Strange doings in Ohio politics

Republicans have a lock on all statewide elected positions in Ohio and have comfortable majorities in both legislative bodies, with the exception of the US senate where Sherrod Brown is one of the senators. So they can do pretty much what they like and one of the things they like to do is restrict women’s health options by passing legislation that “defund Planned Parenthood, block grants to rape crisis centers that refer women to abortion clinics, and prevent abortion clinics from transferring patients to public hospitals in the case of severe complications.” [Read more…]

US must lift the embargo on Cuba

With all the other things going on in international politics, often overlooked is the sheer cruelty of the 51-year old US embargo on Cuba that is meant to designed to strangle the economy of that country and bring hardship to their people so as to make their government subservient to the US. For the 22nd year in a row, the Cuban government is seeking to have the United Nations condemn the US embargo. Last year, 188 nations voted to condemn the embargo with only Israel and Palau supporting the US, showing how isolated the US is on this issue. The vote this year is scheduled for October 29. [Read more…]

Give Jack Lew some slack

I am not a big fan of Jack Lew but I disagree with some supporters of the Democratic party who are saying that the treasury secretary hasn’t been direct enough about what they feel are the disastrous consequences of a government shut down on October 17, by speaking of it in less than apocalyptic terms, thus giving those Republicans who think the shut down is no big deal some room to make their case. [Read more…]

California reverses the trend on women’s right to abortion

A determined assault on women’s health services has been waged vigorously by the religious and the right wing in America, especially on the right to abortion and contraception. While abortion remains technically legal, their strategy has been impose onerous burdens on providers so as to intimidate them or regulate them out of business by imposing rules that make it impossible to operate. Ohio has been particularly vicious in this effort. The Guttmacher Institute keeps track of these state laws. [Read more…]

Divorce-Jewish style

In the Orthodox Jewish communities, in order for a woman to get a divorce, she needs to get permission from her husband, something that is called a ‘get’. If the husband refuses, she can go to a rabbinical court and if she gets a favorable ruling they can order him to do so. But it is not unheard of for husbands to ignore such orders, in which case the woman is stuck. [Read more…]

More tales of the rich and oblivious

If you are the president of McDonalds USA and you are speaking at a public meeting and one of your employees turns up and informs you and everyone else present that as a single mother of two she cannot make ends meet on what your company pays her, saying “Do you think this is fair, that I have to be making $8.25 when I’ve worked for McDonald’s for ten years?” how should you reply? [Read more…]

How big banks like Goldman Sachs rule the government

The independent investigative journalistic outfit ProPublica reports that when Carmen Segarra, a lawyer who worked as an examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, looked into whether investment banks were following the rules that enabled them to avoid conflict of interest problems in their dealings with their clients, she determined that banking giant Goldman Sachs had a problem in that they had not only not put into place the required safeguards, they didn’t seem to even feel the need to do so and mixed the functions in a way that prevented oversight to ensure that no conflict of interest occurred. [Read more…]