Egypt braces for day of rival rallies

News 12 ConnecticutEgypt braces for day of rival ralliesNews 12 ConnecticutPhoto credit: AP | Opponents of ousted President Mohammed Morsi carry their injured friend who was wounded during clashes with Morsi supporters, in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, July 22, 2013. Several hundred Morsi supporters tried to march toward the U.S ...

Income Inequality Worsens: Ranks Of Millionaires Swell As Poor Tread Water

The world's richest 300 people control more wealth than the poorest 3 billion, and the gap continues to grow, according to the latest report issued last month by the Capgemini wealth consultancy and the Royal Bank of Canada.

Data in the World Wealth Report 2013 shows that millionaires across the world increased their holdings by 10 percent in 2012, reaching a record high of $46.2 trillion. One million people joined the global "high net worth individual" population, which jumped to 12 million, an increase of 9 percent over the last year. A high net worth individual is defined as someone with "investable assets of $1 million or more, excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables, and consumer durables."

But the growing population in the millionaires club doesn't indicate that the wealth is being spread more evenly - quite the contrary.

Earlier this year, Oxfam published a report showing that the wealthiest 300 people now control more wealth than the poorest 3 billion people across the world.

"We wanted to do more than just illustrate the brutal extent of inequality; we also wanted to demonstrate that it has been getting progressively worse," Oxfam reported.

"The richest 1 percent has increased its income by 60 percent in the last 20 years, with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process," researchers found.

What are the conditions creating this growing gap? Tax avoidance for high-income individuals and corporations continues to be a major issue depriving developing countries of much-needed funds for developing infrastructure, jobs and education.

Citing data from the Oxfam report, Jason Hickel, a professor at the London School of Economics, reports that corporations are taking roughly $900 billion out of developing countries each year through a tax avoidance scheme called "trade mispricing."

Here's how it works: By registering a company in a country with favorable tax laws, a company can benefit from the cheap labor and resources of a developing country while putting little or no tax revenue back into the system.

The U.S. wealth gap may not be as bad as China, South Africa or India, but the growing inequality has become much worse in the years leading up to the recession of 2007-2009, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, income for the top 1 percent in the U.S. has increased by 275 percent over the past 30 years, while income growth for the rest of Americans has remained stagnant.

The Economic Policy Institute claims that from 1979-2007, roughly 30 percent of the expansion of the after-tax income gap was due to tax and budget policies becoming less redistributive.

Things have gotten even worse after the recession, during the so-called years of "recovery" when millions of Americans remain out of work and most Americans have lost wealth. According a 2013 Pew Research Center analysis of Census data, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7 percent of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28 percent from 2009-2011 while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93 percent actually dropped by 4 percent over the same period.

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Lawsuit: Arizona college suspended student because she wanted English

A nursing student at Pima Community College (PCC) has filed a lawsuit claiming that she was illegally suspended after she complained that her classmates were speaking in Spanish and orally translating English to Spanish so excessively that she was failing to learn.

In early April, the student, Terri Bennett, formally requested a rule limiting classroom discussion to English. Nursing program director David Kutzler allegedly responded by called her a "bigot and a bitch," reports Courthouse News Service.

Kutzler allegedly charged that Bennett was "discriminating against Mexican-Americans" and threatened to report her complaint as a violation of the school's policies against discriminatory behavior and harassment.

"You do not want to go down that road," he said, according to the filing.

Bennett, 50, recalls leaving the meeting in distress and in tears.

A second meeting two days later involved Bennett, Kutzler and three more PCC staffers. The public school officials allegedly told Bennett that she would "not get a job" because of her desire to limit class discussion to English. She claims they said she should "seek counseling" and that she might have a learning disability.

Kutzler also allegedly produced an anonymous evaluation form that Bennett had filled out, also suggesting a "no Spanish in the classroom" rule.

Later in April, Bennett received critical feedback from a teacher-for the first time, she maintains. The critique chastised Bennett for "ineffective communication skills."

Then, on April 22, Bennett received a suspension letter from the state-owned school. The charges levied against her included discrimination, "stalking" and "bullying." She also allegedly argued with a professor about the correct answer to a test question.

Her indefinite suspension was to last "until she receives counseling to improve her communication style and to learn to be less abrasive," the lawsuit states.

"Six armed" campus security officers promptly escorted her off PCC's Desert Vista campus. The officers then allegedly followed her several miles down the road to Interstate 10.

Bennett sued the community college and its boards of directors in an Arizona state court under several causes of action including harassment, breach of contract, retaliation, discrimination and violations of the Arizona Constitution. The college and its board of governors are the only defendants.

Article 28 of Arizona's state constitution establishes English as "the official language of the state." Section 3 states: "A person shall not be discriminated against or penalized in any way because the person uses or attempts to use English in public or private communication."

Professor backs statement that God is racist, says 'I have tenure. I can't get ...

Daily Caller News Foundation

Anthea Butler, the Ivy League religious studies professor who called God a white racist after the Trayvon Martin verdict last week, doubled down on her statement and denounced the conservative media outlets that criticized her.

Butler, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote a blog post for Religious Dispatches last week arguing that most Americans worship a "white racist god with a problem" who is "carrying a gun and stalking young black men."

"As a historian of American and African-American religion, I know that the Trayvon Martin moment is just one moment in a history of racism in America that, in large part, has its underpinnings in Christianity and its history," she wrote.

Conservative commentators criticized these remarks, but Butler hit back hard recently during a panel discussion at the Harlem Book Fair.

"I wrote an op-ed in the religion dispatches magazine this week about America's racist god," she said. "I got attacked by the right. I got attacked by Fox, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh - I'm saying all you all's names out loud - Daily Caller."

She said that the pundits at these media outlets - including The Daily Caller - a different god than the biblical Christian God.

"I was coming after their god," she said. "I was not coming after the God of the scriptures, the God that we know, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I was coming after the god they worship, Mammon; the god they worship, racism; the god they worship, white supremacy."

Butler also expressed gratitude to her tenure status at UPenn, which protects her from being fired no matter how many controversial statements she makes.

"Thank God I got a great institution that takes care of me," she said. "I have tenure. I can't get fired."

Rush Limbaugh did not take kindly to Butler's assertion that his God was not the biblical one.

"All we did was react to what this professor said in her rage and her anger," he said on his radio show. "But then she flips everybody off: you can't do anything about it because I have tenure. Anyway, I don't know how much you spend to send your kids to this school, but it's a waste of money if your kid's taking a course taught by this woman."

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Jay Z will boycott Florida after he makes millions of dollars performing in ...

Jay Z announced that he will join Stevie Wonder, Madonna and other musicians boycotting the state of Florida in the wake of the George Zimmerman trial.

Jay Z's boycott, however, will being after he makes millions of dollars for performing with Justin Timberlake in Florida.

The pair are still scheduled to stop in Miami for their "Legends of the Summer Tour" on Aug. 16, Florida's Post Newsweek reports.

A number of musicians, including Usher, Rod Stewart and Kanye West, have said that they will not perform in the 20 states that have "stand your ground" laws after Zimmerman's acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin.

Despite earlier reports, Mother Jones writes that neither Rihanna nor the Rolling Stones have plans to boycott those states because, you know, money.

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Boehner snaps at reporter over immigration question

Speaker of the House John Boehner snapped at a reporter Tuesday when the journalist accused the lawmaker of playing no substantial role in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill.

During a weekly House GOP press availability, the Ohio Republican appeared annoyed when he interrupted a reporter who asserted as fact that Boehner has taken a "hands off approach on immigration."

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, stop," Boehner said, not letting the reporter finish the question. "Just stop."

"Let's get back to the premise of the question," he said. "Nobody has spent more time trying to fix a broken immigration system than I have."

Continuing, Boehner said: "I talked about it the day after the election. And I've talked about it a hundred times since. While some may disagree about how we're going about fixing the broken immigration system, it's been a big goal of mine."

While the Senate passed the Gang of 8 immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, Boehner says the bill is too big and says he won't bring it to a vote in the House. But he has dodged questions about his personal views on a pathway to citizenship, saying his role in Congress is to facilitate discussion of the issue among legislators.

"We believe that a common sense, step-by-step approach to addressing this problem makes a lot more sense than one big massive comprehensive bill," he said.

Desperate Homophobes Tell Women Gay Rights Will Rob Them Of Husbands

By Amanda MarcotteMonday, July 22, 2013 13:24 EDT

"The Supreme Court overturned DOMA? I'm finally free to dump this lady and get on Grindr!," Said no man ever.

Marriage equality opponents are getting desperate, desperate enough to use the "your spouse is going to abandon you!" tactic to try to turn people against same sex marriage. No, seriously, NOM and the Heritage Foundation are trying to argue that allowing same-sex couples to marry will somehow produce more single mothers.

But how can we say that fathers are essential, if policy redefines marriage to make fathers optional?

"[R]edefining marriage further distances marriage from the needs of children and denies the importance of mothers and fathers. Redefining marriage rejects as a matter of policy the ideal that children need a mother and a father," explains Heritage's Ryan T. Anderson. "Redefining marriage diminishes the social pressures for husbands to remain with their wives and children, and for men and women to marry before having children," he continues.

The entire thing is quite a remarkable attempt at trying to baffle people with bullshit. They have a chart that shows that your chances of living in poverty are a lot higher if you're a single parent, as if that really has anything to do with married gay couples, who by definition are two separate individuals together and not single.

I've long not completely understood why the religious right thinks bringing up the specter of unmarried mothers will somehow convince people that the solution is to ban marriage for the small percent of unmarried mothers who are in same-sex partnerships. The argument has always been some convoluted Martian logic, which you can see reproduced up there, which is that somehow the existence of same-sex marriage will cause people to think that you don't have to be in a heterosexual marriage to have kids and so they'll go buck wild, spreading children all over the place without taking care of them or whatever. Never mind that people already figured that out, and that the rise of single motherhood dates to back before most people had even heard of the concept of gay marriage. I truly did not get it.

But Zack Ford zeroes in specifically on the claim that marriage equality "diminishes the social pressures for husbands to remain with their wives and children", and suggests that there's an argument that's being hinted at but not stated directly: That your husband is going to use you for making children and then go off and marry a man. He notes that there's a long trend in the anti-gay community of trying to conflate single mothers with lesbian-headed households, and this is just an extension of that.

It's amazing how conservatives just assume everyone shares their shockingly misogynist worldview, particularly their assumption that no man would ever openly choose to be with a woman unless he had no other choice. (And vice versa, with the fear that same-sex marriage is giving women "permission" not to be married at all.) These kinds of arguments, no matter how much they try to confuse you by being obtuse and arguing everything through insinuation, never work unless you buy the premise that men and women will not be with each other unless they're forced to. You really do start to wonder if they think that most currently straight people are going to turn gay now that gay marriage is an option.

In the real world, of course, the growing social acceptance of gay people actually reduces the number of straight marriages that are blown up by one spouse choosing to live as gay. It's homophobia that causes people to get married, have kids, and struggle for years before the pressure of living a lie causes them to come out, divorce their spouse, and live as a gay person. Nowadays, you can come out in your teens-often earlier!-long before there's pressure to start dating, much less marry a person of the opposite sex.

This isn't just conjecture, but is backed up by the statistics. In red states, where there's more overt homophobia, there are a lot more same-sex couples raising children. That's because, despite gay couples adopting or having kids together, most gay parents still got their kids during a closeted period in their life.

For instance, "a big chunk of them are people who had children young, with opposite-sex partners, before they came out," Gates said. After coming out, they raised those children with a partner of the same sex, he explained.

That may be one reason that in some more conservative places not known for celebrating gays and lesbians, a striking percentage of same-sex couples are rearing children, Gates said. Among states, Mississippi has the highest percentage of gay or lesbian couples raising children - 26% - his analysis of census data found.

Though Salt Lake City has a high percentage of gay couples raising children, the actual number is still much smaller than in coastal hubs such as New York or Los Angeles, the data show.

The only way you could possibly think that legalizing gay marriage will make this more prevalent is if you think that huge percentages of currently straight couples will break up and go into same-sex marriages the second they get a chance. It's not uncommon for the religious right to raise the specter, particularly to women, that no one will want to be married to them if X happens. Threatening women with male infidelity or with the fear that men will reject marriage if there's other options available is a long-standing argument against women's sexual liberation, so it's not surprising that the anti-gay arguments are basically an extremely strained attempt to do the same thing.

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