money borrowed by the EU’s central authorities with guarantees by national governments. The meeting started just after 3 p.m. A German official said it will be a “long night.”
Germany, the bloc’s largest economy, will be represented by Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere after wheelchair- bound Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, 67, was rushed to a Brussels hospital due to an adverse reaction to new medication.