Elon Musk has made Twitter a nightmare. It is still facing advertising issues, the European Union is considering sanctions and removal as well as the U.S. government fearing that Russian influence will infiltrate Twitter as 2024 elections heat up.
Twitter continues its downfall. Not only it has been the home to conspiracy theories, hate, porn, graphic violence and criminal activity but it allows some of the most notorious bigots who were banned back on.
Ye, Talib Kweli, Raymond Scott (formerly Benzino) and Cara Cunningham (formerly Chris Crocker aka Leave Britney Spears Alone) are permanently banned from Twitter.
Somehow they've done far less than what this asshole has done.
Montana cartoonist Ben Garrison is back on Twitter. The far right extremist notorious for his pro Washed Up 45 propaganda comics has returned to the platform despite being banned twice.
He came to my attention after he drew a sexist and possibly transphobic cartoon depicting former first lady Michelle Obama as a despicable hu "man" while praising former first lady Melania Trump as a glamorous patriot.
The extremist has been literally promoting more conspiracy theories and insults towards President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former president Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and numerous Democrats who he sees as traitors. He has focused his attention on Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former vice president Mike Pence.
He continues to promote his crap on Twitter as well as Truth Social, Parler and Gettr.
Will Republicans force Iowans who lost their homes work for federal assistance?
Davenport is part of the Quad Cities, a part of the Mississippi River region.
It is the largest city in the region. The other cities include Bettendorf, Iowa as well as Moline and Rock Island, both in Illinois.
Interstate 74, Interstate 80, Interstate 88, Interstate 280 and U.S. Highway 61 serves the region. The city of Davenport has 105,000 residents. Overall the region has over 480,000.
In downtown Davenport, Iowa, a structure collapse happened on Sunday.
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Kim Reynolds, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) were notified of the tragic incident.
Another reason to why infrastructure is important. Instead of worrying about drag queens, Bud Light, Target and The Little Mermaid, Republicans should pay attention to the crumbling bridges, roads, buildings and railroads. If there is a train derailment, why don't they find some reason to pass legislation to stop them from happening instead of bitching about Biden visiting.
The junk food media moved on from East Palestine, Ohio. The Republicans have a new culture war.
Officials in Iowa are making plans to demolish a six-story apartment building a day after it partially collapsed and crashed to the ground, injuring one person and displacing countless other residents and business owners. No fatalities have been reported.
City officials said in a news release that the property owner was served Monday with an order for demolition of the building that was once the Davenport Hotel. Residents were not being allowed back inside to remove their belongings due to the building’s unstable condition.
“The property is currently being secured by a contractor on site this afternoon and demolition is expected to commence in the morning,” the statement said.
News of the collapse doesn’t surprise Schlaan Murray a former resident who told The Associated Press that his one-year stay there was “a nightmare.”
Murray, 46, moved into his apartment in February 2022 and almost immediately began having issues. The heat and air conditioner didn’t work, and there were plumbing problems in the bathroom.
He made multiple calls to the management company, and rarely got a response. Occasionally, he said, a maintenance person would stop by, but never completely fix the problem.
“They would come in and put some caulk on it,” he said. “But it needed more than that. They didn’t fix stuff, they just patched it up.”
He questions how the building passed inspections.
“It was horrible,” Murray said, adding that he felt the conditions were so bad that he didn’t want to bring his children to his apartment.
Murray said he moved out a month before his lease was up in March, and still hasn’t received his security deposit. He said that while the building’s conditions were deplorable, many residents were like him and had a difficult time coming up with first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit, to move to another apartment.
Meanwhile, firefighters and other first responders are being credited with saving lives — at great risk to their own personal safety, officials said during a Monday morning news conference.
“When something like this happens here, and tragedy strikes, our responders immediately do their work and their job and I can’t thank them enough,” Mayor Mike Matson said at a news conference Monday.
Fire Chief Michael Carlsten said workers searched for survivors throughout the night and rescued one person from the building — bringing the total number of people rescued by fire officials to eight. An additional 12 people were escorted out by fire crews when they first responded to the collapse on Sunday evening.
“No known individuals are trapped in that facility,” Carlsten said. Authorities have not released how many people were injured or provided details on the nature of their injuries. Carlsten did say that the person who was rescued overnight was in the hospital.
Rescue teams, including K-9 units, were inside the building all night.
The building collapsed just before 5 p.m. Sunday. Carlsten said the back of the apartment complex collapsed and had separated from the building, which houses apartments on the upper floors and businesses on the ground level.
Rich Oswald, City of Davenport director of development and neighborhood services, said at a news conference on Sunday that work was being done on the building’s exterior at the time of the collapse.
Reports of bricks falling from the building earlier this week were part of that work and the building’s owner had a permit for the project, Oswald said.
Some people in the area said the building has had problems. City officials said Sunday that they had several complaints from residents about needed repairs.
“The tenants told us the building was going to collapse,” said Jennifer Smith, co-owner of Fourth Street Nutrition, which moved into the building this winter.
“It sounds bad, but we have been calling the city and giving complaints since December. Our bathroom caved in December,” she said.
Smith said water damage has been apparent since they moved into their space. Her fellow co-owner, Deonte Mack, said fire crews were in the building as recently as Thursday for an inspection.
The Quad-City Times reported nearly 20 permits were filed in 2022 for building repairs, mainly for plumbing or electrical issues, according to the county assessor’s office.
There were 84 units in the building, a mixture of residential and commercial spaces, the mayor said.
In June 2021, 98 people died when a high-rise condominium near Miami Beach collapsed in the middle of the night.
The Champlain Towers South had a long history of maintenance problems, and shoddy construction techniques were used in the early 1980s. Other possible factors for the collapse include sea level rise caused by climate change and damage caused by saltwater intrusion.
Asshole pushes for work requirements to receive federal assistance.
Last minute talks resulted in a compromise that may rile up both sides. Again, this is why it's important to vote in 2024. The Republicans will continue to undermine President Joe Biden despite his calls to lower the temperature.
These culture wars will doom the Republicans.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will have to get the Republicans on board with this. On Sunday, the details will be released. Republicans and Democrats have 72 hours to look over it and decide whether they're going to back this.
Negotiators are now racing to finalize the bill’s text. McCarthy said the House will vote on the legislation on Wednesday, giving the Senate time to consider it before June 5, the date when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the United States could default on its debt obligations if lawmakers did not act in time.
While many details about the deal are unknown, both sides will be able to point to some victories. But some conservatives expressed early concerns that the compromise does not cut future deficits enough, while Democrats have been worried about proposed changes to work requirements in programs such as food stamps.
A look at what’s in and out of the deal, based on what’s known so far:
TWO-YEAR DEBT INCREASE, SPENDING LIMITS
The agreement would keep nondefense spending roughly flat in the 2024 fiscal year and increase it by 1% the following year, as well as provide for a two-year debt-limit increase — past the next presidential election in 2024. That’s according to a source familiar with the deal who provided details on the condition of anonymity.
VETERANS CARE
The agreement would fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget blueprint, including for a fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards. Biden sought $20.3 billion for the toxic exposure fund in his budget.
WORK REQUIREMENTS
Republicans had proposed boosting work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents in certain government assistance programs. They said it would bring more people into the workforce, who would then pay taxes and help shore up key entitlement programs, namely Social Security and Medicare.
Democrats had roundly criticized the proposed changes, saying they would lead to fewer people able to afford food or health care without actually increasing job participation.
House Republicans had passed legislation that would create new work requirements for some Medicaid recipients, but that was left out of the final agreement.
But the agreement would expand some work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. The agreement would raise the age for existing work requirements from 49 to 54, similar to the Republican proposal, but those changes would expire in 2030. The White House said it would at the same time reduce the number of vulnerable people at all ages who are subject to the requirements.
SPEEDING UP ENERGY PROJECTS
The deal puts in place changes in the National Environmental Policy Act that would designate “a single lead agency” to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.
WHAT WAS LEFT OUT
Republicans had sought to repeal Biden’s efforts to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all borrowers who took out student loans. But the provision was a nonstarter for Democrats. The budget agreement would keep Biden’s student loan relief in place, though the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on the matter.
The Supreme Court is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, and those justices’ questions in oral arguments showed skepticism about the legality of Biden’s student loans plan. A decision is expected before the end of June.
Tommy Tuberville's white privilege is a reason for his racist actions.
Auburn University, Ole Miss, University of Cincinnati and every other institution should remove his name immediately.
I mean c'mon folks: Why do we allow this type of individual into our government?
Too many footballs to the head!?
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is the most disgusting Republican lawmaker in the Senate. He really is an embarrassment to the Republicans. But I don't think they care anymore about how they act in public.
After all, he said that MAGA Republicans are proud "white nationalists" who love America.
So on the Donald Trump, Jr. podcast Triggered, the controversial senator remarks about the inner city.
The Alabama senator decides to insulted teachers by saying that“most of them in the inner city,” by questioning if they “can read and write.”
Tuberville made the comments, which were picked up by Alabama’s AL.com.
"The Covid really brought it out how bad our schools are and how bad our teachers are, in the inner city. Most of them in the inner city, I don’t know how they got degrees," Tuberville said, adding:
I don’t know whether they can read and write. And they want a raise. They want less time to work, less time in school. It’s just, we’ve ruined work ethic in this country. We don’t work at it anymore. We push an easy life."
The Alabama Education Association issued the following statement:
Hearing Senator Tuberville’s recent statements is disheartening to the men and women who choose education as their profession and work daily in Alabama classrooms. Our teachers put their total dedication and time into ensuring students can succeed and thrive – and as a former coach at an Alabama university, he should know the rigor and steps it takes for teachers to receive their degrees and certification.
AEA and many Alabamians know who our teachers are and the work they do. Their heroic actions during the COVID-19 pandemic and what they continue to do has not gone unnoticed and are commendable. As many teachers prepare for a well-deserved summer break, we hope they do not take Senator Tuberville’s statements to heart and understand it for what it is – a political soundbite.
Senator Tuberville’s staff reached out to us to defend the comments, saying they’re being taken out of context. Here is the response from the Senator’s Communications Director:
"In the interview, Coach Tuberville spoke specifically about Baltimore. 23 schools in Baltimore were recently found to have ZERO students who were proficient in math. That’s what Coach was talking about.
As for “inner city” versus suburban schools or rural schools, again there are countless examples of this problem nationwide. Chicago, for example, also had 55 schools without a single student proficient in math and 33 schools without a single student proficient in reading. Four out of five DC students are not proficient in math and two-thirds are not proficient in reading and writing. The list goes on. Coach is far from the first person to criticize inner city schools, and the critics know that.
For one thing, he never lived in Baltimore and he need to focus on his fucking state.
Like he needs to do his job and fucking help Alabamians. They had mass shootings in that fucking state.
It was a dig at the Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) and Kweisi Mfume (D-MD).
This motherfucker better focus on passing the debt ceiling and stop gun violence.
When he was under investigation by the feds for human trafficking, Gaetz hinted he was going to resign and prepare for a career as a conservative media agitator.
Well he is still in Congress. Doing stuff that has nothing to do with his constituents.
Floridians should take notice that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) of Florida's 1st Congressional District is probably one of the most ineffective members in the state.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. George Santos (R-NY), Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) are the most ineffective lawmakers in the House of Representatives.
All they do is constantly drive other members crazy with their pathetic showboating and click bait antics. They should be primaried but it is going to be challenging to defeat them.
Cause if we get rid of one of them, another one will take their place. Think about it!
Gaetz spends his Memorial Day weekend guest hosting on Newsmax. Instead of working on raising the debt ceiling, passing legislation through committees, hosting town halls to discuss how the 1st Congressional District is benefiting from his role as a representative, he does a lousy cable news program.
The White House and House Republicans have been locked in a standoff over debt ceiling negotiations as the deadline to raise the debt ceiling looms over the country. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said earlier this week that Congress has until June 1 to raise the debt ceiling before the country defaults on its bills.
Gaetz like many House Republicans are telling House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to not cave to President Joe Biden when it comes to the debt ceiling. He stated if the Republicans cave to pressure, they risk losing. He vows to challenge McCarthy's speakership if the Republicans lose their advantage.
On top of that, he admitted that this debt ceiling issue is worth the partisan challenge.
Holding our country's economy hostage is a key strategy to the Republicans.
This is why he isn't doing his job. He too busy pandering. He and Rep. Chip Roy both opposed McCarthy's speakership. They also share a difference in 2024 candidates.
Roy endorsed Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary while Gaetz remains a loyal backer of Washed Up 45.
Here's some of the noise from this insufferable lawmaker.
They blame Biden for Republican constantly obstructing governance.
The junk food media continues to blame President Joe Biden for Republicans refusing to raise the debt ceiling. This happens every time Democrats are in the White House.
Why can't both sides do their jobs?
Frequent talking point from the far left and the agitators in cable news. It is like Congress is the legislative body, the president is the executive operator and the Supreme Court is the judicial authority. When you have one body of government ran by far right extremists, a court ruling in favor of far right extremists and a society driven by partisan hacks telling these sheep to hate people for no fucking reason.
As Congress leaves for Memorial Day weekend, they leave with nothing accomplished.
The economists, world banks, ceditors, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, China, Russia and the world leaders allied to the U.S. are watching this.
Washed Up 45 is proud of the Republicans holding firm on their pledge to not raise the debt ceiling without passing spending cuts. The former president has raise the debt ceiling by $8 trillion and there was little resistance from Republicans.
Now that a Democrat is in control, now all of sudden Republicans want to stop reckless spending.
The president and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) are closing in on a deal that would raise the government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling for two years while capping spending on most items, a U.S. official told Reuters.
The deal, which is not final, would increase funding for discretionary spending on military and veterans while essentially holding non-defense discretionary spending at current year levels, the official said, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about internal discussions.
The White House is considering scaling back its plan to boost funding at the Internal Revenue Service to hire more auditors and target wealthy Americans, the official said.
A second U.S. official said IRS funding is an open issue, but the main thrust is ensuring the agency executes the president's priorities, even if there is a small haircut or funding is moved around.
The final deal would specify the total amount the government could spend on discretionary programs like housing and education, according to a person familiar with the talks, but not break that down into individual categories. The two sides are just $70 billion apart on a total figure that would be well over $1 trillion, according to another source.
The two sides met virtually on Thursday, the White House said.
Republican negotiators have backed off plans to increase military spending while cutting non-defense spending and instead backed a White House push to treat both budget items more equally, a source familiar with the talks told Reuters.
Biden said they still disagreed over where the cuts should fall.
"I don't believe the whole burden should fall back to middle class and working-class Americans," he told reporters.
House Speaker McCarthy told reporters Thursday evening the two sides have not reached a deal. "We knew this would not be easy," he said.
It is unclear precisely how much time Congress has left to act. The Treasury Department was warned that it could be unable to cover all its obligations as soon as June 1, but on Thursday said it would sell $119 billion worth of debt that will come due on that date, suggesting to some market watchers that it was not an iron-clad deadline.
"They have suggested in the past that they would not announce auctions that they did not believe they had the means to settle," Gennadiy Goldberg, senior rates strategist at TD Securities in New York. "So I do think that's a positive note."
Any agreement will have to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-controlled Senate. That could be tricky, as some right-wing Republicans and many liberal Democrats said they were upset by the prospect of compromise.
"I don't think everybody's going to be happy at the end of the day. That's not how the system works," McCarthy said.
The House adjourned on Thursday afternoon for a week-long break, and the Senate is not in session. Lawmakers have been told to be ready to come back to vote if a deal is reached.
The deal would only set broad spending outlines, leaving lawmakers to fill in the blanks in the weeks and months to come.
Biden has resisted Republican proposals to stiffen work requirements for anti-poverty programs and loosen oil and gas drilling rules, according to Democratic Representative Mark Takano.
Representative Kevin Hern, who leads the powerful Republican Study Committee, told Reuters a deal was likely by Friday afternoon.
If the left is intolerant to other voices, why are those Republicans quick to ban books, abortions, gender transition care, drag shows and migrants?
Republicans are literally playing with the American economy by refusing to pass a resolution to raise the debt ceiling. The House of Representatives in control of the Republican has been ineffective in getting things done. Instead of working on reducing inflation, they have passed culture war legislation and vow to repeal President Joe Biden's signature accomplishments.
Republicans are embracing white supremacy. This is the neo fascism that Washed Up 45 soiled into the mind of the Americans. They continue to push forward an agenda that goes against the generations of accomplishments for American greatness.
Ironic, "Make America Great Again" is now a symbol of neo fascism.
Anheuser-Busch, The North Face and now Target are part of the culture wars.
Target has credible threats of potential violence towards employees and their shoppers.
Due to the threats, Target had pulled its Pride products from the shelves.
Charlie Kirk, Chaya Raichik, Candace Owens and Moms for Liberty the extremists succeed in their quest to moral panic America into erasing people of color, migrants and those in the LGBTQ community.
Pulled off the shelves.
The retail giant said in a statement posted on its website Wednesday that it was committed to celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community but was withdrawing some items over threats that were "impacting our team members' sense of safety and well-being" on the job.
"Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior," the company said.
In June, Pride month and Juneteenth. The Department of Homeland Security warns their will be potential threats to these events.
Reuters reported that the company is removing from stores and its website products created by the LGBTQ brand Abprallen, which offers some products featuring spooky, gothic imagery, such as skulls and Satan, in pastels colors.
Conservative activists and media have also bashed Target in recent days for selling "tuck-friendly" women's swimsuits that allow some trans women to hide their genitalia, the Associated Press reported.
Twitter Spaces had malfunctioned when Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced his 2024 run for president. As with most Republicans, they often fuck up at the gate. It is given an easy play for Washed Up 45.
Since he started Truth Social, he avoided Twitter despite Elon Musk reinstating his account. He has hinted he may return to it, but it would rile up the investors who put millions into his DTMG.
It was catnip for President Joe Biden who actually trolled on Twitter.
DeSantis, the controversial Florida governor who declared his campaign on taking on the "woke mob" and defending himself from the Washed Up 45 onslaught said he's not a loser. He said that he's won his last election in a landslide and Florida has become the place for people.
Twitter was supposed to help bring DeSantis the necessary attention. It failed.
Musk wants to turn Twitter into a “digital town square,” but his much-publicized Twitter Spaces kickoff event, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announcing his run for president, struggled with technical glitches and a near half-hour delay Tuesday.
The billionaire Twitter owner said the problems were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event. But even at their highest, the number of listeners listed topped out at around 420,000, far from the millions of viewers that televised presidential announcements attract.
“There’s so many people,” said host David Sacks amid the disruptions. “We’ve got so many people here that we are kind of melting the servers, which is a good sign.”
After it concluded without further disruptions, Musk, DeSantis and Sacks played off the event as a success, with Sacks quipping “it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish — and we finished really strong.”
Musk a day earlier dubbed the event a historic first for Twitter, saying it would be “the first time something like this is happening on social media.” The webcast was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. ET but nearly 30 minutes passed with users getting kicked off, hearing microphone feedback and enduring other technical problems before it finally began. The audience remained under 500,000.
DeSantis opponents had a field day with the delayed announcement.
“Glitchy. Tech issues. Uncomfortable silences. A complete failure to launch. And that’s just the candidate!” said Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Washed Up 45.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, tweeted, “We had more people join when I played Among Us,” referencing the popular video game.
Twitter has suffered a host of technical issues since Musk took over and fired or laid off roughly 80% of its staff — including engineers tasked with keeping the site running. A day before the DeSantis event, speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London, Musk expressed confidence about Twitter’s future and said he is “going to start adding people to the company” but gave no further details.
Musk bought Twitter last fall for $44 billion. Since then, he has upended the platform’s verification system, loosened its content moderation policies in line with his views as a “free speech absolutist,” spread misinformation and engaged with far-right figures, all the while working to attract jittery advertisers back to the platform to turn it profitable. His grand vision, he has said repeatedly, is to eventually turn Twitter into an “ everything app ” for everyone — a digital town square where people can hear from world leaders and politicians without the need for traditional media as a go-between.
But he seems to mainly be courting conservatives and Republicans lately, referring to Democrats and liberals as infected by the “woke mind virus” and reinstating extremist accounts that were banned by Twitter’s previous administration.
Wednesday’s campaign launch event with DeSantis continued the trend — though it remains to be seen whether the platform can become a go-to destination for mainstream politicians when it continues to show evidence of instability. For instance, the word “DeSaster” was trending on Twitter Wednesday evening as users mocked the botched campaign launch.
In the world of traditional media and politics, a glitchy half-hour delay and an audience in the hundreds of thousands rather than millions, Wednesday’s Twitter Spaces event might look like a failure. But in Silicon Valley, failure is often spun as positive, even essential in developing new products and improving existing ones. Twitter Spaces — which Twitter launched in 2020 to compete with the then-popular audio chat site Clubhouse — is generally not used for audiences in the hundreds of thousands, so in some ways it was not a surprise that the event was marred with technical problems.
“It’s much worse for DeSantis than it is for Musk,” said Jo-Ellen Pozner, a business professor at Santa Clara University, noting that just a month ago Musk’s SpaceX launched a rocket that exploded minutes after its launch from Texas. After the explosion, Musk called it “an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months” in a tweet.
“It is clearly a difficult situation for DeSantis, who wants to project competence, who wants to forestall criticism,” she said. “Musk has an easier out by just saying that ‘this was the first time we tried it, it didn’t work out perfectly, but next time we’ll do much better,’ in the classic Silicon Valley approach to failing fast and learning more.”
Pozner said it remains an “open question” how Twitter is going to be valued as a broad digital platform down the line.
“I think will depend on, you know, how he and the top management react to this and how they spin it,” she said.
After DeSantis logged off, Musk and Sacks extended an open invitation to any other presidential candidate who wants to do a Twitter Spaces event. Whether or not they get any takers could signal what the future holds for Twitter as a “public square.”
President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former Barack Obama and various entertainers pay homage to a Queen who persevere through segregation in rural Tennessee, to an abusive husband and becoming an iconic singer. She was the "Queen of Rock 'n Roll."
Tina Turner passed away at the age of 83 in Switzerland.
Turner, the unstoppable singer and stage performer who teamed with husband Ike Turner for a dynamic run of hit records and live shows in the 1960s and ’70s and survived her horrifying marriage to triumph in middle age with the chart-topping “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” has died at 83.
Turner died Tuesday, after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, according to her manager. She became a Swiss citizen a decade ago.
Few stars traveled so far — she was born Anna Mae Bullock in a segregated Tennessee hospital and spent her latter years on a 260,000 square foot estate on Lake Zurich — and overcame so much. Physically battered, emotionally devastated and financially ruined by her 20-year relationship with Ike Turner, she became a superstar on her own in her 40s, at a time when most of her peers were on their way down, and remained a top concert draw for years after.
“How do we say farewell to a woman who owned her pain and trauma and used it as a means to help change the world?” Angela Bassett, who played Turner in the 1993 biopic “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” said in a statement.
“Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her, Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like.
With admirers ranging from Mick Jagger to Beyoncé to Mariah Carey, the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” was one of the world’s most popular entertainers, known for a core of pop, rock and rhythm and blues favorites: “Proud Mary,” “Nutbush City Limits,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” and the hits she had in the ’80s, among them “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “We Don’t Need Another Hero” and a cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”
Her trademarks included a growling contralto that might smolder or explode, her bold smile and strong cheekbones, her palette of wigs and the muscular, quick-stepping legs she did not shy from showing off. She sold more than 150 million records worldwide, won 12 Grammys, was voted along with Ike into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 (and on her own in 2021 ) and was honored at the Kennedy Center in 2005, with Beyoncé and Oprah Winfrey among those praising her. Her life became the basis for a film, a Broadway musical and an HBO documentary in 2021 that she called her public farewell.
Until she left her husband and revealed their back story, she was known as the voracious on-stage foil of the steady-going Ike, the leading lady of the “Ike and Tina Turner Revue.” Ike was billed first and ran the show, choosing the material, the arrangements, the backing singers. They toured constantly for years, in part because Ike was often short on money and unwilling to miss a concert. Tina Turner was forced to go on with bronchitis, with pneumonia, with a collapsed right lung.
Other times, the cause of her misfortunes was Ike himself.
As she recounted in her memoir, “I, Tina,” Ike began hitting her not long after they met, in the mid-1950s, and only grew more vicious. Provoked by anything and anyone, he would throw hot coffee in her face, choke her, or beat her until her eyes were swollen shut, then rape her. Before one show, he broke her jaw and she went on stage with her mouth full of blood.
Terrified both of being with Ike and of lasting without him, she credited her emerging Buddhist faith in the mid-1970s with giving her a sense of strength and self-worth and she finally left in early July 1976. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue was scheduled to open a tour marking the country’s bicentennial when Tina snuck out of their Dallas hotel room, with just a Mobil credit card and 36 cents, while Ike slept. She hurried across a nearby highway, narrowly avoiding a speeding truck, and found another hotel.
“I looked at him (Ike) and thought, ‘You just beat me for the last time, you sucker,’” she recalled in her memoir.
Turner was among the first celebrities to speak candidly about domestic abuse, becoming a heroine to battered women and a symbol of resilience to all. Ike Turner did not deny mistreating her, although he tried to blame Tina for their troubles. When he died, in 2007, a representative for his ex-wife said simply: “Tina is aware that Ike passed away.”
Ike and Tina fans knew little of this during the couple’s prime. The Turners were a hot act for much of the 1960s and into the ’70s, evolving from bluesy ballads such as “A Fool in Love” and “It’s Going to Work Out Fine” to flashy covers of “Proud Mary” and “Come Together” and other rock songs that brought them crossover success.
They opened for the Rolling Stones in 1966 and 1969, and were seen performing a lustful version of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” in the 1970 Stones documentary “Gimme Shelter.” Bassett and Laurence Fishburne gave Oscar-nominated performances in “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” based on “I, Tina,” but she would say that reliving her years with Ike was so painful she couldn’t bring herself to watch the movie.
Ike and Tina’s reworking of “Proud Mary,” originally a tight, mid-tempo hit for Creedence Clearwater Revival, helped define their sexual aura. Against a background of funky guitar and Ike’s crooning baritone, Tina began with a few spoken words about how some people wanted to hear songs that were “nice and easy.”
“But there’s this one thing,” she warned, “you see, we never ever do nothing nice and easy.
“We always do it nice — and rough.”
But by the end of the 1970s, Turner’s career seemed finished. She was 40 years old, her first solo album had flopped and her live shows were mostly confined to the cabaret circuit. Desperate for work, and money, she even agreed to tour in South Africa when the country was widely boycotted because of its racist apartheid regime.
Rock stars helped bring her back. Rod Stewart convinced her to sing “Hot Legs” with him on “Saturday Night Live” and Jagger, who had openly borrowed some of Turner’s on-stage moves, sang “Honky Tonk Women” with her during the Stones’ 1981-82 tour. At a listening party for his 1983 album “Let’s Dance,” David Bowie told guests that Turner was his favorite singer.
“She was inspiring, warm, funny and generous,” Jagger tweeted Wednesday. “She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.”
More popular in England at the time than in the U.S., she recorded a raspy version of “Let’s Stay Together” at EMI’s Abbey Road studios in London. By the end of 1983, “Let’s Stay Together” was a hit throughout Europe and on the verge of breaking in the states. An A&R man at Capitol Records, John Carter, urged the label to sign her up and make an album. Among the material presented was a reflective pop-reggae ballad co-written by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle and initially dismissed by Tina as “wimpy.”
“I just thought it was some old pop song, and I didn’t like it,” she later said of “What’s Love Got To Do With It.”
Turner’s “Private Dancer” album came out in May 1984, sold more than eight million copies and featured several hit singles, including the title song and “Better Be Good To Me.” It won four Grammys, among them record of the year for “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” the song that came to define the clear-eyed image of her post-Ike years.
“People look at me now and think what a hot life I must have lived — ha!” she wrote in her memoir.
Even with Ike, it was hard to mistake her for a romantic. Her voice was never “pretty,” and love songs were never her specialty, in part because she had little experience to draw from. She was born in Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939 and would say she received “no love” from either her mother or father. After her parents separated, she moved often around Tennessee and Missouri, living with various relatives. She was outgoing, loved to sing and as a teenager would check out the blues clubs in St. Louis, where one of the top draws was Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. Tina didn’t care much for his looks the first time she saw him, at the Club Manhattan.
“Then he got up onstage and picked up his guitar,” she wrote in her memoir. “He hit one note, and I thought, ‘Jesus, listen to this guy play.’”
Tina soon made her move. During intermission at an Ike Turner show at the nearby Club D’Lisa, Ike was alone on stage, playing a blues melody on the keyboards. Tina recognized the song, B.B. King’s “You Know I Love You,” grabbed a microphone and sang along. As Tina remembered, a stunned Ike called out “Giirrlll!!” and demanded to know what else she could perform. Over her mother’s objections, she agreed to join his group. He changed her first name to Tina, inspired by the comic book heroine Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and changed her last name by marrying her, in 1962.
In rare moments of leniency from Ike, Tina did enjoy success on her own. She added a roaring lead vocal to Phil Spector’s titanic production of “River Deep, Mountain High,” a flop in the U.S. when released in 1966, but a hit overseas and eventually a standard. She was also featured as the Acid Queen in the 1975 film version of the Who’s rock opera “Tommy.” More recent film work included “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and a cameo in “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”
Turner had two sons: Craig, with saxophonist Raymond Hill; and Ronald, with Ike Turner. (Craig Turner was found dead in 2018 of an apparent suicide). In a memoir published later in 2018, “Tina Turner: My Love Story,” she revealed that she had received a kidney transplant from her second husband, former EMI record executive Erwin Bach.
Turner’s life seemed an argument against marriage, but her life with Bach was a love story the younger Tina would not have believed possible. They met in the mid-1980s, when she flew to Germany for record promotion and he picked her up at the airport. He was more than a decade younger than her — “the prettiest face,” she said of him in the HBO documentary — and the attraction was mutual. She wed Bach in 2013, exchanging vows at a civil ceremony in Switzerland.
“It’s that happiness that people talk about,” Turner told the press at the time, “when you wish for nothing, when you can finally take a deep breath and say, ‘Everything is good.’”
___
Associated Press Writer Hilary Fox contributed to this report.
Florida looks like a penis and its governor is a dick.
It's official, Florida governor Ron DeSantis is entering the 2024 presidential race and it will be Washed Up 45's most formidable opponent.
In 2022, Ron DeSantis easily beaten former governor and congressman Charlie Crist. It formally took Florida off the swing state table. Florida now became the state where Republicans rule 3 to 1 in legislation. It lost one major city to a Democrat the past week.
The state Republicans and its governor been at odds with Disney, Florida orange growers, people of color and immigrants. The governor is the "King of Culture Wars."
He will be endorsed by Elon Musk, the controversial billionaire who is owner of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.
The 44-year-old Republican governor plans to announce his decision in an online conversation with Musk, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the announcement publicly.
The audio-only event will be streamed on Twitter Spaces beginning at 6 p.m. EDT. DeSantis will follow up with a round of prime-time appearances on conservative programs, including Fox and Mark Levin’s radio show.
DeSantis gave no hint as to his plans during a meeting of the state clemency board in Tallahassee on Wednesday, where he granted several pardons to former prisoners charged mostly with drug-related crimes decades ago.
“You are what the country needs,” one man said after getting his pardon.
A smiling DeSantis chuckled and thanked him.
Right off the bat, he touted how he ended "wokeism" in Florida, he will make the Supreme Court a 7-2 majority if he was president.
By day’s end, DeSantis planned to join the crowded Republican contest to decide whether the party will move on from Trump in 2024 as it works to take the White House from President Joe Biden.
Beyond Trump, those already in the GOP field include former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. Former Vice President Mike Pence is expected to announce his candidacy in the coming weeks.
DeSantis has embraced Trump’s combative style and many of his policies, but casts himself as a younger and more electable version of the former president.
In choosing Twitter to launch his candidacy, DeSantis is taking a page out of the playbook that helped turn businessman-TV celebrity Trump into a political star.
The timing of DeSantis’ long-expected announcement has been shrouded, with various iterations of plans being leaked over the past few days. Some close to him suspected that he was providing conflicting information about the timing and location to root out leakers. Others believe he changed his initial preparations after news reports came out about them.
Detroit and Baltimore fall behind Memphis as the largest cities with a Black population.
Mayor Mike Duggan slams the noise. He is tired of Republicans and far right need to focus on fixing America's problems and stop bashing his city.
Detroit has now a population of 607,000 down from 639,000. Previously 709,000 in 2010, the largest city in Michigan had seen population decline by 20%.
Detroit’s population decline has been evident in every census since the city’s peak in 1950, when 1.8 million people lived there. Detroit was home to 639,111 residents in 2020, according to new data released Thursday, a 10.5% decrease since the last count was taken in 2010.
Duggan said he believes the census undercounted the city’s population “by at least 10%” in a statement. Duggan reached his figure by comparing the number of DTE customers with the number of occupied households recorded by the Census.
“At a minimum, the Census somehow failed to count 25,000 occupied houses with running electricity,” Duggan said in a press release. “We will be pursuing our legal remedies to get Detroit an accurate count.”
Census Bureau officials vouched for the accuracy of the count during a Thursday press conference, but civil rights groups and politicians have expressed concern that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the outcome.
Population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau last Thursday show that at 621,056 residents, Memphis has a larger population than Detroit's 620,376 as of July 1, 2022. The most recent census survey data showed both cities were majority-Black cities with Detroit home to a 76% Black population and Memphis to a 63% Black population as of 2021.
Man loses arm after being attacked by an alligator
Google Blogger is experiencing more problems. So by 2024, it will come to an end with me and this product. Blogger is supposedly being retired but it's rumor.
Anyway, I will take smaller steps to posting. I won't use too many images and limit readings to at least two minutes to five minutes.
Alligator bites man's arm off after he decided to relieve himself in Florida.
Man grateful to be alive after he was attacked by a 10 foot long alligator in Fort Myers.
He was impatient waiting in line at a bar so he decided to urinate near a body of water.
The alligator was lurking nearby.
ABC News reports the man, Jordan Rivera, 23, was at Banditos Bar in Port Charlotte, Florida, late Saturday night. Deterred by the long line to the bathroom, Rivera told ABC affiliate WZVN that he decided to venture to a nearby pond instead.
The alligator tripped him. The animal took an invasive step to attack the victim.
"I just saw the lake, just gonna go over there and take a little pee or whatnot," he said. "Something happened where I either tripped…and ended up in the water, and that's literally the last thing I remember."
Hello.
The pond near where Rivera fell was also inhabited by a ten-foot alligator, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).
Rivera does not recall the next series of events that brought him to a local hospital, but he was missing his right arm when he woke up.
FWC officials, as well as first responders from the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office and EMS, responded to a report early Sunday morning of a man suffering "significant injuries" after being bitten by an alligator, according to the FWC.
Rivera is still recovering in the hospital with his arm amputated, but he is looking back on the incident optimistically.
"I didn't lose my life, lost an arm," he said. "It's not the end of the world."
The animal was euthanized.
It infuriates me. Back in the slave days as well as the Jim Crow era, white extremists would kidnap Black babies, toddlers and small children. They end up tying them to ropes, smoother them with bacon grease and dangle them around a swamp in the Deep South.
Alligators, cougars and bears would see the crying child and they would maul the child and eat them. The white extremist would end up grabbing the alligator, cougar or bear when they get entangled in the rope. They would skin the animals for clothes and food.
Alligators are known in states like Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina as well as parts of Tennessee and North Carolina. They are dangerous animals.
Can we do a Darwin Award for the most stupidest people on the planet?
You can't fix stupid!
You can't change minds!
You are completely trapped in stupid.
You are wrapped and emboldened in stupid.
Again, why do white people always treat wild animals like they're domesticated?
I would never touch a wild animal.
Alas, some people think that animals are timid when you're petting them. Nope.
While rare, alligator attacks do happen and many of the victims are close to the water or have pets within a sight of the reptile. If you get too close to the reptile, you are likely a victim of stupidity. On land, an alligator is fast. In the water, an alligator is deadly.
Why do people always seem to not be aware of their surroundings when they live in Florida?
Especially when you live in a community where water is close by... I mean are they clueless or just stupid?
Once the animal gets a hold of a prey, it's rare that an animal will escape without losing a body part.
It's the unfortunate cause and effect of animals and people.
I've said it before and I stand by what I say: "Wild animals are......well you know!"
If you want to be a thrill seeker, you might want to get life insurance.
To escape an alligator in the water if possible, punch its eyes or put something in its nose. Don't turn your back on an alligator. If you're on land run backwards in a zig zag position. An alligator does not want to waste its time trying to catch a prey that moves too much. An alligator can travel up to 20 mph on land and is very fast and silent in the water.
When you are near ponds or bodies of water keep pets and small children away.
I will say this as a reminder. Back in the slavery days, white extremists would kidnap Black babies and string them to trees. They leave them crying in the swamps for alligators and bears to attack them. They would use Black babies as bait for alligators and bears.
