Yep that might be where I read it.

Not to totally start a culture war, but why the heck would this guy have four kids with a woman and live with her but not be married to her?

I almost understand it when people decide not to get married but have a kid together and have somewhat separate lives, but four kids and living together? What exactly are you holding out for there?

^^^Maybe she's smart enough to not get legally and financially tied to a felon. She should be smart enough to stop having children with him, but it may be her not wanting the marriage.

for some, marriage is just a formality. maybe its better to wait til they know they want/need to be married, than to do it just because they have kids and then divorce later. then it gets messy with custody and child support and what not.

But they've already had the kids. There's nothing that marriage and divorce would really complicate in terms of custody and child support if they split. Avoiding marrying the mother or father of your child doesn't really decrease your legal obligation for child support.

I guess it's a reflection of the culture in which I was raised, but I just don't understand what it is you are holding out for in a relationship to find it marriage worthy if you are willing to live with and have multiple kids with the same person, particularly if the relationship goes on for a long time. I guess marriage is just a formality, although it does actually have some legal benefits, but it seems like it'd be a desirable one.

Nittanyalum, I see your point about perhaps she's the reluctant one, but again, having four kids with him doesn't really seem like she's playing it safe.

Back to our regularly scheduled political commentary. . .

I know one couple who have children and live together but will not marry because 1)He can't cover her and the kids on his health insurance and they will lose their medicaid if they marry, leaving the kids with no health insurance and 2) She can qualify for WIC if they are not married.

Just saying... that's just one couple I know.

Is this a long term thing? I can understand needing assistance with supporting your kids short term when unexpected tragedies happen or you lose your job or get divorced, all kinds of things really.

But it's hard to for me to relate to, as a long term plan, the idea that you'd rather rely on government programs to take care of your kids than changing something about your circumstances that allowed you to take care of them yourself. I'm just more speaking theoretically that specifically or realistically. I understand that people's actual circumstances require all kinds of compromises and most of the time people are just doing the best they can.


(Because I can't suppress my natural curiosity though: What does your male friend do that he can't have dependents of his health insurance? Do they also earn over the earning threshold to qualify for health insurance through the state for the kids? In Georgia a family of four can make up to 48,000 and still qualify for PeachCare health coverage for the kids. Certainly, you're not rich at 40,000 but it seems like you'd be out of the range where you could get married if you wanted rather than deciding to keep WIC.)

Again, I can imagine circumstances where doing what the couple you describe is doing might seem absolutely necessary, but as a general guide to personal behavior and citizenship, it doesn't seem like such a good idea.

i think it is completely unfair and immoral that married couples have legal benefits not extended to single people

What are you thinking about specifically? I suspect that there are fewer of them than it seems, and many domestic partnership laws are doing a lot to balance out the few that exist. What is it that bugs you?

ETA: When I mentioned them earlier, I was thinking mainly in terms of next of kin and assumptions about beneficiaries and heirs, which you can probably legally set up for non-married folks. My guess was that the family in the article probably wouldn't have though.

Super Delegate Donna Brazille was very patient.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSdNmdnu2dc

First off, I don't consider them friends.. more acquaintances. They are using the system, obviously. I'm not condoning or encouraging, just offering one explanation. The woman gets food stamps and such too.

Sorry. I didn't mean to assume and imply that you liked them or their behavior. I didn't want to seem like I was sitting back and judging them, but the behavior is kind of perplexing to me. It sounds from this response that you feel like I do about it.

And going with the generic "you" was probably a mistake as well since I wasn't really addressing you, AGDee. Sorry.

It's not that difficult to set up partnernship agreements, but it's a whole different ballgame getting places to honor them.

You'd change your turn in a flash if you filed your taxes as a DINK (Double Income, No Kids).

McCain's the guest on The Daily Show....

well taxes etc. but um....let me explain using this example:

I meet a girl, we fall in love. I go and buy her a ring. On my way to propose, I get hit by a car. Under the new constitunial amendment that was passed, it would be illegal for her to visit me in the hospital as I lay there dying. She could only come visit during the normal friends visiting hours IF she is accompined by one of my relatives. Not to even get into the will. I could leave it all to her in the plainest terms, and she wouldn't get anything if anyone as far away as my cousin contested it.

Also, there are no real restraining orders in my state. The law does not recognize co-habitation. If a woman is being beaten by her husband, she has more ways to get protection. If a woman is being beaten by her boyfriend...no she isn't, because legally she has no boyfriend. She can get a protective order that states if he hurts again he'll face a judge. But she cannot have him removed from their home. And that's my biggest concern.

Well, the taxes thing can be debatable. Some people argue there's is essentially a marriage tax, but I'm not personally seeing it. I think it depends a lot on your particular assets and income distribution.

As far as the other stuff, where do you live?

Your state sounds crazy. You can't have a will in which you elect who to give your assets to? You all passed an amendment restricting all visitors in the hospital that weren't related to the hospitalized patient? The victim of violence thing just seems kind of bizarre too.

I can see why you feel like you do if these descriptions are accurate.

The Card Clinton Is Playing
 

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, May 9, 2008; Page A27

From the beginning, Hillary Clinton has campaigned as if the Democratic nomination were hers by divine right. That's why she is falling short -- and that's why she should be persuaded to quit now, rather than later, before her majestic sense of entitlement splits the party along racial lines.

If that sounds harsh, look at the argument she made Wednesday, in an interview with USA Today, as to why she should be the nominee instead of Barack Obama. She cited an Associated Press article "that found how Senator Obama's support . . . among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again. I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on."

As a statement of fact, that's debatable at best. As a rationale for why Democratic Party superdelegates should pick her over Obama, it's a slap in the face to the party's most loyal constituency -- African Americans -- and a repudiation of principles the party claims to stand for. Here's what she's really saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry.

How silly of me. I thought the Democratic Party believed in a colorblind America.

In private conversations last year, several of Clinton's high-profile African American supporters made that same argument to me -- that America wasn't "ready" for a black president, that this simple fact doomed Obama to failure, that a Clinton Restoration was the best result that African Americans could realistically hope for. Polls at the time showed Clinton leading Obama among black voters, a finding that reflected not only Clinton's greater name recognition but also considerable skepticism about a black candidate's ability to draw white support.

Obama did prove he could win support from whites, of course, beginning in Iowa. He and Clinton effectively divided the party into demographic constituencies. Among the groups that have tended to vote for Clinton are white voters making less than $50,000 a year; among those who have turned out to vote for Obama are African Americans, whose doubts about his prospects clearly have been allayed.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...050802807.html

She's done, it's over. He's leading/tied in supers depending on whose count you use and she can't reasonably catch him in pledged.

In W.Va., Clinton's Disciples Persevere
SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. -- They traveled here from New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana last week to stand in the rain on a rural street corner, at a four-way intersection of winding mountain roads. One woman, a doctor, took vacation time from her job to make the trip. Another, a mother of three, hired a babysitter for the first time in months.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051002440.html

Barack Obama faces an untested set of hurdles
WASHINGTON -- For the first time, a major political party is on the brink of choosing an African American as its candidate for president, but when Democratic strategists and other analysts look ahead, they don't see race as Barack Obama's biggest challenge.
They worry more, they say, about other issues: Will swing voters view him as too young? Too inexperienced? Or too liberal?
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...,2580157.story

Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side
In August 1999, Barack Obama strolled amid the floats and bands making their way down Martin Luther King Drive on Chicago’s South Side. Billed as the largest African-American parade in the country, the summer rite was a draw over the years to boxing heroes like Muhammad Ali and jazz greats like Duke Ellington. It was also a must-stop for the city’s top politicians.
Back then, Mr. Obama, a state senator who was contemplating a run for Congress, was so little-known in the community’s black neighborhoods that it was hard to find more than a few dozen people to walk with him, recalled Al Kindle, one of his advisers at the time. Mr. Obama was trounced a year later in the Congressional race — branded as an aloof outsider more at home in the halls of Harvard than in the rough wards of Chicago politics.
But by 2006, Mr. Obama had remade his political fortunes. He was a freshman United States senator on the cusp of deciding to take on the formidable Hillary Rodham Clinton and embark on a long-shot White House run. When the parade wound its way through the South Side that summer, Mr. Obama was its grand marshal.
The secret of his transformation, which has brought him to the brink of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, can be described as the politics of maximum unity.
He moved from his leftist Hyde Park base to more centrist circles; he forged early alliances with the good-government reform crowd only to be embraced later by the city’s all-powerful Democratic bosses; he railed against pork-barrel politics but engaged in it when needed; and he empathized with the views of his Palestinian friends before adroitly courting the city’s politically potent Jewish community.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us...jrMC5I7+doSAmQ

The Electoral Map

Here are what the Obama and McCain campaigns now consider the true battleground states going into the fall campaign, assuming — as both candidates now do — that Barack Obama is likely to win his party's nomination. In addition to these states, both sides have states that they say (or rather hope) will come into play in the months ahead — think New Jersey for Republicans and Georgia for Democrats — but for the time being, this is where the action is going to be.
http://politics.nytimes.com/election...map/index.html

FLDS issue could hurt Romney's VP chances
 

FLDS issue could hurt Romney's VP chances
Last month's raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church in Texas could prevent Mitt Romney from being picked as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, one of his longtime supporters says.

"Unfortunately, the FLDS issue has probably elevated considerations about what Romney's faith would do to the ticket," said Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and an early backer of Romney's failed presidential bid. Now, Jowers said, Romney has to once again confront concerns about his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because the faith is so often confused with that practiced by followers of the FLDS Church....
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700224775,00.html

McCain and Romney really don't like each other anyway. He wasn't that high on the list.

They may not like each other, but McCain is going to have to pick someone like Romney or Huckabee for his VP. Otherwise he can say good bye to the presidency now as he will never win the conservative vote without a strong conservative VP. Most conservatives I know would rather vote for Obama than McCain just because they dislike McCain so much.

As for Hillary, I think she will win West Virgina and coincide on Tuesday on a high note, for the good of the party. Just my prediction.

A lot of people are talking about Charlie Crist or Bobby Jindal as McCain's running mate. Crist may be too moderate, and there's the whole "maybe he's gay" thing being discussed in Florida political circles. Jindal is very conservative--fiscally as well as socially--and would be the first non-white VP.

As soon as that damned harpy gets out of her denial, the happier we'll all be.

I am quite familiar with Charlie Crist as we are both from St. Petersburg. I acutally voulenteered on his campaign, but I am not very happy with the things he is doing as a governor right now. I truly hope that McCain does not pick him, because 1. He is way too moderate and 2. He needs to focus on being the Governor of Florida.

I haven't heard of Jindal before. Where is he from?

Tim Pawlenty (MN governor) seems quite confident he's going to be McCain's running mate.

I suspected--nay, hoped--you were familiar with Charlie Crist, what with being from Florida and all. ;) A lot of people in North Florida are unhappy with his performance in Tallahassee, and feel that his focus has been the national stage and not the state one.

Bobby Jindal is the current governor of Louisiana.

President Apostate?
 

President Apostate?
BARACK OBAMA has emerged as a classic example of charismatic leadership — a figure upon whom others project their own hopes and desires. The resulting emotional intensity adds greatly to the more conventional strengths of the well-organized Obama campaign, and it has certainly sufficed to overcome the formidable initial advantages of Senator Hillary Clinton.
One danger of such charisma, however, is that it can evoke unrealistic hopes of what a candidate could actually accomplish in office regardless of his own personal abilities. Case in point is the oft-made claim that an Obama presidency would be welcomed by the Muslim world.
This idea often goes hand in hand with the altogether more plausible argument that Mr. Obama’s election would raise America’s esteem in Africa — indeed, he already arouses much enthusiasm in his father’s native Kenya and to a degree elsewhere on the continent.
But it is a mistake to conflate his African identity with his Muslim heritage. Senator Obama is half African by birth and Africans can understandably identify with him. In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith. .......
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/op...5e6&ei=5087%0A

I read that, I don't believe he's actually Muslim by the standard definition, even discounting his conversion. If anything his father was the apostate.

to me this is nothing more than another attempt to scare all the xenophobes in the world and give them a reason to not vote for him. That's like if you go to a Catholic school doesn't make you Catholic.

Clinton's running away with West Virginia. Doesn't change the ultimate math, but dang if she doesn't keep winning contests.

Not saying it to you....but reading the news....they are saying.....


"So...?"

Yeah, Obama didn't appear to really campaign there either. He's already looking at Missouri, Michigan, and other states important in November. It's a good plan for him as he continues to gain superdelegate votes.

plastic surgery
 

I'm sorry to take this thread off of the "major topics" but i couldn't help but notice that Hilary's looking quite young these days. I think she had work done. A few weeks ago her face and neck were really starting to age, but last night she looked flawless. I know she's on the road a lot, but with modern technology she could get some outpatient procedure done and be healed in 2-3 days...is it me or did someone else notice it too?????

Yeah, he better get ready for November because if things keep going as they are McCain is going to tear him up.

Eh, everything that Hillary's thrown at him has had little effect on the election results. Even in PA after Wright, "bitter" etc. she still lost ground from when she started. McCain hasn't had any real pressure for a while and he can't directly attack Obama because he's promised to run a clean campaign. If he can't control the 527s then that can be used against his leadership abilities.

Should be interesting either way, I think that if the Democrats successfully paint McCain as Bush/Cheney II then they win.

McCain already leads Obama in the exit polls. So Obama when/if he does ultimately get the nomination, already has a deficit.

He does??
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._tracking_poll
http://rasmussenreports.com/public_c..._tracking_poll

Interesting to see that Clinton's strength against McCain has grown fairly impressively of late as well... http://rasmussenreports.com/public_c...tch_up_history

exactly. i prefer her as a candidate.....but mathematically she can't win.