Marginal Christianity

by Gabriel Rockhill by Millions of people around the country—and around the world—are asking themselves the same simple question: how could such a blathering dummy be in a position to become the next president of the United States? There is no need to mention any names here, of course, because the dimwit is all too well known. This, in fact, is precisely one of the problems. As Amy Goodman, an unrivaled torchbearer for alternative media, has recently reminded us : the simpleton’s name has been one of the most oft repeated on all mass media platforms in this election cycle. Let us not, then, utter the dummy’s name but instead call for a general moratorium on it. It is time to recognize it for what it is—a product of the media-money complex—and talk only of productrump, or more simply product rump. The term ‘dummy,’ like its synonyms, might sound disparaging to some, but I use it here in a purely technical sense. I am referring to the mindless puppet used by ventriloquis...

Posted on Dec 9, 2014 By Robert Reich Songquan Deng / Shutterstock This post originally ran on Robert Reich’s Web page . In Washington’s coming budget battles, sacred cows like the tax deductions for home mortgage interest and charitable donations are likely to be on the table along with potential cuts to Social Security and Medicare. But no one on Capitol Hill believes Wall Street’s beloved carried-interest tax loophole will be touched. Don’t blame the newly elected Republican Congress.     Democrats didn’t repeal the loophole when they ran both houses of Congress from January 2009 to January 2011. And the reason they didn’t has a direct bearing on the future of the party. First, let me explain why this loophole is the most flagrant of all giveaways to the super-rich. Carried interest allows hedge-fund and private-equity managers, as well as many venture capitalists and partners in real estate investment trusts, to treat their take of ...