After speculation mounted last that Ben Affleck would possibly hang up his filmmaking and acting hats for a U.S. Senate run from Massachusetts, the Argo director and star said he won’t be running for office at least for the time being. Last week, Boston’s CBS affiliate reported that Massachusetts Democrats were wooing Affleck to run for the seat that will be vacated by John Kerry after his likely confirmation as Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton. The low probability that he’d run did get a bit of a boost when his publicist didn’t directly deny he was considering a run and he didn’t completely say ‘no’ when asked about running during an appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday. But, Affleck took to Facebook to give final confirmation of his Senate bow out. He will continue to work for the Eastern Congo Initiative, a non-profit group that gives humanitarian aid in the war-torn African region and other causes. Affleck has gone to Congress to testify on behalf of his work for the group. In his Facebook message, he also gives a shout-out to the presumed new Secretary of State. Affleck’s Facebook statement follows : I love Massachusetts and our political process, but I am not running for office. Right now it’s a privilege to spend my time working with Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI), supporting our veterans, drawing attention to the great many who go hungry in the U.S. everyday and using filmmaking to entertain and foster discussion about issues like our relationship to Iran. We are about to get a great Secretary of State and there are some phenomenal candidates in Massachusetts for his Senate seat. I look forward to an amazing campaign. Happy Holidays to All. [ Source: A.P. ]
Following a press conference in which the NRA lobbied for guns in school , organization president Wayne LaPierre appeared today on Meet the Press and defended his group’s position. “If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy,” LaPierre told David Gregory, challenging the host by adding: “Most of the media, they’re protected by armed guards.” Wayne LaPierre on Meet the Press When asked if there was any gun legislation he would support, LaPierre refused to answer. Later on the show, Senator Chuck Schumer said LaPierre’s position is “so extreme and so tone-deaf, he actually helps the cause [of gun control]… He is so doctrinaire and so adamant, I think many gun owners don’t support him.” This issue, of course, is at the forefront of the country after Adam Lanza killed 26 people inside Sandy Hook Elementary School just over a week ago. Congress is allegedly working on an assault weapons ban , while President Obama and Vice President Biden appear dedicated to the passing some kind of major legislation. Would you be behind it? Do you support a change in the gun control laws? YES. Fewer guns, fewer tragedies! NO. It’s unconstitutional and won’t stop anything! View Poll »
He was among the front-runners all season long and, last night, Tate Stevens took his place among reality show singing champions, snagging the $5 million prize offered each year to The X Factor winner . “My next dream is to make this album and be able to tour and live that life – do what I love doing,” Stevens told reporters after the show. “I love entertaining people, I love performing for people and I’m finally getting the chance.” But before we look too far ahead, let’s take a look back at Tate’s journey, starting with his initial audition: Tate Stevens X Factor Audition Feels like forever ago, huh? Sound off now on whether you think Stevens should have won and then watch a number of other performances that helped him achieve this dream: Tate Stevens – “Please Come Home for Christmas” Tate Stevens – “Tomorrow” Tate Stevens – “Anything Goes” Tate Stevens – “Fall” Tate Stevens – “Bonfire” Tate Stevens – “Somebody Like You” Tate Stevens – “From this Moment” Tate Stevens – “Wanted Dead or Alive” Tate Stevens – “I Thought I Was Tough”
Having gone dark online for the past week, the National Rifle Association held a press conference today for the first time since last Friday’s Connecticut shooting. The NRA condemned both the violence and those seeking to use it for political gain, while proposing a solution quite different than many in America have sought. NRA President David Keene and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre both spoke this morning on behalf of the organization’s four million members. LaPierre began with condolences to the people of Newtown, Conn., who have “suffered such an incomprehensible loss as a result of this unspeakable crime.” “While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectably silent. Now, we must speak for the safety of our nation’s children,” he added. And speak he did. What did the NRA propose? Here’s the main takeaway … “For all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one, nobody has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face.” “How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works?” “The only way to answer that question is to face the truth. Politicians pass laws for gun free school zones, they issue press releases bragging about them.” “They post signs advertising them. In doing so, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.” “How have our nation’s priorities gotten so far out of order. Think about it?” “We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. Airports, office buildings, power plants, court houses, even sports stadiums are all protected by armed security.” “We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol Police officers.” “Yet, when it comes to our most beloved, innocent, and vulnerable members of the American family, our children, we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless.” “The monsters and the predators of the world know it, and exploit it.” “The only way – the only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection.” “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” “I call on Congress today, to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation.” Obviously, those on the other side of the gun control debate will lose their mind at the notion that MORE guns in schools will somehow prevent violence. MSNBC’s Christopher Hayes said moments ago in response that “good guys with guns vs. bad guys with guns is the moral cosmology of a small child.” That it may be, but is there a better solution? If so, what? Will an assault weapons ban or any other component of the Obama administration’s effort to curb gun violence in the U.S. actually be effective? Historically, at least, the American public has been bitterly divided. Where do you stand on all this? Tell us in the survey below: Should there be more restrictive gun control laws? YES. Fewer guns, fewer tragedies! NO. It’s unconstitutional and won’t stop anything! View Poll »
While an assault weapons ban will likely go before Congress in 2013, and while many are calling for stricter gun control laws in response to the Connecticut shooting , residents in at least two states are taking a different tact: They’re getting locked and loaded. On Saturday, Virginia state police reported 4,166 filings for background checks on those seeking to purchase a gun, that’s a whopping 42 percent increase from the same date in 2011. It’s also the highest tally since the state starting tracking these transactions in 1989. Colorado also set a single-day record for background checks on Saturday; that state checked in with 4,200, a record number since it starting keeping track in 1999. Only licensed gun dealers need to perform background checks, of course, meaning these figures don’t account for an individual purchasing weapons via private sellers. Where do you stand on these facts and figures? Is it understandable folks would want to stock up in the wake of a massacre? And is it time to pass major gun control laws? YES. Fewer guns, fewer tragedies! NO. It’s unconstitutional and won’t stop anything! View Poll »
Jack Brooks died Tuesday night at Baptist Hospital of Beaumont after a sudden illness, according to a statement from the Jefferson County Sheriff#39;s Department. Brooks, who would have turned 90 on Dec. 18, was surrounded by family when he died, Deputy Rod Carroll said. Jack Brooks, who spent 42 years in Congress representing his Southeast Texas district and was in the Dallas motorcade in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, has died. He was 89. Brooks was among the last link
“Poor thang.” According to ABC News: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., the embattled Illinois congressman who has been on medical leave from Capitol Hill for months undergoing treatment for bipolar disorder, resigned from Congress Wednesday. Aides to House Speaker John Boehner said they have received a letter of resignation from Jackson Jr. The news was first reported by ABC’s Chicago affiliate WLS and two Chicago newspapers. Jackson has faced a slew of problems in recent months, most recently a probe by federal investigators into his finances. The federal probe was trying to get to the bottom of “suspicious activity” connected to Jackson’s House seat and potentially inappropriate expenditures. Jackson has missed 230 votes in the House this year. He last voted on June 8. Despite all his troubles, Jackson still managed to win re-election in a landslide earlier this month. But now he will leave Congress, shrouded by personal problems and professional probes. According to state law, once Jackson notifies Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, he will have to declare the seat vacant, and the state will hold a special election to fill that spot. Reached by ABC News Wednesday, one of Jackson’s colleagues Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., said he was not surprised that Jackson had decided to leave Capitol Hill, noting that Jackson had cancelled a conference call with constituents set for Wednesday morning. “I did get the feeling that if you’ve got plans to say something this morning and then you don’t, that would probably indicate that you were pretty close to something,” Davis said. SMH.
Moammar Gadhafi’s Youngest Son Reportedly Killed In Libya Isht is real in Libya… According to NBC News: Khamis Gadhafi, youngest son of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, was reported dead Saturday, exactly a year after his father died. There were conflicting reports about whether Khamis Gadhafi was captured alive but gravely wounded after a gunbattle in Bani Walid, a pro-Gadhafi stronghold where fighting has raged for three days. And Khamis Gadhafi has been reported killed several times, including in an August 2011 NATO airstrike. Al Arabiya news agency reported that sources told it Khamis Gadhafi was severely wounded and arrested but that he later died. However, Al Arabiya also said, Mohamed al-Magarief, the head of Libya’s democratically elected General National Congress, told the agency the late dictator’s son was killed during the clashes. A Libyan journalist told NBC News that Khamis Gadhafi was captured while fleeing in a convoy. His right leg had been amputated, but it was not clear if that was a result of recent fighting or a previous injury. The seventh son of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Khamis Gadhafi is known as one of the most hardline of Gadhafi’s sons. His reported death prompted wild celebrations in Misrata, Libya’s third city, where fireworks and car horns filled the night, the Russian Times reported. He was reviled there for atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the 32nd Brigade, a special unit he formed after studying in a Russian military academy, the Russian Times said. Damn, we wonder if they treated his dead body like they did his father’s ….
Way to spin your struggles growing up so you could seem “relatable” to the rest of Black America. This b*tch just got put on blast! Like many of her fellow Repubs, Mia is opposed to “anchor babies” (a racist way to say “immigrants having children in order to stay in the country”). Turns out, Mia was an “anchor baby” herself…and the Mormon follower just got her azz fact checked after her RNC speech spit all that talk. We quoted Mia’s shady azz when she gave her speech at the RNC earlier this month… The speech, which drew sustained applause, combined her family’s journey to the U.S. with references to civil-rights icons Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.‘Our story has been told over 200 years,’ she told the adoring crowd. ‘With small steps and giant leaps, from a woman on a bus to a man with a dream.’ ‘My parents immigrated to the U.S. with $10 in their pocket, believing that the America they had heard about really did exist. ‘When times got tough they didn’t look to Washington, they looked within…‘The America I grew up knowing was centered in self-reliance and filled with the possibilities of living the American dream.’ She claimed President Obama was dividing the country – ‘pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender and social status.’ ‘His policies have failed,’ she continued. ‘We are not better off than we were four years ago, and no rhetoric, bumper sticker or Hollywood campaign ad can change that. ‘Mr. President, I am here to tell you we are not buying what you are selling in 2012.’ And according to Mother Jones , Mia’s story doesn’t make a lot of sense: When she spoke at the Republican National Convention last month, Mia Love, a GOP rising star who’s vying to become the first black Republican woman elected to the House, wowed delegates with her parents’ up-by-their-bootstraps tale. She said their story of coming to America from Haiti with $10 in their pockets formed the basis for her own belief in self-reliance and her staunch opposition to government handouts…Though a child of immigrants, Love has embraced much of her party’s tough stance on immigration. She has implied that she would back deporting the US-born children of illegal immigrants so as not to reward “bad behavior.” Yet by Love’s own account, she is what Republicans derisively call an “anchor baby”— someone born to immigrant parents specifically to game the immigration system and secure legal status for family members. Love doesn’t talk about this aspect of her family’s immigration story now that she’s running for Congress, but she once said in a little-noticed interview that her birth on US soil helped bring her siblings to America. In January 2011, Love told the Deseret News that her parents, Jean Maxime and Marie Bourdeau, came to New York in the 1970s, fleeing poverty and looking for a better life. Love said that her parents immigrated legally, but were forced to leave their two young children behind in Haiti because their visa didn’t allow them to bring the kids. But, writes the Deseret News: There was an immigration law in place, however, that would grant the entire family citizenship if Jean Maxine and Mary had a baby in America. But there was a deadline. The law was set to expire on Jan. 1, 1976. On Dec. 6, 1975, with 25 days to spare, Mia was born in a Brooklyn hospital. In no time, her older brother and sister were sent for in Haiti and the family was re-united. Says Mia: “My parents have always told me I was a miracle and our family’s ticket to America.” It’s an uplifting story, but there’s one problem with this account. According to immigration lawyers and US immigration officials, there doesn’t appear to have been a law of the kind described in the article that would have conferred citizenship on Love’s parents, let alone her siblings, by simply having a baby in the United States. Though American immigration law did change in 1976, it merely limited the number of immigrants from the Western Hemisphere who could obtain permanent visas. According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the law since at least 1924 has barred minor children from petitioning for permanent residence status on their parents’ behalf. Love’s birth in the US couldn’t have helped to reunite her family in America, say immigration lawyers contacted by Mother Jones. And, they add, if the Bourdeaus were in the US legally on a permanent visa, they would have been able to bring the kids, according to the law at the time. In case you’re still wondering if this is really a black woman speaking…check out her shady stances on public funding: -Proposes eliminating the federally subsidized school lunch program and the funding that supports special education in public schools. -Wants to cut the Earned Income Tax Credit in half…keeping millions of working people out of poverty. -Pushing to radically slash housing subsidies that keeps millions of poor people off the streets. Luckily, Mia is trailing behind her opponent by double-digits but her ties to the right are scary. The GOP has given her major funding; $1 million towards the race and Vice Presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have all held fundraisers for this sellout. Ann Romney offered up an endorsement and her son, Josh Romney, is the chairman of Mia’s campaign. SMH…this broad takes selling out to a whole other level! Images via AP/facebook
GOP Representative Calls Planned Parenthood ‘Racist Babykillers’ Today in ratchet Republican news: A GOP representative has taken time out of his busy schedule to explain to us all how salvery, racism and planned parenthood go hand in hand. A Republican member of Congress equated Planned Parenthood to “slavery forces” and called it a “racist organization” that was “created with the sole purpose of killing children that look like mine.” Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a congressman from Kansas who made the comments at the 2012 Values Voter Summit this morning, is staunchly anti-abortion rights and said he has adopted four children “each of them either black, Hispanic, native American.” “Besides slavery, abortion is the other darkest stain on our nation’s character,” Huelskamp told the crowd. “And this president is looking for every way possible to make abortion more available and more frequent, and he wants you to pay for it — even if you disagree with it. Welcome to another provision of Obamacare. “What will they think of next?” Source
