Shady/Slaughterhouse?!?

Now this could be interesting....

Miss Info writes:

If there’s anything that we’ve learned over the years, it’s that…there are no coincidences in hiphop. Many of you sharp-eyed readers were speculating about that not-so-subtle Slaughterhouse cameo in the new “Forever” video. The four lyrical butchers stand behind Eminem during his scene, which was shot in Detroit (as opposed to the rest of the video, which was shot in Miami).

It’s a befitting finale for such a heavyweight crew cut. Eminem’s verse is fire (my personal favorite of the four) and so is the visual: seeing Em, alongside Joell Ortiz (who was once signed to Em’s mentor, Dre), Crooked I (who was once signed to Dre’s de-mentor, Suge), Royce da 5′9″ (Em’s renewed friend), and Joe Budden (who is just…Joe Budden, lol).

So here are the “rumors” that I’m hearing…

That Slaughterhouse appearance in “Forever,” was indeed a non-verbal announcement of the contract negotiations going on behind the scenes. For the past month, both sides have been working towards bringing the group to the Shady label. And that the gathering of Em and the guys at the shoot, is the first of more collaborations to come.

For now, Eminem is working on Relapse II, in Detroit. Joe is working on The Great Escape. Royce is preparing his Oct. release, StreetHop. Crooked I is working on an EP called Mr. Pig Face Weapon Waist (lol!). And Slaughterhouse will be on the road with TechN9ne for all of Oct and Nov. But fans all want to see Em plus Slaughter on a track (especially Em and Royce). Imagine the killer verse volleys!

Hopefully we’ll see some progress on this Shady/Slaughterhouse “rumor” in the next few months. It’s good for hiphop.

Protect Insurance Companies??

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

In a satiric video from Funny or Die, Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, and other celebs band together to "protect" insurance company profits from the evils of health care reform.

"People are saying a lot of mean things about health insurance companies and their executives and it's gotta stop," pleads Thomas Lennon.

"These great business men are American heroes," says Linda Cardellini.

"So why is Obama trying to reform health care when insurance companies are doing just fine making billions of dollars in profit?" Will Ferrell asks.

Funny or Die has history of using celebrities and humor to take a stance on political issues. Last year they released "Prop 8: The Musical" starring Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris, Margaret Cho, and more satirizing the push for a ban on gay marriage in California.

This "Insurance PSA," paid for by and produced with MoveOn.org, ends with a call to action, asking people to call their congressmen and tell them we need a strong public option.




Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/protect-insurance-compani_n_294406.html

www.Dropdobbs.com

Update 11/12/2009

Drop Dobbs Coalition Members Respond to Dobbs’ departure from CNN:

Media Matters for America: A “happy day for all those who care about this nation of immigrants.”

From Media Matters:

Washington, DC – Media Matters for America released the following statement responding to late breaking news that controversial CNN host Lou Dobbs, best known for his relentless anti-immigrant rhetoric, will be leaving his long-time cable news home effective tonight.

“For too long, CNN provided Lou Dobbs with its stamp of approval as he pursued a dangerous, one-sided and all too often false conspiracy tinged crusade against immigrants,” said Eric Burns, president of Media Matters. “This is a happy day for all those who care about this nation of immigrants and believe in the power of media to elevate the political discourse.”

NDN: “This is a great victory.”

From NDN:

NDN, a leading think tank and advocacy organization, joined with Media Matters to create the DropDobbs.com coalition several months ago to hold CNN anchor Lou Dobbs accountable for the rampant intolerance promoted through his nightly news show. The coalition was later joined by several prominent organizations to promote this effort.

Today, less than two months after the launch of our online and grassroots campaign, Lou Dobbs has announced he is resigning from CNN because “it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country, and affecting all of us…”

Andres Ramirez, Senior Vice President for NDN and coordinator for the DropDobbs coalition stated, “This is a great victory for all of us who have been working on this effort. We believe that Lou Dobb’s intolerant style of politics is inconsistent with the powerful and respected CNN brand. We are glad to see him go.”

We want to thank and congratulate all the organizations who participated in this coalition.

League of United Latin American Citizens: LULAC “hails the removal of Lou Dobbs from CNN.”

From LULAC:

Washington, DC – The League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the country hailed that CNN anchor Lou Dobbs will leave CNN today. The announcement was made on his 7 p.m. program “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

“After years of giving Lou Dobbs an unparalleled and powerful perch from which to spread hate, fear, and misinformation about immigrants, the executives at CNN have finally realized that they could no longer justify his nightly smear campaign against the hardest working people in America,” stated Rosa Rosales, LULAC National President. “I am amazed that it took them so long to realize that the show was beyond the bounds of common decency.”

LULAC participated in the Drop Dobbs and Basta Dobbs campaigns to pressure advertisers to abandon his divisive show. The LULAC National Assembly had also passed a resolution calling for advertisers to withdraw.

“While we strongly believe in the right to free speech, that does not mean that demagogues have the right to a prime time show in which they bash hard working people of color,” stated LULAC National Executive Director Brent Wilkes. “CNN and other media outlets have a responsibility to provide a fair and rational discourse on important issues affecting their viewers or risk a backlash from the public.”

The League of United Latin American Citizens, the largest and oldest Hispanic membership organization in the country, advances the economic conditions, educational attainment, political influence, health, housing and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.

National Council of La Raza: Dobbs’ resignation “is an important step forward in restoring greater fairness, accuracy, and balance on CNN and cable news.”

From NCLR:

Washington, DC—“Lou Dobbs’s resignation from CNN yesterday is an important step forward in restoring greater fairness, accuracy, and balance on CNN and cable news,” stated Janet Murguía, President and CEO of NCLR (National Council of La Raza), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. Through its Wave of Hope campaign, and more recently as a founding member of the Drop Dobbs coalition, NCLR has long raised concerns about the gross distortions, misrepresentations, and falsehoods that Dobbs’s program has perpetuated, including by presenting extremist voices as “immigration experts.”

“We hope this resignation begins to undo the climate of intolerance fostered against the Latino community, restore journalistic integrity to the CNN brand, and bring civility and truth back to the immigration debate,” Murguía added.

Michael Moore - Capitalism

Joe Wilson Voted for Illegal coverage!

On Wednesday night, Rep. Joe Wilson [R, SC-2], shouted “You lie!” at President Obama when he said that the healthcare bill would not cover illegal immigrants. “The supporters of the government takeover of healthcare and liberals who want to give healthcare to illegals are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly conceived plan,” Wilson said the next day in a campaign fundraising video.

However, in 2003, Wilson voted to provide federal funds for illegal immigrants’ healthcare. The vote came on the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which contained Sec. 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually between 2003 and 2008 for government reimbursements to hospitals who provide treatment for uninsured illegal immigrants. The program has been extended through 2009 and there is currently a bipartisan bill in Congress to make it permanent.

Hospitals have a legal obligation to treat everyone who comes in seeking care, regardless of citizenship status, insurance or other characteristics. This means that hospitals treat millions of people every year who don’t have the means to pay. Obviously, this drives up the nation’s healthcare costs overall. Section 1011 helps cushion the costs for hospitals, but it’s not nearly enough to cover the actual costs in most areas.

To be fair, Section 1011 is just a small part of a much larger bill that contained many Republican priorities. Still, Wilson’s protest against the current healthcare reform proposal giving coverage to illegal immigrants (which is false), is in direct contradiction to his 2003 vote. Allowing illegal immigrants to purchase unsubsidized healthcare through the Exchange that would be set up under the current proposal wouldn’t cost taxpayers a cent, and it would be a step towards fixing the problem that Section 1011 was designed to throw federal money at.

Here are a few more links on Wilson and the healthcare reform bill:
Wilson’s OpenCongress profile
Wilson’s OpenCongress Wiki page
The House healthcare bill
The line in the bill blocking subsidies for illegal immigrants
The healthcare bill’s tax increases
5 major lies about the healthcare bill debunked

Kanye & Jay Spoof

Support for Afghan war at all-time low

By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Support for the war in Afghanistan is at an all-time low, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday morning indicates that 39 percent of Americans favor the war in Afghanistan, with 58 percent opposed to the mission.

Support is down from 53 percent in April, marking the lowest level since the start of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The poll suggests that 23 percent of Democrats support the war. That number rises to 39 percent for independents and 62 percent for Republicans.

"Most of the recent erosion in support has come from within the GOP," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director. "Unlike Democrats and independents, Republicans still favor the war, but their support has slipped eight points in just two weeks."

How does Afghanistan compares with Iraq?

"The Afghan war is almost as unpopular as the Iraq war has been for the past four years," Holland said, noting that support for the war in Iraq first dropped to 39 percent in June 2005 and has generally remained in the low to mid-30s since.

The poll's release comes after the two deadliest months for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. In August, 48 U.S. troops were killed in the fighting, surpassing the previous high of 45 the month before.

President Obama has called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" and has placed great emphasis on defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda militants operating there and in Pakistan.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to approve sending thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan to deal with the growing threat from roadside bombs, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week.

Gates has concluded there is not enough manpower or equipment in Afghanistan to protect U.S. troops from such bombs, Morrell said. Watch U.S. senators on the next U.S. moves in Afghanistan »

The CNN/Opinion Research poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, with 1,012 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Drake Conspiracy?

I read this article on allhiphop and thought I would share:

By hexmurda

I don't hate Drake.

There, I said
it.

Don't know the dude, never met him. I think he's a talented
cat, rappin' and actin' and sangin' and all that.

He's even got
the only record spinnin' on urban radio that I don't hate more than the KKK
hates Obama.

But that doesn't make him the savior of Hip-Hop.

Not by a longshot.

However, apparently some real
CEO's (not the n****as in your hood with business cards for their record label
and their car wash, with numbers scratched out) these n****as inhabit whole
floors of skyscrapers and have anointed Drake "NEXT."

I can see it
now, intra-office memos written in invisible ink, phone calls where coded
phrases like "bury the sun" are uttered, secret communiques transported by
carrier pigeon.

Clandestine meetings on park benches where
identical briefcases are exchanged. Limos pulling up to a rinky dink bodega in
Brooklyn, with the shrouded occupants going through a hidden door behind the
counter, down a secret passageway lined with platinum plaques. The passage
leading to an underground fortress, that either looks like a witches' coven or
the f***ing NORAD bunker.

They're all here.

All of
them.

Morris. Bronfman. Cohen. Rhone. Liles. Reid. Greenwald.
Iovine.

All of them.

Sitting in thrones at a huge
table carved out of an ancient oak tree, drinking from golden goblets filled
with a substance that bears an uncanny resemblance to blood.

These
are the people who make the decisions. They decide whose careers thrive and who
ends up on a f***ing milk carton in XXL.

These are the folks who
operate the proverbial "MACHINE," and they can George Bush the button whenever
they feel like it.

And they have convened for one reason, and one
reason only.

DRAKE.

Yeah, that sounds like some real
Skull and Bones bulls**t, right?

Continue....