U.N. report says Gaza could be "uninhabitable" by 2020, given blockades, Israeli military operations, and the incompetence of Gaza's own government. Has no one learned by now that running a people into the ground just creates martyrs and terrorists? Or is that the plan?
Robert Borosage reminds us, in the wake of Friday's job figures, that while unemployment may be going down, so are inflation-adjusted wages. Noting that Congress will likely try to zero out Planned Parenthood funding rather than funding infrastructure jobs or doing something about student loan debt, and that the Fed is mulling whether to raise short-term interest rates by one-quarter of one percent, he concludes: "(n)o wonder Americans are increasingly disgusted with politics as usual." No wonder, indeed.
Ho hum, Catherine Rampell tells us that Congress's plans to slash the deficit will more likely add to the deficit. How? By cutting programs (IRS tax collection, family planning funding, fighting disability fraud) that either save our government money or make our government money -- or, to put it more precisely, programs that either save or make the taxpayer (i.e., you) money. Again, it's almost like that's the plan.
College prep-test corporation Princeton Review charges families more according to their zip code -- which just so happens to result in Asian families paying more than others. Regardless of whether Princeton Review intends it this way, the result is racist. And I'm not so sure of their good intentions, either -- surely they've heard of redlining?
Ain't no controversy so bad that Marco Rubio can't make it worse, and so it goes with his opinion on the Kentucky county clerk who won't issue marriage licenses to gays: "(w)hile the clerk’s office has a governmental duty to carry out the law, there should be a way to protect the religious freedom and conscience rights of individuals working in the office." I guess "there should be a way" to get every American family a unicorn, too, but it ain't gonna happen. (Also, as Kerry Eleveld notes, "there already is 'a balance.' It allows Davis to practice her religion according to her beliefs on her own time as a private citizen.")
Finally, Caitlin Huey-Burns at Real Clear Politics suggests that Scott Walker has fallen the farthest among Republican Presidential candidates. Remember when I said the way to beat him was to repeatedly call him cold and soulless? Well, Republican operatives won't describe him like that, but "he's coming off as an opportunistic candidate who doesn't know who he is" and "(e)vangelical voters here are looking for conviction" and "one thing (the caucus process) does is it smokes out inauthenticity" do the job just as well, not that we should get complacent. (Kudos to Ms. Huey-Burns, as well, for noting that Mr. Walker "has also been in politics in Wisconsin for almost all of his adult life." Any fool can get elected, but a real adult can get and keep a job.)
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