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Apparently Donald Trump has promised to appoint Chris Christie attorney general. Or secretary of state. Or, I dunno, maybe Christie will be in charge of a special task force to lock up Marco Rubio and his entire family in Guantanamo Bay and take their oil. Bada bing. It’s a mystery.
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Not much is happening in the Democratic race in South Carolina. Bernie Sanders seems to have given up, and there’s been only one new poll in the last week. Still, just for the record, here are the final Pollster aggregates one day before the primary. Hillary Clinton continues to lead by more than 20 points.
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If the future of my country weren’t at stake, I’d say that things are getting genuinely entertaining in the Republican primary race. Here is Marco Rubio this morning dishing on Donald Trump:
Let me tell you something, last night in the debate, during one of the breaks — two of the breaks — he went backstage, he was having a meltdown. First he had this little makeup thing applying, like, makeup around his mustache because he had one of those sweat mustaches. Then, then he asked for a full-length mirror. I don’t know why, because the podium goes up to here. But he wanted a full-length mirror. Maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet — I don’t know.”
Fabulous! I can’t wait for Ted Cruz to join in too.
But if these guys really want to hit Trump where it hurts, there are two things they need to do. First, they have to get under Trump’s skin. Trump favors torturing the families of terrorists, so maybe going after his family will work. Or pointing out repeatedly how badly he got played in his various deals. Or mocking his vanity. Anything that makes him look ridiculous and provokes an atomic reaction. Second, they need to say things that might actually sway Trump’s supporters. This shouldn’t be hard, since both Rubio and Cruz were born and bred in the tea party movement and supposedly know what makes its supporters tick. There’s no point in saying that Trump lies. They don’t care. There’s no point in saying he’s a racist. They don’t care. There’s no point in saying he’s not ideologically pure. They don’t care. There’s no point in saying that he’s an embarrassment. They don’t care.
So what do they care about? That he’s tough. That he’s not PC. That he takes on the politicians and the media. So that’s where to hit him. Show that he’s all hat and no cattle. Show that he’s afraid to really tell the truth. Badger him on his tax returns. Tell stories about how he kowtows to reporters. And above all: whatever you say, say things outrageous enough to force the media to pay attention to you.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s no need to be obsessively truthful in all this. Take Rubio’s little story above. I imagine it’s true. But if it’s exaggerated a wee bit—well, tell it anyway. And lots more like it. That’s what Trump does. If you can make Trump spend all his time denying that he’s a weenie by picking apart tiny details in your stories, you’re on the road to the White House.
POSTSCRIPT: This is just an aside, but am I the only one who finds it a little creepy that apparently Rubio can change his personality on a dime? I mean, he seems to have decided a couple of days ago to become a young Donald Trump, and he’s already doing a bang-up job. I think that even most professional actors would have trouble learning a new part that quickly.
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Quote of the Day: Marco Rubio Tells Us What Halftime Was Like at the Debate
Organic foods have been shown to have higher nutrient contents and significantly lower amounts of toxic pesticide residues than foods grown using non-organic methods. Unfortunately, fresh and prepared organic foods are often sold at a higher price than their mainstream counterparts.
You dont have to pay a premium to buy organic food. Many options exist to keep healthy, organic food affordable.
1. Plan ahead
This may be tough for some of us, but planning your meals ahead of time can be a big money-saver. When you have a clear shopping list, youll be less likely to impulse buy expensive items you dont need.
Try writing down a list of what meals youll be preparing for the upcoming week. It doesnt have to be perfect, as long as you have an idea of the main ingredients youll need on hand. You can also try to make extra portions and freeze them for later.
This will help to make sure you use all the food you buy. If you buy food you dont have a plan for, its easier to let it sit unused and expire or go to waste.
2. Buy seasonal produce
The best place to find seasonal produce is at your local farmers markets. They typically bring freshly harvested produce, which will be at its nutritional peak. You can often buy in larger amounts for a reduced price. There may also be end of the day clearance sales of remaining products the farmers simply dont want to take home.
Grocery stores can also bring in seasonal, local produce. Sometimes these are available at reduced, bulk prices as well.
Another great option for finding seasonal organic produce is you-pick farms. Depending on where you live, you may be able to pick your own organic vegetables, fruit and berries. You-picks tend to have much lower prices per pound than in-store produce.
3. Find bulk foods where possible
Many communities have stores that specialize in bulk foods. Larger grocery stores also often have bulk foods sections that include organic items.
You can typically find lots of organic staples in bulk at good prices, such as beans, grains, dried fruit, nuts and seeds. If you can buy larger amounts at one time, the cost is usually lower.
Keeping your kitchen well-stocked with foods you use on a regular basis will help make meal preparation easier. You also wont need to buy last-minute items in small amounts, which are more expensive.
4. Look for no-name, in-store organic products
Many grocery stores will have their own lines of organic products. This can include prepared foods, such as condiments, canned foods or juices. Some stores even offer their own brand of organic produce.
These products are often priced very competitively compared to organic name-brands.
5. Make use of technology
We have a lot of different modern options to help out with saving money on food costs.
Websites like Living Rich With Coupons, My Grocery Deals and My Simon can automatically compare prices of foods available in regular and online stores.
Coupons are another good way to keep food costs down. You can use flyers from junk mail sent to your house or there are various websites where you can print coupons online, such as Living Rich With Coupons or Coupons.com.
Another way to save is by signing up for rewards and point programs some stores offer. These typically give you points every time you buy something in the store, which can be collected and used to buy more products later.
6. Broaden your definition of organic
Some farmers are committed to organic growing principles, but are not certified due to various reasons. The official organic certification process can be expensive and time-consuming. There is also the criticism that organically certified farms may still cheat and the regulations are not strict enough.
Getting to know your local farmers is a great way to find out more about their growing practices. Those who grow organically, but are not certified, will often be happy to tell you about their own processes for keeping their crops healthy and controlling pests naturally.
Their prices will also potentially be less than those who are officially certified organic.
7. Join a CSA near you
CSA stands for community supported agriculture. With these programs, you often pay a farmer a yearly or monthly fee and receive a box of produce every week or two for the entire growing season. Some CSAs will also operate year round, providing vegetables stored through the winter.
Some CSAs are certified organic, although smaller operations may simply follow organic practices and be uncertified. Ask your local CSA to find out more about them.
8. Grow your own
If you have an interest in gardening, growing your own produce is likely the cheapest option for eating organic. You also know exactly what products, such as compost, were used to grow your crop.
Seeds are fairly cheap, and many organic seed varieties are available. Most seed packages contain enough seed to last for a few years of crops.
Even if you dont have property of your own, find out if there is a community garden where you could rent a plot. Or check if there are any volunteering opportunities locally where you can share a portion of the harvest.
Exchanging crops with friends can be an efficient way to grow more varieties of food. For instance, you could commit to growing enough lettuce and potatoes to share with a few friends, and they would each grow other types of veggies that would also be shared.
9. Preserve your own produce
Canning, freezing and dehydrating are all excellent and affordable ways to preserve fresh organic foods. This allows you to buy in larger quantities at lower prices and create nutritious, convenient supplies you can use all year.
Canning supplies can be easily found secondhand, and canning jars can be consistently re-used. The only expense for freezing is buying freezer bags. A dehydrator can also be found secondhand or if you get a new one, it will be a one-time investment.
Hosting preserving parties can be a fun way to share a harvest with your friends and family. You can also get together and buy bulk quantities of produce together to lower everyones costs.
Related
6 Hearty Vegan Chili Recipes For Any Season
15 Reasons to Eat Organic Food
Top 10 Eco-Friendly Reasons to Buy Organic Meat & Diary
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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Mother Jones
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During the CBS debate in South Carolina on Saturday, GOP front-runner Donald Trump blamed former President George W. Bush for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
After Florida senator Marco Rubio said that Bush had “kept us safe,” Donald Trump shot back: “How did he keep us safe when the World Trade Center came down?”
“I lost hundreds of friends, the World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush,” Trump said, while the crowd’s boos nearly drowned him out. “That is not safe, Marco, that is not safe,”
Trump has made this claim before, but this time Bush’s brother Jeb pushed back. “This is a man who insults his way to the nomination,” he said. “I am sick and tired of him going after my family.”
Watch the clash between the real estate mogul and Jeb Bush here:
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This is apropos of nothing in particular. I was just noodling around on something else and happened to run across this data, so here it is. The economic recovery of the Bush years might have been pretty anemic for most of us, but it was sure a great time for the corporate world: Between 2001 and 2006, pretax profits went up 3x and after-tax profits went up even more. These profits dipped during the Great Recession, of course, but they’ve fully recovered since then. All in all, since the start of the 21st century the income of ordinary folks has declined about 5 percent, but after-tax profits in the nonfinancial sector have gone up nearly 4x. Nice work, business titans!
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The 21st Century Sure Has Been a Great Time to Be a Corporation
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Perhaps you remember the case of Larycia Hawkins. She’s the professor at Wheaton College who declared on her Facebook page that Muslims and Christians worship the same god. Wheaton College follows the “evangelical Protestant tradition,” which apparently has different thoughts on this matter, and as a result Hawkins is in the process of being fired.
Over at National Review, David French says that this ought to be entirely uncontroversial:
But this is Christian higher education, and the Left is taking direct aim at Christian academic freedom and institutional liberty. In 2014, it launched an ill-fated attack on Gordon College’s accreditation, and last month the LGBT Left issued a report loudly condemning Christian colleges for having the audacity to exercise their statutory and constitutional right to opt out of Title IX. So it should come as no surprise that the Left is rallying around professor Hawkins, trying to pressure Wheaton into yielding on its statement of faith.
I read this over lunch, and with nothing more pressing on my mind than eating a slice of pizza, I decided to click those four links to find out just what kind of pressure the Left was bringing to bear. I urge you to click yourself to check my work. The first three go to a trio of little-read diaries at the Huffington Post. Here are the most impassioned statements I could find in each of the three:
Letter endorsed by Su’ad Abdul Khabeer and 26 others: In our view, the measures taken by Wheaton administrators…dampen the spirit of free inquiry so crucial to the academic environment; ultimately depriving the student body of the benefit of a deeply dedicated educator….We call upon her employers to renew their own commitment to the principles of tolerance and academic freedom.
Ken Wilson: There’s a way out of this morass. But it requires a commitment to the apostolic counsel of Romans 14-15. In a nutshell it boils down to this: we’re going to disagree over highly contentious issues….In the meantime, we can feast ourselves on the rich fare of mere Christianity. In a community shaped by Romans 14-15, there would be plenty of room for Julie Rodgers and Dr. Larycia Hawkins at the table.
Pamela A. Lewis: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? To the extent that Christians and Muslims come from the same Abrahamic tradition, yes they do….However, when it is a question about what these faiths call God and how they worship God, there are significant differences with respect to rituals and patterns of devotion….Whether or not Professor Hawkins has violated Wheaton College’s Statement of Faith will be decided by Wheaton College. But I am with those who believe that she was moved by her understanding of Christ’s commandment to love and stand with the vulnerable and the stranger, whoever they may be at the moment.
That’s…not…really very fiery stuff. I imagine the administrators at Wheaton College can still sleep nights. The fourth link goes to a pretty straightforward CNN story in which Hawkins herself is critical of Wheaton’s actions, which is hardly surprising since she’s the one being fired.
So where do these milquetoast statements leave us? French acknowledges that so far, “the Left has merely used its powers of persuasion to try to move Wheaton from its statement of faith.” But what about tomorrow? “Schools that don’t conform to leftist orthodoxy may soon consequences far worse than a barrage of negative news coverage.”
Maybe so. But it’s always worth clicking the links. If this is the best that the big, bad Left can do—and I assume French would have linked to worse if it existed—I think Christian colleges are probably not in any imminent danger. It’s pretty stunning sometimes just how little criticism it takes to bring out the victim in us all.
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Wheaton College: Still Standing Despite a Bit of Mild Criticism
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Am I the only who senses that conservatives are pretty disappointed that Iran released our sailors quickly and without any fuss? Maybe I’m just being hypersensitive….
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In an apparent effort to prove that you can do data journalism on literally any topic, Leah Libresco examines the merchandising bonanza of the latest Star Wars movie:
The most-recent “Star Wars” Monopoly set did what the villain of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” couldn’t, sidelining Rey, the film’s female protagonist…. Fans signed petitions, wrote letters, and tweeted their outrage using the “#WheresRey” hashtag…. The controversy reached its climax when Hasbro, the maker of the game, said Rey will be represented in new editions.
To see whether Rey’s absence was local to Monopoly or more widespread across all “Force Awakens” toys, I did what any sensible data journalist would do: I went to a toy store. Well, a digital one. Toys R Us lists 256 toys in their online “Force Awakens” store, but only 70 of them include any of the major characters introduced in the new movie. Rey holds her own among this group.
“Rey holds her own”? I guess so. She and Finn are the main heroes of the movie, and they’re pretty close in the toy competition. The real news here is a clear anti-human bias: the biggest toy winners are Kylo and Captain Phasma, who spend most or all of the movie in masks, and BB-8, a droid so calculatingly adorable as to bring back involuntary memories of Ewoks.
Anyway, as long as we’re on the subject, you’ve probably all been waiting on the edges of your seats wondering what I thought of the movie. Well, the first week it was too crowded, so I didn’t go. I’m too old for standing in line. The next week, the kids were still out of school, and a friend was visiting who had no interest in the movie. The next week, my mother’s car broke, so I loaned her mine and had no way to get to the theater. By the time I got my car back, I had come down with a cold and didn’t feel like going. So it wasn’t until yesterday that I finally I saw it.
And I was stunned. I was prepared for anything from bad to pretty good, but it turned out to be stultifyingly boring. There’s nothing “wrong” with SWTFA. The acting is OK. The dialog is OK. The effects are OK. The pacing is OK. The direction is OK. The editing is OK. The characters are OK. As a piece of craft, it’s fine. But when you put it all together it’s two hours of nothing. And yet, the residents of Earth have spent a billion dollars on tickets! What the hell is wrong with you people?
The movie’s big mystery, of course, is “Who is Rey?” The answer is, “Who cares?” Here’s my guess: she’s a clone constructed from a preserved pubic hair of Obi-Wan Kenobi. We’ll find out in the exciting sequel!
Anyway, JJ Abrams has now ruined Lost. He’s ruined Star Trek. And he’s ruined Star Wars. He’s a one-man wrecking crew. But there’s a silver lining: at least I can now say with confidence that I’ll never waste money seeing a JJ Abrams production again.
And now for the worst part. I never thought it was possible I’d say this, but I have marginally more respect for George Lucas’s prequels now. They may have sucked, but at least he tried.
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We Can All Breathe a Sigh of Relief: Star Wars Toymakers are Not Agents of the Patriarchy
Mother Jones
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The argument for a union shop is pretty straightforward: even if you hate your union, they perform collective bargaining for everyone, including you. Since you benefit from that bargaining, you should be required to pay union dues. After all, if dues are optional, why would anyone pay? Why not just let all the other suckers pay while you reap the benefits free of charge?
There’s another version of this argument that’s even more straightforward: if union shops are illegal—as they are in so-called “right to work” states—it’s all but impossible to set up a union. This is why the Chamber of Commerce and pretty much all Republicans are great fans of the open shop. It basically destroys the ability of unions to operate.
But what about public employee unions? What if you object to your union’s political views and don’t want to sponsor them? The answer, in many states, is that you can partially opt out of union dues, paying only an “agency fee” specifically designated for collective bargaining activities.
Problem solved? Not quite. What if you think that even collective bargaining is inherently a political stance when you’re bargaining with the government? Should you be allowed to opt out of union dues entirely? Today the Supreme Court heard arguments on this, and it didn’t go well for union supporters:
The justices appeared divided along familiar lines during an extended argument over whether government workers who choose not to join unions may nonetheless be required to help pay for collective bargaining. The court’s conservative majority appeared ready to say that such compelled financial support violates the First Amendment.
Collective bargaining, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said, is inherently political when the government is the employer, and issues like merit pay, promotions and classroom size are subject to negotiation.
The best hope for a victory for the unions had rested with Justice Antonin Scalia, who has written and said things sympathetic to their position. But he was consistently hostileon Monday. “The problem is that everything that is bargained for with the government is within the political sphere,” he said.
In one sense, there’s nothing new to say about this. The liberal-conservative split on the Supreme Court has hardened over the past couple of decades, and we simply don’t see very much principled opposition to party lines anymore. Conservatives hate unions, so conservative Supreme Court justices are going to rule against unions whenever and wherever possible. They’ll make up the reasons afterward.
But there’s another sense in which this is interesting: it’s yet another step in the evolution of the conservative Supreme Court’s insistence that money is speech. In Citizens United and subsequent cases, they’ve all but wiped out any possible regulation of campaign finance on the grounds that campaign donations fund campaign speech. So if you can’t regulate political speech, you can’t regulate political money either.
Now they seem set to do the same for unions. If collective bargaining is inherently political speech, then you can’t force people to fund it. That’s a prima facie violation of the First Amendment.
I wonder how far this can go? After all, you can make a case that spending money is nearly always implicit speech: my purchase of a Snickers bar is a public declaration that Snickers bars are delicious, and my company’s dodgy advertising claims are a declaration of deeply held corporate emotions. So much for regulation of sugary snacks or false advertising.
Money is speech. Speech can’t be regulated. Therefore, money can’t be regulated. It’s a pretty simple syllogism. And, possibly, a pretty handy one.
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If Money Is Speech, the First Amendment Is a Billionaire’s Dream
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