One of the major themes in the news lately has been the sex life of Republican candidates for President. Will Newt Gingrich’s standing with “values” voters suffer because he was “dating” his current wife while his then-wife was recovering from an illness in the hospital, or will his current wife be an asset to him? […]
The Kaiser Foundation and Urban Institute today released their analysis of what happens if the Republic House budget is passed, and it’s real bad: 44 million more Americans will lose Medicaid health insurance coverage. Who could possibly benefit from 44 million poor and indigent people suddenly not having protection against illness and medical bills? Let’s […]
Sometime this past Monday, the head of the House home land security committee, Republican Peter King of New York, made the claim on Fox TV that waterboarding and other torture led to the information that identified Osama bin Laden’s location. (Readers may remember King for his support of Irish Republican terrorists or for his special […]
First, my reaction to the breaking news: I’m delighted that we caught Osama bin Laden, but dismayed that our troops killed him. He should have lived to stand trial and after conviction, been sentenced to rot away his years in solitary confinement. The images of people celebrating his death were quite disturbing to me. No […]
It all seems so trivial, the growing focus of our mass culture on the upcoming wedding of a young man of fairly middling accomplishments who represents one of the most odious ideas ever invented by humans-that some people are inherently better than others. Yet so far, it’s been relatively easy to ignore the royal hubbub. […]
A capital gain, according to Investopedia, is “an increase in the value of a capital asset (investment or real estate) that gives it a higher worth than the purchase price. The gain is not realized until the asset is sold.” Investments in this context include stocks, bonds, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF). Capital gains […]
Read More… from Let’s change tax policy to favor only those capital gains going to productive ends.
I’m a little late to mention it, but the usually estimable Charles M. Blow added to the massive evidence that lowering taxes on the wealthy does not create jobs, nor build additional wealth, but in fact destroys jobs and wealth. In his “charticle” (chart plus short article) titled “The Pirates of Capitol Hill,” first published […]
More from the speech I gave two nights ago at the monthly meeting of the Pittsburgh Area Jewish Committee (PAJC): To belabor what is probably obvious, shrinking the percentage of the workforce covered by unions shifts money up the economic ladder because the non-unionized workers make less for the same or comparable jobs, leaving the […]
I gave the following remarks yesterday evening at the monthly meeting of the Pittsburgh Area Jewish Committee (PAJC). My topic was “putting the Attack on Public Unions in Perspective.” I spoke after Sam Williamson, Associate Manager of the Pennsylvania Joint Board of Workers United, SEIU, spoke on the significance of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire […]
After President Obama’s capitulation to the right-wing in the budget deficit plan he presented yesterday, I thought it might be in order to review what progressives got when we hoped Barack Obama would make a more effective president than his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton. We’re in three wars now, instead of two. The prison-cum-torture-chamber at […]