This chart is pretty staggering, and gives a little more credence to the call to keep expanding unemployment insurance, even if Sharron Angle thinks it “spoils” the unemployed. This chart comes from Arloc Sherman from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who writes: The headline story in today’s Census Bureau report is the large jump in the poverty rate in 2009. But an exclusive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of the new survey data shows that unemployment insurance benefits — which expanded substantially last year in response to the increased need — kept 3.3 million people...
Continue reading...Nominee for Senate Christine O'Donnell thinks if you get AIDS, you deserved it. Also, thinks Joe Biden tapped her phones.
One of many 1990s-era videos featuring Christine O’Donnell, the newly-minted Republican nominee for Senate from Delaware, spouting crazy nonsense. Did you know that condoms actually facilitate HIV transmission? Also, Politico has some stories from former staffers from her failed 2008 senate attempt: Kristin Murray, who left her position in the state party to serve as one of several campaign managers for O’Donnell during that race, said warning bells went off in June 2008 when the two were discussing cell phone plans. ‘She told me that she thought Joe Biden tapped her phone line,’ she said. Alan Moore,...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Friday, 17 September 2010
Good morning, everybody. Did you know Lady Gaga is the most-searched-for woman on the Internet? Well, here’s your morning constitutional: The success of the tea party groups is forcing Republicans to revise their playbooks for 2012. Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, is shut down after Imran Farooq, the exiled leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, was stabbed in London. President Obama is expected to announce today that he will appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer financial protection bureau. The Great Recession has driven the poverty rate to its highest in 15 years. The Senate yesterday passed...
Continue reading...Morning Constitutional – Friday, 17 September 2010
Good morning, everybody. Did you know Lady Gaga is the most-searched-for woman on the Internet? Well, here’s your morning constitutional: The success of the tea party groups is forcing Republicans to revise their playbooks for 2012. Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, is shut down after Imran Farooq, the exiled leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, was stabbed in London. President Obama is expected to announce today that he will appoint Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer financial protection bureau. The Great Recession has driven the poverty rate to its highest in 15 years. The Senate yesterday passed...
Continue reading...Book Rec: Some Girls
Another entry in my I Judged This Book By Its Cover And Was Only Partly Wrong list. Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, by Jillian Lauren Sounds trashy, right? I thought it would be a guilty pleasure, a fast read. It was a fast read, but there was more to it than I expected. Instead of titillating tell-all or bad romance novel, Lauren’s book is really what it aspires to be: a great memoir. Some Girls is the true story of the time Lauren spent in the harem of the Prince of Brunei, but it’s also a coming...
Continue reading...In Praise of Blogging
Not V&V in particular — that would be just slightly too self-congratulatory, even for us. After I posted about the dog shooting at Adams Morgan Day, I heard from Simon Owens, who pointed me toward an interview he conducted with DCist Editor-in-chief Aaron Morrissey. The topic is DC bloggers scooping traditional news outlets, both with the aforementioned story and in regard to others (the Discovery Channel hostage situation in particular). It’s an interesting article, and you can find it here. As for the dog story itself, an update from Washington Post perhaps validates my hunch that the...
Continue reading...Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Happy Primary Day wherever you’re voting today. I know I have some crossed fingers in some races today.
Continue reading...This is not okay
True story. In the early evening; still really light out, I was walking near my apartment a couple nights ago when some creep waggled his penis at me. It was kind of awful and also so absurd. Why would anyone want to do that? I wasn’t very scared for my safety- he seemed content to just stare at me walking by, from about two feet away, while displaying his penis. Here’s how you know I’m a bleeding heart liberal. Amid my shock and disgust and anger, part of me also feels bad for the guy. My evening...
Continue reading...Police News of the Weird
This afternoon I stopped by Adams Morgan Day in DC, an annual street festival. B. and A. and I ate at Amsterdam Falafel, always a treat, and then I was talking to a couple friends while B. and A. walked around checking out the assorted booths. At around 1:15 pm, things got weird. Reports vary, but one thing is for sure: “There was definitely a gun involved,” says B. According to eyewitnesses, two dogs (a poodle and a rottweiler or pug) got into a scuffle. The poodle and its owner left the scene, while the man with...
Continue reading...President Obama invokes President Bush, for the better for both of them and us
At today’s press conference, Anne Kornblut asked: Nine years after the September 11th attacks, why do you think it is that we are now seeing such an increase in suspicion and outright resentment of Islam, especially given that it has been one of your priorities to increase — to improve relations with the Muslim world? And the president answers: I think that at a time when the country is anxious generally and going through a tough time, then fears can surface, suspicions, divisions can surface in a society. And so I think that plays a role in...
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