Edith Windsor, victor over DOMA, has died

She died at the age of 88. In 2007 Windsor had married her partner Thea Clara Spyer in Canada, where such marriages were legal, after being together for 40 years. They moved to the US later and Spyer died in 2009 but DOMA prevented Windsor from claiming the federal tax exemption for inheritances that are available to spouses. So she sued to overturn DOMA. Her case United States v. Windsor, that she won 5-4 in the US Supreme Court in 2013, helped pave the way for same-sex marriages becoming legalized two years later. The court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that, among other things, denied federal tax benefits to lawfully married same-sex couples, was unconstitutional.
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Bernie Sanders introduces ‘Medicare For All’ bill

Today at a press conference Bernie Sanders will present his plan for a universal single-payer health plan. It will be based on a gradual expansion of the Medicare program over four years to eventually cover everyone, not just those currently over 65 years or those who are younger but have disabilities and a few illnesses. People zero to 18 would be eligible for the coverage in the first year. In following year, the eligibility age would be lowered to 45. The next year, it would drop again to 35. In year four, everyone else would be included. The advantage of expanding Medicare instead of creating a new system is that it does not require a new bureaucracy and those who are on Medicare like what they have.
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Why did Trump agree to the debt ceiling and budget deals?

I was taken by surprise at the short-term deal that Donald Trump made with the Democratic leaders to extend the debt ceiling and the budget financing until December 8, 2017. Both those issues had faced September deadlines and I thought that Trump would refuse to pass ‘clean’ bills that accomplished just those things and would use them as a threat to shut down the government if he did not get funding for his wall or get the tax cuts for the rich that he and the Republicans want so dearly.
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This is the kind of news that makes me despair

Yesterday’s issue of the Plain Dealer had a brief news item that read in it entirety as follows:

Authorities are investigating the death of a 3-year-old boy who reportedly shot himself at a home in central Ohio. Police in Franklin County’s Madison Township were called to a home around 9 a.m. Sunday for a boy with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to a Columbus children’s hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police say the boy’s father told officers he keeps a loaded gun in the kitchen.

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The financial sector rules the government

The scandal at Wells Fargo continues to grow by the day revealing an institution that is corrupt to the core. As Bethany McLean writes, fraud was baked into the very culture of the bank, as the internal dynamics and the pressure placed on employees to meet unrealistic goals almost guaranteed that fraud would happen, and then top management ignored warnings that the fraud was occurring.
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Trailer park life

People who live in trailer parks receive a double whammy. They are looked down upon by others for being poor because they cannot afford to live in a ‘real’ house, and their homes also tend to be highly vulnerable to destruction by tornados, hurricanes, and floods. But these trailer parks enable people with low income to have their own homes. They can also be the centers of close and supportive communities, as much as or even more so than any neighborhood that has fixed homes. The close proximity of the trailers to one another and the need and easy ability of the inhabitants to spend more time outside their small homes lends itself to people getting to know their neighbors better than if they lived in city apartments or suburban lots with their enclosed yards.
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Bye, bye, Eric! Please do let the door hit you on the way out

Eric Bolling, one of the most odious of the many odious people working at Fox News (and that is really saying something), has agreed to “part ways amicably” with the network, a polite way of saying that he has been shown the door. This comes after he was suspended pending allegations that he had sent photographs of his penis to co-workers. Andrew Kirell gives us a brief summary of Bolling’s sickening history, especially his habit of racist innuendo targeting Barack Obama and his incredibly sexist attitudes towards women.
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