bleh wrote:On that CRNC survey from the other day 3% of college students said taxes should be lowered on the rich. That's pretty hilarious. It's basically the core principle of the Republican party. (I know conservatives will say it isn't but whatever.)

Doll Is Mine wrote:Christie is just trolling the Republicans now. It's hilarious.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) said Tuesday that an increasing number of working mothers are the root of America's educational troubles.

In a Washington Post Live discussion with Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D) and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) on early childhood literacy, moderator Mary Jordan asked the three participants how America's educational outcomes became "so mediocre." Bryant was the first to respond.

"I think both parents started working," Bryant said. "The mom got in the work place."

The governor realized the implications of his answer and quickly clarified the response, stressing the role of parents in education.

"In today’s society parents are so challenged," he said. "They’re working overtime.”

pacino wrote:blame the women:

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) said Tuesday that an increasing number of working mothers are the root of America's educational troubles.

In a Washington Post Live discussion with Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D) and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) on early childhood literacy, moderator Mary Jordan asked the three participants how America's educational outcomes became "so mediocre." Bryant was the first to respond.

"I think both parents started working," Bryant said. "The mom got in the work place."

The governor realized the implications of his answer and quickly clarified the response, stressing the role of parents in education.

"In today’s society parents are so challenged," he said. "They’re working overtime.”

House Republicans are scheduled to vote on two separate budget bills this week, each of which would reject funding for the poverty activism group ACORN, despite the fact that ACORN disbanded three years ago.

ACORN, also known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, came under heavy fire in the fall of 2009 after conservative videographer James O'Keefe released a set of selectively edited videos that appeared to show its employees offering advice on tax avoidance related to prostitution and child smuggling. Independent investigations by the California attorney general, the Massachusetts attorney general and the Brooklyn, N.Y., district attorney would later clear ACORN of criminal wrongdoing, and an investigation by the Government Accountability Office would clear ACORN of charges that it mishandled federal funds.

But in the fall of 2009, Congress banned federal funding for ACORN using broad language that applied to "any organization" that had been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws or campaign finance laws or with filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. The funding ban also extended to any employees, contractors or others affiliated with any group so charged.

Struggling with the bad publicity and loss of federal funds, ACORN dissolved in early 2010. Just to be sure, however, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) included this language in a government funding bill introduced on May 28 of this year: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries or successors."

Section 545 of a bill put forward the next day by Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) delves still deeper into faux certainty, extending the funding ban to "any prior appropriations Act."

In fact, ACORN has no subsidiaries, because it has not existed for three years. Neither bill defines "successors," but the broad language of the original 2009 funding ban left little room for leeway, extending to "Any State chapter of ACORN registered with the Secretary of State's office in that State," "any organization that shares directors, employees, or independent contractors with ACORN," and any organization that "employs" someone "indicted" for violations that ACORN was initially charged with.

pacino wrote:sounds like bullshit to me. there's nothing that says working parents can't have perfectly terrifically smart kids. both sides of my family have had working women going back to the 40s...somehow we did it. it's just a 'punch the single mom' thing that he realized was too obviously that so he quickly retracted.

jerseyhoya wrote: it would be a real mess trying to disentangle all the causal factors

NY Times wrote:A County in Alabama Strikes a Bankruptcy Deal

...JPMorgan was widely expected to make big concessions as part of any bankruptcy settlement, because some former officials of the bank were found to have been involved in improprieties in connection with a county debt refinancing in 2002 and 2003. That refinancing involved a complex package of variable-rate bonds and derivatives called interest-rate swaps.

A lawsuit by the county against JPMorgan over the improprieties, still active in state court, would be resolved as part of the proposed agreement.

Despite [over $700 million in bank] concessions [made in previous court contests over the bank's role in rigging up the debt shenanigans], residents of Jefferson County have still often complained that they were treated inequitably because several of their elected officials went to prison as a result of the refinancing, while no one from the bank was convicted of a crime.

td11 wrote:i think the problem is more with the fact that he uttered the phrase "the mom got in the work place." he could have left it at the both parents having to work thing

As we already know: Where there's ricin, there's weirdness. While the life of 33-year-old Army veteran Nathaniel Richardson — the New Boston, Texas man initially suspected of sending anti-gun control-themed, ricin-laced letters to President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg this week — sounded mundane at first, the New York Post reports his wife, Shannon Guess, had small parts in The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead. (Her resume also boasts appearances in The Blind Side, Medea's Big Happy Family, and an Avis commercial.) And Richardson is reportedly accusing her of setting him up.

Richardson first came to investigators' attention when Guess called 911 to report a "Tupperware with what looked like ricin in the refrigerator," ricin-making instructions, and online searches for President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg on her home computer. The FBI questioned Richardson for hours after discovering castor beans, which are used to make ricin, in his car, according to the Post. However, the beans were purchased with a credit card, and Richardson claims he doesn't use credit cards. And then there's this: "'He says they are going through a divorce and that she was away for a few days,' said one law-enforcement source. 'He says it was when she got back that she found the [purported] ricin.'"

Richardson was released on Friday because there was not enough evidence to keep him in custody, though a police source says he's "still a suspect." Guess, a thrice-married pregnant mother of five children (with two tattoos, the ability to play the flute, and paralegal and teaching degrees, according to her IMDB profile), was then brought in for questioning. The Post says they will both receive polygraphs. Sure, this isn't as wacky as April's ricin letter story, where an organ harvesting-obsessed Elvis impersonator was framed by his "longtime personal enemy" (who happened to be a tae kwon do instructor and an alleged child molester), but it'll do for now.

Werthless wrote:

td11 wrote:i think the problem is more with the fact that he uttered the phrase "the mom got in the work place." he could have left it at the both parents having to work thing

So the problem isn't his hypothesis, but that he phrased his hypothesis in a non-PC way?

jerseyhoya wrote:Describing an objective reality in unoffensive language = sexist as hell?