This is what the Obama administration needs to do 24/7 to counter the anti-banking reform lobby
Monday February 1, 2010
Austan Goolsbee explains that having a big deficit this year will keep America away from Great Depression Land.
Austan Goolsbee, is chief economist of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by Paul Volcker. He is also one helluva public speaker (he's a professor, if you need to know).
Goolsbee not only lays out rather lucidly why we needed to run a deficit, but he also says why the budget freeze is wrong, why we need to run a higher deficit and why banking reform has to be on the table if the fovernment is serious about economic recovery. Oh! And check out what he says about doing away with the subsidies given to commercial banks for issuing student loans.
Everybody in the United States needs to watch this video NOW.
Shakiyonce
I don't begrudge any mami who taps her inner goddess or puta (or both) as part of her re-invention process. Especially when that mami looks as hawt as Shakira. Yet, is it me or is it the lace-front she's wearing? Shakira, in her quest to sex up her image, is looking a lot like Beyoncé. more this way»
Oscar Nominations (as they are coming via the #oscars twitterstream) and official list of nominees
Gaborey Sibide gets a Best Actress nomination for Precious. Take that Vanity Fair!
Best Supporting Actress nods: Penelope Cruz, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Mo'nique and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Best Picture: Up, District 9, Avatar, Blind Side, Hurt Locker, Education, Inglorious Basterds, Precious, Serious Man, Up in the Air
Christoph Waltz gets a Best Supporting Actor nod for Inglorious Basterds. Matt Damon, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Plummer and Stanley Tucci round out the category.
Sandra Bullock Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren were also nominated for Best Actress.
The Best Actor category gives nods to George Clooney, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman, Jeff Bidges and Jeremy Renner.
Best Director nods go to James Cameron (Avatar), Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt Locker), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds).
Complete list of nominations via Oscars.Go.Com:
more this way»
It's Black History Month: Vanity Fair obviously didn't get the memo
These are allegedly the faces of Hollywood for the next decade. Yup. Vanity Fair believes these are the faces that for the next 10 years will represent the collective fantasies and dreams of America, the beautiful.
It was bad enough they tried to paint the majority of tweeter influentials and users as white. Selling America, The Beautiful as just white, upper class, wafer-thin but able-bodied and make-no-mistakes straight femme women ... that really takes their bigotry to a whole 'nother level.
H/T to Oh No They Didnt and Jezebel
It's February 1st: Do you know where your negritude is?
Dear USA sisters and brothers in negritude:
Today is the 1st of February and the beginning of Black History Month and with this day I present you with a loving challenge: To put aside the sometimes short-sighted definition of "Black" as to mean "African American" and to extend that to the many Black AND African diasporas that live here in the USA.
I challenge you, my dearly beloved brothers and sisters, to look beyond the enthno-centric definitions of Blackness and I most certainly challenge you to look beyond the racial definitions of what it is to be of Africa and a child of her diaspora.
more this way»
Dr. George Tiller's killer is convicted of murder
Justice is finally served in Whichita, Kansas.
Scott Roeder was convicted of first degree murder for killing Dr. George Tiller at Reformation Lutheran Church. He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening to shoot church ushers Keith Martin and Gary Hoepner as he fled the scene of the crime. more this way»
