Category: News and Opinion

Richard Brodsky (forgotten but not gone) on Cuomo's appeal: Don't underestimate the power of the idea of a candidate hard right on economics and hard left on social issues.

Hans von Spakovsky (Senior Legal Fellow / Manager, Civil Justice Reform Initiative Center for Legal and Judicial Studies Uncategorized

Sorry, but when I think about the things that make Charles Barron going to Congress worrisome, the way he dresses does not top my list.

Stop and Frisk Part two. The way we discussed it on RNN-TV this week.

This as City and state legislators stood side by side with New York's congressional delegation in Washington, D.C. to demand that the Justice Department investigate the New York City Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk policies.

Best headline of the day.

So why did blue state Wisconsin re-elect far right Governor Scott Walker? And why did two California cities overwhelmingly approve pension cuts for current employees, with one effort led by a liberal Democrat?

Because a growing share of the rest of the 99 percent are realizing what was done to them. How the public employee unions, relentlessly pursing their own interest with retroactive pension deals and not concerning themselves with the consequences for others, have wrecked the future of public services all over the country. Realizing it after tax increase upon tax increase, service cut upon service cut, year after year, even as those at the losing end become worse off themselves.

First Rangel is endorsed by Larry Seabrook, and now John Liu.  

At first glance, food doesn’t even need to be in this series of posts. For most of human history, getting enough food was the primary preoccupation of human beings. In 1909, food accounted for 27.3% of the spending of the average U.S. household, according to Consumer Expenditure Survey data cited here. The figure was 43.0% for “normal families” in 1901. Today, food only accounts for 12.7% of the spending of the average American household. That share has been going down, and the share of total spending on housing, transportation, and health care has been going up, as food has become cheaper and cheaper. And 5.2% of total spending is for food away from home, which is money spent not so much on food as on people who cook it, serve it, clean up and provide a place to eat it. Even the 7.5% of spending on food at home has a substantial non-food component, in partial or full meal preparation and packaging. Increasingly, American’s rely on ready to eat, or heat and serve, food even at home. But for those who make cheaper and healthier choices, the variety of foods in a typical supermarket – compared with 40 years ago – is tremendous. Everything from a variety of whole grain breads to yogurt to 1% and 2% milk, none of which were widely available in the 1960s.

Despite the abundance, if not overabundance, of low cost food, however, “food issues” continue to be raised in the national dialogue. The food aid industry continues to assert that many Americans are going hungry, despite a “food stamp” program that is an absolute entitlement and would seem to make this unlikely. In 2009, according to a survey cited by the now-cancelled Statistical Abstract of the United States, 14.7% of U.S. households were “food insecure,” up from 11.0% in 2005. At the same time, the U.S. is suffering from a soaring rate of obesity, a malady that is spreading throughout the world as the U.S. way of life is copied. Total calories in the U.S. food marketplace went from 3,200 calories per day in the 1970s to 3,900 in 2005, although much of this is wasted. Blame has been cast on “industrial food” and on “food deserts,” places where full service grocery stores are in short supply. But is there really a problem? And if so what is it?

It's wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Stop and Frisk practices of the New York Police Dept is NOT effective law enforcement against crime, it is racially profiling.

Young adults, boys and girls are being stopped, arrested, jailed and in many cases this high profile prace leads to conviction.

Law enforcement may see this as an effective way to fight crime and violence, but all it amounts too is a violation of one's rights.