Author: Trish
Candidate for Texas Governor is Arguing for a Ban on Marriage Among Older People
One of the dearest moments during the wedding of my friends Cathy and Warren came when the minister accidentally stumbled into the part of the vows where he often asked those gathered to support the couple as they raised any children resulting from their union. A stunned silence was followed by Cathy saying, “Um, we can skip that.”
At the time, Cathy was 56 and Warren was 68. Both of them widows, their children from their previous marriages — all in their 20s and 30s, some with children of their own — led the laughter.
Abbott: ‘Same-sex marriage does not advance the state’s interest because same-sex unions do not result in pregnancy’
But according to the “traditional” marriage crowd, Cathy and Warren shouldn’t even have been allowed to marry. Instead, they claim marriage should be reserved for those who plan to conceive and raise children. So older folks, the infertile, and all who chose to remain childless should be barred from legal marriage. Being “partners,” “companions,” or as gay couples used to have to call themselves, “lifelong friends,” should be enough.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), who is running against Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) to replace Rick Perry as governor, said exactly that in a brief filed before an appeals court to uphold the Texas ban on same-sex marriage.
The Most Expensive Governor’s Race Produces the Worst Ad
What kind of TV ad does America’s most expensive governor’s race get for nearly $49 million (and counting)? Spots like this, which beg for new and stronger adjectives than the ones being used to describe it: “outrageous,” “demeaning,” “sexist,” and even, “laughable.”
The ad was produced, not by the Scott campaign, but by the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) on behalf of Florida Gov. Rick Scott. The increased “offshoring” of expenditures to outside groups like CRNC could explain why Scott is able to spend less this time around than when he bought his office in 2010 for $75 million of his own money. We can thank Citizens United for the ocean of cash and negative ads in every election since that 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Look at the numbers in the Florida governor’s race this year, and you’ll see how much even a well-known Democratic candidate like former Gov. Charlie Crist is being outspent.
The Rich are Lying to Us
When the Heritage Foundation tells us that the top 10 percent of filers are cruelly burdened, because they pay 68 percent of income taxes, it’s hoping that you won’t notice that word “income” — other taxes, such as the payroll tax, are far less progressive. But it’s also hoping you don’t know that the top 10 percent receive almost half of all income and own 75 percent of the nation’s wealth, which makes their burden seem a lot less disproportionate.
— Paul Krugman, Nobel-winning economist, in a column in the New York Times called, “Our Invisible Rich.” Krugman says Americans’ ideas about the 1% are based on 1960s notions of wealth, and woefully inaccurate today.
The World Does Not Share the Belief That the Rich Always Deserve Their Wealth
The rich in America agree on one thing: They deserve their wealth. Recent research cited by Carol Graham of the Brookings Institute shows that unlike both the rich and poor in Latin America, in the United States the Mitt Romneys of the world believe they built that, all alone.
Even before a video exposed Mitt’s attitude toward what he termed the 47 percent who would never vote for him because they want their government assistance, wife Ann described in her speech before the 2012 GOP convention her skewed idea of how poor they were in their early days, after they spent their honeymoon in Hawaii and lived only investment income from stocks while attending the private Brigham Young University.
The Romneys are, unfortunately, typical of their cohort. This attitude is unfortunate because by being mistaken, it makes it harder to deal with America’s growing income inequality problem, which is transforming us, as often noted, into two countries.
New Homes are Selling Again
18%
Jump in new home sales during August, the greatest increase in six years, according to the Commerce Dept. Much of the market boom is in multifamily homes.
Jon Stewart to FOX on the Coffee Salute: ‘You’re Just Trying to Score Points in a Game No Else is Playing’
First, I am not opposed to the United States and other countries trying to wipe out ISIL. Whether they are an immediate threat to us is not the only concern. That Americans, including and especially journalists, can move around the world freely is a huge concern.
Second, I can’t agree more about the disgusting hypocrisy, hostility, and pettiness shown the president of the country these people claim to love. He was elected by more than half of us, and those are the rules under which your “beloved” country operates so please suck it up, like we did when the moron was in power and we were under threat from abroad. Put your country, not your hatreds, first.
It’s Expensive to be Poor
3
Times more annually that it costs a community to leave a homeless person on the streets than it would cost to provide housing.
What Are You Searching For? It Depends on How Much Money You Have
If you’re not dirt poor, with few prospects for changing your situation, it’s hard to consider how much of your thought would be devoted to grim subjects. Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir illustrated the concept and the myth of the so-called cycle of poverty in their recent book, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. Being stuck in perpetual crisis mode is less about wasting your food stamps buying lobster, the authors say, and more about what they call lack of bandwidth.
It works like this. When you’re laying in bed all night wondering how you’re going to pay your child’s daycare provider if you put tires on the car, but if you don’t get tires it’s just a matter of time before you have a flat and can’t get to work and then you’ll lose hours of pay and possibly your whole job…let’s just say you don’t have a lot of energy left for healthy meal planning, shopping, and preparation. The authors call this a “bandwidth tax” on the poor that America’s better off just don’t have to pay.
Leonhardt: The dark side of religion is of special interest: “Antichrist,” “hell” and “rapture” make the top 10 search terms
Now Google, courtesy of The New York Times’ David Leonhardt, is giving a stark glimpse into the mindsets of those on the losing end of income inequality. The search terms of poor people show that they and the well-off live in different countries, and possibly on different planets.
What Australia Can Teach America About Gun Safety, After a Few Years of Detox
Watch the funniest — and most sensible — arguments for gun control yet.
It will be interesting to see what kind of refutations appear in the comments.
