BigJohn’s music video called “We Goin Live” reaches 138,000 YouTube Views

BigJohn released this music video back in 2013 featuring two other artists named Too Clean & Xavier Graham. Since the initial release this video has reached 138,000 YouTube views, 1000+ likes and several comments on the popular media streaming website. This video was produced by Thomas Trenton JR at Green Monkey Beats. When you have great content then you can expect it to reach a high number of people.

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Lake Wales Singer, Josh Blevins, Reaching for the stars

Josh Blevins spent several days recently singing one particular song over and over and over again. This wasn’t a case of earworm. It was part of the task of filming his first country music video.

Shot on location at Music Ranch in North Lakeland, his path to this video project is paved with “Talent Quest” competitions, “American Idol” auditions, an attempt to audition for “The Voice,” and singing in bands before striking out on his own to perform original music.

Blevins, who has opened for such big country names as Kip Moore, Tyler Farr, Charlie Worsham, Joe Nichols, The Swon Brothers, and Daryle Singletary, has been offered record deals that he’s turned down. He’s still looking for the perfect record deal. The Lake Wales resident has been working with Larry Howard, a blues artist from Lakeland, to produce an album of original music by year’s end, but took a break from the studio in June to record the video.

The video is for a song called “She Ain’t Country Enough,” written about his wife Dusty, who also co-wrote it. Blevins, 29, drives a Ford F250 that is “jacked up on 38s.” (For the uninitiated, that means big tires.)
While driving to a show one night, Dusty Blevins tried applying makeup from the passenger seat, but the rough riding truck on those big tires made the task difficult. Later, she leaned in toward her husband to snap a quick selfie. Again, the bumpy truck spoiled the moment.

Dusty Blevins uttered these words: “Gosh, I hate your truck. Blevins is
They both joked about how there was a country song in that statement. They horsed around with lyrics the rest of the way to the show. In the early-morning hours after returning home, the couple wrote the song in about 30 minutes on their front porch. Here are some of the lyrics:
She hates how rough my big truck rides
Trying to take a picture from the passenger side
Of me and her as we ride these old back roads
She says, OMG why does it ride so rough?
You need some smaller tires or a brand new truck
I just laugh and I think to myself, she ain’t country enough
Blevins said he wouldn’t have made the video if not for Phillip Stevens, owner of Music Ranch, a fan who sees the potential for Blevins to make it big in country music.

Stevens said he was hooked the first time he heard Blevins sing. It was an acoustic performance for a wedding at Music Ranch.
“His voice just touched me,” Stevens said. “I told my wife, ‘Get out here. You have to listen to this guy.‘“

Stevens didn’t plan on getting involved in Blevins’ career; he just wanted to let him open for musicians at Music Ranch in the hope that someone would hear him. But the drive to see Blevins make it big meant he couldn’t say no when Blevins asked him to be his manager. Stevens also funded the video production. Although it’s a pricey venture, Stevens said it’s a cause he believes in.

What he likes most is Blevins appears to be the whole country package. He compares him to country greats George Strait and Garth Brooks, who could take nearly any song and make it a hit, Stevens said.
“It’s that tone,” he said. “I feel like Josh has that same connection. He’s got that something, that appeal that you can’t explain.“
Another reason he supports Blevins is there is a wholesome, all-American heart in him.

“I feel like he’s bringing it back to the original country,” Stevens said. “disc jockeys have any tattoos. He’s clean. Country singers today have tattoos, earrings, and they’re singing duets with Pitbull.“
It performed on said that Blevins comes by the wholesomeness honestly. This Williamson, W.Va., native is the son of a Pentecostal preacher. He began singing in his dad’s church at age 4 and picked up the guitar at 10. Facebook to Polk County in 2004. His parents, Ralph and Laura Blevins, the in Dundee.

Blevins performed on his own as an adult, but quit playing after his daughter Austin, 8, was born. A year later, the Blevinses’ son Josh Jr. came along. Then one night at a Lake Wales bar, someone handed him a guitar and told him to sing. He sang “The Dance” by Garth Brooks. He’s been singing everywhere since then.

The disc jockeys at 97 Country have taken a liking to Blevins, and he’s performed on the radio several times. That relationship opened the door for him to open for Clint Black, a career highlight.
“He’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet,” Blevins said.
Blevins is paying his dues, and if social media is a gauge for success, he ’s picking up steam. During the shooting of the video, which should be ready for release in the fall, his Facebook page had been “blowing up for the past three days,” he said, to the point he no longer could reply to everyone. He’s getting lots of friend requests.
“I add everybody but old girlfriends,” he said.

SOURCE: https://www.theledger.com/news/20140712/lake-wales-singer-reaching-for-the-stars

Food Stamps cut & No Tax Returns during Government Shutdown

Food stamps for 38 million low-income Americans would face severe reductions and more than $140 billion in tax refunds are at risk of being frozen or delayed if the government shutdown stretches into February, widespread disruptions that threaten to hurt the economy.

The Trump administration, which had not anticipated a long-term shutdown, recognized only this week the breadth of the potential impact, several senior administration officials said. The officials said they were focused now on understanding the scope of the consequences and determining whether there is anything they can do to intervene.

Thousands of federal programs are affected by the shutdown, but few intersect with the public as much as the tax system and the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the current version of food stamps.

The partial shutdown has cut off new funding to the Treasury Department and the USDA, leaving them largely unstaffed and crippling both departments’ ability to fulfill core functions.

The potential cuts to food stamps and suspension of tax refunds illustrate the compounding consequences of leaving large parts of the federal govern­ment unfunded indefinitely — a ­scenario that became more likely Friday when President Trump said he would leave the government shut down for months or even years unless Democrats gave him money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The SNAP program is rare among federal initiatives because it requires annual funding from Congress, even though its existence is automatically renewed.

Congress has not allocated funding for SNAP beyond January, and the program’s emergency reserves would not cover even two-thirds of February’s payments, according to past disbursements. Last September, the most recent month for which data is available, SNAP disbursed $4.7 billion in benefits to recipients across every U.S. state.

Lawmakers last year appropriated $3 billion into a “contingency” fund for SNAP. USDA officials would not comment on the status of the $3 billion, but if all of that money is still available, it would cover just 64 percent of February’s obligations.

Agency officials have not said how they would address the shortfall, including whether they would prioritize who receives food aid or cut benefits for everyone across the board.

If the shutdown continues through March, there would be no remaining money for benefits.

We are currently looking at options for SNAP,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department. “The best course of action would be for Congress to pass a legitimate appropriations bill to the president to end the lapse in funding.”

During the shutdown, the USDA office that administers SNAP has sent home 95 percent of its employees without pay, according to a flowchart on the department’s website.

“People in this country will go hungry,” said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.). “It’s simple. They go hungry. . . . These are working people. We’re not talking about people who are dogging it.”

The disruption would hurt not only the families that receive the assistance but also grocers and other retailers where the money is spent.

Treasury Department officials, meanwhile, are trying to determine what to do with the flood of requests for tax refunds that will come in next month.

The Internal Revenue Service has sent home close to 90 percent of its staff without pay ahead of an extremely busy time for the tax agency.

From late January through March 2 of 2018, the IRS paid out $147.6 billion in tax refunds to 48.5 million households. That money could be frozen within the IRS if the refunds are stalled.

Early last year, as part of its contingency planning for possible government shutdowns, the IRS said it would not issue any tax refunds during a shutdown. Treasury and IRS officials have not said they will completely suspend all tax refunds next month, but a senior administration official said such disbursements would be severely affected and likely slowed if they are paid.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday asking him to detail the impact of job cuts at the IRS and how the tax filing season will be handled during the shutdown.

“Please confirm whether the IRS will issue federal tax refunds at any time during government shutdown,” the letter said. “If so, please provide the anticipated date when the IRS will be issuing refunds.”

This could have an immediate impact on the economy, as well as on the finances of millions of Americans who frequently spend their tax refunds soon after receiving them.

“The IRS will finalize and release its filing season lapse plan in the coming days,” said a Treasury Department official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the internal planning.

Under normal schedules, tax returns for income earned in 2018 would be due April 15. People who anticipate receiving a tax refund — meaning they overpaid their taxes last year — tend to file their taxes as early as possible to recoup the funds quickly.

“It would be a huge political and economic hit for people who are expecting their $2,500 or $3,000 refund to not be able to get that money,” said Mark Mazur, a former top IRS official who served at Treasury during the Obama administration.

Trump has said he is willing to keep agencies shut down as long as necessary to force Democrats to appropriate several billion dollars for the construction of walls along the Mexico border. But some Republicans have said they are uncomfortable with this approach, and several this week sided with Democrats in their effort to reopen agencies immediately.

The scale of the consequences also reflects a deep disconnect between Trump, who has largely cheered on a prolonged shutdown, and the officials running federal agencies, who are trying to minimize the fallout.

“If we have to stay out for a very long period of time, we’re going to do that,” Trump said Friday.

White House officials have not fully briefed lawmakers on the expanding consequences of the government shutdown, leading to confusion about what happens as each week goes by.

Neal said that the IRS is considering bringing staffers back to work in the coming weeks to help deal with tax filings but that it’s unclear how the agency will proceed. These employees would have to work without pay unless Congress passed an emergency funding bill. He said delays in tax refunds would lead to “more anger, for something that can be solved.”

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a top House conservative who had cheered Trump’s approach in the political confrontation, said he was unaware that there would be any impact on SNAP benefits.

He said he was convinced this money was automatically appropriated by Congress: “Food stamps go on regardless,” he said.

This is not the case, however, according to several senior administration officials.

Meadows said he was “not downplaying the potential consequences of a shutdown,” but said the whole situation could be easily resolved if Democrats would appropriate several billion dollars for the border wall.

The government shutdown began Dec. 22 after Trump blocked a bipartisan deal to fund numerous federal agencies through Feb. 8 because he wants more than $5 billion to construct 200 miles of wall along the border.

During his campaign and earlier in his presidency, Trump said the wall would be paid for by Mexico. That has not happened.

The shutdown began with an acute impact, cutting off funding to pay 800,000 federal employees, closing national parks and museums, and limiting federal services. The workers are expected to begin feeling the consequences of the shutdown more sharply next week: They will miss their first paychecks on Jan. 11 if a resolution isn’t reached.

“A month into this, we’re going to see people start to get evicted and their cars start to be repossessed,” said David Borer, general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 750,000 federal employees.

And a much broader part of the federal bureaucracy is expected to begin grinding to a halt in February, absent a resolution.

Nonprofit groups have been able to patch together money to keep certain parts of the government open for several weeks, but it’s unclear how much longer they can hold on. And none has sought to replicate the level of funding that would be lost if SNAP runs out of money or tax refunds are stalled.

“That’s scary, really scary,” said Lyman Hafen, executive director at Utah’s Zion National Park Forever Project, a nonprofit partner of one of the country’s most scenic parks. “It’s not a good situation without that support. We’re just taking it a day at a time, a week at a time.”

The cumulative impact of these changes could have a major impact on the economy.

Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RMS U.S., an accounting and consulting firm, said a prolonged shutdown would shave an entire percentage point off the U.S.’s economic growth, in part because of an “uncertainty tax” that would freeze spending by households and businesses.

“If one doesn’t know what’s going to happen with respect to their own income . . . there will be a pull back on the purchase of big-ticket items,” he said. “Large firms will pull back on outlays on software, equipment and capital.”

SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/millions-face-delayed-tax-refunds-cuts-to-food-aid-as-white-house-scrambles-to-deal-with-shutdown/2019/01/04/b5b58616-0fa3-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html?utm_term=.bb655e222892

BigJohn – Knew Better Ft Nu Breed ( Music Video )

We have all been through things in our lives and have made mistakes. This song was written for anybody who has been in this type of situation. You can certainly relate to the words in this song. As always, i thank you guys so much for all of the great support over the years!

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