Free Republic

Gwynnie P is down with the struggle, comrades. She may make $19 million a year, own mansions in London, New York, Brentwood, Malibu, and the Hamptons, charge $550 for her Goop.com “travel backgammon set,” and fly by private jet, but she feels your pain. OK, it’s not as painful as her last $5,200 Thermage session in Santa Monica, but still, she really, really does feel the agony of the ordinary. Last week, the progressive princess celebrity joined the “SNAP challenge.” It’s basically the ice-bucket challenge for bored Hollywood liberals and media-hungry Democratic politicians. For seven days (or at least for...

Back before self-esteem spirit animals and pre-nup voodoo dominated the contents of free-form wedding vows, we had simple yet robust odes like ‘in sickness and in health’ and ‘for richer or poorer.’ The true magic of those words lies in their claim that the deepest reserves of sacrificial love can still be tapped when life’s trials are the most daunting. But there is another angle to consider when ‘for richer or poorer’ is weighed and measured in light of modern data. When it comes to viewing marriage as a kind of lottery ticket, richer stands out as a safe bet....

Perhaps the decisive factors in combating poverty and enabling upward mobility were not economic but cultural — the habits, mores and dispositions that equip individuals to take advantage of opportunities. This was dismaying because governments know how to alter incentives and remove barriers but not how to manipulate culture. The assumption that the condition of the poor must improve as macroeconomic conditions improve was to be refuted by a deepened understanding of the crucial role of the family as the primary transmitter of the social capital essential for self-reliance and betterment. Family structure is the primary predictor of social outcomes,...

Driving through Naypyidaw, the purpose-built capital of Burma, it could be easy to forget that you’re in the middle of one of south-east Asia’s poorest countries. On either side of the street, a seemingly endless series of giant detached buildings, villa-style hotels and shopping malls look like they have fallen from the sky, all painted in soft pastel colours: light pink, baby blue, beige. The roads are newly paved and lined with flowers and carefully pruned shrubbery. Meticulously landscaped roundabouts boast large sculptures of flowers. The scale of this surreal city is difficult to describe: it extends an estimated 4,800...

On February 13, L’Osservatore Romano (English edition) printed a full-page text of Pope Francis’ message to the Milan “Expo of Ideas.” Its theme was: “Nourish the Planet, Energy for Life.” Pope Bergoglio brought up again his now familiar suggestions about how to handle poverty and hunger. Pope Francis recalled his address to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, November 20, 2014). There, he linked together “the production, accessibility, and availability of foodstuffs, climate change, and agricultural trade.” Our “first concern,” however, “must be the individual person, who lacks daily nourishment, who has given up thinking about life . . .and...

In the exposé ‘Poor Kids of Silicon Valley,’ a CNN reporter seems shocked to uncover a high level of child poverty in the affluent Bay Area. CNN concludes that after consulting with “economists and experts,” they learned that a minimum wage hike to $10.10 would significantly help end child poverty. But if CNN actually talked to the most impoverished families, they would have learned that raising minimum wage, the way Oakland just did, results in maximizing single young mothers and their children living in poverty. Most Americans’ perception of Silicon Valley jobs is “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” The hottest tech...

Tim Scott drives liberals crazy. The black senator from South Carolina doesn’t fit the left’s narrative about what a conservative should look like, and the mainstream media often try to criticize or trip up the lawmaker. That’s exactly what happened on MSNBC, where host Thomas Roberts tried to imply that Scott doesn’t care about the poor. “You say you’re concerned about kids that are growing up in the wrong zip code and, like yourself, had a tough start on the way out,” said Roberts. “But if we look at agencies that are following some of your voting records, they have...

Last week, President Barack Obama sparked outrage when he declared that the root cause of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorism is not radical Islam but poverty. “We have to address grievances terrorists exploit, including economic grievances,” said Obama. However, as terrorism experts explain, a vast percentage of Islamic terrorists come from middle-class backgrounds, wealthy families, or have impressive educational pedigrees. CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen says many of the world’s most notorious terrorists came from affluence and education: Osama bin Laden: son of a Saudi construction magnate who attended Saudi Arabia’s top high school and best university. Mohamed Atta: ringleader...

TUBA CITY, Ariz. (RNS) As I pass through the Navajo Nation on my 4,000-mile drive across America, I catch a disturbing glimpse of a white-power insurgency happening in all regions. White settlement of the Southwest meant dislodging the native population at gunpoint. U.S. Army troops slaughtered the Navajo at will. Whites broke one treaty after another, then forced the Navajo in 1864 onto a “Long Walk” of 300 miles away from their tribal lands. When a pregnant Navajo woman came to childbirth, an impatient Army soldier simply shot her. The Navajo were allowed to return four years later to a...

[snip] Conclusion - The evidence we have assembled and reviewed suggests there is little direct connection between poverty, education and participation in terrorism and politically motivated violence. Indeed, the available evidence indicates that, compared with the relevant population, participants in Hezbollah’s militant wing in the late 1980s and early 1990s were at least as likely to come from economically advantaged families and have a relatively high level of education as they were to come from impoverished families without educational opportunities. We should caution, however, that the evidence we have considered is tentative due to data limitations. In addition, our focus...

Illinois poverty on rise since 2010; four counties at greatest risk, says report Caitlin Wilson The number of Illinoisans living in poverty has risen steadily since 2010, with nearly 15 percent of residents living at or below the poverty line, a new report says, the highest mark since 1960. The Social Impact Research Center (SIRC) released a report detailing the statistics surrounding poverty in Illinois, finding that Illinois “has plenty of room for improvement” in comparison to other states when it comes to residents living in poverty, and that 14 of the state’s counties have more than 20,000 residents in...

There is no “right to food”. Food never was any sort of fundamental “right”. Saint Paul already warned us that to those who do not want to work, we shall give no food. You can’t find any clearer evidence that food is not a fundamental right of the person. Of course, charity demands that we feed the hungry. But this is not a subjective right of the hungry, merely the result of the charitable help of those who feed them because – let us say this once again – consider them, in their charity, worthy of being fed. Charity is...

I’ve got a new book out which is not really so new. It’s new because it has just been released as an eBook. But it is not so new because it is a collection of some of my columns from past 10 years with Scripps Howard News Service. And those columns reflect what I have been saying over the last 20 years – about race, about politics, about religion, about America’s problems and my sense of the answers to these problems. It’s called "Blind Conceit – Policy, Politics, and Racial Polarization: Moving Forward to Save America." It’s a book about love...

According to New Mexico 2013 state population estimates, 46.4% of New Mexicans were Hispanic, and 41.3 % were White, so why do Hispanic women account for the majority of abortions in the state? Hispanics in New Mexico In New Mexico, reporting of legal induced abortion became law in 1977, and 1978 was the first full year of reporting. The number of abortions reported in New Mexico in 2013 was 3,408. This is an 8.7% increase from the 2012 number. In 2013, 67.6% of abortions in New Mexico were to women who were less than nine weeks pregnant and 86.0% of...

Pope Francis emphasized the right to food as fundamental in a video address Saturday to 500 experts starting work on a wide-ranging document aimed at raising awareness and proposing solutions to issues including hunger, obesity and food waste. Francis said the paradox of abundance described by Pope John Paul II—whereby there is food for everyone yet not everyone can eat—continues to be an issue “despite the multiplication of organizations and responses by the international community on nutrition.” […] He also urged them (the experts) to show courage in protecting the planet “the mother of everything that asks respect and not...

Here is a post by a Colorado teacher who vividly explains the difference in the lives of fortunate students and the less fortunate students whom she teaches. Her last post on this blog was a nuanced look into the psyche of some students of color who live in poverty, which you can read here. This public school teacher often blogs anonymously under the name Shakespeare’s Sister at Daily Kos. She teaches 11th grade AP Language and Composition in the Denver area. Here is Shakespeare’s Sister newest post for this blog: Recently, events in Ferguson and New York have reminded us...

For those who are tired of seeing their hard earned money forcibly seized by the government and redistributed to those who refuse to contribute anything of value to society. Even the staunchest of conservatives and libertarians understands that a civilized society needs to provide some level of support for those who are sick, disabled, or simply going through a rough period like losing a job. Americans are a generous people and for the most part we’re all willing to chip in to make our country a better place. But we can all probably agree that within the social programs designed...

The Washington Post published a piece by a teacher which originally appeared in the Daily Kos. We have another issue to add to the never ending list of “privilege” that the left loves to whine about. Educational privilege is apparently a tragedy that has to be dealt with. The teacher complains about a couple of gifted kids, one who appears to take one government school science class and another who attends a private school on scholarship. These confident gifted kids are compared to the sad storied poor kids the teacher has to deal with every day. She complains about hunger,...

The Obama presidency has been distinguished for unprecedented levels of federal social welfare spending. In his second term, President Obama is pursuing new and expanded federal anti-poverty initiatives. There has been a sharp increase in the food-stamp and Children’s Health Insurance programs. Obama has proposed more federal funding for Head Start and pre-school education generally, job training for laid-off workers, and Medicaid. In fact, the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) has bloated the Medicaid rolls. He is even seeking free federally subsidized community college education. I have seen numbers ranging from 79 to 126 federal programs aimed at reducing poverty...

AIMEE PICCHI January 28, 2015 1 In 5 American Kids Rely On Food Stamps America is a global leader on a number of fronts, including having the largest economy in the world. But here is one area where the U.S., given its general affluence, would rather not distinguish itself: It has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the industrialized world. Even as the economy continues to recover from the Great Recession, 1 in 5 children are on food stamps, the U.S. Census said on Wednesday. Before the housing crash, 1 in 8 received federal food assistance. This...