January 24, 2012

Mitt’s Income vs. Your Income

How long would it take the GOP candidate to earn what you make in a year?



Mitt Romney released his 2010 tax return on Monday. His total income for the year was listed as $21.6 million, more than one-half of which came from capital gains. How does that stack up against your income? Enter your annual income below to find out how long it would have taken Mitt Romney to earn the same amount of money. (Don’t worry, we’re not collecting any data you type in.)


http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/01/romney_income_calculator_how_much_does_mitt_make_how_long_would_it_take_him_to_earn_your_salary_.html

January 16, 2012

MLK on healthcare

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

January 13, 2012

Everything You Need to Know About Wall Street, in One Brief Tale - Matt Taibbi

If there was ever a news story that crystalized the moral dementia of modern Wall Street in one little vignette, this is it.

Newspapers in Colorado today are reporting that the elegant Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado, will be closed to the public from today through Monday at noon.

Why? Because some local squire has apparently decided to rent out all 94 rooms of the hotel for three-plus days for his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.

The hotel’s general manager, Tony DiLucia, would say only that the party was being thrown by a "nice family," but newspapers are now reporting that the Daddy of the lucky little gal is one Jeffrey Verschleiser, currently an executive with Goldman, Sachs.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-wall-street-in-one-brief-tale-20120113#ixzz1jMqS1Guy

January 13, 2012

The demand for financial growth in the capitalistic markets is unsustainable

and therefore certain necessities within our society should not be allowed to participate in it. Healthcare is one of them. I really hope that the discussion during the election cycle dives into these issues.

January 9, 2012

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie Responds to Female Hecklers With Offensive Oral Sex Joke

By Torie Bosch

Posted Monday, Jan. 9, 2012, at 11:35 AM ET

On Sunday, Jan. 8., New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was speaking at a Romney for President rally in New Hampshire when he was interrupted by some female hecklers. It’s difficult to make out exactly what Christie’s critics were yelling, but it’s something to do with jobs going down. Ever the class act, Christie’s response: “You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart.” He then goes on to insult the women by saying that if they were from Jersey, they wouldn’t be so silly as to think that his policies don’t support job creation. (That’s the way to win New Hampshire voters for Romney at the upcoming primary: insult them by saying that Jersey voters are smarter!)


The video, which does not make Christie look great, wasn’t some hidden-camera “gotcha” depicting a private moment, a la the 2006 “macaca” video that may have cost George Allen his Senate seat. Rather, it was uploaded to the New Jersey GOP’s YouTube account. They seem to think his remark about “going down” is a zinger, something to be proud of, rather than recognizing it as flagrantly demeaning, even misogynistic. How would Christie have responded to male protesters saying the same thing? Probably not by changing the subject to what acts they perform in the bedroom. His handlers should be apologizing for the remark, not promoting it.



http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/01/09/chris_christie_responds_to_female_hecklers_with_offensive_oral_sex_joke_video_.html

January 8, 2012

The Sanctity of Marriage

I have a few questions for Rick Santorum about his views on protecting the sanctity of marriage via not allowing gays to marry. I have been married for nearly twenty years and I have to say that I in no way feel that my marriage is at risk by allowing the same-sex couples to share in the tradition. I know that many married people feel this way and since Mr. Santorum proposes a Federal Law to ban same sex marriage I think that he needs to explain himself a little bit better on this topic. When I think about the possible destruction of the sanctity of marriage the first I think about is whether or not marriage is a entirely sanctimonious instituition and whether or not it is really threatened and in need of protection. The answer to the first of these is that marriage is not an entirely santimonious (holy, or sacred) institution. The fact that people can go to a court house and become legally married lessens the supposed sanctity. The last I checked the JP doesn't include the holy. Now I think about whether or not sanctimonious marriage and non-sanctimonious marriage is truly threatened and in need of protection and the answer imo is yes but same sex couples entering into the tradition are not the reason it. The threat to the tradition of marriage is quite simply the failure of marriage....divorce. The divorce rates have been rising for decades and currently hover in the vicinity of 40-50% of all marriages. Now I ask myself why is this happening? I have found various reasons listed in the statistics, but the main one is usually money. So, Mr. Santorum.. if economics has such an impact on the institution of marriage then why do you advocate for policies that over the last four decades have statistically proven to lower the wages of the American family? How can you ignore the real reasons for the failures of the insitution of marriage while advocating for laws that would take away the civil rights of citizens who did nothing to contribute to the failure. How can you stand beside a serial adulterer at the debates and speak of protecting marriage yet say nothing about his failures. I think you have some explaining to do.