politics, social justice and ways you can make a difference in the world around you.
Joesph is 75 years-old and homeless. He says he ended up on the streets because someone “cleaned him outâ€, yet Joesph still maintains his serenity.
In 1983, Joesph was shot in the head by a 14-year-old boy with a .357 magnum. The boy was sentenced to 20 years in prison. After the sentencing, Joesph spent 16 months working to get the boy out of prison.
Watch his story:
Via Invisible People
I think it is a pressing political issue. And I am very concerned that we have allowed the Republican party alone to define the pro-life position.
The Democrats have not understood where evangelicals are coming from. They would be able to get a great deal of support from the evangelicals if they would propagate what they know to be true: 72% of all abortions in America are driven by economic forces. That is to say, it is young women who are pregnant, working at a minimum wage, with no health insurance or possibility for daycare, with no pre-natal or post-natal help, and who knows that if she has the baby it’s going to cost her thousands of dollars for hospital care.
So we have to begin to ask, “What’s this woman going to do?†Seventy-two percent of the people who’ve had abortions were driven by economic forces and when asked by the Guttmacher Institute, which is a pro-choice organization, “Would you have an abortion if it wasn’t for these economic choices?†would say, “No, we wouldn’t have had the abortion.â€
My question is: how can we as evangelicals call ourselves pro-life if all we are anxious to do is to make abortion illegal? If we are not dealing with the economic forces that are driving people to have abortions?
My jam this morning – Crumbs From Your Table by U2
From the brightest star
Comes the blackest hole
You had so much to offer
Why did you offer your soul
I was there for you baby
When you needed my help
Would you deny for others
What you demand for yourself
Cool down mama, cool off
Cool down mama, cool off
You speak of signs and wonders
I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I’m waiting on the crumbs from your table
You were pretty as a picture
It was all there to see
Then your face caught up with your psychology
With a mouth full of teeth
You ate all your friends
And you broke every heart
Thinking every heart mends
You speak of signs and wonders
I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I’m waiting on the crumbs from your table
Where you live should not decide
Whether you live or whether you die
Three to a bed
Sister Ann, she said
Dignity passes by
You speak of signs and wonders
I need something other
I would believe if I was able
I’m waiting on the crumbs from your table
Sounds logical to me.
I know the argument against background checks is that the government doesn’t need to be all up in my bid’ness and it will just lead to a national gun registry.
But the government tracks a 100 other things we buy every day and no-one throws a fit about it. Just seems logical that we should have simple background checks before guns are purchased.
Will a background check keep every bad guy from getting a gun? Nope.
Will a background check ensure that everyone who works with kids are good guys? Nope.
Will a background check ensure that you’ve been honest about everything you told your new employer? Nope.
But it will stop some – and that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
You can sign the petition to tell Congress to Finish The Job by applying background checks to ALL gun sales. Sign the petition today at http://bit.ly/17j5mrG
I’m curious – why does Israel get so much more favor over other countries in U.S. foreign policy?
I have my theories but I’d be interested to know yours.
From the Washington Post:
Today, the Treasury estimates, as much as 70 percent of net business income escapes the corporate tax.
What this means is that there are companies of the same size with the same profits, in some cases competitors in the same industry, that are paying significantly lower tax rates — on average, 6 percentage points lower — just because they operate under a different legal charter…
These days, the business lobby never misses an opportunity to point out that the 35 percent corporate tax rate is the highest in the industrialized world. With state taxes, it’s about 39 percent. For other industrialized countries, the statutory rate averages about 30 percent.
What really matters to business, of course, is not the statutory rate but the effective tax rate — the percent of profits paid in taxes once all the deductions, credits and other complex provisions of the tax code are taken into account. What you don’t hear from the business lobby is that, in terms of the effective rate, the United States is slightly below the average of the big industrial countries, at about 26 percent. According to Sullivan, the claim that our corporate tax rate is crippling the competitiveness of American business is “vastly overstated.â€