Conservative commentators have recently sounded the call that the pay gap between men and women has nothing to do with discrimination but everything to do with “individual choice.” Brad Peck argued that point on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s blog a few weeks ago, and today Christina Hoff Sommers from the American Enterprise Institute does […]
Monica Potts
Monica Potts is a former senior writer at The American Prospect. She is working on a book about low-income women in her rural Arkansas hometown. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, New York, Vogue.com, The Daily Beast, The Trace, and Democracy.
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The Truth About Sin Taxes.
Though I ultimately disagree with her conservative takeaway, I actually found myself agreeing with much of Katrina Trinko’s argument that sin taxes — taxes on everything from cigarettes to soda — are politically cowardly and cheap: That’s because during this recession, politicians are increasingly resorting to sin taxes to help close budget gaps. Aware that […]
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Child-Friendly Bars, Child-Centered Cultures.
In The New York Times today, Frank Bruni asks whether children should be allowed in bars. The short answer from many of his commenters is no, and I’m sure that’s the immediate, knee-jerk reaction from most people. But Bruni and his commenters may have missed a pair of posts from Feminste in May and July. […]
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Let’s Keep Future Texans as Ignorant as Possible.
After years spent stripping public school history textbooks of references to Thomas Jefferson, minimizing the importance of the New Deal, and inflating the role Christianity played in founding the country, the Texas Board of Education has turned to ridding their children’s classrooms of a new scourge: the pro-Islamic, anti-Christian bent in school textbooks. You may […]
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The Upside in Delaware.
As Jamelle wrote below, Christine O’Donnell’s win in the Republican primary for Senate last night over the popular Mike Castle is evidence of how extreme the Republican Party has gotten: The Republican Party’s rigid conservatism is completely inhospitable to progressive ideas, and a federal government dominated by these figures and a Republican White House is […]
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Reporting Rape.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony today that many police departments in cities around the country fail to take reports on and investigate many rape cases. This leads to an underreporting of rape in national statistics, and, as Carol Tracy said on NPR this morning, when more than one city is doing it, it’s […]
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Tacking Left
While Democrats nationwide kowtow to the anti-tax crowd, Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy shows progressive taxation can be a winning issue.
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How Is Lincoln Losing?
Earlier this afternoon, Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Rep. John Boozman met for their first official debate in the Arkansas state Senate race. The particulars of this race are interesting but frustrating: It’s hard to see how, whatever the climate, the soft-spoken, least-electric-person-on-the-planet Boozman — James Carville called him “Snoozeman” at a Democratic fundraiser in July […]
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Wealthy Anywhere.
Ezra Klein touches on one of the arguments that always comes up when President Obama talks about rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which he places at those making more than $250,000 a year: the relativity of wealth. Obviously, $250,000 doesn’t make a family living in New York City feel as […]
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Separate Beings.
This week, laws making abortions more difficult to get in various ways went into effect in Missouri. Among the laws was one of the personhood statements that defines life thusly: “The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.” This statement will be […]
