Reading Time: 2 minutes Churches have become deeply political spaces. Prior to the Christian Right’s integration into Republican politics in the 1980s, churches didn’t play a major role in campaigning. Evangelicals have reshaped that narrative, with movements such as the Moral Majority pushing the Christian Right into mainstream political battles. As the decades have worn on, the Christian Right […]
tax
Posted inThe Secular
A penny saved: Why are churches tax-exempt?
Reading Time: 9 minutes Growing up in a small town in Michigan in the middle of the twentieth century, I heard this proverb frequently, and it always puzzled me. In elementary school, I earned a weekly allowance by performing household chores like mowing the lawn and drying and putting away the dishes as my mother washed them. My income […]
Posted inPolitics
My Favourite Interview This Week
Reading Time: < 1 minute This is my favourite interview this week. Good interviewing and holding her ground here and making sure the WH deputy press secretary answered the question and didn’t fly off in a cloud of whataboutery. She does a good job of shutting down spin. We didn’t get anything out of the interview, nothing from the interviewee, […]
Posted inHealth, Politics
Covid-19: Debunked – “The Great Leveller”, “Strength of Character”
Reading Time: 2 minutes Emily Maitlis on Newsnight is so often on the money. Here she is for a short introductory minute telling it how it is: There is an awful lot to be said about the language you hear in the media, those lovely soundbites that might make you feel good, but are empty, vacuous. Here is, I […]
Posted inPolitics
On Defending Billionaires
Reading Time: 7 minutes In the recent UK general election and in previous and present US political discourse, there has been a propensity to defend billionaires by those who aren’t billionaires. In fact, those who defend them are far, far closer to poverty and bankruptcy than to being a billionaire. By a considerable margin. The defence of billionaires seems […]
Posted inPolitics
NYT: Trump, Taxes and Being A Rubbish Businessman
Reading Time: 4 minutes The New York Times report on trump taxes have been all the talk of the news today on the American side of the pond. And rightly so. The reports comment IRS tax transcript show that Donald Trump lost $1.17bn from 1985 to 1994. That’s not very good business acumen. That myth he has tried to perpetuate […]
Posted inPolitics
Income Tax vs. Wealth Tax
Reading Time: 5 minutes John is a middle-aged father of a family of four, He has accumulated a modest nest egg for retirement. So far, he has saved about $150K. He suddenly has an epiphany about a new product. He uses most of his nest egg to start a side business to manufacture it, after obtaining a patent to […]
Posted inPolitics
Tucker Carlson Gets Owned by Bregman
Reading Time: < 1 minute There is nothing particularly unusual about Tucker Carlson getting owned but this video is pretty fabulous. It never got aired, precisely because Carlson gets real pushback from Bregman. Luckily for us, Bregman recorded the exchange. You may recognise Bregman from his now viral outburst at the Davos conference. I will introduce him with that first […]
Posted inPolitics
Ocasio-Cortez, Hannity and Tax
Reading Time: 5 minutes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), in the news for shaking up the Democrats and Washington’s political landscape, was interviewed recently by Stephen Colbert. She talks a little about how she has successfully used social media, including how she has helped some of her Democratic Congressional colleagues improve their understanding of social media and how to utilise it effectively. […]
Posted inPolitics
Smoking Is Beneficial to Society…?
Reading Time: 2 minutes This is something I have thought for a long time, but have not got around to writing about or even checking whether the stats back it up, but it seems pretty reasonable. First of all, in the name of full disclosure, I am a non-smoker who is ostensibly anti-smoking. My parents and my sisters used to […]