The Catholic Church is in a snit, again. This time it is because of the ruling by the Obama administration that they, like any other employer, must provide health insurance that offers free contraceptives to employees.
I think Kevin Drum has the right response, saying, [Read more…]
It turns out that Mitt Romney and his father George successfully converted Mitt’s wife’s entire family to Mormonism, with the mother doing so practically on her deathbed. The one holdout was her father who was a committed atheist and went to his grave asserting that all religion was “drudgery and hogwash” and that he considered people who were religious to be “weak in the knees.”
But Mormons don’t let a little thing like death prevent them from [Read more…]
After Newt Gingrich’s unexpected big win in the South Carolina primaries, I said that we could expect the Republican party establishment and the oligarchy to freak out and make every attempt to drive a stake through his campaign’s heart.
And lo, as the prophets spake, so it has come to pass, with the attacks on Gingrich coming so thick and fast from every direction that he must be thinking that he is living in the Book of Revelation.
The conservative media chattering class has [Read more…]
The candidate for US Senate from Massachusetts seems to have passion and a willingness to take on the big financial interests that are working against the poor and the middle class. While the US Senate has become a largely ineffective body, she may still be able to use it as a platform to articulate a point of view that is currently with little voice in Congress.
Of course, I have been disillusioned before by many candidates who [Read more…]
France’s parliament has just passed a law that forbids denying that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 constituted genocide. This has infuriated Turkey which has suspended military, economic, and political ties with France.
Outlawing points of view, however much you disagree with them [Read more…]
Large gifts given to others are taxable. There are some loopholes. For example, a parent can give up to $10,000 per year to a child without incurring gift taxes. But if you have income that can be classified as ‘carried interest’, then you can give huge gifts to your children without incurring any tax whatsoever.
Romney’s tax returns reveal that he gave $100 million to his children using this loophole, that is available only to the wealthy whose income is from investments.
This Thursday will see Republican primary debate number 19, if you can believe it. Who has the time, or the patience for that matter, to sit through them all? But apparently enough people other than total political junkies watch them to make it worthwhile for the cable news outfits to show them.
I myself have not watched a single one, preferring to read The Guardian‘s funny live blogs by Richard Adams. Here is his report on last Monday’s debate.
More informative, more fun, far less time.