These safety net programs, all of which were expanded as part of Obama administration stimulus measures in 2009 and 2010, kept an additional 7.5 million people out of poverty during the recession.
Republicans have called for drastic cuts to almost all of these programs. They want to shorten the length of unemployment benefits and remove 1.8 million people from the food stamp program (I write this all the time, but it’s an astonishing fact: food stamps cut the number of children in poverty in half). As I’ve written before, Mitt Romney’s tax plan also calls for the elimination of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), in order to help pay for tax cuts for higher earners.
(via offthechartsblog.org)
Before Johan Santana’s no-hitter last night, there were 24 one-hitters over at least nine innings in Mets history. From Rob Neyer:
Tom Seaver threw five one-hitters. Nolan Ryan threw a one-hitter. John Matlack, Gary Gentry, and David Cone all threw two one-hitters. Steve Trachsel — yes, the immortal Steve Trachsel — threw two one-hitters in one season. Of course, any number of Met pitchers (including Ryan and Seaver) threw no-hitters either before they were Mets, or after.
It was just the strangest damned thing. All those years, all those brilliant pitchers, all those one-hitters … and yet never a no-hitter. I won’t say it was the strangest thing that we’ve seen in our baseball lives … but it’s gotta be pretty high on the list, right? No San Diego Padre has ever hit for the cycle, but this was stranger than that. The Chicago Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908, but this was stranger than that. Bud Selig’s going to live forever, but this was even stranger than that.
If you’re a Mets fan and you’re reading this and you didn’t see or hear the no-hitter Friday night, you have my deepest sympathy. Seriously. I can only attempt to console you with this: You’ll see your no-hitter someday. And I’ll bet a hundred dollars you won’t have to wait for another 50 years.
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A terrible two minutes in gmail. Just in case you’re wondering:
Remote Control Helicopter Squadron would have consisted of Cory Palmer and I flying around remote control choppers as other improvisers provided voices (either of the pilots or the transformer-like choppers themselves). It would have been amazing.
Jerky Boys Live! was improvised prank phone calls. On the way down to North Carolina, Matt Cohen, Cory Palmer, Josh Sharp, Mike Lane, and I did this for over an hour straight. It was one of the highlights of the trip and the way I first discovered Josh’s spot-on Obama impression (he also does a great Trump!).
Immediately Great was our Will Hines premise class. May it rest in peace.
R.I.P. Immediately Great. Would have been a blast.
Part of the fun of hunting for comics is that you find stuff like this. (Taken with instagram)
There are only two countries that have child poverty rates over 20%: Romania and the United States.
Look at this chart. Then consider that Republicans in Congress have approved a bill that would, among other things:
- Eliminate the Social Services Block Grant program, which provides millions of dollars to the states every year to provide childcare assistance to low-income families, among other things.
- Remove 1.8 million people from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program, formerly known as food stamps. That program, as I’ve written before, cut the number of extremely poor children during the recession in half.
- Cut 300,000 children from the rolls of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which has been widely hailed as a massive policy success, because it gives poor children access to health care.
- Remove 280,000 children from low-income families from the free school lunch program.
Where would the money from these cuts go? To replace automatic cuts to defense spending that were agreed to by both parties last year as part of the Budget Control Act, which resolved the impasse over the debt ceiling.
Teddy Randazzo -
This week, I spoke with Teddy Randazzo. Teddy is an obnoxious troublemaker who drives his Honda Accord in front of my apartment at all hours of the night, blasting loud music and making horrible screeches with his tires. I talked with Teddy about his behavior and the lifestyle that can afford him to stay out so late and be so rude to other people.
Pipe this into your ears NOW while your synapses still retain some of their plasticity and your brain has a chance to be improved by the glorious audio waves flowing into it.
This is the podcast for YOU. And by “you,” I mean all of you.
SMALL MEN returns this Monday June 4th 8pm at the UCB Theatre NY!
If anyone saw our spank and would like to submit pull quotes I could use to promote the show, please do!
EDITED TO ADD: Geoff Garlock, this is the “real” run, so you have to go now.
“A show that is refreshingly smart AND silly at the same time. Sharp, fast-paced, incisive, and has great costumes. The best two-man sketch show I’ve ever seen.”
“If you suffer from microanthropophobia, do not be afraid of this show. “Small men” is a figurative reference to the petty lives of local politicians in a medium-sized city, NOT the actual physical attributes of the men themselves. There are no *literal* small men in this show.”
“There are lots of funny names in this show.”
“A fantastic show, overcoming the greatest of obstacles: no jokes about curb cuts. Some people think curb cuts are funny. But I get it, probably a little too obscure. There are probably only a few people who would find a joke like that funny anyway. No big loss. I mean, it would have been a nice addition. But it’s fine. I still highly recommend the show, despite its dearth of curb cuts references.”
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